Career Coach: Card Games
The most important items you can collect at a conference, festival, or convention are contacts. So you have done well and you have collected a zillion cards at the recent conference you attended and diligently wrote notes on the backs of many of them. A business card sitting in a drawer or briefcase will not be of any benefit to you or the person who gave it to you. Now you need to follow up and put those new contacts into your data base, and then touch base with them and begin developing a relationship.
Pamela Kleibrink Thompson brought plenty of cards with her on her recent speaking engagement at Savannah College of Art and Design, but has yet to follow up with most of the contacts she made. You can reach her for recruiting, speaking engagements, or career coaching at PamRecruit@q.com.
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@Anonymous: When Pamela refers to treating the business card you receive as the Asians do, it is to illustrate a cultural difference. In Asia there is a very strict protocol and respect that goes with receiving an individual's business card. It is to be received with both hands like you're accepting a gift. Just because you do not understand Pamela's point, doesn't give you the right to be mean-spirited in calling her ignorant.
Whoa, anonymous, I admit she could have phrased it a bit better...but I don't think she's being ignorant. She obviously has learned this from experience "doing business as an artist". I think the intent here was to show how people from different cultures might perceive you at a networking event...and upon encountering that, demonstrating knowledge of that culture's tradition regarding business cards could put you on a track to better/more communication with a person.
I should have been more specific when describing how Asians present business cards. When receiving a card, they honor the card and the person by receiving the card with both hands and they study the card for a moment, really looking at it and reading it. When someone hands a card to you, he or she always gives it to you so that you read it immediately without changing the position of the card. The card is given to you right side up facing you. The card in their hands is facing you for easy readability.
I hope that makes things more clear.
Pamela Thompson
The Career Coach/Recruiter
PamRecruit@q.com
"When someone gives you a business card, honor the gift as the Asians do, ..."
... as the Asians do? what does that supposed to mean exactly. This statement makes you sound ignorant. Be more specific next time or don't waste our time with your thoughts on how to do business as an artist.
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