As any freelancer or small business person knows, the best kind of advertising is often word of mouth. There's nothing better than a satisfied client - excited about the completion of a job well done - sharing your contact details with a friend or colleague.
We've all done it - asked friends on and off line; 'Does anyone know any good photographers?' or 'Can anyone recommend a web designer? I need new website and not sure who I can trust'.
As a business person, a personal endorsement means you can hit the ground running. There's no need to do the hard sell (which is never much fun for either party) - you can talk through your best projects or portfolio, knowing the groundwork has already been laid.
But just because personal recommendations take place between people you've never met, doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to help the conversation along. In this current climate there's no point leaving things to chance, especially when it's so easy to get the conversation started.
These cute little packages were made by Cardiff based photographer Sarah Thomas. By dividing a pack of MiniCards into groups of ten, she was able to create ten unique 'recommend a friend' sets with photographs personal to each client. Adding simple, but (cost) effective packaging creates something really special - and worth talking about. It would be a hard heart that receives these cards and doesn't rush to share them with friends.
Sarah used a template for her cards, originally designed by children's photographer, Dawn M. Available for free, the template works with Photoshop, and can be downloaded here. There are several different variations, and it can easily be customised with your own colours and text.
In a very different style,Rayna, an Oregon based photographer, created these smart referral cards. Taking full advantage of the variable Postcard options, she created two cards per client, with a traditional postcard layout on the reverse. Recipients can post these to friends, and each card entitles the bearer to a free print, following a session with Sapphire Rain Photography. Super-smart, again you know these will be talked about and shared among friends.
On a completely different tack, we love the idea of this, from Brighton based web & social media agency, Nixon McInnes. At the end of each project, they send each client a pack of MiniCards featuring images of their newly launched site. On the reverse are the site's details, so they have not only a little gift, but an instant way to promote their new venture. Again, another way to get clients talking - and what better way to promote yourselves, create good feeling AND promote your work at the same time.
And what about you? Are you using referral cards? We'd love to see them and hear your stories.
Well, I suppose it makes us more agile - in that we move from our desks to the meeting rooms more often...
The dev team here at MOO started using the Agile Scrum methodology for managing our software development projects at the beginning of the year, and it's been a very enjoyable experience so far. Imagine my glee when I found out we weren't the only ones making Planning Poker cards from MOO Business Cards :-) And they're not the only ones either, our friends at Made By Many said of their cards:
"We used MOO to make up printed agile estimation cards because we were fed up with scraps of badly-drawn paper. Each estimator has their own individual colour, and selects a card with his/her personal estimate. It makes the process feel much more professional! "
Planning Poker is a different way of estimating projects. In my previous lives, I've used hours, days, weeks, sometimes months, and the ever popular "pull a figure out of the air and double/triple/quadruple it, depending on how hard you think your project manager's going to work you" approach. Scrum uses a funny unit called a 'story point', where a story is a piece of work and the number of points the story is worth is how much effort the piece of work will take the team to produce.
It's called planning *poker* because after talking about what's involved in the tasks, each of us gets a set of numbered cards, decides secretly how many points we think the task is worth, and puts a card down, face down. The ideal aim of the game is for all of us to know each other and our codebase so well that we all agree first time around when we turn over the cards. Since ideals are very hard to achieve, we more likely end up arguing the case to the rest of the team.. Shouting can sometimes be heard. Biscuits are eaten in anger and frustration, and sometimes, happily :-)
We caught the design team on a good day and plied them with biscuits too, and they made us these. Not just in pink either...
So if you've had similar fun with your planning poker cards, send them over to the Flickr pool or let us know, I'd love to see them!
If you happen to be in London this afternoon (Friday!), why not join some of the MOO crew down at Trafalgar Square? Not only will it be an opportunity to hang out with Nelson on his column, cool down with the pigeons in the fountain and perhaps have a wander around the National Gallery - but you'll also be able to cheer on MOO customer and friend Simon Berry, of ingenious charity Colalife. For one hour he'll have pride of place on the famously unadorned 4th plinth - as part of Anthony Gormley's latest project, 'One and Other'.
Colalife is a campaign to encourage Coca-Cola to share it's distribution network in developing countries. With the purpose of getting much needed medicines and other 'social products' such as condoms, rehydration salts and vitamin A tablets to the people that really need them.
A recent post on the Colalife blog sums it up nicely:
"You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries and yet 1 in 5 children die before the age of 5 from largely preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea."
Determined to do something about this, Simon has invented the 'aidpod'. A simple yet innovative, wedge-shaped pod that fits in the unused space between the necks of the bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. The aidpod will be filled with whatever is urgently required locally. Since he first came up with the idea nearly 20 years ago, it's only recently that the campaign has taken off in a big way - largely due to the internet.
After blogging about it back in May 2008, a huge community has developed around the idea. Simon's Facebook group and appearances on Radio 4’s iPM programme have created real interest. Bob Geldof has wished them good luck and on Tuesday this week Sarah Brown (wife of the Prime Minister, for anyone who knows another Sarah Brown!) tweeted about them.
All of this has resulted in the opening of the first discussions with Coca-Cola - which is fantastic news!
But let's get back to this Friday. If you're thinking, 'this is a bit strange, what's a charity doing standing about in Trafalgar Square where a statue should be?' Well, allow me to elaborate...
The 4th plinth, empty since 1841, is now used as a stage for contemporary artworks, commissioned especially from leading artists. You'll probably remember one fo the first commissions - Marc Quinn's sculpture, Alison Lapper Pregnant, (shown below, in a shot by Loz Flowers) which was on the plinth from 2005-2007.
Alison, an artist herself, was born with no arms and legs. She was also 7 months pregnant at the time she sat for the sculpture. Quinn wanted to make a sculpture of someone born with no limbs, to see if it’s beauty would receive the same unconditional acceptance as that of ancient sculptures where the limbs had fallen off through the wear and tear of time. The sculpture was globally recognized and also drew great attention to the plinth itself.
Currently on show is project 'One and Other' by British sculptor Anthony Gormley. For 100 days, a different person, 24 hours a day, will be given free reign to entertain, inform or just sit and contemplate their navel in front of the people of London. (We feel sorry for the girl who happened to be up there during the almighty storm last week, and we're crossing our fingers for dry weather this afternoon...) Gormley's aim is to elevate every day life to a position normally occupied by monumental art.
One UK exhibitionist and general good egg, Russell Tanner happened to be picked at random from the thousands of applicants. Continuing the theme of collaboration and the internet providing, it was via Twitter that Simon and Russell made contact. Simon had for a long time, been eager to get a giant aidpod onto the 4th plinth and Russell was in possession of an hour on the plinth with no firm ideas on how to use it. The rest as they say, is Twitter history!
So, how did we find out about all of this? Well, Simon uses MOO Business Cards as promotional material to spread the word about Colalife. You can read his blog post about them here.
The story behind the pictures on the cards is another example of the collaborative nature of Colalife. While Simon was running the Facebook group, someone else (Kate Andrews) set up a ColaLife Flickr Group. The photos on the cards come from various people but the large majority come from Tielman Nieuwoudta, a logistics consultant in Vietnam. He and Simon have never met, but have since become friends via conversations on Skype. His partner, a public health expert, has also assisted with the ColaLife Business Plan.
Simon, his friends and collaborators, will be handing out their Colalife Business Cards and answering questions, at Trafalgar Square, this Friday 3-4pm. So if you're free, please do come along and show your support. (Be there or be uncharitably square :)
Facebook launched their vanity URLs at 00:01am on 13th June (that was 5:01am GMT), and yes, I was the lucky member of the UK MOO Crew awake at 5:01am GMT to register www.facebook.com/moocards for MOO. But what is all the fuss about?
For big brands it may have been the fear that the www.facebook.com/coca-cola URL could have been hijacked by a competitor, or by someone with an 'interesting' sense of humour.
Protecting your brand has become increasingly important in a world where an online identity is as important as a physical one. If you’re not a big brand, it’s still pretty important to register your vanity URL.
For some people, their Facebook page is the face of their business, their Flickr photostream is their online portfolio and their LinkedIn profile their virtual CV. With the ability to link each of these to each other, through a single URL you can create a single touch-point for your online ID.
Most people include their email address, their phone number (and sometimes) their physical address on their Business Cards. At some point though, most people change their email address, their phone number and (almost certainly) their physical address. With a static vanity URL you can point people to one place and change all the details on it... So why not include your vanity URL on your Business Cards?
Using MOO’s 'text-o-matic' tools you could use your vanity URL to inspire your designs, or upload your own photos and include your URL on the reverse, just as you would with any other important detail. Here's a few I made earlier, using the text tools with Business Cards.
Recently, Toby, one of the MOO Crew's developers, had the pleasure of meeting Jack Hooker. In usual fashion, Jack gave Toby one of his business cards . All of us back at MOO Studios were very impressed with Jack's cards and excited to find out that Jack had made his cards with MOO. So, we asked San Sharma* to find out a bit more about Jack and the story behind his cards for our business ideas section.
We couldn't wait for Jack's story to go live in our ideas section so we've shared it as a sneak peak here on our blog. Here's what San discovered...
Jack Hooker is a freelance graphic designer, working from a social collaborative space in
Lewes, East Sussex. Co-working, he says, gives him the chance to meet other creative professionals - and with his MOO Business Cards he makes sure that everybody knows Jack!
Jack uploaded complete designs for the front and back of his MOO Business Cards in four variations based on illustrations of himself - as the Jack in a pack of playing cards.
As a freelancer, Jack is used to appearing in different guises. He works for a number of design agencies and private clients, on projects as diverse as packaging, print and promotions. He also designs for newmedia, creating sites for bands and brands.
In fact, Jack got the idea for his business cards at The Farm, where he found that many people were already using MOO for themselves. "I saw that you could have different designs on the back of each card," he said. "So, I emailed MOO to see if my idea was do-able and they replied, explaining how to use the PDF uploader on their website. It was easy!"
Jack then used a corner cutter to round the edges off his Business Cards so that they looked more like playing cards. "The response I've had from the cards has been great," he said. "If I give one out at an event, I often get two or three more people asking if they can have one too!"
The cards are a perfect way to show off Jack's creativity, as a master of his trade, without breaking the bank. "They're very affordable," Jack says. "And MOO offers small print runs too - perfect for trying out new ideas to see how they'll look, and what kind of response they'll get." And, as a conversation piece, they’re an ideal ice-breaker, especially if you’re a nervous networker!
Jack played his cards right by using MOO. As a freelancer, first impressions are everything, and with these cards, Jack’s always sure to have a winning hand.
*Interview & Post by San Sharma. San helped create Enterprise Nation, the UK home business website, in 2006. He was its Creative Director for four years and editor of its Technology channel. He now helps people and companies make things work better, on paper and on screen, as a writer, designer and Social Media Consultant.
