BWC 2012

[johnckirk]

Last Sunday I went to Blenheim Palace for the Brompton World Championship. I did this last year, and I was keen to improve my time this year. There were also more events this year: as well as the 13km race, there was a 300m sprint and a 42km marathon route. I signed up for the sprint but I gave the marathon a miss; that's partly because my back

Comments

[shuripentu]

Good on you for not asking out the helpful woman; that would potentially have been really creepy from her point of view. (Especially if you did so by asking for her contact details, rather than giving her yours.)

[johnckirk]

Thanks - that's what I suspected. I've heard some women saying that they get a constant barrage of unwelcome attention when they're out in public, and they don't view wolf-whistles from building sites etc. as a compliment, so I didn't want to fall into the same category.

There have been a few times when I've met people and swapped contact details (e.g. meeting at a cycling event and emailing photos later), although it often involves scribbling on a torn-off piece of paper and saying "I hope you can read my writing". I've wondered whether it would make sense to have "personal business cards" that I could give out in a situation like that, but I'm concerned that it might seem a bit smarmy, i.e. "I spam my details to so many people that I need to mass produce them rather than writing them down".

[sammoore]

Before I had Totem business cards I had personal ones. Visaprint do them very cheaply (<£5 for 100) and you can add twitter/fb/web address as well as phone, etc.

I used them for 2 things, one was giving to people when we exchanged details. Maybe I came across as smarmy for having business cards but mostly people seemed unfazed.

The second reason I used them was to put one in every bag/jacket/glasses case I owned to help get them returned if they got lost!

Another option is to create an "About Me" page and then hand out cards with only that address on it (but only to people who express an interest). Whether this makes you a smarmy jerk or someone cool-hip-and-edgy is a matter of style and perception. It does mean that as long as you control the page you can keep the details up to date.

Sam

[johnckirk]

Thanks for that - the "lost property" idea is quite clever.

Actually, it occurred to me the other day that there is some precedent for this: the Victorian calling card.
The Gentleman's guide to the calling card
May I Offer You My Calling Card?

I'll play around with some designs, and see what I can come up with.