This man, Joel Bauer, is apparently a real person giving real advice to real people (warning, link may cause your brain to explode).
Uh, don’t take his advice. Please. He’s the kind of person who gives networking a bad name.
Yeah, I have a few networking gimmicks. But your foil-embossed, die-cut, pop-up card? Screw that. (Unless it says something about you. At GDC I met a girl who’s a metalsmith and she gave me a metal card that she made herself. THAT IS COOL.)
He does have one good point buried in the bullshit: it’s important to let people know, via your business card, what you actually do, as opposed to your often-meaningless title.
But the gimmicks, and the arrogance, and the sense of superiority? People can smell that coming a mile away.
In the video he says that networking is not about being likable, it’s about getting results. Ask yourself: would you want to be friends with this guy? Would you want to do business with this guy?
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I’m pretty sure it’s important to be liked in order to GET hired, Joel, but then again what would I know?
wait.
That’s not a card, it’s a brochure.
He reminds me a bit of Futurama’s “That Guy”.
That man is absolutely disgusting. He is everything that is wrong with our society (Western Society, I mean, not game devs).
I’m off to make a business card.
This reminds me, I need to make up some business cards. For some reason I don’t think it should be die-cut……
hahaha! Joel Bauer is really good! admit it! He is really effective!
Ha! I remember seeing this posted on Reddit and commenting that I was surprised the cards weren't dick-shaped. Honestly, I was hoping it was a performance and not real. Can you imagine being stuck next to this guy on a long plane flight? Oh, the horror. The…horror.
I finally got around to reading all of your Effective Networking articles. There's a lot of great stuff in here that I hope future generations of aspiring game developers will take advantage of.
I’ve just finished reading all your articles about networking. Thank you !
I’ll try to follow your advice as much as possible.
PS : btw, you probably have a new ‘weak tie’ waiting for you on LinkedIn :)
The new plasticized-paper cards that don’t tear easily feel really nice, but aren’t recyclable. Some designers refuse to produce them for that reason alone.
I remember reading something on Kotaku about how everyone who works for Lego gets customised minifigs (lego men) with their details on it as alternatives to business cards.
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