I love great design. Now that does not mean I'm a great designer.

About.me, a custom online profile page service which I signed up for, offered a gimmick about two months ago. They made a tie-up with moo.com, a custom card design company, where about.me members are given a coupon to design their own business cards and ship it to themselves. The cards are free, you only pay the shipping.

I thought that was a good deal so I made one. I put on an "action" picture of me on the front of the card. I made sure I picked a picture with bright colors to attract attention. No borders. For the backside, I wanted to have an opposite design from the front so I aimed for minimalist. A QR code for tech credibility, the name of course and just three contact info (email, twitter handle and my about.me page). I chose orange for the font color because I wanted to have something other than the usual black, grey or navy blue which I usually use. I thought of it as a challenge to myself because orange is, well, it's not one of the first colors I would normally pick for anything.

After about 7 weeks (regular mail), I received my package. Just look at it. 50 pieces of design goodness.

I just love the color and how it is bright even though the paper is not glossy.

The backside. Who knew orange would look so great here.

Each card is thicker than the usual business card which means that there is a greater chance it will survive the wallets of the people that you hand these cards to. It is also 100% made of recycled materials and 100% recyclable.

You can tell that the guys at moo.com take great design seriously because even the packaging is so elegantly prepared. I regret that I threw them away before taking pictures of them.

Anyway, let's get to what I really want to talk about which is the concept of "business cards". I've read a blog post before in the Harvard Business Review discussing the relevancy of paper business cards in an online world. True, few people no longer see it useful. But no longer useful for the old reasons you would use it for:

1. So people may remember your name and contact info especially that you want them to remember your phone number, fax number and mailing address.
2. So that your network of contacts can easily reach you but just leafing through their wallet or business cards holder. That was when personal phonebooks were still hard to manage or when the mobile phone can only store phone numbers.

So, now that we have smartphones that can store all types of contact info and can easily search through them, we should no longer have the need for pre-historic business card, yes? Yes! *applause*

No. I would argue that even in today's world even in tech circles the "business card" is still essential. But I would start calling it a "me-card" or, simply, "card". Let me explain.

Your me-card is your proof of authenticity

In today's world, there's just a lot of pretentious a-holes out there. Aren't you tired of hearing titles like "social media ninja", "SEO expert", "life coach" or "business gurus" when all they are are just people with too much internet time on their hands? To prove that you are real and serious about what you can offer, give me-cards to your potential clients and new contacts. Your me-card must exude an air of authenticity on it - meaning it should not just be the boring business cards of the 90s. Put some color on it, a dash of humor or two, weird shapes of cards will also do. Bottomline, it must represent you, that you are the bomb and that they want you.

Give me-cards not so that they MAY contact you but so that they WILL remember you and WILL contact you.

With so little real estate on your card you want to make sure each inch is wisely used. However, it does not mean that you sprinkle it with all your contact information. Even leaving some even spaces on the card will say a lot about you (e.g., clean, organized, i-mean-business-attitude). The purpose of today's cards is to make people remember you and be excited about your personal brand. Of course the card alone will not do the job - You will want to couple it with a smart introduction. Or if you are presenting, the card can be a good icebreaker (for example your me-cards may have different "dares" in it and you have a few of your audience choose one). The point is, me-cards are baits so you can hook the fish. Sprinkle it with too much information means you are using it as a hook with no bait at all.

Humanity still likes something they can touch

Let's face it: people still want to go home with goodies. If you have a nicely designed me-card, your contacts may actually put it up in their display cabinets beside the goodies they get from weddings, baptisms and birthdays. Or use it as their bookmark for their nightly reads. Or use it as fridge magnets (some clever me-cards are actually thin magnets). Voila, you my friend have already made it into their homes - a place a lot of companies' marketing folks spend a lot of money to get into!

You really should check out moo.com and see what they can do for you. And what you should do to help your personal brand.