Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Move 1: The Business Card

The first move is to get a new business card. You'll need one that is very plain, overly subtle, with no company name or enigmatic personal details.


There are only four items on the card:

  1. Your full legal name with middle initial, centered on the card in a elegant serif font, preferably using small caps.
  2. A P.O. Box address in New York, London, San Francisco, Rancho Santa Fe, or Beverly Hills.
  3. A single phone number
  4. And finally an e-mail address; the best have a subtle message: @post.harvard.edu, @aya.yale.edu, @gatesfoundation.org (if your name is Bill), or some other prestigious domain. Surprisingly @aol.com addresses are acceptable -- for some reason the rich and famous still use AOL as their own private club.

Additional subtlety depends on a very high grade of thick, slightly off-white card stock with a font that is not part of any package of fonts -- you can't have this font without paying full price is an important part of the understated message.