Business Cards

If Mayor Nutter's personal aide has one rule to live by, it's this: "Don't mess with the playlist. " "There's some room for requests, but he drives the music choice," said Luke Butler, 28, who recently finished a two-year gig as Nutter's special assistant — a job that meant he spent more time with the mayor than anyone else in city government, traveling with him to meetings and events and listening to Nutter relive his former DJ days in...

Glossy magazine advertisements, slick pamphlets and roadside billboards traditionally have been the place for vivid, colorful pictures promoting your business. Some companies, though, are now taking a downsized approach to such marketing - downsized to about two-by-three inches. Business cards with pictures on them have moved into corporate America, and the companies selling them say that the cards are "certainly the wave of the future. " "Everything's going visual," said Levander Taliaferro, who recently launched his company - New Concept Business Imaging, at Lansdowne Avenue and Frazier Street in West Philadelphia - to sell the cards.

You walk through the glass and wooden doors, and the sight hits you: four glass shelves filled with an array of business cards. But they aren't the typical 3 1/2-by-2-inch cards with name, rank and phone number. There's a neon-green alien printed on a plastic card that feels like the top of a mousepad. There's one card that looks like a check - and was designed to be ripped from a miniature checkbook. There's a folded one for a writer that reveals a tiny typewriter when opened; the paper inside the machine slowly churns out the question "Am I the type writer you're looking for?"

They do not fit easily into your pocket or purse, and you certainly would not want to carry more than a couple with you, but John Novarina is convinced that his "electronic business card" will be a successful marketing tool. About four months ago, Novarina, 34, of Royersford, Montgomery County, began his one-man operation, eCard-etc., creating floppy disks as a replacement for business cards. The label on the disk conveys the usual information - name, address, e-mail, fax number - found on a business card.

When Aretha Franklin's chart-topper "A Rose Is Still a Rose" shipped to radio stations, instead of a run-of-the-mill round compact disc, DJs found a striking red CD that had been cut into the shape of a blossom. When Miller Brewing Co. wanted to hype its responsible-drinking campaign, it sent distributors something that looked like a credit card with a hole in the middle. It was a pocket-size CD-ROM crammed with multimedia features, including full-color animation, narration, and hyperlinks to Miller's Web site.

John Spagnola, the Philadelphia Eagles tight end, may have been the only man there without a tie - and without a business card. At 6-foot-4, he towered above the crowd, in an open-collared shirt and wool jacket, filling his coat pockets with business cards, but offering none in return. "Just send it to me at the stadium," he told people. "Care of the Eagles. " "I have no idea why I was invited," Spagnola said. "I'm getting business-carded to death. But why not? That's what it's all about.

Ellen Dressler puts people's business cards to work for them. For a fee, she places the cards on bulletin boards that she has installed in restaurants, where people often wait for tables with nothing to do. The boards offer captive audiences a way to pass the time and, at the same time, provide neighborhood firms with a low-cost form of advertising. Dressler's goal is to expand the distribution of business cards for her clients - and her company, American Home Services, was formed last year to do just that.

Sheryl Sandberg lingered on stage last week in Davos, Switzerland, after leading a panel on "Women as the Way Forward" and found herself surrounded by a dozen fans - all save one of them female. Sandberg, the 42-year-old chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., accepted business cards and chatted with those seeking her attention. The cochair of the World Economic Forum and her devotees that day constituted what was probably the most female-heavy gathering at Davos. At a five-day meeting that was more than 80 percent populated by men, women often were a minority of one on panels or not represented at all. Sandberg was one of six cochairs of the forum; the rest were men. Panels on the future of banking, energy supplies, international finance, and global risks were among those with no women except moderators, even with a forum theme of "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.

Send a business card in response to Kathy Willets' personal ad, and you never knew where it would lead. For some, it led to a visit to her home, small talk beside the red-brick fireplace, champagne in crystal glasses and a trip to her heavy, wood four- poster bed. Other men sent business cards after reading her personal ad in the newspaper - "turquoise eyes, great tan, hot body" - but then dared not show up even once. At least one man sent Willets the business card of a friend, before joining the wispy-haired blonde for a bedroom interlude himself.

A soft, urgent sound mixed with the splash of artificial waterfalls and the clink of cocktail glasses at the gleaming new Renaissance Corporate Center - it was the sound of business being done. Yuppies mixed with corporate bigwigs, swapping business cards and business tips at a business card exchange arranged last week by the newly revived King of Prussia Chamber of Commerce. The business folk of King of Prussia's booming corporate sector - about 130 of them - arrived at the corporate center on Swedeland Road in Gulph Mills in Mercedeses, bulky late-model American sedans and trim little Japanese coupes.

If Mayor Nutter's personal aide has one rule to live by, it's this: "Don't mess with the playlist. " "There's some room for requests, but he drives the music choice," said Luke Butler, 28, who recently finished a two-year gig as Nutter's special assistant — a job that meant he spent more time with the mayor than anyone else in city government, traveling with him to meetings and events and listening to Nutter relive his former DJ days in...

4-week bills , Mar. 6; 3-month and 6-month bills , Mar. 5; 1-year bills , Mar. 6; 2-year notes , Mar. 27; 3-year notes , Mar. 12; 5-year notes , Mar. 28; 7-year notes , Mar. 29; 10-year notes , Mar. 13; 30-year bonds , Mar. 14; 5-year TIPS , April 19; 10-year TIPS , Mar. 22; 30-year TIPS , Jun. 21. Business Referral Luncheon presented by BNI, King of Prussia chapter. Peppers Italian Restaurant, 236 Town Center Rd., King of Prussia; 610-792-2105.

Sheryl Sandberg lingered on stage last week in Davos, Switzerland, after leading a panel on "Women as the Way Forward" and found herself surrounded by a dozen fans - all save one of them female. Sandberg, the 42-year-old chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., accepted business cards and chatted with those seeking her attention. The cochair of the World Economic Forum and her devotees that day constituted what was probably the most female-heavy gathering at Davos. At a five-day meeting that was more than 80 percent populated by men, women often were a minority of one on panels or not represented at all. Sandberg was one of six cochairs of the forum; the rest were men. Panels on the future of banking, energy supplies, international finance, and global risks were among those with no women except moderators, even with a forum theme of "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.

  WASHINGTON - Once a year, the people who run New Jersey take a walk to the nation's capital to hear the governor speak at a special congressional dinner. Or do they? At the annual New Jersey Chamber of Commerce dinner in Washington, reality isn't always what it seems. Held Thursday and Friday for the 75th time, the annual event is the Garden State's version of the Pennsylvania Society gala in New York City, as politicians, lobbyists, business executives, union leaders, ntonprofit heads, and journalists schmooze, booze, deal, and wheel.

As business challenges go, Stephen Klein has known his share. There was the gun shoved in his ribs by a union agent unhappy with his family's nonunion company, long named Anthony, the Family Plumber. And the brick thrown through the living room window of Klein's former home in Philadelphia's Mayfair section. And the beatings and tire slashings endured by his employees. "A nasty time" is how Klein, 58, of Rydal, recently summed up that period in the mid-1970s when the economy was rough, and the region's plumbers even more so. It would be a primer for the business trials ahead - including the loss of a nearly 20-year service contract with Sears that constituted most of Anthony's revenue.

How do the Nerd Guys do it? John Young and Randy Schmidt, computer geeks with enough ideas to fill 1,000 gigabytes, appear to have the (Web) master touch that turns a totally goofy idea into solid gold - or embroidered patches. Or beef jerky business cards. Or gorilla suits. In recent years, Young, 39, and Schmidt, 28 - plus a buddy or two - have conjured kookiness, made it happen, and hit the spot. Usually, it's all about them. When the two West Chester-based Web-design consultants-by-day notice the lack of something, they don't just wish for it like most cubicle rats - they start writing code.

Re: "Johnson: Don't blame police," by Barbara Boyer, July 23. Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said violence in Philadelphia is "more than a police problem. . . . The city needs a 'holistic' approach that includes the community, business, clergy and social services. " I agree, knowing this from personal experience. I served at Northeast Catholic High School for Boys from July 1, 1992, through June 30, 1998. Only weeks after arriving, I was invited to join the Community and Police Interracial Task Force that operated in Philadelphia's East Division (the 24th, 25th and 26th police districts)

Moving an office can be annoying - a period laced with budget-busting surprises, lost business, computer catastrophes, disappointed customers, and upset employees. Ross Forman experienced all this as an executive responsible for the real estate properties and transactions of a large corporation. Lewis Pestrak felt it running an office-furniture company. Now they are pooling their experience in a Horsham-based company called Turnkey Office Solution Systems L.L.C. They say their company manages virtually every task and decision related to planning and executing a business relocation, not just moving the furniture and equipment.

The white business card seemed innocuous enough. After confiscating it from a street informant Thursday morning, Philadelphia police officers dialed one of the numbers printed on the bottom, unsure of what they would find. What they discovered jumpstarted an intense 24-hour investigation that had officers hopping from Kensington to Fern Rock to Feltonville as they penetrated the upper levels of a cocaine and heroin distribution syndicate. By midnight Friday, police had arrested two people, confiscated about $80,000 and seized more than $1.3 million worth of illegal drugs, including neatly packaged $10 crack rocks hidden in the false bottoms of shaving cream and deodorant cans.

He is natty under muted lights, wearing a brown wool suit and an old-school brim. She is fetching in a spaghetti-strap top that showcases her toned peanut-butter shoulders. "How many drinks did it take to bring out that Caribbean accent?" he asks her. "I've always had it," she replies. "I'm from the Dominican Republic. I've had it since I was born. " "You didn't have it at 7 o'clock," he teases. On the other side of the bar, a software consultant, James Cooper from Akron, starts a tab. Doesn't matter if the Hennessey VSOP he is recommending costs $13.50 a drink.