The Business Card
The Business Card is a visual thinking exercise for relationship mapping: it helps participants build useful connections and understand how people, roles, or ideas relate.
How to run it
- Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1
- The other half asking to provide their Name, Title, and one or two questions that would bring something
- Then post the paper around the room to serve as an icebreaker or conversation piece.3
- on a publicly viewable large business card Process Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1.
- Clipboard is useful to have, but not necessary if there are tables around.
- Cool Possibilities/Options If you have photo printing capabilities, pasting the "real" picture next to the self portrait is fun, and a.
- of each person Provide a pdf of all the business cards as a takeaway from the gathering .
Run this exercise live
The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.
What participants need now
Materials:
This is a participant-safe snapshot, not a response form. It sends nothing back to the facilitator.
Prompts to use +
Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1
The other half asking to provide their Name, Title, and one or two questions that would bring something
Then post the paper around the room to serve as an icebreaker or conversation piece.3
on a publicly viewable large business card Process Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1.
Clipboard is useful to have, but not necessary if there are tables around.
Cool Possibilities/Options If you have photo printing capabilities, pasting the "real" picture next to the self portrait is fun, and a.
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: The Business Card. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1; The other half asking to provide their Name, Title, and one or two questions that would bring something; Then post the paper around the room to serve as an icebreaker or conversation piece.3; on a publicly viewable large business card Process Hand participants a piece of paper with half of it asking them to draw a self portrait.1.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Relationship Makers Handbook; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (1 source observed, including Relationship Makers Handbook.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.