Card Collectors

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My son brought a napkin home from school yesterday.

It had a phone number on it. (I’ve blurred out some digits to protect the innocent.)

The conversation that went along with it went something like this:

“Mommy, can we call my friend?”

Sure, dear… what is his name?

“I forgot.”

You don’t remember his name?

“No. Can you call him, and ask him his name?”

But I don’t know who to ask for.

“Just get him on the phone, and then let me talk with him.”

Maybe my boy is destined for a career in upper management?

Rolling Over

Yesterday was eventful, as I also happened to run into a couple of friends, recently purged with the sale of the digital marketing agency where they both worked. They’re great guys, and doors are already opening for them — but I’m more intrigued by what happened as the old doors were being slammed on their fingers.

The owner sold the agency on a Friday, and never told anyone. When people showed up for work on Monday morning, they thought there had been a break-in. Their computers were gone, as were their files and project materials. They went as far as calling the police and starting a burglary report before they were told they were no longer needed.

One hell of a way to find out. Essentially, the new owner was interested in the portfolio and the clientèle — the staff supporting those projects and clients was expendable.

One of my friends told me that as bad as that was, the thing he missed the most was his Rolodex.

They took his Rolodex.

He wasn’t so torn up about losing the cards, being already connected with all of those people through Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. No, it was the actual Rolodex. It was practically an antique, a thing of beauty (and surely more presentable than the one in this picture.) An anachronism, which served as a personal reminder that communications and marketing have roots that involve handwriting and sharing the same air, or the same lousy service at a restaurant. That same Rolodex will take one final turn as an object lesson in abject obliviousness.

Forests and Trees

There’s some delicious irony at play here. A digital marketing agency will claim to be cutting edge, and serve those customers they purchased… yet their thinking is so “Old School” they believe the magic is in the Rolodex. (Suggestion: don’t sign away your LinkedIn or Facebook accounts…)

You can steal a forest’s worth of paper cards, but that won’t earn you a dollar if you don’t know the names of the trees. Those numbers in the Rolodex are about as useful as the digits on my son’s napkin. The person on the other end is just as much a stranger as someone you hit with a dart thrown blindly at the phone book.

(I don’t know… maybe they took the phone books too. I didn’t ask.)