A business card wallet surfaced in the home office (i.e. the spare room) yesterday. Flicking through it, I was surprised by a few things.

The first one was names of people I’d forgotten that I once knew. Some people you never forget, like the design engineer who featured as a “Mr. Spoons” on the Steve Wright Show, now a Director of his own Company.

I was a little puzzled as to why I had a card from someone in the Prime Minister’s Office in the Republic of Hungary, then I remembered, he was a telecoms Engineer and showed me round the Houses of Parliament in Budapest, including a memorable trip to the oculus of the massive dome. I didn’t speak Hungarian and he didn’t speak English but we got by in German.

One of my own cards from Nortel in the late 80s has me down as a Program Manager, a job title that would earn me megabucks today in the context of project management. I was actually in the throes of becoming a Product Manager at the time but did have some other responsibilities. It still puzzles me though.

Two more recent cards have me down as Principal Consultant for a small English Firm and Senior Consultant for a small American Firm. (The former term refers to something akin to partner in the US). The reality was that I was a jobbing Contractractor so on the basis of these cards, I am frequently skeptical of job titles as they are often there mainly to impress the clients.

My favourite business card is my first one, for Anglo-Nor Engineering A/S, Stavanger in 1981. I’m just down as “Ian Grey” as they didn’t want to pitch me too specifically….