What's in a name? - unique titles on business cards - Brief Article

Nation's Business, Feb, 1996 by Michael Barrier

For most people, a business card is just one more way to let the world know who you are. Others, though, use business cards to convey a more complex message.

We're looking as we write at the business card for Ed Juge, who represents the on-line service CompuServe. Juge's card identifies him as "Ed Juge, Evangelist." It says, in other words, that he believes in CompuServe and he's going to do his best to make you believe in it, too.

Likewise with Frank Fulkerson, whose stationery once identified him as president of Vortex Industries, a Los Angeles company that repairs and replaces warehouse doors. (We featured Vortex in a cover story a couple of years ago - "Re-engineering Your Company," February 1994.) When Fulkerson transformed Vortex into a much more team-oriented company, he had new business cards made up that read, "Frank Fulkerson, Head Coach."

We suspect there are a lot of you out there who use business cards in much the same way, to give the recipients of those cards a fuller sense of what your company is like, and what your role is in it. Let us know if we're right. Send us your card by mail (Free-Spirited Enterprise, Nation's Business, 1615 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20062), or fax a copy to us at (202) 887-3437.

We'll let you what turns up; you folks with old-fashioned business cards might pick up some ideas.