I was with Robert Ordever last week and he kindly gave me a badge, that square one at the top and centre of the picture, with the needle pointing to maximum volume. When he gave it to me, Robert said ‘here’s another one for your collection’, having previously given me the Craven Cottage badge you can see in the picture towards the right hand side. This got me thinking…
We have collections of connections everywhere. Contacts on your phone, your LinkedIn network, Twitter followers and Facebook friends are just a few examples. In addition, I also have this slightly less usual collection. As I look at it – I am reminded of friends who I have known for decades. I’m reminded of my lovely family too, and many more people besides. Here are just a few:
The pie badge reminds me of Katie McNab, Gary Franklin, Katharine Robinson and many more besides.
The Dofus badge is one of a two badge set. It reminds me of Heather Bussing – I sent her the other badge a little while back.
There’s a badge from an exhibition of comics which I visited at the British Library with Neil Usher, Flipchart Rick and Mervyn Dinnen.
I picked up the thanks badge at a meeting with Bernie Mitchell in a bicycle shop of all places, the Hell Yeah badge came from the Meaning Conference (met too many people to list them all here), and Simon Heath features twice – the serial incompetence badge and the repeat offender badge.
OK – so this collection of connections is not going to threaten LinkedIn, it’s not some digital database I can pivot and play with to see who knows who. But it is a lovely reminder that I know a lot of cool people, and that works well for me.