I met a gentleman today, who had two lines of qualification-related acronyms written next to his name on his business card.
Not two, but two lines of them.
How important is it to have your qualifications mentioned in your business card? If you are meeting someone for the first time, in a business context, yes you can mention it. But on a business card, that too so many of them, looks pretty obscene to me. Its like a lot of people have the “IIM” tag on their LinkedIn, only to dig deeper and find out that it was a certificate course and not the real deal.
A lot also have “ex” written next to their names on LinkedIn : Ex-HSBC, ex-Deloitte, etc…that too sounds odd to me. People don’t go around giving I’m ex-Sheetal, ex-Suraiyya kind of introductions do they?:))
While on LinkedIn, here is the ‘visionary’ article that I had written a few months earlier. Sadly, the plague has only spread, far and wide. There was a brief spurt of a ‘Doctor’ variant, the ones you buy for 600 euros, but thankfully, that virus has been contained. The master virus thrives though.
Why do we seek validation from people we have never met, and mostly never will? Food for thought!
How does one write “visionary” in one’s own title on LinkedIn?
Imagine going to a networking event and extending your hand out to someone who you’ve just met and saying “Hi, I’m Rohit, and I am a visionary.”
Hmm..
LinkedIn is anyway full of tripe nowadays. Everyone and his uncle has something to say about anything, and this anything is usually recycled tripe from someone else. Some silly non-motivational post, or work families, that sort of thing.
And titles such as visionary, People Champion, Sales Ninja…you get the drift.
But what is a visionary?
“Thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom” – says the dictionary. Visionary almost always goes with leader – one who leads the tribe into a better future.
So in effect, a visionary is always in hindsight, because I can count a lot of people with fantastic ideas of the future, none of which ultimately came true. That would be a dreamer (also on LinkedIn) or more likely what we in India call “Mungerilal”, a very apt description for people with outlandish visions of what may happen in the personal space.
I like visionaries, true ones. Michio Kaku springs to mind. While he technically may be classified as a futurist, his writings demonstrate that he is mostly on the right path. Jobs was a visionary – in the true sense of the word. Touching technology (Apple), animation (Pixar) and sales (Apple stores) all in one short lifetime.
That way, most of our ancient Rishis were visionaries beyond compare. What they saw thousands of years ago, is still coming true. Thankfully no LinkedIn then:)