Friday, May 27, 2016

"Golf for Engineers"

A few years ago, before she got licensed, I was trying to describe the use of Amateur Radio to my wife. Aside from the obvious emergency communications aspect, and a technical hobby, I pointed out the professional networking potential of it.

As an engineer in Silicon Valley, you both can't move without tripping over other engineers but also cannot just go out and meet them in a non work environment (unless your kids play together).

The traditional way to network with people was to play golf. Now I am not very good at golf. I keep getting stuck at the windmill (OK, my father in law came up with that line), but I have found over the years that having an Amateur Radio call sign does tend to open up doors and provide a conversation starter.

For instance at my previous employer I had my business cards include my call sign, and on the occasion where I was along on a visit with the sales guy as the token engineer the card exchange often resulted in the customer/client saying "Oh, my call sign is....". We suddenly had something else to talk about other than the buyer/seller relationship.

Anyway, that's how I came up with the "Amateur Radio is Golf for Engineers".

Think it will stick?