Recently I was introduced to a young journalist, who naturally asked the quintessential networking question: Do you have a business card?

For many years I was on the opposite end of that question, asking anyone whom I felt was in a position I wanted to be, or had the power to plug me in, for their card. If I was fortunate they would dig in their purse or wallet and pull out a card.

Before everyone carried a cell phone or had their own website, Twitter, Facebook, business cards were the key.

I’ve had a business card for every position I’ve held. Now, I don’t have a card nor do I want one. For starters, what would I list on the card? In today’s world, no one has only one job. There is the 9-5, the 6-10, the side hustle and the “I do this because I love it but it doesn’t pay and I don’t care” project.  How exactly do you fit that all on one card?

I’ve been handed cards like this before and never took them seriously.

Then you have people who are a little creative but still leave you clueless as to what they really have to offer.

I have a stack of business cards that I’ve collected over the years and while I’m sure that 90% of the people no longer work at the places listed on the card, I still can’t seem to throw them out. Consider them relics of a time past; a time when people interacted personally and had real conversations. This was long before we could scan each others barcodes or text.

I don’t have business cards because even when I did, I barely gave them out. I’d push past my business card holder (actually I had three, two of which were college graduation gifts), grabbing for my phone and have the interested party enter their information and vice versa.

While I do care, immensely, about the environment and watching my waste “Going Green” is just one small part of the reason why I’m card-less. However, no one can refute my response. They laugh gingerly and it spins the conversation in a completely different direction, one in which they drop the issue of why I don’t have a card.

I could just tell them to google me, but that would make me sound like an egomaniac.

Now it’s time to bring Journalisticks back, with a twist.

Introducing…

Journalisticks: A Weekly Twitter Chat for Urban Journalists

Moderated by Chloe Hilliard and Aliya S. King

Every Monday 8-9:30pm EST

Starting May 11, 2009

How to find us:

Page: www.twitter.com/journalisticks

Hastag: #jsticks (to be used for all tweets related to the group, issues in media, journalists of color)

The format of the talk is to address timely issues and questions. It’s open to journalists of all races, ages and experience.

PLEASE, NO PUBLICISTS. We do not want to be pitched. This is our time to talk shop!

All questions or issues should be DM’d to the moderators Journalisticks (aka Chloe) and Aliya who will select them and post them to the room throughout the chat.

We strongly encourage you use www.tweetchat.com to locate the group and watch all #jsticks Tweets in real time and in one location. Enter your twitter account info and enter the room JSTICKS (do not enter the # sign, it automatically appears). Once inside the “room” you’ll see all tweets with the #jsticks hastag in them. Also, all of your tweets written in this room with automatically have the #jsticks hastag on the end. No more retyping or cutting and pasting.

Until May 11th, spread the word.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

- CH

Shout out to Big Ced!

www.theindustrycosign.com

Yesterday’s news of the Illest Men’s Magazine folding hit the urban street market like crack in the ’80s. Everyone was tweeting about it, blasts went out on the radio, flags were lowered. I got some great checks from KING and have worked with many of its staffers over the years. I believe the bulk of the hurt my fellow journalists and I felt was attributed to the current state of affairs in journalism, specifically urban journalism. King’s folding further cements that fact that this niche market, that once thrived, is dying and with it thousands of job opportunities and the established careers of many.

Farewell KING.

You served us well.