On the wishlist of guests for third season of the Tickets podcast was someone I’d not spoken with for years.

While I didn’t have his email address or phone number, we did have a LinkedIn connection and he seemed to be fairly active on there.

I decided to give it a shot, and a few days later we were chatting on the phone to plan the podcast recording.

After taking a few minutes to give him my back story I got the strongly sense he had no idea who I was or how we knew each other. It was awkward.

I quickly filled in the blanks:

We used to chat on AIM in the early 2000s, I was promoting this club night in London, you were just starting to produce music, we both knew X, Y and Z…

He interjected.

“What was the name of the club night?”

Repercussion, I told him, dubious this would be of any use whatsoever. It seemed trivial to go back 15+ years to this party I ran.

“Oh! Of course I know about that! Next time just introduce yourself by "Repercussion"!”

And so our conversation took a different turn, and flowed into 40 minutes of themes and ideas. We're recording the podcast episode this week and I think it's going to be great.

But instead of sending a LinkedIn message about my company and the podcast, and instead of giving him the full spiel, I could have just introduced myself through a 2004 club night.

Repercussion means absolutely nothing to most people. But it meant something to him.

Even 15 years later, it’s easy to forget the value of those shared scenes, cultures, and language.

There’s always more than one way to introduce yourself.