I read in The New York Times this morning that after Derek Jeter, a shortstop for the New York Yankees, eventually reaches the 3,000th hit of his illustrious career, a groundskeeper will dig up several gallons of dirt from the shortstop area and the batter’s box (see After 3,000, Even Dirt Will Sell). The dirt will then be certified as being official dirt from the game in which Jeter reached this milestone (he will be only the 28th player in the history of Major League Baseball to score 3,000 hits), and it will be sold to those who want to own a small piece of baseball history.
That got me thinking. Next year will be the 10th anniversary of RFID Journal‘s Web site, and we’ll be hosting our 10th annual RFID Journal LIVE! conference and exhibition. Perhaps we should auction off bits of history from the event and raise money for charity.
We could sell pieces of the rug that was on the stage for the first event, on which many illustrious speakers—including Rollin Ford, Wal-Mart Stores‘ CEO; Carlo K. Nizam, Airbus‘ head of value chain visibility and RFID; U.S. Transportation Command‘s Brigadier General Michelle Johnson; and Bob McDonald, Procter & Gamble‘s COO—explained how they are using radio frequency identification to drive business value.
Perhaps we could break our mascot, Tagman, into pieces and sell parts of him. Or (and this would break my heart), we could cut my famous yellow blazer into swatches and sell them. Autographed program guides from each year?
I welcome your (tongue-in-cheek) suggestions.
Mark Roberti is the founder and editor of RFID Journal. If you would like to comment on this article, click on the link below. To read more of Mark’s opinions, visit the RFID Journal Blog, the Editor’s Note archive or RFID Connect.