The simple Rolodex: the original contact list; the OG database. Nothing fancy. Just a way to keep your contacts and phone numbers in alphabetical order. You met someone, they went in your ‘dex. And often times that card would get scratched out and re-written many times over the course of business relationship.
The Rolodex was invented in 1956, by Danish engineer Hildaur Neilsen, of Zephyr American, a stationery manufacturer in New York that also invented and sold a whole line of “dex” products like the Autodex, Swivodex, Punchodex, and Clipodex. None of Zephyr’s other inventions really caught on like the Rolodex, however. Today “Rolodex” basically is synonymous with a person’s business contacts or business organizer but our phones definitely have a lot more portability.
The most difficult thing about using a Rolodex was that they weren’t portable – although many a rep tried very gingerly. The cards were notched so they could be flipped around and taken out to be revised. Unfortunately, that also meant if you carelessly moved it or handled it too roughly, the cards would fall out….all over the place. Which may have happened a time or two at JSA. At one time, this Rolodex was easily the most valuable piece of equipment (aside from our people) in our whole organization because of the value of the contacts in that one, compact location. Today, we sleep much easier knowing we have backups.
