Even though I no longer live in St. Louis, my area code remains 314. When I moved to Iowa, I was happy to keep my number and avoid the hassle of changing it. Now I am sentimental about having one of the old-time, original area codes.
When I was growing up, you knew geography by area code because you could have many of them memorized. From 1947 until 1988, the entire northern corner of Illinois was covered by the 312 area code. Now, the metro area alone has eight different codes: 312, 630, 331, 708, 773, 847, 224 and 872. The proliferation of cell phones, fax machines, credit card machines and the like have caused the expansion far more than a population explosion, but a common identity has been lost nonetheless.
AT&T developed the area code system in the 1940s, and there was a method to the madness in their designations. States with a single area code had a zero as the middle number. States with multiple codes had 1 as the center digit, with the first and third numbers allocated according to population density. The most populated areas received the lowest numbers to make the rotary dialing easiest to call!
What started as a system with only 86 codes for all of the United States and Canada has now grown to over 390 prefixes. The legendary "800 number" is now really 800, 888, 877, 866 and 855 -- with more to come I'm sure. Today, the area codes have little sentimental or geographical meaning to most people -- they are just one more component of an dispassionate address to be keyed into contacts.
While I wouldn't trade my iPhone for a rotary land line, I am glad that my modern technology can carry with it a piece of nostalgia. Is there something in your organization that may engender fond feelings to a segment of your population? Can you capitalize on that link to your past and share a bit of history in the process? Can you help those with a link to the past become aware of and celebrate that link in the present?
Many changes evolve slowly and we forget from whence we came. Take a moment to look back and see if there isn't something in your history that still rings true today.
-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com
Source: area-codes.com
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