What a lovely idea. . .
So I was over at the lovely blog of the lovely miss swissmiss who had a lovely idea: what if, instead of name tags with just your silly old name on them that really doesn't do much to achieve what you want at the kind of gatherings where name tags are used, you instead had a topic for conversation pinned to your lapel?
Talk to me about. . . the Italian trecento.
Talk to me about. . . neural networks.
Talk to me about. . . oyster beds.
Talk to me about. . . the weather.
When I'm in charge of these kinds of things, that's what I'm doing; something that actually facilitates networking, or just getting to know people.