With the bursting of the dot-com bubble in Silicon Valley, a whole new class of job titles is emerging. Not content to take on traditional less prestigious titles, some people are inventing new ones. Other tech firms, to try to bolster company morale, are creating newly titled positions such as Chief Morale Officer and Vice President of People. Such folks are responsible for keeping spirits up and making employees feel that they are still in the business loop. Some companies are letting workers dream up their own titles.
Weird titles have a tradition in Silicon Valley.
At Apple Computer Inc., which pioneered the trend, former Chief Executive John Sculley kept a separate stack of business cards on which he called himself Chief Listener. Now, companies are using them for more mainstream ends. In an environment like that these days, anything you can do to give people greater control of their life has got to have a positive effect. The tactic appears to have cheered up at least a few Silicon Valley engineers. Organic Inc., an Internet consulting firm in San Francisco, is one of the firms that encourage people to call themselves what they want to.