Name Awards

Gliding on the name peace train with Roadslinger

Many companies want to change their names as their business plans evolve, but not many entertainers once their personal brand is firmly established. Cat Stevens sure was a catchy name.  Yusuf Islam not so much! Even if the album title Roadslinger is in a classic traveling style.

Brave move, motivated by some serious issues, I must confess. But it probably wasn’t money as now it takes a lot of PR and promotion to get re-established, especially with such a name that perhaps limits your total exposure to all ethnicities.

For me, the music already sounds different when I hear Yusuf is singing instead of our old favorite Cat. The first rule of branding has been compromised: If it is not broken,don’t fix it.

Do I eat or drink Zibibbo?

Zibibbo is a wine made locally from the Malvasiva grapes, I have now learned from a knitting site Zibibbo is Good – after all other sources came up empty! But it is also a restaurant that the high end paid reviewers call one of the best restaurants in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, while all the amateur reviewers give it very poor grades.

Unfortunately at $11 per glass of wine I can’t afford to check it out myself – but for a restaurant with high end marketing you’d think they would at least explain the name somewhere.After all, we aren’t all of Sicilian descent! Maybe they just want us to think of imbibing in our bibs and getting our libido on.

PS The problem with looking at restaurant names is one thing leads to another. Now I have to check out Evvia that so many reviewers favored instead. I could end up being a restaurant critic rather than a name critic!

Would you name your company ngmoco?

Well if you answered yes to our title question, without even a blink, then you are definitely part of the Twitter and Computer/Phone gaming generation.

If your stomach turned to knots and you asked yourself why is a professional business namer even raising such an issue, then you are probably a little older and more traditional!

As I sit here and ponder how to pronounce the name and what it means, I realize I am being stupid. Probably only some gaming insiders will know… and half the reason will be the domain was free .  And to compound the difficulty, they are trying to confuse all the press and media and spell checkers for ever more by writing it ngmoco with a lower case n. Good luck. Everyone else who tried this eventually changed. Hey guys.. it is your name.. not a tweet or text message. Go look at your birth certificate and see if that is spelled lower case.

PS At least their game titles are more comprehensible.. Rolando seems to be their star. Word Fu seems to be the title of another.. not Word F. U. The sounds are so loud I could never concentrate on the words… but I am an older tweeter.

The New 9 Frog Force over at Salesforce.com?

Since I wrote a chapter in my Brighter Branding book on Having Fun With Your Brand, I love to see when big companies actually do so.

And I am especially impressed when SalesForce.com, that flag bearer for SaaS software and all things analytical about tracking sales and marketing, shows that they are human too. Nowadays this little Number 9 Frog shows up when I login to my account, but no where else that I can find on their site.

Now if only I could figure out what is going on? What is it all about? Help. I am stymied. Does your personal home page give it too after logging in?

On a separate note, this company continues to outgrow its name. A classic downside of naming your company after the first product rather than planning ahead. More so than that, look at the graphic here. Are they saying they are the cream of the crop for SFA, or just can’t make up their mind whether it is a CRM system or a SFA system, or their name is now Salesforcecrm ….. or a golfing promo for the 9th hole that is frog friendly?

We are marching to Tshwane ??

For eight or nine years they have been arguing about changing the name of Pretoria, administrative capital of South Africa. For many people, Pretoria was not only a symbol of the old white government, it also did not give credence to the former neighboring black, colored or Indian townships. Needless to say emotions run high on all sides of the argument – especially as this has always been a predominantly Afrikaans speaking city by its white citizens. Compare this with its mostly English speaking big business neighbor Johannesburg – only 50 miles down the road.

But they did manage to create a super metropolis and agree on its African name of Tshwane – not that they can agree on where it comes from – other than something to do with the Ndebele tribe or language. Most of us will end up pronouncing it schwain, and not the proper Shwa Nay in the local language. To emphasize what the name is supposed to mean, the city uses a great tagline: We are the same.

While the debates rages on (see wikipedia), it appears that the hard deadlines of hosting the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament is helping some decision making along. And today, at the start of the Federations Cup (a warm up for World Cup) the Italian team, which is using Tshwane as its base city, was presented the keys to Tschwane.. without the name Pretoria being used.

So now, all around the world, will we have to update that grand old marching battle hymn of the republic “We are marching to Pretoria”?  Maybe not. Most who sang this song probably didn’t have a clue it was a real city they were singing about. Just one with the right melodious tone to it.

In the meantime, we are impressed with this super-city doing such a good self-branding campaign.

A big name award for the first kid’s book on naming

Well if we are going to issue name awards to names and their authors, then we had surely best also consider authors who write books for kids that are based on a naming story. Especially if it introduces kids to a simple naming process!

More importantly, it is a fun and educational and travel read for any young reader. It will also be enjoyed by the parents of younglings if you read it to them – at least the first few times!

Download a copy today from FodenPress.com and surprise them on the trip. Just when they get restless, pull it up on your laptop. Most adults with a young heart will also enjoy the story and see different overtones and places than the kids. But you can all enjoy the critters coming to life as well as the great illustrations.

On top of that, children can later go to the companion website (www.chimona.com) and look up more details on their favorite critters, as well as check the glossary for explanations of big or foreign words. If this sounds like a shameless plug for How Kelvyn Got His Name and the author Rosie Reay then it surely is… but I only do this when I really believe in the product, even when I am not an innocent bystander.

I am in awe of your story telling ability Rosie and can’t wait to help produce the rest of the Chimona Chronicles, along with our great editor Kyra Dawson of  The Brighter Scribe and our new favorite illustrator Candice McMullan. It will be fun to see even more critters come to life and start their travels around Lake Okenagan – or even around the world.