William Suffil wrote ...
> As far as the name goes <snip> it becomes an issue to what to
> name it.
It's not really an issue, nor is it voodoo either ;)
HOW THE PRO's DO THIS
A few years ago one of the duties of a project management role I had
then was to interact with one of the world's leading branding
agencies which was hired to develop the corporate identity for the
startup I was working for. I had the fortune to look over the
shoulders of those branding folks and I discovered that the
methodology they use is very similar to various engineering
methodologies. I'd like to share an outline of the experience here as
I feel it may be useful ...
First off, I arrived for my first meeting with the preconception that
there would be a bunch of people sitting around a table throwing in
ideas for names. I was told that nothing could be worse than doing it
this way. It would be the equivalent of writing software by randomly
assembling source code from a dictionary that contains all the
function/variable names in the libraries considered for use without
any regard for syntax and semantics, nor any idea what the code is
supposed to do.
Instead, they have a design process, not unlike a software design
process. The first thing is to capture the requirements. Yes, there
are requirements for a name, very surprising -- at least it was to me
at the time -- but then it makes a lot of sense.
- What is the target group?
- What images, what impressions, what messages is the name supposed
to communicate to the target group?
- Which images/impressions/messages are must-have, which ones are
nice-to-have and what priorities do they have?
- What associations/similarities are desirable? What associations/
similarities are undesirable/unacceptable?
They produced several lists and tables with images, impressions,
messages, associations, similarities, ordered in several ways, all
with the aim to identify the most important goals on the one hand and
the taboos on the other.
When this was done after several meetings, I thought, "OK, now we're
going to throw names around" but I was wrong again. Instead there was
brainstorming about vocabulary that described one or more of the
images, impressions, messages identified in the previous step. None
of those words or phrases were meant to become candidates for a name.
I would liken this step to checking out suitable libraries before you
start writing code. You may use some of them, or you may borrow some
stuff or some ideas from them, but they are not the end-result.
Finally, that list of words and phrases was ordered yet again, color
coded and cut down to about 100 terms. Eventually, this would be used
to inspire actual candidate names. The candidate names would then be
screened against the requirements and also against trademarks and any
negative meanings in various languages. Finally, they would be
checked against domain availability and the resulting list would then
be rated by a panel. A shortlist of 4 or 5 would then be agreed on
for which graphic designers would then come up with designs.
I was told that it was important not to tell the decision makers in
our organisation about the candidate names until they would be
presented as a whole, together with the preliminary designs.
It is not uncommon that the entire process described above is
repeated several times before a short-list contains that one name
that the decision makers are really happy with.
HOW WE MAY APPLY SOME OF THIS
Like I said, I share this experience here because I think it is
useful to know how the professionals go about this sort of thing, but
I don't mean to suggest that we can afford to apply the process in
its entirety because it requires a very substantial effort and in
some cases skills and expertise which we don't have. The branding
team on the project I described was about 5 or 6 people, plus several
graphic designers and legal staff working in the background.
Nevertheless, I think it is worth taking a lesson or two from how the
professionals do it and try to at least follow the same concept.
During the last 6-8 weeks I have been working behind the scenes with
some of you trying to do just that and this process has led to 3
candidate names for the project. There is also a possible fourth name
over which opinion seems to be divided between native English
speakers and others.
For the top 3, respective internet domains have been registered by
Steve Underwood and myself in order to protect them from being
squatted. We will assign the domain finally chosen to whatever non-
profit organisation our community chooses to set up for the project,
so that this organisation will have full ownership in the domain.
Following the process described, we felt it would make sense to not
reveal the candidates publicly until we have a mock-up website for
each one as a means to present them in all their glory at which point
we will then have to work out how we are going to vote on them. Work
to set that up is under way.
There is of course room for additional candidates should somebody
come up with one that survives the screening process. For this
purpose, I am going to outline below what the guiding principles have
been to come up with the current shortlist.
Please note that in this day and age, it is extremely difficult to
find an all-English term that is not already occupied and in use for
something similar. If we can think of it, chance is that others have
already thought of it before us. For this reason, it is far more
likely to find something both suitable and still available when
borrowing from another language. Latin and Ancient Greek are usually
the first languages people escape to but often even those terms are
oversubscribed already or they are incredibly long or unpronouncible
and difficult to spell and remember. In such an event, perhaps a
different language yields a more suitable result. Sometimes removing
one or two characters can make a word found this way more suitable.
GUIDELINES FOR CANDIDATE NAME FINDING AND SCREENING
1) We want to establish an identity of our own, we don't wish to be
perceived as a Wannabe-Asterisk.
This means any name that hints at Asterisk should not enter the
competition. Some examples of such names are "Ampersand", "Obelisk",
anything with "Star" in it and anything ending in "isk".
2) We want to establish a unique identity, something of a non-generic
nature.
This means that generic names should not enter the competition. Some
examples of generic names are "OpenPBX", "OSSPBX", "FOSSPBX",
"FreePBX", "FreedomPBX", "OpenSwitch", "FreeSwitch", "IPSwitch",
"SoftSwitch", you get the idea.
3) We want to convey the following images/messages ...
a) really open, not just claiming to be open, community driven openness
AND / OR
b) application of best engineering practises and methods, commercial
interests must not get in the way
AND / OR
c) the functionality of a phone system, something that manages phone
calls
Please note that it is very difficult, if not impossible to find a
single name that can convey all of these messages. Most likely, it
will come down to making a choice between a), b) and c). The holy
grail is to find a word that has a hidden meaning buried inside which
somehow relates to another goal on the list. For example, in one
language the meaning of the word matches one goal but it is also
similar to a common word in another language that matches another
goal. Don't be too hard on yourself trying to find such a name. It
should be considered a lucky accident if one stumbles upon such a name.
4) We cater for an international audience. Names which are difficult
to pronounce or spell across a range of major languages are
counterproductive.
As a rule of thumb:
a) shorter names are a plus
b) more vowels are a plus, but consecutive vowels can be problematic
c) names or substrings of names which mean or remind of something
negative in a major language are taboo
Examples:
"Rio", "Eon", "Via" are great brand names because they are short and
have more vowels than consonants, easy to pronounce in any language,
easy to remember.
A word like "Aeoli" is problematic because it has too many
consecutive vowels such that it is unclear how one would pronounce it
and it is difficult to remember the spelling.
"Asterisk" is actually a somewhat problematic name because it has a
substring "risk" which has a negative association. It is also
problematic in a different way as it can easily be turned into a
derogative word "A**tricks", which some people who are not so fond of
Asterisk have been seen doing. We don't want to mention anybody by
name here though ;)
5) We want to avoid yet another name conflict
This means that anything similar to a name which has been in use in
the realm of telephony must be ruled out.
For example, Nelson Silva came up with the very nice name
"Aspiro" (my personal all-time favourite). I think he said it means
"sound" in Portuguese. It would make a very fine candidate for
several reasons as it has an additional message ("aspire,
aspiration") hidden inside which is the sort of thing brand designers
are keen to come up with when they try to create a brand. Very
unfortunately though, NEC has a PBX (and trademark) called "Aspire"
which is just too close for us to be able to consider "Aspiro". A
real shame, but that's life.
6) We want to be able to register a .org domain for the new name,
either "<name>.org" or "<name>PBX.org"
NICE-TO-HAVE
7) NICE TO HAVE BUT NOT REQUIRED -- we might be able to be listed
alphabetically before "Asterisk"
This has shown up as an accidental bonus during the brainstorming as
quite a few suggestions happened to start with "A", such as the above
mentioned but screened out "Aspiro". A nice side effect would also be
that we can safely go back to AGI.
CLOSING WORDS
Items #1 to #6 conclude the guidelines we have applied to find the
current shortlist of 3 candidates. One of the names falls into the
"openness" category and has a hidden meaning inside, one falls into
the "best practises" category and one into the "something managing
calls" category.
The ideal shortlist would probably be 4 or 5 items long, so anybody
who would like to suggest an additional name to be considered, please
apply these guidelines and if it still looks like a winner
afterwards, contact me by email or on IRC.
regards
benjk
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