...Social Journal
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
So I may have just butchered Juliet’s famous quote, but seriously – why so much pressure on a name? Will the name define what this project is all about?
A few weeks back I spoke with Alex from StartSomeGood. We were joking about how difficult it is to come up with a good name and he actually purchased over 10 domains before the team finally agreed on their official name.
I agree that naming is important, but with the tools at our disposal such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can’t we all properly market and brand any name?!
Call me biased, but I think Social Journal is quite clever:
Social = do good in the world
Journal = write down your thoughts/bring ideas together, etc...
Social is a nuanced word that has many different connotations, so there was significant pressure to change the name to either something more “meaningful” or “attractive.” With our amazing Design Team, we played with names, made up words, and toss around multiple ideas. As important as a name may be – I felt we got caught up in the branding, where focus needed to come back to the cause.
In this troubled time, Paul, one of our advisors told me:
“This is such a different type of endeavour in my mind - something larger than what people might expect it can become. So in time - the idea itself might outgrow the name or the name no longer suits the purpose… Some of the best names are simple and staight to the point of what they are doing - myspace (welcome to my personal space) facebook (it's a virtual book of friend's faces and their interest and keeping in touch with them) twitter ( i twitt to you what i'm doing and to know i'm here, just like birds do), Social Journal (it's the diary of change and what your ideas are)…I'm more of a simple name person and the meaning of the name to me has to be the most important. Fit the endeavour to a name not a name to the endevour. Pick a name that will stand the test of time.”
Only last night and 200 names later, did we finally agree on SoJo (a nickname given to the project by Paul before anyone told us to change our name).
SoJo is short, catchy, easy to spell, has the potential to create an identity of its own, and still holds its roots of Social Journal. I think more than anything, I’m just excited to get the ball rolling on the design and branding front and get our name (whatever it may be) out there!!!
What do you think? Did your team struggle with picking a name?
How important do you feel it is for amazing ideas to be attached to an amazing name?
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
So I may have just butchered Juliet’s famous quote, but seriously – why so much pressure on a name? Will the name define what this project is all about?
A few weeks back I spoke with Alex from StartSomeGood. We were joking about how difficult it is to come up with a good name and he actually purchased over 10 domains before the team finally agreed on their official name.
I agree that naming is important, but with the tools at our disposal such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can’t we all properly market and brand any name?!
Call me biased, but I think Social Journal is quite clever:
Social = do good in the world
Journal = write down your thoughts/bring ideas together, etc...
Social is a nuanced word that has many different connotations, so there was significant pressure to change the name to either something more “meaningful” or “attractive.” With our amazing Design Team, we played with names, made up words, and toss around multiple ideas. As important as a name may be – I felt we got caught up in the branding, where focus needed to come back to the cause.
In this troubled time, Paul, one of our advisors told me:
“This is such a different type of endeavour in my mind - something larger than what people might expect it can become. So in time - the idea itself might outgrow the name or the name no longer suits the purpose… Some of the best names are simple and staight to the point of what they are doing - myspace (welcome to my personal space) facebook (it's a virtual book of friend's faces and their interest and keeping in touch with them) twitter ( i twitt to you what i'm doing and to know i'm here, just like birds do), Social Journal (it's the diary of change and what your ideas are)…I'm more of a simple name person and the meaning of the name to me has to be the most important. Fit the endeavour to a name not a name to the endevour. Pick a name that will stand the test of time.”
Only last night and 200 names later, did we finally agree on SoJo (a nickname given to the project by Paul before anyone told us to change our name).
SoJo is short, catchy, easy to spell, has the potential to create an identity of its own, and still holds its roots of Social Journal. I think more than anything, I’m just excited to get the ball rolling on the design and branding front and get our name (whatever it may be) out there!!!
What do you think? Did your team struggle with picking a name?
How important do you feel it is for amazing ideas to be attached to an amazing name?
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