Alrighty – A Name Has Been Chosen.
Ridiculously simple as it may sound to choose a new business name and web domain name – it wasn’t.
All of the super-coolest memorable names were gobbled up long ago by smart people with $10, porn producers, bands with no good songs yet, and software visionaries. Windows? Python? Apple? Oracle? Not exactly rocket science, but whoever gets there first, wins.
I started with a suggestion from Gif to call my innovation consulting biz The Oracle. His thinking on that was that I have a very high level of predicting the future and people come to me for advice having to do with things that have not happened yet – the exact job description of the Oracle of Delphi, who was relied upon to give advice and make decisions under the ancient Greek God Apollo.
Good idea but a name snarl. I tried. Then I went to The Pythia, which was her nickname. Thank you to everyone who tried hard to get me off of that direction – it took a couple of weeks but I did finally get it that it sounds like someone is lisping no matter what you do with Pyth. Thank you. Sorry for the delay on that one.
NEXT I went back to the Delphi idea which of course is totally taken, as is everything having to do with the Greek Alphabet or anything simple to say or spell that is related to the ancient world.
It was my Dad who finally cracked the code by suggesting I make up a word like Verizon. He does a kajillion crossword puzzles, so I enlisted him as a last resort.
He started with Del from Delphi and noodled around and came up with Delform. I countered with Delforma since Delform is too close to Deform. It doesn’t mean anything really, which is good. Easy to say and spell, so that’s good too. No major web hits. Still good. Del loosely means of or about in Italian. Forma means shape or form or mold or appearance. Still OK.
Then I called a close friend who is fluent in Italian and ran it by her to make sure it didn’t mean something awful. She is the one who told me that forma is feminine and it should be DellaForma.
So there you go. $10 later, I am now DellaForma and I own www.DellaForma.com
Blogging will happen!
Along the way, I ran into www.wordreference.com – an amazing site to play with words, definitions, word extensions, and more. In multiple languages. Really fun!
Now I am looking back through Christopher’s archives of the instructions from weeks ago on what to do next so that I can move through the time warp and get up to speed on my Beat.
I am snooping at others’ websites and blogs and asking people for blogs that they like the look and feel of.
Here are a few nicely organized EASY TO READ ones – what I want:
www.innovationinpractice.com (recommended by ChristopherA who had a lot to do with why it’s so clean)
http://www.robinavni.com/lifestyle-insights-blog/ (recommended by my colleague Celeste Tell, who is considering changing her actual name because of issues around Google porn-related hits!). This blog is done by a group of women and they have a STRICT 300 word posting limit. SMART. This post is 664 words. Too long. Noted.
http://www.livestrong.com/lance-armstrong/blog/ Lance’s most recent Tweets are all right there on the top right. Nice. The amount of traffic to various OTHER Tweets and blogs being driven by one word from Lance is staggering. Really amazing. I like the little Tools menu at the bottom.
http://www.ideo.com/ A little surprised to find this site LESS elegant looking than it used to be, but it’s still darn good looking and of course really interesting no matter how you slice it. Will keep an eye on it to see if it shifts again aesthetically.
What do you like the look and feel of blog-wise? What makes a “good blog”?
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Thanks for sharing your name-hunt story. I always appreciate the opportunity to understand the process someone took to create innovative solutions and ideas.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question: I think good blogs are really targeted in their focus.
Thanks for reading my post, Justin! I agree. I get tangled up in the blogs that are too wide or too varied in scope. Focus: good challenge for me, as you well know...
ReplyDeleteYou have a great blogging style, Carol. I've read a few of your posts and am always dragged into them. It's something I strive for, bringing my full self into blog writing, and it seems that you're quite successful at being your authentic self here.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your question: For me, I like blogs to be clean and concise but without taking the character from it. Blogs that have way too many things happening on the sides are distracting to me. Negative space is good. I also appreciate mixed media: a You Tube clip or a music link thrown in here or there.