[erlang-questions] Coon - new tool for building Erlang packages, dependency management and deploying Erlang services

Wed Feb 14 04:06:56 CET 2018

Naming and Branding are not complicated things. Oh, doing it *well* can
take any amount of time and effort, but the basics are very *very*
straightforward. Here are two excellent example
   -
https://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2017/10/26/before-naming-your-startup-read-this/
   - https://landor.com/thinking/how-not-to-name

It really is not terribly different from software development
1) Identify the requirements for the name
   - What kind of name is it? (made-up word? an experience? etc.)
   - What are you trying to accomplish with the name?
   - What is your target market?
   - What are your evaluation criteria?
   - etc.
2) Generate a bunch-a example names based on the above
3) Test these names thoroughly
   - Does it sound good? In the target markets?
   - Will it get misinterpreted?
   - Is it confusing?
   - etc.
4) Deploy to production
   - Update docs
   - Send out emails
   - etc.

In the world of Marketing, there is an entire sub-genre of Naming /
Branding.  It exists because, despite the fondest beliefs of the
tech-world, Excellence does *not* win out, if you build it they *don't*
come, and just making yourself heard in the din of the marketplace is
frightfully hard.

The tech world is particularly replete with the Dunning-Kruger effect - and
this is rarely more apparent than when we talk about Marketing & Sales
(admit it - as you read "Marketing & Sales", you mentally added a sarcastic
tone to it, didn't you?).
Sales is *hard*. Do *you* have the ego-less-ness to do cold-calling? The
stamina to repeat the same sales-pitch over and over and *OVER* again?
And Marketing, well, it's just about the same - those sales funnels don't
fill themselves.

Which brings me back to Naming/Branding - and the process that I described
above. Right up front, in the requirements for the name, you should be
making sure that it isn't offensive. (Or, maybe you're a white supremacist
group, and *want* to be offensive! Whatever). Thing is, these are
table-stakes in any brand-exercise - to the point where not doing this is
usually an actionable offense.
To Jesper's point - of course the meaning of the brand-name can change.
And it doesn't have to be around names like "Darkie Toothpaste" (yes, that
was a thing) - pity the manufacturer of "ISIS Chocolates", who were
overtaken by world events. Hence the existence of the field of Brand
Management, and nowadays Brand Safety.

Yes, this is all a bit more than "Pick a name, and run with it". But hey,
the world isn't what it used to be. 30 years ago, I could fix most anything
that 'sploded in my car with the tools I had in my garage - nowadays, not
so much.
Does this mean that we should al study up on marketing, or pay for brand
management, or whatever?  Not at all. It does, however, mean that we
should, at the very least, be aware that these things exist, and act
appropriately.

Last of all, regarding the "I shouldn't have to do this" argument - *of
course* you don't have to do this. It just depends on what you're trying to
get out of the marketplace - the sad truth is that the better mousetrap
doesn't always win out.  The problem is that
   - A poor name can nuke all the work that you've done, and all the
goodwill that you've built
   - At best you're going to have to spend time, energy, and money to
educate the market about your product's value. Headwinds do *not* help -
you'll be fighting in the market against al the competition that doesn't
have those headwinds, and, well, is your product *that much better* that
the headwinds don't matter?
   - You get but one chance to make a first impression, and the product's
name is, usually, that first impression.  Be aware of this in the markets
that you are targeting....

Cheers

-- 

*Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
<http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/204a87f81a0d9764c1f3364f53e8facf.png>That
tall bald Indian guy..*
*Twitter <https://twitter.com/dieswaytoofast> | Blog
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On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 9:19 PM, Jesper Louis Andersen <
jesper.louis.andersen@REDACTED> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 13, 2018 at 4:41 PM Fred Hebert <mononcqc@REDACTED> wrote:
>
>> It is very possible. This mailing list is full of folks boasting of
>> writing systems that run on hundreds or thousands of nodes and handle more
>> load than anything else out there with amazing uptime figures And somehow,
>> nobody can be assed to just look up words in a search engine or use the
>> link Mahesh posted that is meant just for that?
>>
>>
> This is good advice. I'll just add you need to keep redoing your search as
> the list of bad words tend to change over time. So a word which is perfect
> now can be "illegal" tomorrow. However, the risk of words changing behind
> your back is much smaller. It can be literal hell for a brand if it gets
> caught in such a fistfight.
>
>
>
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-- 

*Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya
<http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/204a87f81a0d9764c1f3364f53e8facf.png>That
tall bald Indian guy..*
*Twitter <https://twitter.com/dieswaytoofast> | Blog
<http://dieswaytoofast.blogspot.com/> | G+
<https://plus.google.com/u/0/108074935470209044442/posts> | LinkedIn
<http://www.linkedin.com/in/dieswaytoofast>*
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