Meteor Monitor:
PlanBee -- the new name of ThoughtShare's first program
===========================================================================
It's official, and likeable. The name of ThoughtShare's first program, the
one that will be officially released October 9, is PlanBee. The file it
creates is called a BuzPak. And the overall umbrella name for
ThoughtShare's upcoming suite of server-based programs is the BZone,
pronounced 'bee-zone'.
The name of a product is a fundamental marketing tool; a name can make or
break a product, irrespective of the product's commercial appeal or
abilities, so ThoughtShare expended quite a bit of effort working on it.
Hanif Jan Mohamed, ThoughtShare's Director of Design -- and the man who
ultimately came up with the names -- says it wasn't an easy process, but
after months of wading through dozens of potential names, and analyzing the
pros and cons of each, you can hear in his voice he's pleased with the rich
commercial and descriptive potential of the bee concept.
But how did the company get from the long-term working name for the program
-- which was "Thoughtshare" for quite a while -- and for the files the
program creates -- which were called "ThoughtMaps" for a time. And, just as
important, why did it switch?
Jan Mohamed says "the name game" began last November, when ThoughtShare
management decided it was time to lock in a name for the fledgling program
which, up to that time, had evolved from the engineer's prosaic moniker of
"The Client" to "Thoughtshare", a nickname with decidedly more sex appeal
to it.
"We began by doing a formal analysis of the names ThoughtMap and
Thoughtshare, and we concluded they were excellent, that there was a strong
tie-in to the company, but there was one problem with them. Quite a few
people made the connection with George Orwell's book '1984' and his use of
the term 'thoughtspeak', which has quite a negative connotation, tying it
in to Big Brother and even big government. So even though it was a good
name, it had this darker side to it."
From a marketing point of view, whatever name was chosen, it would need to
have a lighter side to it and a positive aura surrounding it. Preferably,
it would also have a rich heritage so there could be cross-marketing with
the names of other products from ThoughtShare.
The company hired a branding consultant to work on names, and it also ran
an in-house contest among the staff and management of ThoughtShare and
Meteor to come up with names, and to vote on them. "That was a pretty good
list," he says. And finally, Jan Mohamed took the entire design team off
their work for a couple of days, sat them in a room, and brainstormed. "I'd
say that we worked through more than 200 names in the course of all this.
We tried out 'ThoughtStream' and 'T*Stream', but none of them had a lot of
strength."
He says that at one point, the design team was working on 'BeeLine' as a
potential name, because the program and its files help people get from
"Point A to Point B" on the Internet, and communicate it to others, without
fuss. "It's a good metaphor to work with, because the allusion to a bee is
strong and positive in the minds of most people. Its work ethic, and the
fact that it produces good stuff; that's part of it. There's also an
association with the way that bees go in lots of different directions,
gather information about food sources, bring that information back to the
hive and share it. Workplaces are often described as hives, and gathering
information and sharing knowledge are key components of the program as well
as the way people work."
Too bad that BeeLine was already taken as a trademark. "We were talking
about that," says Jan Mohamed, "when somebody said, 'We need to have a Plan
B.', and that's when 'PlanBee' came to me. What we're doing [with our
programs] is offering an alternative to Plan 'A', which is the status quo,
the way things are currently being done. PlanBee is a whole new way of
surfing the web."
And 'BuzPak'? "Well, we started off with 'IQPak', which was too heavy," he
says. "[The names] BuzPak and PlanBee work well together and the file name
extension of a BuzPak is '.buz'. There will be those kinds of connections."
Jan Mohamed says the trademark registration process to protect the names,
which usually takes more than half a year, is well underway in Canada and
the United States. The company can use the TM designation next to the names
until it's formally registered, which is when it can use the circle-R mark
instead.
The bee concept as a marketable name for the entire package of ThoughtShare
software is powerful, and all of the company's upcoming products, designed
primarily for use by organizations taking advantage of the BuzPak method of
dealing with information, will start with 'B'. But, says Jan Mohamed, "at
this point the 'B' takes on a new valence. It becomes the 'B' of business,
and business-to-business, and it distinguishes the server-side products
from PlanBee."
PlanBee, BuzPaks and BZone... Sweet!
---
Peter Morgan, Managing Editor, Meteor Monitor |
