Think… Flood?
What’s in a name?
Juliet may wish away the significance that we tie to names, but Shakespeare does not comply. By the end of the play, both she and her lover are dead – and looking back on this verse, we can only wonder if it is because they have the wrong surnames.
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Would it really? If we renamed them “skunk flowers” (though I think that one is already taken), would they be nearly as romantic? Would we perceive the smell as we do today? Marketers say no, software engineers say yes. I’ve worked as both, so I guess I’m just confused.
Here’s one for the software engineers out there to consider: through their seminal book Design Patterns, Gamma et al described a set of software patterns and subsequently triggered a mini-revolution in object oriented design. However, by their own admission many of these patterns were not new. What seems to matter most is that they introduced names for the patterns – giving us a common language for identifying and discussing different approaches to solving problems with software.
(BTW, the authors of Design Patterns have somehow earned the title of “Gang of Four.” But, being first a student of East Asian history and only later coming to software development, I have a hard time with this name. To me, the “Gang of Four” will always be the four communist party cadres blamed for the woes of China’s Cultural Revolution.)
Okay, so maybe names matter. Why, then, did we name our company after a natural disaster?
Actually, we have something else in mind. The concept we are driving for is more about the flood of memories we have when we see a picture, or the flood of thoughts that comes to us when we are exposed to a novel way of doing things. In our name, we want to capture that overwhelming moment of inspiration that rushes over us when we experience something new and exciting for the first time. We want to capture this moment, and infuse our products with it. In other words, our products are about enlivening and experiencing memories, and about a new, elegant way of doing so.
Of course it helps that the domain name was available. And that ThinkFlood is easy to pronounce, to spell and to type. (Which makes me wonder – why are so many company names so hard to figure out?)