Samsung: From three stars to a galaxy

THE founders of South Korea’s chaebol (conglomerates) were an ambitious bunch.

Look at the names they picked for their enterprises: Daewoo (“Great Universe”), Hyundai (“The Modern Era”) and Samsung (“Three Stars”, implying a business that would be huge and eternal).

Three stars are featured in Samsung's original logo (left)

Huge Samsung certainly is. The company that began as a small noodle business in 1938 has swelled into a network of 83 companies that account for a staggering 13% of South Korea’s exports. It is rapidly becoming emerging Asia’s version of General Electric, the American conglomerate so beloved of management gurus.

See article: The Economist

Naming Nicole

Why has naming a child become so difficult for parents?

A whole industry has been built on the indecision of adults who seem to find the task of naming baby so completely beyond them. Sociologists and name researchers say they are seeing unprecedented levels of angst among parents trying to choose names for their children.

This week came the news of a husband and wife who have turned to Facebook to help choose a name for their unborn daughter.

Lindsey Meske of Crystal Lake, Illinois likes McKenna. Her husband Dave prefers Madelyn.

To break the deadlock they have set up a poll to let the public vote. Namemychild.info will take you to the Facebook page to choose from a shortlist of names – McKenna, Madelyn, Emily and Addilyne.

The Meskes are not alone in their torment. Some parents are checking Social Security data to make sure their choices aren’t too trendy, while others are fussing over every consonant like corporate branding experts. They’re also pulling ideas from books, Web sites and software programs, and in some cases, hiring professional baby-name consultants.

One site, BabyNames.com, says it draws about 1.2 million unique visitors a month, a 50% increase in five years — and 3,000 people have used its customized naming service, which provides 12 names for $35.

Celebrities are helping to drive up the pressure.

“Children have always been objects of enhancement, but with celebrities and names now, there is a total objectification,” says Dr. Michael Brody, a chair at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. “People see celebrities having or adopting more and more children, and giving them names that attract even more attention to them, and there is the sense that they should do the same for their own kids.”

Dr. Brody must have had celebrity baby names in mind like Banjo, Pilot Inspektor, Moxie CrimeFighter, Audio Science and Prince Michael II.

“We live in a marketing-oriented society,” counters Bruce Lansky, a former advertising executive and author of eight books on baby names, including “100,000 + Baby Names.” “People who understand branding know that when you pick the right name, you’re giving your child a head start.”

Has naming a child really come down to a marketing and branding exercise?

In all these deliberations there is one thing that tends to be overlooked: there’s another person involved.

Before our daughter was born in 1998 we had hopes and dreams and guesses at what she might be like, and in the end we called our bundle of abstractions Nicole. Why? It was the one name on which my wife and I could agree wholeheartedly. Now, at the age thirteen, Nicole has given her name a rich, complex and beautiful meaning simply by wearing it.

And that’ s the truth of the matter with all names. Regardless of any inherent meaning in a name, the Theory of Reverse Association will always apply: the bearer of the name will determine its ultimate meaning. Just like Elvis, Adolf, Enron, Google, Barack…and Nicole.

A final thought for the Meskes: If, at the end of your elaborate exercise you still can’t make up your minds, you could follow the example of the Egyptian man who named his first born daughter in tribute to the role an online service played in the Egyptian revolution earlier this year.

Her name is Facebook.

Further reading:

Is your name your destiny?

Facebook, the father (and child) of a revolution

What color is a banana?

Pantone 12-0752, precisely

You may think a banana is just a banana. Dole, the food company, would disagree with you.

They have rendered the creation of a banana into a quasi-science. Sales records show that bananas with a certain color (Pantone 13-0752, also known as Vibrant Yellow) are less likely to sell than bananas one shade warmer – Pantone 12-0752. Also known as Buttercup, the color seems to imply a riper, fresher fruit.

So Dole and other food companies plant bananas under conditions most likely to produce the most desirable color.

It ain’t fresh if it don’t look fresh.

Extracted from Selling Illusions Of Cleanliness (wsj online)

The Beach Boys, a name as comfortable as an old shirt

As a lad growing up in the northwest of England in the early 1960s The Beatles were big local heroes but they held no attraction for me.

It was the California sound of the Beach Boys that caught my ear and my imagination.

Why they first went by the unlikely name of The Pendletones is a question I have idly speculated on over the last 50 years. The answer, I recently discovered, has been hanging in my closet.

One of my first purchases when I moved to California in 1992 was an Indian Trading Blanket made by Pendleton, an Oregon-based weaving company. While I was about at it I also bought myself a heavy wool shirt-jacket, ideal for the San Francisco summers.

Ladies and gentlemen...The Pendletones

A few weeks back I decided it was time for a new one and went online at Pendleton.com.  There it was: the Board Shirt – a style made famous by the Beach Boys in the 1960s. Pendleton/Pendletones?

A quick search on Wikipedia revealed the name was band-member Mike Love’s suggestion. In their earliest performances, the band wore plaid ‘Pendletons’, the heavy wool jacket-like shirts favored by surfers in the South Bay at the time.

God only knows how glad I am they changed their name. A band named after a shirt would have passed me by without notice and I might be in Stockport still.

Related articles

• Today in History: The Pendletones, Who Would Go on to Become the Beach Boys, Attend Their First Real Recording Session (wcbsfm.radio.com)
• The Beach Boys: Surfin’ USA For 50 Years (wdok.radio.com)
• Beach Boys to Release SMiLE in November (silentuproar.com)
• The Beach Boys: Surfin’ USA For 50 Years (wncx.radio.com)

How the hottest startups got their names

Apologies for the hype. Most of these are neither startups nor hot in technology terms. Interesting article nonetheless.

Click on any image.

August, time for a rebrand

What has happened to August?

The 31 days of August used to be the dog days of summer. They stretched before us until we slid into September and the world awoke from its torpor.

Nothing ever happened in August. It was known as ‘the silly season’ in newspaper parlance for good reason. The silliest of stories found their way into print through lack of anything better.

This last August was different.

It was a wicked month, one full of mean angst. It started with the debt ceiling debacle, and was followed by the US credit rating downgrade, the Eurozone panic, riot-torn British cities aflame, Gaddafi finally losing his grip on Libya after 42 years, Steve Jobs stepping down from the helm of Apple and Hurricane Irene fizzling up the eastern seaboard causing flood havoc in her wake. It was all aided and abetted by panic-stricken news coverage of the most perniciously tabloid kind.

Thank the gods September is here.

And in thanking the gods, how is it that in this third millennium we continue to celebrate pagan gods and Roman emperors in the names of our days and months?

There are days named after the Sun, Moon, Thor and  Saturn. Janus, Roman god of doors and beginnings, opens the year in January. March is named after the Roman god Mars; Juno, chief Roman goddess, gave her name to June. And then there’s those alpha months, July and August.

Augustus: Et ego, Julius

At least Julius did something to earn his namesake month. To this day we have Julius Caesar to thank for reforming what was a chaotic calendar in his time.  Bad calculations had caused the months to drift wildly across the seasons. January, for example, had begun to fall in the autumn. History records the Roman Senate was so grateful to Caesar for reforming the calendar that they renamed what was then the fifth month – Quintilis – in his honor. Thus, Quintilis became July after Julius.

The Julian calendar became the predominant calendar throughout Europe for the next 1600 years until Pope Gregory made further reforms in 1582.

Of course, having set a precedent, others Emperors were bound to follow. After his defeat of Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Augustus became Emperor of Rome. With more than a little behind-the-scenes lobbying the Roman Senate ordained that Augustus, too, should have a month named after him.

The month following July was Sextillus (sextus=six). So Sextillus became the month of August.

There was a small glitch to rectify: since Julius’s month had 31 days and Sextillus had only 30 they took one from poor February and added it to August to even things up with July. February originally had 29 days (30 in a leap year), and was ever more reduced to a mere 28 days (29 in a leap year). After all, who cares about Februus, the Etruscan god of the underworld?

For a time, May was changed to Claudius and the infamous Nero instituted Neronius for April. They didn’t take. Only Julius and Augustus have had two millenia-worth of brand power.

But maybe it’s time for a rethink. Augustus has had his month, and it just isn’t delivering on its promise anymore. Sextillus isn’t such a bad name. In fact, it sounds very 21st century. Very Lippincott. And so heavy with heritage.

Here’s to a scintillating Sextillus in 2012.