RE: [atlarge-discuss] New name for Icannatlarge.com

[Joanna Lane <jo-uk@rcn.com>]

> I therefore favor more generic names along these lines (not
> saying they are specifically the right ones, but to give some
> idea of the direction I think we should take in the organisation's name):
> Democratic Control; Democratic Assembly; Democratic Internet;
> Internet Democracy Movement; or The Internet Parliament (which
> I've registered); or PeopleWorldWide (which Bill Lovell has registered)

Richard,
In another lifetime I registered "InternetStakeholders", the dot.com
version. This was used briefly as a website to support the work of the DNSO
GA-Review working group, then later the GA itself, but has not been used for
some time. Please add this to the list of candidates for consideration.

Having said that, I'm not keen on most of these names. While Internet
Stakeholders gets my Plain English Award, as does Internet Parliament - one
tells us who the organization represents, the other tells us what the
organization does - I'm a little concerned that "parliament" is too UK
orientated, rather than global in feel.  Also, with the greatest respect to
Bill Lovell (I am his biggest fan in other respects), People World Wide,
could be about feeding the hungry, or an Aids Foundation, so it doesn't have
any branding value and I don't like it for that reason, the same with world@
wide. And for exactly this reason, when outreach is one of the primary
goals, the word ICANN and At Large are also meaningless (although ICANN does
have brand value, but unfortunately negative).

The key to becoming a household name (which is part of the mission I
suggest), is to either a) chose something that tells people a little about
the organization, (and in this way avoid a squillion dollars advertising
budget for the name to be recognized), or b) chose something meaningless
that is so memorable, nobody ever forgets it.


Think totally off the wall - there are so many Internet Democracy project
names out there, I question why would this one would stand out. If it is
only a different combination of all the obvious boring words, like internet
and democracy, it's going to get lost. Perhaps these other names have value
as traffic catchers and mirror sites, but not the name of the actual
organization.

What we really need is a contemporary, vibrant, alive, and definitely in the
21st century word or phrase, not staid and boring. Names like Google,
Dotster and The Wiz, which don't explain anything, but are very memorable,
work well as brand names, but need significant exposure to become
recognizable.

Another way to go would be for a catch phrase that explains something of the
function. A good example would be LastMinute.com (holidays and flights),
Greenpeace (Environmental issues) and so on. In this last category, we could
consider things along the lines of Consensus Finders, Onliners, The Public
Internet, I haven't checked any of these, just brainstorming.... but let's
get a list of 100 names/ phrases going, 10 from each of the panel members
and anybody else who wants, then narrow down to 10....out of this will also
come a catch phrase. Much as I have always liked, "If you use the internet
you should have a say in how it is run".

My 2 cents.

Regards,
Joanna


> All of which leads back to this:
>
> The urgency of developing our discussion on our Mission
> Statement. I would favour a mailing to all members, inviting
> their contribution on this (rather than just leaving this to a
> minority who may follow the forum). At the same time, I'd like a
> section of the forum set up this weekend for discussion of the
> Mission; and a separate section or thread set up this weekend for
> discussion of an appropriate name.
>
> I take the view that we cannot take 3 weeks discussing "Mission"
> then 3 weeks discussing "Name" then 6 weeks discussing various
> "Bylaws" then 3 weeks discussing "Election Structure" then 3
> weeks inviting "Nominations" then 3 weeks for "Statements and
> Questions" then a week for the "Election".
>
> We need to set up forum subsections and threads, and we need to
> set all these things rolling this weekend in my opinion. Last
> weekend I defined quite a large number of sub-sections for bylaw
> construction, each of which I think needs its own thread or
> section set up at once.
>
> Another week has passed.
>
> I take the view that the mandate of the Interim Panel expires
> after 12 weeks and that if possible we should press forward more urgently.
>
> Richard
>


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