And here’s a new twist. The Name Inspector feels bad about excluding people who don’t live in the Seattle area, so if you want a long-distance consultation, we might be able to arrange one using the magic of telephony and PayPal. If you’re in Seattle, though, it works best and is more fun to meet face-to-face.

So what are you waiting for? The Name Inspector is getting in touch with his inner car salesperson. These prices are CRAZY!!

It’s come to The Name Inspector’s attention that lots of people would like a bit of his advice right now, but don’t want to pay a full consulting fee. At the same time, The Name Inspector would like to meet more of his readers and make some new connections. So he’s decided to have “office hours” at his favorite cafe, Victrola (on 15th). $20 for half an hour of conversation about your branding problem.

Be aware that brainstorming is not the best way to make use of this time. Thirty minutes is much too short for that. This would be a conversation about naming or verbal branding strategy, a particular name you’re considering, the right way to phrase a particular idea, or some topic like that.

Here’s how it works: you email The Name Inspector to set up a time, then show up at Victrola with a twenty and a question, and find the guy with the Name Inspector sticker on his laptop. Simple and painless, right? But hurry–this offer is a big bargain and a bit of a social experiment, and might end at any time.

What can you do at Bizjam? You can learn about how to use social media to help your business, brush up on basic business stuff, and network ’til you getwork. There’s also a party on Thursday night. Last year’s party featured, among other things, good food in really interesting non-food-like shapes.

So, who’ll be the lucky stiff? Whoever presents the most convincing case that they’d benefit from the conference but find the cost a bit prohibitive. If you’re interested in going, email The Name Inspector and lay out your case. If multiple cases have equal merit, people who’ve left comments on this blog will have the advantage, and earlier entries will trump later ones.

Tags: bizjam, bizjam08, biznik, networking, seattle

First, let’s consider some numbers from David Sifry’s “State of the Live Web” report from April 2007. Technorati is currently tracking more than 70 million blogs, and about 120,000 new ones were created every day during the first quarter of 2007. That means it’s really hard to come up with a blog title (and a blog) that stands out.

Vanessa has found an interesting solution to that problem. She has a blog called Vanessa Fox. Nude. which is found at www.vanessafoxnude.com. It does not feature nude photos. It does, however, draw traffic and attention. Vanessa says she doesn’t carry business cards to events like Gnomedex. “I just tell them the name of my site,” she says, “and it’s pretty memorable.” This is a kind of blog naming greatness.

But this greatness was thrust upon Vanessa. She wasn’t the first person to think of attracting web attention by linking her name to the word nude. Someone else thought it would be funny and made a site. But Vanessa says she decided, “If anyone should rank #1 for ‘vanessa fox nude’, it should be me”. So she bought the domain and blogs under it.

Like it or not, this is the world of personal branding on the web.

Tags: gnomedex, gnomedex7, gnomedex7.0, gnomedex2007, vanessa fox, vanessa fox nude, personal branding

Next week The Name Inspector will be attending Gnomedex, a technology conference/unconference that happens in Seattle. (If you’re also going to be there, come find The Name Inspector and say hi.) That makes this a great time to write about the name Gnomedex.

To understand this name, you first need to know (if you don’t already) that the conference is run by Lockergnome, the brand under which net entrepreneur Chris Pirillo and his associates do all their stuff. That’s where the Gnome- part comes from. The -dex part, of course, is a reference to COMDEX, a big computer trade show that took place every year between 1979 and 2003. COMDEX got too big and then hurt feelings in the media world in 1999 when it made its press admission criteria overly exclusive, and has never recovered from the resulting backlash. It’s currently in a state of limbo.

COMDEX stands for Computer Dealers’ Exposition. That makes it a hybrid letter/syllable acronym:

COM (syllable) + D (letter) + EX (syllable)

The name Gnomedex can be thought of as a blend of Lockergnome + COMDEX. Because Gnomedex does not, unfortunately, mean ‘Gnome Dealers’ Exposition’, the ending -dex in this name has lost its acronymical (yes, that’s a completely made-up word) function and is only used to set up an analogy to COMDEX.

Gnomedex makes that allusion both to show that it’s the name of a conference and to distinguish that conference from the fallen trade show. Gnomedex is what COMDEX was not: small, a bit loosely organized, and focused on attendees and not at all on vendors. It’s a bold and interesting naming strategy, evoking something negative in order to distinguish yourself from it. We also see this strategy in the name YouTube, which plays on the derogatory term boob tube to distinguish itself from ordinary TV. The strategy might be summed up as, “This is in the same category as X, but it’s in a class by itself”. And Gnomedex is indeed–it’s a strong brand in the technology world. Lots of people, The Name Inspector included, think of it as one of the most interesting tech conferences around.

Gnomedex is a funny name. There’s something absurd about the word gnome, and using it to replace the first syllable of a stuffy, corporate-sounding acronym really makes Gnomedex work. Gnome makes you think of garden gnomes. And the Underpants Gnomes of South Park. They have a three-point business plan that may seem eerily familiar to you VCs and angels out there, and cut a little close to the bone for you web entrepreneurs:

1. Collect Underpants.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Chris probably had a more thunk-out business plan when he started Lockergnome.

The Gnome-substitution works well phonetically. Gnome is just similar enough to Com- to make Gnomedex sound natural, but just different enough to make Gnomedex subtler than a pun.

So where does the name Lockergnome come from? It’s a slight tweak of The Locker Gnome, a nickname that Chris gave himself in high school that relates to one of his physical characteristics. Let’s just say that what Chris more than makes up for in professional stature, he lacks in physical stature. As he says in his history of Lockergnome, people, including his own writing teacher, used to call him “shorty names” such as gnome. One day when Chris was standing by his locker, The Locker Gnome just came to him. Chris insists that he was never actually stuffed into a locker.

[where: 98121]

Tags: gnomedex, gnomedex7, gnomedex2007, lockergnome, chris pirillo, seattle, gnomes, underpants gnomes

While we’re on the subject of tooting one’s own horn, The Name Inspector would like to call everyone’s attention to an upcoming event that all independent (and independent-minded) businesspeople of the Pacific Northwest should attend: BizJam. It’s happening on June 9, and it’s organized by the good folks at Biznik, so it’s bound to be truly fun, interesting, and useful. The Name Inspector will be be speaking about “How to choose the perfect name for your business”. Head Bizniks Dan McComb and Lara Eve Feltin have done an impressive job of fostering an independent business community in Seattle and initiating and promoting great events. If you miss this one you’ll hear about it later and be sorry.

Tags: biznik, bizjam, seattlebizjam, consulting, name consulting, naming consulting, name consultant, naming consultant

Tags: ignite, igniteseattle, ignite seattle, paper airplanes, lightning talks, 5-minute talks

Ignite is one of the best tech/science/geek events in town, and it’s absolutely free. It’s organized by Brady Forrest of O’Reilly Radar and Bre Pettis of Make, and sponsored by some generous local (and non-local) companies. The first Ignite was held downstairs at CHAC and was packed, so they had the second one in a larger upstairs room. That was packed, too. The third one is bound to be the biggest yet, so get there early if you want to sit down. If you didn’t make either previous Ignite event, there are pictures and videos available.

Tags: ignite, ignite seattle, igniteseattle