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What’s My Name?
By Kristabella | March 28, 2007
First off, for all you concerned readers, I got my replacement cell phone in the mail today. 36 hours without a phone kinda sucks. Especially when Sanjaya has a mohawk on American Idol and you have NO ONE to text! (That was the second time this season where I had my head down when he started singing and when I finally looked at the screen I almost spit my water wine out.)
Second, I’m sick. And I’ve been going to work every day this week. And I probably shouldn’t because a day of sleeping in and doing nothing would probably get me over this stupid virus. Or at least not infect every passenger on my train with SARS.
Anyway. The real point of this post. So my company is changing their name. We’re having a HUGE party on Saturday night to announce the new brand. It’s a big secret. They don’t want anyone to know. They really want this party to be the big unveiling. Seattle, San Francisco and Portland are having their party on Friday night. We have ours with the Denver and Atlanta offices on Saturday. A LOT of work is going into this party.
A little bit of info, our company has a consulting side and a financial staffing side (like accountants, CPAs, etc.) So they want to re-brand to get us separate, once and for all, from the financial side. As is with most things the company does, it works for Seattle. They are established. People actually confuse the two. For the rest of us, we don’t have that problem. I’ll even take it a step further and say that it really doesn’t work for Chicago because we’ve already semi-established our consulting brand here. Now we’re going to be the consultants formerly known as Prince for months and months. (The other markets are super new, so they aren’t even known, consulting or otherwise yet. So no effect there either.)
Our CEO is really trying to hype this re-branding effort. He wants it to be secret so that everyone finds out all at once. He wants the surprise. And he’s spending a LOT of money on this whole thing. Let me give you a little rundown:
- First, we launched a new site that got us interested in guessing the new name. It has a new video every day with supposed clues. In one video you have to play rock, paper, scissors with some dude to try and get entered into a drawing for some cash.
- Also on this site, are hidden messages. Like when you click the banner, things pop up. Like a video from Denver at Coors Field. Or some weird voice mail from some dude I don’t know and a photo of The Lusty Lady (Rich’s favorite Seattle hang out.) And then there is a spreadsheet with “sample” names.
- And the CEO is tracking who logs on to this site. And if you haven’t logged in, he’s personally calling you to ask why.
- Last Friday in the mail I received a letter from Iceland. From a company called Global Consulting. From a dude named Snorri, who was the head of Global. Telling me about how I should work there. Because they make you work 80-hour weeks for no money and travel a lot and you can be easily replaced. (Hmmm, sounds a lot like the 49ers.) It wasn’t until the end of the letter when it talked about the re-branding party that I knew it was fake. I swear I sat here yelling “who the fuck are these people and how did they get my name and address? I’m not even a consultant???”
- On Monday, we got an email from Jess Fulon, which told us our new name was SuperConnect. And Jess knew from his cousin Paul Inyerleg, who ran some sort of IP search. Just Foolin’ and Pullin Your Leg.
- Yesterday, the CEO sent out an email with the press release announcing the name as SuperConnect and that this press release was going to hit the wires on Sunday. (The big glaring thing about this was that they already told us the party was a “soft” launch and they weren’t announcing it to the media until the end of April.)
- And then about 10 minutes later the CEO recalled the email. Well after most everyone had read it. Seriously? How dumb does he think we are?
So I’m fine with just finding out on Saturday. From everything I’ve heard, no one really likes it. (Although two people in the office that are planning the party know it and they say it has grown on them. But they won’t tell us.) I was fine waiting for the “clues” on the videos on the site. Some of them were entertaining. But other than that, not that into it.
But, the one girl in my office has been really into it. It KILLS her that she doesn’t know. Especially since other people know. It’s eating her up inside. So we’ve spent hours (seriously. Hours.) trying to figure the damn thing out. Supposedly it starts with S. It’s a real word. And it has two syllables. Today in our morning meeting, another person mentioned that there was a patent or copyright applied for by my company for the name Slalom. Slalom, seriously?
So we’re convinced that is it. Except it doesn’t really fit with any of the messages we want to send with the new brand. We even threw the name around in the office today to see if we could get a reaction out of the two that know. I swore I saw a little look of fear in the one person’s eyes when we said it. Like an “aw, shit!” kind of look. But they are adamant that we are wrong. And they’ve “said” they’ll tell us if we’re right.
(Please don’t let it be Slalom. Please.)
And then today all the ex-Accenture folks were reliving their name change back in the day from Anderson to Accenture. And they had the same bag of tricks. Trying to lead you in one direction to totally throw you off the scent of the real name. And now we’re all “have we just been completely sent on a wild goose chase?”
And then I get mad for even playing into it. And even being sucked in to whatever they want to me believe. I could have been blogging! Or something equally as useful! Just tell me the damn name already. And also? There has GOT to be something better you could be doing with your time, people.
I must go now. Before I cough up a lung.
Topics: General |
September 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am
SLALOM IS STILL A STUPID NAME!
September 13th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Reading this made me SO glad I’m no longer part of the corporate world, because that’s all kinds of crazy. And your CEO? Scares me.
Also: Slalom? SLALOM?