Participants in my product development seminar recently asked me for a brainstorming session to help them come up with creative names for information product packages – multi-format products and services that might include a manual, CDs, coaching or consulting and other items. Here are the questions I posed for this group, along with some examples [...]

While visiting the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts two weeks ago, made famous in the 1851 book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I mentally tried out other numbers to see if they would sound as spooky and portentous. To my ear, House of the Five Gables sounds all too ordinary, while House of the [...]

Take it from someone who often has to rescue someone from mispronunciation or suffer silently when someone reads my last name out loud for the first time: There is huge value in having a name that people can look at and have no doubt about how to pronounce. That’s why I shook my head sadly [...]

Two headlines in the “Home” section of my local newspaper caught my eye the other day: “Natural floors can be knotty and nice” and “Serving cheese with ease.” Both headlines involve enjoyable wordplay of the sort that could easily figure in business names or tag lines. I can imagine “KnottyandNice.com” as the domain name for [...]