What’s in a Name?

Posted May 26th, 2007 by Chris Gurney

Our company, formerly known as Sofea, just relaunched as Blueprint. (Our full legal name is “Blueprint Software Systems”, but we’re hoping that people will stick with the shorter version.)

I personally believe that this is a brilliant name, and couldn’t be happier. The credit fully lies with our VP of Marketing, Matt Morgan.

Choosing the right name for a company can be a challenge. I think we nailed this one, though, for a multitude of reasons.

1. The name perfectly describes what we bring to our users.

Simply put, our company provides the means of creating blueprints for software. Our name clearly communicates this.

In my experience I have observed that, in general, people tend to only use the company name when referring to the product itself. (Our product is now called “Requirements Center”.) Indeed, in our first official week as Blueprint, I witnessed this in action while on-site with a customer.

The great thing is that, in our case, this works: It doesn’t conflict with the purpose of the product.

Many of the new generation of so-called “Web 2.0″ companies have opted for silly, hard-to-spell names that barely, if at all, relate to the services that they provide. In addition, they’re harder to remember and more difficult to communicate to others.

Think about it: How many companies — let alone software companies — have simple names that directly relate to what they do?

2. The name can be used as a verb.

“Have you blueprinted your application yet?”

This point is huge. Sure, Google and Xerox became part of the everyday vernacular, but only after gaining wide-spread adoption. Right out of the gate, people can be “blueprinting”, and others immediately understand what they’re talking about.

Additionally, by having a name that can be part of an everyday conversation, regardless of whether or not one is referring directly to your company or product, your brand can grow by itself.

We were able to take advantage of this in the product, directly: Instead of saying that Requirements Center “Exports” to other applications, it now “Blueprints to” other applications. I think this is clever.

3. The name can be used as a noun.

Previously, using our application resulted in the creation of a “requirements model” (or more simply, a “model”). While this terminology may be generally accepted and understood by others in software development, our primary audience are the not-as-technical folk, who are used to using tools such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Now, our “requirements models” can be referred to as “blueprints”. Brilliant.

4. The name is memorable.

What do you think of when you hear the word “blueprint”? Probably the image to the right. Any blueprint is generally understood as being a plan that one puts together before building something. That makes our name easy to remember, as there’s an instant connection with the solution that we provide.

And again, relative to these awful Web 2.0 names, the name can be communicated to others without having to spell the darn thing out.

5. The name provides for tremendous marketing potential.

As a metaphor, we now get to take advantage of visual elements such as drawing instruments, and architecture drawings. In prose, we can use terms such as “compass” and “architecture”. In the end, I believe that our challenge will be to keep ourselves from over-doing it.

The name, and images it brings to mind also automatically implies our color palette… until we all get sick of blue and are forced to change our name again.

The only downside with our new name is that it isn’t unique to the software industry: “Blueprint” requires the addition of another keyword, such as “requirements”, in order to pinpoint our site in a search.

As an aside, we are also lucky enough to now have a logo that itself is bold (literally), distinctive, and fits perfectly with the new name. Some other benefits:

• The “i” can be used separately. The “compass” element, as I call it, might indicate direction. A blueprint, after all, provides guidance when building something.
• We have two different versions of the logo, depending on the context.
• More importantly, it stands out in a sea of other logos. By contrast, our old logo tended to fade away when it was up against the rest. Didn’t physically scale well, due to the amount of whitespace within the curvy “f”.

Congratulations to the team for making this happen. And thanks for teaching me just how much work is required in re-branding a company… and for making Trebuchet MS my new favorite font.

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