Monday, June 23, 2008

What's in a name: Allbase

Like every business, we at Allbase are always conscious of how our corporate identity is seen by both clients and team members.  Everything that our clients interact with (our staff, our partners, our marketing materials, our support documentation) reflects on us in one way or another.

One of the things that reflects most strongly on a company is its name.  Sure, that's obvious when you think about it, but nomenclature is something that is surprisingly subconscious to many (after grade school, at least).

The Old Name: Avalon
 
During the spring of last year, our company was on the verge of making some very exciting changes.  After years of preparation, we had the right product, the right staff, and the right buzz to ready our management suite product for public release.

Everything was great.  That is, except the name.  You see, the company now known as "Allbase" was originally founded in 2005 under the moniker "Avalon Business Systems".  The Avalon motiff dated back several years prior (as a codename for the original project) and the name had outlived anybody's expectations.
 
Avalon was a fine name.  It certainly wasn't bad.  It just wasn't a great fit for us, for several reasons:

• There were already countless companies, products, and expectations surrounding the name.  We were never going to break out and become the Avalon.  At best we would be one of the many Avalons.
• The name said nothing about who we were or what we did.  One of the original intentions was to evoke the imagery of King Arthur's legend.  According to the tale, Avalon was a mystical island known to embolden its visitors.  Unfortunately, this mythos is unknown to most people and it made us sound medieval instead of innovative.
• Following the first point, the name's popularity meant that all of the associated terms were taken.  No way could we get avalon.com or a good 800 number.  Worse yet, most associated terms were already copyrighted, which limited us further.

The New Name: Allbase

Mindful of our old name's downsides, we decided to forge a new identity in advance of the company's public launch.  At that point, we were still operating in stealth development and market testing mode, so there were few hurdles in switching gears.  For long-established companies, changing your name is a quagmire with too many downsides for all involved to be practical.  I'm glad we were able to change when we did; I only wish we could have done so even sooner.

As we started brainstorming new names, a few criteria seemed critical to everybody we spoke with:

• The name had to be short, so as to be memorable.  This was one of the toughest contraints - we wanted three syllables or less; ideally two.
• The name had to be completely available.  We needed a good .com domain, a good phone number, and the rights to applicable intellectual property (trademarks and copyrights).
• The name had to say something about what the company did.  We wanted a name that a newcomer would be able to infer the meaning of.
• The name had to be unique.  No generic terms or buzzwords.  When you searched for our name, it was important that you found us, not some Finnish metal band.
• The name had to lend itself to multiple marketing slogans and campaigns.  We needed a flexible name with multiple interpretations to achieve our desired effect.

The team and I bounced ideas over the course of three months, evaluating hundreds of options in the process.  There were some real gems and some real duds, but at some point "Allbase" made its way onto our whiteboard.  We're not even sure who submitted the name, but as we worked through the contenders, it emerged as the best of the best.

The name Allbase met every last goal we set out for a potential name, and then some.  It works on multiple levels, some of which we never even envisioned:

• A database for all; All things in one base
  
  The system truly acts as central repository for all things business.  The term "Allbase" is one of the most concise ways you could say it's the everything database.
   
• All of your bases covered
  
  Everybody knows the phrase "cover all of your bases" (which most likely emerged from baseball slang).  Regardless of the etymology, "covering all of your bases" is now synonymous with total control.
   
• All your base are belong to us
  
  Being a Web 2.0 company, we at Allbase are understandably geeky.  As such, it's our pleasure to pay tribute to one of the internet's greatest memes: "All your base are belong to us".  For anybody not familiar with the phenomenon, check out the Easter egg on our site.

Since we adopted the Allbase name, we've experienced improvements in public awareness and corporate unity.  For us, a high quality name was a crucial match to our high quality service.

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