Some of our favorite blogs:

The Language Guy: “Commentary on how language is used and abused in advertising, politics, the law, and other areas of public life. You can think of this blog as a linguistic self-defense course in which we prepare ourselves to do battle with the forces of linguistic evil.”

Language Hat: Serious language mavens only.

Martha Barnette’s . . . Orts: “Orts, scraps, and fragments from my days spent dictionary-diving and co-hosting the language-loving public radio show, A Way with Words.“

Strange New Products: The name says it all.

Patently Silly: The name says it all and more. Here you’ll find some of the silliest patents for products ever filed.

[ More posts about new products | More blogs about new products ]

Can a thought process be owned? Can you develop a way of thinking and legally exclude others from having similar thoughts? Is there such a thing as a “proprietary way of thinking” ? Of course not. Unless….if you are actually crazy enough to believe that your thought process is proprietary, then perhaps it is proprietary. You would probably be the only one thinking such thoughts. From the Ogilvy website:

We believe our job is to help clients build enduring brands that live as part of consumers’ lives and command their loyalty and confidence. How we go about doing this is through a proprietary way of thinking and working that we call 360 Degree Brand Stewardship ®.

“A proprietary way of thinking”, not sure if that is humor or hubris. And wouldn’t you have to know what and how everyone else was thinking before making such a statement?

Is the name “360 Degree Brand Stewardship” a product of the proprietary thought process? Is it demonstrative of it? If so, they are in little danger of anyone stealing their thoughts. Except maybe Anderson Cooper.

Via J-Walk

[ More posts about product names | More blogs about product names ]

Seth Godin’s ideas are usually wrong, obvious, vague or in-actionable. This time they are all four. Hey Seth, nobody named “podcasting”, “sneakers” or “email” as part of any commercial or awareness initiative. They were all named by “the people”. As case studies to support your conclusion, “But in general, if you need people to think differently, it helps to be brave when you name something new.”, none of the names you cite are relevant.

[ More posts about naming products | More posts about naming companies ]