Coworking space name

[Kevin Haggerty]

We are still searching for a name for our coworking space in Gloucester, VA, and I had an idea I wanted to run by this group for feedback.

I'm thinking either "Pulse" or "The Pulse." I did a quick Google search and didn't see any other cowork spaces with this name (are there any?), and I like the idea of our space representing the heartbeat of the community. We're on our community's main street, so we're basically in the heart of Gloucester.

What do you guys think?

[Alex Hillman]

Have y'all talked about including/riffing on "Main St"? That's a zillion times more descriptive than something abstract :)

-Alex

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[Kevin Haggerty]

You mean including Main Street in the title and playing off that? Definitely considered that. But nothing creative yet. Also, I'm probably getting way ahead of myself (I do that), but I'm already thinking about a couple other locations, and my thought was to use a name that wasn't Main Street specific for that reason. :)

[Alex Hillman]

You said your community is around the Main St area, right? That's what matters - stop trying to name the place before the place even exists. That's the clue that you're getting ahead of yourself.

I know that branding and making is fun but it's the kind of work that feels like work but isn't really work and distracts you from doing the REAL work.

Which is just getting people together. Everything else is noise.

-Alex

On Apr 8, 2017, 9:50 AM -0400, Kevin Haggerty <kevinrh...@gmail.com>, wrote:

You mean including Main Street in the title and playing off that? Definitely considered that. But nothing creative yet. Also, I'm probably getting way ahead of myself (I do that), but I'm already thinking about a couple other locations, and my thought was to use a name that wasn't Main Street specific for that reason. :)

[Caner Onoglu]

Well said Alex. But remember also the famous latin phrase "omen est nomen" which translates "name is destiny" It may be an important motivational factor for founder.

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[Alex Hillman]

If you believe you're not in control of your destiny, or that a predetermined name is needed to be motivated through the hard parts of building a coworking community, I have some bad news for you... ;)

Alex

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[Caner Onoglu]

A name search for a coworking is more than a name search which will look good on marketing materials. It is a symbol of the owners strategy. Do they want to be more business oriented or adventure, fun? Do they want to have a "laissez faire, laissez passe" attitude or give importance to rules and structures. Name will not only give a message to community but also to the founders. Name will summarize who they want to be and lead their way.

It is not a magic key to solve all the problems for sure, but an important element of starting a company. Imagine "google" named itself as something like "Business Search and Resarch Systems" I doubt they would be who they are now. 

[Alex Hillman]

Meanwhile, Yahoo has a playful name and has been slowly collapsing for over a decade and destroying everything it touches and acquires ;)

You can assign as much meaning as you want to a name, and justify how it makes YOU feel all day long. But it's not about you. That's both a business fundamental, and a coworking fundamental. Your community and *their* identity and values matter more than anything else. You can lead by example, but that's very different from choosing a name. A brand becomes associated with the actions of the people who associate with it, not the other way around.

Outside of actively BAD naming (like, offensive and alienating terms or language), history does a pretty good job of showing how little naming actually has to do with success. In fact, I have another business with a decidedly terrible and confusing name, and we do extremely well in spite of the name. The key is that people associate the name with the results we create, not the other way around.

Again, I'm not saying that branding isn't important. I'm just reiterating that in spite of popular narrative, it isn't step 1 or even step 2, 3, 4, or 5.

-Alex

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[Alex Hillman]

Also, Google's original name was "backrub" and the name Google was the result of blurting out a weird word to describe a ton of data and a typo made by one of the founders' officemates.

https://graphics.stanford.edu/~dk/google_name_origin.html

Like I said. Assign all the meaning you want. ;)

-Alex

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[Kevin Haggerty]

Alex,

Thanks for your input. I value it as always.

I may have been unclear. We actually already have a building. I've been blessed with a unique opportunity, in that some friends of mine recently bought a building on Main St, and they are letting us set up shop on the first floor.

I've been working vigorously on creating community, mainly online, and I've had many express interest. I'm close to having ten people who have said they are on board and will sign up as soon as we launch. Obviously we cannot count those chickens until they sign contracts, but I feel like it's a big positive.

We have a Facebook page where there's been a lot of going back and forth, and I've been speaking directly to the people I view as my core on a regular basis. I've met with a couple and have more physical meetings scheduled for next week.

The plan is to get the space a little more ready to be seen (Paint, other minor renovations), and then in a week or two, we will have an interest meeting at the location and invite the entire community to visit, see/hear what we're about, and to be able to buy in.

I'm not in any way in favor of forgoing the creation and cultivating of the community and core members. In fact, I've been working very hard on that.

Coming up with a name is, in my opinion, now not a luxury. It will actually be very necessary soon, as we have our location and may be launching in a month or two.

Again, I appreciate all your input, and I'm listening, I promise. :)

[Caner Onoglu]

Yahoo distributed billions of dollars as profits to its owners and investors and put their names in history of internet. Now they are badly failing but that doesn't make them a failure in general. 

Anyways, my point is if the founders give importance to the name and cannot select one  I would take it seriously if I am advicing them. That may be an indication of deeper problem among partners. Discussing on the name may surface these and help decide what their core values are. 

I understand you want to emphasize the importance of community building and in comparision to that name, location, capital are secondary..Well that is true in a sense but people are different and their road to success may be different than yours. 

[Alex Hillman]

Awesome :)

Then pick a name and run with it. If your crew likes it, that matters a lot more than if the strangers on this list think it's a good idea!

AND it's a lot less permanent than it probably feels ;)

-Alex

[Kevin Haggerty]

Good point. :)

In addition to my last post, I should add that I've spent a ton of time I've the past couple of weeks networking and making friends with County officials and key individuals in the county who have major sway (influential business owners, leaders in local business organizations, etc), and I've found it to be hugely effective in carrying the momentum. They've all joined in by sharing our posts on Facebook and encouraging their friends to check us out. The entire county is interested, and we've been getting a lot of traffic.

I just don't want you (Alex) to think I'm not paying attention to your advice about building community. I have a ton of respect for you, and I pay close attention to everything you say!

Thanks for caring! :)

[Fiona Frank]

hi all: 

what you need to do is be clear and clever with this and don't end up like us....

ok the building is called Halton Mill (we called it Halton Mill; it's a former engineering factory in a village called Halton.Clear enough). 

the non profit cooperative that runs Halton Mill is called Green Elephant Coop (because we're supergreen - 100 per cent renewable energy from a hydro electric plant on the river 5 minutes from us, etc etc)..and because the engineering factory once made mechanical elephants for British seasides!

the coworking space within Halton Mill (where we also have workshops, studios and private offices as well as event space) is called The Hive. 

Hmmm. 

It sort of all works, everyone here knows what's what, 'the hive at halton mill' etc. but it's probably not totally clear for other people. 

Also we are owned by Lancaster Cohousing at Forgebank, the ecocommunity based next door (where I live) and lots of people think the Mill IS the cohousing project, which it isn't...

i'm not sure what the moral is or if we'd change anything if we did it again!

[steve suard]

Anything you want, mus be easy to remember and might have coworking in the name for ease search on the web. Branding is the hardest part when launching a business the more the brand is not descriptive like fiverr yahoo google airbnb uber... the more you will have to promote with huge marketing budget the more descriptive brand is the more easy is to promote like geolocationcoworking.... because half promotion is already done in the description.

If I have to chose a coworking name I will pick "mylocation"+"coworking" ex: anaheim coworking rather than "Galoster"..

Now thats my opinion

so you can chose The pulse and add coworking too.

I know pulse name for "night clubs" and fitness club" not really things in the work stuff but your idea is king so you decide to name what you want.

[Caner Onoglu]

Good points. I am also very fond of adding city name + coworking if it is available.

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[Jeannine van der Linden]

I think that a name does not make or break you but havign a reason for a name does help in clarity in future.

My busness is called "de Kamer"  which means "the room" in Dutch.  It is used in Dutch for many things, which gave me many punning opportunities. It is used for the houses of parliament (the "first kamer" is cognate of the US Senate and the "tweede kamer" is of the House of Representatives.  If you rent a place or go away to school you live "op kamers".  And there are some other puns which require too much explanation.

Each location is named Kamer+the street number.  So in Oosterhout Kamer52 is located on the street called Zandheuvel, at number 52. (Actually 52B but details). In Den Bosch it is on the Zilverenberg number 36 and is called Kamer36.  And so on.

This means people always know where we are if they are local and can remember the street name.  It actually worked because one of our more popular searches if you dig into this stuff turns out to be "city+Kamer" or "Kamer in >City name<".  Also for cities we are not in; it is nice to know people are ambitious for me lol.

If you are looking at many spaces in future, it is well to think about this beforehand, having some logic to the name does help in keeping things clear.

Though we wrestled for a ridiculous amount of time over whether it should be "de Kamer" or "de Kamers".  we settled on the former becauwse coworkers identify with one, which is theirs. The do not identify with the whole network. Even the ones who use it a lot.

[Caner Onoglu]

Thank you Jeannie. Your message inspired me to name my coworking with street name+Coworking, i.e. Freedom Coworking (in local language).Coincedentally Freedom name also summarize what I want to achieve with coworking: Freedom from renting offices, fixed costs, hiring..freedom for innovation.. 

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