How to Name an Innovation (the movie)

Design legend, Don Norman, honored me with an invitation to speak at UC San Diego Design Lab about naming innovations. My talk specifically focused on innovative product descriptors, the part of a name that establishes what the product’s category is, such as “smartphone” or “universal remote”.

Why is a product descriptor important? If you're inventing a “World’s First” product, the invention’s product descriptor should establish a category all its own. But naming a unique product category is not always easy.

In my presentation, “Naming the New”, I detail a best-practice process to develop an innovation’s product descriptor. Real-world project examples for Quell and Cinder illustrate how it works. The video is an hour long, but you'll probably learn a lot if you get through the whole thing.       

If the topic of novel product descriptors interests you — and how could it not?! — read my other posts on the topic, Describe Different and The Names of MIT Media Lab. 

Enjoy!

The Names of MIT Media Lab: How to Describe an Innovation

There is nothing else quite like MIT Media Lab. Their mission to “invent a better future” has given us a better present. It’s Media Lab’s research and development that led to the Kindle and Nook, Rock Band and One Laptop Per Child.

While their innovative projects receive and deserve recognition, MIT Media Lab’s innovative project naming also warrants study and praise. The minds of the Media Lab seem to know as much about how to innovate as how to name innovations. 

In Describe Different, I wrote that it’s rarely easy to develop an obvious description for a product hitherto not obvious. The best practice of creating descriptors for innovations requires using words people are familiar with, but combining them in an original way. In a sense, it’s the very essence of creativity itself: combining old things in new ways.

What’s an innovative product descriptor? As an example, a new camera launched last year called the Lytro light field camera. In this case, light field camera is the innovation’s descriptor. Here’s a brief post about my work naming the Lytro. 

When it comes to naming new — really new — products, we can learn a lot from MIT Media Labs. Here are some instructive examples:

Liberated Pixels

“...Systems that blur the boundary between urban lighting and digital displays in public spaces. These systems consist of liberated pixels, which are not confined to rigid frames as are typical urban screens. Liberated pixels can be applied to existing horizontal and vertical surfaces in any configuration, and communicate with each other to enable a different repertoire of lighting and display patterns. We have developed Urban Pixels a wireless infrastructure for liberated pixels.”

Wonderfully original yet self-explanatory, liberated pixels isn’t just a name, it’s a frame. It implies that other pixels are not liberated but are “an oppressed population” confined to the limited dimensions of a screen. Pixels is meant loosely, a metaphor for any point of light that could be illuminated at will in the future photopia the researchers envision. Liberated pixels demonstrates that a name can be distantly metaphoric — literally speaking, the light is neither liberated nor pixels — yet proximate enough to be descriptive. Bonus points for extending the pixels theme with urban pixels to describe the enabling infrastructure.  

Air Mobs

“Air Mobs is a community-based P2P cross-operator WiFi tethering market.” 

Air refers to wi-fi — a creative yet familiar application of the word (cf. Apple’s AirPort and AirPlay). Mobs refers to groups of people, here communities and markets. Although mobs can be threatening and unruly, when used in a name, mobs casts off its dark sheen and becomes a playful label for a boisterous crowd. You can read more about the “positivity principle” — the phenomenon that negative words are perceived positively when they appear in a name — in the article, Red Flags and Red Herrings.  

Storied Navigation

”Storied Navigation is a novel approach to constructing a story based on a collection of digital video and audio. Media sequences are tagged with free-text annotations and stored as a collection. The system can then suggest media based on the context of the story.”

Storied Navigation is a new kind of storytelling named anew. The name’s focus is on the process of navigation (i.e. laying out a plot based on photos and videos) and bringing stories (i.e. annotations) into that process. The name belies the project’s reason for being: Until now, media-based stories have been piecemeal, a patchwork of disparate and disjointed moments that do not tie together into a seamless narrative. With Storied Navigation, a journey through media artifacts is no longer staccato, aimless wandering, but coherent and unified by a purpose: a story. In a fun twist, the word “storied” is not used as it is typically meant (legendary), but more literally yet novelly used to mean imbued with stories.

Hyperinstruments

“...the goal of designing expanded musical instruments, using technology to give extra power and finesse to virtuosic performers. Such hyperinstruments were designed to augment guitars and keyboards, percussion and strings, and even conducting....The research focus of all this work is on designing computer systems (sensors, signal processing, and software) that measure and interpret human expression and feeling, as well as on exploring the appropriate modalities and innovative content of interactive art and entertainment environments. We have also expanded the hyperinstrument environment to include gestural and intuitive control of visual media.”

 

Hyperinstruments is a successful coined descriptor, denoting musical instruments that are beyond in some way. Hyper- brings many useful meanings: over, above, beyond, exceeding. All are relevant. This descriptor demonstrates that by taking a word that is functionally grounded, it can be augmented with a prefix to shape its meaning. Such a technique could be applied to the same root to derive non-existent neologisms (and innovations) such as meta-instruments (instruments that work beyond the instruments themselves), nano-instruments (the world’s smallest violin), mega-instruments (what Christo would play), auto-instruments (self-playing instruments, like player pianos and computers), bio-instruments (the body as music maker), and hydro-instruments (those whose sound comes from water).

Robotic Textiles

Cool!

Cornucopia: Digital Gastronomy

“In essence, it is a 3D printer for food.”

A few noteworthy things on this one. First, they could have called this 3D Food Printer, but they didn’t, at least not in the project description. I hope that in describing a device, it is called the 3D Food Printer because it’s bang-on. Second, Digital Gastronomy is the perfect description of the practice or art of creating food using digital technology. Computer-generated cake art would fall under Digital Gastronomy, as would the 3D Food Printer. Finally, there’s a coy proper name in Cornucopia. It suggests not only abundance, but also CORN!

EyeRing: A Compact, Intelligent Vision System on a Ring

“EyeRing is a wearable intuitive interface that allows a person to point at an object to see or hear more information about it.”

EyeRing is a solid, descriptive name. I like that it’s an analog to earring, which is not a ring that hears (though: cool) but one you put on your ears. EyeRing is not the only descriptor that might have been for this project: Information Ring, Vision Ring, Digital Ring, Sense Ring, and Ring of Knowledge would be equally descriptive, albeit longer. 

Watt Watcher

“Watt Watcher is a project that provides in-place feedback on aggregate energy use per device in a format that is easy to understand and intuitively compare.”

Clarity and alliteration: Two points!

Audio Spotlight

“Audio spotlight can target sound very specifically.”

Great innovative descriptors often borrow from established terms in other categories. A spotlight is a beam of light that is narrowly focused. The Audio Spotlight is a beam of sound narrowly focused. Thankfully, whoever coined this didn’t try to rid the name of light by calling it a Spotsound or some such. Smartly, they knew people would give the name latitude and not be confused by the presence of the word light. Today, we rent movies from iTunes, and don’t think twice even though the name suggests music and not video. 

Singing Fingers

“Singing Fingers allows children to fingerpaint with sound.”

Descriptors don’t have to be boring or rigidly literal. A descriptor like Sonic Fingerpainting would get the job done, but why choose that when you could have Singing Fingers? Singing is understood to mean creating sound, so it fits the bill poetically.  

In the spirit of balance and eschewing unadulterated adulation, I will mention two names that might be a bit off the mark:  

Ambient Furniture

“Prototype furniture concepts that mix ‘apps with the IKEA catalog’ to explore ideas on peripheral awareness, incidental gestures, pre-attentive processing, and eavesdropping interfaces when embedded into our everyday objects.”

A beautiful name, no? Attach ambient to anything and it sounds more beautiful. Ambient contusion. Ambient putrefaction. Ambient booger. See?! Ambient furniture is somewhat misdescriptive, as it’s not furniture that’s ambient but software applications. Ambient apps would be more accurate, but who’s gonna quibble when you have the audacious euphony of Ambient Furniture?   

MIT Media Lab

“The Media Lab is a place where the future is lived, not imagined. Our domain is applying unorthodox research approaches for envisioning the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life. Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists work atelier-style, conducting more than 350 projects that range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to a stackable, electric car for tomorrow’s city.”

With caution and humility, I gently submit that the MIT Media Lab name itself is one of their lesser descriptive name achievements. To its credit, media is a big, broad word and  covers a lot of things: computers, the arts, and scads of other relevant disciplines. But the organization’s groundbreaking work in electric cars, advanced prostheses, social signals in biomedicine, and nanowires push the meaning of media beyond what’s been established. The MIT Media Lab name does not do justice to the scope of the organization: Creating a better future. I would not deign to suggest MIT Media Lab change its venerable name, just as Microsoft shouldn’t change its name just because it sells keyboards and mice, I am merely noting the irony of a reigning name that might fall a bit short of its subjects. 

If you ever have the opportunity to describe something that’s never been described before, I hope these examples from MIT Media Lab inspire you describe greatly.

Truth is Stronger Than Fiction

There was a time when a simple, honest name was good enough.

Venerable brands like General Electric, Kentucky Fried Chicken, National Biscuit Company and International Business Machines didn't hide their business name behind metaphors or fuzzy ideas. Each name was a hammer. It delivered one message with brute, blunt force. And it was good...for a while.

Eventually those companies established a path followed by countless others. They cut short their names to cut free of their restrictions, trading names too burdened with meaning for ones that were utterly meaningless: GE, KFC, Nabisco, IBM.

The trend in naming since has been away from the harsh, direct light of descriptive names and towards the shaded canopy of evocative and arbitrary ones. The change is partly motivated by necessity, as descriptive names are difficult or impossible to protect as trademarks.

But it's not just the law: It's a good idea. Descriptive names are similar to other descriptive names so they aren't differentiated and thus don't get noticed (not without a ton of money).

Today, the vast majority of brand names are not descriptive at all.

And I think people are getting tired of it.

The pendulum is swinging back, towards names -- and marketing in general -- that's honest and bullshit-free. Maybe even humble.

Living in San Francisco, I've sought examples of words in commerce that speak the unvarnished truth. I've documented some of these sightings with my cell phone camera. Several relate to food because I am a gastropod.




This Little Cookie: Absolutely adorable. This is disarming partly because its design is slightly flawed, as if the cookie maker ran out of space scribbling This Little Cookie but was too busy baking to perfect the label. The name, reminiscent of This Little Piggy, and the letters' uneven spacing give the whole package an authentically human and unmanufactured quality.




This tidy kiosk is a perfect setting for a brand called Batter. It's a name that's immediate, short, and to the point with nothing artificial added. It suggests their baked goods are as pure and simple.




Food Should Taste Good: Not just a simple message, but a four-word name. Because it doesn't follow the established convention of big companies and their short, sharp brand names, Food Should Taste Good feels a little home-made. It's a little unpolished and that's OK. Preferable, actually.




You know about MECE? Pronounced "mee-see", McKinsey Consulting says that the best solutions are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive. They include everything they need and nothing they don't.

Tasty Salted Pig Parts? 100% MECE.





Ichthyo: Breathtaking! So honest and so arresting! A word like that...Ichthyo...that twisted car wreck of a consonant cluster! Why, words like that shouldn't be allowed!

And words like that are not allowed in the sweeping majority of the world's languages. But it just so happens that ichthyo was A-OK in ancient Greek, the mother tongue of much scientific and technical nomenclature, including terms like ichthyo and architecture. (Notice how the book's title and subtitle dovetail perfectly?)

A title as inscrutable and unpronounceable as Ichthyo is an irritant -- an itch -- that lures in the reader to scratch. And yet despite the word's alien, other-worldly quality, it just means "fish".




Blackwire is the same as Ichthyo but different. They are both honest yet unexpected. Ichthyo is entirely unfamiliar, whereas Blackwire seems oddly familiar. In a world becoming ever more untethered -- insecure -- a product that actually celebrates its cord stands out. What's good for power cords, spinal cords and umbilical cords is good for headsets, too.

My firm, Operative Words, named and worked on the nomenclature for the Blackwire family of PC headsets by Plantronics.

It's clear they mean well enough. The Diversity Center [of Santa Cruz] is obviously committed to inclusivity, as enumerated in their tagline above the entrance. I don't know if Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning Community -- lesbiana, gay, bisexual, transgénero, intersex, inquisitivo en Español -- would qualify as mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.

But collectively, it's exhausting.

I wish there was a better and more succinct way for The Diversity Center to describe all of these alternative sexualities. If you've got ideas, throw them in the comments section. If nothing else, your submissions will place Operative Words among some pretty interesting Google search results.




How could anyone resist INTERESTING ITEMS!?

Names like that: Not fair.




What qualifies a particular truth for inclusion in a product's name? Every product has many true qualities and a name can express but one or two.

Consider this sign for Passive Lawn in New York City's Washington Square Park. It used to be that a lawn was a lawn was a lawn. Activities officially disallowed were listed on a conspicuous notice: No Ball Playing. No Radios. No Smoking. And so on. Until recently, there was no characterization of the lawn itself.

Urban planners and municipal parks departments evidently need to distinguish different types of public lawns, so those intended for quiet pursuits are branded "passive". (A lawn where activities are allowed would presumably be called an active lawn but a cursory online search uncovered no evidence of its use.)

As I wrote in Describe Different, an innovative product deserves an innovative generic descriptor. The most effective new product descriptors combine familiar terms in unfamiliar ways. The best ones are intuitive and accurate. They are truthful.

Passive Lawn strives for truth but it's not the whole truth nor is it intuitive. The novel use of passive requires a mental leap because it defines a new class of passive -- inactive? -- activities. Inadequate as a stand-alone name, Passive Lawn needs the support of No Sports and No Dogs to convey what's not allowed.

I've considered alternatives to Passive Lawn but they are more flawed. Inactive Lawn might suggest it's entirely off-limits, especially with a chained perimeter like the one above. Quiet Lawn is interesting but also misses the mark.

Perhaps the best solution would be the traditional one: A simple list of prohibited activities. Defining the lawn itself -- something useful for urban planners and parks department workers -- isn't very helpful for park visitors. If this sign simply read No Sports, No Dogs, we'd know all we need to know.

In this case, no name would have been preferable to one whose truth is not self-evident.




Up to now, I've focused on truth in meaning. Names and other commercial words can be functional and obvious and honest, yet also unique.

Although meanings are important, so are appearances. The presentation of a name -- font, size, color, materials, etc. -- can magnify, minimize or morph its meaning.

Which brings us to our last exhibit, GOLD TEETH, a spectacular example of meaning and manifestation in true alignment; a visual and verbal syzygy. These words don't merely deliver, they shove. In a compounding reaction, gold and teeth -- each picturable words individually -- combine and project a third mental image that beams so vividly we are compelled imagine it: A gleaming yet incongruous smile flaunting gilded teeth.

This picture in our minds, already palpable and dazzling, is intensified by the words' physical representation: Electric neon, red and shining like polished gold. It is expressive, smiling broadly, exuding the same confidence we might associate with someone who would choose gold for their pearly whites.

It's as if every detail were punctuated with exclamation points: GOLD! TEETH! RED! NEON! CAPITALS!

The honesty of this sign, its stark message and medium, makes it impossible to ignore.


Today's consumers are overwhelmed by marketing excess and underwhelmed by unfulfilled promises. They have become inured to marketing that's rife with the artifice of ambiguity and embellishment. Consumers are disillusioned because much of what they've seen are illusions. Only unabashed honesty will change that.

Like never before, truth is stronger than fiction.

[A version of this post was originally published at Duets Blog, the leading blog on creativity and the law.]

Describe different

"What am I?"

Every invention begs this essential question of identity.

The answer is found in the product's descriptor. A descriptor defines a thing, categorizing it, framing it, positioning it and signaling its intended future.

A product that doesn't claim to break new ground adopts its category's standard convention. For example, a new, run-of-the-mill digital camera would be marketed as a "digital camera".

A revolutionary product, on the other hand, deserves an innovative product descriptor. And, sometimes, a me-too product benefits from one, too.

The trouble is, innovation is easier done than said.

I wrote in this article about the "brander's paradox": Human instincts make us wary of unfamiliar and different things, yet differentiation is essential to a product's success.

By definition, an innovation is unfamiliar. How can its product descriptor differentiate without triggering people's fear of the unknown?

The New York Times gives us an idea in this recent article about product descriptors,

"When people encounter something they don’t recognize, they make sense of it by associating it with something familiar."

The most effective new descriptors combine familiar terms in unfamiliar ways. They make product function or form clearly understood, even upon first exposure. Novel descriptors insufficiently informative should at the very least pique interest.

Descriptors that differ

The following products illustrate different approaches:

Starbucks VIA ready brew



It's a me-too product but you can't tell from its descriptor. This is really instant coffee, a product designator unbecoming Starbucks. "Ready brew" emphasizes the chief benefit of saving time by using current, casual vernacular.

Dreyer's Slow Churned ice cream



Food scientists have a name for everything, but that name isn't always appetizing. The dessert wizards at Dreyer's, for example, had perfected a new way to blend low-fat ice cream so it acquires the texture and richness of full-fat ice cream. In precise but dry science lingo, they called the process "low-temperature extrusion". Doesn't exactly make the mouth water, does it?.

Dreyer's isn't dumb. They knew "extrusion" had no place on a quart of mint chip. They needed a term that had immediate appetite appeal. The words of their final, market-facing descriptor, "Slow Churned", taps into the semiotics of yesteryear, when food was simpler, unprocessed, and naturally indulgent. "Churned" evokes hand-mixed barrels of butter, hinting at the product's creamy richness. "Slow" connotes food that's unprocessed and handcrafted.

On the heels of Slow Churned ice cream's astounding success, Breyer's flattered Dreyer's with their imitative descriptor, Double Churned ice cream.

Disclaimer: I led the naming of Dreyer's Slow Churned ice cream as Global Director of Naming and Writing at Landor Associates.

Bing decision engine

Can't fault Microsoft for trying. Bing is a search engine, pure and simple. Although "decision engine" will never become part of the vernacular, it does suggest how Bing is different: Giving relevant information to help make a informed decision, instead of overwhelming with googlebytes of information.

Noah's Stuffed Saladwich



Coined words are hard to get right. This inventive, efficient descriptor gets mixed results. At a glance, "saladwich" looks like real word because it begins and ends with the same letters as "sandwich" (a phenomenon cheekily called, "typoglycemia"). But "Saladwich" sounds clunky because "-wich" is not a productive suffix and doesn't normally combine with other words (unlike the "-tini" of "martini" that gives us "chocotini" and "apple-tini"). "Saladwich" will sound less contrived as it becomes more familiar.

Blackberry wireless email solution



Technology products that blend hardware, software and services are tough to describe. More often than not, catch-all words like "solution" or "system" are employed. Though vague, these words avoid long descriptors that specify all key product dimensions. "Wireless email solution" is a lot shorter than "phone, PDA, email, internet, software and services." To its credit (and my alma mater's, Lexicon), the differentiation in Blackberry is borne primarily by the Blackberry name itself, not its ho-hum descriptor.

Segway personal transporter


This NYT article discusses the difficulty categorizing the Segway, a product that's really unlike anything else. Although the article touches on the brand name, it doesn't mention Segway's official descriptor. "Personal transporter" suggests who the product is for and what it does at a basic level, but it doesn't capture how revolutionary the product is, what it looks like or even whether it's motorized.

But a descriptor can't do everything. Like most products visibly inventive, a photo of the Segway speaks volumes. And messaging, mostly communicated through PR, does the heavy lifting of describing Segway technology and its applications.

Describing technology convergence

Each of the products above fit, more or less, into one functional category. But in electronic devices, disparate functions inevitably converge. Over time, we've seen phones integrate video cameras, music players evolve into movie players, and televisions that browse the Web.

Technology convergence presents a naming quandary: How do you categorize a product that merges others?



There are five approaches a marketer can take when describing one device that does the work of many:

• List all of the converged technologies (e.g. "all-in-one printer, fax, scanner")
  Long but accurate, clear and communicative. Needs to change as new functions are added. Generic and not protectable.
  
• Cite one function only (e.g. "mobile phone" [the built-in camera is not referenced in the descriptor])
  Short; relies on copy and imagery to tout other functions. Doesn't suggest "new". Generic, not protectable.
  

• Use one of the technology descriptors as the focus but modify it (e.g. "smartphone")
  Short; borrows from the familiar to aid understanding. These descriptors can take a long time to be adopted by industry and customers. It helps if the modifier is already understood from other categories and retains that meaning. May or may not be protectable.
  
  
• Come up with something totally new (e.g. "media center")
  In naming, unfamiliarity is friction. Descriptors like these resist widespread adoption. They typically require a lot of time and money to gain traction. May or may not be protectable.
  
  
• Use no descriptor at all (e.g. "iPod")
  This is a risky approach and is only viable when the device marketer has
  (1) control over all communications, distribution and sales
  and
  (2) a lot of money.

Apple has conspicuously avoided using a product descriptor per se for iPod. It turns out, they didn't need one. No distributors or resellers could tinker with Apple's disciplined and exacting messaging. At launch, the ad headline, "1000 songs in your pocket" made it clear the iPod was a portable music player.

Today, the iPod has grown in function and familiarity. So confident is Apple, they answer "What is iPod touch?" with "A great iPod. A great pocket computer. A great portable game player." When you can recursively describe your product and people get it, you've transcended product descriptors and become a category unto yourself.
 

The iPod answers "What am I?" with the most basic statement of identity, "I am me".
I guess if you're iPod, that's all you need to know.

###

Take the innovation descriptor challenge!

Innovations are easier done than said. See if you can come up with better product descriptors than these:

• Segway personal transporter
• Blackberry wireless email solution
• The Internet global network
• Onstar in-vehicle safety and security system
• Wii console

Share your ideas in the comments section.

[This article was originally published in Duets Blog]

Birth of a descriptor

Hardcore naming geeks understand that moment of quickening, when first we discover a new generic descriptor in the wild. That happened to me tonight when I read this article about 'kitchen PCs.' As computer descriptors go, 'kitchen PC' is clear and distinctive. It's too bad the product names in the kitchen PC category fall short.

The Asus Eee Top is bizarre. Is that like "Eee, a mouse"? It's a head scratcher for sure.

The Dell Studio One name is flat though inoffensive. No one would get fired for choosing such a safe name. Not sure anyone would clamor to buy one either, at least not based on the name.

The MSI Wind Top (the company name seems to be MSI Wind) is also bizarre, though mainly because of the word Wind in the company name; it just sort of comes from left field. Perhaps two companies MSI and Wind merged and this is the Frankenstein result. One interesting quality of the name is that in isolation, I was inclined to read the "wind" of MSI Wind as a breeze. But when the word "wind" is followed by the word "top" I'm suddenly unsure if it should be wind with a long "i" as in "wind a top." The context actually makes pronunciation of the name more ambiguous.

Although the Wired article suggests the kitchen PC category is new, I remember the ahead-of-its-time 3Com Audrey from the turn of the century. Today's kitchen PC marketers would be well served to find product names a little more like Audrey and a lot less like Eee Top.