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Tag: Naseem Javed

  • When Will The Internet Be Divided Among Nations?

    The desired goal of most countries other than the US is to end up with their own local language suffixes, own local language domain names, basically their own Internet, with its own domain registration policies — in a nutshell, a very big and a very complex global mess, indeed.

    This fight over ICANN the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is all about a golden key, as without it, the Internet is completely useless. That golden key is a name on the Net called a URL. It’s all about the master design of a sophisticated key management system so that billions of single domain name identities can offer access to billions of sites without any problem. After all, without this access, the Internet has no value.

    It’s this portion of the magic of the Internet that is now being challenged.

    It’s also ICANN, the organization that from the start has made some very stringent and often very weird policies about such issues as the golden keys. Now its global authority is being challenged, and such fights could divide the power of this controlling body, and any adverse outcome will simply split the Internet.

    Upcoming Clashes

    Many countries around the world have questioned how domain name management policies have been handled by ICANN. That has now set the stage for these upcoming clashes.

    The UN is the self-appointed referee. It seems a fair match. In the ring, on this side is solo ICANN, representing the founding fathers’ point of view, that of the US. On the other side is a large group of nations, almost the rest of the world.

    The emerging new players are questioning the evolution of the Internet, and the originating founders’ ideas are being cornered. In hindsight, the founders also made big global domain management policy blunders.

    Unfortunately, the UN cannot solve the issue, although it can play a great catalyst role. The result might be a global body under the UN and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), etc.

    The desired goal of the other countries is to end up with their own local language suffixes, own local language domain names, basically their own Internet, with its own domain registration policies — in a nutshell, a very big and a very complex global mess.

    Choosing five original suffixes as a quick and a simple napkin solution was the biggest mistake. The Global Charter of Corporate Nomenclature and the Rules of Global Domain Name Management were never applied. It was a shortsighted academic plan based on a quick registration revenue generation scheme. The U.S. certainly missed great opportunities during the earlier inception of the Internet Magna Carta. A pity; now it’s boxing time.

    Change Almost Unavoidable

    The fight is also about common sense based on post-millennium realities, as now the sheer volume of e-commerce is so big, complex, fast and cruel that this overly secretive ICANN with its mysterious charter of operation now is not able to hold this unstoppable break-up movement. Like revolutions in so many sectors of so many industries, this change is almost unavoidable.

    “The domain name system is the pillar of electronic commerce, and is more important than the Internet itself. For those who are monitoring the outcome of ICANN’s electronic bureaucracy, here are some possible scenarios: A complete breakdown of the domain name registration system. A type of anarchy on the Internet, allowing anyone to register anything. Trademark offices threaten to shut down, intellectual property becomes public domain. A numbering system similar to our telephones takes over, destroying all the fun of promoting and advertising interesting Web names. Battalions of lawyers will band around the world, declaring war on each other. A great windfall for the profession, as monthly billings becomes perpetual.”

    Source: DomainWars, by Naseem Javed, 1999, Linkbridge Publishers.

    Multilingualization?

    For now, English is the big mama of the business language on the global scene, but on the spoken side, Chinese is the big papa. In a few years, as every second person in China gets a business portal, they will become dominating e-commerce players dwarfing the West. China would need its own independent control of how it will play the access game, decide on local languages, suffixes and come up with its own registration and trademark dispute policies then rather wait for annual memos from ICANN.

    Many countries have long wanted their own language for the Internet and their own internal systems, while the creation of foreign language suffixes has been a sore point with ICANN. True, there have been some very technical limitations. Internet is no longer an advance science project rather it’s a global engine for the world’s e-commerce, which incidently is driven by brand name accsses and marketing rather some electronic beauracracy.

    Just like the break of AT&T into five Baby Bells, which are now running wild on a open-ended telephony, it is equally possible that the Internet could experience a major break-up and a similar fast-track ride to global independence.

    Just like the telephony privatization process and the introduction of various splits, there would be dozens of different types of internets, each addressing its own marketing and communication goals. The duplication and multiplication would make usage extremely complex, as if changing from a countryside drive to a maze of 20-lane highways, each with its own checkpoints, driving rules and types of vehicles. It would be like using 20 different airlines to go on a global tour; the journey would remain on target while customs, menus and languages would change each leg of the trip. Indeed, it would be a very colorful but very sluggish journey.

    Web surfers would either surf on a single country’s Internet, or a specific global industry’s or a certain language’s, and then swim only in that particular ocean. The entire world could become a complex global search engine, and the use of global languages would become mainstream. This is not just a prophecy, rather it is a reality in the making. It will happen soon and it will happen very fast. It will also be the biggest shockwave that modern e-commerce has ever seen.

    The Future of the Internet

    There are some 247 countries with their assigned Top Level Domains (TLD), each with their own specific requirements and desired goals and an agenda. All it will take is one country to start the domino effect. China has already threantened.

    First, there will be a mega shift in the access mechanism, the complete re-thinking of search engine methodologies and optimization. Second, there will be a 10-fold jump in the number of Web sites on different types of internets. Last, there will be a major overhaul of the current domain name system and suffixes, starting a series of races for new suffixes by various big countries.

    The globalization of universal corporate image, name identities and cyber branding will become ultra-sophisticated, and consumers all over the world will interact far more with other languages and ethno cultural issues than just plain English. This will be an extraordinary time for the global branding on e-commerce. Website and domain name managemnent with search engine optimization will get a brand new meaning. The impact on global communication and domain name maganement would be awesome. It’s about time for all organizations big and small to better prepare themselves for these upcoming issues. Why wait ’til the ninth round.

  • Lost in Translation: Corporate Branding

    Is your corporate image sending messages of love, hate, profanity or sobriety? No matter how and where you travel, with or without your products or your corporate image, the chances are that a lot of your marketing messages are getting lost in translation as they make their way around the globe.

    Business names are being hit the hardest as the world becomes smaller and companies go global. Each one of us is now spinning in a mix of international alphabet soup of strange names and terminologies. You invent something new, send out a release, the media talks about it and, within seconds, it becomes an international item. Your business name image might end up as a great universal message or emulate some strange and confusing messages with insults or profanity. But why?

    A Trunk Call to Britannia
    Like it or not, from the Greeks to the Koreans or from the quiet Zen masters to the chanting Buddhists, all will try to figure out the meaning of your great message and the name of your new gizmo as you push for an international audience.

    Thanks to several historical factors, including colonisation, the largest global population is increasingly tied to a string of 26 alpha characters in English. Today, even in the oldest and remotest jungles, some form of English is spoken. Thank you Britannia, we are amused. For that and for many other reasons, English-based naming has been the norm for corporate business nomenclature, because, it always has provided some measure of sobriety and universal understanding.

     

    It is true that the other half of the global populace is still non-English speakers, but the process of corporate naming can seriously risk the future of a company by picking an exotic non-English word as a corporate name to gain quick attention or to cure a lingering corporate image problem.

    Emotional Break-Dance

    For example, a press release announcing a new company, KumangaTeq, would struggle to explain the meaning of the name in the first paragraph. “Kuman” means “mighty leader” in Serbio-Latin? and “manga” means “a very sweet mango with firm body” in Sanskrit?. “Therefore,” the press release might say, “this fits our very unique branding tagline — curved for power and technology — and it matches our curvy logo design.”

    At times, this holistic, homeopathically driven and overly emotional strategy is like going from the frying pan into the fire. Talk about an emotional break-dance. KumangaTeq would be a good name if its customers were all located in northern Calcutta around some Sanskrit temples, or in Croatia where there are still a few villages with traces of Serbian-Latin dialects. In Delhi, Karachi or Manhattan, and in most major cities around the world, KumangaTeq would be considered not so sweet, at best.

    Business Naming Trajectory

    This type of naming problem is repeated just about every day around the globe. Of the hundreds of new names of various businesses — including product and service announcements — many strange names emerge every single day. True, such names fade away after the initial funding stops the branding fireworks.

     

    They then go out deeper into other jungles, searching for new words, hoping to combine those words with other marketing pushes. During the last few years, thousands of such foreign corporate names were adopted with the weirdest stories of their cute origins. Surly this corporate branding technique will eventually exhaust itself. Now you know why corporations change their names so many times.

     

    The false rumor that all names in English are gone is just a branding cop-out. There are millions of great English language names available with global trademark potential, but what is missing is the knowledge to develop them as clear global corporate name identities. Focus groups and randomly pooled exotic name lists is not the way.

    No Mai Mai

     

    “Nay” is yes to Greeks. The American “yeah” means “no” to the Japanese. To the British, long distance is a “trunk,” sister a “nurse” and elevator a “lift.” A simple laugh — “ha, ha, ha” — means “mother” in Japanese, while “Ohio” means good morning. In Russia, “looks” means “opinion” and “socks” means “juice.” In France, a simple sign of “sale” means “dirty.” The Chinese word “mai” said in a certain style means to “buy” and in another style to “sell.” When enunciated together, “mai mai” means “business.”

    To appreciate this issue further, I should point out that despite the seeming dominance of English, there are some 2,700 different languages with 8,000 dialects around the world. Altogether, there are 12 important language families with 50 lesser ones. Indo-European is the largest family in which English is the most important category.

    Based on usage by population, the following is a list of major languages in descending order: Chinese, English, Hindustani, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Bengali, Mali and Italian.

    The globalisation of e-commerce and the use of digital branding for domain names point to a serious need for special sets of skills when it comes to corporate name branding.

    We all better be wary of language issues. After all, the customers are no longer just on our streets, they are now all over the globe. Better learn to name correctly or pick up Chinese so at least you can properly enunciate “no mai mai” — meaning there is no more business left.

     

    Naseem Javed author Naming for Power and also Domain Wars, recognized as world authority on global Name Identities and Domain Issues, introduced The Laws of Corporate Naming in the eighties and also founded ABC Namebank, a consultancy he established in New York & Toronto a quarter century ago. Naseem conducts exclusive executive workshops on global naming issues and cyber-branding, via web conferences …www.abcnamebank.com

  • Global Branding Is So Easy With Global Trademark

    indiantelevision.com’s Guestspeak
    Westside View
    Global Branding Is So Easy With Global Trademark
    By NASEEM JAVED
    (Posted on 8 January 2004)

    Get your current corporate names analyzed for global acceptability, get your teams into play for new educational tools on how to create, capture and cultivate global icons, make plans for introductions of new global name identities and start building icons. Solid gold that is.

    Today, a properly structured and truly protected global trademark is worth a ton in gold. For this reason, a single name fully guarded for its iconic personality with a top-level protection plan and equipped with a matching dotcom is the most sought after commodity. Let’s face it; such a name is worth a hundred times more than the head office building, all the fancy furniture, factories and all the stacking chimneys combined. Just ask Sony, Rolex, Bacardi, PlayStation, Panasonic or Telus, and they will tell you with an uncontrollable smile that without their unique moniker, their entire empire will have no value. If by chance, your corporation owns a one
    of a kind, globally protected trademark, then surely you have struck gold. Otherwise the question is why not make it a plan to get one for 2005? It’s so easy.

    Striking Gold In 2005

    Just as it is so easy to create and build a proper global name, it is equally very disturbing to know that less than 1% of corporations around the globe have such unique ownerships. Most have local or regional name brands and most constantly push these weak names while struggling to get
    global clearance. It is amazing that how all the knowledge and expertise required to make this happen are so easily ignored, while a great fanfare is wasted over much weaker and geographically limited names. Current history is littered with these poor name identities as they eventually fade
    away in the long run.

    Anyone Can Play:

    No matter how superior such pursuits may seem and how advanced the exercise for universal global identity may appear, the fact is that all it takes is some know how and any corporation can play this game. To find a proper name identity, first you need a Five-Star Standard of Naming, this
    is a process designed to ensure the uniqueness of a candidate name with direct relativity to the business it represents while securing a position for a global trade marking with a matching dotcom. Anything less will fail. But first, you must clear the decks, as traditional creative services and firework branding has no room here. The creation of global icons and universal cyber brands for the global markets is not to be confused with graphic and logo design processes or big budget blasts to jumpstart weak names.
    These practices are only great when you have a truly global name and a global corporate nomenclature strategy in place.

    Hug a Trademark Attorney:
    As a first step, discover the rules of global marketing and apply it to your
    current image and see if fits your current name. It may seem complex but these rules are very logical. As growth and marketing opens more and more countries, your names should also be able to travel in each of those territories without any fear of trademark problems. Hug a trademark lawyer today. They offer the best and most economical layer of protection in the shape of trademark applications. Once a name is properly secured, you would have acquired something extraordinary. Most creative shops themselves lack serious knowledge of global registrations and domain laws and this makes them scared of lawyers. The branding shops, which only rely on pure creativity, leave you with legal registration issues as all being too legal and too hot; end up doing only half the job. You need guaranteed
    results and truly Five Star Standard Name solutions. Currently the art of big budget branding has now shrunk to art of applying global naming to the most economical medium of cyber branding. There is a drop of some 95% of the old branding cost and it has now changed the entire brandinglandscape. So apply a comprehensive modern approach to establish a truly global name identity for 5% of the cost. Shocking.

    Check your Current Profile: Take your current names in use and build a country-by-country profile by establishing the numbers of conflicts in each country. This exercise may sound complicated but it can be carried out by a push of a button when conducted under professional guidance and using the right technologies and global reference. Utilize the current online educational tools to bring within your corporation a higher level of understanding on this subject. First it is extremely inexpensive and it is
    extremely fast. Within days, you can have the entire name analyzed and end up with a report with recommendations and suggestions.

    Go for Gold in 2005
    Get your marketing teams to go for that super shine in your name identity and corporate image, and make sure that you get a system in place to achieve all this quickly, efficiently and in the most cost effective manner. All you will need is the desire to go global with a powerful global identity. The rest will fit if you follow the right procedures and make sure your entire organization is ready to play the global game. Creation and the development of global name identities can be achieved within a few weeks. All you need is the ‘masters of naming architects’ the rest will unfold very nicely.

    Get your current names analyzed for global acceptability, get your teams into play for new educational tools on how to create, capture and cultivate global icons, make plans for introductions of new global name identities and start building an icon. Solid gold that is.