Your professionalism is unprofessional (long)

[artk2002]

Ask her about IBM and NASA and the IRS.

Sounds like she'd be quite happy telling IBM (or any of the others) "you're doing it wrong." Funny you should mention IBM since the company uses just about every TLA (Three Letter Acronym) possible. Woe betide you if your product's TLA conflicts with another one. You're going to have to change your name!

[TootsNYC]

She's the president, right?  I'm on your side in terms of preferring the shorter name. But it seems like a pick your battle situation. She has a very clear preference and she's the highest ranking person so just go with her preference.

But doesn't the majority prevail? "President" doesn't mean "owner"; it just means "the person in charge of running the meetings and setting the agenda."

The thing perhaps to dwell on is that she has been outvoted, and that it's in the groups best interests to move on.

[Diane AKA Traska]

I think the United States Marine Corps would take exception to use of USMC being unprofessional. 

[TootsNYC]

or "the Marines" or even "the Marine Corps"

[Calypso]

Coming from the other side, as someone whose job involves a lot of fact checking, can I just say I don't care what your official name is as long as it's easy for someone who is not familiar with you to tell which name is the official name?

You wouldn't believe how many times I go to someone's website to find out exactly how I should refer to their organization, only to see it used four or five different ways on one page of their website. If there's a "Contact us" page, they'd better list it there exactly as they want it reproduced---and that means capital letters where they belong, 'inc." or "no inc." etc.--because that will usually end up being my default. (and don't say "well, can't you tell from the company logo or title? No. I need to know if it should be WeBeHot (logo) We Be Hot (how they refer to themselves in one part of the content) or WE BE HOT, or what. I don't care which, just make it clear!!!

It may be unprofessional....but I'll tend to give your (generic your) press release a lower priority if you can't bother to decide on your name.

So----she has a point. Perhaps the conversation will go better if you can get the group to acknowledge that there's some validity to where she's coming from.

[Isisnin]

All these examples are making me laugh!  Imagine telling the Queen of England, that it's unprofessional for her to be called to "Your Majesty"!  Or telling the Marines they can't use USMC!  Don't know who would be more intimidating.

While we're waiting for everyone to arrive tonight, maybe I'll ask if anyone saw "the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Inc. award show on the American Broadcasting Company network" last night. 

Calypso, exact clarity is what I do hope we achieve tonight.

Per the by-laws, votes are binding, but we have a history of not abiding by our votes.  I've pointed that out at the last couple meetings.  That didn't cause a conversation about resolving the problem, but hopefully that seed was planted well enough that people will abide by any vote taken tonight. 

Will post the results of the meeting.

[jedikaiti]

All these examples are making me laugh!  Imagine telling the Queen of England, that it's unprofessional for her to be called to "Your Majesty"! 

Can you just imagine news reporting in the UK if she had to be referred to as "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" Every Single Time they referred to Her Majesty?

[Dr. F.]

All these examples are making me laugh!  Imagine telling the Queen of England, that it's unprofessional for her to be called to "Your Majesty"! 

Can you just imagine news reporting in the UK if she had to be referred to as "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" Every Single Time they referred to Her Majesty?

The Times would have to add pages.

[elephantschild]

All these examples are making me laugh!  Imagine telling the Queen of England, that it's unprofessional for her to be called to "Your Majesty"! 

Can you just imagine news reporting in the UK if she had to be referred to as "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" Every Single Time they referred to Her Majesty?

The Times would have to add pages.

Heh. No matter who's telling them they have to do it, no newspaper is going to do that. Colossal waste of newsprint.

I agree with Calypso on settling on a name, but I think it's most important to have a full name, then a recognized abbreviation or nickname and only use those two. But always insisting on the full name is just silly and impractical.

I used to deal with a small college at my last newspaper job. The administration insisted they MUST be called Certain Full Long Name in any reference. They got a little snotty about it. But here's the thing ... NO ONE except for the administration called them that.     Not the students, not the rest of the community, not other colleges. If we had bowed to them and only used Certain Full Long Name, half the people would have read it and said, "Who?" and the rest would have rolled their eyes.

We kept using Certain Full Long Name on first reference and CFLN on subsequent uses. They whined, but realized that if they wanted to keep the level of coverage they were getting out of us, they couldn't refuse to deal with us over it.

I'm in a different city, different paper now, but every once in a while, I see press releases from them. They still write out Certain Full Long Name. And everyone else still knows them as CFLN.

[ChiGirl]

All these examples are making me laugh!  Imagine telling the Queen of England, that it's unprofessional for her to be called to "Your Majesty"!  Or telling the Marines they can't use USMC!  Don't know who would be more intimidating.

Now that's a reality show I'd watch.

[JeanFromBNA]

What is funny is that if you have a long, awkward name and dicate that it not be shortened, people are going to shorten it anyway. It is better that you control what it is shortened to so it is reasonable and consistent.

Yes.  Or they will pick the four words that they remember, and one will be wrong, IME.

[Diane AKA Traska]

And people will get it wrong in the most hilarious ways... ask French Connection. 

[Tea Drinker]

Given that the French Connection ads used to have the initials FCUK in large letters, I don't think that counts as "getting it wrong" so much as "how far can we push the envelope to get attention for our company"?

[Calistoga]

Whenever I see a company refer to their own Inc, it bugs me terribly. It's really bad for marketing for two reasons.

-People who know what Inc really means are going to assume that you do not
-People who do not know what Inc means are going to find your company to be a bit uptight.

Since the name is being discussed, just bring up as many examples of really professional companies as possible, explain it from a marketing standpoint, etc.


Random Aside- Isn't ALS the acronym for lou gehrig disease? I could see the longer name in this case.

[Diane AKA Traska]

Given that the French Connection ads used to have the initials FCUK in large letters, I don't think that counts as "getting it wrong" so much as "how far can we push the envelope to get attention for our company"?

My point, though, was that imagine you're a company called Seattle International Holding Traders.  You *really* wouldn't want that casually abbreviated.