Playing the name game: how do you choose a name that projects integrity and quality?

• Author: Wiesner, Pat
• Position: Company overview

Before I started Wiesner Publishing some 26 years ago, I had been through a rough period for a couple of years.

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I had helped to build another publishing company and had gotten pushed out. It was one of those deals where my boss thought I was being greedy, and I thought it was time for me to get cut in on the big money because I had been a key figure in the company's success.

It all ended one night at dinner in Colorado Springs. I think it was in the Antlers hotel, and we had a stand-up shouting match that ended with him saying," You can't quit. You're fired!" or I said, "You can't fire me. I quit!" I don't know which.

I then spent two years as a consultant. I made enough money to feed my family, but I wasn't really happy. So I decided to start my own company, figuring I had learned enough about publishing to give it a try.

About then a bit of reality hit me: What is the name of our new product? How will it be different? Where will we get the money for the launch? Who is going to help? How do we get it produced? How do we handle sales? Distribution? Where do we get desks? Phones? Computers? There were a million things to do.

It seemed the only way to make it feel real would be to have a name for my company and papers of incorporation. So off I went to that department of state government that registers company names to submit my name, LAMP Corp., along with the other stuff that was required.

I picked the name very deliberately. I figured that for years I had been working too hard to make money and success for somebody else. Now, I wanted to work less hard and have some sort of success for myself. LAMP stood for "Laugh A Minute Publishing." I didn't ever plan to tell anyone what it stood for; I just wanted it to remind me not to take things too seriously.

A week later the state got back to me saying that LAMP had already been taken as a corporate name. So I went with Wiesner Publishing Inc. I was a little worried about putting my own name on the company. I felt it was somewhat arrogant.

But what I found was that it made me want to be known for quality and integrity. I'm sure that having Wiesner Publishing for a company name rather than LAMP or Western Publishing, etc; has made me want to always take the high road.

LAMP would have been a dumb name for a publishing company, and I think we would have done...