Sunday, March 10, 2019

What's in a Name? Beyond The Yottabyte


Here's a lesson from science that can apply to your business:

This weekend's Wall Street Journal had an article about how a leader at the UK's National Physical Laboratory wanted the international standards committee to work on new suffixes for large quantities.

Currently, after megabytes, gigabytes, and terabytes come petabytes–followed by the suffixes exa, zetta, and yotta. He thinks that, in 10-15 years, the amount of worldwide computer data will exceed 1 yottabyte.

The manager is afraid that the public will invent their own terms, and that the danger is that some of these catch on and become de fact names.

This is the lesson for your business.  Do you name/brand all your services, intellectual property and techniques?  If you don't, your customers and prospects might invent their own terms and you lose control.