NONE: A rose by any other name (was: A money-making web site)
A rose by any other name (was: A money-making web site)
Cliff Kurtzman (cliff.kurtzman_at_tenagra.com)
Tue, 23 Jul 1996 18:31:15 -0600
Tonyandpip_at_aol.com wrote:
>>Tenagra awards are for marketing excellence.
>
>OK everyone you are going to hate me for this but just put it down to the
>ignorance of a guy from the UK who doesnt know the lingo....
>
>What is Tenagra?
>And
>Why did Star Trek Next Generation make use of the name in the episode about
>the planet that spoke in metaphors only.
>
>It probably Shakespeare and I ought to know since I dont live far from
>Stratford.
>
>Now back to the serious discussion...
Since you asked... I'll even try to make my response a teensy bit on topic:
For a lot of reasons I feel that choosing a memorable company name is one
of the most important business decisions you make in founding a business.
(For a legal perspective, see
<http://www.webcom.com/lewrose/article/choosing.html>). Companies we are
all familiar with, like C|Net, Yahoo!, Netscape or Infoseek, have a
distinct and memorable name to which they have built their brand awareness
and which is critical to supporting their advertising.
Obviously, we use our name on the Awards for Internet Marketing Excellence
as it builds recognition for our corporate brand name. At the same time,
the awards do a lot of good in promoting successes within our industry to
the press and public.
Many others use the same practice, of course. In fact, we were rather
uncomfortable when another company announced a few months back that they
were starting the <company name> Awards for Internet Excellence. We
certainly liked their idea for giving recognition for Internet achievements
(which are not related to Internet marketing), but we have been afraid the
close similarity with a name we had long been using might cause confusion.
Our counsel advises us not to worry as long as we both always include our
distinct company names in conjuction with the awards.
But getting back to answering your question, Tenagra really is vintage
Roddenberry rather than Shakespeare. Actually the teleplay was written by
Joe Menosky, and the story was written by Philip Laznebik and Joe Menosky.
As far as I know, the name (sometimes spelled Tanagra) was original to this
episode. Trek frequently borrows from Shakespeare, but I don't believe
that is the case in this instance.
In the Star Trek - The Next Generation episode "Darmok" the legend is told
of "Darmok and Jilad at Tenagra". In the legend (which is mirrored in that
episode's story line) Darmok and Jilad learn to work together to defeat a
common enemy on the island-continent of Tenagra -- in spite of the fact
that they do not speak a common language. For more information, consult
Raphael Carter's The Darmok Dictionary.
http://www.wavefront.com/~raphael/darmok/darmok.html
Of course, in many ways the Tenagra legend is a metaphor for the way people
of different languanges and cultures work together on the Internet.
So when we founded Tenagra over 3 years ago, it just seemed like an obvious
name. It is also fairly memorable and distinctive, we get a lot of "cool
name!" email from people who "get it," and it does not pigeonhole our
operations into any specific niche. And Yahoo! was already (or soon would
be) taken...
Now back to the serious discussion...
--Cliff
Cliff Kurtzman
President and CEO, The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com/
713/480-6300
