Meet Tech's Product Name Guru

true: You need to have a really distinctive name. And let the operating companies, like AT&T, let them have the more conservative and descriptive names. But I had a sense that this was going to be really good product.

CIO.com: The BlackBerry is also fondly referred to as the CrackBerry. Did you see that one coming?

Placek: No, we didn't. In a way, it's just a measure of the popularity and the addiction of the machine. We've talked with [RIM] about that. I think it's just a harmless thing, and I'd take this just as a compliment. If it was a losing product, it wouldn't have a nickname like that.

CIO.com: How long is the process, from client first visiting you to when the product is announced?

Placek: For us, it's about a three- to four-month process. We also do research with the target audience to make sure it's going to resonate with them. We will typically do a linguistic and cultural check in about 25 languages, and we'll do that in-country. Lexicon now has 80 PhD linguists in 36 countries. We do that, first, just to make sure we don't have any real negative connotations. And second, [we make ask] is it consistent...and does its sound and structure align with what this product is going to do? We know it's not going to mean the same thing around the world, but sound wise is it easy to pronounce? That takes time--a couple weeks of research. If we were just doing the creative piece, it's a six- to eight-week process.

CIO.com: With all your linguistic work in foreign countries, you must be a fountain of knowledge of slang and slur in all kinds of languages?

Placek: We toyed with the idea of putting together our findings. We've been doing the linguistic and cultural stuff for about 14 years. On an annual basis we might do checks on roughly 1,200 to 1,300 candidates that are moved through our system. When you get down to the final five, six or seven names, you're taking those through the countries. So, we'll do 120 projects a year, which is probably, say, 1,000 names, and multiply that by 14 years--we uncovered a lot of stuff. Some is humorous and some negative. It would make for some interesting reading.

CIO.com: Has the Internet helped your creative processes more than it has hurt, say, due to all the extra legal work you now have to do?

Placek: It's been a great tool for us. Obviously, securing URLs represents a challenge and has made the job harder. But from a creative and information standpoint, we're able to get information about what people are talking about, by reading blogs, and getting a sense of people's vocabulary online.

CIO.com: What's a favorite technology name you didn't come up with?

Placek: Google. It tells a story, like I said before: When you think about search engines before Google, there was just a preponderance of engineering type words or phrases--like Webfinder, Websearcher or Webcrawler. We all experienced that as: These things aren't very efficient or effective, but it was the best that the marketplace was providing. And then here comes Google. Right away [Google] telegraphed a different experience, a different behavior on their part, and that I can behave differently toward it. That's the beauty of a name like that.