Secretary Tennant, Ask Candidates For Their Utility Bills And Other Proofs of Residency - Just Like At The DMV

In West Virginia, the DMV requires more proof of residency for drivers to get a license than the Secretary of State's office requires for candidates to remain on the ballot. But the age old problem of political candidates lying about their residency so they can get elected to offices for which they don't meet residency requirements is not as intractable as it may appear. 

It's time for Natalie Tennant to crack down on candidates who fail to provide at least as much proof of residency as the DMV requires to obtain a drivers license. 

I recently learned that one of my elected representatives has not filed the required papers to remain on the ballot and that there are serious questions about where she lives.  My concern is not politically motivated. Yes, I am a liberal Democrat and the elected official in question is a Republican but I would be just as outraged if she were a member of my party. In a democracy, there are few things more sacred and sacrosanct than clean elections. 

The Republicans are threatening to dig into Democrats' residency claims. I hope they do. I hope all election law violators will be exposed and removed from the ballot.

Prospective office holders should undergo at least as much scrutiny as prospective drivers. Secretary Tennant, before you leave the Secretary of State's office for a US Senate seat, please order your employees to verify the residency of everyone on a West Virginia ballot. Do what the DMV would do: require utility bills and other proofs of residency. Compare and contrast the addresses on their filing papers with the addresses on their drivers licenses. Give West Virginia the most fraud-free, most verified candidates in the nation.  

If you live in the city limits of St. Albans and you support the goals and methods of neighborhood watch as a means of improving the city of St Albans, join "Public Group For St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" on Facebook at ::https://www.facebook.com/groups/PublicGroupForSt.AlbansNeighborhoodWatch/.

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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. I am not interested in the opinions of cowards who hide behind CB handles and I will not publish them.  By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.

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What's On The Whiteboard?: Re-Branding St. Albans Neighborhood Watch

Ideally, one of the best ways to kick-start the creative process of branding or re-branding your organization or company is to get a bunch of people in a room and search for the "essence" of the brand. 

For example, if I were searching for the brand essence for "St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" and I want to rebrand it in the fewest characters and syllables possible (see YESTERDAY's post on the "rules") the first obvious problem I have is that I need to somehow reference our location. We're not just any neighborhood watch anywhere we're specifically the neighborhood watch of St. Albans, WV, so I'd like to at least allude to the name of the town. So, if you're in a room brainstorming the brand, go to the white board and write down location as one of the essential components of the new brand. 

What else is essential to neighborhood watch? "Watching?" "Vigilance?" "Alertness?" Oh, I could fill 10 white boards with all the variations on these words and their Greek and Latin roots. But certainly vigilance, alertness and even unity and cooperation are essential to neighborhood watch so I would leave those on the whiteboard if I were brand brainstorming with other brainstormers.

Because my city is named for the first English Protestant martyr, I explored ways of getting to the location without the martyrdom thing. Neighborhood watches don't, of course, want to think of martyrdom while they're keeping watch for bad guys. So how could I create a neologism (see yesterday's post for definition) than contains part of my city's name, e.g., "alban" or "albans"? After reading a book about suffixes and prefixes and reading books about scrabble words - you know, words with 5 letters beginning in  "s" and that sort of thing - I thought of combining "Albans" and "Sentry" to get "AlbanSentry". I also thought of "AlbanSentinel." I also briefly considered "AlbanKeeper", "Safe Albans" and even "Sane Albans." 

I briefly considered trying to get at the location by trying out earlier names of the city like Phillipi and Coalsmouth. I quickly rulled out Phillipi because lots of people can't sau it or spell it and there's already a Philippi in WV and I quickly ruled out Coalsmouth because I don't want our neighborhood watch to be confused for another org using that name. If I were really in a room with other branding brainstormers we'd have a lot of stuff on that whiteboard.

I've decided to abandon historical references to an earlier St. Albans and go back to looking for a neologism based on Alban or Albans. I found one I like: Albans Emergent. The word "emergent" is a double entendre. It's ambitious and optimistic. Emergent means "arising unexpectedly" and "calling for prompt action." 

If you live in the city limits of St. Albans and you support the goals and methods of neighborhood watch as a means of improving the city of St Albans, join "Public Group For St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" on Facebook at ::https://www.facebook.com/groups/PublicGroupForSt.AlbansNeighborhoodWatch/.

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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. I am not interested in the opinions of cowards who hide behind CB handles and I will not publish them.  By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for 

The "Rules" of Naming Your Company or Organization

A good name is short, no more than 11 characters and 3 syllables. Imagine trying to put something like "St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" on a bumper sticker or a T-shirt. 

Monosyllabic brand names are often proper names like Bose or Hanes but it's nearly impossible to obey the rules below in one syllable. For me, the holy grail of great branding is to do it in two syllables and no more than 6 characters. Try it. It's hard. AirBus is great. Nike is named for the winged mythological Greek goddess of victory. Get it? The "swoosh" comes from the wings. Nike puts wings on a lot of feet. Pixar, PayPal and Pampers are pretty good 2-syllable brand names. 

St. Albans Neighborhood Watch is unimaginative and the term "neighborhood watch" is fraught with baggage. You pretty much don't want a brand with the same name as a bad comedy movie starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn. 

A good name is information dense or contains a hint of what theorganization is about.  Vizio. Papermate. 

Sony comes from a Latin word that means "sound." Much better than its original name, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

Drug companies are really good at it. Levitra hints at levitation. Healthcare companies often have "care" or "health" somewhere in their name to hint at what they do. Caremark. Cardinal Health.

A good name doesn't tempt people to turn it into an abbreviation ormonogram. Yeah, I know, IBM and BMW survived it but most companies
just become more obscure when people distill their too-long name to a
monogram. IBM and BMW got away with becoming alpahabet soup because these companies were created at a time when we didn't know any better than to name companies "International Business Machines" and "Bavarian Motor Works" and because these old companies spent billions to become household words. Startups and companies with small ad budgets have no margin for error; they have to choose a name that cuts through the clutter and the cacophony of ideas and messages and brands vying for our attention.

A good name is unique and memorable. Toys R Us. Dunkin' Donuts. The latter has the advantage of appealing to your senses by conjuring a pleasant mental picture of something tasty and enjoyable you might do with their product.

A good name conjures no negative images or connotations.

A good name is easy to spell and say. Timex. PlayStation. Sunkist.

A good name contains no generic words or words that appear in the
names of other businesses. Look up "neologism", a made-up word that
your brand can "own" not only legally but also in the mind of the
customer. Brand names are sometimes formed by combining two ordinary words. MicroSoft. Brand names have been formed by deliberately misspelling a common word. Orbitz. 

A good name doesn't confuse people, doesn't look or sound like someother organization's name.
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If you live in the city limits of St. Albans and you support the goals and methods of neighborhood watch as a means of improving the city of St Albans, join "Public Group For St. Albans Neighborhood Watch" on Facebook at ::https://www.facebook.com/groups/PublicGroupForSt.AlbansNeighborhoodWatch/.

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Higginbotham At Large only publishes the comments of clearly identified submitters. I am not interested in the opinions of cowards who hide behind CB handles and I will not publish them.  By "clearly identified" I mean something like this: JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. No Ring of Gyges for you.

West Virginia, Saint Albans, St. Albans, Dunbar, Charleston, Kanawha, Speaker bureau, speakers bureau, speaker's bureau, speakers' bureau, guest speaker, 25177, 25143, 25303, 25309, 25301, 25302, 25305, 25311, 25314, 25304, neighborhood watch, animal rights, animal welfare, no-kill, shelters, crime watch, neighborhood crime watch, ward 4,vegan, vegetarian, liberal, liberalism, progressive, branding, naming,