At last week’s Beg to DIFFER Boot Camp, we discussed the history of the word “branding” – as in the ancient practice of marking a cow with a red hot iron. But if the idea of cattle-marking seems trivial and simplistic to you, that’s only because you’re not a cowboy. So listen up cowpoke: here’s the cow-dirt on branding: it’s [...]

Click the photo above or here to read the piece in today’s Ottawa Citizen. Or join our Facebook NOMO Group. The whole NOMO series: Part 1: NOMO unhelpful abbreviations in government Part 2: an abbreviation is not a brand. Brief: NOMO in the Ottawa Citizen Part 3: a good acronym is hard to find Part [...]

As an Ottawa naming and brand strategy consultant, I once thought the technology industry was the world’s biggest offender in the realm of unhelpful abbreviations. But then I started working with the Canadian federal government…. alphabet soup everywhere. My answer in one word: NOMO! The problem with acronyms / abbreviations / initialisms / alphabet soup [...]

Last Saturday, my brother Brent and I ran and rode OC Transpo buses all over Ottawa. Along the way, we (over) acted in soap opera, skateboarded, played croquet, danced around stripper poles (no nudity involved – this year), and ate really, really gross stuff. Not a normal Saturday for us or the more than 900 other [...]