Very well said.
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Clogg" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 9:57 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Is the e not catching on?


> I think most of us have had the experience of working someplace where the
> name of the company, or a department, or a position within the
organization
> had its name changed.  The management folks who spent many high-salaried
> hours coming up with the new name seemed to believe that a name change was
> sufficient to bring about a material change in the way business was done.
> In reality, the administrative assistant still does the same job the
> secretary used to do, and Technology Services still does the same job MIS
> used to do.  A name change is meaningless, unless some substantive changes
> in behavior accompanies it.  It is that follow-through that so many
> companies fail at.
>
> To HP's credit, I think we can safely say that they never intended the
> addition of the "e" to the name of our beloved computer to change the way
we
> veterans use or speak of it. (We may change or expand its applications,
but
> not because of a name change!)  It was intended to convey to potential
> customers that this is an appropriate machine for "e-commerce".  Assuming
HP
> follows through with advertising and other marketing efforts to reinforce
> that image, it may in fact accomplish that goal.  Unfortunately, those
> potential customers might be convinced that the 3000 is a useful
e-commerce
> machine, but will fail to adopt it out of fear.  They will fear that this
> system is too far out of the mainstream and may not be around for much
> longer.  These fears will be reinforced by HP's failure to include the
3000
> in its discussions of available products and by other slights, such as the
> recent changes to HP's web site.
>
> * To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
> * etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *

* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *