This week I spend some time together with Ton to restructure both our collection of websites. What began with just one weblog, grew into a whole collection of various websites where I manage my online identity (and I’m not talking about social networks).
My biggest concern is my Dutch (company) blog. I started it in 2005 when ‘I’ became ‘my own company’. For whatever reason(s) it never became a serious place to write for me, resulting in few posts and huge gaps in writing. Keeping up two general blogs appears to be too much for me. (Gosh, I’m jealous of all those Anglo-saxons that don’t have to worry about serving multiple linguistic groups.)
So what to do with skallagrigg.net? One thought is that I drop the name Skallagrigg for my company. It is a difficult name to spell and pronounce (especially for Dutch) and although the story of Skallagrigg resonates in my core values, the book’s values are perhaps not the most important in my work.
I think it’s time to bring either a clear focus to my company site, choose a theme to write about (more essay style than blog), or switch to a more static representation. I’m thinking of using an URL with just my name (my company = just me).
I’d rather use this blog as my thinking space, than any other space. It is no coincidence that I challenged myself to post on a daily basis here, and not at skallagrigg.net. This is where my tribe can follow me (and support me). Only a few in my tribe speak Dutch, but they can all understand English. Maintaining a similar space in Dutch has proven to be unsatisfactory with too small audience.
I haven’t decided on anything and I’m very curious what you think of these ideas.
3 Comments
Recognizable struggle for anyone who is his/her “own company”. For now I don’t really push a company name, besideds on invoices. For my webpresence I’ve streamlined it into being recognizable as @mdbraber everywhere. It has drawbacks (everybody knows you’re just 1 person) but also is very easy to grasp and recognizable. But I still like good company names I can spend weeks thinking of a good one
Hey Maarten,
I see you only publish in English. Do you get comments from Dutch clients on that? Or questions like: why don’t you write in Dutch?
I like the Skallagrigg name (apart from the story, it sounds very knowledgable). But maybe your right.
From a marketing point of view there is something to say for keeping your family name when that name provides most of the value. (like laywers etc.)
Our company did the same which may seem weird for a factory, but my dad was part of the product (or service)
having said that I think it’s important to think about what the “thing” is that your doing. names and signs are secondary.
what does your “presence” say about you? go from there.