Smart. And not so.
I’m planning a personal boycott against products with the word Smart in the name. No Smart Car for me. No Smart Phone. No Smart Food (butter? popcorn?) No, no and no. And even though the new Hewlett-Parkard touch screen computer seems pretty cool, it’s part of my boycott.
Naming is not an easy business. There are two ways to go: descriptive and non. When introducing a category-breaker product, I tend to recommend the descriptive approach — words and word assemblages that explain function. If the descriptive approach implies benefits, that’s cool, but for this approach I tend to stay away from benefit.
Today HP introduced the HP TouchSmart IQ500PC, an overgrown iPhone-like desktop computer that lets users stroke and palpate the screen for navigation. But couldn’t they have been equally creative with the name? I can live with the “Touch” part, but “Smart?” It’s just lazy. And to add a model number that begins with IQ?
Invent? I don’t think so.