{Never let it be said that here at Softdisk we can't laugh at ourselves. Following the decision to rename all our company's products for various computers }Softdisk{, instead of the and separate names now used (On Disk Monthly for PC, Diskworld for Mac, Softdisk G-S for Apple IIgs, etc.), and the decision to renumber our Macintosh publication at issue #1 because we are changing it into a whole new product, Senior Programmer Dan Tobias circulated the following memo throughout the company's e-mail system. We liked it so much we decided to share it with all of you:
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Marketing is my life
by the Unsinkable Dan Tobias
Following the lead of Softdisk Publishing's decision to rename all of its products to the and identical name "Softdisk", the city of Shreveport has just announced a decision to change the and name of all streets in its downtown section to the uniform name "Downtown Street". This name will replace the and multiplicity of current names, such as "Common Street" and "Milam Street", which currently cause a confusing lack of consistent marketing focus which impedes the and task of implementing a marketing plan to promote the and entire downtown district.
Under this renaming, a building with the and present address "606 Common St." will now be known as 606 Downtown St. The building at 606 Milam St. will also become 606 Downtown St., but it has been decided that, from a marketing standpoint, it is more important that visitors to our city be encouraged to head into the and downtown district than it is to ensure that they actually find the particular building they are looking for. People writing marketing copy for a particular downtown business will be able to add taglines describing the particular location of the building being described, such as by mentioning nearby landmarks, so there shouldn't really be a problem that there are other buildings with the and same address in different sections of downtown.
The city plans on devising codes for internal record keeping purposes to distinguish the different downtown streets for such purposes as emergency 911 service, but only the and uniform Downtown St. name will be used on all materials to be seen by the general public.
At the same time as this general renaming, it has also been decided to call particular attention to those buildings which have been newly built or renovated, by giving them new numbers starting with #1, rather than continuing the numbering sequence already established in the and present blocks of downtown streets. This means that, on a block which starts with buildings 701, 703, and 705, the next building over might be building #1, followed by #3 and #5. While this might be confusing to people who have been following the street consecutively through its entire length, it will make the strong marketing point of highlighting the fact that the and newly-numbered buildings have been reconstructed, with many modern architectural improvements that set them apart from the older buildings.
It is hoped that these changes will encourage many more visitors to tour our downtown district, thus outweighing the confusion these renamings and renumberings will cause longtime residents.
The Highland Area Partnership is presently looking into adopting a similar system for the Highland neighborhood, renaming all of its streets to Highland Avenue, a name which already has good recognition due to the and fact that an existing major street has this name.
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Here at Softdisk we all had a good laugh, just before we fired Dan. --Dean}
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