Although Rock Bay Media is a brand new company on Vancouver Island, the story of it’s name goes back many years.
When I was in school at Camosun College in 1999, my love affair with entrepreneurship began (I should blame my dad for this affliction, however, more on that another time). While there, I designed my very first business card ever and on it was named a company that never came to be: ProLux. Just looking at that card gave me shivers as I anticipated the thrills and excitements of running my own creative production company.
Then, I graduated and it was straight into the Grist Mill of working for the CBC affiliate TV station in Terrace, BC. But, it didn’t take long for my mind to swirl with thoughts of running the show. It being the CBC, and all, I knew I’d have to start with something a little smaller. So, the cogs twisted and turned again and when I came back to Victoria 1 year later I was dabbling in interactivity immediately on my new Bondi Blue Rev B iMac. Two years later, with a lot of help from John MacKenzie, LUX Engine 3223 was born in 2001- an interactive story book under the company name Maggot & Oaf. For whatever reason, that name just didn’t resound with the tones of quality and professionalism I was looking for.
Shortly after the days of Maggot & Oaf, Usable Media was born. It was a good name, I thought. A grand one. Media production was what we did and gee golly, was it ever usable. On the web, on… well, there was really only web then. Now there’s smartphones and ereaders. Netbooks and touch screens. Things are changed. But, the name would fit better than ever.
One small problem. Cyber-squatters. That’s right: the dredges of online society had snuck in to my little world of bits and bytes, ones and zeros, and squatted there. For long enough (actually, this process happens instantaneously online) to become the legal owner of www.usablemedia.com. How dare they! I was miffed. What to do? In a panic to come up with a new name, something terrible happened. A terrible, awful name came up in our minds, and we bought the domain. We even printed business cards. But it had to stop!!!
Enter Jordan Strattford. Creative Consultant Extraordinaire. Let’s just say it didn’t take him long to “nish-nish” the name, which I don’t even think is worth mentioning here. But, Jordan steered me in the right direction, and after some Google Map-ping of the local area, I came up with Rock Bay Media. It was a lot like throwing darts. But, I think it works. I like it a lot.
What do you think?