Surely a rose by any other name would smell as sweet? Very often though names are amongst the very first pieces of information we gain about individuals and organisations and that is when human nature decrees that we start making judgements. I have not encouraged discussion about the name of our new venture with anyone apart from my life and business partner but have been interested in people’s response to date, and so, if you hadn’t got it already, this was our little journey. Not unlike one of the first many will make when putting new businesses together for the first time I imagine.
I like unusual combinations, plays on words, things that are a little different, words and short sentences that demand attention. Some of my children’s names and the names of our other business interests would confirm that! Take Virgin for example. A company I favoured immensely during my business studies but they and he have since fallen out of favour with me, especially with recent development (note to self. “No politics”). That single word was without doubt one of the major booms in the growth of Mr Branson’s early business practices. I spent some time and money with the brand in my youth and felt pretty cool doing so.
So how did we arrive at frukit and what is it all about?
It needed to create interest, pull people in for a second look. Or even just a second brief glance! I wanted it to say what we did, concisely but not necessarily obviously. Think Alan Michael Sugar TRADing. It needed to be memorable. It needed to be short. I have made the mistake of having business names that were too long in the past. All that wasted time typing. If I got frustrated, I bet customers did too.
I love a little banter. Could we squeeze that in too? How about a nod to the frustration that our customers sometime feel when using I.T. It would show we have an understanding of their fruking frustrations. What about our location, our history, where we are from, where we are based on the international digital stage. So…
fr = France. Our new semi-permanent home has been kind to us. I’m hovering between the U.K. and France at the moment spending more and more time here and most definitely feeling myself pulling pulled in the French direction. Although on reflection it might be more of a push from the U.K. Side (remember, NO politics). Depending on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations it may be that I make a full move to France, lock stock and barrel.
uk = Yup. A nod to my birth country and the language our services are delivered in. I have worked all over the United Kingdom in a vastly contrasting range of roles. If you look deeper you may draw some significance in the uk appearing after the fr. Although that may also be because it just fits!
it = Information Technology. I’ve picked it up and put it down over the years. Sort of waiting for the technology to catch up. Frustrated at its limitations. It was the only O Level I got at a grade A thirty years ago. Then after an I.T. hiatus of ten years in my twenties (caused in part by a disastrous I.T. job in a double glazing company in my late teens, a later blog post!) I went back to University to study computers and business again, and ended up teaching both subjects in the U.K. Now with fingers in assorted successful online pies I can categorically disprove that; those who can, do, and those that can’t teach.
frukit = Like everyone who uses I.T. a lot I can get frustrated. Losing work, slow Internet connections, spam, things not working as they should at the start of a lesson I have been putting together for hours. Sometimes I hide it well. In more relaxed environments I have been known to let the odd F word out once or twice at black boxes. Sometimes even I go a little red in the face! It does not get much more heated though than some of those angry interactions my family have had with I.T. over the years… I have witnessed my mother have many an unnecessary melt down as she has struggled to get to grips with her latest online ventures. Most entertaining of all though have been my boys. All of which are now grown men but they all went through an immensely angry period which would often see the
m ruining assorted computer hardware as the got beaten in the latest online game by some unknown guy or girl sitting on the other side of the world. Now I play games. I would class myself a veteran gamer of 35 years, but never have I thrown my laptop across the room or smashed a controller into pieces on my desk. The language from them though… well. Pre 16 I tried to contain it, I really did and would say I was reasonably successful. As an ex-single parent of three boys I am nearly ashamed to admit though that as they got older I just shut the door and played the music a bit louder. When it got really bad I would take or shut off all the bandwidth, claiming; “The Internet’s down again”, which would calm down things a little after a short-lived tirade of swearing of the highest order. For the record, taken away from the games they are chilled, relaxed, and big softies. They won’t play with me any more now though… I guess it must get a bit embarrassing getting beaten by your old dad on a global platform. Repeatedly, for years. Newbs. The picture shows three of them on holiday ten years ago, prior to all that angry stuff!
In closing I would just like to add. IT’S NOT PINK. It’s a sort of salmony rosey peach! Colour is yet another later blog entry though…