Milk Production, the Power of Names, and What It All Means for Your Company.

By Ted Page, Captains of Industry
From the New York Times Magazine comes a story headline that just can’t be ignored: “Cows with Names Make More Milk”. A study of numerous British dairies published in the journal Antrhozoös in March found that cows with names (like Daisy) produce 6% more milk in a given year than cows without names (the ones with ear tags and numbers). “The naming,” suggests Catherine Douglas of Newcastle University, “reflects the humans’ attitudes towards the cows, and therefore how they behave around them.” Perhaps cows with names instead of numbers are better treated, and thus are happier and produce more milk. This is a startling revelation with implications for the business world. Think of the difference between the Apple ‘Mac’ and the ‘PC’. It’s clear that how we think of things, and the nomenclature for those things, are closely related to our behavior around them. I never shout at my Mac. I love my Mac. Do people really love their PCs? What’s more important, does my Mac actually perform better because I love it? I have a suspicion that it does. And I think my Mac, in a computery bits and bytes sort of way, produces more milk as a result. Any given office is one big dairy farm of products that we treat with varying degrees of affection, with repercussions that can mean the difference between productivity and idleness, profit and loss. And when we name products for the public, we need to consider whether or not the name will somehow engender love from the consumer. Certainly Google did this with their Droid device. In Star Wars, the Droids were loveable robotic helpers with loads of personality and functionality. Who wouldn’t love their Droid? Ok, I think I’ve milked this idea as much as humanly possible and it’s time for me to go back to work. “Hey, Mac, wassup?!”