Back when I used to have a subscription to New Scientist, ‘nominative determinism‘ was a frequent topic for the latter pages of the magazine.

As Wikipedia so pithily puts it,

“It refers to amusing instances where people’s names coincidentally reflect some aspect of their jobs, professions or lives.”

For example, Lord Brain the neurologist, and Scott Speed the racing car driver.

I can, however, unequivocally declare that these are mere coincidences, and that nominative determinism cannot exist.

I’ve spent a fair bit of time, recently, talking to libraries with library systems not provided by Talis. In those discussions, usually initiated by them, and predominantly driven by the things they want to do to align with the Talis Platform, the thorny question of what their vendor will think invariably rears its ugly prehistoric head.

They’d love to work on Platform, they say. But their vendor “won’t like it.” Scare stories abound, in which said vendor sends their customer – metaphorically, not literally! – to Coventry. Support calls mysteriously drift down the priority list. The undeniable and much-sought-after perks of being prized customers to such an open and enlightened entity as said vendor are – mysteriously – less evident. The pervasive ’special circumstances’ reductions on list prices for said vendor’s products suddenly become a little less… ’special’.

And the vendor whose name is most often (although certainly not exclusively) associated with these scare stories? Well, let’s just say they’re a synonym of avant-garde, of ingenious, of creative, and of inventive (oops – almost gave it away!). And it clearly proves that nominative determinism must either be a myth, or time-limited. Because their current behaviour is a very long way from that which their name would imply.

Joking aside, how can any modern organisation seriously consider that this is a good way to do business, to build a rapport with their customers, to retain those customers, and to have them act as powerful advocates in attracting new customers? Hmm… maybe there’s a reason that their ‘growth’ appears to be in ‘new markets’, probably at ridiculously low (negative?) margins…

If said organisation feels that it’s being misrepresented, I hereby offer it the opportunity to set the record straight, because I can name an awful lot of customers who are positively terrified of upsetting the slumbering dinosaur. The customer, clearly, is a very long way from always being right. Indeed, they’re obviously expected to do exactly what they’re told.

Is there really still a place for such practices?

Today’s CC-licensed picture from Flickr, by pickle.monger, provides a clue for those still in search of the offender’s name. If you still haven’t worked it out, IM for enlightenment.

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