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EDITOR'S
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Northern
Virginia won't get the recognition it deserves
for its amazing cluster of information-technology
companies until someone comes up with a catchy
name for the region.
A story in this issue compares Northern Virginia with Silicon Valley. The personal-computer revolution made Silicon Valley a household word, and I'm hoping that the rise of the Internet will do the same for Northern Virginia. But it won't happen until Northern Virginia changes its name. |
| It's a marketing thing. It's easier to become a star if you're born with a handle like Harrison Ford, but if you're stuck with a moniker like Marion Morrison, you change it to John Wayne. Before someone came up with Silicon Valley, no one knew the way to San Jose. Fifteen years later, you can find Silicon Valley in Webster's New World College Dictionary. It gets four lines of ink; San Jose gets two. |
Former Gov. George Allen tried to call Virginia the "Silicon Dominion," but this old namesake nonsense lacked originality. It worked for George Washington Carver, but it cut both ways for John Wayne Bobbitt.
In 1993, Fortune magazine called Northern Virginia the "Netplex," but people complained that "Netplex" emphasized conduit over content. Companies like America Online, they argued, are selling information -- not just access to the Internet.
The following year, a group headed by software guru Mario Morino came up with "Potomac KnowledgeWay." This was an interesting attempt. The name paralleled Silicon Valley without plagiarizing it. "Potomac" anchored the name to a geographical feature. "Knowledge" referred to the raw material of the information age. And by adding the word "Way" to the end of knowledge, the name highlighted the region's role in building the information superhighway.
"Potomac KnowledgeWay" was functional, but it didn't resonate. It became the name of a nonprofit organization that promotes high-tech endeavors in Northern Virginia, but it sounded like something a computer programmer would write. "Potomac KnowledgeWay" earned an E for effort, but only a C++ for clarity.
Finally, in 1996, Virginia Business Associate Editor Richard Husick asked our readers for suggestions. They responded with names like: "Diamond Beltway," "Knowledge Bank of the Potomac" and "Capitolsite." None of these names were wonderful, but Rich thought "Capitolsite" had potential, so we decided to keep it on file for a while.
More recently, PricewaterhouseCoopers conducted a study of the region's high-tech sector and called it "InfoComm." I'm not sure why this name needs two M's at the end, but I like it otherwise. (Now if only Price could do something with its own unwieldy tag.) What we really need is a famous geographical feature and a little alliteration. ... Hey! I've got it!
Northern Virginia is the "InfoCom Capital."
Quick! Somebody tell the editors of Webster's to stop the presses on the next edition.
Karl
Rhodes
Executive Editor
