That's not my name

My new adventure needs a name other than Cheryl v. 3.0.  Trusted advisors assure me that whatever name I choose can be adapted or changed (sponsored by those three letters dba), but my perfectionist tendencies are in full bloom over this tiny detail.  Finding something that works for an LLC and a domain, that sounds professional, that is somewhat memorable in a clever kind of way is bothering me way more than it should.

Cheryl & Co. would be perfect but that cookie chick grabbed it years ago and another bakery in Pennsylvania has camped out on cheryl.com. CherylCollins is a person in Canada who uses lower case to spell her name, just like me!  CCollins, LLC is pretty boring and, anyway, it belongs to an airbrush artist.

CherylCanDoThat.com is way long and sounds like it’s an info-mercial or the jingle from Expedia DOT COM.  I’m not certain that CherylCan.com is any better plus the whole aim of my services is (at least for now) helping you achieve your goals (and CherylCanHelp is even kludgier than CherylCanDoThat).  The Collins Group or Collins Associates or some permutation drives me crazy because I keep wanting to think about whether an apostrophe is necessary (see, I’m OCD).

No matter how much I like to believe I’m one-of-a-kind, this exercise underscores that there are lots of women named Cheryl Collins and at least some of them are business owners.  I should have known it was no coincidence when I got another Cheryl Collins’s parking ticket in grad school and I’ve picked up a prescription that belonged to yet another Cheryl Collins in the past six months. 

So, I’m taking a page from the world o’ software geeks and declaring the naming conversation a crowdsourcing initiative.  The rules are pretty simple.  Leave your ideas in the Comments section below or email me directly.  Besides an availability search in Virginia, I have to be able to secure the domain or something that’s close enough to it to make sense. If I pick your name, I’ll provide a really good prize (!) and you’ll have my undying gratitude.

Like the T.S. Eliot poem, “The Naming of Cats,” I’m looking for my “ineffable effable, effanineffable, deep and inscrutable singular Name.”

On your mark, get set, go!  Let the brainstorming begin.

PS – Yes, the title of this post is a tribute to the Ting Tings (I’m attempting to enter the 21^st century with at least part of my musical tastes).

Cheryl can…

“…do anything she sets her mind to do!”  At least that’s what my folks said when Don officially asked for my hand in marriage almost 20 years ago (ok, I was WELL past the age of consent, but that’s the way we roll in the South). 

Despite that ringing endorsement, my drama queen visits late at night when I catalog the lengthy list of all the things I can’t do:  I’m never going to be a doctor or a singer in a rock band or the president of anything other than perhaps fan clubs for my friends’ kids.  It’s equally unlikely that I’m going to run a marathon or jump out of a plane willingly or climb a mountain peak.

But in brief moments of self-reflection, I realize that my passion lies in helping others achieve their dreams and celebrate victories, both big and small, personal and professional.  Essentially, I’m an encourager.  My community of faith calls it the “gift of exhortation” and it took me years to accept/embrace this fancy label.  Yes, I might be seen (here comes the drama queen again) as a Pollyanna with a simplistic view of life who avoids confrontation. That’s probably true, at least part of the time, but you can imagine how excited I was to receive the HBR article, “Just because I’m nice, don’t assume I’m dumb,” from a trusted colleague.

I’m grateful that others bring an equal passion and a battle approach to thorny issues. If they’ll let me, it’s likely I’ll be in the background helping them work on those challenges. I’m quite pleased to encourage the doctor, singer, president and celebrate the accomplishments of the runner, sky diver, climber.  I’ve enthusiastically applauded friends and colleagues who have all those accomplishments in their portfolios even though I don’t and likely never will.

Do anything I set my mind to?  Not so much, but my parents are still right in a big picture sort of way.  For today, my mind is set so that Cheryl can…help with:

-          Practical advice based on proven experiences from working with a lot of really smart people;

-          Behind-the-scenes consulting that keeps the spotlight on the people I work with instead of me;

-          Access to information you don’t currently have in a format that makes sense to you;

-          Help in specific (often obscure) areas since little things make the big difference.

Wherever my new adventure leads, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will be filled with opportunities to help and encourage.  Stay tuned.

So What? Why Now?

I know writers…lots of them.  They are friends and colleagues, not just names on a printed page. They write newspaper articles, books, speeches, columns, blogs, you name it, in high profile venues. Their topics range from philanthropy to sports to health to family.  My favorites (and you know who you are) write on deadlines that I can’t imagine.  But they do it and I still get a thrill when I see a byline or new posting from one of them.

So, you can see my reluctance in starting my own blog and making it available online.  What if somebody reads it?!?  What if I have no “voice” after years of talking about its importance? What if? What if?

Long ago, I worked with gifted students and creative writing was one of the classes I taught.  Donald Graves and William Zinnser were two resources I used in that class and our (yes, I wrote when my students did) journals were early precursors of today’s blogosphere.  I wrote medical update emails for almost four years to keep family and friends updated on the Collins’ health saga.  More recently, I’m enamored by Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute and I get a daily email from Grammar Girl.  Colleagues know me as the “cranky old English teacher” who is distracted/outraged by run-on sentences, misplaced commas, and egregious use of it’s vs. its and a lot as one word rather than two. 

Yet, in January 2011, I’m embarking on a new adventure that I’m calling Cheryl v.3.0.  I can’t advise others on effective use of communications for building relationships if I’m not experimenting with lots of different tools myself.  Well, I could, but that would be disingenuous.

I’m a big believer in the “conversations on paper” approach to writing and know that any “voice” I acquire will be enhanced through your participation.  Chances are high that I’ll never hit the NY Times bestseller list, the pages of USA TODAY, or a Twitterstream with 300K followers.  But I can walk my talk, so I’m taking a deep breath and pressing the publish button…here goes.