What's in a name?

It seems that there are a few ruffled feathers at the Account Planning Group Deutschland. For some time now, there's been talk about changing the name of the group. This seems fine to me although I tend to find academic discussions about what we should call ourselves even more academic than discussing what it is that we actually do.



But, fair enough, perhaps it is time for a change. After all "Account Planning" is a term left over from the 1960s when people worked on "Accounts" in "Advertising Agencies". I remember that word "Account" seriously putting me off in my days as a naive graduate when Monty Python's derision of Accountants was still fresh in my mind.



And, as a German group, maybe an English name is sending out the wrong signals. I won't get into that particular debate here but I do have my views...



So some options were kicked around and the "working title" of Strategie Verband has been decided on - or has it? Some have it that this has yet to be officially agreed while others note that what used to be http://www.apgd.de/ is now redirected to http://www.strategieverband.de/ : a fait accompli?



I won't go into my view on the proposed new name just yet - maybe next time - but I know how I would have gone about the name change if I were on the apgd Vorstand: from grass roots up. The joy of Germany is that it's still a collection of princely states in some ways: surely each Vorstand member could have taken one of the big cities: Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, München - oh, and Hamburg of course, held an informal evening meeting there then reported back to base with ideas and views. That would surely have got round any accusations of not being 100% democratic.