Seinfeld Business

Another neat thing about the extras on the Seinfeld DVD's is that they share many details of the business of producing and writing a TV show. It's an amazingly efficient process because it has to be -- it's not a choice when you have seven days to complete such a huge project. One particularly useful nugget is Jerry's philosophy about naming the episodes.

Every episode except for the second one (Male Un-Bonding) is simply tilted, "The ___________." For example, The Contest, The Busboy, The Pony Remark and so on. Jerry explains that he didn't want the writers to sit around wasting creative energy developing catchy names for the shows, especially since most viewers wouldn't even care or remember the name once the show started. They chose names that were merely descriptive, and in so doing they managed to give them a brand flavor all their own since they were consistent with the protocol.

That's pretty good advice. How much time and energy do we waste working on details that are of little consequence? Developing product names is a great example. We sit in meetings for hours each year and then spend even more time  checking to make sure we aren't violating anyone else's trademarks. How often do customers really care what the product is called anyway?