INC NEWS - top 10 reasons not to change the spelling of INC

[RW Pickle]

Given the opportunity to express any (even just one) reason for changing
the spelling of INC, we have seen none. So here are my top 10 reasons to
leave it like it is. This is my top 10, you may have others. If you have a
reason for it to change, now would be a good time to get it out in the
open. Our President says this issue will be decided at our next meeting on
Tuesday. So come on down and cast your vote.

1) there is no "right" way to spell it; it's our organization and we can
spell it any way we decide to spell it; but changing it to something other
than what it is will not make it any more grammatically correct, will not
make it any more "right", and we have yet to hear any reason for the
change

2) if you Google "interneighborhood" and "inter neighborhood" you will
find that "interneighborhood" is found 941 times across the web; "inter
neighborhood" is found 43,600 times. This alone should tell you that the
42,000 times + that the latter is found must be the right way for these
words to be presented. One is no better than the next when it comes to a
search on Google; we hold the number 1 and 2 spots in either search. So
ranking in search engines can't be a reason. Either way, you find us
listed at the top.

3) since I took over the web work for INC when Al Stone retired from Duke,
I worked on the placement of our website in search engines (we call this
Search Engine Optimization or SEO). It's relative here because it deals
with search words people use to find us. We get around 550 unique visitors
each month and it continues to grow. Oddly enough, the number one phrase
in March that visitors came to the INC website from was my name (3%). This
is really strange to me, but... 1.5% came to us by searching the phrase
"inter neighborhood". Because I look at the statistics of the website
regularly, it becomes apparent (from search engine key words and phrases
used to find us) that "interneighborhood" is way down the list (at 0.5%).
Probably (we see the sheer number of times it is NOT found in #2) because
17 letters in a string really never dawns on most people. It's just really
long in this day of shorter and shorter words and acronyms. Besides, when
you hear us mentioned by others, it is always as INC.

4) as a single keyword used to find us through search engines, durham
(12.5%) and neighborhood (6.2%) were the top two words.
"Interneighborhood" was way down the list at 1.3%. More people found us by
searching "a" and "in" than "interneighborhood". Those must have been very
broad searches! "Interneighborhood" faired better than "inter" only by
0.1% with one less person finding us using it. So changing the spelling so
we're easier too find is no reason. We're already found by many other
words by much greater percentages.

5) there are 350 web files (not including any graphics) that DO NOT have
our name spelled the way it will be changed. This is an enormous amount of
work to sort through all of this and correct the spelling. Someone
suggested a script that might do it. But there are 6 different types of
formats of files on the website and a script just isn't going to do what
is thought it would do. So, some say we can do it over time. Who has the
time and why would we even need to do it in the first place? That's the
question that begs an answer that never comes. I submit that there is no
good reason to change the spelling.

6) last year we bought 2 banners to be used in telling folks who we were
at various events. These banners (that are NOT spelled like the change
will be) amount to more than 25% of our regular yearly budget. We used
them last year at Centerfest and in the Christmas Parade. Changing the
spelling makes them wrongly spelled. So do we use them anyway and just
keep this confusion of how to spell INC going? It becomes unnecessary if
we just leave it as it is.

7) all stationary, business cards, checks, or places where our formal name
is used become wrong. Sure we can just wait until we need to order new
checks to change the name on them so additional expense is not incurred.
But if we don't change the spelling, none of this stuff is wrong in the
first place. And there is no "right" way to spell it.

8) "interneighborhood"; 17 letters. Really. Does anything spelled with 17
consecutive letters make sense? Most medications and diseases aren't
spelled with that may letters. Hard to fit it all on a t-shirt... It
begins to look like an eye chart with all those little letters. And who
knows, with all those letters, it looks like it could be a crossword
puzzle word; clue: ___ Council; the organizations of neighborhoods in the
Bull City. Except it's really too long for even that. Most crossword
puzzles (like the one found in the Herald Sun) only have 15 spaces for
letters. So it's even too long for that...

9) and 10) I really didn't have ten reasons I could come up with, but it
worked for David Letterman so I thought I'd go with it...

Basically, changing the spelling to any way other than the way it is
currently spelled is a waste. And why is this necessary? It does nothing
to further anything. In fact, it just makes additional work and expense
that is totally unnecessary. All unnecessary if we just leave it like it
is. No one will be confused either way. Neither is any more right than the
other. But the above reasons are good reasons for leaving like it is.
Changing it just adds to the burden of it all. Not for everyone, just for
those who will have to make the needed changes to correct the spelling.
And our treasury as we replace what we already have.

There may be other reasons to leave the spelling like it is. I am just
perched to see the web stuff and the money wasted by doing it better than
most. These are both duties I have been trusted to look after for our
organization over the past few years. And changing the spelling is an
issue for me. It's easy to see why; it's about waste of money and about
the spelling across the web. Good reasons to stay the course.

Even if we don't change the spelling, and end up using the stylized
"Durham" that DCVB created for the over-arching brand, it's still not a
logo. And if that is what we're going for, we'd be better off coming up
with something that will work for INC for many years to come. It's been 23
years that we haven't had our own branded identity. Maybe it's time we
started finding one...

RWP
Treasurer and Webmaster