While searching through some domain name variations, to use for an East Texas company, I ran across a variant "eastxs" and ran it through the "whois" process. Like many other variations on the same theme, it belonged to a company in the East. Not the Eastern part of my state, or the Eastern part of the country, but the Eastern part of the world. I wondered why someone from that region would use a variant which would seem to indicate an East Texas (East TXS) affiliation. I looked the company up and contacted them. I got a note back with the information I needed to understand the situation on a different level.
The kind gentleman who answered, explained that his company was seeking access to the West, hence, East XS, or East Access. Since many western companies, are now accessing the manpower and intellect of that region, it only seems fair to reciprocate.
I had been working under a mistaken presupposition. A realization that my spot in the world, is not the center of the universe came upon me. That is hard for a Texan to take! My focus was too narrow. A more "global" approach was needed, to understand the situation.
The world is becoming smaller, and the Internet has had a lot to do with this. I have been reprinted in at least six languages that I am aware of, and that would not have been a possibility a few years ago. I still have difficulty believing that free press exists in Eastern Europe! This is a wonderful time to live.
I now wonder what other tidbits of information elude us, preventing us from understanding each other, how many wars have been fought over an idea or concept or words, poorly understood. I wonder at the possibly, innumerable disasters brought on by a poorly pondered, or tragically translated scribble. This is not a new idea to me, but searching for that "just right" domain name seems to bring this sort of thing up pretty often.
Being the introspective sort of guy I am, it made me ask the obvious question, why is this so? I think I understand at least part of it. When we search for domain names, we are attempting to get to the "nitty gritty", of what we or our company is about, in the most concise way possible. We want what we find, to be us in a nutshell. It gets down to the way we use words to convey, not just ideas and concepts, but emotions and feelings as well. We have made the domain, our name, an extension of who and what we are.
Why we choose a certain domain name says something about us, and makes us think about what we really want to get across. It causes us to question. The domain we choose, says something to others about us, and we want to be sure that we are saying the right thing in this short summery of ourselves.
James Burns writes on internet and social issues from a different perspective, from his home in Tyler, Texas, and his home page can be seen at http://www.dotcomrevolt.com
