Some of the greatest companies in America have names that reflect who they are. Others have names that reflect what they are.
Volkswagen literally means “people’s car.”
Coca-Cola’s name comes from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring in the soft drink. Eventually Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the K of kola to C to create a more fluid name.
Lego is a combination of the Danish phrase leg godt, which translates to “play well.” Initially the company built wooden toys, and later switched to making plastic bricks.
NetCraftsmen was selected for the name of our company because it reflects the two core characteristics that are embodied in our culture and our way of doing business.
The first is our focus on networking technologies. Everything we do is focused on assessing, designing, deploying, and managing network technologies.
Our areas of expertise include the core route/switch technologies that form the foundation of a business’s network; applications that leverage that network foundation, like unified communications, collaboration, and virtualization; and security solutions to protect the foundation and the applications that run on it. We also focus on related technologies that expand business infrastructures like wireless, data center, cloud, storage, and big data.
The NetCraftsmen name also reflects the craftsmanship we pursue in every engagement we undertake on behalf of our customers.
An Old Idea for a Modern Company
Our company is modeled after the trade guilds that were originally established in medieval times. The guilds were made up of experts in their field of handicraft — and were formally certified as such.
These experts were called master craftsmen. One did not reach this level quickly. Many years of apprenticeship were required simply to reach the level of “journeyman,” and only many years after that could a tradesman be called a master craftsmen.
At NetCraftsmen, our commitment to craftsmanship is reflected in everything we do, including the very structure of our company. We’re organized in the same manner as a guild in that we have three tiers of expertise built into our labor categories, which reflect apprentices, journeymen, and craftsmen.
Our name means that we are experts in the networking technology areas that we focus on. It means that we grow our own experts so that they learn The NetCraftsmen Way. It means that every encounter with a NetCraftsmen employee will result in a professional, craftsmen-like result that provides value to our customers.
It also means that we stay true to our belief that deep expertise in a specific technology area is critical, and that applying that expertise to business problems is the best use of our customer’s investment. It means that we are craftsmen, and that we apply our craft to making our customers’ businesses thrive.
Finally, being a NetCraftsmen means that we conduct business in a transparent, business-friendly way where everybody understands what we are doing, why we are doing it, and what its business value is. By “everybody,” we mean our employees (at all levels), our customers, and our partners.
That commitment to transparency and business education is why we created this new blog, For Business Leaders. You’ll still find our technology-focused posts on this site (in the For Technologists blog). But starting today, you’ll also find posts of interest to the business professionals who aren’t technology experts but who understand the power of the right technology to solve business problems and to help them grow.
To see an example of how our Craftsmen are making a difference in the world of technology, take a look at this article about my colleague Denise Donohue, who is blazing paths for women in our industry.