Get on the Bus!

You will no doubt have noticed by now that CBC.ca has a new homepage. Well, not really. As the explanatory note, er, explains, it’s no longer a homepage. It’s a “new portal that showcases the entire CBC experience across all its platforms and programs.” It has been referred to as the “network portal” internally for a while now - hot on the heels of the News Portal and the Sports Portal.

Portals are big these days, just like they were when I started working for CBC online in 1995. Except that back then, it was called Radio New Media, because radio started it. Then TV got in on the act, and it was just New Media. Then it didn’t seem so new any more, so all the disparate URLs lined up behind the moniker CBC.ca, and so did we employees.

But we too have been rebranded.

I just noticed that according to Groupwise (our corporate mail system), I no longer work for CBC.ca - I work for DIGITAL PROGRAM & BUS DEVLPMT.

That change didn’t come with an explanatory note (unless you count this) but the gist is that the department has, without much fanfare, been renamed Digital Programming and Business Development. The idea is that we aren’t just a website any more - we’re content sent to mobile phones and elevators and, well, everything that isn’t your radio or television.

The new department name was used a few times before I realized it meant “us” - an experience amplified when managers started addressing it (us) as DP&BD.

In fact, one of my colleagues had to look that acronym up, and its component parts. A search for DP leads to all sorts of things, as does BD, but we were reasonably certain our department hadn’t been recast as Dinner Party Brain Damage, or Death Penalty Big Deal. And you really don’t want to know what DP and BD stand for in the world of porn.

Anyhow, it’s just an internal name change, a soft rebranding that doesn’t cause much inconvenience. Except for one crucial, immediate problem… What about our softball team name?!?

CBC Toronto has a corporate softball league with eight teams, one of which is fielded by us web types. We used to be called “New Media”, but we couldn’t afford uniforms. Once we won the championship, we rated a set of “CBC.ca” T-shirts, so that became our name (the shirts are now pretty ratty.)

But now… Team Digital Programming and Business Development? Not catchy! Not able to fit across the back of a jersey!

My colleague Erich was inspired by Groupwise’s “DIGITAL PROGRAM & BUS DEVLPMT” and suggests the name “Bus Devils”, which isn’t bad. And it opens the door to a possible team vehicle! I think it should look something like this:

Got any team name suggestions? Let me know!

Posted by: Paul Gorbould | 06-19-2007 | 11:06 PM
Posted in: CBC