At eVenues, offices often come to us to list conference rooms and board rooms that they don't happen to be using to rent out by the hour. We love to do this, but the problem is that these rooms usually don't have a name other than, well, "Conference Room". Considering how many conference rooms we have on the site, it might be handy (not to mention fun) to be a little creative with your room names. Some other reasons to be creative about room names, other than saving the eVenues staff extra work naming your rooms on our site ;)

• People don't get confused about who is using what room when.
• Creative room names increase employee morale. They make your office feel unique--a place set apart from the rest of cubicle nation. Bonus points if you have your employees name the rooms, they'll get a sense that they've contributed to making the place home
• You get to "show off" a bit of your company culture to visitors of your office.

Need some inspiration? Here's a list of the most creative Room names that we've found, listed in order of room names that have the most interesting backstory.

1.  Übermind HQ in Seattle, WA

Room Names: Bunker, Pylon, Hive, Orbital, Spire, Armory, Forge, Nexus, Lair

Backstory: Übermind is a an interactive agency that creates mobile apps for large corporate clients. The name of the company is based on a character (The Overmind) from the popular video game StarCraft. As if the name alone wasn't enough to establish geek cred for the developers and designers they were looking to hire they went one step further and named each of the rooms after building names from the game. Each of the rooms have custom decals (designed by the staff to look like the buildings in the game)  to identify them. Check out the complete album of  pictures here.

2. SoftLayer HQ in Dallas, TX

Room Names: SLales, CBNO, Geneous, Unicorn, Automation, Innovation, 204A, SLacker, Pink, 3Bars, SLayer, Funky Truck, 05-05-05, Muenster, Midway, SharkByte. Backstory:  SoftLayer is dedicated server hosting company. Although these names don't really seem to be particularly fun or ingenious, they really are. Each of these names have significance in the companies history. "Pink", for example, is the name of the CFOs conference room (a CFO who often wears pink). 204A was the original building name of the room but they decided not to name it in respect of the lawyer hating ghost that they believe might reside there. Each of the names tells a story, and really gives you a sense of the company culture--a true stroke of genius. For more about why they had chosen the room names, check out their blog post about it here.

3. SEOmoz HQ in Seattle, WA

Room names: Batcave, Hall of Justice, Thunderdome, Death Star, Mos Eisley Cantina, Spider Skull Island. BackStory: SEOMoz is a company that creates SEO Software. True to the "fun" tenet of their TAGFEE (Transparent and Authentic, Generous, Fun, Empathetic, Exceptional) ideals they've labeled their meeting rooms after famous comic book/sci-fi lairs. Check out the other pictures on this post here. (Hat-tip from Adam Philipp of AEON Law)

4. Square HQ in San Francisco, CA

Room Names: Heroes Square, Liberty Square, Lafayette Square, Dam Square, etc. Backstory: Square is a company that creates a square shaped device that allows people to accept credit card payments using a smartphone. It only seems natural that they’ve named their conference room after famous “Squares” in the world.

5. Red Nova Labs in Westwood, KS

Room Names: Endeavor(Pictured Above), Armstrong, Gemini, Mercury, Discovery, Atlantis, Voyager, Lovell, Glenn Bathroom Names: George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy :D Backstory: Red Nova Labs is a web development and marketing agency. The company got its name from a red nova, a stellar explosion thought to be caused by the merger of two stars. Thus it seemed only natural for the rooms around the building have been named after space explorers, scientists and vehicles. Not only do the room names reflect the company name, but the red and white company colors are ubiquitous throughout the space. You can see more pictures of the space here.

6. Poggled in Chicago, IL

Room Names: "It's 5:00 Somewhere" and "Stay Thirsty My Friend" Backstory: Poggled is a company that focuses on nightlife and deals on bar tabs. Extra points for the "most interesting man" poster in the "Stay Thirsty" room :).

7. Microsoft N.E.R.D in Cambridge, MA

Room Names: In-sane, In-Continent, In-Famous, In-Capable. Backstory: N.E.R.D stands for the New England Research and Development center, and it's pretty much the center of operations for Microsoft on the East coast. Their room theme, if you haven't figured it out, are words that sound funny with the prefix "in-" (Hat-tip from Cy Kormaee, COO at cimls.com)

8. BlueGrace Logistics, Riverview, FL

Room Names:"Imagine"(Conference Room), "Wonderwall" (Training Room with dry erase board paint on walls), Comfortably Numb (Break Room), "S. Carter" (Meeting Room), "Hypnotize" (Meeting Room), "Make it Rain" (Sprinkler Room), Techno (Networking Room), "Electric Avenue" (Electric Room), "Cleaning out my Closet" (Storage Closet)

Other Creative Room Names:

Cisco HQ San Jose, CA Room Names (Building C):  Free Parking, Boardwalk, Marvin Gardens, etc. Room Names (Another Building): Barney, Fred, Wilma, Betty, etc. Cisco also apparently has a "beer building" where all the conference rooms are named after beers. We think this is very cool. SPARC, Charleston, SC Room Names: Bacon Fort/Awesome Chuck Norris (these two have a removable wall to make Chuck Norris) Agile, Buttercup, Wolverine Tableau Software, Seattle WA Room Names: Cezanne, Picasso (Famous Artists). Each room has a picture of a signature painting from the artist. Dell HQ, Austin TX Room Names: Capitals of the world. (Hat tip from Naysawn Naderi, founder of ArtSumo) AEON Law Offices, Seattle WA Room Names: Gondor, The Shire My Web Grocer, Winooski VT The Situation Room – reserved for very important executive meetings The Cave – this room is in the middle of the office, kind of dark with no windows or natural light The Cooler – looks like the inside of a cooler, blue with many windows The Fishbowl – as above, this looks like the inside of a fishbowl, green with lots of windows --------------------------------------------- New here? You might want to check out some of our popular posts:

• The World's Most Creatively Designed Boardrooms
• A Brief History of Coffee Houses as Meeting Places
• 5 Ways Psychological Research Can Make Your Meetings Better
• Feng Shui for Meeting and Conference Rooms
• How to Organize a  "Social Media War Room" and Rule the Internet for a Day.

Out of town and don't have a meeting room to use? Be sure to check out our meeting rooms in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Stormtrooper Photo by Ha-Wee  

At eVenues we like to stay on top of the best blogs about events, technology, and of course, event technology. We tweet and share the best blog posts we find but there always are a select few posts that we believe deserve special mention. This week those posts are:

Will International Meetings and Events Industry Prosper in 2012? - Business Travel Destinations

We here at eVenues like optimism (we're a startup after all!). What we like even more is optimism backed up with numbers. While business travel faced a lot of challenges last year due to the economy, this year is starting to look up. In this post business travel expert Rob Hard goes one step further than hearsay and rah rah fluff, and provides real world examples for why 2012 should be a prosperous year.

Why Your Conference Rots: It Is Just Like School - Midcourse Corrections

When attendees sit silently in their seats listening passively to an hours and hours of presentations, talks and lectures, it doesn't matter how good or useful your content is. You have a "rotten" conference on your hands. Jeff Hurt of Velvet Chainsaw points out that the reason your conference rots is because you use outdated methods used in traditional education. Not only does he point out the problem, but he offers some useful solutions. A must read.

Why I’m the world’s worst virtual attendee. And how that can help you plan better hybrid events. - Plan Your Meetings

It's hard to make a hybrid meeting successful--especially on the "virtual" side of it. In this tongue-in-cheek post Kristi Casey Sanders offers a portrait of the worst possible virtual attendee--herself! When planning your own hybrid event, keep attendees like Kristi in mind. How would you keep someone like her engaged?

Why Business Best Practices Are Evil - Open Forum

A thought provoking post by SocialFish's Maddie Grant about how focusing too much on best practices may leave you blind to business opportunities.

Event Tech Checklist Helps Planners Meet Attendee Needs - Engage365

From live streaming talks to event specific twitter hashtags, technology is rapidly changing the way we meet. A consequence of this, however, is that event suppliers are having trouble keeping up with the technology needs of meeting planners. In order to solve this problem, James Spellos and Corbin Ball created TechSpec, a list of guidelines that both event planners and suppliers can refer to so that they're on the same page. In this post Jenise Fryatt interviews Spellos about TechSpec--what it is and the reason for its inception.

 

Did you see a great post that we missed? Let us know! Contact our Community Manager Kenji Crosland at kenji -at- evenues dot com.

Photo by: Michael Ruiz

At eVenues we like to stay on top of the best blogs about events, technology, and of course, event technology. We tweet and share the best blog posts we find but there always are a select few posts that we believe deserve special mention.

This week those posts are:

The Economy Is Based on Meetings — It’s That Simple - Victorix

While the 24 hour news pundits have been railing against "Muffin Gate," the incident where the justice department allegedly paid $16 per muffin served at a conference. This guest post by Justin Locke reminds us of the very simple fact that " The economy is based on sales, and sales happen at meetings." Hear, hear!

11 Can’t Miss Ways to Make Your Event Blog Suck - Engage 365

Jenise Fryatt, Community Manager of Engage 365 and blogger at Sound n' Sight gives us a fun, tongue in cheek list of "tips" on how to create a terrible event blog. Sorry Jenise, but just this once we're not going to follow any of your advice ;)

8 Indispensable Features for a Kick-Ass Event App - Event Manager Blog

Given the ease with which developers can customize software today, it seems only natural for events and conferences to come with their own apps. Michael Heipel, who takes charge of marketing for the annual World Newspaper Congress and IFRA Expo, shares his thoughts on what an Event app should include.

The New Science of Trade Show Marketing - Meetings & Conventions

A longer post, but definitely worth a read. Michael C. Lowe, writer for Meetings & Conventions, provides us a detailed guide on how to use technology to personalize your event marketing efforts.

Not a Trend: Ketchup Fountains - PlusPoint

This post made the list because it had a ketchup fountain. 'Nuff said.

 

Did you see a great post that we missed? Let us know! Contact our Community Manager Kenji Crosland at kenji -at- evenues dot com.