This is an open appeal for your help.

As you probably know, we are just about to launch a new website that will completely change how professionals and companies manage their professional network.  It’s like a really smart, connected address book that tells you who you should call and when.  We think its a revolutionary service and a major improvement over the way most companies currently manage their “customer database”.

As part of the product development process, we had to name our new “baby” and after several months of debate, we finally settled on the name DEX.

Last week we received a “Cease and Desist” letter from a law firm representing “Dex Media“, the company that delivers yellow pages online and to your door, telling us that it was illegal to use a name that was similar to theirs.  After seeking a lot of advice and soul searching (crushing), we have decided that we cannot afford to fight this allegation, even though we believe it is false.

This kind of reaction by established businesses needs to change.  While we have openly blogged about our process and as we try to develop our product collaboratively, they pay a team of lawyers to “monitor the internet” and guard them against other people.  I think that lawyers and businesses need to update their “cease and desist” letters from aggressive and threatening warnings to “inform and engage” letters that seek to educate and engage their “potential competition” and their customers, and that they need to get involved in the ongoing dialog that is taking place – whether they are listening or not.

Well, while they’re trying to protect what they have, we’re going to use this opportunity to open up and collaborate even more by “crowdsourcing” a new name for our product.  In case you’re not familiar with the term, crowdsourcing is when you use a network of people to accomplish a task that is often performed by an employee or agent (then called “outsourcing”).  Over the last five months we have received some fantastic ideas and inspiration from all of you who have been following our development process and I think this is the perfect way to engage you to complete the story.

In our business – much like other businesses – a catchy product name is paramount to success.  So, please take a minute to visit the crowdsourcing product page and recommend a smart product name or vote for one of the names that have already been submitted.  It would help us in a really big way, you’d be showing “big business” that cooperation is a viable alternative to protectionism, and you’d be doing your not-so-small part in helping the little guys prevail.

Thanks.