What’s With the Name “HandPickedTomatoes”?

I get this question a lot. The quick answer: “It’s memorable, has unambiguous spelling, and was available as a domain name.

The longer philosophical answer is that good relationships are more like tomatoes than bit streams. The tomatoes represent simple organic beauty and the promise of a fruitful and constantly renewing partnership. The hand picking suggests a personal relationship with and closeness to the source. Red sun ripened tomatoes stand in stark contrast to the high tech elements of our 21st century lives. They remind us to keep our heads and not get lost in the whiz bang of the newest technical thing. Hand Picked Tomatoes represent our all important connection to each other and to the carbon based world around us. To the simple beauty and nurturing qualities found in the backyard vegetable garden and in the best parts of our collective humanity.   

I guess I could have called the domain something slick and hip. Something that’s tight and fast and (to steal a Cake lyric) “shines like justice”. Or plays off the latest hippest trends like buzz, twitter, facebook, linkedIn, flickr, digg, youtube, wordpress or cloud computing. 

But nah…these are just marketing enablers and will change with the weather… In the long run, isn’t it the tomatoes that sustain us?