Ron Holohan from the pm411.org podcast has emailed me to explain where the name comes from:
“Ah the name… Unfortunately, it may have been a poor choice outside of the US and Canada, but for decades, most of the United States and Canada has used *4-1-1* as the telephone number for local directory assistance. You would simply dial “4-1-1″ and get an operator, and dialing the number is frequently referred to as calling “information.” So, “pm411″ roughly translates to Project Management Information. Short and sweet. I also found that including the “.org” in the name helped people to easily remember the web address. And that is how The pm411.org Project Management Podcast name was born.”
Thanks for explaining, Ron! I expect that was as clear as day for all your readers and listeners on the other side of the pond, but over here it didn’t make any sense. We used to have 192 as the UK equivalent, but now the market has deregulated, come in line with European legislation and all directory enquiry numbers (and there are plenty) all start with 118. Which has led to much comical advertising in order to differentiate between suppliers – try a YouTube search for 118 to see what I mean!
If you liked this, you might enjoy:
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