Old, boring job titles don’t cut it at Eastern Iowa firms

The sacred naming conventions of job titles are being tossed out the window at some companies in the bid to stand out in an emerging creative economy.

Wild, wacky and outrageous titles are becoming more common as executives try to make their firms - and themselves - stand out in a slow-growing marketplace.

Mark Mathis admits it can be hard living up to his title - “director of cool,” at ME&V, a Cedar Rapids-based advertising and marketing firm at Alliant Tower, 200 First St. SE, Suite 105. He said the title doesn't mean he's always an example of “cool,” only that he knows how to manage “cool” by helping clients find approaches that are fresh and new. “My son says, ‘You call yourself cool? You're not!' ”

Another Cedar Rapids advertising and marketing firm goes to the opposite end of the coolness spectrum.

Lynn Manternach is brand arsonist at Mindfire Communications, whose employees work in a virtual office setting. The company's 10 other employees also have titles with the word “arsonist,” including design arsonist, creative arsonist and marketing arsonist.

The titles are used to convey creative passion, energy and spark, Manternach said. She said the criminal connotations of arson doesn't bother clients, who immediately “get it” because of the company's name and slogans. “They add their own fire puns and we enjoy it immensely,” she said.

Iowa City-based Cramer Development, 226 S. Clinton St., has a chief happiness officer and a head honcho. The chief happiness officer, California-based Colin Curtin, stays in touch with employees on things like goals, job fit, job satisfaction and various needs.

Head Honcho Josh Cramer is ... well ... the honcho. Cramer said the title is intended to denote the simplicity of the company's flat, non-hierarchical structure. In such a fast-changing business, Cramer said, a company like Cramer Development has to be agile and make decisions quickly, without going through layers of management. “Calling it ‘CEO' or ‘president' suggests someone wearing a suit, sitting behind a desk that you approach carefully, and has several layers under him,” Cramer said.

Vinton-based office supply provider Monkeytown began moving down the curious name path after changing its name from Apex Office Supply, according to Top Banana Curt Karr.

Competing against such well-recognized companies as Staples, Office Depot and Sam's Wholesale Club, Karr said the company needed to find a way to stand out. All of the job titles at the business reflect the Monkeytown theme, including the zookeeper (office manager), banana counter (accountant) and code monkey (web developer).

Some of the companies still have official-sounding titles on their incorporation records, but don't use them in day-to-day work.

How the creative folks come up with their job titles varies. At Mindfire Communications, Manternach said the “arsonist” titles were part of a naming and branding strategy that goes back to the company's start years ago. Cramer said a graphic designer making up business cards put his title as “head honcho” on a proof, “and it stuck.” ME&V's Mathis admitted that the “director of cool” term may have been attached to him because he described too many things as cool.

Some titles that seemed creative since have gone mainstream. Many companies, for example, have upgraded the status of “receptionists” by renaming the position “director of first impressions.”