http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/1661/Happy-Second-Birthday-CR4

Some more background would be fun. Little snippets can be found here and there, but if they have time I'd love to hear more; Who get's sent for doghnuts, who's worst for turning the lights off. If they spill the beans on who did what at the office party, I just know I'm going to cry laughing, even if said person is referred to as 'X'. Great idea case !

Hey guys, I don't have time now as I have some family over this weekend. I'll write a full blog about it on Monday.

That is just grand, many thanks CL.

Don't forget to link it here as I seem to miss some of the latest entries now and again, don't know why but maybe I am not looking in the right places.

Fantastic ! It will probably be a very popular read. Maybe it's worth referencing it in one of the index sections, it might help new members get a 'feel' for CR4. In eager anticipation, "Many thanks".

Thanks Chris!! I am sure it will be quite a story. In fact... would it be possible to put a brief history alongside FAQ? or something similar? We are interested, and I am sure all the new kids on the block would be interested too. Please don't tell them that we are all nuts though. Even if it is true...

Bill

Thanks, keep me posted also.

Splendid idea...Case's and Kris's. Troy's having been a "rust belt" locale, one thing I've wondered about was whether there was any connection—including flesh and blood connection(?)—between the demise of TroyBilt (aka Gardenway) and the rise of GlobalSpec. Any "up from the ashes" story here?

Hi Chris I would also like to know the history of CR4. So keep me posted too. Regards, Suresh Sharma.

I started writing and quickly got long winded. So I broke it into two parts. The History of CR4 - Part 1 is live in my personal CR4 blog The (Not So) Daily Chris. Today's entry covers the generation of the idea to the development of the CR4 name. Tomorrow I'll cover the launch of the site, its growth, where we are, and where we're going (I think)....

From Chris' (Not So) Daily blog"

.... Unfortunately, Conference Room 4 (along with almost all the low number conference room ideas) was already trademarked. So we abbreviated it to CR4. Why? It's mysterious (as I said it's the #1 question asked of me) and it's vaguely technical and cool.

Let me guess...

It came up during the deliberation that, 'round these parts, no one had ever personally seen, or heard tell of, a company department with more that 2 (?, 3 if the snack room is counted) conference rooms (CRs). (And no sane middle managers would dream of asking for a third...lest the appearance of empty rooms make it appear that said managers had too little to do; or lest it be thought that more competing warm bodies, including turf managers, would need to be hired to make use of the rooms.)

The reasons for not wanting Conference Rooms 1, 2, or 3 (see Daily Chris) were obvious...plus, who would ever take a "Conference Room 3" (a CR Snack Bar) seriously?

So what, then, CR4? Yes, it works where the others don't; but, since such a thing [as a conference room 4] had never actually been seen in the workaday dimensions of cubicle (or Gantt chart) space and clock watch time, "Conference Room 4" might, it was surmised, be perceived in the avatar world as being on a different plane: an un-engineering plane, so to speak, as it were of an ethereal, more mysterious universe...and just might attract the likes of bright-white lighters, Scientologists...and such of similar ilk as Globalspec overseers would certainly disapprove....until...

...until in a "wait a sec" flash of remembrance it came to one of the group (who it was, doubtless sworn to secrecy, could almost certainly not have been any editor), then to all, that the name of such a (supposedly) actual thing as Conference Room 4 did, in fact, already exist; and had indeed, from time to time, been heard floating in the corridors as (what most everybody knew were) veiled references to that most mysterious, most private, most secure of meeting places—indeed, the key-locked sanctum sanctorum of ultimate corporate mystery—amidst the very cool tile and even cooler vitreous glass & porcelain surrounds of the executive wash room.

While is took no great leap of imagination to appreciate the potential impact of such "mahogany" embellishment in the new site's name, there was passing concern about being perceived as having outed an executive suite code phrase. But, calculating that the execs would more likely see a second fourth conference room as a element of further mystification among rank and file, the decision to go ahead with first publication was made. The rest is CR4 history.

—Name withheld to protect the innocent.

yup folks, these are my readers......