Why Kenala Is Called Kenala.

For a while the thing had no name. Internally it was soberly called “Customer Platform”, a working title of the kind only someone chooses who is thinking about something else at the time. At some point it was clear: if clients are going to work with it, it needs a name people enjoy saying.

Six hundred names later

I like soft names. Four to six letters, open vowels, no technical ring. The problem: almost all names like that are taken by now, very often by young AI companies. Every name I liked turned out, after a little research, to be in use already.

So I did it thoroughly. In a single night more than six hundred candidates were checked, over several rounds: against available domains, against anything that already sounds similar, and the final candidates against trademark registers in Germany, Europe, and beyond. In the end one name remained that passed every check and that I liked straight away.

Kenal means to know

“Kenal” is Indonesian and Malay and means “to know”. When I read that, the decision had more or less been made.

Because that is exactly the point. Kenala is meant to know a business: how it speaks, how it looks, what must always be right, what may never be claimed. All of this is in the DNA that I build together with each client. A system that knows you does not have to ask you new questions every time.

Why an address of its own

Kenala does not live on roman-thomas.de but on kenala.de. That was a deliberate decision, and there are two reasons for it.

The first is about content. roman-thomas.de is my presence as a photographer, designer, and artist. That is where my pictures, my art, and my journal are. Kenala is the tool I use to work for clients. Work and tool should stand side by side, not inside each other.

The second is security. Kenala holds the DNA of a business, its approvals, and its access details. That belongs in a place of its own, with its own address and its own protection rules, separate from my personal website. If something happens in one place, the other remains untouched.

The brand

A name comes with a mark. It has turned out calm: the word in capitals and an emblem in saffron, the same colour that stands for the DNA in all the explanatory illustrations. The circle at the centre, around which everything else moves.

In the end, a name is also a promise. With Kenala it is a simple one: I get to know your business, and then you do not have to explain it again every time.