Often, when companies set up special groups within their standard organizations to address innovation, they give these groups names that help differentiate them from the mainstream.

In a blog post on the Harvard Business Review site, Lauren Pollak and Katherine Wakid, both of Jump Associates, look at the naming routine and have come up with four categories:

1. Skunkworks-like. Keep the creatives out of the mainstream.

2. Special-Ops-like. Can you imagine the SWAT-team and now, especially, Navy SEAL-like names?

3. Artisanal. The craftspeople at work.

4. Boring. Like “Advanced Concepts.”

Surprisingly, the authors maintain that given the innocuous names of the last group, they tend to be the best for innovation because they don’t “compete, distract, or interfere with what other folks are doing.”

Lockheed Martin photo

Of course, when we think of what the Kelly Johnson and his followers created via the original Skunkworks, we’ve got to believe that name—actually registered by Lockheed Martin—is the one with the most profound resonance.