Entrepreneurial Idea: The Mind Map

Creativity

This week we have been looking a lot at creativity as part of my Enterprise module at University, in which we're tasked to come up with an entrepreneurial idea. A task which struck fear into me at first, but three weeks in I feel more entrepreneurial already and think I might have an idea that can practically work.

Idea

My idea in a nutshell is: a social enterprise, which each month looks at a different social issue (e.g. the use of CCTV cameras in bedrooms in Care Homes) and aims to inform the public of the issue, and mention an organisation who is active and hoping to make a difference in their chosen field, so in this case the company is Care Protect, who offer a CCTV monitoring service for the Care sector.

Method

I used the method of Mind Mapping, which at first was only supposed to be a way of coming up with a name for my idea/business, but it turned into more of an exercise in hammering out what my idea will look like and the characteristics that it will have.

I started the Mind Map with the word Blog, as at the moment this is where I see the main bulk of content for the project being centred:

The sub categories include 'social media' which will be used as a tool to direct the audience to the blog content and engage with a wider audience, so not everyone uses both Twitter and Facebook, so targeting both will increase the audience size.

The other sub categories explained:

Promotion - This is the key part of the idea and ultimately the "business part" in that ideally I want to attract clients interested in selling a product but pitch it to their potential customers in a less salesman like way. Working more to generate conversation among the public, which in turn I would hope would reach those who can actually invest in the product. With promotion I included words such as awareness, sales, visibility and striking.

Accessible - I want the information presented on the Blog to be accessible, in that I don't want it to be intimidating or come across as a sales pitch. I want the presentation to be simple and easy to understand as possible.

Informative - The main objective is to inform people, from that sub category I came up with things like factual, interviews, case studies, so things with informative bulk, but also included clarity and concise, so inform but don't overwhelm.

Summary

To conclude when I look at my categories they do intertwine and one can be used to compliment another. Such as promotion and social media going hand in hand, along with informative and accessible, I want to inform but in an accessible, non intimidating way, and that has got me thinking about ways in which I can do that.

So what I initially thought would be a naming exercise turned into shaping the business and refining the idea. But also gave me name inspiration! Thanks to the Mind Map my business will be called 'Insight', as the main aim is to give people insight and understanding into social issues that perhaps aren't commonly known, or currently debated at large.

I did't want a typical PR name like 'Visible Promotions' or something else which screams ADVERTISING!!, as on the face of it the idea of the project, as I defined on the Mind Map, is to be accessible and not intimidating, whilst at the same time being informative, getting the point across and hopefully increasing sales for a business.