Company branding

Now we have pitched our initial ideas we now have to start considering about branding potential company. This includes coming of a logo, a name and a tagline. Below is my final design for my branding.

Name

I decided on uni hub as my company name. I really like the idea of using hub in my name as it represents to me a centre of the community. I believe a hub is a place where people gather. Before making a decision to use the term hub in my name I wanted to check that my definition of the word was one used by all. Below Is the definition from the dictionary for the word hub.

A place or thing that forms the effective center of an activity, region, or network.

So I decided I wanted to use the word hub in my company name. However I felt I needed to add some think to the name. In Plymouth University we have a service called The Hub. I didn't want my company to be confused with the on campus service. So I have about trying to come up with my full name. After some consideration I came to the name Uni hub. I decided that Uni hub would be a very suitable name for my business, as I am creating a online community where students can come from all around the UK.

Tagline

For the tagline I wanted something short and catchy. When coming up with the tagline I thought what is my site really doing. Then after some thought I decided the main focus of my site was to bring students together. So I decided to keep my tagline specifically that bringing students together. I really like the tagline because it sums up the whole purpose of the website in three words.

Logo

I had to come up with the logo that represented different people from different areas all being connected in the same space. I wanted a logo that is bright and colourful as I believe it will be more appealing to the students using the site. Conveniently I had already created that your logo when practising my design skills. I believe this logo will fit perfectly because it is brightly coloured and the swirls all meet in the middle representing the hub.

SWOT analysis

My business idea is to create a online community for new and existing students. I want new students to be able to look and compare course and universities all over the UK. I want them to have real feedback about each course and university from students already enrolled. 

For existing students I want them to have a place they can go and have a discussion with people on the same or similar course all around the UK. A place where they can test project idea and help each other develop these. It is not just the new students that can benefit from the university hub, they could be used to post upcoming events. A way for you to find out whats going on at your university. 

I also want the existing student to generate the content for the new students. I want them to write reviews about their course and universities.  Keep each other informed about what happening around campus. 

2 minute presentation

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Competitive companies

What I found when I looked further into the research is there is nothing like my idea out there. There is no one website creating a online community for students, run by students. There are online community within each university, so you could interact with people on the same campus as you but nothing to bring you together with other university or to help you decide which uni is best for you. These three of the closes sites I could find to my idea.

The student rooms

This is a website where student can go to talk to each other and connect. It is mostly aimed at students about to go to university. It gives them advice about personal statements, finding accommodation and gives advice when choosing a university. It also give student option on certain university. A lot of the topic discussed within the site are not academic and  when they are it tends to be aimed at A levels. The website is also very informational heavy, there is a lot of the material to look though.  

The difference between this website and my idea, is that my idea content is purely generated by the students. I also want it to be a academic site focusing on coursework, exam and study aids.   

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/

UCAS

This is the main website for students starting university. It is used to view all the possible course within the UK and the entre requirements. Each student seta up a online account that allows them to fill out their university applications. Containing their personal statement and a choose of the top three course they want to apply for. This process is normally closly monitored by a teacher at the secondary school, making sure every student who want to attend university has the chance. 

The biggest down side about this site, it is does not give you any information on the course you are looking to join. It give you the entre requirements but not any real information about the course for that it links you to the university page. 

I do think that this website does have some good aspect to it. I really like the fact that you are able to look at all the same course at all the different university over the UK. It is simple to use and I believe this is something I could build upon. 

http://www.ucas.ac.uk/

University course pages

Each university has a webpage that displays the course available. It explains a bit about what the course is, what you will study over the next 3 years, what the requirement are, things like that. However you have to ask yourself how true really are these pages. I have used Digital Art and Technology for an example. The pages makes the course sound very exciting and creative. No where on the page does it state that you will be learning programming languages, not even in the modules break downs. 

I find this very misleading because IDAT does have a lot of coding and this page is the reason people turn up expecting a different course. I want to give students the opportunity to see what a course is really like, not what it is marketed as. 

Facebook groups

The last company I am going to look at is Facebook. When anyone say online community everyone mind automatically goes to Facebook. There are millions and millions of different groups on Facebook. Different groups for different university and course. Facebook could probably do everything my company could do. 

However the information would not all be in one place they would have a troll though millions of groups to find what they were looking for and even then the information might still not be related. It would make it hard to compare the information. There would also be no way of knowing if the information being giving was true or not.  

http://www.facebook.com/Ayaan.Aahat?ref=ts&fref=ts

Business idea

After the last few days of having no idea come to me at all about a possible business. I was starting to worry about what I was going to persent on tuesday. Then last night I went out for a meal for a friends birthday. The topic of university came up, discussing how it would be great to have a online community of students doing the same course as you all around the country. They could help you with problems when you get stuck. This made me start thinking, I-dat has a lot of students and we have our own focus group in a way. But not everyone has that many people on the course. Who do they turn to when there stuck? who do they bounce ideas off? This is where my business idea came from.

- A online community of students based all around the UK.

- You will be able to take to other students doing the same course as you.

- Most courses cover similar topic, which allows you to discuss problems with people who understand.

- You have a focus of like minded people at your disposable.

- You get to connect with people with the same interests. Be able to share resources (books, blogs) and information about events. That other you might never have heard about.

- Another use for this site is for new student to decide what university they want to do the course at and weather or not the course is really for them, with real student reviews.

- There could be different profiles for the different university showing what they offer and the surrounding city offers.

- There could even be a reward scheme for students who take part in this they collect points and when they get so many points they can buy stuff from the stop.

So one thing I was asking myself how would I make any money? Then I thought about business that are free to sign up to but still make money, like Facebook, Goggle and MySpace. I could have ads on my page, even local ad to where the university is.

I have no idea if this idea has been done before. I have never heard of anything similar, so if it has it clearly has not become very big. But is there a reason for that? I have to undergo a lot of research before the presentation on tuesday. But so far I think the idea could work.

Inspirational business

Mutant labs

My inspirational business I wanted to write about is Mutant Labs. They are my inspiration because they came from I-DAT did the same course as me and made a business out of what they learned. They specialise in creating Flash Games & iPhone Apps and have become very successful in the last 3 years. They have also been active in the local community, teaching at the university, sitting on the board of 'Designed in Devon' and spreading knowledge in youth workshops. These are things that I think are important in a company. They got their break and they are giving back to the community and this to me is a great thing to do in business. 

http://www.mutantlabs.com/about