EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. The Grab

A website that will open a door to information that has never been seen or published before! There are no books, online websites or applications yet that are able to get the insight information about manners worldwide the way this website could. People from countries all over the world will fill in the content themselves on this website and will provide us with unique information about their cultural treasures. This information will be stored in a way that it can eventually be mold easily into several mediums like a book or an application.

2. The Problem

Manners, traditions and etiquettes from different cultures have never been shared with the interesting insights. This because it are details, that are only known by people who are familiar with the culture. There is a very strong need for more deeper and detailed information about manners and traditions. It is also very hard to find out the specific details of each manner or tradition since there are many key factors connected to them like: Country, Region, Ethnic group, Religion, Job function and age. All these key factors make it very hard to map and list the manners and traditions. There also is a very strong need for a community/forum where people can interact with each other about these manners in order to gain more understanding and respect for different cultures. This website could also solve the problem that there is no big main point of information on manners and traditions. This website could help them to find people for their network in both the business and the private sector.

3. The Solution

I am offering a concept for a website that will be one of a kind. With content generated by users all over the world. In this way the website will have unique information and insights in countries and their cultures. Content that has never been shared online at one main point. And content that is listed and well mapped so that visitors on the website can have a clear vision of where the manners and traditions come from and what their specific background is.

4. The Opportunity

As I said before in this summary this website will be one of a kind in its concept. There is no main gathering point for information on manners like this. Also by letting users fill in critical background information on the manners and traditions they post we will be able to list and map the information the right way. In this way the information will be very valuable to all sorts of people like tourists, students, businessmen and so on. Also since the manners and traditions will be stored in a universal way the information can be easily transferred and mold info books, apps and other websites. This makes it easy to make other products to earn money with, but also to sell the information to others.

5. Your Competitive Advantage

There is a lot of competition when you talk about books and websites with manners and etiquette. But one thing that all these books and website have in common is that they all share the general known information and do not have the amount of insight information and depth that people these days long for. This website will be filled with content from people who are grown up with these manners. So they know the insight information and background of each manner the best. Another advantage is that there is no real online community of this kind yet. Also a network purely based on manners and traditions can be very profitable for all sorts of people who are looking for contacts in a certain country.

6. The Future Model

The biggest challenge will be to make people familiar with this website. The idea for now is to start with 2 groups of people to put the focus on. In this case we are talking about Dutch people and Chinese. I chose for Dutch people because I am Dutch and know how to reach them. The choice for Chinese is because my wife is Chinese; this gives me a strong connection to the Chinese culture. But also because Chinese are a group of people that has one of the biggest amount of manners and traditions in the world. After the website is running and filled with manners and traditions from both groups we can slowly build out the website country-by-country until we have manners and countries all over the world. I expect to have more then 15 countries represented in this website within 5 years.

7. The Team

Maybe it can be called an advantage maybe not, but the fact that I am alone and not working with a team makes it very easy to communicate. I have done every step personally in the process of this project; this makes me the main contact point for all communication. Research, interviews, brainstorming, conceptualizing, designing, promotion and so on, these are all the steps that I have been true. Therefore I know all the insights and this makes me very experienced when it comes to these subjects connect to this project. I am still a student but I am doing my second study, which means that I have been in contact with graphic design and multimedia design for more then 8 years. Please look at my portfolio: www.marcodegroen.com

8. The Promise

The promise of this website will be that it can be a true treasure when it comes to discovering manners and traditions. It will create an online legacy of many cultures made by the people themselves. The content will be a collection of information that has never been stored and mapped like this before. Because of that the information can be shared out to the world in many different shapes that will be very profitable. Books, business gifts, applications, articles, trainings you name it. Everything will be possible.

9. The Ask

What do I ask for right now? I don’t ask for that much actually. All that I ask for is for someone to believe in this project with me. I would like to look for a sponsor/agency who could help me to realize this website with me. From there on the only thing we need to invest in is to start a campaign to make people find this website. When the ball will start rolling it will automatically create a snowball effect.

Attached to this summary are 2 examples of the website and its function