Finance:Brainstorming

"Money saved and money earned can be money spent on a better world."

Hi there! I'm going to jot down a few of my thoughts on where we could go with this Wikia -- please be bold and improve what's here, or leave some commentary on the talk page.

Contents 1 Mission 2 Readers 2.1 Consumers 2.2 Students 2.3 Professionals 3 Contributors

[edit] Mission

What is the purpose of this Wikia? What can we do to make ourselves more useful and more friendly and more responsive than every other financial education site out there on the web?

My personal feeling is that we need a mission statement that reflects passion about helping people. We need something akin to Jimmy's statement about Wikipedia: “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”

We need to focus less on defining all the terms (although of course we'll do that too) than on helping average people negotiate a very confusing maze of products, services, and legal obligations. We need to be trying to save the world from drowning in debt and lack of forethought.

If that sort of passion and compassion comes through in our text and our interface, I think it could really help to set us apart, and attract the kind of contributors who are willing to stay and help us grow.

[edit] Readers

Who is our audience? Who are the readers we are trying to inform? There's more than one group who might find this Wikia useful, I think:

[edit] Consumers

• People who want education before making a big decision:
  • buying a house
  • leasing a car
  • starting a business
  • cosigning on a loan...
  • What's a HELOC?
• People who need long-term help:
  • getting out of debt
  • paying off credit cards
  • saving for retirement
  • saving for college
• People who are desperate for short-term help, facing:
  • foreclosure
  • adjustable rate mortgage - that "subprime" issue
  • terms to watch out for during a closing
  • wage garnishment
  • bankruptcy
  • falling behind on credit card debt
  • trouble paying bills
  • legal action

[edit] Students

• Formally enrolled students of finance, business, accounting, or related programs
• Self-educating consumers
• Entrepreneurs

[edit] Professionals

• Investment brokers
• Real estate agents or investors
• Mortgage lenders
• Insurance agents

Obviously it may be a long time before this Wikia is sophisticated enough to be useful to professionals in their jobs, compared to other sites; on the other hand, we may attract attention from those with a vested interest in having thorough writeups on certain financial products and services.

[edit] Contributors

Who are our contributors going to be?

Who has a passion about finance?

What's in it for them?