ÒWe are asking them questions to determine the needs of specific populations for a new blogging application. WeÕve identified you as a potential user for this application and weÕre trying to figure out what potential users may have in common.Ó
The questions are grouped by theme. The first questions shaded in gray are background questions that lead from a discussion on oneÕs life and habits and funnel down to questions about news and information gathering. Finally, these lead to questions specifically about blogging (awareness, reading, and writing).
Howard Dean
1) What would you describe as your full-time occupation? Do you have any other occupations?
Market development manager
Product manager/product marketing manager
truck driver
painter
lifeguard, soccer coach
Now, not so specific to a product,
but across a plotform
2) Do you read as part of your occupations?
i) What kind of reading? Do you enjoy it?
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Post-production/video, programming news TV formats, broadcast engineering
News.com
Actively went out to find
Know the magazines my customers read
Went through a bunch of magazines, pulled out articles, stapled them together
Found the website, looked for a newsletter; can sign up for a batch from a publisher and unsign-up
Signed up for two more today; a lot easier than reading; magazines stack up; neat freak, like it coming at me, I know itÕs going to come to me in an email
3) Do you watch TV or video as part of your occupations?
i) What type of media?
Watch streaming video
Link from a website like news.com
Yesterday, a ton of grid computing videos on oracle site
News.com link was referred, either from a newsletter or I found myself back there and saw something interesting
Typically, I look through the thing, so I understand what the news is and then drill down
4) Do you write as part of any of your occupations?
i) What type of writing
Write lots of plans
Project goals, components
I do a lot aggregating
Not much white paper type stuff, but anticipate more
Used to write a lot of web content for old jobs
Sources: people around the company, get everything on the table, sort through it, components, buckets > create an outline
Try to put things in context
IÕm never the expert, IÕll find someone who is, give them a template, outline to put it in context, then hand off for someone to edit
5) What do you like to spend time doing when not engaged in any of the above occupations?
Eat and drink a lot, go out all the time, gregarious human, never home
Play a little soccer, work out
Eating, drinking, cooking
6) What do you do for fun?
7) Do you watch TV?
i) What TV shows do you watch?
no tv
8) Why do you use your computer?
a) Do you ever use the Web to search for information, besides maps, directions, or weather? Example: research
b) From what location do you usually access the Web?
use it for pretty much everything
doing my best to make it the dashboard for my life, I like to dashboard everything
music, finances, work, entertainment, email, all of my communication (but phone)
9) Do you have any sites you go to on regular basis?
a) Which sites/how often (daily, weekly, a few times a day)
b) Why do you go to those sites? What do you like about them?
Nytimes, news.com, google
not much outside of news, donÕt chase down the websites
Links from things
Follow links
10) Do you like to read for pleasure/read for purpose other than main occupations?
i) What kind of reading?
ii) What have you read that you have enjoyed recently?
Mostly read periodicals (New Yorker, Wired, Economist)
80s and 90s finance binge, Barbarians at the Gate,
like fiction, but donÕt read much these days
11) Do you like to write?
i) If yes, why?
ii) What do you like writing about?
iii) What form does your writing take?
iv) How often do you write? Do you keep a diary?
v) If no, why not?
vi) Can you think of anything that might change make you interested in writing?
Yeah, I like to write
Depends on what you meanÉ. do I want to write a white paper, but do I take time to make sure its done right, such as emails, or putting something on a web site
prefer to write as a form of communication than publication
email socially
chatting (IM)
20% work-related
sort of a release, bitch to my friends
keep an eye on people (co-workers)
email, plans, web site stuff
15% personal
keeping in touch
in between writing a letter and a chat
donÕt write a comprehensiveÉ looking for a response
write letters, notes, thank you cards
12) Do you like to stay up-to-date on news or current events?
i) If so, what topics do like to stay up-to-date on?
ii) Where do you get your information regarding current events?
iii) Do you mainly hear the news from people, newspapers, magazines, televisions, an Internet source, or other?
iv) Which ones?
v) Describe you top five news sources, across topicsÉ
Personal: politics, technology (half personal half business), trying to immerse completely in industry, goto internet.com to look up stuff Ð webopedia (?)
pci, fiber channel,
industry as postproduction, kind of in web
keep an eye on certain companies ((my old company), adobe)
nytimes, boston globe (red sox), news.com
realized for a long time that bookmark usage is slim unless its on my address bar
forget most of the sites I have bookmarked
need to have everything pushed towards me
top 5 newssources: nytimes, news.com, broadcast engineering, napte, Òthe cutÓ favorite newslater for broadcast information
13) Give an example of a recent information need and describe:
i) What is the general process you would go through?
ii) How do you decide if the information you find is relevant?
iii) How do you decide if the information you find is believable (credible)?
iv) Do you ever find yourself changing your information need in order to find more or better results?
v) When you find a relevant document, radio program, television show, do you every find yourself wishing you had more information?
vi) Do you ever go about trying to access more information on a topic?
vii) What methods do you use for finding more information?
viii) When using the Internet, do you ever follow links from articles, even if you have not finished reading the article?
ix) Is it important to you to keep track of where you are going?
x) How do you keep track of where you are going? Bookmarks? Pen/paper? Text document to take notes?
xi) Do you go to any sites on regular basis? What time of day (inc day, Of the week)
grid computing example
met a guy at dinner with his group of guys Òmen and meatÓ
bigwig oracle sales guy, in grid computing
searched for his name and grid computing before he introduced vice presidents
wasnÕt sure if he was legit (Mjackson parachute story)
looked all over OracleÕs site
called him to touch base, got links from him to his stuff
then composed a very careful email to two big guys at (my company), etc
first went to google
listened to mp3
couldnÕt find recent stuff (2002)
looked for recent stuff, but had trouble with that
14) Have you ever heard of blogs?
i) If yes,
ii) In your mind, what is a blog?
iii) Where did you first hear the term ÒblogÓ?
(a) What are your general impressions of blogs?
iv) Have you ever read any blogs?
(a) If yes, which ones?
(b) How often do you read them? Do you have regular blogs you go to?
(c) Why do you read them?
(d) If no, why donÕt you read them?
(e) Do you subscribe to any blogs?
(f) Do you monitor any blogs?
(g) Have you ever responded to a blog?
(i) In what way (i.e.: a public comment or a direct email to author)
(h) How would you compare the blogs you read to other sources of information/news/etc?
(i) Do you read the posted comments on blog sites?
DonÕt know much about blogs
remember NPR talking about it, wired also yr or two ago
reminds me of when the web came about
under the impression to need special software
thought it was a way to make comments on web sites and anyone could see it
then heard everyone talking about it
went to blogger.com (past three weeks NOTE: BEFORE TALKING TO DAN)
seems to be more of a form of writing
law professor in Wired, the godfather of blogs
Dean seems to use it as a way to get common interests together and write about it, like listservs
probably two years ago, heard about it on the radio
thought it was a way to put to stickies on a website
thought: whatÕs the point?
when put it into context of politics, it makes sense
not a monolithic -> dialog in context of own subcultures (punks for dean, grandmas who drive Harleys for dean, jews for jesus for dean)
have seen a page that was apparently a blog, deanÕs site
trying to figure out if it required software, went to blogger site (blogger.com), got distracted
15) Have you ever written or maintained a blog or contributed to someone elseÕs blog?
i) If yes,
ii) What did you write about?
iii) Do you ever wonder who may have read your writing?
iv)
What do you look for when you read other peopleÕs blogs?
Has anyone
posted a reply to your blogs?
v) Do you generally respond to responses?
vi) Have you ever tried to find out what people might be reading your blog?
(a) How did you go about doing this?
vii) Have you ever communicated directly, via email, phone conversation, or other with one of your readers?
For advertisers and product managersÉ these questions would come up before the blogging questions. Question 19 would be incorporated into the blogging questions, perhaps as a final hypothetical.
16) What is the general process your company (or agency, or firm) uses to track its marketing efforts?
(my company) is event basedÑmovie business: first weekend box office
measure your success : if you got fired! generated an audience
marketing effort: generate traffic to download trials Ð how many tried/how many succeeded/how many people responded Ðtracked religiously
take ads outÑhe used to predict exactly how many units that they would sell based on the ad (spreadsheet)Ñsmall product, great model
trackÑpr stories, how many people pick up the story (anti-[cleansed product])Ñput together PR kitÉ. how many illustrator sucks mentionsÉ why freehand is better than illustrator in press. send PR person stuffÑsend them clever things to get them to open materials. most of sales through catalog in the mail (at (my old company)), macmall, cdwÉ played with how the ads were presented and tweak for performance. tracked meticulously. tracked who was selling through and who wasnÕt. track web hits.
flash: great measurement. tried to change perception that people canÕt see flash. hired NPD online and created flash movie, survey 10k people every quarterÑif they could see it, they would be considered flash audience. extrapolate to web audience.
back of the envelope measurementÑtop 50 most trafficked web sites to see if they had flash on the front page to see if it was increasing or decreasing.
current job is to measure platform market share +/- trendwatch/scri
pick 5 leading influencers in each segment (broadcst, film, commercialÉ)
(my company) doesnÕt have infrastructure to measure performance
viral is unheard of at (my company) / even at (my old company) none
(my old company) is good at 1:1 marketing
crm on top of unified customer data (sucked).
iceberg :email address -> more information
survey current website and have customers rank the material..
no value in just going after customers when you want to push something on them.
monitoring chat rooms: the buzz:
at x company there are two people
[cleansed name]/reads everything
joe q. [cleansed] tech support Ð monitors the buzz
monitors lists and web sites
at my company
tried to make support forums more relevant
-put on experts so that people will go there
-didnÕt take off
pushed as a marketing effort
he gets consolidated newsletterÑall threads from lists: tries to find out what people look for in a computer Ð worries that these lists are too narrow/biased
tech/field guy in marking organization Ð publishes papers with a pen name, pushes stuff so people donÕt know who he is
Òwe allÓ Ð people in his group Ð look at mac rumor sites
detectives: try to figure out who leak information
pr: people who monitor site / is the buzz getting loud enough on bad batteries in ipods Ðpr folks monitor / bring it to somebodyÕs attention
attributed deanÕs success to blogs / not heard of that in advertising
x company [cleansed] might be Ôhip to thatÕ
radio talk show with a select group of customers Ð control what everybody hearsÉ shut people down before people hear it. direct the conversationÉ
17) Are you personally involved in any of these research efforts?
i) If yes,
ii) What is your role? What resources do you use?
18) Do you/your company/agency contracted by your company actively monitor any Web sites or chat rooms?
i) Which ones or which types? (anticipating resistance hereÉ)
ii) How do you keep track of the information your pick up from these sources?
19) Would you ever consider using a blog as a source for this type of research or activity monitoring?
a) If yes, in what way?
b) If no, why not?
16) What is the
general process your company (or agency, or firm) use to
track its marketing efforts?
17) Are you
personally involved in any of these research efforts?
i) If
yes,
ii) What
is your role? What resources do
you use?
18) Do you/your
company/agency contracted by your company actively monitor
any Web sites or chat rooms?
i) Which
ones or which types? (anticipating resistance here.)
ii) How
do you keep track of the information your pick up from these
sources?
19) Would you
ever consider using a blog as a source for this type of
research or activity monitoring?
a) If
yes,
i) In
what way do you use the information?
ii) Do
you have concerns with this type of information?
iii) Do
you share the information with others in your company?
iv) Who,
why and what part or whole do you share, and in what way (verbally,
in writing, quotes)?
b) If
no, why not?