Paparazzi Personas - Round 3

We went through three rounds of persona development. This document presents the latest revision.

Round 1 - We took twelve ideas for user-types, changed them into personas, and gave them names, some high-level goals, and blogging behavior/attitudes based on the interviews.

Round 2 - We narrowed the twelve down to eight and wrote full personas for each one. During the writing process, we determined that the other four were really slight variations of one of the others. We then added one more persona who had not been represented.

Round 3 - We narrowed the eight down to five. During the process of task analysis, we realized that there was enough overlap between some of the personas that we did not need to do full analysis on each one. Our goal here was to pick out the four or five that could be plotted on a blogging continuum.

Abigail Rhode - Journalist, Food critic
Serena Hart - PhD Student, Education Policy
Byron Bei - Senior Product Marketing Manager
David Dursley - Political Campaign Manager
Jon Taxen - Web Developer

Some terms used below:

1. Abigail Rhode - Journalist, Food critic

For the past five years Abigail has been the leading food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. She has developed a cult-like following in the Bay Area and has attained national notoriety through guest appearances on the Food Network and CNN. Her frequent readers attribute her fame to the film-noir quality of her writing: dark, sharp, and biting. As a recent blogger once commented, "If Humphrey Bogart was a food critic, he'd sound a lot like Abigail Rhode." Abigail does not just write about food; she lives food. When not writing her weekly column or reviewing local restaurants, she can be found out "in the field" at farms, wineries, cheese factories, and orchards soaking up a deeper understanding of ingredients and the science of food. She spends much of her free time in her state-of-the-art kitchen, secretly aspiring to be a great chef. But she is her own worst critic, often spending hours following her latest creation rating her own food. These stories sometimes make their way into her own column, endearing her to her fans.

But not all of her readers would consider themselves as such. Abigail is learning the price of notoriety. The food media has also discovered anti-Abigail Rhode sites. She is often accused of caring more about stroking her own ego than giving her readers a real restaurant review. "Too much color, not enough substance," complains one reader.

About a year ago, a friend emailed a link to a blog entry from one such fan. Abigail spent the next day mulling not only over the harsh criticism the furor it created in the comments section. She enjoyed the reading thoroughly. Ever since, Abigail has been on the search for blogs about herself. She has become almost as addicted to seeing her name batted around in the blog world as she is as seeing in other papers or hearing it on TV. Every once in a while, she has responded to a blog in her weekly column. In the process, she has discovered a range of blogs on food, drink, and wine. She has discovered other writers who make the frequent trips to obscure farms and orchards. A product of the mainstream media, Abigail does not consider these as "real" journalism. After all, they do not go through the same editorial process she finds herself committed to with her public writing. Nonetheless, she finds them interesting.

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2. Serena Hart - PhD. Student, Education Policy

Serena Hart is a first year PhD. student in education policy at UC Berkeley. Prior to returning to school, she spent three years teaching 5th and 6th graders at a public school in downtown Oakland. As an undergraduate Serena double majored in biology and political science. Serena grew up in Cleveland, OH. Growing up in a middle-class household in a Cleveland suburb, she had early dreams of becoming a doctor and was a committed to going to medical school when she began her first year at Stanford. She made it through the weedout process of organic chemistry and bio lab with the same steady resolve and determination that drove her to the west coast in the first place. During her junior year, Serena took a class title "Race and American Politics" which radically changed her career plans. Serena realized that she wanted to be a doctor to help people, especially children, and that there were other avenues of doing this that she had not fully considered, such as public policy. She spent the next two years, working towards a political science major in addition to her biology degree.

Serena applied and was accepted to medical school, but decided to defer admission in order to teach. After a year of teaching, she put off medical school again. By the end of her second year, Serena was making plans to earn her PhD in education policy. Now, as a student, Serena is an honorary board member at the school at which she had been teaching.

While not reading or writing about policy, Serena enjoys a night out with her friends. She is single, but "always has her eyes open." She also enjoys times alone reading short stories or going on long hikes, where she can muse about life in general. Six months ago, she learned about blogging, and saw blogging as a way to write down and organize some her thoughts on life and on her work. Serena writes in her blog once or twice a week. Serena sees blogs as a notebook and a public content management system. She does not think, or care, if any one is reading what she has to say. Recently, she has begun reading the blogs of her friends at school so that she can stay up-to-date on what they are doing. Every once in a while, she has responded to someone else's blog entry with a reflection on her own blog. Serena is considering how a blog might be a useful technology to introduce to the students at her school.

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3. Byron Bei - Software Product Marketing Manager

Byron is loving life. Every day, rain or shine, he returns to his Pacific Heights flat, puts on his running shoes, and heads down to the marina for an evening run to the Golden Gate Bridge. He never gets tired of the view of the bridge and the headlands, neither from the docks on the marina nor from his rooftop deck. Sometimes on his run he stops to look at the docked boats. On the weekends, he drinks an early-morning cup of coffee and watches the boats go out. Every once in a while, he volunteers as an all-day deck hand. Byron has dreams of owning a boat. Maybe he'll sail around the world.

Byron has explored the San Francisco nightlife thoroughly. He likes the views of Pac Heights, but prefers an evening crowd with a little more grit. He dates regularly, but not too seriously.

Byron does not take this great life for granted. His current job is a senior product marketing manager at a leading business intelligence software company. He has worked his way up the ranks of various software and technology companies. His first job was working the phones of the help-desk. Byron is never the first to know about the next BIG THING, but once he decides that something is worth knowing about, he dedicates himself to reading everything he can on the subject.

Byron has a lot of friends. He "networks" when he has to,but would rather build interesting relationships with people, both clients, co-workers, and the locals at the bar down the road. His friends usually keep him up-to-date on the latest technology. For example, afriend of his sent him a link to an article on information visualization, and he quickly added the topic to his list of RSS feeds. He subscribes to various news sites, including all of the business magazines. He wants content "pushed" to him; he doesn't want to have to search for it. He makes no distinction between reading for work or for pleasure. He rarely reads a printed publication.

Byron first heard about blogs from a co-worker. He didn't think much of it at the time. But recently he has begun to wonder if perhaps bloggers are writing up things like visualizations for business software. The mainstream news outlets seem to be slow, too reliant on press releases for the sources of news articles, and too distant from the "real" industry atmosphere. He wonders if he can use blogs as a market research tool, so that he can be ahead of the competition on the buzz that is not being captured by the industry press.

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4. David Dursley - Political Campaign Manager

David Dursley has spent much of his life as the biggest winner that no one has ever heard of. In high school, while his much better looking and more out-going friends were running for student government office, David was running the campaigns that got them elected. When the school surprisingly nominated his best friend Jenny for prom queen, it was David who had secretly made it happen (David had been in love with Jenny since they were six years old, but had always been to shy to tell her). David then shocked the cheerleading establishment by finding a way for Jenny to pull off the upset. David is passionate about politics and the political nature about human relationships but has rarely made a public appearance himself. He prefers to stay behind the scenes, working his magic.

As David's career as a campaign manager has taken off, he has begun to shed some of his introversion. While still staying away from the limelight, he has chosen to for political reasons. He wants to be known. He wants to be wanted by the people who matter, not by the masses. He wants to shape the masses.

David married the first girl he loved after Jenny...and divorced her a year later, realizing that his life was destined to be one on the campaign trail. Besides, he thought, he could have done better.

David understands the vices and virtues of human nature. He also knows how to manipulate and push the right buttons at the right time. David is always looking for new ways to accomplish these goals and sees new technology and new media as the primary means to these ends. When he first heard of blogging, David recognized blogs as a new way to talk to and listen to the constituents and masses he would need to win over. He started his blogging career by publishing various blogs under pen names. He would often argue the opposite sides of the same issues, just to see what would happen. He likes knowing the statistics: how many people are reading his blogs, how many people are linking to him. He is a frequent blog reader, with subscriptions to over a hundred that he reads daily.

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5. Jon Taxen - Web Developer

Jon knows he's not a "real" engineer. At least not according to the guys who work down the hall who talk about object serialization, fast hashtables, and neural networks. But sales folks think he's one, so he'll take it as a complement. After all, he does know some Java, can create web applications with only a smidgen of hand-holding from the strange databases guy, and is generally fluent in many web technologies. He also fancies himself as a designer or sorts. Well, he's not taken a formal class, but the marketing people often come to him for design projects and ideas. The engineers think he's an artist!

Jon likes to play. He likes to play with toys such as the new Handspring Treo and the Danger Fliptop. He has a passion for tinkering. He even built his own computer, which isn't nearly as difficult as most people think. Of course, his new Mac Powerbook is a lot better than that thing. But maybe if he installs Linux on it...

When his friends have a question about anything technical, they come to Jon. Jon helps them pick out new computers. Jon gives them the low-down on the latest cell phones (and cell phone plans if they're really curious); after all, Jon took every phone Verizon offered through a trial run before settling down on one. Jon also fancies himself as a budding wino (he never returns from Napa empty-handed). He recently bought a mini-wine cellar and is already regretting not getting the bigger model.

People think that Jon is a work-a-holic. He doesn't know if he should tell them that at least two hours out of his supposed ten-hour work days involve going to audiophile websites, reading about the latest video games, or following the threads on Slashdot. Well, maybe more than two hours. Business has been slow.

And blogs. Jon loves blogs. Jon sees blogs as a new toy to play with. He used to hate writing, though he didn't mind writing an editorial for his college newspaper now and again, but he doesn't see blogging as writing. Blogging is...well, blogging! Jon gets a thrill when he sees his latest blog up in public. Sometimes he spends hours crafting a post. Other times, he fires off a quick thought or two. He gets an even bigger thrill when someone comments or links to him. That is so cool, thinks Jon. His favorite topics usually have to do with the pros and cons of the designs of latest technologies. He often retells a story of how he helped one of his friends out and how awful the technology was designed and why did that button say "go" when it really meant "push me." Jon wonders if he could get paid to write about this kind of stuff. Do a lot of people read him? Does anyone take it seriously?

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