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Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

This post is part of a 95 post series discussing the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the series!

Thesis #2: Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

On Christmas Eve of 2008, I had a phenomenal dinner with some friends visiting from NYC, UX Designer Whitney Hess and Flex/Flash developer Orian Marx. During that dinner I took took the opportunity to pick Whitney’s brain on what some of the pieces of her client projects look like. One of the core techniques she utilizes heavily is taking user and stakeholder interviews and molding them into user types, often called personas. What’s great about the way she goes about it is she gives those personas names, faces (literally, pictures!), and back stories. This gives the entire team a point of reference for decision making, and instead of it being against abstract cases and market verticals, they get to refer to people. Additionally, when Whitney makes recommendations, it turns her into the communicator (which is really a larger part of her job than being a “designer”, per se) speaking on behalf of the “users”, rather than just expounding her opinion.

Why is this important (and in my opinion, extremely effective)? Because market verticals don’t use your product or service. Human beings do. And those human beings don’t have singular interests or backgrounds, they have complex sets of interests, back stories, turn-ons and turnoffs, etc.

When putting together a marketing plan, don’t base it on abstract target groups and demographic sectors. Demographic sectors lead to speculation. Base it on real people. Real people lead to real answers, which lead to real results.

There is a catch. There’s always a catch. The catch is that you’re going to need to find some of those real people, and, gasp, interact with them. Ask them questions. Let them ask you questions. Listen, for crying out loud.
Sensing a trend yet?


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06
Jan 2009
AUTHOR Alex Hillman
CATEGORY

elsewhere

COMMENTS 11 Comments
TAGS

  • http://whitneyhess.com/blog/ Whitney Hess

    Brilliant. I love how you took a personal conversation about my work and extrapolated it to apply to business strategy as a whole.

    Coincidentally, take a look at my video on the crowdsourced 2009 predictions that Charlie O’Donnell put together. http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2009/01/crowdsourced-2009-predictions.html

    Sound familiar? :)

  • http://whitneyhess.com/blog/ Whitney Hess

    Brilliant. I love how you took a personal conversation about my work and extrapolated it to apply to business strategy as a whole.

    Coincidentally, take a look at my video on the crowdsourced 2009 predictions that Charlie O’Donnell put together. http://www.thisisgoingtobebig.com/2009/01/crowdsourced-2009-predictions.html

    Sound familiar? :)

  • http://twitter.com/orian/statuses/1100102211 orian (Orian Marx)

    shit, really need to get back to blogging now that @alexknowshtml linked to me here http://bit.ly/sCA

  • http://www.bigwordzproject.com Murray Izenwasser

    Personas are actually a fairly standard way of designing for the Web. And they really work, if done correctly. I’m working at bringing them into the process at the agency that I’m currently working at, as I know how effective they can be when making functionality and design decisions. Looking forward to the rest of your Cluetrains.

  • http://www.bigwordzproject.com Murray Izenwasser

    Personas are actually a fairly standard way of designing for the Web. And they really work, if done correctly. I’m working at bringing them into the process at the agency that I’m currently working at, as I know how effective they can be when making functionality and design decisions. Looking forward to the rest of your Cluetrains.

  • http://alexhillman.myopenid.com Alex Hillman

    @Murray Izenwasser: Murray, personas are a great way, maybe even a common way, but hardly a ubiquitous way to design for the web.

    Even worse, they’re almost completely remiss from design for business. Before the business plan, define who is your customer, and do they need you? If not, you need to start over.

  • http://alexhillman.myopenid.com Alex Hillman

    @Murray Izenwasser: Murray, personas are a great way, maybe even a common way, but hardly a ubiquitous way to design for the web.

    Even worse, they’re almost completely remiss from design for business. Before the business plan, define who is your customer, and do they need you? If not, you need to start over.

  • http://twitter.com/whitneyhess/statuses/1102080142 whitneyhess (Whitney Hess)

    The amazing @alexknowshtml is doing Cluetrain-a-day, a 95-post series, on his blog. @orian and I were mentioned on Day 2 http://is.gd/eMyp

  • Pingback: Cluetrain-a-day 2009: What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.