Joe the Plumber as Persona

Yeah Joe Sixpack went from just being a worker bee with Palin to being the self employed Queen Bee with McCain. I think I'd like a job that promoted me that quickly - 2 weeks? ;-)

On Thursday, October 16, 2008, at 08:37AM, "Michael Micheletti" <michael.micheletti at gmail.com> wrote:
>In the US Presidential debate last night, there was considerable discussion
>about "Joe the Plumber". Turns out he's a real person, but nevertheless I
>heard him used as a sort of proxy or persona. Anybody else flash on this
>too? Is he the right persona to be designing an economic turnaround for?
>Other secondary personas to consider? Just wondering what you wise and witty
>folks will come up with...
>
>Michael Micheletti
>________________________________________________________________
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>

Well:
1. I think it's better than using Joe-Six-Pack b/c it implies that working
class men have drinking problems
2. The particular person they chose as an achetype was not your averaging
working class guy - he would have been better suited as a representative
persona for a small business owner
3. The focus on demographic stereotypes and not qualitative or quantitative
data means that even if that Joe they used was more accurate - it was more
of a stereotype than a real persona
4. Using a real persona for addressing real political and economic issues
might actually make a lot of sence - imagine political campaigns using
personas and user research in designing their campaigns, messaging, and
white papers - instead of constantly changing their message based on the
latest polls which don't give an accurate picture of the electorate

Really good point you bring up though. I know when Steve Mulder was writing
The User is Always Right - he really hoped it would gain traction outside
the arena of UX people and be adopted by marketing and advertising folks as
well

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Michael Micheletti <
michael.micheletti at gmail.com> wrote:

> In the US Presidential debate last night, there was considerable discussion
> about "Joe the Plumber". Turns out he's a real person, but nevertheless I
> heard him used as a sort of proxy or persona. Anybody else flash on this
> too? Is he the right persona to be designing an economic turnaround for?
> Other secondary personas to consider? Just wondering what you wise and
> witty
> folks will come up with...
>
> Michael Micheletti
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

--
~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will Evans | User Experience Architect
tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com
aim: semanticwill | gtalk: wkevans4
twitter: semanticwill | skype: semanticwill
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that the Joe the Plumber incident nicely illustrated the danger of
using a real person as a persona. Joe went from the little guy striving for
the American dream to a guy who doesn't even have his plumbing license and
owes back taxes.

Eva Kaniasty
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kaniasty

On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Steve Baty <stevebaty at gmail.com> wrote:

> This notion of voter archetypes is used a lot as a rhetorical device in
> politics. Even if politicians sometimes drill in a specific individual -
> like this case - and we see the same thing occurring frequently in
> Australian politics "A pensioner living on $xx/wk and receiving healthcare
> etc etc will be affected in the following way by this policy change".
>
> Like personas, these voter archetypes are intended to make a more concrete
> connection between the policy and the 'real people' of the electorate.
>
> This is the first time I've seen archetypes used so frequently and
> prominantly in US politics, although that may reflect me more than
> anything.
> "Joe Six-pack", "Joe the Plumber" and the "people on Main St, small-town,
> USA" are all intended to evoke a particular image of 'real Americans' which
> is exactly the purpose of personas - common understanding of an audience
> (electoral) segment.
>
> Steve
>
> 2008/10/17 Will Evans <will at semanticfoundry.com>
>
> >
> > Really good point you bring up though. I know when Steve Mulder was
> writing
> > The User is Always Right - he really hoped it would gain traction outside
> > the arena of UX people and be adopted by marketing and advertising folks
> as
> > well
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Michael Micheletti <
> > michael.micheletti at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> ----------------------------------------------
> Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA
> Principal Consultant
> Meld Consulting
> M: +61 417 061 292
> E: stevebaty at meld.com.au
>
> UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com
>
> Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org
> Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org
> Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org
> Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

It is also clearly a cautionary tail in NOT using real user research before
making a persona. If you are pulling persona's out of the air, not doing
qualitative and quantitative research to derive your personas - you'll end
up like the McCain camp - with a toxic persona that lacks credibility
doesn't help you make your case either strategically or tactically.
Bootstrap your personas all you want, but when push comes to shove (and the
VP of marketing wants to turn your buttons pink), you need real personas
built on real research to validate your arguments.

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Eva Kaniasty <kaniasty at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that the Joe the Plumber incident nicely illustrated the danger of
> using a real person as a persona. Joe went from the little guy striving
> for
> the American dream to a guy who doesn't even have his plumbing license and
> owes back taxes.
>
> Eva Kaniasty
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/kaniasty
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Steve Baty <stevebaty at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This notion of voter archetypes is used a lot as a rhetorical device in
> > politics. Even if politicians sometimes drill in a specific individual -
> > like this case - and we see the same thing occurring frequently in
> > Australian politics "A pensioner living on $xx/wk and receiving
> healthcare
> > etc etc will be affected in the following way by this policy change".
> >
> > Like personas, these voter archetypes are intended to make a more
> concrete
> > connection between the policy and the 'real people' of the electorate.
> >
> > This is the first time I've seen archetypes used so frequently and
> > prominantly in US politics, although that may reflect me more than
> > anything.
> > "Joe Six-pack", "Joe the Plumber" and the "people on Main St, small-town,
> > USA" are all intended to evoke a particular image of 'real Americans'
> which
> > is exactly the purpose of personas - common understanding of an audience
> > (electoral) segment.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > 2008/10/17 Will Evans <will at semanticfoundry.com>
> >
> > >
> > > Really good point you bring up though. I know when Steve Mulder was
> > writing
> > > The User is Always Right - he really hoped it would gain traction
> outside
> > > the arena of UX people and be adopted by marketing and advertising
> folks
> > as
> > > well
> > >
> > > On Thu, Oct 16, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Michael Micheletti <
> > > michael.micheletti at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ----------------------------------------------
> > Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA
> > Principal Consultant
> > Meld Consulting
> > M: +61 417 061 292
> > E: stevebaty at meld.com.au
> >
> > UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com
> >
> > Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org
> > Member, IA Institute - www.iainstitute.org
> > Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org
> > Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com
> > ________________________________________________________________
> > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> > To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
> >
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

--
~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will Evans | User Experience Architect
tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com
aim: semanticwill | gtalk: wkevans4
twitter: semanticwill | skype: semanticwill
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That sounds eerily similar to the old marketing
lifestyle/behavioral/psychographics that main stream marketers have been
using Claritas for - http://www.claritas.com and as some smart person, think
it might have been in the book Groundswell, mentioned - that's for folks
that want to shout into the cave and listen for the ecco, in otherwords,
agencies that are good at defining a message, broadcasting (media
placement), and then measuring results, which is the old politics - the new
politics is represented by things like Obama's iPhone app (I am not stumping
for him - just giving an example) - a platform of tools to empower people to
talk with people - and that means less marketing, and more social media
strategy - creating a platform that is Built for Conversation (the title of
my upcoming talk).

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Carol Smith <carol at mw-research.com> wrote:

> Here's another way voters are being categorized:
>
> The Christian Science Monitor identified 11 places across the US that
> represent distinct types of voter communities.
>
> http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworknation/
>
> They are Monied 'Burbs, Minority Central, Evangelical Epicenters, Tractor
> Country, Campus and Careers, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis,
> Boom
> Towns, Service Worker Centers, Emptying Nests, and Military Bastions.
>
> -------------------
> Carol J. Smith
> Principal Consultant, Midwest Research, LLC
> http://www.mw-research.com
>
> Email: carol at mw-research.com
> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/167/781
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

--
~ will

"Where you innovate, how you innovate,
and what you innovate are design problems"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Will Evans | User Experience Architect
tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com
aim: semanticwill | gtalk: wkevans4
twitter: semanticwill | skype: semanticwill
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Exactly - I don't think any of us would be successful using a method like
this.

Luckily most products don't have an audience of 300 million, but this is
interesting regardless. :)

Carol

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:42 AM, mark schraad <mschraad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Will is correct, these are clusters. Clustering is what companies like
> USAinfo and others offer as prepackaged market segments. The problem with
> these market segments is that they are generic and are typically generated
> by statistical analysis of socio, psycho and demo graphics. These three
> groups of behaviors are excellent for understanding the how, when and where
> of contact and communications with customers. They are not however suitable
> as a substitute for design research. They are also not personae. In fact
> they do not even make for very good archetypes. The first problem is that
> they are aggregate. The best approach for a persona is a deep understanding
> of one person that is similar to one of a larger market segments for your
> product. The second is the complete lack of depth needed.
>
> We have had some good luck using cluster analysis (prizm and others) of our
> user base within specific channels. Basically it helps us look at the
> differences between different user groups. This is a far cry from having
> deep understanding of user needs and wants.
>
> In general, clusters will give you good information for marketing to
> specific customers groups. For designing products, you need different
> groupings. You need user segments generated through analysis of 'desired
> attributes'. Your product manager will call these features - the user
> experience group will likely call these functionality of capabilities.
>
> Don't be fooled into thinking that 'marketing' data and clusters will give
> you what you need to effectively design for users. The wrong research, used
> for the wrong purpose can be worse than the lack of information.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
> On Oct 21, 2008, at 11:25 AM, Will Evans wrote:
>
> That sounds eerily similar to the old marketing
>> lifestyle/behavioral/psychographics that main stream marketers have been
>> using Claritas for - http://www.claritas.com and as some smart person,
>> think
>> it might have been in the book Groundswell, mentioned - that's for folks
>> that want to shout into the cave and listen for the ecco, in otherwords,
>> agencies that are good at defining a message, broadcasting (media
>> placement), and then measuring results, which is the old politics - the
>> new
>> politics is represented by things like Obama's iPhone app (I am not
>> stumping
>> for him - just giving an example) - a platform of tools to empower people
>> to
>> talk with people - and that means less marketing, and more social media
>> strategy - creating a platform that is Built for Conversation (the title
>> of
>> my upcoming talk).
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:07 AM, Carol Smith <carol at mw-research.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Here's another way voters are being categorized:
>>>
>>> The Christian Science Monitor identified 11 places across the US that
>>> represent distinct types of voter communities.
>>>
>>> http://www.csmonitor.com/patchworknation/
>>>
>>> They are Monied 'Burbs, Minority Central, Evangelical Epicenters, Tractor
>>> Country, Campus and Careers, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis,
>>> Boom
>>> Towns, Service Worker Centers, Emptying Nests, and Military Bastions.
>>>
>>> -------------------
>>> Carol J. Smith
>>> Principal Consultant, Midwest Research, LLC
>>> http://www.mw-research.com
>>>
>>> Email: carol at mw-research.com
>>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/0/167/781
>>> ________________________________________________________________
>>> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
>>> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
>>> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
>>> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
>>> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ~ will
>>
>> "Where you innovate, how you innovate,
>> and what you innovate are design problems"
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Will Evans | User Experience Architect
>> tel: +1.617.281.1281 | will at semanticfoundry.com
>> aim: semanticwill | gtalk: wkevans4
>> twitter: semanticwill | skype: semanticwill
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> ________________________________________________________________
>> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
>> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
>> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
>> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
>> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>>
>
>

Courtney,

Australia's stimulus package will work if those low- and middle-income
households don't do the exact same thing as the US and use it to pay down
their credit card debt (which is high in Australia per capita) or save it
instead. This is, as you say, the piece missing from the public personas
that might make them work in they way we need them: enough detail about the
characteristics that will actually help predict behaviour.

And this, I think, is at the heart of personas and their use(less)fulness:
do they contain attributes and details about the audience segment that helps
us design for them *in order to achieve a change in behaviour*. In the cases
of these various stimulus packages, the *relevant* details are thin on the
ground.

Steve

2008/10/25 Jordan, Courtney <CJordan at bbandt.com>

> Just to build on this discussion which I think is an excellent idea and
> something that should have been done a long time ago...perhaps we could
> have come up with economic stimulus concepts that worked better and had
> the desired effect. The majority of the last stimulus checks went to
> paying down debts and bills, rather than to boost consumer spending, as
> the government had hoped. A more throrough development of the personas
> that needed to be helped would have undoubtedly had a more positive
> economic impact.
> ___________
>
> It's interesting what Australia's doing - helping the people who need it
> most.
>
> <article excerpt>
> The surprise package primarily targets pensioners, low and middle-income
> families, carers and first-home buyers, and is aimed at boosting
> consumer spending.</exerpt>
>
> http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Australia_unveils_massi
> ve_economic_stimulus_package/articleshow/3592920.cms<http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Business/Australia_unveils_massive_economic_stimulus_package/articleshow/3592920.cms>
>
>
> Courtney Jordan
>
>

--
----------------------------------------------
Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA
Principal Consultant
Meld Consulting
M: +61 417 061 292
E: stevebaty at meld.com.au
Twitter: docbaty

Blog: http://docholdsfourth.blogspot.com
Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com