One reason I leave my phone number on my blog is so people and friends can call and tell me why they think something is worth paying attention to.
Sam Gentile just called.
I listen when he calls. He's a talented and influential software developer.
What did he call about? Scott Bellware's essay on "Mort or Elvis: A Question for a Bygone Era."
Sam called this the best post of the year on his blog.
I think Sam expected me to defend our developer personas. I won't. Something bothers me about them too. Not the least of which is that I am not even skilled enough to be a Mort. A sub-Mort, if you will. The names sound too elitist. And they are.
It's time to get rid of them. Good call Sam and Scott.
That doesn't mean, by the way, that personas aren't a valuable way to force you to think about your customers and the roles that they play. But these just don't work anymore and the names are horrible.
Yet another example of how naming matters.
Personas are good for some things, but also have their limitations. You’re not a sub-Mort. You are, however, very similar to the customer profile for whom my team is supposed to be building products. What Scott’s post has made me rethink, however, is the implications of oversimplifying the world into such clean personae.
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnmont/archive/2006/04/25/581665.aspx
Personas are good for some things, but also have their limitations. You’re not a sub-Mort. You are, however, very similar to the customer profile for whom my team is supposed to be building products. What Scott’s post has made me rethink, however, is the implications of oversimplifying the world into such clean personae.
http://blogs.msdn.com/johnmont/archive/2006/04/25/581665.aspx
I have to admit I’ve only skimmed the essay.
One point I’d like to point out is that personas are best used as a way for marketing to communicate sterotypical users to the software designers and developers. I suppose the outbound marketing team might get some use out of it. However, they should be an internal document. Promoting a piece of software as being for “Mort” is crazy.
These personas are supposed to be sterotypes. No one likes to be sterotyped. However, they are useful in focusing efforts on what the user wants. These personas may be dated, but the big mistake is to use them publicly.
I have to admit I’ve only skimmed the essay.
One point I’d like to point out is that personas are best used as a way for marketing to communicate sterotypical users to the software designers and developers. I suppose the outbound marketing team might get some use out of it. However, they should be an internal document. Promoting a piece of software as being for “Mort” is crazy.
These personas are supposed to be sterotypes. No one likes to be sterotyped. However, they are useful in focusing efforts on what the user wants. These personas may be dated, but the big mistake is to use them publicly.
Google Quote of the Day:
“If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.”
- George Aiken
“Persona” is just a euphemism for “stereotype.”
I’m not sure if you even need to ask whether they’re ethically bankrupt. You can ask yourself whether they’re practical.
The world is a complicated, messy place, so we invent stereotypes and put things into categories. It’s something humans apparently do. The problem is that once you mistake your categories for the Real World, you’re effectively blind to all the things that don’t fit your stereotypes, that don’t neatly go into your categories. If you are sorting rocks, and you have one bucket for black rocks and one bucket for white rocks, what do you do with a gray rock? Can you even *recognize* that it’s a gray rock if you don’t have a word for “gray?”
That’s usually when your competitor comes along and starts selling a bucket for holding gray rocks and puts you out of business — because you were too busy trying to make the world fit into your neat and tidy categories.
Think about the customer? Always. Think about stereotyping your customer? Know when to quit.
Google Quote of the Day:
“If we were to wake up some morning and find that everyone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some other cause for prejudice by noon.”
- George Aiken
“Persona” is just a euphemism for “stereotype.”
I’m not sure if you even need to ask whether they’re ethically bankrupt. You can ask yourself whether they’re practical.
The world is a complicated, messy place, so we invent stereotypes and put things into categories. It’s something humans apparently do. The problem is that once you mistake your categories for the Real World, you’re effectively blind to all the things that don’t fit your stereotypes, that don’t neatly go into your categories. If you are sorting rocks, and you have one bucket for black rocks and one bucket for white rocks, what do you do with a gray rock? Can you even *recognize* that it’s a gray rock if you don’t have a word for “gray?”
That’s usually when your competitor comes along and starts selling a bucket for holding gray rocks and puts you out of business — because you were too busy trying to make the world fit into your neat and tidy categories.
Think about the customer? Always. Think about stereotyping your customer? Know when to quit.
Have you noticed lately that there seems to be a lot of smilies here and there on wordpress blogs. They never used to be there before. I found one right below the ‘c’ in Scobleizer. Has it been put deliberately or is there anything else behind that?
Have you noticed lately that there seems to be a lot of smilies here and there on wordpress blogs. They never used to be there before. I found one right below the ‘c’ in Scobleizer. Has it been put deliberately or is there anything else behind that?
I don’t like the personas either. In my opinion, all software developers need to be highly skilled AND focused on what the business needs. There should be no knowledge silos and every developer on the team should be aware of all parts of the code-base. Each developer is unique, but they can be classified as junior or senior, Apprentice, Journeyman or Master.
I don’t like the personas either. In my opinion, all software developers need to be highly skilled AND focused on what the business needs. There should be no knowledge silos and every developer on the team should be aware of all parts of the code-base. Each developer is unique, but they can be classified as junior or senior, Apprentice, Journeyman or Master.
I think personas have their place. Specifically, it helps engineers to think of the end user, and who their target audience is. Sure, no one fits a persona 100%. But, each have characteristics in them in which people identify to some extent. I can be an “Einstein” at times, while I can also see “Mort” and “Elvis” in me as well.
Is it time for “Elvis” to leave the room? No, not as long we remember that Personas are tools: nothing more, nothing less. They help us keep focus on why we’re answering the questions people have, but if we lose sight of that, they’re worthless.
That all being said, the title of this entry reminds me of possible personas I”ve never contemplated: Hackers, Crackers, and the like. So much for Threat Modeling like a good Programmer..
I think personas have their place. Specifically, it helps engineers to think of the end user, and who their target audience is. Sure, no one fits a persona 100%. But, each have characteristics in them in which people identify to some extent. I can be an “Einstein” at times, while I can also see “Mort” and “Elvis” in me as well.
Is it time for “Elvis” to leave the room? No, not as long we remember that Personas are tools: nothing more, nothing less. They help us keep focus on why we’re answering the questions people have, but if we lose sight of that, they’re worthless.
That all being said, the title of this entry reminds me of possible personas I”ve never contemplated: Hackers, Crackers, and the like. So much for Threat Modeling like a good Programmer..
Better than painting your customers as dinosaurs, I suppose
Personas break pretty badly when applied to apps which are intended for hundreds of thousands of users. We need new visualization methods backed by good real world data.
Better than painting your customers as dinosaurs, I suppose
Personas break pretty badly when applied to apps which are intended for hundreds of thousands of users. We need new visualization methods backed by good real world data.
[...] I read Scott’s rant. If I didn’t work here I’d probably be standing right behind him saying “Yeah – Microsoft is bogged down in embarrassing ideologies! You tell-em Scott!.” I’m surprised that Scoble gave it so much boost. [...]
Scoble, I TRY to have respect for your opinions, but every time I get close to thinking you have a grasp on reality, you go and post something like this.
The personas were not developed as part of a marketing campaign. They were not meant as a means to categorize people for recruiting purposes. They are not printed under the names of visitor’s badges at Microsoft to help us better identify who they are. They are not injected into every single conversation and design decision. They do not carry more weight than actual customer feedback. These are simply starting points that help remind us that there are various types of developers who benefit from different features in different ways. Having been around the consulting block long enough, I know that the M/E/E designations are fairly accurate depictions of SOME of the types of developers as a stereotype, but in no way define any single customer to a tee. Take them for what they are, and not for the evil you apparently want them to be.
Scoble, I TRY to have respect for your opinions, but every time I get close to thinking you have a grasp on reality, you go and post something like this.
The personas were not developed as part of a marketing campaign. They were not meant as a means to categorize people for recruiting purposes. They are not printed under the names of visitor’s badges at Microsoft to help us better identify who they are. They are not injected into every single conversation and design decision. They do not carry more weight than actual customer feedback. These are simply starting points that help remind us that there are various types of developers who benefit from different features in different ways. Having been around the consulting block long enough, I know that the M/E/E designations are fairly accurate depictions of SOME of the types of developers as a stereotype, but in no way define any single customer to a tee. Take them for what they are, and not for the evil you apparently want them to be.
[...] Mort, Elvis and Einstein don’t exist Much has been said about the Mort, Elvis and Einstein controversy over the past few years (yes, years). The past few days have been no exception. One of our MVPs is apparently upset about them, and apparently some employees are not too happy about it either. I’ve waited several days to comment until the screaming stopped. Now that it has, it’s my turn to weigh in. Most of this content about this topic is completely off-base and unfounded. “Why?”, you might ask. That’s because Mort, Elvis, and Einstein don’t exist. That’s right, there is no one person on this planet that is meant to be exhibited by these personas. The names depicted here are meant to represent behaviors - not people. Trying to pigeon-hole people into one of these areas is just a misrepresentation of what the persona was meant to portray. Mort is not a VB developer, Elvis is not a C# developer, and Einstein is not a C++ developer. Sure, the personas use these analogies because they do fairly closely resemble a large stereotypical audience, but it doesn’t “fit” to anyone. Then again, no description fits more than one developer. These personas don’t drive features and they don’t do anything but serve as reminders that we have different types of developers who need different types of features, documentation, and applications. Don’t think this is true? Ask the average VB developer what a thread is and they may get the “word for word” answer, but a large part of that audience never has wanted to understand the intricate details of thread local storage, differences between the stack and the heap and why those are important in the context of application development. Does that mean that all VB developers don’t care about threading? NO. Once again, there is plenty of evidence that einsteins exist in the VB community as well — “Einsteins” meaning people who want detail! Mort behaviors exist in the C++ community as well. I’m one of the people have have a mort mentality with C++. I know so little about C++ I’m amazed I’m allowed to breath the same air as the folks here at Microsoft. That, indeed, is the Mort side of me. Several people have asked “Why are there no definitions for these from Microsoft.” And they are hopping mad about it! Quite frankly, its because the personas were not meant to be public information. They were used to help mold and categorize functionality internally, and nothing more. Because of that, the actual documents for these personas are not available externally. If they were, they would also likely be taken out of context. That said, this won’t be the last discussion about these fictional characters. I imagine we’ll be hearing about them for some time. Just remember to take everything you hear with a grain of salt, and if you think the way we construct software is wrong, by all means RESPOND! Speak up, tell us how you would approach it. Better yet, apply to the team that interests you most and come implement those changes yourself! Published Monday, May 01, 2006 8:44 PM by tobint [...]
[...] I’ve had my cell phone number on my personal blog for months and I’ve yet to receive a call from someone I wish didn’t have the number. Scoble’s transparent blog reasoning is this: One reason I leave my phone number on my blog is so people and friends can call and tell me why they think something is worth paying attention to. [...]
[...] Mort, Elvis and Einstein don’t exist Much has been said about the Mort, Elvis and Einstein controversy over the past few years (yes, years). The past few days have been no exception. One of our MVPs is apparently upset about them, and apparently some employees are not too happy about it either. I’ve waited several days to comment until the screaming stopped. Now that it has, it’s my turn to weigh in. Most of this content about this topic is completely off-base and unfounded. “Why?”, you might ask. That’s because Mort, Elvis, and Einstein don’t exist. That’s right, there is no one person on this planet that is meant to be exhibited by these personas. The names depicted here are meant to represent behaviors - not people. Trying to pigeon-hole people into one of these areas is just a misrepresentation of what the persona was meant to portray. Mort is not a VB developer, Elvis is not a C# developer, and Einstein is not a C++ developer. Sure, the personas use these analogies because they do fairly closely resemble a large stereotypical audience, but it doesn’t “fit” to anyone. Then again, no description fits more than one developer. These personas don’t drive features and they don’t do anything but serve as reminders that we have different types of developers who need different types of features, documentation, and applications. Don’t think this is true? Ask the average VB developer what a thread is and they may get the “word for word” answer, but a large part of that audience never has wanted to understand the intricate details of thread local storage, differences between the stack and the heap and why those are important in the context of application development. Does that mean that all VB developers don’t care about threading? NO. Once again, there is plenty of evidence that einsteins exist in the VB community as well — “Einsteins” meaning people who want detail! Mort behaviors exist in the C++ community as well. I’m one of the people have have a mort mentality with C++. I know so little about C++ I’m amazed I’m allowed to breath the same air as the folks here at Microsoft. That, indeed, is the Mort side of me. Several people have asked “Why are there no definitions for these from Microsoft.” And they are hopping mad about it! Quite frankly, its because the personas were not meant to be public information. They were used to help mold and categorize functionality internally, and nothing more. Because of that, the actual documents for these personas are not available externally. If they were, they would also likely be taken out of context. That said, this won’t be the last discussion about these fictional characters. I imagine we’ll be hearing about them for some time. Just remember to take everything you hear with a grain of salt, and if you think the way we construct software is wrong, by all means RESPOND! Speak up, tell us how you would approach it. Better yet, apply to the team that interests you most and come implement those changes yourself! (Cross posted from: http://blogs.msdn.com/controlpanel/blogs/posteditor.aspx?SelectedNavItem=Posts§ionid=6231&postid=588143) Published Monday, May 01, 2006 8:44 PM by admin [...]
Do you realize how freaky it is to actually BE that persona?
I actually live on cap hill, snowboard, and do the trance/vis thing.
C# was literally designed for me. I love it.
Do you realize how freaky it is to actually BE that persona?
I actually live on cap hill, snowboard, and do the trance/vis thing.
C# was literally designed for me. I love it.