Let’s Talk Persona to Persona - Page 12
January 11, 2002
So you have to invent some kind of persona on your own side, to
figure out how to talk to the individuals in your audience, whom
you may have caricatured in a set of fictional personas.
Generally, we consider creating a writing persona as a little
dishonest, almost like putting on a mask. True, when the intent
is to deceive, overawe, or attack. But you can create a perfectly
reasonable persona, one that has some of your own background,
concerns, and pet ideas without being dishonest.
You are about to engage in a virtual conversation, after all,
where you don’t know a lot about the person you are talking to.
Sure, you’ve read the profile, plowed through the e-mail, checked
the transaction history. But you are still guessing. And so you
really don’t start out with a human relationship.
But if you build your own persona sincerely, out of your own real
experience, you will develop a definite connection with the
person you are writing for. If you reveal a few facts about
yourself, watch the response. People realize, gosh, there is a
person there. Suddenly, they want to know about your town, your
hobbies, and your kids.
To guard your own privacy, and to maintain your own boundaries
secure, you need a carefully developed persona—a public
personality. In fact, you may need to develop a different writing
persona for each major group you talk to, so you can morph into
their team, looking at things from their point of view as much as
possible, using their language, dealing with their concerns.
The process resembles writing a script, where you switch from one
character to another, speaking as intensely as you can in that
voice, then switching character, and responding. Sound crazy?
Well, sure. Nutcases carry on imaginary conversations and get
locked up. The challenge for you is to stay sympathetic enough
with each group and each person so that you don’t feel strained
adopting the appropriate stance for your relationship.
We celebrate subjectivity.
— Constance Hale,
Wired Style
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So you are acting in a role, as one persona, and when you address
a niche audience, you are talking to a character you have
invented, a persona who stands in for the real people who are
members of that group. That’s talking persona to persona.
And when you answer e-mail, or type responses in a chat session,
or post replies on a discussion board, you are, in a way, writing
person to person. But even here you are acting in a role,
adopting a persona, and the other person is too. So the
conversation has an artificial flavor.
Your job is to break through the artificiality of the experience,
the distance imposed by the medium, and the constraints of your
own context. You have to work hard to become a human being, on
the Web.
Imagine the way you would like the virtual conversation to
go—what you will say, and what she will say, and how the
exchange will progress. Envision a satisfactory outcome. What
exactly do you want to happen, as a result of the texts you send
and the responses you get back? Where is this relationship
headed? As Ann Landers asks, what will make you both happy?
Stretch the canvas and sketch in the basic outlines of the goal.
But leave the picture unfinished.
You ask. I answer. You ask. I answer. You’re not supposed to
watch the sun set, listen to the surf pound the sun-bleached
sand, and sip San Miguel beer as Paco dives for abalone while you
craft your e-mail.
— Guy Kawasaki, The Guy
Kawasaki
Computer Curmudgeon
|
Let the unknown enter—the unpredictable other, the amazing
quirks, the surprising feelings, the odd twists of the other
person’s thoughts—and your own. Because people turn out to
be full of surprises, if you listen with an open heart, build
your persona loosely enough to make room for their side of the
conversation.
See: Bruffee (1986), Clark (1990), Cooper (1999), Dumas and Redish
(1993), Fish (1980), Freed and Broadhead (1987), Hagen (1999),
Jonassen, Hannum, and Tessmer (1989), Norlin (2001), Norman
(1980), Ong (1975), Porter (1992), Redish (1993), Rubin (1994),
Seybold and Marshak (1998), Seybold, Marshak, and Lewis (2001),
Shneiderman (1998), Stevens and Gentner (1983), Weiss (2001),
Wood (1996).
Develop an Attitude - Page 11
Hot Text: Web Writing that Works
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