Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users) was offline for a couple weeks, but she’s made a couple killer posts in the last few days. The most attention grabbing was this one – “It’s the [?], stupid” wherein she challenges anyone to cut to the core reason for whatever it is you are doing by forcing you to answer the “It’s the [something], stupid” question.
The 'comma-stupid' phrase popped into American culture in 1992, with the political message, It's the economy, stupid!
Do you know what the 'comma-stupid' phrase is for your product or service? In other words, do you know what is most meaningful for your users? Because whatever that word or phrase is (i.e. the part that comes before the ,stupid!), it should be driving everything from product development to documentation to support and marketing.
ALL of your efforts are then focused as a means to this end. Whatever your 'comma-stupid' phrase is, it better have something to do with the end-user ‘experience’. A couple ‘good’ examples of the 'comma-stupid' phrase according to Kathy:
It's the [user spending more time in flow], stupid!; It's the [user feeling a sense of belonging], stupid!; It's the [user experiencing peace of mind], stupid!; It's the [user having more fun], stupid!
This struck me on a couple levels. First, I suddenly felt really self-conscious about my own tag-line. I really thought this was a killer message for this blog (go ahead, read it up there under the title), but maybe not according to this....
An example of a NON useful answer might be "It's about the [user getting more work done], stupid!"
Mmmm... Maybe I need to skinny that tagline down to better convey what I’m doing here. People engaging in groups to do stuff and create something should be able to do it in a simple, seamless, enjoyable PROCESS - It’s about the PROCESS, stupid!
UPDATE (2/3/06) - I changed the tagline.
But that’s me. What about the huge population of potential but reluctant wiki users? The 'comma-stupid' question cuts to the whole adoption issue. My target market is people working in groups, most of whom haven’t heard about wikis (except for maybe wikipedia). What IS the 'comma-stupid' phrase that gets them over the mental hump of embracing this simple tool with the quirky name? What is it that will make them try it and get addicted to it. How to create that 'iPod/Blackberry experience'?
It’s about the ‘being in the loop’, stupid?; It’s about the ‘connection’, stupid?; It’s about the ‘knowing what’s going on’, stupid?; It’s about the ‘everything not feeling like a chore’, stupid? Or how about - It’s about the ‘simplicity’, stupid?
Or, maybe as Kathy suggests, it’s about the flow, stupid.
And finally, I wondered what the 'comma-stupid' is for the whole Web 2.0 thing.
...And that's why we're so fond of the phrase, 'kick ass' because it serves as a placeholder for what the user ultimately wants. That 'I Rule!' experience should drive what most of you are trying to build or promote. [Note for clarification: we mean 'I Rule!' like that 'YES!' feeling you get when you do something tricky, successfully.]
Kick Ass at what? King of my little info-feed universe? Master of Messaging? Prince of Podcasts? The Booyah Blogger? The Wizard of WiFi? The God of Tagging? The Lord of Links? The Viceroy of VoIP? (ok, I’ll stop now)
To what end? Web 2.0 is a navel-gazing feeding frenzy in some small corner of the universe that absolutely no one else is aware of. All the Web 2.0 products are individually pretty cool and the early adopters’ 'comma-stupid' phrase is pretty much the same - ‘It’s the ‘being first and cool’, stupid’ for all of them.
But ‘Web 2.0’? Who is the Web 2.0 'user', any way? Is it the tech-savvy developers, gamers, and social-networkers out-cooling each other with their mastery of the open source universe or is it the Web 2.0 prognosticators, vendors, marketers, and other market mover wannabes just talking to themselves?
…what should be in our 'comma-stupid' phrase (?). We can start by asking, 'What does the user care about?' Followed by, "OK, but WHY does he care about that?" Followed by, "And why does he care about that?" Until we get to the heart of it. Then we pick a phrase... a message that expresses this in a way that everyone on the team can understand.
OK, maybe the heart of Web 2.0 is "It’s the ‘getting a VC to fund us’, stupid”. Or, "It’s the ‘getting insecure, out-of-the-loop corporate decision makers nervous if they’re not doing it’, stupid." (Hey, it worked for ERP, CRM, and Supply Chain.)
As Thoreau said, "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end."
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