Blog 1 - Empathy Map - Due: 11-Sep-2013

Well, here it is... your first blog topic. Think about the kind of information that a marketer would need to create a detailed and rich persona of someone you know fairly well, but who does not fit within your segmentation profile (skeleton).  The goal is to play with a tool that is intended to help you begin to gain empathy for someone who has a background and/or experiences that are different from yours.  With that in mind, choose someone who is more than 5 years younger or older, not your gender, and is not in the MBA or MPA program (or just finished or about to enter).  Beyond that, I'll let you figure out if the person is dissimilar enough from you to benefit from the exercise (so there is no need to clear your choice with me or Sirisha).  

Keep in mind that this is public blog and that it is probably best not to use real names, so consider using an alias for the person. I'd be curious to know your relationship with this person, but if you have any concerns that they might read this and be upset, you can certainly choose not to tell me that.

With that in mind, create a persona for this person in a way that would be very valuable for marketers. Remember, what we are looking for here are detailed and nuanced descriptions about them that would lead a marketer to discover or identify key insights.  Of course, what you provide may just be the first nugget and the researcher might have to dig deeper to uncover the real insight, but the information you provide should be a great start.

To give you structure, I would like you to use the Empathy Map in the creation of your persona (which is on our class slides, the Business Model Generation book, and I also describe it below without the visual canvas).  I will also encourage you to use this in your project. The Empathy Map has 6 sections (numbered) and sub questions (bulleted) for you to consider:

1. What does he or she think and feel?

-- what really counts?

-- major preoccupations?

-- worries & aspirations?

2. What does he or she see?

-- environment?

-- friends?

-- what the market offers?

3. What does he or she say and do?

-- attitude in public?

-- appearance?

-- behavior towards others?

4. What does he or she hear?

-- what friends say?

-- what bosses say?

-- what influencers say?

5. What are his or her pain points?

-- Fears?

-- Frustrations?

-- Obstacles?

6. What does he or she hope to gain?

-- Wants/needs?

-- Measures of success?

-- Obstacles?

In addition to what you write, try to be as visual as possible with this.  Consider including 2-4 images for each of the 6 sections of the Empathy Map - these can be photos you have, images from the web, or drawings/sketches you create (remember, artistic ability is not important here).

Please remember the length requirements for blogs as well as the grading criteria (all of which are available in the syllabus and on this class blog home page). Have fun with it!