
Minimum Viable Personality (2011) - tosh
https://avc.com/2011/09/minimum-viable-personality/
======
supernova87a
I love that marketing works, and that people want to believe in values, and
will band together over those values.

However lately, I've felt that especially in the US, values -- or more
accurately -- symbols of values have become more important than actual
tangible outcomes or functional real achievements. For people as individuals
and as groups.

I guess of course that I'm especially thinking about our politics and social
emphases these days. And maybe it's just gotten slightly worse that you notice
it, fueled by Instagram and sound bite technology. Maybe even the way we
market products and companies (come for the values!) contributes to our
political discourse.

Think about any movement out there at present -- MeToo, conservative agenda,
liberal agenda, organic produce, gentrification, almost any major movement. If
you really get into the issue, you find that the symbol of the thing is
actually a very, very small almost non-representative case of the situation as
a whole.

Immigrants are not invading in hordes. Men at work are not harassing every
female employee. People are not trying to kick out elderly widows to turn the
block into a shopping mall. They're all symbols of the most extreme cases, and
we latch on to them because they're recognizable, inflammatory, and get us
riled up to want to do something. As always the rare, incredible threat
dominates our minds so much more than the mundane everyday threat.

But sometimes I think, a society needs to think about the whole and not the
extreme cases. And give up being obsessed with achieving symbolic victory, and
instead actual (minor, boring, incremental) achievements for the whole. That's
much harder to get people inflamed to vote for.

The current climate is why we got tax breaks for a couple of billionaires at
the expense of millions of people with mortgages. It's a symbol of someday
when I'll be a millionaire! (Never going to happen, on average) . When did you
last thank the policymaker who came up with the mortgage deduction, something
that you take advantage of every day?

Your shoe is not going to make you a star athlete. An immigrant is not
knocking on the door to take your job -- that was decided decades ago. For
every policy you put in place to protect the imaginary elderly widow, you make
it harder for 10 young people to have an affordable place to live.

Stop believing so much in symbols.

~~~
jpfed
MeToo is an interesting example.

I suspect that Facebook and Twitter have their own linear algebra models of
who is interested in what, and that factors into their choices of what content
from your friends makes it into your stream.

After the wave of MeToo posts on Facebook and Twitter had died down, I asked
my friends on Facebook to characterize how many MeToo posts they'd seen.
Liberals reported seeing far more MeToo posts than conservatives did.

Something I didn't ask about, but have seen after the fact, is that
conservatives and liberals seem to have a totally different idea of what MeToo
is about. Algorithmic balkanization may have contributed to these differing
ideas, and cordoned most of the MeToo-related activity in a liberal cluster of
the social graph.

I saw a lot of personal stories of harassment and abuse from my friends. The
sheer volume of them was undeniable. I could never say, given the experiences
my friends reported, that it was mostly symbolic. Those experiences were very
much concrete. It is possible that my particular subset of the social graph is
disproportionately affected by sexual harassment and assault, which would
affect the validity of any conclusions about the broader society I might draw
from what I saw. But, for the subset of the social graph I observed, there is
simply no way to call it symbolic.

~~~
belorn
I would say it is both a mostly symbolic movement and a collection of real
personal stories that most people know a victim that is either have a friend
or friend to a friend.

Lets imagine we had a movement like metoo here in Europe talking about
violence from immigrants. You would get thousands of personal stories
documenting people being robbed, beaten, threatened, raped or target of other
forms of crime. The people behind the movement would highlight the over
representation that those immigrants have in the crime statistics, and the
crimes would be very concrete. What would the conclusions be drawn about the
initiative by the broader society? I predict that the difference between
conservatives and liberals would be a mirror image of the same difference
conservatives and liberals has over metoo.

~~~
jpfed
I would be very surprised if these situations would be mirrors of one another.
The way MeToo played out in my social media, I never saw friend A sharing an
experience that friend-of-friend B posted. Rather, friend A shared their
direct experience. Re-shared stories would have no doubt caused an inflated
sense of actual prevalence... but that's simply not what I observed.

I have many friends that reported their own direct experiences with sexual
harassment and assault. I would actually be pretty shocked if anything like
that number had directly experienced violence from immigrants.

~~~
belorn
Interesting. I have the opposite experience with no friends talking about
sexual harassment but several who are victim of crimes committed by
immigrants.

It make some sense however given that data here in Sweden. 6% of people are
victim of either sexual assault or harassment and around 6% of people are
victim of either assault or robbery. Sexual assault has mostly female victims
and assault and robbery has mostly male victims.

And the blame towards immigrants shows up clear in the data. Immigrants in
Sweden are 400% over represented for assault and robbery and almost 500% in
regard to sexual assault. For those cities which has a very high proportion of
immigrants this translate to directly to a lot of people being victims of
crime committed by immigrants.

The data is what the data is. We can discuss different interpretation of it,
but the general point is that movement like MeToo is not about informing the
public about crime statistics. It is a symbol by one political side about an
issue they find important, which they highlight through the use of mass
reports of personal experiences. The right could do the exact same thing, and
I remember a few times they tried and failed to do so.

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prmph
I disagree that the world is full of products that work, and that most people
want more "interesting" products.

Maybe at a certain age when one is full of naivety, that is true. But at this
point, I prefer products that are stable and work well, even if they are a bit
"boring". This is not limited to tech: no amount of marketing is going to
convince to prefer a thoughtless but glitzy cafe than a cozy one where I am
made to feel comfortable through attention to detail.

I suspect I am like most people who have more than a certain level of
experience in life, but maybe I may be wrong. The more I consume various
products, the more I realise just how horribly bad most products are:
insurance that barely works, software that is insecure, etc.

~~~
zeroname
You're just not in the market for every single emotional appeal (nobody is)
and you probably have somewhat of an "outsider" or "underdog" preference.

Different emotional appeals still work on you and are being exploited without
you knowing. For example:

> ...a cozy one where I am made to feel comfortable through attention to
> detail

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asdgionbionio
What are we doing to ourselves?

If you were in the market for a new pair of shoes, what would be the sensible
thing to do to get the best pair? Would you look at the glitzy ads, or would
you try to choose something that is durable and comfortable for its price?
Would you compare celebrity endorsements or spec sheets?

There's no one in their right mind who would say the right way to buy a
computer is to look at advertisements. The right thing to do is compare specs
and functionality.

This is good advice for how to make money. But bear in mind that, if you try
to build a personality for your company, you are choosing something for your
customers that you would never choose for yourself.

~~~
shunders
Hardly anyone is capable of drawing meaningful conclusions from comparing
specs and functionality between computers. Advertisements are the way the vast
majority of people understand what products can do. There's a reason iPhone
commercials focus exclusively on some single, insignificant functionality like
a facial recognition emoji generator.

~~~
mikepurvis
Ironic that we've made it to that place, given that one of the huge
differentiators in the early generations of iPhone was how it was advertised.
The carrier ads flogging alternatives showed 3D models of the devices whizzing
around the screen (the emotional play), while Apple's iPhone advertising
actually showed the UI; they showed what it looked like to use it and showed
it being used to do something useful.

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swayvil
I think that by "personality" he means "story".

Like, a cool story that you can somehow attach to the product. So when people
see the product they also think the story.

And then they think, "woah, what a great product!". (But what they really mean
is "woah, what a great story!")

I see this in the art scene. It's like the art-piece isn't enough for people.
They want an artist's statement. A philosophy. Who made it, why did they make
it, where did they make it. Tell me the 20-chapter story of your heroic
struggle from ugliness to beauty...

(Personally, I think what's going on here is either dim art or blind people.
Either of which will produce a failure to make that connection)

Which is to say, it's like people don't care what they see, hear, smell etc.
What they care about is what they think. It's all about the story.

And that certainly says something about people and how they interact with
reality.

~~~
skybrian
Without cultural context, you might as well be looking at a mysterious ancient
artifact from a lost civilization, or maybe procedurally generated random
content from a video game.

It's nice when you can get the joke without it having to be explained to you,
but that just means you share enough culture to get it, where a foreigner
wouldn't. It doesn't mean you're smarter, it means you happened to have the
education needed.

~~~
swayvil
The thing here is, there is no joke. There is no associated story or
explanation necessary for appreciating the artwork. The artwork contains the
whole of what the artist intends to deliver.

We've got this weird situation where people can't just look with their eyes
and hear with their ears. For them it's all about thinking. They want
something to think about. They want a story/joke/explanation. For them the
action is all in their head.

~~~
skybrian
It's almost never self-contained. At the most basic level, if you don't know
the language, writing is just meaningless scribbles. Scales and chords have no
particular meaning by themselves. Associating a major scale with happiness and
minor with sadness is something you learn.

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emsal
This sort of ties in nicely to the "WOKE BRANDS" video[1] that came out
recently from H. Bomberguy. It's a bit lengthy but it goes into a very
poignant discussion of the problematic underpinnings of brands adopting a
particular aspect of a "personality", namely a hypocritical social conscience.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg)

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dugluak
I like how the author used Minimum Viable Words to convey his point.

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bebna
Aww, I hoped for a talk about presenting the minimal needed personality as an
introverted coworker to his team.

~~~
ebiester
That's both easy and hard.

It's not that extroverts are magically better than a neurotypical introvert,
but rather that extroverts have had more practice. The irony is that I can see
an introvert be quite extroverted during a D&D session, because it's a place
they have practiced their social skills.

For neurotypical people, I don't believe in extroverts versus introverts per
se, but rather practiced with a social group versus unpracticed.

For most people, authenticity and vulnerability is the way to go. I am a
goofball, and I present as such. I've brought juggling balls to standup (and
also juggled remotely) and people smile. (I'm not a great juggler.) My
coworkers know that I don't watch much TV or movies because I don't like them,
so they can do all the spoilers without worrying about me.

When showing your personality, it's about what to hold back rather than
presenting something that isn't part of you. (For example, if your personality
involves illegal activities, that shouldn't show up at work.) Personality
should never be about presenting something you're not. Be you to everyone,
just not _all_ of you.

But don't try to be something that is _not_ you.

Fortunately, the rest is just observation and practice.

~~~
johnday
I worry about this framing, because it suggests that what I (and many other
people who I have spoken to) experience, is somehow atypical. I have no
objection to talking to people, and I have groups of friends who I like
talking to and engage with well.

They're going out this evening and I'm not. Why? It's not because I don't like
them, or because I don't "gel" with them - it's because it's the end of the
week, and social interaction is a tiring event for me. I find it nearly
impossible to concentrate on other people or what they are saying, and it only
becomes more difficult over time.

It's not about practice.

To address your comment on D&D, the reason introverted people are more engaged
and outspoken during a game is because that is what the game demands. If you
were to ask such a person, they would say it is fun, of course, but tiring -
and I know that because I am much the same way when I play D&D.

------
keiferski
This short talk by Steve Jobs communicates the same idea in a far more
eloquent manner, IMO.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYbcqyyj68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNYbcqyyj68)

Edit: (long) transcript with minor edits by me:

To me….marketing is about values. This is a very complicated world. It’s a
very noisy world. And we’re not going to get a chance to get people to
remember much about us. No company is! And so, we have to be really clear on
what we want them to know about us.

The way to [build a great brand] is not to talk about speeds and fees. It’s
not to talk about bits and mega-hertz. It’s not to talk about why we are
better than Windows.

The dairy industry tried for 20 years to convince you that milk was good for
you. It’s a lie, but they tried anyway. And the sales were falling. And then
they tried “Got milk” and the sales went up. “Got milk” wasn’t even talking
about the product. In fact, it focuses on the absence of the product.

But the best example of all, and one of the greatest jobs of marketing that
the universe has ever seen, is Nike. Remember, Nike sells a commodity. They
sell shoes!!!

And yet, when you think of Nike you feel something different than a shoe
company. In their ads, as you know, they don’t ever talk about the product.
They don’t ever tell you about their air soles and why they are better than
Reebok’s air soles.

What does Nike do in their advertising? They honor great athletes. And they
honor great athletics. That’s who they are, that’s what they are about!

Apple spends a fortune on advertising — you’d never know it….you’d never know
it! So…when I got here, Apple just fired their agency and there was a
competition with 23 agencies that…you know…four years from now we would pick
one. And we blew that up and we hired Chiat\Day, the ad agency that I was
fortunate enough to work with years ago and created some award winning work
including the commercial voted the best ad ever made, 1984 (by Advertising
Professionals).

And…we started working about eight weeks ago, and the question we asked was,
“Our customers want to know who is Apple and what is it that we stand
for…where do we fit in this world?”

And what we’re about isn’t making boxes for people to get their jobs done —
although we do that well. We do that better than almost anybody, in some
cases. But Apple is about something more than that! Apple at the core…its core
value — is that, we believe that people with passion can change the world for
the better. That’s what we believe!

And we have had the opportunity to work with people like that. We’ve had the
opportunity to work with people like you; with software developers, with
customers, who have done it. In some big, and some small ways.

And we believe that, in this world, people can change it for the better. And
that those people who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world
are the ones that actually do!

And so, what we’re going to do in our first brand marketing campaign in
several years, is to get back to that core value!

A lot of things have changed. The market is in a total different place than
where it was a decade ago. And Apple is totally different — and Apple’s place
in it is totally different. And believe me, the products, and the distribution
strategy, and the manufacturing are totally different…and we understand that.

But values and core values — those things shouldn’t change. The things that
Apple believed in at its core, are the same things Apple really stands for
today.

~~~
swills
Ironically, the shoes that Steve Jobs wore along with his trademark jeans and
black sweater were New Balance.

~~~
hangonhn
Steve Jobs wasn't an athlete nor did he aspire to be one. He was smart enough
to know there are millions who do have those aspirations.

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tosh
As markets get more crowded and people’s attention span shorter it really
helps to think more about branding and positioning.

Interesting read: Positioning, the battle for your mind

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darepublic
For more on human irrationality in product choice you can try the documentary
'Century of the self' by Adam Curtis. You can find it on youtube.

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Procrastes
I absolutely thought this would be an article on building just enough
pesonality in user interfaces. I still think that would make an awesome
article.

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dmitripopov
That giant robot dinosaur absolutely nailed it!

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linkmotif
Would really love to hear people’s perspectives and experiences with this.

