Honest, I’m not getting lazy, I really like what Kathy has to say at Creating Passionate Users blog. Can I assume all my readers are reading her blog, too? No, so that allows me to make what looks like a fresh post to some of you. Three good posts I didn’t want to slip by:
The Smackdown Learning Model talks about how to have a smackdown fight between alternatives to help the user learn about their choices. I thought this was a great lesson in writing competitive material, especially when one of my new goals is to make the user’s choice clear (ref: Paradox of Choice)
Reference vs. Learning: Pick One allows Kathy to get on her high-horse about the advantage of conversation writing to improve user learning. But to a marketer (and we all are marketers), its a good lesson in limiting or separating your messages depending on the task: reference or learning. I’ve seen too many pieces with reference content written in a learning/conversation style that is awkward and unreadable.
You can out-spend or out-teach is today’s lengthy rant that contained this gem about creating passionate users/customers:
But passion requires real learning. Nobody is passionate about skiing on their first day. Nobody is passionate about programming in Java on their first day. Or week. It’s virtually impossible to become passionate about something until you’re somewhere up the skill/knowledge curve, where there are challenges that you believe are worth it, and that you perceive you can do.
There, I think she drove the point about why her learning mantra is so compelling, so spot-on. Learn what doesn’t work (like using a paddle-boat for fishing), and insist on the right gear next time.