This was taken from a quote by China Miéville from The Believer. I feel that it is a perfect description of the active curiosity that is necessary for any serious Account Planner/Interaction Designer. It all boils down to that natural curious instinct that, at times, has the potential to give you an insight into someone else’s experience who has a completely different/random perspective on life that you. This is something that can’t be achieved by sitting in a round room brainstorming what type of person uses your product. From absorbing yourself in random magazines, books, even to the occasional user group meeting, interacting with people that are passionate about something (and it really can be just about anything) shows you the true nature of your consumer. Anyhow, here’s the quote:
What I love is passion. One of my fascinations is trade magazines. I love picking up specialists’ magazines about subjects I know nothing about. For instance, you pick up a magazine that is the house journal of tropical-fish keepers or model-train builders. I have no interest in model trains; I have no interest in tropical fish, but I love reading the magazines, because you get this insight into this world of debate and passion and argument, and then you get two competing magazines with different platforms who are dissing each other because this is a world where the people involved in it are absolutely in love with what they do. What geeks have, geeks in any field, be it a field like science fiction or a field like tropical fish, is that they are moved to do what they do because of a love and passion for the field above all else.
Yes, I am a geek. I have two blogs, am a constant news junkie, my RSS feeders are constantly overflowing, but for some reason….I love it. And half of the sites I subscribe to were found thanks to services like Stumbleupon.com, where it can transport you to a random website based on pre-determined categories…what I did was select just about all of them (there are around 90+ to choose from), so every-time I click on Stumble, I never quite know what I’m in store for.
Regardless, It’s a great tool, even if you’re not as information-obsessed as I might be. There are enough categories where I’m sure it could help you find new resources for whatever it is that YOU’RE into….so go check it out… or better yet…. what hobbies/obsessions do you harbor that others might call you a dork for? I’m interested…. if you want to remain anonymous feel free to use the Contact Me page instead of commenting… Links to related sites would also be appreciated.
