Scott Burken recently wrote on the topic of “personas” for his audience. He gauges the value of his content against the perspective of four imaginary people:

1. The curious neophyte. If someone at random walked in off the street would any of this make sense? Would they keep reading/listening?
2. The expert asshole. What if the person who knew everything about this subject and loved to criticize read this paragraph or heard this lecture. What vitriol would I hear? What bullshit would they call me on?
3. The daily grinder. How about the guy who actually does whatever I’m talking about for a living and when I’m done will go straight back to work. Will anything I write or say impact what he does the rest of the day? week? month?
4. The fan. Will someone familiar with my work find this boring? repetitive? derivative? Can I make this more fun for them instead of less?

I too think about who might read something I post here or on the Adaptive Path blog. I also have been thinking about an audience now that I’m diving into speaking a little bit. As I am a bit of a newbie to all of this, I find myself fixating on (read:worrying about) the “Expert Asshole” more than others. My insecurities lead me to wonder what point I haven’t researched completely enough. I worry that someone who know more than I will poke big, gaping holes in my ideas.

I also don’t fool myself into thinking that I speak to “fans”. I don’t have the track record that Scott does to believe that anyone follows my work. Instead, I would swap out the “friend” role in it’s place:

1. The friend. Will someone that I have known for a long time and/or someone that I interact with very regularly find this interesting? Will they enjoy getting a little nugget of insight into Dan’s head, or will they find it boring drivel: the same-old-shit?