Persona core poster – now translated into spanish

Since I designed the persona core poster some years ago, a lot of people from all over the world have downloaded the poster and are using it to create personas. This is by far the most downloaded file on my blog. Just got the question to have this also in an spanish version. Here it is with the help of  Carolina Flores-Hine.

Download the high resolution version of the Persona Core Poster:
Persona-core-poster_CREATIVE-COMPANION_spanish_PDF

Download the english version of the persona core poster via the Persona-Workshop.com website with loads of information.

If you are using the poster in workshops I would be happy to receive some pictures. Must be awesome to see all the personas from all over the world.
Please drop a mail to christof [at] creative-companion.com

Empathy poster for focus group, interview and research

Inspired by the d.school’s empathy map I designed a poster that can be used in focus group meetings or any other research or interview situation.

While asking questions and observing behaviour like body language, tone of voice or choice of words it is important to note everything that  occurs in the session. In a second step, or during the session you will encounter contradictions (maybe already in saying), between what people say and what they do. Any contradiction or paradox can lead to a (latent) need or desire. If you ask yourself (or the participant) ‘why the things are as they are’ you may come to remarkable realizations or even an epiphany. This will be your most valuable insights.

Empathy Poster by CREATIVE COMPANION

Download the PDF version of the  Empathy-Poster by CREATIVE COMPANION.
You can print the poster in A4, A3 up to A2 and use it in different situations and workshop or research settings.

More posters:

The Persona Core Poster 

If you have collected a lot of insights you may want to go a step further an build personas for your company or project. There is another nice poster for this:

The Persona Core Poster by CREATIVE COMPANION

 

The Company Real Score Framework – Die Firmenpartitur

If you want to map your whole brand input and compare it with the reality persona you could also use The Company Real Score a strategic framework for brand innovation. You can also download the original poster.
Deutsch: Die Firmenpartitur (www.firmenpartitur.de)
English: The Company Real Score

Have fun!

PS: yes you can use the posters free of charge and yes I would be happy if you give me some feedback, credits or just spread the word!
Christof

www.creative-companion.com
www.creative-companion.com/deutsch/

 

Epiphany through Empathy – wishing you many Epiphanies in 2014!

The sixth of January is epiphany day – the 12th and last day of Christmas. The holiday season is over and we can focus on the coming year. A good moment to wish you all the best for 2014!

Epiphany through Empathy from CREATIVE COMPANION

What epiphanies would we get, if we could see through the eyes of another person? I made a presentation under the title ‘Epiphany through Empathy‘ and hope you will like it.

Good luck, health and I hope you will have many epiphanies in 2014!

Thank you 2013

Last year I had the pleasure to work on interesting projects with nice people.

• As Creative Companion I worked for Vlisco on several projects with the focus on ‘Vlisco Stories‘, prototyping ‘iPad in the flagship store’ and a personas / brand related intranet platform.
• For the fashion brand DEPT I worked on the development of aspirational and reality persona to sharpen their customer centered and brand related strategy.
• We could present our new product ‘Pfitz – wall object and baking dish‘ at Fuori Salone during Milan Design Week and we found a new manufacturer in Germany. So it will be ‘Dutch Design – handmade in Germany’ very soon. And Pfitz is available in the heart of Amsterdam at Dutch Design Year.
• Finally the Executive App of NIBE-SVV was launched together with the top of the dutch financial world.
• The 1PLACE.ME iPhone and Android App was launched and I did the initial social media activation.
• Working together with Design Thinkers at Bosch in Germany on a Service Design project.
• During Dutch Design Week I teamed up with FRD and gave a lecture on ‘Persona in the HR field’. I also launched  The Company Real Score – a Music Thinking approach to Business Innovation. My daughter and I designed a prototype of a lamp inspired by Mart van Schijndel’s ‘Delta Vase’. The exhibition was shown at Design Perron during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and in the Amersfoort Rietveld Pavilion in December and January.
• Became Member of the Faculty at Witten School of Management in Witten Germany.
• Started a persona development project for ‘the dutch love brand’ de Efteling.
• End of the year I developed the online strategy based on The Company Real Score for Hekwerk Theaterprodukties, the management (impressariaat) of dutch cabaret stars like Youp van ’t Hek, Jochem Myjer, Droog Brood and more.

Thank you all for working together and the nice time we spent. Curious what 2014 will bring.

The link between music taste and personality

To learn from music is one of the aspects of Music Thinking. Here are some learnings that could be used as input for some methods I am using for Brand development and Service Design like Persona Creation, or working with The Company Real Score. So with your next persona creation or service design project you maybe would like to ask your audience what kind (or maybe a combination) of music they prefer. This could help to understand your target group better.

Knowing whether a person prefers John Coltrane to Madonna, Dolly Parton to DJ Avicii, or Wagner to Prince allows for remarkably accurate personality predictions. 

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

According to a study with 36.000 participants all over the world (conducted by Professor Adrin North of Heriot -Watt University, Edinburgh) there is a clear correlation between the musical taste of a person and their personality.

People could make accurate judgments about an individual’s levels of extraversion, creativity and open-mindedness after listening to ten of their favorite songs. Extraverts tend to seek out songs with heavy bass lines, while those who enjoy more complex styles such as jazz and classical music tend to be more creative and have higher IQ-scores.

Blues fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Jazz fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, and at ease

Classical music fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, introverts, and at ease

Rap fans
have high self-esteem and are outgoing

Opera fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, and gentle

Country and western fans
are hardworking and outgoing

Reggae fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Dance fans
are creative and outgoing but not gentle

Indie fans
have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle

Bollywood fans
are creative and outgoing

Rock/heavy metal fans
have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Chart pop fans
have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing, and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease

Soul fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

 

References
North, A. C. and Hargreaves, D. J. (2008). The social and applied psychology of music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collingwood, J. (2008). Preferred Music Style Is Tied to Personality. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2008/preferred-music-style-is-tied-to-personality/
North, A. C., Desborough, L., and Skarstein, L. (2005). Musical preference, deviance, and attitudes towards celebrities. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1903-1914. 

 

More of this:
see the comments or go to www.musicthinking.com

 

A Google Consumer Journey Told Backwards -The Full Value of Mobile –

Google has introduced a new online tool. A calculator to help marketers figure out ‘The Full Value of Mobile,’ as well as case studies and tips. The microsite shows five different categories related to mobile, and videos that show how a brand can monetize them.

Consumer Journey Video

To explain this Google has produced a video “How they got there”. It’s  a short story told backwards that will show you 5 ways in which mobile can drive value for your business.

More than 10.000 views on SlideShare

Just got a mail from slideshare that my presentations & documents have been viewed more than 10.000 times,  wow that’s cool –  a moment to celebrate!

Here are the Top three:

and there are some more: http://www.slideshare.net/creacomp

 

Co-creation, inspiration and the Global Jukebox

Can folk music be a model for setting up a co-creation culture?

In his book We-think: The power of mass creativity the author Charles Leadbeater is talking about a relation of co-creation and the habit of folk music that people borrow musical structures from a shared tradition and taking ideas from a shared pool of multipliers without concern for ownership. A climate of sharing and giving leads to mass innovation often with an individual touch and not mass production.

With this in mind it is interesting to watch the development of the new Global Jukebox project, a tremendous collection of field recordings, of Alan Lomax. The folklorist’s archive of 17.000 field recordings will begin to stream for free very soon, including music from Britain, Ireland, the US, the Caribbean and the former USSR.

Global Jukebox - Alan Lomax

Although Lomax’s name is not as well known as some of the musicians he helped discover, e.g. Woody Guthrie, his work continues to have an enormous influence. For example the soundtrack of the film O Brother, where art thou? is using samples from Lomax. He introduced Pete Seeger to The Lion Sleeps Tonight, recorded Vera Hall’s Trouble So Hard (made famous by Moby), and his recordings will even be featured on Bruce Springsteen’s forthcoming album, Wrecking Ball.

Besides the popularity to use this material for other musical inspiration it is also interesting to get more information on the system and categorization of the material. Lomax is talking about ‘cantometrics’, the term refers to a system for the measurement of singing style, like blue notes and sounds of animals.  The system was also applicable for pop music and he also developed ‘choreometrics’ for dancing and ‘parlametrics’ for speech.
The principles of ‘cantometrics’ are used in the Music Genome Project of Pandora.com a new automated music recommendation service comparable to last.fm and spotify.com

More info:
YouTube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/AlanLomaxArchive/
Research:  http://research.culturalequity.org/