Thursday, November 24, 2011

Creating Passionate Users - Kathy Sierra

Blog

podcast: Kathy Sierra | Creating Passionate Users
(a keynote presentation at O'Reilly TOC)

Can authors and publishers make money with a new book?
...the reality is that only 5% of all books are profitable.


This was not acceptable formula to feed the family after dot-com bust,
so she and her husband "reverse engineered" what makes successful books
based on Amazon.com reviews. Then, they used the "formula" to produce best-seller "Head First" series of books for many years and many books...


Idea: "Don't make a better Java book,
make a better Java programmer!"

Result: #1 sales in Java programming books @ Amazon

books that actually get readers to write programs,
instead of just learning about writing programs.


And the formula is... (watch the video :)
Video @ TOC


Could this successful idea be extended to all product and services?
"Make products that customers actually want to use to get better,
more successful, instead of to just have a product.
"

Yes, sometimes "using" is to be able to brag that you "have" a Lexus,
but if most owners actually like "driving" BMW that is a best advertising.
That is how BMW can be a successful business and not very large.
That is how Apple can sell as many iPads as they can make,
because "apps" empower users...

OK, so this is nothing new, I guess, so I tried to "google it"...
products that people want to use, not just to have
Some interesting links found so far:
And then, I have realized, that same person, Kathy Sierra, already has "connected the dots" in this great presentation! Video @ Business of Software 2009

AI-class captions / transcripts

dsmartweb.com/ai-class/

wonderwhy-er.com/ai-class/

ai-class


Stanford CS221: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig