O'Reilly Open Source Convention - August 1-5, 2005

Tutorial
Creating Passionate Users
Kathy Sierra

Track: Emerging Topics
Date: Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005
Time: 1:30pm - 5:00pm
Location: Portland 256
What do game designers, neurobiologists, and filmmakers know about creating passionate users? How can we exploit the way the brain works to reach users/customers at a deep emotional level that inspires their devotion, enthusiasm, and most of all--their desire to evangelize your product, service, or cause, to everyone they meet (or blog for)? The latest research in cognitive science, brain chemistry, and psychology can help you figure out how to get your users' attention and keep it.

You'll learn to work around the brain's natural filters that keep your message from getting in. You'll learn to give your product or service an almost addictive quality to keep users engaged and wanting more. Most importantly, you'll learn the key secret that will turn their brains and hearts on.

Whether you're looking to drive up the hits on your web site, increase membership in your organization, build a passionate fan community around your project, help people learn far more effectively, or dramatically increase sales, the answer lies in reverse engineering the things for which people are passionate.