Creating Passionate Users

My passion is awesome, your passion is lame

It's the golfer who spends an entire weekend hitting a little ball with a stick but slams his co-worker for "wasting time with mindless video games". It's the Java fan dissing the Ruby enthusiast. It's the audiophile who paid $8,000 for a home stereo but can't believe you spent $1,000 on that Nikon lens.

While we usually have no trouble justifying our passion to ourselves we have a tough time justifying it to those who don't share that particular passion. We all have passion double-standards. Mine makes sense, yours doesn't. The time and money I spend on my passion is worth it, yours is a waste.

In the past, I've said that one characteristic of people with a passion is that they are irrational about that passion. But by whose judgement? Who decides it's rational to spend an extraordinary amount on the best cooking pans and utensils, yet irrational to buy a digital SLR when "my $200 point-and-shoot Canon takes just as good a picture?" Who decides that you shouldn't watch too much TV, but your cause is judgemental and self-righteous? Who decides that it should be obvious why the iPod is worth the extra money, but come on--spending that much on dog food!?

The point is, one person's irrational zealotry is another person's reasonable passion. It all depends on your perspective. (Of course this is a continuum--with a few obsessed ones out on the extreme edge of the passion curve. And unfortunately, the extreme zealots are the ones that folks like to point out as examples of why your passion is so irrational.)

So, what can we do to help our users explain their passion to others? Sales and marketing people put a ton of effort into providing the "rational justification" for a buying, joining, whatever-it-is decision, but once they've accepted the justifications and paid their money, that's it. Yet as they start to become truly passionate, this is when they may need justifications the most! Not for themselves, but for others. And it's a different kind of justification...

Your passionate users don't need you to help justify the product, they need you to help them justify the passion.

It does me no good to explain the benefits of the $1,000 lens I just bought if my passion for photography makes no sense to you.

It does you no good to justify why you joined rock climbing gym Foo instead of Bar, if I think your passion for climbing is not just irrational but dangerous.

And how can I possibly explain why I spent all that extra money for a Parelli-brand horse halter if you think "natural horsemanship" is nothing but marketing hype?

But this gets to the heart of one of the most important aspects of passion--that it goes beyond the product/service/cause itself. Our passions often represent something about who we are. For many of us, the thing we're passionate about is not just a hobby, product, service, cause, etc... it's a way of life.. Ted Leung explainined to me that as a result of his relatively recent passion for photography, he "sees the world differently now." Passionate golfers have apparently elevated golf to some kind of spiritual status--it is, for them, about much more than just hitting a ball with a stick. Ditto with fly fishing (it's apparently not about the fish or the flys). The guys from 37signals offer much more than software apps... they represent a philosophy (the whole "getting real/it-just-doesn't-matter" thing). MindJet's Mind Manager not a mind-mapping tool, it's a way of thinking.

If we truly want to support our passionate users (or help them to get there in the first place), we need to consider how this passion fits in the context of their work or personal life. If our user's spouse is complaining about all the time they spend doing [whatever it is], can we offer a friends/family free workshop? Educational demos? Create a DVD that helps define some of what this means to people who have a passion for this thing? Case studies? It might be recommending an influential film that speaks to the deeper nature of this passion (I must admit, I got teary-eyed over a golf movie once). At the very least, we should make sure that existing users have access to the same kinds of white papers, product comparisons, technical or financial justifications that we give to prospective users. (Although again, this addresses the THING and not the passion.)

Bottom line: if we want to help our users explain their passion to others, we need to help give them the tools to do so. It may often be unsuccessful--some people will always have a closed mind around things they can't see or feel for themselves--but it's way better than nothing.

Not that I should have to justify my passions, of course, because--DUH--the justification is self-evident to anyone who "gets it." ; )