Blog 1: Empathy Map

9/9/2013

It’s my first blog post! Today I will be starting on an empathy map for someone dissimilar to me. I think this tool will be very useful to me as a Marketer. In my internship this summer, I had to try to imagine myself as a consumer in the retail landscape. However, the customers of the large discount retailer I interned for were extremely diverse and especially very different from me. I think developing empathy will be both essential for my future as a Marketer, and a fascinating way to understand other personalities.

For my empathy map, I chose Rameses. This is an alias..he’s not actually named after the Egyptian pharaoh. In fact, he is an electrical engineer, newly married, and a new Dad. He was born and raised in Bombay, India, and attended the University of Houston for Graduate School. He moved to the US in 2010 for his graduate schooling and got a job at Hewlett Packard after. He met his fiancé at the University of Houston. Generations in his family had arranged marriages, but his fiancé and he went back to India together to meet each other’s families and got engaged when their schooling ended. Rameses is a distant cousin of mine, but because I have no family in Texas, he is close to our family. This summer, Rameses had a son. He is extremely tiny and cute, but keeps the young couple up all night! Rameses’ wife’s, mom came to stay with the couple for a while and take care of the baby. Later this year, Rameses’s parents will visit as well. Rameses represents an immigrant whose family from now on will be Americans. He brings unique needs marketers should address in a diverse city like Houston, which attracts several immigrants.

Here’s a little more about him-

1.      What does he think and feel?

a.       From my assumptions, what counts to Rameses are religion, his family, fun activities he can still partake in as a new dad, his son, his work, providing for his family, his parents and brother

b.      Major preoccupations he has are that his son will be growing up in a different culture than he did, that his wife and he are new parents and may make mistakes, that his job may not be stable

c.       Rameses worries about the stability of his job and future of his son

d.      Rameses aspires for his son to have a good life. He also wants to be a good dad and a good provider for his family.

2.      What does he see?

a.       Rameses’ environment is in the suburbs of Houston. He sees his new house, a developing neighborhood, his job at a Hewlett Packard, his wife and child, and his parents who will be visiting soon.

b.      As a new young couple, he and his wife will be making new friends. Other couples in their neighborhood are also having newborn children, thus his friends are changing from his bachelor friends at UH.

c.       As a new dad he sees products for his newborn child. He sees the use of a good swaddling blanket. He seeks easier ways to balance his work life with being with his son.

3.      What does he say and do?

a.       Rameses’s attitude in public is polite and friendly

b.      Rameses has the appearance of a middle class young man who is starting a family. He is skinny, has short hair, clean shaven, and still wears sweatpants and t-shirts. During the week, he wears tucked in polos and jeans for work. He wears his glasses more often now as a new dad  

c.       Rameses is friendly towards others, he makes small talk with waiters and waitresses, interacts with neighbors, invites family over for dinner and occasions, skypes his family long distance regularly (in fact, he keeps an iPad open on the dining table to easily talk to them) and shares frequent pictures of his son with them

4.      What does he hear?

a.       Friends tell Rameses about new issues to think about with his new son, about their new experiences and what is happening in their lives, about how they miss their lives in school/college/graduate school (wherever they met Rameses)

b.   His bosses are much older and experienced and have advice for him as a new dad as well as input into his performance at work

c.   Influencers, like his parents and uncle (my dad- his only close family in Houston), have different inputs into the different investments Rameses should be looking into, parenting tips, what is normal for the baby, Google allows Rameses to quickly research different actions with his son, his wife influences when he goes to work/goes to lunch/comes back home

5.      What are his pain points?

a.       Rameses fears that he will not be able to instill his cultural values in his son, or find the right balance between raising his son Indian or American. 

b.   Being a new parent and not having as much time for himself and his marriage is a frustration. Not having the culture and environment he grew up with can be frustrating when he misses it. Having constant responsibility instead of days of endless video games and pizza as he did only a few years ago is a frustration. Being far away from his Mom and Dad is a frustration.  

c.   HP's seeming decline and the volatility of the technology industry is a large obstacle to Rameses being sure in the stability of his job and his future. The gap between American and Indian culture is an obstacle that he will have to face when beginning to raise his child. His values also differ greatly from generations before him as he represents a younger generation.

6.      What does he hope to gain?

a.       Rameses wants to provide a good life for his family and newborn son. He hopes to gain status and reputation in his career. He wants good friends and a good neighborhood for his son. He needs to instill good values in his son, preferably the oens he wishes to carry on from his Indian culture and faith. 

b.   Rameses measures his success at work with how his superiors evaluate him and the tangible fruits of his work. He will measure his success as a Dad with individual instances with his son.

c.   Rameses faces obstacles of challenging, time consuming work and a work environment not conducive to motivation and innovation. He does not feel passionate about his work. He will face obstacles related to having his first child, the strain having a child puts on a relationship, integrating both his cultures into his life, his marriage, his child's upbringing, and his parents and wife's parents' visits to his home. 

That's all for now! Thanks for reading.