{Persona- Assignment 5}

Persona for Nordstrom.com:
Name: Karen
Age: 45
Occupancy: Homemaker, Mother of two

Karen, a forty-five year old mother of two, spends her time taking care of her children and their home. Her oldest child is twenty and is currently a senior at the University of Michigan. Her son, the younger child, is eighteen and is a high school senior at the local public school, Torrey Pines. Karen’s typical day involves running, lunch with her friends, decorating/cleaning the house, feeding the pets, grocery shopping and making dinner. Karen spends a lot of time helping her family members and spends a lot of time online researching way to improve her children’s lives. The bulk of her time is spending on collegeboard.com, researching Universities for her son, and at online venders that allow her to send gifts to her daughter. Nordstrom.com is often the first source she visits because of her familiarity with the brick and mortar stores and because of the selection of products. Nordstrom.com covers the needs of each of her family members while also providing an entertaining web site. In searching for specific items she often visits Amazon.com and Bloomingdales.com, but if Nordstrom.com cares that product she opts to utilize her Nordstrom card. Karen has had a Nordstrom card for the past five years and has enjoyed receiving the benefits that come along with using this card. As a Nordstrom cardholder, she enjoys free standard shipping on all items purchased at Nordstrom.com. When Karen decides to order a product for her daughter she expects it to arrive at her University with causing any additional stress on her daughter. Karen does not have a specific budget that she must abide by, but as a smart shopper she rarely spends more then reasonable considering her household income (provided by her husband).
Karen is an early riser and usually gets her day started around 6 a.m. After she runs and does daily errands she ends up coming home around two to make herself lunch, a cappuccino and unwind in front of her Mac lap top that her two trendy children convinced her to buy. She typically visits Nordstrom.com to search around and keep herself entertained. She gets to this site by typing “Nordstrom” into Google search and then by clicking the main title of Nordstrom. When she finds a product that reminds her of her children she often emails the link to them asking what they think of the item. She will continuously visit the site and reevaluate this item before finally purchasing it. She appreciates that nordstrom.com saves all of her user information along with the address of her daughters University. Before purchasing she questions the size and imagines how her son/daughter/husband will react to the purchase. It would be helpful is Nordstrom provided a “suggestion” area that would lead her to items that were similar to previous purchases. She is not familiar with the new “conversation” area on Nordstrom.com that provides information to the latest trends, although she does enjoy the photos that appear on the home page.

{Mood Board}

{Google In China}

           Google launched its google.cn search engine in China in 2005, seven years after originally launching google.com in the U.S.  Before the launch Google executives, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt had been struggling with the ethical dilemma behind whether or not to comply with Chinese government and censor search results.  Initially they based their decision on a scale of evil in which they decided it was better to offer censored search results then non at all [1].  Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel for Google, explained that Google users in China were faced “with a service that, to be blunt, isn’t very good” [2].  They were faced with a choice between “denying Chinese citizens some political searches and denying them all searches” [3].  As stated in Ken Auletta’s book, Googled, Google believed that “the Internet would, over time, help democratize China".  The men behind Google moved forward and launched Google.cn, but were faced with immediate criticism.  Chinese blogger Isaac Mao posted a public letter to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stating that Google had gone against its “Don’t be evil” motto by complying with Chinese law and that it “hurts those loyal users” and encouraged a “change back to the right track” by Google.  Not only was Google faced with an ethical decision to stay in line with their own motto and beliefs, but also to support Chinese users.    In 2010 Google decided to stop censoring their search results and started to redirect Chinese users to Google.hk [4].  In a blog post Google stated that, they took this action to finally "make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn”[5].  An article by Clifford Coonan for the Independent stated that, “the decision was also an uncomfortable reminder that many Western companies have chosen to compromise their principles on free speech and censorship to cash in on the burgeoning China market”.  Once again Google is being criticized as people claim that they are covering up a financial decision by claimed to be ethical.  Business Week Article provides insight into Google’s competition in China.  In the U.S. Google occupies 60% of the search market whereas in China it holds a mere 35.6% against search engine giant Baidu.  In this article Google claims that their decision to pull out of China has nothing to do with financial considerations and claim it was due to severe hacking from Chinese sources and for the ethics behind censoring their data.  Although fiscal competition may have played some part in the decision to stop google.cn, the overall decision was made based on public critism and to support their motto “Don’t be evil”.

     Had I been advising the executive team at Google I would have supported the decision to leave google.cn and start redirecting users to an uncensored google.hk.  Despite disapproval by newpapers in China who claim, “one company's ambition to change China's internet rules and legal system will only prove to be ridiculous", I believe that the actions of one (Google), influence others to behave similarly.  In addition, Google is more than the average company, their actions speak to everyone and have power both in the political sphere and to the public. 

Chinese citizens laying flowers down before the Google Beijing office

more info here

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[1] Shah, Prahar, and Deborah Compeau. "Google in China." Ivey Publishing. N.p., 1 May 2007. Web. 9 Feb. 201

[2] Shah, Prahar, and Deborah Compeau. "Google in China." Ivey Publishing. N.p., 1 May 2007. Web. 9 Feb. 201

[3] Auletta, Ken.  Googled : the end of the world as we know it / Ken Auletta  Penguin Press, New York :  2009

[4] Quelch, John A. "Google in China (C)." Harvard Business School Cases (2010): 1. Business Source Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Feb. 2011.

[5]Coonan, Clifford. "Google set to pull out of China over censorship." The Independent. N.p., 22 Mar. 2010. Web. 9 Feb. 2011.

{Links I love}

 A good way to find out more about someone is to ask them to name their three favorite web sites.  So here are mine:


(1) http://www.youtube.com/
(2) http://www.bloglovin.com/

(3) http://www.thedailybeast.com/

{Life After College}

What a scary thought: Life after college.  Like I mention on the "About Me" page of this blog, I have a list of things I want to accomplish throughout my life.  My goals after graduation are to travel for a few months, ideally around London during the 2012 Olympic Games, and then to come back to California to begin working.  I want to run my own company and see if I can be successful on my own.  If this doesn't play out then I want to find a job that will provide the satisfaction that comes from working hard but that doesn't take over my life.  Another goal of mine is to own a house by the time I am thirty.  I am not one to make a timeline for myself but I feel like if I don't set some straight forward goals then life will just pass by.  I would love to work in the social media and creative design industry but also have an interest in Real Estate.  I have had a variety of jobs since the age of 16 and have experienced different industries.  In this, I have become aware of what type of career path I would like to avoid but am still searching for one that would suit me perfectly.  I am comfortable knowing that the ideal career may only come to me after a few more trial and error situations.