Chat With Mrs. Robot

What need is this bot meeting for me? 

1. Show off that I know how to build a decent bot

2. Answer questions about my other writing skills

3. Display my personality

 Who are they? 

1. Probably my family, friends, and co-workers

2. If I’m very lucky, recruiters and prospective employers

What do they need?

1. My family, friends, and co-workers are lovely, but not my intended audience 

2. Recruiters/prospective employers need to know quickly if I'm a good fit

What is their emotional reality?

1. Tired: Searching for an employee is as exhausting as searching for a new job, and depending on long it takes, more so, because they’re also taking up the slack for a spot they need to fill.

2. Nervous: There’s not a lot of conversation designers and most of them are already employed, if they spend the energy to woo someone, they want to know they're worth that time.

3. (Hopefully) excited: Recruiting can be similar to dating, you’re checking out who’s available and imagining how how candidates would be as a partner; both at work, and in social situations.

What are their obstacles?

The things they can’t control:

1. The budget they’ve been given to hire with

2. Industry constraints (like a limited pool of candidates due to high demand)

3. Who applies

The things they can control: 

1. Crafting an accurate, enticing job posting to elicit applications from good candidates 

2. Researching applicants and/or qualified candidates they may try to recruit

3. Who they reach out to

Who they are: 

Given that I’m trying to display my personality, so that my users know who I am and if we want to work together, it is a given that this bot ought to be a digital version of myself. 

I think it’s disconcerting, and possibly confusing, to have a digital character speak as though it’s a human being so I’m going to follow my own advice on my strategy page, and create a character that is my ideal employee. 

So, Mrs. Robot will be my personal assistant. A digital clone I’ve made of me. My very own super-fan. This will allow me to promote myself without feeling like a tool, and bypass some of the difficulties of abandoning pronouns. 

Gender

For this reason, I’m going to deviate from the typical gender-less stance I take for business bots. Since this thing is going to talk like me, I’m going to adopt my own pronouns for its voice.

Traits

I want to point up the best qualities about myself as an employee, so I’m going to shoot for them with my assistant’s character.

1. Helpful: She'll answer both the letter and the spirit of any question, with concision & detail.

2. Intuitive: She’ll anticipate follow-up questions and have answers for them, even when there isn’t an explicit button option for it. She’ll also be prepared to respond to user deviations.

3. Sassy: She'll prep visitors for the fact that I'm a solid writer & a professional sassy-pants. 😉 

How does she act?

Those traits should come through in the text responses, but they should also be represented by the actions Mrs. Robot takes. How does she illustrate those traits?

I want her to:

a. Educate: Choose the best way to inform; text responses, links, images

b. Illustrate: Use emoji’s, show pictures, constantly remind users she's not human

c. Elevate: Her design will never look sloppy, she’ll look polished, and uphold my brand

Tone & Voice: 

Helpful: If she can't do something she'll offer an explanation and a redirect.

Intuitive: She'll have planned deviations for failures or fallbacks.

Sassy: Responses will be bawdy but not crass, clever but not cute.

She will never: Swear, verbally chastise, or use marketing speak.

She will always: Try to make you smile, give an accurate impression of me.