Persona debate at 37signals
37signals posts their distaste for personas and a fun comment war ensues. Whenever I read or hear these debates, I'm always disappointed because too often personas are misrepresented. Good personas aren't fictitious, abstract, or a replacement for user research. Many people live through one bad experience with personas and dismiss them forever. (My first car was a horrible 1976 Olds Starfire, but I didn't assume all cars sucked and I didn't vow never to drive again.)
Sometimes a team gets lucky because they truly are their audience. 37signals creates products that are amazing because they are designing for themselves and many people are just like them. They don't need personas. But most of us don't have that luxury. We don't live and breathe what our users live and breathe, so we need tools to help us gain empathy, understand stated and unstated user needs, and translate that knowledge into action. Personas aren't a panacea, but they can go a long way to helping team members have a shared vision for what the site or product needs to do and how.