Interviewing

After doing an interview with Abdul Mahdi (which is posted on the TimeTraxx Google+ Community page) I had a few thoughts that I wanted to put down in some concrete form.

1. Getting an interview can be difficult

There are some ways to mitigate this issue, and we went over a few in class. The one that really hold true, in my experience so far, is that it is important to 'rope them in' before you actually get to the meat of any request. When I emailed Abdul Mahdi and others about helping us with some primary research in time management, I initially sent a large wall of text, with many qualifiers (...If you have time, etc.) and posted the questions in initial email if I was going to be unable to meet them in person. I didn't get a single response that way, but when I sent a short message along the lines of "hey, would you be willing to answer some questions about xyz" I found that it was much easier to start a conversation, and once started, people don't tend to just stop talking to you.

2. Knowing the interviewee is important

I only vaguely know Abdul Mahdi from some of our meetings and his having come to the bus100 class I took last semester. However, when I emailed some people that I knew better, I found that responses were faster in coming, and I am currently speaking with some faculty that worked at my high school.