The interview should sound like spontaneous conversation in which the interviewer is fully informed and successful at eliciting interesting, informative and concise answers. But successful interviews are usually more calculated and planned.

Conversations tend to ramble, contain long pauses, and often operate at a personal and visual level beyond what is being said. Interviews have to be more overt, open, direct, entertaining, and concise than most conversations.

In conversation we assert ourselves to let the other person know about us. In an interview the focus should stay squarely on the interviewee. You should only use anecdote or personal experience as a way to get to an issue you want to discuss with the interviewee. For example, a parallel in your own life or experience to something the interviewee is addressing.

PREPARE

You cannot be too prepared. You can overuse your preparation but it never hurts to know a great deal. At the first level, do you know why you’re talking to this person? Is this the best person to speak with on this topic? Where is this person coming from? Will they represent a certain perspective? That’s fine, you just better know what it is. Check the background of guests thoroughly. Sometimes there will be a tidbit in their personal history that will open up a line of questions.

Just as a good reporter knows much more than he or she has time to tell in a story, a good interviewer should consider multiple paths the interview could take, and then choose the best one. Read everything possible. The lucky revelation comes more often when you know more.  Once you are totally prepared, you must keep that information in the background. Most listeners don’t know as much as you do. Don’t forget to give background so people understand the question.

The Technology: Many people are unused to working with microphones. Show them how to sit, show them simple hand signals you will use if they are too close or two far away. Let them know it will be edited. Double check all recording equipment before you go into the field so you will not have to be spending too much attention to it.

Structure: What’s the roadmap of this interview? You may change it in the edit, but have a working plan. A good interview has a beginning, middle, and end. Sometimes the interviewer can plan a climax with a question that evokes a surprising revelation or emotional response. Ideally the climax will come at the end of the interview, or the interviewer carefully plans a way to close the interview without sounding anti-climactic. The structure of many interview is chronological – how did you begin playing music, when did you first realize you wanted to be a writer. The advantage is that it provides an easy to follow structure. A disadvantage is that you may not get to the important point quickly enough.

W,W,W,W,W,H

Writing questions: Always have list of questions reflecting the direction you would like the interview to take. Attorneys are warned never to ask a question they don’t know the answer. Interviewers shouldn’t go that far, but they should ask questions they know the answer to advance the interview in the direction they want it to go.

Read back over your questions out loud. How might they be answered? Be precise in your phrasing to avoid getting the wrong question answered or being forced to explain what you mean. Carefully check your facts and your language to take out things the interviewee may seize on rather than the substance of your question (i.e. “When you were the leader of the group….?”  “I was never the leader!!! ).  Reread the questions just before the interview begins so they are fresh in your mind and you can refer to your notes as little as possible. Read the questions over at the end of the interview to be sure you covered everything.

Do:

• Ask who, what, where, when, how and why questions. They are open ended and will elicit better responses.
• Locate the personal interest of the interviewee. What got them interested in this? Visit their place and pick up cues from pictures, citations on the wall, bric a brac. It’s also a way to make a connection.
• Plan your follow up questions. Play chess. If they answer this way, my follow up will be this. If they answer that way, my follow up will be that. Sometimes a question is just a set up for the next question.
• Try to get the interviewee recall an event for you. Nudge them along –‘then what happened’. The person will see the experience in the mind’s eye and be narrativng the memory as if it’s in real time.   [Jesse Hagopian interview Haiti Earthquake].

Don’t:

• Ask verb questions. ‘Do you believe nuclear power is safe’. They can be answered yes or no. They tend to close down the conversation. Better – ‘what do you think of nuclear power?”  then “why do you think it’s safe”.
• Ask Chinese menu questions: Do you believe in affirmative action because it rights the wrongs of slavery, or because it morally correction, or do you believe in affirmative action because it is good for the nation, or is it because…..”. The interviewee will pick the question to answer and it may not be what you want answered.
• Include subtle or not so subtle loaded language. F.ex.  “Why are you demanding a new contract?”.  The verb demand implies unreasonableness. An interviewee may object.
• Include unwanted premises.  “When did you stop beating your wife?”.

LISTEN

Be open: Your mind should run on two tracks. What is being said. Where do I want the interview to go next? Depending on what you are hearing, you may want to follow a new thread, or pull the conversation back to a plan. Don’t be afraid to throw away your preconceptions and take off in an interview. Study when to fly in conversation mode and when pull back and elicit information.

Always think about the audience. What would they like to hear answered. Do they understand the term just used in the interview? Did they answer your question.

Devil’s advocacy – It is important to get interviewees to explain things well. Often that involves probing. Probing isn’t done to embarrass the interviewee, but to get them to explain themselves to the skeptics in the audience. When preparing questions, get out of your own head and try to imagine what this person’s harshest critic might ask or what a skeptic may wonder.

Troubleshooting: At some point in some interview you will have no idea what the hell to ask next. The answer will be too brief or pre-emptive for you to think ahead or you will be distracted. It can dangerous to open your mouth and start talking. Nervousness will mean that you will babble and finally ask a stupid question. You can avoid this problem by having your question list at the ready and taking a pause to refer to it.

Your interviewee may begin to say things you don’t understand. STOP them immediately. It does you no good to have an interview you don’t get. One of the best questions you’ll ask is “I’m sorry but I’m not clear about what you mean. Could you explain…..?”

Go back over your interview questions before you finish

What interviewees know: Consultants tell interviewees to stick to one or two subjects and always turn the question around to that answer. Use short answers to trip up interviewers or talk long to fill time and run out the clock. Be ready to divert the interviewee off the set answer (research will enable you to prepare the follow-up), have lots of questions, work on how to tactfully interrupt (I am glad you mentioned that…  but what I’d like to get to is…..).

Drop7 Game for iPhone.

Game Description – Drop7 is a pattern recognition strategy game. Game play occurs on a 7×7 grid. The objective is to score points by blowing up discs.

Game Play- A disc numbered one to seven or a blank disc appears over the grid. The player chooses a column which to drop the disc into. The disc falls down the column until it hits the bottom or another disc.

Discs explode and vanish when their number corresponds to the number of discs in a row or column. A single disc exploding is 7 points. But if a sequence of discs explode the score increases exponentially.

When an explosion takes place next to blank disc, it opens partially. The second time an explosion takes place next to a blank disc its number is revealed.

There are 30 discs that drop during each level. At the end of each level, a new row of blank discs appears under the bottom of the screen. Game play ends when a discs rise above the top row. The grid will be fairly empty the first time a player uses Drop7, but gradually the opening grid becomes more crowded and difficult. When game play ends a screen shows the player the total score and whether it has brought down or raised the player’s average score.

When a player reaches a new high score, the game prompts the player to post the score on Facebook. In the high score area of the scoring section the players sees her high scores, high scores worldwide, and high scores among friend.

Drop7 Strategy – The first level of strategy is to keep the grid as clear as possible to avoid the discs rising above the 7^th row and ending game play. The higher the discs rise, the more difficult this becomes. The second level of strategy is constructing a grid that will lend itself to long sequence of discs exploding. Because of the exponential increase in score per disc in a sequence, this builds the score up rapidly.

What’s fun?

1.     At first glance the game looks very simple but it’s complexities unfold the longer one pays.

2.     Creating sequences of multiple explosions.

3.     Growing sense of mastery as score gets higher.

4.     Comparing scores to friends and all others playing the game.

What I dislike

1.     It’s too engaging and takes up too much time.

2.     I’ve feel that my skill level is no longer rising. My high scores have plateaued.

drop7-flowchart

Wii Sports Tennis

Game Description -This is a simulated version of tennis that takes places on a 3 dimensional tennis court. The characters and environment are cartoonish. The goal is to serve and return a tennis ball until the opposing players miss. Scoring follows tennis conventions – 00, 15, 30, 40. The game can be set for one match, best of three of best of five.

Game Play – Game play begins by using the controller, held just as like a tennis racket, to serve. The player needs to swing the controller at the appropriate moment to make contact with the ball for a return. Swinging too soon or too late and you’ll miss entirely. The speed of the swing controls the speed of the return. Contact with ball results in a slight vibration in the controller. Audio includes a crowd cheering. Back hand or fore hand swing did not matter.

I played in the single mode. There were four players on the court, two on each side. My controller worked with both my forecourt and rear court player. When two controllers are available, two opponents can play either side of the court

The player moves automatically from left to right on the court. The player can focus on swinging. Following the play, the point is can be viewed again via an instant replay.

What’s fun?

1.     In many ways it reminded my of a souped up version of one of my first video games, Pong, where the goal is also to return a ball across a court, albeit with fewer bells and whistles. It’s not terribly hard and provides consistent positive feedback.

2.     Multiple players would add a social element to game play.

What could be better?

Adding a third dimension to allow the player to move forward or backward would provide additional challenges that could keep the game interesting for long time players.

Wii Sports Tennis

Tiki Towers for iPhone

Game Description – You have a gang of monkeys. They are hungry. There are bananas out of reach. Your job is to construct links with bamboo to help them get to their food.

Game play – This single player games begins with your pulsating box of monkeys on a stone balcony in a forest. On another level is a case where your monkeys will end up. In between are other balconies and bananas dangling in mid air. You have a set number of bamboo sticks with which to create a bridge or swing for the monkeys to cross. If construction is poor, the bamboo will fall apart and the monkeys will plunge to their death (indicated by the faces at the top of the screen turning to skulls). You construct your path, free the monkeys from the box (the Action command) and see if you did a good job. If you failed you can disassemble your bamboo and start again

What’s fun?

1.     The simple graphics are humorous.

2.      The sense of gravity and wobbliness of the makeshift bamboo bridges creates a realistic feel within the cartoonish look.

3.     You feel you’re learning about simple construction.

4.     When monkeys are happy, you’re happy.

What could be better?

I got bored after playing through about 10 levels.

Tiki Towers

It loads quickly from the iPhone store. If you’re not a subscriber you can peruse selected articles. If you are a subscriber you can download the complete text of the most recent issue. Older issues stay on your phone. The issues take about 3 minutes to download when using 3G.

The  contents page looks like the print edition with sections on ‘The World This Week’ (news briefs), ‘Leaders’ (pithy commentators on the major stories that follow within), and sections about parts of the world (‘United States’, ‘The Americas, ‘Asia’), special reports (this week was China’s place in the world), and sections on Business, Finance and Economics, Science and Technology, Books and Arts, a list of charts on financial indicators.

The pages are well laid out, they offer a choice of font size, and they’re easy to read. Two innovations I had not seen before were the ability to lock the orientation and a feature which allowed you to listen to the articles being read rather than reading them.

Notwithstanding its clear writing, occasional wit, and lucid analysis, The Economist is a heavy read. I found narrated articles going to quickly for me. I like to consider the text before moving on. Even though it was optimal for the iPhone, I didn’t find the iPhone optimal for the material. It was too much to take in on the mobile format. Although the presentation was impeccable, the content was not tailored to the shorter use patterns on cell phones.

As I was reading it all I could think was that I’d rather be reading the magazine. And since reading the full text on the phone requires a subscription to the print edition, why not just read the magazine.

The location advantage of mobile played against the app. A magazine is a better way to consume the material when you’re on the go. The pages and graphics are larger. And the magazine is more robust than a cell phone. You can roll it up and stick it in your back pocket. You don’t need to worry about the batteries running out.

The Economist may want to consider the qualities of smart phone and re-do the material to fit it. Another suggestion would be to allow the user to turn on a location detector so articles about the locale you’re in would be published to a special ‘Around You’ tab. This would be ideal for the business traveler on the go.

When I searched for it in the Apple App store I keyed in KING5, like their logo. There was no result. Puzzled, I tried KING 5 and the app turned up. When I went back a few days later the search turned up the app with or without the space.

The opening page flashes the station logo briefly before going to the opening screen. It begins an ‘Election Results’ page. ‘Election Results’ is also the first tab on the bottom of the page. I found this a curious default open. It’s more than 2 ½ weeks since the election. It’s been off the front pages for some time. I can see having it there, but not in the opening position.

The second tab is ‘News’ which features a vertical listing of stories with a photo beside each. Clicking on the story opens up a text version. Most of the stories are from King 5, but there are also some from their news partner, the Seattle Times. This is the most useful part of the app. King is the strongest local TV station for news. Being able to jump in and check stories is very handy.

I did notice that at 6 pm in the evening the most recently updated story had a time code of 10:54 am. That gave me the impression the app was not being regularly updated. But I checked the web site and it had the same stories, albeit without the time code featured prominently. An ad appeared at the bottom of the page and an option to email or save the story while along the top there was navigation menu. Scrolling down the story swept away the top and bottom menus so you could read more easily, but left the ad. When you are ready to navigate away, you tap the screen and the navigation bars reappear.

The third tab is ‘Video’ with a list of stories in ‘News’, ‘Health’, and ‘Sports’ categories. The stories appeared in streaming video but there was no audio from the iPhone speaker. After trying a couple of times I realized that audio was only available through earphones. This is different from other apps I have used with audio. I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t play through the speaker.

The video was low quality but adequate.  It streamed easily over the 3G network. The screen turned to panorama mode when I turned the phone to side. But the other menus do not go to panorama view in response to re-orienting the phone. This led to a discontinuous user experience. I would have to turn the phone every time I went from watching video in panorama orientation to the menu.

The video menu also offered the option of saving the story or emailing it.

The fourth tab is ‘Weather’ which opens up four menu items. A lengthy text forecast, a Doppler weather map, a five day forecast, and views from KING 5’s live cams of downtown, the waterfront, and SeaTac. This evening when I looked the SeaTac cam was out. All I could see was a blue screen. I found it about as useful as the AP app weather option, but the AP app costs $1.99

The ‘More’ option offers detailed traffic information with incident reports, drive times between major destinations, something called ‘Jam Factor’, and the Seattle/Bridges traffic map with color codes showing the level on congestion on major arteries. This is a very useful tool if you’re on the go during busy traffic times.

Also under ‘More’ is an entertainment guide with upcoming events; a ‘Local Events’ tab which featured concerts (two concert listings had the start time at 12:00 am, apparently an oversight), ‘Sports’ with sports stories; ‘Cars’ which linked to ‘Car Reviews’ and ‘Buy a Car’ which takes the user to the Cars.com com’s web site (the site is not very helpful for a mobile users because it’s not designed for mobile use.  Confusingly it asks you to download the Cars.com mobile app while you’re on the King 5 mobile app).

The final listing under ‘More’ is ‘Your News’ where King 5 asks you to send them a photo, video, or email. The photo or video can either be already recorded or you can record it. The app then opens up an email addressed to King 5 with your photo or video in it. You can add a note and hit send.

If users get down to the ‘Your News’ level this could be a great tool for King 5 to leverage user generated content on breaking stories they have not gotten a camera crew out to yet. It could also provide added context to a large event where King 5 cameras can’t be everywhere.

One final note on the advertisements. They were generally unobtrusive except for the ads urging you to download the King 5 iPhone app while you’re using the King 5 iPhone app. Hunh?

Generally I found this tool useful. A quick survey of other local TV stations suggests King 5 is the first in the mobile app arena with a respectable product. This first mover position could really help them moving forward.

There are four menu items at the bottom of the page. The ‘News’ section features a ‘Latest’ tab with Times stories and links to other times stories at the Times web site. The stories crafted for the app are readable but the web site is not optimized for mobile. The tiny fonts are difficult to read even after blowing up the text. Although the app is billed as ‘Men’s Basketball’ it also has stories on the Husky women’s team.

There is also a tab with Times sportswriter Percy Allen’s blog and twitter feed, and a tab for coach Lorenzo Romar. The coach section features a bio and a link to news stories but they seem to be the same as the stories offered in the ‘News’ section.

The ‘Games’ menu button opens up an ‘Upcoming Games’ tab with a list of opponents and line-ups. There is a photo and capsule description for each Husky player, but rosters for opposing teams only have names and jersey number. The ‘Scoreboard’ tab is a week by week listing of major NCAA division basketball games. ‘Rankings’ is a list of AP, ESPN/USA Today, and RPE ratings for top teams across the country.

The ‘Stats’ button has biographical and performance information for each player, a comparative ranking of Husky team stats, and standings in all the NCAA divisions.

The ‘Fan Guide’ button includes a tab for ‘Offers” with a chance to win Husky tickets, ‘Arena’ with a guide to the Husky home court Hec Ed Pavilion, the lyrics to the Husky Fight Song (‘Bow Down to Washington’), and a food and drink guide to the University District with a Google map and each bar and restaurant signified by a purple push pin. Purple and gold are the Husky team colors.

Under a ‘More’ button there is a feature that’s supposed to play a Husky Bark when the phone is shaken but did not work for me. That was the only feature I had a problem using.

For the avid Husky Fan the app seems to offer easily accessible information for not much more than the cost of a paper program. Baseball is a game of stats and there’s so much down time in a game, a sports app like this would be useful to pass the time between innings or when a new pitcher is called in from the bullpen.  Basketball has a much quicker pace and fewer interruptions. My only question about the app would be whether fans would be willing to take their eyes off the action long enough to use it.

The app is overtly labeled 2010-2011 season which appears to be a set-up to sell it annually and collect another $2.99 per customer.

Once a side project, NPR Music has become an important web site for musicians to preview new music. The user gets the advantage of being able to preview new releases from well-known and lesser known artists a week or two before official release of their recordings.

The app offers a rich feature list including a ‘Song of the Day’;  ‘All Songs Considered’ – a thematic podcast on a theme, sometimes dj’ed by musicians. A recent guest was musician and producer Daniel Lanoi discussing music and playing favorite songs; concerts from music festivals; NPR music features – currently featured is a series of 50 great voices in popular music; and ‘First Listen’ a preview of new albums – currently featured is a new album for Stereolab.

You can listen to a feature or you can add it to your playlist so it will show up after the segment you’re currently listening to. There is a ‘Favorite Artist’ tab. Once you choose an artist, all related features ( ‘First Listen’, feature stories, concerts etc) will show up under that tab.

The app works in the background if you want to use other features. It works fairly well on wi-fi and pretty well on a 3G connection – there are drop outs.

This is an impressive use of mobile technology for the music lover. It connects the user to a rich archive of stories about music, interviews, new releases and live performances. The more I use it, the more useful it becomes.

The customization features like ‘Favorite’ artist allows the user to tailor to your musical interests. There is also a social component so you can share music through Facebook and Twitter. You easily email the link of a feature you like to a friend.

I downloaded the iPhone app from the app store and set it up to check on Seattle deals. I have also used it in other cities. I first used Groupon when it advertised a deal at a bar around the corner from my house that I had been meaning to check out – The Waterwheel. The offer showed the price and discount, how many hours the deal would be available, how many people had already purchased it.

There is a  ‘Fine Print’ tab with details on deadlines for the deal and what specifically is included. The app includes a ‘Discussion’ button where users can ask questions and make comments. Sometimes they pinpoint confusion about the deal. Users answer questions for one another adding a social element to purchasing a coupon.

The ‘Share This Deal’ button allows you to email, post it on Facebook or Tweet it. I could see this being useful if it’s a place you had already gone to, liked and wanted to suggest to a friend. But most deals are limited to one person, so tipping a friend off and showing up with 2 Groupons wouldn’t work.

I purchased my Waterwheel deal after logging on. The app stores credit card information. Once purchased the coupon appears in a ‘My Groupons’ tab.

I went to the bar made my menu choice and asked about the Groupon discount. The waitress was not familiar with it but the owner came over and explained it. The offer had just been posted and already attracted hundreds of buyers, which surprised me because it’s just a small place. I thought the owner might feel overwhelmed at having to honor the substantial discount for so many people, but he was thrilled. He felt that if even a small proportion of users came a second time, the offer would be worth.

I found the app easy to use, almost too easy. I ended up putting it in a folder on my iPhone so I wouldn’t be so tempted to look at it ever day and purchase a deal impulsively. I have read that Groupon plans to begin to personalize the deal to the users interests. There would still only be one deal per day, but different people would get different offers. This appeals to me and would make the app more useful.