Lessons from iMeme

Actually, I interview people all the time, but they’re clients, and I’m asking them to tell me all the details so I can condense them, later, into writing. No one hears those hours of MP3 recordings but me. Recording an interview to be played on a podcast is something different, particularly when you’re asking strangers if you can record them.

The asking was not the hard part. After all, everyone expects the people wearing “press” badges to ask for interviews. Of the people I asked, only the PR staff helping out at the conference refused.

But getting even a few minutes to talk to a person that everyone else also thought was brilliant and fascinating is a challenge. At a conference which had a large number of people packed into a small area during the breaks, with sponsor demos, conference videos, and loud music simultaneously blasting away in the background, it was nearly impossible.

I did get to talk to some great people, though. The audio quality varies from adequate to abysmal, even after following the editing tips in Shel and Neville’s book. But everyone I interviewed said something worth hearing, and you get to hear some concluding remarks from David Kirkpatrick at the very end of the conference.

Here is the list of interviewees:

• Sam Whitmore, Sam Whitmore Media
• Eva Chen, Trend Micro
• Paul Plushckell, Spigit
• Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone
• Esther Dyson, EDventure, Release 0.9
• David Kirkpatrick, Fortune

Recorded July 12 & 13th, 2007. Edited on July 22nd, 2007.Posted to the FIR Interview Feed on July 31st, 2007.

 

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