Interview Week

It's time for a celebration, a big pat on the back, and - yes, it's true - a little bit more work.

We've finished pulling together the interviews for publication, but now we need to tag them. Tagging means that we add a word - or a few - to the end of the entry so that the interview is pulled up when people search for related topics. For example, we added the words - Amazon, crowdsourcing, Mechanical Turk, and Peter Cohen- to Sean Richardson's interview of Peter Cohen. When someone enters a search with one of those words, this interview will come up.

Can you help out? Just pick out an interview from the directory. Click through and look for a pink box on the left reading "Tag this." Then insert words for tags into "my tags" and click "add."

It's true: We’ve got 50 interviews in so far.... And they just keep coming! I think at this point we can safely declare Interview Week a success.

The transcripts are all collected here. Some appear at that link in full, others you’ll see are abbreviated; just click on the headline to link to the topic page where the full transcript appears.

We can barely keep up with the pace at which the interview transcripts are coming in. Just when I think I’m almost up to speed reading them all, there are more. But we wanted to start highlighting some of the fascinating things our experts are saying about crowdsourcing.

Subvertandprofit.com “operates a black market for votes on social networking sites,” in the words of its 19-year-old founder, who goes by the pseudonym Ragnar Danneskjold. Ragnar told AZ contributor Derek Powazek that while some users of Digg.com “cling to democracy as the final ideal,” others “understand that their community is a wild anarchy...and I believe they like it that way.”

With most of our interviews completed (congrats folks!) we're seeing raw copy show up on our assignment reporting pages. Here's a few fascinating excerpts from what's already come in:

Suzanne Batchelor converses with Marlon Blackwell, who created the Porchdog home design for Architecture for Humanity (to be built in Biloxi, MS):

Blackwell: Yes, Architecture for Humanity is the organization. They invited 15 architects to propose prototypes for Biloxi, the only Gulf Coast city that rejected the New Urbanist designs on their city--which I would applaud on a certain level. So, in lieu of that, how about some prototypes? And to solve problems of how to deal with the new FEMA regulations

Batchelor: Did FEMA regulations specify that you design the house 10 feet up?

Blackwell: Houses are having to be built as much as 6, 9 or10 feet off the ground, it varies through the city, by FEMA regulations. How do you maintain some sense of urban or street culture while sitting up in the air?

The other day we asked you whether there were common questions we should ask in each interview.

We compiled your suggestions and came up with four we'd like you to incorporate into your interview. (If you've already done your interview - don't worry about it.) They don't need to be asked in any particular order; they should be mixed in with your questions.

Hopefully you've heard from the person you're supposed to interview by now. If you haven't please let me or your editor know ASAP.

The questions:

1. What's really new about crowdsourcing? And where is it going next?

(We're asking this question because we want people to talk about the future. As well, this will keep our Assignment Zero project relevant for some time. Think about it: we'll have the world's foremost thinkers hypothesizing on the future - and it'll be accessible in one place.)

2. Is there money to be made with crowdsourcing? If so, why will some people work for free so that others can profit?

(This question speaks to the ethics of crowdsourcing and addresses some of the lingering criticisms floating out there.)

3. Do you really think there's wisdom in crowds? If so, what's the clearest example you know of?

(Here we'd like hear what projects they're impressed by.)

4. What surprised you the most with your project?

(Here we're hoping they'll tell us an unique story from their experience.)

Many journalists record their phone interviews to make transcribing easier. I bought a device that splits my analog phone line into two so one end goes into my tape recorder but we don't expect you to have to buy any special equipment for Assignment Zero.

Skype offers a few ways to record interviews for free. I haven't personally tried any of these but if you want to give it a shot,
you can try this suggestion from Skypetips or this other one from Pretty May, a software company.

Does anyone out there have any other suggestions? Let me know and I'll share it with the group.

OK--I've been getting requests to post more tips now that interview week is in full swing. So here goes:

-Try to ask open-ended questions that allow the subject to explain their actions or views. Avoid closed questions where the interviewee can get away with answering 'yes' or 'no.'

-Always remember: Who? What? Why? When? and Where? For example: What motivated you to start your project? How long were you thinking about the idea? What impact has your project had on social media? What are your next steps?

-If you have a tougher question (such as dealing with comments from critics) ease into the question by asking a few broad-stroke queries first.

-Don't forget to listen to the answers -- they usually lead to spur-of-the-moment questions.

If you have other questions about interview week, please email me at angela.newassignment@gmail.com or post them here.

Ciao. A.

Journalism itself seems to be swimming upstream; even Jay has occasional second thoughts about talking to reporters, what with the potential for misquotes, poor paraphrasing, or reporters who already have an agenda and just want to find someone who will parrot it. Check out what he says on his blog, in the context of applauding the New York Times's withdrawal from the White House press corps dinner: "Last Week That Man Tried to Run You Over. Why Are You Having Dinner With Him?" It's a great read, and I encourage all of our pros and ams to read it.

For example:

Two weeks ago, Jim Rutenberg, a Times correspondent in the Washington bureau, interviewed me about the upcoming Correspondents dinner and in particular the choice of 70’s-era comedian, Rich Little, after last year’s funny man, Stephen Colbert, held the press and president—and the dinner itself—up to extremely effective ridicule. This is not the opinion of the journalists who were there, of course, Rutenberg included. In his view Colbert “just wasn’t funny.”

Rutenberg’s article made me wish I had followed, in this instance, blogger Dave Winer’s policy. When asked for a phone or e-mail interview, he usually declines. “If you have a few questions, send them along, and if I have something to say, I’ll write a blog post, which of course you’re free to quote,” he said last week. Responding to Winer, and to this event with Jason Calacanis and Wired magazine, Jeff Jarvis wrote: “The interview is outmoded and needs to be rethought.”

And we're having an Interview Week? There's a disconnect here somewhere. Some pretty spirited defense of the "let me write my own answer, in my own words, on my own blog" view has appeared in my own inbox as I was traveling down the Citizendium road. Jay didn't side with the bloggers flat-out -- in this case, he rues that in this instance he wishes he had -- but when the big dogs like our own fearless leader wish that they'd followed the "I'll quote myself, thank you" road, you know that the interview itself is on shaky ground.

When a source gets burned enough times -- and sometimes, once is enough -- that phone won't get answered the next time a journalist is on the other end of it.

Yes, let's have an Interview Week, but let's make sure to be fair to our sources. Otherwise, the sources will vanish and we'll be left with nothing but a rewrite desk.

Today marks the first phase of Interview Week (May 1-7 and 8-14), the web's first co-ordinated, crowdsourced effort to interview some of the thinkers, movers, shakers and other revolutionaires who are shaping the Crowdsourcing Movement.

All the profiles we collect will become part of a larger package that will accompany Jeff Howe's June 5 crowdsourcing article for Wired Magazine.

This week, we'll be signing up and organizing everyone interested in interviewing one of over 60 people we believe to be significant to the evolution of crowdsourcing . . .