Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-marketing (185 mails)
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Re: [opensuse-marketing] People of openSUSE (was: Revitalization of Weekly News Team)
- From: Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:16:58 +0100
- Message-id: <201003190417.03072.pascal.bleser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Friday 19 March 2010 02:33:20 Bryen M. Yunashko wrote:
The most evident proof for that is also the sort of replies you get on most
People of openSUSE interviews: short "yes"s and "no"s. The interviewed person
doesn't often jump on the question to tell us more.
e.g. when interviewing Coolo, it's probably more interesting to ask
"So, what are your actual duties as distribution release manager ? What's the
toughest part about the job ?"
or
"How do you balance innovation and stability ? What do you believe is the best
mix for openSUSE ? Do you think people rather expect stability or cutting edge
from openSUSE, as compared to other Linux distributions ?"
and
"Do people often approach you to ask for inclusion of specific packages ?"
as well as
"What do you believe is the best focus for the distribution that's shipped on
media? A small stable core with latest packages available in the OBS, or
include a lot of packages to have a larger stable base and a more complete
media for those who don't have Internet ?"
.. rather than asking about Star Wars vs Star Trek ;D
(though it's a funny question nevertheless, it's just that many don't care,
and don't elaborate to admit they're fantasising on wookies or Uhura ;) -- no,
I don't, on either :P)
It is also due to cultural differences, as you'll probably get much shorter
answers from (Northern) Germans than, say, North Americans or French ;)
Hence it is even more important to ask good questions that are tailored to the
interviewed person's interests and domains, to make it more appealing to them
to give us longer answers that tell us more about them and what they do.
It might also be an idea to interview some people in their native language and
then translate it to English (as well as keeping the original, of course), as
I might imagine that some are a bit blocked in their eloquence and verbosity
because of the language barrier. (but again, that's even more work)
Agreed, but it's something that can be improved with peer review and a
collaborative process (post your proposal of questions on a mailing-list (e.g.
here) and other might come up with ideas for some more and/or better questions
to ask), learning from experience, as well as looking at existing stuff.
The speaker interviews we do at FOSDEM are pretty good IMHO, and the person
who does them has quite some experience with it. They don't have the same
focus as they're kept shorter intentionally and are much less tailored to know
who the person is rather than finding out what the person will talk about, but
nevertheless:
http://fosdem.org/2010/news/first-fosdem-2010-speaker-interviews
http://fosdem.org/2010/news/second-batch-fosdem-2010-speaker-interviews
As you can see, there's always an initial set of more generic questions
(introduce yourself, what will you talk about, etc...), but then it is obvious
that the interviewer did some research, asking pretty good questions that are
specifically focused on the project the speaker is involved with.
[...]
Or simply ask yourself: what would I like to be asked about (or talk about) ?
Of course, don't ask _those_ questions, but to give you an idea of the _sort_
of questions you'd like to be asked yourself ;D
[...]
cheers
--
-o) Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
/\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill
_\_v FOSDEM::6+7 Feb 2010, Brussels, http://fosdem.org
On Fri, 2010-03-19 at 02:08 +0100, Pascal Bleser wrote:
On Friday 19 March 2010 01:23:22 Rajko M. wrote:
On Thursday 18 March 2010 08:45:44 medwinz wrote:
I missed People of openSUSE as one of genuine article of OWN.
It was created before and never actually integrated into openSUSE
Weekly News, but it should be.
BTW, it needs new chief editor, I took position temporarily, made few
articles and stopped. A bit too much work for my free time.
Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig +1 for reviving People of openSUSE !
Not only because it helps approaching people (putting faces on names/IRC
nicks), but also because it puts forward contributors of the project.
Who's got time on her hands? :)
It is indeed a bit time consuming, especially if you want to make high
quality interviews that are customised each time (not """just""" the
same set of questions, which is a lot better than nothing, but doesn't
produce as good/interesting results -- no bashing at those who made the
People of openSUSE interviews up to now though, great job :)).
I totally agree with you Pascal. I've been thinking the same thing.
Even when I was interviewed for one of the articles, I felt like it was
so vanilla-ized, with the same cookie-cutter questions asked over and
over that never got indepth into who I was. It was more like filling
out a profile for some website than an actual interview.
The most evident proof for that is also the sort of replies you get on most
People of openSUSE interviews: short "yes"s and "no"s. The interviewed person
doesn't often jump on the question to tell us more.
e.g. when interviewing Coolo, it's probably more interesting to ask
"So, what are your actual duties as distribution release manager ? What's the
toughest part about the job ?"
or
"How do you balance innovation and stability ? What do you believe is the best
mix for openSUSE ? Do you think people rather expect stability or cutting edge
from openSUSE, as compared to other Linux distributions ?"
and
"Do people often approach you to ask for inclusion of specific packages ?"
as well as
"What do you believe is the best focus for the distribution that's shipped on
media? A small stable core with latest packages available in the OBS, or
include a lot of packages to have a larger stable base and a more complete
media for those who don't have Internet ?"
.. rather than asking about Star Wars vs Star Trek ;D
(though it's a funny question nevertheless, it's just that many don't care,
and don't elaborate to admit they're fantasising on wookies or Uhura ;) -- no,
I don't, on either :P)
It is also due to cultural differences, as you'll probably get much shorter
answers from (Northern) Germans than, say, North Americans or French ;)
Hence it is even more important to ask good questions that are tailored to the
interviewed person's interests and domains, to make it more appealing to them
to give us longer answers that tell us more about them and what they do.
It might also be an idea to interview some people in their native language and
then translate it to English (as well as keeping the original, of course), as
I might imagine that some are a bit blocked in their eloquence and verbosity
because of the language barrier. (but again, that's even more work)
Interviewing properly is not just a time-consuming process, but a skill
that takes practice.
Agreed, but it's something that can be improved with peer review and a
collaborative process (post your proposal of questions on a mailing-list (e.g.
here) and other might come up with ideas for some more and/or better questions
to ask), learning from experience, as well as looking at existing stuff.
The speaker interviews we do at FOSDEM are pretty good IMHO, and the person
who does them has quite some experience with it. They don't have the same
focus as they're kept shorter intentionally and are much less tailored to know
who the person is rather than finding out what the person will talk about, but
nevertheless:
http://fosdem.org/2010/news/first-fosdem-2010-speaker-interviews
http://fosdem.org/2010/news/second-batch-fosdem-2010-speaker-interviews
As you can see, there's always an initial set of more generic questions
(introduce yourself, what will you talk about, etc...), but then it is obvious
that the interviewer did some research, asking pretty good questions that are
specifically focused on the project the speaker is involved with.
[...]
Interviewing requires doing your homework properly. Research the[...]
subject BEFORE you interview him or her.
Or simply ask yourself: what would I like to be asked about (or talk about) ?
Of course, don't ask _those_ questions, but to give you an idea of the _sort_
of questions you'd like to be asked yourself ;D
[...]
cheers
--
-o) Pascal Bleser <pascal.bleser@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
/\\ http://opensuse.org -- I took the green pill
_\_v FOSDEM::6+7 Feb 2010, Brussels, http://fosdem.org
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