Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
A Question and Answer format posting
You have probably seen the typical Q&A collaboration done in various formats. We’ve done multi-day interview and single-day interviews at Successful Blog. Here are a few examples.
Collaboration Link–1. 5 Indie’s Advice–the fifth of a six part interview with the owner of The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy.
Collaboration Link–2.3 The Audience is Royalty–The third of a six part interview with the owner of The Reign of Ellen.
I’ve also seen the Five-Question Interview and the Ten-Question Interview. But you know me, I like to change things up a bit.
I’m working with Koray of Koray.ws to show us around his new design in a walking-tour interview fashion. So look for that in the next few weeks.
In a more creative collaboration, a fiction-based interview can a be fresh and entertaining way to pass on solid information. Okay so, this might not work on the most business of business blogs. But don’t give it up without thinking about it. You’d be surprised who might enjoy hearing you have a conversation with a paperclip. Look around. My point is not every interview has to be boring. I only make them that way to torture you. Here’s what we did.
In a collaboration with Teh Blogfather, Eric Mutta, we agreed that the interviewer should be The 65th Crayon, a character on my blog who has among his credits an interview with such the legendary toy, Mr. Potato Head. We thought it might be fun to have The 65th interview Eric’s character, the Blog Father. The resulting interview allowed for questions that were a little less ordinary and still led to answers about the man behind the blog. You’ll find that interview here.
Collaboration Link–Scribbles: Interview with Teh Blog Father
Who knows? Maybe I’ll send my colorful friend to interview Mark Wade next–now that his new design proves that he’s over his fear of crayons I’ve been wondering what his favorite color is. He should have one or two. After all, his company is called R Web Designs. I’m betting it’s red.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: Begs the Question
Collaboration Link 6: Media Events
I love the crayon! Brilliant!
I’d love to do an interview. Unfortunately, the one guy I’d really like to interview is ridiculously busy. I suppose this is where carefully choosing your interviewee becomes important – you need feasibility (and quality) while still making it a good read.
Hi Yas,
Gteat points both of them.
Thanks for bringing them to the discussion!
Liz
Yas: Offer the interviewee money. Like a $100 donation to their fave charity. Mainstream media (especialy trashy gossip newspapers and magazines) pays for interviews/stories all the time to get the content they want. If you think you, your audience and your blog will get $100 benefit from the interview in the long term the incentive to get the interviewee to stop being so busy for 1 hour would be well worth it. Look at it as an investment.
Hi Anthony,
How nice to see you around here twice in the same week.
$100 for a blog inteview? Say it’s a guy. Wouldn’t you run the equal risk of insulting the guy. I don’t suppose an A list guy would find that an incentive. Right?
Liz
I like interviews to a point. Often I’ve run into pseudointerviews in which someone tries to recreate the way that a certain person/intellect would express him/herself. This very often falls flat because the writer is not up to recreating that voice. That takes real brilliance.
Tina Dupuy at her often presents pseudointerviews (in a humorous context) with Bush, and they work great, e.g.: http://tinadupuy.com/wp/?p=396
Hi Indie,
You’ve got a point a pseudo-interview is hard to do, but when it’s done well, can be a real winner. I’ll have to check her out. It takes a good ear and great writing skills to get one down on paper.
I’d bet you could done one.
Liz
I don’t think it’ll offend them unless they’re precious and they actually believe being A-list affords them some lofty aura.
People love being asked for their opinion and talking about themselves.
Who really cares if they’re A-list? They’re just regular people and who cares if you offend them? What will they post on their blog? That you were nice enough to offer a $100 charity donation in exchange for a 1 hour interview that would publicize them and their blog/business/project?
I can give you an example for a not yet launched project of mine I’ve recently interviewed some of Australia’s best business people, some worth $1 billion + and after annoying their assistants for weeks I put the charity offer to them and it sealed the deal in every case. Even then only 2 out of 34 interviewees asked for the donation from me. The rest told me there was no need for it and they were happy to do the interview for free but thought it showed I was very keen to interview them.
Hi Anthony,
You have a point about “who cares?”–certainly not me.
Your example is very telling of the power of showing your real interest in the person rather than “chasing down a story.” I understand what you’re saying. You’ve also allowed the interviewee two ways to be generous. Who doesn’t like being generous?
Liz