I’m going to be posting a video interview of Desire2Learn CEO John Baker, probably in the next 24 hours. It seems likely that I’ll be doing more interviews in the future. I’m discovering that I have a particular philosophy about how to do the interviews, which is in line with my attitudes toward guest posts and technology demo posts. I’m very lucky to have e-Literate as a platform to get information out to a pretty large audience. There are lots of people out there who are very smart and have very interesting things to say that deserve to be heard. So part of what I try to do here is to help them reach a broader audience.
Here’s how I approach that goal:
Guest Posts
From time to time, I invite other people to write posts at e-Literate. Sometimes those invitations are one shot deals, where I’m looking for somebody to write about something fairly specific. But more often then not, I invite people to guest post because I just find them to be interesting thinkers and I want to hear what’s on their minds. In those cases, I will tell them why I think they would be good guest bloggers and suggest some topics that I would love to have the write about, but fundamentally I tell them that they can write about whatever they want whenever they want. I don’t edit their posts unless they ask me to, and I put very few restrictions on what they can write. In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is not to blog about specific patent claims because my employer forbids me to read them and it would be a drag if I couldn’t read my own blog. Most folks just write one or a couple posts and then that’s the end of it (particularly when they figure out how much time and effort it takes to write a good post), but a few do keep it up. For example, Jim Farmer will occasionally send me post drafts out of the blue (speaking of which, I got one from him the other day that I hope to have up soon).
Because of the high level of trust that I put in my guest bloggers, I never accept unsolicited requests to guest post. And unfortunately, I get a lot of them, mostly from aspiring writers that are looking to get exposure. I used to respond to these requests, but now I get so many of them that I’m forced to just ignore them. Sorry.
Video Interviews
I’m starting to see the video interviews in roughly the same light as the guest blogging. My interviews are not about making news or putting anybody on the spot. I view them as opportunities to (a) find out more about what my interviewees are thinking, and (b) give them a chance to say what they want to say. I am not a journalist, and although I do occasionally aspire to accomplish some of the same goals that a journalist might, I feel no particular need to adhere to journalistic methods. So, for example, I did ask John Baker to respond to Barry Dahl’s concerns about the resolution of the patent dispute, but I told him in advance that I was going to ask him about it and I didn’t press him to say anything he didn’t want to say. I allowed Desire2Learn’s legal counsel to review the interview, and if they had asked me not to run it, I wouldn’t have run it. I would treat an interview with a Blackboard executive, or anybody else, the same way.
I’m not sure yet what my boundaries are on this because it’s still very new to me. At the moment, the one fairly firm rule I have is that I won’t edit an interview at the request of the interviewee. If Desire2Learn had objected to some part of the interview (which they didn’t), I probably would have chosen not to run it at all rather than to run an edited version. I’m not sure what I would have done if John Baker had told me that he didn’t want me to ask any patent questions (which, again, he didn’t). I might not have done the interview in this particular situation just because I think it would have been weird to have a long conversation and not talk about it at least a little bit, given the history. But my sense is that’s probably a case by case kind of thing.
Product Demonstrations
I get an increasing number of requests from people who want me to blog about their products. I like to do this when I can because I don’t think we have very good venues for innovation to get highlighted. Recently, a couple of different requesters expressed anxiety over whether I would be interested in writing about a product that competes with Sakai now that I am on the Foundation Board. Let me state this plainly: That is not an issue. I am committed to the Sakai community because I believe that they are doing important work (and because my employer sees value in contributing some of my time to support that work), not because I think Sakai is the single ultimate solution to everyone’s needs in educational technology. I am happy to write about good work regardless of who is doing it or where I see it.
The much bigger challenge is that e-Literate is completely a volunteer effort for me. I squeeze in time for it when I can, after work and chores. In fact, not only do I not get paid to do this, it costs me about $600 a year to run it. I just don’t have enough hours in the day to look at and write about all the cool new software that people send me emails about (as much as I might want to). So here’s how I deal with it:
- If you want me to consider writing about your software, first send me an email telling me a little about it. I will consider whether (a) I have time in my schedule in the near future to think about it, and (b) your product sounds close enough to the kinds of things that interest me that I might have something useful to say about it.
- If you succeed in piquing my curiosity and I think I might potentially be able to cram a review into my schedule, I will usually ask you to send me a 10-minute screencast of your software. I do not want to see a glossy marketing commercial. Instead, I want you to walk me through the highlights of the software as if you were giving me a short demo live. If I ask you to send me a screencast, that means that I have committed to giving you some private feedback on it but have not yet committed to blogging about it. When you do make the screencast, prepare to make it embeddable. If I do eventually blog about the software, I will want to embed it in my post.
- If I’m still interested after seeing the screencast, I will probably ask you to talk with me on the phone. This means that I will probably blog about your software (though it still isn’t a promise yet). It means I have questions and want to dig a little deeper.
If all that goes well, then I will blog about your software. Again, if you catch me at a busy time or you’re promoting something that doesn’t fit well with my interests, you may not even get to first base. I turn down probably 80% of these requests, and sometimes I don’t have time to even respond to them. Please understand that it’s not personal. When I do write about new products this way, I don’t review them in the sense that I’m looking to rate their value. If I don’t think the software is good—or, at least, interesting—I won’t write about it. I’m more interested in writing about what I learned from seeing it. As the tag line says, e-Literate is about what I’m learning about online learning.
I have plenty of opportunities to be critical of software, companies, or whatever here at e-Literate when criticism is warranted. When I want to do that, I will write an analysis post. I try to keep that separate from interviews and software review posts. I believe in treating one’s guests with courtesy.
