DrunkenBlog

Days go by, and still I think of you

Amazing how many days can go by while I'm working on things for the site before I realize I haven't taken the time to actually put anything up. Sorry about that -- just pulled in about 20 directions, all of which converge on typing everywhere but the blog even though it's usually about the blog.

Having to grind things out on a few big things, but the above screenshot is a small sample of the next big chat which should be up this week, assuming the interviewee has a safe flight home. I've seriously abused this poor guy -- the chat is about halfway done, and as you can tell from the slide in the screenshot there's already a hell of a lot of content.

There are enough hints in the screenshot to find out who it's with, and if you're really industrious some judicious googling will pull up some reading material that'll easily keep your mind busy until the chat is up.

I'm actually really looking forward to it, because it's been an absolute bitch and a half. When I go into one of these, one of the things I try to do is to challenge myself by going into each one with a separate theme or goal.

I.E., one of the themes behind the Ranchero chat was to see how difficult it would be to take my usual loping format and apply it to two people. I'd had multiple before involved in something before, but not loping back and forth through multiple topics.

The overriding goal was to try and give a sense that you were sitting down to lunch with them -- to get an idea of how these two people approach their business, life, and each other but in an indirect way so you draw the conclusions yourself. Well, and having fun with it.

If the theme had been different going in, I'd have asked different questions -- like say more around the specifics of running their business and creating their software or specific features. I was just more interested in making it about their approach for this one.

They knew that going in -- Brent and Sheila don't exactly need the publicity, and the format and questions weren't really geared towards publicity or generating sales. It wasn't as though it was a completely passive thing on their end -- I took up a lot of their time (they were remarkably patient, and they refuse to give me a straight answer on whether I was responsible for a milestone slip), and whatever publicity they did get out of it was easily outweighed by the amount of time they spent doing it.

Again, I think they knew it would be going in, although I don't think they expected NetNewsCat. Amusingly enough, I actually toyed with the idea of approaching them with the idea of talking about everything except their business and software, and part of that idea is still there; hopefully you can go through that chat and cut out large sections of it and still come away with something real...

...which brings us to the the next chat. This one is going to be a bit different, as you probably got a taste of if you squinted at the screenshot. The Cow is going to be getting greater than usual face time, and he's going to be there for a reason. It's going to be deep in some areas, and it's really one of the harder things to deal with when you have a healthy mix of readers.

There's that nasty thing called a frame of reference that has to be contended with -- both from the side of the reader and the person being interviewed. The person being interviewed and the person asking the questions can make a conscious effort to keep the language accessible, but you have to draw a line somewhere just so you can build the conversation from it.

Unfortunately, the lower you draw the line, the lower you're able to go in the subject in the span of the chat, which is where the rub is. I.E., it would be difficult to really delve into OS-wide user-interface design when you first have to explain what a mouse is. At some point you have to decide what you're going to assume your audience knows and leave the rest behind.

However, if you draw the line too high, you end up with something that's only penetrable by the elite. A casual reader might enjoy it, but in the same way they enjoy Star Trek -- they're along for the ride with lots of jargon being spouted that just becomes background noise -- which is why things are either easy-peasy or dense beyond recognition.

Basically, do me a favor on the next one -- give it a shot. I don't expect everyone to fully grok everything, but my hope is that a lot fewer people will be left behind than otherwise would be if they don't immediately recoil. You may not get it all, but if you stick it out you may be surprised by what you come away with.

Oh, and the screen shot should also put those at ease who were personally, almost morally, offended by my former state of Desktop-itis. :) I'm told the first step towards recovery was to admit I was powerless, and that the situation had become unmanageable.

Eventually I'm supposed to make up a list of everyone I harmed through my disease and be willings to make amends to them all which -- judging by my inbox complaining about it -- is going to take me awhile.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    March 22, 2005, at 12:23 PM