SXSW: Let’s Focus on the People (The Mark Zuckerberg Fallout)
To the mainstream media, I am a nobody (and that’s okay).
To people who care about real conversations, I am somebody.
I won’t waste any time rehashing the drama surrounding BusinessWeek’s Sarah Lacy and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg — By now, the world is well aware of what took place, how the rain poured and the fallout that ensued. Walking the floors of SXSW at the Austin Convention Center, I began hearing bits and pieces of the interview from numerous individuals — It seemed rather ugly.
Now, people are apologizing and new details are emerging about what happened behind the scenes at SXSW. Well, I don’t really care.
Here’s the thing about interviewing people: Everyone has their approach. Mine is about focusing on the person. They are the spotlight, it’s their moment and I want THEM to shine — Good or bad. I ask the questions, THEY follow with an answer, while I listen attentively. I take pride in that I’ve used this format to interview everyone from Kevin Rose to Craig Newmark.
People love my interviews, and I love interviewing! When you focus on the individual and conversation, so many wonderful things occur that you least expect: You learn a lot about the core of an individual, their passion, what makes them tick, etc. This approach works well for me. The end result: We all learn something new.
If I were invited by SXSW to interview Zuckerberg (by the way, I AM available as a guest interviewer for conferences, etc.), you can believe my tried-and-true format would have worked like a charm. There wouldn’t have been any drama, we would have learned everything we needed to know about Zuckerberg and Facebook, and everyone would have been happy (for the most part — You can’t please everyone, no matter how hard you might try).
In closing, let’s focus on the people in our interviews. Take an active role in genuinely learning about the subject: Be not only an interviewer, but also an audience member. Let them have the spotlight. Let them be the authority of information in their industry or expertise.
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Podcast: Conversation with Standout Jobs’ Fred Ngo
Photo credit: Simon Law
(actual picture)
Standout Jobs‘ Co-founder and CTO, Fred Ngo, sat down with myself, Jim Turner and Paul Swansen to discuss:
- Standout Jobs’ official launch at DEMO ‘08
- How the service finds better candidates
- The response from DEMO ‘08
- And more!
- Angel investment
- Resurgence of the startup community in Boulder
- TechStars 2008 application process
- and more
To listen to this conversation, please use the embedded player just below.
About Standout Jobs
The company was founded in February 2007 by Benjamin Yoskovitz, Fred Ngo and Austin Hill. It originated out of the first-ever Montreal-based BarCamp in October 2006 where they met. The discussion quickly turned to the difficulties of finding good startup jobs. Fred and Ben had been looking for great opportunities, but couldn’t find any companies that stood out. Austin Hill, an entrepreneur and angel investor, was frustrated with how difficult it was to market startup jobs to potential candidates.
And so, Standout Jobs was born. Standout Jobs set out to help companies promote and market themselves more effectively to candidates. They first looked at video and how it could throw the doors wide open on companies, their cultures and teams. And they found companies eager to participate. The idea evolved, expanding beyond video into other tools and technologies that improve companies’ recruiting. Austin and other private angel investors provided the initial capital to get started, and the company received additional funding from iNovia Capital. Standout Jobs is based in Montreal, Canada.
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Podcast: Conversation with TechStars’ David Cohen
I had the recent pleasure of sitting down with TechStars Executive Director David Cohen in Boulder, Colorado to talk about:
Special thanks to David for sharing part of his busy afternoon to participate in this conversation.
To listen to this conversation, please use the embedded player just below.
About David
David Cohen is the founder and Exective Director of TechStars.
David has a soft spot for technology startups and enjoys helping innovative early stage technology companies succeed. He also has a passion for Colorado and believes it’s a fantastic community for any startup. The Colorado TechStars program combines these passions with capital, connections and real-world experience to provide a unique opportunity for early stage startups.
David is a founder of several software and web technology companies including Pinpoint Technologies (now ZOLL Data Systems) of Broomfield, Colorado. While at ZOLL Data Systems, David was also the CTO. The company was acquired by ZOLL Medical Corporation (NASDAQ: ZOLL) in 1999. You can read about it in No Vision, All Drive [Amazon].
David was also the founder and CEO of earFeeder.com, which was sold to SonicSwap.com in 2006.
David is also an active startup advocate, advisor, board member, and technology investor who comments on these topics on his blog at ColoradoStartups.com.
David’s hobbies are technology, software/web startups, business history, and tennis. He has two amazing kids who always seem to be teaching him something new.
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