User:DancesWithCars/InterviewQuestions

OK, lets get started then,

I understand you are in New Zealand, for the kids, and us older less globally aware people (who didn't grow up with the internet), how many time zones from the USA is that?

I ask because, if we can find the time difference, then maybe we can setup a chat time for tomorrow (again a global time difference, as tomorrow here is possibly something else, perhaps half way around the world) instead of emailing, where you can scroll down to the next questions, and I can't be as interactive...

I'm on Eastern Standard Time (GMT 5), same as New York City, plus or minus 5, I'm not even sure, but OLPC is a world wide effort, so these are some of the things other people might want to learn too. I've seen on the OLPC profiles that some people put time zones and languages spoken, do you know other languages? Are there New Zealand native languages that others might want to learn about?

And some basic biographical questions,

How old are you, if I may ask?

Any children?

How did you get interested in XOs?

Great, you have been working on XO's for over a year, according to an earlier email, with the New Zealand group, which meets weekly? In DC, they are monthly meetings, so that's pretty impressive to me.

But you earlier said you still don't feel totally knowledgeable about what all is going on with OLPC? May I ask why is that?

How do you see that changing as you get more involved in the project and the OLPC support gang?

I know some of these interviews are to make the OLPC project and Support Gang more interpersonal and engaging, so did your interview with Tim help get to know other people in the 'gang'?

Anything you learned from doing that interview?

And back to the projects, can you briefly explain the New Zealand project mission, history and your involvement in it?

How is that going?

How do you see that growing to serving more kids, or going in what other direction?

I see you have joined the Sugar Labs Decision Panel, so you are very active in the community, how do you see SugarLabs vs. OLPC working out? IIRC, SugarLabs spun off OLPC over a year and a half ago, rumored to be over MicroSoft being involved in the XO software arena, I think they had a Microsoft employee in Cambridge trying to get Windows to run on the XO. Care to comment on that?

Also, the wiki.SugarLabs.org website seems like a cleaner version of the older hypothetical and prototypes from OLPC, but having two organizations, from a kid user perspective splits the information between the original, mostly outdated Activities version on laptop.org and the newer stuff on activities.SugarLabs.org, so how do you see those two getting along?

As someone involved in both organizations, how do you reconcile the differences?

What is your hope for involvement in SugarLabs? What are you personally trying to do with it?

What have you learned with the XO, and hope to have kids in your community involved in?

Maybe not the best questions, but some things off the top of my head, to get started, based on what I've learned, so far.

BTW, have you ever seen the Actor's Studio? It's a New York City school Pace.edu Bravo cable show here, where famous Hollywood actors are interviewed by the dean of the acting school, and perform a little, so I'm thinking of taking some questions from there, if OK with you....

Two off the top of my head are,

Where were you born?

What did your parents do?

How was growing up? [guessing this one]

How did you get into computers? [off the beaten path here too]

What is your favourite word?

What is your least favourite word? (usually bleeped)

What other job would you really like to do?

What job would your never want to do?

And at the end they let the actor loose with the college students to ask questions, so maybe a write in option for the kids, probably some silly questions on New Zealand, that even I don't know, as geography is a school subject too ;-/

When we are close to done, I'll clean up a version and send you a copy, for approval, before we decide to make it public or keep it internal. Normally, I'd be doing this face to face, and I don't have skype to do a phone interview, so making the best of it, and I'll look more carefully at your interview with Tim, as we don't have a set template of questions yet, as this is so new a process, and can push the envelope a bit, but also journalists/ reporters have an objectivity of not being in the same organization (SG) and a code of ethics separating it from pure PR...

If you will excuse me, I've got a couple of other things today, and plan on getting back to this in about 24 hours, so you can take some time in considering the 'take home' ;-/ exam questions, if you wish.