Create: Getting started

We will follow up next week with some guidance about the actual mechanics of the interview. For now, focus on the preparation and planning. We've prepared this guidance to get you going.

It’s easier to do a good interview if you are well prepared. Aim to get the planning side of an interview started, and a feel for the amount of preparation required. The two main areas to look at are:

• Setup
• Topic guide

Setup

Try and decide who you are going to interview and contact them today via phone or email. Make this initial contact short and simple. For example: " Would you be willing to do a brief phone interview next week about [subject] ". Just try to get a simple agreement in principle first, before spending time on explaining the details.

How do you pick someone? The interviewee(s) should have an opinion or experience that you would love to discuss or explore. Rather than crafting a long wish list of people, it’s better to focus on the availability and willingness of interview prospects. Equally, you could do panel or group of people. Use your network and connections to get to someone interesting quickly.

Decide on interview duration. This could be anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes, we suggest 15 minutes. In the interview, stick to this allocated time. If you need more time then reschedule.

Once you have an agreement in principle, as part of the subsequent confirmation, it’s a good idea to send a ‘topic guide’, or interview guide, so your interviewee can think about their responses. Let them known that you are going to prepare a topic guide prior to the interview. Make sure you give them sufficient time to read this and prepare.

Topic Guide

A topic guide is a short word document that sets out the areas you want to discuss. It prevents you drying up in the interviews, gives the interview structure and makes sure you have covered all the things you want to ask.

A topic guide is just a simple 'shopping list' of questions. Start by listing the four or five general areas you want to cover. For each general area, think of specific open questions you would ask. Aim to have at least three questions you could read out loud for each general subject area. Good open questions are quite hard to do, so this is where you will spend the bulk of your preparation.

Remember a topic guide is only a guide not a script. Be flexible with your questions and follow the flow of what’s interesting. The art of interviewing is listening and responding. Your interviewee should do most of the talking.

Top and tail the topic guide with house keeping necessities:

Beginning:
Why are you there? Give a brief overview of the reason for the interview.
Remind them you are recording and the intended usage
Introduce the other people

Ending:
Try to have a key finishing question prepared
Tell them what happens next
Ask them if they want to be informed of the result of the interview

In Summary
Start the setup and topic guide early. This will help you make a better podcast. Any interview will have these common sense 'kick off' tasks, the key is doing them efficiently:

• finding an interesting person (or people)
• getting their agreement
• arranging a time
  
• preparing with a topic guide
  

If you need some more inspiration have a look at the updated reading list where there are a range of useful books about podcasting.