Greasin' the wheels

I learned a valuable lesson this week while interviewing a professor for my project. He was very stand-offish and difficult to engage as I began to explain the project. He did not seem to trust me or understand what exactly I was doing. Before the interview began I realized that this was not going as planned, so instead of turning on the recorder and asking the first question, I began to ask him about his research and work and things like how he got to Pepperdine University, etc. Slowly, over a period of about 15 minutes, he began to warm up as we chatted. It was almost as if he was feeling me out to see if I had an agenda or something. Only after we began to chat about things not related to the project at all did he get to a point where he was willing to participate in the interview. The result was a great data set. He provided deep and meaningful information on my topic and the interview lasted longer than any others. In fact, when I closed the interview by asking if there was anything he wanted to add, he went on to provide amazing insight in areas I would have never thought to ask. We ended it by promising to keep in touch and a final offer of assistance as I move forward with the project. I truly believe that if I had sat down, explained the project, and started the interview right away that he would have been short with his answers and would have provided no meaningful data. My guess is that it would have lasted 10 minutes tops. Instead, I was able to get an amazing interview that lasted well over thirty minutes and contained wonderful data.