I remember my sister wrote an essay in college where she described me as being very meta-cognitive. At the time I didn't know what this meant but she explained it to me as "thinking about thinking” and I was like, oh hell yea - that is exactly what I'm doing here in this brain of mine. It was a tremendous gift that she gave me at that moment; a deeply personal (and accurate) reflection of my person that I didn't have access to. She magically handed me some lucidity which helped me understand myself and how I interact with / perceive the world. But what about those of us who aren't blessed with such good sisters? Is there a way to provide intimate reflections of others that you've just met?

I'm thinking about all this in relation to the way I'm formatting my interviews with metrics experts and I'm not sure if it's possible! I'm also skeptical that it would resonate in the same meaningful way as it did between us siblings. But we are trying to experiment here so I've got to work with my hunch that this outcome could be approached from two sides. 

1. The first and more obvious one is for me to play the role of the best listener in the world and reflect back what I'm being told or to supply very simple observations on their contribution to the conversation. 

2. The second is to provide a veritable buffet of questions divided into different sections and allow the expert to choose which ones they want to speak to. Choice is indicative of the person's character after all. 

It's important to me to highlight the influence of a person's person over the type of work that they do in addition to engaging with our more philosophical / professional explorations. I do not see these things as alternatives. In the end, I want to connect with these people over a shared interest in information in addition to us discovering new ways in which we relate to information. And I definitely think that's possible! 

So, let's explain the interview format a bit before listing all these questions in their categories. The conversation will be time limited to 20 minutes, because in metrics we are always dealing with scarcity of some kind. This limitation means that the choice of questions will dictate the scope of the conversation and that the metric expert leads the conversation. These interviews will take place online because my experts are from all around the world. You'll be able to view a video recording of our meetup as well as read through the transcripts which will be published here on the blog. Maybe one day a podcast format will also be available… but also, don't we have enough podcasts?

What a good question to lead us into all the other questions, no? I've divided them up into two sections where the first section deals with the probably more familiar and comfortable space of intellectual knowledge and the second with sensory and other forms of "knowing". I know that sounds pretty binary and that I've made some bold claims about innovation, but I think we will all be pleasantly surprised at how many overlapping spaces of gray exist within and between the sections. 

What I know and what I don't know

1. How do you define knowledge?

2. Can you tell me about the first thing you learned?

3. How would you categorize your expertise?

4. What's the area in your expertise that you know the least about?

5. How does knowledge relate to power?

6. By what means have you accumulated your knowledge?

7. How are you aware of the limits of your knowledge?

8. Have you ever been proved wrong and what was that like?

9. What knowledge had to come before, so that you could know what you know?

10. What's the most innovative way you've come up with to measure something?

11. What is your most favorite fact?

12. What happens when you work with people who know different things to you?

13. Are we (as a society) measuring what really matters?

14. If you could go back in time and deliver information, to what time would you go, what would you report and to whom?

15. How do you think people knew stuff before the written word was invented?

All the other things

1. Do you have a personality type?

2. Is there a piece of media (book, film, song, piece of art, etc…) that changed your life?

3. What does therapy mean to you and have you engaged with it in any form?

4. If you've had parts of your life where your needs weren't being met and were able to move into a more satisfying place, what indicators were you using to tell you that you weren't in that old place anymore?

5. Is there something that you struggle with everyday?

6. Can you describe for me your perfect day?

7. What makes you proud?

8. What makes you angry?

9. Has anyone ever said anything that's blown your mind and what was it?

10. How do you engage with your body?

11. What is your strongest sense?

12. What does it feel like when you come across something you know nothing about?

13. If you had to deliver a report in a meeting blindfolded, how would you know that meeting was a success?

14. Are you an artist?

15. You leave your house to catch a bus at a stop that is an 8 min walk away. You see on your phone that it is one minute early. What do you do?

Them's the questions and I can't wait for these dialogues.  If you're curious to have a chat with me please fill out my simple contact form to start our conversation. Looking forward to it!