Yesterday, while hanging out in the so called “BlogZone”, Tim Heuer pulled me aside for a audio short interview on the topic of Subtext and Open Source, two things I love to talk about and good luck getting me to shut up once you get me started. ;)
This was a surprise for me as the last time I was interviewed was by a reporter for my college paper after my soccer team used the school paper to dry windows for a fund raising car wash. I told the reporter that the paper was good for drying windows because they don’t leave streaks. I was merely relaying what someone told me when they went to grab the papers, but my teammates all congratulated for sticking it to the paper. Funny how that works out sometimes.
Back to the present, I cringed while listening to the interview as I learned I’m much less eloquent than I hoped I would be in a situation. Apparently I suffer from the “You Know” disease that Atwood suffers from. This is simply due to my nervousness at being interviewed along with the fact that we were in a very noisy room surrounded by a lot of distractions (yes, this is me making excuses).
Not only that, there’s a point in the interview where I seem to lose focus and stammer. That’s because Scott Hanselman was calling me and I wasn’t sure whether to stop and give him directions to the BlogZone or continue. As you can hear, I continue and he found it just fine.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot more I would’ve liked to have said. Upon being asked about whether the community has chipped into Subtext, I started off with the example of recent committs related to the build server and mentioned a couple of people. I was just getting warmed up and didn’t get a chance to mention many others who have contributed. I apologize, but the interview probably would’ve gone on for hours if I had the proper time to express my appreciation to the Subtext developers and community.
The lesson learned for me is to slow down, take a deep breath, and don’t be afraid to take a moment to collect my thoughts. Don’t be afraid of dead air when speaking publicly.
In any case, Tim, I enjoyed being interviewed. I personally think you have a talent for it and would have done a much better job than the painful interview we were subjected to during the keynote. Seriously, they should’ve had you up there asking Ray and Scott questions.
In case you didn’t know, Tim contributed what is probably the most popular skin to Subtext, Origami.