Keep the following 20 recommendations in mind to prepare yourself properly for the interview, and the actual writing will become an easy final step in the journalistic process:

1. Research the topic to understand underlying issue and terminology.
2. Always develop questions in advance. Don’t go into an interview to hold a conversation or you’ll end up with small talk. Take the time to develop the questions that will lead to the information you seek.
3. Ask open-ended questions, not those that can be answered only by a yes or no.  Use a who, what, where, when, why and how framework to cover the topic.
4. Of these questions, how and why usually are the most important, because they get to causes, motivations and solutions.  Look at every aspect of each of these elements to develop questions like:

• Why is the company doing this?
• Why does the market need this product?
• Why now?
• Why should people care about this?
• How are you going to do this?
• How does your product differ from those of competitors?
• How are you going to structure your company to achieve this?
• How can people use your product?
• How will your product change the way people work, live or play?

5. Don’t be afraid to offer your own theory or the theories of others in developing questions for your interview subject to comment on.
6. Ensure your questions relate to newsworthy topics.
7. Develop questions that have built-in newsworthiness: firsts, successes, trends, controversy.
8. Relate questions to other things happening in the industry or in the world to obtain answers that have meaningful context and that become inherently newsworthy.
9. Be pro-active. Don’t simply ask the questions on your sheet and record the answers. Start with the questions, but ask follow-up questions if the response is unclear, incomplete or open to other interpretations.
10. Guide the source to appropriate areas, but be open to his or her view of what’s important.
11. Don’t just ask the source to “talk about” the subject, unless you don’t have enough information to formulate questions. You may use this as a preliminary information-gathering technique, but you should have questions in mind to pursue subsequently.
12. Focus the questioning to get to what you need.
13. Don’t be afraid to ask “stupid questions,” but preface the interview by saying, “I know some of the information I’ll be requesting from you, but I want to get it in your voice.  So forgive any ‘stupid questions’—I just want to get it right and in your terms.”
14. The biggest content problem with writing is failing to obtain or understand the basic information from the interviewee’s perspective. If you don’t understand what something means, ask for an explanation or clarification.
15. If your source says something that you don’t understand or that raises questions, state your interpretation of what he means and ask for verification.
16. Be a good listener. Don’t get so involved in your note-taking that you overlook clues and implications from the interviewee’s responses. Likewise, offer your own interpretation, point of view or analogy to see if it correlates with the source’s thinking.
17. Use questions to explore new trends, facts or opinions for which your interviewee may be the source.
18. Ask open-ended questions that give the interviewee a chance to interpret, explain or express an opinion on something.
19. Always follow up to elicit additional information that may be relevant but not immediately apparent.  For example, offer refutations to or questions about the interviewee’s interpretation or opinion.  Then obtain his or her responses. Don’t engage in a debate, however; instead, present refutations or doubts that have been expressed by a third party: “Some industry executives are saying…,” “Folks on the other side of the issue might claim…,”  “We’re reading that…..”
20. Find out everything you can about your source’s credentials for the claims he or she makes—education, projects, offices, inventions, awards, personal experiences.

Finally, do a reality check of your notes after the interview and before you leave. Do you have newsworthy information?  What additional questions do you need to ask to get the news you feel is in this story? What questions do you need to revisit to get more explanation? Looking at your notes as a whole, does a new trend or development emerge that you should explore?  Who else should you interview to fill gaps or obtain important information?

With a determination to ask the right questions in the right way, your reporting assignment will prepare you well for the writing the article.

So how can we compete with the thrill-a-minute venues of YouTube, iTunes and virtual rock climbing? We can start by making some adjustments to the ways we approach our writing style and our audience. Here are seven strategies to keep in mind when trying to hold the attention of consumers who can’t sit through a movie without texting, surfing and video-game breaks.

1. Forget logic—focus on impact. Those in the edgy crowd don’t have time to listen to your rationale—they just want to know the results and, most important, what’s in it for them. What ammunition can you give them to gain an edge on a friend, a foe or a competitor? Deliver content tools and weapons, not arguments.
2. Draft shorter sentences. We speak in a 140-character town hall, and complex sentences with tailgating adjectives will just get drowned out by the flash mobs. Study Ernest Hemingway as a model for tightly written story-telling that shuns modifiers.
3. Be conversational. Contractions, idioms and slang are fine. Just be certain that you’re up to date (read that, up to the minute) in the way you use them. Remember when “dope” meant “cool” and “shizzle” meant “sure”? That’s so-o-o 2011.
4. Be controversial. Edginess inherently requires bold statements that express a strong point of view. When racing down the edgy road, the further your writing travels from conventional opinion, the more successful your trip will be. That’s not to say that you should just invent some outlandish opinion; you must be prepared to demonstrate the impact that your point of view can have (see strategy #1) on the topic at hand.
5. Sharpen your verbs until they’re dangerous to handle without gloves. Avoid weak verbs, such as forms of “to be” or “to have,” and overused buzzword verbs, like “leverage,” “drive” and “interface.” Instead, choose verbs that paint a picture of an action or provoke an emotion, such as, “gnaw,” “melt,” “snivel,” “embrace,” “bellow” and “obliterate.”
6. Be ironic and even sarcastic (but not mean) in setting up your thesis. Promulgating a strong point of view often requires that you adopt a ‘tude. The most concise expression of this stance that I have encountered appeared on a shopper’s T-shirt in the mall.  It read: National Sarcasm Society: “Like we really need your help.”
7. Offer links on the edge. Find edgy communications—videos, cartoons, music clips– from like-minded individuals who support and/or extend your point of view, and include links to their work. “Occupy Wall Street” initially was an edgy demonstration, but links to websites and social media rapidly transformed it into a national movement.

That’s it. You can do it or not. What do I care? I’m gonna throw a Red Bull off the roof and see how high it’ll splatter.

As 2012 approaches, most of us now simply turn cautiously around that temporal corner. Congress is in a deadlock that some would call hopeless, but promising legislative initiatives are on the horizon to move the economy forward, improve our health and at least dent the deficit. Unemployment is still far, far too high; but the job market appears to be improving, our 401(k) accounts are recovering and mortgage rates are at an all-time low for those who can manage to acquire a home loan.

Caution also seems to be the 2012 theme for communicators. A tsunami of technology has wiped out many of the reliable media that once formed the foundation of written communications—letters, newspapers, books, magazines, files, phone-message slips—sweeping into their place multiple devices, services and software that have transformed communications almost entirely into a digital discipline.

Some communicators have felt threatened by the pace and pickiness of rapidly emerging social media, influential—although sometimes uninformed—bloggers and the insatiable online news media that can build or demolish a company’s reputation in the span of a mouse click. Others have embraced the opportunity to engage directly with consumers, politicians, even reporters through social media, where early warnings of issues with products or services can be uncovered before they escalate; where the consumers of media double as validators, debunkers and/or creators of media reports; and where the communicator’s role becomes exceptionally valuable in helping newsmakers position themselves correctly and respond appropriately in this climate of themes and memes.

As Airfoil Public Relations has postulated, however, in 2012 the distinction between social media and media in general will dissolve. Every form of communications will have a social aspect to it, and consumers will simply expect to be able to comment on any news story, rate any product and contribute any of their own content to the media mix. We’re already there in most instances, but in the coming year the ability to participate in the kinds of communications that once were the purview of only reporters, editors and columnists will become firmly established as the rule, rather than the exception.

So, as the last piece of paper sinks into the digital maelstrom, how should communicators prepare themselves? Here are five steps that all communicators should take in 2012 to ride the tidal wave of change in our profession:

1. Augment your online presence. If you have dived into Facebook and Twitter, begin creating videos for YouTube and for your company’s website. If you’re already an accomplished social denizen, begin reading more online publications and comment enthusiastically on articles and opinions there. If you are to gain influence, you need to work at becoming known.
2. Search for offline activities that you can transfer to online capabilities to obtain results more quickly and at a lower cost. In place of focus groups, use online panels or gather your following of online friends into virtual focus groups for qualitative responses.  In place of emails (slow as the 1990s) and phone calls (remember those?), adopt unified communications that provide you the instantaneous option of reaching out and collaborating via instant message, audio call or video call.
3. Start a blog and post to it at least weekly. Blogging is one of the most effective ways to become known as an authority on a topic, to generate a following and to provide a vehicle for linking to other communications that support your efforts.
4. Secure your digital communications as tightly as you once did your printed documents. You can’t lock digital data in your office safe or a file drawer, but you should copy all your files to an online backup service. The latest technology backs up your documents as you create them, so you don’t even need to remember to back them up manually. Also, be sure you are using strong passwords, with letters numbers and special characters, for any communications or sensitive materials that you store online. Finally, as much as possible, keep everything in the cloud so that, if your own computer crashes or is stolen, you can access your files and the applications you use every day to create them from any other computer with an Internet connection.
5. Listen more than you talk. You’ll learn exactly how to shape your communications by listening to others in networks, on rating sites and in blog posts.  The more you hear, the more persuasive you will be able to make your communications, because you will thoroughly understand the concerns, perceptions and misperceptions of your audience.

If you’ve managed to survive as a communicator until 2012, you already have considerable social skills. Extending those skills will help equip you for the relentless evolution of digital communications in the years to come.

My predictions for the top 10 revisions that we’ll be making in our writing in 2012:

1. References to “devices” (we used to call them computers, tablets and smartphones) will disappear, replaced by just “D.” Asking a friend, “What’s your D?” will convey a shorthand request for an individual’s social nickname; preferred device and, therefore, preferred method of communication (text, Facebook message, tweet, email, etc.).
2. Smilies will be replaced by keystrokes that resemble the facial expressions of favorite personalities from comics, TV, movies or politics.
3. Television script writers will rebel against the expanding invasion of product placement and the need to insert descriptions of the features offered by the hero’s automobile, a phenomenon that has become even more annoying since the days of Lisa Catera. Instead, the characters will be sharing passages from the writer’s own books (a la Stephen J. Cannell).
4. A new punctuation mark will appear—the OMG—to indicate surprise fused with either despair or delight, depending on the context. It will look like this: Ω (the Greek omega symbol). This will be the first of many such marks to replace tired text and chat abbreviations, like TTYL and IMHO. (Let’s face it—typing all these abbreviations takes way too much time, when a simple punctuation mark would do.)
5. Barack Obama will insist on being called “Barry” to make his social media handles easier to spell correctly.
6. Occupy Silicon Valley protestors will invade the headquarters of dozens of technology companies, reprogramming all their devices to irrevocably delete the terms “leverage,” “robust” and “on-premise” from every document, email and memo.
7. “Video on demand” will become a quaint term.  Just about all video programming will be on demand, with scheduled broadcasts reserved for newscasts, sports events and reality talent shows. When we write “video” or “TV program,” readers will assume it’s on demand unless otherwise specified.
8. “Click” as a reference to operating a computer (“Transfer funds with just one click”) will be replaced by “snap,” as gestures and other natural-user-interface methods transform the computer mouse into a relic.
9. Even more words will be fused together to eliminate the inexplicably dreaded space between the terms in compound nouns. Thus, following in the footsteps of “smartphone” and “crowdsourcing,” we can anticipate writing “schoolsurfing” (evaluating colleges by examining their websites) and “cloudcramming” (attempting to store an unreasonably large amount of data in a limited allotment of space online).
10. The Oxford English Dictionary will recognize two new verbs. The first, in a tribute, is “to jobs,” meaning to add one more thing—surprising and important in nature—after concluding a long description. The second is “to spectaculate,” meaning to speculate on a product’s likely success, only to see it become a spectacular failure (see Google Wave, Facebook email, HP TouchPad, Qwikster).

It’s a presidential year—what are your candidates for the ways we’ll elect to change our writing terminology in 2012?

The agency clarifies that declaration with this explanation:

“In 2012, we challenge you to make this subtle but profound shift in thinking. Consider that social networking is networking; e-commerce is commerce; ‘digital marketing is marketing; and online audiences are, simply, audiences. It is in this way that qualifiers like ‘social” and ‘online’ will ultimately become irrelevant and their usage the mark of someone who still regards anything from the digital realm as a mysterious phenomena to be decoded rather than utilized.”

Hemingway would be proud, I suppose, at the discarding of these adjectives, however difficult it may be for some to embrace. Airfoil’s perspective really offers insight into just how completely the virtual world has swallowed up what we used to call the world of “bricks and mortar,” “hands on,” and “face to face.” The distinction, to the extent that it still exists, now is meaningless.  As Airfoil states:

“There is already a fragile line separating the social, digital and virtual from actual experiences, but it will become even more tenuous in 2012.”

Moreover, if “social” goes away next year, we will need to wave goodbye as well to a number of its cousins that have populated our vocabulary for a couple decades now.  While not wrapped into Airfoil’s point of view, here are half a dozen of my own predictions for terms that will be deleted from our screens in 2012:

“e-“ 

A logical corollary to the demise of “social,” as Airfoil implies.  We just don’t need it anymore.

“computer”

We’ll be talking about “devices” with little differentiation among them. Every digital device will have computing abilities, and “computer” will just be too restrictive a term. Already, few of us refer to our “laptop computers”; they’re just “laptops.”

“online/digital edition”

The digital world will complete its evolution as the primary edition for newspapers, newscasts and TV programs.  For the few remaining holdouts, paper and televisions will become extensions of the news and entertainment we view on our screens.

“mouse”

Natural user interfaces (NUIs) will rapidly replace or augment graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and we’ll soon be using Kinect-style gestures to control our devices. In fact, we’ve already nearly abandoned the mouse in favor of smart phone and tablet touch screens.

“hands-free”

When we can’t gesture, voice commands will become the normal way to operate our devices and vehicles.  “Hands-free” will be assumed, just as we assume cars are equipped with automatic transmissions and theaters will be air-conditioned.  Only exceptions to these normal circumstances will need to be stated.

“smart phone/cell phone/mobile phone”

Dumb phones die within weeks in the selective atmosphere of digital competition. All mobile devices will be capable of activating any of tens of thousands of apps.  Using these devices for making phone calls will seem quaint, and bragging about a mobile phone will make the owner seem decrepit. It’ll simply be a “mobile device,” “mobile” (from the British) or “handheld” in 2012, with the capability for voice communication.

What are your predictions for passé parlance in 2012?  Speak me a post (my prediction for a new term in 2012) and share your thoughts.

Now, suddenly, everything’s changed.  Today we are presenting on smaller and smaller screens.  We’re watching live television on smartphone screens (measured to tenths of an inch) and handheld tablets. We’re viewing 3D movies on home televisions. And we are engaging in live video presentations via computer applications with images that may be only a few inches square.

It’s a new problem for communicators—presenting for the small screen.  All those broad gestures, stepping out toward the audience and interplay among co-presenters usually must go out the Windows in computer and mobile video settings.  Playing small-ball to win a new business competition or to motivate your employees to sharpen their game requires a more focused set of techniques for the presenter.

Here are five ways you can help expand your presence on small screens to improve the impact of your presentation:

1. When presenting, ensure you are using an Internet connection with a fast upload speed.  Providers generally tout the download speeds that they offer, but presenters will be uploading their own video image, not downloading videos.  Therefore, you should evaluate primarily the strength of the signal that gets you to the viewer’s desktop or mobile device.
2. Use appropriate facial expressions, rather than relying exclusively on gestures to emphasize your points.  Augment your arsenal of expressions to  include more smiles, a casual tilt of the head, a raised eyebrow, a slight lean forward or back, a look of surprise or anger, each to convey the emotive  content of your message when your face, rather than your entire body, is filling the screen.
3. In medium-wide or wide shots, gestures remain crucial.  When the space between you and the camera increases, your face is minimized; so body language becomes more important.
4. If you deliver your audio via a phone, rather than via the same computer application you use for video, avoid using speaker phones at both ends of the conversation. Your words will be doubly muddled if you are essentially talking into a speaker and others are listening to a speaker. Instead, imitate Broadway actors and use a small, discretely placed headset to start with a good, solid audio signal.
5. Be sure to look directly into the camera when presenting from a remote location, especially when being viewed on small screens. Unlike standard television interviews, in which viewers “overhear” conversations between an interviewer and a newsmaker, remote presentations require that you
   maintain direct eye contact with the camera as much as possible. Looking off to the side or down can create the impression that you are uncertain or hesitant.

The screen may be small, but your presence can be enlarged if you adjust your presentation technique for mobile audiences who already have adjusted their expectations.

Most often, real-life global villains have played a key role in these novels, as the clean-cut CIA agent or Army lieutenant finds himself face-to-face with the Kaiser/Hitler/ Stalin/Khrushchev/Castro/Ho Chi Minh/Gadhafi/ Hussein/bin Laden (pick your villain). What has made the thriller thrilling was the foiling of the political plot while the notorious leader managed to escape to continuous his devious ways in the sequels.

With the Arab Spring and the success of NATO forces in the Middle East, however, who is our villain now?  Whom do we pursue on paper and in the field to remain heroes in the eyes of the world?  Certainly not a sickly and ineffectual Castro.  China is our ally these days, having graduated from arch-enemy.  North Korea?  Who’s in charge? That country’s threats are powerful but its economic wherewithal to conduct warfare on any scale appears miniscule.

Yet, every hero needs a villain.  It’s not enough to fight “insurgents” or a movement”; we need to put a face on our enemy. Just look at the caricatures of Axis
leaders during World War II or terrorist leaders today.  The danger is that we may begin pinning bull’s-eyes on new leaders—both at home and abroad—simply because we need a target for our national anger, frustration or other aggravations.

We must be careful to sort out the real and treacherous villains—the Gadhafis and the bin Ladens—from those whom we only imagine to be such. Many analysts have suggested, for example, that the decade-long Afghan conflict was significantly extended because we chose to target Saddam Hussein, painting him with what turned out to be invisible weapons of mass destruction.

Communicators have a special responsibility operating in the current “villain vacuum.”

• We must avoid taking the easy route of declaring the next Gadhafi, but rather must take the time to examine true motivations and intentions.
• We certainly must learn from the immensity of the crimes committed by the iniquitous terrorist leaders of recent years, but in our writings we must not automatically position any individual who opposes our way of thinking or our political system as a terrorist of global proportions.
• And we must find ways to identify and pursue the real current villains of the world—pollution, global warming, disease, poverty and all their cohorts that have taken the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Let’s create a different genre of mystery, one in which we all can be heroes in solving the most puzzling dilemmas that confront us.  Of course there remains a place for Indiana Jones, Jack  Ryan, Alex Cross and the other popular heroes—let’s just be careful in choosing our villains and in labeling those about whom we don’t have a clue.

Congress is broken, the White House is broken, the economy is broken, the rich aren’t paying enough taxes or the poor should let tax breaks trickle down to them from the wealthy. Banks aren’t lending money, illegals aren’t respecting our system and no one has a workable plan because we’re too divided to approve one.

Whatever the leaning, the emotion is one of pure frustration and anger at the way things are vs. the way they always were and the American Dream of how they should be. Not for the first time, by the way.  From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, the counterculture manifested by Vietnam protests on college campuses and in city streets, the Civil Rights protests occurring simultaneously, the Women’s Rights Movement, and reactions to the total breakdown of the Executive Branch over the Watergate scandal arose from much more troubling wrongs than those that confront us today, and they resulted in deaths and injustices all across the country.

We are still righting our nation’s wrongs from the ‘60s, and we may be attempting to correct America’s current failures for decades to come, as well. Professional communicators have a crucial role to play in this process of helping us fix our country, our systems and our attitudes toward each other.  We might serve the nation’s cause best by organizing our own movement—call it the Say Something Useful campaign or the Civil Bites Movement.  Whatever we name it, our goals should be to:

• Help all parties find common ground, instead of drawing lines in the sand.
• Introduce a no-fault policy for political campaigns—stop blaming everyone else and put forth programs designed to move us all forward, rather than separate us farther.
• Understand that everyone has his or her priorities, but those should not get in the way of civil debate over measures for the common good.
• Instead of balancing news by finding adherents from the far ends of the seesaw, balance it by offering the opinions and plans of those who sit near the center on both sides of today’s issues.  Finding consensus is a lot easier when we start out closer to each other instead of needing to travel the full length of the spectrum to meet in the middle.

An idealistic set of objectives? Far less idealistic than those who currently are demanding policy changes on the right and the left, I’d argue.  If we converse more and holler less, we may actually put ourselves in a position to listen—and that’s where innovative solutions begin.

This new branch of our profession stems from the Postal Service’s decision to drop its rule that people could not appear on postage stamps until at least five years after their death.  Beginning next year, even living persons can be honored with their image on a stamp.  So, of course, public relations practitioners will be looking for ways to get the visages of their client CEOs or their rock-star influencers stuck onto envelopes.  This promises to be quite a competition, the ultimate award submission.  Those who win gain some measure of immortality, at least in the collections of philatelists.

The question, of course, will be, “How do we succeed?” What criteria will persuade the Postal Service to choose one famous entrepreneur or political leader over another? Apparently a Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee recommends stamp subjects to the Postmaster General.  I feel a bit sorry for this
obscure group (which sounds too much like Garrison Keillor’s Ketchup Advisory Board) that is certain to become the target for lobbying efforts of oversized proportions.

If the USPS decision is likely to raise a flap over who should get stuck, it may also produce the benefit of causing every famous and would-be-famous individual in America to consider how they might shape their future actions to make themselves more stamp-worthy.

Will members of Congress suddenly become more cooperative and altruistic?

Will business persons begin donating more to community groups and charities?

Will some Hollywood stars and recording artists stop being just plain weird?

Who knows? What is important is that each of us understands how we should be guiding our own lives and supporting our communities so that we may become stamp-worthy for stamp-worthiness’ sake, even if no one nominates us to the Citizen’s Stamp Advisory Committee.

Supposedly, we all should be able to describe our company and its offerings to someone with whom we are sharing an elevator in the time it takes for us to rise from the lobby to our office floor. Thirty years ago, that may have given us a solid two minutes to talk about everything we do. With today’s predilection for two-story suburban campuses instead of 70-story downtown skyscrapers, however— and our market’s abbreviated attention span—we’re confined to maybe 30 seconds.

How do we tell our story in 30 seconds? The key is to focus on brand differentiation in a strategic manner. What do we do that no one else can do? What can we provide that no one else can? Defining what makes us distinctive is different from describing the features of our product or the availability of our service. Explaining how we differ requires some thought and understanding.

First, we need to understand the competitive landscape. While we may believe we are different, we may only be uninformed about an up-and-coming competitor. Netflix was unique for a while, until streaming video made next-day videos by mail seem slow and obsolete.

Second, we must understand the marketplace and where it’s headed, rather than focusing heads-down in our own product. So our cool new mobile app that automatically organizes email by subject matter is distinctive, but its market is using social media and texting for messaging, rather than e-mail, so its potential is meager.

Finally we must understand the truly distinctive nature of our own product or service from the consumer’s standpoint. What we believe to be its most attractive benefit may not be the feature that the market most favors. For example, who would have predicted that we’d buy phones, not for their audio quality, but for their texting and multimedia capabilities? Your local newspaper may have redesigned the Sunday feature sections of its print editions to be more attractive and easier to read, but chances are that a substantial portion of the market still is buying that paper only for the coupons.

A good elevator speech, then, is compact in length, precise in its definition of the offering and reflective of its market. For example, an elevator speech for Airfoil Public Relations executive training programs might be: “We help you intensify the impact of your speaking engagements. We can write your speech, coach you on delivering it powerfully, prepare you to meet with news media afterward, and extend your message’s reach by drafting articles based on the content of your speech.”

Don’t let short elevator rides intimidate you anymore. Examine your brand strategically and your message can soar to the top.