Asking questions is an art form. It requires critical thinking to engage in an exchange and the interviewer directs and elicits responses from the interviewee. This process is likened to the yin/yang or Tao of Communication by Vadim Kotelnikov found on 1000ventures.com. An often used tool, the interview is one of the skills that are essential to learn right. This can only be done through practice. Whether on the receiving or giving end of questions, being prepared is essential. For the ZSEM course I teach, I found early on that there are many online interviews with entrepreneurs that fail to help an outsider understand the basics of what business, where is it located, how does it work, why did it start, when the process started and where is at now. The template I have created for students is a great starter to help them stay on point and collect information and insights along the lines of background, idea generation, marketing, operations, finance, results and the personal reflection that comes through the entrepreneurial process. Below in the comment area, I ask my students and blog readers to give me the name of entrepreneur they would like to interview, the business and industry that entrepreneur represents, why they would like to interview them and any link to a pre-existing interview or profile on that person.
I would like to interview Bill Gates, one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the computer revolution. Not just because he's world famous and rich. His life story is not usual these days, especially because he left college and had never finished one. Led by he's dreams, knowledge and instinct, Gates' role at Microsoft for most of its history was primarily a management and executive role. However, he was an active software developer in the early years. I would also like to ask him why didn't Microsoft expand it's product range on hardware, such as computers and pocket PC-s etc? (Look Apple for example, their best selling products are cell phones and portable audio devices. Both companies had a similar start,vision and product range in the beginning).
ReplyDeletehttp://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/gates.htm#tc1
The person i find most interesting is Sir Richard Branson. He is successful in almost everything he does. From music business to space tourism. And even if he slips up (rarely, but it's known to happen) and he doesn't create all that successful enterprise, he rises back up, dust himself off and start something even better.
ReplyDeleteAnd business aside, he still manages to do humanitarian work, have a family and tones of fun in his adventures!
I want to be him when I grow up :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Branson
http://www.joepolish.com/richardbranson/
I would like to interview Mrs Kristina Horbec, the owner of Herakleca - Customer Service Academy. Mrs Horbec is a member of Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA). Together with Veronica Karlsson has written a book about mystery shopping... This is the only book for shoppers endorsed by Mystery Shopping.
ReplyDeleteI would like to interview Kristine because she is the pioneer on that field in Croatia. She started her business with little savings and zero clients... Today her company is the only one in Croatia for measuring and evaluating quality of service... Also, it takes a lot of courage and effort, plenty of ideas to sucess in Men's world!
Here below there's some links about Kristina Horbec:
http://www.moj-posao.net/Vijest/69537/Intervju-Kristina-Horbec-slusajte-sebe-i-probajte-pokrenuti-vlastiti-posao/
http://zena.hr/clanak/ostalo/kristina_horbec_tajna_mystery_shoppinga/516
Sources so far have included men and women from the USA, UK and Croatia. A very interesting mix indeed of software giants, Virgin everythings and pioneers of customer service. Thank you Josko, Ivana and Andreja for getting us started:)
ReplyDeleteI would like to interview Mrs. Lana Hudina, a designer who started her own business with attractive little characters, which were result of her drawings during her lessons on Faculty of Architecture. She made them as a new brand called “Duckass”, and transferred them on t-shirts, mugs, pins…etc. Also, faithfully portraying a person, movement and characteristics in a series of illustrations of "Croatian inventions“, she revived the most famous Croatian scientist and their inventions. This particular series is sold in a gift shops in some National parks of Croatia. With this interview I would like to demonstrate how young and creative people with great ambition and courage like Mrs. Lana Hudina, can succeed in making their part time hobby in a successful enterprise.
ReplyDeleteBelow are some links where you can find more about Mrs. Lana Hudina and her work:
http://www.fashion.hr/vijesti/modne-ikone/intervju-mjeseca/jeste-li-culi-za-lanas-duckass
http://www.cromoda.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9599&Itemid=36
My choice for the interview would be our Dean Mr.Đuro Njavro.
ReplyDeleteWhy Mr. Njavro? Because if you ask me, he represents value and knowledge every entrepreneur should have.
ZSEM is the pioneer in private education with the highest level of quality thanks to a team of highly educated professionals.
Would be interesting to know how does ZSEM works what kind of problems they have, how do they celebrate the success..
Born in 1957th in Metkovic,Mr.Njavro got his Ph.D. in 1988. at Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb.
Spending most of his time in Zagreb he is well known as a former politician.
Today he is the Dean and one of the founders of the Zagreb School of Economics and Management.
http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/% C4% 90uro_Njavro
An interview I would like to conduct is an impossible interview, because the person that I would interview is no longer among the living. He was one of the greatest and wealthiest entrepreneurs of his time. That person is Howard Hughes.
ReplyDeleteHoward Hughes was an industrialist, a pilot, a movie director and producer, owner of a few hotels and TV stations. He was born in America. He lived between the 1905th and 1976. Let’s just say that during his life, he didn’t waste any time. Although people said that he was an eccentric (what do you call a person who buys an entire hotel in Las Vegas because he doesn’t have a reservation, or a TV station so that he can watch movies all night in order not to get bored :)), he was very successful in everything he did. He had a lot of falls in his carrier; he even risked his life a couple of times in order to achieve something he planned, but at the end, he always got up back on his feet.
The reason I would like to interview this man, is because I would like to get a glance of that mind and how it operates. :)
Here are some links for Howard Hughes:
1)A midnight ride with Howard Hughes (interview:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904622,00.html
2)The movie ‘’The Aviator’’ – I would recommend to everyone (a movie based on the life of Howard Hughes):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/
The one that I admire the most and would like to interview is Mr. Jack Welch. He is not what you would call a typical entrepreneur, he didn't found General Electric, but the way he lead the company as a CEO for 20 years shows the level of love and devotion that he had for the company.
ReplyDeleteGeneral Electric is an American multinational company founded in 1892. The company is conducting business in the following fields: appliances, aviation, consumer electronics, electrical distribution, electric motors, energy, entertainment, finance, gas, healthcare, lighting, locomotives, oil, software, water, weapons, wind turbines.
It's more than enough to say that back in 1980, the year before Welch became CEO, GE had a revenue of roughly $26.8 billion and in 2000, the year before he left, the revenues increased to nearly $130 billion.
I would like to interview Mr. Jack Welch to try to understand what his initial driver, what is the key to his success, how did he make the right choices at the right time. Of course, I would like to be at least as half as successful as he still is.
Here is a link of one of his numerous interviews http://tinyurl.com/3nqchxa and a Wikipedia link with more information on this exceptional manager http://tinyurl.com/o4afw
I would like to interview Oprah Winfrey.She is an American media proprietor, businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist, best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I would like to interview her is because I think we can all learn so much from her. She has enriched many lives, helped so many people and influenced many great changes. It would be an honor to be able to do an interview with her because she had a very rough childhood, no family help or support whatsoever and after suffering years of abuse she ran away from home. What I admire the most is even in circumstances like that she never gave up and she accomplished unbelievable things. An interview with her would certainly change my point of view of certain things and I'm sure that there is so much more wisdom in her that she still didn't share with the world. One of her many famous quotes says " Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough." You can find more quotes on this following link http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/oprah_winfrey.html
You can also find her biography on this link http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/win0bio-1
And you can find her interview on CNN following this link http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0312/09/lkl.00.html
The person who would I like to interview is Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
ReplyDeleteHe is the former head of oil giant Yukos, was the wealtiest man in Russia,and he was 16th on Forbes list of billionaires.
Reason to Khodorkovsky's interview is that he is one of the most controversial person in Russia, and whose business trip is very similar to the success of many of our entrepreneurs from 90 of the last century.
Below is the link of his interview before he was arrested.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/moscow/khodorkovskyinterview.html
15 years ago I loved to bake cakes ... Later, it switched to going out, school and guys :-) Now, 10 years working in finance. So thinking about who I'd like to interview, I decided to choose Martina Bračić. Entrepreneurs who bravely, put her degree of Master of Science in closet, and decided to try the cake business. Today there are three patisseries in Croatia and two franchises in Bosnia and Serbia. She is going great.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.torte-i-to.hr/onama.php
The person i find most interesting is Ralph Lauren because he gave all that he could too build his career,he gave up to have a family just to put colors in fashion,and to live his dream.
ReplyDeleteLauren started his own company and the next year launched a line of men's clothing, Polo, offering styles that were a mix of English and American styles and that expressed an image of class. Lauren's menswear was a success, and in 1971 he introduced his women's line. As the years went by he continued to branch out into children's clothes, colognes, footwear, home products, and other merchandise.
And also he donates every year lots of money in many different causes.
I would like to interview Mr. Donald Trump. for decades, he has been a successful entrepreneur, but that's not the only reason why i have chosen him. The main reason why I admire him is because during the time he was developing his empire, he managed to build a big family. He said once that even though he was in meeting with the president of USA, if one of his kids called on his cell phone, he would always answer. today, his kids have grown up, and are also successful in business, and they say that there were days when they didn't see his father all day long, but they felt like he was there because of this constant care he was providing them and a privilege to call him anytime. Being successful means not only take care of the business, but family as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Trump-Family-Values
If I had the opportunity, my choice would be an interview with Mr. Warren Buffet, in my opinion probably the biggest investor and the entrepreneur these days. Behind him is already a half a century of successful investing in the shares of undervalued companies. His well thought investing, planning, efficient organization and management rises the value of the firm, creates a promising workplaces and increases the value of the shares. Warren Buffet spent his whole life taking care of the interests of his employees, their life quality and their future. In the business world, he is a hard reachable role model.
ReplyDeleteIf I can choose to interview some famous entrepreneur it would be Estée Lauder. She was an American business woman who founded cosmetic company Estée Lauder Companies a cosmetic company, along with her husband Joseph. In 1998 she was the only woman on TIME magazine list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteShe died in age of 97 on April 24, 2004 but she left a beauty industry that will last for long time just because of the way she did it. When young, she was working with her uncle, who was a chemist, on developing beauty products. When she discovered her love for products and her power to sell, Lauder founded her company and worked there every day.
I like her because she was with her product from day one and she never stopped being there. She was at the every promotion of new product. Estée had many famous quotes about beauty, selling products and hard work. This one of my favorite:
„I didn't get there by wishing for it or hoping for it, but by working for it.“ – Estée Lauder
I would like to interview Mike Michalowicz. He started his first business at the age of 24, moving his young family to the only safe place he could afford – a retirement village. With no experience, no contacts and no savings he systematically bootstrapped a multi-million dollar business. Then he did it again. And again.
ReplyDeleteHis experience building three multi-million dollar companies fostered a philosophy rarely taught to entrepreneurs: the lack of money, experience and resources is, in fact, your greatest asset.
Mike is the president of a behavioral web optimization firm, Obsidian Launch; is the small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal; is a frequent television guest; is a keynote speaker on entrepreneurship; and is the author of cult classic book, The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He is currently writing his second book, to be released in 2012 by Portfolio, an imprint of the Penguin Group.
What also makes him interesting, besides his business accomplishments, is that he is a recipient of the SBA’s Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award – and a (marginally) good guitar player.
Despite the fact that he would rather get a beer than take a final exam, Mike is a graduate of Inc. & MIT’s Birthing of Giants Entrepreneurial Program and is a guest speaker at Harvard, Princeton, eBay, SBA and organizations throughout the world.
http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/interviews/a/tpeinterview.htm