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Where You Might Learn the Most
Running a user study in the US. The next in-depth interviews are scheduled for lunchtime tomorrow. Between now and then the aim is to conduct ad-hoc interviews whereever we are most likely to encounter relevant and interesting people.
My options tonight are looking for suitable local subject's on a Saturday night out in one of New Orleans many (non Bourbon St. clubs), or tracking down Louisiana church goers on Sunday morning. Not enough energy to do them both. The deciding factors are: personal energy levels - still a bit lagged; where we are most likley to learn the most; and what the other team members want to do.
Update: I took the clubz, and BG/IT are going for the Sunday morning soul food. 4 interview subjects said something along the lines of 'when you get out this cluurb, you go straight home, this city is dangerous'. Sweet. Real.
Writing from New Orleans | August 21, 2005 | Permalink
Comments
If you had a dollar for every time someone said "I wish I had your job," how much jetlag would they have?
;-)
Roger
Posted by: Roger Dennis at August 22, 2005 2:05 PM
Um, might seem glamorous, but the reality is somewhat less. In the last 14 days dealing with - the joy of a car being an office - transcribing notes as we drive to the next interview location, being away from loved ones, literally max of 4 hours personal time with no work and no-one else around, snatching a few minutes in a laundry to have something to wear the next day, lack of sleep, lack of sleep and lack of sleep. Fun, yes. Interesting, yes. Hard work, yes.
Posted by: Jan at August 29, 2005 7:36 AM
I know where you are coming from. In hindsight it was an obscure comment, and was supposed to imply just what you have stated. It sounds like an extremely interesting job, and when you explain what you do, some people probably wonder where they sign up. But the reality of the job is somewhat different. Fun and interesting (as you point out), but definitely not easy.
And that's before you start with the routine of taxi-airport-taxi-hotel-office-taxi-airport-home....
Posted by: Roger Dennis at August 29, 2005 12:44 PM
This comment is only related in a general sense to the theme of your blog. My wife has just returned from a European trip and says that central Belgrade is using cellphones to pay for parking in the central core of the city. They have three fee zones. Apparently you text one of three numbers with your vehicle registration on a phone with a local SIM card. You then recieve an automated reply confirming payment and indicating the time limit. The parking officials who patrol the zones are presumably informed of how long you have paid. The alternative is to buy a tiket from a kiosk. You might want to look into this for a future posting.
Posted by: Richard at September 1, 2005 6:38 AM
Thanks for the insight. I think textually (http://www.textually.org) has covered the sms-for-parking thing already.
One SMS related topic that does interest me is in its use for transfering monetary value, or call/text credits, since it enables people who might not otherwise be able to open a bank account to have access to some of features of associated with banking. If I recall correctly there are a couple of carriers already supporting this. Can anyone point me to the carriers?
Posted by: Jan at September 3, 2005 5:35 PM