Hi @rich-brooks —

Since you know these folks already it won’t be necessary to put them at ease, but a little pre-chit-chat might still be necessary. However, I like to have a set of business questions (shared with them beforehand) for the interview and a few personal ones either at the end or interspersed throughout.  

For instance — “That must take a lot of time. So how do you balance the time restraints with being a father/mother/wife/husband?

Depending on what the previous question was, you can add a question to the answer, which makes the interview not look practiced.  But I do like to have the interviewee prepared. It would be pretty embarrassing to have someone hem-n-haw around when the answers involved can contain a long diatribe that needs to be set down with a ‘set of best practices’ or such.

I’ve never interviewed anyone who was all that high profile.  I have had the chance to interview any number of program developers and game gurus in the past, for written articles.

Rich, I know absolutely n-o-t-h-i-n-g about pod-casting and I’d be willing to bet that having someone on the hook for a live interview is a lot different as editing is not a possibility.  Of course, if it is not live to begin with, you’ll have the opportunity to make it look more fluid and professional. 

Eileen