Expert Interview

Download the PDF form, fill it out and either Fax it to us at (334) 821-5416 or email it to support@ipov.net with the subject "Expert Interview".

The Problem

Don is the company's go-to expert on equipment and systems that were installed over the past 30 years. He knows the 'why' behind the odd configurations, procedures and workarounds. When a problem surfaces, he can recognize it instantly and fix it effortlessly. He's seen similar problems 4 or 5 times over the years. His 30-something proteges might struggle for weeks before they figure out what he already knows.

Don retires in 4 months. He's building a cabin on a lake and has no interest in contract work. Once he's gone, the next weird problem might shut you down.

What do you do?

The Brain Drain Challenge

Don's scenario is a symptom of looming baby boomer retirements. A Google search for 'brain drain' and 'baby boom' generates 50,000 hits. Reports, studies and surveys agree that a lot of America's skilled workforce will retire in the next 5 to 10 years - taking irreplaceable knowledge with them.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that organizations are actively looking for ways to deal with the problem.

The Individual Departure Challenge

While society-wide retirement looms as a threat, experts are lost every day for more mundane reasons. Some retire. Some are promoted or transferred. Some are reassigned to other duties. Some quit to take other jobs. Sadly, some individuals get sick, injured or pass away. These normal, individual-level losses can leave a big intellectual hole. Handling these routine, individual losses poses an ongoing challenge and it would make sense to look for generic tools to elicit critical knowledge from departing people and store it where it can be accessed by others.

Unfortunately, cost-effective knowledge capture has proven elusive. Much of the most valuable knowledge is tacit. The experts may not fully understand what they know or how they subconsciously apply it. Worse, departing individuals are short-timers. They may be willing to leave their knowledge, but they don't want to struggle to do it. If you ask them to write a detailed manual or report, don't be surprised if it's unfinished when they leave.

The iPOV Expert Interview Session

iPOV's contribution to dealing with departing experts is deceptively simple. We use inexpensive, informal video techniques to elicit and record expert knowledge. While some people are intimidated by video, iPOV has found ways to make the sessions relaxed, forgiving and comfortable. If you want experts to share their information, the method must be as painless as possible. Some specific techniques can help tremendously: 

  • Video-record everything.
  • Give the expert the tools that they use every day in their job.
  • The expert can follow a loose outline, but don't try to control what they say.
  • Have another participant ask questions that draw out tacit assumptions and hidden details.
  • Give the expert plenty of time to develop their thoughts. Video file space is cheap.
  • Encourage the expert to digress if they think its important.

It is surprisingly easy to satisfy these requirements if you stage the capture session correctly.

The iPOV Expert Interview Web Package

After the video is captured, iPOV can apply standard transformations and build the 'expert interview' media packaging that makes the material more useful to potential end-users. The Expert Interview packaging uses a filtered search to make the knowledge easily findable. You can enter a search term and receive a Google-like list of search hits. Skip from one hit to the next and immediately replay the session at those points.

Like any search engine, it lets the end-user decide which results are relevant. This, in turn, means that the expert can be more relaxed and natural during the recording session. The expert can digress, revisit an earlier topic, or even correct themselves and it will have limited impact on the end-user experience.

The iPOV packaging system has three standard components and several optional one:

Standard Features:

  • Flash web audio/video record of an interview session with a collection of video clips and a synchronized grammar-corrected transcript.
  • A web interface with embedded search engine. Entering a search term filters the transcript for hits that contain the search term. Clicking on a hit repositions to the correct video clip and plays the video at the corresponding point.
  • iPOV can act as a safeguard for the expert. iPOV normally shares the session transcript privately with the expert before sending it to the organization. The expert can make corrections or minor deletions in the event that they said or did something that later makes them feel uncomfortable.

Optional Features (added cost):

  • Hidden, searchable metatags can be added to the script to increase the search accuracy.
  • A list of important search terms can be identified and presented to the user in a browsable directory listing.