This is me interviewing Paula Diaz, one of the entrepreneurs from a computación class at CEPA (Centro de Emprendimiento Puente Alto), to gather information about how AE impacts its micro-entrepreneurs’ businesses; we are in the patio of CEPA. Specifically, judging by my hand gestures, I’m either clarifying a concept or checking my understanding of something Paula has just told me. The questions for the most part are straightforward, but occasionally there is a concept like profit or micro-factoring that needs to be explained in detail before the entrepreneur can accurately answer the question. As I've come to learn, interviewing is not just about asking question, but listening to the other person and knowing when to explain more thoroughly or ask follow-up questions that deviate from the script.
This is a screenshot from the original template web profile I made, featuring a fictitious chocolatier called CarreteChocolate that sells chocolates with unique flavors. The template was intended to demonstrate some of the different types of media that could be incorporated in a profile (photos, video, maps, etc.), as well as information about the business and the types of products they offer. For me, it was a fun synthesis of my HTML knowledge and initial impressions of Chile – I used the former to make maps display more cleanly, create bullets, etc., and used the latter to inspire the flavors, secret ingredients, and other unique aspects of CarreteChocolate. This is an example of the philosophy I've taken up while working for AE - it’s essential to ascertain a need of AE (in this case, more direction with regard to web profiles) and respond with personal initiative and creativity – rather than wait to be prompted as to what to do, step up and create something and then get feedback.
This is a photo of Ricardo Callealta in the recording studio of his business, called Academia JAM; it’s an academy of dance and music where one can learn various styles of dance and how to sing/play the instruments in a rock band. Ricardo is the first of many AE entrepreneurs that we’ve interviewed at their place of business, rather than at CEPA, because we are gathering photos, videos, and information that can be used to create web pages for the entrepreneur’s businesses. I’m consistently amazed by how skilled the entrepreneurs are – they know their industry, their competitors, and the vast majority of what is needed to make their business work. The contributions that AE makes through its courses are simple, filling in the small but critical gaps in knowledge that enable the entrepreneurs to be that much more successful. What’s really exciting about the web profiles project is that it’s given us interns a lot of creative space to feature each entrepreneur and his/her business as he/she wants it conveyed – we just made a basic outline of the content we need to gather and how the programmers should lay it out, got it approved by the higher-ups at AE, and are now in the full swing of interviews. Most importantly, this project is great because we get to introduce the rest of Chile (and the world) to the expertise and ingenuity of AE’s entrepreneurs, enabling them to tap a much wider market than before and hopefully generate more income and employment.
At this point, most of the days ahead will be spent doing on-site interviews, which will include the AE data surveys if we haven't already interviewed the entrepreneur at CEPA. Also, we will start to gather statistics on our data sample using Excel, and organize the media and text that will be used in the web profiles. Since some entrepreneurs have created mission statements, other written content, and their own photos and videos, and profiles will vary in the balance between media and text based on the needs of the business, we may end up including a sketch of the layout of each profile in a Word document, as the standard template we proposed to the programmers will likely be tweaked.
