Let's call the whole thing off.

Okay, here is a posting of my homework that was due today. The assignment was to interview someone that would provide relevant information on my capstone project, spomato.com. In case you didn't know, this web site is a project for school.

I also thought I would take this opportunity to try and treat this post like a podcast, given that it has an interview. So, check out on http://labs.spomato.com for this post as a podcast. This is just a normal post with an audio link for which I am seeing how it comes out.

here is the link to the interview: Interview with Range Larson

***Note the following in my homework asignment for class. Please do no copy it and note that transcript is an adaptation of the actual interview. It has been edited for content and flow, to represent the intended response of the interviewee. I am not a skilled interviewer, but had fun doing this interview.

Enjoy.

Casey Grzecka
UNS 494
Assignment #7 – Interview Report
October 25, 2007

Description of Interviewee: Range Larson is a volleyball coach and director of a volleyball club organization in Las Vegas.
Process of securing interview: Getting Range to do the interview was not difficult because he is a colleague of mine. We both work for a construction supply company here in Las Vegas. First, I text messaged Range about the interview, for which I did not receive an answer. So, the next day I went into his office and asked him to do the interview. He said okay and we did the interview.
Relevance of Information: I chose to interview Range not only because he is a coach and conveniently accessible to me, but also shares a passion for new medium, more specifically, the Internet. I knew that he would provide some insight into the relationship between the use of technology and communication between directors, coaches, players and parents. Range would also be able to answer questions I have about my project pertaining to real world implementation of my vision.

Transcript:

Casey: Hello, I’m interviewing Range Larson. He is a coach here in Las Vegas. I chose him because of his coaching background that will help me answer some questions about my project. Range, will you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your coaching career?

Range: I’ve been coaching for about five years, I coach volleyball. I’ve helped out with UNLV’s program and I’ve also helped with Palo Verde High School here in Las Vegas and I’ve also been a coach with Desert Elite Volleyball Club for three years and this year I took over as the Director’s role.

Casey: What are some of the differences between being a coach and being a director?

Range: Being a coach, you know, is kind of nice. You just go to the gym and coach, you go to tournaments, you coach. That’s all you have to worry about. You do have to worry a bit about player drama, but overall you do not need to worry about parent complaints about coaches, about scheduling times… you just show up and coach.

Casey: So being a director means dealing a lot more with administrative things? And being a coach you are dealing more with hands on things dealing with the sport it self?

Range: Basically, yes.

Casey: What are some of the difficulties in managing your team or correctly directing your organization?
Range: A few of the difficulties are, in the Las Vegas Valley, one, acquiring gym time and locations. We have to advertise through networking means, so we have to network with as many coaches in the valley that we can. I have to get timely letters out or fliers out about tryouts. Getting uniforms in time, registering for tournaments, making hotel reservations for tournaments on the road.

Casey: Sounds like there are a lot of things that are demanding on your time. What about communication of all of these things? How important is communication in these areas on and off the court?

Range: Yes, it is probably the most important thing in getting all of these things organized.

Casey: Okay, what tools do you use to communicate to parents, players, and other coaches in your organization?

Range: Um, I use email, text messaging, phone calls, meetings, parent meetings.

Casey: Text messaging? That’s cool. Can you provide a example of the process of all the things you have to do to get your players to the right place at the right time. And how much time does it take?

Range: It starts out getting the gym time, then communicating with the coach by sending him or her and email then the coach will forward that email to all the players. If the coach is a slacker, then it forces me to send out a mass-email to all the players. Inevitably there will be phone calls back and forth to the coach or myself.

Casey: So, lots of emails and phone calls back and forth, sounds like lots of overhead for each event or piece of info that needs to be communicated. Lots of repeat information…

Range: Yes, is my head nodding coming through on the audio recording?

Casey: Ha ha, yes, it sure is... I’m designing a website that will streamline the communication between players, coaches and parents. Would consider trying a sports management tool as a means of communication for your organization?

Range: Yeah, if I can send out less emails and even bypass the coach so that he or she does not have to deal with administrative things, that would be even better too. The less emails and phone calls that I have to make the better, it would save me a lot of time. Time is money.

Casey: What are some features that you would suggest for such a tool?

Range: Well, for me we have different club levels, so we would have to keep them separate. Keep the coaches section separate. And have a way of contacting college coaches, because that is our goal for our players, to go to college. So, a scouting feature would be excellent.

Casey: Thank you for your time, one last question, how to you think the adoption rate will go for using a tool like this? Do you think the parents are ready for something like this, social networking thing? How long will it take as well?

Range: For the parents, it will take some time. The players will catch on to it right away. With the parents you will have to make it as simple as possible and not get too in depth with having a social aspect of it…

Casey: …But for the kids, they are going to pick it up just like a facebook or a myspace no problem…

Range: …yes, but for the kids it can be fully involved. But for the parents, just give them enough to get the most necessary information.

Casey: Alright Range, thank you very much.

Conclusion:
Yes, things went pretty much exactly how expected.
I asked these questions to get a feel for what was the most important aspect of the site that I am building.
One surprise was the element of a scouting tool for college coaches. This was not something that I had thought of as a feature for the Website.
I stuck to my original game plane for the interview. Although I did add a few extra filler questions as the interview proceeded.
The focus on simplicity for the parents’ section of the site was the main thing I learned from this interview. I tend to want to add as many features as I can. I learned that with this part of this project less might be more pertaining to the parent section of the site.