Simply Honey’s owner and sole employee is Brent Edelen, a third generation bee keeper. He has between 500 and 600 colonies that he moves to New Mexico in the cold months, and brings back to the San Luis Valley in the summer.

Brent let me taste four different types of honey: Clover, Tamarisk, Starthisle and Wildflower. By far the most interesting honey was the Tamarisk. The color of the Tamarisk honey jars is almost black, and it has a very distinct flavor.

I also experienced eating a raw honey comb for the first time in my life. It’s gooey, and the sweetness explodes in your mouth unexpectedly as the hexagonal wax cells all burst when you chew them.

Below are some pictures I took from the excursion.

As it looks like I will be getting more and more involved with helping Brent bring the honey to a new market, I will be writing more about Simply Honey, bee keeping and all matters of honey in general.

Brent of Simply Honey shows how he cuts out the honeycomb.

A frame still full of honey.

The finished product comes in a beautiful case.

Abandoned bee keeping supplies and barrels, once full of honey.

Amazing views of the Sange de Cristo Mountains.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about interviewing my family members to learn more about their lives, and the lives of their parents and grandparents. And now, finally, I have my first interview completed and it feels amazing.

Jess and I bought a digital recorder to take with us for the interviews and it too came through beautifully.

I spent a good hour tonight listening to the reconding and writing down the notes.

I don’t remember when I did something that was more rewarding than this.

The “let the silence stretch out” approach, which is not discussed as often as it should be, can be a surprisingly valuable interviewing technique. The truth is that most people who are being interviewed would like to think that they are providing you with “interesting” information, which reflects well on their knowledge, insight, sense of humor, general bonhomie, etc. People want to be liked and to feel as if they’re holding up their end of the conversation. Obviously this doesn’t apply in a 60 Minutes-style hostile interrogation, but in most non-adversarial interviews, the subject wants to feel that he is holding the interest of the questioner. 

Thus informal body-language signs that you’re getting bored or disappointed usually prompt an interviewee to try harder and say more. The strategic use of silence can send such a signal, since people become uncomfortable and think that the silence is their fault. You can’t do it very often, but every now and then it works great. 

I remembered reading something about this before, and decided to do some Google searches and found a few more interesting articles about silence as an interview technique.

Nick Davies of The Guardian, talks about various unconventional interview techniques a reporter might use:

If the interviewee resists you, a surprisingly powerful tactic is silence. It’s very unnatural for two strangers to sit and say nothing.

If you can force yourself to stay quiet, you may well force the other person to talk. (I count up to 50 in my head.)

Woodward and Bernstein, in their account of the Watergate scandal, All The President’s Men, are very interesting on this kind of tactic. They would make deliberate errors, hoping that they might provoke a revealing correction. On one occasion, they staged a pre-scripted argument in front of a source, successfully provoking her into giving them information to stop a fight developing.

I also found a list of Question/Answer responces that a clinical psychologist might use to get a patient talking, and number 11 on the list is silence:

11. Silence:

C: I get so angry I feel like hitting someone
T: no response

• new therapists dread silence
• may occur due to therapist’s failure to lead interview
• can be a technique as well as therapeutic intervention
• provides client with opportunity to process and understand what is being said
• can move interview in a positive direction
• must be timed appropriately so patient understands that it is being used for a reason
• to promote introspection, allow patient to reassimilate emotions

And finally, some suggestions for what to do if you are a victim of such a technique, for example during a job interview:

The best way to handle silence is by remaining quiet and appearing pleasant. This response creates a non-hostile standoff; and, in the interest of time, the interviewer eventually asks the next question. Most pauses are measured in seconds, and it is rare for more than two to pass without the interviewer realizing you have not fallen for this ploy. If you are compelled to say something, at least turn the tables. “I think that answers the question, unless there is something else you wish to know,” forces the interviewer to become the respondent.

A conversation with Malcolm Gladwell, author of “Outliers”

A conversation with Geoff Colvin, author of “Talent is Overrated”

Here is one of the best descriptions of what an information interview is, from one of the best online guides on the subject:

Informational interviewing is just what it sounds like — interviewing designed to produce information. What kind of information? The information you need to choose or refine a career path, learn how to break in and find out if you have what it takes to succeed. Informational interviewing is an expanded form of chatting with your network contacts. It’s the process of spending time with one of your network contacts in a highly focused conversation that provides you with key information you need to launch or boost your career.

The term “informational interviewing” was invented by Richard Nelson Bolles, author of the best-selling career guide of all time, What Color Is Your Parachute? Bolles refers to the process as “trying on jobs to see if they fit you.” He notes that most people screen jobs and companies after they’ve already taken a job, while informational interviewing gives you the opportunity to conduct the screening process before accepting a position.

This week I had my first informational interview in which I was the one being interviewed. It was a lot of fun for me and I can only hope that it was at least some what educational for the other person.

Also, just because I am being informationally interviewed now, doesn’t mean that I can’t continue to informationally interview others, higher up the food chain. I am going to try to arrange some meetings with real life lawyers – considering that despite contemplating going to law school, I’ve never even set foot in a law firm before.

While I generally just go in expecting to have a conversation with the general intent of “getting to know” the other person – recently that strategy hasn’t worked so well. So I decided to do some research to find out what some of the best-practices are. One particular website was very thorough and helpful.

1) Be prepared.

After watching Charlie Rose night after night, I realize how important this is for the interview. I study the resume and then formulate a list of questions based on personal and professional qualifications I am looking for in the candidate.

2) Establish rapport

All candidates are nervous to some degree and I definitely don’t want them to be scared of me in any way. I think being genuine and myself is the single most important thing to remember here – because I want the candidate to be genuine with me too.

3) Ask effective questions

I think this is the hardest part to formulate in general terms that would apply to all applicants. Sure, there are questions about facts, and many standard interview questions. But for a question to be effective it has to be tailored to the candidate.

4) Listen actively

5) Conclude Positively

Conclude with a warm, friendly close, and thank the applicant for his/her time.

I’d like to be better at interviewing candidates and communicating in general, so I hope to discuss each of the points above in more detail in the future.

Charlie Rose had a great guest on and I would like to share my excitement with you.

The guest’s name was Christine Quinn and she the Speaker of the New York City Council. There are two things to be said immediately: she is a very liberal Democrat and I don’t live in New York. It doesn’t matter.

I saw a very energetic, smart and passionate woman who loves her job. Granted, she is a politician, and everything she says has to be taken with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, she was very impressive.

I learned about the book when I saw Mr. McEwan on Charlie Rose: