Wine Interviews and a Fear of Public Speaking

A prelude to a webinar

I’ve been interviewed in one format or another dozens of times. I don’t even remember the first time, but it must have been in the 1990s about a report I authored about the opinions of wine writers. I’ve always enjoyed the experience and almost without regard to the quality of the interviewer.

On Thursday at 10:00 am Pacific Time, I’m going to sit for a live, one-hour interview with ShipCompliant’s Alex Korel, which is being billed as a “webinar”. The subject matter is: “The Three-Tier System: 90 Years On, What Is and Isn’t Working for Industry Growth.” (You are free to join if you like by clicking the link.)

Alex is the general counsel for ShipCompliant, so he knows the issues surrounding the three-tier system as well as anyone. That will make for an good interview since very little in the way of explanation will need to happen.

The art of being interviewed is, in my mind, two-fold: knowledge and “off-the-cuffness”. The former characteristic is a given. Why would you interview someone on a topic about which they know little more than the average person? The latter, off-the-cuff-ness” boils down to the willingness to immediately react to a question with what immediately comes to mind. Off-the-cuffness looks like this: