Saturday, July 09, 2005

10 informal minutes with my CEO

I realize I'm a few days late with this one... spent all day Thursday and Friday in Engineering Excellence training and just now sitting down on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to catch up on some real work.

So, Robert Scoble got a great 10 minutes of talk time with Steve Ballmer. I agree with Gretchen... it is funny to hear Robert nervous. ;-)

It's interesting to think about... I'd probably be pretty nervous interviewing Steve Ballmer too. Last month, when my friend Dan asked him a question at a more formal talk, he was obviously quite nervous too (but not nervous enough to deter him from asking, so props for that!).

So I'm wondering, does anyone have any advice on how to get over feeling nervous in such situations? I mean, the boss's boss is just another regular guy outside the office. And I don't think the nervousness correlates to fear of getting in trouble or losing ones job. So what is it? And what can we do to get over it??

BTW, Robert, is SteveB the first interviewee to deserve a tripod? ;-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I use a tripod on all my interviews. I just hold it and use the mass of the tripod to be a cheap-man's steadicam.

But, I've sat the tripod down on other interviews in the past.

How do you get over nervousness?

Repetition. I used to be freaked out by speaking in front of people but I've done it now often enough that it's not a huge deal anymore (I still get a little nervous but not outwardly so anymore).