Skype interview with Jedidiah

It is March 16th, 2011.

The clock hit 1pm.

All of us were waiting for this moment.

"Hello?" [Caitlin]

"Hello Hello" [Jedidiah]

Today we got to officially Skype with Jedidiah from the Invisible Children!

Jedidiah has been with the Invisible Children for about 3 years, and he is currently working as a creative director and a brand manager for the organization.

We were so glad that we got an opportunity to connect with IC in person, and it was mind opening to be able to talk to someone from IC virtually but still face to face.

Although it is exciting to explore about something new, at least for myself, doing a research online on my pillar felt like sailing with no compass. But after our conversation with Jedidiah, I was able to see the 'person' behind the organization and I think I have a better sense of where I want to go with my research.

As for the first question, I asked Jedidiah about the significance of SNS in IC's project. He said that "social media is an important tool, but… [it is]… a facilitation of actual human engagement" and he believes the "fact that we connect in person" matters the most and the SNS are used to "live the echo of that connection online". He believes that SNS would not have the same degree of impact if there were no face to face communication to begin with. I think many people would find his point relevant on a personal level as Facebook users. Now I understand the role of SNS in IC's work as a way to "maintain a lot of supporters" (Jedidiah).

I will be posting more about our conversation about SNS with Jedidiah, but I will keep it here for now.

For about an hour, our team showered him with questions and Jedidiah was very supportive and answered each questions with an open mind. Thank you again Jedidiah!

We will be uploading the video clip of the whole interview soon so stay tuned :)