This past week, our team’s goal was to gather as much preliminary information as possible for our project through the method of interviews. First, we made a spreadsheet of potential interviewees, which included the names of the local co-ops/freelancers that we could connect with and their contact information. We found many co-ops available online but the ones with the most potential were organizations and people who we knew personally and could connect to more easily.

We also made a list of questions that we could ask them to serve as guidelines for the interview process. The questions mainly revolved around the co-ops/freelancers themselves in their occupations and the relationships between 1. them and other co-ops/freelancers and 2. them and their clients. We then proceeded to contact potential interviewees and schedule interviews throughout the following days.

Here is a list of interviewers we were able to conduct:

Co-ops:
Restoring Roots
A Yard and a Half
Broadway Bike School
Chamber of Cooperation

Freelancers:
Azure McBride
Monica Starr Feldman
Pavika Buddhari
Joseph Lee

From our interviews, some common themes were:

Primary source of networking/referrals is by word of mouth
Always looking for more networking/advertising opportunities and more stable workflow
Interest in local network, but nobody likes meetings/conferences
Fear in competition of other co-ops/freelancers
Social media (Yelp, Facebook, mailing lists) is important for outreach

We hope to learn and utilize this information while moving on with our project. Until next time!