I love telling people about my job as an editor for LifeBook. People are, without fail, fascinated by the idea and overwhelmingly positive. The phrase I hear more than any other is: \u201cI wish I\u2019d done that for my parents\/grandparents. They used to tell me these stories and I never really listened, but now they\u2019re gone I wish I had listened and made a note of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without realising it, they\u2019re echoing almost word for word what Roy, the founder, says. He wanted to record his father\u2019s memories for posterity, and he realised that face-to-face interviews were the perfect way to achieve that. Using an interviewer from outside the family introduced an element of objectivity and impartiality that is so important to compiling a life story, and the personal contact was another huge bonus.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Roy\u2019s father passed away before his book could be finished.<\/p>\n
Roy was adamant that the human, face-to-face interviews should continue, even when the company expanded to having global reach. That\u2019s why, when COVID-19 struck earlier this year, we were concerned that we wouldn\u2019t be able to carry on conducting interviews as we had before.<\/p>\n
We have had to adapt to this \u201cnew normal\u201d by transitioning to phone and video-call interviews, and the reaction has been absolutely fantastic. Our project managers have been hard at work training interviewers and authors in how to use the technology, and their hard work has paid off. One memorable author, who had never used video-calling technology before, told us that they\u2019re \u201cdelighted\u201d that they can now call their family and \u201csee them for the first time in months\u201d.<\/p>\n
None of this would have been possible, though, without our flexible and open-minded authors. They\u2019ve been receptive, supportive and positive, which has made a huge difference.<\/p>\n
One author who adopted the new remote interviews, Gerry Gooch, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an 82-year-old, I am not IT literate in any sense of the word, so when I learnt that the next interview for my LifeBook was going to be with Zoom I shrank back into my shell in alarm.<\/em><\/p>\n However, after a little help I was soon up and running, with Zoom installed on my recently acquired smart phone.<\/em><\/p>\n I must say that I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable the whole experience of my Zoom interview was. I didn\u2019t need to get another chair into my quite small study for my interviewer to sit on or even to make him a cup of coffee!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n
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