Jared: Nice to get a real-person source

Often, while doing small business features or any story in which you interview people at businesses, you get people acting like you're there to put their advertisement in the paper. Canned slogans. Answers that aren't genuine, and are especially uninteresting. People that won't break through that false exterior to be a real person.

Recently I interviewed the opposite. He was a small business owner who owned a home design studio with five employees. His is a fledgling business, so he could have tried to use me for free advertising. Instead, he looked me in the eye, gave me very honest answers. He wouldn't detail every aspect of his business (those that give his competitors an advantage) and I respected that, because I felt he was approaching me as a real person, and I tried to do that with him.

The interview was so interesting it went on for more than two hours, without break. I kept asking questions, interested in how the industry worked and how his business fit into it.

His interview was very refreshing.