Perhaps one of the bigger challenges faced by white paper writers is coming up with good content. The default course of action is to do a Google search and see what someone else has written on a topic. While this approach can yield valuable information, the best pearls reside inside someone else’s head. Your task is to crack open the right minds and extract the valuable content you need for your white paper.

While I am sure your intuition and psychic powers have gotten you by in the past, why would you want to guess what is important when working on white papers? Someone inside your company or at the client site has the critical information you are looking for.

Here are some reasons we avoid asking questions:

• We hate asking for directions
• We think we know it all
• We do not want to look stupid
• We do not know who to ask
• We do not know what to ask

What is the solution? It is very simple. Start asking direct questions. The key to peeking inside someone else’s head is to ask laser-focused questions.

Let’s examine excellent, good, bad and ugly questions:

Ugly question: Is a data backup plan important?

Bad question: Why is a data backup plan important?

Good question: Can you tell me three reasons why a backup plan is important?

Excellent question: What are the implications of not having a backup plan?

The first step is to ask questions that will elicit the types of responses you are hoping for. Avoid questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Very broad questions will return very broad responses. What makes a question good or excellent are its specifics. Asking for three examples or the implication of something will cause someone to really think about a question and the results are often shiny pearls of knowledge.

Here are some great follow-up questions to ask when you accidentally put forward a bad question in an interview or if the response is bland:

• Can you please elaborate?
• What are some examples?
• Why does that matter?
• What is the implication of your statement to our ideal reader?
• Can you say that another way?
• How would you explain that to a non-technical person?

If you do not fully understand the answer or if you feel the response to your question is missing something, repeat what you just heard out loud. This will bring out further discussion and clarification.

When asking questions related to a list of items, such as the top benefits of a product, it is helpful to ask these types of questions repeatedly:

• Can you provide another example?
• What else?
• Can you think of anything else?
• Are there any last topics worth mentioning?
• Are we forgetting anything important?

A key tip is to remain silent and not attempt to put words in the mouth of the person you are interviewing. Give your expert time to think.

Sometimes it becomes obvious that the person you are interviewing is not the topical expert. It is important to ask who else should be interviewed. You may even specifically state, “Is there another subject matter expert you would recommend I speak to?” Tapping the right brains and asking pointed questions are critical to finding the valuable gems that will provide precious content for your white paper.

About the author: Michael A. Stelzner has performed hundreds of interviews in preparation for white paper projects and is the author of the popular paper entitled “How To Write a White Paper” and can be reached at mike@stelzner.com.

DISCUSSION: Discuss this topic at the WhitePaperSource forum.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2005 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.