This month I'm prototyping new ways of doing interviews and one of our first euforia Trainees volunteered as one of my first guinea pig. (The other prototype is here).
Cihan Gedik organised imp!act Zürich in 2014 as a part of our euforia Training Programme. He's currently studying a Master's degree in Management, Technology and Economics (MTEC) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) in Zürich.
These days, Cihan is particularly busy working on his Master's research about social entreprises and scaling strategies, and he chose euforia as case study (... he's not the first one, but we're always super proud and grateful for having students interested in our work). That's why I decided to do my interview with him using my phone and texting my questions... This first interview "on the go" went like this:
— hej Cihan! all good?
Hey Javi, all good and you
— pretty fine 😊 wanna start the interview?
Yep!
— Then please could you introduce yourself. Why do you think I’m interviewing you today? 😊
Sure. I'm Cihan, frenchman with turkish roots. Im currently finishing my studies in zürich! It will sound cheesy but I do love red wine and cheese a lot.
Why you are interviewing me. Well, I guess its mostly because of the fact that im doing my masters thesis with euforia and organized impact before!
— could you tell me more about your master thesis, what’s your subject about and why did you choose euforia?
The thesis is at the intersection of scaling strategies, scaling capabilities and social-economic tensions in social enterprises! I chose euforia for several reasons. The first one is the fact that I know euforia, I appreciate what they are doing and I enjoyed to be part of the eTP and to organize impact in zurich. The second one is that euforia fits perfectly in these topics. The last one is that Im really happy to contribute to the impact of euforia at my level
— 👍🏾😀 and why/how come are you interested in social entrepreneurship? I mean, the range of topics you have in your field of studies is quite broad.
I always enjoyed the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, economics. On the other side, i strongly believe in our generation to make big changes and create lots of social wellbeing. Social enterprises are exactly in the middle of these two areas
— Let’s to come back to your case study: us 😎
How are you carrying out your research? and how has your experience been so far?
Its going great! Im working closely with David, the interim COO and i have a supervisor a the ETH. I finished the theoretical part and started the practical part that is focused on impact. David and I collected quantative/qualitative data with a survey a few weeks earlier and Im conducting interviews to gather qualitative infos!
Its great because the picture gets clearer with each interview im having
And its great to discuss with the people im interviewing, they were really cool and gave good infos until now!
— Has anything in your research surprised you so far? 😉
Sure! But I cant really generalize them since i could only interview a few people. One interesting point was the tension between being flexible and having guidance on the organization of the event. A second point was the difficulty/unclarity of the marketing/communication for impact
— Interesting 🤔 So, after you finish the interviews, what’s next? – with regard to your research
Analysing all the precious info I got!
And making sense of it
Just got a phone call with David and a person from Dalberg, a consultancy who is going to work pro bono for euforia and help us too!
— ...and any future project a part from your research/university?
Yes! Im planning to start a blog with a couple of friends about digitalization!
— Before we finish, from all the emojis, please send me the one (or a mix of many) that best represent or describe euforia
🎵❤️🎊🔛🌐
— hahaha nice... and the one/s that best represent or describe you?
👌🏻🎅🏿🌍☀️🍉
— Merci Cihan! It was great “texting” to you! I hope you enjoyed answering my questions and this new format that I’m trying
It was great! Really love the format
Its nice to be on the fly and spontaneous
— hehehe yes, I liked that too 😊 have a super weekend and all the best with your research! 👊🏾💥
You too man! Thanks a lot for your time, have an amazing weekend
— 👍🏾🐵