ad:tech SF: Ryan Holmes Demonstrates Serious Interviewing Fortitude

Forget, for a second, about the vacuumy cafe noises and the girl with the crutches in the background. The weather is pretty, Schoggi is cozy and we have pistachio and rosewater macaroons.

Fun fact: Founder/CEO Ryan Holmes of Invoke Media, parent company of HootSuite, has never had a macaroon before. When I ordered them at the register, he asked if they were “Asian hamburgers.” And then I died.

Notes on this video:

1. HootSuite is one of the cooler tools available to marketers on Twitter right now. It has a proprietary URL shortening feature (ow.ly) with a built-in ad and revenue sharing model. HootSuite can also manage multiple accounts at once.

An update, slated for the near future, will boast still more features and turn the HootSuite UI into a cross between Firefox (with tabs!) and TweetDeck. Yeah, that sounds scary, but Ryan assures me they’ve got good info architecture/usability peeps back at Invoke.

I believe everything he says. EVERYTHING.

2. (And most crucial.) Krista Neher (remember her?) tagged along with us for the interview, and in an odd compulsion to be productive she asked if she could record us both.

This interview format makes me uncomfortable — I’m more Louis Malle than Oprah — but she said we should try it and didn’t tell me I had hair sticking up on the side of my head the whole time.

It drives me bananas, but it’s not like you can just NOT post an interview because of flyaways.

Notably, Camera Eye Krista didn’t notice because she was too busy trying not to laugh at Crutches Girl. (Observe how the frame shakes violently when the latter arrives. At this point, both Ryan and I take pains not to look at her.)