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why famous people are just like you

Sometimes Voice-Over Talents are famous for good things and...sometimes not

Sometimes Voice-Over Talents are famous for good things and…sometimes not

Yes, that’s a picture of a famous person.

To respect her privacy and hide her identity, for this blog post, we’ll call her “Lisa“.

Lisa” is a very famous and well respected voice-over talent and she’s – like I said – famous. She has a model-handsome boyfriend, she has a Westminster Dog Show champion dog, she lives in a mansion with a moat and burns dollar bills for kindling when her staff builds her a bonfire in her living room…just because.

She is beloved by millions including this writer.

Time magazine (yes, evidently magazines ARE still published, to be read in Dentists offices I suppose) just printed a fairly lengthy article seeking “Lisa’s” opinion on US-Russian relations, the economy, fall fashion trends and something or another about voice-over.

But the thing about “Lisa” that you don’t know (and that I do know) is that in spite of all her self-evident glamour and intelligence, she is perfectly normal. Having supped and lunched with her occasionally on her way up the ladder of success I know these three things:

1. She belches like a World War II sailor at the end of a shore leave in New York City
2. She also swears with the deftness of said sailor
3. She has an unnerving affinity, nay, love for extremely unattractive mesh trucker hats

You may be able to say one or two of these things about other famous, not normal people like Beyonce, Lady Gaga or Hillary Clinton…but not all three things.

Therefore, famous people are just like you.

audio’connell in las vegas….finally

Dave Courvoisier (r) and two other voice-over guys on Las Vegas. August 2013

Dave Courvoisier (r) and two other voice-over guys on Las Vegas. August 2013

So I have seen Las Vegas.

And Las Vegas has seen me.

The Las Vegas strip is an interesting place but not one that I need to rush back to anytime soon, which may explain why it took me all these years to get to LAS. As I’m not much of a gambler or drinker…the strip doesn’t hold much interest for me and this time around, I didn’t have time to see any shows because of business commitments.

But what I held out hope for on this trip actually came true in that I got to visit with my friends and voice-over cohorts Dave Courvoisier and Dustin Ebaugh…and their lovely brides. My hope was we’d get off the strip and see some of the less touristy places in LAS and we did!

Obviously we talked about voice-over and Dave and Dustin’s work on WOVO and had a marvelous time talking about a ton of other stuff.

But here I want to make an observation that struck me for many reasons: one, it’s something I took for granted just because I knew about it; two because I’ve seen video of it and it seemed so easy and seamless that I, again, kind of ignored the greatness; three, because I was more focused on this individual’s very fine voice-over work.

The observation is this: Dave Courvoisier is an outstanding television news anchorman. Watching him work live on my TV in Vegas – seeing his promos, he’s fantastic. I know a lot of anchor people, including some in major markets. I know well that there is a lot of mediocrity in the local TV news landscape. That is NOT Dave. He is an outstanding communicator and that is not easy but it’s a critical television news skill. None of this diminishes his voice-over work and in fact, probably gives him an unfair advantage.

And Dustin, well Dustin is just plain sexy but that’s as much as I can say cause, you know, what happens in Vegas…

Seriously, these two families have very busy schedules and I was so lucky that they were both able to come out and show me that there is much more to the city and people of Las Vegas than the strip. Thank you seems like a kind of lame recognition but I mean it with all sincerity.

30 days of logo designs? yahoo!

Yahoo_logo_option

To my shame, I’ve not talked about logos in a while. Most of you don’t share my enthusiasm for logos and you may have noticed over the years how I don’t care that you don’t care about logos like I do. You like scrapbooking and I could care less about that stuff. In this relationship, we respect our differences.

So logos- Yahoo is changing theirs as they try and reinvent themselves. Operationally, with a new CEO and new acquisitions, the word on the street seems positive. So the option of creating a new logo is not surprising.

What is kinda cool about this is how they are going to create a buzz about the change by throwing up a new logo on their site for the next 30 days. I’m going to guess that they’ve looked at probably 5x times that many logo designs since they began the process and these are the top 30. What a great example of how to use the internet successfully. This concept works for me on sooo many levels. Good marketing!

In September, Yahoo will announce their winning choice.