Here’s a thought: I was just checking the stats on my Christmas card email blast.

That one email blast with a Christmas card drawing by my daughter was clicked through 830 times (that equates to 830 individual email addresses). That not the impressive statistic.

The impressive statistic is that is was VIEWED as of this writing 1,574 times.

Many people viewed it once but almost 300 people viewed it between 2-17 times!

It’s just a Christmas card right?

Actually, it was more than that…it was creative (all my daughter’s doing) and it was sincere.

Does this make me brilliant? No. I’m sexy, not brilliant….please get that straight. (j/k)

What those numbers (which could be exponentially bigger or smaller depending on your database) represent is people’s willingness, free will and desire to experience something creative…different. And honest.

So real quickly, let’s consider a missed opportunity.

You know what I DIDN’T get in the email once this holiday season? A Hanukkah card. Nobody sent me a Festivus card either.

Did they think I would be put off because that’s not what I celebrate? Heck, someone who thinks enough of me to send me a card for any happy holiday that is so special to them that they want to share it with me I will gladly accept. Wouldn’t you?

What about a St. Patrick’s Day card? Or a Canada Day card? Why not?

(Cue blowhard voice, deep. bellowing and full of gas) “Why Peter, it’s not professional! It might offend!” You know, this may be a personal bias (what offends me might not offend you and vice versa) but for example a Polish person who finds a special, fun, family tradition in Dyngus Day and who wants to send me a note telling me about it so that I might share in that happiness, does not offend me. I am honored even though it’s not my celebration. And I think “that’s different”.

If I saw a $5.00 coupon with that same note, I might question the sincerity of the sentiment

Don’t sell, just be sincere, be unique, be creative. Don’t include a press release, or holiday office hours or anything that screams “Me!” There’s a time and a place for that and certainly it’s still acceptable. But think different. Let’s your prospects become people and let those people see you as something other than a vendor.

Let them see you as a person.

How about we forget cards for a second…what else can you create for folks in your audience that just let’s them know you’re thinking about them?

What can you create that screams “Them!”? That you are thinking of them. Or that you just wanted to share this “fun” or “silly” or “special” something…just because they mean something to you as a person, as a respected individual.

If it were easy, anybody could do it. But you’re not just anybody.

What have you done that really made some client or prospect say “wow” in a good way? Or what ideas are now percolating inside you?

Look, most men (and some women I would guess) look for an excuse not to shave.

Well fellas, in the month of November, we got a whopper!

It’s a fund raiser called Movember and the concept is to raise funds and awareness for Prostate Cancer and other male Cancers all month long.

The facial hair is to create awareness and spur friendly donations for the cause. Cancer has hit my family and I’m sure it has hit yours too.

It also gives men a valid, community based reason not to shave starting November 1st. Done!

My friend Jeff Kafer put out a request to start a team on the VO-BB and now a bunch of us are on there.

Here is my request to my blog readers: Please donate $5.00 to my effort (if you want to do more or less -that’s cool too).

Here is my page to donate on and yes I will post pictures.

Now the rules say I have to grow a mustache and that’s all I am supposed to grow.

But mustaches on me look fugly (if you ask Mrs. audio’connell, she says ANY facial hair on me is fugly). And besides, I’m not much on rules, so I will be growing the goatee again which most people have seen so it will be less annoying. Some folks said they liked it but I think they were being polite. That’s OK

Again, if you can help, I’d be appreciative. Thanks.

As I will be Faffing that weekend, I will not be partaking in the fun but I know some friends of mine who are and I think they’ll have a great time at the Texas Hold’em Poker Classic to benefit the Screen Actor’s Guild Don LaFontaine Voice Over Lab.

The event will take place in Bel Air, California on Saturday, September 24. You’ll have the opportunity to network with some pretty connected people in the voice over world. And it’s a poker night so what’s not to love…I used to enjoy those weekly back in the day.

There are still some seats available and information on the event can be found here.

I find it mildy amusing that in order to get the three voice over guys who live in Buffalo, NY together (yeah there are more, but these are the ones who count -ha!), we need one of our voice over pals who used to live in Buffalo to come back and get us all together.

So former Buffalonian and national voice over talent Diane Merritt (who was one of the youngest professional disc-jockeys Buffalo ever had on air) came back to visit with her family and pulled us VO’s all together for breakfast today over at The Original Pancake House (cause if you want to go out for breakfast, it’s the best place to go.)

Leslie Diamond was there early but had to go and it was great to see her (she’ll be at Faffcon 3) as will Dan Lenard. Diane also got our mutual friend and her fellow radio legend who does amazing voice overs – Bob Taylor - to join us.

Good food, great friends and some fun industry chatter. Thanks Diane for getting us all together.

So my pal and fellow voice talent Diane Merritt pings me and a coupla hundred of her closest friends today about a fundraising walk she is doing for the Alzheimer’s Association. Di’s Mom Gert passed away from complications of the disease about two years ago.

What Diane is NOT doing is asking for donations for her walk (although she’s also not turning them away either). Her goal is to take 10% of her voice over earnings in the month of September and donate that to her walk fund in memory of her Mom. She is willing to work…then walk. A daughter’s devotion knows no bounds.

I hope you’ll support her in whatever way (money, notes of encouragement) that you can.

Here’s Diane to tell you more (and yes, I’ll specifically ask you this one time to please repost this to your favorite social media channels….Facebinkedinwitter – to let as many folks as possible know about her efforts and thank you in advance)

Hi There!

It’s hard to believe that this December it will be two years since I lost my Mom to complications of Alzheimer’s. Sometimes however – it seems even longer than that. My Mom and I were very close – I’d talk to her about everything. I’d call her to share my blues and also when there was exciting news. The last few years of her life however – I knew she had no idea who she was talking to – and it was so sad I couldn’t share my life with her like I used to. I miss her – a lot. I could sit around and cry about it if I wanted to – but I decided to turn this sad energy into something good and I wanted to share it with you.

Coming up October 22, 2011 here in Greenville, SC, the Alzheimer’s Association will be holding “Walk to End Alzheimer’s”. In fact – there will be walks all over the United States! Just so you know – I am NOT asking you for money, times are tough right now. But here’s what I’m gonna do – I will be taking 10% of my earnings during the month of September to fight this terrible disease that stole my Mother from me. Now – what I AM going to ask of you – is for work! The more work I have in September, the more I can donate. If you or anyone you know needs a voice over for a commercial, narration, eLearming project, phone greeting, on hold message – please feel free to contact me.

Oh and if you are interested in walking for this cause – here is a link to find a walk near you http://www.alz.org/walk/

I know the walk here in Greenville is like only 2 miles, so it’s not like one of those walks that the further you walk the more you raise.

If you’ve lost a friend or family member to Alzheimer’s – I am so sorry. If you have a friend or a family member in your life who is currently suffering with this disease – be as patient as you can with them. I know what you are going through. It’s hard, I know. But one day I hope they can find a cure for this. It truly sucks.

Now – if you do want to make a donation it would certainly be appreciated and you can do so by clicking this link http://walktoendalz.kintera.org/greenville/DianeCMerritt
But again – don’t feel obligated. Knowing you are cheering me on – October 22nd – will put an extra bounce in my step!

Thanks for your time!

Diane Merritt – Merritt Media Productions

Well if you haven’t, Bob Souer and CC Heim can fill you in!

Just click here.

Maybe I’ll see you in Hershey, PA in September!

Yeah OK, I get that a new Twitter background is NOT that exciting a topic for a blog, what with everybody using TweetDeck and the like; nobody ever sees one’s Twitter home page.

Well somebody might and if you click on my page you’ll see it now.

Why is it important? Well I had my last Twitter background page designed JUST before Twitter switched to a new page layout (bast—-!). So I went a year ignoring the ill fitting background page just to spite Twitter.

Twitter called me recently and asked if I would update my background page and apologized for changing the page layout right after I’d gotten the design done.

So being the forgiving type, I said sure and now alls right with the world.

Please Tweet to everyone about this exciting news. Why? Because you can!

And it’s over 50% full after just two weeks. (The question to ask is how the heck is Amy Snively the TWENTIETH registrant to her own conference?)

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

For voiceover aficionados, there are a ton sites offering information about voice over (I’ll address that informational abundance in a future post).

But a newer service called Scoop.it basically allows people to pick a topic and then cull their favorite blog posts into a daily email that people sign up to receive. It’s kinda like RSS wrapped up in a prettier bow.

FM Voiceovers & Dave Courvoisier put together one on voiceover that features posts from a variety of sources (today all three stories in their daily email were from this very blog which is a synonym for “slow news day”) and it’s a great read.

There’s probably a billion pages on VO out there within Scoop.it but the ones I quickly found were:

George Washington III has a collection of his voice over posts here.

David Houston has corralled his posts on this page .

Sirenetta Leoni has a nice selection of blog posts here.

You should check them all out and sign up for the ones you like.

Sometimes I forget that people actually read this blog.

Saturday night, my agent Erik Sheppard from Voice Talent Productions called me (I was hoping it was for a gig but was pleased to hear from him none the less) about Mary McKitrick’s EMMY-less EMMY win. He read my blog post and it really bugged Erik (as a voice talent and as Mary’s agent too) that she got stiffed on receiving the award with the “Wild View” Regional EMMY win for best audio. Mary, as you’ll recall, was the narrator on that series (a pretty major part of the audio team in my opinion and evidently Erik’s too).

And Dave Courvoisier’s opinion too because Sunday Courvo called me with all sorts of ideas about getting Mary her award and would I help etc. Meanwhile, poor Mary is fairly unaware that all this is brewing save for the supportive calls she’s been getting from her fellow talents and representatives on her win sans award.

So in a democratic society, we did what all people do when they feel wronged – Erik, Dave and I (mostly Dave cause he knows how to push the social media buttons best) started a Facebook page. The purpose of the “Statue for Mary” page is to centrally organize enough on-line support to gain the attention of the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences to change the structure of their awards program to include voice actors as awards recipients in some manner…and get Mary her EMMY.

The Facebook page is here. Please “LIKE”, share and comment on it if you are supportive of its objectives which are stated on the Facebook page as follows:

Mary McKitrick, an experienced and talented voice over artist, was recently engaged to serve as narrator in the beautifully produced wild life series “Wild View” (www.wildviewseries.org).

With Mary as one part of a truly talented team of media pros on this series, “Wild View” has received many deserving honors, including the regional Emmy Award for “Best Audio”.

Unfortunately, the Emmy Awards do not recognize the narrator (in this case, Mary) as part of the audio team in spite of a narrator’s significant contribution to project’s like “Wild View” and many series and documentary programs like it.

So the attention getting goals of this page, completely created without Mary McKitrick’s participation, is twofold:

1. Secure for Mary McKitrick her well-deserved EMMY Award as narrator on the “Wild View” EMMY Award winning audio production team

2. Encourage the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences to review and update its award criteria to include either categories for or the inclusion of narrators as EMMY Award recipients in its regional and national awards

Actors get EMMY’s. Voice Actors (narrators) evidently get bupkis. That just seems wrong.

If you agree that these two goals are worth supporting

1. Please add your “LIKE” to this page

2. Please share this information with others who you think would support this page’s goals and ask them to come “LIKE” it too

3. Please also write about this page, it’s goals and your supportive thoughts about this project on your blog, twitter page or any other social media channel you feel worthwhile (links are a good thing)