I hope, if you’re going to be within 2-3 hours of Toronto on February 21-22, you’ll stop by Rogers Communications Centre at Ryerson University for Podcamp Toronto 2009.

To learn about social media at any level (newbie, intermediate, pro) and maybe even more importantly to actually meet the people who make up the community, this event is unparalleled.

The event is free. The people are smart and friendly. Go there.

It looks like this event will conflict with my son’s birthday party on Saturday (discussions are on going though I do prioritize birthday cake over podcamps) but I fully intend to be there on Sunday.

Tags: blogs, community, internet, pcto09, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2009, podcasting, social media, social networking, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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My thanks to my fellow voice over talent Doc Phillips who has taken his Speak Easy blog one step further by publishing his favorite motivational and education blog posts from other voice over blogs, including voxmarketising.

Check out his post here to also read great blog posts from Dave Courvoisier, Bob Souer, Liz de Nesnera, Bobbin Beam, Willie Edwards, Elaine Singer and Bryan Cox.

It’s an honor for this blog to be recognized in such a way and especially to be included with such great voice and writing talents. Thank you for your efforts Doc!

Tags: blogs, commentary, community, social media, voice talent, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Facebook has been on my mind this weekend as certain audio’connell siblings have dipped their toe into the water, took a look around the platform, drank a bit of the Facebook kool-aid – whatever.

So in my early morning reading, I came across this fine and evolving tutorial on using Facebook from my friends at Social Media Universe – Global. Now, they don’t know they are my friends but as a subscriber, I feel I get to call them names and that’s the one I chose.

Anyway, if you want to learn about Facebook and its many uses under the radar, so that you can appear to be an instant expert to friends who won’t know your educational secret (as it that one of the more fun aspects of the web) this page may be of interest to you. No doubt there are other pages on the web like this but these guys get the attention here today.

And if you’d like to friend me up, here’s the place to start.

(Ed. Note – No, there will be no “go out and vote” posting today. After this ridiculous long and expensive 2 year election cycle (and yes, I made money off it) if you’re so out of it that you need a reminder from ME to get out and cast your vote, then you are probably too “out of it” to be trusted with such an important task anyway.)

Tags: audio'connell voice over talent, blogs, commentary, facebook, social media, social networking by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Some fairly discombobulated but enjoyable reading from my blog reader today with thanks to all the authors.

Even I know I don’t always say THE most interesting things everyday…variety is the spice of life.

Computers link directly with the brain (Life Hacker) – The opportunities with this technology are wonderful and a bit frightening. But isn’t everything.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Turning your favorite blogs into a printed tabloid (Twist Image Blog) – Hewlett Packard has created software called Tabbloid that takes any blog feed that you enter and creates a print out overview for you to read…sort of a Cliff Notes version of your RSS feed. Seems like this is just a seed of a bigger idea but you gotta start somewhere. Thanks Mitch Joel.

Scribbling on business cards (BryanPerson.com)- I met Bryan Person at PodCamp Boston a few years ago (he wouldn’t remember me) but he’s a very smart and likeable fellow who has fostered the Social Media Breakfasts around the country, which makes him a great networker. Well his blog today talked about creating business cards with enough white space to scribble notes on. My new cards have some room for scribbles.

Getting the best travel rates? (Life Hacker)- If you’re not sure use one or more of these five sites to help you compare. I’ve used Kayak with some success. But my travel experience also tells me that some days (and even some minutes, it seems) its a crap shoot.

And the new host of Meet The Press is? (New York Times)- Care to place your bets?

Tags: blogs, CBS News, commentary, NBC News by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Got word last night off the wiki from Connie Crosby that Podcamp Toronto is set for February 21 and 22 again at Ryerson University (a great set up for the camp).

Now I am pretty sure already that some how that date could interfere with my son’s first birthday party unless we do it the weekend before or the week after….and if you’ve got people traveling from out of town, the later in February they have to travel to Buffalo, the better. So we’ll see how THAT discussion goes.

But be that as it may or may not, save the date and stay in touch. It should be great, especially if YOU are there.

Tags: blogs, commentary, pcto09, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2009, podcasting, social media, social networking, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I was recently feeling overwhelmed, being unable to get my head around my personal organization and time management. It’s ultimately a good thing because it was my internal manager telling me to stop, drop and re-tool.

The main culprit of my concern was all of my own doing. It was my RSS feeds….all the blogs and news feeds I subscribed to got to be too much. I would open the reader up and there would easily be over 500 posts. A day. Every day.

No way in h-e-double hockey sticks did I read all those posts, many on technical issues that I wanted to try and understand but more often than not came away feeling more like an English speaking student in a French high school. Nothing made sense and my shot at a prom date was nil. Even on other non tech posts there was a bunch of content too that I felt obliged to scan. Crikey!

I needed to hold an intervention with myself. Armed with a delete key and an itchy index finger, I started cutting and deleting and I felt much better. I was reading stuff from people I thought I should follow but it turns out they didn’t keep my interest (and I’m sure people could and have said the same about me…posts like this don’t help my cause.)

To now scan about 150 posts in my main areas of interest with people whose content I more closely value is a cake walk. Again…I scan all and read some. But to start with such a big number as I used to really made me feel overwhelmed. Now, not so much. It used to be hitting “Mark All As Read” was a kind of a white flag, a surrender of sorts for posts that I would never get to. Now it’s cause I scanned and am done. Much better feeling.

How are you at managing your RSS habit?

Tags: blogs, commentary, internet, social networking, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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