There’s a road near the Buffalo Niagara International Airport which tunnels under one of the airport’s main runways (depending on wind direction any particular day).

This year this road has provided me with two surprises – both airplane related and none of them tragic or dramatic fortunately.

Early this summer as I was driving down the road in front of me taxied a plane that was blue on the bottom and white on the top carrying that familiar “Engravers” like font that said “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. When you are used to seeing “Southwest“, “U.S. Airways” or maybe “JetBlue” taxiing in front of your car, seeing what looked like Air Force One kinda stops you in your tracks.

Well it was not Air Force One but it was (as I found out later) the First Lady’s plane (I’ve no idea of its airborne call sign) who was attending a fund raiser. Maybe not fascinating reading for you but some five months later I remain impressed by what I saw.

The second airplane surprise happened this morning on the same road as a plane was landing (or just taking off…I was driving after all so I’m not going to be 100% on plane details). This was a JetBlue plane with completely unique markings near its underside similar to the picture above.

This Jet Blue plane with its Yahoo and Blackberry sponsored in-flight internet access was a fairly new tool that Jet Blue offered (this article fills in the blanks).

As an active flyer I am desperately hoping all airlines get with this program fairly quickly (and keep it free for goodness sake) so that airtime can be oh so much more productive and, dare I say, enjoyable?! Hint, hint U.S. Airways!

Wouldn’t you like in-flight internet access too?

Tags: advertising, commentary, internet, marketing, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I am such a computer dolt that I firmly believe that when God created the computer repair man He used a picture of me as the ideal cash cow, er, customer in the training.

But because as I get older I not only realize how much I don’t know but also how many of my peers are also faking it, I am more willing to share my shortcomings. That’s because I’m pretty sure you’re a dolt as well but you just hide it better.

With all this in mind, I share with you an article from the Lifehacker blog that helps provide you will simple steps to cut down on the time it takes for your computer to boot up.

At one time I think I knew some of this stuff but I know between kids and work this stuff just seeped out of my ears.

For a few of you, this info will be way too rudimentary. But for most of us, enjoy the speedier start to you day.

Tags: commentary, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sound absorption and even sound proofing (a bit more expensive and more tricky) are usually on the front or back of most voice talents’ minds. Why?

Because in spite of the authority and brilliance we convey on a daily basis with our magnificent voices we collectively are not all the audio technology experts you might assume us to be.

Well of course I am but that’s also because I am also a grotesquely rich, tall, good looking, male model.

But since you are not me and thereby not flying on the same mind foggy ego wave that I do you might be interested in this piece of news.

Auralex Acoustics has conceived a new way to help a voice talent part with their hard earned money to be both consulted about and then one has to assume a consumer for their acoustic products.

They have a plan to do off-site room acoustics analysis and on-site (way more expensive).

Depending on your circumstance, it might be of benefit to you to check it out here.

If you use the service, let me know how it went. If you decided against it, tell me why also, if you would. Thanks.

Tags: announcers, audio production, commentary, technology, voice talent, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

During my morning Reader reading (remember when we used to read something called a newspaper? Ha! How passé) I came across (Oh, well, yes I still do read a newspaper too. Anyway…) a blog post on Linked In allowing new applications to be integrated on to someone’s Linked In page. Very tight restrictions, as is the LinkedIn way but I went and saw a video about the apps to see if I wanted to add one or two.

There was a Word Press app that I kinda understood and since my blog is a Word Press blog, I added it. Or I think I did, I’m not sure. Nothing really happened when I added it so you may see it on my profile or you may not. Sometimes my button pushing on computers is less than stellar. In real life I can be an excellent button pusher but that’s not always seen as a good thing.

Any way, goodness such rambling today….the point I was trying to get to before these tangents in my head kept over taking my fingers on the keyboard was that I was surprised to see I now have 315 connections on LinkedIn. I didn’t think it was up that high but I also wasn’t following its growth like a tote board at a telethon either.

I’m a pretty open connector / networker on LinkedIn, I guess a Lion or LION (their emphasis) is a group nickname for it. Yet I am not really aiming for the 500+ moniker, the magic number where LinkedIn stops tallying one’s connection count (I guess that makes me a bit of a remedial Lion, possibly the runt of the litter). Once you learn some tricks its really not hard to get heavily connected. I think its fine if somebody WANTS to do that but for me I always come back to one question.

Why?

Why not grow somewhat naturally, organically to use the search term, with people you have a connection with in real life, already have a connection with on-line or have a reasonable or likely opportunity to develop a business relationship in the future? Occasionally I feel like I might be connecting with someone just to be polite. Damn you, Emily Post! 😉

Strictly for purposes of example, I’m connected with a couple of LIONS who are Human Resource Managers (lots of those professionals live on LinkedIn it seems to me) who may want a shot at connecting with my contacts but I’m not going to likely do business with any of the HR folks. I sometimes wonder if I’ve made a (very minor with no disrespect intended) mistake simply accepting that kind of connection. Or maybe they’ll offer me a million dollar job that will change my life.

Granted, LinkedIn allows you to use your database to communicate via email outside of LinkedIn in a professional way. I let people know in my profile that I will communicate with them in this way (although one person long ago evidently couldn’t read and accused me of spam; it was no one of any consequence anyway) and I do update these folks on my businesses.

My goal though is to have my business communication mean something to them, to have it seem logical (i.e. “Oh, I have a video production company and this voice talent just sent me his newsletter and since we use voice talent on occasion, receiving this newsletter makes sense!”) Worse than being accused of spam, I would hate to be accused to wasting someone’s time.

If LinkedIn is to have professional value to all of us (and certainly it can also have personal value as well) quality should be the prime directive not quantity. But if I get to 500+ contacts….be assured it will only be because quality begot quantity.

And if you actually read through this entire blog post, especially if you didn’t feel like commenting, just type in the word “finished”. Then I’ll have to think of some prize to give you for muddling your way all the way down here. I’ll start with saying thanks! And of course I want to connect with YOU.

Tags: commentary, technology, UNICEF, voice 123, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

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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