OK gang, fun idea time!

As this blog is about voice over (vox), marketing (market) and advertising (tising) I thought we should have some summer fun here and combine all three into a voice talent business card gallery.

Simply email me a decent quality jpeg picture of your business card (front and back if you print on both sides) and we’ll show them here. Email peter (insert the at sign) audio’connell dot com and I’ll post all entries. Maybe we’ll have a card beauty contest and pick a winner…we’ll see first what kinda legs this idea has.

By the way, I’m not a pro at sizing these cards and images to fit the blog so some cards will be bigger and some will be smaller but size does not equal talent…at least in this effort.

Here’s mine to kick things off:

Peter K. O’Connell – audio’connell voice over talent (Card front)

Peter K. O’Connell – audio’connell voice over talent (Card back)

Amy Snively – Female Voice Talent

DB Cooper – Female Voice Talent

Jeffrey Kafer – Male Voice Talent

Liz de Nesnera – Female Voice Talent

Dave Courvoisier – Male Voice Talent (Card Front)

Dave Courvoisier – Male Voice Talent (Card Back)

Karen Commins – A Voice Above The Crowd

Doug Turkel – unnouncer (Card Front)

Doug Turkel – unnouncer (Card Back)

Jodi Krangle – Piece of Cake Voiceovers

Michael J. Schoen Voiceover Services

Scott Pollak – Voice by Scott

Tony Craine – Voice Talent at Work (Card Front)

Tony Craine – Voice Talent at Work (Card Back)

Veronica March – Female Voice Talent

Dave DeAndrea – Male Voice Talent (Card Front)

Dave DeAndrea – Male Voice Talent (Card Back)

Don Goonan – Male Voice Talent

Kara Edwards – Female Voice Talent (Card Front)

Kara Edwards – Female Voice Talent (Card Back)

Sam Mowry – Male Voice Talent

Eddie Eagle – Male Voice Talent

Chuck Brown – Male Voice Talent

Bobbin Beam – Female Voice Talent

Bobbi Owens – Female Voice Talent

Chadd Pierce – Pierce Voice

Mandy Nelson – Dandy Sound

Derek Chappell – Male Voice Talent (Card Front)

Derek Chappell – Male Voice Talent (Card Back)

Rhonda Phillips – Female Voice Talent

James Clamp – Male Voice Talent

George McNerlin – Male Voice Talent

Tricia Basanyi – Female Voice Talent

Barb Miller – Female Voice Talent (Card Front)

Barb Miller – Female Voice Talent (Card Back)

Roger Price – Male Voice Talent

Philip Banks – Male Voice Talent

Louisa Gummer – Female Voice Talent (Card Front)

Louisa Gummer – Female Voice Talent (Card Back)

Dan Harder – Male Voice Talent

Terry Daniels – Male Voice Talent

Tags: advertising, blogs, branding, commentary, community, logo design, marketing, radio, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice // 14 Comments »

i-posts are short updates written on my i-phone using my wordpress blog app.

After about 8 tries last night I was able to download i-phone’s OS 3.0 last night around 10:30 p.m.

It was kinda funny because in my head I thought “I’ll just try one more time and if I get another error message, I’ll deal with this in the morning.” Then bingo…well not super fast bingo as the whole process took an hour in including about 45 minutes to download the 230MB+ file. That could have been Apple’s overloaded servers or my neighbors hogging our cable internet connection. Either way for me it was not unexpected for the first day of availability.

So far what I like best about the new version are two features that I always thought would have part of the first version only because they were on every other darn phone: cut & paste as well as a universal landscape key board.

Those were two reasons I haven’t done many i-posts, my thumbs made too many mistakes. It’s a little better now.

I’ll keep you posted.

Tags: commentary, i-post // Comments Off on i-post – the i-phone’s new 3.0 OS

I was visiting LinkedIn and realized I hadn’t spent much time connect with folks within the groups to which I belong. Specifically, I was reading about folks in the two University of Dayton alumni groups on LinkedIn.

I’m from the UD class of 1986 which does not seem like twenty-three years, one wife, two kids and twenty five pounds ago, but it is.

While I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me – given the news for the past year – I was taken aback by all the UD graduates who are out of work…talented, experienced folks, not simply new graduates (who I’m sure are experiencing job search challenges too.

I’ve got very little to offer these University of Dayton folks who are out of a job right now, no magic pill or super advice.

But I do have my networks.

There’s my LinkedIn network, my Facebook, network, my extensive off-line professional network of colleagues, clients and friends. That’s another thing twenty-three years since graduating from college gets you.

So I posted in both University of Dayton LinkedIn groups the following:

Hi Folks:

I was reading through many of the LinkedIn bios of University of Dayton grads on both UD alumni groups and WOW, are a lot of alumni (talented, experienced UD grads) out of work. This sucks but I’m not willing to just ignore the problem without trying – even in a small way – to help.

I’m fortunate; my voiceover business is going well as is my marketing business. But I understand how hard lean times are so I’ll simply offer this:

IF any of you are in the fields of broadcasting, media, advertising, marketing or web and you want to connect with me, feel free. I’ll accept your connection – even if we never met on campus. You’re a UD grad and that’s good enough for me.

THEN if you need or want an introduction to anyone in my network, ask. I’ll set it up. I’ll open the door – your talent and knowledge will have to keep it open. But I am glad to help get you started.

If you’re in engineering or law (or some other major that didn’t mentioned), my connections simply aren’t as strong but if you think I can help…I will try.

I have no idea if this will work for you or not but the way I see it, it’s a start, it’s free and something good may come from it. In any event, I hope it helps.

Best always,
– Peter

I’ve already made one connection with a person looking for some help and if that’s the only success, then great.

It helped me remember that we are not helpless to help. We ALL have connections but we all don’t think about them and how they can help others (hey, all this just occurred to me today and we’ve been in an economic meltdown for more than a few months).

So my question to you is: what will you do to help? I don’t mean you helping UD grads, unless you want to. It can really be anybody.

But you have to reach out to them…they don’t know you can help. Sometimes, like in this example, it can be electronically by pressing a few buttons. You can find people to help at your school, your neighborhood, your church…or something else, you choose.

And it’s not a heavy load- all I promise is an introduction to someone in my network for people who have shared a common experience with me: we all graduated from the University of Dayton.

In this experience, all I needed to do was realize I could do something…and I did.

So can you, this is just a friendly reminder.

Tags: commentary, community, facebook, linkedin, social media, social networking, university of dayton // 2 Comments »

Do you have one yet? Some people were so excited last week when they came out that they proudly stayed up until midnight to grab theirs when it was first available.

I did not do that. In fact, until I read it on Twitter (which smacks of a bit of irony) I didn’t know Facebook was offering such a tool. And for a couple of days, I thought about it a bit.

Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t mean I spent days thinking about it. I mean when I read about it in a conversation I’d think about it – was it even worthwhile, what was the point- and then move on.

While briefly on the computer Sunday, I remembered, signed in and went to www.facebook.com/username and secured www.facebook.com/peterkoconnell

Overly impressed? You shouldn’t be.

Because a good portion of my voice over brand is…well, me, using my name makes sense. audio’connell voice over talent is a good portion of my brand too but Facebook is all about the person, not so much corporate names.

Why the K? A number of reasons and I’ll explain them briefly because it seems like 1 out of 3 people are kind enough to ask what the “K” stands for.

First, it’s my middle initial representing my middle name: Kinney.

Second, my middle name was also my Mother’s maiden name and I am the only one of the children in my family to carry the last names of both parents.

Third, I think maiden names sometime get the short shrift so I like to promote it a bit (although I am old fashioned, I think wives should take the husband’s last name- let the rebuttals begin!)

Finally, I’ve always used my middle initial on business documents and contracts (even the full middle name on my college diploma).

So you’d think with the preceding rather vain explanation (me, me me!), I would have been there right at midnight a few nights ago on Facebook to secure my spot.

Nah. I use Facebook mostly for fun, not so much for business (although a few folks realize I do voiceovers on Facebook and some business gets done, yea!) So a vanity URL doesn’t have as much branding value as it might elsewhere. But since its free and there may be a chance to do some business, I grabbed it.

For strictly social users, I can see the value of more easily directing friends to your page. So if you haven’t been vain on Facebook today, here’s your chance.

And if you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll friend me on Facebook and all of your social networks.

AND, report back here on what your new Facebook vanity URL is now.

Tags: branding, commentary, facebook, marketing, social media, social networking // Comments Off on facebook’s vanity urls

If your business in any way involves advertising, marketing or social media, this is worth a look.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with the plight of media portrayed in this clip, I was very impressed with the time, effort and talent put forth.

Just to save you a bit of time, after you hear the chorus once, you can zip past it cause its the same lyrics and graphics each time.

I’d tell you to enjoy it but some folks who are living this right now may not completely enjoy this as it may cut a bit close to home.

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, commercials, facebook, google, marketing, media, newspapers, radio, social media, technology // Comments Off on “the year media died” – way creative!

No this isn’t about me voicing news promos for a client TV station, but rather some late breaking news for readers/subscribers to this blog living in Western New York (yes, both of you).

Like me, my friend and neighbor Dave Hassett had the terrible sense to start his own business with some buddies 😉 It’s a Buffalo-centric t-shirt company call Born in Buffalo.

The unique point of these shirts as the web site notes is that “Born in Buffalo apparel designs are instantly recognizable by anyone who has truly known the rewards and risks, the benefits and burdens or the joys and sadness that are unique to the experience of being Born in Buffalo.”

While you can and should buy some of these designs for men, women and children on-line, the Born in Buffalo Crew will also be out THIS WEEKEND (June 13 & 14) at the world-famous and also uniquely Buffalo Allentown Art Festival.

Their booth will be on Allen Street near Elmwood Avenue during the festival, a beer bottle’s throw from Mulligan’s Brick Bar which is also uniquely Buffalo in an alcoholic sort of way.

So check out the shirts and buy something. We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Tags: advertising, commentary, community, logo design, marketing // Comments Off on live, local, late breaking : born in buffalo