You’ll remember my request for your participation and this blog’s participation in Blog Action Day 2007.

Over 20,000 people participated and it moved the message of the environment forward within the social media sphere and within mainstream media as well. Thanks for helping!

On October 15, 2008, we’ll talk about poverty and more than 20,000 people (I think) will again move the message to the fore.

If you blog, you need to participate by clicking here.

If you just read (and that’s cool too) tell your friends about it.

If you’re willing to promote it on your web site, grab some graphics here.

Here’s why:

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

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Tags: blog action day, blogs, commentary, community, public service announcement, social media // 4 Comments »

BUFFALO, New York, August 19, 2008 – – Following in the international spirit of the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, International Voice Talents announced today it has added four new languages to its roster and has added two new voice talents to its group of international announcers. International Voice Talents is the foreign language voice over service of audio’connell Voice-Over Talent.

Languages newly added to the International Voice Talents’ list include Arabic, Dutch, Portuguese and Romanian. Other languages already offered by the company include French, French Canadian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. New audio samples from male and female voice talents fluent in French and Hungarian were added to the service’s web site today as well.

AUDIO SAMPLE
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Media_Release_Audio_Samples/0808_audioconnell_internationalvox_sample_copyright2008.mp3]

“The response from some very talented foreign voice artists has been terrific and the inquires and new jobs from clients for foreign voiceovers has been crazy good since we formalized this service back in April,” said Peter K. O’Connell, owner of International Voice Talents and president of audio’connell Voice-Over Talent.

Both organizations provide professional male and female voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH). Industries served by the two companies include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

Mr. O’Connell also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent around the world.

The three businesses are all a part of O’Connell Companies.
– 30 –

NOTES TO EDITORS

Company Media Releases ON LINE:
http://www.audioconnell.com/media

Company Name Pronunciation:
au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Company Name Spelling:
Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voice-Over Talent

Company Web:
http://www.audioconnell.com

Company Blog:
http://www.voxmarketising.com

O’Connell Voice-Over Resume:
See resume here

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Tags: media releases // Comments Off on MEDIA RELEASE – International Voice Talents Welcomes Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Romania and Belgium

Quite frankly if I were a program director at a radio station, I wouldn’t have hired me in 1982.

I came across some old reel to reels of air checks and production demos from WVUD. The one I have has some technical problems that maybe I can fix but the rest of the world can probably only handle a minute of my God awful jock talk.

I apologize in advance for stealing the next 90 irretrievable seconds from your life to hear a 1985 air check of a 23 year old disc jockey in Dayton, Ohio.

LISTEN:

You have free reign to take me out to the barn in the comment section below, once you stop the bleeding from your ears.

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If you haven’t already, we’d be honored if you subscribe to voxmarketising – the audio’connell blog and podcast by clicking the “subscribe” button on this blog.

If you have previously subscribed, as of August 1, 2008 we’ve implemented a new RSS feed. Please update your subscription now in your reader because as of September 1, 2008, the old subscription feed will go away and we want you to stay!

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Tags: announcers, commentary, radio, university of dayton, voice talent, voiceover, WVUD // 10 Comments »

While I am sure I am late to this wordsmith party (that which I will henceforth describe) I must note that while I think I am always late on these kinds of things, most of the world is a lot later than me so I hope you enjoy this.

I read (or more often scan) blogs and RSS feeds for many reasons with the primary one being my desire to learn new things.

And while learning about new marketing techniques, voice over opportunities and advertising campaigns are great fun, sometimes it’s the writing or a word that gives my day the wonderful epiphany we all seek (or at least should seek).

Today I was reading the Lifehacker blog, subtitled tech tips, tricks and downloads for getting things done. Gina Trapani was writing about email innovation you might want to know about (both still in beta and available now at a store or web site near you).

What caught my attention was this sentence regarding the dreaded and often unavailable “undo” button for emails we immediately regret sending.

At one time or another, all of us have hit the Send button and immediately regretted it. While Gmail offers a nice (and unusual) “Undo” option for most email actions—like labeling messages or archiving them—there’s no Undo once you’ve sent a message. What would be super-useful for those facepalm moments after you’ve sent a regrettable email is the ability to take it back.

The facepalm moment. Immediately I knew what it was but I had never heard it called that. I loved it. But I also knew such a great phrase must have caught on somewhere.

It did. Yes, that’s a site called facepalm.org featuring famous pictures of the dreaded facepalm. There are 530,000 references on Google for facepalm. This will be 530,001

Glad I could contribute.

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Tags: blogs, commentary, google, internet, marketing, peter o'connell, silliness, technology, voiceover // 2 Comments »

It’s been a long day but thanks to Toni Silveri and All Coast Talent, who brought in Pat Fraley to Buffalo, it’s been a good day.

Saturday Pat presented “The Silly, The Subtle and The Serious” on animation, interactive and audiobook voice development. Today, the workshop I attended was “The Billion $ Read” on how to make money reading and recording books. What was nice about this workshop was that Pat gave each participant a billion dollars at its completion. Imagine my surprise!

Having voiced and produced audiobooks, I got strange looks from some folks (mostly outside the VO world) who wondered why I would take a seminar on something I can already do.

Well, ok, I do make money as an audiobook reader and have been for sometime but the point is it’s mostly self directed. To me that’s not good. I can’t be effectively critical of my performance and improve it if left to my own devices. Via the seminar, Pat comes in as a third party omniscient (to coin a literary term) sharing both his professional experiences and his ear on my performance. I need that and I want that from someone whose opinion I respect like Pat.

During the workshop, held at the studios of my friends Alan and Kim at Chameleon Communications, Pat pointed out my strengths and areas I need to work on or could improve on. We all have them but I’m willing to seek out the critique. I will be better for it.

Further, by interacting with my fellow voice talents (some of whom I had never met…I love that) I got to watch their voice acting process, learn from them and share insights. Voice Over is a lonely business most of the time and seminars like Pat Fraley’s are a kind of a meeting of fellow addicts without the ugly baggage.

For whatever it’s worth to you, I recommend Pat’s seminars. You will learn if you listen. You will improve if you’re open.

Now Pat didn’t ask me to endorse him. I only know him professionally, not personally and frankly if he saw me on the street next week he probably wouldn’t know me…teachers like him are always at that kind of disadvantage. But I know good teaching styles and Pat’s is good. I think it’s even improved since I studied with him two years ago.

For what it’s worth, if you can get to a Fraley workshop, I say take it.

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Tags: commentary // 5 Comments »

Everybody’s favorite voice coach Pat Fraley is in town this weekend courtesy of Toni Silveri’s All Coast Talent (of which I am proud and founding represented voice talent). Pat was in a couple of years ago to do a character voice seminar which I attended; he did an updated version today which I didn’t attend, though I will be in attendance on Sunday for his audio book class.

But three who did attend the character voice workshop today are some of my favorite folks from north of the border. I stopped by the seminar on their lunch break today to visit with them.

Elaine Singer and I first met at the first Podcamp Toronto a few years ago and I was very pleased to hear she caught wind of my announcement of the seminar from this blog and reserved her space. While not exclusive to her voice over talents, Elaine explained to me how she was looking to increase her Herbrew-based voice work. She enjoys it quite a bit and it occurs to me know I’ll have to have her send me her demo for the International Voice Talents page.

David and Stephanie Ciccarelli drove in from south of Toronto, London, Ontario to be exact, taking in Pat’s class and sharing some of their insight on the voice over world gained from their business, Voices.com. David and I spent a good bit of time reviewing some of the proposed changes they’ve alluded to on line at Voices.com, which I assume will result in the usual impassioned debate. From what he told me, I think they make sense but I’ll let David and Stephanie unveil it to the masses. Wonderful folks, the Ciccarellis.

I’ll post later how things went at the Fraley audio book class.

UPDATE: Here’s my Fraley review

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Tags: announcers, blogs, commentary, international voice talents, peter o'connell, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog, voiceover meet-ups, voices.com // 2 Comments »