Wisdom

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on." -

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Facebook Studio

I stumbled across Facebook Studio the other night when I noticed a producer friend had "liked" it. If you work in the creative arts, you may find it an interesting place to share your work and get inspired. They describe it as "A community for agencies and marketers doing great work on Facebook."

Right now they appear to be giving people a chance to win a 30 day freelance job at a top level ad agency. A shot in the dark, yes. But a great way to break in if you've got the goods and a little luck to go with it.

Phantom Producer

Some of you cutting edge imaging producers may already be familiar with Phantom Producer. It's technology for radio stations who may lack time or resources which essentially serves as an "app" that automatically pieces together imaging sweepers. I'd like to see a longer demonstration of how smoothly longer VO tracks and workparts get married together. I think I'd be far too anal to let a machine craft together the most heard voice & elements on the radio station. Seems like it might be easy to let the art get lost in the science.

http://www.radiojinglespro.com/2011/07/26/the-worlds-first-radio-imaging-app

If you have to tell people you're cool, are you cool?

Why do so many people who do what I do, refer to themselves as "a professional voice artist"?  Or better yet, "a full time professional voice artist."

With any other profession inserted in that sentence, it would sound ridiculous. "I'm a full-time professional accountant" for instance. 

Except "stripper". That might work.

NYC is lovely in June

I've been a bit delayed in writing this post but wanted to post some pictures from my trip to NYC in June. I had the immense privilege of finally meeting Dave Foxx, longtime Creative Services Director at Z-100. He and I are both on the roster at Atlas Talent, so it was cool to run into him at the annual agency party during Promax. Dave is so full of knowledge and experience and yet still manages to speak with the utmost humility, which I find refreshing.

It was also great to meet up with my friends Dan & Jason at Chiller-TV who I have the privilege of doing VO sessions with a couple times a week. (You'll see them pictured below along with my awesome agent, Heather Vergo) Those were just the people I remembered to take pictures with, but there were many more new friends made during this year's quick trip to the Big Apple.

The highlight was meeting my sister who came down from Boston for the day. We hit an amazing pizza joint (Empire Pizza at 32nd & 5th for those on the hunt for a great slice), explored a bit and after dark, ventured up to the top of the Empire State Building. Good times!

Friday night inspiration

There's a strange phenomenon that exists for me and my business and maybe you can help me figure it out. I tend to get ultra-motivated on Friday nights going into the weekend. It would be very easy to abandon all else and lock myself in the studio to get stuff done, be it updating demos, scheming up a new marketing idea, or just tidying up the clutter (shocker, I know). Maybe this relates to the fact that when I have to do something, I don't want to do it as much, but when the weekend starts and the pressure goes away, those type of tasks become more fun.

I'm not sure how to capitalize on this motivation without abandoning time spent with family & friends which is plenty rewarding on its own. I guess the trick is to recreate the same set of circumstances somehow during the week, which is impossible without adding a universal vacation day for everybody, say, on Wednesday of every week. Which, come to think about it, is one of my best ideas yet to be born out of a weekend blog post. There's definitely something to this...

The power of a font

I've noticed lately that I can spot a Sprint commercial from the first few frames. Even if the opening scene doesn't make it obvious that Sprint is the advertiser. The secret is in the font. Sprint has brilliantly created (or maybe just adopted) a font that is instantly recognizable, at least to me. It isn't anything special, just slim & streamlined, without any frills. (Italicized Arial?) But they use the same one for everything. TV, web, print and billboards. If radio was any kind of a visual medium, I'm sure it'd be plastered there too. Logos are tried and true, but the power of the font is pretty amazing.

The Power of Words

Is Verizon kicking you to the curb?

Business in 2011 is so very confusing. It used to be, you'd want as much business as you could get. You'd advertise & market accordingly to achieve maximum sales possible. But Verizon seems to be at their tipping point already. Despite ongoing advertising touting the Nations Most Reliable Wireless Network and the news that the iPhone will soon be on it's way to their roster, they are now handing people off to AT&T in some markets because they can't handle the influx. Sounds like the beginnings of a vicious circle, especially for those trying to get away from AT&T because of their lackluster coverage.

Here's a well researched blog post all about it. Thanks to Dave Courvoisier for the link.

More talented homeless guys

My friend Sheri shared a fun video featuring some people you may recognize. The question remains, what about all the OTHER talented homeless guys? ;)