You never know who’s listening, watching, reading.

In today’s day and age of social network-meetup-hi-look-at-me-ing you never really know who’s out there peeking in your website-blog-twitter-facebook-window.

That’s not a bad thing, in fact it can be pretty cool!

I had a wonderful experience at the NYC Voiceover Mixer hosted by Voice Talent Productions last month: a fellow voice talent, who I had never met in person, came up to me and told me how much she appreciated my posts about telephony and how much she learned, and thanked me for the help I had given…virtually. That made me feel really nice!

Earlier this month another fellow voice talent emailed me to say that she had attended NAB in Philadelphia in the fall and that the hugely talented Dan O’Day had used my Twitter feeds as an example of what to do right when using Twitter. Wow….that’s pretty cool!

And now, the latest is that a fellow west-coat Voice talent Jeffrey Kafer – a former Microsoft employee who got laid off last year – got contacted by FOX News to be a guest on the Mike Huckabee show to talk about how he went from employee to full time voice talent. All due to someone having seen one of Jeff’s blog posts.

Now these are all positive examples of putting yourself out there. And they all came about from just being online and doing what we do. Being ourselves. 

This doesn't mean you can't be opinionated and stand by your convictions. (See my friend Peter O'Connell's blog for some great posts that have started some very lively discussions!) 


But I keep in mind something my father told me back in the days before the Interwebz: "Never put in writing - in a letter or otherwise - anything you aren't ready for the whole world to read."  That's even more applicable today.


It just goes to show you that you never know who is watching you, reading what you write and taking notes. They say you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Wouldn't you rather that impression be a good one? When online, it’s probably a good idea to keep it clean and professional ....like this post! :-)

Peace!

Happy New Year!

OK! So it's "that" time of year again...Resolution-time!

What interesting about the concept of "resolutions" is that they usually involve some sort of major sacrifice or herculean effort....losing weight, quitting smoking, getting to the gym more often...Resolutions, frankly have a bad rap because they usually DON'T involve efforts we really want to make ...but rather ones we feel we SHOULD make....and that's why they are so often NOT kept.

On the other hand, when it comes to my voiceover career - that I LOVE - I see resolutions not as bad, but as opportunities to play and expand and grow as a voice talent and a business owner...I WANT to do these :-) What a concept!

My friend John Florian over at VoiceOverXtra.com decided to put a call out to Voiceover talent to see who who would dare put their resolutions out there for all to see. You can check out Take One and Take Two (that's where I was quoted :-) and see what several of us have been brave enough to let everyone know about!

I figured I'd put mine here as well....Here goes!

MY VOICE-OVER NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

For advancing my VOICE ACTING abilities, I will:

1) Attend a Marice Tobias workshop*
2) Attend Dan O'Day's Creative Summit *
3) Attend VOICE 2010 (OK, so I'll be teaching there too: BONUS! :-)
4) Finish the French version of my website and get the word out about it for continued French work
5) Since travel seems to be a theme with me this year, I'll look for a European conference/meet-up/seminar to attend...and visit family while I'm there! :-)*



For sharpening and improving my BUSINESS and MARKETING skills, I will:

1) Keep picking Harlan Hogan and Elaine Clark's collective brains! :-)
2) Keep up on a regular basis with everything Peter O'Connell, Philip Banks and Bob Souer have to say!
3) Finish reading at LEAST these 4 books on my "Business" reading list:
- The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook by Jay Levinson and Seth Godin
- Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
- Positioning by Al Reis and Jack Trout
- Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson
4) Attend another of Barbara Winter's seminars *
5) Catch up on watching Bob Fraser's "An Actor Works" DVDs

* Of course as you may know...these will depend on my securing "mom-coverage".....Anyone want to come over and watch my 92 year old wheelchair bound mom while I go out and play? :-)....gotta get working on that!

Now if you want another way to look at resolutions, check out the article by my friend and mentor Barbara Winter who wrote a great post about this very subject!
10 Things To Do Instead of Making Resolutions

So now that these are in writing I have an official excuse to play, because of course, I HAVE to make sure I keep these wonderful resolutions...because I WANT to!

Happy 2010!
(two thousand ten...or twenty ten...however you say it!)
...and may all your wishes for the year ahead come true!