We received a package from Andrea Beaty, author of several children’s books including Iggy Peck, Architect (a Time Magazine top-10 children’s book for 2007) and Dr. Ted.

We ceremoniously opened our package this morning and uncovered two boxes of Gummi Bandaids for our two daughters, and three ‘prescription notepads’ that promote her book, Dr. Ted.

What a brilliant idea!

Click on the image to see a large version and take a look at how the text on the pad is used to promote the book and the publishing company. The campaign would have been perfect if it had a URL to the book itself.

Click here to listen to an interview with Andrea Beaty.

It’s been a while since I’ve published outtakes from an interview and with the tight format of my Electric Sky Portrait episodes (10 minutes each), there are plenty. Here are the contents of the virtual cutting room floor from this week’s interview with Stephen Gritt, Chief Conservator, Restoration and Conservation of the National Gallery of Canada.

 

 Electric Sky outtake - Stephen Gritt [10:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

For a thin guy, I sure cast a giant shadow.

Even though I’m always transparent about the collaborative nature of the projects I’m involved in — Canadian Podcast Buffet, Podcasters Across Borders and Just One More Book to name a few — my collaborators including Bob Goyetche and his wife Cat, and my wife, my own wife, Andrea, always seem to be afterthoughts, if thoughts at all, in the eyes of others.

This is not a theory. This is a fact.

Let me offer some examples.

Example One: Comments and questions to the Canadian Podcast Buffet are often sent directly to me. That’s not all. Occasionally the contributor will directly address me alone. I also recall one instance in which Bob introduced himself to someone who was pleased to meet Bob and said something to the effect of “Oh. You’re Mark Blevis’ assistant”. Bob uses a different phrase to describe himself in these instances.

Example Two: Andrea and I have enjoyed a lot of press coverage about our children’s book podcast. While it’s not uncommon for journalists to mistake the odd fact, it’s consistent that the error misappropriates credit to me. And, for all of Andrea’s hours of research for our interviews (2-4 hours PER interview), scheduling and general promotion, our guests and listeners always attribute the success of the interviews to — you guessed it — me. Andrea has a collection of run-on phases to describe me in these instances.

I never chase credit. I never claim credit for things I don’t do. I deflect credit where it is not due. I’m a magnet. Somehow, I just attract credit.

Have you been Blevised?

By the way… Andrea named this post. Really!

Original photo by Mark Blevis Bruce Murray

I’ll be participating in an ooVoo session as part of PodCamp NYC.  The session begins at 2pm and focuses on the use of social media tools (such as ooVoo) to connect and inspire people to communicate in meaningful ways.  I understand that one discussion will explore the use of social media to connect a community in Lesotho, Africa.

When The Police announced their reunion tour in 2007, I told my daughters that I’d dye my hair blonde if they came to Ottawa. While I hoped they would, I never expected that The Police would actually make it here.

I had completely forgotten about my remark when, in February, they announced that they are kicking off the third and final leg of their tour in Ottawa. My youngest daughter hadn’t forgotten.

Today I made good on my remark and had my hair dyed.

Since my hair is too dark and naturally high in red pigment, typical blond, even bleach blonde, is out of the question (it would have come out as some weird Lennox-orange). Instead, I have something that is vaguely blond, more red. Whatever. It’s lighter, I lived up to my comment and I didn’t lie to my daughters. Besides, I think it looks pretty good.

As you may have heard, Ross (Zee and Zed, Dry Shave) had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery last week. Bob Goyetche and I have been in contact with Ross and Karen and have found out what they need and where to send it.

Please send your humourous get well cards by May 5 to:

Zee
c/o Mark Blevis
PO Box 4813, Station E
Ottawa, ON K1S 5H9
Canada

I will forward them on to Ross to enjoy.

During the Ottawa Geek Dinner on Wednesday, a group of us talked about the TED talks. I started asking people about their favourite TED talks and got some great answers (especially from Mitch Joel who had the privilege of being at TED 2008).

It’s amazingly hard to pick them. Having said that, here is my list:

• Sir Ken Robinson
• Evelyn Glennie
• Thomas Barnett
• James Howard Kunstler
• Cliff Stoll

Of course, I could easily list another 20 or more sessions.

What are your Top 5 TED talks?

In the last twelve hours I’ve received several identical (and supposedly personal) Facebook messages from legitimate friends urging me to check out an application that will identify who has a crush on me by sending text messages to my phone (I can only imagine the flood of spam and advertisements that this service has in mind).

It was just a matter of time before hackers and spammers directed their efforts at Facebook. One can only hope that Facebook is taking good care of the personal data based on the settings we have selected within their ‘privacy settings’. Would there be any reason to doubt them?

Today’s Ottawa Citizen features an article by Kate Heartfield about Just One More Book!!, a children’s book podcast I produce with my wife, Andrea. It’s a great article with only one minor mistake — it was actually Andrea’s idea to merge our two passions of podcasting (me) and children’s books (Andrea) to create what has turned out to be an amazingly fun project we do together.

You can read the online version of the article at Books go global from Glebe Cafe. The print version is in the City section, page D5 D4.

Just One More Book!! has also been interviewed recently for the Kerrville Daily Times (Texas) and Parenting Magazine (article expected in July), and has an interview date with the Canadian Parents magazine podcast in May.

Photo: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen

I produce a number of different podcasts. Each one is different from the others in content, delivery and style. Today, I learned something about doing different multiple, unique shows.

It had been a while since I recorded a new interview for the Portrait format of Electric Sky. My approach is very much ingrained, though, and I did my usual research for what is typically a 10-15 minute interview for a final edit of 9 minutes (give or take 15 seconds). Great.

Then, I went to do the interview.

For Portait, given its very tight format, I’ve developed a specific flow and interview approach that works well within my production framework. What I learned is that when you take a break from that approach (it’s been nearly nine months since my last fresh interview for the show) you realize during the interview that you’re out of practice and the way you’re leading the interview is going to mean a lot of fancy editing.

That means, for the first time in about 40 episodes of Portrait, I’m going to have a measurable amount of editing to make it tight. Don’t misunderstand me. My guest was brilliant. I’m just out of practice with my questioning to keep things focussed for a 9 minute final cut and that resulted in about 26 minutes of audio to work from.

Your podcast is a muscle. Exercise it!