One of CBC radio‘s best offerings, a weekly documentary on the history of marketing and public relations, is not in the fall 2008 schedule. That’s right… The Age of Persuasion will go back into remission, falling into the down curve of the on-again-off-again nature of the show as accepted by the program’s cult following. Fortunately, [...]
Partly to submit feedback and partly to see if they were listening to the online conversation about them, I posted an open letter to Yogi Tea on July 11 (Dear Yogi Tea). I allowed six days for the company to jump at the opportunity to engage with me, a loyal customer with a simple suggestion [...]
It’s like spam that you can’t avoid. In many cases, that’s because the people who send it to you are part of your social network. For me, it means that I may have to ‘unfriend’ myself from people within my network to avoid the clutter. I’m talking about ‘press releases’. I get a lot of [...]
Whitney Hoffman has published a few blog posts this week relating to the demands put upon conference organizers by last-minute registrations (see Your Failure to Plan Ahead is Not My Emergency, Law of Supply and Demand and What Happened to the Social Contract?). I’d like to add another component to the discussion: The rule of [...]
Just as I hit stride putting out fresh content everyday, my computer crapped out on me. So, expect things to be a lot quieter here. I’ll blog when I can. However, my audio production is on hold until my computer gets back from repair.
A while back I blogged about cyberbullying in a post I called Beware the Cyberazzi. My post was largely motivated by my knowledge of a few sites that are dedicated to sabotaging the character and credibility of people in this community. Today, Michael Geist has reported that a B.C court has ordered an Australian man [...]
In response to some requests I’ve received to talk about my workflow and production techniques, I’ve started going through my archives of podcasts to select the productions that stand out for me. I’m going to pick my favourites and do a director’s commentary of them and post them here in the coming weeks. Those will [...]
Have you ever opened a mail message from a friend and thought to yourself “here we go”? This happens to me quite a bit. In many cases the dreaded feeling of being spammed is founded. Not so, today. I opened an email from a long-time friend and former work colleague and read an effective endorsement [...]
I’ve been following some online discussions about children’s books that deal with some of life’s more serious issues. The discussions led me to a book review posted on Amazon.com which concluded by saying “Children have their entire adolescent and adult lives to learn … and should not be subjected to such material before bedtime. Ridiculous.” [...]
Condenser microphones became very popular in the early days of podcasting, likely because condensers give a better ‘real-life’ representation of the speaker’s voice. Many people will argue that condenser mics can make anyone sound great. While condenser mics can give you a great sounding recording, there are some drawbacks. They can be amazingly sensitive. Even [...]
Admittedly, my personal USB microphone experience is limited to a USB headset mic I have for Skype. I have tested it out for recording purposes and was not impressed with the quality. I’ve heard some recordings made with desktop USB microphones, though, and found the listening experience to be pretty decent. One example that comes [...]
It was standing room only at the offices of Overlay.TV today for the second Social Media Breakfast Ottawa. The presenter, Rob Lane, President and CEO of Overlay.TV, shared how his company is turning the passive video consumption experience into one of engagement with viewers in the online world. This podcast features excerpts of Rob’s presentation [...]
You’ve probably seen them used to capture on-field audio during a sporting event. If you’re a movie buff, you’ve may have seen them used in on-location movie shoots or to capture very specific audio in nature and other settings. They look like cattle prods. They are shotgun microphones. A shotgun microphone is very directional (some [...]
When I started doing contract voice-over and audio production work, I realized that I needed to take my audio quality up a notch (or two). This meant making sure the components that make up my audio input chain are good-to-great quality. The first item in the input chain is your microphone. Fortunately, I have a [...]
I just read a great interview by Jim Harrington (Contra Costa Times) with Stewart Copeland, drummer of The Police. Stewart delivers a great response to a question on everyone’s mind to wrap up the interview… Q: Given that experience, do you really believe that this will be the Police’s final tour? A: I don’t know [...]
When bloggers have a bad experience with a product or service, they blog about it. That’s what I did last year after being trapped in a hotel for over an hour during a power failure in a hotel. My initial blog post of the event features a detailed account of the problems and suggestions of [...]
The Just One More Book children’s book podcast will publish its 400th episode this evening, and on Tuesday will celebrate its second anniversary. How is it possible that a hobby podcast has the momentum to hit these milestones in such a short time? It’s not just because Andrea and I publish four shows a week. [...]
Dear Yogi Tea: Part of my enjoyment of your great tea over the last two years has been the affirmations that come attached to your tea bags. While I find some of the messages a bit too flowery for my liking, I have always enjoyed the element of surprise each time I have a tea. [...]
I like to distinguish between dynamic handheld and dynamic studio mics because they are two very different pieces of gear. A dynamic handheld mic is something that you can take pretty much wherever and use pretty much wherever. While the same could be said about some studio mics, they’re not very practical to carry around [...]
If you’re like me, your audio toolkit expands over time and you start to find yourself with a collection of different types of microphones for different purposes; you’ll have your main pieces of gear, and the special-purpose gear. One of my best purchases — and a purchase I recommend to my clients — is lapel, [...]
While walking around the market district of downtown Ottawa, yesterday, we came upon something called a “Kindness Meter”. It’s a parking meter that’s been reassigned to collect small donations for services that help homeless people. The sign reads “The money collected in this meter will be given to community groups dedicated to providing services and [...]
I was kicking myself, yesterday. My family and I took a day trip to Upper Canada Village, a heritage park and living museum of pioneer times, and I left my audio recorder at home. It’s not the first time I’ve been to Upper Canada Village (nor the first time I forgot to carry my audio [...]
I joined the Causeurs Sussex Speakers chapter of Toastmasters one year ago and achieved the goal I set out for myself: to complete my Competent Communicator manual in my first year. In May, I was elected club President of the 2008/09 year and today, served my first day in that role. One of the first [...]
During her presentation at PAB2008, Whitney Hoffman provided her analysis of a fledgling and still relatively unknown podcast network that had great promise when it was launched last September. Whitney outlined what appears to be a breakdown in communications, lack of transparency and possibly the use of bloated claims to market the network to would-be [...]
