Behemoth Voice-Over Jobs

{ December 11, 2009 @ 9:53 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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I do voice-over jobs which are one-offs — the customer needs literally one recording — ever — and that’s the last they need of my services. I have many, many customers who need me to voice for them on a regular basis — several times a month, let’s say. And yes, I do have clients who hire me each and every day to voice for them.

But there are those other projects which arise — once-in-a-lifetime projects — massive in nature, requiring a huge committment of time, and multitudinous printer cartridges. I call these The Behemoths — projects which call for discipline, consistency, and a whole lot of congratulation when they’re done, out the door, and all post-production and redos are taken care of. Here’s some examples of such projects I’ve worked on:

1. The Now-Famous Names Directory

A couple of years ago, a large healthcare consortium in Calfornia hired me to voice what seemed like an impossible project: a database of a million of the world’s most common proper names. The intention was to create a very intutive auto-dialer which would call patients and let them know about changes to their insurance policies or alert them to upcoming medical appointments in a very personalized manner (“This is a call for….GREG MASON…..you have an upcoming….CARDIOLOGY…appointment with…DR. STEVENSON…..at….SOUTHWEST CARDIOLOGY PARTNERS….on….FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9th…..at….8:30 AM….”) There was also an appealing factor of satisfying privacy laws, with several steps of authentication involved to make sure they were relaying the message to the intendee. They sent a laptop with the names pre-loaded into it, which luckily dispensed them in no particular order (they randomly spewed names as opposed to it going through the lists alphabetically.) These names — despite having the mandate of being “the world’s most common names” actually ventured into oddball land, with names like “Hercules” “Pine” “Dreamboat” and “Creampuff” being a common occurance. I found myself compiling lists in my head of various TV character names to see if I could accumulate entire cast names (I was frustrated by my “Sopranos” list: I had said: “Tony” “Silvio” “Pauly”, “Carmella”, “Ritchie”, and most others — no “Meadow”. I gave up hope of “Big Pussy” ever surfacing — and it never did.)  The project lost funding and never quite made it to a million names — we have approximately 250,000 +. Still a very respectbale and usable database, which would have massive uses not only in healthcare, but in Government, military, institutional — the possibilities are limitless — AND — it’s available for sale. If interested, contact me at allison@theivrvoice.com.

2. The PetSmart Store Finder

I was hired by PetSmart to voice their Store Finder Systems (the feature where callers can enter or say their zip or postal codes and get a verbal listing of the stores nearest them) — I had done similar store finders for Diesel Jeans and Marshall Field’s, but nothing on this scale. The initial script contained 900+ store addresses, and each store then had to have a file speaking the hours of the retail stores, grooming salons, and Pet Hospitals, if applicable. It was a long, involved, and arduous task. It required me to set aside 3 hours a day, but once that initial recording was complete, there’s been wonderful recurring work every week as they continue to open and modify stores.

3. The Cepstral Text-To-Speech Allison Voice

I was commissioned by Cepstral — one of North America’s largest Text-To-Speech developers — to have a TTS model built on my voice. Since my voice is already very prevalent on many existing systems, this product would dovetail well with prompts which come pre-installed with many systems — most notably, Asterisk. I was given a modest telephone-book sized script of non-sensical statements (ie: “Molly put her on red jacket and left at noon”) and they feed these statements into a speech synthesis utility which breaks them into phonemes and sub-phonemes. The more material read, the greater the sound “library”, the more expanded the sound possibilities — and the smoother the finished product. Check it out at www.cepstral.com/demos , type in anything, and I’ll say it!  (You can even add effects like “Dizzy Droid”, which some my argue is my natural preset.)

As much as I love the brief “sprint” assignments, I really love knowing when I have huge Behemoth lurking over me every day, which needs daily care, attention, and a huge feeling of accomplishment which only comes from a huge mission accomplished on time and on budget.

Next posting: I’ll discuss the “human” factors which affect announcing — and IVR announcing — in particular. (Hint: cold & flu season is here!)

The Original Telephone Lady

{ December 4, 2009 @ 9:53 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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She set the standard for all of us in the IVR Voicing business — best known as the “Time Lady”; for recordings she made for Bell, and for voicing some of the earliest voice mail systems. Jane Barbe was truly a pioneer in the area of IVR voicing, and someone to whom I hold a huge debt.

A Drama major at the University of Georgia, and a former professional singer (she toured with the Buddy Morrow Orchestra), Barbe began reading automated messages for the Audichron Company (now known as ETC), which led to voicing intercept messages and various other IVR platforms.

Her scope of work was international, recording for clients in Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, and numerous other countries, including handling systems for Australian callers — and perfectly taming her Southern dialect to nail the Australian accent — no small feat, I can tell you.

Jane Barbe set an incredibly high standard of professionalism and helped a tremendous number of companies establish a strong, professional identity by lending her voice to the very framework of a company’s profile: their telephony persona.

Barbe died from complications from cancer in 2003 at the age of 74, leaving behind a strange legacy of telephony prompts which are still in use today and likely will be in perpetuity.

I have to admit to becoming weak in the knees when one of the attendees at the very first Astricon called me “the Next Jane Barbe” — I can only hope to reach her heights and maintain the high level of quality Ms. Barbe established.

Any good Jane Barbe stories or rememberances? Feel free to leave a note in the “comments” section!

Next blog: I’ll discuss some of my biggest, most arduous voice jobs — and no surprise: they’ve almost always afforded the best sense of fulfillment, too!

When “Automated Me” Comes Back to Haunt Me

{ November 27, 2009 @ 4:08 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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It was pretty early, and I was very groggy, but there was no mistaking it:  it was me on the phone. I was in Dallas, and scheduled a hotel wake-up call for 7:00 AM. When I picked up the receiver it was….me. Waking me up. About a year before that, I was working away at home one day and received an automated call from our local cable company, saying they were working in the area and that service might be disrupted — it was only after about a half an hour of resuming work did I realise that I had voiced that greeting a couple of weeks previous to that.

Friends and associates tell me all the time that they get automated calls from me regularly or encounter me while on hold — a Digium staffer recently came up to me at a convention and said: “Yes, Allison, I received my Yellow Pages! And no, I don’t need additional books!”

It’s only inevitable that I should encounter myself in my “automated form” at some point — and I find it hard to conceal my frustration in not knowing — any better than a lay person — how to maneuver efficiently through even IVR trees which I’ve voiced myself.

It’s particularly disconcerting when I’m trying to communicate with a voice-driven system (guided by the customer’s spoken requests) and they can’t understand me — and I’ve *voiced* the prompts for the system. Case in point: I call a large wine distributor in California to order a thank-you for a client. It’s *me* on the system, greeting me, and asking me what I can do for me today (it gets worse). I say — clear as day — because that’s hopefully what I’m good at — “PLACE ORDER.” There’s a dramatic pause, and then “I” say (to ME, mind you..): “I”m sorry, I didn’t quite get that. Let’s try again. You can say ‘Marketing’, ‘Warehouse’, “Accounts payab — “

“PLACE ORDER!” I yelp. Another significant pause.

Automated me sounds slightly pleased when I come back on the line, as I say: “OK! I think you said: (pause) ”Overseas Distribution”.

Gah!

Another well-documented incident in which my own voice totally let me down (and actually seemed like it was plotting against me) was when I voiced the IVR for Unwired Buyer, the feature of EBay which will call your cell phone to let you know when you’ve been outbid. It’s no secret that I’m a big EBay-er, and it was only a matter of time before I’d “get the call”. My cell went off one afternoon, and it was “me” telling “me” I’d been outbid on…probably a handbag. I quickly text in what I think will be a sufficient bid and smugly sit back. I come back on the line and say: “You’ve entered: seventy. five. dollars. and. fifty. cents……however, you are NOT the highest bidder!”

Did I just sound slightly…taunting? Perhaps evil? I know I didn’t have it in my mind to do it that way when I voiced it, but in this context, I sound positively lofty!

Frantically, I enter another bid — which is again shot down by me, this time with the admonishment: “Hurry! Your item is about to get away!” Trollop! Don’t pressure me! Exhausted, nerves shot, I enter what I’m convinced will be the victorious bid — until I come back on the line and say: “Sorry — bidding has closed for this item. You have been outbid. Better luck next time.”

Did I just sound….smug? Like I was — dare I say — dismissed? By me?  It’s like my telephone persona was rooting for this other woman to walk away with my handbag. (I even suggested to my client at Unwired Buyer that we re-record the “fail” prompts to sound gentler; more encouraging — he replied: “No! We LOVE them! People get mad and enter bids all day long!” 

My voice has almost become a separate entity — something that has an existence without me, and as I’ve illustrated, regularly comes back to bite me.

Next blog: I’ll write about the legendary Jane Barbe — the original omnipresent “Telephony Lady”; she set the tone for the rest of us!

Is It Hot In Here — Or Is It Just IVR Hell?

{ November 20, 2009 @ 3:35 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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It's not the Bat Phone -- It's Hell Phone

I recently stumbled upon a great article on the Destination CRM website by Natalee Dyke entitled: “IVR Hell” which definitely encapsulates everything amiss with mis-designed, mis-written, and just generally frustrating phone trees — give it a read at: http://bit.ly/1XQaoM and meet me back here.

She really brings a lot of great points home — and she’s coming strictly from a customer’s perspective, at that. IVR is the customer’s first point of contact — it’s crucial to set the tone at that all-important “meeting” point.

Ms. Dyke reiterates my previous rant of keeping menus as short as possible — the next time you’re listening to menu options, try to see if you can recall them after you hang up. Chances are the best you’ll be able to do it recall the last thing you heard. Call it a commentary on people’s attention spans, or a symptom of the pace at which we live; we have a shut-off valve after a surprisingly short stream on information coming at us.

I recently recorded a “joke” prompt for a prominent client which said: “You’ve pressed zero, which is clearly not a option you were given. As punishment, you will be forced to listen to the entire menu options again.”  As fun (and refreshing!) as it was to slip that whimsical prompt into an otherwise serious system, Ms. Dyke urges IVR writers to give people an opt-out option when they feel fairly confident that their question doesn’t really fit into the presented options. Think of the options menu serving as a “screen”, much like the FAQ section on a website — the “0″ option for a live attendant should be offered if no other department seems applicable. Some callers will abuse this “out” — most won’t.

The “IVR Hell” article mentions the hamster-wheel effect of collecting caller’s account numbers while they’re waiting to be “sorted” to a department — very seldom have I ever seen that information speeding up the process or giving the agent heads-up info about you, the caller. It’s a waste of time — especially when the information is simply asked for again when the agent does come on the line.

All people saddled with the responsibility of writing the script for their company’s auto-attendant (or those whose j0b it is to design them for other firms) have the benefit of personally having to spend enough of your own time calling the cable company; the utility conglomerate; the behemoth warehouse store — you know what frustrates you. You know what doesn’t work. And you likely have an idea of how to streamline it to make the whole experience smoother for both caller and company.

Next blog: I’ve had some fairly comical experiences when my recorded voice comes back to haunt me — I’ll impart some amusing anecdotes when “automated me” meets “real me”!

Getting Started in Voice-Over: A Primer

{ November 15, 2009 @ 3:06 am } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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clip_image002A few times a month, I’m e-mailed by people who are toying with the idea of getting into voice-over — they may have been told they have a great voice, or have become enamored with the idea of being the next Simpson-scale animation voice.

There’s no question that it’s a great way to earn a living — lots of variety, challenge, and if you reach a certain level — a respectable income. Many voice-over performers come from a radio background; others from the more linear channel with a degree in communications, and yet others — as in my case — come from a theatrical background and approached voice-over as an adjunct to acting (and a great way to pay the bills in-between acting jobs which didn’t involve balancing a tray — ask anyone who knows me; that wouldn’t have been a good fit).

Whatever your background, there are strategies you can adopt to venture into the world of being a voice performer in an informed and prepared fashion.

1. Take workshops

A search of sound studios and talent agencies in your area should reveal who is holding voice-over workshops — many sound studios hold them to broaden their talent banks and they’re frequently taught by working voice-over professionals. It’s a great way to get your feet wet; see how at ease your are in front of the mic; how receptive you are to taking direction; and how open you are to (hopefully well-placed) criticism. Many workshops will keep spots you’ve voiced, which can then be turned into demos.

2. Acting Classes Can’t Hurt Either

I attended a voice-over workshop years ago, and one of the students was quite a well-known DJ, who has his “sweet-spot”; his velvet tones, and the deep timbre that would allow him to read the Yellow Pages out loud and keep everyone hanging on his every word — he was handed copy for a very poignant Cancer Society PSA — a Dad telling his son that he has cancer — and he read it in his classic overblown “on-air”style — right down to the “Gary Owen” hand cupped over his ear. (Am I dating myself? That’s a reference from “Laugh In”!) The host of the workshop and the engineer tried their hardest to get him to just…talk. Imagine himself in that situation. Don’t….”intone”. Just talk. Act the part. He couldn’t do it. Acting lessons are an asset to voice-over for no other reason than it gets you out of your comfort “voice”. Worth looking into if you’re aiming for TV and radio work; essential if animation or gaming voice-over is your goal.

3. HIre a Pro To Put Together a Spectacular Demo For You

If you clicked with the engineer from the workshop, enquire about his rates for putting together a demo for you — demos can be snippets of actual spots you’ve done; they can be a mix of scripts the engineer has selected for you to read — I’ve even found great script “fragments” from magazine print ads. Voice material that you’re comfortable with; which you understand; and which highlight you at your best. Only attempt characters or accents if you are masterful at them. They should be a montage of your best stuff, as opposed to entire spots, and front-load the demo with your most impressive material first — you’d like to think that people are going to take the time to listen to the whole thing in it’s entirety, but that’s sadly not the case — especially when ad execs are trying to zero in on…someone. Wow them right off the top with your best stuff. Here’s a link to my commercial demo, if it helps: http://bit.ly/z6R1B

4. Build a Home Studio

It’s not as daunting as it sounds — my first “booth” was inside an actual closet. (I tried to convince my accountant that Armani is — by far — the best soundproofing.) A good friend and colleague of mine had her first “booth” in the cold room of her basement. (Jars of blueberry preserves are great noise baffling!) Select a quiet room away from both household and external noise; separate the mic from the noise from the computer (my hard drive is in the basement; only my monitor and keyboard are in my studio), experiment with mics that suit you, get a good pre-amp, and don’t scrimp on the sound card in your computer. Elaborate sound editing programs such as Pro Tools are frustrating and likely more technology than you need; go for one of the more pro-sumer friendly set-ups like Sony Sound Forge, Adobe Audition or GoldWave. I’m glossing over this section, as there are true authorities on the issue of home studios who can enlighten you: I recommend reading ”The Voice Actor’s Guide to Home Recording” by Jeffrey P. Fisher and Harlan Hogan.

5. Get a Website

This is truism for *anyone* — florist or taxidermist; mechanic or tango instructor. Next to word of mouth, I get more “walk-in” traffic from my website (www.theivrvoice.com) than from any other source. You can spend thousands on it; you can part with $75 and buy a very slick template and hire a junior designer to figure out the layers of flash. However you do it — you must have a website.

6. Approach On-Line Casting Agencies With Caution

They’re prevalent, and the idea is tempting: for no — or very little– money, these folks will put your demo up on their site, and market you to clients who have the ability to hire you to voice their spots! The only problem is that literally hundreds of other talent are also submitting auditions for the same jobs. It means one of two things: the voice talent who is in the time-zone advantage position (or who have nothing but time on their hands) will be able to submit their audition ahead of anyone; and the person who “bids” the lowest price is likely to land job. Even more insidious are the agencies who charge a “premium” fee to be in their “elite” top level of talent (with the implication that the pool is smaller and of higher-calibre performers, and the jobs themselves are tonier) — I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum (went as a free member for awhile; paid to be in the “elite” group) — I had the same (lousy) batting average. I am now represented by two voice-over agencies — who charged me nothing (and who screened me carefully) — and things seem to be on a more even keel.

I was hoping to shape this article to getting started as a voice talent specifically *in IVR* — the whole mandate of this blog, after all – that’s a whole other article, which I promise to delve into soon.

Are you a voice talent just starting out? Let me know if you found this blog post helpful. Have you had similar experiences with online agencies? I’m particluarly intersted in hearing about your experiences…..just conceal the names of the agencies/agents to keep things friendly.

Next blog: I’ll discuss a recent article I found on Destination CRM entitled: “IVR Hell” — we’ve all been there!

Thanks for reading!

What *Won’t* You Say?

{ November 6, 2009 @ 4:39 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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It’s generally well known — by clients of mine whom I’ve worked with for awhile — that I am game to voice pretty much anything. In fact, I encourage offbeat, parody, and “joke” prompts — they provide a welcome respite from the run-of-the-mill (but highly necessary) IVR stock prompts. It’s especially fun when some of these “oddball” prompts are wedged in-between serious ones…in the misdt of serious prompts might be a prompt which says: “Are you still listening?” I love it.

However, there are limits. I have backed off a few projects which brought up such feeling of discomfort, that I respectfully passed on them — I recently blogged about  politely delcining to voice the call-girl’s information line (I’m still trying to figure out what the “Swedish Butterfly” is..) but here is a list of other areas in which I’m just not comfortable lending my voiceprint to:

1. Profanity

A well-placed expletive in humorous copy where it makes sense and carries some comic weight — no problem. An excessive amount of gratuitous potty-mouth – not interested in doing it.

2. Religious Content

Everyone’s personal beliefs and convictions are intimate and should be a private thing. I’m always taken a bit aback when I voice a very straightforward and business-like phone tree, and the last line says something like: “Thank you for calling and go forth with the Light of Jesus!” I struggle with the appropriateness of introducing that into a clearly business context. I also voice a large amount of conference intro prompts and many are from religious groups — not problematic if they simply wanted me to welcome their callers and instruct them on how to mute and unmute their line; instead I’m actually often asked to evangelize and quote scripture — almost like a warm-up act for the minister or church leader hosting the call. Let’s just say that I am religiously….neutral. Would prefer to not be put in the position of imparting rhetoric for which I have no strong feeling.

3. Slandering Groups

This seems pretty self-evident, but I found myself in the midst of a conference call a few years ago, with an ad agency in one city, and the client in another, and all I knew about the project was that they needed an extensive national auto-dialer recorded for a political bill they needed passed. My daydreams of what Louis Vuitton bag I was going to purchase with the windfall from this latest project was cruelly disrupted by the client talking about ”making sure this gay marriage bill didn’t get passed!” Yep — I was smack in the middle of having committed myself to voicing a dialer that would drum up support for squashing the gay marriage bill —  a project that I absolutely could not voice with any conscience. After the call, I spoke with the ad agent and recused myself — to my detriment. Haven’t heard from them since.

4. You Using My Voice

This one surprises many people, but if copy is written in the first person: “Hi, this is Theresa, and welcome to my conference”, I will automatically change it to: “Hi, and welcome to Theresa’s conference.” Theresa is not me, and may not create the image that she has my voice. I’m totally OK with me being “cast” in a character: “Hi, this is Liz from Victoria’s Secret, and if you have a second, I’d like to follow up on your last purchase.” But I will not “impersonate” or “personify” a real person with my voice.

The list is pretty short. There’s a greater sense of appropriateness now than there used to be; years ago, I voiced a radio spot for a fast-food chain that was so sexist, that the male voice in the spot stopped the session and complained about the content to the ad agency, while I — all of 22 — stood mutely, secretly hoping he wouldn’t blow the job for both of us. Hopefully, we have a greater awareness of what’s kosher and what likely isn’t — and I do a better job of listening to that “no” voice which tells me to pass.ali-webcam1

Next post: I’m approached a lot by voice talent about how to get into voice-over in general, and into IVR voicing, specifically — next post, I’ll give some tips to those hoping to get started!

Languages I Don’t Speak — But I’m Happy Voice In Them!

{ November 2, 2009 @ 8:50 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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rodeDespite me recording prompts in Spanish almost every day, I don’t technically speak Spanish. Or Hebrew, Tagalog (an Austranesian language spoken in the Philippines) or a host of other languages which I’m urged, cajoled, or persuaded into voicing.

I studied Spanish for two years at the University of Calgary, out of a necessity to accomodate American clients requiring bilingual prompts. I soon tired of the academic, formalized approach (who’s up for conjugating verbos?) and looked into other venues of instruction — all the while, working with a Spanish vocal coach who was incredibly helpful in honing a fairly convincing accent. I looked into Berlitz (the right one-on-one approach based in a conversational style; prohibitively expensive.) I’m continuing self-study until I find a program that fits.

And as for French — which I’m commonly asked about — it was mandatory for a fragment of grade school, and after that — much to my chagrin — I never pursued that elective. It’s not widely spoken here in Western Canada, but the demand for me voice prompts in it is frequent, and it’s one of my big regrets that I never picked it up.

In the meantime, I did some prompts in Hebrew for a wonderful charitable food distrbution company — it took a couple of phone patch sessions to Jerusalem, but I managed to nail the often tricky pronunciations – that rolling “CCCHaaa!” sound from the back of throat is not commonly used here on the Canadian prairies. A conferencing company hires me to voice prompts in Somali almost daily, and with the right pronunciations guides (and the occasional sound file of the client intoning it to me), I’m happy to say that I’m capable of pulling off a lot more than I thought I could. Like an opera singer, required to sing in languages in which they are not necessarily fluent, it is possible to accomodate some non-native language requirements — with the caveat, always, that if they are after an authentic, native speaker — they would probably be wise to outsource it elsewhere.

Next blog post, I’ll answer a question I’m frequently asked: “What *won’t* you voice?” Find out what’s on my “never do” list!

Punctuation is Your Best Friend With IVR Writing

{ October 26, 2009 @ 9:33 pm } · { IVR Voicing, Telephony }
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Allison Smith_RR_High Res 1_NOWCASTQuite often, I get Asterisk prompt orders through the Digium site in which the client has written something like: “….this phrase comes after ‘Please enter your..’ and before ‘followed by pound.’” It’s a lot of effort to explain where the prompt will occur — especially when I have such an amazingly simple remedy — and it has everything to do with the correct use of punctuation. At the risk of making this entry sound like an lost episode of “Schoolhouse Rock”,  the proper use of elipses, commas, and periods will save you a lot of time, and ensure that you get the right inflection from your announcer.

Take the phrase: “your pin number”.  When it’s “free-floating” (no punctution anywhere around it),

your pin number

 

one gets no idea of where you intend the prompt to be placed in the sequence. However, with elipses at the beginning and a period at the end:

…your pin number.

 

…we know that a phrase has preceeded it (such as “Please re-enter..”) and that this phrase caps off the sentence. Similarly:

Your pin number…

 

(Capitalized; elipses at the end) tells us that its’ beginning a thought and will likely be followed by something like: “….is incorrect. Please re-enter your pin number.”

Along that same line, ellipses on either end:

…your pin number…

…is wedged into the middle of a sequence which might flow like: “Please enter…your pin number…followed by the pound sign.

It seems persnickety — but it will tell someone like myself — whose job it is to make these prompts concatenate as smoothly as possible — exactly where you need this phrase to fall into the sequence you intend. (And no, writing them all “neutral” — with no discernable beginning or ending — will not solve the problem…..it actually leads to the lifeless, android IVR automaton which everyone is — thankfully — moving away from.)

IVR writers: let me know if this was helpful! Any other tips you’ve found to be helpful in IVR phraseology? Let me know!

Next entry: I’ll be talking about Spanish, Hebrew, Somali,  even Tagalog — among the many languages I *don’t* speak — but that doesn’t stop me getting hired to voice prompts in them!

Post-Astricon Wrap Up

{ October 21, 2009 @ 10:01 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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I was fully intending to blog from Phoenix during Astricon (The Open Source Telephony Conference and Exhibition — Oct 13-15) but found myself on such a social whirlwind and marketing juggernaut that time did not permit. Suffice it to say: it was an amazing event — a huge gathering of developers, coders, resellers, and enthusiasts of Asterisk — a telephony system which stands as one of my biggest voice-over credits, and clearly the reason I’m so recognizable in the world of IVR.

JR Richardson, Me, "Gord" Gillespie, and Kevin Broadfoot

JR Richardson, Me, "Gord" Gillespie, and Kevin Broadfoot

Among  the more amazing talks was a Tutorial on Local number Portability by Jim Dalton of TransNexus; Open SIPS — Clustering and Balancing Asterisk by Bogdan Andrei-Iancu of the Open SIPS Project, and a great presentation about the use of the Asterisk trademarks by the always wry and entertaining Digium in-house counsel, Michelle Petrone-Fleming.

To be honest — many of the talks are hugely technical, and go way over the heads of lots of us — especially those whose job it is to simply make the IVR prompts sound as good as possible. But I do derive a great sense of satisfaction from hearing discussions from people who are passionate about what they’re presenting, and feel so fortunate to be included in this amazing community of people who are scary-bright — and yet still so completely affable and often kooky.

Mark Spencer and Chris DiBona (Google Open Source Project) share a cocktail

Mark Spencer and Chris DiBona (Google Open Source Project) share a smart cocktail

I brought with me a fun promotion item which proved to be a big hit: a wristband (in Asterisk Orange) with my logo and a USB clasp — loaded onto the USB was my voice-over demo and a limited-time promotional offer for a discount on customized recordings — which many people have taken advantage of.

If you attended this year’s Astricon, feel free to post a comment with anecdotes or opinions of how you thought it went over! I personally thought it was the best one yet.

Pimp hats, Mardi-Gras beads, and leis were required attire at the All-Conference Party. as Mathew Nikasch and I illustrate!

Pimp hats, Mardi-Gras beads, and leis were required attire at the All-Conference Party. as Mathew Nikasch and I illustrate!

Next blog: back to business: some simple grammar tricks to *always ensure* you get the inflection you want in your IVR prompts!

Astricon: The High Holy Days of Telephony!

{ October 9, 2009 @ 4:40 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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In a mere four days, developers and code gurus from around the world who have discovered the unlimited potential and versatility of Asterisk — the fastest-growing telephony platform in the world today — will gather in beautiful Glendale, Arizona October 13-15 for a concentrated three days of amazing talks, demonstrations, and networking about this product which is a phenom in the world of telecommunications, and which has set the standard for open-source VoIP telephony.

Little did I realise — when I was contacted in 2002 to voice the initial set of prompts for Asterisk — that it would take the world by storm in quite the way it did. I seriously thought it was a one-off job, voicing some (sometimes) offbeat prompts for some very hyperactive guys in Alabama. When I was invited to the first Astricon in Atlanta iDSC00927_en 2004, I gave myself a pep talk beforehand, reminding myself to overcome my shyness and introduce myself to everyone — little expecting to be mobbed. Apparently, the hundreds of attendees there not only were eager to talk to one of only five women there — they were all looking forward to meeting “The Voice of Asterisk” — the living person behind the prompts they had been working with and deploying for years. Even after attending Astricon every year since then, (and with me being now known to most of the community) — it still gives me such a thrill to meet clients face-to-face and hopefully personify the sound of Asterisk to them.

With attendees arriving from 35 countires, this year’s Astricon promises to be a bigger, better and more diverse Geekosystem than ever!

I’ll be blogging from Astricon next week, so stay tuned!

PS: That’s me and the “Father of Asterisk” — and one of my favorite people in the world — Mark Spencer, taken at Astricon 2008. That’s the first incarnation of the now famous “Asterisk Dress” — this year, I’ll be unveiling a new version, which puts the old one to shame….

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