Title: Directions to NHS bodies concerning the cost of telephone calls 2009.

Skinny: Regulations that came into force on the 21st December 2009 regarding telephone charges in the NHS.

Publisher: DH

Size of Publication: 2p.

Published: 22/12/2009

Title: The use of 084 Numbers: directions to NHS bodies

Skinny: Dear Colleague letter from Nick Hall introducing Directions to NHS bodies concerning the cost of telephone calls 2009.

Publisher: DH

Size of Publication: 1p.

Published: 22/12/2009

Asterisk

About one and a half years ago I listened to a Floss Weekly podcast about the open source telephony project Asterisk. Asterisk is an incredibly flexible and powerful piece of software. Many projects are using the software in very creative ways. E.g. an interactive telephone murder mystery, a plant care system, a slightly offensive booty call service, the ability to create your own conferencing rooms, interactive big screen cinema controlled by phone input, and so on.

Since then, I have always thought that an e-learning company at the leading edge of technology would be able to do great things with Asterisk as the motor. Enter Learnosity, an Irish company that is using Asterisk to enable their language teaching services.

Learnosity

Gavin Cooney, Learnosity’s CEO, gave a very smooth and entertaining presentation (on the edge of a sales pitch) at this year’s Online Educa. His company has been commissioned by the Irish government to help in the educational battle to save the Irish language. They have created a mobile learning solution that can work with any type of cell phone.

I have been a teacher in secondary education for many years and know that it is hard for language teachers to get their students to actually practice speaking the language. Computer based instruction has been very promising in this respect for many years. The logistical requirements (all students a computer, headphone and microphone) have so far limited its use.

Learnosity has taken a different approach. Doing language exercises is as simple as using your cellphone, dialling a number, typing a student number and pin and then responding to the questions that you are being asked. The system will record all the answers and make them available in a web interface for the teacher. The teacher can listen to the exercises and give feedback which the student can then view on the web or on their smartphone.

It is also possible to let the system set up conversational exercises for a group of people. This is quite impressive. Imagine a classroom with 26 students. The system makes pairs and calls each of the students. Partners get symmetrical instructions. E.g. one student is told the following: “You are in Paris and have to ask directions for the Eiffel tower”. The partnering student will then hear: “You will be asked for directions to the Eiffel tower, please give them”. The conversation is stored on the web and can easily be replayed and commented on by the teacher.

It is great to see such a young company with this amount of ambition and flair! They seem to innovate continuously and will benefit from real teachers with pedagogical insight helping them. If I were a language teacher I would not be able to wait to try things out…

Without a doubt, being ill — even with something as routine as the common cold or a basic case of the flu — is a serious setback in productivity and makes even the simplest tasks difficult. Feeling the pressures of work and the need to keep soldiering forward despite feeling misreable is common to almost everyone regardless of occupation; but for singers, newscasters, and those of us who make our living recording our own voice, having stuffed sinuses or a gravelly throat which alters our “sound” renders us absolutely unable to work.

So recognizable is my “voiceprint” — and the importance of my voice today to match my voice of a year ago — that as much as I might *feel* well enough to stand in front of the mic and knock a few sound files off — it’s wasted time if a cold or congestion has altered the way I sound. Many websites geared to voice talent have numerous sponsors in the cold elixir industry, all of them proclaiming to have the remedy to buy voice professionals extra time in front of the mic…..the reality remains: if a cold or flu has your name on it, take care of yourself and let it run its course. (And don’t try to sneak back to work before it’s completely gone; I have long-term clients who know me well who have said to me when I’ve tried to shorten my recovery: “Nope. We can still hear it. You’re 90% there, but not quite.”)

Even something as simple as a teeth cleaning or minor dental procedure which might require freezing of the mouth — and might create an annoyance for an accountant returning to work and worrying about lop-sided face and drool issues — puts someone like myself out of work for half a day, easily.

I was also faced with an interesting challenge earlier this year, when I became one of the several thousand adults per year who are fitted with braces to correct a bite-alignment issue — so worried was I about them affecting my diction that I did some work with a speech pathologist to make sure they didn’t pose a problem with my work….so far, they haven’t proved to be an issue. (I did pass on a procedure which they wanted to do before the braces were installed: my orthodontist reccomended that I be fitted with a spacer which would expand my upper palate — and he even went so far as to make me a “practice spacer” which just snapped in to test out the idea. Even after extensive practice, I managed to work up to sounding like I’d had only a *mild* stroke. The idea was scrapped, and I give my orthodontist credit for fully understanding the whole interlocking economy of: “Can’t work/can’t pay orthdontic bill”.

The last aspect of the human factors in voice care is not allowing the voice to be subjected to extreme strain — this is not to say that in-between takes I lie around the house in Celine-Dion-Style-Voice-Arrest, with a cashmere Pashmina wrapped around my throat,  sipping lemon tea, with houseboys using palm fronds to coax the humidifier steam towards me — although, an enchanting idea. No, it’s more about not allowing the voice to sustain injury: I was told by an old and wise DJ years ago to never try to speak above a crowd, never out-shout anyone, and resist roller coasters if they make you scream. Ever notice how deep, sulty, and Demi-Moore-ish your voice can sound the day after a simple night out in a crowded pub, where you’ve been forced to converse at a loud volume? That would be useful if I were auditioning the next day for a Demi-Moore-sounding radio spot (and that’s actually a frequent character description on radio copy specs.) Otherwise: it’s a sign of minor vocal cord strain, and should be avoided if your “sound” is your product.

Voice professionals: let me know if there are any other aspects to this issue I’ve missed — do you notice big differences in your voice at various times of the day? Seasonally? And what’s the wackiest “voice elixir” you’ve tried?

I’ll be taking a break from blogging during the Christmas Vacation — have a wonderful and safe Holiday Season, and be back blogging the first week of January, where I’ll open the year with an article about things which are commonly in telephone prompts which are so basic….so painfully obvious…they cause me to sometimes exclaim: “Do we really need to SAY That?!”

Convergence between the ‘puter and the mobile ‘phone is coming.  My existing phone (E71) is a step along the way, and arguably skype on the laptop is approaching from the other direction.

Now Nokia have released the N900, and I’m thinking this looks interesting.  Have they bridged the gap to the point of being worth buying as a converged device, or is this still no more than an interesting device that nearly makes it?

On the plus side, it’s a Linux box, with builtin display but also the capability of plugging in to a monitor, keyboard and mouse when at a desk, all in a unit that’ll fit in a pocket, and can be used in a smaller space than a conventional laptop/netbook.  And with a SIM card it offers builtin connectivity.

As against that, it’s on the bulky side for a mobile ‘phone, and lacks the battery life of the E71 or a simpler device.  One wouldn’t want it to replace the phone.

And the crux of the matter: is Maemo really Linux as we know it, or am I going to find it a waste of time to attach that keyboard and monitor and try to use it as a porta-’puter?

I guess a good proxy for that question is, does it run X11 natively / without fuss?  If it does, I think enough follows from that to make it a real ‘puter.  If not, what I want may still be vaporware.

Anyone using the device as I envisage?  Or tried but found it problematic?

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!)

Just came across a funny article by jug suraiya in TOI regarding how ubiquitious mobile phones have become .

it is said that in anthr 2-3 years india will have 800 million mobile phones and by  2020 there’ll be more mobiles than people in India. You already see people with two mobiles, one stuck to each ear. Can a person talk on two phones at the same time? You can’t. The person is not talking on the phones. The phones are talking to each other.

Soon our daily prayer will also be modified .

It will be something like this  ” Our 3G who art in Spectrum

/ Helloed be thy number/

 Thy Nokia be done/

 Thy Motorola come/

 In Sony as it is in Ericsson./

Give us this day our daily prepaid/

 And deliver us from Voice Mail/

For thine is the Vodafone/

The Idea and the Reliance/

 For ever and ever/

Airtel ( Amen )

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!

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!

Resource Software International Ltd.’s (RSI) tools OSN application offers immediate, E911 on-site notification for emergency calls. Seconds can make the difference in life threatening situations or when apprehending harassing callers. Tools OSN eliminates the need to spend time locating the individual placing the emergency call, thereby reducing delays in the overall emergency response time. Emergency E911 access during a network or system failure event is also assured through RSI’s tools OSN.

Resource Software International Ltd. has successfully met the Nortel standards for compatibility testing in a laboratory environment with the Nortel communications platform (Nortel SRG 50 Release 5.0)

Successful Completion of Compatibility Test Audit on November 16, 2009

http://tinyurl.com/yll63dr

Mobile phones have now been with us since the early 1980s. Once seen as an expensive (and rather weighty) luxury, they have increasingly become an essential part of every day life. The lure of being able to stay in touch whilst on the move has proven so compelling that half the world’s population now owns some kind of mobile phone.

As technology has improved, however, mobile phones have become more and more complex. Anything digital seems to be crammed in – cameras, the ability to surf the internet, email functionality, music players, bluetooth, wireless access – the list is almost endless. But what about those of us who require a simple, easy to use mobile phone that lets us use the basic features without getting bogged down in technical complexity?

The good news is that they do exist and can be found quite easily. Simple mobile phones that let you make calls and send SMS text messages. There are varying options but one of the most popular, especially for the elderly or for those with limited vision or dexterity, is the big button mobile phone.

These phones are large enough to be held comfortably, yet not so large that they become awkward to use or carry. Big button mobile phones are just that – they have large buttons that are easy to see even if you have a visual impairment, a large, easy to read screen, and extra loud ringers (usually accompanied by a visual ringing alert) to ensure you don’t miss a call. Some of them even have a torch built in, and some are supplied with a proper charging dock that ensures you always know where to find your big button mobile phone.

The great thing about these simple mobile phones is that they are fully compatible with most existing sim cards – if you’re struggling with your current mobile and decide to invest in a big button mobile phone, it’s a simple matter to use your existing sim card. So, if you find yourself not using all the bells and whistles of your current mobile and are desperately seeking a simpler solution, a big button mobile phone may well be ideal for you.

Several countries have either banned VoIP or talked about banning VoIP over the last few years. VoIP is cheaper than other forms of telephony and some counties are looking at this as a negative for a variety of reasons. VoIP Providers can often be based anywhere in the world, so as opposed to telephone providers, the profits may leave the country. There are several reasons why VoIP has been banned in certain territories.

Part of the reason is competition. Some claim it is unfair on local telecommunications companies as VoIP providers can offer a cheaper service. This brings up the debate of a free market. Should it be completely free and open to everyone or should steps be made to support local business? If local business cannot complete should they just be allowed to go out of business? The increasing popularity of VoIP will obviously be bad for traditional telecommunications companies. Some have accused countries, such as Russia, of hiding behind the reason of unfair competition, with security being the actual reason.

Many telecommunications networks around the world are state controlled. Therefore VoIP can literally threaten governments’ income. This is obviously an incentive for countries to stop VoIP usage.

Whether or not telecoms companies are private or run by the state, it can still be bad for the economy. If overseas VoIP providers are taking the majority of the business, then certain parts of the national economy could suffer. This can lead to the loss of jobs meaning rising unemployment.

Some countries are concerned about security problems around VoIP. It is much more difficult to track VoIP calls than regular telephone calls. This is because signals travel over an Internet connection rather than a common telephone line that connects the entire network. This is partly as VoIP technology is relatively new though, and this could become easier as the technology is worked out. Some believe that tracking calls is necessary for national security reasons, while others think that tracking private conversations should be against human rights laws. Whichever side of the debate you are, it is something that some governments will take into consideration.

The debate of banning VoIP has taken place in countries such as Germany, Russia and the United Arab Emirates amongst other places. In Germany the telecoms provider Deutsche Telekom had banned the use of VoIP over their network stating unfair competition as the main reason. It looks as though this ban will be lifted though, but there may still be a surcharge. The banning of VoIP has been discussed in Russia but as yet there hasn’t been any ban. As mentioned above they have said it is for competition reasons, but many believe it is really because they would like to track calls easily. In the UAE VoIP is currently banned in certain areas, such as Dubai. However there are reports that this ban could soon be lifted.

Andrew Marshall ©

Business VoIP

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”!

A 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!

Dear Lazyweb, is there any way of fighting text-message spam?

I’ve already tried ‘phoning O2 and asking them, but they tell me they can’t (or won’t) do anything. Do any of the other UK providers offer a service that’ll block a sender, or block on a keyword in the message (like, everything that starts with FREEMSG)?

Or if I can’t block it, how about as a poor second-best, programming my ‘phone to drop them without bothering me?  The ‘phone is a Nokia E71 (Symbian s60), so any hints for that would be ideal.  Kind-of, procmail-for-text-messages or similar.  Or if I could do it on Maemo, that might help incentivise me to go out and buy a tablet ‘puter, though I’d still want to use the E71 for day-to-day use as it’s more comfortable in the hand and the pocket than something bigger.

Oh, and if any legislators are reading, how about legislating for us to be given a rejection button for junk phone calls and texts, that’ll cause the sender to be charged real money (e.g. £5 per call should mount up, though £50 would be better).  Money to be collected by the telco and donated to charity – less a small administrative fee to be determined by ofcom.

p.s. if any reader has power to do anything with it, the number that just spammed me to induce me to write this is 07833 992283 (UK) or +44 7833 992283 internationally.  If publishing the number here attracts any kind of inconvenience to that shit, then good.

VoIP or Voice over IP stands for Voice over Internet protocol.

In general it means voice travels over the Internet, theoretically that means any Voice that can be heared over the Internet may be called VoIP. But this term is dedicated to telephone calls being delivered via the Internet, rather than  POTS or Plain Old Telephone Service utilizing the Public Switched Network or Public Circuit-Switched Telephone Networks(PTSN).
Using Voice over IP, any computer or telephone connected to the internet with a broadband connection can call another computer or phone at a fraction of usual cost, or absolutely free. In other words VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way to place free phone calls.

VoIP is packet switched, meaning voice signals are compressed into data packets. These packets contain a sender and receivers IP address, in order to route the packets to the correct destination.

For a more detailed explanation how packets are build and how packet routing works, visit:

The Dawn of the Net

In a circuit switched network, no sender and receiver information is send, since the call is delivered over pre-determined lines and routes/switches. A call from A to B travels always the same way in a public switched network, where a VoIP call travels random routes on the Internet, depending on traffic and congestion.

On a public switched network a call can not be completed if one of the lines between two callers is down. If a route on the Internet is down or congested, data packets are delivered using different routes, which can be somewhat random and allow therefore for the call to be completed at all times.

Since a VoIP is travelling over packet switched networks utilized the same lines as the standard computer data packets, there is less demand on building an appropriate infrastructure, since voice and data travel over the same line.

VoIP or IP Telephony works like computers work on LANs or WANs. It also means that VoIP does not necessarily need a dedicated telephone, but will also work having speakers/headset & microphone in addition to a IP Telephony Software on a PC or Laptop.

Just the thought of using one and the same hardware infrastructure and common data packets to place or receive a call, opens up so many additonal opportunities, like CIT or Computer Integrated Telephony. CIT is technology through which a computer application can intercept a call-”data-packet”, extract relevant information, match it up with a back-end database and deliver caller information to a computer screen in real-time with the call being delivered to the person who receives the call. This is just one of many possible scenarios VoIP has opened us up to.

I’ve read a lot about best ways of handling difficult customers via phone. Some of them are really far away from reality. I’ve got 5 years of experience handling people on the phone and still find it difficult with some of the worst assholes. Here’s a list of tricks I use when handling some of the most annoying ones. If you are the dude who pissed me off on the phone a couple of days ago, keep reading too!

I. It’s a game

With any customer on the phone it’s a game. Some people genuinely look for advice but there are a lot who will try to prove you wrong, especially if they’re angry about a delay. Treat it as a game of chess, don’t let the opponent provoke you or you’ll lose control of yourself and the call. Think of it as a game with yourself – once you have lost control the game’s over.

II. Let them speak

To me this was the most important tip I got from the colleague of mine. As an employee of the company that pays you, you have a limited number of tactics that you can use. One that you definitely cannot use is to try and outshout your customer. Don’t even try and raise your voice at an angry customer. They’ll shout even louder and get more aggressive. Instead, just let them speak. Don’t worry if it takes 20 minutes for them to finish their monologue. Sit there patiently, play an online game, gesture with your colleagues (no offensive ones though), put them on mute if you can and have a little laugh if you can. Once they have finished talking, let the silence speak. It still surprises me how powerful silence is after a 5 minute long rant. This definitely isn’t the reaction they expected. This is when they start to understand what just happened: you’re not letting them win this way and they’ll be asking if ‘you still there?’.

Brilliant! This is precisely the type of reaction that WE expected. Now, you can use all your energy that you still have left to say ‘yes madam, I was just letting you to finish’. If they start ranting again, let them talk as above. After all, it’s her who’s been wasting her time talking bollocks for the past 20 minutes. She’s doing this for free, you’re paid for every minute of your time. Relax.

Once you have determined the customer has shouted out all the valuable comments they had, you may start doing your job. It’s up to you if at this point you’ll try to help the customer in the politest way you can.

III. Have a good laugh

Once you have finished the call, remember to have a good laugh about how polite you were when handling this call. Don’t forget to look them up on Facebook and make fun of their silly face.

IV. Aggression is unacceptable

Neither at home or on the phone. Anyone bullying or harassing is committing a crime for which they can go to jail. Be sure to take advantage of this law as much as possible.

V. Handling threatening calls

Every now and then you’ll get a crazy punk saying they know where you work and are coming to get you. The funniest thing is, in most cases you’d have their full record right in front of your eyes. You may wish to consider suing him if he’s under 18 and you think his parents are rich. Just remember your employer may not be very happy about it.

VI. Handling email aggression

These are usually easiest to handle. Remember when they taught you about being empathetic and understanding your customer’s circumstances? Now’s the time to use this lore. The guy who sent you the email saying you have not read his question probably has a tiny penis, his girlfriend just left him and kids made fun on him at school. Again, look him up on Facebook, make fun of him in front of your colleagues. Any particularly handsome pictures may be distributed internally via email. Give it a day or two and then phone him. You will be very polite and detailed when talking to him on the phone because you had the time to prepare and you chose the time of the day when you are at your best. He’s not expecting your call and will be easy to handle. Don’t shout at him! He may be a very nice guy after all.

VII. Give it a day

One of the best email tactics for me. Any annoyed and angry customers can only be angry for a limited time. The angrier they were when writing the email the sooner it’ll go away. They just needed to let the steam off. Again, be empathetic, don’t give them a reason to be even more unhappy. Just leave it for a day or two and then decide if you want to email them back and call.

Is there anything you’d like to add? Feel free to add your comments.

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.

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!

Earlier today I picked up a copy of Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty. I’ve been so intrigued by this quarter’s readings on the use of digital technologies (primarily mobile) in the developing world that I wanted to read some more on my own. Of course,  I can and will apply some of the additional insights I gain into the writing of my final research paper, but on the whole I  bought the book because I genuinely want to know more.

I had just finished my readings for this week, and decided i would read a little Sachs before starting this entry. I went upstairs and settled myself on the couch. I thought for a moment about all the work (school and day job) that was piling up, stressed for a moment, took a deep breath, and then started reading. Less than a quarter of the way through the introduction my eyes started to squint, my teeth were clenched, and i’m sure my pulse rate had picked up. What struck me was the vast difference between how I was interpreting what I was reading at that moment, and what i had just read.

Let me stop here a moment, and first give you a little background.

This week’s reading came from Innovations, a quarterly journal focused on entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. The first, Connecting a Nation: Roshan Brings Communication Services to Afghanistan, was by Karim Khoja, CEO of Roshan, a telecommunications operator in Afghanistan. Like many of the examples in Africa and India that we’d read about previously, Roshan, together with the Afghani government and the World Bank collaborated to expand the communications infrastructure within the country and pioneer new services and means of access. The second article, M-PESA: Mobile Money for the “Unbanked” Turning Cellphones into 24-Hour Tellers in Kenya, was by Nick Hughes, a Vodofone executive and Susie Lonie an m-commerce expert consulting with Vodofone, and detailed their experiences bringing mobile money to Kenya. Each article was a shining example of how commercial businesses (with help from the Public Sector, NGO’s and micro and commercial financial institutions) were able to create mutually beneficial opportunities for themselves and the respective countries in which they were operating. Each article spoke of all the benefits and new opportunities the citizens of Afghanistan and Kenya enjoyed as a result of their work. The Khoja article in particular articulated many of the social and charitable work Roshan was engaged in as part of their corporate social culture to give back to and help foster development in the country. Despite the “feel good” nature of the stories, what I appreciated was the fact that business can play a significant role in helping to improve the socio-economic situation of the world’s poorest countries simply by doing what they do: designing sound business practices to offer goods and services in return for profits. Its a common theme in all the cases we’ve read about thus far, communications infrastructures being established in some of the world’s poorest countries by for-profits working in conjunction with NFP’s and government, the enablement of services and the local populations using those services to realize positive impacts on their financial, social, health, educational and overall quality of life standards for themselves. One passage in particular from Hughes struck me regarding sustainable development: “access to finance facilitates entrepreneurial activity. In turn this creates wealth through economic activity, job creation, and trade.”

Back to Sachs.

In his introduction, Jeffrey Sachs tells us that our generation can choose to end poverty in our lifetime. If we, the developed world, and in particular the United States increase our financial assistance to the world’s poorest nations, we can create the means by which they can reach the bottom rung of the ladder of development. This implies to me that only we in the developed world can save these countries. Sachs tells us “collective action through effective government provision of health, education, infrastructure, as well as foreign assistance when needed, underpins economic success.” Don’t get me wrong, I do believe we, the developed world need to step up in a greater way to help those less fortunate, and I think government provision of essential services is mandatory. But those provisions must be made by the local governments, not foreign government in my opinion. Unfortunately, as we learned from Collier, poor governance is one of the traps with which many of these countries are burdened. Additionally, Collier showed us that often times, the aid that is provided very rarely fulfills its original intent due to all the corruption present in the developing world. So I question the validity of an approach the seems to suggest that foreign aid is the way out of this problem. I hope this isn’t what Sachs is suggesting. I did skim through sections of the book hoping to find some indication that Sachs will also speak to the role that business and entrepreneurship can play in helping locals reach and climb that ladder of development.

Perhaps I’m way off base, and those already familiar with Sachs’ positions will find my reflections uninformed. Perhaps I shouldn’t have written these words until after I’d gotten further into his book. But, these are my initial thoughts. so what can I say?