Double Dutch

Ontario’s London Free Press called them “voice-over matchmakers”. Back in 2003, David and Stephanie Ciccarelli created Voices.com out of their condo. At the time this blog was published,  they had eight full-time staff and four computer developers on contract. David estimated about $11 million of business goes through the site annually.

If you’ve ever used their services, you know that Voices.com makes money from your subscription fees and from an optional 10% SurePay escrow fee on top of whatever the talent’s fee is, paid by the voice-seeker. According to the site:

“this Escrow fee is kept by Voices.com to cover the charges that we incur from holding the deposit for a period of time in a secure third party account”.

Stephanie Ciccarelli summarized my unease regarding audition submissions as follows:

“You’ve noted that many people are concerned to see that some of the past jobs they’ve auditioned for months ago have not yet progressed to awarding a talent, leaving them to wonder if a client is merely window-shopping or kicking tires, possibly also wondering if auditioning online is a waste of time.”

“According to a snapshot of statistics from the last four months (April 2009 through July 2009) tracking the completion rate of jobs posted at Voices.com, we can confirm that at any given stage, half of the open jobs are still being reviewed by their client and the other half are completed (that means a talent has been chosen), with over 2/3 of those completed jobs being verified and processed via SurePay.

Although this information is reassuring, we are aware that there is still room to improve and to grow.”

Stephanie cites a number of reasons as to why it appears that many voice-seekers on her site never seem to select a candidate. Allow me to paraphrase:

1. Some clients, regardless of their deadlines for finding talent, may not have a pressing need to have their voice over recorded instantly. In other words: they file away the auditions until they are ready to hire. Sometimes this could take many months, but eventually, someone gets the job.
2. Some clients use sites like voices.com, to find talent and they prefer to work with them off-site, leaving their job in an “Open” status (see the story of the Taylor family in my last blog). This explains why there are fewer “completed” jobs than there truly are.
3. Some voice talents and/or voice seekers don’t want to use the SurePay system. If that’s the case, the job won’t be registered as completed.

VOICE-SEEKERS’ PERSPECTIVE
So far we’ve heard the story from the perspective of a voice talent and from representatives of several pay-to-play sites. Be sure to check out Voice123 Steven Lowell’s comments on my previous blog. What do voice-seekers make of all this?

A former casting director for a nationally known ad agency gave me permission to share his (or her) thoughts as long as he/she would remain anonymous.

“Agencies will do a lot of casting for projects they “hope” will become a client. They will hold auditions and actors will hold their breath (after creatives fawn all over them), expect a hold or booking….alas: no call! Of course it happens that another is booked, but it does also happen that no one is booked as the agency did not get the account or budget was cut.

It also happens that an audition is used as a demo in pitch for the account and the performer never knows about it. Top brass may not even know this practice is going on at his or her agency. The Head of production is calling the shots without others in chain of command knowing anything about you (performer) being screwed. You may have been instrumental in getting an account. When time came to cast for account, you may be forgotten for a more high profile talent.

I protested this practice (to the shock of the production chief), but it was an uphill battle to have any effect on this practice I did make some headway. In short: we don’t have many options in regard to this practice. Many agencies or agents don’t participate in this practice, but it does happen.”

ISSUE RESOLVED?
There you have it. Were these answers satisfying to you? Were my initial concerns justified or were they a tempest in a teapot? Do you feel that the major pay-to-play sites offer enough accountability and transparency? Even though they’re not our personal agents, we are paying them to provide a service, so we should have some say in how our money is spent. What suggestions do you have regarding this issue?

Please keep in mind that I am looking for constructive ideas. It’s always easy to blame someone or something else for our own lack of success. However, there are so many things we can do to increase our chances of being spotted and hired. We should never completely rely on these sites to bring in all the work.

As you have noticed, sites like voice123, voplanet and voices.com are listening to us, and they don’t shy away from controversial topics. They are following up with job seekers, and they too have to work with ad agencies that are only using their service to test the waters.

And finally: as every matchmaker knows, no matter how carefully you select two interested parties, not every match ends in matrimony!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

Don’t miss the next installment: “Why no one’s coming to your site“.

Technorati Tags: auditions, Nethervoice, Paul Strikwerda, Pay-to-Play, success, voice, voice-over, voice123, voiceover, voices.com, voplanet

John was a realtor. The past couple of years had been the toughest ever. Plenty of prospects; very few buyers. John had to work twice as hard and twice as long to woo aspiring home owners.

One day, his boss called him into the office and by the look on his face, he was not a happy camper. “John”, he said, “Do you have any idea how many leads you lost in the past three months?” “Well, maybe a few here and there”, said John. “I don’t really keep track”.

“What?” answered his boss angrily, “Are you telling me that you’ve spent hours researching homes and showing your clients house after house, and you have no clue how many sales opportunities you missed? Are you serious? How about the Taylors? They seemed ready to buy and they bailed out at the last moment. What went wrong?”

“Oh, I remember them” said John. “They backed out because they said the escrow fee was too high.” “That might be true” said his boss, “but do you want to know what really happened? After you had put in all your time and found them the perfect house, they walked out of our office and contacted the sellers directly. Two days later, the property was sold.”

JUST AN ANALOGY?
Of course I made this entire story up, and yet this scenario happens in voiceoverland each and every day. If you’ve taken a good look at your audition submissions of the past couple of months, doesn’t it seem like a majority has disappeared into a gigantic black hole?

As I mentioned in my first blog about this topic: most of my submissions didn’t result in an actual booking, not because the job was awarded to another talent, but because the voice-shopper never became a buyer. How did I know? Because months after the deadline for a project had past, still no talent had been selected for the job.

It turns out that I’m not alone. Many of you have vented your frustration and are demanding an explanation. That’s why I brought the matter up with three pay-to-play sites. I specifically asked them about their “conversion rate”. That’s the term marketing professionals use when a prospective consumer takes the intended action. I particularly wanted to know the percentage of voice-seekers who had become voice-buyers.

THE INDUSTRY RESPONDS
Mike Gomez works  for www.voice123.com. His initial response was:

“We have around 4,000 active Premium subscribers on the site and these are the stats we keep regarding hirings:

50% – book at least 1 a month

30% – book between 1 & 5 a month

20% – book more than 5 a month”

That didn’t tell me anything about the percentage of job offers that actually lead to bookings. So, I tried again and Mike sent me the following reply:

“(…) those are the numbers we have, since we don’t control who gets hired, why and when but only seekers do, we currently have no accurate way to account for this.  Although we do know most jobs are granted on the site because we see talents are renewing constantly since our sales have been growing constantly through the months and the only way talents have money to renew is if they get work.”

Let’s do the math here. 4000 Premium subscribers times $299.00 (the voice123 annual subscription fee). That’s one million, one hundred ninety six thousand dollars. Yet, they have no “accurate way to account for who gets hired”.

There’s no doubt in my mind that voice123 has earned its spot in the market place. But the fact that people continue to renew their membership doesn’t tell me a whole lot about the effectiveness of the service voice123 provides. One does not measure the success of a temp agency by the number of job seekers in the database, but by the number of real jobs these people find through the agency.

WHAT VOPLANET ARE YOU FROM?
Donna Summers is the president of VoiceCasting and partner at www.voplanet.com. This is what she told me about her companies’ conversion rate:

“Because we deal with large production companies and ad agencies for the most part, virtually all the auditions we do are for actual jobs.  It is rare that an ad agency would take the time, effort and money it takes to put together an ad campaign, hire a copyrighter to write the script, get as far as voicing it and then completely dump it.

If one of our talents gets the job, we are of course, thrilled.  If the client books elsewhere, we do call and thank the client for the opportunity and ask who booked the job.  In answering your question, Paul, I would have to say that 100% with a little margin for error would be the number of auditions that actually become jobs.”

VERIFICATION
As a former journalist, I have to add that there is no independent way of verifying these statements, especially because both companies don’t seem to have a conversion monitoring mechanism in place. There actually is software to keep track of these things. QVC uses it and so does Amazon.com. In fact, most e-commerce site tracks their transactions at least on a daily basis.

So, how would you evaluate whether or not your investment in a particular pay-to-play site is worthwhile? Without a clear conversion rate, you can only base your decision on:

1. Previous personal experience
2. Anecdotal evidence
3. Testimonials & recommendations
4. The reputation of the company
5. Trust and gut feeling
6. The size of your wallet

SLICING THE BREAD
The Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza once said: “Life is like bread – no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.” In my next post, I’ll tell you what Stephanie Ciccarelli (www.voices.com) had to say about her site’s conversion rate.

To be continued…

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS In my next installment, you can read the response of the www.voices.com team, as well as the revelations of an “Ad man”.

Technorati Tags: auditions, conversion, Dutch, Nethervoice, Paul Strikwerda, Pay-to-Play, success, voice-over, voiceover

A rude awakening. There is no other way to describe it. This morning I decided to take a closer look at one of the voice-over websites I subscribe to, and I particularly looked at all the auditions I had submitted in the past couple of months. What I discovered didn’t exactly make my day. Here’s why.

In four months, I had submitted a total of 185 auditions. For about 80% of these job offers, the indicated deadline had passed. In other words: one might assume that the client would have hired a voice by now.

However, much to my surprise, I noticed that in only 10% of the above cases a talent had actually been selected. Mind you, not every selection ends in a booking. When I looked even deeper into the postings that never lead to anything, it got worse. I saw that at least half of those had over one hundred submissions!

THE BOTTOM LINE: a majority of auditions didn’t result in an actual booking, not because the job was awarded to another talent, but because the voice-shopper never became a buyer. In most cases, the client had plenty of talent to choose from. And with 100+ submissions per project, bidding must have been fierce. What’s going on here?

At least four things came to mind:

1. Is this an overall trend or is it unique to my situation?
2. These missed opportunities mean a huge loss in revenue for the site in question, as well as for the subscribers who pay to play, and not to be thrown away.
3. There’s tremendous untapped potential! Why are some sites barely scratching the surface of a goldmine?
4. What can be done to turn browsers into buyers?

BATTING AVERAGE
To take up the last question first, this refers to what marketing guru’s call the “conversion rate”.  Consumer behavior expert Paco Underhill is the author of “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping”. He writes:

“Conversion rate measures what you make of what you have- it shows how well (or how poorly) the entire enterprise is functioning where it counts most: in the store. Conversion rate is to retail what batting average is to baseball -without knowing it, you can say that somebody had a hundred hits last season, but you don’t know whether he had three hundred at-bats, or a thousand. Without conversion rate, you don’t know if you’re Mickey Mantle or Mickey Mouse.

One could also describe conversion rate is as “the percentage of visitors who take the action you wish for”. In the case of this blog, I hope my readers will leave a comment; become a subscriber and visit the rest of my website. Of course I also hope you find my writings entertaining and that you take away something useful. But what I’m ultimately aiming for is “engagement”. Remember that. I’ll get back to it later.

JUST LOOKING
It’s obvious that the conversion rate of the voice-over website I mentioned in the intro left a lot to be desired for. Yet, it’s nothing new for an internet-based business. Here’s the deal. This “just looking” behavior is ubiquitous online. That’s inherent to the medium. It gets worse, though. Some studies suggest that over half of all online shoppers abandon their carts part way through the check out process. Why is that?

The beginning of an answer to that question lies in the “interception rate”, the percentage of customers who have some contact with an employee. Paco Underhill:

“The more shopper-employee contacts that take place, the greater the average sale. Talking with an employee has a way of drawing a customer in closer. With no sales assistance it could be the difference between a conversion rate of 22 percent and a conversion rate that’s 50 to 60%.”

So, let me ask you this: when’s the last time you went on an online shopping spree, and had any type of interaction with an employee?

Where’s the engagement? Where’s the relationship? Where’s the interception?

Now, let’s go one step further and bring this closer to home. If you are a voice-over actor with a personal website or a blog, do you know your conversion rate? If not, wouldn’t you want to know? Do you even know how to measure your visitor’s response? I could care less about the number of hits you get on an average day, or your ranking on Bing. Bing doesn’t pay your bills. Don’t get me wrong: getting people in the door is a promising start. Keeping them inside is even better. Getting them to take action is the ultimate goal.

Here’s the 64 thousand dollar question: how do you do that? If customer-interception plays such a big part in increasing your sales, is such a thing even realistic in an anonymous, impersonal virtual world? How could you possibly turn browsers into buyers? Be sure to check out my next installment!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009
www.nethervoice.com

PS Did you take a close look at your audition submissions lately? If so, what’s your conversion rate? How many colleagues tried out for the same job? Did the voice-seeker actually make a selection? If not, what do you think happened? What’s your pay-to-play site’s overall conversion rate? Are you happy with that number? What could be done to increase it?

Technorati Tags: conversion, conversion rate, Dutch voice over, marketing, Nethervoice, online shopping, Paul Strikwerda, pay to play sites, voice-over, voiceover

If you’ve read “Tales and techniques of a Voice-Over Actor”, you know that Harlan is not his real name. It’s Bob. But when it was time for Bob Hogan to get his SAG card, he found out that there already was an actor who had claimed that name. It was Robert J. Hogan, best known for his roles on “Peyton Place” and “As the world turns”. This Hogan also made a couple of guest appearances on the 1960s sitcom, Hogan’s Heroes, and the show’s main character, Colonel Robert Hogan, was named after him.

Anyway, “our” Bob had always liked his dad’s first name which was Harlan, and decided to adopt it for the SAG-registration. Later on, he legally changed his name to Harlan Robert Hogan. As we all know, he’s made quite a name for himself! His voice will forever be associated with phrases such as “”Strong enough for a man…”, “When you care enough to send the very best…”, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression…”, and “Quaker Life, It’s the cereal even Mikey likes…”.

Hogan is also one of the first voice-over actors who really caught on to the idea of ‘personal branding’, the art of marketing people and their career as brands. He now has his own “Signature series” of products, such as a stopwatch, a mouse pad and his famous Porta-Booth. At one point he even had a calendar. What’s next, you wonder. Well, we’ll get to that in a minute!

REPUTATION
According to marketing consultant Nance Rosen, personal branding accounts for 30-70% of your value.There are many ways to build a reputation that have very little to do with what the marketing world calls your “core competency”. That’s your ability to offer a unique product with a wide application that provides great benefits to consumers.

Here are some keys to personal branding:

1. Create your own personal product, service or trademark

2. Focus on giving instead of getting

3. Establish yourself as an expert: write articles, books & blogs

4. List yourself as a resource (http://www.helpareporter.com) and get free publicity

5. Actively participate in social networking sites

6. Associate yourself with powerful brands

7. Associate yourself with the best mentors and other ‘influentials’

8. Ask for endorsements and use those to take you to the next level (the “Oprah-effect”)

For more ideas, check out Dan Schwabel’s www.personalbrandingblog.com. Dan is the author of “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success”, as well as the publisher of both the Personal Branding Blog and the Personal Branding Magazine.

MORE THAN A VOICE
Harlan Hogan’s success proves that it takes much more than a good voice and great acting skills, to become one of the best in this business. Personal branding has a lot to do with it. How many of you have read the “Voice actor’s guide to recording at home… and on the road” (co-author Jeffrey P. Fischer)? How many of you have visited http://voiceoveressentials.com? How many of you actually use his Porta-Booth? If you’re a Harlan Hogan fan, I have some news for you!

PORTA-BOOTH PRO
Harlan’s actually coming out with a new Pro level version of his Porta-Booth. I’ve seen the first pictures, and I can assure you that it doesn’t look anything like the collapsible Whitmor Cube that’s available at your local Target store (left image). Just add some acoustic foam and voilà… anyone could build one of those. I won’t reveal too much, but unopened, the Pro version looks more like a rather big bowling ball bag.

One of the problems with the “old” Porta-Booth has always been where to put the script. Once the microphone is inside, there’s simply not enough space for your papers (unless you’re reading the text straight from your iPhone). Harlan’s new design seems to have fixed that. In addition, the Pro version features a new way to keep unwanted noise out.

HARLAN HOGAN VO-MIC
Harlan also teamed with microphone maker MXL, and commissioned a voice-over mic that -in his own words- “will sound great on about 99% of the population”. It’s available on an “Audition it, return it if you don’t think it’s right for you basis”, in a package with mic cable, case, shock mount for $199.00. It’s called “The Harlan Hogan VO: 1-A Signature Series Microphone“, and can be ordered directly from voiceoveressentials. Harlan also put together a USB package with his new mic and the nifty CEntrance MicPort Pro preamplifier.

One more thing: if you’re familiar with Jeffrey Fisher and Harlan Hogan’s writings, you might remember their praise for the ultimate Pop Filter, the Avantone PS-1 PRO-SHIELD Studio Pop Filter. It’s finally back in stock, ready to stuff some voice-over stockings!

SUCCESS
There are a few ways of looking at the success some of our colleagues deserve and enjoy. Some people become jealous. Others become frustrated or even scared. My attitude has always been more inquisitive: What can I learn from them? Obviously they must have been doing something right! I’m sure I’m not the only one who has learned a lot from Harlan Hogan over the years. For one, changing your name won’t hurt your career!

Paul Strikwerda ©2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS the author of this article is in no way compensated by Mr. Hogan, Mr. Fisher and/or Avant Electronics, for featuring their products.

PPS ever wondered  why your custom demos hardly ever lead to anything? Is it you or are there other factors at play? Read my next blog and find out.

Technorati Tags: Avantone Pop Filter, branding, Dutch, Harlan Hogan, MXL, Paul Strikwerda, Personal Branding, Porta-Booth, VO: 1-A, VO: 1-A Harlan Hogan Signature Series Microphone, voice-over, voiceover

Did you hear the one about the three voice-over actors bragging in a bar?

“My condenser has phantom power”, says the guy with the spooky voice.

“My shotgun produces killer demos”, retorts the man in black.

“My ribbon has a suspended diaphragm”, snaps the girl in the Hogan baseball cap.

Waitress: “Anyone ordered a Blue Bottle?”

Unidentified customer: “No, I just got a Snowball.”

“Can I get some MixCubes on the side, please?”

Waitress: “Active or Passive?”

TICKLES
Hearing voice-overs talk is like listening to a Monty Python skit. It can be slightly surreal and silly. One thing’s for sure: many VO’s have opinions. Strong opinions, especially when it comes to gear.

Whenever people take themselves too seriously, I’d like to tickle them a little. If you ever plan on messing with the mind of a VO-pro, go to an online voice-over group and type in the following words:

“I am new to this business and I need your help. What’s the best voice-over mic?”

Unknowingly, you just released the beast. If you honestly believe that the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is a big deal, wait until you get voice-overs started on their choice of mics…

You’ll soon discover that some VO-Pros suffer from a condition the psychological community calls “Microphone Envy”. So far, there is no sound treatment for this auditory affliction.

Here are some of the comments these hired voices might make about their precious sound catchers (in order to protect their identity, I decided to name all of them ‘Mike’).

Gear Geek-Mike: “My mic has a 32 mm gold sputtered thin Mylar capsule.”

Show-off Mike: “Mine has a retail value of $7,775. I got it for 7 grand on Ebay.”

Frugal Mike: “My cheap Chinese mic sounds almost like your pricey German one.”

Model Mike: “But I cut a deal with the Germans to endorse this microphone”

Macho-Mike: “Mine is bigger and better.”

If you happen to be in the market for a microphone, these message boards might not be the best place to solicit advice. In fact, I highly recommend not asking anyone for any recommendations. Period. Not online. Not in the shop. Trust me, you’ll sleep much better. Determine how much you can afford to spend and start doing your own homework instead.

Researching mics can be good fun. Why not fire up your laptop on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and listen to a few microphone tests. The fellows on this page always manage to crack me up… They’ll say something like this:

(test: courtesy of Nethervoice Sound Laboratories)

Remember though that a microphone is only one part of an audio chain and that different people will sound differently on the same mic. One colleague just bought a brand new and very expensive German mic. It was exactly the same make and model he had purchased fifteen years ago. In spite of that, the old and the new mic had their own, distinctive sound!

MY CHOICE
Many of you have asked me what microphone I use to bring home the bacon  (not an easy thing for a vegetarian). I use an MXL VO: 1 A cardioid condenser microphone. It’s the first mic designed for voice-overs by veteran voice actor Harlan Hogan.

At $249 it is not only very affordable; should you decide it’s not for you, you can send it back because it’s sold with a no-questions-asked money back guarantee.

The VO: 1-A has been tested against much more expensive industry standard voice-over microphones such as the Sennheiser 416, the  ElectroVoice RE20 and even the Neumann U87. Without exception, the reviews have been stellar. But what matters most to me is the fact that my clients seem to like what they hear (and I have some very picky customers!).

If you experience a sudden attack of “Microphone Envy”, remember this:

Writing about microphones is like ice skating about food

It doesn’t really make sense. Just as you can’t get wet from the word water, you don’t know if a certain microphone is the one that will flatter your voice the most by merely reading about it or by staring at a picture. You’ve got to give it a spin and use your ears.

So, have you heard the one about the two voice-overs in a bar?

With tears in his eyes, the first one exclaims:

“Why did Don LaFontaine have to go before his time? It is so unfair.”

The other one thought about it for a moment, took a deep but silent voice-over breath, and replied:

“I guess God wanted his voice back!”

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS This blog only reflects my personal opinion and I am not compensated in any way for featuring certain brands and/or products.

Technorati Tags: best voice-over mic, Don LaFontaine, Double Dutch Blog, Dutch voice over, European voice, Harlan Hogan microphone, microphone test, MXL VO: 1-A, MXL voice-over microphone, Nethervoice, Paul Strikwerda, voice-over, voice-over microphone, voiceover

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been subject or citizen”.

Together with 66 other people from 31 different nations, these were the words I spoke in Philadelphia on the last day of July. With it, a six-year process came to an end. In less than a minute, this subject of the Kingdom of The Netherlands became an American citizen. My first order of business: filling out a voter registration form.

Prior to the ceremony, I went to Independence Mall to walk in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers. The famous crack in the Liberty Bell was a stark reminder of the fact that at a certain time in history, these truths were anything but self-evident:

“that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. 

Looking at the world today, I was painfully aware of two things: for many, these truths are still not self-evident. For many others they have become so obvious, that they are taken for granted. Some have turned them into -as someone once put it- “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Crappiness”.

America’s most interactive history museum is only a few blocks away. If you’ve never been to the National Constitution Center, you’re in for an experience that will stay with you for a long time. This Center brilliantly manages to do what we as voice-over pros do for a living: bring words to life.

Every visit starts with “Freedom Rising“, a multi-media presentation that connects visitors to the story of the U.S. Constitution. To my surprise, this production was narrated by a voice-over actor who’s actually there in person,  serving as tour guide on a historic journey.

In Signers’ Hall, I came face to face with the man who once said:

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

It was Benjamin Franklin. I know he wasn’t speaking about our line of work, but as far as I am concerned, he hit the nail on the head. Franklin was speaking about the ‘Narcissists, the ‘Professors and the ‘Movers’ of our profession.

All of us have come across audio books narrated by people who seem to be so much in love with their own voice, they turn a travelogue into an ego-trip. The biggest turn-off in audio books: two lips of a narcissist.

The ‘Professors’, on the other hand, haven’t learned the following lesson: people don’t like to be lectured. People prefer to be entertained and engaged. That’s why movie stars make more money than Yale academics.

The educational staff at the Constitution Center was obviously aware of that, when they hired ‘Movers’ to shake thing up a bit. ‘Movers’ are voice-over artists, who selflessly devote and dedicate themselves to the words given to them, and who use their voice as a vehicle to engage and move the audience. As a result, the listener is drawn in and drawn out; totally absorbed and involved.

‘Movers’ masterfully manage to infuse and energize dry letters on a page with meaning and emotion; bringing them back from the dead in a way a musician transforms scribbles into sounds. However, it takes a true artist to turn those sounds into music that touches the heart, feeds the soul and moves the mind. 

When I took the Oath of Allegiance, I became part of “We the people”; the people of a nation where Freedom of Expression is a constitutional right. The Citizen’s Almanac I received as a welcoming gift, describes it as follows:

“Americans can speak and act as they wish as long as it does not endanger others or obstruct another’s freedom of expression in the process”.

As voice-over artist, this freedom of speech guarantees that I can do what I love without fear of persecution or imprisonment. I can pursue my interests and happiness, as long as it does not interfere with the rights of others.

For that, I feel tremendously privileged and grateful. Without it, all of us would be -as Franklin put it- “a sundial in the shade”.

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS If you’d rather listen to my blog, you can! A Sundial in the Shade, audio version read by the author

Technorati Tags: American, Becoming an American Citizen, Benjamin Franklin, citizen, Double Dutch Blog, Dutch, Dutch voice over, Dutch voiceover, European voice, Freedom of speech, Freedom rising, Independence Mall, Libert Bell, National Constitution Center, NationalConstitution Center, Nethervoice, Oath of Allegiance, Paul Strikwerda, Philadelphia, Signers' Hall, voice-over, voiceover, voter registration form, wearing in ceremony