I thought it would only be fitting to share a little of my PAB (Podcasters Across Borders) 2008 experience with you via an audio comment. I’m not going to call it a ‘podcast’ because it is only one snippet of audio - it’s not a ’show’ … yet. You never know - already the other PR Girlz have been eyeing up the Blue Snowball USB mic that I won at the event. I think it might work if we kept it short and simple.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. The audio isn’t edited to perfection by any means but I could spend far too much time on this. I had to call it quits. Please bear in mind that I haven’t willingly recorded myself since I was about 8 years old when I liked to sing along to my favourite songs by Prince and Michael Jackson. I sound sort of ridiculous to myself (not to mention that I can hear some atrocious up-speak at the end of the recording) but I suppose a lot of people feel weird about hearing recordings of themselves. Ah well. I was inspired.

Listen to Podcasters Across Borders 2008

As suggested on the audio, I wanted to share some of the details and my favourite bits with you here in the post. I was impressed with the quality of so many of the presentations. My personal highlights from the weekend were Tim Coyne’s discussion on an actor’s approach to podcasting (the relationship between emotion and action), John Meadows and Scarborough Dude talking about the limits of the medium (or lack thereof), and the session with Nora Young and Dan Misener (I am a major fan of the CBC Radio One show Spark). Other links can be found below in the program outline.

Podcasters Across Borders is organized by Mark Blevis and Bob Goyetche. This year the event was sponsored by Third Storey Productions, ROGIC, Thornley Fallis and 76 Design, I.A. Consultants and Freshbooks.

PAB 2008 featured:

Friday, June 20, 2008

• 1:00pm Video production workshop (Chris Brogan, Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis)
• 2:00pm Social (Media) Science (Dave Brodbeck)
• 3:00pm Community: Why It’s the ONLY thing that matters (Whitney Hoffman)
• 7:30pm PAB2008 Kick-off (Bob Goyetche and Mark Blevis)

Saturday, June 21, 2008

• 9:00am Private in Public: An actor’s approach to podcasting (Tim Coyne)
• 10:00am Creating Audiodrama (Sage Tyrtle)
• 11:00am Ménage a Trois: Forums, podcasts and community (Marko Kulik)
• 1:00pm Feeding the Hungry by Feeding Google: A case study (Michelle Sullivan)
• 2:00pm Learning from The Beatles (Sylvain Grand’maison)
• 3:00pm Hosting Secrets From the Book of Tod (Tod Maffin)
• 4:00pm What Are the Limits? (John Meadows and Scarborough Dude)
• 8:00pm Boat Cruise (2 hours, families and partners welcome *)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

• 9:00am Time, Space, Media, Messages and Your Podcast (Jay Moonah)
• 10:00am What Public Broadcasters Can Learn from Podcasters, and Vice-Versa (Dan Misener and Nora Young)
• 11:00am Good Hosting: We’re not talking about your Internet Provider (Jack Ward and Shannon Hilchie)
• 11:40am You Shall Know Us By Our Velocity: Making sense of it all (Neil Gorman)

See you next year!

Welcome to the first instalment of Thursday’s From the Front Desk.

Please note! Due to the unpredictable nature of the PR world From the Front desk may occasionally be posted on a Friday, after-hours, from my father’s computer. Like today, for instance.

From the Front Desk is Samantha Lovelace’s spin on the PR world from a entry-level perspective.

As an entry-level PR-erson and, indeed, office worker, Samantha sits at the front desk of TFC.

During an average day she doesn’t just answer phones and fix printers; Samantha’s front desk experiences are just short of a full degree’s worth of education in PR, computers and people. This, along with general office antics keep her, and she hopes will keep you, entertained all workday long (and sometimes longer).

Now that being said, and with out further ado, Here’s Sammy!

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Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls - Welcome to the first ever post From the Front Desk!

I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself:
My name is Samantha Lovelace and I work at the front desk at Thornley Fallis Communications.

I was lucky to have been introduced to the job, Alex Milroy, Sandra Cruickshanks and Michael O’Connor Clarke by my most fabulous friend, Ms. Lauren Saliba.

Lauren was “the front desk” at TFC in Ottawa and knew they were looking for “Lauren” in Toronto. After great consideration, she declined the offer to transfer herself and passed on the opportunity to me; a quickly tiring, server/bartender/manager of 8 odd years.

Lauren and I have been faithful friends for close to 14 years. We met, one fine evening, in the yard behind Muchmore public school in Ottawa’s “the Glebe”. I believe it was a Friday.

With a fresh squeezed BBA and a desire for something new I was eager to take on the new challenge and marched in to the Ottawa office for my first “career” interview.

I got the job!

With in the month I left the famed Royal Oak in the Glebe of Ottawa, trained a couple of days in Ottawa and packed up my things, my loving partner-in-crime and our cat. Off to Toronto we went.

It was three days before I experienced my first printer malfunction, learned how to do a mail merge, met my first client and worked past five in a 9-5 job. Lets just say I didn’t find my admin skills they were violently thrust upon me with the fury of one incredibly angry volcano.

I like to think, though I’ve hit many a nasty pot hole along the way, I’ve fared relatively well. Not only have I learned how to take care of normally adminy duties, but I took on some new roles too. Media monitoring, event support, ideation, podcast production and some fundamental accounting tasks are just a few of my weekly activities.

And now I can ad one more notch to my PR agency belt:
Almost a year later, well versed in computer malfunction, telephone manner, morning scans, excel spreadsheets, and with a couple of events under my belt, I am writing my first official post on PR Girlz. I can say, as I sit faithfully at the front desk of Thornley Fallis Communications, I finally feel like I am an official PR Grrril.

Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to sharing some front desk antics with you next week.

Until then, take care.

Samantha Lovelace

We are on cloud nine around the office all because “our” Terry Fallis has been named the winner of the 2008 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Terry, a guy with a biomechanical engineering degree and a love of words, decided to write about what he knows best — politics, engineering and people – in his first novel “Best Laid Plans”.

The thrill of seeing someone you know and work with honoured with this medal is, well, more than we all would have expected. Considering we spend much of our workday dealing with the media on a full range of stories, finding Terry on cbc.ca today after popping up in the likes of the Toronto Star on the weekend is amazing. And we didn’t have to send a pitch or pick up a phone.

This was no mean feat for Terry to achieve. When he couldn’t find a publisher for his idea he podcast the book, chapter by chapter, and then figured out how he could publish it himself. Once he managed to get it into some bookstores and on to Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca he was amazed that people actually bought it. He even seemed surprised to have so many people tell him they found the story charming and interesting.

Congratulations from the Girlz and everyone else at Thornley Fallis. Now, can we get you to sign our copies? Oh, and what about that sequel?