Kennedy-Spaien, Dot Com

This is a response to a great post by Nicholas Butler called A Social Network Startup Pack.

Nicholas presented on the Social Media Startup Kit at PodCamp Boston 2. I sadly did not attend this session, but read the above post, and the following occurred to me:

Here’s a hint. If you are just starting to get into Social Media, by all means add the folks recommended in Nicholas’ blog. But you may find that many don’t add you back.

If your web presence is new and you haven’t yet really wrapped your brain around this whole “Social Media Thing” there may not be much in your Twitterstream that is of interest just yet.

Now, Many of these fine folks WILL add just about anyone back, but understand that with 2000 followers, they may not have the bandwidth to read all the stuff addressed to them on Twitter.

Many have secret profiles for those whose words they value most.

But, fear not! After you have become more established and have a body of relevant Tweets and blog posts linked to your Twitter profile, you can drop people and then re-add them. This gives them a second bite at the cookie of recognizing you as the valuable community member you are.

Fantastic. Met up with Ellen Moschetto and Pistachio and many more. Attended 3 sessions so far: Viva La Vida freelance (www.freelanceliving.wordpress.com - join the fun!), The Bigger, Better Deal Of Podcasting with Chris Brogan and David Eckoff (touchy feely wellness and empowerment goodness) and The New Rules Of PR with David Meerman Scott, which was invaluable. Grab his free ebook at http://davidmeermanscott.com/.

I’ll edit later to add more links.

I will be at PodCamp Boston’s Kickoff party (Thanks to sponsor The Student Loan Network) at Tequila Moon in Kenmore Square this evening. Look me up, shake my hand and tell me your life story… I’m always looking for material!

This ain’t a how-to. I wish I had this skill down to a set of easily reproducible steps, but sadly every time it comes up, the solution is different.

One of my clients, Jimmy Moore of The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show, scored an interview with Dr. Dean Ornish. The interview was a year ago, so I hadn’t yet drilled “best practices” into his head, plus he intended the interview to be for his blog, as the show hadn’t started yet.

Suffice it to say, the interview sounds like it was recorded via tin cans and twine to a wax cylinder (actually a microphone on a telephone). And it is over seventy minutes of raw audio. My job: distill it down to two 25-minute episodes and clean it up.

The stakes are high: a low-carb personality interviewing the king of low-fat diets is bound to be a ratings topper, but OUCH! what a job.

If you find yourself in this kind of situation (and you’ve already decided not to retain my services to fix this for you) here’s one tip:

Use a 30 band graphic EQ plugin in your editor (I use Audacity for editing and Garage Band for final production in these cases). If you start completely dropping frequencies from the low end, you may find that you can subtract out the lowest five or so sliders without changing the sound, while making the signal less “hot”. This will likely allow you to boost your gain without worsening the distortion already present.

After this, you will still have your work cut out for you, but it may be just what you need to start the salvage operation! Just remember, you can’t magically perfect a bad recording after the fact, but this tip might just get you started!

Check it out at: The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.

… but hey, that doesn’t mean I’m not ready and eager for any leads that come my way! I’m toiling away at some labor-intensive tasks at the moment: I have CD orders to fill, I’m hand-coding (yes, people still do that!) a new Disc of Light Publishing Group corporate web site and my good friend Becky McCray has asked me to submit a case study on going solo for her blog. Link to follow.

In the mean time, while you may not see me on Twittter as much as I’d like, I’m still available via phone and email!

As of October first, 2007, I am no longer an employee and am making the Disc of Light Media Group, run by myself and my wife Eve, my full time focus.

Wow, that was a scary sentence to write, but an exciting one as well! It is auspicious that PodCamp Boston II is happening so soon, as lots of my friends will be there for support (and networking - hint, hint!).

What does Disc of Light Media Group do? Well, several things. First, it is a music label dedicated to personal growth and meditation materials. We currently have a wholesale trade with certain New England area hospitals, but our retail program has become moribund, and I will focus some energies there.

Also, I am carrying on executive producing the podcast “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show With Jimmy Moore” and the video program “Healthy Helpings TV” that originated with Grasshopper New Media. I am glad to take on more clients of this type on a consulting basis. [In the previous sentence, "consulting" should be construed as "fee-based".]

I create custom music and provide audio pre- and post-production for audio and video projects. Need your audio of that important interview cleaned up? I’m the guy!

In addition to hundreds of podcast episodes of original music and theme songs, I am an alumni of the film-scoring department of the Berklee College of Music.

Lastly, Disc of Light performs consulting services for bloggers and podcasters. We are particularly interested in adding clients in the area of Food-related projects and cooking shows.

I am planning on developing the www.Disc-of-Light.com website to reflect these changes. Currently that site is exclusively for our music label.

For the curious, a “Disc of Light” is either a chakra or a reference to optical media (CD, DVD). Take your pick!

Please keep Disc of Light in mind for any opportunities you may have or hear about!