Articulate Challenge – Audio Setup and Tips

Quick post – my entry for this weeks Articulate Elearning Challenge – audio tips and tricks.

A really GREAT thread appearing on the Challenges page, superb hints and tips for anyone wanting to try voiceover on an eLearning course.

Turning work away…gut feel.

I thoroughly enjoy it when someone contacts me unsolicited, to ask if I will do some work for them. It makes me feel that I must be doing something right, and reinforces self-belief, (something that you need to remember to do in small companies/one-man bands).

I was approached to create a twice-monthly podcast recently, using a “character-voice”, one of the objectives I have set myself for this year, so was delighted. After reading the script, I realised this was not for me. The character was fine, but somehow the content just didn’t sit right with me, so I had to decline.

Why? Well, the content was humorous, and pretty edgy at that, but that still doesn’t sum it up. Something in me just felt that it was not “true” to me, it was things that I would never say, I would not be proud for saying them, and so I would never be proud using them as an advert or illustration of my work.

How should we make decisions about not doing work? I have never done it before, and I have no idea if a “gut feel” is a good decision-making tool. It’s all a bit strange, and I wanted to get these confused thoughts out before cognitive-dissonance created an “…of course I made the right decision” position.

Perhaps this all sounds very “precious”, perhaps it is. We all enter our business for a variety of reasons, but perhaps I just realised that one of the reasons I create eLearning and voiceovers is to use our language in all it’s richness, not to state things using unneccessary (?) and overly crude (IMHO) scripting.

Stay true to yourself.

Bruce