Yesterday we asked readers about their run-ins with Steve Jobs, and they delivered. The Apple CEO is quietly ubiquitous, seen from Palo Alton to SoHo, from Whole Foods to Gotham catwalks, a shaggy-dressing crazy driver who’s kind to strangers.
We asked how Jobs behaves in the wild for two reasons: One, we thought his outdoor café meeting [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
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. [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh
I have a few years under my belt voicing telephony platforms, and I can tell you that there are some universal mistakes that I see on a consistent basis  — and most make sense if you simply think back to the last frustrating IVR you found yourself trying to [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
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 [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
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. [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Omar shaikh.
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 [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
Quite often, I get Asterisk prompt orders through the Digium site in which the client has written something like: “….this phrase comes after ‘Please enter your..’ and before ‘followed by pound.’” It’s a lot of effort to explain where the prompt will occur — especially when I have [...]

Written by Allison Smith. Edited by Suzanne Bowen.
My very first contract voicing telephone prompts was with Telus — the telco conglomerate in Alberta — who hired me to voice their mobility platform. I attended a meeting where they were discussing which prompts were needed, and what time committment would be required of me (in the [...]

But Allison is more than the Voice of Asterisk. She’s also a heated yoga enthusiast and great story teller. Listen to her anecdotes of voiceovers for a prison system, collection agency and one request for a special 1800 service.

We met at Astricon 2008 in Glendale where DIDXchange was the Asterisk Developer Area Room Sponsor. Right after [...]