The Industry

     I know, I know. “Mitch you promised us creative techniques today”. I don’t want to keep setting a schedule and breaking it because something else came up… but I am going to do it one more time. I promise first thing in the morning I will write up the creative stuff. Today, though I have to share with you my ridiculous/awesome day. I’m also going to share some new stuff you can look forward too on the blog now that we are getting some serious attention (that is part of the ridiculous/awesome day thing). One last thing… if you find some typo’s in this blog it will probably be because I really burned my hand attempting to cook dinner, serves me right…oh! Pun! I’m not making excuses, but I want some sympathy in the form of frozen desserts… I hear that helps a lot…. what? It was on Dr. Oz I swear!

So back on Friday/Day Ten I talked all about the massive amounts of networking I did to get this blog noticed. Because, although part of the profession we chose involves sitting in a room and talking to ourselves… it’s nice when someone reads your stuff. Haha. Today I continued this venture. My goal is to make this site a go-to place for new/aspiring broadcasters like myself. Have established professionals come here, looking for people to teach. With that in mind I went to one of my teachers from BCIT. 

Anyone who has gone to BCIT in the past 30 some odd years knows the master of broadcasting: Brian Antonson. He truly is an inspiration and if anyone can tell you about networking it’s Brian. I sent out an email asking Brian if he had some contacts that I could use to get my blog written about on the forums. He sent back five! Just amazing stuff. From there it was all me.

I checked out the sites he recommended. A couple I had heard of/checked out myself, but never really dived into. Turns out you can just log-in and post whatever you want to talk about… for me… it was this blog. I did this on Radiowest.ca and on Puget Sound Radio. In the span of a couple hours, I had raked up 100 visits to the post I made on these forums each… and it’s still growing as I type this. This blew my mind. It was so simple, yet so successful! However, this is just some of the cool news!

Once the forums got more and more hits, I received a couple e-mails. “No biggy” I thought until I read who it was from. Well who would’ve thought. Adam Thompson the Assistant Program Director/Music Director for Sonic Edmonton, Scott McGregor - On-Air Announcer at 107.3 Kool Fm in Victoria and Joe Leary the Host of Morning Sports Wheel on the Team in Vancouver! 

To say the least I was absolutely blown away. They emailed me… what a FANTASTIC change HAHA. Not only did they contact me they all had incredibly awesome things to say (they will be posted throughout the week). Truly awe-inspiring. So from two days of work (Friday and Monday) I have had an additional 200+ people hear about/check out my blog and several EMPLOYED broadcasters contacting me. PHEW! 

One of the things that Joe said that has stuck with me throughout the day is this:

“… know that the local broadcast industry has a number of similarly caring, talented and genuinely welcoming and supportive people currently engaged in it.”

Joe. You couldn’t be more right. Naturally, as I have shared in the past, breaking into the industry can be a bit of a struggle in the ego department. You think you are the best out there… or at least confident that your knowledge/skill is at a place where you can get your foot in the door and work on it, so when you find yourself in the “unemployment funk”, which is bound to come around (I fade in and out… I’ll be honest) it’s a little hard to swallow. However, you can’t be afraid to make an effort.

Get your name drilled into as many heads as you can. Do what I’m doing, (well not exactly what I’m doing… not the blog thing… I don’t want anymore competition HAHA) but commit yourself to use your time wisely. Don’t just sleep in until 2pm and then check the job postings and watch tv until you go back to sleep. Do something worth noting. For me it’s this blog. This is my way of showing my skills, creativity and that I know what this social networking thing is. What is your skill? What do you do that you enjoy doing that can also be used to get you a job. Think about it. Exploit it (in a non-dirty/illegal way)

I have said it before. There are a lot of resources at our disposal that can help us, it’s just a matter of using them to their fullest potential and, even better? In a way that has never been done before. Bring out the broadcaster that is dying to be let free NOW! You don’t need a job in the industry to do that… I’m living proof!

You inspired yet? Good!

I also want to take a second to share with you another direction that this blog is going to go. The main focus will still be tips/tricks of the business and my record of breaking into the industry. However, in addition I’m going to make this blog appeal to everyone! So if you see some music stuff, something crazy that I found online, or basically anything different. Don’t panic! It is just another way to make this blog more diverse and more entertaining/helpful. I don’t know about you but when I write these posts I’m always listening to music… so maybe you want to listen to some tunage while you read! Get ready to see more then one or two posts a day a.k.a. check back often!

That’s all I have for today. Go create.

Happy Unemployment!