On Tuesday I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Affiliate Thing podcast with Shawn Collins of Affiliate Summit.  Let me start by saying that I was unaware that it’s a live show since I always listen to it on iTunes or GeekCast.fm.  I listened to the recording last night that’s up over at GeekCast.fm and I have some criticism for myself.

First though, the experience.  Monday night I spent nearly an hour fussing with Skype.  The test call was choppy and I couldn’t understand all of what it was saying.  But all my settings seemed fine.  I determined at last that it had to be my internet connection, which has a tendency to be not so good in the evenings sometimes.  I must have called the test call in the neighborhood of 30 times.  I also called my husband’s cell phone to see if it was any better – nope.  He could hear me pretty well but I could barely hear him.  I finally give up and hope that it works in the morning or that there’s another option for me to call in or something if all else fails.

I can’t sleep (of course) because I’m nervous about the show.  I finally get to sleep and surprisingly have no trouble waking up early the next day for the show.  I’m on the West Coast and I usually work 10am to 7pm at PsPrint, so I had to get up around 8:30am to wake up enough to tape the show at 9am.  I fire up my home computer and get Skype up and running, calling the test call about 10 more times with only slightly better results than the night before.

I let Shawn know over the messenger portion of Skype that I’m having issues and he suggests we start anyway and if it’s too bad I can drop off.  Luckily when WebmasterRadio.fm called, it was much clearer.  Which begs the question – shouldn’t the test caller be the best quality possible?  I digress…

The call itself went great in the moment… there weren’t any points where I was sitting there silently banging my head.  I fumbled the intro to myself, which is ironic because that’s what was keeping me up the night before – how to whip in PsPrint AND this blog.  I figured that was the only part I could rehearse, and coming from a theatrical background I’m a fan of rehearsal.

Now, for my “notes to self”.

• Be more conscious of how close my mic is to my keyboard and how loud I’m typing.
• Do more research about what’s going on so I can suggest more topics instead of being a ‘yes’ woman.
• Don’t laugh – it doesn’t come across well over the phone/skype.
• Attempt to fix the skype thing because in the recording I do hear myself cut out sometimes.

I think, all in all, this was a good exercise for me in giving up control of my image and gives me some things to work on.  Please, go listen, and add on to my notes so I can work on my presence, public relations and such!  In advance, I truly appreciate it.

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