In its recently published annual report, the Global Network Initiative [GNI] announced that Evoca, a leading global voice recording and publishing web service, became the first non-founding Company Member to join GNI, demonstrating that the GNI Principles – advancing freedom of expression and privacy rights – are relevant to early stage technology firms as well as larger, established multinationals such as its founding Company Members – Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Google and its new Observer Status participant – Facebook. The Global Network Initiative [GNI] provides guidance to the information and communications technologies [ICT] industry and its stakeholders on how to protect and advance these human rights when faced with pressures from governments to take infringing actions.

Evoca CEO Murem Sharpe commented on Evoca’s purpose in joining GNI, “Evoca is a platform for free expression, and so GNI is a natural fit for us. As an early stage web services company, we employ software and web services of other companies operating in the cloud for customer service, telecommunications, data storage and streaming, payment, and other key functions. We look forward to engaging with these suppliers so that in turn we can assure our subscribers and licensees of our commitment to their rights to free expression and privacy.”

About The Global Network Initiative [GNI]

The Global Network Initiative [GNI] is a multi-stakeholder group of companies, civil society organizations, including human rights and press freedom groups, investors and academics, who have created a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the information and communications technologies [ICT] sector. GNI provides resources for ICT companies to help them address difficult issues related to freedom of expression and privacy that they may face anywhere in the world. GNI has created a framework of principles and a confidential, collaborative approach to working through challenges of corporate responsibility in the ICT sector.

GNI participants include Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, Websense, the Berman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School, USC Annenberg School for Communications, Center for Democracy & Technology, Internews, Human Rights First, Committee to Protect Journalists, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Centro de Estudios en Libertad de Expresión y Acceso a la Información, Calvert Investments, Church of Sweden, and Trillium Asset Management.

Every professional and business person has to do a lot of talking — in person, on the phone, and while giving presentations. You are called on to motivate staff, explain your product’s benefits, negotiate with prospects, speak to journalists, and pitch to investors.

But is your “vocal image” up to the job? There is more to our voices than meets the ear. Giving a poor vocal impression can lead to lost credibility, lost promotions, lost deals, and lost investors.

If you are not happy with your voice — or you’ve never really thought about how you sound to other people — check out 10 tips that could help you boost your vocal image. You can practice by recording your voice using Evoca and sharing the recording with a friend or mentor.

Vocal tip #1: How you sound is more important than what you say

It is worthwhile improving the impression we make with the sound of our voices. How we say things is much more important than what we say. Other people decide whether to agree with us or not, take our advice, or support us based on the sound of our voices.

Listeners on the phone and radio quickly jump to conclusions about our intelligence, education, expertise, credibility, likeability, and even what we look like, based on little more than the sound of our voices.

Vocal tip #2: You can improve your voice

The good news is, you can change the quality of your voice. You can learn how to use your voice to convey more authority and more decisiveness, and to connect better with others.

There are specific things people can do to improve; even making a 25 percent improvement in your vocal image can be a huge transformation.

Vocal tip #3: People are not good listeners, so you must speak clearly

Is it up to the listener to catch our message? Not if it’s you who wants to make an impression, or get something happening. Practice speaking in front of a mirror to check whether you are opening your mouth enough.

Vocal tip #4: Work to overcome the limits of telephones, and speakerphones

Standard telephones deliver a restricted bandwidth to the listener, which cuts off all the highest and lowest frequencies. Speakerphones are even worse.

Add more energy to the lips and the tongue. The point is to speak more clearly, not necessarily louder.

And here are two more practical tips for the telephone:

• You need to say ‘S as in Sam’ and ‘F as in Frank.’ You’d be surprised how many people have lost business because they just gave their website or their e-mail, and there was an F that their listener heard as an S.

• When you’re leaving a message, say your phone number or website address twice to give your listener a better chance to catch it.

Vocal tip #5: Inject vocal variety into your voice, especially when giving a presentation

Monotony is deadly sin in speaking. Add some variety to your voice, some ups and downs, some vocal highlights and some dramatic pauses, and louder and softer tones. Do it strategically, in a way that works with your message.

Emphasize the keywords of your presentation so your vocal changes work to help anchor the main points of your content.

Vocal tip #6: Don’t mumble; learn how to move your face

Don’t mumble because it can suggest that you’re not quite sure of what you’re saying or you’re not quite interested in connecting with the listener. People with deep voices should be especially aware of this issue.

Vocal tip #7: Overcome nasality by opening your mouth

People find a high-pitched, squeaky-sounding voice find irritating. Open your mouth to allow your sound waves that emanate from the larynx through your mouth. That’s exactly why singers open their mouths widely … to let the sound out.

Vocal tip #8: To inject more energy into your voice, stand up while talking on the phone.

Standing puts less pressure on your diaphragm and allows you to speak more easily, plus it tends to give you more of an energetic feeling than sitting down.

Vocal tip #9: Drink a large glass of water 20 minutes before you need to speak. It also helps you avoid excessive throat clearing.

Twenty minutes before an important interview, phone, radio or TV interview, or presentation, have a glass of water because it takes 20 minutes for the body to hydrate.

Vocal tip #10: When you’re speaking on the phone — and especially during a recorded interview, always remember to smile.

Smiling alters the muscles in your face and throat, and subtly affects your voice. If you have trouble remembering to smile, prop a mirror up on your desk and watch yourself while you talk.

In conclusion, there is a lot riding on the sound of your voice. Start adopting two or three of the tips and assess the results. Then continue on to adopt the rest to reach the your own sound of success.

We are pleased to announce that the Evoca Enterprise voice-to-web services platform has entered the Amazon Web Services [AWS] Co-Marketing Program. Featured in the AWS App Catalog, Evoca Enterprise enables its users to rapidly integrate Evoca’s digital voice recording services into their web applications, configuring audio recording, management and publication features using its flexible, enterprise-class (RESTful) HTTP API (application programming interface). Amazon Web Services, a division of online retail giant Amazon.com, provides cloud computing, storage, and streaming services that enable Evoca Enterprise to reliably deliver and scale its web services to meet its global licensees’ digital content creation and management requirements.

The Evoca Enterprise software-as-a-service platform [SaaS] enables businesses and organizations to create voice recordings by phone, Skype, or online embedded recorder and incorporate the recordings into their branded applications. With digital voice recording capabilities, users can engage their fans, customers, visitors, and contributors by enabling them to create, listen to, and share voice content on websites, blogs, and social media sites. Voice recordings can be made using phones, Skype, or online recorder and incorporated into a branded application.

Voice recording and publication features are easily customizable. All features are “white label”, i.e. can be branded by the user: Phone and Skype welcome prompts, online audio recorders, and embedded audio players. Recordings are saved and streamed from any profile or web page location within the user’s application. Users can choose to have Evoca stream the recordings or do it from their own servers.

For more information about Enterprise features, license pricing plans, and developer license access visit Evoca Enterprise or contact Evoca by email: businessdevelopment@evoca.com, phone: +1.212.372.7670 or toll-free U.S./Canada: 1-866-940-9988, or Skype call recorder using the contact: Evoca BizDev.

Evoca also offers affordable monthly subscription plans for individuals and businesses to benefit from its wide range of digital voice recording, management, and publishing features as journalists, language educators and students, coaches, and marketers. A 15-day Free trial subscription is available, with no credit card required. Subscribers to Evoca’s monthly plans can upgrade to an Evoca Enterprise license when their digital media requirements expand.

About Amazon Web Services [AWS]: Amazon Web Services provides a highly reliable, scalable infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world. Its data centers are located in the U.S., Europe, Singapore, and Japan, with customers across all industries. Its parent company is Amazon.com, the largest online retailer in the world. Amazon seeks to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company for three primary customer sets: consumer customers, seller customers, and developer customers.”

Amazon Web Services logo used with permission © 1996-2011, Amazon.com, Inc.

We are delighted to feature outstanding Evoca subscriber Leslie Gordon of LeslieWrites — rainmaker, strategist, idea generator, and communications and marketing thought leader. She has been a creative force behind many successful public relations and marketing campaigns ⎯ from Walt Disney World’s Disney Dreamers Academy to Daddy’s Promise, a national initiative designed to focus national attention on the positive relationship that can and should exist between fathers and daughters. Her writing is utterly engaging, so beware when you start reading what Leslie writes!

When asked how she uses Evoca to capture fresh, compelling content from her interviews with shakers and movers, Leslie offered these positive words: “I am a public relations/marketing professional and a writer. I contribute feature articles to a health and fitness magazine for women of color and I am in the process of writing my first book.”

She continues, “I interview high profile entertainers and celebrities, professionals in the medical and educational fields and CEOs of leading investment firms. I have found that using Evoca along with Skype is the best way to facilitate the many phone interviews I conduct each week.“

Leslie points out, “Using Evoca to record and manage my interviews is an easy process and completely user-friendly. I am able to access my interviews as digital voice recordings on the Evoca website in a matter of minutes after recording them. It has made my interview process SO much simpler and I have told all of my fellow writers and journalists about what a great service Evoca provides.”

Interested in becoming a featured Evoca subscriber in our email campaigns, blogs and social media? Contact the Evoca team with your story. Because: Everyone’s voice counts.

Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO, was invited to be a guest blogger for The Creative Coast to write about How To Make Your Savannah Business Global. Her advice, based on Evoca’s successful experience, applies to any business – new or established – in any city around the world.

Visualize your company as being global.

With Savannah’s location as a cultural and tourism hub and international port, it can be. No matter what our product or service, all of us can serve a global market. According to Visit Savannah, the city hosts 11.4 million visitors a year. That means that business people, professionals, and tourists from all over can learn about your product and bring it back to their home countries and cities. Establishing an online presence to tap into these visitors both before and after they head to our Hostess City is important. Communicate the story about your Savannah-based business every chance you get.

Always consider potential opportunities to partner with larger, international companies, because they have a wider audience and more resources.

We have nurtured the opportunity to integrate Evoca’s voice recording web service with Skype, which has given us access to its 650+ million users. Leveraging your company this way can build connections and give your products a good reputation in your industry, which can be a great way to grow. To do so, you always have to consider the benefits you offer to partner organizations. Will you help them meet a previously unmet need for their users? Will you help solve a problem? Will you help them generate revenue? Which leads to our next tip.

Work on solving a real problem with a quality product.

It is important to recognize what makes your product uniquely suited to satisfying customers’ requirements. If your core product is not meeting all of their needs, expand your product line. We are about to offer Boca, a new mobile app, which will add video creation to our toolbox. If you are an early stage company you likely are more flexible than your larger, bureaucratic competitors, so you can more rapidly respond to the needs and expectations of your users.

Maintain a strong and consistent identity for your brand and market it.

Consider a well-known global brand and what do you think of? It is usually their name, logo or tag line — or all three. Consistent branding can distinguish you from competitors, create a unique message to reach your appropriate audience, and successfully connect all channels of your external communication to avoid confusion and to reinforce your brand.

Network, form bonds within your community, and have an advisory team that shares your global vision to guide you.

The Creative Coast is a terrific networking organization and resource for advisors. Also consider getting involved with similar businesses in your industry. For example the Telfair Museums organization partners with the North American Reciprocal Membership (NARM) Program. This enables the Telfair and other NARM to mutually benefit, since any registered member can visit any of the registered NARM museums in the country at a discounted rate, helping those locations to obtain an increase in visitors and visibility.

Remember that growing your company globally probably will not happen overnight. But as long as you can balance your original mission for the company with being nimble enough to grasp new opportunities, you should be able to achieve great things both locally and abroad.

Evoca is committed to helping power the voices of small businesses and large corporations alike. Locally, Evoca powers Savannah Storyfest’s Historic Savannah Tours, Savannah Morning News’ popular “Vox Populi” feature, and the Telfair Museum’s “If Walls Could Talk” oral history project. Nationally and internationally Evoca supports NPR’s Moth Radio Hour for their audio auditions search, Discovery Communications for fan “shout outs” for their popular TV series, and Save the Children Foundation’s reporting about disaster relief efforts. Evoca is also a member of the Global Network Initiative, which works to advance freedom of expression and privacy in communications technology.

Skype is featuring the Evoca Call Recorder for Skype in its global Skype Shop! Evoca is also featured in the Skype App Directory main page and in its Evoca Call Recorder app page. The Skype Shop special deal doubles the new Evoca subscriber’s recording storage time upon sign up.

Evoca, a 100% cloud-based voice recording service, uniquely provides everything a Skype user needs to record free Skype calls and post digital audio recordings online with a 360-degree set of features: web-based Skype call recording, saving recordings in MP3 format, managing recordings from within the subscriber’s secure online account, publishing recordings online – to websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter, and inviting audio playback on any smartphone, tablet or computer. Because Evoca is web-based, no software downloads or updates are required. Evoca subscription Plans are available, including acquiring a custom Skype call recorder and custom local or toll-free dial-in phone number. Skype users can start with a 15-day Free Trial and upgrade at any time.

In the Evoca How It Works section, you can learn the five ways to record Skype calls using Evoca, including your own voice, interviews, conference calls, and the audio stream of a video call. It is great for journalists, writers, sales people, experts, coaches, educators, students, storytellers, and professional or amateur genealogists who want to capture oral history recordings. Subscribers also can invite other people to create recordings that are saved to the subscriber’s Evoca account.

Evoca subscribers also can create recordings in other ways: record using any phone and the online recorder that Evoca provides within each subscriber’s online account. Sharing and publishing digital audio recordings is easy, too, including posting to Facebook, Twitter, and any website or blog. Keeping a recording private or emailing a recording only to specific people is always an option.

Valentine’s day is a great time to begin capturing the stories of your loved ones to share with family members now and with future generations. Maybe your grandfather immigrated from Poland or Mexico or Japan and needs someone to help him remember his days “in the old country.” Perhaps your aunt not only has interesting personal stories to tell, but also served in the Kennedy or Reagan administrations and has valuable public oral history information to share.

Here are three methods to capture your family’s memories and share them with other family members. They all require some preparation, such as sending a letter or email message with suggested topics and questions.

Method # 1 – Meet with your family member in person. Take written notes or record the conversation. This is often the most desirable approach, especially if you have a close relationship with this family member. You can ask questions and takes notes or better yet, record the conversation as audio or video. We recommend recording in-person interviews using Evoca’s phone or online recorder methods. Evoca enables you to organize recordings in your online account by setting up Albums to which you assign the recordings. You can email links to individual recordings or Albums for playback, all while keeping the recording and Album settings at private. Transcription of audio recordings is possible using Evoca’s transcription service or by hiring another service or getting other family members to volunteer.

Hand-held digital audio recorders can be used, although there can be file formatting issues when later trying to share or manage. And recording into a computer is possible with the free software called Audacity or if you are a Mac user, Garageband. You can email individual files but run the risk of losing or misplacing the recordings if not well organized.

Method #2 – “Meet” with your family member by phone or Skype. Take notes or better yet, record the interview. It should not come as a surprise that many people, especially the elderly who do not get out much, really enjoy talking on the phone. Here, too, you can take notes or record the phone conversation. Naturally we recommend  Evoca’s phone interview recording method, although there are other phone recording services. The old method of hooking up a “gizmo” to your phone speaker can be used, but it quite awkward and not possible if you are calling from a mobile phone.

And then there is Skype. Many people of all ages have learned how to use Skype, the free computer-to-computer calling service, if they both have a computer. If both parties use Skype, there are no toll charges. With Skype call recording an essential Evoca feature, we highly recommend using our Skype call recording method, especially for people in different countries or continents. But across town works too. You can find the Evoca Call Recorder “app” in the Skype App Directory or sign up for an Evoca Pro subscription on the Evoca website. By the way, you can register the phone numbers and Skype accounts of up to 30 family members to become an interviewing “team” if you have a large family or want others to get in on the joy of it.

Method #3 – Enabling your family member to write or record his/her own memories. Some family members who like to write will be pleased to create their own stories writing in long-hand or typing on the computer. Or you can equip them with a hand-held recording device. It is also easy to invite a family member to record into your Evoca account simply by registering their phone number [or register Skype accounts, if they are Skypers]. Evoca will save the recording to your account, even associating specific family members’ recordings with an Album you set up in their name. You can get a dedicated local or toll-free phone number for your Evoca account to make it very easy for any family member to record to your account, without having to register them.

One of the most difficult aspects of this approach is that the family member may start out with enthusiasm and then stop. Be sure to encourage them through weekly phone calls and requests to read a few stories at a time. Sometimes using a family reunion as a target date for completing the project is a good motivator.

How should you approach your family member and get the memories flowing? “Legacy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Personal History” by Linda Spence is an excellent resource for organizing topics and questions. The book takes you through themes and questions about childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and later years that are especially useful:

Beginnings and Childhood: When and where were you born? What were you told about your birth and infancy and who told you? What were your earliest memories? Where did you live during your childhood and who lived with you? Tell about any animals that you loved as a child. When did you begin school? What did you like and dislike about school? Who was your favorite teacher? How did you spend vacations s a child?

Adolescence: Where were you living and who was living with you? Where did you go to school? What subjects did you most and least like and why? What were you involved in at school other than classes? Who was your best friend and what did you do together? What did you do for fun? What was your favorite music? What ambitions and dreams did you have as a teenager? How did you decide what to do after high school?

Early Adult Years: What were the significant milestones in your personal life and career in your twenties and thirties? If at school when you began this phase in your life, why did you chose it? If you were working, tell about your job and why you chose it. What were your greatest pleasures during this time? What was your biggest challenge? Tell of something you did that was adventurous.

The book goes on to cover other well designed parts of one’s life: Marriage, Being a Parent, Middle Adult Years, Being a Grandparent, Later Adult Years, and Reflections.

The most important step is to get started. One story at a time. Then before you know it, you will have a treasure trove of family memories to share with generations to come.

Here are three methods for capturing loved ones’ stories:

1 – Visit with your loved one in person. Show photographs and ask questions that will stir their memories.

In 2006 Evoca was honored to provide the technology and funding to record the oral histories of leaders in the Savannah historic preservation movement. These recordings were donated to the Georgia Historical Society. Notable among these leaders were Emma and Lee Adler, spearheading the Savannah movement with innovative methods and a persistent spirit that they generously shared with preservationists worldwide. Savannah mourns the loss of Lee Adler, who  passed away on January 29th at age 88. We were fortunate to have recorded Emma Adler, Lee Adler’s wife and long-time partner in the preservation movement.

Among the many citizens and professionals who have memorialized Lee Adler is David J. Brown, chief preservation officer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington.”There’s not a preservation group in this country that doesn’t owe some debt of gratitude to the work of Lee Adler.” The recordings of Emma Adler are streamed below by Evoca. The entire collection of oral history interviews is available for listening at the Georgia Historical Society online profile.

In the February 1 AP news article about Adler, reporter Russ Bynum wrote, “Born into a wealthy Savannah family that owned a local department store, Adler’s passion for protecting the 18th and 19th century homes of Georgia’s oldest city was passed on by his mother. Elinor Grunsfeld Adler was among the seven women who launched the [Historic Savannah] foundation that her son would later lead. The women started the group in 1954 to show their outrage after the downtown City Market, where farmers sold their crops, was razed to make way for a parking garage.”

Daniel Carey, Foundation president and friend of Lee Adler, credits him with pioneering the use of a revolving fund to purchase and resell historic properties instead of raising funds one building at a time. Historic preservation organizations around the world has since used Lee Adler’s effective techniques.

Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO, offered, “Evoca is ideal for capturing public oral histories, such as those we helped create and now archive and stream for anyone to listen and learn. In addition to in-person recording with the historian using the phone as a digital recorder or using our online computer recorder from their Evoca account, interviewers can record phone and Skype interviews.” These four interview methods are popular with both professional oral historians as well as family genealogists.

The Telfair Academy, one of the three Museums of the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia, is hosting an outstanding exhibition of the Slavery by Another Name: Paintings and Assemblages of Robert Claiborne Morris through March 4, 2012. Morris, a Savannah-based artist, was inspired by the landmark book of Doug Blackmon, his friend and former colleague at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Murem Sharpe, Evoca CEO, interviewed Mr. Morris at the Telfair Academy, using Evoca’s phone recording service, turning her mobile phone into a web-based digital recorder simply by dialing any Evoca public phone number available to all subscribers worldwide. The recording was instantly saved online to share online on any computer, smartphone, or tablet.  Recording phone interviews of people in different locations is also easy to accomplish.

The following is an excerpt from the Telfair’s exhibition description: Robert Claiborne Morris began to re-examine his understanding of race in America after reading an early proof of Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Slavery by Another Name.” The revelation that slavery continued until World War II changed the way he saw his native South.

Morris began an odyssey in search of the images, objects and artifacts related to this obscure chapter in American history. From Georgia to North Carolina, he examined the junkyards, flea markets and historical societies, hunting and collecting, in the hopes of finding a medium that could both incorporate found objects and project images to better understand the spiritual darkness of re-enslavement.

Incorporated in Morris’ works are portraits of the re-enslaved, maps of the slave mines, courageous articles and images published by the Atlanta Constitution, blood money, letters to the Department of Justice pleading for mercy and implements of bondage and torture ranging from words to ropes, locks and chains. Morris’ hope is that the series of overlapping mediums awakens complex emotions and promotes reconciliation.

Over the course of Morris’ three previous exhibitions in three cities, after greeting and speaking to hundreds of people he has discovered that art has a power that must be directed to the improvement and reconciliation of man’s soul. Morris believes that art has a greater strength when focused on the soul of man, asking us to search deeper into the things that comprise our own history.

Hearing Grandma Maria’s stories about growing up on a farm. Nephew Marco’s first words. Uncle Fritz’s recollections about his life in the circus. Capturing and sharing their voices for posterity in a digital audio recording: Priceless.

Evoca offers its easy-to-use Evoca Call Recorder for Skype to capture, share, and archive family stories, oral histories, and special events as MP3 recordings. Skype call recording with Evoca is accomplished “in the cloud” with no downloads or updates required. It is like StoryCorps inside your phone or computer, without having to wait for a van to show up in your town every few years or have family members in the same place to record and preserve their stories.

Evoca enables its subscribers to easily record family stories using Skype or any type of phone, share the audio recordings via email for listening or downloading, save them in a private online album for convenient playback, or post to family and genealogy websites, blogs, Facebook pages and Twitter. Recording the audio stream of Skype video calls is another handy Evoca feature. Family members anywhere in the world can playback recordings from any mobile smartphone, tablet or computer. Burning a CD to send to non-technical family members is simple to do.

Evoca subscribers can interview family members between continents, across countries, or around the table. They also can invite family members to record their own voices using any of these three methods: 1 – Phone or Skype – subscriber registers up to 30 phone numbers or 30 Skype accounts of family members, so their recordings will be saved to the subscriber’s account; 2 – Recording by phone using a dedicated “family storytelling hotline” with an Evoca Local or Toll-Free Plan; 3 – Recording their voices using Evoca’s online recorder on a family website or blog.

Another quick gift idea is to give an Evoca Pro subscription to journalists, writers or bloggers to record their own voice, interviews and conference calls. As She Writes member Monique Fields said, “Every writer in the world should have an Evoca subscription!” The Evoca team agrees. A Free Trial subscription is available before upgrading to a Pro, Local or Paid Plan.