What is Voice User Interface Design or VUI? It's a new buzz word in the design world, and it has to do with thinking through and planning out the user experience related to a voice-based application, like an Alexa Skill, Google Home Action or a Chat bot of some kind.  While I suppose it could include AI (artificial intelligence), it actually really just can start with designing the experience behind a simple scripted conversation with the user. A really nice software platform to build custom Alexa Skills and Google Home Actions (in Beta) without coding is Voiceflow. In this video, I explain/show how to use Voiceflow to design and create an Alexa Skill without coding.

This episode is me getting PUMPED on an Instagram Story about the launch of a shiny new Alexa Flash Briefing for entrepreneur Danielle McGee and her business Black Business Boom, highlighting Black-owned Businesses in Middle Tennessee. Enjoy!

Hey Alexa, Open Nashville Voice Conference. The Nashville Voice Conference has launched the first ever Alexa Skill dedicated to communicating with attendees of an upcoming event, as well as speakers, staff and media. “I believe we are the first, but I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong!” said Paul Hickey, Founder of Nashville Voice Conference and CEO/Founder of Data Driven Design. “If you’re an attendee, a facilitator, staff working the event or media, you can actually go to Talk.NashvilleVoiceConference.com and interact with the Nashville Voice Conference Alexa Skill to find out key information about the event as well as personalized assignments.”

In this episode I talk about how I tested my first custom Alexa Skill right on the Amazon Developer Console, a great tool. Tune in to learn more.

As a kid I loved Hip-Hop and Basketball. Listen to a snippet of my story on how those two passions have helped my career in business. And there's a special treat at the end!

Do you know what Alexa For Business is? Do you know what a custom Alexa Skill is? You probably only think of Alexa for playing music at home or playing games, but you need to think of it for your business. Specifically, how you can train your large organization using a custom Alexa Skill only available to particular employees of your company. Listen in. I promise it's good.

Do you know what Alexa For Business is? Do you know what a custom Alexa Skill is? You probably only think of Alexa for playing music at home or playing games, but you need to think of it for your business. Specifically, how you can train your large sales force using a custom Alexa Skill only available to particular employees of your company. Listen in. I promise it's good.

This is the fully detailed, step-by-step version of Episode 214.  Starting from nothing, in Segment 1, I show you how to create a Gmail account.  In Segment 2, I show you how to use that Gmail account to create an Anchor.fm account, then create your podcast, your first episode, and get your podcast published on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and more. In Segment 3, I show you how to find your Anchor.fm RSS feed, create an Amazon Alexa Skills Developer Account, and submit your Anchor.fm RSS feed as your Alexa Flash Briefing Skill feed. In Segment 4, I show you how to validate, test, and submit your Flash Briefing Skill to the Alexa Skills Store, and how to have you and your customers/clients/audience add it to your live device.

I had no idea if building my first Alexa Skill was going to work. But it did. Like a freaking charm. It never happens like that. And when it does, it kind of feels like serendipity. There are already more than 40,000 Alexa Skills in the Alexa Skills Store within the Alexa App (how you set up / customize your Echo, Echo Dot or other Alexa-enabled device like the Roav VIVA or Sonos Speaker), but now the Data Driven Daily Tip is in the mix. While future posts will explain why the heck I’m spending time doing this, this post is all about “HOW TO ADD MY BRAND SPANKING NEW ALEXA FLASH BRIEFING SKILL TO YOUR DAILY ALEXA ARSENAL.” But first, we can definitely review. Chances are, even if you have some familiarity with this space, you’re still asking yourself What The Heck Is An Alexa Flash Briefing? Read below from an earlier blog of mine. But there’s also a kind of Skill that many content companies and media companies use that is much simpler and more common during this infancy of Voice. And as you can imagine, these have my attention. These Skills are called “Flash Briefings.” Top Flash Briefing skills include Wall Street Journal, Cheddar, CNBC and Fox News. But even brands like the NBA have Flash Briefing skills. What’s cool about Flash Briefings is that, as a user, you can customize your own. For example, mine could be “weather in Spring Hill, Tennessee,” “Top Tech News from TechCrunch.,” “MLB Schedule Today,” and “Gary Vee 365.” You customize your own by heading to your Alexa app, tapping the hamburger menu then, Settings, then Flash Briefing. So now, you can get my Data Driven Daily Tip on Alexa. Here’s how. 1. Open your Alexa app on your phone. 2. Tap the hamburger menu on the top left, tap “Skills & Games” 3. Search for “Data Driven” 4. See this screen, and click “ENABLE.” 5. Once the Skill is enabled, tab the Hamburger Menu Again, then “Settings” then scroll down to “Alexa Preferences” and tab “Flash Briefing.” 6. This is how your Flash Briefing will play in order when you say “Alexa, Play My Flash Briefing” or “Alexa, What’s In The News?” Make sure Data Driven Daily Tip Plays First! 

In this special edition of the Data Driven Daily Tip Podcast, I talk through an important concept that all business owners and entrepreneurs need to fully understand - the Minimum Viable Product. The tendency when building a software application or even a website, is to try to include everything all at once. To prioritize everything, which basically means you're prioritizing nothing. How do you build something that is basic enough for your initial beta user group to test, and what is the benefit of this vs. trying to build everything all at once. I explain in this podcast. Also, keep listening past the sponsored reads, and hear the special FULL version of my interview with Amazon Alexa's Chief Evangelist, Dave Isbitski.