The Voicebot Podcast

Coronavirus COVID-19 is now officially a global pandemic but it has been impacting events where the voice industry has a prominent role for nearly a month. MWC, HIMSS, SXSW all canceled. What other events are likely to face a similar fate? How is the industry already adjusting to new challenges associated with large gatherings? Peter Erickson and Bradley Metrock run the largest and most popular events in catering to the voice industry globally. Erickson has already had two events canceled due to coronavirus but has online events already on the calendar that are getting a lot of attention. Metrock also had some online events planned but also has the Voice of the Car Summit planned for April. We discuss how the CEOs of Modev and Score Publishing view the current situation, how they are adjusting, and what it portends for the future. Enjoy this special edition of the Voicebot Podcast.

Michal Stanislawek has nearly 20 years of experience in broadcast and online media. He co-founded Utter One in 2019 and quickly launched one of the most popular games on Google Assistant in Poland. That along with another title launched in the fall of 2019 serve over 100k users per month. The team has also launched a media-oriented Alexa skill and has a new Bixby Capsule in certification. In addition to Utter One Michal is also head of product development at MediaATMOS supporting premium live broadcast video around the world. He was formerly vice president of broadcast platforms at Deluxe MediaCloud where he built an award-winning media asset management and orchestration platform. He has been awarded MVP by Microsoft for two years running. Michal earned a Masters degree in engineering from Lublin University of Technology. We discuss how he initially went to market with his voice games, what he learned, and how he is moving forward with advertising monetization and creating new voice interactive media experiences. And, we discuss the future of media in the voice era. Enjoy!

Ben Sauer is a designer with deep experience as a practitioner, trainer, and theorist around conversational design. He recently left a role as a product and design leader at Babylon Health in the UK which has recently launched a chatbot that serves patients on behalf of the National Health Service. He has also been a trainer for O'Reilly events, is a frequent conference speaker, and has worked with BBC, Pearson, and Tesco in their conversational design initiatives. He has a degree in English Literature from the University of Warwick. We discuss conversational design in healthcare and for other applications, what he has learned, and how voice is changing the way people are thinking about brand trust.

What3Words is a global address system that has assigned three-word labels to all of the 57 million 3-meter squares that make up the surface of the earth. That approach enables you to go to the front door of house, the side door of an office building, the middle of city block, a specific tree in a park, or even a remote jungle location. It offers precision in space that is far superior to our postal address system and is more accessible than GPS coordinates. Chris Sheldrick, CEO and co-founder of What3Words, discusses the origin behind the solution, his work in the automotive, transportation, and government sectors and how the approach aligns well with the rise of voice assistants.

David Cannington is co-founder of Nuheara, a pioneer in the hearables, wireless earbuds market. Nuheara was founded in 2015 in Perth, Australia and delivered its first product in 2017. The company recently announced a new generation product at CES, the IQ Buds Max. David and his co-founder previously worked together at Sensear which provided noise reduction gear for high noise manufacturing environments.

My two guests today are widely sought after experts in voice user experience design. After more than 20 years designing voice user interfaces, Cathy Pearl is well known in the industry and is the author of what many people see as the key handbook for voice application design, "Designing Voice User Interfaces." Cathy currently serves as head of Conversation Design Outreach at Google. Prior to Google, Cathy was vice president of user experience at Sensely and before that worked at Nuance, Tellme, and Volio. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Cognitive Science and worked for NASA early in her career. Adva Levin is founder of Pretzel Labs, an award-winning voice interaction studio best known for winning the top prize in the Alexa skills competition for Kids skills in 2018. Other popular titles by Pretzel labs include Freeze Dancers and Kids Bop Daily. Pretzel Labs also works with brands, media companies and government ministries on voice user experience design. Adva is an Alexa Champion, has undergraduate degrees in Math and Economics, and a Masters in Fine Arts in creative writing from Columbia University. Adva first joined me on Voicebot Podcast back in Episode 49 in June 2018 and Cathy preceded here by a few months in Episode 30 two years ago this month.

Today, we have an in-depth discussion about voice technology adoption in healthcare, what some trials of new applications are showing, and where we are headed. Dr. Teri Fisher of VoiceFirst Health and the Alexa in Canada podcasts is currently a full-time Sports and Exercise Physician and clinical assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. In addition to his clinical medical practice, Dr. Fisher has become a leading authority on the intersection of healthcare and voice technology. Also with us is Nate Treloar, co-founder and chief operating officer of Orbita, a software company focused on bringing voice assistants into patient-facing use cases. Nate is a respected expert and speaker on search, text, and data mining and has advised many of the world's largest companies and government agencies. His work at Orbita takes him into leading healthcare organizations such as Mayo Clinic and many others to support patient use cases before care, during care, and post-procedure. This interview was recorded onsite at Project Voice in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The National Football League (NFL) in the U.S. is the top sports league by revenue globally. It is also a media powerhouse that has been experimenting with voice assistant technology to enhance the fan experience. Joining Voicebot Podcast host Bret Kinsella today is Ian Campbell from NFL Labs, the innovation arm of the NFL. He has worked in product design, UX and innovation for the past two years in his second tour with the NFL. Earlier in his career, Ian was director of creative and UX for NFL.com and the various football and fantasy football mobile apps of the league. He has also worked previously at Phenomenon, DeviantArt, GolinHarris, and Digitas. Also joining us is John Gillilan, founder of Bondad.fm, who has been working with the NFL on its voice initiatives. John is a creative voice designer and Alexa Champion that previously worked at Disney, Maker Studios, and KUFALA Recordings. He was also co-founder of Vosotros, an independent music distribution company where he executive produced 10 albums with 100+ musicians. Ian and John walked through an interesting presentation at Project Voice where they went through the backstory behind The Rookie's Guide to the NFL Alexa skill and Flash Briefing. They also discussed the overall strategy and design considerations as well as some projects that are not yet public but are available today to NFL employees. We discuss a wide range of topics including the use of avatars, multimodal design and how to think about mobile devices differently that smart speakers and smart displays. Enjoyl

Healthcare will be a big adopter of voice technology and voice assistants. Mayo Clinic is out front innovating around new and intriguing use cases which we discuss in today's show. Dr. Sandhya Pruthi is a physician at Mayo Clinic focused on breast cancer treatment and research and a frequent speaker on voice technology. She is the current president and board of trustees member of the National Consortium of breast centers among several other industry recognitions. Joyce Even is Vice Chair of Global Business Solutions, Content Management and Delivery at Mayo Clinic where she oversees a variety of initiatives related to medical and health content dissemination as part of the Clinic's mission to serve its local and global communities. Joyce is a CPA with a background in accounting, an MBA, and also holds a degree in Nursing.

We have 10 interviews from the floor of CES 2020 offering the latest insights on voice assistants, voice services, and what to expect over the next year. Gal Klein, CTO and co-founder of Audioburst (4:28) Audrey Arbeeney, founder and CEO of Audiobrain (11:50) Pat Higbie CEO and co-founder of XAPPmedia (22:01) Tobias Dengel CEO of WillowTree (28:30) Dr. Martyn Farrow, COO of Soapbox Labs (37:40) Nithya Thadani, CEO of RAIN (44:18) Joel Sucherman from NPR (52:46) David Cannington, co-founder of Nuheara (1:02:50) Jonathan Bradley, from Kohler (1:10:51) Robert Keating Safe-Tec (1:14:31)