Voice First Technology
I spoke with Pete Erickson of Modev and Inside Voice on the Sound In Marketing Podcast Episodes 34 and 35. Pete is uniquely qualified to foresee the future of sound marketing as he has been a part of it since Voice First technology really came into existence through Apples’ Siri technology.
In 2011, developers were upset that they couldn’t get access to Siri’s SDK. Pete realized the demand for voice then and looked to collaborate in the D.C. area with developers who desperately wanted in on voice technology. He started a Meetup Group in 2009 in Washington D.C. called the “Washington Iphone, Android and Smartphone Developers Group”. 12 people came to a pizza shop.
It started small as a way for developers to share valuable information with each other pieced together from one outlet or another. The group quickly grew. In fact, membership kept doubling and doubling. The demand and interest in voice first technology was evident.
That was when Pete started Modev, a company that helps bring together the voice community through a developer conference. It brought the voice community together to help one another build and monetize user experiences, create careers and job opportunities, and grow the industry as a whole. He now has one of the top performing conferences in the industry.
In 2015, when Alexa went public, Pete got in touch with Amazon and they created the 1st workshop for developers before the SDK was even available. In 2017, they went on tour around the country teaching people about Amazon and how to build their first Alexa skill.
Apple Could Have Had It
Pete made a fascinating observation. Had Apple given access to developers their SDK and API of Siri in the beginning, the voice first revolution would have been launched and dominated by Apple. By denying the developers access to the “prototype” of sorts voice technology (Siri), Amazon created Alexa. Alongside that came Cortana, Google Assistant, Bixby, and the list goes on.
Apple created mass innovation when they could have had a monopoly in the industry.
Pete Erickson
Sound Outlets
With all of this new voice technology being created by many different companies and sources, creators had accumulated a lot of data. They also realized that there was no social gathering or conference out there that aimed at addressing these personas they had developed. So in 2018, to serve that need, they launched Voice Summit.
Inside Voice is their podcast. They produce 2 episodes a week which I highly recommend checking out. They believe that “human connection is vital in the era of digital transformation”.
Sound Alerts
Sound is everywhere as I’ve preached time and time again. We take our daily routines and put them into sound packages (the sound of the coffee perking in the morning, the toaster popping, the mailman delivering the mail, the school bus rounding the corner, the garage door opening when our spouse comes home from work). Each sound alerts us to a portion of our day thus alerting us, relatively, to the time of day in which we are currently operating.
We also take cues from our smart (and non smart) devices (the beep of the microwave, Alexa telling us it’s time for our workout, our fire alarm chirping for a new battery). Companies and entertainment prompts us with sound cues as well. Companies like Coppertop or Intel bring us instant recall to their services, shows like Law and Order and Seinfeld tell us it’s time to watch a show (or time to turn it off depending on our tastes).
In this day and age even our technology speaks to our other technology! The smart microwaves and smart refrigerators are synced in one way or another to know of the others existence as well as supply us with sound cues about their own operations. I won’t go too far into that because I own no smart appliances at the moment.
It’s all sound marketing. Whether it’s organic sounds or tonal chimes, all is based on audio cues.
Pete Erickson
At the end of the day it is a very artistic space. Those creative people who have the capacity to program smart speaker skills or even come up with a sound function for an inanimate object in the first place are mind bogglingly innovative.
Voice Summit: Bringing the Community Together
Pete’s company has done a great thing in putting together Voice Summit. It is truly one of a kind. The mission of the Voice Summit is to bring together those impacting the voice industry as well as those wanting to get involved. It is an educational and business centric conference that brings together all walks of life at all stages of voice development.
Voice applies to all and so all industries are welcome making this a truly global community. Game developers, healthcare developers, fintech developers, automotive developers all come to the Summit to share what they are doing.
Voice Summit and Voice Global is where you can really get a good understanding of what’s happening and who’s leading the way.
Voice At CES
Back in January 2020, Voice at CES, held in Vegas, had its inaugural debut with a lot of great feedback. The intention was to give a space for brand executives to come and learn about voice marketing in an environment where it wasn’t quite as crowded as CES’ main show floor.
The program was sponsored by Google among others and had great conversations with Disney, AMEX, Amazon, Radio.com, etc.
Voice at CES Takeaway: The future is electric, autonomous and voice activated.
Pete Erickson
Many podcasters were recording live including Bradley Metrock and Brett Kinsella from Voicebot.ai and so Pete took it upon himself to list them on the gomodev.com site if you’re interested in listening. Great report of the two day event.
Voice First Community
If you haven’t spent much time in the voice community, I highly recommend it. This community is the most inclusive group of people creating a hugely collaborative environment. It is seriously one of the most healthy communities I’ve ever experienced. Everyone bends over backwards to help one another and cheer loudly when they succeed.
If you’re not sure how to find the community here’s some great hashtags to start your search down the rabbit hole. #voice #voicefirst #womeninvoice #voicetech #voicetechnology #voicelunch #smartspeakers #voiceassistance
Voicebot.ai
Another great resource to take the pulse on what’s happening in conversation AI is Voicebot.ai. That team has their ears to the ground and collects an exhaustive amount of all the information on statistics and data that you would ever need. Brett Kinsella heads that team and, according to Pete, is the “pied piper of the audio world.” I tend to agree.
The State of Voice
In 2018, there was a lot of hype and not a lot of action. In 2019, there was a change and companies were stepping up and talking about what they were doing. 2020 is the year that this market becomes solidified and the leaders of this market become established.
Even amongst COVID-19 and all the upheaval in absolutely every industry worldwide, I still believe that Voice in 2020 will see great innovation and inspiration.
Pete Erickson
Sound Is Available To Us All
[With voice] We have another avenue now for thought leadership and engagement.
Pete Erickson
As I have preached from the beginning, sound marketing is available to us all. It’s not mainstream just yet, but just take a look back at the start of YouTube or blogging. The start of anything new is the chance to get in on the ground floor. This is your chance with voice.
Want to create an Alexa App? Check out Voice Flow, Voicify or Voice XP. They’re “easy in’s” with no coding experience necessary. On the content end, try creating a microcast. Witlingo is a great company to reach out to and put a plan together. Voice Brew has an amazing amount of information on how to utilize Alexa Skills so I highly recommend her as well.
On the content or development side…keep it simple and make it fun. Sound needs to be approached….in an approachable way. It can be very effective but it is also a much more intimate experience.
Multi-Modal Functionality
Dominoes is doing a great thing that shows off multi modal engagement. Right now, you can tell Alexa that you’re hungry for pizza and Dominoes will deliver you a pizza. You can also text dominoes the pizza emoji and they’ll do the same thing. They set up their Alexa Skill back in 2016. I would be curious to find out how many people were actually using it then. Talk about being ahead of the curve.
Another great example is with Capital One’s Eno. They started in the tech world as a chatbot. Now it’s a platform that holds its own unique persona.
AMEX also created a way to have a conversation with consumers about their finances like never before.
When it becomes a component of your platform rather than “a cute feature”, then you know you’ve got something good.
Pete Erickson
In The Field
Here’s a great example of brand usage in smart speakers. Kiki Monifa, a former lawyer and now writer, started a flash briefing for Black History Everyday.
Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek was still a doctoral student when she went to the Voice Summit in 2018. She got a scholarship to go to the first Voice Summit where she got the idea for Women In Voice. If you want to hear more about her journey, check out Episode 32 and 33 of the Sound In Marketing Podcast as well as the article I wrote on our conversation.
This industry is so grass roots at present that people that get started in voice tend to get grabbed up and hired by the big brands or go on to do big things that are noticed because they are the authority. They were on the forefront.
