Best Practice in Voice User Interface Design , speech recognition applications, mobile voice-to-text applications; updates in New Technologies including Social Media
I can’t believe it’s already been a year since TEDxSalford! TEDxSalford took place on a very sunny Saturday (28th January) at the futuristic Lowry building in Media City, Salford.
I was tweeting for most of the event and compiled a list of all my relevant tweets and retweets both from the day and in the build-up to the event in this post. Below is the Best of!
@herbkim @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one. A blog post is in order!
In reply to Herb Kim
30 Jan
“Nothing is impossible.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by Maria Aretoulaki
Maria Aretoulaki
Umut Kose: each of us produces 340 million neutrinos per day that reach the farthest corners of the universe #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Gemma Cameron @ruby_gem
“Do you remember your first time with the Internet?” #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by Maria Aretoulaki
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): old bands prob reform in order to make money to buy their sound recordings off the record labels#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): that’s what record labels are now – content businesses #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): we’ve moved away from BC and AD to BEFORE INTERNET and AFTER INTERNET #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Maria Aretoulaki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): the current copyright laws are useless #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,900 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 12 years to get that many views.
2012 can already be dubbed the TEDx year for me, as it’s only mid-March and I have already attended and even contributed to two TEDx events! First up was TEDxSalford in late January and 2 weeks later it was TEDxManchester!
TEDxSalford took place on a very sunny Saturday (28th January) at the futuristic Lowry building in Media City, Salford.
I was tweeting for most of the event (or when my phone battery was not dead!) and I have compiled below a list of all my relevant tweets and retweets both from the day and in the build-up to the event. I am going to add later on some notes I took while I couldn’t tweet! Hopefully the tweets convey the spirit of TEDxSalford, which can be summarised as follows: @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one .
@herbkim @TEDxSalford was mindblowing! So much intellect, so much empathy, so much emotion, all rolled into one. A blog post is in order!
In reply to Herb Kim
30 Jan @ar3toul4ki
Hello! Great to see you @TEDxSalford ! I’m still buzzing! RT @astrondrew: @ar3toul4ki hello fellow skeptic and tedx person.
28 Jan TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
The Key A CALL TO ACTION #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Unity Node @UnityNode
“WE are the story here… the collaboration itself, not the technology – the people who affect real change.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Unity Node @UnityNode
“Nothing is impossible.” -@astro_ron #tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Charlie Buckwell @charliebuck123
Ron Garan – awe inspiring film of lapping earth, sunrise, moonrise, aurora borealis – #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
Oh. My. Eyes!!! I just saw an aurora FROM SPACE! S P A C E #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan Ben Davies @_bendavies
Just met an astronaut! He saw 16 sunrises a day. More importantly, introducing the orbital perspective – http://unitynode.org/ #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: people think of something as impossible, just cos it has never been done before. Nothing is impossible! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: man-made borders distract from the fact that we’re all in this together #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: i came back to earth with a commitment to refuse to accept the status quo #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Astro_Ron: you don’t have to be in orbit to have a global perspective #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Can’t believe I just saw @Astro_Ron speak @TEDxSalford. I’ve been following his tweets from space and later on Earth for ages! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: creating spontaneous bass wobble down the Manchester canal! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: the Beecham Tower hum revisited #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Trevor Cox: how to create bass wobble by clapping your hands in-between S-shaped walls (Mmm gives me some ideas) : D #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Dr. Umut Kose explaining to the audience what neutrinos are #heavyparticlephysics #TEDxSalford #Manchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Umut Kose: each of us produces 340 million neutrinos per day that reach the farthest corners of the universe #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Gemma Cameron @ruby_gem
“Do you remember your first time with the Internet?” #TEDxSalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tom Hingley talking about the Death of Copyright at #TEDxSalford. Watch the live stream now! #TEDx #TED #Manchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley: a bleak future where augmented reality rearranges shop shelves to show you what you OUGHT to want to buy #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): old bands prob reform in order to make money to buy their sound recordings off the record labels#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): that’s what record labels are now – content businesses #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): we’ve moved away from BC and AD to BEFORE INTERNET and AFTER INTERNET #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets): the current copyright laws are useless #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: good moms have sticky floors, dirty ovens but happy kids : ) #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tomorrow’s World #Tedxsalford
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: the triple P bottom line: people, planet and only then profit #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: more inclusion with WE-conomics rather than ME-conomics #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: our love affair with economic growth hasn’t brought us happiness #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: the future is not some place we go to, we have to create it #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Anne Lise Kjaer: we are bombarded by contradictory messages, we have to be fast and efficient but also worry about our health #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@Jordan_Zadeh ah shame. @TEDxSalford is awesome. Hope you still manage to enjoy yourself
In reply to Jordan Ahmadzadeh
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@retsillac well being still alive is very convincing : p
In reply to @CnallA
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: i nearly died 9 times but i didn’t, because of a) PREPARATION and b) BELIEF IN MYSELF #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: my new indigenous friends were crying as i was leaving+said “the sad thing is no one will be around to bury you”#TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Benedict Allen: when you’re being shot at, you can’t really stop and ask them WHY #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Edward Stafford: I knew I had to keep my sense of humour to keep going, when i actually also knew IT WASN’T FUNNY! #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Edward Stafford: i was tweeting+blogging from the middle of the Amazon all the time. Knew Michael Jackson was dead within 2mins #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
Nathan Rae @nathanrae
I’m live streaming the #TEDxSalford event at http://www.tedxsalford.com/live Great speeches so far so check it out!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Irene Khan: The law of demand and supply applies to justice as well. DEMAND it and you ll get it (eventually) #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
Irene Khan: Violence against women is not a social problem, it’s a human rights problem #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
looking forward to tweeting the awesome speakers ‘ pearls of wisdom #TEDxSalford
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
RT @TEDxSalford: The official twitter hashtag = #TEDxSalford Less than 1 hour to go! #TEDx #TED #Manchester #mediacityuk #Salford
28 Jan
The sun is shining so well up for a day of enlightenment at @TEDxSalford today – exciting
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
28 Jan
@ar3toul4ki
@cubicgarden Yes i should be tweeting furiously all day from @TEDxSalford tomorrow!
In reply to Ian Forrester
28 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Dont miss out on an official NASA astronaut appearance in #Manchester this January only at #TEDxSalford. Register now: http://www.tedxsalford.com/event/registration
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
17 Jan
TEDxSalford @TEDxSalford
Tickets still available for #TEDx #Salford – check out our speakers lineup: http://www.tedxsalford.com/event/speakers #Manchester #MediaCityUK
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
@ar3toul4ki
That was close! RT @TEDxSalford: Tickets still available for #TEDxSalford http://tedxsalford.com/event/speakers Astronauts, Scientists, Explorers!
Tonight Channel 4 is showing the programme: “Richard Wilson On Hold“, or as it would probably be dubbed “The UK stuck in IVR Hell“.
“From telephone car parking payment systems to supermarket self-service tills, Richard Wilson investigates the rise of automated services across Britain and puts the machines to the test”
Richard Wilson doesn’t like to be on Hold (Copyright Glowfrog Studios)
This will probably put my profession to shame (even if the programme is only about waiting queues), but they would have a point, as there are some horrid voice recognition self-service IVRs out there! Watch it tonight, Monday 16 January 2012, at 8-9pm GMT on Channel 4, and check my update on here once I’ve watched it myself.
Well, 2011 wasn’t bad (see below), so expectations are high for 2012!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.
The event takes place over three days and is designed to support delegates in making career choices, exploring future plans and discovering the breadth of opportunities available to them.
I am one of the 77 Panelists who will address questions such as:
At what point in your PhD did you / should you really begin to think about the next step in your career?
How did you decide on which careers to follow – what other careers did you consider or would you consider as a next step?
What other jobs do you know of which have been filled by PhD researchers?
How did you / should PhD researchers go about the process of looking for employment?
How did you / would you successfully market a PhD to potential employers?
How are PhD researchers perceived in the job market?
At interview what types of questions were you / could you be asked about your PhD?
What was your first job after your PhD?
How did you find that job?
Was that job what you expected? What was different?
Did you use the skills / knowledge from your PhD in your first job / in your current role?
What did you learn during your PhD which was useful in your first job?
Is there anything you learnt during your PhD which you use in your current job?
Is there anything you wish you had learnt or done during your PhD which would have helped your career?
I really enjoyed being a Panelist last year, as you will witness from my older blog post: “The Loneliness of the long-distance … VUI Designer!“. So I am really looking forward to sharing some insight this year again into the world of Industry, the thrills and perils of start-ups, the luring flexibility of freelancing, and the dos and don’ts of Project Management.
P.S. Not sure who added those 2 extra lines in my profile that don’t make sense with the rest but it wasn’t my fault!
And finally, on both days of the Main Conference (Wed 25 – Thu 26 May), I will be holding the free consultancy one-to-one appointments in the context of the brand new for this year Meet the Consultants Clinic. I am one of the “5 global speech tech experts” available “to discuss your speech tech needs and challenges“. Maybe you need to check out my older blog post on speech recognition (for dummies!) to get an idea of what I will be chatting about with everyone. You may also want to check out my presentation slides from last year and from 2007. Get them from these older blog posts: ““The Eternal Battle Between the VUI Designer and the Customer“ and “Does Your Customer Know What They are Signing off??“. Although you do need to pre-book, these appointments are free for registered conference delegates or Expo visitors, so I’m looking forward to meeting some of you in person!
There’s still time to sign up for the SpeechTEK Europe Conference and Free Entry Expo. Use the following link to register and we’ll see you in London next week! http://www.speechtek.com/europe2011/Registration.aspx
Here’s a quick round-up of what’s happening:
Conference Keynotes by Google‘s Engineering Director, Dave Burke, who tells SpeechTEK Europe about Google’s plans for cloud-based speech recognition, and Professor Alex Waibel who describes and demonstrates how speech technology is helping to overcome language and cultural barriers. Free entry for Expo visitors too.
Learn from over 50 global expert speakers sharing their experiences – both good and bad – and enabling you to build the ultimate multimodal experience for your customers, saving you money and improving your service.
Network with colleagues from all over the world, who have already implemented successful strategies. Companies attending include ABN Amro Bank, Apple, Barclays Bank, Microsoft, Orange, Lloyds Bank, Dell, Cap Gemini and more.
Identify, evaluate, integrate, and optimise the latest speech technology solutions from world-leading providers at SpeechTEK Europe’s Expo.
SpeechTEK Europe features over 50 speakers from around the world, and from a wide range of business environments including Google, Barclays Bank, Deutsche Telekom, Nuance, Loquendo, Openstream, Voxeo, Belgian Railways, Telecom Italia, Cable & Wireless, and Westpac.
LEARN ABOUT
Business strategies – Speech biometrics – Multichannel applications – Multilingual applications – Multimodal applications – Assistive technologies – Analytics and Measurement – Voice User Interaction design – Speech application development tools and languages – Case studies, panel discussions and more …
UPDATE
SpeechTEK Europe 2011 has come and gone and I’ve got many interesting things to report (as I have been tweeting through my @dialogconnectio Twitter account).
But first, here are the slides for my presentation at the main conference on the outcome of the AVIxD Workshop on Cross-linguistic & Cross-cultural Voice Interaction Design organised by the Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIxD). I only had 12 hours to prepare them – including sleep and London tube commute – so I had to practically keep working on them until shortly before the Session! Still I think the slides capture the breadth and depth of topics discussed or at least touched upon at the Workshop. There are several people now writing up on all these topics and there should be one or more White papers on them very soon (by the end of July we hope!). So the slides did their job after all!
Already on the 4th, I was most honoured and really proud to take part in the photoshoot marking the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) (@IWDphotoshoot and @ManchesterIWD on Twitter). The event was organised by Emma Beck of Lollipop PR (@lollipopprlady) and Naomi Timperley (@naomitimperley) of Social Media Boom and Baby Loves Disco with the aim to “bring together a group of ‘Women Who Impact’ from all walks of life, to launch the IWD programme with a group photograph at Manchester Town Hall.“
On that freezing cold but gloriously sunny Friday, I stood on the steps of Manchester Town Hall for a non-glamorous but still exciting and exhilarating photoshoot. There were a few famous women among us, as it has been reported in the print and online media (such as Manchester Evening News and Inside the M60), but most of us were less-known business women, Academics or Creatives who keep on keeping on! So I felt incredibly honoured to have been invited in the first place and of course to be photographed next to some of the “City’s Top Women”, “inspirational” “luminaries” who “impact”! I guess my long association with automatic speech recognition and voice-enabled IVRs can get me anywhere And having my own consultancy nowadays also got me the baptism of fire in the Business world.
Here is a representative photo of all 50 of us (I’m in the front row, 5th from the right, the one with the beige coat on)
50 of Manchesters Top Women (photo as appeared in “Inside the M60″)
Some of the inspiring women I personally met there were:
Dr Marieke Navin (@lisamarieke), Particle physicist turned science communicator at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) here in Manchester (seen here in the 2nd row, 3rd from the right)
and Gráinne McElroy (@DemWorkingMum), Technology Research Analyst and self-professed geek, who got me in touch with the organisers of the photoshoot (Thank you!) (seen here in the 2nd row, 4th from the right, just behind me and to my left)
Despite the still lingering euphoria however, I agree with Coun Suzanne Richards, Manchester Council’s lead member for women (quoted from M.E.N.):
“We still need more women politicians, we still need more women in the board rooms.“
In fact, I suspect that having more women politicians could be the solution to many of this and other countries’ socio-economic problems!!
Encouraged by the interest and support, I decided, together with John Cass of PR Communications, to communally write a similar post on the London Social Media scene, listing all relevant networking groups and events (or however many we get our hands on!). The idea is to get in touch with the organisers and ask them to write a round-up post on their events or the local scene in general, to which I and John would then link in our own blogs. If writing a round-up post is not an option, we would ask for an interview, or even get in touch with people who are fans of their event, and interview the fans. We hope of course to also get comments and reactions on it, so that we can keep updating and augmenting the list.
For starters, the list of Social Media events and organisations in London that we now know of is the following:
The Social Media Week conference in London (@socialmediaweek), which takes place simultaneously in capital cities around the world (such as Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong – @SMWSAOPAULO @SMW_PARIS @SMWTO @SMWHK @SMWRME @SMWSF @smwldn @SMWIST)
The #techMAP events organised by Barry Furby, not just in London but elsewhere in the world as well, which focus on “the practical application of technology to Marketing, Advertising and PR”. Here’s a YouTube video on the corresponding “Social Media Monday” event (video discovered on the Digital Entertainment page):
Related to web technologies as well as their (start-up) funding is the MiniBar meetup in Shoreditch (with the added bonus of free drinks!). Watch this Youtube video on their meetup (also taken from the Digital Entertainment page):
MiniBar london
Potentially relevant could be the various events organised by the Geeks of London, as pointed out to us by @cubicgarden
As already noted above, we welcome any comments and reactions on this post, so that we can keep updating and augmenting the list!
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 7,600 times in 2010. That’s about 18 full 747s.
In 2010, there were 9 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 32 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 5mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.
Artificial Neural Networks are back! Excellent. Makes me nostalgic about my PhD days. lnkd.in/etMCsK2 weeks ago
Delighted to be in the Consortium that just got awarded EU funding for a high-risk/high-reward project on multimodal dialogue systems! 1 month ago
Proud to have Raytheon BBN as a client! They just got awarded a 14th Patent on their AVOKE Speech analytics tools! google.com/patents/US8102…1 month ago
