Best Practice in Voice User Interface Design , speech recognition applications, mobile voice-to-text applications; updates in New Technologies including Social Media
“In 1974 Donald Sherman, whose speech was limited by a neurological disorder called Moebius Syndrome, used a new-fangled device designed by John Eulenberg to dial up a pizzeria. The first call went to Dominos, which hung up. They were apparently too busy becoming a behemoth. Mercifully, a humane pizzeria – Mr. Mike’s – took the call, and history was made. It all plays out below, and we hope that Mr. Mike’s is still thriving all these years later….” (Smithsonian.com Blog)
Speech synthesis on this computer was rather slow, and it also apparently required “Yes/No” questions to just simply generate a “Yes” or a “No” too. Still, it could also synthesize other phrases, such as the pizza toppings (pepperoni and mushrooms, salami ...), the complex delivery address (the Michigan State Computer Science Department), as well as the contact number for callback. So not bad at all!
I was touched by the patience and kindness of the pizza place employee. He would patiently wait for up to 5 seconds for any answer, which must have been unnerving in itself! And now he is part of History! Good on him!! And well done to the Michigan State University‘s Artificial Language Laboratory and Dr. John Eulenberg!
TEDxManchester took place on Monday 13th February this year at one of the iconic Manchester locations – and my “local” – the Cornerhouse. Among the luminary speakers were people I have always been admiring, such as the radio Goddess Mary Anne Hobbs, and people I have become very close friends with over the years – which has led me to an equal amount of admiration, such as Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden to most of us). You can check out their respective talks, as well as some awesome others, in my TEDxManchester report below.
My TEDxManchester talk
I spoke about the weird and wonderful world of Voice Recognition (“Voice Recognition FTW!”): from the inaccurate – and far too often funny – simple voice-to-text apps and dictation systems on your smartphones, to the most frustrating automated Call Centres, to the next generation, sophisticated SIRI and everything in-between. I explained why things go wrong and when things can go wonderfully right. The answer is “CONTEXT”; the more you have of it , the more accurate and relevant the interpretation of user intention will be, and the more relevant and impressive the system reaction / reply will be.
2012 can easily be dubbed the year of TEDx for me, as by mid-February I had already attended two TEDx events! First up was TEDxSalford in late January, where I was just a mindblown attendee, and two weeks later it was TEDxManchester where I had the honour to be a speaker!
TEDxManchester took place on Monday 13th February this year at one of the iconic Manchester locations – and my “local” – the Cornerhouse. Among the luminary speakers were people I have always been admiring, such as the radio Goddess Mary Anne Hobbs, and people I have become very close friends with over the years – which has led me to an equal amount of admiration, such as Ian Forrester (@cubicgarden to most of us).
Here are their respective talks at TEDxManchester 2012 for you to get a taste of the atmosphere at the event and of the impact of the ideas and the immediacy of the sentiments circulated!
I spoke about the weird and wonderful world of Voice Recognition (“Voice Recognition FTW!”): from the inaccurate – and far too often funny – simple voice-to-text apps and dictation systems on your smartphones, to the most frustrating automated Call Centres, to the next generation, sophisticated SIRI and everything in-between. I explained why things go wrong and when things can go wonderfully right. The answer is “CONTEXT”; the more you have of it , the more accurate and relevant the interpretation of user intention will be, and the more relevant and impressive the system reaction / reply will be.
@ar3toul4ki 15 Feb RT @global_lingo: Maria Aretoulaki on voice recognition software. Will digital transcription ever be any good? #tedxmcr no, no it won’t
Lynne McCadden @lmccadden 14 Feb
Belated I know but many congrats to @herbkim for a fantastic TEDxMCR yesterday been thinking about some of it all day today !
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester 14 Feb
Here’s to the #TEDxMCR speakers in Session 2 – @daveerasmus @martinsfp @ar3toul4ki @cubicgarden @brendandawes
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester 13 Feb
Thanks to @BandXMedia all today’s #TEDxMCR talks were recorded, will be edited & put online soon #TEDxMCR @s2martin
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
Lynne McCadden @lmccadden 13 Feb
#tedxmcr learning about quarks and leptons from @tarashears making particle physics easy – sort of
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Lynne McCadden @lmccadden 13 Feb
watching this @TEDxManchester kevin slavin’s TED talk on how algorithms shape our world:
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Dr Marieke Navin @lisamarieke
depends if fitting gaussians to your data is your thing… Question is, do you understand your data?!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
How to Wreck a Nice Beach @TEDxManchester #TEDxMCR
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13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
It’s a bright future if you are an algorithm or infomorph #TEDxMCR
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13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
@RichardMichie A little bit of non-human agency can’t hurt… Or can it #TEDxMCH
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
In reply to RichardMichie
13 Feb Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
Infomorphs or a weaver… #TEDxMCR love the idea very cool! They could work with #perceptivemedia yfrog.com/gzeg2jij
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Pettigrew @KingfisherCoach
#TEDxMCR @skeuomorphology challenging ‘necessity is the mother of invention’; cars weren’t invented as a response to a shortage of horses!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Pure information technologies are the first evolutionary aware technologies. They are stochastic… Emerge from randomness #TEDxMCR @weavrs
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13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Living software ‘bots’ or infomorphs via @weavrs #infomorph #TEDxMCR @skeuomorphology
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Michael Di Paola @MichaelDiPaola
Robots made from programmable gel…where the hell am I? A parallel universe, the future. No. Just at #TEDxMCR listening to Dan O’Hara
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13 Feb Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Infomorph, a form that exists just of information @skeuomorphology #TEDxMCR
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13 Feb
Luke Robert Mason @LukeRobertMason
Another type of software agent that exhibits life, @weavrs #infomorph @skeuomorphology #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@pgaval δε πειράζει, θα είναι στο YouTube για πάντα! (Μαμά! )
In reply to Petros Gavalakis
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
Mondays are my favourite days of the week : D
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
Great, great talk by @brendandawes on the value of pursuing ideas, and the ideas they spawn, without necessarily knowing where you’re going
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
from Manchester, Manchester
13 Feb RichardMichie @RichardMichie
Failed art at school? You can still exhibit at #moma @brendandawes #tedxmcr great story love it
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13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@brendandawes’ cinema redux of Hitchcock’s Vertigo #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jfs95
13 Feb
sphey1 @sphey1
If you make something, give it a name – re: Cinema Redux @brendandawes #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Things that @brendandawes has done with his 3-printer #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jfpn6
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@brendandawes : the creative process is iterative. ( but Battling it against time & cost constraints) #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
RT @CMindsKelly: @brendandawes. The thing we in the room all share is curiosity. That’s why we’re always making new things #TEDxMCR”
13 Feb Martin Bryant @MartinSFP
At #tedxmcr, @cubicgarden explained how @tdobson and @adew saved his life. instagr.am/p/G9BmXRStoc/
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
Ian Forrester: fear the fear #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
‘We are complex & unique organisms And yes, I am still an atheist.’ Ian Forrester, #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Indeed! RT @TonyChurnside: @cubicgarden really touching. Very nicely done!
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@brooksoid any time!
In reply to Matthew Brooks
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
@ar3toul4ki great talk Maria, speech recog in focus at the beeb right now, be interesting to talk once I’ve worked out what our landscape is
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Link to the funny vid played by @ar3toul4ki – Scottish voice recognition problems.. http://youtu.be/sAz_UvnUeuU
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Ευχαριστώ! Το είδες μήπως; RT @pgaval: @ar3toul4ki Καλή επιτυχία!
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
‘When I was lying in bed dying, where were the real people?’ Ian Forrester, #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Tony Churnside @TonyChurnside
Watching @cubicgarden talk about his #brushwithdeath. A very scary time. #TEDxMCR pic.twitter.com/hED5mimw
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@tdobson @cubicgarden is talking about you! : D
In reply to Tim Dobson
13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
so @cubicgarden is talking about it #brushwithdeath when I may or may not have been his flatmate at the time.. #tedxman
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Matthew Brooks @brooksoid
And @cubicgarden ‘s talk is about… @cubicgarden ! He’s finally gone recursive. #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Tony Churnside @TonyChurnside
@cubicgarden you’re looking good! pic.twitter.com/n8xvkzJB
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
And next on at #TEDxMCR its @ianforrester. With the story of me…
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Hilarious talk on Voice Recognition from Dr Maria Aretoulaki #TEDxMCR
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13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
@davemee it’s all about context! /cc @ar3toul4ki
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In reply to Dave Mee
13 Feb Tim Dobson @tdobson
@davemee @ar3toul4ki “fetish cheese”
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In reply to Dave Mee
13 Feb Dave Mee @davemee
@tdobson @ar3toul4ki feed her through siri and send me a transcript!
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In reply to Tim Dobson
13 Feb Kate Towey @katiemaymanc
Fascinating talk from Tara Shears on particle physics. ’2012 is year of the Higgs’ #tedxmcr
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13 Feb Ian Pettigrew @KingfisherCoach
So far at #TEDxMCR we’ve covered pursuing your passion, JDI (and make mistakes), technology, algorithms, and particle physics. I’m happy!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb Allie Johns @AllieJohns
I propose bringing back Tomorrow’s World and having Tara Shears present it #tedxmcr
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: oh my Higgs! We’ve seen something! Or have we?? #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jdo56
13 Feb
Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
The goddamn particle explained at #TEDxMCR yfrog.com/obsv5tmj
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
@ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: where’s that God-damned Higgs particle?! If we don’t find it, we’ll have to start all over again… #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Claire-Marie @CMBoggiano
“@lmccadden: #tedxmcr learning about quarks and leptons from @tarashears making particle physics easy – sort of”
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TaraShears @TEDxManchester: symmetry, simplicity, elegance = beauty of the standard model of particle physics #TEDxMCR
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Up next @TEDxManchester is @TaraShears – tune in live to ow.ly/92eRf #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TEDx video 1 @TEDxManchester: pragmatic chaos to describe fluid things such as culture #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@coralgrainger no worries sweetness : )
In reply to coralgrainger
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@TEDx video @TEDxManchester: what we don’t understand, we give a name and a story to #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs you were, nay ARE, awesome! Xx
In reply to maryanne hobbs
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Dan O’Hara @skeuomorphology @TEDxManchester: from random relentless replication (cf. spambots) to guided transformation of chaos #TEDxMCR
13 Feb Kim Willis @KimberleyWillis
Dan O’Hara: technology is not a selection of gadgets but a body of knowledge instagr.am/p/G8sGbrBVY7/ #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb
Ian Wareing @ianwareing
#tedxmcr @skeuomorphology “Necessity is not the mother of invention. Invention is the mother of necessity”
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13 Feb Ian Forrester @cubicgarden
Bloatware… or stimulation of the real on the virtual RT @maanasvarun: Skeumorphism. wait what? #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Dan O’Hara @skeuomorphology @TEDxManchester: the creation of living technology by merging the Arts and Sciences #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs @TEDxManchester: John Peel saving lives again #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@maryannehobbs @TEDxManchester: follow your passion! #TEDxMCR twitpic.com/8jcwpn
13 Feb
TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Hi all we’re suggesting #TEDxMCR as the hashtag for the event today as it’s a bit shorter than #TEDxManchester
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
Sorry folks for the livestream #fail. We’re currently on this channel live.. bit.ly/y9kkZa #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@gazshaw cheers!
In reply to Gaz Shaw
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
see you there Mike! It’s been a loooong time! RT @mike_higham: @ar3toul4ki @TEDxManchester Looking forward to it #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
@heloukee oh nooo : s
In reply to Helen Keegan
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Excited & honoured to be speaking @TEDxManchester today. My talk “Voice Recognition FTW!” on the present+future of user interfaces #TEDxMCR
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
See you there Matt! RT @matthbooth: A bit of work then @TEDxManchester. Looking forward to it.
13 Feb Allie Johns @AllieJohns
“@maryannehobbs: interesting day: speaking about passion at @TEDxManchester 1pm.. ” > we can never have enough passion in our lives.
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
13 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Will you be my groupie?? RT @technicalfault: @ar3toul4ki Dr Maria at TEDx!
12 Feb @ar3toul4ki
Looking forward to giving #TEDxMCR an insight into the wondrous+often misconstrued world of voice recognition @TEDxManchester tomorrow
12 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
And in other late-breaking news Dr. Maria @Ar3toul4ki will also be taking the stage tomorrow at #TEDxMCR
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
12 Feb TEDxManchester @TEDxManchester
A big welcome for our latest speaker @MartinSFP – European Editor @TheNextWeb for #TEDxMCR. Like @MaryAnneHobbs a brave no-slide presenter!
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
11 Feb Anna Nachesa @ashalynd
I’ll probably be very evil if I ask during an interview if tail-optimized recursion is possible in C. OTOH, it might be a great icebreaker:)
Retweeted by @ar3toul4ki
11 Feb @ar3toul4ki
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.
Apart from the ingenuity of the title itself, encapsulating the golden rule of good user experience / usability design, you can readily see to what great lengths Bruce has gone to serve his pearls of design wisdom in a most humourous and utterly witty way. This doesn’t in any way decrease in the least the importance, relevance and truthfulness of his observations and recommendations. Bruce is a veteran designer and he has seen it all before, from the excitement and optimism to the disappointment and pessimism, to the final destination, design realism:
First we tried to make them human. Now it’s time to make them work
To get a flavour of the type of UX design advice and messages conveyed in the book, here’s an extract from Chapter 132: Will Speech Technology Ever Work? (pp. 393-395 in my 2007 edition):
In closing, I must ask the question. Will it ever work? And, of course, the answer is, yes. Speech recognition—and its related technologies (e.g., speaker verification, text-to-speech, audio indexing, speech data mining, dictation) will work. Indeed they already do. They will fill their respective application niches almost completely. And, in fact, the majority will do so quite soon. What will change is the definition of “work”.
”Speech recognition is primarily a user interface technology*. As such, it works when it disappears. It’s really that simple. When the users are not thinking about the user interface, but instead are accomplishing the task to which they are connected by the user interface, then and only then can the interface be said to be “working.” We have to stay on message with this fundamental fact if we are ever to succeed at bringing speech to the performance level where we can legitimately claim that it “works.”
True words!!! As a bonus, Leslie Degler’s illustrations perfectly complement and enhance the messages conveyed in the text, once again in the wittiest and most original manner. Buy this book ASAP! After all, if you don’t agree with its theses, you can always return it. All you need to do is:
Write out in longhand, on a separate page, “I,” and add your name, “agree that there’s not a chance in Hell any refund will ever come of this claim.” Label this statement as your “declaration.”
…
After you have received your refund, we’ll call you with an outbound IVR that asks you several hundred thought-provoking questions about your customer experience. We value your opinion—please give us your most honest and spontaneous responses. We’ll do our best to recognize them.
It says it all really!
To date, I have only met Bruce virtually, through Skype calls and the Creative Speech Technology Network (CreST) of which we are both members, and I can already tell he is a very funny, witty, creative (musical!), interesting, as well as intelligent person. So I can’t wait to meet him in person later today and hear some more fascinating stories and hilarious anecdotes from the world of speech recognition application design, voice interface usability and technology abuse!
UPDATE:
I went (to the dinner with Bruce) and (was) conquered by the brilliance and witticism of the man! I got my long-awaited autograph in his book too, as I can now prove!
“The overall emphasis of the workshop is on the contribution of cognitive science to language processing, including conceptualisation, representation, discourse processing, meaning construction, ontology building, and text mining.”
There have been NLPCS Workshops in Porto (2004), Miami (2005), Paphos (2006), Funchal (2007), Barcelona (2008), Milan (2009) and Funchal (2010).
Copenhagen Business School
This year’s 8th International NLPCS Workshop just took place this weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark (20-21 Aug 2011). The Workshop topic was: “Human-Machine Interaction in Translation“, focussing on all aspects of human and machine translation, and human-computer interaction in translation, including: translators’ experiences with CAT tools, human-machine interface design, evaluation of interactive machine translation, user simulation and human factors. Thus, the topics were approached from a number of different perspectives:
from full automation by machines for machine (traditional NLP or HLT)
semi-automated processing, i.e. machine-mediated processing (programs assisting people in their tasks),
but also simulation of human cognitive processes
I had the opportunity once again to review a few of the paper submissions and can therefore highly recommend reading the full Proceedings of the NLPCS 2011 Workshop that have just been made available.
I found particularly interesting the following 3 contributions:
Valitutti, A. “How Many Jokes are Really Funny? A New Approach to the Evaluation of Computational Humour Generators”
Nilsson, M. and J. Nivre. “Entropy-Driven Evaluation of Models of Eye Movement Control in Reading”
and
Finch, A., Song, W., Tanaka-Ishii, K. and E. Sumita. “Source Language Generation from Pictures for Machine Translation on Mobile Devices”
“improve the human condition by advancing the discipline of Interaction Design”
A very worthy cause indeed, especially since it is true that “the human condition is increasingly challenged by poor experiences. “!
Today’s Joint Workshop in New York aims to bring together interaction design practitioners from across the voice, interactive, and digital areas to identify the issues and challenges involved in speech interaction design on mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and to come up by the end of the day with ways to approach them or even tackle them. A very ambitious format that, however, really does work!
And if you don’t manage to take part in today’s workshop, make sure you go to the SpeechTEK Conference and Exhibition itself that starts tomorrow and runs until Wednesday the 10th. Listen to presentations and see or even try for yourself market-ready products relating to:
multimodal applications
cross-channel applications
speech analytics
speaker identification and verification
in-car systems
natural language and say-anything technologies
speech translation
voice-enabled personal assistants
as well as the latest speech recognition techniques and technologies
I particularly recommend the Keynote Panel on “Mobility — A Game-Changer for Speech?” on Tuesday on how smartphones are dramatically changing how customers interact with businesses and with the devices themselves. Some really interesting issues and questions will be raised, such as:
* How voice user interfaces will be integrated with graphical user interfaces?
or
* Will users embrace voice as they have embraced keypads on mobile devices?
Sadly I am in the UK today and next week, so I’m going to miss it all. But if you are lucky enough to be in or near New York, make sure you go and enjoy!
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!
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!
Today saw the launch of the very interdisciplinary (some would say “transdisciplinary” even) FutureEverything Festival (previously Futuresonic) , a long-running and world-renowned annual Conference and Festival of Technology and Innovation, Art and Music running from the 11th to the 14th May in Manchester , UK (@FuturEverything #futr). Apart from the annual May events,
FutureEverything creates year-round Digital Innovation projects that combine creativity, participation and new technologies to deliver elegant business and research solutions. In 2010 we launched the FutureEverything Award, an international prize for artworks, social innovations or software and technology projects that bring the future into the present.
I have always made a point to attend at least one music or art event every year since 2007 (when the Festival was still called Futuresonic) and I have always been particularly interested in the forward-thinking Digital Technologies Conference. So I was over the moon when I was invited to participate in the Conference and informally share my words of wisdom on speech and language technologies for emotional computing. Armed with my complimentary Festival Pass, I am now really looking forward to 2 days (Thu 12 – Fri 13 May 2011) packed with presentations, discussions and debates on: Urban Games and Virtual Identities, Robots and Smart Cities, open data and participatory democracy. community-serving Geeks and Hackers, Open source software and citizen inclusion, and one of my favourites, emotional computing: making human-computer interfaces personable, engaging and persuasive and interaction with them more intuitive and even fun.
The FutureEverything Conference is brainstorming on a massive scale. Combined with all the live Twitter updates and feeds, it is going to have once again viral impact worldwide with the novel, brave and infectious ideas that will be coming out of it and around it. At the same time, the use of dynamic and democratic microblogging will allow massive participation to the Conference by people on both sides of the Atlantic who are not physically present but are still listening and virtually and remotely contributing their feedback and ideas. In fact, the FutureEverything Festival and the Conference are quintessential instantiations of the perfect balance of online – offline, virtual and real, local and remote, one-to-many / many-to-one broadcasting. And I’m right in the middle of this awesome time-space continuum (May 2011 in Manchester UK)!
On Easter Sunday (24 April 2011), I was happy and honoured to take part in the live recording of the latest TECHGRUMPS podcast, Techgrumps 27: Non geeks go raw like sushi (sic!). 80 minutes of whinging about the latest technology trends, as well as the uses of said technology.
My contribution to the grump world is complaining about the social terror of checking your smartphone notifications every 5 minutes, whatever the (social) context, and the de facto new social media exhibitionism regarding all facets of your personal life through the various social media (a stark contrast to my earlier blog posts on the Social Media Scenes in Manchester and London!). Hear me from the 10th to the 32nd minute complain about:
people spending more time updating their current location and taking photos and videos at a gig rather than dancing, singing and enjoying said gig (check the phone screens in the two photos below I took from a Jamiroquai gig earlier this month)
Jamiroquai at MEN Arena Manchester (19 Apr 2011)
Jamiroquai at MEN Arena Manchester (19 Apr 2011)
people checking their Facebook or Twitter notifications on their phone in the middle of a philosophical conversation (usually initiated by the person without a smartphone )
people checking their phone every 5 minutes in the middle of a film at the cinema, just in case someone has texted them or has posted a witticism on Twitter or Facebook (and that’s even when the film is NOT horrible)
people needing to offload very personal information and details on their daily routines every hour of the day on their wide social media audiences, which consist mainly of remote acquaintances rather than close friends (who are usually not remotely interested in said details either)
This excessive notification checking, irrespective of the current social situation, is of course partly due to the availability of the technology itself, i.e. integration of Facebook or Twitter on your phone, internet on-the-go, dedicated notification sounds for texts, Facebook, Twitter, chat etc. So, in all fairness, it is hard not to check your phone when you do get a notification (sound). For all you know, it could be a missed call from a loved one who has been in an accident, or an email confirming that new contract. Nevertheless, it seems that we are all sucked up in a world of instantly available information and an overflow of personal and less personal data that we don’t seem able to escape from. As a result, we are missing the NOW, the experience of the current moment and of the person(s) standing opposite us in real life. This obsessive behaviour can be construed as rude and anti-social by the people in the immediate surroundings not checking their phones, but – more than anything – it indicates a shift in general social conscience and social mores, whereby the remote online acquaintance in the US you have never met in your life is allocated by default the same or more (potential?) value than the close offline friend sitting next to you here and now. So new types of shallow relationships are cropping up. Whether someone has retweeted you is becoming more important than whether someone actually lends an open ear to you at a cafe to discuss your problems over a cup of coffee.
This need to connect and be “approved” by as many people as possible, whether real close friends, Facebook “friends” or Twitter followers you are not even remotely interested in, must have its roots at the basic human need for love, approval and the sense of belonging (in the right groups). Still, it seems that our whole lives are run by this new need for exhibitionism and we are practically controlled indirectly by our ubiquitous and international audience who is or may be reading.
Having suffered the social media notification terror myself when sitting at my laptop, I refuse to use that functionality or indeed the internet on my (admittedly palaeolithic) phone. Even the thought of getting a free smartphone scares me! My time when I’m away from my laptop is my treasured time OFFLINE and I want it to remain that way! I have already spent thousands of invaluable hours chained to my laptop obsessing over emails and notifications in the past 20 years, hours that have been sadly subtracted off MY LIFE! So this is not a rant about Social Media – which often really help in the democratisation of Governments, processes and opinion. This is a rant about Social Media abuse and their infliction onto others as well as onto ourselves.
It sounds very heavy but the whole podcast is actually full of witty jokes and hearty laughter! And there are several more techy topics covered, as you can see on the podcast page: from the “native” IE to Firebug, Wikimedia, LaTeX, and the latest iphone personal information storage scare. Enjoy!
Are Call Centres the factories of the 21st Century? (with behind-the-scenes insights from current Call Centre Agents)
bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-…4 days ago
@getkanban I met your dad on his UK travels and he recommended your software management tools to me! Say hello to him :) (Maria) 1 week ago
#TEDxMCR @s2martin
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see you there Mike! It’s been a loooong time! RT @mike_higham: @ar3toul4ki @TEDxManchester Looking forward to it #TEDxMCR
