Featured below is a special guest column written by Judith Markowitz, Ph.D. In addition to being a columnist for Speech Technology Magazine, she is also an independent analyst in the speech and voice biometrics fields. She can be reached at judith@jmarkowitz.com. She attended and spoke at the Voice BioCon in NYC last week, and sent us some of her impressions of the show.

The theme of the Opus Research Voice Biometrics Conference was “connecting the dots.” In his conference keynote Dan Miller made it clear that the dots Opus wanted to connect were business and market. Then, Miller established the groundwork for those connections by advocating that all segments of the industry view voice biometrics from a broad, business perspective. “Remember,” he said, “technology does not equal product, and product does not equal solution.”

[Click "More" for the rest of Dr. Markowitz's report.]

(more…)

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States, and the cultural gateway to the American Southwest. It’s also home to this year’s G-Force, Genesys Telecommunications’ annual customer conference. As the first day of the conference comes to a close, I can’t help but feel a sense of novelty. Compliments of Genesys, I have my first metal belt buckle (with the Genesys logo emblazoned on the front, of course), a cowboy hat, and bandana, none of which I have any idea how I’m going to get on a plane. (Ed: Wear it on the plane!)

I also took in a bullriding competition, armadillo races, and a real Texas BBQ, and probably ate more ribs in one night than I will all year. But all the cool stuff aside, there’s much more to the conference than Texas-style fun. There’s a lot of work going on as well.

With more than 1,300 attendees from all over the world, it’s the largest G-Force ever, according to the Genesys people. This year’s event has seen a large number of Latin American customers (nearly doubled from last year), indicating just how large the call center industry is growing in that part of the world. In Brazil, Internet service provider UOL is taking more than 1 million calls a month from the country’s 33.1 million Internet users, and its biggest challenge is dealing with rapid growth using outdated technologies and poor system design. It turned to Genesys to bring all its customer-facing applications (phone, email, Web chat, etc…) together, and has achieved staggering first-call resolution, proper call routing, cost reductions, worker productivity, and sales growth as a result. Unibanco, a Brazilian bank, is handling 10 million calls a month with just 6,000 agents using Genesys systems.
G-Force is an international event, and American, Canadian, European, Australian, and Asian companies are also represented in full force. The one lesson from all this: No matter where in the world it may be, call center technologies are alive, well, and thriving. From Panama to the Philippines, Rio de Janeiro to the Rio Grande, may the G-Force be with them.

Back in New York! Totally forgot that flights from Orlando are always 70%-occupied by small children and screaming babies. The whole flight was like a big tribal gathering, complete with shouting and the sounds of kids playing with their newest toys. Yeah. I’m glad to be back in New York. So, let’s get rolling on what was arguably the biggest presentation at VoiceCon. Cisco wrangled in Al Gore to participate in a live meeting with other panelists via Cisco’s TelePresence product. What is TelePresence? It’s a fancy word for videoconferencing! Gore was in Nashville, Cisco president & CEO John Chamber was in California, and there was also a British reporter in London involved. Each of these panelists was projected on to a TV set in the VoiceCon keynote room. Three big talking heads in one room! It was hard to contain my joy.

All criticism aside, Cisco gets major props for doing something the other keynotes didn’t — they not only showed how their technology worked, but tied it in to their presentation’s title, “Climate Change and Technology Innovation.” Rather than fly all three panelists in to Orlando, they saved major bad-carbon by using TelePresence to conduct the panel. The picture was extremely clear, never broke up, and it was easy to hear everyone. A little piece of my cold, black heart melted. The company’s main point: using videoconferencing not only saves travel expenses, but allows a company to use technology as part of a green initiative. Nevermind the fact that one session I attended said videoconferencing creates the “appearance” that your company has a green program (the “appearance” — surely you can do better than that).

So, major ups to Cisco’s Sue Bostrom for being one of the most well-spoken presenters at VoiceCon – she was also the ONLY female keynote speaker – and gave a clear speech without sounding like a well-trained robot. You go, girl. An illustrated wrap-up follows after the jump!

(more…)

Greetings from the Orlando Airport! I’m wearing black clothing (anticipating cold NYC weather), but 99 percent of the people here are dressed like they just stepped out of Epcot. Also, lots of fanny packs. Anyhow, VoiceCon ended today. Though I wanted to live-blog every day, I was unable to do so for a few reasons: my MacBook was set on “better performance” and my battery kept dying; the conference’s free WiFi network always gave me only ONE BAR during sessions and keynotes; and I was busy every day from 730 am – 830 pm (usually, the people at VoiceCon looked at me like I was insane for staying that late, and kicked me out). So, yes — mini-traumas aside, I enjoyed the conference.

Usually, I’m holed up in the Speech Tech, sucked into the world of ASR, IVR, TTS, STT, ACD, and VUI. This time, I got to check out some UC solutions that will have a real impact on the contact center space. The biggest issues in UC/VoIP? Interoperability, integration, tons of “strategic partnerships.” I was reminded of Forrester analyst Brian Haven’s keynote speech at Nuance Conversations at several VoiceCon keynotes. The message from both speeches was the same: companies need to wise up to their changing consumer and employee demographics — and, with a plethora of information available at one’s fingertips, the enterprise must adapt and embrace the changing nature of business relations. This extends past presence and UC/UM sessions; it also penetrates the contact center and overall IT infrastructure. Head geeks, unite — VoiceCon was all about you. Read on for some of my favorite sessions’ highlights…

(more…)

Remember how Ryan basically live-blogged the entire Voice Search conference? Well, I’ll put my hand to the test and try the same thing this week, when I’m attending VoiceCon in Orlando, Tuesday – Thursday. I’ll be the tall, awkward one walking around in a daze. What do you expect? New Yorkers haven’t experienced sunshine or warm weather in months. See you tomorrow. And I’m sure our own Ryan Joe will return the favor and make me my own conference-reporting logo…

I’m writing this from the first annual Voice Search Conference in San Diego. I’m also banging this stuff out real quick-like so I apologize in advance for any slovenliness of form and grammar. Additionally, the chambermaid at the Chateau de Marriott is battering the door because she insists my bed needs to be made and mints strewn lovingly across my pillow. All very distracting.

In the meantime, some scattered thoughts:

- First, somebody really needs to come up with names distinguishing voice-powered search versus audio mining (there’s ambiguity because both are often labeled “voice search”) This convention, based on the opening keynote (which I covered in today’s Speech Tech news) and the titles of upcoming panels, focuses pretty much on voice-powered search. There is a panel tomorrow called “Searching Audio/Video Sources On The Web And In Enterprises” that I will attend. Though so far, it looks like the only panel dedicated to audio mining.

- Given the great potential for audio mining (i.e., more accurate multimedia searches, targeted advertising, etc), it would be nice to see greater representation. Of course, the convention just got started, so if I’m wrong, I’ll be sure to post a picture of myself devouring a crow [We hope so -Ed.].

More on Ryan’s [mis]adventures, after the jump. (more…)