ALL ABOUT VOICE KEYNOTES COVERED A RANGE OF BIG TOPICS
Brett Kinsella’s opening keynote “provided us with the latest statistics and developments in the field of voice technology”. For Voice news, check out Brett’s voicebot.ai.
Adva Levin’s talk was one of Romina’s favourites. Adva discussed how she approaches building kids’ voice applications. This includes observing users instead of actively asking them, as the results of a prototype “can sometimes be the exact opposite of what users said they would like, so her main recommendation is to create a prototype fast, and learn from there”.
Katrin Nachbar from Bayerischer Rundfunk presented an interactive story skill in which every user decision impacts the plot. Katrin helped the audience see how she worked through the implementation challenge of audio recordings: “especially when recording all voice pieces, and not using Alexa voices at all”.
Google’s Jonathan Bloom gave a fantastic talk in the afternoon in which he talked about the less-than-happy path. Jon pointed out that, although it’s a critical element of designing for voice, the term error-handling has a deeply negative connotation, and recommends talking about grounding strategies instead.
Overall, Romina described All About Voice as “a great conference: the organizers’ concept was to cover all big and important topics of voice, and I think they realized it quite successfully with a great lineup of speakers.”
WOMEN IN VOICE AT ALL ABOUT VOICE
At lunch there were networking roundtables, and Romina was the Table’s Captain for a dedicated Women in Voice lunch table. After announcing the launch of the German Women in Voice chapter, this was the perfect opportunity to meet people interested in being part of the initiative, and also connect with other Women from the Voice field across Europe.
Romina said, “It was absolutely amazing to meet other women who are just as excited about building a WiV chapter for Germany as I am!”
Find out more about Women in Voice Germany on this page. Romina remains part of the chapter’s core team!
“CREATE A PROTOTYPE FAST, AND LEARN FROM THERE.”
ROMINA’S MAIN TAKEAWAYS FROM ALL ABOUT VOICE
- Everyone building for Voice should put enough energy, time, and budget into grounding strategies
- There was a focus on operations (as in, actually building Skills and so on) and we definitely need to remember that applying strategy is at least just as important
- Hearing people talk about their experiences when building for Voice was great — pretty much everyone encounters similar challenges!
- The international Voice industry is such an amazing, inspiring and warm community
- Voice is definitely expanding in Germany, and we can learn a lot from countries who are slightly more advanced
If this has piqued your interest in Women in Voice, VUX design, or fresh takes on some of our industry’s big topics, get in touch with Romina Pankoke via LinkedIn.
