Episode 145 – Can you hear me now?

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This week we look at how voice technology is improving and enabling new kinds of interactions at work and within games. We look at how microphone technology is impacting the adoption of smaller voice assistants. We explore the accuracy of text transcription verses typing. We think through our own use of voice technology and digital assistants. And we add new features to our website, text-based, thanks to Twitter’s new DM button.

We also change our whatcha playing segment to look at what are we exploring. And we end the show with a challenge to our listeners. We’d love to hear your experiences based on this challenge.

Show Links:
The Advancement of Voice Technology and Microphones
Chirp Episode
Stanford speech recognition study
IBM ViaVoice Transcription demo 2001
Twitter’s new message button
Duke Nukem – again?

Things we are into:
Michael M. – Newton hunting
IBM’s Pen based ThinkPad
Michael R: Mr. Robot – Apple and Mr. Robot – Android

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (31.1MB) | Embed

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Episode 144 – Domo Arigato, Mr. Robot

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The Michaels are back this week looking at the related of virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. We also look at two tie in games, one for the 2016 Olympic Games and one for the TV Show Mr. Robot. There’s a lot of news out this week from Intel’s Developer Forum (IDF), MIT’s Interactive Dynamic Video, and the never ending halo affect of Pokémon Go!

Show Links:
Nintendo 3DS sales up 80% Y/Y on Pokémon Go success
Nintendo Classic Mini
Atari Flashback
McDonals’ step counter for kids in Happy Meal – Sorta
Project Alloy
Intel to allow ARM to use 10nm Fab
Interactive Dynamic Video – Thank you Ian Hughes
No Man’s Sky (2013 view)
Desert Bus

Games we are Playing
Michael M: FIE Swordplay
Michael R: Mr. Robot – Apple and Mr. Robot – Android

Bonus Link:
Q*bert

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (40.5MB) | Embed

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Gaming the Bots!

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As podcasters, @carolinabigblue and @michaelrowe01 have been pretty lucky.  We’ve been doing this between different shows since 2006.  I guess that makes us old timers in the world of podcasting.  In that time we’ve had the pleasure of having @Veronica Belmont on our show, and meeting her in person at least twice.  This has been a challenge given that the epicenter of podcasting appears to be San Francisco, and we are located in RTP, NC.

When we heard that she was moving into the world bots as a product manager for growbot, we just had to check it out.  Growbot monitors slack channels that you invite it to and captures metrics about employee performance.  As drones in the corporate world, our three co-hosts all have to deal with the periodic rankings and appraisals, and I for one am really bad at keeping track of all the positive things people tell me about work I am doing.   Imagine if Growbot could do that for me?

Of course, systems like this do have a challenge, people can game the system.  I tested this when I sent a “kudos” message as a repsonse to “kudos” I had received.  And growbot was smart enough to see what I was doing.


This was a fun test, and I loved the emoji that they are using for NO!

The other thought I had while playing with Growbot over the last few weeks is all about Flair.  If you’ve seen the movie “Office Space”, Jennifer Aniston’s character works at a theme restaurant where the servers are required to have buttons on their vests.  The buttons are considered “flair”.  She get’s a dressing down for not having enough flair on her vest.  I worry that if there is large corporate adoption of bots like growbot, we will end up with competitive situations where managers give you a dressing down for not having enough “kudos” this week.

In the mean time, I am enjoying playing with growbot on our podcast slack.  And I am sure that as they enhance the bot it will be more fun to figure out what makes a positive comment and what makes a negative.

What bots are you playing with lately?

Gotta engage ’em all – Pokemon Go for HR

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Pokemon Go splash page

A tweet from earlier this week resonated with me — and a few others. Holger Müller ( @holgermu ) shared the following post: “Best line on #DisruptTV so far – @mikeettling – Waiting for PokemonGo app for HR – catch talent or a leader. ;-)”

Such an HR app would not just be focused solely on catching, it would include engaging and retaining as well. Novel ways of catching the attention of prospective employees, whether through puzzles, code breaking or alternate reality games have worked well, and augmented reality lends itself well as a technology to do the same. What would employee engagement and retention look like through the use of augmented reality? How could augmented reality be used for aligning strategy to employee action? What if there was a new product line that required a different sales approach… Could this HR app be used to identify ideas for how to attract the right kinds of people who are most aligned to the offering and sales approach?

Much to think about… What are your ideas?

Stay alert at all times and be aware of your surroundings!  Happy hunting.