2019 has been a year of ambitious development and growth for voice technology.

Google, Amazon and Microsoft have all invested heavily, making improvements to their software as well as introducing new capabilities and features. Ventures Anywhere have mirrored this investment into the sector, driven by a belief in its potential and a commitment to be industry leaders. Our pioneering developments in voice tech have included: 

Sound Branch – a unique ‘voice notes’ social-platform, which allows users to share short and easy-to-record audio files, which can then be converted into professional podcasts or used for a plethora of business purposes – such as feedback, recruitment and analysis.

Mums Anywhere – the first ‘reality radio’ – providing a platform for its users to share and access advice/tips from other parents. After positive promotion from mummy influencers such as Ferne McCann, Marnie Simpson, Cara De La Houd, Cally-Jane and the Modern Midwife, MumsAnywhere ranked 15 on the social charts in January 2018 and to date has had 10,000 downloads.

In the next 12 months, it is certain that voice-activated services will become a much bigger part of our everyday lives – at work as well as home. In fact, by the end of this year, the voice market is predicted to be “a $601 million industry” according to a report from Technavio. However, this be a conservative estimate as, by 2021, it’s believed there will be more voice assistants on the planet than there are people (according to research firm Ovum). This growth represents a huge shift in the nature of human interaction with digital technology.

As ASR (automatic speech recognition) continues to improve and AI becomes more and more cognitive, the use of voice tools will undoubtedly become increasingly mainstream. However, voice technology is by no means new, despite its recent surge in popularity with consumers.

Below is a condensed history of the key milestones in the sector. These illustrate that (as with all technological advances) growth is exponential – as developers strive forward by ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’.

Voice Technology – Key Milestones

 

 

• 1952 – Davis, Biddulph and Balashek at Bell Laboratories build Audrey, Speech Recognizer for strings of digits
• 1981 – The Applied Voice Input Output Society (AVIOS) is founded
• 1982 – Husband & Wife Dr. James Baker and Dr. Janet M. Baker found Dragon Systems
• 1987 – Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie found Lernout & Hauspie
• 1994 – Mike Phillips and Bill O’Farrell found SpeechWorks
• 1994 – Nuance Communications founded as a spin-off of SRI International’s Speech Technology and Research (STAR) Laboratory
• 1994 – Wildfire Communications launches the Wildfire Assistant
• 1995 – The Quarterly ‘Speech Technology Magazine’ begins publication
• 1995 – Microsoft Releases its Speech API, SAPI 1.0, on Windows 95 and Windows NT 3.51
• 1999 – Mike McCue and Angus Davis Found Tellme Networks
• 2000 – SpeechWorks goes public
• 2000 – Orange purchases Wildfire Communications for $142MM
• Jan 2004 – James Siminoff and William Price found PhoneTag
• May 2005 – Microsoft launches Microsoft Speech Server
• 2006 – Mike Phillips and John Nguyen break off Nuance and launch Vlingo
• Mar 2007 – Microsoft Acquires Tellme for $800MM
• April 2007 – Nuance Communications Acquires BeVocal
• 2008 – The Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIXD) is founded
• Jun 2008 – Nuance Communications sues Vlingo for alleged patent infringement
• Dec 2008 – PhoneTag rebrands as Simulscribe
• Dec 2009 – Nuance Communications acquires Speech to Text provider Spinvox
• Sept 2009 – SimulScribe Signs Exclusive Partnership Agreement with Ditech Networks
• Feb 2010 – Siri is published as a mobile app on iOS
• April 2010 – Apple Acquires Siri
• Nov 2010 – Nuance Communications acquires PerSay
• June 2011 – Google Announces Voice Search
• June 2011 – Nuance Communications files another lawsuit against Vlingo
• Oct 2011 – Apple Launches Siri on 4S
• Nov 2011 – Amazon Acquires Yap
• Dec 2011 – Nuance Communications acquires Vlingo
• Aug 2012 – Nuance Announces Neena
• Aug 2012 – UCIC Launches its Ubi Kickstarter campaign
• Aug 2012 – Angel.com Announces Lexee
• Sept 2012 – Nuance Communications acquires Ditech Networks
• Jan 2013 – Amazon Acquires Poland based Text to Speech provider Ivona
• June 2013 – Genesys Acquires Angel.com
• Aug 2013 – Facebook Acquires Speech Translation startup Jibbigo
• Oct 2013 – XOWi launches its Voice Badge Kickstarter Campaign
• April 2014 – Microsoft Announces Cortana
• Oct 2014 – The Ubiquitous Voice Society Launched
• Nov 2014 – Amazon Echo Available Prime members
• January 2015 – Facebook Acquires Wit.AI
• April 2015 – Amazon Echo launches Connected Home capabilities
• June 2015 – The Amazon Echo is Generally Available
• June 2015 – Alexa Skills Kit Generally Released
• June 2015 – Amazon Launches The Alexa Fund
• June 2015 – Alexa Voice Service (AVS) Kit Generally Released
• Dec 2015 – SoundHound Launches Houndify Platform
• March 2016 – Amazon Tap and Echo Dot Generally Released
• May 2016 – Facebook Acquires VR Audio Two Big Ears
• Sept 2016 – Amazon Announces arrival of Alexa and the Echo in UK and Germany
• Sept 2016 – Google Acquires API.AI
• Oct 2016 – Samsung Acquires Viv
• Nov 2016 – Google Home Generally Released
• Dec 2016 – Google Action Announces Google Assistant Partners
• Feb 2017 – Amazon Announces its Alexa Partners
• April 2017 – Google Home Supports Voice ID
• April 2017 – Google announces the general availability of Google Assistant SDK for hardware makers
• May 2017 –  Microsoft Announces Cortana on Harman-Kardon’s Invoke speaker
• June 2017 – Samsung releases Bixby in the United States
• June 2017 – Echo Show Generally Available
• Aug 2017 – Google Home Supports Voice Calling
• Aug 2017 – Walmart and Google Partner on Voice-based Shopping
• Aug 2017 – Amazon closes its acquisition of Whole Foods
• Aug 2017 – Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana Interoperability Announced
• Aug 2017 – Sony announces its Google Assistant powered LF-S50G smart speaker
• Sept 2017 – Amazon launches Echo Spot and Echo Plus
• Oct 2017 – Amazon Alexa Supports Voice Calling
• Oct 2017 – Amazon supports VoiceID
• Oct 2017 – Amazon introduces paid subscriptions for Alexa skills
• Oct 2017 – Ventures Anywhere launch Sound Branch
• Nov 2017 – Amazon announces that Alexa and Amazon Echo products will be available in Canada starting December 2017
• Feb 2018 – Apple Launches Homepod
• May 2018 – SoundHound Closes $100 Million Funding Round
• May 2018 – SoundHound Closes $100 Million Funding Round
• May 2018 – Amazon opens more monetization tools for Alexa developers
• May 2018 – Cortana & Alexa Officially Announced
• May 2018 – Google Home overtakes Amazon Echo in smart speaker sales for first time
• Aug 2018 – Samsung Announces the Galaxy Home smart speaker
• Aug 2018 – Cortana and Alexa become available on each other’s platforms
• April 2019 – Amazon Alexa launches its first HIPAA-compliant medical skills
• June 2019 – Ventures Anywhere launch first ‘reality radio’ with MumsAnywhere

One of the main barriers to starting a podcast is the perception that to produce anything of decent quality, you need lots of money, a studio or a voice booth… This is no longer the case.

The majority of modern smartphones now come with high-quality microphones and there are apps, such as Sound Branch, that allow you to upload and host your podcasts easily, editing and distributing them to the world with little or no experience.

Why start a podcast?

A key commercial reason is that Google has started to index podcasts and lists them in its search results. AirPods are gaining in popularity and more and more households have smart speakers like Alexa and Google Home. As this hardware is one of the fasting-growing pieces of home tech, audio content will undoubtedly become more every day. Microphones are going into everything. Samsung alone has committed to having microphones in all of its products by 2020.

The importance of ‘Sonic Branding’

Brands and businesses now need to think about not only about how they look but also how they sound. Podcasts offer businesses a more intimate and personable way of communicating with their customers and deliver effective ‘sonic branding’.

People often listen to podcasts in environments where normally ‘work-life’ doesn’t penetrate… on their daily commute, whilst cooking at home or even relaxing on a beach on holiday. So, whether you are trying to educate customers, launch a new product/service or drive a key marketing message, podcasts should be included as a key marketing channel. Millennials, in particular, love podcasts because they’re on-demand and allow the ability to pause, rewind and playback.

How do I get started?

You don’t need to “go live” to the world at the start of your podcasting journey. It makes sense to start publishing internally at first. This helps you identify those who are most comfortable being recorded. Not all people are natural storytellers but, for those who are, stories are the most effective way to engage users – allowing them to remember and learn.

Most people ask Alexa to play the news, play music or set an alarm as part of everyday life but if you can get people listening to your content, as another part of their daily routine, their relationship with your business/brand will become even stronger.

If you already have a smart speaker and listen to podcasts, why not try creating a flash briefing or podcast and see the benefits for yourself?

The benefits of recording and replying to voice notes

We all need to be respectful of people’s time – it is the most important commodity we have.

In business, the volume of time invested in phone calls is significant and missed calls, cancelled meetings and busy schedules can lead to frustration as well as longer lead times. This friction can be resolved by asking the question… do I actually need to schedule a traditional call?

If a topic is time-sensitive, people are still likely to ‘jump on a call’ for the fastest response. However, quite often, there are important conversations which are not as urgent. This is where asynchronous voice notes can help.

Save time

The key benefit of asynchronous messaging is the pause feature, which allows for preparation and ‘thinking time’. On a live call, a person might ask for a business metric and the reply will often be “I don’t know” or “can I come back to you?” When this happens it can be frustrating for both requester and recipient. In this scenario voice messaging allows for a quicker and more beneficial experience for both parties.

Check-in

Another business example is checking-in with staff. For instance, when a sales rep declares their best-case figures, in voice note form, not only can numbers be received with greater confidence but those who travel or work remotely can send handsfree voice notes ‘on the go’.

Get to the point

Although automated scheduling software undoubtedly reduces the organisation of phone calls/calendar management, you can still end up with 15 minutes to half an hour spent on a call that wasn’t really necessary. Voice notes offer a more efficient solution. You will be surprised how much can be said in 30 seconds! Furthermore, keeping conversations pointed and more thoughtful increases the quality of conversation.

Accountability

As participants are being recorded, you can playback and search archives of conversations – hugely improving understanding and accountability. How many times have you been in conversations where interruptions or high emotions get in the way of progress? When people are ‘on record’ they tend to keep their emotions more controlled, which ensures that real business gets done.

People all have their own preferred methods of communications and lots of people will still opt to use the traditional keyboard and telephone methods. However when people realise:

1. we can talk faster than we can type
2. that voice notes provide an audit trail and
3. there is no need to schedule a call

We believe voice notes will triumph over traditional calls, for a large proportion of non-urgent business communications.

Turn your voice notes into a podcast for internal communications.

Back in the 2000s few people could build and edit a website. You had to know HTML and often instruct a web design agency to build your site. Customers were charged per page built and change requests were also costly.

At the moment most people don’t create podcasts. Now I am not saying everyone who listens to podcasts want to create one but there a lot of excellent public speakers out there who don’t have the know how.

Whether it’s the recording equipment or the long winded editing process these are issues which put people off getting started. Just as people commission agencies to build web sites in the 2000s podcast production companies offer services for editing your podcast from adding jingles, hosting and distributing.

Nowadays, people use WordPress, Wix and Weebly to build websites with no technical skills. This has lead to a further explosion in the total number of websites on the internet.

At the time of writing there are 700,000 podcasts published. Podcasts are growing rapidly due to the rise of smart speakers, AirPods and voice search. Google is now indexing podcasts which means when a voice search is conducted podcasts will surface and will have greater importance than their text based equivalents.

If you want to get the attention of your customers and prospects now is the time to start a podcast as they become more discoverable. Advertising revenues are also now growing for the podcasting medium as people drop their screens for the convenience of voice. If your are in the car or at home quite often voice search is easier handsfree.

Start your first podcast on Sound Branch:

Create your free account here.

Sound Branch puts you in control of your podcast creation with no complicated editing skills needed. If you can create a playlist on a music app you can also create a podcast using Sound Branch it’s that simple.

The lifeblood of any organisation is the ability for it to sell and generate revenue. Of course retaining customers is as important as acquiring customers. Whether your sales staff are hunters or farmers you’re trying to drive average order values, lead generation, conversion rates and customer retention rates.

How can you turn your B players into A players? How can you recruit more effectively and efficiently? How can you turn sales calls into podcasts?

In this short guide, we are going to talk about three ways in which you can re-imagine sales training and enable better coaching of your teams.

Step 1 – Hire Sales Professionals Using Audio Profiles

Instead of back and forth email, use voice notes in one-to-one chat to attract and engage candidates in your talent funnel. Your hiring committee can play back audio profiles to accelerate decision making. There is no need for your hiring team to waste time scheduling telephone interviews. Voice makes your hiring process more personable for both you and your candidate.

Step 2 – Coach your Sales Team using Voice Notes

You can’t use Slack and email when you’re driving your car, it’s simply impossible and against the law. There is a lot of dead time spent in cars so how do we turn this dead time into productive time? Connected cars with Bluetooth allow you to voice message colleagues.

There is the sales forecast in the CRM but actually getting a sales rep to speak out their sales forecast is more believable and more credible. Again, voice messaging conversations can be done one to one or one to many with the whole organisation.

Management wants to avoid the Chinese whispers in business where he said she said they said. Voice messaging in your salesforce gets to the customer truth and make better decisions. Conversational analytics overlaid with CRM and financial data allows you to make better decisions.

Future leaders can be identified and bad news can be delivered early and authentically. Don’t get me wrong, the CRM is a useful tool for the modern salesforce and email is not going away. However, listening to the voice of a salesperson and how their day has gone well, management can support and encourage just in time.

Step 3 – Magnify your Sales Staff with Podcasting

People buy from people. We’ve heard this time and time again but what if you took your best sales staff and turn them into podcast presenters interviewing your customers and your prospects.

Cold calling is hard and requesting a meeting often leads to rejection. But when you turn the table and you ask a prospect to be invited to a podcast more conversations happen.

Getting your top sales people with their personalities hosting podcasts is a brilliant way to establish a personal connection with your client but also a wider audience. Furthermore, junior members of the sales team can listen to these podcasts. Perhaps one day once they’re trained up and have achieved the appropriate results they too can start their own podcast?

You can get your very own Sound Branch branded voice site for your organisation here:

http://soundbranch.com/sign-up-business

PS On your voice site you can hire using voice notes and audio profiles, send voice messages for internal communications and create podcasts with no editing needed.

PPS Artificial intelligence on the platform saves time with life transcription to reduce administration and sentiment analysis to understand the emotions in teams. Artificial intelligence such as live transcription reduces administration time. Sentiment analysis AI allows you to see your the emotions in your teams.

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.

How to start a podcast in 6 steps

1. Plan your podcast
2. Plan your episodes to get a feel for your topic and its longevity.
3. Choose a format.
4. Choose your equipment and record your podcast.
5. Publish your podcast.
6. Next steps.

Plan your podcast

To create a podcast you need to ask who and what is your podcast for? Finding an audience is key to a successful podcast.

Whether you are looking at podcasting from a hobby perspective or a business perspective as long as you provide your target audience with valuable and entertaining content you are on the right track.

So, why do you want to make a podcast? It’s important to know “why” so you can stay motivated even when you’re finding it difficult to grow your podcast.

Give them a reason to listen.

Whether you provide information or entertainment make sure you provide value for your listener. A reason to listen means they will come back for more.

Planning Your Episodes

It’s time to think about your podcasts episodes. So, how long should an episode be? Your podcast length depends solely on the content. Don’t cut down good content or pad out short content!

A long episode would probably be anything over an hour and a short episode would probably be anything under 20 minutes.

Whatever you choose just try to be consistent. If you have 40 minutes of valuable content don’t down to 20. Just because you want to do 20-minute episodes. Try to find a consistent length for an episode which is tailored for the content you make.

How often do you release an episode? Just like your episode length, your content will dictate this. There’s a good case for putting out a weekly episode if you can because consistency is key for longevity.

Longevity is still possible if you do a fortnightly or even monthly show because there’s no point just putting episodes out for the sake of hitting a self-made deadline. One excellent episode a month instead of 4 very average episodes has more chance of growing your podcast.

Your listeners will tell you if they think your episodes are too short or too long. Use your audience to make changes and adjust to the most popular format.

However, be wary of making big decisions based on one or two comments. Only change things if it’s something that will benefit the majority of your listeners.

Choose a podcast format

It’s your show. This means you can choose whichever format suits you, and you don’t have to stick with one.

So what are the common types of podcast formats?

A solo show is also known as a monologue.

You don’t need to rely on anyone else and the podcast is also exclusively yours. You make calls on sponsorship and monetization and you don’t need to split the profits.

However, it is the most intimidating style of show for a beginner. You need to make sure you remember that you’re not talking to yourself and that you’re talking to the listener.

A co-hosted show alongside a friend or colleague.

Make sure your co-hosted podcast has great chemistry between the presenters. This can create a great listening experience and you can bounce off each other.

When choosing your co-host make sure both you and your co-host can set aside time to record. Set out ownership early. Who’s podcast is it? Will you split any future income 50/50? Make sure everything is clear from the get-go.

An Interview podcast.

Doing an interview gives you the opportunity to have a chat with someone and have a fresh voice every episode. Your guests will have their own audiences who may listen to the interview and could end up subscribing which is a good way to grow your audience.

You will need to learn the skill of interviewing through practice, so don’t approach the celebrities in your field from the start. You also need to constantly find and approach potential guests because without them you have no show.

Some less common but interesting other formats you could try:

Documentary: As the narrator, you walk your audience through a range of interviews and conversations to paint a picture and tell a story.

Roundtable: You are the regular host and you get a number of guests/permanent co-hosts to talk through one specific topic.

Recording your podcast

Equipment.

The minimum you need to record a podcast is a computer or laptop with a built-in microphone and access to the internet.

However, the lower the cost for your setup and equipment, the more limited the sound quality of your show will be. However, a simple USB microphone setups can give great results if you choose the right mic. The benefit of keeping things simple in that it’s easy and a lot cheaper. So depending on your budget choose the equipment suited to you and go from there.

Recording and editing software.

You need some software to actually record and edit the audio. The good news is that this doesn’t have to cost you anything.

There’s a free programme called Audacity which is suitable for all your podcasting needs and can be used on both Windows and Mac. If you’re a Mac user you probably have Garageband installed by default which is also a popular audio software for podcasters.

If you want to pay for something more professional there’s Adobe Audition, which is available through a paid subscription.

Editing.

This is where you iron out mistakes, stitch together audio clips, add in music or FX and make sure it sounds great with EQ, levelling, compression and more.

If you’re prepared to spend a bit of money to save time, you can always outsource your editing and hire someone else to do it for you.

Music.

You don’t have to have music, but many choose to add it at the beginning and to the end to add an extra layer of professionalism.

What Music Can I Use? There are a lot of websites that have music you can legally use on your podcast. The music will be referred to as royalty-free, stock, or library music. You can choose to pay a one-off fee for a song which entitles you to use it on your show, or you can now get subscriptions that give you access to a library of music.

It’s possible to find free music for your podcast if you search for creative commons licensed music, but it’s often very commonly used. Always check the source site and make sure you have permission to use a particular piece of music.

So now you’ve done the groundwork and planned out your podcast, it’s time to get to work and start recording your first episode.

Publishing your podcast

You can publish your podcast in different ways. The most common is via a media host but you can also publish it by yourself if you self-host.

Media hosts are services that store your audio and allow your listeners to listen, download, and subscribe to your podcast. You can either have a website set up on their site to deliver them, or place them on your own existing website.

Once you’ve created your show inside your media host of choice, you can then submit it to be listed in various directories, where listeners can discover, subscribe to, and download it.

If you want to self host your podcast you need a personal server to generate the RSS feed to syndicate your podcast. This option offers complete control over your podcast, but is complicated and can be time-consuming unless you are an experienced web developer.

A new way you can publish a podcast is via Sound Branch. The platform makes creating a podcast really easy and requires no editing skills. It gives you total control over your podcast and is easy to use. It has basic features like push notifications and the ability to create a playlist of your episodes. Download the app or go to www.soundbranch.com and start today.

Next steps

Once you launch your podcast out in the world, that’s when you’ll move on to thinking about promotion and building your audience.

If you consistently deliver great content for a wanting audience, then you’ll eventually be in a position to start thinking about monetising your podcast.

There are several different podcast ad networks that can connect you with advertisers. They do all the work of finding advertisers, negotiating rates, give you a script, and more. You usually need a larger audience of at least 5K or 10K listeners per month. So grow your audience stay consistent and you can reap the rewards.

As offices fragment into remote teams, work becomes more visual and social media makes us more comfortable on camera – it’s time for collaboration to go beyond text.

In a click, you can record yourself to get an idea across in a personal way. Instead of scheduling a video call, employees can asynchronously discuss projects or give “stand-up” updates without massive disruptions to their workflow.

We want to make it very easy to bring the humanity back in.

With more and more people working from home bridging the gap between the office and the home office can be achieved with voice messaging.

The collaboration space is becoming much deeper than just email plus documents. Voice plus documents makes collaboration a little more interesting.

Why wait on email?

Sound Branch is your platform for team communication. Post important voice messages, podcast your news and tell stories to connect remote teams.

Your team can listen to and comment on voice notes in the app, or directly from the web.

Your team wakes up to a daily flash briefing of what’s important. This curated audio makes it easy to get caught up fast and helps remote teams.

With Sound Branch, you know who listened to your update.

See which voice messages create energy and engagement, and which ones aren’t getting through!

Learn more at:

https://soundbranch.com

PS Save time with fewer emails and meetings needed.

Voice Tech Podcast recently published their 21st episode, which features our CEO’s podcast on nanocasting.

In this episode, Sean introduces the concept of nanocasting, and explains how it can be used for public broadcasting, team status updates, recruiting new staff, and more.

Sean also explains how audio is unique in providing the perfect combination of authenticity of message and auditability of content, thanks to the combination of speech to text and search technologies.

Sound Branch is a feature rich application that could well be the Twitter for voice that so many have been predicting, and this episode will help deepen your understanding of this emerging form of communication.

Since the inception of the smart phone, we have all become happy snappy taking so many photographs we need to store them on the cloud as we have run out of space on our phones. Add video and this problem becomes more pronounced.

Whilst we capture lots of photos and videos we don’t capture that much voice data. OK, perhaps the odd journalists record voice with voice memo or phone recording services but these people are few and far between.

The real opportunity is getting lots of people recording their voice. As voice resides in many different places it’s not been recorded in one place. Voice data is all over the place, be it voice mails on your phone, your work voice mail system, WhatsApp voice notes and phone conversations which aren’t recorded.

Now, I’m not saying personal phone conversations should be recorded. But if they are business calls recording and transcribing the audio could save a lot of time. What we need to get smart on is how we record voice data. Imagine if you could search back all your conversations, analyse the sentiment and play them back!

As we enable digital teams and more people work from home we need to ensure that those teams are connected. Slack and instant messaging are useful but don’t lead to personal conversations. Google Meetings, Zoom Calls and Go To Meetings work fine but you need to schedule them. Surely, there is an easier way to make communication more personable without the scheduling and leveraging the usefulness of voice data.

Linking the business KPIs with the emotions in the business is a sure fire away of enabling harmony and engagement in your business. What if your CEO listened to every single conversation! Well, there aren’t enough hours in the day I hear you say. There are enough hours in the day if you change the approach. Again we need to change the habits on what we input to get better output and competitive edge.

There are three changes to make. One, do not schedule meetings unless they are absolutely necessary such as first time meets with new staff. Two, record all your voice data and messages in timelines, groups and chats. Finally, ensure all voice messages have a limited duration of 10 seconds.

Meetings don’t start on time, they often aren’t minuted and cost businesses lots. The trick is to give everyone a voice by having fewer meetings and, instead, having short form nanocasting voice notes. This gives greater breadth to conversations in a more inclusive and diverse audience. By having more voices and a breather width of listening, your brain power is expanded. The Chinese whisper disappears and the customer truth comes out.

At first, this change of approach will seem alien to many people. Firstly, some people don’t like the sound of their own voice. Forcing people to think more than they talk and get their message out in 10 seconds is a challenge. Finally, some people like sitting in meetings!

If you are brave and bold enough to have fewer meetings, record lots of short form audio and then play it back. This leads to greater insights, business intelligence and smarter business decisions.

What if you could map with AI the sentiment of staff after losing a deal? How could you link the quality and quantity of internal conversations to net promoter scores and repeat business? Who are the leaders in the business and how could you suggest using AI, which questions they are not asking and which staff they haven’t praised for a while. What if you could book travel automatically based on business conversations? How could you suggest which learning resources should be consumed based on conversations or a missing conversation?

The interesting part is when you have the voice data you can do lots with it. Fail to capture it and you will be left behind. Businesses need to adopt a multimodal approach to voice capture and recalling conversations across the web, mobile devices and smart speakers.

The great thing about voice is when we have all left the business or retired, our staff can benefit from the history of our voices. What about listening to the founders of the business back when they started talking about the company values? Like a fine wine, voice data goes up in value over time. Indeed, Rome was not built in a day so you need to start capturing your voice data now to harvest the benefit in your near future.

You can learn how to capture more voice data and put this to use at:

SoundBranch.com

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.