Alexa In Canada: Amazon Alexa And Echo Skills, Tips, And Tricks For Canadians

In this episode, Teri welcomes Suze Cooper, the director of Big Tent Media, a web design and social media agency in the UK. Welcome, Suze!Suze is doing incredible work in the voice first world with her flash briefing, Social Days. Social Days is a high production flash briefing that is part of the Briefcast.FM network. Suze comes on to talk about how she got started, why she has an interest in voice, and why she’s interested in flash briefings.BackgroundHer background is in journalism and she started out in the local newspaper.She later realized that she had a passion and love for audio, moved into broadcasting, and became the news editor of the local commercial radio station where she now works on freelance basis. She stopped working there full time to take care of her kids.From her love of audio, she started doing audio editing and other audio related work from home, and looked into doing social media management.She eventually started a web design and social media management company (Big Tent Media) wi

In this episode, Teri has a two-way interview between himself and Pete Erickson of Modev, the company behind Voice Summit and the Inside Voice Podcast.              Enjoy!Pete Erickson is the founder and CEO of Modev, and their very successful Voice Summit has so far been the largest gathering of voice technology enthusiasts in the world. Voice Summit 2019 will be taking place in Newark, New Jersey on July 22nd to 25th 2019.Pete has been interested in interviewing Teri for his podcast and Teri wanted to interview him for his podcast, so they decided to do a joint podcast to get each of each other’s ideas on what’s happening with voice technology today. New Elements in Voice Summit 2019: PeteThe Voice Summit 2018 was more focused on content and bringing voice technology enthusiasts together with as many voices as possible being heard. This year they want to do the same, but they are also adding in some key activations that were not ther

In this episode, Teri welcomes Giles Rhys Jones, the CMO of What3Words, a 100+ person tech startup trying to change the world for the better by addressing it all with just three words.Welcome, Giles!Giles created the vision, positioning, identity and go to marketing strategy for the company. He took What3Words from a quirky idea to a globally recognized brand used by organizations, individuals and governments in over 170 countries.What3Words’ technology helps people find locations on our entire planet using words instead of addresses. Giles comes on to talk about this technology and how voice technology is affecting the way locations can be found on planet earth.What3WordsThe company’s founder, Chris Sheldrick, used to organize music events around the world and was constantly frustrated with bad addressing. Band members and equipment would end up at the wrong place all the time. He used to use GPS coordinates but with GPS, if one mixed up just one number, they would get lost.Chris and his friend Mohan (a What

In this episode, in response to the feedback that he got on episode 78, Teri highlights all the great things that we can do with Alexa routines especially in home automation. Let's Begin! Teri will take us through what Alexa Routines is and go through all the different settings that we can set up for a routine in Canada. Routines is one of the most powerful features that anyone can use with Alexa. It takes home automation to an entirely new level. What is a Routine?It's something that you can set up so that when you trigger Alexa either with a single verbal utterance, or set it up to happen automatically at certain times on certain days of the week, Alexa can go through a number of different functions all sequentially without pausing between them.For example, Teri has a morning routine set up so that when he says to Alexa, “Start my day”, she goes through a number of different things. She tells him the news for the day, tells him his commute time, the weather, taps into his flash briefings, and

In this episode, Teri welcomes Brooke Hawkins, the senior voice user interface designer at The Mars Agency, a voice technology ethicist, and speaker. Welcome, Brooke Hawkins!Brooke has a tremendous background in voice user interface design and has become a thought leader on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence and voice technology. She comes on to the show to talk about all the ethics surrounding the development of voice applications for a future of living in a voice interface mediated world.BackgroundShe has been in the voice space for all of her career as a UX designer.Started out working for a health technology company. The voice ecosystem blew up when she was there and she ended up taking a role at Nuance Communications working on chatbot solutions for companies.She has had experience working with both startups and corporate giants.She now works for SmartAisle, a small startup in Detroit, designing an interactive voice-first shelf in retail specifically for shopping in stores. This pro

In this episode, Teri gives us a well detailed step by step breakdown of how to setup Alexa in your new Echo device so you can get the most and best out of her in Canada.Let's Begin! First of all, of course, you’ll need to have your Amazon.ca account set up and then go into setting up your Alexa device. If you don’t already have an Alexa device, there are 9 different ones to choose from. Just go to AlexainCanada.ca, enter your email address, and you will have access to download a completely free guide to help you choose which device is best for you.The SetupYou will need to have some way to set up your settings and there are two ways, using a mobile app or online on the Amazon website.If you choose to use a mobile app, you will go the iTunes app store or the Google Play Store, to download the app.If you choose to use the online method, just go to Alexa.Amazon.comIt’s better to use the mobile app because you'll have access to more features.Echo SettingsThis is where you set up what you can or cannot do wi

In this episode, Teri welcomes Braden Ream back to the show. Braden is the CEO and Co-Founder of Voiceflow.Welcome, Braden Ream!Voiceflow is one of the best platforms when it comes to developing, designing and prototyping Alexa skills and Google actions. He comes back to talk some tremendously exciting major developments at Voiceflow.VoiceflowThey started the company about a year ago.They were looking for different ideas in the voice space and had one of the original Alexa Dots.They started to experiment by starting with voice shopping, but it didn’t go anywhere.They eventually settled on doing interactive children stories.They looked into different platforms that they could use to create the stories because they had been custom coding, and felt it would take too long. They settled on StoryLine which is now Invocable, and it was very good. They used Invocable for some time, but they eventually hit a features cap so they tried other platforms, but none of them suited what they wanted to build, so they decided

In this episode, Teri talks about the Alexa Skills that were winners in the 2019 Webby Awards. The Webby Awards are awards that are given to people, organizations and companies that are doing incredible things on the web. With the explosion of voice technology, the awards added ten new categories just for voice. Teri is going to highlight the winning Alexa skill that is available in Canada as well as those that got honorable mentions. Ready? Here we go! And the Honorable Mentions were!#1 ALIEN: Offworld Colony SimulatorIt’s by 20th Century Fox and was one of the honorable mentions in the best user-experience category.It is a turn-based exploration game that challenges you to escape from the sectors of a locked down Weyland-Yutani Space Colony. The objective of the game is to escape as many colony sectors as possible before being trapped by the colony’s quarantine protocol, or falling prey to security hazards. #2 Bedtime ExplorersThis is by Kinderling Kids Radio.It is a soundscape type of explor

In this episode, Teri welcomes Awesome Aariv Modi, a 5th Grade student and excellent Amazon Alexa Skill Developer. Welcome, Aariv Modi!Awesome Aariv came on to talk about his experience as a grade 5 student creating Alexa skills and also creating videos to help educate the voice technology community.Awesome AarivOne of his favorite hobbies is playing chess. Went to his first tournament when he was six.He loves mystery books, plays basketball and loves video games.He has been coding since he was 7. He started creating basic programs using Scratch and Khan Academy, and then moved up to taking Codecademy courses on more complex topics.He has a YouTube channel, Awesome Aariv, where he creates videos about math, chess and books, and recently started creating videos on Alexa.He is very passionate about Alexa and loves developing new skills.His Interest in CodingWhen he looked at games he would wonder how they are built. He was always fascinated by the fact that just by typing code, one could create a game or a

In this episode, Teri welcomes Adva Levin, the founder and CEO of Pretzel Labs, a company that is creating some of the most engaging top-notch kids’ skills that are available today. Welcome, Adva Levin!Adva’s background is in writing, content strategy and conversation design. She started Pretzel Labs to create voice-first playful experiences for kids. She won the grand prize in the Amazon Alexa Kids Skill Competition for one of her kids’ skill and that skill was one of the top 25 skills of 2018.Creating Alexa Skills for KidsAlexa and other voice technology platforms sparked her imagination as a writer and she saw voice as a new creative medium.She got an Alexa device and when people came to her house they would engage Alexa. Adults would ask more utility-based questions, but kids were more playful with Alexa and asked fun and imaginative questions. Adva saw it as a new entity or almost close to a family member for kids to interact with.Actionable Tips for Kids Skills DevelopersChildren cannot be categori

In this episode, Teri welcomes Obaid Ahmed, the founder and CEO of Botmock, a Canadian company that is all about making voice design easy for all. Welcome, Obaid Ahmed!Obaid is an entrepreneur, mentor, technologist at heart, and an expert in building technology, UX/product design, and large scale software design and business models. He has been a mentor for early stage startups, providing them with advice and insights on their business models and get-to-market plans. He was the creator of UmmahHuba, project that gives Muslim communities around the world access to crowd-funding opportunities. He was awarded the Youth Business Entrepreneur in 2012 and was also involved in YoungMaker project which introduced the concept of technology to the youth via a 3D printer.Botmock not only allows the publishing of voice skills to Alexa, but also many other platforms. Botmock lets people create conversation flows and interactive prototypes from a simple drag-and-drop editor, then share or test those prototypes and get

In this episode, Teri releases the results of the Future of Alexa in Canada survey to give us a clue as to where we are going with a lot of the features within the Alexa in Canada and Voice in Canada brands. And the Results are….!Teri was overwhelmed by the 95+ responses he got from the survey. The feedback will be very valuable when coming up with a way forward for the Alexa in Canada community. Survey Question 1: How comfortable are you with voice technology?13.8% are beginners (new users of voice technology). This demonstrates that the podcast and flash briefing should be putting out some of the basic information on how to get started with voice devices, and so on.47.9% are somewhat comfortable with voice devices.38.3% consider themselves advanced users of voice technology.The audience of the Alexa in Canada Podcast has different needs as far as where they are in their journey of using voice assistants.Teri continuously tries to provide value for people at different stages of their journey in usi

In this episode, Teri talks about the changes that have been taking place in the Alexa in Canada Community stemming from the involvement of community members. Enjoy the Show!Based on the way voice technology is evolving, Teri realizes that at some point in the future he might have to slightly change the focus of the Alexa in Canada community, but he wouldn’t want to do that without feedback from community members. He shares his thought process on the show so that community members can share their feedback on how the community should move forward.The Voice in Canada Flash BriefingMarch 25th 2019 was the 400th episode of the flash briefing.It’s been fantastic, a lot of fun and a lot of work for Teri, but it’s a way that he can stay in tune with what’s going on in the world of Alexa and provide that to the Alexa in Canada community and the world on a daily basis.It has been downloaded and listened to well over 100,000 times in just over a year.The Alexa in Canada PodcastIt has been doing exceptionally well.

In this episode, Teri welcomes Ian Utile, an innovative strategist, business development executive, entrepreneur, optimistic tech futurist, and keynote speaker. Welcome, Ian Utile!Ian is the co-founder of Kukui Corp, a company ranked by Inc 500 as the #1 fastest growing private organizations in San Jose (#76 in the US). He specializes in starting software tech companies and is a partner in different non-tech projects. He is also the founder of WMVAI (We Magnify Voice for Attention and Influence), a B2B SaaS platform that automates posting content to Amazon Alexa. WMVAI will in future be available in Google Home/Assistant, Microsoft Cortana, Apple Siri, and Samsung Bixby. Ian's hobby is supporting large international non-profits.Teri and Ian met at the Alexa Conference. Ian was there live streaming some of the content and Teri did a live interview with him that was broadcasted to both their audiences. Ian is very excited about voice technology and he comes on to the podcast to share some of his really coo

In this episode, Teri welcomes Stuart Crane, the Founder and CEO of Voice Metrics, a company that helps businesses get their key information by voice. Welcome, Stuart Crane!Stuart co-founded CPR+ in 1993, and it ultimately became the dominant enterprise system used by the Specialty Pharmacy market, an industry providing high-tech pharmaceuticals to patients in the home. After 20+ years of building software, growing the B2B business, making acquisitions, and learning a ton about metrics and measuring business performance, Stuart and his partner sold CPR+ to Mediware Information Systems in July, 2013.In 2017, Stuart created Voice Metrics, an API-based service that allows any business to access their KPI’s, metrics, and important company information, just by asking. While dashboards, spreadsheets, and even email attachments will still have their place to help a business succeed, the ability to get key business metrics any time, any place, without logging in or even touching a device, has been Stua

In this episode, Teri shares the lessons that he has learned from producing a flash briefing for an entire year.Enjoy the Show!Flash briefings are a fairly new media based on the fact that very few people have done a flash briefing for a whole year which makes this episode quite interesting. Teri will talk about some of the challenges and definite successes that he has seen as a result of doing a flash briefing for a year. He will be very transparent about where he is at with his Voice in Canada flash briefing and what the flash briefing’s statistics are like, so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not you would want to start a flash briefing.Starting the Voice in Canada flash briefingWhen Teri started the flash briefing, he was looking for a way to engage with the audience of Alexa in Canada on a regular basis. He realized that it was a great way for someone to create a relationship with their audience.He was hoping the flash briefing would give his audience a lot of value, enable them to

In this episode, Teri welcomes Emily Binder, a leading voice marketing strategist and a consultant to brands.Welcome, Emily Binder!She is the founder of Beetle Moment Marketing, a voice-first marketing agency where she helps brands reach customers in this voice-first world. She is a frequently sort after speaker and received rave reviews at the 2019 Alexa Conference for her talks on marketing in this voice-first world. She comes on the show to talk about her background, why she is so enthusiastic about voice, sonic branding and why flash briefings are such an incredible opportunity when it comes to getting a brand’s voice heard in the voice-first world.BackgroundShe has been in marketing for over a decade and started out with a heavy focus on social media and content marketing. Over the last couple of years, she has shifted her core focus onto voice, but still works on social media.The Compelling Nature of Voice She was one of the early adopters of voice technology back in 2014. She got the 1st-Gen Echo

In this episode, Teri welcomes Brian Roemmele, “The Oracle of Voice” and “The Modern Day Thomas Edison”Welcome Brian Roemmele!Brian is the consummate Renaissance man. He is a scientist, researcher, analyst, connector, thinker and doer. He is also referred to as the “Oracle of Voice” and is actually credited for having come up with the term “Voice First”. Over the long, winding arc of his career, Brian has built and run payments and tech businesses, worked in media, including the promotion of top musicians, and explored a variety of other subjects along the way.He actively shares his findings and observations across fora like Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Business Insider, Daily Mail, Inc, Gizmodo, Medium, Quora (An exclusive Quora top writer for: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013), Twitter (quoted and published), Around the Coin (earliest crypto currency podcast), Breaking Banks Radio and This Week In Voice on VoiceFirst.fm that surfaces everything from Bitcoin to

In this episode, Teri welcomes Amy Stapleton, the founder and CEO of Tellables, a company that excels in creating interactive storytelling for voice assistants and robots.Welcome Amy!Amy has been an IT professional for many years and her last stint was as IT manager at NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She retired early to focus on voice technology, specifically in storytelling, which led her to specialize in natural language and conversation, and designing interactive story experiences and games for talking voice assistants and conversational robots.Amy comes on the show to talk to us about her new skill, “My Box of Chocolates”, and to explain how chocolates in this skill represent different stories. It’s a new type of interactive storytelling where we can have discussions with Alexa about what you’re listening to. The skill is available in Canada and Amy will actually looking for authors and will tell us how we can participate in the story making process.Her First Skills and St

In this episode, Teri welcomes Brielle Nickoloff and Neha Javalagi from the company Witlingo.Welcome Brielle and Neha!Teri met Brielle and Neha at the recent Alexa Conference and is featuring them on the podcast to talk about some incredible products that they have launched, namely; Castlingo (a micro-podcasting tool which has been live for a while now) and Buildlingo (which they just launched). Brielle is the Lead for Product Marketing and Neha is the Lead for Product Management, and they’re going to talk about how their products make it so simple for people to get their content onto a voice assistant platform.WitlingoThey started in early 2016. The founder of the company, Ahmed Bouzid, was on the Amazon Alexa team.They focus on building products and solutions to enable brands and companies to get their presence onto voice in a way that provides a great customer experience for their own customers. It requires no coding.They started out building custom skills for people.CastlingoIt’s a micro-podcasting p