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

In this episode, Teri welcomes Shanthan Kesharaju, the creator of Sermo Labs, which specializes in Alexa Skill development. Welcome Shanthan Kesharaju!Shanthan has created a number of skills over a number of years, which are all geared towards some type of educational principle. They include top trending Alexa skills like 1-2-3 Math, World Mathematics League and Hungry Birds. Shanthan also works as the Product Manager of Artificial Intelligence in a financial services company. His interests are in Artificial Intelligence and Analytics. He is brilliant, knows his technology, has a great business sense and on top of that, he has a really good heart.Sermo Labs and Getting into Voice TechnologySermo Labs focuses on building voice applications which make learning fun and engaging.They have so far built three different Alexa skills which help users hone their math and logical skills.Their flagship skill is the 1-2-3 Math which they created in 2014.It has three different difficulty levels; Easy, Medium and Hard

In this episode, Teri does a round-up of the conversations he had about voice with different people at the 2019 Alexa Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Teri was a speaker at the conference and talked about voice technology in the context of healthcare. He also led a workshop on how to create a flash briefing and recorded a flash briefing live for his Voice in Canada flash briefing. Shanthan Kesharaju He is the founder of Sermo Labs, LLC. They build educational Alexa skills that ignite young minds to learn interest in maths especially by practicing at home.They built “1-2-3 Math” which has been top trending on the Amazon store in different categories. It has three difficulty levels; easy, medium and hard. It can be used by any school going child up to middle school depending on what their skill levels are. Parents have said the skill helps their children in doing their homework.Shanthan gave a talk at the conference about how he built a top trending Alexa skill and shared his journey. Armel

In this episode, Teri is at the Alexa Conference 2019 in Chattanooga, Tennessee where he recorded this episode live.Teri was a speaker at the conference and talked about voice technology in the context of healthcare. He also led a workshop on how to create a flash briefing and recorded a flash briefing live for his Voice in Canada flash briefing.Flash Briefing BasicsA flash briefing is a small, short, audio piece of content. It’s similar to a podcast but it’s short.Starting a flash briefing or podcast is an opportunity to become a leader in whatever your field is..If the title and description of your flash briefing has the appropriate keywords, people searching for the products that match those keywords on Amazon will stumble onto your flash briefing.Unlike with other skills, once somebody has enabled a flash briefing, they never need to remember the invocation name again because it’s now part of their subscription.People tend to listen to flash briefings during the transitional moments of their day like when

In this episode, Teri does a countdown of the 2019 Top Ten Amazon Alexa Skills in Canada.Teri went into the Canadian Amazon Skill Store and sorted the skills by top reviews which means that they are the skills that you the users have rated as the top skills. Teri had done a similar countdown months ago and interestingly some of the skills are still in the list, but there are some new ones, and the skill that takes the number one spot is actually brand new.Before we proceed, one small caveat: Teri selected the skills based on how interactive they are and not just sound effects. He decided to sort the skills this way so you can see Alexa at her best. With that in mind, time to countdown the top ten! Ready? Here we go! The Top Ten Amazon Alexa Skills in Canada!#10 AnyPod by Harrison Digital MediaAre you looking for a great skill to listen to podcasts on Alexa? It was the number 10 skill six months, so it’s holding steady. This is the best skills for listening to podcasts through your Alexa devices. The

In this episode, Teri welcomes Harry Pappas, the Founder and CEO of the Intelligent Health Association (IHA) Welcome Harry Pappas!Harry is a serial entrepreneur and has never worked for the corporate world. His core goal is to get the healthcare community to adopt new technology, software, apps, voice and other forms of technology that can have a dramatic impact on improving patient outcomes, patient care and patient safety while driving down the cost of Healthcare for all citizens.The Intelligent Health Association (IHA)A healthcare incident concerning his mother made him realize how bad the healthcare system is the US and worldwide. He promised his mother that he would use all his talents, resources and connections all over the world to improve the delivery of healthcare by educating the healthcare community around the world to adopt new technologies and processes.He divested his companies and decided to do social good.He started out by forming the RFID in Healthcare Consortium which then led to the fo

Teri is a physician and clinical assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver, Canada. He is an experienced keynote speaker, educator, consultant, and podcaster.Getting into Podcasting and the Voice SpaceHis passions are technology and education.Was always looking for a way to combine medicine, education, and technology.First became aware of voice technology in early 2017 and wanted to learn more about it to see how he could use it in medicine, teaching and helping people to be more productive with their lives.He launched the Alexa in Canada website along with the Alexa in Canada Podcast to talk about what’s going on in the technology scene and help people learn more about how they can use voice technology in their lives.He started learning about the applications for voice technology in healthcare which led him to start the website and podcast, Voice First Health.He’s also interested in entrepreneurship and marketing.The idea of having a flash briefing was exciting for him and he st

In this episode, Teri welcomes Bradley Metrock, the brains behind the VoiceFirst.FM network.Welcome Bradley Metrock!Bradley is the CEO of Score Publishing which runs the Digital Book World, The Alexa Conference, The Voice of Healthcare Summit, and the global podcast network VoiceFirst.FM. The Alexa Conference will be taking place between January 15 to 17th 2019 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The conference is a worldwide gathering of Alexa developers and enthusiasts.VoiceFirst.FMHas a number of podcasts across the world that people enjoy including the Alexa in Canada podcast.The podcasts have a total of more than 100,000 listeners across 56 countries.Top Stories of 2018Apple failed to be more competitive. Siri has made some strides but Apple is still flailing about at the end of 2018. New consumer habits are being formed on a daily basis and they don’t involve the Apple ecosystem, but instead involve the Amazon Alexa and Google ecosystem.Samsung rolled out their new developer tools and sh

In this episode, Teri welcomes Jen Lehner, a leading digital marketing strategist and founder of Jen Lehner Media, LLC. Welcome Jen Lehner!Jen is also an adjunct professor of digital marketing and Entrepreneur in Residence at Notre Dame College. She creates online courses (online courses, group training courses online, and one on one coaching sessions) on social media and online business, and runs a podcast called The Front Row Entrepreneur. She is a mother of 3 kids and a Golden Retriever.Getting into Social Media MarketingShe stumbled into it. Was always interested in the social aspect of technology that brings people together.Social media has had an impact on her life in different ways.Left her career in the non-profit world to be a stay at home mom but always kept track of social technologies like eBay, Amazon, and others.She was always the parent in the classroom who did the newsletters, digital newsletters and websites. She noticed that most people weren’t conversant with these technologies so

In this episode, Teri welcomes Braden Ream, one of the co-founders of Voiceflow.Welcome Braden Ream!He is a Canadian and lives in Toronto. Their platform makes it very easy for both people getting started in Alexa skills and also seasoned developers who are looking for a more efficient way to code.Starting off in Voice TechnologyHis co-founder had an idea to create the “Honey for Voice Shopping” Honey is the Chrome extension that enables people to get the best price that applies coupons. They wanted to apply that to voice shopping and this is what got them involved in voice. There were some technical limitations because Amazon and Google didn’t want that at that time.They then started a children’s started a children’s stories app called Fable. They were read along children stories on Amazon Alexa. They built the initial MVP on storyline. They were writing the stories by hand and printing physical books. The user would read a line and Alexa would essentially see the line that was read and match it to the inten

In this episode, Teri welcomes the "Oracle of Voice", Brian RoemmeleWelcome Brian Loemmele!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.Brian 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 Voice Commerce.Getting into VoiceIni

In this episode, Teri talks about everything that has gone on in the first year since launching the Alexa in Canada podcast, blog and community, and everything that is to come. Happy Birthday Alexa in Canada!When Teri launched the podcast/blog, Amazon had not announced that Alexa was coming to Canada.Teri was interested in voice technology, did some research and discovered that there no resource in Canada for people to learn about Amazon Alexa. He decided to create the blog and started documenting all that he was learning about Amazon Alexa. HighlightsWhen Amazon officially announced Alexa into Canada, Canadians weren’t get the same devices that people in the United States got. The only devices they had in the market were the Echo Dot, the Echo, and the Echo Plus.A lot of Canadians wanted access to the other devices and so they choose to set their addresses to the United States so they could access the devices in the US and use all the skills and features available in the US.Canada used to be a couple mo

In this episode, Teri welcomes Melissa Klepacki, a serial entrepreneur and wellness fanatic. She’s also one of the pioneers when it comes to voice first and particularly with flash briefings. She is well into the 200s of her episodes of flash briefings, and they had a very interesting conversation about the impact that voice is and will continue to have on the world.Getting into the Voice First spaceGot into social media marketing to push marketing out to people instead of having them go to a website to get community news. Was using Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to share information with people.She realized the paradigm shift happening with voice and decided to develop a daily flash briefing skill called “Today’s Health Tip”, to push wellness information to people.Today’s Health TipIt’s a 3-minute daily wellness tip.Available on Amazon.comShe talks about all kinds of subjects like low carb living, gut health, brain health, recommended supplements, mindfulness, incorporating more movement, and others.She wor

In this episode, Teri was interviewed on The Savvy Social Podcast by the host, Andrea Jones. The podcast is all about social media and social media marketing in particular, and Teri had the opportunity to join the host to talk about flash briefings and voice technology; and how they can be used for marketing.Enjoy!Voice TechnologyThis is the future of computing, social marketing and everything related to technology.Before voice technology, computer technology required users to use some kind of hardware device to be able to communicate with the technology.This technology is friction-less, seamless and convenient. Computers are adapting to the way that we naturally communicate.Amazon just launched a dozen new products and announced that they will be putting their Alexa voice technology into everything from microwaves, clocks, and other gadgets.All the major companies are seeing this as the future of technology.It’s much more efficient when you look at the number of words that people can type per minute verses t

In this episode, Teri welcomes Einat Laudon, a biochemist turned Alexa skills creator. Einat went from having no computer programming skills to creating three fantastic skills, one of which is related to education and teaching evolution concepts out of a school curriculum. She has also created two skills specifically geared towards the Halloween holiday. She has a Masters in Biochemistry and worked a few years in a scientific technology company designing lesson plans. She developed an interest in creating apps and later discovered voice technology which led her to start creating her own Alexa skills.Both of her Halloween skills are available in Canada but the evolution education one is only available in the United States because of the way Amazon classifies their skills in Canada and getting approval in Canada for that.Kiwi MonstersHer first skill is called Kiwi Monsters.Learned how to design skills on storyline. The flow charts in storyline reminded her of an evolution tree which gave her the idea to develop

In this episode, Teri once again welcomes Bahubali Shete and Mario Rodriguez of Klove Chef. They talk about being a startup in the voicefirst world, and how it is important to continue to innovate at lightning speed.Welcome Bahubali Shete and Mario Rodriguez!Today we welcome Bahabali and Mario back to the podcast. They first appeared on Episode 44. Today we talk about their experience of being a startup company in the voicefirst world. As a reminder, Bahubali Shete is the co-founder and CEO of Klove Chef and Mario Rodriguez is its Chief Culinary Officer. Klove Chef is a voice-guided cooking assistant that helps keep your hands free for cooking, while giving you relevant cooking tips.Klove Chef    Klove Chef is a conversational solution which takes consumers through meal planning, recipe discovery, buying ingredients and cooking with the support of a conversational assistant.    Focusing on becoming the primary interface for consumers in the kitchen.  &nbs

In this episode, Teri welcomes Deepak and Dr. Aparna Ramanathan, co-founders of Ask My Class. Ask My Class is a company that produces Alexa skills for education, and helps teachers, parents and kids thrive through the use of Amazon Echos in the classroom. If you have an interest in education and voice-first technology, this episode is for you!Dr. Aparna Ramanathan is a critical care medical doctor from Australia. When she moved to the United States, she changed her focus to child health and well being. She saw voice technology as a way to help with emotional regulation in children at home and in the classroom.Deepak Ramanathan is in engineering, and has had product and marketing roles at Google. He has also spent time on education teams within Google.Key points from Aparna and Deepak Ramanathan about Education and Voice-First TechAparna likes that there is a way for children to use technology that is screen-free.Voice is a very natural form of interaction for children.Ask My ClassAsk My Class is an Alexa

In this episode, Teri welcomes Jeff Adams, CEO of Cobalt Speech & Language, and often labelled “The Alexa Inventor”, to discuss how Amazon created the Alexa Voice Service.Welcome Jeff Adams!Jeff Adams has been involved with speech technology in one way or another for over 24 years. He got his start by working for a small speech-technology company in Boston, and through a series of acquisitions, ended up working at Nuance, the company behind the successful speech-recognition app Dragon. He left Nuance in 2009 to join a voice-message transcription start-up. That was a turning point. The start-up got Amazon’s attention when they found out the start-up’s technology could match the accuracy of human transcribers. Amazon acquired them and and put them to work on what would become Alexa.How do you feel about Jeff Adams being labeled Alexa’s creator?Amazon already had a vision for what they wanted.Jeff says he did not invent Alexa. When Amazon got him and his team to Seattle, they explained, behind closed doors a

Skill Design, VUI, Voice User Interface Tips and Tricks. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

New Devices: Echo Show, Dot, Plus, Sub, Input, Link, Auto, Wall Clock, Microwave, Smart Plug See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cooking and Chef Tips with Alexa See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.