Future Ear Radio

Guest: Paul Michaelenko, CEO & Founder of the Listen App

Topic: The Listen App & Social Podcasting

Paul sits down with Dave to share the vision of the Listen App, a new type of podcast player with an emphasis on social sharing. As the two discuss, podcasting is in need for a social layer that's built natively for the audio medium. Just as we saw Facebook's first attempt at a mobile app fail due to not accommodating for the mobile user interface and size of the device, podcasts exist in an audio-based environment, but are primarily accessed and shared through text-based formats. The Listen App team is effectively taking on the challenge of bringing other elements of the podcasting experience (i.e. listener engagement) to the native environment of the podcast: audio.

Paul shares some of the different ways that the Listen App is reimagining the podcast experience with features such as voice comments and voice recommendations. Look for the Listen App to hit the app stores soon. 

Guest: Kevin Liebe, Audiologists and President/CEO of Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Topic: Innovations in Hearing Care and (Hearing Aid) Data is the New Oil 

Kevin Liebe joins Dave to discuss the new column he's launched at HHTM around innovations occurring in the hearing healthcare industry. The two discuss the three interviews that Kevin has conducted so far, going one-by-one to talk through some of the key takeaways from each guest. From there, the two discuss the possible benefits that may stem from the mass amount of data that is now being collected due to the widespread proliferation of connected hearing aids. 

Guest: Priti Moudgill, CEO & Founder of Peripherii

Topic: Fashionable Hearables

Priti sits down with Dave to share the story behind what led her to start her hearables startup, Peripherii. The two discuss why hearables designed as earrings that are tailored for women is both intriguing and feasible, the rise of "situational" hearables, and the type of universal features that will likely be available for the broad hearable economy over time. 

Guest: Liz Fuemmeler, Audiologist and Vestibular Specialist at Hearing and Balance KC

Topic: Life as a Recent Audiology Graduate

Liz joins Dave to share her journey of becoming an Audiologist and landing her first job as an AuD as a Vestibular Specialist at Hearing and Balance KC. During their conversation, Liz shares what life has been like transitioning from grad school into the working world, how she found a job in private practice, what drew her toward becoming a Vestibular specialist, some of her major takeaways from her first year as an AuD, and her perspective of the future of Audiology.

Guest: Andreas Stegmann, Product Manager at Chrono24 and Author of the post, "Spotify at the Crossroads"

Topic: Spotify at the Crossroads

Andy joins Dave to walk through his fantastic Medium post, "Spotify at the Crossroads," where he lays out some of the pitfalls Spotify is facing and how the company might best navigate those challenges. One of the keys, Andy believes, will be for the company to find a way to grow beyond music and into more ambient forms of media. Content Curation, discoverability, social sharing and open-sourcing are just a few of the topics discussed in this wide-spanning episode.

Guest: Mark Truong, Audiology Student and Host of the Hear Me Out Podcast

Topic: Hearing Aid Genius Bars

Mark joins Dave to share some of his key learnings from the first year of starting his podcast. Mark is a first year student of audiology in Melbourne, Australia, and has taken the initiative to start his own podcast, where he interviews all types of hearing care leaders and experts about a wide variety of audiology-specific topics. 

Much of the conversation centers around how hearing care providers are well positioned to thrive in the impending OTC era by differentiating the patient experience they provide through exceptional service. Mark says that one of the biggest takeaways he's had from his guests is that the patient/customer is becoming much more savvy and well-informed, and therefore, providers need to go above and beyond during the patient experience as great experiences can lead to positive online & offline feedback (positive reviews, great word of mouth marketing). On the flip side, a poor experience can lead to brand damage. 

There's a lot to learn from companies like Apple, who have created an exceptional experience of purchasing Apple products through its stores and the genius bar. Mark and Dave believe that practices could implement something that resembles a hearing aid and hearable genius bar, where the provider is the expert on all of the various technology and plays the role of match-maker, matching the patient to the best piece of technology that suits their needs. Therefore, it's not just being an expert on the science and fitting of the device, but also the technology and the various things that these new devices are capable of. 

Guest: Andy Bellavia (Business Development at Knowles Corp) & Bradley Metrock (CEO of Score Publishing and host of Project Voice)

Topic: The Emergence of Voice Panel from Project Voice

This episode of the podcast is a recording of the, "Emergence of Hearables" panel from Project Voice. Dave and Andy comprise the panel, which was moderated by Bradley. The three discuss a wide range of hearables + voice technology topics, including the recently announced Bluetooth protocol, Bluetooth LE Audio, and the types of applications that this protocol can facilitate. 

In addition, they discuss the ways in which voice assistants can be designed to work for hearables and some of the types of hearables-specific voice applications we may see. At the end, the conversation shifts to biometric monitoring, the challenges faced with collecting this type of data, and also the potential for voice assistants to serve as an intelligent aggregator and agent of the data, notifying the user of what's being assessed from the data.

Guest: Bob Stolzberg, CEO & Founder of VoiceXP

Topic: Wise Words from a Voice Pioneer

Bob Stolzberg joins Dave to share some of the key things he's learned across the first three years that Bob has been building voice experiences. Bob's company, VoiceXP, provides a do-it-yourself platform that allows anyone to easily create voice experiences for Alexa or Google Assistant on their own - as Bob refers to it, it's the "Wix/Squarespace of Voice."

One of the key learnings that Bob shares is that it's best to keep your experience simple at the onset and not try to, "boil the ocean." Launching a voice experience is only half the battle, as the other half is making people aware of the experience via legacy marketing efforts. If you build it, they won't necessarily come. 

The two move onto what the future holds as we enter into this new decade and Bob believes that one of the biggest breakthroughs will be the vast increases in API's that voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant can tap into. This will reduce the friction for users to access voice skills, which means it will be much more compelling for businesses of all types to start creating voice experiences. In addition, Bob sees "in-situation" invocations becoming a compelling hook to get businesses to buy into building voice experiences.  

Guest: Carl Thomas, Founder of Audiowings & Longtime Hearables Enthusiast 

Topic: Hearables-as-a-Platform 

Carl joins Dave to discuss a wide range of hearables-specific topics. The two begin with some of the key learnings that Carl has had from his time knowing Nick Hunn, the wireless analyst who coined the term, "hearables." Chief among those learnings was the idea of hearables-as-a-platform, and the type of ongoing experience that these products can provide, beyond the hardware. For example, might we one day see hearing aids unbundled, where one buys the widget and subscribes to the audiometric configuration, aka their "prescription" on a monthly or annual basis?

Some of the other topics that the two discuss are why the ear makes so much sense to collect biometric data and what can be done with that type of data. As Carl states, the ear is a, "physiological playground," given the highly unique combination of traits that make it ideal for data collection. Finally, the two discuss a fantastic Twitter thread that Carl posted last year juxtaposing hearables with a famous line from the TV show, Halt & Catch Fire. "Hearables aren't the thing; Hearables are the thing that gives you access to THE thing." 

Guest: Brielle Nickoloff, Product Marketing Lead, Witlingo

Topic: Toolsets for Voice Creators

Brielle joins Dave to talk about Witlingo and the toolsets that they're building off to arm voice creators and help them make content production and distribution easier. For example, Witlingo's platform allows for non-technical people, such as Dave, to quickly publish and disseminate his flash briefing to Alexa and Google Assistant in a matter of minutes. The two talk about how each phase of computing tends to proliferate at an increasing rate, as the toolsets mature, allowing for better production, resulting in an abundance of higher quality content. 

As Brielle describes to Dave, one interesting area that Witlingo is focusing on is with community messaging - think assisted living facilities or college campuses. Through the various tools Witlingo provides, community managers can broadcast messages and updates on a one-to-many basis or even a one-to-one basis to each of the community members. This type of use case is compelling because it habituates the user to using their voice assistant-enabled devices more regularly, bringing more voice users into the fold.