Tech Talks Daily

Pindrop (the global technology leader in identity, security, and trust for voice interactions used by 8 of the 10 largest U.S. banks) recently announced that it hired former AWS and Symantec I.T. leader Collin Davis as its new CTO.

Pindrop continues to gain momentum in the voice biometrics industry, with the launch of IVR, expansion into streaming IoT, and most recently, the acquisition of Next Caller. To keep pace with this rapid growth, the company attracted a global tech leader like Collin, and I felt compelled to fight out more.

Collin Davis joins me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share his story, having founded and launched Alexa for Business and led the engineering and Q.A. teams that built the suite of Norton Security Products while at Symantec. He also shares why he moved to Pindrop from global, well-respected tech leaders like AWS.

Finally, he shares his insights into the intersection of voice and security, and where voice capabilities are headed based on his time at AWS and Symantec. Finally, we discuss Collin's future vision for Pindrop's expansion into new markets to remain the leader in voice authentication technology.

We discuss why he made the move to Pindrop from global, well-respected tech leaders like AWS and offers Insider Insights into the intersection of voice and security, and where voice capabilities are headed based on his time as an I.T. leader at AWS and Symantec.

Colin also shares his future vision for Pindrop's expansion into new markets in order to remain the leader in voice authentication technology

Quadient is the driving force behind meaningful customer experiences. By focusing on four key solution areas: Customer Experience Management, Business Process Automation, Mail-Related Solutions, and Parcel Locker Solutions, Quadient is on a mission to simplify the connection between people, and what matters.

The company claims that businesses face a customer exodus if they don't shift to CaaS (Communications as a Service). This comes as IDC predicts that a quarter of all connectivity budgets will run through CaaS within two years. Scott Draeger from Quadient discusses the immense pressures businesses currently face, with customers demanding an almost instant reply across an increasingly expanding range of channels. In contrast, different business departments struggle to keep pace as interaction with customers is slowed by constantly needing to call on the assistance of their IT team.

We also talk about how these problems risk damaging customer experience, leaving people to conclude that the business is too slow to respond/makes them repeat themselves. Gartner reports that more than four-fifths of companies compete based on customer experience poses a real risk of leaving for a competitor.

Regardless of where you live and what you do, 2020 was a challenging year for everyone around the world. It decimated the event and trade show industry. As veterans of live event production, in order to survive and thrive, Echelon knew it had to pivot from physical experiences to virtual ones. The change was always coming. Fate just demanded it happen sooner.

Endeavoring to convert this challenge into an opportunity, SURREAL was conceived and created by Chicago-based Echelon Design, an event marketing and production company with offices in Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas and Portland.

The result is this best-of-breed virtual Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) AND a mission is to provide unparalleled live experiences across any industry—especially when cost, carbon footprint or other factors make on-premise events impractical or impossible.

Built with Unreal Engine, SURREAL is a browser-based, pixel-streamed, 3D virtual events platform where audiences experience fully customizable and unparalleled experiences. It provides clients with a different level of storytelling, game design, and multi-player participant immersion—one that reimagines and redefines the human condition and our relationship with physical distance.

I invited Adam Voss onto the podcast to learn more about how Surreal Events bridges the possible and impossible, and the physical and digital worlds, to bring any event to life, in any virtual environment imaginable.

Today's episode explores remote teams, the humanization of onboarding, and company culture in remote startups with Katerina Sukhenko, founder & CBDO at Postoplan. In just 14 months, Katerina led the company to reach $1M revenue and expanded its customer network to 112,000 clients.

Postoplan is a marketing platform that calls itself better than Buffer or Hootsuite. It's a fully remote company, and its' employees are working from 18 countries and help marketers & entrepreneurs across the world to build more efficient social media strategies.

Katerina shares her story, and the startup's mission is to help small businesses to work in social networks. We discuss how it's the only platform that allows users to create and post content free of charge and without any time limits and why she is passionate about marketing automatization.

With very little tear-down and build time between shows, the entire production of extensive tours often requires several weeks of practice to become a well-oiled machine before they go full-time on the road. That is *the* problem Elevation Studios has targeted to eliminate completely with a dedicated state-of-the-art 26-acre complex, located just outside one of the best music cities in the country -- Nashville, TN. The company recently announced that they are completely shovel-ready and breaking ground this summer on the multi-purpose creative campus, which will be delivering large-scale facilities and support services for creators of live entertainment, touring productions, broadcast, and new media content. This project, and its massive $100M investment in the roaring return of live music, is the feel-good story music fans have been hoping for. The show will go on, and Elevation Studios will help the show go off without a hitch in a gorgeous private facility twenty minutes from Music Row. Eric Elwell, the CEO of Elevation Studios, shares the story behind the company and reveals more about the technology that brings concerts and world tours to life.

Gurus Direct is a platform that connects businesses directly with on-demand experts offering services in niche areas of IT that have the biggest skill shortage and highest demand. These experts streamline workflows, making organizations more profitable, flexible, and responsive.

They provide technology that increases employee satisfaction, engagement, and productivity by removing mundane tasks. In addition, they can be non-invasive, remote, and rapidly implemented into your digital transformation teams as you need to scale up or down.

Steve Brooks, Mandy Downham, and Peter Walker join me on the Tech Talks Daily podcast to share the story behind the company and the problems their mission is to maximize access to automation talent. In addition, I learn how they are leveraging technology to connect businesses with on-demand Automation experts offering services in RPA, IDP, and Process Mining.

Businesses can hire only the talent they need, when needed, and stay lean and flexible as you grow on your digital transformation journey. We discuss how they can narrow automation experts by the vendor, department, process, location, language, etc. In doing so, they can find the right blend of skills such as expertise across multiple toolsets, relevant industry knowledge, the right language skills, and prior qualifications.

I also learn more about the benefits for consultants who can build their online presence to attract new business while developing skills, make new connections to grow their income. But also work flexibly at a time and in a manner that suits them.

We look at our phones an average of 58 times a day. This means that this summer 2.1 billion people who suffer from the deterioration of one's ability to focus on nearby objects, will end up switching between reading glasses and shades every 12 minutes. Yariv Hadad, CEO, and Co-Founder of DeepOptics, the inventor and pioneer of a novel adaptive lens technology, joins me on Tech Talks Daily in a conversation about optical technology.

Yariv puts his formidable professional experience to use as he has led for the past 20 years different high-tech R&D groups and ventures to great successes. He was the Founder & General Manager of Trevo Technologies, served as the Director of imaging, and R&D Dblur where he met the other current co-founders of DeepOptics. Yariv graduated with a B.A. in Computer Science from the Technion, Israel, and an MBA from Tel-Aviv University.

Lately, DeepOptics has launched their 32°N sunglasses, the first and only adaptive focus sunglasses, on Kickstarter, reaching their goal in a couple of hours. Their timing is impeccable, as many of the other major players are still behind on the technology.

Yariv also discusses topics like the influence of smart technology on daily gadgets and the future of optical technology.

Jesus Ramirez is a mission-driven leader, an innovator, and a humble, life-long learner. In his career, he has helped build and lead several technology-driven products, teams, and companies in the education, healthcare, and labor industries. He is VP of Strategy & Innovation at Tallwave, where he helps companies create exceptional customer experiences.

Recently, Tallwave surveyed 1000+ individuals aged 24-65+ about their perceptions, behaviors, and customer experiences before and during the pandemic. The data revealed that consumers want a choice for how they can interact with a brand, making retail hybrid experiences more critical than ever.

The report highlights the most influential components of customer experience, satisfaction, and loyalty and how organizations can transform experiences for a digital-first, hybrid, and hyper-personalized world. In addition, we discuss how the digital shifts we have experienced over the past year have affected consumer behaviors and tech adoption and how brands can enhance their hybrid customer experiences.

Shameer Sachdev is the founder of Growth Gorilla -- a growth marketing agency focused on helping fintech, proptech and financial services firms go apesh!t and smash through their growth marketing goals.

Originally launching his career in financial services, as an equity broker, Shameer has worked for big brands like Alexander David and Barclays Wealth. Shameer then moved on to focus more on client acquisition and eventually became Marketing Director at a well-known online trading platform provider.

While working with marketing agencies as a client, Shameer couldn't help but notice their flaws. Most marketing agencies simply didn't understand how things worked inside financial service companies.

Equipped with a background in financial services and technology, Shameer struck out on his own -- advising courageous fintech, proptech and financial services firms on how to accelerate their growth.

HELO creates moving experiences that connect brands with their consumers by bringing together the best in creative strategy, storytelling, production, and event design. They've worked with top brands to include Amazon Studios, Hulu, Comcast, Budlight, and Santander.

In just​ our three years, they have won 13 Cannes Lions including Gold Lions in Promo & Activation, Production, Entertainment, and Cyber, an AICP Gold for Production, and were named MOST NEXT in the AICP NEXT Awards, recognizing the most innovative, forward-thinking work in the industry.

With their willingness to tackle even the trickiest productions, AdAge named us a Production Company Standout. They have built a reputation by pulling off the 'not-been-done-before'​ things, and we wouldn't want it any other way

For example, they recreated the 1862 World's Fair for the launch of one of Amazon Studio's most ambitious original films - AERONAUTS. Brendan Kiernan joins me on the podcast to talk about the challenges and future of storytelling. We also discuss how technology and media consumption is continuously changing and how organizations can keep up.