So after spending many late nights creating demos, getting swag together, assembling booth material and otherwise preparing for SpeechTEK, Open Methods has just returned from New York, somewhat triumphantly IMHO. I say this having never been to a conference with Open Methods before, since I just joined the club in February of this year, but from what I hear my experienced co-workers say, this was a good one, maybe the best yet.
Now, I heard several people say that this SpeechTEK was much smaller than last year and wonder aloud about the future of SpeechTEK itself, but I say does that really matter, if the quality of what’s left is so good? Perhaps we’re now a case of a big fish in a little pond or maybe it’s just the Tipping Point (www.gladwell.com) after 4 years as a company. Whatever the reason, the buzz about Open Methods was palpable. We were inundated at the booth and not just with looky-loos or people looking for swag either. We had lots of genuine second and third level interest from a wide variety of companies and individuals who wanted to go open source and use our tool to do it. The coming months will tell us the true result.
Now, I realize we also had very popular t-shirts and everyone just had to have one. “Speech Geek” on the front and a GRXML grammar superimposed with the words “Talk nerdy to me” on the back was refreshingly laid back and irreverent for SpeechTEK I guess. You should have heard our other candidates. Maybe we should sell them on the website, since we had numerous offers for trade or sale. In addition, we had some awesome demos, showing the use of VoiceXML and IM, VoiceXML and Video and VoiceXML and Speech. Look for our demos to be on the website soon and write us for a copy of the CD with code and getting started guide before they’re all gone.
For me, personally, getting to meet others in the industry that heretofore have been virtual relationships was great. Putting a face with a name always makes things better. I connected with old cohorts and made many new contacts. I attended several good sessions that will help hone our best practices based on large studies with good data. Participating in the Advanced Dialogs invited workshop on Thursday was a highlight, simply because of all the great minds in a room at once. Getting to “geek out” like that and revel in our researchy sides is necessary from time to time. Then it’s back to reality, because I tend to be on the pragmatic side of making (preferably speech) systems work for the end-user, rather than philosophize about what might work and I got a lot of good ideas for both sides at SpeechTEK. Malcolm Gladwell’s keynote speech on Speech at the Tipping Point really got my creative juices flowing too, so don’t be surprised if I explore a few ideas with you here on my blog in the future. Oh yeah, and I also grabbed some pretty cool swag for myself as well ;).
-Simonie
