Mark your calendars!  The Association for Voice Interaction Design will hold its annual member meeting at the Marriott Marquis Times Square, New York City, during SpeechTEK.  This is your opportunity to learn about the exciting changes in store for AVIxD and find out how you can help out.  The meeting room will be announced closer to the date, so register now so we can keep you updated and save your seat!

If you can’t attend SpeechTEK in person, attend virtually. This year, for the first time, we’ll be streaming live with Periscope. Download the app on your cell phone now from the App Store or Google Play to get ready.

The AVIxD organization seeks to connect folks in the voice interaction design industry.  Our goal is to provide a forum for this community to find and share professional resources, while promoting awareness of the VUI field and advocating for good design practices.  Not a member yet? No problem.  Visit AVIxD.org ahead of time to join – or just show up to learn more.

Spread the word! #SpeechTEK2015

Here is the EventBrite Link to register:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/annual-avixd-members-meeting-live-and-virtual-tickets-17529971617

Call for Speakers

AVIxD Virtual Brown Bag Series 2015

AVIxD is looking for a few good speakers! In 2015 we will be putting on the “nosebag” and restarting our Brown Bag Series. We want to bring the AVIxD community free informal sessions with interesting and informative speakers on a wide variety of topics, such as VUI design, technical topics, and interaction design, to name a few. We will be gathering via conference call and online meeting, so the sessions will be widely available. This is a “reboot” of the series, so we’re looking for lots of AVIxD community participation to make this series fun, interesting, and insightful!

Our goal is to kick things off in January and have six sessions: one every other month. We are looking for speakers in the following (intentionally vague and broad) areas:

(1) VUI Design: Introductory Level

(2) VUI Design: Advanced Level

(3) VUI / Speech Technical Topic

(4) VUI Methodologies and/or Tools

(5) Multimodal and/or Omnichannel

(6) GUI or UCD topic

The point of this topic list is to ensure we have an interesting and well-rounded variety of speakers, so if you have something you’re absolutely dying to talk about, but it doesn’t quite seem to fit, send it along anyway. If you have a suggestion for a good speaker other than yourself, feel free to send that as well. We are also open to having a panel discussion, if someone would like to organize that.

The format of the Brown Bags will typically be 45 minutes of presentation followed by 15 minute discussion / Q&A. We will provide a conference call dial-in number and web link. We expect the time will probably at noon EST, although other time zones can be considered if that is impractical for our speaker.

To be considered as a speaker, please send us:

• A title of your proposed talk
• A few bullet points about your topic – bonus points if you have slides already J
• A short professional bio
• Your preferred time zone

Please send your submissions to: BrownBag@avixd.org. The deadline for the first half of the year is December 1; for the second half of the year, May 1, 2015. Thanks and see you in the lunchroom!

The Association for Voice Interaction Design (AVIxD) needs you!  We’ve identified six major activities for the coming year (2014/2015) and are actively soliciting existing and new members to help us achieve our goals.

• Digital Media Committee: Members of this committee will help maintain an AVIxD web presence (our web and LinkedIn sites), determining site design, soliciting and posting news, and managing blog content, survey administration, and job postings. <Contact Jim Lewis: jimlewis@us.ibm.com>

• Publications Committee: This committee is responsible for administering and overseeing the publishing activities of the Association, including the launch of the Association’s journal (work in progress), the Membership directory, AVIxD brochures, white papers, and other publications. <Contact Bruce Balentine: bruce@eiginc.com>

• Wiki Guidelines Committee: Team responsible for contributing to and managing the AVIxD VUI Guidelines Wiki (see http://videsign.wikispaces.com/). <Contact Jenni McKienzie: jennimck@outlook.com>

• Brown Bag Committee: This committee will establish a schedule of AVIxD Brown Bag sessions throughout the year. Activities include establishing a pipeline of topics and speakers, moderating the Brown Bag sessions, and promoting upcoming Brown Bag sessions. <Contact Crispin Reedy: creedy@versay.com>

• Workshop Committee: Team responsible for coming up with one to two Workshop topics each year for our Members. Activities include establishing the topics, formulating the Workshop formats, moderating the Workshops, managing registration, and promoting the upcoming Workshops. <Contact Mark Smolensky: ms6134@att.com>

• Marketing & Outreach Committee: Team responsible for soliciting members, admitting candidates to membership, compiling a current membership list, collecting membership fees, providing a mailing list for all notices and publications of the Association, and establishing regular communication with members and potential members. This Committee also works on making ongoing contact with professional organizations and educational institution programs with aligned interests, and strategizes on how to continually increase the value of paid membership. <Contact Jim Lewis: jimlewis@us.ibm.com>

Want to participate on a committee?  Please email the contact for the committee(s) in which you’re interested.

Help us create a strong organization with significant value for the membership.  We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

This year, the AVIxD annual members meeting will be in the SoHo Herald Room of the conference hotel (Marriott) on Monday, August 18th from 4:15-5:00 pm. 

Agenda

• State of the organization (including changes to membership policies)
• Update on the guidelines wiki
• Workshop update
• Committees for 2014-2015
• Feedback from membership/new attendees — how can we improve the value of membership?

We’re looking forward to seeing you at SpeechTek!