Exporing Conversational Interfaces with Amazon Alexa and Go (StrageLoop 2016 Talk)
Conversational interfaces are exploding in both development and use in 2016. Amazon’s Alexa service and their Echo are at the forefront of this exciting new interaction model but Microsoft, Facebook and others have launched conversational bots recently. Who knows, maybe even Apple and Google will let us develop on their dueling voice assistant platforms soon!
These new platforms are challenging for developers both because of the platform diversity but also because conversational user interaction is very different than interacting with a GUI. What are the differences between these platforms? What’s the best way to get started? What kind of apps work well with conversational interfaces? What are some ways to make your app as human as possible?
I’ve created several Slack integrations, worked with the Facebook Messenger bots API, developed applications on the Amazon Alexa service over the past year, and in 2015 I released go-alexa, a collection of libraries that help to create Alexa apps quickly in Go. In this talk we will cover the landscape of conversational applications, the major players and their platform strengths, some of the best practices I’ve learned, and walk through the creation of a basic Alexa Skill in Go.
Using Analytics to Create Better Content & Personalize the End-User Experience (Streaming Media West 2016 Panel)
This session discusses how analytics tools can be used to produce more engaging video content. Learn the metrics content owners use to identify if content is sufficiently engaging an audience and how insights gathered impacts content owners creation and acquisition strategies. The session also covers what efforts are being made to personalize experiences, reviewing the tactics used to create segmented user groups and target individual users. Speakers have an open discussion about the gaps that must be bridged on the technology side to do better content personalization, prediction and the positive impact to content publishers.
Moderator: Diane Strutner, VP, Sales, Business Development - Nice People at Work
Mike Flynn, CTO - Studio71
Jeremy Stern, Analytics Architect - WillowTree
Brian Selander, EVP - Whistle Sports Network
Christopher Roselli, President, Founder - HOLLYWOODLAND
Teach Alexa New Skills with Go (Gopherfest 2016 Talk)
Mike Flynn is the CTO of Studio71 and was previously a software architect at Answers.com, a start-up consultant, and writer. He currently dabbles in various Go projects, but also works with Clojure, ReactJS, and Node.js. When he’s not making robots with his kids, he spends too much time thinking of ways to make his Echo in to JARVIS.
The Transformation of Content Through Data (Variety’s Big Data Summit 2015 Panel)
The transition to digital production has brought wholly new processes in storytelling, often involving formulas and equations as much as scripts and story boards. How are technology chiefs managing the digital transformation to ensure increasingly complicated assets are successfully produced and distributed across platforms? What are differences between managing data in animation versus live action production and distribution? Top studio and platform technology leaders will explore how they ensuring a great digital storytelling experience for audiences.
Moderator: Jay Tucker, Chief Marketing Officer, Institute for Communication Technology Management, USC > Marshall School of Business
Mike Flynn, CTO, Collective Digital Studio
Aaron Sloman, CTO, OWNZONES
Paul Davidson, SVP Film & TV, The Orchard
Susan Cheng, Senior Vice President, Content Management & Distribution, Warner Bros.
Kaliel Roberts, SVP Product and Technology, Digital Media, Discovery Communications
Matt Kautz, Head of Business Intelligence, Analytics and Research for Machinima.
Best Practices for Interacting With the Social Platforms (Streaming Media West 2015 Panel)
Hear from technical and product leaders within the multichannel network community on how to make the most out of one’s relationship with platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Learn how technical meritocracies, bleeding-edge product ideas, and unconventional integrations can lead to closer, more meaningful relationships with the platforms. Attendees hear from those who have successfully partnered with social media platforms and learn how to makes these organizations partners instead of pains.
Moderator: Mark Heyert, GOVA
Mike Flynn, CTO - Collective Digital Studio
Scott Paul, VP, Product - Maker Studios
Alex Mostoufi, CTO - Mitu Networks
Humanize Her (for Comedy Hack Day LA 2015)
I went down to LA for another Comedy Hack Day and my team created “Huamize Her” which is an app that you can point at a woman to make her look like a man so you can focus on what she’s saying. We made the finals, which was great, but the projector died on us for the big show, and that was not so great.
The app started out that weekend as a web app, specifically an Android web app since iOS didn’t include the camera APIs we needed in Safari, but I made it in to a native iOS app after I got back from LA…because…I have a sickness.
Screenshop (for Comedy Hack Day SF 2015)
Runner Up at Comedy Hack Day SF 2015! We created an app that will fix the low battery indicator in your iPhone screenshots…and a few other things.
We’ve yet to release the app to the public, though it was fully functional outside of the last feature which was more of a joke at the time. However, after the show I made a web service, written in Go, that can turn that last feature in the demo in to a reality.