DialogCONNECTION was founded in 2008 by our Director and Lead Consultant, Dr. Maria Aretoulaki. Maria has been designing Speech IVRs and Voice User Interfaces (VUIs) since 1996, long before Voice Assistants, but also before telephone self-service was mainstream. She got into Voice through a Post-Doc in Spoken Dialogue Management for Speech recognition applications, after having got a PhD and an MSc in NLP and Machine Learning and a BA (Hons) in Linguistics & English.
In this episode, Dr. Maria explains how she started in the data space. When looking through the list of available master's degrees, she found one in machine translation and was utterly fascinated. Dr. Maria learned how to translate Spanish sentences into English sentences using machine translation. There are all sorts of rules and contexts that the machine needs to learn. For instance, because language is complex, it's difficult for a machine to pick out which sentences belong in the summary of an article. Humans can't even all agree on which sentences belong in a summary!
Then, Dr. Maria reveals the lessons she learned from startups that eventually helped her build DialogCONNECTION. First, you are never prepared to start your own business. Also, there is no such thing as nine to five. At a startup, you aren't supposed to leave before seven, and generally, you should be out of the office by ten. When you get off work, then it's time for drinking with your coworkers. Social life and work-life start to mix greatly in a startup setting. During quiet times, you learn to relax because there will be a storm right around the corner. It's essential to reserve your energy. Plus, Dr. Maria says that every connection is valuable, even if that person is in a different industry. Any relationship can provide a new idea. Other things that Dr. Maria learned at her time with startups:
ResiliencyPlus, Dr. Maria dives deep into resiliency. She has put so much energy into other people's companies; then, she thought, why not put that energy into her own company? Dr. Maria has the energy to make her company work because she has put so much energy into other businesses. Never give up on your own company and effort when you're more than willing to give your energy to others. People can appreciate your unique value when you have your own company because people know that you are committed to your work.
Later, Dr. Maria reveals what a typical project looks like for her and why consistency is essential for success. Also, Dr. Maria explains why businesspeople typically have more wisdom than the coders and marketing guys when it comes to solving problems. Stay tuned as Dr. Maria speaks about the exciting things she has found in speech analytics and the future of voice design.
Quotes:
“[To start your own company] You're never that prepared.”Read the full episode summary here: Episode #122
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--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/datafuturology/message#249 - Generative AI in Recruitment: Bridging the Gap Between Automation and Authenticity
#248: Navigating the Frontier of Generative AI in Business
#247: Navigating the Ethical Waters of Data and AI - Insights from NAB's Head of Privacy and Data Ethics
#246: Unlocking Value with Generative AI
#245 - Becoming a Successful Data Analytics and AI Leader
#244: Navigating Data Quality: Insights from the Chief Operator of Data Quality Camp
#243 Mastering DataOps and MLOps: Building a Strong Foundation for Success and Future Growth
#242: Tell me about the future of AI… Here Be Dragons?
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#240: Overcoming the challenges facing modern data engineering teams
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#237: Evolving data culture to deliver sustainable business impact, with Niall Keating, General Manager for Technology Data Platforms, Sportsbet
#236: Building ML Products at Compare the Market, with Conor O'Neill, the Head of Data Science at Compare The Market
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#231: Revolutionising Property Technology with Modular Analytics, with General Manager, Innovation & Advanced Analytics of Investa Property Group
#230: From Walmart to ASB Bank: Achieving some of the largest data transformations in the world, with Bora Arslan
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