Why am I investing time and money at VoiceCon in NYC? After all, I’m a digital marketer and web developer.

Why do I need a podcast? Or what do I care about Alexa Skills?

Well, this isn’t about using Alexa to listen to music or finding the best podcasts to listen to.

This is about listening, period.

Entrepreneurs and business builders need to listen first. Understand opportunity, then go there.

Voice is early, and I have some idea where I want to go, but not fully yet.

So it’s time to take a step back and listen.

Because this could be about creating Alexa Skills that businesses can use to become more knowledgeable, efficient and effective.

I spend a lot of time Public Speaking and consulting on why marketing directors and small business owners need to spend 30 minutes per month in Google Analytics.

But rather than constantly teaching them what to look for and how to analyze the data to translate into next action steps, what if they could just ask Alexa what their web traffic looked like and what they should do next from a marketing standpoint?

If this sounds familiar, it’s because I’ve written about it before. I believe that they way we’re all asking Alexa about the time, weather and to please play our favorite songs, businesses will be asking Alexa to read their presentations, tell them what they need to do to prepare for a meeting, and even ask about financial projections, to regurgitate sales figures and who knows what else.

I could be, but I’m not sure yet.

While many heading to VoiceCon are likely to be there looking to build consumer based skills, our focus is much more likely to be servicing B2B.

Our audience is marketing directors and small business owners.

Or maybe I don’t know yet, right?

Ya know whattta mean? 🙂

It’s exciting to feel part of an initial process, at the forefront of a frontier.

VoiceCon is an opportunity to do some smart listening and observing that I haven’t necessarily done in the past when starting other business ventures (see Fantasy Wrestling).

And it’s definitely an opportunity that I didn’t really fully take when running fantasy football based businesses back in 2006 when Twitter launched.

What I know is that I don’t want to spend too much time before starting to actually build this stuff and use it.

Feel it, touch it, taste it, deploy it and get initial feedback.

The listening and observing I’m able to do at VoiceCon will help Data Driven Design continue to be successful, whether as one of the leaders in building B2B Voice skills, or as a company who is able to help clients navigate the constantly changing landscape.

Oh, and it’s another business trip that I don’t have to worry about wearing anything other than jeans and a t-shirt, which doesn’t suck. 🙂
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Paul Hickey, Founder / CEO / Lead Strategist at Data Driven Design, LLC has created and grown businesses via digital strategy and internet marketing for more than 10 years. His sweet spot is using analytics to design and build websites and grow the audience and revenue of businesses via SEO/Blogging, Google Adwords, Bing Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads, Social Media Content Marketing and Email Marketing. The part that he’s most passionate about is quantifying next marketing actions based on real data.