Service Revolutions
Service—But Cool
Winners of the new Vision Awards were announced on May 5 at the Technology Services World conference in Silicon Valley. A total of nine companies competed in three categories at TSIA’s new Service Revolutions event, and the winning companies were Xerox, Kopin, and eXaudios, who was awarded $10,000 as winner of the Start-Up category.
The Vision Awards, based on the theme "True vision is having the intelligent foresight to define a better, more productive future," were conceived to recognize game-changing ideas in technology services that advance the industry and shape emerging trends.
The awards were the result of TSIA's Service Revolutions series of on-stage demonstrations designed to showcase the “coolest new stuff” in technology services—from cutting-edge services new to the market, to start-ups with innovative service offerings and hot advances in service technology.
Each of the nine competing companies had six minutes to present their Service Revolutions concept before a live audience of TSW conference attendees. Winners were determined based on audience ratings following a Q&A session with an esteemed panel featuring technology strategist and author Geoffrey Moore; Jim Spohrer, director of IBM University; and John Ragsdale, TSIA vice president of technology research.
SERVICES PRACTITIONER WINNER
Maintenance Assistant at the Device UI
Presented by:
Marlene Bessette, Vice President, Strategy and Optimization, Xerox
Alex Burgess, Vice President, Services Operations East, Xerox
Maintenance Assistant at the Device UI is a mundane name for an exciting development in Xerox service delivery that enables immediate “at-the-device” support for customers who want a real-time solution to a product performance issue or the answer to a how-to question. This technology and support process combines a dynamically updated knowledgebase that is searched intelligently and returns the most likely solutions in response to real-time device status. This sequence is triggered by a customer who initiates the activity from the device and receives the answer at the device—right where they need it. This innovation delivers immediate support solutions in reaction to a maintenance need or at the “request” of a customer looking for how-to answers.
START-UP CATEGORY WINNER, $10,000 CASH PRIZE
The Next-Generation Voice Analysis in Call/Contact Centers
Presented by:
Alon Klomek, Senior Vice President, Business Operations, eXaudios
Arik Roztal, Vice President, Sales, eXaudios
Based on 15 years of research in intonation (the original language of mankind), the eXaudios next-generation innovative technology decodes the human voice into emotions. eXaudios algorithms enable multiple real-time factors such as analytics, recommendations for better service, alerts, anti-escalation, and monitoring effectiveness. The technology, which is language independent, won the People’s Choice award at Demo Spring 2010. Benefits to the contact center include reduction of customers churn and call length, and increased customer satisfaction, agent efficiency, and revenue.
COMMERCIAL CATEGORY WINNER
3 Oz. Wireless Headsets for “Hands-Free” Mobile Computing & Communications in the Industrial Environment
Presented by:
Jeffrey Jacobsen, Senior Advisor to CEO and Golden-i Program Manager, Kopin
Golden-i is the world’s first mobile computing-communication system to provide a familiar PC experience and “Hands-Free” operation. Golden-i uses natural speech recognition, six-axis gesture tracking, and an active DSP enabled phased array noise cancellation microphone, which provides 99 percent user-speech recognition by virtually eliminating ambient sounds. Golden-i also accepts conventional user interfaces from handheld devices or PC touch screens, keyboards, or any wireless mouse. Golden-i provides “Hands-Free” spontaneous access to virtually all digital information, on-demand Internet services, broadcast programming and full-color high-resolution streaming video for 2-way real-time communications. Users can remotely control up to six independent devices or network interfaces simultaneously in 20 languages. Golden-i is designed for users who require mobile ruggedized access to information – “Hands-Free.”
