48: Mark Tucker | Developing for Voice: Tips, Tactics, Strategies, and Speech Markdown

Mark Tucker is an Alexa Champion and Bixby Premier Developer. Currently, Mark is also the Senior Architect – Voice Technology at Soar.com. He is a software developer and architect with over 20 years of experience and started his voice tech journey in 2016 when there were only 4,000 Skills in the Alexa Skills Store. Mark has worked for two startups creating innovative voice experiences for customers and finds time to create his own Alexa Skills and Bixby Capsules. Mark is the organizer of the Phoenix Alexa Meetup and the Phoenix Chapter of the Ubiquitous Voice Society. He has spoken at conferences that include the Phoenix Mobile and Emerging Tech Expo, The Alexa Conference, VOICE Summit, and Project Voice. Mark is also the creator of Speech Markdown which he released as open-source and can be found at speechmarkdown.org. He also enjoys finding ways for non-profits to benefit from voice assistant technology. In this week’s episode of The Artificial Podcast, Nick chats with Mark Tucker of Shazaml about tips, tactics, and strategies for Voice developers and how Mark came up with the idea for Speech Markdown. Mark shares details about his career so far as a software developer and how a simple interest in Alexa led him to become an industry leader in Voice development for the Alexa and Bixby platforms. Mark also shares the story behind Speech Markdown and why he wanted to create a simplified and open source solution for developers to be able to adjust the prosody for Alexa Skills, Google Actions, and Bixby Capsules. Nick and Mark discuss the future of voice assistant technology, and Mark shares some great tips, tactics, and strategies for any developer looking for resources as they start their journey as a developer for Alexa, Google Assistant, or Bixby. How to connect with Mark: Twitter: https://twitter.com/marktucker LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tuckerm/ Learn more about Speech Markdown: https://www.speechmarkdown.org/ Follow Nick On: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-myers-0794/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/therednickm Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therednickm/ Want to learn more about how RedFox AI can help give your brand a voice through the power of AI and Voice-First? Visit https://redfox-ai.com. If you or anyone you know is interested in being a guest on The Artificial Podcast send an email to [email protected].