David Lee King

social media | emerging trends | libraries

My Boss is a Robot

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This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend focuses on shifts in the job world.

Ok – my boss isn’t really a robot. But as smart machines, artificial intelligence, and big data continue to grow and mature, it’s very possible that some performance-based jobs will be measured by a machine instead of a human. Hence – a robo-boss.

I know – that sounds sorta weird! But guess what? Some people already have robot bosses! Some examples:

  • Uber drivers. They interact with their mobile app, which gives them pickup requests, provides performance feedback, etc.
  • Starbucks – uses a software program to schedule baristas, based on sales and other data.
  • Hitachi has experimented with warehouse robot bosses (more here)

While you might not have a robot as a boss, there are a lot of jobs that are being replaced by smart machines. Some examples include:

  • Writers: Business-focused content like shareholder reports (who the heck actually reads those?), legal documents, short sports articles, etc. can be automated.
  • Paralegal research: Hunting for specific words or phrases in a bunch of legal documents can be automated.
  • Call centers: That first-tier, “let me help direct you to the right person” part of the call is already automated.
  • Drivers: Taxi drivers and truck drivers. Companies are experimenting with driverless taxis, and the trucking industry has been saying that there will be automated truck deliveries within 5-10 years.
  • Warehouse workers: Amazon has already replaced some warehouse workers with their Kiva robots.

Any library examples? Besides the paralegal research example seen above (that one strikes pretty close to home), there are some examples. Not completely replacing jobs, but replacing human work with automated work:

  • Automated Materials Handling (AMH) systems – they presort returned items so people don’t have to.
  • Online desk scheduling systems: Not quite AI yet, but some of these systems are smart enough to automatically schedule another person to work a desk when someone calls in sick, and it certainly keeps the schedule so you don’t have to.

There are probably other examples – do you have any? Please share!

More more information:

Emerging Trends at NLA2018

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Last week, I gave a couple of talks at the Nebraska Library Association 2018 conference. Nicely-done conference! I gave a 3-hour preconference on Emerging Technology Trends for libraries (slides included in this post) and was on a panel focused on neutrality in libraries. No notes from that, but it seemed to go well, and there was a lot of great discussion, different viewpoints, etc.

Anyway – I promised I’d post my slides … so here they are!

Chatbots and Libraries

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This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend explores the world of Chatbots.

What’s a Chatbot? Chatbots are called many things besides just “chatbot.” You might also know them as conversational agents, intelligent chatbots, interactive agents, or talkbots.

Chatbots are pretty much apps that talk back to you (my definition). Here’s a better definition from Wordstream: “… software applications that mimic written or spoken human speech for the purposes of simulating a conversation or interaction with a real person.”

This interaction is mostly done via chat boxes on websites. But they can also be found in call centers. In a call center environment, chatbots take care of very low-level transactions, like changing a password, requesting an account balance, or scheduling an appointment without having to talk to a real person.

The same basic transactions can be handled with a text-based chatbot on a website.

Chatbots use Natural Language Processing, much like virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, or Apple Siri. They attempt to sound (or read) very “real,” so the transaction has a more human feel to it. Very different from a phone tree in a call center or typing answers to questions on a web-based form.

Examples of Chatbots include:

  • Health-based. Some chatbots are used in medical diagnoses, dementia patient monitoring, and basic information gathering.
  • Facebook Messenger and Twitter DMs – these are both good places to see chatbots in action.
  • Chatbots within mobile apps. My bank app has one (Erica in the Bank of America app). The Starbucks app has a chatbot that helps you order coffee. Lyft has one that works with Facebook Messenger and Amazon Echo. Fandango also has a app that works with Facebook Messenger.
  • eBay’s chatbot works with Google Assistant.

Chatbots in the library?

How about having a chatbot for the library? Chatbots answer basic, always-asked questions. A library chatbot could answer a variety of questions, like:

  • Questions about hours, locations, and upcoming events. Maybe it could even capture event registrations.
  • With a good API connection, a chatbot could tell a customer when their books are due, or take fine payment information.
  • Facebook Messenger chatbots. You could build your chatbots to operate within Facebook Messenger. If you get a lot of questions there, it’s definitely something to think about.
  • Chat-based reference. Have a chat-based reference service? It’s very possible your chatbot could answer basic questions, freeing up your staff’s time to answer harder questions or focus on other tasks.

Articles for more information about Chatbots:

Build your own chatbot! Here are a couple of chatbot builder tools to check out (all mostly built on the Facebook Messenger platform):

Does your library use chatbots? Please share!

 

Conversational Systems and Libraries

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This is my continuing series on emerging technology trends and libraries. This week’s trend is all about conversational systems.

What is a Conversational System? For starters, there are a TON of names and related technology that goes along with them, including: smart speakers, voice assistants, personal assistants, voice computing, conversational systems, conversational platforms, and conversational interfaces.

There are different types of conversational systems. You have probably heard of smart speakers, like the Amazon Echo, Google Home, or the Apple HomePod. You probably have Google Assistant or Apple Siri on your phone. And I’ll guess that you have talked to a chatbot before. For example, I’ve been having problems with my AT&T uVerse DSL internet. So I called AT&T, and talked to a bot first, who wanted to know what the problem was, who I was, etc in order to direct me to the right department. Honestly, I just say “customer service” a bunch of times until the bot says “ok, it sounds like you want to talk to a person…” Works for me 🙂

Who owns Voice Assistants? Techcrunch recently shared some research about this – 32% of US consumers own a smart speaker. That’s up from 28% a year ago. According to the article, it’s predicted to hit about half of US consumers after Christmas.

How do people use Conversational Systems? Here are some popular tasks associated with voice assistants:

  • ask it to play music
  • get the weather forecast
  • ask questions
  • do an online search
  • check the news
  • make a phone call
  • ask for directions
  • get recent sports scores
  • use smart home commands (i.e., turn up the AC, turn off lights, etc)
  • send and answer text messages
  • do some shopping

How can libraries incorporate Conversational Systems?

Here are a few ideas. I’ll bet you have more (please share if you do)!

  • Learn it. Hey – it’s new technology. Figure it out so you can help customers with it.
  • Teach it. Show customers how to use their app-based voice assistants. Hold a class on setting up and using an Amazon Echo.
  • Make it. Some libraries are creating Amazon Alexa Skills and Google Assistant Actions. Why not see if you can do the same thing?

More reading:

Making Skills and Actions:

Personal Experimentation: Two Wins, One Fail

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One way I keep up with emerging trends is to actually try things out when I hear about them. Sometimes, that means creating an account in a new service. Sometimes it might mean buying something (an Amazon Echo is on my wish list).

Here are 3 things I’ve been experimenting with recently:

Instagram Business Profile: I wanted to learn more about Instagram’s Business Profiles, so I switched my personal Instagram account to a Business account. So now I can get analytics and create ads (which I probably won’t mess with). I’m doing it to learn more about analytics, and what types of videos and images resonate with people.

Quora’s Partner Program: Are you familiar with Quora? It’s a service where you can ask and answer questions. I’ve had an account for awhile, but haven’t really done much with it.

Recently, I answered a couple of music-related questions, and people liked one of my answers. I think because of that, I was invited to Quora’s Partner Program. Did you know you can get paid to ask good questions? I’ve made a whopping $1.05 so far … so maybe I don’t ask great questions. But still …it’s a very  interesting tool to learn about, and certainly has some ramifications for libraries!

Dock.io: So I have a Dock.io account. Dock.io seems to be an online contact list created with Blockchain technology. I wanted to find out how it worked, so I signed up when someone invited me.

I chose to connect my contact list … and ended up bombarding all of my Gmail and Facebook contacts with emails, asking them to get a Dock.io account. Even people like my parents and older people I go to church with. They’re actually asking me if they need to join it. And it didn’t just do it once or twice – it sent those emails every week. Yikes!

I finally figured out how to turn that off (and there’s apparently other people sorta ticked about that email spammy thing, too). Lesson learned.

Ok … 3 experiments. Two wins, one fail. Really, 3 wins because I learned something with each experiment. That’s one way I learn about emerging trends – learning by playing.

If you don’t normally experiment with new things, I suggest stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying something out – maybe just one thing you’ve heard about. See what it does, how it works. Think about how it might work for your library.

And yes, I’ll  forgive you if you end up spamming me 🙂

Image from Wikimedia Commons