IVR Deconstructed

Some made New Year’s resolutions to lose weight, cut down on alcohol consumption, to eat healthier, or to quit smoking.  They are called resolutions because they are often times huge undertakings that demand mental and physical dedication.  Often times correcting a behavior is not fun and takes a huge amount of concentration and effort.  But interactive voice response systems can help.

Several years ago a major pharmaceutical company commissioned an IVR system with Plum Voice that both assisted people in their efforts to quit smoking and also collected research about the habits and efforts of participating individuals.

So how exactly does this work?  The pharmaceutical company who commissioned the system has worked closely with researchers who had comprehensively studied the most effective smoking cessation techniques using a large demographic of individuals as test subjects.

They found that one of the most effective methods was allowing people to record personal messages and reminders, and then specify when they had the strongest cravings (i.e., when they got up in the morning, before lunch, prior to bedtime).  With this information, the IVR would store these customized messages and call or text people prior to the specified craving times.

Extensive research showed that these personal reminders prior to craving times are one of the most effective ways to get people to stop smoking.  There have been a slew of scientific studies postulating that one of the greatest challenges for those trying to wean themselves off nicotine is finding the mental strength to resist their cravings.

Pursuant to this, hearing their own voice instead of a prerecorded message or the voice of a TTS engine gave them both motivation and accountability, which are ultimately some of the most vital factors in reforming behavior and easing mental urges.

Not only did this IVR system help curb and suppress individual’s hankerings for cigarettes, the system also collected data when individuals did slip.  Participants could call in and provide detailed information about the circumstances and emotions fueling cravings in order to provide researchers with a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances (physical, mental, and emotional) when they did relapse.

Using this data, researchers could form a detailed understanding of how, when, and why those struggling with quitting had a cigarette, and tailor their program to these findings.  This proved to be a highly successful program with large customer success rates.  Just another unique way IVR can be used to help people and generate ideas!

Alas, sometimes technology lets us down. Or the interaction of human and technology lets us down. Either way, sometimes it’s a real drag.

(Yes, I’m actually complaining about technology now, which is a surprise considering this is a primarily tech blog for an IVR company and I’m usually raving about how much technology adds to our lives.)

I thought I was so smart. (You know it’s a cautionary tale when it starts out like that.) I’d never have to watch commercials during a football game ever again, except during the Super Bowl.

All season long, I’ve been DVR-ing the games I want to watch and watching them commercial-free. I’ve actually been watching them mostly kickoff-free too because there’s no point in watching the kickoffs anymore (since they moved the ball up and all the kicks go sailing deep into the end zone or out the back, or even through the uprights).

It’s been great. I can watch a game in a half hour if I really want to. (I actually did that with some of the Broncos games, fast-forwarding to the fourth quarter where all the action happened.)

With this system, full games are a little over an hour (I skipped the halftimes too) instead of three-plus hours, which is ridiculous unless you have absolutely nothing else going on Sundays (I mean nothing).

All season long it worked for me. But then it didn’t—it finally failed me during the NFC Championship. I recorded the game with an extra half hour to account for a long-running game or overtime. Well, it wasn’t enough.

As you know, the networks schedule the games for a certain length, and they always run over. Kind of like the airlines overbooking flights. It get it, but I still think it’s weird.

Well, my NFC Championship (recorded with an extra half hour) cut off with about a minute left in regulation. I didn’t even make it to overtime. Bummer.

If it’s cyberwar, I’m not sure I like the government’s odds against Anonymous, the hacktivist group now waging a large-scale attack on the government and entertainment industry.

Immediately following a huge anti-piracy crackdown, Anonymous struck back. The Feds arrested the leaders of Megaupload, a hub for illegal media downloads, and shut down the site. Anonymous responded right away by knocking out websites of the F.B.I., the U.S. Justice Department and Universal Music.

The thing about a war with contrarian quasi-anarchists (I’m not actually sure what to call hacktivists) is that those contrarian quasi-anarchists don’t have to play by the rules. Clearly. That’s what they do—they break rules.

Granted, all Anonymous has done so far is shut down a couple of websites for a few hours, but they sent a message: they can mess with the government if the government messes with them or theirs.

Within hours of Feds indicting the Megaupload leaders Thursday, Anonymous threatened reprisals (promised, actually). Then the websites went down. The same day.

According to CNN, Anonymous claims they’re targeting 10 websites. The typical attack is denial-of-service, which is basically flooding a website with so much activity that the site can’t handle it and freezes up.

“We Anonymous are launching our largest attack ever on government and music industry sites…” tweeted the group, according to CNN. “The F.B.I. didn’t think they would get away with this, did they? They should have expected us.”

According to the Washington Post, the group has a lot more planned for “Operation Donkey Punch,” including exposing information on congressional members and further attacks on the entertainment industry, including Hollywood.  They’ve already released personal information on former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Now if I was a betting man, I’d have a hard time picking who I’d take in this one, Anonymous or the Feds. Sure, a website down here and there isn’t such a big deal, but the release of information is. I mean, look at WikiLeaks.

And the band played until the very end? To hear tell of it, the captain and crew of the Costa Concordia, which sank off the coast of Tuscany Friday, were just as bad as the captain and White Star Line official in Titanic.

Details of Friday’s accident are coming to light now, and they paint an ugly picture, unfortunately. Let’s just say the band didn’t play until the end—they were too busy scrambling off the ship. And because it’s 2012 and not 1912, the whole world knows about it.

Besides possibly having questionable morals, it seems like those folks haven’t yet heard of the Internet. There are literally dozens of videos of the accident and rescue already on YouTube. If six people weren’t dead and about another 30 missing, it might be funny.

First of all, the accident was caused by a “sail-past” maneuver performed by Captain Francesco Schettino and his officers, according to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. It was a tribute to a legendary sailor from Giglio (the island they were trying to sail close to) and a “bow” (sailing by a crew member’s home) for Costa Concordia Chief Steward Antonello Tievoli.

Okay. We could chalk that up to poor judgment, a mistake. But what happened afterwards is just wrong.

Supposedly, Captain Schettino (and possibly his officers) walked off the ship onto the rocks near the port of Giglio while passengers were still on board, then lied to the Italian coastguard about it.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the captain left the ship shortly after the evacuation started. Instead of helping, he watched from the rocks. He also had a conversation with a coastguard officer, in which he lied and said he was still on the ship. Wow.

Stay tuned for the conversation…

In order to protest proposed SOPA legislation, a handful of the Internet’s largest websites will go down for 24 hours starting at midnight EST on January 18.  Wikipedia, WordPress, Reddit, Mozilla, and others plan to go completely dark in hopes of bringing widespread awareness to the threat that SOPA presents for open-source and content-sharing websites.  Per CNN, if SOPA legislation were to indeed be ratified “it would make it very difficult – maybe impossible – for certain websites to continue to operate.”

Essentially, SOPA laws would restrict First Amendment rights by attempting to censor a large majority of current and future content available on the Internet.  While SOPA was proposed mainly in an attempt to target rogue overseas sites (primarily sites acting as torrent hubs) that host illegal pirated content, it will effect some of the most prominent global web locations.

In theory, protecting rogue sites peddling illegal content sounds great.  Any company producing copyrighted, patented, or similar proprietary content would want to make sure that they had a way to keep their content and product protected and paid for, right?  It is not the basic legislation that companies are protesting, but instead the unintended consequences the bill might have in terms of censorship and restrictions.

Current copyright law basically allows copyright holders to send ‘takedown notices’ to the site where their content is being illegally uploaded.  This law protects the hosting website against liability, as long as the site removes the content within a reasonable time frame.  The inherent problem with this law is that it is useless against overseas companies.

Users accessing the sites within the U.S. receive takedown notices and are free to file counter-motions if they believe that their content doesn’t violate copyright law.  The user can escalate the law, which can ultimately end in federal court.  However, overseas entities are not subject to the same laws that U.S.-based individuals and companies are, making takedown notices completely ineffective.

Here is where SOPA comes in.  Since overseas sites can’t be regulated and forced to take down copyrighted work, SOPA aims to stop U.S.-based companies from providing services to illegal sites.  Simultaneously, SOPA will also make it more difficult for U.S. Internet users to find and access these sites.  SOPA would effectively hold website operators responsible for the content their users choose to upload.

This is incredibly problematic for websites like WordPress, Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Reddit, because a large majority of these websites are powered by user-generated content and they have millions upon millions of subscribers.  It would be virtually impossible to monitor the activity of every individual user and verify that they were in compliance with regulations.  Many if not most of these sites, as a result, would potentially be forced to shutdown entirely due to their inability to monitor content in the manner the legislation requires.

In protest of this, sites are going dark.  In fact, those attempting to access Wikipedia’s English language page on Wednesday will be met with a message informing users on how they may contact their elected officials telephonically to protest in person (which sounds like a LOT of work for Capitol Hill IVRs).

This will indeed have a huge effect on individuals, businesses, and corporations.  A full 24 hour shutdown is not a trivial undertaking, and while some sites have chosen to protest but not shut down (Facebook and Google), this should not only have a profound effect on the general public, but also serve as a wakeup call for those attempting to pass this restrictive legislation.