The Voice of Tomorrow: An Interview with Ron Jaworski - Part 1

“In similar ways to when the first iPhone came out and then five years later, ten years later, we looked back and said to ourselves ‘oh my god, that completely changed my life,’ that's the same thing that's going to happen with audio and voice.” -- Ron Jaworski   My next guest is the CEO of Trinity Audio, a unified platform that allows content owners to strategically evolve and deliver audio experiences. Some of Trinity Audio's top publishing clients and brands include Forbes, Lenovo, McClatchy, and Newsweek.  An ad tech veteran with a deep understanding of the publishing and branding landscapes, he has an extensive background in leading organizations and earned his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, as well as an EMBA in Marketing and Marketing Management from the Recanati Business School. His name is Ron Jaworksi, and he's as passionate about voice and audio as I am.  I think you'll enjoy this interview. As always, if you have any questions for my guest, you’re welcome to reach out through the links in the show notes.  If you have questions for me, just visit www.audiobrandingpodcast.com where you’ll find all sorts of ways to get in touch. Plus, subscribing to the newsletter (on the www.audiobrandingpodcast.com webpage) will let you know when the new podcasts are available.   Educated by the Radio We start things off with a look back at Ron’s early memories of sound, and he tells us about the shiver he still gets from hearing the iconic Superman theme, and how listening to the radio program The History Hour as a soldier completely changed his view of learning. “I enjoyed listening,” he explains, “the experience of sitting there in this fortified position, you know, with my guns and my helmet and everything and listening to this professor talking about how Bismarck unified Germany." That’s when he discovered audio's unique educational potential. “For me, the option to consume knowledge and information,” he says, “to be educated by the radio, that experience really made an impact.”   A Simple Option Ron tells us about the difficulties he encountered in trying to find any sort of simple on-the-go option when it came to text-to-speech conversion, and how it motivated him to become an entrepreneur. As he explains it, “I wanted to have a simple option to listen to any type of textual asset that I want.” And it turns out he wasn’t alone when it came to preferring audio. “Thirty percent of the world’s population,” he tells us, “are better at consuming content and learning in an audio manner.”   The Voice and Audio Decade The interview turns toward Trinity Audio and his work with bringing visual media to life, and Ron tells us about a father and daughter whose email revealed the unexpected impact he’s had on people’s lives. “People are using your product,” he says, “using your solution on a day-to-day basis in a way that you didn't even imagine, and you know you're doing something good." We discuss the links between social media, news media, and voice and audio, and what it might mean down the road. “I think we are an amazing decade,” he says. “There's no doubt about it, this will be the voice and audio decade.”   No More Keyboards As the first half of our interview comes to a close, we talk about the process of creating synthetic, proprietary voices, whether they’re media influencers, celebrities, or just local business owners reaching out to their communities. "I think the revolution is huge due to the fact that we are changing our communication with computers to voice,” he says as we discuss the future of voice...