Negotiate Today Alexa Skill

Inspiration

It was early in my career that I found a mentor who gave me the confidence and training to develop my negotiation skills. Ever since then, I've benefited from these skills in multiple aspects of my life, and I've been passionate about passing on what I learned and encouraging others to hone their own negotiation skills. This contest inspired me to really dive into the research and organize the information important to learning negotiation into content that can be delivered in a bite-sized way. My hope is that Alexa users can benefit from this skill, especially the ones who may never have considered the importance of negotiating in the first place.

What it does

Negotiate Today provides a unique theme each day, all centered around helping the user become a better negotiator. At the same time, it helps build skills that are fundamental to negotiation, like confidence, public speaking, and problem solving.

The schedule is structured as follows:

Monday Metrics: Users will hear an interesting statistical fact that highlights the importance of negotiation. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Monday, April 30th can be found Here.

Uncomfortable Tuesday: Negotiating can be a nerve-wracking activity, so users are given a task each Tuesday that is meant to make them uncomfortable. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Tuesday, May 1st can be found Here.

Wednesday Case Study: Users will hear a summary of a negotiation stemming from real life scenarios and its outcome.
As an example, the flash briefing that will air Wednesday, May 2nd can be found Here.

Thursday Practice: Users are encouraged to practice a specific, fundamental negotiation skill. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Thursday, May 3rd can be found Here.

Fundamental Friday: Users are taught a specific, fundamental negotiation skill. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Friday, May 4th can be found Here.

Saturday Challenge: Users are presented with a sample negotiation scenario, and their challenge is to think about how they would respond. Users may be encouraged to share their responses on social media. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Saturday, May 5th can be found Here.

Sunday Sample Solution: A sample solution to the Saturday Challenge is provided, allowing users to compare strategies. As an example, the flash briefing that will air Sunday, May 6th can be found Here.

Note: If the judges would like to review additional weeks of flash briefing transcripts, I would be happy to share them via email ([email protected]).

How I built it

Amazon's "Steps to Create a Flash Briefing Skill" were very helpful for the technical component. For the content, I drew from articles, books, and online resources, as well as personal experience and anecdotes from professionals and mentors whom I admire. The skill is linked to my RSS feed from SoundCloud.

Challenges I ran into

The biggest challenge with this application was ensuring I had unique, high-quality content for each day. At first, my approach was to simply fill in facts or tips for each day, and I soon realized that there were distinct categories that the content could fit into. Once I added the themes for each day, it was not only more structured but also easier to get creative with the content. My plan is to maintain a 5-week lead, which I currently have prepared.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm by no means an expert negotiator, but I'm proud of being able to constantly improve at something that certainly didn't always come naturally (and still makes me nervous each time). I'm proud that with this Alexa Skill, other users can challenge themselves as well and start to the same benefits of negotiating in every aspect of their lives.

What I learned

For one, I learned a whole lot about negotiation tips, strategies, and scenarios. Surprisingly, I also didn't know about the concept of a flash briefing or how skill can be built specifically for them. I also have never used an RSS feed before, so I got to set one up for the first time.

What's next for Negotiate Today

Ideally, future content for Negotiate Today would be driven by users of the skill. It would be nice to highlight success stories of users during the case study days, or add in user-driven activities during the action-oriented theme days.

Built With

• alexa
• rss