The Association of Personal Historians Recommends VoiceQuilt

VoiceQuilt Featured with the Association of Personal Historians

Blueprints for Success:
Hope Flammer and Jay Shaffer of VoiceQuilt

The sound of a loved one's voice resonates to the heart's core. Hope Flammer recognized this power of voice with the recovery of her best friend's husband. He regained consciousness after Hope and other friends spent days in his hospital room talking and laughing as if he could hear them. The recovery convinced Hope that loving voices nurture the spirit, leading her to create VoiceQuilt™ to help families and groups gather and preserve memories in voice recordings.

I first became aware of VoiceQuilt when the APH Board suggested members send Studs Terkel cards for his 96th birthday. APH member Jay Shaffer donated VoiceQuilt services so we could send Studs recorded birthday wishes. What better way than sound-recordings to pay homage to our nation's premier oral historian?

For my father's 90th birthday, I thought again of VoiceQuilt. “Customers always learn something new about the recipient,” says Hope. “They hear a story from a colleague of their parents that knew them when they were dating, they hear a crazy college drinking story, or they hear a neighbor call about a time someone helped them.” Indeed, I heard new stories from old friends that let me see my dad through their eyes. I can't wait to present my father with this special gift.

My first thought was to create a CD on my computer by downloading the audio at no cost from the VoiceQuilt website. But as the voice entries came in, I decided to give my father one of the VoiceQuilt Keepsakes that operate like a music box. My dad will be much more likely to open up a box than to fiddle around with a CD he's not sure how to play. And I'd like him to hear the voices as often as he wishes. It's not easy to be 90 years old with Parkinson's Disease, and when things get tough, these loving voices of friends and family members will bring back happier and healthier times.

Prototypes and Product Development
Husband-and-wife team Jay Shaffer and Hope Flammer opened VoiceQuilt's electronic doors in June of 2006 after testing during the winter of 2005. Transplants from Silicon Valley to the Atlanta region, both Jay and Hope have worked in high-tech companies. Hope is a marketing veteran of four other start-ups, and Jay quit his job as business manager with Sun Microsystems to focus on VoiceQuilt.

Prototyping in 2004 led to a web interface so customers could listen and arrange the order of recordings. “We had to create an experience that was easy and intuitive,” says Hope. “No special software, no fancy computer skills.” They soon realized that the recordings required unique packaging and decided on a Keepsake that operates like a music box.

Finding A Niche
Hope and Jay worked with partners to solve VoiceQuilt's technology designs: the phone system,the web interface, and the Keepsake audio player. They say a greater challenge has been marketing and getting the word out about VoiceQuilt. “Lots of people don't get what a VoiceQuilt is,” Hope says, “until they have one in their hands.”

The initial marketing goal targeted several Atlanta magazines from which VoiceQuilt received excellent coverage. They next looked at scrapbook hobbyists, with the thought that scrapbooks could be included inside the Keepsakes. Scrapbookers turned out to be more interested in the hobby and less in giving presents.

But the failed scrapbook initiative helped define the VoiceQuilt product as an event-driven gift. “One of the things that sets us apart,” says Jay, “is that it's a gift. People spend money on candies or flowers, and they're gone after a while. Here's a keepsake box that you can treasure forever....We found that by focusing on events—happy events like birthdays, anniversaries, retirements and graduations—and using voice as a gift, that really causes people to pick up the phone.”

VoiceQuilt's customers come from three main drivers, each yielding about a third of the total, with referrals the largest.

Referrals
The average number of messages for each VoiceQuilt is about 35, connecting that many new prospects to the product. In this way, each VoiceQuilt usually leads to another in viral marketing mode.

Search Engine Keywords
Hope's experience as a search engine marketing professional pays off as she purchases keywords related to gifts, birthdays, and anniversaries from sites such as Google and Yahoo.

Public Relations
VoiceQuilt aims for mention by respected authorities in the gift-giving space, including Robyn Spizman, who has featured VoiceQuilt on NBC's Today Show.

Despite marketing challenges, VoiceQuilt is on target for its 2008 income projections and has garnered several awards, including being named one of Georgia's Top 40 Innovators by the Technology Association of Georgia.

Innovation and Custom Application
VoiceQuilt was initially designed for telephone audio, but through a service called Recording Rescue, VoiceQuilt also accepts audio from other sources. One customer had an old cassette tape of her wedding ceremony converted for a Keepsake, which she gave to her husband for their 50th wedding anniversary.

APH member Bridget Poizner, founder of Save Their Story™, has used VoiceQuilt for several clients. For a 90th birthday tribute, she contacted twenty-five grandchildren around the country and gave them specific pointers on recording memories of their grandmother. She then downloaded the voices into iMovie and linked them to photos of the grandchildren. After 175 people saw the video at the 90th birthday party, some asked Bridget, “How did you get all those interviews? Did you sit them all down?”

“No,” says Bridget. “It was great because the grandkids were all over the country—in Texas, Tennessee, Maine, and New York. They could just phone in.”

You can see this tribute here.

Bridget's current project using VoiceQuilt is a tribute by parents to a preschool teacher recently diagnosed with cancer. The moms are sending Bridget photos of their children, which she will combine with the stories downloaded from VoiceQuilt.

Jay and Hope see VoiceQuilt as a complement to the work of personal historians. “As a culture we've lost our storytelling ability,” says Hope. “That's why APH is so important. You need a professional interviewer to really get good stories out of people. I think of us as the hors d'oeuvres and personal historians as the meat and potatoes. My hope is that VoiceQuilt motivates families to do more serious personal histories.”

What does the future hold for VoiceQuilt? The ability to add music is in testing now. A “Favorite” button will also be added to the Keepsakes, so that listeners can easily replay a favored segment. And VoiceQuilt may be sold through additional distribution channels besides the VoiceQuilt website.

Staying Focused, Finding Balance
However it changes, VoiceQuilt will remain focused on its target. “Many young companies branch into too many revenue opportunities,” says Jay. “We want to make sure we stay focused on helping folks create a unique, personal, sentimental gift.”

Passion for their work and customer satisfaction help Hope and Jay stay balanced through the early start-up whirlwind. “It's so rewarding when people create these gifts,” Jay says. “We see that in the surveys all the time. A customer will tell us that the recipient shed tears and said it's the best gift that they had ever received. That's what's driving us.”

Hope finds that the emotional roller coaster of starting up a company can cause her and Jay to wonder sometimes what they're doing and why. “But,” she says, “then I'll hear from a customer who says, “You know, I was having a really bad day, and I lifted up the lid (of the VoiceQuilt Keepsake) and I felt much better.” She adds, “This is one of my big, big passions. I love what I do, and I think it's really important.”

Marilyn Longinotti Geary of Woodacre, California, owns Circle of Life Stories. She is author of Marin City Memories, Interviews with African Americans who worked in the shipyards during World War II.