Crowdsourcing with SoundPrint – a conversation with Greg Scott

Podcast transcript:

Cary: Hi everyone. This is episode three of the Soundproofing podcast, and today we’re going to talk about the SoundPrint app. In our first episode, we talked about restaurant noise and how you can measure the decibel levels when you’re in the restaurant just using your smartphone. At the time, I didn’t know about the SoundPrint app, which is actually the perfect app to use when you’re measuring restaurant noise. So, why is SoundPrint ideal for restaurants? Because it’s really easy to use. It measures the highest and the lowest noise reading during a duration of time. And then you can post the results to a map on the internet. The GPS on your phone should pull up the restaurant location automatically or you can type it in.

Cary: If everyone started posting these readings to a map, you’d have a pretty good sense of the noise level of every restaurant in your area. The SoundPrint app was created by Greg Scott in New York City. He originally created it to help him with his own hearing issues and noisy environment. Recently I contacted Greg for an interview. I wanted to learn more about the SoundPrint app and how all of us can get engaged in tracking noise levels. Here’s what he had to say.

Cary: A lot of people are frustrated by loud restaurants. What motivated you to take it to the next level, to create the SoundPrint app?

Greg: Basically it arose out of a personal experience. Having some hearing loss, I really wanted to find quieter spots in New York City where I’m based. I would go to Yelp, I would go to Google. And I would search for quieter spots, and then I would meet at these spots. Most of the time these places were actually quite noisy. So the websites weren’t reliable and I ended up creating — not creating but using — other sound level decibel meters that are out there. And measuring a lot of the venues. When I was able to find a quieter spot, I would put it on a list. And I called it a “quiet list,” and I shared it with friends. Some of which had hearing loss and some of them which did not. And that was a list that I basically used and relied on. And then one time I was traveling to California to visit family, and they asked me where we could have dinner. But I didn’t know where the quieter spots were. That’s when the idea dawned upon me. And I simply took a sound-level meter and made it crowd-sourcible.

Cary: Was it mostly intended for the hearing impaired community at first?

Greg: Yes. The primary mission of the app is to help those with hearing loss and other sensory disorders find quieter venues so that they can socialize and partake in a social experience, but it ends up that most users who actually use the app actually have normal hearing and just can’t stand loud places. It’s just too difficult for conversation. So it’s been a really interesting insight. The primary goal of helping the hearing impaired community still reigns and part of the issue is that those with hearing loss don’t go out often because the places are too noisy. So it turns out we need submissions from everyone else, but luckily it turns out that everyone else also shares a lot of the similar experience in wanting to be able to hear others when they go out to a noisy venue.

Cary: How did you get users for the app when you got started and were are you mostly focused on New York?

Greg: Yeah. Initially the test market is New York for a couple of reasons. One, because I’m located there, and second because it’s known for being a notoriously loud place. The other thing is that I’m well connected in the hearing loss community in New York. There’s several organizations that I’m a member of or that I know people in, and so I spoke to a lot of the leaders in those organizations to get the word out about the app, have them share it on social media, in newsletters. I met with the members of these organizations telling them about the app and the need for it and that we can all help each other find where the quieter spots are.

Greg: So that is basically how we were able to initially get users when the app started, because of the crowdsourcing app. So it relies on … networking effects to some extent. And then after that I also spoke at a couple of conferences; whether those centered around those with hearing loss or whether they’re centered around those professionals in the acoustics industry who also care about the issue. So that is initially how we were able to get the word out.

Cary: Have you found that people in other regions also wanna reduce noise, and how are you reaching out to them?

Greg: The answer is yes, absolutely. People in other areas definitely want to reduce noise. This is not a New York City centric issue. This is a nationwide issue, particularly those who live in urban cities where the restaurants tend to be louder. Not to say that suburban restaurants or rural restaurants are not loud either. That’s not necessarily the case, but there’s definitely an interest nationwide and I can tell that is the case by the number of submissions and where they’re coming from. Initially most of the submissions were in New York, but the great extent since we started getting a lot more press and publicity has been nationwide. The number of submissions have jumped dramatically.

Greg: The other way we’re reaching out to people is through our ambassador program, which we are currently formalizing and this is for people who are located in other cities or other parts of the country and who want to do something and contribute about excessive noise, especially since we have limited resources. And if people listening to this want to get involved, please send an email to info@soundpoint.co and let us know they are interested in becoming an ambassador. We’ve also been helped out by our curated quiet list that are also available on the website and people knowing that once a certain city hits a critical mass of submissions, we are able to look at the data and identify which restaurant tend to be quieter than others.

Greg: And so people have been motivated by wanting to get certain quiet lists for their cities, to do submissions so other people know which places to avoid and which places to attend. And so far we’ve had quiet lists for Baltimore, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Ann Arbor, New York. We have one in Philly, it hasn’t been put up on the website yet. We have some for a couple of other cities that are coming. We also have one for San Francisco, although that one is more in a Beta Mode. We have data in San Francisco, but we need more of it to make the data robust and more reliable to make sure that it certifies that these places are quiet.

Cary: In April, SoundPrint was involved in International Noise Awareness Day and you announced an Amazon gift certificate for the contributor who makes the most SoundPrint submissions. How’s that going? Is it a monthly event?

Greg: International Noise Awareness Day was a wonderful campaign that was put on by both SoundPrint and the Acoustical Society of America known as ASA. ASA really drove the project, they really spearheaded it. They’re a wonderful organization, very devoted people, and we wanted to promote noise pollution awareness domestically. It was a wonderful campaign, it could have resulted in a lot more submissions. People were able to find out more about the app and spread the word. We also got a couple of journalists who started following the campaign and reached out to us to do some press coverage.

Greg: The Amazon gift certificate, known as the National Challenge, is a way to reward those users who do the most submissions within a given month. So every month the number of submissions a user has in this campaign challenge resets at zero, and it’s going well. It’s really shown who the power users are, those users who want to vote with the sound measurement to let the venue managers know that excessive noise is an issue. There are two constraints: one is that the user must … Once they do their soundchecks and they submit it by tagging it to the venue, they need to register using their emails. We don’t allow anonymous submissions or those submissions with username only to qualify for the challenge.

Cary: Do people have to register with SoundPrint to use it, or only for the challenges?

Greg: There are three ways to make a submission. One is through email, the second one is choosing a user name and then the third is anonymous. You can make anonymous submissions as long as you like. You may get the annoying little pop up that occurs asking you to register, but you are free to skip it. And I think this is important in light of a lot of the privacy issues that we’re seeing discussed in the public today. So for the challenge, you need to register with your email and also help to send an email with your info to info@soundprint.co. It just helps to track the users a lot better, but is not necessary.

Cary: In my experience with using decibel readers, it’s pretty hard to find a restaurant that’s under 80 decibels. Some go over 90 decibels. When it gets that bad, it seems like someone needs to approach the owner and try to make some modifications. Do you have any ideas for this?

Greg: Absolutely. The primary goal of SoundPrint is to help people find the quietest spot, but another goal … Especially those with hearing loss. Another goal is to work with the venue managers and help them mitigate excessive noise, and there’s a couple of ways to do that. First on an individual level, you can take measurements with SoundPrint and turn off the sound-level meter and make a submission. What’s unique about the app is that it creates an automatic assortment of sound level categories, whether it’s quiet, moderate, loud or very loud. And is based on two dimensions, one is whether the sound level recorded is conducive to conversation, and then second, whether it’s safe for hearing health, are you endangering your hearing health or getting noise-induced hearing loss over time? And these categories were chosen based on scientific research.

Greg: Since most people — most of the public, including the venue managers — are unaware of what constitutes a noisy or an unsafe environment, the app does the work for them. So when you take a submission, the best way to do it is to show the venue manager how loud the sound level was and what exactly that means. Endangering the hearing health of the patrons and the venue employees, etc. It’s the best way to do it. The second thing to do is — based on their response — whether they accommodate and lower background music or they acknowledge it, write down the manager’s response in the social commenting aspect of the app. That way the public knows which places are more accommodating or ear-friendly. Those are the things you can do on an individual level, on a second level or a wider level. We also want to work with the venue managers specifically that want to improve their acoustics to make their environment more pleasant.

Greg: We just posted a guideline tip sheet for venue managers on the website. And I’ve offered to rule out time. Basically take a look at your walls, take a look at your ceilings, assess what percentage of it is covered with sound-absorption materials. And if it doesn’t match a certain threshold, you are more likely to probably get noise complaints. And then on that tip page, we also illustrate some inexpensive ways to improve their acoustics, as well. And these modifications can be seamlessly blended into the interior design. And then if the venue managers want to get more information or more advice on how to improve it, there’s an email that they can reach out to us. And we can discuss specifically with the venue managers how to improve their acoustics.

Cary: Have you found that restaurant owners are receptive to getting feedback about the decibel level?

Greg: Oh, definitely. Locally in New York when we initially started the app, we reached out to a bunch of restaurants that we found to be quiet and asked them to comp a meal for two people. So restaurants that were quieter definitely wanted to be advertised. They definitely wanted people to find out about them. What was interesting was that we also reached out to noisy restaurants. Partly out of curiosity, but partly because we had met some venue managers as we were creating the app. And they acknowledged that excessive sound levels can be quite an issue, but they feel powerless to do something.

Greg: But they still offered to comp the local restaurant challenge. And a lot of times they would say, a lot of users don’t know that there was a certain alcove in the restaurant that’s quieter. Maybe there’s a table that’s seated away from an open kitchen. Maybe there was a back room. And there was also some specific non-peak times — specific to that venue — where patrons can come in and have a conversation. And also there was a restaurant in Chelsea actually that was receiving noise complaints, and also saw the ratings on the SoundPrint app. And they knew they wanted to make a change.

Greg: I’m not convinced that SoundPrint was the reason why they wanted to make the change. I think it was in conjunction with the noise complaint they were getting directly from users. But they ended up hiring an acoustic design consultant who came in, made some recommendation for inexpensive material that blended into the interior design, and then they asked to take a measurement afterwards. These restaurants definitely are receptive to getting feedback. Some feel that they can do something about it. Some feel powerless due to the interior design. And some are simply unaware that there’s inexpensive ways to improve their acoustics.

Cary: Julia Belluz mentioned in your Vox interview that SoundPrint is in stealth mode and will officially launch in May 2018. Do you have something big planned?

Greg: We were in stealth mode for a couple of years. And then we were in beta in 2017, and then we just launched in May 2018. And basically the news is that we launched. And luckily, the people responded very well. The app has resonated with a lot of people, and the number of submissions have grown considerably. Going forward, we’re currently exploring ways to add features that we think will empower the user a lot more than what is currently in the app. And so we’re formulating what those features would look like. And hopefully those features will come out sooner rather than later.

Cary: Can you think of other ways that people can make a difference in reducing harmful noise?

Greg: Yeah, there’s a few ways. First of all, I’ll just repeat that the best way to do that is to simply take noise measurements. The app is a platform between patrons and the venue. We want to show the restaurant industry and the hospitality industry, the bars, that there is a sizable segment of the population that the venues are missing out on.

Greg: When people often go to a noisy place and they don’t enjoy it, they leave and don’t come back. Even if the food is really good, they don’t tell their friends, they don’t tell their coworkers — they just don’t return. And that’s lost revenue that the venues may not be aware of. The other ways are: ask the manager to reduce the background music. Tell them you loved the food, but if it wasn’t for the noise you would come back.

Greg: Another way to do it is when you find a quieter venue that you happen to be eating at in a peak time, in a peak day — send the venue to info@soundprint.co. And recommend that the venue be added to the quiet venue list. The other thing is people can reach out to restaurant associations. That’s the National Restaurant Association or the local association. And ask them to consider noise as a more important issue to discuss with the restaurants. We want to help promote the quieter restaurants, and we want to work with them to improve the acoustics. We’re not out to attack the noisier places. Another way to do it is to become an ambassador at SoundPrint. We will contact you and have a discussion about the best ways to address the issue. We just got started, and we’re very excited about what lies ahead. And thank you for the interview.

Cary: I’d like to thank Greg for taking the time to interview with me. And I’d like to encourage all of you — if you have an iPhone — to download the SoundPrint app and start measuring the noise levels when you go out to eat. You don’t have to be in New York City. I’ve used the app in restaurants in Europe and in San Francisco. And I think all of us together can help to reduce the noise levels in restaurants, and we can start having normal conversations again. You can learn more about SoundPrint at soundprint.co. Thanks for listening.