Sonic Innovations Banks on Innova Sales
Sonic Innovations issued its first-quarter earnings release a few days ago, and this weekend I finally listened to the webcast of CFO Stephen Wilson’s conference call with financial analysts. The bad news is that sales are down two percent from last year’s record first quarter. At first glance it looks like an indicator of weak demand and flat sales generally in an industry that should be seeing healthy growth from consumers whose need for hearing assistance is constantly growing. But Sonic Innovations is betting heavily on its new Innova line of hearing aids, which it didn’t introduce until early April after the fiscal quarter ended. Read more
Sound ID Has A Sound Idea
Sound ID is a Silicon Valley start-up that is finally breaking down the barriers between consumer electronics and the hearing aid industry. It is developing a Bluetooth-based product that will make it easier for everyone — consumers with normal hearing and hearing-impaired people alike — to understand voices on the other end of their cellphones in noisy environments. Read more
Did Songbird Croak? Will It Rise From The Ashes?
Developing the first disposable hearing aid was one of my many great ideas that somebody else had first. Read more
William Austin, Hearing-Aid Promoter Extraordinaire
The only thing William Austin seems to work at harder than promoting himself is promoting the benefits of hearing aids. But in fact, the two go hand in hand. Over the past 40 years, the founder of Starkey Laboratories, one of the world’s seven dominant hearing aid manufacturers, has waged what at times has seemed a one-man war against the stigma of wearing hearing aids. Read more
So How Does “The World’s Greatest Communicator” Communicate When He Can’t Even Hear?
On paper, at least, I am one of the world’s great communicators. I was CEO of one of the world’s largest public relations firms. Before that I was co-founder of one of the fastest growing high-tech marketing communications firms in Silicon Valley. And before that I was a successful journalist. I haven’t counseled kings, but I have whispered in the ears of some of the world’s most important business executives. When I lost most of my hearing, being the world’s greatest communicator got a lot more complicated. What I’ve discovered, though, is that communication involves a lot more than using your ears, and that you can still be one of the world’s greatest listeners even when you can’t hear. Read more
A Night at the Theater
Usually a trip to the theater is frustrating because getting any of the dialogue is such a challenge. Even the headphones available in larger theaters most often don’t do the job for me. But last weekend I went to see my friend Steve Cooper play a leading role in Blinders, a political satire put on by the Out of the Blue Theater Company at the Boston Playwrights’ Theater. The company is staffed by both veteran and up-and-coming actors in a small, intimate theater next to the campus of Boston University. And this time, I had two things going for me that made going to the theater enjoyable again. Read more
Will Mick Fleetwood Replace the Energizer Bunny?
You know a manufacturer is smelling a market opportunity when it hires an aging rock star to promote its products at a staged event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Go to the Energizer web site for hearing aid batteries and you will be treated to news of Mick Fleetwood “teaming up with Energizer® to drum out an important message for his fans’ hearing health — how to keep rockin’ responsibly.” Read more
It’s April 15. Do You Know Where Your Hearing Aids Are?
Tax Day presents an excellent opportunity to lobby your federal congressional representatives for passage of the Hearing Aid Assistance Tax Credit Act. The bill (H.R. 414) was filed in the House of Representatives by Congressman Jim Ryun (R-KS). It will allow Americans 55 and over and dependents 18 and younger to receive a $500 tax credit per qualified hearing aid once every five years. Read more
The Noises That Inhabit My Head
Sometimes I still hear the insistent screeching, like an angry flock of birds or the screaming of the wind in a hurricane. It’s the same unearthly noise that millions of bat-like creatures made as they swarmed out of the open gates of hell in a horror movie I saw once. But now the noise only creeps in at the edges of my consciousness during quiet moments, like a barely remembered bad dream. It’s one of the many strange sounds in my head that have come and gone since the day I woke up with severe hearing loss several years ago. Read more
My Story: The Day the Music Died
Until I lost much of my hearing overnight two years ago, I had excellent pitch. My brother and I grew up around music, and both of us could always carry a tune. My dad is a gifted, self-taught piano player whose range spans from Chopin Sonatas to Ragtime to English Music Hall favorites. I took piano lessons, played in the school band and sang in the school chorus. I had enough formal and informal education to appreciate all kinds of music and at different stages of my life was enamored of many different forms — rock and roll, classical, Top 40, jazz, you name it. But on the day of my sudden hearing loss, I discovered that music had become completely unintelligible to me. Read more