Professional Transcribing, Typesetting, Digital Design and more!

There has been great debate over the years and as technology has progressed towards that speech recognition software might be replacing a traditional transcriptionist and eventually our work will be obsolete.

That fear has been there for many jobs over the years and a perfect example is the new check out lines in large retail chains that give you the ability to check yourself out.  There is still that required individual that needs to oversee the process and make sure that a human entity can step in when a machine needs our input or worst-case scenario, need’s repair.

In this instance, there are several positive ways to see how the new technology works in our favor and how we are more than just ‘typists.’

Editing

Editing is still and will continue to be a human job.  Virtually there is, even with the best of software, a margin error of at least 5% and that means mistakes.  However, until the artificial intelligence get’s to be fool proof, we (the transcriptionist) are there to make sure that you do get a 100% perfect job.  Removing the ‘uh’s’  and ‘ah’s’, typo’s from where, wear and were,  and even punctuation marks that will assist in the inflection of what it is that the speaker is trying to put across.

We as transcriptionist are still needed.

Layout

I have little faith in that most software can completely layout a document in the way we want it by reading our minds.  I know, ye of little faith right?

I can’t even crawl into my client heads and get it accurate 100% of the time, but software has made it extremely easy to make those changes to the documents instead of having to reset a typewriter and retype the entirety of it with the new layout schematics.

Software can assist… I doubt that it will ever replace.

Personal Touches

I can’t tell you how much I get a “Thank you” when a client calls our office and actually reaches a voice of a human being on the other end of the phone.  Far too many times, myself, I get recordings and a ‘push #1 to get…’ on the other end, and it spends 15 minutes trying to get my account number.

Small offices and even some large offices still have that personal touch and I appreciate knowing that when I contact that office I am still treated as a valued client, not as a number.  Software can’t give that type of personal touch or that customer service that most people lack in good business today.

Yes, speech recognition, layout software and computers as a whole definitively make our jobs easier, and possibly even much quicker to accomplish, but we here at ProTypists do not use SRS, and we choose the human touch to make sure that things are done accurately and definitively.

Usually during this time of year, my area starts to cool down and the desert isn’t such a formidable place.  My favorite time of year, Autumn is right around the corner, and to keep in with that, the office is buzzing with festivities.

This year, as always, we will be busy with some of the Fall festivities (including Halloween fun) during the month of October and we hopefully will be spending some needed time away from the computers and outside enjoying the cool weather we are getting.

We hope you all are going to enjoy some time outside as well while things are cool and festive.  This is the month in which the holiday season starts to kick into high gear and family and friends are truly important.

Keep yourself healthy and warm and know that your benefits out weight anything else. Flu season is around the corner and we are already seeing the first signs of it in our home.  For those of us who work in close quarters and offices, drink lots of OJ, take lots of Vitamin C and Zinc and most important keep your co-workers in mind when attempting to work while you are sick.  We would prefer you stay home!

Until next time!

One of the benefits of transcribing is the ability to learn more about your client than most people get the opportunity to buy just buying and selling a tangible product.  Each time our office provides a finished product to those that use our services, we learn a great deal about other services and or are able to help other people in their need to find those that can help them.

Our design department from Virago Visions has had also the great opportunity to provide services to those that are also looking for the ‘edge’ in marketing and using search engine guidelines to support their business.

We recently had the pleasure of learning more about the social networking phenomena by listening to Ian Griffin & Jim Corrillo give some interesting lessons on social networking.  You can find more out about their services at www.socialnetworking101.biz and can also register for the webinar’s there as well.

Offering this information to the dog-eat-dog realm of internet marketing has not only boosted our exposure in our design and transcription business but has given us knowledge that is extremely valuable in helping our clients as well.

Stop by and check out the webinars that Jim & Ian have put together. If you can’t catch them this month, feel free to purchase and download the taped webinars, they are well worth the small price!

In times in which the economy does a slump (and boy is it slumping) it is almost time to sit and reestablish what we, as American’s, find wholesome, strong and pure. After years in many types of industries, and as an entrepreneur, I find myself and the staff of ProTypists actually doing more business with those that we know, like and trust. However, there is a common denominator in all that we seem to be drawn to.

American businesses are what holds this country together and in these hard economically hard times seems more important than ever. Offering word-of-mouth advertising, referrals and support to those that we do business with locally, statewide and even nationwide  inevitably provides us with the network that ultimately guides those businesses to corporations and strong financial feeders of our communities.

We here at ProTypists are one of the few that can stand by and state that our business and our clients are Americans, and even though we offer our services overseas, we rarely see them consult us on their projects. I believe most of it is due to the outsourcing that can be done in other smaller countries for pennies on the dollar, and we are not chastising the ability to motivate those in countries in need, but as American’s, we like to know that we are contributing to re-stimulating what financial slump, we have found ourselves in by staying and doing business within our boundaries and supporting those smaller businesses that just need that little bit of a boot in the right direction.

We would like to thank all of you who have sent referrals, support and constant business our direction, and we hope to provide the same in return. Keep watch for special pricing structures for our clients for referrals. We will continue to provide quality transcription, typesetting, and even design elements for all of you who are in need.

Coffee in hand, you stagger into your office and sit down to read your morning emails and sort through them like you always do.  Pushing on the button that lights up the CPU on your system and it’s blank. No light, no fan, no nothing. You start to panic and go through the obvious problems.  You look at the clock and hope that its not moving cause that means your electricity is off. Darn, that’s not it.  You crawl under the desk with the dust bunnies and hope that just maybe you accidently discconnected the power source from the power strip. Nope…

After running down a full list of potential problems, you realise that now, it’s a lost cause and your repair guy is going to get your panicked call and he won’t be available for hours if not days.

Sound familiar!?

It’s happened to a few of us and we are no exception.  In that hardware failure, you also start to wonder if all that work that you had on your hard drive is still good and all those files will still be there when you need them most.

The only way to reassure that you can rest at ease is to be sure to back up your files on an external hard drive.  External hard drive prices are coming down in price extensively and they can hold thousands of file with some drives hold up to 400-500 Gigabytes in memory.

Backup software such as GoodSync, can be set to auto back up your files on a schedule that keep you as up to date in your files as you want to be making it very automatic.  There are other softwares out there that are just as good, just do your research to see how versatile they are.

Remember, there is a big difference between backing up system files and doing data backups. Be sure you do both otherwise you might find yourself without some information that you needed. Data backups are the most important as that holds the information for your letters, pictures and so much more.