Principal Services

Networking

Computer Hardware, Software & Training

Computer & Accountancy Consulting

Management Procedures

Process Re-engineering

Web Design & Maintenance

Management & Office Information Systems

Information & Communications Technology

Digital Dictation

Doing for document creation what e-mail did for PostIt Notes

Everyone in business who is over 40 today surely remembers the messages pigeon hole, the message spike, the in-box full of scraps of paper, and latterly, the ubiquitous PostIt notes. Then, along came e-mail. It nearly crippled the message spike manufacturers’ businesses in a matter of 12 months. I guess we could wonder why, but the deliberations would not last very long. The winning combination offered speed and convenience of delivery, security and an audit trail. The superceded technology offered none of these.

You may well ask, “What does this have to do with digital dictation?” We believe the old dictation technology suffers, in most environments, exactly the same shortcomings as pre e-mail message delivery.

What are the old options?

Of course, there was shorthand. It must be dead today for document creation, though certainly not for note taking. Shorthand required two people working simultaneously to get the contents of a document from the author’s head into a form where the transcriptioniste could transfer it to a piece of paper. It was superceded.

The replacement was tape or magnetic media recorders. The author could now work alone to get thoughts organised, then the transcriptioniste could disentangle the recorded voice file and put it on paper. It took a lot of skill. Tapes, which were pretty effective when new, became noisier with use until it became almost impossible to decipher the words being spoken. Unlike with shorthand, all the “Errs” and “Umms” are recorded, the sense of the document is lost when a forgotten idea is recorded minutes after it should have been, forcing the typist to “wind back” and insert the text where it was probably meant to be. Numbers are typed as words and then removed and replaced with figures when the sense becomes apparent. Much of this was a major backward step over shorthand, where the secretary already knew what the document was all about and would adjust the words and grammar on the fly, even before word processing changed the world.

Then came smart templates or precedents, and these with smarted software made dictation into proformas practical at last.

Then came digital dictation.

The new options.

Digital dictation is the way of the present.

The recording medium does not depreciate with use, giving uniform, higher quality voice files from which your work is transcribed. This will result in fewer errors and more work in a given period of time.

The medium is no longer a linear environment. It enables the author to return to the point in a voice file where a paragraph needs to be added, change into insert mode, and add the necessary text in the appropriate location with respect to the rest of the job. This will result in less wasted time for both author and typiste.

The best voice file format also enables you to include text, or graphics, or just about anything within the file. So, if you are about to read an extract of a source document into your voice file, and you have an electronic (soft) copy of the information, place a marker and copy and paste the text in situ into your voice file. When the typiste arrives at the appropriate location, the system will ask if it should paste the text into the document. No duplication of effort and virtually no risk of error.

Delivery is enhanced.

So we are convinced that the quality of dictation is improved by the new technology. Now lets talk about delivery.

With a tethered device, as each job is completed with an end of letter command, the file is despatched across the network to your admin or the typing centre and, with the “professional applications”, a copy of the file is stored locally for, say, 14 days in case of mishap.

If you need to leave a voice file partly completed, the system will store the file on the hard disk of your workstation and you will be able to come back to it later.

With a portable device, placing the recorder in the matching desktop docking station instructs the system to download files and send them to the transcriptioniste and delete the despatched files from the memory of the recorder. All files with an end of letter mark will be despatched and deleted. A file without the end of letter mark will stay on your local memory device for you to return to it to complete the task. Usually, no backup copy is maintained, removing some of the security offered by the tethered devices.

Transcription.

Apart from the quality of the voice file, modern, quality digital transcription products have all the smarts built in.

The transcriptioniste’s kit includes some software on the computer with a foot pedal and headset which plug into the machine. Ready to go, the software should offer speed variation with the ability to change pitch to make the author’s voice as natural as is practical. It should have variable automatic word recall, or roll back, enabling the transcriptioniste to take an earful and start typing, lift the foot and push down again and hearing the last word or two of the earful being transcribed. This reinforces the understanding of the work being typed and improved accuracy and speed.

A worthwhile transcription package will allow the typist to hear instructions where they are relevant, know how big or small the job is, insert text or graphics without having to search the network for the file and save the work into the appropriate location when finished. It would also help if the system were to maintain a backup copy of the voice file for a period, in case something were to go wrong.

This is a huge subject with significant ramifications for office productivity. If you need some advice, please contact Tripos IT and make a time for one of us to call.

Changes to your subscription

Removal:      If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please send an e-mail to the address below with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

Additional subscriptions:

If you would like our eNewsletter to be sent to others in your enterprise, please send an e-mail to the address below with ADDITIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS in the subject line and the recipients’ e-mail addresses contained in the body of the message.

support@tripos.com.au

Of course, you could call us and arrange any change you would like.

Thank you.

Stewart Rankin Pty Ltd – ACN 007 972 901 & DL & LD Greenhough trading as

TRIPOS IT

All Newsletters

Staff

David Estcourt Hughes - Consultant

David Greenhough - Consultant

David Kenyon - Support

Dean Jarman - Novell CNE

Doug Smith - Windows and Linux specialist

Scott Ferris - Technician

Alison Campbell - Microsoft application specialist

STOP PRESS