The sound bite is the medium used to send content to the crowd of Bite Writers who convert bites to bits and bytes – or in other words, audio to digital text.

This is an exciting new concept in crowd sourcing, it will revolutionize the hybrid computer/human crowd model and it is unique to TranscribeMe. We do not call our crowd ‘transcribers’, we call them Bite Writers and we do that because this crowd is not at home on their computers with their foot pedals. They may not even be on their laptops. Bite writers work from anywhere and everywhere using any number of digital devices and not always the same ones. They do not fit the traditional demographic profile of the mid-aged, female, transcriber although TranscribeMe will retain that pool as well. Bite Writers are the early adopter workforce who are comfortable with technology and open to a new way of doing business.

It is nothing new. Alexandre Dumas crowd sourced the writing of his greatest work in the 1800s, The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s true! Some say that he had up to eighty ghost writers who worked on his novels. In fact there was a joke circulating at the time that went something along the lines of,

Alexandre Dumas says to his son, “Son, have you read my latest novel?” To which his son replies, “No dad, have you?”

I was sitting at home once, doing nothing – a rare event – I switched on the telly and there was an episode of Ellen DeGeneres. She had a mock-up of a hands free device, showing how its not just hands-free driving that a person can gain. She showed juggling babies, pots and pets. It was rather hilarious – if not quite true. It is true however, that technological inventions are doing much to make life easier. Transcription software is one such innovation that is on the rise. Not quite perfect – yet – it is already a handy tool for many a busy person to use.

I had done the bookwork, I knew a reasonable amount of the grammar, my vocabulary was on the rise, I thought — I can do this! I hopped off the plane, got off the gate at the other side — and….. Hang on a minute…what? I barely understood a word of what was going on around me. The airport announcements flew in one ear and out the other without taking hold.

After two weeks in France, things improved enough to hold a basic conversation. But being in Paris was much like listening to a radio that was sitting nicely in between two frequencies. What was being said to me —I understood — everything else was faint buzzing….My French teacher told me it would take a good 3 months to tune in properly with the French.

From time to time it pays to step back and look at the fundamentals of what you do and why. For transcription service providers, the answers for what and why may be complex and that is especially true if the transcription services cross professional fields, and it’s compounded again if transcribers are crowd sourced. Nonetheless, the self-review process is an important one for those who provide transcription services.

Obviously, transcription services cater for those who require conversion of voice data to text data – that is transcription service at its most elementary level. The reasons to engage a transcription service are many and most commonly are for archival purposes, sharing, storage and publication. As such, the numbers of professionals who use transcription services are many and varied but not limited to those looking for the above solutions alone. For individuals who must regularly address an audience the imperative of a transcription service is even greater and indeed, quite different.

She ran in the headlines for several weeks.

Firstly it was the good news.

New Zealand has its first profoundly deaf MP in Parliament. Welcome Mojo Mathers.
But wait there was a catch. The headlines had a field day. New Zealand’s first profoundly deaf MP has been told parliament will not pay for the technology she needs to fully participate in parliamentary debate.
Why?

I’m Alexei from TranscribeMe and I’m really excited to be the first company presenting at the inaugural DEMO Conference here in Singapore. Let me begin by asking you a question. How many of you have been to similar events where you wanted to remember every word or wish that you could share it with your friends but couldn’t? Well here at DEMO.Asia TranscribeMe have got you covered. Over the next two days we will record and transcribe every minute of every pitch for you that you will hear on the stage and will make it available as pitch perfect text. This is our magic.

With Transcription!

We have over time, tried. We have attempted to change time, or reorganize it at least, to accommodate our changing lifestyles. The four-day work week has been a dream of forward thinking nations for decades now. In another effort to adjust time (so we aren’t all doing the same thing at the same time, namely sitting in traffic) we have bravely attempted to stagger working hours so that we are heading to our work places at 7, 8, 9 and 10am and returning to our homes in 8 hours later respective of the time we started.

Google “transcription software” and you will get 6,310,000 hits. It is a well recognised and already well-utilised product. But for it to truly succeed and become a household name – it needs to be accurate. Good software must not just recognise the individual words, but also the grammar. The English language is complex, there are too many words which sound the same – yet all have different meanings.

– to, two, too

– know, no

– which, witch

The list could go on.

was privileged to spend yesterday with a group of New Zealand’s most successful female entrepreneurs. Several told the stories of their journeys. Although each woman and each product or service they offered was different, there were some recurring themes, and deeply profound and moving elements to each story. I am kicking myself for not recording these stories.