IT Tip From Mom?

This is what happens when you help people to get into technology, they dive right in to learn how to exploit technology for their needs and along the way surprise the person that started them down this road.

What am I talking about? Today my mom (yeah, I said "my mom" and I can't believe it either) and I were talking about what she's been doing with her PC and digital camera that I helped her get (she got a good deal on an HP from Costco and not a Celeron or Duron either, thanks very much and I helped her get her camera through dell - a Canon A80 with 2 sets of NiMH batteries and a 256MB memory card).

She has been taking wedding pictures and photos of scenery among other things.

Anyhow, none of that suprised me. What surprised me was when she started talking about wanting a digital audio recorder, but the real shocker was when she suggested that I look into them for our attorneys to use.

Why is that shocking? Because it hadn't occurred to me. I had heard about pen audio recorders and of course just about everyone has digital answering machines now, but I just never really thought anything about digital dictation devices even while watching attorneys use their old style mini-casette devices.

Will we switch to digital for that right away? Probably not. Did a fairly quick look around the web and it seems like $150 or so is the minimum for a device that has USB so that the files can be downloaded to a PC and emailed. There are cheaper devices, but you have no way of getting the dictations off except for hearing and typing, which is certainly not better than our current way of doing things.

At any rate, it's something that I'm sure we will think about, or perhaps go with a different solution like Dragon voice recognition software, although the digital recorder is probably more practical for mobility purposes.

The point is, you never know what's going to happen when you start someone down the path of technology...well that and keep your ears open because your next IT idea might come from a most unexpected source. Thanks mom.

If I start blogging about ideas that my cats gave me, call the looney bin though.

Comments

[baumer1122]

I have been trying to push the atty's I support into this for a while. From what I have seen elsewhere, it is a huge time/money saver. They can still use handheld recorders with Dragon. This company seems to package up some good solutions...
http://shop.voicerecognition.com/items.asp?CartId=9755101XMH-EVEREST-OR490&Cc=TRNSCRPT&tpc=

[Greg Hughes]

How about 5GB Rio Carbon MP3 players? They record audio via the built-in microphone (LOTS of it) on an internal 1-inch hard drive, and can (of course) MP3 music and other recordings (like audible, podcast style, etc). Multipurpose for sure and you can find them for less than $150 if you look hard. I love mine.

[Anonymous]

What about PDAs? Most have built-in audio recorders now. I believe you can save the audio file and process it with Dragon on your desktop PC.

I forgot the details of a sales pitch I heard, but it was a quasi-form of VoIP using a Palm, voice recording, wifi, dragon, and a transcription service.

[Charlie Winterbottom]

There are definitely some digital dictation solutions aimed specifically at law firms. The advantage over simple off the shelf audio recorders is that they support the things audio-typists need, like pedals for controlling playback and often have workflow so you can do neat things like send the finished recording to the least busy secretary for transcription. I work at probably the biggest global law firm and we got as far as piloting one solution. It worked well but it was ultimately decided that we could not justify the investment as our lawyers just don't do much dictation any more. They've all learnt to type. See: http://www.venables.co.uk/digitaldictation.htm

[dan]

Alex -- a few years ago I looked into this, and Dragon had a bundle that included a digital recorder, plus all the software & cables to automatically download the recorded files, and then convert them to text! It really did work, but my boss decided he just wasn't a dictation kinda guy. He still thought it was nifty. Oh, and he's Irish, with a moderately thick accent.

[Tom Raftery]

Alex,

I do contract work for a company called Uscribe (www.uscribe.com) who facilitate exactly this kind of thing for Legal and Medical firms.

What they do is supply (Olympus mostly) digital dictaphones to the doctors or attorneys in the client company. When the dictaphones are docked, the .vox files are ftp'd to a Uscribe server, transcribed, and emailed back to the lawyer/doctor within an agreed timeframe (usually 24 hours).

I tell you this to let you know what can be done (as far as I know Uscribe do not operate in the US but there are bound to be similar companies there).

Tom

[Andrea Cannavina]

Alex,

My company has been providing assistance to Law Firm Administrators, Managing Partners and IT Managers in setting up digital dictation/transcription workflows for almost five years now.

Really, its quite odd that attorneys have not been using this technology much sooner. In fact, take a look at my recent article: "The Top Three Reasons Law Firms Aren't Using Digital Dictation Technology" on the LegalTypist Blog to get a better idea of my thoughts on the topic! ;)

In any event, your firm can implement and your attorneys, secretaries and even finance team and HR staff who rely heavily on reports and metrics benefit. There can be no up front cost if you work with a service provider who using dial in technology (your firms attorneys need merely dial a toll free number); or you can also incorporate portable recorders for those who prefer such methods. There is also inexpensive yet robust and reliable dictation software available.

Please feel free to review my site for more information or send me an e-mail or give me a buzz if you'd like to discuss in greater detail.

Take care.

Regards,
Andrea Cannavina
1-866-848-2195 x101
www.legaltypist.com

[Sunil Radia]

I am a lawyer in the UK and also run a business transcribing dictations for lawyers doctors and accountants et al (www.uktyping.com).

Outsourced Transcription is used by many hundreds of professionals on a daily basis bringing considerable advantages including substantial cost savings.

Your mother had a great idea. Unfortunately lawyers are treating this technology as they treated the fax machine when it came on the scene (yes I was about then!).

The reality is that my clients are able to use this service benefitting from digital technology without even investing in a digital dictaphone. They can now simply dial into our digital dictation servers from any telephone worldwide. We will record and transcribe their dictation and send it back to them by email.