Transcription Services May Resemble a Drug-Induced State

Have you ever tried transcription software? It has to be one of the more entertaining texts you can read.

There are numerous programs available, and some people swear by them, but to rely on them completely, well, let’s just say, if you don’t re-read what “you” wrote and fix it, the message will undoubtedly come out like a fluent Italian person pretending to write in Chinese.

A couple years back, I had purchased one of the leading transcription software programs. I took the time to train it to my voice, so that when I recorded my keynotes and workshops, I could just plug the audio into the computer, click a button and the transcription would come out on the other end.

That’s all good in theory. In practice? Even Charlie Sheen and Seth McFarlane couldn’t make those words up. Maybe programs have improved since then, even so.

When you train the program to your voice, you are usually close to the microphone and enunciate the words into the program. But that’s not how you talk in real life.

If you spend much of your time interviewing people, the transcription software won’t recognize anyone else’s voice, especially when it doesn’t understand yours.

So after a couple of tries, I decided that transcribing is best done by personal hand-ear-keyboard. But don’t take my word for it.

The following is a snippet of a transcript of a Virtual Newsmakers hangout with Daniel Newman. See if you can get the gist of the conversation from the transcript by YouTube. It’s a fun read, actually, but I’ll stick to the video.

               0:16

               and today

0:17

their name and code has said the alexander

0:20

are proud to be featuring danielle newman

0:25

and and then entered a cm a little bit hide and harriet value a doing today

0:31

careened

0:33

uh…

0:34

mag production assistant

0:36

is roaming around so she may join us briefly as well

0:42

uh… anyway

0:44

uh… dan this is into a million men is uh… leak of founder and see

0:49

gyro at ec three which is a clown iced tea

0:52

he and communications provider

0:55

and outlet man briefly in the social media round but

1:00

through writing for twelve most which is a multi

1:04

prime contributor

1:06

uh… that you found it cracked year yesterday

1:11

myself and a shaman guinness friend of mine burned-out sort of a social

1:15

experiment about uh… two years ago connected again

1:19

and there are a lot of people that their client and boil you have people like

1:23

that bit that were are connected to you

2:20

multi readership into was everybody lifeless posts and even though they’re

2:25

not always the best written contact whatever reason the neighboring things

2:29

are born in order people upset we started as i just kind of as a as a fun

7:51

citizens are not doing a series ee capital raise raising money read about

7:55

in that makes it doing that i read about it in instructional or marijuana sorta

8:00

you’ve got star

8:02

knowing that you’re in the ward criminal

13:15

i don’t know maybe even disbanded bash and alarming right

13:20

uh… one intense for america kalman filter nomic fear of nine uteach and

13:28

immobile

The interview with Dan Newman below was streamed May 24, 2013.