I Speak Dragon to Improve my Work

Oscar G.
Oral history project on assisted medical decision making. Individuals who have made significant contributions are interviewed for between 1 and 2 hours. The end product is a digitalrecording and a transcript. The material is then assigned to an archive, where it may be studied. Conventionally a transcript is produced by a professional transcriptionist, who provides a text requiring correction with regard to proper nouns, technical terms and words misheard. If the interviewers have the necessary technical knowledge they are in a better position to produce the transcripts. With a skilled transcriptionist the process will take about 10 hours for each hour of the interview. As our transcription program (Olympus AS-2300) could be linked to DragonSpeak, the use of a voice recognition program was considered.

Such programs have not entered general practise, as to obtain the best results training in the program would be needed for each participant, particulary in our project where the voices came from all over N. America and Europe. An alternative came to mind. The interviewer could train DragonSpeak v.9. Then the digitised interview recordings would be replayed on the AS-2300 at a reduced speed depending on the rate of the individual interviewee. The interviewer should be able to dictate what is being heard, into the voice recognition program and to produce the transcript directly. There are several advantages. Once the recording has been made, it can be transferred to a suitable laptop computer and is available for immediate processing by the interviewer. The interview will be fresh in the memory and there will be less problems with mishearing or technical vocabulary than if a third party is involved.

If the program training is adequate errors will be minimal and should lessen further as the project proceeds. Accordingly with the help of the Wellcome Trust in London the necessary apparatus was bought. This included 2 Olympus digital recorders, a Latitude laptop (D620), which contained the Olympus Transcription kit ((AS-2300 ) and DragonSpeak (v9). Given the required training the sytem worked according to expectations and 24 interviews have been carried out. As this project is within the field of medicine the rules of evidence based medicine require that interviews will be compared directly using the two techniques. Thus it will be possible to quantify factors such as time saved, error rate and cost.

Lynda T.
That Christmas, I feverishly tore open the bright wrapping paper to reveal -- a box,oh, try not to show disappointment, just computer stuff. Eighteen months on, and I can now truly say that Dragon Naturally Speaking is my friend and ally at work, and actually does excite me. Over the years, the amount of report writing in my job has vastly increased, as we write more and more detailed information with regard to families who come forward to adopt. The aim is to "bring alive" a family for an Adoption Panel who have never met them before, and who have to agree their approval. At one time, I would sit down with pen and paper and write thirty or forty sheets. Then I progressed to single finger typing, gradually gaining confidence, but and making very slow progress. This coincided with the onset of M. E. which made any kind of writing extremely difficult. Dragon has changed all that!

On report writing days, I repair to my room, cup of tea and chocolate in hand, gather my thoughts, and literally watch the report grow as I speak. Of course every word is important and has to be considered carefully, but it is so easy now to change something that doesn't sound quite right, and to think of the right way to express the exact meaning I need. I am now able to put more of my energies into creating a lively and accurate report, rather than labouriously hand typing it myself. Thank you Dragon, and of course, my husband who gave me this valuable present eighteen months ago!

Chesney B.
I use DNS almost every day for my corporate communications work. It's convenient to dictate in my car on the way to work, or at any time while at my desk. If I need to dictate a structured piece of writing, I book a meeting room. It's great to get DNS to transcribe my work while I do something else. But the benefits of dication is that you get your work finished sooner because the dictation process is now so fast. My productivity has increased in the past three years to a level that I'll truly amazed at. I find that when I ghost write pieces for executives the tone I can achieve with digital dictation comes across more effectively - it's more personal, warm and sincere. Something else that I find useful is to dictate a quick draft of an article, letter, press release, speech and then use it as a base to work from. This would not be possible with handwriting or typing into my laptop. At times when I am swamped with work, I dictate almost everthing (even short e-mail replies) and just thank the creators of DNS for giving me such a useful tool. Although I have more time available now, I tend to use it to produce more.

Ian H.
The world of words has been a dark place since the dawn of my time at least, spelling; writing and reading have caused me to quail at the thought of writing reports and research articles. Now I can do what I do best which is to speak and work at the same time. Creatively writing reports or picking up the jewels from research literature. I no longer have to stop find the key board and type out the odd sounding or difficult word or the ISBN or references, which completely throws my train of thought. I just say it and my Naturally Speaking secretary amazingly nearly always gets it right. No longer do I have to stop and think how to spell a word, try to find it in the spell checker or think of an alternative word, I just say it and it appears. Thoughts that pop into my mind as I am working, just appear in my text and in the colour of the mood, who says that talking to yourself isn’t good or at least to my Dragon friend.

Evaluating or trying out something, instead of scribbling notes or trying to remember; finding a time to stop and enter my notes, then picking up where I left off or starting again and try to move on from the last stop and note take! I just do and say and my thoughts and ideas just appear, even when I’m not looking and away from my computer. Time, effort and stress are all things of the past and my work is more of a pleasure again. It’s almost like telepathy and worth every penny scrimped to pay for my intuitive secretary.

Nino M.
As a writer, one of the worst moments used to be the letdown when I realized that the first draft I had written out longhand needed to be typed. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, I can now produce a typed copy and even edit on the fly quickly and painlessly, which has actually improved my output because I'm no longer wary of that step in the process. Editing after the story is typed is also so much easier. I can sit comfortably, command, "Select ____," and do pages of revision in the time it used to take me to do paragraphs. As a teacher of teenagers with learning impairments, I can help my students transform their messy ideas into something that's pleasing to the eye, which encourages them to keep trying. Problems with spelling melt away, and they approach a new piece of writing with far less dread. It has literally given them a voice.

Guy R.
Edition: Naturally Speaking 9.0 (Preferred) Speak to any project manager and they will tell you that the biggest obstacle to being truly effective at work is addressing the sheer amount of paperwork that is required to be produced on a daily basis. Project initiation documents, weekly and monthly status reports, risk and issue logs, terms of reference documents, etc, are just some of the deliverables project managers are required to produce on a very regular basis. I am a relative newcomer to Dragon, but I have used Naturally Speaking significantly to reduce the typing overhead created by producing the above papers. Using Dragon is also more enjoyable, much faster, and less tedious than slaving over a keyboard. I am an I.T. project manager working for one of the world’s large financial service companies.

I regularly work with internal project teams as well as numerous external organisations, and as a result, I chair numerous meetings. As output to these meetings, minutes are, or were, my biggest daily overhead. There is always a need to produce these documents promptly, meaning that there is always an admin’ overhead post-meeting. However, by using Dragon Naturally Speaking, I have increased my effectiveness, reduced the drudgery of producing minutes "by hand", and given myself more time to engage with suppliers and the project teams. Using Dragon is easy. I use it both in my home office environment at the end of the day, or by voice-recording my minutes using a PDA. My PDA device allows me to quickly voice record my meeting minutes straight after a meeting has completed, and I often do this before leaving the meeting room! Typically it only takes me few minutes to review my meeting notes and record them verbally.

On return to my home office, I simply dock my PDA, copy the PDA sound file to a specific location, then Dragon does the rest, i.e. it generates a translated text file which can then be dropped into a standard set of meeting minutes. After some initial "trial and error" with PDA sound file resolution, the accuracy is now very good. So yes, Dragon Naturally Speaking has lightened my workload, made me more effective, and to such an extent that my senior management is now interested. (One of these is always four weeks behind with his meeting minutes!)

Ralph P.
I am an independent financial adviser and have been using Dragon for some years, it has had a profound affect on my life, as it speeds up processing of mundane tasks, enabling me to concentrate instead on more productive areas. In my job even the shortest question can have an extremely long answer, and the ability to produce printed text in the same format as I talk saves me hours each week, improves my service to my clients and greatly increases my productivity. Especially impressive is that I can enter into a long and detailed explanations in my e-mails, without messing about with typing, dictation machines and/or depending on other members of staff. I can unreservedly say that my original investment in Dragon and subsequent upgrades has been repaid many thousands of times over. I would say to anybody contemplating using Dragon for the first time, don't wait a minute longer to have your life transformed? This story was written using Dragon in a fraction of the time that my pathetic one fingered typing would have taken (and has only required one small piece of editing)!

Amanda B.
I have previously had an injury from RSI. In addition, in January I had a car accident. Without Dragon my work would have been much more difficult. Being able to dictate notes using Dragon software helped me considerably.

George H.
This is probably not the sort of Dragon that you're looking for, it's actually an extract from a delightful book that ought to be available to all translators into English; Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss, on page 140. How anybody can compose a story by word-of-mouth face-to-face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, “Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote No comma Sir Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quotes comma said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth period close quotes Quote Well comma I'm not comma so the point does not arise comma close quotes replied Sir Jasper twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on period. End of chapter.” Actually I wouldn’t be without my Dragon, although it doesn’t make coffee like Miss Spelvin. For the fun of it, try dictating the above text yourself using Dragon – it’s a bit tricky.

David L.
I have a nerve problem which makes my typing slowly and inaccurate. As a specialist veterinarian, I need to write detailed reports regularly and this requires consultation with written records in the files as I write. With Dragon, I can dictate extremely complex reports quickly and efficiently and with very few errors using a microphone headset whilst both hands are free to gather documents and look through the files. When I used to type the reports manually it was tedious and very time-consuming. Now it is entirely painless! Thank you Dragon!

Michael M.
I currently work with disabled students, many of whom have great difficulty producing written essays, researching information or studying in preparation for examinations and classes. I have found that Dragon can not only help those students who struggle because of physical injuries or disabilities, but that an extremely wide spectrum of students, including dyslexia sufferers, sight impaired students, students with poor memory etc have all benefited from teh wonders of dragon. Many students panic at the prospect of typing a 2000 word essay, but when asked to talk about their subject they could easily cover the 2000 words, and quite often they could double this number. I have demonstrated dragon to approximately 25 students this year alone, and many of them now use dragon every day to carry out necessary tasks during their studies. They do not all use dragon in the conventional manner; Some use it to simply get large quantities of text into a document, some use it to navigate around screens and applications because of physical problems, and of course some use it to do all of this. I usually explain that this is the beauty of dragon, it works for you, how you want it too. I think that it is safe to say that a large number of my students would have withdrawn from their course of study, or would perhaps even have been thrown off of course without the help of dragon. It has proven to be a wonderful tool, and my next year of students will again benefit from the wonders of dragon, of this I am sure!

Bill C.
I am a freelance planning consultant working from home. Basically I am lazy and impatient. I like to find the quickest possible way to do things. For years I employed a secretary and operated from an office using a microcassette recorder and dictaphone and then an MP3 with Diasonic, to dictate all my correspondence and reports. That was still a lot of work, as I had to correct the secretary's drafts. Four years ago my brother gave me Naturally Speaking 7. Best present I ever received. Within 4 months I closed my office, laid off my Secretary and moved to a home office. My productivity shot up. I now compose all my correspondence, reports, e-mails, and even spreadsheets using Dragon. One drawback of the home office is that the wife is talkative. She is upset that I talk to myself and Dragon all day. She complains that she "can't get a word in edgeways". So, my work has improved, I save money avoiding the need to employ a Secretary and pay for office rental. I even get time to play golf during office hours and my profits are up. Competitors marval at my productivity and sub-contract me to do their creative thinking and reporting. Accordingly, I no longer need to tender for contracts. For somebody as lazy as I am, that is a real bonus. Dragon has not only improved my work, but also my creativity and my life.

Victor R.
I have a publishing company and translate scientific books into English from various languages. I have been using Dragon since 1996 now (it was under DOS then). Previously, I dictated translations onto a tape recorder and tapes were then transcribed by audio typists, this was very expensive sometimes over 1200 dollars/month. With Dragon I save this money as I do everything myself and the productivity has increased enormously.

Keith J.
I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking because I cannot spell I am dyslexic in spelling. I'm not a stupid person I can read but cannot spell might sound silly to some. People tell me do you spell check but if you cannot spell how do you know if it is right. Since a phone Dragon NaturallySpeaking it has also changed my life I can now do computer courses prided investigation courses etc etc and all what is written is by speaking to the computer. Dragon NaturallySpeaking should be there to help people or cannot spell etc not just for bulls will wish to take faster. Dragon NaturallySpeaking really have changed my life.

Rajneesh B.
Dear Fellow Dragon Lovers, My story is not an interesting one but a ‘Sob Story’ and would work as a lesson to many like me. I and my wife both are Computer Buff and the our Dragon knows us better than he does its spouse. That is, it is well versed with our voices and delivers wonderful results. On one fateful evening while I was working on my PC, as a daily evening ritual I and my wife initiated an argument on a trivial matter on top of our voices. However we did not realize that there were not two but three people in the room as "DRAGON" was well awake. We carried on without realizing it for more than 15 minutes until our kids returned after playing and properly shut-down the PC. But the story doesn’t conclude here. After a fortnight my 11 year old son, out of nowhere, initiated a discussion on Breakfast table with a point blank comment, "Dad! In my opinion Mom was right on that day and you were unnecessarily shouting at her." I was taken aback by his blatantly blunt comment as he had "READ" the entire "CONVERSATION" which the "NAUGHTY DRAGON" had digitized during our ignorance. Although it was a bit embarrassing, it gave me a lesson of life that even ‘DRAGONS do have Ears’. So fellow Dragon Owners! Beware of this "Friendly Neighbourhood" as you never know when it turns a "FOE".

Kevin Anthony L.
I found that using Dragon helps in my work. I find that what I want to say flows far more easily, than trying to type it onto the PC. I first came across the software during a needs assessment at university, after doing a Dyslexia assessment via an external/independant Occupational Psychologist, at the university. I also use it for e-mails as well.

Jonathan S. -
I am in a founding partner of a city law firm where Dragon has become a way of life for us-I started back in the days of version 1 dictating word by word diligently progressed through to version 9 which is simply stunning and beyond anyone's expectations! Dragon has enabled us to grow a firm without being burden to by the overhead of secretarial support and all the consequential costs; our competitiveness stems from our ability to respond quickly and effectively, whether by e-mail or in correspondence and Dragon is central to that capability; within weeks of lawyers joining us who had no previous experience of generating their own work on of generating their own work they became converts too ! Dragon has quite simply revolutionised our practice.

Kerry C. -
In doing my research and authoring lab reports, I found the Dragon to be a force I could not do without. Most students type up their lab reports and their findings by manually typing. Their reports were far smaller than my reports. I took the habit of analyzing my data and observations, and speaking this into my microphone. I found that before I knew it, I had reports between 50 and 100 pages with little effort. The only thing I needed to clean up is the proofing to make sure the report read correctly. This made my work in writing reports much easier to such an extent that the other students were jealous.

Carl R. -
I am a lawyer specialising in gambling law. About six months ago I was contacted by a publisher to see if I would write a work about the UK's new gambling legislation. The book was to be approximately 2,000 pages, of which I would be responsible for 250,000 words of analysis. A big task, and one that I would have to complete at the same time as my normal day job. I decided to experiment with Dragon software. Within an hour, I was hooked. After only a few days I had started to develop my own commands for citations, abbreviations and numbering. But it was the speed and the increase in stamina that was most impressive. Normally, after about 10 or 11 hours, I just get too tired to type accurately (my typing rate is about 40 words per min, and slower still when I copy type). Now Dragon allowed me to do everything quicker and more accurately than before. I was sometimes able to produce more than 15,000 words of finished text in a weekend. At first, I got teased for my wireless headset with the normal jokes from colleagues about "beam me up Scotty" or ordering them a minicab -- but within a few weeks a number of my partners had approached me and, after a short demonstration, several have bought the software. I finished the whole book in six months. However, the Dragon's ability to change my working life did not stop there. A few years ago, I met my wife (who is French) and began to learn to speak a language that I had not used since schooldays. I am now fairly fluent as a speaker, but I have never read or written in French and so my spelling and grammar is absolutely terrible. I had the idea of buying the French version of Dragon software (which also comes packaged with the complete English vocabulary) and began to dictate e-mails and messages in French. I knew what I wanted to say, and Dragon did the grammar, accents, genders and spelling. I still can't get over watching French text appear like magic on the screen, which I could never possibly write myself. Now I can email my family in France. Talk about breaking down barriers. I cannot think of anything else which has had such a profound effect on my working life - a really, seriously, seriously amazing piece of kit, and for the same price as a pair of theatre tickets.

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