I attended the Stenograph Town Hall last night, and eventually, I’ll sit down and do a write up, or release a transcript, or some quirky mix of the two. Personally, I really appreciate that the company did what it did. Anir Dutta, Michelle McLaughlin, and Dan Denofsky were really brave. We can be a tough customer base to please. But at the point where a company is holding a public meeting to speak to its customer base, I think it’s safe to say they’re really trying. I applaud it. I may have good or bad comments when I’ve had some time to absorb, reflect, fact check, and get feedback from readers. I know the BlueLedge question really stood out. We’ll see. But they made it look good. If I was a neutral journalist with no background info, I’d eat it up. I know some have commented that their BS meters went off, and I felt some of that too, but I think some of that is inherent to business. It’s about making people feel good about buying from you, whether that’s competing price or relationship.
Anir Dutta said something that rocked my world. He said he was no longer Vice President of the Speech-to-Text Institute. This was surprising to me because I’m on that site frequently and he’s been listed as the vice president every time I’ve checked. So I went and checked. The site was down.
The Speech-to-Text Institute, the propaganda outfit I denounced as a fraud, is dusted from the internet. This blog still stands. It’s thanks to people like you that that happened. But since I’m roleplaying a malignant narcissist, I’m going to take the credit. I couldn’t buy the domain, so it may go back up in the future, but for now, pretty much anyone can point at their materials and say “they were accused of fraud and took their site down.” It’s true!
In all seriousness, we’ve just proven that it’s possible to dismantle fraudulent activity without law enforcement or judicial involvement. Wouldn’t that be an incredible thing for the news to cover? I guess we’ll just have to settle for more important news.
Feel free to celebrate this one with the Mechanics of War track by Xtortion Audio, from the album RAGE. They’re not sponsoring this post, but their music pumps me up enough to slay shell nonprofits used to manipulate markets. Hell March 2 does the same.
I’m pretty sure Stenograph just made court reporting history by distancing itself from the Speech-to-Text Institute and its bogus claim that the stenographer shortage was impossible to solve. Nice move.
I’m still really surprised that the geniuses running the the STTI Bloc companies didn’t just pay me to shut up or write for them. Maybe it just goes to show that as smart as they are, there are costly blind spots. I know it wasn’t the most orthodox job application, but I’m pretty sure I just proved to the world that the pen is mightier than the dollar.
Thanks again to everyone that made this happen.
Addendum:
Stenograph lived up to its promise and released the recorded town hall.
One of the questions I posed during the meeting in the Q&A section that wasn’t answered was: “Is STTI still in existence? What is the reason you’re no longer serving on the board?”
Wow! Thanks for sharing! I’ll keep this in mind for my write up.
“I’m pretty sure Stenograph just made court reporting history by distancing itself from the Speech-to-Text Institute and its bogus claim that the stenographer shortage was impossible to solve. Nice move.“ Stenograph “solved”the shortage by putting their efforts into more digitals to fill our place. So they don’t need the STTI info out there anymore
That could be true. But we’re assuming their digital recruitment has gone well. There is a very real possibility that it is not going well and that digital court reporters will realize the deception and demand answers too.
We’ll have to see how the facts play out.