This one has some personal meaning to me. I suffered from a wrist injury during my stenographic education. I used all of my willpower, support system, and resourcefulness to overcome it.
So when I saw that Alejandra Salas was in the same boat, I felt obligated to help. But that’s not why I feel obligated to share.
I feel she’s come up with a unique idea that could benefit our field in unforeseeable ways. For example, consider that when I first started writing, I had no idea that this blog would evolve and capture the attention that it has. No one in their right mind would (joke intended).
In brief, she’s going to use a PNGTuber style to document her student journey, and has interesting future plans to capture brain activity via EEG, among other things.
Love or hate the art style, this is an interesting proposition. Publishing data like that may be the first step in connecting us with the scientific community and exploring new avenues of understanding what we do.
As a runaway theoretical example, say we were one day able to say with some data backing us that stenotyping was therapeutic in some way. Well, Stenograph or any of them could market that and open this technology up to many millions of people. Once people saw money in what we do, well, we probably wouldn’t be just a $3 billion industry anymore. The legal transcript demand might be fixed to an extent, but I’ve always been a firm believer in the idea that there are enough people with enough disposable income that we could market stenographic services more to the general public, corporate boards, and union meetings. For many, our fees are trivial, and the benefits of having a record vary from operation to operation.
To say it another way, our visibility problem would evaporate. This may seem farfetched to you, but of course it would, it’s a new idea.
We have a long history of helping each other. Dom Tursi taught many New Yorkers that and we’ve carried it forward throughout our lives. I think today should be no different. If you have the ability, let’s accelerate this project. If not because it’s the right thing to do, then because it brings a media style I have not seen in this field, which could bring more bright minds to “our side” of the reporting spectrum.
We can be part of the support system for that.
And Alejandra, let us know when we can buy some equity in Astrid Spirals LLC.
P.S.
(Disclosure: I had a discussion with Alejandra and another young man some time ago. When they talked about some of the science stuff they were looking into, my gut told me they were onto something, and that’s a big driver for my views today.)
(Note: If these types of submissions become more regular, perhaps we will do a monthly or weekly piece with all contribution-requesting projects. What do you all think?)
Addendum:
Some Stenonymous readers informed me the link was not working. I have tried to correct the issue. You may also try this one.