Tips for Submitting to Stenonymous

It seems like a good time to reveal how I view Stenonymous in our little “ecosystem.” Yes, there’s news, entertainment, commentary, opinion, and creative writing thrown in there. It’s an information relay, bulletin board, and search engine activism machine. I want to use it to help everybody, but it’ll only be as useful as people allow it to be. So here are some pointers for people that want to self-promote or get an article in.

1. Self-promotion is easiest through the Stenonymous Facebook Group or the newly created Stenonymous subreddit. I do not censor self-promotion, I welcome it. I envision a future where associations, nonprofits, and businesses use these spaces to get word out about their events and deals. I feel so strongly about it that I’d probably even let members of the STTI Bloc post to it. If I’m going to parade around as court reporting’s “shock jock” and free speech champion, you bet I’m going to invite others. The only rule I have is please don’t spam my spaces. Once or twice a week, feel free to come in and promote, but if we’re getting blasted with the same thing day after day, people won’t feel informed, they’ll just leave, and I want them to feel informed.

2. Information. A lot of people pass me information or documents. Please let me know if you want them to be shared. Believe it or not, a lot of people pass me stuff they don’t want shared, and I generally honor their request. The only thing I’d say is if you pass me something that strongly supports my fraud claim against STTI Bloc, expect that to be shared. Also, if you email me, let me know if you want the email deleted after our exchange.

3. Stories. When passing me information, if you want a story or an article done on it, tell me. Explain to me the who, what, when, where, why, how. Let me know if you want to be named or anonymous. Give me the information I need to actually write something. If you just pass me something with no or very little explanation / no leads, I’m not going to write about it, because let’s face it, I have a full-time job and I just don’t have the time to chase shadows of stories. I apologize for the times when people DO give me adequate information and I still can’t come up with something, but I have an answer for that too.

4. Self-publishing. I can actually connect people as contributors to this blog. All I need is an email address. If I connect you as a contributor, you could write your own story and I can publish it on Stenonymous. My only real rule is it has to be something related to court reporting in some way, even if it’s an abstract concept or a new perspective. I welcome opinions contrary to mine. If I’m dragging my feet on something you deem very important, why not help me get it out there? The rule I’ll put on this is try to make whatever it is worth reading or of value. Just remember there are subscribers to the blog and they don’t want garbage in their inboxes.

That’s it. Through information dispersal, I feel we become a stronger community. We will have our disagreements, our personality conflicts, and the problems that come along with a free-information ethos, but human intelligence is on a bell curve, which means we’re all pretty close in intelligence and that given the same information, many of us will come to the same conclusions, hopefully the correct conclusions, whatever they may be.

I’m easy to reach. Just fill out the message box on the front page of Stenonymous.com or write to Chris@stenonymous.com.

Depp v Heard Steno Discussion

So the Depp v Heard trial has been dominating headlines for a while. It wasn’t good enough for stenography industry news until it started popping up on stenographer social media. Questions started to surface about a video that allegedly showed Judy Bellinger, a stenographer covering the trial, hugging Johnny Depp at an after party. There was skepticism on the part of many stenographers, and it was eventually revealed that the moment captured on camera actually occurred when Judy went to get her equipment.

An outrage story turned into a feel-good one, at least until Judy was quoted as saying some jurors were dozing off.

Image may be stolen from the Speak Up For The Record group.

Once again, stenographer social media was alight with a mix of support and outrage. For some of us, having somebody tell it like it is is cathartic. Many take issue with a court reporter commenting so publicly on specific identifiable proceedings she reported.

Now, I’m an advocate for the integrity of our profession. My personal stance is that I’ll agree with just about anyone that believes we shouldn’t be commenting much on our cases. But I have to give substantial credit, Bellinger’s managed to get more press coverage for the word stenographer than I have, and I’ve put considerable effort in.

One thing I spotted on social media? Stenographer stress. I’d like to offer some new perspectives to diminish that stress. This is a chance for all of us to go back to our mentees and professional circles and have a discussion about best practices. It’s ultimately about growth. I know many of us feel that one bad incident or “misspeaking” can reflect poorly on us all. But I’ve come to a realization that few professions have that sort of thinking, and the ones that do, such as law enforcement, have it thrust on them by media, they don’t agree and say “ah, yes, a cop did an arguably questionable thing, so we’re all questionable!” We need to let go of that mindset of absolutism for our own sanity and advancement.

As for advancement, I would propose steering the discussions toward what we tell our students. As of writing, I would propose the following:

On the initial video that showed the hug. Let our students know that there are cameras just about everywhere and that guarding against the appearance of impropriety is important. This is not to say that Judy Bellinger did anything wrong, but we still have a valid discussion in that it is a tricky thing to guard against the “appearance” of something because everyone has a slightly different bar for “appearance.” For example, my only training on guarding against the appearance of impropriety, which I had over half a decade ago, involved second guessing even shaking a party’s hand in court. There are also state and regional attitudes to consider.
On the quote about jurors dozing off, I have to say that my personal stance is to generally avoid commenting on matters I’ve taken, especially if they are identifiable. This is not to say I believe court reporters should never have or even express an opinion. Again, this is not to say Judy Bellinger did anything wrong. But there are ways to make comments about sleeping jurors without making comments about sleeping jurors. “You know, I’ve been doing this for X years, and I notice that sometimes jurors don’t appear to be paying full attention.” “What about in this case?” “I decline to comment on this case.” I’d propose going ahead and having a discussion with students about talking to the media.
On the right v wrong argument. No matter where you sit on the spectrum of any argument or debate, there’s a “reality wins” component. For an idea of how this works, we can examine my blogging. I’ve made the case many times that the pay in New York is atrocious to the point of being “wrong.” Some court reporting companies do not care and continue to pay stenographers less than $3.50 per page. The reality of the situation changes dependent upon how successful I am at applying social and/or economic pressure and not how “right” I am. Similarly, in an analysis of whether Judy Bellinger did anything wrong, being right means very little. The real challenge is in creating, communicating, and seeing through the adoption of better ways to handle similar situations. Training our students to be solution-oriented people and avoid the black-and-white, good-versus-evil thinking that grips many of us, including myself from time to time, will create better outcomes.

I have no idea what might arise as a result of the media coverage. Should new developments arise, I’ll post an addendum. Please feel free to comment below even if you disagree with my assessment! I’ve never censored a non-spam comment and don’t intend to start!

Veritext and US Legal Lied to the Public About Stenographer Shortage

Veritext, through its puppet Cooper, and US Legal, have both been lying about the stenographer shortage. How do we know? Cooper claims the problem started 8 years ago. This is objectively false. Firms 8 years ago were saying they could not pay better rates because there was a glut of reporters. Even if you don’t believe that, stenographers are 30 years behind inflation, which does not happen if a field is experiencing a shortage.

But they’ve made it even easier to tell they are lying and committing a fraud against the legal profession. Let’s see what Cooper has to say.

As you can see, Cooper claims you would need 82,000 students to enroll in court reporting training programs nationwide in 2019 and each year following in order to overcome the deficit.

What does US Legal say?

Wow. 82,000 enrollments needed and only 2,500 enrollments occurred. Sounds like a death knell for stenography. Right?

Liars. How do we know? In 2014, BLS told us there were 21,000 court reporters. From my own independent analysis of the numbers and NCRA statistics, there are actually closer to 27,000 or 28,000 court reporters. It does not matter whose statistics you use, the conclusion they’re lying remains the same. There was no shortage crisis in 2014. We have roughly the same number of court reporters today as we did back then. The 2013 Ducker Report told us that 70% of court reporters would retire over the next 20 years (2013-2033). 70% of that 28,000 is about 20,000 reporters. Succinctly, the retirement cliff we are trying so hard to fight is about 20,000 people if you trust NCRA and about 15,000 people if you trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

About 10% of people that start steno graduate. So if we had 82,000 enrollments a year, that’s 8,200 new stenographers per year. But look at what US Legal wrote again. “We needed 82,000 new students to enroll in court reporting training programs nationwide each year to overcome the impact.” If we, in fact, have 82,000 new students each year from 2019 to 2033 (15 years), we would have 1.23 million enrollments or 123,000 graduates. Our field would be quadruple the size it is today, and if you go by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly six times larger than it was in 2014.

To combat our retirement cliff of 20,000 people between 2019 and 2033, we need a total of 200,000 enrollments. That’s about 13,400 enrollments or 1,340 graduates a year, a number six times smaller than the one proffered by US Legal and Veritext/Cooper. If you’re six feet tall, that’s like me claiming you’re 36 feet tall. If we required 8,200 stenographers per year, about half of all depositions would be going uncovered right now (8,200 x 3 years 2019-2021, a gap and demand for 25,000 stenographers by 2021.)

If you accept Owler’s revenue numbers, Veritext controls about $490 million in revenue and US Legal controls about $100 million. That’s a combined total of $590 million. If you accept the Kentley Insights 2019 Stenotype Services market research report, that’s about 20% of our field, and they are using their power to destroy it.

590 million divided by 3 billion is almost 20%

Some have said: They’re lying. So what?

Well, the market preference is stenography.

Court Reporting Industry Outlook 2013-2014 Ducker Worldwide

We know from nonprofits like Protect Your Record Project that attorneys are being told they must accept digital because no stenographer is available even after attorneys order stenographers. So we know there’s some serious false advertising going on.

Previously, I was unsure if there was collusion between major players in the field. Considering that both are using similar language it seems unlikely that both have come independently to the same incorrect conclusion. It’s not like the two firms are enemies. They’ve lobbied together before.

Alliance-of-Deposition-Firms-2 Download

It seems much more likely that following fraudster Jim Cudahy’s lead via the Speech-To-Text Institute, the two companies are involved in a plot to hurt the market and rob consumers of their choice. Quite frankly, Cudahy uses his ex-NCRA credentials to lend credibility to this fraud. After all, STTI has been instrumental in creating the propaganda ruining our field. STTI was, without a doubt, created for the sole purpose of promulgating propaganda and facilitating the ongoing fraud, against its stated mission of representing all modalities in speech-to-text transcription. STTI’s lies are also easy to see through.

A gap of 11,000 predicted by 2023 according to a recent study. What study was that? None. The year 2023 doesn’t appear in the Ducker Report. At best, these numbers are extrapolated from an outdated report that could not account for the positive recruitment impact of NCRA A to Z, Project Steno, and Open Steno — initiatives that Jim Cudahy should have known about in 2019.

Unless you believe 2 + 2 = 24, the stenographer shortage is being exaggerated and exacerbated by Veritext and US Legal Support. And now you have a brief video to help explain it directly to attorneys.

Turning Omissions Into Opportunity

We’re in an interesting time. Pretty much anywhere you look there are job postings for digital reporters, articles with headlines talking about our replacement, articles with headlines talking about our angst. Over time, brilliant articles from people like Eric Allen, Ana Fatima Costa, Angie Starbuck (bar version), and Stanley Sakai start to get buried or appear dated when, in actuality, not much has changed at all. They’re super relevant and on point. Unfortunately, at least for the time being, we’re going to have to use our professional sense, think critically, and keep spreading the truth about ourselves and the tech we use.

One way to do that critical thinking is to look squarely at what is presented and notice what goes unmentioned. For example, look back at my first link. Searching for digital reporting work, ambiguous “freelance” postings come up, meaning stenographer jobs are actually branded as “digital” jobs. District courts seeking a stenographer? Labeled as a digital job. News reporters to report news about court? Labeled as a digital job. No wonder there’s a shortage, we’re just labeling everything the same way and expecting people who haven’t spent four decades in this business to figure it out. In this particular instance, Zip Recruiter proudly told me there were about 20 digital court reporter jobs in New York, but in actuality about 90 percent were mislabeled.

Another way to do it is to look at contradictions in a general narrative. For example, we say steno is integrity. So there was an article from Lisa Dees that shot back and said, basically, any method can have integrity. Can’t argue there. Integrity is kind of an individual thing. But to get to the conclusion these things are equal, you have to ignore a lot of stuff that anyone who’s been working in the field a while knows. Stenography has a longer history and a stronger culture. With AAERT pulling in maybe 20 percent of what NCRA does on the regular, who has more money going into ethics education? Most likely stenographers. When you multiply the number of people that have to work on a transcript, you’re multiplying the risk of one of those people not having integrity. We’re also ignoring how digital proponents like US Legal have no problem going into a courtroom and arguing that they shouldn’t be regulated like court reporters because they don’t supply court reporting services. Even further down the road of integrity, we know from other digital proponents that stenography is the gold standard (thanks, Stenograph) and that the master plan for digital proponents is to use a workforce that is not highly trained. I will totally concede that these things are all from “different” sources, but they all point to each other as de facto experts in the field and sit on each other’s boards and panels. It’s very clear there’s mutual interest. So, again, look at the contradictions. “The integrity of every method is equal, but stenography is the gold standard, but we are going to use a workforce with less training.” What?

Let’s get to how to talk about this stuff, and for that, I’m going to leave an example here. I do follow the court reporting stuff that gets published by Legaltech News. There’s one news reporter, Victoria Hudgins, who has touched on steno and court reporting a few times. I feel her information is coming mostly from the digital proponents, so in an effort to provide more information, I wrote:

“Hi Ms. Hudgins. My name’s Christopher Day. I’m a stenographer in New York. I follow with great interest and admiration most of your articles related to court reporting in Legal Tech News [sic]. But I am writing today to let you know that many of the things being represented to you by these companies appear false or misleading. In the August 24 article about Stenograph’s logo, the Stenograph offices that you were given are, as best I can tell, a stock photo. In the September 11 article about court reporter angst, Livne, says our field has not been digitized, but that’s simply not true. Court reporter equipment has been digital for decades. The stenotype picture you got from Mr. Rando is quite an old model and most of us do not use those anymore. I’m happy to send you a picture of a newer model, or share evidence for any of my statements in this communication.

Our position is being misrepresented very much. We are not worried so much about the technology, we are more worried that people will believe the technology is ready for prime time and replace us with it without realizing that it is not. Livne kind of admitted this himself. In his series A funding, he or Verbit stated that the tech was 99 percent accurate. In the series B funding he said Verbit would not get rid of the human element. These two statements don’t seem very compatible.

How come when these companies are selling their ASR, it’s “99 percent” or “ready to disrupt the market,” but when Stanford studied ASR it was, at best, 80 percent accurate?

Ultimately, if the ASR isn’t up to the task, these are transcription companies. They know that if they continue to use the buzzwords, you’ll continue to publish them, and that will draw them more investors.

I am happy to be a resource on stenographic court reporting technology, its efficiency, and at least a few of the things that have been done to address the shortage. Please feel free to reach out.”

To be very fair, because of the limitations of the website submission form, she didn’t get any of the links. But, you know, I think this stands as a decent example of how to address news people when they pick up stories about us. They just don’t know. They only know what they’re told or how things look. There will be some responsibility on our part to share our years of experience and knowledge if we want fair representation in media. It’s the Pygmalion effect at work. Expectations can impact reality. That’s why these narratives exist, and that is why a countering narrative is so important. Think about it. When digital first came it was all about how it was allegedly cheaper. When that turned out not to be true, it became a call for stenographers to just see the writing on the wall and acknowledge there is a shortage and that there is nothing we can do about it. Now that’s turning out not to be true, we’re doing a lot about it, and all we have left is to let those outside the industry know the truth.

Addendum:

A reader reminded me that Eric Allen’s article is now in archive. The text may be found here. For context purposes, it came amid a series of articles by Steve Townsend, and is an excellent example of what I’m talking about in terms of getting the truth out there.

Stenonymous on VICE News Tonight

About four months ago, I sat down with Alzo Slade and talked with VICE about the study that showed court reporters had only 80 percent accuracy when taking down African American English dialect (AAE). It aired 6/18/20. There’s a Youtube mirror. This study was a shocker for many because people look at our general accuracy of 95 percent, and then they look to a number like 80 percent, and it worries them. It worried me at the time, and I continued to cover it on this blog as more information came out. I was at VICE HQ Brooklyn for two hours, but only a few seconds made it into the segment, so please be understanding when it comes to what “made the cut.”

I was identified as a stenographic reporter with a lot of knowledge about the study. We all have a choice to make when approached by the press or any individual. Stonewall or try to present the facts? I chose the latter this time. A few things I would love to see more widely talked about:

AAE is not spoken by all black people. It’s a specific English dialect. I learned it also has rules and structure. It’s not “slang.”
Despite most of us having no formal training, we get it right about twice as often as the average person and 1.5 more often than the average lawyer, if you look at the pilot studies. There’s also no good alternative. AI does worse on all speakers and even worse than that on AAE. We’re talking as low as 20 percent accuracy.
In actual court cases we have some context. We don’t just take down random lines. This doesn’t prevent all errors, but it helps court reporters a lot.
We don’t interpret. People concerned with our interpretations don’t always realize that. Interpreting only matters in terms of correctly interpreting what we’ve heard. Interpretation of jurors and lawyers matters much more, which is why it’s so important for us to get the words correctly for them. We can educate people on this topic and help them understand big time.
This issue is not necessarily a racial or racist one. Mr. Slade himself read the AAE sentence on paper during the segment “She don’t stay, been talking about when he done got it.” His response was something like “what the hell is this?” Anybody can have trouble with a new dialect. I know I have heard some AAE statements and done very well, and heard other AAE statements and done poorly. I’m big on the opinion that exposure is the only way to get better.
Studies like this only highlight the need for stenographic court reporters that truly care about the record. If you meet a young person interested in courtroom equality, it might be worth having the “become a court reporter” talk. We care, and we want every single person that fills our shortage to care too.

One thing I learned from this media appearance is always keep your cool. At one point during my two hours there I felt very defensive and even a little worried they’d edit the segment in a way that was not fair to me. I kept my cool and continued the interview. That fear comes out totally unfounded! I am sure if I had overreacted, that overreaction would’ve been the face of steno, and that’s not cool!

Each stenographer is like an ambassador for who we are and what we do. A big part of what I do is getting to the bottom of things and communicating the truth about them so that each of us can go forward and be knowledgeable when the people we work with, judges or lawyers, bring this stuff up. Many of them already know we’re the best there is. The rest are just waiting for you. Your actions and excellence change the future every day. I got my five seconds of fame. Go get yours!

Addendum:

Sometime after the publishing of this article, the VICE story that I linked was locked on their website. You must select your TV provider to gain access. Also, I later learned Alzo actually aced the quiz. The reason he had trouble was because the sentence was not AAE / proper grammatically.

Stenonymous Goes (Mostly) Ad Free!

We are happy to say we’ve upgraded the WordPress plan and you should see a lot less advertisement from random sources going forward. We were particularly annoyed by the ones that advertised stuff, namely all of them. Going forward, you should only see ads at the top or bottom of blog posts, instead of being inserted every five seconds at the whims of some magic algorithm.

The main page now has an e-mail subscription button. And now is a great time to subscribe, because the rate of postings will reduce while we work on site organization and article quality.

That said, if you’d like to support the free flow of information and site improvements, feel free to head over to the fundraising page and donate directly or buy a Sad Iron Stenographer mug!

On a more somber note, we’ve gotten an uptick of anonymous emails. We appreciate anything sent in, just know that on average we try to spin things into a positive message about moving forward. We appreciate all forms of humor, but won’t devolve into using this site to bully people or make accusations without evidence.

Last note: We promise every submission is read. Though we cannot create content for every single e-mail, we encourage the expression. One reader humorously challenged us to give instructions on how to like things on Facebook. We’re going to do it just to show some appreciation for the reader and celebrate fewer ads on the blog.

First thing is first, you must watch this rendition of the Bear That Wasn’t.
Take special note that it’s almost as good as the cartoon rerun that aired on Cartoon Network during the 90s.
Then you get a cellphone or some other device with internet. Note that if you use a desktop computer, a mouse will make the whole ordeal way easier.
Head over to Facebook and find a post you want to like, but probably something from Marc Greenberg or the Scire brothers.
And then just click and/or tap like.

*EDIT 2/21/19

Notably the mobile view still seems to display ads smack in the middle of the page so serious consideration is going into turning them off entirely. You hate ads, I hate ads, we’re going to get them to behave or get the heck out.

Getting Involved: As Simple As A Like

Got an anonymous e-mail February 16. As best I can interpret it, it’s a little poke to introduce NCRA’s wide range of social media options. If there was supposed to be an attachment, it didn’t send, and I’m sorry. So, I’ll link it all and then we’ll talk about it a little more. NCRA keeps a page about its social media outreach here. They have a page for captioners. They have a page for CART providers. They’ve got a spot for freelance reporters. Legal videographers have a group. Official reporters get a warm welcome too. There’s a scopist and proofreader group. There’s a place devoted to reporting technology, AKA “the technology share.” Finally, there’s a Realtime TRAIN page. States it’s for nonmember and realtime users. Seems related to the TRAIN initiative to get people realtime and marketable.

Now I’ll come to a point about why all this matters. Support comes in different shapes and sizes. Ideas evolve in different ways. When we are all connected, sharing, and spreading information, it becomes easier to organize, learn, and engage in our respective markets. California reporters, as an example, are going to have a somewhat different experience and insight than New York reporters because we are on opposite ends of the country with different laws, licensing requirements, and professional organizations. That said, the NCRA can be a bonding place for all of us in the different areas of the field, and a way for us to get information out faster and with a lot more fanfare. While it is important for people to get involved in whatever way they can, whether that be volunteering, brainstorming, compiling information, or developing free resources for people to learn about steno, there’s a lot to be said about simply tuning in and staying a part of the network.

For example, imagine Reporter A and Reporter B. Reporter A is busy and has a hectic job, but liked NCRA’s facebook page, so NCRA’s stuff pops up in A’s feed. A sees they could use someone to write a JCR article about A’s busy and hectic job, and now A has the power to fill in that need. Reporter B has the same busy and hectic job, but B isn’t connected, never sees it, never hears about it, and never shares the tips and tricks to being good at B’s busy and hectic job.

If we’re linked in, we all have the ability to contribute. Whether or not we choose to contribute is our own business. Simply having the capability to join in a moment or movement is worthwhile and empowering. Tell everyone you know, getting involved can be as simple as a like.

WUNCRA, Knowledge Is Power, Spitballing Is Weak

Wake up, Wake Up NCRA?

It’s that time again to come out and talk about our friends at WUNCRA. Archived here. Though, begrudgingly, we’re going to have to bring out some harsh words. First the good stuff: We love information and we love rhetoric. We want an end to the secrecy that has damaged this field. We want the stenographic modality to be and remain the principal method of reporting nationally. There are legitimate things that Frank N Sense writes about, and we would like that to continue. We have made interesting connections and asked questions ourselves to specific people in the field, and we have had our concerns answered quickly. We want facts and knowledge whenever possible.

Our major problem with the way that Frank N Sense is doing business is that there is often nothing in the way of evidence. It devolves into mindless bullying and name-calling sometimes, as with the Lipstick on a Pig post. He or she denounces secrecy and wants there to be more open policies, but has a very closed gate when it comes to comments. Even in the post, which more or less accuses Stephen Zinone and his company of being an AAERT sellout, there’s a lot of words there, but there is not a single copy of this email. There’s not even proof that Stephen Zinone is a member of AAERT posted at WUNCRA, we had to find it ourselves. The author does not even offer Zinone’s full name, instead referring to him as Steve Z. The post fails to name the two or three past presidents allegedly going to the AAERT convention.

The site isn’t informing the reader what’s going on or what’s happened. This isn’t helpful to anyone who isn’t acutely aware of the immediate topic. It’s doing little more than leading its readers and followers down a dark road of negativity. We’ve hit this trap a time or two on Stenonymous where we expound on an issue that we haven’t explained for newcomers. Listen, none of us are perfect. But we need to face the truth: We have no idea where information is coming from post after post at WUNCRA. As a very astute reader told us about our own posts, without some facts and sources, it’s just words on the internet. We urge WUNCRA to put up this information every time instead of making us search for verification ourselves. This information-vacuum reporting is just a continuation of the old reporting zeitgeist of gatekeeping information. Worse still, there may be a troll at the gate. The writing is so one-sided and bleak that readers are left with hopelessness instead of solutions to move forward.

For the record, we reached out to Stephen Zinone. The response will be linked here. He rightly points out Frank’s trolling nature and explains a bit about what he’s doing. He uses steno reporters and QWERTY transcribers to provide for the consumer. He’s put out ideas about bringing down barriers to entry for steno. He makes an honest case for the fact that people who may have testing issues or inability to compete stenographically should still be able to make an income doing what they love. We believe stenography can remain the dominant method for taking the record, and should even be the only method, but there’s always likely to be at least some market share taken by the other ways. We on Stenonymous encourage stenographers to compete hard! We get the words in four or five times faster than the average typist, and have a rich history and institutional knowledge that goes unmatched by others. Even our most stinging articles against companies were not so much about the usage of recording itself, but the perceived pushing of recording over stenographers even when steno should be first. As best we can tell, Stephen Zinone isn’t doing that here.

I suppose we either will or won’t be convincing to Frank N Sense to release “more better” info in the future. Maybe we’ll convince some readers to think critically and ask questions. Maybe anyone feeling demoralized by Frank’s writings can look at this and feel ready to go out and make steno shine. We are sensitive to that writer’s position of being an anonymous person that may want to redact certain sources for any number of reasons. That admitted, we’ve had gripes in the past too. We are worried that this constant negative droning combined with the diminished effervescence of the status quo steno supporters are going to harm stenography more than help. In plain English: Offer up some real solutions or suggestions. We know you have that power to empower your audience. Give people ideas to fight and win.

In that vein, here is our own message to Zinone, Hunt, and any business owner who may be a steno ally but has decided to join AAERT to see how it might impact your business or shape the landscape: Pass us back some info. We’ll redact pretty much what you want. You can pass it through an email proxy, anonymous Imgur links, audio recordings, whatever makes you happy. But if you’re truly getting an understanding of these things and how they might impact the field, share that knowledge. Make us powerful. I’m sitting at ChristopherDay227@gmail.com. We’ll get the message out.

And to the NCRA: While we have a very different take on your message than Frank, and we don’t agree in breaking down what’s left and distributing it to members, we do think there are things to learn in terms of communication, outreach, and transparency, but you are off to a powerful start in 2019. Keep up the transformation. Don’t be afraid to admit past mistakes. Don’t be afraid to say here is a roadmap and our ideas for fixing XYZ situation. Perhaps even consider coming up with a few major initiatives, creating a board’s recommendation, announcing you’re doing all of this so people buy a membership so that they can vote, and then letting the membership vote direct on those initiatives. Make membership feel powerful, and I have a very strong feeling that membership will empower the organization. It’s a symbiotic relationship dependent on leaders solving the age-old question of how to motivate people to act. Specifically, how to get people to open the wallet and fund the future of steno legislation, education, and awareness.

To the newcomer: Welcome to the family. Steno is a huge field with a lot of opportunities. We’ve had some issues in that past leaders of steno and NCRA have thrown their support behind recording technology. Note that the NCRA’s bylaws state it is a promoter only of the stenographic medium of record making. Frank’s message is about exposing the fact that we may have obstacles to overcome. Let mine be about what you can do about it:

Join professional steno organizations. You matter.

Identify issues in your market and community.

Discuss these issues, propose solutions.

If the association is not helpful after a proposal, identify why they’re not helping. Suggest ways they can improve or identify ways to improve the proposal.

bylaws

Look at Stenonymous. It started as a stopgap to answer student questions and preserve information and has built up a following of hundreds. Lots to improve upon, but the point stands: If we could do this, anyone can do this, and if a lot of us take a stand, we will see an incredible renaissance in this field. Be a part of that!