The creator of Barbie is said to have been a stenographer. But is there a Steno Barbie? No?
Some court reporters are petitioning to change that.
I’ve already signed. Will you?
Big thanks to Denee Vadell the StenoFluencer, Rachel the Scoping Coach, and the rest of the stenographic legion/community.
Addendum:
Steno Imperium also wrote on the issue.
Had the privilege of reviewing this article in the Broadway News about our very own Joshua Edwards and the company he co-owns, StenoCaptions LLC. There’s a paywall and I must respect the owners’ copyright by law and ethics, so I can only really give snippets and commentary. But stenographers everywhere are making the news, and that’s a wonderful thing.
“This year’s unscripted ceremony marked Edwards’ fifth Tonys and — what he says — was the most liberating of them all.” In brief, because of solidarity with the writer strike, the event was unscripted. As stated in the article, reported by Ruthie Fierberg, the script is usually 200 pages long. That script is used for captioning preparation. This year, Joshua had to go in without it.
The article turns out to be a real teaching moment. Joshua explained briefs and dictionaries, as well as talking about the importance of accessibility. Towards the end of the article, he’s quoted as saying “the people who must demand a live human captioner are the consumers who depend on us, our accuracy and reliability.” I find this to be very true. If consumers do not take a stand, they will be given whatever slop providers want to give.
I don’t know if you’ll end up reading this, but thank you, Joshua, for representing and showing people that stenography is modern, capable, and ready to meet the demands of captioning consumers. There have been many in modern times that have tried to obfuscate that truth about stenographers, court reporters and captioners alike. Unfortunately for them, the truth remains the truth whether you like it or not.
And thank you, Broadway News and Ruthie Fierberg, for a great article.
If anybody has a business, nonprofit, or media enterprise to promote in the court reporting, captioning, or stenotype services market, please consider taking the time to fill out about five questions in today’s survey.
The idea is pretty simple. I’m getting better and better at creating or brainstorming ads that drive engagement. With an actual budget for this activity, we could be promoting stenotype services to the general public and lawyers, and we could run ads 24/7 and direct consumers to the businesses that fund the advertising, perhaps via a public list or rating service. We could even perform regional marketing for businesses with a big enough budget. I can also pass my funders tips and tricks on marketing for their own social media pages, particularly as I learn more. I’ll find what works and what flops, and everybody funding the endeavor will benefit from it. If the budget gets really big, perhaps monthly ads could also be taken out in the law publications around the United States.
At this point, I’m still in the research stage of the idea, but my gut instinct to keep this sustainable but inexpensive would be each business paying about $200 a month, With just 8 businesses or sole proprietors in the group, we could run pro-stenographic social media ads year-round, which I guesstimate would generate somewhere in the ballpark of 120,000 engagements. That’s 120,000 chances per year to reach potential customers or audience members. According to at least one market research report, there are at least 3,000 businesses in our field. Just 2% of those businesses paying into it could generate 120,000 engagements a month. That’s steno coming into the feeds of over 1.4 million profiles a year.
I’m willing to change things up a bit, make the front page of Stenonymous.com a tad bit more corporate friendly, and try to attract more eyes to the businesses that sponsor the ads. I tried to raise the alarms on the corporate fraud. It’s not bringing in the funding needed to continue investigating and generating public interest. It’s time to do something different and try to bring more money into your businesses and get more eyes on your hard work. If the funders are serious about this, we could even do away with Stenonymous branding entirely, but I’d need commitments.
I have something of a theory related to our field and human interaction that might shed some light on this idea. I’ve noted that people have an innate need to be heard. How many times have we watched someone speak in court against their lawyer’s advice? Have you ever seen a child or adult with something to say and nobody who’ll listen? They become depressed, frustrated, anxious, angry. We know people need to be heard. What does the market do? It solves needs. Who better to solve the human need to be heard than the captioners, court reporters, and stenographers of the world? Now, stenographers can be very expensive, and there’s no real getting around that because every hour on our machine can mean 1 to 2 hours of transcription. But let’s say we started opening our stenotype service firms up to the public at an hourly rate? Say your page rate is $5.00 and you know you get about 60 pages an hour. You can offer $300/speaking hour stenotype services to the public without losing a dime. The general public could also book reporters on weekends and create additional income.
Economically, I would hope for a few things. 1. The constant barrage of advertisement for the public would educate more people about this field and bring more people into it, ending the shortage decisively. 2. The listing could create a kind of digital marketplace that educates consumers and helps them find the best businesses™️. 3. The barrage of marketing could bring investors onto the field looking to help businesses like yours grow and service more people (more $$$). 4. The funders might be able to network with each other to cover areas hit hardest by shortage, as long as they respect antitrust law, particularly against price fixing. 5. The increase in demand for the gold standard will draw more investors to open schools, which can then use the expected retirees over the next decade to educate the next generation. 6. We could set up a feedback system where businesses could receive or view feedback from consumers, enabling businesses to improve their business and create a more competitive marketplace. 7. The number of funders could grow to the point where we are able to offer group benefits to funders, such as legal referrals, where allowed by law. Many business owners have asked me questions about the law, which I’m happy to talk about but can’t give advice on, because I’m not a lawyer. Imagine a world where you could get that simple legal advice. 8. If the number of funders goes up, there is a very real possibility of locking the price at $200 rather than watching it soar with inflation, meaning fixed-cost advertising in a world with a lot of variables. 9. Diversifying income streams for “court reporting” (bringing in general consumers and getting out of the lawyer niche). 10. Captioners might benefit from more demand if more corporate boards and business owners know CART exists. How can consumers ask for something if they don’t know about it? 11. If wildly successful, scaling up to TV ads, podcasts, or more.
As an aside, we could also pump the market with speaking tips to help make our job easier. Joshua Edwards, creator of StenoMasters, is one of the best regional speakers around. I am quite hopeful that if I presented him with a budget, he’d help us educate the public. So much of the hassle from this job comes from speakers that don’t get what we do. We can make it easy for them.
I am in an interesting position. I’ve spent the last few years learning about this social media advertising stuff through firsthand experience. It would be a dream to use that to bring additional dollars to the market. I’m the man for the job. I’ve already shown my dedication to the futures of working reporters and our students. My site already gets thousands of visitors per month. Show the world we’re open for business, and we’ll be in business a long, long time.
So now it comes down to my audience. If you know businesses, suppliers, nonprofits, independent contractors, or schools that might help fund this initiative, please ask them to fill out the survey linked at the top. Thank you.
I attended the National Court Reporters Association Town Hall today with President Jason Meadors, and boy, am I glad I did. It gave me confidence that the association and its leaders are pushing hard to represent the interests of members. The entire session was almost exactly an hour, so there’s a lot to unpack.
Present at the meeting were, as stated, NCRA President Jason Meadors, Executive Director Dave Wenhold, Max Curry, a Past President and Chair of the A to Z committee, Annemarie Roketenetz, Director of Communications & PR, and Jocelynn Moore, Director of Government Relations. The meeting started off with a lengthy discussion from Max Curry about the A to Z program, and he took the time to explain where the program started and how it was completely revamped. According to Mr. Curry, A to Z began with about 50 boots-on-the-ground programs in the states. That fell away when the pandemic happened, and most programs closed. Programs in Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota, and California all went remote, which showed that the program could be done remotely. A new vision has come into place where the program can be done remotely and all of the resources can be centralized behind the program, with fewer boots-on-the-ground programs. Eight programs will be done a year, four asynchronous and four live. This is to capture the different kinds of learners — ones that can learn on their own AND people that need interactivity to succeed.
One of the truly exciting plans was for a landing page that can be centralized that brings people back to A to Z. NCRA is planning to reach out to organizations and associations to have them host a button or link to the landing page, creating a spiderweb or net that helps catch all the people that might be interested in this wonderful career and bring them back to the NCRA’s A to Z to give steno a try. They may ask firms to donate $5 to $10 of their Search Engine Optimization budget to help bring people to the landing page. NCRA President-Elect Kristin Anderson’s Houston President’s Party will act as a fundraiser for SEO dollars to ramp up advertising about court reporting and captioning as careers.
Lisa Dennison also spoke and informed us that 15 A to Z scholarships were given out at $750 per award. NCRA interacted with ASCA, the American School Counselor Association, getting school counselors’ contact information, adding them to a contact list, and getting them information about court reporting. It was mentioned that the communications team has been working on Instagram, QR Codes, and other ways to spread the message. Reliance donated money for student memberships for previous A to Z graduates, which helped grow association membership as well.
It was mentioned that NCRA continues to work with vendors such as Advantage, ProCAT, and Stenograph. The StenoCAT iPad app, iStenoPad, was also described as a way to simplify the logistics of getting stenotypes to participants.
It was explained that last year 295 students were picked up by A to Z. Max Curry clarified that some local programs do not coordinate with headquarters, so numbers from those programs are unavailable. Ms. Dennison asked that participant lists be sent to the NCRA so that better data can be compiled.
A quote by Brianna Coppola was shared. “I have never seen or heard of another ‘career test drive’ course. It really spotlights the encouragement within the community of reporters and their love for their jobs and dedication to the field.”
Dineen Squillante asked about the possibility of reaching out to departments of labor in each state. Lisa Dennison responded that it was something that could be looked into.
2022 Program Leaders and Speakers were thanked. It’s an extensive list, and I feel they deserve the recognition.
Ms. Dennison made it clear that the door was open to anyone that wanted to reach out on A to Z.
Annemarie Roketenetz talked a little bit about plants for Court Reporting & Captioning week, and a lot about the many endeavors of NCRA. She also mentioned that a number of press releases would be made, leading up to a larger press release that will link back to all the smaller ones. This is in line with dispatching our news and events regularly, and a very smart move on NCRA’s part. Several events were mentioned. Review the Town Hall recording at the Learning Center for more, I cannot do it justice in print. Our PR and communications are in good hands.
Mr. Meadors noted that Legislative Bootcamp has been called a “money grab.” He stated NCRA does not make money on bootcamp and reiterated what an important program it really is.
Jocelynn Moore expounded on bootcamp, explaining that it is extremely immersive training on how to be effective grassroots lobbyists. She stated that the training is “going to give you all of the tools necessary to go in front of a legislator, oppose legislation that doesn’t agree with the profession, or advocate for a bill coming through. Some of the topics covered will be “politics 101,” how associations work, and how you can mobilize with other members in your state to move forward on a particular issue.
The Training for Realtime Writers Act was mentioned. It was also mentioned that it will be difficult to reintroduce this under a Congress attempting to cut spending. More information will be provided on that at bootcamp, but also more on the situation from Indiana. Participants will learn how to advocate in front of different parties and teach members to speak to legislators, because legislators do not always have all of the information we have about our field.
Ms. Moore continued on to talk about the Indiana issue. The proposed prohibition of stenographers from Indiana courts was revealed. We learned that NCRA began a grassroots campaign to find out what happened and why the proposed change was introduced. The organization has found difficulty getting information about the change, but finds the language to be discriminatory and mandatory, robbing judges of their discretion and forcing them not to use a stenographer.
It was a packed hour. My only criticism of the event would be that they ran out of time for questions. But you know what? It happens. President Meadors directed that efforts should be made to record questions asked and that efforts would be made to have them answered. Everything wrapped up with Dave Wenhold thanking the participants for coming out on a Saturday. He said that if you get any information on Indiana, you can pass it to him or Ms. Moore. President Meadors noted that just showing up and asking questions meant participants were dedicated to the profession. The meeting subsequently came to a close.
Refinement of the programs we have is going to seize the day here. Leadership is doing something very impressive. My opinion may not count for much, but I’d thank each of them for the hard work that they do and continuing to fight for this profession. It’s inspiring, and I hope reading a little about it has inspired all of you.
The Learning Center can be used to locate and view past Town Halls.
Happy New Year everyone! I wanted to provide a statistics update for the blog and some thoughts looking forward.
In 2022 there were 27,671 visitors and 48,649 views. This is a drop from 2021’s 51,423 visitors and 85,117 views. It is, however, still a massive upgrade from 2020, which saw 9,526 visitors and 15,158 views. This is in the context of a field estimated to be about 30,000 members. This was expected because funding for the blog was not as high this year and the advertising I could run for steno or consumer awareness was limited.
Due to the drop in funding, I’ve been forced to find low-cost ways to spread the message and get attention on our issues.
I even enlisted the help of a cheering crowd. They know what stenographers need, international support. They told us to never give up.
Just kidding. While I was out there promoting Stenonymous, their protest was about the Burmese people, and while I don’t mean to co-opt their movement, I did want to make a point about the importance of my work as an independent body. Everybody has an angle. Big boxes want you working for them cheaply, manufacturers want to sell you stuff, I want people reading my work. The difference between me and a lot of other “influencers” is that my angle is not purely monetary. There is a social and political component to what I do. With your continued support, either through passing me information or monetarily, this movement to defend the interests of working reporters can only grow to have real teeth.
There are indications change is coming. Some of my sources have reported New York City copy sales as high as $1.00 per page and originals upwards of $4.30 per page. This is contrasted against the situation as it was in 2010 and many years thereafter, $0.25 copies and originals as low as $2.80. What’s happened in the last 5 years to make prices quadruple? Documentation and broadcasting of how bad New York freelance reporters are getting screwed. The documentation of events in our field has a value, but media growth will have more value. If we can get it in front of every law practitioner how easy it is to edit audio, they might be less inclined to charge into digital. If we can get it in front of jobseekers that digital court reporting doesn’t have the same career options as steno, they may find their way to steno or another career that treats them better. If we can continue to gather and release data that helps players in the market make informed decisions, it may reinvigorate an industry that some feel is in decline. If we can communicate to the public that the integrity of the appeal system is contingent on the accuracy of these records, we can get more people behind our cause.
Again, have a happy and healthy new year. I’ll be doing what I can to make this one count.
Here’s the Stenonymous merch shop.
There are a lot of great choices out there, like the shop that TCRA just opened or Steno Swag. As some of you probably saw in an unfortunate social media spam incident, I’m dipping into the world of stenographer merch.
Tired of your old steno shirt?
Try something new!
Some of the designs are an in-your-face style, but there’s a little something for everyone.
The images are also available to download. If you have your own little side hustle, feel free to buy the image as your license to slap it on whatever merch you want.
We now also have a QR code that’s probably going to end up in a law office somewhere in New York City.
Still reading? Go shop. You know you want to.
Some time ago I wrote about how a quote was falsely attributed to the National Court Reporters Association, stating there’s a need for 33,000 digital court reporters by 2033. That misquote was still up in the first quarter of 2022, and I brought it up in a discussion with President Dibble. Upon checking again today, I found the quote removed. This is a win for the profession. Student consumers across the country looking into court reporting don’t deserve to be misled.
In other news, the Illinois Court Reporter Association published a document on their recent lobbying victory.
This shows the importance of reporters coming together and working for things that collectively benefit us. State and national association membership is one of simplest ways to organize and act. A big thank you to both associations for showing us that.
I have more to write on NCRA, but I need time to collect my thoughts in light of this new information. Enjoy the victory, stenographers!
There are two prevailing schools of thought when it comes to the gold standard of machine shorthand stenography in United States legal proceedings. There are those that truly believe in the standard. There are those that give it lip service, only ever talking about stenography when pressed or pressured. Of course, there’s a third school of thought in the people that can’t or won’t spend much time thinking about why we still use our chorded stenotype keyboard design over a century after its development. For the third schoolers, we use QWERTY layouts despite that design being over a hundred years old too. It’s easy to imagine why: 1. There’s a market for it. 2. No technology has come along that is more intuitive and better.
I recently had an experience where I had to pick something off of an audio recording painstakingly in transcription mode. It gave me a lot of insight into where stenography’s superiority comes from. It’s in the room control. Some people are always going to be able to speak faster than we can “write” or type. You throw a stenographer into a situation where they have no room control and the participants are speaking above the stenographer’s skill level, and what do you get? You basically get digital court reporting / recording. The stenographic notes are a useless game of fill in the blank.
For the last twelve years that I’ve been in the industry, companies have been pushing reporters to interrupt less. I get it. Just like anybody else, lawyers don’t like to be interrupted. The loudest complaints were probably from the ones that are most self-important. The companies likely sought to end complaints by telling stenographers to let the audio catch it. But every time we do that, we risk record degradation “Didn’t understand that when they said it, don’t understand it no matter how many times I replay it.” It also increases the amount of time we have to spend on the matter due to re-listening to testimony rather than having it clearly in our notes. Since many depositions go unread until there’s a motion to be filed or trial’s coming up, the number of complaints related to poor transcript quality will likely always be lower than the number of “your reporter interrupted me” complaints. This skews the world the non-reporter owned agency lives in. Make the customer happy and things will work out. Just hope they don’t need whatever was inaudible or unintelligible to make their case.
That’s a major problem for digital, and I am not the first one to write something like this thanks to Jean Whalen. You have audio monitors that may or may not know anything about legal transcription listening for issues that they anticipate the transcriber will have. By removing the ability of the person responsible for the transcript to interrupt, you increase the chance of serious errors. Throw away all my prior calculations. The answer is really that simple.
From a productivity standpoint, room control makes a big difference. I’ve timed myself no audio versus heavy audio use, and I personally can be an astounding 12x slower putting together a transcript when heavy audio use is involved. This is why collectives like Ana Fatima Costa’s Speak Up For The Record group are so vital. In some jurisdictions, there is no mandatory license. There is no legal standard. Our newbies and veterans alike are connected to best practices through the stories and experiences we share amongst ourselves and the encouragement we give each other to be better. Let that be my share: We will not be attracting anyone to this field if they’re peeling things off audio in the name of “our client doesn’t like to be interrupted.”
The Lip Service School
More mainstream legal news has been picking up on the fact that there’s an ongoing debate. I’d like to share some highlights from the article “Glitches Still Persist In Digital Court Reporting Tech” by Steven Lerner, Law360 Pulse.
It’s a very interesting time to be in court reporting because nobody knows what happens next. Do the shot callers realize they’re wasting a lot of money trying to create a market for digital court reporting and start investing in the training of stenographers that will make them consistent profits? Will there be a breakthrough technology that renders stenography obsolete? Will our shortage get worse? Will our adoption of remote technologies compensate for the uneven distribution of court reporters across the country?
The data we’ve got doesn’t point to replacement. Until there’s a magic box that does everything, humans will be required to control the room, and it never gets more efficient than someone turning the speech into text right then and there with 95% or more accuracy. I’ll speculate that technology like CoverCrow will become more polished, mainstream, and accepted in helping with stenographer shortage woes. Agencies say they’re having coverage issues, and from what I understand, CoverCrow aims to work collaboratively with companies rather than cutting them from the equation.
As it stands, stenographers have a huge say in what happens next. Why?
Last week word spread that a ruling had been made that the Judicial Branch Certification Commission (JBCC) in Texas should investigate StoryCloud. From my outsider point of view StoryCloud was or is one of those companies obsessed with cutting corners and/or cutting the stenographer/court reporter out of the deal. That business model is flawed not only because stenography is the most technologically advanced method of taking and transcribing the spoken word, but also from a legal standpoint. In some states, pretending to be a court reporter is simply illegal.
A great big thank you to Jo Ann Byles Holmgren, who initiated the lawsuit that led to this moment. She tells it better than I ever could. In short, the JBCC refused to investigate alleged violations of law. A writ of mandamus was filed to make the government do its job. A judge ruled the JBCC should investigate. StoryCloud more or less deleted its website. Perhaps this will be a roadmap for California, where the California licensing board refuses to protect court reporting consumers and regulate digital court reporting.
Click here for that raffle.
For anyone that wants the JBCC’s answer and plea, it’s here:
The response to the plea is here:
I’ll be adding a transcript of the hearing as soon as it’s available.
Following the ruling, most of the StoryCloud site was trashed in favor of a little blurb.
StoryCloud’s demise is not the only good news out of Texas. Mark Kislingbury claimed the new world record at Shaunise Day’s Fearless Stenographers Conference with 370 words per minute (WPM) for one minute at 95.4% accuracy.
I am always saying that if stenographers fight, they will win. Look no further than Jo Ann Byles Holmgren telling the government they’re wrong and winning. Look no further than Shaunise Day’s masterfully done and widely-acclaimed conference — a feat rarely pulled off by an individual unless it’s an industry veteran like Marc Greenberg (StenoFest) or MaryAnn Payonk (Empowerment). Look no further than Mark Kislingbury’s own personal triumph, defeating his former world record of 360 WPM. True failure is making no attempt to meet your goals. Until one is a true failure, one has a real shot at success.
Why Press Releases?
One of the core issues we face together in our industry is the reach of our media. For years, we allowed the big players to dominate the paid-for press release space. When journalists go to find information on our field, the mergers and announcements of those players would be just about all that was available. Our professional journal and association newsletters are very important, but communicating who we are and what we provide to the world is also important.
To this end, I’ve gotten very familiar with the EIN Presswire service. The service takes a press release in a standard format and republishes it to many sites across the internet, resulting in more potential exposure for your business, nonprofit, or event. The $100 price tag of EIN per release is pricy. I buy press releases in bulk, so I’m able to help reduce that cost to our community of stenographers and related services.
For $50, I can use my press releases to get your news out there. High expectations for the next quarter? Announce it. Congratulating one of your favorite independent contractors on an achievement? Let the world know. We have so much news in this industry that we could easily fill a newswire with our own media. If you would like to submit a press release to me, just write me at contact@stenonymous.com.
How To Do It:
The EIN system is simple. Give me a press release title and a subtitle or summary along with the city, state, and country of your release. Give me the date you want the release to go out as well.
Next, I need the body of the press release. You may also add three links to the press release by telling me the keywords in the body text and where they should link.
Next up, I need the contact information for the press release submitter. This is who you want journalists to contact if they’re interested in learning more about your announcement. I will also need the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social media link you want in your press release. If you don’t want social media links, that’s fine too.
As for stock symbol, if you have one, let me know the exchange that your company is traded on. Most stenographic corporations are privately owned, so there would not be a stock symbol.
Also, pick a quote from your press release that you would like to stand out. Short and powerful quotes are very effective at grabbing readers’ attention.
Finally, you can give me up to five images you would like in your press release, one video, and one website embed. This can draw more traffic to your content and site, and should not be overlooked.
At that point, I can send a press release preview to you for approval. I’ll also select the industry channels that make the most sense for your content.
If you want me to do the work:
I understand that some feel uncomfortable creating their own content, and I’m happy to do the work for a fee, but in order to create content, we need to set a realistic budget. If you expect me to write your press release for you, expect to spend $300. If you want to create a video together, expect the cost to be more within the $500 range. Time and effort goes into my work, and while I can’t guarantee a journalist will pick up your story, I can guarantee that the story will be reprinted across many outlets and that you will get a full report of all the reprints.
My portfolio:
I have worked on or helped distribute several press releases for Stenonymous, as well as various businesses and nonprofits. Here are some highlights:
