Tag: strong

NVRA President: NCRA STRONG and Stenographic Writers Can Join Us for Real Institutional Support!

From National Verbatim Reporters Association President Patrick Stephens:

Hello, reporting community!

For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Patrick Stephens. I have the pleasure of serving as the current president of the National Verbatim Reporters Association – no, the V is not for voice! The association strives to cater to the needs and wants of voice writers and machine writers alike. 

In the past few months, I’ve become aware of some concerns machine writers have regarding a committee they’ve poured a lot of their time, energy and hearts into, the STRONG Committee. I wanted to write a piece to let you know that your concerns did not fall on deaf ears at the NVRA.  First, presidents in most societies have the right to disassemble and rearrange committees that are NOT standing committees of a society. Removing a standing committee, though, requires the voice of the members, as it would constitute a Bylaws amendment, and, in a lot of instances, an amendment to an association’s Articles of Incorporation. Because of this, it is my belief that the NVRA’s Legislative Issues Committee would be the perfect place to work toward addressing these complicated and critical issues, as the committee reports to the entire NVRA Board of Directors and is not subject to removal on the wishes of one person.

“AI lacks the capacity for contextualization that humans possess.”

  • NCRA White Paper, 2023.

Who would understand this more so than the voice writer?  While voice writers use    Dragon Professional software, it is a tool, just like steno theory is a tool to produce the words. With these tools, there is always a human in control discerning and making sure that speech is transcribed correctly.   Speakers, homonyms, dialects, parentheticals and punctuation must be transcribed correctly, and nothing replaces the human mind as the only proven method that can do so. With a human, the transcript certification has been a single point of quality assurance, as the reporter swears that the transcript is a truly verbatim record.  Even if AI could certify a transcript, can we as humans truly trust it?  AI systems are owned by corporations; individual reporters are not. Most certifications tell the reader that court reporters are not financially tied to the parties involved in the case.  Furthermore, court reporters have an ethical obligation to tell parties if the deponent or parties in the case are related to them or if there is a conflict of interest. AI will have none of these responsibilities. 

Voice writers use voice codes, which are comparable to brief strokes and pen-writing. It is the same thing as a human being having control of steno strokes, which is a theory and a program just as a voice writer’s theory uses Dragon Professional, sometimes referred to as “oral stenography”.  Additionally, computer-aided transcription (CAT) software we all use aid the theory/method that we use. For machine steno, CAT software utilizes the theory to make words; for voice, the CAT software utilizes Dragon’s speech recognition engine to make words. 

In steno, a stroke is written, the stroke goes to the theory and looks for that specific stroke and selects the correct word; voice writers say a word, it goes to the speech recognition engine (Dragon) and makes an educated guess of what was said. *

If a machine writer makes the correct stroke, the right word will appear.  Because voice writers dictate to Dragon’s speech recognition engine, which is an imperfect AI, if a mistake is made, the voice writer can correct it in real-time and the correct word will appear.

“The leading speech recognition tools misunderstand Black speakers twice as often as white speakers,” wrote the research team. “To close the gap, we must create more linguistically diverse and inclusive datasets.”

  • NCRA White Paper, 2023.

I would argue that you should just use a court reporter. Accents and dialects are converted by the court reporter continuously and daily. The voice writer’s input in this context is critical for the AI to run effectively, given these differences in accents and dialects.  Any speech recognition engine is simply a program that will take sounds, run it through its vocabulary base and make an educated guess at the words you said.  

“Court reporters, whether practicing machine or voice stenography, have the opportunity to work together to protect the profession we love so much. Our ability to be the person to certify the record – not a transcriber from a far-off land or a computer algorithm – is one of our strongest selling points, not to mention real-time and read-backs! We have a duty to the record; we have certifications and ethical obligations we must meet to protect the record. Working together toward a common goal can build bridges and increase momentum toward greater understanding of what we do and why we love our profession.”

  • Tori Pittman, (Machine/Voice Writer – NVRA Education Committee & Director)

Of note is that only the machine writer and the voice writer pass certification exams at the same speeds, scores and test durations, with both national exams being validated by credentialing entities, and many states use these certifications as an entry requirement for licensure, what we’ve all come to know as reciprocity.  It’s time to combine our efforts in hopes for a better future for the students and working professionals we’ve come to know and support! 

In conclusion, voice and machine writers all know the ubiquity of artificial intelligence in this modern age. Voice and machine writers work around the flaws in automated speech recognition every day and are uniquely positioned to speak out on its pros and cons.

NVRA’s Legislative Issues Committee, a standing committee that cannot be disbanded by incoming presidents, is being given a new mission:  Court reporters of both modalities will come together to investigate and recommend legislative action that will ensure that technology is working for the communities we serve under the supervision and direction of certified court reporters only. We will work to build a coalition with other professionals concerned with the application of AI in their own fields, and together, make our voices heard.

Let this be a call to those ready to make a difference in the future of our profession.  The National Verbatim Reporters Association is prepared to give its committee and general members the institutional support needed to make changes to ensure that reporters reap the benefits of technology and that its harm is eliminated.


For more details and information regarding this committee of NVRA, feel free to E-mail us at legislation@nvra.org.  If you’re interested in membership, please visit us at NVRA.org.  Please note that if you’re an RPR seeking to join the NVRA, the deadline to submit your application for RPR reciprocity with the NVRA’s CVR needs to be received by December 31st, 2024.   Please E-mail nvramembership@nvra.org to begin this process.

From Christopher Day, Stenonymous.com:

I think this is a clear sign that everyone in the industry knows what was done to NCRA STRONG was wrong. I think the NVRA is willing to get behind its reporters, give an actual budget, and not mothball important initiatives. To my allies over at the National Court Reporters Association, consider picking up an NVRA membership today and getting involved. I see a real chance for change and an organization that’s willing to do what must be done to grow and create a healthy, enduring profession. This is also an opportunity to join a committee that cannot be easily disbanded, like Mr. Stephens made clear.

I offer this message for download below so that it may be shared more easily.

Docx:

Patrick Stephens MessageDownload

PDF:

Patrick Stephens MessageDownload

Stenopalooza was POWerful

It’s going to be old news to all who were able to attend, but yesterday’s Stenopalooza was great. I can only speak to the courses I was able to attend, but I noticed something very special about all of the presentations. All of them blended together with nice and overarching or connected themes of releasing fear, making smart and data-driven decisions, adapting, and learning new skills. The videos of these are going to be available to people that registered, as far as I understand, and it’s impossible to touch on every topic we hit during the 8 hours of coursework, but maybe putting this out there will encourage people who didn’t register this time around to give the next webinar or CEU session a try. At the very least, take a glance at the topics and see if they’re relevant to you.

The day started off with Max Curry, NCRA’s president. He talked about letting go of fear and making smart choices. He discussed introversion, his push to overcome introversion for his professional life and career, and how that positively impacted his life. This hits home for a lot of us. There are a lot of introverts in this field. We don’t like public speaking. We don’t like marketing. We just want to do our jobs and go home. Through Max’s story, we can understand that letting go of fear and pushing past those limitations can broaden our skill base and make us better workers and leaders.  Next, I attended President-Elect Christine Phipps’s “Turning Coronavirus From Pandemic to Opportunity and Marketing Through Adversity.” Almost seamlessly, this presentation built on a theme of making smart choices. The central theme was seeing this as a time to pivot and become the person and resource your clients go to for information and service.

Then we got to the NCRA Strong POW session. I’ve been a volunteer with NCRA’s Strong committee for months now. The work that they put in prior to my joining was extraordinary. Sue Terry, immediate past president of the NCRA, introduced the Strong committee and talked a little about the work we’ve been doing. She encouraged members to research and ask questions about some of the terms and things they’d be hearing during the session. I got to have a conversation with audio forensic expert Edward Primeau. We got to briefly touch on some very important topics, like how having an objective person in the room  helps add integrity to the process of making a record, and how valuable his services are in authenticating audio. At the end of my presentation, I asked whether members would have the courage to ask questions they needed the answers to, and the stage was set for stellar presentations from Cathy Penniston & Alan Peacock, who dove into how people could educate themselves on advocacy materials and products that are found all throughout NCRA’s site, including the Strong resource library. Kristin Anderson & Rich Germosen talked about advocacy efforts they’ve made in official and freelance positions, and gave examples of grassroots advocacy. They made clear and reinforced Cathy & Alan’s theme that everyone can step up and be an advocate. Rich said something that resonated with me on a personal level, “I’m not much of a talker,” when it comes to clients. That reinforces one thing. It doesn’t matter where your strengths are, anyone can make a huge difference. There was a STRONG finish by Strong Chair Phyllis Craver-Lykken, Elizabeth Harvey, and Dineen Squillante. They discussed finding an audience, making connections, and again, gave real-world examples for attendees. We put together a social discussion group on Facebook, Steno Strong, for people to hop online and talk to us. Just do us a big favor and answer the admission questions. It’s just a way of determining who really wants to be in the group and who got caught in a mass invite.

We moved into State of the Industry by NCRA Executive Director Dave Wenhold, Max Curry, and Christine Phipps. Common themes were diversification of work and being able to pivot business and plan for times of stress. The Paycheck Protection Program was discussed alongside the fact that some associations, including our NCRA, have contracts for conventions that require them to attempt to go forward in good faith despite the current COVID-19 outbreak. Dave made it very clear that members should stay tuned for more news about the 2020 convention.  Next up, Alan Peacock & Heidi Thomas jumped in with a fantastic CART / Captioning Intro for the Court Reporter presentation. They discussed mainly broadcast captioning, the need to get the correct words and meaning out to the end user, the people who need the access captioners are providing, and even provided attendees with a list of offensive words that captioners do not want coming out on the screen by accident! I do a good amount of mentoring, and from time to time, my mentees seek information on captioning. All I can say to “old” and “new” reporters is you want to get on webinars like the ones that Heidi & Alan put together, because it’s going to help you, or it’s going to help you help somebody else.

The rest of the afternoon and evening kept up the energy. There was a presentation by NCRA Board Member and past NYSCRA president Meredith Bonn on the Power of the Positive Attitude. Meredith talked a little about how our frame of mind can change outcomes, increase productivity, and proceeded to give attendees a whole host of ways to get themselves thinking positively. Everyone in attendance got suggestions on music, videos, and activities to keep themselves positive and motivated. Motivated by Meredith’s presentation, coursetakers then got to join Lights, Camera, Zoom with Debbie Dibble, Lynette Mueller, and Sue Terry. People got to learn about optimizing their internet connection, fine-tuning their settings for streaming and remote work, and captioning without an encoder. Denise Hinxman and Kelly Linkowski finished our day with Captioning Facebook Live. They talked about bringing our services online to people who may not traditionally use it, like churches or Facebook users. They dove into using OBS Open Broadcast Software to help stream and connect people to captioning and access.

At that point, my computer decided to take itself offline, so I completely missed the Stenopalooza remote social. Maybe it’s best we don’t write about what happens at stenographer socials.

I could never do justice to the hours of work and dedication of every presenter. I’ve given a short summary here just to get people thinking about the next time they have a chance to sign up for continuing education workshops or see a class they’re on the fence about taking. I would say go for it. This was a huge confidence booster for me as member, seeing how NCRA staff put together this session, connecting volunteer and presenters with members and nonmembers that signed up for the betterment of our whole profession. The one recurring theme is that our future is largely in our hands, and by remaining positive, educating ourselves, and educating the public, we all have powers to be agents of change and pillars of community. This event truly brought out the grassroots nature of advocacy as a whole and association volunteers. The more I learn about association structure and nonprofit entity organization, the more I realize just how tricky the whole thing is, and just how talented the people who get involved in nonprofits or advocacy efforts are. I have to say I’m grateful to reporters who are able to open their schedules for advocacy and their wallets for contributions. It’s no easy task, especially at a time when many are hurting financially. Thanks to all of you for encouraging so many reporters to jump in and contribute however they can. Coming off the Stenopalooza high, I know we all can make a difference.