Tag: writing

Words Warp the World — You Can Too!

Obligatory mention, we’ve had guest writers Chris DeGrazio & Deneé Vadell, as well as Cassandra Caldarella, over the last week. This is more or less why I built Stenonymous. A sharing platform. A blog for all our collective knowledge and ideas uninhibited by the politics of the field. If you have something to share, reach out to me about getting connected as a contributor or republishing your event information. I may ask for edits or more information if something is particularly likely to get me sued, but otherwise, you’ve got an ally to help spread your message. This includes corporations, associations, and all of you reading.

This is all written keeping in mind that the people that contribute to this platform with information, money, or time are an integral part of the success and “blueprint” discussed.

———————

Many speak through me as “Stenonymous sources,” and this helps us communicate ideas that could be used against individuals. The corporate climbers of the profession routinely copy and paste messages to their buddies in agencies so that agencies can retaliate against freelancers. This is not unlike what the cowards at Naegeli tried on me and other court reporters. Companies know they have a great deal of power over “solo practitioners,” and they’ll put their knee on the neck of any one individual whenever it’s convenient. And this is horrifying for freelancers. There are like 5 national companies in the United States. Despite the disgusting state of statistics on our field, Veritext reportedly has 16% of the revenue in this field and is the largest, so let’s just assume the others have carved out at least 4% each. 16 + 4 * 4 = 32. You don’t like big boxes? You could be locked out of 32% of the field’s revenue. Think about that next time you tell someone not to work for them. Think about what would happen if roughly 30% of the field tried to scramble to all the other agencies for work. Think about how difficult it would be to gain the cooperation of around 30% of reporters to even do that (accepting that that percentage may be, in actuality, higher or lower. My bet? Higher.) Our brains love easy solutions. Reality does not. There is no easy solution to “5 ‘people’ control a third of the industry that is my livelihood.”

But through me, Stenonymous sources are able to talk to you.

Insight shared from a Stenonymous source on the east coast of the United States.

Sometimes people want to be credited, or partially credited.

Insight shared with Stenonymous by Ashley, a Steno Student

Then, of course, I share my own insights, based on the very many interviews, conversations, and analyses I’ve had over the years.

Christopher Day’s musing on the Milgram experiment as it relates to modern leadership
Christopher Day’s musing on the confidence of people who are wrong.

When I was a young man, there was this debate of talk v. action. More or less it boiled down to “what you write or say online means nothing. It’s what you do that matters.” For a long time, this put me in a box of not speaking out and accepting whatever was done to me by others in the profession, rightly or wrongly. Because talking about it didn’t matter. It was only my actions that mattered. Right? After all, those older and wiser than me believed it. I’ve come to learn that talking matters a lot. Talking is the first step to action. We combine with likeminded people and come up with new information, solutions, and things that enhance our lives.

If nothing else, words change the framing of things we see and experience, thereby changing the way we think about those things, and consequently changing our actions. I’ve seen shared reality talked about in the sense of close relationships. Now imagine that in a wider, professional sense. When we shared the “reality” that the shortage was impossible to solve, things felt very hopeless. What was the point in recruiting? It wasn’t until well after I published my findings that the STTI Bloc had intentionally framed the issue to look as bleak as possible so that stenographers would give up that the National Court Reporters Association admitted Ducker’s report was outdated through STRONG and an NCRA president called it debunked. It wasn’t until after I called out the NCRA for its behavior that it released the white paper I had contributed to. It wasn’t until after I documented the Speech-to-Text Institute’s anticompetitive behavior that it got sued and shut down its website. It wasn’t until after I started publishing about the rates in New York that copy rates started to go from $0.25 to $1.00 and beyond. It wasn’t until after I spoke out against the shoddy reporting of Victoria Hudgins that the hit pieces stopped. Yeah, you can throw shade on me and say my writing and work didn’t do any of that. And you’ll even find people that agree with you.

Stenonymous.com shares a text demonstrating spitballer mentality.

But at a certain point it’s just denialism by the doomers of our profession that crave being right. “The golden age of court reporting is over.” “Tipping points are hard.” “Digital isn’t going away.” Repeated over and over by people that don’t know what they’re talking about, warping the world closer and closer to hopelessness and apathy. Perhaps we can learn something by examining the time that ChatGPT made up fake case law for a lawyer who foolishly relied on it. It’s trained off of our printed ideas, realities, and beliefs, and it can be a great asset. It can also confidently spout nonsense. At 33, I truly believe that this is a part of what makes us human. We mostly all have the capacity to be confidently wrong or unsurely correct. It’s no wonder that tools that study us pick up our same habits.

This is also very much why I take such a hard stance against propaganda meant to mislead people. It inspires them to be compliant rather than be their own people with their own ideas. What if I had simply complied with the groupthink of belief in the stenographer shortage and the futility of it all? My bet is that our median pay would fall faster. Who would that benefit? All the “people” telling you that your job is obsolete. All the “people” telling others that your job is obsolete:

Digital reporter reaches out to Stenonymous about becoming a stenographer.

NOTE: People is in quotes because “corporations are people.” This makes some sense in theory because groups of people should not lose their rights simply because they form a corporation, but in practice it’s twisted to offer more rights to corporations than people through their consolidated power (money). Succinctly, I accept the reality of the law we live under, but I strongly disagree with its everyday application.

Words are a game changer. And I genuinely feel I’ve proven that for anyone willing to explore what I’ve done. But what I’ve done is also a blueprint that tells you exactly how powerful you are. It doesn’t have to be related to court reporting. Any issue that is important to you can be given life if you are brave enough to talk about it and find others who will assist. That is a message I want to share with the world because my whole life has been dominated by people going on and on about how nothing can ever change because things have always been done a certain way, then followed by things being changed by those daring enough to change them, for better or worse. Political, family, social, and professional issues all silenced by “well, what can you do?” (🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️) In many situations in life, there is someone that stands to gain from your apathy. As we learned from Star Wars, they win by making you think you’re alone. They win by making you believe they hold all the cards. These are concepts that have existed for at least a thousand years wielded against you, often by people with money or power.

“I may be only one person, but I can be one person who makes a difference.” Vadra Francene, Age 10, Seen at a Disney World attraction

And to those that would make my fellow reporters feel they are alone, just know that your power over them has an expiration date. It turns out that reminding people again and again that they are powerful and that their thoughts and feelings are valid is terrifyingly effective at countering your power play. It turns out that when you tell people straight up “I will use my influence to make things better for all of you,” people start paying attention and contributing. It turns out that as soon as people realize that my neurodiversity apparently predisposes me to being more honest than neurotypical people, their natural, understandable bias against me being “weird” fades and they begin to trust.

Stenonymous statistics as of December 10, 2023.

STAR called for unity. Funny how the digital reporters are realizing that I’m all about unity, and they’re ready to make their voices heard too:

Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous
Digital Reporter Shares Field Insights with Stenonymous – Verification Pending As of Publication.

We are everyday people. As James McAllister said the other day: We Are Power!

And this platform continues to thrive thanks to your…

Words & Voices, Stenonymous.com

Addendum:

12/14/23, a reporter mentioned to me that it’s possible the “digital reporter,” that passed me the information in the ending sequence is actually a bot. Upon review of the profile, it’s possible this is the truth, as it contains very little public information and seems to be a newer profile. I’m uncertain why a bot would come into my network to talk about issues with digital court reporting. But if I’ve learned anything over the last few years, it’s that anything is possible.

I subsequently re-examined my private messages with this person and if it is a bot it is incredibly convincing. There were concerns about anonymity among other things.

The Plot to Control America’s Courts*

The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the companies that control the court reporting industry have been bought out by KKR and Blackstone, each now representing half of the country’s current court reporting workforce. The FTC’s Lina Khan stated in a recent press conference on the issue that court reporters were “pretty much on their own” because helping such a small industry is a “colossal waste of time and resources.”

All of this happened simultaneously with a change in state law that would allow court reporters in California to work in Texas. Opponents of the bill said that the lack of mutual reciprocity was concerning.

Local court reporter Jim Jones said “wow, my association could’ve done something about this, but all the board members were making money by selling off their businesses to the perpetrators. Who could have seen this coming?”

After the news broke, enigmatic blogger Al Anonymous posted to popular court reporting blog Steno Imperium that the wholesale purchasing of court reporting firms and ousting of professional court reporters from courtrooms was done to sway the record in big money’s favor. “Think about it,” Al wrote. “When you have transcribers that are paid pennies, desperate to keep their jobs, they’ll change anything for a buck or if they’re ordered to by their boss. Those pressures exist even in traditional court reporting circles. What hope do we have if you trade that responsibility away to a culture without ethical boundaries?”

Shortly after, a Staten Island home was raided by police and the Steno Imperium blog went offline. There are no further updates at this time.

Court Reporting Company of the Year, Veritext, through its representative Jane Doe, stated, “We are pleased with this outcome. Now nobody will have to bribe judges to win appeals. They can just bribe us. All profits matter.”

*None of this is true. It’s part of Stenonymous Satire Weekends. I used to use these to expose corporate fraud in court reporting, but this time I’m doing it as more of a cautionary revisiting of the leadership vulnerability issues that I raised in the Cost of Corruption article.

The private equity model has dug its claws into everything from court reporters to emergency medicine physician staffing. If KKR and Blackstone are giving DOCTORS a run for their money, you can bet we’re all going to feel it sooner or later. But use this as a creative thinking exercise. If you continue to allow the corporate consolidation of court reporting and the alleged massive shifting of the workforce to people they’re going to pay less and treat worse, how easy is it going to be for the wealthy to influence transcripts? At least with stenographic notes, you can’t easily alter the stenographic strokes, so any lawyer could hire another reporter to read the notes and see if stuff was left out or filled in from a source other than the stenographic notes. With audio, as we know, court audio goes missing and court administrators in other states hide it by omission. Audio’s also far easier to edit than stenographic strokes.

Till next time.

Political Violence & Free Speech in America…

A store owner was killed over a pride flag not long ago. When I was a young man and throughout a nice chunk of my life, society was fairly good as a whole about condemning violence. That was sometime after the government stopped producing plans to kill its own citizens. The political landscape has definitely shifted. “Both sides” of the political landscape have elements that regard “the other side” as evil, stupid, or even inhuman. I know because I’ve seen plenty of online evidence and have even made goofy videos trying to persuade young people to get away from thinking about violence as an answer to political problems. We are forgetting, or perhaps some have never acknowledged, that we are all Americans and that while we may vehemently disagree, and in some cases nastily disagree, there is a line, and that line is unlawful behavior.

It has me thinking about my own writing. A lot of my writing is politically left to the degree we must use such labels to describe things, very much like that pride flag is often viewed as being. The concept I created for Patriots Against Corporatism hasn’t taken off yet, but I know there are right-wing people that respect that kind of stuff. They understand that America won’t function without more of the economy going to hardworking people like them, including small business entrepreneurs. The unfortunate catch there is that I may someday have elements from “either” political persuasion angry with me, especially if my following grows.

If I am ever targeted for my writing I hope that people will not lay down quietly about it. You do not need to live in a society afraid to speak. Sometimes the only thing that will stave off the threat of authoritarians of whatever political cause systematically silencing you is gathering together and shouting in one collective bellow, as we have learned from the countless movements that came before.

Those that follow me, I’m eternally grateful for your support. It really made a difference in our field. It continues to do so every day. So if I ever do fall victim to something and am not able to tell you myself, just remember how powerful you really are.

And remember that corporations and governments run cyber ops to control you and how you think about things, including your fellow Americans. That person you’re fighting with online may not be anything more than a kid from a rival country meant to sow discord among the people on the American political spectrum, because if we are fighting with each other, we’re not talking about how to solve societal issues and grow more brilliant American minds, make America a better place to work and live so that the brightest minds from all over the world immigrate here, end corruption in government, and generally how to maintain our relatively wonderful standard of living. For the world governments, this makes America weak, and there are a lot of them that want us weak. For the corporations, our infighting stops us from realizing that some of the richest people on Earth are assholes that abuse that power and they really don’t care if you have a nice life, they care about propagandizing you so that you act in a way that 1) benefits them, such as voting for their guy or 2) combats others that would stand against them deteriorating your and your families’ quality of life, a la the the constant media barrage telling you to live in fear of “them,” the political, racial, sexual, systemic, or religious “other.” These are not nice “rich” people like doctors and lawyers, they are the people who make more money in one night of sleep than you will in your whole life, statistically. These are the people that study human behavior in order to manipulate it for money.

If the neurotypical world is one where the majority of people believe that getting one over on each other is a good way to run a society, then I am quite happy to be an autist and denounce that society. But I suspect that the truth is that the majority of you do not believe in such a world. This is not inherent human nature. We do not see it ubiquitously in every country, nor do we see it in every community in our country. I believe that you believe in helping others, making an honest buck, and that there are simply sometimes social and economic reasons that that takes a backseat. This is very different from people that have all their needs and desires met and simply want more because they can have more at the expense of all else. And if that’s someday at your expense, it’ll be people just like you that save you or let you drown. If that worries you, you only need to throw the smallest of pebbles into the lake to change your reflection.

Each of you has a gift that can help humanity. I urge you to share yours with the world in the same way I have shared my writing. It is not every person’s cup of tea. Your gift may not be either. My writing has not made me rich. Your gift may not make you rich. But I live a richer and more fulfilled life than the one I lived before. I share what I share in the hopes that you will too.

Christopher Day shares his writing with the world in the hope that something good comes out of it.

Create Content for Stenonymous!

When I started Stenonymous in 2017, I had a vision of a platform where many of us would come together sharing perspectives and ideas about the court reporting/captioning and stenotype services industry. I didn’t get many people that wanted to write on Stenonymous, and I rode things out mostly on my own writing, research, and perspective.

Times are changing. While this blog is not yet the economic powerhouse that I have calculated it could become, I am in a much better place to offer prospective writers and content creators something for their time. If you’d like to create for Stenonymous, please read my pitch!

It’s Easy.
Stenonymous utilizes WordPress. I can send you an e-mail invite to become a contributor and you can sign up in a matter of minutes.

It’s Free.
I cover the cost of running the website through my own funds and donations that come in. Writers won’t be asked to pay anything upfront.

Audience.
By pairing up with this blog, you’ll have some viewership automatically. At the present time, we get about 2,000 visitors (4,000 views) a month, with large increases when the ad money is flowing in. You could go out and build your own platform, but do you need to?

Stenonymous.com Visitor Stats January 2019 to June 2022

It’s Entrepreneurial.
I’d like to work together to get writers paid and expand the diversity and depth of content available. If you can get an advertiser for your content, feel free to keep 100% of that. If I get an advertiser for your content, let’s split that revenue. If you get people to send you money directly, feel free to keep 100% of that. If you want to use my platform to take payment, utilizing the new “Sell Downloads” feature, I can also track how many people want to support a specific writer, and I’d be willing to give you 90% of what comes in for you. For an example of how this works, check out the page I made myself. Since we are early in the process of building Stenonymous, writers that come in will be helping me shape the direction the blog takes with regard to feel and monetization.

There Are Few Limits.
If it’s about court reporting, captioning, or stenotype services, it pretty much flies. While I do intend to exercise some discretion, and wouldn’t publish “just anything,” I don’t want this to necessarily be an echo chamber where every writer agrees with me. That’s boring.

If you’re considering giving it a try, feel free to write me at contact@stenonymous.com and we’ll get you set up. Thank you!

Press Release Services by Christopher Day – Stenonymous Network

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:

NYSCRA CRCW 2021

NYSCRA CRCW 2022

Skill Test Fundraiser

StenoMasters

MGR Reporting

Steno 101

Protect Your Record Project

Identimap

Stenonymous 2022

Stenonymous Becomes StenoKeyboards Affiliate

You can now purchase StenoKeyboards products through my affiliate link. If you do, send me a picture with your product(s), a receipt, and your preferred rebate method, and I will give you 2% of your sale price back by PayPal, Zelle, or Venmo. This rebate is being offered by me as an incentive to use my affiliate link and is not backed by StenoKeyboards.

Contact@Stenonymous.com

*Offer is only good for as long as my affiliate link is active.

Breaking Barriers? Open Steno Leads the Way

Yesterday, many professional stenographers came together with hobbyist stenographers from the Open Steno Project. Open Steno proponents presented how they have brought the cost of trying and using steno from the thousands of dollars it used to cost down to about $100. One example of this is the Uni, which is now, according to members from the community, in mass production mode. Please get involved in the various Open Steno communities, but especially the Discord chat. For anyone that missed the meeting, you can watch it here. The entire event was put together over the course of one week by Dineen Squillante, and without her, the event would not have happened. Captioning was provided by Open Steno founder Mirabai Knight. Moderation was performed by Quaverly Rothenberg. Check out my timeline of events below:

11:00 Dineen Squillante begins the meeting.

14:47 Mirabai Knight speaks about how the community has continued to grow and captions at the same time.

15:56 National Court Reporters Association President Debbie Dibble spoke about the honor of the invitation to join and noted she would be taking vociferous notes.

17:00 British Institute of Verbatim Reporters President Leah Willersdorf gave us a breakdown of BIVR’s membership.

18:06 New York State Court Reporters Association President Dom Tursi presented to us the history of machine shorthand. 1827 in France is the earliest attempt to mechanize shorthand that Dom has been able to unearth.

After that lineup, the Open Steno Community members spoke and shared with us several important things.

28:30 Software Engineer (140 WPM) Sammi De Guzman gave us a great introduction. Sammi spoke about the financial barriers of getting into stenography and talked about how the Open Steno Project has eliminated or substantially reduced those barriers through cheaper hardware and free software (Plover). She also mentioned how this barrier reduction allows everyone to use stenography and not just those in court reporting and captioning. Sammi also mentioned the large ecosystem of plugins/tools available.

38:14 Aerick, Open Steno Content Creator, spoke about hardware options for hobbyists. Aerick has over a thousand subscribers on Youtube!

44:00 Peter Park from Stenokeyboards.com spoke next. Peter is currently a law student, and he designed the Uni keyboard mentioned at the top. Peter spoke about his background and how he got into stenography.

48:45 Abby, a high school student and hobbyist stenographer (60 WPM), talked about the Stenogotchi by Anodynous.

51:26 Crides, a keyboard designer, spoke about embedded steno and a custom-made steno engine that can run on keyboards, as well as its pros and cons.

54:10 Ted Morin, a software engineer and Lead Developer of Plover, was up next. Ted created Art of Chording, just one way for people to learn stenographic theory for free. Ted spoke about the challenges of people learning stenography on their own. Ted also talked about Steno Arcade!

1:00:15 Joshua Grams, hobby programmer and the creator of Steno Jig was our next speaker. The exercises create pseudo-sentences that keep users on their toes and vary what they hear.

1:03:34 Diana MacDonald (Di), creator of Typey Type, spoke about the history of tools that existed to learn when she started and her creation of Typey Type for accessibility.

1:07:26 Sammi De Guzman spoke again. Fun fact, the meeting is hosted on her YouTube! Sammi got into various tools available, including Steno Explainers.

1:12:16 Quaverly Rothenberg, a stenographic transcriber and intern reporter, was up next and spoke about more tools for learners, including Anki flash card decks and Plover cards. She also spoke about Kaoffie’s steno font tool, recently used by Dineen Squillante with Team Turtle. We also got to hear about stroke frequency analyzer tools by Emily (EPLHREU).

1:28:13 Sammi gave us more information about decentralizing stenography and creating accessibility to more people in more places. The work of various creators was mentioned at 1:34:17, including SanSan by Sammi, Hachidori by Kaoffie, and Thai Steno by Parnikkapore.

1:34:32 Jim McAllister spoke about his work to create theory in other languages, including Spanish, and introduced his Spanish theory language group on Facebook.

1:41:16 Elizabeth Tremmel, an official court reporter in Ramsey County, Minnesota was the next presenter. She spoke about the Plover demographics survey. She spoke about schools and community, and how Plover helped her achieve working speed. One very important point made by Elizabeth was that NCRA’s testing policy is ambiguous.

I need to hijack the point Elizabeth made. Because of the nature of the Open Steno Community’s work, they need clarification on “special accommodations” and “stenographic writer” in NCRA testing. “Stenographic writer” is incredibly important because of the wide variety of writers that Open Steno has produced. Thanks to modern technology, people can swap out square keys for steno keys on an NKRO keyboard and perform stenography. When I took board training, I learned that associations don’t exclude vendors because that might cause antitrust complaints. If OSP has to crowdfund a lawyer to engage with NCRA to get these answers or represent people lost in the shuffle, it will be a dark day in the history of our profession. I have to ask my colleagues to help legitimize this community rather than illegally exclude it. I believe that’s where we are headed, but I must insist we be proactive: Let’s not be shy about pushing for a better, more-inclusive organization.

1:51:54 Matt “Sooty” Morgan spoke about his quest to teach himself stenography and how scarce stenographic writers are in Australia. Without Plover, Matt would not have made the professional milestones he’s made. He has hope for the future of shorthand in his country thanks to Open Steno. Knowing the

1:54:12, Stanley Sakai joined us from outer space. He talked about teaching himself stenography, the infancy of Plover, and how that evolved into work with coding an app for accessibility and captioning at Coachella with Isaiah Roberts. In Stanley’s words, any way someone can appreciate our craft is a beautiful thing.

2:07:30 Aerick came back and showed off the Discord chat, which professionals are encouraged to join.

After the conclusion of the Open Steno presentation, professional stenographers got a chance to speak.

2:13:16 Yvette Heinze spoke about Team Turtle and the importance of community. Main takeaway? Working together and surrounding ourselves with people that challenge us to learn and grow is vital to the profession’s survival.

2:19:21 Rich Germosen spoke about the court reporting practice community that he runs and how they support each other and keep the drama and politics low.

2:22:18 Christopher Day got to speak about how there’s a tech buzzword going around, the democratization of technology. He pledged to use Stenonymous to boost the community. He also mentioned how dummy pages were put up to lure students away from stenography with lies published about NCRA projections.

2:26:28 Traci Mertens, a stenographer of 34 years in nearly every area of the field that works as an Official Legislative Reporter for the United States House of Representatives. We need voice writers, Plover people, and everybody on board was the core of Traci’s message.

2:30:33 Mirabai Knight was the official close to the meeting, noting how she was blown away by all of the contributions made and how she loves being able to use Plover for captioning, as she has for almost a decade.

2:32:10 Dan Glassman got to come in and explain his experiences and knowledge from the last four decades in the history of stenography. From there, the meeting floated to general discussion and Q&A.

In only one week, Open Steno pulled together this monumental presentation. That, by itself, makes it worthy of our support.

The transcript of the event is available publicly.

Notably, I failed to mention StenoMasters, a speech club open to everyone and run by my best friend, Joshua Edwards. For those that want to sharpen their skills in speaking, it’s worth the $146 first-year cost. StenoMasters is very much like Open Steno in its quest to be accessible and open. Most of the fee goes to Toastmasters, the umbrella organization over StenoMasters, and the rest goes to club expenses.

I also failed to mention Glen Warner’s Cheap & Sleazy blog. My blog, is the biggest blog in the industry commercially. Glen’s is arguably the best blog in the industry, and if you’ve never seen it, it’s time to take a look. His work inspired my work. I hope to inspire others the way he inspired me. His work in the Open Steno Community and promoting the Facebook page cannot go unnoticed.

Check Out 225 and Beyond (Beware of Busywork)

A few days ago I came across something in the Facebook feed of Realtime Rich. It was an upcoming newsletter by a new professional among us, Euan Williams. Aptly named 225 and Beyond,  it came with a bold statement. There’s a lack of quality written content out there for court reporting. Williams wants to change that. I joked, I said I object, and I signed up. As promised, the newsletter came in my e-mail today. It’s definitely worth the read.

Without stealing any thunder, it describes busywork. It describes how, in our quest to optimize our quest, we can fail to start our journey. It is something every professional and student should get familiar with, and you can read it right here. Logging your practice is also discussed, which I support.

I anticipate this becoming something I’ll blog about often. Great job, Euan. Keep up the great work!

Persuasive Writing Tips For The Stenographic Legion

I’ve received some phenomenal drafts and works from stenographers around the country. This burst of activity and people creating stuff to get each other talking and educate attorneys is great. Let’s all keep it up — and for those who haven’t yet jumped in, definitely do, there is a spot for you.

Dozens of stenographers are creating blog posts and informational flyers for attorneys, and now is the time to help each other with that.

Some common writing tips that I’ve used in my most popular posts, and what I hope will make everything you all write popular:

  • Narrow the scope. Too many topics at once gives the reader mental overload.
  • KISS your work. Keep it simple, silly. Big or sophisticated words are great, but if your piece reads like a technical textbook or manual, it will only attract readers who like that.
  • Organize. By far my own weakest point. Try to make information easy to access and process. The order you do things can make your piece look professional or chaotic.
  • Think of the audience. A lot of us are writing informational pieces for lawyers or law firms. These are highly intelligent people and we can expect them to understand what we have to say. But they’re also very busy people, meaning we can expect them to crumple up and throw away anything that doesn’t get to the point pretty fast.
  • The less you write in one piece, the more people remember and/or misremember! We don’t really get to talk much on the job so when we sit down to write we can get verbose. Verbosity isn’t inherently bad but can turn audiences off.
  • With the above in mind, writing different pieces targeted at different audiences can increase your impressions and impact the spread of your message.
  • Sales and Persuasion. A lot of what we put out is trying to convince people stenography is better. It boils down to a sales pitch with some facts and/or law thrown in. Just bear in mind that anything you state as fact ought to be fact, and anything you state as opinion ought to be opinion, or you may find your enemies discrediting you with your own words.
  • What you write can be as important as what you don’t.
  • Opinions shape markets. The best thing you can sell is an experience. If you make reviewing your writing a pleasant experience, people will come back. Same for steno. Sell it as a positive experience to use a stenographer — because it is!
  • The cheap v. good argument. We are throwing ourselves under the bus if we reinforce the notion that audio recording is cheaper than stenography. Stenographers in certain places around the country have worked for 3.65 a page or less. That boils down to close to 140 an hour. Even the most boastful transcription companies like Rev have said a dollar a minute, sometimes with upcharges for multiple speakers or terminology easily doubling the price. That 120 v 140 doesn’t impress me, and probably doesn’t impress you either. Let’s face facts, we’re better quality, same price, and any alleged savings are not going to the lawyers that purchase our time and talent. Succinctly, take note of people like Milestone, who talk about how inexpensive they are, but as of writing, don’t bother to put their price up. They’re not cheaper. They’re playing the same middleman game of hiding the price to cut the most profit from the middle.

Now we run through a few quick examples. If you are designing a class for lawyers or stenographers to take, then that is a time when you want to expound and get in depth. You’ll have, more or less, a captive audience, and it’s okay to get to the details in. If you are designing a flyer or brochure, you want it to be pretty short and sweet, relevant law and how it impacts a business or individual.

A last and final note: What you write is going to get out there. You will likely have fans and haters. What you have to remember is that if your work is receiving this attention, it is making an impact. Even if it is not yet receiving this attention, content creation takes time and energy. If you feel yourself burning out, it’s good to take a break. Feel free to jot some notes about what you’d like to write on or improve during your break, but don’t feel forced to continue a strenuous campaign of information dispersal while your energy is low.

All that’s left is to say get out there and show the world what you’ve got. Whatever your project, good writing can give it the boost it needs.