Red Box Virtual Office Newsletter - October 2007
How to make the most of your recordings
Do you have an MP3 player, or a gadget on which you can record your thoughts, events, meetings and interviews. Do you then send those files off for transcribing but not get the information you were expecting?
Do you wonder why you get your file back with time stamps* all over it? If so, here are my top tips for getting the most out of your transcriber:
- Choose your venue wisely. Background noise is picked up by your recorder better than you may think. Coffee shops are a no-no (all that espresso machine noise in the background is enough to drive a girl to drink), as are train stations and children's play areas (I kid you not).
- Try and get a venue where you are not going to be interrupted. Unless you remember to pause your recording each time you are disturbed, you will be billed for those recorded minutes, whether there is anything to transcribe or not!
- If you are interviewing someone, make sure that both of you come across loud and clear. Test your recording before you go on, replay your voices to make sure that what you have said can be heard and, therefore, transcribed.
- On this theme, ask your interviewee to speak normally and clearly. They may be in a stressful situation, like a job interview, or speaking about something quite personal, but if they can remember that they are being recorded, then the final document will be much more worthwhile. If you are taping a number of people at the same time, place microphones strategically around the table. The guy sitting next to you will probably be recorded, but there's no guarantee that the person 6 feet away will be heard.
- Advise on the tape or in an accompanying email any strange words, names or places. This can be especially valuable if your transcriber is from out of town.
- Speak at a normal rate. Okay, so you may be paying your transcriber per recorded minute (my preferred way), but speaking normally is much easier for the transcriber to type to instead of rewinding the tape every 20 seconds to try and figure out what you said. You may want to get as much out of your transcriber as you can, but you may just end up with a document full of time stamps* where we've been unable to understand a blooming word you said.
*Time Stamps - those annoying little asterisks that will undoubtedly crop up from time to time in your transcribed document if you haven't adhered to the above!
Venue Finders
Ok, so you don't want to know that it's only 10 weeks until Christmas. However, at this time of year you may be trying to plan meetings and conferences and getting nowhere because all the great places have been taken for someone else's office party. Fear not. There are people out there that can help. Venue finding services are great. They have the contacts that you may not have access to, know about venues that are so hip they're not even listed and can get you a great last minute deal. I've used them and would highly recommend them. Above all, they save you the time and expense it takes to make contact with all these venues individually.
Venue Masters
Swift Venue Finders
Absolute Venues