UNLIKE the changeover to digital TV, you do have a choice whether to convert to digital dictation. If you don’t, however, what you regard as quaint eccentricity is likely to ensure that you attract the epithets ‘dinosaur’ and ‘Luddite’ and possibly worse.
There really is no reason for delaying a change to digital dictation. It is inexpensive, easy to install and the training time required is minimal.
Moreover, the technology is tried and tested, and it brings with it benefits for both you and your secretary in terms of both clarity of sound and flexibility of working.
There are many types of hardware to choose from. The two main types of digital dictation equipment that I favour are made by Phillips and Olympus (see for example http://www.olympus.co.uk/consumer/2581_2618.htm), but ranges are also made by Grundig and Sanyo among others. They all make a range of recorders and transcription kits with a foot pedal for the transcribers.
No upgrade needed It is possible to equip a fee-earner with a recorder and a secretary with a foot pedal for under £300 plus VAT. Naturally, the more sophisticated the recorder, the higher the cost. Whole bespoke systems, supplied by companies such a BigHand, are also available.
The cost I have mentioned above includes all the software you will need, and installation is straightforward. There should be no need for an IT upgrade, especially if you are running Windows XP or Vista.
An average recorder will give you a minimum of five hours dictating capacity, which is more than enough even for the most verbose among us!
The software installation normally takes around 30 minutes (less if it’s just a recorder), and training will be an additional 30 minutes for each fee-earner and secretary. Much of what you will learn will be broadly familiar anyway from the use of the old analogue recorders and foot pedals, so it’s not like having to get to grips with some vast manual that you might get with a new accounts package, for example.
The kit itself is widely available (John Lewis sell some models) and because there is no tape (just a chip) there is less to go wrong than with a conventional analogue recorder. Most manufacturers supply their equipment with at least a 12-month warranty.
The real advantages will become immediately apparent once you have installed the software and begun using the hardware.
No longer will you have a pile of tapes strewn around your secretary’s desk because you will be creating a digital voice file (DVF) instead.
That file will have a consistently better voice quality than the analogue tape, and if used properly you and your secretary will be able to view on the computer exactly what work is outstanding, prioritise individual pieces of work that have been dictated, and attach messages against them. It also means that moving work from one secretary to another on days of travel disruption and/or sickness is no more trouble than a couple of mouse clicks.
Attach it Another advantage of creating a DVF is that, just like your holiday photos, you can attach that file to an email and send it anywhere for transcription.
So, for example, you could send it from your home to your secretary at the office, or from the office to your secretary who may be working from home.
Another alternative is to send the dictation to an outsourcing company, which will arrange for the dictation to be transcribed and returned to you within an agreed time scale. You can send the dictation from your business meeting in the Seychelles, on site after an inspection, or from court if the wireless links are available. The possibilities are endless, but what it does mean is that you can have much more flexibility about when and where you work, and how quickly you can get your work turned around.
Many who have adopted digital dictation have seen some of these benefits already, and increasing numbers see the broader benefits in terms of managing costs within their organisations.
There is an increasing number of firms that are taking advantage of the benefits of enabling valuable space to be occupied by fee-earners and moving the administrative functions to a lower-cost location, potentially reducing rental costs, salaries, tax and NI bills as well.
Warm glow This is one area of technology to embrace with abandon, not to shy away from. Nobody has yet given me a sound reason for not changing over, and I can assure you that there are many former doubters basking in the warm glow that they have felt being able to tell colleagues and clients alike that that vital document was actually dictated poolside in Phuket and delivered the same day. Go on – take the plunge!