If life wasn’t challenging enough since COVID-19 raised its serpented head and forced us all into self-isolation, and lock-down, now we’re having to try and get a grip of new technologies. As with many things, people often reject change, especially when they are already anxious and unsettled, and nothing speaks of change like technology, where the only constant is change. Remember the sound your phone made when you were dialling into an internet connection via your modem? That doesn’t feel like it was so long ago for me.
While it’s tempting to put our heads in the sand for the duration and hope that things get back to a scheduled program as quickly as possible, as a transcriber, we really can’t live by a mantra of “I’m just not technology savvy,” or “I’m not smart enough to figure this stuff out.” As a transcriber, technology is our bread and butter. We are frequently our own IT team, and trouble-shooting is second nature, as should technology uptake be.
Right now, many of our clients have all gone into self-isolation and lock-down. The face-to-face research interviews, investigations, consultations, and meetings have all ceased.
But just as we’re seeing how technology is being used to enhance learning, with many of our children now shifting to learning online via their laptops, we are also seeing a positive shift towards business professionals using online technologies to continue their output. Zoom, Skype for Business, Google Hangouts, Cisco WebEx, and GoToMeeting, just to name a few, are proving to be efficient and effective platforms for conducting video and audio, or audio only interviews, meetings, and discussions. Many of these apps have inbuilt recording capability, allowing all these interviews, meetings, and discussions to be captured. In fact, it’s never been easier to conduct and record all these interpersonal interactions as it is right now, using these technologies.
So what we do about harnessing all this information? It’s up to us to help our clients understand how these technologies will not only allow them to continue to conduct their research interviews, investigations, and other interpersonal interactions, but also help them to understand how these technologies can enhance their operations. It’s really useful to capture that next meeting via Zoom so that accurate minutes can be produced from the recording. Sensitive topics may be more easily handled when people are able to interact with each other from the safety of their own homes. COVID-19 may be making it difficult for interviewees to have a support person present, but they are able to sit in safe surroundings at home, with a beloved pet close at hand should they need a cuddle from their pet dog, or the warm comfort of their cat on their lap.
We understand that these technologies are going to help our clients be more efficient through these difficult times, but also in the long run. Gone are the long commutes, where consultants and staff may have only been able to conduct 1 or 2 interviews a day due to distances travelled, then arriving home late at night exhausted. They are now able to schedule 3 or 4 interviews and meetings from the comfort of their home office.
Let us help you see how utilising and integrating these technologies into your businesses, to communicate and network with others will have a positive impact on your business.
The world will never again be the way it was. We want to be a positive part of the change that’s taking place. We are across the technologies out there, we are a place, a team, our clients can turn to for help in understanding and using these technologies. There has never been a better time to be a work from home transcriber, the horizon is wide, and the opportunities are many. We are a part of that workforce revolution.
Sonya Rawlings, CoFounder TranscribeRight
