Five winning stories will be selected by a panel of judges, and the winning entrants will each receive an Amazon Kindle 2 as well as Dragon NaturallySpeaking upgrades for three years.
My law practice requires extensive drafting of pleadings and correspondence. Historically I dictated all of my writings on to a handheld Sony tape recorder. After accumulating 30-40 minutes of dictation, the mini-cassette would be given to the secretary for transcription and document assembly, a process that would take at least another hour, sometimes two. Dragon changed everything.
I now dictate on a handheld Sony (ICD-BM1) just as I did before. However, instead of recording to a tape, my voice data is digitally saved on a memory stick. After 30-40 minutes of dication, I download the data to my computer (3 minutes) and then have Dragon transcribe the data while I make a cup of coffee or run an errand (about 15 minutes). After editing the transcription, I forward it to my secretary who cuts and pastes the transcription into letter and pleading templates. She then emails me the finished documents for final review before printing. What used to take her hours with tapes now takes 15-20 minutes!
As a result of completely eliminating tape transcription and implementing this Dragaon-based transcription system firm-wide, we have substantially reduced our overhead. Because the lawyers still use the familiar handheld machines, the adjustment from tape to digital was a breeze. In my opinion, Dragon is a small investment that pays big dividends.