Education Days

Today is a day I spent immersed in an educational opportunity.  Some conventions have one or two programs that I want to do and a couple that I'd just as soon take a nap through.

The NC Verbatim Reporters Association hit a home run with this weekend's program.  A session on Word, another on Excel, a third on stress management, and a fourth on marketing.  I took over 10 pages of notes.

This day's sessions have given me a lot of tips to put into practice starting Monday!  Thank you to the meeting planners for making an effective and cost-efficient Saturday business day.

Leaps of Faith

When I had the idea of scoping for court reporters after I left the State, I thought I'd just do Eclipse scoping.  That's the software I know well.  But then I got some contacts from colleagues with whom I've become friendly over the years, and they were looking for a scopist on THEIR software.  I am up to three different CAT (computer-aided translation) software systems now.

In addition to working on Eclipse (version 5), I will be using Stenovations' DigitalCAT and Stenograph's CaseCAT (version 12). 

When I was a scopist in the early '90s, I was scoping for a handful of reporters and producing about a thousand pages a week.  I have a feeling that I'll be doing at least that much in the upcoming months.  It's exciting.

I thank my colleagues for taking the leap of faith in trusting their work to me.  I hope to live up to your exacting expectations.

And the Work Begins!

After the Labor Day holiday, I said... That's when I'll start taking work.  Well, I fudged a bit and took a short depo day in August, and a quick scope job, but that's all.  But now, the real fun and excitement begins.

I have a fairly large list of potential clients, and they range from newbie reporters (under five years) to super-experienced reporters (realtime providers with over 20 years).  The best, though, is that they're willing to dive in and go.  I've got my Eclipse folks, and because of a request for DigitalCAT, I've ordered that editing software, too.  That brings in another three (so far!) potentials.  Wow.

Now I just have to remember that I still will have time-management issues, albeit much better ones since I'm working from home and can say NO if I want to.  :)

Thanks to all the new clients.  And potential ones, too.  Looking forward to working with you.