Did Victor Borge Predict Voice Recognition Software?

Although it has been around for more than decade, speech recognition software has never really lived up to its hype. As someone who has dabbled with various incarnations from the major providers, each offering has been one disappointment after another. Consequently, I didn’t think much of a video review entitled Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide but I’m glad I took the time to watch, and so will you…

ITA-GUY-012aWhat immediately caught my attention about the review is the author, Jon Morrow, suffers from Muscular Dystrophy and armed with more than a decade of firsthand experience; I couldn’t imagine a more useful perspective. The video is rather long for a review, more than 20 minutes, but it is broken down into several sections that you can skip past if short on time.

In short, Jon concludes that the latest round of voice recognition (VR) software finally meets the hype of years past and is easy enough to use that it works perfectly well for everything from word processing to blogging to tweeting.

If you want to see an example of how it Jon uses VR software in a blogging environment, go to the 15:00 mark in the video. Everything before that is a historical overview of software/hardware development in addition to Jon’s current picks for programs and hardware.

If you aren’t familiar with VR software, one of the more striking elements is the need to vocalize punctuation. It makes me wonder if Victor Borge could have ever imagined that his Phonetic Pronunciation bit would actually end up as something not unlike the practical application of VR software. In fact, that might be a handy way to lure reluctant music directors and other such artists of a certain generation to give VR software a try for blogging (or get those program notes to the marketing department on time!).

Jon Morrow’s Speech Recognition for Bloggers – The Ultimate Guide

Victor Borge’s Phonetic Pronunciation

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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