Save What You Love

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Save What You Love: Revitalizing the Stenography Profession

In an era dominated by rapid technological advancements, many traditional professions face the threat of obsolescence. Stenography, the art of shorthand writing, is among those endangered. This profession, which has played a pivotal role in legal proceedings, journalism, and various forms of documentation, is now confronting challenges that jeopardize its existence. Drawing inspiration from the documentary The Wild: How Do You Save What You Love?, we explore the parallels between environmental conservation and the preservation of the stenography profession.

The Decline of Stenography

Stenography, once a cornerstone of accurate and swift transcription, has seen a decline due to several factors:

  1. Technological Advancement: The only technological advancement capable of preserving traditional stenography is being developed by Advantage Software. Their Eclipse CAT software with Boost is the only solution in the industry that integrates human expertise with automatic speech recognition (ASR). Unlike other CAT software, Eclipse runs an ASR engine in the background while keeping the stenographer in control, ensuring 100% accuracy even at speeds exceeding 400 words per minute—a superhuman feat. This hybrid approach far outperforms ASR-only systems and has the potential to standardize skill levels across the profession, eliminating the inconsistencies seen today. While many companies rush to replace stenographers with untrained labor, Eclipse has been refining this technology for over a decade, positioning stenographers at the forefront of innovation rather than pushing them aside.
  2. Educational Shortcomings: The decline of stenography is further exacerbated by a lack of accessible training programs. As educational institutions phase out stenography courses, fewer students are entering the profession, leading to a dwindling workforce. Without dedicated efforts to revitalize training programs and attract new talent, the industry risks losing the highly skilled professionals necessary to maintain accurate and reliable transcription.
  3. Perception Issues: A major challenge facing stenography is the widespread misconception that it is an outdated or replaceable skill. In reality, stenographers provide unparalleled accuracy and speed in legal and professional settings—far exceeding the capabilities of speech-to-text software. Raising awareness about the critical role of stenographers in ensuring precise records is essential to preserving the profession and securing its future.

Lessons from The Wild

The Wild documents the struggle to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay and its wild salmon runs from the construction of a massive copper mine. The film emphasizes the importance of preserving what we hold dear, even when faced with overwhelming odds. This narrative offers valuable insights for the stenography profession:

  1. Recognizing Intrinsic Value: Just as the wild salmon are integral to the ecosystem and the cultural heritage of indigenous communities, stenography holds intrinsic value in ensuring the accuracy and integrity of official records.
  2. Community Engagement: The documentary showcases how community involvement is crucial in conservation efforts. Similarly, engaging the legal community, educational institutions, and the public can raise awareness about the importance of stenography.
  3. Adaptation and Advocacy: The fight to protect Bristol Bay involved adapting strategies and persistent advocacy. The stenography profession can benefit from modernizing its practices and advocating for its continued relevance.

Strategies for Preservation

To safeguard the future of stenography, a multifaceted approach is necessary:

  1. Modernizing the Profession: Integrating stenography with modern technology (such as Eclipse Boost) can enhance its efficiency. For instance, combining traditional shorthand skills with enhanced features can offer augmented, cleaner realtime, and deliver your most polished rough drafts yet that are both accurate and immediate.
  2. Educational Initiatives: Revitalizing stenography programs in educational institutions is crucial. Offering specialized courses, workshops, and certifications can attract a new generation to the profession.
  3. Public Awareness Campaigns: Educating the public and stakeholders about the importance of stenography in maintaining the integrity of legal and official records can shift perceptions and highlight its continued relevance.
  4. Advocacy and Policy Engagement: Working with policymakers to recognize the importance of stenography in legal settings can lead to supportive legislation and funding for training programs.

The Role of Community

The preservation of any profession relies heavily on the strength and unity of its community. Stenographers, educators, and advocates must come together to share knowledge, mentor newcomers, and promote the profession’s value. Creating networks and associations can provide support, resources, and a collective voice in advocacy efforts.

Conclusion

The challenges faced by the stenography profession mirror those depicted in The Wild. Both involve the potential loss of something valuable due to external pressures and changing times. However, as the documentary illustrates, with recognition, community effort, and adaptive strategies, it is possible to protect and revitalize what we cherish. By implementing these lessons, we can ensure that stenography continues to play its vital role in our society.

Published by stenoimperium

We exist to facilitate the fortifying of the Stenography profession and ensure its survival for the next hundred years! As court reporters, we've handed the relationship role with our customers, or attorneys, over to the agencies and their sales reps.  This has done a lot of damage to our industry.  It has taken away our ability to have those relationships, the ability to be humanized and valued.  We've become a replaceable commodity. Merely saying we are the “Gold Standard” tells them that we’re the best, but there are alternatives.  Who we are though, is much, much more powerful than that!  We are the Responsible Charge.  “Responsible Charge” means responsibility for the direction, control, supervision, and possession of stenographic & transcription work, as the case may be, to assure that the work product has been critically examined and evaluated for compliance with appropriate professional standards by a licensee in the profession, and by sealing and signing the documents, the professional stenographer accepts responsibility for the stenographic or transcription work, respectively, represented by the documents and that applicable stenographic and professional standards have been met.  This designation exists in other professions, such as engineering, land surveying, public water works, landscape architects, land surveyors, fire preventionists, geologists, architects, and more.  In the case of professional engineers, the engineering association adopted a Responsible Charge position statement that says, “A professional engineer is only considered to be in responsible charge of an engineering work if the professional engineer makes independent professional decisions regarding the engineering work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional engineer’s physical presence at the location where the engineering work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the engineering work.” If we were to adopt a Responsible Charge position statement for our industry, we could start with a draft that looks something like this: "A professional court reporter, or stenographer, is only considered to be in responsible charge of court reporting work if the professional court reporter makes independent professional decisions regarding the court reporting work without requiring instruction or approval from another authority and maintains control over those decisions by the professional court reporter’s physical presence at the location where the court reporting work is performed or by electronic communication with the individual executing the court reporting work.” Shared purpose The cornerstone of a strategic narrative is a shared purpose. This shared purpose is the outcome that you and your customer are working toward together. It’s more than a value proposition of what you deliver to them. Or a mission of what you do for the world. It’s the journey that you are on with them. By having a shared purpose, the relationship shifts from consumer to co-creator. In court reporting, our mission is “to bring justice to every litigant in the U.S.”  That purpose is shared by all involved in the litigation process – judges, attorneys, everyone.  Who we are is the Responsible Charge.  How we do that is by Protecting the Record.

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