MacSpeech Dictate Review

MacSpeech Dictate is a voice recognition and dictation system for Apple Macs. While the Windows world has Dragon Dictate, the Macosx world has so far been pretty under served in this kind of software, with all previous efforts not coming up to the standard of Dragon.

Then we hear that MacSpeech had licensed some of the wonderful Dragon technology and had built a native Mac dictation system from the ground up. This I had to try. My aching wrists and my ever-growing to-do list were begging me.

When I first heard about MacSpeech I thought it sounded like my dream of having Star Trek style computer control. As it turns out, while the system is brilliant, and far more advanced than really we should hope for, it is in fact not quite at the point where you can simply talk to the computer and have it understand your every word.

As you can see though in the video, you can talk pretty fast and have it still follow what you’re saying. The problem I have is having to think about everything consciously, including punctuation, and all that good stuff.

You can see and hear me thinking through this article and dictating it and you can see the MacSpeech reaction to everything that I am saying. Most of the awkwardness is coming from me rather than the system.


[Video may not play in email/feed so click through to view]

When you read the instructions it does tell you that you need to train the system and go through a fair bit of work to get the MacSpeech software to understand what you. In fact, in my experience it is training me that is going to be difficult, not training the software.

On receiving the package I went through the setup procedure and within an hour or less I was tweeting and e-mailing using the software. That’s pretty impressive.

My main difficulty of until now has been learning the keyboard controls and forcing myself to keep my hands off the keys. As it says in the manual you should either dictate or type, not try to do both. That is proving to be very difficult indeed!

Is it more efficient than typing? For me right now possibly not, but that is no fault of the software. It’s more about the amount of time I have dedicated to learning the system and a new approach to creating content. That said, I am certainly going to persist with it because I think it will help both my productivity and RSI.

In conclusion, I think the package is an amazing achievement and is only getting better as they release updates. Already I can see it being extremely beneficial in creating first drafts of content very quickly. I just need to buckle down and RTFM :)

How to Promote Your Events With Social Media

The other day John Haydon and I were on a live Webinar where someone asked how to go about launching and growing an event program using social media tools.

I didn’t have time to explain fully so thought I would write up the process here for you now.

  1. Start talking/tweeting about your event in advance – Building anticipation, expectation, and sharing the news is vital. People need to book diaries, and also you need to show that it is worth looking forward to – an event, not just an appointment.
  2. Add event to FaceBook, Upcoming, LinkedIn – Use all the community tools to share the event date and details, not just for logistical reasons but also social proof.Create social media event
  3. Blog, Tweet, leading up to event – Keep up the momentum and the information flow. Help grow the anticipation. You will have lots to talk about, from polls, through to adding speakers.
  4. Add opt-in to event registration – A crucial step is to get people onto an event email list, so you do not lose contact with anyone.
  5. Gather Questions – When you get the persons opt-in details, also get them to provide questions they have, these become fodder for your presentations.
  6. Go viral with send to friend and tweet-this – Use WordPress plugins, FaceBook features, Twitter, to get attendees to spread the word. Make it easy and people will bring along friends, growing your participation and also making more likely to attend and get value out of the event. People want to stay consistent with their own recommendations.
  7. Decide twitter hash tag and flickr tag for your event – Attendees build further buzz through back channel discussions, so make sure these can be found by aggregating chatter around one hashtag.
  8. Use multimedia during the event - Share pictures before, during and after using Flickr tags/groups, TwitPic, Qik, FaceBook groups and YouTube channels, and encourage attendees to to the sameMultimedia social media
  9. Provide recordings and downloads – Downloads also have chance to go viral if you encourage sharing
  10. Build your list for the next event – Benefit from the “compounding” effect
  11. Follow up – Don’t leave your audience hanging. Use groups, forums discussion after event to consolidate your new community.
  12. Gather feedback for how to improve – You want each event to build on the last one, learn each time. Social media is excellent for gathering feedback.
  13. Call for Questions/Topics - Use crowdsourcing to create your next event.
  14. Deliver what people want – Start planning next event around supplied answers and you will be confident you are delivering what is needed and desired.
  15. Keep communicating – Build anticipation early, consistently and often using FaceBook, Twitter and your email list
  16. Repeat!

Two good examples of how social media can be used to promote events are ThinkVisibility in the UK and the SOBEvent in Chicago. I am also involved in a purely online series of events that are very exciting and are using social media to the max, but I can’t talk about them right now so look out for the above tips being utilized in my Twitter stream very soon!

Do you have any good tips or examples of events promoted through social media? Please share in the comments ….

How to Win Friends and Influence People With Excel

Yes you read that headline right, Microsoft Excel can help you make friends and influence people.

You wouldn’t have thought something as cold, logical, and well, left-brain as a spreadsheet could help you with something as warm and fuzzy as your social connections, but it is true! Read on …

When you are networking there are many tiny bits of information that you pick up and need to remember. I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep a mental track of it all. My brain leaks information all the time, like a … water carrying container … with holes in … um …

We all know how nice it is when someone remembers our birthday, or remembers to wish us luck before an important business apointment or speech. The people who manage to achieve this get extra credit and a social leg up.

I am not talking about being a creepy stalker or turning all amateur private dectective. That would be just wrong and just a bit disturbing.

But people do drop tidbits into natural conversation and it is cool if you pick those up. Even more important if your social connections have moved from contact or colleague to the friend category. Then forgetting is potentially damaging. Especially when you meet in person and have to introduce your friend and their spouse to others and find yourself wringing your brain for names.

Excel can’t help with on the spot recall, only your gray cells can do that, but it can help you store, organize, and collate the information. And when you have all the information in one place you can study it more effectively.

Why use Excel?

View Excel Spreadsheets on the iPhone?

Yup, did you know the iPhone could view Excel spreadsheets? Just email the spreadsheet to yourself and there it is, right in your inbox. Or use an iPhone application like “Files” which gives you WebDav file access and a file manager capability on the phone.

What kind of information should you collect?

Well, the answer is … anything useful! You never know :)

Just get down any information you can think of to begin with then evolve the spreadsheet as you go.

Check out this mind map (click to download or print)

Excel Contact Information

Here is an idea of the process:

  1. Each day take a look at your important dates to see if there is anything you need to make note of
  2. Check out your spreadsheet before a meeting, or have it on hand when online
  3. If a piece of information comes up in conversation when out and about, make a note then transfer to your spreadsheet
  4. Use facts in your spreadsheet as conversation starters or to prevent awkward silences.
  5. As always in conversations, ask more questions, you will seem more interesting if you are interested :)

Calculating Dates and Birthdays With Microsoft Excel

There are various formula functions that can help us juggle dates, especially anniversaries and birthdays.

So if you want to find the next date of a birthday, you can create the date from the day and month, by adding the current year as the year date part:

Or see how many days there are till a particular birthday, perhaps so you can sort the list with closest dates to the top:

We do this by using DATEDIF() and comparing it against TODAY() with days as our criteria.

You can see more cool Excel functions in our Microsoft Excel Cheat Sheet.

What do you think about this idea? Is this something you do already? Please share in the comments …