Recently I have been experimenting at building video tutorials.  I have worked to build these for MindManager and Dragon Naturally Speaking and several other tools.

There seems to be a large market for this type of service for professionals looking for quick solutions, but there is an even bigger market for it for schools hosting distance learning degree programs.  Capella University recently put out a release about one of their professors books that highlights the need for positive feedback in learning environments.

That is a key element but the first element of that is feedback.  A student or person seeking knowledge can get a great deal of information from text but they can get even more from audio and far far more from video tutorials.  The more points of stimulation a person can receive the more they are likely to absorb, understand and retain that information.

Ideally, the information they absorb, retain and understand will be able to be synthesized into their ability to use that knowledge and information to increase their productivity.  This puts a premium on the ability to put out video tutorial or teach by example services online.

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Last week we wrote about the rookie mistakes that Apple made on the new iPhone.  We covered 19 mistakes that we noted within the first 48 hours of the release of the iPhone.  Many more mistakes have been identified since then, some of which might be able to be fixed with iPhone 2.0.

However, those were mobile phone mistakes for the most part.  Those were rookie mistakes made by a rookie mobile phone designer.

We would not have expected them to make rookie mistakes when it came to the design of the MP3 player in the iPhone, the thing that put the ‘i” in the iPhone.  Apple apparently forgot to include some of the core functionality that imprinted the Apple signature on the iPod and made it a great device in the first place.  (not the only thing but a key thing)

They purposefully removed the ability to drag and drop music onto the iPhone.  They went for a glitzy looking interface on the phone itself and dumbed down the interface between the phone to the computer to iTunes.  So its now just as tedious to synch up the iPhone with your computer as any other MP3 player with the exception of an iPod.  The iPhone might have been a great gadget if it had been as good as an iPod plus had the abilities of a good phone.

In fact it doesn’t have the capabilities of a good phone and isn’t as good as an iPhone. 

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In therapy and rehabilitation clinics it is often useful for people to work at expressing their feelings and experiences.  Some of this is done in behind closed doors with a psychiatrist, and sometimes this is done in group sessions.  Keeping personal journals and now even blog journals is rapidly becoming a good way for people to express their feelings.

Expressing feelings completely provides some relief for people that have never had the opportunity to express themselves successfully in the past.  Sometimes they do not have the ability to express themselves directly to a counselor or within a group.  A personal journal allows them the security of keeping their thoughts somewhat private while still getting many of the benefits of self expression and disclosure.

There are many drug rehabs  that enable and encourage this type of behavior but sometimes the patients do not have the typing or even the writing ability to express themselves clearly and in the way they intend.  Utilizing a voice recognition program like Dragon Naturally Speaking can provides patients with a stress free and easy way of capturing their thoughts almost as fast as they come into consciousness.  They can then rapidly gain the ability to record their thoughts on a computer or even on a blog.  They may not be able to type, but now they can also communicate through mediums such as email.

The goal of this type of therapy is to let thoughts flow freely without burdening or stressing a patient out with the effort and level of work required from writing with a pen or pencil or typing on a keyboard, acts that can be very intimidating for people that do not have this skill. 

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Nuance the company behind the top voice recognition software, Dragon Naturally Speaking, now supports Salesforce.com with their voice recognition software.  The combination of Salesforce.com with a voice recognition input system will open the door for the type of productivity gains in the sales world that have been propelling the legal and medical world.

Sales people and sales support staff will now be able to update customer records and detailed customers notes using voice recognition from Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 9 provides users with the ability of capturing words at a rate of 160 words per minute with an accuracy rate of 99% (96% if a handheld recorder is used instead of using a microphone with a computer or laptop.   Its amazing just how much a $99 - $199 program can save so much time for its users. 

Just think how much you could get done if you could type 3 times as fast and never get tired.

Nuance - News - Press Releases - 2007

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