Quest to Build an Entertainment Empire

I am on a quest to build an entertainment empire.  The world of entertainment cannot fulfill the demand for programming on TV.  Most every network rely significantly on reality TV and the quality of entertainment has dropped dramatically. 

Consumers meanwhile have developed more sophisticated tastes and demand better entertainment.  So I’m working to grow and entertainment empire that can fulfill that demand with hundreds of thousands of writers and actors and comedians and musicians.

2 Point 4 Children Case Study

I’d like to give you an example of a great British televeision program that was taken off the air after running for about eight years.  The show was called 2Point4 children and it aired from about 1991 until 1999.

I know of the show because a good friend of mine married one of the actresses from the show.  Her name now is Kim Dodge and she goes by the nickname K T Dodge and even has a blog of the same name. 

K T Dodge is Kim Benson from 2Point4 Children

On the show, 2Point4 Children she was known as Kim Benson and worked as a British Comedy actress for many years playing on Grange Hill in the late 70’s and working on many more shows since.

Today, many TV shows end before their time, due to the fact that the writers often times extinguish their effort on working the same material.  I believe that with an army of many more writers from all around the world, shows could enjoy a much longer life span and characters such as Kim Benson’s Christine could even be expanded out more to get people interested in the different angles and twists that character development could take when a cadre of writers really puts their best foot forward.

Kim Benson as Christine - A Character that Could have Been Developed More

Kim Benson appeared as Christine starting in season 2 and running through the end of 2Point4 Children, but those appearances like many other actors and actresses on the show could have been grown out even more, developing a number of twists and plot opportunities that a typical linear television program has been limited to in the past.

That linear thinking surrounding television programs is rapidly going to come to an end as more people demand more television programing of high quality.  Developing television character universes following characters like Kim Benson’s Christine and others from 2Point4 Children will enable multiple groups of writers to work on the same universe of related shows, co-mingling ideas and plot opportunities and greatly expanding the potential of a television franchise.

Example of 2 Point 4 Children Excerpt (doesn’t included Kim Benson’s Character)

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Last week, I rapidly received an email from Nuance with my custom vocabulary.  I had run a program for a month that assessed my speech patterns.  I then uploaded that to Nuance and they made a custom profile of my vocabulary.

I downloaded it from their website and then followed their instructions to install it on my machine.

The thing is I could not tell which profile it was when I go to pick it on my machine! 

I can’t tell if I’m using my old vocabulary or the new one, because it seems to append the new information to an existing Dragon Naturally Speaking ‘User’. 

I name my user with my own name Brett Bumeter, plus I have a backup called Brett Bumeter 2.  When I added the profile to Brett Bumeter 2, it created something called Brett Bumeter 2 Old.

But neither Brett Bumeter 2, nor Brett Bumeter 2 Old look  . . . New.  So I’m running Brett Bumeter 2 on Dragon Naturally Speaking, but I do not know if I’m using the right user or not.

lol

This is a beta program and so this type of confusion is to be expected, but I need to find out on Monday how I can install the new vocabulary and use it with the assurance that I am ‘Using it’.  Then I can figure out if it actually works better or not!

Here’s some images from the installation of the Dragon Naturally Speaking Custom Vocabulary.  There were a couple instances, where I felt like I was guessing during this process.

First I had to find the right file to click on to install it (after unzipping the file)

The run.bat file is the right one, and opens up a dos window before running a program (nice to still see something that requires a dos window these days.  Takes you back in time . . .)

here’s that DOS window I was talking about, especially for those of you to young to know what DOS is.  (Pronounced DOSS , like Dog with an Aussie, no G and no eeee)

I had a 50 / 50 chance of picking the right choice here, I picked yes.

Another fun choice, 33% chance of getting it right.

I think this is where it created Brett Bumeter 2 Old

Hurray Success! . . . . or is it?

here is where I was stymied

So at this point I start using Brett Bumeter2.  I might try running this again and putting it to Brett Bumeter, but first I’ll make a back up of Brett Bumeter and call it Brett Bumeter 3.  Then I’ll have Brett Bumeter(with the new custom) Brett Bumeter 2 with the custom , Brett Bumeter2 old no custom, and Brett Bumeter 3 old no custom.

I think . . . ??? 

I guess there is a reason why companies do not use beta testers for things like cars. 

Can you imagine beta testing a car?

Here Joe, we want you to test drive this rough version of a 2004 Mustang, let us know if you can’t find the brakes easily. . . .

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Several months back I was using a number of

typing test programs to attempt to measure just how fast Dragon NaturallySpeaking could capture my words.  I had forgotten about it, however I had cranked up to speed on Dragon NaturallySpeaking and decreased the accuracy.

There is actually a slider tool within the options that enables you to do this.  Over the last couple of months I seem to have noticed a slight degradation of my quality and had chalked it up to my laptop getting old or something.  But I came across a tip to adjust the speed and accuracy settings with a slider bar and after making the correction I’m seeing a very big improvement in my accuracy.

When I’m composing words for things that are right, I don’t necessarily need to be able to speak at 160 words per minute, but I do need to be accurate and so I just slid down one notch and I’ve seen a huge improvement.

Here’s how you can do the same thing:

1. Go to your tools menu
2. then you’ll need to select the options item
3. next you’ll need to pick the miscellaneous tab
4. Halfway down the window you will see the option that offers up speed versus accuracy
1. 
5. choose the level that best suits your needs, if you need things to be a little more accurate I’d advise moving one notch at a time and trying it out, and the same goes for trying to get a faster response. 
6. Once you’ve made your selection hit apply and then the okay button and you’re done!

Maven’s in Las Vegas

Next month I will be traveling to Las Vegas for BlogWorld, bloggers from all over the country will be turning out for this particular trade show, which is actually combined release three possibly for different trade shows in the one big trade show.This time around I won’t be staying at Paris Las Vegas, but instead I’ll be splitting my timeat two different hotels, tonight at the Stratosphere and two nights at the Hilton an even balance of economic savings and convenient location.

If you happen to be planning to make the trip to blog world, please feel free to drop me a line, I’d be happy to meet with you at the show.

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Back in August, I started using a program from nuance for Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  The program is supposed to capture information about my speaking habits and later on down the road,  I will upload those files to know wants where they will custom create a new profile for Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

That was back at the end of August and it’s been a month and a half and I’m still running this program collecting data about my speaking habits.  The data collector seems to slow down my system a little bit and in general makes Dragon NaturallySpeaking a little bit less stable. 

I very much want to try the customize Dragon NaturallySpeaking lexicon, but I’m really getting tired of having an unstable program on my computer.  The thing is you have to wait for the program to say that you’re ready and that you’ve collected enough information.  It says that it’s supposed to be 10 hours worth of data, but that seems to be a misnomer.  I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking everyday for month and a half and I still haven’t hit 10 hours.  How is that possible?

There is no way to manually upload the file yourself, you had to be queued up to do it by Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  If I were using some other tool or product, maybe an air gun or something like that from Ingersoll Rand air tools and they offered a way to customize my tool sets that I could paint a car faster or nail a house together quicker, I’d expect to see and understand a definite into the trial.  A date or something, and with a software program I really wish it had some way to show me just how close or how far away I was as I’m sacrificing efficiency to use their trial program.

So I guess I’m probably give this another couple of weeks and then I’m probably going to turn it off if I don’t hit that magical 10-hour number.  Regardless I’ll keep you posted in case anybody else wants to try this, consider me your Dragon NaturallySpeaking guinea pig.

Maven Mapper’s Information » Nuance Offers Free Custom Vocabulary Program to existing Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Users

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This evening I had an interesting conversation covering the topic of whether or not people intrinsically look for, want or even accept faster ways to learn information, manage knowledge or gain wisdom.

Often times we might day dream that we want to be able to absorb and manage information like a bionic sponge, but if given the opportunity to actually learn something faster or more effectively, it has been my limited experience that many people shy away from the opportunity opting instead to continue with their known way of doing things.  Its often not the most practical decision, but their choice to learn faster better and more effectively is one that must break through the status quo.

It seems to me that many people forego this opportunity.  I’ve seen it in law, in college, in business, in passing relationships with caregivers or even once with a Scottsdale real estate broker.  Some people prefer and choose to remain where they are as opposed to improving themselves.

1. Where are you? 
2. Do you actively work to increase your ability to learn?
3. Do you see others that avoid learning better learning methods or just the opposite?

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