December - You're kidding, right?

I was reminded yesterday that I hadn't blogged in a while (thanks, Mark P) so thought there's no time like the present.  Will I start where I left off?

September is always a quiet month for transcription.  Instead of taking the time to enjoy the breathing space, catch up on the filing, tidy the desk, we start to panic that nobody loves us any more and that we'll never do another bit of transcription again.  Luckily that didn't happen and in no time at all we were back to full on.  Laura was off in Cyprus for her sister Ashling's wedding.  They had an amazing time and here's a couple of the gorgeous photos from such a happy event.

You may remember me telling you that Jen Lannagan was helping us with the administration since Lesley moved on.  Well, as you've probably heard by now, Jen is now undertaking the role on a permanent basis - and we couldn't be more delighted to have her as part of the team.  She works with us Monday-Thursday 9am-5pm and on Fridays until 12.  We've known Jen a long time, she has transcribed with us for over five years and is a great person to have on board.  She lives not too far away from me so will be on hand to cover if we're away.   She's also very good at bringing me hot chocolate when we get together :)

October kicked off big style!  The work was flooding in and we were all hands on deck to make sure that the workflow process didn't get gummed up.  As usual you all stepped up to the plate and took on as much work as you could manage and we transcribed 28,019 minutes!

Mark, the family and I took a week off to go and visit Mark's brother in Spain.  We had a fantastic time, with great weather and food and the kids really enjoyed spending time with their aunt and uncle.   (Yes, I am officially the smallest member of the family).

Emily came and stayed in the house to look after Bo while we were away and had to deal with the postman too (he literally threw the mail at me today).  It was great to have an extra pair of hands transcribing for the week and she was certainly kept busy.

November has been a great month for clearing the feet.  I have a list of things I need to do before the end of the year as long as my arm (maybe not that long looking at the photo) so I made the decision to book Jen, Jackie and Claire to cover the QC full-time up until Christmas.  It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to work on the business rather than in it and it's great to be able to put some of the ideas that have been on the back burner into practice.  I always feel better when the admin is all up to date too.  Just need to deal with that pile of filing...

December is already shaping up to be a busy month.  Having submitted a PQQ for a tender just before I went on holiday, we heard at the beginning of November that we'd been shortlisted.  We're delighted to have an opportunity to bid and it's going to make the run up to Christmas very challenging!  Luckily we have some expert help on board in the form of Julie Caughey, a specialist in tender writing.  She's keeping me calm - so far there haven't been any tears - and we seem to be making progress.  It's giving me a chance to look at stats - which I love.  Do you know that, as of the end of November, we've transcribed 250,256 minutes this year!  That's a whopping 4,170 hours of recording.

I've also badgered [my] Mark for weeks to get our new public website up and running and it's nearly ready!  Final read through of the text and we should be good to launch within the next couple of days.  We're also in the final stages of testing our client website too.  It's fantastic!  You're going to love it!  Not quite at the stage where I can give you an exact launch date, but I've set myself the target of the beginning of 2015.

Laura and Daniel are coming over next week and it's going to be fantastic to see them.  As well as spending some time with Jen to do some staff training, we're also taking the opportunity to have a staff Christmas lunch.  It's going to be lovely to all be together - I wish you could all be there!

Laura is going to be in touch with you shortly regarding your plans for work over the Christmas holiday period.  The office will be closing at the end of the 23rd December until the 5th January but, as in past years, we plan to allocate all the work for completion during that time.  You can let Laura know your availability to help her plan accordingly.

Just wanted to welcome Jane and Anita to the transcription team - another couple of fantastic transcriptionists who we're lucky to have on board.

Right, is that enough do you think?  Another blog in January, I promise.

Take care

Dawn xx

September already

Well that was a busy August!  When we got to 7,500 minutes of transcription to be completed within ten days we did feel as if we were creaking a bit at the seams.  We’re very grateful to our clients for the work, and to the excellent transcription team for turning it all around to such a high standard, but it doesn’t do much for the stress levels.

But we survived!  The August bank holiday hit (not a holiday in Scotland, sob) and things are a bit calmer.  Lots of people on holiday at the moment, we’re getting out of office messages popping up left, right and centre as we upload transcripts back.  We should be thankful for the breathing space and the chance to catch up but no, it wasn’t long before we had the “oh, it’s a bit quiet” conversation!  That normally means a deluge of work starts arriving so we won’t be quiet for long.

Unfortunately Lesley had to hand in her notice in August.  A change in family circumstances meant that she finished with us on 21 August.  We’re sad to see her go - she wasn’t with us as long as we would have liked but she was great fun and made us smile.  Hence the call a couple of weeks ago for some admin assistance.  Luckily two of the transcription team have been able to step into the breach and provide cover for the next three months.  This will give us time to review our requirements for admin cover and decide the best way forward.  So, thanks Jen and Sam and welcome to our crazy world!

Emily has also gone back to college to do her HND.  Unfortunately her timetable means we won’t have her all day on a Friday but she’ll be about, honing her transcription skills and helping cover through the holidays.

We also have another person helping us with the quality control.  Jackie H started working with us on an ad-hoc basis in the middle of the busy period and her feet haven’t touched the ground since!  She's coped with everything we threw at her and we’re so glad to have her on the team.  Jackie and Jen T will be helping me with the quality control as and when required going forward.  Hopefully this will give me time to keep on top of all the admin that goes with running a busy business and to do some business development - something I’ve missed over the past eighteen months.

I often get asked what the quality control entails - so here’s a whistle stop guide to what we do.  When a transcript comes back to us from the team we check a few things initially:

·        Is the header page completed correctly

·        Does the number of minutes and number of speakers correspond with the internal database (which really helps to provide a second check when it comes to invoicing

·       That the layout is correct and any client specific instructions about identifiers, etc, have been followed

Our main aim is to be consistent.

Then, listening to the first couple of minutes of the recording while reading the document, does anything jump out as being amiss.  This might be a higher number of inaudibles than we would normally expect, mis-hearings or punctuation changes.  It’s amazing what you can tell from that first couple of minutes. 

If everything is looking as we’d expect then we do a spot check of the rest of the document.  We relisten to anything that’s marked as inaudible or highlighted for checking (which is why it’s so important that they’re highlighted and time stamped so we can quickly identify them and skip to the appropriate part of the recording).  If we can we fill in the inaudible we will do - sometimes a fresh ear just makes the difference and can pick out what’s being said.  Once we’re happy that we’ve got as many of the inaudibles as we can then we double check that the end of the recording is there and then the file gets sent back to the client.

Quality control isn’t about proof reading - we can’t proof read every document in full.  With the instructions and feedback that we give we try to ensure that everyone has as much information as possible to enable them to produce the best transcription possible.  And you do - and our clients tell us that.  We send out job satisfaction questionnaires daily for a randomly selected batch of transcripts asking clients to score us on:

·         How was the quality

·         How much effort did it take to get the transcription completed

·         Would you recommend us

We consistently score highly across the board - which is a great acknowledgement of the work that everyone puts in on behalf of the clients.

So, I can’t put it off any longer, I definitely have to get back to reconciling invoices - my most hated job of the month! 

Let’s hope September is busy but not as crazy.  Laura’s off to her sister, Ashling’s wedding in Cyprus shortly.  I can’t wait to see the photos and see all the dresses.  I know they’re going to have a fabulously happy time.

Speak to you soon and please leave a comment if you would like to.

Dawn xx

A bit of a catch up

I've been pondering the best way to keep the 1st Class team up to date with all the goings on.  I decided a blog might be a good way to do it and people can chose to subscribe, or not, read, or not, as the fancy takes them.  I'll do my very best to post something at least once a month and it's going to be a bit of a chat, a bit of information, anything that's happened that I think you might be interested in.

As you know the last year has seen lots of changes.  Closing the office in February 2013 and reducing the staff was a considerable change that didn't happen lightly and was a difficult time for everyone.  However, overall I would say that the change has been for the best and after a tricky year there is light at the end of the tunnel and we're definitely coming out stronger. 

At the moment the permanent staff structure is as follows:

Myself - Dawn (hi) - quality control
Laura, transcription manager
Lesley (Monday/Tuesdays and Thursdays), admin support
Emily (Friday's and full-time outwith term time), admin support

In the background we have Mark who runs 1st Class Media but also helps us with IT support and keeping the website up and running.

We also have some ad-hoc help with the quality control.  For the past year we had the help of Helen Davies, a qualified proof-reader and copy editor, who stepped in to cover holidays, sick days and those extra busy days when we can't even see the end of the list of files waiting to be checked to go back to the clients.  Helen moved on to a permanent job at the end of May and we were in despair.  However, a long standing member of the transcription team, also Helen, stepped in and was able to provide cover for me for a couple of months - enabling me and the family to have a much needed summer holiday.  During that time we were able to find some additional help in the form of Jen Toyne.  Having had a bit of a baptism of fire she's now going great guns and is going to be a valuable resource for us to call on as and when required.

Sometimes it can be a bit like musical jobs, when Laura's off I do her job, Jen covers for me!

I don't want to make this first blog so long you fall asleep half way through it but I thought it might be nice to tell you a bit more about the two people you probably don't hear so much about, Lesley and Emily.

Lesley joined us in February and provides a huge support to Laura.  She is the person responsible for downloading the files that the clients upload to the website, logging all the details in the internal database, updating the website and downloading the transcripts completed by you, the 1st Class Team.  In the past month we've had over 1,000 files to transcribe so that's no small task.  She's also the dragon at the gate for the multitude of sales calls that we receive and makes sure that only the right people get put through to the appropriate person.  Lesley is also based at home but doesn't live too far away from me and is on hand to deal with our grumpy postie when we're away (as well as looking after the stick insects and watering the tomato plants).

Emily has been working with 1st Class for probably about 4 years.  She started coming to the office as a 4th year student for work experience on a Friday after school and during the school holidays.  She's now at college studying an HND in music - she's a very talented trombone, baritone, piano player and singer and is hoping to move on to Uni next year to do her music degree and then on to teacher training college.  Like Lesley she manages the file uploads and downloads but has been honing her transcription skills and can pretty much tackle anything we throw at her!  Unfortunately she has to suffer the heat of our little office (which can be a joy when there's three of us in here on a day like today) but never complains. 

One last thing before I finish.  It's not very often I get to meet any of the 45 team members - you're all spread so far and wide.  There are a few based locally that we do get to see from time to time and it's always lovely.  I was thrilled to learn that one of the team, Angi, who has worked with us for nearly 10 years, would be coming to Edinburgh for the day in July.  It was during our time on holiday but we weren't too far away and I was able to get the train in to meet her at Waverly Station for the afternoon.  It was so great - didn't talk about work once, mainly cats and books - and had cake in Jenners' tea-room, overlooking the Castle and Walter Scott Monument on a glorious day.  We then had a dander along Princes Street Gardens (and a sneaky wee ice-cream) before heading back to the station to catch our trains heading in different directions.  Here's a photo from our meeting - Laura wasn't happy that she didn't get cake.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you'll come again.  Feel free to leave a comment if you would like to.

Dawn