Anybody want to volunteer their transcribing services?

This came through a Yahoo! group that I am on. I thought I would post it here in case anybody is interested.

My name is Hunter Scott, and I am an intern working for Project HomelessConnect, a one-stop-shop of services for the homeless of San Francisco startedby Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004. I was referred to you by Claudette Allison, oneof our transcribers. We have a program we run at each bi-monthly event calledthe Story Project, in which we photograph and interview homeless, and thentranscribe those audio interviews, turn the most exciting into stories, and usethem for marketing and social networking.At the moment, Claudette is our only transcriber, and we have hundreds of audiofiles that need to be transcribed. Is there any way you could send out a messageto your network, informing any potential trancribers that we have a volunteeropportunity for them? Any help would be much appreciated, and would also benefitthe homeless.Thank you,Hunter Scott (

September off to a slow start

August has always been a pretty slow month in transcription land. This year it was definitely slower than June and July, which were actually pretty slamming busy with some special projects that came our way. September has started off fairly slow, which is not unusual in the least. It is allowing me to take some much needed time to clean my house and to work on my website!

Lots of Dissertation interviews to be transcribed

All last week and this week we are transcribing a bunch of dissertation interviews. We have also been transcribing a lot of interviews on the history of the Santa Clara County Parks Department for a book that a client is writing. This client's wife was one of my very first "internet" transcription clients way back in 1998. She also wrote a book. I really like these kinds of interviews. First of all, there are so many that I am able to keep several transcriptionists busy. And second of all, they are usually quite interesting. I really like the variety of the transcription services we've been able to provide to our clients lately.

Finishing up some big projects

Things are settling down a bit on a couple of very big projects. BUT we've picked up a new client this week, which has been very exciting. I'm finishing up the third interview for them now. Also, I did a free 10 minutes of transcription for another company and they are going to work on getting approval to use my services for a whole bunch of transcription! Could be a good lead!

Only 20 hours of audio to do now

The client took a closer look at their tapes and realized they only have about 20 hours of audio to be transcribed. We can definitely handle that in a week!

Today I'm going to work on getting an oral history interview transcription done that is quite long. I need to sort of clear the decks before the big work load hits at the end of next week. But I love being busy and I love the fact that I am not unemployed or having a slow time of it! Praise God!

40 hours of audio to be transcribed in one week?

Wow, I have a potential client that needs 40 hours of audio transcribed in one week! And they are on micro cassette tapes! So I will need to convert the tapes to MP3 files and then have them transcribed. The only way that I know to convert to MP3 right now is to play them out of my micro cassette player and record onto my digital recorder. Is there a better, faster way? Sure hoping so. I think it's going to be an intense week! And I don't even know when I'll be receiving the tapes for sure. We should know today though. The cool thing is we found each other on Twitter. My first business contact I've made through Twitter. Cool!

Overwhelmed with Transcription applicants

Find Transcription Work dot com issued a notice that I was looking for transcriptionists to help with overflow. What a response! I must have gotten over 500 applications! Just a little overwhelming. Unfortunately, a lot of them were from out of the country and my CPA says I need people with Social Security Numbers, so I had to immediately get rid of probably 150 or so. I still needed to weed some out, so I decided to discard all those who did not have a foot pedal. I mean, how serious can you be about running a transcription business if you don't even have a foot pedal?

That still left me with several hundred applicants. I'm sure there are some real gems in there, as well as some not so great transcriptionists. I'm going through the very tedious process of testing a few each week. I can't do too many ~ I just don't have the time. But there are times when I just need more help and I want to be able to call on good transcriptionists to help me out.

I've gotten so that I grade their tests. Kind of silly, but it's the only way to keep it all straight. So the "A" people are the first ones I will call on for overflow. They are the ones I want. They are also the ones that are harder to find. The "B" people will be good in a pinch to help with certain types of jobs that have a longer turnaround time and I can take more time to make the corrections needed to their work. The "C" people get a rejection e-mail. That is the hardest thing for me. I think the one I have written now is too abrupt and short. I don't want to be mean. But I don't want to give out false hope to people either. It's a fine line.