The Growing Need for Business and Corporate Transcription Services
Overview: Business and corporate transcription services can help businesses retain, archive, search, and distribute knowledge. That’s important because not all information a company generates nowadays is written. Videos and audio, such as podcasting and recorded events, are replacing the written word in many instances. Content may be more accessible to people at that moment, but ironically new media is less accessible to future generations because of the following:
- Changing technology (VHS, anyone?)
- Additional resources needed to store, archive, and port
- Lack of searchability
The written word was one of the major innovations of civilization. Many may pooh-pooh that by saying video, audio, and other textless media are the future – and that future is now! There is a lot of sizzle when it comes to the latest crazes, such as TikTok and Instagram. But the steak is still text-based for so many reasons.
Business and corporate transcription services can help ensure your organization is fad-proof by converting media sources into useable, archivable text.
Text is Underrated in Our Digital World
For those all in on the Information Age, business and corporate transcription services seem outdated. They can point to a video and say, “Most people would prefer to watch Disney+ than read a book.” That may be true. But it misses the point. Where will that TV show be in 20 years? Maybe still in rotation. Maybe unplayable on future technology (still have any VHS movies hanging around?). Maybe forgotten forever.
But that book on your shelf will still be there, as readable as the day it was printed.
The power of the written word is continuity. One of the reasons the Roman Empire prospered was that it introduced written language to a good many places in the Western world. That’s why so many modern languages, such as English, French, and Spanish, have their roots in Latin.
The Dark Ages started in England after the Romans left. They aren’t called “dark” because people weren’t prospering. They are called dark because so few people were writing things down. Without written records, the past is forgotten.
How Business and Corporate Transcription Services Can Stave Off a New Dark Age
That could happen with your business, too. Ironically, we could be entering a new Dark Ages of sorts by relying too heavily on new media, including streaming videos. Let’s take some real-world examples to illustrate. One of the challenges businesses have always had is ensuring they retain knowledge and make it useful for the future, aka collaborative intelligence (CQ). The most obvious case is research and development, but it also includes the lessons it learns internally.
For example, the principles of Six Sigma grew from an internal method of improving processes at Motorola. LEAN was popularized by Toyota, but its beginnings date back to 1450s Venice. Now think about this: why did we even hear about Six Sigma and Lean? If they were wholly internal programs passed down by word of mouth, we perhaps never would have. We only know about them because they were written down and distributed.
And let’s be realistic – even internally, their principles would have to be written down. Multi-national corporations the size of Toyota or Motorola cannot rely on word of mouth alone. They produce manuals, memos, and other written reference materials to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Now, you could argue that the first time you heard about Six Sigma was through a YouTube video or someone at work held a seminar on the LEAN approach. No written words there, right? Perhaps on the one-to-one level. But your LEAN trainer would have read manuals and other written information. And can you say, in all honesty, that you didn’t Google LEAN yourself to read more about it?
This illustrates another important consideration: written content is more searchable. You can’t search for a YouTube video or podcast episode on Six Sigma. For example, if you were looking for a place in the video where the speaker goes into the background of its development at Motorola, you’d have to watch the whole video or, at the very least, skip through here and there to find the right spot. The longer the video, the harder this will be. It’s a very inconvenient way of finding the information you’re looking for!
Business and corporate transcription services can help here too. By converting your video and audio sources to written text, you automatically make the content more searchable. Not only can you skim the transcript much faster than watching the video, but you can also actually search by keyword. Just type in “Motorola,” and you can instantly go to each spot in the transcript where the company is mentioned. Transcripts can also be used for adding Closed Captions to videos.
…And That’s Why the Need for Business and Corporate Transcription Services is Growing
These are just a few examples. Doubtless, you can come up with many others. The more we rely on new media, the more information our businesses stand to lose in the long run. Obsolete technology, lack of searchability, and challenges that come with efficiently managing large video and audio files are all hazards to our collaborative intelligence (CQ). That’s why there’s a growing need for business and corporate transcription services. As our reliance on new media grows, so too does our need for ways to capture and record that information in a usable, accessible format for the next generations.
Preferred Transcriptions can help. We have decades of experience working with Corporate America providing fast, reliable business and corporate transcription services. Contact Preferred Transcriptions today to find out how we can set you up with a plan to convert your audio and video into usable text.