Wednesday, July 14th, 2021

Everyone Loves A Bargain… But At What Cost?

In the immortal words of Oscar Wilde, ‘People know the price of everything and the value of nothing’. In this day and age, everyone loves a bargain. Whether it’s a BOGOF in Tesco or a last-minute sale item stumbled upon after hours of searching on eBay, it’s human nature to want to feel that we’re getting more than we’ve paid for. How many times, though, have we landed what we think is a fantastic deal only to find that after three washes, the cheap T-shirt falls apart, the unbranded TV breaks out of warranty, or the sale item from eBay doesn’t exactly match the description on the site? When it comes to clothing or consumer goods, such experiences leave us with little more than a sense of disappointment and chagrin at our unwise opportunistic gamble. However, translate this into the context of your business – and it becomes a little more serious.

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021

Illiterates: The words English speakers struggle to spell the most

“Favourite” is the most difficult word to spell across the English-speaking world, according to our research of Google’s search data.  Runners-up include “definitely” and “diarrhoea” (which is spelled ‘diarrhea’ in the United States).  These results take into account common search trends across countries that speak English as a first-language. Including the United Kingdom, United States, 

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Monday, May 18th, 2020

Recording In The Cloud

Don’t forget to ask permission to record! Consider your device: It is best to conduct cloud calls on a laptop, desktop or tablet device rather than a smartphone. Sound quality will be better and access to advanced features of the cloud-based platform will be more readily available and easier to use via a larger screen/device. 

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Thursday, May 7th, 2020

Zen Master Interview Skills

As transcribers we listen to literally thousands of interviews over the course of our careers. We have the privilege of hearing respondents’ views on a vast array of subjects, and of learning about things we had never heard of before. Part of the enjoyment of the job for us is the variety of material that 

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Wednesday, June 12th, 2019

Six (Actionable) Ways To Improve Your Meetings

When utilised properly, meetings are a great way to unite the focus of a team and keep everyone updated on important information. On top of that, they can also improve morale and efficiency throughout the staff. However, when meetings are poorly handled or even too frequent, people start to see them as a waste of time. We can’t blame them. In fact, research shows they’re not in the minority…

So, we decided to put together these actionable pointers that should help you get the most value out of your meetings. Hopefully, these can convert even the most anti-meeting people out there.

Wednesday, May 22nd, 2019

A Meeting of Minds – and not a ‘Minute’ too soon

Meetings have become an integral – and often unavoidable – part of our professional lives, irrespective of the sector in which we operate. Whether conducted over video conference or face-to-face in the archetypal boardroom, most of us will spend at least some of our working week attending them. Business meetings can be occasional or, in the case of large corporations, monthly as the board of directors convenes to discuss company direction of travel, financial objectives and to review the previous month’s targets. Problems affecting the day-to-day operation of the business will be raised and discussed, and projected future threats potentially identified before they occur. In short, they are vital to the smooth execution of business process.

Friday, February 1st, 2019

The Virtual Workspace: How Tech Has Changed Our Working Lives

With the benefits of modern technology, the traditional 9 -5 work day could soon become a thing of the past. Employers are increasingly embracing alternative working schedules such as flexitime and remote working. This is because employees can often complete their work just as effectively from home: a variety of cloud collaboration applications give us the ability to manage projects, hold meetings, share files, and track performance from the comfort of our sofas.

Tuesday, November 20th, 2018

How to Conduct Effective Focus Groups for Market Research

Market research  is a valuable exercise that is vital to most business owners and entrepreneurs when they are in the initial stages of creating a product, service or business. Market research is the process of researching and collecting data to support whether or not your product or service will be successful on the market once launched.

Understanding what your consumers and customers want is vital in achieving success with your business, which is why market research is key in helping you get the results you desire. Not only does market research allow you to avoid potential mistakes or failures, it can also save you a lot of money.

Thursday, July 19th, 2018

What Does Your Accent Say About You?

Have you ever noticed how many regional accents you come across in the UK? Compared to other countries, we have a huge variety of accents, with wildly different variants springing up in towns often just a few miles apart. Take London – in the capital alone, you’ll find Cockney accents, Estuary English, and Received Pronunciation all widely spoken.

In fact, the UK has an unusually high number of regional accents. The UK has been estimated to have around 56 distinct accents, whilst the USA has just 42 (despite being 40 times bigger in total area). Meanwhile, Canada has just 7!

Thursday, May 17th, 2018

Audio Recording Through the Ages (Infographic)

For many thousands of years of human history, we had absolutely no way of recording voices and sound for posterity. In fact, we didn’t even start writing things down until 3200BC, when people in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) created the earliest writing system– the cuneiform script. We can only guess just how much of history has been lost to time!

For this reason, the progress that’s been made in audio recording in the past 160 years alone is truly astonishing; technology has advanced in leaps and bounds. Starting with the invention off the somewhat rudimentary phonautograph (which could record sound but not play it back),we’ve progressed to advanced digital recording in less than two centuries. With more storage and digital files, we can carry our entire music libraries around on our smartphones, and even record sound on the go as and when we please.