Friday, April 15th, 2016

Can we see you?

As transcribers, we spend our days with other people talking through us, like mediums! Our writing isn’t of the automatic kind, the stuff of the world of fake ghosts and séances; our job is to make sense of the very real spoken word and the world researchers investigate. ‘Surely we make sense when we speak?!’ you may cry in protest. Of course you do, but since roughly 80 per cent of our work is ‘written’ in intelligent verbatim, we do have to think about what you say and that means we need to work out where you stopped one thought and began another even if there’s a string of ands, buts and erms in between. And when you are looking for a word, we’re willing you on and sometimes second guessing you.

Wednesday, March 18th, 2015

Spring is here

Finally, spring has sprung!

It’s hard to believe we’ve been back in our offices for four months, it feels like four weeks as we have been so busy transcribing! Christmas is normally a quiet time for transcription but not 2014, we’ve never known a Christmas like it in 21 years – which is great news for the entire industry.

Tuesday, November 4th, 2014

One Thing I’ll Miss…

In December we will be moving back to our office in Egham after having been displaced due to the floods in February. The flooding was a disaster but, due to a tested disaster recovery plan, we never missed a deadline and the transition from flooded offices to temporary offices was seamless.

There are many things I really can’t wait to enjoy once we are back in our own offices but the one thing that I will miss is being so close to Windsor Castle and experiencing the changing of the guard routine every other day. I never tire of this. The video below was filmed by me today, immediately outside of our offices.

Wednesday, February 26th, 2014

When Disaster Strikes

We have had a disaster recovery plan in place for a few years now and unexpectedly got to test it out in January…today I am very grateful for having had that opportunity!

When I first set about putting together the disaster recovery plan it was a chore and the paperwork was immense. Trying to plan for events that you couldn’t even think could ever happen was difficult and at the time felt like paying for insurance that you’d never need to cash.

How I undervalued that time spent and how relieved am I that I put in the hours needed to ensure McGowan Transcriptions stayed afloat (pardon the pun) in a disaster.

Friday, November 2nd, 2012

The Privilege Of Transcribing

Today is the first anniversary of the day my children’s aunt, and my very good friend, was murdered in South Africa. The world is most definitely less colourful without her and a day seldom passes without her surfacing, in some way or another. On the day it happened, I was working for McGowan Transcriptions and Joe McGowan was completely understanding when, at very short notice, I took time off to grieve this senseless loss. It is regrettable that through experience of friends of hers, the news was not as alien to her as I hoped it would be. Everybody knows somebody whose life has been affected by violence in South Africa.