Years ago, I first became a consultant after working in an environment for several years as an accountant.  The environment was such that the IT partners I had in several organizations including a Fortune five hundred company, as well as an startup company, both typically failed to find a way to an able the enterprise team comprised of the accounting, business and marketing, and logistics organizations, to work effectively with the IT team.

The IT team was unable to communicate in terms of the business problems that the enterprise teams were facing.  Those same enterprise teams were well versed in IT, and as a group would tend to dominate over the IT team.  We did this out of necessity to get things done in advance the company, but often times we neglected important messages from the IT team because they were unable to communicate with the enterprise team.

Our inability to communicate in a common language foiled us on more than one occasion.  This would always result in the enterprise team having to go to extraordinary manual processes to fix whatever was wrong.  We were able to evolve over time, but it was never an easy nor a clean process.

I’ve been investigating the technology by a company called Active Endpoints.  They create a technology solution called ActiveVOS.  I’m still learning how this technology works, but I will attempt to put it into layman’s terms.  I’m doing this because I find the technology and the solution extremely interesting and useful.

If I understand how it works correctly, the enterprise team such as an accounting group or business group or both working together, can map out a business process using Visio.  They can walk this process into ActiveVOS, which you can think of is a software program to conceptualize it right now.  It’s actually a little bit more than that, but just think software program for now.

Once you walk the process from Visio into ActiveVOS, you can then begin to build the actual system that will run that process.  The whole concept is based on business process execution language solutions.  It employs business process management techniques that enable the two different teams of the enterprise and IT to not only talk together in a common language, but work together in a common system.  That system being ActiveVOS, essentially a SOA Software development, design and improvement solution for Service Orientated Archictectures (SOA).   This enables enterprises and developers to:

1. Automate business processes
2. Collaborate across IT and business boundaries
3. Control the overall state of the business
4. Adapt rapidly and easily to change

Click Image to See Video Demo (about 9 minutes, gets good at about 4 minutes)

Now the thing that sold me on this concept, and made me very interested in this service solution, is a quick video demonstration that Active Endpoints provides.  In the presentation, they show you the simple diagram of a business process, and they walk you through the real world case study or example of a business that’s attempting to take a request for an estimate from a customer online, in turn that estimate into real-world action within a company, that generates an estimate using multiple contributors to have to create that estimate, and track the entire process.  In this particular example, they utilize not only the business’ website, but they also utilize Google docs as the engine behind the CRM system.

That aspect alone was enough to pique my interest in this particular tool.  Now, this is not necessarily a tool that you can flip on and start working with within a few minutes.  However they do offer a free thirty day trial, and you can test drive the program before you buy.  With that in mind, they have a very deep support system including many different training videos, and documents to help you figure out exactly what you need to do, and how you can do it.  If their educational section is lacking, you can also hire their services to come in and trained yourself or your team.  They can also help with the implementation of the system in this regards as consultants.

You can find more on this software and the Business Process Management philosophy and practice that drives it at their website ( www.activevos.com ) .

The company also manages a well orchestrated blog called Vosibilities or the ActiveVos Blog (www.vosibilities.com ).

I have worked on a couple different projects to teach younger children (3rd – 5th grade) how to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking both with version 9 and now with the new version 10.  From my experience Version 10 is easier, because it requires less training time.

That said the training environment is not geared towards children and for that matter its not really geared towards those with vision impairments, which is rather odd. 

Frankly, its a definite product short fall that should be corrected in version 11, and preferably in an update to version 10 (where it should have been to begin with).

That said, it is still a very good tool for helping children to learn how to compose their thoughts into text and an even better tool for older users that have visual impairments. 

Its this weird paradox that actually enables me to categorize this article under both Improving Technology and Broken Technology at the same time!

When I served in the military years ago, we used to say that you go to war with the army that you have.  That means both people and equipment.  So I’m not going to belly-ache about the absence of a design that would make this better for young users or the visually impaired.  Instead, I’m offering up some tips to help them get started.

1. The primary goal for a young user or the visually impaired is to get the minimum training accomplished so that they can then begin to use the product with a program like Microsoft Word.  With that program both groups can increase the zoom up to something that is easier to read.
2. For children, I recommend that they train with an adult standing by waiting to help them with any words they can not say or can not read.
3. Alternatively, the text at the bottom of this article has been transcribed from the DNS10 training session from one of the articles written for children.  A user could copy this text and print it out in a large enough font to read.  The problem is that the reading window that Dragon NaturallySpeaking uses for training is too small, has text that is too small, and it can not be resized to fill up the screen.
4. In addition, a user could set the resolution on their computer at a very low level like 800×600 which will increase the size of the box and the text.
5. As a final alternative, a user could ask someone else to record the text of the training session, and then they could listen to that recording and speak it while they listen.  Again they may need someone to help them know when to begin speaking and when to stop (in between new windows)

These are the segments that you might want to copy and paste into a more readable format.

In this step the computer listens to the sound of your voice and adjust the volume setting of your microphone when the computer is finished adjusting the volume it beeps to signal that the process is complete if you reach the end of this text but you have not heard a beep start reading the text again from the beginning you should only have to read about 10 to 15 seconds

In this step the computer checks the audio input from your sound system having high-quality audio input is very important for good speech recognition or audio input will make it difficult or impossible for the program to recognize your speech accurately when the computer has finished checking the audio quality it beeps to signal that the test is complete if you reach the end of this text but you have not heard a beep start reading the text again from the beginning you should only have to read for about 15 seconds

Welcome to general training

training is about to begin

You are about to read some short stories. The computer will listen while you read, so they can learn what your voice sounds like. Students at Provo high school wrote these stories for you to read. Michael Rutter and Carl’s Barksdale edited them. We hope you enjoy the stories! Susie, the singing swine by J. E. E. Rockwood once upon a time there was a pig. But this wasn’t any ordinary pig. This pig could talk! Oh it sounds crazy, but it’s true! She could say all the words you and I can, and even some we can’t. Farmer Bill used to come out every day and talk with that pig. It was quite a sight to see. Farmer Bill set on a tree stump with the pig right by him. They talked as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a farmer and his pig to speak with one another. It had never occurred to Bill that most pigs can’t talk. It was quite a shock when it dawned on him. He was talking to his wife, Lucille, during dinner. Bill mentions something his pig had said. Lucille looked up from her plate and stared at Bill. "Pigs can’t talk! They are stupid," she said as she took another bite. Bill thoughtfully chewed his carrot. Obviously not all pigs were too stupid to talk. This pig could talk! Then he thought that if his pig could talk just like people can, maybe she could do other things people can do to. Maybe she could cough, hum, or maybe she could sing! What an idea! The thought kept turning over in Bill’s mind as he finished his supper. He calmly walked out to the pasture and knelt by Susie, the pig. "I have a question," he said. "Can you sing? The pig smiled as well as a pig can smile and said, "of course I can sing!" She started singing the most amazing song, Beethoven’s "ode to Joy." It was the best song bill had ever heard! "That’s amazing!" He said, "can you sing anything else?" Susie pranced around Farmer Bill singing Mozart. "I’ve never heard anyone sing like you before!" Bill patted the pig’s head and smiled warmly before walking back to the house. Once inside, Bill picked up the phone and called an old friend of his from school. This friend happened to run Carnegie Hall. It was the very same Carnegie Hall that all the great musical people have performed an explanation point they had a pleasant conversation before Bill went to bed. A week later a huge crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall. Nobody knew what was going on. They heard that some special performer was out to sing, someone fantastic. But not a single person knew who it was! The mystery only added to the excitement. The crowd became quiet as the orchestra warmed up. They were still as the lights dimmed. There was a long silence as the crowd leaned forward in their chairs and listened to the announcer. "Carnegie Hall is proud to present. Susie!" Farmer Bill walked onto the stage in a suit. Following him on a leash came his amazing pig. She wore a bright pink dress with tiny white polka dots and trimmed in lace. Around her head was a white bow. The crowd sat in surprised silence. They didn’t know if they were supposed to cheer or laugh! Bill remove the leash as Susie sat herself down in front of the orchestra. Bill walked off the stage, leaving Susie alone.

So that’s it so far. This took more effort than I realized to create, and I keep thinking that there must be a better way to go about this. That said, short of combing through Nuance’s job search board or something, it would seem that this function would be best handled by Nuance in house.

I am very excited as I anticipate the launch of Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 from Nuance. I have been using version 9 since January of 2007, and I’m ready to see some new bells and whistles.

The new version is rumored to have a great deal more support for Blue Tooth devices and applications. I have not heard or seen any notes or rumors yet on increases in speed or accuracy.

I do not have a blue tooth connection on my own laptop yet, so for me to use that I’d have to pick up some USB blue tooth adapter probably. That said, I think I would really appreciate having the ability to use a wireless headset or microphone with Dragon Naturally Speaking. I like to pace just a bit when I’m thinking and composing and this could be a real boom to my work. Not to mention this could be useful for people that want to send off a few emails while working out on a tread mill or elliptical machine or something. All you need is a screen at a distance with the zoom set large enough to read from a distance.

These days with projectors and large flat panel monitors that is becoming easier and easier to set up all the time!

Sounds crazy, but I’ve tried it before and run into a few tangles (in the cord) so a wireless version might be kind of nice.  Who knows maybe by version 20, the program will be so good that it will be able to transcribe an infants ‘goos’ and ‘gas’ with microphones sewn in the crib bedding so that new parents can receive a text message letting them know that their little one is hungry or needs some fresh air.  Its not always easy to see where new technologies will take us, but it seems practical to always leave conceptual options open.

Today, I am on the road. Almost literally, I’m a passenger in a van headed from North Carolina to Georgia on a 3 hour drive. I have my laptop and my air card and dramamine.

When I type on the computer while driving, especially on winding road, I sometimes get a little car sick. Not so much that I’d have to worry for the safety of my keyboard, but sick enough that I feel dizzy and need to pamper myself for an hour or so until my equilibrium returns.

So this trip, I’ve taken a dramamine and am hoping that this will help keep my physical human system running long enough to get some work done on my computing system. It’s a kind of silly thing, but at the essence of it, I am using dramamine as a performance enhancing drug. I do not do this regularly. In fact this is my first time ever.

I doubt that dramamine will prove to be a gateway drug for an expansion of performance enhancing drugs or procedures. I can not see myself taking drugs normally prescribed for ADD or ADHD like many executives do from time to time.

That said, I have had my eyes lasered several years ago and that was a bit of a performance enhancing procedure.

Last night I watched the All Star game and had pause to consider just how bad it is for ball players or athletes to really take performance enhancing drugs. Don’t get me wrong, some of those drugs are un-tested and have serious and dangerous side effects. I’m not suggesting that they should be used. However, maybe efforts to prevent the use of all performance enhancing drugs is off base. Maybe the emphasis should be on driving science and medicine to find safer performance enhancing drugs for both athletes as well as regular people.

I don’t think twice about boosting my performance by purchasing more RAM for my computer or picking up a faster system or better software. My brain and my body are the most important systems I have so why should we consider ways of improving their performance that include diet and exercise and the application of science to give us an assist from time to time.  I’m not a big fan of the concept of diet pills like Leptitrex that are essentially something like speed.  But all in all there just seems like there should be a better way out there awaiting discovery and application and possibly a shift in cultural attitude.

Last weekend I ran out of space on my primary computer hard drive.  My computer is a laptop and its about 18 months old.  When I purchased it, it was not quite the latest model, but it had a 120 gigabyte hard drive and a centrino duo processor and was fast enough for what I was doing at the time. 

It came with 1 gig of ram and the hard drive spun at 5400 rpms, which was slower than my previous laptop, which I had upgraded to 7200 rpms.  I always meant to upgrade the hard drive but just never had the time or extra few bucks to get to it.

Well, last weekend, my computer finally hit the 111 gigabytes full level and the computer wasn’t running right in my Dock-Office (Dockffice) because temperatures here are in the 90’s.

I’ve been doing more and more video work and that just fills up hard drive space very fast.  I hit the road and headed to Office Depot when I picked up a flyer offering a clearance deal before they reset for back to school stuff at twice the price.

I made it there and picked up a new router and wireless card.  Its a 1 gigabyte linksys router and card.  Then I headed to Best Buy where I picked up a 7200 rpm 200 gigabyte replacement drive for my laptop along with a 1 terabyte external western digital hard drive.  I intended to get the networkable drive from western digital but opted for the $140 cheaper drive that plugs in via usb. 

Next time the networkable drives drop in price, I’ll buy a 1 or 2 terabyte drive and then connect my existing 1 terabyte drive to that future drive and have 2 or 3 terabytes of space on my network.

I also picked up a high speed laptop cooling base station thing, to keep my laptop cool while it runs in my dockffice desktop (essentially a high top stocked bar).

All said and told I have a great deal more capacity and even more speed than I had before, which is definitely helping me get and keep things organized while I work more efficie ntly and effectively.

It has been a long time since I was impressed with a hardware buy ( I seem to recall with awe buying a 100 megabyte hard drive about 12 years ago thinking that was amazing). 

Now I have more space on my computer arrangement than I my entire company had working in a high rise in Atlanta including 30 some laptops and 3 servers running a $100 million dollar distribution business (owned by crooks in China that I turned into the IRS but that’s another story . . . .    ).

I’m sure this space will seem like a drop in the bucket after my video production moves to hi definition and I start working with multiple video inputs plugged in to a HDMI switch output to god knows what.  Maybe I’ll have to rent an exobyte (no idea how to even spell that ) from Google located in their new server room on the dark side of the moon operating at close to absolute zero temperatures or something.

Last winter when I went to the consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, I saw a technology that seemed impressive, but didn’t seem necessarily useful.

It was the Sling Box, and it basically lets you watch movies on your TiVo from anywhere in the world if you’re connected to the Internet. Back then I saw the technology I thought that it was executed very well and look pretty cool, but I couldn’t envision the practical use.

Sometimes you just have to let a technology sink in within your brain and give yourself time to envision a use for it. That’s kind of way it is for me with the Sling Box. More and more of my mobile computing is un-tethering myself or my office and for my home and I’m starting to see the uses of potentially having a connection to movies or news recordings on my TiVo.

In part this is probably due to the fact that I do a lot of work with news and media need to stay in touch with things. It definitely has something to do with the fact that I have a WiFi office on a fishing dock and also because I use an air card quite a bit these days as well.

Back in January I couldn’t envision watching TV for my computer very often. But now it seems like every time I turn around I think of a new use for such technology and it makes they consider or reconsider other technologies that I have rolled my eyes at in the past because I wasn’t quite wise enough to figure out a good use for it.

I haven’t purchased a Sling Box yet, so I’m not going to be putting it to the test probably before the summers out, but I have seen that the prices are coming down rapidly. If you take a look at the Sling Box on buy.com its featured in their weekly sale, you can see that the price is coming in under $200 now down from almost double that price not so long ago.

And consumer-electronics terms, that is a good sign that the product is popular with people and that they were buying enough of the product so that the overall cost of manufacturing can come down and the subsequent cost of sales of the product can come down as well.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see this product offered as part of a basic cable lineup package sometime next summer. Dish network already offers its as an accessory, but is not a standard item yet maybe someday and maybe then I’ll pick it up.

If I haven’t purchased at all ready.

Today I tried something relatively new.  I spent a little time teaching my son how to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  I got the idea a few days ago when he was putting together a report on volcanoes for his fourth grade class.  I worked with him to help him write the paper.  I showed him how to organize his notes and then set up the sections that he would write.  His mother identified the topics for the sections and then he sat down read the notes and wrote out each of the sections by hand.

After that, I took his handwritten notes that I had encouraged him to write as fast as possible and disregard any mistakes, and I read those aloud using Dragon NaturallySpeaking to convert his writing into typed text.  That took me about two minutes as he had written out about five pages where the paperwork with about one paragraph per page.

Now he had made a number of mistakes in his own grammar and spelling and punctuation because I encouraged him to go faster just get the “ideas out of his head” just as my 12th grade creative writing teacher had taught me years ago when I was learning to compose on a novel new device known as the computer.

So back then I was thinking I should have him use Dragon NaturallySpeaking instead of me speaking this into the computer.  Unfortunately at the time, we had a rapidly approaching deadline for the project that he was working on in school as he had to also create a working volcano.  This was one of those projects where everyone in the class, possibly everyone in fourth grade had to create a model working volcano along with write up a report about volcanoes.  In fact, on the day of the report, I took him to school and helped him carry his volcano and report in the school.  There was a long line or parade of parents helping their kids carry their volcanoes to school that day.  Long story short about that when my son had one of the best looking volcanoes, but his volcano failed to fire because we’d used much baking soda, or was it baking powder I don’t remember now as my wife was responsible for the logistics of the explosion.

That all happened last week, and today my son said, “Hey dad, can I learn how to talk to your computer today?” after he finished up his homework.

Honestly I had too much work to do, but the day had been a pitiful wash anyway and this seemed like a great time to sit down with him and get him set up on Dragon NaturallySpeaking.  Now I’m going to go into the details of this experience in a future article, but I did learn one thing right off the bat that could be important for someone that’s installing Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a brand-new computer.  My son wasn’t using the program on my own computer or have the software installed, I only have the one license.  My son doesn’t have a lot of e-mail on my computer nor does he have a lot of documents.  This is important to understand because Dragon NaturallySpeaking actually trains itself to adapt to your writing style by reviewing your e-mail and all the documents on your computer. 

Since my son didn’t have any e-mail on my computer and he didn’t have any documents on my computer, at least no documents that could be discerned from my own documents, we couldn’t use this part of the program and set up Dragon NaturallySpeaking and to tune it to his writing style.  Now I don’t know how big of a difference this would make, so in my little experiment, I had him take the initial training is required which took about 10 minutes.  I then recorded him saying several sentences and watching how accurate or inaccurate Dragon NaturallySpeaking responded.  My son at nine years old was a little uncomfortable just saying some sentences off the cuff and continuously and so this in part played into the inaccuracy of the transcription, but part of it was also the fact that dragon just hadn’t had a chance to adapt itself to the way he speaks and writes. 

So I then had him read through another training session, because Dragon provides many training sessions that you can use if you want to.  You don’t have to use these extra training sessions as the program will learn as you use it in everyday work, but for my son it seemed practical to go ahead and try it some more plus it never hurts for him to get more practice reading.  There were not too many reading samples that were suited towards a nine-year-old, but there was an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland which is maybe a year or two over his reading level.  So he started reading Alice in Wonderland and as I watched him read it, I started to realize that Dragon NaturallySpeaking and voice recognition in general could be an excellent tool to help evaluate and monitor just how well students read.  The program in its test mode knows exactly which word should be said and has a range of how the words should be pronounced.  It doesn’t proceed until the person gets the word right or until the computer learns what the person is trying to say.  This is a lot like what a teacher has to do when they’re working with students to help them learn how to read.

As I was watching my son, I could just picture a whole classroom of students sitting down and reading to their computers.  Each student progressing at their own pace, and getting slight corrections from the computer as they went and possibly little help from their teacher from time to time when they ran into strange words or names like “Dinah” a name mentioned in Alice in Wonderland that stumped my son for quite a while.

So anyway I’m going to do a lot more with this I think in the future with both my son as well as my other daughters as they get to the age where they can read off of the computer.  I have a feeling that this could end up being a very good investment for my children both in learning how to read as well as how to compose and put words together verbally. 

After coming home from the holidays a couple months ago my mother wanted to set up something akin to like life insurance fund for my kids and it didn’t seem like a bad idea, but as I look at things now I suspected that same money might be better spent on something like this.  Don’t get me wrong Dragon NaturallySpeaking as a reading tool isn’t quite ready for prime time, but I think there could be some value in maybe picking up another license for my kids to share on their computer, instead of putting that money towards life insurance rates.

Below is the latest in my regular series of articles featuring Dragon Naturally Speaking.  I’ve covered typing tests before with Dragon Naturally Speaking, my favorite voice recognition software.  But those were all with established User profiles that had been ‘trained’ with a few hours of usage and standardized training.

Dragon is not like it used to be.  It can do miracles almost out of the box.

1. Install it
2. Run some quick configurations
3. Run a 10-15 minute training session
4. Let Dragon index – review your existing Word docs and emails (20-30 minutes)

This software isn’t like some late night commercial on diet pills or enhancement nonsense. Simply, put the head set or blue tooth microphone on and you can take a typing test and hit 150 words per minute.  Thats pretty amazing!

Check out my example here:

I have been waiting for a service like this for years.  Qipit takes images that you snap with your mobile phone camera or just a regular digital camera of things like white boards, hand written notes and other documents and converts them to text using OCR, Optical Character Recognition, technology which has evolved very significantly over the last 12 years.

As a heavy mindmapper I often times try to use electronic mind maps instead of a regular white board, but some things are just easier on a white board.  I use mind maps so heavily because they enable me to capture that information very rapidly. 

However with this type of service and application, I have the ability to get a great electronic backup with very little effort.  Not to mention, I can get electronic iteration captures as the white board notes evolve say during one of those meetings where it seems like everyone will step up and drive the dry erase marker over the white board to get a feel for the issues or add to the discussion.

Now with my 1 megapixel camera on my phone, I can only convert images from white boards.

However, these days I always carry a small digital camera with me as well.  With that I can also upload images from my computer to the site and have documents scanned and read via OCR as well or even have hand notes converted.

Or Here’s a great tip if you are Mobile without a WiFi connection or computer

Take the picture with your regular digital camera.  Pull the flash card out of the camera and drop it into your phone or smart phone and add the better quality image as an attachment and send it to Qipit via email!

So in review this is a very cool and did I mention FREEEEE!  service.  It takes your pictures of handwriting from white boards or even from printed documents and uses OCR technology to create a soft copy or it can even publish straight to your blog or website.

Now, I’ve seen a lot of electronic white board tools and applications, even some touch screen surfaces requiring expensive investments in large screen devices and the wiring and connections and tuning and plasma mount to keep it from falling off the wall, etc, etc, etc. 

This is just a simple little solution that is ready to go for almost any user and the setup only takes about a minute.