GIVING VOICE
TO RSI SUFFERERS

Financial reporter Diana Henriques said voice-to-text recognition software enabled her to return to reporting from disability and duress in 1998.

The New York Times staffer told attendees at a Monday Health & Safety presentation that publishers should consider the great return possible when workplaces make minimal investments in voice-recognition gear. Henriques is passionate about the topic because repetitive stress injury took her away from her first love, journalism. But it also opened up a new vista when her employers acquired the hardware and software needed to put her back to work.

She demonstrated Dragon’s Naturally Speaking for Windows-based computers and announced the release of a Macintosh voice-recognition system by IBM.

She greeted the audience through her IBM Thinkpad and the software transformed her uttering of the word "audience" into "salmon" and then "almonds." But that helped prove her point. "I have spent less than three hours training it to recognize my personal speech patterns," she said. "It isn’t perfect, as you salmon and almonds can see." (At her desk in New York, the software accurately converts to text 98 percent of what she dictates. During the demo, Henriques also corrected and moved text flawlessly by speaking voice commands.)

Returning an employee to work from disability may take as little as a $200 investment in off-the-shelf software, Henriques argued. But publishers must also provide a PC capable of running the software, and ensuring it has sufficient memory (she recommends at least 128 megabytes). Along with purchasing a sufficiently powerful computer, managers should invest in headsets with microphones allowing employees to dictate in a normal speaking voice. That’s to be coupled with training and an understanding, sympathetic attitude toward RSI-stricken reporters, editors or other keyboard operators.

"There are still some serious obstacles to the widespread adoption of voice recognition programs in the newsroom," she said. "The biggest resistance comes from you," she told the managers, urging them to explore how easily they could put this technology into play.

When managers set out to fix the problem, Henriques urged them not to let employees wait for months for hardware or software, or use the excuse that the technology department "doesn’t support" a particular product.

Henriques talked about her state of mind when she finally gave in to the problem. "[I was] terrorized of being stigmatized, of being put permanently on some boss’s disabled list."

Workers need help and support, she said. "But they also need the right hardware and software... You’re spending money on these injuries. There is an answer for RSI-inflicted employees. Only you can make that happen."

-Bob Sims

For information on voice recognition software, Henriques suggests visiting:

www.dragonsys.com

www.synapseadaptive.com/joel/default.htm

www.ibm.com/speech

www.his.com

www.philips.com

Henriques says these independent sites explore the issue of RSI and the workplace:

www.sayican.com

www.out-loud.com