How transcription has changed since the early days at FSTL

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Keeping ahead of innovation and change.

When FSTL first began back in 1990, the world looked very different. The Berlin wall divided East and West Germany, Nelson Mandela was still in prison in South Africa and Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher was still our Prime Minister!

We’ve seen much innovation and change across the globe since then, and the world of transcription is no different.

Rewind to 1990 and recordings were transcribed from discs that needed to be physically collected or sent in the mail. In fact, 1990 was the year in which Tim Berners-Lee published a formal proposal for the World Wide Web and the first web page was written, so all those things like email and the Internet really were just a concept at that stage! If there was a presentation that needed to be transcribed, the slides themselves would need to be printed out – it really was a time during which there was much more paper and physical materials involved in order to get the job done.

27 years later and advances in technology mean everything is at our fingertips virtually instantly. Sound files can be recorded on all sorts of devices (although this can cause problems with sound quality) and these files can be uploaded onto secure servers or sent via the cloud if they’re confidential or even emailed over if not, depending on their size. All these mechanisms mean that the whole process has now become much quicker, with files being received as soon as they’re sent and being returned just as quickly.

The impact on a transcription agency means that the ability to deliver our kind of service has not only become faster but it’s also made it more global too, with mailing delays no longer a factor. It means we can deliver our services to our clients in Europe, the USA, Asia and the Middle East just as speedily as those based in London.

Technology has made being able to research information on behalf of our clients that much easier too, with no need for big Encyclopedias that are out of date almost as soon as they were printed!

As a business we’ve also found that as certain industry sectors have evolved, the need for a transcription service has arisen where it didn’t exist before. For example, as certain businesses have employed fewer and fewer PAs who in the past would have typed up recorded notes, they have turned to us to fulfill that role.

FSTL always aim to be at the forefront of transcription innovation, constantly keeping an eye on the ever changing developments in technology to ensure we deliver the very best service to our clients. Our reputation depends on it![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]