Prompter v Court Reporter

I was thinking about what other skill I could develop that might be a natural outgrowth of prompting.  Court reporter?  They both require rapid writing and razor-keen listening.  I even went out and bought my own steno machine to kind of get a look & feel of the thing...

But then I keep thinking about Dragon Naturally dictate. There are basically two reasons why Dragon doesn't overcome human transcribers:  1) lag time 2) differentiating people in the room.  It's not quite "there" yet.  So stenographers are still needed in the courtroom.

But really doing legal stuff all day, listening to courtroom procedure, and listening to lawyers talk all day... is that what I want?

What I'm really good at is writing the way people talk.  I've listened to probably more newscasts than most people except anchor people, directors and producers of news.  (Reporters generally don't listen to/watch the newscast in my experience).

I also write like the wind.  So I'm thinking about trying to branch into the "creative" side of corporate speech writing.  Believe me, they need me.  It's all-too-easy to skate around the edges and not really deliver satisfying words while hitting all the PR points/Brand Messaging.  I did prompter at an event the other week and thought about the role of the speech coach, and the writer, and I thought, "why am I behind this prompter?"


Two things that will never go away: prompters, and people's need to express themselves deeply, clearly and creatively, and people that facilitate both. 

I can do both.  At the same time!  And bill for one position!  Wonder if anyone will take me up on it?

actual steno machine $30 eBay purchase