The following article is based on Mr. Anderson's presentation at the AMS Users Group Conference, which was held in March in Grapevine, Texas.)

For my job as a technology consultant, I get to play with a lot of gadgets. I'm going to share some of my favorites with you. After reading this article, you'll have more ideas for improving technology use in your agency than you probably can implement, but choose one or two tools that will give your agency the largest return for the least amount of money–a good rule of thumb to follow when you're looking to upgrade your technological know-how. Keeping that in mind, many of the programs I'll discuss offer high returns at low cost.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred 8
Anyone who has ever tried to use voice recognition software in the past knows it can be cumbersome. The old VR programs required hours of dictation to “train” the computer to comprehend a speaker's voice. And even when the lengthy preparations ended, transcriptions from the programs were dubious at best. I don't know how many voice recognition software packages I've thrown away out of sheer frustration.

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