Okay, where to start tonight…

Today I went to a direct marketing seminar, run by two of the industries guru’s. It was quite good, however having read a few of their books, a lot of the content have been mentioned in those. The seminar was still worth going to, as there were some interesting insights into the broader industry.

What did reinforce to me, was my underlying concern that ultimately marketing is simply just commonsense hidden amongst smoke and mirrors. And that ultimately marketing, is more like applied psychology, then any form of new science.

Not that this is really a big surprise.

Anyway back to my world, I am still persevering with the use of my microphone to dictate the computer. It actually getting a lot better, although most of this is user training, rather than actually training the computer to recognise my voice. The computer is generally pretty good at picking up what I say, or at least it is when I speak clearly and without fumbling my words.

This is definitely reminded me just how advanced humans speech recognition is. I mean we can walk into a noisy room, and talk to a single individual, who we may never have me before (and therefore do not know the sound of their voice) and still pick out precisely what they are saying, despite all the background noise. I mean, it’s not so much the computers at bed recognising what we are saying, it’s just that we are very good at it.

I mean, for example… try and pick the difference between somebody saying 70 and somebody saying 17. Normally we manage this, by understanding when conversations about, and applying the number that is most appropriate. I’m sure you will appreciate just how hard this is for computer to do.

Anyway, before I go, I suggest you check out today’s site of the day. It requires registration, that its definitely worth it!