Application Required
One of the lawyers in our office recently shared this url – www.oddcast.com – click “Products” and “text-to-speech (TTS)”. Click the picture of the lady – she wll say what you type and if you drag your mouse around the pictures, her eyes will follow.
I cannot think of an obvious use for this technology in a law firm or law firm library – can someone else? And is anyone else feeling completely overwhelmed about the endless potential of today’s technology?
Law firms are pretty consistent in their use of word processing technology (to my knowledge almost everyone now uses Word) but once we move beyond core applications, the situation changes.
I seem to spend a lot of time browsing for new and exciting developments in a number of areas. This doesn’t seem to leave enough time to figure out how any of the things I find can be applied in a way that will be useful to law firm inhabitants (people who generally don’t like change and even if they do like change, they don’t have time for change).
The disconnect seems to grow larger every day.
Yes, these avatars have been around at least a couple years now. They are meant to reside on a website and act as a help function or introduction/welcome function. I used one on the Sympatico/Bell Canada website two years ago, and found it very frustrating since it is all pre-recorded scripts. It was a bit like being caught in voicemail jail where they don’t have the option you need.
In speaking to a friend of mine whose company just put one of these in place, she indicated it was meant to make the website more accessible to younger people. I am wondering, if young people are generally shunning Second Life, will they really be motivated to use something like this over a help forum or FAQ? I suspect it is the quality of the information that is more important than whether it is in text or in an animated graphical interface.
Am I wrong?