RE: dreaded part of the job - and OCR software Q

[KMcLauchlan -at- chrysalis-its -dot- com]

Dan,

Offload.

If you don't have the clout yourself, then get your 
manager to help.

Acquire MORE THAN ONE COPY of the software. Let your 
IT department keep them as "floating" licences, with 
a semi-automatic install from your network, for whoever 
wants the software.

You have the scanner, so you still get to do the 
scanning. But, then you hand the result file to the 
requesting person, UNTOUCHED, along with a pointer 
to where they can (temporarily) load a copy of the 
software from the LAN and do the OCR tweaking and 
the format cleanup on their own dime... er, time.

If you are not ready or able to do that, then at 
least view my reply to Susie Pearson on our 
documentation "process". Make up some trays 
for your desk. One is labelled "Scan Jobs Waiting 
for Instructions".
One is labelled "Scan Jobs with E-Mail Instructions".
One is just "Finished Scans" (always have something 
in that one, so it looks good).
The ones you work on are the ones that come with 
e-mailed instructions. When somebody drops off a 
stack of paper to scan, say: "I can work that into 
my schedule when it's accompanied by an e-mail with 
full instructions. Those go into the middle basket.
The ones with no e-mailed instructions go into 
the first basket, and they don't move from there 
until I have a printout of your e-mail to put with 
them... THEN they go into the queue in the second 
basket. Thanks."

The e-mails should ALL be CC:d or forwarded to your 
boss. Even if the boss is the one dumping most of the 
scan stuff on you, you want the e-mail trail to make 
it OBVIOUS just how much of it there is, and how much 
it is eating into your other duties.

Back when this kind of thing (sudden, impromptu 
projects dropped into my lap) was an issue, I 
started passing off the responsibility for negotiation.
I always did my best to be accomodating, but when it 
came to a real conflict, I just brought the requesting 
person together with the person who had a prior 
commitment from me. I said: "Here's what I've got on 
my plate, and here's when this is due. Here's what is 
possible in the time available. I'll go along with 
whatever resolution you folks come to. When you want 
me, I'll be at my desk, working on the original 
project."  

Usually when it came to that point, I was already 
working long days, so just "adding a few more hours"
wasn't much of an option. I don't produce quality 
work when my eyes are blurred from 12 hours staring 
at screens and I'm short of sleep.  Fortunately, due 
in part to my insistance, that period was only a 
few months. The other big factor was some personnel 
changes; things have been flowing much better for more 
than a year and a half, now.

/kevin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dwiltshire -at- pnmt -dot- com [mailto:dwiltshire -at- pnmt -dot- com]
 
> Since I'm the only person in our office with a scanner, I get 
> handed all the
> scan jobs. I don't really mind the task or responsibility 
> itself, but it does
> erode the time available for working on projects. While the 
> scanning function is
> quick and easy, the OCR (optical character recognition) phase 
> isn't anywhere
> near 100% accurate. This means there is always significant 
> clean-up needed.
> Also, most formatting goes out the window too. The other 
> option is to scan the
> page(s) as graphic files, which results in huge file sizes.
 
> By the way, I'm thinking of upgrading the OCR software to 
> ScanSoft OmniPage Pro
> 11. Cost is almost $500!!! Does anybody have experience with 
> this package? Does
> it do a better job of retaining formatting or speeding up the 
> clean-up stage of
> text-scanned documents? If it saves a lot of time, it will 
> pay for itself
> quickly.


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