Have you ever had an idea, scribbled down a few notes, and then later didn’t understand what you wrote, or realized you had let that spark of an idea die without acting on it? Michael Kristof, Creative Director at Kristof Creative, had enough of such incidents, so he turned to MacSpeech Dictate for help capturing those imaginative embers and fanning them into flames.

"I can’t type as quickly as I speak, or as fast as I can think, and I can think pretty fast," Kristof says. “When I have an idea, I throw on my headset and speak the title and first sentence into MacSpeech Dictate. I often keep speaking and write the article then, rather than waiting."

He adds: "I used to have the title and idea scrawled on a piece of paper. If I was lucky, I'd type those things out. I'd often decide to come back to it later, but then I'd usually run out of time."

For Kristof, the difference between the two lies in his mental approach. "There’s a psychological factor," he acknowledges. "If I need to switch mental gears and type something, it will take one to two hours, and I usually avoid it because I have other things to do. But if I can grab the headset and do it quickly, I’ll do it right then and there, rather than put it off." And so it becomes obvious why MacSpeech Dictate has become so valuable to Kristof’s workflow.

MacSpeech Dictate is also invaluable during his writing process. "If I’m trying to figure something out, I can start talking and working out ideas," Kristof says. "If I screw up, I can stop and start again. It’s amazing how much time I can save."

Multiple Pay-Offs
For Kristof, as a consultant, the strategy pays off in more ways than one. "If someone hires me to do something and I get it done in 15 minutes, rather than 45, I just tripled my hourly rate," he explains.

In addition, as someone who has worked in marketing and advertising for nearly two decades and is very active on Twitter and other social networks, he understands that a stale concept isn’t worth much. "It’s terrible to lose an idea because everything moves quickly these days," Kristof notes. “Two weeks later, it can be old news, or just not pertinent anymore." He adds: "I tend to use MacSpeech Dictate more from a blogger perspective, in terms of continuously getting content out. I can post information more frequently." In addition to writing regular pieces for clients, Kristof maintains a blog called Observing Polarity.

Capturing the Concepts
Kristof also relies heavily on MacSpeech Dictate when working on projects ranging from web site design to print ads to corporate videos. "We work on a lot of concepts, so we’re always bouncing ideas off each other," he explains. "The key is that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. The order of the words is crucial."

The process used to be similar to Kristof’s idea generation and writing, he relates: "I would say something, and someone else would say 'That’s great; repeat it.' And I'd say 'I don’t know. What did I say?' I would remember the basic idea, but not the exact order of the words.”

Now he leaves MacSpeech Dictate on while discussing concepts in a meeting, so he can capture his spoken thoughts as text and simply look at his Mac's screen if he’s asked to repeat an idea. "It's so much easier than recording a conversation and having to stop, rewind, and listen to what was just said," he explains. (Because MacSpeech Dictate is trained to his voice, it only transcribes what he says.)

Each day brings something new, and Kristof is glad to have MacSpeech Dictate ready to help whenever inspiration strikes. "This morning," he recalls, "I was reading an article, and it sparked an idea. In the past, I would have written it down and set it aside. Today, I grabbed my headset and had an article done in 15 minutes."

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