More than 1,500 people from 20 different nations competed in Intersteno’s month-long Internet keyboarding contest.
“When I received an email [about the contest] in March, I was thrilled. It was a way I could be a part of Intersteno and not have to worry about travel expenses and insane dictation speeds,” said Julia Griffin, RPR, of Starke, Fla., who competed in the contest. “As anyone would, I would have loved to come in first. But 75th out of nearly 2,000 people isn’t shabby. I’m kind of proud of myself.”
The contest pits people from all over the world against each other on 10 minutes of text entry through a special software program available on the Intersteno website. All U.S. contestants were over 21 years of age and needed to produce a minimum of 240 characters per minute with a maximum error rate of 0.50%.
“There’s some awesome competition on the Net with some phenomenal typists, and it is really amazing how deep the competition is! The only thing that I am somewhat worried about is if I am going to improve. But typing is like anything: Practice makes perfect,” said Russell David Olsen, who placed 26th overall.
Results for the U.S. competitors are as follows:
| Place | Name | School/Association | Strokes per minute | Total strokes | Errors | Error % |
| 2 | Sean Wrona | Intersteno USA | 808 | 8080 | 2 | 0.025 |
| 5 | Jerry Lefler, RPR, CRR | NCRA | 854 | 8540 | 32 | 0.375 |
| 7 | Jelani Nelson | Intersteno USA | 689 | 6894 | 12 | 0.174 |
| 11 | Kelly D. Linkowski, RPR, CRR, CBC, CPE | NCRA | 670 | 6705 | 16 | 0.239 |
| 26 | Russell David Olsen | NCRA | 572 | 5728 | 13 | 0.227 |
| 75 | Julia Griffin, RPR | NCRA | 413 | 4130 | 5 | 0.121 |
| 91 | Linda Kay Fritsch, RMR | NCRA | 389 | 3890 | 6 | 0.154 |
| 95 | Mary Koromec | NCRA | 400 | 4004 | 9 | 0.225 |
| 103 | Donna L. Linton, RMR | NCRA | 437 | 4373 | 18 | 0.412 |
| 153 | Maellen Pittman, RDR, CLVS | NCRA | 370 | 3705 | 17 | 0.459 |
