Universal Design In Life And Work

Technology moves, society follows and the government tries to catch up. When an innovation is introduced into the market we have the chance to try something new, but when unintended consequences start negatively affecting people’s lives, the government is often left trying to find ways of preserving the benefits of innovation while limiting its side effects. If you’re an innovator, you have to do your best to anticipate and take responsibility for the technologies you’ve created. If you’re an early adopter of new tech, then be cautious and inform yourself. If you’re an advocate, join one of the many organizations trying to hold government and industry accountable for the unintended consequences of innovation. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

If you’re focused on making top-down changes, be aware that you may not always see those changes in practice. You’re going to spend a lot of time trying to change very small things, but if you can make a change, it will be spread out over a large population. If you’re working from the bottom-up, like me, it’s really important to remember that what matters is the people that you serve and how you can take those grassroots changes and find ways of scaling them and translating your knowledge to new contexts. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

I often start speeches by saying that ‘it’s a privilege to be here’. Acknowledging privilege is not just an expression of gratitude. It’s about recognizing that the opportunities I’ve received were not only the result of my hard work. I see it as my responsibility to help people who have come a long way to get where they are. It’s not about where they are but how far they’ve come. This enables me to use my privilege to help others. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

My first job gave me a lot of opportunities. They trusted that, even though I may not know exactly how to do something, I would figure it out as I went along. If I hadn’t gotten that chance, I never would have had the opportunity to learn and to figure things out as I go. If you’ve never been given the chance to figure it out on the job, then the best you can do is learn to showcase your abilities. Apply for that job even if you don’t meet all of the requirements, and be ready to make an argument for why you’ll figure it out as you go. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

When we hold people in positions of power accountable, it’s important that we extend empathy to those people who are trying to hold them accountable. It can be an incredibly scary proposition for someone who’s not in a position of power to confront someone who is in a position of power. It can create an existential crisis because you start to question your motivations to hold this person accountable. If you feel that you’re being treated unjustly, you are not alone. There are allies out there who will support you and who will give you strength so that you can face those challenges. There’s safety in numbers, so find those allies and see what you can achieve together. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

It took me 25 years to get comfortable with taking things slow and being patient. The value of taking things slow is learning to be persistent. If you are pushing to make things happen, just be patient with yourself. Take that time. Take that breath and remember that when you look back on that time, it’ll just be a memory. What will shape your life is your ability to learn from that experience and to take that knowledge into the next steps in your life. Full transcript available at dranthony.design/transcripts

I've always thought that resilience is only about standing up for yourself and holding your ground in the face of a challenge. But it's not just about facing that challenge and overcoming it. It's about adaptability. It's about being flexible. It's about self-care, and it's about healing. The healing process is an essential and vital part of being resilient. If you don't take time for self-care, to heal after you've experienced a challenge, then it'll undercut your entire experience because you haven't taken time to restore yourself. Full transcript available at dranthony.design.

The idea of inclusion was part of my childhood. My parents would encourage me to invite others into our playgroups. But as I grew, I found my friends and colleagues were becoming more exclusive. So I made the deliberate decision to surround myself with people who think differently than me. It’s really important to think critically about the people who surround us. What kind of perspectives are they bringing to the table? Different perspectives help reduce assumptions and biases and opens up new opportunities to think differently, to think more critically about the challenges we face. Full transcript available at dranthony.design

When I was 18, I took a Sociology class for the first time and it blew my mind. It was the first time in my life that I was exposed to this idea of inequality. Since then, I made the deliberate choice to use my knowledge and experience, my privilege, to combat issues of inequality. Equality is not just about making rules to eliminate discrimination. It’s about providing support and accommodations to make sure that everyone has a reasonable chance of achieving success in life. Read the full transcript at dranthony.design