Unstoppable Mindset

By Michael HingsonSociety & Culture Education Self-Improvement Relationships Philosophy

Unstoppable Mindset episodes

January 19, 2022 Episode 17 – A Person of Many Talents with Dr. Hoby Wedler
Dr. Hoby Wedler has been blind since birth and, as you will hear in this episode, is definitely unstoppable. He is a scientist, an entrepreneur, a sensory expert, and is driven by his passion for innovative, creative, and insightful thinking. In 2016, Hoby earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from UC Davis. In the same year, he began opening doors to the world of wine aromas by developing Tasting in the Dark, a truly blindfolded wine experience, in collaboration with the Francis Ford Coppola Winery.
Hoby has just launched his own line of spices and other tasty products. He is also a recognized public speaker.
Among other positions, Hoby serves as the board chair for the Earle Baum Center of the Blind in Santa Rosa California. Now, come hear this inspiring and unstoppable person in action.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About Our Guest:
Dr. Hoby Wedler is an insightful, disarming, and passionate thinker who loves to bring people together to help them see new possibilities. With the heart of a teacher, Hoby helps turn your dreams into realities. Hoby has been completely blind since birth. He is a scientist, an entrepreneur, a sensory expert, and is driven by his passion for innovative, creative, and insightful thinking. Hoby is remarkably tuned into his surroundings and has frequently chosen to walk the unbeaten paths in life over known territories. In 2016, Hoby earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from UC Davis. His fearlessness is infectious, and he has actively paved the way for others to join him in his quest to follow passions regardless of the challenges that lie ahead.
In 2011, Hoby founded a non-profit organization to lead annual chemistry camps for blind and visually impaired students throughout North America. In the same year, he began opening doors to the world of wine aromas by developing Tasting in the Dark, a truly blindfolded wine experience, in collaboration with the Francis Ford Coppola Winery. He has since expanded the program to a global market in a variety of industries and special projects. Over the years, Hoby has become a motivational speaker, a mentor, and an educator. He is also committed to making the world an inclusive, equitable, and accessible place for everyone.
In his work, you will find a unique trilogy between sensory awareness, scientific knowledge, and a love for sharing his insights.
Numerous people and organizations have recognized Hoby’s work over the years. To name a few, President Barack Obama recognized Hoby by naming him a Champion of Change for enhancing employment and education opportunities for people with disabilities. Also, Forbes Media named Hoby as a leader in food and drink in their 30 under 30 annual publication. Hoby’s dedicated to impacting everyone he works with by unlocking doors, overcoming challenges, increasing awareness, and expanding their horizons.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:23
Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we have really fascinating guests. He comes from the scientific community, as an essence, have I as you all know, because of my getting a master's degree in physics and being involved in various scientific endeavors, and our guest today Hobi Wendler comes from a different process. But by the same token, he also comes from the scientific world, specifically chemistry. You're going to hear about that, and lots of stuff today. So hope you welcome to unstoppable mindset. And thanks for being here.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 01:58
Mike, thank you so much. It's a real honor to be here. I think it's so cool what you're doing with the podcast and just very happy to be a guest.

Michael Hingson 02:07
Well, I'm looking forward to having a lot of fun. And I think we'll find some interesting things to talk about. So my

Dr. Hoby Wedler 02:13
it's all about, it's all about just jiving, and in coming up with, with topics that makes sense

Michael Hingson 02:20
and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So needless to say, I think we played it a minute ago, you are blind, you've been blind your whole life.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 02:29
I have never seen anything. There you go. Well, I've

Michael Hingson 02:32
had a little bit of light perception I did when I was growing up. And I didn't even notice that it went away. But at one point in my life, it suddenly dawned on me that I'm not even seeing light anymore. And when I went to an ophthalmologist, I find out that cataract had developed over my eyes, but I couldn't convince them to get rid of the cataract because it's not going to do you any good. And I said, Well, I might see light again.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 02:55
Mike, what is it? This is an interesting question. As someone who has literally never been able to see at all, what does it feel like to see like you describe that sensation?

Michael Hingson 03:06
I don't know how to really describe it. So the problem is, it's like, I asked people all the time, what is it like to see red? Or what is it like to do? Or what is it? Or since we both do it? What is it like to hear? We can simulate not hearing by completely covering our ears and cutting out all sounds? And there are ways to do that. I don't know whether that's exactly the same as profoundly deaf people experience not hearing, but how to describe hearing as such, or how to describe seeing, yeah, I don't know how to do that. I've only heard people do it with analogies. You know, red well, they talk about hot fire rages. Yeah. So let me see if I can try this. Have you ever been walking along and crashed your forehead into a wall or something?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 04:06
I was born blind, you know? Yes.

Michael Hingson 04:09
Well, you know, but you might be really good. But when what happens? What happens? What do you experience the the moment you do that?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 04:17
It's that feeling of sudden stopping and a little startling.

Michael Hingson 04:24
So for me, when that happens, you know, you've probably read books where someone gets hit on the head and so on. And suddenly they see stars and yeah, and, and I'm wondering if you see any other kind of foreign or you experience any other kind of foreign sensations? I

Dr. Hoby Wedler 04:40
don't know. You know, it's so funny because as someone who's never been able to see, I honestly don't know. It's such an interesting and good question though. You know, it's interesting actually thinking about senses in general in the sense of smell. Because the and that's an area where I do a lot of work and spend a lot of my time a lot of people lost either their sense of smell or taste or both during the pandemic that we're just coming out of, or maybe not. And, and talk about the fact, I've read countless articles now say, I just find it all fascinating. They talk about the fact that they didn't realize how much they used those two senses until they weren't there until they weren't there. And I find that so fascinating, because you and I, whether whether it's subconscious or not, we use our sense of smell the navigate all the time, or I think we do I do.

Michael Hingson 05:38
Well, actually, in the spirit of full disclosure, I discovered in 2013, that I had lost pretty much all of my sense of smell and a lot of sense of taste. And it happened, I think, because I took one of those cold medications that in fact, caused that to happen. And it's never shaken it there. Well, there was zinc in it. And, you know, there have been others where I know that people haven't had that problem, but there were some that did. So I don't know what the formulary was that created that and caused it to happen. But, um, so I don't smell as well, I can still taste some differences in in wines, and certainly differences in foods, but it's not as sharp as it was.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 06:28
I'm sorry to hear that. That's no fun to lose that sense. It isn't.

Michael Hingson 06:31
But you know, the other side of it is that I know what I had, and I know the experiences from that. And so it still is helpful when I experienced tasting and so on, to know what was there. And so I can sort of fill in some of the gaps, which probably is is similar to what happens to people who lose their eyesight. I imagine that's true. They can they can fill in the gaps or not. And that is one of the reasons I'm a firm believer in people who are partially blind when they discover they're losing their eyesight, and they go to centers to learn about techniques. I am a firm believer that people should learn to travel under sleep shades centers should really be teaching people that it's okay to be blind and don't use your eyesight as much as you can. Yeah, because the reality is that they may very well lose the rest of it. And if they start to recognize now that their their world is really one of being blind, then their eyesight will help them all the more for it and that will turn to trust a cane. Ken Jernigan, the past president of the National Federation of the Blind, created and wrote an article called a definition of blindness, which anyone can read if they go to the NFB website, www.nfb.org NFP being National Federation of the Blind. But what Dr. Jernigan says, Because you are blind, if you have lost enough eyesight that you have to use alternatives to eyesight to accomplish tasks. Absolutely. Which doesn't mean that you've lost all of your eyesight.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 08:13
Yeah, no, it doesn't. And I say, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say in that sort of vein, I honestly think and this is often contrary to what a lot of sighted people think. I think you and I have it easier than the people who have partial sight?

Michael Hingson 08:30
Oh, I think so in a lot of ways, because we grew up with it. But also we we had parents who encouraged us and we had other parts of the community that encouraged us, and our makeup allowed us also to resist people telling us what we couldn't do.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 08:46
Right. Well, and I, to your point, I think so much of success, or there is a failure in the disabled disability world comes down to the support system that surround early on and particular particular families and that parental support. Man, that's a huge thing. If our parents were overly protective of us and held us back and locked us away when we were babies. Think about what we wouldn't have done and tried to do now.

Michael Hingson 09:16
I have, I have met people who actually lived in Chicago when I lived in Chicago. I was born in 1950. So you can do the math, anyone. But for the first five years of my life, I lived in Chicago. I was born two months premature. A lot of kids were it's a part of the whole baby boomer era, right? But I have met people since both even as a child but then later, whose parents sheltered them a lot more. And I saw and continue to remember what I experienced about what they could and couldn't do and how house self sufficient or independent, or even mentally thinking about being self sufficient or independent they were or they weren't. And the reality is that kids who are more sheltered, don't grow up learning a lot of the things that that they could learn just by being out in the world. And that's why I am a firm believer that parents need to what we would probably say today is take more risks. It is that's absolutely right. It isn't really a lot of risk taking it is really, your child being exposed,

Dr. Hoby Wedler 10:33
it might feel like risk taking, but it really isn't, you know, it's I mean, it is, in some ways, if there be take that, you know, if you if you do things that are, some people might, I can see why people would call it that. But you know, there's another another element of parenting. Children who are blind that I think is so crucial and often gets unnoticed is the idea of talking and seeing what you're doing. That is where my parents really one of the areas, they really excelled. They in the kitchen, for instance, when they were making breakfast, they would describe I remember my mom describing exactly what she was doing. And I didn't think anything of it at the time, I was pretty young toddler. But now when I think back on it, I realized the whole point of that was that things didn't just happen mysteriously, you know, if you imagine raising a sighted kid and you get them a bowl of cereal, you know, they're going to see you get that walk over to the cupboard, get the bull's eye, okay, now I know where the holes are stored, or my cereal comes from, they're gonna see the box of cereal come out of a different cabinet, they're gonna see the cereal get poured into the bowl, they're gonna see the parent, go to the fridge and get the milk, they're gonna see the spoon get taken out of the drawer and set down on a napkin next to the bowl, and then they're gonna see this bowl be set before them. And it's not a mystery. But if you don't say anything, and you do all that with a blind kid, they're not gonna know the milk goes in the fridge. They're not, they're not gonna be able to figure that stuff out. So it's, you've got to talk about it.

Michael Hingson 12:03
And the children whose parents did that the chil the children whose parents recognized that no matter what the disability, it didn't mean that their child didn't have gifts and that they needed to do everything they could to and Hance or allow children to learn to use those gifts. Isn't that those are the lucky kids.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 12:28
Yeah. Yeah. And there are relatively few of us.

Michael Hingson 12:32
And there are relatively few of us. Some people are good. Some people have learned it later in life and have done well. But from from a standpoint of kids, there are there there are apparently, few of us, you're gonna ask,

Dr. Hoby Wedler 12:47
Oh, it's just gonna ask us for sort of mentioned that a comment or a question, rather, that I get a lot of the time is would you ever want your eyesight? And my answer to that is a resounding no. Because I don't want to have to learn how to really live in this world. I know braille, I read Braille, very proficiently, I don't need to learn print, I don't need to know what it looks like to drive down the road, I can roll my window down and smell the air, I can listen to the air blow by. So it's no I don't, I don't need to change the world I live in because I love the world I live in. And I don't want to throw the same question back at you. And ask you, you know, what is your response to that question?

Michael Hingson 13:27
I respond a little bit differently than you. But it amounts to the same thing. And that is? Well, yeah, I suppose I might be interested in doing it only because it would be another adventure. But the reality is, I'm very comfortable in my skin. And I and I also know, in a sense, what visually I don't see. So driving down the road, the experience of driving and doing the things that that sighted people do, being able to drive and avoid that car that's coming at you and then stick out your your finger at them or so on. So some of that we don't get to do but also. I know that the time is coming, that we're all going to change. So I I have actually driven a Tesla down I 15 going from Delhi up here down toward Riverside and so on.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 14:24
I do not I tell me a little more about the story. How did this happen?

Michael Hingson 14:29
I was going down to do a speech and the person who was taking me down, owned a Tesla. And we talked a lot about the technology and he said you want to drive it and I said sure. And so I reached over and basically it was in a a well, copilot I won't say a self driving mode but copilot so it was watching what was going on on the road. And basically it required that someone keep their hand on the wheel. So it wasn't that I was doing a lot of work. But we had programmed into the GPS where we were going, and the Tesla and the automation, steer the vehicle, we avoided cars and so on. So I got a great feel for it. And I recognize that the car was in control. But I've also been to Daytona, yeah, in 2011, for the Rolex 24 race and the Blind Driver Challenge, the challenge where Mark Riccobono, the current president of the National Federation of the Blind, drove a car independently around the Daytona speedway. And that was using technology that gave him the information so that he could drive the car, not with automation, like in a Tesla, but literally drove the car, avoiding obstacles, and so on. And he had to do all of the work. And I did, I did drive the simulator, so I got a feel for it. But I also know that we're all eventually going to be using autonomous vehicles, a lot of things are going to change. And the other part to answering your question is, oh, my God, I don't want to be able to see and do what those people do. There are too many crazy drivers on the road. I don't want to be responsible for that.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 16:11
You got it? Yeah, absolutely. Tiger.

Michael Hingson 16:15
But you But you, you had very good parents, you were very fortunate in terms of being encouraged to do what you you do and what you did. So where did that take you? You went out of high school, you went into college? What did you do in college? And what was your major and all? Yeah, you

Dr. Hoby Wedler 16:32
know, my parents, just to just to circle back a little bit, or, or, like, they dispense still on my biggest supporters. And, you know, they, they did two things really, really, really did many things really well. But I'll focus on two right now. My brothers two years older and sighted. And the first major thing is they treated us with the same high expectations, I was not given lower expectations to follow, because I happen to be blind. And keeping us both to the same high high standard was really crucial to me growing up and, and being an active participant in this world we call home. They also taught us that the most important thing we can do is to take responsibility for ourselves, our lives and our actions. And hey, if we take responsibility and challenge ourselves in situations, and we succeed, we deserve the credit for that success. And frankly, if you fail, you deserve to take the blame. And that that pushed me and my brother so far. I see a lot of a lot of blind kids with sighted peers. There's a little bit of jealousy. And there's a lot of Oh, yeah, you know, we have high expectations of one and not the other. And I just, I just don't think that's necessary. And I think it actually really creates bad feeling so, so grateful and very happy now that my parents just really pushed me and in a nice way, and expected, by the way, that we would have the same ultra high expectations of them. So that was a really powerful thing. Um, after high school, I went on, I was in high school when I fell in love with chemistry. When it came time, I took physical science and loved chemistry there. And then when it came to my junior year, I said, Well, shoot, I'll take the test to get an honors chemistry. And I'm not sure the instructor was really expecting me to take the test and get the top score on it. But I ended up taking the test. And then she's in a pickle of God, he took the test now what do we do get to get these, you know, we got to get him into the class. So sure enough, I came into the class. And it was a Yeah, it was a great experience, we found someone to work with me who had taken the class before, as my eyes in the laboratory. But the instructor would would do something kind of interesting. She would tell the class, you all should think about studying chemistry. It's amazing. We live it, we breathe it, we eat it, we drink it, it really describes the world around us. And I know the physicists out there saying now physics is a little more fundamental. So you can comment there, if you will. But I think chemistry is pretty darn fundamental. And she would tell me when I was in her classroom, getting assistance, solving problems and that sort of thing. I'd say, hey, let's, uh, you know, I want to study chemistry, I actually want to do what you're asking us to do. And she would say, Oh, holy, it's really impractical. It's such a visual science. I don't know how that's gonna work. And I still vividly remember the day the exact day that I went into a classroom was the second week of the second semester. It's early in the morning before students arrived. And I said, you know, you've been telling me that chemistry is a visual science and that it probably wouldn't make sense for me to study. But I gotta tell you, nobody can see at us. So therefore chemistry is truly a cerebral science. And she had a light bulb go off and said, Hmm, that's interesting. You're right. And from that point on, became an absolute supporter and ally, and still is a dear friend and supporter and everything I do. So that was an incredible opportunity to realize that, hey, chemistry really isn't a cerebral isn't visual science, it's in our head, we use our eyesight for some of what we pick up in the laboratory. But if you think about the electromagnetic electromagnetic spectrum running from, you know, very small distances of Pico meter length waves all the way up to several meters, there's only one little tiny itty bitty part that we can see, which is between 704 100 I should say it in a different order, 407 100 nanometer wavelength light. And that means there's a whole lot of other light that can be detected, that has nothing to do with our eyesight. And we used a lot of that light in terms of radio waves and microwaves and that sort of thing to understand what's going on in our in our chemical samples, and then review the data. So I ended up long story short, I'm sure you wanted a shorter answer than this. But I ended up studying chemistry in college and not really knowing that I was a nerd at that point and wanted to teach, I always had the heart of a teacher, that was always my goal is to, is to teach.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 21:18
I got a degree in United States history as well, because I knew that I was going to be in graduate school in order to teach and I didn't know how accessible chemistry was going to be. And I didn't necessarily want an assistant, you know, looking over my shoulder 16 hours a day in the laboratory. So I thought, well, let me let me study history, so that I have a backup plan. And I was actually and I minored in math just because I'm a nerd and can't help myself and found abstract algebra really useful for chemistry. And it's like, I took those three courses. And I don't know, some career counselor, some advisor in the math department said, you know, you're only two courses away from a math minor. Oh, okay. Well, I took a logic class and a history of math class, which I loved as well. And ended up with a minor in math. But beside the point, I ended up, I was ready to apply to history graduate schools throughout the state, actually, of California. When I met my graduate advisor, who studies Computational Chemistry, I worked in his lab for a while as an undergraduate. And as great mentors often do, he sort of saw a future for me in chemistry in computational chemistry, before I kind of saw it for myself, and just recommended that I study chemistry and in his group, and apply and hopefully get into graduate school, so I did, ended up doing both my undergraduate and graduate work at UC Davis, University of California Davis, which was interesting. And a reason one reason for that there's a few reasons but one main one, Mike, is that I didn't want to have to convince another group of staff in the chemistry department and faculty that I could do what I could do, it was just easier to work with people who are believed in me and trusted me, quite frankly, I'm ended up earning my PhD in 2016, and have gone on from there and done nothing in chemistry.

Michael Hingson 23:07
Well, as a physicist, I'm glad that we were able to help you by inventing light for you. So you know. But yeah, thank you, I really think I think both physics and chemistry are part of the universe, and it isn't really fair to ever say one is so much better than the other. I believe that's true, we would have a hard time living without chemists or physicists. And and I think both of us could also say, and we would have a hard time living without engineers, who everybody seems to pick off. So it's okay.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 23:40
We think we can handle the nitty gritty stuff, but we need someone to build things for us. Okay.

Michael Hingson 23:44
Yeah. And and we need someone to figure out what it is that we need to do to handle the nitty gritty. So the mathematicians count as well.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 23:52
That's it. No, absolutely. Well,

Michael Hingson 23:55
so you just said a very interesting thing. You graduated in 2016, with a PhD in chemistry, and then haven't done anything with it since? Why?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 24:08
Well, and I won't say I've done nothing with it. Once again. That's one society. Well, sure, once once you go that far, you're always a scientist. And I will always consider myself a chemist. I wanted to teach. I told you that. And I had the honor of teaching some undergraduate classes. And so my desire to teach was to get people early on, excited about something maybe they didn't know they were excited about. So I wanted to be that instructor who came into the freshmen chemistry class with, you know, four or 500 students at 8am. On a Monday morning after a long weekend partying and get some of those students. Now, 90 plus percent of them are there because chemistry is a prerequisite and they just can't wait to get it over with. Yeah, I want to get some of those students excited about studying chemistry beyond this, this general chemistry course. That was my passion. I wanted to be a chemistry lecture to the very early chemistry students, because that's when you can shake people and help change how they think about what's possible for them. And I taught several of those courses at Davis and I realized something that was hard to realize, which is that students did not speak chemistry, they want some explanation of what they see on the screen. But what they really want to see are pretty pictures and animations and videos showing exactly what's what's happening with a lot of this years. And that there's and then we put this over here, and we can see this red thing down over there and then be ready for the test on Friday. Now, I can't explain chemistry to you very well. But I need to use my words, mostly. Now, I do understand that many concepts are very much supported by images, and and graphs and charts and diagrams, and whatever the case may be. So I absolutely would spend time with assistants putting together PowerPoints with some of those images. And what I realized is I was spending a lot of time and money working on basically making beautiful presentations with beautiful video clips, and animations and things that would slide in and slide out and fly around just to keep the students entertained. And I'd have to spend hours memorizing these presentations so that I could talk about them cohesively as I, as I showed them, basically. And that was all time spent working with several different assistants. The other thing that I found disappointing was that students didn't read the textbook, if I would say, Okay, we're focusing on Chapter two sections three and four. Tomorrow, I would say maybe 2% of my students actually read the book, and came ready to talk about it. And for for those students out there, I will just tell you, if your instructor teaches from a book, read the book ahead of time. So that lecture feels like a review. Right? That's, that's really crucial, in my opinion. So one thing led to another and while I was in graduate school, concurrent with my graduate tenure, I had the opportunity of working with Francis Ford Coppola, I know you have as well. He asked me through a friend, I met him. And he asked me to host a truly blindfolded Wine Experience. And he said, You decide how this is done. The reason I'm asking you to do this, is I don't want it to be gaudy. And

Dr. Hoby Wedler 27:38
you know, so gamified, I want it to be real and authentic. And I commend him for wanting to have a blind person design and run this program, because I can use the blindfold. And I will never tell you, Hey, this is what it's like to be me, that would be silly. But what we can do is we can use the blindfold not at all as a toy, or as something gimmicky. That's the other thing Francis said, he said, above all OB, this can't be gimmicky, and I couldn't have agreed more. So, you know, we built out the experience. Where the blindfold is literally something that temporarily removes a sense that we use for to take in a lot of our information if we're sighted. So when we remove it logically, our other senses were differently. And we can focus on different variables, maybe we can focus more on how wine smells, maybe we can focus more when we're not distracted by our eyesight on how wine tastes. And maybe we can just focus on what's being sat around us a little more the voices that we hear that way, the chair we're sitting on feels, all sorts of things. And by the way, I really do believe and this is sort of an aside, that if you're going to do blindfolded stuff, you have to do it tastefully, and you have to do it well. And there are some programs out there that do it well, and there are a lot of programs out there that don't do it well. So I am one who really takes pride in giving sighted people that temporary experience and not distracted by eyesight in a way that does not be little, or suggests that this is what it's like to be me or anything of the sort. And I'm very, very careful about that. By the way.

Michael Hingson 29:18
That's one of the concerns I have about things that are called dining in the dark is that most people say you'll get to see what it's like to be blind. No, you won't. You don't have any of the training. You don't have any of the background. But I like what you say which is that if you treat eyesight as a distraction, or if you treat being blindfolded, as a way to avoid the distraction that goes along with eyesight, then you can use your other senses, which in fact for something like tasting are just as important, if not more, so unless There's something that's an absolute requirement for the presentation of the food. Absolutely. And, and I understand that, and I appreciate that we watched Food Network a lot, we see things about presentation and was my immediate reaction as well. So the taste of the food, but I also do appreciate that there is a place for presentation, but for tasting and so on, you need to get rid of distractions. It's like anything else, you need to get rid of distractions to focus on what it is that you want to focus on. And the last time the last time I heard, we didn't have eyes in our mouths so that we could see the wine as we're tasting it exactly in our mouths. So yeah, but But I hear what you're saying. So you did that with France.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 30:43
Someone asked me a funny question. When I was a freshman in college and the dining hall. They said, How can you eat when you don't know where your mouth is? And my response to them was like, That's news to me, I guess you with a rearview mirror on your head all the time? Not? Okay. You know? Yeah. It's just interesting. People's people's perception, people's perceptions. Yeah. So you work with friends you work through that, for a while actually took took it on the road pretty soon after we started as a hospitality experience for his wineries in Sonoma County, right. And as soon as the Sales Team National Sales Team heard about it, they wanted it for them. So we brought it on the road. And what's great about being a computational chemist is that my laptop was my laboratory. And my advisor was very willing to say, go travel and figure out what you want to do. So I worked with them. And I got really involved in this in the world of food and beverage, and that community in the sensory aspects of food and beverage and met a lot of really neat people who I thought were really interesting and really cool. And this is concurrent with teaching, feeling a little less accessible than it honestly could. So one thing kind of led to another and I found myself really loving the world of sensory design and designing high end experiences and products to an extent based on our non visual sensory input. And logically that works into food and beverage quite well. So I do a lot of personal consulting in the in the food and beverage world on product development, on tweaking products to make them even better than they already are. These sorts of things, we still do a lot of speaking a lot of these tasting experiences, when and where desired. There's nothing regularly scheduled, but I do them a lot as a consultant. And then I love thinking about creative as well. So it's not only science and taste, it's it's science and art, and how can we straddle that very fine intersection between science and art. And the way that I've come up with is through being creative. So I'm a creative thinker, and I thought that creative was a good thing to focus on. So I actually co founded a creative and marketing studio called cents point in 2017. And my business partner, Justin is here in California with me, our third partner, is our creative director as well, man named Jody Tucker, who's based down in Adelaide, Australia. And because of my love for food and beverage, and in gaining popularity in the industry, I just this last year started my own brand of gourmet seasonings, it's expanding a lot right now, by the way, in terms of the products that we have out there, we currently have two products on the market, hoagies essentials as the name of the brand, and we have a rosemary, salt, and a blend of sort of an all purpose dry rub that we're calling happy paprika, but that line is expanding very quickly into about half a dozen more products, probably before the end of the year. So we're really excited about that.

Michael Hingson 33:38
Well, we're gonna need to get some of those to, to put on meat when I barbecue and I do the barbecuing and the grilling in the house. So absolutely. We need to to work that. But so I'm going to ask right now, and I'll probably ask at the end, if people want to learn more about that. How do they do it?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 33:56
Where do they go to hobi.com? And that's H ovy.com. And that's got all my stuff? My my personal website, the homies essentials brand site, everything's there.

Michael Hingson 34:07
Yeah. Are any of the hobbies essential products being sold in any kind of mainstream markets yet? Or is it too new

Dr. Hoby Wedler 34:14
not a Gaussian distribution in Novato at p hardware? And you know, which it very well, it's a great place, isn't it? Yeah. And then Rex hardware up here in Petaluma, which is another H store and a couple of markets out in Sebastopol. So we're small but we're growing that retail presence.

Michael Hingson 34:34
So when do we get to see you on Shark Tank? Oh, you know Shark Tank?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 34:41
That'd be fun. Yeah, I'm an entrepreneur. I do a lot of it.

Michael Hingson 34:45
There you go. So when do we get to see you on Shark Tank? That's the question.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 34:48
Ah man, well, maybe sooner rather than later my funding dries up.

Michael Hingson 34:53
Or don't wait for it to dry but enhance it. There it is. There it is one of the things that in impressed as me and you know, needless to say, we've known each other a while and I've had a chance to, to watch you and so on and see what you do. You, you really do talk the talk. And by that I mean and walk the walk. But you, you act as a role model in a lot of ways. So yes, you've formed hobbies, essentially, yes, you helped create sense point design. But you've also taken it further, in that when you see opportunities to address issues regarding disabilities, I've seen that you've done a lot of that. And I know that one of the things that you have taken a great interest in is the whole idea of inclusion and access on the internet.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 35:43
Yeah, I do care a lot about that, and many other things as well. We started a nonprofit, which is now on hiatus called accessible science that basically basically brought blind kids together for annual chemistry camps, that enchanted Hills camp for the blind, and taught them how to do hands on organic chemistry. That was what we call it, but really, it was to teach them they could do whatever the heck they wanted them or how visual the career seems. And we've had students come from that and become, you know, get their get their PhDs and masters and all sorts of things and fields, they didn't really think were were possible for them to study. So it's kind of fun to just open minds a little bit to what's possible. And, and because the word mindset is in the, in the title of your part of your show here. You know, I think it's all about forming the right mindset. And with the right mindset, we can do anything we want. And the same thing, I think it's about, you know, making the internet more accessible, is all about mindset, and all about really thinking about the user while designing the webpage.

Michael Hingson 36:52
You have, you have clearly done a lot in the the the internet world and so on. And you've used your experiences with sense point design, as I said, and hope is essential as to to role model, what kinds of ways have you helped to influence what's occurring with access in the internet and so on?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 37:13
You know, number one, I just I think it's when we design websites for our clients, we think about that. And we want a solution because not all of us are accessible web accessibility experts. So our what I loved is kind of obsessively is a part of your life. When I found out about accessory it made perfect sense to me if there's a if there's an automated tool that we can use to help make websites fully accessible, that's exactly what I want. Because my team aren't necessarily experts in the in the accessibility. I mean, we know about accessibility and the WCAG you know that but some of these some of these people are really our experts and frankly, a lot of our clients can't afford what it takes to maintain a website is fully accessible it's 1000s of dollars a month. So they get really excited when I present them with a solution that's only $49 a month that makes their site very accessible across many different platforms. So that's that's the main way that I have found to fully it will take to make fully accessible the websites we consult on or design

Michael Hingson 38:27
how did you find accessible How did you discover it?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 38:30
That's a really funny story. I actually found excessively initially because my brother was chatting with your CEO about possibly investing in the company I'm not sure where that conversation went but he mentioned excessive yes or no that's interesting. And then a few years later a couple years later I saw the solution when looking for just good automated tools to make websites more accessible and contacted someone in your in your sales department a woman by the name of Jenna Gemma Fantoni don't know if you know her. But she then set us up as a as an affiliate partner accessory. So since point is an affiliate partner of accessory, and it's really easy to to use and make your site accessible.

Michael Hingson 39:15
What do you think about the people who have concerns about using an artificial intelligence system and an automated solution to help address access and inclusion, as opposed to the manual coding traditional way of dealing with it?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 39:32
I think there's a solution for every client and it's not going to be the same for anyone. I think if you can afford the the manual coding, which again is going to be several $1,000 a month, use it if that's what you want to do use it. I don't see any problem with automated tools. You know if we were talking about cars becoming more automated, I'll tell you that Elon Musk back in September We were a group of four civilians up to space, they orbit at higher than the International Space Station at 519 kilometers. These people didn't know how to fly spacecraft, but the automated spacecraft, flew them around the earth and low Earth orbit for 72 hours, launched them and brought them right back to Earth. And, boy, if that's not if that's not a suggestion that that automation and some AI can really help, I don't know what is. So when it comes to websites, I see absolutely no reason that it's a that it's a problem. Sure, there are things that it might miss. Yeah, that's, that could be true. But what's great about that you and I have an extensive talks about this. But when we find a problem, and we fix it in the back end of accessibility, we're fixing it for all the people who have accessible, not just that one website. So it really, it really is a practical solution. And I don't understand this one or the other approach, you know, it's let's be more inclusive and think about what's best for the client. You know, I've got clients who are more small wineries or use very small organizations that can afford to make their make their stuff fully accessible by hard coding. They are really excited by an option that makes their site accessible and usable by all parties. The other thing that accessory does the overlays like accessibility really well. And I think accessory does particularly well is thinking about other disabilities. It's not just those of us who are visually impaired. Think about blinking pulsating cursors for people with epilepsy, and how that might stimulate seizure. There's so many things that we can that we should be considering when we think about accessibility. And I really like a solution that includes all all parties and all folks in in that, that solution. So I really, I really do believe in accessibility, Oh, no.

Michael Hingson 41:59
Well, I have maintained for quite a while that when we talk about disabilities, and so on. In reality, the concept of diversity has gone away. People never talk about disabilities or very, very, very, very rarely talk about disabilities. When it comes to diversity. I mean, we were hearing regularly, especially every year around Oscar time about how there has to be more diversity. There have to be more women, there has to be different racial content, we have to have more directories of

Dr. Hoby Wedler 42:36
diversity, the photo has to look more diverse

Michael Hingson 42:39
in the photo, but they never talk about disabilities being a part of it. Why is it that we don't have a blind movie director? And why is it that we can't there's there's no reason. Now I don't know how to do it. And I am not interested in being a director. Although I'm sure I could learn to talk like one you know, and all that but, but I'm not really interested in being a movie director. But I suspect that there are some blind people who have the knowledge and the talent, certainly people in wheelchairs and so on. And Marlee Matlin is a person who is deaf has done a great deal in, in the entertainment world. But the reality is we don't get included. How do we change that conversation? At a basic level in society to get more inclusion, about people with disabilities, the conversations that we have?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 43:37
Yeah, it's an interesting question. You know, I think I see that from from multiple different angles, the first thing I'd say is that I personally believe that a blind person's perspective is an extremely diverse one, and a life that was lived very differently than others, and should be listened to. I also think that diversity means literally bringing people with different perspectives. It's not how they look or what their you know what their gender is, or anything like this. It's sure those things matter tremendously. But it's about the perspective that they bring that their upbringing and their background brings to the table. And I think if you have a more diverse team, you're going to have more perspectives at the table to come up with a broader solution to a problem. And frankly, in a business setting, a more diverse team is going to increase your bottom line fairly dramatically. Why specifically, are people with disabilities not included? I think we're trying to change that. I think we're trying to remind people, Hey, we, you know, those of us with disabilities have have perspectives that are very unique and very worth considering. And, you know, I think we need to just show society, what it is that we can do. You know, it's that's one of the reasons that I was happy to get the graduate degree that I got. And I imagine it's the same for you, even if you don't end up using it, you know, for academics, you know, people know that We know how to work hard. And but I think that a lot of the reason we don't get included is because not because people don't are angry with us and don't want to include us. It's simply because they don't know how to include us. They don't know what we can do. I think it's our job to educate people and say, Hey, no, we we can be right. They're at the table with you, you know, and help solve problems and all that sort of thing.

Michael Hingson 45:24
I think there's a fear element, but it comes down to not knowing right? People are also afraid of things they don't understand. They don't understand primarily disabilities. And they're also afraid, well, that could happen to me, which is probably the the best thought that they can have. Because the reality is, it could happen to you. So why aren't you including people up front who have disabilities, or who have those characteristics that you do not have? It's disabilities as a, as a classification is one of those characteristics that most people, including most people who happen to have disabilities today are not born with? It's true, but it is a characteristic that anyone can acquire.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 46:06
It's no one minority group that we all can and probably will join, if we live are lucky enough to live long enough,

Michael Hingson 46:12
in one way or another? Absolutely. And there's no reason for a lack of inclusion, one of the things I really love about accessibility is that it is really helping in its own way to change that the very fact that it's a scalable solution. Yeah, it's a solution that can work in so many ways. And accessibility is also now creating a suite of products that go beyond the overlay. But the other thing that I think that happened this year, that really excites me, is that excessive, be created a series of television commercials. Yeah. And everyone in the commercial had disabilities. It was all done with actors. Incredible.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 47:00
Yep. Showing and showing that this actually matters. And we are not only going to help people with disabilities, we're going to put them we're going to put them in our advertisements, putting them to work. Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Hingson 47:14
And the reality is, I don't I don't know all the the video vignettes that were shown, but I know a number of them. And the reality is that it really shows that we can be anywhere just like anyone else, which is, of course, one of the things that I hope people learn from, from my story, you know, we wrote thunder, dog, and so on, and it's all about fine people can be anywhere just like you including near the top of the World Trade Center in escaping. And it and it isn't luck to escape anymore than for anyone else it is in strategy. It is absolutely strategy and preparation. Yeah, it

Dr. Hoby Wedler 47:55
is. And being ready for that day. When it comes frankly, and, and having the training that you need. You know, I by the way, I'll just say something about commercials and people with disabilities, I've seen something that I don't particularly enjoy, which are people with disabilities being used for advertising purposes. And then to see the company not hiring people with disabilities, that's a little frustrating. So if we're going to show people with disabilities, let's make a commitment to bring them in on our team as well.

Michael Hingson 48:25
I think that's important. And I also think that companies that say that they're accessible, and they have a lot of visible stuff relating to so called Accessibility, don't really need to prove it. I've seen any number of products that come out, or get updated over the years, and accessibility gets broken. That should never happen. I agree. And it's it's truly unfortunate that those those kinds of things occur. Yeah, of course, it's easy to sit here and say excessive he can help with, with APA well with internet stuff right now to address that. And we'll see what happens with apps down the line. But sure, but but the fact of the matter is inclusion is something that we all should take very seriously. And we should adopt a more inclusive mindset. There's there's nothing wrong with doing that.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 49:17
No. It's important.

Michael Hingson 49:21
Well, it is and we have to do our part. And I think you've said it very well. We do have to be the educators and we we must work in an environment where we don't get offended or upset when people ask us questions, especially when they're really legitimately and obviously trying to learn. The last thing we want to do is to not be good teachers and discourage people. No, that's

Dr. Hoby Wedler 49:48
absolutely true. I would I would agree with that head over heels.

Michael Hingson 49:54
So where do you go from here? What what's next in your adventurous life?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 49:59
I think Working on this season's brand, getting it out there really, really trying to try to put together I'm actually working on a show right now just about experience in the food and beverage industry that we're going to try to popularize here. And that's going to be in the next probably latter half of say latter half, maybe mid mid part of, of 2022. And, yeah, just growing from there and see where see where the journey of food and beverage takes me. How's that?

Michael Hingson 50:30
Can you tell us a little about the show? Or is it too premature?

Dr. Hoby Wedler 50:32
It's pretty premature. I'll hold off on that. But I'll tell you why. After we do our pilot, maybe maybe you'll be kind enough to have me on again. And I'll tell you,

Michael Hingson 50:41
I would love to and you know, of course, if you need another blind person to to volunteer in any way, let me know.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 50:48
Thank you very much. I will do that. Even if tasting

Michael Hingson 50:51
isn't my forte at the moment. Well, I can taste salt. But you also do some other work. You're involved with some other nonprofits. I know you're the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Euro bound Center for

Dr. Hoby Wedler 51:05
the Blind. You and I both care deeply about the Euro bond center and are on the board. This great, it's a blindness Training Center in Santa Rosa, California, serving four counties, Sonoma, Lake, Napa, Mendocino, and I live in Petaluma, which is in Sonoma County. And it's pretty great to have an awesome training center in our backyard.

Michael Hingson 51:27
It's it's interesting, because during the pandemic, URL by Baum did some very interesting things to help keep classes going. And I know you did. And I participated remotely in some of the orientation and mobility classes in some of the other classes. Partly for encouragement, but also partly to help teach alternative techniques and use our skills to help people understand even if it's remotely how they can use good cane skills and other skills to be able to function. I was really impressed with Earl balms innovative approach to that because I saw other agencies that didn't do nearly as much of that. They had this well suspend classes until the the pandemic was over or until it lessened. Right, I'm not sure as you I'm not sure if it's over or not, or close to being over. But Earl balm was very creative in some of the things that it did.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 52:28
Well, they pivoted in less than a week. It was really fast. Yeah. And really cool to see, by the way.

Michael Hingson 52:36
And and they've done it well. Yeah, they have.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 52:39
Yeah. Well, I also serve on the board of the Petaluma Educational Foundation, where basically fund or private foundation funds, grants and scholarships to students all over Petaluma. So I have fun with that, too. More than chemistry,

Michael Hingson 52:53
I hope.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 52:55
We do fund all programs. Yes. Yes, that's right. That's cool. That's fun. It's fun to get out there and be involved.

Michael Hingson 53:04
And that's, that's really it. Right? It's, it's all about having fun and enjoying what you do

Dr. Hoby Wedler 53:10
is because when you do that, it doesn't feel like work.

Michael Hingson 53:14
And an incentive really isn't. Well there any last things you'd like to say any last thoughts you have that you want to leave with people.

Dr. Hoby Wedler 53:22
Don't forget to live life with the most positive mindset you can have. And a great way to feel good about yourself is to challenge yourself and succeed. So I always say, abundance mindset, the more people you know, the better. The more opportunities you have in the world, the better just Just live your life to the best of your ability. And don't forget to have a little fun while you're doing it.

Michael Hingson 53:47
And that makes you unstoppable. And I that's exactly what it's all about. And that makes anyone who does that unstoppable will hope you Wendler, thank you for being with us on unstoppable mindset today. It's been a lot of fun. One more time, how can people reach you and

Dr. Hoby Wedler 54:03
just visit hoby.com That's the best way to get in touch with me. All my contact info is there and there's a contact form. You can find our Hoby's Essentials product line there. You know you see a link right from that website to us. So that's that's the hub for everything.

Michael Hingson 54:24
Cool. Well thank you for being here. And if and if any of you listening will please do so I hope that you'll go to your podcast host or you can go to MichaelHingson.com/podcast that's M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com slash podcast and give us a five star rating. We would appreciate your ratings and your comments. You're also welcome to reach out. To me. The easiest way is through email. You can email me at MichaelHI M I C H A E l H I At accessiBe.com. accessiBe is spelled A C C E S S I B E. So [email protected]. we'd love to hear from you hear your thoughts what you think about the show. And hopefully you or anyone listening if you think of others who ought to be guests on on the unstoppable mindset podcast would definitely appreciate you letting us know and and suggested many others. Well, great, we we hope that you will fill our calendar with

Dr. Hoby Wedler 55:30
lots of will not be I will not be shy to introduce you.

Michael Hingson 55:33
Please do not be shy and we won't be shy about inviting you back. So well. Thank

Dr. Hoby Wedler 55:38
you very much

Michael Hingson 55:39
me posted and we'll we'll

Dr. Hoby Wedler 55:40
I shall. Thank you, Michael. It's been a pleasure.

Michael Hingson 55:45
Thanks again. Hopefully this has been really fun, which is of course what you want us to do.

55:49
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Michael Hingson 55:59
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
58 min
January 12, 2022 Episode 16 – Two Unstoppable People are Much Better than One with John and Larry Gassman
Meet John and Larry Gassman who each and together are as unstoppable as it gets. John and Larry Gassman, blind and identical twins live life to the fullest. They both have worked in the travel industry, one for Disney Travel company and the other for Marriott, for more than 19 years. You will get to hear their stories about their work as well as their many and varied hobbies. I rarely have met two individuals who have been and continue to be so enthusiastic about life even in the face of Covid and the many challenges faced by all of us. You won’t soon forget these twins and how they help forge a better for blind people and for everyone around them.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About Our Guests:
John and Larry Gassman are identical twins born on January 2, 1955. Both are blind due to being given too much oxygen after being born more than two and a half months premature. At birth Larry weighed 1 pound ten ounces and John weighed 1 pound eight ounces. Larry’s late wife Melinda referred to them when describing how little they were to her nieces as “About the size of a Macho Burrito.

The Gassman twins were fortunate that their parents did not totally buy into the myth that blind children could not grow up and thrive in the world. Thus both boys were given the opportunity to explore and grow just like other kids.

After completing their scholastic educations both twins secured employment. After a stint teaching Braille at the Braille Institute of America in Los Angeles John joined the Walt Disney Travel Company working in reservations as well as testing updates and changes in the reservations systems to insure that the software remains accessible.

Larry Joined Marriott in 2,000 also becoming involved in reservations. Larry trained many other blind persons to use the Marriott programs. He also tested new applications to insure accessibility for blind employees.

The Gassmans have been collectors of “old time radio shows” since the early 1970s. The began hosting their own program in 1973. Today you can hear them regularly on the internet radio station, Yesterday USA, www.Yesterdayusa.com. In addition to hosting programs they are both part of the behind the scenes directors of Yesterday USA.

Talking about being busy and active, they both are very active, as Larry says, “Barbershoppers”. They have sung in various quartets as well as participating in various conventions and helping to run barbershop chapters in Orange County.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.

Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.

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Transcription Notes
1 hr 12 min
January 05, 2022 Episode 15 – Unstoppable On Wheels with Josh Basile
Through social media, the news, and elsewhere we encounter stories of people we say are inspirational to us because they have some sort of disability. We can’t imagine how they do the things they do. No matter how many such stories we find, we still are amazed. On Unstoppable Mindset, my goal, in part, is not just to show you such stories, but to give you a chance to meet the people behind the stories, yes those amazing people.
Meet Josh Basile, a C4-5 quadriplegic. He wasn’t born a quadriplegic, but he grew into the role after an accident. Josh will tell you his story and how he decided to go into the law. He will tell you how his decisions after his accident shapes his life today.
I hope you will not be amazed after this episode. Instead, I hope you will gain greater respect and greater value for people who are different from you. Listen and see how such persons live, love, and enjoy life just as you do. I hope that you will see that we are not as different from you as you think.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About our Guest:
Meet Josh Basile a C4-5 quadriplegic, power wheelchair user, disability rights advocate, and lawyer. In 2004, at the age of 18, Josh was paralyzed below the shoulders in a beach accident. Soon after he formed a 501(c)3 to empower newly injured families through SPINALpedia.com and its 21,000 paralysis-related videos. As a medical malpractice lawyer and disabilities rights advocate, Josh serves persons with disabilities both in the courtroom and through policy initiatives. As a community leader and change-maker, Josh works tirelessly to improve the quality of life the persons with disabilities and to continuously break down existing barriers to access and inclusion. To improve web accessibility and usability, Josh joined accessiBe and that accessFind initiative as the Community Relations Manager.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
Michael Hingson 01:21
And welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And it's always fun if we get to have something unexpected happened on the show, and sometimes unexpected guests and we'll see how it goes today. We have, I think a very interesting person for you to meet today. He's someone that I met through accessibly. But he has a fascinating story to tell. And let's get right to it. So I'd like you to be Josh Bassel. Josh, welcome to unstoppable mindset.
Josh Basile 01:56
Michael, it's great to be here today.
Michael Hingson 01:58
Thanks for for coming. So you do why don't you start by telling us a little bit about you.
Josh Basile 02:06
Alright, so my name is Josh Basile. I live outside of Washington, DC and Maryland. My life changed forever. When I was a teenager, I was 18 years old. I went on a family vacation to the beach and a wave picked me up and threw me over my boogie board and slammed me headfirst against the ocean floor. That day, I shattered my neck and became a C for fat quadriplegic.
Michael Hingson 02:37
So, needless to say, you had a life changing event. What What was your reaction? How did you how did you feel? You must have experienced some fear? And lots of uncertainty? How did you how did you work through all of that.
Josh Basile 02:55
So I guess we could start with the initial fear. So like, when I had my injury, I just remember hearing a loud crack. And it like reverberated throughout my entire body. And all of a sudden I couldn't move at all. And I was facedown in the water, I was unable to like scream for help, I was unable to turn my body and just kind of was just floating in the ocean. And all I could do was try to remain as calm as possible and hope that my friends would see me floating in would come out and grab me in and saved my life. And luckily they did that day. And then when it comes to fear of, of kind of transitioning into a new world of functionality and a new world of kind of dependency on in so many ways. I that was definitely a huge change. I went from a college athlete to someone that couldn't even brush his teeth anymore. And it was it was a big it was a rude awakening, but so much of it kind of for me to overcome it was about perspective and having a different mindset of, you know, there's so much with with my injury that I can't do, but I choose to not focus on that I focus on what I can do. And it's it's there's lots of little things that allow me to really always proactively continue to move forward.
Michael Hingson 04:31
So we talk about the things that you can't do, I guess, you know, as a as a person who happens to be blind, you know, I hear all the time about how you can't do this or you can't do that. How do you how do you react to that? Being in a chair and being a quadriplegic? And I guess what I'm getting at I'll tell you kind of my thoughts is, are are that is it really so much you can't do or you have to do in a different way. way.
Josh Basile 05:02
So for me, it's like before my injury, I did things, 1 million ways. after my injury, I get to do it 1 million new ways. And it's different. But different, could still be fun different could still be meaningful. It's just you know, the way I brush my teeth now is not with my hands. I do it through through the hands of a caregiver. I, you know, doing a different sport. Before an injury, I skied on my two feet. Now I ski in a sled with somebody behind me Holding, holding it. And you know, I've flying down the mountain. So there's a million different ways that I get to do new things. And it's just a matter of having the right creativity. And at the end of the day, it's really having a willingness to try to put yourself out there, and to experience all that life has to offer.
Michael Hingson 05:54
The founder of the National Federation of the Blind Jacobus timber once wrote an article and Tim Burke was a constitutional law scholar, he wrote an article called a preference for equality. And he talked about equality, I'd be interested in your thoughts on this. And what what he said is that a lot of people say, well, it's only equal, if I give you a pencil and paper and you write, you know, that's, that's equal, we're giving you the same things we give everyone else. And what he said was that equality doesn't mean that the equality means that you have the same opportunity, but you may use different techniques, different tools, but that you at least are allowed to, or you are given the opportunity to use those tools to be able to accomplish the same task.
Josh Basile 06:39
Or yeah, with equality without it's, we all have our own unique experiences on how we do things, how we experience life. So you know, having an equal opportunity to experience and to participate, and to have different options to do it the way that you would like to do it, or the way that you can do it. But being being a part of this world, you know, so much of the internet is about, you know, people talk about accessibility. But you know, for me, it's almost more important for it to be about usability and usable. And it's like, there's different things of that nature that you can kind of talk about kind of equal access and equal this, but it's, for me, it's like, is it going to be functional, to my life to my unique world, and there's so many different types of disabilities, so many different types of functionalities. And it's, it's important that it works for the person that is trying to be a part of it.
Michael Hingson 07:35
Which is really the whole point that equality isn't about doing something exactly the same way with the same stuff. Equality is being able to accomplish the same task. I thought it was interesting years ago, was it Jack Nicklaus, who had a hip replacement or someone and needed to use a golf cart. And so there were some issues about him going on a golf courses with a golf cart when everyone else had to walk. And they had to work through that.
Josh Basile 08:04
It was, it was definitely it was a golfer in the, in the like the, around the 2000s, that that ended up having to do that. And it went to the Supreme Court, and they found that he was able to use the golf cart, and that it was a reasonable accommodation.
Michael Hingson 08:20
Well, for blind people who wanted to take the LSAT and and go into law, there were a lot of challenges because the the testing programs required that you took the test in a certain way. And eventually at least they provided some equipment, but it wasn't necessarily the equipment that blind people use. And so it really put people taking the test at a disadvantage. And again, it went to the Supreme Court, ironically, lawyers of all people who ought to really be upholding the rights of all people. But it had to go to the Supreme Court before a final ruling came down that said, Well, of course, people can use the screen readers and the technologies that they are used to to take the test.
Josh Basile 09:06
Now and that's, you know, that's always kind of kind of boggled my mind. How even within the LSAT, how there's so many different discriminatory factors that have that have existed over the years. When I graduated college, I decided to go to law school and I took the LSAT myself. And during that time, everybody that had a disability that had an accommodation there so anybody with accommodation, they created a flag on the test. And basically it's it told every single place that you applied every school that you applied, that this person has a disability. And only after while I was in law school, there was a class action lawsuit that I believe originated in California, that ended up like saying that you can't do that you can't that is completely against Ada, you can add, you can add, be able to disclose that a person has a disability during the application process. And there there was, you know, a class action settlement across the United States. But it's, it's, it's kind of crazy how that stuff is, is there and continues to happen?
Michael Hingson 10:21
Well before your accident when you were 18. And of course, you're you're not that old now you're at least 25. Right? So before your I know, before, you're 36. So before you were, you were put in a chair, you you had your accident, what were your career goals.
Josh Basile 10:41
before my injury, I was a business major and art minor in college. And for me, I've always loved the stock market. So I wanted to become an investment banker. And that was the route that I was trying to pursue, or I'd like a dream internship that summer, my injury and I would have loved to continue to work for my boss that summer as a as a career afterwards. But I'm definitely my injury, I flip things upside down, it changed life forever. And I quickly learned that my voice and my mind were my best assets. Physically, I was limited in what I can do. But mentally, and through my, through my advocacy skills, I could do great things. And that's when I decided to go back to community college, and I went to undergrad, and then graduated magna cum laude through law school, and it was a it was definitely a long adventure with the patient I decided to go through. But in the end, it was totally worthwhile and is open so many doors to an opportunities within the employment world. And I've very much enjoyed working for since 2013.
Michael Hingson 12:04
So why did you decide to switch and go from investment banking into law.
Josh Basile 12:11
So basically, just to become as strong of an advocate as I could possibly be, you know, with undergrad, I was a communication major. And so my voice getting really strong and my ability to influence others and change the world around me. And then I just knew law school would give me a unique mindset and approach to really taking it to the next level. And, you know, law school is incredible to it teaches you kind of how to think like a lawyer. And then you have to get in the world and you actually have to kind of have a specialty to take on. And that's when I took on medical malpractice and catastrophic injuries and help families all across the country, the lawsuits and helping them navigate kind of also how to get the community supports they need for independent living when it comes to caregiving or pursuing vocation through the vocational system. There's there's so many different elements to what happens after our college Strophic injury to kind of reenter society and actually have a better quality of life.
Michael Hingson 13:16
But you worked through it, you chose to not give up, you chose to move forward and do something with your life, which is of course the whole point, isn't it?
Josh Basile 13:27
Absolutely, it's, um, life is too short not to, to live, love and laugh, and put yourself out there to be the best you and you know, before my injury, you know, our let's say, after manage Dre like, Yes, I have a different body, but I'm still, I'm still me. I just have, you know, a sexy power wheelchair to get me around. And I've got different technology and different caregiving supports that allow me to do things that I would have done before. But it's, it's definitely one of those things that like you just, I try to I try to let families know that within this life, like I've mentored 1000s of families through my nonprofit determined to heal. And one of the big things is, after an injury, you need to learn how to advocate for yourself, you need to learn how to become your own best advocate, because nobody's going to fight harder for you than you're going to fight for yourself in your life. So learning kind of what it is to give you the best opportunities to give you the best supports, and to be able to be that captain of the ship as you're going along this life journey. It gives you a great power in what direction you're gonna go. And it gives you the ability to you know, accept help and that accepting help is not it's not a weakness. A lot of people think of an accommodation school as a weakness. It creates an evil Been playing field just to allow you to show what you have. And being able to get support through friends, family caregivers to help you along your journey is just, it gives you extra boost along your way along your voyage is basically having crewmates instead of sailing ship of one year sailing a ship of the 10. That's a much easier voyage.
Michael Hingson 15:25
The issue of accepting help is one though, where you need to be the one to decide what help and and when you need help. Which, which is always of course an issue people, a lot of our well most of the time want to help and sometimes help when you don't need help, which which can be a challenge and of itself.
Josh Basile 15:47
Yeah, no, it's it's hard. A lot of a lot of persons with disabilities are very stubborn. You know, I see it a lot within the paralysis community. The difference between a quadriplegic and a paraplegic. So a quadriplegic is somebody that has immobility in all four extremities. a paraplegic, has a mobility in two extremities. And so often paraplegics, in many ways, they, they want to do everything on their on their own and show their independence, which gives them their power. With a quadriplegic, you'll see somebody is way more open to receiving help, and is accepting of it, and is willing to, like, try and train somebody to help them do different tasks, but it is, it's the different mindsets of are you it doesn't really, for me, it's accepting help, doesn't matter. Or if you're paraplegic quadriplegic person without a disability, it's just a matter of opening your your arms to being able to allow others to be a part of your life and contribute. So many people just want to help because they want to, they want to give it's it's a good feeling to give. And it's, it's, it's it's kind of a different dynamic, depending on the personality of who you're talking to.
Michael Hingson 17:06
Sure. And about. And then the reality is that, that we all should be more interested in receiving help when we need it. And we should also be willing to give help, and offer help. And I tell people all the time, look, don't assume I need help, and don't operate under the assumption that I want help crossing the street. There's never anything wrong with asking if I want some help, but accept the answer. If I say no, because there are also a lot of times that I don't want help. For example, when I used to travel around the world trade center, and looked like I was lost, I probably was and the reason I was lost was because I worked to getting lost. So I could figure out more about how to travel around the center and and learn things and there would be times I would ask questions. But it was important to learn the complex, because I wasn't going to use the same visual cues that you would use.
Josh Basile 18:13
I love that about persons with disabilities that we we are faced with so many barriers on a daily basis. But that allows us to be kind of really fine to problem solvers. Like we're really able to like figure out, you know how to overcome challenges, how to get to where we need to go, how to complete puzzles, how to complete? Well, you, you name it, and it it's like the practice that we do every single day gives us a special kind of ability beyond many other people. And it's I think this is one of our greatest contributions that we can give to the workforce in general is that, you know, you you give us a problem within a company, we're going to be able to approach it probably a lot differently than than other employees that you have, just because we we do it every day we put our 10,000 hours in to become experts, expert problem solvers.
Michael Hingson 19:14
I know that you have seen this and seen some of the statistics, both before and in your time at accessiBe and we'll talk about that. But one of the things that we both get to talk about on a regular basis is the fact that when companies decide to make themselves inclusive, whether it be in their advertising, whether it be in their hiring practices and so on, but when they decide to make themselves inclusive to persons with disabilities, the reality is we also tend to be more loyal because we know one it's harder to find a job when we're facing a 65 plus percent unemployment rate among employable people with With Disabilities, and to that, it's harder to, to deal with various aspects of a company, if they don't make it more inclusive. So when we find companies and organizations that are inclusive, we tend to be more loyal to them.
Josh Basile 20:16
Absolutely, it's data statistics, you name it, studies have been done, and conducted that have proven that the disability community is, is either the most, most brand loyal community, in the world in the United States. And it's because, you know, we're not always taking care of correctly, but when we are, it's, we don't forget it. And we advocate and, and share with friends family, we'd let others in the community know that this company, this organization, gets it, they're doing it, right, they're welcoming, and those good experiences. We don't forget it. And we look forward to those moments when somebody gets it. It's, it's kind of, I think, it's amazing that we're having so many more of these kinds of conversations around inclusion and disability, and that companies are starting to get that this, this needs to be a part of their business, it needs to be a part of their their business culture. And the more that we do that, I think we're gonna see some major changes coming up in the years to come. But obviously, we're still a long way away. But it's, I've heard more about this in the last, you know, two years than I did in the last, you know, 17 years of my injury.
Michael Hingson 21:42
Well, it's true, and we need to be more part of the conversation, how do we get more people to include us in the conversation? It's all about education, but how do we get people to accept us and include us as, as a class in the conversation, the conversation of life, if you will.
Josh Basile 22:06
For me, it's always about having a seat at the table. Too often, persons with disabilities are an afterthought, because they never had a seat at the table from the beginning. And they they were just then recognized later on when enough noise was made that there that somebody was like, Alright, now let's, let's deal with the disability that are of our business or society of this law, have, you name it, it's just no, we don't have enough representation, and all aspects of society, in my opinion, whether it's within, within the legislature, within the business world within education, transportation, we need to have way more persons with disabilities being employed, being employed in positions of leadership, being able to have people get it from the top down, that that Disability Matters. And that disabilities is something that it's it's a way of approaching a system in place of availing inclusion and providing accessibility providing options for all abilities. And it's it for me, it's like it's a win win. If when when organizations get it, when legislators get it, and they incorporated there, they're actually just making it stronger. Everything they put forward ends up becoming stronger, because it it ends up working for more and more people and giving more options. It's it's, you know, people look at curb cuts. And you know, that's that's one of those things that it's made for persons with disabilities. But guess what, everybody that uses it is benefiting from it. And they don't want to live without it. So being able to put together more kind of inclusive pieces of the puzzle to society. For me, it's just a win win, but we need to have more people at the table to be able to make sure it gets done. Yeah.
Michael Hingson 24:16
So you went off to law school. Where did you go?
Josh Basile 24:21
David Clark School of Law at the DC Public Interest Law School.
Michael Hingson 24:26
Cool. So you, you went you graduated, then what did you do?
Josh Basile 24:32
So I immediately went to work. So I was in law school, I, I interned for a federal judge. I then worked at a law firm, and then worked at the US Attorney's office worked on the Health Committee under under Senator Harkin, and then I ended up getting an internship at my current employer. And after finishing law school, I just I continued working with him. And it's been there since 2013. And I've loved every moment of it.
Michael Hingson 25:09
It's fun, especially when you can blaze a trail.
Josh Basile 25:14
It's it's, you know, the thing with lawyers is all lawyers are for the most part nerds. And they're just very smart. They love, they love, either studying reading or are, you know, are willing to go the extra mile like, anybody that ends up doing law school and taking the bar exam. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of time, a lot of energy spent away from friends, family, it's a commitment. Um, so most of the turn attorneys are nerds. But as a medical malpractice attorney, and catastrophic injury attorney with a significant disability, I love it. Because I get to be an empathetic nerd, I get a B, you know, there for families in ways that most attorneys can't I get what they're going through, I understand what they need in place to have a better quality of life, I can communicate with them. And it's most cases that we take can take anywhere from two to four years to either settle or to go through the legal process of getting a judgment through the courts. And even then, sometimes there's delays because it gets appealed. It's a it's a long process. But as an attorney, with a catastrophic injury myself, it's, I really enjoy it. Because I get to connect with with my families more than anything,
Michael Hingson 26:32
you must be in a position to help make a more powerful case. Because if you said you have a catastrophic injury yourself, you've been through it.
Josh Basile 26:40
Yeah, no, absolutely. There's, it resonates. I think with the jury, I think it resonates with the judge, and also resonates with the defense, that's on the other side, when you're doing depositions, or you're doing negotiations, and they're like, this person doesn't need this. And then you're like, you know what they actually do, but I, I can have some lived experiences beyond the experts that we bring to the table that are saying what we are arguing, but, you know, so much of when it comes to bringing cases, it comes down to the Battle of experts, and both sides end up getting somebody that argues one angle, and then it's up to the jury to decide what what is fact and what is fiction.
Michael Hingson 27:26
So you're working for a private firm today?
Josh Basile 27:29
Yes, it's a plaintiffs firm. So we only represent families that have been that have been injured,
Michael Hingson 27:35
that have been injured, right? Well, so in addition to doing that kind of work, you've you've obviously gotten some involvement in doing things like web accessibility, and so on, how did all that come about?
Josh Basile 27:52
So I'm passionate about breaking down barriers for persons with disabilities, whether it's in the employment, world transportation, independent living, and when I learned that less than 2% of the internet meets Accessibility Guidelines. I wanted to do something about it. And I knew that I could proactively kind of know, I always try to first figure out what is the problem? And what are the best options going forward to come up with a solution, or at least, to be able to have a better approach at at addressing the problem, both in the short term and long term, and so much with the internet is about scalability. You know, we're talking about hundreds of millions of websites that remain inaccessible. And when I learned about acccessiBe, I did my research, I had different friends in the disability community, do give me their sense of it, and to test different product products that were out there. And what I learned was accessiBe was the real deal. And that this could be a great way of changing the world of the internet, and COVID COVID was happening at the time, which, for me, the internet became that much more important to be able to be to allow persons with disabilities to have access to the products, information and services that as we well know, the internet provides and, you know, having access to that improves quality of life and opportunity and I wanted to do something about it.
Michael Hingson 29:32
How did you discover accessiBe?
Josh Basile 29:35
So A childhood friend of mine ended up moving over to Israel and joined accessiBe's team in their HR department, and she ended up connecting me with with the founder, the founders of SSP, and I spoke with them. And next thing I know we're collaborating they wanted they wanted more persons with disabilities to have a seat at the table with an organization, so that they can learn and they can improve, and they can become a better business not only running the company, but also for serving the community that they are on a mission to change lives. And, you know, I, you know, hearing that and seeing that, and being a part of that, since February, I've just, I've been wowed by by them as a company, and SSB is just doing all the right things. And it's, um, I know, there's, it's been a long way since February. And but it's always been a forward moving progression. And, and as an advocate, I love I love moving forward,
Michael Hingson 30:45
what are some of the specific problems that you face in accessing the internet.
Josh Basile 30:50
So it's basically navigating a page is one thing, you know, being able to go from start to finish and checking out fully. Now I've been on a website where I'm using my Dragon Naturally Speaking, and I can't jump to a different forum, to be able to fill out my contact information, my address, or do a drop down to be able to see what's there. I guess, you know, if I'm only able to access specific parts of a website, I'm missing out on all the other parts that everybody else is afforded. without a disability, I use my mouse controller. To control my mouse, I also use an onscreen keyboard to navigate a webpage, I use voice dictation to type. And I also use a screen reader for reading. So I have multiple different technologies that I'm using at once. And if a website has accessiBe built in access, accessibility built into it, or usability built into it, I'm able to navigate it so much better and gain from it the way that it was meant to be gained, that people put information on the website for a purpose. And you know, it's just a matter of are you going to be able to access it or only be able to see or experience half of what the websites truly trying to show.
Michael Hingson 32:15
I know for me, using a screen reader exclusively to hear what's on a web page. When we deal with images where there are no descriptions, or we deal with an element that requires you to use a mouse or it expects you to use a mouse. So as you scroll through items, the screen refreshes, which means you really can't get to see what all the options are without the screen refreshing and it takes you forever to go through it over just two examples of some of the access that we we face that I face and other people who are blind face and you face some of those things, things as well. And the reality is, and I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it, we live in such a marvelous technological world, where it is so easy to make all of this stuff fully inclusive. And it's in some ways becoming less inclusive, because we make it more visual, or we want to make it more automatic to diffuse that little mouse to scroll around the screen. And we forget that that doesn't make the website inclusive for everyone.
Josh Basile 33:24
It doesn't. And you know, we make internet work for everyone has not been easy over the past 25 years really of the internet, being you know, more mainstream, but it's, you know, keep working towards it. And the thing I love about accessiBe is that there's many different profiles for many different disabilities and abilities, and then being able to use those profiles, but then also to be able to have customized options below that to even further make it accessible or usable or making it work on how you personally want to navigate a website. And so many people with disabilities, you know, have multiple disabilities. So like being able to, like have usability options for for that is you know, through accessories AI powered solution. It's like there's nothing else out there that exists that I've been able to use that I have a physical disability. I've ADA HD and I have a reading disability. So incorporating all three of those things sometimes makes websites a little difficult to navigate. But then when you have the AI powered solution, I'm then able to customize with the mobility profile and be able to customize with other options with ADHD as well. I guess it's incredible what you can do when you give people choice and power and how they want to navigate. Tell.
Michael Hingson 34:58
Tell me about the ADHD profile.
Josh Basile 35:01
So the ADHD profile, basically, you know, allows you to have a better, I'd say, it blocks out kind of the top and bottom of the of, of your eye is so that it's kind of blurred out a little bit, but it's darkened. But then as a focus area where you can go up and down the screen, so that your eyes focus on one particular area, without having distractions from all over the page. So many websites, they try to grab you here and there, and everywhere. And you're with ADHD, the littlest thing can like, can pull your attention away and distract it. Yeah, I always like to, you know, there's a great Disney Pixar movie called up, and there's a dog and every time the dog sees a squirrel, because squirrel, and like I that's too often on a website, if I see something, my mind goes away, and then it's hard to get my mind back to where it needs to go to get the most out of the website or what my task at hand.
Michael Hingson 36:05
So does it prevent pop ups, for example?
Josh Basile 36:09
Well, I'm not I'm not sure. I don't think it prevents Papa fits in. Right? I gotta,
Michael Hingson 36:17
it may be the way that the visual stuff. Yeah,
Josh Basile 36:21
yeah, it creates kind of that, that perfect kind of line of sight of where to focus on and direct. I know that epilepsy profile for the pop ups in progress that is blinking or as motion.
Michael Hingson 36:37
But but the point is that, that there are a number of different profiles, and it's, it doesn't necessarily deal with all disabilities within the artificial intelligence system. For example, there's not a lot for persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. But the other aspects of accessiBe do address that dealing with the ability to have video captioning, and so on. So there are other things that accessiBe now does and we both have talked about the fact that it's a growth issue that accessiBe has grown to recognize and put in place the procedures to deal with that. I
Josh Basile 37:19
love that they have, accessiBe now as remediation services for PDFs, they have remediation for, for video captioning, it's like, all of these different pieces of the puzzle is what it takes to make a website accessible. And they're also doing manual remediation. And going in and making necessary changes either from the beginning or later after like it's, there's there's so many different ways of making a website accessible. Obviously, the best way is to always do it right from the beginning. Yeah, and you know, I even say even having a website that was perfectly done from the beginning, but then adding the AI, the AI powered solution thing gives you that much more power and choice, and how a person with a disability or multiple disabilities can experience a website. And it's, it feels very welcoming when it's when it's done like that.
Michael Hingson 38:13
So what do you do for accessiBe Since you're busy with a, with a job in a law firm, and so on, but you do work with SSP? What do you do?
Josh Basile 38:22
I'm the community relations manager. So I bring in persons with disabilities, disability focused organizations, to be able to work with us on our different projects and initiatives. One of my favorites is called Access Find where we are, right now if you go to Google, and you type in a website, you have no idea if that website that comes out of the 10 websites do the search are going to be accessible, more likely than not, it's based just on statistics of 2% of Internet being accessible, it's not going to be and that's a frustrating experience of not having confidence in knowing whether or not you're going to be able to navigate that website fully. So what access find is going to do, it's only going to house accessible websites through its database. So you go you go there and you're going to be able to know that all of the search results are accessible. And we're building it out. We have over 40 family member organizations that we're working with, to make sure that we do right with and all of these organizations have a seat at the table as we're building out the beta website. So it's gonna be very exciting. But come 20 22x is fine is going to go Live for the world. And it's just I just can't wait for it to to be a resource and a service for persons with disabilities.
Michael Hingson 39:49
How do you think that the world will react to access find?
Josh Basile 39:53
I think I think it's gonna be one of those things that everything around web accessibility, we We need to provide education for I think X is fine in its own right, is an incredible educational tool acknowledges the fact that so much of it is inaccessible. And that, you know, the Googles of the world had an opportunity to do something to make it easier. And they never took, they never took the opportunity or they they made a business decision that, you know, it is not worth addressing this. And the fact that exists, we took the time spent hundreds of 1000s of dollars to make this this in existence, I think it's just says a lot about accessiBe as a company, that they care that they want to do something for actively about making the internet more accessible. And they wanted to create a product, by the name of with the community for the community. And that I think that's just, I think I think it's just going to be a powerful message to share with the disability community and nonprofits that access find is, is going to be a great tool for them.
Michael Hingson 41:06
It will be the first time that it will truly be possible for people to expect when they're searching for something, they're searching for a website, or a company or an organization, it'll be the first time where people with disabilities can truly expect that they will be searching among companies that are inclusive or are accessible. What happens if we find one that isn't an access Find, what happens with that?
Josh Basile 41:37
So are you saying a website is put on the X spine and it's not accessible,
Michael Hingson 41:42
or becomes inaccessible.
Josh Basile 41:45
So that's just an opportunity right there for for the community, to be able to voice and to be able to share with that website, you know, that, you know, something happened over time, that yes, maybe your website was accessible at a moment. But then over time, it became inaccessible to the point where it needs to be addressed, you know, that the the thing with with web accessibility is not something that it's like you do it once and it's forever, like web accessibility is, is is a moving a growing evolving project, where you, you, you have to, you have to have things in place to address it consistently. Because websites are consistently changing, you know, with accessories, AI powered solution, every 24 hours, it does a scan of a website, to be able to, to fix different holes and, and things that are that might be broken or that change or that are new to it and to address those things. So it's when when a website does come up on accessory that was once accessible, but then becomes inaccessible, it's an opportunity for the community to speak up. And then we can reach out to that company or that website, and let them know that they need to address it, and give them an opportunity to address it, which is we're on this journey together. We want to make the internet more accessible. That's kind of how it has to be done.
Michael Hingson 43:17
How will websites be able to become a part of access find.
Josh Basile 43:22
So that's still we're still figuring out all the details on that. But they're going to have to pass a particular audit test, or multiple audit tests. And those audit tests, be able to basically use the WCAG guidelines to find out if you meet accessibility guidelines. And then once that once that is so it's accessiBe or access find is 1% not going to just be accessiBe the websites, it's going to be all any and all websites that meet accessibility guidelines will be welcomed. And we're excited to have as many websites as possible. You know, if we can have all 2% of websites on the internet that meet accessibility guidelines, a part of access find that for me, that'd be a dream come true. And obviously, we want to get that 2% a lot higher in the years to come.
Michael Hingson 44:20
I think he just made a very important point that needs to be emphasized, again, that this is not just to be a platform for websites that use accessiBe. There are a variety of audit systems that one can use to see how accessible their website is accessiBe has one called ACE and if you go to ace.accessibe.com you can test your website you can plug your website into that and you can you can put the web address in and you can get an audit report and have it even emailed to you it's free. There are other places Do it as well, they all do basically the same thing. They look for the accessibility features that come under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, what the World Wide Web Consortium suggests are the things that need to be an inaccessible website. But some do a better job of explaining what they discover than others, I've seen a couple that aren't very easy to read, whereas ace tends to be pretty easy to read, but they are looking for the same thing. It isn't biased in that sense. But at the same time, the websites are dynamic. And that was kind of what I was asking about that if, if a website goes up into access find, because it is found to be accessible. But then later, someone goes and tries to use that website, because they found it through access find. And it isn't accessible anymore. I gather, you're saying there's going to be a way that that they can notify someone of the lack of access, and it can be addressed.
Josh Basile 46:09
There. There's absolutely there's a report feature. And we're still we're still testing out all those things within the the beta surveys we're doing with our founding members. But yes, they're they're 100% is a component of reporting when a website goes from accessible to inaccessible, or a lot of times with a count when it comes to accessibility. A person reports an accessibility issue, but it ends up becoming an issue on their end with their technology, or things of that nature, which is always interesting to be able to provide learning opportunities, both through the website or to the user of the website.
Michael Hingson 46:48
You Yeah, I have I've found instances where people say that accessiBe or other systems that make websites accessible aren't working, when in reality, it isn't the the accessibility aspect of it. It's the way they're using it this user error or user problems or user something. And and it is important to recognize that there terror are ways for the system to break down at both ends. If someone wants to explore getting their website into access find, how do they do that?
Josh Basile 47:25
So on access find, even if you go there, right now, there's a way to list your website, there's an absent
Michael Hingson 47:33
what's the web address for access find,
Josh Basile 47:35
accessfind.com
Michael Hingson 47:37
Okay,
Josh Basile 47:38
and then you go there. And there's, you can kind of learn more about what access finds about, there's a promotional video. But then there's also a way to join as a founding member, but also add to list your website. So we're actually getting those every every single day, Sara charge for that. Zero charge, it's completely free. Access find, is not going to be like Google or Yahoo, there'll be zero advertisements, it's just all about making an easier search and more confidence search for users with disabilities to access accessible and usable websites.
Michael Hingson 48:18
It's going to be pretty exciting. And I'm really anxious to see it go live and to see people start to use it. And, and it'll be a lot of fun. And it's been it's been a long time coming. And so it will be great to have a way to do web searches and have pretty good confidence that you're looking at websites that are accessible. You and I know full? Well. I'm sure a lot of our listeners don't how much of a challenge it is to go deal with websites, especially when you find in accessibility. I had a survey that was sent to me by our health provider two weeks ago and and I've seen this happen many times. So the survey they wanted to know my perceptions of things regarding Kaiser at least I assume that's what the survey wanted. And I the reason I say it's, I assume is because it started out by saying Did you feel positive about Kaiser, I think it was or negative. And I clicked positive. And then it took me to a web page. So that was in the email. So it took me to a webpage. And the first thing on the webpage was I had to accept the terms and conditions or click on some something and that something wasn't a link. It was in no way labeled. There was no way to click on it with my keyboard or any of the features that I had. And I couldn't go any further with the survey. And I see that all the time. It's frustrating. Yeah, and and it is so unnecessary because it would be so easy to address. And I mentioned it because I did send an email back to the survey people. And I've heard nothing. That's why I keep asking about how we get more into the conversation, because the reality is that to make websites usable for all of us is not that complicated to do today.
Josh Basile 50:26
It isn't, but it's one of those things, we, we have to do educational awareness campaigns, not only for persons with disabilities, but for small businesses to let them know that this is an option. It's an it's a, it's a it's an option that can allow them to, to get and better serve all all of their visitors. And it's that excites me. I know, I know, where we we've got a lot to do around education around awareness. And I mean, this conversation today is one of those things that, you know, it's got to start somewhere.
Michael Hingson 51:06
It does in and it has to continue, and I think it will, it's a matter of continuing the conversation and becoming visible. And and we will continue to do that. Look, do you have any? I'm sorry.
Josh Basile 51:21
I very much look forward to doing it with you, Michael?
Michael Hingson 51:25
Well, I as well, I think we're we are making a difference. And we're going to continue to do that. Do you have a way of people want to reach out to you and ask you questions about access find or anything like that, that they can do that?
Josh Basile 51:38
Yeah, the you can email me at Josh. Dot basil. That's B as in boy, A S as in Sam, I l [email protected]. That's my email address. Feel free to message me.
Michael Hingson 51:57
Great. Well, I want to thank you again for being here. And I want you to come back as as often as you want. When you have things you want to talk about, let me know. Because that's the only way we're going to have the conversation continue. And we're going to make it happen. accessiBe has this goal still of making the internet fully accessible by 2025. That's a pretty ambitious goal, but we have a few years yet to go. So if we do it by the end of 2025, we got four years in a month. So let's see what we can do. But we have to start somewhere, as you said,
Josh Basile 52:37
Mike, what's always a pleasure. Everything that you do and the hard work you do and it's just it's It's fun being on this journey with you.
Michael Hingson 52:48
And it's got to be fun. Otherwise, why do it? You know, life's an adventure. And so it is it's a lot of fun,
Josh Basile 52:55
fun and meaningful is what it's all about.
Michael Hingson 52:57
Indeed. Absolutely. Well, Josh, thank you for being with us on unstoppable mindset. And, again, for anyone listening, we hope that you'll go to the website MichaelHingson.com/podcast M I C H A E L H I N G S O N .com/podcast. You can subscribe to the podcast. You can do it through any podcast hosts that you normally go to. And wherever you found this podcast, we hope that you will at least give us a five star rating. And reach out to us and let us know if there's anything that you're interested in. In hearing or knowing more about or any comments that you have about our podcast today. You can reach out to me, Michael H I M I C H A E L H I at accessiBe A C C E S S I B E.com. I will respond to emails. So we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear your thoughts. If you know anyone who should be a guest on our show, please let us know. Let them know have them reach out. And we hope that you'll join us in future episodes of unstoppable mindset
Michael Hingson 54:16
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
57 min
December 29, 2021 Episode 14 – A Man with a Direction: Ollie Cantos
Talk about someone who really gets it when it comes to blindness, accessibility and inclusion, meet Ollie Cantos. It took some time, but Ollie made his way through school, college and then law school. Ollie has been an extremely and unstoppable lawyer spending now many years in government service in the United States.

Ollie will tell you his life story in this episode. He then will go on to discuss a truly positive life dedicated to proving that blindness is not the myth we believe. I know you will be enthralled by Ollie and what he has to say.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About the Guest:
Olegario “Ollie” D. Cantos VII, Esq., has served in various senior roles under both Republican and Democratic administrations. He has worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education since 2013. Past leadership roles include Staff Attorney and Director of Outreach and Education at the Disability Rights Legal Center in California, General Counsel and Director of Programs for the American Association of People with Disabilities, Special Assistant and later Special Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, Vice Chair of the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities, and Associate Director for Domestic Policy at the White House. He is Chairman of the Board of RespectAbility, a national nonprofit nonpartisan cross-disability advocacy organization. He is also immediate past Vice President of the Virginia Organization of parents of Blind Children, affiliated with the National Federation of the Blind.

Prior leadership posts include Vice President of the Virginia Organization of Parents of Blind Children, Legal Officer for the Coast Guard Auxiliary, Vice President of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Chairman of the Board for Scholarships for Eagles, President of the California Association of Blind Students and the National Association of Blind Students, and member of the boards of directors of the ENDependence Center of Northern Virginia, the Blind Children’s Center, Community Lodgings, the California Association to Promote the Use of Braille, the National Federation of the Blind of California, Loyola Marymount University Alumni Association, and Loyola Law School Alumni Association.

Ollie’s life story, along with how he adopted three blind triplet boys, was covered by national media outlets including National Public Radio, People Magazine, The Washingtonian Magazine, and ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir in 2017 and in 2020.

Just a few weeks ago, he received the Marc Gold Employment Award by TASH, a National disability advocacy organization, for his years of leadership to promote internship, employment, and entrepreneurship opportunities for people with all types of disabilities.

To connect with Ollie on social media, those in the United States may text “Ollie” to 313131.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
Michael Hingson 01:23
Welcome to another edition of the unstoppable mindset podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And our guest today Ollie cantos is a little of all of those, especially the unexpected, as I think you'll see, Ollie is a fascinating soul who's been around for a while has a lot of interesting stories to tell. And, and on top of everything else. He's a lawyer is scary. At least he has a law degree but but he hasn't tried to sue me yet. So I think we're in good shape, but only Welcome to unstoppable mindset.

Ollie Cantos 01:58
Thank you, Mike. It's a pleasure to be here.

Michael Hingson 02:00
So I should say from the outset and talking about only that he is he is also blind as I we've known each other for quite a while. And we've been trying to get him on unstoppable mindset for quite a while, but his schedule is incredibly rigorous. So it has been a little bit of a challenge. But he confessed that he has actually been on vacation for a week. And so now we are able to get him and have him here. So I'd love you to talk a little bit about you and tell me a little bit about your life growing up as a as a blind person and anything that you'd like people to know about that.

Ollie Cantos 02:37
Sure my Well, I was born two months premature. And as the result of medical complications, I was blind from birth from a condition called retinopathy of prematurity. And so in my particular case, I had that resulted in my being totally blind in my left eye, and having partial residual vision in my right. And until about two years ago, it was pretty stable until some things that ended up happening because of an accident, with being hit by a car. But that's a whole other story. But basically, when I was growing up, life was pretty intense, because I was victimized by bullying a lot. And my, my parents really urged me to do everything I could to make sure to work hard and to achieve high results. And at the time, when I was younger, I honestly didn't think that I could pretty much do much of anything. And I that's just being very transparent and honest with you. I just I just didn't think that there was much that was really possible because of having a limited vision. And so what ended up happening was, there was a struggle between what my parents believed I could do what I believed I could do. And so I tried to get out of chores, I tried to pretty much leverage my my visual impairment to the best extent possible, so I wouldn't have to do stuff but it didn't work. It didn't work. My My mom, she insisted that I do chores to the same degree of efficiency as kids who can see. And she also had me make sure to wash after my baby sister and clean up after her with stuff she leaves around, etc. And I really found it very just it was just a tough, tough existence. But not because my my parents were awful to me but more because I cried to just get out of stuff because I just didn't believe that it was really possible to do things to the same degree of efficiency. And as I grew up, it was quite a struggle because I read large print, and then when fourth grade hit, I ended up being in a position where the print got smaller than it was harder to read, and so forth. But because I wasn't taught Braille in school I just strained with what musical vision that I had. And that was a mistake, because it meant that I was far more far more inefficient in comparison to other kids. Because I wasn't taught Braille. And so growing up and, and working through all of my challenges I ended up doing, okay academically, but it was not without a cost. I hardly had any social life and so forth. But I did work to get involved eventually, with extracurricular activities and everything. But things were so much more of a struggle, because I didn't, I didn't know braille. And I, at the time had a very negative attitude about being thought of as, quote, blind, close quote, I felt that if I were thought of that way that I would be segregated, and I didn't want to look be different in, in comparison to everybody else. And I actually would say, well, at least I'm not one of those blind people. And I look back now and think about those attitudes. But that's the way that I was taught and, and that's what I came to believe, like, Well, hey, at least I'm not totally blind. So at least I have some vision. So at least, you know, I'm not one of them. And I don't have to use one of those canes. And yet, at the same time, it was tough, because, because I would feel like I was closeted all the time, where I tried to hide not being able to see well. And I was ashamed of who I was inside. And I always felt like I was hiding. And whenever I would get into some accident, I clip on something, or I would I would bump into something or bumping into someone, I'd say, oh, sorry, I wasn't paying attention. And I just downplayed it. But the whole time, I just felt like oh my gosh, this is, you know, well, at least they don't know, because I'm not using a cane. And then later, after starting to, to get involved with with different organizations, I eventually

Ollie Cantos 06:57
came to know people in the National Federation of the Blind. And they're the ones who taught me very directly that it is respectable to be blind, that it's okay to use a cane. And because of that, I use a cane for the first time in my life. And eventually I, I learned braille as an adult, I'm not nearly as fast as as my children, which we'll get to later, but, but I still recognize the valuable importance of Braille. And I'm astonished Braille advocate. And I really believe that even if people have some residual vision, the key is to recognize if if Braille is more efficient than straining one's eye to reprint. And so because of my life and the way things are, to this day, I'm literally I am actually functionally illiterate. In that sense. I can't pick up a book and read it straight through, like my son's can, I'm not able to just read from a speech, I have to memorize things. So I continue to face those sorts of challenges because of, of how I learned braille as an adult, which meant that it's just hard for me to read as quickly. That doesn't mean it's impossible. But for me, that was an ongoing challenge. But in spite of all of that, I still eventually became an attorney. And I've been involved in the in the disability rights movement now for 30 years.

Michael Hingson 08:14
And tell me how old were you when you started to use a cane?

Ollie Cantos 08:20
I was 20 years old I was I was a sophomore, I was a junior in college, or between the summer between my sophomore and junior year is when I went to the National Convention. And so I left not using a cane I came back using one. So that was a that's, that's a whole series of stories in and of itself.

Michael Hingson 08:37
Sure. Did you go through any formal orientation training? Or did you kind of teach yourself or how did you really learn to be effective with it?

Ollie Cantos 08:46
Well, it took a while. And then I went to the Louisiana Center for the Blind in college and, and have between the end of my college years and the beginning of law school. So that's the time that I that I'm within that setting. And I learned of the blindness skills based on being put under sleep shade. And so everything I did cook, clean, read, walk, travel does anything any any very skills, I learned through the alternative text techniques of blindness. And it was the best thing because it really was a confidence builder. Because then after that I knew that I would still be able to function and that that it really is true that when refining alternative techniques, then we can be as as efficient or at least at a very minimum, far more efficient than we would have been if we just simply strangled what little we can see. If people want to be able to use a residual vision that's absolutely fine. Provided that is not at the cost of efficiency. And so that's that's what I've I've come to realize and that's why to this very day. I really push hard for for Braille for kids as well as adults. and because of the value of that, and of course, technology these days, has, has undergone such significant innovations. And concurrent with that, though, we still need to know the bit of the fundamentals of Braille, because it really can be a real a real booster of efficiency in the long run after after learning.

Michael Hingson 10:23
There's a general consensus that the literacy rate in terms of Braille for buying people has dropped. Why is that?

Ollie Cantos 10:32
Well, it's dropped, because historically, the 40s, the literacy rate among blind people was 99 0%. And that was when, when kids were in schools for the blind across the country. And then, with the advent of the new, newer special education laws over the more recent decades, kids started learning in school, alongside their their peers without disabilities, and that is an important and valuable historical step. The difficulty was that because of how spread out various of us work, there wasn't necessarily access to quality Braille instruction, because because we are what's called, we have what's called low incidence disability. And so as a result of that, there isn't necessarily a lot of people to meet the demand for Braille instruction or providing Braille education. And so even though the law to the state presumes that a blind person should a blind students shouldn't should learn braille. Having actual access is another story in many instances.

Michael Hingson 11:35
Well, of course, the other part of that is that the general attitude, and it's kind of self fulfilling, but the general attitude is, well, blind people don't need Braille, because their books recorded or other ways of doing it. And so the literacy rate has gone down. And now people use the argument. Well, very few people 10% read Braille. And so it clearly isn't the way to go. But the reality is that it does involve in part, the educational system, not learning that Braille is the true reading and writing method for blind people. Which gets back to the whole issue of attitudes about blindness in the educational world, much less elsewhere.

Ollie Cantos 12:17
Yeah, absolutely, Mike. And so if people will fundamentally believe that it is not either respectable to be blind, or that blindness somehow means that somebody has lower ability than, of course, at all costs, they will try to avoid anything associated with techniques that are utilized by people who are totally blind. That was literally my attitude for the first 20 years of my life. And, and I just, I remember, the very first day of first grade, they put Braille in my hands, but literally the next day it was gone. But that's the only time ever, ever that I had been exposed to Braille writer and so forth. And so it really does come down to attitudes about blindness. And it also it also means that we need to look at take an honest look at what we ourselves think about blinds, including people who are blind themselves. And they say, Well, you know, there's a difference between between totally blind and, and well, maybe I'm legally blind, you know, that sort of thing, at least, the way that I now believe, when it comes to blindness, it's just fine to use the word. I mean, it's not a matter of merely changing the word or trying to say some other word about it. But it's actually more a matter of what we think about it, or what we think about blindness. So if if, if the community can come to a place where they recognize that, regardless of the degree to which somebody cannot see that, they still will be able to compete on terms of equality, if given the proper training, basic skills and the opportunity to succeed, then that's what will be really of significant help with with not only expecting more of blind children, but also blind children expecting more of themselves blind parents expecting more of them, the educational system, expecting more of them. And ultimately, when they grow up them rising to those higher expectations, as opposed to when members of our community end up having lower expectations, they don't do as much so then therefore, it's self fulfilling prophecy. And because of that, they say, see, look at how most people these days who are blind don't read Braille, or their the unemployment rate is very, very high. And so we just have to look at there's always a societal aside a societal tension between the way things used to be and the way things are, and, and things can either get gradually worse or gradually better, but they're always these constant forces that that that come up against each other. And so from everything that I have seen in my life and from raising my kids, the key philosophically is to believe that our children can grow up to be whatever they want, and that whatever They do achieve things that are the source of inspiration would be that because they work hard and just like anybody else, but we have got to be careful about being inspired by people with disabilities who just do average things. So let's say for example, Mike, I don't know if this has happened to you probably has where, where I've crossed the street with my cane, you know, I cross at the green light. And then somebody literally comes up and says, Wow, the way you cross that street, you're so inspiring. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm a full fledged adult, you know, I don't know what is inspiring about crossing the street. Like if, if a person without a disability could do that, why is it inspiring for me to cross the street, but let's say for example, there's a fellow person with a disability, right? Like, like a gentleman in California, who just got a got the MacArthur Fellowship, I think it's like half a million dollars or something, he's totally blind. That totally inspires me, not because he's blind, but because doggone he, he just got a MacArthur Fellowship. He's a, he's a Mensa member, he has in his IQ and intelligence are off the charts. And he continues to do well, with with his life that inspires me whether he's blind or not, that inspires me. And that's the kind of thing that we have to be on the lookout for. Because what happens is, if we're not careful about that, then the message in finding blind people inspiring or any other person is really inspiring is that if the thing is, well, at least I don't have to go through that, or my life could be worse, or Wow, they made it in spite of how awful that disability is to have etc. As opposed to well, you know what, they work hard, they really busted their tail and they got it all done. That's inspiring, because anyone who works hard should be an inspiration to anybody, regardless of whether they have a disability or not.

Michael Hingson 16:44
That's right, exactly the way it should be in blind people who do the average sorts of things, do it daily, are good at it and are successful, to me are just as inspiring as sighted people who do it because of the fact that they have found an equilibrium and they are able to, to maintain and move forward. Tell me do you do you think overall, thinking back on the your parents had a positive attitude about blindness? They did.

Ollie Cantos 17:11
Because they didn't phrase it that way that they didn't want me originally to associate with with blindness, because they were afraid of what other people would think, because they originally didn't want me to use a cane. Because they said first of all, you can see a little bit. And second, if people think of you as blind they won't give you the kind of opportunities and they will expect of you what we expect to view. So so it was sort of a different take on a blindness philosophy thing. And then once I started using a cane, it was it really was met with some major resistance by my parents at first. And then when they realized how much more confident I became because I was taught by my mentors how to use a cane, then I was better and then then they accepted it and now it's nothing I mean, now it's it's a matter of course of course you're when you're blind, you use a cane. So they underwent an evolution of sorts themselves as as well.

Michael Hingson 18:04
And as you visit them of course, you still have to do the chores, right? Because now you're the son and you got to support them in the manner they want to become accustomed right?

Ollie Cantos 18:13
That's right, I still have to do the chores I still have to you know like like right now with this podcast that I'm with I'm this is all being recorded while I'm at my sister's house, but my parents and I are here with my shirt with my sister and her family as our house is being renovated and so it's just nice to be with them whenever we go back to our place because we've had that same house that I grew up in for 46 years we've had that house whenever I go back Zack only can you take out the trash clean the pool work on this do that clean this up it's the same you know because I'm always my we're all for all of us we're always our parents children when whether we're adults or not. And so I love the fact that that they stuck with me and that they they do demand high and the awesome thing is they demand they demand Hi of my children to

Michael Hingson 19:04
Mom, I can't clean the pool. It's frozen over California. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's true when you're in California, it's a different story. But you know, it's it's interesting to, to hear your stories, how similar in a lot of ways they are to mine, but in some ways different. My parents never cared about the fact that I was blind. They just said you can do whatever he wants. He's going to be able to do things like everyone else, and there was never a discussion about it. I actually got a guide dog before I got a cane, because there was nobody around teaching cane travel but we met someone who used a cane. You You've I think met her no of her sharing gold who lived near where we lived. movement right when I was growing up, and so I met guide dogs as it were through her and ended up getting a guide dog going into high school. But my parents actually initiated that recognizing that we needed to do something to and enhance my ability, as opposed to just walking to school or walking around a school. And being able to hear it in a in a much smaller environment than a high school would be. And it was the right time.

Ollie Cantos 20:21
Yeah, absolutely. Sharon gold was a force of nature. I still miss her to this day. And she spent 20 years of her life working full time building the National Federation of Vita, California, she has touched the lives of countless people who have gone on to touch the lives of others, because she, she basically built a leadership factory, and I continue to revere her to this day, even though she has left us, I strive always to to emulate the qualities of life of Sharon gold, that's for sure. And

Michael Hingson 20:51
you can't do better than that. Right? That's right. So what, um, you know, an interesting thought that that comes to mind is we've talked about people with disabilities and, and the fact that we need to educate people in society, what role whether you're a person with a disability or not, but if you're especially familiar with disabilities, what role should we have in dealing with people who are blind or have disabilities in society?

Ollie Cantos 21:23
Well, that's a really good question. Because the fact is that we all have a role to play when it comes to making a difference. The fact is that when it comes to the disability community, there are more than 61 million persons with disabilities, including children and adults in this country. And because of that, that means disability touches the lives of all of us. And because it touches the lives of each and every one of us, that means that we need to really be mindful, because 90% of all disabilities are invisible to the naked eye. People may have depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, other forms of learning disability, as well as dysgraphia, dyscalculia. They can, they can have an intellectual disability, they just all sorts of things that you don't see, they can have epilepsy, etc. And so therefore, what is really important for all of us, is always to be open to what it means to have a disability. There are some of us who, let's say, you've had our disability our whole life, and to us, it's just a characteristic. And, and even even within that, there could be some changes, like in my case, I was used to what I could see as limited as limited as it was. And then when I was hit by a car, and then the lens detached and then now I see even less, I had to go through a major adjustment period, even as someone who lived with my blindness my whole life, and people say, Well blind, well, you can see, well, just to clarify, blindness is blindness, including people who have some residual vision, but my my degree of residual vision dramatically dropped. And it's, it's beyond repair at this point. And I had to go through, and I'm still going through some adjustments with that. And, and it's something that so when I'm talking about this, I'm saying that as not as a part of a theoretical construct, but as somebody who myself am going through a lot of changes that that that have occurred, because it's not that the disability is the problem. It's it's that this is this level is of disability was just something to which I wasn't not accustom. So it doesn't mean that that various of us who either acquire a disability or who acquire a disability to a greater degree of significance, can't live full and productive lives. But there is an adjustment period that's required. And there there are additional challenges with that, does that mean that we have lives of unhappiness and struggle and, and necessarily having loads of depression? No. But what it does mean is, is that we have got to recognize that we are all on this journey. There's actually Mike another example, where, as I mentioned earlier, I've been involved in this in the Civil Rights world within the disability and other contexts for for three decades, roughly about four or five years ago or so. The boys that I Leo, Nick and Steven, my sons, we spontaneously decided to take a trip to New York. And while we were up there, one morning, we were at breakfast, and then and then somebody, somebody dropped a utensil. And so I say well, hey guys, whichever one of you dropped, that you should pick it up, you know, and my thought was, hey, well, just because they're blind, they should leave it for other people to pick up. But here's the catch. What happened at once I said that somebody to the table to my right, sheepishly tapped my shoulder and said, Sir, I'm sorry to interrupt but actually That was not your one of your sons. That was me. So here I was thinking, Yeah, I know about civil rights and about equality of opportunity and how we have to really think well, people disabilities, what was it? What was my assumption? In all transparency, I assumed that it was one of my son's drama. I completely assumed so what I'm all for that, but it's, we all have growth to do.

Michael Hingson 25:22
Go back to your other example, though, you're crossing the street, you get to the other side, and somebody comes up to you and says, Oh, that you're just amazing. You cross that street all by yourself and how independent you are. What should your job be? Or how do you react? Or how do you think we should react? When that kind of thing happens?

Ollie Cantos 25:41
Well, I think it's an opportunity to be to educate people, if we get mad at them and get mad and say, What do you mean, you know, or if somebody offers offers help, and we say, I don't need help, I'm fine. You know, like that. I mean, then, then all they're gonna walk away is stuff think, dang, those people disabilities are pretty bitter, aren't they? And the thing is, by nature, all of us, we, we tend to, to, to judge, either people or classifications of people, based on the negative characteristic that sets that person apart as different from ourselves. So in this instance, if if they have that sort of negative interaction with us, they've never interacted with a blind person before they'll say one thing, you know, you're I'm trying to help somebody, and then they bite my head off. I'm just trying to help, you know. So I think that it's an opportunity for us to educate people about who we are and what we can do and say, Well, gosh, thank you for offering to help me cross the street, but I'm okay. But But how are you doing? You know, that focus on on that on them? Or if people say, Well, gosh, you know, you're so inspiring for, for what you did, and and then the stuff that I like to say is, well, you know, all of us are inspiring to each other. And to the extent that you optimize your life, you would inspire me. And then that's it. You know, because, because I'm sure everybody has a life story that can inspire me, you know, as the way we can inspire them, but it has nothing to do with disability.

Michael Hingson 27:04
No, one of the things I love to say to people, when they come up and do that is, you know, I gotta tell you that you inspire me all the more, because you are getting around without a guide dog or a cane, isn't that amazing?

Ollie Cantos 27:21
That's the best.

Michael Hingson 27:22
And then I then use that to go and say, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, or anything but but the reality is, it's just another way or we each have other ways of doing the same thing. And although there are more of you than there are of I and I understand and appreciate the inspiration, but the reality is, it's no different. And it would be so much nicer if people would recognize that, that just because I happen to be blind, and you're not the fact that we both can do the same thing. And that's what's really important. Sometimes you get into really good discussions about that. But yeah, I love I love to say that, well, I'm just amazed that you get around without a dog or a cane, and you do so well. But I but I do make sure I mitigate that immediately and say I'm not trying to be sarcastic. There's a reason I say that. Let me explain. And most people stay around and listen, which is which is pretty good.

Ollie Cantos 28:22
I absolutely love that. And you know, actually, this reminds me of another illustration where, you know, some people say, Well, why do we have to make our these businesses open to people who use wheelchairs? Or why do we have to, you know, like, sometimes businesses are other people, they say, Why do I have to spend this money to make places accessible, you know, like, they get all mad. And then I actually, this is borrowing from what a talk I I heard from the late Susan Daniels once where let's say for example, people say, hey, you know, we have to make all these places wheelchair accessible? Well, you know, whenever it think about how much the the world spends on chairs, chairs, literally, they're everywhere. They're chairs everywhere. But what the wheelchair users do they bring their own. Imagine how much money would be saved if businesses wouldn't have to pay for all of those chairs. Because imagine if more people use chairs in the business, he wouldn't have to pay for them because people brought their own. Well, what about another possibility? I love this what Susan said, as well, what about oh, actually, Dr. Jurgen said this where where you know if we really want it to be good, good with everything. Well, what about accommodating sighted people? Well, they say what do you mean? Well, if we instead with all of our office buildings and houses and everywhere, what if instead of having windows for people to see out? Why don't we just why don't we have no windows? Because it actually optimizes energy efficiency. It keeps the houses cool or warm or whichever, but instead to accommodate people who can see there are windows everywhere. That's it. People can look out they can feel the sun, all that kind of stuff for us, we're fine with this, if you know we're fine if there isn't any of that stuff. So it's all a matter of perspective for one person might, what might seem like, oh, well, you're accommodating their people. Well, what about them? You know, we accommodate them. There was literally a time in Moscow when the fire alarm went off, or no fire it was the power went off to in one of the buildings there. And I literally had somebody hold me by the shoulder, so I could guide them out, because I was fine with using my cane to walk out of the building. So I would say, Okay, put your hand on my shoulder, and I'll lead you out. And they were completely frank. They're like, I don't know how to get out of here. I'm like, well, I'll help you out. And so now all of a sudden things were turned because that's our world, right? Yeah.

Michael Hingson 30:48
Well, there's so many examples of that. And look, what, what is it? That's so different about providing coffee machines, in buildings for employees and accompany or electric lights? They're all reasonable accommodations. And one of the things I love to say, when I speak to, to audiences, is, let's really get the whole concept of reasonable accommodation down to the basics. Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb as a reasonable accommodation for light dependent people. And that's all it is. Yeah. And, you know, it, we we make a lot of accommodations for people. So why should it be different, just because some of us are in a legitimate minority. And the problem is, people haven't made the transition. And it is something that that we need to really address a lot more than we do as a society overall. And hopefully, we'll make some strides in that regard over time, but it is one of the biggest issues that we we face. I want to switch gears a little bit. You've talked about your sons, tell me about them. Tell us all about them?

Ollie Cantos 32:01
Well, I just absolutely love my sons, Leo, Nick, and Steven. They weren't originally my son's, though. I actually learned about them because a man, a fellow member of my faith community heard about them, because his coworker had a sister who worked as a school secretary at the elementary school where they were. And so he didn't know them, either. But he heard that there are these three blind troupe of boys. And he, he literally came to me and called me one day. And and he had this on his mind, but he kept putting it off putting it off. So one night, he woke me up, and he's like, Hey, Ollie, I need to I need to talk talk, oh, I just need to touch base with you. And I'm like, Oh, really? What's up? He said, Well, I haven't been able to sleep. And because he just woke me up. I said, Well, let me help you with that. Good night's talk to you tomorrow. He's like, don't hang up, don't hang up. And and so so he said, there are these boys that I've, I just feel like I need to introduce you to them. Because, you know, in light of your having worked at the White House and your being attorney, et cetera. I just feel like you'd be a good role model for them. And I don't know them. But I'm wondering if you would mind letting me set this up between you guys. And the family or whoever said that way, you could just be of support and mentoring them? I said, Yeah, sure what, I'll be happy to do that. And that's fine. And that's how it all started. But quickly, it became apparent that, that we we felt closer to one another than just mentor mentee. And they they just do we just had such a closeness. So a really long story short, I ended up adopting them as my own name and everything, you know, and they were, they were isolated. They were originally from Colombia. And then they came to this country. And he came to United States when they were three years old. And then they were isolated in their house from age three to 10, where they would only go outside to go to the church and go to school. That was it. They stayed in the house sat on the couch the rest of the time. Here I was I came along I got them out of the house, and got them to to expose be exposed to skills. But what happened was philosophically they went from being victims of bullying, to having no and and having little to no self esteem, to then really believing in themselves, getting involved with extracurricular activities, doing a lot, a lot of stuff with local nonprofits and eventually becoming Eagle Scouts. And so if they're the same kids, but the only difference was belief was poured into them along with a positive philosophy about blindness or disability more generally. And that positive belief is what carried the day. It did not create an over there was not an overnight success. That happened. It happened gradually. There were a lot of stops, stops and starts a lot of disappointing moments. But eventually they just they just kept Got it. And now they're, they're all in college and doing great. So I mean, I just love my sons. And we're the four of us. It's the four of us against the world, basically,

Michael Hingson 35:09
what happened? What happened to their parents? Well,

Ollie Cantos 35:13
the mother had a hard time taking care of them. And the father left to go back to Colombia and said he never came back. And so the abandonment issues with in that regard to, and ironically, after, you know, as the boys grew up, they dedicated their time, and we dedicate our family, we dedicate our time to talking about adoption, and also talking about how important it is for kids of all ages to be involved in their communities. From literally, when they were age 10 and 11 years old, we rang the bell up the you know, the goodwill Bell, you know, the bell, red, I think it's red, a red thing. I don't know what the container is where you put money. And we literally rang the bell there to raise money for Goodwill, which provided school supplies for kids from low income families. We did that because we wanted to make a difference. And then we just kept going from there just doing more and more stuff. And then now, they are just, they've continued to be active and involved. And they've they've touted the message of how we as people with disabilities of every age, we're an untapped resource. And we should be, we should really work hard. And so that's why they become even now they've all worked. They all work before age 18 for pay, and now Leo himself, he's been working for five years, he gets paid like, you know, he's young, but he gets paid 2257 An hour right now, and keeps keeps doing better, and keeps getting accolades from the very top of his company, and just lots of stuff. And Nick, Nick wants to go into real estate, and he's getting ready to take your real estate exam. Stephen is wanting to support organizations by writing grants to help build up resources. All of them have have done different things. And it's all because of the role of attitude and high expectations. And then now they're passing that along to other people. So it's just really fun to watch.

Michael Hingson 37:10
Well, I'm going to tell you right now, it will be necessary and helpful. I think if we do another podcast sometime in the relatively near future and bring them on with you. We have lots to talk about being an Eagle Scout myself and vigil in the Order of the Arrow. There's nothing

Ollie Cantos 37:25
like wow. Oh, wow. That is so cool.

Michael Hingson 37:30
We'll have to we'll have to come now. Did you do anything in scouting?

Ollie Cantos 37:33
I tried when I was in sixth grade, I asked to be involved with scouts and the Scoutmaster said, Hey, buddy, I know, I know you want to do this stuff, but it's kind of not safe. And we don't really know how we support and everything but thanks for wanting to be involved. And then that was it. I had

Michael Hingson 37:50
a Scoutmaster. I was in Cub Scout some, but really got involved when I went into the Boy Scouts. And I had a Scoutmaster and worked with a number of leaders who were really like my parents, I guess is the best way to put it, then care about being blind. I remember when I went to my first order of the arrow function, as you know, and started down that path. And part of the the thing is that you can't talk for 24 hours, you you follow directions, you do stuff but you don't talk. And it's a time of contemplation. But I remember one of the the leaders, the the actually the person who was coordinating that particular event, said, Come on, let's go talk. And I remember saying to him, but but I'm not supposed to talk he says okay, I'm giving you permission, but I remember Mr. Ness talking about the fact that it was great that I was was there, and they want to make sure that I get to participate in in every way and that it's going to be a learning experience for all of us. But he was really pleased that I stepped up and decided to try to join the Order of the Arrow and then eventually of course went off and and went through the whole program and became vigil and and got to know him all the way through and all number of our scout leaders were were the same and they all had that attitude, which was such a blessing. Wow, that they didn't put limitations.

Ollie Cantos 39:28
That's how it should be and and so that's the same with with my son to their scouting. I was tradition whenever it was a first of something I would go but after that, other than that they went on their own with with the leaders and they built their own friendships and everything and I got out of the way, you know, yeah, the thing as a parent as I did not want I'm still I'm not the type of parent to hover. I feel like they should make their mistakes. And they should learn and get guidance, of course, but if they make A mistake and it's a wrong mistake. And that leads to consequences. They have to feel that, you know, like, like they want. I bought one of them a cell phone, a brand new self iPhone, he lost it. So I'm like, Well, that's it. That's it, you're gonna have to find a way to earn the money to get that back. Yeah, you know, and then he had to find a way to work and he got it back eventually.

Michael Hingson 40:19
Well, and the point is that you are there. And I would intuit that. They know they can come and talk to you about anything and that you will be helpful and advice. But you don't. You don't hover a helicopter. Ah,

Ollie Cantos 40:36
the only time I like to hover is if I'm in a helicopter, which I love.

Michael Hingson 40:39
Oh, there you know, there there is. I have not I have flown an airplane but I've not flown a helicopter. Yeah. Oh, it's it's a whole different feeling. It's I've been in a helicopter, but I've never flown one.

Ollie Cantos 40:51
Oh, I I'm not planning on flying one myself. Oh, so okay.

Michael Hingson 40:55
Yeah, I don't know that. I want to do that. I have flown an airplane. I've been in a couple of different aircraft where I sat in the copilot seat. And the pilot said you want to try it? I said, Sure. You know, we're not near anymore.

Ollie Cantos 41:10
Yeah, one of my friends have been to that too. It's a blast. Oh, it's so much fun. But I didn't want to do it for long.

Michael Hingson 41:17
Yeah, well, we actually doubled the last time I did it. No, no, not the last time. The second time the last time I did it, we decided that we would try to imitate the aircraft they called the vomit comment where we got weightless and was a prop plane. So we couldn't go up nearly as high. But we actually did do a little bit of a parabola and parabola and had about 10 or 12 seconds of weightlessness. It was a lot of fun. And, and I actually did that and did it more by field than anything else. But we made sure we stayed way above the ground.

Ollie Cantos 41:48
Okay, well, that's that's good. And obviously, it turned out well, that we

Michael Hingson 41:51
were still here, which is, which is really good. You know, it's, it's important, I think, to talk about all this, that we're that we're dealing with about blindness and so on. It's, I think, extremely necessary for people to understand that we're people like everyone else. And I can tell you right now, I know we're not going to finish this today. And I'm going to definitely want you back to to continue the discussions. But what I would like to do a little bit, is get into some of the things that you've done, since you got your law degree, you've been involved in a number of government activities, and so on. Tell us a little bit about that. And some of the adventures, if you will, that you've had along the way. Well,

Ollie Cantos 42:33
I'm originally I had no intention of doing work in the disability rights world, I had other thoughts about what I wanted to do. I wanted to go into family law. But that was just too gut wrenching, and I just I went home crying every day. So I'm like, I just can't do this. And then eventually, I got involved with the disability rights world by working in California, at the Disability Rights Legal Center for three years and built a program there that drew the attention of folks in Washington and I got recruited to become general counsel and Director of Programs for the American Association of People with Disabilities that had a membership at the time of 70,000. And so Andy Imperato changed my life by bringing me there. And I directed what's called Disability Mentoring Day, and at the time that I took it over it, it had participation of 1600 students, within three years, with no funding increase, I increased it to 10,000 mentees and 10,000 mentors, and involved people of not only the United States, but in 19 foreign countries all around the world. And so that can some other attention. And then I eventually I became a next I became a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the US Department of Justice, and special counsel. And I also worked for work at the White House as Associate Director for domestic policy covering disability issues. That was a blast. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun, a lot of work a lot of fun. Then eventually I came back from that went back to Justice Department. And somewhere in between there. I also had appointments to the as Vice Chair of the President's Committee for people with intellectual disabilities, and then later I served as a member of the committee to and then I then went to the Department of Education. And I've been there as special assistant in the office of the assistant secretary for civil rights. So I've been around this all this for 17 years. And I've built relationships with with literally 1000s of nonprofit leaders across the country. And I've been literally by this point to 41 states or 42 states by this point and gotten to speak to more than 58,000 people all across the country and I just really have loved it. And that's in addition to the businesses that we have, as well as other things. So so we have a really, really, really full life with a lot going on.

Michael Hingson 44:59
How about decided to run for Congress yet? Hmm.

Ollie Cantos 45:03
running for office is coming.

Michael Hingson 45:06
That would be an interesting experience. It's, you know, Washington has its own challenge, of course, especially right now, what do you think? And I'm not talking about taking political sides. But in a sense, it's probably relevant to ask, given how people view disabilities and so on, but what, what do you think about the whole fact that there is such a schism and no room for discussion or really interaction anymore in the Washington in the whole political arena? And again, I don't it's not an issue of sides, but it's just all around us now.

Ollie Cantos 45:43
Yeah. And there's actually a phenomenon behind all that. It is the social media of what Facebook and Twitter or Facebook did is, they added the like button, I think it was back in 2009. And so what ended up happening is it started to, to, to drive people wanting to get likes. And so what ended up happening is it created over time, a polarization effect, where people would just start start taking positions in anybody who felt adverse to those positions, they would block them, etc. Something happened to me relatively recently, where I just stayed in opinion to try to be helpful, and somebody threatened to block me. And I just thought, well, heck, forget this, I'm just gonna just do it myself. If you're gonna throw acid on me, forget it, you know, yeah. And it's tough. And the thing is, I'm very bipartisan, and I, I really believe that that the secret secret to our power as a community is to really find ways truly to come together, not just in by talking about it, but by finding things that we can do in collaboration with one another. If we even focus just on that alone, that's more than enough work that we have lifetimes to get done. And if we were to focus on those areas of commonality, we really could find a way to move forward together. And I found that to be the case. And so, you know, I really choose to be not only bipartisan, but but very proudly. So where just because somebody has a political affiliation different from mine, doesn't mean that they're the enemy, or it doesn't mean that they're, they have all bad ideas or not. I mean, it's more of a whole comp, construct of how there's an idea, then there's another idea, then together dialectically, then it creates something brand new, then that's the becomes the new idea, and we just repeat the process. And I and collaboration has been at the heart of how I've operated my personal life, professional life every part of my life. And it's just been the biggest blessing to really just to respect people for whatever differences and not to attack them for having differences. And then to find ways that we could work together and to build on that

Michael Hingson 47:49
we, we just don't know the art of conversation anymore, which is a real challenge. And it's extremely unfortunate that we have forgotten or choose not to remember how to talk to other people and have respectful disagreements. I just before we started this podcast, I'm shifting gears, again, just a little bit as part of this discussion. But I had a conversation with the homeowners association where I live. And I called to say, your internet, your website is inaccessible. And what's one of the things that's occurring is that there is a move on a good one to purchase. The country club that the association with the Association does not own it, it's owned by a private company, but they want to sell it there outside concerns, who want to buy the property, and so on and tear it down and build more homes. They also get the water rights to Spring Valley lake where we live, which none of us want. And then there are a lot of us in the association who want the association to buy it. And the association is actually working toward that. They put out a website that has a survey that's been dealt with. And now there is a way that you can go on the website and solicit or request a a proxy ballot or a ballot to vote, and it's not accessible. So I called and talked to the general manager, and he said, Well, I'm going to have to call our attorney, because you said we're violating the law. And he said, What law are we violating? I said, you are familiar with the Americans with Disabilities Act, aren't you? And he really isn't. But you're violating the law. I'm not talking about suing you. I'm just wanting you to make the website accessible. But even there, the defenses go up. And it's so very difficult to get anybody to communicate about anything. And it's not magical and the most logical and sensible thing in the world to want to make your website accessible. But the big defense that he used is I've been here 14 years. Nobody's ever complained about it before. What and I said, Why should that matter?

Ollie Cantos 50:10
Yeah, I've heard that before. Like businesses complaints, say, I've never had a wheelchair user try to come into my restaurant. Well, did it occur to them that because that accessible?

Michael Hingson 50:19
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really unfortunate. But it's all part of the educational system. And we do need to be part of the solution. Not be part of the problem.

Ollie Cantos 50:32
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And And that actually brings to mind all of these different efforts, that that the accessiBe has been engaging in the especially from everything that I've read and seen and from having a spent time with your with the team and everything. So many things are happening at a proactive level, I mean, the way that accessiBe makes its services available to nonprofits for free, the way that that companies have jumped on board with with really pushing for, for access, accessibility in a way that never has been done in mass, the way it's being done. Now, the partnership opportunities that are between accessibility and different stakeholders, and how there's always an effort to engage in dialogue. And though and the way that the company grows as as, as it learns, the community, and so forth, I mean, I just love that. I mean, that to me, whenever we look at efforts for all of us, as we grow, we just need to keep working on getting better and better and better and better every day, every day. If we ever think that we know it all that we don't that that's proof that we don't if ever, we ever think that. And so I really I just really think that the efforts of accessibility to continually to grow, just like is just as is true with other companies who strive to grow, that if there's always that commitment to ongoing improvement, then that's that's truly how the disability community will benefit. It's how businesses will benefit and how it's a win win for all of us. Speaking of unity, so we've been talking about that, because then everybody can gain better access. That means that people can purchase products and services that companies offer, it means that nonprofits can be more accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't have the same access to information, it means that it helps them to advance compliance with the law, but even beyond compliance, just the spirit of inclusion. And so I mean, this world is changing, and it's changing really fast. And in a good way, it seems,

Michael Hingson 52:33
you know, we could go on forever. But I'm going to go ahead and suggest that we stop because we have now been talking for an hour. But why would or can you believe it? No. But I would like to have you back on again soon. Because I'd like to continue exactly where we left off. And there's so much more to talk about, and so many stories to tell. So would you be willing to come back? Sure. I'd be happy to Great, then. But I will ask this though, if, if people want to reach out to you and communicate with you. How do they do that? Oh, thank

Ollie Cantos 53:08
you. If people in the United States send a text to 3131 31. And in the body of the put the message type in my nickname, Oli o l l IE and send it that'll be a way that you will have, you'll be able to reach me every way social media, telephone, email, and so forth. So I really would love to get to hear from you. And as your listeners reach out because of this podcast, I love for them to let me know that that they heard of that they're reaching out because of having heard of, of this conversation here. And and I just I will do whatever I can to be a support to whoever needs it.

Michael Hingson 53:49
Well, and of course that leads right into for those who are listening, we hope that you'll go to wherever you're getting the podcast, and rate us and give us a five star rating. And you will tell other people about it. We will have Ollie back on again soon. I promise. We'll work on schedules and see how quickly we can get it done since I know he's around for a little while before he leaves California. And he admitted he's on vacation. So you haven't heard the last of me in the next couple of days. But I want to thank everyone for listening to unstoppable mindset and clearly, only as is unstoppable as it gets. And I'm really also looking forward to meeting your three boys. I think that'll be a hoot. Oh, that'll

Ollie Cantos 54:33
be a blast. Thank you, Mike.

Michael Hingson 54:35
Well, thank you and hope, I hope Ollie, thank you very much for being here. Hope he's on my mind helped me whether there was another person we interviewed, you know, Hoby No, he's a blind chemist. Wow. And and, again, a really dynamic and incredibly powerful individual and a lot of good stories. But only thank you very much for being with us. Thank you all for listening and tune again next week for another edition of unstoppable mindset. And who knows if we get it done in time. Maybe it'll be early. Thank you all for listening

Michael Hingson 55:15
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
58 min
December 22, 2021 Episode 13 – Accessibility and Inclusion, One Legal Perspective with David Shaffer
All too often questions and disputes regarding access for persons with disabilities are not settled until they wind up in a courtroom. Some of the best lawyers who address these issues have disabilities themselves and thus bring a strong personal commitment to the debate.

Meet David Shaffer, a blind civil rights lawyer who will tell us about his own commitment to the law and to the rights of persons with disabilities. As you will hear, David did not start out litigating civil rights cases and he didn’t even begin his life as a blind person. He has a fascinating journey we all get to experience. From his beginning as a Stanford law student through his work today on internet accessibility and inclusion David Shaffer’s story will help us all see more clearly how we all can work harder to include nearly %25 of persons with disabilities in the mainstream of society.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About the Guest:
David Shaffer is a blind attorney with over 35 years of legal practice experience in the Metro area of Washington DC. He currently specializes in ADA Consulting for tech companies using his previous work as a Section 508 coordinator and lead counsel in defending the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in a class action under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. David says “my goal is to ensure the world wide web is accessible to anyone and everyone as I am legally blind, hard of hearing and have learned to understand the extreme necessity of this issue for all persons with disabilities”.

In 2006 David began losing his eyesight due to Glaucoma. As is so often the case, his ophthalmologist did not confront his increasing loss of sight. As David described it, “it was after I totaled two cars in 2009 that I finally recognized that I was blind”. He received blindness orientation and training through the Virginia Department of Rehabilitation and the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind in Washington DC.

In addition to his work on internet access cases, David specializes in civil rights cases for women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities, and have represented hundreds of women and minorities in nation-wide class actions against federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, DEA, ICE, and the Secret Service. He also represents individuals with disabilities in seeking accessible accommodations in the workplace and represents them in employment litigation.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:22
Hi, welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have I think, a person who's pretty unstoppable, at least I tend to think so he he can make his own comments and judgment about that. But I'd like you all to meet David Shaffer. David is a blind civil rights attorney has lots of stories to tell I'm sure about all of that. And I think has a lot of interesting things that will inspire all of us, but also a lot of things to make us think David, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset.

David Shaffer 01:57
Welcome, thanks for the great introduction. I'm happy to be on here I look forward to discussing issues involving accessibility and adjustment to blindness.

Michael Hingson 02:11
Well, let's see what we can what we can do. So you, um, you are not blind when you first were growing up, as I understand.

David Shaffer 02:22
That's right. I always had horrible vision and was tremendously nearsighted. But until I got to about in my late 40s, it was I could still get by with glasses or hard contact lenses. And that was about the time that I acquired a guy comma. And the comma went undiagnosed for about a year due to some idiosyncrasies in my eye, which misread eye pressure on a standard test. And so by the time I went to a specialist figured out that I had glaucoma, even though the pressure test didn't show it, I was I was gone, I was legally blind my visions about 2800 But it's the closest they can measure it. But I still see some I can see shapes and things and it depends a lot on light and in various issues. But I'm pretty much reliant upon my cane and, and my technology these days to practice law.

Michael Hingson 03:42
So you sort of had to go through an adjustment process, obviously about becoming blind and being blind and acknowledging that how did all that go? What kind of training did you have? Or when did you decide that you really didn't see like you used to see?

David Shaffer 03:58
A, I realized that after I totaled two cars, that kind of was the wake up solution for me. It started off with night, severe night blindness. And so they tried to accommodate me by letting me go home at three in the winter, going home before dark, while I can still drive but quickly ended up at a point where I couldn't see the drive I couldn't see across the street. That was a tough adjustment because I was in the middle of practicing law at the time. I was a general counsel at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Just finished up huge ADA class action, kind of reforming the agency's paratransit system. And then I started realizing that I couldn't see my notes anymore that I couldn't see Oh, The face of witnesses on the witness stand. And suddenly, litigation, which was my primary focus became extremely difficult, if not impossible. It was it was very difficult because my employer had no idea how to adjust to somebody who was blind, until there's only one other blind person or organization. And she had a totally different role. So it was a mismatched series of attempts to accommodate me, that pretty much all failed, just try it. It started out with magnifiers and ZoomText and all that. But it finally became evident that I needed to learn to use the screen readers properly, and not try to just magnify things 20 times and get by. That was that was very challenging, because I was trying to keep up the practice a lot at the same time, while no longer be able to see what I was doing. Fortunately, I finally, through Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind, got hooked up with the Virginia's rehab agency. And they gave me initial, you know, training jaws and things like that on them. basic survival. But the problem is that these state agencies are so low on funding that I was expected to practice law with a total of six hours of God's training. And that's all that they would allocate to me. Obviously, that was not adequate. To become proficient enough to practice law, I can barely read a website or a document. So I just had to go out and get my own training and pay for it myself. And I still do to this day, due to lack of resources that Virginia had. I understand it's much better in Maryland, where I live now. But now that I've taught myself and paid for my own lessons, and I'm pretty advanced jobs user and, and, and Diane Tasker. So what happened next was I began a campaign at at Metro to make technology accessible was once I learned to use JAWS, I realized I couldn't use their website, because the public website wasn't accessible. I couldn't look up things for people on the phone. I couldn't use our internet at all. I couldn't even do my own timesheets anymore, because none of that was accessible. And that was a big problem. Because we'd struggled over that organization organization's initial reaction was, we're not covered by 508. Because we're not part of the federal government, despite the fact that we're a federal contractor, and therefore required to comply with 508. Anyway. So after four years of fighting, and complaining, I finally got them to adopt an accessibility policy. They made me the section 508 officer. And then again, I taught myself accessibility, I taught myself web accessibility through DQ University online, enough so that I could start guiding the, the team that that made up the website on how to make it accessible. So that was kind of how this all developed, that I went from zero competence to now being a fairly recognized

David Shaffer 08:57
web caster and user of this technology.

Michael Hingson 09:02
Let's go back a little bit. So you, you have been in law all your life. What What got you into that? Why did you decide to choose law in the first place? Because obviously, you didn't have some of the same causes that you do now like blindness and accessibility and so on.

David Shaffer 09:21
Well, I grew up in a town of 1000 people, or Ohio. My stepfather was a lawyer. He'd been a former state senator and Majority Leader of the Ohio Senate. So he was of course the only lawyer in town and the only way or pro for a while around nearby, but I saw how he helped people from anything from a divorce to a car accident DWI to a criminal offense to any sort of state funding. I mean, he did everything And, you know, clients are constantly coming to our house in the evening and not just to his office, and it was just like part of our life was what we do we help people with legal problems. I remember I was so curious about the law that we get a decent Law Library in my house. And so if I would ask him a legal question, at 12 years old, he'd make me go into his office and look it up in American jurisprudence, or how jurisprudence, bring him back the answer, and then we discuss it. So I was doing legal research from 12 years old, onward. And I, I guess, I just got hooked up with a plus the political angle I would, because we were all very active in politics. And my stepfather ran campaigns for the Democratic Congress, in our district and things like that. So politics law was kind of in my blood from from very early on.

Michael Hingson 11:06
Well, clearly, you had a good teacher, because he made you go do the research and the work. And of course, there's nothing like discovering things for yourself. But you've had other you've had other good teachers, haven't you?

David Shaffer 11:18
I have, I would, you know, at law school at Stanford, I had a interesting teacher, former Justice Scalia, for common law. That was a fascinating experience and frustrating, but boy did I learn his side of the law, and his points of view and, and his philosophy. And the rest of that I have read the camera itself, I learned on my own, but we had to listen to his philosophies quite a bit. But he was a very good teacher. And then after I graduated from Stanford, I was lucky enough to work for an incredible woman on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at Carter appointee, who was also tremendously liberal and, and taught me more in that year than I'd learned in three years of law school. And so throughout, I guess, my career, I've been lucky to have mentors. After the clerkship, I went to Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher in California, a large law firm and had a litigation partner they are kind of take me under his wing and, and, you know, let me go out and my first week, I was in court, of course week on the job. And, you know, there was that gets it throughout your life, you've got to take advantage of mentors and people that really are looking out for you and then to them learn from. It's really the most valuable way to learn than trying to do everything on your own. As I learned when I lost my budget, it would have been really nice to have a lot of training fast rather than having to take a year to get up to speed on the technology.

Michael Hingson 13:18
Yeah, I mean, we we all have to take things as they come. I remember in my involvement with the law, from a legal standpoint, comes from the other side being a consumer. And I had a situation that happened, I think, in 1981, it was 80 or 81. I think it was 81. But I was denied access to an aircraft with my guide dog. And they actually, they they insisted that I had to sit in the front seat, even though the airlines policy did require that. But we went to court with it. And eventually it was appealed and it went to the ninth circuit. We had a judge in LA Francis Whalen. I don't know whether you ever encountered him here. He was pretty old. cielo or her but that's that was my closest experience to dealing with the with the appellate court directly. I've been involved in seeing other appellate cases. But it's it's it was it was interesting.

David Shaffer 14:24
How'd it come out?

Michael Hingson 14:27
The case was settled. It actually had to go back for a second trial because Francis Whalen was on the ninth, actually not the appellate court. He was in the Ninth Circuit. But when it went to appellate court the he didn't like it but the the appellate court found that he had erred and went back for a second trial and we ended up settling it which is unfortunate because it it was certainly a case that could have been a little bit more of a landmark than it was but you It was interesting. One of the things that happened at the beginning of the the case was that when the ruling went when when motions were being heard at the beginning, one of the motions that the airlines lawyer put out was, well, yeah, it's our policy that people don't have to sit in the front row with their guide dog. But that's just our policy. And so it shouldn't be allowed in as evidence and the judge allowed them, which was horrible. But you know, we all face, face those kinds of things. But Judge Whalen did what he did, and then it went to appellate court, and it and it did get settled. And, of course, overtime, the law change, there's a growth time for all of us. The Air Carrier Access Act was passed in 1986. And it needs to be strengthened. And then of course, in 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, which you have, obviously, as a lawyer now, a lot of involvement with when when you were going through training, well, let me put it this way, when you were becoming blind and discovering you were blind, how did all of that affect you in terms of your practice of law, and your view about what you were going to do with the law and how you would do it?

David Shaffer 16:20
Well, it seriously affected my ability to practice law for about a year, it was a good time was was a government agency, because they couldn't get rid of me too easily with the disability. But after that, it really made me I mean, I'd done it, I've been doing ADEA law since before the ADEA, since I started practicing in California under the unrack. But it really hit home to me this whole feel of digital accessibility. I mean, of course, I knew about it. And, and, and, but I'd never had any cases on it in my entire practice. Until these days, so I, what I ended up doing was, first off, they switched me to internal advice from litigation. And the department, one of the departments that gave me was Ada, in addition to human resources, because I'd spent my previous 20 years as a Labor Employment lawyer, advising large corporations. So doing that, let me start trying to make some impact from within those organizations. So I get a DEA office and the human relations office to understand accessibility. And that was the first step was was an education, it really, it's something that had to go on person by person one at a time. Because just talking about it, never made an impression till I brought somebody in my office and showed them how I use JAWS, how a screen reader works, now, it doesn't work, when something's not accessible. In the minute you give them a visual and hearing example of how important it says to a blind person, you've converted them, okay? Obviously, we need to make this work for you. Because that's their obligation. But it's a person by person thing, then they take it back, and the other people don't understand it. So then they got to come down to my office and get shown, and, like, did a lot of internal training and advocacy, and force them to, you know, form the position of section 508 Officer, which by then was given all of my other jobs and make a commitment to accessibility. You know, company wide and to the public and within, and that was a long battle. But I did it from within, instead of without, probably would have been quicker if I just turned around and sued them. But lawyers generally don't like to sue on behalf of themselves. It's just not pleasant. So I worked from within and made changes, and left when I left that organization, their website was 95%, double A 2.1 compliant. And that was due to four years of work by me manually with the web department. I had three people there working for four years to fix a 15,000 page website manually. Of course, we use software level access at the time But it's all there is out there that are equally as good. But that just goes to show how difficult accessibility can be when you start from ground zero. And part of the thing that I'm into, as well as presenting people with disabilities, and advocating on behalf of people with disabilities and trying to make the ADEA stronger, and Congress, working with Congress and various issues,

David Shaffer 20:33
to educate them. And now I'm finding that as I talked to people in Congress and the staff members, again, it's just, it's an education thing, once you've shown them an example and explained how important accessibility is to 20% of their constituents who have disabilities, then it clicks, and then they're interesting. But it's really got to be a strong education effort by the blind community. And we just got to, we have to reach out and explain ourselves to others, and not feel embarrassed about being blind, but show them what we can do when we're bind, if we have the right technology. And I think, demonstrating on a daily basis that you can do the same job as anybody else can do with with as long as you got the right technology and an accessible source to read it from. You're just the same as anybody else. And and I think that's the education effort that the blind community really needs to work harder on. Because you got to change people's minds about this, and they can't view accessibility as simply an expense. That's mandated by law.

Michael Hingson 21:56
Do you think it's all about technology? Do you think that the technology Oh,

David Shaffer 22:00
it's not? I mean, it, obviously, I deal with more than just digital accessibility, you know, I was also responsible for the physical accessibility of the buses, trains and stations, and so forth. But it's an overall understanding of the concept of accessibility to the 20% of the population who has some sort of disability. And that's the hard part. To shine them, okay, well, they think, oh, there's only you know, three to 5% of the people that are blind, that need a screen reader. They're not that important to me, but about the other 15% with other disabilities, you know, almost 40% of which are cognitive. Those people are currently being left out of the world. They're being left out of jobs or being left out of information technology. And, you know, the studies show that people with IDD issues often make up the most best and loyal and valuable employees. Study after study has shown that if we simply know how to accommodate them, and that's not so easy as it is to fix a website to make it five a weight or with gag compliant. That is much more even more of an education effort. I would say the other project that I'm working on is also football people with disabilities and that we are working with a company called way map, UK company and a partnership with Verizon. And we're mapping the whole DC Metro and DC metropolitan area for the for the blind with step by step navigation. That process also has separate options for people using wheelchairs. And I was the major drafter of the US standards for this technology, as well as to 1.1 which is the standards for cognitive wayfinding which will be the next phase. So technology there is technology out there to help people with disabilities other than just blindness in its in its infancy. But some very good pilots have been done with FTA with whom I worked quite a bit Federal Transit Administration that we can make much more of the world accessible to people, not only who are blind but with other types of disabilities that make it difficult for them to navigate or to use technology.

Michael Hingson 24:47
So the the way we met was actually through as you know, accessiBe where does that fit into what is happening to make the whole internet And website access available.

David Shaffer 25:04
Well, what it's going to help do is guide people to accessible locations. If your website's accessible, then we can put you on to this app, and people can find you and not only find you, but read the menu in your restaurant. And so can tourist find you. So, by encouraging people, you know, by expanding this project, into convention centers into other places, museums galleries, where there's a ton of information, we can integrate the accessibility of the web, the original website, to, for example, the descriptions on a picture in the National Gallery to be, you know, read to you, and explained, and all that it's going to be 100% WCAG compliant. So these, I think, these all work together, it might vary his projects, to show people that there's overall issue of accessibility websites, of course, are one of the major ones. But we've got to integrate this awareness concept with not just websites, but with how do we make this world safe and accommodating for all people with disabilities, so that everybody can achieve their full potential.

Michael Hingson 26:46
So I know that you also in addition to doing the web map project, though, do or have become involved with accessor be specifically so website access in general, but accessiBe in specific, why did you choose accessiBe to work with?

David Shaffer 27:03
That's anotherInteresting story. I was do when I was the byway officer at macro, I was deep into manual coding, fixing, you know, analysis of police reports, and how to deal with them. And that's what took four years to get that website compliant. That was four years of daily work by a team of people. I was against layered approaches that first. Some of the ones that had been proposed to us at macro simply didn't work. So I just figured, okay, I'm not interested in layered approaches, when somebody gives me something that doesn't even work on their own website, then, you know, forget it. But, you know, I was introduced to accessiBe with some skepticism. And then I started trying and testing it. And I found that it made websites accessible and usable, to really the greatest extent feasible by AI technology. So, I was convinced that accessiBe is better than the other ones. Plus, what really impressed me most about accessiBe was in fact, it's not just for the blind. And it has significant settings for cognitive disorders, ADHD, seizure disorders, various types of color, vision issues, and cognitive. And I think that this is the comprehensive approach that I've been preaching that we need to accommodate all disabilities. We can't just focus on the blind community, we can just focus on the deaf community, or the IDD community. This has got to be an overall attitude about how we approach all of our technology, how we approach shopping, how we approach going into a store, getting down the street, getting on a train or bus, that we've got to bring together these concepts of Universal Design for everybody, so that the entire population has the same opportunity, as everybody else

Michael Hingson 29:23
do you think accessiBe is having success in this arena?

David Shaffer 29:28
Yeah, I do. Continue to outreach to the blind community to talk to us and give input. I give both legal and technical input to accessiBe and and that's because I can see both sides of this. I can see how the courts developing the law as well as how the technology is developing and how it's been used. And it's a fascinating place to be and I'm you know enjoying working with them. quite a bit as we try to bring more education accessibility to the 20% of the population that's left out these days.

Michael Hingson 30:09
It's interesting the society in the times that we live in. We are in such a technological era. Yet, more and more we see everything being oriented or most things being oriented toward a visual process. So websites, for example, that that put more visual stuff in. And what prompts me to mention that is, we were watching my wife and I were watching a commercial this morning on a television. And it was just some people singing a song. And there was nothing to say that it was Google talking about all the ways that it protects us. And I, and there are a lot of those kinds of commercials that do nothing but play music or Yeah, or sounds, but that have nothing to do with anything, how do we get people to recognize that they are leaving out a significant amount of the population? And oh, by the way, what about the person who gets up, I guess the marketing people don't think that that will be a big problem, and I'll come back to it. But don't think that'll be a big problem, because they'll saturate the air with the commercial. So eventually, people will see it, but they don't even deal with the people who get up during a commercial and go do something else get a slide or whatever, never see it.

David Shaffer 31:36
Right. I don't understand that either. Myself, many times I turn to my significant other and I say, what was that commercial about? I'd like the music. Cuz I don't know what they're trying to sell. I don't know why they think this is useful. Especially like you said, half the people get up and go the bathroom and commercials 12 The toilet flush at once. But yeah, I don't get it. It's just like they think all this has impact. You don't have Flash, big name, at the end, after the beautiful pictures didn't have an impact on me. So they're losing 5% of their potential customer base, do they may

Michael Hingson 32:22
be losing more, because again, anyone who doesn't see the commercial, blind or not, has the same challenge.

David Shaffer 32:32
And this is the fault of the people that look only at the visual side of things. And that's all they can think or think about these people that are creating the commercials, people that are creating websites, whatever creative people are doing this. They're looking at it. And they're deriving their impact from what they see and not what they hear. And this frustrates me, but I figure, okay, well, I'll never buy that product, and I can't tell what they're advertising. So that's one down the drain. They won't get my business. You know, what else can you do? Except deprive them of their business? If they're not going to make this commercial accessible?

Michael Hingson 33:21
How do we break into their psyche? And get them to recognize what they're doing? Which is, of course, a general question that deals with the whole visual or non disability aspect of society in general. How do we how do we get the the public at large, the politicians, the visible people of large, to bring us into the conversation? Maybe it's a good way to start that, why aren't we part of the conversation?

David Shaffer 34:00
I think we're not because we're not thrusting ourselves into it. We can just sit back and wait for these people to call us up and say, Hey, we were just thinking about whether blind people can see our commercials got any advice? No, we have to, we have to get out to you know, write, like we're doing with Congress, get out to them, and explain to them what we're seeing or not seeing. We need to get to the advertising community with some sort of education. If they really are interested in selling us products, so the the blanket, I mean, we're going to 24 million people in the United States. That's a tremendous market. We just need to get people to understand that they're losing 24 million potential customers every time they put an ad up like that.

Michael Hingson 34:54
But in general, whether we deal with the advertisement part of it or whatever you deal with the whole population of persons with disabilities. How do we get into the psyche of people into the conversation? I mean, I hear what you're saying about getting Congress and showing Congress what we do. But here's a perfect example of the problem. Several years ago, I went to a congressman who I knew to talk about the fact that at that time, and still, as part of the Javits, Wagner eau de act, it is possible for organizations and agencies to apply for an exemption. So they do not have to pay a person with a disability a minimum wage, who they bring in. And that typically is in the case of some sheltered workshops that that number has diminished a great deal, because there's been visibility, but it's still there. And the law is still there. And what this congressman said is, well, we're opposed to minimum wage in general. And so I can't possibly support this bill had nothing to do with the fact that it's still the law of the land. But we're not considered an important and I mean, all persons with disabilities, we still are not really considered part of, of society in the same way. Now, we're not hated like, some, some people probably hate different races. And and we certainly don't face some of the challenges that that women do, although bind women probably do, but but the bottom line is we as a collective group, and not just blind women, but people, women with disabilities, but we are as as a, as a total group, not included. Really, in the conversation. We see it all the time. Last year's presidential elections are a perfect example. But you could you can go anywhere and cite anything. That that looks at all of the different things that go on COVID websites were not accessible last year. So you know, how do we get into that conversation? Collectively,

David Shaffer 37:10
like, well, that is how we do it is collectively, I think, but I think we're doing too much of is that, you know, you've got the blind community doing advocating for this, you've got the people with physical disabilities advocating for their thing, that people cognitive advocating for those things. And they're all just focusing on what they need. What we all need to be focusing on together is what we need as a group of people with disability grant, granted, each of each type of disability has different needs. But if we can get everybody to understand the concept of universal design, and start applying that didn't everything we build to, from buildings to websites to whatever, then we'll be taking, we'll be including this population. But even the phrase universal design is not even fully under widely understood. But that is where we have to be gone. And we have to be doing it as the entire disability community. That is numbers, but lots of numbers of people.

Michael Hingson 38:29
Sure, since 20%, to 25% of all persons in the United States have a disability. That's a pretty large group, and it's 100

David Shaffer 38:40
million people.

Michael Hingson 38:41
Yeah, you're talking about a minority second only to depending on who you want to listen to men or women, probably they're more women than men. So men may be the minority, although they don't think so. But But the bottom line is it's a very large group of people,

David Shaffer 38:56
or it's not significant. You know, it's the most significant thing size, protected group there is under the law.

Michael Hingson 39:06
But the protections aren't always there. So for example, the other problem, yes, the other problem,

David Shaffer 39:12
which is the courts, the courts are slow to catch up to the courts don't understand this. You file a web accessibility lawsuit and find your typical federal district judge. I mean, they don't have a clue what this case is about. And then we're down to the Battle of competing experts, you know, and where does that put a judge? Where does that put a jury where they mean, the legal system is not the right place to be solving this problem. Unfortunately, it's the only place we have left to go to.

Michael Hingson 39:46
Well, I guess that's of course part of the I'm sorry, go ahead.

David Shaffer 39:49
No, go ahead.

Michael Hingson 39:50
Well, that's, that's of course part of the problem. But, you know, is it the only place to go to so for example, you wrote an article earlier this year. which I found to be very interesting and very informative the talk about web accessibility. And that article described a lot, a lot of the issues, a lot of what's being done. And maybe you want to talk a little bit about that and where people can see it, but also should should we work to be finding more people who will publicize in the world. Part of the the issues that we have when I talked about being part of the the conversation frame, frankly, I think we need to be putting out more more writings, more articles, more missives, more whatever. And as you said, we need to be putting ourselves in the conversation.

David Shaffer 40:53
We go and, you know, I, I'm, I listened mostly to NPR. And what I do notice there is they do a lot of stories on disability issues. Really impressed by the way they cover disabilities. I don't see that on mainstream media. Occasionally, you'll you'll have a feel good story on the evening news, then which one you're watching, you know, they they're tagged at the end of the last two minutes. But really, dealing with this as a societal issue. It's so low on the priority of things these days after COVID and, and overseas wards and foreign policy and everything else that's going on. We're, we're just faded where we fade into the background, or unnoticed. It's just like when, when when you when you walk into a store with somebody who's with you, they will talk to the other person and ask them what does he want to order? Instead of asking you were invisible?

Michael Hingson 42:01
Yeah. And of course, also part of the problem today, is that with everything that's going on, we face it, too. And it kind of beats you down.

David Shaffer 42:12
It does. It's, it's depressing. I mean, I my usually, my usual answer is I can order for myself in that sort of tone. But, you know, it's like we walk, walk into a dark, so up till the day with my white king, trying to find my way because they don't allow visitors now so that I can't bring him by with me to guide me. So I'm, you know, stumbling around the place trying to find the front desk and all that. And then they shove a piece of paper in front of me saying, Can you please sign in. And they've seen me walking around that reception area trying to find the reception desk with a white cane. And they turned around and asked me to sign something. They'll get

Michael Hingson 42:59
it. It's, it's all education. And I think you said much earlier is very important. We have to as hard as it is as frustrating as it is, as trying as it is on our patients. Sometimes. We have to be teachers, we have to help. But we do need to speak out, we do need to be pushing ourselves in the conversation. There are there's a lot of mainstream media that as you said, doesn't cover us much. And somehow we need to get more people to reach out to mainstream media saying Why aren't you talking about the fact that blind people and other persons with disabilities are exempt? In some situations from receiving minimum wage? Why aren't you talking more about the lack of appropriate information provided to us? Why aren't you talking about the fact that when one flies on an airplane, the flight attendants don't necessarily give us the same information that that people who can see or people who can can read don't have they already have. And I got like, the fact that people like with dyslexia also have issues.

David Shaffer 44:25
Yeah, well, pointing to the emergency exits doesn't help a lot.

Michael Hingson 44:28
Right, exactly. But they but you know, it would be so simple for flight attendants to say when they're doing their pre flight briefing. Emergency exits are located at overwing. Exits are located at rows, x and y.

David Shaffer 44:47
Row number you can, that's assuming that's a row number that you can read with your fingers.

Michael Hingson 44:53
Except when you are when you go on, you know what seat you're at. So you know what right So your count? Yeah, you can count. Yeah, they could, they could do something to make the row numbers also more accessible. But again, you do know what seat you go to. And if they know that, then you can easily count and get at least a much better sense, then what you do. I heard once somebody explained that when the preflight briefings are being given, what flight attendants are trained to do, and I don't know if it's true, but it could be, what flight attendants are trained to do is to look to see who's really paying attention to the briefings. Because those are the people that they may be able to call on to help if there really is an emergency, because they're the ones that tend to be collecting the information. I don't know if that's really true, but it certainly makes sense. And, and it is also something that more of us should do, and more of us should be demanding that they do the appropriate things to provide the access that we need to be able to pay attention.

David Shaffer 46:05
Yeah, you know, Michael, it's just, it's such an overwhelmingly huge job. I mean, we're talking about everything from websites to we haven't even talked about apps on phones, to physical accessibility to how you're, how you're treated in a doctor's office, or on an airplane or at a restaurant, or, I mean, it's, it's, it's all throughout society, that the people with disabilities face these obstacles. And courts, you know, I think websites are a fantastic place to start. But that's not the end of the accessibility discussion. We need to have much broader discussions about that. And we need to be doing it more publicly.

Michael Hingson 47:03
Right. And, and I think we can, I don't think that we need to always use civil disobedience, as our solution, although there certainly have been times in the past when that has been what people feel they need to do, and it can be successful, but it still, ultimately is about education. And if people refuse to listen, then obviously there are other actions that need to be taken. You mentioned, what happened with you with Metro and Metro, at least, was interested in working with you and allowing you to help them fix their website issue, by the way, how is it now?

David Shaffer 47:46
Oh, it's pretty good. They actually, they brought in consultants to do the remainder of the remediation and I wasn't able to finish. So they're trying to get as close to 100% compliant as possible.

Michael Hingson 48:02
And, obviously, that's, that's pretty important to do. I don't know whether accessiBe is a part of that or whether you know, have they used accessiBe in any way I'm just curious.

David Shaffer 48:12
I they I don't know who the outside consultants using right now but they haven't seen it says to be put on the site yet. I know they use accessiBe's testing tool.

Michael Hingson 48:24
Right? And can you tell us about that the test

David Shaffer 48:29
accessiBe has a very quick and free testing tool, which is one of the better ones out there on the market, including some of the ones you paid $10,000 for. And if you go to ace.accessible.com there's it's really simple, you just plug in the website name, you hit get a report, you get an immediate report within like 10 seconds of all the errors it reads it from compliant to semi compliant or non compliant. And then you can email yourself the report in a PDF form and and read all the details about what the issues are on the website. You know, and some of my own personal battles I've had recently with our county government kind of forced them to provide me with accessible materials as required by federal law. You know, I finally just sent them a report of their website or encountered entire county website is non compliant. And they said they know it. Let baffled me and what they're getting me my documents on your threat of a federal lawsuit.

Michael Hingson 49:49
You It's amazing. I recently upgraded we were talking about it before we started this. I also upgraded to Windows 11 and And there are some real challenges from an access standpoint. Or example, for example, and I, and I'm saying this after having called and spoken to Microsoft's disabilities answer desk, I needed to map a network drive. And the instructions say, click on the three dots on the toolbar, the three dots. So that's inaccessible to me, I am going to try some other experiments to see if I can access them. But in Windows 10, there were ways to do it. Why would they? And could they? And should they have updated to a new version of Windows without dealing with the access issues, and I know what they're gonna say, they did it with Microsoft Edge years ago, when Microsoft Edge came out, they knew it wasn't accessible. And they said, well, we'll get to it. Well, you know, that's, that's immediately sending the message that some of us are not as important as everyone else. We are, and I'm

David Shaffer 51:09
so sorry, I upgraded to Windows 11, I would never recommend that any visually impaired person right now until they get it fixed. It makes your life so much more difficult.

Michael Hingson 51:21
Well, but it's going to take a while to to happen. And the problem is that more and more things will become unsupported. So upgrading needs to be done. But there should be a real outcry to Microsoft, from a large number of people about the accessibility issues that they face in Windows 11. And that is something that gets back to what we discussed earlier. Microsoft should have made it accessible right from the outset right out of the gate, right. And they have the team, they have the people, they have the knowledge, it's a priority.

David Shaffer 52:02
While the priority for them is to get the product out the door, and then worry about, you know, the details later.

Michael Hingson 52:11
But still, the priority is to get the product out the door. So as many people can sort of use it as possible and the people who are marginalized well, we'll get to them eventually. Yeah, right, which is a problem. If people want to read your article, how can they do that?

David Shaffer 52:32
It's on my website, David Schaefer. lawn.com. Under the add a tab, Shaffer is spelled s AJ FF er.

Michael Hingson 52:43
So David Schaefer Law comm under the ADEA tab. Right. So what's next for you? Where do you go from here?

David Shaffer 52:53
Well, I'm, I'm also been retained by another organization, to do some congressional lobbying on behalf of ADA, making ADA explicitly include websites, and also to work to make work with them to make Congress itself accessible, working with how, with the congressional Select Committee on modernization, and, you know, we got to start somewhere, your congress has got to set the example for the country. And it's really pathetic, that the studies I've shown are that approximately 80 to 90% of congressional websites are inaccessible. And where there were their constituents to, and we have an equal right to communicate with our representatives, under the First Amendment as anybody else, and we're being deprived. And I think it's a serious issue for Congress that they've got a face, that they're not making themselves available to the entire population that's supposed to serve.

Michael Hingson 54:14
Good point. And hopefully, you'll be able to make some progress on that. We certainly want to hear from you as to how that's going. And you are welcome to come back here anytime and tell us what's happening and keep us all up to date. We really appreciate your time today. In sitting down with us and talking about a lot of these issues. Are there any kind of last minute things that you'd like to say?

David Shaffer 54:43
Oh, I just I just want to be treated the same as everybody else. And I think that's what all of us want. You know, you treat treat me like you would anybody else. with courtesy, and if it's an older person, you, you're courteous to them in a different way than you are a blind person or a deaf person. Just I'd like to see people treat people as people, and not according to what they look like, or are able to do is hear, see or or think.

Michael Hingson 55:23
Well, clearly, that's that's a goal. I think that all of us share. And I hope that we'll be able to, to see more of that happen. Excuse me, I know, being involved with accessiBe. It's an accessiBe goal. And I'm, I'm glad that accessiBe is really growing in its understanding of the issues, and that it intends to do more to try to do what it can to educate people in society about all of this. Okay, so that's part of what this podcast is about.

David Shaffer 56:00
Right. And I think we're well on our way there. We have more work to do. But we've made a lot of progress. Since I came on board and I think February I think you came on board just a little bit before that. Right. So we've, we've done a lot this year, and next year, it's gonna be even better.

Michael Hingson 56:22
Well, I hope people have enjoyed listening to this and that they've learned something. We're always interested in hearing from listeners, you are welcome to reach out to me directly at [email protected]. accessiBe, You spelled A C C E S S I B E. So [email protected]. David, if you want people to be able to contact you. How do they do that?

David Shaffer 56:50
I'm [email protected]

Michael Hingson 56:57
is easy as it gets. Yeah,

David Shaffer 56:59
I try to make things easy.

Michael Hingson 57:01
Yeah, absolutely. So well, I want to thank you for being with us. We've been working to get this set up for a while you've had a pretty, pretty busy schedule. And so we're finally able to do we're able to do it. But seriously, we'd like to keep hearing from you as to what progress you're making and your thoughts. So don't hesitate to reach out and let us know if you'd like to come back on and we will chat some more. And in the meanwhile, again, if people want to reach out you can reach me at Michael Hingson. That is [email protected]. And if you would like to consider being a guest on our podcast because you have some things to say, email me and we'll see what we can do. I want to thank you all for joining us on another edition of unstoppable mindset. And David, thank you as well for doing that

Michael Hingson 58:01
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
1 hr
December 15, 2021 Episode 12 – Powerful Writing: Helping Others Share Their Stories with Keri Wyatt Kent
This week’s Unstoppable Mindset episode is especially exciting not only because of our guest, Keri Wyatt Kent and her story of writing and author endeavors, but Keri also brings us a special announcement. Keri has been an author for many years writing a number of Christian oriented books. While she will discuss her work in the writing world she also announces a special new project. If you listen to this week’s episode you will be the first to learn about a new project Keri has begun, a project in which you may want to directly participate. Listen in to hear all the news.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About our Guest:
Keri Wyatt Kent has been writing since childhood, and made a living at it since she graduated from college. She began her career as a newspaper reporter, then started her own writing and editing business at age 30. She had her first book published five years later. She’s since had 11 books traditionally published, has self-published several of her own books, and has co-written more than a dozen titles as well. She recently self-published an Advent devotional, The Gift of Christmas Present. She and her husband Scot have been married for 30 years and have two grown children.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:24
Well, hello again, this is Mike Hingson. Welcome to another Unstoppable Mindset episode. Thanks for dropping in and being with us, and we hope that you will enjoy this one. I have an interesting guest today. I think she's interesting. I'm a little bit prejudiced. And you will learn why as we go through the episode. But let's just say at the outset, it has a little bit to do with a new book that we're beginning to write. Keri Wyatt Kent has been an author for a long time, she has a very interesting career. I met her earlier this year, and felt that she would be a very interesting person to have on our podcast for you to get to meet and to get to know. And you may find her story fascinating and want to reach out to her if you have ideas of writing a book or want to learn something more about being an author Kerri, welcome to unstoppable mindset.

Keri Wyatt Kent 02:16
Mike, it is so good to be with you.

Michael Hingson 02:20
So tell me just a little bit about your life in general. I mean, obviously, you grew up and so on. But tell me just a little bit about you.

Keri Wyatt Kent 02:29
Well, I've been a writer since college, I graduated college and began writing right away as a newspaper reporter. I'm, I live in the Chicago area. And I have two grown kids and a husband that I've been married to for 30 years, I've written 11 books, traditionally published and done a bunch of other collaborative books and self published titles. So my work is writing to do it. I've been doing it for years and raising a family and some.

Michael Hingson 03:02
So that's what I do. What got you started in writing.

Keri Wyatt Kent 03:05
So as I said, when I was in college, I was a part of the student newspaper, and then right away got a job out of college, working as a newspaper reporter. And it is, it's a great training ground. For learning how to write you have to learn how to write quickly, you have to summarize sort of complicated things in a in a short amount of space. As far as the amount of number of paragraphs, you have to tell a story. But I think one of the things I learned from that beginning, Mike was that knowing which details you need to leave in, but also what you need to leave out. A lot of people want to write, but they don't know what to leave out. You don't have to tell everything you know, in whatever you're writing, whether it's an article, blog posts a book, you have to be focused and being a newspaper reporter really helped me learn that.

Michael Hingson 04:10
What is it that people like? In the writing of a newspaper reporter? What do they want to see? And what do they not want to see? What makes a good reporter in a newspaper environment, a good reporter?

Keri Wyatt Kent 04:22
You know, one of the things that I learned was to be a bold interviewer, to ask hard questions probe a little deeper. And today, you know, interviewing is one of my strengths. And it's a key part of my work as a collaborative writer. People want to know the facts, and they want to know how it impacts them. And that's true, not only in newspapers, I think that's true everywhere. When a lot of people write a book and they want to write this is my thoughts and this is my stuff and my story. But a good book will tell the writer story, but then connect it with the reader. And I think Being in, in newspapers for quite a while before, at the beginning, my career really helps me to remember why. What's the so what of what I'm writing? Why does it matter to my reader?

Michael Hingson 05:15
What was your favorite newspaper interview, something that you really liked that stands out in your mind that you did where you were really successful.

Keri Wyatt Kent 05:25
You know, I remember doing a story about a group at my church that and I was able to write about them. In the newspaper, they went on a mission trip, and they met a family and a little boy who needed heart surgery of some kind, and he couldn't get it in the, you know, rural area of a developing country where he lived. And they were able to bring him to Chicago to Children's Hospital to get the surgery, and, you know, changed his life. And, you know, went back to his family, of course, but, but the story of how this woman decided to get involved and help this child, it was, it was really a cool story. And I remember, you know, talking to her about her decision to help somebody else, you know, and to, you know, she didn't just go down and like, you know, help out in this community for a week or so she got involved with this kid and his family, and, and they, you know, a lot about trust, you know, because the boy's mother had to let him, you know, go with these people to get the surgery he needed. It was a pretty cool story. I thought that was one of my favorites.

Michael Hingson 06:39
Well, so do you do any writing for newspapers today?

Keri Wyatt Kent 06:45
I do not write for newspapers today. But I've over the years, because newspapers have kind of changed, you know, it's the publishing industry has changed dramatically over the last several decades. So I do write for magazines, I write for websites, I, I have other writing avenues that I that I write for now, most of my work these days is, is in books, because I have that opportunity. But I often am asked to write for a magazine or a website. And so I do a lot of that. So you know, it's interesting, because I think one of the, one of the things that has allowed me to keep on to have a career over several decades of writing is adapting to change. And that is, I think, a lot of times people have trouble adapting to change because they get scared. Their fear keeps them from, they want things to stay the same. And they're, they're scared of doing something new. And I've just tried to adapt, you know, I've written magazine articles I, you know, written social media stuff, all kinds of different things. And you just have to see the change as opportunity, rather than being afraid of it. And so, when we see change as opportunity, then we have are motivated to innovate,

Michael Hingson 08:23
motivated to innovate, interesting way to put it in makes a lot of sense. We certainly live in a world right now, where there is a lot of demand to adapt to change for all of us.

Keri Wyatt Kent 08:33
For sure, right? Everything has turned upside down with the pandemic. And just there's a lot that's changed. And my industry keeps changing the publishing industry. You know, when I was a reporter, that Job had lots of promise and possibility today, that small newspapers that, you know, used to serve small towns are just thought, and it's a lot harder to become a reporter, and there's less. It's more competitive to make it in that industry. When I first published my first book, there were a lot less emphasis on authors needing a platform or a huge audience in order to get a publishing contract. And that industry is continually changing. And so writing requires sort of ongoing reinvention. And I think in in these times, everybody is having to sort of be willing to adapt to change the way kids go to school these days, the way people go to work these days, you know, the economic opportunities, everything has changed. And so when we are willing to adapt, we can thrive. It's it's just, we can't thrive when we expect things to stay the same.

Michael Hingson 09:53
How did you transition from being a newspaper reporter to writing books? Why Why did you switch How'd that all come about? There must be a story there.

Keri Wyatt Kent 10:03
Yes, yes. So I was a newspaper reporter, it's a demanding job, a lot of times you are working late you're covering, I was at a paper with it covered local government meetings, which are, you know, at eight o'clock at night, and. And in fact, you know, if something happens, like, you know, go to war, or there's a, at one point, I remember, as a newspaper reporter, there was a shooting in our quiet little suburb, which was big news. And on the Sunday, when I was having some people over to my house, my editor was calling me saying, You got to come in and help us with this story. It's a big story. So it's an all consuming sort of, sort of job. And when I decided my husband, and I decided we wanted to start a family, I thought I want to have I want to have a little more control over my schedule than newspaper reporting gives me so I started doing freelance writing. And at first I was doing kind of a lot of magazine articles. I wrote for places where I had connections, including construction marketing today, and roads and bridges magazine. Because I knew that there were opportunity, I knew that some people who worked in those particular magazines, I had connections there. But eventually I decided to write a book because I had questions. My first book was called God's whisper in a mother's chaos. And I wrote it when my kids were one and three, which didn't give me a lot of writing time, because more than three year olds are demanding, and time consuming. But I wrote about my experiences as a mom. And the question was, what happened to my life, I had it all figured out on the all my ducks in a row, everything was great. And then these two little people invaded my life, and I couldn't even you know, get anything done. And where was God in the midst of that? Because I had said, Well, my relationship with God should look like this, it should get up and heavy, you know, quiet time and do certain things and volunteer a lot of my time at church, all these things that I were harder to do. And I tried to address the questions that I was wrestling with, because I thought again, with my reader, other people might be asking those same questions. And so that is, that was kind of the beginning of the journey of writing books.

Michael Hingson 12:51
So what kind of books primarily have you been writing from the beginning, and how it's evolved?

Keri Wyatt Kent 12:58
So that first book was published by University Press, and then I did another book with them. A lot of my books are that, about that intersection of, of living our faith, and real life, not being idealistic, or, you know, fluffy about it, you know, really talking about the struggle and the the challenges of everyday life and how our faith fits into that. So in the publishers category is they call it Christian living. But I think my particular focus was integrating your faith with real life. A, several of my books talk about the importance of taking a Sabbath slowing down living at a pace that allows us to consider things of faith, as sometimes we get so rushed, and we get so busy, that we miss out on being able to really experience God's love and God's presence. And so that's been a big part of the stuff that I write about. I write about pace of life, I write about slowing down, I write about kind of choosing to take your time to really connect with God in a deeper way. And so that's been the main focus of my writing of my own books. I also started helping pastors and a couple pastors who had content they wanted to write a book about and they needed a collaborative writer, they needed somebody to help them. From there. I started helping not only pastors, but like business people, and other people who had booked ideas, but didn't, couldn't do it on their own. Really. They needed a writer. They had great ideas. They did not I have writing skills. And so we brought their ideas and, and my writing skills together and so that I could collaborate with them and help them to write a book. So that's been in the past several years that's been my focus is helping other people tell their story.

Michael Hingson 15:16
I have to ask, what was your first book called?

Keri Wyatt Kent 15:20
My first book that I wrote? Hmm, God's whisper in a mother's chaos.

Michael Hingson 15:26
Wow. And so was that more of? Well, not necessarily a memoir, but was I would assume there's some biographical parts to that.

Keri Wyatt Kent 15:38
Absolutely. One of my writing colleagues called memoir ish. It's not it, it offered people some teaching, I would say, but it was mostly the story of my me and my kids, and the things I was learning in the midst of that. So yeah, talk about my kids. And my life as a mom, my, my own thoughts and struggles with my faith. And at the time, Mike, there were books for Christian moms, but most of them were written by people who were sort of past the stage of parenting, right. But they were, you know, maybe their kids had gone off to college. And they thought, now I'll write my book. I wrote it when my kids were little. And so and I was, like, I wrote about the fact, you know, I wrote telling people, yeah, my daughter's crying, my son's crying, I sit down on the stairs and just start crying. And because we're all crying, because it's just so stressful, you know, I can't figure out how to help them. Not try. And, and that at the time, like these days, people, blog people, you know, do podcasts, and they're extremely honest about their own struggles. At the time, especially within Christian publishing, that was not what most people did. And so my book was a little bit unusual, in that it was written in the midst, like from the trenches of, you know, parenting preschoolers, but also, in its honesty, of the struggles that I went through, as a young mom, and all young moms do, it wasn't like I was my experience was unusual. Talking about it at that time was unusual. And so um, yeah, I think that book, it's, it's been out there for years. And it's still, you know, continues to sell. It's still in print. So I think that's because it resonates with people.

Michael Hingson 17:52
Well, speaking of things changing, you said that publishing Christian publishing wasn't like that so much back then. But it sounds like it's reinvented itself. Why is that? And how has it changed?

Keri Wyatt Kent 18:07
There's a couple things. It has changed dramatically. It's not only Christian publishing, but all publishing. publishers want to know that you're going to bring an audience with you, when you put when you approached them. So a big part of being able to get a publishing contract, for example, is you have to have what what is referred to as a platform, you have to have a big mailing list or a big following on social media. Although it's interesting, I was reading an article today that even though publishers make decisions based on an author, social media, and how many followers they have, and that sort of thing, that doesn't necessarily translate directly to book sales. But when I first started writing, that was not as big a deal. The other thing that's really changed is, I do quite a bit of self publishing, I help other people write books and then help them self publish them. Or I've self published, taking some of my books, some of my books, I've, you know, done 11 traditionally published books, some of them have gone out of print, that means they're the publishers no longer selling it, and I can have the rights revert back to me. I've sometimes taken those books and re published them as a self published title. And this just recently, I, I self published a Christmas Devotional, an Advent devotional and just did it myself. The way I was able to do that is is self publishing. Used to be just what was called vanity publishing. You'd pay somebody to print your books and you had to buy a bunch of them and they sat in your garage and you maybe tried to sell them to friends and family. These days. Amazon has a A platform called Kindle Direct Publishing, that allows you to upload a manuscript, upload a cover, and put your book on Amazon. And as long as it's not, you know, plagiarized from somewhere else, or, you know, as long as it makes sense, you can do it. And so that has really opened up. The ability to self publish for a lot of people. That was one of the things that I did to sort of, you know, reinvent myself is, I realized about 10 years ago that everybody was starting to talk about self publishing and this change and the technology called Print on Demand, where when someone orders a book from Amazon or other places, they have the technology to print a single copy, instead of a press run of, you know, 1000 or 10,000 books, you can print a single copy, and mail it out to whoever's ordered it. And that changed the publishing game, because anybody could publish their own book. And I decided back a while ago, I wanted to learn as much as I could about the self publishing and how to do it. And I was a little intimidated, I was a little scared at first, I'm like, I don't know how to do this. But I just, I'm a learner, and I learned it. And that enabled me then to begin to help other people, not only with collaborative writing, sometimes, in collaborative writing, you're working on something that you're going to present to a traditional publisher. But sometimes people want to self publish, I recently finished a project for a business woman who runs, she runs a national organization. And she came to me with just an idea and said, I want to write a book, and I all I know is the title. And I said, Okay, you know. And so I helped her shape her idea into a book outline, I collaborated with her to write the book. And then I guided her through the self publishing process. And that book is now her calling card, it establishes her as a credible authority, it opens doors for new business opportunities or speaking opportunities. And that would not have been possible 20 years ago, because I mean, she, she could have done it through like a vanity press. But this allows her then, to sell her book on Amazon. And that's a great a great way for people, they may not want to be an author per se, they want to be an authority. And so book establishes them as an authority.

Michael Hingson 22:37
My impression from something that you said a little while ago, though, is that content has changed. You said that when you were first writing your original book, there wasn't as much of an interest or people didn't necessarily publish a lot of books being honest about themselves. And I gather that, that whole focus on life and life experience and, and self analysis has changed.

Keri Wyatt Kent 23:06
I think people were doing that maybe outside of the Christian publishing industry. But in the Christian publishing industry, there was more emphasis on, you know, here's the best way to live your life kind of thing. But that's changed. Now. That's changed. Now. I think there are a lot of authors who are very honest about their, their struggles, their, their challenges, their fears, and, you know, people, Christian authors talk about their, their own struggles with depression, or, you know, people will talk about their eating disorder or their, you know, their marital problems or their divorce or whatever, things that were kind of just not talked about, you know, back back in the day, so, I think people are more honest. Because also social media gives readers a chance to connect with authors in a different way. I remember as a kid, I love Madeline L'Engle. She wrote A Wrinkle in Time, and she wrote a bunch of other books, and she, she was my favorite author. And I remember like writing her a letter, like, telling her how much I loved her book and that kind of thing. And I was so excited when she like, wrote back and, but at the that was like, the only way to connect with an author was to write them like basically a fan letter or something. And today, you can look up your favorite author and you can listen to their podcast or you can, you know, see a picture of them with their kids on social media or whatever you we have a lot more access to writers. So it's kind of harder to like pretend everything's great. If you Are you know, I mean, obviously people curate and you know, kind of make sure that they present a certain image on social media or whatever. But it's, it seems to be more okay. To be honest with who you are. And

Michael Hingson 25:16
so I think the publishing industry has accepted that reinvention? I think so

Keri Wyatt Kent 25:20
yeah, I think so because they want, they want something that people can relate to. Right? Again, it comes back to the reader, you know, when you're a writer, you got to think of your reader and your reader needs to be able to know, just see themselves in your story. And so I think when we're honest about, you know, our struggles or our fears, then the reader can relate.

Michael Hingson 25:47
Do you think that the demands of readers and the interests that readers have in books has evolved and maybe reinvented? Or is it just that authors in the publishing industry are catching up? Or recognizing what readers really want?

Keri Wyatt Kent 26:05
That's an interesting question. I think people have gotten used to, you know, I mean, even, you know, look at some of the other media that we consume, like television, or, you know, shows that we stream or whatever, however, we receive sort of, that sort of thing. You think about, like, Father Knows Best, or Leave It to Beaver back in the 50s, you know, where it presented, or even like the Brady Bunch, right, it presented, like, this sort of idealistic look at a family. And, you know, there may be some small problem, but what gets worked out in the 30 minutes of the sitcom or whatever, um, and I think you look at, like, some of the shows today, and they've gone almost to the opposite extreme, but of, you know, reality TV or whatever, but they, they are dealing with deeper issues, they're dealing with struggle, in a way that, you know, we didn't before so I think our society has just evolved in in that we're willing to talk about, and want to take a look at you know, deeper issues. Maybe sometimes too much. Like goes to television.

Michael Hingson 27:30
Yeah, television has certainly made a big difference in, in all of our lives and social media has, we, we now seem to be a society that absolutely has to have instant gratification, we want to know this now. And the other part of it, it seems to me is that as society has made these kinds of demands, as society has shifted, it also expects the information just to be put right in front of it, and it doesn't tend to do a lot of research anymore. So it doesn't go beyond the story.

Keri Wyatt Kent 28:10
Yeah. And people will accept as true. Things that might not be true. You know, everybody, you know, I read it on the internet. So it must be true. Or they, you know, hear a story and they hear, right, they don't redo research. They don't, you know, wonder is this actually what's the case? And so that makes it harder sometimes, I think, for people to discern, I think discernment is, you know, kind of wish it was more highly valued in our current culture than it is.

Michael Hingson 28:48
I know I have. Oftentimes, when I speak, I've been asked about the World Trade Center and my experiences and people say, What do you think about the conspiracy theorists? Or isn't it true that this really happened and of course, the, the most common one for me, is the story that keeps floating around the internet, about the dog that was with its blind person up on the 100 and 12th story of one of the towers. And the person told the dog to just go down the stairs and the the dog got wouldn't leave and got them up. But then the dog ran back in and went back up and saved hundreds of people and did that two or three times and then was finally killed when the tower collapsed. And there's just a drop of truth in the story. Right, in that there is one person who was blind with their dog. Not me, but who who felt that he wasn't going to get out and he told his dog to go when the dog wouldn't go, which is what the dog should do that dog stays with its person. Right? And that's it. But that whole story has just made it around the internet and continues to be there. And I keep getting asked, isn't that a true story? And the answer is no, it's not, you know, people don't take the time to learn what a guide dog is about, for example.

Keri Wyatt Kent 30:19
And they don't tend to take the time to realize that the tower was hit on the 93rd floor or whatever. And so the dog couldn't get down from the 112 floors.

Michael Hingson 30:29
And how and how many stories are in the World Trade Center? How many floors? I don't know, 110. The other part about the story. But yeah, exactly what you say is true. There was one person, according to a police officer who I met, there was one person in Tower two, who was on the 90th floor, the 91st floor, and got down past the fire after tower two was hit. He was just in the right place at the right time, and he made it past the fires. But otherwise, no one made it out from above where the aircraft hidden both towers, of course. Right,

Keri Wyatt Kent 31:13
right. Well, you know, it's interesting, I remember back when, when email was first starting, people would forward. Oh, here's something, you know, they have some story. I'm like, that's not true. Was before Facebook. So I'm showing my age. But before Facebook, people would email you, you know, these sort of urban myths and, you know, telling you different things. And I would email back I was like, I was fighting for truth. I'm like, this is false. It is not a true story. You shouldn't forward things, because you just heard it or somebody sent it to you do your research. It's not true. And social media has taken that to the nth degree, you know, of more and more stories that are not true. And I feel, especially as part of my faith, Mike, I feel like if truth matters, it really matters. And a lot of times I find people of faith are the ones who are forwarding the, you know, conspiracy theories or the you know, template urban myth or even that's one about the dog right. It's a feel good story. Oh, that sounds like Lassie, you know, kept running into the burning building to save the people. And you want it to be true, but it's, it's not and it's, it's not good to even a heartwarming story like that. It's not good to just forward things that aren't true. And I think our our culture has lost its grip on what is true, you know, if you try to counter people's argument about all sorts of things, you know, politics or the pandemic or whatever with truth, they accuse you of like believing the lies on both sides. So it's, it's a challenging time to, to tell stories, because truth does matter. But it seems to be a value that's sort of eroding in our culture.

Michael Hingson 33:09
I have to do this speaking of Lassie, he never she never did save Timmy from the well. But she did save Timmy from from bear and from this attack and all sorts of things and the this was in this brief article I read in the end of the article was did a pretty anybody ever tell Timmy and his parents maybe it was time to move?

Keri Wyatt Kent 33:37
Yeah, we should just like be a little more careful about all of this he was unsupervised. When he preps he shouldn't

Michael Hingson 33:49
share a parenting discussion there that. Oh, gosh. But yeah, but But blasey never did save Timmy from the well. But anyway, there are urban myths, right? It's another urban myth of sort of like Fibber McGee and Molly now I'm dating me, but I never did listen to Fibber McGee and Molly growing up. I collect old radio shows. And so I listened to that show now. And anyone who knows anything about Fibber McGee and Molly knows that they have a closet that whenever Fibber opens the closet, everything comes falling out. And that's what they remember about Fibber McGee and Molly, but it only happened a couple or three or four times a year. It didn't happen in every episode, but it's what people remember. And it is a pretty funny skit whenever it does happen. Yeah, but but we we do glom on to these myths, and these these thoughts and they take over our memory, whether they're true or not, and I'm sorry, I've never bought into the concept of alternative facts. Because you it is a fact or it's not and there isn't an alternative if it's an alternative. It's not a fact. Yeah, and that It could be a different argument, but it's not a fact. People have forgotten that. Right.

Keri Wyatt Kent 35:05
And that's I think the nature of, of sort of insidious lies is that they have a little element of truth, like the story about the dog that you mentioned, or, you know, there's, there's certain facts can be twisted, to tell to change the narrative, right. So again, you have to have discernment and try to not let your fear get the better of you, I think that's part of it is people hear something, they don't understand it, and they misinterpret it. And then their fear takes over.

Michael Hingson 35:43
And some of them misinterpret it deliberately. But it is, it is part of society. Today, there is a whole set of theories about how the government really took down the towers, the twin towers of the World Trade Center using microwaves and other things, and some physics arguments are used and so on. But there, there's a lot that's left out of those theories. And the bottom line is that when it all comes down to it, the experiences of the people who were there ought to count for something. But the conspiracy theorists ignore that. And so they, they choose to put these things forward. And one person's written books, and others have told stories on speeches and so on. But the reality is, what happened is what happened aircraft crashed into the buildings. The resulting fuel explosions further damaged the infrastructures. And the buildings eventually collapsed. And there's no getting around that. Yeah, but people like to try to create mountains out of molehills

Keri Wyatt Kent 36:54
or change the narrative in some way to make it not wanting to deal with the fact that I think we for for years, the United States kind of felt like we were immune, or we would never get attacked on our own soil. It was, you know, wars were fought somewhere else, not on our land. And so wanting to believe that means people would come up with outlandish ideas to you know, sort of explain away the idea that, that we were being attacked, you know, that somehow it was some sort of sleight of hand that the government was doing or something and, you know, so that, that I just when I think about what motivates people to like, come up with something like that. I think a lot of times people didn't want to believe that, that we would be attacked on our own would be attacked. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're

Michael Hingson 37:54
working on a number of projects now. And I'm Chris, that brings us a little bit to what, what brought us together. On an earlier podcast, we had a chance to meet Susie Florrie who wrote thunder dog with me. And it was a very collaborative venture was a lot of fun. And then this past summer, I began looking at writing another book. And Susie didn't have time to work on it. She's finishing a master's program. And I assume she's still planning on going on to the Ph. D. program, isn't she? Yeah, she is. She is she's, she's got lots to do right now. Scholar is, and she introduced us.

Keri Wyatt Kent 38:38
Yes, yes. He's a longtime friend. And we have, I was delighted that she introduced us, Mike.

Michael Hingson 38:45
So we started writing a book proposal. And the idea was that as I have traveled the world and talk about the World Trade Center, and talk about my experiences, and what I did, I did not ever spend time really developing in a program to teach other people how to accomplish the same sorts of things that I did, which in a nutshell, is basically saying, I haven't taught people how to learn to control their fears. And, and somebody suggested to me to call the program and so on blinded by fear, because that's exactly what really happens. We get confronted by unexpected life changes. All of us with the pandemic today. The World Trade Center, 20 years ago, the Pentagon, any number of things that have happened and we become blinded, we become paralyzed. We don't know how to make decisions. We can't make decisions, because we're confronted by this thing that seems overwhelming to us, whatever it is. And it doesn't need to be that way. than the fact is that I think some people believe we're wired to be this way, we're wired. But but in a sense, we're not. We've been taught by our parents, our peers, everyone around us about fear, but we've never really collectively been taught how to control it or not be totally blinded by it. So we, you and I started writing this book. And now of course, we've submitted a proposal. And we have a great working title, I like the title you came up with, which is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, which is more positive anyway. But tell me what what you think about this book, or what it can do, and kind of your thoughts about the whole process that we're going through.

Keri Wyatt Kent 40:42
Mike, I was so excited when, you know, Suzy introduced us. And we started talking about this idea, because I do think people are, they want to live a courageous life, they want to not let their fear control them or blind them. But they need help. And so I feel like this book is going to give them some very positive, doable, suggestions and guidance on overcoming what fear does to us, we're gonna feel fear, it's a human emotion, it's a response, and it's a part of life, it's there to protect us, right? You know, we, if we didn't have fear, we drive on the wrong side of the road, or, you know, we do things that take unnecessary risks, so, but we, a lot of people, let their fear paralyze them, or blind them, or whatever they don't, they don't want to take unnecessary risks, but then sometimes they don't want to take any risk at all, or they tell themselves stories, oh, you know, the government took down the buildings or, you know, they're trying to control you, they're gonna microchip you with the vaccine, or whatever, they make up stories that, that keep them from living a full life. And when we live a brave life, it's a more meaningful life. And so I feel like that's what we want to give people with this book is, is how can people live courageously, not just to say they did it, but because it makes for a better life. So I'm excited to you know, find the right publisher for this book and to the process of writing, I think, will be just a learning experience for both of us and a lot of fun. So and I think the book will help people when we get it finished.

Michael Hingson 42:33
Bravery does not mean that you take unnecessary risks. Bravery, means, to me, at least in part, that you don't live a risk free life, but you live a life where you do move forward, and you don't let what occurs to you, panic you and keep you from moving forward, and that you also are brave, if you step back from time to time, and look at what you did and say, did I make the right choice there? Or should I have done something different? Or what did I learn from the choices that I make? And we are, as a society rarely, self analyzing?

Keri Wyatt Kent 43:16
Yeah, to take us, I love that to take a step back and learn. Because otherwise, we're going to repeat our mistakes, right? And living your right Living Courageously doesn't mean haphazardly risking things without thinking them through. But taking the time for some self examination for some reflection on our life. And that's a lot of what I've written about my whole career is, you know, taking time to slow down and to reflect. And in those moments, we can decide to be to be brave, because we can go Oh, right now I'm feeling scared. But I can look back at, oh, I've done this before, and I managed to just fine, you know, and as a result I can I can move forward with with courage and confidence. And so I think that's part of what we're, you know, as we've talked about the outline, and we've been working on that, you know, the whole idea of, of mindfulness and reflection and taking time for just examining our own fears. And I think a lot of times you can when you're feeling scared, notice your own thinking, Oh, look at me, I'm feeling nervous, like what's going on? What am i What's the worst case scenario? If this happens, then what you know, but if, if it doesn't turn out badly, then I could have a lot of positive results. So I think this book will help people to do those things.

Michael Hingson 44:47
I hope so I'm looking forward to moving on with the book and and what it will bring. It's going to be a great adventure and I regard life as an adventure anyway, so This is just another part of it. And I'm looking forward to the fun that we will have with it. And I hope that we, indeed will be able to help others recognize that you can control your fears, you can be in very tenuous and very dangerous, if you will situations, at least to you. They seem dangerous, and they might very well be. But the reality is that you can control your fear. And you can use it to help you make better decisions and be able to focus.

Keri Wyatt Kent 45:36
Right, right, exactly. So it

Michael Hingson 45:39
will be a lot of, it'll be a lot of fun to see how all this goes. And neither of us knows what the ending of this book is gonna be yet, but it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Keri Wyatt Kent 45:49
That's what I love about writing, Mike, you know, when I write, every time I've written a book, I've had an outline of how to plan. But as the project unfolds, even as you're writing about something, you gain new insights, I think God gives you a you know, ideas, but also, as you explore what you think about something, you're thinking evolves, and it does go in directions, it's an adventure, publishing, writing is an adventure. And it's fun, because you're learning as you're doing it, I think that's why I love my job is I learn I learning is one of my like, on strengths finders, it's one of my top strengths, because I love to learn. And I writing allows me to learn about all sorts of people about all sorts of topics. And so, and when we take the mindset of a learner, and we stick open and curious, I think that also is a way of addressing our fear, we are less afraid. If we let go of feeling like we have to have everything in control, we have to know everything, we're just learning. And that's, that makes life more interesting and less scary.

Michael Hingson 47:06
One of my favorite sayings that that I've adopted, and I don't think that I probably was the original creator of it, but I don't know where it came from, is don't worry about what you can control focus on the things you can and the rest will take care of itself. I know that that's what I heard, said to me, when I was running away from tower to collapsing. And then of course, we talked about that in Thunder dog, which is, which is my book. And and I tell the story of how I believe very firmly that God said to me, don't worry about what you can't control focus on running with Roselle and the rest will take care of itself. Because that was probably the time that I came closest to panic. But even then, I focused. And I did hear that voice saying that. And the reality is that following that advice was what kept us going on Tuesday, as we ran from the tower, went into a subway station and came out and so on. But ever since I keep hearing people say we should get back to normal. And even today, talking about the pandemic we we hear people talking about, and the news media says we've got to get back to normal, normal will never be the same again.

Keri Wyatt Kent 48:28
Every day, that's true, whether we're in a pandemic, whether we're being attacked, whether or it will never be the same because life unfolds that way. And we have to just constantly adapt to change. And I think when we realize that, and I think you know, we're going to talk about this in our book, our upcoming book, when we are willing to go Oh, Today's a new day and there's things to adapt to and change then we can there's less angst you know, we're not going Why isn't like it used to be because it used to be is not today's today, like it's it's not used to be so yeah, I agree. We were not going to go back to normal. There never was a normal, it's each day brings us new adventures. And if we embrace those, then we live a better life.

Michael Hingson 49:18
So you have other projects that you're that you're working on. And I know you and Susie worked on one, didn't you?

Keri Wyatt Kent 49:25
Yeah, um, Susie and I have have done some things together. And I'm also I just I think I told you about the book with the business woman that just came out. It's called trust your voice. And my Christmas Devotional just came out. I'm also I'm also editing a book for another friend of yours. And we're working on a book proposal for him. So I'm constantly you know, working in writing on different projects, but um, but I'm looking forward to, you know, helping you right ears. And it's it's fun to be able to have all these people who I help them write their stories and help them. Share them with the world. It's it's, it's a fun career.

Michael Hingson 50:11
Susie told us a little bit about going to Ireland and and she talked about the story of the donkey whisperer and so on. And you you went with her on that trip, didn't you?

Keri Wyatt Kent 50:23
That was so fun. Like it like you, Mike. I'm an adventurer. So Susie called me and said, Hey, I'm going to Ireland in two weeks Do you want to come with? And I said, Yes. So I got a you know, and then I got to meet she's, um, she's got a book coming out called sanctuary, right. And it's about a Donkey Sanctuary in Ireland, and the man who started that in his son's story of falling away and coming back. And it's a wonderful story. And I got to meet Patrick, the man who is the book is about, we went exploring, driving around Ireland, it's, they drive on the other side of the road from where we live. And Suzie was great. Driver, I was the navigator, which, you know, but we, we just had such a wonderful time. And we stayed in this little cottage where we both like, did some writing work, but also we were exploring castles and little towns, and it was absolutely great. So we had a fun time doing that. But

Michael Hingson 51:28
yeah, and never saw a single leprechaun.

Keri Wyatt Kent 51:32
We didn't however. So there's a funny story. So they, they don't talk about leprechauns as much in Ireland as they talk about fairies. And fairies are not like Tinkerbell they're more mischievous, they're, they're more of a, they can maybe wreak a little bit of havoc, if you're not if you're, if you get on their bad side, or whatever. And so I had been taking some pictures with my iPhone. And one of the things if you're shooting into the sun with an iPhone, there's a little.of light that it looks like a little green dot that sometimes shows up in your pictures. And with the, the iPhone also has this thing called Live where you can hold your finger on the photo and it moves a little bit, it's actually shot a short video for your still picture. And so in one of the pictures that I had taken, I think at a graveyard because in for some reason we were looking at old cemeteries because they're, you know, the graves are like, hundreds of years old. This little dot was in the picture. And I showed it to some of our friends in Ireland. And they're like, I'm like, what is that? It's weird. There's this little dot moving around, like, what is it? They're like, Oh, it's a fairy. Okay, might be, who am I to say? So

Michael Hingson 52:54
it was a real question is do you see? The real question is do you see the dot whenever you take pictures over here? Yeah, well, I

Keri Wyatt Kent 53:01
I looked it up. And apparently there's some trick of the the lens on a on an iPhone that if you're shooting into or at a certain angle to the light, it's going to the.is there and I have seen it other places. But I, I kind of like the idea that that in those pictures, there's a fairy

Michael Hingson 53:18
fairy and no matter where I am, right, so the fairies are all over. They're not just in Ireland. And it's just that people don't recognize them. And on our way to me,

Keri Wyatt Kent 53:28
yeah, I think you know, there's powers that be maybe, but maybe perhaps the fairies are everywhere. And only in Ireland, do they? Do they acknowledge

Michael Hingson 53:37
and really acknowledge them? Yes. Well, I was in Ireland, back in 2003. To do some speaking and work with the Irish guy dog school. I never did encounter fairies. And I never did encounter leprechauns. People said don't go out at night. The leprechauns are there and they're not necessarily nice. And I figured, well, but I don't need any wishes. So I could make peace with leprechauns. I never met any.

Keri Wyatt Kent 54:04
Oh, that's too bad, you know, but maybe they were there, but you just didn't get to encounter them? Well,

Michael Hingson 54:10
I'm sure you know, I'm sure they were there. But they are they, they chose not to make their presence known. So that's okay. Yeah, so you have but you have lots of projects you're working on. Now, as you said, you're working on one with a person that I know. That's is that a memoir or biography or what

Keri Wyatt Kent 54:29
it's um, it's a memoir,

Michael Hingson 54:30
it's what's the difference?

Keri Wyatt Kent 54:33
Um, well, a biography can be written by by somebody else. But an autobiography is written by yourself but a autobiography tends to kind of go chronologically you know, I was born here and then this happened and it's kind of a catalogue of your life whereas memoir focuses typically on a season or a specific event like your dog, your book, Thunder dog was a member More of a specific event that days 911. And what happened there, but then it wove in parts of your story of, of growing up and how your family handled your blindness and some of the it also woven information about the abilities of blind people and how they, they don't sometimes get the opportunities they should, in the discrimination they face and that sort of thing. But the hook or focus was on that particular day. Some people do what's called a stunt memoir, I think of there was a book called by a Jewish man written called The Year of Living biblically. And he went through the, the, the Bible, especially the Old Testament says he was Jewish. And he tried to do all the laws that were written in the Bible. And, you know, wearing a prayer shawl and you know, doing sacrifice, sacrificing an ox or something like you went and did all the old, you know, all law things in the Torah. And he wrote about, and he's very funny guy, so he tells his own story, but he set himself up to do a stunt, so to speak. So a memoir focuses on a season, or sometimes a stunt, sometimes in a specific event. Whereas autobiography is basically like a catalogue of your whole life.

Michael Hingson 56:31
Got it? So this book that you're working on is a little bit more memoir ish.

Keri Wyatt Kent 56:37
Yeah, for sure, it tells his whole story. But, um, if we can, I guess we could just tell you, you, you referred me actually to this man, who is also he lost his sight in, in a in an accident, as a soldier. And it's so it's a story of his overcoming the challenges, you know, and a change, he had big dreams of being a part of the, you know, police force in his native country, and then, you know, kind of had to change his direction. And just the things that he overcame. So it's, it's, it's his life story, for sure. But it's a memoir, because we also want to try and like, connect his story. I think my more focus, you know, we talked about, we've been talking a lot in this conversation about connecting with the reader and having the reader see themselves in your story. And so I think his overcoming of a lot volunteered to learn, learn braille, learn to walk with a cane and learn English all at the same time in a culture that he was unfamiliar with. And, and so I think that, you know, sort of that overcoming obstacles in your life theme is one that readers will relate to, even if they're not somebody who's blind and having to learn English.

Michael Hingson 58:05
So and he has accomplished all those tasks. Yes, yeah.

Keri Wyatt Kent 58:08
He's, he's got a great job out in Nebraska now working with, with helping other blind people. And yeah, he's an amazing, he's an amazing person. So it's been fun to talk with him and learn more about him as I'm working on that proposal.

Michael Hingson 58:25
Well, anxious to see how all that comes out and see the book when it's published. Well, I want to thank, I want to thank you for being on the unstoppable mindset, clearly an unstoppable person. And I appreciate all of your stories and the time that you spent with us. If people want to learn more about you, if they want to reach out to you and maybe talk to you about helping them with a book project of some sort. How do they do that?

Keri Wyatt Kent 58:52
You know, I help people. I'm a publishing adventure guide, and I help people tell their powerful stories. So my website is a powerful story.com a powerful story calm, they can also find me at Carey Wyatt can't calm that's a little harder to spell so. So a powerful story.com is where you can connect with me I have a blog and information about my projects and a way to contact me there. So I would love to hear from, from our listeners about if they're interested in writing a book, if they're interested in writing at all. I try to mentor other writers where I can I'm going to be speaking at a writers conference out in California in February on self publishing, so that's another way west coast Christian writers you can find out more about that by going to West Coast Christian writers.com. So lots of ways to connect with me.

Michael Hingson 59:49
Well, I hope people will and I want to thank you for being with us today and spending an hour with us talking about what you do in your life and your insights and I am looking forward To see how we are able to progress with a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, and I hope that we'll get some good news on that soon and we will start to really get serious about writing it. Right?

Keri Wyatt Kent 1:00:11
That's a thank you anything to write it in my plan for 2022 is to write the guide dog help you write the guide dogs Guide to Being brave. So we're hoping that we'll find a publishing home for that that would be, that'd be great.

Michael Hingson 1:00:27
Well, thanks again. And as always, for those of you who are listening, if you have any thoughts or want to ask questions, or reach out to me feel free to do so. You can reach me at Michael H I M I C H A E L H I at accessiBe A C C E S S I B E.com. [email protected]. We hope that you enjoyed this podcast to the point where you will give it a nice five star rating wherever you listen to podcasts. If you'd like to subscribe or learn more about the unstoppable mindset, please visit Michael Hingson M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com/podcast. And we thank you all for listening. And we hope that she'll be back with us again next week. We're getting close to Christmas. And we'll do some adventurous things around that as well. So thanks very much, Keri, and thanks very much everyone for coming to unstoppable mindset today.

Michael Hingson 1:01:31
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
1 hr 4 min
December 08, 2021 Episode 11 – Accessibility Gap (part 2): Different Disabilities, Same Goal with Josh Basile
More often than not when we think of web accessibility we think of the challenges blind people face with inaccessible websites. In fact, the lack of web accessibility encompasses all disabilities.

Our episode this week is the second part of a webinar series I conducted for accessiBe. This week we will present The Accessibility Gap part two. You will meet Josh Basile, a C4-5 quadriplegic, who will discuss the challenges he has with the internet. Josh will show you from his vantage point why businesses and companies should make internet accessibility an important part of their presence on the web.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About our Guest:
Meet Josh Basile a C4-5 quadriplegic, power wheelchair user, disability rights advocate and lawyer. In 2004, at the age of 18, Josh was paralyzed below the shoulders in a beach accident. Soon after he formed a 501(c)3 to empower newly injured families through SPINALpedia.com and its 21,000 paralysis-related videos. As a medical malpractice lawyer and disabilities rights advocate, Josh serves persons with disabilities both in the courtroom and through policy initiatives. As a community leader and change-maker, Josh works tirelessly to improve the quality of life the persons with disabilities and to continuously break down existing barriers to access and inclusion. To improve web accessibility and usability, Josh joined accessiBe and that accessFind initiative as the Community Relations Manager.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
Michael Hingson 01:20
A pleasant Good afternoon to everyone wherever you may be. I'm Michael Hingson. I and I am here hosting the webinar series we call the Accessibility Gap in CO hosting and with me today is Josh Basile. If I could talk straight, I'd be in good shape. Josh, welcome.
Josh Basile 01:38
Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here. today.
Michael Hingson 01:42
We're excited about this series of webinars because it talks about something that most everyone isn't addressing. And that is this concept of the accessibility gap. Last month, we did one, our first in the series with Curtis Chung, who is a well known assistive technology expert, a longtime consumer advocate. And we talked about the nature of the gap. And basically what we discussed last month was that there is a very significant gap between on the Internet, what exists, and the number of people with disabilities who can access what exists. And that gap grows wider every day, as more and more websites are created that are inaccessible to those of us who happen to have a disability. The world, the industry, and most all of us are not doing anything to bridge that gap. And we thought that today, one of the main ideas that we can talk about and one of the main objectives we have is to make you aware that it crosses disability lines, it isn't just blind people, although we tend to be pretty visible at dealing with the accessibility gap because of the fact that we don't get a lot of access to content for a variety of reasons. But no one thinks about the fact that it goes further than that, and that it isn't just blind people. So Josh happens to be a quadriplegic uses a wheelchair. And I've mentioned last month my wife has a paraplegic who uses the chair, but she doesn't have a lot of the issues that say Josh does, and Josh will talk about that. For my part, I have been blind my entire life. I have been using the internet, since it's been around I have found some websites that work pretty well have found a lot of websites that are not very accessible and don't work pretty well. And more recently, even finding that some of the websites that I can access, when people actually do the work of remediation of those websites. That is they work to make them accessible. A lot of content becomes visible and usable for me that I've never been able to access in use before. And I'm sure that Josh also has lots of stories about that. So Josh, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit. I think some of the people here know my story more than yours. So why don't you go ahead and tell us about you.
Josh Basile 04:14
Thanks, Michael. So, hi. Hello, everyone. I'm Josh basil. So just let you know about my journey. I grew up in Maryland, and was an avid tennis player and loved all sports. And after my freshman year of college, this is back in 2004. I was on a family vacation at the beach and a wave picked me up, threw me over my boogie board and slammed me on my head that day I shattered my neck. I was facedown in the water unable to turn over. And luckily my friends saw me floating and they pulled me onto the sand and that was the start of being a sea for fact quadriplegic. I'm paralyzed below the shoulders. So I use a mouth control to operate my computer, I do have enough movement in my hand, that I'm able to operate my joystick, I can't even lift my hand off my joystick. But that's my level of injury. But I never let my spinal cord injury or my unique abilities stop me from moving forward and continuing to wheel after my dreams, I ended up going to community college after my injury, then went to undergrad, and then went to law school and graduated magna cum laude without ever flipping a page with my fingers. Technology's pretty amazing. And I think a lot of what we're going to talk about today is how technology is advancing in beautiful ways to bridge the accessibility gap. I have a nonprofit called determined to heal. And we help simplify the transition for newly injured families through information, videos, through adventures. We just try to live with an adventurous spirit, adventurous wheels and, you know, keep moving forward. There's no point to really reinvent the wheel. others in the community can show you what's been done before you and give you ideas on how to customize your journey forward. Mike, thank you for letting me have an opportunity to speak.
Michael Hingson 06:11
Well, Josh, let me start by asking you a question. Because I'd like to really hear it from your perspective. What, what do you feel is the accessibility gap? How would you break it down? If you're dealing with it in terms of all of us?
Josh Basile 06:26
I think the simplest way to think of the accessibility gap is we have accessible websites, and we have inaccessible websites that exist. And the gap is what's that divide? What how is it growing? Is it is the gap coming closer together? Are you getting to put more inaccessible websites, or they're getting to be more accessible websites at any given moment. And unfortunately, the gap is growing in the opposite direction, every single day, every single second, there's more inaccessible websites being launched than accessible ones. And it's just it's not the direction we should be moving in. It's unfortunate, but so much of it is because so much of the content management systems that exist out there, make it so darn easy to build websites no longer with manual coders that know how to build it right from the beginning. And right now it's just anybody can go and plug in and pull over and build a website with a click of a button and not actually put in the accessible elements needed for people to explore, understand what's in front of them, and be able to really, truly experience a webpage as any person without disabilities experiencing it.
Michael Hingson 07:43
Let me add to that the gap is not only in the actual fact that websites are inaccessible in the number and the in to some degree, the percentage of websites that are inaccessible is growing. But we have another gap, which is really what leads to the title of today's webinar, which is different disabilities, same goal. The fact is that while people are making their websites and as Josh said is becoming easier and easier to do, what we're not seeing is any major effort on any level, to make business owners who make websites more aware of the need for accessibility. And we're not seeing those who really should be involved in addressing the issue. We're not seeing them increase awareness. Programmers aren't learning about access. The schools aren't training coders and programmers about access the content management systems that Web site creation systems, especially the ones that make it easy, like a WordPress or site builder and any number of other systems that are out there. They're not mandating access, and they're not incorporating access right from the outset. And the reason is because of the real gap that exists, the awareness gap. There's not much of anything being done to address this whole concept of awareness. And that is what we really need to do. I don't think, and I'm sure Josh, you would agree. And I want to hear you and what you say about it, but I don't think that anybody really Mullah is malicious and they're ignoring making websites accessible. They just don't know Don't you think?
Josh Basile 09:44
Yes and no, I think there's many different sides of the coin of why people don't make their websites accessible. One is definitely an awareness issue. before my injury, I really didn't know anybody with a significant disability. And you know, my injury gave me a new perspective, a new way of experiencing the world, for me a new way of seeing the world, in so many different things that I never knew, or was concerned about. But a lot of the times, it's, you know, as you're building a website, so much of the business world look at it, like, it's, it cost me, you know, $100 $200 to build a website, and to make it accessible, it might cost me 10 times that amount, or even more, and then they make decisions on money, which, you know, in respects, it's, if it could be done right from the beginning, you wouldn't have that issue. Or if you rely on other types of solutions, that you can get it done in a much more financially feasible manner. But I think so much of it, like you said, is basically not knowing, not being aware. But I think there's definitely a lot of different factors that contribute to why the internet is not accessible.
Michael Hingson 10:57
But I think that the majority of people if they understood, things like 20%, of all people are one out of every five persons in the world has a disability. And most of them can't utilize the web, the way the other four out of five can. If people who are creating websites understood that one out of five people aren't able to take advantage of their websites and thus do business with them. They would be even if it's just a financial motivation, want to make websites accessible, but it still goes back to that level of awareness that they don't know that and they don't know about accessibility, most people don't. And unless they have direct interaction, they probably won't. Until the time comes, that disabilities truly become a topic that we're as a society willing to discuss and bring to the forefront. In the past several years, we've certainly heard a lot about diversity with issues regarding women like women in Hollywood, we saw a lot of that dealing with the Oscars last Sunday, or different races and so on, and how all of that is changing. And that landscape is changing. But the landscape for persons with disabilities still is not because the mainstream of society has yet to decide to make its mindset inclusive, that to bring all of us in for whatever reason, it still is that way. And I think that's something that that we need to deal with. And hopefully things like this webinar will help raise some awareness and find that more people will become aware, because I do think that mostly people, if they understand want to do the right thing. The other part about it, Josh, is, as you said, it needs to be inexpensive, and it needs to be easy to make happen. And the reality is that there are a lot of people who have found some pretty easy solutions that have made their websites accessible, they feel that it has no one has objected to the websites, since they've put technology into play that makes their website accessible. So they're happy. And they're able to go on and do their business. And of course, that works until something doesn't like the the website server goes offline or something like that, then they don't have a website, or it can be that somebody says, you know, I tried to do something on your website, and I couldn't make it work. Can you help me with that, or they people will speak up and say, we have an issue. And then when that happens, the good website owners will address the issue. And hopefully that they have resources to make that happen.
Josh Basile 13:52
When it's about the fact that businesses just are not are not tapping into the disability community. If you have one out of five different potential customers that could potentially benefit and purchase or access the information on your website. Why wouldn't you want to reach that audience that we're talking about billions of dollars of untapped customers that because a website's not accessible, that they can't fully reach that audience. And even studies have been done over the years that the disability community is the most brand loyal community in the population in the entire world. Once we are treated properly and cared for and acknowledged, we go back and back as repeat customers, to these businesses. And it's not only just us, it's our family members. It's our friends, because we speak about it. We talk about Yeah, we went to that place and treated as well. And we go back and again, we invite people there we let them know. We love being mentors to other community members.
Michael Hingson 14:59
So tell them So tell me, why is there such strong brand loyalty when that happens,
Josh Basile 15:05
because if you look, you know, there's 350 million websites in the United States, or that's tapped in with with within the United States. But yet, less than 2% of those websites are accessible. So just thinking about just businesses in general, when you only have a select few of businesses that truly speak and serve our community, you remember those, and you go back to those, because that's where you're going to get the best experience, you're going to get an experience with less struggles, less frustration, it's just going to be easier. And that's what customers want. And that's what persons with disabilities want. That's what anybody wants.
Michael Hingson 15:51
One of the one of the strongest messages that any good salesperson learns is when you establish a rapport with your prospects and with your customers, when you get them to feel like you're speaking to them, not pressuring them, not just trying to, as a lot of people would say, buy used car salesman, sell them, but you're speaking to them, you are concerned about them, they're going to pay attention to you. There's so many examples of that if you deal with people in real estate, the good real estate agents will tell you that, although we may have sold someone a house, the fact is that if we keep in touch with those people, if we know what's going on in their lives, even though they're not going to buy from us for a while because they're not moving. They'll refer other people to us. And when they do need to move, they will remember us and they will come back to us. And and the reality is that works when you have that genuine concern. And the the 2% of websites that are accessible, are transmitting a message, we care, we are working to make ourselves available and accessible to you, whoever you are. And the result is we're going to be brand loyal. And we are brand loyal to those people that really touch us and talk to us. And that is I think one of the most important things that we as people discussing this today and people who create websites, and more important the people who are going to be involved. And the companies that are going to be involved in fixing websites, the most important thing they can know is it really is about the consumer, much more than the business. Because you may get a business as a customer. But ultimately, it's about getting the consumer, the users of those websites to both the accessibility that has been created. And then obviously, the products that you want. My favorite example that I came up with just on the spur of the moment, once a couple of weeks ago is that you can have websites that people work on and do things with and supposedly make accessible. But if consumers have a problem with it, it's like cat food. If you are a company that manufactures cat food, and you sell it to your customers, that's really great. But it only works until the cat tastes it. And if the cat doesn't like the taste of it, and if that tends to be a general consensus, you've got a problem somewhere until you please the cats, nothing's going to work. You know what I'm saying?
Josh Basile 18:47
Absolutely. So I think so much of having an accessible website, just talks to like, like you said about caring, about respecting about just inviting someone to have a seat at the table, or to really open the door enough to let somebody in, that might be peeking in, because it's not fully accessible. And, you know, in order to truly experience a website, you need to experience all four corners of it, you need to experience all the pages, if you can see the product, you can read about the product, but you can't check out and purchase the product. You know, that's just half of the picture. That's half the half of the puzzle. And you know, that's the trouble of some websites. You know, you just can't navigate the full thing without you know, calling in a family member or friend to help you get across and to tell you the truth. Not everybody has those people next to them to help them at any given moment. So it's making the website accessible is just so important. And right now as the accessibility gap is going in the opposite direction. It's something that we need to do. And like right now we're talking about the issues which is the first stage of have an understanding that there is a major problem. And then it allows us to figure out solutions on what we can do to bridge that gap, and how we can work together as a united front to bridge that gap. And I'd love to talk a little bit about how we've done this well in the past, and how we haven't done it well in the past, within the disability community.
Michael Hingson 20:23
Sure, but before we do, can you maybe give us a couple of stories of your own experiences, or what you've what you've experienced or seen about people who've had real accessibility gap problems in your community, and then I'll tell a couple also, well,
Josh Basile 20:40
so too often, the way that I've seen this, experienced it, and just witnessed it from the history lessons of diving deeper into the wall into kind of the past, is that the disability community, as always, or for the most part, in an afterthought, products are rushed to market industries are created. And the disability community is not thought of until years later, when we basically, let's say, with with build, building a building, like before the ADEA was existed, buildings were built, and you know, if they were built accessible is one thing. If not, you know, later on, they would create a ramp to let somebody in. And probably the best industry right now that you look at it in recent years, is the ride sharing industry, the Ubers, and the lifts of the world, they basically came onto the market, crushed the taxi industry, which had regulations on accessibility, and then basically came into this new ride sharing world and had zero accessible vehicles out there for persons with disabilities. And it made it so hard to, to get picked up if you run a power if you're in a manual wheelchair, and really almost impossible if you're in a power wheelchair. And now, as years go on, enough persons in the disability community have spoken loud enough, and enough things have been getting into the media. And now these companies are starting to say, you know, we want to help this customer base now that we're being forced to. And, you know, we don't want to force businesses to do the right thing. But at the same time, it's the way it's been done over the years. And it's unfortunate. And as the accessibility gap becomes wider and wider, it's just, we need to keep the conversation going to let businesses know that they need to do this.
Michael Hingson 22:37
Yeah, that's a good point. And continuing with the rideshare example. I was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit a few years ago against Uber. Because Uber wasn't dealing at all with the issue of blind people with guide dogs traveling in Uber vehicles. Drivers would show up, discover it with a blind person with a guide dog and drive off. And we didn't even know that they were driving off or if we did no, because they said I'm not taking you because you have a dog and I'm not putting any dogs in my car. And they would drive off Uber's response was even at the beginning of the litigation. Well, we don't have any responsibility in that because all we're doing is matching drivers and passengers. So we're not involved in that, well, yes, they are their contract employees, the Uber drivers, we're not letting blind people in with guide dogs and the Americans with Disabilities Act specifically addressed that kind of a concept. So what took a lawsuit, and even now with the lawsuit that was finally settled, there are countless cases of drivers with Uber and and some with Lyft as well, that continue to not accept blind people, even though especially with Lyft, there's been a fair amount of training. I just read a situation last week where a woman after the lawsuit had over eight to 18 or 20 different examples of where Uber drivers would refuse to take her would send the information to Uber didn't get very many positive results, filed a case it went to arbitration and she got over a million dollars because Uber wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. So there's still a lot of resistance in the industry saying you're not going to force us to do something that we don't want to do. And the reality is that shouldn't have to be that way because there's no magic about a blind person and a guy dog that is well behaved going on any or in any Uber vehicle. You know, and that is just as true with the internet and my my example that comes to mind is when target refuse to deal with the internet and making their web site accessible for blind people back in the early 2000s. And it took a lawsuit filed by the National Federation of the Blind, and an $8 million settlement to get target to finally address the issue. It wouldn't have cost anywhere near that for target just to go off and make the website accessible, but they weren't going to be forced. And that's unfortunate, because they were missing up to one out of five persons in the United States or in the world, their worldwide, being able to use the website. And I don't know whether Target has addressed the issue for all disabilities. And I think that's a very relevant point for us to deal with. Your website isn't accessible unless it's really dealing with all disabilities. It isn't just being blind, it isn't just dealing with what a person in a chair a quadriplegic has to deal with, take a person with epilepsy, and they go to your website and start to see a lot of different blinking elements on the site that can invoke seizures, it's just as pertinent even persons who are deaf or hard of hearing, oftentimes without having good captioning. And without videos being captioned, can be a problem for blind people, those same videos, without audio descriptions of the videos, that can be a problem. There's a lot to accessibility. And it is something that we all do need to address.
Josh Basile 26:32
Well, it's the unique functionality that you're saying, of almost, you know, for each person with a disability, we're experiencing a website differently based on our unique abilities. I find it amazing that, you know, we have AI solutions now, that can create profiles, based on your functionality where you go to a website, where if you have epilepsy, you can click a button, and it can turn off, you know, gifts and other types of blinking lights. Or if you have a cognitive disability, it can make that information that's on the page easier to absorb. Or if you have a quadriplegic, you can use keyboard navigation, to be able to get through all the dropdowns and get through all the different parts of the page. And for the blind community. It has so many different integrations with jaws, and screen readers and other things of the sort. The biggest thing that, you know, we have the ability now through technology to have a united front on how we can come together to make websites accessible. Too often, if you look in the history, and just I see it, I live outside Washington, DC. And when I go to Capitol Hill to advocate, it's always every unique disability group advocating for themselves and having a fight with legislators, please help us. But what too often doesn't happen is that we have a united front of all disability groups coming together for you know, a mission to make a particular thing accessible. And I think that's what we need to change with the internet like we are going in the wrong direction when it comes to the widening gap. And the only way to bridge it is if we all come together, persons with disabilities, unique populations of persons with disabilities, persons without disabilities, people that are manual coders, people that are in the artificial intelligence world, the more and more people we come together in the business community, we all unite under a common mission to make the internet more accessible. And we can do beautiful things together if we do that. But the trouble is, how do we get messages like we have in today's webinar out to the world to start a movement to get people involved to get people to have a call to action. And I hope we're starting that right now. And I know other people chimed in about this in the past, but we just got to keep having this conversation.
Michael Hingson 28:55
And you know, it is true that people with different disabilities do have in some senses different needs. And there's relevance in advocating for specific needs. But there are also areas of commonality. And it would be very difficult to imagine that the reality of making the internet accessible for you, is really different than making it accessible. For me. It's all about access. It's something that we all should work on together. And we need to get more business owners and more of the companies that are involved in making the internet accessible to work together. There's not just one way to make the Internet accessible there. There are some who say that there are some who say the only way to do it is you got to code it. You got to do it right. By hand. There are those who say the only way you're truly going to make it happen is if you start with accessibility right from the outset. Well that's definitely true. That is, if everything were such that you could not create or publish an internet website and content without ensuring its accessibility because the technology demanded it, then a lot of things would go away and there would be access. But the reality is, that's not working for us. So the ideal is a wonderful thing. But it is an ideal, and it isn't something that anyone is going to make happen in the near future. So you do have a lot of different other kinds of alternatives and aspects that need to be addressed. So that the fact is that whether it's being done through artificial intelligence, or whether it's being done through manual coding, the goal is the same, the results will be the same. And the deed, certainly that is the need to make websites accessible, is the same. And the reaction, the reality is that should all be a unified front, you know, we'll see, maybe things like the World Wide Web Consortium will recognize that and that is, of course, where a lot of the standards come from. And I guess it's relevant that we talk about standards just a little tiny bit. That is to say, there are standards, there are guidelines, well, not so much standards today as guidelines that say this is what you need to do to have a website be accessible. And those generally rely on putting in codes, and in doing the website accessibility remediation through a coding process. But that doesn't work. Because it's a one by one kind of a solution. That is you got to do it to each website. Well, now we're finding that some companies, and I will mention accessiBe is the one that I know, of course, I'm a little bit I won't say bias, but oriented toward accessiBe because I've seen it. But the fact is, artificial intelligence is a solution that will help make websites accessible, it's doing it. And that makes perfect sense. Because artificial intelligence is all around us in the world, whether we happen to have an echo from Amazon of Google Home, whether we have technologies that that use other ways of interacting with the internet, we have Netflix and other websites that use artificial intelligence to talk about our shopping habits. For heaven's sakes, Apple just updated their iPhone iOS software, because Apple felt that there were too many websites or companies that were invading the privacy of users and looking at what they do, and using that to customize advertising. That's AI, right. So it is all around us. But we all could work together. And we all could resolve and solve pretty quickly this accessibility gap, don't you think?
Josh Basile 32:50
working together is basically everything you said is we have to have many different pieces of the puzzle. In order to do this, we can't just have one piece of the puzzle and expect the whole picture to come out. But with that being said, I'm a big believer, you know, my my world as a quadriplegic, it was 20 3040 years ago, the difference in my life is has always been technology, technology changes everything, for someone that is paralyzed below the shoulders. And when it comes to the internet, I think we're getting to a point where, because of artificial intelligence solutions, we now have scalable ways of really attacking the accessibility gap in ways that never existed before. And it's only gonna get better as we invest more time, resources and energy, like you said, into artificial intelligence, machine learning, all these other components that where we can break down those accessibility barriers, with either just embedding a specific piece of code that ends up going over the website, behind the scenes with computer software, like the manual coding, yes, if you can do it right from the beginning with manual coding, that is an awesome option. But the second that you update that website, you have to go back and make sure that it's accessible again, because if you don't have that accessibility element and for updated information, you know, you're closing the door slowly and slowly on that website when it comes to accessibility.
Michael Hingson 34:21
And that's part of the the challenge that a lot of businesses have is that the only way to do that if you're coding is you've got to keep someone on retainer. And if we use the last year as an example, the pandemic has made that all the more difficult because the money just isn't there to do that. But even in a non pandemic time for smaller businesses that that want to create accessibility if you have to keep someone retained. That's going to significantly eat into your profits. Should you do it. You got to find a way to keep the website accessible but remember part of the justification Is that you're going to have a lot more potential traffic going to your site. And if you start to tell people, hey, my websites accessible, come and see me. People who come and discover that will, because of that Nielsen study that we talked about earlier, will be brand loyal, I can tell you from personal experience, that's always going to be the case. And I've been in sales and marketing, since, well, literally since 1976. But even before then, I've been in sales my entire life, because as a blind person, I've had to sell just to convince people to let me take my diet guide dog somewhere, long before the ADEA, I've had to sell in so many ways, all of us have Josh, you've had to sell to convince people and as a lawyer, you're always selling. And I don't mean that in a negative way you are arguing a case is a sales presentation in a broad sense.
Josh Basile 35:53
For me, it's always advocacy, ever since my injury. So when I was first injured, I was on a ventilator for five weeks, and wasn't able to speak a word, I was only able to blink with my eyes to communicate with my family. And ever since that day that I got my voice back. I promised myself I would never be silenced again. So I've exercised my vocal muscles, my my vocal, my advocacy with my mind to make sure that every word counts. And so much of what we're doing right now is figuring out how can we advocate for a more accessible internet. And we, because we live it, because we speak disability, we understand what we need to do to make this possible. And we need to do it together, we need to have actual solutions that are scalable, and we need to attack the 315 million websites that exist right now to make them accessible is not going to be an easy feat. But the if we don't do something about it, it's just going to get wider and wider. And that scares me.
Michael Hingson 36:56
And it's 350 million, by the way and growing. And that's of course, the issue. I am on some email lists, I've got a cut down on the number of unsolicited emails I get. But I'm seeing a number that talk about how Amazon is changing the way it operates. And so join this webinar to learn how you can set up a sales system with Amazon and sell products on Amazon, even if you don't have your own or how you can set up a system to do this or that or whatever. All of those are websites. And all of those websites come without any specific process of making them accessible. So Shopify is a major marketing system that's out there, and you can get a website set up on Shopify, but the basic Shopify system doesn't, in of itself, create real accessibility, a website might be usable, because the words are there, although we may or may not be able to see the pictures. One of the interesting things about Shopify, having looked at it from the the viewpoint of accessibility is that there is someone who has put something up that says that if you have a Shopify website, here's how you can put accessibility on it. Whether it's accessiBe, or something else, the bottom line is, we mostly aren't paying attention to it still. And that's the gap and it's going to continue to grow.
Josh Basile 38:27
Well, I think that this year alone with the pandemic, just shows how much we we rely on the internet to access the world. We've all been stuck in our homes for so long. Can you imagine, you go to persons with disabilities, let's say you know, everybody that's that doesn't have a disability. And you gave them the problems that we faced with internet accessibility. There would be outrage, people would not people would be so mad that they couldn't access the world. And the fact is that, you know, we've had to live this year with a lot of this and accessibility and it's getting wider. It's I think the pandemic is one of those moments in time that it's going to push persons with disabilities to realize that if we don't do something now, we're gonna I want to say too late, because I think as technology advances, more and more breakthroughs can happen. But we this is the time to do something about it.
Michael Hingson 39:24
Research In Motion was the company that invented the Blackberry, and I know how familiar you are with the Blackberry. But there was one night when their servers dropped. And people went 12 hours without being able to use their blackberries. And I heard and read reports about how people panicked they couldn't get anything done. And it was a night by the way here in the US. Some people committed suicide over it. A lot of people were very stressed because their access to the world as they viewed it was gone. and it can happen in so many ways. For us, the access is gone a lot most of the time. And what we're saying is, let us be part of the solution. Let us be invited to the party, and let us have access. We want to help you make it happen. We're not trying to abuse anyone. But no one should resist the concept of trying to bridge the gap.
Josh Basile 40:31
Absolutely. And so right now, we were about 45 minutes, and I was just looking at, and I would love for our participants, the people at our party, our webinar party to ask any questions, so we can keep these conversations going. So please go to the chat. And let us know your questions. And we can
Moderator 40:50
So guys, we already have a few questions. We can definitely attend.
Michael Hingson 40:54
Let me just before you start, we started about three minutes late. So we'll go until well, I'm on the West Coast, and Josh is on the east coast. So we'll go to 103 or 403. Or we're Gil is it's later than that. Go ahead, Gil.
Moderator 41:10
Yeah, it will start and thank you.
Michael Hingson 41:11
Thank you for being here. Gillen, for staying awake for us. For sure. For
Moderator 41:15
sure. As Michael, it's my pleasure. So we'll start and say that because there were a few people were asking if we're gonna publish this or oracare archive these recording. So we'll definitely be using social assets. Yeah. So the first question we got from the audience, is there a cookbook that define the necessary accessible elements for a variety of cryptic, categorial disabilities?
Michael Hingson 41:42
There is, and Josh can add to it. But again, the World Wide Web Consortium has created guidelines and things that it says needs to be involved in an accessible website. I want to, though say that those standards don't guarantee accessibility. That is to say accessibility goes beyond whatever guidelines that are created to talk about how to code a website, how artificial intelligence can make a website accessible. The fact is a website is accessible if ultimately, it is fully functional and usable. And so one of the examples I would give is, I have a website and I think I gave this example last time, but it's worth repeating. My website was updated earlier, well, late last year now, actually, in August or September. And when it was updated, it was done by a person who I discovered didn't really have a lot of expertise in accessibility. But he updated it and there were images on the website. There were other things on the website. And one of the specifics on the website was pictures of me and my guide, dog, Roselle, who you can for those of you who can see it, Roselle is behind me over my right shoulder. Roselle and I were in the World Trade Center on September 11. And we escaped I was the Mid Atlantic region's sales manager at the time for a company and artificial intelligence when we brought accessiBe onboard. Artificial Intelligence interpreted that image as man in black suit hugging yellow Labrador retriever, which is correct. That's exactly right. But that's not really saying what that image is showing that I would want people to know, what I want people to know is Michael Hanson, hugging Roselle. And, you know, the process will continue to improve. But the standards would have said, if the all tags were put in the image was described, even though it's not what I would want it to be. So there are standards and Josh, if you want to talk about that, but I'm just saying it does go beyond the standard as well.
Josh Basile 44:00
So I think you answered that very well, Michael.
Moderator 44:04
Great. So Michael, we talked about you took you talked about the person who will create your website and this, this is a great, so we're for the next question. Who do you think should be responsible of the accessibility of the website? Is it the website owner or the person or the agencies that creating the website? And how can you? How can you know if your website is accessible or not?
Josh Basile 44:29
In my opinion, I firmly believe we all need to be accountable. If you're a website owner, if you run an organization, if you run a business, you need to understand all of your consumers and you need to serve all of your consumers. So just because so at any given moment, you're always thinking about all these different demographics that you're serving. And if you end up forgetting one of those demographics, you're losing out and and I think the response to ability has to be on those that can be held accountable with the decision makers. And you know, as a decision maker, you need to take the extra time to dive deeper into making sure that your business is reaching the max number of people. And so that's my opinion to that go.
Michael Hingson 45:20
Yeah, I think, ultimately speaking, if you're going to do and ultimately speaking, it would be the website owner, that is they're responsible for their website. And they should be obligated to make sure that their website is accessible. So I think in one sense, they're responsible. But I am also with Josh, we're all part of the solution. So when we discover websites, we should contact the owner. And I'm going to comment on that statement in just a second. But we should contact the owner and say, you know, your website is not accessible. The reality is a lot of us who have disabilities who are in the disabled community of persons with disabilities, we know enough to suggest places to go or what you need to do, we can introduce website owners, and I think that they should be responsible for, for making the website accessible, but we can help with that.
Josh Basile 46:23
A good point there, Michael, it's, you know, it's not just the accountability of the website owner, but us as a community to have that conversation to let them know when it's not, because it's just not I was on a friend's website the other day, and I saw a few broken videos, you know, until he or she knew that those videos were broken, it was gonna go undiscovered control, that owner stumbled upon it themselves. So I think having that discussion about accessibility, you know, brings accessibility to light, and people start making it a point to do it.
Michael Hingson 46:56
I absolutely agree. And I think that the companies that are involved in website access, need to and making websites accessible, need to be part of the solution, in a general way, and certainly, different companies are going to promote their products. But I think they should also provide people with just general conceptual articles, general conversations, discussions about accessibility. And, yes, we all promote our own products. But you know, there are a lot of colleges and universities in the United States, for example, and in most countries, and we compete for students, in our colleges and universities. But what we don't see is by and large colleges and universities saying, Well, anybody that goes to this kind of school is really going to a scumbag organization. Maybe they do it, and I haven't seen it. But the reality is that colleges and universities promote their programs, but they generally tend to do it in a positive way. And they don't deny the fact that if somebody goes to another school unless it truly demonstrates that it's not a good school for all sorts of reasons that we don't need to go into here. But unless they demonstrate that, then the fact is, we all need a college education. And the first thing colleges and universities will tell you is you need a college education, which is of course what they're promoting. And they'll say even if you don't go to to Harvard, but you go to the University of Southern California, that's good school. And so sorry, we didn't get you. We think that we're better but you went there, you're still getting a college education. And that's important.
Moderator 48:43
Moving forward to the thank you so much for that. Moving forward to the next question. Can you provide some examples of website in the 2%? weren't doing this? Well?
Michael Hingson 48:56
Gil, or Josh, do you want to or?
Josh Basile 48:59
I think, yeah, I'd like to see how Okay,
Michael Hingson 49:02
okay. I'm going to just send people to the access of the website because there are a list of sites that they use, or that they have remediated, and you can go there and see them. I'll name a few Oreo calm, which is the company that makes Oreos Energizer the battery company. I learned last week that the Los Angeles Lakers store Lakers store.com is accessible. You can go to any of the consumer organizations like the National Federation of the Blind. They have they have not used accessiBe but they have made their website accessible to a good degree, although there's more work that can be done to do that. There are a number of sites that are out there. By the way, if you want to know and I think you've asked this skill if you want to know if a website's accessible. You can go to accessiBe.com www.accessibe.com, where you will also see something mentioned called A C E. ACE is a free website audit tool, and there are a number of them out there. But ACE is a free website audit tool that you can use in will ask you to type in a web site name. And then it will audit that site and tell you based on the World Wide Web Consortium guidelines, the web Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and so on, it will tell you how accessible that site is. And so that's another place to go to look at whether a website is accessible or not. But ultimately speaking, what you can do is to go visit a website and see how usable it is. And how usable it is needs to include. If you're blind, for example, the things that you don't see, and they and even though you don't know about them, that's where programs like Ace can help. And you can learn about them. There are so many examples of people who thought their websites were accessible and didn't do anything. But as I said, they don't do menus, they don't do image descriptions. And they don't do other things that give us the information that we need to have.
Josh Basile 51:18
With that in mind. It's a question from James that the vast majority of 350 million websites are small businesses or smaller, what tools can those small businesses and nonprofits use and survive the costs? So I know, first of all, you know what I'm going to say. The small business purposes, yeah, accessiBe provides the services at a much much lower rate than manual coding. thing I love about the nonprofit of that is that accessiBe, as we said that they are going to provide the accessory services 100% free for nonprofits. So for like my nonprofit, I was able to get it up and running for free, and which I'm now loving so much. So all in all profits, it's just sharing that with your communities that this exists for them is an incredible, I'm making it accessible.
Michael Hingson 52:10
I'm on the board of a nonprofit that added accessiBe independent of me to their website about a month ago, accessiBe has also said that if anyone knows, or is involved with a COVID-19 site, especially vaccination websites, and so on, that accessiBe will provide its product free of charge to any COVID-19 site. And Kaiser Health News, or Kaiser Health Net, did a survey a couple of months ago, they surveyed 94 websites that were related to COVID 10 of them had some amount of accessibility and the other 84 did not. That's not what should be going on. Especially when among other things, government agencies are supposed to know about the stuff.
Josh Basile 53:01
That's it's really scary that during COVID That you're not allowing or making sure that your website is accessible before you make it go live. That just is such a disservice to to persons that are the most vulnerable to COVID. And that, you know, it's in my eyes it is it's life or death. And if you don't have the ability to get that vaccine, or delay that vaccine, that it's so terrifying.
Michael Hingson 53:29
Yes.
Moderator 53:31
How do you think COVID is affected accessibility, especially with the rise of CFS? S and E long COVID, resulting in more disabled people?
Michael Hingson 53:45
Well, I think that answer is part of it. If as more people become persons with disabilities in one way or the other because of COVID, they may, depending on what has happened to them need to have website access that they don't have today. We have seen some companies respond really well. Zoom, for example. I don't know when it first started. But when zoom became very popular, it became visible that Zoom actually has an access team and whenever something is reported to the team that is not accessible with Zoom, they jump right on it. And I've seen fixes to accessibility issues within a matter of years, even just a few days. That one came up last week. Were regarding a keyboard command to to start a meeting. And it's been fixed. It was an access issue. There was a button there was a key command to to utilize that became broken. It's now been fixed. So they've been great at responding. I don't know of any other companies that have put that level of commitment into the process. But it is something that, that all companies should do, especially large companies, for small companies. If you rely on accessiBe, for example, reporting to accessiBe helps, because accessiBe will address it or let you know that it's not an accessibility issue or what they can and can't do and so on. And I think it's all about response. So the companies that are going to succeed are the ones that are truly responding, ultimately to the consumers. And I think we have maybe just about, well, three minutes. So do we have another question?
Moderator 55:43
Yeah, just one more for symbolic way to sum up this webinar. So you mentioned at the beginning of the webinar, that there are 250 million websites out there and only 2% of them are accessible. So how optimistic are you that is that there is a true chance to close the gap.
Michael Hingson 56:07
There absolutely is a true chance to close the gap, by the way that 350 million is in the US alone, I think the estimate is something like 1.5 billion worldwide, and it continues to grow. And I want Josh to answer as well. But absolutely, there are ways and there is a chance to bridge the gap x SMB says that they want to work toward getting the internet completely accessible by 2025. Great goal. And I believe that the commitment of the company is genuinely to make that happen. I know that there are many other people not related to accessiBe who also want to make the Internet accessible. And the fact that there are people who want to do it, in and of itself means there's a chance. So we just need to find ways to work together and collectively make our voice a much stronger voice.
Josh Basile 57:02
Just investing energy and time into scalable solutions. And the reason why I emphasize scalable is because the gap is so darn large. If you go in and expect to bridge that gap just manually, we don't have enough skilled people that know how to do this. And the ones that can do it are incredible at what they do. But there's just not enough of them. There's not a big enough army. But from a scalable solution with technology. Having the software be near your army just makes it that much easier to bridge that gap. So I'm really investing my heart energy and time and an ability to advocate for continuing to strengthen the AI solutions that we have. And they will get better and better. As time goes on, which excites me so much.
Michael Hingson 57:55
Josh, I want to thank you very much for being part of our discussion today on the accessibility gap, bridging the gap and different disabilities. Same goal because I think we've demonstrated as vividly as we can, it is the same goal, and that we all can work together. To find a solution. We just need to have the commitment and the drive to do it. We will be holding more of these webinars and we will make sure everyone is aware of it. If you have more questions or want to communicate, you're welcome to email me I'm easy to reach it's [email protected] M I C H A E L H I at accessibe.com You can also go to my website and reach me through that Michael Hingson.com or you can go to web to accessiBe and send emails through the contact process there and they'll reach we do want to hear from you. So I want to thank you all for being here and helping us Bridge the Accessibility Gap.
Michael Hingson 59:07
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
1 hr 2 min
December 03, 2021 Episode 10 – Meet the Other Voice - An Interview with Susy Flory
On August 2, 2011, Thunder Dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog, and the triumph of trust at Ground Zero was officially released. Overnight it became a bestseller book on the NY Times Bestseller list and even rose to the #1 rank. I was the principal author, but in 2010 I met Susy Flory, herself a full-time author, who helped bring the story alive.

Now, you get to meet Susy and hear her story. There is an incredible and fascinating story to Susy’s life and her books. She even gets into a discussion of the need for authors to make their websites accessible for persons with disabilities during our interview. My time with Susy in this interview was fun, informative, and not boring in any way. I hope you think so as well.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About Our Guest:
Susy Flory is a #1 New York Times best-selling author or co-author of fourteen books, including The Sky Below, a new memoir with Hall of Fame Astronaut/Explorer Scott Parazynski, and Desired by God with Van Moody. Susy grew up on the back of a quarter horse in Northern California and took degrees from UCLA in English and psychology. She has a background in journalism, education, and communications and directs a San Francisco Bay Area writers conference.
She first started writing at the Newhall Signal with the legendary Scotty Newhall, an ex-editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and a one-legged cigar-smoking curmudgeon who ruled the newsroom from behind a dented metal desk where he pounded out stories on an Underwood Typewriter. She taught high school English and journalism, then quit in 2004 to write full time for publications such as Focus on the Family, Guideposts Books, In Touch, Praise & Coffee, Today's Christian, and Today's Christian Woman.
Susy's books include So Long Status Quo: What I Learned From the Women Who Changed the World, as well as the much-anticipated 2011 memoir she co-wrote with blind 9-11 survivor Michael Hingson, called Thunder Dog: The True Story of a Blind Man, His Guide Dog, and the Triumph of Trust at Ground Zero. Thunder Dog was a runaway bestseller and spent over a dozen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
.http://www.susyflory.com/
https://www.facebook.com/everythingmemoir
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:21
Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have a person who I regard as a very special guest. I'm a little bit prejudiced, though. You know, my story if you've listened to these podcasts regularly, 20 years ago, I worked in the World Trade Center and escaped with my guide dog Roselle. And in I think, June, if I recall, right, maybe it was earlier than that. Maybe it was like April or May of 2010. I got a phone call on a Sunday afternoon from a woman who said that she was writing a book called Dog tails. And she said she wanted to include Roselle story. I noticed that wasn't my story. It was rosellas story in her book, and asked if I would tell her our story. And I did. There was this pause afterward. And then she said, Why aren't you writing your own book. And she offered to help. And the result of that was that Suzy Florrie introduced me to her agent, we created a proposal and thunder dog was published in August, officially released in August of 2011. And I thought it would be kind of fun to have Susie on to tell her story. And to compare notes and talk about whatever comes along. So Susie, welcome to unstoppable mindset.

Susy Flory 02:38
Thank you, Mike, I'm so glad to be here with you.

Michael Hingson 02:43
I'm been looking forward to this for a while. And I think that we'll have a lot of fun. And we'll see who all we can can pick on what can I say. But here we are. So So tell me what got you into writing in the first place, what made you start to go down that that path.

Susy Flory 03:04
It was kind of a childhood dream. It's kind of one of those, you know, I want to be a lion tamer, I want to be an astronaut kind of dreams for me. Because I didn't know any writers. And I didn't, I had no idea how to go about it. But I just always loved reading. And I know you love reading too. We're very alike in that way. And so I just grew up in a book of world, a world of books and ideas and stories. And just always thought, Wow, if I could do that, but I didn't think it was a real kind of dream. And then I got to work at a newspaper. And I sort of started to see that there might be a way in. And it wasn't until my late 30s that I went to a Writers Conference. And I remember seeing a book editor walk by for a publishing house and he was wearing kind of grubby tennis shoes and jeans and a T shirt. And I thought he's just a normal guy. He's just a regular person because I think I thought you know, people who did writing and publishing were highly evolved beings that I could not be a part of. And so that was just kind of my way it was just seeing Hey, maybe I can do this.

Michael Hingson 04:23
And there you are.

Susy Flory 04:26
So you know overnight successn 20 years.

Michael Hingson 04:30
So you were working. You were working in a newspaper what were your reporter

Susy Flory 04:35
I was a features writer. Okay, I'm not really a hard news person. All they love to read the news, but I love the stories behind the news, and particularly people stories. So even though I was reading that book, dog tails, you know, I was very interested in the people's tails as well. And so I love meeting interesting, unique people who have a story to tell which is almost everyone in the world. If you sit down and talk to them

Michael Hingson 05:03
well, how did you? So how did you get into doing a book.

Susy Flory 05:09
So that's another big jump. So when you're in a newspaper, you know, you get an assignment or you get a lead, or you have an idea yourself, and you got write a little story on it. And you can do it in a few days, typically. So I kind of knew how to do that. But it wasn't enough for me, I, you know, wrote some shorter stories, got some things published. And then just found myself wanting to go deeper and do research and be people and just get bigger stories down on paper. So that was kind of a craving for me. And I think it's because I gravitated towards books, because I loved books so much. And so what my second book, one of my very early books was a memoir that I wrote for myself. It's called a stunt memoir. And it's kind of where you're set yourself some assignments, and then you live them out and write about them. So I decided to investigate women who I thought had changed the world, people like Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, Rosie the Riveter and do something that those women had done. And I just created like this little set of assignments for myself. And I was terrified because writing a book is really hard, as you know, or maybe it was easy for you. I don't know, like, maybe it was easy for you. But writing a book is hard for me. But I enjoyed it so much the challenge, and it pushed me and challenged me. So that's kind of how I shifted from writing articles, which felt doable to books, which seemed extremely hard and scary.

Michael Hingson 06:50
What was your first book published?

Susy Flory 06:53
So my first book was about the Davinci Code. Do you remember that story? Yes. It was published in the early 2000s. And it really took the writing and publishing world by storm unexpectedly. And there was a lot to talk about in the book was about Jesus, and maybe he was married. Maybe there was this whole mystery that we didn't know. And the book was fiction, it was all made up. But it really touched on some things I think people were curious about. So my first book was called fear, not the VINCI. And it kind of centered on these big questions that people had.

Michael Hingson 07:32
How did you get it published? Since you had not published a book before?

Susy Flory 07:37
Good question, because I didn't have an agent at that point. And basically, what you do is you start submitting. So without an agent, you create what's called a query letter. And it's basically a pitch a short pitch. And back in the day, you could either mail them, so you would write a letter with a self addressed stamped envelope, hoping that you would get a response. Or it was really kind of early days of email correspondence, as well. So you can do either and you would contact, you would basically be cold, calling editors, and trying to get them excited about you and your writing, and whatever your idea was. So that's what I did. And I got 13 rejections on that first book. And number 14, I found an editor who was interested, who I had met at a writers conference. So I think when they meet brand new writers at a Writers Conference, industry, people, they can see that you're not a crazy person, and they might want to work with you. So it's a good groundwork to lay. So going to a conference meeting another and then writing these query letters. That's how I got that book deal.

Michael Hingson 08:53
I was that evolves to today, is the process different now do you think,

Susy Flory 08:59
um, it's very similar. If you don't have an agent, you still have to jump through these hoops. And that's how they weed a lot of people out to, you know, are not informed to want an easy way in. And so the pitching process is similar, but right now I have an agent so that that literary agent helps with that process. But I still have to create the pitch, still create a book proposal still, you know, develop the whole thing without actually writing it yet. And then, you know, the publisher needs to see what this book is going to be. They need a very good idea of it before they invest in it. So it's a lot of work. It's kind of that pre production part.

Michael Hingson 09:49
Yeah. Which is true, whether it's in writing or in selling or anything that you do, or that anyone does. There's always going to be a process and In a sense, it's good. It hasn't changed. Because, as you said, so many people want an easy way in. And the fact is, there isn't an easy way in,

Susy Flory 10:09
right? You gotta do your homework and prepare ahead of time. And then you may or may not be lucky. Yeah. But you can't be lucky if you don't prepare. And I know that you are so good at that, Mike, you're really great. You're an inspiration to me how you do the homework and prepare for everything that you do.

Michael Hingson 10:31
Well, thank you. You mentioned about easier, harder writing what I did when we did thunder dog, I had written lots of notes, I had created a lot of thought, on paper, and wrote a lot of the history. But that wasn't a book yet. And then when you said, Well, why, why aren't you writing your own book, and we, we started working toward that, and created a proposal that that was sellable. And of course, you having an agent, that was that was valuable, too. But the the point is that then when we started working on the book, all those notes came together. And what you did was you, you used your newspaper skills, if you will, to to coalesce that. And then we work together on on creating it, I'll never forget, when we were working with the folks at Thomas Nelson, and they came back and they said, The problem with your book right now is that you don't have good transitions between being in the World Trade Center and going back to previous places in your life. And it hit me I know how to do that. And I had never really thought about it before, but over a weekend created those, those transitions. And they love that. And of course, Curtis like that when they when they did their review of the book, but we worked well as a team. And I think there's there's value in that too. Because we we had a story to tell him, You adopted our story. And we made it a collective story, which I think helped.

Susy Flory 12:03
Yeah, because you can have a wonderful story and a lot of people do. But you have to make it entertaining, and enjoyable and readable and engaging and almost like addictive. You know, it's like the kind of think of it like the first date, you have a cover and a title and maybe a first page to connect with the reader. And then after that they better work. So we're not gonna stick around for long, if he's not excited, exciting to read,

Michael Hingson 12:32
right. I remember reading the first Harry Potter book, and it took a while to catch on. But we read it after lots of others had gone. I think actually it was the third book had already come out. By the time we discovered it. And Karen and I stuck with it. We read the audio version with Jim Dale. And for a while, we kept saying what is it that excites people about this? Because it just started out so slowly, but because there was such a big furor over it. We stuck with it. And it got better as it went along. But it didn't start out grabbing us with that first page.

Susy Flory 13:14
Yeah, it felt like that, too. But I think maybe children, you know, I mean, it was kind of geared towards what 6/7 eighth graders kind of that was maybe the primary audience at first. Yeah, like that's, yeah, yeah. And like, they might stick with something longer than a grown up reader would. And so in that case, I think we kind of followed what the kids were enjoying, and then kind of figured out, oh, this is good storytelling, it did kind of build, you know, it had the build. I agree with you on that.

Michael Hingson 13:46
And we have now read them all three times. You know, they're, they're great. They're great books to read. What about self publishing? How does that fit into the scheme of just the world of writing a book? And getting a book out? But also, can that help in terms of either that book or later books getting noticed by editors?

Susy Flory 14:14
Yeah, so self publishing, there are so many options. These days. It's kind of the wild west of publishing. And, you know, you have so many ways that you can be published, it's actually kind of confusing and overwhelming for people where it used to be more kind of straightforward, I think, with self publishing, if you have some sort of platform. So if you are out there speaking teaching, you have some sort of, you know, media channel a name for yourself, I think it's a really, really great option. If you don't have that you need to be prepared to do some advertising. And people have made a way for themselves self publishing that way as well. But it also works for someone who wants to publish something for friends and family. So I think a lot of this depends on your expectations. And in a world where physical bookstores, many of them have gone away, and much book shopping has gone online, it really is a viable option. But you really need to educate yourself and, you know, be involved at every step of the process, where when you're with a traditional legacy publisher, there are times you can kind of just let them take the lead on certain things.

Michael Hingson 15:31
Do you think that the traditional publishing world is going to go away with everything being online and so on?

Susy Flory 15:38
That is such a great debate, and it's been raging for years? Yeah. Yeah, it really changes like, you know, depending on what's going on in the world, and what's going on in the culture, the type of books that sell, or don't sell change. But right now, the publishing industry is doing just fine. And so I, I think there's always the danger. But there's something about physical books that people love and have loved for 1000s of years. So I don't see it completely going away, I do see it completely, you know, continuing to change and evolve.

Michael Hingson 16:16
I hope that libraries and bookstores, and the traditional publishing world doesn't go away. I think you're right. And I, I don't know how to really describe what it is to sit down with a book. You know, for me, it's in Braille, of course, but still, reading a book in Braille is not the same as listening to a recorded book, just like reading books with an electronic device, just apparently, isn't the same as sitting there and being able to turn the printed page, time after time, I hear people say that there's just nothing like reading that printed book.

Susy Flory 16:57
And, you know, people worry about television, and the streaming services, you know, Netflix, and all those things that offer so many options for entertainment. But there are still, I think, a very loyal and solid segment of the population that are word people. We love words, and you know, words in a book are they speak to us deeply? And so I think we're safe for now, Mike?

Michael Hingson 17:25
Yeah. Well, and and if you could get some of those people who watch TV, to sit down and read an engaging book, and if they truly get engaged, I wonder if that would, would change some of their views. Because what a book brings that television doesn't is the whole issue of imagination. I have, I have listened to radio shows that really evoke imagination. And I've even watched a few television shows that compel you to imagine, they don't spell everything out. And I find those to be most engaging a ball.

Susy Flory 18:10
I love that. Yeah, I'm actually in school right now, working on a master's, and my thesis that I'm working on touches on this idea that the reader collaborates and participates in the story. And so a book is going to be different. Every time a person picks up a book, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, it's going to be a little different, it's going to hit that person differently. Because they're participating. In that experience. It's like, as a writer, you're talking inside of their head and having a conversation with them. But you're not just dictating what they're gonna think and feel and imagine. So yeah, I love that. It's the process of, of engaging the imagination.

Michael Hingson 18:53
It's interesting to think about textbooks, I am still of the opinion, having read many textbooks in my life, especially physics textbooks, and so on. I think authors of textbooks are really missing it. By just making the textbooks about fact and theory and teaching what they teach and never putting stories in. I think they could do so much more if they both personalized it, and put some stories behind the teaching in the books that would make them more compelling for people to want to read.

Susy Flory 19:35
I agree. And when I used to read, I don't read magazines too often these days, but back in the day, I used to read a lot of women's magazine, infant fashion and culture and all the stuff and I would always read the story, story part of the article and just skip over the teaching and bullet points and facts parts so I totally agree with you.

Michael Hingson 19:57
Well, even magazines like Playboy, you You know, I don't know how many people know. But one of the best science fiction stories of all the fly was originally published in Playboy, and Playboy had stories no matter what else it was doing. And, and all the other different things that went into it. The creators of that magazine recognize the value of good stories and good writing to one of my favorite stories about September 11. Is that a week or so later, after the the events of September 11. And we got very visible in the media. We got a call, I got a call from America Media and of course, are the people who publish the National Enquirer and other magazines, and, and papers which tend to be weak on accurate content and more on sensationalism. And this person wanted to do an interview and they said it was going to be serious, and we talked on the phone, and they wanted to send someone out to take pictures. And I said, okay, and I went off and I told my wife, Karen, that this was happening. And of course, she immediately hit the roof, they're going to sensationalize it. How could you even agree to that? You know who they are. They're crazy. And, in fact, the guy called the day before he was going to come out to take the picture. And he said, I want to make sure that that I'm calling the right person. This is Michael Hinkson, who was in the elevator that fell from the 100th floor to the bottom and survived and, and he's the guy right. And Karen immediately said, nobody's coming out to take pictures. Well, what we found out later was that, in fact, there had been that rumor and they were investigating it. But American media still published our story as part of a journal that they put out around the World Trade Center. And it was actually one of the most journalistically best pieces, not just my story, but the whole magazine was one of the best pieces that that I had ever encountered. And Karen acknowledged it as well. They were very accurate. They were very thorough and told a great story. So you know, they can do it, sir, like the Harlem Globetrotters. Right? They have to be great basketball players to do what they do.

Susy Flory 22:24
Yeah, I know that. Sometimes they hire really good writers for their special editions, too. And they charge more for them. Because it's, you know, they're putting out a book basically. Right?

Michael Hingson 22:36
And they did a really great job with this one. And so, you know, people can do, what do publishers look for when someone is sending them a proposal and so on? What are they looking for?

Susy Flory 22:49
They look for three things, Mike, they look for a great idea. They look for great writing superior writing with a distinctive voice to it. And then they look for a platform, that you have some kind of connection with your readers, and that there are people out there who will buy what you have to fix. A lot of people have great ideas or they can write. But you know, to get someone to actually purchase a book. Yeah, to invest in it, there has to be that connection in some some way, some fashion or another. So those are the three things they look for, they will sometimes accept two out of three. So if you have an incredible story or book idea, and incredible writing gifts that you have refined, and with a distinct voice, sometimes you can squeak by without a platform, or, you know, one of the other things. So that's, that's kind of the scoop.

Michael Hingson 23:50
Well, I noticed that when we did thunder dog, the world had already changed to the point where they weren't doing as many book tours, and the publishers weren't doing as much marketing. They were also requiring that, that we as the people who were writing the book and proposing had to demonstrate what we were going to bring to marketing the book.

Susy Flory 24:14
That's right. Yeah, we had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and, you know, having meetings and things like that.

Michael Hingson 24:22
Well, and and we did and, you know, I think it actually did help a lot in not only getting visibility for the book, because we had, of course, you and I the biggest steak of all, we were the the authors, the creators of the book, but that also it gave us an insight into the world and the things that the publishers do and wanted to do, but they did their part as well. But today it is true that an author has to be ready to be able to to help sell the book

Susy Flory 25:00
Absolutely, you kind of become almost like your own little multimedia Corporation. But you know, on a very small scale, but you have to get the word out. And that doesn't mean just going on Facebook and saying buy my book, you have to look at where people are hanging out and what they like to read and do. You need to be out there, being excited about your book, which is easy to do, if you have written something that you know, is very meaningful that you care about deep. Lee, I always had a great time talking about thunder dogs. I was out there talking about it. You were talking about it 10 times more and more effectively. But we did we just had a good time sharing the story sharing the things that you have learned and wanted to share in the book.

Michael Hingson 25:50
And still do, by the way.

Susy Flory 25:54
That's right. And it's a story that never gets old Mike.

Michael Hingson 25:58
No, it doesn't get old it is it's gonna be there. It's fun to go out on on the road still and do speeches and travel and tell my story and talk about teamwork and trust and all sorts of things. And one of the things that I love to do somewhere in the course of of every talk that I give is to to encourage people to buy the book and then I have well nowadays Alamo set up and I say look, Alamo just told me that we're running low on kibbles. And so we poor starving off and we need you guys to buy books because Elmo says he's got to be able to eat tomorrow.

Susy Flory 26:30
Which is the trip which, by the way, right? Writers work hard for their kibble.

Michael Hingson 26:36
That's right. And their dogs and their dogs expected piece of the action.

Susy Flory 26:42
Right? Yeah, that was such a fun summer Mike hanging out at your house with Roselle and Africa. And Fantasia, you had three big beautiful labs that would be kind of wrestling at our feet as we talk. Yeah, it was a wonderful summer.

Michael Hingson 26:59
Yeah, it was. And we we, we lost well, Africa, retired in 2018. And then Fantasia passed away the next year. So we are now one dog family. But we also have a cat. So we we do keep busy with all of those. So tell me what, what is the difference between a memoir and a biography or an autobiography?

Susy Flory 27:27
Yeah, I think one thing to talk about it with that question. First is to say that there are kind of two categories of memoir, there are memoirs by big celebrities. So this might be a person like Michelle Obama, or Bill Gates or something like that. They can write whatever they want to write. So they may call it a memoir, more often, it's an autobiography. And they tell you the whole story of their life. And it's like 500 pages, you know, it's like this big huge brick of a book. But they're in a different category. They're just a household name. For most of us, myself included, people don't know us, as well. And so we write, we try to write an exciting story. So a memoir is making a story of your life. It's a true story. But you're doing some storytelling, and you have a beginning, middle and an end, you have an exciting moment that you're building to, and a lot of times that focuses on a season of your life. So thunder dog, focused on your 911 story. And then, you know, brought in things from your life as part of the book. And so a memoir is, is more focused than an autobiography. It's not a history, it's not a comprehensive history of your life.

Michael Hingson 28:46
Yeah, and I've read some pretty boring autobiographies. And there again, it goes back to what I said earlier. My My theory is that, putting some stories in help, where we're preparing, as you know, and have now submitted a proposal for a book. Originally, we were talking about calling it blinded by fear. But Carrie and I are, are calling it now a guide dogs Guide to Being brave. And it's about fear, and it's about overcoming fear. And it's about how, when you're confronted with an unexpected life change, you are often so fearful that you become blinded to making good choices. You don't learn how to use that fear in a positive and strong way. But one of the things that that I believe is important in writing that book is is to include stories to illustrate points along the way, because I think that makes any book more interesting.

Susy Flory 29:47
Yeah, I find that stories stick with me. And so you know, if I go to church and the preacher is preaching this amazing 10 points sermon, I'm not going to remember the points Unless they're stories involved, so I'll walk out and remember the stories. But remember the point?

Michael Hingson 30:06
Well, and the stories may be able to take you back to the points but but still, the stories are what sticks with you, because they're personal, you can you get drawn into the stories, because you can make them personal and kind of make them your own and, and you can feel what's going on in the story.

Susy Flory 30:27
Yeah, I love that. And that's, that was so important with your story, because most people are never going to have the set of experiences that you had on 911. They just aren't, you know, that was a unique event. But by telling your stories, and opening up your life in your world, you know, your hopes, dreams, fears, all of that people can relate to that. And that's what made your story. So I think a gauge engaging makes it so engaging and relatable.

Michael Hingson 31:01
So going back to memoirs, you created a community called educational memoir, right? It's called Everything, everything memoir, is that to teach people to write memoirs, or

Susy Flory 31:13
Yeah, and it's not it's, it was not never aimed at professional writers, although some writers are part of the community. But any ordinary person who wants to write their story, and so you probably have people ask you for advice with writing and publishing. And I've had that a lot. And at some point, you can't help everyone. You can't give every person individual person, you can't go to coffee with them, and tell them what to do, and help them and so I created this educational community. And it's on Facebook, we have a private group. And then I'm also doing a one year coaching group where people can write their memoir in a year with some coaching and help and feedback. And so, so many people want to write their stories, and they just don't know how to do it, or they write something that's difficult to read, that's not engaging. So my my mission and goal is to help people write a good, readable, interesting them more.

Michael Hingson 32:14
Well, and you said at the beginning, that most everyone has a story to tell. And I think that's absolutely true. You know, I'm working, as you know, with accessibility, so we we deal with making websites more accessible. And the whole story is about the fact that only 2% of websites today are usable, and most are not, they're not fully inclusive. And I'm looking forward to the time when someone will really write the story, it's, it's still new, because there's so much of it that's being written in history, if you will, but I'm looking forward to the time that we can write the story of accessiBe in the story of how the Internet becomes more inclusive. And there. And already, there are just so many incredible tales to tell, about website access things that that people have done. Things that people have learned along the way that have helped them create more inclusive environments in their own world and how making a website inclusive is made other parts of a company inclusive, and so on. And it'll be a fun story to tell at some point. It's kind of one of those things that's evolving today.

Susy Flory 33:30
It'll be nice when it's history, right? Rather than a current problem.

Michael Hingson 33:34
Yeah, well, and in a current event, but but it will happen and that's what's going to be a lot of fun. But but people do have stories and it would be nice if more people would learn how to articulate and tell their stories. I think that too many people are are losing the the whole idea and the whole ability of using words to create images that people can read and see. So they're, they're losing this ability to write which is extremely unfortunate.

Susy Flory 34:10
Yeah, they may feel like I did once upon a time that there are these amazing books and stories out there, but that they can't do that themselves. And I feel like with some help, and some practical, you know, solutions and templates that people can what,

Michael Hingson 34:28
what about fiction as opposed to nonfiction in terms of writing skills and so on, because people like we mentioned Harry Potter what a creative thing which is just totally out of imagination. Yeah,

Susy Flory 34:43
when one big way to learn if better, if you should aim at fiction or nonfiction if you're, you know, want to write a book is what do you enjoy reading? And for me, I enjoy reading nonfiction. I love true stories big true kind of adventure. citing stories. And so that's what I gravitate to when I go into a bookstore or library. That's where I'm heading. And I read fiction sometimes, but not not heavily. And so that's one good way to figure out what you should be writing. And fiction. People are interesting novelists, they have stories inside of their heads. And so they walk around the story. And these characters and these, you know, events, and eventually they have to write it down. It's, it's like they're always incubating these stories.

Michael Hingson 35:33
Yeah. And you and I both have our favorite authors. I'm still working on convincing you that Mark Twain is the best, but you know, we'll get there.

Susy Flory 35:43
I'm not saying I don't like

Michael Hingson 35:48
who's your favorite author?

Susy Flory 35:50
Oh, goodness. That's such a great question. We'll do fiction, fiction fiction fiction. Right now I'm enjoying reading Barbara Kingsolver. So she wrote, she's written several things. But she's a great storyteller. And Ann Patchett. I love me and Patchett, who's a southern novelist, who kind of writes his big epic novels, about families that are all interconnected and have secrets and things like that. So those are probably my two favorites.

Michael Hingson 36:22
We, we do a lot of fiction reading at home here, because we play audio books, and can listen to them while doing other things. That's really hard to do with a nonfiction book, you do have to concentrate differently and more on nonfiction.

36:39
I think so. Although memoir can read it, you know, it depends on the memoir, the famous ones, you know, the famous celebrity memoirs, no, but a really well, that memoir can almost be like a novel, it's very similar to how a novel, you know, unfolds. And so those can be super engaging, that they have to be well written.

Michael Hingson 37:02
It's, it's all about the story, right?

Susy Flory 37:06
Yeah. And engaging, the reader could have no ageing

Michael Hingson 37:09
the reader. And yeah, that's, that's, again, easier to do. Both Karen and I find sometimes that we're reading, and suddenly, we go, how did how did they get there? Because our mind went off in a different direction, you know, the book just took us somewhere. And we just leaped off into a theme, and then we come back, and they're in a different place now.

Susy Flory 37:36
Yeah, there has to be a logic, you know, there has to be planning that's happened behind the scenes that maybe you aren't aware of as a reader, but it does all have to fit together kind of like the structure of a house, the framing of the house.

Michael Hingson 37:49
Well, in the case of audio books, also, the other part of it is that the reader of the book, the person reading the book, and recording, it, has something to do with it. I've been spoiled by some really good readers of talking books over the years for blind people, and find that there are some people who professionally are recording books for everyone today who are good, but I also find that sometimes there aren't good readers, or that for some reason, we don't react well to them. And that diminishes the book a great deal. Unfortunately. They may very well be good books, but still

Susy Flory 38:29
some audio do you call them a performer or a narrator? What's an audio Column A

Michael Hingson 38:34
reader but you know, people reader former some people call them narrators.

Susy Flory 38:38
Yes. And some are like an actor's Yeah, some are like, Yeah, they just make it come alive, and some are very dead. So I totally get that.

Michael Hingson 38:47
Some are actors. I remember years ago as a child reading, kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson and Roddy McDowell read it. The actor, and there have been others. My favorite science fiction book of all times, the Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein was read by Robert Donnelly, who was primarily a radio actor, but was perfect for this book. And, and I, I've read other books by actors who've just been very good. And they put voices in the books and they they use different voices for different characters, and they pull it off really well.

Susy Flory 39:29
Yeah, I have a book coming out in February that's set in Ireland and I'm hoping for the audio book that they have somebody who can, you know, an Irish person or somebody who can have a really good Irish accent, because I just listened to have you ever listened to Angela's Ashes on audiobook?

Michael Hingson 39:47
A while ago?

Susy Flory 39:48
Yes. Yeah. Frank McCourt. He bred it. Oh, yeah. His voice. He was so alive. He did voices and he would also sing Irish songs as part of the and you wouldn't Totally missed that if you were reading it on paper.

Michael Hingson 40:03
Yeah. Yeah. Again, some people can bring, bring a book to life and sometimes the author is the best one to do that. Tell us about the book in February.

Susy Flory 40:15
Yeah, this is a book I've been working on for a couple of years. It's called sanctuary. And it's about a real life donkey whisper in Ireland. The man named Patrick Barrett and he grew up his father started Ireland's Donkey Sanctuary. So they've rescued 1000s of donkeys over the years, because the problem is donkeys can live 50 to 60 years. They're sort of like parrots, and people will grow old or their life conditions will change. And this poor donkey is just kind of left to fend for itself. And it happens all the time, they'll find donkeys by the roadside that are starving. And so he grew up in this atmosphere. And as he grew up, he ran into different kinds of troubles and struggles. And it ended up that his father's Donkey Sanctuary actually rescued him. And so it's small town Ireland, small village Ireland with the castle, you know, on the main street and donkeys and Irish family and redemption.

Michael Hingson 41:20
It was a great book to read. I remember you asked me to read it and write the foreword in the endorsement for it. And

Susy Flory 41:28
that's right. Yeah, your forum forward is right up front there.

Michael Hingson 41:32
The only thing I never did see in the book was a leprechaun. So I still teach about that.

Susy Flory 41:38
We made a rule now leprechauns in the book are on the cover.

Michael Hingson 41:41
They might get you in trouble you know, those leprechauns they know these things.

Susy Flory 41:46
There are fairies of their I don't know if they're leprechauns. But there's a strong belief in fairies and Banshee as well. So yeah, Irish about to talk about imagination. The Irish have strong literary and beautiful imagination really

Michael Hingson 42:03
don't want to run into a banshee, though.

Susy Flory 42:04
Do you don't know.

Michael Hingson 42:08
I've seen Darby. Oh, Gil, I know about these things.

Susy Flory 42:13
Apparently, they make a really strange noise at night and you want to stay inside when you hear

Michael Hingson 42:17
that? You don't, I don't really want to come out where they are. Well, so that book is coming out in February. And I'm really looking forward to to seeing it out. And do you have any say? Or do you have any ability to to provide input into who will read it? If it gets on to Audible or in a recorded form?

Susy Flory 42:38
No. So far, I have not had that. And I don't think Patrick wants to read it himself. He's super busy. It's lots of kids and a busy life. So I think they, you know, will choose the best person that they can.

Michael Hingson 42:56
I would hope they would do an interview with him though. I mean, he is very interesting person just having read the book, and I would hope that there'd be an opportunity to to hear his voice somehow.

Susy Flory 43:08
Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. And he can do voices himself, you know, he can. The whole one of the reasons he's called the donkey whispers he can talk to donkeys in their own language, the way that they talk. They have very extensive vocabulary. And he can also imitate people as well. So he's very good at that. He has that year for that.

Michael Hingson 43:31
That will be exciting to to have come out. Now you also have another book that has been made into a movie that's coming out next year, right?

Susy Flory 43:40
Yes. And you know, I said sanctuary was coming out in February. I was wrong. It's actually coming out St. Patrick's Day in March. Oh,

Michael Hingson 43:48
my goodness. Good day for it to come out.

Susy Flory 43:52
But that same week, it's very odd net. This was not planned, but a book that I did a few years ago called The Unbreakable boy. It's a father son story about a boy with brittle bone disease and autism. That was made into a movie recently, it's being released by Lionsgate studios. And Zachary Levi and Patricia Heaton are starring and it comes out the exact same week as sanctuary. So it's a very strange and unusual week in my world.

Michael Hingson 44:24
Well, double double opportunity.

Susy Flory 44:29
That's right, we're gonna try to do we have plans to do a movie premiere. Up in the San Francisco Bay area, we're renting out a small theater, a single screen theater, so I'm hoping that will all come to fruition and we'll have some fun with a little we're gonna have some red carpet and the whole thing. Oh, cool. Did you know about red carpets? You've been on red Park? Yes.

Michael Hingson 44:53
Yeah. Well, here's a question. How has the pandemic of affected reading and books do you think and writing for that matter?

Susy Flory 45:05
I know children's books and why a young adult books have been selling like crazy, you know, with kids at home, and homeschooling and things like that. I do know, fiction and novels. Novels are fiction, but fiction is much stronger right now. People want entertainment and escape. Escape. Yeah. So yeah, they don't necessarily want to read heavy, you know, dark, difficult, you know, material challenging material, they want to, they want to, they want to escape, they want to move to someplace like Ireland or, you know, something like that. So fiction's doing law?

Michael Hingson 45:44
Well, it's, it's, um, it's very understandable. I mean, there's so many heavy things that we're dealing with the things that have happened over the past two years. And we're just slammed with the media, or by the media with all of the stuff that you want to escape. We've stayed home. And, and not done any travel, I did my first trip to speak in well, in May of this year, and that was the first one since March of last year. And traveling has been significantly less. But you know, staying at home has been a lot more bearable when we read books together. And so it also Karen and I are sharing it, but reading and and I've met as I said before, a fair amount of fiction helps just escape and get away from all this stuff that we're sick and tired of seeing on television and hearing.

Susy Flory 46:41
Yeah, I agree. I've been reading a lot and watching a lot as well, watching things like the Great British baking show. So yes, Escape has been important. We want that to be the beautiful thing about stories. They do sweep you away.

Michael Hingson 46:57
We watched the holiday bake off this last Sunday. Learn some new recipes. I don't know whether we'll try them. But we're trying to keep the calorie count down too. That's the unfortunate thing about the Bake Off.

Susy Flory 47:14
So true. That's been a hard thing for me during the pandemic because I love chocolate. Well, yeah. So yeah, we I have a little country grocery store that I go to if you're in Volcano, and they have See's Candy, right by the cash register. It is a big, it's been a big temptation, temptation, have a box of chocolate and a good black and sit there and enjoy it.

Michael Hingson 47:40
Well, I must admit, as I've said many times over the past year Instacart and Grub Hub are our friends. And it's very convenient that we can get some things like now that Christmas is here, peppermint bark from Costco, and, and other things. So yeah, that's it's always good to have a little chocolate around. Every time we we do have to go deal with Kaiser or a doctor or anything like that. I keep saying when you're writing prescriptions, please put that 10 pound box a season. Nobody's done that yet. It's very disappointing.

Susy Flory 48:17
Yeah, they should make a deal with fees. I think that could work out.

Michael Hingson 48:21
I think so I don't quite see the problem. I don't either. Well, in another thing. I know that it's very important for authors to have websites and have things up on the internet. That's, of course, a great way not only to advertise, but to establish personal relationships with people. And of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't explore how we might help authors do a better job of making their websites accessible so that people with various disabilities who might not be able to access part of their sites, get the access that everyone else has. Probably a lot of author websites are not overly complex websites, they're, they're not. They will have pictures and so on. But they're not necessarily overly complex. But it would be great to explore ways to work with the author world, to help them make their websites more accessible.

Susy Flory 49:23
Yeah, and kind of the probably that one of the most influential organizations as the author's skill. So I think, you know, if they can jump in and cooperate and partner with you, I think it would be a huge victory.

Michael Hingson 49:41
Well, you and I have talked about that before and we never did really follow through much but there's been a lot going on. So I'd love to, to get any help you can and reaching some of the folks that are but also if any authors are listening. As we've talked about on these podcasts, accessiBe helps makes websites a lot more accessible and it's not an expensive process. And I mean, it's really not an expensive process. So people ought to go to accessiBe.com and check it out. And also they can go to our website audit tool called ACE which you can get to it accessiBe.com, or just go to ace.accessiBe.com and plug in your website address and see how accessible it is and and learn about the things that you need to do to make it more accessible and usable. Because the reality is that over 20% of people in the world have a disability. And if you make your website accessible to those people, you can get up to 20% more business. And I mean, who could argue with doing that?

Susy Flory 50:48
I love that. Yeah, as writers, we want to speak and write and communicate and tell our stories to everyone. And no one should be excluded from that.

Michael Hingson 51:01
It's not that magical or hard to do. And so, you know, I hope that that it will happen more and more. And I know authors tend to really, truly be starving, don't have a lot of income, but accessiBe and is a way to do it. But we could certainly explore working with the author skilled, and you're right, that is something that we should do. So

Susy Flory 51:25
and also as published authors who have if you're a traditionally published author, or self published, you go through publishing companies who offer those services. It's something that we can recruit request for by publishers.

Michael Hingson 51:40
Good point that, that they also deal with access and make it accessible right from the outset, we had to do some of that, as I recall, with Thomas Nelson, there were some things that weren't accessible, but they fixed it.

Susy Flory 51:53
That's right. That's right.

Michael Hingson 51:56
And it is one of the things that as we're dealing with a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, however, that goes, access has to be a part of it. We've been working toward making thunder dog, a movie, although that's moving very slowly, the pandemic hasn't helped. But again, as that happens, it will need to have an audio track and be accessible so that it'll have to be described. So blind people can have access to it, much less everything else that goes along with it. So it will be fun to see how it goes. But you know, the reality is access is just something that tends not to be included in the conversation. We need to figure out ways to to get it more visible and get more people making sure that they provide inclusion. It's just not that expensive and hard to do.

Susy Flory 52:51
Yeah, I love that you're advocating in this area mica that you're persistent and consistent with it.

Michael Hingson 52:58
We need to get some of those Irish ferries to help us.

Susy Flory 53:01
That's right.

Michael Hingson 53:02
They have influence either out of their friends to leprechauns who stay in hiding, but they have to have

Susy Flory 53:08
and some of the stubbornness of the donkeys. You know, donkeys are stubborn, because they're smart. And they are opinionated. And so they come off as stubborn.

Michael Hingson 53:19
Oh, I know that if I ever get to Ireland, I do want to go be Patrick. I look forward to that. And you know, the other thing is, if people don't deal with access, we could always point out that we we probably can find people who can help us get a deal with a banshee you know, to get them to make their sites accessible.

Susy Flory 53:39
That's right, we'll set the Banshees on Yeah,

Michael Hingson 53:41
we'll set the Banshees on works for me. I really want to thank you for for being here and being a part of unstoppable mindset. But just, we haven't had a chance to chat for a while and the pandemic has has been for me, it's actually kept me pretty busy just with with things going on. And so I can't complain about that. But I think also again, it comes back to how you approach it. And you know, so this is just another adventure in a chapter in life, too.

Susy Flory 54:18
That's right, so fun to visit with another storyteller Mike and I love that you are telling your story of this new venue now with your podcast.

Michael Hingson 54:28
It's a lot of fun. Well invite people to come and listen. And of course, we hope that people will will give us good five star ratings. And if you know of anyone else who ought to be a guest, I'd love to chat with people and and bring them on. So we really love to to deal with this unstoppable thing and I just realized there's something else that we should talk about in your life, because you've been confronted by a couple of major life changes like with The whole breast cancer concept and so on that have suddenly thrown things in your way. But you you motored through

Susy Flory 55:07
them. That's right, I had breast cancer just before you and I started working together. And so I was still recovering from it, because it takes a while, you know, with surgeries and treatment and medication and all the things. And I decided that I didn't have time to wait anymore, or to be afraid, or, you know, to let things hold me back. And so, I'm not saying I became unstoppable. But I did feel like I went into turbo, after I recovered from breast cancer, and I literally did think I was gonna die. My dad had died in his 40s of cancer. And so I thought that might be my path. And so when I survived, I decided to move forward and, you know, have courage. And I think that's probably what led to me writing you that email that one day.

Michael Hingson 56:10
Well, the the issue isn't unstoppable. But unstoppable mindset, it still is, it's all about how you choose to approach things, whoever you are. And the bottom line is that mostly, we have control over a lot of things in our lives. And there are things that we don't have control over. But if you worry about things you can't control, you'll go off on strange paths, if you focus on what you can, and let the rest take care of itself. Most always, you're better off for it.

Susy Flory 56:44
That's right. i My mindset became my unstoppable mindset became for me the thought or the idea of why not, you know, what do I have to lose? Why not try? And so I became more comfortable with the idea of having some failures, which is going to happen whenever you try something new. But, you know, just the idea of why not, why not try.

Michael Hingson 57:11
But also love the idea that the whole point behind a failure is not that it's a failure. It's a it's an opportunity to learn and move forward to.

57:21
And it's normal. It's not fun. Yeah, some amount of failure is normal in this life. And once you realize that, that that's just part of it. And maybe you had to get that out of the way before you can move forward.

Michael Hingson 57:34
Right? Which gets back to mindset, which is cool. Well, again, I want to thank you for taking the time to be here. You got lots going on and a book, I'm sure books to write what's the next project

Susy Flory 57:51
I This one's kind of funny. It's called The Ultimate Bible nerd and I bought the format's Bible Dictionary, it's in six volumes. So if you kind of picture your whole desk being taken up by these giant bar, and I'm going to read through it, it's 7 million words. I'm going to read through 7 million words the year and write about it so we will see what comes out with that. I'm not quite sure yet.

Michael Hingson 58:20
Make it a novel.

Susy Flory 58:24
It's not going to be 7 million words I'll tell you about.

Michael Hingson 58:27
That is a little bit long to deal with. But I bet that whatever comes out is going to be fascinating and worth reading. I'm gonna have to go off and look up fear not the VINCI

Susy Flory 58:44
it's out of print, but I think there's a few copies floating around

Michael Hingson 58:51
I'm assuming it wasn't an audio book.

Susy Flory 58:54
I think this was before audio books were routine. Yeah, and yeah, so it was not

Michael Hingson 59:04
have to look anyway. You never know. Well, thanks again for be here. And it was good talking with you. And I want to thank everyone for listening. And again, if you have any questions you want to reach out Susie how can people reach out and find you?

Susy Flory 59:25
My website is SusyFlory.com and my name is spelled S U S Y F L O R Y or you can find me on Facebook at everything memoir.

Michael Hingson 59:39
Cool. And as always, if you have questions, comments, thoughts, please feel free to reach out to me Michael Hinkson web address to reach out to is [email protected] M I C H A E L H I @ A C C E S S I B E dot com. Please go to Michael hingson.com/podcast. To learn more about the podcast. If you haven't listened to us before, we hope that you'll give us a five star rating in whatever podcast host you are using. If you know anyone who might be a good guest, or if you'd like to talk about coming on the podcast and chatting with us, please reach out. We'd love to hear from you. And you can, you can rest assured that I will respond. So, thank you very much for listening to unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. Thanks for listening.

Michael Hingson 1:00:48
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
1 hr 3 min
November 25, 2021 Episode 9 – Disrupt Your Now with Lisa Kipps-Brown
Meet Lisa Kipps Brown an entrepreneur, an author, and an expert on web access and accessibility. She is no stranger to disabilities as her father was blind and showed her constantly that his blindness was no more than a nuisance. You will discover how she entered the business of creating websites and how she has tirelessly worked to ensure that her work was inclusive for all.

Lisa will share not only her life journey, but she will describe why disrupting your now is an important opportunity for all of us to explore. You will even learn her views about the importance of web access and how she accomplishes it today including using accessiBe and its artificial intelligence website product to make her job more successful. Lisa is a real technological visionary and, yes, unstoppable.
Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast
About our Guest:
Author of Disrupt Your Now and Boomer Cashout, and marketing strategist behind the only NASCAR team racing to combat veteran suicide, Lisa Kipps-Brown helps entrepreneurs solve big picture problems with disruptive strategic thinking.
Her natural talent for transforming basic ideas into disruptive strategy and valuable collaborations has people like Forbes 30 Under 30-listed blind PhD chemist Dr. Hoby Wedler calling her a "cognitive powerhouse." Steve Sims, author of Bluefishing, says she's a unicorn who bridges the gap between digital natives and digital immigrants.
Since starting her web & marketing strategy company in 1996, Lisa has been a pioneer in business use of the web. Take it from one of her clients: "if you're not afraid of challenging the status quo, Lisa Kipps-Brown can help you build a business that's sustainable and means more than money."
She's the expert you're missing, and likely didn't even know you need. No gobbledygook, guaranteed!
http://lisakippsbrown.com
http://disruptyournow.com
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
https://michaelhingson.com
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
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https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
accessiBe Links
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https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/
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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:20
Welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Today, I think we get to do some unexpected things, at least I hope so that'll make it even more fun. But we will also talk about inclusion and diversity. Our guest is Lisa Kipps. Brown, who I met earlier this year, she's got an interesting story to tell. And we have lots of interesting experiences to discuss some of which we've kind of collaborated in from a distance and somewhere I think she'll just tell you things that you'll find interesting. So Lisa, welcome to unstoppable mindset.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 02:00
Thank you so much for having me, Michael, it's great to be with you.

Michael Hingson 02:05
So let's start with the usual tell us a little bit about you in general, share some things maybe they that you'd like people to know about you.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 02:16
Okay, well, I'm an entrepreneur, I've been an entrepreneur since 1990. And in 95, I used to be an accountant. And in 95, I discovered web design. So I ditched all the accounting stuff I was doing. And in 96, I started a web design company. So ever since then, I've been doing web and marketing strategy. And I'm now you know, because of all the platforms out there that people need less coding, and so forth. Most of what I do now is big picture strategy for companies, helping them disrupt their own business, so to get them out of a rut.

Michael Hingson 02:56
What got you into web design? I mean, why did you decide to do that from what you were doing?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 03:01
Well, I would, at the time, I owned a business that I was consulting with other small businesses. So I was working on big picture strategy anyway, but mostly within kind of the financial area. And I was also the financial controller for an international software company. But I didn't like accounting. I was really good at it, but I just didn't like it. And one of the young guys, I was the only American working for the company. And one of the coders was like, Oh, you ought to check out web design. Well, I'm 60. Michael. So back when I was in college, when you took coding, you took Fortran, which meant he had to sit there and do the punch cards. I was like, No way. I'm not doing that. Well, we also did basic and that was on a PC, but you still wasn't like immediate gratification. But he piqued my interest enough that I looked into it. And I realized, oh my gosh, I could combine my business background and my creativity and my low threshold for boredom, let's call it and I could combine all of those things and help businesses in a way that other people wouldn't be able to just because of the variety of my background, so I ditched everything accounting, and have been and have been doing everything pretty much web based ever since.

Michael Hingson 04:28
I remember being in college at UC Irvine and the first computer that I was really exposed to was an IBM 360 Of course we had IBM Selectric terminals and of course you're right Fortran and and some other things along the way. And then basic did come along. I never did learn COBOL but I did take Fortran although I don't remember a whole lot of it now and probably

Lisa Kipps-Brown 04:58
wouldn't be very easily. I hated that, you know, the punch cards and everything. But I love the logic behind, you know, when I was actually coding with web design, I loved it because it was like solving puzzles. But I didn't have to go through the misery and drudgery of sitting in line and doing the punch cards and having them compiled. So it's funny how if you can figure out what you like, like inside of yourself, not the task, but why you like things and why you don't, it will really help you find your thing in life that you're meant to do.

Michael Hingson 05:34
I remember, the first time the university got a card punching device that had an 80 character display. So you could actually put all of the characters in, proofread it, and then push the button to punch the cards. Oh, wow.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 05:54
See, we didn't have that. They may have already had it. But they may have made us do what we were doing. Because it was like, computer science 101 or whatever. I just know, I hated it.

Michael Hingson 06:06
I think yeah, but I think it was, was probably pretty sensible to have the punch card device with a display because it meant you didn't waste as many cards. It didn't change the logic or anything. It only said, Okay, did you really mean to put these characters in before you push punch. So a lot of times this, of course, none of that was usable by me directly. But I remember being involved with a number of people and observing them and talking with them. And they said it was such an an amazing improvement. Because now they made many fewer mistakes. By the time the card got punched, yes. And so that when it got punched, if it messed up, then it was a different kind of a problem. It wasn't a typo. Typically, it was perhaps a little bit of an error in logic or an error and understanding something about coding. But you're right. Programming is a wonderful way to explore and think about puzzles. It's all about logic. And as we know, the machines do just what we tell them or they did them. But we now have the the arena where we're moving more into artificial intelligence. And the day is going to come when machines really will be more unpredictable to us. Because they're thinking among themselves. Of course, science fiction writers have been writing about that for a while. And as late as Dan Brown and origin and other things like that. And of course, Ray Kurzweil talks about the singularity when we marry our brains and computer brains, and then it will be really interesting to see whose will will win out.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 07:53
But yes, it will be.

Michael Hingson 07:57
It will be interesting. But computer programming was was very fascinating. I took one year of information, computer science, and it was all required part of our degree programs and physics and so on. And and used and we use the computers a lot, we use the 360. Then we got a PDP 10 into the system. And of course, all of us just worked at remote terminals, albeit sometimes in the computer science building in the computer room, but a lot of times in physics, our access was through remote terminals in a completely different building. So it was a while actually once I joined UC Irvine before I actually got to go in and and visit the computer room and experience it close up. But it was a lot of fun.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 08:49
Yeah, it is. And you know something else funny about it. When I was in college I never studied. Well, I didn't in high school either. But I drove my my roommates crazy because I would never study but I always got A's and B's, because I just learned really easily. Then when I discovered web design, of course back then there was no Google. And there was really no resources online even without service to the learn. So I would buy all these coding books, and go to bed with my coding books. I mean, by that time I was 35. And my roommates, if they came to visit, they were like, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe you have a book and a highlighter. And I said well, it just goes to show you if you find something that you really are interested in, you know that it makes all the difference in being motivated or not.

Michael Hingson 09:40
I don't remember for sure the author but one of our computer science teachers told us that one of the standard jokes they had for a while was that when you enrolled in ICS one information computer science one. The first night the professor would say You know, our textbook is entitled Introduction to Programming. And I think the author's name was Ken Ingram, I'm not sure. But you need to read chapter one. And he told us about it, because Chapter One was literally half the book. Oh my god, you had two days to read it. It's pretty clever. But still, you know, we all learned and, and I very much enjoyed. What? Taking computer science courses, physics and so on. Did because there was logic to it. And it did create and answer puzzles. And it was always fun when you when you got a puzzle that you had to, to work on figuring out whether it was programming it or especially when you get into physics and dealing with a lot of the theories and expanding on them. It's all about puzzles.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 10:54
Yes, for sure. Just so was your major physics?

Michael Hingson 10:59
Yes. I love that. My master's is in physics.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 11:02
Okay. Okay. I didn't realize that. That's cool. So it

Michael Hingson 11:07
was a it was a lot of fun. And I did, I did pretty well with it. I did study a lot I needed to do that. Partly, I think for me, also, was that I had challenges with access to information, of course, being blind. Yeah, especially back in the 70s. And even earlier, but for me, the 70s information was not readily available. And when I needed a physics book, I had to get the professor's to tell me what they were going to use in class months ahead of time, which they were very resistive to doing. Because Oh, we want to wait till the last possible. Second, we want to get the latest thing. And I said, Look, here's the problem. And some of the we're not very sensitive to it. And I had to invoke pressure from part of the the university administration. And there was a person, Jan Jenkins, who later became Jan Jergens, who was the person who ran the Office of Special services for persons with disabilities at UC Irvine, and Jan told me early on, I'm not going to do things for you, I'm not going to do things for any of the people who come in here, I will facilitate for you. If you're not able to get a professor to give you the information, then I am the the person at the university who can help make that happen. And and I think that's always been the way it should be done. We have too many, we have too many college programs out where the the office does everything you want to take a test, we'll set it up for you. You You need something you just tell us we'll do it. If students don't learn that level of independence to do it themselves, if they don't learn to hire their own readers and fire their own readers. And yes, we still need people to read material from time to time, although there's now other technologies that help but if you don't learn to do those things, it doesn't serve you well later in life.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 13:09
For sure. So the books, the books for your courses, did you were you able to get them in Braille? Did you have to have somebody read it to you? Or did you buy an audio book or what the

Michael Hingson 13:21
problem was, especially in math, and physics, and so on is doing it. And they were available in recorded form sometimes. But that doesn't really work. You know, you don't, you don't study or analyze from an audio book, you need to be able to go through it, you need to be able to search it, you've got to be able to go forwards and backwards and sideways and so on. So the only way to really do it is Braille. Yeah. And Braille is a technology that any person who is blind should use and I define blindness. And we've talked about it on these podcasts a little bit. But I define blindness as a situation where if your eyesight is diminished to the point where you need to use alternatives to print to do things, no matter what the alternatives are large print, closer to television, or braille or whatever, you should consider yourself blind and learn blindness techniques. Because if you don't, especially if you're losing your eyesight and you lose the rest of it, then you're going to have to be retrained. And psychologically you haven't made that leap. So for me, getting the books in braille was important. And the reason we needed to have the information and access to the books months in advance is that back in those days, people would hand transcribe the books. My favorite transcriber, a lady named Eleanor savage who I finally got to meet years and years later, but Eleanor actually took a cruise every year around the world and what she did is she took her brailler and most of the time as part of that cruise she was transcribing physics books for me A great idea. And and she and she was great at her job. She knew the mathematical code, the Nimeth code for Braille mathematics, she was able to transcribe the books. And as a result, I was able to have the mostly on time, which, which was great.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 15:19
I totally agree with you, Michael, about people making. Basically what you're saying is people need to put themselves out of their comfort zone, because that's how we grow. And like you said, you need to be prepared. I have, I have a vision issue that it doesn't interfere too much with me now, but I never know when it might. And so I do things like when I get up at night, and I will do this anyway. But I don't ever turn on the lights when I get on it. Get up at night, I do things like that, to force myself to think without seeing being able to act without see.

Michael Hingson 15:52
Right? Well, what what got you into this mode of really thinking about doing things without eyesight?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 15:59
Well, my father was blind, he was not born blind, he started losing his sight when he was eight. And both of his retinas detached. So by the time he was, I guess, probably 16, he was totally blind. So of course, he never saw us, or anything. But growing up around him, he was just daddy to us. You know, we didn't think about him being blind, because he was just there, he rode horses, he shot guns, he owned his own business, he even mowed the grass. And because he would mow barefoot on because he could tell with his feet, which grass was longer and which wasn't. So when growing up around somebody like that, I didn't realize how different he was because as the city was just daddy, and you know, all of his adult friends would always be like, Oh my god, your father is so amazing. And I'm like, okay, whatever, you know. And it wasn't until I was an adult that I really realized how amazing he was. But I'm never ever one time in my life ever heard him say I can't do that. He had a lay a full woodworking shop in our basement with the lathe and all this stuff. So the point of that is that when you grow up around somebody like that, it's like osmosis, you just naturally think differently, because you're around somebody who was constantly adapting and figuring out how to do what they want to do, even if people think they shouldn't be able to. And so I realize how him losing his sight. Gave me and my sister such an advantage, just because of growing up with him.

Michael Hingson 17:45
So he learned to solve puzzles.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 17:49
Yes, yeah.

Michael Hingson 17:52
In every sense of the word, because that's, that's what it's about. I wonder what people thought when they saw him mowing the lawn barefoot. Oh, wow.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 18:02
They probably were, well, where they live. We live in a rural area. And their house was beside my grandmother's and my aunt so I don't know if really anybody saw him besides him. But people have seen him do a lot of things that they just cannot believe that he has done and um, I mean, he rode like he would do trail rides, the whole weekend long and it'd be like on his horse, it'd be like 35 miles each way. And things like that. The house that I own now is actually on a lake and when I was growing up a friend of his and it I found out after I bought it that at one of the parties that his friend had that a bunch of them were going to go waterskiing with daddy wanted to drive the boat. So they took him around the lake a couple times for him to get his bearings, and he drove the boat for the site admin to water. See, I'm not saying that was a good idea. But that was a it didn't surprise me at all that he did. And I'm sure there was a sighted person sitting beside him just in case something had gone wrong. But you know, yourself. It's almost almost like sonar y'all see, but you see in a different way than we do.

Michael Hingson 19:14
Yeah, I was thinking that probably someone sat next to him because it would be really hard to hear. Maybe not too hard. But when you're getting close to the shore, so you make the appropriate turn. There are sounds and you could learn to tell the difference from being in the middle of the lake when when you're there as opposed to being at the shore. But if it were me, I would want someone to be there just to make sure I had that information. Right now. Maybe it's because I haven't learned to do that.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 19:47
No, I cannot I didn't ask his friend that was telling me I can't imagine that they didn't have somebody beside him but just the fact most people would never dream that somebody has can't seek to do something like that. It's like going to our cabin in the mountains, it's 120 miles from our home. And you know, he'd been going up there his whole life riding in the car with different people. So if he had somebody take him up there who had never been before, and it was just them in the car, he could literally tell them every turn, yeah, like, oh, about, you know, a half a mile up the road, you're gonna go around the curb and a dip and blah, blah, blah, and it blew people's minds. But as I said earlier, he it was so ingrained in him, because he felt it and, and heard it. And that was the way he could visualize if you will, to give directions to somebody else.

Michael Hingson 20:47
Sure. Um, I know, and I can do the same thing. What really amazes me is having now used a guy dogs, most of them can be asleep on the floor in the back seat or, or up between our passenger seats in our in our van today. But they could be asleep on the floor, and wake up when we turn on to our street. Uh huh. I think that's even more amazing. Because for me, knowing where I am, when I'm traveling to and from a place on a regular basis, frankly, that's easy. Yeah. And I think that it gets back to the point, that eyesight is not the only game in town. And the reality is that we don't, as a, as a people choose to learn to use the alternative techniques that blind people do, that might enhance our own lives, as people who can see. And that's why one of the reasons it's the best training centers for blind people teach partially blind people to travel under blindfold. And then they say, Look, when you go out in the world, as long as you can see, you still have that eyesight, but use your cane in conjunction with it, and enhance what you do. And the people who adopt that philosophy, find that it really makes a great difference in how well they can function and how well they do function. Because they've learned the techniques, and they've psychologically accepted that there's nothing wrong with being blind.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 22:26
I love that. That's great.

Michael Hingson 22:29
So it makes perfect sense to do. And, and it's, it's something that I wish more people would would recognize. And it's kind of why I adopted in our book, Thunder dog, in this section called guide dog wisdom. One of the lessons that I say we learned from Roselle on September 11, is don't let your sight get in the way of your vision.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 22:52
Oh, yeah.

Michael Hingson 22:55
Because it happens all too often.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 22:57
And, and an example that I think all of us can relate to, is Google Maps, or any map thing, somebody will be driving, and they can see the road signs or whatever. But if the map tells them to do something, and even if they see it, they're like, oh, but the map said in people, you know, it's relying too much on other things. And so that's not a really, that's not the same thing. But it does show how people will rely too much on something at the expense of something that's basically right in their face, telling them what to do.

Michael Hingson 23:36
Right? Well, and there's nothing wrong with going by what the map says. But what we don't learn to do is to use all the information to our senses. To accomplish a task, we don't use everything, we rely on one thing, we don't look at everything that's available to us to make the most intelligent decision that we can make.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 24:00
Right? So an extreme example of that would be if a street says one way do not turn in the map and saying turn, obviously you're not going to turn. But you know that that's an extreme example, and I haven't been with anybody that does that. But I've even been with people that know where they're going. And they will still turn at a different place just because the map tells them to even though they've been to the place a million times. So it's it's pretty funny how people give up their own control by defending and things like that.

Michael Hingson 24:33
I have been in cars where people did exactly what you just said they go by the map as opposed to and they have turned the wrong way. Fortunately, they weren't very busy streets. So we we survived. But still, people do that, rather than looking at everything around them. And I really wish that as a people we would teach ourselves and our parents would spend more time teaching us To observe and think and question and analyze, because, as you know, from dealing with puzzles no matter what they are, that's what it's about.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 25:10
That's right. I'll give you another example of something that he did with us that we didn't think much about it at the time, but we would have been learning from, he would play basketball with us. So we had a basketball goal that he actually built for us, he, you know, dug the hole and put the pole up and everything and the concrete, and he would play like horse and around the world, those kinds of things. And we would knock on the post of the basketball goal, so that he could get his bearings where it is. And then in his mind, you know, he would calculate the height and, and he would shoot, and he was really good at it. So think much about it. But, but when you see somebody doing those things on a regular basis, and never saying, Oh, I can't do that. I mean, literally the first time he did it, it would, he would have been like, he probably just said, Let's go play basketball or shoot basketball. And, um, so when you're around people like that, you just absorb that way of thinking, in that no challenge is too big.

Michael Hingson 26:21
And, you know, even if you don't accomplish everything in the challenge, you learn from it.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 26:28
That's right. Yeah, a lot of NASA we learned the most from our failures, don't we?

Michael Hingson 26:33
We do. And, and what's a failure? It's an opportunity to learn, like, What's the mistake? Was it a mistake when you made it? Probably not. People would judge it as a mistake. But the real question is, you did it, what do you learn from it? And if it was a mistake, can you improve upon it? I was talking with someone this morning, we're actually working toward writing a new book, called standard dog is out there still, which is our my story of being in the World Trade Center. But we're writing a new book. Originally, I talked about our thought about calling it blinded by fear or not. Because most people really are blinded by fear. And when I say blinded, I mean that they tend to just totally let fear take over and they can't deal with moving forward. They don't know how to make decisions. They lose perspective. But we actually changed the title of it. It's actually now been submitted as a proposal. So we're hoping that a publisher will pick it up. But our our latest title is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave. And we're doing it from the standpoint of Roselle, who was with me in the World Trade Center, of course, on September 11. But we talk a lot in the book about life choices. And do we go back and analyze and I was talking with my my colleague who's helping to write the book, my co author, Carrie Wyatt can't. Can you trace your life back to the choices that you've made? Can you go back and look at your choices, and see what brought you to where you are and what you learned along the way? And we both agreed, most people can't do that. And what started it was that I made the comment, I can go back and look at my life. I know the choices that I've made along the way, especially the major ones over the past many number of years now being close to 72. But I know the choices that I've made, and I know what I've learned each time from those choices. And that's invaluable.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 28:42
Yes, it is. And I remember, this is just one small example for people out there. I remember you and I speaking this past summer and you were talking about being in an airport or something and you said you wanted to get lost. So that then you could learn your way around or something to that effect you didn't somebody to just lead you to where you needed to go, that you needed to find it on your own. So you can learn from it

Michael Hingson 29:09
did a lot of that in the World Trade Center. And the value was that it got to the point where I couldn't get lost in the World Trade Center. With within a few seconds of just doing some listening and observing. I always knew where I was.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 29:23
Yeah, because everything sounds different from the different angles in the floors. And not that I can't hear it that like y'all can. But I think I am more aware of it than most people out here things in our house. I'll be like, What is that noise and my husband's like, what noise? And then I'll just go looking and looking until I trace track it down and I'll find some little something you know, yeah. That's pretty cool, though that you couldn't get lost.

Michael Hingson 29:52
Well, and the the reality is that that you could learn to do that. You know, people always say To me, well, you're blind. So your your other senses are heightened. And someone at one of the training Senator center centers, senators, they need training. One of the training centers that I've visited over the years said, Is that No, it isn't a matter of heightened senses, other than you've trained yourself to heighten your senses. And the the fact is that any number of sighted people have done that look at SEAL teams look at a lot of elite military people look at people who are very deeply involved in something or other, they become focused, and they've trained themselves to deal with a lot of those things.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 30:46
Yeah, follow through. Yeah, when I get up in the night, and I don't turn in the light. So many times you would think he would remember because we've been married 34 years now. But very frequently, it'll wake up my husband, he's like, wait, you want me to turn on the light? I'm like, no, no, turn it on. Don't turn in. I want to do it in the dark. You know, I just like the challenge.

Michael Hingson 31:09
Or, or better yet, and why aren't you learning to do that? Exactly.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 31:13
Yeah. Why do you have to turn over life for everything. And, you know, Daddy would be in the basement. He had a dim down there, and he would listen to music all the time. And somebody if somebody came to see him, and they might say something like, How do I turn the light? And he's like, why do you need light? I don't have a light. You know, he'd always give people a hard time. You don't need a light

Michael Hingson 31:32
to waste of electricity. Exactly. Yeah, well, Dick herbal Shimer, who is my geometry teacher in high school, who we've stayed very long time friends with, tells the story, and I had actually forgotten it. But he came over to our house. Once, when I was in his class, as I say, we became very close friends. And he wanted to see our ham radio setup. And my father and I were both ham radio operators by then. And we went into the den where it was all set up. And he said, I remember saying, Well, you know, I'm not able to see it very well. Can I turn the light on? And I? And I said, Well, why? Sorry, I forgot. But we'll accommodate you, you know, but yeah, it is it is what people are used to. And every time you have a power failure, what's the first thing you do you go find a candle or a flashlight, rather than maybe learning not to be so quick to use those and and raising your own senses simply by training yourself to listen, or to observe in other ways?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 32:40
Yeah, and a lot of times it's not even really that dark, even if it's in the middle of the night because the moon or you know, so be it's just such a habit for people to feel like they have to have that light.

Michael Hingson 32:54
Now then there are some people who are really scary share Heckerling, the founder, or co founder of accessiBe, tells me that one of his best friends who is blind is one of the chief coders that they work with. And this gentleman, being blind, can write code, carry on a conversation with you, and be listening to music all at the same time. Yes, scary. I don't have

Lisa Kipps-Brown 33:26
to do that. I can type and carry on a conversation at the same time. And but I don't know if I could pay attention to music, but I'm just so used to that, you know, because my husband would be like, You're not listening to me. I'm like, yeah, yes, I am. That's cool.

Michael Hingson 33:45
Well, I can type in carry on a conversation at the same time, sometimes I do realize that accuracy might not be as good or, or I know that I made a mistake. And I have to go back and correct it more as I'm typing. If I'm carrying on a conversation at the same time.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 34:01
Code is way different than just, you know, for me to just be typing something. Do writing code is way different. Because you really have to be right with that.

Michael Hingson 34:13
Well, again, you you develop a mindset and you develop and train yourself to be able to do that. I'm sure. It's very doable. It's just not something that I've learned to do. So I just choose to be jealous of that guy who can do it. Yeah. It's a life choice.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 34:30
Man, you do other things that he's probably jealous up. So

Michael Hingson 34:35
I guess probably so. So, you know, you you've done some writing, you've written some books, right?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 34:45
Yeah, I've written three, the latest one release this past summer in July.

Michael Hingson 34:52
What is that one called?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 34:53
It's called Disrupt your Now the successful entrepreneurs guide to reimagining your business and last

Michael Hingson 35:00
Tell us about that, if you would, please.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 35:02
Okay, well, over all of these decades of helping business owners, I realized that a lot of the people that I work with, they start a business and they're like, Yes, I'm gonna be my own boss, and I'm gonna, you know, control my life, and yada, yada, yada. And then before they know it, they realize they built a business that they don't even like, they don't want to own, but they're trapped. Because I'm like a job, you can't just walk away. And my theory on it is that the reason they do that is because they're paying too much attention to what everybody else is doing, instead of what they want their life to be like. So you know, people within an industry, they'll look around at competitors, or whatever, and they'll think everything they're doing, I need to do. But if you want a different type of lifestyle, then you need to do it differently than they're doing it. So like for me, even though I own a web design company that you know, there are a lot of agencies out there, they have a lot of employees, I have never wanted to have many employees, because I don't like managing people, I don't want to be tied to one place geographically, which was another reason I really loved web design when I when I on, discovered it in. So there, I like for my life, I like to be able to adapt it as I go. So like when my mom got Alzheimer's, I can adapt my business. So I like having a really agile business that I can change on a whim that somebody else who's building a business to sell, they're going to need to make different decisions than I did. And if we are copying each other, then we're not going to end up with what we wanted. So that's why I wrote the book disrupt your now. And really I tell people stop thinking someday or one day and start thinking right now, what are some things that you can do now to start making your life and your business what you want it to be?

Michael Hingson 37:11
So let me name two people, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Why were they successful?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 37:19
Oh, well, part of its timing part of its doggedness, part of its vision and creativity, I'm sure that you're

Michael Hingson 37:32
well, and what I was thinking of was just in terms of what you're saying, they chose to be different. Or Jeff Bezos is another one. They, they, they envisioned what they wanted. And they were open to exploring ways to make it happen. I mean, look at what Jeff Jeff Bezos did, even though he doesn't always make things as accessible as we would like. But none of them do, actually. But Jeff Bezos created this company, to sell books, and to then later to sell other things online. And I remember for years, Amazon was not very proud, well, was not profitable. And he kept saying it's going to be and he kept doing various things until he made it successful. And make no mistake, it came from him. Yes. Steve Jobs apple. It started out and originally, the Macintosh wasn't necessarily the the greatest thing. But he worked at it. He had a vision. And then Apple took off,

Lisa Kipps-Brown 38:47
right? You know, with an Amazon, I actually the first book I wrote, and some other books that I didn't write, I actually sold those on Amazon and back in the 90s 97 to 2000, before I sold the company, and that was when most people didn't even know hadn't even heard of Amazon yet. You know, but, um, so I've been following him for many, many years. But and that's the thing, it's like people don't, they don't understand how to think differently, just like we were talking about with our senses. They get so ingrained in making decisions based on the ways that they think they're supposed to make them that they don't look at alternatives. So I'll give you a business example for me. So in 97, I was working with a client whose she owned the company that had had print products and it was a set of technical books, gods and and of course, they will print books and her husband had died of cancer. She sold up inventory, she could not afford to take it back to print. So she was gonna go bankrupt and started talking to her. Why have these three questions, Michael that? So I'm going to stick this in here at three questions that I use that I realized I got out of growing up around daddy. The first is fly. The second is why not in the third is what if. So with her without me thinking about it, I'm like, Well, why don't you figure out a way that you don't have to pay for it? And she goes, Lena, oh, how can I ever do that? Well, I actually got books pre ordered, gave people 25% discount. So by the time she had to order, she had enough money, she didn't have to pay for it. But then I was like, why not figure out a way that you can do have this product, but having in a version that you don't ever have to have print? And she's like, How could that be possible. And remember, this is 97 I so I know, we can figure out a way that you could turn the the books, each individual page into a file online for people to download, because a lot of the people that used it were marine surveyors and yacht brokers and stuff. And of course, she thought I was crazy. But I said, if you did that, you could update it constantly. You wouldn't have to wait a year or two to add the next volume. And then lastly, what if we could actually create an entire new revenue revenue stream for you? So long story short, I developed a system for her to turn the books and the individual it they later ended up being PDFs. At first, they weren't just images. But we sold subscriptions, and yearly and monthly subscriptions for professionals that needed it. But we sold daily subscriptions to Joe Blow that was interested in just researching boats, like having a glass of wine. And he's like, Oh, I think I want dreaming of having a bed. You know, we want to be able to look at technical line drawings and stuff. So we created a whole new business model. And this was in 9798. Nobody, that all of the subscription based businesses back then online, were basically internet service providers like AOL, stuff like that. And I actually sold it right before the.com bubble burst. So that's an example of nobody would have back then no, nobody would have ever thought about taking a book and turning it into something digital. And I doubt I would have if I hadn't grown up with my father, you know, just having that different mindset.

Michael Hingson 42:44
But also, you had the opportunity to ask those questions, because someone came along who had a problem? Yes. And you recognize the inspiration that came into your mind about why why not? And what if? And it seems to me the most powerful of those three questions is what if, yeah, because that's the one that really makes you vision?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 43:04
I agree. I love the whole idea. The why is the part that people are like, are you crazy? This is why it's obvious why I'm doing it. And the why not? Is then they really, it's pushing them out of their comfort zone. Oh, you know, like her? How can I have a book that's not printed? So it's like the why the why not? It's easing them to that third class question. What if? And what if is the disruptive question that think of something like your wildest dreams of what if you could do something this way? What would the craziest idea be? And there's probably a way that you can actually make it happen?

Michael Hingson 43:45
Yeah, the what if gives you the general question, then you get to the details.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 43:52
I'll give you an example, not entrepreneurial. And so I was working with a woman who had been laid off from a government job. And she said a half to get another job and government because of the retirement plan, and so forth. And but she had been really unhappy in the job. And I said, Why do you want to get back into a similar situation when you were so unhappy? And you know, you automatically have the bureaucracy and the six steps of promotion? Why not try to find something simple or something better in the private sector? And what if you could get a job with a fast growing private company, that literally there's no limit to your ability to grow that they could even create a position for you once they get to know you? So she ended up after several months of me coaching her and adapting her skills, translating her skills over and so that she would understand that yes, she did have the skill set for this. She took a job with a private company, and she's making 60% more a year than she was making. I'm like, you can take every bit of that and invest it into a retirement plan, you know, instead of being stuck down at the lower level, just so that you can have this retirement plan.

Michael Hingson 45:19
How long ago did you do this?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 45:21
This was this year.

Michael Hingson 45:23
Okay. And so the question is, since you obviously, keep in touch with her right now, is she happier?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 45:29
She loves it there. And the really cool thing, Michael, is that it's b2b. So as she's working, she's working in this place, that there's really unlimited potential, because of the kind of company it is, but she's also working with business clients. So she's making great contacts, that that also increases her opportunities in the long run, because you never know who she might meet, that they might decide they want her. Her world is just so much bigger now.

Michael Hingson 46:06
And she gets to be creative. And maybe when she was in the government job, and I don't know, but I'm assuming from my experiences in dealing with the government world, she, her creativity was very possibly greatly stifled. Now, she might have to relearn to do some of that. But she gets to be creative.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 46:26
Yes, be creative. Again, he can in people think creative means art and stuff, no creative thinking, and thinking strategically and thinking differently than than other people think. And she's really good at that. But you're right, it had gotten very stifle. So now she's having to nurture that part of herself again, because she does have the freedom to use that talent.

Michael Hingson 46:53
Well, and the other part of it is, what's wrong with questioning? Why What's wrong was saying, Well, yeah, that's the way we've always done it. But why do we need to do that? Why not explore something different? Or of course, then take it to the what if we did this instead. But But bottom line is, what's wrong with questioning and exploring, and making yourself and others think more creatively and thinking about all the various options to get the best solution?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 47:31
Actually, I think there's nothing wrong with it. And I think if more companies and even the government, but let's just stick with business, I think if more companies encourage their employees to think entrepreneurially, the then employees would be happier, they'd be more productive, they would end up in positions that they're better suited for. And the company would end up more prosperous and more valuable, if they would just allow people to think entrepreneurially. And instead of everybody being afraid, they're going to do something wrong. And everybody thinking bureaucratically,

Michael Hingson 48:10
there's a TV show that that Karen especially likes to watch, and we binge watched three episodes earlier this week, I in one of them, someone was hired to manage our actually be head chef at a restaurant. And in this restaurant, everything was done a certain way. The ketchup would go in the middle of the plate, so you could put it on easily your steak or your french fries. And what this person did was put the ketchup on the side. And management couldn't understand and wouldn't accept the concept of doing something different. And maybe there's a reason for doing that.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 49:01
What was that show?

Michael Hingson 49:04
It shows that people aren't open to new ideas are open to exploring other ways that may be better.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 49:11
For sure. Now, I mean, what is the name of the show, though?

Michael Hingson 49:14
Oh, what was the show? It's called a million little things.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 49:18
Oh, I need to watch that. Okay, I need to check that out. That sounds really good. It's

Michael Hingson 49:23
put on a few years, and she she especially really likes it. So but I think it's a very relevant point. Why is it that we have to do it a certain way and you know what, it is possible that maybe there was a lot of analysis and there was a lot of thought that went into doing something in a certain way, but then explain it will help people understand it, because if you do that one of two things will most likely happen. One is they'll say oh, okay, or they'll say, Yeah, but what if we look at this? Yeah, and, and both of those are reasonable scenarios. But it starts by accepting the fact that it's good for people to learn and understand and analyze.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 50:19
Yeah, you You are so right. Let me give you another example. Because I think it helps people learn when they have different types of examples, but I love that capture point. Um, so last year with the Cares Act, most communities when they got money for businesses, they would just divvy it up and somehow decide which businesses got how much money. So it would be a certain number of businesses, small businesses, that got you know, a chunk of money. And it just kind of stopped there. It helped them and help them keep employees on but it didn't do anything exponentially in the community. So I worked with one of my colleagues who, by the way, the tourism director there used to work for me. So I know what a creative thinker she is. And she went to her County and said, Look, I have money left in my tourism budget, can I take that and match it with the Cares Act money that we're having, and figure out a way that we can do a matching gift card campaign so that the money could also benefit, it could benefit more businesses. So what we ended up doing is, we developed a system that you could go on as a citizen and buy a $40 gift card for any of the businesses that were participating, but you only pay $20. So you as a person who lived in that community, were automatically saving $20. And then $40 went to the business, whose gift card you were buying, right? So the net effect, we turned $900,000 into 2.7 million, because they did the matching. And what was really cool is most people think, Oh, well, gift cards, they think shopping and restaurants and stuff. And there's nothing wrong with that. But we had businesses in their like daycare centers, Dentist medical centers, car repair, fuel oil. So imagine the the family who, you know, may have low wages anyway, but also maybe worried about keeping their jobs. And all of a sudden, they're able to buy these gift cards and get their childcare for half price for a few weeks. So I was really proud of that, that and you know, it's just sitting there and go, and why do we just want to give the money to a few businesses? Why not figure out a way that more businesses can benefit? And what if we could figure out a way that citizens could also benefit from it?

Michael Hingson 53:11
Why is it that bureaucracies and governments so stifle creativity? And so strongly disincentive people for being creative? Or maybe the better question is, how do we change that mindset? And I know that, in part has to come from getting the right leader to really run it. But it is so unfortunate that we we so poor, are so pervasive about not encouraging questioning, and creativity and so on. It's just so unfortunate.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 53:49
Yeah, it's like, this is the way you do it. This is it, do it this way. And growing up, we're taught to be like that, in school and everything, these this is what you do. These are the rules, and you're supposed to do it. And, you know, I think part of it with business starts with efficiency and so forth. But I think a lot of it is fear. Because you think about it with a company, a manager, whether it's a middle manager or a top manager, they are afraid to change things because they are being judged on the performance up, and rightfully so, you know, they need to the company needs to be profitable, but it makes them more afraid to try anything that might be disruptive in a good way. You know, and but that's how the big changes come about. It's not the small things like you know, just making something that looks a little bit better. It's the disruptive changes that that changed the whole focus for industries.

Michael Hingson 54:50
Well, and they also fear that somebody come up will come up with a better idea than they have had, or maybe a better way Doing things, and this other person will get the credit and they will lose out. Yeah, and we don't recognize that a leader who truly leads also knows when to let somebody else take the lead on doing a project. And that the real leaders are the people who can direct and guide and inspire. But may or may not necessarily have the right idea or the only or the best idea, but will encourage other people to come up with ideas. And in fact, that may catapult someone else into a great position. But the true leader who adopts that mindset, is never going to fail. And they're and they're always also going to feel really good about what they did to bring this person into the, into the limelight, if you will.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 55:57
100%, I'm in total agreement with that I had a great, I have a guest on my show the other day on my Disrupt your Now show, a woman who has developed a disruptive platform for human resources. And it is so cool. And that is her whole thing about helping companies start thinking differently in managing their personnel and turning away from performance reviews, and all those things that people ate, and making it more people based and smell things along the way. So we had a conversation about this exact thing about allowing people to be more entrepreneurial.

Michael Hingson 56:40
I remember working for a company once, and I worked in a remote office, the founder and owner of the company are one of the two founders, but the president of the company was back seeing how we were doing and we went to dinner, and we were talking about salaries and what people made. And he conveyed the message that it was really unfortunate and crazy that salespeople made more money than he did. And he could not understand why anyone would think it's a problem, that the President didn't necessarily make the most amount of money in a company like that particular one, and that, that salespeople could make much more money, even if it's just in one month. But he couldn't understand how that could happen. And why that anyone would find that acceptable.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 57:43
Yeah, I've seen people like that, too. And they don't understand that if, if you don't have the people making whatever it is you're selling, if you don't have the people who can sell it, you don't have a company, so he wouldn't have a job if it weren't for those people. But people at the top, a lot of those people have too much too big of egos and too much self importance. And they automatically think that there's so much worth so much more, rather than, hey, I owe my position to them, I owe my success to them.

Michael Hingson 58:19
And in the long run the executive, if they make the company successful by hiring people, who may be in the short term make more money than they do. Those people, if they've structured a right will be fine. financially.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 58:36
Yes, yeah. everybody ends up better off,

Michael Hingson 58:42
of course, and that's as it should be. It's, it's all again, going back to the mindset, and how we choose to approach what we do and how to approach life. And so having the concept like disrupt your now is, is so important. And I could say it's unfortunate that we have to have that kind of a concept. But we do because we get so locked into a pattern that we don't look at alternatives. I'm a great Star Trek fan. And I remember watching some of the Star Trek movies like The Wrath of Khan, which, which I thought was probably about the best of the Star Trek movies. But one of the things that was talked about in that movie a lot was how people thought. And I don't know whether you watch any of the science fiction movies, but one of the the villain, as Spock put it to Captain Kirk, once tends to think in two dimensions. And of course, you're in space, which really means you can do three dimensions. And by changing Kirk's mindset with that, they won and we're able to succeed but we We don't tend to be nearly as open sometimes as we should be.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:00:05
Yeah, I need to go back and watch that, Michael, because I'd forgotten about that. It's been years since I've watched it. It's just easier to go, you know, the path of least resistance, get up and do the same things. Like we've always done them. It's just easier and most people prefer easy. Most people don't really want excitement. And I'm one of those people. One of my biggest fears is boredom. Just like I like making things exciting. And I like figuring out different ways to do things.

Michael Hingson 1:00:39
I'm not sure it's necessarily easier. If you have a mindset that encourages you to if some people say, think outside the box, if you think differently. In fact, if you're constantly doing that, you may find that that's easier anyway. Because you're you're looking for the easier way to get where you want to go. And both of those are part of it.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:01:07
Yeah, definitely. And I can tell you doing things, the accepted way is definitely not easier for me. It's, oh, gosh, it's like, it's like torture, because I'm always looking for just it doesn't have to be necessarily actually a doing something differently, son. And that's what people have a hard time understanding. I just like looking at everything. Why are we doing it this way? You know, why is it that way? Why can't it be another way?

Michael Hingson 1:01:43
And again, as long as you look at it that way, and you're open to options, you may find that the way you're already doing it is the best way.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:01:56
Right? Yeah. Cuz then you've got verifications.

Michael Hingson 1:01:59
There's no need to change, just to change, you should change because there's a reason to change. Exactly. Yeah. And I've been in situations where people say, Well, yeah, maybe we've always done it that way. But we're going to do it this way. Because we should try something different. Why?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:02:15
Exactly. Yeah. And I'll tell you, that is a big problem, when new blood comes into a company, because they want to make their mark, you know, and they want to be like, Oh, we're gonna do this big thing. You know, it might be a manager of a product line or whatever. You know, Pete, nice, er, manager or whatever. But they want to come in and do they want to try to come in and do things their way so that they have a win that then they can brag about? But many times, it's it would be better off leaving it like it is and finding something different to go after.

Michael Hingson 1:02:54
Right? That's the other part of it. Well, I have to ask you about your involvement in NASCAR and some projects with that. I know that's how we originally met you we were introduced by Herbie wetzler who we're also going to have on unstoppable mindset. But tell me about NASCAR and what you've done and what what the project is.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:03:19
Yeah. So this is another thing that came out of those three questions on calling Garrett is a young NASCAR driver. Three years ago, his dad contacted me to talk about strategy. I don't know if the listeners know very much about NASCAR. But it's a brutal sport, the drivers have to bring their own sponsors in. And they're basically free agents. And once a sponsor comes into NASCAR, there are very few truly new sponsors at the higher level. Usually what happens is a new sponsor will come in and then once they get in there, they realize, oh, this is really cool. You know, and then other teams try to poach them or they start looking around. So it ends up everybody's going after the same buckets of money. So with him, I said, Why do you want to go after the same same buckets of money, you've got to figure out a way that you can make yourself be the only driver that could do something for people? Why not figure out a way that you're the only one and so nobody can take your the partners who truly are the best partners for you. Nobody can take them because they are not able to do what you are able to. And then the what if became, what if you could help other people while you're doing it? Because he really wanted his career to me more than entertainment when he was older. He and his dad had had that conversation that they really wanted it to have a bigger meaning. So we ended up I'll fast forward through but we ended up on Promoting racing for heroes and the Rosie network, which are two nonprofits that help veterans and military families and racing for Heroes is suicide prevention. And they provide free mental and physical health services job training, job placement in the Rosi Network provides entrepreneur services. So we were working on this, we were promoting them pro bono, we crowdfunded the first race for 2020, we beat our goal, we had never crowdfunded, we beat our goal of 200,000, and were able to raise enough to pay for stem cell treatments for veteran with multiple sclerosis. So that made history two things of making history right there, the Crowdfunder in the stem cells. Then we brought in the first service disabled black owned, small business sponsor, we also um, we had a the opportunity for micro businesses to be part of the marketing campaign, if they gave just $10 to the crowdfund or they got to use a badge in all of their marketing, it had the NASCAR logo on it and Collins logo. So that had never been done before. And that was for veteran owned and military spouse owned businesses. That was another way for us to give back to them. And then this past summer, as you know, we had the first Braille paint scheme in NASCAR in the first blind, don't sponsor and I am very happy to say that access to be was one of the sponsors on that car. And that car was all about access, access to resources, whether it's online, or healthcare or education, or whatever. But um, oh. And we had the first blind gun sponsor, who was also Hopi Wendler. So even with COVID, we have made NASCAR history in five different ways, that are all about helping other people and that are all about bringing some kind of access to people, whether it's healthcare, job training, entrepreneurial training, yet, all those different things. And I'm just really proud to be a part of it. But it's very personal to me on many levels, because my husband is retired Navy. So I know how hard it is when they transition out of the military to fit back in, you know, into the civilian world. My grandfather killed himself when I was five. And my grandmother tried to when I was three, I mean, three years later, when I was eight. So the suicide prevention, I know had the ripple effects. And that that has, and then, of course, daddy being blind, and me being able to have Hobi, and except to be on the car and having the Braille paint scheme. All three of those things are just so important to me personally, and it just makes me feel really happy that we've been able to do it.

Michael Hingson 1:08:12
It sounds exciting, of course, it's a bigger challenge to having to do it during a COVID environment in the COVID year, but you're persevering?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:08:22
Yes, we are right now we are fighting to get funding for next year. And you know, still with COVID going on, we're not able to do we have really wanted to rely mostly on crowdfunding, but like everybody else, we're having to adapt. Because people, you know, average people are less able to give to campaign. So we're turning more to corporate sponsors again. But unlike other, whether it's a nonprofit or sponsorship type thing, unlike all the other people that are going after those buckets of money, we approach it as a b2b service. We talk to potential partners, and we're like, what is the biggest problem that you have in business? And how can we help you solve it, it might have nothing to do with the race car at all, you know, but by them sponsoring the car, they have access to all of us all of we we have experts who can then help them in their business. And we've done things like help a convenience store that find and vet and locate good veteran products to carry. And if you think about that, that would be hugely expensive to do. Because first you have to do the research to find the products and make sure they're good and make sure it's not something that's already in a bunch of stores. Then you also have to vet the veteran because there's so much stolen value So we have about 50,000 businesses, veteran and military spouse owned businesses in our network, and the Rosi network, one of the nonprofit's we promote, they actually already vet businesses to make sure that they truly are veteran or military spouse owned. As a matter of fact, they do that for Google. Also, they're the exclusive provider of that for Google. So with this convenience store, we already have this huge network and we could readily recommend products to them. The Rosi network knows their financials knows what you know, they were able to recommend businesses that were stable, and then they also the company didn't have to worry about something blowing up in their face. And you know, it turning into a PR nightmare, because it's not really a veteran

Michael Hingson 1:10:55
is definitely exciting. I know accessiBe was was proud to be a part of it. And and hopefully you're you're continuing to communicate with them. And I hope that that does continue. It's definitely a noble cause and worth doing. And one of these days, maybe I'll try to drive a car.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:11:15
Yeah, well, I told her when we were at daytona. I said, I wish daddy could have been here. He died in 95. I said, I wish she could have been here. But the only problem is he and Hobi would have been fighting over who got to drive the car track.

Michael Hingson 1:11:30
So if I were there, if I were there, we'd have three. So yeah,

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:11:34
yeah, we'll get you there. But yeah, we definitely need to get you to a race next year, Michael. And I just want to say that we appreciated so much excessively partnering with us, to help us be able to afford that race. The first race was at Michigan that they were partners with. And I just want to say how much it meant to me personally, that they were all about how can this help other people they weren't about, Hey, y'all gonna bring us customers, not that we don't want to help bring customers. But I just was really impressed with accept subbies philosophy that they want to help increase access across the board to people.

Michael Hingson 1:12:20
Excessively it's definitely been very entrepreneurial in its attitude, and I think and its vision. And as it grows, part of what I get to help do is to continue to promote that spirit as chief mission officer and it is important to do access to be knows the challenges that we face. And our founders know, the challenges that they're willing to take on of trying to make the internet fully accessible. And, you know, excessively is added a number of different services and features to what it originally had, which is what we now call an artificial intelligence solution. People call an overlay but excessively has gone way beyond that, which is really cool. We'll have to get somebody from excessive beyond to talk more about that. We did have one person on Rafi glance who talked some about it. He's one of the partner managers and so we we've done some, but we need to do more of that. Yeah. It's, it's a fascinating thing. And you've, you've experienced this whole issue of accessibility on the internet.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:13:29
Yes. And I love that excessively realizes that there are enough customers for everybody, you know, and the more that companies can collaborate, and help each other help customers, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier for companies to allow employees to think entrepreneurially the more that companies individually are able to think entrepreneurially about collaborating with other companies, the results are exponentially greater than trying to do things on your own. And I just love that they have that attitude.

Michael Hingson 1:14:09
And we all learn from that. I mean, that's one of the things that's a great benefit for accessibility is that as we associate and collaborate with people, we learn, because we see what other people are doing, and we do get to, to experience firsthand what they're doing, why they're successful, and add some of those thoughts and processes to what we do, which is really great. Well, we've been going on for a while. So I am going to spin so much fun. We're gonna have to have you back.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:14:38
I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for having me. Happy me, Michael.

Michael Hingson 1:14:43
Would you tell us if people want to reach out to you or they want to learn about how to get disrupted now? How do we do that?

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:14:51
Okay, my website is Lisa Kipps brown.com L I S A K I P P S B R 0 W N.com. Or you can go to disrupt your now.com. And that goes directly to the page about the book on my site that's easier to remember. disruptyournow.com So and then I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube everywhere, just look for Lisa Kipps. Brown.

Michael Hingson 1:15:21
If people want to learn more about the the whole race car project and so on, do they do that through your web pages are a better place for them to go,

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:15:29
they can do that. But they can also go to Collin Garrett racing.com, that spelled C O L i n g a r r e TT racing.com. And we've got all the information on there. It's news, things about the first the first that Colin has had things about crowdfunders that we're working on and stuff like that, and anybody that owns a business or is works at a business that might be interested in partnering with us, I would love for you to reach out with me and see, reach out to me and see if we can figure out a way to help you find collaborators to to expand your own business.

Michael Hingson 1:16:15
Well, that is great. And we really appreciate having you and of course, if people want to learn about accessibility, they can go to www dot accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. So Lisa Kipps Brown, thank you for joining us on unstoppable mindset. And I think we can really say we talked about inclusion, diversity and the unexpected and it doesn't get better

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:16:38
than that. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Michael. Appreciate it.

Michael Hingson 1:16:41
Thanks, Lisa. And again, you've been listening to unstoppable mindset. We'll be back again next week with another unexpected and fun episode and we hope that you'll join us and listen, we hope that you'll join us too.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:16:56
Thanks.

Michael Hingson 1:16:56
Bye, everybody.

Lisa Kipps-Brown 1:16:58
Bye all.

Michael Hingson 1:17:05
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
1 hr 20 min
November 17, 2021 Episode 8 – The Accessibility Gap (Part 1)
Statistics show that over 380 new websites are created every minute in the United States alone. Studies further show that only about %2 of all websites are accessible. This phenomena is called “the accessibility gap” and the gap grows larger in number every minute of every day.

In this interview, taken from a webinar conducted on March 30, 2021 Mike interviews Curtis Chong, a longtime expert on assistive technology who happens to be blind as well as having a deep knowledge of the challenges persons with disabilities face in using the internet. Curtis will share his own stories and observations as well as challenging all of us to rethink how we create and construct websites in order to include the %20+ of persons with disabilities who today are left out of the opportunities the internet offers to most of us.
About our Guest:
Curtis Chong was born in Hawaii and lived there for twenty years. Because he was born prematurely (weighing in at only two-and-a-half pounds), he was placed in an incubator. Unfortunately, at that time, the incubator delivered too much oxygen, causing his retinas to be irreparably damaged.

For more than four decades, he has worked to improve the ability of blind people to use computers and other technologies. Since 1969, he has been active in the National Federation of the Blind, promoting civil rights and improved services for blind people in Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Maryland, Iowa, New Mexico, and now in Colorado.

Before entering the field of work with the blind, Curtis spent more than 20 years working in information technology. He programmed his first mainframe computer in 1972, at a time when computers did not talk to the blind. As a designer/consultant at American Express Financial Services (now Ameriprise), he provided technical support for mainframe database and communications software, maintaining systems for sighted coworkers within the company. From 1997-2002, Curtis worked as the Director of Technology for the National Federation of the Blind, supporting internal information technology for the Federation and its external programs to improve nonvisual access technology for the blind in several different areas. He then spent fifteen years in Iowa and New Mexico as a nonvisual access technology specialist in work with the blind.

From October 1998 through April 1999, Curtis served as a member of the Electronic Information and Technology Access Advisory Committee of the U.S. Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board; this group prepared the preliminary standards which were later used by the Access Board to implement Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. Curtis also served on a second Access Board committee, appointed ten years later, which developed updated technical standards for Section 508; these standards have been incorporated into published federal rules.

Today, Curtis Chong has retired from paid employment. Nevertheless, he continues his work to help blind people to live the lives they want regardless of their blindness. He continues to volunteer as a nonvisual access consultant for the National Federation of the Blind. In this capacity, in 2019, he and his colleagues in the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado worked to pass a law which enables people with disabilities in Colorado who cannot fill out the printed mail ballot without help to mark their ballots online using the assistive technology with which they are most familiar.
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.

Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.

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Transcription Notes
Michael Hingson 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

Michael Hingson 01:22
Hi, this is Michael Hingson, your host for Unstoppable Mindset. In the past, you've heard me talk some about accessiBe, the company I work for as Chief Vision Officer. accessiBe is a company that helps make websites much more usable both through its artificial intelligence solution, as well as other remediation efforts. That is to say what it does is it makes websites more accessible for persons with disabilities who otherwise can't use them. Because most people don't put in the appropriate technologies that would make their websites usable by all people. The gap grows wider every day, every minute in the United States alone, more than 380 new websites are created. less than 2% of those websites include all the tools to make them or at least even some of the tools to make those websites usable and accessible. In March of this year, we conducted a webinar called the Accessibility Gap. And actually this is the first webinar in a series. My guest on the webinar is Curtis Chung, who's a longtime accessibility technology leader for blind people in the National Federation of the Blind and throughout the world. Curtis's highly recognized for all of his knowledge, and the skills and the efforts that he brings to make the world an inclusive place. I thought it would be interesting for us to just go through and listen to that webinar today. I hope you'll find it interesting and instructive. And I hope it'll give you some thought about what you can do to make your website accessible. So sit back, relax and enjoy the Accessibility Gap Part One.

Michael Hingson 03:03
I'm Michael Hingson. I'm the Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. And I'm really glad you came by. Glad you're here. And we'll we'll have high hopes some interesting things to talk about. But I'd first like to introduce Curtis Chong, I should say that I am the Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe, which means I get to be out in front of a lot of things, which has its pluses and it's minuses, but it's a lot of fun. But with me today is somebody I've known forever. And the thing about both of us is we've been dealing with technology since the 1970. So I don't want to hear any comments from anyone about being too old or older than dirt, because experience counts for a lot. That's right, Curtis. So I'd like you to meet Curtis Chong.

Curtis Chong 03:51
Yes, I've known Michael since 1974. And we've both been involved in one fashion or another in efforts to enhance Braille and speech technology that was at the beginning. And then to go forward now to try to interweave all of that into mainstream, the mainstream world since everybody else is now using technology, and it is no longer in the back rooms, hiding behind a secure door that nobody else can get through. So that's my background.

Michael Hingson 04:19
And I've been dealing with assistive technology in official capacities ever since working with Ray Kurzweil and the National Federation of the Blind to develop the original Kurzweil Reading Machine, which also set the tone for consumer involvement in a lot of different areas dealing with technology. And I want to start by saying that today, we are not here to sell you any products. We are here however, to give you a takeaway, and if you want to call it such to sell you want a concept, which is what we're calling the accessibility gap. So what is this thing that you've registered to hear about called the accessibility gap? It's really the same sort of thing that we see as blind people, and that persons with disabilities in general, tend to encounter and that is that there is a major gulf between what we as so called persons with disabilities encounter, and what the rest of the world has access to. And that golf is that we don't get the same access to things that others do. And today, we're going to talk about the internet, specifically, in the World Wide Web, because there is a major gap between what most people get online and on the net, or however they get there. And what we tend to get blind people. And I'm going to talk about blind people, mainly here, but in one way or another, this translates across to any disability. But we'll deal with blindness today, if that's all right, mainly because Curtis and I are blind. And we know more about that than anything else, at least I think we do. And so we're going to talk about the world in those terms to a degree but the concepts go across the board. So we get no access, really, to graphics, from the outset of what people do when they create a website, we don't get access to a lot of the content because the website developers, that is the people who make website, building software, and so on, don't have any kind of accessibility automatically, or mandated wise built into what they do. So people nowadays are creating websites at an incredible rate. I think the last number I heard was something like over 380 websites per minute, which translates into something like 500,000 websites a day. And that's a lot of websites. And the problem is that the number of people who can make those websites accessible, that is who have the technical knowledge is very limited. And their knowledge and their expertise really goes to all aspects of the whole accessibility issue. That is some are better at it than others. But nevertheless, there aren't that many of them. And the result is that we don't have a lot of have access to many different kinds of things. People are creating websites at this incredible rate, because they're easy. We got website builders, CMS technologies, they're just a lot of things, people can easily create WordPress sites and so on. That's a very fast and somewhat automated process. And we don't get access to that stuff, which is part of the issue that we all face, in the world. Right, Curtis? Sir?

Curtis Chong 08:05
Well, I would, I would clarify that, at least in my mind, it's not that we don't have any access to all the websites that are out there, it's that we are more likely than not to run into difficulty with either all of it, depending on how the pages are put up, or parts of it. And sometimes the parts that are not accessible, are trivial. And they don't matter in terms of the task that I as a blind person interested in performing. And at other times, the tasks that I want to perform is vital to my completion of something. So for example, if I'm going to an employer's website and file filling in or submitting a job application or resume, I might get all the way through uploading all of my content to the site. But then there's a button that says Submit. And that little little teeny weeny button that says Submit could be one that you cannot activate with the keyboard. And it is not because these people that the people who are making websites deliberately set out to hate let's put a barrier get those blind people, we don't want them, we just just keep them off of our website. No, that's not how it is at all. A lot of these things that get in our way, are what I would call unintentional barriers, for the most part, which are created be caused because they're using the latest development tool, or they're trying to be fancy, and they're doing something and nobody finds out that it doesn't work until a real life a blind person or person with disability tries to do something and all of a sudden, oh my gosh, we have a problem. And of course, given a low number of blind people, I mean, it's a significant chunk of the population when you think about it in one way, but we're a pretty small group. And so we're not going to touch as a population Every single one of the websites accessible or inaccessible, that are out there, until we do it, and then all of a sudden it becomes becomes an issue. So I don't get the feeling, you know that the web is overwhelmingly barred from me, what I get the feeling of is, I don't know, for absolute sure. Whether the next website I want to access and you know, most of you, you, as a as a blind person, if you're out there looking, let's say for articles about a certain topic, this is where you might visit 1020 or 30 websites in the course of a half an hour, because you're reading different articles about a topic in which you are interested, then you're going to notice, or wonder how many of those 30 sites are sufficiently well put together, that we can at least glean what we want out of them? Or kick our way through the parts that don't work and get the essential stuff that we want? We don't put it?

Michael Hingson 10:56
Yeah, yeah, you put it you put it very well as muscling through

Curtis Chong 10:59
muscling through. Yes, that's exactly what we wind up.

Michael Hingson 11:01
And that's exactly right. And the problem is that even if we can muscle through and get some content and get some information, what we don't know is what we don't know. That is to say, there are many times on a website for us as blind people where information is, is is given. But it's done in a way that we don't tend to see it or there are menus, or there are other elements that aren't accessible. So the problem is that it comes down to the fact that most people don't know what to do to make the website world available to us. And we were not in an ideal situation. That is if we were really dealing with a truly ideal world. The people who create the tools that develop websites would need to and would have to provide access automatically as part of that, they would have to build that in so that there was no way that you could create a website without it being fully accessible to all. And that's not what happens. Well,

Curtis Chong 12:15
I mean, I submit, Michael, that the problem also exists with our access technology with our shirt, right? It's not, it's because right now, the fundamental underpinning of the whole access arena for the blind has been the ability to take text or to find text or to do something with it. And to send it off to a speech system, or to send it off to a Braille device, or both. The whole infrastructure of screen access technology, a 99% of it is focused on this concept of grab the text and render that what the screen reader software is incapable of doing. For the most part, I mean, yeah, you hear about things like Jaws with the picture smart. And you hear about jaws and other NVDA with the OCR. OCR means optical character recognition where you can read the print. But the intelligence in the screen reader is not like a person who, you know, if I hire a human being who I think of as smart, competent, literate and articulate, you know, somebody and I used to do this a lot more than I do now, to read what's on the screen, to me, that person can look at the picture and say, This is a picture of an Edsel with a license plate number that at that at that, ah, okay, so they make some human judgments. But the screen readers are incapable of doing that right now, also. So I want to emphasize that point as well. It's a balancing act, actually.

Michael Hingson 13:41
So there's a lot that goes into it. And look, this goes across other disabilities as well, in terms of issues that we all face, if you happen to be a person with epilepsy, and you go to a website, where there are blinking things that are trying to attract your attention to parts of those sites, those can cause seizures. Or if you're a low vision person, and you don't have some of the technology that ideally would be great for you to have, you may not be able to change the contrast of the text and or change the font sizes. And those are issues that website developers also need to to deal with because it isn't necessarily automatically done in some other way. So there's just a lot of access that that needs to be done. And then

Curtis Chong 14:32
there is the dimension. The another contributor the accessibility gap is the proficiency with which the technology is used by the blind or otherwise disabled individual. Person. Yeah, because in the world of the blind in order to use a lot of this stuff, there are a lot of you know, mouse people just take their pointer and find an icon or something and they click on it. They have to memorize things but mostly they don't have to memorize things like what's the keyboard command? Go to the top of the screen? What's the keyboard command to go to the bottom? How do I activate a link. And that is something that is intrinsic with our not just the technology, but the training programs that we rely on as blind people to learn the very specific techniques that we use non visually that are not taught anywhere else. So that's a contributing factor too.

Michael Hingson 15:27
The problem is that ultimately, what it comes down to is that, for us to be able to fully deal with access and access technology today, we have to be pretty technically savvy, compared to most people that use the web. And that's not even dealing with some of the other issues that contribute to the graph to the gap, the cost. So if I go off and create a simple website, I can go to like Shopify or somewhere maybe on Amazon and create a site, maybe it'll cost 20 bucks, maybe it'll cost 100 bucks. There's nothing that makes that site accessible. So then how do I get it to be accessible? Well, I've got to have to find somebody who knows, assuming I'm even aware enough to think about access. But typically, most people want to get their sites up, they want to start selling products, and so on. And so the bottom line is, they don't know about accessibility anyway.

Curtis Chong 16:21
And the irony here is, the simpler in design the site is the less Elysee is the less complicated development tool, the higher the likelihood that it will actually work out of the box with little extra effort. On our part, right, more complicated ones, the ones that use the slides that you know, change at random are the ones that have layers of software between the actual you know, where the developer doesn't know anything about old texts, for example, for graphics, those are the ones that will cause us trouble. So that there is sophisticated the worst that becomes

Michael Hingson 16:55
accurate there. But the problem is that the the building tools are encouraging a lot more of those complexities, menus, slides, tables, graphs, other things that that tend to be a problem. And so they're making the inclusion of a lot of those elements in a website, a lot easier to bring about, which then goes off and tends to make the sites less inclusive. Yeah. And so how do you deal with that? Well, you eventually have one of two options. Well, one of three options, you just ignore it. Another option is you realize, oh, maybe there are other people out here who aren't able to access my website, I've heard about this whole access thing.

Curtis Chong 17:39
And I know about you, as in the purveyor of the site, and not

Michael Hingson 17:42
The purveyor of the site. Right? Okay. All right. And and the third is that you as the purveyor of the site, suddenly get a letter saying, we're going to sue you, because your website's not accessible. And unfortunately, that's happening all too often,

Curtis Chong 17:55
too, how are we the end users, the ones who ultimately get hurt or helped by what they do, dealing with it, because it's not as if we're living in a universe where nothing gets done, or we don't have, you know, some some of the enterprising forward, you know, blind people who are just trying to get by living their lives normally, if they have enough motivation, and if the confidence in themselves has not been bred out of them, will make a determination how much more effort do I want to invest in this in order to get what I want? Because, you know, that's a lot of what happens, you know, you remember when we used to live in the world of only print, right? Where nothing was accessible in print. There were some who couldn't handle that. And there were others who had strategies in place to figure out what to do with the print involving the use of a person that you hired or more than one person. Now, do I want to go back to that? Absolutely not, we don't write we want access to the technology, because it's so intrinsic to our lives. Now. You can't even visit your doctor without going online. You can't shop for necessities these days, half the time without getting online or file a complaint or apply for a job, right? So the need to get at this digital infrastructure is, is a lot more significant, and a lot more pervasive now. Because you can't live your life, you know, without getting online without using email. Our society looks askance at people who don't have access to the web. And a lot of opportunities are denied to a chunk of the population who doesn't have access to the web, because so many companies just offer it. So we have to accept that as a reality in order to go on to the next part that I know you want to talk about, which is how do we get across this gap? To try to get as close as we can to something that enables us to do what we need to do Online just like everybody else, because I submit to that. It's not just that people with disabilities who have this problem. Sure it's economically disadvantaged people, people who live in areas where you don't have the internet, people without Wi Fi, you know, all this other kind of stuff. But we're

Michael Hingson 20:15
people who, yeah, or people who grew up without the Internet. And now they're thrust into this. Yeah, we look at seniors who are in a position where they have to start using smartphones and computers and do all this stuff online, and a number of them don't know how to do it, and are having to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And so how do we how does how does all that get fixed? Well, the answer is that in the traditional sense of the word, the developers, the people who create the websites, the people who create the tools that create the websites, that whole environment, tries to make access as easy as possible for all of these people. And there are a lot of books and training tools and other kinds of things that most people can have access to. Now, there are going to be the Luddites that resist but but people are oftentimes able to find ways to get access to some of that stuff. And whether they like it or not, they will learn enough to get by and there again, we get left out of that to a large degree as people who happen to have disabilities, and especially blind people, because the material is just not made available. So we get back to what you just said, we really are need to talk about next is, so how in the world, do we start to close that gap? What are the what are the various ways that we deal with making the internet more accessible and narrow that gap?

Curtis Chong 21:56
Well, there I don't think the answer is one. I mean, there is no one, right? Single Answer, there is a multiple, you know, for example, not even referring to technology itself, if we could get it so that every single training program that teaches you how to develop the web, would mandate that you have to pass a component dealing with accessibility, that would be one way. It's not the only way. But it would be a step. If we could make our screen reading technology more sophisticated and able to use a, you know, at one time, when we used to deal with remember the 24 lines by 80 characters, text only screens, and we were even wrangling then about how do we give that information? Because it's more than just the letters and the words, it's what's highlighted. Where's the little pointer? How do you convey all of that information to the end user? So there's we got pictures? Yeah, yeah, then we got crap, which contain text sometimes, right? And we got data representations, which visually are much more convenient. You know, like, especially now with the pandemic, you get tons of these graphs that show the trends of how many people have died over the last six months, how many people are getting better over the last six months, all that kind of stuff, our data visualizations, which are bad enough in and of themselves, but it's worse, when the people who put them up, don't even label the links that bring them up to tell you which data visualization you're going to get. Right. So

Michael Hingson 23:26
it's true that you can do some things with screen readers that is specific assistive technology. But what do we do? And I And again, I am also agreeing with you that there is not one answer. But I think there are several answers that come up to one overall solution, which is awareness and desire. But what are some of the ways that the the world of people who create and are involved in addressing the issue of having internet websites available? What are the ways that they can deal with the gap? Well, I can think of a couple I can think of a few. One is going back to something that you said, but taking it a step further. Because even if you get trainers to be required to pass a component, that doesn't mean that they will build accessibility into it. And it also may mean that when they go to someone's website to build it, they'll say, you know, here's what we can do. But we've got to use special expertise to put an access in. So that's going to cost more money. And then somebody says, Well, I can't afford to pay more money. So I think that the solution to that is that access has to be mandated right out of the box everywhere, with website development tools, with all of the technology that is involved with the Internet. Having said that, that's not working very well. For us, because it isn't happening. It isn't happening very fast. But it's still the ultimate way that we want to do it. So what we have in the meanwhile, are the people that you're talking about who get trained. And some of them do a better job than others. I think there's been even some studies lately that show that even among the coding environment, they don't necessarily always get it all that well. And so a lot of accessibility issues get left out. But that's still a solution. And if we had it as a partial, it is a partial solution, one component of this, it's a component. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. So we have we have those folks. And it would be great if we could get 100 times as many of those folks as we have today. But even then, the problem with that partial solution is, once you go in, and you make a website accessible, you have another problem, which is, what if I, as the website owner, go in and change something. So I'm a restaurant and I go in, and I put up a new menu tomorrow, over what's there today, or I want to change some other things. And typically, I have the resources to do that easily. Because the tools allow for that. And hopefully, when I hired you, as a coder, you helped make sure that I could do things to my website that I need to do. But still then when you get to access, and there's nothing that mandates that that access continue, suddenly, what you as the coder created goes out of compliance. And so it's it's not a scalable solution. But it is a partial solution.

Curtis Chong 26:42
Well, you know, I had a, I have a, I live in a place that supposed to be for people who are 55 and older. And when they first started getting everybody online, they would put the restaurant menus up as a part of the body of the email, which were great. Until one day, somebody discovered they could do a screen print of what would otherwise be an accessible document. And they would paste that in the email. And then if you were a blind person, you would find if you were lucky, the graphic would be spoken. So you know there was a graphic there. But otherwise your screen would it would indicate that there was nothing there. And you you you were left wondering what what's going on with the menu, you know,

Michael Hingson 27:30
and I went the other way I start I'm living in the Spring Valley Lake area of Victorville. And so we have a country club, and they have a restaurant. And they started with screenshots. And they send also texts every day with a screenshot of the menu. And I said, you know, this isn't working for some of us, and got them to change. So that now, they still send the message with a screenshot. But they also email the menus every day in text format, because there's no other way for me to read them. But But the bottom line is either way you go, people have to alter what they would normally do to make it possible for us to get access to it. And the coders can't keep up with that stuff. Because it would drive so many people out of business, if you had to keep somebody on constant retainer to fix access issues as they emerge because you've made changes in the site. So it's just not going to be a good end all solution. And you know, so where are we headed with that? Well, the bottom line is we need a solution that's more scalable, and that can enhance what the coders do. Or that can can do a lot of the work that the experts already do that could be automated, and then they could do the stuff that an automated solution can't do. And the reality is that artificial intelligence is with us everywhere we go. And there's no reason not to take advantage of artificial intelligence.

Curtis Chong 29:08
Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why you don't want to take advantage of artificial Intel. Yeah, because it's in its infancy now

Michael Hingson 29:13
it is in its infancy. But But But by the same token, it's there and it isn't just artificial intelligence on the web. The fact is, we have artificial intelligence all around us. And, and like it or not, we are using it even if it's in its infancy, and it's going to emerge and evolve. But by not using it and not taking advantage of the capabilities that are in existence today. We're leaving out a potential component that can enhance what we do.

Curtis Chong 29:43
See, I subscribe to the School of Technology has to earn our trust in order for it to be truly of benefit to people. Because if I have spent my all of my working life finding out what's wrong with a part of the technology that I was responsible for supporting. And after you fix the problems day after day after day after day, you know, my team used to make which were all sighted people, except for me. And we used to make jokes about how well gosh, I'm sorry, Mr. President, but we can't fire the missiles today, because the mainframe just crashed, you know, right. And this is not something that AI is going to eliminate, it might reduce it. But remember, AI is created initially by fallible human beings who do make mistakes. So anybody who says to Me AI is going to be a tremendously successful fix to any kind of a problem. I gotta tell you, I am willing to look at it. I will explain it right. That's true. But I'm not willing to go around and say to people, don't worry, AI is going to solve real problems. But because all that's happened is it's, it's no. Well, here's the point, people will muck it up. Yeah. Because of the way it's implemented. Right? Well, that's because that's what we do. As the

Michael Hingson 31:05
conceptually speaking AI can be in and a part of an enhancement or a part of solution. Yeah. And that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that it's going to be the end all solution. It hasn't progressed that far. I suppose we could say if Ray Kurzweil is correct about the singularity, which by the way, is now moved from what the late 2020s to 2045. But if he's correct about the singularity, and we all get chips implanted in us, so that we interact with computers and so on, and so you marry the two, maybe that will fix it. But we're not there yet. No, and, and so we still deal with human fallibility. But AI is something that exists more today than it did five years ago, or 10 years ago, and it will be improved over the next 10 years or 15 years. And the fact is that it does exist, and okay, ought to be explored as being a part of where we go as we do. We can close together,

Curtis Chong 32:06
Michael, let's talk about what AI can do today. Okay. I mean, I'm, you know, what some of those things are. So why give me some concrete examples of what an AI intervention? And we're, you know, let's focus on web accessibility. So what would AI? If, let's just assume that there's no problems that it's all working? Great. So well, basically? Yeah, let's talk about some of the things that AI can do. Because I want to I am interested in knowing what the state should AI is, right now.

Michael Hingson 32:37
So So ai, ai certainly can analyze a lot of things. So let's take a website. And I love to use my website as as an example. And you've been there and you've seen it, there are components on the website, that were not all tagged appropriately when the website was updated last August, one of which is a menu. And what shows up to my screen reader into your screener is something that says it's a pop up, but we can't access it easily. We can muscle through and do a lot of convolutions to finally get it to show up. But AI can recognize that that's supposed to be a menu can look at what's in that menu. And it can provide a representation of that menu that I can then access

Curtis Chong 33:31
That assumes, I mean, isn't there a basic assumption that is assumed, which is to say that the elements of the menu themselves are readable? text so that it does well? What happens if the elements of the menu are pure pictures?

Michael Hingson 33:48
Okay, and so then the answer, so then the answer is, and you're right. So then the answer is, if the pictures are differentiable, AI can tell the difference from one picture to another. How well it verbalizes those pictures is something that is going to be one of the one of the ways that AI will improve. So let me talk about pictures. And again, I'll pick on my web site, oh,

Curtis Chong 34:13
no, no, no, let's back up a little because I want to be positive about what I'm talking about. With the menu expansion. If the elements are text readable, and the AI can detect it, here's a collapse menu in here, the practice of it, AI, what you're saying is then it can help. First of all, enable the blind person to experiment work and track the menu using fairly simple keyboard commands. That's one and number two, the AI can read the elements of that menu with certain broad assumptions being operable, which I've already you know, which I highlighted earlier. So that's a plus for a Yeah, okay,

Michael Hingson 34:49
so let's go back to your menu with the pictures. So that's what I was getting to that. Actually, I was using a picture on my website, because there are a couple of pictures on the site. Let's say those were in a menu As opposed to and let's say they represented different things, and the pictures were distinctly different enough that they they would not be identified the same AI can today make a stab at identifying those pictures? Will it be correct? Maybe. And again, using the the picture that you know I was going to talk about which isn't in a menu, but let's pretend it was. There is a picture that shows me with my guide dog from being in the World Trade Center on September 11. Roselle. And the correct description of that picture is Michael hingson, hugging Roselle. But the AI recognizes it to the point of saying, man in black suit jacket, hugging yellow Labrador Retriever. So is that incorrect? It's not. It's correct, as far as it goes. And AI doesn't yet have the sophistication without paying a lot of money to be able to do full facial recognition. And someone in some of those services exists. As we know, the police are taking advantage of some of those, but it's not a cheap thing. And it's not an easy thing. But their AI is getting to the point where even facial recognition is possible. I'll be it expensive. And if there were a number of those pictures on the menu, and AI had the ability to do more, more accurate image recognition to put the right words with each of those images, then it would fully be able to verbalize that the way you would want it to be verbalized. And I would want it to be verbalized today, it might not verbalize it exactly the way we want. But distinctive images can potentially be described. But that's evolving. And we know that.

Curtis Chong 36:50
Right. But so so there's basic guidance that would need to be available to the the owner of the webs of a website that has never heard of people disability exactly right from the people supplying, you know, he, himself, herself itself themselves are developing the AI solution, or they're piggybacking on somebody else's AI solution. And now you get into a judgment call how much of the AI works for this particular thing? Versus what do we need to shore up with some human intervention? Right?

Michael Hingson 37:24
And the reality is, that's why none of these are full solutions and of themselves. Yeah, and you're bringing up the basic point, which is that really, when we're talking about this, there are there are things that an AI oriented solution can do. And there are things that that a coder can do. And the reality is that we need to recognize collectively, that both can enhance a website. Not only design, but a website interaction positively for persons with disabilities, the word working together,

Curtis Chong 38:04
I agree with you? Yeah, it can. It can. Yeah, and there are a lot of factors that can part is how many things can make it so that it can't

Michael Hingson 38:13
Well, and and what will change something so that when it does, then somebody comes along and and does something that that breaks it again. You know, I was interviewed on a on a podcast recently. And the the podcast operator mentioned a website called pod bean pod ba n calm and he said, I went to that site. He's a blind guy. Well, it's Jonathan mosun. I'm numb. Some people may have heard of him anyway, he. He said, I went to pod bean. And I saw that accessiBe was on the front page. And this, he said, that looks really great. I liked it. And that was very, very pleasurable to go there. But then I went to pricing page. And it didn't do that is accessiBe, which is the product that he saw, didn't do anything for me on that page. He said, so I was very disappointed. Well, as it turns out, After some investigation, they had done nothing on that page that the people who deal with POD bean had done nothing on that page to create accessibility. So there was an AI solution. And I don't know whether there was other coding that went along with it on the homepage. But it wasn't even on the pricing page. Why that's that's a good mystery. But but the reality is, if if people don't work at bringing the accessibility, using all the tools that are available to him to a website, then we're back where we started. And that's why the can is is absolutely the right way to put it.

Curtis Chong 39:43
it can do it. And I think that it would be fair to say that any solution that offers a 100% guarantee that something is going to happen, needs to be looked at askance so that we can make sure You know, I don't care who the website owner is some effort has to be ongoing, I think, even if they adopt an AI solution or an overlay solution, and they're paying somebody money, or if they're hiring a accessibility consultant, the reality is that most website owners are going to be what I call reactionary, which is to say, number one, I think we all agree they wouldn't think about accessibility period. That's one, unless somebody approaches them and says, one, either, I have a partial solution that can help you. Or number two, I use your site and the things that you're doing don't work if they never hear either of those messages, right? Neither one of those messages, the concept of accessibility in today's world isn't going to happen. Now, sometimes that won't be a problem. Why? Because maybe it's a simple website, and all everything just comes up hunky dory. Or other times, it's very complicated and something doesn't work. And so there's this part of AI implementation and expert consultant implementation that involves the human factor, which I am a big fan of not forgetting. Because, right, if it's done wrong, she compete. Here's what AI does. And here's what all technology does, they magnify both the positives, and the negatives curve. So, you know, when AI, or the computers do something wrong, they do it 1000 times wrong. And when they do it, right, they do it 1000 times, right. And so the effect positive or negative makes the seesaw swing more significantly in the right or the wrong direction, depending upon, you know,

Michael Hingson 41:44
as she says it does with the programmers as well. Yeah. And it's, it's really very frustrating, because if you screw it up, you're really screw it up. And yeah, it's very frustrating. But But the bottom line is, you know, and I'm moving us along a little bit. I know you only have about you and I are both ready to go. And I really want to leave some time for questions. But I believe that, that AI can be part of a solution. And coders can be part of a solution. And we need to, to both sides need to address the issue of not only do we have to work together and should work together, but each side needs to embrace the concept that working together enhances our chances of having a more accessible process. And, and especially on the AI side, when when people think oh, if I just put this AI solution in, it's gonna fix everything. We know that doesn't happen. And one of the things that companies do need to do when they're implementing, or providing an AI type solution is they need to be able to address the issue of so what's left to do, and they should interact with the website owner, to tell them what's left to do, and why it's important to do it. Because that's part of the educational process. For them learning why accessibility is important. And reminding them that in reality, 20% of all persons in the United States in the world have a disability, and you really don't want to leave those people out, because 20% More of your market share would be a wonderful thing.

Curtis Chong 43:24
Right? And in theory, a website could use both approaches, and should don't. I mean, she could, I could conceive of a scenario where AI takes care of a lot of the routine stuff, and it gets smarter over time. And you know, as we hope, AI will. And there if there's really some in depth, you know, for example, I don't think AI can solve a CAPTCHA, you know, the dreaded visual CAPTCHA that we're, you know, some a lot of us complain about, and wish there was a different way. Right, so, so there's things that AI need needs help with, and that's fine. I'm not in the I'm not in the group that says AI is all bad, and all of that, but I am in the group that says if you neglect the human element, if you neglect the ongoing, you know, I've done the work now, can I stop? And the answer is no, you cannot.

Michael Hingson 44:16
No, you cannot stop and I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you. And so that's what I'm saying though, that one of the things that that people it's human nature, right? Oh, I got this in and that's gonna fix it. No, it doesn't. But I think that the AI solution can also look at the rest of the website and say, here's what I did. But here's what I don't yet know how to do. And so these are the things Mr. or Miss or Mrs. website owner. You still have as issues that would make your website better and and then find or be helps to find people who can deal with those issues.

Curtis Chong 44:58
The I'm thinking that when a end user touches a website that is supported by whatever AI or whatever accessibility is there that we the end users need to have some clear way of knowing, number one, that it's there. And number two, who is the purveyor of it? And number three, if I find that it's getting in my way, how do I make it go away? And those threes and Enyo, and that's a sort of a sacrilege thing to say, for people who are backing AI. But the you know, since we all agree that AI is still on the road, to getting better, there's got to be a clear

Michael Hingson 45:36
well, and is on the road of getting better to Yes, it's but yeah, but But yes, the road to Hong Kong, or Morocco. But, but but the issue is that I would rather it not be how do you make it go away? Although I can understand that, I would rather be how do we immediately get it fixed. And but if we can't, we do have a have to have a way to get around it. But I hope more often than not, it's the website owner has a mechanism on the website to be able to report issues. And that's a great discussion to have. But that will allow for immediate resolution of a problem. And so there has to be a lot more response to consumer issues and needs. And we all in this industry need to make sure that we provide better mechanisms for the response.

Curtis Chong 46:33
See, and there's there's the rub, I mean, sure, you know, the people who provide accessibility services, whether it's an AI solution, or whether it's some other solution, they get paid by the person who organization that is owning managing the website, we the end users aren't paying the consultants, we're not paying the over directly, we're we're paying their customers. And so the overlay company will or the consultants company sees the customer, not the end user as the revenue generator for them, which is unfortunate. Yeah, but that's that that is the reality. That is that is the reality. And I am I am fully supportive of having adequate channels of problem solving that enable the end users who aren't, you know, contributing a nickel to this effort, except by buying whatever it is the customer has to offer.

Michael Hingson 47:25
But that's how the customers have Yeah, get money to pay for it. So yeah, we are, we are the ultimate cause I use the example this morning. of let's say, you're a manufacturer of cat food. So who's your customer, your customer is the person who buys the cat food. But the reality is, if the ultimate customer doesn't like the taste of that food, you can sell all you want, but it's not going to go very well. Because you know, so we're all customers, and we need to be recognized as being part of the customer. And, and consumer base both. Yeah, that's really important. You know, what I'd like to do if you don't mind, we've got about 10 minutes.

Curtis Chong 48:03
Nope, no problem.

Michael Hingson 48:04
Let's let's open this to questions. Iyan, you're there. We're going to let you manipulate that if you would. But we'd like to, to have people raise their hands or Iyan, if you want to unmute people, however you want to do it. And let's let's see if we can get some questions. Or I suppose people can type in the chat box if they want.

Iyan 48:26
We actually have a question from Mary Ellen. Yes. I hope I pronounced it well.

Michael Hingson 48:33
You did a pretty good job.

Curtis Chong 48:34
You did a great job there Iyan. Perfect.

Iyan 48:37
Thanks. And I hope I think you already answered the question, but I will read it anyway. So Mary says My issue is that AI is not ready for primetime, but it is being oversold. Also, who controls the process? If an ignorant owner of a website hires a company that provide AI, and it doesn't work very well, how does the consumer get responsive customer service? If this overlay technology was sold to an person or to the access technology provider, it seems that the lines of accountability would be much more clearly defined?

Michael Hingson 49:13
Well, you know, there, it's a multi part question in a way, and I'm sure Curtis has some things that he wants to say about it. But what I will say is, I don't I'm not agreeing that AI isn't already ready for primetime. In some ways. I think that what is an issue, however, is that it's an emerging and evolving thing. But the reality is over if you really want to get technical, so is coding, right? Yes. Right. There are some there are some research studies that show that coding is only about 16% successful today, that there are so many errors with the coders in the world that they're not really any different in the process. And so, it is a problem across the board, and so on. really talking about one and not talking about the other is is not a good thing. If you if you get technical, none of them are ready for primetime, but it is what we have. And there are things that AI can do. And a lot of times that we're finding that when people say AI doesn't do what, what they say it does, it isn't even an AI issue. So that that becomes a different part of the process. So

Curtis Chong 50:23
But my point is, the end user doesn't really need to know, but the need to know is where do I go for help? Exactly. Like, that's when somebody says that they have this great thing, and I go to try it, and it doesn't work, but I gotta get some

Michael Hingson 50:34
Exactly Right.

Curtis Chong 50:35
And and as we all know, getting help in this day and age, I don't care whether you're blind or not. Just try calling Comcast, for example. Yeah, really understand exactly what I'm talking about

Michael Hingson 50:45
spectrum.

Curtis Chong 50:46
Spectrum. Yeah.

Michael Hingson 50:47
But but you know, the, but the issue is that if if Elmo Schwartz, he gets around, I met him a long time ago, and I use him and he is really skilled. If Elmo Schwartz goes and makes a website accessible. And there's a problem on that site. And I encountered as a consumer, I don't know about Elmo Schwartz. It's it's a problem across the board. And it's something that we do need to address. So I'm not really ready to say that AI is oversold male or Yellen as much as I think that some people think it is. Because I think that things are being said that art. But I think that also what we need to do is to make is to advocate on all sides of this, for there to be better ways for we as consumers to get help.

Curtis Chong 51:37
I remember once Ray Kurzweil told me that he thought one day that computers would develop self awareness. And I said, Ray, do you really want this? Think about history, about oppressed minorities.

Michael Hingson 51:49
But now he has got the singularity. So

Curtis Chong 51:51
which we are the computer. We're the computer. Okay, next person?

Michael Hingson 51:55
Who's got another question.

Iyan 51:58
So don't have any questions yet. And so we found what anyone wants to ask something, feel free to write in the chat.

Michael Hingson 52:05
This is your time. Yeah, we are. Right now. We've got about what five minutes or so by,

Curtis Chong 52:15
then I gotta run, I have incurred this thing about accessibility, I got to go fight for voting accessibility in the next hour. So

Michael Hingson 52:23
anyone else have any questions that you want to ask?

Iyan 52:30
And so a question that was asked here are ways to to bridge the gap?

Michael Hingson 52:38
Well, the ways are, that, that there are a number of solutions. And the first thing that needs to happen is that everyone needs to recognize the value of all of the different aspects that we've talked with here and talked about here,

Curtis Chong 52:52
ways to bridge the gap, there's mult, I think we've talked about every single thing that must happen. Like proper training of users, proper training of developers to incorporate accessibility, those things really ought to happen. enhancement of AI technology so that it can help pick solve those parts of x, the accessibility barrier that it can solve, and greater awareness on the part of the people who put up websites that accessibility needs to be something that they put in their thinking, not at the end, after they've done all the work should be at the beginning. Everybody says over and over again, if you build accessibility, and it'll be cheaper to do in the long run. And that's true with ramps. It's equally true with this stuff. But so often, right now, I don't care how you don't see people thinking about accessibility until somebody kicks them or yells at them or does something. The first day of a project is I never the word accessibility never pops up. If we don't fix that, in the end, then we're still going to be winding up patching, patching patching, which is what a lot of us are doing.

Michael Hingson 54:00
We built a house, we built a house in 2016, where we live. And the house was designed to be accessible. But when the house was built, and we moved in Alexa stop, when we moved in, the builder did not put ramp my wife, by the way, who uses a wheelchair, the builder did not put ramps at the front door and the back door of the house. And he said, well, but there are rules about being in in flood zones and water could come up, all of which were totally wrong. And we had spent six months with this guy, but we still had to put our own Ramson by the time all was said and done. He should have done it. But the bottom line is that he wasn't thinking about this in an accessible and an enlightened, accessible way. It happens and it's something that we're always going to face until the world recognizes that it's time to be inclusive.

Curtis Chong 54:58
And then we'll never have the disability that the accessibility is attempting to address, which is another thing that we could, we could hope for maybe I'm not sure on wishing to have artificial eyes, but I can in the long run, maybe. So I want to thank you for putting this on. This has been a stimulating discussion for me.

Michael Hingson 55:17
it's been fun. And I think that we will try to do more of these in the future. If any of you have topics that you want us to discuss or that you want to promote in terms of stimulating topics, feel free to email me It's Michael H AI, at excessive v.com Am I ch AE l ahi, at accessible calm. And I want this to be the first in a series of these discussions. And we want to have more opportunity for you to be the people who tell us what you want to hear about. So again, I'd like to thank you and Curtis, I really appreciate you being here. And being a part of this. I think we got some great things accomplished today.

Michael Hingson 56:01
Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. And this was fun. Thank you.

Michael Hingson 56:05
Y'all take care. And please watch out for the next one and tell us what you want. Thanks very much, everyone.

Michael Hingson 56:13
Well, I hope you found that webinar helpful and useful. And I hope that it will give you some thought about encouraging others to make their websites accessible. And if you have a website, I hope you'll work harder to make it more inclusive as well. Lots of us would really love access to the internet, and all of the facets that are available through it, you can help make that possible. I'm Michael Hingson. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

Michael Hingson 56:51
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
59 min

About Unstoppable Mindset

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Inclusion, Diversity and encountering something different and unexpected. We all have reacted to different kinds of people and unexpected situations often with fear and unacceptance. Join blind World Trade Center survivor, No. 1 NY Times Bestseller and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe, Michael Hingson as he talks with thought leaders and others about our often blinding fear of inclusion and our resistance to change. Mike will explore the idea that no matter the situation or different kinds of people we encounter our own fears and prejudices often are the strongest barriers to moving forward.

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