Posts from the ‘social business’ Category

Jul 22

‘Are you having a laugh?’ – Disability and Television

‘Are you having a laugh?’ was a programme produced for BBC2 that took a lighthearted look at how disability has been portrayed on television over the past 40 years.

Kate talks about the inspiration for the programme, as well as some of the stereotypes she has experienced as a wheelchair user.

Watch ‘Are You Having a Laugh?’ on BBC iPlayer today at bit.ly/bnBVAg !

Enabled By Design, London 17 Jun 2010.

Film produced by Martin Cahill. Supported by Transforming Management http://tm.mbs.ac.uk.

If you would like to record your event or speaker please send a short email to mcahill@gmail.com.

Nov 4

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A Social Twist in the Modern Day Gold Rush

Social Business Design has replaced the rush for cheaper, faster, more. The survival and prosperity of well-known web businesses now rests on their ability to include us all.

It was a red-hot morning and the school disinfectant smelt particularly strong. The doors were wedged open at the back of the school hall, but there was little movement in the air to have any affect. Still, I took up my position on the concrete floor and tried to find comfort in what was likely to be another agonising assembly. The heat fuelled chatter beginning to fill the room but this was soon cooled by the entrance of our Headmistress – Mrs Burden. We all thought the world of her, but she also commanded our immediate respect. “Good morning” she said. “Today we have some special visitors from the Royal National Institute of Blind People” (or the RNIB ). “This should be interesting” I thought, and I was right. Almost 24 years later I can still remember this particular talk, not so much the words, but the technology on display. There was a red ball that made a loud screech (I still don’t know what that was for to this day), a mug that bleeped when the water reached the rim, and a whole host of specialist canes and telephones with mega-sized buttons. Great, but even at the age of eight something wasn’t quite right. The motivations behind these solutions were true and good, but the manifestation of the design was the great disappointment. Not only does a vision impaired person have to make sense of a life without eyesight, they are subject to equipment that is, well, simply “not cool” – that was the impression of an eight year old.

Looking at those technologies today I might better understand the importance and freedom they brought to people’s lives, but the young man’s hunch was probably correct. The design far being from being inclusive was actually building barriers. The technology with its loud and garish appearance was labelling people, and when we label people we tend to categorise them, and when we categorise we leave the door open to stigma and preconceived ideas. These preconceived ideas take hold and the paradigm is set. Industry and society are able to produce simple responses to that category or group. Worse than that, it takes away the problem. Industry and invention can get on with getting on, safe in the knowledge that access is most likely someone else’s problem – in this case the RNIB. This, sadly, was the lesson I took from that sweltering hot assembly hall. The RNIB will look after the blind group. Unless I want to join the RNIB I don’t really need to worry about it. The same can be said for the environment. Organisations like Green Peace for all their brilliance tend to take the problem away. “Those green peace boats are on top of it, so I don’t need to worry”. And even if Green Peace falls short, technology will likely fix the problem. This, of course, is wholly wrong and unfair.

I am sorry to report that this mindset continued to play out in my early professional career. Like many ambitious, head-strong twenty somethings I was saddling up my horse and on route to those rivers of gold – getting on with the business of building web sites and creating online initiatives. But I may have missed a trick, because not once did I think about accessibility. It seemed to me as a nice-to-have. Something to think about once the race was won. If I had given it a moments thought then I would likely have come across the W3C guidelines, but these in themselves are inaccessible to anyone but the most savvy of web engineers. When money and time is tight the three hundred page document does little to inspire hope. Innovation is once again put first – cheaper, faster, more. The other stuff can be fixed later.

Over the last several weeks I have been working for Media Access Australia (MAA). It has been a humbling and enlightening experience. For one, the challenge is startling. They are up against the steal tank of preconceived ideas. They know that access issues are unlikely to be fixed overnight, but having said that, everyone at MAA has a success story. They have, in each of their relevant disciplines brought about a dramatic change in access to cinema, TV, education and new media. Over the last six weeks I have been fortunate to work with Dr Scott Hollier. Scott has a degenerative eye condition by the name of Retinitis Pigmentosa but it is not in Scott’s nature to dwell on this point. In a show-stopping presentation to the Australia Broadcasting Commission (ABC) Scott started by saying “I have lived a full and good life”. This line was quickly followed up with an acute pronouncement that “At some point in all our lives we have to manage and cope with some form of disability – whether it be ourselves, a friend or a family member”. My early dogmas were beginning to erode and I was sufficiently motivated to learn more.

With my interest roused, I started to do some research. I immediately came across a study commissioned by Microsoft (2004) showing that among adult computer users in the United States 1 in 4 has a vision difficulty, 1 in 4 has a dexterity difficulty, and 1 in 5 has a hearing difficulty. There may well be overlap in those groups listed, but adding up the numbers suggest that 40% of the population has an impairment of some description. 40%! If these numbers are only half true it would not be too bold to propose the following hypothesis:

H0: If a site is accessible, it is more likely to access a greater share of the market and succeed.

H1: If a site is inaccessible, it is less likely to access a greater share of the market and will not succeed.

According to some analysts, if a site is accessible, it is also a third quicker to all other users, suggesting that a route to the mainstream market can now be forged through innovations that are directly concerned with accessible design or Social Business Design. There are a number of practical reasons why this makes sense, for example, web services are increasingly being accessed through iPhones, mobiles and notebooks. A mobile version of the site is less cluttered and often more accessible and intuitive to us all. Obliterating the flash elements and providing alternative or transcribed media content of photos, videos, and audio will undoubtedly improve a web-sites search rankings, moreover, and as we have noted, an accessible site is typically a usable site, and in an age of limited patience this can not be ignored.

Where is the evidence?

Consider Google for one moment. At its inception (circa 1998) the web was made up of a number of cluttered portals – windows to the web that listed sites under entertainment, health, and arts. Google saw this and decided to walk the other way. They kept it simple, adopting a search box and an ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button. This simple design paired with useful results attracted a loyal following to the service. Accessibility was a cornerstone of their growth and success. Google.com is still arguably the most accessible website on the planet.

Portals like Yahoo maintained a cluttered and busy interface.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among a growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and useful results.

Perhaps this was an early indication of social thinking in the modern day gold rush, but has this been repeated in history? The California Gold Rush of 1848, sparked by James Wilson Marshall, resulted in thousands of men, women and children arriving in the sunshine valleys in search of their fortune. Those early settlers soon advanced sophisticated methods for the recovery of gold – cheaper, faster, more. Cheaper – cut back on your possessions and pack up your wagon. Faster – develop more sophisticated methods of gold recovery. More – retrieve as much gold as you can. However, the euphoria eventually tempered and the gold seekers began to develop a social conscience, building churches, schools and even systems of law and government. They gave time to cementing their place in the world and putting the lives of others first. It might be argued, they recognised the importance of social business or the social economy that they were in.

This could well be food for thought for the savvy entrepreneur. The twist suggests that we should now lead with a social innovation. It is no longer a case of producing a technically brilliant product, pitching to the early adopters, hoping that it filters into the mainstream, and then, and only then, if the company does sufficiently well adopting a social conscious and building the accessibility features in. Social business design is now central to modern day business. The web asks us to obliterate the categories and labels that once defined access to technology, services and normal life experiences. It is no longer okay to leave the social aspects to the end, and if this strategy were adopted today it would most likely sound the death knell to any early stage startup and even an already well established business.

Existing paradigm: Innovate, pitch to the early adopters, convince the mainstream and trust that a third-party group will fix the access problems.

New paradigm: Successful organisations will now lead with Social Business Design.

Reena Jana suggested in a recent Business Week article that Apple’s success can be put down in part to features that were created to help disabled people use their products more effectively, including voice commands, touch screens (iPhone), and even audible navigation (iPod shuffle). Peter Abrahams takes this further and observes a more significant twist in the Apple product strategy. Not only are they including accessibility features in all of their products, to the benefit of the impaired as well as the regular user, but they are actually leading their marketing campaigns with this message.

“Apple products have included accessibility functions for many years, the difference in the latest release is that Apple is making accessibility a significant part of the marketing of the products. In the recent Snow Leopard release of Mac OS X, accessibility is one of the bullets on the first page of the announcement.” Peter Abrahams.

Perhaps the real genius of Apple is that their technologies attain to be, and often are, accessible to all. The vision or hearing impaired no longer have to be saddled with a mobile phone designed with mega-sized buttons or even that screeching red ball. The labels and categorisations have been obliterated. Not only that, the original hypothesis begins to show strength. Apple is succeeding and how!

Apple are not alone. According to the Social Media Accessibility Review produced by Media Access Australia, Facebook undertook a comprehensive design review to improve the way we all share and discover information on the service. As part of this review the company partnered with the America Foundation for the Blind (AFB) to make the site more accessible to users who are blind or vision impaired. Undoubtedly other factors are at play, but by focussing their design effort on accessibility Facebook opened up their service to an additional 40% of the overall market. Facebook is now the number one social network in the US with more than 300 million active users. MySpace, in comparison, is in free-fall having lost over 30% of the market this last year. MySpace is an inaccessible site. It has failed to deliver any accessibility policy and has no evidence of accessible design built into the service.

TED (a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading) has sought to open up their talks to new audiences, nationalities and languages by offering interactive transcripts. TED continues to grow. YouTube has also recognised the importance of Social Business Design and has been working on a number of projects to make videos more accessible to everyone. One new feature is the ability to include captions in videos via Caption Tube. When uploading a video to YouTube you also have the option to upload a closed caption file for the video. You can even include multiple languages. When you have uploaded the file, viewers will be able to activate the captions through the video player menu. Not to be out done, the incumbent media players have adopted Social Business Design to cement their position as primary delivers of content. The BBC is the only broadcaster in the world to include audio described TV programmes in its video-on-demand service.

There is much to be learned from this social twist in the modern day gold rush. Fundamentally, it is a recognition that we are all different and that we should no longer categorise groups believing that their representatives will solve the problem. The savvy startup or established business will now lead from Social Business Design, whether it be accessibility, the environment, or business ethics. This makes social sense, but the true gold-seeker also knows it makes economic sense. Social Business Design is a rich source of innovation and a key catalyst for growth or simply cementing a position in the marketplace. Social Business Design equals successful business.

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If you would like to learn more about accessibility and the web, then please send a short email to mcahill@gmail.com

Oct 1

Alternative Business: John Connolley

John Connolley is a real-estate agent. He is the original founder and director of Connolly’s Estate Agents Ltd. The company has been trading for fifteen years, employing a dedicated team of up to five staff, and has successfully delivered many thousands of homes to many thousands of individuals, couples and families.

John took a great risk in 1994 – the year he established the business. He resigned from a permanent post, invested his life-savings and opened his first store. He knew the industry, but he also understood the energy and commitment it would take to make the project a success. He also had his doubters – “The property market isn’t good” people would say. “What about the Internet?” others commented. But John believed in himself, and he believed in his wife Maureen Connolley.

What makes Connolley’s Estate Agents an Alternative Business?

I remember some years after the company established (around 2001) when John invited me and a team of fellow IT undergraduates from the University of Central Lancashire to work on a review of their web presence. We all met John at his Head Office in Longton, but John soon became agitated. He wanted our group to feel relaxed and to free our creative potential. With this in mind, he decided to move the meeting to the local pub – ‘The Golden Ball’ (if I remember correctly). John broke the ice immediately. He made the group laugh. Not just a chuckle, but belly-ache laughter. We all fell for the magic that was John Connolley and we wanted to do the best we could for him and his business.

Looking at John’s website today not much has changed since that project back in 2001. This is what makes John an alternative business and a true radical. In a world that says you can’t do business without looking at a laptop screen, that you can’t do business without dedicating a life 24 hours to the network, John simply walked the other way. John could sell houses because he knew people. He understood their dreams and aspirations. He held peoples’ trust. John was the original and best social network. He built his business from conversation, laughter and friendship. Anyone who spends a second in John’s company will feel better for having done so. He is one of those rare individuals who makes you feel good about yourself, good to be alive just by being around him. He is at the centre of the network and there isn’t a cable in sight. His customers love him for it. His colleagues love him. His wife loves him. He is a huge success in business. He is a central figure in the community in which he lives and works. Most of all John is a success at life.

John Connolley passed away earlier this week.

John was a great friend. He was especially important to my family – my parents and my sister. I won’t ever forget him and I won’t ever forget his influence on my life.

Thank you John – for being you. You were a unique gift to this world and you can not be replaced.

Goodbye, only for now …

… and while you are up there – “Mine’s a Beck’s!”

Sep 17

Social Media for the Social Good

7 July 2005 – The day of the London Bombings. Tragedy struck that day. A city thrown into chaos. Systems shut down, media isolation and communication blackouts. Sky News and The BBC were racing to the scene for the first picture, the first interview, but they were held back. Roads were closed and access restricted. First-hand news was therefore limited at best, dangerous at worst. But this is where the magic of the web came into play. At the time of the first bomb, almost within a minute of the first detonation, somebody, somewhere created a new Wikipedia entry. Others came to the table. Office workers sat at their desk, people working on laptops outside of coffee shops and folk simply walking by on their mobile phones. People were contributing. Many people were contributing. They all brought a piece of information to the puzzle. Communication was no longer controlled by the media gatekeepers but by all of us. Sky News and The BBC were referring to Wikipedia for up to one hour after the attack had happened.

And then this. A creative light somewhere put together a time lapse of the pages history from the time of the first bomb to some days and weeks later. The result is quite phenomenal. The day I came across this clip was the day I woke to the real magic of the web. I suddenly realised that the Internet was no longer a mysterious place reserved for the geeks in the computer lab. Everyone was contributing, and how! The level of detail now found on the 7 July wiki page is a testament to the creative ability and diligence of us all.

But then we start to ask the big questions like what motivates people? Why do people give up their evenings and weekends to do something that never pays back? Quite simply, why bother? Initially I was thinking about those folk who point a camera at every Simpson’s episode (or similar) and upload the content to YouTube. What is their reward? Perhaps these are the real revolutionaries – leading the charge against the media oligarchs. The other contributors motivations are perhaps more understandable – the creatives. The producers of film, photos, writing and systems code. If I open up flickr (a popular photo sharing website) I can see that 3,773 photographs have been uploaded in the last minute. We are moving towards the era of ‘Gift‘ in which the exchange of objects between groups builds relationships between them or ‘The Gift‘ economy – the obligation to give, the obligation to accept, and the obligation to reciprocate.

It also likely that any online effort is about building reputation capital, to coin a phrase. I found it quite interesting to read that twitter paid $6 to the designer of the bird graphic – Simon Oxley. It was simply sourced from the web using iStock Photo. An unfair exchange some might say given the success of the global tweet, but I wouldn’t bet against Simon offered a whole host of lucrative design projects. His reputation enhanced, the riches and work will follow.

Building reputation capital takes time and effort. It is not necessarily the contribution, but the contextual detail that sits around it. The title, the tags, the location, and the submission to groups and search engines. This aspect is important to the creator. Their content needs to be found and it is their responsibility to make that happen. It is only when the content gets some traction, an audience, do others want to contribute. People will add comments, new tags and possibly even improve the original media object. They will be sufficiently motivated to do so. They associate themselves to the successful entity.

I think we can take two things from this whirlwind tour of the web:

It is the responsibility of the owner to promote their content with descriptive tags and contextual data.
We can not underestimate the ability of the crowd and of peoples’ motivation to help out. This is where the magic of the web sits.

At Media Access Australia we would promote 1 over 2, but if 2 helps deliver 1 then all the better. Our ambition is to make all media accessible to all audiences at the point of delivery.

More on 1 – Owner Responsibility …

Translating audio and video files into text transcriptions is a resource intensive and time-consuming task. This is the challenge but one we can overcome. Firstly, it is in the interest of the organisation to transcribe their content. Outside of the accessibility agenda, text is easier to scan. We can learn more and we can learn quicker. Audio and video is a powerful source but it is a slow medium to consume. Transcripts improve the user experience. Text can also be read by spiders and search engines. As we mentioned before, the contextual detail is complete and searchable. Traffic is increased. The content has more influence.

‘Doing it for ourselves’ is one option, but invariably technology is often coming up alongside us offering a helping hand. I came across SpinVox – a company that can take spoken words and feed them into a Voice Message Conversion System. This technology has initially been adopted to translate voicemail messages into simple text messages, but there are rumblings that the technology will be adopted elsewhere. More here.

We can also look to mass media and the technologies adopted by the BBC and the ABC. Perfect voice recognition is some way off, possibly 40 years or more, possibly? By perfect, we mean taking multiple audio channels and picking out the spoken word. For example, a travel show where the presenter is driving in a jeep through the Serengeti. There is the sound of the engine, passengers, and even the sound of a distant elephant. This confuses the voice recognition software. Having said that, organisations like the ABC have adopted speech recognition for single voice broadcasting like news bulletins, sports events and live entertainment shows. Occasionally the subtitling feed is delayed by a few seconds as someone respeaks or corrects what is being broadcast. A trick that could be employed on the web in particular podcasts where the audio is often single track or single voice.

More on 2 – Crowdsourcing …

OhNoRobot.com is designed especially for web comics. Like audio and video, there is no textual information around comic books so search engines are unable to find this creative work. The comic book writer looses their audience. To overcome this problem OhNoRobot allowed readers, as well as the comic book writers themselves to transcribe the text and make it searchable. They offer a button that says ‘help transcribe’ or ‘improve transcription’. Like the Wikipedia example cited before OhNoRobot is inviting contributions from those who have their own motivations for doing so.

OhNoRobot is one example, but perhaps a better one is TED. TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. A stage where leaders in their respective field of thought can promote their unique ideas for the future. The site maintains over 500 talks that are available through video, and new content is always being added. Producing interactive transcripts for the deaf community and also transcripts for all nationalities is a monster task for a not-for-profit organistion like TED. The costs associated to such an endeavor would be too high. In true TED style, they have not allowed cost to be an excuse for open and accessible content. TED allows for any talk to be translated by volunteers worldwide. The most active translator Anton Hikov has translated over 68 talks. Anton is not alone. There are thousands of volunteers. In the words of TED – “translators donate their time, energy and expertise to share TED Talks with the world. Their generosity and talent allow these ideas to spread”. The process is not difficult as TED provides a simple online interface to translate or review a talk. They also promote the individual behind the translation. They cite the most prolific contributors and they list translators next to each media piece. Reputation Capital is increased for the translator.

I hope to be making contact with TED over the forthcoming weeks and I also hope to learn more about the online translation tool. If this is a simple plug-in then perhaps it can be shared across other media sites including Government 2.0? I will also do some research on the big media players and the voice recognition software they have adopted. Again, hopefully open source!? Another great gift from the magic of the web.

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Article prepared in my role as New Media Coordinator at Media Access Australia.

Originally listed under Gov2, in particular ‘The Vox Pop 2.0 Learning Journey‘. The Government 2.0 Taskforce is being formed against a backdrop of increased interest by governments worldwide in the potential uses of public sector information and online engagement.

Aug 28

Alternative Business – Movember

I was fortunate last week to attend the debut event for The Hive Sydney, an initiative that concerns itself with entrepreneurs in the creative industries. I had just arrived when I was introduced to a qwerky looking character with a mustache. “Retro”, I thought. But then this bloke told me how he had established a charity that promotes blokes to grow a mustache during the month of November. “Oh yeah”, I have heard about this before I said. I bet you have too.

Luke Slattery (one of four original founders, the others being Travis Garone, Adam Garone and Justin Coghlan) then took to the stage to deliver a keynote presentation. The fun and jokes I was having with Luke were soon turned into thoughts of very serious business. Alternative, but serious.

From Movember:

“Movember is an entrepreneurial movement that raises money for prostate cancer and male depression through its participants (Mo Bros and Mo Sistas), by bringing back the ‘Mo’ to generate awareness of two life-threatening diseases which are almost taboo to talk about among most Australian males due to cultural stigma. Since its inception as a formal charity in 2004 Movember has raised over $60 million globally, significantly increased awareness of prostate cancer and depression in the community, and is continuously working to change the attitude men have about their health. The first Movember was in 2003, and the event first raised funds in 2004 when 262 registered Mo Bros raised just over $55,000. In 2006 Movember exceeded all expectations and by the end of the month, $6.63M had been raised by Mo Bros and Mo Sistas. 2006 was also the year that Movember gained international recognition … campaigns in the UK, USA, Canada, Spain and New Zealand, and in 2007 a phenomenal 130,000 Mo Bros and Mo Sistas participated worldwide. In terms of awareness, a recent survey showed that over 70% of Movember participants have become more aware of men’s health issues and have discussed those issues with family members, friends or colleagues. This kind of communication is important for promoting early detection of prostate cancer and breaking down the stigma attached to depression.”

This is no small achievement. What started over a Sunday beer with mates down the boozer rapidly grew into a $6.64m charitable business. It ticks all the right boxes of an alternative business:

It is self-sufficient.
It is not concerned with profiteering.
It has raised over $7M for charity. Charities that were previously ignored.
World-class research centres have been established where they weren’t before.
Lives have been saved through improved awareness of key health issues.
It employs teams of people around the world.
There is no production.
… And there must be countless tales of immeasurable laughter as your spouse, brother, or work colleague has groomed their mustache during the month of Movember.

This is a real alternative business and a perfect example of social innovation.

Luke’s talk was also insightful. He spoke about the importance of viral marketing and he was aware that people were keen to big up the technological aspects. Yet Luke was less concerned by the viral online network and suggested Movember’s success was spread from the age old tradition of people talking to other people. He also spoke about the pressures of being tied to a successful startup. All four directors had careers that were blooming. Each in very different disciplines – one building boats! Movember was never meant to take them away from their professional lives and when it commanded more and more attention the pressure was difficult to manage. To overcome any friction that would naturally develop between the group they all agreed to a mutually agreed set of expectations, the first being that they start as friends and they end as friends. They also listed simpler expectations like communication standards, for example, each director must respond to emails within 24 hours.

I like the modesty that came across from this presentation. Luke did not label himself with the tag of world’s greatest social innovator. He almost distanced himself from the entity that is Movember – “It was just a great idea, and we went along for the ride”.

A great story and a great starter for Alternative Business, and Movember is just around the corner!

Aug 11

Michael Collins

Michael Collins is a 26 year old resident of Oldham. Michael supports Man Utd and has dreams of becoming a teacher and one day traveling to Australia. Michael is both deaf and blind.

Up to the age of 16 Michael attended a regular school and mixed freely with his peers, engaging on regular activities and excursions. Michael was the only deaf child in the school but this did not hinder his progress. During his years at college Michael was able to learn sign language and therefore communicated regularly with a collection of new friends. It was, though, on a trip to Paris that Michael began to loose his sight - “Everything went blury. I didn’t know what was happening. I was very scared”. This was a traumatic event for Michael and were if not for his friends he would have felt very isolated. Michael discovered that he was able to communicate through sign language and touch.

Michael’s eyesight did not return and he felt himself becoming more withdrawn from the local deaf club. One close friend cited direct payments as an option for Michael and this led to dedicated support – two personal assistants for 12 hours per week. Michael’s confidence quickly returned and because of such positive results he asked to increase the hours to 18. This was accepted.

Later, Michael changed to the Individualised Budgets programe.

“I can do anything with that. I can choose. I decide where I spend the money and where I can go. The Social Worker gives me a pot of money and I keep it in a bank account which is separate from my other current account. I spend the money on PA’s that support me to do what I really want to do. My confidence is really high now”.

The flexibility of Individualised Payments allows Michael to procure close friends as personal assistants. Human contact of this type is very important to Michael’s well-being and sense of safety. Technology, he says, is no substitute to human contact. He trusts his friends. Michael also saves money by procuring his Mum to manage his finances rather than paying for a broker through Oldham In Control.

Michael is now back in control of his own life. His dreams have returned. He talks about breaking away from his parents and owning his own home. In this instance he would need more hours and support, but Michael also has ambitions to earn a teaching qualification and inspire other deaf and blind children with his story.

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The full report is now available. Please click on the link below to read the report or left-click and download.

Unpacking Service Transformation – Oldham In Control

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