[nabs-l] Global Accessibility Awareness Day is Wednesday, Preach Beyond the Choir, Don't Shrug off that Inaccessible Coffee Maker, #gaad

[Mika Pyyhkala]

Web: http://bit.ly/gaad2012
Twitter Hashtag: #gaad
Facebook: http://facebook.com/GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay
Get Automated Background by Email: gaadpromo at gmail.com

Greetings,

I wanted to write and make sure that #gaad was on your radar.  I had
heard of the event before at CSUN 12, but I only really got engaged
and excited about the event on Sunday night, yesterday!

Global Accessibility Awareness Day will feature real world and virtual
events on Wednesday May 9th.

What makes #gaad different?

In many if not all accessibility or disability events, we are largely
preaching to the choir.  In other words, at a major trade show like
CSUN, your talking to people who largely on some level already know
about and perhaps believe in accessibility or universal design.  After
all, they had to spend time and resources to attend an event like CSUN
or an NFB convention.

With #gaad we are trying to reach people, eg most people, who don't
know much if anything about accessibility, or how or if a blind person
can use a computer or moble device.  Global Accessibility Awareness
Day is flexible in that there are a number of ways you can
participate:

I'm going to give you a list here in how I have and plan so far to
participate.  You can do the same things, or come up with your own
ideas once you read the list:

Facebook: Like it and post about it
On Facebook I liked the page
http://facebook.com/GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay
by the way its also available on the mobile site
http://m.facebook.com/GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay
I have already posted on my time line about it.  It would also be good
to refer to the page on the profile of a company or organization that
either needs to do more about accessibility, or where you want to say
job well done.  You can now use the at sign @ with the main Facebook
site to link to people and organizations, tag, similar to Twitter.
Takeaway: If blind people don't speak up ourselves in social media,
who will speak up for us?

Twitter: Tweet about and to people and organizations with the
#gaad
hashtag.  I have tweeted to several brands as well as product managers
with in brands asking them to incorporate #gaad in to their teams
activitys on Wednesday.  There are also some organizations where I
needed to check on the status of an accessibility related support
request, so I tweeted those organizations to check and also referred
to
#gaad
as well as the web site shortcut which is easy to remember
http://bit.ly/gaad2012
I just heard back from the vp of engineering @nestmatt at Nest Labs,
maker of the Nest thermostat which you can control with your iPhone,
that he would check out #gaad I also mentioned that Victor from Yahoo
@vick08 was a nearby local resource to the Nest corporate office.
BTW, Victor will be speaking at a Los Angeles based #gaad event at
Yahoo.
Takeaway: If your not on Twitter please join as it is a way for us to
collectively influence organizations, and if your already on twitter
tweet with #gaad over the next few days, and support NFB members and
initiatives via Twitter going in to the future.  Twitter is so much
easier than some of the communication tools we had to use in the past,
and facilitates a 1 to many conversation.  How can you beat that?

Email: I've sent a customnized email to several organizations,
including product managers and disability policy evangelists at
several of the airlines, encouraging them to Preach Beyond the choir
in their organizations and incorporate #gaad in their day on
Wednesday.  I've listed specific accessibility challenges and
accomplishments that are specific to and customized  for each airlines
own accessibility situation.  A similar approach could be taken with
any product or service category.
Takeaway: You can use email, but don't just blast out generic
forwards.  Customize and personalize parts of the message and the ask
for the recipient and their respective organization.  Make sure the
person knows you thought about this, and didn't just spend 2 seconds
pressing the forward button.  #gaad also has a neat autoresponder set
up if you email
gaadpromo at gmail.com
you'll get an automated message about the event.  I usually include
this information at the bottom of my customized emails.  It may help
to tell people to email that address in some cases especially in
person or over the phone.

Attend an Event: The #gaad web page has details about in person events
around the world, as well as web events:
http://bit.ly/gaad2012
My understanding is that events may be added over the next 24 hours as
well.  Tweet, post on Facebook, etc. about attending the event or any
accessibility stories you have in the course of attending.  Again,
these could be accessibility triumphs or failures.  The
http://audioboo.fm
service and associated app is excellent for recording from the field,
and may be easier than typing posts longer than a tweet from a mobile
device.  You can link your Audioboo account with Facebook and Twitter
and post with the, you guessed it, #gaad hashtag.  #gaad is also
looking for people to post what it was like to learn about or use
accessibility for the first time.
Takeaway: Events will be both fun and informative & reading the #gaad
day in the life stories will be interesting.

I also just learned that one of our members bought an inaccessible
coffee maker with touch screen only controls, so once I find the
companys social media and executive contacts, I will incorporate #gaad
in to the question about the inaccessible appliance.  Especially with
large companys, its often best to find both key executive decision
makers in addition to  front line gatekeepers who often just want to
and can only briefly and politely thank you for your suggestion.  You
can find information about executives at companys through google,
investor information, investor conference calls, linkedin, media
contacts, as well as college alumni forums.

You can also meet company executives if you attend product launches, etc.

But don't just shrug off that inaccessible coffee maker, literally or
figuratively.  If you shrug it off, how will things like new coffee
makers ever become accessible?  If the blind do not pressure industry
to make current and future coffee makers accessible, who will do that
for us?

Best,
Mika Pyyhkala
@pyyhkala