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Time to bid a not so fond adieu to 2009. I don’t think I’ve spoken to a single person who wants to see more of this year. In my twisted view of the world, the pessimist declares, “It can’t get any worse.” The optimist replies, “sure it can!” Even the most upbeat, positive-minded people I know all seem to agree that 2009 cannot be over soon enough.

I am inclined to think that for me, 2009 could not have been worse, so does it make me an optimist or a pessimist to surmise that 2010 could only be better?

For some, “better” is an utterly subjective notion, maybe even a myth.

Still, you might be able to turn that around for someone else, if not for yourself. How many times have you thought “I wish there was something I could do to help…” but did nothing? Perhaps you know of someone in your own circle of friends, family, or neighborhood who needs financial help, but you have been reluctant to step forward. There may be many reasons for your hesitancy. Maybe you don’t want someone you know to feel indebted to you. Maybe you want to help a friend, but don’t want money issues to come between you. Maybe you feel that you cannot give very much, and you would be too embarrassed to offer what you consider to be a pittance. Or, maybe you feel that giving money is a crass way to offer help but cannot think of any other way to contribute. Your reasons are your own, but here is a way to get over your pathos and do the right thing.

One of my favorite charities is a group that enables you to give anonymously to someone you know (or not), yet still reap the reward of their gratitude. When they receive your gift, they leave a recorded message, a message of thanks, letting you know about how your gift benefited them, without ever knowing who you are. You get the warm fuzzy of hearing their thank you without any of the discomfort. It won’t matter how much you give, in what form, the nature of the relationship, the potential backlash from other people, guilt, embarrassment or any other negative karma.

The organization is called Giving Anon at:

givinganon.org/.

Go there now, and make someone’s 2010 a vast improvement over 2009. if anonymous giving is the greatest form of philanthropy, then talk about getting the most bang for your buck.

If you cannot bring yourself to feel optimistic about the future, give someone else a chance. What have you got to lose? After all, it can’t get any worse.

Happy new year…
LL

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For many, the holiday season can be a difficult time under the best of circumstances. Stress, brought on by increased demands on your time, errands to run, packages to mail and a long list of loved ones you hope to make happy, can rob you of your feelings of peace and harmony. It’s easy to forget yourself, feel run down, catch that seasonal bug and feel frustrated that you cannot seem to get on top of your tasks. Then, melancholy can set in. Remembering those who should be with you but who are not, family traditions broken by distance or divorce can leave you feeling an inexplicable sense of emptiness or loss. While the holidays are billed as the “most wonderful time of the year,” you might find yourself asking, “What’s so wonderful about it?”

First, know that you are not alone. If you look around, you’ll find company in many others who try to paste on a smile, grit their teeth and just hope to get through it. If you look even closer, you’ll find that a large group of individuals who share your feelings are seniors and people with disabilities.

Loneliness, borne out of isolation, can keep even the most optimistic among us from feeling as though we are connected to events and other people. It’s hard to enjoy the holidays when we feel as though we have no one to enjoy them with. Celebrating the holidays exclusively FOR the benefit of children, or solely to fulfill the expectations of others can be draining. We all need to feel a sense of belonging, to have people in our lives with whom we feel connected and by whom we are acknowledged. People with disabilities and the elderly are often marginalized in our culture, if not forgotten altogether. Here are just a few ways you can bring some of the delights of the season to someone who is alone and isolated. In doing so, you may discover that your own spirits lift; the gift you receive when you give of yourself.

Take a senior for a spin. Bring a blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, some snacks, a few holiday CD’s and pile into the car. Go out for a while touring your community’s holiday light displays. This will get that senior out of the house without subjecting them to any strenuous walking or uncomfortable visiting.

Savor the sounds of the season. Whether you sing along or simply sit, bring a senior to a holiday concert. Programs performed by children may be especially charming for an older person, although they may prefer music performed by a church choir or favorite musical group.

Bring the holiday home. Help a senior to decorate their home, even if it’s just to place a tabletop tree near the television or on a side table so that it’s easily seen. If an older person is too intimidated to work a stereo or CD player, or doesn’t own one, bring yours over for an evening of hot cider and sweet treats and music. Or, find their radio, set it to one of those radio stations that play only holiday music all season, and mark the ‘on” button so a senior with failing eyesight can find it.

Take them in shopping. Not OUT shopping, IN shopping. If a senior or person with a disability cannot go out to shop, or they just don’t have the stamina to fight the crowds, bring over your laptop or phone and help them shop online. Even if they cannot give gifts to their entire family, you can help them to purchase a gift basket or gourmet food item for a family gathering. This way, they will know that they have made a contribution that will be appreciated and enjoyed by everyone.

Party hearty. Well, within reason. Find out if a local senior center is hosting a holiday lunch or gift exchange, and bring a lonely senior to spend the afternoon among peers. The festive atmosphere can help them to connect with others, make friends and could even motivate them to get out a little more.

Strengthen spirit. Some municipalities do not offer public transportation services on weekends. Offer to take a home-bound friend or neighbor to their spiritual services of choice. Many religious organizations provide special events, meals and programs just for their elderly parishioners.

These are just a few tips to get you started. Keep in mind that for seniors living in a facility such as assisted living or a group home, the reason they are there may be because close relatives are unavailable. If a senior is in a nursing home for the first time, the unfamiliar surroundings may contribute to increased feelings of loneliness or homesickness. Perhaps they have lost siblings, friends of their own, or they have recently lost their spouse. Even if a senior is living at home alone, those first holidays can be extremely difficult. Consider how you can help a person who is disabled or elderly to connect with a shared event like a holiday. By reaching out, you can inspire in others a renewed interest in life and an increased desire to be a part of it. Bring home for a senior the sights, sounds and sentiments of the season and you’ll be giving a gift to yourself, too.

LL

Copyright 2009 by Laura Legendary.

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The newest version of Mobile Speak Smartphone is set to be released either near the end of this year, or early 2010. According to the Code Factory newsletter, Mobile Speak 4 will feature a few very interesting upgrades.

One of these upgrades is the intriguing new cross-platform capability. You will be able to switch between Windows Mobile and Symbian-based devices for free. The new Mobile Speak will also support touch, and will include three voices that can be assigned to different applications or messages. There will also be new keyboard commands as well as new privacy and battery preserving features. Additionally, Code Factory claims that the new Mobile Speak 4 is ‘ready for the next generation,” but they do not spell out what that actually means.

Code Factory has a channel on Youtube, find it here:

www.youtube.com/user/CodeFactoryVideos

Code Factory, at www.codefactory.es is based in Barcelona, Spain. They are the leading providers of screen readers and screen magnification and Braille interfaces for the widest variety of mainstream mobile devices.

I have been using Mobile Speak with a Motorola Q phone. I have also downloaded a number of apps which are also accessible, such as Phat Notes, Sprite Backup and text editing software. Mobile Speak also supports Pocket PC and PDA devices. Combined with my phone’s qwerty keyboard, my mobile experience is totally barrier-free. I look forward to the new Mobile Speak 4, and of course hope it is also bug-free. I’ll let you know.

LL

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Among the top-ranked tools available to entrepreneurs today is a virtual phone solution you should check out. Grasshopper.com has been listed repeatedly on the myriad “Top 10” tech and social media blogs which are so pervasive now. Everyone is looking for that perfect phone app or blog plug-in or social networking productivity tool, and I’ve found several I’ve mentioned here.

The latest, Grasshopper.com, is an inexpensive feature-rich virtual phone service that can provide you with either local or toll-free phone numbers that do just about everything but feed your dog. I’m betting someone is working on that, though. Picture it: A phone app that enables you to phone home and toggle on your lights, small appliances or your automatic dog feeder. It’s coming, I just know it.

I digress.

there is nothing you could possibly want to do with a phone system that cannot be done using Grasshopper. Grasshopper features include faxing, forwarding and phone numbers that you can take anywhere. You can accept phone calls, direct calls straight to voicemail, or have messages delivered to your email inbox. if you really need to be reachable, there’s no place to hide with Grasshopper.

The nice people who work there asked me to compose a guest post for their blog. Since the site happens to be screen reader accessible, they spotted me tweeting about that and asked for a small contribution to their Grasslands blog. Read it here:

grasshopper.com/blog/company/2009/11/18/an-unlikely-entrepreneur/

When you’re done reading, tweet at me just to say hi, then check out Grasshopper phone service.

LL

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Hardly. However, that heading might catch the interest of someone trolling through Google three days from now. In any case, The Virtual Entrepreneur Magazine has published their latest issue, available here:

www.tvemagazine.com/this-issue.html

Edited by Andrea Jackson of Action Jackson Virtual Assistants, the magazine is packed with articles and tips on every aspect of business as a VA. One of the many tasks performed by a VA is to promote their clients. To that end, the cover story in this month’s issue features yours truly in a piece entitled, “A Virtual Hero.”

Embarrassing an overstatement as that may be, check out the magazine and then write to Andrea and tell her how talented she is, then hire her for all of your administrative, marketing and web support needs. Wondering why you would need a VA? Read my most popular article entitled, “Top 7 Reasons to Hire a Virtual Assistant.” Find it here:

eloquentinsights.com/virtualassistant.html

LL

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‘If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” -J. F. Clarke

I’m hardly the first person to make this observation, but among the plethora of possibilities presented by the Internet is the opportunity to be unkind without consequence. The anonymity afforded by our screen names and questionable profiles (“fauxfiles”?) gives us the hit and run capability that emboldens the cowards among us.

As an educator and speaking professional for over ten years, one of the so-called “rules” of public speaking is a rule to which I closely adhere. It applies too other aspects of life as well, and I have often found it extremely useful to utilize tenets of other industries in my own. For example, there are principles of in-person networking that can be applied to social media networking. There are principles of real estate investing that can be applied to education. Innumerable coaching and sports analogies can be applied to just about anything.

this philosophy in particular, an admonishment to speakers to “know their audience,” is applicable to marketing.

when I speak to groups about disability awareness, I am quickly reminded that my audience is not stocked with attendees who see things my way. My job isn’t to point my finger at them and say, ‘Be nicer to people who are disabled because it’s the right thing to do.” If the “right thing to do” were sufficient a reason to do anything,we would not have crime. So, my job isn’t to spank my attendees in an effort to shame them into behaving a certain way. Rather, I see my role as more like that of a cultural anthropologist, excavating motives, interpreting the data, seeking to understand how the pieces fit together and how best to improve upon our interactions with one another.

To do this, I must know my audience. Speaking to a roomful of disability rights advocates does not achieve my purpose. Presumably, they already “get it.” Nor is my audience a roomful of individuals with disabilities. They are living the experience about which I speak, they are the proverbial “choir” to whom I would be ‘preaching.”

the same is true in marketing. the goal isn’t to create a market for a product that doesn’t exist, the goal is to identify an existing market and help them meet a need.

The point is, the Insights web destinations are not for the tech-savvy, html-markup sophisticates who are experts in web site accessibility platforms and protocols. My target market are the individuals who are struggling to find practical information about how to cope with their parents who are disabled, or those who are seeking ways to manage their own disability. they would be unlikely to troll the many jargon-intensive, informational tech blogs. they are unlikely to grasp the finer points of- Using tables for structure, layout and design rather than separating style from content using semantic markup ie css and (x)html. If you understood that sentence, my offerings may not be for you. I know my audience. For those who seek to further their own interests at the expense of others, however, this is a matter of no importance. They would simply prefer to humiliate. It’s faster.

Let’s back up and punt, shall we? the bigger picture is that if we do not possess dignity ourselves, we cannot give it to others. Criticism, flaming, ridiculing only weakens our message. Instead, examine the good works of people who take chances every day in guiding others through the minefield of differing viewpoints. the landscape is fraught with bias and resentment and past pain, which only serves to cloud our judgment and permit us to be hurtful. We humans have a long road ahead of us as life becomes more difficult, seems more savage, faster paced. If we allow ourselves to suffer the indignity of the pettiness of those who would silence us, we have no voice to lend to those who have no voice of their own.

It is a profound commentary on just how marginalized professionals with disabilities must feel that for some, it seems necessary to betray or belittle each other, despite our shared goals, our shared drive to improve the lives of others. For those of you who are advocates for people with disabilities, teachers of awareness, accessibility, crafters of assistive technologies and who actively seek to promote our abilities, thank you. If your efforts seem only to garner you scorn, ridicule, humiliation or sabotage, keep up the good work. You must be doing something right.

LL

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In stark contrast to the customer service oriented, enlightened and inclusive attitude demonstrated by the Nutshell Mail staff as described in a previous post, I had quite a different experience with another company. Recently, I had a need to make some inquiries about creating and hosting audio products, so I went to a popular audio site that claims to offer “audio for everyone!’

Apparently, as I soon discovered, not quite everyone.

When I encountered some difficulty in navigating the site, I searched for a phone number to call for assistance in setting up my account. The sales rep who answered the phone informed me that he could not create an account via phone. The web site was the only way. I asked him if he might make an exception, considering that I am visually impaired and using a screen reader that seems to be having some trouble with the registration form.

the sales rep told me no, I must register for the service using the online form. Concerned, I explained that I could not access the registration form, and if the registration form wasn’t accessible, then the actual service might not be, either. this comment was met by dead silence.

So, I just came right out and asked, “Is your service accessible for users who are blind?”

After another few seconds of silence, the sales rep asked, “What does ‘accessible’ mean?”

Incredulous, I really had to check myself. while I find it hard to believe that in this age of technology, anyone who works for an Internet audio production and hosting service wouldn’t know what ‘accessible” means, every day proves to be a new revelation into our culture’s pervasive ignorance about people who have disabilities.
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Trying another tactic, I said, “Does your service work with a screen reader?” Silence. I went on, hesitantly,. “A screen reader is a program that reads text aloud for users who are blind.” Silence.

Finally, he responded. “I really couldn’t tell you. You’ll just have to try it and see.” I asked, hopefully, “Well, do you happen to know if you have any customers who are blind?”” I figured if the answer was yes, there was a strong likelihood that they used a screen reader like my own, and that would answer my questions.

“I really wouldn’t know. All I can say is to try it and see. that’s why we have the free trial period.”

that, I thought regretfully, was the end of that. There was no offer to consult with the tech support person, no attempt to connect with another staff member who might know, not even an offer to find out and give me a call back. Just a complete blow-off.

Now, I will grant you that a ‘free trial period” offered by a company is their way of mitigating returns and dissatisfied customers. However, I often say that attitudinal barriers can be as formidable as physical barriers. what this sales representative, and the company he represents, clearly fails to understand is that the investment of time and frustration required to make a simple determination as to whether or not a service is accessible can be a prohibitive one. A two minute conversation with a more knowledgeable staff member could alleviate this fruitless investment. Instead, I was dismissed, and left with a white-hot hate for this company and it’s product. this sort of uncaring attitude costs businesses in both dollars and goodwill.

In my opinion, this is not an accommodation issue, it is a customer service issue. there is absolutely no excuse for the sales rep’s deplorable attitude. As I am prone to do, however, I vote with my wallet. I’ll simply take my business elsewhere.

LL

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If you are among those who use Nutshell Mail for aggregating all of your social media and email account information, you will be pleased to know that a new version will be released soon. According to Mark, who is with Nutshell Mail support and with whom I’ve exchanged email, the new release will be out sometime in the next two weeks..

When I first heard about the new version, I was concerned enough to write to Nutshell Mail, explaining that I specifically chose the service because it was accessible, and encouraged them not to abandon their users who are blind or visually impaired. Mark admitted that while they may not have specifically set out to achieve accessibility, he was pleased that the service worked well for me, and then invited me to participate in the early beta test group, so that I could provide feedback as to how well the new version functioned with my accessibility software.

Once again, I found myself so pleased that a company would not only care about the issue, but would actually invite my participation and feedback. The willingness to make adjustments so that the Nutshell Mail product can be used by everyone is such a statement about the company’s commitment to customer service.

Mark assured me that if for some reason the new version of Nutshell mail was not a comfortable switch for any user, they could revert to the “classic” version of the service. However, he pointed out that the “whole new Nutshell Mail would give users a much more robust way to message back into Facebook and Twitter.”

So, look forward to the new release soon, and my own updates as to how the new interface works with Jaws and Zoomtext.

Nutshell Mail is another example of my belief that good customer service is an equal opportunity opportunity.

LL

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Being a perfectionist is a nightmare. Seriously. It is not a flattering quality, it is not a characteristic of which I am proud, and it is a trait I have sought to moderate my entire life. If acknowledging the problem is the first step, then simply by virtue of the fact that I’ve acknowledged there is a problem means there is an inherent flaw in my perfectionism that makes for a maddening ‘catch 22.” I’m forever trying to improve upon that which should not be improved. Clearly, I’m insane.

Sure, there is nothing wrong with striving for perfection, as long as you can accept that perfection isn’t possible. I’d like to think that in the failure to achieve perfection, I can arrive at excellence instead.

The way this plays out for me in real life is that I have trouble letting go of things. One of them is my writing. If it is true that writing is ninety-five percent rewriting, then I guess that makes me a bona fide writer. I rewrite endlessly, sculpting each sentence, each paragraph, to the point that I can no longer see any of it, so I have to put it away. I recently read a quote that said something like, “To be a great artist you have to be willing to forget about being a great artist,” or something like that.

The point of this is to say that I have struggled over the first issue of the newsletter to the detriment of my subscribers, and it’s time to send it out. For heaven’s sake, who died and made me newsletter queen? Just send it out, flaws and all. Geez. I’m not going to win a Pulitzer.

So, if you are interested in some tips and tools to help you support a friend or loved one who is elderly, disabled or who endeavors to be a more competent care giver, sign up for the free Bits of Insight newsletter, or send a gift subscription to someone you know.

Subscribe at www.inhomeinsights.comm.

I’ll just take a deep breath and think of it as a growing, evolving work in progress. I look forward to your contribution and feedback. By making the publication a collaborative effort, we will create a broader appeal and gain a broader reach.

Ready or not, here it goes…

LL

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I’ll say this for Twitter: If nothing else, it’s a great place to collect quotes, if you love quotes. there seems to be a significant number of tweeple out there who use Twitter solely to tweet and retweet quotes. Since I have always loved language, the rhythm and musicality of words, I can’t resist a good quote. In some cases, though, I really enjoy the ones that just make me laugh. It requires a finely honed wit to be both humorous and economical. Not long ago I heard a famous funnyman say he would work for an hour to reduce a laugh line from twelve words to eight. That’s true wit.

Here are just a few quotes I’ve run across recently: :

When a man won’t listen to his conscience, it’s usually because he doesn’t want advice from a total stranger. ~ Lindsey Stewart

Arrogance not only prevents you from seeing the big
picture, it makes you think your view is the big picture. ~Sherrin Ross Ingram

“What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from
the unfit, to do the unnecessary.” Richard Harkness

“Dogs like to ride in your car, in case the need arises for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.” Barry

What are your favorite funny quotes? Send them my way.

LL

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