[music] We gonna check on the world. What's up accelerators? Welcome to Normalize
It, the show where we speak about and explore the business of disability inclusion and
accessibility. I'm your host Cam Beaudoin. And on each episode, I'll be interviewing leaders,
professionals, and people with lived experiences, and we'll be discussing the challenges, successes,
and strategies on how to make this world a more inclusive place. As you know, many organizations
are still trying to figure out dis
ability inclusion through a trial-and-error method. That's
inefficient. Stick around till the end of the show to find out how we can fix that. So whether
you're an advocate, entrepreneur, business owner, stakeholder, VP, or just someone who's interested
in the world of disability inclusion, this show is for you. Let's dive into it. You know, I
wanna start us off here because, you know, you sit and you work so much in something I have
really changed and evolved this show to be about, and eve
n in the way I speak to people about,
which is truly about, what is the business of disability inclusion? And what is the business
of accessibility? Because a lot of people don't want to talk about-- they're afraid to talk
about it. So maybe we can just start there. What is the business of disability inclusion?
No, absolutely. And it's about understanding the commercials or-- actually, to be more precise,
it's about not being afraid to talk commercials and disability. And you've kind of stol
en my
thunder because in many ways, what we're talking about globally is an $8 trillion market. Yet we
know that, globally, less than 10% of businesses have a strategy to access this disability market.
And that's what our premise of what we do is. It's about how do you unlock this market to sell to
these 15 billion people, 17% of the population, and enable them to come and buy and sell your
products and services? And so, in many ways, I wake up most nights kind of thinking, "Am I going
to
get found out?" This is so simple. And then we trudge on every day because actually defining
how do you improve, how do you make changes to make a better customer experience, which is
the right and better of most organizations that have customers? How do you do it for this
group of people who are going to be your most loyal ever because that's what evidence say. And
actually, what I'm telling you is how you do it. Right. And what's amazing to me is that I've seen
that. When I used to work a
s more of a developer, I remember speaking to people who have some
kind of sight impairment. And they would say, "Why would I bother going to a different company
with all the barriers that possibly exist in that company's technology on their website, banking
solutions? Why would I go there when I've got a solution here that works really well for
me?" I'm not generalizing. All I'm saying is that this person's one experience was, I
don't want to get frustrated in the future. I can work with a
company now and, if they cater
to me, then I've got the solution here right now. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you talk about
banks and traditionally, you open your first bank account at 8. And you stay there for life
unless you get atrocious service. Why do you want to change? And I get called many things, Cam. I
prefer Mike, but I can be called a 17-percenter. That's one of my favorites. So I was born
with my disability. I'm one of 17% globally, that is. So 83% and of disabled people acqui
re
their disability in their lifetime. And frankly, they're used to having good service. And
just because they've become disabled, why would they not want a good service? And
so fundamentally, it's about can we deliver a good service to this broad group of these people
who are kind of labeled disabled who are actually customers that may have different impairments?
And that's the challenge of businesses. Most of the changes are mindset ones and language
ones. So it's pretty cheap to do. And
then, you access this huge market who is totally loyal
for not a lot. And I defy any business. You walk into a boardroom and you go, "Look, I found this
new market. 90% of people aren't doing anything about it. And actually, all we have to do is show
them that we care and put in some adjustments. And they'll stay with us for the rest of their lives."
Yeah. I defy anybody [inaudible] get out
of it. We're not prepared to do that. I was reading a previous interview that I think it
was yours.
And you talked about something similar to-- or if it's not you, then we can just talk
about it right now. It was this same problem. The same realization happened in I think the 60s
or [inaudible] stay-at-home moms all [laughter] of a sudden were not being advertised to on
television. And then, someone clued in and said, "Hey, wait a second. There's a whole market
here of people who are-- who have access to a television or radio and who can watch our ads and
be advertised, too, because they'
re always there." Did you talk about that as that an example?
Yeah, it was. And the stimulus was 20 years ago when advertisers decided that they were
going to use women in the adverts. And lo and behold, do you know what happened? Women went
and bought those products. And everyone was astonished. And it didn't stop there, by the way,
because what those clever businesses decided-- and it's the analogy I use with disability. And this
is why it's so important-- because good businesses reflect t
heir consumer base in their workforce.
The logic goes if you have more disabled people as customers, you then want to reflect that in your
workforce. And I remember about five years ago, six years ago standing up at at-- in a central
London at a big disability employment conference. And I stood up and I said, "The way to move the
dial on disability employment is to forget about employment initiatives, is to get businesses
to see disabled people as customers," because if you get that right a
nd disabled people
come as customers, then there will be a push because those organizations will want to reflect
in more disabled people being employed rather than pull, "Please, please, please. Can you do your
bit and can you employ disabled people?" And I worked with-- I had the brilliance of working
with McLaren, the Formula One racing team. And I was talking to the head of HR and they
said, "We absolutely employ and make it our absolute mission to employ people from all around
the worl
d because we are a global brand and that is what people will expect to see." And so,
it is common sense that if you attract more disabled people as customers, and we'll talk about
the Pope Purple Dollar, then actually, that is the trigger for employing more disabled people.
And suddenly, we're transforming the landscape, and the quality for disabled people.
Yeah. And a business don't even know it, but they're
part of making that transformation happen. Yeah, and you know what I love about tha
t
example you just gave? And here's to anyone who hears the objection from your clients, or
your leadership, about, "Oh, we don't have any disabled employees." Or, "Oh, we don't have any
disabled customers." McLaren, who, automotive, what else do they do? Do they do anything other
than automotive? Because their traditional sense, I feel that the objection we would hear is, "Why
does a car manufacturer or automotive company care?" You know? People who are blind don't drive
cars. But that's
the wrong way to go about it, right? We know that that's the wrong way to go
about this argument. Because when you can reflect, when you can sell to your client base to
make sure that they understand the value, you're not only selling towards one
type of person, you sell towards the broader range of anyone with disabilities.
You're going to get a really good employee base of people who think differently,
and act differently as well. And I love that. I love hearing stories about someone like
McLaren coming and asking you to help them out. Let me indulge myself on a Friday, and tell you
another story. When you think disability, you think the international sign for disability that's
known anywhere around the world. Canada, the UK. Yep.
That sign is the wheelchair. That's right, that's right.
And it has done magnificent things in raising awareness to the profile
of disability. But that sign in itself reflects a percent of the disabled population.
That's right. How many of my frien
ds with disabilities have said,
"That does not represent me." It doesn't.
Go on. No, it doesn't. And so the answer is, 80% of
disabled people have hidden disabilities. So, I walk into the room, within a split second,
you will know I'm disabled. 80% of disabled people will walk into a room, and don't. And
during lockdowns, I did some work with a big organization. And I won't name them, big
organization. And every Friday, their Chief Executive, and he did a virtual session to all
the staff.
And he did it on disability. He set out why disability was an important issue
to them, and what they were going to do, what they had done about it in the last six
months, and what they were going to do about it. And what it was, was off the back of an increase,
a spike, in staff having mental health issues. Wow.
They'd never experienced, and lockdown was the leveller. And COVID was the leveller. And he did
this 15 minutes, and he said, "Look, any of you brave enough to come off mute and say
anything? Or
if not, put it in the chat box." And I don't know about you, but my experience of virtual meetings
is 12 seconds of silence feels like 5 minutes. Yeah.
Anyway, we went through that 12 seconds. And someone came off mute, and said, "I've worked
in this organization for 15 years, and I never thought I would ever see the day when I came
off mute, and told the entire workforce that I've got a mental health condition. And I've kept
it from everyone for 15 years. But what that Chief E
xecutive has said today has made me disclose
to everyone that I've got a mental health issue. Wow.
And you can hear the gasps. Six seconds later, someone else come off, said, "Well,
if such-and-such is telling you that they've got an impairment, I'm telling you today that I've got
dyslexia. I've always had dyslexia, and my working strategy's to go home every night and do an extra
hour and a half in order for me to keep up. But today is the day I'm telling you, I've got
dyslexia." In seven m
inutes, that chief exec had nine more disabled people who had disclosed
that they had a disability that he didn't know at the start of the meeting. And about four
months after that, someone I know quite well posted on LinkedIn and said, "I've just got a
job as head of marketing at this company." And I wrote to him and said, "Congratulations.
Why have you gone there?" And she said, "Because I want to work for a company that
really does diversity, really does disability. I've seen the stuff c
oming out from their staff
about what they're doing and I wanted to go and put my marketing skills to an organization that
absolutely lives and breathes it. And that's why I'm going there." So actually, creating a voice,
talking about disability, talking about inclusion, talking about the commercial benefits, the
social benefits, has other knock-on benefits in terms of they then become the marketeers for
that organization, for customers, for talented individuals who may or may not have a di
sability.
So the knock-on effects for that chief executive from that one piece of work has been enormous.
Amazing. And you talk about that. I know for myself when I'm trying to procure - I don't know
- a podcasting service-- Hint, hint, everyone, this is going to become a podcast soon. Do you
know how hard it is to find a service that is fully accessed? They're out there. They are
out there. I'm not going to promote anyone yet. I haven't done my tests yet. But out of the
thousands of servic
es which offer podcasting, a handful are offering them accessibly. And
that's where my dollars are going, right? Because that makes a difference. And I think that
a lot of people who are listening are going to be spending their dollars in companies like that, as
well. So where's the reluctance here? So this CEO that you just mentioned, which is a fantastic
story, where do you find the reluctance? I have some ideas of where the reluctance is, but I want
to hear it from you. Where's the reluc
tance on either the solutions or that conversation around
disabilities? Where do you think that comes from? One is a lack of understanding. And the very
fact that people didn't understand mental health, for example. And I think lockdown and COVID just
brought that into really sharp focus. But it's interesting in the UK - and I don't know whether
it's the same in Canada - if you've got cancer or if you're fully recovered from cancer, you
have rights under disability legislation. Suddenly - a
nd it's really interesting - so about
a year ago, I went to a property conference. And if any of your listeners work in property, I'm
really sorry, but it was a really dry conference. But they had the ability to do polls and there
was 306 people in the room. And I talked about neurodiversity. I talked about epilepsy. I talked
about dyslexia. I talked about mental health. I talked about cancer. And I said, "Look, this
is what disability is. How many of you have someone who is a relative or s
omeone in your close
network who therefore has a disability?" And the last empirical research about seven years ago said
50% of people would say yes. Non-scientific, Cam, but on that day, 92% of people said that they did.
Wow. And I said to them, "You work in an organization.
Would you want your granny, your niece, your nephew, your aunt, your uncle, your brother, your
mum, your dad, who happens to have a disability, to come into your business and be treated
differently simply because they
were disabled. Absolutely.
And if the answer to that question is no, then go back into your organization and do
something about it. And I think what I'm starting to see is that the issue of disability is being
transferred, very slowly and very reluctantly in some areas, from being about health and safety and
being about risk and slowly moving into a quality and diversity and slowly moving into something
that is about marketing and communications. And I think we're on that journey. And once w
e get
there and we understand this group of people, actually, are first and foremost
customers or talented employees, then we're into a very different conversation.
Absolutely. Yeah. And I like that you brought up risk because I think that risk and regulatory
and legal and lawsuits, this all kind of revolves around this way of talking about the requirements
of accessibility. Right? And I think that that's a conversation that has to still change, right?
We're still trying to catch up with th
e whole idea of, I'm going to do this because I don't
want to get sued. And we need to move that from, no, you're risking other things as well, like a
workforce that is nondiverse workforce, right, or you're risking potential clients out there as
well. That word around risk doesn't always mean regulatory and lawsuits. We're also talking about
other risks that are less tangible, but the facts are still out there as well. I have a theory as
to also why that whole idea around why people are st
ill reluctant is we're not really being
taught the words on how to say the word disability without saying, oh, am I going to offend someone
or, oh, I don't know how to use those words, or should I say a blind person or a person
who is blind? And these are the conversations that we are helping facilitate here in large
organizations. And I know one growing up, my parents didn't have the words, no fault to them.
They just didn't know. They didn't know, neither did my teachers when going to sch
ool, neither did
any HR department. There was no, this is how we talk about race, religion, disabilities. It's
always, don't talk about it, right? That's all were ever said. Don't talk about it. So we're also
not even given the tools to be able to talk about disabilities or inclusion in some ways as well.
I absolutely agree with you. And I think we've kind of put in this bucket of vulnerable people.
And I will tell you, there have been times in my life when I have felt vulnerable, but often
I'm not, but that was seen as a risk. And just to be really current, I write LinkedIn
posts twice a week, and I was recalling last week-- given everything that's going on in the
UK at the moment, I was recalling when I was 14, the queen's mum came to our school and we had
a service of thanksgiving. I read a piece. I can't remember what it was, but I read something.
And I was told by my school that I needed to wear my artificial legs. So I am 3'10" and I've got
no arms. And I decided long,
long time ago that I was never going to have artificial arms, but I
was compelled to have artificial legs, which made me 5'6" because the taller I was, then the more
normal that I would be in the outside world. And I remember the day and I was recalling the day, and
saying to her, standing in line at the end, "Thank you, Ma'am. I've just about got away with it."
And it wasn't about whether I stumbled over words or anything. It was the fact that I'd had to on
these artificial legs walk down t
he church aisle, which was really narrow, and then cobbles. And I
was more concerned about whether I was going to stand up and stay up and not fall over than I was
stumble over my words. And I remember talking to her afterwards and she said, "How were you?" And
I said, "Oh, I'm just glad I got through it. I would prefer not to be on artificial legs." And
she looked at me and she said, "Well, look how small I am. And I've coped quite well in life."
And it was that kind of moment that I reali
zed I just needed to be my authentic me. A year later, I
just said, "No, I'm never going to wear artificial legs again. This is who I am. This is my size."
And I think in some ways, I am Mike and I am a customer. And if you meet my needs, I will buy
from you. And forever, is just the way to go. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Let's flip it around here.
I want to know, how do we start that conversation? I want to know how if I walk into a business,
and I always want to do this-- but if I'm a lead--
if I need to start that conversation
with the business about accessibility, selling to clients [inaudible]. Where's
a good place to start? Where is that? An interesting we did a webinar on this
a week ago and the disabled people say, start. Just start. And they say, well, okay, give
us one piece of advice. And I said, okay, so just think about people on the autistic spectrum or who
have got stammers. Get all your staff to learn the six-second rule. So you ask them a question as
a customer
and then you wait for six seconds. You allow that individual to process what you've
just asked them, and then think about the answer. And normally, as human beings, we don't like
silence and we jump in, and particularly people with stammers and stuff, and we try to answer
for them. 99 times out of a hundred, you get it wrong. And they get frustrated because you've
interpreted what they didn't want to say that. And you allow the six-second rule and suddenly you
get a really rich answer. And
I've learned it for the last two years. And actually, it's absolutely
enriched and transformed my conversations. So it could be as simple as getting your staff to learn
the six-second rule. To learn hello and goodbye in the appropriate sign language, which makes a huge
difference. Or it could be in this day and age, you get your website checked out because 99 times
out of a hundred, there are things that you have on your website that create barriers that don't
need to be there. And the exam
ple I use-- you talk about blind people, the example I use is
so many websites have stylistically the first line all in caps. So if it's welcome to it's
W-E-L-C-O-M-E. That can be changed in seconds. And suddenly, blind people who use screen
readers care about the website they're on. And increasingly, websites are navigated through
colors. And that's absolutely fine. As long as alongside it, you've got the words as well. So in
the UK, we've got 3 million people who are color blind. And if y
ou only navigate through colors,
they're off because actually, they don't know how to navigate. So there are simple things that
you can absolutely do. Little things that make a huge difference. And websites have a site map and
I always talk about in conferences and say, "Look, when you get home at night, plug in on your laptop
to your organization's website, and then unplug your mouse for five minutes and see how far you
can navigate. And that will give you a barometer about how accessible
you are." I've learned to do
that now at the end of the presentations because when I first started, I did it at the start.
And then what happened was that people got out of their bag, their laptops and decided to do the
no-mouse test there and then. Quite frankly, it didn't matter what I said for the next 45 minutes.
They were more interested in their website. So there are absolutely things that can be done
straight away, the impacts on a range. Enabling Flash to be taken off web pages so t
hat people
with mental health-- the pages are decluttered easier. Just things that make life easier and make
individuals who come onto your site and able to buy and have a great experience and they'll come
back and they'll come back and they'll come back. And it really is one level as simplistic as that.
Right. Yeah. And see, this is the whole conversation around-- we use the word shift left
so often. And Mike, I'm not sure if that part is ever brought into your discussions. But that whole
idea of shift left, which just means how early can we have the conversation around accessibility
and disabilities? And we tend to think that stops at the design level, right? If you think of
a general process around, there's the design phase and then the content creation phase and then
the development phase and the QA phase. Well, a lot of your-- the beginning discussions I
have is, well, let's bring it from the QA to the developers and back like that. But no, no,
no. You can bring that way
back. You can have a pleasant and wonderful user experience if you
start with the experience for all users, then you're going to have a much easier way all the
way down that line as well. That's just so huge, whenever we're building things. I want to talk
about some of the international differences as well here. I'm just looking at the notes because
now you work in the UK, where else do you help out? Are you working anywhere else in the world?
Yeah. And so we've created something called Pur
ple Tuesday, which is an initiative about
supporting businesses to improve the disabled customer experience. And in many ways, what it
does is supports organizations to have a better relationship with their potential and existing
disabled customers. We started off in the UK five years ago, and last year, we had one-- it's
about what you do 365 days a year. But we have a celebratory day, first Tuesday in November. And
last year, we got to number two worldwide on Twitter and we lit up Piccadi
lly lights and that's
the trigger, and we've involved 7,000 businesses. It's absolutely huge and this year, it's global.
And so we will light up the UK and Piccadilly lights. We've got a road trip across-- so the
state of Minnesota has become Purple Tuesday. What's going to be brilliant about that is for
your listeners who know that within Minnesota, there's Minneapolis, and within Minneapolis,
was the home of Prince and Paisley Park and would you believe it, Prince wrote a little ditty
I
think called Purple Rain and we're going to have a disabled deaf choir who is going to be outside
the gates of Prince's house doing a rendition of sign language rendition of Purple Rain. And on the
same day, we are going to light up some monuments in Pakistan which is going to be a first.
And we're talking to Pakistan because given the recent flooding, a third of the country is
underwater, and what we want to do is shine a light on the disproportionate impact of disabled
people. So forget ab
out being customers at the moment. This is about raising the profile of
disabled people in Pakistan. So we're going to light up Pakistan. We've got a procession
through the streets of Kuala Lumpur and everyone's going to be wearing purple to raise
the profile of disabled people in Malaysia and then they're going to light up buildings across
Malaysia and Singapore. And next week I'm in the Middle East to finalize plans in Dubai for Purple
Tuesday where we're hopefully going to project, in th
e night sky, the Purple Tuesday logo on the
Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the world. And you ask about differences. Next
week, I will spend the week talking about people of determination because that's the language.
If I talk to North America, it's people with disabilities. If I talk in the UK, it's disabled
people. But actually, when you get under the skin of the issues, whether you're a customer,
whether you're employee are exactly the same. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's amazin
g. Mike, we got
to close with that but this has been fantastic. I love the discussion here. Thanks so much for
being on the show today. Once again, Mike Adams from Purple and we'll see you next week. Thanks
so much for joining, everyone. Wasn't that a great episode? You probably have lots of new ideas
swirling through your head right now. Now, how are you going to go and teach that to your boss, your
team, or your clients? You need a strategy to move forward. Contact me today, hi@cambeaudoi
n.com, and
let's talk about how we can move this forward in your organization or individual practice. If you
could right now, like and subscribe to this show. It really does help to grow our reach, to get
more people involved and interested in disability inclusion and making the world a more inclusive
place. And don't forget, you can also watch this show live on LinkedIn, just find me there, it's
every Friday at noon, eastern. See you next week.
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