30 OCT 2020 · DJ Ability: Welcome to Ability Anyware Radio, a disability advocacy podcast with transcripts for Deaf viewers. This is DJ Ability Happy National Disability Employment Awareness Month, also noted by the hashtag #NDEAM! We are proud to support the kickoff of Uniquely Able for Entrepreneurship Salon (UAFES), a series of accessible, online community conversations about changing the concept of what it means to have a disability! It is the brainchild of Mellissa Green, an author, Digital Accessibility Consultant, and founder of A Blue Green Galaxy & the Uniquely Able brand. Mellissa, the event's keynote speaker will be joined by Beth Barany, Creativity Coach for Genre Novelists/Writing Coach, supporting artists with disabilities, Along with Queen, Playwright & Director of Inclusive Theatre. Mellissa and her talented guests/disability inclusion advocates will be reviving and redefining the notion of a salon to make it more accessible and inclusive in today's climate! We are uniquely abled! Episodes opens with sound of blow dryer roaring with noise on high power setting. Mellissa (yelling): What are you doing over there?! DJ Ability Turns blow dyer off to hear what Mellissa says. Whaa..Whaa...What? (stutters). I'm sorry I didn't hear what you said. I was just getting ready for the salon. We were getting ready to meet at the salon. Mellissa: We are! But, it's not that kind of salon! DJ Ability: Oh, it's not? Mellissa laughs, Nooo DJ Ability: I got my 1,875 watt ionic dryer going here. I got my clippers. Let's see how these are...(sound of clippers opening and closing, swooshing noise). Mellissa: I hate to tell you, but it's not that kind of salon. DJ Ability: Oh okay. Well what kind of salon is this? Mellissa: It's a salon for individuals who are interested in becoming entrepreneurs and who are uniquely abled. DJ Ability: Oh okay, okay. So this is this in October (laughs with delight). That's just in time for National Disability Employment Awareness Month! That's perfect! Mellissa: Historically, salons were for community conversations. And they were the meeting, gathering place. Women and men would sit and gather and talk. So the original meeting is making a comeback. DJ Ability: Oh ok, so it's a revival! I like it. I like it. Well, I'm really excited and looking forward to this. I'll go ahead and put this stuff away. It's a different kind of a salon. Uniquely Abled for Entrepreneurship Salon. Okay, great! I look forward to participating. Okay. See you soon. Okay. Mellissa: Ok bye, later. DJ Ability & Mellissa (say bye in unison): Bye. Mellissa: Hi guys and gals, This is the first of the Uniquely Abled Salon gathering series. So I wanted to chat with you guys about creating this event and accessible path for entrepreneurship. A few years ago, I started going on to different websites for different ways and I would find out that many of them were accessible, like Audible. And then there were lots of websites that were not accessible. I would contact the different companies to let them know that their websites were not accessible and to see if they had accessible team. And they would either say that they didn't have an accessibility team...Then they would say that if they had to make it accessible for me then they would have to make the website accessible for other everybody else. I hadn't been charging for consulting services or anything. But recently, I began charging for consulting for different. So then I would contact the companies on the websites I would go to. They would say that we'll get back to you and give the information. Or will give the information to our product. Or we'll update you when we decide to include those features. And I'm still waiting. Clock begins ticking in the background. So I realized that I do have a message to bring to the world. And I also realized that people with disabilities may or may not be able to access certain things. So it's not just website, but things like textbooks. In college, high school, and...middle school too...a lot of times I would get part of a textbook or not get the rest of it, or I might not get a textbook at all in accessible format! Or like when I was at one college, they were helpful as they did have an access department. So I did have notetakers. In fact, one of the notetakers that I had, we still talk. Then I went to another college...a lot of times...they wouldn't have my tests ready. So a lot of times, I would have to go home. In some cases, the teachers would take me outside the room and read the test and things like that. So I realized that we as people with disabilities, definitely need access to materials. The other thing I realized when I started talking with digital accessibility consultants (DACs) on Twitter. I also discovered that accessibility for a lot of companies. They are not aware that it needs to be done. They don't have anyone on staff who needs accommodations. They don't think about it until you bring it to their attention. They don't stop and say let's re-do everything. Let's shut the website down and re-do it and different things. So, when I was talking to people on Twitter, one of DACs asked what my Unique Selling Proposition (USP) was. I mentioned to her that my USP is that I have life experience of encountering inaccessibility. So that makes my services unique. A lot of DACs don't have that life experience. As she pointed out, we definitely need more of those that have the life experience. Everybody needs access to materials. But the people with disabilities are at a disadvantage as far as lot of different websites. Many websites are still inaccessible. People are now being made more aware. Many websites are still not accessible. When you mention it to them, they feel like it's a lot work. One company I contacted years ago, they were able to go into the back end of website and made the suggested changes submit to me to see how accessible it was and made some of the suggested changes. But, there needs to be more accessibility and accessible content. This is definitely the skills economy. And a lot of DACs who have the life experience definitely have the skills to make the websites more accessible. Because they know what things will make the websites more accessible. They may still have to use different testing tools. They have some ideas and can give you some suggestions to make the different websites and content accessible. As far as creating an accessible path, that's kind of the beginning as far as me looking into partnering opportunities, getting my name out there, and planning this event. Another thing, when I was little, I wanted to create this invention called a Braille pencil. Now of course, I took too long, they've already got similar devices. I definitely want to revive and revise that idea and look into seeing how it could still be used and make things more accessible. I once had a teacher who tell me that they think if they just put things in Braille or audio, then they don't need to do anything else to make things accessible. That's not necessarily true. Because the content has to be accessible for all disabilities. It could be in Braille and audio, but what if person is Deaf who visits your website, they cannot hear audio. They are not blind. So they can't read Braille and different things. So, I definitely wanting to reach a wider audience, not just people with disabilities, but people looking to work with them on some level...to make digital accessibility more widespread and commonplace as wheelchairs, wheelchair lifts, and elevators. Hello Everyone, My name is Beth Barany. And I am a novelist and writing teacher. I specialize in helping people write genre fiction, popular fiction, Rip, Roar and Reads. I help them write, edit, publish and market. I teach online and online and in-person through my self-paced classes, through books, through programs that help people gain mastery and through free products and articles and the like. I was asked what are the barriers that I encountered in my professional journey? One of the barriers in being self-employed. Is that I really had to learn an lot of the skills that go into running a business. I was good at some things like Coming up with ideas, basic marketing. I was good at customer service, and delivery of service, as a teacher. One of things that I wasn't good at that I had to learn was sales and also more ways to market. I also had to bring systems into my business. And I would see one of the biggest barriers overall, not just my professional life, but my adult life, is learning how to ask for help. In terms of tips: The third question is: What tips would you give entrepreneurs with disabilities? I would say the first one is know your limits. My disability is that I was born without all my fingers. So whenever I'm doing anything manual. I'm usually doing some type of physical compensation. I'm doing it automatically. I was born this way. I don't even think about it. I have physical limit to the amount of work I can do in one day. And I have tendency to push, work really hard. I have experienced physical burnout using because I was working with equipment, physical mouse that didn't work for me. I would say know your limits. Get the right equipment that suits your body. And get the kind of support that you need. There was a time when I was healing from repetitive stress injury that I got to move into voice activated technology for writing. I actually still use a lot of free voice activated technologies to dictate my work. And I just need to be aware of my limits. That doesn't mean I think small. I continue to think big and continue to have ambitious projects. I would say, yeah, know your limits. Get right tools and technology. Download entire transcript from following temporary link https://we.tl/t-csgaqycWYc or email info@abilityanyware.com to request a copy.