My customary trawl for helpful, positive video showing the accessibility of products, places, activities and services takes me round the globe via the internet. I search out items to augment those submitted by enlightened businesses, charities, community groups, government departments and individuals. Recently I found myself on the website of a business organisation I had encountered some years ago and thought of them as an essentially supportive body.
However the video I found contained a message which is undoubtedly not intended, but actually portrays a subliminal eugenic bias: it clearly depicts the idea that with the removal of disabled people both society and business are better off.
You might say, this doesn't matter because this was not the intended message. You could say the organisation is a charity and doesn't have the money for checking and amending this kind of thing in a timely fashion.
But the really creepy thing about this is that these people are seen by themselves and others as the good guys, and yes, they genuinely are. So if this is the message unconsciously being put out by the good guys, and they haven't noticed after it being online for a year, what does that say about society as a whole? From where I am this aspect feels very scary.
If you're sitting there thinking, this couldn't possibly be the organisation I belong to, please go to your website and check. Just in case. If I were a member of this organisation I would be saying "not in my name".
If you'd like to let disabled people know that you are positive about inclusion, please take a look at my website as well: showmetheaccess.co.uk and see if you would like to participate in some way or other. It's not only good for diversity, it's good for business too.
Thursday, 26 February 2015
Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Time to kiss and make up
As we are all aware, being self-employed is a notoriously isolating and exhausting option; the more so for someone with an impairment, but for many of us there is little alternative. Add to this other changing circumstances in life and the path becomes even more rocky. Not for the first time in my working life, I hit a period of not being in the right frame of mind to do my best work, and mercifully the phone stopped ringing.
I said, this has happened before. There's usually a period of rest and regrouping, then I pick myself up, dust myself down, and off I go again. But something is different this time…
A field that lies fallow can find itself invaded by all manner of wind-blown weeds of course, but if the timing is right it can throw up something as spectacular as a sea of poppies. Despite unavoidable distractions by way of injury, bureaucratic complications and responsibilities to others, I began to find a new focus presenting itself.
I don't recall precisely the moment that the idea of showmetheaccess occurred to me, but it was the result of years of experience. In researching solutions to the problems encountered by family and friends as well as myself in our attempts to do more than just survive an unfriendly environment I had inadvertently become something of an expert. When that expertise coalesced with my training as a problem solver and my family culture of skilled survival and determination it should not have been too surprising to find something creative emerging from hard times.
Two ways of working have been significant in this process: firstly the KISS principle – "Keep It Simple Stupid", associated with engineer Kelly Johnson. It is worth seeking out his 14 Rules of Management, the flesh on the bones behind this fundamental maxim - and worth learning from the 15th one too.
The second approach consists of simply allowing the thing to be itself, and giving it room for movement to become what it will, something which I absorbed many years ago from reading about Carl Jung's work; involving the unconscious, the dreamer in me, and allowing those elements to come into play as well. This is not to abandon the project to some random fate - far from it. It is more a process of constantly keeping watch and observing how the thing wants to develop. Analogous to the way a sailor takes note of the wind and tide and steers the course accordingly, some enterprises benefit from this way of working rather than being constrained in a standard framework, business plan et al.
In the best possible sense, I am making it up as I go along.
I said, this has happened before. There's usually a period of rest and regrouping, then I pick myself up, dust myself down, and off I go again. But something is different this time…
A field that lies fallow can find itself invaded by all manner of wind-blown weeds of course, but if the timing is right it can throw up something as spectacular as a sea of poppies. Despite unavoidable distractions by way of injury, bureaucratic complications and responsibilities to others, I began to find a new focus presenting itself.
I don't recall precisely the moment that the idea of showmetheaccess occurred to me, but it was the result of years of experience. In researching solutions to the problems encountered by family and friends as well as myself in our attempts to do more than just survive an unfriendly environment I had inadvertently become something of an expert. When that expertise coalesced with my training as a problem solver and my family culture of skilled survival and determination it should not have been too surprising to find something creative emerging from hard times.
Two ways of working have been significant in this process: firstly the KISS principle – "Keep It Simple Stupid", associated with engineer Kelly Johnson. It is worth seeking out his 14 Rules of Management, the flesh on the bones behind this fundamental maxim - and worth learning from the 15th one too.
The second approach consists of simply allowing the thing to be itself, and giving it room for movement to become what it will, something which I absorbed many years ago from reading about Carl Jung's work; involving the unconscious, the dreamer in me, and allowing those elements to come into play as well. This is not to abandon the project to some random fate - far from it. It is more a process of constantly keeping watch and observing how the thing wants to develop. Analogous to the way a sailor takes note of the wind and tide and steers the course accordingly, some enterprises benefit from this way of working rather than being constrained in a standard framework, business plan et al.
In the best possible sense, I am making it up as I go along.
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