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Nonprofit Radio for May 10, 2021: Online Meetings For All & Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

My Guests:

Cindy Leonard & John Kenyon: Online Meetings For All

Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21NTC coverage, with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive. They’re with Cindy Leonard Consulting and he’s with John Kenyon Consulting.

 

 

 

 

Martin Cacace: Online Accessibility Beyond Meetings

We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low-hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Cacace at Bound State Software and this is also from 21NTC.

 

 

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[00:02:05.94] spk_1:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio Big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer with a vascular necrosis if you killed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Online meetings for all. Cindy Leonard and John Kenyon continue our 21 NTC coverage with strategies and tips to make your virtual meetings accessible and inclusive there with Cindy Leonard consulting and he’s with john Kenyon consulting, both happily named and online accessibility. Beyond meetings. We identify potential issues, help you prioritize what to fix and pick out the low hanging fruit. My guest is Martin Kosei at bound state software and this is also from 21 NTCC on tony state too. It’s vacation planning time. We’re sponsored by turn to communications. Pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o Here is online meetings for all. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc, you know what that is. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference conferences virtual this year Were sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C O. My guests now are Cindy Leonard and john Kenyon. Cindy is Ceo at Cindy Leonard consulting and john is principal at john Kenyon consulting. They both have aptly named companies. Welcome Welcome Cindy welcome john

[00:02:09.64] spk_2:
thank you. Thanks Tony, it’s great to be here. Thanks for having us.

[00:02:54.34] spk_1:
Pleasure to have each of you. Your session is intentional. Facilitation choices, creating online meetings for all to enjoy. I put the emphasis on all, but I think we’ll, we’ll explore, explore why we want to do that. So Uh, Cindy, let’s start with you. What, what obviously is very timely but, and, and online meetings we expect to continue right. I mean these are not going to die once the once 90 of the folks or you’ve either been vaccinated or had the coronavirus or whatever. Online meetings are not going away. What just generally, what could we be doing better? It seems like it seems like a lot of mediocrity.

[00:04:01.54] spk_2:
A lot of mediocrity. That’s an interesting. That’s an interesting way to put it. Yeah. So the part of this session, the idea was that, you know, now that everybody has been doing zoom and online meetings for about a year now, you know, we’ve all gotten used to the technological parts. Um, we felt like it was time to do a session that goes beyond that somebody at the Ntc, I forget the breakout session. Um, but they said that technology is a mirror. So when you hold it up to your nonprofit, it reveals all the broken processes and broken tools. And I thought that was very apt. And when you think about that regarding online meetings, you know, everything in terms of inequity, inaccessibility, um, lack of diversity, power dynamics tend to be magnified, you know, where those things existed in person meetings. The technology adds an extra layer of complication. That makes things more inaccessible, more inequitable unless you do specific things to counteract that. And so that’s what this session was largely about.

[00:04:12.74] spk_1:
John you want to add to the Cindy’s introduction at all?

[00:04:39.44] spk_3:
Sure. That like Cindy said, you know, we really tried to share what our vision is for inclusive meetings. And so that means that all folks can contribute equally if they desire and that it’s okay not to using things like you would in person like a talking piece to go around and make sure everyone is able to engage meaningfully and to share. And that it’s okay if if they don’t want to. But digitally we just list people’s name in the chat and have everyone go through so we make sure we don’t miss anyone.

[00:05:00.24] spk_1:
Mm Okay. Okay. Uh so how can we be more intentional as we’re setting up a meeting? Is that a is that is that a place to start? Can we like sort of maybe take this chronologically through uh through a meeting? The pre meeting? The during the meeting and then the post meeting? Is that by doing it justice, if we do it that way?

[00:05:38.94] spk_2:
Yeah, we actually um we split we split our section up into three main sections. One was about inclusion and Power Dynamics. Another section was accessibility techniques, how to before during and after with those and experiential and reflective techniques. So we actually demonstrated a variety of interactive activities that could be used to engage your as a facilitator to engage the audience. So those were the three main sections.

[00:05:45.34] spk_1:
Okay. Is it okay if we uh well I don’t, I don’t want to mess up your

[00:05:50.34] spk_2:
no, you’re fine,

[00:05:52.27] spk_1:
john can we do it? Is that

[00:06:06.04] spk_2:
okay? I think so, yeah, john and Griffin, Griffin Castillo, um who’s not with us today? Uh Griffin and john were covering the power dynamics portion of this. So I think starting there is probably a good idea to john.

[00:06:10.74] spk_3:
Sure. So yeah, tony if it’s okay, I’m going to talk about some aspects of inclusion and then I’ll start to do that. I’ll talk about before during and after a meeting.

[00:06:18.64] spk_1:
Okay, Thank you. Great.

[00:06:20.29] spk_0:
All right.

[00:07:00.64] spk_3:
So some of the aspects of inclusion that we want to make sure people are aware of are the some of the advantages that we bring to our meetings online from having the latest technology to having older technology or only phones and even recognizing folks have no internet access in some areas. Understanding there’s advantages when it comes to digital literacy with computers or software, even having a dedicated space to participate. Our co presenter, Griffin Castillo, is the racial equity ambassador for the Oakland School system and so many students are sharing space with other family members. Understanding some people can respond quickly versus those who are reflective thinkers. So providing different modes for people to share as well as the very common advantages of having expertise, seniority or rank or relational privilege. So you want to be aware of those aspects and then there are specific things you can do before, during and after your meetings to make sure that you’re creating an inclusive and accessible meeting.

[00:08:26.04] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Well, I mean I gotta, I gotta start with the obvious. You know, I’m asking neophyte questions. You, you all spend, I’ve spent years thinking about these things and I’m coming at it quite a bit newer, uh, for folks who don’t have the technology that’s needed. How do we include them in a meeting that we’re planning online? That has to be online by because of the pandemic, by the way. If you hear any background noise, I’m having some renovations done. So maybe you’re banging. Yeah, there’s a little hammering, buying little drilling going on. So, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s your lackluster host with talk about a non private. I mean, I guess, uh, they’re much, there are much worse environments to have to be a party to a meeting in, but I’m in a lesser one than I than I would like. But that’s what, that that’s what that is, listeners. You’re, you’re hearing my stairs being renovated. Okay. So what about folks who don’t have any, they don’t even access, They don’t have digital access. How do we accommodate them? How have we accommodated them and how can we going forward in online meetings?

[00:09:10.84] spk_3:
Sure. So two of the ways we talked about were make sure that you’re providing offline readable versions of any documents or presentations for those who can’t see them live or can’t see them online but may be able to download them as well as documenting your notes and providing recordings, either video or audio to allow folks to review materials, digest them at their own pace. And that also supports accessibility, which are some of the pieces that Cindy talked about. Okay.

[00:09:21.84] spk_1:
It still seems like, I don’t know. It still seems insurmountable though if you’re, if you’re giving them a recording, but I mean if they don’t have internet access, how can you give them the recording?

[00:09:44.34] spk_3:
Sure. So the example I use, I often work with native american people and for example sometimes they need to drive a half hour in order to get a signal on their phone. Or they could go to a library on the reservation or wherever they are. So it is possible for them to get access. It just may not be live and it just may not be high speed. So as long as you’re providing those materials and there is a way for them to get them and put them on their devices or print them out if needed. That helps.

[00:10:16.44] spk_1:
So as you’re planning meetings you need to be aware that there may be folks that are going to raise their hand and say I can’t attend the zoom meeting at one o’clock tomorrow. You know, I don’t have that kind of access or I don’t have the, you mentioned even the privacy, uh, maybe they have online access, but they don’t have a private space to to listen and, and yeah, to listen and participate.

[00:11:20.14] spk_3:
Sure. Yeah. So I’ll talk about some of the things um, that that I covered and then I’m going to pass it to Cindy because she’s got some great ideas and when it comes to accessibility for people of all abilities. So one of the things tony that like you said before the meeting, it’s really important to discuss the issues that I mentioned about, you know, advantages and and our vision um with those with privilege to get by in so that they understand we want to allow all voices to be heard and that we think about ways to include everyone when we’re planning for meetings, Um that we, you know, make sure that that is part of our planning. That we ask attendees about accommodation needs up front during registration and that we have a plan to accommodate people with different abilities so that you know, we already know somebody who can do american sign language interpretation. We already know someone who can live caption. Uh, the presentation that we’re giving. Um, and I know for example, other pieces that that Cindy helped us worked on was if you have somebody who is sight impaired or blind, um reading the description of any visuals that you have. And Cindy was also great because she added something called all text that I’ll let her talk about two images. Cindy talk about that for us.

[00:11:47.04] spk_1:
Let them uh, we’re talking about inclusion. Accessibility. Cindy, Cindy is them Cindy. Thank you. I just you know, it’s all done in politely but you know, we got to be respectful. Right? It’s

[00:11:56.73] spk_2:
all right. Yeah. Absolutely. And I don’t walk if somebody says she her I don’t I don’t freak out. Okay. I do identify this non binary.

[00:12:05.14] spk_1:
Do the better you do the best we can. All right.

[00:12:07.24] spk_2:
Yeah. So yeah. One of the

[00:12:09.54] spk_1:
we’ll never make that mistake again. I assure you that.

[00:14:21.74] spk_2:
Okay. Um So yeah, so um one of the things that we did uh did we did do as an accessibility technique during the meeting and we probably should be doing this for radio interviews as well. One would think whenever we did our introductions uh for example, I said I’m Cindy Leonard from local velocity learned consulting. And I am a white white person with long straight brown hair and green glasses and today I have on a plaid sweater and I’m sitting with a yellow blank yellow wall background behind me and the idea of describing yourself um for people who aren’t either are excited or how vision impairment, but there’s also people that, you know, if you’ve ever tried to connect to a zoom meeting on your phone, the video isn’t always great or maybe you’re not in a place where you can watch the video, but you’re listening to it. Maybe you’re commuting or in your car. Um, so having that visual described is really important, not just for people with vision impairments, but for everyone, you know, and I talked a little bit during my piece about universal design, you know, and so one of the great examples of universal design design that is good for everyone helps people with disabilities. That is also good for morgan. What more of an audience is the concept of curb cuts Now, this is a low tech example, but the curb cut that, that little cut out at the corner of a sidewalk, you know, it’s, it’s great for people with using a wheelchair. It’s great for people using on a cane, you know, walking that have blindness. But insults are great for women and strong women with babies in strollers. It’s great for delivery persons. It’s great for older people who tend to trip on, you know, as we age, we tend to trip more. Um, so the idea is to make your power point and your meeting and your handouts more accessible and it helps everyone, not just people with disabilities.

[00:14:38.64] spk_1:
I’ve had guests from previous ntc’s make that point often. Uh Usually I think in the, in the context of a web, web, web design, uh it benefits benefits everyone. It reduces, you know, if if you’re using the right contrast levels, it reduces eyestrain for for everybody uh etcetera

[00:16:22.34] spk_2:
etcetera. Alright. Yeah, it really does overlap. I’ve been one of my, one of my consulting practice pieces is web website development, which I’ve been doing for about 20 years and there is a lot of overlap. A lot of the things that I’m saying about your power point back also applies to your website. So for example, the alternative text alternative text is what is red in lieu of the file name of a photo. So if I’m, let’s say I am a person who is blind and I’m using a screen reader software that is reading the web page to me or reading the power point debt to me when it gets to the images. If it doesn’t have alternative text which is descriptive text that you deliberately added to the image, it will read the file name of the image that’s been inserted or that’s uploaded. And that means, you know, it’ll read like, like image, it will say like I M G 678 jpeg. And that means nothing to anyone. So the idea is to describe the images in the alternative tax, so that, you know, whenever whenever I’m trying to figure out how to do that, when I’m either doing a website or a power point is I like to pretend that I’m sitting here in my office with somebody who has vision impairment and that I’m trying to, you know, like, here’s a picture, I’m trying to explain to them what is on the picture. So it’s helpful to me to imagine a person beside me that I’m trying to describe something to.

[00:16:47.54] spk_1:
Mhm john how about um if we transition um we’re a little bit all all encompassing, but uh that’s okay, that’s fine. As long as folks get the information, it doesn’t really matter what, what format it comes in or what, what, what theme we use. But like is there anything you can say specific to during, during a meeting that we haven’t talked about yet?

[00:16:50.64] spk_2:
The, the,

[00:16:52.14] spk_1:
that we need to

[00:18:14.44] spk_3:
Sure. So some of the things that we did in our session and that I try to do consistently is when I introduce myself as you mentioned earlier, using uh sharing that. I’m john Kenyon and my pronouns are he and him just as Cindy’s pronouns, are they in them and I’m not enforcing that or asking everyone to, to say that, but it just helps people with different gender identities feel included. Something else I do is when I introduced myself, I say that I’m coming to you from the occupied lands of the native coast, miwok people and that I send my respects to them and their leaders past, present and emerging again to just recognize that the land on which I am currently living was not originally my land and again helps people who are native people feel included. And that’s a practice I actually learned from my Australian colleagues because they are trying to be respectful of the Aborigines, the native Australian people. I’d also say that what we try to do is have real clear guidelines for participants. Something excellent that one of our session participants shared was doing, including things such as suspending judgment, suspending guilt, suspending assumptions and embracing awareness toward understanding, embracing leaning into discomfort. If you don’t feel comfortable with the topic or sharing, being able to lean into that,

[00:18:27.14] spk_1:
lean into meaning, express it,

[00:18:29.29] spk_3:
that’s right. Being in

[00:18:31.08] spk_1:
a forum where you can you can say something

[00:18:45.24] spk_3:
right and being able to say so, you know, tony you’re you’re our boss and you’re handling this meeting and you’re not letting any of, you know, the emerging leaders of the younger folks speak and you know, finding respectful and positive ways to bring that out. So for example, just to name that, to say, you’re not letting other folks speak, why is that? I’m not judging you, I’m not shaking my finger at you, but that we’re naming it,

[00:19:02.74] spk_1:
bring out the power dynamics

[00:19:23.54] spk_2:
and some accessibility related things that we do during a meeting are they’re actually pretty intuitive once, once you hear them, but if you don’t deliberately think about them, you know that you can miss things. But for example, use plain language, you know, every industry has a lot of jargon and you cannot guarantee everybody knows the jargon.

[00:19:25.89] spk_1:
non profit radio we have drug in jail

[00:19:28.50] spk_2:
in jail. I like it. I’m not hesitant to put people in like a

[00:19:32.48] spk_1:
transgress

[00:19:33.59] spk_2:
acronyms are another big thing in our second, everybody loves their, you know, so don’t say in 10 say the nonprofit technology network first, you know, okay, well,

[00:20:27.14] spk_1:
and then they don’t want to be the nonprofit technology network anymore. They’re like, I was thinking maybe he said that, but I’ve been admonished by the CEO maybe I said and 10 earlier, but example award that the N 10 Ceo is is a regular contributor, a technology contributor to my show, she’s admonished me to stop saying non profit Technology Network. So it comes from that comes to the top, but absolutely acronyms, you know, fundraising is full of them. I do plan giving and there’s all kinds of acronyms around trusts and just the, the, the assumption that everybody knows what you’re talking about. I mean I I shoot my hand up and say, what is that? You know, I’m right, right self, I’ve been doing it all my life, so it’s, you know, Uh, so I don’t mind people, but if one person doesn’t understand it’s probably 50 or don’t.

[00:21:11.84] spk_2:
Exactly. Another another point, another point is to give sufficient time a little more than you think you need to for people getting into breakout rooms on on the online software, forgetting to any third party exercises, responding in the chat box, any interactive activities. Not everybody is a fast clicker. You know, like I’m a power user. I guess you could say I’m on a laptop or a computer, so I’m really fast on the clicking, but not everybody is like that. People need time. Some people need more time to find what they’re supposed to be doing or where they’re supposed to be calling. So you want to be careful about that as well? Yeah.

[00:21:30.24] spk_1:
All right. Mm. Um, how about after after the meeting follow up, john you had mentioned. Uh, I think it was you john readable documents. Uh, what else, what else should we be doing and follow up to be sensitive to

[00:21:52.34] spk_3:
Sure. So just to reiterate, like I said, making sure that you have all your documents and notes and things like that that you can share with people so they can download them and read them off line or print them out. Something else that was suggested in our session. And that we try to do is post meeting surveys and ask, how did we do with inclusion? How did we do with accessibility if you’re an emerging leader? Did you feel centered? Did you feel excluded or included? Did we give everyone time and space to participate whether they’re able to share immediately or There are more reflective thinkers, like many of us are

[00:22:10.84] spk_1:
Cindy, anything you want to add there?

[00:22:13.57] spk_2:
No, not at all. But that’s great, john that was a great summary. I would like to send a shout out to our, we mentioned Griffin Castillo, one of our co

[00:22:22.66] spk_1:
presenter. I was gonna, I was gonna put a moratorium on mentioning him because he didn’t join us for the interview here.

[00:22:58.84] spk_2:
No. And now so are other co presenter his name, I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet is Jean Allen and Jeanne Allen is she’s, she’s a dual role. She’s with a nonprofit, she’s on the board of a nonprofit in north Carolina with his name, which name of which I cannot remember. Um but she’s also uh independent nonprofit consultant herself. She’s been at it for many years. Very smart lady. She ran she talked about all of the interactive how exercises how to include more engagement and your breakout session to make it more interesting or in your in your online meeting.

[00:23:12.64] spk_1:
Is there anything from that that you can you can share as well as you would have. But I mean for engagement possibilities in online Yeah, what can you reveal?

[00:23:53.04] spk_2:
Yeah, it was something as simple to an exercise. She called the chatter fall exercise chatter fall like a waterfall. Um And we put a put a question on the screen that says an idea emerging for me is why. And she had them all not hit send but deployed at their answers with the reflections in the comments box of chat box. And then she had them all had sent at the same time and it was just this beautiful cascade of all kinds of thoughts and comments all coming out at once. And there was a lot of, there were a lot of unifying ideas and themes emerged from that. And then she also showed us a tour

[00:23:59.21] spk_1:
which, hold on, tell me again, what was the lead into that? What was the statement that folks were supposed to fill in the blank? What we asked

[00:24:13.34] spk_2:
them to tell us an idea emerging for me, meaning emerging from the sessions of our is. And then they were supposed to finish

[00:24:18.85] spk_1:
Thank you.

[00:24:56.44] spk_2:
Yeah, it could be any question. Of course. Of course, Yeah. Um and Jeanne also did a live example of a google jamma board. So jam, like, like let’s Jam, you know? Um and it’s a really, it’s almost like an inner john you can help me with the description on this. It’s almost like a, like an interactive, multi user whiteboard. It reminds me of a smart board, did you have in a classroom or a meeting room? Except that everybody accesses it at the same time. And you could add post it notes and and print on it and scribble on it. It’s really eat right. The double suite.

[00:25:15.84] spk_3:
That’s that’s right. Yeah. It’s almost as if, as we often do an offline meetings, you have a wall where people are putting up post its and people can put up post its and write anything they want on them. We were able even showed folks how we were able to upload images and pictures. So it’s, as Cindy said, this nice interactive place where people can share, you could even do something like here’s a question. Do you agree or not? And put your posted five is totally agree. One is, I don’t agree at all. So you get a spectrum of answers and see where people lie on the answer to the question. It’s not just thumbs up or thumbs down.

[00:25:42.14] spk_1:
This is called a google jam board jam board. And how does it relate to using zoom for meetings? Is it a is it like a screen share? Someone shares their screen and they show their jam board and then everybody, everybody can participate how zoom

[00:26:01.74] spk_2:
meeting you give them a link and you send them off to the tool, they stay in zoom, they stay in the room so they keep zoom active, but you’re sending them to their browser and it opens in a browser tab.

[00:26:16.84] spk_1:
Okay. So everybody’s doing it independently along alongside zoom. Okay. All right. We have just a couple minutes left. Anything that we haven’t talked about that either of you want to bring up in a closing a couple minutes.

[00:26:28.64] spk_3:
Uh huh. Sure. So I think for my closing, I would just share a participant quote from our session which which really resonated with me and they said, even if I’m a participant rather than a leader of a group, I can still practice and demonstrate accessible and inclusive practices by describing visuals, Making sure I engage people in the chat, sharing my pronouns, making sure I provide room for everyone to share,

[00:26:49.34] spk_1:
john why don’t you describe your background? Let’s try to put this into practice and I’ll do it in my clothes, Go ahead or describe yourself on your background.

[00:27:15.94] spk_3:
Great. So I’m john I’m a white male, I’ve got gray hair and a little bit of a beard. I’m sitting in a room that has white walls. I’ve got a kind of a delft blue curtain behind me and some flowers, the flowers are called veronica. Um and so yeah, that’s and I’m wearing a dark blue shirt.

[00:27:44.44] spk_1:
I’m Tony, I have a red t shirt on my hair is mostly white, a little smattering of dark remaining. But, but it’s, it’s stunning and dashing nonetheless, even though it’s 90% white uh, you know, you’re supposed to not supposed to editorialize right, supposed to keep it factual. I have stunning, stunning, boring background of my hp printer and uh pretty much white walls behind uh in a red t shirt and I wear glasses. I wear glasses.

[00:27:48.84] spk_2:
Thanks. That was excellent. Uh huh.

[00:27:52.54] spk_1:
Yeah, they are Cindy Leonard. Ceo, Cindy Leonard consulting and john Kenyon principal john Kenyon consulting thanks to each of you for sharing. Thank you. Cindy. Thank you john,

[00:28:03.84] spk_2:
thank you for having us. Real

[00:28:05.84] spk_3:
pleasure. Thank you.

[00:31:44.24] spk_1:
Thank you for being with tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. Let’s talk a little bit more detail about them. The ambitious biden agenda released a couple of weeks ago. Is there anything in there that impacts your work touches on what you do at all? Anything you’d like to be heard on may be quoted on be a trusted source about you can improve your chances of getting an op ed published or being a source or getting quoted working with turn to because they have the relationships to make these things happen for you so so much better than you or someone in your office cold calling a journalist or blogger whoever it is that you’re trying to reach that doesn’t know you, you want somebody who’s got the relationships you want to turn to because your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. It’s time for Tony’s take two. It’s time to plan your summer time off. Yes, I uh It’s finger wagging time. No camera here. But you got to take care of yourself folks. Please. You need to take care of yourself this summer. What a what a 18 months it’s been. Maybe last summer was a blur. Certainly you couldn’t go anywhere. And I hope you didn’t because it wasn’t safe. It’s changed. You know that master of the obvious. So plan your summer. Get it. Let’s get the plans going. Get the reservations made, book the week book the two weeks. You’ve got to block it and then preserve it, preserve it for yourself. Honor it. It can’t be interrupted. You got to set boundaries set that time for yourself and make boundaries around it. Honor that time. No, I’m sorry you can’t get together then. No, I won’t be able to do that meeting. No, now now that that weekend is not good. Now that week isn’t good either. You gotta make time for yourself and preserve it. Please yourself. Your family. If you have a family, get that time away this summer, you need it, you deserve it. You want to take care of others. Whether it’s on the professional side, those folks you take care of or it’s on the family side, you want to take care of your family. You’ve got to take care of yourself, please this summer, especially of all of all summers since last summer was such a bad bust. Set the time aside. Honor it. No encroachments, do it for yourself, do it for those who you take care of. That is Tony’s take two. We have boo koo but loads more time for nonprofit radio here is online accessibility beyond meetings. Welcome to Tony-Martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 NTC the 2021 nonprofit technology conference. We’re sponsored at 21 NTC by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot C o. With me now is martin caucus a president of bound state Software martin. Welcome to nonprofit radio’s coverage of 21 ntc.

[00:31:53.94] spk_0:
Hi Tony, thanks for having me

[00:32:05.44] spk_1:
a pleasure, absolute pleasure. Your session was 10 common accessibility issues and how to fix them. I would like to start at the basic ground level. Let’s just define what accessibility is before we identify the issues.

[00:33:21.64] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think you can define accessibility as making well in this case like your websites, uh, making it accessible to everyone and what that means is that there’s four different levels. So whether they’re perceivable, which means that people can like actually see what’s going on operable, which means I can actually not like use your website without um special requirements. So if you for example a mouse or something like that, they might not be able to use that um understandable. So that means that they want to be able to you want to be able to make sure that people when they go to your website or accessing some content that they can understand what’s going on. It’s not confusing and robust. It means that it’s just a future proof and it can be used across various types of like uh technology. So like web browsers or um screen readers and stuff like that. So it kind of encompasses all that is making it is making your website be accessible to to everyone apart from if they have um impairments or anything like that, disabilities.

[00:33:37.24] spk_1:
We know what the penetration rate is among nonprofit websites. If we use that definition of accessibility. Um sorry,

[00:33:37.91] spk_0:
can you say that again?

[00:33:38.78] spk_1:
Do we know what the penetration rate is? How common are accessible websites in nonprofits using your definition?

[00:34:20.64] spk_0:
Uh, to be, I don’t have a specific number per se, but from just from my research and from browsing different types of websites. non profit websites. It’s not it’s not too common, like it’s something that I think it’s becoming more uh top of mine, but like I see it in proposals or RFP s and stuff like that more and more and more and more often, especially if the organization has like some government funding and the requirements come from that, but it’s not something that’s um commonly found. So

[00:34:32.64] spk_1:
there’s a lot of room for improvement. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Okay. Um can you help us spot potential problems on our own website? Yeah. Good. Sure.

[00:35:04.24] spk_0:
Um Yeah so that’s kind of what uh my talk with and at the conference and I just wanted to give people some some tools and like some understanding of what’s going on their website. So they can they could take them take them home and start working on it and see you know, how can we make our web sites more accessible? It might not be like fully accessible in terms of the various levels but at least getting started. So at the most basic level. So somebody has used enough system technology. Can you can use your website that goes a long way. So. Yeah,

[00:35:14.44] spk_1:
well we’re not gonna be able to do everything overnight. It’s not gonna be like flipping a switch but no we can approach this incrementally and make it more make our site more accessible.

[00:36:00.13] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly. I think that’s the right approach. So I think, to begin with, I wanted to like differentiate between a couple of different issues. So like sometimes these issues are caused by their technical issues, so it might be caused by the templates or in quotation marks, the code. Um, so you might need a developer, uh, to, to help you with it. And other ones are more like low hanging fruit. I think it’s just like things that are related to content. So a lot of the nonprofits use like content management systems to up their websites to create blogs and content. So some of this stuff can be like fixed through just having an understanding of, okay, what are the guidelines that should follow, um, to create more accessible content?

[00:36:15.33] spk_1:
Okay, yeah, So let’s let’s let’s focus on the low hanging fruit, the stuff we can do on our own because our listeners are small and midsize shops. So, you know, they may very well not have an internal developer and hiring an external developer maybe outside their means. So let’s start the stuff we can we can do on our own. Yeah, let’s do that thing. Yeah.

[00:37:06.53] spk_0:
So the first one is it’s pretty basic, but it’s um, it’s page title. So page titles are very important for for orientation. It’s the first thing, like for example, screen reader reads when you’re like when you line on a new page, it’s a good way to differentiate and move between pages and move between pages. So, um, you want to make sure that page titles are unique and they provide um enough information to know what that page is about. Um, another tip that you want to be looking for is that you want to make sure that the most unique and most relevant information comes first. So rather than putting like your organization name first, you want to put it at the end and make sure like whatever the pages about it comes up at the beginning. And this is also some of these practices are also like best practices for the web, but also for like a Ceo and things like that.

[00:37:18.53] spk_1:
Can you explain why does the organization name go at the bottom? Why is that lower?

[00:37:31.73] spk_0:
Because you want to make sure that whatever is the most important part, the most relevant to that page Comes 1st and then your organization comes

[00:37:34.17] spk_1:
after they already know they’re on your organization site. So

[00:37:53.03] spk_0:
yeah. So perhaps if you’re on the home page, you wouldn’t follow that. Like maybe like depends how your SEO strategy is. But if you’re on the about page or or blog article, you want to make sure that the title is at the beginning of the title of the blog or the title of your about page, because that’s kind of what that person is looking for, otherwise it can it can be distracting. Okay,

[00:37:58.53] spk_1:
okay. What else? What

[00:39:35.12] spk_0:
another thing is just headings like this is again pretty basic things, but you want to make sure that when you’re correct, craft and content. Um and a lot of the usability guidelines go hand in hand with like uh just sorry, the accessibility guidelines go hand in hand with usability. Um So when you’re making like, let’s say creating content for the web, you want to make sure that it’s split up and you’re using headings appropriately, so the continent’s more digestible, so it’s easier to understand, but it um and then also if you’re using these headings, you want to make sure that they follow a hierarchy. So typically pages will start with heading one, which is the largest heading. That will be the page title. And as you work down the page, you want to make sure that that hierarchy is maintained. So then that would follow by an H two tag, which again, if you’re using a content management system, you would be able to just select the H two tag is similar to like award uh like a more document and things like that. Um And then a little bit more technical is you want to make sure that when you when you’re selecting these headings that they actually look like headings and on the code side, you want to make sure that there for like their semantically um tagged as heading. So what that means is like in the actual page code is there’s like a little tag, this is H one H two H three, so it needs to be created that way because they’re used as anchors for again, for screen, right? Just to to be able to understand what’s going on. Some people that sounds like they’re sections,

[00:39:39.62] spk_1:
that sounds like it’s just a matter of highlighting the code. Sorry, highlighting the text and tagging it as H one H two H three. Yeah,

[00:39:53.72] spk_0:
exactly. And there’s little tools that you could use, like you don’t have to know how to look at the code. Like there’s plenty of um

[00:39:55.62] spk_1:
yeah, we’re trying to result there’s we’re trying to avoid the code for for right now. Yeah, you can do at our desk if we’re not a developer.

[00:40:02.85] spk_0:
Yeah, you could do this like um as long as you, if you’re using WordPress, you can just select the right appropriate tag and if the theme or or the template you’re using is properly done, then you shouldn’t have any issue.

[00:40:16.41] spk_1:
Okay. Okay. Other low hanging fruit, I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of this bunch of these. Yeah.

[00:41:24.11] spk_0:
Yeah. So another one is uh your link, text a lot of the times, like people will put in something like for more information about my organization click here now um you you want to make sure that you’re when you’re creating links that people understand, like where they’re going, like where that link is taking them and so you want to be able to when you’re creating these links, you want to create, create context rich links. Um And the reason for that is because some some assistive technologies that allowed them to view all the links in one page, just so you land on a page, see all the lengths and they’re listed in order. So say that you have a lot of click here’s like they don’t really make sense out of context, so it doesn’t really help them, it’s confusing. So rather than doing something like that, you want to make sure that the the lengths make sense out of context. So you want to say, learn more about my organization, that’s the entire link. So when somebody is scanning through all the links, it makes sense to them.

[00:41:25.41] spk_1:
All right. So it’s a matter of which words are linked. Yeah,

[00:41:29.37] spk_0:
exactly. And

[00:41:30.00] spk_1:
linking the word here here here.

[00:41:42.41] spk_0:
Exactly, Yeah. And and the same thing goes with buttons, for example, you don’t want to have like buttons that are just generic like submit. You want to make sure that they’re descriptive. So, again, this goes hand in hand with usability. So you want to make sure that the button says for example if it’s a newsletter, subscribe to newsletter so they know what the action they’re taking.

[00:41:58.21] spk_1:
I see. All right. That that explains something that I’ve wondered about why some people have or some I see mostly in journalism too. And now I’m thinking about it you know like five or six words will be highlighted as the link. One of them.

[00:42:27.20] spk_0:
Yeah. And it’s also it’s also but yeah. Okay. And it’s also better for S. C. 02 because you’re that’s kind of uh in essence like google crawls your site through a boat. So and it’s very similar to a screen reader. Read it. So they would they look at the links and it’s like okay, this link is this. Um And then you would you answer that phrase and then that’s how it starts to understand what’s going on on your website and where web pages to navigate to. Yeah.

[00:42:38.70] spk_1:
Rich links. All right. Give us more. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:43:09.30] spk_0:
Yeah. Another one is um text alternatives. I’m sure everyone well not everyone, but this is more familiar. Like all text is the text alternative description of an image. So of course, if you’re if you can’t see and using a screen reader, you can’t see what the image is about. Uh So you can you can provide a description for the image um about what that image is about or the or why that that image is there. So what’s the function? Um If it’s just like a decorative image, you don’t you don’t need to put anything, but if it serves a purpose, it’s important to have that their

[00:43:18.98] spk_1:
description.

[00:43:26.30] spk_0:
So typically when your uploaded a new image on your content management system, you have the option that they will be like a little descriptor field even say I’ll text and then you can just put it in there.

[00:43:33.60] spk_1:
All text. Yeah.

[00:43:55.50] spk_0:
Yeah. It’s it’s it’s very common. It’s just a lot of times you’re like uploading a lot of images and going through like doing a million things. So it’s one of the things that’s easy to miss and it can be hard to also to think about what uh huh what, what to put in there. So I think, yeah,

[00:43:57.40] spk_1:
I guess otherwise the person, the screen reader is just going to see like a file name.

[00:44:02.49] spk_0:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:44:03.68] spk_1:
Yeah. Image seven dot jpeg. Which is Yeah.

[00:44:32.29] spk_0:
Yeah. Or maybe a default value that the program are put in there. Might say default. Yeah. It’s not great. Yeah. And then in the same and lines with the, with the links that we talked about before, a lot of times you use images as links. So you want to make sure that in the all text, your including the destination, if you’re using an image for a link, making sure, okay, where is this link taking me? It’s it’s kind of tied into what we talked about before,

[00:44:40.09] spk_1:
yep. Okay. But the content, content and links. Okay. Others uh yeah.

[00:45:26.89] spk_0:
uh number five would be multimedia like so a podcast for example, um Not available like two people with with hard of hearing or death, um, visuals and videos are not able to people who are blind. So you want to, you want to provide a way to to help these people. Um not only that, it’s just people without, with without disabilities were out, I don’t know, taking the train or something, you want to watch a video, but you don’t want the sound to be on having captions. Um it’s very useful. Um, if you’re learning a new language, like I learn english like having captions, it’s very useful to understand what’s going on. So there’s many uses of why multimedia should have um, should provide an alternative to to consume that. So like a transcript

[00:45:31.14] spk_1:
transcripts, podcasts,

[00:46:42.88] spk_0:
Yeah, a transcript for podcast, for audio and visual content maybe captions. I mean they can be quite elaborate elaborate to to create, but uh, it’s it’s one of the requirements for or guidelines for accessibility. Um, I think these next two are the ones that I talked about before, but um, and they kind of go hand in hand. One is simple content. Like a lot of what I see a lot is just like people just dumping information and information on their websites. And I think it’s important, especially with, for people with cognitive disabilities are really anyone if you’re landing on a page and it’s just like blocks attacks that you have to scan through and trying to understand what’s going on. Like it’s not very usable and again it’s not accessible. So you want to make sure when you’re creating content, you really think about what message you’re trying to convey and you you formatted in a way that’s simple and use a simple language. So Try to aim for an 8th grade level and there’s some tools there that kind of help you with that and help you edit your content so it’s more digestible.

[00:46:46.16] spk_1:
Okay. 8th grade, I’m wondering if I’ve even heard lower than that. Like sixth grade? I’m not sure.

[00:46:59.68] spk_0:
Yeah, I’m not sure. I think I think there is I use a tool called Hemingway editor and I think that one even goes down even further. But yeah, I think if you get to eighth grade and it gives you a check mark.

[00:47:04.17] spk_1:
Okay. Okay Hemingway is that a free resource that listeners can use?

[00:47:08.29] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just go I think it’s just if you google Hemingway editor, it’s just like a free tool you can use online.

[00:47:18.78] spk_1:
Okay. That’s cool. Thank you. I like I like resources. All right. And you said something related to that?

[00:49:58.87] spk_0:
Yeah, So the same same thing. It’s uh your your layout. We talked about the heading simple content. All go hand in hand layout in terms of like how you’re structuring your page, you want to make sure it’s just simple, straightforward. Um I’m not going to go into more than this because it goes into more like design and things that you really can, you can really change without the help of maybe a designer or developer. So I won’t touch them more on that. But the next one I will touch on is contrast ratio and this is another one that’s quite popular when you think of accessibility, like okay, like it needs to be like the contrast needs to be enough so people can can read what’s the tax? Um Right, so one of the things you want to use is there’s plenty of tools out there if you if you just google contrast checker. Um I think one I have here in front of the web, I am dot org and it’s contrast checker. That’s I think the one I use most of the time. Um you just put in two colours and there’s just like it spits out to two different results, whether it passes or not. Um So that that’s pretty straightforward. It falls within like the template sort of but uh now more and more like with the CMS, you can you can change anything right? Like you can change the colour depending on the flexibility of the template. Um, A big one is images, so like a lot of nonprofits like to use images, um because obviously it’s an easier way to like resonate with your audience. Like you can, you get a better feel of what what they’re about. But the problem is that they like, it’s common to overlay text over there and now you’re giving your staff the ability to upload new images and then change the text. Um and then that becomes really tricky if, if it’s not a nice theme or if the image is not great. Um Now you’re having contrast issues. So like, for example, having like simple overlays, it’s like making sure your image is dark enough, so there’s some contrast um goes a long way, There’s other tips for in terms of design that you can do to overcome that but um like putting like a little background on on the actual text so it stands out more. Um But yeah, I think it’s one of the tips, let’s just be careful and the images you’re picking, making sure there’s enough contrast or and if it’s not adding some sort, if you if you have the skills just adding a bit of like a darker um rectangle overtop, like through whatever image processing software that you use

[00:50:31.26] spk_1:
and you can check this with which the well by the way, I want to just make sure everybody knows CMS is your content management system, just in case everybody questioning that, I’m not gonna put martin in jargon jail because I think CMS is pretty, pretty widely known, but if you get if you get to giardini martin then my jargon jail. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. But I’m not putting you in there for CMS. I think that’s pretty, it is widely known but just just in case there’s any listeners who don’t know CMS is your content management system and stunning. Absolutely. But be careful because you’ve transgressed, I

[00:50:34.59] spk_0:
don’t know when I go to jail, I don’t have a jail free card. So Yes, that’s right.

[00:50:40.76] spk_1:
Well I I allow um uh parole is not too hard to get.

[00:50:42.66] spk_0:
Okay. That’s good. Good to hear.

[00:50:44.42] spk_1:
What’s the contrast checker again that resource that folks can use.

[00:50:56.06] spk_0:
So it’s web uh it’s web A. I am dot org. Okay. Um and then if you go to the website it’s just under the resources as contrast checker. Yeah.

[00:51:02.36] spk_1:
Okay. And you can just google contrast checker as well.

[00:51:04.73] spk_0:
Yeah, there’s there’s probably like more than 20 different tools but

[00:51:10.96] spk_1:
martin picasa recommended one is web A I. M.

[00:51:14.66] spk_0:
Yeah. Yeah. They have a few other tools. That’s the one that’s

[00:51:17.37] spk_1:
it’s got the blessing. It’s got the yeah, it’s a blessing. All right.

[00:51:21.38] spk_0:
Sure. Let’s go with that. All right.

[00:51:23.36] spk_1:
So does that does that exhaust the ones that folks can do on their own without a developer? Let’s

[00:52:23.35] spk_0:
see. I think the last one is actually um it’s not really an issue but something that’s nice to have is an accessibility statement. And during my uh talk, a couple of people like this um so they’re an excessively statement is just it’s an important it’s kind of think about it like a privacy statement. But for accessibility it shows your users that you you kind of care about accessibility and about them provide some information about the accessibility of the content. What steps are you taking to to do um to make your website accessible? And then you can provide an option to to receive feedback. So if they notice any problems they can they can they can reach out and let you know because issues will come up as you create new content or things get updated, there’ll be regressions and um you kind of have to stay on top of it. Accessibility just periodically do checks to make sure that uh nothing nothing fails. So

[00:52:26.15] spk_1:
yeah, that bleeds into maintaining accessibility over time. We have a few more minutes left. What’s your advice around keeping this up?

[00:53:44.05] spk_0:
Yeah. So I think to to keep this up, but you gotta understand that again. Regressions are common if you’re constantly updating your website and upload in your content. I think having manual checks periodically, so maybe once a month you have a bit of a checklist to go through. Um It’s a good idea. I think sharing some guidelines with your team, it’s it will go a long way rather than be um reactive and unfixed changes as they come up. Like you can make sure the new content that you’re creating meets the guidelines. So just having like a little checklist of. Okay, well, these are the common things that you want, we want to stick with will go a long way and then later, like, or if your budget allows, there’s a bunch of automation tools that will like run tests for you um on your website. So if you’re a bigger site and you have thousands of articles or things like that you might want to look into into that and and and accessibility of is it important to you that it might be worth it? Um So for example, I have here um like from DEak X. So it’s like an extension um There’s also accessibility insights from Microsoft or again the same website I linked to before. Well webbing. Uh they have a wave evaluation tools that you can wait. Let

[00:54:03.84] spk_1:
it goes more at the time. By the way, I have some floor work going on. So if you hear a circular star or some hammering or drilling okay, renovations outside and no worries.

[00:54:05.58] spk_0:
If you’re a crying baby, that’s that’s my baby outside the

[00:54:08.74] spk_1:
daughter. So.

[00:54:09.46] spk_0:
Okay. I

[00:54:15.14] spk_1:
haven’t heard any. All right, okay, great. Wait, let’s tick through those um those those resources again a little slower.

[00:54:18.03] spk_0:
Yeah, sure. Um So there’s acts by deke um Let’s see if I have the I don’t really have. Yeah. So like the website is D E. Q. U. E dot com for slash X.

[00:54:34.04] spk_3:
X X

[00:54:35.37] spk_1:
X

[00:54:36.11] spk_0:
A X E

[00:54:38.02] spk_1:
X C four slash X. Okay.

[00:54:40.94] spk_0:
Then the other one is again the it’s the same website I mentioned before. They have an evaluation tool. So all these are kind of like extensions you install in your browser and then you can click a button and that tells you all these all the issues on your page. So it’s kind of like a handy thing.

[00:54:56.81] spk_1:
Yeah, the other one was what? Web dot A. I am.

[00:55:01.14] spk_0:
Yeah. That’s right.

[00:55:05.64] spk_1:
Okay. And and so all right. So there’s there’s a accessibility checker there as well.

[00:55:08.01] spk_0:
Yeah. And then the last one is by Microsoft is just this one is easy. Its accessibility insights that I owe.

[00:55:24.84] spk_1:
Okay, accessibility insights dot io Yeah. Alright. We like free tools like free totally bring this, bring this uh

[00:55:45.94] spk_0:
and I guess I’ll do one more. Um There’s a Khan Academy has one that is quite friendly. I don’t I mean I like it, it’s just like a little tool that you add to your bookmark and then whenever you go to a website you just click on that and it creates like a little pop up. Um So if you google just con economy and it’s uh it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:55:49.66] spk_1:
Way Con con K. H. A. N.

[00:55:54.82] spk_0:
Yeah akademi

[00:55:56.66] spk_1:
Khan Academy. Yeah.

[00:55:58.49] spk_0:
And then the tool is it’s T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:03.53] spk_1:
T. O. T. A. 11 Y.

[00:56:05.67] spk_0:
Yeah so I think I don’t have an actual you’re all for it but it’s said to I use. Okay, so we can find

[00:57:29.43] spk_1:
an account academies. Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you for those uh free resources. I like those. We’re gonna leave it there, martin. All right, okay. Cool. Well thank you for having me my pleasure. He’s martin to CASA President abound state software. Thank you again martin and thank you for being with 20 martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21. Ntc the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c O next week. First generation wealth with Esther choi If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com. We’re sponsored by Turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot C O. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott stein, yeah, thank you for that. Affirmation Scotty You with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great. Yeah.

Nonprofit Radio for May 31, 2019: Tech Accessibility & Resilience & Sustainable Impact

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Hello and welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure the pain of Bobby’s aosis if you ticked me off with the idea that you missed today’s show. Tech Accessibility Keith Castle Bon and Aurora Holder want youto advocate for accessible tools that will make all workers more efficient from 19 NTC. Keith is that disability rights Florida and Aurora is from Disability Rights, Wisconsin and Resilience and Sustainable Impact. Ananda Leak and Miko Whitlock. I want you to use tech with intention and foster a culture of resilience. They’ve got lots of strategies for mindfulness and intention. Do you know about the Eisenhower Matrix? Also, that is from in-kind teen NTC. Ananda is with Ananda Leak Consulting, and Miko is the mindful techie. I’m Tony Steak, too. Be a good American. We’re sponsored by pursuing full service fund-raising, data driven and technology enabled Tony dahna slash pursuant by Wagner CPS Guiding you beyond the numbers regular cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations made easy Text. NPR to 444999 Here are Keith Castle Bon and Aurora Holder. Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 1990 si It’s a non-profit technology conference were at the convention center in Portland, Oregon, and this interview, like all our 19 ntcdinosaur views, is sponsored by our partners at Act Blue Free. Fund-raising Tools help non-profits make an impact with me Now are Keith Castle Bon on Aurora. Holder. Keith is the technology and communications manager for disability rights, Florida and Aurora. Holder is manager at Disability Rights Wisconsin. Welcome to each of you. Thanks for having us. Welcome is disability rights in every state in the country you’re representing Wisconsin and Florida. Is there one in every every state? Correct. There is its federally mandated. Oh, okay, okay. I mean, the organization is federally mandated, but what do you mean? Having protection and advocacy organization that’s independent from the government is federally mandated in each state. So what, Like you have an independent kind of watchdog to look at, like, institution that might be practicing, you know, inhumane practices against the clients they would having this independent agency that comes and overlooks that because it’s really hard. Maybe the government to regulate. That is, it was rolled out because they were seeing so many atrocities and nothing was being done about it. So they decided you need to be an independent agency from the government, although we’re funded by the government. But we need to have that ability to come in and look at that. But we do have elevated writes that maybe other organizations we have to look at records and things like that. Are you also funded by individual gifts as well? You fund-raising? You okay? So it’s not not unlike the Legal Aid Society krauz required by law to have defense available on DH. It’s partially funded by government. Then they also do their own fund-raising. Well. Essentially, the federal government gives us money to be the watchdogs for our individual states for disability rights. So it’s kind of interesting concept that I think different in a lot of other non-profits out there. Let’s talk about the advantages to having well being a tech accessibility advocate toe having having technology be accessible on DH. The advantages, too. The world at large, not advances don’t only accrue to those who have specially need accessibility. Is that my I like going in the right direction. Aurora. Yeah, what are what are some? What’s the fight to make the case? Aside from the legal requirement? What? What would I say? It’s a tech. A accessibility advocate. How about I start making the case in my organization that what we’re trying to focus on is making sure that people know that you know, accessibility way? Want to move towards a universal like everything is available to everyone like your software isn’t just available to certain pop population that you’re looking at how to make a universal and so that’s a lot what were focusing on and what’s the advantage to doing that, um, that you’re hitting a wider audience because there’s so many disability, you can’t you can’t just do one little thing and accessibility. There’s so many things we’re trying to cover such a wide, wide net, that just looking at it in the different approach of making it universal, versus what makes sense for me as a developer or whoever is creating them thing that they’re going in there. They’re really looking at it in a lot of different ways, teething about all the different users that might be using it. Also, there’s like money, incentives. You’re when you’re not making a software like shopping out that’s accessible, then you’re you’re losing out on a bunch of people that cannot act, you know, by stuff on your website. You’re on because they have economic power. But you’re not. You’re not accessing. Yeah, Keith, what can you have the outset here? Well, on the plus side of making things accessible, you’re also making them usable for everyone. And in fact, one of the things that will showing our session is that a lot of accessible technologies out there end up helping people who don’t maybe technically have a disability. S o. How is that flush that out a little bit? How does that work? What are some examples of that? Well, so one product that we’re going to mention eyes, a piece of software that you can put on your computer screen to adjust the colors and brightness of the images on. That’s good for people who might have get migraines for looking at their screen. Uh, we’re just getting headaches, dizziness, whatever. This software can actually make it easier for you to sit at your desk and do your job, which is great for people with disability. But I know people without disabilities that use that all the time just to help get there. Get through there. Day, Okay? No. What are the standards that disability rights is enforcing? Is there there a code? How do you measure whether there’s compliance or not against against what set of standards? Well, there’s so there’s originally there was a section five away, which is law from the seventies, that mandates that any government entity needs to be accessible, and that goes into services and other things. Now, of course, in the 19 seventies, you know we didn’t have websites. We have a lot of technology we have today, but that law has been broadly interpreted to include those things. Thie, Americans with Disabilities Act in 18 90 also adds to that a good bit on Does talk about technology to some degree? Uh, other than that, there’s not a lot of specific laws in America that other countries have different laws in America. That’s kind of where the laws end. But then, too, on top of that, there’s a lot of accessibility guidelines out there that you can follow one that really is common is the world. Our Web consortium has their Web accessibility, content guidelines. That is sort of like a framework to make sure that websites are accessible, for example. So okay, are there they’re specific tools. Are we able to talk about specific tools and resource is for for making your sight accessible? Um, well, our our session in particular isn’t trying to focus on websites. Actually, because there is so many accessible website, you’re not Okay, So we’re trying to focus on as I t manager attacked person in your organization. Anybody dealing with technology that you’re thinking about how to make what you’re putting out there accessible like that could be your instructions. That could be just an e mail that you’re sending to your staff. Video training videos, like all kinds of stuff that people would have to, um do as part of training e-giving staff information is accessible and not assuming that your entire staff, I have told you, like if they had a disability and what they could do to accommodate it because they’re way did find statistically that there could be upwards of 30% or more of unreported disability. You know, like people that just aren’t saying anything, and that’s fine there. You know, they don’t have to reveal all that, but making sure that you’re thinking about that, not putting you know, your head in the sand, just pretending like, Oh, well, you know, I don’t need to put all text on that image that of that screen shot I did in my instructions. Like, you know, you know, it probably won’t affect anybody in the staff, but you don’t know there’s somebody that uses the screen reader every day, Teo, because maybe their vision’s going Or there’s a variety reasons. People you screen rears its not just for people that are blind, you know, and just being more cognisant of different types of disabilities in ways you can. You can make easy adjustments. Or it could just be someone that’s has time, keep, you know, being keeping track of time. Or they’re you know, they’re just going on and they’re, you know, working on stuff, and they can’t seem to keep focus. There’s there’s all kinds of things that you could be aware of that could help that, and being people in the field, we’re seeing that with people And if you’re not realizing what’s out there than you’re not helping those individuals realized because they don’t may not realize what tools are out there. Yeah, okay, it’s time for a break. Pursuing you are the first impressions. The sea book is still up. How to combine Strategy analytics and Creative to captivate new donors and keep them coming back? That’s their e book on donor acquisition. Had to make that great first impression so that donors stay with you. And don’t just make that one gift and then trail off as we know Don’t have attention is like 75%. You don’t want that. You get the book through the listener landing page. It’s at tony dot m a slash pursuant with the capital P for please. Now back to tech accessibility. So alright, this’s the with the what the team is putting out for for general consumption or just for within their own team. It’s you she’s thinking about organizational levels organization wide. Yeah, OK, yeah. So examples you mentioned. Example User guides. What else? What else should listen to be thinking about what? Even if they may be, they don’t even have their own team but right related related to tech. What kinds of things should be conscious of that? That that should be tech? That should be accessible, right? Well, we’re moving to all these cloud APS and stuff, but nobody’s really test like a lot of them aren’t accessible, actually to screen readers and other technology assistive technology that would help people disabilities read or submit things to it. So are you evaluating that before you purchase that software so that you are like, Let’s say you have a online recruitment software that you’re using? Teo Get in people that they can apply in your website? Well, if it’s a screenwriter, can’t read the form fields and, you know, look through it and pushing cement. Then they’re not applying for that job, screening out all those people who could be accommodated but can’t apply right? Sure, Keith has some more samples. Okay, well, And in the office, for example, You know, your office manager buys a new copier, and I wouldn’t give a thought to anything about accessibility, but someone on your staff eyes in a wheelchair, and they can’t open the lid or reach the control panel. Now there are copies out there that the control panel flips down, and so it becomes accessible when there’s handles to lift him up, you know, closed the lid. So there’s they’re out there. The solution’s air out there. But you have to put a little time and effort into finding them. And and that’s the kind of things we try to promote awareness of because it’s not that anyone means that he harmed anybody. They’re just not sort of thinking that far ahead. Exactly. So we want to make him a lot more aware. Especially something. So ordinary is a copier. Exactly. You wouldn’t think I use it. Fine. You know what? It’s obvious when you say it, um, so I’d like to raise more consciousness. So what else? What are the things in the office tech wise? Should be conscious of that we may not be, Well, any software that anyone uses, which we’ve already touched on, a little bit of cloud acts, that sort of thing. You want to make sure that you know, if you’re if you’re an organization, this client base, like most non-profits are you want to know that you’re your client database system is accessible. You might. You might buy something that looks great, has all the features. One. And then you set up the implemented. You take months, and the gentleman that uses the screen reader goes toe access that software and finds out this wasn’t making any sense to me. I can’t. I can’t follow what I need to do. And if you if you if you If you build that sort of accessibility testing into your purchasing your framework requirements are P, whatever, exactly then then you could you confront. You could work with that. And you can. You can find the right tools out there which, in and of itself, could be a challenge. Because not every vendor is very forthcoming with, you know, they’ll tell you it’s accessible. Uh, even if it’s not, you really have to be vigilant. Do your own research because they want to make a sale. Would you have to ask, You know, are you compliant with these? You said the consortium has guidelines. So is your product that we’re considering compliant with these. I forget the name Well, there’s 65 away and Ada, and you’ll get a lot of blank stares. You ask these questions and they won’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Well, we’ll get back to you. We’ll talk. Let me talk to my boss and I can’t take any times. I’ve never heard back from them because they don’t really know what to say. So it’s something that you’ve got to do your own research, and it takes a lot of effort because the vendors aren’t very helpful. Okay. All right. Um, what else? But obviously your website, it should be possible that that one’s easy. There’s, I think, is a person to heightening accessibility culture that’s apart. We’re covering as well about called you in your organization, start making that step and changing the ideas of what you know, having people open up and think about Oh, man, we do that all the time. But I didn’t think about that in the way of accessibility in the work we do or planning for what? If you do hyre somebody that’s that has a disability on DH, then you didn’t You didn’t think about that when you purchased all that different technology for whatever that that might happen down the road. And so now you’re kind of, you know, you’re eliminating what they? Khun! D’oh! How do you start to change that culture? Aurora, would you start at the top or you have conversation down below And then bring it up You Khun Dio school combination of stuff just from like again You start saying, Well, I’m going to make you know, make sure all the stuff communications, digital communications that you’re sending out are accessible. I’m going to have a framework of when we’re evaluating software that I’m going to make sure that accessibility is Check your your building in this part of your assessment are ready. You’re going, Tio, apply the theory of universal design if you if you’re non-profit does create certain things like that’s more applicable if you’re doing, you know, actual designing of software and things. But I know some non-profits that do do that. They create aps, they do grassroot efforts things, and they should be aware of that. Things that they need to do to make sure that that’s universally designed Well, so everybody can be a part of that. I’m thinking through my list here. Leadership to leader leader shevawn buy-in. It has got to be critical walking in other people’s shoes, testing it yourself, have you, you know, gone and taken put installed a screen. And there’s lots of free ones out there that you can put on your computer and, like go through maybe a sight or form or software anything and just run through it and see, Is it Can I get through this and sometimes showing that to your superiors? If you can actually demo it and make it something real, then you know that makes it more real to him. They see it and they say, Oh, wow, I didn’t realize that such and such of are, you know, products it won’t work. If this individual is blind, let’s say, or or or whatever Those are Roger’s point. You hyre someone in the future. Yeah, exactly. Who needs these accommodation? Right? And if your product is working, like on an app or something that goes out to the public again, you don’t want to find out after the fact that such you know someone can’t access you’re at because it doesn’t have the accessibility features built in. But you can demo the process before you put something out and show it to a superior to the director that goes a long way to getting them to sort of start to change the culture in on then that no two vendors not only sometimes you create something, not something you know, A lot of days of databases are remade, you know, serums. You could test that. But sometimes you get something made for you, like a website, or you know, So it’s checking with them and really, are the references legit? Are they? Do they really care about accessibility of the hiring staff that are trained to look at those things? Is that part of their value system? Looking at that, I had a time before you jump into a big project where we just got this really big, beautiful website, but most of it’s inaccessible. I think we’ve tried both actually schooled vendors on the fact that their software was inaccessible when they didn’t know the insert, we’d end up testing it and say, Well, by the way, it does not work with Screen Reader. It has this problem. Is this flaw etcetera? And then they’re just Oh, okay. Do they always make changes? Not necessarily. But you put him on the spot. If there If there, uh, if they’re unaware, then you kind of you can show them and, you know, at least maybe a few of them will make a change. Hyre Remember you mentioned cloudgood a lot of cloud platforms or not screen meter accessible. I mean, we’re like, like software like databases and things like that, like Microsoft’s doing a really good after and making accessibility of priority for them. So, like if it’s maybe your whole Google, too. I mean, they’re all there realizing that they have to make their products, they have to fall that universal design principle, right? But then there’s a lot of, like, you know, people that create software, that they don’t have it as part of their value system that they make sure their designers and developers are understand universal sign, understand what makes a software accessible and aren’t thinking in that mind sat at all. And so they just hyre, you know, whoever, and they don’t train them. Maybe some are good, and they don’t. That doesn’t matter in the train after the fact and be part of their value system, but often you find that it’s not, and people are building these acts that are supposed to be available for millions of people, but they’re really not, or it becomes an afterthought. Sometimes that we were hoping more people you know don’t think about it is an afterthought is it’s part is part of your process, just like you would develop a budget just like you would test the software. You know, like all these components that you might do is just part of your chart of your process and your values. OK, ghisolf sometime left another six minutes or so together. What else you’re gonna covering your session that I haven’t asked you yet? We haven’t talked about well. Part of what we mentioned earlier about talking to changing the culture is you can start with, you know, you could start yourself and and make sure that your own communications, your own email, your own documents are done accessibly. And so one aspect of training is that really talk about your specifics and how to get it down to choosing the right fonts, for example, that are more that’s being more readable. Fund for someone with dyslexia, for example, maybe letters are easier to read. Uh, so there’s a lot of nuances like that using the tools that you already have. Microsoft Office or Google docks things like that, and they have features that allow you to make three documents accessible without doing anything, really all that special. It’s all right there. You don’t need to buy special software or anything like that, but people don’t do it. They don’t even know about it, or they feel like it’s not worth the effort, but the efforts really minimal. And so we’re going to show what some of those things are and how you can create PowerPoint presentations. Dahna brochures, etcetera that that that are are are just fully accessible. So what were you going to be showing? Well, so, for example, in in any modern word processor, there’s a feature called Stiles, and everyone seen them like you opened up Microsoft Word and they’re at the top in the toolbar is all these little book two different styles, you know, titles, heading, anyone heading to et cetera. The most people don’t do that. Most people will right the title and those selected, and they’ll make it bold. We’ll make it blue and they’ll make it, you know, 20 points, fonder, whatever. Well, visually, it looks great. but there’s no meaning to it. For someone who uses a screen reader or other assistive technology to explain that, that’s the title waken visually see the best title. That’s great. If you think about picking up the newspaper, you scan a newspaper, you know, by looking through the headings, and then you have something you’re interested in. You know, maybe you choose that article. Start reading it an individual with screen reader, whether it be a document, a website, whatever, if, if it’s not properly, you know, marked up essentially with four of those for morning, right? The formatting is like, you know, metadata. That’s in these styles. That and that’s the key. And so when you use that same with screen Reader has a tool that they could just read the headings. They could literally do the same thing that you know, if you visually scan a document to see what you want to read, it’s the same thing. But if you don’t if you don’t tell them what a heading is, the only choice it has is to start from word one, you know, picture picking up a newspaper and read in the title of it every time you want to go down to the bottom, you have to start at the top again and read the name of the paper, the price the you know, the editor that gets really old really fast. So when you when you mark these things up properly, they can jump to where they want to go, and it just becomes a more usable document for that. If you’re, like, all doing all caps, that’s like screaming. And there’s all these new and people do that with, like, you know, they’ll write out something. I’m really want someone to know. This is important in here, but you know you could you can make it all caps with styling without affecting the screen reader use durney something into a color and raising the font size doesn’t communicate anything with styles have that formatting metadata built in and yeah, and the same time in the end, if you’re writing a long document and you want to reform at it, But you know, if you do with the way you used to doing it, you gotta go back in and re select. Everything changed that, you know, color from blue to red or whatever Well, if you just change it in the style with the snap, it’s all done. Everything’s updated, so there’s lots of good reasons to do it just for your own workflows. People just don’t think about that. And if you’re a 19 manager, we talk way. Do like we create president power point presentations and styles that we might put into staffs a word Or, you know, like just we’ll plug it in there so that they have that framework to work from right away and they don’t have toe because everybody’s new and they may not know, like you might have new staff that don’t know how to use that that kind of tools until you teach them. But they we want to make that easy. And as I t managers or attacks, we can go in and add those pieces so that at least if someone’s going to get that Power point presentation on Gay didn’t get that accessibility training. If that’s part of what you do at your agency, they can know that that one. If I use this one, you know they have a start in creating it’s not 100% right because they don’t add all text to have bitterly but in their world. And it’s no not accessible start framework. And you could do that as I T manager. You can also develop check lists of things. You go through it with you when you’re adding and having a new staff come on like things that might help them in orient. You two, maybe what their needs are like. It could be everything from, you know, simple things like ergonomics. Um, it could be increasing the font size on their screen. They may not. Some people don’t realize that that that a lot of built in to windows and everything you, Khun, go up Tio 125 1 150% on on the screen. So everybody’s struggling, you know, we’re tryingto look at that screen they didn’t realize. You know, there’s this quick little setting I’ll have to do is turn that upto 1 25 and things got a lot better and a coworker just last week who left your reading glasses at home and I said, Oh, no worries and I did exactly that. It turned up to 100%. She’s like, Oh, I don’t even need him anymore. But, you know, just no one really thought about it. Yeah, there’s an example to of helping the non disabled community. Teo benefits a side benefit of accessibility. Nothing I was thinking of was not all. Not all challenges and disabilities are our permanent Somebody. Somebody might have an eye infection. Andi need a screen reader for a week, for sure. Well, they’re taking their course of antibiotics, so it could be something temporary as well. Okay, uh, on don’t know, too, if if you if your people in your organisation realised that you have a culture of trying to help, you know, to improve your accessibility standards. People that do have disabilities that maybe don’t want that out, they’re more likely feel accepted. They’re more like to feel included, and they’re more likely to give out ideas and participate when they fill that they have those connections and that their agency cares about those things. Otherwise, they feel like they’re marginal lines. We’re gonna leave it there. That’s actually very good. That’s a perfect ending. All right. They are Keith Castle, bon technology and communications manager at Disability Rights Florida and Aurora Holder, I t manager at disability right to Wisconsin. Keith Arora. Thanks very much. Thank you, Tony. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for being with Tony martignetti non-profit Radio coverage of 1990 season non-profit Technology Conference This interview Like all our 1990 si interviews brought to you by our partners at ActBlue Free fund-raising Tools to help non-profits making impact Thanks so much for being with us. We need to take a break when you see piela is their accountants. You know what accountants do? Do you need one? Do you need a new one? Do you need the help of one? That’s pretty much the same as needing one talking heat Heat Coach Tomb. He’s a partner in the firm has been a show on the guest on the show and a show on the guest. He’ll be honest with you and tell you whether Wagner can help you with your accounting needs. A place to get started is at wetness cpas dot com Now time for Tony Steak, too. My video is two ways to be a good American abroad. As I said last week, this’s from my trip to Brussels, Belgium, for a day and witnessing some bad behavior with language and currency money in in Brussels by some, um, Americans who were Ah well, last week I said ugly, unsympathetic to thee to the native people that they were visiting. And I think you should be a little more sympathetic. Little more outreaching, a little more giving right. That’s how to avoid being that that bad American. So my video, of course, is the positive way. Two ways to be a good American abroad. You can check that out at tony martignetti dot com, and that is Tony’s. Take two Now here is resilience and sustainable impact. Welcome to Tony martignetti non-profit Radio coverage of 1990 si. That’s the 2019 non-profit Technology Conference. We’re in Portland, Oregon, at the Convention Center. All of our 1990 siente views are brought to you by our partners at Act Blue Free fund-raising tools to help non-profits make an impact. My panel now is Ananda Leak and Mika Whitlock. Ananda is chief mindfulness officer at Ananda Leak Consulting, and Miko is a speaker in trainer on DH. The mindful techie Ananda we go Welcome. Thank you for having a pleasure. Miko, Welcome back to non-profit radio. Thank you. Having a welcome for your first time. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you Mind. We’re talking about your session topic, which is activating a culture of resilience and sustainable impact. Ananda, let’s start with you. What? You give us the headline and lead here. What was the need for the session? The need for this session was Teo really help non-profit organizations and the staff that worked for them understand that they can take better care of themselves one by slowing down and looking at how they communicate, how they’re interacting with each other, the rituals that they have setting on intention as well as looking at how do they want to use technology and a healthy and a mindful way I’m also looking at What would they like to do with these changes in the next 30 16 90 days? And that was something that nickel focused on the intention, the values and then your action plan. Okay, Miko, you wantto introduce us to the topic as well, Please. Yeah, So you know, we live in a damn time where technology and access information is really driving with our person dahna fresh in a life and in the nonprofit sector particular way, have a challenge of described as what best describes as a fire drill culture. Right. Jeff Kanter? Yes. It was on your panel but could not be here. Yes, she had to leave last night. Yes. So Beth describes his culture a fire drill culture where we are sort of moving from crisis to crisis. And we have to do list. That’s right. Now, Long and we have our project listens a mile long. But oftentimes those things that are on the project we started to do list. We ask ourselves, what is our intention? What is our mission? What are you driving toward? We often have a list full of things that aren’t actually related or lined. And so this is about getting in alignment and using tech to do that versus letting it rule you and being unintentional unmindful. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. This is related to what you and I talked about last year. You were? Of course, you were the mindful techie last year. And I remember something you said that’s stayed with me. And I’ve implemented this that you, uh you tell you tell clients up front that you don’t answer email over the weekend. That was right. I hope you’re right. Yes, I’m doing it. Yeah, so it’s xero. It’s about establishing your rules of engagement. And so it’s one of things you can do where people are overwhelmed, like I have all these things to do. I feel like there’s just application for me to be on 24 7 Well, one of the simple things you can do simply to communicate. Here’s how I communicate Well, here’s the tool that I use. Here’s what you can respect expect in terms of a response. You could do this as an individual. You can do this for your team. You can have a discussion as an organization, and what this allows you to do is for you to turn off your phone, turn off your email and know that if you need to be reached, that your team has been given instructions on how to actually reach your something is truly urgent. And if you’re not reachable, they know, like what the next step in the process is. They know what, who Dakota contact or what the protocol is. There aren’t able to reach you and Ananda Help! Help tie this together. So how does uh uh, well, he Miko calls and rules of engagement, I would say setting boundaries. But however you describe it, how does that help you be a more resilient and sabat sustainable organization? Well, first of all, when you make that commitment to yourself, that’s really saying to yourself, I am prioritizing me. I’m practicing self care and that’s the piece. The mindfulness piece that we emphasize yesterday and our session is that whether you’re listening to yourself or listening to others speaking to others, speaking to yourself, all of that communication starts here. It starts with ourselves. So when you invest in, I’m going to set a boundary with how much time I spend communicating with people as well, a CZ using the technology that allows you to kind of settle in and see what’s really happening, really Take the time to say I’m a little out of balance over here. I’m a little out of balance over here, and this is what I can do to bring more balance in if you’re a leader and we had a lot of folks that lead teams in our session, you’re setting an example for how the folks are interacting and and what you do is a leader your team follows. So if you’re all over the place, if you’re stressed out, then your team is, and that doesn’t work for anyone. You want to be productive, you want to be effective. And the way that you could do that is using mindfulness and slowing down and practicing self care. And then that changes the culture that helps you become a resilient person, team and organisation and sustainable and sustainable. Because because unmindful sort of chaotic, what does best say Fire, fire, fire, fire, drill kind of organs that culture is not sustainable. People going to leave because they just can’t work in that kind of environment. Exactly. People stay, people stay home. You have higher rates of Peterle. I’m taking health leave before those things. You have people who maybe it wouldn’t take three hours to do something if they were arrested. If they had the time, If they weren’t responding to emails all times during the day and night and even on the weekends, so is really looking at Hey, how are we treating ourselves first? Because that that impacts your clients that impacts their bottom line in pressure. Dollar. You know your profit. Yeah. This is not just about health. Know which is which is should be sufficient, but for a lot of people, it’s not. It’s also a bottom line costs. Yeah, And if your health outcomes or poor because you’re in a on unsustainable work environment, then that’s going to impact your your your health insurance premiums. Yeah, and people who are stressed out make more mistakes, you know, And productivity. Yeah, and you have to keep coming back to fix it. And so you’re using a lot of time. Use a lot of energy. People are not working at their best. They’re not working smart. So I’m guessing you had a lot of strategies for Ah, avoiding the the the fire crisis kind of management organizational culture. Okay, why don’t you kick us off mindful Techie? Yeah. So, Mikko, one of the first things is really taking a step back to get clear about what is your intention And what is your vision? Any particular point in time? If you have a list of Mao longer things that you have to do, the reality is that you only have a certain number of hours in a day, and in a week you have a certain amount of energy and attention that you’re able to give to those things that are on your list. And so you want to make sure that whatever you’re choosing to focus your time on is Number one mission, Aline. That’s that’s personally and professionally. The second thing you want people to do is not all of those things are off equal importance that are on your list. So you wanna be able to prioritize. Prioritize means to essentially say yes to one thing and no or not right now to something else so that you could give your time and attention and focus to what’s actually important. Have you Have you seen that Eisenhower Quadrant? Yes, I knew that if I used the pool okay, so well, we don’t have the benefit everybody most. Most of our audience is listening. Some will be watching video, so there’s no point in drawing. And I don’t think I can get Teo please. So, essentially, the Eisenhower principal, this is ah ah, tool. That’s attributed to Eisenhower’s just a foursquare quad. It’s essentially helps you identify what’s urgent versus important at this particular point in time. So what needs your time and attention right now? What can be scheduled? What can be delegated or our automated and what could be eliminated from your list altogether? Because it is not really relevant or it’s not really important. And one of the challenges with along to do Listen project list is folks think that everything is of equal importance. So they stressed themselves out, trying to do everything simultaneously. And when I work with people on this, that really asked a series of power of questions. And one of them is, if you could only do one thing of those 50 things that are on your list, which one thing would be so impactful that would make everything else on that list either easier or irrelevant to do? Here’s an example that came up in the workshop. A woman said, I have. I hear what you’re saying about prioritizing and picking one thing, but I have 50 things on my list. What I don’t I don’t know where to start. And she ended up actually answering her own question because what she realizes that Okay, well, if I prioritize actually training my new staff. Then I would actually have less things to do because that my staff would be empowered to do those things. And so if I said over the next 90 days, I’m going to focus on that that thing on my long to do list first, you actually shorten your to do list by doing one of them exactly prioritizing that as number one. Exactly. Okay, all right. And so another tip that folks can use. And this is just working in larger groups and your team’s. One of the things that came up in the mindful communication group is that people did not feel like they were heard. They felt like when they go to meetings, they’re really just waiting so that they can get out what they need to get out because they’ve got an agenda. The folks that are running the meeting have an agenda, and no one is really slowing down tto list, and you’re just really ready. Just to respond is like you’re talking, and then I’m not listening to you because I’m preparing my next statement. So I offered to the group that won you start your meeting with a mindful moment. That’s something where you can have 30 seconds, 60 seconds, maybe a minute. If you have more time, you can do a mindful meditation, but just taking some deep breaths so that everyone can arrive. Another thing folks talked about was that when they have one on one communication with folks, folks are looking away their on their phones there. By the way, when I’m looking away, I’m looking at volume. You almost looking the number of minutes. OK, I’m not I mean, I’m not turning 90 degrees to go, right? Aye. There’s two things that attract your volume and write and how much time we spend. So we’re right here together. Rules of engagement. Exactly. One engaged with me. I got you. Tolerate. I’m going t 10 degrees offer. You’re looking at it. I totally understand. And I’m with you and you’re with me. You’re you’re you’re managing this process. So I I understand that However, if you’re all over the place and your were supposed to be talking, I don’t feel heard, so I don’t It’s Yeah, Well, that’s one. That’s one person made that comment that it’s rude, but what it is is that you’re missing an opportunity to really hear what your colleague is saying, which is involving the bottom line, which is the profit, which is what? Doing good work. You’re missing that opportunity and it’s it’s really saying You don’t respect yourself and you don’t respect the other person. So one thing that people can do is institute a rule where you put your cell phone down, maybe collect the cell phones, put the laptop down, meeting at meetings. Yeah, meaning so people can really engage with each other or dedicate a particular part of the meeting for people to Because because I know in meetings folks are taking note lorts and so they’re using their phone. They’re using their their computers. But to dedicate a portion of that meeting so that people are one on one, they get to see it. Your present. Some of the components of mindful communication are one. You have the intention to be present, too, that you are actually present. How how do we become president? We become president with our breath just simply taking a deep breath in and out. Your breath is with you at all times. I say, make your breath your B F F. The third component is making sure that you’re that that person recognizes that you’re there. That’s the active listening, the act of speaking. We have that eye contact, you know, and and then engaging with folks. I know what I’m going to say, but you’re going to say something else so that I actually hear you in. It’s responding. It’s like giving that affirmation So all of those things really do help shape the culture that helps with folks understanding that there heard that allows people to feel respected. That allows you to get out what you need to say. It bills team confidence in helps productivity. It resolves conflicts. If you have a conflict with someone else and you’re looking away, that doesn’t do anything except add to to the issue, so it helps you transform problems into possibilities. It za superpower that we’re all missing mindfulness, you know, time for our last break text to give the five party male many course that dispels the myths around mobile giving. You know how to get the thing. You text NPR, too, for for for 999 and break down the myriad myths around mobile giving like that it has to go through through a phone company, and the donor’s phone bill is where is that puts a limit on the amount that they can give. It doesn’t have to work that way. That’s one of the myths on you will crush the others by getting the email many course over five days. Text NPR to 444999 and we’ve got butt loads more time for resilience and sustainable impact. I have some of that, and I don’t mean this trite Lee. But some of that is just things that I think I I grew up, I think a lot of grumbling being called, you know, courtesy your your your attentive When people are talking to you, you’re listening. You know you’re not thinking of your next sentence napor waiting for them to pause so you can get it in. But you’re listening on DH. You’re giving them your attention and no, now we say you’re you’re mindful of your on intentional about your presence, but I think on again, not trite. But like a lot of it is common courtesy that I don’t know if it’s technology has led us away from or its are burdensome work schedules. That is maybe a combination, you know. But I hear a lot of what you’re saying as courtesy. It is courtesy. But what you said what you just said with the technology and are burdensome schedules and then just the drive of of our country. I can’t talk about other countries, just a drive of our country, that we want it right now. All of that has taken courtesy and its dumped it out the window. I mean, we’re altum. I’m sure we’re all taught that, but you’re trying to get stuff done and you have someone who’s pressing you. You’ve got deadlines. The best of us have those intentions and myself included. But if you’re so wrapped up in responding and and I’m using myself because that as an example, what are you going to do to slow down? But it’s it’s the breath. A lot of time. A lot of times I will say maybe not a lot. Occasionally I will say, you know, could you just repeat what you said? Because I apologize. I my mind wandered for those last couple senses, or, um, nothing I’ve done is put off discussion so I can’t focus on this right now because of this other thing. Can we delay whether it’s a day or 15 minutes or whatever? You know, I know that I can’t give you my full attention. Yes, I’m sorry that I can’t because we had scheduled something, But I can’t do it right now. I won’t be at my best with you. I’ve done that occasionally. People always understand, and I think they’d rather reschedule. I’m you know, I’m sorry I’m disappointing you, but we’ll have a much better outcome if if you can meet me halfway and we could do this tomorrow or next week Yeah. Miko. Another strategy principle for us. Tow. Be mindful and intentional and contribute to our resilience and sustainability. Yeah, so I think around the technology to do it, I’ll just give AA few things. So one is, you know, to really take a look at your smart watch, your smartphone, your tablet, all those things which are really wonderful to do our work. But to really assess of all the acts that you’re using, which of those things are mission critical versus which aren’t mission critical and for the things that aren’t mission critical that getting in the way That of distracting. Turn off the push notifications. If Facebook Instagram, this is a good one. You said this last year too, but it bears repeating by no means. Yeah, if dated. Exactly. You don’t have to write your own ticket. These notifications all Exactly. If you know the CNN breaking news alerts. If those things aren’t mission critical, turn off the alerts. That is Facebook will be their instrument would be there. Standing will be there if you want to follow that. But we’re going toe Take back our attention. Take back our time. Take back our focus extend the quality of our focus so that no one on this point that when we are talking like my phone isn’t buzzing And then I’m trying I’m trying to think about okay, this thing I didn’t respond too well. Who like me. What is it? What does pocket buzzing? What? What’s there That is compared to what I’m doing with you and then I’m like Sorry, Tony, could you repeat the question? Your pocket is lighting up. You know there’s something else that I took away. It was it was either from the panel last year. Or Amy Sample. Ward is a regular contributor on the show. She talked about technology and social media. It was it was either your panel or or she and another interview suggested turning off the badge in the mail on your phone. Yes, I think the number in your phone was yes. Panel. Yes. And I did it. Yeah, and I don’t feel that I don’t feel stressed. I don’t have to see the number one. It’s going up. It’s this high is for, and I haven’t been there yet. It doesn’t matter. The little little old thing is there. I don’t know. It’s not even there isn’t there, and it’s not his blank. No, it’s not even there yet. It just just the icon without the badge. I don’t need to know that I have one or six or 12 messages. I’ll get to it when I get to it. You don’t need to tell me the check. E mail. It’s not something I’m going to forget in 2019. I can’t possibly forget to check email, and I think this is particularly important with email where we get more chemo. Then we have the capacity to actually address in some cases. So turning off the notification that shows you how many messages awaiting that little badge that lowers your anxiety level? It actually works, you know. Worked for me. Yeah, Just I worked for me and part of it. The part. The reason that worked was because the devices are intentionally designed to capture your intent. Your attention, right? And so there’s a lot of thought that goes into the notifications, how they flow, the sound, the color and all those things that actually influence that. So I’ll take this. Yes, it stop the damn badges. Red. Yeah, it’s great. It’s another. Yes, the reds. Exactly. Stop what you’re doing and come to my number and look in your email. So here’s a bonus too. Okay. If you turn your tablet or your phone. Two gray scale. But you’re essentially looking at a black and white device, right? And it has less appeal. So you’re not just picking up your phone, you know that random moments, thinking Okay. What am I like visually engaging, less engaging? Exactly. So you have children. You have to pause and think about. Okay. Well, what am I doing at this moment what I want to do with my device in my hand, because all of a sudden becomes like a less attractive toy if you become the less attractive, shiny object, if you will, because you’ve turned off the color setting. Is that in the color on iPhone? Is that in colors and brightness? It’s a city, its inaccessibility setting, its inaccessibility in-kind osili excellent. I wouldn’t have found it there. All right, I’m gonna try it awesome. And another another set of tools that people can use. And this is going back to the breath. So many of us in the nonprofit world we sit all day long. Or maybe we’re standing outstanding debts, and if you are, that’s a That’s a beautiful thing. But you’re in front of that screen, whether it’s your your your laptop, your phone or your watch. What I suggested to folks yesterday in the sessions that you use either the phone ringing the email that’s requiring your attention, whatever the next assignment is in the next to do list. Item two. Step away. Take a break. Before you engage into that, you can either use your breath by just simply doing and out in and out before and you can always get up and go to the bathroom. Who’s going to stop you? That was one thing. If you’re in a meeting and things are getting whatever way that they are, you can get up and move and go to the bathroom and re align yourself. Take some breaths in the bathroom. I’m I’m famous for going to the last stall and breathing. Maybe doing some stretching some office yoga. I mean, I work it out. The bathroom is is my escape. Okay, I would extend that. So one of the tips that I give two folks for, you know, if the turning off the notifications turning off the badge. If you like this just a bridge too far for you. I offer people this mantra. I would say to you, you should try it. It’s not a bridge too far, but But if if you’re in that situation, is the mantra called eat poop? Sleep. So again, the mantra is called Eat poop sleep, and the idea is that way. All have to eat way. All the poop way will have to sleep, and those are opportunities where we can put away the tablet, you can put away the phone. So for 30 minutes while you’re eating, you know you can be by yourself or be actually engaged with someone else and conversation while you’re pooping on the toilet, your phone can not be with you. And hopefully, while you’re sleeping, you’re not also texting and trying to read CNN at the same time, right? Hopefully you can turn that off and maybe buy a real alarm clock and charger device in a different room. So though, if you’re looking for a place to start and you feel like all the other things that I shared and all these other people are sharing tips and hacks, quote unquote aren’t doable for you poop sleep. I have an example of that. It wasn’t pooping but was being I was in the men’s room yesterday. It was in the men’s room and two different guys came in. They were holding themselves with their right hand, and they were holding the phone with their left standing at the urinal. Yeah, I couldn’t believe two different guys sequentially. They didn’t see each other, but I saw both of them. Can I take a lot of time when I washed my hands. Uh, so I was in the hand washing section. But these guys were watching their phones while they were peeing in the urinal. I couldn’t believe it. So please, you should be able to do more than eat poop sleep. I understand they’re people who can’t sew your starting point, set a low bar, wait to start my way. Yes, I think we all should. Wear should be able to go further than that. Alright. Way. Still have some more time in a couple more minutes? Ananda, you have you have another? Yeah, you do value. So you know, we we sometimes find ourselves so stressed out that we eat in front of our devices and one of the things that this is years ago, a colleague suggested to me, Just move. Remove yourself from the desk. Don’t eat in your in the work area. Go someplace else. There’s there are other places to go, or if that’s what you’re finding yourself doing and you don’t have any other place to go, then each your food and go walk, Go duitz. Move your body. It’s like the mind needs to see something different. Just changed the geographic oppcoll area. We went to dinner last night. I think we were talking. It was either during dinner, one of one of our social outings during during the conference, and Miko was talking to someone About what? This is such a great food city. You shot out the restaurant? Oh, yes. Blossom. What is it? Blossoming lotus. Blossoming lotus. Awesome food. We love you. The carrot. Chinese, Japanese. It was vegan. Vegan? Yeah, they had some great carrot ginger soup. Oh, my gosh. The collie flower was amazing. I have Bob. Yeah, Yeah, they had a great smoothies. Great t everything. Oh, yes, that took me to a whole Another place. So yeah, You see how food can just transform you? You wantto make sure that when you’re eating that you’re enjoying the meal. So mindful eating is like taking the bite’s slowly chewing, just savoring the tastes, lowly doing and not trying to do anything else. Just enjoying the meal, even taking a walk and picking up your feet and putting them back down. That’s mindful. Walking. You can google it if you want to know more about it. Good. The process of just bringing some presents to your activity other than the work space. Just moving yourself in that space of Yeah, I’m here. Maybe it’s just Maybe you just need to stand outside. I know sometimes for me it’s cold and D C and just going to the corner and coming back and at the corner of CVS. But I just need thio, move my body and stand outside, and I’ll just bring you in and out, just changing, changing your geographical location. But the story I was telling with Miko was that someone talked about how they work from home and that they’re really in this open space. And so they’re sleeping and they’re working in the same space, putting a sheet over their work area so that that allows you to say, I’m done and that’s the end of the day and it’s done. It’s like covering it up or closing a door, doing something that separates the space Home office. Yes, yes, cleaning off your desk, you have something that I do religiously cleaning off your desk. Yeah, there’s a there’s a science behind them, so when you’re one of the challenges with eating at your desk, is not that just that you’re eating at your desk, you’re not getting away from it, is your brain doesn’t actually shut off. So you’re because their brain is associating you sitting at your desk and you sitting in front of your screen. Is you still working? So even though you’re eating it, maybe you’re not actively working. Your brain is still in work mode so that the physical act of closing the lid cleaning after dafs covering it up, I’m moving to like a different physical space signals to your brain. Okay, we’re going into a restaurant or eating in that dance. Yeah, Okay. We’re going to rescue to recovery move. Okay, We’re gonna leave it there. OK? Was excellent. Thank you. Thank you for this back and forth. Thank you. My pleasure. They are. They are Ananda Leak, chief mindfulness officer at Ananda Leak Consulting and Miko Whitlock, Speaker and trainer. Mindful Techie, you are with Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of 19 ntc 19 2019 non-profit Technology Conference. All of our 19 ntcdinosaur views are brought to you by our partners at act Blue Free fund-raising tools for non-profits to make an impact. Thanks for being with us next week. Unconscious bias and your normal is my trigger. If you missed any part of today’s show, I beseech you, find it on tony. Martignetti dot com were sponsored by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits, Data driven and technology enabled. Tony dahna slash pursuing by Wagner CPS Guiding YOU beyond the numbers Regular cps dot com and by text to give mobile donations. Made Easy Text. NPR to 444999 A Creative producers. Claire Meyerhoff Family. Boyce is the line producer. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our Web guy, and this music is by Scots. Dina Brooklyn, New York Thank you, Scotty. Here with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit Ideas for the other 95% Go out and be great. You’re listening to the Talking Alternative Network. 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