During the Q&A afterwards, Molly Holzschlag (of MollyDotCom fame) asked a question regarding my daily activities — how I get started, how I connect with other participants, how I drive innovation among peers and colleagues, etc. My response wasn’t great, so I’m going to take a moment here to answer her question more fully.

In my view, creating and launching a new digital innovation product generally occurs in three steps: Gap Identification, MVP Iteration and Market Development:

Gap Identification

First you have to locate your problem — some need in the social or commercial marketplace to be addressed. The accessibility arena is especially rich with gaps to fill on behalf of people with disabilities. A great start are daily news feeds. Is there an area of exploration in which an underserved population can benefit from a new offering? Is there something of particular interest to you personally?

Research everything you can about the problem. Talk to key thought leaders within the space, ask them questions, soak up all the knowledge that’s out there. When I first started working in accessibility twelve (!) years ago, I spent months asking people with various disabilities about all sorts of everything: their frustrations, their victories, what they desired, what they wished technology would do for them. These conversations have framed my thinking to this day.

The next step is to run a miniature version of SWOT/PEST analyses on your problem. It doesn’t have to be a formal process, just something to help suss out and clarify your thinking. Most people are familiar with SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). A PEST analysis examines the political, economic, social and technological factors that constitute a problem’s micro-attributes.

At the conclusion of this step, you should feel confident describing the problem in a succinct 30-second sound bite. You should also have key data points to support your rationale, as well as recent news articles detailing its timeliness. An assumption here or there is appropriate at this early stage, as that’s usually where innovation is derived.

Once you have a problem identified and some potential thinking around it, you’re ready to begin prototyping.

MVP Iteration

I’m a believer in MVP (minimum viable product) prototyping, because it allows things to progress at an advantageous cost point with easily attainable effort. I had a great discussion Tuesday with Karl Groves on the value of the Agile methodology, which emphasizes collaboration and adaptative evolution over feature sets derived from rigid requirements. The Agile approach suits the MVP model well.

Since the best way to solve a huge problem is to break it into manageable goals, I tend to increment the MVP in a series of versions (which I call v.1, v.2, etc.) Remember that each stage is iterated with the intention of achieving the next level. MVP v.1, for example, might just be a Powerpoint slide or one-pager to present to your supervisor to collect her input. MVP v.2 might be a storyboard or screen flow to deliver to project teams.

In a typical project, I usually have a fairly defined milestone in the future I’m trying to target. It might be a stakeholder presentation to solicit funding, or a pilot program to test on authentic users, or a small clinical trial for a medical device. In all cases, the purpose of MVP is to build a series of success stories that collectively operate as a proof-of-concept. The end result is something you’d feel confident putting in front of potential investors.

The most important aspect of MVP is to iterate not only the prototyping, but also the learning. You’ll discover new things along the way that alter your original thinking or even force you to change course. This is part of the process and should be expected. Adaptive thinking is a tremendous asset to innovation teams; the Zen proverb “bend like a reed” applies here.

Market Development

This is where things get fun. At each stage of the MVP, you are honing the message you want to deliver. You should have a very firm idea of how your offering will benefit your identified target audience. You should also be able to predict and meet objections, and to be very open about what you’ve discovered along the way.

It’s at this point where the innovation question evolves from “what if?” to “so what?” Always frame your MVP into a definable context: can you identify a business need to which your offering can bring value? What is the desired outcome for potential investment groups? Can you promise a short-term return on investment, and what is the long-term benefit?

Here is some top-level guidance I’ve learned in the past few years about pitching innovation:

• Invest in yourself. If you haven’t been willing to put your own funds into the endeavor, it’s difficult to expect that others will.
• Be honest. Admit what you don’t know. Emphasize what you do know. Back it up with numbers.
• Care. Bring authentic passion and knowledge to the table. Investors are more likely to fund an idea with confidence, if the concept resonates meaningfully with the person driving it.
• Have a goal in mind. Be very specific: “I want to take this current MVP and test it on x number of users, which I will then translate into x commercial opportunity.”
• Define your targets. Don’t just say “people with disabilities,” for example. Narrow the swath to a segment culled from your research and intuition.
• Ask for the order. This is Selling 101. Respectfully present your offering as an opportunity to do something great together. If you’ve done your preparation, this should come easily.

A Final Thought

The one item I haven’t yet addressed from Molly’s question is how I connect and maintain relationships with stakeholders. To be honest, there’s no magic bullet other than to be genuine and sincere in all communications. I personally value integrity above all else in my personal and professional relationships. I’d like to think that people who work with me do so because they share my value structure and moral compass, and they’re willing to demonstrate that with me as we achieve great things together.

Ridley’s routine is funny, intelligent, and softly self-deprecating:

“In case you were in any doubt I really am disabled. It’s not just really good acting and I’m definitely not just in it for the parking space.”

“When I realized I would never be able to talk again I was speechless.”

“I am not related to Steven Hawking in any way. However I do hate the way people take the *** out of the way he speaks. I can really synthesize with him!”

“People have often asked me why I want to put myself in a position where everyone can look and stare at me. The truth is that it happens to me every day any way. At least this way there’s a scheduled time and place for it.”

Presenters with disabilities who use an iPad is not new; at CSUN 2011, Glenda Watson Hyatt told a wonderful story through the device and captivated a full ballroom. It is nice to see folks transcend the use of technology for a greater purpose, such as expressing oneself or to pursue a career goal.

Many thank to Char James-Tanny for bringing this story to my attention via Twitter.

The studies – one from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, the other from the RAND Corporation – suggest that access to healthy food has no bearing on citizen health. In fact, the studies indicate that people living in food deserts actually have more access to food than comparatively affluent neighborhoods:

Poor neighborhoods had nearly twice as many fast food restaurants and convenience stores as wealthier ones, and they had more than three times as many corner stores per square mile. But they also had nearly twice as many supermarkets and large-scale grocers per square mile … living close to supermarkets or grocers did not make [middle] school students thin and living close to fast food outlets did not make them fat.

Coming so quickly after my recent post on food deserts and mobile technologies for digital outcasts, I feel compelled to offer a response. First thing to note is that both studies are authored by credible organizations, and I’m not looking to discredit their findings or research methods. The numbers are what the numbers are.

The second item to note is perhaps more diffused: physical access to stores is not the sole attribute by which we should define a food desert. There are additional contributing factors that earn this designation including nutritional literacy, logistical difficulties (such as work schedules or transportation options), quality of available stock, and regional tendencies that dictate buying habits.

In other words – simply having a source of food is near your home doesn’t automatically improve your access to or awareness of healthier diet choices. Nor does living some distance from a grocery store decrease a community’s health quotient. Anyone who makes these assumptions is conflating multiple socioeconomic trends into a single, flawed data point.

Consider the claim that “within a couple of miles you can get basically any type of food,” according to Rolan Sturm of the RAND Corporation. In cities where higher-quality supermarkets are more than a mile away, residents without cars must rely on public transportation. Climate conditions, unsafe streets, misaligned work shifts, and long walking distances compound the problem – which only worsens when having to carry bags of groceries back home.

Faced with limited transportation options, residents are more likely to make purchases at small, local stores. The quality of stores’ contents varies widely from shop to shop, block to block, zip code to zip code. In the bodegas of Harlem, for example, shelves are stocked with artificially sweetened soft drinks and beer. Sandwiches are lathered with full-fat cheese and mayonnaise, the counters bursting with candy bars and potato chip packets. What produce remains is of insufficient quality to even meet baseline nutritional benchmarks.*

And even if one is fortunate to have a supermarket nearby, there’s no guarantee that it will be any better than the corner bodega. Stocking decisions are primarily driven by revenue demographics, creating a vicious cycle where wealthy consumers control the market for higher quality produce. Less affluent shoppers suffer with fewer choices, because their wallets don’t resonate with the same level of impact among corporate decision-makers.

What results is a crisis of abundance, where free enterprise collides with human nature. The body’s physical demand is to fill it with calories; the brain knows that 50 calories from a mixed vegetable medley is better than a serving of French fries, but that’s not how hungry people make decisions. A 12-year-old is going to choose the McDonald’s across the street for her daily snack, even though she knows the corner grocer is ten blocks away. She does this every afternoon on her way home from school, simply because one option is within her sight and the other isn’t.

And yet – observed through the single metric of store location, rationale supporting the existence of food deserts seems flawed. Rejecting the concept, however, requires an assumption that people will logically travel longer distances to buy products of marginal value. Or that given the option of “easily acquired and healthy” vs. “difficult to obtain and unhealthy,” they’ll choose the latter every time.

From a universal design standpoint, that is just ridiculous. People want healthier choices, but they also want something they can prepare quickly and easily – especially at the end of a long workday when the baby is crying, the bills have to be paid, the kids won’t do their homework and an elderly parent needs her medicine.

Yes, Virginia, there are food deserts. They exist in the contextual vacuum that fails to recognize that access doesn’t equal availability. They exist in the decisions retailers make when they evaluate spending habits among demographic groups. They exist in the homes of families who (seriously) don’t know the difference between a beet and a potato. They exist in the minds of political pundits, those who would rather mock food deserts as some sort of fictional Sasquatch than address empirical truths behind the data.

This is where the real food deserts exist – not on the streets of Urban America, not in the dilapidated corner shops infested with roaches, but within every household that makes up a social constituency and the businesses that serve them. It’s not just whether or not you can get to a store. It’s about what’s inside that store and whether a visit is even worth the trip.

*An initiative is taking place to bring healthy food into Harlem bodegas. Greenmarket is a project of New York City’s Council on the Environment, gifting refrigerators to bodega owners to stock seasonal fruits, vegetables and pure juices.

The gunshots I hear on this gray morning in February are startlingly loud, probably no more than a couple of blocks away from where I’m standing. Four figures in bulky coats are seen running across a nearby street. I must look alarmed because my tour guide sees the need to reassure me. “It happens,” he says, evincing the calm demeanor of someone who sees this sort of thing a lot. Me, I’m just a tourist on his East Baltimore turf; I’m here because I want to know if it’s possible for Orleans Street residents to buy a carrot.

A food desert is a term given to any part of the industrialized world where healthy, affordable food is difficult for consumers to obtain. Thought to be primarily an inner city phenomenon, food deserts can be found in rural as well as urban areas. They are widespread across the continental United States, though they are most prevalent among low-socioeconomic communities.

With no easy access to supermarkets, populations living in food deserts demonstrate a wide range of diet-related health problems: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, malnutrition and obesity. A USDA Economic Research Service report to Congress reveals 23.5 million people currently residing in food deserts, with 4 percent of the U.S. population living more than a mile from any quality food supplier.

Brandon Parker is walking through his Cherry Hill neighborhood on a Sunday morning. In his right hand is a cigarette. In his left, a bag of groceries from the Family Dollar Store. Behind him, his 3-year-old son, Rainier, reaches into the bag of Doritos his daughter Na-ayzin, 4, is holding.

“That’s all they ever ask for, soda and chips,” Parker said. “I just bought them breakfast and that’s what they wanted, chips.”

Parker said he would prefer to feed them fresh fruit. He buys organic fruit from the Fresh Food Mart off Patapsco Avenue when he can. But it is early and his kids are hungry. The Family Dollar is within walking distance, so they go there, not for any other reason than because it is close.

The key attributes of food deserts are affordability and access. According to U.S. census tracts, a community qualifies as a food desert if both of the following condition thresholds are met:

• Low-income — communities having a poverty rate of 20 percent or a median family income below 80 percent of the area median
• Low-access — communities with at least 500 persons (or 33% of the census tract’s population) living more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store

Residents of food desert areas often have no economic or logistic access to private transportation. They rely on public transit, if it exists and/or they can afford it, or they travel several miles on foot to reach a grocery store. As a result, consumers without cars depend on food sources within the closest proximity to their homes. Unfortunately these take the form of fast food restaurants, corner “dollar stores,” unhealthy street vendors and bodegas overstocked with junk food products.

Real Food Farm serves communities surrounding Baltimore's Clifton Park neighborhood, distributing fresh fruits and vegetables to 27,500 low-income residents with little access to healthy food. Such urban agricultural enterprises continue to emerge through the use of mobile technologies.

Residents of food deserts, however, may one day benefit from an unrelated yet parallel trend — the increased utilization of mobile technologies among African-American and Latino populations. According to a Pew Internet and American Life study conducted in 2010, use of mobile phones among minorities increased by 32%. People in these groups are also more likely than Caucasian users to rely on data applications, with more than a fifth of all Internet traffic taking place through the smartphone.

Traditional models of consumer behavior tend to assume unimpeded access; we don’t consider that buying decisions are formed with invalid or incomplete choices. If consumer guidance is inaccessible, then people have no choice but to downscale the quality of their purchasing habits. This is terrific for food fast outlets, who reap the financial benefits of easy access in food deserts where no other choices are available, but not so great for the health of the communities who live there. With these trends in mind, perhaps a non-traditional approach is required to truly modify behavior among the socioeconomically compromised.

We already see innovative nutrition programs taking place among food deserts. Uplift Solutions endeavors to attract grocery corporations to West Philadelphia neighborhoods through community involvement. New York City officials have revisited zoning regulations to make food businesses more profitable. The Oakland-based People’s Grocery created a roving market on wheels to bring farm-fresh food to where the people are, something also being done successfully by Real Food Farm in Baltimore. And in Illinois, the Let’s Move program joins Food for Every Child to stimulate opening of new grocery shops.

Poster in a Philadelphia subway station that resembles grocery shelves stocked with grocery products. Commuters with smartphones can download an app to scan the bar codes and order delivery.

The next generation of food programs may very well combine the trend of mobile technology with social science. There is a need to incentivize local grocery stores as community health centers, even for large conglomerate supermarkets. Additionally, private label food brands want to be viewed as nutritional experts. One can image a text- and pictorial-based user interface by which consumers can make health decisions at the point of purchase. New pilot apps may one day geo-locate a farmer’s market truck and inform residents when it is scheduled to be in their neighborhood.

Community input helps to culturally sanction new stores in areas containing a predominant ethnic group. Technological profiles aggregate health filters specific to a family or neighborhood, and that translates to increased marketability. Consider what Uplift Solutions has done to encourage supermarket managers to embrace the rich ethnic heritage of their respective constituencies. It’s not impossible to envision a “virtual supermarket” largely distributed through religious and cultural vehicles, providing social markers to grocery stores seeking new ways to move product.

Then there are homebound consumers with disabilities, who are forced to live in a private food desert regardless of geography. Such users may one day enjoy an increased capacity to shop for groceries using “map apps” for the blind and click-to-call technology. Grocery retailers may reciprocate by offering pre-packaged meal bundles that are easy to deliver, prepare and consume. Already we see product billboards where users scan items for home delivery on their way home from work.

Where this ultimately points is a newly emerging constellation of digital and social tools, all created with the intention of removing existing barriers separating the farm from the fork. We should continue to strive for, and look forward to, new forms of cultural, nutritional and economic literacy. By cultivating evergreen business models around inclusive distribution, we might yet provide ambient health benefit to future generations and the private corporations who serve and employ them.

To learn more or find a food desert near you, visit the USDA food desert locator.

Mr. Cornelius was the creator and single sustaining element of ‘Soul Train,’ a music performance television program modeled after the hugely popular ‘American Bandstand.’ While ‘Bandstand’ enjoyed both high budget (network affiliation) and high profile (hosted by Dick Clark), ‘Soul Train’ existed on a meager budget funded solely through Mr. Cornelius and ran largely on syndication. Adding to the ‘Soul Train’ mix was the show’s emphasis on early 1970′s black culture and Mr. Cornelius’ insistence on showcasing African American performers.

It’s important to keep in mind that this era of music was highly polarized. There was a thick line of demarcation between what were thought to be “black” and “white” bands, whose music and influence were promoted through record companies’ predetermined valuations of race. As a result, there were very few opportunities for black musical acts to crossover into another audience and sell more records. ‘Soul Train’ helped to expose such artists as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, James Brown and Smokey Robinson to a wider sphere of (well deserved) appreciation, helping their careers financially and artistically.

Innovation takes many forms, and in all cases it involves a certain amount of risk. Sometimes that risk can depreciate other aspects of life. By all accounts, Mr. Cornelius was an intensely private man whose final years were not happy ones. He endured a bitter divorce, served probation for domestic battery, suffered from a variety of health problems, and always resented his lack of sponsorship by mainstream advertisers. Eventually ‘Bandstand’ lost credibility among black entertainers, who all made appearances on ‘Soul Train’ their primary career goals. As the 1980′s arrived and black artists enjoyed greater accessibility, the innovation that drove ‘Soul Train’ began to ironically signal its decline:

The music industry changed quickly in the 1980s, with the advent of MTV and BET, two cable channels that benefitted from Mr. Cornelius’s past but eroded his audience. No longer was there a weekly appointment to see the hottest musicians or latest dance moves, but a constant onslaught.

While Mr. Cornelius had somewhat reluctantly but warmly embraced disco on his show, he had more misgivings about the advent of hip-hop and rap, which he thought were degrading. “I could do it. I could be like ‘yowassup!’ But I’d look stupid,” he once told an interviewer.

I watched ‘Soul Train’ every Saturday and largely kept it a secret. At that time, living in highly conservative upstate PA, caucasian boys did not listen to music invented by talented people wearing wide-lapeled jackets, enormous afros and silver platform boots. When my high school friends declared their love of rap music, I took pride in identifying which R&B chestnut was being sampled underneath the clattering beatbox. This doesn’t make me a good person. It just makes me appreciate how good the music from that era really was, and how Mr. Cornelius was the crucial barometer for a less complicated time.

My lasting impression of ‘Soul Train’ ironically doesn’t even involve a black artist. It is the 1980 United States debut of Yellow Magic Orchestra, an electronic band from Japan that included a young Ryuichi Sakamoto. (Sakamoto has since become a critically acclaimed composer and actor). They started their set with a cover of “Tighten Up” by Archie Bell & the Drells, the largely African American audience dancing and cheering every note. You can feel the excitement in the clip of something special happening, a novelty act interacting with an audience, the prototype of a benign cultural revolution.

Through the bad lip syncing and dated costumes, YMO on ‘Soul Train’ provides a key lesson on integration and inclusion. Millons of Americans had been exposed to a Japanese pop band they had never heard of. Japanese audiences audiences were made newly aware of cross-continental artists, the same acts who had unknowingly inspired their homeland heroes. When Mr. Cornelius leapt onto the stage to interview the band between songs, he chuckled nervously and said, “If you’re out there in TV land wondering what’s happening, I haven’t the slightest idea.” I think he did.

The fine folks at Knowbility will be holding their annual John Slatin AccessU in Austin, TX (USA) from May 15 through May 17, 2012. I’m thrilled to be delivering the keynote address as part of a truly rockstar lineup including Denis Boudreau, Sharron Rush, Brenda Adrian, Cousett Ruelas and many others.

A note must be made here about Dr. John Slatin, in whose honor the educational conference is named. Dr. Slatin was the founder of the Accessibility Institute at the University of Texas. In 2002, he began to develop the curriculum of classes that became AccessU, arguably one of the best networks for distributing relevant material on designing for disability. Dr. Slatin left us in 2008 after a fight with leukemia, leaving behind a behind of work that continues to inspire accessibility practitioners to this day.

Dr. Slatin is the author of Maximum Accessibility, a book that sits on my bookshelf no more than sixteen inches from where I’m typing this blog post. It is an honor to be associated with an organization that bears the fruit of his vision, and I hope to do his legacy justice in Austin this coming May.

One side note: if you’re attending next week’s CSUN Conference for Persons with Disabilities, you should register for the Knowbility AccessU at CSUN training track taking place Monday, February 27 and Tuesday, February 28.

Interaction 12 Recaps

The talks were humbling and inspiring; for a great encapsulation of every speaker’s topic, you should read the daily recaps on Johnny Holland by Vicky Teinaki and Louise Taylor (Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3). And in case you’re wondering if they really did transcribe all these talks themselves, I can personally assure you since I sat next to at least one of them at nearly every talk.

My personal favorites were talks by August de los Reyes, Ariel Waldman, Abi Jones, Amber Case, Andrew Hinton, Dr. Genevieve Bell and Kate Ertmann. Ariel’s in particular struck me as a refreshing combination of high concept and irreverent absurdity (although I heard Dan Saffer’s performance took those attributes to a new level).

Expect the Unexpected

As for unexpected surprises: during my talk on Digital Outcasts, a member tweeted my reference to the Grace app for autism. The app’s creator, Lisa Domican, actually lives in County Wicklow, a short distance away. Over a quick Twitter exchange, we arranged to meet in the Clarion IFSC hotel lobby and wound up chatting for nearly three hours. Lisa is a very smart, committed and passionate advocate. The entire design world really needs to hear her story of successfully modifying behavior through personalized niche construction.

Artifacts

For those who were unable to get to Dublin, I’m told that all sessions were recorded on video and will be made available by the IxDA. On a personal note, I have to share some really cool sketchnotes done during my talk. I’m honored to have been immortalized by such talented and very thoughtful folks. The links below point to their individual websites or Flickr accounts:

Chris Noessal from Cooper

Boon Chew from Sapient-Nitro

Eva-Lotta Lamm author of Sketchnotes (check out her entire Flickr set)

New Friends and Twitterers Worth Following

@amyhurst
@jean_marie
@graceapp
@designswinger
@gok8
@shaunkane
@neylao
@dhenchy
@justin_bacon
@arielwaldman
@sugaredeggs
@vickytnz
@interactionlove
@simon_norris
@aparatchik
@miemo
@kaeru
@uxjam
@mgrocki
@mojoguzzi
@megangrocki
@isometricshadow
@nuritps
@docbaty
@pivotdublin
@kathrynparkes
@uxrockabilly
@icecoldvideo
@ilarilaitinen
@coryannj
@samin
@inkblurt
@rogierbr
@arichardlaurent
@jukkapaulin
@evlottchen
@chrisnoessal
@boonych
@caseorganic
@mrwangkai

I’m on at 11:30am Thursday February 2, with a hopefully engaging 45-minute bit called Innovations in Accessibility: What We Can Learn from Digital Outcasts. Here’s the abstract:

Despite our growing potential to augment human capability through technology, the innovation curve sometimes leaves behind people who could most benefit. We’ll call this group the “digital outcasts” (a term introduced by researchers from the University of Sussex), and they ironically reside at the epicenter of today’s most exciting developments.

On a purely grass-roots level, digital outcasts are taking it upon themselves to improve and sustain their success in life. They are doing this through personally customized solutions that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Interestingly, their efforts then contribute mightily to the same technological landscape that originally neglected them. For such an important (and growing) demographic, this represents a cultural sea change of increasing significance.

Participants of this session will explore the significance of digital outcasts in the creation of such emerging technologies as mobile apps, video games, personalized robotics and virtual worlds. Emphasis will be placed on products and services in the health sector, with recent case studies spanning multiple therapeutic contexts: blindness/low vision, long-term rehabilitation, oncology, physical therapy, degenerative disease, cognitive disorders and opioid-free pain management. Practical examples will include such platforms as the iPad, Nintendo Wii, haptic interfaces, virtual prosthetics, text-to-speech functionality, eye-tracking, adaptive mobile devices and Second Life.

Regardless of channel – at some point in their lives, everyone gets older and must enter the digital looking glass. This presentation will emphasize the importance of embracing universal design principles throughout development cycles, thus creating ambient, barrier-free benefit to consumers of all abilities and backgrounds.

Hope to share a Guinness with those in attendance.

Despite my general disinterest in the New York Yankees, I have always admitted a sort of respect and admiration for shortstop Derek Jeter. Given the geographic market in which he resides, Jeter has consistently demonstrated a unique ability to “manage up” to the heavy expectations placed upon him as the team’s brand antenna. New York is a place where hyperbole serves as a universal commodity, yet Jeter brings the same focus to his conduct as he does to his smart, heads-up play. These are qualities that anyone could appreciate.

As Jeter approached the 2010 season, his status on the team was somewhat in flux. He was in the final year of his contract and beginning to show his age in the field. He was not the most highly-paid player in the league or even on his team; that honor was then attributed to Jeter’s teammate Alex Rodriguez. Leadership is not measured in dollars but by influence, however, and Jeter was widely considered the most indispensable embodiment of the Yankee mystique.

Jeter and Rodriguez are an interesting study in how two very different individuals can coexist on the same team. The mercurial Rodriguez is a once-in-a-generation talent whose very name seems to attract controversy. He has admitted to using illegal drugs to boost his performance; he has been repeatedly accused of infidelity; he has rebelled against accusations of selfishness; he is generally treated with disdain by opposing fans when the Yankees travel. His frequently brilliant play brings a flair for unfortunate dramatics. Think of a circus sideshow centering around one man, and you get the general idea.

In contrast, Jeter’s persona enables him to enjoy comparative shelter from this level of scrutiny. By all accounts, Jeter is a decent man and a noted philanthropist, quietly donating his time to multiple charities, prioritizing his on-field efforts to make the players around him better. Jeter is the rare modern athlete for whom money has never been the core issue, and unlike many of his contemporaries he chooses to rise above localized toxicity. A 2010 spring training scandal involving Rodriguez caused a swarm of reporters to circle Rodriguez’ locker. As Rodriguez squirmed, Jeter simply looked across the room and bemusedly shook his head. [1]

Similar characteristics among members of working groups provide a daily exercise for managers, who must balance individual skillsets with collective attitudes. Employers want people who smart and get things done, but they also have to coexist in a productive way minus dysfunctional politics. The best approach is in determining collaborations that center around an aligned moral compass, preferably one that is endorsed or promoted by the organization’s senior leadership. This is how innovation teams separate signal from noise to focus on the common good. To do otherwise creates risk of liability, not only through a lack of contribution but also by usurping good people’s time on the job.

Too many technology groups focus solely on a single area, such as device manufacturing or software platform development, and so they divert all hiring efforts towards resource capabilities to achieve the highest amount of production in the least amount of time. This often creates logistical challenges for managers, because it’s nearly impossible to quickly expand a team without at least some degree of pain. Any dialog regarding roles, goals, opportunities, threats, deliverables and revenue ultimately devolves to lower common denominators regarding behavior. As a result, the needs of the end user get lost and Digital Outcasts are further alienated.

Building a successful team means learning how and when to get out of your own way. It means keeping one eye on the prize at all times and ensuring that the principles which dictate a group’s actions are clearly understood. It’s easy for a manager to simply hope that her entire team will be made up of Derek Jeters who keep their head down, don’t say much and just do their jobs expertly, but this isn’t reality. You’re going to have a Derek Jeter, you’re going to have an Alex Rodriguez, and they’re going to have to work together.

Here’s a helpful tip: for all their complications, people like Alex Rodriguez are just as valuable to a team’s success as a Derek Jeter. Rodriguez is consistently cited as one of the most talented players the game has ever seen. The question is whether such a mercurial presence is worth spending the extra time and effort necessary to harness that talent’s potential. A true leader remembers that the same behavior that makes the department prima donnas so maddening might also be what makes them occasionally brilliant. Consistent attention to the topline goal mitigates all the drama, disappointment and delirium that occurs when your star player is witnessed leaving a supermodel’s apartment at 4 AM.

When Paul Hoffman was attacked by a swarm of bees at the age of five, his father took the opportunity to teach him how to play chess. Feverish, unable to move and generally in great discomfort, young Paul immediately took a liking to the game.

Within a year Paul was school district champion; by the time he reached the fifth grade, he was studying chess matches from the previous 130 years. His favorite pastime was reviewing move-by-move strategies by the old masters, such as the “sacrificial” technique employed by Adolf Anderssen when he famously beat Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851.

By the time Paul was 13 he had subscribed to Chess Life, a glossy magazine listing upcoming regional tournaments. During his first tourney he won four games without a loss and two draws. While he was there he learned of an upcoming simultaneous exhibition in New Haven the following weekend, featuring grandmaster Bent Larsen. In a “simul” (as they are called), a grandmaster plays several games at once against anyone who shows up.

Simuls can involve as many as 400 simultaneous games. The format is high-stress – the grandmaster walks briskly around the room, moving pieces on each board without breaking a stride. Underlings who participate in simuls rarely win; the goal, rather, is to force the grandmaster to stop and think before making her/his next move. Merely stopping a grandmaster’s train of thought is considered a moral victory for a simul participant.

Young Paul spent the entire week reviewing Larsen’s entire game history. One sequence in particular stuck out, one called a From’s Gambit. Larsen had executed this technique during his match against the Swedish master Sture Nyman. Paul exhaustively studied the move, which involves taking control of the board’s center squares without actually occupying them. Paul was convinced that if Nyman had not made one crucial mistake, he could have won the match.

The day of the simul, Paul’s sat in his seat with his heart pounding. Larsen predictably raced through the simul with a word or expression, never once acknowledging his competition by name or face. Paul replicated the match with Sture Nyman move by move, the exact same sequence, until the particular move he had studied all week finally arrive. At that moment, Paul felt the sickening yet exhilarating sensation one gets when they’re about to do something special. His entire arm went numb, as if injected with painkillers, and the tips of his fingers seared as he touched the chess piece in preparation for his move.

Paul’s fingers did not betray him. Drenched in sweat he made the move, sat back confidently and waited. Larsen continued his rounds. When the grandmaster finally arrived, he broke stride just as Paul had hoped. All time stopped as Larsen studied the board position for six entire seconds.

Larsen looked as his young competition and smiled. “That’s a better move than the move Nyman made,” he said, “but no matter. I will destroy you just as I destroyed him!” Within three turns of the room Paul was checkmated.

Paul’s ranking in the world of chess climbed, but he was still unsatisfied. The more he understood the game, the more he realized how little he really knew. Failure was a necessary component to his growth process, like the proverbial well that never runs dry but also expands in volume. It’s a viewpoint that could be deemed irretrievably dismal, this idea that increased knowledge will never completely satisfy our lack of capability. Although our field of vision grows rapidly, it ultimately reveals greater distances to be covered in the cognitive and physical spectrum of needs.

Advocacy for inclusive design takes many forms. There is the user-centric position: accommodating people with high levels of physical or cognitive challenge will improve products and services for all people. There is the legal perspective: accommodate people with disabilities or risk an expensive battle in court. The 2006 class-action lawsuit between the National Federation of the Blind and Target Corp falls into the latter category.

A third and perhaps more compelling argument is that failing to provide universal access is an error of economics. By disrupting access to online shopping experiences among those with disabilities, commercial retailers in effect close the door to potential business opportunities on both a local and global scale. From the data, people with disabilities represent a very strong economic market. Consider the following:

• The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 27 percent of the world population are over the age 45, at which point in life the incidence of disability begins to increase significantly (along with increased availability of discretionary income).
• According to the United States Department of Labor, the spending power of Americans with disabilities was estimated to be over 175 billion dollars annually.
• The Employers Forum on Disability in the United Kingdom estimated in 2005 that there were ten million adults with disabilities in the UK, with an estimated purchasing power of over 80 billion pounds sterling.
• According to the Conference Board of Canada, the combined annual disposable income of working age Canadians with disabilities was 25 billion Canadian dollars.
• A study by the Open Doors Organization estimated that people with disabilities spent 35 billion dollars in restaurants in 2003. American adults with disabilities currently spend an average of 13.6 billion dollars a year on tourism, representing 32 million trips annually.
• One in seven people on this planet have some form of disability, comprising 15% of the world’s population.

With this in mind, consider the hypothetical scenario where a commercial online retailer joins forces with a virtual enterprise provider to create a new form of marketplace. Just think of what could happen should Amazon decide to purchase a company such as Linden Lab, creators of Second Life. Such a merger would combine the Web’s strongest e-commerce model with the rich interactivity and community-building benefits currently enjoyed by participants of virtual worlds.

Online users shopping in a rich, immersive space would enjoy higher fidelity engagement and increased fellowship with like-minded peers. These interactions would spawn a transposition of virtual goods to the offline world, thus providing retail organizations the opportunity to take advantage of “planned serendipity” model — a model that Amazon has been successfully employing for over a decade. These small communities of interest could transform such commonplace actions as buying a book. A publisher could sponsor a virtual reading by a real life author in a decidedly borderless space, one unencumbered with such “book tour” formalities as transportation and lodging expenses for authors.

It’s an intriguing idea for a number of reasons, some specific to consumers with disabilities. We’ve already seen a slightly dovetailing path intertwining the interests of Web accessibility and virtual worlds. We may be seeing a legitimately commercial relevance finally being applied to the use of 3D online environments. For people with disabilities, virtual worlds already operate as a sort of online gathering space whose functionality directly impacts interpersonal reciprocity. Applying this social model to the retail sector simply makes good business sense.

Social networking has always been a sort of concentric framework originating from the self. A person who has 500 Facebook friends doesn’t necessarily view herself interacting with the entire network as a whole. Rather, people tend to operate from a vantage point starting with the self, then they follow a sequence of decreasing importance: “First me, then my friends, then the friends of my friends, etc.”

Now take this model to virtual worlds. Since communities tend to grow by ancillary association, virtual retail groups could be formed around common shopping interests. With a growing number of virtual world participants dotting the digital landscape, it only makes sense that a combining of retail and immersive experiences would bring great value to consumer marketers. Users of Second Life, particularly those with disabilities, strongly identify with their avatars and use them to draw a sense of empowerment and collectivism. With this confidence comes an emerging social vocabulary that instigates activity, improving the chance that a digitally designed product will compel a response.

User experience practitioners see this behavior all the time and call it social actability: the incentive a person feels when they take a defined, modal action and apply it to a different technological setting. One example is how an ATM represents an authentic banking experience, even when no personal interaction is made with an actual human bank teller. People with disabilities who use Second Life often assign this personalization to their avatars, which in turn provides the confidence necessary to interact with environments and other users. It’s technology that provides the vehicle, yes, but it’s social actability that removes psychological (as well as physiological) barriers to access. Without that sense of empathy, such interactions would otherwise be difficult or impossible.

There are no answers here, only questions. Could the future of e-commerce involve three-dimensional environments? Is the virtual landscape an emerging crucible of economic growth? Will product teams need to take gaming technologies into account when designing online shopping experiences? Will shoppers continue to place their trust in retail systems from the safety of their respective digital communities? And from the point of view for people with disabilities, perhaps the most important questions are if such a platform as ‘Amazon Life’ will enable user variability towards a greater functional model, and thus a better shopping experience? And if it does, will anyone care?

As most folks undoubtedly know, this week the world lost Steve Jobs after his quasi-secretive battle with pancreatic cancer. From a consumer standpoint, Jobs was arguably the most significant business figure of the past quarter century.

A number of technology and innovation pundits have already published lengthy blog posts detailing what Jobs meant to the world, with varying mixtures of objective accuracy and histrionic adulation. Inventor, innovator, entrepreneur, visionary, egomaniac, tyrant, blowhard … the labels swirl around like bits of paper on a windy day.

Your personal viewpoint of Jobs is likely bound to whatever degree an Apple product has influenced your life. For digital outcasts, that impact is significant because Jobs understood that successful inclusion means removing barriers to entry, not simply adding more features. He also recognized that the world “accessible” doesn’t solely refer to people with disabilities or other physical/cognitive challenges. Accessibility brings benefit to all users, regardless of individual competency.

An article in this week’s Wired Epicenter makes a very convincing case that Apple’s mission has resulted in better products and greater awareness for disenfranchised populations. However, the value proposition to consumers with disabilities is not recognized merely through any device on its own. According to researcher Daniel Danahoo, adoption among healthcare professionals is the magic glue:

[T]he potential of the iPad is not achieved by the iPad alone, nor by simply placing it in the hands of a child with autism. The potential of the device is realized by the way professionals like speech pathologists, educators, occupational therapists and early childhood development professionals apply their skills and knowledge to use the iPad to effectively support the development of children. The potential is realized by engaged parents working with those professionals to explore how the device best meets the individual needs of their child.

For me personally, I’m most impressed by the way Jobs course-corrected throughout the tenure of his long career. This is a man who was fired by his own board of directors, released his share of high-profile failures, endured ridicule when he shifted Apple’s focus from computers to content and still demanded A+ commitment to his vision. Beginning in 2001, he altered the entertainment business forever by recognizing that content distribution would render brick-and-mortar music stores obsolete.

All that said, I think the best take on Jobs’ legacy comes from Joel Spolsky, one of my personal heroes, because it’s as simple and intuitive as the products Jobs’ lifechild introduced to the world:

Steve Jobs didn’t give a hoot about the needs of nerdy computer geeks. He was trying to make a computer as simple as a toaster. Because he figured out that until you make computers as simple as toasters, you can’t make the world a better place. And, over the next 26 years, he stuck by that vision, and now, it has been realized. We have unbelievably powerful computers that you can put in your pocket and that anyone can figure out how to use. These supercomputers tell you exactly where you are on the planet and show you where that is on a map, and where the nearest sushi restaurant is and how good it is and whether it is open and you can touch a button and you’ll be speaking to someone who works at that sushi restaurant. Anyone can do this, and that’s why Steve Jobs changed the world.

To help celebrate its ten year anniversary, AbilityLinks invites everyone to attend a Business Leaders Breakfast on Thursday, October 13 2011. The program will feature industry leaders discussing their organizational strategies for including persons with disabilities, activating markets spanning employees, customers, hiring companies and job market analysts.

With a 54 million person demographic, people with disabilities represent a growing and significant segment of our population. Learn how reaching this overlooked consumer group makes good business sense across multiple commercial interests. Clay Broussard of PepsiCo will be delivering the Keynote, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Scott Hoesman, President of The Kaleidoscope Group.

Date and Time

Thursday, October 13, 2011
7:00 – 9:30 A.M (CST)

Location

Doubletree Hotel & Conference Center
2111 Butterfield Road
Downers Grove, IL 60515

Registration

Register online at the AbilityLinks website. Deadline to register is October 6.

Sponsorship Opportunities

Sponsorship opportunities are available for participating companies.

Accommodations

Requests for accommodations can be sent to Ken Skord, Director of Vocational Services at kskord@abilitylinks.org.

Companies Attending

• Advocate Health Care
• Anikto LLC
• Aspire
• Ball Horticultural
• Benedictine University
• Central DuPage Hospital
• City of Chicago Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities
• Clearbrook
• DeVry University
• DuPage Workforce Board
• Elmhurst College
• G & W Electric Company
• KPMG LLP
• Labcorp
• Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital
• McGraw-Hill
• National Van Lines
• Northern Trust
• OfficeMax
• PepsiCo
• Providence Bank
• Ray Graham Association
• RR Donnelley
• Sargent & Lundy
• Sikich
• The Kaleidoscope Group
• Thresholds
• USG Corporation

Below is an aggregate of opinions, not all mine necessarily, followed by a few links:

Google bailed too early. The company operates on a “fail fast” innovation model and sometimes doesn’t allow adequate time for mainstream adoption. Google moved the industry just enough that some are calling the early abandonment of GH a big mistake.

Consumer empowerment should have been emphasized more. The untethering of personal health records (PHR) was never going to be the final destination. GH should have been positioned as a conduit to channel health information from point to point, allowing consumers to populate their individual patient portals from a variety of sources.

Google missed an obvious point of entry. Some GH reps blamed insurance agencies for not releasing data, while others blamed health providers for not buying-in with enough enthusiasm. The real gap in GH was a failure to reach vertical tech groups, many of whom were already affiliated with hospitals/labs and had created robust API’s to interface with those systems.

Positioning was everything. GH established itself as a data repository and not much else. There still existed a need for someone to tie all this data together and create a workable, compliant distribution model.

PHR systems need to be marketed. PHR require patients, who won’t use a service unless it comes from an intermediary they trust. Patients rarely think about their health history until the day of their appointment. It’s not feasible to expect consumer behavior to change solely by dangling a technology carrot.

The future is unknown. Some think GH should go open-source. Some think Microsoft’s HealthVault now has an open door. Some think the healthcare industry should own the solution, some think health plans and providers should stay out of technology altogether. Everyone agrees that the opportunity is genuine and the need authentic.

Links about the End of Google Health

• Read more about the EMR perspective
• ReadWriteWeb gives their take from a technology perspective
• The Washington Post thinks it’s all about the financials

The genius of this skit is how Kaufman blurred the lines between performance art, comedy and group participation. Rather than simply performing a set skit with intended results, he made the audience reaction a symbiotic part of his act. In other words, the success of the “performance” relies on the negative feedback to his “mistakes.” His adaptability is what makes the routine successful, rather than adhering tightly to an original script.

This comes to mind because it’s a good way to describe project management. Leaders of project teams establish timelines, create elaborative gantt charts, assign roles & goals, set milestones and insist upon timely deliverables. Still, things go wrong and these setbacks must be managed. What if we don’t get client feedback by a certain date? What is someone calls in sick? What if the schedule slips? And so it goes.

Successful digital team leaders are defined by how they manage slippage. They account for reality, for entropy, for unexpected delays, for cars that break down and kids that get sent home from daycare with 100-degree fevers. Successful leaders insist on scalability because they know the scope will change; they don’t remain steadfast to a rigid schedule that endorses constraint over opportunity. And they recognize that communication is not only a matter of who, when, and why, but also how many.

Last week I gave a talk at Rutgers University on the current status of Web accessibility and digital inclusive design, where I made the somewhat controversial statement that “there are no standards.” My point was not literally that standards do not exist (I am well aware of WCAG 2.0, WAI-ARIA and W3C markup validation), because these guidelines are obviously critical in crafting accessible online content. It’s when new digital interactions move beyond the Web and embrace emerging platforms that we must adapt “the rules” to new contexts. Otherwise, innovation slows to a crawl or (even worse) moves forward without accessibility in mind.

Guidelines are just that — a roadmap for how to move an execution from the concept stage to deliverable output. The real work is in adapting a standard process methodology for the common good, especially with multiple stakeholders all defining key performance indicators from their uniquely individual perspectives. Strict process control becomes necessary only when common sense and team harmony are at risk of evaporating.

Successful project leaders recognize this variability and ensure that nimble work streams remain fluid. Think of it as an anchored buoy that allows ships to navigate unknown waters, retaining visibility no matter how choppy the current gets. Technical specifications, while written in granite, still require execution that relies on that organic and fluctuating criteria known as Human Nature.