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Access Granted: The Future of Accessibility Transcript. Tune in wherever you listen to podcasts
Mike: Welcome to Access Granted, where we spotlight companies breaking barriers and championing inclusivity. I’m Mike Iannelli, and in this episode, I’m joined by Ablr CEO and my friend, John Samuel, to explore the key trends shaping accessibility and disability inclusion in 2025. With evolving Title II and ADA standards, shifting DEI priorities, and AI driven solutions, accessibility is at a crossroads.
But with legal changes, lawsuits, and industry shifts, the landscape can be overwhelming. What does accessibility mean, and how can businesses take meaningful action? We’re here to cut through the noise and offer clear insights on what matters most from compliance and hiring to innovation and business growth.
Let’s dive in.
Today’s conversation is really just, it’s about a lot of stuff. There’s been a lot of stuff going on with the election. There’s been a lot of stuff going on with new Title II and ADA standards, global standards. This narrative between DEI and accessibility. What is, what is accessibility?
What does it matter? There’s a lot of stuff to talk about. And I think the purpose of today’s sort of discussion is hopefully to create some really quality answers and content around, so, so all people can kind of get a sense of what this means. There’s so many things floating around with, with whether it’s a lawsuit, whether it’s an agency doing something, whether it’s an AI solution, whether it’s an automation, whether, whether I need to abide by the laws, a lot of noise right now.
So, the purpose today is to kind of clear some of that, the best we can together based on our insights and help sort of educate the audience and give some quality answers to what they should be thinking about, what they should be sort of not ignoring, but not worrying about, and then how they can ultimately take the information that we have and their intention, positive intention and start making real true organizational change, which is what we’ve been doing together for with a lot of companies over the last four and a half years.
So, let’s just dive right in, brother. The first topic really is about how individuals and businesses can intentionalize, or intentionally prioritize, accessibility. And, and there’s kind of two components to this. There’s a sort of, the component before the election, and the component after the election.
Because intentionally prioritizing accessibility oftentimes, it comes back to the budget, right? A lot of times it comes back to budget, comes back to resources. A lot of folks weren’t aware of it. They weren’t planning for it. And how do organizations or how do people that actually, at least in your opinion, that have the desire to do the right thing, to get in front of the right people in the organization, whether that’s a web developer, whether that’s an IT director, whether that’s a CIO and say, “Hey, we’re, we’ve got the scorecard here, we’ve got content that’s not accessible. We need to do a better job.” What sort of advice would you give them in that position?
John: Yeah, I think when you think about organizations who, who have the right intention, they want to do something. They’re trying to figure out how do you talk to your senior leadership about it. And I think it goes, you have to think about what’s important for that organization. What’s important to the, the leadership team. If the leadership team is looking for new, revenue streams. Talk about the case that you know, by making sure that we can create these accessible and usable experiences for individuals with disabilities and open up a whole new line of business, that’s great.
When we start to think about if a company is looking for talent and they’re having a hard time finding, great talent and people who are retaining talent. Think about the fact that if you make more accessible experiences for your employees, those individuals are gonna be able to tap into another, another group of people who are actively looking for jobs and be able to get them in and, and be able to create that accessible experience.
And for individuals with disabilities in the workplace, they’re going to stay. So I think it’s really important to understand what is the objective of the business, understand what leaders are looking for, and, talk about that. Because I don’t think you can just talk about it’s the right thing to do anymore.
I think we really have to be thinking about the business case for accessibility. And there’s a lot of it.
Mike: So you say, and the right thing to do is, really it’s the humanitarian side, right? Yeah. But unfortunately in the world we live in, oftentimes it’s, what have you done for me lately?
And where are we going to put our money? And again, like you said, a lot of times it dials down to, well, I need to spend $10,000 on something else that’s more important. But oftentimes this, this, organizations might be excluding 20 percent of their population.
John: That’s correct.
Mike: And so that to me, again, I, I think this goes back to a lot of times the struggle that I, that I have with it is there’s an, there’s a flat out ignorance to it, if I’m just being straight.
There’s, there’s just an ignorance to the disability community. And, and a lot of times it’s, people have this perspective that, and, and again, this isn’t going to sound like a, this isn’t going to sound great, but it’s, there’s an assumption that if you’re disabled, you’re incapable. You’re either in a wheelchair, you’re blind, you can’t hear, you’re incapable, you, you just sit there and exist with no capabilities, no living, no life, no experiences.
And there’s that sort of that, that sort of, I hate to say it, unconscious bias, but like growing up, that’s what people just make assumptions about. And so all of a sudden you’re talking to a tech leader in their, forties and fifties and, and you’re saying, “Hey, we need to make sure this is accessible.”
And a lot of times they go right to the front, like. How, “What does it matter if it’s accessible? They’re not going to use it anyway.” It’s just an assumption. It’s a, it’s an unconscious bias, which frankly, even what we talked about earlier, there’s a wide spectrum of visual impairments.
So it’s like one of those things, it’s the education piece, right? It’s like, how do you convince people to get educated on why this matters? I mean, there’s a lot of organizations that are doing a lot of good. There are a lot of people out there that are doing a lot of good. But at the same time, it seems like from the top down, there seems to be a lack of insight, a true lack of insight on not just the business requirement, but the actual, the legal requirement.
So again, help me with that one too, because that’s, that’s a struggle.
John: I think that I don’t know if it’s ignorance. I think it’s just a lack of exposure. Right. And I think that’s one of the things that leaders and organizations need to be looking at their customer base, asking the customer base questions.
And not making assumptions that we don’t have people with disabilities. And I think that may be a certain group of organizations, right? Maybe a certain size. Like, oh, they’re just so focused on surviving day to day. But they’re realizing, they’re like, oh, I can’t focus on that. You can see that a lot of large organizations and those midsize organizations who are looking for those, pockets of new business, they’re seeing it.
And we see it on our own clients, right? We wouldn’t have as many clients that we, we do have if they didn’t get it. And I think that’s one of the things that over the past year and kind of where my mindset goes is do organizations get it? Do they want it and do they have the capacity to do something about it?
And do they get it? Do they get that by, making sure that you have an accessible experience, you’re going to be able to generate a whole new line of business, generate business from a group of untapped customers. Do they want to make that, those changes? Again, I no longer will really focus on it’s the right thing to do, but do they want to put in the effort to see that ROI?
You can use your money on different ways, but you have to make sure, is this something we want to invest in? And do they have the capacity to invest in it? But I think those organizations who are investing in it, they’re seeing those, that, that return on investment.
And that’s where we have to kind of help organizations. We have to help them see that by putting in this much money to make sure that they have an accessible experience, it’s going to come back to you in a way that, you’re going to be tapping into new talent, you’re going to be tapping into new customers, and that’s going to help your business overall.
And I, that’s where my head goes to.
Mike: We talk about artificial intelligence a lot. And, and that’s always a sticky point, right? But let me just ask from your perspective, you, you, you’re visually impaired, you’ve retinitis pigmentosa, have you ever had any success using these, these applications? And do you, obviously they’re being a large percentage sued by the National Federation for the Blind.
The results and the scores, they’re just not good, right? But, what people see in the value is, hey, I can do this for $500 bucks a month, $1,000 bucks a month. But they don’t realize that’s $1,000 a month for the rest of their existence, basically. Because it’s not actually fixing the site, it’s just a retained service, a subscription model. But in oftentimes it doesn’t work. So I’m just interested from your perspective because again, for me I look at it and say, well, it’s an eyesore, it slows down the website. It’s not accessible for the visually impaired. It’s a continuing recurring cost. It’s not fixing the problem, it’s covering the problem. These organizations, which again, I have no, no disrespect for, but oftentimes they’re, they’ve got public funding or they’re publicly traded and there’s stockholders and shareholders and all kinds of things they have to produce for. The intention isn’t about mission, it’s not about inclusion, the intention is profitability.
So from your perspective, what, what is your experience, personal experience?
John: Yeah. And so to clarify, when you’re talking about AI, you’re actually talking about overlays.
Mike: Overlays. Yes. Sorry, I should clarify that.
John: So when we talk about those overlays, my experience using it, going back to not just being compliant, the usability of those sites can be challenging.
And so when I come across it, it, I can almost tell immediately right when I get to the site, something may pop up or it’s like, and again, it can cause confusion because I’m like, what’s going on here? The experience isn’t great. And, that goes back to education. These organizations are coming to them quickly saying, I got the magic bullet for you.
And we realize that accessibility can’t just be done by fixing, putting a band aid on a broken leg. It’s a journey. You got to fix it. And you can continue to use these, these type of products on a monthly basis, pay that subscription and feel like, “Oh yeah, I have an insurance plan,” but it’s not an insurance plan. Because you still are at risk when somebody comes over and then they can’t actually use your site.
One: they can, you know, file a claim if they want.
Two: they’re not gonna buy anything because it’s just not accessible. They can’t use it.
So, I think that’s you know, I haven’t had a good experience. But when you talk about AI, I do think there’s gonna be a place for AI in accessibility. And I think it’s gonna be around using AI to help with the code level, not on the, on the front side, but on the back side, back end, you want to look at making sure that the code is accessible. But then, it’s gonna be really important that we talk about human in the loop.
This is gonna be something we talk more and more about, but we want to make sure that people with disabilities are giving you actual user feedback to actually tell you, you make this change on your site and you’re making it more accessible, but is it actually usable? That’s where individuals with disabilities can really come in.
Testers, like on our team, can give you that feedback.
Mike: Give me an example of that, John. A lot of times I use the abyss as an example, right? So I can come into a site, I might be able to access it. I start panning through my navigation. I go down, maybe my H1s, H2s, H3s are out of whack. I have no idea where I’m going. Next thing I know, I go into a shopping experience, and I’m stuck. I can’t go back. I can’t go forward. And I’m just repetitively hearing a consistent screen reader response. And that that’s again just from playing with it, you know, I’m not visually impaired but that that’s the experience that I found is the abyss. So give me one of your experiences, the frustrating experience or experiences that you deal with every day. Like I know some of them are like going on certain calls and stuff, like you’re doing a presentation, you can’t access the tool. But give me something like in day-to-day operational world where you’re at home Nicole says, :Hey, I need you to go to Publix” or whatever. Or “I need you to pick this up for the boys,” or whatever it is. Like where, give me something real that you’re like, “Ugh, this is ridiculous.”
John: For sure. I actually have the American express platinum card because one of the reasons is that I get the concierge travel desk. Because it’s easier for me to call somebody and be able to book my flight. Because a lot of airline websites, when you go there, you get stuck in the calendar. That calendar often is really difficult with the screen reader. It just, you get stuck and I can’t get out of it. Or those experiences have caused me to spend money to get a concierge service.
Mike: Wow.
John: Right? So, I’m spending money.
Mike: Or live in the fear of booking the wrong flight.
John: Exactly, right? So, I mean, if I can’t book a flight, and we travel for work. And for me to be able to not rely on my team or rely on my wife, which is usually the person who has to do it for me, to be able to call someone else and have that done—I’m paying extra money for that service. But I shouldn’t have to. But that’s the main reason I have that credit card is literally because a lot of the airline websites just aren’t usable for me, and they may get this check off, “oh, it’s accessible.” Technically, it may be accessible, but it’s not usable for me in many cases.
And that experience, when you get burned one too many times, you gotta figure out solutions.
Mike: So it might be accessible for someone with an auditory impairment. Or someone that has a physical impairment. They’re still, they can see, they’re just using a straw to navigate. But when it comes to the visually impaired community, which it makes up a large percentage of the, the disability community.
John: Well, actually, no, I mean, if you think about the, the blind community is actually a small, relatively small portion of it. But we have to remember, if you make it accessible for individuals who are blind, who are using a keyboard, that’s going to be It’s going to help other people who use keyboard navigation. That increases the number of people, right?
So you have to remember: you make it accessible for this group, it can be a broader, it’ll help more people. So we always talk about “accessibility is necessary for a few, but useful for all.” And I think that’s what we have to remember.
Mike: That’s good. That’s good, my friend. Alright, so let’s, let’s talk about accessibility as it relates to some of this new, this new stuff that we’re hearing. Look, I mean, DEI was a community that we, we wanted to be part of for a long time because we, we felt like, hey, there’s this whole community focusing on race and gender and faith and spirituality, but they’re excluding a very large percentage of the population that actually crosses the entire spectrum of all those equitable initiatives. And so, but now it’s one of those things where all of a sudden we’ve got a new office in place, and there’s a hack attack happening on this entire community, regardless of what your political affiliation is.
But what’s happening now is that there’s confusion. And a lot of people are saying, well, or not saying anything. There’s just confusion. They don’t know what to do. And so what is your thought? I mean, I know my, from my perspective, I feel like disability inclusion is part of the inclusion aspect, right?
But when you start thinking about accessibility and just, there’s like, there’s a human element to that of just common sense, accessibility, common sense access. What is your perspective on sort of some of these recent shifts in DEI and then how accessibility is clearly, it says very clearly, it is not included in these cuts or these changes. But it kind of got swallowed up in this big, broader umbrella, which in some ways is ironic. Because for the longest time, we just wanted to be heard as well.
And then we finally started getting, getting included. And then they say, well, now they’re going to, now they’re going to make a cut. So what’s your thought on that?
John: Yes. I have a lot of different perspectives on this, and it’s a very nuanced one, you have to think about it. I mean, when I think about, we can talk about the executive order for a moment, where I really focus on is there’s a focus on skills and there’s a focus on qualifications.
And when I think about those two things, that’s where I really think about our workforce development program, where we’re training individuals who are blind to get into the workforce, we’re giving them the skills. We’re helping them earn those qualifications because that’s what they need. We know what the economy needs.
They need good, talented people in the market. And when we focus on talent and we think about that, then to set those people up for success, we need to have accessible experiences. And so we have to focus on accessibility to really make sure that all of the employees, all this great talent are going to be able to contribute.
Mike: So you’re looking at a little bit differently. You’re saying, Hey, the future of, well, I’ll say the future of employment, but when you’re talking about talent and the future of career and the future of tech jobs and the future of AI and what kind of necessity or at least positions will be needed and available, for the longest time, we’ve excluded a very large percentage of the population because of these unconscious biases that we just make assumptions on. And all of a sudden we’ve got this whole slew of hungry professionals that have been on the sidelines and saying, “Hey, wait a minute. There’s nothing that you can do that I can’t,” especially in a world of evolution and technology. “I can do everything that you can. I deserve the same opportunities that you do.”
Now I’ve got Ablr’s program that comes in here. They’re going to educate me for 16 weeks. They’re going to go ahead and provide internships for me and mentors. And mental health support and training. And now we’re going to help me get a job. And that’s great that we got a job. But wait a minute.
If I’m working now, I need tools and I need tech and I need websites and any content that’s accessible too. So instead of saying the opposite of hey, everything needs to be accessible for everybody, which it does. Now we’re looking at saying, wait a minute in the future workforce development initiatives, which obviously benefits everyone involved. We need to make sure the content and experiences in organizations far and wide are accessible.
John: That’s correct. When we think about AI coming into, it will displace millions of jobs, but it’s also going to create even more jobs. And when we start to think about moving away from a knowledge-based economy to an innovation-based economy, what we really need to make sure is that it’s going to be really focused on humans. That human experience, and that’s invaluable.
And so we want to make sure that, having that accessibility to make sure that humans with disabilities are going to be able to participate. And I think that’s going to be, that’s, that’s where we have to focus on. And making sure that the individuals have the skills that they need for those future jobs.
And, when I think about also we talk about, we get a lot of questions like how is everything going? We talk about our own clients. Our clients are retaining us. I mean, that’s one of the best things about our business has been the retention of our clients. They keep coming back. And we’re growing still.
And we’re growing, right? Yep. They’re coming back. New people are coming. Because the interesting thing around accessibility was, the accessibility was housed under the IT department. Or it was housed under the compliance department. Various companies, right, wherever accessibility was housed. But it was often housed in those IT departments. And so in that case, those budgets have been, growing because companies are investing in their tech because they know that they have to invest in tech to be able to compete in the economy, and then in business. And so, in that case, accessibility is going to have to grow with it, and that’s what I’m excited about.
Mike: And I agree with you 100%, I mean, I, again, this Again, for me being in it, obviously, I have a little bit of a different perspective on it in working with the over 200 clients that we have. But to me, the connection on it, I can’t get my head around how and why any organization would look at it and say, “Well, it’s not important, it’s not something we need to focus on.” And again, it doesn’t, to me, when I look at DEI, a lot of that’s a social justice issue. I don’t look at access as a social issue, and maybe my perspective is wrong on that. I never claim to be the most intelligent dude in the world, but in reality, I think of a lot of that being social. I think access to technology and living, access to living, is not, to me, is not a social issue. What, and, and what’s your position on that?
John: My view is that when we talked about diversity, equity, and inclusion, it was always about talent. It’s about talent management. It’s about talent retention.
Mike: Agreed.
John: And I think that goes back to that word talent.
Mike: Very separate than access.
John: That’s correct. I mean, you want to make sure that you have access to the best talent. You want to make sure that you have access to, to the people who are going to help with innovating new business lines. You’re seeing companies who are saying, look, we know that by getting the best talent out there. And many of them come from different backgrounds and different experiences. It actually helps our business be more innovative. And we’re moving towards that innovation economy. We need to be innovative. We need to be thinking outside the box. We have to be coming up with new ideas. And I think that comes from a diversity of thought. And that’s going to be focused on talent management and talent retention.
So I will always go back to talent because that’s the one thing that we were always focused on in terms of thinking about a diverse and inclusive workforce was, how do you get that best talent? And we’ll see talent will always win out because that’s what’s going to really drive business.
Mike: Yeah, I agree with that. And spending so many years in the advertising business, it’s like you, you’ve got to think about every population. And you can’t just be in a niche world thinking of just your own, your own self.
John: Everyone’s a customer.
Mike: Everyone’s a customer. And that’s the same thing with accessibility. Everybody’s a customer.
John: That’s correct.
Mike: So when you think about, again, some of these conversations are just, they’re just not easy to have, but it’s worth talking about. But, some of the, the Title II changes that are happening, I want to talk with you a little bit about that because that’s an interesting area.
So, so Title II, through the ADA, is sort of been released, and there’s different perspectives on what it means and what it doesn’t mean. And, I, I remember just when we started back in the day, it was like, man, someday these laws are going to change and it’s going to be a wonderful thing that these are required. But there’s some confusion around that.
So when you look at Title II, through the ADA, what is your emotional response to it, and then what is your sort of business response to it?
John: No, I think it’s, when I think about it, it’s a good, it’s a good idea. I mean, we have to make sure that public institutions that have, 50,000 or more people and your constituents in your community, and you have to be accessible by 2026, that’s great. That’s really good. I’d love to see that.
But if you’re not providing financial support for that kind of change, or if there’s not some type of guideline saying you have to get it done. I mean, it’s almost like an empty promise, and that’s where my heart goes. I’m like, well, did you actually think through this?
Or is it, it’s a good thing to say, but it’s a hard thing to implement. And so as we go through this, I really do think it’s a good thing. And I think you’re going to see communities who really get it. We’re seeing it already who are actually actively, proactively working on this. And that makes me really happy. And, and that gives me hope.
Mike: Okay, when you say actively working, we’re talking about university systems, we’re talking about utilities companies, we’re talking about states, cities, counties, municipalities.
John: I mean, that’s where we’re seeing it. And it’s those municipalities who are working on it because they know they have people who are impacted in their community who can’t access paying their bills,
Mike: Even the physical accessibility side too.
John: Yeah, I mean and that’s where they’re working on, and I applaud those organizations. I applaud the people who are taking that initiative. And I’m lucky to live in a community that’s actually proactively doing this, and that makes me happy to live where I do because I know not everybody has that.
But I think that, you know, these public institutions around the country, if they really cared about their constituents and really thought about why it’s important to do this, and they looked at the community said, “Hey, we want to make sure that you feel you can live here. We’re going to make sure that you can access all the, all the utilities, all the kind of, aspects of being in our community. That’s huge. Right.
And I think that they’re going to see that, and it’s not just going to be because of a law, but I think they’re going to see it because that’s what their constituents want. That’s what their constituents need, and that’s going to be the one, that’s going to be the thing that changes the mindsets of people.
Mike: Whether it’s the words we use or the way we treat people, I mean obviously bullying is still going on and that will always happen to some degree, but I think about, when I think about access, and I think about the future, and I think about this, I mean And again, not to put an age on it, but I just, it excites me to think about the youth.
A lot of times I’ll talk to my children or even younger kids and they’re like, it’s like a duh moment for them. It’s like how, it’s like, “duh, of course.” Like, and yet we still struggle with, well, should it be done? Do you think this is something in accessibility and inclusion, this play specifically related to the disability community?
John: I would like to think so. But I also think that that’s why, I mean. We have to continue to, we need to continue to share stories, we need to be talking about it, it has to be out there. And that’s why we launched our high school program. We launched our Ablr Futures program to really help show students with, who are blind, that there’s career opportunities out there.
And one part of our program is a partnership with District C, which we call the Teamship. And this is where we’re putting students who identify with a visual impairment with students who don’t. And they work in teams to solve a real world business problem for real businesses.
Mike: Great way to create empathy there,
John: Right?
Mike: Yep.
John: And it builds empathy with those students who don’t identify with a visual impairment and who may never have been on a team with somebody with a disability. Those students with visual impairments are now getting to be part of a team. That was one of the pieces of feedback we got when we were designing the program, was a lot of individuals who had the visual impairment had never been able to take part in team sports. And for once, they felt like they were part of a team.
And it’s really helped them when they got to college. And when we think about the future of work, that’s going to be the kind of work environment. You’re going to have individuals with disabilities, you’re going to have people who don’t. But to be able to learn how to work together, those type of experiences that we’re creating now, that I think will drive change.
But if we just make an assumption that “it’s going to work its way out by itself,” I’m not really sure about that. But I think that by doing these type of things, working with students to make sure that students who are blind, and students with disabilities, realize that they can do whatever they want with the right accommodations and right support. That’s gonna be great. And then we also have to expose those students who don’t identify with their disability, that there are, you have people in your school who have disabilities and, they want to have the same experiences as you, but sometimes you guys just need to be introduced to each other.
And it goes back to that, the thing I talk all the time about proximity builds empathy. And if you don’t have that proximity, you’re not going to get that empathy. But I think that the more we have students engaging with each other, that’s where we’re going to see that change.
Mike: Yeah. That Teamship program sounds great. Talk about a few opportunities and how we expand that? How do we start to get that into other public institutions, other schools across the country?
John: Yeah. Right now we’re operating this in, in the state of North Carolina. We did our first session this past August and we’re going to be launching our summer program this upcoming June, which we’re really excited about. Right now, we’re reaching out to different students across the state to take part. And if it, for individuals who are blind, we’re working with their, with the Division of Services for the Blind to help us identify potential students. We’re working with teachers for the visually impaired.
But if there are students who don’t identify with a visual impairment who are interested, they can reach out to us at Ablr360.com, and we can also put you in touch with our partners at District C who are helping us to recruit students to take part in this summer Teamship program.
And then we’re also taking, that’s a virtual program, and, the idea is that we’re going to expand this to other states over the next few years. And we’re really excited about this, because I, I mean, we did a pilot of this four years ago, and we saw the impact, and we followed those students.
And we actually have helped convert one of those students who took part in that pilot four years ago, who’s now taking part in our adult workforce development program to help get him into a, an internship as a junior in college. And we’re really excited about that.
Mike: Yeah, so talk about the workforce development program that’s been created here. Obviously there’s lots of different benefits. There’s a benefit from the parental perspective, there’s a benefit from the student perspective, there’s a benefit from the community perspective, there’s also a benefit from the government perspective. There’s benefits all around. It seems like it’s a win-win everywhere. Talk a little bit about the program. And I know that when we started out, we’ve evolved into an accessibility company, we’ve evolved into training. But the first time I met you, it was really about creating opportunities for meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities. So, talk a little bit about that, and sort of where that came from, and what sort of drove you to do that.
John: Yeah, so when I joined LCI seven and a half years ago, I was tasked with one thing: create a business that would create upper mobility for people who are blind in tech. And when you take that kind of broad look, how are we going to create upper mobility for people in tech? We realized that the first thing we had to do is address the accessibility barriers. Going back, if you can’t apply for a job, you can’t get into a job. Two, alright, let’s say you got past the application, now you’re going into an interview. If the hiring manager or the recruiter doesn’t know how to engage with you and provide the right accommodations that you need, or understand when you ask for that accommodation, we have to change that mindset.
And so, when we launched the Workforce Development Program, it’s in collaboration with the Division of Services for the Blind in North Carolina. And it was just, we had this really great partnership because the director, Cynthia Spate, she truly believed in the vision. She saw that, we could actually really pull something together because she saw how we were working with these, these corporate partners.
And so when we took a approach, it was really around employment first. We are not training for the sake of training. We were training with employment first, and having corporate partners who are, becoming more accessible, becoming more inclusive. They’re looking for talent. And so by really building out our workforce development program in collaboration with the Division of Services for the Blind in North Carolina, we’ve been, built something really, really special.
And right now we have a 75% employment rate for those individuals who’ve gone through our program and entered into the job market. And when you look at the employment rate for people who are blind, it’s 28%. And so we’ve really flipped that statistic upside down.
Yeah, that’s a that’s a great number, John.
I mean, and some of these companies that we’re talking about are no small, small companies, right? I mean, I don’t know if we can read since but we could talk about Ulta Beauty, which is one of our partners. We talk about Pegasystems. We talk about LCI. We talk about Lenovo. So these organizations are really leading the way and they see something.
And I think that goes back to the program. So while we’re here, let’s talk a little bit about program because as we talked about before, this isn’t a program for everybody. You, you, just because you have a visual impairment doesn’t mean you necessarily will get into the program. So there’s some rigor that goes along with this program.
There’s an assessment process, right? There’s, there’s a lot of work that has to be done before you can even get into the program. And then you got to go through 16 weeks of training and assessments along the way. And there’s multiple milestones. And then you’ve got to get approved for the internship. So talk a little bit about like the rigor here, because that’s, that’s one of the important things that we, we talk about.
It’s not just, hey, we’re, this isn’t a charity. Yep. This is an opportunity to create. Incredible talent for tomorrow where the fill gaps in the technology fields and especially now with the accessibility movement and the innovation of tech and AI, there’s no reason why these individuals, especially the ones that are hungry, that are loyal, that are motivated, that are smart, that are that are engaged in in career choices and career selection can’t do.
What they’re able, technically their able bodied, quote unquote, able bodied counterparts can. So talk about the, how the program’s evolved and how it is, it is getting a little bit harder now.
Yeah, so when we really started the program, we were so focused on the programmatic aspects of the program.
We got to get through the training. And I remember with that first cohort, we got them through the training, got them into an internship within our, within our team. And then we realized, okay, oh, I mean. It’s the employment piece. That’s what we really have to focus on and, and once we shifted that, we, that, that light switch went off in our heads and we’re like, we need to really shift that focus to really about employment.
And that went all the way from every single milestone in our program, from the internship to the going back, going back and say the actual rigor of the course to our, to our assessments. We really had to really change everything we were doing. And that’s part of it. We, we knew. We had to pivot.
Evolve or die, right? Exactly. Evolve or die. We had to disrupt ourselves. We couldn’t just do, the same thing over and over again. And so by, really focusing on that assessment, we started to really focus on individuals who are hungry and coachable. And if they didn’t have the technical skills, we can train technical skills.
But if you’re not hungry and coachable and you want that employment, what’s a motivating factor to getting employment? Because we’ve had people come through our program and they’re not necessarily motivated in getting a job. They just were there, and that’s not what we’re doing. That’s what differentiates us.
We are looking to support those individuals who actively want to get a job. Because, I mean, we’re using taxpayer money. This is money being funded by the state to fund this program. We need to be good stewards of the state, and that means really showing those outcomes. And we are going to provide the support.
We’re going to make those, we’re going to give everything we can to help build those employer partnerships that individuals aren’t getting a hand out. But we’re able to help open a door that they can never open a door, but it’s up to those individuals to walk through that door and keep going.
And outcomes are everything.
I mean, I, I worked in the education space for many years and if you’re not producing, again, you look below the curtain here for not producing taxpaying citizens when they get out of school, right? Because there’s all these, all kinds of funding that comes around with a title for funding was, was the biggest funding situation back in the day where I was.
And so you’re getting school loans, you’re getting funding. And then all of a sudden these kids are graduating from schools or programs with degrees and they’re not able to get work. Right. And then so that’s an upside down situation. So it’s, it’s very similar in a lot of ways. So we’ve got in this case, from again, just strictly from that perspective, it’s a lot of folks don’t realize people with disabilities live on disability and there’s a lot of limitations there, right?
What they can’t, talk about some of the limitations there.
Yeah. So there’s certain. Income requirements to be able to access this this, these type of social security benefits, medical benefits are at risk. And so one of the things that we are really focused on showing individuals is that you have higher earning potential and we can show you that you can continue to grow in your career, but you have to put your time and you have to put the effort in and you got to want it.
You got to want it.
Significantly higher earning potential.
Yes. And that’s something that. Going back to that high school program we launched, the idea around the high school program was We didn’t want individuals to get lost in the system. We wanted to make sure that high school students are actually going in an academic track or an employment track.
But the track we didn’t want was being capable to be able to work and sitting at home. That’s what we didn’t want. That’s what we don’t want. And so, by able to, us having this high school program, we can now be in the lives, be supporting these, these students as they’re navigating their decisions on what to do next.
And so, That, that kind of leads into our workforce development program. If they want to go there, if they want to go into the academics and they go to college and they’re looking for a summer internship, we can help them after they finish college and they’re looking for employment, we can help them. But, the idea is, we need to make sure that people keep moving forward and not stopping.
And that’s been the case for many people in the past. And the reason is. They haven’t had anyone looking out for them and we’re here to do that and to support them because we know that they have a huge potential for them and we’re going to help them reach that.
Mike: Hmm. Sounds like Ablr’s doing some pretty good stuff, man.
John: It is, man. We’re doing some amazing stuff and it’s so cool. It’s so exciting.
And I mean, I mean, we were just at graduation with our fifth cohort a couple weeks ago, and, to see those individuals, to see the hard work they’re putting into this program and what it means to them. And that why, the motivation for them to get employment, some of them want to get out of their parents house. Some of them have said, I’m nearly 30 years old. I’ve never lived on my own. I want to do that. Some of them are saying…
Mike: Independence.
John: Independence. Who doesn’t want independence? Right? That’s a human, a human, right, feeling. They want to be able to be independent. And that’s what’s driving many of these individuals. They want to be driven. They’re financially driven, and just like everyone else. And I think that’s the one thing we have to realize. The motivations of people, in many cases, are the same, right?
What drives somebody who doesn’t identify with a visual impairment and somebody who does have a visual impairment, often cases are the same. And they want the same things. They want the same type of life and that’s what we’re trying to do, is make sure that If that’s what you want, we’re going to help you get there.
Mike: Yeah, so when we talk about vision long term with this, and I have a few more questions, I want to dive in a little bit more into accessibility, but I think this is good stuff. We talked, we played around with Academy, we played around with different school systems and locations, but at the end of the day, this is a very scalable program.
I mean, right now it’s in North Carolina and we have four other states that we’re working with. But at the end of the day, there are visually impaired folks all across the country varying in all different types of ages. And so when you think about on the horizon, you think about having pre ets opportunities in high schools all across the country, preparing them for the workforce for tomorrow, or whatever they decide if they want to go into school, or whatever they want to do afterwards.
And all of a sudden you’ve got, organizations that are more open minded that are accessible, that are saying, “Well, wait a minute, I’ve got I’ve got an opportunity here. Let’s give this a shot.” So these folks are coming out of here with 16 weeks, and this today is Accessibility Certification Program, right, Accessibility Analyst Program? But there are other programs that we’ve talked about. When you look out on the horizon in the next, three years, we’ll say three years.
John: Mm hmm.
Mike: Where do you see this going?
John: I mean, I think about our workforce development program and what we do. If you ask me, what are y’all doing? What we’re doing is giving people choices. We’re giving them choices. And that includes, different career tracks and we’re going to be going down that looking at, what are the jobs of the future? What are employers wanting? And what do people want? And we’re going to be creating those new tracks. But the good thing about our digital accessibility analyst program right now is that when people finish it, they have choices. Around, I think 75 percent of our candidates are getting jobs in accessibility, but 25 percent have gotten jobs in other fields. And that’s kind of, they have an opportunity, because it can, it’s a transferable skill.
Mike: But why do you think that’s happening? Because do you think we’re building internal confidence? Where they’ve never, maybe never felt confident that they could go and apply for a job? Or they think it’s just a different interest level? Or they say, hey, I’ve got skills that can transfer over, but I also got a lot of other skills that I can do. A very different perspective, very loyal, can dissect problems, can prob, obviously problem solving is one of the biggest things, right? But why do you think they, what do you think they, what do you think that is? Is that an internal sort of confidence that they’ve, that this program has built?
John: Yeah, for sure. I think the confidence level is a, is a big one, right? That’s, that’s probably one of the big pieces. The other thing is a lot of people may have had experiences before they had vision loss, and they thought they just couldn’t do the work that they were doing before, or they didn’t think that they could leverage or maximize those skills that they had before.
But once they’ve gone through our Digital Accessibility Analyst program, they’re gaining some of those assistive technology skills that they didn’t previously have. And then they’re able to, now combine what they’ve learned in digital accessibility, plus their previous experiences, and they’re able to now go into different fields.
And, one of the things we are, I think we’re going to see over the next several years is that we, we really think about AI really kind of driving us from a knowledge based economy to an innovation based economy. And as a result of that, there’s going to be different skills that our companies are looking for.
They’re going to be looking for curiosity. They’re going to be looking for communication skills. They’re going to be looking at people who, who are courageous. And I think in many cases, our candidates are going to be meeting those skills that these companies want. And that’s what’s going to drive us getting into different types of jobs.
Mike: That’s good, man. alright. So as you started talking about accessibility, I want to kind of pull this in because it’s obviously this is all centered around access, right? Whether it’s employment access, whether it’s access to tech, whether it’s access to companies, websites or mobile apps. A lot of times we talk about that and we talk about outcomes or everything, right? And they always are.
But we start talking about products. We start talking about innovation. We start talking about, software development scopes and those types of things. Where do you, we talk about the actual brand satisfaction, and we had a discussion earlier today about that. A lot of, there’s a lot of companies out there today that, and maybe not web related per se, but product related.
John: Yeah.
Mike: Where do you see the gaps there, in terms of the true accessibility of that nature? Because I work with this every day, and a lot of times organizations will be using third parties. And these third parties are just, they’re just not there. But is this sort of something that they should be thinking about from the very beginning? Is this something that they should be evaluating on their own? Like, where do you see the outcome in terms of overall customer loyalty, product satisfaction? I mean, you talked about it earlier today about, “Hey man, if I can’t, if I can’t get into a place and I can’t purchase, I’m out.” And by the way, that’s the same with me, like, I, I, it doesn’t, that’s the funny thing about this whole usability thing is, regardless if you can see or not. A crappy website is a crappy website.
John: Yeah.
Mike: And so regardless, but talk about like the software side of it, because we know we talk a lot about, we talk a lot about websites, but we don’t talk a lot about software all the time. And we have a lot of clients that are doing it right with software. Specifically even Manscaped. We refer to Manscaped. Manscaped’s doing it from product design.
John: Yep.
Mike: So accessibility crosses the barriers. It’s not just about a website. It’s about the entire ecosystem. So share with me just a few thoughts on that and, and where, why do you think that’s important?
Because again, a lot of times this is B2B, right? And there’s always these answers, well, it’s a small percentage. But at the end of the day, when you start thinking about usability and, and fully holistic ecosystems and experiences, everything should work for everybody.
John: Yeah, I mean, I think we go back to those things, what we talked about earlier. Accessibility is necessary for a few, but useful for all. And I think that if you kind of take that idea across software product development. And sometimes, it’s accidental. I mean, for instance, my Ray Ban Meta sunglasses. I mean, this was not designed for individuals who are blind, but I remember the very first time when I heard about them, it was on CNBC in the morning show.
And they were talking about like, Oh yeah, I can use the AI and ask what’s in front of me. And I started thinking, I was like, why does a sighted person need that? And then, this was over a year ago and I bought them right away. And I started wearing them and talking about them. Now I’d say almost like, I’d say a significant number of people who are blind are now using them and wearing them because they add a benefit to them.
Mike: And it’s kind of a great example of just, I don’t know about exclusion, but kind of.
John: But I don’t think, I don’t think Ray Ban or Meta, they didn’t think about that.
Mike: I know, but how, how can’t you think of that? Like, I just, to me, that’s, again, how can’t you think of that?
And then they go on the Super Bowl and they, and they show Liam Hensworth and some other guy and they’re like cool, look at my cool stuff at artwork. And it’s like, well, this is a, this is an application that is game-changing for people that with low vision or visual impairments. It’s game-changing.
John: It is. And, we talked to, we had Ada Lopez on earlier we did a webinar with her today and we were talking about the…
Mike: Ada Lopez just for the record is from Lenovo.
John: Yeah, from Lenovo’s product diversity office. We were talking about the ThinkPad. We were talking about the keyboard layout. How many people actually think about the keyboard layout when they buy a computer? I do. It’s probably the most important thing for me.
Mike: Gamers do, that’s for sure.
John: Yeah, gamers do. And but you know, for me, one of the things about that, that ThinkPad keyboard layout, it’s consistent. And they have the, the function key grouped together, the clustering of those. And for a screen reader user, we’re using those buttons all the time. And to be able to say, to use it from the office and have the same keyboard when I buy one at home, it’s amazing. And what people don’t realize is that every keyboard, every like other laptop has a different keyboard. It’s really that ThinkPad has been consistent. It has a really accessible experience. And so, yeah, when I went to go buy a laptop for home, I first bought a Dell and looked at the keyboard. I can’t use this because it’s not accessible. It’s not, it’s not usable for me. It can be accessible. It’s just not usable for me.
Mike: Did you say Dell?
John: Yeah, I bought a Dell.
Mike: I thought you meant Gateway.
John: But I heard that the cow, yeah, I mean the cow boxes. But I ended up buying a Lenovo ThinkPad because, and I realized at that moment that was almost an aha moment for me that said, look, this is it. And if somebody ever asked me if I were to write a blog about what laptops people who are blind should buy, that’s it. I’ll get the Lenovo ThinkPad. And it’s not just because they’re our partner and one of our customers.
Mike: That’s a great computer.
John: But it’s a great computer, and it’s something that, you know, it’s consistently reliable, stable, and.
Mike: And has some good accessibility features built in.
John: That’s really, and they care about it. And we know by having, talking to Ada today. They take user experience. I mean, we’re working with them on their next gen stuff by actually providing feedback from people with disabilities. And when you get a company like that, who you know is thinking about you and incorporating that in the new tech, and I guarantee that new tech that they’re developing for people with disabilities is gonna help all people.
And we just don’t even know how it’s going to help them, but I guarantee it’s going to.
Mike: Can you hear that? Is that rain?
John: Yeah.
Mike: God, I sure hope my windows are up. Holy cow. I didn’t think, I thought that was the air conditioning. How important is it to you, to have a certified, cause again, when you think about WCAG and you think about the entire programs with Trusted Tester and CPACC accreditation, and I mean, this is some serious stuff here. This isn’t just like, oh, I went online on YouTube and I figured out how to do alt tags or H1s. It’s like, this is a 16 week program and it is not easy to pass this, this, this certification. Which leads me to this point of How important is one, human oversight, right? And I don’t even know if oversight’s a word. I still, I’m still on the bank today that it’s the only way. To do it right. But, human oversight, or human insight and then the certification aspects of it. I mean, I know what the real difference, but from your perspective, like, a certified accessibility person who’s gone through 16 weeks of program has learned from someone who is also certified and visually impaired, who has taken the certification, who has done all the right things, who’s gone through the internship, who knows the usability aspects of it, the accessibility aspects of it.
And then you go to someone that says, well, we’re just going to, we’re just going to learn on our own. It just seems like such a broad spectrum. And so I guess, my simplified question is how important is it, one, to have a human. Because again, there’s always a contextual insights to the usability challenges that these automated tools miss, and they miss a lot of stuff. And then how important is it from a certification program perspective?
John: Yeah, so let’s start with that initial piece of it. I talk a lot about how accessibility is not about a line of code, it’s about human experiences. So if you’re not including humans in your testing process, you’re missing out on it. But, not all humans are created the same, in terms of accessibility testing.
Because, I’ve seen a lot of people say, they’re just bringing on somebody blind, just because they’re blind. And they say, oh, come look at our site, just try it out. Or, somebody’s like, oh, I’m gonna put a blindfold on and use a keyboard and the screen reader. I’m like, well, that’s not the same.
And so you have to make sure that by having somebody who does have that certification… again, certifications and designations are important, but it’s not the only thing, but being what that certification is indicating is that this person knows the difference between what’s actually accessible and what’s not.
And they understand what the difference between if it is a user issue, or is it actually an accessibility issue. And having somebody who is a native screen reader user who has that certification, they bring that lived experience, the book knowledge, and they’re able to bring both of those together in a really a really great way.
And that’s what really differentiates our service offering because we not only make sure that things are accessible, but we know that they’re usable as well.
Mike: Wow. That was an insightful conversation with the one and only John Samuel. Let’s all sincerely thank Johnny Sams for sharing his lived experiences and expertise to help shape the future of accessibility and disability inclusion every day. As you heard, Ablr is pioneering many incredible partnerships, programs, and initiatives.
If you found today’s conversation valuable, reach out to us at ablr360.com to connect further. Let’s see how we can partner together to make inclusion a part of your every day. I’m Mike Iannelli, thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time on Access Granted.