Pruebas

By Kevin Ruh

Social media, the omnipresent “second life” of our times. People have split themselves into different personas, some lead completely different lives through the internet, and some falsify a life through the means of deception and identity theft. The population has decided that these platforms and social media applications are the new norm for social interaction. It has become an everyday occurrence while meeting new people in person to exchange social media links to one another.

This has effectively brought a large part of the populous together through the network and makes communication, even through long distance, accessible. With this great hurdle overcome, the only concern is to bring the people who have less access to this technology closer to it so they can become part of the global network.

Part of this is people who have disability as well as people who just live in an area that makes access difficult. I know many people who live outside of cities in the US have trouble getting an internet connection, except through satellite internet, some of you may not have had any experience with this type of connection, but compared to dsl or even dial up it is not as easy to connect and stay connected. This is the future of spreading awareness, ignorance comes from a lack of experience, it is easy to judge something while knowing nothing about it, We need to educate all we can to anyone that will listen. If we make this our goal than global inclusion is possible!

By Debra Ruh

I am an advocate of using social media to bring awareness about the community of people with disabilities (PwD) and accessible Internet, Communications and Technology (ICT). I believe that the community of PwD is starting to find their voices via social media. However, there are some significant accessibility problems with social media. There are leaps in accessibility that have been made and are in progress. Yet we find that many social media tools and applications are not blending accessibility into their products and when they are, it does not seem to be a priority. PwD are often left out of the social media conversation and movement  because the devices are less accessible.

We find that many social media tools and applications are not blending accessibility into their products. PwD are often left out of the social media conversation because they apps are inaccessible. This is difficult to deal with due to the fact that most don’t seem to have accessibility in mind until there is a problem, instead the devices and applications need to be thought of as opportunities for universal access.

Social media has to be accessible or we continue to widen the Digital Divide, it is as simple as that. As long as there are access problems we run the risk of alienating a portion of our community.

The Internet has opened up many opportunities as well as greatly improving the quality of life for these users, but there are still barriers. Many people think of disabilities in extreme terms such as blindness and deafness, but it also includes many others with visual or hearing impairments that are increasingly common in our aging population, and other challenges such motor and cognitive impairment. The spectrum of ability for all users is variable.

Can an organization really afford to lose this audience?

I think not, and this community is chattering on more accessible platforms, about the good and the bad. If social media tools are not accessible those platforms stand to lose out on major benefits, or risk being singled out as not worried about the less able part of the population and their advocates.

Sometimes we hear that it is too hard to make an application or platform accessible. This makes sense only if the organization wishes to put forth the message that their customers are not worth a re-tool of an app. Accessibility should be built into the system similarly to building in privacy, security or usability. The second thought of accessibility as “not an easy add on” and will be noticed by those left out.

The good news is that Social Media applications can be made fully accessible allowing everyone to use them; all aspects of use just need to be considered.

In years past, developers were afraid that making the application accessible would make a system less creative or innovative or other security issues. The good news is we have seen amazing strides with accessible social media and now it is innovative developers take pride in blending accessibility into the process level. This seems to be the future of technology and it should be our end goal to reach universal access.

Is participation for all out of the question? If we don’t make social media accessible than we continue to widen the “Digital Divide” and according to the World Health Organization (WHO) one in seven people are impacted with disabilities worldwide. Plus 1 out of 3 households in the U.S. are impacted by disabilities, there for this is an issue that affects family and community. Worldwide, this group numbers 500-750 million people and is a key influencer of the public’s perceptions.

There is NO excuse to not make your Social Media applications fully accessible so that everyone can use them. In years past, developers were afraid that making the application accessible would make a system less usable or “dummy” the system down. Once again, ridiculous – we have seen amazing strides with accessible social media and now it is BAD design if you do not blend accessibility into the process level.

By Kevin Ruh, Ruh Global Communications, Marketing Director

I am a fan of twitter and it helps me get to the point since I am limited to 140 characters. Hashtags can also help me spread my message. I tweet about many things but accessibility and disabilities inclusion is my main topic since I am the marketing director at www.RuhGlobal.com. Many people use the hashtag #A11y as a shortcut for #Accessibility. Let’s face it – 4 characters versus 13 characters can make a difference in a tight tweet. However The hashtag #A11Y has coming under fire recently by many in the #accessibility and #disability field.

Some people think this hashtag is a time saver to refer to accessibility as an all-encompassing term. The mashup is from the fact that in the word accessibility there are 13 letters, so if [A] the first letter and [Y] the last letter are left off, the count becomes 11 letters.

Thus adding back the anchor letters to the numeric representation of the middle section of the word accessibility, we get a11y! This is a roundabout way to go I know, but now that the term makes sense we can start to understand the criticisms of the hashtag.

Some of the complaints that I have observed are from users do not know what the hashtag means. Not sure if I agree with those complaints because if you observe any internet culture since the inception of the internet. We have used slang to get out message across since we were limited by 140 characters. So that excuse reminds me of my parents years ago saying, “What does LOL (Laugh out Loud) mean”?

Since the internet landscape is constantly changing it will help for us to be flexible and try out different things including slang hashtags.

Telling people that they cannot use a certain hashtag seems to go against the fluidity of the internet and social media. I’m not intending to have a harsh tone, this situation just seems a bit like a child who doesn’t get his way and so decides to just take his ball and go home in other words “I Quit”.

Most of us learned at a young age this methodology of thinking helps no one including the person that Quit. There is also a danger of stunted the conversation. Let’s be pioneers and trailblazers instead of fighting about an abbreviation. I believe that the internet and social media should be a place where we can create new terms and use them without having a negative “backlash”.

Okay maybe this was a bit of a rant (smile) but I hope it will create a meaningful dialog about this topic. I would love to hear your feedback – positive and negative – because social media is a social conversation. So let’s talk about it.

 I have one sibling, my sister, who is 18 months older than me.  I am 25 years old. People often think that I am older because I’m 6’2 and my sister Sara is 4’8. But it is quite the opposite, and Sara is never afraid to correct someone when they ask “Are you the little sister?” Sara was also born with Down syndrome, and she has been a great teacher to me.

Having a sibling with disabilities is full of highs and lows. The way she sees life is so interesting and seeing her positive outlook on life every day is inspiring.  Sometimes I have to weigh her optimism with the real world.  Society seems so filled with disillusionment and disappointment.  Her innocence makes me scared sometimes, because it is hard to look at a world that is so ready to take advantage of her.   I worry that some people may take advantage of my loved one.  Will she be safe without someone to watch over her, protect her, and supervise her so no one takes advantage?

Part of me wants to trust the world and thinks that people are genuinely good.  However, can I take the chance and risk that Sara will get hurt?   I like to imagine that Sara can go into the store by herself.  She can buy something small for four dollars and hands the cashier a hundred dollar bill instead of a five or a ten dollar bill.  In this situation Sara would not bat and eye if her change came back as a dollar and some change instead of the cashier explaining that she has given them a $100 bill.  I must learn to rely on the cashier to not take advantage of the situation.  Sara is so trusting and maybe I need to be more trusting of my fellow man.  However – I feel so protective of my sister.  Sometimes Sara gets annoyed with me trying to protect her and reminds me that I am her little brother.

Once Sara, a friend and I were awaiting a table at a restaurant which was crowded.  We were waiting for our table outside because the restaurant is small inside.  It was a cold day but we were all dressed appropriately for the weather. A group of women were also waiting outside for a table.  We were sitting right outside the restaurant and the group of women decided to cross the street to stand in the sun.   One woman from the group walked up to Sara and asked her if she was cold.  She insisted that Sara take expensive pair of gloves from her. Sara happily accepted and said thank you.  The situation made me feel very uncomfortable.  I wondered if the woman did not think that I could take care of my sister.  I felt ill intent and judgment coming from the woman about my capabilities to ensure that my sister was not freezing.  Sara on the other hand took it as an act of kindness.  I quickly realized that Sara was teaching me to accept the kindness and not assume it was anything other than a woman being kind.  As I thought of my reaction versus Sara’s reaction my feelings of uncomfortable feels abated.

Sara is always teaching me that most people are kind and accepting.  Sara is good, she is kindness embodied and that is humbling to me.  I have learned a lot from my sister and see the world as a kinder place because she is part of it.

—Kevin Ruh

 I would like to challenge the community of persons with disabilities (PwD) and all stakeholders associated with the community.  The stakeholders include families, friends, wounded warriors, and baby boomers that are aging and acquiring disabilities for the first time in our lives.  Plus people not impacted by disabilities that believe that this is an important social issue.  PwD deserve to be fully included in all aspects of society, especially in the employment arena.

 We need to change our buying behaviors and document and track our stories.  My challenge to the community: Help me tell our stories so we can PROVE that we are a buying power to be considered and catered too. 

Studies show that the community of PwD is a huge, untapped market place with access to trillions of dollars in discretionary income.  According to a recent report by Gartner, PwD are an underserved market segment with one billion people worldwide. They and their immediate friends and family have an annual disposable income of more than $8 trillion.

“People with disabilities make up 15 percent of the world ‘s population and some of the assistive technology marketed to people with disabilities can also be sold to the other 85 percent of the population that is “situationally disabled” by their environmental conditions, at work and at play,” said Andrew Johnson, managing vice president at Gartner.1

The numbers speak for themselves but we need more proof that this community will change our buying behavior because a company does or does NOT include us.  I am eager to capture these stories for my next book.

We need to prove to the world that we will actually take the time to shop, purchase and spend money at establishments that hire persons with disabilities, make their products and solutions accessible to us and market to us by using models that include PwD and use appropriate language that empowers our community.  We also need to prove to politicians that we will VOTE them in our out of office if they do not support our community.

My family is an average size family for the United States.  We have four members of our immediate family which includes parents and two grown children (daughter and son).  We are also like many other families because our daughter has a disability.  Our oldest child a daughter was born with Down syndrome in 1987.  At the time we did not realize that we were joining 1 in 3 families in the United States that have a family member with a disability.  This is not a United States phenomena because according to the World Health Organization 1 in 7 people globally have a disability.

Our daughter Sara Ruh has been a gift in many ways to our family.  She has helped us be a tight knit family that appreciates our blessings and are grateful for each other.  We recently included another person to our family our son Kevin’s amazing girlfriend Emily.

When Sara entered Middle School we realized that her employment options would be limited to non-existent.  She worked at a Wendy’s as a dining room attendant for several years during high school.  However when testing was done the “experts” told us she could not hold a real job with competitive wages because of her Down syndrome.  That confused us since she had been making a marketable salary at her job for three (3) years.

Sara now works at Nordstrom’s and has been there for over 8 years.  She also works with my firm Ruh Global Communications and speaks to large audiences all over the world about disability inclusion. She is working with Kevin and Emily to author several books about her life.  Her books will be a series about how she sees the world.  Her brother is working a series of books for siblings of persons with disabilities. Emily is illustrating all the books so these books are a family affair.

I have authored several books including a one on using Social Media to tell your story.  It is geared towards baby boomers that want to make a difference but do not know where to begin on Social Media.  My book explains how the community of persons with disabilities can tell their stories in a powerful way to attract supporters and funders.  “Find Your Voice using Social Media”  http://ow.ly/kxglR

My second book will publish in August or September 2014.  The title of my 2^nd book is: “Uncovering Hidden Human Capital: How leading corporations leverage multiple abilities in their workforce”.  The book follows multi-national corporations on their journey to employ PwD in their workforce. The book is being edited and published by G3ict with foreword by Axel Leblois. 2

I am working on a third book about Consumer Buying Behaviors. I would like to capture stories of families and individuals that have changed their buying behaviors because an organization included or did not include persons with disabilities.  My goal is to prove to companies that we will vote with our money.  We will buy your products and use your services if you include our community in a meaningful way.

Let me tell you one of my stories.  I frequented the same pharmacy retail store for many years (over 35 years and in multiple states).  The retail/pharmacy chain was amazing, great personnel, decent prices, good selection and caring pharmacists.  The problem was that they did little to nothing to include PwD in their marketing and employment efforts. Plus their website was terribly inaccessible to many of my friends that are blind or cannot use their hands.

I knew of Walgreens efforts to include people with intellectual disabilities in their distribution centers.  They are a huge success story and are paying these employees marketable salaries and benefits.

Plus they were making other efforts to assure accessibility of their products like large print on prescriptions and talking prescription bottles.  I decided that I had to change my buying behavior to reward their efforts.  My steps:

• Turn left at a light instead of right into the old store parking lot
• Meet the new pharmacists and her team members
• Transfer our prescriptions
• Update my insurance information
• Lose my points on my valued customer card from old retailer
• Open a new rewards card with Walgreens
• Notify our doctors to send prescriptions to new pharmacy
• Learn the stores layout
• Help my family change their buying behaviors
• Tell former pharmacy/retailer why I was leaving
• Let Walgreens manager know why I was changing to their location
• Write a letter to the CEO of Walgreens explaining my efforts

These seem like small points but it is amazing how much effort it takes to change a habit of 35 years.  I am also one of those impulse shoppers.  I understand that these retailers put the pharmacy in the back of the store so I will be tempted every minute of my journey to the pharmacist.  It works – I never leave the store with only my prescriptions. I am an ideal customer.

We not only have to make the change but we need to let both firms know why we are making the change.  I wrote a letter to my former pharmacy/retailer letting them know that I loved their team members, pharmacists, great service and store layouts.  However was switching to Walgreens because they were making a major effort to include my community.

So this is my challenge to other families like our family.  Let’s tell our stories!!!  We do not have the consumer behavior data to prove that our community is a buying power, a voting force and a community that cannot be ignored.  I would love to capture your stories so please consider visiting my firm Ruh Global Communications and sending me an email with your stories.

***

More about Ruh Global Communications and Debra Ruh.

Ruh Global Communications is a Strategic Marketing and Communications firm helping private and public organizations strategically include Persons with Disabilities (PwD) in all aspects of society.  Before becoming an entrepreneur I worked at the executive levels in the banking industry for over 25 years.   My firm understands the multifaceted opportunities, risks and interests of Corporate America and Multi-National companies.

We believe that it is critical for organizations to connect with and integrate the community of PwD and their families into their corporate culture.  We use this same paradigm for other impacted stakeholders including Wounded Warriors and Baby Boomers that are acquiring disabilities for the first time in their lives.

Companies know that PwD represent a very large demographic group that is underserved within typical corporate strategic, diversity and market programs.  My firm can help adjust plans already underway or help to develop new plans that fully include and integrate this community.

Join Debra Ruh on Social Media: twitter, linked-in, facebook, pinterest, tumblr, Google+

References:

1. http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/398692/8-trillion-reasons-make-your-technology-accessible
2. http://www.G3ict.org

Most of us have experienced trouble sleeping at one time or another. I have struggled with sleep problems most of my adult life.  I am not alone because many of my friends have the same challenge. This is normal and usually temporary, due to stress or other outside factors.  But, imagine if your sleep troubles were not temporary, but rather a continuous presence in your life? This is the experience in some people who are totally blind and may be suffering from a condition called Non-24-Hour Disorder (Non-24).

 Non-24 is a serious, chronic circadian rhythm disorder that primarily affects people who are totally blind. Actually, up to 70% of people who are totally blind have Non-24. Wow! I have been working in the disability field for many years, focused on inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce, including people who are blind, but I had never heard of Non-24 until I saw a post on a LinkedIn group.  As I read about the condition, it occurred to me that my blind friends and network needed to learn more about it.

Here’s what I learned: if you are totally blind and have trouble falling or staying asleep at night and fight to stay awake during the day, you likely experience periods of exhaustion and affected mood, as well as serious disruptions to your life, both at work and at home. These complications can make you feel caught in—and isolated by—a frustrating, sometimes debilitating, cycle of sleeplessness and exhaustion.

Sleep problems can interrupt work, affect day-to-day interactions, and make people less able to handle some of the normal stresses in their lives.  I can’t even imagine the frustration of people who are totally blind having the irresistible need to fall asleep in the middle of the day, a commonly reported symptom of Non-24.

It was interesting to learn about this circadian rhythm disorder, which is prevalent in people who are totally blind, and its impact on their lives.

Many of the symptoms of Non-24, including the inability to sleep at night and an overwhelming urge to sleep during the day, can have a negative impact on energy, emotional balance, productivity, and overall health.

To understand Non-24, you have to understand what circadian rhythms are.  Our circadian rhythms tell us when to sleep, when to eat, and when to wake, among other things. These rhythms are controlled by our master body clock. Apparently, most people’s body clock is a little longer than 24 hours—mine, yours, etc. Every day, light sends a signal to the brain to reset the body clock back to 24 hours. In people who are blind with no light perception, the body clock is left to run its natural course. So if your body clock is 24.5 hours, today you’re a half hour behind; tomorrow you’re an hour behind. This continues until your natural rhythms have you sleeping during the day and awake at night, and the cycle begins all over again.

Like any condition, the symptoms and severity of their impact can be different from person to person.  For some people, symptoms can be mild, and for others they are worse.  Symptoms may also become more disruptive during stressful times.

Though Non-24 is not a sleep disorder, in people who are totally blind it looks and feels like one.  Its primary effects are sleeplessness and exhaustion.  If you are totally blind and have Non-24, you could suddenly fall asleep at the wrong moment—such as at work, at a meal or in a class—potentially embarrassing yourself or creating stress about performance at your job.

People living with Non-24 often get disrupted sleep due to the stress and fear of sleeping through the alarm and being late for work.  You might be hesitant to make plans with friends, unsure whether your exhaustion will interrupt them.  It might also mean you fight to stay awake.  At work you might take copious notes just to stay occupied and to keep from nodding off.

Many people with Non-24 feel like no one else has this problem.  But many, many people do.  Since it affects 70% of people who are totally blind, that means between 65,000 and 95,000 people in the United States.  Unfortunately most don’t know they have it or that it even exists.  Many people are relieved to learn about Non-24 and comforted that it is a medically validated condition.

Little has been known about Non-24—but that’s changing. Every day, more people become aware of it, and research is well underway in an effort to help you—and your doctor—manage it.

It is not normal to wake up exhausted because you cannot fall asleep or stay asleep each night when your sleep cycle is out of sync.  Bottom-line: Non-24 could be negatively impacting your life and you don’t have to suffer alone. Please help me spread the word about Non-24.

To learn more about Non-24, please visit www.Non-24.com and sign up to stay connected.  You can also help others by sharing your Non-24 story.  The more we spread the word about Non-24, the more people can be helped.  You can also call health educator at (855) 856-2424 to find answers your questions about Non-24 Monday through Friday from 8am to 8pm Eastern Standard Time.  That’s (855) 856-2424.

Disclaimer: Ruh Global is a Strategic Communications & Digital Marketing firm helping corporations strategically include People with Disabilities in the workforce.  We also help clients assure their online communications are fully accessible.  I wanted to disclose that one of my clients works with Vanda Pharmaceuticals.  However, it is important to me to help spread the word about Non-24 and its effects on people with disabilities in the workplace.

http://youtu.be/PCWxenGjfho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1UMk04eRBk