Remarkable People Behind the Podcast: Facing Challenges Head On

Foreign. Hi, everybody, it's Guy Kawasaki. I am back from one vacation, preparing for the next one. So I am back in Santa Cruz, California, as you can tell from my background behind me. See? And we released a new podcast episode this morning, as we do every Wednesday morning. It's a woman named Haben Girma. She has a very remarkable story because, believe it or not, she was the first person to ever graduate Harvard Law School with being deaf and blind. So, I mean, it's just hard for me to wrap my mind around trying to go to school or Harvard Law Law School, but then Harvard Law School, deaf and blind. Now, she. She is Eritrean, but she was born in the Bay Area. She has, however, returned there and come back. But so. So it's the most fascinating story and just the technology, because when I first heard about her and. And set up the interview, I was wondering, like, how is this interview going to happen? Because I only have audio on my side to ask questions. So the way it worked was there was audio, my audio, that went to someone sitting next to her. He listened to it and typed it into a Braille computer. The Braille computer. Then she has her hands on it, and she can feel what I'm asking. Now, compared to most interviews, there's a long lag time between when I ask and when she answers, because somebody had to type in what I asked, and she had to then read it on the Braille computer. Also, you hear a lot of keys clacking because that's her person typing in what I just said. And it was the most fascinating process. I was just blown away by her capabilities. She obviously graduated Harvard Law School, and she now is kind of a disability rights activist and lawyer. So if you want to read or if you want to hear about also, you could read. You also read and hear about someone who has persevered. My God, this is the episode for you. And. And one of the outcomes of this episode, personally on me, was that I learned about how the ADA Americans with Disabilities act really has impacted people with disabilities. And they're apparently about 30 million people with some kind of disability in America. And so I felt morally convicted that for a long time we didn't do transcripts because we didn't think enough people were reading the transcripts, so it wasn't worth it. But after that recording, and then I also talked to Martin Lindstrom about this issue a few episodes back, I felt morally compelled to start throwing more resources at transcription. So whereas before, I would take. I have two files, right? My side and her side they go up into the script, the script transcribes them, and then I would start editing the transcription, mostly to cut out stuff that really, you know, if. If someone has filler words or someone goes down a path and stops and comes back up in another direction, I take all that out. So it's the most efficient episode possible. But. So that's one level editing. But now, with my newfound passion for transcription, it changes everything. Because now I. When she mutters a name or she mutters something that is not obvious before, without transcription, I would just say, you know, so what? People will hear it, they'll understand or not. But now when the transcription totally doesn't make sense, that's a problem. So this means there's more research in every episode, because every time somebody says something, I have to go and figure out, you know, who. Who exactly is that. You'll really see that in action in the next episode with Dave Weiner when he mentions all these pioneers in the computer business. And I have to go find out, you know, exactly how you spell each of those names. So, yeah, I hope you're out there. And if you appreciate transcription because you're deaf or because you like to listen to the podcast as. Excuse me, if you want to read the podcast as you listen to it now, you can do that. We have transcriptions@remarkablepeople.com with each episode. Also, Simplecast has it, but Apple does not. And I looked around. This is a long diatribe about transcriptions, but I looked around, and even places like npr, they don't do transcriptions. I probably add another two hours of work so that I can have it, you know, sort of transcriptional bowl. And then I send it to someone. I have two people who actually do the real nitty gritty of transcription, making sure everything works and putting, you know, the punctuation right. They probably spend five hours, so probably seven hours of work in each transcription. Nothing to do with sound design and marketing and all that. Just the transcription is probably seven hours. So, yeah, that's my newfound commitment to the ada. So couple things. You see this little sign here? If you want to text me, I'm at 831-609-0628. This is a text server service, so it means that you're joining a text group. And I send out text announcements of each episode. It's one to many from me to many. And then if you respond back, then it's one to one. And then if I respond back to you, it's one to one. So the only step that it's one to many is the first step. So after that we can have a confidential conversation. We have an icebreaker question, and that icebreaker question is about, you know, what technology innovation made the most impact in your life. And we asked this question because, my God, without, without this braille computer, Haben's life would be very different. She would. I don't know how you would do something in real time because I mean, braille obviously started with, you know, perforations or whatever on paper where you felt that, but you can't exactly do that in real time for a real time conversation. I don't know. So the braille computer probably changed her life. And for me, technology innovation that made the most impact on your life is clearly a Macintosh. I've been using a Macintosh since 1983, and I don't know where I'd be without that. Macintosh is. So in your comments, please let us know what made the most impact in your life and send your questions in. We have any questions for me? Let's see. There you go. Ask your questions in the comments. You like my Peace Fans mug here? I just, by the way, I now have two Metros Peace Fans, because I bought one and then my son liked it so much he kind of has taken it, so I, I bought another. So now we have two Metros vans, both upfitted by Peace Vans, so that they are weekend campers. Although I have to tell you, I've only slept one night in it, but. All right. LTE, cell, iPhones. Oh, that. I get it. That's what made LTE made the most impact. That's interesting, huh? Any other comments? Anybody else? What's the technological gizmo innovation that affected your life the most? Really? For me, it's Macintosh, no question asked. Internet, smartphones and computers. Yep, I agree. By the way, this, this live conversation is sponsored by Restream. Restream enables you to Restream to up to 30 platforms at once. Wrap your mind around that. So one feed goes to 30 places simultaneously. We only do about four or five. We're on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube. I think that's it right now. So. And one of the beauties of restream is not only high definition audio and video, but the comments from all services come to one place. IPad. Laura Peck. IPad. You know, it's funny, Laura, I. I have several iPads. I actually have two currently. Here's one. I don't know where my other one is. And unfortunately that's the one with the SIM card in it. I, I have not seen that for months. But I. I never use an iPad, and I think it's because, well, I have an M1 MacBook Air, and, oh, my God, if you had an old Air, you should look at the M1 airs, because the battery life, I swear, is about three times longer and it's so fast. So ever since I had the M1 air, I've just used my iPad list and like much of my life and existence, is predicated upon creating content as opposed to consuming content. So I think iPad is great for consuming, but not necessarily for creating. And most of the time, I am always editing a podcast episode. And so. And the, the software that I use for that is the script. And so you can't use the script on an iPad. So that kind of eliminates that. So then, you know, that's why. What else? See Remarkable two Tablet, Jason Soto. I like that because the Remarkable Tablet sponsors the Remarkable Podcast. And I'll show you mine here. Here's mine. And I use this. What I do is I create the draft questions in Google Docs so that I can share this draft question list with multiple people. And then when it's done, I print it to PDF, I take that PDF and on my computer, I put it into the Remarkable Tablet app that then automatically syncs to this. And so when I'm doing the interview, I'm using a remarkable tablet to take notes and, you know, cross off questions as I ask during the conference, during the episode. So I'm using this to manage the interview process. And you might ask, well, why don't you just use a computer and keep using Google Docs? It's because I think when people see you typing and mousing, even if you tell them what you're doing, I think most people view that as a negative, that, you know, you're not paying as much attention to me. You probably answering email here. Here you are interviewing me and you're typing. So that's why I don't do that. And, and also, I mean, let's face it. So if you have a pencil on and you're. You're remarkable, and you just want to say, okay, that question is done. You just, you know, check it off. What would you do if it were in a Google Doc? I mean, you could, I guess, highlight it and then pick strikethrough as a style or pick bold, or you could cut the question, but then you'd lose the question forever. So just writing a check mark is so much faster and so much cleaner. So, yeah, remarkable too. That is also. Yes, had A big impact on my life. For me, it has been social media connecting me with people across the globe, both in personal life and my work as an educator in higher ed. Amen, Sue. You know, we only kind of hear about all the problems with social media, but, you know, I would say, on balance, social media has definitely made the world a better place. It has made the world a worse place in some times, too. But generally speaking. Well, first of all, it's a completely theoretical question, right? Because it's not like we're going to put that horse back in the barn. So I think it's made the world a much better place. I agree with you. I have contacts and connections and relationships that I never would have had without social media. So, again, your blood sugar level shows on your Apple Watch and iPhone, huh? How does that work? So obviously, the watch is not penetrating your skin and getting a blood sample. So somehow, what is it doing? That's interesting, huh? I'll go look that up. That's very interesting. I didn't know Apple Watch could do that. My Apple Watch, by the way, the. I hate to admit this, but the primary use for my Apple Watch is that it tracks the time, the distance, and the speed of every wave that I catch. So I use an app called Dawn Patrol that's on my watch. It syncs to my phone, and then on my phone, I can look at every wave. And that's kind of a narrow use case. But I only use my iPhone. I only use my Apple Watch for that. So every other time, I'm usually wearing. This is a Breitling B55. So this is Breitling's smartwatch. I use this, or I use a Seiko diver's watch every other time. So basically, when I surf, I put the Apple Watch on, I go out, I surf, I bring it back, I let it sink, and I put it back in the charger. Next day, wake up, take it out of charger, go surf, sync, put it back in the charger. It's the only use I have. Well, it's not the only use, but really it's the primary use I have for my Apple Watch. And now would I use it more? Yes. But I'll tell you, if you go out on a surf session for two hours using your Apple Watch, you use up half the battery. So two hours later, you're at 50%. And then I just don't want to keep track of I got to charge the watch, where's the watch and all that. So it's just. It's a Single purpose function for me. Guy, as a person with low vision who finished an MBA from University of Toronto, what does low vision mean? I have full esteem for Haben Girma. My number one technology has been Dragon Naturally Speaking, which powered my business voice PC for the last 20 years. Well, that's cool. Dragon is cool. Yeah, that's a change. Yeah, I mean, you know, imagine people with dyslexia and stuff like that who, you know, it's completely different for the reading experience, for the interaction with the computer. Yeah, I love that. So, any other questions? I'm so happy you're covering things. My parents are severely hoh. I don't know what HOH means. Google's live transcribe has made a great difference in my life with communicating with my parents. Gabriella. Yeah, I agree. I mean, the first time I saw live transcription happen in a video conference, I thought it was magic. And I swear it's very, very well done. Arguably, I don't. I wish, I wish. Nah, never mind. I won't tell you what I wish. But yeah, I agree that's very true. And I think it really helps even if you can hear. Listen, I can hear, but I watch TV with subtitles, so what's the difference? So, yeah, okay, what other questions here? So this is another icebreaker and completely pertinent to Haben, which is have you had to overcome any physical disabilities to achieve success? Send your comments in. Don't forget, sponsored by restream and podcast is sponsored by remarkable tablet. So those are our sponsors. We got to give them credit. Let's see, let's see. Okay, somebody sneezing. It's not me. Hi, super guy. If you had to create a multi brand in horeca sector hotel and restaurants hospitality, would you start? Where would you start and which brand names? If you get to create a multi brand hoteling restaurants and hospitality, where, where would you start? I think I understand your question. So you're saying you want to create a brand using existing travel brands. That's a good question. It's been. No kidding, it has been 18 months since I've stayed in a hotel room. So let me think about that. What have been my favorite hotels? Well, you know, one of the problems is as a speaker, which is 90% of my travel, you don't really get to pick your hotel because if the conference is in the Marriott, you stay at the Marriott because you just want to catch an elevator down to make your speech. You don't want to have to go across town because you stayed at your favorite hotel. So I stayed at a lot of great hotels, but none of it has been at my choice or very few has been in my choice. What brand would I start with? I would have said in travel. I would have started with Virgin America, but Virgin America is part of Alaska now, so that's different. Do I have a favorite? Hotel Merit Marquee? Maybe. I don't know. You know, my hotel needs. Honestly, my hotel needs are simple, right? So I want a short check in line and I want good Wi Fi. That's it. That's it. If you get those two things, I'm happy. Everything else is cream. Yeah. How a blockchain affect social media? I. I don't know. You might add to the security. It might add to the authenticity. You might add to the identification or inability to fake identification. I would think those would be the primary things. Blockchain on social media. So. Okay, don't forget we announced a new podcast today. Haben Girma. She is the first woman or first person who is deafblind and graduated from Harvard Law School and is now a disabilities activist. Yeah, I want. I really want the answer to this question. I mean, this would be very interesting. So, you know, how many of you think that I should continue to transcribe remarkable people? Because it really does represent seven additional hours of work every week now. And I. I think it's not just for deaf people. I think many people who are not deaf would prefer to read the transcript while they're listening to the audio. I think that's a better way to do a podcast. But I gotta tell you, it is a lot of work. So one thing you could do for me is if you know deaf people or associations or anything like that, tell them about it. Because, man, I don't know any other podcast that makes such a commitment to transcription as remarkable people. So. And I think it would be very interesting. I don't. I don't know the. The breadth of information that's available for deaf people, but I would assume that having transcriptions of Jane Goodall and Steve Wozniak and Haben Grima would definitely add to the pool of information available for deaf people. So please tell all your deaf friends about it. Yeah, okay. Yes, you should keep it. It's even good to improve one's English. I agree. It's very interesting the. You. You would be amazed at the number of times the smartest people in the world when they are interviewed. And I count myself in this group, not that I'm the smartest person in the world, but in this group of people who do what I'm about to tell you. But in a transcription, if you took the raw transcription and you search for, you'd find 100 to 150. You'd find a hundred to 150. I mean, you'd find 50. You know, you would find a hundred. See, I just did it. And so for any given one hour interview, there's probably three or four hundred filler words. And if you listen to my podcast, there are far fewer filler words in the final audio than it started with because I want to make the audio as remarkable as possible. Now, some people would argue that that's not true to life because you've edited. I would make the case that 350 ums ohs I means and you knows, can hardly add to the experience. So that's my decision and I'm standing by it. Okay, well, that's a good question. Let me, let me ask you. Do you want me to leave the U.S. i means, you know, well, all those filler words in. Because there will be three or four hundred more words in every episode if I left them all in. And you can express your opinion, but I can't tell you I'm going to change my mind about that. Okay, so you are meticulously to be commended. Well, thank you. Thank you. There's a. There's a village behind this podcast. So there's Jeff C. Who's doing the sound design. There is Peg Fitzpatrick who's doing the producing, production, making the screen, making the photos work, actually posting it, creating the simple cast stuff, the blog post, the email, the text messages, basically all the marketing and sort of product management. So we got this great sound designer, Jeff C. We got Peg Fitzpatrick doing all social marketing, social media and marketing. And we have two people, Alexis Nishimura and Luis Magana, and they are two students who do the transcription final stuff. And by the way, because I believe in helping people as much as I can, if you are a podcaster and you want to transcribe, I have learned a lot about transcription and. I have a whole document that explains all these shortcuts and tips for transcription. And I would be happy to share that document. There are things that I discovered in Word. Okay, so let's say you're using automated transcription. And one of the common errors in automated transcription that. Does things like, well, at least descripts engine, it puts so comma all the time. Like every so is followed by a comma that comma is. You know, it's like that comma, comma, so with the so comma, you know, the obvious thing to do is search once for so comma and change all so comma to so no comma, Right? So you can change a hundred of them like that at once. But it also does things such as it will start paragraphs, it will start sentences without the first word capitalized. And somebody on LinkedIn helped me and showed me that with word, you can truly do a wild card search where the logic is find me every instance where the first letter of the first word of a sentence or after a carriage return is a lowercase letter, it can search for the wild card lowercase letter A through Z. So this is a way of finding every instance where a sentence doesn't begin with an uppercase word. And let's just say that that is. It's a lot easier to find those kinds of errors using words, wildcards, advanced search and replace than it is to carefully change them one at a time as you encounter them. So I have actually told the transcribers who helped me, I tell them that do not listen to the audio for the first hour, for the first hour of your work on the transcription. Do all the word tricks. You can search and replace for so comma, a comma, um, comma, you know, comma, search for lowercase. After a carriage return, search for lowercase letter begins a direct quote, which is not supposed to happen. So there are things like that that it can do that could really make your transcription a lot easier. And then you use the human ear to catch the stuff that word search and replace cannot catch. But I'm going really deep into transcription, but I have spent a lot of time trying to make transcription efficient. So, yeah, if you're a podcaster, you want that list of tips, let me know. There's potential for a book on podcasting here. Truly, sue, there is, but I don't know. You know, my thought is that there's about 2 or 3 million podcasters, and so that's not large enough a universe to support a book. And I swear, of the 2 or 3 million podcasters, roughly 1.9 to 2.9 million of them think they already know how to do everything. I guess I would be in that category, too. But this is. This is what you call an mvp, which is a minimum viable podcaster. I like that. Eric Ries and Steve Blank. Steve Lang, by the way, was last week's guest. If you are a tech entrepreneur and you do not listen to Steve Blank's episode, you are an idiot. Like, let me tell you something. You read My lips. Let me tell you how I really feel. You are so freaking stupid. If you're a tech entrepreneur and you have not listened to Steve Blank's last episode on Remarkable People about how to create a lean, mean, fighting machine company that I. There's no hope for you. You're too stupid. Just go work for Wells Fargo bank or something. Okay, so I have taken up a half an hour of your life here. Remember, Remarkable People Haben Girma. First woman. Guys, keep saying that. First person who is deafblind and graduated from Harvard Law school. That's@remarkablepeople.com where you can see transcriptions of at least all the recent episodes. Podcast is sponsored by the remarkable tablet company Live Stream, sponsored by Restream. You can text me and join my extended Ohana at 831-609-0628. Sorry, only US and Canada will work with that. And that's it? That's it. Have a great rest of the week and weekend and mahalo and aloha. And can I just tell you one more thing? If you are part of the 45% of Americans who have not yet get vaccinated, please get vaccinated. I mean, like, you know, you get vaccinated to go to school. Why is this a political issue? Get vaccinated. I've had my. Everybody in my family is vaccinated. I don't even let my kids hang out with kids who have not been vaccinated. So get vaccinated. If you just did the math, the probability of a bad side effect from vaccination is so much less than the probability of. Of getting Covid and having a really bad experience, if not death. It's not even. I mean, if you put a seatbelt on, why would you not get vaccinated? I don't understand that. Anyway, get vaccinated. Okay, so that's it. Another episode of our live weekly Remarkable People podcast interview. Take care. Bye. Sa.