World IA Day Pittsburgh 2021

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, to our listeners in the United States and around the world. Special shout out to Richard Roberts, my close friend with the Embassy in Japan. A real disability rights leader, Gang Yong Cho in Seoul, South Korea. Love him. Another great disability rights leader and friend, Cheryl Harris from Tunisia, who's soon going to be on our radio show. Love you, Cheryl. Uh, Venyamin from Kazakhstan.— who is awesome, and all my wonderful friends in Indonesia, welcome to the show today. About my listeners around the world, I've got to tell you, I have like one listener in Saudi Arabia, hundreds and hundreds in China. It doesn't matter if there's one. One person makes a difference. Just tell everyone else about the show. And a special shout out to Yoshiko Dart, Love you, Yoshiko. Lead on. Well, this is going to be a great show today because it is an upcoming event we will be celebrating. And we're going to be talking today about information architecture. But let's start by me introducing our guest for today. Oh, oh, oh, one big thing. Hi, Mark. Thank you for being the lead sponsor. All right. So we have Jennifer Trisch-Kremer, who is a senior user researcher from Cigna. Alina Bengert-Lombardi, who is a UX architecture from Confluence. Greg Weinstein, who is the senior accessibility designer at CVS Health. And Jennifer Mazza, project consultant for data and analytics for software development from that great company, Highmark Health. All of you, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Joyce Bender. Thank you.

Well, actually—

Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Oh, well, I'm thrilled to have you here. So, Jen, let's start with this question. What is World Eye Day? Because I'll bet a lot of our listeners in the US and around the world may not be familiar with this. So why don't you explain it?

Right, I will. One thing I want to give a quick shout out— there are 4 of us here today on the show, and I'll just give a quick shout out to the others on the committee: Trish Duffy, who's our lead organizer, Anthony Kluski, Jenny Lu, Megan Driscoll, and Celine Insel. And one of our prior organizers, Casey Buchanan-Smith, has been able to join us recently, and it's an absolute dream team committee to, to be working together. It takes loads of hours. We start in the summer for our February conference. So it's going to be a really great conference this year. World IA Day is a nonprofit, and it provides the foundation for learning about information architecture. And information architecture is a discipline that's devoted to the understanding of how information is structured and how it's understood, how it's best organized so that it can be easily accessed for use. And you can hear then the tie-in to accessibility. It's, you know, there's an old saying, a place for everything and everything in its place, right, Joyce Bender? And basically, whether we're designing a website or whether we are organizing things around us in our space. It's very much a good discipline and a courtesy to others to think about how folks need to access that information or that thing so that it is most easily accessible for folks without any struggles.

Well, you know, I'm sorry, I was just going to say—

Sure.

Some of our listeners, they may need a little more clarification on information architecture. So could you maybe make that in basic language terms for them to understand? Like, how does it work? If I would be looking at this information architect, what would I be looking at? What am I doing?

Jennifer, do you want to take that?

Sure, I would be happy to. Information architecture really focuses on how you organize information in your environment. Everything from how you structure the items in your cabinet, you know, what you put on the first shelf, the second shelf, the third shelf, you know, based on usage, or you organize them because they're similar foods. That is your own personal information architecture for your cabinets. It seems really simple, but we all have these models and structures that we use, and the idea of information architecture in design, in the world, is building a structure that works well and resonates with people so that it's easy for them to follow. And understand how something works so that you don't need a lot of training to be able to go to a website and find a piece of information. Or, you know, you get into a car and the information within the car, whether it's digital, labels, it's organized in a way that is meaningful to you so that when you go from one car to the other, it's not a brand-new learning experience.

Does that help, Joyce?

Oh yeah, that was an excellent explanation. And Jen, going back to you about the nonprofit World IA Day, this provides, you said, the foundation for learning about information and architecture. World IA Day, could you talk about that? I know it's one day a year. What is it? What is World IA Day? And what will be coming up in Pittsburgh?

Right. So, it's celebrated around the world, and there are dozens of cities. I think we had over 60 cities one of the prior years. And everybody in the different committees around the world have some sort of event. It could be something small, or it could be a full-day event. We in Pittsburgh have one of the more robust days, and we have a full 8-hour day of programming, and we're very excited about it. It's got a good mix. Of keynote speeches. We've got shorter lightning talks. We've got question-and-answer sessions. We have a panel discussion with Joyce Bender as our moderator, and we're thrilled to have her. And we have workshops, and then we end our day after 5 o'clock with a virtual happy hour as well. And then we have some fun mixed in, like lounges for relaxing or meeting others. And we have morning and afternoon network roulette breaks. And what that is, is it offers a chance to be randomly matched with another World IAD Pittsburgh attendee for one-on-one attendee networking. And then you get a few minutes to talk to somebody, and you could share lessons learned from your job, or you could find out how to get into the field. You could talk to a hiring manager. It's such a good mix. And we're excited about the fact that it is virtual because it's giving everyone a chance to break out of our work-from-home isolation, right? Right. Spend some time on a Saturday to learn some more and share with each other.

And this is what day again?

It is Saturday, February 27th.

So I'm just wondering, if someone is listening to the show right now, they're saying, oh, I didn't know about this, I wish I could go. Can they still go?

Absolutely, absolutely.

We have, um, yes, we'll be sharing the, the link for the event, um, and we'll have that information, um, we can provide for you if you want to put it onto your onto your page, onto your site. We have a special access code for today, which is DisabilityMatters as one word, and that would give folks the early bird ticket price of $15 for a whole entire day of programming, which is a fantastic price. The link, I could tell it now, it's Accel Events, which is A-C-C-E-L, events.com/e/wiadpg. And we can repeat that again later in the show.

Yes, let's do that. Just so— well, that is so exciting that you could be anywhere. Since it's virtual, you could be anywhere and attend this.

That's absolutely right, yes.

Yes, I am, I will put this on my website, but I'll also get it out to other groups because I think this is such a great thing. So, Jen, was there anything else that you wanted to say, Jennifer, about when I asked that question, what is information architecture?

Well, one neat example to build upon what Jennifer has already said is the idea, for example, of going to a public library. I'm thinking pre-pandemic days, of course. But so if you were to go to the library and ask to borrow a book, you do expect that that book is easily found, right? You would never expect that the librarian is going to search floor by floor floor and room by room, right? But it's only by that organized, structured discipline of how to categorize books by genre and then by last name of the author, that sort of thing, which makes it so predictable to find, right? It's a good example.

Oh, that's a good example. So, here we are, we're talking about all this and There could be people listening and saying, well, how does this impact me? Or why should I care about this? Why is this relevant to me? And I'm going to ask Alina if she would mind answering that question. Why should people care about this, Alina?

I would love to. As both examples that were mentioned, whether it is your kitchen cardboard or if it's in the library or a website.

Information architecture is truly everywhere.

There are so many types of roles who practice information architecture in one form or another, and some people may not even know that they're actually doing the information architecture in practice. It's being— it's something that is thoughtfully considering. When you're thoughtfully considering information architecture or the structure and layout of a site or an application, It gives even a PAR presentation, how you structure that, it can really impact the efficiency and quality of your work. And it really can make a difference on the audience. So making information more easily accessible really empowers and helps people who need it, which kind of leads also to accessibility, not relying on information on visual cues, but rather on the order of information or how the information is presented can really, in a logical and linear layout, can really help someone who may not have all those visual cues available, still understand and really take in the information the way you would like it to be presented to them. And yes, people should really care about information architecture because it's the message that is received that counts. So it's important to deliberately send that message in such a way that is digestible and understood, such as information architecture.

Thank you very much. I love these examples you're using because it's so much easier to understand this when people speak in people terms versus techie terms. So thank you for explaining it that way. Greg, I myself wanted to know the answer to this question. How does this relate? Because if I'm right, you work in the accessibility area. Is that correct, Greg?

That's right.

Do you work in digital accessibility or what type of accessibility?

Primarily digital. Although working at CVS has to do with the stores sometimes as well.

Okay. So how does this relate to accessibility?

Well, information architecture and accessibility, I think, are really very closely related because how information is structured and presented to a large extent dictates who can use it and how they can use it. And conversely, what information we choose to provide makes an experience more or less accessible. So, you know, to give you an example, in the last year, there's just been tons of data about COVID transmission rates and hospitalization rates and all of these different things. And you could take that data, you could present it in an Excel spreadsheet, and some people would be perfectly fine with that. But I think many of us have probably seen various data visualizations using that data, which are, you know, colorful and interactive, and take that really complex data and present it in a way that those of us who are not, say, statisticians can understand. But what happens for somebody who is blind and wants to get that information as well? Those data visualizations are not always presented in an accessible way. So then we need to think differently about how we make that information useful to somebody who interacts with the computer in a different way. Or to give you another example, If you're using a mapping app and you are blind, if you can't see on the screen where your grocery store is and you want to go to the Giant Eagle and you want to go to the one that's closest to you, all you have is a list, you need to have the distance of the different options read out to you as you use your screen reader to go through the list. Otherwise you won't be able to figure out which one is closest, whereas a sighted person would just look at the map and see the one that's closest. We need to make the information available in the appropriate way for people with disabilities so that they can have the same experience as everyone else gets to have.

Wow.

Now, This conference this year, since we're talking about accessibility, how is it going to be made accessible for people with disabilities? Well, for example, will all the content be accessible? Will there be captioning?

Yes, the whole conference is going to be captioned. We have some prerecorded material that will have captions on it, closed captions on it in advance. We also have hired a live captioner for the day of the event, so everything that's happening in real time will also be captioned.

Well, that's exciting. And I also see that you are supporting different languages from Chinese to Hebrew to Arabic. Why I love that is that I can share that. Just today, I did a Zoom presentation on— as everyone listening knows, I'm a woman living with epilepsy. I am the CEO and founder of Bender Consulting Services and co-founder of iDisability software product. But I'm all about the employment of people with disabilities. So I'm very known in this area. So if an embassy somewhere in the world is requesting an expert on the employment of people with disabilities, they frequently ask me to go to the country. Well, obviously with COVID I cannot go to the country. So Tunisia and Libya both asked me— of course, these are separate events— to do a presentation for them. On the employment of people with disabilities. And as I was looking at this, I was remembering that only 10%, I think, of the population in Libya speaks English. They speak Arabic. So this is really, you know, this is really good because people, as you said before, around the world will be listening to this. So really, anyone can answer a question I have right now. When did this really take off? I mean, when did this become a thing people cared about?

Jen, you want me to take a stab at that one?

You can. I do know that it's the 6th year here in Pittsburgh, but you can add to that, Jennifer. Thank you.

Sure, yes, 6th year for the actual event in Pittsburgh. World IA Day itself has been around for a number of years, but not— this isn't new. This has always been built into the work about how do you design a system, an environment, a space to fit the user. This is always a component of that, but over the years it has evolved into its own specialty that really appreciates the nuances of how having a clear structure supports building out an experience, whether it's a digital experience on a computer or the experience of being inside your car. Just like when a house is being built, you need your architectural diagram that tells you where everything's going to be and what size it's going to be. What the information architecture does. It gives you that diagram of how things should be put together.

And so, is this then in the IT department of the company or no? Because when you talk about this, I think of database, I think of a data architecture where all the information is stored. How is it different than that? Greg, maybe you can tell me that.

Well, that's part of information architecture for sure, but really it's the responsibility and part of the work of any of us who work in design, among other things, is making sure that we're building experiences that people can use in the way that they need to be able to use them. You know, we're going back to the accessibility of information architecture again. You know, I can think of many examples, including ones I've already mentioned today, that, you know, how it's very easy to figure out what is the right information that people need, but to give it to them in a way that's not accessible or that's not appropriate to them. And conversely, you can make something inaccessible but have the most useful information there. And those are things that— those are not just for our IT departments or whatever. Those are issues that as a visual designer or an interface designer or anything like that, we need to be thinking about that to be that user-centric so that everyone is able to interact with whatever it is we're building, whether it's a, you know, a car or an app or anything in between.

Oh, that's a great example. Sure, I'm sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

I just want to say that it also plays a role in navigation, and I don't mean like car navigation, I mean website, for example, navigation or app navigation. So just recently for a project I'm on, I had to conduct what's called a tree test, which is I took all the information, how it's laid out on the app, and I basically created a site map of how the app is laid out. So if you start from the home page, whether you select one, and you get to the next, and to the next. The tree tests allow me to understand, are people able to, with the information that's presented, are they able to locate their final destination, their final task. So for example, going from the home page to the third layer of the tree, of the, you know, sitemap, and finding the results that they need. And even that can be something that we get to which I enjoy as part of being a user experience designer.

Yeah.

That's a very good example. You know what this reminds me of is when you were saying how it all started, it reminds me of universal design. You know, how it went from where everything has to be accessible. It reminds me of how that went from that in different directions, and this is one of them. So it really is something that I feel everyone should be interested in. And that's why this conference— and how about that it's in Pittsburgh? That's even better because if you're listening to the show, guess what? I reside in Pittsburgh, even though our satellite is in Arizona where I bet they don't have snow flying around the way we do here in Pittsburgh, PA. But this is where the conference will be. And that is so awesome. Since we have Carnegie Mellon, the Pittsburgh Technology Council, and so many other groups here that I know will be really excited.

So— Normally it's in person in Pittsburgh, but this year it's virtual. So Jen will mention it at the end, but basically tied back to Pittsburgh. If you purchase your ticket today with that discount and you join us, a portion of your ticket will actually be donated to a local charity, which Jen will mention at the end of the call, so, or of the talk. So, just wanted to mention that that's how this year we're tying it back to Pittsburgh. And also, a lot of our speakers, some of our, most of our speakers are local as well, so that's kind of a nice touch.

How much is it to register today?

Sorry, how much? What? It's the early— current price is $20, but the early discount, which will be available today for you, for the listeners, is $15.

Wow. And that's access is Disability Matters, right?

Correct.

Yes, the access code is Disability Matters written as one word. One word.

That's right.

Okay.

Does it have to be lowercase?

Case does not matter.

Okay.

And Joyce Bender, the other thing we did for your listeners is because this will be rebroadcast, I think about 12 hours later, we're actually leaving that code available until 11:59 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday. So even if people are listening to your broadcast the second time, they will still have access to tickets at that $15 US price.

Okay, that is so awesome. Thank you, that's great. Well, I'm gonna ask each of you to give me an example, each one on the show, what you have learned. What have you learned at WIAD conferences? I mean, what has impacted you? What have you learned from it? And we can start with, Elena.

Sure. So I— this is my third year planning, being on the committee, and I've attended about 4 of these conferences in Pittsburgh. And one that really stuck with me, one of the talks— all of them are very interesting, and the lightning talks, as mentioned, are usually a quick 15-minute talk, and a keynote is usually the 45 minutes. Of course, panels are— you get to hear a bunch of people's opinions and thoughts into a topic. And one lightning talk by Carolyn Johnson in 2018 was called Designing with Wicked Intent. And the idea is that our goal as designers is to really make sure that everything is consumable, intuitive, easy to understand, and that the information is presented in such a way You don't have to learn anything new. You can understand, infer, not make mistakes, and just complete the task at hand easily. But there is such a thing as not bad design, but what I would call maybe evil design, or death design she called it. And this is where you purposely organize information in such a way, present it in such a way that can mislead a person to do a task that not necessarily benefits them, but maybe benefits you. So for example, whenever at the bottom of a lot of these websites there is a checkbox that says, "Opt in for emails from us," or newsletters, what if the checkbox said, "If you don't want to get a letter from us, go ahead and check this checkbox." And someone who may kind of read quickly They think that typically this is where I opt in, but in this case by checking it you would be opting out. So it is evil design where the user is getting those emails because they left it blank, and they are by default in a way opted in. So that was really to me impressive, and it made me feel kind of powerful to be honest after that talk, but also happy that I am designing for good. Not equal.

Oh yeah, that is right, because, you know, folks can network when they go to these events, hope maybe get new jobs, definitely meet hiring managers. I mean, it is amazing how many things can happen. But even if it's a favorite memory or presentation, which I love that example, that you just gave. Jen, how about you? What have you learned?

Thanks, Joyce. I've enjoyed every single presentation that I've been a part of, but there's one that especially touched my heart, which was in 2019, so a couple years ago. Ann Gibson was the presenter, and she had a workshop, and in our room, She had passed out flashcards to each of us that have A through Z. It was called Exploring an Alphabet of Accessibility, and it was fantastic. And even when folks— when we in the room consider ourselves to be already great advocates for our family members or for friends who need accommodations, was a real eye-opener where she was featuring on those flashcards a variety of people who are friends and family members of her own who have what might be considered an invisible disability. Something that as we design whatever it is that our work is, we should be remembering folks who might have a harder time to consume the information or use the product. For example, if it— I'll use digital, I suppose, again. If you're designing a website, you need to remember that there are folks who might have something like post-concussion syndrome or recovering from a stroke, or maybe somebody is on chemo, and so things— need to be very simplistic and very clear. Eliminate confusion. Don't try to make things cute for cute's sake. For example, somebody might think that a website page looks really cool because it's a red background and purple printing on top of that. To some people that might look nice, and to others That would be an absolute frustration. There's just not enough contrast between the print and the background. That's an obvious example there. So it just really helped open our eyes to— even people could have a temporary disability. Somebody might have a broken arm and can't use the keyboard. So can you make your your content accessible with Tab key or with mouse instead of relying on the keyboard. All sorts of things. You can really take this to the extreme. There's just so much when you really put your mind to it and create design with all people in mind. It really makes a difference.

Yes, it's like you can't hear a beautiful symphony if all the seats are not filled. Jennifer, how about you? What have you learned the most?

So, I actually moved back to Pittsburgh 2 years ago. So, I had been gone for about 25 years.. And it has gone through a huge transformation which has been wonderful to see. It's just much more inclusive of a city. I think the conference is a good example of that because I joined up with a group of people with similar interests and ended up being on a panel discussion last year for accessibility that was hosted by which is actually what brought me here today. So that experience, being able to sit there and talk with others who are passionate about accessibility, I come at it from the research perspective. So when we come up with digital solutions and experiences, we want to put them in front of people that may fall into the categories that Jen was mentioning that are just not the average, and see how they respond and use that data to help improve the experiences. So that made such an impression on me, being able to do that, that I volunteered to be on the organizing committee this year. So I think that speaks positively of this group of people, the event, and just again reinforcing it includes people from all walks of life and all disciplines. It's not just siloed into data architecture and computer science people. People in psychology, people in marketing, just wide variety, and I really appreciate that.

Well, that's one thing I've noticed about all of you is gratitude and kindness, and that is That's what makes it successful. It really is. Greg, how about you? And I know you have a link to— I don't know if— is this— no, it's slides by Hari. Do you want to go over that?

Yeah, continuing on with that theme, actually, last year Hari Suru Bengada from Honeywell gave a talk that made a big impression on me called How to Be Kind Through Design. And it was a talk about, you know, well, firstly about the process of designing wearable technology for car mechanics or people working on technical things like that. And, but it was really about Learning to go deep into the experience of somebody else that you— who may not share your experience and to make sure that you're designing something that works for them with their abilities and their needs and all in very precise and even small ways and just making your design very compassionate and therefore making kindness, uh, an integral part of your design. And in fact, if your metrics for like how you measure your success, so you're not only trying to get something out the door by whatever date, but you're also ensuring that, um, it treats people well, that people have good experiences when they're using it, that it's accessible, that it brings joy, all of these things that are just as important as those, you know, more like those harder data that we often think about. Yeah, and if you wanted to share that link, we can certainly give you that link to share it so people can watch that presentation from last year.

Okay, that would be great. Listen, Greg, while I have you on here, I wanted to ask you, this year, how is this year different from other years?

Well, in just about every way you can imagine, I think. You know, as this is, as Jen said before, this is the 6th iteration of World IA Day in Pittsburgh, and it's of course due to the pandemic, it's going to be the first time that we're holding doing the conference online. And that comes with a lot of challenges and it comes with some opportunities as well. You know, a lot of people are not necessarily as excited about online conferences as in-person. I certainly count myself among those. You know, I find in-person events to be really exciting to be able to be in a room with colleagues colleagues from different places. But there's also opportunities that you have when you design an online event where you can remove geographic limits so that anyone from anywhere in the world can attend this event. And you expand access for people because it's online. So people who couldn't come in person, people who are not necessarily comfortable coming to in-person conferences, or would prefer events to be online, well, this is an opportunity to create something that's more inclusive for them as well. And we, in our planning activities, we've done a lot to try and keep the— keep all of the networking and interpersonal activities going on, the talks that we always have, but also to make it make it, you know, fun as a remote event as well, to be able to do networking, to be able to make it accessible by having captions for people who might not— for whatever reason might not be able to listen to the presentations through audio. So there's a lot of opportunities here, and we're hoping that it's going to be be just as exciting an event, even if it is quite a bit different from what people may have come to expect in past years.

Well, let's face it, the whole world is different, right? So one good thing—

That's right.

—being that you're an IA, I expected this to be, you know, certainly put together better than some of the other events where they don't understand accessibility and technology. But I tell people, choose something like a podcast where you're going to really learn something or get something out of it and/or have a great time. So here we go. We have all of it with this event that we're having in Pittsburgh. And I know that you mentioned that you will be giving back or engaging the Pittsburgh community? How are you doing that? How is that happening?

Thanks. This is Jen. Excuse me.

I don't feel that great. My throat is a little funny, so I apologize. That's all right. We, yeah, so we are always careful to purchase our goods or services locally for in-person events. And then this year we're donating a portion of every ticket sale to a company that we're very proud of, which is 412 Food Rescue. And what a great group they are. What their mission is, is matching food, recovering food that would otherwise go to waste and connects it very quickly to people who need it. So, food can be recovered from a restaurant or from a local grocery store, catered event, and connected to a food bank or a homeless shelter, for example, or to individuals. And their motto is, "Good food belongs to people, not landfills." It's shocking to see the statistics that 40% of of food that is produced ends up wasted. That's just a terrible, a terrible thing. And 412 Food Rescue, 412 is the area code here in Pittsburgh, and because of its popularity and the awards that the company has been winning, because of its mission and its very effective logistics system, there's also Food Rescue Hero, which is in other cities as well. I think there have been just millions of meals connected to people. This would—

this is food that would have otherwise been wasted.

And so last year when we hosted our conference at Chatham University, we called a Food Rescue Hero who came very quickly and recovered the extra lunches and snacks that we had, and that was a really good feeling. And then this year, what we're doing is donating a portion of every ticket sale because we are digital.

You know what? Kudos to all of you. You know, a lot of people don't think about that part, you know, the giving back. So hey, if you're listening right now, these are my kind of people. I would really, really check this out. Website again, what is the website for people to go to? I mean, if they want to go to this event.

Sure, it's excellevents.com/e/wiadwebinar.

@JeniferPGH. Okay. And I'll get that on my website and some social media. But as I said, these are my kind of people right here. So, let me ask you this, Jenifer and Alina, why do you feel people should attend this event?

This is Jenifer. A few things that I'd like to highlight is we We have amazing content, not just to learn new topics, but to also engage with others. I know it's not ideal. It's not in person, but encouraging those opportunities to talk with like-minded people and learn from each other, I always encourage that. What is really cool is the inventor of World IADay, Abby Covert, is actually delivering our keynote talk, and she's also offering an in-person moderated Q&A with our group. And she doesn't do that every day for us in Pittsburgh, so we're really excited to have her available and give people the opportunity to listen to her talk and then ask her questions afterwards.

Alina, you want to highlight some of the others? Sure, yes. And as mentioned earlier, we are having a lot of other content such as lightning talks. And so all of our lightning talk speakers are going to be later in a panel discussion session that will be moderated by Joyce herself, which we are excited about. So thank you, Joyce, for that. And as mentioned, there is going to be a networking room we have Padlet, so that's a way to be able to continue the conversations from the different talks and interact with people. And this is what's great about this year, because it's virtual, because there's no walls, and anybody from anywhere can join, I'm excited to go and meet people from all over the world who are like-minded or different-minded and interested, whether it is in entering this field or that are way more experienced than me in this field, or just not even in this field at all, just having those conversations, I'm very looking forward to that. One last thing I'll say is that there's always swag, which I love. So what I mean by swag, obviously, is Ability to Win. So we are giving out copies of Abby Covert's book, signed, and we're also— there is global swag, so as we mentioned, we're not just The Pittsburgh World AIDS Day, we're part of a global celebration around the entire world, different countries, and so the global World AIDS Day folks do provide some global prizes as well. I believe they're e-prizes this year. So there's going to be an opportunity to also take something home with you from not just important insight and inspiration, but also maybe some physical gifts, surprises. I just like that a lot.

Wow, that is so great. And by the way, if there is a mug, a pen, or anything like that involved, or even a bookmark, I don't care what it is, don't forget about me because I am not going to forget about World Eye Day. Uh, so Jen, what are you going to do with the funds that sponsors are going to have or will be giving you to become a sponsor.

Right, thanks. And I'll give a thank you to Joyce Bender, who is a generous sponsor with Bender Consulting, and we have plenty of other sponsors as well. And one thing that speaks to the excitement that we have with our event and how it just builds upon itself each year is that we have many repeat sponsors and repeat attendees. It really is something that people look forward to each year. Something that we are planning to do is afford the transcribed captioning, right? So, we're planning to offer that live captioning, which is not cheap. And so, in fact, that's how I connected back to Joyce. Joyce Bender and I knew each other years ago working for the same IT consulting company, and I've been a follower, following her advocacy work ever since, and Joyce is an absolute rock star. When our committee a few months ago was talking about, "Gee, can we afford this and this?" You know, and these different layers of making this whole 8-hour content accessible, I thought, "You know who I'm going to reach out to?" And it was Joyce Bender. And so, this is one of the things that we're doing with our funding. Another thing is we're offering discounted tickets to students for $10. And then the general admission is $20 until the Friday before the 26th. And then we're offering the $15 early bird tickets, as Jennifer had mentioned, until almost midnight tomorrow with that Disability Matters access code. And then also, if anybody is experiencing a financial hardship, we also want them to attend the event, so we're offering a courtesy ticket for free if somebody would email us. And our, um, our address is Pittsburgh written out, P-I-T-T-S b-u-r-g-h, @worldiaday.org. And we would be happy to help somebody to attend this event because we're just so excited to share the content. It's going to be fantastic. Joyce, thank you so much for having us.

Oh, it's my pleasure, and this sounds like a great day, and I'm honored to be part of it. And just one more time, When is— what day is the event for all of our listeners? What day?

What time? It is Saturday, February 27th, and we start with 9:15 AM Eastern Time, and we end our day with a virtual happy hour at 5:05 PM. And as you can see, for something where it's just the networking and the learning, it's an absolute discount.

Awesome. Awesome. Right. I mean, if somebody has one take away, they've won.

Yes.

We end every show with a quote, and this is Black History Month, so our quote today is, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice," 'You have chosen the side of the oppressor,' said Desmond Tutu. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you all next week as we continue our celebration of Black History Month with Bob James. Diversity and Inclusion Officer from Highmark. Talk to you all then.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America variety channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.