#debraruh

[debraruh]

This week on #AXSChat @debraruh @NeilMilliken & @akwyz, welcome @JohnDonvan & @caren_zucker to #AXSChat.Tue 29th NYC at 3pm and London at 8pm #tweet #chat #autism #leadership #sararuh #debraruh (at Ruh Global Communications)

[debraruh]

Had Litigation made the US more Accessible?

Troubling Web Accessibility Trends in the U.S. - Ruh Global Communications ruhglobal.com/2016/02/13/3779

[debraruh]

Marketing to Persons with Disabilities is a Business Advantage

Making it possible for stakeholders with disabilities and age-related limitations to access your goods and services is not only an important part of complying with federal – as well as international -- accessibility standards but also a strategic aspect of any organizational management plan.

Image: Market opportunities have grown tremendously in the 25 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is no longer a potential marketplace, but an exponential one.

A study by the U.S. Department of Education found that one in three households is affected by a disability. Let’s look at the numbers in other parts of the world. The 2000 U.S. Census reported that almost 42% of older adults (65+ years) have one or more disabilities. In fact, in the U.S., the percentage of persons with disabilities is larger than any single ethnic, racial, or cultural group.  At 19.3%, the size of this constituency exceeds the next largest group - Hispanic people (14.9%) - by a fairly wide margin.[1]

In the UK, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Europe estimates that 8.6 million people (aged 16 and over) self-identify as having a disability, which translates into 15% of the population. By 2010, 40% of the population will be over 45 – the age at which incidence of disability increases. On the aging scale, 33% of 50-60 year olds now have a disability.[2] Those over 50 years currently account for one-fifth of the UK population, and they own more than 80% of the country's asset wealth and are the group most likely to vote in general elections.

In all of Europe, it is estimated that at least 39 million people live with a disability. It is also estimated that in every country, 10-20% of the population has some form of disability, a number that is only expected to grow (CSR).  

It’s obvious that millions of people living with some form disability go on about their day like all of us; they go to school, participate in leisure activities, venture out with family and friends, and eventually aim to be gainfully employed. Customers with disabilities, their families and friends represent a trillion dollar market segment. They, like other market segments, purchase products and services from companies that best meet their needs.

A large number of people polled say they prefer to patronize businesses that hire persons with disabilities as opposed to those that do not. Another benefit of employing persons with disabilities is increasing your opportunity to gain a lasting customer base.

Tapping into market benefits:

Recent trends demonstrate that everyone – people with and without disabilities - benefit when government agencies and businesses give stakeholders with disabilities an equal opportunity to access their services and obtain their goods. By positively recognizing people of all ability levels, businesses, schools, and government agencies can make it easier for all users to gain access to products and services.

Results that Count: By implementing some of these simple and cost-effective strategies:

Organizations can increase the effectiveness of government services and/or business sales by demonstrating and documenting product accessibility.

Businesses and organizations can anticipate setting themselves apart, thereby creating a market differentiator.

Organizations can leverage a new market segment by demonstrating their leadership in the growing accessibility movement, and therefore capture a valuable consumer base that is currently up for grabs.

Organizations can increase their public image and socially conscious standing by demonstrating their embrace of all people – those with disabilities, those without disabilities as well as those who may be aging and acquiring a disability for the first time in their lives.

Enables organizations to use accessible products to recruit and hire from an untapped, qualified labor pool.

Organizations will also gain loyalty of users and positive brand recognition from those who rely on their accessible products and services.

Market opportunities have grown tremendously in the 25 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is no longer a potential marketplace, but an exponential one. For more information about Debra Ruh, please visit

www.RuhGlobal.com

or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, G+, Pinterest, or Instagram: @debraruh.

[1] U.S. Department of Justice, 2005

[2]Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Europe

- See more at: http://www.g3ict.org/resource_center/newsletter/news/p/newsletterId_/id_538#sthash.yed9mQMG.dpuf

[debraruh]

Baby Boomers: Find Your Voice using Social Media

Baby Boomers: Find Your Voice using Social Media

By Debra Ruh

07/17/13

I am one of the 78 million baby boomers living and working in the US.  It is interesting to chat with other baby boomers.  Many have stuck their little toes in the water.  They may have started by creating a Facebook account to share posts with grown children and look at pictures of grandchildren.   Some have discovered the joys of posting recipes or a bucket list on Pinterest.   However there seems to be a desire to use this next phase of our lives to make a positive impact on the world. 

Baby Boomers (born in 1946 to 1964) are known as the country’s greatest generation for leading change.  The baby boomer generation makes up almost 26 percent of the population in the United States.  This generation started reinventing the way American lived right out of the gates we changed everything from the way we dressed, wore our hair the music we listened to, the people we voted for, the way we traveled, and how we felt about supporting other countries. 

Every step of the way we have redefined the way we age and most of us feel much younger in spirit than our actual age.  We are not interested in going quietly into retirement.  We want to embrace this next phase of their life, make a difference in our communities, our country and the world.  We want to find joy in our lives and leave a positive mark on the world.

So how do we continue to redefine our lives using social media?  First lets’ start with the basics. Social Media is the use of telecommunications to interact with others online through the sharing of words, pictures, video and audio.  

Social Media begins with a virtual representation of each user (a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional personal/professional information.

Social media networks become richer with more personal connections and more diverse ways to spread and gather information.

Plus many special interest groups have their own social networking groups.  For instance, pet owners have their own social network called Petcentric.  

Both of those groups allow members to post and reply to comments, share videos and photos, and play games.

To begin you should have  a plan.  You need to understand what you want to accomplish with social media.  Do you want to stay in touch with the grandkids?  Build a new business?  Reconnect with old high school buddies?  Change the world? 

Some people start with Facebook or Twitter and others with Linked-In.  Each platform gives you many of the same opportunities to socialize but I use the different platforms to build upon my message.  For example, I might tweet about a topic and then expand on that topic via Facebook and Linked-In Groups.  I like to pin some pictures,  and include a description and web link to continue to expand on the discussion. 

Decide what you want to accomplish.  It is okay to start small and build upon your successes.

Here are some suggestions for starting your plan.

Make a Commitment

Before you start to create a plan, decide how much time that you want to invest in the effort.  Make a commitment and promise to yourself that you will get on social media daily, every other day or at least once a week.  Social Media like everything else requires you to stick to it to have results. You will get out of social media what you put into it.  Establishing a solid following can be a slow, methodical process.  There are apps that can help drive followers.  It is best to grow your follower’s organically one follower at a time.

So remember you need to create a time each day, every other day or at least once a week to observe, like, comment, tweet, post, chatter and pin to build your expertise and followers.  Less than once a week will probably not give you good results.  It is critical that you be active, engaged and committed even when starting out.

Find the best fit for your goals

You can start by doing some searching.  Lots of people are posting on social media applications.  What are your friends and family using?  Are your kids, parents, friends on Facebook?  Join Facebook and add a photo and profile and search for family members and friends. 

It is okay to start slow.  Follow your favorite brands.  Search within Facebook for interesting conversation and Follow, Like, and Comment on the conversations.  The more you are engaged the more others will follow you and engage with you. It is a great venue for sharing family photos.

Or start with Twitter, you have 140 characters so decide what do you want to talk about.  Try testing a few tweets.  Remember to use your hashtags. 

Example-I believe people with disabilities add value to the workforce. #disabilities #workforce 

Then post it on twitter.  Anyone following the hashtag #disabilities or #workforce will see your post.  

If you know of a firm, non-profit or association that is engaged in the topic try to include them. 

Example-People with Disabilities want to join workforce, become employed & pay taxes. #inclusion #employment #taxes #disability

The good news is it is hard to mess up.  If you misspell a word or mix up your message, just retweet it.  Also remember to ask people to retweet your message. 

Example-Excited about job fair for veterans with disabilities on 12-12 at noon in DC  www.RuhGlobal.com #veteran’s #disabilities #jobfair   Please retweet.

Quality over Quantity

There are no hard and fast rules for the quantity of posts.  A good rule of thumb is to put yourself in the shoes of your audience.  Do you want to see a post every five minutes from them?  Even if you have loads of posts with high quality resources, there’s only so much anyone can read.  So be smart about how often you post to your social media accounts.  More importantly, keep your posted content of the highest quality.

What is high quality? Posts should include resources that are useful–not junk or entry-level.  Try to keep your posts free of grammar and spelling errors. Avoid the temptation to using text language with shortened words.  

Keep it Relevant

Relevance is critical.  Followers want consistent information. They want to be able to read our posts and know what to expect. 

Relevance also pertains to posts that are meaningful   to your followers, not just to you.   It is okay to mix some personal posts but chatter about your passion.  

When a storm is bearing down on the East Coast I chatter about it.   Followers appreciate personal touches as long as most of your posts are relevant to the topics that caused them to follow you in the first place.

Keep it Short

Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, including spaces. This is a good length to aim for with posts, even when the social media site allows for longer posts. Facebook and Google+, for example, allow very lengthy posts.  If you can get your point across in 140 characters or less do it.  That is why the media uses sound bites because it is easier to remember.

Keep posts short.  If you need long content, write a blog on your site and use social media sites to direct readers to the long content.  Most Social Media isn’t designed for long content, keep posts short and link to longer content.

Tailor for Each Social Media Account

Each social media site has a set of tools.  Members have different expectations for each site. Facebook allows lots of commenting, images, and other media.  Twitter is more straightforward with short texts, although support for links to images has recently been implemented.

Tailor your messages for each account.  It is best to start with a short tweet on Twitter.  Then expand on the message using Facebook or Linked-In.   Or create a visual for Pinterest.  A little tailoring can go a long way toward posting content that engages, creates conversations, and builds relationships.

Remember to share information by retweeting, Liking and commenting.  The more you engage the more people will follow you and engage with you.

Followers engage with me because they are interested in topics that I chatter about over various social media mediums.  One of favorite social media apps is Pinterest.  My favorite topics are disabilities, universal design, inclusion, sustainability, food, travel, tourism and family.  So I started by creating a board on all of these topics.  One of my most followed boards is called Disability never Doubt our Abilities.  

Next I searched on disability and repin photos of amazing people with disabilities and other resources.  I started following people that had pinned photos that I liked. 

Then people started following me.  I created more boards and others started following that board.  Then someone invited me to pin on their board.  Now I have lots of followers and boards.  I try to pin often at least every other day but sometimes it is longer depending on my schedule.

My journey with Followers certainly became that type of walk.  I have more Linked-In followers than all other accounts combined.  As of this writing, I have over 35,000+ followers on all my social media channels.  I have often wondered how people got millions of followers. 

Of course, I understand that celebrities get millions, but how does someone that wants to change the world get more followers?

I decided to do some research.  I read many posts on this topic including advice and warnings. 

There are services that will sell you followers.  Most experts feel this is cheating.  Some people noted that if they found that people were buying followers they would unfollow that person.  Some people felt it was fine to do it.  I decided to try out one of the services.

There was a free service so I decided to try it out.  I figured the more people that followed my work to include people with disabilities in all aspects of society the better, right?  What could go wrong?  Oh so much.

Let me tell you about this ridiculous exercise.  I did not want to pay for followers when I can get them for free.  So I found a site that promises free users and signed up.  I looked at Twitter right after I had signed up and my twitter followers started jumping.  3036, 3037, 3038, 3039, 3040, 3041, 3040, 3039, 3038 wait a minute what is happening here the numbers are going backwards?

As these “followers” were being added the sophisticated Twitter engine quickly realized that some of these followers were fakes.  So as soon as these fake followers were added Twitter took them off.

The real users were followers that I did NOT want to follow me because I did not want their tweets to appear in my twitter feed. 

There was a man in a pornographic position and he was … well let’s just say it was not the kind of posts or followers that will help me change the world. 

I got a note from a legitimate follower saying, “Debra, I think your account has been spammed.  Your twitter feeds have some awful tweets.”   

OH NO – as predicted – I am about to lose a real followers.  I explained to her that I was doing a test, apologized and quickly removed myself from that site. 

It took me several days to clean off (BLOCK) the new FREE followers.   It was pretty funny to watch me scrambling to undo the mess that I created.  

I have found that the only way to grow your influence is by having good content and grow your followers organically.   I did find a cool game called Empire Avenue www.empireavenue.com that was recommended to help grow your followers legitimately.  I joined and started playing in my space time.  It reminds me of Monopoly.   I started playing and people started following me.  They were real people that also wanted to make a difference in the world.  Let me warn you – it is a little addictive but super fun.

Exerted from my new book: “Find Your Voice using Social Media by Debra Ruh”  http://ow.ly/kxglR

For additional information please contact me at www.RuhGlobal.com

[debraruh]

Accessible Technology – Part 2 February 26th, 2013 by Doug Loo

In order to gain a different aspect of Section 508 Compliance, I wanted to gain key insight from an industry expert. One such expert is Debra Ruh founder of TecAccess and now Ruh Global. Question 1: Debra, as we both know there is much work to be done in the world of Accessibility. Can you tell our readers why you became involved in Accessible IT? Answer: I was always a technologist and my Dad was a technologist before me. My father passed away in late January 2013 and we will miss him. My dad gave me the technology bug before there really was technology. He worked for AT&T and ran their computers – the computer was the size of a huge government building. Probably now that computing power that he managed in that huge facility would fit on a tiny thumb drive. My daughter Sara Ruh, 25 years old and born with Downs syndrome inspired me to start TecAccess. I knew Sara who was capable of great things, even though some experts claimed otherwise. So I decided to prove them wrong, I created a path to empowerment and success for those with disabilities. I founded TecAccess to acknowledge the contributions of people with disabilities in both the workplace and the marketplace and provide accessibility consulting solutions to companies around the world. Now I look forward to taking our work to the next level with Ruh Global. Sara joined me as my CIO (Chief Inspiration Officer) and I will be partnering with many other firms to help spread the word that inclusion, accessibility and diversity is critical for everyone. The world is a better place when we can all contribute and each person should be allowed to contribute to their fullest abilities. In-Accessible technology should not get in someone’s way of working and participating in society. We still have a lot of work to do but I am hopeful that we are on the right track. Question 2: So what ideas do you have for us to more effectively get the word out to CIO’s in order to get them to embrace Accessible IT? Answer: I believe that the only way to move our industry forward is to blend accessibility into the Life Cycle processes. As long as Accessibility is an afterthought we will not be able to blend it into the process. We need to make Accessibility part of the process just like Security and Privacy. We also need to teach accessibility in colleges and universities. Not just one web accessibility course but accessibility should be in all ICT and engineering courses. No one should graduate with an ICT or engineering degree without understanding how to assure Accessibility in every aspect of Life Cycle. Question 3: What would you advise a company just starting down the path to accessibility? Do you take care of the internal documents and applications so you can hire Americans with disabilities, or do you begin with your external facing website to ensure access to your information and the company’s message is reaching the largest audience? Answer: Great question – I always advise clients to look at their goals. Are their goals to employ a diverse population? Then be sure your career center, job site and HR processes are accessible. Is your goal to do business with the Federal Government? Then start by making your products and website accessible and 508 compliant. If your goal is for Americans to believe your firm is socially conscious than create an inclusion program with marketing programs that include people with disabilities in your advertising, social media outreach and other communications. Where you start all depends on your goals and that is why I create a road map for my clients to help them prioritize, reduce their risk and create a step by step plan that has tasks, timelines and deliverables. Question 4: Debra, Thank you so much for taking the time to inform our readers about 508 Compliance and the important role it plays! Please take a moment to tell us about your new venture and what we should expect in the near future. Answer: Ruh Global is a Strategic Marketing firm that allows organizations to connect and integrate the community of PwD and their families. Our services will enable corporate and public organizations to easily navigate the legal maze and confusing messages about and from the community of PwD. Our goal is enable business success through innovative marketing and communications programs that are: Strategically and creatively aligned with corporate goals Seamlessly integrated across traditional and digital mediums Tailored to the specific needs of each client Scalable with measurable results Delivers integration of messaging for all customers, not separate but equal opportunities for different diversity groups People with disabilities (PwD) represent a very large demographic group that is underserved within typical marketing and communications programs. Ruh Global can help adjust those plans already underway or help to develop new plans that fully integrate this community into the messaging to create universal customer experience and the best overall business value for their marketing and communications investments. I will still be active in the ICT Accessibility field because it is critical component to the success of including people with disabilities in every aspect of society especially in meaningful and marketable employment. Thank you again Debra for your time! Stay tuned for our next post about Section 508 Compliance!! Tags: Public Sector IT, Section 508 Compliance This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 at 4:44 pm and is filed under Government IT, Government Solutions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.