But age becomes the predator
A war between what is and was,
No kindness, fear, or place to bind us
A history unkind to fatal flaws;

The power of the word is love
The power of the word is joy
The power of the word is hate
The power of the word is lies
The power of the word is truth
And spur our spirit’s endless flight

The family man seeks hope and dreams
A legacy for future bright
Of better days and fields of schemes
And fortitude to see things right

Past and present blur together
Days fall like soldiers off to battle
What once was then is soon forgotten
A history unkind to banter

The power of the deed is now
The power of the deed is action
The power of the deed was then
The power of the deed is sloth
The power of the deed is truth
It spurs our physical delight

Society’s a loose connection
Between the mob and our recollection
The truth of moment’s single vision
A recipe for our protection

The slippery slope of man’s insight
Collective conscious of vagueness hence
Pull future strings of our intention
A history shattered in our defense

The power of the thought is how
The power of the thought is who
The power of the thought laid low
The power of the thought not told
The power of the thought is truth
To spur our mental model’s height

We do not sing, in choir song,
We do not grow, just with the flow,
We do not stand, but in a row
We laugh and belch and fart and cry
We pat ourselves until we die
To spur our innovative might

The power of truth is in the words
The power of truth is acts and deeds
The power of truth is pure of thought
The power of truth is found and lost
The power of truth is you and me
Amid ten billion voices

– Kevin Feenan

They are all around us. Our sense of reality is based in a large degree on the ways in which we can classify objects around us. The success of our species has been based around the ability to quickly categorize an object and come to some conclusion as to whether it warrants further attention. In essence, all objects are simply spherical frictionless blobs of nothingness until we classify where it goes within our experience.

• Is this an opportunity?
  • Can I eat it?
  • Can I have sex with it?
• Is this a threat?
  • Should I fight it?
  • Should I take flight from it?

This basic ability of humans to quickly categorize things, both physical and abstract, has some downsides to it however. While we can quickly size up things that are within our everyday experience, the ability to integrate things that are different tend to go into the “this is a threat” category until we have built up enough experience in order to see the value of the experience as it is presented.

Welcome to the world of biased perception. A world in which we can quickly and easily discount people or things based upon how we classify them in relationship to the rest of our experiences.

Over the next 30 minutes I would like to present to you an alternative viewpoint of our innate bias and how it can be leveraged to overcome issues of accessibility. Near the end of this presentation we’ll apply these concepts to the educational field.

Rethinking Disabilities

To start, I want to use a listing of nine (9) general disability types as recognized by Industry Canada for the purposes of workplace accessibility issues. As I start to list each of these items, I want you to pay close attention to where the general theme of this is going as it should be obvious in a moment.

1. Cognitive Impairment
2. Deaf-Blind
3. Dexterity Impairment
4. Elderly
5. Hearing Impairment
6. Learning Disability
7. Mobility Impairment
8. Speech and Language Impairment
9. Visual Impairment

(Ref: http://www.apt.gc.ca/wat/wb14000E.asp)

With only one real exception, the general theme here is that of impairment, not disability. This distinction is important as it forms the basis from which bias creeps into our perceived classification of whether someone experiencing these types of difficulties represents friend or foe.

Let me put this into perspective – with the exception of those who are deaf/blind – everyone on the face of the planet is going to experience some form of impairment in every single one of the other eight categories. Think about this for a moment.

As we age – our sight gets worse, we don’t hear as well, our ability to learn new information decreases, nevermind things such as joint / hip replacements. If you work on computers all day then you will probably experience some form of carpal tunnel syndrome.  Heck – even getting old is an impairment. While the severity of such impairments can be anywhere from mild to extreme the bottom line is that we need to stop thinking in terms of impairment being something that only happens to someone else.

Disability isn’t about other people – it is about us – everyone.
Like death and taxes – it is unavoidable.

Words have power though. And as such it may be time to stop thinking of these challenges as being a disability for which we can nothing but rather an impairment for which there are remedies and solutions.

Workplace Accessibility Toolkits

In industry, a WAT is a workplace accessibility toolkit which is an essential toolbox for overcoming impairments through the use of assistive technologies. Toolkits however are only as good as the information used to identify what is available, how to obtain it, and what impairments they can help provide solutions for.

The assistive technology links on the Industry Canada web site can help provide a lot of this information. On this site it breaks down various impairments and associates a number of assistive technologies that may be useful in overcoming the difficulty.

For example, for those with hearing difficulties the following technologies are listed as being available through various companies to help overcome those difficulties.

1. Hearing Aids
2. Multimedia Captioning (Hardware)
3. Multimedia Captioning (Software)
4. Non-printing TTY Advice
5. Note Taking/Real Time Captioning
6. Printing TTY Advice
7. Show-sounds (software)
8. Sign Language Interpretation
9. Sound Enhancement / Replacement
10. Speakers / Amplifiers (Hardware)
11. Teletype (TTY) (BAUDOT) Phones
12. Teletype (TTY) Emulators
13. Text/Speech to Sign Translators
14. Visual Alarm System
15. Visual Alert Indicators

This is not to say that any or all of these will be of assistance however it is difficult to discuss options with those experiencing difficulties if the only option in your toolkit is say “note taking/real time captioning”. It is that age old problem that if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, then every problem you come across will look like a nail.

People Aren’t Nails

People are individuals. While there may be opportunities to broadly classify people’s impairments under specific demographics, when it comes to the wheels hitting the road, each individual’s circumstances is going to be different.

• Different severity
• Different economic circumstances
• Different environmental conditions
• Different application
• Different personal preferences / wants

There are several databases from which to develop a WAT. Industry Canada provides a breakdown of some of the major international ones which include.

• AbleData
  (http://www.abledata.com/)
• Industry Sector Office: Assistive Technology/Assistive Devices
  (http://www.at-links.gc.ca/as/)
• Canadian Company Capabilities
  (http://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/ict-tic.nsf/eng/h_it06119.html)
• Health Technologiy Exchange
  (https://www.htx.ca/default.aspx)
• Information Technology & Technical Assistance Training Center (ITTATC)
  (http://www.ittatc.org/)
• National Institute of Disability Management and Research
  (http://www.nidmar.ca/rehadat/rehadat_free.asp)
• Tiresias — International Information On Visual Disability
  (http://www.tiresias.org/index.htm)
• AssistiveTech.net
  (http://assistivetech.net/)
• Foundation for Assistive Technology
  (http://www.fastuk.org/)

(Source Ref: http://www.at-links.gc.ca/zx15100E.asp)

Databases like AbleData are crucial to developing a workplace accessible toolkit. Resources including information centers, libraries of publications, and product indexing across multiple categories. For example AbleData cite eight (8) different products for the classroom that are available for children with dexterity challenges. (Ref: http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&top=14591&deep=2&trail=22,11436)

WATs in the Classroom

Not all options however are necessarily going to be available to overcome impairments in any given situation. Just because an assistive technology exist doesn’t mean it has to be employed. That may sound harsh in some cases however whether you are talking about Industry Canada guidelines or the US Section 508 provision, at issue are three core values which form the basis of what needs to go into the toolkit:

1. Ensure all clients receive services they are able to access,
2. Deliver multiple formats in a timely manner, and
3. Make multiple formats available at the same cost.

(Ref: http://www.at-links.gc.ca/guide/zx31003E.asp)

Everything else from this point on is based upon a request for service using an alternative format – not that every alternative format has to be available. This is where your toolkit comes into play.

To be accessible your organization should prepare in advance a policy statement on

• what assistive technologies are currently in place to address challenges immediately,
• what technologies they are prepared to offer with advance notice (including timelines), and
• what processes someone with an impairment that is not covered should use to request service using a mutually agreeable format for service (including timelines).

This can provide for additional challenges on the part of the instructor in the classroom as it may require modifications or re-writes to course assignments in order to accommodate the assistive technology being used. In these cases the instructor has a few options available to them

1. Re-work the module so that assignments are not dependent on assistive technologies,
2. Re-work the module so that the assistive technology is being used by everyone,
3. Re-work the module so that assistive technology options are available upon request,
4. Develop alternative modules that are equivalent to the main modules.

For example, individual lab assignments may be more appropriately done using teams to remove the requirement for assistive technology usage. By the same token, having everyone in the classroom using the same assistive technology may provide for additional learning opportunities that wouldn’t normally be available if the technology wasn’t required.

The ideal situation is always to be more inclusive rather than less. The classroom environment is one of those key places of learning where biases can either be removed or reinforced. So where possible integration should be strongly encouraged as compared to developing alternative scenarios which segment a portion of the class out as being ‘different’.

— Kevin Feenan

Seriously – think about this for a moment. Are we the type of species that could, knowing full well life existed elsewhere in the galaxy, resist the temptation to meddle?

Almost all of our explorations throughout history have been with the express purpose of finding and returning with something of value. Once found, the ‘gold rush’ is on even if there is plenty of it in our own backyard.

Europe had more than enough room for civilization in 1492, but when Christopher Columbus sailed to the new world, we had to accumulate more.

Diamonds which have now been found in Northern Canada have sparked a new mineral rush to the Arctic even though there are plenty to be found elsewhere in the world.

Existing oil reserves are plentiful enough to get us by the development of new technologies that no longer require us to rape the earth but we insist on doing it anyways.

If we are to explore the Universe, could we realistically do this when our technology is always just on the cutting edge of getting us to that shiny object in front of us but yet leave it alone if it proves to be something our ethic tells us we shouldn’t touch?

For example, let us assume for a moment that Gilese 581g is eventually discovered to have a moon which is approximate in size and mass to that of our Earth. For those not in the know, Gilese 581g is a planet approximately 4-5 times the size of our earth, sits in the habitable zone, and is less than 100 ly away from our solar system.  If it had a moon with the same proportions as our moon, then we have just found probably one of the best potential planets to send a mission in order to explore for life.

If we found it thou – some type of pre-nuclear civilization – what would we do? Simply turn around and go home? Or would the compulsion to explore (meddle) be too much?

Most likely we wouldn’t have much of a choice. In the development of our technology we have typically taken a minimalist approach such that we carry with us just enough to do the job at hand and very little to spare.  Explorers off to the continent of Australia picked up fresh supplies along the way. Finding green shores would typically mean we would want to avail ourselves of whatever is available for trade or plunder.

Getting to Gilese 581g and finding plants and animals – I doubt very much that any explorer would be willing to simply walk away without having the opportunity to touch down.  As much as people would like to think that the morals of Star Trek would be the pervasive attitudes that would carry us into space flight, the reality is that the search for knowledge is tempered by a quest for value and rarity.

We are all looking for the bigger, better deal and without some form of control on our more basic human desires, we just simply cannot control that urge to open Pandora’s box once where know where it is.

It is our history.

Does that make us a grievously savage race? Possibly. Its hard to tell without comparison to other cultures which have done the same.  Unfortunately, as Carl Sagan pointed out in his series Cosmos, the meeting of other cultures would surely be one sided, with either them or us being vastly superior in technology.

Maybe there is a galactic police out there whose job it is to protect lesser races. Maybe the law of the land is conquer or be conquered. The rush to meet aliens could result in an exchange of culture with technological benefits for the whole of humanity or it could result in enslavement.

Hawkins wants to suggest that we shouldn’t draw as much attention to ourselves on the basis of how it worked out for the native North Americans.  I’m not so sure. There are as many possibilities for cultural exchange out there as there are likely to be stars in the sky. We can only control what we can control. What it is in our power to affect.

I think that at some point in the next several years, we need to start determining who we are as a species. Earth as a holistic culture – what are our values. How do we want to be perceived among the races that inhabit the galaxy. What ethos do we take with us. What compromises are we prepared to make. What sacrifices.

For example, what do we consider to be our ‘territory’ in this region of the galaxy? Everything within 50 lys? 100? Can we apply our tenets of international law to the way we interact with other species? Are we even entitled to the resources available within our own solar system?

When you are the only known sentient race within 100 lys of your home planet, the answers are pretty clear cut. But what do you do when the inhabitants of Gilese 581g come knocking on your door one day and inform you that your probes to Mars are an infringement on their rights in this sector?

It may be another 500 years before we make first contact as a society. But seeing how the human race is slow to change, it certainly wouldn’t be premature to start to think in terms of a galactic collective of which Earth is a part.

And maybe – just maybe – we can find the strength to work through our own local differences in the process when they are finally seen to be so small in comparison to what is awaiting us out there.

– Kevin Feenan

Specifically, I mentioned that

It is not going to be fought over territory, or politics, or religion. It will be an economic war, a cultural war, a global war, and one in which the civil populations those beliefs support the power base of the status quo will shake those institutions to their very core. Issues over DRM are not the opening shots fired. They are a wake-up call that something radical needs to change – that the fundamental nature of how we value and distribute knowledge and ideas will, in the long run, not be subject to the traditional economics of today’s society.

SOPA is the next round in that battle and is evident proof that the wake-up call has not been heeded. In a nutshell, SOPA is an attempt to reinforce traditional values of copyright and ownership on a system that doesn’t want to be forced in that direction. Rather than trying to work within the direction the socio-informatics wants to naturally go, large corporations are trying to bring those values back in line with the establish processes because that is what they know. Laws, policy, policing.

What is missing is the human element. It is also what makes SOPA so dangerous as a framework from which individuality and the expression of ideas could eventually be eradicated.

Legacy is the essential problem.

The way you keep populations in control is by ensuring that their needs within a society are being met. Let’s take the simple example from Maslow. Those core needs being, in order of importance, physiological, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. To this list one has to add an additional more primal basic need that supersedes all of these others and that is the need to propagate.

The philosophical statement, cogito ergo sum, represents only half of what it is to be human. It is the rational side of the equation and doesn’t address this idea that within human culture it is not simply enough ‘to be’, one must have prove of one’s existence. That is, we define ourselves not just in terms of how we perceive the world rationally (a priori) but we need to have verifiable proof through external means that we exist (a posteriori).

Up until now, copyright has provided some measure of proof of our existence through the assignment of ownership to physical objects and the definition of legacy that it provides. But what happens in a virtual world where the right to create derivative works is superseded by mega-corporations whose only interest is the next fiscal quarterly report to their shareholders? When you no longer have the right to create works that provide proof of your existence? Or when you as an individually can be wiped out simply for not paying your ISP?

These may seem like extreme examples until you consider that most of what we say and do in the developed world now revolves around some type of electronic exchange of knowledge. The ability to express oneself to society is predicated not just simply on the physical expression of thoughts and ideas but also on their persistence. The creation of physical forms of self-expression be it a book, a record, a painting, a house, a chair, were easy to assign copyright to. The uniqueness of such self-expression was contained within definable geographic constraints. And even with mass production, copyright infringement through the development of substantially similar or derivative works was constrained.

There are only so many different ways you can mill a table leg. After awhile with 7 Billion people on the planet, people in various parts of the world are going to come up with similar solutions to similar problems irrespective of blatant intellectual property theft. So what do you think is going to happen once we add another 2.5 billion people to the planet between now and 2050?

In the last 20 years we have gone from a society in which the persistence of knowledge was predicated on activities that were understood to be one of two types, physical or vapor-ware, to a society which now has a reasonable right and expectation to every word they say lasting generations. Our root belief system has been fundamentally altered such that legacy is no longer about what you physically leave behind but what you virtually leave behind as well.

That is no small paradigm shift. And it’s not localized. It’s global.

Consider by 2050 9.5 billion people all wanting to establish a legacy of their own and wanting to have proof of their existence.

SOPA doesn’t account for this. The players behind SOPA don’t want to account for this. They don’t see it as their responsibility to speak to the future. They only seek to protect an economic system which is no longer viable in an information age.

So here is the fundamental problem: what happens in a society when its sense of self is under attack by those seeking, albeit maybe unintentionally, to eradicate proof of their existence?

Usually its revolution.

Unfortunately we are like the frog in the frying pan where the heat is being turned up slowly. Our hierarchy of needs is being eroded piece by piece under the guise of improved quality of life. The powers behind SOPA likely feel that so long as there are no signs of imminent collapse that all will be right with the world. But as any good doctor can tell you, to look after the care of a patient you need to also pay attention to the symptoms even if there are no outward signs of disease.

We could very easily take a page out of the medical handbook of practicing physicians as to the how to evaluate and assess a law’s ability to influence and improve the social condition. Unfortunately that hasn’t been done here. Which is a shame because an OPRQST assessment against the human hierarchy of needs is exactly what is called for here.

If SOPA passes, and mega-corporations start to use this to assault an individual’s innate ability of self-expression, regardless of what form that self-expression may take, then it will simply be a matter of time before the revolution starts. Similar to DRM, SOPA won’t be the shot heard around the world, but it’s definitely a sign that the musket is being loaded. SOPA is a very badly structured piece of legislation that should never become law.

That’s not to say that there aren’t legitimate issues at stake here. However, we need to start by realizing that our economic system needs a major overhaul. Any legislation needs to accommodate the way society functions today – not the way the nuclear-aged society functioned 60 years ago. That is going to require a heck of a lot more work than a quick fix solution created by the group of people that are at the root cause of many of these issues in the first place.

Revolutions don’t need to take place at the point of a gun. The transformation in society between 1979 and 1999 is ample proof that revolutions can be both transformative and peaceful. I just hope the transformation that needs to happen between 2019 and 2039 will be one of cooperation and not confrontation.

– Kevin Feenan

For example,

Good Project Management isn’t about following a process.
It is about managing the process to fit the culture.

If I had been told this 25 years ago when I first started out in my IM/IT career, I would clearly be able to understand the intent, but not the meaning. It takes time to understand the relationship between culture and process to really understand the deeper connection that is implied by the statement. The quotation also belies the complexity that is inherent within a culture and the various facets of which a culture is derived.

Here is the essential problem: There are more connections between process and culture than can be reasonably taught during a 4 year diploma program. While you could go through each one step by step by step, it is far more effective to provide some fundamental basics and then throw the neophyte into the midst of the lion’s den with naught but their skivvies and see how they make out.

Formal academic training only goes so far in proving solutions to things such as

• multiple directors having competing agendas on the same project, or
• the manager that is building their own fiefdom which competes with your project, or
• the business users which have no head for rationalizing their business processes, or
• the peer colleague which is setting you up to take the fall for their ineptitude.

All of these are very real life scenarios that happen way too often. But you will hardly ever see them in a book. It is doubtful you will see them very often in a seminar or conference. Most likely you will get your training in these areas from either learning it the hard way, or, if you are lucky, by having a mentor help guide you through these waters as they are happening on the ground.

Learning is a lifelong process.
We never stop, nor should we.

At the same time, we shouldn’t be too quick to rush into learning situations for which we aren’t ready prepared. Opportunity unfolds all around us which provide openings to do things we would like to do but maybe aren’t ‘qualified’ for when resumes are compared side by side. That doesn’t mean that we should simply be satisfied with our current station in life if it is not to our likening.

The trick is to establish a pattern of behaviour, through thought, word, and deed, which shows you are prepared to take on those challenges to a greater extent than those around you.

Some of the greatest minds in the world wouldn’t have amounted to anything if they hadn’t taken control over the circumstances that proved to others they were capable. Any neophyte can regurgitate quotations. It takes a lifelong approach to learning to be exceptional.

— Kevin Feenan

The big Ikea news however is that on December 7th, Ikea will be opening their biggest store in Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. I’m sure there will be at least a dozen missing person’s reports filed shortly thereafter. If you don’t hear from me by Christmas – send a search and rescue party.

In looking for information on the new store however I came across this gem and nearly coughed up my milk through my nose when I started reading it.

Store return policy

If you’ve changed your mind and are not entirely satisfied with your purchase, simply return the unused item within 45 days for an exchange or refund. A receipt and the item’s original packaging are required for all returns and exchanges.

Now I don’t know about you but pretty much everything Ikea makes seems designed to not be returnable in its original packaging (other than the aforementioned tea candles). I mean – come on – when was the last time you managed to get that bookshelve out of the cardboard container without the room looking like it was hit by a 5 year old on christmas morning?

And after all the nailing and screwing and gluing – by the time you figure out something is wrong – it ain’t going back in the package even if you were careful enough to gingerly peel back the ends of the box and slide the contents out with all the bits of styrofoam meticulously accounted for. I mean really – when was the last time Ikea put instructions for getting the damn thing BACK in the box in case you need to return it.

I know – I know – getting the unit back in the box doesn’t involve an alan key and therefore the Ikea instructional creators wouldn’t know how to put all the little diagrams together anyways. Heck – it took an investment in 45 production facilities in 12 different countries to get it into that little tiny box in the first place. That is beside the point!

You would think that a $31B company as advanced as Ikea would see reason in something as silly as a return policy that can never actually be fulfilled by the people purchasing products there. It’s like we use to say in the 1990s when people bought GE products. You might as well buy two because the product is so cheap as to have no merit being repackaged and returned if it breaks.

Having said that – I have some Akurum Wall cab horizontal w glass door, birch, Ädel beech, cabinets to buy for my office. (only 22 more days – only 22 more days – only 22 more days ……..)

- Kevin Feenan

The aforementioned post is in no way an endorsement of Ikea or its products despite the authors predisposition for Ikea book shelves which are far too numerous to count. And before you ask – no I won’t help you figure out the damn instructions. Its a right of passage – deal with it. :P