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In January, 2022 today's guest, Mike Paciello, made his first appearance on Unstoppable Mindset in Episode 19. It is not often that most of us have the opportunity and honor to meet a real trendsetter and pioneer much less for a second time. However, today, we get to spend more time with Mike, and we get to talk about not only the concepts around web accessibility, but we also discuss the whole concept of inclusion and how much progress we have made much less how much more work needs to be done. Mike Paciello has been a fixture in the assistive technology world for some thirty years. I have known of him for most of that time, but our paths never crossed until September of 2021 when we worked together to help create some meetings and sessions around the topic of website accessibility in Washington D.C. As you will hear, Mike began his career as a technical writer for Digital Equipment Corporation, an early leader in the computer manufacturing industry. I won't tell you Mike's story here. What I will say is that although Mike is fully sighted and thus does not use much of the technology blind and low vision persons use, he really gets it. He fully understands what Inclusion is all about and he has worked and continues to work to promote inclusion and access for all throughout the world. As Mike and I discuss, making technology more inclusive will not only help persons with disabilities be more involved in society, but people will discover that much of the technology we use can make everyone's life better. We talk about a lot of the technologies being used today to make websites more inclusive including the use of AI and how AI can and does enhance inclusion efforts. It is no accident that this episode is being released now. This episode is being released on July 25 to coincide with the 35th anniversary of the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act which was signed on July 26, 1990. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ADA! After you experience our podcast with Mike, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to email me at michaelhi@accessibe.com to tell me of your observations. Thanks. About the Guest: Mike Paciello is the Chief Accessibility Officer at AudioEye, Inc., a digital accessibility company. Prior to joining AudioEye, Mike founded WebABLE/WebABLE.TV, which delivers news about the disability and accessibility technology market. Mike authored the first book on web accessibility and usability, “Web Accessibility for People with Disabilities” and, in 1997, Mr. Paciello received recognition from President Bill Clinton for his work in the creation of World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). He has served as an advisor to the US Access Board and other federal agencies since 1992. Mike has served as an international leader, technologist, and authority in emerging technology, accessibility, usability, and electronic publishing. Mike is the former Founder of The Paciello Group (TPG), a world-renowned software accessibility consultancy acquired in 2017 by Vispero. Ways to connect with Mike: mpaciello@webable.com Michael.paciello@audioeye.com Mikepaciello@gmail.com About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion diversity and the unexpected meet. Normally, our guests deal with the unexpected, which is anything that doesn't have to do with inclusion or diversity. Today, however, we get to sort of deal with both. We have a guest who actually was a guest on our podcast before he was in show 19 that goes all the way back to January of 2022, his name is Mike Paciello. He's been very involved in the whole internet and accessibility movement and so on for more than 30 years, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun chatting about what's going on in the world of accessibility and the Internet and and, you know, and but we won't probably get into whether God is a man or a woman, but that's okay, God is actually both, so we don't have to worry about that. But anyway, Mike, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Mike Paciello ** 02:21 Yeah, Hey, Mike, thanks a lot. I can't believe has it really been already since today, six years since the last time I came on this? No, three, 320, 22 Oh, 2022, I for whatever I 2019 Okay, three years sounds a little bit more realistic, but still, it's been a long time. Thank you for having me. It's, it's, it's great to be here. And obviously, as you know, a lot of things have changed in my life since then. But, yeah, very Michael Hingson ** 02:46 cool. Well, you were in show number 19. And I'm not sure what number this is going to be, but it's going to be above 360 so it's been a while. Amazing, amazing, unstoppable, unstoppable. That's it. We got to keep it going. And Mike and I have been involved in a few things together, in, in later, in, I guess it was in 20 when we do the M enabling Summit, that was 2021 wasn't it? Yeah, I think it was, I think it was the year before we did the podcast, yeah, podcast, 2021 right? So we were in DC, and we both worked because there was a group that wanted to completely condemn the kinds of technologies that accessibe and other companies use. Some people call it overlays. I'm not sure that that's totally accurate today, but we we worked to get them to not do what they originally intended to do, but rather to explore it in a little bit more detail, which I think was a lot more reasonable to do. So we've, we've had some fun over the years, and we see each other every so often, and here we are again today. So yeah, I'm glad you're here. Well, tell us a little about well, and I guess what we'll do is do some stuff that we did in 2022 tell us about kind of the early Mike, growing up and all that and what eventually got you into dealing with all this business of web accessibility and such. Yeah, thank you. Mike Paciello ** 04:08 You know, I've tried to short this, shorten this story 100 times. Oh, don't worry. See if I get let's see if I can keep it succinct and and for the folks out there who understand verbosity and it's in its finest way for screen reader users, I'll try not to be verbose. I already am being Michael Hingson ** 04:28 intermediate levels fine. Mike Paciello ** 04:30 I came into this entire field as a technical writer trying to solve a problem that I kind of stumbled into doing some volunteer work for the debt the company that I then then worked for, a Digital Equipment Corporation, a software company, DEC software hardware company, back then, right back in the early 80s. And as a technical writer, I started learning at that time what was called Gen code. Eventually that morphed in. To what Goldfarb, Charles Goldfarb at IBM, called SGML, or standard, Generalized Markup Language, and that really became the predecessor, really gave birth to what we see on the web today, to HTML and the web markup languages. That's what they were, except back then, they were markup languages for print publications. So we're myself and a lot of colleagues and friends, people probably here, I'm sure, at bare minimum, recognized named George Kercher. George and I really paired together, worked together, ended up creating an international steer with a group of other colleagues and friends called the icad 22 which is 22 stands for the amount of elements in that markup language. And it became the adopted standard accessibility standard for the American Association of Publishers, and they published that became official. Eventually it morphed into what we today call, you know, accessible web development. It was the first instance by that was integrated into the HTML specification, I think officially, was HTML 3.1 3.2 somewhere in there when it was formally adopted and then announced in 1997 and at the World Wide Web Conference. That's really where my activity in the web began. So I was working at DEC, but I was doing a lot of volunteer work at MIT, which is where the W 3c was located at that particular time. And Tim Bursley, who a lot of people i Sir, I'm sure, know, the inventor of the web, led the effort at that time, and a few other folks that I work with, and.da Jim Miller, a few other folks. And we were, well, I wasn't specifically approached. Tim was approached by Vice President Gore and eventually President Clinton at that time to see if we could come up with some sort of technical standard for accessibility. And Tim asked if I'd like to work on it myself. Danielle, Jim, a few others, we did, and we came up that first initial specification and launched it as part of the Web Accessibility Initiative, which we created in 1997 from there, my career just took off. I went off did a couple of small companies that I launched, you know, my namesake company, the Paciello Group, or TPG, now called TPG IGI, yeah, yeah, which was acquired by vector capital, or this bureau back in 2017 so it's hard to believe that's already almost 10 years ago. No, yeah. And I've been walking in, working in the software, web accessibility field, usability field, writing fields, you know, for some pretty close to 45 years. It's 2025 40 years, I mean, and I started around 1984 I think it was 8384 when all this first Michael Hingson ** 07:59 started. Wow, so clearly, you've been doing it for a while and understand a lot of the history of it. So how overall has the whole concept of web accessibility changed over the years, not only from a from a coding standpoint, but how do you think it's really changed when it comes to being addressed by the public and companies and so on. Mike Paciello ** 08:26 That's a great question. I'd certainly like to be more proactive and more positive about it, but, but let me be fair, if you compare today and where web accessibility resides, you know, in the in the business value proposition, so to speak, and list the priorities of companies and corporations. You know, fortune 1000 fortune 5000 call whatever you whatever you want. Accessibility. Is there people? You could say section five way you could say the Web Accessibility Initiative, WCAG, compliance, and by and large, particularly technology driven, digital economy driven businesses, they know what it is. They don't know how to do it. Very rarely do they know how to do it. And even the ones that know how to do it don't really do it very well. So it kind of comes down to the 8020, rule, right? You're a business. Whatever kind of business you are, you're probably in more online presence than ever before, and so a lot of your digital properties will come under you know the laws that mandate usability and accessibility for people with disabilities today that having been said and more and more people know about it than ever before, certainly from the time that I started back in the you know, again, in the early, mid 80s, to where we are today. It's night and day. But in terms of prioritization, I don't know. I think what happens quite often is business value proposition. Decisions get in the way. Priorities get in the way of what a business in, what its core business are, what they're trying to accomplish, who they're trying to sell, sell to. They still view the disability market, never mind the blind and low vision, you know, market alone as a niche market. So they don't make the kind of investors that I, I believe that they could, you know, there's certainly, there are great companies like like Microsoft and and Google, Amazon, Apple, you know, a lot of these companies, you know, have done some Yeoman work at that level, but it's nowhere near where it should be. It just absolutely isn't. And so from that standpoint, in where I envision things, when I started this career was when I was in my 20 somethings, and now I'm over now I'm over 60. Well over 60. Yeah, I expected a lot more in, you know, in an internet age, much, much more. Michael Hingson ** 11:00 Yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's really strange that so much has happened and yet so much hasn't happened. And I agree with you, there's been a lot of visibility for the concept of accessibility and inclusion and making the the internet a better place, but it is so unfortunate that most people don't know how to how to do anything with it. Schools aren't really teaching it. And more important than even teaching the coding, from from my perspective, looking at it more philosophically, what we don't tend to see are people really recognizing the value of disabilities, and the value that the market that people with disabilities bring to the to the world is significant. I mean, the Center for Disease Control talks about the fact that they're like up to 25% of all Americans have some sort of disability. Now I take a different approach. Actually. I don't know whether you've read my article on it, but I believe everyone on the in the in the world has a disability, and the reality is, most people are light dependent, but that's as much a disability as blindness. Except that since 1878 when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. We have focused nothing short of trying to do everything we can to improve light on demand for the last 147 years. And so the disability is mostly covered up, but it's still there. Mike Paciello ** 12:37 You know, yeah, and I did read that article, and I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, I personally think, and I actually have my own blog coming out, and probably later this month might be early, early July, where I talk about the fact that accessibility okay and technology really has been all along. And I love the fact that you call, you know, you identified the, you know, the late 1800s there, when Edison did the the light bulb, Alexander Graham Bell came up with, you know, the telephone. All of those adventures were coming about. But accessibility to people with disabilities, regardless of what their disability is, has always been a catalyst for innovation. That was actually supposed to be the last one I was going to make tonight. Now it's my first point because, because I think it is exactly as you said, Mike, I think that people are not aware. And when I say people, I mean the entire human population, I don't think that we are aware of the history of how, how, because of, I'm not sure if this is the best word, but accommodating users, accommodating people with disabilities, in whatever way, the science that goes behind that design architectural to the point of development and release, oftentimes, things that were done behalf of people with disabilities, or for People with disabilities, resulted in a fundamental, how's this for? For an interesting term, a fundamental alteration right to any other you know, common, and I apologize for the tech, tech, tech language, user interface, right, right? Anything that we interact with has been enhanced because of accessibility, because of people saying, hey, if we made this grip a little bit larger or stickier, we'll call it so I can hold on to it or softer for a person that's got fine motor dexterity disabilities, right? Or if we made a, you know, a web browser, which, of course, we have such that a blind individual, a low vision individual, can adjust the size of this, of the images and the fonts and things like that on a web page, they could do that unknown. Well, these things now. As we well know, help individuals without disabilities. Well, I'm not much, right, and I, again, I'm not speaking as a person beyond your characterization that, hey, look, we are all imperfect. We all have disabilities. And that is, that is absolutely true. But beyond that, I wear glasses. That's it. I do have a little hearing loss too. But you know, I'm finding myself more and more, for example, increasing the size of text. In fact, my note, yes, I increase them to, I don't know they're like, 18 point, just so that it's easier to see. But that is a common thing for every human being, just like you said. Michael Hingson ** 15:36 Well, the reality is that so many tools that we use today come about. And came about because of people with disabilities. Peggy Chung Curtis Chung's wife, known as the blind history lady, and one of the stories that she told on her first visit to unstoppable mindset, which, by the way, is episode number five. I remember that Peggy tells the story of the invention of the typewriter, which was invented for a blind countist, because she wanted to be able to communicate with her lover without her husband knowing about it, and she didn't want to dictate things and so on. She wanted to be able to create a document and seal it, and that way it could be delivered to the lever directly. And the typewriter was the result of Mike Paciello ** 16:20 that? I didn't know that. I will definitely go back. I just wrote it down. I wrote down a note that was episode number five, yeah, before with Curtis a couple of times, but obviously a good friend of ours, yeah, but I yeah, that's, that's, that's awesome. Michael Hingson ** 16:37 Well, and look at, I'll tell you one of the things that really surprises me. So Apple was going to get sued because they weren't making any of their products accessible. And before the lawsuit was filed, they came along and they said, we'll fix it. And they did make and it all started to a degree with iTunes U but also was the iPhone and the iPod and so on. But they they, they did the work. Mostly. They embedded a screen reader called Voiceover in all of their operating systems. They did make iTunes you available. What really surprises me, though is that I don't tend to see perhaps some things that they could do to make voiceover more attractive to drivers so they don't have to look at the screen when a phone call comes in or whatever. And that they could be doing some things with VoiceOver to make it more usable for sighted people in a lot of instances. And I just don't, I don't see any emphasis on that, which is really surprising to me. Mike Paciello ** 17:38 Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, there are a lot of use cases there that you go for. I think Mark Rico would certainly agree with you in terms of autonomous driving for the blind, right? Sure that too. But yeah, I definitely agree and, and I know the guy that the architect voiceover and develop voiceover for Apple and, boy, why can I think of his last name? I know his first name. First name is Mike. Is with Be My Eyes now and in doing things at that level. But I will just say one thing, not to correct you, but Apple had been in the accessibility business long before voice over Alan Brightman and Gary mulcher were instrumental towards convincing, you know, jobs of the importance of accessibility to people with disabilities, Michael Hingson ** 18:31 right? But they weren't doing anything to make products accessible for blind people who needed screen readers until that lawsuit came along. Was Mike Paciello ** 18:40 before screen readers? Yeah, that was before, Michael Hingson ** 18:43 but they did it. Yeah. The only thing I wish Apple would do in that regard, that they haven't done yet, is Apple has mandates and requirements if you're going to put an app in the App Store. And I don't know whether it's quite still true, but it used to be that if your app had a desktop or it looked like a Windows desktop, they wouldn't accept it in the app store. And one of the things that surprises me is that they don't require that app developers make sure that their products are usable with with VoiceOver. And the reality is that's a it doesn't need to be a really significantly moving target. For example, let's say you have an app that is dealing with displaying star charts or maps. I can't see the map. I understand that, but at least voiceover ought to give me the ability to control what goes on the screen, so that I can have somebody describe it, and I don't have to spend 15 or 20 minutes describing my thought process, but rather, I can just move things around on the screen to get to where we need to go. And I wish Apple would do a little bit more in that regard. Mike Paciello ** 19:52 Yeah, I think that's a great a great thought and a great challenge, if, between me and you. Yeah, I think it goes back to what I said before, even though we both see how accessibility or accommodating users with disabilities has led to some of the most incredible innovations. I mean, the Department of Defense, for years, would integrate people with disabilities in their user testing, they could better help, you know, military soldiers, things like that, assimilate situations where there was no hearing, there was they were immobile, they couldn't see all, you know, all of these things that were natural. You know, user environments or personas for people with disabilities. So they led to these kind of, you know, incredible innovations, I would tell you, Mike, I think you know this, it's because the business value proposition dictates otherwise. Michael Hingson ** 20:55 Yeah, and, well, I guess I would change that slightly and say that people think that the business proposition does but it may very well be that they would find that there's a lot more value in doing it if they would really open up their minds to looking at it differently. It's Mike Paciello ** 21:10 kind of, it's kind of like, it's tough. It's kind of like, if I could use this illustration, so to speak, for those who may not be religiously inclined, but you know, it's, it's like prophecy. Most people, you don't know whether or not prophecy is valid until years beyond, you know, years after. And then you could look back at time and say, See, it was all along. These things, you know, resulted in a, me, a major paradigm shift in the way that we do or don't do things. And I think that's exactly what you're saying. You know, if, if people would really look at the potential of what technologies like, you know, a voice over or, as you know, a good friend of mine said, Look, we it should be screen readers. It should be voice IO interfaces, right? That every human can use and interact with regardless. That's what we're really talking about. There's Michael Hingson ** 22:10 a big discussion going on some of the lists now about the meta, Ray Ban, glasses, and some of the things that it doesn't do or that they don't do well, that they should like. It's really difficult to get the meta glasses to read completely a full page. I think there are ways that people have now found to get it to do that, but there are things like that that it that that don't happen. And again, I think it gets back to what you're saying is the attitude is, well, most people aren't going to need that. Well, the reality is, how do you know and how do you know what they'll need until you offer options. So one of my favorite stories is when I worked for Kurzweil a long time ago, some people called one day and they wanted to come and see a new talking computer terminal that that Ray and I and others developed, and they came up, and it turns out, they were with one of those initial organizations out of Langley, Virginia, the CIA. And what they wanted to do was to use the map the the terminal connected to their computers to allow them to move pointers on a map and not have to watch the map or the all of the map while they were doing it, but rather, the computer would verbalize where the pointer was, and then they could they could move it around and pin a spot without having to actually look at the screen, because the way their machine was designed, it was difficult to do that. You know, the reality is that most of the technologies that we need and that we use and can use could be used by so much, so many more people, if people would just really look at it and think about it, but, but you're right, they don't. Mike Paciello ** 24:04 You know, it's, of course, raise a raise another good friend of mine. We both having in common. I work with him. I been down his office a few, more than few times, although his Boston office, anyway, I think he's, I'm not sure he's in Newton. He's in Newton. Yeah. Is he still in Newton? Okay. But anyway, it reminded me of something that happened in a similar vein, and that was several years ago. I was at a fast forward forward conference, future forward conference, and a company, EMC, who absorbed by Dell, I think, right, yes, where they all are. So there I was surprised that when that happened. But hey, yeah, yeah, I was surprised that compact bought depth, so that's okay, yeah, right. That HP bought count, right? That whole thing happened. But um, their chief science, chief scientist, I think he was a their CSO chief scientist, Doc. Came up and made this presentation. And basically the presentation was using voice recognition. They had been hired by the NSA. So it was a NSA right to use voice recognition in a way where they would recognize voices and then record those voices into it, out the output the transcript of that right text, text files, and feed them back to, you know, the NSA agents, right? So here's the funny part of that story goes up i i waited he gave his presentation. This is amazing technology, and what could it was like, 99% accurate in terms of not just recognizing American, English speaking people, but a number of different other languages, in dialects. And the guy who gave the presentation, I actually knew, because he had been a dec for many years. So in the Q and A Part I raised by hand. I got up there. He didn't recognize it a few years had gone by. And I said, you know, this is amazing technology. We could really use this in the field that I work in. And he said, Well, how's that? And I said, you know, voice recognition and outputting text would allow us to do now this is probably 2008 2009 somewhere in that area, would allow us to do real time, automated transcription for the Deaf, Captioning. And he looks at me and he he says, Do I know you? This is through a live audience. I said. I said, Yeah, Mark is it was. Mark said, So Mike gas yellow. He said, you're the only guy in town that I know that could turn a advanced, emerging technology into something for people with disabilities. I can't believe it. So that was, that was, but there was kind of the opposite. It was a technology they were focused on making this, you know, this technology available for, you know, government, obviously covert reasons that if they were using it and applying it in a good way for people with disabilities, man, we'd have been much faster, much further along or even today, right? I mean, it's being done, still not as good, not as good as that, as I saw. But that just goes to show you what, what commercial and government funding can do when it's applied properly? Michael Hingson ** 27:41 Well, Dragon, naturally speaking, has certainly come a long way since the original Dragon Dictate. But there's still errors, there's still things, but it does get better, but I hear exactly what you're saying, and the reality is that we don't tend to think in broad enough strokes for a lot of the things that we do, which is so unfortunate, Mike Paciello ** 28:03 yeah? I mean, I've had an old saying that I've walked around for a long time. I should have, I should make a baseball cap, whether something or T shirt. And it simply was, think accessibility, yeah, period. If, if, if we, organizations, people, designers, developers, architects, usability, people, QA, people. If everybody in the, you know, in the development life cycle was thinking about accessibility, or accessibility was integrated, when we say accessibility, we're talking about again, for users with disabilities, if that became part of, if not the functional catalyst, for technology. Man, we'd have been a lot further along in the quote, unquote value chains than we are today. Michael Hingson ** 28:46 One of the big things at least, that Apple did do was they built voiceover into their operating system, so anybody who buys any Apple device today automatically has redundancy here, but access to accessibility, right? Which, which is really the way it ought to be. No offense to vispero and jaws, because they're they're able to fill the gap. But still, if Microsoft had truly devoted the time that they should have to narrate her at the beginning. We might see a different kind of an architecture today. Mike Paciello ** 29:26 You know, I so I want to, by the way, the person that invented that wrote that code is Mike shabanik. That's his name I was thinking about. So Mike, if you're listening to this guy, just hi from two others. And if he's not, he should be, yeah, yeah, exactly right from two other mics. But so let me ask you this question, because I legitimately can't remember this, and have had a number of discussions with Mike about this. So VoiceOver is native to the US, right? Michael Hingson ** 29:56 But no, well, no to to the to the to the. Products, but not just the US. No, Mike Paciello ** 30:02 no, I said, OS, yes, it's native to OS, yeah, right. It's native that way, right? But doesn't it still use an off screen model for producing or, you know, translate the transformation of, you know, on screen to voice. Michael Hingson ** 30:27 I'm not sure that's totally true. Go a little bit deeper into that for me. Mike Paciello ** 30:34 Well, I mean, so NVDA and jaws use this off screen model, right, which is functionally, they grab, will they grab some content, or whatever it is, push it to this, you know, little black box, do all those translations, you know, do all the transformation, and then push it back so it's renderable to a screen reader. Okay, so that's this off screen model that is transparent to the users, although now you know you can get into it and and tweak it and work with it right, right? I recall when Mike was working on the original design of of nary, excuse me, a voiceover, and he had called me, and I said, Are you going to continue with the notion of an off screen model? And he said, Yeah, we are. And I said, Well, when you can build something that's more like what TV Raman has built into Emacs, and it works integral to the actual OS, purely native. Call me because then I'm interested in, but now that was, you know, 1520, years ago, right? I mean, how long has voiceover been around, Michael Hingson ** 31:51 since 2007 Mike Paciello ** 31:54 right? So, yeah, 20 years ago, right? Just shy of 20 years, 18 years. So I don't know. I honestly don't know. I'm Michael Hingson ** 32:02 not totally sure, but I believe that it is, but I can, you know, we'll have to, we'll have to look into that. Mike Paciello ** 32:08 If anyone in the audience is out there looking at you, get to us before we find out. Let us we'll find out at the NFB Michael Hingson ** 32:12 convention, because they're going to be a number of Apple people there. We can certainly ask, there Mike Paciello ** 32:17 you go. That's right, for sure. James Craig is bound to be there. I can ask him and talk to him about that for sure. Yep, so anyway, Michael Hingson ** 32:23 but I think, I think it's a very it's a valid point. And you know, the the issue is that, again, if done right and app developers are doing things right there, there needs to, there ought to be a way that every app has some level of accessibility that makes it more available. And the reality is, people, other than blind people use some of these technologies as well. So we're talking about voice input. You know, quadriplegics, for example, who can't operate a keyboard will use or a mouse can use, like a puff and zip stick to and and Dragon to interact with a computer and are successful at doing it. The reality is, there's a whole lot more opportunities out there than people think. Don't Mike Paciello ** 33:11 I agree with that. I'm shaking my head up and down Mike and I'm telling you, there is, I mean, voice recognition alone. I can remember having a conversation with Tony vitality, one of the CO inventors of the deck talk. And that goes all the way back into the, you know, into the early 90s, about voice recognition and linguistics and what you know, and I know Kurzweil did a lot of working with Terry right on voice utterances and things like that. Yeah, yeah. There's, there's a wide open window of opportunity there for study and research that could easily be improved. And as you said, and this is the point, it doesn't just improve the lives of the blind or low vision. It improves the lives of a number of different types of Persona, disability persona types, but it would certainly create a pathway, a very wide path, for individuals, users without disabilities, in a number of different life scenarios. Michael Hingson ** 34:10 Yeah, and it's amazing how little sometimes that's done. I had the pleasure a few years ago of driving a Tesla down Interstate 15 out here in California. Glad I wasn't there. You bigot, you know, the co pilot system worked. Yeah, you know, I just kept my hands on the wheel so I didn't very much, right? Not have any accidents. Back off now it worked out really well, but, but here's what's really interesting in that same vehicle, and it's something that that I find all too often is is the case if I were a passenger sitting in the front seat, there's so much that I as a passenger don't have access to that other passenger. Do radios now are mostly touchscreen right, which means and they don't build in the features that would make the touchscreen system, which they could do, accessible. The Tesla vehicle is incredibly inaccessible. And there's for a guy who's so innovative, there's no reason for that to be that way. And again, I submit that if they truly make the product so a blind person could use it. Think of how much more a sighted person who doesn't have to take their eyes off the road could use the same technologies. Mike Paciello ** 35:35 You know, Mike, again, you and I are on the same page. I mean, imagine these guys are supposed to be creative and imaginative and forward thinking, right? Could you? Can you imagine a better tagline than something along the lines of Tesla, so user friendly that a blind person can drive it? Yeah? I mean this is, have you heard or seen, you know, metaphorically speaking, or that's okay, a an advertisement or PR done by any, any company, because they're all, all the way across the board, that hasn't featured what it can do to enhance lives of people with disabilities. Where it wasn't a hit. I mean, literally, it was, yeah, you see these commercials played over and over to Apple, Microsoft, Emma, I see McDonald's, Walmart. I mean, I could just name, name the one after another. Really, really outstanding. Salesforce has done it. Just incredible. They would do it, yeah. I mean, there is there any more human centric message than saying, Look what we've built and designed we're releasing to the masses and everyone, anyone, regardless of ability, can use it. Yeah, that, to me, is that's, I agree that's a good route, right for marketing and PR, good, Michael Hingson ** 37:03 yeah. And yet they don't, you know, I see commercials like about one of the one of the eye injections, or whatever Bobby is, Mo or whatever it is. And at the beginning, the woman says, I think I'm losing sight of the world around me. You know that's all about, right? It's eyesight and nothing else. And I appreciate, I'm all for people keeping their eyesight and doing what's necessary. But unfortunately, all too often, we do that at the detriment of of other people, which is so unfortunate. Mike Paciello ** 37:39 Yeah, you know again, not to, not to get off the subject, but one of my favorite books is rethinking competitive advantage, by Ram Sharon. I don't know if you know know him, but the guy is one of my heroes in terms of just vision and Business and Technology. And in this, this book, he wrote this a couple of years ago. He said this one this is his first rule of competition in the digital age. The number one rule was simply this, a personalized consumer experience, key to exponential growth. That's exactly you and I are talking about personally. I want to see interfaces adapt to users, rather than what we have today, which is users having to adapt to the interface. Michael Hingson ** 38:32 Yeah, and it would make so much sense to do so. I hope somebody out there is listening and will maybe take some of this to heart, because if they do it right, they can have a huge market in no time at all, just because they show they care. You know, Nielsen Company did a survey back in 2016 where they looked at a variety of companies and consumers and so on. And if I recall the numbers right, they decided that people with disabilities are 35% more likely to continue to work with and shop, for example, at companies that really do what they can to make their websites and access to their products accessible, as opposed to not. And that's that's telling. It's so very telling. But we don't see people talking about that nearly like we should Mike Paciello ** 39:20 you talk about a business value proposition. There is bullet proof that where you are leaving money on the table, yep, and a lot of it, yeah, exactly. We're not talking about 1000s or hundreds of 1000s. We're talking about billions and trillions, in some instances, not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination, very, very simple math. I had this conversation a couple years ago with the CEO of Pearson. At that time, he's retired, but, you know, I told him, if you spent $1 for every person that it was in the world with. Disability, you're, you're, you're talking about 1/4 of the population, right? It's simple math, simple math, Michael Hingson ** 40:08 but people still won't do it. I mean, we taught you to mention section 508, before with the whole issue of web access, how much of the government has really made their websites accessible, even though it's the law? Mike Paciello ** 40:19 Yeah, three years, three or four years ago, they did a study, and they found out that the good that every federal agency, most of the federal agencies, were not even keeping up thinking with reporting of the status, of where they were, and yet that was written right into the five way law. They were mandated to do it, and they still did do Michael Hingson ** 40:37 it. We haven't, you know, the whole Americans with Disabilities Act. Finally, the Department of Justice said that the internet is a place of business, but still, it's not written in the law. And of course, we only see about 3% of all websites that tend to have any level of access. And there's no reason for that. It's not that magical. And again, I go back to what do we do to get schools and those who teach people how to code to understand the value of putting in accessibility right from the outset? Mike Paciello ** 41:10 Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think this is what Kate sanka is trying to do with with Teach access. In fact, you know, again, my company, TPG was one of the founding companies have teach access back again, 10 years ago, when it first started. But that's where it starts. I mean, they're, they're pretty much focused on post secondary, university education, but I could tell you on a personal level, I was speaking at my kids grade school, elementary school, because they were already using laptops and computers back then it starts. Then you've got to build a mindset. You've got to build it we you've heard about the accessibility, maturity models coming out of the W, 3c, and in I, double AP. What that speaks to fundamentally, is building a culture within your corporate organization that is think accessibility as a think accessibility mindset, that it is woven into the fiber of every business line, in every technology, software development life cycle, all of the contributors at that level, from A to Z. But if you don't build it into the culture, it's not going to happen. So I would love to see a lot more being done at that level. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hero. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 42:34 we're, we're left out of the conversation so much. Yeah, yeah, totally. So you, you sold TPG, and you then formed, or you had web able and then able Docs. Mike Paciello ** 42:48 So what web able came out was a carve out, one of two carve outs that I had from when I sold TPG. The other was open access technologies, which which eventually was sold to another accessibility company primarily focused on making documentation accessible to meet the WCAG and other standards requirements and web able I carved out. It's been a kind of a hobby of mine now, for since I sold TPG, I'm still working on the back end, ironically, from the get go, so we're talking, you know, again, eight years ago, I had built machine learning and AI into it. From then back then, I did so that what it does is it very simply, goes out and collects 1000s and 1000s of articles as it relates to technology, people with disabilities, and then cleans them up and post them to web able.com I've got a lot more playing for it, but that's in a nutshell. That's what it does. And I don't we do some we do some QA review to make sure that the cleanup in terms of accessibility and the articles are are properly formatted and are accessible. We use the web aim API, but yeah, works like magic. Works like clockwork, and that's got aI uses IBM Watson AI built into it. Yeah, enable docs was abledocs was, how should I say this in a nice way, abledocs was a slight excursion off of my main route. It can work out. I wish it had. It had a lot of potential, much like open access technologies, but they both suffered from owners who really, really not including myself, who just didn't have good vision and in lack humility, Michael Hingson ** 44:43 yeah. How's that? There you go. Well, so not to go political or anything, but AI in general is interesting, and I know that there have been a lot of debates over the last few years about artificial. Intelligence and helping to make websites accessible. There are several companies like AudioEye, user way, accessibe and so on that to one degree or another, use AI. What? What? So in general, what do you think about AI and how it's going to help deal with or not, the whole issue of disabilities and web access, Mike Paciello ** 45:22 yeah, and we're going to set aside Neil Jacobs thoughts on how he sees it in the future, right? Although I have to tell you, he gave me some things to think about, so we'll just set that to to the side. So I think what AI offers today is something that I thought right away when it started to see the, you know, the accessibes, the user ways, the audio, eyes, and all the other companies kind of delving into it, I always saw potential to how's this remediate a fundamental problem or challenge, let's not call it a problem, a challenge that we were otherwise seeing in the professional services side of that equation around web accessibility, right? So you get experts who use validation tools and other tools, who know about code. Could go in and they know and they use usability, they use user testing, and they go in and they can tell you what you need to do to make your digital properties right, usable and accessible. People with disabilities, all well and good. That's great. And believe me, I had some of the best people, if not the best people in the world, work for me at one time. However, there are a couple of things it could not do in it's never going to do. Number one, first and foremost, from my perspective, it can't scale. It cannot scale. You can do some things at, you know, in a large way. For example, if, if a company is using some sort of, you know, CMS content management system in which their entire sites, you know, all their sites, all their digital properties, you know, are woven into templates, and those templates are remediated. So that cuts down a little bit on the work. But if you go into companies now, it's not like they're limited to two or three templates. Now they've got, you know, department upon department upon department, everybody's got a different template. So even those are becoming very vos, very verbose and very plentiful. So accessibility as a manual effort doesn't really scale well. And if it does, even if it could, it's not fast enough, right? So that's what AI does, AI, coupled with automation, speeds up that process and delivers a much wider enterprise level solution. Now again, AI automation is not, is not a whole, is not a holistic science. You know, it's not a silver bullet. David Marathi likes to use the term, what is he? He likes the gold standard. Well, from his perspective, and by the way, David Marathi is CEO of audio. Eye is a combination of automation AI in expert analysis, along with the use of the integration of user testing and by user testing, it's not just personas, but it's also compatibility with the assistive technologies that people with disabilities use. Now, when you do that, you've got something that you could pattern after a standard software development life cycle, environment in which you integrate all of these things. So if you got a tool, you integrate it there. If you've got, you know, a digital accessibility platform which does all this automation, AI, right, which, again, this is the this is a forester foresters take on the the the daps, as they calls it. And not really crazy about that, but that's what they are. Digital Accessibility platforms. It allows us to scale and scale at costs that are much lower, at speeds that are much faster, and it's just a matter of like any QA, you've got to check your work, and you've got it, you can't count on that automation being absolute. We know for a fact that right now, at best, we're going to be able to get 35 to 40% accuracy, some claim, larger different areas. I'm still not convinced of that, but the fact of the matter is, it's like anything else. Technology gets better as it goes, and we'll see improvements over time periods. Michael Hingson ** 49:49 So here's here's my thought, yeah, let's say you use AI in one of the products that's out there. And I. You go to a website and you include it, and it reasonably well makes the website 50% more usable and accessible than it was before. I'm just, I just threw out that number. I know it's random. Go ahead, Yep, yeah, but let's say it does that. The reality is that means that it's 50% that the web developers, the web coders, don't have to do because something else is dealing with it. But unfortunately, their mentality is not to want to deal with that because they also fear it. But, you know, I remember back in the mid 1980s I started a company because I went off and tried to find a job and couldn't find one. So I started a company with a couple of other people, where we sold early PC based CAD systems to architects, right? And we had AutoCAD versus CAD. Another one called point line, which was a three dimensional system using a y cap solid modeling board that took up two slots in your PC. So it didn't work with all PCs because we didn't have enough slots. But anyway, right, right, right. But anyway, when I brought architects in and we talked about what it did and we showed them, many of them said, I'll never use that. And I said, why? Well, it does work, and that's not the question. But the issue is, we charge by the time, and so we take months to sometimes create designs and projects, right? And so we can't lose that revenue. I said, you're looking at it all wrong. Think about it this way, somebody gives you a job, you come back and you put it in the CAD system. You go through all the iterations it takes, let's just say, two weeks. Then you call your customer in. You use point line, and you can do a three dimensional walk through and fly through. You can even let them look out the window and see what there is and all that they want to make changes. They tell you the changes. You go off and you make the changes. And two weeks later, now it's a month, you give them their finished product, all the designs, all the plots and all that, all done, and you charge them exactly the same price you were going to charge them before. Now you're not charging for your time, you're charging for your expertise, right? And I think that same model still holds true that the technology, I think most people will agree that it is not perfect, but there are a lot of things that it can do. Because the reality is, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, are all things that can be defined with computer code, whether it necessarily does it all well with AI or not, is another story. But if it does it to a decent fraction, it makes all the difference in terms of what you're able to do and how quickly you can do Mike Paciello ** 52:52 it. Yeah, I can argue with that at all. I think any time that we can make our jobs a little bit easier so that we can focus where we should be focused. In this case, as you said, the expertise side of it, right to fix those complicated scenarios or situations that require a hands on surgical like Right? Expertise, you can do that now. You've got more hours more time because it's been saved. The only thing I would say, Mike, about what, what you just said, is that there with that, with that mindset, okay, comes responsibility. Oh, yeah, in this is where I think in everybody that knows anything about this environment, you and I have an intimate understanding of this. The whole overlay discussion is the biggest problem with what happened was less about the technology and more about what claims are being made. Yeah, the technology could do which you could not do in, in some cases, could never do, or would never, would never do, well, right? So if you create, and I would submit this is true in as a fundamental principle, if you create a technology of any kind, you must, in truth, inform your clients of of what it can and cannot do so they understand the absolute value to them, because the last thing you want, because, again, we live in a, unfortunately, a very litigious world. Right soon as there's Michael Hingson ** 54:49 a mistake couldn't happen, Mike Paciello ** 54:51 they'll go right after you. So now you know, and again, I don't I'm not necessarily just blaming the ambulance chasers of the world. World. I was talking to an NFP lawyer today. He referred to them in a different name, and I can't remember well, I never heard the expression before, but that's what he meant, right? Yeah, it's the salesman and the product managers and the marketing people themselves, who are were not themselves, to your point, properly trained, properly educated, right? It can't be done, what clearly could not be said, what should or should not be said, right? And then you got lawyers writing things all over the place. So, yeah, yeah. So, so I look people knew when I made the decision to come to audio eye that it was a make or break scenario for me, or at least that's what they thought in my mindset. It always, has always been, that I see incredible possibilities as you do or technology, it just has to be handled responsibly. Michael Hingson ** 55:56 Do you think that the companies are getting better and smarter about what they portray about their products than they than they were three and four and five years ago. Mike Paciello ** 56:08 Okay, look, I sat in and chaired a meeting with the NFB on this whole thing. And without a doubt, they're getting smarter. But it took not just a stick, you know, but, but these large lawsuits to get them to change their thinking, to see, you know, where they where they were wrong, and, yeah, things are much better. There's still some issues out there. I both know it that's going to happen, that happens in every industry, Michael Hingson ** 56:42 but there are improvements. It is getting better, and people are getting smarter, and that's where an organization like the NFB really does need to become more involved than in a sense, they are. They took some pretty drastic steps with some of the companies, and I think that they cut off their nose, despite their face as well, and that didn't help. So I think there are things that need to be done all the way around, but I do see that progress is being made too. I totally Mike Paciello ** 57:11 agree, and in fact, I'm working with them right now. We're going to start working on the California Accessibility Act again. I'm really looking forward to working with the NFB, the DRC and Imperato over there and his team in the disability rights consortium, consortium with disability rights. What DRC coalition, coalition in in California. I can't wait to do that. We tried last year. We got stopped short. It got tabled, but I feel very good about where we're going this year. So that's, that's my that's, that is my focus right now. And I'm glad I'm going to be able to work with the NFB to be able to do that. Yeah, well, I, I really do hope that it passes. We've seen other states. We've seen some states pass some good legislation, and hopefully we will continue to see some of that go on. Yeah, Colorado has done a great job. Colorado sent a great job. I think they've done it. I really like what's being done with the EAA, even though it's in Europe, and some of the things that are going there, Susanna, Lauren and I had some great discussions. I think she is has been a leader of a Yeoman effort at that level. So we'll see. Let's, let's, I mean, there's still time out here. I guess I really would like to retire, Michael Hingson ** 58:28 but I know the feeling well, but I can't afford to yet, so I'll just keep speaking and all that well, Mike, this has been wonderful. I really appreciate you taking an hour and coming on, and at least neither of us is putting up with any kind of snow right now, but later in the year we'll see more of that. Mike Paciello ** 58:45 Yeah, well, maybe you will. We don't get snow down. I have. We've gotten maybe 25 flakes in North Carolina since I've been here. Michael Hingson ** 58:53 Yeah, you don't get a lot of snow. We don't hear we don't really get it here, around us, up in the mountains, the ski resorts get it, but I'm out in a valley, so we don't, yeah, Mike Paciello ** 59:02 yeah, no. I love it. I love this is golfing weather. Michael Hingson ** 59:05 There you go. If people want to reach out to you, how do they do that? Mike Paciello ** 59:11 There's a couple of ways. Certainly get in touch with me at AudioEye. It's michael.paciello@audioeye.com Michael Hingson ** 59:17 B, A, C, I, E, L, L, O, Mike Paciello ** 59:18 that's correct. Thank you for that. You could send me personal email at Mike paciello@gmail.com and or you can send me email at web able. It's m passielo at web able.com, any one of those ways. And please feel free you get on all the social networks. So feel free to link, connect to me. Anyway, I try to respond. I don't think there's anyone I I've not responded to one form or another. Michael Hingson ** 59:46 Yeah, I'm I'm the same way. If I get an email, I want to respond to it. Yeah, well, thanks again for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening. We really appreciate it. Love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Please feel free to email. Me, you can get me the email address I generally use is Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, or you can go to our podcast page, which is Michael hingson.com/podcast, and there's a contact form there. But love to hear from you. Love to hear your thoughts, and most of all, please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening. We value your ratings and your reviews a whole lot, so we really appreciate you doing that. And if any of you, and Mike, including you, can think of other people that you think ought to be guests on the podcast, we are always looking for more people, so fill us up, help us find more folks. And we would appreciate that a great deal. So again, Mike, thanks very much. This has been a lot of fun, and we'll have to do it again. Mike Paciello ** 1:00:44 Thanks for the invitation. Mike, I really appreciate it. Don't forget to add 10 Nakata to your list, Michael Hingson ** 1:00:49 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: Can you talk about lambda calculus? - Any thoughts on numerology? - My current favorite approximation to a constant (e, in this case) is (1 + 9^-4^(7*6))^3^2^85, which uses each of the digits 1–9 only once and is accurate to 18 septillion digits. - Atmospheric noise is about as random as we can get, I think. - How does IBM Watson AI stand against modern LLMs? - Would the LLM have the same reaction time to compete and press the buzzer as humans? - Is it possible someday we may predict the weather years in advance? - Well then, is weather a good random sequence? - How do you calculate wind speed if wind is just a pressure difference? - If the Earth started rotating in reverse, would that have an effect on weather? - What would it take to stabilize the weather (like using wind farms in reverse or controlling ground albedo or atmosphere composition) so that we know it exactly? - Can the Earth's tilt ever be affected? What kind of changes would this cause? - There is a rather large difference between what the ideal climate would be and what changes will mean trouble for us, given our current infrastructure. - Even the weather can't agree on what the weather should be.
The Question of the Week- Is IBM's Watson an LLM? The Big Stories: LLM's have biases based upon the data they learn from Generative AI is helping Hackers too ChatGPT inside of Bing is not making a dent in the Google search domination AI written sports stories gone bad
Guru Banavar is the founding CTO of Viome where he helped raise $150M from a list of top-tier investors including Khosla Ventures and Bold Capital Group. Viome offers insights into health and disease using host and microbiome gene expression. Guru led the development of a first-of-a-kind saliva-based early detection system for oral and throat cancers which won the FDA's designation as a breakthrough device.Prior to Viome, Guru was a global VP & Chief Science Officer at IBM and the founding VP of the Watson AI Research team.Guru has received many awards including a Leadership in Technology Management Award and a National Innovation Award from the President of India. He has published extensively and holds more than 35 US patents. His work has been featured in media outlets including the New York Times, the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, BBC, and NPR.Listen and learn… Why our healthspan is more important than our lifespan How DNA to RNA transcription determines your health state How to sequence your mRNA to understand how to optimize your diet and predict disease risk What AI techniques can be used to develop personalized treatments How to use data that varies across patients to make automated decisions for all patients How Guru thinks about false positive prescriptions as a scientist when health and safety are at stake Where the FDA is regulating how AI is used to make healthcare recommendations Why it's impossible to know the best diet for you without first understanding the composition of your microbiome How to use biomarkers to turn your biological fingerprint into a data problem Guru's perspective on the ethical and philosophical implications of extending the healthspan How digital twins will help perfect the ability to engineer biology References in this episode… What it means to practice responsible AIThe KEGG ontology of biological pathways The Viome blog Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO of Abridge, on AI and the Future of Work
Rashida Hodge, VP, Azure Data and AI / Customer Success for Microsoft is a technologist and executive leader at the forefront of AI and emerging technologies. Dubbed the “Superhero of IBM Watson AI,” Rashida led the commercialization and global launch of IBM Watson and rose to be the highest-ranking African American woman executive. Originally from St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, her Caribbean upbringing gave her respect for strong communities, mentorship and the power of diversity. Rashida earned a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering at North Carolina State University and an MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business. She was named to Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful “NextGen” Women in 2018 and 2019 and named to Fortune 40 Under 40 in technology in 2020. Rashida sits on the Boards of Misty Robotics; Girls Inc.; Duke University Fuqua School of Business Minority Advisory Board; and North Carolina University College of Engineering Foundation. Learn more about Rashida here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashidahodge/ Shout-out: Today's Diversity Leader Shout-out goes to the co-founders of Black Women on Boards (BWOB) - Merline Saintil and Robin L. Washington Music: Vente by Mamá Patxanga is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License Amor Y Felicidad by SONGO 21 is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/si-suite/message
Rashida Hodge, VP, Azure Data and AI / Customer Success for Microsoft is a technologist and executive leader at the forefront of AI and emerging technologies. Dubbed the “Superhero of IBM Watson AI,” Rashida led the commercialization and global launch of IBM Watson and rose to be the highest-ranking African American woman executive. Originally from St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, her Caribbean upbringing gave her respect for strong communities, mentorship and the power of diversity. Rashida earned a BS and MS in Industrial Engineering at North Carolina State University and an MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business. She was named to Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful “NextGen” Women in 2018 and 2019 and named to Fortune 40 Under 40 in technology in 2020. Rashida sits on the Boards of Misty Robotics; Girls Inc.; Duke University Fuqua School of Business Minority Advisory Board; and North Carolina University College of Engineering Foundation. Learn more about Rashida here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashidahodge/ Shout-out: Today's Diversity Leader Shout-out goes to the co-founders of Black Women on Boards (BWOB) - Merline Saintil and Robin L. Washington Music: Vente by Mamá Patxanga is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License Amor Y Felicidad by SONGO 21 is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/si-suite/message
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractMaking Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Account Technical Leader IBM Technology Sales, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.This week on Making Data Simple, we have Michael Haase. Michael is CEO and Founder of Plant Jammer. Plant Jammer is a 5 year old startup that uses AI to help people cook. Michael was formally a Mackenzie Consultant. The technology used won the IBM Watson AI in 2018, Michael also won the Creative Business Cup in 2018 and Green Entrepreneur award by Veggie World.Show Notes2:40 – What data are you using?8:16 – What the widget does10:53 – Do I get the nutritional facts? 11:17 – Tell us more about your experience14:50 – Where does AI fit?19:10 – How did you win the Watson AI award?23:02 – What is your monetization strategy? Connect with the TeamProducer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Producer Steve Templeton - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractMaking Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Account Technical Leader IBM Technology Sales, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.This week on Making Data Simple, we have Michael Haase. Michael is CEO and Founder of Plant Jammer. Plant Jammer is a 5 year old startup that uses AI to help people cook. Michael was formally a Mackenzie Consultant. The technology used won the IBM Watson AI in 2018, Michael also won the Creative Business Cup in 2018 and Green Entrepreneur award by Veggie World.Show Notes2:40 – What data are you using?8:16 – What the widget does10:53 – Do I get the nutritional facts? 11:17 – Tell us more about your experience14:50 – Where does AI fit?19:10 – How did you win the Watson AI award?23:02 – What is your monetization strategy? Connect with the TeamProducer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Producer Steve Templeton - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractMaking Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Account Technical Leader IBM Technology Sales, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.This week on Making Data Simple, we have Michael Haase. Michael is CEO and Founder of Plant Jammer. Plant Jammer is a 5 year old startup that uses AI to help people cook. Michael was formally a Mackenzie Consultant. The technology used won the IBM Watson AI in 2018, Michael also won the Creative Business Cup in 2018 and Green Entrepreneur award by Vegie World.Show Notes3:24 – Michael's history7:09 – What's your theme?11:04 – 80% of people cook less than 10 different recipes in a year. Is that true?16:20 – Can you talk about your ambition for 2024?18:22 – How does the company focus on reducing food waste and using data?21:04 – Is the app and widget the same?23:58 – Can anyone grab that widget? Connect with the TeamProducer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Producer Steve Templeton - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [almartintalksdata@gmail.com] and tell us why you should be next. AbstractMaking Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Account Technical Leader IBM Technology Sales, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.This week on Making Data Simple, we have Michael Haase. Michael is CEO and Founder of Plant Jammer. Plant Jammer is a 5 year old startup that uses AI to help people cook. Michael was formally a Mackenzie Consultant. The technology used won the IBM Watson AI in 2018, Michael also won the Creative Business Cup in 2018 and Green Entrepreneur award by Vegie World.Show Notes3:24 – Michael's history7:09 – What's your theme?11:04 – 80% of people cook less than 10 different recipes in a year. Is that true?16:20 – Can you talk about your ambition for 2024?18:22 – How does the company focus on reducing food waste and using data?21:04 – Is the app and widget the same?23:58 – Can anyone grab that widget? Connect with the TeamProducer Kate Brown - LinkedIn. Producer Steve Templeton - LinkedIn. Host Al Martin - LinkedIn and Twitter.
Andy Boyd is the SVP of Product Management and Growth at Appfire. In this episode, Andy talks about his experiences building successful growth teams. Andy also shares great insights that will help you make the switch to the product-led paradigm. Show Notes [01:00] Andy's experiences with IBM and Appfire [04:00] The power of compounding growth [08:15] Building a transparent, open, data-driven culture [10:20] Comparing opportunities between companies [19:15] A sneak peek of Andy's book on building Growth teams [21:12] Do things outside of your comfort zone About Andy Boyd Andy Boyd is the Senior Vice President of Product Management and Growth at Appfire, the leading provider of apps for the Atlassian ecosystem. Andy currently leads the product management and growth disciplines for Appfire's full portfolio of software solutions with over 200,000 active installations worldwide. Prior to joining Appfire, Andy was part of the founding team that brought the IBM Watson (AI) platform to market, serving in various Product Management roles, including establishing the first Growth team for IBM Watson. Links Product-Led Slack Community “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries “Running Lean” by Ash Maurya Profile Appfire Andy's LinkedIn Enterprise Growth Playbook
Patricia Vasconcellos, formerly VP of Supply Chain for Flowserve, talks about circular supply chain, supply chain responsiveness, resilience and customer needs. Then closes with post-COVID-19 supply chain. 00:34 - CSCMP 03:22 - Circular supply chain, re-use of materials (Accenture, Philips) 06:03 - H&M 07:00 - EU estimates 12% growth in GDP from circular supply chain 07:49 - Blockchain and IoT to build trust (Mastercard) 10:40 - EDI 11:51 - Sustainability 15:39 - GAP, Starbucks, GE, Honeywell sustainability efforts 17:25 - Data governance 19:03 - Resilience of supply chains 25:28 - Planning to manage risks 27:40 - Break 28:34 - Speed required to meet customer demand 31:38 - Tesla, GM partnering with Medtronics and Abbott 32:50 - Stockouts 34:18 - Tiger teams 35:26 - SCM tools: IBM Watson (AI), Amazon, Ariba 40:12 - Payment processing inefficiencies 41:08 - Transportation cost 43:23 - Batch of one customization44:03 - ‘Onshoring’ 46:48 - Security 50:36 - Freight forwarders 54:55 - Break 56:16 - Creativity for post-COVID-19 supply chain 1:00:33 - Procurement tiger team to leverage demand and buy in bulk 1:11:00 - Technology to manage labor costs 1:11:41 - Synchronization through blockchain 1:21:53 - Importance of training talent to “leap”
Patricia Vasconcellos, formerly VP of Supply Chain for Flowserve, talks about circular supply chain, supply chain responsiveness, resilience and customer needs. Then closes with post-COVID-19 supply chain. Episode Notes:00:34 - CSCMP 03:22 - Circular supply chain, re-use of materials (Accenture, Philips) 06:03 - H&M 07:00 - EU estimates 12% growth in GDP from circular supply chain 07:49 - Blockchain and IoT to build trust (Mastercard) 10:40 - EDI 11:51 - Sustainability 15:39 - GAP, Starbucks, GE, Honeywell sustainability efforts 17:25 - Data governance 19:03 - Resilience of supply chains 25:28 - Planning to manage risks 27:40 - Break 28:34 - Speed required to meet customer demand 31:38 - Tesla, GM partnering with Medtronics and Abbott 32:50 - Stockouts 34:18 - Tiger teams 35:26 - SCM tools: IBM Watson (AI), Amazon, Ariba 40:12 - Payment processing inefficiencies 41:08 - Transportation cost 43:23 - Batch of one customization44:03 - ‘Onshoring' 46:48 - Security 50:36 - Freight forwarders 54:55 - Break 56:16 - Creativity for post-COVID-19 supply chain 1:00:33 - Procurement tiger team to leverage demand and buy in bulk 1:11:00 - Technology to manage labor costs 1:11:41 - Synchronization through blockchain 1:21:53 - Importance of training talent to “leap”
Techstination, your destination for gadgets and gear. I’m Fred Fishkin. With so many people having questions about Covid-19…IBM is helping to provide answers through what it calls Watson Assistant for Citizens. It has been working with government agencies, healthcare organizations and more...
Techstination interview: IBM Watson AI speeds responses to Covid-19 questions: VP Toby Cappello
Be an entrepreneur in medicine: an interview with Dr Vinay ShankarHear how you can become an entrepreneur in medicine like Dr Vinay Shankar as he talks to Dr Andrew Foster of eGPlearning about his diverse career as a GP Partner in Nottingham, working with IBM's Watson, AI platform, starting a sustainable T-Shirt Business and writing a children's book. He has a blog and a great podcast where he interviews innovative and entrepreneurial figures in healthcare.Find out about Vinay's work here…www.vinayshankar.netTwitterTwitter: @VinayShankar4.41 Entrepreneurial spirit and learning from starting a sustainable T-Shirt business8.50 Completing a Masters in Leadership, Education and Research. Creating and using Narratives and storytelling in medical education and practice. Choose your own adventures for medical training?8.10 Masters project - using IBM Watson AI platform to examine data from Twitter to achieve insights into the personality types of clinical entrepreneurs.Link IBM Watson12.55 Entrepreneurial culture within the NHS. Can it work without the prospect of big cash rewards? Is intro-preneurship the answer?17.30 What is it like to use the IBM Watson Platformhttps://www.ibm.com/watson27.00 Will AI Replace jobs in healthcare?30.10 Taking a creative writing course and creativity in medicine.31.50 “15 Minutes with the Doctor” – Vinay's experience of starting and running his podcast.33.15 Using storytelling in day to day Primary Care.35.15 Vinay identifies his top healthcare technology trends.· Genomics and personalised care· Artificial Intelligence38.25 Managing risk within AI systems. Who owns the risk and will this question hold back the field?41.20 Why did you become a partner so soon after the end of training? And Vinay's lessons for those starting out in Primary Care and Technology.46.05 Vinay tells us about his Favourite apps and how he would invest £100M in Primary Care health technology.DropboxSpotifyMoneyboxMy Fittness mPalWe hope you enjoyed the interview. Please comment, share and subscribe.
What are the rules of leadership?When is it okay to break those rules? Are there different rules for those who are not satisfied with simply being a leader, but instead are driven to be great leaders?On this episode, my guest Kevin Kruse and I break all the rules (including our own podcasting rules). You see, on this episode we simply hit record and had one of our great conversations. You quite literally get to eavesdrop in on two blokes chatting about all things leadership, a conversation that goes way beyond the boardroom.This episode's guest is a returning champion; Kevin Kruse is the Founder and CEO of LEADx, offering the world’s first leadership trainer and coach, all powered by IBM Watson (AI). Kevin is also a New York Times bestselling author of nine (9) books including his latest: Great Leaders Have No Rules: Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Team and Business.On this episode we go FullMonty on so much, including:Our gratitude practicesWhat to say if someone asks you a question you don't understand... (while still looking smart)The danger of devaluing your knowledgeHorrible bosses"Assumptive Knowledge"Why you should throw out your "Open Door Policy" Megastars we've both interviewed The pain of writing books (and those who make it harder)How to cope with the "joy stealers" of lifeWhy giving your kids a curfew doesn't workAnd so much more!To find out more about Kevin: http://www.kevinkruse.com or https://leadx.orgTo find out more about hiring Dov Baron as a speaker or strategist for your organization: http://fullmontyleadership.com/consulting or http://fullmontyleadership.com/speakingRemember you can now also find us on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, or wherever you tune into podcasts.Find us on traditional radio stations across the US every Monday and Thursday on: 99.5 FM & 1520 AM Las Vegas102.1 FM & 1640 AM Lancaster, Philadelphia87.9 FM & 810 AM Macon, Gorgia 92.1 FM & 1630 AM Tampa, Florida97.7 The Villages, Florida96.3 FM Boulder ,Colorado90.3 FM Milwaukee, Wisconsin 94.7 FM Pittsburg, Philadelphia87.9 FM Colorado Springs, ColoradoAnd NOW LIVE! On 96.7FM WASHINGTON, DC On 96.7FM covering THE WASHINGTON DC & QUANTICO area.Also look for us on ROKU TV, where there’s 100K subscribers. If you are a regular listener, then a big thank you to you for making us the #1 podcast globally for Fortune 500 listeners! And with a potential reach of 2.5 to 3 million listeners for every show, we’re honoured and grateful to be cited in INC.com as The #1 Podcast To Make You a Better Leader. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Highlights from this interview include: Kevin Kruse is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder and CEO of LEADx, which provides the world’s first executive coach and trainer powered by IBM Watson AI. He is the author of multiple books including 15 Secrets Success People Know about Time Management, Employee Engagement 2.0 and his newest book is called ‘Great Leaders have No Rules’ I have been following Kevin for some time and have read two of his books and am excited to get this next one and to talk to him today.
Highlights from this interview include: Kevin Kruse is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder and CEO of LEADx, which provides the world’s first executive coach and trainer powered by IBM Watson AI. He is the author of multiple books including 15 Secrets Success People Know about Time Management, Employee Engagement 2.0 and his newest book is called ‘Great Leaders have No Rules’ I have been following Kevin for some time and have read two of his books and am excited to get this next one and to talk to him today.
Highlights from this interview include: Kevin Kruse is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder and CEO of LEADx, which provides the world's first executive coach and trainer powered by IBM Watson AI. He is the author of multiple books including 15 Secrets Success People Know about Time Management, Employee Engagement 2.0 and […]
Innovation Inside LaunchStreet: Leading Innovators | Business Growth | Improve Your Innovation Game
Are you a leader who is still following leadership principles from decades ago? Believe it or not, having an open door policy or treating the star performer on your team the same as the guy who is always late and never hits his sales targets may not be a good thing — for you, your team, and innovation! The dynamics of our teams have changed, but the leadership rules have not. Thankfully, Kevin Kruse recognized the need for new principles to guide leaders, and today we’re digging right into his insights. Kevin is the founder of several successful startups, CEO of LEADx (world’s first executive coach built with IBM Watson AI), and the author of the book Great Leaders Have No Rules: Contrarian Principles to Transform Your Team and Business. Most of the leadership rules we as leaders follow are outdated, antiquated, and sometimes just plain wrong. Kevin shares more about some of the old mindsets that he’s completely turned around, including why you should be crowding your calendar and scheduling every minute of your day, and why you need to close your open door policy and set fixed office hours for your team! He also has some great insights into the importance of understanding your own personality in being a good leader instead of depending on 10 random principles, and how AI can help leaders. Remember: Leadership starts with yourself because you can’t give what you don’t have. If you are ready to: get buy-in from key decision makers on your next big idea be a high-impact, high-value member that ignites change foster a culture of innovation where everyone on your team is bringing innovative ideas that tackle challenges and seize opportunities… Join us on LaunchStreet — gotolaunchstreet.com Mentioned in This Episode: Sponsor: Brillity Digital — Digital Presence Assessment Offer Kevin Kruse LeadX Great Leaders have No Rules: Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Business and Your Team, by Kevin Kruse 15 Secrets Successful People Know about Time Management, by Kevin Kruse Leading with the Heart, by Mike Krzyzewski and Donald T. Phillips John Wooden Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn Bill Gates Basecamp Deep Work, by Cal Newport “There are now 5 generations in the workforce–can they work together?” on Fast Company Free IQE Assessment
Previously known as CUNY-IBM Watson Case Competition, CUNY-IBM Watson Social Impact Challenge is a semester-long experience designed to improve the academic achievement and social engagement of the City University's diverse student population through project-based learning focused on using applied IBM Watson AI technologies to solve social problems. Moderated by Stanly Altman, Professor from the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs (MSPIA), Baruch College, this workshop was presented by two IBM developer advocates, Helen Lam and Nicolas Bourdakos. The topic is on Wason AI, API, and Cloud computing services.
Previously known as CUNY-IBM Watson Case Competition, CUNY-IBM Watson Social Impact Challenge is a semester-long experience designed to improve the academic achievement and social engagement of the City University’s diverse student population through project-based learning focused on using applied IBM Watson AI technologies to solve social problems. Moderated by Stanly Altman, Professor from the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs (MSPIA), Baruch College, this workshop was presented by two IBM developer advocates, Helen Lam and Nicolas Bourdakos. The topic is on Wason AI, API, and Cloud computing services.
Previously known as CUNY-IBM Watson Case Competition, CUNY-IBM Watson Social Impact Challenge is a semester-long experience designed to improve the academic achievement and social engagement of the City University's diverse student population through project-based learning focused on using applied IBM Watson AI technologies to solve social problems. Moderated by Stanly Altman, Professor from the Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs (MSPIA), Baruch College, this workshop was presented by two IBM developer advocates, Helen Lam and Nicolas Bourdakos. The topic is on Wason AI, API, and Cloud computing services.
Dr. Lisa Amini is the director of IBM Research Cambridge, which includes the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. Watson is a complex question-answering computer system that is capable of providing answers to questions that are directed in natural language; it was developed in IBM's DeepQA project. Dr. Amini has extensive experience in deep information extraction, representation, and reasoning as it pertains to knowledge, semantic analysis, and decision science. Her past work includes the development of strategies for utilizing science and technology in intelligent urban and environmental systems, specifically centered on sustainability issues, resource management, transportation, and data. Dr. Amini discusses how the Watson products focus on specific products that can be benefited by machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and image analysis. Beyond the interesting gaming aspect that gained Watson much public attention, Amini explains that the AI's uses for business applications are quite diverse and multitudinous. She gives an insightful overview of the current AI algorithms that exist in the market and how they perform extremely well utilizing large volumes of data, training on that data, learning from patterns and responses, and image recognition, etc. As the AI expert details, the AI often needs volumes of data in order to make assessments or recognition of an image, and the innovation will come from pushing the AI to make inferences without the need for voluminous data. For as human knowledge comes from multiple sources and signals such as reading documents, recognition, talking to other informed individuals, etc., their learning is more broadly focused. And this multi-modal learning is essentially where Dr. Amini and her team are seeking to make improvements with AI technology. The AI innovator discusses how her team is using advanced information theory techniques to understand how information flows within networks. By studying how models are trained regarding the neural network, researchers can build more scalable models that may provide better output. She explains that one valuable element of natural language processing is the analyzation of text, to understand the importance of relationships in order to bring that information to the user in a more qualitative manner. Dr. Amini speaks about the questions that arise in human understanding, and how it is important to know ‘what causes what' in terms of gathering a broader grasp of information. She discusses her hopes to see advances in machine learning applied to areas that would enable us to learn representations of causal structure and causal information, as well as in areas of security in order to provide more robust solutions. From healthcare to security and everything in between, Dr. Amini sees great potential for AI advances that will improve the ways we receive, use, and implement information.
Adam Orentlicher from IBM returns to the show to talk about how modern applications infused with artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the game. Hear how IBM Watson AI is a boundary-pushing technology and a collaborative effort designed to amplify human intelligence