S1E17 - Shifting the Lens: Redefining Blindness in the Mainstream Workforce with Peter Tucic

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where See Things Differently podcast.

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Hello, see things differently listeners, and welcome to episode 17 where it is

May everywhere and that brings with it
all kinds of great things.

I am here with David Woodbridge.

How's it going, David?

Absolutely
wonderful contemplation. Excellent.

And I'm also here with Matthew Paquette,
who is our product manager of all kinds of products
like Victor Stream and Stellar

Trek and Ray-Ban,
Meadows and Odyssey and Matthew.

Hopefully I got everything.
And how are you doing?

I am doing great.
Thank you so much for having me on.

I'm really excited about this
week's episode,

I am too, we all are collectively thrilled because all of you long time listeners,
you're not a long time listener.

Well, this episode will make you
be a long time listeners.

It is our pleasure
to welcome back to the studio a man who needs no introduction,
Peter Tusk, good morning, good afternoon, good evening,
good day, wherever you may be.

Wait, I thought, I thought,
I thought I wasn't doing this anymore.

I thought,

Rachel, just when you thought you were out,
we brought you back in.

I am back, I am back as a guest.

In distinction.

But yes, we're having Peter on as a guest
this month to talk about some of the wonderful work
that he does at his organization.

Hey, Peter,
we're super happy to have you back.

So I was sitting,
you know, at my desk and I work, you know, unlike when I was with human
where and I was on the road constantly.

I'm now at a, at a desk and a,
you know, in the building every day.

And I'm sitting there and I'm always kind
of bouncing things back and forth between teachers and lots and lots of,
you know, what?

We can get into all the things I'm doing
but coordinating.

And I get an email
about coming out of the podcast and I thought, what the heck?

Of course I'm going to
come on the podcast. That's awesome.

I get to be in the other chair, right?

So why not?

And it was, you know,
it was a really, really neat thing that we were able to get off the ground.

And now it keeps on going and growing
and here I am.

So thanks for
thank you tons for having me on.

And it's just going to be fun
to talk with you guys because especially, you know, for you.

David, I haven't talked to you since
I, since I left and Matthew, we've talked a little bit, but
just it's nice to talk with you all again.

Rachel I've seen you a couple of times.

You're old news, right?

I've seen you around here. Good.
All right.

You're not far.

That's right.

No. It's really nice to be here.

We're so excited that you're here.

And, Matthew,
since you were able to make the connection and snag Peter for this episode,
do you want to introduce our topic, which I think is going to be really,
really fascinating and an engaging one.

So go ahead. Let's kick it off.

Yeah, absolutely.

So for this month
we're going to be talking about accessibility in the workplace.

So how blind and visually impaired people can have resources to gain have gainful employment
and be able to work in.

And I'm going to specify it now because that will be the topic of our hot
debate segment a little bit later.

But not only work in the accessibility
field, but in any fields that they'd like to work in.

So obviously we know that there
there might be some limitations, right?

So obviously someone who's blind
is not going to be neurosurgeon.

There are some some limitations there.

But but then that being said,
there are also a ton of jobs that someone who's blind
or visually impaired can do.

And there are some wonderful organizations
everywhere in the world.

But for for today, we're going to focus
in the US, because that's where Peter is.

An organization
like Peters who helps visually impaired people find good jobs through technology,
but also what it means.

So, Peter, where are you at now?

Now that you've left almost a year ago
at human, where it will be a year last May, I remember
recording that, that final little outro.

So I am working at the Chicago Lighthouse.

And for those of you who are familiar
with the lighthouse bucket, if you will, there are lots of lighthouses
across the United States.

There are dozens and dozens of them.

And if you've been to one lighthouse,
you have been to one lighthouse.

They are not affiliated with each other.

While there may be some crossover here
and there, and some joint operations here and there, or programs
that may transcend, they're all separate.

Now. The Chicago Lighthouse is currently, you know, experiencing its its 120th
anniversary.

So we have been around 120 years.

And in that time we have,
you know, started and maintained and continued to evolve
many different programs.

We we have dozens of programs
here, ranging from early intervention to employment, from seniors to students from, you know, low vision research to low vision
clinic and everything in between.

What I'm specifically running is a center
called the Illinois Instructional Materials
Center, and that is a center that provides alternative format books.

So Braille or large print textbooks,
as well as technology, be it blindness or low vision,
certainly human wears a big part of that.

Or classroom aids that are adapted
or designed for the blind.

To all students
across the state of Illinois who receive vision services
and have an Individualized education plan.

So we serve about 4200 students,
and we provide them with what they need in the classrooms to access their curriculum
so it can really range.

We one order could be for Braille paper,
and the next order could be for a monarch.

And we will do everything in between.

One order could be for a set of 2020 pens,
and the next order could be requests, could be for something like a,
you know, a prodigy for windows.

So it really runs.

We we do thousands of orders per year.

We operate a state
and federal budget in the center.

So we have two different sources
of funding that we're able to use to provide the technology.

But the lighthouse as a whole,
just like our program, has multiple funding sources
and is quite widespread.

The lighthouse as a whole, where I sit,
where my office is, right where I am right now, is a very, very wide ranging agency
that covers everyone.

What I like to say is birth to earth,
and that is really what this building is able to do.

What kind of tech do you use in your job?

Did you ever need to ask for
any accommodations for maybe folks out there
looking for employment?

And how did that all go for you?

We again, you know, as as kind of the
purveyors, if you will, of the technology.

You know, we're not doing as much analysis on our students in terms
of helping remediate what their needs are.

The teachers are kind of doing that
and requesting products from us.

But with that being said, because of where
I spent the last many years and because of kind of the relationships
I built, I received lots of inquiries from our teachers asking for my advice
or kind of experience with technology.

I continue to use a Braille display
throughout the day.

I am also what is referred to as the ex officio trustee for the state of Illinois.

That means that I am in charge
of the quota dollars, the American printing house, quota dollars
that purchase American printing house equipment.
So something like the monarch.

And so I do use the monarch because I'm
the EOT and I happen to be blind and certainly played a part
in its development.

So I still have one part, a big part.

And I,
you know, so I do use lots of Braille.

But, you know, I do a lot of encouraging of technology usage,
working with our teachers to make sure that they're creating
and building the most prepared pool of students that they can.

And it's not just blind students
getting their low vision students to utilize
technologies is just as important to me, even though I can't relate to it
because I'm totally blind.

It's just as important as it is
for our blind students who I have a deep.

It's deeply personal for me to sit
in this chair because I was a student who received products from the Illinois
Instructional Materials Center and also, you know, grew up here in Illinois.

So, you know, as far as what I'm
using personally, though,

I use Braille, I have a screen reader,
you know, the agency provides licenses for those things.

But if something is needed.

I have, you know, reached out and have requested
accommodations where I've needed them.

It is certainly a little bit easier
to do when you work for a place that is intimately familiar with blindness, than it might be for
somebody who, say, working at Xerox.

But that doesn't mean
that it can't be done, and it doesn't mean
that there aren't resources and services, not only here in the state of Illinois,
but all over the country and all over the world that can assist
with workplace accommodations.

And I think, you know, there is
and there always has been kind of an avenue to get accommodation.

It's not always the smoothest process, but
it certainly is something that's there.

And I've had to use it sparingly here.

But, you know, for instance,
I needed a way to, to, to read some of our forms that we're in the process of a major, major system build out.

And currently this the way we do
things is very archaic.

It's very much a teacher fills out a form, sends
it in, requesting various products.

Sometimes they just send a scan, like
they take a picture of a piece of paper and you would think they wouldn't do this.

These are teachers
of the visually impaired, right? For sure.

But again,
they're trying to get things done quickly and they will send in a picture
that I can't read.

And so I need a quick way
to read them. Right.

I need an odyssey to read that,
that piece of paper that filled out form.

And so I, you know, had to put in request for, for OCR device
because I needed to be able to read these.

So, so again, even here,
I mean, I'm encountering not only my need for technology, but inaccessible workflows
that I need to conquer.

And so we're always kind of up
against that.

And, you know, and just knowing how to request that through HR, going
through the process, documenting the need and then helping the people
who are making the decision understand that there is not just one product
but the one product you need.

Because oftentimes
when you try to get an accommodation, they will take the kind of the path of least resistance,
the cheapest or the quickest or but but as the user, it comes down to
what are you most familiar with and what is preferred by you,
and explaining why that product that may be twice
the cost of what they're thinking, or may, you know, incorporate 3
or 4 different parts.

Why do you need that?

And helping them understand
is extremely important as well.

So I had to do a lot of justification.
Yeah for sure.

And I find that it always
it never comes from a place of bad faith when things like that occur.

You mentioned like the scanning of the file
and and just as a fun little anecdote, we human were the people who work
like myself.

We work in an office that senior Montreal
and they they recently sent out some forms to fill to get a security card,
a security badge.

And we're part of the family.

So the the request was coming from
the our, our mother company and the form when it came in, the first thing that I noticed
and I contacted immediately one of my, my blind colleagues small and I asked him,
I said, can you fill that form out?

Like, is it accessible?

Because it really looked like it wasn't.

And he did confirm
that it wasn't accessible.

And once again, I'm
not I'm not putting the blame on anyone.

It is the person who sent it out is
not working with blind people every day.

She she's part of a company where they do normal glasses,
like glasses for regular people. So.

So she's not used to having
to have accessible forms and everything.

And when we asked, they were very kind,
said, oh, we're really sorry about that.

Very apologetic.

We'll redo the form,
we'll make sure it's accessible and we're going to get that form
soon again.

But yeah, it never is in bad faith.

No, no it isn't.

And and that doesn't mean
that you won't have struggles.

And sometimes it can lead
to some very heated, you know, and kind of informative discussions
that you have to have some parties.

And sometimes that requires
something even further which could be legal action
or could be like, but but generally speaking,
and I've always had and I've talked about it
when we used to talk in all a year ago,

Rachel and David, about advocacy
and how we encounter different situations, how often I think we all agreed
and talked about this, the benefit of respectful advocacy, the benefit of
of giving, the benefit of the doubt and just and working with folks
to try and get everyone on the same page as kind of that first step,
you know, of getting things done.

And like you said, you explain, someone
says, oh, yeah, that's a great idea.

And the next thing you know, you know, they're able to provide you
with what it is you need and you're all feel good
and can kind of move on.

So yeah.

And then if it, you know, if you're, you're stuck with people
who don't want to understand or that's where as you mentioned, the advocacy
becomes like taking further action, whether it be legal or written complaint
or whatever it may be.

But yeah,
giving people benefit of the doubt,

I think is a healthy first step.

But yeah, after that, if you're not getting what you need, then
absolutely take further actions.

I think that comes back to just problem
solving skills in general, and I like that you mentioned that even though, you know, you work at a place
that's familiar with blindness and perhaps other disabilities, and David and myself
and Matthew do as well, but that still doesn't mean that things
are going to be absolutely perfect.

No, no.

It also comes down to the fact to ism.

And this goes
for all my jobs that I've had, is if one particular thing doesn't work,
so you can have all the accessible equipment
you like under the world.

But sometimes a computer is a computer.

And, you know,
if your web browser doesn't work or a particular word processor doesn't
work, your email program doesn't work.

It's always good to have alternatives.

And you talk it because if you just think
that just one thing is going to work all the time, then that's you're
just going to be very disappointed.

So, you know, sometimes I'll,
you know, I'll use Chrome or I'll because I'm on a mac,
I'll use a fairy from on windows,

I'll use Microsoft Edge,

Chrome again,
Firefox, all that sort of stuff. So because I always say to people, look, it's like anybody, like if your monitor goes
down, you plug in another monitor.

If you're screaming, it goes down,
you know, at the very worst run.

Narrator. Which is actually,
I probably shouldn't go.

It's actually pretty good these days, but,
you know, Nvidia jaws supernova.

I mean, we've
got all these alternatives now.

So that's always like to say
to people in the workplace, the last thing I want to hear was,
oh, I couldn't get that done because my screen reader wouldn't work
or my browser wouldn't work.

It's like, well,
you need to have some skills to say that.

Okay, fine.

I didn't quite, you know,
like the fact that I had to do x, Y and Z.

But if you still get the job done.

Nobody really cares what sort of screen reading technology
or anything else that you use anyway.

Absolutely.

I would also say that,
you know, even even even working where I did for all those years of human
where I would encounter when I started here, just I had some things to learn
and some things to really sharpen my skill set on, you know, I was not
and still am not the greatest track changes user,
but I've used them a lot more in the last ten months
than I've ever used them at all.

I've had track changes, comments,
you know, revisions, that sort of thing in Microsoft
Word is doable.

Is it fun and easy? No no no no no.

But it's certainly I'm not going to
to sit here and say, I can't do that right or I don't do that.

I may say I don't prefer to do that
or I don't really want to do that, but it's certainly, you know, I'm going to be using track
changes and revisions, and I've had to get some articles
and some different things done that way.

And, and now I'm more confident
in doing it.

Same with with the use of Excel.

You know, I'm handling a lot of budgets
now, doing a lot of line specific line budgets, transposing budgets across
different types of reporting sheets.

And, you know, it's
something that while I was a kind of a decent Excel user, you know, I didn't have necessarily that
that breadth of skill set that I have now.

So even even just being open to learning
and kind of exploring and it's not easy.

I was
I was like a, you know, kind of spinning around a little bit
for the first month or two saying, gosh,

I really have got to pick this up
as I think we all do with any new job.

But, you know, in time you kind of develop
those, those, those skills.

So, Peter, you mentioned you still work
with the monarch reader and everything.

So that brings me to what's probably the most important
question of this whole interview is, are you still carrying
that 500 pound backpack every day?

No, no.

The my Rock collection has been retired.

I no longer now I do
I do not do much travel.

When I did travel, this is really funny.

I was in Louisville for the annual meeting
as the ex officio trustee were required to go to Louisville
once a year, and I went to Louisville, which was my first trip
in about five months, since I had actually gone to Europe
for the Tactile Reading conference, and which was my last trip with human, where.

So I go and I'm talking to I saw Andrew.

Andrew Flatters there, of course, and I
hand him my bag and I said, look at this.

And normally I would do this as a joke
and said, can you grab my bag?

And they would just be like,
what are you carrying?

He took my bag and he was like,
wow, you you didn't, did you?

Forget everything?
You don't have anything.

So yeah, all I need is a computer.

Now, you know,
I don't need all that stuff.

I have a Braille display in a computer,
but yeah, my, my, the days of the Peter's walking mobile,
you know, best buy our own.

It was my own saying.

No more of that.

I'm a, I'm a one computer
kind of person now.

That's awesome.

It's probably better for your back
as well. Probably.

But I don't feel it's cool
when I can't save the day.

You know, if someone needs like,
a, you know, a USB micro to USB-C caught on a plane,
I can't just whip one out anymore like I used to be able to
and save the day.

Good point.

Peter.

You're you're working with the mainly with the education,
but you're also seeing a lot of things in employment.

What's the one thing that you think
would help across America, across the United States to, to help
people be have an even easier time, integrate the workforce if they're
they're blind or visually impaired.

I can look at it from two
two perspectives.

One is truly from
from the perspective of right, we're going to make the most prepared,
employable adults we can, as we can do that by educating and keeping our students
as foreign as possible.

And that's what I take very personally,
you know, and really, you know, we we are here to provide
adapted and accessible materials, having access to books,
you know, all of that.

So I believe that, you know,
when you look at the school systems today and just what is expected
of our blind and vision impaired kids, being able to develop
those great typing skills, being able to develop
good written communication skills, having good

Braille skills, if you're a Braille reader
or embracing Braille, you know, if you're kind of a dual media reader,
but also when it when it comes to those who are newer to blindness,
I think a lot of times, you know, there, there, there are folks
who lose vision or are losing vision later in life or as adults
anywhere along that journey who they're unsure and they need to find and work with folks
who can help them.

Be sure not just of one way
of doing things, but they need to, you know, to be able to be shown
that there are multiple ways of developing skill sets.

And a lot of times I think what
what kind of can hinder the process is when you have someone
who's newer to blindness or newer division loss goes into a setting
and they're shown one way of doing something and expected to do that
task that way.

And it can be really tough because not
everyone can learn the same way and be even be taught the same way.

So, you know, I do think
and I don't know, this is an answer, but I,
I love it when I meet a rehab counselor or I meet someone who is, you know, a social worker or someone who's working
with these populations who are newer division loss
and they're not looking at it, you know, at this vision
loss through the lens that they may have.

They're listening to that client
and they're helping that client understand that there is multiple ways
of doing things.

And I see a lot more of that
than I used to.

And that doesn't mean that there aren't general techniques and places
that teach great skills.

So if you think about think about the,
you know, there are training centers
specifically designed and developed for, for these populations
that do teach you great methods for cooking or great methods for daily
living skills or and that's great.

That's great.

I think, though, that, you know, once
you leave those environments and you step out into the world and, you know,
you're sometimes just kind of thinking, I learned one way
and I'm not good at that one way.

So I'm just going to kind of sit here
or I want to do a different way.

And you encounter someone who says, yes,
but that's not the right way, because that's not the way
I knew how to do it.

So I think just trying to develop these, these individualized plans,
listening to the clients and working with them to meet, meet them
where they are is extremely important.

And I see that here in our employment
services space.

I don't work in employment services.

I work, you know, strictly in, in this
side of the, the, the K-12 education.

But I but I do have a lot of crossover
and certainly have just kind of experienced this time
and time again as I've traveled.

And we continue, we continue,
no matter how many years, months,
you know, we've all been in this field.

We hear about the unemployment rate,
we hear about the unemployment struggles.

We hear about the underemployment
struggles. It's real.

It happens. It's endless.

And it's still very stubbornly
right where it has been.

And so we just have to continue to
to try and think of different ways.

Think of more open
minded ways to get to the next level.

And this is where AI is going to change
a lot of this.

People's
abilities are going to shift quickly, and what they're able to do even closer
to their vision loss, where they used to have to spend days, weeks, really
months, years developing these skills, they may be able to acquire them quicker,
I believe, thanks to AI.

Peter, this is a fantastic discussion.

I know you're sticking around with us
for the next segment, which will be a fun one
to talk about a little bit more about employment in the field in general,
but thank you so much for just coming and sharing your perspective on things
that you've seen in the field.

Now that you're you've taken a bit of a step back
from the tech side of things and human were directly and are looking more
into like education and and tech.

I'd say you more
you have a broad overview of of things that you hear from teachers and students,
and I think it's fantastic.

Oh no thanks.

Thanks a ton. Really.

I love coming on and it's very different.

We can talk about this
in the next segment.

It's different for me.

It's it's a it's a different set of daily expectations
and kind of just different workflows.

But I'm I still am very fortunate
because I get to keep my toes kind of in the tech side
as well as the EOT.

And, and so I am still kind of tied
into that education
technology piece that we were in.

But I definitely have
a lot of other responsibilities.

So I'm glad to be able
to have some time to come on.

All right.

So for the debate, hot topic of the month,
I have a fairly fun one, and I think you'll all agree with me
that, you know, as, as blind and low vision
individuals that you are, you can only work for accessibility
related companies, right?

You really just winged that one.
You just loft it out there.

Oh yeah. Here's the expectation.

Speaking of not looking through an open
lens.

Yeah.

You know, obviously

I'm being facetious here but but yes
that's that's our that's our discussion.

It's not something
I honestly believe obviously.

But there are a lot of people who are not
in this field that that do believe that.

Oh of course, Rachel, you're blind.

So you work at human
where of course, Peter, you're blind.

So you work at Chicago Lighthouse.

You couldn't work at Verizon, for example,
which is completely false, obviously.

So. So yeah, I wanted to get your
your opinions on that.

This is a great one because I never thought in a million years
I would work in wideness.

I have a history degree.

And I had a, you know, when I was
in college, I wanted to be a translator.

I wanted to be an interpreter.
I wanted to work at the UN.

I and it's not that I couldn't have done
that.

I could have done that.

What I realized is that I loved to teach.

And so I did come into this space
in a very, you know, it was circuitous.

But I have been, you know, very fortunate to meet so many people, so many people who are working
just kind of in these entirely not blindness
related fields who are blind.

But I've also realized that
for some of us, for many of us, it can be a pretty seamless
stepping stone into full careers.

So it is actually, even though
I never intended to work in it, you know, in the blindness
technology field.

And even though technically you could say,
now I do not,

I no longer work in the blindness
technology field.

I, I,
I think, you know, it was in has been one of the best things that I ever
could have imagined because it allowed me to develop
so many different skills.

But there are so many people out there
who are doing so many different things, and we meet them. Right.

I would think of how many times
we've met those and gone to those, especially those interest groups
at the National Federation of the blind or at the American Council of the blind, where you meet with the teachers,
the lawyers, the, you know, the social workers, the
the folks who are just, you know, working in call centers
or working in all these different jobs, supervisory level entrepreneurs,
there are many, many blind entrepreneurs who do not work in technology, certainly
are doing all sorts of other things.

So it it is neat, but but definitely
that gets projected that, that yes, we should be doing this because we're
blind. I mean, Rachel, I don't know you.

I remember when I helped
pull you from your previous job.

That's right.

You know, you were you know, I don't think you envisioned yourself working
in specifically in blindness technology.

No, I'm kind of the same as you.

I have a counseling psychology degree.

And then I was like, you know,
I think computers are more fun.

So I wanted to do, you know, maybe a systems admin or network
administrator or something.

And then it just
kind of fell into to teaching.

And now I'm running around, you know, with tech
and meeting a bunch of great people.

And so it's very interesting
how some of us can end up in this space.

And it's not because we're blind.

I think that's just, you know, a happy accident or that is just
something that's an asset in this field.

But it doesn't necessarily
it's not the main qualifier.

And I think that's an important
expectation to set.

David, what about you.

How did you end up in this space.

And then I have a really cool question
for Matthew.

Well it's actually quite it's quite weak because my, my degree
is actually as a social worker.

So I, I when I, when I went to school
and when I went to uni,

I wanted to do social work and counseling
and all that sort of stuff.

So I spent four years doing social work.

But then along my little journey,
apparently I had a knack for technology and because I kept ringing up the
then the royal blast silent kept asking them all these horrible,
nasty questions about tech because I needed to actually adjust things
to do my job as a social worker.

I think eventually I actually got asked,
would you like to apply for one of the.

I think back then it was called the Technology Resource
Officers job or something weird like that.

And so I was actually asked to do it
because I had a knack for tech.

So ever since then, you know,
I've been really lucky to go from job to job
just doing technology work.

So, you know,
I wanted to do regionally social work, and now I've ended up
being a technology person.

That's not to say as a social work
background, I still drag out my skills and, you know, the good old, you know,
empathic listening and active listening and self-disclosure where appropriate
and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I can still roll out
all my social work stuff if I need to.

But my main focus is technology,
so it's actually been really good.

But the reason why I thought to and I said to Rachel a month or so ago, because I came across this really sort
of strong technology person
that used to work at my previous job, and it was very weird
because his statement went something like, oh, look,
I've been at Vision Australia for a while, but I want to go to a mainstream job
because I don't want to get tagged as being only able to work for a blindness
organization or a low vision organization.

I thought, you know what?

That's even never entered my head
as a professional working in this space.

And that's why
I thought that I would have been just, you know, as I would record today,
it would have been nice just to bring it up because I just thought
in, you know, I'm getting old now, 40 years of employment
that has never entered my brain, that, you know, one should work for mainstream,
one should work for quite blindness.

Whatever organizations.

I did my job because I, you know,
I'm lucky enough to enjoy my job.

It's got nothing to do
if I'm blind or like, yes, it does help that I'm blind
because I use all the cool tech stuff that we tend to,
you know, sell and support at human where.

But, you know,
I certainly didn't enter the job.

And I'm sure, as you know, it's Matthew.

I mean, I can turn around to Matthew
and go, why the hell sighted person
would you want to work at a blindness slash low vision related organization,
you know, couldn't have done better.

And that's I think that's a really sad
reflection because it's, you know, a job to job, a company as a company,
it shouldn't really make any difference.

And, you know,

I think it's more of an individual thing
if you feel, you know, feel good about it, it's
got nothing to offer companies themselves.

So Matthew, I'm
so glad you're here for lots of reasons.

But one of them is as you are sighted,
how did you get into this industry?

And I asked most people this,
if I get to travel with them or something.

And it's just I'm just I'm so curious.

And you've been in the field
for quite a few years now.

What led you to this field? Yeah. So so long story short, we go back to 2020. I,

I had a job that my contract
ended in April of 2020.

So perfect timing.

Nothing happened around
that time of the year in 2020.

So yeah, Covid hit. I was out of a job.

I was on unemployment.

And then a friend of mine worked at human,
where back in the day

I was a product manager at Human Word
for low vision products, Eric Chassis.

And he reached out to me in September
or early November and said, well, we have an opening at our At human
where for for a tech
support job for low vision products.

So my first question was what you were.

So I went online, looked it
up, found that it's first, it's a Quebec based company, which is where I live.

So that was very interesting.

Cut my eye.

And then I saw that they were blindness
based and everything.

And my knowledge of the accessibility
and blindness world were pretty limited to Daredevil.

So I had no, no real idea
of of what it entailed or anything.

I honestly, I'm not even sure
if in 40 at that point

I was 40 years old,
if I even met a blind person in my life.

But, you know, either paycheck figured,
yeah, we'll try it, we'll see what it is.

And I came on board and yeah, absolutely fell in love with the mission
of the company at Human Work.

But be it human or any other company,
because nowadays, I mean, we can talk about despair.

We can talk about glide
that we had last month on the podcast.

We can talk about a bunch of assistive
technology company Aggy GA, a lot of those companies.

I really love the mission.

I'm happy that I'm I'm not making,
you know,

I work for a company that is helping
make people's lives better.

So I absolutely fell in love
with the mission.

I it completely changed my, my view on, you know, in tech support,
most of the technical support team is blind.

And and I thought, wow,
I wonder how they can work.

That was my honesty.
That was my first thought.

I was thinking about
how can they use a computer?

How they can they enter cases in our
our ticketing system?

How can they use word?
How can they use Excel?

They're blind. They can't do that.

And then yeah, over time
I learned that I was very, very wrong.

I was I was very impressed at first that they were I'm like, wow,
they must be geniuses.

And only to find out
that while they are very smart,

I mean, it's a skill that that that is learnable and everything
and and yes, I absolutely through my time that I was a tech support,
but also now as a product manager,

I am talking Peter, I think it was
Peter mentioned that NFD we need people who are lawyers or like teachers
and and that are not in this field.

They decided if you go into this field, great, you're giving back
and it's a phenomenal thing to do.

But if you decide you want to be a lawyer,
if you decide you want to be a teacher for something else, if you decide
you wanted to have your own company, if you decide
you want to be a system in this trader, as Rachel mentioned before,
that's all doable.

Absolutely.
And that takes the technology a lot.

But it's also thanks to people
like Peter, work in the education field and help
bring people.

Peter was mentioning, you know,
the cornerstone at his education.

And that's true for for excited
people as well.

But I think it's even more true for
for blind and love and visual to to learn the proper tools and proper techniques
to literacy and all of those skills.

So, yeah, that's
that's how I came to be on.

And honestly,
I absolutely adore what I do.

I'm super proud of the work that we do as a company,
and to be in this field is a blessing.

I can wake up every morning knowing that I make a little bit
of a difference in people's lives.

You know, one of the things that I'll say
is that we, those of us who are in this field, who are blind
and have been here for a while, we have seen a lot of blind people
not make it in this space because.

Because just because you're blind doesn't
mean you're going to succeed in this, in this field.

And I will meet so many.

And this this is very common.

Parents of blind kids
who will become blind adults.

Or maybe they're getting close to being blind adults
who will who will just flat out ask me, how do I get my Johnny
to be just like you, Peter?

And I'll say, well,
first of all, don't do that to Johnny.

Like, don't do that.

Nobody know for many reasons.

But, you know, they're always equating
this like that is the that is the only successful way. Right?

We want we want, you know, our kid to be just like Rachel,
just like David, just like Peter.

And that's
that's not really going to be the answer.

Right.

And yes, it's great to have role models
or it's great to have people.

We all have them who were blind
or are blind, who we've learned from,
whether there are friends, whether they're a mentor, you know,
whether they've shown us or help us along through certain journeys
or points in our lives.

You know, we we, we, we want and everyone should want to kind of develop their own
skills in ways and do whatever it is.

It's going to make them happy,
because we've all seen and we can all think
of many names of folks who've tried to be a product specialist or tried to be,
you know, that tech support agent, or have tried to be run a workshop or tried to do these different things
that we do and we've succeeded at.

But but it's not as easy for everyone.

It doesn't come naturally to
to read a room or to present or to teach.

Not everyone's a born teacher
or a born listener for that matter.

So it's, you know, it is.

I think that's a big part of it as well.

I agree, and I can remember the person
that what I went through, one of those,

I don't know if I did it in the States,
but it was called something like an organizational occupational therapist
slash psychologist, whatever that might have been.

And I can remember going in
and having my assessment done and they said, you know what?

Really, you know, the computer feel
that technology field is not for you because you obviously don't
have the aptitude for it.

And re recommend you, you know,
you try and get a job in an office or whatever else it might be.

So now I wish I had a time machine
and say, you know what, I've just built my whole career
for the last 40 years around technology.

And you said I wasn't good at it.

Can we just agree that you were wrong?

That you're not good at your job?

No. Don't limit me.

You got to have good expectations.
Correct?

That's right.

That's always in the back of my mind
that not every day it pops up, but it's like, it's quite funny
because, you know, getting because the problem is when you got it.

Technology in general, it's
not just for the blindness organization.

You become the head person
in your household that anything goes wrong with anything.

Family tech support? Yep.

Oh, yeah.

You're a technology person. You fix it.

Like why isn't the why isn't the satellite
stuff working today?

Or why isn't the the Powerwall for the
the solar battery wing?

That's like, you know what?

I really don't have anything to do
with those things.

But no, no, no, no,
you're a technology person.

You're supposed to know
everything about it. It's funny.

Yeah, as you say that.

I'm reminded into my my, my brother in
law's computer trying to save as the card.

So. Yes.

Well,
this was a really enlightening discussion.

I got to learn more about my co-hosts
and my colleagues, about how you guys came to the field.

And I think what matters is
maybe not how we came here so much, but the fact is that we're here.
We love it.

As Matthew said, it's a blessing,
and I would agree that we are able to just have the good fortune to help others.

And no matter whether we are blind,
whether we're sighted, whether we fall somewhere
in between that spectrum, we're we're doing, I think, what we were made
to do for this, this time.

So thank you, as always, to Peter,
for coming on.

You're always full of all kinds
of great insight and knowledge.

And Matthew and David, thank you guys for
just making this episode a really great one.
Thanks so much, Rachel.

It was awesome to be here.

Hopefully I'll come back.

Maybe maybe I'll come back every May.

I love it every May. May is
when you'll hear from me.

We'll see what I'm up to next year I can

I can impart you with some wisdom,
just as a bit of insight.

Baseball information for the listeners
every month.

David, Rachel and I meet together to plan
who's going to be the guest for the next month.
And it's always a decision.

We take all three of us together,
we decide.

And then this month, back in back
in April, I made the executive decision that I wanted to have Peter on,
and I asked Peter before I talked to David and Rachel, but I was 99.99% certain
that they would agree with my choice.

So there we go.

I love being here.

Yeah, it was like coming home
to see your dad again.

It was lovely. Sorry. We.

Thanks, dad.

Thanks, dad.

Papa. Peter. Peter.

Love it.

All right, everybody,
it's time for the tips and Tricks segment.

This segment,
I will be demonstrating features that we released in the latest Victor
Reader stream software update.

That's version 1.6.

So you will hear features
like the reorganized bookshelf list.

You can put your bookshelf items
into a list that you can move forward or backward through the Download Manager,
so you can check on downloads and prioritize them
if you'd like, and so much more.

So stay tuned.

The first feature I want to demonstrate
is the refactoring of the bookshelf.

So for a long time, Victor Stream
has had the bookshelves in the rotation that you needed to press key
one in order to access each bookshelf.

Now we've introduced a new setting
where you can set it to list mode, which means you will be able
to navigate the bookshelves simply by pressing key one, and then press keys 4 or 6 to navigate
through the various items.

I'm going to go into the menus now
and show you where you can set that up.

So I'm going to start by pressing key
seven.

Menu.

No local settings general settings.

This is where we want to be
in general settings.

So I'm going to press confirm.

Or the pound key language
I'm going to press key for to get to this new setting bookshelf
navigation mode rotation.

Now it's set on rotation
which is the default behavior if I press confirm bookshelf navigation
mode list.

Now it's set to list.

So I'm going to press Q1 to exit the menu.

Leaving menu. References.

And Bard.

So you hear that it went to NLS barred
which is the next item in my bookshelf list
if I press key six again.

Podcast Hears, podcast,

NFP Newsline, NFP Newsline, and so on.

I can also press key for if I'd like to
go backwards podcast unless barred.

References. Tune in radio.

Now, any of these bookshelves
that I want to enter and see what's in here,
I can simply press confirm.

Tune in radio search. Tune in stations.

And this brought me to tune in radio
where I can search the stations.

So this style of navigation
makes it very easy to quickly find the bookshelf that you want,
and then simply press keys 4 or 6
to navigate the items in that bookshelf.

Once you press confirm to choose it,
the next option that I'd like to show you is the ability
to hide various applications.

If you find that you don't use
the references option, for instance, or NLS, Bard,
or any of these services that you can add to your stream and you'd like to hide them
from the menus.

You can now do that
for a cleaner experience.

So I'm going to press key seven
and we will hop back into the menus menu.

Reauthorize.

This gives me an option
because I'm in a various bookshelf

I'm going to press key seven again
general settings.

Here's general settings
which is where we want to go.

So I'm going to press Confirm language.

And I'm going to press key for
to get to the hide Applications option.

Bookshelf navigation mode list app menu.

This is called App toggle menu.

And I'm going to press confirm
to go in here podcast on.

So it said podcast is on.

If I'd like to hide
that I can simply press confirm.

To do so, I'm going to press key
six to go to the next service.

Internet radio on.

Now let's say that I wanted to hide the
internet radio from my applications list.

I'm going to press confirm.

Turning off this service will delete
all associated content, press to confirm
or any other key to cancel.

So it asks
if I'd like to keep this service and if I do, it will remove
any associated content.

So I'm going to press confirm
to continue internet radio off.

And now it's off.

So when I go through my menus, which I'm
going to do, I'm going to press Q1 to get back to the bookshelves,
search tuning stations.

So I'm back on my tune in radio bookshelf.

And if I circle around,
you'll see that internet radio is no longer present unless barred.

Podcast NFB Newsline book.

Share.

Daisy online tune in radio references and barred podcast.

So when you can do this
with any number of bookshelves.

If you have other services like NLS, Bard,
or Book Share, you will want to remove
those credentials first and then you can hide those bookshelves
as well.

The next refactor
that I'm very excited to show you is our new Download Manager.

A lot of what we spend time doing on
the stream is downloading content from various sources
and enjoying that content, so we wanted a way to make this experience a bit more efficient and streamlined.

So to get to this download manager,
I'm going to press and hold three.

And just a quick note, you'll want to be
on your online bookshelves area.

To do this.

Download manager 12 Tech stuff.

The future is battery powered.

The story podcasts queued for download.

So I'm on the 12th option here.

And let's say that
I want to move this up in the list.

So if I press option
three cancel download.

So I have the option to cancel
the download I'm going to press key three.

Again download next I can download next.

So if I want to move this up in the order
all I do is press confirm.

One tech stuff.

The future is battery powered.

The story podcasts queued for download
and now, instead of being option 12 in the list, it has moved to option one
so I can prioritize episodes or article content into the order
that I would like to have them downloaded.

I'm going to press key three again and we'll go through
some more items in the Download Manager.

Cancel download I can cancel the current
download download next.

Pressing key three
I can get to download next.

Cancel all downloads.

I can cancel all the downloads
cancel download.

And we're back to cancel downloads.

So this is navigated
by a simple press of key three.

Once you are in this download manager.

And this gives you the ability
to reorganize your downloads and make it so you have the content that you'd like to listen
to more immediately at your fingertips.

So I'm going to now press the cancel key or the star key to exit the manager
unless barred.

And now I am back on my bookshelf list.

We've also made some adjustments
to podcasts in terms of changing
how many episodes you can get per feed, and how often the stream
will check for an updated podcast.

So I'm going to show you
how to check those options.

I'm going to navigate to my podcast
bookshelf References and less barred podcast.

I'm going to press confirm
since I have it in the new list mode to enter this bookshelf.

Podcast 19 feeds, one vests podcast, two new episodes.

Now here is the Apple this podcast.

And it's telling me that there are
two new episodes which I can download.

I'm going to press key
seven to go into the podcast on a local menu menu.

Human where podcast suggestion English
downloaded podcast episodes to keep three.

So I've pressed key six
to get to this option.

So right now it's telling me
that I can keep three episodes.

But let's say that
I really enjoy this podcast, and I want to make sure
that there are additional episodes.

So I'm going to press confirm
to go in this submenu here three here is three.

If I press key 645, six.

So I could tell the stream
that I would like to keep six episodes of the Apple
based podcast.

If I want to decrease that number,
I simply press key for five four and then to confirm my changes,
I will press the pound key selected downloaded
podcast episodes to keep for.

So now I have adjusted the number
of episodes that I would like to keep.

Now, while I'm still in this podcast menu,
I'm going to press key six to go to the next new option podcast Update interval 30 minutes.

This is podcast update interval.

It is set to 30 minutes.

I'm going to press confirm 30 minutes.

So at this point the stream will check
for new podcast episodes in this feed.

Every 30 minutes
I'm going to press key six one hour, two hours, eight hours.

So if I would like to spread out
the process of the stream checking for updates
and maybe not have it do it so frequently,

I can navigate with keys 4 or 6 and choose
the number of hours I would like.

I'm going to press confirm.

Let's say that I would like this
to check for every eight hours.

If there is a new podcast feed
selected, podcast update interval eight hours
and that's all there is to it.

So you can simply navigate into your podcast menu
when you're on the podcast bookshelf.

And you can do this for each podcast feed.

So if you want four episodes of one
and maybe six episodes of another, this is very simply done
by pressing seven.

Once you're on the feed of the podcast
that you would like to change, and then you can update the podcast
interval simply by navigating to that option within the Podcast
Local Settings menu.

The last enhancement that I would like
to show you that we've added to version 1.6, is the ability to quickly
pull up a list of Bluetooth devices that you have previously connected to,
and then choose one from the list.

To do that, you hold down key
nine Bluetooth audio devices

Rachel's AirPods,
and this pulls up a list of devices.

It's showing me that I have
my AirPods listed if I press key six,

Soundcore two, Soundcore two,
that's a speaker.

Rachel's AirPods
and I only have those two devices, and you can navigate them
by pressing keys 4 or 6.

To choose the device,
you simply press confirm.

So these are some of the new features
present in version 1.6.

A lot of these have been shaped by your feedback,
so we thank you for contacting us and letting us know what you would like
to see in a future software version.

All right everybody, it's time for the upcoming
shows segment.

Where can you find us in the month of May?

On May 21st, we will be at Tech
Blitz in Sands Point, New York.

From May 23rd through May 26th.

We will be at the Round Table
Alternative Print Conference in Adelaide,

Australia from May 25th through May 27th.

We will be at the Vision
Serve Alliance Conference at the Hyatt

Regency in Columbus,
Ohio, May 27th through May 29th.

You can find us at Site City in Frankfurt.

So if you happen to be at any of those
places, come by and say hello.

We'd love to talk with you.

If you have comments or suggestions,
we'd love to hear from you.

Please send them to podcast at Human.

That's podcast at human.

Thanks so much for listening.

To see things differently.

We'll see you next month.