Hello and welcome to the humanwhere See Things Differently podcast.

Each month, join your hosts Peter two six, Rachel Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you engaging interviews from guests, interaction from our one of a kind distribution partners stories that will take you off the beaten path, current promos, shows where you can find us, and so much more.

So stick around.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good night.

Good day.

I hope I got it right just from the same way

I did it in episode one, or the brief intro, version of this.

Welcome to episode two of See Things Differently with human, where my name is Peter two sic the director of Strategic partnerships at human.

We're joined once again by Rachel Ramos.

How's it going, Rachel?

Hey, Peter. I'm back. Rachel has a new mic.

Great.

I do have a new mic.

Got a mixer. I'm ready to go.

Woo! Yeah!

Settled in. Rachel is settled in.

You know it.

Glad you're here.

Rachel and David, how's the last month?

And how's your third Thursday of the month going?

Very good.

I'm just sitting here cringing quietly for Rachel's enthusiasm.

I'm just jazzed, David.

I'm ready to let it go. Awfully fired up.

I'll just be the calm voice of reason from beyond the grave.

I mean, beyond the southern hemisphere or something like that.

You're showing,

You're showing your age.

David, let's just just calm down.

I know, am I?

Oh, we are so glad to be back with everybody for the second episode. In this month, we're going to talk about lots of low vision themed pieces and myself and Rachel and David, we're all totally blind.

So it is Low Vision Awareness Month.

And so we want to, not necessarily step out of our comfort zones, but certainly talk a bit about low vision.

And I think for all of us, here, low vision is something, you know, that we aren't as familiar with as we are with blindness being totally blind and dealing with Braille and all these other things.

But we have an amazing program scheduled.

So stay tuned for an interview and for our other segments that you will come to know. quite regularly in terms of the tips and tricks we will have our partner corner, we will also have our cringe worthy piece and our hot take.

And I, you know, all of them will be themed around or sort of centered around low vision because of this Low Vision Awareness month.

To get things started, I want to welcome somebody who has a master's of music and vocal performance from Carnegie Mellon University.

She has performed all over the world from Tokyo to Heidelberg, certainly in places like Austria and Union Station, and in DC all over the place is a 2014 National Federation of the blind scholarship winner.

In addition to all of that, she is, you know, as a speaker, is a competitive ballroom dancer and is currently the president of the National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division.

Katelyn McIntyre, how are you?

It's wonderful to be here with you all.

Thank you so much for having me.

We're just so glad you can join us, and I can't wait for everyone to hear about all the cool things you do.

And as a singer, as a ballroom dancer, we're going to go into all this as a, actually, I should say competitive ballroom dancer, right? Yes.

I think, you know, we we're there's a lot of things here.

And I know we're recording this kind of late at night because you and I both have kiddos who are young and doing all these sorts of things.

So we appreciate your time.

How did you get into being a soprano opera singer and doing some amazing things?

What got you going in that direction?

Absolutely, yeah. Thank you.

You know, my goodness, that has many layers to it.

I grew up in a very musical family, so I have two older brothers, and we actually used to sing together as the McIntyre Family Singers.

Way back in the day.

My brothers would switch off, yes, between tenor and bass, and my mom sang alto, and I sings soprano.

And, that's kind of how I got my start in and, being musical together as a family.

And both of my older brothers also went on to pursue some music in college.

And, one of them was a classical pianist for a while became a singer songwriter.

The other did musical theater for, many years, was on the Mamma mia!

National tour side note, which is another fun conversation, but so I kind of just always grew up around music, knowing it was something that I loved.

Seeing them succeed at it gave me a vision for the fact, hey, I love this.

And I could certainly pursue this as a career as well.

And so I was very supported by my family, by my parents.

And so when it came time for college, I just kind of naturally-

Yeah, I absolutely want to do a Bachelor music in vocal performance.

Why not?

Which is the degree one would pursue if one wants to, study opera and art, song and classical music and all those things.

There are other variations, of course, of that, but, that's what I did.

So I went to college, to receive my bachelor's, and then followed that with a Master's degree, also in vocal performance.

And so I studied lots of different, operas, different languages, art songs, lieder, melody, German and French, things like that.

Got to premiere a contemporary opera, do all kinds of different things.

I also studied a little jazz and musical theater along the way, and,

I've been very blessed to do some wonderful performing.

And then as I have, kind of in the more recent years,

I still love to perform when I can, but I, as mentioned, also do have two little ones, a one and a half year old and a three and a half year old right now who keep me extremely busy.

They are bundles of joy.

But you know, as parents can relate.

They keep you tired and on your toes.

It's a wonderful adventure.

But, performance schedules are a little more challenging at the moment, so I do a lot of teaching now as well.

And so I teach voice, piano, guitar, music theory, mostly voice.

And I can do that out of my home.

I still do a lot of that virtually.

I have several virtual students.

And so anyway, it's a blessing I get to still perform when I can, but also pass on a lot of what I've learned to others and, and kind of still have my toe in that musical world, even though I'm also a full time mom right now.

You're mommying it up.

That is absolutely awesome.

How I guess as your as you're going through all of this and I know we had spoken briefly prior to recording this and I had asked you about having some usable vision.

How does your low vision or, you know, your blindness or visual impairment, how does it impact when you're learning something from scratch?

And I'm assuming, I mean, I know you you said you teach theory and that's great.

So you do know music and music theory and things, but are you sight reading this music?

What are you doing?

And how does that how do you mix, like having a bit of usable vision, but maybe not at full, full piece?

How does that work for you as you're starting to learn some of these new pieces or even pieces, you know, well, taking stage direction and things, how has it been?

Yeah.

And I will give the disclaimer that, you know, every

I think every low vision musician is a little bit different.

Right. And so I may do it one way.

This may work for some, but it may not work for someone else.

But for me, in my college years and, and throughout my music learning journey and career, I have used a lot of large print music and so, that has looked like some pretty large pieces of paper.

I actually have done 12 by 18 paper twice for every page of eight and a half by 11 music.

I would often have, you know, the top half of the page and then turned to the bottom half of the page.

But the answer to can I sight read is no, I can not read it fast enough.

So, you know, my vision is such.

I have nystagmus.

I'm far sighted.

I have about five degrees of vision.

So, like, all those things kind of combine that I can't really see a lot at once.

It doesn't come through real clear.

Takes me a minute to kind of focus on it so I can't be going, you know, note to note fast enough to keep up with it.

I can't see the words at the same time as the music.

So definitely sight reading is out.

As far as the learning, I definitely would go very, very slowly in a practice room.

So a measure of music is kind of a chunk of music, a phrase of music.

And I would, you know, look at that measure and maybe play the notes out on the piano, sing them back.

Okay, let me repeat this a few times.

Let me add the words in, or maybe read the words first and make sure I know what I'm saying, and then put the rhythm to it, put the music to it.

So kind of different techniques, but a lot of very slow, making sure that I get it accurately because that would be a shame to learn it wrong, right.

If I'm spending all this time and I sing the wrong notes.

So, I'm sure it's happened at some point.

Have you ever used any assistive technology?

You know, I guess both in learning or on stage at all, I mean, anything we know there are programs out there like, Lime Lighter or some other things.

Have you ever dabbled in that or have you just kind of not needed to?

That is a great question.

I did not know about Lime Lighter years ago when I was in college, which is so sad.

I think actually I did find out about it at one point, and my counselor said it was, my VR counselor said it was too expensive, which was really sad.

Oh no, that's a whole discussion for its own self.

Wholly Molly

I just and we do have a clip because I,

I'm fascinated by this and I want to ask you about this.

So if, if we can Rachel, can you cue a few seconds of this, so we can hear Katelyn singing and everyone loves hear themself sing, although you're a professional, so you can you're like, you're, like, proud of this.

If I heard myself sing, I'd run away. I wouldn't even be in this interview.

All right, let's roll the tape.

As they say. (Music playing) (Music playing) (Music playing) (Music playing)

So as we hear this and I took German in high school, and I'm not pretending to even know what you're saying.

I know the song is.

I think it's like, For My Love or something, I believe so.

Oh, they all are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know, it's one thing to learn a language to, you know, learn how to read and write that language, learn how to talk about language.

It's an entirely different world to learn how to sing in a language that you don't, I'm assuming, natively speak.

One question I've got my daughter is actually a audio sound and lighting engineer, for live performances, and I've always been curious to ask low vision people, how do you go when they use spotlights on stage?

So, you know, spotlight a particular singer or performer, and then you've got different lights going on as well, and you've got dark versus very bright light and that sort of stuff.

How does that affect you personally? Do you think?

Yeah, that's an interesting thought.

And, you know, again, this would be different for every low vision case because some people have super sensitivity to light.

So people have less.

So I'm kind of in the middle where I think I can, I know I have some friends who are very sensitive to light, and so they often just have to wear dark glasses.

If that's the case, if they're going to be in a spotlight situation or turn their head and ask that the spotlight be directed, you know, different work with the lighting person to try to, not be in that direct spotlight at that particular time or whatever it is.

For me, it's interesting.

I definitely, I definitely can't see anything out in the audience.

I, I couldn't probably see much anyway because it's too far away for me.

But when those bright lights are there, I'm like, well, yep. Definitely.

I have no idea if there's like one person out in the audience or, you know, 300 or whatever it is.

One thing that can be useful, this is not exactly, what you were saying, but I actually sometimes use those as cues for me.

And so if I know that there are going to generally be like two spotlights up in the, you know, kind of diagonal up left field of vision and the diagonal up right,

I can say, okay, I have generally pointed the right direction here versus, oh, I've got it to, into my right field of vision.

I must be a little bit turned. Let me turn myself back.

So sometimes that can actually be helpful.

Used as a, as you know, if you will, visual cues but staging cues but otherwise, yes, it can be a challenge.

I definitely don't rely on my vision as much as possible when I'm on stage.

So I try to just because you never know if something is going to be extra bright.

Or maybe my vision is going to be a little shaky that day, and it's going to be harder for me to focus.

And I just have no idea what what's what state I'm going to be, if you will.

You know how quickly my eyes are going to track that at that moment.

And so I try to generally do things with, with alternative techniques.

Anyway, as far as, using my feet maybe to find the edge of a rug that's maybe on the stage and that's my, my spot where I stand, or using the back of a couch kind of trail along while I walking from one side to the other, or maybe grabbing the arm of a fellow actor and pretending, you know, we're sisters.

And where we're dancing around, and we're going from one side of the stage to the other.

So, Caitlin, you mentioned something about, you know, your sisters and your dancing, but you also do ballroom dancing.

Is that right?

I do, I do.

How do you do that as a low vision person?

Because dancing is obviously something that requires a lot of movement and spatial awareness.

And I would just love to know some of the experiences that you've had in terms of either performing, or is it kind of a ballroom dancing with a partner?

How does that work? That's just fascinating to me.

Yeah. Thank you. I, I love it.

I one thing I think I'm very grateful for, grateful for many things, but one thing my parents did is they encouraged me to try different activities when I was young.

And so some of those were dance type things.

I did some tap in ballet and then got into clogging for many years, which is kind of like an Irish tap dance combination.

Side note what I loved about that is that it got me comfortable with my body, got me comfortable moving in space and being confident, you know, literally taking a step forward somewhere and using my arms out in the air around me and, and not being worried about what may happen.

You know, if I took one wrong step or something like that.

So it really developed a lot of self-confidence and, spatial awareness.

And so later when I was, in my Master's degree, actually is really when I started doing more ballroom dancing and, a lot of what competitive ballroom dancing is, is with a partner, you can do certain solo things, but it's a lot of with the partner.

And so usually I better follow their leads and follows traditionally, you know, better than women, but gender roles are more fluid now.

And so leads and follows.

And I've traditionally been a follow which for me as a blind person works great because if we are in a dance that is moving around the stage or the dance floor, I don't need to be as concerned about which direction exactly we're facing, how far our steps are going.

That's the lead's job is to determine direction and, kind of pacing of movement and those sorts of things.

The follow has, has other jobs.

That's been really helpful for me as someone who's blind, because it takes off a little bit of the pressure.

Additionally, there's the whole competitive angle.

And so in, at Carnegie Mellon University and then, other places

I've lived as well, I've done a little bit of competitive ballroom dancing.

And side note, I don't know if you found this in your research, Peter, but,

I actually met my husband doing ballroom dancing at Carnegie Mellon University.

No way. I clearly didn't do enough research.

I would have found that if I had kept digging.

But, yeah, I would have found that, on the Carnegie

Mellon dance ballroom dance team and, the rest is history.

We became partners, started dancing together, and, it's really sweet.

Yeah.

We've been married for seven years now, and so it's great.

I have a built in dance partner.

So as we, as we wrap this up, I really want to you to, to talk a bit about your work with the National Federation of the Blind and, and you mentioned that kind of the ballroom, you know, doing some, some dance classes.

I know I've seen that on agendas.

I've been too embarrassed and scared. I haven't gone downstairs.

You'll have to join us.

We might be doing it this year.

I will be there.

I will hold you to it.

I'll find you at the exhibit hall now. You're in trouble, Peter.

You're going to do it now. We want to report back now.

I'm easy to find at those conventions.

But can you talk a bit?

So you're the president of the Performing Arts division?

Can you talk a bit about,

I guess, yeah.

You know, just where that started.

I mean, we do so much work at HumanWare with the NFB.

I mean, we sponsor the scholarships.

And you were a former scholarship winner.

We do lots of things.

Everything down to the, you know, yearly donor, matching campaigns.

We do quite a bit of support to local, state level, you know, chapter conventions.

We do a lot of things.

We are supporters of and partners, on projects like the Monarch and going back to the Victor Reader Stream and all sorts of things at HumanWare but from from that standpoint, can you talk a bit about your work there as the president and maybe some things you're you're doing or what you've done and maybe how you're going to kind of push all that forward as we go through 2025 and beyond.

Sure. Yeah.

So like you mentioned, I was a scholarship winner way back in 2014.

And that's how I really got involved with the National Federation of the Blind.

Like, I had grown up hearing about it, but my mom had read Future Reflections, the parent magazine.

Off and on.

It's I grew up with a very positive blindness philosophy, as one might say.

And knowing that I could, you know, reach for my goals and not let blindness be an obstacle.

If I, you know, wanted to try something, I should go for it.

And so I had a positive outlook.

But when I became a part of the federation in 2014, it was really exciting to meet, you know, literally several thousand other people who were experiencing similar things.

I had never been in a group of so many blind people before.

It was amazing.

So I did I jumped right in and joined the Performing Arts Division board that year and have been on it ever since and became president.

I think it was in 2020.

And so I, I love that we get to really work on just raising expectations for blind people in the entertainment industry, whether as, you know, a professional or a hobbyist, whether in music, dance, acting, whatever it is, we want to encourage, both blind people and sighted people in, in the performing arts that blind people can, be performers as well.

We can compete with our sighted counterparts in whatever career or hobby we want to do.

And, you know, like I was talking about with dance, it might just take some alternative techniques and adaptations, maybe a little patience on the part of, several people. But, there are wonderful ways that blind people be involved with performing arts.

And, and that should not be a barrier to, reaching for your dreams, if that's what you want to do.

Let's see. What am I excited about for 2025?

We do have our own podcast, so we can share, among each other.

Oh, plug it, plug it, plug it.

We have. Yeah.

Our podcast is called Scene Change.

And definitely check us out. We've got about 45 episodes.

Everything from talking to blind comedians to aerial silks, artists to blind ballet.

Whatever you're interested in, we may have an episode about it. So.

So check it out. We want it to be a resource.

We also recently finally put up a, a new resource called the Blind Performer Fact Sheet.

And it is, it lives on the web.

I think the hope I'm going to get this URL right, but you can even go to our website, you know, at and find it nfb.org.

And it's a wonderful fact sheet.

It's a fairly comprehensive list of ideas for adaptations, alternative techniques that you could use as a blind performer to achieve your goals.

So whether you want to be a dancer, hey, maybe, some of the things I mentioned, make sure that you're getting verbal instruction, make sure you can feel the instructor's feet if that's helpful for you.

If you're acting, maybe you have some tactile tape on the stage that marks your spot where you need to stand.

So it's not just visual, it's also tactile.

Maybe you're, you know, using that sound cue of where the speakers are, where the orchestra is to, to know where the front of the stage is.

So different things like that, to just give you ideas so you don't have to reinvent the wheel and say, how on earth am I going to play in an orchestra?

How on earth am I going to, you know, act on, on screen?

And so, yeah, we just want it to be it's a free resource.

Anyone can go find it. And use it.

There's a PDF, or, sorry, an HTML version and, Word version.

So you can even download it and, you know, use that, maybe even hand it to a director, edit it, make it your own and say, hey, these are some things that have worked for me. It take that into an audition if you're a blind performer.

Well, Katelyn, thank you so much for for talking with us.

And you're going to stick around for another another segment or two.

It's just it's been so neat.

Really neat to hear about.

I could I have so many questions, I really do.

And so I might have to do some something else at some point.

Thank you tremendously.

And we're going to be right back with some more with Katelyn McIntyre.

Welcome back to another segment here on See Things Differently with HumanWare. the podcast and this is our hot take piece.

And Katelyn is kind enough to join us.

Continue to be here with us.

We haven't driven her away.

She actually wanted to leave I, we had to we had to, like, call her, convince her to come back. Not. We didn't have to do that.

But we're glad Katelyn has stuck around and we want to talk a bit about and and again, the whole point of this segment is to talk about a topic.

We don't we don't need to be highly controversial, but just talk about something where we may have differing opinions on how and when we handle, certain facets of blindness.

And in this piece, you know, I want to touch on disability disclosure and when and how or when we feel comfortable and you're all going everyone out there is going to feel differently about how or when you disclose their disability.

Primarily thinking about this through a job application side of things.

Katelyn, as a performer, you know, even myself, I mean, sometimes it comes down to, you know,
when we're needing someone to do something in our house, when do we disclose their disability?

How do we do it?

And how what are our thoughts?

And I have the, the floor, so I'll kind of kick it off to say that personally,

I usually let it be known that I am totally blind.

I don't often, you know, even and I've, I've had several job interviews where I've gotten that out of the way rather quickly.

I have absolutely had that serve as a, as a reason for not continuing with more interviews.

And I know that, and that's a bummer, but

I feel comfortable enough and I'm confident enough to disclose.

But I've also had times where I wish I would have been more, you know, have been able to be more present with the disability in terms of someone will come to the door, somebody will come to do something.

And if I'm not ready with my cane at that moment, they just think I'm a clueless person.

This happened a couple of weeks ago.

You know, where somebody is coming and trying to deliver pizza, and I didn't even know they were there.

I thought they were a few steps or feet away, and I.

I almost wiped them out on my front step.

I'm just curious for all of us here.

And we'll start with you, Katelyn, do you disclose your blindness?

I mean, people, I guess at this point might know some something as they kind of know who you are and as you have notoriety and kind of you do all these neat things. But what are your thoughts on that?

How do you disclose when you disclose?

And has it been something that you've maybe changed over time?

Or sometimes you do or don't?

I am a cane user and so generally I disclose just by the nature of the fact that I have my cane with me, and if I'm walking into a space, people are going to see that and see, oh, she has this cane. Okay. Is that a blindness cane? Okay. Yeah.

It's just, you know, probably blind.

So if it's somewhere where I am physically present, walking into the space,

I have my cane, which is, you know, 99.9% of the time.

I will disclose this because otherwise I feel like it'd be awkward if I didn't say anything sometimes. Right.

You know, it's if I if I leave it, it becomes the elephant in the room.

Whereas if I say, hey, I'm blind, you might have, you know, can you show me where I'm signing the paper?

Do you mind if I, take a seat here.

Is this available?

You know, whatever it is, I just kind of get it out of the way sometimes.

Loosens that tension.

The only time I would say I haven't really disclosed this early is, in our lovely, you know, last few years, since the pandemic, with Zoom and other conferencing services, being online and even with video, I may not, you know, people may not realize that I'm when I've been in, you know, I don't know, maybe a Bible study or something that I've been meeting with these people for several months and all of a sudden I'll drop something or being blind and I'm like, wait, what?

You're you know, you're blind.

So, Oh, yeah, I guess I never mentioned that.

And in that case, you know, it is kind of nice sometimes.

Not to disclose it in those situations, but, for me, for jobs as a performer, they're going to find out pretty quick.

I'm going to need some accommodations.

I'm going to need some adaptations, maybe, in the choreography or in the, in the blocking.

And so I just figure I want to get it out of the way and get the elephant, you know, out of the room.

I definitely know that there are there are certainly people who, specially on the job interview front who will not disclose, you know, and will say, look,

I mean, it has no impact on the job that I'm going to perform.

And I totally respect and understand that.

And I think though I, I then personally, I, I couldn't do it only because I know that I am you know, my blind is it's not it's not going to define me but it is, you know, part of who I am.

It's probably the last thing you'll remember, but it certainly is something that you're going to have to encounter.

And so I tend to kind of bring it forward.

But I know that there is definitely, you know, a group of folks who will say, no, we don't, you know, it's not right to disclose.

There's no reason to it has no bearing on the job or the work that I'm that I'm going to be doing.

It's funny because I disclose all the time, particularly when I'm competition in karate, because two things happen to me if I don't say anything, people end up running into me, or I run into them and they go, watch where you're going.

That's number one. Number two.

And I don't know visually if this is correct, but because I use a white cane, if people aren't looking at it properly, it can actually be seen as a bow or a weapon.

So I got in trouble for one day from a black belt saying, yeah, you're not allowed to walk around outside of the mat with that bow, don't you?

And I went,

And I went, oh, sorry, this is a white cane.

I'm a blind person.

Hello, pleased to meet you

And they went, oh, terribly sorry.

Just at first glance it looked like a bow staff.

Whoops. So, yeah.

So particularly for competition, I always make sure that I, you know,

I can't say blind as a bat, blah, blah, blah.

What do you want to call me?

Absolutely fine.

But just be aware that I will not be able to see you when you move.

I don't disclose with Uber Eats and I've definitely had situations where and this was, when I lived back in my previous location.

I'll walk outside, meet the driver.

They think it couldn't possibly be a blind person who's ordering food, so I don't know how long.

We've probably stood there for like five minutes until they're like, Rachel?

Yes? Did you order food? I sure did.

Blind people get hungry too

Blind people need to eat too!

Yeah, I, I've told I live on a fire lane, as you know, Rachel, where it's like you don't really drive down it, you know, and, it's just a disaster to get food here, and I and I believe

I order food like, twice a week, and it's a disaster.

This really goes extremely well into our cringe moments, because I've had lots over the last long, long, long, long time.

And I'm sure everybody else is so Peter.

You can take it away and you can start with your- actually, no, no, no, I can.

Let's make Rachel go first with her first cringe moment.

Let's do it. I am ready for this one.

So this cringe moment is brought to you by the overly helpful citizens that we have all encountered in various environments.

Now, I'm going to start at the airport.

I travel a lot for my work as David and Peter and even Katelyn.

You've certainly had your travels, and as we go around, we find various ways that work for us.

In terms of travel, I tend to travel pretty light with just my carry ons, with my technology and backpack and things, and it seems to never fail that when I request assistance, not a wheelchair, anything, they tend to send a wheelchair and that's usually fine.

You can kind of say, hey, thank you for bringing this, but I don't need it.

The interesting part comes when they decide you do need it, that they tend to know your needs better than you know your own.

And I've definitely mentioned to the person say, I really don't.

And they say, oh, but I have to take this chair.

Why don't you just sit down? It will be faster.

I say.

Usually, no, I think I can walk faster than you can push this chair.

And I have put my bags in the chair and I'm sure they've gotten some very interesting looks.

Yeah, this is my move. Put the bags in the char

We can use that.

You can take that chair. I'll put my suitcase on it. Exactly.

And then you don't have to roll it, but you can roll it in the chair.

So that's how I tend to deal with overly, helpful and wheelchair insisting airport personnel.

Yeah, I'll touch on this. I was doing some.

And in the theme in the motif, that's for you, Katelyn.

The motif of overly zealous or hopeful folks.

And again, usually well-meaning, good intentions, but just

I was doing some capturing of intersections and doing some recording of different things and testing out some StellarTrek accuracy.

StellarTrek, a HumanWare product, of course.

And there was somebody who followed me, and I'm talking,

I don't know where this person was supposed to be, and this, this, this person was clearly like they had somewhere to be.

They were they were working in the universe.

I live near the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This person followed me for like three different intersections and just kept wanting to help me cross the streets.

And it became clear that I wasn't there to cross the street.

I was trying to cross all four streets.

I was going in a big circle, essentially, and I just kept saying, I'm good.

I've got this, you know, I'm all right.

Thank you so much.

Finally, it was like, I hope you have an awesome weekend.

That was just like that.

I was the first.

And still I'm like, I just hope it's a great day, you know?

But and there are times where I'll take this help and I'll say, you know, somebody's being overly nice.

I will let them help me, simply because I will probably never see them again.

And they and they will feel good for helping me, even though I don't need it.

I'm never one to be adamant.

Like, please don't. I've got this. Go away.

I won't do that.

But there are times where it's just, I don't I mean, it's so hard because you want to just say, please let me do some informed discovery here.

I mean, let me learn about this space.

I'm sure you've had some of this, Katelyn.

Right?

Like people just wanting to.

Oh, they just they're, like, overbearing.

Oh, yeah.

Well, it made me think of what actually related to performing arts.

So what are the things I was mentioning a little bit earlier about, stage, you know, stage layouts and people having this irrational fear that I'm going to fall off the stage, which I, you know, I know it's happened to people over the years.

It's not to say that it could never happen.

But I've thankfully, I've never, fallen off a stage.

I almost fell off a riser once, but I survived.

I think it's happened, but I think a lot of times it has nothing to do with blindness.

Exactly. Totally, totally.

And so I, you know, one time this person was so concerned over like this, this one step up to the stage and they but my mom was actually there.

And so of course they were talking to her. Not to me.

Because, you know, that's another thing people do.

But she was she was saying, oh yeah, okay, it'll be fine, you know?

And the person was like, oh, well, but is it going to be okay?

You know, she's going to fall. No, no, she'll be fine.

Okay.

Because she has a sixth sense, right?

She, she has a sixth sense. So so that's why she'll be fine, right.

Oh. Cringeworthy.

My mom was just like, at that point.

Yes, yes, she'll be fine, you know, because it's like, what do you say to.

No, I do not have a sixth sense, you know, I am I have the same senses as you.

But anyway, so I it's those, those very well-meaning people who are just overly concerned for our safety.

And we're going to be just fine.

Well, we this segment is always interesting.

I think we'll have we'll we will never have a shortage of pieces of info to talk on the cringeworthy, part of this podcast, because and again, it is not to say that, these are situations that are bad or wrong.

I mean, last time we talked about having stains on your clothing and what?

You know, what do you want to be told or how do you.

And so there's always these things and there's no right or wrong answers.

But I think it's great to shed some light on, some of this.

And I will say to anyone out there is this, please just address the person you want to talk to unless you're told not to, or it's that, you know, if there's a, you know, somehow you're informed, that you don't, shouldn't or don't need to talk to the person that you want to talk to.

You just speak to us.

It's, it's a very simple thing, and I think it.

But it goes it just comes up time and time again.

Remember, we will have Katelyn's bio in the show notes, as well as ways to follow her on social media.

Please reach out.

We want to hear from you.

I've already received some great feedback from those of you who have listened to the first episode or two, so please send us a note [email protected] .

We'll be right back.

Welcome back to the Tips and Tricks segment of See Things Differently with HumanWareand this month with the Low Vision team,

I'm joined by our Humanware's own product manager for Low vision, Roger Steinberg.

How's it going, Roger?

Peter I'm just trying to stay warm.

Yeah, I think we all are.

It's. It's cold.

Welcome to February.

Unless for that, for all of our friends listening in Australia.

They're not cold but good for them.

Yeah, exactly.

Now. But, Yeah, I've had enough already.

So we're going to talk a bit about some low vision tips and tricks and a lot of this. I'm totally blind.

And so, you know, I hear these things and I think for for many of us, even if you're newer to vision loss, you hear certain terms and just wonder what does that mean?

And this comes up often, and I want to be able to kind of let

Roger talk about what some of a couple of key terms that he deals with and that we hear about from time to time, just to simplify what those terms mean.

And the first one I want to start with is going to be optical versus digital zoom.

So Roger, can you touch a bit on what are the differences between optical versus digital zoom.

What does it really mean.

Yeah, I think it can be really confusing to folks.

And you know, unless you're involved in this on a day to day basis, you could be confused by this, very easily.

But, optical zoom is going to be what

Well, certain people of my age would be familiar with this, but it's going to be a physical lens.

So you think about the old hand magnifier that you would use, or the lenses that are used in photography for, for high level photography, like you see at sporting events or in nature to capture birds of flight and so forth.

So using a physical lens.

And the nice thing about that is there's no degradation of what you're seeing, although they do have their limits as to how far you can go at times.

Whereas digital zoom, almost all of us are using this now because we're walking around with cell phones in our pockets and you're using a digital device, and that's taking an image and turning it into, bits and pieces that you can see on the screen, which are called pixels.

But this means that as you increase your magnification level, you can get, some pixelation happen to what you're looking at.

The nice thing is it allows you to go to higher levels, but, you do get that, sort of somewhat of a degradation of what you're looking at, if you will, as you go to higher levels of zoom.

So we like to do combinations of those.

Are there products that we have at HumanWare I know that we, we have a wide range of low vision devices that you manage what which which of our products would utilize either digital or the optical zoom or both to where do we fit in so well?

We use optical zoom in our Reveal16 and Reveal16i which are our larger magnification devices

We classify those as transportable, because they can be folded up and carried around.

But they run about 16 inches in size.

And then, of course, we use digital zoom in our Explore line, which we have a 5 inch, an 8 inch and a 12 inch model.

And, we also use, digital zoom, a good bit in our Prodigi software because we're utilizing, document cameras when we're using that.

But again, the knowledge of the two allows you to understand, you know, what you're working with.

And in a device like the reveal 16, where we combine the two.

So you have, some optical zoom, and then we cut it over to a digital zoom that helps you understand, what you're going to achieve by using the device.

So that's why it's important.

And that digital zoom does allow you to get that more compact size.

So you have something that can help you out wherever you may find yourself.

Again, going back to the idea of your cell phone, you know, it's got the smaller screen.

It's very compact, but it is using digital zoom all the time.

And just to throw it in there, we do have an Explore Magnifier app that you can throw on your cell phones, either, your Google phones or your iPhones out there.

Love it.

And another one that comes up a lot that I hear, mentioned and certainly have no clue as to deciphering exactly what it means is positive versus negative presentation or can you talk a bit on that?

What does that mean?

Yeah.

So, well, if you think about it, when you're using a magnifier, obviously if this is a handheld, you are just going to see things, as, as they naturally would.

So you got that, you know, handheld magnifier like we grew up with around on the end of a stick that you use to look at things.

You're seeing things in full color.

Likewise, when you're looking through a camera lens, that physical lens, you're seeing everything in full color. Some eye conditions.

It becomes very useful to be able to take away the color and, strip it away, if you will, and come back with an image that is either, full black on white, so black text on a white background or white text on a black background.

So these would be the positive and negative.

So the positive would be black text on a white background.

Negative would be white text or lighter colored text on a black background.

And all of our devices do this.

But understanding what it is can be helpful.

I'm using the example of black and white.

We have a multitude of colors you can choose from to do that inversion.

So you could have a blue on a yellow, yellow on a blue and things like this.

Yeah, yeah.

And I know for some

I think for some of our devices you have like 16 possible combos, right.

Oh yeah. Yeah. 16 in fact, we've added most recently we added white on red and red on white, at the request of our customers.

So, you know, we are listening to the voice of customers.

And again, this becomes something of not just a personal preference, but what do you require to get the best experience, when you're using the device.

And of course, this level of contrast can really improve the readability for individuals with low vision.

So I think of just, can you when shepherd blue on black.

And so I need you to add that even though it would make no sense,

I need you to add that into one of our color combos if you can. Right on.

So the next one here, and kind of the final piece, and this is something I've heard a lot, especially with the with our Explore Magnifier series.

And I don't fully understand this.

This is lines and blinds.

It comes up quite often as a, as a talking point when somebody is giving a presentation.

I always support lines and lines or you change these settings.

What are lines and blinds and how do they help somebody using, you know, a magnification device.

Right.

So again this is terminology that as you start to look into digital magnification you're going to hear these terms thrown around.

So essentially what lines are is like a reading line or a line marker.

They can be horizontal.

Most frequently they are used horizontally, although, we can convert those to a vertical bar, if you will.

But if you for those that, have read books in the past, using a book mark to guide yourself to stay on a line, that's basically what it does.

It just creates a space for you to have one line of text to show at one time.

So this would, you know, remove a lot of visual distraction, some, some eye conditions that becomes clutter, as well as and I should mention that there are times where persons with other forms of, learning disabilities could be using, the tool.

So you could have a visual issue as well as a, attention disorder and being able to focus in on just a line of text at one time can be very helpful in those regards.

There are also eye conditions or conditions where the eye drifts off of a line of text.

And this can keep you on that line of text to maintain that focus.

Blinds are very simple.

But they are a little bit larger, area, but they block off a, an area of surrounding text.

So you want to think of this as sort of like a teleprompter view, where only the text to read is shown, typically a line at a time.

But again, it's just another mode of sort of, driving the focus of what you're looking at.

So having both to choose from is really helpful so that the individual can choose which one reduces any visual clutter they might be experiencing.

You know, to what they need to have the best experience possible when they're using a device.

Love it. Well, thank you so much, Roger.

This is super helpful.

And again, I as someone you know, I'm totally blind.

Or if somebody kind of hears a lot of these terms or sifts through different things, it can be a bit hard to, to understand.

And I appreciate just having some clarity.

And thanks for joining our Tips and Tricks segment for the second episode of Seeing Things Differently with HumanWare. Thanks Peter, I love it.

I can't wait to do it again. Rock and roll. Take care

And welcome back everybody to the Partner Corner.

And this month as it is Low Vision Awareness Month,

I have a friend of mine and actually somebody who is another HumanWare distributor who is low vision and runs a business that sells and deals with a lot of low vision equipment, both HumanWare and other product lines.

His name is Sloan Morris.

How's it going? Sloan? How are you?

Great Peter.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm glad you're here.

It's a happy, nice and freezing cold afternoon where we are.

We're both in Illinois, and it's cold. Cold?

Yes, it is, but for our friends listening in Australia.

I mentioned this earlier.

It's not cold.

And, I wish it was summer here, but.

Well, you know, soon enough.

Sloan, you are someone who-

I mean, you are lovers and yourself.

And you run a business called Innovative Vision Products.

Can you talk a bit about how or you know, how you started in this field, or was it because of your vision loss?

Or, you know what, what got you into kind of running this- running the company?

You do? Yeah, it definitely was because of my vision loss.

Started first notice when I was losing my vision.

I was nine years old, and, was in mainstream business.

Most of my life working, doing the corporate thing.

And then, I had thought that, you know,

I would really like to do something different outside of the corporate world.

And I thought it would be great if I could be in business, but also help people and just being able to help other people that had vision loss was kind of a natural fit.

I've used assistive technology since I was 15 years old, and so, and I know how much it benefited me in my day to day life.

So I thought, you know, there's a lot of people that do not know about all the options that are available to them.

So, that's what got me started.

And so in 2004, I started Innovative Vision Products.

And, you know, what we do is we go around and work with people, both individuals and agencies, institutions, you name it, and really just try to help them find solutions that will make their daily lives or their work life or anything, much easier than, people that are struggling with low vision because a lot of them, you know, are new to low vision.

It's not something they've had all their life.

So the changeover from being fully sighted to having a vision impairment is, can be quite daunting for a lot of individuals.

Do you think it's easier for you to relate to your potential customers because you have a visual impairment yourself?

I was kind of, you know, I mean, I'm totally blind and I definitely have a bit of rapport.

More so than others who might, you know, might be sighted and working in the space. And not that they can't develop that.

But do you find yourself doing a lot of almost, you know, counseling or, you know, working with, with somebody through a situation as much as you do demonstrating or talking about a product?

Definitely, definitely. That's a lot of it.

Because I go in there, you know, when I'm going in there,

I want to make sure that they're better off when I leave there, whether it be, giving them some tips and tricks for living with low vision or coming up with a device that, will make their life a lot easier. Working with them.

You know, a lot of times I have to.

It gives me instant credibility.

I'll say that once they know that I've walked in their shoes, then, you know, the edge.

If they head up like, oh, what's this guy doing in my house?

Or what's he coming here to sell me?

Once we get that established, that I've used the products as well and depend on them, it gives us instant credibility.

The one thing I do have to remember is, I'm there to solve their vision problems.

Or just because maybe a certain device doesn't help me with my vision condition.

They may benefit from it, you know, a lot more than I would have.

So, I have to remember, you know, they're the ones that, they're trying to help.

Because sometimes I think.

Oh, well, I don't see too well at this one, but I see better this one.

Well, I need to make sure I know that they are, finding the right device that's going to help them, you know?

So I usually ask them, you know, what do you think of 8 or 10 things you struggle with day in, day out?

And I tell them, you know, we're not going to find a device that meets every single need, but we should be able to find a device that meets 80% of those needs.

And, you can go on from there, and it should make your life a lot easier and give you back some independence.

Yeah. And I guess for yourself, are there, do you have an absolute I mean, a device you use consistently, not only just in your personal life, but something to run on a daily basis.

Do you have a driver, a daily driver of technology that you kind of use?

All the time?

Are you using lots of different things, or do you just kind of use one computer and that's about it?

I am definitely going with the toolbox approach.

So I have multiple things depending on what I need and being in the industry.

I guess I'm a little bit spoiled because I have access to all of those.

But yeah. We were together last week

I'm going to get to use that StellarTrek all the time.

Yeah, that that'll be great, because the more and more I find a need for that.

But, now I go, you know, I've, I've started using a CCTV, you know, closed circuit television, as people call them.

Video magnifiers.

We call them nowadays when I was 15.

So that's quite a while ago.

And I. That's kind of a crutch.

I still have on my desk, but, as my vision, you know, gets a little worse each year, I'm not quite as effective on that.

So I have gone to more speech.

So while on my computer I use, Fusion, which is, you know, both gives me low vision and speech output and then on my, you know, and then I have a phone that I go to that,

I Voiceover on my iPhone, so but then a lot of other things because what has happened is what is so great about technology now is it's gotten so much smaller and so much easier to use.

You know, anything from the portable magnifiers like the Explore line of products

Just makes it a lot easier to have things at, at my side and that I can just grab and, you know, and for some people, especially when they're new to low vision, they're a little apprehensive about having a device that looks out of the ordinary.

But other devices now just look like an iPad.

And, and people don't stick out, especially for kids in school.

They don't really want to use something that's going to make them any different than their classmates.

But they pull out, you know, like an Explore 8 or Explore 12, and it looks like they're just on an iPad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's absolutely right.

And coming from myself, I was I was using all kinds of crazy, crazy looking Braille devices or big braillers and things.

And now today, to have even, even Braille devices fitting that where you don't just kind of stand out, it's a big, big difference, from where we were even a few years ago.

Can I ask you one other thing?

Before we wrap this up, you have done and I and I, I think this is important.

You, you know, you've done some support groups and things over the years I know of.

And, yes, you're very local to the Illinois sort of distribution network here.

And for us, you're a big partner here.

But do you still do much of that or and I think it's important for people to know that, that there are low vision support groups.

There are support groups out there.

Can you talk a little bit about what your role was or is in those kinds of spaces?

Because I know they exist in different all over the world, really? Yes.

I truly enjoy getting up and speaking with people about, coping and living with, you know, low vision and, vision impairments.

I think it's important when people go to a support group that they realize, you know, they're there to learn and try to grow and cope and not there just to complain about their vision condition.

Because if you get, you know, too many of those people in the group, it really drags the group down as hard to move forward with helping everybody, grow in their knowledge of, you know, just living with low vision and how best to live their daily lives.

So, I enjoy that and I enjoy sharing my experiences with other people, and they tend to open up and share their experiences as well.

And then we just kind of talk about, you know, how they work through that situation, how best to handle it going forward.

And I, and I relate to them that, you know, most people we encounter, a lot of them have never met somebody else that has, a vision condition that can't be corrected with glasses.

And so they really don't know how to interact with us sometimes.

And I tell them, you know, they get their cues of how we handle our own condition ourselves.

So if we come and have an edge to us and say, well, don't ask me about my vision, I don't want to talk about it.

Well, that puts them on edge.

Once we're able to cope with our condition ourselves, they will take our lead.

So if we say, you know, this is my, you know, I have trouble seeing distance or I have trouble, reading if it's not magnified, then they get their cues from us and they get they learn to cope with it.

And and I know there are lots of groups out there.

I just wanted to touch on that because you are a great resource.

I think, for people who are newer to vision loss, than just, you know, have that have that, have that good, that good experience, that lived experience.

So thanks so much for joining.

And I know this was very quick, but can you tell us where, tell the listeners where they can find more about your company and, and, you know,

I guess just how they might be able to get in touch with you.

If they do go to your website, is there an email or anything you want to provide there?

And we'll put this in the show notes as well.

The best way to reach me would be on our website, which is, innovativeVisionPro.com and I represent, products just in the state of Illinois.

So if you need other people, there's, definitely other people that can get in touch with. Rock and roll!

Thanks, Sloan. Thank you.

Welcome back to the final piece of this, which is the upcoming show segment where it will tell you where you can find us.

Should you want to stop by our booth and say hi.

Thanks to all of you who came out to ATIA in Orlando amongst our other shows.

We are going to be at the Phoenix AER Conference on March 7th.

That'll be in Phoenix, Arizona.

We will be at the CSUN Conference, one of the biggest at conferences, you know, concerning North America at least, that will be taking place from the 10th to the 14th of March in Anaheim, California.

And then we will be at the NFB of California conference from the 14th to the 16th of March.

Please come find us. Come say hi.

It could be a mix of representatives or find our distributors.

Certainly we have a large network of those, as you have heard.

So we will see you when we do.

And thank you again to Katelyn for stopping by for David and Rachel.

This is Peter saying we'll see you on the third Thursday of April.

Thanks all.

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

Please send them to [email protected].

That's [email protected].

We'll see you next month!