Hello and welcome to the HumanWare See Thinks Differently podcast. Join your host, Peter Tucic, Rachel Ramos and David Woodbridge as we bring you engaging stories and interviews from guests, interaction from our one of a kind distribution partners, tips and tricks, current promos, upcoming shows and conferences where you can find us, and so much more. So stick around.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good day, good night, wherever you may be. My name is Peter Tucic, I am the director of Strategic Partnerships at HumanWare, and welcome to episode 1, the first episode. I am here with Rachel. Hello, Rachel. Hello, Peter. I am here with David. Hello, David. Hello, Peter and Rachel. You know what?

It's what I aim to do. Just give everyone a successful start. Let's do it. You set the bar. You set the bar. The problem is, now I don't know what I aim to do. Because if I just means I aim to keep success going. We are here, and we are thrilled to be on episode 1. And we are joined by a friend of mine, a friend of many of you who are out there listening.

Somebody whose voice you will know very well doesn't need much introduction. Has run various businesses, has been parts of lots of organizations, done all sorts of things and is very well known in this space. And I thought, you know, when we were thinking about guests to have on our first episode, there was nobody more fitting and really no voice, more fitting to come on our first episode of HumanWare than JJ Meddaugh.

Well, thank you so much for coming, JJ and I know for for many people out there, you know, we certainly--> I was one of them who would listen all the time to you. And here I am many years later, kind of we're getting everything going ourselves. And I thought you'd be a perfect person to have on, especially considering that January is Braille Awareness Month, and you like myself and David and Rachel, we're all totally blind, and you're a Braille reader, so I thought it would be a really fun thing to talk to you a bit about all that you do, in case there there, there are there are probably a lot of people who don't really know the the ins and outs of, of AT guys and all of the stuff you do and have done, but also just how Braille plays a role in what you do. And certainly that would tie into what we do is a very Braille centric company, HumanWare

So I'm just really glad you could join us. Well, thank you so much. It's a pleasure and happy to talk about AT guys, some Braille and whatever else I guess Braille awareness month. Bam, I like it. So JJ, can you tell me I guess first of all, have you you've read Braille since you were a kid. All right.

Still a child. Yep. I definitely learned that was probably 3 or 4 when I started reading, a little bit of Braille and was fortunate I had enough vision that I could use a CCTV. The big, huge desktop ones, big white letters on black and could do that here and there. But my family and my teachers had the awareness that I was not doing that efficiently, and Braille was going to be my primary reading medium.

So I'm really fortunate for that, that I was taught Braille right along with everyone else learning French. I learned both the print letters and the Braille letters. I thought that was really important while I was five. I'm not sure. I really thought it was important when I was five, but it happened, and, you know, pretty much started with the Versa Braille.

And as far as technology had one of them and sitting on a desk in third grade and have used Braille, you know, like so many people, not as much as I would like to in my day to day. I use a screen reader a lot too. But it's been a part of my life. I guess you're dating yourself with the Versa Braille.

And we were joking earlier that David is always going to be dating himself on this podcast, but I think you've just beat him to the punch. David, did you ever use a Versa Braille? No, I did not. Yeah, I saw a Versa Braille in the in the sort of like the early 80s, but that was about it.

I sort of when I looked at that, I went, yeah, it's a cassette in the 20s, so brought us blind and that was the end of it. But when I didn't have the cassette, so I read about that and heard about that in the magazines. But I had one. It was using 3.5in discs, and an external drive.

And your, your menu options, as you know, for the first Braille or anyone who knows was single letters. So you just had to memorize. So it was F-->P-->D-->O, there's the main menu. So hopefully you knew what that meant. And then once you picked one of them, you get a whole new set of letters. You know, I guess there wasn't enough room to actually write out the whole name of the thing and hit down arrow.

That would have made a lot more sense. But no, this was the 80s, and that's all technology was. It's funny because I sincerely have absolutely no clue what you guys are talking about. You young whippersnapper. Rachel, did you ever use a Versa Braille? I have not used one. I know people that have. So if it's in a museum somewhere, we need to organize a tour and check it out.

Go on eBay. Yeah. Once in a while you can find old things like that on eBay. Working? I am not sure, but I mean on eBay. Do you? Do you still have the classified stuff? Don't you? Yeah, here and there. And we don't usually see Versa Braille. No, I wouldn't think so. Here we go. Versa Braille PTC vintage computer for the blind $274.

That's as of the time of this recording. All right. That's it. I got to buy one. If it's probably $1 million. Australian, actually. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome though, JJ, I mean, and I think you said something important and a lot of us, and certainly I've been fortunate enough to kind of float around the school system the last many, many years with, with HumanWare meeting kiddos who sometimes are dual learners.

And to have your family on board does make a big difference in a situation like yourself. And I know we've heard from many of our, you know, many of my colleagues and others who do use Braille, that sometimes there is a struggle when you have a bit of usable vision, do you maximize that usable vision and sometimes there's this pressure to not utilize Braille because you have this, you know, this, this usable vision that maybe, maybe you could rely on and certainly my father is from another country, from the Balkans and where my dad is from, there just aren't many blind people.

And so there was the same sort of thought with, with my own experience of, well, you know, why do we need Braille when, when Peter can possibly use the CCTV and all these things. Fortunately, my family quickly got on board with the Braille train, and I certainly don't think I'd be where I was today without Braille.

There's no doubt about it. But it can be. It can be tricky. And so it's neat that you bring up the fact that your family and others encouraged you to, to start from an early age, just as any other kid starts to learn how to read. So I think the other bottom line is it's never too late. I know plenty of adults who have learned Braille well into their 60s or 70s.

And certainly it's trickier at that point in time just with, you know, the finger sensitivity, you know, that sort of tactile discrimination. But certainly it's something that you can do at any point along your journey. And it takes a while. So can you, can you talk a bit about so obviously you, you've, you've been an entrepreneur and you've done many things.

How do you use Braille in what situations, I guess. Do you find Braille to be beneficial as you're running your business? And I know maybe not as a daily driver, but are there times, you know, from a multitasking standpoint from, just certainly, you know, with productivity, are there times you use Braille or you fall back on Braille in your daily life or in the life of running the business that you run?

Yeah, sure. And I think the honest example and I, you probably would agree with this all you I, you know, I don't use it enough. I have bottles, I have a braille labeler, a dymo, and I have bottles around my house that I literally have used apps to scan five, ten times to figure out what the heck the bottle is like.

Why didn't I just put a Braille label on it the first place? It would have been so much easier, but it's an extra 30s to make the Braille label the first time. You know, so there's definitely opportunities to use more. There's a couple spots where I do use the, use Braille in work, especially. So I do have happen to have a Brailliant BI20X, which I like a lot.

They didn't pay me to say that. No, we didn't. They did not. But, you know, it's a really cool, portable display, and I, when I go to events where I'm going to be presenting. So, like, I was at an awards gala, gala? gala? gala? gala? gala? Yes. Presentation. And, you know, there's an agenda, an order of everything.

And there's too many things to remember, right? I think I'm pretty good at doing improv and making stuff up, but when you're supposed to be recognizing 17 people that are there, plus a whole bunch of other names of stuff, you know, you're not going to memorize it all, are you going to mess one up? So loading on notes on the display.

And I think it's important to do it that way. Loading on the notes onto the display. It's not connected to my phone at that point because I don't want any more points of failure. But then I can load that up and I can read through it. I can follow on the agenda I learned after the first time to hit.

I believe it's, space with X or is old school people would say X cord to put it in read only mode because otherwise you lose your spot. So, you know, but it's really good for things like that. And then coding and I don't always use it for coding, but I should because, that's one spot where you have so many--> it's quicker to read Braille than it is to listen to every punctuation symbol, spoken out.

Are you programing a lot or...? I am a programing misfit. I'm one of those. I know enough about programing to break things. These days I have programing conversations with AI as well, which is, you know, fun and dangerous and sometimes misleading, but, you know, so I do a lot of smaller projects and I've, I used to, you know, code our websites and things like that and certainly could still do it, but it's a lot easier now just to pay Shopify and have them do it for me.

Yeah. Do you, do you ever find yourself--> and I could not agree more on the presentation side of things. As someone who does lots of conferences and just presentations in general and I, I too, I'm confident in my "Wing it" abilities. But definitely having that having an organized, you know, set of bullet points and having you know, even access to your presentations and things with that Braille underneath your fingers, as long as you do retain your place is extremely important.

I know, Rachel, you know, you do plenty of presentations the same way where having access to your slide contents here, can you tell people where can they find you? And how can people kind of peruse and learn more about AT Guys. Yeah, absolutely. So you can go to our website atguys.com.

Where you can email us straight from there or [email protected]. We also do live chat. So if you see a thing at the bottom says chat with us. That means someone is there. You can just text back and forth. And that's been really fun and accessible way to talk to people. That's really quickly. You're not tied up on a phone call, but if you prefer to call in, that's totally fine.

Our number is (269) 216-->4798. So (269) 216-->4798. Well thank you JJ. And we again thanks for joining us. And I think it's important for us to you know be able to spotlight the the not only blind sort of community here and business owners but just again talking a bit on how Braille as a Braille reader, you know, you're doing things that you're doing lots of things where Braille is important in your daily lives.

And maybe, maybe this will help you, remind you to use Braille even more every single day. We are so Braille centric. If there is one thing we will shamelessly promote, it is Braille. Every day. Everywhere. All right. Thanks so much, JJ. Thank you.

All right everybody, welcome back to See Things Differently the podcast JJ is still with us. And for this segment we are going to talk about and kind of have a hot take. This one is a classic classic hot take. I don't think anyone will be you know too shocked to hear that we're about to kind of discuss the Windows versus Apple argument here.

David certainly is ready for his side of the sort of fans. And I think we had joked this might be gang up on and on David time. But I think it's important and there's a lot we can go on and on and on about kind of where we stand and why we stand. You know, in the certain corner we are, we, you know, we we've chosen.

But it is one that requires a bit of thought and that is that, you know, we hear time and time again of the built in accessibility on the Apple products. Certainly it is wonderful. I, on the other hand, have I've been a Windows user for a very long time, and sometimes it may come into just what you're used to.

And I certainly became a Windows user as a child and, and have drifted into the Apple space. But haven't necessarily embraced it fully on the computer side, I definitely am an iPhone user and iOS and whatnot, but I'd be curious what all of our thoughts are. And Rachel's here as well, and just kind of where we stand. David, though your reputation precedes you, how did you get so deeply embedded into the Apple sphere, if you will?

Well, I, I suffered through the many, many years of using screen readers in DOS and Windows 3.1 ME, 95, Vista, etc, and two consistent things throughout that process was number one, having a sort press and actually meet my speech on my computer because I didn't like talking. And back in those days, it was very hard to get your sound back on your PC.

So that's number one. Number two. And this was probably, maybe more than about ten years ago, I guess. But it's that situation where you completely lose speech on your windows PC, completely like your screen when it's not talking at all. Your sound's on, but you've got no speech. You know, the whole question is, is my computer on or off?

If you put a sticky ear on the fan at the back to see if it's actually on, blah, blah, blah. So in 2005, I was the only person in Australia that was actually willing to give somebody some training on a mac because this person went to a mac store and got told how fantastic the Mac was. Nobody else wanted to give it a go, because apparently there's only one square that exists on the planet.

Starts with J and so I was the only one did it. So I literally spent 100 hours of total time learning the Mac. And then I thought, oh, look at this screen reader has its own software that if it detects an error, it restarts itself. I've got a direct shortcut key to re do, speech or sound on my computer.

If I restart my my Mac, it actually comes up and starts talking again. So that was probably the main reason why I started using the Mac. Because in particular because I, you know, I've been working from more or less home most of the time, not for the last ten years. I don't have IT support. I don't have, you know, much time on my family's out and about going to, you know, school, uni, blah, blah, blah.

My wife's out working, so I don't want to sit here for four hours wanting someone to decide to come home or I guess somewhere now I can do AIRA or Be My Eyes. But I just like the fact that with the Mac in particular, I've got a much higher probability of getting it talking again than I have on Windows PC, so that's probably my rationale for the moment.

I think. And not a bad rationale. I mean, I certainly have had times where speech is gone and you don't know what to do. And now, yes, with, you know, the likes of, you know, whether it's Seeing AI or something, you can quickly kind of read what's on your screen. But there's a lot, a lot of times that wasn't, wasn't possible.

What do you say. And I guess here and I know, you know, I certainly grew up using Windows and a lot of times I will meet users who learn and are very dedicated Apple users, and then they get a job and they're handed this Windows PC, and certainly they have to they have to sink or swim. And it can be a challenge, you know, what do you think there?

And I guess JJ too and Rachel two please certainly jump in here. I know you're all Windows users and we all have experience with the Mac, but not like you would. David, what would you say to those folks I guess, or how do you get around that even with this new role, at HumanWare. For the workplace, you definitely need a windows computer.

There's absolutely no question about that. Which really makes my people that I work with Apple rather annoyed. But, you know, when it comes to things like higher education where you need access to, you know, PDF files proper like headings and tables and all that sort of stuff, footnotes, etc. When you're in a workplace and you need a screen reader to access or the, you know, client management systems properly, you may need a bit of scripting going on with the screen reader of your own choice.

Then there's no way that, you know Voice Driveon the Mac comes anywhere near that. But for, you know, for general home use, and I'd say for sort of maybe primary education, it's not too bad. But, you know, once you get beyond, you know, emailing, social media, listening to music, I mean, I still use Amadeus Pro for the Mac because the only reason why I haven't changed is because I've been using that since 2010.

So you know why? Why change now? So all that general stuff like notetaking, everything else is fine. And then now we've got all the apps that go across all the ecosystems of, you know, mobile and desktop and so on. But yeah, I mean, as soon as I started at HumanWare again after finish finishing at Vision Australia this year, I had to start learning Windows, but I'm one of these people that I remember my operating systems very well.

I don't have an issue about switching between Windows on the Mac, Android, and iOS. I've played with, Unix for a while, but then again, the Mac's actually based on Unix anyway. But, I've got no problem switching between I mean, I can switch between, you know, VoiceDrive on the Mac. I can use

I can use NVDA, I can use JAWS, I can use Talkback. It doesn't really matter to me what operating system it is, because I'm just so used to doing it over the last months that 40 years or so. So David, one question then when we kind of, think about like Mac and Windows and Linux, there's so many screen readers, what would you say is kind of a, a quick takeaway for someone who's maybe thinking of switching from one to the other.

Or like Peter said, if you're handed one at a work situation or even a school situation, what would you say is your quickest way to get up and running? Because I know a lot of folks can find learning an entire new screen reader overwhelming and that's that's fair. There's tons of command. So how do you first kind of get to grips with the screen reader and get on your way?

I just tend to play with it. I'm one of these people that always tell other people to read the manual, and I never do it myself. And hands on is the best way to play. But I must say, one of the things that always makes me a bit sad to do with all this stuff is that we have got to use so many different ways of getting the job done.

So, for example, you know, sometimes on Windows, if you know, Google Chrome is not working properly, I'll have to switch to Microsoft Edge. Or if I'm on my Mac, Safari is not working, I'm going to switch to Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge. Or if JAWS is not doing something very weirdly on my Windows PC, I run Nvidia or I run Narrator and I just think, geez, I wonder what sort of person would have to do if they had to keep changing their access to their computer all the time, changing the way they actually physically access the computer, changing software that they have to use all the time.

I mean, to me, that puts a huge load on your mental capability because, you know, at the end of the day, you've got to get the job done. And I don't think anybody wants to hear excuses about all. Look, the browser wasn't working with my screen reader, the screen reader wasn't working properly, blah, blah, blah. So I guess in some ways, I'm still disappointed that we're still in the time of life at the moment, technology wise, where there's just not one solution that fits everybody.

You've got to look at what you really want to do, and then you've got to fit that technology to meet your own needs. Is there really a need, though vor one? I understand what you're saying. One solution. It would be great, right? Especially in a workplace. Nobody likes to be switching, you know, three meters. You know, as a fortunate fact as a business owner, that we get to choose the technology that we use.

In our business, myself and my employees, I'll do that. But yeah, we're doing, we're tech people. So we're used to doing exactly what you said. Oh, this isn't working. You know, looking on our Slack sometimes. Did you try this with Firefox and whatever, you know, and you know, you know, like going back and forth on combinations and trying to figure out what's working in that, you know, that can be a mountain to climb.

As far as trying to figure out, you know, that's one of the things for me with Windows, I find I have a little more variety in the combinations I can use, but I can appreciate everyone who went to the Mac around 2005 to 2010. That's when Narrator did nothing as a screen reader. And you could barely set up a computer.

I think also in it's true, you know, one of the benefits, one of the things I like most about Windows is that I can quickly switch between three decent screen readers as options, where on the Mac you do not have a secondary option. And again, you know, VoiceOver doesn't work. That's that. I mean, that truly is that. And you you know, there may be some some ways now to use something, you know, a camera or some external device to get you out of a sticky situation.

Possibly. But, there there certainly are different choices. And I've always found that to be helpful with Windows. The other thing that I've always found when I was dabbling in my Mac, you know, having my cup of coffee with the Mac back in, in the day, and I still have a Mac that I use from time to time.

But, you know, the the integration of some of the mainstream office applications and some of the other things just it gets very challenging to try and follow, Excel or, you know, even Word and track changes or comments or some of those things can get really tricky. And again, I have no, I'm extremely appreciative of the fact that voiceover is what it is, but I sometimes feel that it can it can really get some folks stuck if that's if that's what you rely on solely.

Yeah. And look, I think for me in particular, because I do a lot of social media posting all the time. So I'm on Mastodon, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm on, X or Twitter. I still do a lot of podcasting. I do a lot of radio shows here in Australia. I do a lot of notetaking, sending off, papers for people to actually, you know, proofread and post and that sort of stuff.

So that's all stuff that I can still do on the Mac. But, you know, somebody sent me an Excel spreadsheet the other day with lots and lots of sheets in it and lots and lots of headings and everything else. And I thought, there is no way on this planet you'd ha, you wouldn't even be able to get a a bunch of wild horses to even try and get me to actually use them.

The Mac and numbers or even Excel on the Mac to try and even read it. Are we slowly shifting you away? It's the real question is David, is David Woodbridge? No no no no no no absolutely not. No. So what he was going to say, like every single Mac user I've ever talked to in my life, that's when he realizes that he needs to fire up his virtual Windows environment to do the the necessary tests.

Every Mac user has Windows. That's the one. Thank you JJ thank you. [laughs]

I know because I used to say, you think I'm going to put a crappy operating system on my Mac. But yes, I have I do have Windows on my Mac now because I just can't do without it. Look, I'm an Android guy, and so whenever you do that debate, I'll be back on. But as to the having to ask, well, is there a good I do the same thing.

Is there an Android version? And you guys are wondering about the Mac versions? The same thing. So instead of us all ganging up on you, David, this was actually a you know, more of what I think, what what we can all glean from this is, yes, we have we really do. We have our preferred, you know, I'm Windows, JJ's Windows.

Rachel's a Windows user. You're a Mac user. But I don't think anyone is, you know, any none of us are absolutely steadfast in this and won't kind of defend it to the end. And I think that it's crucial that we all we're open to and I say this a lot when I'm in front of a lot of kiddos and in front of users, we have to be open to all different operating systems, screen readers, methods to access information, because at the end of the day, we're just need to get the task done effectively, quickly and efficiently.

And we need to do that on whatever, you know, mechanism or system is going to be best and for us to get the job done. And David made a really good point that he recognizes when his computer, whatever it is, can't do the thing he needs to do. And he found another way to do it. He's, of course, fortunate enough to have the resources to be able to do that.

But it's really important to recognize and you know, I think something we can all agree on. I know that you and I have talked about this before, you know, back to Braille, loving Braille. Love Braille, love Braille keyboards. But also growing up, be sure especially, you know, as kids are coming into college and you're using tablets and phones and touch screens to type on a keyboard full stop, because, you know, people are coming into college, not just blind people now, but people are not learning how to type on a keyboard.

And that's going to hurt you. Yes, that that absolutely is an imperative skill. You have to have keyboarding, there's no doubt about it. It just occurred to me, I had to see somebody last week that had a look at the, Mantis, and she's starting to lose her sight. So she's doing the great thing about, you know, learning by speech, screen reader to type stuff in Braille.

But what I realized about what's cool about the QWERTY thing on the Mantis is that, you know, spelling is going to keep up to date. So while you're reading uncorrected Braille and then contracted Braille, at least you don't forget how to spell because you've still got to type the whole words properly on the Mantis. Thank you so much, David.

Thanks, Rachel. The hot take is something. It's just a more of a topic for discussion and hopefully we'll have some more interesting ones. And if you have thoughts, always feel free to send us an email at [email protected]. We certainly would love to hear from you. If you have anything you would like us to bring up, maybe as a part of a segment or, something that maybe your thoughts that you had, regarding this hot topic.

So thank you. For this part of the podcast. We are going to be having a feature called Partners Corner. And here we will be featuring a key partner of HumanWare in this could rotate from month to month. This could be something that, you know, we may have a guest who is who is part of our internal team.

So maybe somebody who doesn't get much forward exposure could have somebody, you know, from a different part of the world. But because it is Braille Awareness Month, I have somebody who I'm lucky enough to call a friend, but HumanWare has as a distributor as well. And that is Bob Sweetman from Sweetman Systems. Bob, how are you doing?

Very well, thank you. Awesome. Well, we're we're really, really happy to have you on the very first the inaugural See Things Differently with HumanWare podcast. Now what what I want to do is ask you a few questions before we hear all about all the great things that Sweetman Systems does. Bob, you've been. So I've been in this space ten years, and you have certainly been in this space a lot longer than that.

Can you talk a bit about just how long Sweetman Systems has been around and, and kind of what you have seen in that in that time? Yes, we started our business in 1989, and at that point it was a part time business. And so we didn't sell too much right away. I think we started at the end of 1988 and, and then, 1989, we started the business and things have changed really a lot.

The memory of, the capacity of the equipment has really increased immensely. Back then, they didn't have any iPhones. And so, now the iPhones that we have are more powerful than our fastest computer back in 1989. And so it's been amazing to see how it's changed in the past 35, 36 years.

Well, it's great to hear that. I just I think it's it's good because we hear the phones ringing off the hook in the background, kind of unprompted, which is awesome because you've clearly built a very large network of, you know, and relationships across Southern California. Right? I mean, you have you been in Southern California the whole time? Yeah, we've been in Southern California the whole time, and it's been it's been pretty amazing.

The business has grown. And the things that the equipment can do is just incredibly different for example, back in the 90s, we started using our first GPS devices, and that was started by Mike May, who got GPS working for people who were blind or visually impaired. And that the first device was a backpack. You carry it on your back, and, the accuracy was, well, the first one we saw was about 300m, which I thought was amazing because I said, you know, what other device, in the world at this point, I could tell you within 900ft where you are right now.

Now we've got equipment that is, spot on accurate. Like there's StellarTrek, for example, when you get to an intersection, you know exactly where you are at the middle of the intersection. It's got to be 30ft ahead of you when you hit the crosswalk. And that's pretty steady. And you can make landmarks. And, I use that all the time.

I drive a couple miles every morning. Every night when I'm home, with the dog. And I know exactly where I am at all times. So it's, I mean, within a matter of feet. So it's pretty amazing. It's incredible to think, too, you know, especially in when every with every update that comes out, what people come to expect.

Because if you if you had a GPS with a 900ft radius, you know, kind of accuracy problem today. Yeah, you might be in a bit of trouble with the community at large. Can I ask you a couple of questions about Braille? So, like myself, you're totally blind. Do you use Braille on a daily basis?

And if so, how does it help you run your business or do you find it? Do you use it kind of in your daily grind? Yes, I use it all the time. I prepare manuals for people in Braille. And also I use it when I'm, when I'm working. For example, Braille gives you literacy. Basically, I was working with a customer today who had a first name that you would not understand how to spell it if you heard it.

And I said that that's the advantage of Braille because, you are basically looking at the Braille and hearing it at the same time. So you know exactly how things are spelled. And that's, that's really important. Yeah, I love it. And you've definitely sold many generations of Braille products. Can you talk a bit about just what it is today?

Because you cover a wide variety of products? Certainly, you know, lots of HumanWare devices, but what are what are some of the things that Sweetman Systems features? Obviously the HumanWare Braille line, the Brailliant, the BrailleNote but certainly you sell some other products. And what are some of those devices that you carry?

Well, we carry the, the HumanWare products. We also carry products from, the HIMS Incorporated and and we also do a lot of work with, low vision devices. And Andrew Roberts, who, works with us. He handles all the low vision, the glasses, because we ended up getting into that field as well.

And, and so we are working with a large number of devices. And for all of them, I prepare Braille manuals, not just for the customers, but, for example, right now I'm training a new employee how to set up Braille Senses. BrailleNotes, StellarTreks, which he's really fast at, all the different products.

And I am actually then writing up the steps tthat he can use to set those products up. Otherwise it would be really hard for him to do it because he, he finally learned to use one product. But we have a whole bunch of products. And so, that really helps. And then we also work with the Department of Rehabilitation and with the school systems, and we, as with the Department of Rehabilitation, we cannot do assessments, because that would be a conflict of interest, but we make ourselves available for people to come here or in some cases, if we're going to be in the area, we'll go to their location and demonstrate the products, so that we have a lot of schools who call us and want to know what product they should get and what are the features of the different products. So I can send them a manual, or I can demo remotely using Zoom or, I can go there if we're going to be in the area and they need to see the product in a lot of detail.

Yeah. And, and I can say one of what I've seen, I mean, from the time I started, looking at some of the guides you've provided over the years, the detail that you're able to give and that you do emboss those, I've seen you provide steps on, gathering or downloading Bookshare books or, setting up various devices.

Certainly not with the Monarch, the materials you produce and are able to emboss for that portion. You know, that that portion of the population that relies on Braille instruction to read along as they're learning their device. It is absolutely awesome. And it's something that, you know, you can listen to a manual as you say you can you can have a recording of something.

We certainly value audio tutorials very highly, but the ability to have that Braille instruction, that Braille set of instructions is fantastic. The other thing is you use the word we and I would be, you know, remiss if I didn't mention Sue, your wife, Sue, who's been a big part of this and certainly, you know, in Southern California, Bob and Sue Sweetman are very well known.

And I just, you know, I think that we are thrilled to highlight Sweetman Systems as the first official partner corner, segment here of See Things Differently: The Podcast. And I would just would like to have you mentioned how can people get a hold of you if they would like a demo, if they just have questions on blindness or AT products in general?

That, that cover blindness or low vision, how can they find you? You can find us by, email [email protected] or [email protected]. Or you can call our phone number area code (818) 893-->5887. And get a hold of us that way if you have any questions or want a demo or just want, an overview of what kind of products may assist you in your work.

Also, you can locate us at sweetmansystems.com. And the reason I mention that is I once had a customer who, called from Nairobi, and, he thanked me for teaching him JAWS, and I said, how in the world did you learn? John, if you're in Nairobi and I haven't even met you before? And he said, oh, I found your manual online, downloaded it and learn JAWS.

See your your reach is vast, actually, and that is fantastic. And I think it also highlights how small our field really is. Right? And this we are a low incidence population. Those of us who are totally blind, there's a lot of communication between, all of us around the world and certainly this is a HumanWare sponsored podcast, but we all wear many hats.

We all help so many different people in many ways. And those sorts of, yeah, those sorts of stories and kind of the people we encounter, in every corner of the world, are absolutely special. We will definitely have all of that information in the show notes. And thank you to your self, Bob. And thank you, Sue, for being such a big part of the success of blind people all around the country and the world.

Welcome back everybody. And for this segment, we are going to kind of coin this as the cringe worthy story or the cringe worthy discussion of the month. And our goal with this is to kind of take a topic that might be a bit hard to talk about. But as it relates, you know, to living with, you know, as a blind or visually impaired person, there are some things that can we all have kind of different thoughts on, that can be a bit cringe inducing.

And for this I'm joined by David and Rachel. Hey, guys. So come on, Peter, live. I'm living the dream. So for this one I wanted to talk a bit about situations we've been in where somebody light dependent, as I refer to them or sighted, has told us, you know, about maybe, maybe something we were wearing that wasn't right or maybe a, you know what, the situation in a room or something.

We weren't aware of that we've been told about that. Might be a bit embarrassing. And I'll start with this. And I guess it's a 2 fold discussion. And again, very quick discussion here on do we want to be told and if so, how or you know, how do you want someone to tell you or what is right.

Then there will be for those of you who are listening, who are sighted or light dependent, what you know, you might want to know what should I say or how should I say it? And I think there is no right or wrong answers here. It's just something we'll discuss. I will lead with the time I presented, and as someone who's presented at conferences and had lots of workshops for many, many years all over the place, I gave a presentation at a fairly large state rehabilitation conference.

Quite a few people in the room will say higher than 50, and after the presentation, when I was talking with somebody or doing something, and I was told that the shirt I was wearing, unbeknownst to me, had a huge long running coffee stain or something. We're going to say coffee, I don't know, because I couldn't feel it going from my shoulder all the way down to my wrist.

So it was as though I had just slowly dragged my entire arm through a river of coffee. And I was mortified because, again, I'm not saying I'm Rico Suave here by any stretch, but I definitely try to keep up relatively good appearance. Certainly it's important to anybody who presents a lot. And I was so horrified and I'm sure, you know, and now I appreciate being told, but I definitely did not -->.

I wish someone would have tried to catch me before in the room. I was talking to others prior to that presentation, and I know it would have been present all day. It was the shirt. It's either the shirt I was wearing, it had happened early in the day or somehow now the shirt just had the spot had more than a spot and I wasn't told.

So I would have appreciated having been told prior to presenting. Now there comes a point where there's no turning back, right? I don't want to be told mid presentation that would have thrown me into a whole other ballgame. I definitely would have liked to have been told somewhere before. But have you guys had these, these moments and have you been told like, hey, this is what's going on and how did you take it?

How do you handle it? And what would you want somebody to tell you? I've have had certain moments of like you, Peter, I'm wearing something that's stained. Or you walk through some mud as you're dashing through puddles on your way to a presentation. I've had that happen, gotten caught in the rain, and sometimes you just want to know, hey, this is a little dirty and to get it fixed.

So I'm going to take the perspective of I would like to be informed of, hey, this is going on. It might not be quite right. Let's fix it up. But there's also a time and a place, I think, to tell a blind person something that isn't right. So for me, if I'm doing a presentation, something isn't quite right.

My screen sharing isn't working. Or maybe my speech is, but nothing else is. I want to be told. Have you ever had any, I guess in the moment sort of pieces where you've been presenting or kind of been talking to someone and all of a sudden you're very self-->aware of something. I do have one actually story, which was actually quite a few years ago now, but it was when I was doing a presentation, and as a blind person, I was doing a presentation on low vision stuff.

So I was talking about stuff that, you know, you could have your pointer in lights, you could have it a target around it, so you could see it on the screen. You could have high contrast, larger fonts, all this really cool stuff. So I was, you know, pointing to the screen and putting it all these really amazing features.

And then the person that I had actually worked with for a long time walked in the back of the room and quite happily yelled out to me because we always knew each other. Hey Woodbridge, your screen's off! And I went, oh my God, you know, I was talking there 15 minutes. Nobody had actually said anything. Yes, quite obviously, quite embarrassed.

So then as because my background a little bit of a social worker. So I kind of was sort of empathizing with people, I said, look, guys, maybe next time when somebody does your presentation, maybe just say, excuse me, David, but can you adjust your screen or can you turn it on at least? So now when I do presentations now in the future, I've now turned or now I've turned that into a joke.

Now, as I say, you know, okay, some points of business, number one of which is if my screen's not working, please let me know, because 15 years ago nobody told me. It was very embarrassing. So let's not try and do that again. I think also there's nothing wrong with pulling someone aside. I mean, you know, you don't need to broadcast the information.

Certainly. That's a funny one I love and I, I'm all about someone calling me out. And you're like, Peter, the screen's off, dude. I'm in front of a whole group of people. But it's funny, you know, with the coffee, with the with the spills or with certain things, it's like, just pull the person aside and say, hey, I just want you to know.

Right. I very much appreciate that. The other one that I got caught with the other day, which got nothing to do with what I when I did my karate practice. It's a white gi. Okay. So it's pristine white now, I didn't realize as a beard wearing type person that when you drink coffee, you. Because you've got a beard, you don't know.

Sometimes if the coffee is dripping down your beard onto your perfect, white gi top. So I went into a competition or I tried to go to a competition the other way. My, sensei said, David, can we just pop into the room and I'll get you a fresh gi? And I went, why? What's wrong with it?

Feels all right. Do it. Yeah. No, dude. Yeah. Coffee's dripped your beard, and you've got this line of coffee going down your white gi top. And I went, oh, yeah? Yeah. So the moral of the story is, for both of us, coffee causes problems. Big correct. This is why I don't drink it. This is it's good, it's good.

And I think again, if anyone out there has any thoughts [email protected]. What are your thoughts on this? Do you like to be told when there is sort of a, you know, something that that a sighted person wouldn't notice or just that, you know, maybe, maybe something you're unaware of that somebody says, hey, this is what's going on and A, do you like to be told?

And how do you want someone to tell you that? I think it's, it's a good one. So hopefully this will be entertaining and get everybody out there thinking a little bit. And certainly I need to have my mom or somebody on for one of these at some point in time, just so that they can really throw me under the bus for some crazy stuff that, that I've done or that has happened over the years, that I haven't been aware of.

But we appreciate everybody tuning in. And we'll be right back with another segment.

Hey, everybody, and welcome back to another very short segment here on the See Things Differently podcast. This is going to be a part of the program that is quite HumanWare centric, really where we're going to give you tips and tricks or little pieces of information, nuggets, if you will, of things that you may not have been aware of, that HumanWare devices or HumanWare, you know, product support in this particular piece, since we are focused heavily on Braille and Braille users who you've heard from several, including myself and my colleagues here on the podcast, this is going to be focused on Braille learning tables that are offered by

Duxbury and that do work also on the Braillenote Touch Plus family of products. Now, these will work if you're embossing via Duxbury, meaning if you're using, you know, an embosser such as a HumanWare Enabling Technologies embosser like a Romeo 60 or Juliet 120, you are able to come in and actually set a learning table, to give you only the contractions that you may be familiar with and the way that learning tables work is.

There are predetermined number of learning tables. They all follow different Braille curriculum, that exist to learn Braille. And there are several which I will mention here momentarily. Those learning tables, the table you choose corresponds to a level within the particular curriculum that you've chosen, and only the contractions that are present in that in that lesson will be embossed.

So if you're a newer Braille reader, a newer Braille learner, and you don't fully know contracted Braille, maybe you have your letters down and you're beginning to learn some contractions thanks to one of these Braille teaching methods, you can emboss information or on the BrailleNote Touch Plus products you can read or write. And all of that information will stay, whether you're in a book or on the internet, in doing email, anything at all will stay in that code of Braille.

Based off of the lesson you're on, the supported curricula or to be curriculi, I'm going to say curricula are Braille easy stops the fingerprint series Mangold, which is how I learned back in the day. The NLS I M B T, the R N Z F star series, the SA syllabus which is South Africa take off, which is the take off UEB series is what we offer.

For free on HumanWare. And also the TX BVI that is the Texas School for the blind Visually impaired cluster series. Now again, all of these are different Braille learning methods, and they all have corresponding levels. And you can set your Duxbury learning table to the appropriate level that you may be on. And you will only see those contractions.

For instance, the take off series, which is something we offer at HumanWare including the Teacher's Handbook for free thanks to, an agreement that we have with RNIB in the UK. This is a UEB learning series, and in series one you were introduced. So again, this presumes you know your Braille letters in unit one you are going to be introduced to the following contractions.

And for in ing of ou which thus would lead to out and the and comma. So again if you're reading and writing only those contractions are going to be shown on your BrailleNote Touch Plus, when you're reading on the braille display, whether it's a book or any content you've created. And also if you're embossing, your embossed document will only contain those contractions.

And again, you can learn more about the Duxbury Braille learning tables. I am going to include a link in the show notes to the web page that has all of the tables and what they include with their various contractions, but ideally you're going to do this and you know, as you correspond to the lesson that works best for you.

So if you're learning Braille using Mangold, you will know exactly which Mangold method you may be on, and you'll be able to to quickly match that with your learning table. All right, everybody, at this final segment of the See Things Differently with HumanWare podcast, we are going to tell you about some upcoming shows and places where you can interact with us.

We attend many conferences and many shows throughout the year. We would love to interact with all of you. Come find us! Get your hands on the products, talk to our sales folks. Talk to our product specialists. Ask us questions. Many of us are users, and if we're not users, for those of us, you know our employees who are sighted.

Many have been working in this field a long, long time. So please come interact. Come hear us present. Tell us. Give us your concerns, your feedback. It's all appreciated. A couple of places: in Orlando, Florida we will be attending the Assistive Technology Industry Association conference. That is ATIA and that takes place every year. It will be in Orlando at the World Center Marriott.

That will be from January 30th to February 1st. We will be at booth number 3 and we will also have three presentations. I will be presenting on tactile graphics software. We will be presenting on some AI pieces. And we'll also be talking about Braille and Screen Reader. So please come join us at ATIA. Next we will be at the Illinois AER conference February 6th and 7th.

AER is the Association for Education and Rehab Professionals that is going to take place at the Naperville Marriott again, Illinois. That is a home game for me. I cannot wait to see everybody who may be in attendance. Lots of friends. We will be with Michelle Williams who is our HumanWare Midwest Territory Manager. So myself and Michelle will be there.

Looking forward to seeing anyone who might be around and last but not least, the Maryland National Federation of the Blind Conference is taking place in February and that is in Ocean City, Maryland, at the Short Beach Club Resort. So that sounds like a fancy place I've never been, but I'm sure it will be excellent. Please come say hi to Joel Zimba, who will be there along with our distributor ITG again, a great time.

Come say hi, come visit us. We'll have product managers at ATIA and other folks with us throughout the year at various shows in many different parts of not only the United States and Canada, but all over the world.

Join us next month where theme will be low vision. We'll have some great discussions, so be sure to tune in if you have comments or suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. Please feel free to send them to [email protected]. That's [email protected]. Thanks so much for listening to See Things Differently. We'll see you next month.