Living Vicariously Through an iPhone Aficionado

I’m not a gadget person or a techno-freak, but even I get excited about apps that are changing what it means to be blind.  My good friend and partner in crime, JoAnn Becker, has recently become an iPhone aficionado.  In the early days, we shared a good belly laugh when she couldn’t answer the bloody thing before the caller hung up.  (Turns out using the iPhone as a phone isn’t the easiest feature for a blind user.)  But each time we hang out, JoAnn has mastered some amazing new app that transforms her smartphone into something else.

As the designated driver wherever we go—and truth be told, if I’m traveling from A to B, I’m already lost—I always come armed with printed directions from MapQuest plus a TomTom for back-up.  But on this trip, the TomTom wouldn’t charge, and it’s murder to read directions and watch the road at the same time. So JoAnn pulls out her iPhone, Let’s try Google Maps.  I listen to her tap-tapping in rapid movements, and in short order a feisty voice says: “Walden Pond. Make a U-turn in 200 yards…. 100 yards… MAKE A U-TURN!” Thirty minutes later, we’ve got our toes in the pond.

Sitting at Café Fixe later that day, JoAnn smiles, Watch this!  Tap-tap-tap-swipe.  She holds the iPhone over the table. Flash. Tap-tap.  The coffee shop is completely quiet when Siri announces: “White cup and saucer on a wooden table.”  WHAT?  People glance up from their papers.  They don’t realize they have just witnessed a moment in the history of accessibility.  A free cellphone app correctly identified and spoke what was in front of us.  “The moment was all.  The moment was enough,” wrote Virginia Woolf.  Never have a white cup and saucer looked so ahhhmaazing!

Promoting Braille with Ducklings

Last week, NBP hosted an event to read several of our print/braille books to blind and sighted pre-school children. We had a print reader and a braille reader team up to share the Boston classic, Make Way for Ducklings (Penguin Young Readers), and a few other favorites. Our goal is to make these events more than just spending a nice afternoon with a good book – we want to raise awareness about braille as a literacy tool and let the world know that braille is still essential in a blind child’s education.

It seems that braille is still novel enough in the sighted world to draw attention in the media that helps us to spread the word about braille’s benefits. The kids always love our reading events—what’s not to love about a listening to a good story—and it’s always fun to feel the braille bumps on the pages after the storytelling.

As I traveled to the event with our braille reader for that day, she remarked on how much she loved Make Way for Ducklings. She thanked me for bringing a new copy because she had worn down the braille on hers from repeated readings to her children, and now grandchildren. She also expressed how much she loved braille – a common refrain among braille readers—and how afraid she was that it wouldn’t be used as much by future generations. I hear this sentiment often and it’s why we take our advocacy role seriously when it comes to literacy for blind children.

As we celebrate Children’s Book Week, the longest running national literacy week that honors books and the joy of reading for young people, remember that braille storybooks are an important part of this equation. Braille is still one of the best ways for a blind person to be literate and that’s worth celebrating all year.

A Beep Ball Story: Baseball for the Blind Brings Childhood Dream to Life

A few weeks ago, I attended the premiere of the award winning documentary, The Renegades: A Beep ball Story. It was a wonderful event that showcased the athletic talents of blind people, and it was a special moment for me.  The 200 people in attendance seemed inspired by this film:  they laughed; they cried; and they saw what was possible when a community comes together to provide support and opportunity.

As a fundraiser, you always hope your events will inspire people to take action.  You hope that they believe in the great cause you believe in.  This event was a little different for me.  I did want people to be inspired and I did want them to take action.  I wanted attitudes about blind people to change if they needed to be changed.  But I also had a very personal tie to how the evening went because I was the subject of the documentary.  For a lot of my colleagues and friends, they were seeing me in a new way and in a different uniform.  No dress shoes, cleats instead.  No button down shirt, a jersey, batting gloves and a blindfold instead.

Wanting to play little league baseball when I was a kid was something that drove me to play baseball for the blind.  When I was asked to participate in the documentary, I just had one desire – that was to have people say, Joe Q can play!  He can hit!  He is good!  The child in me still lives, I guess.

The other aspect of this documentary that was different for me was that Jack and Liz, the film makers of Best Dog Ever Films, are also good friends and have been supportive of me since my days at Boston College.  I take great pride in our friendship and their talents.  To take 120 hours of footage and make it into 1 hour and 14 minute story is impressive.  To also portray us as who we are, and still make the story interesting is remarkable.

The Renegades: A Beep Ball Story is a fantastic film that can inspire in many ways.  It can inspire us to take chances and be active as blind people, to stand up for people, to volunteer and make a difference in people’s lives, and to be creative and use our talents to help others!  Stay tuned for when it comes out in DVD and let me know if this film inspires you.  To Jack and Liz, our volunteer coaches on the Renegades, our supporters, and my colleagues at NBP, your support inspires me!

Five Things I Didn’t Know About Writing a Book

When an editor at NBP approached me last year to write a book about iPad accessibility for parents and teachers, I jumped at the chance. After all, I have been doing iPad training for years. How hard would it be to put it into words? Little did I know how wrong my initial assessment would be, and what an incredible learning experience it would become, both professionally and for me personally.

1.   Stick to a Schedule

I run a small business where I basically operate under the principle of “The one who yells the loudest” gets my attention. It took my ordinarily mild-mannered editor at NBP to literally threaten me with David Ortiz’s bat to get me to stick to a publishing schedule. And I quote: If Chapter 1 is not submitted by noon on Friday, the ball game is over. The same went for the rest of the chapters. Once I got into the swing of things, I was able to build up the momentum it took to actually write a book.

 2.   Editing Hurts

My wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing editor made me commit, in writing, to “work with her through any number of edits until the book was right.” By doing so, I set in motion one of the most painful four months of my life. I had no clue that an author had to be involved in clarifying, restating, and regurgitating every section of the book over and over and over. All kidding aside, though, I see now that the final edited version is far superior to the “completed manuscript” I originally submitted—what I now refer to, affectionately, as my “very rough draft.”

3.   The Author Doesn’t Know Everything

This was yet another truth that was nearly impossible for me to grasp! During the editing process, my lion-tamer editor got the idea that she could ask other professionals for their opinions—I mean, she actually dared to question the author! But then a funny thing happened: I was tamed. I learned that by involving others and considering their opinions, I could take a more objective panoramic view of what we were trying to accomplish.

4.   Book Reviewers Have Opinions, Too

By the time the final copy went out to a team of reviewers, I thought the worst was over. Early reviews were very positive; I felt vindicated. But then minor suggestions cropped up, followed by major adjustments, including a series of “YIKES!,” with yet further revisions. It felt like a “shark feeding.” Gradually, though, I began to see that the reviewers re-shaped this book into something far more inclusive than I could have done alone.

5.   No Pain, No Gain

I can’t really describe the overwhelming sense of pride and completeness that came over me when I was informed the book was truly finished and off to the printer. Perhaps these feelings were accentuated by the realities of so many months of really hard work to get this book “right.” And one more thing I’m absolutely certain of: By the time you read this copy, it will no longer be a rough draft.

Behind the Lens

Twenty-some years ago, a fair-haired young man climbed the steps to 88 St. Stephen Street with a proposition. He had recently opened a photography business, he explained, and he was doing quite well. The pay was good, mostly commercial work—portraits of CEOs, corporate images for annual reports, commercial shots for advertising copy, and the like. He said he had been so lucky, he wanted to give something back. He saw NBP’s sign out front. Do you need any free photography?

Cover of ‘iOS Success’

Free? Not even lunch is free. I was lucky enough to be in the office that day, to take advantage of Webb Chappell’s amazing offer. I think his first assignment—this was the mid-80s—was to photograph one of our customers using a personal computer with speech at Honeywell. This was cutting edge. More recently, Webb did a promotional photo for Stir It Up!, NBP’s cookbook for blind children, and just last month, he shot the book cover for our newly released iOS Success: Making the iPad Accessible.

And so it continues—now approaching three decades—the two of us heading out on shoots, not knowing what might transpire behind the lens. We grew up, our kids grew up, and Webb kept his pledge to “give something back.” On a recent volunteer assignment, Webb brought along a new fair-haired assistant, his son Julian. My goodness, the last time I saw Julian, he was a child. I asked him, Did he know the story of how his dad got involved with NBP? He didn’t (and from the look on Webb’s face, I’m not sure he remembered either). As I retold the story, my voice breaking up with emotion, Julian learned something about the man his dad is. And I got a chance to give back.