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The Accessibility Advantage

The Accessibility Advantage

Auteur(s): The Blind Blogger Maxwell Ivey
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 Advocating for more accessibility for and inclusion of people with disabilities through communication & collaboration instead of compliance & shame.Maxwell Ivey Gestion et leadership Économie
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  • Alex Sanfilippo Being Customer Focused Leads To Accessibility On Podmatch

    Alex Sanfilippo Being Customer Focused Leads To Accessibility On Podmatch
    Sep 10 2025
    Hello again, I hope your week has been going well so far. I'm so excited to get to speak with my friend, client, and mentor Alex Sanfilippo on the latest episode of my podcast The Accessibility Advantage. Alex is the founder of Podmatch.com A site designed to match podcast hosts with their ideal guests using artificial inteligence. But the real mission of Podmatch is to help podcast hosts & guests reach more listeners, so we can make more money, and change more lives. I met Alex for the first time when we both spoke at the Pecha Kucha track at Podfest Expo in 2019. And that friendship lead to his listening to me about accessibility and eventually hiring me to be the accessibility advisor for Podmatch. What We Discussed Alex first shared about his early entrepreneurial experiences. Then he openly discussed the effect that the mortgage collapse of 2008 had on him. He recounted working menial jobs in corporate before working his way up to the C Suite level at a very early age. He covered the difficult decision to leave corporate to focus on a business of his own again. When I asked him where the customer centric approach came from, he told a story about personal frustrations with a major online business. And how he never wanted to cause that kind of heartbreak for anyone else. He also hopes that other tech founders will see how they are doing things at Podmatch and decide that putting people over numbers is the key to long-term success. He shared the core values of his company, and said that if maintaining those values lead to smaller profits; that would be perfectly fine with him. I then asked him to talk about how maintaining the health of his platform lead to their regularly removing people who don't use the platform. At about the 19 minute mark he tells the story about how being customer centric lead to focusing on accessibility. And for the first time I heard about how much pushback Alex received from other people in the software industry about his public decision to embrace accessibility. He shared their process openly, and we talked a bit about how they are continuing to work to improve accessibility as they continue to grow the platform. About 25 minutes in he starts speaking about the benefits of improving accessibility. Some of which were new to me. At About 29 minutes he introduces his full advisory board which he leans on to continue to improve Podmatch. And at 36 minutes he addresses why people should care about accessibility. Then at about 41 minutes. I asked him why more companies doing the work of improving accessibility don't promote their efforts more openly or more often. Show Notes Still having accessibility issues with Streamyard, so have encouraged my guests to have fun with telling me we are live. Alex decided to play a few chords on his ukulele. Then, I sang a bit of my theme song The Accessibility Advantage. Then we had a great conversation. On With The Show Support Our Sponsor Thanks to Blubrry.com For continuing to support my podcasts with free professional hosting. About Alex I would usually copy my guest's bio to this section. However, Alex would tell me to do less so I can accomplish more. So, I'm just going to give you the link to his About page. Connect With Alex Alex's Website: www.alexsanfilippo.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexJSanfilippo X: www.x.com/alexsanfilippo8 Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/AlexSanfilippoPM Instagram: www.instagram.com/alexsanfilippo7 Linked In: www.linkedin.com/in/alexsanfilippo Threads: www.threads.com/@alexsanfilippo7 Reddit: www.reddit.com/user/Alexsanfilippo/
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    45 min
  • Disabled Army Veteran and NULU Knife Inventor Douglas Katz on Empowering Independence through Better Design

    Disabled Army Veteran and NULU Knife Inventor Douglas Katz on Empowering Independence through Better Design
    Aug 29 2025
    Hello again, Since it's the weekend for most of you reading this post, I hope you have plans to spend relaxed enjoyable time with your friends, family, and pets. This time on The Accessibility Advantage i'm blessed to speak with Douglas Katz. He is a West Point graduate and disabled Army veteran trying to improve the lives of people with disabilities by helping design and bring to market better tools. Plus he sees the NULU Knife as just a first step. He has started the Red Leg Innovation group to help other inventors refine their ideas, establish a production process, find funding, manage marketing, and handle all the many aspects of running a business when you have a disability. What We Talked About Douglas dropped a lot of great nuggets on us during our talk. First, was the idea of the ability or disability curve depending on your viewpoint. At some point along our lives we will be considered disabled for a given task based on our age, mental acuity, physical abilities, etc. And because of this we need to understand that at some point in our lives we will not be able to do the things we want to do or have always been able to do. Then he talked about how we have to design things more based on the actual tasks they will need to perform. Focusing strictly on the tasks a knife needs to perform in a kitchen he came up with the Nulu Knife. He also explained how designing products for people with disabilities is similar to what happens in the military, space exploration, and professional auto racing. Advancements made in those fields often turn up in our lives in a consumer-based option. Because quite often products designed for people with disabilities will have far-reaching uses for those who aren't currently living with a disabling condition. He explained how this has happened to a certain extend with the knife and how much more of an impact on the world his simple invention could have. And finally, he talked about inter-dependence and how his entrepreneurial journey only started to take off after he decided to ask for and accept help. Show Notes Streamyard still hasn't fixed the count-down clock or go live announcement; so I have to depend on my guests to tell me when I"m live. Next, yes I still sing on the podcast. The song is called The Accessibility Advantage, and it's short. And none of the live content has been edited as part of this post. It is still live like a 50s TV show. On With The Show About Douglas Douglas Katz is a West Point graduate, disabled Army veteran, and lifelong athlete turned entrepreneur, whose career journey has been defined by resilience, innovation, and a commitment to empowering independence through better design. After nine years of military service and decades of impact from football, rugby, martial arts, and an active lifestyle, Douglas began to experience the cumulative effects of upper extremity impairments. Tasks as simple as preparing a meal became painful and frustrating—until he decided to solve the problem himself. That solution became the foundation for NULU, an adaptive kitchen knife company he founded under his innovation platform, Redleg Innovation. Guided by the Ability Curve Model, Douglas champions the philosophy that adaptive design—products that adapt to the user, rather than forcing the user to adapt—benefits everyone, not just those with defined physical challenges. His work begins in the “need market,” serving people with the most acute requirements, and expands into the “help market,” where broader audiences value comfort, control, and usability. The NULU knife, inspired by circular cutting geometry found in traditional tools like the Inuit ulu but refined with patent-pending improvements, embodies that philosophy. By aligning the cutting edge and handle in a way that maximizes force transfer and minimizes joint strain,
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    1 h et 6 min
  • Continuing Frustration With The Lack Of Accessible Live Streaming Options

    Continuing Frustration With The Lack Of Accessible Live Streaming Options
    Aug 3 2025
    Hello again, I hope you are having a good weekend so far my friends. This time I'm sharing a live video I recorded while trying to find a more accessible method for recording live interviews for my podcast. Why Am I Doing This? My friend, mentor, and client Alex Sanfilippo founder of Podmatch has encouraged me to set a goal of turning The Accessibility Advantage into a daily live show. He believes, and I agree; that most anyone who meets me wants to help me or work with me. So I can see how doing more podcast interviews could be a great way to put myself out there more, meet many more new people, and hopefully attract new clients for my writing, speaking, and consulting on accessibility. The question then became how to go live. This video is all about my progress so far including the frustration I'm feeling for not yet having found a truly accessible platform for hosting a live stream solo. What Are My Standards? Before I recount my progress, I want to share my criteria for a streaming platform or for any piece of software I have to use in my business. It has to be accessible, easy to use, and reasonably affordable. I identify accessibility as meaning that someone living with a physical challenge can perform all major functions without assistance. I consider something easy to use if I don't have to constantly think about the steps required to complete regular routine activities. Affordability is a little harder to define, so I choose to look at alternatives in the same space. For live streaming the options seem to run somewhere between $15 and $45 per month. Of course, an option could appear more expensive if the provider insists that users pay for a year in advance. Zoom I spoke about how Zoom checks all of the boxes except when wanting to go live on your social media platforms. . My primary social media platform these days is Linked In. The problem is that you can only connect Zoom to Linked in using what is called the RTMP, Real-Time Messaging Protocol. Which is very challenging for a blind person to configure without help. Riverside I actually tried Riverside a few months ago after Zoom ate one of my recordings requiring me to re-record my interview with Missy Sue Mastel. I found it has many unlabelled buttons. It doesn't have the plethora of keyboard commands that Zoom offers. I also found the process of retrieving the videos or audios of the content I did recored to be confusing and very annoying. And while I have not tried to use it for live streaming, my research tells me connecting it with Linked in would be similarly challenging. StreamYard Next, I tried StreamYard. I almost didn't give them a try because the pricing information on their page was confusing. It wasn't clear that while the usual charges are $45 a month that it is only $25 each for the first three months. But I persevered, and set up an account. It took several dry runs and a couple of live interviews before I started to feel like I was getting the. hang of using StreamYard. However, between my second interview with Teri Brown and my third interview with Lee-Ann Reuber changes were made to the site that prevented me from clicking the go live button. Which is the most important reason for having a live streaming platform to begin with. I was able to save that interview on universal design by starting a new stream while my guest waited patiently. By starting the stream from within StreamYard instead of scheduling it through Linked In the go live button did appear where I could click it and start the stream. I was prepared to give them high marks, and had started to update my booking process to change from Zoom to StreamYard. But this basic disregard for maintaining accessibility is really hard to overlook. Ecamm As you will see when you check out the episode, this was my first experience with Ecamm.
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    15 min
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