The hidden multi billion dollar industry

For transcripts or to learn about how you can make your building more accessible, visit mobilitymojo.com/podcasts.

 

This is Mobility Mojo does Disability:in I'm your host, Bobbie Hickey.

 

on today's episode.

 

My name is Brian Horn.

 

I'm the chief operating officer at Disability:in really excited to be here today for Mobility Mojo does Disability in.

 

Welcome back to Mobility Mojo does Disability in.

 

And I am very excited today because I'm joined with Brian Horn, the chief operating officer at Disability in.

 

Brian, thank you so much for joining me.

 

Oh, Bobbie, thank you so much for having me really excited to be here today.

 

I guess we'll start at the beginning.

 

I'm wondering, do you have a personal connection to accessibility at all?

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

You know, I was lucky enough that early in my career, actually, my very first job, I was introduced to the world of disability inclusion and really at that time, employment of people with disabilities.

 

And I was fortunate enough to actually meet Jill, our CEO at Disability in and what was the US business leadership network way back in the day in my very first job out of college.

 

And I was introduced to this whole world that I knew nothing about around disability employment, and we worked together with Disability in, with the organization that I was at, with government, with philanthropy, with private business to really accelerate hiring of people with disabilities.

 

And that was really my first introduction into the disability inclusion world.

 

And have been with it ever since, have become extremely passionate about accessibility, opening opportunities, and really opening economic opportunities for people with disabilities around the globe.

 

And it's just such an exciting time right now as we see accessibility really accelerating this work.

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

And it's interesting that you hear that you spoke about the beginning of your career and when you first met Jill, and how you've kind of taken it into everything that you do.

 

And I'm curious, is there anything that you have learned throughout your accessibility journey that has changed the way you think about accessibility fundamentally?

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

You know, I think that with every passing day at Disability in, we learn more.

 

We learn from our employees, from our partners, from our disability-owned businesses.

 

And I think that we have just seen such a change over the past several years and such an acceleration around accessibility.

 

You know, our CEO will sometimes say accessibility, with accessibility, there is no finish line.

 

We're all on this constant learning journey.

 

And I think that one of the, you know, one of the ways that we've really learned and I personally have learned, and have also kind of changed how I've thought about accessibility is through our conference, you know, we bring together thousands of people every year, both in-person and virtually, for really the biggest convening around disability inclusion in business.

 

And that event, while it's only, you know, a few days at one point in the year, is such an amazing opportunity to learn about so many different lived experiences within the disability community, and it's also become a place where our team learns about the latest and greatest in accessibility innovation, as well as in making our event accessible to people with every disability, you know, our goal in creating our conference every year is that we create the most accessible experience for everybody who's there.

 

And my number one favorite thing is being at the conference and somebody coming up to me and telling me, this is the most accessible event that I've ever been to, and I feel like I am with a community of people that I don't normally get to be with.

 

And, you know, that just makes my day.

 

That really makes all the hard work that we put into planning it.

 

And so have just been really fortunate to learn so much over the years through the conference, just as one example.

 

I can imagine it is so satisfying for you and your team to just watch it all unfold and listen to all the amazing conversations.

 

I have to say, I am really, really excited.

 

We're all heading over to Dallas in a few weeks time, and I'm looking forward to my brain just gradually expanding over the three days that we're going to be there, because I know myself from being in the disability community, it's often spoken about how you have to find your tribe, you have to find your people that can relate to you and that can actually have conversations that are related to disability, but also they're in relation to business, they're in relation to changing the world in a productive and really efficient manner.

 

And I wonder, what have you seen as the biggest change since you started with disability and now, because obviously it is such an ever-changing landscape.

 

What do you think has been the biggest shift that you've noticed?

 

Absolutely.

 

I think the acceleration in digital accessibility and adoption by companies has just completely taken off.

 

I think that we have seen as technology grows and develops more companies who are building accessibility into the beginning of their journey, when they are creating a new product, service, software, whatever it might be, you know, I remember my early days, even being at disability and something like captions being built into the virtual meeting platform that you're using was not something that existed, you know, we would have to make sure that we could hire a captioner, get them into that platform that they would be able to caption the meeting.

 

Now all I have to do is click a button when I'm in a virtual meeting and everybody in the meeting has captions in.

 

Now we're even seeing that expand to multiple languages so that, you know, no matter who you're connecting with, it is really simple and easy to have accessibility built in, into whatever you're doing.

 

Oh, how far we've come.

 

You took us down memory lane there, Brian.

 

Yeah, right.

 

Yeah.

 

So what has, you know, before you, if you take yourself back to before you were working in the accessibility and disability space, and then if you think about where you are now, what has surprised you the most about your learnings from your accessibility journey?

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

You know, I think that something that's really surprised me is when you kind of take a step back and look at it, disability really impacts everybody.

 

Whether you're a person with a disability, whether you have a family member with a disability or a friend and are an ally, this community is huge and expansive and diverse in every sense of the word, and I think that, you know, that personal connection, so many people that you have a conversation with, I'll use our conferences as an example, are there because they have a personal story, a personal connection, and the more that our community grows, the more that those stories and connections grow as well.

 

A hundred percent.

 

And I know I was on a briefing call in relation to the conference a few weeks ago, and there were seven of us on the call, and out of the seven people on the call, four people were blind.

 

And as a blind person myself, I just loved seeing the majority of the people on that call being four other blind professionals, you know, really high achievers in their career and their respective fields.

 

I thought it was fantastic to see, excuse the pun there, and I'm really excited to see other examples of that over the few days in the conference.

 

Yeah, absolutely.

 

And you know, the only other thing I'd add, and I maybe won't even call this a surprise, but I think that something else that you'll experience at our conference is the innovation that the people with disabilities at our conference and in our corporate partners are bringing to the work that they're doing and the innovation that they are driving within their companies is really astounding and really is something that companies should be paying attention to and harnessing.

 

How are we, you know, working with, for example, our ERGs within our company to think about the products and services that we are developing and creating and innovating, because if you include those communities from the very beginning of that development, you're going to have a much more accessible product on the back end.

 

And that's something that we've heard be brought up in our conversations before is that if you embed accessibility and disability awareness into all of your practices from the beginning, it's going to save you time, money and effort in the long term because you won't have to go back and recheck something.

 

Chances are you can never predict the future, but if you kind of foolproof yourself to the best of your ability, then you're going to be doing yourself, your future self, a favor.

 

And it's funny, I've worked in other places before and the way I'm doing work now in Mobility Mojo versus the way I was doing work before, I am operating in a completely different manner.

 

I am achieving so much more than I ever have before.

 

My days are so much more productive and so much more efficient and it's all because of how we do things, because we really harness the digital tools that exist in today's world to harness productivity and to make sure that you're not only coming to work and you're able to do your job, but you're actually able to do your job to the level that you didn't even realize was possible.

 

And I know that's a conversation that Disability Inn have had before, but when you really lean into accessibility, you open the door to creativity and productivity in a whole other way.

 

And I think that's a really important point and you unlock this opportunity for all of your employees.

 

I'll use an example, last year Disability Inn came out with a research study around neuro-inclusion and neurodiversity in the workplace.

 

And one of the really cool things that we found in that study is that when managers and employers build a workplace that is more neuro-inclusive, you're actually creating a more inclusive workplace for everybody.

 

So simple things like creating a meeting agenda in advance, having clear goals and outcomes are things that aren't just good for your neurodiverse employees, they're good for all of your employees.

 

And so we have a whole resource on our website that really is a whole framework for managers to use to, again, not only create a more inclusive environment for your neurodiverse employees, but for all of your employees and to make yourself a better manager.

 

And when you create for the margins, the mass is also served.

 

If you help one person, the chances are you're going to help the majority as well and you'll see the return of investment in that in time also.

 

What would you say to businesses or people who think that accessibility isn't relevant to them?

 

It doesn't matter to them because their business isn't a disability organization.

 

I would say it's relevant to everybody.

 

You know, Disability Inn just released a new study last week on the disability consumer market.

 

And what we found is that people with disabilities control $675 billion in spending power and $107 billion in discretionary income.

 

And that's not even the whole market because that was just the US and it didn't take into account things like neurodivergence and chronic illness and mental health disabilities.

 

And so we know that that market is even more expansive.

 

There is this huge community out there.

 

And the research really confirmed what we already knew, which is the disability across exists across every demographic that business is already serving.

 

It's not a separate market.

 

It's a dimension of every market.

 

And every business should be paying attention to this huge community of people.

 

And so I think that a lot of organizations still don't understand how disability shapes purchasing decisions and customer loyalty and brand trust.

 

And it's something that they should be paying much more attention to and thinking about how are we winning the business of this community.

 

And I'm sure you'll agree.

 

It doesn't only exist in all demographics, but it also disability doesn't discriminate.

 

So just because, you know, you're 30 years old and you currently do not have a disability, we all are open to the chance of, of developing a disability through age, through illness.

 

It might not affect you directly, but maybe it'll affect your friend, your family.

 

And oftentimes we hear people say that, God, I didn't realize it.

 

But then my mom, my dad, my brother, and it does just take that personal touch usually for, for people to realize how important developing accessibility into everything you do is.

 

So we would encourage people to, to not wait for that personal touch, just start now.

 

It's such an important point.

 

It's the only community that anybody can join at any time.

 

And so to, to your point, you know, it might not affect you today, but it could at any time and certainly affects, you know, people within your life.

 

So if we look at the current landscape, of course, with all the achievements that, that everyone is doing and the great measures that we're all taking, there is still work to do.

 

So we'll look at both perspectives.

 

Where do you think the world needs to improve the most when it comes to accessibility?

 

What's the biggest thing on your mind that we go, we need to get better at doing this.

 

And then what, what are you really proud of to contrast that?

 

You know, I think that in every conversation that we are having these days at disability in, in that our corporate partners are having, there is a huge opportunity as it relates to AI.

 

And so as I look at what is happening right now in AI, I look at things that I think are going to dramatically accelerate disability inclusion.

 

So things like helping coders build code that is accessible from the very beginning in a way that you maybe don't have to be an expert on accessibility, but you know that the code that you are creating is going to be accessible.

 

Now on the flip side of that, I think that there's a huge opportunity for companies to do more to make sure that the AI that they are developing is inclusive.

 

And so, you know, an example of that would be something like image generators.

 

There are all kinds of AI tools that are generating images.

 

How are we making sure that those images are creating authentic representations of people with disabilities?

 

How are we making sure that something like an image generator is also generating alt text for someone who's blind?

 

Again, making it easier to make things accessible for everybody.

 

Could not agree more.

 

Brian, thank you so much for joining me on Mobility Mojo does disability in.

 

I am so excited to meet you over in Dallas in a few weeks time.

 

I'm sure you are all very excited as well.

 

Thank you so much for joining me on this podcast and I will see you very soon.

 

Oh, Bobby, an absolute pleasure.

 

Really excited to see you and the Mobility Mojo team very soon.

 

Thank you for listening to Mobility Mojo does disability in.

 

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