Join hosts Sam Proulx and Nikki Nolan as they kick off Season 2 of Disability Bandwidth! In this first episode, they discuss what’s in store for the season and share their enthusiasm for the upcoming topics and guests. As a fun bonus, they also experiment with AI and discover that it thinks the podcast is about disabled pirates! Don’t miss this entertaining episode to start off the new season.
Transcript
[00:00:05] Nikki Nolan: Welcome to season two of Disability Bandwidth!
[00:00:12] Sam Proulx: A show where we talk with experts in disability about their journey, life, and inspiration.
[00:00:16] Nikki Nolan: I’m Nikki Nolan.
[00:00:17] Sam Proulx: And I’m Sam Proulx. Let’s get started.
[00:00:19] Nikki Nolan: Well, Sam I am so excited. It has been a year. Can you believe it’s been a year since season one has come out?
[00:00:27] Sam Proulx: It does not feel like a year, it feels like maybe a couple of months. Although, to be fair, we did start thinking about season two real quick off the bat of season one because we had so much fun making it and got such great responses from our guests and everyone who participated from Fable, who’s our sponsor. And from you, our listeners, that we immediately thought, hey, we should start thinking about season two.
[00:00:49] And so we did. And then we did it. And now here it comes. Here it comes right to you, however you want it. If it’s audio, if it’s visual. However you want to absorb this content, we have hopefully made it accessible for you. I got such good feedback. People loved the stories. People found a lot of inspiration from them to move through blocks that they might have had in their careers and listening to people who had been there and done that really helped sort of frame.
[00:01:24] Nikki Nolan: And so I think with season two we thought let’s dive into people’s lives and journeys and their passions. And I think that this season is really interesting. I feel like we dive deeper into the complexities of disability experiences.
[00:01:40] Sam Proulx: Yeah, the real interesting part of the exploration for me is something that I’ve always known intellectually and theoretically, which is that you can’t build one size fits all solutions, right? If we think about the assistive technology that we use, whether it’s a magnifier or a screen reader, or audiobooks or anything else, they have so many settings and you can adjust it for the individual person.
[00:02:07] And so I feel like I’ve always known that. But the thing that this season really dives into and what we really spend quite a lot of time getting to grips with the way that one size fits one’s needs, can shift and change and adapt over time because we as people with disabilities are not always aware exactly what our needs are.
[00:02:32] When we start on the journey and as we become more experienced on that journey, as we become more comfortable in our own skins, in our own bodies, sometimes those needs shift and change and we need something we didn’t need before or we stopped needing something that we previously needed. And it’s really important that we as people with disabilities, learn to communicate about that and learn that it’s okay and learn to stop judging ourselves or stop feeling guilt, or reluctance to really dive in and explore and understand and come to grips with our own needs and how they change.
[00:03:06] And it’s really important that allies and folks who are on this journey with us recognize that just as making a product or a service more accessible, being a person with a disability in the world and living your life is also a journey. And that journey is okay and we build and grow and develop. And just because somebody no longer needs something, what they used to need or develops a new need that they didn’t initially have doesn’t mean that those needs were fake or wrong or that the person was wrong at the time about themselves and just really be.
[00:03:42] The fluidity of need, I think, has been something that has come up time and time again during the season.
[00:03:50] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. I really found this season to be interesting because we not only learned about peoples’ journeys and where they currently are, but what I really loved was all the tidbits of knowledge that everyone passed down. The books, the articles, the people that inspired them to learn and understand and expand.
[00:04:12] I think this is really not necessarily about inspiration, but it is about finding tools and techniques that work for you as a person so that you could remove barriers for yourself for other people and start on that journey of uncovering and unpacking things and that was really helpful for me.
[00:04:34] I got so inspired by this season in terms of, oh, I need to read that book. I really need to start following that person. I also picked up some tips and tricks about talking about disability and how many different lenses there are. You know, some people love person first.
[00:04:51] Some people like identity first. And just exploring the vast array of this landscape that we’re all a part of through our human experience.
[00:05:01] Sam Proulx: Yeah. And also talking to people, it’s interesting too that some of those preferences have changed over time. Right. It’s not because you just decide you prefer person first. You haven’t sworn an oath to be part of the person first club until death. I think that’s important that we remember in the disability community. I think we have understood that previously, but that it feels in some ways that the world has become more polarized and that we, in this community of people with disabilities and of allies, or activists, don’t lose that openness to discussion, to change, to growth, to difference in a way that sometimes it feels like some parts of the world are.
[00:05:41] But I definitely agree with you. The show notes of this season are gonna be gold. So many articles, so many links, so many people to follow, so many things to engage with. And the thing that I think is also so great about this season, is that we’ve spoken to folks, who are in a number of different places on their journey who have a number of different disabilities and abilities, and we’ve been able to give an overview of those things.
[00:06:13] And it’s okay to recognize that each of us can’t be an expert in all things, but like take these episodes as an overview and if when you find the thing that inspires you and makes you passionate and that you’re super curious about, it’s okay to dive into that thing, right? I mean, Nikki, for you it’s autism and…
[00:06:37] Nikki Nolan: Neurodiversity.
[00:06:39] Sam Proulx: In your experience. Whereas for me, sometimes I think that I was just super fascinated by our episode with Billy, because I think a lot about the way that designs that are more accessible are better for everyone. So that was a real dividing point for me. And I don’t know, I think as long as we all get the broad overview, which I think this season does a great job of providing, it’s okay to pick your thing and dive in and be an expert as opposed to trying to know everything about all things disability, right? And just be comfortable with that.
[00:07:11] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, I think that that’s a really good point. We will never know everything and everything that we know is subject to change and subject to moving and subject to new information coming in. And I think if we live with that fixed mindset, oh, I have the answers, nothing is solved.
[00:07:28] It prevents us from evolving. It prevents us from growing as a community, learning new things as things change, as culture changes, as the world and our disabilities change.
[00:07:39] Sam Proulx: It also prevents us from talking, right? I mean, if either of us thought that we knew it all, we would’ve just gone away and done this podcast ourselves, it wouldn’t have bothered with a co-host. Like, why should I have a co-host? I know it all. I think about how much less rich the podcast would be if it wasn’t both of us from our different life journeys and experiences.
[00:07:59] And that only comes from recognizing that I don’t know it all, can’t know it all, and maybe don’t even want to try to know it all and just become good at the things that we are passionate about and love.
[00:08:09] Nikki Nolan: I’ve learned so much from you and from our guests Sam, I don’t wanna put you on the spot, but I feel like I am gonna put you on the spot. What were some things that happened that you were just like, oh, I can’t wait for listeners to hear about this?
[00:08:22] Sam Proulx: I mean, I’ve mentioned Billy’s episode already. That’s exciting to me because that’s a thing that I think a lot about and also disabled entrepreneurs. We need more of those really exciting, fun discussions. It was really great that we had Mina on. I just think it was so necessary to have someone who has a stutter that’s fairly pronounced and for her to be willing and open to coming on a podcast, which, you know, maybe not her favorite medium of choice. But it’s really important to surface all voices across all mediums because while I might disagree with, you know, what has become the old chestnut, that the medium is the message- we do need these messages across all mediums because for some people, podcasts are the thing that work for them.
[00:09:07] And for some people it’s YouTube videos and some people it’s books. And so the way that we learn is to get these different messages out in all of the places. I really enjoyed that she was open to being on and to talking about her experience, in perhaps a medium that she knew was not a favorite.
[00:09:35] It was also really good to hear a little bit more about what is happening in accessibility in India, because I think the ADA and the Americans with Disabilities Act and Barrier-Free Canada and the things going on in the EU disability are kind of very western focused. I think a lot of us as disability advocates tend to fall into the trap of what kind of people in the missionary field used to call from the west to the rest? As in, oh, we’ve got this sorted out and we need to teach the rest of the world about it. And that’s not the case. There is progress going on everywhere in ways that are unique to the different environments that people find themselves in.
[00:10:17] And so it was so exciting to get to hear a little bit about that and things that we don’t normally hear. And I’d like to do more of that I hope in upcoming seasons, talk to more people in Africa and Asia and the parts of Europe that we don’t hear from.
[00:10:33] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, I am in the same boat. I feel like we learned that the diversity of disability and people and locations was really wonderful in this season and I’m so excited that we got to talk to Joe, who is one of the co-founders of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. So season one we got to talk with Jenison, who was the co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day or GAD. And this season we have another co-founder, Joe, which is really, really exciting. He is also going to be on Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
[00:11:12] Sam Proulx: Because Global Accessibility Awareness Day founders are like Pokemon. You gotta catch ’em all.
[00:11:15] Nikki Nolan: We caught them all. We won.
[00:11:21] Sam Proulx: Over a journey of over two years!
[00:11:29] What were some of your favorite moments in season two?
[00:11:32] Nikki Nolan: There were so many. I also agree with you, I really enjoy talking to people who have a voice that is a little bit different. And maybe again, not being the medium in which they predominantly communicate was really, really interesting for me. I also absolutely love talking with Olivia, who is an artist who is exploring disability through an artistic lens, but also like a disabled educational lens as well.
[00:12:04] And I think that was a really, really fun journey.
[00:12:07] Sam Proulx: Mm-hmm. Meryl Evans. We need more deaf and hard of hearing people on podcasts.
[00:12:12] Nikki Nolan: I agree. Meryl was amazing. Ka Li. I laughed so much in that episode with Ka Li. I don’t know what it was, but Ka Li is just so delightful and so just full of life. He has so much life, just like emanating out of him and all the things he wants to do and achieve was really fun.
[00:12:33] Sam Proulx: He is a great guy. If you ever get down to Toronto, the three of us will hang out in person.
[00:12:38] Nikki Nolan: I know we still have not met in person. We were supposed to.
[00:12:42] Sam Proulx: And it didn’t happen.
[00:12:44] Nikki Nolan: We’re gonna do it one day. I mean, I feel like I already know you.
[00:12:49] Sam Proulx: We’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it. We should see if we can get any of the listeners interested. Have a, what do they call them now, a non-conference or whatever. These totally unplanned things. I don’t know if that interests you. Message us on LinkedIn.
[00:13:01] Nikki Nolan: I feel like we should just be like, let’s all meet here.
[00:13:04] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it is freezing in Canada, so let’s make it Hawaii. Okay?
[00:13:08] Nikki Nolan: Hawaii or California? Yeah.
[00:13:11] Sam Proulx: Yeah, true.
[00:13:11] Nikki Nolan: I live in California.
[00:13:14] Sam Proulx: Well, I know I was trying to get you a tropical vacation paid for by, I don’t know.
[00:13:18] Nikki Nolan: I would love. I really need one right now. It’s been kind of cold out here actually. Like we’ve had a fairly cold winter. It’s been so rainy too, we’ve had some wild weather this year.
[00:13:32] Sam Proulx: Oh, oh, everywhere. Yeah. Climate change, and there was actually, I believe, a discussion in the season about climate change, and accessibility and those intersections which is really great. I suppose we should probably think about drawing this brief introductory episode to a close.
[00:13:48] I can’t wait for all of you to hear the great episodes we’ve got coming up in season two. Let’s bring this one to a close. And me and Nikki, we’ll get back to playing ChatGPT. We tried to get it to write this episode, but it didn’t quite work out.
[00:14:03] Nikki Nolan: It didn’t quite work out.
[00:14:04] Sam Proulx: An AI written episode? Not yet. Maybe next season.
[00:14:08] Nikki Nolan: There were some really fun nuggets, like it got most of it right, but it loved to throw the word podcast in and it loved to turn us into artists. Not that I’m not an artist, but it really wanted to make you a performer.
[00:14:20] Sam Proulx: For one bizarre example, it made this a podcast about disabled pirates.
[00:14:30] Nikki Nolan: That was majestic. I was so pumped about that. I was like, oh, maybe we went the wrong direction, but I don’t think we did. And this season we have 13 episodes, which means 11 interviews. Last season we had 10. So maybe, you know, every season we’ll just continue to add one more until it’s like a thousand episodes.
[00:14:50] Sam Proulx: A journey you get into. I’ve seen many podcasts do this. Each season has more and more episodes until suddenly we find ourselves doing a weekly podcast.
[00:14:57] Nikki Nolan: Oh no.
[00:14:58] Sam Proulx: I love the dismay in your voice. Oh, no.
[00:15:02] Nikki Nolan: Oh, no. I love the idea of it, but I don’t know.
[00:15:05] Sam Proulx: The theory of it. I hear you.
[00:15:07] Nikki Nolan: It’s a ton of work. We definitely would have to employ more people, which I get, I’m not opposed to. It would be cool to employ disabled people to make a podcast, you know? Maybe in the future. Well, Sam, do you have any closing thoughts?
[00:15:20] Do you have anything you wanna plug? Anything coming up this March?
[00:15:24] Sam Proulx: Well, boy, what’s coming up in March? I believe when this is airing, Fable, I won’t be there, but a bunch of us from Fable will be over in California. We’re gonna be releasing some new exciting stuff around the accessible usability scale. So, stay tuned to the things that are going on at Fable, my employer. Find us at www.makeitfable.com or you can find us on LinkedIn, as well as Twitter. If Twitter is still a thing when this goes out. Keep up with us and what we’re doing. Keep up with me on LinkedIn. I’m getting better at it.
[00:15:55] What I’m actually doing and where I’m gonna be and where I’m gonna be speaking and actually reaching out to people and being like, “hey, do you wanna get together?” Absolutely keep up with me there. Other than that, that’s pretty much what I’m doing. I know you’re going on some new journeys, Nikki, anything you wanna promote, blog, talk about?
[00:16:10] Nikki Nolan: I will be starting a new job in April, which is really, really exciting. We are working on solving food discrepancies for people who are sick. I’m really excited about providing free meals to people who are chronically sick or disabled. I’m really excited about this company. I’m sure you’ll see more on my LinkedIn in April, but it’s not April yet, so you don’t get to know what it is.
[00:16:41] Sam Proulx: Oh, big secret. All right, well, keep, keep, keep an eye on Nikki’s LinkedIn.
[00:16:45] Nikki Nolan: And then, what else do I have to promote? I have another podcast too, but it’s a monthly podcast. Follow me on Instagram. My handle is @thenikkinolan. It’s pretty much “the Nikki Nolan” across everything. It’s because, and I think maybe I’ve talked about it on the show, it was because when I tried to get nikkinolan.com, 10 or 12 years ago it was already taken. So I just put “the” in front of it and now I have become “the Nikki Nolan” to the extent where it’s like everywhere. My mom’s friends call me “the Nikki Nolan”.
[00:17:19] Sam Proulx: That’s awesome. That’s good. I like it, I enjoy it. Yeah. We just wrapped, it’s over now, the inclusion Hub podcast, that I hosted with the good folks over at More Creative Studios. If you want something that’s a bit more edited and radio style.
[00:17:37] Rather than sort of hearing me ramble on extemporaneously, go over there- www.inclusionhub.com and, you can find a scripted podcast that’s really dealing with the history of accessibility and activism. And if you’re not familiar, the protests that went on in the 1970s and the passage of the ADA and the history of web accessibility in WICAG and how we got here and why we have the problems that we do now.
[00:18:02] Check out that podcast as well.
[00:18:04] Nikki Nolan: It’s so exciting. It’s so good. I’m so glad that you are becoming a podcast host.
[00:18:12] Sam Proulx: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s lots of fun. But with these voice cloning things, we don’t know how long until they replace us.
[00:18:21] Nikki Nolan: I hope they don’t. I actually listened to a really interesting podcast on 99% Invisible. They covered another podcast. It was not their produced show, but it was called The Day the Music Stopped. And it was about in the 1940s, I believe it was the 1940s, how recordings were actually making musicians lose their jobs.
[00:18:44] So instead of having a live band or a musician at a bar, they could replace it with a jukebox, a recording. And so it went from like lots of people and musicians having jobs to no one having jobs because of recordings. And they shut down music recording for over a year to get them to start paying musicians.
[00:19:06] I don’t know if it worked out. It is very fascinating.
[00:19:09] Sam Proulx: Yeah. Hey, Fable sponsored 99% Invisible for a couple episodes. I knew I could bring it back to my employer now.
[00:19:13] Nikki Nolan: Well, thank you so much Fable. we’re so excited to bring you new ads with new voices this season as well. All new people, or do we have the same people?
[00:19:23] Sam Proulx: All new people. All new people.
[00:19:25] Nikki Nolan: All new people in our ads we’re getting. It’s very exciting to hear not only from disabled voices on the podcast or people who are working with disability, but also new disabled voices who work with and are assistive technology users for Fable and beyond. I feel like this is a good place to wrap.
[00:19:46] I’m so excited for everyone to hear this season. I’m so excited to see you Sam and I can’t wait for people to hear all of this stuff.
[00:19:57] Sam Proulx: Absolutely. So as ChatGPT told me to say, hoist the jolly Roger and join us on a journey through the sea of disability, apparently.
[00:20:04] Nikki Nolan: Here’s what mine says, from ChatGPT. So mark your calendar folks. Season two of Disability Bandwidth is coming soon. Then Sam’s supposed to say, that’s right. We hope you will join us for these important conversations about disability. Thanks everyone for listening. Then I’m supposed to say thank you and we’ll talk soon.
[00:20:23] Sam Proulx: Yeah, it’s common. All we need is deep fakes of our voice and we’ll be set. It’ll be hilarious. It’ll be a much weirder world, over the next few years. There’s a whole discussion to be had about the intersection of this. And accessibility for someone, whose dyslexia or anything that makes it difficult to write.
[00:20:41] It might be the theme of next season.
[00:20:43] Nikki Nolan: It is fun technology. I mean, ChatGPT is. Sorry to go on a tangent. I know we said we were wrapping up, but ChatGPT is like the first assistive technology that’s really helped me overcome my dyslexia. Grammarly has helped as well, but ChatGPT helps to unblock me. Grammarly helps me make sure that I spelled things correctly, but ChatGPT, this is what I’m trying to talk about and say, and then it will write something, and then I can actually take that and be creative and write from it. But, it gives me so much more confidence to step outside of myself and not get so stuck in my dyslexia. I do have an internal narrative that I don’t know how to write.
[00:21:30] That ChatGPT actually helps me push through if I don’t know what the right word is, and to come into opposition to that narrative that might not necessarily be true. I might struggle with the ability to write and that causes me a lot more friction, but I’m not incapable of doing the things I’ve just told myself that.
[00:21:54] Sam Proulx: Yeah. Do you find that the end result sounds like you though? I mean, that’s what I’ve been struggling with. If it’s for fun, ask it to write some emails or some LinkedIn posts or some things, and the end result doesn’t sound like me unless I edit it completely. At which point sometimes I’m like, why didn’t I just write it myself in the first place?
[00:22:12] Nikki Nolan: Um, I don’t know if I have, I feel like I have a voice in an auditory sense, like talking. But maybe I do. I would love to hear from people if they think that I have some kind of narrative voice in my writing. I don’t feel like I do.
[00:22:26] Sam Proulx: Yes, some of us have a narrative voice and we’re very precious about it.
[00:22:30] Nikki Nolan: Well Sam, I’m so excited.
[00:22:32] Sam Proulx: Me too. And we get what we did. We did it, folks. This is what it’s like. We just can talk to each other for hours. Be thankful this isn’t one of those six hour long podcast episodes every week. Although some people like that. Hey, we should try that.
[00:22:45] Nikki Nolan: Yeah. Maybe, maybe we can try it out. Let’s experiment with things. Maybe we’ll do LinkedIn live.
[00:22:49] Sam Proulx: Ooh, LinkedIn live. We should do LinkedIn live after this season.
[00:22:52] Nikki Nolan: I think that that would be fun. Yeah, I agree. So look out for some things that we might be experimenting with. We’re not committing to anything, but we might be experimenting.
[00:23:02] Sam Proulx: But if all of you get in the comments and tell us that you want it, then it is more likely to happen. I’ll say that much.
[00:23:07] Nikki Nolan: True. So true. Well, thanks Sam. Play us out.
[00:23:11] Here comes here, here comes the music.
[00:23:18] Sam Proulx: I was assuming you were just gonna fade up the music and not actually sing. Although I do think that’s a good new direction that we’re moving this in.
[00:23:32] Sam Proulx: Thanks for listening to Disability Bandwidth. If you liked this episode of Disability Bandwidth, please subscribe and share it with friends and family. Today’s episode was hosted by Sam Proulx and Nikki Nolan. Edited and produced by Nikki Nolan. Transcripts are written by Emma Klauber.
[00:23:51] Music is created by Efe Akeman. Special thanks to everyone at Fable who without their support, this show would not be possible. You can find out more about Disability Bandwidth on Twitter and Instagram @disabilitybandwidth, or on our website at www.disabilitybandwidth.com.
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