Last Episode of the Season! Sam and Nikki reflect on and appreciate our Season 2 journey. We explored the rapid progress in AI and its impact and limitations on accessibility. We also delve into the diverse perspectives we’ve explored throughout the season. These conversations explored the different experiences of living with disabilities and working in accessibility.
Disability Bandwidth celebrates disabled entrepreneurs and experts as we discuss the evolving perception of disability as a source of pride and identity. With heartfelt gratitude, we invite you to dive into our previous episodes to broaden your understanding and foster a more inclusive society.
Thank you for joining us on this season’s remarkable journey!
Transcript
[00:00:05] Welcome to season two of Disability Bandwidth.
[00:00:12] Nikki Nolan: A show where we talk with experts in disability about their journey, life, and inspiration.
[00:00:17] Sam Proulx: I’m Sam Proulx.
[00:00:18] Nikki Nolan: And I’m Nikki Nolan.
[00:00:20] Sam Proulx: Let’s get started.
[00:00:21] Nikki Nolan: I can’t believe this season is over.
[00:00:24] Sam Proulx: I know.
[00:00:27] Nikki Nolan: It’s wild.
[00:00:29] Sam Proulx: I know so much has happened in the last 12 weeks too. I mean, it’s so funny, sort of reflecting back on what we were talking about in the opening reflective episode, we were kind of riding that AI hype, bandwagon, hype train and I mean, look at what’s happened just in the past 12 weeks regarding all of that stuff.
[00:00:51] Nikki Nolan: It’s wild. Even like our last episode, last week on Global Accessibility Awareness Day with Joe. We recorded that before, at the beginning of the year and I feel like he would’ve had so much more to say with all of that. But yeah, AI seems like it is, going.
[00:01:14] Sam Proulx: I saw a video that really highlighted the situation, in a very humorous way. I don’t know if you got to see Google’s latest live event, where they were making all their new, new announcements. Somebody did a montage video of every time the CEO of Google said the word AI in that presentation.
[00:01:34] Just him saying that back to back, and I think the video is 57 seconds long. I’m just him saying the word AI.
[00:01:40] Nikki Nolan: I have not seen that, but I have seen the really funny AI images that have been created. They asked AI to make people eat spaghetti. And it cannot figure out how people eat spaghetti. So it’s people eating spaghetti, with their hands, they’ve ripped apart like some kind of animal.
[00:02:02] Sam Proulx: I don’t know. As someone who has never figured out a satisfactory way to eat spaghetti while also looking good. I am firmly on the AI side of this. I don’t think I know how to eat spaghetti.
[00:02:15] Nikki Nolan: It’s really, really amusing and really post-apocalyptic. It’s really, really funny. But they can’t figure out hands. They can’t figure out mouths completely. But it is pretty hyper realistic in a way that’s a little alarming for me. My mom actually called me on the phone today and was like we need to have a safe word because they can generate people’s voices.
[00:02:44] Sam Proulx: Yes, I cloned my own voice for fun. It’s very creepy in a way.
[00:02:49] Nikki Nolan: I mean, if we wanna bring it back, Apple’s announcements that they announced over the week of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. I think it’s really important when we talk about AI and it’s funny and it’s also a little bit scary, but to realize that it’s a tool because Apple announced the ability.
[00:03:11] Sam Proulx: That I think will be coming out in iOS 17. They announced it as part of their Global Accessibility Awareness Day announcements. For those who have difficulty speaking or believe that they may be imminently about to lose their ability to speak, can now use Apple’s AI to clone their voice and type in messages. And use iMessages and Apple’s other tools to continue to talk to their loved ones with their own voice, even after they have lost the ability to speak.
[00:03:39] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, my friend actually sent me the announcement and was like this is so cool. Look at all the stuff that Apple’s doing. So I’m excited that last week was 12 years of global accessibility awareness and just how, I mean, we were just talking about in the last 12 weeks how far we’ve been, AI has come in the last 12 years.
[00:04:00] We have come so far. We still have a long way to go.
[00:04:04] Sam Proulx: Oh, we do. But that was also something that was so interesting about the episode last week. I mean, your day’s made it when all of the big companies are participating, right? Apple is making announcements. Google is making announcements, Microsoft is making announcements.
[00:04:22] I don’t know that 12 years ago, I would’ve believed that there would be a day that it would be so central in the calendars of all of these major organizations.
[00:04:30] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, I fully agree. And talking about Global Accessibility Awareness Day last week, you and I did a panel for Fable that people can find the video for- which is really, really, exciting.
[00:04:44] Sam Proulx: One of the things I love about working with Fable, I get to do panels with my favorite people. I mean, not only are they titans of accessibility, but they’re also just great people. I was reflecting on that over the course of our podcast. It’s been two seasons now.
[00:05:01] It’s been more episodes than you can count on your fingers and toes, which is an achievement, right? We’ve been doing this for some time and there so many of the podcasters that I am acquainted with have that story where they can say, oh, that one person, that one interview, oh, I didn’t like that person.
[00:05:20] All of our interviews have been with not only people who are incredible leaders and visionaries and doers and thinkers, but also just people that are amazing, good, nice people that I would enjoy hanging out with.
[00:05:36] Nikki Nolan: Oh, 100%. I’ve liked all of our guests except for that one, and I’m not telling you who, I’m kidding. I’m just kidding. I have loved everybody.
[00:05:46] Sam Proulx: Yeah, but there’s something special in that, right? I mean, you’ve done other podcasts. I’ve done other podcasts. It’s not always the case, and I don’t know, I just felt the need to highlight that for a minute.
[00:05:56] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, I feel like we’ve created a really special group of people and we’ll continue to. It’s so fun just uncovering. It’s sort of like we’re on this journey of finding out what this new landscape is and hearing all the different perspectives and the different things and I’m excited.
[00:06:14] Hopefully next season we can get even deeper in and get into some of those other cultures that we don’t necessarily have that dialogue going with. We were able to bring on people who are doing accessibility in India, but I would love to bring in even more of that perspective because I thought that that was really, really fascinating.
[00:06:38] Sam Proulx: Yeah, and so many of the people on our podcast are like, wow, I’ve never been on a podcast before. And they’re such big people and they’ve never been asked. I think that tells a really interesting story. If you follow our guests on LinkedIn, you’ll see a number of them say, this is the first time I’ve been on a podcast.
[00:06:54] Some of our guests, even over this year, are continuing to do things in ways that perhaps I hadn’t previously. I got to watch, attend virtually a presentation that Mina gave, over at the Access U conference, just a couple weeks ago.
[00:07:14] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. She got to meet Meryl. And that photo was fantastic.
[00:07:20] Sam Proulx: Hmm.
[00:07:20] Nikki Nolan: I just love following all of our guests and all of the amazing cool things that they’re doing. And they’re meeting each other in real life, which, Sam, you and I still need to.
[00:07:32] Sam Proulx: We said, how come two of our guests have met each other who weren’t on the same episode and we have not met? I don’t know.
[00:07:41] Nikki Nolan: But it feels like we met.
[00:07:44] Sam Proulx: We were supposed to, but life happened, situations and circumstances happened. But we’ll take another try. I don’t know what are good conferences in your city? I need an excuse to get down there.
[00:07:54] Nikki Nolan: There’s so many conferences here and I have this really fun party trick where if you ask me a fun fact or you ask me something, my brain just stops and will not give me the information. It’s like a fun game that my body and brain play with me. I’m terrified to share a fun fact I immediately struck with, I don’t know.
[00:08:18] I also have that same exact response. My brain and body have that same exact response when someone, when you’re going around and it’s say your name and something interesting about yourself and your job title and I never could, by the time it gets to me, I cannot remember what they asked me.
[00:08:36] Sam Proulx: Oh, oh, it’s the worst thing. For me, it’s whenever somebody asks me, oh, so what are your hobbies outside of work? And you all know me. I live an active, interesting life, and I do a great many things, but as soon as someone asks me what my hobbies are, I instantly cannot think of a single thing that I do.
[00:08:50] Nikki Nolan: I am. I just yeah, I feel my brain. I can only talk about my brain because that’s what I know is just trying to constantly hide things from me. It’s a fun little, little game, and that really goes to making sure you’re framing questions in a way that opens conversation. Which is something that is difficult, but I have really appreciated all of the questions and everything that you’ve brought to this.
[00:09:17] But is there anything that you can remember that sticks out from this season that really you were like, wow, that’s really interesting, or really helps me change my perspective on something, or, oh, I really wanna go look into that.
[00:09:34] There’s a lot to pull from.
[00:09:36] Sam Proulx: There’s so much to pull from. The thing that I’ve been really excited about this year is that we’ve had so many deep conversations about various disabilities that are cognitive, that are speech, that are sensory, that aren’t just sort of the three, blind, deaf, or a wheelchair user, right?
[00:09:58] That tends to be where we stop. But we’ve gotten deeper than that. We’ve had a couple of episodes with really, really deep insights into not just autism and being neurotypical or not, but on how that relates to other disabilities, how that relates to life, how that relates to, kind of being in the world.
[00:10:20] And so there were a lot of really deep insights and learnings that I took there. And then speaking of wheelchair users, the episode with Billy was just so reaffirming of the things that I already think in a very exciting way about making accessible footwear that turns out is great for a whole bunch of different segments of people who do not consider themselves or would not consider themselves disabled. Is really doubling down on the things that I think we’ve been saying here for quite some time.
[00:10:53] And then secondly, it’s just so good. To have disabled entrepreneurs. I know we talk a lot about leaders and about people getting things done in big organizations and that’s important. Don’t get me wrong, that’s valuable and that’s super important, but the world also needs more disabled entrepreneurs.
[00:11:15] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. And going off of what you just said, I thought it was super interesting. Joe talked about how he doesn’t necessarily identify as a person with a disability, but he believes that we need to expand on the definition of accessibility because we should just make the world more accessible is what I took from that conversation.
[00:11:41] And it shouldn’t be necessarily targeted at a specific disability. We should just be trying to make the world more accessible for everyone. And sort of like the curb cut effect. This whole entire season, a lot of it has been about uncovering and understanding what our needs are as individuals and being able to remove the barriers in society or our workplace or just within the realms of different places, and how can we just make a society that is just more accessible so people can be successful so they don’t have as many barriers. And having that semi removed from alignment with disability and more of how do we view the world as just making the world more accessible, full stop.
[00:12:26] Sam Proulx: And when we do that, when we sort of move on to recognizing and understanding our own needs and, and making the world more accessible. In a lot of communities there is a reframing, it’s slow and gradual, but it seems to be building more and more momentum every year. A reframing going on of the concept of disability, right?
[00:12:46] I think it started in the Deaf community with capitalizing the word Deaf and there has become a Deaf pride movement, which has begun to expand into the blindness community and making sure we do things capitalize the B in braille and just blindness pride and being proud of your needs as an expression of your uniqueness.
[00:13:10] I think the autism community has also started to do that. It’s just been really interesting to see this reframing away from limitation and kind of thinking of disability as a lack, to thinking about it as something that we can be proud of in the same way that we’re proud of our nationality, or our birth city, or any other of the kind of characteristics about us.
[00:13:37] Nikki Nolan: I totally agree. This season was so fun. Last season was so fun. I mean, if all you’re hearing is this episode, we have two seasons, go back, listen to our interviews.
[00:13:50] Sam Proulx: Yeah. If all you’re hearing is this episode, you’re so confused. I’m sorry. Go back and start from the beginning, because this isn’t even the last chapter. This is the epilogue from the authors. So, maybe back up a little bit.
[00:14:03] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, so we have two full seasons out. I went back and re-listened to the episodes because there’s just so many juicy points and interesting facts and ideas in them. I feel like I’ve listened to a lot of our episodes over and over, but I absorb information that way. I find that if I listen to it several times, then I can pull the facts and the figures and then they’re more-
[00:14:30] Sam Proulx: I would say making the episodes multimodal is an improvement. I mean, I gotta give props to you that you’ve really stepped up and helped us to make this season. Not only because we have the transcripts, but the show notes in this season have been so rich. Collecting up all of the links and resources and things that our guests have mentioned.
[00:14:53] Listening to the audio of any episode of our podcast is an introduction to a thing. If you are listening in a podcast player that doesn’t make the show notes apparent to you. I would very much encourage you to go back to one or two of the episodes that were interesting to you, and expand those show notes.
[00:15:11] And there’s such a rich wealth of resources to help you consume more on that topic in whichever way you do.
[00:15:18] Nikki Nolan: Mm-hmm. And some of them are just how do you connect with that guest to get more contacts? I feel like in the second episode of this season, which was our first interview with Angie-
[00:15:32] The show notes for that one in particular are just a pathway into magic and Grace’s episode has a lot of robust ones, as well as Mina. Those three have so many resources in them, but other ones do as well. But those three, I remember them referencing so many different things that were really fun to find and track down and have the guests send us where they got that information from.
[00:16:10] Sam Proulx: Grace was so fun. She was sending us things weeks after the interview. It was so fun.
[00:16:15] Nikki Nolan: Grace was so much fun, though. Everybody had so much fun. I mean, this season we had an additional guest. We had Angie, we had Billy, we had Grace, we had Kai, we had Olivia, Julia, Mina, Drew, Meryl, Shani and Joe and it’s been, yeah, it’s been great.
[00:16:37] Sam Proulx: So we’ve got both of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day co-founders. What do we do for a final next season?
[00:16:46] Nikki Nolan: Did you just say final or is this just a trilogy?
[00:16:48] Sam Proulx: No, like a final episode and we have a final episode on GAAD. Next year. What do we do? We’ve got both co-founders now.
[00:16:55] Nikki Nolan: Well, Joe gave us the person that made the logo, so maybe that, or maybe we just bring Jenison and Joe back. Maybe we will start doing panels next season. Who knows?
[00:17:07] Sam Proulx: Ooh. We could have some panels. I thought for a minute you were gonna say maybe we add another founder.
[00:17:12] Nikki Nolan: I mean, I’m open to that.
[00:17:14] Sam Proulx: Yeah. No, but, I think it’s fun. Next season’s gonna be something else again. And we’ll know what it’s gonna be as we start to record it, because these things, these things do begin to take shape.
[00:17:27] Calling back to what you were saying a few minutes ago about asking questions and about being curious and fun, while also framing questions in ways that are easy and accessible for people to answer. We did that again. We did that so well this year. A lot of that is thanks to you, not only collaboratively framing the questions, but then keeping the whole thing actually on track.
[00:17:52] There’s a reason that you, I specifically asked you to host that panel, even though it’s being put on by Fable, that we were at last week.
[00:17:59] Nikki Nolan: Yeah, and we might potentially turn it into an episode. We’ll see. It depends, we gotta make sure that we dot all the T’s and I’s, and I don’t know what all the words are that I’m trying to say out of my mouth. But it might be a bonus, we might put out some bonus episodes over the summer because this comes out every winter at the beginning of every year.
[00:18:25] And so springish winter, I feel.
[00:18:27] Sam Proulx: Yeah. We’ve had our reflections. Do you have reflections? Do you have thoughts? We’re on LinkedIn. We’re available by email. It’s possible. One of us is on Twitter, but don’t quote me on that.
[00:18:39] Nikki Nolan: I am on Twitter, but I’m not very active because I’m dyslexic, so I go on Twitter, but I’m on Instagram. You can find me on Instagram, LinkedIn.
[00:18:47] Sam Proulx: Regardless. Come find us. We’re easy to find, we’re easy to get in touch with. Tell us what you wanna see in season three. If you are listening to this podcast and being man, I have great things to say. If you want to come and be on the podcast and meet us and talk to us, we are nice people, if I do say so myself.
[00:19:05] I can at least say that we don’t bite. But seriously, we would love to hear what you want from season three because this is a journey of exploration and learning and discovery for the two of us and we hope for you too. And, we would love to hear your thoughts and reflections and opinions and learnings,
[00:19:26] Nikki Nolan: Sam.
[00:19:27] Sam Proulx: We reflect.
[00:19:28] Nikki Nolan: Sam, where can they find you? I said where they could find me. But where can people find you?
[00:19:33] Sam Proulx: Where can people find me? People can find me easiest on LinkedIn, there is a link to my LinkedIn in the show notes. That is where I live and interact, professionally. They can also know basically everything that I am up to by visiting the website of Fable over at www.makeitfable.com. Because most things that I do wind up shared and posted over there.
[00:19:58] So, if you’re jonesing, if you’re feeling man, I missed listening to Sam’s voice every week, for whatever reason, there will be more of that coming out throughout the summer. There’s gonna be some new things on LinkedIn and there’s gonna be some new streams and some new events, none of which I can officially announce.
[00:20:15] But stay tuned if you want to hear me in June, July, and August, there will be things happening and coming up.
[00:20:22] Nikki Nolan: That’s so exciting. Well, thank you everybody for listening to this season and just to reiterate what Sam said, we are really accessible. Reach out to us. We love hearing from you. We love learning what excites you and what you like about it. So please share your opinions and facts with us. And do subscribe and give us all the stars everywhere.
[00:20:46] Help us share this out with your friends and family because that really helps people find us. And so, thank you all for being here and thank you Sam, for co-hosting with me. This has been really, really awesome.
[00:20:59] Sam Proulx: Every season. Every season. I was gonna say, every season it gets more fun, but that is a trend. I’ve loved both seasons and I’m looking forward to season three.
[00:21:09] Nikki Nolan: Me too. Well, bye Sam. I’ll see you next year. Well, I’ll probably see you before then.
[00:21:14] Sam Proulx: Geez, Nikki, you’re giving out the secret. We’re not actually friends, we’re just podcast co-hosts. We don’t talk to each other.
[00:21:22] Nikki Nolan: Well, Sam, thank you so much for joining me on this ride through season two, and I’m excited to join up with you on more panels and stuff like that. But we’ll talk soon, for season three.
[00:21:39] Sam Proulx: Absolutely.
[00:21:45] 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.
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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