Mindset Matters: Contemplating The Future Of Accessibility

Mindset Matters: Contemplating The Future Of Accessibility

Israeli flag in the middle of the book. Knowledge and education concept.

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The writer Dan Senor in his book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle wrote that “it is a story not just of talent but of tenacity, of insatiable questioning of authority, of determining informality, combined with a unique attitude toward failure, teamwork, mission, risk, and cross-disciplinary creativity.” This past week I had the good fortune of being part of a select group to participate in a five-day program known as the Global Accessibility and Inclusion Summit, or GAILS for short sponsored by Access Israel, a nonprofit whose primary mission is to both promote accessibility and inclusion across the State of Israel and improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities. Yet, throughout the summit what became quite apparent was not only the structure of the event but the fact that Israel provides such fertile ground for exploring the ever-changing scope and definitions of accessibility.

Access Israel’s philosophy for this event was built on the premise of bringing together a diverse a group of leaders across the accessibility space and developing an environment for cross-pollination of ideas, building trust, and planting the seeds to bolster a greater sense of community that has the potential to grow exponentially. Through these five days, this diverse group of thinkers and practitioners from all over the globe developed a sense of collegial harmony and built relationships that challenged the traditional framework of accessibility and offered new pathways to think about the potential opportunities of what can be done, not only in the State of Israel but across the globe.

Even though this was the first year that Access Israel has embarked on such an endeavor, what they understood through their programming included meeting with team members at tech stalwarts from the Israel campuses of Microsoft and Google to a bevy of young entrepreneurs who shared their start-up visions is the recognition of the changing parlance of accessibility goes far beyond curb cuts and ramps to something even more profound, a model of innovation that will have a tectonic effect on the century ahead.

The takeaway from these five days beyond feeling a part of a newfound community was the ability to recognize that accessibility is very much an umbrella term that has significant nuance and complexity. We are living at an inflection point where we must engage in exploring the many tributaries that will define accessibility for the future to come and identify that the lived experience of disability is inextricably connected to various elements of innovation including design, technology, and the future of work.

Access Israel understands that as an organization they are embarking upon a new paradigmatic model within the disability space. They are positioning themselves as a key mechanism for change that espouses the values of innovation leadership and highlights the disability community as central to building a new formula to help discover more effective solutions tying government, academia, nonprofit and corporate entities together to look toward a future society that embraces full inclusion as a fundamental ethos.

Access Israel and the Global Accessibility and Inclusion Summit (GAILS) is a monumental step forward in disrupting the status quo and pushing accessibility in all its permutations to the forefront of societal thinking. No longer can accessibility be an afterthought, but essential to the framework of shaping a better quality of life for all.

02
The Power Of The Changing Mindset

David is a best-selling author, speaker and trainer. He is also CEO of IPD, a world-class marketing agency based in Tampa, Florida.

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In his book Think Again, Adam Grant writes: "The problem is that we live in a rapidly changing world, where we need to spend as much time rethinking as we do thinking."

It takes a wise person to be able to acknowledge areas that they need further education in. It takes a determined person to put forth the efforts required to educate themselves in these areas, and it takes a humble person to change or unlearn the beliefs that they hold when faced with the fact that they are incorrect.

This is a hard pill to swallow, but it is also necessary if you want to grow. Changing your pre-existing beliefs takes real work. It requires you to look inward at times, and it demands that you properly educate yourself on topics that you may or may not have had any experience in. Change in any form is difficult.

I have had to unlearn many habits, beliefs and opinions within my lifetime, and I attribute the success that I’ve experienced to an ability to not just learn but to unlearn. It hasn’t been easy. Luckily, I have a solid team around me to help me along this journey. I started my marketing company back in 1995 with my wife, making sales calls out of the bedroom of our apartment.

Since then, we as a country have seen massive change: The internet boom that took nearly every business online. The 2008 recession, which hit the automotive industry that I serve particularly hard. The introduction and rise of social media marketing, which has steadily taken the place that TV, radio and newspaper ads once held. And the pandemic, which effectively put thousands of companies within hundreds of industries on halt.

Each one of these instances has led to changes in the world. They have changed the way we do business. They have changed the way our day-to-day lives look. They have changed how we view the world.

Marketing itself is an ever-changing aspect of business. The tools we use change constantly, and the platforms are continuously growing and evolving. Ad spaces within popular magazines used to be prime real estate for marketers. Now, they take a backseat to digital advertising. No one would have dreamed of using sites like Facebook and Instagram to market their businesses 10 or 15 years ago. Yet, here we are.

What I have found in my life is that there are two key reasons why someone will change:

• They are forced to by some outside circumstance.

• They see an upside in doing so.

Unfortunately, history and battlefields are littered with the results of the former.

The power of the changing mindset is strong enough to alter your life. To be able to stand up and say “I won’t do it this way anymore” can be the difference between success and failure. We have to stop waiting to be forced into change, because often by then it’s too late. We have to see the upside in changing with the times and not resisting these changes, regardless of how uncomfortable they may be.

The ability to think is crucial, but so is the ability to rethink. Innovation breeds efficiency, but before there can be innovation there must be the acknowledgment that whatever we are doing right now isn’t the best way.

One of the most important figures within my own respective industry would be Henry Ford, who saw the disconnect between the building and selling of cars. He recognized the issue of building vehicles and attempting to sell them at a cost that most families would never be able to afford. Instead of continuing to do it the same way, Ford had the assembly line developed. With the assembly line, Ford was able to manufacture vehicles in a fraction of the time it took before. Less time meant lower cost, and a lower cost meant that more consumers could afford Ford’s vehicles. Innovation bred efficiency.

Henry Ford could very well have decided to keep producing cars without the assembly line. He could have followed what other manufacturers were doing at the time, and perhaps have even been successful. It was his willingness to rethink how he was running his operation, however, that changed not only his organization but the world as we know it. It starts on a small scale, and then it grows.

For myself, a lot of my rethinking has been in regards to my own skill as a leader and a salesperson. I’ve had to rethink my methods of training, my leadership style and my approach to sales multiple times within my life. The way I do things today is not at all like how I did them when I was just getting into sales.

Growing as a person, a business owner, a trainer, a salesperson, and a marketer takes effort. In order to improve yourself, you have to challenge your own opinions. It will be difficult, but you’ll be glad that you did it.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?

03
Kendall Jenner on How She Creates a More 'Positive Mindset' When Suffering From Intense Anxiety

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Kendall Jenner on How She Creates a More 'Positive Mindset' When Suffering From Intense Anxiety

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