Table of contents
1 Ask the expert
2 Business commentary
3 From the soap box
4 The reader’s choice
5 News and views
6 Helpful tips
7 Accessibility news
8 Editorial
9 Letters to the editor
10 Notes
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the following contributors to this month’s STAE issue.
The Sterling Creations accessibility team, the Sterling Creations business team, the Sterling Creations research team, Scott Savoy our managing editor, Christian Robicheau our assistant editor, our readers, and Donna J Jodhan our president.
Donna J Jodhan is the founder and president of Sterling Creations which was founded in 1994. As a blind woman she has had to overcome mountainous challenges in order to get where she is today. She is a very successful business woman, consultant, and author and she continues to help produce daily blogs that contain weekly features on topics of interest and relevance. She is never tired, always willing to help others, and never gives up when it comes to helping others to voice their opinions. As she puts it: "My undying commitment is to ensure that the kids of tomorrow have a more level playing field when it comes to such things as employment opportunities, equal access to the Internet and technology. I think that if I can do my little part to help someone else succeed then in turn they will help others."
We are all very proud to be part of the Sterling Creations team but above all, we are pleased and delighted to have Donna J Jodhan as our leader.
Message from the president
Hello there! I'd like to thank all of our readers for their continuing loyalty and feedback to our magazine. This magazine could not have been possible without the help and support of our staff and our readers. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge our teams.
All of our teams work extremely hard to bring you tidbits and articles each month that are interesting, newsworthy, and exciting. We strive to keep you informed of the latest news and breakthroughs in the fields of business, health, and technology as they pertain to persons with special needs and we always appreciate your feedback because it is only through you that we can hope to get better.
We hope you enjoy this month's edition.
Ask the expert
Architects have to see the light
January 2008
By the Sterling Creations accessibility team
Happy New Year! It’s the Sterling Creations accessibility team and we’d like to kick off the year by sharing an article with you about architects. We’ve chosen this article because we feel that there are many companies and industries out there that are still not aware of a growing demand for them to cater to the needs of some very important consumers. A very rapidly growing group of very important consumers. We often get asked the question: Do architects need to pay more attention to the needs of our aging baby boomers and seniors? The answer is a very loud yes. So, please take note.
Business Week Online
Architects Have to See The Light
By David Sokol
The U.S is on the verge of a low-vision epidemic among baby boomers. Architects and designers need to help
It was a kitchen caper enough to give most people nightmares. A woman in her mid-70s, who recently suffered vision loss, would enter her kitchen and each time emerge with black-and-blue marks. Diminished eyesight had stolen her ability to discern contrast between cabinets and the surrounding wall surfaces, explains Michael Honan, a clinical rehabilitation manager at Lighthouse International. In the glare of two bright windows, she continually bumped into doors that she was unable to see.
With the aging of the baby boom generation, this senior's experience may soon be commonplace. Tara Cortes, president and CEO of Lighthouse, a vision services agency, points to several figures that suggest the U.S. is on the verge of a low-vision epidemic: Six million Americans are already affected with age-related macular degeneration, the primary cause of vision loss in the U.S, and as many as 15 million more are pre-symptomatic. In addition to age-related sight loss, 5.3 million adults suffer impaired vision caused by diabetic retinopathy--approximately one quarter of diagnosed diabetics--and the obesity epidemic promises to boost that showing.
Low vision, coupled with boomers' propensity toward independent living, suggests a different set of easy design solutions from complete blindness, which affects only 8 percent of all visually impaired people. For now, the challenge is educating architects and planners about how the approaches differ--and ending a bias to design solely for blindness.
Danise Levine, assistant director of the IDEA Center at University at Buffalo, says that while universal design principles take low vision into account, existing standards are prejudiced against low-vision building occupants. "Most accessibility codes are geared toward people with mobility issues, which is not what most low-vision people grapple with," she explains. In cities such as Atlanta, residential "visitability" regulations, which guarantee entry and bathroom access for disabled visitors in new homes, also emphasize physical impairment. Even the best intentions, including mandatory curb cuts for wheelchair access, put low-vision pedestrians at a disadvantage, since these people are unable to discern the dip in a sidewalk's surface.
Architects are slowly waking up to the low-vision epidemic. According to Eunice Noell-Waggoner, president of the Center of Design for an Aging Society, they are "becoming more curious" about accommodating low-vision users. The American Institute of Architects now includes information about lighting techniques in its guidelines for healthcare facilities.
> Remedies are easily at hand. Simple choices about materials, lighting direction, and color contrasts can ease low-vision users' assimilation to new construction. And an array of affordable modification devices, from talking calculators to non-glare light bulbs, allow homeowners and office workers to confidently maneuver daily life in existing spaces. Sustainability is also conducive to the phenomenon, since visual impairment-friendly task lighting usually gobbles less energy than an all-out wash, the glare from which diminishes the ability to perceive contrast.
Further, systematic efforts to improve environmental conditions for the visually impaired are underway. Leslie Moldow, AIA, a principal at Perkins Eastman who specializes in design for aging, points out that in healthcare development, better, non-glare illumination standards are being adopted one state at a time. The Center of Design for an Aging Society recently published a booklet about lighting for low vision. And Cortes reports that Lighthouse International is lobbying Congress to approve reimbursement of vision modification devices currently not covered by Medicare.
Honan, the Lighthouse clinical rehabilitation manager at who encountered the elderly bruise victim, helped improve her situation swiftly. Applying a border of electrical tape created contrast on her kitchen cabinets, and darker curtains reduced solar glare. Although solutions for low-vision environments are within reach, Noell-Waggoner says that awareness and education still has a way to go. Contractors, eye doctors, and architects all need to see the light.
Provided by Architectural Record-The Resource for Architecture and Architects http://www.archrecord.com/
Business commentary
Everyone deserves a chance at technology
January 2008
By the Sterling Creations business team
Welcome to 2008! We hope you enjoyed your holidays and now it’s time to get down to business again. This month we have selected an article that speaks to equality on the Internet. The Internet is for everyone and certainly, this extends to giving all individuals an equal opportunity to technology! Not just the technically savvy or the business gurus and it’s worth reading the following article.
Hope you enjoy it.
Sacramento Bee, California USA
Opinion - Everyone deserves access to technology, online world
By Jim Fruchterman and Gregg Vanderheiden
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, June 17, 2007
Story appeared in FORUM section, Page E1
Extract "Imagine you're starting to lose your vision. It will happen to many of us as we grow older. Suddenly, that PC or cell phone stops being a useful tool because of your inability to see clearly. Did you know that today, a blind person who buys a $300 personal computer has to then purchase a $1,000 specialized piece of software to make the PC talk for them? Think about it. Blind people need to spend three or four times as much to get a PC that works for them -- and additional money each year for updates to be able to access new applications and Web content. The situation is similar for cell phones."
As technology races ahead at an ever-increasing pace, more and more of society's activities are moving into an online digital world that requires unfettered access. Although many of us may feel like we're falling behind technologically, large groups of Californians face barriers that block their access to the online world. People with disabilities, seniors, the poor and those without strong reading skills are facing ever-increasing obstacles to technology use. Since technology is becoming essential to education, business, personal finance, politics, entertainment and shopping, if we don't do something, we may find someone we love, or even ourselves, left behind.
We need to commit ourselves to delivering a base set of technological capabilities to all people, starting with Californians. At an affordable price, everybody should have access to communications technology and content to meet their personal, social, educational and employment needs. We need to raise the technology floor so that all of our citizens have at least the basic tools they need to participate in our modern society.
This isn't about charity any more than putting ramps on buildings for wheelchair access. It's far more just and cost-effective for society to provide equal access so that people can help themselves. As our society ages, and as our society increasingly depends on digital communication and content for fundamental activities, most of California's families will need at least basic access to ensure that people are as independent as possible. This will not only increase the quality of life for many with disabilities, but it will also decrease our dependence on families and public services that can become more costly as we age. To remain globally competitive, we need to ensure that all of our citizens have the tools they need to participate independently in our school and in the workplace.
Raising the technology floor is not pie-in-the-sky thinking. The business and technology communities will be excited to make it happen for most of us. But easy access needs to be practical and real. We must let everybody know about available technology that has value to them in their lives. We also need to systematically reduce or remove barriers to that access. Industry will do much of this for the majority of us anyway through its relentless drive to lower prices and improve performance.
When the natural forces of business and technology do not address the needs of everybody, however, we need to take action as a society to ensure that the disadvantaged segments of our community do not fall further and further behind -- or even off of the technology network. We need to build a technology floor: A common, strong foundation that gives everybody the opportunity to use the power of the emerging information and communication technologies to pursue their aspirations and dreams.
Imagine you're starting to lose your vision. It will happen to many of us as we grow older. Suddenly, that PC or cell phone stops being a useful tool because of your inability to see clearly. Did you know that today, a blind person who buys a $300 personal computer has to then purchase a $1,000 specialized piece of software to make the PC talk for them? Think about it. Blind people need to spend three or four times as much to get a PC that works for them -- and additional money each year for updates to be able to access new applications and Web content. The situation is similar for cell phones.
To raise the technology floor for all Californians, we need to deliver four key pieces of the digital puzzle. Together, they will complete our vision of equal access to opportunity in society.
First, we need cell phones and PCs that are cheap and powerful. We don't have to do anything here -- the industry will simply deliver. If today's cell phones cost $30 to make, it won't be long before they're $20 and then $10. If that generation of phones isn't powerful enough for our needs, just wait another year. The same dynamic is working on PC prices.
Second, we need access to broadband connectivity to the Internet. This is being built out globally, so we can also take advantage of it for people with disabilities if we provide affordable access. California is lagging the world in this area. Bangladesh has a plan to deploy wireless broadband across the country within two years. If we're not careful, we'll be lagging behind Bangladesh, as well as South Korea and Canada, in broadband penetration. It would be great if California committed itself to reaching parity with these countries!
Third, accessibility and usability are the next critical components. People should be able to find smart phones or PCs they are able to use without spending lots of money and time trying to figure them out. This is where technology developers are really failing users, especially people with disabilities. We can do better than this. We can commit to making $300 PCs and free cell phones work for everybody, including people with disabilities. It isn't hard technologically. We just have to decide to build these devices. Cell phones and networked PCs can easily be designed to be more universally accessible.
Fourth, people need and want relevant content and applications. Like everybody else, disadvantaged people in California need and are interested in access to e-mail, text and instant messaging, sports news, general news, social content Web sites, video/TV, shopping, eBay, games and the list goes on.
Much great content on the Web is already freely available because of advertising-supported models. For people with disabilities, we can do exciting things to transform content from inaccessible to accessible mediums. We can shift content from visual formats to audio formats for people who are blind or who have a learning disability. For the deaf, we can move information from audio to visual formats. With broadband and network based technologies, we can provide on-demand assistive technologies when and where people need them. And we can provide these tools to people of all social and economic levels in any location where there is a computer or a cell phone connected to the Internet, at costs that match mainstream users' costs.
We strongly believe we can deliver universal design -- where the tools and the content work in simple fashion -- and that this will help many people beyond those who are disabled. This includes people who aren't literate, low-income seniors, people with reduced vision and people who don't read the majority language. The idea of universal design is to make products simply usable to the broadest possible audience. The best-known example is the curb cut: Originally intended for people using wheelchairs but used effectively by almost everybody else as well.
We have to market these ideas and free tools, and content as well. If people don't know about them, the ideas and tools don't really matter. Many good ideas fail because nobody worried about how the intended beneficiaries would find out about them.
Let's build that strong floor of equally available technology and let everybody in California, and the world, know they can step up and gain equal access to the world of information, education and commerce tools that the new information technologies are providing for everyone else.
About the writer:
Jim Fruchterman is CEO and founder of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company. Gregg C. Vanderheiden is a professor of industrial and biomedical engineering, and director of Trace R&D Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Zebrafish study may point way to blindness cure
January 2008
By Scott Savoy
Hello! Hello! It’s a brand new year and I’d like to start it by offering hope to those millions of blind persons around the world. Maybe you’ll agree or maybe you wont but I just want to share this article with you.
Thanks.
Zebrafish study may point way to blindness cure
By Ben Hirschler
Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - The ability of zebrafish to regenerate damaged retinas
has given scientists a clue about restoring human vision and could lead to
an experimental treatment for blindness within five years.
British researchers said on Wednesday they had successfully grown in the
laboratory a type of adult stem cell found in the eyes of both fish and
mammals that develops into neurons in the retina.
In future, these cells could be injected into the eye as a treatment for
diseases such as macular degeneration, glaucoma and diabetes-related
blindness, according to Astrid Limb of University College London's (UCL) Institute of
Ophthalmology.
Damage to the retina -- the part of the eye that sends messages to the
brain -- is responsible for most cases of sight loss.
"Our findings have enormous potential," Limb said. "It could help in all
diseases where the neurons are damaged, which is basically nearly every
disease of the eye."
Limb and her colleagues studied so-called Mueller glial cells in the eyes of
people aged from 18 months to 91 years and found they were able to develop
them into all types of neurons found in the retina.
They were also able to grow them easily in the lab, they reported in the
journal Stem Cells.
The cells have already been tested in rats with diseased retinas, where they
successfully migrated into the retina and took on the characteristics of the
surrounding neurons. Now the team is working on the same approach in humans.
"We very much hope that we could do autologous transplants within five
years," Limb told Reuters.
Autologous transplants, initially on a trial basis, will involve
manipulating cells and injecting them back into an individual's own eye.
Eventually, Limb hopes it will also be possible to transfer the cells between different
people.
"Because they are so easy to grow, we could make stem cell banks and have
cell lines available to the general population, subject to typing as with
blood transfusions," she said.
Just why zebrafish have an abundant supply of adult stem cells to regenerate
their retinas, while they are rare in mammals, remains a mystery but Limb
suspects it is because mammals have a limiting system to stop proliferation.
The new work on Mueller glial cells is the latest example of researchers
exploring the potential of different kinds of stem cells in treating eye
disease. Another team from UCL and Moorfield's Eye Hospital said in June they aimed
to repair damaged retinas with cells derived from embryonic stem cells.
Blind entrepreneur nurtures honesty
January 2008
Contributed by Matt Hill of San Francisco California
Happy 2008 all of you! I hope that everyone enjoyed their time off as much as I did. I’d like to kick start my year by sharing an article with you about a very special person who has impressed me through what I’ve read in this article. I’m always delighted to read about success stories when it comes to special needs persons. I’m sighted but it never ceases to amaze me when a blind person overcomes the odds.
Arizona Republic, AZ, USA
Blind entrepreneur nurtures honesty
It isn't easy starting up a business, let alone making it successful long term. There is money to raise, employees to hire, competitors to stave off.
Now imagine you are blind and you are trying to start a business. And not just any business, but a cafeteria that involves your ordering inventory, handling the payroll, paying the bills and, on top of it all, running the cash register.
That's what Mike Feeney does at the Desert Schools Federal Credit Union employee cafeteria at 48th and Washington streets in Phoenix.
He started the business more than two years ago through the Arizona Department of Economic Security's Business Enterprise Program, which helps visually impaired people set up vending businesses, mostly in state buildings.
"I manage and run it," said Feeney, 44, a diabetic who lost his eyesight 17 years ago.
"And when there is someone at the cash register, 98 percent of the time it is me."
The register has a voice module that tells him the total amount due on a transaction, but he has to trust the customers to tell him exactly what they are buying and the denominations of the bills they pay with.
"There is a huge trust factor," Feeney said.
"I say, 'Help me out. Count with me.' They trust me and I trust them."
Baggage pin may stop lost luggage
January 2008
By Christian Robicheau
Hello there and happy new January 2008 to you. I’d like to start off this year by sharing an article with you that may make your travel trips a bit more enjoyable.
Hope you find it of value.
Saffron Walden Reporter (UK)
Baggage PIN may stop lost luggage
By WEB EDITORIAL
webdesk@herts24.co.uk
Extract: "We have developed tags with Braille that are available for those travelers who may need them."
LOSING your luggage at the airport could be a thing of the past thanks to one innovative man from Dunmow.
Dave Pearce, from Woodlands Park Drive, has worked with colleagues at Bytec Solutions Ltd for six months to develop an owner identification service that he hopes will be taken up by airlines throughout the world.
"We've called it Baggage PIN and it's a simple concept," he explained. "First of all, you have to subscribe to the system online by going to
paying anything from £6 for one month's membership up to £12 for a full year. Once that is done, you are allocated an authenticated unique digital code and sent a corresponding code tag and security strap in the post which can be securely attached to each of your suitcases. We have developed tags with Braille that are available for those travelers who may need them."
The data keyed in by members can be accessed by authorised airline system users, which currently can only be accessed by Baggage PIN, giving the airlines the information they have previously lacked to take the necessary steps to return lost baggage to the legal owner or forward on to the required destination. This information also includes the preferred method of being contacted, so, even if several months have gone past since the bags went missing, they can be reunited with their owners.
Mr Pearce said: "We are currently in talks with some of the major UK airline companies to fully adopt Baggage PIN as the method of finding the legal owners of mislaid baggage. Baggage PIN even offers an inbuilt SMS system allowing baggage handling agents to contact the owners of mislaid baggage quickly and free of charge."
It is thought the new service is also likely to prove to be popular with insurance companies who deal with a growing number of claims each year resulting in escalating premiums.
If it proves a success, Mr Pearce hopes it could also be applied to operators of other forms of travel, such as rail, coach and ferry.
According to data from the Associate of European Airlines (AEA), across the 24 largest airlines more than 5.6 million bags went missing in 2006, an average of 15.7 bags per 1,000 travellers.
Bytec Solutions Ltd is a group of computer technologists who are particularly experienced in creating and analysing secure data systems, in conjunction with baggage handlers at various airports. http://www.saffronwalden-reporter.co.uk
Helpful tips
January 2008
By the Sterling Creations research team
Hi everyone and welcome back to STAE. It’s a brand new year and here are our helpful tips for this month.
Helpful tips for January:
Would you like to know a tidbit on what happens to your face as you grow older?
It slowly starts to lose its younger color because as you grow older less and less blood reaches that area of your body.
The blood supply to that part of your body becomes less and less as you grow older.
What are some pet peeves in the workplace?
Here's part one of our tips.
1 A person using speaker phone in their cubicles.
2 A cell phone with an irritating ring.
3 A person with a ringing cell in a meeting.
4 A person taking a break in your cubicle.
5 A person borrowing things off your desk like pens, etc without your permission.
How do you know if your cake is well baked?
According to those experts at the food network:
Take a skewer and place it in the middle of your cake.
Then withdraw it slowly.
If it comes out easily and does not have anything on it, then bingo! It's done and ready for eating!
Which parts of the body get cold the fastest?
Your feet, head, and ears.
If you go out into those cold winter days and you wear warm socks and boots, hat, and ear muffs, then chances are you won't feel very much of winter's fingers plucking at you.
Having trouble removing that bothersome lump of gum from off your clothes or furniture?
Yes, we know how irritating it can be.
The simple solution is to use ice.
Take a cube of ice and place it on the offending lump of gum and bingo!
The ice will freeze the lump of gum and then you can easily remove it.
Thinking of using toothpaste to clean your dentures?
Don't! It's the worse thing that you can do.
Toothpaste scratches dentures and encourages germs to crawl into the crevices left by those scratches.
Not sure how to go about buying batteries with those confusing dates on their packages?
For one thing, don't buy batteries that are older than six months.
You can analyze the dates as follows:
The letters on the package represent the month and the numbers represent the year.
Want to know some important tips when choosing your next laptop?
The lighter and slimmer they are, the more expensive.
The more clunky they are, the less expensive.
Some of the more clunky laptops can be used as desktop computers.
Consumer experts believe that a laptop with a 13 inch monitor is one of the best to choose.
What's this about lemons and apples?
If you put lemons in the same crisper drawer as your green vegetables, they will cause your vegetables to go brown.
Best to put them in with your apples.
That's why you have two crisper drawers in your fridge. One for green vegetables, and one for your lemons, apples, and other non green vegetables.
You can put your carrots with your green vegetables.
What's this about those very sleek looking steel appliances in your kitchen?
They are much harder to clean.
They may look better then those white and biscuit colored appliances but boy are they more difficult to keep clean.
Accessibility news
New Scottish bank notes feature famous bridges (& large text for partially
sighted people)
January 2008
By the Sterling Creations research team
Hello there again! We’re back for our second contribution and this month we’ve selected an article that may be of interest to those of you who have issues with accessible banknotes. This article was published some time ago but we thought that it would peak some healthy discussion.
New Scottish bank notes feature famous bridges (& large text for partially
sighted people)
BBC News, Scotland (UK), June 21, 2007
Quote: "Officials said text on the notes will be larger than before, in a
bid to make them easier for partially-sighted people to use. "
Famous bridges feature on a brand new series of bank notes unveiled by a
high street bank.
The Forth Bridge, the most instantly-recognisable landmark in the
collection, is the new face of the Bank of Scotland's #20 note.
The bank said the fresh notes incorporate anti-counterfeiting technology and
are more user friendly.
The series is the first new complete set of notes to be issued by the bank
since 1995.
Treasurer Colin Matthew, whose signature features on the cash, said the bank
was launching an awareness campaign to help familiarise people with the new
designs.
"With this latest series, we are proud to continue our long history of
issuing bank notes," he added.
Bank chiefs said the notes celebrate some of Scotland's major and most
recognisable engineering achievements.
The 14th century-built Brig o' Doon, near Alloway in South Ayrshire, will be
featured on the #5 note.
A single-arch stone bridge, it was made famous by Scots bard Robert Burns in
his epic poem Tam O'Shanter.
The Glenfinnan Viaduct, on the West Highland Railway line between Fort
William and Mallaig, will be celebrated on the new #10 note.
The #100 note will carry a picture of the Kessock Bridge, the road bridge
which connects Inverness to the Black Isle.
And the most recent construction of the collection, the Falkirk Wheel, will
be featured on the #50 note.
Larger text
The wheel, the world's only rotating boat-lift, reconnected the Forth &
Clyde Canal with the Union Canal when it opened in 2002.
Network Rail chairman Ian McAllister welcomed the decision to picture the
Forth Bridge, which crosses the Firth of Forth from South to North
Queensferry, on the bank's most widely-circulated note.
He said: "The Forth Bridge is a magnificent structure, a symbol of lasting
strength and one of the world's great landmarks.
"The Victorian engineers who designed and built the bridge could never have
realised that the bridge would remain so iconic and so celebrated over 117
years after it was completed."
The Forth rail bridge is one of Scotland's best-known landmarks
The last batch of notes was issued in 1995 to coincide with the bank's
tercentenary.
The new series of notes is the 47th collection to be issued in the bank's
312-year history.
Officials said text on the notes will be larger than before, in a bid to
make them easier for partially-sighted people to use. New security features
have also been added.
It is estimated that it will take at least three years for the old bank
notes to be phased out of circulation.
All denominations of the new notes will gradually become available from Bank
of Scotland cash machines and branches from mid September.
The Bank of Scotland was the first bank in Europe to successfully issue bank
notes, shortly after it was founded by an Act of Parliament in 1695.
The travel industry should be paying more attention
January 2008
By Donna J Jodhan
The travel industry should be paying more attention
I thought that I would write about this topic as it seems appropriate at this time of the year. It's the time when many decide to take that trip to the sunny South to warm themselves in the sun. It's a good time of year for those who wish to avoid the crowds of kids and college students. Yes, a good time, but I have some major concerns about how the travel industry is handling things these days and I'm not the only one.
It seems as if more and more stakeholders are becoming increasingly concerned with the way in which the travel industry is treating aging baby boomers, seniors, and persons with special needs. Evidence of this is being seen through the increase of law suits being launched against airlines and hotel chains. Within the last few months for example, Ryan Air in Britain, US Airways, and the Dalton hotel in Georgia have been in the news for their lack of consideration and courtesy towards the above mentioned types of consumers and I'm afraid that if the travel industry does not start to wise up sooner than later, many more companies will find themselves being dragged into court. For let's face it: Aging baby boomers and seniors are the ones with the most money to spend these days, and it is estimated that by 2010 they will make up about 60% of our North American population and own about 70% of banking deposits.
Their financial influence is growing and they are more than ready to pay for what they demand and if they don't get it you can bet your last dollar that they will find ways to get it even if it means taking companies to court. In like manner, special needs persons are heavily backed by legislation which in part clearly states that their needs must be accommodated by those companies doing business with the American government. So, what we have here is as follows:
The travel industry still choosing to ignore the growing demands of a growing number of consumers.
A growing number of consumers demanding special services.
A growing number of consumers who are just waiting to take travel industry companies to court if their demands are not met in a suitable manner.
The US government and other leading global governments bound and determined to ensure that these consumers are well serviced.
What I don't understand is this! Why is it so hard for the travel industry to meet the needs and demands of these types of consumers? Why can't they understand that within three years or so, these types of consumers will make up the majority of travelers? Why can't they understand that they really don't have much choice in the matter?
It all comes down to meet the demands or face going out of business. In other words, shape up or ship out. If they don't listen then they should be prepared to face the dire consequences.
The more established companies should no longer be prepared to sit on their long established names and laurels. No! There are smaller and leaner competitors out there who are listening and paying attention and I can tell you that they are not afraid to make the necessary changes in their business practices in order to attract seniors, aging baby boomers, and special needs persons. They know what's happening and they know that in a few years time, these types of consumers will become their major clients. So, travel industry, pay close attention. Wake up and read the stats. Stop ignoring these consumers because they're not going to go away. Find ways to meet their demands or if you don't you could either face law suits or worse yet you may find yourself having to close your doors. Nothing is worse than a bad image in the eyes of the public and a bad image is one of the quickest ways to lose clients.
Letters to the editor
January 200i8
From the desk of the editor
It’s a new year and welcome back. Moreover, welcome to our new readers. Here are this month’s contributions.
From Brent Hashak of Manitoba Canada:
I'm trying my hand at this magazine to see if anyone out there is listening. I'm a university graduate who is blind. I graduated two years ago with a degree in law. I can't find a job and no one wants to give a blind guy a chance to prove himself. The CNIB is no help. In fact, they've all but disappeared and I'm wondering if Canadians know as a whole that this don't give a darn agency is totally useless to us? Is anyone listening?
From Mary Richards of Philadelphia:
Dear Donna, your editorial last month brought tears to my eyes. I know exactly what you mean. Too many people are just too busy caring about themselves. I personally know of children who put their parents in a home for the aged because they can't be bothered to look after them. Keep up the good work Donna.
From Marco Marchelli of New York:
Donna, I notice that you are now writing editorials and blogs on other websites. Good for you! As a blind business woman you've done well. Wish I had your energy.
From Erving Zimberman of New York:
Donna, is it true that you're coming out with a new book anytime now?
I bought the other book, Untapped Wealth Discovered and noted that you had helped to be a consultant. Any truth to these rumors?
From Sony Young of Kansas Missouri:
Donna, any chance of you helping me to set up a small call answering service? I'm in a wheelchair and I see where you are a blind business woman. Need some help.
From Reid Lookridge of Chicago:
I really liked the article last month by the ask the expert team. Too often we fail to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and so we fail to understand their point of view. That article really hit home.
From Gregor Romanski of Warsaw Poland:
Donna's editorial last month really moved me. I am much impressed by her editorial.
If you'd like to submit your comments or feedback then please do by sending your emails to info@sterlingcreations.ca. All submissions are screened to ensure that language is appropriate.
Notes
If you would like to contribute an article to our magazine then please contact us at:
Tel (416) 491-7711
Email info@sterlingcreations.ca
Check out our online magazine page at www.sterlingcreations.ca/magazine.html for our rates.
Comments to the editor can be submitted free of charge.
All submissions are reviewed and you will be notified if yours is chosen. If your submission is chosen for “the reader’s choice” section of our magazine we will print it at no cost.
If you’re looking for a one-stop writing shop then look no further!
At www.sterlingcreations.ca you will find experienced professionals standing by to offer affordable Sterling services in the following areas:
Research, Writing, translation, and transcription.
We can do anything from articles and blogs to newsletters, emails and faxes to speeches, brochures and books to websites, plus more.
Please send all inquiries to info@sterlingcreations.ca.
Looking for affordable translation services?
At www.translationpeople.com you will find qualified translators and language coaches to help you in the following languages:
English, Spanish, French, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
These experienced professionals can help you to write, translate, and transcribe to and from these languages.
For all inquiries please send your emails to info@translationpeople.com.
If you’re looking for ways to keep abreast of the latest news wires, trends and strategies, or ideas for creating your own small business, then you can take advantage of lots of free information by visiting www.untappedwealth.com.
There you’ll find skilled researchers and writers willing to help you with your challenges.
For all inquiries send your emails to info@untappedwealth.com.
