Episode 5
Getting to a Point Where Everyone Is Talking About Accessibility
Charlie Turrell, BBC, Change Manager - Accessibility Champions Network
Charlie onboards product development staff about accessibility and evangelizes it throughout the BBC. Starting as a personal assistant in many sections of the BBC, she found her way into user experience and then to guiding the internal accessibility champions network.
Mentioned in this episode:
Info about Accessibility at Blink
Transcript
- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility:
Speaker:The People Behind the Progress.
Speaker:I'm Joe Welinske, the creator and host of this series,
Speaker:and as an accessibility professional myself,
Speaker:I find it very interesting as to how others found
Speaker:their way into this profession.
Speaker:So let's meet one of those people right now,
Speaker:and hear about their journey.
Speaker:- Alright, well we are back for another episode
Speaker:in this podcast where I get the opportunity
Speaker:to talk with some very interesting
Speaker:accessibility practitioners,
Speaker:and today I am speaking with Charlie Terrell.
Speaker:Hello, Charlie. How are you?
Speaker:- Hi, I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker:- Well, it's great to be able to chat with you.
Speaker:It for me is early in the morning,
Speaker:fairly nice day on Vashon island,
Speaker:which is near Blink's headquarters office
Speaker:in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker:Where are you talking to us from?
Speaker:- So I'm in Salford, in Manchester, in the UK,
Speaker:and it's a bit overcast, which is general for the UK,
Speaker:and I'm actually in the BBC offices in MediaCity.
Speaker:So there's three of us here and that's why we film like
Speaker:BBC sport and the breakfast show and things like that.
Speaker:So, yeah, that's where, that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker:- Alright. Well, Manchester is a great city.
Speaker:I visited there a couple of times and enjoyed it very much.
Speaker:Thanks for being part of this.
Speaker:You mentioned being at the BBC today.
Speaker:So a good place to start.
Speaker:If you could just talk about the types of things
Speaker:that you're currently involved with.
Speaker:- Yeah. Fab. So I am the accessibility champions manager.
Speaker:So I look after a network of people that try and
Speaker:put accessibility at the forefront of
Speaker:everything that they do.
Speaker:Generally they're made up of designers and developers,
Speaker:but we also have a couple in the legal team,
Speaker:a couple in the diversity and inclusion area
Speaker:and some journalists and things too.
Speaker:So generally what I do is I onboard those people,
Speaker:I get them involved in accessibility in all manner of
Speaker:different ways, whether it comes to social,
Speaker:whether it's doing some training,
Speaker:whether it's just getting to know each other,
Speaker:out doing some problem solving.
Speaker:And generally that takes up a big part of my day.
Speaker:Other areas is, is kind of bit of strategy work,
Speaker:we look at the training and see
Speaker:if we can develop some things.
Speaker:We do bits of socials.
Speaker:So kind of bringing in external people,
Speaker:anything new that we think might be exciting,
Speaker:getting people involved in some meetups.
Speaker:And on the other side of it kind of going to senior leaders
Speaker:and making sure that we're ahead of everything when
Speaker:it comes to what's new in accessibility and,
Speaker:and the projects that are coming our way and making sure
Speaker:that we're as prepared as possible to kind of help people
Speaker:with whatever it is that they need to do in regards to
Speaker:that kind of strategy.
Speaker:- Well, I mean, I'm certainly aware of your organization.
Speaker:I'm not exactly aware of like how large it is,
Speaker:but it sounds like from what you've been talking about,
Speaker:that you're involved in kind of an overarching accessibility
Speaker:support across the organization, is that the case?
Speaker:- Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:So as the BBC we've got about,
Speaker:I think it's about 35,000 people at work,
Speaker:and that is from the last time I remember someone else
Speaker:telling me that and we're in various different locations.
Speaker:I generally look after anything that is
Speaker:digital and public facing.
Speaker:So anything that we put out there in BBC iPlayer
Speaker:sounds, news, weather, anything like that,
Speaker:any of the products that we have generally,
Speaker:anything that goes out for the public,
Speaker:we wanna make sure that it's as accessible as possible,
Speaker:making sure that everyone can access that content.
Speaker:So the Champions Network has been, kind of been
Speaker:quite flexible, but it's kind of sat around the 250 mark.
Speaker:Those Champions are literally everywhere.
Speaker:And I think that it's good for us,
Speaker:especially that I'm in a very small team in the
Speaker:user experience and design area,
Speaker:And whereas there's only three of us currently,
Speaker:there's me and there's Becky who does a lot of the training,
Speaker:and then there's Jamie Knight who people might recognize the
Speaker:name of, that he does a lot of our,
Speaker:he's our subject matter expert.
Speaker:He's the brains of the evolve of our team.
Speaker:So because we're so small,
Speaker:it makes it quite difficult for us to be across everything
Speaker:and know what's coming, so having these Champions,
Speaker:it just almost means that we've got this extra large team
Speaker:of people, so they can kind of go, "hey, you know,
Speaker:we're working on something,
Speaker:we need a little bit of help here,"
Speaker:or, "oh, did you know, this is something
Speaker:that's really cool that we've created.
Speaker:We can celebrate it and tell the rest of the BBC."
Speaker:So generally, you know, even though we're quite small
Speaker:in our little corner of the world,
Speaker:it means that we actually have this massive reach everywhere
Speaker:to try and kind of make all our output
Speaker:as accessible as possible.
Speaker:- Well, I, I definitely wanna come back
Speaker:and to talk about the Champions
Speaker:a bit more and get more info about that.
Speaker:but one of the things I like to do with this podcast is
Speaker:find out how people first
Speaker:found their way into accessibility,
Speaker:because it tends to be something that we don't necessarily
Speaker:for at least most of us right now
Speaker:study in our foundation courses at university and things.
Speaker:And so let's find out how you found your way into it.
Speaker:What, what, where did it first,
Speaker:where did you first become aware of it?
Speaker:- Well, do you know what, it's mad you say that actually,
Speaker:because I think a lot of people,
Speaker:when I have conversations of how they got into
Speaker:accessibility, it's always by accident.
Speaker:And that was kind of what happened for me as well.
Speaker:So I first came to the BBC, I'd done lots of different jobs.
Speaker:I'd kind of flittered around from finance to insurance,
Speaker:to working with young people, a youth center,
Speaker:couldn't quite figure out where I fit.
Speaker:And I was at the youth center for quite a while and I loved
Speaker:the morals there and the fact that we were doing things in a
Speaker:underprivileged area, and I thought, you know,
Speaker:we're making a difference in the community,
Speaker:but the reach just wasn't far enough for me.
Speaker:So I remember looking at a post at the BBC for a PA role.
Speaker:And on the, on the back of the post
Speaker:was all these kind of morals.
Speaker:And the, the, the kind of we,
Speaker:the BBC holds itself to quite a high standard.
Speaker:And we want to make sure that everything is equal,
Speaker:and kind of equal rights for people,
Speaker:and it was very like, yeah,
Speaker:I could understand being in an organization where the reach
Speaker:is massive and we're all trying to do the right thing.
Speaker:So I applied for that role.
Speaker:I was a PA for a while,
Speaker:I ended up being a PA for six or seven different people
Speaker:across the organization,
Speaker:really got to understand how each area has
Speaker:a massively different culture. You know,
Speaker:everybody saw things from a completely different view,
Speaker:but they were doing it in different ways.
Speaker:And I, I could kind of see, oh,
Speaker:where would I like to kind of move around to?
Speaker:The area that I had the most interactions with
Speaker:was user experience and design.
Speaker:And it was a guy called Colin,
Speaker:who I was PA'ing for at the time,
Speaker:and under him was the heads of design.
Speaker:And one of them was Gareth Ford Williams who people know
Speaker:generally is quite, you know,
Speaker:is quite well known in the accessibility industry.
Speaker:Absolute character, we got on straight away,
Speaker:and the more, he was so passionate about accessibility
Speaker:about explaining what it is that he does
Speaker:and why it's so important.
Speaker:I just couldn't get enough.
Speaker:I was listening to all these different things,
Speaker:all these different stories that he had,
Speaker:the fact that he had such drive and he made it so much fun,
Speaker:you know, all, all these different ways
Speaker:that he was doing things and the, the passion behind it,
Speaker:kind of is infectious almost.
Speaker:He said that, you know, that we've got a Champions Network,
Speaker:I immediately wanted to get involved in that. And I said,
Speaker:how can I be a champion? You know,
Speaker:is it anything that I can do in my emails that make things
Speaker:more accessible? You know, with PDFs
Speaker:were a bit of a sore spot. Can I get involved in that?
Speaker:And actually, I love the culture and I love people,
Speaker:I really do, like anything that will make people's lives
Speaker:easier, if I can help in any way, I absolutely will.
Speaker:And I also don't really care about like a hierarchy.
Speaker:I will talk to anybody regardless of
Speaker:where they are in the BBC with the same amount of
Speaker:respect, which I think people should do in general.
Speaker:Spoke to him, and he said, "actually, you know,
Speaker:we've gonna be a position available for somebody to look
Speaker:after the Champion's Network 'cause
Speaker:the person that's doing that is moving on."
Speaker:And I thought, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker:I, that is, that is perfect for me,
Speaker:went for the interviews and I've never been so excited for a
Speaker:role before, obviously was successful, and started to
Speaker:take over and learn about, you know,
Speaker:how that, the network was really structured and
Speaker:how people could get involved.
Speaker:And I just had this world of knowledge that I had never been
Speaker:exposed to before about the lenses that we use
Speaker:in accessibility and that excitement just grew and grew,
Speaker:and I got to know more people across the business,
Speaker:worked with an incredible team of some of the most
Speaker:knowledgeable people I've ever met.
Speaker:And, the other side of it was,
Speaker:it was such a neurodiverse team that I felt
Speaker:so much more comfortable.
Speaker:I have ADHD and I didn't realize that I was
Speaker:masking a lot of, you know, different ways,
Speaker:and I was kind of trying to cope with this
Speaker:very structured way of doing things,
Speaker:and I got to be in this environment where my needs
Speaker:were taken to in consideration,
Speaker:we openly spoke about what we would need and want
Speaker:and we could all work in whatever way suited us.
Speaker:I started to work with Jamie,
Speaker:I never worked with somebody like Jamie before,
Speaker:and I got to understand all his nuances and the ways that
Speaker:we liked to interact, and it was so honest and wonderful,
Speaker:and I think that ignited my love of accessibility,
Speaker:and I think it's just continued from there.
Speaker:The more I've got into it,
Speaker:the more that I've spoken to people and met other people
Speaker:equally as passionate,
Speaker:I just don't think that feeling ever goes away.
Speaker:- Yeah, well I, thanks for sharing
Speaker:part about your own physical challenges
Speaker:that you kind of got greater awareness of through your work.
Speaker:You know, when you come into accessibility,
Speaker:one of the things we do have is
Speaker:a huge body of knowledge available about it,
Speaker:but that can also be overwhelming for people
Speaker:that just start to come into that area.
Speaker:So how did you start to process that?
Speaker:Obviously as your role, you're helping others
Speaker:to find that information,
Speaker:but what was your experience in, in feeling like you,
Speaker:you knew what was going on?
Speaker:- I, I think at the very beginning I did feel incredibly
Speaker:overwhelmed and I was like, you know, with accessibility,
Speaker:it's constantly changing and there's new things
Speaker:that are happening all the time.
Speaker:People are designing new things and creating new things
Speaker:and I really didn't know where
Speaker:to start with my learning.
Speaker:There's no kind of set process, is there?
Speaker:you don't do a level and, you know,
Speaker:accessibility is just knowledge
Speaker:and you experience things and learn as you go.
Speaker:So I took that overwhelmed feeling and used that
Speaker:for the new Champions that were coming in,
Speaker:so instead of trying to pretend that I had it all together
Speaker:and I knew about different things,
Speaker:I used that and kind of said, you know,
Speaker:you're joining this Accessibility Champions Network,
Speaker:I'm learning, and this is how I felt
Speaker:when I first took over,
Speaker:and I presume that's how you would feel,
Speaker:so let's do that together, let's do bits of learning
Speaker:together and get involved.
Speaker:And I think knowing that I scaled back our onboarding,
Speaker:used to be quite complicated,
Speaker:and I think it worked really well for
Speaker:the person that was running it in the past,
Speaker:but I didn't have that technical knowledge
Speaker:that that person did, so I felt a little bit
Speaker:out of my depth.
Speaker:So instead I focused on the individual and said,
Speaker:"So what is it that motivates you?
Speaker:Why you want to become a Champion?
Speaker:You know, how do you like to learn?
Speaker:Is there any different ways that I can adapt the training
Speaker:and the sessions that work for you?
Speaker:You know, do you want to be working where we do it together?
Speaker:Do you want to be able to go away
Speaker:and read some different things?
Speaker:Are there any needs that you have
Speaker:that we need to kind of adjust for?"
Speaker:And that became a much more calm way of learning the,
Speaker:least, kind of less pressure I think,
Speaker:to be able to do that.
Speaker:Also one of the biggest things that I would say to anybody,
Speaker:if you are coming into this community,
Speaker:make as many friends as you possibly can.
Speaker:There are people all over the globe
Speaker:that have wonderful skills, that have a bunch of knowledge.
Speaker:And I can tell you now they will share everything with you.
Speaker:There's no gatekeeping I feel in accessibility.
Speaker:I think everybody just wants to make sure
Speaker:that they are sharing their knowledge.
Speaker:So Gareth, you know, he, he knows everybody
Speaker:and it was wonderful.
Speaker:So he introduced me to a few different people
Speaker:and said, "go, go and speak to them,
Speaker:just go and ask them a load of questions
Speaker:and you don't have to know anything.
Speaker:There's no silly questions, just go and find out.
Speaker:There's no judgment here."
Speaker:And so I went out there and started to make
Speaker:new friends and new people.
Speaker:And from that, some people were telling me
Speaker:loads of different things that they do with their Champions
Speaker:that really work for them.
Speaker:And I just said, "alright, I'll give it a go."
Speaker:And so we have a mentality with the Champions
Speaker:and in our team of everything's an experiment,
Speaker:you know, it's just, it's, we're gonna try it,
Speaker:if it doesn't work, we'll learn from it,
Speaker:and if it does, that's wonderful.
Speaker:So I think kind of scaling back the pressure
Speaker:and knowing that you won't know everything
Speaker:and admitting that actually breeds this kind of
Speaker:really comfortable learning environment
Speaker:for people to get involved in because don't feel like
Speaker:they have to dive straight into the deep end.
Speaker:We can do it bit by bit, and can we do it together.
Speaker:- A number of times you've talked about
Speaker:the Champions that you work with.
Speaker:Why don't you give us a little bit more of
Speaker:a introduction to what that's about.
Speaker:There are other organizations that have
Speaker:used that term in different ways.
Speaker:How does it work at the BBC?
Speaker:If I wanted to be a Champion,
Speaker:what would I have to learn and be responsible for,
Speaker:and how, how am I helping move things forward?
Speaker:- Yeah, absolutely. So with being in the Champions Network,
Speaker:what we say right at the very beginning,
Speaker:is, a Champion is just somebody that puts their hand up
Speaker:in a sprint or in a meeting
Speaker:or whenever someone's talking about
Speaker:designing or building something and just say, "no,
Speaker:have we thought about accessibility?
Speaker:Here are some resources to help us."
Speaker:So you, that is the bare minimum,
Speaker:the minimum kind of requirement to be a Champion.
Speaker:And if that's all you ever do,
Speaker:and you find it difficult to kind of
Speaker:have time to learn or anything like that,
Speaker:it's just knowing where to find the answer.
Speaker:So that's it, that is to start up Champions.
Speaker:If you want to build your knowledge,
Speaker:we have tons of ways to do that.
Speaker:So if you were to come to me and say, you know,
Speaker:I'm really interested in being a Champion,
Speaker:we'd say, "right, wonderful. So let's have
Speaker:an onboarding chat," that is 20 minutes.
Speaker:If it wants to get longer and people get into it
Speaker:and wanna chat, that's wonderful, but there's no pressure.
Speaker:I introduce myself and kind of my little bit of history
Speaker:and what I do, I give a, a brief kind of
Speaker:structure of the network,
Speaker:which is quite fluid realistically.
Speaker:And then they talk to me about what they already know,
Speaker:what they would like to learn,
Speaker:I give them a few topics that they
Speaker:might not have thought about before,
Speaker:and then the ways and styles that they like to learn,
Speaker:so I can at least know that, you know,
Speaker:if you're interested in workshops
Speaker:and this is a, kind of the way that they like to do things,
Speaker:they'll be the first people I tell them about a new workshop
Speaker:And then we literally stop and kind of go, right,
Speaker:let's reflect on what we've already done.
Speaker:That's a good first step, we don't wanna overwhelm you,
Speaker:let's have another conversation in X amount of weeks.
Speaker:So after that, I send them links
Speaker:to a couple of resources and then a couple of fun videos
Speaker:where we talk about user experience
Speaker:or a day in the life of somebody, or, you know,
Speaker:kind of just giving them that little bit of
Speaker:a toe in the water of the
Speaker:accessibility community as a whole.
Speaker:And so doing it in these little tiny stages over a period of
Speaker:time helps keep the momentum up for that person.
Speaker:It doesn't feel overwhelming.
Speaker:So the resources that we have,
Speaker:we have the mobile accessibility guidelines, the mag,
Speaker:we have the gel type documents that we use internally.
Speaker:And we have a huge page, which is actually
Speaker:available to the public for loads of
Speaker:kind of resources for accessibility.
Speaker:So it's anything from understanding the lenses that we use
Speaker:when it comes to accessibility right down to the
Speaker:step by step, how to kind of use a screen reader,
Speaker:or you know, how to do a lot of the technical stuff
Speaker:that I don't really understand, you know,
Speaker:these kind of how-to documents,
Speaker:and they're all there readily available for people.
Speaker:And I think having that, like relationship
Speaker:with that person over a period of time,
Speaker:just getting to know them a little bit,
Speaker:introducing them to other Champions.
Speaker:We have a Slack channel and a Microsoft Teams channel
Speaker:where people can just either post about events.
Speaker:They can post about some
Speaker:really cool things that they've done.
Speaker:Or a lot of it is just questions of,
Speaker:"I'm building this thing,
Speaker:I need to know how to use the correct something or other,"
Speaker:and everyone starts to have a discussion about it,
Speaker:and we find the correct way of doing it.
Speaker:Even if you're not posting the questions,
Speaker:they're there for you just to be able to go, oh,
Speaker:learn by doing, other people are doing,
Speaker:you can see the kind of conversation that they're having.
Speaker:You've learned something today, you know,
Speaker:that could just be a part of your training.
Speaker:We also have introduction to accessibility training,
Speaker:so we do that for a lot of designers to kind of make sure
Speaker:that we understand that it's barriers and environment
Speaker:rather than the medical model of, of disability,
Speaker:which is kind of, we, we tend to err away from that.
Speaker:We talk about everybody's, you know, no one's disabled,
Speaker:until you start building something that disables
Speaker:that person, you know, so it's about your environment.
Speaker:It's, it's really kind of, it,
Speaker:it's a great way of looking at it to make sure
Speaker:that you're including everybody in that discussion.
Speaker:We talk a lot, we use a lot of examples, actually,
Speaker:like, you know, if you're, if you're creating something
Speaker:and it might not be, you know,
Speaker:it can be you're environment that,
Speaker:that makes it difficult to use that thing.
Speaker:So if you're on a mobile phone, you know,
Speaker:but you also have a child in one arm or you're on the tube
Speaker:and you've got your, your hand
Speaker:to make sure you're not rocking,
Speaker:or your environment is quite rocking,
Speaker:you need to be able to use whatever it is on your phone,
Speaker:even though you only got the one hand currently using it.
Speaker:So we talk a lot about different ways of doing things.
Speaker:So all of that kind of immerses you
Speaker:into this wonderful accessibility world.
Speaker:We start talking, introducing them to other people
Speaker:that are external, who are absolutely incredible
Speaker:when it comes to doing talks,
Speaker:or even just opening up some discussions on Twitter
Speaker:and you know, on LinkedIn is great as well.
Speaker:So it's kind of having all these various options
Speaker:for you to just start your journey
Speaker:and go at it in whatever pace that you would like,
Speaker:and also introducing you to people that have got
Speaker:the same level of culture and kind of a mentality as well.
Speaker:And it kind of makes you feel like actually, yeah,
Speaker:if I don't know something, I've got somebody right there
Speaker:that I can go and ask a question,
Speaker:or I can find it, you know, somewhere else.
Speaker:So even as a Champion,
Speaker:you can either continue with that learning,
Speaker:or you can just get involved in the community area of it
Speaker:and start just talking to people.
Speaker:It's absolutely up to you, however you want to do with that,
Speaker:but it's making sure you're just part of it, you know,
Speaker:making sure you're just bringing it up
Speaker:whenever we're creating something,
Speaker:make everybody talk about it.
Speaker:It's not something we add on at the end.
Speaker:We talk about it at the beginning,
Speaker:we build it into everything that we do.
Speaker:We want to make sure this is inclusive and everybody gets
Speaker:most out of whatever it is that you are doing.
Speaker:- Well, it's, it's great to hear about
Speaker:the large repository of knowledge
Speaker:that you have available of all the training pieces
Speaker:that you have available to everybody.
Speaker:And with that, I'm sure that's always growing.
Speaker:One of the things about accessibility is
Speaker:it's pretty impossible to have it be covering everything
Speaker:and we're always moving forward,
Speaker:doing better or adding information.
Speaker:And so I assume that's the same there.
Speaker:Are there any certain areas of the onboarding
Speaker:which you've found may be more difficult
Speaker:than other parts for the Champions that you work with,
Speaker:or, you know, are there certain areas where you,
Speaker:you know, you wanna work to be able to improve services?
Speaker:- Absolutely. Yeah. I think for me,
Speaker:I notice my lack of technical knowledge sometimes when
Speaker:you've got somebody that is quite tech focused,
Speaker:which is why I do honestly believe
Speaker:that if you've got a team of people,
Speaker:you need to have somebody there that is a technical person,
Speaker:who is kind of a developer who has done that kind of thing,
Speaker:because I think some people really want to get into that
Speaker:nitty gritty, to having debates about things,
Speaker:and I don't feel like I can always fulfill that.
Speaker:And I think sometimes, you know,
Speaker:you get a bit of imposter syndrome,
Speaker:I think everybody gets that at the best of times,
Speaker:but being able to have that group of people together
Speaker:that can all do it and work,
Speaker:that is when you know that you've got
Speaker:a good team as well. So I think that that part of it,
Speaker:I find quite difficult sometimes.
Speaker:I think as well, you know, I,
Speaker:I try and change the network a little bit just to kind of,
Speaker:you have to be flexible depending what position the,
Speaker:the business is taken a little bit.
Speaker:So I think for a while we discussed about
Speaker:having levels of Champions or we had, you know,
Speaker:levels of learning, but having that open discussion
Speaker:with the rest of the Champions and then kind of going, yeah,
Speaker:but that's not really how accessibility works for us,
Speaker:or, you know, there's no such thing as
Speaker:almost like levels of a screen reader.
Speaker:You know, you learn about things,
Speaker:you learn how to interact with things,
Speaker:and then you talk to users and you just learn,
Speaker:don't you? You just continue to grow or by doing,
Speaker:there's no actual kind of,
Speaker:you can do a university course in it.
Speaker:And so I think getting the mindset right for that
Speaker:and knowing how to get people to be
Speaker:continuing to learn the next thing, rather than
Speaker:it, you know, and having a little bit of
Speaker:structure around it can sometimes be quite difficult,
Speaker:but that's something that I'm
Speaker:currently working on at the minute,
Speaker:instead of doing levels, I'm doing almost like a
Speaker:journey for people, you know, so they can kind of come in
Speaker:and they do a bit of onboarding,
Speaker:and then they join the Slack channel
Speaker:and they join other channels,
Speaker:and they get on the D list for emails,
Speaker:they get the newsletters,
Speaker:and then you meet another Champion, and then you read the
Speaker:mobile accessibility guidelines
Speaker:and there's this little kind of route
Speaker:that they can take that feels more like you developing
Speaker:into a community rather than
Speaker:kind of accessibility knowledge levels.
Speaker:So it took me a little while to kind of understand how that
Speaker:works as well, and to kind of trial out different things.
Speaker:But I will say that, you know,
Speaker:there's been a couple of events that I've done,
Speaker:some have gone really well, so I'm having, you know (laughs)
Speaker:and I'm quite, I'm quite honest about the fact that
Speaker:sometimes I've thought a structure will work
Speaker:and then it just didn't,
Speaker:and all you can do from that is go,
Speaker:"Oh, I'll learn from it. I'll do something different.
Speaker:I'll find out why it didn't work," and you know,
Speaker:why Champ-, get Champions involved
Speaker:and get them to tell you why it didn't work.
Speaker:I'm quite happy to have as much criticism as possible now,
Speaker:but that took a little while to get used to, you know,
Speaker:so I think they're the things that I find difficult
Speaker:in the role, but I think keeping an open mind
Speaker:and kind of going, it's not about me specifically,
Speaker:it's about making sure that we're teaching people as much as
Speaker:we can and we're getting them, you know,
Speaker:involved and happy about it. It's not a reflection on me.
Speaker:It's just to, it's just my job to make sure that
Speaker:I'm kind of included as many people as possible really.
Speaker:- And you mentioned at the very start 35,000 employees,
Speaker:so definitely a large organization.
Speaker:Are there any certain job categories that you're responsible
Speaker:in working with or is it for, or do the Champions help out,
Speaker:you know, across the wide variety of activities
Speaker:people are involved with at the BBC?
Speaker:- It's a bit hit and miss, actually,
Speaker:I think the people that I tend to interact with quite a lot
Speaker:are anybody that works in product, so yeah,
Speaker:you know, the, the, the kind of the product leaders,
Speaker:a lot of the designers that in UX and D,
Speaker:so the user experience and design area,
Speaker:they're my two kind of main focuses I would say.
Speaker:And I think that's because
Speaker:they're at the forefront of all of our output.
Speaker:The rest of the business, it's very different.
Speaker:You know, my kind of presentations will really change
Speaker:depending on who it is that I'm speaking to.
Speaker:You know, I've got one on Wednesday,
Speaker:and I'm talking to the diversity and inclusion group
Speaker:that is on the other side of kind of the business, really.
Speaker:It's something that I don't actually
Speaker:interact with that much,
Speaker:but their lenses are a little bit off
Speaker:when it comes to disability.
Speaker:They're thinking of it purely from a medical model.
Speaker:And we just want to kind of go, actually,
Speaker:can we make sure that we're all on the same baseline level?
Speaker:Let's like, make sure we're all in the same head space.
Speaker:You don't have to learn a load of stuff,
Speaker:but let's kind of think about it all singing from
Speaker:the same hymn sheet at the very beginning.
Speaker:And so I get to interact with these kind of
Speaker:different, smaller groups of people,
Speaker:which is great because I learn something from them
Speaker:as well, you know, the presentation I might do
Speaker:might need tweaking a little bit,
Speaker:so I get to be able to understand my audience
Speaker:a little bit better.
Speaker:I think the area that I find difficult is
Speaker:we have a world service, we have BBC Studios,
Speaker:and because they're not a public,
Speaker:so we're the licensed fee payers and they actually, I mean,
Speaker:we don't have any adverts or anything like that,
Speaker:whereas they're more kind of commercial entity,
Speaker:it can be a little bit difficult because we have
Speaker:policies and guidelines in the charter,
Speaker:which is really good for us actually,
Speaker:'cause we've got a really kind of, something to reference.
Speaker:We don't like to use it,
Speaker:but we've got something to reference to kind of go,
Speaker:"We do have to do this thing. It's a legal requirement,"
Speaker:but it is a little bit different for that area,
Speaker:so sometimes I have to kind of go along the,
Speaker:well, this is worthwhile from a,
Speaker:also a financial point of view,
Speaker:not having to redesign, not getting sued,
Speaker:you know, all these different things.
Speaker:That's not really the lens that I like to use
Speaker:and the one that I have to take,
Speaker:but in a very high pressed environment,
Speaker:sometimes you really do have to be flexible and adjust,
Speaker:you know, your, what's the word? Your argument slightly,
Speaker:you know? And I think sometimes senior leadership,
Speaker:because they're not directly involved
Speaker:in the creating of the products,
Speaker:they kind of think that, "oh, it's accessibility,
Speaker:somebody else will do it."
Speaker:And sometimes you kind of have to go, actually, you know,
Speaker:if you are using the right language,
Speaker:your staff and the people that are working with you
Speaker:are using the right language, we're all thinking about it.
Speaker:You're just really gonna avoid any kind of slipups.
Speaker:So that's something that, you know,
Speaker:my team have been working on doing
Speaker:a little bit of a, a PR almost,
Speaker:go into different areas and kind of making sure
Speaker:everyone's got the right, the right mindset.
Speaker:So I think as a, as a larger business,
Speaker:that's always gonna happen.
Speaker:And I think that in the matter of any business,
Speaker:getting senior leadership buy-in is always difficult,
Speaker:especially if you're wanting to start a Champions Network,
Speaker:but being able to kind of go, well for us,
Speaker:we went from all these kind of complaints and redesigns
Speaker:and time-wasting things by doing audits
Speaker:and actually getting to a point where
Speaker:everyone talks about accessibility constantly,
Speaker:and we're not having to do that kind of problem.
Speaker:You know, there is a real business case for that.
Speaker:And if everybody's interested in starting up
Speaker:Champs Networks, you know, there's a,
Speaker:I run a Champions of Accessibility Network
Speaker:external to the BBC, and you can find us on LinkedIn,
Speaker:it's under Camp, and it's great
Speaker:because it means all these different groups
Speaker:of people that have either started a Champs Network
Speaker:or run a Champs Network in these businesses.
Speaker:And believe me, the models are vastly different to mine,
Speaker:you know, ours works for us quite specifically,
Speaker:but some people working in finance,
Speaker:and some people working in, in eCommerce
Speaker:and various different areas,
Speaker:and they have to structure theirs around the needs
Speaker:of their business as well.
Speaker:So there is different ways of doing things.
Speaker:And I think looking into that and always being
Speaker:willing to change is something that
Speaker:I need to constantly remind myself of as well.
Speaker:- Well, Charlie, it's been very informative to hear about
Speaker:how the BBC is doing things and the Champions Network
Speaker:and also your own, your personal introduction
Speaker:and growth in this area, so thank you very much
Speaker:for contributing your ideas.
Speaker:- No, thank you, honestly it's been lovely,
Speaker:and, as you can tell, I love talking about
Speaker:anything accessibility, it's great,
Speaker:and the more people we can reach and talk about it
Speaker:and kind of get everyone on the same mindset is wonderful,
Speaker:so thank you so much for having me, I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker:- Alright, well hopefully if maybe
Speaker:we'll get back to Manchester, we can
Speaker:- Absolutely!
Speaker:- Meet for a coffee or a pint or something
Speaker:- Absolutely. You are always welcome.
Speaker:- Alright, thanks a lot, bye-bye.
