Episode 4
Our Ability to Communicate Business Goals Is Something That We All Need to Work On
Cam Beaudoin, CIBC, Senior Manager of Accessibility
Cam Beaudoin is the Senior Manager of Accessibility for a financial institution in Canada. He started as a developer at a consulting company and was immediately charged with understanding the WCAG. That led to his current position as well as consulting, speaking engagements, and his own accessibility podcast. Cam describes a bit about regulatory compliance in Canada. He also talks about the importance of melding our work with business goals, design systems, and metrics.
Mentioned in this episode:
Info about Accessibility at Blink
Transcript
(upbeat music playing)
Speaker:- Hello, this is Digital Accessibility,
Speaker:The people Behind the Progress.
Speaker:I'm Joe Welnske, the creator and host of this series.
Speaker:And as an accessibility professional myself,
Speaker:I find it very interesting is to how others
Speaker:have found their way into this profession.
Speaker:So let's meet one of those people right now,
Speaker:and hear about their journey.
Speaker:(upbeat music playing)
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, here we go with another episode
Speaker:where I have the fun time
Speaker:to talk with another accessibility practitioner.
Speaker:And today I'm speaking with Cam Beaudoin.
Speaker:Hello, Cam. How are you today?
Speaker:- Fantastic, Joe, how are you?
Speaker:- Oh, it's good.
Speaker:As usual, I'm in my home office on Vashon island, Washington
Speaker:which is near Blink's, Seattle headquarters.
Speaker:Where are you talking to me from?
Speaker:- Yeah, I'm in Toronto, Canada, and I just came back
Speaker:from a week of vacation myself, camping in the outback.
Speaker:So I'm nice and relaxed for you here.
Speaker:It's great.
Speaker:- That sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker:It's good to have the opportunity to chat with you.
Speaker:And certainly a lot of things that you've done,
Speaker:that we could talk about.
Speaker:A good place to start is if you tell us a little bit
Speaker:about what your current work is all about.
Speaker:- Sure, sure.
Speaker:I've got this nice dual opportunity right now.
Speaker:I am currently senior manager of accessibility
Speaker:at one of the largest financial institutions in Canada,
Speaker:where I lead a team to help make sure that the organization
Speaker:as a whole follows accessibility guidelines,
Speaker:and is trained up to really think of that shift left
Speaker:mentality.
Speaker:On the other side, on the flip side of the coin,
Speaker:I'm also a speaker, I'm a professional speaker
Speaker:for digital accessibility and disability inclusion.
Speaker:And that's what I do.
Speaker:I also run a weekly live show as well on LinkedIn too.
Speaker:- Well, so obviously you're really busy all the time.
Speaker:For the work that you're doing
Speaker:with the financial institution.
Speaker:What's that like kind of a day in the life or a work week
Speaker:in the life for you in that activity?
Speaker:- Yeah, that's a really good question.
Speaker:And I'm going to answer that in a way of,
Speaker:it's not what I expected and I'll tell you why,
Speaker:because it's a really important lesson
Speaker:that I think that a lot of us accessibility practitioners
Speaker:don't get to see a lot of,
Speaker:which is a management or leadership role
Speaker:who really cares about accessibility.
Speaker:And the reason I'm saying it's an interesting type
Speaker:of role is because I now have to tie accessibility
Speaker:in with business priorities
Speaker:and goals and a key performance indicators
Speaker:which I don't think is part of a lot of organizations,
Speaker:the fabric of their being just yet.
Speaker:So it's a really interesting role.
Speaker:I get to help out the entire organization
Speaker:really set those metrics and set those goals,
Speaker:bring in tools and policies and decisions
Speaker:around the entire organization,
Speaker:and make sure that they follow those rules
Speaker:that they've said themselves that they would follow.
Speaker:- And you mentioned the show that you do,
Speaker:in your speaking engagements, what does that consist of?
Speaker:- Yeah, so I've got a weekly LinkedIn live show where I try,
Speaker:and bring on just this diverse guests and groups
Speaker:of people who have lived experiences with disabilities.
Speaker:I really find finding people who have those lived
Speaker:experiences, the voices,
Speaker:probably a key to our industry,
Speaker:really making sure that understanding and hearing
Speaker:about how people live with disabilities
Speaker:is a really good way to understand
Speaker:and appreciate how I can cater to them,
Speaker:and how I can help out this group of individuals.
Speaker:And beside that,
Speaker:I'm also pretty actively going after events,
Speaker:keynote talks, other organizations
Speaker:whoever's looking to make that transformational change
Speaker:in their organization to start caring about accessibility
Speaker:or continue on their journey, or even get their staff
Speaker:of accessibility professionals trained up on how to speak
Speaker:about accessibility properly,
Speaker:those are the types of markets
Speaker:that I'm really getting heavily
Speaker:into and speaking at those organizations as well.
Speaker:- Well, we'll make sure we get notes
Speaker:about those activities in the show notes.
Speaker:But one of the things I like to do in this program
Speaker:is find out how people made their way
Speaker:to where they are today and live life and work life.
Speaker:And so why don't you just pick a spot
Speaker:where you'd like to start and let us know
Speaker:about how your journey progressed
Speaker:to what you're doing today?
Speaker:- Sure, sure.
Speaker:It's always an interesting answer.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:When you ask somebody,
Speaker:especially some of us advocates where did you start?
Speaker:We all have this little bit different story
Speaker:but it always relates in some kind of thing
Speaker:where I cared about a group of people.
Speaker:This is important to me, the better good of the world.
Speaker:And I started off as a developer
Speaker:and I just wanted to make good code.
Speaker:And we were waiting for,
Speaker:a project that we were working on,
Speaker:I was waiting for logins, banks sometimes are hesitant
Speaker:about giving logins to people of before a six week kind
Speaker:of introduction and onboarding session, things like that.
Speaker:So at the consulting firm I worked at,
Speaker:we were waiting those six weeks
Speaker:and I was a good developer, still a junior.
Speaker:And they threw the web content accessibility guidelines
Speaker:at me and they said Cam, go learn this.
Speaker:You're going to be the accessibility guy.
Speaker:And I read them as a junior,
Speaker:and looking forward to this, and I read them top to bottom
Speaker:which is one kind of a lot of people in our industry do.
Speaker:And realized that after 1.1.1 context content,
Speaker:and you move to the next one,
Speaker:and you're like 1.2.1,
Speaker:well I have already description here.
Speaker:What do I need this for?
Speaker:So I started to realize
Speaker:that maybe wasn't the best way to approach it.
Speaker:We had a list of defects that need to be fixed.
Speaker:I burned those down.
Speaker:I finished those off.
Speaker:And,
Speaker:after that I became the accessibility subject matter expert.
Speaker:And one of the interesting stories that came out
Speaker:of that was we were in a conversation to try and.
Speaker:Remember when mobile check deposit came out,
Speaker:do you remember that?
Speaker:Like when you could take a picture
Speaker:with the check with your phone?
Speaker:And they were trying to decide is,
Speaker:do we need to integrate this to the iPhone 4?
Speaker:Or do we just go forward with the iPhone 6?
Speaker:And the decision was,
Speaker:well let's just continue forward with the iPhone 6
Speaker:because let's not write code for an older model.
Speaker:And I thought that was kind of odd because I was thinking
Speaker:about the groups of individuals who maybe the only way
Speaker:they get paid is through a check.
Speaker:That's kind of unfortunate
Speaker:that they're not going to be able to afford
Speaker:or purchase a new telephone.
Speaker:Like you telling me I got to buy a new smartphone
Speaker:just to be able to have a convenience of depositing a check.
Speaker:So I thought that was kind of wrong.
Speaker:And I started to just learn a little bit more
Speaker:about the industry and I became the subject
Speaker:matter expert for the organization in Canada.
Speaker:About that, I went to CSUN,
Speaker:the conference around accessibility.
Speaker:I spoke at CSUN in 2018, sent there by the company.
Speaker:And since then, I've just started to speak more
Speaker:openly about digital and professional advocacy,
Speaker:and how that kind of relates to this whole world.
Speaker:And how do we get others to care about this subject too
Speaker:which is a really big focus of what I do now.
Speaker:- And the organization that you mentioned there early on,
Speaker:is that the one that you're still working with?
Speaker:- No, I actually left them.
Speaker:I had a manager from that organization tell me.
Speaker:And when I used to tell the story
Speaker:people used to think it was bad or negative.
Speaker:Now, I used to think so as well
Speaker:but it's changed a little bit over time.
Speaker:He said that Cam you know that this company
Speaker:will never care about accessibility.
Speaker:And I had to take a step back
Speaker:because I thought that was very obtuse.
Speaker:I thought that was very confrontational
Speaker:of him to say that.
Speaker:A little later on I learned that he used to do work
Speaker:on airport kiosks, also a very heavily regulated industry,
Speaker:kiosks and airlines and stuff like that.
Speaker:And his job was,
Speaker:overturned.
Speaker:He had no more job after working
Speaker:on these kiosks when everything was made remote,
Speaker:and you could edit and change these kiosks remotely
Speaker:whereas before you had to go in and plug a stick in,
Speaker:and do a bunch of stuff.
Speaker:So he came from the regulatory industry
Speaker:and when he told me that I thought he was being,
Speaker:like I said, quite confrontational in saying Cam,
Speaker:get out to here.
Speaker:You need something else.
Speaker:It wasn't until much later that, like I said,
Speaker:I realized that maybe he just wanted to test me and say,
Speaker:if you really care about accessibility,
Speaker:this company is not the one you should choose.
Speaker:You got to either go and find one who really does,
Speaker:and continue that passion that way or change roles
Speaker:within because they'll never find or be able to sell
Speaker:projects of accessibility in this organization.
Speaker:So I left and I went to a pure accessibility
Speaker:consulting firm and I was a technical lead there.
Speaker:And then I started my own company after that,
Speaker:and started speaking.
Speaker:- But with the work that you do with your,
Speaker:you still work with the financial company?
Speaker:- Yep. Financial institution, yep.
Speaker:- And so how is that set up?
Speaker:Are you part of an overarching accessibility support
Speaker:for different parts of the organization?
Speaker:Or do you work with individual departments
Speaker:or groups or how is that set up?
Speaker:- Yeah, really interesting question because and I'm quite
Speaker:fortunate to be able to define
Speaker:what we're doing as we kind of do it.
Speaker:Recently what happened was the organization had to change
Speaker:from a model where there's just an accessibility team
Speaker:to let's go out and build an enterprise wide accessibility
Speaker:like team or center of excellence, or what have you.
Speaker:With large organizations usually have different names
Speaker:for different things, or there's a center of excellence
Speaker:over here for policies.
Speaker:And now do we create a second center of excellence
Speaker:or do we call it something different?
Speaker:So to answer your question,
Speaker:anything that has to do with digital.
Speaker:So this means websites or the mobile app itself
Speaker:or things like documents or PDFs
Speaker:and stuff that all kind of falls under what me and my team
Speaker:consult on and how we create the policies
Speaker:and procedures and decisions on how do we take this forward
Speaker:for the next six months, one year, and make decisions
Speaker:on these for that period of time to carry
Speaker:on as a permanent structure within the organization.
Speaker:- Well,
Speaker:one of the things that you mentioned was your early work
Speaker:looking at the WCAG,
Speaker:and kind of being overwhelmed by that,
Speaker:which happens to a lot of people.
Speaker:Coming to accessibility,
Speaker:fortunately, we have a ton of great information
Speaker:but in some ways it can be overwhelming
Speaker:to see all that.
Speaker:I like to, when people come in new,
Speaker:I like to just give them pieces that maybe are relevant
Speaker:small chunks that they can grab on to.
Speaker:But one of the things that a lot
Speaker:of large enterprise or organizations
Speaker:like financial institutions have to deal
Speaker:with are government regulations.
Speaker:For me as a citizen in the United States,
Speaker:in working on projects,
Speaker:we're always involved with the section 508
Speaker:legalities which stem from WCAG.
Speaker:What's it like in Canada in terms
Speaker:of the standards that you may need to comply with there?
Speaker:- Yeah, so recently, AODA,
Speaker:which stands for the Accessibility
Speaker:for Ontarians with Disabilities Act came into effect.
Speaker:There was a deadline in 2020, excuse me, 2021.
Speaker:It was pushed six months, 2022.
Speaker:And then they said,
Speaker:comply with WCAG 2.0 level AA.
Speaker:And that came into effect.
Speaker:And unfortunately,
Speaker:that AODA did not have teeth into the rules.
Speaker:What was going to happen if someone did not comply?
Speaker:Well, they threatened for things
Speaker:up to $10,000 a day or something like that.
Speaker:And then that never really happened.
Speaker:So, lot of larger organizations
Speaker:or institutions did comply because the rule was,
Speaker:if you did business in the province of Ontario
Speaker:you needed to follow the Accessibility
Speaker:for Ontario Disabilities Act,
Speaker:then people who were in other provinces,
Speaker:Quebec, British Columbia,
Speaker:the two other most populous provinces said,
Speaker:well I don't need to comply,
Speaker:I don't do business in Ontario.
Speaker:Or my headquarters is in Quebec.
Speaker:That means I don't need to follow these guidelines.
Speaker:So, recently what's happened is it's moved up
Speaker:to the federal level.
Speaker:The Accessible Canada Act is being now worked
Speaker:on and they have a target deadline of 2040,
Speaker:which is a long term.
Speaker:So, right now we're working on.
Speaker:We're trying to figure out ways of, how do we start
Speaker:to communicate the reasons
Speaker:for working on ACA now to larger organization.
Speaker:So the larger, excuse me to the organization at large,
Speaker:and that presents its own challenges.
Speaker:Government moves slow, as we both know.
Speaker:And the more regulated you get, the more difficult
Speaker:it is to actually enact those changes
Speaker:in a reasonable amount of time.
Speaker:And I love this challenge.
Speaker:This is something really interesting
Speaker:because what you said earlier about breaking it down
Speaker:to smaller chunks is something I talk about a lot.
Speaker:Simplification is something we need to focus
Speaker:on in our industry
Speaker:because it can get really really complex and convoluted.
Speaker:How can I really describe the whole human condition
Speaker:in a few sentences on a website?
Speaker:You just can't do it.
Speaker:So that's why I don't even really say WCAG anymore.
Speaker:I say accessibility guidelines
Speaker:because it's a lot easier for people to understand
Speaker:or even better, the accessibility rules
Speaker:or rule set or things like that.
Speaker:Breaking things down into a really easily digestible,
Speaker:understandable piece of information is a lot easier
Speaker:than saying what WCAG 2.0 level AA, success criteria 1.1.1.
Speaker:People just don't accept that as part of what,
Speaker:they don't know what they're supposed to do with that.
Speaker:They say, okay,
Speaker:what do I do?
Speaker:How is this practical?
Speaker:How do I make this work?
Speaker:So, yeah, it's really important
Speaker:to make sure that we simplify and characterize
Speaker:what we're supposed to do in these really nice digestible
Speaker:chunks.
Speaker:- Well, you've been working in this area for quite a while.
Speaker:Do you have any thoughts looking to the future
Speaker:of things where you see opportunities that you're excited
Speaker:about on the other side of that,
Speaker:are there some areas where you're concerned
Speaker:that maybe there's not enough investment
Speaker:or progress being made?
Speaker:- Yeah, definitely.
Speaker:I see the biggest gap in our industry
Speaker:is the fact that we don't put as individuals,
Speaker:and professionals enough focus on business reasons
Speaker:or speaking to business.
Speaker:One thing that I'm doing more and more now is tying
Speaker:in business goals with accessibility guidelines or rules.
Speaker:Now, what I mean by that,
Speaker:is that there is companies out there who will post publicly
Speaker:on their blogs or on their diversity, equity,
Speaker:and inclusion pages on their websites.
Speaker:They say, we care about a diverse workforce.
Speaker:And yet we go in there as professionals,
Speaker:and start to talk about,
Speaker:well this is how you put all the text into an image,
Speaker:and we lose that tie between the business goals,
Speaker:and disability inclusion.
Speaker:So that's where I see our biggest focus should be,
Speaker:is really talking to organizations.
Speaker:When we speak to organizations
Speaker:I bring up their blog page on, Hey,
Speaker:we just posted last month about pride month, for example.
Speaker:Look at this post. It was great.
Speaker:This is a diverse,
Speaker:or here's a post that we just did on including non-gender
Speaker:bias in our hiring practices.
Speaker:Why aren't we talking about disability inclusion
Speaker:in that as well?
Speaker:And I think we need to get comfortable with that.
Speaker:Because once we can start to tie business goals,
Speaker:business reasons into accessibility targets
Speaker:and things like that, we're going to have a lot easier way
Speaker:of communicating with people who think in terms
Speaker:of key performance indicators and quarterly targets.
Speaker:And I was just speaking to somebody
Speaker:who wants to bring a design system,
Speaker:an accessible design system into his business.
Speaker:And he said,
Speaker:well what are some ways that I can talk about this?
Speaker:And so just do that, go look at the company's
Speaker:DEI goals and say, well, look,
Speaker:we care about bringing on new immigrants to our organization
Speaker:well, people with a second language really do benefit
Speaker:from language simplification
Speaker:or left alignment when they're reading text
Speaker:because that's easier for how we consume information.
Speaker:Well, now all of a sudden I've tied
Speaker:in a business goal with accessibility reasons,
Speaker:and that means metrics can be put onto that.
Speaker:You can actually put a dollar figure
Speaker:on what's the value of that too.
Speaker:So I think our ability to communicate those business goals,
Speaker:and becoming fluent with business language
Speaker:is something that we all need to work on.
Speaker:I see that as a huge opportunity
Speaker:for us to move this forward in the next three to five years.
Speaker:- Well, one of the areas you mentioned briefly
Speaker:that you were involved with was in accessibility or working
Speaker:for an organization as an accessibility consultant
Speaker:before you started your own work,
Speaker:for a lot of accessibility consulting,
Speaker:often it stems out of a company's fear of litigation,
Speaker:and is often kind of the remediation, post development
Speaker:part where you're really just trying to fix,
Speaker:and put band aids on what could be more significant
Speaker:problems.
Speaker:Have you noticed much progress
Speaker:in organizations doing work shift left and starting
Speaker:at the research and design level before things are coded?
Speaker:I kind of see it as a mixed bag
Speaker:where there's still quite there.
Speaker:There's not as much investment early on.
Speaker:And it tends to be just trying to patch things
Speaker:at the end but I was interested in your experiences
Speaker:with that.
Speaker:- Well, sure.
Speaker:And I agree with you.
Speaker:I mean, that is left till the end.
Speaker:And a lot of consulting firms will feed into that.
Speaker:There's some organizations out there who actively put ads
Speaker:out there saying avoid accessibility litigation,
Speaker:call us now.
Speaker:But here's where I see that we fit in.
Speaker:It doesn't matter
Speaker:if you are a junior developer who cares a little bit
Speaker:of accessibility or someone who has been an advocate
Speaker:for years, we have to realize that it's all
Speaker:of our responsibility to educate clients and customers
Speaker:and companies and organizations on that shift left.
Speaker:So I think that we need to get comfortable.
Speaker:Like I said, having those business conversations.
Speaker:Yes, I agree with you that shift left is important
Speaker:but if I just go tell a UX research team
Speaker:you should be interviewing people with disabilities.
Speaker:And then I walk out of the room
Speaker:or end the conversation without enabling
Speaker:them with the tools or the resources to be able to do that.
Speaker:Well, then I'm not doing a very good job
Speaker:helping them shift left either.
Speaker:There's some great companies out there who have access
Speaker:to a pool of people who have lived experiences
Speaker:with disabilities and who are willing and able,
Speaker:and getting paid to offer feedback on products and services.
Speaker:But we're not teaching about that.
Speaker:We're not going to talk to these teams and saying, Hey,
Speaker:you can call this company.
Speaker:You can meet with their sales team and you can do that.
Speaker:Instead, a lot of consulting firms
Speaker:they sit right in that tech level.
Speaker:They sit in that tech space in that tech team and say,
Speaker:well, just be that, pick up the phone
Speaker:and call me when you have a tech question
Speaker:but we're not doing a lot of that work on,
Speaker:let's be the driving force before the shift left.
Speaker:It's not up to the business owners to shift left.
Speaker:It's up to us to drive that change,
Speaker:and we need to be in front of that.
Speaker:- Well, we've covered a lot of things.
Speaker:I do want to ask you a little bit more
Speaker:about the show that you put on.
Speaker:How often is that?
Speaker:Where can people find it?
Speaker:And we'll put that information in the show notes
Speaker:but maybe you could tell us a little bit
Speaker:about what that's all about.
Speaker:- Sure, absolutely.
Speaker:So the name of the show is called Normalize it,
Speaker:where I talk about the things
Speaker:which a lot of people feel uncomfortable to talk about.
Speaker:I mean, no one wants to talk
Speaker:about neuro diversity in the workplace.
Speaker:What does it mean to go to work if you are autistic
Speaker:or you have ADHD and what does that mean?
Speaker:So that's where that show name comes from.
Speaker:It's at noon Eastern every Friday.
Speaker:Like lots of guests coming on.
Speaker:I've got Mike Gifford coming on next week,
Speaker:and it's going to be a great show.
Speaker:That's going to be a more technical show,
Speaker:but this show really is for anybody who is curious,
Speaker:and wants to know answers to some of those questions
Speaker:that are uncomfortable to ask in the workplace,
Speaker:how do you approach somebody who is deaf?
Speaker:How do you approach them when you walk
Speaker:up to them in the office?
Speaker:Do you go and shake their chair?
Speaker:Is that an appropriate way to reach out to them?
Speaker:Or you just lightly tap their shoulder?
Speaker:By the way, it's lightly tapped their shoulder.
Speaker:Don't go and shake anybody's chair.
Speaker:Nobody likes that.
Speaker:So I've got that every Friday.
Speaker:And now that I have a good 20 or 30 episodes,
Speaker:I'm going to start posting that on YouTube,
Speaker:and also creating a podcast out of those episodes as well.
Speaker:I wanted a little bit of a backlog there before I did it,
Speaker:but join us live.
Speaker:I'm very interactive when I do the show,
Speaker:I answer comments and questions as I go,
Speaker:if it's to the guest or to me.
Speaker:I also do a solo ask me anything episode once in a while
Speaker:that I'm driving as well.
Speaker:So yeah, come and join me on LinkedIn.
Speaker:You just have to follow me there and you just reach out,
Speaker:and I can let you know where the next one is.
Speaker:- Well, great.
Speaker:Well, thanks for letting us know about that.
Speaker:Definitely, it's a great thing to check out,
Speaker:and thank you so much for taking the time to share,
Speaker:your background and your own journey with us.
Speaker:It was a pleasure to chat with you about this.
Speaker:- Yeah, thanks for having me on Joe.
Speaker:I really appreciate it, appreciate the work you do as well.
Speaker:- Thanks a lot bye bye.
