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Shifting Accessibility Into the Discovery and Ideation Phase
Episode 91st May 2022 • Digital Accessibility • Joe Welinske
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Nicole Bergstrom, Hilton, Senior Director of Digital Accessibility

Nicole Bergstrom talks about her first exposure to accessibility while working in the federal government. She describes her move to Hilton and how they are building accessibility into all the touchpoints of their customers for digital services. 

Mentioned in this episode:

Info about Accessibility at Blink

Transcripts

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(rhythmic music)

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- Hello, this is "Digital Accessibility,

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the People Behind the Progress".

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I'm Joe Welinske, the creator and host of this series.

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And as an accessibility professional myself,

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I find it very interesting as to how others

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found their way into this profession.

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So let's meet one of those people right now

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and hear about their journey.

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(rhythmic music concludes)

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All right, well, we're back

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with another episode looking at accessibility practitioners

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and how they got to where they are today.

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And so I'm very pleased to be speaking today

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with Nicole Bergstrom.

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Hello, Nicole, how are you today?

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- Good, how are you?

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- Everything's going well, I'm as mostly usual

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at my home office on Vashon Island, near Seattle,

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which is where Blink's headquarters office is.

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Where are you talking to us from?

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- So I am coming to you

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from just a little south of Denver, Colorado.

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And it is a bright, brilliant blue sky out, no snow

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even though we're in November.

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But I also am working out of my home office here.

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- Well, that's one of the nice trade offs of Denver

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is that even in the winter, when it gets cold,

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you still have some sparkling sunny days

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and that kind of makes everything still feel okay.

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- Absolutely.

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- Well, I think good place to start would be, you know,

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talking about what you're currently doing for your work

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and then we'll kind of move back in time after that.

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- Yeah, absolutely.

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So currently I am the senior director

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of digital accessibility at Hilton Worldwide.

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And what that really means is I have the honor

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and privilege of overseeing

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a fabulous team of accessibility SMEs.

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And we have several areas of focus within Hilton.

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So the overarching is really

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from a programmatic perspective

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to grow and mature Hilton's accessibility program

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and overarching program.

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What that distills down to and looks like

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is really helping to inject accessibility

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into all of our guest facing,

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so our outwardly facing technology in the digital space.

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That's our property websites,

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our Hilton Honors mobile application.

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You name it, if it's digital,

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then we have some responsibility.

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We also really take an approach at Hilton,

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borrowing a term from others in the accessibility industry,

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of shift left.

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And in our model, the shift left

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isn't just from a testing into development,

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it's actually shifting accessibility way up

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into the discovery and ideation phase.

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And we find that when that happens,

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then it sets this stage for accessibility,

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just inherently being baked in

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all the way down the workflow.

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So that's kind of one area or one pillar.

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But given the nature and the diversity

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of the accessibility team and our expertise in technology,

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in assistive technology, being users with lived experiences,

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it also puts us in a very important position

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within the organization to help elevate disability inclusion

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and what that really looks like.

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And so that is also another big area and role

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that myself and my team play across the Hilton enterprise.

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- Well, it sounds like quite a lot of responsibilities.

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And I'm interested

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in digging a little bit deeper into your current work.

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But one of the things that I like to do

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with this interview is find out people got

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to where they are today because we come

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from so many different ways into the accessibility practice.

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So kinda where does it start from for you

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when you first started thinking about it?

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- So I really wish

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that I had like maybe this most amazing story,

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but the reality is that up until about a year ago

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I did not live in the Denver area,

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I lived in the Washington DC area

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and had been there for, you know, 30 some years.

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And folks who live in that DC area know

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that the federal government is a huge employer,

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be it actually federal employees or contractors.

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I was a federal contractor.

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And more specifically I was working

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on a contract under the National Institutes of Health.

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And when you're in the federal government

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then the accessibility focus

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is the Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act.

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And because of the nature of work that I was doing,

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I was managing all of the NIH Clinical Center's

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online communications, both internal and external.

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It also meant that the Section 508 compliance obligation

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was part of my responsibility.

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So I go to an Access Board meeting,

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and the Access Board being the body

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that came up with the Section 508 standards.

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And at this meeting was the first time

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that I had ever encountered a person using a screen reader

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giving a presentation.

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And it was amazing, exhilarating, new,

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and it just somehow resonated with me.

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There was the learning from that and that experience

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was so powerful that it really motivated me to learn more

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and bring that back

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into the work that I was doing to an even greater level.

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And so before the, you know, the talk about shift left

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that I've mentioned, again,

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part of the work that I was doing,

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I actually injected a Section 508 check

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as part of our content workflow.

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And as I moved out of the federal government,

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it then moved over

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into web content accessibility guidelines.

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And I saw that there really is a gap and a need

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for education, awareness, training,

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and helping organizations really get

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what it means to be accessible.

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So I made a career decision and I said,

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this feels right to me.

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I think that this is where I wanna go

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and this is where I wanna take my career.

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And that's what I executed upon.

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- Well, yeah, everybody has their own starting point

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of where they come into accessibility, obviously.

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And you're talking about, you know

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in the federal government.

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But you know, when we come into this area,

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a lot of it can seem like there's an overwhelming amount

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that you have to learn,

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you know, where do we find resources?

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What's the next step when you first started

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to really get involved with it?

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What was your experience there?

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Was working in the federal government providing

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some benefits or disadvantages in that?

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Or kinda where did you go to, to start moving forward?

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- You know, that's interesting, a great question.

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So I had a technical background

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and I knew how to code web pages.

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So as I read the standards, they actually had meaning to me.

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And then again, there were two specific places,

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the section508.gov website.

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It was not as robust as it is right now.

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And then the Health and Human Services,

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so the overarching department above NIH

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had a lot of resources

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and had packaged them in a way that was really consumable.

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Whoever is listening and has been in the industry

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as long as I have also remember a tool called Bobby.

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So Bobby was an automated tool

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that you could scan your website

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and then if you were Bobby approved

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then it was an indication

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that you were, at that time, accessible.

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So a lot of it was hands on learning.

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I mean, the amount of training that is out there now,

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it is enormous, and it just wasn't there.

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So some of it was also interpreting the standards

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and then turning around and writing policy

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for how the NIH Clinical Center was going to interpret

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and apply Section 508 standards.

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- Well, so then you moved out of the federal government.

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What was the kinda next phase of accessibility like for you?

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- Yeah, so out of federal government, I then moved over,

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it was nonprofit but higher ed.

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And so that's where it was really,

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because it was higher ed

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working with higher education institutions who get funding

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from the Department of Education,

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it was still Section 508, but then the injection

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of the web content accessibility guidelines.

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And that was really looking at working with

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this organization to do full on audits and remediation

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of very specific applications.

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- And so I imagine that that was, you know,

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quite a bit of a different work environment

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from the federal government.

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Maybe there are some things carried over.

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What were some

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of the similarities and things that were different?

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- You know, the similarities,

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and I think that the similarities that we've,

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throughout all of the different industries

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with whom I've worked, is the A,

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I don't know what I don't know.

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B, accessibility is hard.

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And C, well, is this good enough?

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And accessibility is usually on the chopping block when,

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you know, the timelines get tight,

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scope has to be tightened up.

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So I would say the, you know

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that's a little bit different in the federal government

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but much more prevalent when you're

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in sort of private industry when you're looking

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at speed to market and things like that.

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But again, it was really a thought, right?

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If you myth bust that accessibility is hard,

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it leads to ugly designs, dumbed down user experiences.

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And just a yes, I'm committed to accessibility,

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but in application the behaviors don't demonstrate

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what the mouths might be saying about their commitment

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to accessibility.

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So, you know, that is an overarching theme.

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What do you do with that?

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A lot of advocacy, a lot of awareness building,

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a lot of training.

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And at Hilton, my commitment was walking the talk.

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So that meant bringing in people who have a disability,

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both outwardly visible and invisible,

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and putting them on teams, with our delivery teams

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so that they now could say, I know someone, right?

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It brought it home and it stopped the discussion

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of why do we have to do this, right?

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Because they would look

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at their coworker and they would say, well of course

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my coworker should have equal access

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to everything that we're doing.

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And so that was something.

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And at the same time, it was a way

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for me to also demonstrate to the enterprise

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the value that a person

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with a disability brings to the workforce.

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- And, you know, that's certainly,

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one of the best ways to be able to

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build up your accessibility organization.

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I think one of the unfortunate barriers is

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that when we bring people with physical challenges

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into the workplace, suddenly we're also recognizing

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that our internal tools that we work with aren't accessible,

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that, you know, the way that we carry on business

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hasn't been set up for that,

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which is a whole different thing

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from what we're providing externally.

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But you know, I see it as a really significant problem

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as we bring more people into help us in accessibility.

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- Absolutely, I mean, as we diversify our workforce,

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even with COVID and people working from home

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relying on technology more and more

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on a day to day basis to interact with coworkers and things,

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what's interesting is that climate,

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the situation has actually, at least in, you know,

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in our situation really allowed us to, again,

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elevate the discussion.

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And that discussions around mental health,

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bring your whole self to work, they're door openers

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where we can also then help people understand, you know,

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a diverse workforce.

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It includes accessible internal communication.

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It includes accessible required training.

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It includes hosting accessible meetings.

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And so my team has just been phenomenal

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in really seeing the opportunities

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and quickly spinning up training so that we, you know,

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the appetite's there.

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And so we wanna feed that appetite and say, okay,

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here's an accessible meeting.

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And then we model it.

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You know, here's what creating an accessible email

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looks like.

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And we do it in a way that is very supportive.

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And then what we've been doing is building champions.

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And so the champions are able to take back their learnings

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and share that with other people in the organization.

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And that's really, you know,

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that is the way to really scale that.

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- Yeah, and you know, reflecting on where we've gotten to

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with your career so far with the federal government

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and then with the nonprofit situation,

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in both of those, we'll have compliance.

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We'll also have a mission to be able to support those

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with physical challenges.

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But when we get to the corporate area,

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suddenly return on investment becomes a part of that

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which maybe don't apply as much in those other areas.

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And I would imagine that, you know, that's an important part

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of what your organization thinks about

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in terms of making your, you know,

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using your properties' favorable to people

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that are looking at other options.

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- When you take the number

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one billion people in this world with a disability,

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and that's a number that you don't ignore.

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It is a, I believe, it's a segment,

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it's a segment that is eager to return to travel.

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I believe that looking at end to end accessible travel

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that includes from the time that someone starts to dream

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about where do I wanna go?

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You know, looking up, researching hotels or locations

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all the way through, you know,

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whatever they need to get to an airport, you know,

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on the plane and then arriving at our property

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and having an on property accessible experience.

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You know, that is something where

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we are really taking a a good, hard look.

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And there are things that Hilton has in play already

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that really helps facilitate.

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So my team being plugged in

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especially in the digital space, you know,

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to make sure that people can book those rooms that they need

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at the hotels where they want to travel.

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But then you get to the hotel

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and we have tools like digital key

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where you can bypass the front desk.

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You can go right to your room

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and you can use your own device set up

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in whatever way you need it to be set up.

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You can have voiceover running,

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you can have your large text,

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and you can then activate the unlocking of your room.

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You no longer have to figure out, you know,

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which way does the key card go or try to, you know,

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have fine motor skill in order to plug it in to the door.

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And so that is really freeing

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in support of independent travel.

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You know, some of the other things that we are also

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looking at and refining would be the smart room

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and having smart room technology.

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I tell the story, one of my team members

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you know, before COVID, he traveled extensively.

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He's blind, he has a guide dog.

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And so he would travel to our various offices and stay

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at usually the same hotels in the different offices.

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And they yet, when we would go to the hotel, you know,

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it was always a different room.

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And he would have to feel along the walls

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in order to locate the thermostat

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because it was not in the same place in every room.

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And then he would have to figure out, is the heat on?

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Is the AC on?

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Turning it up, turning it down.

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Well, this smart room technology, again,

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puts control of a thermostat in a person's hand

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through our mobile app.

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And they can use whatever assistive technology

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or adaptive techniques, and then control that, right?

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Again, that is pretty freeing.

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And quite frankly, I think it benefits everybody.

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I've had a long day, I've finally made it to my hotel,

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I'm tired, I've put my feet up, and now I'm cold.

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I don't wanna get outta bed.

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Guess what?

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Boop boop boop boop,

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I can control my thermostat through my phone.

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So just a couple examples.

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And some of how we're thinking, right,

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is that it really is something that it benefits everyone.

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And it also supports this travel mindset.

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- Well, those are some exciting things to hear about

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going on at your organization.

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Of course, inclusive design

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where we're supporting the whole spectrum

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with our solutions

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I think is kinda where we all wanna be with everything.

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So we've kind of come full circle

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back to where you're at today.

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Do you have any thoughts about, or, you know,

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things that your organization

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is looking forward to farther into the future

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or maybe some other things that you're passionate about

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that are going on right now?

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- So some of the things I would say,

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I'll keep it closer to home that I'm passionate about,

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is really helping the enterprise understand,

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you know, what is being successful

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in hiring more people with disabilities?

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And the kinds of support mechanisms to have in place

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so that we set folks up for success.

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And, you know, again,

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that includes a lot to do with technology.

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Obviously, technology is one of my areas of expertise

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so I'm particularly sensitive to that.

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So I see that as very exciting to be able to do that, right,

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to be able to then have Hilton looked at as,

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hey, this is a great place for everyone to work.

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And it does doesn't matter, you know, your ability, right?

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You're race, it doesn't matter where you live,

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if you will, Hilton's a great place to work

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and we will support you in your career success.

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The other thing that, you know,

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I always keep an eye on is directionally

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where are we going with accessibility guidelines?

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And so thinking about

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what is the 3.0 of WCAG going to look like?

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Thinking about, you know,

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setting again the scaffolding, if you will,

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so that Hilton can quickly pivot

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and really understand how much do we really need to do

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to pivot.

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So those are some of the things.

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And then looking for opportunities to partner

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with disability advocacy groups, and also looking

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for opportunity to build features, functions

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in our Hilton ecosystem that are very specific

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to addressing needs of certain disability populations.

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And I think that that would be just fantastic.

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And again, I maintain that it'll benefit everyone.

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- Well, Nicole, it sounds like you're definitely

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have more than enough on your plate

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in terms of current activities

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and things that you're thinking about.

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And I want to thank you

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for taking the time to share those experiences with me,

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talk about your journey.

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And, you know, maybe we'll meet up in the real world

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at some point.

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- Well, Joe, I appreciate the opportunity to share my story.

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Hopefully it will inspire others to follow along

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and do some great work as well.

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- Yeah, I'm sure it will.

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Thank you very much.

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