About a week and a half ago, I removed Foursquare from my iPhone. I then followed up by deleting my account entirely.

This wasn’t some hissy fit move because something in particular outraged me.

I just hit a point where I asked myself, “What’s the point?”

When I first got an iPhone last year and was starry-eyed about everything, I found it very cool to check in just about every place I went, spurred on by incentives like mayoralships and badges.

It was kind of neat to see where friends were checking in, occasionally finding that they were nearby.

Sure, I’d shrug off the good-natured ribbing by my wife and others, calling me a nerd for whipping out the phone upon arrival just about anywhere, to get that check-in entered right away.

I’d get obsessed with trying to attain mayor status for favorite haunts.

Somewhere along the way, it lost its luster.

I started getting requests from “friends” I barely knew, if at all. And I’d ask myself, “are these people that I really want knowing all my moves around town?”

After time and becoming the mayor of places like the bank and oil change places, a question gnawed at me – “Really, I’m checking in when I’m getting a friggin’ oil change?”

It took less than a year for me to find Foursquare both lame and pointless. I’m not about to get sanctimonious and judge others — if people enjoy it, that’s all that should matter to them. If they get value out of it, great.

I just don’t. As its popularity has grown, it gets harder and harder to become mayor of anywhere. Once the easier-to-attain badges are knocked off, the incentives and rewards are few and far between.

It also annoys the hell out of me when a business offers an incentive to becoming the mayor, but an obvious employee of the place holds the title. I’ve noticed that a few times. If you’re a waiter at a restaurant and they give deals to the mayor, it’s bad form to bar actual patrons from it. And good luck ever getting a mayoralship from a place like Starbucks, just to get a pittance off your coffee drink.

I think, in short, Foursquare became a hassle. A routine I put myself through for diminishing, if any, return.

I remember going through a similar mindset with some “world-building” iPhone apps on which I briefly got hooked. They were Tap Fish, We Rule and iFarm. I started the building, be it buying fish, planting crops, whatever. Next thing, every single morning I was feeding those damn virtual fish, cashing in crops, and collecting money. If you missed a day, you’d have dead fish or lost revenue. So it became an obligation to keep at it.

Until one day, I said, “Holy crap…this isn’t even close to fun anymore!” So I up and deleted all three apps and felt an immediate relief.

Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with Foursquare, Tap Fish, We Rule or iFarm. If it’s an app you enjoy, you use it. If it’s a hassle, you do what I did and move on.

But I don’t know…there’s just something about some aspects of social media that, at least to me, feels like a bursted bubble.

There are days I even struggle with Facebook and Twitter. Though I’m nowhere near ready to abandon either, my strategy has changed. I’ve gradually been conducting mass purges of people I follow/friend, in an attempt to push away the noise and get back to a point where I’m getting actual information of interest and value. But that’s for another blog post!

Tags: facebook, foursquare, ifarm, Social Media, tap fish, twitter, we rule

Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to attend the PR+Social Media Summit at Marquette University in Milwaukee. I’ve been very interested and active in social media for years now, so it was exciting to attend such an event, right in my hometown.

There were a number of excellent presentations – a whole day’s worth in fact. Rather than recap each and every session I attended, I thought I’d share some quick-hit sentiments that stuck with me.

On transparency and openness:

• IBM has open Internet for all employees
• They encourage employees to do this to expose their individual expertise
• Trust employees – they are the brand
• Blogging personally helps you find your voice

(From Timothy Blair‘s presentation, “From Experimentation to Implementation: IBM’s Communications Evolution“)

On engagement and community:

• Community is about engagement – both conversing and listening
• Be visible and interact
• It’s not about the tools – it’s about the human element. The tools come and go. Yesterday it was MySpace, today it’s Facebook and Twitter, who knows what it’ll be tomorrow
• Every single individual in a company has a voice and is part of the overall community
• It’s being genuine on all platforms from LinkedIn to Facebook to Twitter

(From Amber Naslund‘s presentation, “Community isn’t a buzzword. It’s a business strategy.”

On building a personal brand and making yourself known:

• Just selling yourself through social media won’t cut it – follow conversations, listen to them, engage in them, monitor what’s going on
• Find ways to show off your expertise/what you do best
• Generate quality content…and lots of it
• Share everything from tips and tracks to “trade secrets”
• Read feeds and chime in regularly
• Become a source – getting cited as expert gains you tremendous credibility

(from Sarah Evans‘ presentation, “How to Stand Out in the Online World”)

I debated if posting about a social media conference even belonged on a blog about web accessibility. Quickly, I realized it does.

Why?

Well, for a few reasons:

My year and a half as a web accessibility blogger has been a great experience. Thanks in great part to social media, I’ve met a lot of fascinating, insightful and all around cool people. I do some of the above bullets better than others, but owe a great deal of the attention I get to social media.

PR+Social Media Summit was a great experience, one that I wholly recommend to anybody when the next session rolls around.

Tags: milwaukee, Social Media

Over the next few blog posts, I’m excited to share an interview I recently conducted over email with Jennison Asuncion. Residing in the Toronto, Canada area, Jennison’s understanding of accessibility, as he’ll explain shortly, comes from the well-rounded position of being involved in both the corporate business world as well as academia. In his own words he also has “first-hand knowledge born from being an end-user who happens to be blind.”

Jennison is also a respected, insightful voice in the social media world, on Twitter and LinkedIn in particular.

Steve (SG): Tell us a little about yourself. What do you do in the field of web accessibility?

Jennison (JA): I’m a big jazz and live comedy fan, a shameless networker, and I enjoy cross-country skiing.

In terms of the field of web accessibility, I work in Toronto for one of Canada’s banks. Part of my role involves consulting with developers so that what they are putting out there is as accessible as it can be to either our employees or clients with disabilities.

Somewhat related, by night, I co-direct the Adaptech Research Network, where we have been conducting research into the use and accessibility of information and communication technologies by college and university students with visible and non-visible disabilities for over ten years. This has helped me build perspective on the wide-range of experiences of end-users with a variety of disabilities who interact with technology which I take into my day-job. I really feel lucky to have a foot in both the corporate accessibility and the academic research areas for that reason.

SG: Why did you take an interest in the subject?

JA: Without wanting to overstate the obvious, the Web is such a part of many of our lives, professionally, recreationally, and personally. This is only set to increase, and at a faster pace. Case in point, look at all of the social media tools out there.

The web has also opened up so many opportunities that might not have been possible say four or five years ago for everyone, but especially for people with disabilities. So, doing my part to assure that this landscape can be made as accessible as possible just feels like the right thing to be doing.

SG: In your experience in the field of web accessibility, what sorts of things about people with disabilities using the Internet have surprised you the most?

JA: How resourceful and willing a good number of users with disabilities are in figuring out ways to make a website work for them, even though it’s not necessarily that accessible to begin with. I’m not saying that’s the ideal situation whatsoever, but, for example, as challenging as, say Facebook can be from an accessibility perspective for some, there are folks with disabilities who have found ways to make features and functionality work for them.

The other thing that doesn’t surprise me, as much as it serves as something I need to always remember, is that there is still a whole group of users with disabilities, who are not tech-savvy and connected through things like Twitter, who may be using older versions of adaptive hardware and/or software who are out there. With little to no formal training, many of them come online to check their e-mail, may do a bit of online browsing, and that’s about it. Or they only use a computer at work, not at home. They know nothing about Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA), and/or may not be able to afford to upgrade their systems.

It’s those people that I worry are being left behind. Left behind, insofar as they may one day visit a website that they’ve known and experienced one way for a long time, but all of a sudden, because of a site upgrade, they discover the user experience of the site has drastically changed. Maybe their browser is no longer supported, or their adaptive technology is not providing them with any useful information at all, rendering the site useless to them. If they cannot upgrade their systems for what ever reason, then what?

I’d like to thank Jennison (something I’m sure I’ll be repeating numerous times over the next week!) for taking the time to share his reflections on accessibility.

Next time, we’ll ask Jennison where he feels accessibility stands right now, and where it’s headed in 2010 and beyond.

Series Recap:
Interview with Jennison Asuncion – part one
Interview with Jennison Asuncion – part two
Interview with Jennison Asuncion – part three and wrap-up

Tags: accessible rich internet applications, Adaptech Research Network, aria, assistive technology, jennison asuncion, Social Media

Wrapping up my email interview series with IndependenceFirst, the last questions delve into assistive technologies – what IndependenceFirst have to offer as well as experiences that disabled users have using them. We also cover a little bit about their social media presence.

Q: Do you provide usage, renting, etcetera of computer assistive technologies such as screen readers or refreshable Braille?

A: We have open lab times where people who require assistive devices have internet access with our devices in our labs or just develop proficiencies with a computer and the internet, we have a Try-A-Gadget Lab which allows people to investigate Assistive Technology (AT) options for work or home use e.g. environmental controls, telecommunications, voice communications and more…as well as low tech options e.g. adaptive gardening devices, adaptive feeding equipment, memory/communications boards, etc. before they would purchase an item for their own use.

We lend equipment to some people to try in their work or home environments for up to a week if they want to do that as well. We are the only Microsoft Accessibility Resource Center in WI and we have expertise with their products and built in features. We do have adaptive computer inputs, screen readers, voice activated controls and many devices–over 700 in there! We will lend hardware, but not software or computers themselves.

Q: Can you share some of the experiences — both positive and negative — that people using such technologies routinely encounter?

A:
Positive experiences: A man who is quadriplegic received a computer through our Computer Recycling Program, says it’s now his lifeline to go to school online, find info about his disability, coordinate his transportation and trips out to local businesses, keep in touch with friends. That story was featured on Fox 6 News.

A lot of people with disabilities who have received computers through our program have felt like it has opened doors to them that they didn’t feel were possible due to their financial limitations. Positives are also just the doors that AT can open. Technology can be the means of achieving mobility, communication, employment, etc for people who have barriers.

We often hear people saying “I never knew that there was a way that I could do that.” Sometimes the experience is so emotional they cry. It always touches us when that happens, because to us it means that the door opened by technology really means a lot.

Negative experiences: Our Deaf staff and consumers cannot watch videos online nearly 100% of the time. No captioning. No text version of the audio on the videos. Not good. Negative experiences people may encounter include incompatibility issues because computer operating systems evolve before software and hardware adaptations do. Another issue is lack of local resources. AT is a relatively small market, so it is not always possible to comparison shop close to home. One of the biggest issues for technology users is lack of unbiased information. There is a lot of slick marketing out there, and people are often convinced that they need a particular product when something else might be a better fit. There is also a misconception that people who sell products for people with disabilities are all nice people who have their customer’s best interest at heart. Vendors are business people who are trying to make a profit. Some are good, some are pushy, some lie. Good consumer skills are essential when buying AT, but people often assume the vendor is trustworthy because he is helping people with disabilities.

Q: You have been active for some time on Twitter via @Independence1st, and now have almost 700 followers (edit: now past 700!). How has this experience been for you?

A: Twitter is a great way for us to create conversation around access and disability topics, cultivate relationships with potential and current consumers, donors and volunteers; as well as open people’s minds to inclusion around topics of independent living, housing, employment, aging in place and access among other issues. It’s another advocacy, marketing and customer service tool.

It also helps people to get their questions answered in real time and generate a wider network of contacts around the issues (around the world!) and build our brand. If there’s a hot topic, the viral nature of Twitter can really help to raise awareness for us and the issues which ultimately can change the world in a positive way for people with disabilities.

Special thanks, again, to Carol Voss of IndependenceFirst for all of her wonderful answers. I hope those of you reading this have gained as much insight about all the wonderful things that IndependenceFirst do as I have.

More about IndependenceFirst:

• IndependenceFirst web site
• IndependenceFirst Facebook fan page
• IndependenceFirst Twitter profile

Tags: assistive technology, disability, facebook, Independence1st, IndependenceFIRST, metro milwaukee, milwaukee, SEWCIL, Social Media, southeastern wisconsin, Southeastern Wisconsin Center for Independent Living, twitter

Social media juggernaut Facebook, which boasted reaching 200 million users this week, has been working with the American Foundation for the Blind, and announced some strides towards improving the accessibility of the site, particularly for the visually impaired.

Carl Augusto, President and CEO of AFB, posted a lengthy entry on the Facebook Blog, sharing how he, as a blind person, initially had troubles utilizing Facebook when first visiting.

Two years ago, AFB began discussing with Facebook ways to make the social media site more accessible to blind users. Facebook is working on enhancements, and has published an informational page called Making Facebook Accessible for Everyone.

Among the features highlighted on that page are:

• Audio alternatives to CAPTCHA, which is the technology you see on some websites that requires you to enter letters from a distorted display that a human can decipher but a computer script or automation cannot.
  
• Straight HTML version of the site (specifically, the mobile version) that is friendlier to screen readers.
• Non-Javascript version of Facebook Gift Shop, which addresses a standing frustration with the inaccessibility of that locale
• Ability to use Facebook Chat via screen reader.
• Shortcut keys to key sections of the Facebook, listed out by browser

Tags: american foundation for the blind, assistive technology, carl augusto, facebook, screen readers, Social Media