Newer and Flashier is Not Always Better

Newer and Flashier is Not Always Better

Braille MonitorNovember 2016

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Newer and Flashier is Not Always Better
by Mark Jones
From the Editor: Mark Jones began working in radio in 1972, the same year he joined the Federation. When he began that first job, he was told that he could do airwork for remote broadcasts if he could sell the airtime. Since he couldn’t drive, he paid the thirteen-year-old kid across the street to ride with him on a tandem bike to sell advertising. After working at a few smaller stations, he wanted to move into bigger markets but ran into difficulties. He would send out tapes of his airwork, but when the stations found out he was blind, he was turned down for the jobs. So Mark Jones decided to create his own radio station. Today he owns WVBG AM and FM in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Mark is no stranger to challenges created by others because of his blindness and the tools and technology that help him surmount those challenges. He found in conversation with other Federationists some attitudes toward technology that made him reconsider exactly which tools he chooses to use daily, and why having the spiffiest new technogizmo might not always be the best choice. Here’s what he has to say:
Three years ago I was at the national convention, and a lady was talking to me about people getting in touch with her. She said she had an iPhone, she was trying to use it, but she was having a lot of trouble. She remarked that she really loved her old flip phone because it was so much easier for her to use. I started thinking about that, and I started thinking about the things I do in my line of work every day. Some of you may know that I'm in the radio business and own three stations in Vicksburg, Mississippi. I do a variety of things in my job. Every weekday I'm out making sales calls. I have a driver to get me to the stores and businesses I call on. When I go into these businesses I can do many things that help me get the correct advertising information for my clients. I can write faster than any sighted person. In seconds I can look back and quickly read a commercial I wrote for that client possibly four years previously. When I'm walking into the store, if I've forgotten the name of the person I'm going to see because I haven't been there in a while and because I'm getting old, I can look the name up in seconds. I can bring back the commercial I've written in Braille to the radio station and record it onto our computer that schedules the commercials.

Our station does a major promotion each December called The Christmas Caroling Contest, where choirs, groups, and individuals sing, and we give away $10,000 in prize money. I work with music teachers throughout the area, put the shows together, and act as the master of ceremonies. I also work on the air as a regular old disc jockey on occasion. I also work with our bookkeeper to keep our deposits from advertising straight and our bills paid.

I'm not telling you this to toot my horn, but simply as something instructive. How do I do all of this? With Braille. And what Braille device do I use most often by far? An old Braille Lite 40. I will never forget buying it. It was at the national convention in New Orleans, and the late Dr. Tim Cranmer told me that I would never regret buying it, and he was right. Of course, I use other technology: a Windows PC at the radio station with a dedicated program on it, a BrailleNote for email and GPS wayfinding. But the old simple Braille Lite is so much quicker, so much easier to use, that I've found nothing beats it for productivity, and for what I do, there's nothing more important than productivity.

NFB state president, Gary Wunder, remarked recently to me in an email that many young people like to use the same devices as their sighted peers so they don't look blind. I have two comments about that: first, I normally don't concern myself with someone thinking I look blind. Although some people treat me differently from how they would a sighted person, most of the people I run into every day treat me just like I think they would treat a sighted person. If you are in sales, it's always good to be able to talk to people about what they're interested in. So I talk to them about their businesses, about SEC football, about their friends and families. If they ask me about using my Braille Lite because they're curious about how it works, I explain to them that the original device was really the first PDA on the market called a Braille ‘n Speak, and blind people had that before sighted people did. I wish we were ahead of the curve on other technology.

My second comment is that doing things to not look blind can get you in trouble. I will never forget the Monitor article Gary Wunder wrote about trying to go out without using a cane. That Monitor article vividly showed how sometimes not using blindness tools can get us into very awkward situations.

Earlier I mentioned working with my bookkeeper. I keep a ledger of all my checks. I have them all going back for the last twenty-three years, written in hardcopy Braille on a Perkins Brailler, which I also use every day to make my list of places to go and people to see for the next day. I do this in hard copy so I can easily look at what I need to do on paper without having to keep turning on my Braille Lite. This saves time.

These days, companies seem to want to add more and more technology to everything. Do sighted people like it? Not always. I was at a car dealership recently, and we got into the discussion about the touchscreens on the dashboards of cars. The lady told me that her daughter hated that touchscreen system because she wanted to be able to use her radio like she always had in the past, and this new high-tech dashboard made it much harder. Many other sighted people have told me they would much rather use a washer or dryer with the old, simple controls, not one that confronts you with so many options and such a steep learning curve that you need a college course on how to operate it. For the blind person, training is a big issue. I come into contact with numerous vendors in the exhibit hall at national conventions. Their devices will do all sorts of things, I believe the majority of which will never be used by most who buy the products. But there are some products that seem to do a great job because they just do a thing or two and do it well. One example is the i.d. mate that reads barcodes, and talking thermostats and Braille watches are useful devices as well.

In summation, I would like to see products every now and then that are made for the blind person with the productivity of the blind person in mind. I would also like to see more training so that we don't have to be a technical wizard or have to spend several forty-hour weeks struggling with a new device that was really designed for a sighted person.

I think those who like iPhones—and yes I have one too—are correct in admiring a company that has a little bit of concern for accessibility. But I think that if we seriously looked at the few companies that make things with the express purpose of productivity for the blind person, we would be well served. Also, it's good to have choices. I have a friend in California who loves HIMS products. He has a Braille Sense. I have been reasonably satisfied with HumanWare's products. I just bought a new BrailleNote Touch, and I'm learning to use it (actually writing on it at this minute composing this article.) But do I wish to learn touch Braille on a touchscreen? Absolutely not. I've been using a Braille keyboard since I was six years old and don't plan to stop now. I love knobs and buttons, and I bet that many of you do, too.
I would like to know the thoughts of our members on this subject. I think it would be interesting to know what blind people believe to be the most productive tools in their lives. Hopefully they're still available. Some that I use are not. So hopefully something similar will soon be on the horizon.

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