msb-0220 The Microphone Wars

msb-0220 The Microphone Wars

intro

Feedback comes first, so...

I have some answers from Matt Lawrence of JobEnable.com.

Its a website dedicated to finding jobs for disabled people.

I talked about them and their efforts on "msb-0215 I gots da bluz". I mentioned that I'd love to interview them on "msb-0217 Genetics and MS ... Who knows?"

Matt's got dystonia so he can't quite do a speaking interview with me, but we have the technology, we can fix that. :-)

I submitted some questions and here are the answers:

1) How did you get into doing what you are doing?

I went to college at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas majoring in Journalism. I graduated a semester early with hopes of getting a job fast.

I had numerous interviews but it always seemed they found a reason not to hire me.

Finally, in 2002, I decided to apply to work at camps for the disabled.

I was hired by Camp Oakhurst in Oakhurst, NJ to teach digital photography.

After the summer, I realized that I had a part in the kids’ lives that I dealt with and realized that is what I truly wanted to do.

The following spring, I started graduate school. In 2006, I began looking for jobs dealing with people with disabilities and it appeared to me at first the same thing that happened to me before was going to happen again.

I had the concept for a web site that had a listing of various jobs for those with disabilities but I never did anything with the idea. I interviewed at NetworkIP and told them my concept and how something like it was a needed resource.

NetworkIP hired me to work on this concept originally called Project Blue Dog and now it has become JobEnable.com.

2) What you see as your primary service to your own community?

I want to help as many people find positions they are qualified for.

So many people with disabilities are capable of working but because they aren’t given a chance, they often rely on governmental aid.

Once people get accustomed to having that check each month, more often than not, they just settle for what the government gives.

My goal is to get those who want to work hired and living their own independent lives.

I know first hand what it feels like to know you can work, but not have the job to work.

I want to remedy that as much as possible.

Also, those that are on governmental aid don’t get much at all to live on so its like they are settling for less than what they could have.

I want people to realize that all they have to do is try and someone will give them a chance – just like I was given a chance.

3) What you see as your opportunities looking forward?

The opportunities here are shared and numerous.

It requires that communities of interest share information about JobEnable, and employers and job seekers embrace the concept.

I see nothing but bigger and better things for the web site.

I anticipate once word gets out about our goal we will continue to generate buzz and as a result, companies will follow.

4) What you see as obstacles in the road?

I think our major obstacle is getting the word out to companies and then getting them to sign up on the site.

Getting the word out and having people sign up will always be a part of it.

Also, I think some companies may consider themselves to be inclined to hire the disabled but they actually don’t.

So another obstacle would be getting companies to realize that there are many well-qualified people working but because of their disability, they have been overlooked.

5) What metrics you see as applicable to your achieving your success?

If we are able to connect one person with a job, I will be satisfied. Employment can change someone's life.

It enables a feeling of independence and improves self-esteem.

There's nothing more satisfying than working doing something you love.

So if we can help one person then another and then another, I will consider this a success.

We would also like to get to a point where we are so successful with JobEnable that we can hire more people with disabilities to work with us.

Support from companies, organizations and politicians will help get the word out but it will also create a large group with one common goal - to find those with disabilities jobs.

6) I am also interested in Section 508 and what your involvement with that community is?

My involvement in the disabled community is something I am proud of.

I am a member of the Dystonia Junior Advisory Council. The JAC comes up with fundraisers and ways to promote awareness of Dystonia to those who may not know about it.

I am also am a member of the Dystonia Advocacy Coalition. Each April, we have a advocacy day in Washington, DC where we meet with members of congress and the senate in our geographic area and educate them on Dystonia and ask them to consider passing bills or increasing funding in health related areas.

Lastly, I have been a speaker at family and children’s symposiums telling others about my own experiences as well as how I was able to overcome them.

Section 508 is a governmental act that is formerly known as Bobby Approved.

Section 508 is a law requiring that information technology developed by the federal government be accessible to both federal employees with disabilities and members of the public with disabilities, and that these two groups have equal use of technologies.

There is nothing in section 508 that requires private web sites to comply.

We are striving to maintain and exceed compliancy.

Thank you Matt and Rob for the interview.

I wish you much success in achieving your goals.

---- "Book of Life" by: "Daniël Sensit" http://www.danielsensit.eu/

Feed Forward comes next, so...

This is "your" segment.

Say "your" piece on this segment.

Share with other MSers whatever "you" want to share.

Drop me an email: charles at MSBPodcast.com

And I would apreciate if someone could write a review of this podcast on iTunes [ http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=120932170 ] You can just select the link and, eventually, scroll down the iTunes page to "Customer Reviews"

---- "In the Book Depository of My Heart" by: "dotCommunism" http://evilresidence.com/dotcommunism

Feed Me comes third, so...

Do you have a therapy, product, good or service that is of interest to MSers?

Consider advertising on this podcast.

Reminders on this segment only cost $0.03 per reminder per download of an episode. (A $30CPM targeted at MSers.)

It can/should lead to a full ad, in text, audio or video, which costs $3.00 per download.

That sounds expensive until you do the math and realize that if nobody downloads it it costs you nothing, unlike print, where you often can't even get an ad in to the specialized journals, or radio or TV where you'd just be wasting your money with the 0.0833% MSers rate of return. (That's about six times "below" the level of "statistical noise".)

But MSBPodcast is 100% in your market, and you only pay per download of your material.

No play, no pay.

Reach the MSers who would buy your therapy, product, good or service, with-out having to waste your advertising money on anyone who is "not" interested...

Send me an email at: charles (at) MSBPodcast.com

---- "Books That You Once Read" by: "PAISLEY RIOT" http://www.myspace.com/paisleyriot

"Thesis:"

This episode is about serendipity.

I found a book called "The Microphone Wars" by "Knowlton Nash" (ISBN: 0-7710-6712-7) [ http://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Wars-History-Triumph-Betrayal/dp/0771067127/ref=sr_11_1/103-5822664-9186200?ie=UTF8&qid=1193871167&sr=11-1
] amongst my mother's things when clearing out her apartment, cum library, a few years ago, before she went into a nursing home.

(Don't you just hate euphemisms? My sister and I had her put away so she wouldn't lose herself or set the place on fire as her mental state deteriorated. A home was where she'd been living, her home. Where she was going to was definitely not a home. It was the end of the road, her road, a long in time and in miles, glorious, celebrated road, but the end of the road none the less.)

The book was autographed with a dedication to my mother by "Knowton Nash," one of the most famed CBC late night news personalities in the history of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

I wish I'd been there when she had met him.

There are many stories I would have asked him about...

---- "Cant Judge a Book" by: "Robin Sylar" http://topcatrecords.com/

"Synthesis:"

"The Microphone Wars" is quite an imposing tome. 580 pages in a tall hard cover brick of a book with illustrated plates of the personalities who were influential in shaping the early years of the CBC.

I picked it up yesterday, as I write this, after my "Tai Chi" class and I quite literally could not put it down.

I stayed up all night reading about the origins of the CBC, utterly fascinated by its history and quite glad of this blog to server as my own reminder (when writing my auto-hagiography :-)

Broadcasting is less than a single century old.

The CBC started life as the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation, the CRBC, in 1932.

It was led ineptly by a triumvirate of less-than-luminaries,(Lt.-Col. William Arthur Steel, Thomas Maher and Hector Charlesworth,) before falling prey to the Machiavellian machinations of its own originators, (Alan Plaunt and Graham Spry,) when it was resurrected as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the CBC, in 1936.

The book goes into a great many details.

Despite its length, its by no means an exhaustive history of the CBC, but its quite glorious in its recounting of the sometimes scurrilous and sometimes funny events of the birth of broadcasting in Canada.

It details the attempts to establish a Canadian identity in the face of being next to the huge private, free-booting and all too commercial "gluck" occurring just south of the border.

---- "ripped pages in an open book" by: "Stefanie Harger" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=13c24e0e31c80b0fbf68cdf4ae9162ec

"Conclusion:"

One never knows, does one.

Something picked up when clearing out a life's debris can turn out to be quite amazing.

"The Microphone Wars" by "Knowlton Nash" (ISBN: 0-7710-6712-7) [ http://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Wars-History-Triumph-Betrayal/dp/0771067127/ref=sr_11_1/103-5822664-9186200?ie=UTF8&qid=1193871167&sr=11-1 ]

Well worth it for anybody who likes a good read.

Its even better if you know the characters, have walked through the various buildings named after them in Ottawa, or are obsessed with media and broadcasting, as I readily admit I am.

Its worth buying your own copy or getting your local library to buy a copy (unless of course they already have a copy.)

---- "Prelude/Books" by: "Nuru Lain" http://music.podshow.com/music/listeners/artistdetails.php?BandHash=8ce784336377076a758710a392981fbe

Outro