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A call for audience members with disabilities to share their own lived experiences
Marketing experts as well as speaking and communication professionals alike are typically committed to fostering an engaging experience for everyone in their audience, but how successful are they at truly including every person that comes to hear them speak? If you asked them, of course, most would look you straight in the eye and say “everyone” without even flinching.
But we, in the disability inclusion space, and especially those among us who live with various disabilities, know better. In fact, inclusion is such a problem in the speaking world that I wrote an entire book about the topic (did you get your own copy yet?).
We KNOW, firsthand, that most speakers and communication professionals out there regularly exclude a part of their audience with the way they present their information, with the way they share their ideas, or with the way they refer to their materials. We RECOGNIZE the importance of including individuals with disabilities in the conversations surrounding live event experiences, both in-person and virtual. But for the most part, they have no idea how to do that.
Not as inclusive as they might think!
Arguably, public speakers typically don’t know what they don’t know, and as a result, keep…
