Welcome to SMG eNEWS™
2006, Nov 7th

The Solutions Marketing Group’s eNews is a bi-monthly communiqué that connects business to the market of people with disabilities.

Message From The Founder

Keeping Awareness Alive
By Carmen Jones, Founder and President

After I became a paraplegic, as a result of an automobile accident in 1986, I faced great uncertainty about my future. I endured many sleepless nights as I contemplated countless ways my life had changed. One of the greatest challenges confronting me was employment. I was committed to do whatever it took to find a job, but the $64,000 question looming in my head was ‘what employer would hire me?’.

At that time I was the only wheelchair user in the undergraduate school at my beloved alma mater, Hampton University. I had never seen a person with a disability who actually was employed and I knew nothing about the appropriate responses to the inquiries about my disability that arose during interviews. As I looked at my resume, I felt pretty good about myself and qualifications. Thanks to summer jobs at IBM and retail, I had ‘real’ experience and held leadership positions in various campus organizations.

After 30 interviews, two second interviews, I still had no job. I had become a statistic and joined millions of my peers in Club Unemployment. Unlike the credit card company that had the slogan “Membership has its privileges” this membership provided me with nothing of the sort. I was among the 65% of people with significant disabilities who was not working. Thankfully, I eventually landed a job as a counselor at the Center for Independent Living in Newport News, Virginia – a job which laid the foundation for my career.

While the Solutions Marketing Group is a firm that essentially brings the disability market to companies, and vice-versa, our not-so-secret agenda is to play a role in getting people with disabilities to join the world of work. Attitudinal barriers will fall and perceptions will shift as more people with disabilities are employed. This follows the same progression that led to greater inclusion of African-Americans, the GLBT segment, and women. As employees of these groups were provided the opportunity to be judged based upon their skills and climb the corporate ladder, the process of cultural transformation and inclusion occurred.

As October ends and National Disability Employment Awareness Month comes to a close, I am concerned that it will be 11 more months before we hear about disability issues in companies. I hope you won’t let that be the case. On behalf of millions of people who comprise an often overlooked and untapped talent pool, I encourage you to become a visible champion within your company to change attitudes and misperceptions about people with disabilities. We want the same things other Americans want, including employment. And as my friend Joyce Bender has written, "we want a paycheck, not pity."

Warm regards,

Carmen D. Jones
President/Founder
info@disability-marketing.com

Profiles in Excellence
Profiles in Excellence is a monthly article, published by SMG, that features companies and organizations that demonstrate leadership in accessibility, employment, customer service and marketing to the nation's 54 million Americans with Disabilities.

Accessible Chicago
By Joan Leotta

One of the biggest challenges for wheelchair users who travel is knowing exactly how accommodating a tourist attraction or business stop might be. Thanks to a unique Web site, planning a trip to Chicago—or, for residents, touring within the city limits—has gotten easier. AccessibleChicago.org has become the premier place for people with mobility disabilities to find detailed information about Chicago’s attractions. More than simply a list of locations that describe themselves as accessible, the site reveals what “accessible” means at each location.....
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Featured Article
Special to Disability-Marketing.com

Adequacy and Ability of Corporate America to Meaningfully and Fairly Police its Compliance with its Own, Forward-Moving Standards and Guidelines to Achieve Inclusion By John Kemp, Disability-rights advocate

In the past articles of the DDQ series, I have focused on the first three of five factors that score identifiable characteristics used to measure diversity and disability in the context of our corporate structure and business practices. In this article, I focus on the fourth factor, which deals with Corporate America’s ability to implement and enforce their inclusion policies. More specifically, what policies should be included in your company’s compliance activities? How can your organization develop a compliance plan and what should be included in that plan?.....
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Featured Article
Special to Disability-Marketing.com

Disability Employment Awareness Month – We Need More than Posters By Joyce Bender, President and CEO of Bender Consulting Services

Every October in the United States, we celebrate National Disability Employment Awareness Month. Throughout the United States conferences and seminars are held, as well as Disability Mentoring Day....Frequently, in the month of October posters are placed on walls at Federal agencies and at corporations advertising Disability Employment Awareness Month. This serves as an opportunity to remember the need to celebrate the month. This is all wonderful, but posters are not enough. The reality is – we are not celebrating employment; we are, in reality, dealing with a high unemployment rate in the United States for Americans with disabilities....
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Accessibility
sponsored by Universal Design Newsletter

Judge Puts Pressure on SFUSD to Finish Disability Access Work By Bonnie Eslinger, The Examiner

A federal judge has indicated she will not grant the San Francisco Unified School District an extension to finish the first round of disability access improvements required under a 2004 legal settlement. Known as the Lopez case, the district settled the class-action lawsuit by agreeing to a rigid timeline to modernize nearly 100 of its facilities to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.....
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Customer Service
sponsored by W.C. Duke Associates, Inc.

Service Dog Denied From Wal-Mart From Fox23News.com

It is required by law, and it is also Wal-Mart's policy to allow service animals in all of its stores... But one woman says she was forced out of the Wal-Mart in Albany....after bringing her service puppy into the store over the weekend. Michell Shilling says she explained to the customer service manager when she entered the Wal-Mart that she had a service dog, and that by law, they were allowed in... But apparently, that didn't matter -- she says she and her dog were hunted down and kicked out within minutes.....
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Employment

Tesco Extends Commitment to Opportunities for Disabled People
By Mike Barry, PersonnelToday.com

Supermarket giant Tesco has committed itself to providing more employment opportunities for disabled people by signing agreements with disability employment providers Remploy and the Shaw Trust. The agreements are the culmination of Tesco's growing relationship with Remploy and the Shaw Trust, which has led to 400 disabled people getting jobs.....
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Marketing

Reaching Out to People with Disabilities From National Center for Physical Activity and Disability

During the development of our Accessibility Instruments Measuring Fitness and Recreation Environments (AIMFREE) instruments, I had the opportunity to participate in focus groups across the United States. Two categories of the focus groups consisted of participants with disabilities and fitness and recreation professionals. We often found that the marketing efforts of programs and facilities towards people with disabilities were minimal or even non-existent. The group of active people with disabilities who were not aware of these marketing efforts were often aware of all the programs that were offered in their areas because they had sought out these activities and venues. However, many individuals who had acquired a disability recently or who didn’t prioritize physical activity and recreation often stated that there were no opportunities in their area when, in fact, several best practice programs were readily available to them....
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News & Announcements

SMG Partners With Butler New Media-Markets to 54 Million Disabled Americans

Serving Customers with Disabilities - Web Course
From www.wiawebcourse.org

EEOC Launches Website Section On “LEAD” Initiative From EEOC

Cuts in Medicare Hurt Wheelchair Users By Mary Clare Jalonick, AP

Travelers with Disabilities and Medical Conditions By Transportation Security Administration

Sensenbrenner/Hoyer Introduce Bipartisan Legislation Restoring Americans with Disabilities Act Protections From U.S. Newswire

Teddy Pendergrass Alliance and National Spinal Cord Injury Association Announce Partnership From Spinalcord.org