Welcome to SMG eNEWS™
2008, July 25th

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

On July 26, 1990, one law changed the lives of millions in our country
By Carmen Jones, Founder and President

The Americans with Disabilities Act is landmark legislation that leveled the field for 54 million people with disabilities. This means that people affected by disability are protected from discrimination and can now access employment, transportation, businesses and telecommunications. The ADA has provided people with independence, freedom of choice, control of their lives and the opportunity to blend fully into the rich mosaic of the American mainstream.

The Solutions Marketing Group joins the disability community in celebrating the 18th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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.

CVS Caremark—Making Strides in Diversity
By Joan Leotta

Many of us know the CVS/pharmacy chain as a convenient place to get prescriptions filled and pick up sundry items for everyday life. Executives of this successful company, which boasts $80 billion in annual revenue, know that hiring people with any and all backgrounds makes good business sense. From the headquarters office in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to each and every retail outlet, distribution center, and office, CVS Caremark has instituted several programs that encourage employee diversity. Programs such as Welfare-to-Work and Mature Workers—and practices that include hiring people with disabilities—have led to the creation of a culture of flexibility among managers and employees alike....
[ more information about this ]

Featured Article
Special to Disability-Marketing.com

Remembering Harriet McBryde Johnson By Joyce Bender, President and CEO of Bender Consulting Services

On June 4, 2008, we lost a great American civil rights leader, Harriet McBryde Johnson, at the age of 50. Harriet was a well known disability and civil rights attorney who fought for the right for life over death, for Americans with disabilities. She was a brilliant attorney, and a woman with spinal muscular atrophy. Her power came from her words, spoken and written, for those she felt were being denied the choice of living....
[ more information about this ]

Accessibility
sponsored by Universal Design Newsletter

Justice Department Files Housing Lawsuit Against City in Alabama
By U.S. Dept of Justice

The Justice Department sued the City of Satsuma, Ala., for violating the Fair Housing Act when the city refused to allow three women with disabilities to live together in a group home. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, charges that Satsuma refused to make reasonable accommodations in its rules, policies, practices or services, which were necessary to afford the residents an opportunity to use and enjoy their home....
[ more information about this ]

Customer Service
sponsored by W.C. Duke Associates, Inc.

Some Tips for Serving Guests With Disabilities By Marc Dubin, Esq.

I recently stayed at a hotel that had a lot of people with disabilities as guests. It was wonderful to see hotel guests with a wide variety of disabilities, accompanied by friends and family members. Far too often, hotels fail to recognize that people with disabilities travel spend money, and develop attitudes about how disability-friendly, or disability-unfriendly, a hotel, can be. What are some of the ways that a hotel can obtain and keep a sterling reputation among people with disabilities? Let’s examine some of the ways a hotel can best serve people with disabilities....
[ more information about this ]

Employment

Court Decisions May Place Higher Costs on Business
By Christopher S. Rugaber, Associated Press

Two Supreme Court opinions side with employees over the private sector, continuing a recent trend that runs counter to the court's generally pro-business record. The rulings could make it easier for employees to win age discrimination cases, and also may encourage workers to challenge health and disability insurance claims in court that have been denied, business groups said....
[ more information about this ]

Marketing

Sight for the Blind and Speech for the Deaf
By Catherine Rampell, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Three years ago, in the depths of a Pittsburgh winter, Priya Narasimhan saw a blind man trying to catch a bus. Stepping in and out of pools of slush, the man called out to passing pedestrians to ask if a vehicle he heard arriving was his ride home. Buses passed by. "We can do better than that," Ms. Narasimhan said to herself. Ms. Narasimhan, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, soon became the hub for student research projects that develop technologies to assist the disabled by doing such tasks as identifying buses or translating sign language into spoken words. Their creations turn the most ubiquitous device on a college campus--the cellphone--into an independence-enhancing machine....
[ read the full article on chronicle.com (subscription) ]

News & Announcements

House Votes to Expand Civil Rights for Disabled
By Robert Pear, The New York Times

World Premiere of Inside/Out...Voices From The Disability Community at the Kennedy Center
VSA arts