Webinars: Organizational Change and Accessibility, Overcoming the Resistance

ARCHIVE: Organizational Change and Accessibility, Overcoming the Resistance

Live Broadcast Held On: Thursday, March 31, 2016
Length: 1.5 hours
Fee: $39 for members; $79 for nonmembers

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Speaker: Chris Law, President, Accessibility Track Consulting, LLC
Target Audience: Accessibility consultants and practitioners, Section 508 Coordinators, accessibility program managers.
Skill Level: Advanced

Overview: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in integrating accessibility into product development lifecycles and other organization-wide processes. In stark contrast to the task of solving technical IT accessibility problems, it is a difficult task for many practitioners to overcome the sorts of non-technical 'people problems' during new accessibility initiatives. In our field, there is a very small well of advice on this topic from which to draw at present. Practitioners will inevitably encounter resistance. How can they successfully deal with individual, team, managerial and executive-level opposition? Drawing from personal experience and the experience of consultant colleagues, as well as the literature, and from published methods, this webinar will include practical examples and provide advice for overcoming resistance to accessibility initiatives.

Objectives:

• Inevitable resistance: Planning ahead
• Identifying danger signs, and getting back on track
• Making accessibility a shared responsibility

Speaker Bio: Chris M. Law is the president and owner of Accessibility Track Consulting, LLC, a company that provides consulting services to federal government and industry clients on their organizational responses to accessibility issues. Recently, while at the Department of Homeland Security, Chris was part of the team that developed online training for the Interagency Trusted Tester Program, and he spearheaded the project to assist federal partners in their organization-wide implementation of the Trusted Tester Approach. His doctoral thesis was on business responses to accessibility, in which he revealed success factors for integrated, organization-wide approaches. Chris has over 20 years of experience in universal design and accessibility, including industry consulting, university-based R&D, and in Section 508 programs within the US federal government. He has participated in standards committees for electronic documents (US federal government), self-service transaction machines (Canada & UK), and telecommunications (EU). Chris holds a PhD in Business from RMIT University (Australia), an MSc in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), and a BSc in Ergonomics from Loughborough University (UK)