Fast Forward: What the Future of Event Accessibility Looks Like
Fast Forward Season 1, Episode 4
On this episode of Fast Forward, host Logan Pratt interviews Stephen Cutchins, one of the foremost experts on accessibility in the meetings and events industry on what the future of accessibility looks like in the industry and how planners can better incorporate accessibility in their events.
Stephen Cutchins joined Cvent in 2022 as senior manager of accessibility and has spent over 15 years helping clients achieve accessibility-related goals. In prior work leading accessibility programs, he worked closely with People with Disabilities, including those who were Blind, Deaf, or had physical disabilities. Stephen has a passion as well as firsthand experience understanding how People with Disabilities use the web. As Cvent’s Senior Manager of Accessibility, Stephen works to ensure that our products are both usable and enjoyable by attendees who have disabilities.
About Fast Forward
Fast Forward is a new Meetings Today podcast hosted by Logan Pratt with a mission to shed light on the future of the meetings and events industry. Each month, Pratt and his guests will discuss and analyze the new technologies, trends and changes that may affect an audience of meeting and event planners, suppliers, speakers, educators, attendees and more. Fast Forward will feature industry experts on the cutting edge of innovation working to help push the industry forward. Tune in to "Fast Forward" to learn what trends and technologies are here to stay and how they will change the industry in the years and decades to come.
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Transcript
Editors note: The following transcription was facilitated by AI program Otter.ai and proofed by our editors. Although it is very accurate, there inevitably will be some mistakes, so please consider that when reading. Thank you.
Logan Pratt
Hello, and welcome to Fast Forward, a Meetings Today podcast that explores the future of the meetings and events industry. I'm your host, Logan Pratt. And this episode, I'm joined by Stephen Cutchins, senior manager of accessibility at Cvent, and one of the foremost experts on accessibility issues in the industry. Stephen joined Cvent in 2022 after spending over 15 years helping clients achieve their accessibility related goals. Welcome to the show, Stephen.
Stephen Cutchins
Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, I want to I want to start off by learning a little bit more about your story and your connection to the topic of accessibility. In the webinar that you just hosted for Meetings today about accessibility, I know you have a bit of a personal connection with accessibility. But tell us a little bit about your background and your career up until this point.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, so I lucked into accessibility. I was on a project, it was 20, over 20 years ago. I was a… in a quality engineer, you know a tester. And they said “There's this ADA thing, Americans with Disabilities Act, you know, you have to figure it out.” And it just clicked.
So my mother was an amputee. When I was, what, seven years old, she died from cancer. To try to prolong her life, they took her leg off at the hip. So cancer got into her bone. So you know, I remember this is, you know, mid 60s, I'm getting old. And I remember things like running up and opening the doors for [her] at the grocery store. This is before the Americans with Disabilities Act said you had to have auto-open doors. So it just kind of clicked.
And so after she passed away, I would spend a couple of weeks every summer with my aunt and uncle, they had two kids, both with disabilities. One was unable to walk, and the other was unable to talk. So, nonverbal. And, you know, every year it was Disney, because that was the only place in the 70s and early 80s that was really accessible to kids in wheelchairs. So yeah, so it just clicked. It just made sense. And I have a neurological disorder called Tourette Syndrome, it doesn't really impact my ability to work or, you know, interact with the web, it's still maybe a little more empathetic to people who, who might have disabilities and impact the web. So yeah, it's been an interesting journey. It's… it really is full circle.
Logan Pratt
Yeah. And we've kind of talked about, like your, you know, condition as well, because there's different levels to two disabilities, as well. And I know that it's kind of like a spectrum. Like we kind of think about disability as, you know, you're either disabled or you're not. But there's a wide range of kind of things within that. So it's always kind of interesting to talk about accessibility in that sense, because people thought it was what people think I think you showed us district when we when we last talked was like, one in four us adults have a disability.
Stephen Cutchins
23% of adults in the US have a disability. And you're right it is, some are minor, like Tourette Syndrome, it doesn't impact my ability to go to a conference or you know… One of the biggest when things we talked about, or we think about is, you know, fully blind, fully deaf, that it's PTSD. It's actually it's, it's disappointing, but interesting. I was talking with an employee at a previous company, we were trying to do a really big push to get people to self identify. And he said that he has dyslexia and I said, that's a disability. And he got really defensive and said, No, it's not. So it. It is because, okay, you have dyslexia, it makes you I'll make up a number 5% slower in your work, because you have dyslexia, yours might be mild, but it makes you 5% slower. Well, this was company with hundreds of 1000s employees I worked at, if you have 20 employees that are all 5%, slower, that's a person that adds up to be one entire person's worth of work that you're losing every single day. So if there are things that you self identify and say, you know, dyslexia, again, minor dyslexia, not a big deal doesn't impact me. If there are enough people that we know about, we can put in like buy a software application, that's a Dirt Sheet that can help them become 5% faster. And when you start scaling that up, it makes a big difference. And it's the same as I think with the stuff that we do with the web, you know, people with disabilities, I don't see 26% of people at conferences with disabilities, is it because they don't want to come? Probably not. We haven't done the small things to enable them. And when we do that, it might be, you know, small uptake here and there. 1% 2% Next thing you know, it should be really 26% of people at our conferences, should have a disability might be minor, colorblind, dyslexia, PTSD, but also fully blind in a wheelchair service animal fully deaf, like I want to see those. I want to see a full representation of like American society, you know.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, and it isn't just because some disabilities are kind of invisible as as well, like you don't, you can't necessarily see them on the face. So there might be people who are disabled, but you wouldn't know just by looking at them. It's also interesting that you say that people are sometimes reluctant to self identify as disabled. Do you find in your work that people are, like reluctant? And what do you what do you think the reason is behind people like not wanting to admit that maybe they need a little bit of accessible like help?
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, I think people have that just back to like, on your high school like this is going to be on your permanent record, they think I'm going to be labeled as disabled, and it's going to hurt me with advancement and career, it's going to hurt me. And as I moved throughout, you know, progressing through, you know, I'll say, See Vancouver where I work, as I progress through seven, it might hurt me. And then when I tried to get another job at another company, that might hurt me, and it really is, and I'll tell you, it's, you know, we're doing the thing that Americans Disabilities Act, the 39th anniversary is coming up in July, I think it's 26th. So within Cvent, we're having some, some folks from legal and HR give a talk on one hour talk for our enable employee resource group for people with disabilities to give a talk on ADA. And it actually, in some cases, helps you to self identify, because I mentioned that the guy at the prior company who, and again, I made up a number he might not have worked, he might work just as quickly or maybe he had to work an extra hour, whatever, if it impacts his job. And I think, hey, Logan, you just you weren't as good as these other people, you're not as fast, when really, it's, I don't know that Logan is impacted by something that, you know, it impacts his ability to read. That's why sometimes it helps us self identify. And it's not like it goes from company to company, which is that's why we're doing this, this talk to let people know it actually, I mean, if you need help the company, I've found without exception, I've worked for quite a few different companies helping this out, they want to know they want to help you because they there, they want to get their money's worth. They want you to be as absolutely as productive as you possibly humanly can. And if you're colorblind or dyslexic, or have PTSD, and that's another one, you can, you know, if I don't know, you'd have PTSD, and you're a new hire, and I put you right on the end of the aisle, you're going to be nervous, because you're always going to be looking around behind you. If I knew you know, you have PTSD, I'm not going to see you there, you're going to be more focused on work, you're gonna be more productive me a better employee. Again, it's better return on investment as a company. So companies want you to self-identify, I mean, they want to help you make you as good as possible.
Logan Pratt
Yeah. And I think there is still a lot of fear with people, as well. And it's also just kind of like, I think people don't want to admit that they maybe need, you know, some help or, you know, a helping hand or something like that, you know, you know, our culture, American culture is kind of one that's very much like, oh, I don't want to accept help from anybody, but it's just to make you like, like you're saying a more productive person. So hopefully, that changes a little bit with some of the advocacy stuff. I did want to ask you, because you've mentioned Cvent and stuff. And you guys just hosted one of the largest events that in the industry, but especially the largest one that you host, Cvent Connect. And I want to kind of ask about that event, and especially about some of the accessibility stuff that you guys have done at that event. Because we do have a lot of like meeting and event planners who might be listening to this. What are some of the things that you guys have implemented at seven connect, that have worked really well and that you would like to see adopted to other events in the industry?
Stephen Cutchins
So I'll start with before we even get to the event, we ask the questions that need to be asked. And this is a big thing that I like to say two big things I want planters to start doing is ask and then act and ask is is you have to ask what accommodations do you need to feel comfortable to come to this event? And you can't say, you know, are you deaf? Are you blind? Are you in a wheelchair? But you can say things like, Do you require captions? Do you require a sign language interpreter? Will you be accompanied by a personal care assistant or a service animal? Do you use a mobility device? And those are important because not only do I know how to set up my event, it's gonna be a real world example. Somebody says they use a mobility device. So you know, and we can even do a follow up question to ask it turns out they use a wheelchair, and they have a health issue that's requires them to come be accompanied by what's called a personal care assistant. It's Think of it like a nurse that comes with him, right? Plus they use a service animal. So now I know, among other things, that there is going to be somebody who in my opening plenary, I'm going to have three spaces reserved on the main aisle. The first two are blank, one for the animal because you don't want the animal and the aisle, people stepping on its tail kicking it you know, you want to have a space for the animal. And the second space is for this person in the wheelchair where there's no chair. And then the third space next to him is their personal care assistant. So now there's three spaces two blanks in a chair and plus the personal care assistant gets full access to my event. They're not charged. They're not there to take to to learn about my whatever I'm the purpose of my event like connect They're there to take care of that attendee in the wheelchair. Plus, now I know that they're comfortable enough, I'm going to accommodate them, the dog has a place to get water, the dog has a place to go to the bathroom, you know, there's a really a service animal Relief Area, they know those things, and they're comfortable coming, and you get back to that 26% Now there's one might only be one person, but there's one person I'm gonna see, you know, with a service animal in a wheelchair at my event, and that's, that's a cool thing. But now at the event, we we didn't do it in San Antonio, I think it was a function probably of size. But we did it in Vegas, the year before, we we had a title called quiet rooms or low sensory rooms. And you know, turn off your cell phone come in, they had little electronic candles, and the lights were dim and they had nice couches, and we got feedback. Everybody loved it. And not just people who might be say, you know, for be neurodivergent and just need our autistic, I need to get away, right? Everybody sometimes needs to get away, I'm sick of, you know, there's 3000 people around me talking loud on their phones, I'm at my limit, I'm done. I don't have to have PTSD, I don't have to have autism. You know, I just need a place a quiet place. And we did it. We did it there. But we found out like it connect at this most recent connect, there was an attendee who was deaf needed a sign language interpreter. So we had to sign language interpreters that kind of rode with that person. If we knew it was a larger audience who would have have had them up on the stage and well lit. But we knew that because we asked if you don't ask, you don't know. And suddenly there's attendee that goes, and this is what you don't want. They go to your registration desk there, they could be unable to speak, they might be unable to hear you. What do you do? And people get nervous, they start scrambling like Oh, my God, what do I do? You know, that person's putting it their ear, like, you know, I'm deaf, they might start shouting, or they're deaf, you can talk louder, louder, it doesn't make a difference. You know, there should be at least a pen and a paper that you can write. But really, there are some like some mobile apps that you could use to make that person more comfortable. But you need to be prep, prepping your register. This is going back again, prepping your registration, that's to let them know, Hey, we found out there's somebody who's deaf. This is what you need to do to make them feel comfortable when they when they come to register.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, do you then ask people before the event like in the registration process, what some of their accommodations might be? Because that seems like one of the things that they could self-report, and then you could have somebody on staff on standby ready to like help them when when they arrive. So do you guys… What does the pre screening process look like? For you guys? Like do ask them the event registration forms?
Stephen Cutchins
Yes, the organizations that do it right, like the ones that host assistive technology conferences or, you know, organization for the blind or the deaf? They have fantastic questions. It's what we don't want is, you know, ADA as Americans with Disabilities Act, and it'll be like a radio button. Ada question marker. Do you require ADA accommodations? Yes or no? Well, there's a pretty massive range, you could be colorblind. Or you could be the one I mentioned in a wheelchair with a personal care assistant with a service animal. And if, if it's just a yes or no, my my accommodations are not going to be met. The next best thing is a little they put it a text box, tell us tell us about your accommodations? Well, if I have to put in a wheelchair and service animal and personal care assistant, I'm just not going to go to your event. I'm not the best is. And there's actually two ways the best best real is asking details. You know, do you require captions? Do you require Braille? Do you require larger print for for handouts, ask the details. The next best one is, and this is actually it was a client of ours. It was for it was for a university, but they were doing a thing for alumni. And they said, Do you require accommodations? If so we'll contact you. I think they said within two weeks to discuss what accommodations you need. And I love that so much. Because that's two things. One, it's their way of saying, We really care, we will contact you in a time box. And it's not just some nebulous, we'll contact you. It's like we're going to contact you within two weeks. And it's them admitting we don't even know what to ask, but we want to do the right thing. So when I asked you what you need, it might be something that I never thought of like maybe they didn't include a personal care assistant, for example, they never even knew those existed. Well, if they don't ask it, and they don't say suddenly, I'm like, Well, I come with John, he's my personal care system. What is that? You know? Well, they don't know that you don't charge John. So they're trying to charge him 1000 bucks to come to my conference. So I love it and it's their way of saying we're not sure what to ask but we want to do the right thing. I think it's great.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, I am curious about your thoughts on because there seems to be like, kind of two different approaches to accessibility once one seems to be a very individualistic approach kind of like what you were just talking about. But there also seems to be approaches to accessibility kind of like what you were talking about earlier. With like the quiet rooms and captions and stuff there's certain accessibility things that I think benefit everyone like quiet rooms are just great. Like Like you were saying for everyone to kind of come in and just take a break from the loudness and the business in the event. I use captions when I'm watching you know, television shows. Just be Because I like being able to read stuff. So there's, there seems to be like a two time approach to accessibility, you do recommend people choose one or the other, do you recommend people try to try to do both? What are your thoughts on that?
Stephen Cutchins
So I think for certain things, especially the things now that can be free, like AI generated auto captions, I think certain things you just always do, just always have captions. Always have, you know, prep your presenters to have good color contrast, in their presentations. The things that are that do have a cost, like a sign language interpreter, if it's a really large audience, just have one, if it's, you know, especially a webinar or there's 9000 people, it's probably at best just to have a sign language interpreter. But in person, it goes back to really asking if nobody says they need it, there is a cost and it can get pretty substantial. So it might be better to spend it on like a quiet room that everybody can get benefit from. So it really goes back a little bit to that ask an acting, but certain things like captions and proper color contrast, and you know, like the low sensory room quiet rooms, if it's in your budget, and you have the facility can support it, I think just do it. I think it sends the right message and people are going to appreciate it. And you'd like you mentioned Logan, you were at some loud conference somewhere, I will use captions of captions wrong. Like, “Why is everybody laughing? What is this?” And then you're like, Oh, that is kind of funny, you know, because you have to read it and catch up because you miss something cool.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, you don't have to ask the person next to you what happened, because you can just read it on the screen. But I want to ask you about something else too, because you kind of mentioned costs, as well. And I think that's something that's one thing that a lot of people are very, you know, it kind of restricts them from doing some of these accessibility things. I think a lot of people want to do accessibility. But the cost is something that keeps them from doing it. Like hiring a sign language interpreter gets expensive, you know, even dedicating space on your floor can get pricey at times. But I also know that you've… we've talked about this a lot before, where if you open up your event to people with disabilities, it can actually give you a lot more revenue. So I'm curious about what you're… it kind of goes to the idea of ROI. Do you think that people could get more return on investment from including some of these accessible aspects to their events?
Stephen Cutchins
Yes. So there is a… if you add up the total number of people in the U.S., I think it was working age adults with some form of a disability was like 33 million people. So if we can tap even 1% of them, the e additional revenue we can get by people coming to our conference is… Because nobody's going to say, Oh, my conferences, it's big enough. If you have believe me, there's not a planner out there, though. It's like, you know what, next year, I can do my conference twice as big, twice as many people. They would do it, probably without exceptions. So Accenture did a… there's an organization called Disability in and they they rate companies on how inclusive their internal practices are, like hiring practices promotion, is their software accessible to attendees with disabilities that can I'm sorry, employees with disabilities. And it was the companies that did well, in this disability equality index, they surely looked at money. That was it. And again, this is not externally facing. So it's not like you know, holding a conference for attendees, this would be how you support your employees, but it was 28% percent higher revenue, double net income 30% better economic, better performance on economic profit margin. So companies that have more inclusive, you know, hiring practices and procedures in place to promote and enable employees with disabilities, period make more money. So it's not that you hire a bunch of people with disabilities and so you make more money, but you have those programs in place, your your overall more successful. And it's it's staggering numbers, double the net income. So and you know, you could say probably spin it in well, larger companies tend to hire people with disabilities, maybe that's part of it, that's probably true also, but the more inclusive, you are just period, you're going to be a more successful company. And I think it goes also to planners, if you open it up to to everyone to including people who might not be able to see your content, who might not be able to hear your speakers, you know, who might not be able to see the cool, see the cool graphs you put in colors, you might have to do alternate means. You're going to open it up to millions and millions of more possible attendees. And they have money, they want to go to your conference. You just don't know it yet.
Logan Pratt
Yeah. And it's also interesting because there are a lot of accessibility things that aren't very expensive as well. But kind of doing them just takes a little bit extra time and forethought, as well. Like there's a lot of, you know, AI programs that can do automatic captioning for you. You know, it's not that expensive, and it's not that difficult to implement those. And like you were saying with the color correction as well. I want you to kind of expand upon that a little bit… Because I think this is a new topic for a lot of people and some people haven't even… people have heard of like captions and stuff you also talk a lot about, you know, websites and kind of digital presences in terms of like, making sure color and stuff because there's a lot of people who are colorblind and that's often a forgotten disability a little bit.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah eight percent of men have some degree of color vision deficiency, up to an including full blown, fully colorblind, it's only about a half of a percent of women. You know, cue the joke by that's why women best dressed better than men. But you know, we might have black socks and blue shoes. It's not our fault. But yeah, eight percent of men.
But so there are things called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the most recent is 2.2 Aaa, when we create our products, we want to make sure that planners when they create attendee facing sites, you know, registration on arrival, attendee hub, lead capture, everything meets those web are way CAG they say Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2, double A, but it doesn't just apply to websites, it applies to, you know, emails to PowerPoint presentations to Word documents, anything that can be shown electronically. And it gives hard numbers. For example, for color contrast, it should be for normal sized text. And again, if it's something that you're presenting up on stage, if it's an email you send, it should be at least 4.5 to one contrast ratio. So the website, you create the registration site, the attendee hub, your mobile app, your you know, your lead capture that your people on your, in your boots, when they scan their leads, and the presentation up on the stage, the you know, everything should meet those at least 4.5 to one contrast ratio. For guys, you know, those eight percent of men who are colorblind or color vision deficient aren't just people with low vision, so they can discern between that text and the you know, the background of the text next to it.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, and I know you talked a lot more about this in the webinar that you did for us. So if anybody's curious about that, you can go check that out on our website as well.
I also want to ask you a little bit about kind of, I feel like event accessibility and event technology are two topics that kind of go hand in hand. Because the more you know, we advanced the technology, the more we can make things more accessible. So what are the current ways that people are kind of utilizing technology to help adhere to some accessibility standards and help accommodate people with disabilities at events? Like what are we currently doing?
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing is we just have to make sure the sites themselves work for whatever the user, the attendee needs to navigate through that site. So assistive technology, somebody's fully blind, or they might have a cognitive disability that, like I mentioned, dyslexia, they'll use a tool called a screen reader, they might have low vision and may have to zoom in, you know, or use voice input, they may have a physical disability where they can't use a mouse, they have to use a keyboard, or they have to use voice input. There's one like Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can say, you know, click Submit button, and it'll navigate to the submit button and access it. Really, 90 plus percent of it has to be on the software. So it has to be on like Cvent software, if our software doesn't allow a planner to create an accessible site, there's nothing the planner can do. So it has to be on us. And the good news is like the most of the heavy lifting, you know, for example, like how error messages are handled, you know, as a sighted user, you can go to, you know, you click submit, and you see there's a red error. And you know, last No, you forgot to submit your last name, well, all that information has to get relayed back to the assistive technology. If it doesn't, there's nothing a planner can do. So you have to pick software that enables them to create accessible content. And again, the good news is the heavy lifting is on it's on the software. So Cvent, you know… Registration, when you create it, it has to know how to handle those error messages. So somebody makes a mistake, I don't care if they can see the page or not. They know right away that they that they messed up. And that's really almost the vast, vast majority of what we do is making sure not just we meet those guidelines, but we give it a good experience for somebody who can't see the page or can't hear prompts or can't see colors, can't use a mouse, you know, can only use the keyboard, we make it work for them. Planners, you know, they're lucky, most of the stuff they have to do is, you know, adding alt text to images. So the assistive technology identifies it picking good color contrast, those kinds of things.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, and I know Cvent just came out with a bunch of AI additions to the platform as well. And I do want to ask you about… it feels like we've mentioned AI and pretty much every single episode of this podcast. Because it's a big thing, and it's kind of the current thing that everyone's curious about. So how are you seeing AI currently being implemented? And then also looking ahead into the future, like how could AI be implemented to help people with disabilities? Because I've seen a lot of new products, like even with glasses and stuff, like automatic text to speech in people's eyewear and stuff so… what are your thoughts?
Stephen Cutchins
So things about like… captions. Now the Chrome browser has built in captions so if a video doesn't have it or something Playing or music or whatever, it'll actually give you the captions. I think the AI where I think it's going to be the best is integrated within the the I mentioned, like assistive technology like screen readers. So a screen reader, somebody's blind can't see the page, it will read out whatever's on the page, and not just the text, but also the context. So it'll say submit and then button, you know, or, or, you know, navigate to homepage or whatever link lets you know, if it's a list, if it's a bulleted list, it'll let you know that it's a list of five items, I think is this a technology, integrating into those to help with sites that aren't accessible is going to be the next thing. I think that's going to help a lot of people because I mean, still, we there still sites out there, and these guidelines have been in place for for decades, and there are still sites out there that are not fully accessible. And the last thing you don't want to do is, you know, you don't want to there's some cool conference, you go to the website for the hotel and their sites not accessible. So I can't book a room. You don't want that. So maybe AI will be able to say well, I'm I've scanned this page, and there's a button, and it has text of choose Hotel. So I will say choose hotel button. Right now the hotel would have to code it to say choose hotel, AI in the future, I think we'll be able to say it's, it's not labeled, but we know the intent, we know it's a button, we can see the label will read the label, let them know it's a button. I think that'll be the next thing.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, this is kind of related to AI, but also kind of related to what you were what we were talking about in terms of like pre-registration and stuff. How important is data in terms of accessibility? Because it seems like possibly a next step could be, you know, you, you would know that somebody has a disability before they even attempt to sign up for your event. And you know, companies are obsessed with like gathering data on people and like knowing their their likes, their dislikes, and even something as as personal as whether or not you have a disability, do you think that that's something that companies should be looking into, like, you know, like gathering that type of data on people so that you can then serve them more accessible stuff? Like, hey, we noticed that you have… that you are colorblind. Here's a, you know, here's some more things for you.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, so… and I get it. As far as I know, at least, there's no way to know if somebody, say, logs onto your site, and they're using assistive technology. And I get why not. It's a privacy issue. If I want to self disclose that I'm blind, for example, that's on me. But you knowing that I'm blind or that I'm using a screen reader, that would probably, you know, that's not… that’s going over the line of privacy issues, but…
Logan Pratt
Probably.
Stephen Cutchins
As we get more attendees that go to our conferences that have disabilities anonymizing that and, you know, asking surveys, how did it go? Were the captions clear? Were there any issues with the website? I absolutely love that. So I don't need to know that. You know, Logan came to my conference, and he was blind. And he had, you know, but I do want to know that a person came to my conference, they used a screen reader. And then I can query like later on, like, Hey, do you mind me asking specific questions about your experience? Maybe I don't know, we, we didn't give the programs in Braille. And we should have, and it was $4. And that person had an awful experience. Because I didn't spend four bucks on Braille on a Braille handout, it could have been something as easy as that, you know, and, and I found out, believe me, people with disabilities talk. So you know, that person who the I'm gonna keep picking on you, but that Logan who came and really could have used a Braille printout that I blew it and didn't spend four bucks on it. Logan has an awful lot of friends who also read Braille, who would have loved to come to my conference. And now they're probably not because I did something as silly as not doing that little $4 thing, that I could have opened the door up to another 25 people just like Logan.
Logan Pratt
And so do you put a lot of like emphasis on the post event survey and stuff to try to gather a lot of that information? Like how… Like I know you guys probably sent out a post event survey how much that was accessibility focused? And then could people implement that into their post event surveys? Like, do you see a lot of engagement with that? Or…
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah so I mean, I think if people self-identify, yes, absolutely. We can do targeted questions. And I love data, because nobody knows how good our events was. I can walk around and I will never know really what people are feeling, you know, in their heart of hearts. They'll let me know in the survey, and people can be they can be honest, which I love if you're gonna be brutally honest, have ADD, you know, but I love feedback from people with disabilities. I love feedback period. I think it's fantastic data. But knowing what went right and equally importantly, knowing what went wrong. I because next time it might be like I mentioned that silly little four dollar having a handout in Braille also could help someone, that's really really good data.
Logan Pratt
To kind of wrap things up a little bit, since this podcast is called Fast Forward, and the point of this podcast is to kind of look ahead into the future. And we've talked a little bit about what the future of accessibility looks like, but where do you see the next iteration of accessibility in the future? Like in the next 5, 10, 20 years? You know, we've already seen such an acceleration of advocacy for this, but also in terms of technology. You know, what, what do you think that? What do you envision people utilizing to help more people gain access to more aspects of events?
Stephen Cutchins
So I think you mentioned glasses. I think the… and there are there applications already that like run on your phone, where it'll, it's a person, it's a person that let's say, you're fully blind, or you might have a cognitive issue and limited vision, you can get on this app and hold up in there, some of them are voluntary, some of them are paid. But it will say, you know, okay, you're in a large conference room appears to be 200 feet deep, about 300 feet wide, there's probably, you know, 1000 people that are seated over on the right, there's a sign that, you know, it gives you all of that information, I think the next thing is having it built in the glasses, and making it you know, I'm going to tap and it says, you know, you're on Main Street in wherever, Virginia, you know, I think that's the next step. But I think outside of just technology, I think specific to events also, and people with disabilities, I think the I'm just not going to go to your event is that's a thing of the past, I think it's going to be a very big push where people with disabilities are sick of not going to conferences, they're sick of it, you know, and so from the very beginning of, you know, I'm going to create a website to the on site stuff to sending out surveys, I think it is just going to be mandatory, we have to do it, or else we're gonna get in, we're gonna get in trouble up to an including, like, you know, legal issues, because there are laws that say, depending on the audience, you have to do this higher ed state and local government, federal government, by law, they have to do this. And I think probably in a lot of cases, still, they're not. And they're just lucky, they haven't been sued yet. And I think those days are passes, I think it's people with disabilities are gonna get more, not really more aggressive, but they just want the same that everybody else has. Everybody wants to go to that cool conference, and you know, have a good party.
Logan Pratt
Yeah. And there are certain things like with ADA that are required right now, for businesses especially. And you mentioned that America is actually one of the countries that is kind of leading that charge a little bit in terms of accessibility. Yeah, do you anticipate that kind of law expanding a little bit to include some… because as of right now, it seems to be very physical disability focused and not necessarily so much focused on the invisible disability. So do you see that kind of expanding a little bit and would you… I'm sure you would probably like to see that expanded?
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah and on the web. So there was… in the US, there was a federal law was called Section 508. It's been around for decades, that said, federal agencies or anything that receives federal funds. So like higher education, if it receives federal funds, by law, their electronic content has to be accessible. That includes like registration websites for an event, right? They just updated the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, title two, which covers state and local government was just updated, like literally a month ago, or a month and a half. So we're talking what I guess, May of 2024, June, something like that. So that now says, if you receive state and local funds, again, higher ed or nonprofits, you by law, your electronic content, so your registration website for your event that you know, the site itself, or you go into attendee hub and pick out your classes by law has to be accessible. The next logical one is Ada, Title Three, which is public places of public accommodations, you know, hotels, businesses, it's coming by law, and the Department of Justice has said that the intent of ATA is to not discriminate the ADEA existed before the web even existed. So they only made it physical. But the intent is, and there are 4000 Something lawsuits a year over it. The intent is hey, just don't discriminate. So your you know, Amazon and Target and Walgreens and these sites, websites, by law have to be accessible to people with disabilities. I think it's gonna get more aggressive.
Logan Pratt
Yeah, we talked about the amount of accessibility lawsuits per year, 4000 is a crazy amount. That's like, I think we said like 10 plus a day. And it feels like the private sector is kind of needing to catch up with the public sector. But I think if that trend continues, I think we're gonna see that happen much sooner than we realize.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, nobody wants to get sued, and some companies have lost, you know, $20 million. And…
Logan Pratt
Yeah, learned their lesson the hard way, yeah.
Stephen Cutchins
Believe me, I guarantee the publicity is worse than the revenue lost.
Logan Pratt
And I think that's important… that's an important lesson for all companies is like… You don't want to wait until you get sued to decide on some of these issues, it's much better to be proactive in the sense you know, you don't you don't want the PR nightmare, the monetary loss that comes with this. But it's also just been you know a good company.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah, a good corporate citizen. And again, to go back to… you will make more money. There’s an ROI that you know if you do I don't know spend X you're gonna get back, you know, 1.3x or whatever. I mean, what who anybody would do that. Open up a larger pool of attendees they want to bring you know, open up those purses open up those wallets come to your event, spend money. Who would ever want to turn that down?
Logan Pratt
You’re saying no to free money. But yeah, thank you so much, Steven. You know, to kind of wrap things up, is there anything else that you want to say… also like where can people find you? If they want to learn more about… because you do a lot of like speaking and stuff about this topic.
Stephen Cutchins
Yeah. So yeah, ping me on LinkedIn at Stephen Cutchins S-t-e-p-h-e-n. Yeah or contact me through Cvent like through your account rep. I'm happy to talk to you. I've done like webinars like this and given training specific for clients like for plan or plan organizations. They'll meet me at Connect. Like, that's really cool. I'd love to do my plan. Have my planners know this and I'm happy to give a good little one hour training on him, you know, but yeah, I'm always happy to do you know, to evangelize is like I like to say I clearly passionate about accessibility and happy to evangelize it whenever possible.
Logan Pratt
Well, yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on, Stephen.
Stephen Cutchins
Absolute pleasure and happy to do it.
Logan Pratt
That was my conversation with Stephen Cutchins, one of the leading experts on event accessibility in the industry today. If you liked what you heard, you can catch more episodes of the Fast Forward podcast on Meetingstoday.com/podcasts or find us on Spotify. And as always, thank you for listening.
