Last November, 2007, my company launched an initiative, Sustainable Construction, and I was so proud with the way everything turned out. The book and the website looked great. Then I presented it to someone with visual difficulties. This is not to say that the person was blind, they just had difficulties reading the small letters on websites. When designers want something to look sexy, they don’t really care about people with seeing difficulties, and font size of 8, or 10, may look good, but is not easily readable for people with a visual problem.

So, I did some research and found, among others, Spoken Text.Net, and I really couldn’t believe the voice reproduction quality. Listen to this text buy clicking the MP3 Icon at the end of this article. I think it’s great.

I think Spoken Text.net will have to resolve their business model, as making the recordings available for just 7 days doesn’t make sense. Nevertheless, it’s a great platform, which I will try to see how I can support and utilise in the future.

I did wonder if a similar platform for sign language was being worked on somewhere in the world? I asked about this in Portugal, but nothing going on here.

 

 Spoken Text.net: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Share This

Comments(1)

It takes a lot to surprise me these days (i am just too old I guess) but I have to tell you that last night I was surprised…very pleasantly I have to say. I was invited to the first anniversary of the BNI Lisbon Lider Club (which when said in Portuguese sounds like Bennie…). BNI is a 22 year old business and professional organisation that allows one person from each trade or profession to join a chapter (group…and you can have various chapters in a city). With over 4,900 active chapters, and 100,000 members, it is said to be the most successful business referral organisation in the world. (more…)

 

 BNI and the Jets [3:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Share This

Comments(1)

I actually forgot where I took this quote, so I immediately apologise to the author….(found it….) but I think it’s something Startups and even experienced companies should be aware of. The extract of the article that is interesting is this - which should be remembered by all would be entrepreneurs:

Companies like Dogster that constantly examine user data - especially the discouraging stuff - are finding the information increasingly vital online. “Instead of working on a feature for months trying to get it perfect,” Rheingold says, “we’ll work on something for two weeks and then spend two or three days listening to users and fine-tuning it.”

Where old-economy giants once boasted of running “zero-defects” operations, today’s successful Internet businesses embrace defects as a way to get things right. Some management consultants even advise their clients to “get good” at screwing up.

Share This

Comments(0)

I have, for some time now, been looking for the PERFECT explanation as to why I get sleepy spells in conferences. I mean, we have ALL (and I mean ALL) been caught closing our eyes when someone’s presentation is, quite frankly, not up to scratch. It doesn’t matter how interesting the theme or how beautiful the person making the presentation actually is. If you have a boring PowerPoint, it will make for a boring presentation.

So, if you think your presentations fall into this category YOU SHOULD HAVE A LOOK AT THIS….

In fact, if you are going to make a presentation in the near future, YOU SHOULD ALSO HAVE A LOOK AT THIS:

http://lifehacker.com/software/presentations/stop-death-by-powerpoint-323554.php

And while you are doing that, you may also want to look at these:

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/09/visual_simplici.html

http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2005/11/it_was_one_of_t.html

Your next presentation will surely be different…..I know mine will…..

Share This

Comments(1)

So often you or you, together with one or two friends, think “wouldn’t it be great to have my own business…become my own boss…be responsible for the things I do in our lives…taking an idea to another level…” Chances are, you would have actually sat down and talked in detail and tried to find out exactly what is involved (the process and the costs) and before you start, you realize that the financial risk is too much and it would probably be best to not start…let’s fact it, the odds are stacked against you and the probability for failure is just too high. And you would have often wondered “what if…” (more…)

Share This

Comments(0)