Acronym

The recent ruling in the California class action suit against Target Corp., in which individuals claimed the discount retailer's website was inaccessible to the blind, has me wondering what accessibility looks like in a 2.0 world. Does this imply that podcasts should come with a transcript? What about the potential unintended consequences of super-cool AJAX on accessibility? Do we not make pages as user friendly for wider population because it can cause problems for a few? Weren’t we moving towards the accessible web just a second ago? Did that train take a left turn I managed to miss?

In my quest for more information, I came across an article from the American Foundation for the Blind which deals with whether or not the big social networking sites are accessible to the visually impaired. The article finds that most of the sites do a fair job of presenting content and functionality in an accessible format—with the exception of CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart; in other words, the annoying letter sequences you have to retype to create accounts, post comments, buy tickets, etc.).

The article found that most of the big social networking sites, with the exception of Linked In, use these when having new accounts created. This, as the article points out, prevents those using screen readers from creating accounts without assistance.

Honestly, it never occurred to me how inaccessible CAPTCHAs are. I saw them as a great way to reduce fake accounts and prevent spam from getting posted to the web.

It makes me wonder what other accessibility roadblocks are right in front of us that we might not be seeing in web 2.0 sites and applications.

Just a warning, this post is based on a political poll, though Acronym remains an apolitical blog. I ran across the survey and thought other organizations who have as part of their missions the influence of policy would be interested in how 17-29 year olds answer several dozen political and policy questions. A PDF of the full results of the study conducted for The New York Times, CBS News, and MTV are available on the New York Times site, as well as other places.

Here are some of the results I found most interesting or are different than what I would have thought they'd be:

• 50 percent say their job opportunities are excellent or pretty good -- more than 15 percent more than three years ago.

• 56 percent say "the government in Washington cares about people of your generation" either a lot or some. Cynical me, I thought that number would be much lower.

• 58 percent say they have paid a lot or some attention to the 2008 presidential campaign. I realize the campaigns are in full swing and its great to be a political racehorse junkie right about now, but I didn't think anybody else was paying very much attention at this point.

• 48 percent say they expect to be worse off than their parents' generation -- 25 percent say they will be better off and 25 percent say they'll be the same. I'm just surprised the outlook is that pessimistic.

• 23 percent say the economy will be most important in determining who they vote for; only 20 percent say Iraq.

Another series of questions asked if government policies on specific issues were important. The issue with the most "very important" answers was trying "to reduce gas and oil use by consumers." The issue beat out such notable issues as "job training and job opportunities for younger workers" (a no-brainer high score based on who was being surveyed), "provide insurance coverage to people who don't have it," and "loans, grants, and student aid that helps pay for college."

Finally, since I am a bit of a political racehorse junkie, I have to slip in one political observation. It would appear that younger democrat-leaning people are more passionate about the leading presidential candidates than their republican-leaning counterparts. When asked if they are likely to vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate, they lean democratic 54 to 32 percent (that's a bit more left-leaning than all adults, which are split 49 to 33 percent according to a different recent survey). But when asked if they were enthusiastic about any of the candidates now running for president, Obama leads the list with 18 percent, followed by Clinton at 17 percent. The next name on the list is Giuliani, who is only backed enthusiastically by 4 percent.

The May issue of Associations Now featured a column from Bruce Butterfield and Susan Fox urging readers to educate themselves about the perspectives and needs of the millennial generation. We received an interesting e-mail in response from Brynn Grumstrup Slate, which I’m posting here with Brynn’s permission:

As an engaged ASAE member and a member of the Millennial generation, I appreciated the column “Preparing for the Millennial Tsunami” in the May issue of Associations Now. The article would have been even more effective, however, if it had integrated the voice of a Millennial in addition to the experienced views of Bruce Butterfield and Susan Fox and shared a first person perspective on the work habits and career goals of this emerging group.

Although much of our generation is still in school, a sizeable number have already joined the workforce and are striving to make a difference as members of association staffs. One third of the staff at my AMC is made up of Millennials and we are hardworking, dedicated, and keenly interested in both learning from more experienced peers and sharing our own ideas and strategies.

To truly keep abreast of the evolving association workforce, Associations Now needs to feature articles not just about Millennials, but by them. As Butterfield and Fox mention in their column, Millennials are eager to connect and to collaborate. I urge you to feature voices from across generations, allowing association professionals of all ages the opportunity to be enriched by one another.

I certainly agree with Brynn that Associations Now (and other ASAE & The Center publications) should feature writers from all generations. As an editor, I want to encourage a richness of dialogue and content that’s only possible when writers come from all walks of life. Dominance by a few generational groups (or ethnic groups, or socioeconomic groups …) immediately dilutes that richness, and keeps us from hearing things we need to hear to keep the association community cutting edge and relevant.

But at the same time, I always get nervous about the possibility of tokenism—picking authors like ingredients in a recipe, focusing more on who they are than what they have to say.

Clearly there’s a balance here, and it’s one that any editor is used to aiming for. But I’d be curious to hear what Acronym readers think. What ideas would you suggest for increasing the diversity of authors in an association publication (not just at ASAE & The Center, but at any association)? What about increasing the diversity of involvement in all decisions an association makes?