Written by Walking the Walk (Part 1 of 2) By Donna Jodhan
So many of us continue to struggle with walking the walk. That is, we have the best of intentions when we decide to walk the walk. We set out with talking the walk but along the way we sometimes get lost with regard to our intentions and commitment and sadly enough we end up not walking the walk.
At Barrier Free Canada – Canada sans Barrières, our commitment is to walk the walk and what might this be? In short, our commitment is to ensure that accessibility remains our number one priority and to this end our mission / commitment includes some very important variables.
It begins with ensuring that the voices of Canadians with disabilities are heard. That they are able to speak up, speak out, and to reach out and collaborate with both individuals and organizations municipally, provincially, and federally ( organizations and entities for and of persons with disabilities.) That they are provided with an accessible platform to do so.
An accessible platform means that at all times; our website at https://www.barrierfreecanada.org is accessible, navigable, and usable to all Canadians. Especially so to Canadians with a disability. It does not stop here.
Not only are we committed to providing an accessible platform, but we are also committed to providing the latest information in a timely fashion and on a relative basis. To this end, our mission is to ensure that the information we post is readable and navigable and that the accompanying images are fully descriptive.
Our board of advocates continue to reach out and collaborate and give feedback to organizations for and of persons with disabilities and individuals and our development team continues to strive to provide the best channels in order to reach all Canadians. This includes using the most up to date tools when it comes to utilizing social media.
We at Barrier Free Canada / Canada sans Barrières are extremely proud of our efforts to support our mission/commitment and this is clearly reflected in the traffic that continues to be generated by our website, Facebook Page, Twitter Account, and BFC Advocating for Change Facebook Group.
Our board is made up of high profile members of the persons with disabilities community and we continue to work to ensure that representation from the disabilities community is appropriately balanced.
In like manner, our development team is also highly qualified; proudly outlining their qualifications in both accessibility and social media marketing. This team possesses not just years of experience in these two areas, but also has the necessary qualifications to back up its resume.
Walking the Walk (Part 2 of 2) By Aaron Di Blasi
Here at Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., walking the walk takes on special meaning. For not only are we always looking for new ways to walk the walk ourselves, we are also consistently seeking the very same on behalf of our clients. As a remote provider of marketing administration services our job is to keep our clients’ brands both on time and on the cutting edge. An assertion which is, for us, the very definition of walking the walk.
We are able to accomplish this consistently by listening closely to our clients to make certain that their brand intentions are well understood from the outset. We then take the requisite time necessary to translate this initial talk, into the digital marketing walk.
Hitting your stride while walking the digital marketing walk means making certain that your brand is being used consistently and in accordance with your marketing objectives across all of your marketing channels. This can be a heady task. Especially with the explosion of specialized online marketing services today.
We eliminate this confusion. In fact, we specialize in eliminating marketing administration work on behalf of our clients entirely, freeing them to simply make marketing decisions, and run their business. From our understanding of your initial brand intentions we create for your business a customized marketing workflow which utilizes only those services that fit within your current vision and budget. If you have questions about any particular service we answer those questions for you. One on one. Once you’ve approved your workflow you can get back to running your business, and rest assured that Mind Vault will keep your brand walking the walk.
We as a company learned, sometime back in early 2007, that walking the walk has many different shades of meaning for many different people. (https://barrierfreecanada.org/teaching-the-sighted-to-see-accessibility/). It was at this time that we took on our very first blind client, and learned very quickly that what we thought was walking the walk for everyone, was really just walking the walk for a single group of people. Specifically, people that could see. For those that could not see? Well, we were merely talking the talk. Which not only humbled us, it set us on a mission. A mission to walk the walk for this new blind client with every manner of quality that we had heretofore provided our sighted clients. Something that we proudly accomplished. But it was hard. Because this time success did not depend on us alone. It instead often depended upon others to take the steps necessary to make their systems accessible. And we quickly learned that the business incentives needed to create accessibility after a system had already been built were often missing. Which in turn led us to realize that advocacy was the only true long term accessibility solution.
And so we set out to create digital marketing workflows for our non-sighted clients that side-stepped these accessibility hurdles, providing them with the very same reach and scale that is currently afforded their sighted counterparts.
It has been and continues to be our pleasure to serve Barrier Free Canada – Canada sans Barrières in this regard, and we are proud to be at the backbone of their efforts to make both Canada and the world a more accessible place.
About us
Donna Jodhan
- Active advocate since 2000.
- Founder and President of Barrier-Free Canada / Canada sans Barrières, an organization which advocates for the Canadian Parliament to enact a strong and effective Canadians with Disabilities Act (CDA) to achieve a Barrier Free Canada for all persons with disabilities.
- BFC-CSB played a vital role in kick starting the campaign for an accessible Canada that culminated in the enactment of Bill C-81 in 2019.
- Donna successfully launched a charter challenge against the Canadian government and took them to Court over their inaccessible websites.
- Victory at the Lower Canadian Court in 2010.
- Victory at the Canadian Court of Appeals in 2012.
- In 2008 Donna was a successful complainant against Statistics Canada (Unequal access to job opportunities.)
- In 2019 Donna was successful in her complaint at the Canadian Human Rights Commission against the Greater Toronto Airport Authority over inadequate services for blind and vision impaired passengers at Toronto’s airport.
- In 2020 Donna was a successful complainant against Elections Ontario over their inability to provide equal access to provincial voting in Ontario in the 2018 provincial elections.
- Donna continues to serve on advisory groups dealing with accessibility issues for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Canadian Transportation Agency, and Elections Canada.
- Donna is the president of the CCB Mysteries Chapter, A Dinner Mystery Chapter that raises funds to send blind and vision impaired kids to various camps.
Aaron Di Blasi
- Active in technology since the TRS-80.
- Awardee, Certificate of Excellence in Mathematics, United States Army, Outstanding Exhibition in Science and Engineering, 1993
- Awardee, Certificate of Excellence in Academic Research, BP Corporation of America, 1995
- Former Web Developer, Designer and Ad Services Artist, Penton Media, Inc., 1999 – 2004
- President, Owner and Project Management Professional for Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., an award winning new media marketing and design firm that provides professionally outsourced design and marketing administration services to businesses and organizations on an as-needed basis. Founded in 2004. Serving clients in the accessibility space since 2007.
- Certified, PMP, Project Management Professional, 2004 – Present
- Certified, Animation Design and Programming, Cleveland Institute of Art, 2004
- Certified, Constant Contact Email Marketing Solutions Provider, 2019 – Present
- Certified, Hootsuite Social Media Marketing Solutions Provider, 2020 – Present
- Publisher, Top Tech Tidbits for Thursday Email Newsletter. “Your #1 online resource for current news and trends in Adaptive Technology.” 2020 – Present
Media Contacts:
Aaron Di Blasi, PMP
Project Management Professional
Email Marketing Professional, Constant Contact Certified ✔
Social Marketing Professional, Hootsuite Certified ✔
Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
Office: (440) 442-9011 ☎
Toll Free: (855) 578-6660 ☎
Email: ad@mvsltd.com ✉
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Donna Jodhan, President
Barrier-Free Canada / Canada sans Barrières
Web: https://www.barrierfreecanada.org 🌐
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BarrierFreeCa/ 🌐
Twitter: https://twitter.com/barrierfreeca 🌐
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Partner Testimonial For Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. by Donna Jodhan, President, Advocate and Author