Ben Fletcher

A job of mine is to provide my interpreters with some idea of what context they’ll be interpreting in. A colleague at work developed a visualisation tool called Wordle with which I can copy and paste some text and, like magic, come out a “word cloud”. To give you an example, with text from Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2009:

I would be delighted to hear from any reader of alternative training materials for the interpreter; I’m curious what else there is

(A signed video about this post.)

I have a possible vision for a national deaf organisation.

A quick glance at the list of messages on a “deaf” egroup tells me that there are many people who just don’t think on the same wavelength as each other – which can be counterproductive to making progress on common issues.

Fact is that for the Deaf community there cannot be a single voice that can claim to represent this community – apart from to champion diversity.

A quick glance at my Facebook list of notifications tells me that people work together very well, organise events, support each other, give each other encouragement, etc., all seeming very much like-minded people.  It’s all very amicable and productive.

The reason is clear: the “deaf” egroup is a place where _all_ deaf people are put together under the same roof, forcing people with very different backgrounds, ideas and opinions to listen to everyone else’s views, with disastrous results. In contrast, Facebook allows members to form groups, “go where your network is”.  These different networks work very well on their own.

This is why I think a national social deaf organisation like BDA should look into adopting a similar model to Facebook: where deaf people are encouraged to form their own groups or networks, with the organisation as an umbrella providing support, encouraging and enabling diversity within the deaf community.  This, I would imagine, would lead to the potential to really grow to become a successful deaf organisation – or community.

Dear fellow Deafies,

I have more American contributions to this blog than any other country – and I’d very much value your input.

Take this picture:

Does the caption in the photo above make any sense? (No, it does not!)

I have 21 further photos and videos showing more poor captioning (we call it subtitling in the UK) in the space of just 15 minutes in this prime-time Saturday evening programme. (Click on the links to see them.)

I’ve had the good fortune to use captioning services from America at work, where I am constantly in awe of the accuracy and speed of it even with a heavy usage of technology jargon. Here’s a video that I hope gives America some idea of how unbearably slow and vague the captioning is in the UK in comparison:

My question to my friends in America: is it possible for the accuracy and speed to be improved significantly?

My hope is that your answer is a resounding yes, and, even better, for you to point to references of how this is achieved, in order to demonstrate to the Brits including Deaf consumers, policy makers and regulators, that the poor quality of subtitling in the UK is a) unacceptable, and b) not a technology limitation.

I congratulate the same people on achieving a 100% subtitling rate however, given choice, I would seriously be happy to reduce the coverage and invest the the money saved to improve subtitling quality.

To the UK, am I the only one with this view?

I’m told, although being deaf, I can’t promise this is true, that there is the concept known as “small talk” like this:

Small Talk Practice 2: At the Office

that happens in the office that I, to be sociable, am supposed to overhear and get involved with!

Emergency! I’m deaf, I don’t get to hear the small talk?

Twitter to the rescue.  What? I see you say.

Twitter is the online version of social “small talk”, another of the social networking tools.  I get to overhear and, if I like, participate in “small talk” amongst my colleagues and this is really a great way of making new contacts at IBM.

With thanks to Twitter, I have made new colleagues and achieved a lot. To illustrate how, I will show you some examples. But first some background on Twitter.  Twitter is where people send and read other people’s updates about any subject – as long as each update is 140 characters in length.

These updates are checked like with emails, as pop-up boxes from the status bar on the computer, or through the mobile phone like texts.

Some example of updates I get from my colleagues, please note that the names are random and fictional!

ScottA: “any flash developers willing to discuss what is or isn’t possible with it? dm me a phone #”

JohnB: tired

MrBoss: Playing with Google Friend Connect : Seems good

An example of a small talk:

RemoteWorker: Great, Nitrox qualification arrived. Now, when’s my next diving holiday…?

AnotherWorker: @RemoteWorker hope you fare better than me. I haven’t dived in the two years since I got EAN certified and ended up selling all my gear.

Here’s an example of how Twitter’s small talk has directly helped my work:

bjfletcher: keen to join BCS, does anyone at IBM know how to as an IBMer? is there a page with a form or something?

almost immediately, I got a update from someone at my work that I hadn’t met before:

UnknownGuy: @bjfletcher There’s a fast track membership process for members of the IBM professions. Sent you a note with a link to the info.

and likewise but from someone I already knew:

KnownGuy: @bjfletcher just sign up through the bcs website, then claim the cost back..this may not be the best time..

some more updates within 5 minutes:

Thomas: @bjfletcher the hursley library have copies

LeeA: @bjfletcher BCS membership : more for you to look over… http://tinyurl.com/5fnarb – ;o)

Another example, there was a small chat about keeping an empty inbox. A colleague then instant messenged with me and mentioned a book.  I proceeded to order it and told Twitter:

bjfletcher: the “Getting Things Done” book is on order, thanks @thecolleague.. it’s also known as “Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance”

Later I received an update from someone I didn’t know based at an IBM office in Leeds who clearly noticed in my profile that I worked with Lotus products:

Yorkie @bjfletcher If you like GTD, you should try to get to LS09… (or at least get the slides!) http://snurl.com/6t7xj

Of course I thanked him:

@Yorkie thanks for the Getting Things Done heads up! Have added the link will eagerly check it out tonight!

Well, isn’t Twitter absolutely brilliant?  As a deaf contact, I now love my interactive small chats with people all around the world!  This is especially so given that IBM is global.