This thought hit me as I was signing up to attend the Boston Accessibility “Unconference” a few weeks ago. After reading the introduction and description on their website, I found it strangely reminiscent of the “happenings” we engaged in when I was a youth in high school and college. Very avant-garde, I thought; I’m in.

So with open expectations and my colleague Steve Sawczyn (a.k.a. @steveofmaine) riding shotgun, I ventured the three hours down to Waltham, MA this Saturday to see what would “happen.” I will admit that I was surprised by some things and not others. There were good things and disappointments. The experience reminded me vaguely of the first Tweetup I attended about a year ago; meeting a bunch of people whom I knew only through digital correspondences, blog posts and Tweets. I was quickly putting faces with “avatars” and changing my impressions at a steady pace.

There will be a formal evaluation process for the Boston Accessibility Unconference and when that comes out, I will take the opportunity to provide my full opinions there. But I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect upon the experience and post that information here while it was relatively fresh in my mind. I’ve organized my thoughts into three statements. Feel free to respond or generate your own ideas. Here are the three statements:

• What it was
• What it wasn’t
• What I would like it to be in the future

What it was

The Boston Accessibility Unconference was a gathering of about 80 fairly diverse folks who were interested in the accessibility of information technology. Like me, most seemed interested in the vicissitudes of accessible web design, but there were a number of folks whose interests appeared to branch into other areas of technology. There were a fair number of people with disabilities among the gathering.

The setting was the beautifully modern Waltham facilities of the Adobe Corporation provided by host Andrew Kirkpatrick, Adobe’s product manager for accessibility. The building featured all the latest gizmos and the most high tech restrooms on the planet. If you haven’t had a chance to hear Steve Sawczyn’s report of the skin-removing hand dryers in the men’s room, you are missing a rewarding experience. I will think of this place when I sent a hunk of cash to Adobe in a few weeks to purchase CS5 (again Warning: I don’t know if this link leads to an accessible website)

The agenda for the day was pretty free-flowing: an initial warm-up-welcome activity to create an “agenda,” four breakout periods where topics were assigned through a groupthink process, and various breaks for social interaction.

Several of the sessions that I attended were rather free-flowing with no one really taking charge and a general open exchange of ideas and opinions (some included with “hand grenades”; sorry Andrew). On the contrary, several of the sessions I attended were somewhat controlled by one or two individuals who had brought a PowerPoint presentation and seemed determined to give it whether people wanted to hear it or not.

What it wasn’t

I have to be careful here. I don’t want to sound critical or petulant because overall, the experience was very positive. But I didn’t get everything I wanted. So, if I frame this as what I was hoping for – and didn’t get – may be no one will be offended.

I was hoping for a larger picture (big picture) perspective and understanding of accessibility. I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about this topic in very global terms and I wanted to meet like-creatures and compare notes. I think they were in the room, but I didn’t have an opportunity to find many of them.

I was hoping to learn new things about areas I was interested in. I sensed a general backward reflection process or “this is what I do” attitude and was hoping for more of a what do we need to do differently attitude.

Like Guy Noir, I was hoping to find answers to life’s most persistent questions.

What I would like it to be in the future

I would like there to be a professional facilitator or facilitators who are not knowledgeable or interested in the topic of accessibility who can keep things on target.

I would like there to be more in the way of preparation beforehand so everyone can hit the ground running.

I would like for there to be more time to socialize. I would like there to be more time.

I would like to narrow down the focus to a couple of topics (may be three) and deal with them – I would like this to have been done before I got there. In essence, I want a little less “un” in the unconference.

I would like folks to leave the PowerPoints at home and just talk about the topics.

I would like everyone to be an expert and no one to be an expert. Yeah, you can tell I’m a child of the ’60s on that one!

I would like (and am still hoping for) a continued conversation. Perhaps that’s why I wrote this.

Final Thoughts

I’d like to truly thank all those who organized this. It was a risky activity and I think it came off wonderfully. I would like to particularly thank the sponsors for their financial and in-kind contributions. I promise to do whatever I can to make this happen again.

I don’t think it is unreasonable to “pass the hat” or pay a few bucks to be there.

I hope we do not wait a year for another Boston Accessibility Unconference. The topic and the work is too important. I would like almost a monthly (daily, hourly) opportunity to converse – there has to be a technology that we can use to do this. We should make that the first priority.

How can I help?

What do you think?

Feel free to comment!

In their article, Report: Malicious PDF files comprised 80% of all exploits for 2009, ZDNet reports:

A newly released report shows that based on more than a trillion Web requests processed in 2009, the use of malicious PDF files exploiting flaws in Adobe Reader/Adobe Acrobat not only outpaced the use of Flash exploits, but also, grew to 80% of all exploits the company encountered throughout the year.

The other blog, Adobe plugs more gaping holes in PDF Reader, ZDNet reports that Adobe has released a new patch for the Adobe Reader yesterday.

This morning, both of my Windows XP machines lit up with an announcement that there was a new version of Flash Player available and urged me to install. I did despite the fact that I manually updated them all last week when the first stories appeared that the patch was released.

Perhaps the scariest conclusion noted in the ZDNet article about report from ScanSafe was that:

Therefore, the increasing use of malicious PDFs can also be interpreted as the direct result of the millions of users using outdated and exploitable Adobe products (emphasis mine), with the only preference a malicious attacker could have in this case remaining the incentive based on the 99% penetration of Adobe Flash on Internet-enabled PCs.

I guess the adage, “you have no one to blame but yourself” comes to mind, but clearly, people have come to expect that the people who make the stuff that they run on their computers ensure that their stuff is safe.

So the message here folks is: when you get a notice that there is a new version of your software available, drop everything and install it.

I have disliked Flash for a long time, primarily due to its problems with assistive technologies; it often does not play well with screen readers, especially if it has not been developed correctly. In my mind, many Flash developers are graphic artists, illustrators or animators, and don’t really understand web design.

Add to this the fact that more people are now accessing web content via a non-traditional user agent (i.e., not a traditional browser) and you see why I agree with Bradley that Flash may be past its prime.

It’s ironic that Adobe developed Acrobat to find a way to share documents at a time just prior to the “invention” of HTML. Flash, build on the same business principles, was developed for the same reason. And once again, a new standard (HTML 5) may usurp their position. And, I should point out that the new standard will be accessible to screen readers.

But just as those who predicted the demise of Adobe Acrobat 15 years ago were wrong, I suspect it is not quite time for Adobe to throw in the towel and hire the undertaker. Look for Flash to be around for some time to come. But at least for some of us, there will be other options.

This will be interesting to watch.

I have been on a quest to get the latest information about the various distance learning and conferencing software on the market and their accessibility. And I have not been having much success.

It seems that every day there is a new videoconferencing service or webinar package being created and most – if not all – have no information about accessibility and their use with assistive technologies. For example, my research about Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro has turned up nothing but some personal observations – all negative regarding access – and a VPAT that is less than stellar. The company claims that updates made last fall make it “more accessible” but I have not seen anything definitive other than the company’s own White Paper on the topic. Yet, I know of at least one state government agency that is using this application despite concerns about accessibility.

I do not mean to be picking on Adobe; it just so happens that Connect Pro is the last one I have been researching.

As people scramble with declining budgets, more and more organizations are cutting their travel budgets and will be relying on technology to connect people for continued learning and professional development. But will this be leaving out a multitude of people in the process if the DL tools are inaccessible?

You thoughts and resources would be appreciated. I would really like to know if there is anyone out there studying this.

~jeb

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Image used through license from Creative Commons - Goddard Video and Multimedia

~John Brandt

Adobe Acrobat logo

UPDATE: New versions of Acrobat Reader 9 and Professional 9 are now available for download. Updates and patches to older versions are supposed to be available tomorrow, March 18th. Also note that I patched what I could and then today received what I thought to be a very suspicious e-mail with a PDF attachment. Read about it on my other blog

I learned this on Twitter a few days ago and am frankly surprised it has not become more widely knows. Basically, there has been a security problem found in the Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Acrobat Professional which allows certain malware to attack your computer. Initially it was reported that by simply disenabling the JavaScript switch in Reader (and Professional) the problem went away. As an interesting aside, I did this and the very first PDF I downloaded and read an hour later came from Adobe and it required the JS switch be turned back on.

Anyway, in this latest report from ZD Net, it appears that that advice does not mitigate the problem and that Adobe is no closer to a solution than it was a few days ago.

So, the only general advice we can give sportsfans is to avoid opening Adobe Acrobat files until the security issue is resolved. As is stated in the ZD Net article: “All users of Adobe Reader/Acrobat should therefore show extreme caution when deciding which PDF files to open regardless of whether they have disabled JavaScript support or not.”

Here is a link to the ZD Net article with details

Update:  Here is more information from Adobe – but the general consensus is to make sure you have you Anti-Virus programs running and up-to-date.

http://blogs.adobe.com/psirt/2009/02/adobe_reader_and_acrobat_issue_1.html

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html

~jeb