Do me a favor. Tell me your first, last name,
where you're located and the business you have
or speaking your last speaking that you spoke
at. OK, so I am known as the blind blogger. I'm
Max Ivy. I am from Houston, Texas. My last speaking
engagement was 40 years of technology, of adaptive
technology. What does the future hold? at CSUN
at California State University, Northridge, which
is the biggest adaptive technology conference
in North America, if not the world. That is awesome.
Tell me a little bit more about that, Max. Well,
I'm 59 years old, so I've been blessed or punished
by seeing how technology has changed over my
lifetime. So they felt I was the ideal person
to talk about how technology has changed from
pretty much nothing like what we have today where
braille and large type and the very, very beginnings
of optical character recognition when I was graduating
from high school to now where you have all the
advantages of the smartphone, the tablet, laptops
and desktops with screen readers and other adaptive
technology built in. Plus, they wanted to hear
some of my personal experiences, the challenges.
Like, for example, at one point in my life, I
was part of a traveling carnival, and I used
to do the bookings for the show for the year,
which is how we made our living or didn't make
it, pretty much with a Perkins Braille writer
and either a handful of coins or an AT &T prepaid
card. Wow. Yeah, wow. And that's... How long
did you do that for? I was in the family's carnival
business until 2007 when I started my website
to help people broker used amusement park and
carnival rides. And when I started that website
in 2007, accessibility was still non -existent
to the point that I had to teach myself to code
HTML just to get my first website online. And
I was one of the few people at that time that
was open about my disability online most people
felt like if they disclosed their disability
in this new world of when i started that website
in 2007 i was one of the few people with a disability
online that was open about his disability most
people were hiding their disability because they
felt there was still a stigma around being blind
or deaf or paraplegic etc and because i was so
open people started referring to me as the blind
blogger and when i wanted to start a second website
to share more about being an entrepreneur who
has a disability that was the obvious name to
choose however when i did that i realized that
i was going against the trend because sighted
people they were like max you're too good you're
too talented you're too good a storyteller you
don't need to emphasize your vision loss to be
successful and people with vision loss people
who are are are blind because they've lost enough
vision um they were like max why do you have
to play the quote blind card unquote so yes so
going back over a decade i've been out here as
the blind blogger not by choice but by accepting
my role as somebody who could inspire others
by doing the stuff everybody else has to do every
day but doing it with the challenges of being
blind and having to depend on a screen reader
or on help from sighted people whether those
be friends family or people that i met online
what was your what was your goal what was your
vision uh my goal was to you know i'm gonna i'm
gonna share something here with with the people
out there because i feel like it's just honest
most of the things that have been my goals have
not really been my goals initially. They've been
either things I noticed or things other people
pointed out to me, or they've been things that
I was challenged to attempt or encouraged to.
So I was brokering used rides and happy. And
then people were like, you know, Max, because
you have an excuse and don't use it, you are
inspiring whether you know it or not. So the
goal with the Blind Blogger was to share experiences.
to teach the lessons that I had learned through
many, you know, the school of hard knocks, as
they like to say, and try to encourage and entertain
people while helping them overcome some of the
excuses in their life. So I did that. Unfortunately,
people did not want to hire me as a coach. But
at that time, I was doing a lot of podcast interviews.
I love podcast interviews because. as a blind
person living in the suburbs of houston where
we have almost no mass transit it gave me the
opportunity to meet thousands if not millions
of people over the years without having to leave
my house and it turned out people didn't want
me as their coach they wanted me to help them
get on podcasts so i pivoted to doing that and
i did that for a while and then in 2021 alex
san felipo who owns pod match he said you know
max we've been friends through podfest which
is a national conference for independent podcasters
and said i've started this new website i'd like
it to be accessible so people with disabilities
have the same opportunity that you've found for
yourself by making podmatch .com accessible so
i started first as a volunteer and then later
he hired me to be part of the team and recently
elevated me to be part of the advisory board
for his company in the area of digital accessibility
In 2022, a company named Audio Eye reached out
to me on LinkedIn. And after I tried to tell
them that I wasn't who they were looking for
four times, they convinced me and I became a
content contributor. Well, they understood that
I'm a storyteller and that I'm a really good
storyteller, whether it's writing, speaking or
singing and songwriting. they brought me on as
a content contributor and then exposed me to
doing quality assurance reviews of websites for
accessibility and then last year they hired me
to host one of their podcasts and in the next
few weeks they're going to be sponsoring an episode
a month of my podcast the accessibility advantage
so I was not planning on being the accessibility
expert, even though, as you know, I've been the
expert going back to 2007 because I was doing
this stuff every day and communicating my challenges
with business owners in a way that they could
understand. But more importantly, doing it in
a positive, non -threatening manner where I didn't
start off by trying to scare them with fears
of regulations or lawsuits or public shaming.
i was just let's have a conversation to see if
there's a way i can use your software your product
or your service because if i can't use yours
to do what i'm going to do i'm going to have
to go find somebody else's that i can use to
do what i need to do and i find that having positive
non -threatening conversations with business
owners explaining to them why they should care
why i need a particular accommodation goes a
long way towards getting business owners to be
more inclusive because the truth of the matter
is most business owners, they want my business.
They just don't know how to get it. Yes. You
know, most business owners do not have a vendetta
against blind people or other disabled people.
They just don't think about it. They got so many
other things that they have to think about that
are already on their list and they're on everybody's
list because for years people say, well, if you
want to start a business or if you want to start
an online business. these are all the things
you have to do or have to have and accessibility
hasn't yet made that list so i try to keep that
in mind and i feel like all these years that
i've been working online gives me empathy towards
business owners whether they're small sole entrepreneurs
or corporations because i understand just how
challenging it can be and just how scary and
overwhelming it can be and one of my jobs is
to make them understand that it isn't as scary
or daunting as they think it is What's your why
now? Right. I feel like I was pushed or dragged
kicking and screaming. I have a really good friend
named Adrienne Smith who's been with me through
all my incarnations online. And I refer to her
as my blogging mama because she taught me about
blog commenting and using blogging to build relationships
back when blogging was the cool thing instead
of podcasting. She told me a while back, she
said, Max, the problem for you is you don't want
to be here, but you just need to get over it
because you are the expert. You are the person
these people need to have because you have a
unique take on the subject. You have an ability
to communicate, to make people like you, to make
people understand these things that are complicated.
so yeah this is not where i planned on being
however when i look back over the last five years
i think yeah but i'm probably the person they
need you know i mean there are very few people
in this field who have my background or my approach
or even my mindset towards accessibility so my
that my my purpose my why today is that every
time i help a business owner improve their website,
their app, or their product or service, I can
do two things. And I can do them to scale eventually.
One is, and the most important for your audience
is, I can help that business owner grow their
business faster by improving accessibility, which
improves overall user experience, raises search
engine optimization, and opens up a huge, mostly
untapped market of highly loyal consumers who
will advocate for businesses and brands willing
to make the effort. And you notice I said effort
and not perfection. Yes. So that's one of the
two things I can do. The other thing I can do
is every time I improve an online platform, I
can improve the lives of dozens, hundreds, thousands,
or even millions of people with disabilities
who may do business with that companies through
their website or through their social media content,
et cetera. And so I like to think every time
I improve one website, I can be touching who
knows how many lives. Yes, yes. And you're right.
You're right. It goes far beyond you. It's amazing
how podcasting became this thing now, you know,
that can go around the world. And so you're a
host of a podcast as well? Yes. I started off
in 2016 hosting one called What's Your Excuse,
which is an inspirational show about people who
have overcome adversity or life challenges. I
paused it last year to start being the host of
Hearsay Shorts for AudioEye .com. And then last
year I started a new show of my own, which I
think I'm up to seven episodes now, so I'm still
in the early stages, called The Accessibility
Advantage, where I'm advocating for more. inclusion
of and accessibility for people with disabilities
through education, communication and collaboration
instead of compliance, legal actions and shame.
Wow. You do a lot. You do a lot. And you're also
now coaching, right? I coach businesses on accessibility
and I sometimes coach people who are having difficulty
overcoming the roadblocks in their lives. I find
most people don't want me to be their coach.
And I find that surprising because in my lifetime,
I've lived through vision loss from perfect vision
to almost total blindness. I've been part of
a traveling carnival. I've run a business. I
lost a business. I started a new business. I've
been a website builder, a blogger, a podcaster,
a self -published author, a speaker. I sing and
write songs. I've done so many things, most of
it by just deciding that there had to be a way
for me to do whatever it was I was trying to
do at that moment. I like to lean on an expression
of self -determination, which is, to me, that
means that you decide to find solutions and implement
them. even when you don't like them, instead
of just making excuses. Absolutely. Hence the
podcast you were on. What's your excuse? Yeah,
and I didn't choose that name. We actually struggled
with three or four different names until I finally
asked my community online what they would call
it. And they said, you know, Max, we've been
saying for a long time that if Max can do it,
what's my excuse? if you turn that around it
seems like the perfect name for you would be
what's your excuse and you know you mentioned
podcasting i've been to pod fest i wish i had
been there last year now i feel even more disappointed
because i didn't get to meet you along with the
other stuff i didn't get to do because i wasn't
able to attend after i looked forward to it for
several months um but i at one of the pod fest
there was a 14 year old girl there with her dad
and she was doing a podcast she was actually
recording this podcast in the in the lobby of
the hotel. And she would sit you down and ask
you a few questions. And then she would do a
10 minute interview. And I don't know how many
interviews, but this is in 2019. And she said,
what's the name of your podcast? I said, it's
What's Your Excuse? And she said, no, no, no,
you're wrong. I said, it's my podcast. How can
I be wrong? She said, no, Max, it's not What's
Your Excuse? It's What's Your Excuse? And so.
And so whenever I sit down to record for that
show, I have to remind myself, I don't want Izzy
to get mad at me. I got to say this right. But
yeah, so I've been doing the podcast. I've been
being a guest on podcasting since January of
2013. So this being 25, I've been doing interviews
for over 12 years, going back to a time when
most interviews were audio only and recorded
on. blog talk radio as opposed to video and audio
being recorded on platforms like zoom and stream
yard and all these others that can connect with
the social media platforms Thank you for being
here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in
to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing
your reactions as these episodes continue to
move forward. This is going to get more and more
fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a vision pro yourself.