Sena Pottackal, who's Blind, works in PR at Current Global.
As this column approaches its third birthday in the coming weeks, the barrage of story pitches I receive on a daily basis causes me to stop and consider meta observations about diversity in journalism and, more pertinently, how the proverbial sausage is made. I can count on one hand the number of disabled reporters I know; likewise, the activity this space sees is downright amazing given many pitches I get are not merely irrelevant—they can be inaccessible too.
It feels fair to say most PR professionals don’t think about the journalists they pitch perhaps having a disability. Omission by ignorance feels like the obvious reason most media relations aren’t accessible to disabled reporters such as myself.
The team at Current Global is empathetic, albeit indirectly, towards my plight.
The Chicago-based Current Global is a communications agency that differentiates itself from its contemporaries by prioritizing accessible communication. In celebrating National Disability Employment Awareness Month last October, the company published a blog post on its website featuring an interview with two members of its team who have disabilities. “In recognition of this important moment in time, two of our employees who identify as PWDs [people with disabilities] co-authored this blog post, sharing thoughts on their lived experiences as communicators and bringing continued awareness about inclusion in the workplace,” Current Global wrote in the post’s lede from a few months ago.
The hallmark of Current Global’s distinguishing quality is their Accessible By Design initiative. What humbly began two years ago as an internal endeavor has blossomed into something befitting of the wider industry so as to become an external endeavor as well. The company says 15% of the world’s population identifies with some sort of disability, yet content pops up on the internet every day that’s inaccessible and exclusive to legions of disabled people. As Current Global says, it doesn’t have to be like this. To that end, Accessible By Design wants to remedy that by pushing for inclusive content. Current Global describes Accessible By Design as “our first-to-market agency commitment and client offering, with the goal that every piece of communication we develop, curate and publish for our clients and ourselves will meet the highest accessibility standards.”
The project was lauded by Fast Company in 2021 as a World-Changing Idea.
“Unfortunately, there’s a stigma that we, as people with disabilities, don’t think for ourselves, we don’t have autonomy, we aren’t people who are active agents in our lives,” said Sena Pottackal, who works at Current Global and is Blind, in a late January interview with me over videoconference. “They don’t think to make their content or products accessible. There’s a recent statistic from the World Economic Forum [stating] that although 90% of companies are trying to focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, only 4% provide offerings that are inclusive of people with disabilities. This is a real issue—this is something that is an opportunity for all industries, including ours, to do better. Why we’re [Current Global] here [is] we’re trying to bridge that gap and create the resources to empower others to do better and change. We want to see this aspect of communications.”
Current Global uses a few different methodologies to ensure their content is accessible as possible. Chief among them is Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker tool for Windows, macOS, and the web. The Checker helps in ensuring communications play nicely with assistive technologies such as screen readers, increased contrast, and more. In addition, large print is often used where possible and, to mitigate cognitive load, simple, concise language is always preferred.
Current Global ascribes to the idea that good design is accessible design.
“One of the main things we want to see that successful design is just more accessible communications practice overall,” Ethan Chiu, who works with Pottackal at Current Global, said an interview with me via videoconference.
Chiu explained the company held what he described as a so-called “21-Day Challenge” during which PR people would try their hardest to make sure all communications were “reinforcing these small habits that slowly will make all communication more accessible.” These tenets, Chiu told me, included remembering to use alt-text, properly formatted headings, and more. He went on to say Current Global’s work has evolved over time such that it’s become a cross-functional endeavor of sorts, telling me it’s become about “making sure that these accessible communications are being translated to client work: products that they’re launching [and] helping them reach the audiences they want to reach.”
Chiu went on to expound on this ideal: “[It’s] like cross-functional applications and the accessibility space. We’re helping clients that are creating accessible product design, and we’re using accessible communications to help them with that rollout. [We] make sure sure that intentionality is there. One of our projects that we’re working on actually is a virtual business card. We’re working to make the world’s most accessible business card, which is definitely a hefty goal. But I think we’re working making pretty good progress towards that.”
For her part, Pottackal is particularly excited about accessible business cards.
“The fact I can actually read my own business cards for the first time and things like that has such a huge impact,” she said. “Efforts like this show people with disabilities who are employees are actually members of the team that make it tougher to make them feel like they’re part of the community.”
One major point Current Global was keen to emphasize was their effort to create more accessible communications is one inclusive of able-bodied people. It’s an “imperative” step in helping push this initiative forward, as the company says it goes a long way in fostering collaboration and innovation. This speaks to the broader shift of companies across industries becoming evermore cognizant of the disability community when spouting about their work in furthering equality and inclusivity. It’s important to Current Global because, no matter one’s field, communications matter. The company is acutely aware of the “tremendous amount of power with respect to what content goes out into the world” and wants to inspire other people to join them in their communicative revolution of sorts.
It’s something Current Global chief executive Virginia Devlin is passionate about.
“You will never achieve diversity and equity and accessibility if you’re not focused, first and foremost, on inclusivity,” she said. “We are passionate about being inclusive communicators, and we want to make sure that the work that we create for ourselves and for our clients, connects with audiences of all ability.”
Devlin is particularly grateful for Pottackal holding the team accountable, so they walk the walk as well as they talk the talk. It helps motivate everyone push forward towards a brighter, more accessible future for not merely Current Global, but the marketing industry writ large. “It is a joy for me to learn from them [Pottackal and Chiu] every day and to learn from Sena specifically, who ensures that we walk the walk, not just talk the talk,” Devlin said. “I also feel that there’s a component of the generations coming up and they’re [putting] bigger focus on being inclusive of all people that will drive this movement forward as well. I put a lot of faith and hope in the younger generations to move us in positive directions.”
To be sure, I could greatly benefit from emails with larger font size and the like. Current Global’s work is a good reminder that not every reporter, regardless of their beat, has perfect vision and the like. Empathy matters a lot.
