Episode 8: The Heartstrings and the Geek Button - with Michael Johnson, VP of Content at Benetech

2 Simons for the price of one! This episode of the Digital Publishing Podcast features my fantastic and very broad conversation with Simon Holt from Elsevier, where he shares his powerful perspective as someone with real lived experience of disability, who has worked in and around publishing and accessibility for many years.CREDITS:Produced and Presented by Simon MellinsTranscript provided by Lumina DatamaticsMusic: Better Days by penguinmusic at Pixabay

Michael Johnson is an EPUB and accessibility legend - but this is not how his story started. Listen to this episode to hear his journey, and all about the incredible work being done at Benetech to empower readers all over the world, including the revolutionary BookShare service.CREDITS:Produced and Presented by Simon MellinsTranscript provided by Lumina DatamaticsMusic: Better Days by penguinmusic at Pixabay

This time I'm joined from sunny Cape Town by digital learning consultant and accessibility veteran Kate Whittaker. In this philosophical as well as practical conversation we talk information literacy, apartheid, digital change, libraries, education and a whole lot more.

The best thing about running this show is being able to bring my favourite people on to tell their stories. Huw Alexander is not just one of the nicest people in the publishing accessibility space, but also a true inspiration to me, having branched out from a large publisher to found his own company, in the highly-timely sector of image description. We learn about his fantastic journey, and dive deep into the fascinating and challenging world of image descriptions for diverse publishing. And yes, we talk about AI…

This time we chat with Gregorio Pellegrino, whose technical work on accessibility at the LIA foundation in Italy has had a huge impact on the evolution of the landscape. We learn about his story, how he was 'born accessible' himself, and all about the amazing work of Fondazione LIA.

IIn this episode I’m joined by the effervescent Lars Wallin, ‘Chief Experimentation Officer’ (and co-founder) of Colibrio Software, makers of one of the most popular and capable reading systems used by retailers and libraries around the world. We discuss digital reading, software development, open source, AI and everything in-between! Lars is amazing to talk to and this is a very enjoyable listen.

In Episode 3 we talk to Stacy Scott, Head of Accessibility at Taylor & Francis Group and Chair of the UK Publishing Accessibility Action Group (paag.uk), where her and I both serve on the Working Group. In this moving conversation we hear about Stacy’s long and winding road to her current position as a renowned expert and advocate in the world of publishing accessibility, from the unique perspective of someone who is both a user of, and expert in these services and tools. Stacy is always charming and funny, and this episode is a really powerful listen.

For our second episode I wanted to introduce Ken Jones, who tells his remarkable story of growing up working in the family printing press, becoming an early digital pioneer in 'Big Publishing', and then breaking out on his own to found a successful software company building tools for the industry.We talk through his unique journey, and reflect on how a task-oriented, human-centric approach led him to produce some really deeply useful tools for the ‘real world’ problems faced by publishers, in a world of idealised standards and walled gardens.CREDITS:Produced and Presented by Simon MellinsProduction support from Dan Mellins-CohenTranscript provided by Lumina DatamaticsMusic: Better Days by penguinmusic at PixabayCopyright Simon Mellins Consulting Limited 2024 (UK company 15660523), all rights res

For our first episode I was thrilled to welcome Richard Orme, CEO of the DAISY Consortium, the global organisation that has been driving accessible publishing technology change since 1996. Richard is an amazing individual with a long and rich history in accessible software and standards development, and our conversation covered his fascinating story, as well as the many ways that accessibility links the worlds of technology and the humans using it.CREDITS:Written and Produced by Simon Mellins, with production support from Dan Mellins-Cohen (https://danmellins.com/) and the music is Better Days by penguinmusic at Pixabay.Copyright Simon Mellins Consulting 2024, all rights reserved.

In this brief preview I go over how this podcast came to be, and what to expect in the full episodes coming soon.