Re: EOWG: Please read/review latest business case draft before 2 April 2004 teleconference

At 06:18 PM 3/31/2004 -0500, Judy Brewer wrote:
>Please review and comment on the full resource suite before our 
>teleconference this week

The Suite is presented as a resource containing building blocks with which 
one can make a tailored business case for use in various environments and 
from that point of view it need not be as "polished" as the individual 
cases that are created using its content for inspiration/inclusion. This 
means that the Overview sort of stands alone and that the other "factor" 
sections are more reference points for someone creating a "business case".

The group has been working on this for several years and this 
generaliz(s)ed format seems very suitable: let the user of the overview 
create the business case document! Through this interactivity we exemplify 
the process and give someone using this resource the ability to feel a part 
of the effort.


OVERVIEW:

intro bullet 4 "It crystallizes [solidifies?] an organization's commitment 
to social responsibility."
        bullet 5 "It demonstrates compliance with appropriately defined 
laws/regulations/standards concerning accessibility."

In general, reference is made to a "right to information". IMO this is the 
central factor in all of this and hasn't been given a prominent enough 
exposition. This is not only a completely new concept, but a quite radical 
one and should quite possibly be addressed before anything else. In fact, 
this is exactly what "accessibility" means and is at the root of providing 
the oft-touted "level playing field".


SOCIAL FACTORS:

The intro contains near-gratuitous (because they are not widely used 
outside this document) abbreviations: SRI and CSR. Their inclusion is 
almost like satire. The references somehow seem suspect, probably because 
unless one is "in the choir" they sound almost like religious contrivances: 
the already-convinced don't need them and the "hard-hearted bean counters" 
won't believe them. The point that "CSR" also has a financial upside is 
less important than its inherent decency/humanity or even "spirituality". 
It's good in and of itself without the need for a study showing that it 
probably benefits the "bottom line".

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Social Factors need not (and 
possibly should not) include the financial benefits.


TECHNICAL:

Might be an opportunity to include references to the work being done by the 
Device Independence Group and thus include the notion that W3C provides 
technological approaches that integrate 
accessibility/interoperability/usability into methods that make their 
understanding/application much more sensible than the previous means of 
implementing Web stuff which largely tried to imitate printed 
brochures/catalogs/forms.


FINANCIAL:

If possible, it might be a good place to put in a plug for hiring PWD. A 
lot of this sounds similar to the usual pitches about how loyal/reliable 
this community is and that attracting such employees brings tax benefits as 
well as brownie points.


LEGAL/POLICY:

Perhaps references from here could include some notorious examples of legal 
costs (not to mention attendant Public Relations costs) in other fields 
that could logically presage similar instances in matters of accessibility. 
The impact of ignored regulations can be devastating. Some variation on 
"programmers are cheaper than lawyers" might be in order?


--
Love.

It's Bad Luck to be Superstitious! 

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.620 / Virus Database: 399 - Release Date: 3/11/2004