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Description: The good blog that giving ya da bizness everyday.
From: Anna Goble
Date: Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 3:49 AM
Subject: I WAS ON VEGAS NEWS!!!
Check me out! I made the Vegas news! This is just the website that posted the news feed. I was actually interviewed for a couple of local news stations as well as a few newspapers. I'll send you all that when I get a hold of it. FYI, Joe and I made a switch based mp3 player. That means that you can use whatever device you may need (larger buttons, a sip and puff switch, etc) to essentially push the buttons on an mp3 player. I'M SO EXCITED!!! Thanks again to Kevin for the great idea! (That's my project and my hand in the still picture!)
http://www.702.tv/videos/2008
Love
Anna
The past month has been very crazy for me. Going to Pittsburgh to speak, preparing for the new soccer season, getting new job, arranging meetings to see how much I can make and still retain some of my disability benefits. Plus volunteering for a few projects, because I have a hard time saying no to people.
I just got offered on Wednesday officially the project director position in transitioning a state wide disability network from a state funded program to a self-sustaining non-profit organization with in a 3 year time period. The network has the name of the North Carolina Disability Action Network (NCDAN).
The North Carolina Council for Developmental Disabilities (NCCDD), the state agency who previously jump started NC DAN gave a grant to Disability Rights and Resources (DR&R), which is the local Center of Independent Living for Charlotte, to lead in making the network into its own entity. The Executive Director of DR&R, Julia, will oversee the project and will serve as my mentor in establishing the network, because once NC DAN has a board in place and its non-profit status my title will change from Project Director to Executive Director. That is if the board decides to keep me once everything is up and running. Nothing is for certain with any of it.
Until Julia said that in the interview, I never knew that I could be considered an Executive Director for it, or the "Face of the Organization". I always liked being the "go to" person, or the Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne type. I don't mind putting in the work, but don't want the spotlight. For this project I was looking at the short term, and setting everything up to hire an Executive Director. I know it is just a title, but to me I don't think I would be qualified to be an Executive Director. Executive Director in my opinion is a people person, one who is reallyextraverted in personality. Makes people feel comfortable speaking to them in any situation. That's not me at all. I have honed my skills to be efficient as possible with least amount of keystrokes, and often speak with sentences to complex to understand with the slowest setting on my device. Therefore light hearted banter goes on to be loss for those outside my inner communication circle, and proves to be a pain to explain in the appropriate context. Also I have low tolerance for people who do not put their maximum effort into things THEY want to do in life pursuing careers, relationships, and gaining their independence. Even though I'm becoming more patient and understanding of people, I am still quick to tell them what I think without much sugar coding. All the good Directors that I have thepriviledge to meet and observe all had an extraordinary amount of patience and tactfulness which made people always feel welcome. Except for Julia who is more similar to my leadership style of having a unapologetic passionate brashness to her demeanor and focus, but through her conversations without the advocacy and professional hat on. You can really tell she really digs into herself to get perspective for her work. She really believes in the cause of Independent Living, and believes she is just apart of the larger collective of the movement. Unlike so many disability advocates, the principle that independence is a movement not a right for people with disabilities is built into the core to what everything she does. People do not need or should have other people give their independence to them without any sacrifice of sweat and tears of their own. Help through advocacy only exists after a person fully commits to achieving their own goals, and experience some adversity to consummate their commitment. Julia believes and teaches her staff to demand stakeholders share equal responsibility in getting things done without taking shortcuts. Many advocates either take one side or other. Either really champion the person with disability without asking or considering the responsibilities of compromise that should be place on the person, or the advocate sides with the provider base on facts without looking at practical solutions to resolve the conflict. From the two years I have been associated with DR&R, I have been impressed with the atmosphere of the office. Each person on staff are hard working, independent thinkers, and truly believes in helping people. Julia walks that thin line of being feared and respected, and has a proceeding reputation of being a hard nosed advocate. Learning to walk that line from a person who has a similar leadership style was a major plus in my reasoning for taking the job, because those are skills I can use in my web development business.
To be honest I didn't think I would be in the running for the Project Director position once she posted it to the public. There's people that get degrees in human services preparing for a position like this. There are plenty of people with disabilities I met throughout my life that is more qualified and believe that helping people with disabilities is what they are supposed to do. I always felt like this wasn't "work" or things I "plan" on doing. I just feel obligated to help another person feel that epiphany of independence, and epiphany of being apart of a culture all their own which in turn does the same for me. Just feels good to show the world that having a disability is not a prohibitive situation that a person suffers by themselves, but a cultural experience built on the way we struggle and solve problems. Getting paid for it seems weird, because in my world view I am a programmer first and foremost, and a science mind. The rest is just my community service projects to get myself away from the keyboard and active in the community. When working from home at a time consuming jobs like programming where I could spend 16 hours straight without a break. I have to make aconscious effort to stay socialize with my local community. Many programmers use church and their family as that outlet, I use soccer and other disability activities to keep my focus of why I work so hard.
With other applicants who probably studied and dealt with the sociological and economic value of developing a disability community more than I have. I was so sure by the end of the interview, Julia was going to say: "Sorry Kevin there are better applicants than you, but still come to the committee meetings we value your input there." It hit me in a major way last Friday, because that's when I really began to realize I had a face-to-face interview with a person in Julia that will look pass my disability and judge me on my merit as a person and my ability to do the job and give a honest answer as an interviewer about concerns she would have in hiring me. I began to analyze all of my work with my disabledbrethren, asking would it be enough to be picked over other applicants?
I have become so benevolent to an actual interview where my ability to do the job really matters. I began to freak out and worried if I should even consider taking this job. After countless encounters of trying to get a full time programming job and not getting pass the initial phone interview, because it was focus on if I could function within the development team and communicate rather than basing it on the technical skill that I contained and could contribute to the project. I was so use to trying to down play my disability to a fault of just getting in the door and show that I can do the work just as well or better than my able-bodied counterparts that I indubitably compromise myself when it came time to ask for an accommodation. Also it was the first time the interviewer was experienced in interacting with me before having to make a decision on both of our fate in working.
I recognized long time ago when hiring someone you are saying "I'm resting MY creditability on the line for this person to do the job." Entering a relationship where a person puts their life in your hands. Having multiple disabilities makes it very hard for people to take that leap of faith in relationships. Whether it be in work, love, or friendship. I'm very nervous and excited that Julia took a chance for this job.I think it will be a great experience for the both of us.
From all the stuff with getting people together at Kent, and all the leadership skills I took from that experience made this job feel like a calling. Don't know how to explain it, but while thinking long and hard about this opportunity and figuring out where it might take my life. I just kept getting this gut feeling of this is why I ended up in Charlotte and not Raleigh like originally planned. Even though I'm constantly on edge to get s***done, and miss being in closer vicinity of friends. Nobody really gets me down here. I won't go into the reasons why, because that's a whole monster with in itself to blog. I can honestly say after being here a while. The move down here has been a great one for my life in the whole.
Until next time...
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The Director position sounds wonderful and perfectly matched to your skills. FYI people it's true...Kevin you were ALWAYS the one at Kent making things happen. He does rock!
11/08/07 06:11:03 pm
Awesome and very insightful. Your eloquent expression of thought is refreshing and something our community needs. I think you are a leader in every sense of the word and already influence so many to get off their butts and do something. You amaze me (not with your ability to communicate), but with your ability to effectively communicate. You rock!
08/29/07 11:08:10 am
Da Bizness for today is my reflection of being competitive and power soccer
I have been apart of the Charlotte Power Surge for a little over a year since moving down from Ohio. Comming from a family where the males for two generatons on both my mom's and dad's side played some kind of sport. Mostly football, but my brother Tai, who lives in Memphis was really into baseball growing up. My brother Todd, and all my cousins and uncles played football since at least the 7th grade. Some earlier than that. They played all the way through high school. Todd, played t-ball, basketball, baseball, and soccer when he was from 8 to 12years old.Football becamehis sport of choice. All the while watching ach hit, run, catch, throw, or shot he made I was living vicariously through him.
Having a disability, and using a power chair I generally accepted the fact there wasno sports forpower wheelchair users. Except snow or water skiing which I enjo as well. Even so unless your instantly good at skiing, and have the meansto pursue a paralympic program in colorado. There is no chane to be competitive. A lot of chances for manual chair users,but for power chair users pickings are slim to none in most places.
I used other forms of competition to release my pinned up agression Cards, chess, checkers, board games, computer games, or whatever I could learn and accomplish, I did. Then came along computer games and the Sega Genesis with the Cobra joystick. The Cobra joystick allowed me to move and click the 3 buttons for the Genesis all with my left hand. So I was able to ompete and win against my brother at Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and the first 3 Madden games. Talk a lot of mess with brother, cousins, and friends. That's a requirement whenplaying games like Madden. Playstation and Xbox systems killed my short lived dominance, because since being a lefty and using one hand there was no solution like the Cobra.
Then at my time at Kent State, and with the student organization forstudents with disabilities, We adopted Universal Wheelchair Football rules for an activityto blow off steam before finals. That was my first taste of the joy of being agressive with other people in power chairs. All times before, it was la constant "slow down". Actually the speed was moderate or extremely slow even compared to the 6.2mph speed limit of Power Soccer.don't know about the rest of world, but to get our blood pumping players need to go at a hurried pace. Also bumping into each other or "trading paint" in nascar terms is a must for any power chair sport, as long as the contact is safe. At a event in Kent, a girl ran her chair into a wall going after a ball and she was taken from the game in the ambulance. It was said that she was following my lead, because I had my speed up. Yet I never came close to running full bore into a wall.Go figure.
Anyway when I moved to Charlotte, I had no clue what power soccer was until I was at a meeting at the local Center for Independent Living and they mention the Adaptive Sports progarm at the local hospital. So I found their website listed power soccer. So I googled it and found powersoccer.net and read everything I could about the sport. My first Tournament was in Lake City, Florrida where I met Jesse and my aggressive naturewas released on the soccer world. Also when I truly fell in love withthe sport.
Since then with my leadership skills, and anal attention to detail I have been elected team manager, and started a mailing list where I do believe the community has gotten a hang on using it.
Finally a sport I can be aggressive and everyone is on an equal playing field as I am in a power chair. Next step getting a better guard to be able to practice anytime myself, making charlotte a power soccer power house and host a tournament, and make the 2008 USPSA National Team baby!!!
Until next time. Dat's Da Bizness on my competitive streak.
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Awesome blog on you and your history. I see you haven't added much recently. What's been going on in your world for the past few months?
08/22/07 09:08:31 pm
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