Like the times that the person in the checkout line spies my gallon of milk and pack of spinach and says “Oh, why don’t you go ahead of me?” Thus, I don’t have to linger behind them as they scan a month supply of dried goods. Such incidents seem to be fewer and farther between as the years go by.

Or last year when the person parked next to us at the Christmas tree farm offered to give me a bungee cord so that I could better secure the sawed-off Douglas fir in the trunk of my Honda. That level of generosity was of such a high magnitude when the metal hook became unfastened and ripped a generous chunk of tissue from from head, I whispered the reflexive cuss-words, instead of shouting them out, audible across all of Kent county.

Moments such as these are  usually uplifting, though seldom life-changing.

Though one day later, I’m still measuring the gravity of a comment  that a gentleman, also a vet of the Chicago advertising market, wrote in response to a post I’d made in on Linkedin discussion group several months ago. Here is an excerpt of the what he told me:

I, too, resided in the ad universe and was intrigued by your Google+ post. I just wanted to weigh in that it was a wonderfully written proposal and very substantive in your arguments.

It was one of the most uplifting experiences I’ve had in a while. Enough so that after a long hiatus,  I began discussing the concept with friends and acquaintances (both new and ‘auld’) in grocery stores, at the gym, on Facebook. Heck, I event sat down to blog about it.

The post he is referring to is a post that I’d made on Google+ well over six months ago for my “accessible reality” concept. In recognition, that the whole world is NOT on G+, I wrote a post on my blog, which include my G+ proposal, some months ago.

I have been contracting out SharePoint skills for the past year at a client, and I have admittedly been spending a lot less time on my idea. Though, after reading that gentleman’s comment, I have concluded some  things:

1.  In the past year, Baby Boomers and senior citizens have not gotten any younger and product labels are still damn-hard to read. There is still an enormous opportunity for Accessible Reality.
2. I really need to get busy refreshing the conversations with friends and acquaintances  who have transitions to new jobs, with new client lists.
3. I need to gain feedback from strangers; whether it is kind or not.
4.  I will  to remind myself of all the positive input that I have had on this area from friends, acquaintances  and strangers.  Most importantly I need to remember the phone conversation in which a  former colleague concluded that “….this is a shit-hot idea!”
5. And as much as I feel awkward with the elevator pitch. I recognize the need to tighten mine up and be prepared to constantly refine it. I will also have an alternative pitch when taking the stairs, probably with fewer words to allow for the occasional huff and puff.

I am looking  forward to future conversations on this front and wishing all of my friends, acquaintances, and strangers a shit-hot 2012.

While most of the opportunities would be on the services side, I realized that I wasn’t going to get very far without a product prototype.  Thus I started poring over my materials to begin pursuit of funding.

A few weeks ago, I signed into Google+ for the first time. A few moments later, I noticed that a venture capitalist, Alistaire Milne, was funding a  contest on Google+ in which users would pitch their ideas in a  Google+ post and users would vote on the idea which they thought was worthy of funding. Mr. Milne would fund the idea that garnered the most users votes (+1′s).

I wasn’t prepared to make a pitch in such a venue, but I gladly gave up part of a sunny Sunday afternoon and whittled my 100s of pages of documents and presentations down to a Google+ post. If you are currently a member of Google+, you may my find pitch here. If you feel that my idea is worthy of Mr. Milne’s funding, a “+1″ is certainly appreciated.

For those of you who are not on Google+,Please feel free to contact me if you would like an invite to Google+ or if you would like to know more about my accessible reality concept. For your convenience, below is my pitch to Alistaire Milne:

Mr. Milne, Thanks so much for the opportunity to present my “accessible reality” concept in this manner. Best of luck to all of those who are participating in this event.

For the past several months, I have endeavored to craft a solution-framework to address print–accessiblity issues that affect the vast-majority of consumers. With the aging of the population in many countries, the problem will become increasingly worse. Despite the chants of “print is dead” we are beholden to print in several areas, most notably: product-labeling. I sought to find a way to allow consumers a means locate digital editions of print content which are inherently more accessible than print vehicles.

My own inability to read ingredients, allergens, etc. on over-the-counter and prescription drug packaging and food product labels, led to my exploration of a solution. In my case, it’s mostly a chronic annoyance, but this is tremendous risk of over-dosing, allergic reaction due to inability read instructions, ingredients or disclaimers. Research of the scope of the problem revealed that the population of consumers facing impediments to product labeling is a stunningly-large “Super-Demographic” with trillions of dollars in buying power.

Among the consumers facing impediments to product labeling (Figures US alone):

• 12 million residents are classified as having blindness or low vision
• 40 million senior citizens, who are over the age of 65
• 78 million baby boomers (ages 47 to 65 in 2011)
• 60 million residents who are not native English speakers.

The Solution Overview

Print vehicles begin their lives in digital formats ( InDesign, Photoshop…); they become static and less-accessible the moment that ink hits paper. However, current technology offers a unprecedented opportunity to provide users the means to find, and consume, digital editions of the content. Based on consumers’ preferences, content might be delivered in an array of accessible formats:

• Enlarged text
• Audio, “read-aloud”
• Language translations

In addition to experiencing enhanced levels of accessibility, customers would have the opportunity to vault from a printed vehicle (such as a product label) to an online content experience where there are numerous opportunities:
• To be educated, entertained and engaged by related online content
• To interact with other consumers through social-media channels.
• To make express purchases via e-commerce capabilities of retailers

The intent of the solution is to leverage existing (and affordable) technology in order to provide consumers with convenient access to digital editions of print content. Essentially, any device with a camera and an internet connection could be a candidate.

This will require a lightweight client application. This will be project-specific, based on retailer/manufacture requirements, but will likely customization of an existing software development kit (such as Google Goggles, Red Laser, etc…) to enable the “look-up” of digital content from a physical object. However, the bulk of the effort, and the revenue opportunities, will come from the delivery of services by my strategic partners. The scope and scale of services will vary, but might include: information architecture, software development, data migration, translation services, marketing, or instructional design.

For the past several months I have been engaged in robust discussions with subject-matter experts from a number of disciplines including: blindness and low-vision researchers, content-localization experts, software architects, marketing professionals , and social media strategists. The consensus has been that is a solid concept, thus I have recently begun pursuit of funding to develop a proof of concept for presentation to prospective clients in the retail and the consumer- packaged goods spaces.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have presented this idea to you all. Please see my blog, listed below, for a more in-depth description of the solution and my journey. Feel free to contact me scott.smith@invisiblefist.com

• Where is the coffee?
• I think I mentioned that I drink coffee; where is the bathroom?
• Any peanut allergies here? (If so, I am prepared to eat my snacks outside, shivering alongside the smokers)
• Is this thing that I’m working on backed up?
• Where can I find Post-It Notes?

It turns out that, yes, their thing was being backed up. Their particular thing is a forthcoming re-lease of their public Web site. Good thing, too; let’s just say I have a history.

I remember what happened on previous projects when I didn’t ask all those questions.  Like the time I located the coffee, but found myself lost in an unfamiliar building, seemingly miles from a bathroom.

Or the time I deleted a client’s SharePoint portal (forever) within 1/2 hour of joining the project.

About a year ago, I learned something intriguing about SharePoint. You can delete a site collection from WITHIN that site collection. I know this, because I accidentally did this upon starting the project.

My client had asked about a styling problem. He asked that I not touch the current style sheet because people were going to be reviewing the site that day. So to work beneath their radar, I created a sub site–three levels down in the hieararchy–to do some testing.

I soon learned that the problem was actually with a mal-formed custom layout template and took the following steps:

1. Informed my client of the issue
2. Fixed the problem on the layout template
3. Applied my changes
4. Performed a quick round of QA
5. Deleted my 3rd-level test site, in SharePoint Manage Content and Structure view

Actually……I deleted the top-level site–the site collection–and subsequently EVERYTHING that lay beneath. Buh-Bye, sub-sites, document libraries, calendars…..

I asked my client who was taking care of the SharePoint backups and was given some phone numbers of DBAs and system administrators. The answers to my question about backups  were reminiscent of that  recurring  Family Circus theme when the parents asked “Who did this?” and received one of these answers from the children:

• “Not Me”
• “Ida Know”

No backup. All the content that had been there at 8:00 am that day was gone by 8:25. My fingerprints were all over the mouse button that clicked the “OK” button in the dialogue box to authorize the deletion.

My colleague, who had been with the project for a few weeks, was able to recreate the few changes he had made to the cascading style sheet and layout templates fairly quickly.  A bigger problem was ressurecting the SharePoint libraries and lists.

My client recognized that it wasn’t my fault that the sites were not being backed up. Still, I felt like a dolt, not just because I whacked the site collection (could happen to anybody) but because I didn’t ask about backups. Bad business analyst! BAD!

I’ve since taken the won’t-get-fooled again approach. In subsequent projects, I recognized that I need to enquire about backups BEFORE touching the site (and after ensuring continuity of caffeination).