Accenture Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Jill Kramer talks to Insider about Disability:IN and the importance of inclusion.
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00:00 I grew up with a mom who has multiple sclerosis.
00:03 She was diagnosed when I was 10 years old.
00:05 And if you don't know multiple sclerosis,
00:07 it's an evil, evil disease that takes from a person
00:10 throughout the course of their life.
00:11 Now, my mom is a sassy, strong, Bronx-born,
00:15 105 pounds, soaking wet dynamo.
00:18 And she has continued to live her life
00:20 exactly as she intended.
00:22 And I'm very grateful to have her as a role model.
00:24 But it has always increased my interest in accessibility.
00:27 Now, I am most familiar with physical issues
00:31 around accessibility.
00:32 I have two kids.
00:34 They were raised understanding that she can't always
00:36 fit in an elevator.
00:37 She can't get into a restaurant restroom.
00:40 She can't navigate-- she can't see at a parade.
00:43 I remember being at the Macy's parade with my kids
00:46 when they were little, and she couldn't see.
00:48 So there are things that they've learned.
00:49 And I observed that when you surround yourself
00:53 and you create that proximity, you learn a lot
00:55 and you think very differently about the routes you take,
00:58 the places you go, the views you have.
01:00 So because of that, I asked to be a management
01:03 sponsor of our Disability Inclusion Employee Resource
01:06 Group here at Accenture.
01:08 And through that, I became associated with Disability Inn.
01:12 I went to the first Disability Inn conference.
01:14 It was a year ago in July.
01:16 A colleague from TD Bank and a head of Disability Inn
01:19 said, can we have a cup of coffee?
01:21 And talked about the fact that all of these companies
01:24 are doing things to improve accessibility, participation,
01:28 representation.
01:29 But there wasn't really a marketing or communications
01:32 take on that.
01:33 So we asked ourselves, what would
01:34 happen if we brought a group of CMOs and CCOs together?
01:39 Everybody does something.
01:40 This is important to everybody.
01:42 What if we didn't try to one-up each other,
01:44 but rather work as a coalition to each take
01:47 on different aspects of representation, inclusion,
01:51 accessibility of content, et cetera?
01:53 And by agreeing to do that work across,
01:56 we would each learn and accelerate faster.
01:59 We brought together the first group just last month.
02:02 We wrote a charter.
02:03 We agreed to areas of focus.
02:05 We each agreed to take on different areas.
02:07 And it's very exciting because you have brands.
02:09 You have media partners.
02:12 We recently got an outreach from a creative group
02:16 who is specific at doing creative for people
02:19 with disabilities, everything from neurodiversity
02:22 through to visual or hearing.
02:24 And it's just an exciting, exciting time.
02:26 The biggest thing is to build this into the brief.
02:30 So I always think, imagine if you weren't asking yourself,
02:34 is my content accessible as you produce?
02:38 Do I have a visual description track?
02:39 Do I have closed captions?
02:41 But rather, you put that in the brief.
02:43 And what if sometimes a creative idea
02:46 was presented as if a person, a blind person,
02:49 was consuming the creative, or someone with hearing issues,
02:52 or someone with neurodiversity issues?
02:54 What if the creative was actually presented that way?
02:58 Because we always assume everybody
03:00 could experience the creative holistically.
03:02 And what a fun challenge that is for creatives.
03:05 And we all know, creatives love the challenge
03:08 of making sure that their ideas actually understood.
03:11 So I'm very excited about being able to truly leapfrog
03:15 the percent of content, and the percent of experiences,
03:19 and the percent of people working in our craft
03:22 who represent those different types of abilities
03:25 more holistically.
03:26 (upbeat music)