by Jeff Bishop
As recently elected president of Blind Information Technology Specialists (BITS), I want to tell all of you about the things we are doing within our rejuvenated affiliate. Most important, I want to share some thoughts about leadership and how we are approaching growth, culture, and our affiliate’s mission.
Rebuilding and Leading with Core Values
When I became president of BITS, I knew that we had some rebuilding to do to strengthen the organization. Our board of directors moved forward with a plan with these guiding principles in mind:
- Transparency - Listen and learn from your membership.
- Make sure that all are valued and that every voice is heard.
- Find out what members want from the organization.
- Think outside the box – Don’t be afraid to do things differently.
- Partner with others to bring value.
- Broaden your reach through multiple communications channels.
- Be bold in your ambitions – Do not be afraid to fail.
- Lead with integrity – None of us is perfect. Be willing to be vulnerable and authentic.
- Exude a culture of trust – You will empower others in the process.
- Lead with strength – Our members are our largest asset.
Transparency - Listen and learn from your membership
We are firm believers in listening and learning from our membership. Soon after I became president, we held a town hall event where we invited members and non-members alike to attend and participate. Our goal was to listen and hear what the membership wanted to tell us about our strengths, weaknesses, areas for opportunity and even some of the positive things that the membership felt we were doing well. The board took these things to heart and started to initiate change. The first thing we promised our membership was that we would be fully transparent and then, that we would empower our leaders and members to be whatever they want to be within the organization. We want BITS to reflect ACB core values, i.e., we want people to feel safe, respected, and welcome within the organization. Every voice must be listened to, every thought is valued and must be considered. With these principles guiding us, we set the tone for the rest of the work we set out to achieve. Change did not come overnight. We had to build the trust of the membership by validating what we were saying with our actions.
Make sure that all are valued and that every voice is heard.
We did the following things to give members a voice:
We started holding BITS presidential office hours for our members, each month, to assure that our members have a voice. These are informal chats where members can bring any issue to the table. We try to involve the board, committees, and diverse members so that Office Hours attendees can get help and gain an understanding about our projects and programs from a wide spectrum of BITS leaders and participants.
We are allowing people to have more representation at our board meetings, and we encourage members to submit agenda items for discussion and action. This approach to involving our members in governing the organization has proven to be quite successful, with on average 70 to 80 people attending every board meeting. And we are not done in this area.
Find out what members want from the organization.
We started collecting information about which committees our members might want to join, as well as areas of specific interests, as a part of our membership drive. We also looked back at the historical record, paying attention to what BITS members have been telling us over many years. It is all about listening, learning again, and then acting on that information.
Think outside the box – Don’t be afraid to do things differently.
We genuinely wanted to grow the affiliate, but we wanted to do it in a way that brought excitement, interest, and an emphasis on building a community and a culture where we value each participant who wants to join us. Our board initiated a free membership program for BITS. We announced that any member who had paid dues between July 1, 2023, and the end of the year, and any new members would be given an opportunity to get free memberships in BITS. We knew that we needed to figure out how to market this messaging, and we knew that the process of joining needed to be simple, easy to find and most important, easy to accomplish. We bought a new Internet domain, which is joinbits.org. We knew it needed to be catchy and easy to remember — and it worked!
We did not stop there. Simply saying, “come get something for free” is not enough. We also knew that we needed to show how we are bringing value to each member.
Partner with others to bring value.
We were a bit frightened. We initiated something with our free membership program that was either going to be an enormous success or a big flop, and we knew that we’d better be thinking about these possibilities as we announced our free memberships and planned for a new beginning that would involve both members already inside and now from outside of the affiliate, as well. We knew that we had interesting ideas, but we also knew that we did not already have all the resources to accomplish our goals. (Some might say we still do not, but we are truly learning.)
So, we started having conversations with partner companies to bring initiatives to BITS. Here is what we have done so far.
Educate and Empower People
We knew that we needed to bring more educational opportunities to the membership. The current members of BITS were asking us for more advanced training. We already offer great presentations multiple times per week across a wide variety of topics, but members told us that they genuinely wanted more. So, we partnered with employees from Microsoft, APH and others to bring developer-oriented training in Python to people who have never programmed in their lives. This was an adventurous plan, and we are still kicking off this training, but the response to this offer has been astonishing.
Members of our education committee have significant talent, and we have plans for shaping our training to meet the needs of every type of member. We have a lot of learning to do in this area, so give us some time to innovate.
Bring Perks to the Membership to Support Our Initiatives.
We knew that, if we were going to provide developer training, we would need to address two key challenges. What if a student, family member or colleague required assistance on their device? How could we help them? And, could our learners afford the books for the course that we were teaching? Our goal in providing training is to empower people with no associated cost to them.
To address the first challenge, we partnered with HYPERLINK "https://pneumasolutions.com/"Pneuma Solutions to bring HYPERLINK "https://pneumasolutions.com/products/rim/"Remote Incident Manager (RIM) to each and every BITS member for free. Any BITS member is eligible for a free hour of RIM access per day. An hour of free remote computer access every single day will meet the needs of most people. RIM access for all BITS members allows us to support those taking our courses as well as all BITS members who want to solve problems or demonstrate solutions for one another, in real time, online. RIM access will be beneficial for mentors and mentees, and the ramifications of virtually free remote access to computers will be far reaching – inside BITS and beyond.
Educating Through Learning
It is no secret that we live in a world where a considerable number of blind people are not actively employed, and many individuals have lower incomes. We did not want to block anyone from learning because they could not afford the materials that we chose to utilize for our course. We struck up a partnership with HYPERLINK "http://www.bookshare.org"Bookshare to provide free access to any NLS member who is taking our Python training course. We have a process for this: anyone who is enrolled in our Python course can sign up for Bookshare and obtain the books they need. Bookshare access membership lasts for the duration of the course, and enrollees will have access to all the books that are available through Bookshare while they are enrolled in our course. We are truly empowering people through opportunity, educating blind and low-vision people without barriers and teaching people who hunger for knowledge how to fish and procure that education for themselves.
Mentoring - Add abilities for all.
One of the things we heard loud and clear was that people needed a safe place to address whatever technical challenges they were experiencing. We often heard things like, “BITS isn’t for me; they are too technical for me, and I wouldn’t fit in.”
We knew that we needed to change this perception, and so we are in the process of trying to do just that. Again, every single person is valued and respected, and we need to represent that philosophy within the culture of BITS.
At the same time, we found out pretty quickly that we needed to address the ramifications of enrolling hundreds of members on a single BITS e-mail communications list! Such a list can get a bit chatty! People were overwhelmed – and unsubscribing in droves because of the immense traffic volume on that early BITS list.
We knew that we needed to provide a safe place for people who are looking for help and a different kind of space for people who want to talk about varying topics related to specific kinds of technology. So we created a new list, the Gentle list. It’s a place where mentoring is at the forefront.
The Gentle list creates a space for people who may not consider themselves as “technical,” or who may wish for assistance within one particular area of technology or assistive tech. For example, I use Facebook, but I am not an expert in the use of this platform. All of us can learn from one another. That is the purpose of the Gentle list. We have a great leader for our Gentle list: Belinda Collins, whom many of you in the Community already know and love. She is kind, willing to assist others and represents what we want this list to be.
Any member can bring a question to our Gentle list, and, if it cannot be answered easily, then our goal will be to find someone who will meet with and mentor the person who came to us with the question. BITS is about every member empowering every other member, and doing it in a kind, respectful and caring way that makes the hearts of both mentors and mentees sing.
Broaden your reach through multiple communication channels.
In BITS we genuinely want to allow our members to interact in whatever ways work best for them. In addition to the Gentle list described above, we have lists covering topics ranging from AI, Apple, Assistive Technology, Braille, Google, Microsoft, Programming, social media and many others. We also provide text chat and voice chat experiences where members can expand their conversations in their own unique and creative ways through social media platforms for each list. In addition, we have expanded our offerings across several social media platforms, including Mastodon, Facebook, Discord, WhatsApp, X (formerly Twitter), and we are looking for more ways to engage. Again, we want to give people space to meet and to empower one another across platforms and services.
Looking Toward the Future
We are not finished! The leadership team is thinking boldly and creatively to see where we will go next. We are working on a next generation version of the BITS web site, and we will be sharing more information about that in the coming months. We strongly believe in giving back within and outside of BITS and we are attempting to build something special for everyone.
I am immensely proud of our leadership team on the board, our committees, and our membership. They are truly representing ACB’s core values and being bold in taking initiative in whatever they choose to do inside of BITS. As president of BITS, thank you everyone for serving, thank you for giving of yourselves and most important, thank you for giving to so many people who are blind and have low vision.
Each of us is a leader in some way in our lives. I want to leave you with four thoughts that represent BITS.
Be bold in your ambitions – do not be afraid to fail.
Be bold throughout your life. Do not be afraid to fail. It is how we learn. I have told our board, committees, and membership that failure is a good thing if we learn from it. Think about your affiliate or about things in your own life. Things might seem scary at first, but often the rewards are exponential. Many thought we were a bit crazy in offering free memberships, and frankly, we were not sure it would work. We can assure you that if you put forth heroic effort and lead in a way that represents people first, wonderful things can happen. It takes everyone to achieve success. Make sure to give opportunities to everyone who wishes to pick up that oar and start rowing with you. The race is yours to win!
Lead with integrity – none of us are perfect; be willing to be vulnerable and authentic.
Represent yourselves with integrity. Do not be afraid to admit that something did not work. Express humility and express to those with whom you serve the willingness to learn from others. None of us are perfect in our ambitions, and we often do not get it right the first time. That is OK. It is what you do with it on the other side that matters most. Your respect, honor and leadership qualities will dramatically improve by being your authentic, caring, and humble self. Remember, we are serving to benefit others, not ourselves.
Exude a culture of trust – you will empower others in the process.
Presidents and other leaders, exude confidence by trusting others. Empower people to lead and get out of their way! Let them learn, grow, and even fail if necessary. Tell them that you are there to support them. They need to be accountable as well, but give them the room to be creative, to be bold, lead with compassion, and most importantly, lead with humility and kindness. This will empower your leadership team and your membership.
Lead with strength – your people are your largest asset.
Finally, lead with strength. Your biggest strength is your people. Listen to them, cherish them, value them, and let their voices be heard. Give them opportunities. Seek out the small voices; they have something to give, too. We must all never forget why we are serving, and if we lead with this greatest strength in mind, we will never lose our way. Remember, your guiding star is your member. Keep pushing for creative and wonderful opportunities for everyone. Your membership will lift you up as you lead.
As you attend the leadership conference, either in person or virtually, please keep these thoughts in mind. We are all building something special across ACB. Let us do it together and rely on one another to shape ourselves, our affiliates, and our members to be even greater than we already are. It is that great mindset that will set us up for success.
Join the BITS Family
Please consider joining a thriving and fun affiliate where we bring empowerment, learning and respect to every member. Join BITS by visiting our web site at HYPERLINK "http://www.joinbits.org"http://www.joinbits.org.