Get a (Virtual) Life

About a year ago I joined a Yahoo! user group, for a popular television show. I was unhappy with the direction the series was taking and was relieved to find a community of others who felt the same way. I didn't join it to promote my business, or to develop business relationships. I joined it because I needed an outlet for my frustration.

As time went by I became more and more involved with the group. It was a place to vent and to laugh. I was in regular touch with a community of people - mostly women - and felt myself developing relationships with them. I didn't know any of them in person. I didn't know who they were, where they lived, what they looked or sounded like. In some cases I didn't even know their real names. All I knew was that I really looking forward to reading the posts and to writing them.

There were a lot of "fan fiction" writers in the group. I've never been particularly interested in this genre, but took the occasional look at it before returning to the ongoing board discussions. As time went by, I came to recognize the groups's leaders: people who posted regularly and to whom people turned for advice. One person in particular met this criteria. She was on the board all the time and seemed to have an "in" at the network on which the show aired. She wrote a great deal of fan fiction and, I later discovered, had a wicked funny bone.

This person also had a blog - weblog, that is - along with a few others. At some point along the way I started doing something I never thought I'd do again - write fiction. In my case, since I also have a wicked funny bone, I wrote a satire. I thought it was cute, so I posted it to the "Files" section of the site, where other writers had also posted.

The response was immediate. They loved it. They howled with laughter. "Margy, Margy, Margy!" wrote one, the same de facto "leader" of the group mentioned above. "Clap, clap, clap!" Another wrote "OMG...that was hilarious!" It met a need. I found a humorous way of making the television show do what I wanted it to do. Everybody who read it came away with the same laughter and relief.

And, I got posted to someone else's blog. Other people read it. Other people liked it.

A few weeks later, our groups's fearless leader posted a series of stories she'd written. They were imaginary interviews with each of the characters on the television show. I remember reading them and laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. I sat in front of my computer screen and roared, with tears rolling down my eyes.

I posted her stories to my blog.

Do you catch where I'm going here? I had developed a series of relationships, not at all business related (or so I thought at the time), with people I'd never met in person. We were like a little family. We looked out for each other. We held each others' hands. We made each other laugh.

A few months later I found out the "fearless leader" of our group was blind. She'd never mentioned it and in one post casually said at some point her remaining vision would go. Then, "lights out."

The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. I had no idea. I had developed a fondness for her, as one funny writer to another, albeit in completely different genres. At some point, last October, she posted a link to a birthday card she'd received from a friend in Britain. I decided to send her a birthday wish of my own, with a little ditty I made up. She posted back, roaring with laughter and throwing out something funny of her own. We did that all day. By the end of it I was practically on the floor and so was she. From that point on, we were pals.

But, she was blind - or well on the way. I wondered if there were any way to set things up so she hear my posts and emails rather than see them. I love tinkering with computers and I spent an incredibly long time finding information about audio blogging. I tested out a variety of options, some of which worked for her and some of which didn't. In my search for a "play" button that was big enough for her to see I discovered YouTube, even though that's a video service. I set up a blog for her with her favorite fan videos and jokes. And, as time went by, she told me more and more about her life. It wasn't all funny. Sometimes she was fine. Sometimes she found the isolation and frustration imposed by her blindness to be more than she could bear. I began to know the whole person, someone I'd never formally "met."

I'm closer to her than I am to a lot of people I see all the time. We email or video chat every day. We laugh and cry together. I "know" her friends and she "knows" mine. I started writing mystery fiction. One of the characters - you guessed it - is blind, and very funny - most of the time.

None of this would have happened without that Yahoo! group. I now know about audio and video blogging on different platforms because of my quest to make her online experience easier. I also developed an interested in adaptive (special needs) software for blind/low vision users. I discovered Google's online suite of applications while trying to find a way we could work on the stories collaboratively. I ended up using a blog instead, but later set up a second business using the same Google software I'd earlier discovered.

She's also a customer, by the way. I sent her a Christmas present last December: an assortment of foods from my business. She loved a German cake so much she bought out my remaining stocks. She had me send cakes to her friends and her family. She has already let me know that I'd better order more this Christmas! Granted, she didn't buy the cakes just because she was my friend. She bought them because she liked them. But - she wouldn't have been my customer if she wasn't my friend first. I never would have thought to send her that gift.

From an unknown poster to a customer, a writing collaborator and one of my best friends. That's virtual networking for you. It happens on its own, when you give enough of yourself for others to grab onto. Relationships these days have gone beyond the physical realm. Try it for yourself and see how this works. I never would have expected it.

By the way, my blind friend and I will be meeting each other for the first time in person this October!

Navigating the Web Without Sight

I have two very good friends who are blind, either mostly or totally. I got to know them both through a variety of Yahoo! groups. Because of my friendship with them I've become increasingly interested in "adaptive software." This is a buzz word for software designed for people with specific disabilities. Since my friends are blind, I'm mostly familiar with software designed for people with this disability.

I've had a look and listen to two software readers: JAWS (an industry standard and do-all) and Zoom Text, which combines a screen reader and magnifier for low-vision users.

I was completely befuddled by JAWS, which requires some training to use properly. I'm sure I could learn it if I put my mind to it. At this point, however, I no longer have the demo version to play around with. Assuming I load it again, I'll give you an update.

I've had more success as a "duh" user with Zoom Text and find it quite easy to use. Of course, my vision is normal so I couldn't honestly say I'm coming into this as a typical user. However, one of my two blind friends uses this program and loves it.

I especially like the voice synthesizers, which had me rolling on the floor when I first heard them. They try to be life-like and, to a certain extent, they are. But, only to a certain extent. Still, it's a very sophisticated and well designed program and I like it. I'm very glad these tools exist. A disability can be very isolating. The web has provided a lot of people with access to the outside world and people with visual disabilities should not be excluded from this means of connecting.