WEBVTT
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On this podcast, we are driven by truth, sometimes the hard truth.
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We believe it's imperative to be relentless for results because if you're not, your competitor is.
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We're obsessed with how to be better every day because that's what our customers deserve.
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And if you can set aside your ego, if you can truly be no ego, then we are the show to help you go all in, because good enough isn't.
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Hi, everyone.
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Here at Level, digital accessibility has been incredibly important to us for several years now, and so I'm really excited about this conversation today.
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Our guest today started as an advertising and English major at BYU and has built a career on the craft of words.
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he came up through Omniture, spent years at Adobe leading content and executive messaging across Experience Cloud, Creative Cloud, and Document Cloud.
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Then he left that big brand to build a customer marketing team from scratch at Zenoti.
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and today he's VP of corporate communication and content marketing at AudioEye, which is a digital accessibility platform.
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And he earned his CPACC credential and co-produces AudioEye's podcast,"HearSay." He has been pretty blunt that installing a widget and calling it done does not make a site accessible, and we agree with that completely, and that an inaccessible site may actually be invisible to AI, which I'm also really interested in getting into today.
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So if you run marketing for a business with dozens of locations, regulated products, long buying cycle, this conversation is about risk and an opening that you may actually not have your eyes on at this point.
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So, Mike Barton, welcome to the show today.
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Yeah, thanks for having me.
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I'm looking forward to it.
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so I would love to start with a, just a little bit of your, of your background in general.
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where did you grow up, and, when did you, we mentioned the craft of words being a big part of what you've done in your career.
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how did that start?
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How did that become your, your thing?
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I grew up kind of across the US, which I think actually is part of the reason I have gone in the direction that I have, which is it allowed me to meet a lot of different people, who have a lot of different backgrounds, both on the East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and it really just helped me see that everybody has such different stories to tell.
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Underneath those, though, were always, like, common principles, common needs, common pains, whether it's, like, business-related or personal, in nature.
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so to me, that's really where I started to gravitate towards marketing and English, in that it was the stories that were interesting to me.
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And I then quickly realized it's not just people who have stories, but brands and companies have stories.
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And the better you can articulate that story through words, the better and more, simply you can articulate that story, it becomes more memorable, it becomes repeatable, it becomes understandable, and ultimately I think it becomes a bit of a differentiation for you.
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And so that's the path I went down.
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it's the path that I've loved, in kind of understanding what's my personal story and for those brands that you mentioned that I've worked for, you know, how do we develop those brands and make them relevant to the audience that we want to sell to?
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Cool.
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That's, I think you're, you're, you're speaking our language'cause Mike and I both have-- We come from creative backgrounds in terms of, like, non-marketing.
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We, we both do improv comedy.
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I've done stand-up.
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Oh, cool.
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I've done journalism.
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So I think both of us are really, you know, really feel strongly about storytelling as well.
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So, you know, I, I wanted to ask, you know, I...
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And, and just, you know, for transparency for the audience, Mike Rubino i- is here with us as well.
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Yeah.
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He's our AVP of, creative strategy here at the agency.
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So, I mentioned CPACC credential- Yeah as part of that.
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And as I was saying that, I was like,"You know what?
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Let's talk about that." What is a CPACC credential?
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Yeah, so it stands for a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies.
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Essentially what it's saying is, I understand what digital accessibility is, I understand who it impacts, I understand a lot of the data points around who it impacts, meaning it's a lot more people than most people assume.
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In the US, it's about 25% of people have a disability of some sort.
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globally, it's one in six.
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it's, you know, understanding statistics like that and realizing that there's laws not only in the US, but across the world, for digital accessibility that, you know, a lot of companies either aren't aware of or aren't thinking about on a regular basis.
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and it's understanding the impact that this, that inaccessible websites and inaccessible digital content has on people with disabilities.
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So it's really for me, especially coming into the accessibility space, from Adobe and Zanadi, if I'm gonna talk effectively to people with disabilities, to businesses who are trying to serve people with disabilities, it's really important for me to understand where they're coming from as deeply and authentically as possible, and that started with a foundation of getting the CPACC, which i- involves, you know, a ton of studying, and a ton of research.
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But at the end of the day, I don't think you can be a good marketer in a new industry if you don't have a really solid foundation of not only the industry, but the people that you're trying to serve.
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I think that's a, a really interesting point, and I've often thought about, when we're talking about our clients and we're thinking about who they're marketing to, right?
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a large percentage of people have, accessibility needs or need accommodations in some way when it comes to...
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So what are some of the things that, are jumping out, or there might be, initial blind spots that people think of.
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Like, there's obvious accessibility things like contrast and screen reader things.
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Right.
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But now there's, I feel like there's some emerging things, about how you write copy and things like that that are maybe newer to people.
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What are some, areas that maybe folks aren't, aren't, familiar with?
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Yeah.
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So, there's a lot, i- in the accessibility space in terms of guidelines.
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you mentioned words.
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that to me is, a really important one.
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We also talk that in building a site accessible, the more you learn about accessible best practices, the more you realize you're making your content more usable for everybody, right?
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It's one of those, you do it for one group and it benefits, everybody else.
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So writing plain copy, that is really important for people who have cognitive disabilities.
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So for a lot of people who might come to a site, and again, that's an invisible disability, so you might have five coworkers who have some sort of cognitive disability that you're just not aware of because they haven't shared it and haven't felt a need to.
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But those people are coming to your website, and so when your site has jargon, when it's using industry terminology, when you're, you know, throwing in a lot of words for SEO that might not make the message clear, but you're talking to the robots, right?
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Things like that, make it difficult for people to really understand the message.
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So that's something we've spent a lot of time on, here at AudioEye is, like, how do we say, what we wanna say?
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how do we share the value we think we provide?
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How do we do it in a way that our ICP, our ideal customer pr- profile, who's coming to our site can get like that?
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You know, how do we, succinctly say that?
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And there's a widely attributed, who knows if he actually said it or, did it, but to Mark Twain, where he wrote a letter, right, to somebody, and he said,"Sorry this letter is so long.
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If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." And I think that encapsulates perfectly, how hard it is to write simple content.
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It's actually more difficult because you are cutting out key words.
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You're finding words that get the same point across as three or four other words.
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So that to me is, I think, one great place, to start in terms of thinking accessibly.
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And then the other is just a lot of the things that get skipped in coding, like, the image descriptions, link alt text, even form, alt text, a lot of that gets skipped.
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And when you're using a screen reader or some other technology, if you're blind, it's reading that code to you.
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And if that code isn't there, it truly is as if it doesn't exist.
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you probably have a little bit of an advantage, I would say, with your English degree.
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Do you find that you're still in English major mode, more than ever?
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Or have you switched over to the dark side of just full-on marketing?
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I think even having, like, an English writing background, and I actually tell my team this all the time, I'm like,"I actually don't consider myself that good of a writer." what I try to consider myself good at is putting myself in the shoes of somebody who's reading something or hearing something again through a screen reader for the first time.
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So that's all there so that when you're reading copy for the new homepage or you're reading copy for the big campaign you're launching, you've got all that context that fills in the blanks, that a new prospect might not see.
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And so that to me is, I think where it's less about the writing that I'm bringing to it, and more so I've learned to take myself out of the review process and replace it with what is that person on the other end, coming knowing, and what do I want them to, to leave understanding, right?
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You, Mike, you worked at Easterseals, correct?
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Mm-hmm.
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Is it a coincidence that you were at Easterseals and now you're with AudioEye?
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Like how does that journey, go from Adobe, spending time at Easterseals and, tell me a little bit about your passion for making things accessible.
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Yeah.
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Easterseals really was a coincidence.
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In fact, I was at, AudioEye for like a year before I was like,"Oh yeah, I, I did a, an internship at Easterseals way back in the day," which made me reflect, was that a coincidence?
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And at the end of the day, I'm one of those like very ethereal people who's like,"There is no coincidence," right?
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Like, everything is kind of a thread in the tapestry of our lives, which sounds like such a corny little statement, but that's a thread that in hindsight I see has existed, which is purpose-driven work.
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at Easterseals, that was very apparent.
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Sonati, you know, they're doing spas and medical work, so that was there, and then obviously with digital accessibility.
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Even inside Adobe, I was kind of thinking about,"Hey, how are we using this technology," whether it's the, like as you said at the top, Document Cloud or our marketing analytics and testing and targeting.
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How are we making lives easier, for the marketers or the developers on the other end?
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But ultimately, at the end of the day, like the thread of storytelling and the thread of purpose-driven work I think come together really cleanly, and, that's kind of why those have been repeating patterns even though they might not have been consciously, intentional.
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And again, it goes back to putting myself in the end user's, point of view, and it's kind of easy to do as a marketer, kind of easy to do if I'm talking to someone who, you know, writes a webpage.
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but where it becomes interesting is when you're helping businesses understand that the work that they do, which yes, will also impact revenue, will impact customer loyalty, impact conversion, it also impacts all those data points are people on the other side of that, and they might be using a screen reader.
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They might be not have dexterity with their hands, so instead of us- using a mouse, they're using, their keyboard or something else to kind of navigate.
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And so yeah, for me at the end of the day, you know, Easterseals was the beginning of a, a long career that will probably continue in that direction of, what motivates me to do my best work, and, at the end of the day, it's knowing that I'm helping somebody else, at the other end of that.
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Well, the word that, is popping up for me that you, you know, are, are alluding to, I think is empathy, right?
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There's a lot of empathy.
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There- as marketers, you have to learn how to be empathetic to the people that you're serving, right?
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So that you can communicate to them.
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But I feel like the accessibility angle is another layer of empathy that I think can often get overlooked, right?
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Like, you can be empathetic to the personas and to their struggles and, and as it relates to your product.
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But accessibility is this layer of like, how do you empathize with their, the way they interact with technology
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Totally.
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And, you know, part of that journey, being at Adobe for so long, I actually wasn't thinking about digital accessibility at all when I was at Adobe.
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It wasn't something that I intentionally ignored.
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I just had never really come across it.
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So like I was there creating video, interactive, content pieces, PDFs, all these things that are inherently not accessible as you're trying to make, you know, these standout experiences for somebody who's visual.
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so in hindsight I'm like, oh my, like how many- Yeah
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PDFs notoriously inaccessible.
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So like, when I came to AudioEye, it was like such like a lit-- like lights just going off every day as I learn more and more.
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And again, yeah, put myself in the place of, a, a blind person who's just trying to live their life.
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Like, you think to all the things that y- we do on a daily basis digitally, I don't leave the house anymore, that often unless I have to, right?
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I bank online, I news online, I communicate with my family online.
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I don't take phone calls anymore'cause I'm constantly messaging in one f- form or another.
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I'm getting my health information, I'm getting prescriptions refilled online, like m- giving all my details out, but I assume no one's that much different.
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So think about all that and how easily and quickly you do it in between meetings, in between other work you're doing.
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A person with a disability could spend three, four, five, 10 times longer on each of those things, and that means that their days are full of frustration.
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It means that they're not doing all the things that we're able to do.
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Some cases it just takes longer.
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Other cases, right, they can't do it at all.
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so it's such an important work, and again, I say that about Adobe, I, I wanna make clear they have an accessibility practice.
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It is a focus of theirs.
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But, it's just been, yeah, it very illuminating that it's something that's so important that I have unintentionally ignored.
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And so now it really is important for me not only to do it from a business perspective, but just to spread that awareness.
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you know, what, what I said during your intro, and it's something that we talk about all the time, which is You can't just put an accessibility tool on your website through a plugin and say,"We're good, we're protected," right?
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You had a, a two- a 2026 web accessibility litigation report, I think, that found that a notable share of companies sued already actually had a tool installed.
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So why is there this misconception?
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what do those tools actually do, if anything?
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Like, are they useful?
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Mm-hmm and why are, why are companies, number one, thinking they're protected and, and still getting, getting sued?
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Yeah.
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So the reality is, and this is something that I think a lot of businesses don't understand as they're trying to understand, how do I plug in accessibility?
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How do I build accessibility?
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Again, often small teams, maybe it's outsourced teams, they're also trying to figure out how to do their web targeting, their personalization, right?
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They've got tons of initiatives that they're working on that they know will influence conversion and the bottom line.
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so a lot of cases are like,"What's the quickest way we can take care of this?" And unfortunately, there have been some companies or that, you know, are out there saying,"Install this, automation, install this tool, and you are compliant." And so there's a misconception that a tool will do that, and unfortunately the reality is that even the best tool only can find, like, 50% of the issues that exist, on a modern website.
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The rest is contextual, and it needs, like, a human to actually go through with a screen reader or with some assistive technology and say,"Hey, here are the other things that we found." Where companies get sued is,"Hey, I tried to buy a yellow shirt from you, and I couldn't actually do that," or,"I tried to use your form to tell you that your site is not working for me, but I couldn't even use the form," right?
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So those become lawsuits because those are high risk, high impact, issues.
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So that's the, I think, the main reason, and really an interesting thing that we found in that litigation report, that there is more to it- than just installing a piece of code.
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And why is it that- companies wait until they get sued.
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I mean, why, you know, I know it's hard, right?
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It's obviously harder to build a website that covers compliance.
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And I, and I do in a moment wanna get into the single A, double A, triple A, WCAG, you know, things like that.
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Right.
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so w- what makes it so hard, and why do people deprioritize it when they know that it's an important thing to do?
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Yeah.
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I think there's a few things.
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One, you mentioned the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG.
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There's over 80 guidelines, that are very binary, right?
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You do it or you don't.
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but that's a lot to know, and, most developers have never heard of them, let alone know how to code, them appropriately.
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So that's a big, friction point, is like there's just not the knowledge that's out there.
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Two, it can be time-consuming.
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another thing that people are surprised at, when they start to look at their sites and how inaccessible they are is, you know, the average number of issues that we found, this year in our digital accessibility index, which just goes out and scans, over 15,000 websites.
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The average webpage had fif- or 62 issues per page.
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So that's not per website.
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Every webpage had 62 issues.
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And again, I said earlier, like automation can only find 50%, so that undercounts what is actually on the page, and it undercounts the more high risk issues as well.
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So there's a high volume to fix, and developed, development teams are expensive.
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it's unrealistic for a lot of businesses today, which is why there's companies like AudioEye that we, you know, partner to make it easier.
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But that's the challenge, is it can be super costly.
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There's a high volume, and, the reality is as well, what's making it more complex is the modern, website is changing so much more frequently than it did even five years ago, let alone 10, 15 years ago, especially with AI coding right now, just like completely changing that, that, some companies are changing it on a daily basis.
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And so you're just introducing more and more accessibility issues into that, that you have to then retroactively fit.
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But again- Companies don't have the time, they don't have the expertise, and they don't have the dollars, to put behind it, so.
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It, it reminds me a lot of, if you were in a physical space, right?
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Like, if you were in a, say a building that was grandfathered into certain things that you need to- Mm-hmm update and then versus building a, a new building from scratch, right?
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And, as somebody who has built-- I built a theater, from scratch, like a literally brick and mortar- Mm-hmm and also inherited an old building that had a theater in it, and the amount of accessibility things that went through new construction and- Yeah So I guess to translate that to marketing- Yeah how do you, how do you make accessibility more than just meeting a compliance check mark, but how do you make it part of your strategy?
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Is there any, any thoughts you have around, like, making it really ingrained in your marketing strategy and website strategy?
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Yeah.
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I think the, the nature and the way that you're asking that question is probably step one, which is most people aren't even asking that question.
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They are just treating it as a compliance checkbox, and they're saying,"Hey, the IT team or the legal team has said we need to be accessible so we don't get sued right?
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So they look at it as that, and that is very much like,"Let's install something, say we've done it, consider that good, and move on," right?
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The smart companies, that we work with and are talking to are thinking about it the way you asked the question, which is- I, I don't wanna get sued, But at the same time, I also recognize, from a marketing perspective, this can have tremendous impact on the SEO, AEO, and GEO efforts that we're trying to make.
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as the agentic web continues to, you know, evolve and w- as well, right?
00:20:06.310 --> 00:20:17.431
These personal agents, that people can use to book, to research, to buy, we're gonna see more and mat- more of that, and accessibility makes it easier for those agents.
00:20:17.651 --> 00:20:21.411
and then you get into, like, the people we're trying to help.
00:20:21.520 --> 00:20:40.391
as we talked about earlier, it's not a small population, and not only is it not a small population, worldwide it's, you know,$18 trillion in spending power, and it's a group that is extremely loyal because it's so hard for them to shop or book or consume, information on site.
00:20:40.391 --> 00:20:57.931
So I think as marketers think, of accessibility as like,"Hey, 5% of our martech budget is gonna make the other 95% that much more efficient and that much more effective," to me, it's, it-- that's kind of where the ROI comes in, is you're not measuring the ROI directly of accessibility.
00:20:57.941 --> 00:21:03.510
You're measuring how does accessibility impact and influence these other more measurable channels.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:04.250
Yeah.
00:21:04.711 --> 00:21:08.500
Mike, do you have any stats around, around, AI visibility?
00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:14.651
So if I'm thinking about AI visibility, and I'm like,"Oh, I know that that's a big thing I need to be thinking about for my website, for my brand.
00:21:14.651 --> 00:21:23.471
I'm not showing up in any, any of these results." w- you know, where on the list does, you know, making your site accessible fall for that purpose?
00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:28.070
And, you know, h- how much of, how much, how big is the impact, I guess?
00:21:28.070 --> 00:21:32.520
If I have an inaccessible site, how big is the impact on my AI visibility opportunity?
00:21:33.161 --> 00:21:42.490
Well, it's similar to what we would say as we talked about SEO in the past as well, which is the, you know, in this case, the agents are coming and scraping the page.
00:21:42.861 --> 00:22:06.780
And so the more that that code gives them the answers that they're trying to answer on behalf of the user who put in the question on the other end, That's-- A lot of that is the code that I spoke about earlier that's often neglected, is there's so much effort to what's visible on the page and having it clearly understandable, but they're not looking at what's visible, they're looking at what is coded into the page.
00:22:06.780 --> 00:22:28.580
So if you have, which is the accessible best practice, very clear image descriptions, if you're at the top of the page being very clear about your product, your service, your value, all those contribute to the engine who's coming and consuming that content to being able to understand it and get the answer back, to that person on the other end.
00:22:28.871 --> 00:22:38.161
So, we do talk to a lot of our customers and prospects that the more accessible you are, the more discoverable you are, and that's like the discoverability part.
00:22:38.171 --> 00:22:40.431
The other part that we were talking about a little bit is agents.
00:22:40.431 --> 00:22:48.480
And so agents come in and they scan what's called the accessibility tree, which is a map of that code on your, page.
00:22:48.891 --> 00:23:11.221
And again, if this site's accessibility tree is accessible, they're able to much more quickly consume the content, and in the f- in the, position of agents who are actually coming to not just consume it, but to fill out a form or to make a purchase, if it's inaccessible, the agent runs into the same issues a person would, and they can't also complete the task.
00:23:11.270 --> 00:23:11.671
Mm-hmm
00:23:11.840 --> 00:23:15.601
I think it's gonna come a lot sooner than a lot of us expect.
00:23:15.990 --> 00:23:30.547
maybe it won't be to that, you know, exact scenario, but I think that will be more and more important in the, the businesses that are accessible and make it easier for those agents, those agents will prefer, Yeah to use those sites and again, be able to accomplish it.
00:23:30.886 --> 00:23:36.987
And I think the, the end result of that is if your site is accessible, you're, you're gonna be the last to be enslaved by the robots.
00:23:36.987 --> 00:23:38.797
I think that's- that's the ultimate point we're trying to make.
00:23:39.376 --> 00:23:39.467
Yes.
00:23:39.606 --> 00:23:39.636
Yes.
00:23:39.636 --> 00:23:41.143
so sticking with-
00:23:41.143 --> 00:23:42.146
Self-preservation.
00:23:42.176 --> 00:23:53.527
Sticking with the AI piece for one second, you know, you have said that general purpose AI coding tools generate inaccessible sites because they train on inaccessible web, which is really interesting, right?
00:23:53.537 --> 00:23:54.767
Like garbage in, garbage out.
00:23:54.777 --> 00:23:57.277
It, it, it- Yeah it's the same thing for, for coding.
00:23:57.596 --> 00:24:09.047
if I'm building a new website and I'm using AI to help with the coding of that, how-- what do I need to be doing to sort of guard against it being an inaccessible site, with these tools?
00:24:09.317 --> 00:24:11.186
would be w- that's the first part of the question.
00:24:11.186 --> 00:24:19.287
The second part is, have you identified any really good AI tools for supporting, the, you know, making your website accessible?
00:24:19.297 --> 00:24:23.836
'Cause I have to imagine that there are some, and maybe there are some terrible ones, and maybe there are some okay ones.
00:24:23.856 --> 00:24:28.957
So first part is, thinking about the guardrails that you need to put in place when you're building a site using AI tools.
00:24:29.740 --> 00:24:29.971
Yeah.
00:24:29.971 --> 00:24:34.320
So, we did a study recently actually, which, actually we just released, this week.
00:24:34.381 --> 00:24:44.111
and essentially was we asked, five LLMs,"Hey, go out and build an e-commerce site, go out build a, a news site, and go out and build a, financial services site.
00:24:44.141 --> 00:24:50.830
Build it to WCAG 2.2, AA, accessible," which is the, benchmark, that you'll find.
00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:52.401
and we-- So we set them off.
00:24:53.060 --> 00:25:01.820
What was really interesting, and this is kind of your question of like which one might we go with to have better success, they all learned on that same inaccessible web.
00:25:01.881 --> 00:25:09.320
And so it was really interesting that across the five LLMs, they all made the same consistent mistakes.
00:25:09.631 --> 00:25:16.290
what was also really interesting, I mentioned our digital accessibility in-index, where we found the average webpage had 62 issues per page.
00:25:16.721 --> 00:25:28.280
The average LLM built was 55, so a little bit better, but when you're talking, you know, that little bit that's, taken away, they really weren't d- that much more, accessible.
00:25:28.290 --> 00:25:31.851
So second part of your question, what do you do about it then?
00:25:31.851 --> 00:25:40.570
If we just know that they can't do it, and I don't think they're gonna get better at it because the larger web is also still very inaccessible.
00:25:40.881 --> 00:25:48.351
what we talk about at AudioEye, which is a value we provide, we're not the only ones, but, we have our proprietary data set, right?
00:25:48.351 --> 00:25:58.611
So we've been around for over 10 years doing these audits with humans, running our automation, and so we have billions of data points of what works.
00:25:58.661 --> 00:26:05.691
We have fixes that we've written for customers where we say,"Hey, these types of issues are common across our customers.
00:26:05.951 --> 00:26:10.861
Here's how to fix it." so we've got all these data points that a general LLM doesn't have.
00:26:11.391 --> 00:26:24.699
So that to me is where companies, have to use it going forward, which is pair the speed that you get with AI coding tools with the expertise that exists in some of these accessibility companies like AudioEye.
00:26:25.098 --> 00:26:37.709
And if you can, you know, use like an MCP and connect the data there, to the AI coding agent, that is where you can code at the speed of AI, but you can do so in a way that you're confident, is accessible.
00:26:37.709 --> 00:26:45.449
If you're just using the tools, similar to somebody who's just using a, a, a plugin, you're gonna have this false sense of compliance.
00:26:45.449 --> 00:26:48.479
I asked it to, build it, so I think it is...
00:26:48.499 --> 00:26:57.219
In fact, a related survey we did is we asked developers who are coding, with these tools, and are thinking about accessibility, do you trust it?
00:26:57.409 --> 00:27:06.398
And overwhelmingly, 80% were like,"Yes, we trust these tools to code accessibly." our study found that was a kind of misplaced trust.
00:27:06.878 --> 00:27:23.138
And the same people, interestingly enough, we asked,"Have you seen an increase in lawsuits or complaints or issues since you've been coding with AI?" And 80% of that group also said,"Yes, we have." So there's also like a disconnect between this trust that exists and the reality.
00:27:23.499 --> 00:27:32.598
and but again, long story short, if you can take that speed, pair it with the brain and the expertise, that's where you find real success, and it's doable.
00:27:32.919 --> 00:27:43.138
I have to imagine that there are particular pieces that you can say,"Yes, AI is gonna be really good at helping me with this piece of making my site accessible." Like I'm thinking about, image, descriptions, right?
00:27:43.138 --> 00:27:55.982
Like- it seems like that would be A good use of AI at this point is like scan the site, identify all the images on the sites, and then give me, you know, here's-- train it on how, what a good description is of an image.
00:27:55.982 --> 00:28:01.643
'Cause I think people of- also think that like, oh, if it, it's a logo, I have to say it's a logo.
00:28:01.643 --> 00:28:05.462
If we're talking about like helpful information that helps users use the site.
00:28:05.462 --> 00:28:12.452
I think that was the biggest learning for me when I worked for Carnegie Museum of Art was, and not everything has to necessarily be described for you to be compliant.
00:28:12.512 --> 00:28:12.573
Yes.
00:28:12.633 --> 00:28:21.643
You have to make the site usable, and that means if there's an image of a family in a park eating ice cream or whatever, you're being very descriptive about the, the visual experience.
00:28:21.643 --> 00:28:28.133
But if it's just a, a random graphical element or something like that that adds visual flourish, that's not necessarily a thing.
00:28:28.133 --> 00:28:33.153
So, so, you know, Mike, you mentioned double A, you know WCAG- Mm-hmm you know, the double A standard.
00:28:33.452 --> 00:28:44.843
the way that we've always talked about it is single A, it does not quite get you far enough, and triple A probably goes further than you really need to from a realistic s- business function standpoint.
00:28:44.853 --> 00:28:44.873
Yeah.
00:28:45.133 --> 00:28:48.932
which is why we've always said double A is kind of that gold, that gold standard that we look for.
00:28:48.932 --> 00:28:50.903
is that-- am I interpreting that correctly?
00:28:50.962 --> 00:28:51.012
Mm-hmm.
00:28:51.012 --> 00:28:52.553
Is that how you would talk about it as well?
00:28:52.972 --> 00:28:53.843
Yes, exactly.
00:28:54.383 --> 00:29:00.303
L- level A is like, you should be able to hit this one if you're giving any thought to accessibility.
00:29:00.702 --> 00:29:13.512
but yeah, the double A is where, conversion starts to break down, where usability starts to break down, and so those are-- and again, like I said, that's where the lawsuits focus, on those types of guidelines and well, as well.
00:29:13.853 --> 00:29:21.673
That's also where you, as you move from, A to double A, that's where you start to need more of the human, expertise.
00:29:22.053 --> 00:29:22.643
But yeah, you're right.
00:29:22.643 --> 00:29:42.113
More and more, especially as AI does get better at understanding context and, as you are able to plug AI into some of the, the knowledge that accessibility companies, have and are able to provide, I think we will find over time that that number that I shared of 50% through automation, you know, might go up to 60, 70, maybe 80%.
00:29:42.623 --> 00:29:50.303
but it's always gonna-- there's always gonna be the need for humans to review and approve the alt text as an example, that might be given.
00:29:50.593 --> 00:29:54.182
And then, yes, you're right, like not every image needs all that description.
00:29:54.182 --> 00:30:04.053
If it's what we call a decorative image, you just mark it as such, and the screen reader skips over it knowing that it's not critical to the story or the, the information being passed on.
00:30:05.176 --> 00:30:10.277
So I think what my last question is, is really to help folks.
00:30:10.457 --> 00:30:13.227
Let's say you're a marketing team with, a flat budget, right?
00:30:13.227 --> 00:30:17.446
And it's, your site's already up, you're, you already got some stuff in market.
00:30:17.676 --> 00:30:21.787
Like, what is, what's one thing that they can do each week?
00:30:21.797 --> 00:30:26.826
Or what's the first thing that you tell folks that they, they can do for little to no cost?
00:30:26.826 --> 00:30:30.717
But what's, what would your advice be to somebody that says,"Well, we can't afford this.
00:30:30.717 --> 00:30:31.467
We have a flat budget."
00:30:31.537 --> 00:30:31.727
Yeah.
00:30:31.936 --> 00:30:32.156
We're done."
00:30:33.067 --> 00:30:43.146
I think two to three quick things would be, one, go find a free site scanner, AudioEye has one, there's others out there, just to get a foundational understanding of how bad your site is.
00:30:43.146 --> 00:30:51.076
'Cause like I said, most people assume it's probably okay, but then they do a scan, they're like,"Okay, this is more of a curiosity.
00:30:51.096 --> 00:30:53.866
We need to actually sit down and address this," right?
00:30:54.287 --> 00:31:00.707
and then the second thing is, you're right, you can't boil the ocean, you can't just all of a sudden invent an accessibility practice.
00:31:01.146 --> 00:31:07.287
So I think that for a lot of companies, it does make sense to find a partner that can help them do it.
00:31:07.527 --> 00:31:15.707
And, in today's blended environment of a little bit human, a little bit technology, it is a lot more cost-effective, than a lot of companies think.
00:31:16.076 --> 00:31:21.636
if you try to do it all internally, and reorganize, and hire new developers, yes, that becomes quite costly.
00:31:21.636 --> 00:31:23.196
So I think the partners is important.
00:31:23.616 --> 00:31:27.307
And then finally, focus initially on those high conversion pages.
00:31:27.307 --> 00:31:28.537
Focus on your homepage.
00:31:28.767 --> 00:31:41.547
if you've got campaigns that are, especially if you're spending money, to drive people to certain pages, or conversion paths, make sure those conversion paths, are looked at first, because that's where people are gonna break down.
00:31:41.557 --> 00:31:43.287
That's where you're gonna lose business.
00:31:43.287 --> 00:31:47.876
That's where it's not gonna just be, as we talked about at the top, you know, a nice to have.
00:31:48.277 --> 00:31:52.186
you're actually at that point fixing issues that will impact the business.
00:31:53.040 --> 00:31:55.921
Mike, you have a podcast, correct, at AudioEye?
00:31:56.570 --> 00:31:58.240
Yeah, we've, had the HearSay podcast,
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:02.010
And, and so is that-- I assume that's everywhere, Spotify- Mm-hmm Apple.
00:32:02.030 --> 00:32:02.631
Okay, cool.
00:32:02.881 --> 00:32:14.980
Yeah and you know, what y- what else would you like for people to know about engaging with AudioEye, I think, beyond, like, the HearSay podcast, and, like, what, you know, if people want to engage with AudioEye in some way, like, what's a good first step?
00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:19.990
Do you do, you know, audits for folks, or scorecards, or how do you, how do you approach engagement?
00:32:20.820 --> 00:32:29.980
Yeah, I mean, we tailor it to every business', need, but at the end of the day, we've talked about automation being important and technology, we've talked about people being important.
00:32:30.411 --> 00:32:51.570
That's our, that's our model, is, like, use both, use-- take the benefits and the things that work with automation, leave the things that don't work well, take the things that work well with consulting and experts, and bring those together, and that is how I think accessibility can be done at scale, and not, extremely, expensively as well.
00:32:51.980 --> 00:32:54.441
I think it's just, starting with, scanning your site.
00:32:54.760 --> 00:33:19.401
AudioEye, we have tons of best practice documents as well, so that you can start to build content and build pages, design them but I think it's just reaching out to companies like AudioEye and seeing, how their services can plug into the work and the processes that you're already doing as a company, so that you can work accessibility in and, really not have to, rethink your whole company structure around accessibility.
00:33:20.330 --> 00:33:27.280
Mike, I always like to ask, last question, on a more personal note, what is one thing you are reading, watching, listening to?
00:33:27.530 --> 00:33:28.131
can be fun.
00:33:28.260 --> 00:33:32.810
does not have to be, you know, specific to, the business world or the marketing world or anything like that.
00:33:32.810 --> 00:33:33.671
So, yeah.
00:33:33.721 --> 00:33:37.580
what's something you're enjoying right now that you'd like to, to leave with listeners?
00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:43.901
I started reading The Odyssey again after, having watched it, this year when it came out.
00:33:44.320 --> 00:33:50.310
and I had told my kids, like, when we went to see it, I'm like,"You know, this was, like, my favorite book in high school." And they're like, what?
00:33:50.451 --> 00:34:03.471
Why, why, why would that be an interesting book?" And I was like,"I don't know." So I need to, like, generally I kinda know, but I'm like,"I need to start reading again." And, like, at the end of the day, it probably comes back to what we talked about at the very top, right?
00:34:03.490 --> 00:34:13.780
It is a story that has stories within story about, you know, the human emotion, about his various encounters kinda teach him different lessons.
00:34:13.780 --> 00:34:24.521
And so I think stories like that, are what inspire me to figure out what's the fun story of this brand or what's the fun story, of this campaign.
00:34:24.521 --> 00:34:29.081
So yeah, I've gone old school, very old school with, reading Homer, as of late.
00:34:29.121 --> 00:34:31.130
But a- again, I'm, I'm finding it, it...
00:34:31.510 --> 00:34:40.771
All those storytelling principles, whether it was written today or hundreds of years ago or thousands of year, years ago, those principles are the same, so.
00:34:41.831 --> 00:34:42.181
Awesome.
00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:45.170
Mike Rubino, thank you also for joining me here- Thank you today.
00:34:45.170 --> 00:34:45.221
Nice to be here, Mike.
00:34:45.221 --> 00:34:46.530
We really appreciate it, Mike Barton.
00:34:46.561 --> 00:34:47.161
And, yeah.
00:34:47.161 --> 00:34:49.681
And, and the website is, again, your URL?
00:34:50.251 --> 00:34:51.141
AudioEye.com.
00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:55.800
Check out the HearSay podcast, and we look forward to you hearing from us, in our next episode.
00:34:55.800 --> 00:34:57.760
So, follow us on LinkedIn and, yeah.
00:34:57.911 --> 00:34:58.590
thanks again, Mike.
00:34:59.130 --> 00:34:59.320
Yeah.
00:34:59.371 --> 00:34:59.891
All right.
00:34:59.900 --> 00:35:03.061
That is a wrap on this episode of Good Enough Isn't.
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:04.621
Thank you so much for listening.
00:35:04.721 --> 00:35:11.521
Be sure to hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an episode, Till next time, everyone, remember, good enough isn't.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:04.049
On this podcast, we are driven by truth, sometimes the hard truth.
00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:09.470
We believe it's imperative to be relentless for results because if you're not, your competitor is.
00:00:09.910 --> 00:00:13.710
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00:00:14.019 --> 00:00:22.890
And if you can set aside your ego, if you can truly be no ego, then we are the show to help you go all in, because good enough isn't.
00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:23.859
Hi, everyone.
00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:32.560
Here at Level, digital accessibility has been incredibly important to us for several years now, and so I'm really excited about this conversation today.
00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:39.710
Our guest today started as an advertising and English major at BYU and has built a career on the craft of words.
00:00:39.969 --> 00:00:46.469
he came up through Omniture, spent years at Adobe leading content and executive messaging across Experience Cloud, Creative Cloud, and Document Cloud.
00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:50.810
Then he left that big brand to build a customer marketing team from scratch at Zenoti.
00:00:50.810 --> 00:00:56.670
and today he's VP of corporate communication and content marketing at AudioEye, which is a digital accessibility platform.
00:00:57.170 --> 00:01:14.010
And he earned his CPACC credential and co-produces AudioEye's podcast,"HearSay." He has been pretty blunt that installing a widget and calling it done does not make a site accessible, and we agree with that completely, and that an inaccessible site may actually be invisible to AI, which I'm also really interested in getting into today.
00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:24.180
So if you run marketing for a business with dozens of locations, regulated products, long buying cycle, this conversation is about risk and an opening that you may actually not have your eyes on at this point.
00:01:24.189 --> 00:01:26.870
So, Mike Barton, welcome to the show today.
00:01:27.489 --> 00:01:28.299
Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:01:28.299 --> 00:01:29.269
I'm looking forward to it.
00:01:29.549 --> 00:01:33.439
so I would love to start with a, just a little bit of your, of your background in general.
00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:39.706
where did you grow up, and, when did you, we mentioned the craft of words being a big part of what you've done in your career.
00:01:39.956 --> 00:01:40.656
how did that start?
00:01:40.667 --> 00:01:42.076
How did that become your, your thing?
00:01:42.087 --> 00:02:03.716
I grew up kind of across the US, which I think actually is part of the reason I have gone in the direction that I have, which is it allowed me to meet a lot of different people, who have a lot of different backgrounds, both on the East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, and it really just helped me see that everybody has such different stories to tell.
00:02:03.917 --> 00:02:13.567
Underneath those, though, were always, like, common principles, common needs, common pains, whether it's, like, business-related or personal, in nature.
00:02:14.026 --> 00:02:21.736
so to me, that's really where I started to gravitate towards marketing and English, in that it was the stories that were interesting to me.
00:02:21.757 --> 00:02:28.497
And I then quickly realized it's not just people who have stories, but brands and companies have stories.
00:02:28.526 --> 00:02:44.766
And the better you can articulate that story through words, the better and more, simply you can articulate that story, it becomes more memorable, it becomes repeatable, it becomes understandable, and ultimately I think it becomes a bit of a differentiation for you.
00:02:44.766 --> 00:02:47.037
And so that's the path I went down.
00:02:47.146 --> 00:03:01.037
it's the path that I've loved, in kind of understanding what's my personal story and for those brands that you mentioned that I've worked for, you know, how do we develop those brands and make them relevant to the audience that we want to sell to?
00:03:01.377 --> 00:03:01.646
Cool.
00:03:01.847 --> 00:03:08.437
That's, I think you're, you're, you're speaking our language'cause Mike and I both have-- We come from creative backgrounds in terms of, like, non-marketing.
00:03:08.437 --> 00:03:10.257
We, we both do improv comedy.
00:03:10.257 --> 00:03:11.026
I've done stand-up.
00:03:11.106 --> 00:03:11.437
Oh, cool.
00:03:11.497 --> 00:03:12.197
I've done journalism.
00:03:12.197 --> 00:03:16.687
So I think both of us are really, you know, really feel strongly about storytelling as well.
00:03:16.697 --> 00:03:18.947
So, you know, I, I wanted to ask, you know, I...
00:03:18.986 --> 00:03:24.637
And, and just, you know, for transparency for the audience, Mike Rubino i- is here with us as well.
00:03:24.646 --> 00:03:24.667
Yeah.
00:03:24.697 --> 00:03:27.806
He's our AVP of, creative strategy here at the agency.
00:03:28.116 --> 00:03:31.757
So, I mentioned CPACC credential- Yeah as part of that.
00:03:31.817 --> 00:03:33.697
And as I was saying that, I was like,"You know what?
00:03:34.287 --> 00:03:37.567
Let's talk about that." What is a CPACC credential?
00:03:38.419 --> 00:03:43.239
Yeah, so it stands for a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies.
00:03:43.658 --> 00:03:59.218
Essentially what it's saying is, I understand what digital accessibility is, I understand who it impacts, I understand a lot of the data points around who it impacts, meaning it's a lot more people than most people assume.
00:03:59.288 --> 00:04:03.579
In the US, it's about 25% of people have a disability of some sort.
00:04:03.908 --> 00:04:05.609
globally, it's one in six.
00:04:05.998 --> 00:04:19.389
it's, you know, understanding statistics like that and realizing that there's laws not only in the US, but across the world, for digital accessibility that, you know, a lot of companies either aren't aware of or aren't thinking about on a regular basis.
00:04:19.689 --> 00:04:28.178
and it's understanding the impact that this, that inaccessible websites and inaccessible digital content has on people with disabilities.
00:04:28.189 --> 00:04:57.689
So it's really for me, especially coming into the accessibility space, from Adobe and Zanadi, if I'm gonna talk effectively to people with disabilities, to businesses who are trying to serve people with disabilities, it's really important for me to understand where they're coming from as deeply and authentically as possible, and that started with a foundation of getting the CPACC, which i- involves, you know, a ton of studying, and a ton of research.
00:04:57.699 --> 00:05:08.009
But at the end of the day, I don't think you can be a good marketer in a new industry if you don't have a really solid foundation of not only the industry, but the people that you're trying to serve.
00:05:08.788 --> 00:05:16.869
I think that's a, a really interesting point, and I've often thought about, when we're talking about our clients and we're thinking about who they're marketing to, right?
00:05:16.869 --> 00:05:22.809
a large percentage of people have, accessibility needs or need accommodations in some way when it comes to...
00:05:23.158 --> 00:05:28.028
So what are some of the things that, are jumping out, or there might be, initial blind spots that people think of.
00:05:28.069 --> 00:05:32.288
Like, there's obvious accessibility things like contrast and screen reader things.
00:05:32.348 --> 00:05:32.579
Right.
00:05:33.009 --> 00:05:39.488
But now there's, I feel like there's some emerging things, about how you write copy and things like that that are maybe newer to people.
00:05:39.579 --> 00:05:41.819
What are some, areas that maybe folks aren't, aren't, familiar with?
00:05:43.382 --> 00:05:43.603
Yeah.
00:05:43.603 --> 00:05:47.973
So, there's a lot, i- in the accessibility space in terms of guidelines.
00:05:48.273 --> 00:05:49.333
you mentioned words.
00:05:49.403 --> 00:05:51.543
that to me is, a really important one.
00:05:51.882 --> 00:06:01.793
We also talk that in building a site accessible, the more you learn about accessible best practices, the more you realize you're making your content more usable for everybody, right?
00:06:01.793 --> 00:06:05.423
It's one of those, you do it for one group and it benefits, everybody else.
00:06:05.783 --> 00:06:11.713
So writing plain copy, that is really important for people who have cognitive disabilities.
00:06:11.713 --> 00:06:24.002
So for a lot of people who might come to a site, and again, that's an invisible disability, so you might have five coworkers who have some sort of cognitive disability that you're just not aware of because they haven't shared it and haven't felt a need to.
00:06:24.512 --> 00:06:38.632
But those people are coming to your website, and so when your site has jargon, when it's using industry terminology, when you're, you know, throwing in a lot of words for SEO that might not make the message clear, but you're talking to the robots, right?
00:06:39.182 --> 00:06:42.593
Things like that, make it difficult for people to really understand the message.
00:06:42.593 --> 00:06:50.882
So that's something we've spent a lot of time on, here at AudioEye is, like, how do we say, what we wanna say?
00:06:51.442 --> 00:06:54.413
how do we share the value we think we provide?
00:06:54.903 --> 00:07:02.543
How do we do it in a way that our ICP, our ideal customer pr- profile, who's coming to our site can get like that?
00:07:02.543 --> 00:07:05.103
You know, how do we, succinctly say that?
00:07:05.103 --> 00:07:16.733
And there's a widely attributed, who knows if he actually said it or, did it, but to Mark Twain, where he wrote a letter, right, to somebody, and he said,"Sorry this letter is so long.
00:07:16.733 --> 00:07:25.642
If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." And I think that encapsulates perfectly, how hard it is to write simple content.
00:07:26.002 --> 00:07:30.213
It's actually more difficult because you are cutting out key words.
00:07:30.213 --> 00:07:34.502
You're finding words that get the same point across as three or four other words.
00:07:34.502 --> 00:07:40.273
So that to me is, I think, one great place, to start in terms of thinking accessibly.
00:07:40.273 --> 00:07:52.923
And then the other is just a lot of the things that get skipped in coding, like, the image descriptions, link alt text, even form, alt text, a lot of that gets skipped.
00:07:52.923 --> 00:07:58.742
And when you're using a screen reader or some other technology, if you're blind, it's reading that code to you.
00:07:58.742 --> 00:08:03.452
And if that code isn't there, it truly is as if it doesn't exist.
00:08:05.336 --> 00:08:08.177
you probably have a little bit of an advantage, I would say, with your English degree.
00:08:08.177 --> 00:08:13.437
Do you find that you're still in English major mode, more than ever?
00:08:13.437 --> 00:08:17.226
Or have you switched over to the dark side of just full-on marketing?
00:08:18.786 --> 00:08:38.746
I think even having, like, an English writing background, and I actually tell my team this all the time, I'm like,"I actually don't consider myself that good of a writer." what I try to consider myself good at is putting myself in the shoes of somebody who's reading something or hearing something again through a screen reader for the first time.
00:08:39.366 --> 00:08:51.407
So that's all there so that when you're reading copy for the new homepage or you're reading copy for the big campaign you're launching, you've got all that context that fills in the blanks, that a new prospect might not see.
00:08:51.407 --> 00:09:13.437
And so that to me is, I think where it's less about the writing that I'm bringing to it, and more so I've learned to take myself out of the review process and replace it with what is that person on the other end, coming knowing, and what do I want them to, to leave understanding, right?
00:09:14.691 --> 00:09:17.081
You, Mike, you worked at Easterseals, correct?
00:09:17.441 --> 00:09:17.760
Mm-hmm.
00:09:18.171 --> 00:09:22.541
Is it a coincidence that you were at Easterseals and now you're with AudioEye?
00:09:22.561 --> 00:09:30.291
Like how does that journey, go from Adobe, spending time at Easterseals and, tell me a little bit about your passion for making things accessible.
00:09:30.900 --> 00:09:31.201
Yeah.
00:09:31.850 --> 00:09:33.600
Easterseals really was a coincidence.
00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:43.201
In fact, I was at, AudioEye for like a year before I was like,"Oh yeah, I, I did a, an internship at Easterseals way back in the day," which made me reflect, was that a coincidence?
00:09:43.201 --> 00:09:48.490
And at the end of the day, I'm one of those like very ethereal people who's like,"There is no coincidence," right?
00:09:48.490 --> 00:10:02.230
Like, everything is kind of a thread in the tapestry of our lives, which sounds like such a corny little statement, but that's a thread that in hindsight I see has existed, which is purpose-driven work.
00:10:02.691 --> 00:10:04.431
at Easterseals, that was very apparent.
00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.291
Sonati, you know, they're doing spas and medical work, so that was there, and then obviously with digital accessibility.
00:10:10.721 --> 00:10:21.480
Even inside Adobe, I was kind of thinking about,"Hey, how are we using this technology," whether it's the, like as you said at the top, Document Cloud or our marketing analytics and testing and targeting.
00:10:22.171 --> 00:10:26.750
How are we making lives easier, for the marketers or the developers on the other end?
00:10:27.350 --> 00:10:43.150
But ultimately, at the end of the day, like the thread of storytelling and the thread of purpose-driven work I think come together really cleanly, and, that's kind of why those have been repeating patterns even though they might not have been consciously, intentional.
00:10:43.360 --> 00:10:54.671
And again, it goes back to putting myself in the end user's, point of view, and it's kind of easy to do as a marketer, kind of easy to do if I'm talking to someone who, you know, writes a webpage.
00:10:55.081 --> 00:11:14.890
but where it becomes interesting is when you're helping businesses understand that the work that they do, which yes, will also impact revenue, will impact customer loyalty, impact conversion, it also impacts all those data points are people on the other side of that, and they might be using a screen reader.
00:11:15.051 --> 00:11:22.850
They might be not have dexterity with their hands, so instead of us- using a mouse, they're using, their keyboard or something else to kind of navigate.
00:11:22.850 --> 00:11:38.770
And so yeah, for me at the end of the day, you know, Easterseals was the beginning of a, a long career that will probably continue in that direction of, what motivates me to do my best work, and, at the end of the day, it's knowing that I'm helping somebody else, at the other end of that.
00:11:40.126 --> 00:11:45.256
Well, the word that, is popping up for me that you, you know, are, are alluding to, I think is empathy, right?
00:11:45.287 --> 00:11:46.506
There's a lot of empathy.
00:11:47.106 --> 00:11:51.846
There- as marketers, you have to learn how to be empathetic to the people that you're serving, right?
00:11:51.846 --> 00:11:54.086
So that you can communicate to them.
00:11:54.616 --> 00:12:01.346
But I feel like the accessibility angle is another layer of empathy that I think can often get overlooked, right?
00:12:01.346 --> 00:12:07.326
Like, you can be empathetic to the personas and to their struggles and, and as it relates to your product.
00:12:07.826 --> 00:12:13.937
But accessibility is this layer of like, how do you empathize with their, the way they interact with technology
00:12:15.697 --> 00:12:16.076
Totally.
00:12:16.437 --> 00:12:24.716
And, you know, part of that journey, being at Adobe for so long, I actually wasn't thinking about digital accessibility at all when I was at Adobe.
00:12:24.716 --> 00:12:27.927
It wasn't something that I intentionally ignored.
00:12:28.486 --> 00:12:30.576
I just had never really come across it.
00:12:30.586 --> 00:12:42.876
So like I was there creating video, interactive, content pieces, PDFs, all these things that are inherently not accessible as you're trying to make, you know, these standout experiences for somebody who's visual.
00:12:43.256 --> 00:12:46.636
so in hindsight I'm like, oh my, like how many- Yeah
00:12:46.697 --> 00:12:48.897
PDFs notoriously inaccessible.
00:12:49.767 --> 00:12:56.697
So like, when I came to AudioEye, it was like such like a lit-- like lights just going off every day as I learn more and more.
00:12:56.697 --> 00:13:03.407
And again, yeah, put myself in the place of, a, a blind person who's just trying to live their life.
00:13:03.447 --> 00:13:12.116
Like, you think to all the things that y- we do on a daily basis digitally, I don't leave the house anymore, that often unless I have to, right?
00:13:12.466 --> 00:13:15.996
I bank online, I news online, I communicate with my family online.
00:13:15.996 --> 00:13:21.136
I don't take phone calls anymore'cause I'm constantly messaging in one f- form or another.
00:13:21.397 --> 00:13:29.027
I'm getting my health information, I'm getting prescriptions refilled online, like m- giving all my details out, but I assume no one's that much different.
00:13:29.506 --> 00:13:35.736
So think about all that and how easily and quickly you do it in between meetings, in between other work you're doing.
00:13:36.336 --> 00:13:46.226
A person with a disability could spend three, four, five, 10 times longer on each of those things, and that means that their days are full of frustration.
00:13:46.236 --> 00:13:49.657
It means that they're not doing all the things that we're able to do.
00:13:49.886 --> 00:13:51.206
Some cases it just takes longer.
00:13:51.206 --> 00:13:53.267
Other cases, right, they can't do it at all.
00:13:53.797 --> 00:14:01.576
so it's such an important work, and again, I say that about Adobe, I, I wanna make clear they have an accessibility practice.
00:14:01.596 --> 00:14:02.846
It is a focus of theirs.
00:14:03.057 --> 00:14:11.006
But, it's just been, yeah, it very illuminating that it's something that's so important that I have unintentionally ignored.
00:14:11.006 --> 00:14:16.626
And so now it really is important for me not only to do it from a business perspective, but just to spread that awareness.
00:14:17.076 --> 00:14:28.615
you know, what, what I said during your intro, and it's something that we talk about all the time, which is You can't just put an accessibility tool on your website through a plugin and say,"We're good, we're protected," right?
00:14:28.835 --> 00:14:37.254
You had a, a two- a 2026 web accessibility litigation report, I think, that found that a notable share of companies sued already actually had a tool installed.
00:14:37.585 --> 00:14:39.875
So why is there this misconception?
00:14:40.304 --> 00:14:42.884
what do those tools actually do, if anything?
00:14:42.924 --> 00:14:44.054
Like, are they useful?
00:14:44.325 --> 00:14:50.125
Mm-hmm and why are, why are companies, number one, thinking they're protected and, and still getting, getting sued?
00:14:50.674 --> 00:14:50.995
Yeah.
00:14:51.575 --> 00:15:01.595
So the reality is, and this is something that I think a lot of businesses don't understand as they're trying to understand, how do I plug in accessibility?
00:15:01.595 --> 00:15:02.825
How do I build accessibility?
00:15:02.825 --> 00:15:11.325
Again, often small teams, maybe it's outsourced teams, they're also trying to figure out how to do their web targeting, their personalization, right?
00:15:11.325 --> 00:15:17.225
They've got tons of initiatives that they're working on that they know will influence conversion and the bottom line.
00:15:17.815 --> 00:15:42.995
so a lot of cases are like,"What's the quickest way we can take care of this?" And unfortunately, there have been some companies or that, you know, are out there saying,"Install this, automation, install this tool, and you are compliant." And so there's a misconception that a tool will do that, and unfortunately the reality is that even the best tool only can find, like, 50% of the issues that exist, on a modern website.
00:15:43.465 --> 00:16:04.424
The rest is contextual, and it needs, like, a human to actually go through with a screen reader or with some assistive technology and say,"Hey, here are the other things that we found." Where companies get sued is,"Hey, I tried to buy a yellow shirt from you, and I couldn't actually do that," or,"I tried to use your form to tell you that your site is not working for me, but I couldn't even use the form," right?
00:16:04.434 --> 00:16:09.625
So those become lawsuits because those are high risk, high impact, issues.
00:16:09.634 --> 00:16:19.144
So that's the, I think, the main reason, and really an interesting thing that we found in that litigation report, that there is more to it- than just installing a piece of code.
00:16:19.715 --> 00:16:24.774
And why is it that- companies wait until they get sued.
00:16:25.644 --> 00:16:27.835
I mean, why, you know, I know it's hard, right?
00:16:27.875 --> 00:16:31.424
It's obviously harder to build a website that covers compliance.
00:16:31.424 --> 00:16:36.475
And I, and I do in a moment wanna get into the single A, double A, triple A, WCAG, you know, things like that.
00:16:36.524 --> 00:16:36.774
Right.
00:16:36.875 --> 00:16:44.875
so w- what makes it so hard, and why do people deprioritize it when they know that it's an important thing to do?
00:16:45.414 --> 00:16:45.664
Yeah.
00:16:46.134 --> 00:16:47.245
I think there's a few things.
00:16:47.245 --> 00:16:51.894
One, you mentioned the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, WCAG.
00:16:52.355 --> 00:16:55.195
There's over 80 guidelines, that are very binary, right?
00:16:55.195 --> 00:16:56.254
You do it or you don't.
00:16:56.705 --> 00:17:03.605
but that's a lot to know, and, most developers have never heard of them, let alone know how to code, them appropriately.
00:17:03.605 --> 00:17:07.704
So that's a big, friction point, is like there's just not the knowledge that's out there.
00:17:08.095 --> 00:17:09.654
Two, it can be time-consuming.
00:17:09.755 --> 00:17:24.904
another thing that people are surprised at, when they start to look at their sites and how inaccessible they are is, you know, the average number of issues that we found, this year in our digital accessibility index, which just goes out and scans, over 15,000 websites.
00:17:25.904 --> 00:17:30.105
The average webpage had fif- or 62 issues per page.
00:17:30.275 --> 00:17:31.474
So that's not per website.
00:17:31.505 --> 00:17:33.305
Every webpage had 62 issues.
00:17:33.694 --> 00:17:44.674
And again, I said earlier, like automation can only find 50%, so that undercounts what is actually on the page, and it undercounts the more high risk issues as well.
00:17:45.194 --> 00:17:50.944
So there's a high volume to fix, and developed, development teams are expensive.
00:17:50.994 --> 00:17:58.825
it's unrealistic for a lot of businesses today, which is why there's companies like AudioEye that we, you know, partner to make it easier.
00:17:59.204 --> 00:18:01.414
But that's the challenge, is it can be super costly.
00:18:01.434 --> 00:18:20.095
There's a high volume, and, the reality is as well, what's making it more complex is the modern, website is changing so much more frequently than it did even five years ago, let alone 10, 15 years ago, especially with AI coding right now, just like completely changing that, that, some companies are changing it on a daily basis.
00:18:20.095 --> 00:18:27.474
And so you're just introducing more and more accessibility issues into that, that you have to then retroactively fit.
00:18:27.585 --> 00:18:34.207
But again- Companies don't have the time, they don't have the expertise, and they don't have the dollars, to put behind it, so.
00:18:34.626 --> 00:18:39.086
It, it reminds me a lot of, if you were in a physical space, right?
00:18:39.096 --> 00:18:47.227
Like, if you were in a, say a building that was grandfathered into certain things that you need to- Mm-hmm update and then versus building a, a new building from scratch, right?
00:18:47.356 --> 00:19:09.497
And, as somebody who has built-- I built a theater, from scratch, like a literally brick and mortar- Mm-hmm and also inherited an old building that had a theater in it, and the amount of accessibility things that went through new construction and- Yeah So I guess to translate that to marketing- Yeah how do you, how do you make accessibility more than just meeting a compliance check mark, but how do you make it part of your strategy?
00:19:10.096 --> 00:19:15.926
Is there any, any thoughts you have around, like, making it really ingrained in your marketing strategy and website strategy?
00:19:16.527 --> 00:19:16.777
Yeah.
00:19:17.186 --> 00:19:24.757
I think the, the nature and the way that you're asking that question is probably step one, which is most people aren't even asking that question.
00:19:25.356 --> 00:19:34.356
They are just treating it as a compliance checkbox, and they're saying,"Hey, the IT team or the legal team has said we need to be accessible so we don't get sued right?
00:19:34.366 --> 00:19:41.576
So they look at it as that, and that is very much like,"Let's install something, say we've done it, consider that good, and move on," right?
00:19:42.207 --> 00:20:00.810
The smart companies, that we work with and are talking to are thinking about it the way you asked the question, which is- I, I don't wanna get sued, But at the same time, I also recognize, from a marketing perspective, this can have tremendous impact on the SEO, AEO, and GEO efforts that we're trying to make.
00:20:01.191 --> 00:20:06.260
as the agentic web continues to, you know, evolve and w- as well, right?
00:20:06.310 --> 00:20:17.431
These personal agents, that people can use to book, to research, to buy, we're gonna see more and mat- more of that, and accessibility makes it easier for those agents.
00:20:17.651 --> 00:20:21.411
and then you get into, like, the people we're trying to help.
00:20:21.520 --> 00:20:40.391
as we talked about earlier, it's not a small population, and not only is it not a small population, worldwide it's, you know,$18 trillion in spending power, and it's a group that is extremely loyal because it's so hard for them to shop or book or consume, information on site.
00:20:40.391 --> 00:20:57.931
So I think as marketers think, of accessibility as like,"Hey, 5% of our martech budget is gonna make the other 95% that much more efficient and that much more effective," to me, it's, it-- that's kind of where the ROI comes in, is you're not measuring the ROI directly of accessibility.
00:20:57.941 --> 00:21:03.510
You're measuring how does accessibility impact and influence these other more measurable channels.
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:04.250
Yeah.
00:21:04.711 --> 00:21:08.500
Mike, do you have any stats around, around, AI visibility?
00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:14.651
So if I'm thinking about AI visibility, and I'm like,"Oh, I know that that's a big thing I need to be thinking about for my website, for my brand.
00:21:14.651 --> 00:21:23.471
I'm not showing up in any, any of these results." w- you know, where on the list does, you know, making your site accessible fall for that purpose?
00:21:23.750 --> 00:21:28.070
And, you know, h- how much of, how much, how big is the impact, I guess?
00:21:28.070 --> 00:21:32.520
If I have an inaccessible site, how big is the impact on my AI visibility opportunity?
00:21:33.161 --> 00:21:42.490
Well, it's similar to what we would say as we talked about SEO in the past as well, which is the, you know, in this case, the agents are coming and scraping the page.
00:21:42.861 --> 00:22:06.780
And so the more that that code gives them the answers that they're trying to answer on behalf of the user who put in the question on the other end, That's-- A lot of that is the code that I spoke about earlier that's often neglected, is there's so much effort to what's visible on the page and having it clearly understandable, but they're not looking at what's visible, they're looking at what is coded into the page.
00:22:06.780 --> 00:22:28.580
So if you have, which is the accessible best practice, very clear image descriptions, if you're at the top of the page being very clear about your product, your service, your value, all those contribute to the engine who's coming and consuming that content to being able to understand it and get the answer back, to that person on the other end.
00:22:28.871 --> 00:22:38.161
So, we do talk to a lot of our customers and prospects that the more accessible you are, the more discoverable you are, and that's like the discoverability part.
00:22:38.171 --> 00:22:40.431
The other part that we were talking about a little bit is agents.
00:22:40.431 --> 00:22:48.480
And so agents come in and they scan what's called the accessibility tree, which is a map of that code on your, page.
00:22:48.891 --> 00:23:11.221
And again, if this site's accessibility tree is accessible, they're able to much more quickly consume the content, and in the f- in the, position of agents who are actually coming to not just consume it, but to fill out a form or to make a purchase, if it's inaccessible, the agent runs into the same issues a person would, and they can't also complete the task.
00:23:11.270 --> 00:23:11.671
Mm-hmm
00:23:11.840 --> 00:23:15.601
I think it's gonna come a lot sooner than a lot of us expect.
00:23:15.990 --> 00:23:30.547
maybe it won't be to that, you know, exact scenario, but I think that will be more and more important in the, the businesses that are accessible and make it easier for those agents, those agents will prefer, Yeah to use those sites and again, be able to accomplish it.
00:23:30.886 --> 00:23:36.987
And I think the, the end result of that is if your site is accessible, you're, you're gonna be the last to be enslaved by the robots.
00:23:36.987 --> 00:23:38.797
I think that's- that's the ultimate point we're trying to make.
00:23:39.376 --> 00:23:39.467
Yes.
00:23:39.606 --> 00:23:39.636
Yes.
00:23:39.636 --> 00:23:41.143
so sticking with-
00:23:41.143 --> 00:23:42.146
Self-preservation.
00:23:42.176 --> 00:23:53.527
Sticking with the AI piece for one second, you know, you have said that general purpose AI coding tools generate inaccessible sites because they train on inaccessible web, which is really interesting, right?
00:23:53.537 --> 00:23:54.767
Like garbage in, garbage out.
00:23:54.777 --> 00:23:57.277
It, it, it- Yeah it's the same thing for, for coding.
00:23:57.596 --> 00:24:09.047
if I'm building a new website and I'm using AI to help with the coding of that, how-- what do I need to be doing to sort of guard against it being an inaccessible site, with these tools?
00:24:09.317 --> 00:24:11.186
would be w- that's the first part of the question.
00:24:11.186 --> 00:24:19.287
The second part is, have you identified any really good AI tools for supporting, the, you know, making your website accessible?
00:24:19.297 --> 00:24:23.836
'Cause I have to imagine that there are some, and maybe there are some terrible ones, and maybe there are some okay ones.
00:24:23.856 --> 00:24:28.957
So first part is, thinking about the guardrails that you need to put in place when you're building a site using AI tools.
00:24:29.740 --> 00:24:29.971
Yeah.
00:24:29.971 --> 00:24:34.320
So, we did a study recently actually, which, actually we just released, this week.
00:24:34.381 --> 00:24:44.111
and essentially was we asked, five LLMs,"Hey, go out and build an e-commerce site, go out build a, a news site, and go out and build a, financial services site.
00:24:44.141 --> 00:24:50.830
Build it to WCAG 2.2, AA, accessible," which is the, benchmark, that you'll find.
00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:52.401
and we-- So we set them off.
00:24:53.060 --> 00:25:01.820
What was really interesting, and this is kind of your question of like which one might we go with to have better success, they all learned on that same inaccessible web.
00:25:01.881 --> 00:25:09.320
And so it was really interesting that across the five LLMs, they all made the same consistent mistakes.
00:25:09.631 --> 00:25:16.290
what was also really interesting, I mentioned our digital accessibility in-index, where we found the average webpage had 62 issues per page.
00:25:16.721 --> 00:25:28.280
The average LLM built was 55, so a little bit better, but when you're talking, you know, that little bit that's, taken away, they really weren't d- that much more, accessible.
00:25:28.290 --> 00:25:31.851
So second part of your question, what do you do about it then?
00:25:31.851 --> 00:25:40.570
If we just know that they can't do it, and I don't think they're gonna get better at it because the larger web is also still very inaccessible.
00:25:40.881 --> 00:25:48.351
what we talk about at AudioEye, which is a value we provide, we're not the only ones, but, we have our proprietary data set, right?
00:25:48.351 --> 00:25:58.611
So we've been around for over 10 years doing these audits with humans, running our automation, and so we have billions of data points of what works.
00:25:58.661 --> 00:26:05.691
We have fixes that we've written for customers where we say,"Hey, these types of issues are common across our customers.
00:26:05.951 --> 00:26:10.861
Here's how to fix it." so we've got all these data points that a general LLM doesn't have.
00:26:11.391 --> 00:26:24.699
So that to me is where companies, have to use it going forward, which is pair the speed that you get with AI coding tools with the expertise that exists in some of these accessibility companies like AudioEye.
00:26:25.098 --> 00:26:37.709
And if you can, you know, use like an MCP and connect the data there, to the AI coding agent, that is where you can code at the speed of AI, but you can do so in a way that you're confident, is accessible.
00:26:37.709 --> 00:26:45.449
If you're just using the tools, similar to somebody who's just using a, a, a plugin, you're gonna have this false sense of compliance.
00:26:45.449 --> 00:26:48.479
I asked it to, build it, so I think it is...
00:26:48.499 --> 00:26:57.219
In fact, a related survey we did is we asked developers who are coding, with these tools, and are thinking about accessibility, do you trust it?
00:26:57.409 --> 00:27:06.398
And overwhelmingly, 80% were like,"Yes, we trust these tools to code accessibly." our study found that was a kind of misplaced trust.
00:27:06.878 --> 00:27:23.138
And the same people, interestingly enough, we asked,"Have you seen an increase in lawsuits or complaints or issues since you've been coding with AI?" And 80% of that group also said,"Yes, we have." So there's also like a disconnect between this trust that exists and the reality.
00:27:23.499 --> 00:27:32.598
and but again, long story short, if you can take that speed, pair it with the brain and the expertise, that's where you find real success, and it's doable.
00:27:32.919 --> 00:27:43.138
I have to imagine that there are particular pieces that you can say,"Yes, AI is gonna be really good at helping me with this piece of making my site accessible." Like I'm thinking about, image, descriptions, right?
00:27:43.138 --> 00:27:55.982
Like- it seems like that would be A good use of AI at this point is like scan the site, identify all the images on the sites, and then give me, you know, here's-- train it on how, what a good description is of an image.
00:27:55.982 --> 00:28:01.643
'Cause I think people of- also think that like, oh, if it, it's a logo, I have to say it's a logo.
00:28:01.643 --> 00:28:05.462
If we're talking about like helpful information that helps users use the site.
00:28:05.462 --> 00:28:12.452
I think that was the biggest learning for me when I worked for Carnegie Museum of Art was, and not everything has to necessarily be described for you to be compliant.
00:28:12.512 --> 00:28:12.573
Yes.
00:28:12.633 --> 00:28:21.643
You have to make the site usable, and that means if there's an image of a family in a park eating ice cream or whatever, you're being very descriptive about the, the visual experience.
00:28:21.643 --> 00:28:28.133
But if it's just a, a random graphical element or something like that that adds visual flourish, that's not necessarily a thing.
00:28:28.133 --> 00:28:33.153
So, so, you know, Mike, you mentioned double A, you know WCAG- Mm-hmm you know, the double A standard.
00:28:33.452 --> 00:28:44.843
the way that we've always talked about it is single A, it does not quite get you far enough, and triple A probably goes further than you really need to from a realistic s- business function standpoint.
00:28:44.853 --> 00:28:44.873
Yeah.
00:28:45.133 --> 00:28:48.932
which is why we've always said double A is kind of that gold, that gold standard that we look for.
00:28:48.932 --> 00:28:50.903
is that-- am I interpreting that correctly?
00:28:50.962 --> 00:28:51.012
Mm-hmm.
00:28:51.012 --> 00:28:52.553
Is that how you would talk about it as well?
00:28:52.972 --> 00:28:53.843
Yes, exactly.
00:28:54.383 --> 00:29:00.303
L- level A is like, you should be able to hit this one if you're giving any thought to accessibility.
00:29:00.702 --> 00:29:13.512
but yeah, the double A is where, conversion starts to break down, where usability starts to break down, and so those are-- and again, like I said, that's where the lawsuits focus, on those types of guidelines and well, as well.
00:29:13.853 --> 00:29:21.673
That's also where you, as you move from, A to double A, that's where you start to need more of the human, expertise.
00:29:22.053 --> 00:29:22.643
But yeah, you're right.
00:29:22.643 --> 00:29:42.113
More and more, especially as AI does get better at understanding context and, as you are able to plug AI into some of the, the knowledge that accessibility companies, have and are able to provide, I think we will find over time that that number that I shared of 50% through automation, you know, might go up to 60, 70, maybe 80%.
00:29:42.623 --> 00:29:50.303
but it's always gonna-- there's always gonna be the need for humans to review and approve the alt text as an example, that might be given.
00:29:50.593 --> 00:29:54.182
And then, yes, you're right, like not every image needs all that description.
00:29:54.182 --> 00:30:04.053
If it's what we call a decorative image, you just mark it as such, and the screen reader skips over it knowing that it's not critical to the story or the, the information being passed on.
00:30:05.176 --> 00:30:10.277
So I think what my last question is, is really to help folks.
00:30:10.457 --> 00:30:13.227
Let's say you're a marketing team with, a flat budget, right?
00:30:13.227 --> 00:30:17.446
And it's, your site's already up, you're, you already got some stuff in market.
00:30:17.676 --> 00:30:21.787
Like, what is, what's one thing that they can do each week?
00:30:21.797 --> 00:30:26.826
Or what's the first thing that you tell folks that they, they can do for little to no cost?
00:30:26.826 --> 00:30:30.717
But what's, what would your advice be to somebody that says,"Well, we can't afford this.
00:30:30.717 --> 00:30:31.467
We have a flat budget."
00:30:31.537 --> 00:30:31.727
Yeah.
00:30:31.936 --> 00:30:32.156
We're done."
00:30:33.067 --> 00:30:43.146
I think two to three quick things would be, one, go find a free site scanner, AudioEye has one, there's others out there, just to get a foundational understanding of how bad your site is.
00:30:43.146 --> 00:30:51.076
'Cause like I said, most people assume it's probably okay, but then they do a scan, they're like,"Okay, this is more of a curiosity.
00:30:51.096 --> 00:30:53.866
We need to actually sit down and address this," right?
00:30:54.287 --> 00:31:00.707
and then the second thing is, you're right, you can't boil the ocean, you can't just all of a sudden invent an accessibility practice.
00:31:01.146 --> 00:31:07.287
So I think that for a lot of companies, it does make sense to find a partner that can help them do it.
00:31:07.527 --> 00:31:15.707
And, in today's blended environment of a little bit human, a little bit technology, it is a lot more cost-effective, than a lot of companies think.
00:31:16.076 --> 00:31:21.636
if you try to do it all internally, and reorganize, and hire new developers, yes, that becomes quite costly.
00:31:21.636 --> 00:31:23.196
So I think the partners is important.
00:31:23.616 --> 00:31:27.307
And then finally, focus initially on those high conversion pages.
00:31:27.307 --> 00:31:28.537
Focus on your homepage.
00:31:28.767 --> 00:31:41.547
if you've got campaigns that are, especially if you're spending money, to drive people to certain pages, or conversion paths, make sure those conversion paths, are looked at first, because that's where people are gonna break down.
00:31:41.557 --> 00:31:43.287
That's where you're gonna lose business.
00:31:43.287 --> 00:31:47.876
That's where it's not gonna just be, as we talked about at the top, you know, a nice to have.
00:31:48.277 --> 00:31:52.186
you're actually at that point fixing issues that will impact the business.
00:31:53.040 --> 00:31:55.921
Mike, you have a podcast, correct, at AudioEye?
00:31:56.570 --> 00:31:58.240
Yeah, we've, had the HearSay podcast,
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:02.010
And, and so is that-- I assume that's everywhere, Spotify- Mm-hmm Apple.
00:32:02.030 --> 00:32:02.631
Okay, cool.
00:32:02.881 --> 00:32:14.980
Yeah and you know, what y- what else would you like for people to know about engaging with AudioEye, I think, beyond, like, the HearSay podcast, and, like, what, you know, if people want to engage with AudioEye in some way, like, what's a good first step?
00:32:14.980 --> 00:32:19.990
Do you do, you know, audits for folks, or scorecards, or how do you, how do you approach engagement?
00:32:20.820 --> 00:32:29.980
Yeah, I mean, we tailor it to every business', need, but at the end of the day, we've talked about automation being important and technology, we've talked about people being important.
00:32:30.411 --> 00:32:51.570
That's our, that's our model, is, like, use both, use-- take the benefits and the things that work with automation, leave the things that don't work well, take the things that work well with consulting and experts, and bring those together, and that is how I think accessibility can be done at scale, and not, extremely, expensively as well.
00:32:51.980 --> 00:32:54.441
I think it's just, starting with, scanning your site.
00:32:54.760 --> 00:33:19.401
AudioEye, we have tons of best practice documents as well, so that you can start to build content and build pages, design them but I think it's just reaching out to companies like AudioEye and seeing, how their services can plug into the work and the processes that you're already doing as a company, so that you can work accessibility in and, really not have to, rethink your whole company structure around accessibility.
00:33:20.330 --> 00:33:27.280
Mike, I always like to ask, last question, on a more personal note, what is one thing you are reading, watching, listening to?
00:33:27.530 --> 00:33:28.131
can be fun.
00:33:28.260 --> 00:33:32.810
does not have to be, you know, specific to, the business world or the marketing world or anything like that.
00:33:32.810 --> 00:33:33.671
So, yeah.
00:33:33.721 --> 00:33:37.580
what's something you're enjoying right now that you'd like to, to leave with listeners?
00:33:38.240 --> 00:33:43.901
I started reading The Odyssey again after, having watched it, this year when it came out.
00:33:44.320 --> 00:33:50.310
and I had told my kids, like, when we went to see it, I'm like,"You know, this was, like, my favorite book in high school." And they're like, what?
00:33:50.451 --> 00:34:03.471
Why, why, why would that be an interesting book?" And I was like,"I don't know." So I need to, like, generally I kinda know, but I'm like,"I need to start reading again." And, like, at the end of the day, it probably comes back to what we talked about at the very top, right?
00:34:03.490 --> 00:34:13.780
It is a story that has stories within story about, you know, the human emotion, about his various encounters kinda teach him different lessons.
00:34:13.780 --> 00:34:24.521
And so I think stories like that, are what inspire me to figure out what's the fun story of this brand or what's the fun story, of this campaign.
00:34:24.521 --> 00:34:29.081
So yeah, I've gone old school, very old school with, reading Homer, as of late.
00:34:29.121 --> 00:34:31.130
But a- again, I'm, I'm finding it, it...
00:34:31.510 --> 00:34:40.771
All those storytelling principles, whether it was written today or hundreds of years ago or thousands of year, years ago, those principles are the same, so.
00:34:41.831 --> 00:34:42.181
Awesome.
00:34:42.400 --> 00:34:45.170
Mike Rubino, thank you also for joining me here- Thank you today.
00:34:45.170 --> 00:34:45.221
Nice to be here, Mike.
00:34:45.221 --> 00:34:46.530
We really appreciate it, Mike Barton.
00:34:46.561 --> 00:34:47.161
And, yeah.
00:34:47.161 --> 00:34:49.681
And, and the website is, again, your URL?
00:34:50.251 --> 00:34:51.141
AudioEye.com.
00:34:51.320 --> 00:34:55.800
Check out the HearSay podcast, and we look forward to you hearing from us, in our next episode.
00:34:55.800 --> 00:34:57.760
So, follow us on LinkedIn and, yeah.
00:34:57.911 --> 00:34:58.590
thanks again, Mike.
00:34:59.130 --> 00:34:59.320
Yeah.
00:34:59.371 --> 00:34:59.891
All right.
00:34:59.900 --> 00:35:03.061
That is a wrap on this episode of Good Enough Isn't.
00:35:03.320 --> 00:35:04.621
Thank you so much for listening.
00:35:04.721 --> 00:35:11.521
Be sure to hit that subscribe button so that you never miss an episode, Till next time, everyone, remember, good enough isn't.
