Reprinted from the Austin Business Journal
September 16, 1999
by Ron Hicks

AIR Power - The Best and Brightest
... It began at Scholtz’s, the oldest Beer garden in the state of Texas, on a Thursday last fall, when the hottest design divas and software jocks partnered-up with local nonprofit organizations and threw a rockin’ party that ended up on the World Wide Web. The next Saturday morning at Infotec, the moveable feast of Austin’s digit-heads and social-service wunderkinds booted up, logged on, and poured their considerable energy and talents into creating some state-of the-art, highly "accessible" web sites. As a result, the world became a brighter, livelier, place for people with disabilities who use the Internet.

During that September 1998 competition, AIR-Austin—1/3 NASCAR, 1/3 ADA, 1/3 HTML and three parts community spirit—was born into Central Texas! The team-based website design competition was organized by MAIN (Metropolitan Interactive Network), Goodwill and Knowbility. The organizational effort was supported by various corporate and business sponsors, volunteers and the Virtual Volunteering Project. AIR-Austin teams produced 20 beautifully designed websites that incorporate the latest in accessibility features. The sites were donated to the participating non-profit organizations and have since provided those a much needed PR boost to groups that serve over half a million Central Texans.

Rendezvous with Accessibility, The Mixer
At the "Start Your Engines" mixer, VIPs from community based organizations like People’s Community Clinic, Capital Area Training Foundation, and Smartgrrls, shared food, fun and information with high-tech Code Wranglers from hot-shot outfits like Networker, Bazzirk Inc., Thought Interactive, and IBM. In the midst of an R&B/Reggae back-beat supplied by AMD house rockers the Propller Heds, Event Chair Steve Guengerich announced the official team pairings. According to Steve, as the final pairing was announced "the competition became very real for many of the teams. You could see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices as they immediately began making plans for their Web sites."

Cyber people mixed and mingled with community activists and the beer garden buzzed with the beginnings of camaraderie while teammates got a jump on the competition. Besides the forging of working relationships, something special was in the air. It wasn’t just the satisfying glow of community involvement, but rather a shared intuition, a kind of unspoken notion, a unique combination of form and substance, a new aesthetic, that was being coaxed into conversation and created before the very eyes. It was a Rendezvous.

Two great clans, the Cybertribe and the Social Servants, had come together on the www.frontier, offering their skills and talents in a cooperative spirit. Community service would soon find new modes of expression through the formal magic of high-tech wizardry. E-People would get the chance to walk a mile in disabled moccasins thus broadening their perceptual, moral, and philosophical experience. And nonprofiteers would receive valuable guidance in the precise art of marketing on the World Wide Web. The ‘98 mixer was indeed a meeting of minds where two great clans began to infuse, with compassion and energy, that ingenious celebration of equality, intellect, and accessibility known as AIR-Austin.

Accessibility, is it better than X-Files?
Scolder and Mully are obviously bright young professionals. So why can’t they ever piece it all together? You get the feeling that the entire scene is skewed. Essential information is somehow always missing or unavoidably vague and mysterious. Bottom line...the riddle is insoluble, Scolder and Mully are doomed to failure. That’s the way that conventional websites seem to internet users who are hearing, visually, or motor-impaired. For people with disabilities, websites without accessibility features are neither entertaining nor informative. They are, ironically enough, simply dead-ends on the information superhighway; barriers to information , barriers to education, and a bitter refutation of the internet’s implicit promise of freedom and independence.

If the internet is to live up to its full potential, then the advancement of people with disabilities will be a necessary criterion for judging its success. AIR-Austin, is all about ensuring that success by making websites accessible. Accessible websites allow internet access to education and employment information; information that people with disabilities need in order to pursue successful careers and enjoy full, rewarding, lives.

"Before You Begin Liftoff...there are some things you should know"
For one thing, its a three-dimensional world out there and there’s more than one way to get around a website.

• For the Cyberprodigy - AIR-Austin pre-event trainings challenge the creative designer to think outside of the normal, visually-oriented, "click-here" box.
• For the webdesign guru, "accessibility" means providing for a variety of alternate means, and some pretty sophisticated hardware, so that people with different kinds of perceptual or motor impairments can retrieve information from, and navigate around a web site. They address techniques for incorporating the plethora of accessibility features, including tools like the voice reader (for blind users) or a laser pointer directed by eye motion (for the mobility impaired), into web design.
• For those who care about aesthetics, it's just plain good design - universal techniques for universal access to information. This year’s technical trainings were led in a most expert fashion by IBM’s Phill Jenkins. Attendees unanimously agreed that the technical trainings— and "Jedi Jayne" Cravens’ witty Ethics and Methods lecture—were both stimulating and informative and great pacing laps for the accessibility race track.
• For the Innocent and the Uninitiated - Marketing and IT Requirements workshops for non-profit participants go a long way towards dissolving high-tech phobias. At the same time, these pre-event trainings give the nontechnical folks a big "heads-up" in terms of developing an effective strategy and making clear presentations to their web-design teammates.

The World will beat a path to your door
AIR events are a successful model for creative IT community development. They’re a lot of fun and the educational and practical benefits to the community are enormous. The rest of the world is beginning to take notice of this Austin original and that’s why AIR-events are being planned for the year 2000 in Dallas-Fort Worth, and other progressive regions like Boulder, Raleigh-Durham, and Southern California.

End article

The September 10 AIR Austin Mixer brought together the design teams and the not-for-profit organizations for the first time, giving them a chance to socialize and find out who would partner with whom.

Holland Marketing, a top event planning and marketing consultancy, took a lead role in planning the mixer (Donna Holland was personally involved and was the key person behind Lance Armstrong's recent Ride for the Roses Gala that was such a smashing success).

The mixer was held at Schlotz Garden, and music was performed by PropellerHeads, a band from AMD who rocked the house with two 20-minute sets of pop and light rock.

"I was thrilled with the turnout at the 'Start your engines' mixer for AIR-Austin," said Steve Guengerich, Chairman of the AIR-Austin advsory board. "The band was great, the food and service was super, and the people from all of the tech teams and non-profits really seemed to enjoy getting to meet one another. It was amazing once we announced the 'official' team pairings how everything clicked. At that moment, I think the competition became very real for many of the teams for the first time. It was exciting to see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices as they immediately began making plans about their Web sites!"

 
"My guys were pretty reluctant about the whole idea until the mixer," said Jim Eliot of Industrial Strength Network. "When they met all the other folks and saw how many nonprofits were so interested in communicating via the Web, and how much energy there was to help them with it...well, it all just jelled for us as a team and we all got excited about the possibilities."

 
"We are thrilled to be working with Suzanne on the Boys and Girls Club," said Donna Johnson of Bazzirk. "I'm grateful the committee recognized and honored our desire to do something involving kids. Also I ran into an old friend/acquaintance who works for Easter Seals. It was fun to see him again. And the whole shindig was a great success I'd say. You've done a wonderful job--in a way, you've had to play MOM to everyone--no easy job."

 
More quotes are coming soon from the people who attended the mixer, so check back!