I'll give just a little bit of context for the panel and then I'll turn it over to Frank to go through it. The backstory for this panel is really that in travels throughout the WordPress community throughout word camps and meetups, it's become clear to me in my conversations with people off and down, the community, that there is a growing need or awareness of a need to create systems that will enable our children with autism and other challenges to flourish in a workplace. We're now old enough that we have children, we're old enough that where our children are starting to think about careers or maybe they're even trying to get into careers and we're realizing that as technologists, as people who make things, as people who create things, we have an opportunity to do something here. But I think we also, from what I've anecdotally been collecting over conversations of coffee and beer, is that we really have no idea what we're doing. And that's okay. We're aware of that and we're trying to think about that. So what the purpose of this panel is, is really to ask individuals who are already out there doing stuff, some in technology, some in research, to start to maybe help us guide our thinking, signpost some things for us and kind of get our community a little bit more excited and aware of what could happen and to start to think about how we can move that ahead. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Frank. Hi everybody. Welcome today. Briefly, we're going to start by kind of just giving everybody some introductions to the panel. And we have a few questions that we have for our panel members. And then we'll kind of turn it over to some questions as well from everybody here. So as Liam said, my name is Frank Littaro. I work for a company called New Horizons. So we are a technology training company. And so I've been in the tech space for about 12 years on that training side. And I also have a son who is five who's diagnosed with the autism spectrum. So that's kind of where Liam and I connected. Initially when we sat on the board together, he told me about his son. I thought about my son. And then that kind of flourished into a good relationship. So that's kind of me in a nutshell. And I'll turn it over here to Gaby to introduce herself. Hi. My name is Gaby Robertson Colley. I work for SAP America. SAP launched an autism hiring initiative called Autism at Work back in 2013. And I've been fortunate enough to be a part of the program since then. I lead our social team. It's called the SAP Mentor Group. So I lead our social group for our colleagues with autism who have joined SAP. And I'm also responsible for communications and events for the United States. And just a note, you know, if there's anybody in the room who's on the spectrum, we do use, at SAP we use person-first language. It's the preference of our colleagues. So if you hear me say someone who's on the spectrum or a person with autism, that's out of respect for the wishes of our colleagues. My name is Gloria Mendoza. In 2015, I was a candidate of the Autism at Work program. That led me to be hired onto SAP America in 2015. To this day, I've been continuing to support the program through mentor activities and panels like this. My name is Dan Kobel. I work for Bentley Systems. It's a privately held engineering software company headquartered out in Jackson, Pennsylvania. I manage all their corporate giving and community outreach around the globe. And we have lots of colleagues from numerous research backgrounds, not just within the spectrum, but also with physical and mental disabilities. I'm John Harrington. I'm a assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And I'm in the Child Psychiatry Department, which is based at SHOP. SHOP is where awesome kids still have it. So Penn and SHOP are like kids when it comes to kids stuff. And I'm based at the Center for Autism Research at SHOP. And I'm also a clinical psychologist doing psychotherapy with folks in the spectrum. And then I do research, mostly brain research, neurobiology research. Great. Thank you, John. So with that, I kind of want to toss this up to you, John, based on the research abilities and things that you have come involved with right there at SHOP. How prevalent are autism and autism-related issues for adults in the U.S. for children age 15 and older? So the prevalence rates, we don't normally break them down by age, by virtue of the fact that we think of autism as something that is lifelong. So if you look at the prevalence statistics we have now, this is for those of you who cracked a newspaper in the past 10 years and you've probably heard about how the prevalence rates appear to be going up and up. I think they're up to 1 in 58. Folks have an autism spectrum diagnosis. And again, those data are among kids. Typically, if you're going to get an autism diagnosis, it happens in childhood in kind of a school context. But then, I can't think of autism as something that spans the lifespan. So 58% of 8-year-olds have autism. Those are going to be 18-year-olds 10 years from now. And it does vary by gender. In general, more males have diagnoses of autism. So the actual rating, that's 1 in 37 or 38. I think 38. Males have autism. So to the extent that, in my opinion, unfortunately, we are often talking about professions that have a gender imbalance. If there's sort of a male-dominated profession, then the odds of having someone in the spectrum in the workplace would sort of increase accordingly. So yeah, high number. But of course, imagine we'll touch on this as well. Autism as a category is a pretty weakly defined category and spans a massive range of abilities. And so the kinds of... What we think of as autism is evolving over time, so those rates will probably evolve with them. But the bottom line is it's a pretty criminal thing that if you're in the workplace or in an industry, it's definitely something to think about and consider. And I mean, along that point, I've had this discussion with several people recently. Is it that more environmental factors are happening or is it more research that's being done that the numbers are increasing? So I think a couple of years ago it was 1 in 60, now it's 1 in 58, we're having a spectrum diagnosis. Do you feel that it's something that, you know, it's changing or just we know more about it and we'll have more ability to kind of get a better idea? It's a hot button issue. My own view, which I think probably represents the majority of scientists, is that mostly what's happening is our definition of social behavior changing and that we are more sensitive than we used to be about differences in social connections and social behavior and that's sort of, as a culture, it causes us to be more sensitive, to be more aware of folks that have different abilities along in the social domain and that's sort of driven the change in prevalence as opposed to... I mean, there are interesting debates about whether there may be something, you know, environmentalists, environmentalists that went up, and in general I think most of the scientific community comes down to the side of we've changed as a culture and that's part of why that statistic has changed, the main part of why that statistic has changed. And, you know, kind of poses to, you know, Gabby and, you know, John and everybody as well, but what sort of issues do people with autism and autism-related issues face in the workplace? So now that we see that the numbers are growing, right, there's more and more people that are becoming part of the workplace, what type of issues, you know, are you seeing for that group? I would say getting into the workplace is the biggest challenge. The unemployment rate for people on the spectrum is around between 80 and 85%. So it's getting that foot in the door, that's the primary challenge. I know about at SAP we've seen resumes of people with advanced degrees in math science engineers, you know, people who they just can't get through that interview process because of the social biases that get in the way. There was an article that was published in a paper that said failure to make eye contact or a firm handshake can ruin your chances of getting a job and getting through that interview process. So, you know, we know that eye contact can typically be challenging for people on the spectrum. So imagine your lack of eye contact just really impacting your ability to get through an interview and that's really, really unfortunate. And it's something that we're trying to change at SAP and we've been able to make it then and we're seeing more and more companies come forward who want to start their own autism hiring program. So that's very, very, just really positive and so it's something that I'm on customer calls all the time. Our customers are coming to us saying, how do we do this? We want to start our own programs and I think that's very hopeful. Yeah, you've seen the same at badly. I mean, there are a lot of issues for people coming in. We're a little bit unique in that being probably how we can kind of do what we want and so to the extent that one of our founders' sons has a disability, not one same genre as autism but we are significantly more accepting of everyone and so as far as, I've been at Bentley for 11 years and we've been around for about 34 years or so.  They don't do some of the standard social norms and so we look for those people. We want someone that's going to just sit here and perform a task and work and develop and search out a solution to a problem for hours and hours. Those are the best people we have for those people that are dedicated and committed to being focused and so we're kind of strange in that we're almost looking for folks on the spectrum in that aspect and we highly value some of the unique abilities that they have and so we have lots of folks around the globe that we're very blessed with that have specific tasks and skills. Perfect. And Gaby, can you tell us a little bit more about the program, the SEP and maybe elaborate on it, you know how it started, kind of the history we're currently at now. Yeah, sure. So the program started in 2013 in India. It was a very grassroots effort led by the managing director of India at the time who had a son on the spectrum and it was kind of a light bulb moment and he was involved with an organization in India and he said, why aren't we hiring people on the spectrum? So it just kind of took off from there. It went up to our global diversity and inclusion officer and so it started in India and we now are running the program in 12 countries so when I say the program consists of there's a formal structure around the employment of the colleagues that come in through this program that includes training. It includes training for the employee, it includes training for the managers and the buddies who work on the team of the employee and then there's a support circle around that employee in the workplace so they're not just set a drift once you start your job, that you have people within the company that you can come to for help and go grab lunch with or go out and grab some pizza with so that's just the highlights of our program. Which is nice, because again to Dan's point you want to have that individual where their skill set is and use that strength but you also don't want to have that person feel that they're not part of the organization either so I think having that mentorship and that buddy program is awesome because then it allows that individual to kind of assimilate into the company feels that they're part of something much bigger than themselves. Yeah, and that's how Gloria and I have really gotten to know each other was through the mentor program it really just started developing a relationship having lunch together and I think we're, what are we two years later, Gloria or three?  I was interested in computers and technology thus why I was interested in majoring in computer science when I was in college and I ended up graduating with a double major in computer science and music which we actually, I just found out about too Gloria has to leave today to go sing you know, which was you're not singing in an opera but you have that opera background, right? Yeah and you know, another question is that you work in a customer facing role there in SAP so what are some common stereotypes about people with autism and social interaction can you share kind of your thoughts on that and how that affects your day to day Well, some of the biggest things that people point out towards people on the spectrum are sort of what was mentioned earlier like failure to make a strong handshake or failure to make eye contact sounding monotone when socializing and other things like that I feel like I'm really breaking the barriers to a lot of these things and I feel like I'm really going far too I've been going on site through a few different places and I've also got to speak at other panels out of state as well so along those lines obviously there's a lot of people with autism who have that STEM degree and significant interest in the tech field but they're maybe unemployed so what would you kind of say to the group of people that are seeking employment any tips, any thoughts? One thing I'll really say is be prepared for a lot of rejection but do not give up there's only one person or somebody to look at you for your skills rather than the way you interact with others and if we go rid of all these biases towards people on the spectrum we get rid of all these problems and make the world a better place Absolutely We really had the chance with our colleagues to almost become a little family and one of our colleagues was our guy and real big lovable guy and we had a chance to sit down so we just casually sat down for like round up talking for like an hour and he had had a long day and he looks at me and he says he starts giggling and he says, cabbie I just can't force myself to make eye contact with you right now so it was just such like this honest like authentic moment and you don't get that stuff in typical corporate America so you know again part of why it's so special to be a part of this program and have friends who are like really really genuine like if you want a good friend find somebody with autism you'll find the most genuine kind authentic people so just really really fortunate I agree I mean it's funny too because you know I've talked to so many people about kind of how I ended up where I was and it was a bouncing ball it didn't you know go the way it was mapped out on paper but I still remember when I was young and probably people in this room you know when we were all younger then our parents probably want us to be doctors or lawyers right and that was kind of that common thing and now when I sit there and I look at my son and I look at the world where we're in I don't want that for him I don't want to do law I don't want to do medicine I want him to actually go into technology and I think that that's really where a lot more people are kind of you know that's their hopes right the tech space is huge it's growing constantly and what's nice and what I've seen over the last couple years is that it's just such a welcoming you know community you know for me personally to be part of the autism community in greater Philadelphia it's I mean it's a huge warm-up I mean I never felt so accepted you know and when I'm attending events for my family with my family for my son just seeing it there's no judgment I feel like a lot of that tech space is kind of you know mirrors that autism family and that autism space as well so you know when you kind of put the two things together it's just a logical you know solution for me personally I've seen so you know Frank one of the words I think we all hear the tech industry like every day at least once a day is innovation and when you think about innovation the people who are innovators are the people who are able to think differently a little bit differently and I think that that's something that we really are able to tap into from the autism community you know I say this is not you know in no way on SAP's part is this a charitable effort we want people who think differently and we want people who can innovate so there's this huge source of talent this pool of talent within the autism community that we're looking for I agree and it's you know and it's something that came up with me over the last few months too is that I was sitting there I was talking to a friend and I was talking about my son again and anybody who knows me knows that that happens readily I'm constantly talking about my little guy he's my world but I was sitting there and I was kind of frustrated because I said I wish he would do this I wish he would do this and he kind of looked at me and my friend said you know you keep trying to get him to come into your world I said you're right and you know just those simple words I went home that night and I just kind of sat down with my son and I said you know I might get in his world let me see what he's doing and kind of put myself there a little bit and he walked me in and it was amazing it was one of the best nights I had in my life just the laughter we both share I mean the smiles we were having it was awesome so you know that's kind of that mentality that we need to almost take fit somebody into our world we need to make it one world we're all together and kind of pull from the brilliant minds that are out there and kind of incorporate this and move past and move on I mean does anybody else in the panel have any additional things they want to share and maybe turn it over to some questions from the audience and such I think it's a point at one thing about the this comes up for me a lot people on the spectrum particularly who are adolescents or young adults this idea of you know who should be whom halfway when it comes to employment and that perspective I often take I firmly believe that part of the reason we're here is that I think as a culture and as people who lead organizations work in organizations they can change their behaviors to be more accommodating I firmly believe that at the same time when the rubber meets road and you're working with someone on the spectrum just like anyone who's trying to trying to clear some hurdle you want to give them tips you want to give them advice to try to help them through it but just I don't know I guess it's just to make the observation that I'm often finding myself on both sides of that at the same time trying to help people even even if it's as primitive as alright maybe you should practice and shake before you go to the situation on one hand but on the other hand doing things like this where we're trying to trying to make decisions about how we can change our own behavior to be more accommodating I think it's like some simple tweaks too right like I mean getting to know Gloria over the years I know that Gloria will take things that I say very literally so I change my communication style just ever so slightly to ensure that our conversation will flow smoothly and that Gloria is going to understand what I use I'm much less sarcastic now than I probably was five years ago I really don't use I don't use I really don't use sarcasm a lot because it doesn't always translate well for people on the spectrum I had people ask me before posted something on Facebook and then I get a message right away is that sarcastic are you being sarcastic yes I am being sarcastic so it really just does in general just making you know if you're a little bit more aware of how you're communicating it makes you a better communicator with everyone not just with people who are on the spectrum so you know it's a learning experience great so I think so one of the reasons I'm at this conference and at this panel in particular is very proactive in nature I have a three old son who's on the spectrum and I'm interested in how programs like SAP and other programs similar to yours sort of help support that individual in the workplace I know you mentioned mentors, I know you mentioned a few other things but in particular with my son he's mostly non-verbal, has an iPad that he uses for speech gets scared at new environments like we had to work with a school district to give this over sister to write on the bus with him to school because he was getting on the bus in tears every morning and he just can't have that so we have to get a special exception for her to write on the bus that's just one example but I'm wondering if you could give a few examples of how your program deals with those kind of issues in the workplace and sort of communicate with that individual's team whether it be the family the medical professionals like I feel right now I'm sort of a middleman constantly from my son between the school professionals the home therapy, the speech the private therapies that we do well I just, I was wondering how you support that in the workplace when he gets over okay, do you want to think that or do you want me to we don't necessarily have anything currently that is explicitly as I think near as verbose as you guys have at SAP you know we have a lot of one-off, one-on-one sorts of things we've had several interns come through that are from I think the university and throughout the spectrum we've had people go alongside with them so just obviously depending on their unique situation I think I'm assuming what you're going to say is probably a one-on-one or an individualized sort of situation so what we have, I almost wish I could draw a picture if you look at two circles that kind of intersect we have the corporate side the enterprise piece of the employee's life at SAP and employment at SAP and then over on the side you have the employee's personal side so the personal life would include the family members the counselor you know if they're seeing a counselor they're seeing a physician in between those circles picture a connecting line there's a job coach so we work with the Arca Philadelphia the job coaches come from the Arca Philadelphia and they're kind of that intermediary between the corporate world and the personal world of the employee so let's say somebody needs some additional support or they're having a rough time maybe you know someone's really kind of going through like an emotional day or we notice that something's a little off, something's not right it would be that job coach that takes it to with the employee's permission of course like they have to fill out a form who can we contact on your behalf it's the job coach that's the liaison between the enterprise business and the family and counselor and physicians okay and then I guess my final question to you and anyone can't answer this but how do you get your child or your family member into a program like SAP like they go through this whole process they maybe go to a community college or whatever and then they get to the point where they need a program like SAP who does a doctor refer patients to you or how does that happen just a little over the years yeah so most of, so okay right now I would say for SAP it's a mix the program has kind of become well known because of some media so a lot of people will contact us directly but also the arc of Philadelphia again they have a program called Neurodiversity in the Workplace their website is www.fillyautismjobs.com they do all the sourcing and management of the resumes for us because it's almost like another business you know we can't keep up with it and they have over 60 years of experience in working with people with disabilities so they have been a key partner in sourcing that talent for us identifying candidates to come through our training program and at the end of the day hopefully get hired at SAP but again, how old is your son? three so this is what my hope is I feel like we are somewhat on the cutting edge of this employment movement my hope is that as I said we are talking to customers two or three times a week who want to start my hope is that when your son is 23 and ready to enter the workforce that the possibilities will be limitless what I can tell you too is just in that space being part of that community there is a lot of outreach CHOP has wonderful programs for outreach other nonprofits things like that that are in the area but they are constantly hosting webinars and things about inclusion in the workplace and transition and I know CHOP's program is amazing for transition from adulthood into whatever so just kind of keep your eyes and ears open I never knew much until we had the diagnosis a few years ago just seeing what is constantly coming out I feel like there is a new program or a new organization or somebody out there when you look at a grocery store there was talk about targets actually having a sensory friendly line in target so it is something where it is going to be constantly evolving as Gaby said there is hope that it is not going to be hidden anymore it is going to be in that forefront and make life easier I think you had a question maybe all of you folks could address this Gaby had mentioned that the difficult problem is getting in the door getting hired and overcoming the hiring managers if you will but let's say that happens what kind of education what kind of eye opening sensitivities can we as business owners or some employees of businesses and heard our employers to integrate because as I think I am hearing you say Gaby it is really changing the mindsets of employers and their understanding to enable greater sensitivity and greater compromise ultimately to make more money I don't mean that in a mean capitalistic way but there is a business decision here and if we can change our minds and allow everybody to flourish maybe folks individually can speak to that what does that look like for your respective organizations or insight from your research I think being an academic I am sort of talking about things that I would recommend to other people to do as opposed to things I would do myself but I think in general step number one is checking your assumptions I think we neuro the term neurotypical is one that has been adopted now to talk about people who are not on the spectrum we neurotypicals walk around with assumptions about regarding social behaviors that we take for granted but we don't have to have them and if you take if you stop and check yourself for a second as a person hiring a team or whatever it doesn't have to be that hard to leave some of those assumptions behind and that's a huge just to sort of educate your place of business or your team about maybe you shouldn't be so fixated on X, Y and Z social cues and see what happens and so just checking flat out checking your assumptions on those things and I think also I think again I'm not I'm not an organizational psychologist and I don't know much about how these organizations work but social capital something that I know happens a lot in organizations and how people have their own social circles and sometimes that provides opportunities to people and if you don't necessarily have the same social cache it might be harder to take advantage of some of this is just soft psychology stuff like getting supportive team members which might lead to different work opportunities that kind of thing in addition to checking your assumptions I think be more proactive about with people on your team who might not necessarily take advantage of those things in the same way be more proactive about providing opportunities to put it sort of collectively provide opportunities for the shy people not just the ones that are loud and who find it easier to go and make contacts within an organization and I guess that's a few steps down the line I guess those were my thoughts I'd say a lot of things like this opportunities and hearing from folks that are family members that are affected allows people like me and then I go back to my colleagues and say hey this is where I did this weekend right because I'm fairly certain nobody else is working today I mean we have colleagues all around the globe so someone's probably doing something at some point but Monday morning we would go hey why don't you do this weekend it's not just I potentially watch the eagles play and who knows where that's going to go hopefully lots of people across the pond but you know I would say hey I was at a work camp and I was at an autism awareness panel I got to speak on your behalf colleague and they go what do you mean you spoke on my behalf but then we have lots of other colleagues around the globe that do similar things I mean they don't have my same role but they do similar outreach for different people of different walks of life and so you know just every one person you get to educate you get to make them understand and kind of like you said earlier bringing folks like myself who are the neurotypical I don't think I'm typical in anything but you know allowing me to come into somebody else's world and realize what it's like and then saying hey I just had this really cool experience I had this really cool interaction it was different but it was so cool it was very enjoyable, it was a great time I met some really cool people you should have learned about them too I feel like it's a lot of times it's got to be a correct for its movement I think it's not small but SAP we still have 3,500 people worldwide so yes we only have a handful of hiring managers but it's not just the hiring managers they need to know it's the colleagues it's this person the person that buys the computers they might need different technology again whether it's on the autism spectrum different abilities they have hey this person might need a touch screen maybe they have a we have a couple of colleagues that have hearing impairments that are completely deaf so we've had to provide adaptive services for those colleagues that are different from the ones that I get and so just understanding that we are all different and we're not all atypical you know across the board it's not the 80-20 role anymore it's the everybody role one thing really cool that's happened I think we've been able to establish this level of comfort within the company we know about our program not everybody does but a lot of employees know about it in the US alone since we started the program and really just within the last few years 14 employees have come forward and disclosed that they're on the spectrum so they did not come into our program but feel that comfort level to come forward and say hey I'm on the spectrum too which has been very very cool you know just like you've kind of laid the foundation there I mean it's a software company yes there's probably a lot of people with autism who work at our company that either number one I'm going to say they might not know they're on the spectrum we have colleagues who very interestingly were not diagnosed until their 40s a few women and I think that sometimes not to get too clinical this is your area but I think women can tend to be under diagnosed so our colleagues so she's a woman and she is deaf so she never received the diagnosis of autism because they were somehow confusing it with her hearing impairment so you know just kind of fascinating stories of wow like what is your what happens to your life when you find out at age 40 something that you're you're on the spectrum like I'm sure it's extremely eye opening and all of a sudden things start to make sense as for our managers at SAP we've had people say you know this person is the best person I've ever had on my team you know hands down best person I've ever had on my team Gloria's manager she is this feisty little woman from Bulgaria and you know she's like I treat Gloria no differently than anyone else you know she's she treats her you know the same as everyone else on the team and I think you guys have a really good relationship right Gloria yeah we do so you know just hearing those kind of things and I you know I think one of those things that really does hit home is the people feeling comfortable enough to say raise their hand and say I'm on the spectrum too and what helps is I know disclosure is a very personal topic but when someone discloses that allows if they come to the office network program and say you know hey I'm on the spectrum I really prefer you to keep this confidential but I want someone to know that kind of opens the door for us to be able to point that employee to services that they might need from the office of vocational rehabilitation or from a job coach so again I know that's a very very personal subject as a topic of disclosure but when we do know when these colleagues come forward when we do know there are some things that we are able to do if the employee is interested to assist them in the workplace we have any additional questions here so quick question is a hiring manager I guess for Philly out-of-the-job.com is that kind of recruiting agency where they have did it just provide you a candidates that are on the spectrum but don't do anything else besides screening or is there a kind of agency that they So I do believe that there is some kind of a fee involved but they're not a recruiting agency so they are a branch of the arc of Philadelphia so they are kind of like a hub for it doesn't have to be just people from SAP but our candidates that come through our training academy also go into their pipeline so you might have folks who have already been trained who are on the bench looking for employment ready to go into the workplace they can also help with creating a program at your company so everything from training interviewing, job coaching they provide all of those services Do we have anything else? We've got some great minds and great programs up here so please feel free to ask anything to us As a community of technologists the WordPress community really does have a global reach the software gods If you could ask one thing of the WordPress community as it relates to people with autism in the workplace what would that be? That's a big question and you don't necessarily tackle some angle of that What would you ask of us? Me, I would say kind of along the lines don't be shy so don't hide in that tech space in that WordPress community and kind of be out there and come forward and help us grow learn more about what you're dealing with and how we can all work together better in a sense I think we have to attack this unemployment number and I think that everybody can do their part whether you own a bakery or whether you own a franchise or you're in a tech company or you own a winery everybody can do their part to make that number go down but that's what I would say to the WordPress community if you have the opportunity if you can spread the word to tech companies and say other companies are doing this how about you? I think if everybody steps up to the plate by the time I think things will change faster than that but there will be a job leading for your son I still want to answer that question I would say my only thing is I'm going to steal your thunder and say that have those folks in the WordPress community to check their assumptions on every one especially when we're talking about the digital platform that's out there you really don't know who's on the other side of that screen yes in this forum we can see each other but there's still probably assumptions that are happening even here in this room by both sides of the panel but just be mindful of that we're just talking about human beings and so regardless of what special skills they do or don't have they still have certain needs wants and desires that need to be met somehow and so we can definitely work together to achieve that crushing that number would be huge I mean there's so many parents I've worked with who work so hard to try to create opportunities for their kids and try to get them to launch into the world and it's so hard for them and I've got to feel for that I mean it's it would be huge to try to be more proactive about being inclusive it would be huge it's my mission if I win the Powerwall I'll do something I promise if I win the Powerwall I will do something no it's again tonight right I'm waiting for them to call my phone so you have a follow up it's one of the organizers who filled out the word press meetups are there anything we can do to make it more accessible to persons with autism when we're planning these gatherings and how they're formulated with smaller groups to be more accessible or finding different techniques that would be easier and more inviting again and I mean it's something that I've personally seen a lot more of and I've also tried to help is that there are a lot more inclusion programs so even things as simple as you know hay rides right so we're movies or whatever that we kind of just think like okay yeah it's a simple thing it's not necessarily a simple thing for somebody in fact you know with autism so luckily there are a lot of non-profits or a lot of you know organizations that are starting to do that you know I just took my son on a hay ride but neither in the morning I think it was a cold you know morning but it was quieter it wasn't necessarily open to the public right so it allowed people that needed that the ability to kind of you know get in there and enjoy some things that the rest of the world did so you know from that standpoint you know absolutely if you can you know maybe have a sensory friendly room or a quiet room right or just some of the simple things I mean we kind of don't necessarily think about when planning you know events is that is just kind of having that inclusion mindset and knowing what can be done and you know if there are any special needs or things like that you know kind of open that up quiet room is always a good idea we incorporate the quiet room into a lot of our holiday party at SAP is totally crazy feel free to come on down this winter but it's sensory it is like sensory overload city so we have like a quiet room where everybody can can hang out and people do make use of it but I would say I was really really impressed with the color-coded stickers I think they're a great idea I've seen them at all our conferences and I think I mean that's just a really I think very incredibly thoughtful and forward thinking gesture so you know there's a interesting dilemma because I think talking about checking assumptions I mean the whole act of looking for a job at some level you might argue is a social behavior and it's a it's funny because I'm here thinking about people I work with who are extremely technically skilled who would be who would do very well with organizations but they're not necessarily the kind of people who go beat the bushes looking for a job and it's I mean it's an interesting again I think you're all in the space of dealing with that much more directly than I am but it's you know trying to figure out how to how to find those folks on the spectrum who have phenomenal skill sets but aren't necessarily they're not banging at your door they're not that's I mean that's solving that problem with strengthening is important it's an observation again we have stacks and stacks that petitions, businesses, chemists engineers so that's phillyoffsalsomjobs.com they're doing again they have all the resumes for anyone in the Philadelphia area or you don't even have to be in the Philadelphia area they are the ones sourcing all the candidates and have just incredible incredible talent pool that's out there and and waiting and looking for positions one final question or something that I discovered is one piece missing from this panel it's great and all that the one question that I have in my head that I haven't heard anything on yet is what is WordPress as a platform plug-in vendor or steam vendors what is being done at that level of the community as a WordPress developer freelance of myself I'm just wondering what is being done at that level of the WordPress community to make the WordPress environment the back end WordPress is a tool to use in the workplace better for individuals with autism and other disabilities I mean Liam do you? There's a number over here that can address that I think in recent years there's been a huge emphasis on accessibility within the WordPress software itself the core itself and so whether it's autism or other challenges that people have that continues to be a real priority there's an entire team there's a community team and a work camp team there's an accessibility team that has global memberships where they're bringing different perspectives there's teams that translate so it's not just keeping everything in English but it's moving into other languages and addressing challenges there I think from a what a zealot project conversations like this, panels like this where we're talking about it more openly are going to move it forward certainly looking to tech companies like SAP and relying on researchers like John and his colleagues at CHOP and inviting them into our community to say what do you know and how can we help are some of the things that we're doing but I think in this violent personal experience as a community WordPress is only 15 years old and it's awkward the community isn't that old they kind of came up from that and I'm one of the older people in the community certainly our older the children, people now that kind of were really early leaders they're having children and their children are 5, 10, 15 and I think that's where I'm sensing within the community this is something we now need to pay attention to because you found out when your son was diagnosed my son has sensory processes I found out when he was diagnosed with that so we get attached to it we learn about it and care about it when it hits home and I think as a community it started to hit home and Alex? I just want to add to that as well as you mentioned earlier WordPress currently powers about a third of the unit and what that means is that there are all sorts of job opportunities that can take any shape or form I work for a company and people fully distribute it so everybody works from wherever they live in their own home with whatever tools that they need but if people are doing everything marketing, I do fraud prevention everybody has their own thing that they do but I think that with open source and a project like WordPress we'll see a change within the way that people work because you can contribute from anywhere a location that makes it comfortable so I think WordPress is contributing in that way awesome Just to piggyback off of what you said because I work for the same company we do have coworkers with autism who get to work from a place of comfort wherever they want to work at any pace they want to work for the most part so you're not, it's these remote job opportunities between more and more prevalent and they're a great tool for different use cases I want to thank Al for being here and thank everybody for your questions I should be able to spend a couple minutes here so if there's any additional questions feel free to pop up but thank you all thank you


All righty, so Cedar Fair has made their official kind of announcements. I'm going to call them almost like a soft opening of announcements. That is my prediction strictly. I don't 100% know if this is all Cedar Fair is going to announce. There is a paragraph that Cedar Fair has posted on their website where they made their announcements that has me thinking that some of the rides coming to the parks in 2022 haven't been announced yet and this is somewhat of a soft announcement. I won't go into too much detail, but I'll read this one sentence that has me thinking a few rides are still in the works and that is these investments include ongoing renovations at Castaway Bay and Sawmill Creek Resort properties at Cedar Point as well as the addition of new rides, plural, attractions, plural, and guest amenities across our parks in the US and Canada. So that's the one sentence that's on Cedar Fair's website with every single park's kind of like additions announced, again I'm going to call it soft announce, and I do have a feeling that some parks may see a few rides announced. Anyways, one of the main things that was announced for Canada's Wonderland was a new big restaurant. The biggest one in the chain, I believe I could be incorrect about that, but I'm going to call it the biggest restaurant in the chain, why not? That is going to come in the my prediction firework hill at Canada's Wonderland. I have seen enough construction markers and spray paint in that area to suggest that a giant restaurant is coming there. It's going to house over 500 seats. It's going to have indoor and outdoor fireplaces. It's going to overlook Frontier Canada and Yukon Stryker. Again, the best view would be on the other side of the lake. It's going to be a wilderness lodge theme. I have a little bit of a rendering that some of our engineers are working on a specific project for Canada's Wonderland that fits the design of this that I'll put up on the screen. But nonetheless, this is going to be massive. It's going to be amazing. It's going to house what I would assume is, sorry about that, what I assume is going to be kind of like an area where they can have winter fest shows in the winter indoors and you're able to eat and sit down. So definitely a double benefit. That's what the American parks that have these Harmony Halls and Fest Hauses do with it. So nonetheless, that's super exciting. I know a lot of enthusiasts right now are probably like, what, really nothing at any of the parks at Canada's Wonderland? Not even a flat ride? Trust me. I shouldn't say trust me in this instinct because I actually don't know. I am expecting a dark ride or at least a flat ride at Canada's Wonderland, but I actually don't know that. I'm going to be totally transparent with you. I don't know. The only information I have to go off that I think that a dark ride is coming to Canada's Wonderland is based off of things that were said in 2019 at Yukon's Media Day to us. And look, we were right. One of them did come true. One of the things that were said to us in 2019 happened to come true. And it's the Fest Hauses Harmony Hall that is coming to Canada's Wonderland. That's going to be a cabin design. We've been kind of teasing this for the beginning portion of the season. We knew this was coming. Not that we knew because we had blueprints or anything. Again, we're not that kind of channel anymore. We're not going to be leaking blueprints to a new ride. If I know something's coming, I'll talk about it, but I'm going to talk about it in a really discreet way. And if I do know something's coming, it is based off of my knowledge and my understanding of construction and work at theme parks now. So I'm not going to be leaking anything that I shouldn't be leaking. I'm going to respect the park. We have a great relationship and I don't want to ruin that. So nonetheless, we knew this was coming just based off of the sewage markings that were here, the green paint, which is water main and sewage. Definitely a restaurant building or a building. And then the outline. It was a complete massive outline on Firework Hill. So we know that some massive building was coming and that Wonderland was looking at building a really awesome building similar to Harmony Hall. And it's supposed to have some of the most beautiful architecture to it.  Again, don't fret. I do think that a ride could be coming to Canada's Wonderland, but that is a stretch, again, based off of information that was told to us at Yukon Strikers Media Day about the park's future development. And that, you know, one of it ended up being true. So I'm assuming the second part of 2022 should end up being true as well. So a dark ride would make sense in action theater. But I wouldn't be surprised if maybe that was pushed off. But with the amount of money that they announced for 2022, I didn't really expect anything to be pushed off. So I am still expecting a little bit more of an announcement. And I know that Wonderland in their little email to us with this media package, it did say that there was more information coming, but it was in reference to the restaurant. It didn't necessarily hint at more information coming about 2022. So we don't really, again, it is a stretch, but we do know that the park is going to make an announcement in the next two weeks, approximately. So stay tuned for that information. They did say stay tuned and we'll let you guys know if we know anything more. Comment down below what you guys think about this new amazing restaurant coming to Canada's Wonderland. I know I'm really excited. I love Winterfest and I love the fact that the park is heading towards more of a all season round park. Again, nothing was announced about that yet. We just know that Winterfest may have a potentially expanded season by a couple of weeks, if a week, and that they may start a spring festival. Maybe potentially. We're not sure yet. Nothing announced yet about that, but we know that Cedar Fair is looking at Canada's Wonderland to extend its season. Thanks so much for watching, guys. Have a good weekend. Bye.


EDUCAUSE Connect is a highly interactive and action-driven experience. You and your peers will examine top IT issues and engage in career development activities to intentionally solve, network, and grow together. Connect is game-changing. You won't want to miss it. There are two EDUCAUSE Connect events in the spring. Denver in March and Miami in April. We are currently seeking content leaders who have expertise in the top higher education issues of the day. Submit a proposal which describes your expertise for one or both events by August 27. Here are a few tips to help you get started with the call for proposal. Review the checklist, guidelines, and selection criteria provided on the conference call for proposal page. Make sure your EDUCAUSE profile is up to date, or if you don't have one, create one now. Review the submission form. You may want to print the form and use it to prepare your submission content before beginning your actual submission. Be concise. Avoid overly descriptive pros throughout your proposal. Here is what you will be submitting in the call for proposal. First, a creative title that describes your area of expertise. Next, select one program track choice. Which of these key learning theme IT issues do you have knowledge or experience? Select a session format. Either a facilitated session, which is 45 to 60 minutes each and involves multiple content leaders, or a poster session, which is open for 60 minutes and may involve multiple participants. Your abstract will describe the focus of your content expertise and how it relates to the learning theme you selected. Provide the concise outcomes for your session. For example, what will participants gain by attending? What will they walk away with? Engagement strategies. Each session will offer 50% content delivery and 50% participant interaction. Describe strategies and tactics beyond discussion and Q&A that you will create and use, whether a facilitated session or a poster session. Hands-on activities, learning games, how creative can you be? Next, we want to know about you, which includes your content expertise, communication, and group facilitation skills. Please provide a clear description about your content expertise and how it relates to your selected learning theme, as well as your experience in facilitating group discussions and interaction. Here is a quick review of the call for proposal process. First, update your EDUCAUSE profile. The information there is critical to the proposal review committee. Step 2, take some time to review the descriptions of the four themes before making your choice. Step 3, preview the submission form to help you craft a proposal that works well with the Connect concept. Step 4, compose your response using a Word application tool first. The online form requires you to complete it in a single session and can time out without saving your entries, if you are writing for an extended amount of time. Step 5, when you're ready, paste your content into the online submission form. Step 6, do a quick check to confirm you have not missed anything and then submit. Note, if you are submitting as a corporate content leader and are accepted, there will be a fee for presenting and you will be connected with other institutional content leaders. Visit the EDUCAUSE Connect website for additional information. We look forward to seeing you at EDUCAUSE Connect 2016.


Hi, my name is Monica Wahee and I'm an author on LinkedIn Learning. Do you want to get started doing health data analysis in the open source statistical software R? Well, then you should really try my two course series on LinkedIn Learning on doing data science in R. The first course is named Descriptive Healthcare Analytics in R and gets you started from step zero, which is downloading and installing R. From there, I show you how to read in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System or BRFSS data set. This is a well-documented cross-sectional surveillance data set from the United States that's publicly available on the web. So, by going through the exercises in this course, you not only get to learn R, but you get your feet wet with epidemiologic data analysis and the BRFSS data set. LinkedIn Learning makes some sample videos available from each course that you can try for free, so you can see if you think the courses will be helpful to you. So, if you're curious about learning R, don't wait. You have nothing to lose. Click on the link in this video's description or on the button on our webpage to check out the course.


Hello everybody, I am Dr. Kesha Valasi from Walton Institute of Technology, Solapur. In today's session, actually in continuation with earlier two sessions, we will again talk about some introductory aspect of management, basically industrial management. At the end of today's session, you are expected to understand what are the major applications of industrial management as well as understand what is the scope of industrial management. Coming to major application areas, actually scope and applications if you talk in general for anything here particularly for industrial management. This was earlier restricted to manufacturing industries only, but with changing times as the supply chain and other operations related things have been very vital in today's context. Nowadays, these are thought in the field of service sector also or service organizations also in addition to manufacturing organizations. Now major applications if we think of then different authors might compile these applications in different groupings. There can be different perceptions and based on that there can be variations in this. Here I am referring one particular such perception wherein pre-production planning, production planning and control, then inventory management, then TQM that is total quality management and some other functions. These five groups as gross consideration I am referring here and at this juncture I request you people to think of different organizations for such applications of industrial management. Think of some cases, some industrial setups in manufacturing as well as service sectors to correlate these applications. Let us talk a little more about these applications. The first group was pre-production planning. This is something wherein before you start the actual production you need to look into certain aspects like plant location, plant layout and allied things wherein if I give the example then for cement manufacturing industry you really need to look for the location when the raw material is amply available and same goes with the sugar industry wherein the sugar production is crop is more there you prefer to have that location of sugar industry. Then plant layout yes if we take auto industry then which machine should be kept where the sequencing and scheduling aspect have been very critical and the total time elapsed time the cycle time all these things wherein idle time you really need to cut down and here in industrial engineering we have got different charting techniques some tools are there with which we really can think about plant layout. Before the manufacturing begins that is very important pre-production state then capacity planning yeah I mean if we have certain productivity requirement rather production rate if we have certain requirement like for example 10,000 vehicles per month suppose if we just take a case then 10,000 certain quantity of what automobile the number to be manufactured it needs other resources compatible to this 10,000 number that means how many machinery you need for 10,000 vehicles to be manufactured how many workers you need what different types of super managers so these all things come under capacity planning. Next is selection of machinery and equipments yeah people need to replace the machinery the war not machineries or maybe to get into advanced technology later things CNC technology flexible manufacturing system robotics high level automation thing so industries need to look into this that comes in particularly this selection of machinery and equipments. Same is with machinery handling or different metal handling systems in automation what level of automation you need and how do you like to handle these machineries as well as materials or systems you need these all things you think before actual production means. Second stage is while you really are about to start the production that we group as a production planning and control here again we have planning this planning is a particularly concerned with the production planning and here you need to really look into what type of product and in what quantity or what time period you need to manufacture. So, these types of production planning related things you have to work out then a routing is another application we have when you decide about the route card job card kinds of things like for a particular job but through what route it will pass in the shop floor in the industry which first it will go to as a first operation which machine it will go second operation which machine will it go likewise in what route it will follow sequence of machines so as to complete its all operations and take it to the finish level. Scheduling yes everywhere we do need with job will come to which machine at what time that is a scheduling aspect very simplistically if I talk then dispatching it is nothing but you give the you release the shop orders is a document you can say nowadays may be digitized form but unless the orders are given for the manufacturing things won't begin for actual manufacturing so that dispatching and controlling yes against the planned quantities are you really manufacturing the required ones if not why know the reason take the action that's controlling then third group is inventory management that's a very biggest application the aspect when you really maintain your stores also incoming material their quantity checkup and which department should be given how much quantity the record of all these things nowadays people are using ERP software in that they have this particular thing as one of the major modules in that and it's a crux of manufacturing industry then is a total quality management there is no compromise on the quality and the concept of totality comes up in that wherein we look into all aspects all the stakeholders we consider their blamed in ultimately bringing out the quality of the product and other applications you can think of like in finance department marketing human resource department everywhere you will find lots of applications of industrial management I repeat again these are the few major applications compiled in certain perception in certain mode you will find little variations with the different authors also now coming to the scope of industrial management yes we are talking because there is a tremendous for the management if you see lots of many institutions are running lots of variety of courses and they are highly running and with that the very first if you see it aims at faster organizational growth organization has to grow that is for that thing you need management without management how the original grow how will you carry out the proper consumption what is called as the optimum consumption or utilization of the resources if you have these things optimally carried out then only your organization may develop may grow and there is tremendous scope for these applications of you know like scope is tremendous in the sense optimum utilization there are lots of techniques available if you just think of industrial engineering or operations research you will find hundreds of tools and techniques for optimum utilization. Second point is it can be seen as a promising solution for whom for the people those who are looking into higher careers so for career aspirants yes tremendous scope is there earlier also this are restricted to only manufacturing industries and nowadays service organizations are also included in that so the tremendous scope supply chain management with the mall culture if you see tremendous supply chain management things are being carried out with lot of scope it covers complete supply chain remember supply chain has been very vital issue nowadays and you can think of any mall you can think of any domain like automobile chemical textile FMCG any any type of product and their supply chain you need to manage very rightfully further to it it looks into managing all forms of inventory like raw material work in process as well as finished goods so in managing inventories it's a very very big task having lot of scope many industries are closed down their businesses if they cannot if they could not in the past maybe handle the inventories properly and again putting little grossly so scope if we think of it really addresses almost all the functionalities like production management maintenance management maybe it's a marketing sales finance HR legal any any department you think of management is expected to address all these issues living tremendous scope for industrial management in all walks of life as well as in all the departments of any organization maybe it is manufacturing or service here I recommend these five books but beyond this you can even refer lots of things available on internet also thank you


Tonight, I think just, they seem to be real patient. I felt like there were some times I was executing pitches and it think of my way. But they're tough up and down for sure. As we noticed this series, it was a battle. Because of that both sides scoring a ton of runs, even if you give up a run, do you have in your mind that this is a long ways from over? Try to just hold them where they're at. Yeah, I mean, that's what we were trying to do. I think it was just kind of two real good offenses that are hot and, you know, luckily we, you know, we came out on top. What do you think of the job that Cortes Jr. and Tommy Kainley did coming in behind you? Really good, great, you know, huge outs there, both those guys, you know, and then Chappie came in and bounced back and had a great inning himself. So really good, good hold there for everybody. Just a wild series as a pitcher to kind of watch unfold with the amount of offense. Yeah, you know, going into tonight, he tried to forget about the previous two and treat it like any other. And to be honest, I think I've, you know, I felt, I felt real good as far as my stuff, but I just made a couple of mistakes, the two home run balls, of course. But other than that, I just feel like they did a good job of fighting the ball and, you know, getting some base hits and a couple of walks. Have you thought of Deedee's last couple of days? He's been incredible. You know, we were kind of joking after the game. He didn't get the belt the first two nights, but he finally got it tonight.  So he's been really impressive. When he gets hot, it's something to watch.