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eLink2000 B2B ConferenceBy Michael MassaOn September 15th 2000 I attended the Elink Conference 2000 in the city of Las Vegas. Las Vegas is an exciting place to visit. I couldn’t wait. Elink Conference 2000 was dealing with Internet technology.We decided to attend this conference for a couple of reasons. The primary one was to see what was there going to be in the area of adaptive technology for the disabled. Primarily, adaptive technology for the visually disabled. The trip to Las Vegas was uneventful. The conference was being held at the Bellagio Hotel. Upon arrival, a companion and myself went to the front desk to check in. At that time, I identified myself as media covering the Elink Conference 2000 for the disabled community. I informed the clerk that I was from DisabledPerson.Com. and I would like to speak to public relations individual from the hotel as part of my coverage of the conference would be the accessibility of the hotel. The clerk gave me the phone number of the person to contact and said that the individual would take me on a tour of the hotel and answer any questions that I might have.After settling into our room, I placed a call to the public relations person. As a matter of fact, I placed a number of calls to the public relations person and that individual never called me back. I was quite upset. Unfortunately, no one at the front desk or manager would or could help me. They said that the individual was busy with the conference and simply to keep trying. At that point in time, I figured that we were on our own. I couldn’t figure out why a major hotel in Las Vegas would not want to ensure that an article being written for the disabled and seen by thousands by a disabled person would not want input into the article? So I just stopped wondering. More on this latter.The Elink Conference in my opinion was fantastic. Commerce One who was the host of the conference put on a wonderful first class event. They brought in Chief Executive Officers from top technology companies to speak who had marvelous wonderful things to say about the future of the Internet. They talked about how in the next couple of years that everything and anything will be possible on the Internet. You know what, I believed them. They talked about the term community. They defined community as a vertical group that means a group that is a specific economic market in and of itself. Interestingly, they talked about many different communities. Communities for flower lovers as an example. Communities for financial transactions and so on. Sitting and listening to these wonderful lectures, it dawned on me that no one had mentioned a community for the disabled. At first it upset me but then after I calmed down, I realized that more than likely, no one was servicing the disabled community because no one was thinking about the disabled. As we all know, we are not at the forefront of most people’s thoughts.Following the speech of the Chief Executive Officer of Commerce One (the host of the event) I approach this gentleman and introduced myself saying that I was from DisabledPerson.Com. I said. “Your community of partners are wonderful but you are not servicing the disabled community.” He looked at me, put his hand in his pocket, pulled out his business card and said. “You are right, please call me after the conference.” He appeared to be a genuinely warm and wonderful person who realized what I said to him was true. I want all of you to know that I will do my best to follow up with him and I will keep you informed.Presentations notwithstanding I needed to make the rounds in the exhibit hall to find out what these major technology companies were doing about making web sites more accessible to the visually impaired. I went from booth to booth asking everyone what they were doing? To my surprise, no one there was working on anything new. That kind of blew me away. I thought that these companies would light up at a chance to discuss accessibility issues and adaptive technology. You know what, they weren’t. I don’t know whether to be surprised or not. I guess this wasn’t a forum in which they wanted to discuss these issues.All and all, if my purpose for going to this conference was to point out that the disabled community is being undeserved, then it was well worth it. I also want to thank Commerce One and their Chief Executive Officer for being receptive to my cry.Getting back to the Bellagio Hotel, let me tell you that it is a massive place. It takes forever and a day to get from one place to another inside that hotel. It seems as large as a city when you are inside. It is a fully functional place. You never need to leave it for anything. It is also very beautiful. The artwork is magnificent. They had artwork from all the masters like Renoir Monet, simply to name a few Rembrandt. You could actually see them to for a nominal fee of $12.00. With regards to accessibility, the isles are certainly wide enough to accommodate wheel chairs. The problem that was blatantly obvious to me was that the chairs in front of the slots and video machines didn’t move making it very difficult for someone with a mobility disability to enjoy gaming.The elevators were certainly large enough to accommodate wheel chairs. The rooms were very nice and large enough for my companion and me. All in all it is a marvel of architecture. I didn’t get the felling though that there was urgency at the hotel to assist the disabled. |
