What is your #MySurface story?

Having recently sat through a brilliant Rory Sutherland lecture, understanding and utilising ‘accessibility’ has never been greater. To quote the great ‘Ad Man’ himself, “Perspective is everything”.

Sutherland’s main point is the significance of perspective in everyday life. He often emphasises the importance of re-adjusting our perspectives toward many different things we encounter or experience in daily life. In doing so, psychologically, it can lead us to value the world in a more optimistic and happy way.  In a growing world, where our attentions home in on technology to make the pivotal difference, we need to understand the best ways to use it to bring out the best in everyone.

Following a recent interview with Marketing Week, alongside my colleague Paul Davies, we spoke openly about accessibility and learning difficulties and how technology can help. Technology isn’t just about cool gadgets, it’s as much about sociology and psychology, how people use it and creativity.  The Marketing and the communication industry has not always been the most inclusive or even considered a career option for people with conditions such as dyslexia and dyspraxia. More must be done to remove the stigma of learning difficulties.

Having been diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia, coming into the communication industry was more difficult than anticipated. Having not been diagnosed until 22 years old, it was clear in hindsight that I was penalised at school and was even told that university shouldn’t be an avenue for me. To break through that barrier, it took practice, education and playing to your strengths. Processing a lot of information comes quite easy – articulating it does not.

It’s been five years since I walked through Microsoft’s UK doors and I have been using the Microsoft Surface ever since the Surface Pro 3 and it’s contributed to my growth and development as both a marketer and young professional. With this, #MySurface has been my favourite and most trusted companion and it’s enabled creativity.

Here are some of the Windows 10 features I use to support my workflow:

  • Narrator in the Windows 10 Creators Update– the built in screenreader now utilises Cognitive Services to describe images and text embedded in images where no alternative text is provided
  • Presentation Translator– cloud generated subtitles and real time translation for all meetings
  • Eye Control– from a Hackathon to a new feature in Windows 10, you can now control a keyboard, mouse and speech generator using eye movement alone
  • Learning Tools – consuming text can now be personalised more than ever before. New features appearing across Windows and Office include Read Aloud, Word Spacing, Syllabification and Line Focus

This is #MySurface story and how I use it day-to-day. What is yours?

Interested in finding out more? See how Andrzej read for the first time with Microsoft Learning Tools