My blogger friend Dr. Tom Goyne has several interesting posts with links to videos that Phonak, Widex, Oticon and other major hearing-aid companies are putting on the web. Great, but....Why aren't any of the hearing-aid manufacturers' videos  captioned?!??! Some of the videos are really slick productions. Like Tom, I applaud their efforts to reach out directly to consumers to erase the old stigma of hearing aids and educate people about the new technologies that make hearing aids so much better than they used to be. (They are the next step in the consumer marketing trend kicked into high gear last year by Phonak, which blitzed the fashion world with its high-glam Audeo ads.) How ironic, and what a disappointment, then, to find that none of the videos are captioned. I really would love to see what that earnest Widex customer has to say in her testimonial.

Here's the short story, though I will write more about it in future posts. To get an America Hears hearing aid, all you have to do is fax the company a copy of a recent audiogram. They build a fully digital product, and their staff audiologists program it exactly to your specifications. They ship it to you along with software and a simple programmer you can use with your PC to adjust your hearing aids further. Because they sell and support direct without any middlemen, they are very affordable, charging only $995 per hearing aid. That's less than half what other makers of premium-brand hearing aids charge. They charge the same price for any of their models, wihch range from new open-fit speaker-in-the-ear products to traditional behind-the-ear models to numerous in-the-ear designs.  

I imagine the future governor’s information-gathering skills are supple and inexhaustible. Blind people are invariably creative and resourceful. Obviously we’re good listeners. But what people may not know is that learning to have a keen sense for what others are talking about requires developing an equally sharp curiosity about human beings. When people talk to me, I can’t just listen; I am also compelled to take stock of the person behind the words....That’s perhaps the most important thing for the public to understand about professionals who are blind — we are by nature tireless in acquiring information, and we remember virtually every detail of what we read or hear.

I've found in business and life generally that dealing with a disability sharpens you in every other way. I need to know more going into a meeting and be more comprehensive in my follow-up. I have to think about the story behind the story, and understand on a deeper level who and what I am dealing with than people who can get by on more superficial information by hearing only what they need to, rather than truly listening. I know it's a cliche to say that sometimes adversity brings with it certain gifts, but it's true.