Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos

Phil Friend (OBE Ph.DFRSA) himself a wheelchair user, is acknowledged as the UK's foremost consultant on disability matters.

Gear, Gadgets and Gizmos

March 30, 2019

Hello everyone just a quick note to let you know that I’m planning to develop a new podcast in which I interview disabled people about the things they use to overcome the barriers they face because of their disability. I’ll keep you posted as to when this will become available.

Comments

Disability at Work - A Different Approach

March 25, 2013

For nearly thirty years I, and many others have provided disability equality training designed for, and targeted at line managers, HR professionals and other interested individuals. Given that most people acquire their impairments during their adult lives an important emphasis has been placed on helping employers and managers become more confident when managing disability in the workplace. Looking back I can see that this approach has provided some positive benefits and the workplace is no longer quite so problematic for disabled employees. Sadly I also think that this strategy has failed to deliver on two really important levels. Firstly, the disabled employee has to rely on being part of an organisation that places real importance on equality policies and practices. Even when this is the case the disabled employee is often separated from the equality process and has to sit and wait while their manager gets trained or the organisation decides to treat disability as a higher priority. ...

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August 11, 2013

I’ve just spent a very pleasant afternoon sitting out in the garden. My next door neighbour, who is a very keen gardener, recently “qualified” as a bee keeper and has a new bee hive. Since he acquired it and populated it with bees I’ve noticed that we seem to have a lot more of the little creatures flying around in our garden. A very welcome sight given the concerns about falling numbers of bees. Of course it might just be a coincidence or we simply acquired a lot of new neighbours. As I watched the bees working on our lavender plants I singled out one for closer scrutiny. He/she worked away on a number of flowers but never revisited one that had already been visited. How on earth does a bee work that out? The bee didn’t appear to think “did I do that flower properly? Perhaps I ‘d better just check”. He/she did it right first time and moved on! I think my brain is bigger than a bees but I find myself revisiting stuff all the time. If the computer starts misbehaving I keep trying t...

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December 09, 2012

Have you ever heard of Geocaching? Neither had I until fairly recently. Put simply millions of people across the world hide little containers with inexpensive items inside them. They post the coordinates on a geocaching website and then using a mobile phone or other GPS device we can all look for them. It turns an ordinary country walk into a treasure hunt. Once you find "the treasure" you post a message on the website which the cache owner sees. Sue and I have hidden one and when we go away in our motorhome we often look for caches near where we are staying. Now obviously some of the caches are hidden on mountains or on really difficult terrain so those of us with mobility impairments have a slight problem. But there are many locations which are very accessible and the websites usually give guidance about the terrain and whether the site is wheelchair accessible. I'm impressed and I'm now trying to ensure that when we find a "treasure" we leave a comment...