Remarkable World Commentary Episode #36: Interview with Aaron Di Blasi, Sr. PMP, Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd., Publisher, Top Tech Tidbits, Access Information News, AI-Weekly and Title II Today

Podcasts By Donna Jodhan

In this candid episode of Remarkable World Commentary, Donna J. Jodhan speaks with her 13-year collaborator and friend Aaron Di Blasi — engineer-turned-publisher and founder of Mind Vault Solutions — about his path from a Tandy computer fascination at age seven, through a career-shaping battle with chronic kidney stones, to becoming a leading curator of disability-focused news. Di Blasi explains how a chance encounter with accessibility champion Larry Lewis drew him into the blind community and inspired Mind Vault's "serve the few perfectly" ethos, which now powers the globally read newsletters Top Tech Tidbits, Access Information News, AI-Weekly and Title II Today. He shares the philosophy behind financing these outlets through industry sponsorships rather than community donations, and outlines how his PMP discipline and small virtual team keep projects on track while embedding ADA, WCAG and Section 508 compliance from day one.

The conversation dives into the practicalities of inclusive media production—detailing the workflow Mind Vault uses to record, clean, transcribe and syndicate Jodhan's podcasts, and why well-structured transcripts benefit both screen-reader users and search-engine visibility. Di Blasi spotlights recent ventures such as AT-Newswire, the Access Park assistive-tech marketplace and Vision Tech Academy, emphasizing that successful accessible platforms start with targeted audiences, agile processes and a willingness to evolve quickly in the AI era. Throughout, Jodhan and Di Blasi reflect on their shared commitment to breaking barriers and their belief that real progress is built on education, collaboration and the courage to demand quality over scale.

Links To The People, Brands, Organizations And Products Mentioned In This Podcast

People

• Donna J. Jodhan: Host, disability-rights advocate and producer of Remarkable World Commentary.
• Aaron Di Blasi: Guest, Engineer, Publisher, Digital-Marketing PMP and founder of Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
• Dr. Sally K. Norton: Nutrition scholar cited for her book Toxic Superfoods on oxalate poisoning.
• Grandmaster Moo Hwan Kim: Aaron and Larry's late Grandmaster in traditional Taekwondo, Judo and Hapkido. Aaron attained a 3rd Degree Black Belt in traditional Taekwondo under Grandmaster Moo Hwan Kim from 1998 to 2012.
• Larry L. Lewis Jr.: Former Publisher who funded Top Tech Tidbits for 12 years.
• Dean Martineau: Founder of the Top Tech Tidbits Newsletter. Referred to as the "Grandfather of Top Tech Tidbits."
• John Panarese: Renowned Apple-certified instructor and founder of MacForTheBlind.com, remembered for his accessibility leadership. Vision Tech Academy was created by Donna Jodhan in his honor.
• Dr. Kirk Adams: Leading blind workplace inclusion advocate who is also a client of Mind Vault Solutions with Aaron as their assigned PMP.
• Haben Girma: Blind Deaf-blind civil-rights lawyer highlighted as a creator the team promotes for free.
• Sam Seavey: YouTuber behind The Blind Life, highlighted as a creator the team promotes for free.
• Rebecca & Dolores Biscuit: Aaron's two sister pugs, given a playful shout-out.

Brands / Organizations

• Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.: Aaron's digital-marketing firm.
• Top Tech Tidbits: Newsletter published by Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
• Access Information News: Newsletter published by Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
• AI-Weekly: Newsletter published by Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd.
• Title II Today: Newsletter published by Mind Vault Solutions, Ltd. Funded by Pneuma Solutions.
• AT-Newswire: Press Release News Distribution Service where Aaron acts as PR Director.
• Pneuma Solutions: Partner on Title II Today newsletter covering U.S. web-access rules.
• Hadley: Nonprofit mentioned as a creator whose work is shared free of charge.

Products

• Zoom: Platform used to record the podcast episode.
• WordPress: CMS chosen for the forthcoming Top Tech Tidbits site rebuild.
• GoFundMe: Crowd-funding option rejected for rebuild of Top Tech Tidbits website.
• ChatGPT, Sonix.ai, Adobe Audition: AI transcription / audio-editing tools in Aaron's workflow.
• Google, Apple, OpenAI: Cited as potential sponsors for AI-Weekly.

TRANSCRIPT

Podcast Commentator: Greetings. Donna J. Jodhan, LLB, ACSP, and MBA, invites you to listen to her biweekly podcast, Remarkable World Commentary. Here Donna shares some of her innermost thoughts, insights, perspectives, and more with her listeners. Donna focuses on topics that directly affect the future of kids, especially kids with disabilities. Donna is a blind advocate, author, sight loss coach, dinner mystery producer, writer, entrepreneur, law graduate, and podcast commentator. She has decades of lived experiences, knowledge, skills, and expertise in access technology and information. As someone who has been internationally recognized for her work and roles, she just wants to make things better than possible.

Donna J. Jodhan: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Remarkable World Commentary. I'm Donna Jodhan, a lifelong disability advocate and one who sees the world mainly through sound, touch and stubborn optimism. I am a law graduate, accessibility consultant, author, and lifelong barrier buster who also happens to be blind. You may know me from a few headline moments. In November of 2010, I won the landmark charter case that forced the Canadian government to make its websites accessible to every Canadian, not just sighted ones. In July of 2019, I co-led the Accessible Canada Act with more than two dozen disability groups to turn equal access into federal law. And most recently, on June 3, 2022, I was humbled by Her Late Majesty's Platinum Jubilee Award, for tireless commitment to removing barriers. When I'm not in a courtroom or in a committee room or pottery studio, you'll find me coaching kids with vision loss, producing audio mysteries, or helping tech companies make their gadgets talk back in plain language. Everything I do circles one goal. To turn accessibility from an afterthought into everyday practice. I invite you to think of this show as our shared workbench, where policy meets lived experience and lived experience sparks fresh ideas. Now, before we jump into today's conversation, let me shine a quick spotlight on today's guest, a changemaker, whose work is every bit as remarkable as the world we're trying to build. Aaron Di Blasi, I'd like to welcome you to the Remarkable World Commentary podcast.

Aaron Di Blasi: Hello Miss Donna. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

Donna J. Jodhan: And how are you doing today?

Aaron Di Blasi: I am doing fantastic. It's great to be on a podcast with you after so long together.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh, yes. We've been. We've been associated for a very long time, and we're going to think.

Aaron Di Blasi: We're going on 13 years as of this conversation. Yeah, I would say so.

Donna J. Jodhan: That's right. So, Aaron, in addition to Running Mind Vault, you are the Publisher for the Top Tech Tidbits Access Information News, the AI Weekly and Title II Today newsletters.

Aaron Di Blasi: I know it's a lot, sorry, yeah, it's a lot.

Donna J. Jodhan: And and the PR Director for the AT-Newswire News Distribution Service.

Aaron Di Blasi: People might think I have a thing for titles, huh? No, no. Not at all the case, I assure you. Yeah.

Donna J. Jodhan: Let's open with the question that many listeners want to understand. Uh oh. As the Publisher of several leading disability focused news outlets, do you, yourself, live with the disability?

Aaron Di Blasi: What a fantastic question. No I do not. And no, I have never lived with a certified disability in my life. But I have brought a story that I would like to share with everyone today, yourself included. Though I think you might know most of this story, though I think you'll learn a little bit from the details. I've decided to share this story. Not because I want people to think that I understand disability. I want to share this story because a very good friend of mine recently explained to me that it's not about me, that it has nothing to do with me, or whether people believe I have a disability. It has to do with sharing knowledge about disability and helping other people who might have the same disability that you do. Okay, so here's my story. At seven years old, I had a very difficult condition that I did not understand. I went into the hospital. And over the course of about a week, they diagnosed me with chronic nephrolithiasis at seven years old. Now, for anyone who doesn't know, that's, in plain speak. That's kidney stones. In Latin, nephro is kidney and lithiasis is stone. And that's what they used to call it. Back in the day. Stone of the kidney. The kidney would calcify, as they called it. They didn't understand what was going on. So I grew up with this condition which means that I had a kidney stone as a child from about seven years old until I was about 23 years old every 3 to 6 months. So if you do a quick ChatGPT look up of the most painful experiences in the world, at the top of the list you will see childbirth.

Aaron Di Blasi: And directly under that you'll see kidney stones. They're an incredibly painful condition. You know, some people even have committed suicide because the pain is so bad. Oh, no. So. So we do. Yeah. A lot of people in the. I know a lot of people with kidney stones, and I'm not special in any way. A lot of people have this as children. Doctors are especially interested in pediatric cases, because we generally tend to think of kidney stones as an older person's disease. Right. It's not. So here's what I went through at seven years old. My mother, being the scientific minded person that she was, I knew that what the doctors were telling her, which is that he's not drinking enough water, was B.S., you know, it's like sticking a boot in a toilet and thinking that if you put more water in the toilet, you'll get the boot out eventually, but you keep putting more boots in the toilet, you know, so it's not really going to work. And we knew this, and we went through several nephrologists kidney doctors and specialists, and they all said the same thing. We want to put you on a regiment of drinking two gallons of water a day. Da da da da da. Which I did, but it did not obviously change my condition. So fast forward to 23 years old. I decide to begin my martial arts training, and as part of that endeavor, I wanted to change my diet. I wanted to eat better. I wanted to perform better. So I moved from a primarily meat diet to a primarily plant diet, not knowing that oxalate kidney stones are caused by plants.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh, no.

Aaron Di Blasi: I did not know this. Well, neither did my doctors, apparently. Okay, so Aaron now went from every 3 to 6 months to having a kidney stone roughly every 12 to 14 days. Oh yeah. And it takes about a week or so to recover after an episode like that. I even got so bad, I was vomiting so much that I perforated my ulcer and had to go in and have my ulcer stitched back together, basically because I was throwing up so much. So the only thing that they told me was drink more water, and they gave me suppositories for nausea. That's all I've been given in the entire 20 years of treatment that I have had with nephrologists. So at 23 years old, obviously I, after being in the ICU for five days and having three different surgeries to remove kidney stones, in which they removed approximately 130, in three different operations. Oh. So after that time, I decided that I was no longer going to listen to the two gallons of water a day advice, and I was going to go off and try to find a solution myself. And that is when I came across what I want readers and listeners to know about today. Her name is doctor Sally K Norton. And doctor Sally Norton had the very same problem that I did. She went into the hospital at 12 years old for oxalate poisoning. And that is exactly what I have. It's oxalate poisoning. And it was coming from her diet. It was coming from the plants and the spinach and the shard and the heavy vegetables that she was eating. Some people process oxalate just fine, and some people, like myself do not. So we accumulate that oxalate because we're not processing it like a normal individual does. So if you don't know this, you're just simply drinking more water while at the same time taking in tons more oxalates.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh my.

Aaron Di Blasi: Lord. Yeah. Exactly right. And I'm literally I we're talking spinach smoothies every morning. Kale smoothies every night. Yeah. And I had no idea what I was doing to my body. My doctors are going, you know, I told my doctors, I gave them my diet. I told them what I'm doing, but that seems fine. You're drinking lots of water, right? Yes, I'm drinking lots of water. So in any case, just just to give people a quick. You can go to Sally Norton. I have never met this woman, but she is an incredible inspiration. She has written a book called Toxic Superfoods. And a lot of pregnant mothers are very into this topic right now because it affects your baby as well. So you want to know about the oxalates that you are taking in. She has a Bachelor of science and nutrition from Cornell. She's also a master of public health degree from the University of North Carolina. And she managed a five year National Institute of Health funded program at the uncW Medical School. So this is someone who's very well known in the community for her views, and she's trying very hard to change the narrative around kidney stones from Drink a Lot of Water to here's how you can get them out of your diet.

Donna J. Jodhan: Wow, what a wealth of information, I never know.

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh, yeah. Right. So having taken all this, I just want people to know that I now have a kidney stone approximately once every 9 to 10 months.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh my God.

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh, no. That's wonderful actually, for me. You know what I mean? That's wonderful. I know some people will only experience maybe 1 or 2 in their life, but if you do, if you need information, please reach out to me. I have a wealth of information about kidney stones. I can help you. I can talk to you about potassium citrate. I can talk to you about magnesium citrate. All the things that you can do to wean yourself off of oxalate. So you just whatever you do, you don't want to immediately start doing these things because you will bring all of the oxalates out at once and that will put you in the hospital.

Donna J. Jodhan: I've been going to send my sister in law to you. She recently developed kidney stones.

Aaron Di Blasi: Did she really? Yeah, a lot of people. I've been dealing with this since I was seven years old, I said. I sit in the hospital literally, and I talk to people that are 60. 65 and they have kidney stones and I'm sitting right next to them. And he's like, you know, young man, why are you in here? What are you doing? You know, I just I've had these since I was seven years old. He's like, get out of here. No way. You know, but yeah, it's it's true. It can happen to anyone. It's not an old person's disease. I think just as people get older, your body does not process oxalate as efficiently. So you begin to develop stones. And on the size of stones, just so that people understand the range is generally from 0 to 10mm, five millimeters will put you in the hospital, guaranteed. I have past stones that are nine millimetres. Oh, myself personally, and they go from 0 to 10. No one has ever reported a stone larger than ten. Unless you're getting it surgically removed. But I am able, as a human being, to pass nine millimeter stones. My doctors are amazed by that and still tell me to drink water.

Donna J. Jodhan: I will send my sister in law to you.

Aaron Di Blasi: Please do so. So I hope that everyone understands that. That had a lot to do with my decision. Upon taking on Top Tech Tidbits and becoming friends with Larry Lewis, which we'll talk about later in the podcast. And I understand a lot of what the people that I've been speaking to for the last 20 years go through with a lack of accommodation, a lack of understanding, even where chronic illness is concerned.

Donna J. Jodhan: And I can attest to that. All right. Can you take us back to the first moment that you first meet your love of technology?

Aaron Di Blasi: I first met my love of technology in the Euclid Square Mall in Cleveland, Ohio, when I was seven years old. It may have been the same year I think I was diagnosed. I went into a RadioShack and I saw a Tandy computer, and I don't know why or what research I was doing at the time, but I wanted it. I begged my mother and father for it. They bought it for me. I brought it home, hooked it up to a television set and was greeted with a blinking cursor. I didn't know what a cursor was at the time. It just blinked. You know, I thought there should be something more on the screen to tell me what was going on, but instead it came with a book called Basic Code, and I learned the basic coding language. And that's when my My Love started. And I have learned probably 16 or 17 more programming languages since that time, since getting my engineering degree. And not a lot of that makes an awful lot of difference today with AI, because they're kind of all mushed together, you know? But it's still helpful, and it helps you to build in ways that people that don't understand those languages still can't know.

Donna J. Jodhan: What early challenges or breakthroughs pushed you towards computer engineering, and eventually journalism and entrepreneurship.

Aaron Di Blasi: Are great questions. I began my involved in 2004. I graduated Case Western with my engineering degree in 98. I got a job in downtown Cleveland working for a publishing company who published the American Machinist and Machine Design magazines. And that is the reason that I did not segue immediately into an engineering job, which I had waiting for me. But I loved media. I loved moving people. I love hearts and minds. I love helping people, you know? And marketing is kind of the language with which you speak to people's hearts and minds. So I went with journalism. You know, it was obviously related to engineering with the American machinist and machines and magazines. But I had a lot to learn because I was an engineer and I was not a journalist at that time, you know. But these people took me in. They put their arms around me and they taught me an awful lot. I mean, so much to the point that before I left Penton Media, which has since been acquired, I had a list of clients who needed the same services. You know, that Penton Media was providing to people. It was a very exciting time. Digital marketing had just emerged. You know, people didn't know what digital marketing was or what an online ad was. And so everyone was trying to set up some type of infrastructure to help their business, you know, grow with this new digital marketing. So in 2004, I decided to create a company that did digital marketing for people. I called it my Vault Solutions, and I left my beautiful job in downtown Cleveland overlooking the Galleria. Everyone told me I was out of my mind. I felt rather out of my mind at the time, to be honest with you. But I saw promise. You know, I saw possibility, and it was scary, as all entrepreneurship is. It often gets scary, but it's the best decision I think I've ever made, honestly.

Donna J. Jodhan: Let's rewind to August 2012, when Larry Lewis first introduced us. What drew you to my work at that time, and how has our professional partnership and our friendship grown over these 12 plus years?

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh, God. Well, for now, let's start with the beginning question, which was what did I see in you? I saw the same budding person that I was when I left Penton Media in 2004. You were looking for digital marketing at the time? You may not have known it. I'm sure you know that now after conversations, yes, I do, but at the time you didn't. You knew you needed some services. You needed some things done. You thought that you being blind, had something to do with that which it did not. Because digital marketing is digital marketing. You know, we deal with accessibility. Secondarily, as you've learned. But what we did is we took that digital marketing done, and you took your ideas and your wealth of lived experience and accessibility and applied it to those digital marketing principles and have grown yourself literally to where we are today. You know, I wanted more people to hear what you had to say. I wanted more people to know what you had done. And that is what drew me to you. That is what I look for in clients, you know? That's why I recently partnered with Doctor Adams. Doctor Kirk Adams, same thing. You know, he has an incredible message. I want more people to hear it. I think more people need to hear it. So that is what made me partner with you. And then I had no idea that you and I would become fantastic friends. You know, I love your goals. I love the way you see accessibility. I love the way you see helping people. And I think that is what has allowed us to continue doing business together and be friends for over 13 years now.

Donna J. Jodhan: It's been a long and very interesting and exciting association. Yeah, I don't regret any moment of it. We've had our ups and downs, but we've learned.

Aaron Di Blasi: Yes. Yes. All good business partners must. Sure. Yeah, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Okay.

Donna J. Jodhan: Mindful solutions runs on the mantra that quote, it is better to serve the few perfectly than to serve the many ordinary. What does this philosophy look like in practice for your team and your clients?

Aaron Di Blasi: It is our attempt at providing our clients with perfection, or at least as close to. Perfection as humanly possible. So many things today are about scale. We get an idea that people want and that we scale, scale, scale, scale until the product or the service is almost unrecognizable from what we started with. You know, people loved it when there was ten clients, but when there was 100, it was a completely different product or service. And that is what we have always wanted to fight at mind. We want you to come to mind vault and go, this is this is home. This is where I'm at. This is where I'm going to park my business for the next 20 or 30 years and where I'm going to grow. And that is precisely what our clients do. I think you yourself included, so that that perfectionist type of attitude, which is not that we don't want to do perfect for everyone because we do, but we just can't. There's not enough of us. So we're okay with saying no. You know, I say no probably twice a day now to clients. I just we don't have the room anymore, you know? But people still want these skills. They still want these advantages in their business. So I think that's where the core of that mantra comes from.

Donna J. Jodhan: How do you manage this, Aaron?

Aaron Di Blasi: Well there's myself I work out of my home office in Cleveland, Ohio. I have since 2004, so we have no physical locations. This was really weird back in 2004. Everybody thought that was really crazy. But now with remote work, it's not a big deal. I have seven other certified project management professionals. They all carry their PMP, and we serve clients all over the world. And I manage those seven people. And those seven people, in turn, manage clients of their own. And we all trade work with each other as needed because we have different specialties. You know, we have a lawyer on the team. We have an advocate on the team. You know, even yourself, we've contacted you on occasion for, you know, advice with accessibility and from a blind person's perspective, etc., you know, so that's how we how we all kind of work together.

Donna J. Jodhan: What's a PMP?

Aaron Di Blasi: Project management professional certification? It's given by the PMP Institute here in the United States. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canada or not or how it's recognized. But there's two components to it. One is obviously a test that you have to pass with a lot of knowledge about project management, best practices and agile philosophy, etc. but the second part, and the harder part for people to get often is the 60 to 85 hours of certified project management professional experience, which has to be provided generally by a corporation or company or organization. And then once they certify that you have put in those hours of actual project management, then they will give you your PMP certification, and you can keep that certification alive every year by renewing it and taking the test like I do.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh my Lord, do you ever sleep.

Aaron Di Blasi: Eight hours a day? Yes I do. Yes I do. But yeah, it's a lot. I don't have a big family, you know, so it's just my business, and I take my time and I run it, and I love to help people. That's my passion. Not just blind people. Not just deaf people. Not just disabled people. Not just people with kidney stones. Everyone. Everyone. I love to help everybody. Everyone needs the same help. You know, they think they don't. They think their health needs to be disability specific. And I understand that today because of what's going on. I really do, especially here in the United States. But it's just not true. If you have a business, if you are blind, if you are deaf, if you are disabled in any way, contact us, partner with us. We will help you.

Donna J. Jodhan: It's funny, my technician the other day, he just said, Aaron has a big heart, doesn't he? And he never says no to you. I said he May 1st day.

Aaron Di Blasi: I never want to say no to you. Not ever. That's. That's part of that philosophy, you know, it's just just bring people your best and, you know, give them the services they need and help them to grow. And I think that's mutual prosperity and it's heart.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah. So you baked Ada, WCA and section 508 compliance into Mindful Solutions services Long before accessibility was trendy. What inspired that early commitment?

Aaron Di Blasi: I think honestly, it was our foundational relationship with Dean Martin and Larry Lewis and Top Tech Tidbits. Prior to 2004 I guess I should probably just give this background at this point. Sure. When I started training in martial arts at 23 years old, I got my black belt in approximately five years. Five years after that, I come into the dojo one day and my grandmaster says to me, we have a new student today. Please go meet them at the bus stop. And I said, okay. So I ran outside in my bare feet, and I ran across the street to the bus stop, and the RTA bus pulled up and a man got off the bus with a white cane. Click, click, click on the ground and he says, hi, I'm Larry Lewis. He says, I'm here today to learn martial arts. This is Master Kim. He never tells you anything. Okay? You know, I didn't know how to walk with a blind person. I didn't know how to hold. They hold your arm that you don't hold them. So these are all things I didn't know. I know a lot of sighted people don't know these things. Unless you actually have encountered a blind person in your life, you know? So I had a lot to learn, you know, and he had to direct me immediately and say, turn around, give me your elbow. And he puts his, you know, his index finger and his thumb on my elbow. Yeah. Okay. I know, you know, but I'm just saying this for the benefit of listeners.

Aaron Di Blasi: Yeah. And he says, okay, now walk. You know, it just was weird to me. I didn't want to hurt him. I didn't I didn't feel like I had the information that I needed. Right. And I think a lot of sighted people feel like I felt that day in that bus stop. They don't want to say the wrong thing, they don't want to do the wrong thing, but they don't know what to do. Thankfully, Larry was very helpful and was, you know, come here, sighted person, let me teach you, you know? And I quickly picked it up. So I became kind of Larry's go to. And Larry and I became friends very fast both inside and outside of the dojo. And I spent his entire three and a half years with him to get his black belt, which he eventually did, and then went on to get a black belt in jiu jitsu as well, I believe. And he absolutely loved and adored it, which you can understand because you put your hands on, you know, you don't need to see necessarily. I mean, sure, it helps when people are trying to hit you, but you could put your hands on people and do things. And he absolutely loved and excelled at that. So having him as a friend for the I don't know, what was it, 13 years? I think that we trained together taught me an awful lot about blindness, specifically about how someone his house was completely different. I had never been to a blind person's house.

Aaron Di Blasi: You know, he had assistive technology in place that announced people at the door. Right, right. You know, there were it was amazing to me. It was like I just learned and learned and learned and learned. And then eventually he contacted me and said, hey, I got a friend of mine, his name is Dean Martino, and he does this little newsletter called Top Tech Tidbits. You know, he puts it out. It's yeah, it's just some technical tips for blind people. No big deal, you know? But it's really grown. And he doesn't know how to take it international. Can you help with your digital marketing stuff? And I said, sure, Larry, I can definitely help with that. So we went ahead and took it on from Dean. Dean remained the editor. Larry became the publisher, and Larry used my vault in the background for his digital marketing services. So it was really us working. Top Tech Tidbits newsletter with Larry as the publisher, which was fantastic. That put me in the position, beginning in 2004, to begin talking with blind persons daily, literally daily. I still to this day get emails. I answer probably 5 or 6 emails a day, you know, from people of all types of disabilities, chronic illnesses amputees, you know, you name it. But in the beginning it was very much just blind people. I think they are the kind of the ones that started the whole Top Tech Tidbits thing. You know, it's much more diverse now.

Donna J. Jodhan: Today.

Aaron Di Blasi: I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Donna J. Jodhan: Where is Dean today?

Aaron Di Blasi: I do not know, though I do still hear his name mentioned. I do still see him in various giving webinars, etc. I'd love to hear from Dean if he's out there. Grandfather of Top Tech Tidbits. We thank you for everything that you have done. Yeah, yeah, he stuck around for a little while and then he went and he did his thing. Dean's a great guy. He sticks to himself. He helps the community a great deal. We will never, ever, ever forget him.

Donna J. Jodhan: Now, Top Tech Tidbits turned 20 last year. What did you inherit when you acquired it in 2020? And what new ideas have kept it indispensable for access tech professionals?

Aaron Di Blasi: I think we inherited an awful lot of problems. I know that it was a lot of problems is what we inherited starting with the number one problem, which was okay, Larry got to the point where, again, we're going to thank Larry here for financing that newsletter for, you know, 12 years to the tune of probably $2,000 a month. He got to a point where he couldn't do that anymore. It was certainly understandable. And he began shopping the list, or it was about 7500 people at the time. So he began shopping on the computer and people didn't really know what to do with it. So you got to a point where he was just frustrated and said, Aaron, you know, I think I'm just going to give it up. Nobody knows what to do with it. I said, well, let me go to my board and see if we can keep this alive in some way. You know, maybe I can convince you, excuse me of my involvement, to look at this from a marketing perspective and see what we would be doing for persons with disabilities, and maybe they'd be willing to let us donate the time, if not money, which is now, both to keep the newsletters running at least until we can get them funded. So my dad said to me, well, Aaron, I'll tell you what, we'll give you two years. We're not going to go past two years. If you can't get it funded in two years, we're going to let it die.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh, no.

Aaron Di Blasi: Well, yeah. It's fair. You know, you can't keep donating. They would have become Larry to the tune of $2,000 a month. And they didn't want that, you know. So I said, okay, let me see what I can do. So I came up with the idea that sponsors or, you know, the businesses and organizations basically that make their money from persons with disabilities should be the people to support said publication. And that was just my idea at the time. It was a crazy idea. It's not so crazy today with everything that has happened with DEA and I think people are very happy that Top Tech Tidbits are supported by the industry because it's not going anywhere. It's not supported by the sighted people at Mind Bulk. I mean, we still kick in the dollars required because it doesn't carry a sponsor limit yet. And same with access information news. I think we still donate about 10,000 a year to Top Tech Tidbits to keep it running, and more like 20,000 a year to access information just to keep it running because it's still low on sponsors. But our idea is that one day we will get enough businesses and organizations to understand the value of supporting this themselves, so that one day when my vault walks away in 20 years, or whatever the case is, if newsletters are still a thing, we will have something that we can hand off to someone else that actually makes money and continues working and is not just volunteer, because we kind of see how that went with Apple his and you know, you guys did a wonderful job. They really did. But you know the community has said it's changed. It's not the same. And it can't be the same when you have that many volunteers working. And, you know, we saw what he went through and how it stressed him out. You know, before he left Apple, it was rough. You know, so we want to avoid that with Top Tech Tidbits. Access information is whenever we step away, we want to someone else to be able to step in purchase that property and keep it running.

Donna J. Jodhan: We hope you stick around for a long time.

Aaron Di Blasi: So do we. We have no plans on going anywhere. We know everyone has to go at some point, so we want to set it up for success.

Donna J. Jodhan: Now, all four of your current newsletters rely on both artificial intelligence and human editors. How do you manage that dance? To deliver a concise briefing from thousands of disability related headlines each week? How do you do that? Aaron.

Aaron Di Blasi: Well, there's a process that we use. It's quite a process. We we have a very famous folder online called the Bits Bin. It's been called the bits bin since 2004. And basically what we do is we drop articles in there, well, not just we anymore. It used to be just we. And when I say we, there's myself, there's John Hanlin, there's Jenna Lang, and these are the three people at Mind Vault who make all of the decisions on all of the articles that appear in every one of our publications. But we now receive news from across the spectrum. You know, Viscardi can send us news. Hadley can send us news. So we get, everything drops in the bits bin. And what we ask John and Jenna and myself to do every single day is spend some amount of time upvoting or downvoting these articles. So we're not writing them. We're not, you know, providing any of these information. I think that's what a lot of people don't understand is they say, how can you guide blind people when you're not blind? Or how can you help deaf people when you're not deaf? Or, because we are specialists in information and that is what we do well. So we take the bits mean everyone votes these up and down And then the day before we give. Generally me, I'm the one that does Top Tech Tidbits. We give myself 12 hours and I take 12 hours, and we code every one of those approved tidbits. And we have a specific process that we use to code them so that blind people can use the heading function on any one of their screen readers to quickly navigate the newsletter.

Aaron Di Blasi: This is something that a lot of people don't know, and I hope they pick up from this podcast we've written about it. I know it takes a little bit of tech savviness on the part of the screen reader user, but once you get that single heading button, the newsletter becomes phenomenally easier to read because every single tidbit has its own heading. So you can, just through H, H, H, H, H through the whole newsletter, and you never have to stop for an ad or listen to an ad that you don't want to hear. You know, people complain that there's ads in the newsletter. You know, there wouldn't be a newsletter without them, unfortunately, but you can skip them. But unfortunately, a lot of blind people still read the newsletter as text, and that is very yeah, it's a very messy experience. I wouldn't even, with sight, want to read the newsletter by text. because there's a lot you have to read that you don't want to. I want to skip to the parts that I want. You know, I'm interested in Apple or I'm not. And if I'm not interested in Apple, I wanna skip that whole section. I can easily do that because it's a heading. So I can go from H3 to the next H3, and all those H4s underneath. I'll never even see them.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah, I think beautiful.

Aaron Di Blasi: I know, but and I speak with people every day and say, Aaron, I would really like to do that. I just don't know how. Right. You know, and I've taught some people how to do it too, but they may need to move often. A lot of people are using VoiceOver on iPhone because it's easy. Voiceover is the most terrible screen reader of the three. I know, I know. I know you know, it has known issues with HTML validation, which we write all of our code in HTML. We make sure it's perfect and we validate it, and then VoiceOver does not adhere to it, which is very upsetting. You know, so we've written to people about this, but to get someone to move from Voiceover to JAWS or to NVDA is kind of a big jump. You know, there's there's even for one button, you still have to get them set up. There's licensing involved, at least with JAWS anyway, you know, so it can be a big ask. A lot of people would rather just stay with Voiceover and listen to it in kind of a broken fashion, which is sad. I sincerely hope that Apple upgrades both Siri and and their code factor soon.

Donna J. Jodhan: I hope so too. I hope so too.

Aaron Di Blasi: I really do.

Donna J. Jodhan: Do, yeah. Now AI-Weekly moves beyond disability into mainstream AI. Why did you feel a disability focused publisher needed to step into that space, and what gaps are you trying to fill?

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh, what gaps are we trying to fill? Okay, gotcha. Okay. To answer your question directly, I did not consider myself a disability focused publisher. I considered myself a publisher.

Aaron Di Blasi: So that's why I just so happened to have stumbled onto the disability media scene, and we've been helping people there for a very long time. Access Information News wasn't meant. It was spun off from Top Tech Tidbits. AI weekly was not intended. It was spun off from Top Tech Tidbits. Yes. You know, so both of these news, we just ended up with more information from people literally than we knew what to do with. So we decided to spin them out into new newsletters and see if we could get them to pay for themselves to substantiate themselves. You know? And if they can't, then they're going to go away. But they're still. So it's a great kind of a great model. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Donna J. Jodhan: They're still here. Tell us.

Aaron Di Blasi: Well, that is true. AI-Weekly, big thanks to Mind Vault, because AI-Weekly really wouldn't be here if it weren't for Mind Vault. Mind Vault has a lot of belief in the future success of that newsletter, because we have the least sponsors there currently. I just think it's simply because we need the big boys. We need the Google(s), we need the Apple(s), we need the OpenAI(s), you know, and a lot of the people that are building the smaller products don't have the budget to support a newsletter like that, you know? But they just we just took the split where it happened, you know, where basically we let readers guide us. And as the information was coming in, they were saying, Aaron, you know, we like Top Tech Tidbits for assistive technology, but you got this legal stuff in there. You got this medical stuff in there. Could you get that out of there, please? And we went, okay, Access Information News, here we come. So now access information news is legal. Great medical breakthroughs. You know, opinion editorials, you know, so they can get that other side. You know, that's not just here's how you access a file in Dropbox using JAWS, you know, kind of thing.

Aaron Di Blasi: And that's where top Tech Tidbits stays and does its thing. Now AI-Weekly started to do the same thing there. There is a fair amount of assistive technology specific AI news each week, and I think it's wonderful. And I think we cover it better than anyone else in the world today, frankly. But there's a lot of other AI news that is not assistive technology. I, in a way, see AI as being completely assistive technology related no matter what, because I just see it as doing so much for both blind people, deaf people, neurodivergent people. It's amazing what it can do. So I kind of see it as the be all, end all, of accessibility, personally. So that's why I was very excited to start AI-Weekly. I mean, obviously I'm an engineer. I have been doing AI since it was called statistical inference. If anyone out there knows what that means, that was AI before people called it AI. So yeah, very exciting stuff. I love AI weekly and I hope to see it grow. I hope we get some of the big boys on there eventually.

Donna J. Jodhan: I think it will grow and I'm I'm hoping for that.

Aaron Di Blasi: I get very good feedback on it every day. We just, you know, sponsors are what we need. Feedback is wonderful. But sponsors are what keep the doors open.

Donna J. Jodhan: So AT-Newswire is a press release news distribution service built just for access technology. What specific pain point does it serve for companies and journalists?

Aaron Di Blasi: Wow, that's a great question as well. AT-Newswire came about because we began receiving a lot of press releases from different agencies, different organizations, different companies. And even though they were definitely AT and access related, there was no specific place on the internet to put out a press release that would be guaranteed to reach an audience that was access specific. That kind of troubled us a little bit. Yeah, we were like, you know, that's well, I'm gonna go hit a million people, but how many of them actually have disabilities? And they would say, we don't know.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah.

Aaron Di Blasi: Yeah. Well that's not helpful. So I said, let's build something to address that. I mean, we have 142,000 people. I believe currently that you and I reach with our partners and our networks. And I said, let's, you know, let's give people a piece of that. And so we did.

Donna J. Jodhan: I think it's just terrific. I you know, I really think it gives. You know, people like me, the opportunity to go out there from time to time and, and promote my my, my projects and my initiatives with these projects.

Aaron Di Blasi: I thank you for that. What I think is important for people to know, I know you know this, but I'm going to say this for the benefit of listeners. Putting your a press release out, you say, well, I put my press releases up on our website. Everyone does that. Everyone says that it's great to do. By all means, continue doing so. But what that does not do is deliver your message to a specific audience. And that's what AT-Newswire will do, is, in addition to it living elsewhere on the web, which is great for your SEO. It'll also be sent to 142,000 people who almost certainly have a disability of some sort. So if that is important to you, then that can be far more valuable than any EIN Presswire or, you know, $1,000 press release. And that's the other thing is they charge a phenomenal amount for their press releases.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh yeah.

Aaron Di Blasi: Yeah they do. And ours, I think are like 50 bucks a piece, something like that, you know. So they're much smaller. You reach a smaller audience but a much more targeted audience. So I think it's a much better spend personally.

Donna J. Jodhan: How is it working? Tell us.

Aaron Di Blasi: Fantastically. I think it's wonderful. It's not a business in itself. It's. But it. And we didn't intend for it to be really. It's a very it has very low overhead. So it just does for the community what it needs to do, which is basically boost the SEO of all accessibility related press releases, at least for those that use it. And it's doing a wonderful job at that. We have the numbers to prove it. Yeah.

Donna J. Jodhan: And I'm going to be talking to you about some press releases. I want to.

Aaron Di Blasi: Go. That sounds great. You do really well with them Donna, you really do.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh, gosh. So you recently partnered with Pneuma Solutions on Title II Today to cover upcoming US accessibility regulations. Where do you see state and local government most at risk of falling behind?

Aaron Di Blasi: I think the overwhelming consensus is on legacy documentation probably I think is the biggest pain point for people. And that is obviously one of the things that Pneuma Solutions provides. So that is one of the reasons that they created the newsletter is they not they want people to be aware of the deadlines which are approaching or have passed and when they have passed, and what that means for you and how you can correct it. And then they even go so far as to offer as a service the software that you need to correct said problem. So here at Tidbits and Access Information News we very much believe in that approach. You are marketing. Sure. But you're offering a solution. Okay, so here's a free newsletter and here's what you can do to solve these problems. And we're going to keep you informed about the problems that you're going to be encountering.

Donna J. Jodhan: Right.

Aaron Di Blasi: Yeah. So I thought it was a great fit. And I love Mike Calvo at Pneuma Solutions. He has supported Top Tech Tidbits, Access Information News since day one. He's been a fantastic partner. And that's why I was really happy when he tapped me to to publish Title II Today.

Donna J. Jodhan: I'm not sure if I have anything else to ask you, but I'd like you to tell us something that you are especially working on. That you want to. Sure. Tell us.

Aaron Di Blasi: Sure.

Donna J. Jodhan: Go for it.

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh, God. Do I want to say this on a podcast? Okay. Yes I do. We have been tossing back and forth. Well, Donna, you'll know about this, but the listeners may not. We've been tossing back and forth for a very long time redoing the Top Tech Tidbits website. Right. So I haven't wanted to say it on the air. I've not said it on the air. So that means we're going to have to do it. Yeah. Which is fine. We've been deciding how to do it. Some people wanted to do a GoFundMe and get the community to pay for it and the whole. And I just don't like asking the community for money. I would prefer to ask the businesses and organizations that make their money directly from the disability community to pay for it. I think those are the people, frankly, that should be paying for it. And I don't mean nonprofits. I don't mean people like Hadley. You know, I don't mean creators like Sam Seavey. You know, The Blind Life. You know, these are people that we promote for free because they are literally creating the content that disability people need. Haben Girma is another one, yourself included. Yeah. You know, so that we anything that helps the community for free. We will publish for free. But if you are secretly trying to sell something to the disability community, then we would prefer that you sponsor or advertise.

Aaron Di Blasi: You know that you show those people that you care about them enough to put $2,400 of your budget forth a year to give them something that they need. You know, especially in this time when no one else is really helping us. In fact, they're doing quite the opposite. They're trying to tear down what we're building. So I think it's especially important right now. So as far as Top Tech Tidbits, we're going to do our best in the next I would say six months, maybe by the end of the year to have Top Tech Tidbits with a brand new website. And the benefit of this is more for sponsors than I think it is for readers because the current website is incredibly accessible. You know, it was built with blind people in mind from the ground up. I coded it myself, so I know. But this new website, obviously, we're going to begin building with WordPress. It's still going to be remediated. It's still going to be accessible. There's not going to be any issues, but it will be more visually appealing. It will have greater SEO. All of this will benefit sponsors a great deal who care more about reaching the disability community. Whereas excuse me, readers just care more about getting their news every week, which will not stop. That will really not change.

Donna J. Jodhan: Right? Right right right. So you handle everything from editing to syndication, my Remarkable World Commentary Podcast, and our wider podcast family. Could you walk listeners through that workflow and the mounting touches that keep audiences engaged?

Aaron Di Blasi: Sure. Let's let's give. Let's give that a try. Here we are recording a podcast. Everyone. This is the Remarkable World Commentary Podcast, as an example. So when Donna and I are finished with this podcast, which we are currently recording over Zoom with video off so that we can increase our audio bandwidth. Yeah, just tip for everybody there. I will go into Zoom via her cloud account and I will pull that recording down. That recording will present itself as an MP4 file generally. We will take that into Adobe Audition and we'll clean it up, because sometimes there's stuff in the beginning, like you and I were talking before the podcast or stuff at the end. Hi. Thank you. Go home. And we chop those off, and then we put in your specific audio because you have a podcast commentator who introduces you and says what you do and put that at the beginning. We put that at the end and we fade those two portions into the dialogue. We then clean it, take all of the noise as much as we can out of the back that the software will let us to do, and we output a beautiful and pristine MP3 file. Once we have that MP3 file, we then send it to a program called Sonix.ai, which transcribes it. Now we had we used to use Otter.ai. If you're using Otter out there, get away from them as fast as you can.

Aaron Di Blasi: Use Sonix. They're amazing. The issue with Otter was it did not identify speakers. It did not capitalize. It just gave you basically a bulk of text that does not look good for visual people. So we want visual people to be able to read the transcript as well. So Sonics gives speakers, it gives formatting, it capitalizes sentences. It's very readable. And that makes the SEO of the transcript even more important to places like Google etc. So, transcripts are incredibly important. Yeah. So so we do the transcript and then once the transcript comes out generally now today what we'll do is we'll feed the transcript into ChatGPT and ask it to generate a summary for us so that we can have a summary at the top of the, you know, today. Donna interviews Aaron Di Blasi of Mind Vault Solutions. And it starts that way, you know, but then the transcript is underneath so that you can read it now. Generally in the accessibility community, that transcript is incredibly important because of accessibility uses. But what we have to remember is everything that's good for accessibility is also good for SEO. So everything we're talking about today, once we post this transcript will now become part of the internet. And when people look up Donna or they look up Aaron, they're going to come across everything that you and I have talked about today.

Donna J. Jodhan: But how long does this process take? Like from the minute we're done with the podcast to when you post it, how long?

Aaron Di Blasi: It all varies because obviously podcasts vary in length. Okay. So it could be an hour long podcast, or it could be a half hour long podcast, so that that obviously makes a big difference. Other things are how bad is the audio? Is the person really, really, really low? Is it like minus three? And so now what I have to do is one person's minus three. One person is plus ten. So there's no way with software to really normalize that. Well so we have to go through and basically pick up your voice in every single section individually, so that can take quite a long time. Over an hour long podcast. Or there's pops or snaps, or maybe there's some sound in the background of people who are working outside. You know, we try to get that. So it really depends on how much. Not often, but sometimes we have to put that extra work in there. An hour long. Let's see. I'm trying to give an idea of time.

Podcast Commentator: Maybe.

Aaron Di Blasi: 30 to 45 minutes to do an hour long podcast to get it to MP3.

Donna J. Jodhan: Wow, that's pretty fast.

Aaron Di Blasi: Hey, that's not bad, right? But that's only one part of the process. Now you've got to go to transcript. And now you've got to clean the transcript because the transcript doesn't come out perfect. You know, you have to identify the speakers, put their names in, make sure of capitalization, it keeps calling you Donna Jordan, and you're Donna Jodhan, so we keep having to fix that. You know, so you fix up the transcript and you get a great transcript out. You then feed the transcript in you get a summary of that transcript that you can then use. But again, you're not done. You've just prepared everything for posting. Now it has to be posted. So now we have to take that MP3 and put it on Libsyn. Libsyn is your platform of choice. Once we put it on Libsyn, describe it, put the transcript in, put the description in and press publish. It then goes out to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart Radio all at once. Yeah, it does all of that for us when we post it to Libsyn now. We take that link that we got from Libsyn, and now we have to go ahead and schedule you across all the social media networks, right? Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon any of the other ones I'm not thinking of, but we use a software called Hootsuite, which allows us to connect all of your social media accounts at once, and it saves a little bit of time. Not a lot, but a little bit of time in allowing us to do multiple scheduled posts for whenever you want. Let's say you want it to go out on four different dates to 19 different channels. So we would set all that up, set up all the dates, and then schedule it to all 19 channels. And then the final step is to take all of that information, put it into a media release notification, and send it to you, the client, to let you know where all of your information has been posted.

Donna J. Jodhan: Oh my lord, just listening.

Aaron Di Blasi: To and then you just rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Yeah. And that's that's the digital marketing world today at least.

Donna J. Jodhan: And I can tell from your voice that you truly enjoy everything that you do.

Aaron Di Blasi: I do, I absolutely do. Yes. That's what made me leave Penton Media. And I loved what I did down there. It just wasn't my way. And we all want our way. You know, so I now have that. And I couldn't be happier. And I think it allows me to help people when I'm happier.

Donna J. Jodhan: Now, you helped to sketch the business model for my new Access Park marketplace. What strategic advice would you give to entrepreneurs who want to build inclusive platforms from day one?

Aaron Di Blasi: Call us. That's what I would say. No, no. Very seriously. Access Park was an amazing idea. I will also, in this same conversation mention Vision Tech Academy, which I don't know if you're going to bring up or not. These two projects were passion projects for you. I know basically Donna was frustrated at the state of e-commerce. This was again about a year ago, long before Innosearch came into the picture, which is the current leader, I would say in accessible shopping. Long before AI came around, we kind of finished Access Park just as AI was coming onto the scene.

Donna J. Jodhan: Right.

Aaron Di Blasi: Right. And at the time before AI the best way that you could provide accessibility was through people who had known accessible Shopify templates that you would use, and they would give you guaranteed level of compliance, etc. and that was wonderful. So we went ahead and we built this for Donna, and we were getting ready to put products in it. And then well, AI happened, and Innosearch happened. And Innosearch does a wonderful job at what they do. And I know that you're talking with them and they're talking with you. I just think it's evolution. Donna, we were at the right place at the right time. It just didn't move much faster than we expected. You know, so today, I think Access Park looks a little antiquated just by current standards. You know, it's not that we don't have plans to, you know, upgrade that. But that's how fast it happens. And what was that six months a year.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah. I was caught off guard. You know, like I was oh my God.

Aaron Di Blasi: So so.

Donna J. Jodhan: Was I.

Aaron Di Blasi: So was I, but you did it for the time. You did an absolute wonderful job. Vision Tech Academy on the other hand I think will stand the test of time because that's a simple connection tool to get people to find teachers of assistive technologies.

Donna J. Jodhan: And we did it all in memory of the late John Panarese. We did indeed. Yes, we did.

Aaron Di Blasi: Rest in peace John.

Donna J. Jodhan: Rest in peace. Now, having served both startup and fortune 500 suppliers, what persistent misconceptions about digital accessibility still frustrate you?

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh boy. Oh well, there's a lot of those. Accessibility is the number one, I think for everyone. Obviously we're frustrated by it as much as you because for us, our clients want SEO, they want results. And when we can't get what you call accessibility, our clients can't get results. So it's the same thing for us. And it frustrates us that people do not understand what accessibility means. I think more deeply people don't care. And I'm just going to be honest. And it's mostly people without a disability that don't care. I have not yet met a person with a disability that doesn't care. So we try to educate as much as we can. It used to frustrate me. It used to make me very angry. But that does nothing to change the world. Unfortunately, as you have learned and I have learned, so I now try to educate as much as I can, you know, whether they want to hear it or they don't. I try to get on a podcast and tell people about kidney stones and tell them how they can fix them. And, you know, it's just about getting out there and sharing that information. If more people did that, you know, if you have something, you know, that you think would be really valuable to someone else, get on a podcast and talk about it. Get that transcript out there so that AI can pick it up and maybe help someone in Singapore who has a kidney stone.

Donna J. Jodhan: So where is the balance between, you know, like expectation and I wouldn't say failure, but setback. Where is the balance? If I may ask that question.

Aaron Di Blasi: For me, for me personally is in my mental state. And my happiness when that starts to take a toll is when I start to get negative results. And that goes right back to why I left, you know, the big corporate scene in 2004. I personally as an individual, as a neurodivergent individual, which I know that I am, I process things better alone. I still collaborate with other people. I love to, as you know. You know, you and I collaborate quite often, but I work best on my creative side alone. And that's just something that I've come to grips with even after, you know, people telling me my entire life, Aaron, you've got to get out. You know, you need to meet more people. I'm perfectly satisfied. And I think a lot of other people are, too. And I just want them to know that it's okay. If you feel healthy, then you're doing fine.

Donna J. Jodhan: I think a lot of people don't quite understand that. I think I do because I operate in the same way. Yes. You know, I think it's very.

Aaron Di Blasi: I think the only way people can know is for someone else to say it, someone else to tell them that it's okay, you know, that it's okay to be in a state that makes you happy, a state that makes you productive, and that if you are not happy and you are not productive, you are not in the right place no matter what, no matter how wonderful it is. And I loved my job downtown. I loved those people. I love them to this day, I miss them, but it was just not the place for me.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah. So we're starting to run out of time. And I wanted to ask you this question. Your project management professional toolkit seems like a superpower. But how has PMP discipline helped you juggle simultaneous newsletters, deadlines, client launches like mine, and your own? I research a mouthful.

Aaron Di Blasi: I, I I'll be honest, I could not have done it without this framework, without some of the frameworks they give you. And I will without getting overly technical. A lot of people in PMP believe strongly in the agile framework. I do love the agile framework, but I will say there are places I have found where it breaks down. So I would say that you need the PMP framework as a beginning because you really just can't. There's no way to manage the complexity without the frameworks that they give you. But once you start using those frameworks for any decent amount of time, maybe a year or two, your business is going to begin to customize and find ways that are more beneficial outside of those frameworks. So I would just say to people, don't be afraid to leave the Bible, so to speak, as people call it in PMP. It's the Bible and it is. But there's times when you should leave it. There's times when you've outgrown it. And I think that is the greatest advancement that I have learned is that you at some point have to create your own frameworks. You have to create your own way of seeing your business, because that's the only way you're going to get to the heart of it. You know, PMP certification will get you there. The frameworks and the guidelines will get you started. But if you really want to succeed, you're going to have to come up with your own.

Donna J. Jodhan: You know, I agree with that. You know, sometimes you got to leave, you know, the landscape that is most familiar or that you have been taught and you say, you know what?

Aaron Di Blasi: It's painful. It's hard.

Donna J. Jodhan: It is hard.

Aaron Di Blasi: It's scary. Scary. More than anything, I was horrified when I left. I was I think I was horrified for probably 2 or 3 years after I left, frankly. Yeah. Until you get to the point where you know you're going to be able to stand on your own two feet, pay your rent, you know, I I don't think you're comfortable.

Donna J. Jodhan: And feed the dogs.

Aaron Di Blasi: And feed the dogs. Yes. Shout out to Rebecca and Dolores Biscuit.

Donna J. Jodhan: I only learned their names a few days ago.

Aaron Di Blasi: Indeed, indeed.

Donna J. Jodhan: Well, you've answered all of my questions.

Aaron Di Blasi: I think we've gotten through quite a few.

Donna J. Jodhan: Yeah. We have. Oh, really?

Aaron Di Blasi: It's been fun.

Donna J. Jodhan: Well, this has been a very educational interview, and I think our listeners are going to enjoy listening to this.

Aaron Di Blasi: I hope so. I love to give nuggets to people, and I would not want to get on your podcast and leave without giving people something really special that might help them.

Donna J. Jodhan: I think it will. And I encourage people to listen to this.

Aaron Di Blasi: So thank.

Donna J. Jodhan: You. Aaron, thank you so much for not not just having this podcast interview with me, but for your friendship. You, you you know, your patience with me at times, Miss Donna, he says.

Aaron Di Blasi: Oh my God. Likewise, Donna and I require patience as well. I what I see as friendship is not anything. Friendship is patience. Yes.

Donna J. Jodhan: Well, whenever I see a note that begins with Miss Donna, I think, oh oh, here it comes.

Aaron Di Blasi: Well, we've got 13 years of that, so it's hard to shake. You know, it's like. Yes, sir and no, sir. I still say it from martial arts. I can't shake it. Yeah.

Donna J. Jodhan: So thank you very much for this podcast.

Aaron Di Blasi: Wonderful.

Donna J. Jodhan: Thank you very much. And we will continue on.

Aaron Di Blasi: Sounds great. Thank you again, my friend. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Donna J. Jodhan: Bye bye. Bye bye.

Podcast Commentator: Donna wants to hear from you and invites you to write to her at [email protected]. Until next time.