June 21, 2025 • 13 mins
Sam is joined by David Davenport, accessible formats production manager at Blind Vision NZ, who visited Australia recently to take part in a round table conference with a special interest in print disability and accessible printing for clients in New Zealand.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:04):
David, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you very much for
your time.
S2 (00:08):
Yeah. No problem. Thanks for inviting me over, Sam.
S1 (00:11):
Appreciate it. No worries at all. Now, firstly, David, I'd
love to hear a bit more about Blind Low Vision
and Z. Tell us a bit about them.
S2 (00:20):
All right. Well, I've been talking to some staff at
Vision Australia and it seems the way that they understand
it the best is if I just say it's the
New Zealand version of Vision Australia.
S1 (00:31):
Okay.
S2 (00:32):
Yeah. So we've been around for about 130 years. I
think we were originally called the Royal New Zealand Foundation
for the blind. And I've seen the photos we, I
think we started as a like a school for blind children.
And it was. Yeah, late 1800s. One of my favorite
photos that I did see of the era back then
was Santa Claus giving out presents to the blind kids,
which was really cool to see. But yeah, the foundation
(00:54):
has been around for quite a long time. We're based
in Auckland, specifically Parnell, and we have branches all across
Auckland as well as the rest of the country as
well in New Zealand.
S1 (01:05):
I'm very keen to have a bit of a discussion
about where you come in as the Accessible Formats production manager.
Tell us a bit about your work there.
S2 (01:15):
Yeah. Okay. So the Accessible Formats Service Department is responsible
for creating all of the accessible formats that people would
use to get information. So it's braille, large print text
and audio. We have our studios in a separate place
where we do the narration for the audio, but we
field the requests or I should say, we manage the
(01:37):
requests for audio. And we're. The department operates out of
the South Auckland branch on the compound. Same compound as
the Guide Dogs facility. And we've got about ten people
that work for AFS in a producer role, as well
as proofreading and coordinating the work in various other things
to do with AFS as well.
S1 (01:58):
What about yourself and how you came into the world
of accessible formats Production. What's the story there and how
did that sort of come about?
S2 (02:09):
Yeah, I really like these questions. I usually speak about
what I can do for others, and so it's very
refreshing to get some questions about myself. So yeah, let's see,
I started with blind Low Vision New Zealand a little
while ago, probably over five years ago. I was just
simply contracting, doing odd jobs in between jobs that I
had going on for myself, one of them being a
(02:29):
project manager for the Alexa rollout that we had. So, uh,
you know, I was responsible for making sure that all
the clients were getting as many Alexa's as possible and
fielding any sort of issues they may have, and also
organising setup and things like that. And I worked my
way up or through the organisation to the point where
I was project manager, and I really liked that role,
(02:52):
where they would just stick me in an area where
there was a problem that needed to be solved, and
I would come in and take care of whatever needed
to be taken care of. I'd learn what I needed
to learn. I'd do what I need to do. I'd
work with who I need to work with, and I'd
cause the results that they're after. and I guess I
got really good at that. So they stuck me in
a in roles where I would have to learn other
people's jobs when they would go on leave. In particular,
(03:15):
the Accessible Formats coordinator was going on maternity leave for
about a year, and they asked me to learn her
role and then take it over. And then while I
was doing that, the manager for the Accessible Formats department,
his contract had ended and they asked if I would
be interested in filling that position too. And so I did,
and that's how I got started in the department, just
(03:37):
working my way up, solving problems. And now I'm the
manager and I'll toot my own horn a little bit.
I've been told that the department has gotten better since
I've been manager there, so I'm glad to hear that.
S1 (03:48):
That's fantastic news. Yeah. Okay. And over the time that
you've been involved in accessible formats production, David, have you
managed to try your hand at audiobook narration or you've
been directing and pulling the strings behind the scenes rather
than getting on the microphone yourself.
S2 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, I am the person behind the scenes. I
did at one point attempt to get into narration. However,
there was a little bit of discrimination going on because
people want to hear a Kiwi accent instead of an
American one. So for the life of me, I would
not be able to do a Kiwi accent. I've lived
in New Zealand for most of my life, moved to
(04:31):
New Zealand when I was eight years old and I
grew up there, did all my schooling, and went back
and forth a couple of times to the United States.
But for the most part, the majority of my life
I have spent in New Zealand and I cannot do
a Kiwi accent, I cannot.
S1 (04:44):
Well, let's see, it's very different, completely different vowels and
everything like that from American to the New Zealand. So
I don't think you'd be alone there. I don't know
how many people would be able to pull off the
very specific American accents, given there's dozens of those across
the whole landmass, rather than just the generic one that
(05:06):
a lot of people here. So I think that's quite common.
But do you have any sort of equivalent to Vision
Australia radio in New Zealand that people could perhaps tune into?
Has there been any, um, progress with that or what
sort of the situation there?
S2 (05:25):
From what I know, we do have some podcasts. We
do have one podcast from a blind client. His name
is also Sam if I, if I remember correctly.
S1 (05:36):
That's correct. Yep.
S2 (05:36):
And he, uh, his podcast is called revision. And I
think you can listen to it through the blind low
vision skill on Alexa. And I think it's also uploaded
on some websites, but I'm not familiar as to which
ones they are. If you were to do a Google
search for Sam revision podcast, I'm sure you'd be able
(05:57):
to find that.
S1 (05:57):
Tell us a bit about what you've been up to
lately with Vision Australia, and the sort of discussions that
you've been having with us over here in Melbourne.
S2 (06:07):
I'm really loving these questions. These are so good. So
I am in Melbourne right now for the roundtable. It's
the first time I've been a part of that and
it's really exciting stuff. Like there's lots of different sessions
on different seminars that I can attend, and I can
pick and choose which ones are pertinent to my role
and what I can bring back with me to New
(06:29):
Zealand and to my team as well. So it's been
really informative and also the networking opportunities have been fantastic
as well. And in between that, I've carved out a
day to check out the Melbourne Vision Australia location because
I do work with Vision Australia on occasion, specifically a
print access where if we have too many requests coming in,
(06:52):
we can rely on Vision Australia to help us out
and get those requests fulfilled on as well, with transcriptions
and things like that. So it was really great to
put faces to names and emails and correspondence that have
been going back and forth, and I am also going
to visit the Vision Australia in Sydney as well later
on in the week. So it's pretty exciting stuff. I'm
(07:13):
really happy to meet these people. It feels like an
extended family and we talk the same language, we have
the same challenges and we, uh, you know, we enjoy
each other's solutions as well. So it's been fantastic.
S1 (07:24):
And there's been quite a few Kiwis through Vision Australia,
both Melbourne and Sydney. And there's also, you know, Brisbane
and a few scattered around. So that's always been a
really valuable connection there where people have exchanged knowledge and
come over and given their insights from New Zealand coming
(07:46):
to Australia and perhaps Aussies going to New Zealand, so
vice versa. But I'm very keen to hear about what
you got up to at the Round Table, David, and
what you sort of enjoyed the most there. And, you know,
give us a bit of a highlight package.
S2 (08:01):
Yeah. So what I'm really interested in learning about is
print disability and also UV printing. So these are two
things that are quite pertinent to what I'm taking on
at AFS. In New Zealand we recently got a UV printer.
It's like a Roland brand. It's really massive, big piece
of equipment, but we're really excited about what it is
(08:23):
that it can do, particularly printing on anything and also
making anything accessible with its ability to put Braille on anything.
So it's quite exciting. And there's a lot of different
seminars at the Round table that discuss UV printing and
3D printing and various different ways to make objects and
things like everyday items making them accessible. So that's really
(08:45):
interesting to me. And then also, yeah, like just larger
conversations around print disability. I recently have taken on an
employee that has a print disability, and it's put me
in a position where, because I'm very much interested in
this person's success, I want to learn as much as
I can so that I can bring what's needed for
this guy to be successful, and also for the team
(09:06):
to be able to work with him to be successful
as a team as well. So not only do we
deal with print disability on a client base, but also
we have staff members as well that are print disabled too.
And we're more than happy to bring them into the
fold and find ways where they would be able to
be contributing to what it is that the overall mission is.
And we can also work cohesively regardless as well. So
(09:29):
these are the two points that I'm very interested in.
And the seminars related to that at the roundtable is
what I'm getting the most out of.
S1 (09:37):
And that's also where Vision Australia Radio really nicely connects
in today as we are broadcasting on the Radio Reading Network,
and we're talking on the radio station, which does provide
those services for people with print disabilities in Australia and
for people around the world tuning in via podcasts and online.
(10:02):
So that's a nice little symbiotic connection there. Now, David, finally,
what are you looking forward to in the next months
and years in terms of new innovations and new exciting
projects and, you know, the future of accessible formats and
services for people with print disabilities.
S2 (10:25):
Two little tiny letters, eh?
S1 (10:27):
Mhm. Yep.
S2 (10:29):
So I'm always, always interested. And mainly three things streamlining,
creating efficiency and also being proactive with any type of
processes that would be able to make things easier. Not
in the sense of like laziness or anything like that,
but just more in terms of efficiency. So I is
very exciting to me. I'm very interested in the leaps
(10:51):
and bounds that it's been making, particularly in the field
of transcription, and to be further in depth with it.
Optical character recognition. So one of the seminars that I
was attending at the roundtable had a university student with
a proof of concept where you can have a pair
of glasses that can do optical character recognition or OCR.
(11:12):
So you can just basically point to text on a
page or a book, and then it would automatically recognize
that text letter for letter. And from there you can transcribe,
you can transcribe into audio or a different language or anything.
And if that's the case then we would be able
to turn around transcription requests at rapid pace with AI
(11:33):
tech that can do OCR. And at that point we
would be more editors or reviewers rather than producers, and
we can increase our yield and our productivity to get
the requests to the clients much quicker. So that's very
exciting to me. I'm really interested in that. And it
looks like that would be the future as well, so
(11:53):
I can't wait for that future to come. I can't
wait to be able to deliver quality products at rapid pace.
And it's exciting. It's exciting. It's it's a good time
to be in the industry, I think.
S1 (12:05):
And I can't wait to have a chat with you in,
you know, six months, one year, two years, time to
see what developments have occurred in that time. So let's
totally keep in touch and always welcome you back on
Talking Vision anytime. And as you've mentioned there with I,
I think the phrase there is work smarter, not harder.
(12:27):
And I think that's the huge thing making life more accessible,
making things easier to access and more available for people
around the world with disabilities, but also for people in general,
just making life that little bit better. Well, today I've
been speaking to David Davenport, Accessible Formats production manager at
(12:54):
Blind Low Vision NZ. David, thank you so much for
your time today. It was great to catch up with
you and have a chat.
S2 (13:03):
Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot Sam. I really enjoyed being
here and I look forward to keeping you updated and
popping in next time.
David, welcome to Talking Vision. Thank you very much for
your time.
S2 (00:08):
Yeah. No problem. Thanks for inviting me over, Sam.
S1 (00:11):
Appreciate it. No worries at all. Now, firstly, David, I'd
love to hear a bit more about Blind Low Vision
and Z. Tell us a bit about them.
S2 (00:20):
All right. Well, I've been talking to some staff at
Vision Australia and it seems the way that they understand
it the best is if I just say it's the
New Zealand version of Vision Australia.
S1 (00:31):
Okay.
S2 (00:32):
Yeah. So we've been around for about 130 years. I
think we were originally called the Royal New Zealand Foundation
for the blind. And I've seen the photos we, I
think we started as a like a school for blind children.
And it was. Yeah, late 1800s. One of my favorite
photos that I did see of the era back then
was Santa Claus giving out presents to the blind kids,
which was really cool to see. But yeah, the foundation
(00:54):
has been around for quite a long time. We're based
in Auckland, specifically Parnell, and we have branches all across
Auckland as well as the rest of the country as
well in New Zealand.
S1 (01:05):
I'm very keen to have a bit of a discussion
about where you come in as the Accessible Formats production manager.
Tell us a bit about your work there.
S2 (01:15):
Yeah. Okay. So the Accessible Formats Service Department is responsible
for creating all of the accessible formats that people would
use to get information. So it's braille, large print text
and audio. We have our studios in a separate place
where we do the narration for the audio, but we
field the requests or I should say, we manage the
(01:37):
requests for audio. And we're. The department operates out of
the South Auckland branch on the compound. Same compound as
the Guide Dogs facility. And we've got about ten people
that work for AFS in a producer role, as well
as proofreading and coordinating the work in various other things
to do with AFS as well.
S1 (01:58):
What about yourself and how you came into the world
of accessible formats Production. What's the story there and how
did that sort of come about?
S2 (02:09):
Yeah, I really like these questions. I usually speak about
what I can do for others, and so it's very
refreshing to get some questions about myself. So yeah, let's see,
I started with blind Low Vision New Zealand a little
while ago, probably over five years ago. I was just
simply contracting, doing odd jobs in between jobs that I
had going on for myself, one of them being a
(02:29):
project manager for the Alexa rollout that we had. So, uh,
you know, I was responsible for making sure that all
the clients were getting as many Alexa's as possible and
fielding any sort of issues they may have, and also
organising setup and things like that. And I worked my
way up or through the organisation to the point where
I was project manager, and I really liked that role,
(02:52):
where they would just stick me in an area where
there was a problem that needed to be solved, and
I would come in and take care of whatever needed
to be taken care of. I'd learn what I needed
to learn. I'd do what I need to do. I'd
work with who I need to work with, and I'd
cause the results that they're after. and I guess I
got really good at that. So they stuck me in
a in roles where I would have to learn other
people's jobs when they would go on leave. In particular,
(03:15):
the Accessible Formats coordinator was going on maternity leave for
about a year, and they asked me to learn her
role and then take it over. And then while I
was doing that, the manager for the Accessible Formats department,
his contract had ended and they asked if I would
be interested in filling that position too. And so I did,
and that's how I got started in the department, just
(03:37):
working my way up, solving problems. And now I'm the
manager and I'll toot my own horn a little bit.
I've been told that the department has gotten better since
I've been manager there, so I'm glad to hear that.
S1 (03:48):
That's fantastic news. Yeah. Okay. And over the time that
you've been involved in accessible formats production, David, have you
managed to try your hand at audiobook narration or you've
been directing and pulling the strings behind the scenes rather
than getting on the microphone yourself.
S2 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, I am the person behind the scenes. I
did at one point attempt to get into narration. However,
there was a little bit of discrimination going on because
people want to hear a Kiwi accent instead of an
American one. So for the life of me, I would
not be able to do a Kiwi accent. I've lived
in New Zealand for most of my life, moved to
(04:31):
New Zealand when I was eight years old and I
grew up there, did all my schooling, and went back
and forth a couple of times to the United States.
But for the most part, the majority of my life
I have spent in New Zealand and I cannot do
a Kiwi accent, I cannot.
S1 (04:44):
Well, let's see, it's very different, completely different vowels and
everything like that from American to the New Zealand. So
I don't think you'd be alone there. I don't know
how many people would be able to pull off the
very specific American accents, given there's dozens of those across
the whole landmass, rather than just the generic one that
(05:06):
a lot of people here. So I think that's quite common.
But do you have any sort of equivalent to Vision
Australia radio in New Zealand that people could perhaps tune into?
Has there been any, um, progress with that or what
sort of the situation there?
S2 (05:25):
From what I know, we do have some podcasts. We
do have one podcast from a blind client. His name
is also Sam if I, if I remember correctly.
S1 (05:36):
That's correct. Yep.
S2 (05:36):
And he, uh, his podcast is called revision. And I
think you can listen to it through the blind low
vision skill on Alexa. And I think it's also uploaded
on some websites, but I'm not familiar as to which
ones they are. If you were to do a Google
search for Sam revision podcast, I'm sure you'd be able
(05:57):
to find that.
S1 (05:57):
Tell us a bit about what you've been up to
lately with Vision Australia, and the sort of discussions that
you've been having with us over here in Melbourne.
S2 (06:07):
I'm really loving these questions. These are so good. So
I am in Melbourne right now for the roundtable. It's
the first time I've been a part of that and
it's really exciting stuff. Like there's lots of different sessions
on different seminars that I can attend, and I can
pick and choose which ones are pertinent to my role
and what I can bring back with me to New
(06:29):
Zealand and to my team as well. So it's been
really informative and also the networking opportunities have been fantastic
as well. And in between that, I've carved out a
day to check out the Melbourne Vision Australia location because
I do work with Vision Australia on occasion, specifically a
print access where if we have too many requests coming in,
(06:52):
we can rely on Vision Australia to help us out
and get those requests fulfilled on as well, with transcriptions
and things like that. So it was really great to
put faces to names and emails and correspondence that have
been going back and forth, and I am also going
to visit the Vision Australia in Sydney as well later
on in the week. So it's pretty exciting stuff. I'm
(07:13):
really happy to meet these people. It feels like an
extended family and we talk the same language, we have
the same challenges and we, uh, you know, we enjoy
each other's solutions as well. So it's been fantastic.
S1 (07:24):
And there's been quite a few Kiwis through Vision Australia,
both Melbourne and Sydney. And there's also, you know, Brisbane
and a few scattered around. So that's always been a
really valuable connection there where people have exchanged knowledge and
come over and given their insights from New Zealand coming
(07:46):
to Australia and perhaps Aussies going to New Zealand, so
vice versa. But I'm very keen to hear about what
you got up to at the Round Table, David, and
what you sort of enjoyed the most there. And, you know,
give us a bit of a highlight package.
S2 (08:01):
Yeah. So what I'm really interested in learning about is
print disability and also UV printing. So these are two
things that are quite pertinent to what I'm taking on
at AFS. In New Zealand we recently got a UV printer.
It's like a Roland brand. It's really massive, big piece
of equipment, but we're really excited about what it is
(08:23):
that it can do, particularly printing on anything and also
making anything accessible with its ability to put Braille on anything.
So it's quite exciting. And there's a lot of different
seminars at the Round table that discuss UV printing and
3D printing and various different ways to make objects and
things like everyday items making them accessible. So that's really
(08:45):
interesting to me. And then also, yeah, like just larger
conversations around print disability. I recently have taken on an
employee that has a print disability, and it's put me
in a position where, because I'm very much interested in
this person's success, I want to learn as much as
I can so that I can bring what's needed for
this guy to be successful, and also for the team
(09:06):
to be able to work with him to be successful
as a team as well. So not only do we
deal with print disability on a client base, but also
we have staff members as well that are print disabled too.
And we're more than happy to bring them into the
fold and find ways where they would be able to
be contributing to what it is that the overall mission is.
And we can also work cohesively regardless as well. So
(09:29):
these are the two points that I'm very interested in.
And the seminars related to that at the roundtable is
what I'm getting the most out of.
S1 (09:37):
And that's also where Vision Australia Radio really nicely connects
in today as we are broadcasting on the Radio Reading Network,
and we're talking on the radio station, which does provide
those services for people with print disabilities in Australia and
for people around the world tuning in via podcasts and online.
(10:02):
So that's a nice little symbiotic connection there. Now, David, finally,
what are you looking forward to in the next months
and years in terms of new innovations and new exciting
projects and, you know, the future of accessible formats and
services for people with print disabilities.
S2 (10:25):
Two little tiny letters, eh?
S1 (10:27):
Mhm. Yep.
S2 (10:29):
So I'm always, always interested. And mainly three things streamlining,
creating efficiency and also being proactive with any type of
processes that would be able to make things easier. Not
in the sense of like laziness or anything like that,
but just more in terms of efficiency. So I is
very exciting to me. I'm very interested in the leaps
(10:51):
and bounds that it's been making, particularly in the field
of transcription, and to be further in depth with it.
Optical character recognition. So one of the seminars that I
was attending at the roundtable had a university student with
a proof of concept where you can have a pair
of glasses that can do optical character recognition or OCR.
(11:12):
So you can just basically point to text on a
page or a book, and then it would automatically recognize
that text letter for letter. And from there you can transcribe,
you can transcribe into audio or a different language or anything.
And if that's the case then we would be able
to turn around transcription requests at rapid pace with AI
(11:33):
tech that can do OCR. And at that point we
would be more editors or reviewers rather than producers, and
we can increase our yield and our productivity to get
the requests to the clients much quicker. So that's very
exciting to me. I'm really interested in that. And it
looks like that would be the future as well, so
(11:53):
I can't wait for that future to come. I can't
wait to be able to deliver quality products at rapid pace.
And it's exciting. It's exciting. It's it's a good time
to be in the industry, I think.
S1 (12:05):
And I can't wait to have a chat with you in,
you know, six months, one year, two years, time to
see what developments have occurred in that time. So let's
totally keep in touch and always welcome you back on
Talking Vision anytime. And as you've mentioned there with I,
I think the phrase there is work smarter, not harder.
(12:27):
And I think that's the huge thing making life more accessible,
making things easier to access and more available for people
around the world with disabilities, but also for people in general,
just making life that little bit better. Well, today I've
been speaking to David Davenport, Accessible Formats production manager at
(12:54):
Blind Low Vision NZ. David, thank you so much for
your time today. It was great to catch up with
you and have a chat.
S2 (13:03):
Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot Sam. I really enjoyed being
here and I look forward to keeping you updated and
popping in next time.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.