Simon Minty's recent thoughts and more

A little while back the great people at  Skill Boosters  approached me to see if I'd like to make a training video with them. The topic was to be disability,  employment and customer service.  I said I'd be interested, but how about we do it a little differently? I suggested we make it with Abnormally Funny People, the comedy team I'm part of. To my delight, they agreed.  I'm pleased to say after a lot of brilliant, creative, hard work, it is ready.  Below is the promo video. If you want to know more, contact Peter Thorpe, at Skill Boosters 020 3859 4308  peter.thorpe@skillboosters.com  There are dynamic subtitles included and the next sentence is a link to the transcript if you prefer.   Transcript of Skill Boosters disability training video made with Abnormally Funny People 

Whilst chatting with a long standing client  she exclaimed “Simon, I had no idea about your work internationally. You need to tell people about it!”   We were attending a meeting at Middlesex University to hear about new research in to how diversity strategies have been implemented in global organisations. I was invited by the British Council, an organisation I've worked with for many years, who had commissioned the research. I was asked to speak outlining my experience and the work I’ve done. This is work I love and have enjoyed immensely over the years. So here we go... Meeting bankers in Hong Kong I should clarify I specifically work in field of disability rather than the broader diversity arena. I have been working internationally since 2002. Around half of those trips have been because the British Council have asked me to go to a region. The other half has been for a range of organisations including Bank of America, Google, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and McDonald...

In the summer of 2017 I hosted an event for the Business Disability Forum  in London. Below is the significantly modified speech I made there. It's a thought piece really, me trying to work something out. It got people talking and I'd love to hear what you think.  Hello, my name is Simon Minty, I am your host this evening.  If you don’t know me, I’ve been an associate to the Business Disability Forum for twenty years.  Asda toilet sign - disability is very broad these days but have those identifying as so, kept pace? It’s great that you are here and great that you do the job you do. I suspect some of you came to this disability or diversity role by accident, or maybe it was on purpose as it looked interesting? Maybe some of you are directly affected so have a personal interest. Dare I suggest, maybe one or two of you are after an award from the Queen!  I know most of us do this work because we want to see change. Working with the Forum, such...

My local dentist is a five minute walk from my home. I use my mobility scooter when I visit as it's too far to walk and this way, I don't have to worry about parking. This week, I went for a check up and for the first time, there were three ramps in place on arrival.  The back story: in 2010 I sent my dentist a strongly worded letter explaining their three steps meant access for people using wheels, i.e. me, wasn't good and I made some suggestions. They invested in a portable ramp so I could get in. I would call the dentist when I was approaching and they would come out and put the ramp down. I'd go up to the first platform and wait whilst they put the same ramp on the next step and so on. It was a bit of a palaver but just about worked. It took time but I'm rarely in a rush to climb in to the dentist's chair. This week, to have enough ramps for me to go straight in was the warmest welcome I've had there. My smile was bright before seeing the hygienist.   ...