I’m five foot one and “growing up” my Nan always used to tell me that good things come in small packages. So in my second week at Lighthouse Futures Trust when I sit down at my desk to write something for LinkedIn about Dyslexia Awareness Week I ask myself what on earth am I doing? Why am I writing more words for those who have had to develop coping strategies to process content?
Being five foot one, I have had to develop coping strategies for accessing day-to-day life, and all those things that supermarkets insist on putting on the top shelf…am I not supposed to enjoy those particular bottles of wine or shoes? So why would I purposefully create content that isn’t inclusive or accessible trying to discuss inclusivity and accessibility. Makes no sense.
My partner is dyslexic and over the past few years I’ve learned a lot about what it means and all the different glorious elements that he and we manage. What we’ve had to create coping strategies for, not least of all the one where a relentlessly early-arriving super-organised person started dating a persistently late and completely disorganised person…why keep everything you own in the car?!
So here I am part way through my Shakespearean monologue and it’s about this point that I should also be throwing in emojis left right and centre. Let’s talk about those too. Never mind a senior person like me trying to fathom out whether I’m asking someone to kindly bring me home a certain vegetable from the supermarket or whether I’ve actually said something a bit more spicy, imagine running the gauntlet of a sentence and LinkedIn post spattered with emoji’s like a Jackson Pollock.
Remember how annoying it is when you’re happily zoned out listening to your favourite music when suddenly you’re presented with ‘Message from WhatsApp. Home. Please grab milk whilst you’re out’. How distracting is that to your daydream of personally being invited up on stage to knock out your favourite song with that artist you think is the bees knees?
Including all these tiny images, and their associated meanings, that we’re scattering willy nilly in our text, how can they possibly be helping make our words any more inclusive or accessible? Heavens, I’m still trying to remember when to use a colon or a semicolon never mind dealing with anything else.
I’ve therefore made a decision. Wednesdays at Lighthouse are for long-winded comms and everything else is going to be short and sweet; enough for us all to manage and quick and easy for us all to process.
Welcome therefore to #LFTWednesdays.