Volume 8, Issue 1 April, 2011

Greetings:

This is the first issue of the Affinity News for 2011. Since the last issue of the Affinity News (May, 2010) there has been an adjustment in the focus of the work of Affinity By Design, LLC and this adjustment is reflected in the featured article of this issue.

I had a chance to be a coach in the Milwaukee Mosaic Partnership program a few years ago and worked with community leaders of color along with their white counterparts to have conversations of our shared and isolated experiences. This work inspired me to develop a program called Mainstreaming on Main Street to address perceptions of disabled professionals in the workplace. The combination of a shrinking labor force, an aging workforce more likely to acquire disabling conditions and an increased number of professionally qualified individuals entering the labor force all pointed me toward the need for the Mainstreaming on Main Street program.

The featured article in this issue is called “Ski Fast, Ski Safe.” The underlying theme of the story is my experiences as a blind skier but the story also speaks of the benefits of combining seemingly unrelated business processes and the power of reinforcing loops. You’ll notice the article is posted on the Mainstreaming on Main street blog rather than being embedded in this message. Please add your comments to the blog and share your own experiences.

Read the story: Ski Fast, Ski Safe « Mainstreaming on Main Street Blog

As always, I appreciate the feedback provided by my readers. If I can be of any help to you or your organization please let me know. If there is any reason why you don’t want to receive this newsletter please let me know that too.