The Sterling Creations winter 2014newsletter
Hello and welcome to the Sterling Creations newsletter, which is produced quarterly.
We hope that you enjoy it and encourage you to pass it along to those who may be
interested in the types of services that we offer. We welcome your feedback and invite
you to give us your comments for it is only through you and with you that we can
improve our services.
Table of contents
1 Message from the president
2 Acknowledgements
3 The fourth quarter and year in review
4 Help stop the spread of crime against innocent victims
5 Sterling services
6 List of blogs
7 Contact info
*****
Message from the president
Dear readers:
I'd like to start by wishing each and everyone of you a very happy and prosperous 2015.
I hope that your 2014 was a good one and that your just concluded Christmas holiday
season was one that was filled with lots of joy and cheer.
It is time for me now to once again thank you for having been there for us in 2014 and I
hope that our relationship continues to grow for 2015.
I now invite you to read more about our year in review and to catch up with our fourth
quarter.
With very best wishes for a wonderful winter
Donna J. Jodhan
President Sterling Creations
*****
Acknowledgements
Sterling Creations would like to thank the following persons:
Aaron Di Blasi - web developer for www.donnajodhan.com
Frances
Moffat
-
web
support
for
www.sterlingcreations.ca
www.sterlingcreations.com
And support for Linkedin
Sambhavi Chandrashekar - Linkedin support
Jamie Brown of Lumasis - website hosting
Dee Scott - blog support for www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com
Dena Patrick – technical support for Facebook
and
Dar Wournell - social media support and audio mysteries marketing
Paul Edwards - audio mysteries marketing
Brad Larkin - social media support
Heather Rupert – Facebook support
Ron Pelletier - social media support
Imran Ingar – technical support
The folks at MIAD – technical support
Larry Lewis JR – advertising support for Author Jodhan
Dan Jellinek – advertising support for Author Jodhan
Blair Stainton – producer of our audio mysteries
Oliver Turner - producer of our audio mysteries
Peter Miller – business planning and strategic marketing support for audio mysteries
Kim Kilpatrick - audio mysteries collaboration
Shelly Morris - audio mysteries collaboration
Sarah-Mariz Cruz - marketing communications
Mike Klose - marketing communications
*****
The fourth quarter and year in review
We are happy to report that 2014 was a terrific year for Sterling Creations but before we
review the year, we would like to take a few minutes to give you the highlights for our
fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter was unusually busy for us as we worked like beavers and bees to
prepare and release the 12 days of Christmas box set; scintillating and riveting
Christmas mysteries written by our president Donna J. Jodhan and we are pleased to
announce that sales for this box set exceeded our best expectations.
We thank
Mindvault Solutions and Aaron Di Blasi for this along with the new additions to our team;
Sarah Cruz and Mike Klose who now head up our marketing communications team.
In support of this huge campaign, we promoted the 12 days of Christmas box set on
www.blindbargains.com and on the www.frontiercomputing.ca website and in addition
we offered our box set for auction on the American Council of the Blind's (ACB) online
auction and we used social media to bolster our marketing campaign.
We also
promoted the 12 days of Christmas box set on a radio show hosted by Kim Kilpatrick
and Shelly Morris in Ottawa in early December.
We thank Carla Ruschibal for helping to promote our 12 days of Christmas box set on
the ACB Radio
online auction, Chris Chamberlin for promoting us on the
www.frontiercomputing.ca website, and Kim Kilpatrick and Shelly Morris for running our
promo on their radio show.
Donna was also interviewed by Carla Ruschibal as part of the ACB Radio online auction
and she talked about herself both as an author as well as being an active advocate.
We also managed to have some of our Christmas episodes run on the Accessible Media
Inc audio channel and to have the entire box set run on ACB Radio. We thank John
Melville and Joe Lamanna of Accessible Media Inc, and Larry Turnbolt of ACB Radio.
On October 28 Donna was invited by Accessible Media Inc to be a part of a panel that
discussed the following: Why is it that the media was not present on the day that the
CRTC discussed accessibility issues at its hearing that was held in Ottawa in september
2014? On that particular day, there was not a single media person at the media table.
This panel was part of the Innoversity session and along with Donna the panel included
the following: Heather Boyce of CBC, Andrew Morris of Accessible Media Inc, Diane
Johnson of Descriptive Video Works, Richard Cavanagh chairman of the BAF board, and
Greg O'Brien of CARTT.
On October 30 our president Donna J. Jodhan presented at the CNIB's Braille
Conference on behalf of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians and her
presentation focused on the untold story; the story behind her charter challenge
landmark
victory
and
you
can
read
more
about
this
by
visiting
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/news.html.
In early November Donna traveled to Ottawa to attend the third meeting of the
Elections Canada's advisory group committee meeting on disability issues.
The fourth quarter also saw our president continuing to record audio blogs for
Accessible Media Inc and in November Accessible Media Inc contracted Donna to be a
part of their Insights team. This weekly feature can be heard each Tuesday and Donna
discusses various topics of the day pertaining to disability issues and she is interviewed
by Jason Vermes of AMI.
An article entitled Declaration of independence was written by Donna J. Jodhan for the
British based E Access Bulletin online magazine for their October issue and in this article
Donna talked about the voter access terminal that was introduced at the Toronto
Municipal
Elections
on
October
27.
You
can
read
this
article
at
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/news.html.
Throughout the fourth quarter our unstoppable president continued to work with the
Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians; as part of their 2015 AGM committee. This AGM
will be held in Halifax Nova Scotia from May 01 - 03 and it is shaping up to be
something to remember.
With workshops and presenters from across the country
ranging from the Canadian Human Rights Commission to the Canadian Transportation
Agency and from the Canadian Radio and Television Commission to Paul Edwards (past
president of the American Council of the Blind), and workshops on social media and
accessible apps to caring for seniors with vision loss and from David Lepofsky (a very
well known Toronto disabilities rights lawyer) to Terry Kelly who is an award winning
song writer, entertainer, and motivational speaker; this AGM is going to be jammed
packed because there are some other surprises!
Donna also continued to work with the Barrier Free Canada Committee to launch an
initiative to lobby Federal Parties to enact disabilities rights legislation and along with
David Lepofsky, Jutta Treviranus, Marc Workman, and Steven Christianson; this
committee has managed to secure the support of CNIB, March of Dimes, the MS Society
of Canada, and the Canadian Hearing Society. The Canadian Mental Health Association
has also indicated its interest. In early December Donna was voted as chair of this
committee.
Throughout the fourth quarter our writing, research, and accessibility teams continued
to
produce
content
and
www.sterlingcreations.ca,
provide
support
for
our
main
company
websites;
www.sterlingcreations.com,
and
www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com. In addition, we continued to provide support for the
www.donnajodhan.com website and we continued to serve clients across North America
and beyond.
We will now turn to the year in review giving you the main headlines.
Sterling Creations continued to enjoy a very fruitful relationship with Accessible Media
Inc; producing audio blogs and in November our president was contracted to be a guest
on their weekly Insights program. Being interviewed by Jason Vermis of AMI on various
topics pertaining to important issues relating to disability issues.
The author Donna Jodhan audio mysteries initiative continued to grow and expand; from
an online store to radio shows, online auctions, and social media initiatives.
Our
president appeared on Kim Kilpatrick's and Shelly Morris's radio show at the end of
September. This show is an Ottawa based weekly show and on this occasion Donna
talked about her audio mysteries; what made her start this initiative and where she
hopes to go with it.
On May 24 Donna traveled to Halifax Nova Scotia where she teamed up with the Halifax
chapter of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians to present a murder mystery
evening. One of Donna's mysteries "The Cell Phone Call" was the mystery and all things
being equal this evening was a great success. Donna's main character Detective DJ
played by Donna herself took part in the event along with Dar Wournell, Yvon Clement,
Nicole Wournell, and Brad Larkin; all members of the Halifax chapter of the Alliance for
Equality of Blind Canadians. Donna extends huge bouquets of thanks to Dar Wournell
and her chapter.
Our president continued to give speeches to groups ranging from academia to financial
companies to conferences. (Ontario College of Arts and Design, the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce, and the CNIB's Braille Conference). In addition, Donna gave freely
of her time to those students from OCAD who sought her views on topics ranging from
digital inclusiveness to electronic grocery shopping carts and training modules for the
CRTC.
In 2014, Donna attended three meetings as part of the Elections Canada Accessibility
Group on disability issues. These meetings were all held in Ottawa Canada and to date
this group comprising of eight additional members representing organizations of and for
persons with disabilities has made significant progress towards the objective of making
the 2015 Canadian Federal Elections more accessible to Canadians with disabilities.
We also continued to write articles; for E Access Bulletin which is a British based
monthly online newsletter and for the monthly newsletter of the American Council of the
Blind. In addition, for Lori Motis at www.theblindpost.com.
Our president also continued to work on initiatives for the Alliance for Equality of Blind
Canadians; the Braille Camp, the virtual wall of fame, and the 2015 AGM. In addition,
she was a part of the 2014 AGM Committee.
So now we turn to what may be on the drawing board for Sterling Creations for 2015?
We will continue to push forward with the author Donna Jodhan audio mysteries
initiative and we are hoping to be able to disclose something very exciting to you in our
next update. There are several projects on the horizon and we will disclose more with
time. We will continue to support our clients across North America and beyond and we
will also continue to advocate along with others.
That's it for now and once again, thank you to everyone for your support, good wishes,
and everything else.
With very best wishes for a great 2015
The Sterling Creations team
*****
Please help stop the spread of crime against innocent victims
This is a personal message from author Donna Jodhan
"If you either are or have been a victim of crime, violence, abuse, or bullying; and if you
are simply tired of being bombarded with audios and scenes of the above, then I am
asking for your support.
I have written and recorded audio mysteries that are
completely void of vivid descriptions of sex, crime, and violence because I firmly believe
that it is time for us to use the spoken word to help influence our kids to start listening
to content that is clean and healthy. By doing this we can all do our part to tackle crime
in a positive and meaningful way and it only costs pennies per day.
Visit my online store at http://www.donnajodhan.com/store.html.
I thank you and your kids will also thank you!"
*****
Sterling Services
OUR ACCESSIBILITY SERVICES
Meet our accessibility team!
Made up of a hard working group of very dedicated
professionals.
This team offers compliance and evaluation services. They can help you to test and
evaluate your websites for W3C compliance. They are experienced at what they do and
some of their tasks include:
Accessible website design and development.
Accessible website testing and evaluation.
Accessible content development.
Creation of user testing, technical support, high level, and detailed evaluation
documents.
Managing of user testing teams.
User and technical support.
Hardware and software evaluations of access technology.
Presentations, seminars, and workshops.
Meet our research services team! Our newest edition.
This team can help you to research info on all kinds of topics. From simple subjects to
the more complicated ones. This team can do it.
At the present time the research team is heavily involved in helping clients to research
info for some very complicated Human Rights cases and in addition, they are assisting
several authors to find ways to market their books.
They also offer their research services to home businesses, small businesses, and to
individuals.
Some of their tasks include:
Researching of requested info.
Producing well-written documents containing the requested info.
This team can carry out Internet, phone, and library research on your behalf.
Meet our writing team! Known as the one stop writing shop.
This team is probably the busiest of our groups. Working with authors, students, and
marketing personnel from companies of all sizes.
Some of their tasks include:
Proofreading and editing.
Copy writing.
Re-writes.
The writing team can help you to enhance and expand your articles, blogs, newsletters,
online magazines, and web content.
They can also help you to write product reviews and for those having problems crafting
their papers in English, they are here to help you edit and format your work.
Meet our translation team! Made up of translators and language coaches.
This team works in English, French, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.
They are
heavily involved in the translation of storybooks for kids into several languages.
Their language coaches are also heavily involved in helping business professionals and
new Canadians to become more proficient at writing and speaking English.
Our dynamic team of translators and language coaches can help you to improve and
translate your articles, blogs, emails, faxes, newsletters, and online magazines.
addition, they offer services to help you improve your phone conversation.
Some of their tasks include:
Translation.
Language coaching.
Transcription.
Proofreading and editing.
To learn more about our accessibility activities, visit www.sterlingcreations.ca.
In
To learn more about how you can use our research and writing services to help you be
successful in your endeavors, visit www.sterlingcreations.com.
*****
List of blogs
The following is a list of websites where you can read blogs and editorials written by
Donna J. Jodhan:
Donna Jodhan! Advocating accessibility for all
http://www.donnajodhan.blogspot.com
Sponsored by the American Printing House for the Blind
http://www.fredshead.info
Weekly features on how to increase your success with your business ventures
http://www.sterlingcreations.com/businessdesk.htm
Weekly articles and editorials on issues about accessibility
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/blog
The latest news about Author Donna Jodhan
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/news.html
Ask an expert – how you can make your products and services more accessible
http://www.sterlingcreations.ca/sightimpaired.html
Editorials:
Issues and concerns on diversity in the workplace
http://www.diversityintheworkplace.ca
From the pages of Donna’s travel diary
http://www.theblindpost.com
The new and exciting detective series starring Donna Jodhan as detective DJ:
http://www.donnajodhan.com
*****
Contact info
To contact us by email: Please send your email to info@sterlingcreations.ca
To contact us by phone: Please give us a call at (416) 491-7711
Or via email at info@sterlingcreations.ca
Web: www.sterlingcreations.ca