In this candid episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams talks with John B. Grimes about the life-altering night in 1998 when, as a 19-year-old Texas Tech student, Grimes contracted meningococcal disease and woke up in the hospital days later blind, disoriented, and relearning basic functions, walking, talking, swallowing, while also navigating lasting neurological impacts. Grimes explains why he once called himself “ambiguously blind,” describes the role the Texas Commission for the Blind played in reopening his world (from accessible coursework to practical support), and reflects on the fear and grief he initially resisted, until later counseling helped him begin processing the change.
Leave a CommentMonth: January 2026
Here, Dr. Kirk Adams reflects on how ISDI met the intensifying DEI pushback of 2025 not by retreating, but by strengthening the skills, community, and infrastructure needed to sustain inclusion work under pressure. Drawing on ISDI’s 2025 outcomes, 27 years of the Northwest Diversity Learning Series, 10 years as ISDI, and broad engagement across workshops, special events, and practitioner development, he describes how ISDI used the Aspen Institute’s Better Arguments framework to build practical capacity for navigating conflict with rigor, context, and relationship-centered leadership.
Leave a CommentIn this inspiring episode of Podcasts by Dr. Kirk Adams, Dr. Adams talks with Jerred Mace of OneCourt about how haptic technology can make live sports dramatically more accessible for blind and low-vision fans. Adams shares his own “hands-on” encounters with the OneCourt device, feeling the raised layout of a basketball court and the vibrations of a synced, fast-moving play, and later experiencing baseball through touch by sensing pitch location, ball flight, and baserunners in real time alongside the radio broadcast.
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams highlights Joybubbles as more than a compelling Sundance premiere, it’s a living demonstration of what happens when accessibility is built into an experience from the start. He summarizes the film’s core story, as described by producer Will Butler: a documentary directed by Rachael J. Morrison about Joe Engressia, a blind boy whose discovery of a “magic tone” helped spark the phone phreak subculture and influenced the technology we use today, while also grappling with themes of disability, autonomy, trauma, and resilience.
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams, Executive Director for the ISDI, reflects on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ahead of MLK Day on January 19, 2026, and connects King’s call for courageous, collective struggle to ISDI’s decade of work advancing equity, dignity, and belonging. He highlights ISDI’s long-standing Northwest Diversity Learning Series as a space where leaders confront hard truths, build practical skills, and sustain the uncomfortable but necessary work of naming inequity and turning values into action.
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams recounts attending CES 2026 as a strategic advisor and small shareholder in Innosearch.ai, which exhibited in Eureka Park, an area he describes as vibrant and community-like for accessibility and disability-inclusion innovators. Surrounded by companies building assistive and universally designed tech, he feels both energized and affirmed, arguing that disability inclusion isn’t charity but a market-expanding driver of better design.
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams announces that Innovative Impact, LLC has joined the Good Business Network of Washington and frames the decision as a practical commitment to making inclusion a measurable, local economic advantage, not a compliance exercise. He ties the network’s mission of helping people buy, produce, and invest locally to his central thesis that inclusion is a strategic advantage, arguing that the same ingredient powers both: strong relationships across businesses, municipalities, community organizations, and residents.
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Practical Strategies for Workplace Inclusion and Leadership
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams steps into his new role as Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI) and names what he’s hearing, loudly and consistently, from the people doing DEI and belonging work right now: they’re committed, they’re still showing up, and they are exhausted. Drawing from an ISDI survey shaping the 2026 Northwest Diversity Learning Series (and a scan of practitioner discussion spaces), he surfaces a clear set of needs: real encouragement (not platitudes), calm and current legal guidance, evidence-based practices that actually work, sustainable ways to do the work without sacrificing health, and strategies people can act on immediately.
Continue readingA Harbor in Stormy Waters: Listening, Learning, and Building What Comes Next at ISDI
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Here, Dr. Kirk Adams invites readers to join Birdability’s Blind Birder Bird-a-Thon (May 3-4, 2026) and shares how a simple walk through Seattle’s Leschi neighborhood, punctuated by the unmistakable call of his favorite red-winged blackbird, captures what Birdability is building: a birding community where belonging is not reserved for those who see, but extended to everyone who listens. Drawing on his lifelong practice of “seeing with the ears,” he frames birding by ear as more than a technique; it is a pathway to confidence, spatial awareness, and agency that follows blind birders beyond the trail and into daily life.
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