Welcome to The Power of Digital Policy, a podcast that teaches organizations and their digital workers how to balance the risks and opportunities that come with operating websites, social media, mobile applications, voice, AI and other channels. This podcast will help you develop guardrails to manage issues like accessibility, cookies, copyrights, social media faux pas, data breaches, and data privacy. I hope that the sharing of lessons learned, cross-industry experience and anecdotes will help you - whether you work for a startup, Fortune 500 company, nonprofit or the government - to unlock desired opportunities and get digital right.

While it is important to understand the legal risks your business may be facing by not making digital content accessible, it is crucial to focus on the opportunities it may be passing up by not reaching those with a disability. In this podcast, I discuss how to develop and adapt your accessibility policy in order to minimize your online risk and maximize digital opportunity.

James Baverstock gives us accessibility adoption tips, including how you can save yourself a significant headaches if you consider accessibility from the very beginning of any digital effort. In essence, accessibility is like a blueberry muffin. When you’re baking a blueberry muffin, you can't just stuff all the blueberries in at the end. Accessibility, like blueberries, needs to be there from the beginning. James also gives us some great resources for getting started on the path to accessibility.

Accessibility is on the upswing. The press has had an effect. The message has been delivered with the number of lawsuits and people are aware that there are accessibility issues. So where do you stand? Kevin Rydberg shares his 20 years of experience in accessibility, usability, and design to help understand best practices in developing digital solutions for those with disabilities. Spoiler alert: we all have a disability, at some point, whether temporary or permanent.

Data privacy laws are the new norm, and proposed regulation is sprouting up in the US and around the globe. But there is so much more to data privacy than the required compliance with laws. And certainly, a lot more than the common privacy statement in the footer of your website. So, what does that look like and why think about privacy beyond the minimum required to check the box? I tee up everything that you need to know around digital data privacy policy.

Digital policies are an opportunity for us to do great work, be innovative, achieve organizational goals, and minimize risk. But you can’t get all of that if you are not mindful. Former Buddhist monk, and now coach to executives and agile teams, Amaranatho Robey, talks about teams, getting maximum speed, and doing digital the right way.

• Which does your organization have: chaos or complexity?
• Agile of waterfall? You still need leadership support.
• Be more effective, be more creative!
• Attitude is key to sound digital practices

Privacy in the context of the life sciences is anything but simple. Faced with many different in-country regulatory systems, organizations are also struggling with a growing complexity in regional and above country marketing strategies. How do you keep up to date on all of the new regulations popping up and yet not lose your competitive edge? Hema Lakkaraju outlines the pragmatic approach to regulatory compliance, and it all starts with shifting your mindset.

When it comes to conquering new global markets, do you need localization, globalization, internationalization, or all three? If you are already on the global stage, do you have a digital policy to maximize your ROI while ensuring you avoid faux pas and legal risk? Tune in to get your terminology and marketing ready for the global marketplace.