One of the regrets that I have about the education that I received as a child and sought as a young adult was that I did not learn how to effectively communicate with the sight or hearing challenged. Having grown up in bilingual Canada, we were forced to take French through eight grade but I was terrible at it and dropped it as soon as I could. Through all my years of primary, secondary, post-secondary, and graduate school I never had the opportunity to learn Braille or sign language. That's a real pity because I rarely run into those who rely on their ability to converse in French yet I regularly run into far more people who are blind and use Braille or are deaf and use sign language.

Speaking of running into people, I had the pleasure of meeting Noorani Khan, the national recruitment manager for Manpower in Canada. She attended my presentation at the ACSESS conference last week in Toronto on how employers can and should use social and business networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. Noorani handed me her business card after the presentation so that I could email a copy of the PowerPoint to her.

Now receiving a business card after a presentation is not a newsworthy event as I always receive a number of cards after presentations. What made this one special was her card. In addition to the typical corporate logo and printed contact information it had a whole lot of bumps all over it. Yes, Manpower is starting to print its business in Braille. Noorani said that she's the first but I sure hope that she's the first of many and that Manpower and other organizations transform the world of business cards from being friendly not only to the sighted but also to the blind.