Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Ignite, an original podcast from Designsensory Intelligence. This is a podcast for business pros like you. From sports and entertainment, to travel and tourism, financial services to economic development, and more, we uncover relevant timely information that will help keep you at the four of consumer behavior understanding our host, Chris Wise, the brains behind Ignite, has been deeply committed to research, insights, and innovation for over 30 years. He knows the right questions to ask, and more importantly, what to do with the answers. Get ready for the engaging, in-depth conversations with industry leaders that will inspire you to take action and connect with your audience on real human terms. This is Ignite, the spark to light your fire.

Chris Wise (00:45):
Welcome to Ignite, where we have the opportunity to talk with subject matter experts about important and compelling marcom issues. Specifically, we delve into incredible tools and disciplines for audience understanding, identification, behaviors, and ways to engage them at every touchpoint. Today, we are pleased to be joined by Uma Srivastava, executive director of KultureCity.
Uma, welcome, really excited to have you with us. "Inclusivity," a word often said, but not necessarily totally embraced by even though saying it. Traveling down life's road, people tend to be a bit myopic when it comes to recognizing and understanding differences in people. Many of us are passionate about broadening understanding and knowledge of our diverse culture and adopting true inclusivity. We believe it is a moral, ethical, and business imperative to move forward to create a cataclysmic culture shift of enlightenment and adoption of true inclusivity. Uma, again, welcome. Tell us a little bit first about KultureCity.

Uma Srivastava (01:46):
Yes, Chris, thank you so much for having me, and hello to all of our fellow Ignite listeners. KultureCity is a nonprofit. We are based out of Birmingham, Alabama. For those of you who don't know, it's about two hours west of Atlanta, Georgia. Our nonprofit was started by a set of parents, both physicians. KultureCity's genesis came about when their older sons started to have some sensory issues. He had a lot of regressive behavior around the age of two-and-a-half, three, basically quit speaking almost overnight. Even though they were physicians, they still didn't understand what was going on. They went around to various doctors and experts. At one point, a doctor had told them, "Hey, you're speaking two languages at home. Stick to English." They tried everything. Still just couldn't figure out what was happening. They finally got the autism diagnosis.
They were happy to have an answer, but along with that diagnosis came, "Your son will never speak again, your son will never say, 'I love you,' and your son will have to be institutionalized." As young parents of two children, this autistic young boy being the older of two, they said this wasn't the culture they wanted to have, this wasn't the way they were going to raise their family, so KultureCity was created with "Kulture" with a "K" to shift that culture, to break those barriers. They started to form a community with other families with similar walks of life, but they slowly started to realize that it wasn't just those with an autism diagnosis who were feeling a lot of the isolation who were being told, "No, you'll never do this. He'll never do that. She'll never do this," and so KultureCity now really encompasses anybody and everybody who has a sensory need, those who are neurodiverse.
Chris, studies show that one in six individuals today have a sensory need, so yes, it's autistic children, but it's also autistic adults. Folks often forget that those children grow up. It's also individuals, all walks of life, all ages with anxiety, PTSD, dementia, Parkinson's, ADHD, cystic fibrosis, or even a whole host of other rare, genetic, or undiagnosed conditions where folks are told, "You'll never do this because of X, Y, Z." KultureCity's here. Our tagline is "We make the nevers possible," and we truly get to do that every single day when we wake up. That's a little bit about KultureCity in a nutshell.

Chris Wise (04:07):
Wow. How long has KultureCity been in existence?

Uma Srivastava (04:11):
Oh, yes. I apologize. About nine-and-a-half years.

Chris Wise (04:13):
Okay. Then take us to you and a bit about you and how you ended up at KultureCity, so the whole background, what you do, et cetera.

Uma Srivastava (04:23):
Absolutely. I'm a Southern gal through and through, born and raised in Mississippi, and spent about 13 years of my life in Birmingham, Alabama. It's where I came across Julian and Michelle and KultureCity and recently am now a resident of Nashville, Tennessee of two years now. My husband is a rare unicorn who's from the Nashville Area. I was a statistic, one of a hundred people moving to Nashville every day.
But going back to my time at Birmingham, I was working for a very cool startup healthcare company. They were very motivating in the sense that they said, "Not only should you work here, but you should get involved in the community." I knew I always wanted to give back to Birmingham in some way, shape, or form because Birmingham was my dream city. It had been so great to me. My mentor found out about KultureCity when KultureCity was very young and said, "Hey, why don't you chat, grab some coffee with the founders, Julian and Michelle, see what their vibe is?"
Now, at that point, I was your typical young professional on six different junior boards, trying to figure out where my impact would be best met, where my skills would be best benefited, and so grab coffee, I started volunteering at local events at the zoo, scanning in tickets for families for sensory-inclusive events. As I started to hear their feedback, when they would leave the event, I said, "Wow, this is actually really cool. It's better than some of the other junior boards that I'm on because I'm getting to see this impact right here. I'm hearing this wonderful feedback," so I started to get more and more involved with KultureCity.
Then there came a time where I actually left my startup healthcare company and said, "Guys, this has been a great journey, but I feel my passions slide within KultureCity." Through KultureCity, I've now realized that my world has individuals with sensory needs surrounded all around me. Pre-KultureCity, I had no idea what autism was. We would hear that word in the news every now and then, or a sad story about somebody who was autistic who had a bad experience, but KultureCity really shifted my lens in how I saw the world.
Now, I'm the executive director. We are a lean but mean team, but my day-to-day cannot be described in one sentence. Every day, I wake up, and there is a new challenge. Just a few weeks ago, I don't know how closely folks follow the news here, but there was a family who decided to fly from New Jersey to Aruba who went on vacation, and on the way back this young teenager was feeling overwhelmed on a United Airlines flight. United Airlines kicked the family out, said, "You're not welcome on any of our flights," and now this family was stranded in Aruba with no way back. They looked at medical evac. Medical evac was, of course, outrageously expensive. They started raising funds, and even then, medical evac said, "Hey, we'll have to sedate your son in order to put him on board," which the mom said, "No, we're not doing that. He doesn't need that sedation medically. Let's find a way."
KultureCity found out about it. We called Carnival Cruise. We said, "Hey, do you serve the Aruba Area?" They said, "No." We said, "Is there anything you can do?" They said, "Sure," so they pivoted a giant cruise ship to go pick up the family in Aruba on ship. They were brought to Miami, and then in Miami, we had two drivers waiting for them that drove them from Miami to New Jersey.
Story was a long way of saying every day we wake up and we've got a different challenge, a different issue at hand, or a really cool partnership that we're working on, whether it be MLB All-Star that's coming up, or talking to the NFL on what this upcoming season is going to look like, so it's really exciting, it's fast paced, but never a consistent day-to-day.

Chris Wise (07:54):
Yeah, that you just told, I've aware of work you've done with professional sports teams, but that one doesn't fit into that mold at all, so you're really living out that culture aspect of the name, and it's quite impressive. You do rely on a lot of volunteers, is that correct?

Uma Srivastava (08:15):
Absolutely, yes. Our team is technically four staff and everybody else are volunteers, so yeah, we love our volunteers, the hours they put in, the commitment they have, and we're very grateful for them.

Chris Wise (08:28):
Are they all over the country?

Uma Srivastava (08:30):
They are all over. We've got a really nice core group in Boston, in New York, in Dallas, in L.A., so they're all one text away from us saying, "Hey, guys, we've got this event coming up. Are you able to help out?" Rarely do we get a no. They're always there for us.

Chris Wise (08:48):
How do you engage with organizations? Let's just take this any professional sports team, for example, how do you engage with those organizations?

Uma Srivastava (08:55):
Yeah, absolutely. It's multifaceted. We'll have another story here. Rewind about five-and-a-half, six years ago to the Cleveland Cavaliers when LeBron James was there. They did an autism-friendly night game in about March April-ish before the playoffs started and they invited families who were primarily autistic to come in. Well, there were a few families who came in where their young children were autistic, but there wore a special communication device. Right off the bat, security said, "Sir, ma'am, you need to take this device off your child. They have to go through the security scanner." The parents were attempting to educate the security folks, "Hey, my son doesn't wear this to livestream a game or to livestream a concert, it's truly his voice. It's truly the way he communicates. It's his comfort. If you're going to take it off him, he's not going to feel good. It's going to be a rough going." Security didn't really understand that. Of course, they take it off, ensues a sensory overload moment. The family can't even make it to the game that was meant for them.
The mom got on Twitter. She tagged the Cavaliers, said, "This is how we were treated, especially on an autism-friendly night that you called," and the Cavaliers said, "No, we're not going to have this. This is not how we want to treat our fans." Ironically, "serendipity" Chris is a word that we use a lot at KultureCity. Our co-founder Dr. Julian Maha was on a flight and sitting beside him was somebody from the Cavaliers' organization. They started to chat. This is pre-COVID, no masks. We were all still friendly with each other. He shared the story and we immediately flew up the next week and trained all 1200-plus of their guest services, security, vendors, concession folks.
The NBA got word of this and they said, "Hey, what are you doing, especially with the potential champion team?" We shared the success with them, everything went well. The NBA said, "Maybe this is a fluke. Maybe this is just successful in the Cleveland Area. We're going to give you 10 more NBA teams venues to implement this and let's see if we see similar success." During that off-season, we really built some structure around our training, reached out, we got 10 more teams, and we were seeing very similar impacts, very similar increase in ticket sales, and in positive stories saying, "Thank you for including me, not just on your autism night, but any home game that we can come to."
Organizations hear about us through their larger entities, like the NBA, the MLB, the NFL, the NHL, MLS when they present this to their teams and venues and say, "Hey, guys, this is a success we've seen at X, Y, Z. We recommend that you implement this." When it comes to zoos and aquariums, it all started in at the Birmingham Zoo, but it's all word of mouth. These groups, these roles are very small. Everybody is friends with each other, so as they come across a solution that works for them, they'll start sharing it with others in their network. Organizations hear about us from their peers, their colleagues, but also from families. Families will oftentimes post on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, "Thank you to X, Y, Z, we were able to have a great night," and people start seeing the positive news, as we all crave these days, and they raise their hands and reach out and say, "Hey, we saw this. Can we do this as well?"

Chris Wise (12:08):
Wow. That's awesome. To the other side of that, have you faced any brick walls when it comes to organizations understanding, or what you just shared, is the door wide open when you get there because they've invited you in, or do you hit brick walls as you talk to people that should be hearing what you have to say.

Uma Srivastava (12:26):
Absolutely. I'm not going to name any names, but even today, we hit brick walls. Chris, our worlds are DEI. We're all about inclusivity, whether it's race, gender, neurodiversity, but we do have some folks that say, "Why is this here? If they're not comfortable, if they don't like loud sounds, or if they don't like lights, why can't they stay at home? Why do they have to come in public?" As much as I'd love to tell them off, I have to put my polite professional face on and give them the stats and show them the impact. Or oftentimes, we'll have venues that say, "Okay, this is great. I implement this, but what's my ROI? What am I getting out of it? The warm and fuzzy stories aren't enough for me."
Going back to the Cavs in the 2018-2019 season, we did a study and we saw a direct correlation and increase in ticket sales by $100,000 because of the sensory rooms, sensory bags, and the training that we provided. So for those listeners out there who say, "Warm and fuzzy is great. I want to see impact. I want to see ROI," we've got those numbers, and for some of our knuckleheads who make those comments, I don't know what's going to change their mind, but hopefully one day those brick walls will come down, and we'll be here to help them out.

Chris Wise (13:38):
Yeah, the number I'm trying to use, I think I've shared with you that with societal empathy growing, that not only do you have an impact on those that are directly affected, but 60% of the US adult population expects proper treatment and understanding, no tokenism, just being sincerely inclusive. If you ignore that number, if you ignore 60% of the population, to me, that's a pretty strong, compelling statement what the ROI will be if you ignore it, or if you don't. Now, it may not be immediate. In case of some sports organizations, if they're a winning team, they're still going to fill the stadium for a while, but over time, it's really just an entertainment dollar, and people have choices. Don't ignore.
Yeah, the first time I heard, "What's the ROI?" I slapped my head and said, "Well, let's talk about that," so how do you leverage the information that you have? We talked about the roughly 26% of the US population that has disabilities, but how do you leverage that to really broaden the minds and truly understand inclusivity again, in that truest sense of the word? For me, that's everything, not just disabled, but it's all those that are marginalized, ignored, or, "Why bother?" like some of the comments you made. How do we leverage that information so it's embraced by all of humanity in a marketing and operational funnel?

Uma Srivastava (15:02):
Absolutely. The story or the scenario I set up now is for the last two-and-half years, we all celebrated birthday parties, weddings, funerals, special events on Zoom. We rarely got to see our loved ones in person. There were no hugs, handshakes, none of those in-person celebrations. We all felt that social isolation. We all to a certain extent were craving that human interaction to go celebrate, to watch a game, watch a concert, or just go to a restaurant and have dinner with 20 friends. Our families and individuals who have sensory needs, who are disabled, face that social isolation for years and years on it, pre-diagnosis, during diagnosis, and post-diagnosis as they shape their lives, so with all of us getting frustrated in two-and-a-half years with the social isolation, I say, "Put yourself in their shoes." We did this for two-and-a-half years and we said, "Enough is enough. We're going out."
At one point during this whole journey of COVID, I was like, "I'm done. I miss my people. I want to see you in person. These are the steps that I'm going to take." Thankfully, we had the ability to shift back, but some individuals really can't get over that social isolation, can't really get over those barriers because of their sensory need, or their disability, and so that's the scenario I tell folks and say, "Put yourself in their shoes as you start to market, or as you start to address this population because we all felt it for just a little moment there on what the social isolation felt like." That's what I would challenge our listeners, especially those in the marketing worlds is you've now walked maybe a day in their shoes, think about that feeling and think about what that felt as you start to make your world inclusive.

Chris Wise (16:46):
Do you often bring those with sensory issues to the table to be part of that conversation with the folks that you're trying to have implement?

Uma Srivastava (16:56):
Yeah. Without those voices, we would not be where we are today. Our board of directors, if you go to the website, about half of them have sensory needs. Some of them might be public diagnosis. Some of them might be private. Sean Culkin, for example, is an autistic adult. He's a self-advocate. He's been our board for four years. He's currently going to get his master's degree. On the surface, he might pass as a very typical person. Once you get to know him, he has a sensory need, and he talks about his diagnosis. We have parents on our board whose children have sensory needs. Joe and Renee Ingles have a son. I believe he's almost, no, almost three now, and he was diagnosed with autism a few years, so he's four now. It's been a couple years since his diagnosis. Sorry. Time is such a blur to me now. We want to make sure we're listening to those parents, we're listening to those with sensory needs, and our board is made up of autism, anxiety, PTSD, the different conditions that we listed out earlier on this call.

Chris Wise (17:58):
I think that's so important to have that representation, otherwise we maybe don't speak with the same integrity or reality that really needs to be at the table. Are there other best practices that you've established around the totality of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility?

Uma Srivastava (18:18):
Our goal is to shift the mindset at large, which is a lofty goal, but we want folks to think about DEI in a true sense that yes, gender inclusion, race inclusion, but also neurodiversity inclusion is important. Our ultimate goal is when a new building is being built, whether it's a restaurant, a cafe, a stadium arena that they're thinking of sensory inclusion, that they're thinking of, all right, where are the sensory rooms going to be? Just like right now, we have to put in ADA restrooms or entrances and different options for those individuals.
Best practices for us right now include as you open a new stadium venue, let's build out those sensory rooms. Let's find space now. We're seeing that, With SoFi Stadium, they are hosting a myriad of events coming up in the next few years, whether it's the FIFA games, whether it's the Olympics, they just finished the Super Bowl, they have two sensory rooms in this new build. Dickey's Arena in Fort Worth, which somebody corrected me is not Dallas, as they were being built starting 2018, we worked with them to build out a sensory room, and now when folks like Sir Paul McCartney enter into their venue to perform, we have everything in place ready for fans to enjoy. That would be the biggest thing that we're pushing right now.

Chris Wise (19:41):
As you look ahead to 2023 and well beyond, what do you feel will happen in relation to societal empathy in relation to DEI&A, and with that, what are the challenges, fears, and joys?

Uma Srivastava (19:54):
I like to consider myself an optimist, so personally, I hope that more companies, more individuals, organizations will adopt inclusion, diversity, accessibility, they'll all raise their hands and say, "Yes, we want to do this." My biggest challenge or our biggest challenge is how do we convince those brick walls that we mentioned a couple of minutes ago now. How do we tell them this is truly important? It's not just a nice to have, it's not just a warm and fuzzy. The joy is the fact that we're expanding so quickly to various markets. You made the comment, it's not just sporting venues, it's travel, we're working with airports. Now, we're training staff at airports, building sensory rooms there. We want to provide that gate-to-gate experience. Our joys are in all the unique partners that are coming out and reaching out to us and saying, "Yes, we want to bring this to our world."

Chris Wise (20:49):
It's interesting you bring up travel. I think in the report I shared with you that we did that, people with disabilities tend to travel more often by automobile than air travel because of the rigor of air travel. It's just a little too difficult to go through that process. Uma, I can't thank you enough. I'm looking forward to so many more opportunities to work together. If folks want to get in touch with you, do you want to give them some contact information?

Uma Srivastava (21:15):
Yeah. Feel free to reach out to me via email. It's uma@kulturecity.org. That's "kulture" with a "k." You can find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, we're working on TikTok. I don't know if I want to manage that TikTok account, but you'll find us just about anywhere on the internet.

Chris Wise (21:34):
Super. Thanks, Uma, and thank all of you for listening to Ignite, a podcast from Designsensory Intelligence. If you want to know more about the various ways we gain intelligence about audiences and turn that intelligence into solid marketing solutions and how to understand the position your organization holds in the minds and hearts of all people and the impact societal empathy has on your bottom line, just send a note to me, Chris Wise. Until next time, stay wise.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Thank you for listening to Ignite, a podcast from Designsensory Intelligence. If you want to learn more, head to designsensoryintel.com. Until next time, continue your pursuit of quenching your unending thirst for intelligent understanding of human-consuming behavior.