Full Transcript
Ryan Bishop:
A year ago when I joined Aira, free was something that was something we were hoping for, but a year later to the month that I joined, we’re free now and I can’t believe it. Like it’s just one of those …
Jeff Thompson:
Aira is now free for everybody at any time.
Ryan Bishop:
It’s free. All you have to do is download an app and make a call, which is the easiest, nicest thing.
Jeff Thompson:
Meet Ryan Bishop, explore account manager at Aira.
Speaker 3:
Not only does this allow current explorers to utilize their minutes in other ways by giving the first five minutes free, but it also allows guest users to really utilize Aira more, so they understand it better and become explorers themselves.
Jeff Thompson:
And you can download the free Aira app from the app store and the Google play store.
Speaker 4
Okay. You guys need to sign up. There is no excuse as to why you guys don’t have something that is going to dramatically change your life and now that it’s free. Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with a blindness perspective, check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.Com. Download the free Blind Abilities app from the app store and the Google play store. That’s two words. Blind. Abilities. Enable the Blind Abilities skill on your Amazon device just by saying “enable blind abilities.”
Speaker 5:
That’s going to give access to a lot of people who didn’t otherwise have it. It’s a great thing.
Jeff Thompson:
And now please welcome Ryan Bishop from Aira.
Ryan Bishop:
You know, five minutes. If you can use that wisely, that’s awesome. You can get through a bakery in five minutes. I can totally do it. There you go.
Jeff Thompson:
Welcome to the Blind Abilities. I’m Jeff Thompson and today in the studio I got Ryan Bishop and he works at Aira. How are you doing Ryan?
Ryan Bishop:
I’m doing well. How about you?
Jeff Thompson:
I’m excited. Who would’ve thought that Aira, free for everybody at any time?
Ryan Bishop:
It’s an amazing experience. I think once it launched, I was just stupidly excited for the next like hour and a half. It was just, I couldn’t believe it.
Jeff Thompson:
You know, Ryan, there’s certain things in history that you remember where you were when you heard the news. And when I got the text to my phone, I was standing in line at the store and it seems like everything faded away for a moment. And I went, “Wow, it’s real. Aria’s free for everybody at any time.”
Jeff Thompson:
I was like, I just stood there for a second going, “It happened.”
Ryan Bishop:
It did.
Jeff Thompson:
I mean, Aira talked about it. Now, Aira did it.
Ryan Bishop:
Well, and it’s funny because I had made this comment because I actually joined Aira in, funny enough, August of 2018. I just happened to say, you know, a year ago when I joined Aira, free was something that was something we were hoping for. But a year later to the month that I joined, we’re free now and I can’t believe it. Like it’s just one of those things are so great.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh yeah. I downloaded the new update to the app.
Speaker 9:
Aira, visual info on demand for the blind and low vision. What’s new? Version three nine zero features free Aira for everyone. Bug fixes and performance-
Jeff Thompson:
Then I open it up.
Speaker 9:
We have exciting news. Aira service is now free for anyone. Through free five-minute calls, anyone can connect with an Aira agent for visual information to complete short everyday tasks. If you’d like longer calls with the same agent, just upgrade to a plan. Are you ready for free Aira? I’m ready for free Aira button.
Jeff Thompson:
But it’s like pretty obvious what you do, you know, just boom right there.
Speaker 9:
Call Aira for free from phone button.
Jeff Thompson:
I really like that the focus lands right on that button. Do a single finger double tap and you’re connecting to an agent and if you downloading the Aira app for the first time, one easy step and boom, you’re in.
Speaker 9:
Ready to log in or sign up for a free trial, mobile number, text field, or login with email button.
Jeff Thompson:
And once you’re in Ryan, there’s this feeling that you just really want to give it a shot.
Ryan Bishop:
My first thing was, I want to try this, you know it’s free. All you have to do is download an app and make a call, which is the easiest, nicest thing. You don’t have to go apply anything. It’s just straight through, make a call. It’s gotten so much love. It’s just I can’t believe it.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard so many people talking around all the social networks. It was like wildfire.
Speaker 4:
Hey Jeff. Hey Jeff. Hey Jeff. Have you heard Aira’s free?
Speaker 10:
Are you kidding me? Free? Aira for free? I just can’t believe it.
Speaker 4:
Aira, offering five free minutes per call to everyone is huge. This is such a life changing technology and I can’t wait to use it for all kinds of things like surprise, surprise, shopping, like shopping and all kinds of other things that I probably haven’t even thought of, like shopping. I am so excited to start using this more and more every single day.
Speaker 11:
Wow. Aira’s free now? That is awesome. It brings accessibility to more people. As long as they have an Android or iPhone, they can use Aira for free. That’s just great.
Speaker 3:
The Aira free five-minute calls is just a very amazing and cool feature for all. Not only does this allow current explorers to utilize their minutes in other ways by giving the first five minutes free, but it also allows guest users to really utilize Aira more, so they understand it better and become explorers themselves.
Speaker 10:
I just can’t believe this offer.
Speaker 4:
I you saw people were talking about this Aira being free and I was like, what? I looked on Facebook and Twitter and sure enough the announcement just like blew up. I was like, no way.
Speaker 12:
My thought about Aira giving five minutes for small tasks? Grateful, thankful, and the recent foray is I work at a school district and by the time I have a task like programming a copier to make copies for teachers or what have you, it takes time for me to explain what I need to do and how I need them to assist me.
Speaker 13:
Aira’s five-minute calls for everybody are awesome and I’m sure it’s going to be terrific. It’s going to give access to a lot of people who didn’t otherwise have it. It’s a great thing.
Speaker 14:
Hey there, this is really kind of neat. Folks are actually going to have access to Aira without having to pay to get that quick assistance. I mean, five minutes is pretty awesome, so I recommend, if you are looking for something or need something read. I guess dig in and explore.
Speaker 15:
I think the opportunity to try Aira for free is a great thing. It allows those of us who may have never tried it to find out about the service and to see how it may enhance our lives.
Speaker 4:
So I’m sharing the posts and I’m tagging them, and I’m going, “Okay, you guys need to sign up. There is no excuse as to why you guys don’t have something that is going to dramatically change your life and now it is free?” Yeah, IRS free. I’m so excited.
Speaker 16:
When I first heard about Aira’s free tier, I was really excited because it would help my minutes stretch further. It would help me get all those little tasks done every day that take less than five minutes. As a writer, as a singer, that could be anything from making sure that a certain image fits to my piece or that a certain outfit looks nice or that I can get a picture of my latte on to Instagram or Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 18:
I was standing downtown at the bus stop and I got this notification, Aira’s going to be free. I had to call Jeff. “Jeff, Aira’s going to be free.”
Speaker 6:
A month back at the NFB convention, we heard that Aira will become free. It was pretty cryptic. We didn’t really know any information and I checked my email box and boom, there it was. Five minutes. Now, you may think five minutes. What’s five minutes? Well, five minutes can go a long way. There’s always little things around the house that need to get done, and with the Aira agents, there’s no better place to go because they’re trained to deal with the visually impaired and blind. So, what do you got to lose? Give it a shot. I know I will.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I think it’s awesome of Aira to do this. This is incredible and it’s going to be a game changer. I mean more than it already has been. Yeah, I think it’s awesome. So thank you, Aira. Love it.
Ryan Bishop:
It’s just so great to see and I’m so proud to be part of it.
Jeff Thompson:
Ryan, why don’t we tell the listeners who you are and what your roles are at Aira.
Ryan Bishop:
So my name is Ryan and I work in customer experience. I am the billing manager for Aira, so I handle basically everything financial from accounts to subscriptions and everything in between. I also play a part in doing orders for business purchasing and stuff like that. So really I do anything that handles billing and commerce minute, everything like that.
Jeff Thompson:
You’re the bean counter.
Ryan Bishop:
Yep.
Jeff Thompson:
Go. Ryan, I know we’re both excited about this, but can you tell the listeners who may not know about the announcement Aira made. Aira is now free for everybody at any time. And when we say everybody, we’re talking about the countries where Aira provides full service, which is Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and United States. Notice I said that alphabetically. I got skills.
Ryan Bishop:
So, Aira is now free. And basically what that means is all you need to do is download an app. Anybody, too. So, you can be a guest user or anybody with a paid subscription and make a call to an agent and do any sort of task you want, not just in the Walgreens now, not just in anywhere. And I think that’s such a great, great thing.
Ryan Bishop:
The way it works, if you have a subscription, is you’ll still get your free five-minute calls and then the call will start using your subscription minutes. And if you do not have a subscription, you can call back in after your five minutes and give it another five minutes. So, it definitely opens up that variety of being able to complete any task at any time on your terms.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s awesome. So, like you said, if you already have a plan, you can use that first five minutes as kind of a buffer to get going on what you need to be done and all that. And it doesn’t count against you.
Ryan Bishop:
Absolutely.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, that’s great. So, with this, I’m sure there’s going to be a pouring in of new users, people downloading the apps. I’m sure those numbers are going to rise like crazy and you guys just got done with the conventions. You did a great job, I’ve heard all around.
Ryan Bishop:
Oh yeah, definitely.
Jeff Thompson:
It was fun to be in that convention because people were right there talking to an agent. You’d hear him, you know like near the elevator or near the casino or somewhere there was always someone talking to an Aira agent. It was, it was contagious I think because someone hears someone, someone talks to them and it was free. It was a free access point for Aira.
Ryan Bishop:
So I was at the NFB convention and I totally understand where you’re coming from on that because getting to stand in an elevator and watch somebody talk to an agent next to you is a great surreal experience. And to be a part of that just to, you know, to witness that.
Ryan Bishop:
But you know, I think an Aira’s prepared for this, you know, for a while now we’ve really been working to prepare for new users. Our first and main priority is to be able to help anybody at any time. And that’s where we’ve really been trying to stretch ourselves and go the extra mile.
Ryan Bishop:
I do understand and see, you know, that we are, you know, launching free and we’re getting so many new users definitely are, it’s happening, but the agents are ready and prepared and agents love talking to explorers. Even, you know, two o’clock, three o’clock in the morning, so you know, I would definitely say make those calls.
Jeff Thompson:
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that that agent is at two o’clock in the morning because they may be three, four hours, one direction-
Ryan Bishop:
That’s true.
Jeff Thompson:
… or halfway around the world.
Ryan Bishop:
Oh, agents are all over the world. And I think that’s one of the greatest things about being an Aira agent. You can be anywhere in the world, but when you talk to an Explorer and that, that’s kind of the, the way the partnership works, you know, with an agent and explorers, you work as a team and you’re in that place. You get to travel to that location. In a sense, you know, and I think that’s one of the greatest things that the agents love about IRF.
Jeff Thompson:
Well, talking about the onslaught … of the onslaught, the pouring in of new users. But my wife Lori is an Aira [inaudible] . She was one of the first persons to receive reasonable accommodations to use Aira through her employment. And while I was in Vegas, in the lounge, ran into Aira president Suman Kanuganti and the new CEO, Mike Randall. I walked over to introduce Lori and to talk to him about the [inaudible] because we had a conversation earlier about them and Suman and remembered her. And before I could say it, he said she was the first reasonable accommodation person in Minnesota.
Jeff Thompson:
And it was just really neat. Out of all the explorers and everything around the world and stuff, he remembers her. So that was really neat. And when she heard the latest Aira announcement about the free five minutes, she was like, “Holy cow. I’m going to use this more often.” Actually Ryan, it was more like this.
Speaker 18:
Holy cow, I’m going to use this more!
Jeff Thompson:
And just like myself, I was thinking about all those little job-ettes you can do around the house. I mean boom, boom, bang, done.
Ryan Bishop:
Right. And you know, and it helps especially, you know on that set up, especially if you’re doing like an online task, if you’re doing something like that you can get all that set up and then really begin your task. And I think it’s one of the most amazing things. It’s, it’s that buffer or that five-minute call that you’re just like, “I need to do.”
Ryan Bishop:
And I think it really benefits if you’re out of minutes, too, right? You know, I know minutes used to be like one of these things, especially for me, too where it’s like, “I don’t want to run out of minutes because I want to make sure I have …” You know, if I can complete this task now you don’t have to worry about that anymore. It’s free. And I think that’s the underlying thing, you know?
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. I was talking to some people because this is what we’ve been talking about lately, once the news broke, and they said, “You know, I may go shopping and use 30 minutes but now I’m only using 25, so I might have five minutes to do something else.” So, it’s an added perk to be an Explorer with your minutes and like you said you’re just having that small buffer but you know five minutes. If you can use that wisely, that’s awesome.
Ryan Bishop:
You can get through a bakery in five minutes. I can totally do that.
Jeff Thompson:
Everyone’s headed out to the bakery. I got to try that.
Ryan Bishop:
Right? Yup.
Jeff Thompson:
This is great news. It’s going to spread like wildfire and people are going to find out more about it, but they can also find out more about Aira from your new podcast. Airacast.
Ryan Bishop:
Yes, definitely. Airacast is a great addition and you know included an Airacast, I feel like I should mention it, too. When I discuss Airacast our explorer monthly feedback call as well, because I think they go in tandem with each other. The feedback call becomes what part of the podcast, so we definitely tried to release a podcast that details what’s going on at Aira Age, too and really it outlines what we’re doing. It has people that work directly with Aira. So, I know I was on one, I believe TJ was on another one, who is also in customer care and really it goes over what we’re doing and at Aira and then it goes over our new features, things like that.
Ryan Bishop:
In addition to that, every third Wednesday of every month we have our explorer monthly feedback call and what that does is it allows you to join us and go over a topic each month that’s randomly determined really by explorers where you can interact with Janine and everybody else who is that team or whoever’s showcasing the call that week, to go over new features and to really make your voice heard. It’s really a great thing to find out more information, but definitely and to be heard because Aira’s always listening to explorers and users of Aira.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah, that’s always great to hear feedback from other users. Just like, you know, when I went blind I didn’t know anybody else who was blind, so it was nice to find someone sharing the same situations and substance just like the explorers can do that. That’s awesome. Oh, you also have a Facebook group for Aira.
Ryan Bishop:
We do. It’s called Aira Explorers Community, and it is an open forum really, where you can go and discuss with fellow explorers. There’s messages in there about of course free Aira now. You know, a lot of it is what explorers did that day with Aira or just general questions that can be asked over Facebook.
Ryan Bishop:
And really, it’s an open community where people can go and just talk about Aira all the time. And it’s just, it’s such a great thing. There’s that one. And then there’s the groups IO, the email list as well. So, there’s multiple social locations to go where you can get more information. We always share, anytime we release something new, we always put it on all of the things mentioned above and then there’s always fellow explorers to speak with as well.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh that’s great. We’ll put those in the show notes as well, so people can click on them and go check them out. Aira over the last three years and especially the last few months, there’s always something new, exciting happening. It’s hard to keep up with you guys. Every podcast we do, there’s new something, all that. How does it feel to be part of an innovative and fast paced company?
Ryan Bishop:
Oh, fast paced is definitely true. You know, I joined a year ago in this month. It was August 1st of ’18 and since day one it’s been a phenomenal experience. The team is such a great, great team to work with. Everybody is so willing to, you know, work together and you know, especially you know, the agents who, you know, share experiences.
Ryan Bishop:
I think for me it’s something that you just, you don’t feel like it’s real sometimes. It’s great to be a part of and it’s great to be in that moment, but I think what really outlined it for me, I know we mentioned it earlier in the podcast, but you know, being at convention or getting to go out to these different events or do these podcasts and get to see just the explorers in general who are using the service.
Ryan Bishop:
You know, I share this story. I worked for the table for convention and did care and sign ups and I think one of the greatest things for me, along with meeting people that I’ve spoken to on the phone several times, was getting to watch new users installed the Aira app on their phone and go off for that first exploration of the exhibit hall or go through the first exploration of the convention.
Ryan Bishop:
Because you know, you really sit down and you think about it and you go, I play a part in that every day and it’s just eye opening and I’m so blessed and proud to be a part of it.
Jeff Thompson:
Oh, so rewarding. Yeah. Just one button. Open up the app, one button and you’re connecting to an agent.
Ryan Bishop:
Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty amazing.
Jeff Thompson:
Yeah. You mentioned something there. I remember when I went to convention, I started meeting up with people that I’d known only by Twitter or by Facebook or something. Now I can imagine explorers meeting other explorers that they have seen on the list or heard on the Airacast podcast. And you mentioned minutes. Remember when we used to have cell phones that you got to watch the minutes?
Ryan Bishop:
Right.
Jeff Thompson:
And now with Aira free, we’re just moving right into the future. Which reminds me, Greg Stilson, when we were at the Aira party out in Vegas …
Ryan Bishop:
Amazing party.
Jeff Thompson:
… he introduced Mike Randall, the new CEO, and he said, “He’s going to launch Aira into orbit.”
Speaker 19:
[inaudible] that we have to take this to an orbit? Is that right?
Speaker 20:
That’s right.
Jeff Thompson:
And I think we just witnessed …
Speaker 21:
Three, two, one …
Jeff Thompson:
… the liftoff.
Ryan Bishop:
Oh, really. It’s happened. It’s starting and I think from here it only gets better, just free. And you’re probably wondering, you know, how can you get better than free? Because it’s just hard to believe that it’s here and I’m so proud to say it and I look forward to seeing what happens next.
Jeff Thompson:
Ryan, how can people find out more about Aira?
Ryan Bishop:
Definitely by using our social presence mentioned above. And then also by visiting our website, aira.io. Or better yet, you know, just definitely install the app and call an agent. The agents, I think are the best voice of Aira, you know, and definitely by speaking to other explorers. But on our website, IRS spelled A-I-R-A dot I-O, or by visiting our social presence online.
Jeff Thompson:
And that’s available iOS or Android.
Ryan Bishop:
Correct. Yeah.
Jeff Thompson:
So go out and download that app. It’s free. The app is free. Your time is free. I mean …
Ryan Bishop:
Everything’s free.
Jeff Thompson:
What next? You know? Yeah. What is next? It’s always like, it’s hard to predict. You guys are just moving so quickly. It’s, it’s exciting times.
Ryan Bishop:
I’m stoked, so excited and I’m, I’m so blessed to see everybody loving free. It’s just, I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Jeff Thompson:
All right, well thanks Ryan for taking the time. Thank you for your whole team at Aira, what you guys have been doing for the blindness community. Love to have you on again.
Ryan Bishop:
No, we definitely appreciate you guys doing the podcast and we look forward to being on next time.
Jeff Thompson:
All right, thanks Ryan.
Jeff Thompson:
Such a great time talking to Ryan Bishop and be sure to check out Aira on the web at A-I-R-A dot I-O, and download the free Aira app from the App store and Google Play store. A big shout out for Chee Chau for his beautiful music. You can find Chee Chau on Twitter @ LCheeChau, Chee Chau, Chee Chau, and most of all I want to thank you, the listener. I want to thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed and until next time, bye bye.
[Music] [Transition noise] -When we share
-What we see
-Through each other’s eyes…
[Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence]
…We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities.
Jeff Thompson:
For more podcasts with the blindness perspective:
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Download our app from the App store:
‘Blind Abilities’; that’s two words.
Or send us an e-mail at:
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Thanks for listening.
*****
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