FEBRUARY 2026: DESIGN FOR EVERYONE
Contents
1.
Here’s to more human-centred communication
Whether we’re creating communications that reach diverse audiences, negotiating equitably for ourselves and our clients, or building a professional community where more people feel they belong, what connects us is committing to genuinely include people. So says Andrea Walasek, IABC/Toronto’s VP, Special Interest Groups and Chair of its Professional Independent Communicators (PIC).
2.
Negotiation without the nerves
Our session with negotiation expert Fotini Iconomopoulos left us feeling empowered and seeing possibilities. Sarah L. Manley Robertson shares the top takeaways.
3.
Diverse Threads: Matisse Hamel-Nelis on accessible communications
From a business perspective, accessible communication is not only the right thing for organizations to do, it’s also a smart, strategic decision. Matisse Hamel-Nelis elaborates in conversation with Brent Artemchuk.
4.
And more!
February is Black History Month, and we link back to Arlene Amitirigala’s request to keep talking about justice, fairness and equity. Check out the chapter spotlight on Kathryn Hollinrake. Get the details about the upcoming AI discussion on Feb. 24. Don’t miss it! And please weigh in on your preferred timing for future professional development events.
Here’s to more human-centred communication
By Andrea Walasek, SCMP®
There’s something I love about this time of year. Yes, it’s cold and the days are still short. But February has a way of bringing people together. With Family Day on February 16, it’s a welcome reminder to step away from the screen for a moment and reconnect with the people who matter most. February is Black History Month, and we’re returning to Arlene Amitirigala’s call to keep the conversation about justice, fairness and equity going, especially as the ground shifts around DEI commitments. As communicators, that responsibility falls squarely on us. It’s also what lies at the heart of our theme this issue: design for everyone. Whether we’re creating communications that reach diverse audiences, negotiating equitably for ourselves and our clients, or building a professional community where more people feel they belong, what connects them is simple: committing to genuinely include people. We kicked off the year with an energizing session on negotiation with Fotini Iconomopoulos, and Sarah L. Manley Robertson has captured insights you can put to work right away. If you’ve ever hesitated to advocate for yourself or your ideas, Fotini’s advice is full of practical ways for independent communicators to negotiate with confidence while protecting the relationships that matter. If you want to keep the momentum going, check out her book, Say Less, Get More. Brent Artemchuk sat down with PIC member and IABC/Toronto’s VP of Programs, Matisse Hamel-Nelis, to explore accessible communications as a strategic, human-centred approach that makes all our work clearer and more effective. Their conversation is also full of concrete steps you can take, no matter where you’re starting from. And if you want to put those steps into practice, join Matisse for The Accessible Comms Bootcamp, a full-day, hands-on session hosted by IABC/Toronto on Saturday, March 28. You’ll walk away with practical skills, a recognition certificate and a copy of Matisse’s book, Accessible Communications. Early-bird pricing is available until February 20, so register now to save your spot. We’re also celebrating PIC's own Kathryn Hollinrake, who was just featured in the IABC/Toronto chapter spotlight. And don’t miss the details about our February 24 AI Discussion Group, a candid, peer-driven conversation about how independent communicators are navigating these tools today.
As always, if you have any comments or questions, ideas for professional development topics, or an interest in volunteering, reach out to me at toronto-sig@iabc.to. I’m always happy to hear from you.
Negotiation without the nerves: Turn everyday conversations into strategic advantage
By Sarah L. Manley Robertson, SCMP®, Prosci®, ABC
PIC members and friends had mixed reactions to the word “negotiations” at our session with Fotini Iconomopoulos on January 20. But in just 90 minutes, we went from saying it made us feel scared, intimidated and nervous to feeling empowered and seeing possibilities. Fotini told us that when we embrace that negotiation is part of our work every day and reframe it as advocacy, it can build and protect relationships while getting us what we want. Here are some hot tips from our discussion.
Use your mental pause button instead of reacting from a place of panic or fear
Imagine a pause button in the middle of your forehead. When you feel fear (“I’ll look stupid,” “I’ll damage the relationship,” “They’ll never hire me again”), press pause, take a breath, and let your rational brain catch up.
- Reframe “I am anxious” to “I am excited.”
- Create opportunities for others to acknowledge you are valuable to them. Follow up on conversations with questions like “What was most valuable in our last conversation?” and “How are you applying what I shared to your work?” and “Who else do you know who could benefit from working this way?”
- Intentionally create a reciprocal relationship with phrases like “If you [insert action] then I can [insert action].”
Banish dangerous words: Swap “I think…” for “based on…”
“I think…” signals doubt and opinion; it drains your power and invites argument. Replace it with “based on…”, which signals knowledge and objectivity:
- “Based on previous experiences…”
- “Based on best practices…”
- “Based on industry norms…”
- “Based on what you shared with me last meeting…”
This approach shows you have knowledge, and knowledge is power. It also nudges the other side to respond with their own “based on…,” which gives you more useful concrete information.
Stop throwing away power when people say “thank you”
When a someone says “thank you,” they feel some level of indebtedness. Replies like “no problem,” “no worries,” “my pleasure” or “any time” clear their sense of debt and drain your “battery.” Instead, keep the power and reinforce your value:
- “I’m so glad my efforts helped move your objectives along.”
- “I’m so glad the work we did together made for a successful event.”
This approach keeps reciprocity alive in their subconscious and reminds them you did something meaningful.
Ground every negotiation in three critical questions
- What’s in it for them? Why should they care about your proposal? What bigger goal are they trying to achieve—not just an arbitrary deadline, but the real outcome?
- What can they afford to do for me? Ask what they can realistically do for you: time, information, access, headcount, money, removing other tasks, etc.
- How am I making them feel? Collaborate (“If you…then I…”). Use questions like: “How do you think the audience would respond to this?” and “What do you think the risks are if we take that route?” Offer options (“Option A, B, or C”): you set the range, they choose.
Negotiation can serve to build better relationships and achieve what you want when you:
- Start with power: charge your “battery” with your value.
- Protect your power in everyday micro-moments.
- Focus on people: clients are humans. Think about who else is in the decision chain, whose trust you can borrow, and how to maintain trust by sounding like yourself rather than generic AI language.
- Use this proven process.
For communication and PR experts, especially independents, negotiation isn’t a side skill, but a core part of our advisory role. When we approach it with clarity, confidence and intention, it strengthens both our outcomes and our relationships.
Diverse Threads: Matisse Hamel-Nelis on accessible communications
By Brent Artemchuk
Welcome to Diverse Threads, an ongoing series that explores the journeys and stories of professional communicators who are actively working to embed diversity, equity and inclusions best practices for their clients. Recently, I sat down with Matisse Hamel-Nelis, ADS, CPACC (she/her), to talk about the importance of accessible communication and why, from a business perspective, it’s not only the right thing for organizations to do, but also a smart, strategic decision. Says Matisse, “In Canada, roughly 27% of people identify as having a disability. Add in aging populations along with temporary limitations, and we’re talking about a huge portion of an organization’s potential audience. Add in reputational and risk factors as well as the practicalities of ensuring messaging lands as intended, and the strategic benefits are obvious.” Here’s our conversation:
Inclusive design is often described as making work better, not harder. Can you share examples of how accessibility practices simplify communication workflows rather than complicate them?
The idea that accessibility adds extra work is one of the biggest misconceptions out there. Most of the time, accessible practices make communicating easier, not harder. Take plain language. When you write clearly from the start, you’re not just helping people with cognitive disabilities or language barriers. You’re also cutting down on all those back-and-forth emails, confused phone calls and having to explain the same thing over and over. One clear message does what three confusing ones never could. Everyone saves time. Think about document structure. Adding proper headings and lists isn’t extra work if you build it into how you do things. And once it’s there, everyone can navigate long documents faster. Your sighted readers can scan more easily. Screen reader users can jump straight to what they need. Nobody’s stuck scrolling through endless paragraphs trying to find the one relevant bit. Same thing with alternative text on images. Sure, it takes a moment to write a description. But that moment makes you stop and think about whether the image is even necessary and what it’s supposed to communicate. A lot of times, that clarity makes the whole thing better. Plus, alt text helps when images don’t load, when someone’s on a slow connection, or when their email client blocks images by default. Templates and style guides make this even simpler. When accessibility is already built into your standard documents and processes, nobody has to figure it out from scratch every time. Your team just follows the template, and boom, accessible communication happens on its own. Here’s the thing. Accessibility practices are just good communication practices. They make us clearer, more organized, and more thoughtful about what we’re trying to say. And that helps everyone, disability or not.
What are the most common barriers you see in workplace communication, and how can teams redesign their processes to support a wider range of needs and working styles?
Dense, jargon-heavy writing is probably the biggest barrier. People default to corporate speak or technical language because that’s what they’ve always seen. But it leaves out anyone who’s new to the organization, working in a second language or dealing with a cognitive disability. The fix is surprisingly simple: encourage people to write like they’re explaining something to a friend. If you wouldn’t say utilize in conversation, write use instead. Then there’s the way we share information. Sending important updates only through email assumes everyone processes written information the same way. Some people need to hear things. Others need visuals. Smart teams share key messages in multiple formats: a written summary, a quick video, maybe a team huddle. It takes a bit more upfront effort, but it means fewer people get left behind. Meetings are another trouble spot. Not everyone thrives in fast-paced verbal discussions. Some people need time to process before responding. Others struggle to follow along without visual support. Simple changes help, like sharing agendas ahead of time, using shared notes or slides during the meeting, and following up with written summaries. Build in pauses so people can contribute without having to jump into a rapid-fire conversation. Honestly, a lot of barriers come from rushing. When we’re moving fast, we skip the alt text, forget the captions or fire off a messy email. Building accessibility into the process from the start means it gets done. Checklists help. Templates help. So does a team culture where people feel OK saying, “Hey, can we make this clearer?” Most fixes aren’t complicated. They just require us to slow down for a moment and think about who might be trying to use what we’re creating.
If a team wants to begin transforming the way they communicate to be more accessible, what are the first practical steps they should take?
Start small and start somewhere. Trying to overhaul everything at once is overwhelming and usually doesn’t stick. Begin with an honest look at what you’re already doing. You don’t need to be an expert to spot obvious problems. Pick a few recent communications, like a newsletter, a presentation or an internal memo, and ask some basic questions:
- Can someone understand this quickly?
- Is the most important information easy to find?
- Would it work for someone using a screen reader or someone who's in a rush?
From there, pick one thing to improve consistently. Maybe it’s committing to plain language in all team emails. Maybe it’s adding alt text to images in your social posts. Maybe it’s providing meeting agendas 24 hours in advance. Choose something manageable that you can actually follow through on, because building the habit matters more than tackling everything at once. Training helps, but it doesn’t have to be formal. Sometimes it’s just sharing a good article at a team meeting or doing a lunch-and-learn where someone walks through how to write better alt text. If people understand why something matters and see how to do it, they’re more likely to do it. Templates and checklists are your friends. Build accessibility into the tools people use every day. If your standard presentation template already has proper heading styles, people will use them. If your content checklist includes “did you add captions to the video?” it’s more likely to happen. And create space for feedback. Ask your team, your audience, your colleagues what’s working and what isn’t. People will tell you if something’s hard to read or confusing. Listen to them. The key is progress, not perfection. You’re not going to get everything right immediately, and that’s OK. What matters is that you’re moving in the right direction and making real changes to how you work, one step at a time. If you’re looking for a practical resource to guide you through this, Lisa Riemers and I wrote a book, Accessible Communications: Create Impact, Avoid Missteps and Build Trust, that walks through these concepts and gives you concrete tools to get started.
How can leaders build a culture where accessibility isn’t an afterthought, but a natural part of how teams plan, create and share information?
It starts with leaders modelling the behaviour they want to see. If your executive sends out a dense, jargon-filled memo, that’s the standard you’re setting. But if they write clearly, use headings and make information easy to navigate, people notice. They start doing the same. Make accessibility part of the conversation from the beginning. When you’re planning a campaign or a new internal process, ask accessibility questions along with budget and timeline questions, like:
- Who might struggle with this?
- How can we make it work for more people?
- How is accessibility being woven into this project?
When it’s baked into the planning stage, it doesn’t become a last-minute scramble. Another big thing is celebrating the wins. When someone writes a great plain language email or creates a presentation with proper alt text, acknowledge it. Not in a showy way, but just enough to signal that this work matters and is valued. People repeat behaviours that get recognized. We also need to give people the tools and knowledge they need. You can’t expect accessibility if nobody knows how to do it. Invest in training. Create simple guides. Build it into your templates and workflows so the accessible option is the easy option. And be honest when things aren’t working. If someone points out that your process excludes people, don’t get defensive. Thank them and figure out how to fix it. That openness creates psychological safety, and when people feel safe, they’re more likely to speak up about barriers before they become bigger problems. The reality is that culture change takes time. But when leaders consistently prioritize accessibility, resource it properly and show that it’s non-negotiable, it stops being an extra thing and becomes just how we work. And never forget that accessibility is a journey, not a sprint. Focus on progress, not perfection.
Diverse Threads is an ongoing series that explores the journeys and stories of professional communicators who are actively working to embed diversity, equity and inclusion best practices in their clients’ organizations. If you have a story you'd like to share, please email Toronto-sig@iabc.to and we'll follow up. We welcome submissions from both PIC and IABC/Toronto members.
Black History Month: Let’s keep the conversation going
Each year, Black History Month honours the experiences, achievements and enduring contributions of Black communities. It’s an opportunity to deepen our understanding of their history and impact on society. In Canada, this year’s theme is “30 Years of Black History Month: Honouring Black Brilliance Across Generations — From Nation Builders to Tomorrow’s Visionaries.” In 2025, The Buzz marked Black History Month with a contribution from PIC member (and past Chair) Arlene Amitirigala (she/her). Arlene pointed out the need to continue working towards justice, fairness and equity, particularly at a time when companies are rolling back DEI efforts. “Our response as communication professionals must be to keep the conversation alive, whether we work internally in organizations or manage our own practice and interact with clients,” she said. Read the full article and other content from past issues of The Buzz.
Member news: Kathryn’s in the spotlight
Congratulations to PIC’s own Kathryn Hollinrake (she/her), who is in the IABC/Toronto spotlight! Kathryn is a professional photographer and PIC’s Director of Membership. Read how she found her perfect career fit, built reputation as an expert in the field after a PIC webinar, and why showing up in person still matters.
Feb. 24: AI discussion group for independent communicators
AI is showing up in our work whether we planned for it or not, from research and drafting content to planning, analysis and workflow support. The real question for communicators is no longer if we use it, but how to use it well. On Tuesday, February 24, join PIC on Zoom from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. for a candid, practical discussion on AI. In this peer-driven conversation, we’ll focus on how independent communicators are actually using these tools today, with real examples, favourite tools, lessons learned and tips you can apply right away. We’ll explore:
- How independent communicators are integrating AI into daily work
- What’s working, what isn’t and where judgment still matters most
- Ways to use AI thoughtfully while protecting trust, quality and credibility
- How to have conversations with clients about AI use
- How AI is affecting pricing expectations and timelines.
We hope you’ll join us for a thoughtful, practical exchange with peers who are navigating this shift alongside you. It’s free for IABC/Toronto members, $10 for IABC Lite members ($11.30 with HST) and $20 for non-members ($22.60 with HST).
What timing works best for you?
Please answer this very short survey — just four questions — so we can better understand your preferences for PIC webinar scheduling. Our goal is to identify the timing that makes it easiest for members to attend. Your feedback will help us plan future webinars at times that align with your availability and support stronger engagement across the PIC community.
See you on social media!
Build and strengthen your connections, advance your business and network with other PIC members on social media. In case you missed them, recent posts shared on our social media channels include these:
Check out the list of communication supports for people with physical, learning and other disabilities and inclusive language guidelines collected by McMaster University.
Each year, Black History Month honours the experiences, achievements and enduring contributions of Black communities. In Canada, this year’s theme is “30 Years of Black History Month: Honouring Black Brilliance Across Generations — From Nation Builders to Tomorrow’s Visionaries.”
Find Black History Month 2026 Community Events Across Canada collected by the Federation of Black Canadians.
Who we are
Professional Independent Communicators (PIC) is a special interest group of IABC/Toronto. PIC’s mission is to support independent IABC/Toronto communicators through professional development, networking and marketing. The Buzz informs members about upcoming events, shares professional development tips from past meetings and keeps us connected.
IABC connects communicators from around the world with the insights, resources and people they need to drive their careers and their professions forward.
Editor: Sue Horner, SCMP®
Executive team
Chair: Andrea Walasek, SCMP® | Past Chair: Marie-Lauren Gregoire Drummond, SCMP® | Membership: Kathryn Hollinrake | Communications & Social Media: Brent Artemchuk, Sue Horner, SCMP® | Programming: Catharine Heddle, Trish Tervit