Welcome home Evaluation 2018 presenters and conference goers! I’m Sheila B Robinson, aea365 Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor with a few post-conference tips (and NOT just for conference goers).
Hot Tips: If you were a conference presenter, consider sharing your expertise with an even wider audience:
- Upload materials from your session in the AEA Public eLibrary
- Propose a a Coffee Break Demonstration, Lunch Hour Demonstration, or eStudy
- Submit a proposal to the AEA Summer Evaluation Institute
Cool Trick: Did you meet anyone new at the conference or reunite with an old friend or colleague? Now that you’ve had a bit of a breather to catch up with family and work, why not reach out for a collegial conversation? Just yesterday, I spent an hour in a video chat with someone I enjoyed spending time with at the conference. We didn’t have a particular goal in mind for the conversation, other than to continue talking about our various and shared interests in evaluation. We may decide to collaborate on something in the future – a blog, a journal article, a conference presentation – but for now, it was just fun to share ideas and encourage each other to move forward with some creative thoughts. We’ve made a date to talk again next month.
Get involved: If you haven’t already done so, consider engaging with AEA’s:
These are great ways to meet other evaluators, even if you don’t attend the conferences. Many TIGs and Affiliates have both in-person and online opportunities for networking and social events.
Rad Resource: Take some time to explore the AEA website! Do you know what happens when you hover your mouse over some of those menu items on the home page? You should! 😉
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
Hi Sheila,
I want to start off by thanking you for your great tip! Rarely do we make it a point to instigate conversation and collaboration for the sake of expanding ideas and thoughts. Sadly, I find in this day and age everything is so fast paced we avoid socializing and interacting. I feel we need to take a step back and realize the importance of collaboration for ideas. A lack in socializing and collaboration can lead to some of the worst decisions people could make. Contrary to this, some of the best decisions we make are the ones we get advice on, before hand.
According to a study by McKinsey & Company, implementing collaborative processes and networking tools improved productivity by 20-30% in global software development teams. And California chipmaker Xilinx reported a 25% increase in engineer productivity by using tools that encouraged peer-to-peer collaboration.When any teams uses tools or processes that make teamwork and team communication more efficient, individual workers’ goals are met faster and with higher quality results. Lionel Valdellon (2017). You also mentioned how you didn’t have any particular goal in mind for the conversation, which in my opinion is a positive point. I find that over-structuring a meeting can limit ideas and contributions by trying to “stick to the topic”.
Team collaboration enables people to do great things that an individual couldn’t. Team collaboration enables people to do great things that an individual couldn’t. In an organization, it has many benefits to both the employer and the employee. Echo Brown (2017)