LaMarcus Bolton on Surmounting Barriers When Working w/Clients & Colleagues

My name is LaMarcus Bolton, and I am the American Evaluation Association’s Technology Director, as well as a doctoral student in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Today, I wanted to let you know of a few good resources when surmounting barriers when working with colleagues and/or clients.

Rad Resource: When you’re working with multicultural colleagues or clients, the language barrier is often prevalent. Fortunately, there are tools available to help. Need to know how to pronounce names, such as Nguyen? HearNames will not only play an audio recording of a native individual saying the name, but will also provide brief information on its origins. Though, if you’re really feeling adventurous, sites like Forvo allows you to search for general vocabulary words and audio pronunciations for a plethora of languages.

Rad Resource: Since starting aea365 and our technology forum, there have been a few recommendations for online scheduling applications. Despite all of these options being adequate, they all have their respective limitations. After doing a little research, I stumbled upon Tungle.me, which not only allows one to easily find the ideal meeting times from a group of people, but it also seamlessly integrates with your local (desktop) or online calendar.

Rad Resource: Although we live in the computer-age, there are still times that call for a physical, in-person meeting. When such occasions occur, one problem is finding out what’s the ideal meeting place that is convenient for all parties. Meet Inbetween Us is a web app that allows a user to enter multiple addresses in order to find ideal midpoint locations.

This contribution is from the aea365 Daily Tips blog, by and for evaluators, from the American Evaluation Association. Please consider contributing – send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org.