As we pour time, energy, and resources into diversity, equity and inclusion programs, we may miss the details that support employees feeling valued, such as correct name pronunciation. In fact, in our recent study, we found that 44% of candidates had their name mispronounced in an interview.
Carving out a niche in HR tech, modern thought leaders are scheming up innovative ways to eliminate “the ethnic pause” and name-butchering all together… No matter what employers do to spark positive conversations around “difficult-to-pronounce names,” going the extra mile here can make all the difference.
It takes work. But, as Nike learned the hard way, getting it wrong can be a very expensive mistake.
“Often it’s these little things about cultural and racial sensitivity that teaches other students and staff how to be cognizant of people who are from different backgrounds, so I think addressing the need to get names right is an excellent step forward.”
Introducing NameCoach, FSU’s newest tech designed to support diversity and inclusion. NameCoach is an application designed to integrate into the main FSU systems used every day by storing easy-to-learn audio name pronunciations. It enables instructors, student services, advisors and peers to be more respectful and inclusive with every interaction.
[TXV Partners] counts California-based fitness training platform Future.fit, Palo Alto-based business connection software startup Namecoach and Netherlands-based aviation software company Kambr in its portfolio., “We read and hear about so many agencies and holding companies talking about their future plans regarding diversity and social equality. We prefer to do rather than to talk,” Stroud said. “The time for change is now. And the change cannot be gradual. It has to be decisive and transformative.
Ariel Armony, the vice provost of global affairs, spearheaded the University-wide initiative to assist faculty, staff and students with sharing these defining portions of their identity. He said names are critical to understanding the new face of the United States. “It is imperative we embrace the reality of a highly diverse America. This is the new identity of our country,” Armony said. “Pitt should lead as a model in this regard.” “We should all take a minute to remember that we have a really easy opportunity to be welcoming and inclusive,” said Belkys Torres, the executive director of global engagement. “I think a lot of times we live in a world where we have these very ambitious goals for creating inclusive and diverse environments that it becomes difficult for us to realize that it’s just these small but important steps that make a difference.”
“The decision to launch NameCoach at Pitt signals another concrete action on the part of the University to reaffirm our commitment to diversity, inclusion, and belonging,” said Ariel C. Armony, vice provost for global affairs who brought the idea to Pitt. “It’s all about creating a robust climate of inclusivity.”
Praveen Shanbhag, Founder and CEO of NameCoach, is participating in the Aug. 5 panel discussion, You Matter. You Belong: A conversation with diversity and inclusion experts. Systemic racism and the events that have unfolded across America over the past few months serve as an urgent reminder of the continued change needed in our society and its institutions. As members of the ed-tech community, it is crucial that we are attuned to the racial injustices in a larger sense and are aware that this issue is present in every aspect of our work in higher education.
Instead of relegating the success or failure of your customer events, brainstorming sessions, and team meetings to chance, invest in the one superstar every organization operating virtually needs now: A skilled moderator. Great hosts create a personal connection with each presenter.. [NameCoach] offers simple and effective embedded online tools to help you easily learn and remember how to pronounce people’s names. Perfectly.
Salesforce Accelerate is designed to provide the insights, learning, and support that startups need to strategically align with Salesforce and accelerate their time-to-market with AppExchange. NameCoach was selected for Build program as a means to accelerate success on the AppExchange and the Salesforce ecosystem.
TaskRay was part of a group of co-sponsors that worked together to identify and recognize up-and-coming Salesforce solutions ready to launch their idea at Dreamforce 2019 and NameCoach stood out as this year’s recipient.
TaskRay sat down with Praveen Shanbhag, CEO of NameCoach, our Diversity at Dreamforce 2019 scholarship winner, to talk about their upcoming launch at this year’s event.
Increasingly, research shows that sense of belonging is a critical factor in student success and persistence, and that name mispronunciation is a frequent and pervasive way in which students often are or feel alienated… Through its NameCoach partnership, the CVC-OEI can help alleviate potential student alienation, particularly with at-risk populations and first-generation college students.
“We just really feel that there’s some strong benefits to build up the student-faculty relationships and the student-to-student connections and foster a more inclusive and welcoming environment,” said Julie Selander, director of One Stop Student Services.
”For me, it’s part and parcel of a broader understanding that naming and being named are related to the ethics and politics of recognition,” he said, “and of respecting gender diversity, cultural diversity, and national diversity.”
To help foster that trust—as well as inclusion and equity in the increasingly diverse school—the university implemented NameCoach Connect… “It was the easiest implementation from an external vendor in the more than 10 years that I’ve worked here.”
Better academic performance. Increased student retention and graduation rates. Improved sense of campus community. These are just three benefits that closer ties among faculty and students can yield. Here are nine places to foster such connections… Foothill College in California is one community college that’s using technology to help ensure professors get it right. NameCoach, which integrates with Foothill’s Canvas course management system, was the tool of choice.
As universities become more diverse places it becomes an even greater challenge – with names from China, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and South America.
Do you have trouble pronouncing your students’ names, or is your own name a real tongue twister for some? NameCoach, a new default app embedded into Canvas, can help you and your students pronounce one another’s names correctly. Here are some examples of using NameCoach in effective and engaging ways.
The Office of the Registrar has also received messages of appreciation from students along with feedback suggesting that it should be extended to all sectors of the University… Since advisors and professors will know the correct pronunciation of students’ names beforehand, students will not have to awkwardly correct, or worse, hear their names mispronounced repeatedly.
When the professor engages the student in personal conversation, recognizes her by name and seems to include her in the domain of attention, the subject matter seems more accessible. The nonverbal message goes out that the student is part of the community of people who can do mathematics, statistics, chemistry or whatever, the subject matter is.
With the goal of creating a more inclusive campus community and classroom, NameCoach directly addressess the problem of name mispronunciation. Rather than repeatedly putting students on the spot or subjecting faculty to trial and error, students and faculty will have access to NameCoach in every Canvas course. Jaci Casazza, University Registrar, believes NameCoach will help bring a greater comfort level in faculty-student interactions.
Learning names at the beginning of the term has long been a challenge for instructors—especially when the names are ones professors have never encountered before. There are companies like NameCoach that give professors a way to hear and review the correct pronunciation before classes even begin.
Indian comedian Vir Das does this insanely funny bit about being an Indian in America and how teachers always butchered his, and his friends names. Although the bit is funny as heck, and the mispronunciation of student names isn’t typically intentional it can be embarrassing and disheartening, especially at an important event like commencement.
Praveen Shanbhag says no more. That’s why he created NameCoach.
Hundreds of schools in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom have turned to NameCoach to solve commencement dilemmas.
Shanbhag, a native of Cincinnati, Ohio, now living in Palo Alto, Calif., believes the future of NameCoach can stretch to various industries, including sales reps, customer service reps and even in the healthcare space, he said. Some of the improvements he is gearing toward is having a general pronunciation database as well as proving more data with the name badge, including country of origin, the story behind the name and the meaning of the name itself.
The first day of class usually comes with its inevitable stressors, but Stanford University is trying to ensure that for its nonbinary and gender-nonconforming students, anxiety over having to correct professors about their pronouns isn’t one of them.
“We want to encourage a culture of respect on campus, and one of the best ways to convey respect to someone is to get their name right – and to get their pronouns right, too,” University Registrar Tom Black said.
“Pronouncing a person’s name right is all about taking the time to respect someone’s sense of identity,” said Shanbhag, founder and CEO of NameCoach. “Academia is succeeding in creating a more diverse community and more diverse campuses and with that comes more diverse names. Respecting people’s identity is a core element of inclusion. Names are a core part of that, they’re a core element of who a person is and where they come from.”
There are many guides to making a first impression, networking, interviewing, and socializing, but most seem to start with what you are wearing and jump to what to talk about. What happens in between is the most simple yet most tricky aspect of all – how do you want others to pronounce your name?
Reynolds’ speed coupled with his dedication to pronunciation accuracy caught the attention of the national media… He also relies on Name Coach, an app that allows students to record the pronunciation of their own name.
The software from the Palo Alto-based company, which raised a $1 million seed round last year, has been or will be used by over 250 universities in commencement proceedings this spring, including New York University, Columbia University, and Stanford.
At Hamilton, Pat Reynolds has mastered the art of reading names of graduates with speed and accuracy.
The last thing graduating collegians want to hear, after four years of hard work, and with bursting-with-pride relatives present at commencement ceremonies, is announcers butchering their names. Hamline University for decades saw this happen again and again, despite commencement organizers’ sincere efforts to get graduates’ name pronunciations right. This year, the St. Paul-based institution is tapping into tech to get this issue licked once and for all in time for graduation ceremonies.
Praveen Shanbhag is a smart guy with a PhD in Philosophy. Like most philosophers, he spends time asking good questions. Questions like, “why can’t universities (who employ really smart people) pronounce the names of their students correctly at graduation ceremonies?” Unlike most philosophers, Praveen went beyond asking; this son of Indian immigrants started a company to help us get each other’s names right. We have a name for that: Genius!
Stanford University, whose students gave us the modern search engine, the modern sneaker company, and the modern method of money transfer, is finally tackling a native challenge: commencement. At graduation ceremonies over the past weekend, eight departments at the university used a web-based service that allows students to record their names before commencement for the benefit of whoever reads aloud the list of graduates.
