I should be in Portland, Maine, this week. Like I have been every October for the past nine years. I should have been on a boat in the middle of Casco Bay last night watching the sun set over the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. I should have been gathering with friends old and new at Honey Paw and Novare Res for amazing food and drink.
I should be at Monktoberfest.
But Covid.
America’s sad, disheartening, and infuriating lack of response to this global pandemic wiped out every event on the calendar. Some will come back. Monktoberfest will be one of them. Of that I am confident. Because it has to. It serves a vital role as a spark for important discussions by smarter people than me on tough, raw issues that the technology industry — and society itself — seeks better understanding.
I’ve been lucky, privileged, and honored to attend Monktoberfest each year. While I didn’t intentionally set out to chronicle its evolution, I inevitably seemed to always have a camera with me. Shocker, I know. So, with a few extra minutes of time on my hands last night that should have been spent making bad late night decisions over ridiculously good craft beer in a dark bar, I instead whipped up a little slideshow of a few of the images I captured during my annual sojourns to Portland. I hope you enjoy them.
Using NameCoach to help people pronounce U.S. Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s name correctly.
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris speaking with attendees at the 2019 National Forum on Wages and Working People hosted by the Center for the American Progress Action Fund and the SEIU at the Enclave in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)
One of the most powerful words in any language is a person’s name. It’s something I learned in college reading Ursula K. Le Guin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea.” And it’s something recent research studies back up, using science to show that our brains involuntarily respond to the sound of our own names.
Pronouncing someone’s name correctly is important. In an educational setting, for example, saying a student’s name right has a direct, postive impact on that student’s long term success. Correct name pronunciation translates to the business world, too, in areas such as customer support, sales, and recruiting. LinkedIn recently announced a name pronunciation feature for their users.
Now, imagine you’re in the running to be the next Vice President of the United States and newscasters, pundits, and even your own colleagues butcher the pronunciation of your name in front of millions of people around the world. That’s what happened (and continues to happen) to Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Kamala’s experience is one Praveen Shanbhag knows all too well. He created a company, NameCoach, out of the pain his family experienced when his sister’s name was mispronounced as she crossed the stage during her graduation ceremony. Praveen wanted to make sure no other family had to go through what his did. In the years since he founded the company, universities around the world have used NameCoach to help teachers and administrators create a stronger sense of inclusion for their student bodies.
In response to recent and ongoing events in the United States, Praveen used the company’s platform to support the efforts of those fighting against racial injustice. Using a list compiled and maintained by NPR CodeSwitch, he and his team created audio files for the correct name pronunciation of Black Americans killed by police.
It is intended to support those who are encouraging the public to hear and say these names, to help recognize their humanity and memorialize them. It is also intended to support the correct pronunciation of these names in national discourse. — The NameCoach Team
Which is why, today, we see Praveen once again turning the platform to address issues on the national stage, using it for civic and democratic good to ensure that the too-often-mispronounced name of a candidate for one of the highest offices in the land is said correctly. You can listen to it below.
Mike Maney 