PERSPECTIVE
By Tom Underhill
Virtual Meetings Open Doors for Greater Member Participation The number of people working from home doubled this year (49% up from 24% in 2018), according to an article published by Safety+Health magazine in May. The SEAA office and many of our members are no different. With the increase in remote personnel also came a jump in virtual meetings. In one day, you may have used Zoom, Go To Meeting, Microsoft Teams, and more. Anyone using these platforms on a regular basis is likely experiencing a bit of fatigue. “Part of the brain drain from virtual meetings comes from the cognitive loading involved in attempting to listen more intently even as audio quality fluctuates, people navigate their cameras and mute buttons, and the social brain searches for cues that indicate if the meeting is going well,” says David Musgrave, in an article for Safety+Health magazine. Musgrave leads the Brain-Centric Reliabiity practice area at DEKRA that focuses on human performance reliability. Despite the universal groan that comes with the idea of joining yet another virtual meeting, Make the Most of Virtual Meetings: the pandemic has forced many Tips from David Musgrave of us to explore new ways of doing business. SEAA, like our ■ Block out breaks. members has adapted. Not all of those changes are negative, and ■ Block out prep time before and decompress in fact, may impact the way we time after a meeting. do business in the future. We’ve ■ Stay hydrated. learned more productive, and ■ Set the tone with socially friendly dialog. less costly ways of interacting. We’ve learned to be flexible. We ■ Explicitly ask for input from others. may have learned to wear multi■ Set your screen to see who’s talking. ple hats. We have examined our ■ Ask participants to use their web cam. work/life balance. One change SEAA has made is ■ Practice with several platforms to be familiar to schedule Committee Meetings with the features. by virtual conference. The result was that the meeting stayed more on point, and makes them more accessible to the membership at large. Feedback from participants this summer was overwhelmingly positive. We plan to offer this again prior to our Fall Board Meeting. Committee meetings, which are scheduled for the week of September 28. Contact admin@seaa.net for more info. In the past, we have struggled to get members engaged in these meetings because they always took place on Tom Underhill os the Executive Director of the Steel Erectors Association of America. Contact him at tomunderhill@seaa.net 8 | THE STEEL ERECTORS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
site in conjunction with our Board Meeting. However, eliminating the need to travel opens this up to greater participation. Whether you serve on the Committee or just want to listen in, this is a chance for you to get to know other members and get involved in activities that impact the industry. Despite the success of taking our Committee Meetings to a virtual platform, the biggest strength of our association remains in-person networking. If you’ve never been to convention, I promise it is not only fun, but the connections made are invaluable. We hope to meet in person for our annual conference and tradeshow in Orlando, Fla., April 28-30, 2021, even while we are exploring appropriate protocols and alternatives in case group meetings are still not viable. However, we are optimistic. A number of related industry groups are moving forward with plans for in person tradeshows and conferences. World of Concrete in January 2021 in Las Vegas and American Rental Association in New Orleans in February 2021 are a few we have been following. To end this on a lighthearted note, just for fun, I googled “biggest virtual meeting fails.” Not wearing pants to your virtual meeting then standing up so your colleagues see your briefs. Spouse walking through the room where you are logged on wearing only skivvies… or less. Kids interrupting live interviews. Heavy breathing on unmuted mics. #poorjennifer on a potty break. The list goes on. Granted it’s a learning curve. Wonder what kind of gossip got stirred up when phone party lines were first a thing? Yes, I’m dating myself, but really, it’s not all that different. Telephone party lines were common beginning in the 1930s and continued into the 1970s. According to the Adirondack Almanack: “With the old party lines, there was the expectation – OK, the ridiculously faint hope that your conversation was private. Eavesdropping was a very common practice.” And according to Wikipedia: “In December 1942, University of Tennessee’s strategy in an American football game versus University of Mississippi was revealed to the opposing coach as a telephone on the Ole Miss team’s bench had been inadvertently wired to the same party line.” A 1935 movie by the title Party Wire is a story of a small town girl victimized by her gossiping neighbors. Before you log into your next virtual meeting, consider yourself forewarned. Meanwhile, we at SEAA hope to meet you soon, even if it’s only in 2D.
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