Reaching out—electronically
David K. Scheetz | TLT President's Report March 2010
Using Web-conferencing technology, STLE’s Houston Section is including students in its monthly meetings.
‘We asked ourselves what we could do to expand the participation of students and get them involved with STLE.’
If you’re a follower of all things STLE-related, you know that we have several initiatives in the works designed to introduce college students to the society, seek their participation and, we hope, induce them to join. For organizations like ours, planting the seeds to grow the next generation of members is essential.
At January’s STLE board meeting, director Ken Hope reported that the Houston Section is using commonplace technology in an innovative way to reach local graduate students. For its last three monthly meetings, the section used Web conferencing to include science students at Texas A&M University.
First, a little background. The Houston Section is among the larger STLE groups with about 270 members. Lunch meetings are held at a restaurant on the east side of Houston and typically draw 30-40 attendees.
The Web-broadcasting idea began at a meeting of the section’s senior leaders. “We asked ourselves what we could do to expand the participation of students and get them involved with STLE,” explains Houston Section chair Jerry Rainsdon with ConocoPhillips. “We came up with the idea of broadcasting into the university and inviting students in chemistry and engineering to participate in the meeting. We hoped to get them involved and then sign them as student members.”
The technology is user-friendly and readily available. Texas A&M professor Sudeep Ingoles and graduate student Rodrigo Cooper helped establish the electronic link to the university and also communicated the message to students. The section used a corporate Web conferencing system to link to a university lab. To keep things easy, the broadcast was a slide presentation only, similar to a Webinar, and not full video. The students dialed into a conference line to hear the speaker and ask questions. An e-mail invitation included a link allowing students to plug into the meeting.
The section’s first Web conference was in November and, as is often the case with new ventures, began somewhat modestly. Only two students at A&M’s College Station campus participated—and they had to leave early because the lab was needed for a class!
Things picked up with the December broadcast—this time 10 students participated. The section skipped the Web conference in January when students were away but rebooted in February. This time 20 students participated in College Station and 15 from the school’s Galveston campus. So the off-site student participation alone equaled what for this section is a typical meeting attendance.
“This started as an experiment, but the last two meetings were pretty good,” Rainsdon says. “The students really enjoy the presentations.”
While a Web conference can never replace the networking value of a face-to-face meeting, I think the application of this technology for STLE sections is almost limitless, and not just for students. For members located in far-away areas or who are working on the road, Web conferencing allows them to still participate in their section meetings. The broadcasts can even be accessed through a smartphone.
The presentations also can be captured and posted on a section’s Web site so others can access them at their convenience—not just section members but anyone who is interested in the topic. Imagine the information resource our sections could generate if all of them broadcasted, recorded and preserved their technical presentations.
If you are interested in learning more, Jerry Rainsdon says he is happy to talk with you. The best way to reach him is at
jerry.l.rainsdon@conocophillips.com.
Until then, allow me to tip my hat to the Houston Section for devising an effective way to reach out to one of STLE’s most important constituencies—our future members.
Dave Scheetz, CLS, is an equipment builder engineer for ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties. You can reach him at david.k.scheetz@exxonmobil.com.