00:01.18 Webby Okay, hello sorry welcome to the show. Everyone joining me today is Doug in Scotland heather in soaking Wet California 00:07.69 Doug Everyone. 00:14.31 Heather Oh my goodness. Hi everyone. Ah. 00:16.80 Webby Ah, Andrew in even Wetter California and Bill finally back in California that's right, that's right and i'm. 00:20.52 archpodnet It's up. 00:23.21 Bill White Yes, I'm back to build the Ark so I can survive. 00:30.96 Webby Here in ah Lake Havisoo City Arizona I can literally see California from my back door. That's not true, but I kind of can I think some of those peaks are California not from here. But yes, we've been on it. It's pretty cool. Yeah, we actually on the on the archeology show that ah Rachel and I do we might. 00:33.31 Bill White Can you can you see the London bridge. Oh. 00:49.11 Webby While we're here. We're actually thinking about doing an episode on the London bridge because there's ah it's a fascinating history with the whole bridge and then how this version of the bridge actually got to Arizona. It's ah it's crazy. So I've done some reading on it last time we were here a year ago, but it's pretty cool, but okay so today yeah i. 00:56.92 Bill White Yeah, it's pretty much the main reason to go to Lake Havasu though it seems like. 01:06.51 Webby It kind of is right? Yeah, it kind of is well we're here for an rving event that takes place here every year about this time. It's about 500 rigs that we're surrounded by and events all day long. So and because of that I may dip out of this podcast a little bit early if it goes a little along just because I've got a bloody merry competition to get to that I'm going to slay. So it's going to be amazing. My wife and I goingnna we're just going to kill it. So anyway, so on this episode we're going to spend some time as we mentioned in the intro talking a little bit about the shs because Bill just went there and that's a society of historical archeology meetings they were in Portugal this year and so he's going to talk about that and then for the rest of the episode and possibly even a bonus segment. We will talk about what Andrew should be teaching in his crm classes because we all know that nobody's doing it right? including Andrew as much as he likes to think he is so we'll tell him what's up and how to do it. Ah ah, indeed indeed all right? So bill give us the highlights. what what went well first 01:53.63 Bill White Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:53.82 archpodnet I'm just using you people I'm just using you I'm using you. 01:58.00 Heather I'm belling you don't worry. 02:04.86 Bill White Yeah sure I mean I yeah so ah, you know the well talk about what didn't I don't know it seemed like it was it went off as well as an SHA could possibly go. Ah, you know it was in at the nova university of lisbon. 02:05.99 Webby That maybe then maybe we can talk about what didn't ah. 02:19.24 Bill White So it was in you know central lisbon which is an amazing city and um I I think that it was probably organized by the folks who work at the university so it was in their um social sciences area. There's several different buildings. So the the rooms weren't all in 1 you know building like we're used to if it's at a conference hotel. 02:20.98 Webby Um. 02:39.20 Bill White And I think maybe that was one of the things that made it really complicated because it was in kind of an anthropology department archeology department area. So there were several different buildings and um that that means that you know you never really there's more than 1 pathway to go to each room so there's never this one hallway or this one space where you'll see all the people and so I feel like it was great. I saw some great presentations I actually did a session that had technical difficulty. It's just like the last time I tried to do. Ah, talk at an international sh the computere like Microsoft word is not super easy to move from you know english to other language ah languages even you know versions of english in other countries. It's not always the same and so there was some complications there but we overcame them um, and. You know I finished my whole session. There were some really great presentations and I think that you know this one like all the other international ones. Um, it was well attended. However, you'd never know because it was like in. Lisbon right? So everyone wanted to go to the town and they wanted to see the amazing sites and eat the delicious food and hang out and go to the great places and there was a lot less of the you know you know hey everybody let's let's hang out together because it's snowing outside and we're in you know, Quebec canada or you know. 03:47.35 Webby Yeah, yeah. 04:00.68 Bill White You know, welcome to Boston where it's raining outside and when it's not. It's ° let's all stay inside the the building for warmth just so that we can survive and then also talk about archeology. So I think that it's no I know. 04:12.73 Webby Well do you remember? do you remember the essays and in a wiki key like nobody was in any sessions at all. Ah. 04:16.61 Bill White I know I wanted to go to that one I didnt I wanted to go to that one badly, but um, you know I couldn't arrange it because I went to the SHA and I was working for ah, a company and they're like wow we already paid for you to go to a conference. Yeah. 04:25.14 Webby Yeah, yeah, yeah. 04:29.45 Heather But this is why I think that the scs are brilliant to ah repeat attendance at Faallia and I sorry for anybody who lives in facilia. But. 04:40.20 Bill White I Didn't think it was that bad. But I mean I was just at the conference thing. So I don't know vi salia. 04:44.30 Heather No, there's there's nothing wrong with the sallia. But there's not a whole lot to look at so you're actually going to the conference. Yeah, so. 04:46.91 Webby Ah. 04:50.25 Bill White Move? Yeah, and. 04:53.80 Webby Yeah, well you can go I mean actually my my first time going to I cellie for that conference I think I blew off a day and went over to ah what sequoia national park and Kings Canyon it's like just about an hour away so yeah yeah, yeah, 05:00.42 Heather Yeah, that's I mean I guess if you try I'm talking about like morse in the area. But yeah. 05:01.64 Bill White Yeah, ah. 05:06.70 Bill White Yeah, so like it's It's the biggest the you know the the biggest shortfall was that it was in such an awesome place and so everybody everybody was hanging out. You know if you were if you were trying to network for jobs because your Ph D or whatever trying to be on the job market. 05:09.78 Webby Yeah. 05:12.37 Heather Um, yeah. 05:24.50 Bill White This was a horrible place to go because everybody just evaporated. You know you'd give your talk or you'd see the things that you wanted to see and then you would just like fade away and then no one would see anything and if you were part of the Whatsapp groups. You'd see that everybody's at this restaurant or you know 9 or 10 people are at this bar or you know folks. 05:41.91 Webby And. 05:42.97 Bill White Made it home safely like it was pretty cool because you can see that a lot of folks were getting together and they were doing a lot of you know, networking stuff but it wasn't anywhere near the actual venue and you know folks were having a good time. But it wasn't with you know everyone else. So if you didn't know a group of folks then I I don't know I guess you were just sightseeing or you're all alone and this is like 1 of the things that they always talk about at the conference is that if folks don't know anyone there then they're always like trying to they're on the outside trying to get in and what are methods that we can get folks in. 06:11.89 Webby M. 06:15.60 Bill White Um, and that's always complicated because we all want to see our friends and we want to go hang out and the only way that you can make it a space that people can be you know inclusive is if they're all trapped in the same hallway together or the same book. There was no book room at this one too which was not you know good. 06:33.56 Heather Or or if they they create a space for that I think the essays do a good job of that where and they've just added a new I Just got an email recently talking about ah a new opportunity to network. Yeah. 06:33.58 Bill White That's one less place. Yeah well. 06:49.33 Heather Have to create that space where it's not going to happen. 06:49.49 Bill White Yeah, and the other thing that I really you know we've talked about this before drinking at the conferences. But if there's movements to get rid of that or to diminish it. Everyone just goes away so when they had had receptions. There was like. 06:51.63 Webby Yeah, yeah. 06:57.24 Heather Yeah. 06:58.14 Webby M. 07:08.75 Bill White I don't even know I I showed up late to the opening reception like 35 minutes and all of the alcohol was consumed and so everybody was like we're out of here and it wasn't even it. You know it wasn't even as if that it wasn't even as if the venue had used all of the alcohol it had available to itself. 07:15.99 Webby Um. 07:27.65 Bill White It was just that they had given out several cups of wine and then just decided that like okay that's enough for these people. They've had enough and you know each archeologist basically drinks their own bottle. So it's kind of like you know crazy, especially with this group I mean. 07:34.54 Webby So cheese. Yeah. 07:44.75 Bill White Seriously people just started to fade away and then the people who were left. There were disgruntled. They were networking but they were like my heck,, there's nothing to do here to forget this entire delicious buffet of food. You know there's no wine So we're out of here. Yeah, it was. It's ah you know that's that's a huge thing Because. We've talked about it before you know our drinking patterns at conferences are unhealthy to say the least as far as archeologists and but if you actually eliminate that aspect then the archeologists like don't socialize. They'll just go somewhere else where there's drinks and then then you don't have any. 08:20.50 Webby Yeah. 08:22.63 Bill White Any networking opportunity to. 08:25.25 Heather Yeah I think I think one one way of working on that is to or addressing that is to have separate spaces for that. So you know having and it ah you know, ah the the drinking portion in the evening but definitely having I mean I know. Obviously networking happens during those kind of drinking events. Although I don't know how many people remember the networking that happened but having a separate space for specific networking I think is helpful. Yes, a lot of things happen just informally. But when you have a formal space for It. You'd know that the people that are in that space on both sides the hirers and the hire fees. Um are there because that's what they want. Ah you know? yeah. 09:10.90 Bill White Yeah, um I Don I don't know if that I don't mean the cutoff either. But I don't know if that's going to work like what I just saw this last time pretty much solidified that I don't think that's going to work because no one will ever go to the non-alcohol space and and that's like the. 09:23.77 Heather But if it's in the middle of the day even if it's in the middle of the day where um, it like if you really want a job. Why wouldn't you and if you really need to hire people I'll tell you from someone who is trying to hire and is desperate to find the right person. 09:30.21 Bill White Um, yeah. 09:37.84 Bill White Yeah. 09:40.35 Heather I'm absolutely motivated to go and I think it's better if you do it in the morning. Maybe a coffee thing or you do it in the midday but you stay away from the evening I Totally agree with you on that. But I think even a morning coffee chat would be a good idea. 09:48.18 Bill White Yeah, well, that's what I feel like Kevin snacks and saying there's going to be coffee and breakfast I think he can reel in people before papers, especially at the SH where the paper started like 9 so you have that time beforehand. 09:59.12 Heather Yes, yeah. 10:07.15 Bill White The other ones where it starts at seven I don't really know if breakfast is going to be a thing because the only one who's awake at 7 at a conference are the people who have to talk at seven fifteen 10:18.18 Heather Definitely not those that are watching it at seven fifteen doug 10:23.59 Doug I was just going to say I sort of agree with bill on that it'll be tough but I also sort of think that you could probably so slightly disagree in that you could probably actually do non-alcoholic. Um. Social events I know Heather was just talking about like you know morning coffee or something like that. But also if you were to somewhat do it where there's not an either or um in that like the the problem with like the alcoholic events is the people who don't drink which is actually. 10:49.32 Webby Yeah. 10:57.51 Doug Quite a few archaeologists like it doesn't seem like it. But you know roughly about a third of of people at the conferences are not going to drink and that might be religious reasons they might be recovery alcoholics. Um they you know there's there's a whole bunch of reasons um might be breastfeeding. 11:13.10 Webby They may be professionals. 11:16.48 Doug But well okay Chris thought let's not take it that far all right, let's let's like go that far. Yeah, that's a lot and it's pushing to the limit there Chris um, but yeah in a sense of like most of those people would have already when there's alcohol decide. They're not going to go um and so. 11:19.29 Bill White Ah, ah I. 11:19.48 archpodnet Ah. 11:36.20 Doug When the alcohol leaves. So Do everyone who wants the alcohol. So I think you you could probably get it and it may be smaller but there is definitely I mean we did the stats. There's definitely a significant number of archaeologists. It just doesn't seem like it because when you go to a drinks reception. Lo and behold. Everyone's drinking at drinks reception. But there's actually going to be quite a few people who are going to skip that and they're going to skip it if there's any alcohol Anyways, just for the awkwardness or you know, Ah, they don't want to be hit on they religious reasons I mean there's that. 11:53.97 Bill White So yeah. 12:02.37 Bill White Yeah, yeah. 12:09.45 Doug Could probably spend like 20 minutes listing every reason why people don't drink. Um I think yeah, you're you're probably I think it's doable. You just have to like not do it as a either or sort of event I think you have to sort of commit to yeah I know morning coffee and I guess. 12:19.34 Bill White Um, yeah. 12:27.90 Doug So it's been a long time since I've done like a north american conference but like all the ah all the european ones do like a break at like ten thirty or eleven thirty for like half an hour. Um for like coffee or tea depending on what country you're in. 12:42.44 Bill White Whoa. 12:44.56 Doug Um, and I mean you could probably extend that like just push push the times apart do a full hour and you can have some really interesting events I think in the morning at a recently decent time where most people will be there anyways. But again I'm going off of like european time where like also. 12:51.35 Bill White Cool. Yeah. 13:03.80 Doug 1030 s a bit late for some countries so well sorry a bit early a bit early. Um, so it's tough. But I think it's doable. 13:05.94 Webby Yeah, yeah. 13:08.16 Bill White Um, what? yeah yeah, yeah, and stuff in portugal goes later I mean crazy later like I was ready to go to sleep and I'm out of there and it's like ah it's time for dinner you know and you're shaking your head like wow you're going to eat dinner at Nine o'clock then what are we going to do stay up till three because. 13:19.22 Webby Yeah. 13:25.70 Bill White Ah I wouldn't just eat and then go to sleep I don't know it was It was cultural for sure. You know folks staying up later but you know the ah yeah, go ahead. 13:29.19 Webby Yeah, well built I was gonna say in the last few minutes of this segment because we want to move on to Andrew's topic and segment 2 But you know you've been part of some of the administration of the SH and I don't want you to throw anybody under the bus or anything like that. But you know from whatever you're comfortable saying. But. 13:30.17 Doug The. 13:39.92 Bill White Yeah. 13:48.00 Webby You know we've talked for a long time about how conferences really need to step up change modify What they're doing did anything happen as a result of some of the committee meetings and things like that that you part of at this conference. 13:53.90 Bill White Yeah, yeah, you know that's that's a great question so you're you're exactly right? the the SH is just like all the other or conference organizations trying to you know figure its new, um direction after the covid pandemic. So. 14:10.18 Webby So. 14:11.60 Bill White You know they went virtual and then they had another one after that where there was still a lot of you know, not really lockdowns but people were still wary of Covid and you know there was a whole complication there with that. Um, you know I don't think the organization has necessarily moved into kind of a hybrid space where. You know they're they're going to have ah papers online but they did have one really well-attended great session of folks who recorded videos that that you know I didn't think it was going to work. But. Um, they recorded their videos and then they were all shown in one room there I I don't understand why this was the way it was but that's what they decided they were going to do. But for folks who had registered for the conference they could see those videos as well and I went by the room and I couldn't even get in like it was everybody knew they were just going to be videos played. 14:47.66 Webby Yeah. 14:59.16 Bill White But the room was packed and there was people out in the hallway you know to see the videos. It was totally awesome like everybody showed up for that session and they really wanted to watch them all and so that was you know, really encouraging for me, you know, trying to get folks to go into the hybrid direction. We've talked about all the complications for that. But um, you know I think that they'll have some hybrid. 15:02.23 Webby That's weird. 15:19.12 Bill White Ah, ah sessions at the Twenty Twenty four one in um, ah Oakland ah, the other thing too that like um, there was a anti-racism audit or like an internal audit of the entire organization and I don't want to get into a lot of details. But. 1 of the things that came out was some kind of protocols for folks to report harassment and so following the um southeastern archeology conference how they had their things set up really quickly before the conference there was this lanyard system where folks who were part of the board of directors said that we would you know be. Report people contact people to forward any you know complaints or any concerns on through the channels and and we could be identified by different colored lanyards which I think was really cool and I think that you know that's just a direction. That's a really great way to go. 15:59.17 Webby So. 16:10.48 Webby Yeah. 16:10.95 Bill White Because you have some people who have agreed to actually go through the entire um series of steps to report harassment and you can identify them right away that I felt like that was a good development and then um, you know, just. Pulling off an international conference across languages and all that stuff it. It had to have been a really difficult challenge but they did it and as far as like I don't know if you can fix anything as far as the destination being cool like people aren't going to go to session. It doesn't matter where it's at like you said waikiki. 16:34.90 Webby And. 16:45.35 Bill White Doesn't matter if it's in a great place. You're always going to have that problem but I do feel like they did ah as good as they possibly could for this one and it was it was well attended and I listened to the beginning of last episode and I wasn't the only black person there anymore I've been going to the SHA since like 2003 17:04.19 Webby Um, yeah, that's awesome. 17:04.88 Bill White And the society of black archaeologists is growing. Um, there was probably 30 or so folks in there. There was a lot of students. There's Scholarships. You know there was a lot of people of African descent that are European that were in the room and so no I wasn't all alone and it does really change. Know the way you feel about the organization when you look and see people who look like you and then you know you can talk and and several folks were able to talk through a lot of things that had happened to them through their career and through their dissertation. It was you know a really great space and a lot of the positive stuff that I saw happening was coming From. You know folks of the Sba having dinners together going out together making sure students have what they need and trying to make sure that you know folks are actually included. It was. It was really cool to see and yeah, they're not I mean you got to eat a lot of vitamins to get this tall. 17:50.46 Webby You're still a tree though. Regardless of ethnicity you're easy to pick out. 17:58.90 Webby Ah, nice, nice. We're about done with this segment Doug did you have a quick comment. Yeah. 18:01.99 Doug I it was actually a question so like the only sh I've I've been to was Seattle um, and so like since then my wife's always asked why I ever mentioned conferences is she's like is the sh because so I don't know maybe I ah missed it but she. Like shseattle was pretty diverse um in that like my wife was able to talk with like fellow black people for like most of the conference. Um, and so she was always like oh yeah, you know is was that an outlier um in terms of like the way you described. 18:26.24 Bill White Yeah. No, it's It's even more. Yeah, exactly see. 18:37.56 Doug Is it more now. Cool Yeah, it was just yeah. 18:41.43 Webby It's awesome. All right? Well it sounds like we're you know as ah as a field making Headway which is really great and you know the unfortunate thing is and and bill. Maybe this is a whole other podcast and I think we've had the. Some people some of your friends actually from the society for black archaeologists on the show before but it sounds like I think we need to do it again because it doesn't sound like the conference organizations themselves are the ones making this headway. It's the people doing the hard work making the society for black archaeologists and and other similar ones. 19:05.28 Bill White No. 19:12.39 Bill White Are. 19:13.70 Webby And forcing themselves in and they shouldn't really have to do that. But the good thing is they are doing that and they're making a change so it's ah. 19:19.17 Bill White Yeah, anything good with any of these professional organization is coming from volunteers in the ah in the committees if you see anything decent at any archeology organization. It is not coming from the board. It is coming from the committees. 19:23.45 Webby Um, yeah, making it happen. 19:31.30 Webby Right? That's good to know for people who want to see a change. They're like just waiting around twitling their thumbs It's not going to happen. It. You got and make it happen so all right? Well speaking of making it happen. We could talk about this forever and maybe we will do a whole other session on on shs and and you know maybe do some other things. But for now we're going to take a break and we're going to come back and tell Andrew how to teach all of his classes next semester back in a minute.