App helps builders work during virus
No industry has been untouched by COVID-19. Some were shut down, some accelerated and most had to adapt and keep running. Construction, for example, was deemed an essential business, so crews never stopped building.
That led to challenges in an industry traditionally slow to pivot and adopt new technology. But for Columbus-based Mindforge, founded in 2019 to offer an app-based communications platform for the construction industry, the time was ripe to make a difference.
Mindforge's mission is to solve the job-site communications challenge of reaching subcontractors and workers in the field. Sounds simple, but this is an industry where critical information – will power lines be live today, have our parking locations changed? – is typically exchanged in daily huddles. Those huddles suddenly weren't safe because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The pitch was, ‘Here is the message I want to send to the platform today,'” said Stokes Mcintyre, Mind
Forge's CEO and co-founder. “There were companies we'd been talking to when COVID hit who called and said, ‘we're ready to talk now.'”
Mcintyre spoke with Columbus CEO about the app and Mindforge.
What did you see happening in the industry as the COVID-19 shutdown began?
Mcintyre: You had companies racing to deal with this new issue. How do we enforce social distancing on job sites? How do we start to enforce new PPE like masks? How we do start taking temps? Since the industry didn't shut down, all that had to happen in real time.
The second challenge was, of course, people have families at home. Suddenly they're concerned about going to work, catching the disease, bringing it home. So they had wild narratives going on. I'd talk to risk managers at companies, they were having people not show up, refuse to work. How do we start letting their fluid, very remote workforce – they don't know subcontractor workers' phones, emails – how do they as a corporate entity send a unified message about how we operate and care about you during COVID? That became the challenge.
Do you feel COVID-19 changed the industry?
Mcintyre: What COVID has really shed a light on is that there are going to be times in states of emergency when you need from a corporate level to very quickly communicate to everyone. I think we've always needed that, it's just sort of been undervalued. You'll talk to execs, they have corporate values, tell you we're safety first, but go out in the field and none of that is there. Speed is first. You see a very different cultural mindset. It's always been there, but COVID shed light on the importance of sticking to a corporate value system you can push out to everyone.
What did you learn yourselves from COVID?
Mcintyre: What we learned is going out company-wide instantly for our clients is tough! We learned we have to take almost a guerilla approach. Project through project, we have to have the superintendents and project engineers. We've got to get to everyone in the system. If you push new stuff down from the corporate level, there's a lot of “Is this spam? Is this real?” but from the project level, if the super says, “Everyone download this app,” it's going to happen. So what we did is pivot and redesign our onboarding system, made it easy for the project leader to put up a poster with a QR code, scan it, dial in five digits and they're in, for instance.
Is that intensive effort a sustainable client launch model for your small company?
Mcintyre: What we're seeing at, for example, Pankow out of California is job site by site, we're watching portals spin up, and supers are now asking for Mindforge, saying “I'd like to use that on my site.” It's becoming viral within the organization. So over time by working at ground level we work toward a highly bought-in group of sites and that will expand.
It's hard to really install things and ideas from afar. That was a huge pivot for us. I think that is just human nature. I don't know if tech can solve that, it has to be done village by village in a way. I think that from a mental, human capacity to accept change, it cannot be done quickly. So my recommendation is don't wait for the next emergency to start building your communication network. It doesn't happen instantaneously.
Cynthia Bent Findlay is a freelance writer for Columbus CEO, a sister publication to The Dispatch. For the full story on Mindforge, visit columbusceo.com. has