Natural Building
JULY 27, 2008
Green Home Building and Sustainable Architecture. Sustainable architecture is an exciting and important field, with many people reviving traditional methods of building and others creating innovations to established practices. Kelly Hart, webmaster of the popular website www.greenhomebuilding.com, posts text and photos featuring what he discovers from around the world.
CAD Shack
JULY 17, 2008
If you are using Revit MEP, you might be thinking about your HVAC plans and wondering should you use a floor plan (which looks down and excludes the ceiling grid) or a Ceiling plan (which looks up and seems to invert which duct is actually on top when duct cross). Here is what I have come up with so far. I use both. I model in the ceiling plan view because I need the ceiling grid to place my diffusers and miss the lights fixtures.
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Constructor Marketing that Works
JULY 30, 2008
'Each year, near my birthday (which now comes at alarmingly short intervals) I schedule a physical. This year, I was told my blood pressure was low (good) and I didn’t appear to have any parasites living with me (my children don’t count). Yet, during the most demeaning moment of this annual ritual, my doctor said words that strike fear into all males nearing my age: “Your credit card was declined.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 30, 2008
Nearly every weekday around 4pm, my 15-year old son calls me here at PSMJ. I look at my ringing phone and see his name flash across my screen and the first thought that runs through my head is “what does he want?” It doesn’t take more than four or five seconds for my suspicions to be confirmed – can my friends come over to use the pool? can you pick me up from here later?
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The Korte Company
JULY 20, 2008
The Korte Company recently completed its expansion project for Anderson Hospital's Pavilion for Women. Anderson Hospital delivers more babies at this facility than any other hospital in Southern Illinois. In 2007, the Pavilion delivered nearly 1800 babies, a 21% increase from deliveries in 2003. Because of the increasing number of patients, it was imperative to increase the size of the unit to meet the growing community’s needs.
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Natural Building
JULY 22, 2008
Green Home Building and Sustainable Architecture. Sustainable architecture is an exciting and important field, with many people reviving traditional methods of building and others creating innovations to established practices. Kelly Hart, webmaster of the popular website www.greenhomebuilding.com, posts text and photos featuring what he discovers from around the world.
CAD Shack
JULY 24, 2008
Sometimes you just stumble on things. One of the designers in my office told me if you type the letter C and hit the spacebar Revit will go into the copy command, just like in Autocad. I thought she was lying, but it worked. I tried other letters and here is what I found. A - Array C - Copy D - Door E - Edit Requests F - Flex Duct G - Create Group O - Offset P - Pin R - Reload Latest S - Shade T - Thick/Thin Lines V - View Properties W - Wall Z - Zoom Window These are based off the text file " K
Constructor Marketing that Works
JULY 1, 2008
'It seemed like a good idea to get new tools. I mean, it was Saturday, there were a ton of Father’s Day specials going on. Plus, it was my birthday. For those of you who keep up with such things, this means I’m a Gemini, which as I understand it means that I’m tall, handsome, and smarter than most Nobel winners, but too humble to admit it. So these things are eerily accurate.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 29, 2008
We're not there yet, but Bruce and I will be blogging live from next week's Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Build Business national conference in Denver. We'll be bringing you the sights (describing them, anyway), the sounds (the pulse of the AEC industry through the eyes and ears of marketing and business development professionals whose jobs are to keep the project pipeline flowing), and all of the "buzz" this event generates every year.
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The Korte Company
JULY 13, 2008
The Korte Company has been recognized by the Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) for its design and construction of the Littleton Hall Dining Facility at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Twenty Nine Palms, CA. The Regional Award, the highest level, was for the Best Project, Public Sector Under $15 Million.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 29, 2008
According to a report released Monday, the United States must spend at least $140 billion to make major repairs or upgrades to one of every four bridges in this country. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) report, titled "Bridging the Gap," cited Federal highway Administration statistics that 152,000 of the nation's 600,000 bridges are either "structurally deficient" or "functionally obsolete.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 23, 2008
The American Institute of Architects' Architecture Billings Index (ABI) rebounded almost three points in June, after dropping two points the previous month. That's the good news. The bad news? This is the fifth straight month that the index remained below the 50 threshold, indicating that business levels at U.S. architecture firms continue to deteriorate.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 23, 2008
We mentioned earlier today (see previous post) that the AIA did not see bright prospects for architecture firms and here's what we meant. The AIA last week put out a press release spotlighting its semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the "nation's leading construction forecasters" that includes the outlook for the second half along with a prognosis for 2009.
Speaker: Dylan Secrest
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PSMJ Resources
JULY 23, 2008
Just a few quick hitters for a late Wednesday afternoon: Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson (JMT) , a 710-person engineering firm in Sparks, Maryland, has acquired the assets of 52-person engineering consulting firm Kupper Associates of Piscataway, New Jersey. JMT is the third-largest engineering firm in Greater Baltimore when ranked by annual billings, according to the Baltimore Business Journal.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 22, 2008
My boss Frank Stasiowski wrote in his book, How to Get the Best Clients at the Highest Fees , “If you really want to differentiate yourself from the competition and get the highest price for your design ideas, commit yourself to a controversial, even irreverent, opinion about some aspect of a particular solution on a particular project type. This is the ultimate differentiator.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 21, 2008
Well, not exactly, although if media reports are accurate, McGraw-Hill (which publishes Engineering News-Record and Architectural Record , among many other publications) is interested in buying Reed Business Information (which publishes Building Design + Construction , among many other publications). Articles posted this morning on WashingtonPost.com and yesterday on the London Sunday Telegraph web site listed McGraw-Hill as one of two dozen companies that are interested in buying Reed Business
PSMJ Resources
JULY 21, 2008
Some interesting news for those of you who have seen, heard, or read Nancy Usrey's insights on winning work in the federal marketplace. Usrey, who has authored books, spoken at SMPS conferences and other industry events, and given audioconferences and webinars on Standard Forms 254, 255, and 330, has joined HNTB Corporation as associate vice president and corporate ventures division marketing director.
Speaker: Duke Heninger, Partner and Fractional CFO at Ampleo & Creator of CFO System
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PSMJ Resources
JULY 21, 2008
Anyone interested in pursuing an M&A deal, or knowing more about where the hot spots are for M&A deals, might want to check out a new tool from Morrissey Goodale LLC. The Boston-area management consulting and research firm has created an interactive map of A/E merger and acquisition activity. The map displays the number of buyers and sellers in 2007 by state and region.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 21, 2008
Interesting article in this week's Washington (D.C.) Business Journal about the Middle East building boom and how A/E firms are benefiting from it. As we talked about last week , there is plenty of work going on in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and throughout the Middle East that is keeping U.S. A/E firms busy. And while last week's piece on NBC's Today Show did not spotlight how those projects are benefiting the A/E industry, the Washington Business Journal article does go into great detail.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 18, 2008
This article on AdAge.com isn't exactly the kind of news any marketing professional, let alone someone working in professional services, would want to read. Coca-Cola wants to save as much as a half billion ($500 million) dollars by the end of 2011. Where is it looking? Why marketing, of course. In a second-quarter earnings call with analysts on Thursday, Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent said that as the company reviews its spending, marketing will be a primary area of focus.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 18, 2008
Yesterday's issue of the HR Daily Advisor offered these seven tips for increasing expectations.and productivity.of your team members: 1. Provide increasingly challenging assignments for your team members. (Make sure employees succeed at each level before moving forward.) 2. Enable each team member to participate in potentially successful projects that bring continuous improvement to the workplace. 3.
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PSMJ Resources
JULY 16, 2008
At PSMJ's recent CEO Roundtable, CEOs were asked to identify the top seven challenges for 2008. Nowhere on the list does "difficulty of finding qualified staff" appear, which drove Mel Lester of The Business Edge to post the following on his blog yesterday: "That doesn't mean the problem has gone away, although many firms are laying off staff. But it does suggest a substantial shift in thinking in light of current economic conditions--even among firms that are still doing well.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 16, 2008
One of the time-honored debates that A/E firms have wrestled with is whether it's better to add projects and look for people or hire people when you can and then chase down projects. Admittedly, it's a discussion more apropos for when times are good and the work is rolling in the door, but the people are hard to find. Of course, firms have wisely tightened their reins as the project pipeline has dried up, letting enough people go or easing back on hiring to the point where everyone is busy.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 16, 2008
Got our copy of the weekly Rainmaker Report e-mail newsletter today (a must-read for anyone either working in or interested in professional service marketing) and it had some interesting perspectives, as always: * One article on whether or not you should put up "barrier" web pages (pages that ask for contact information) in front of content and downloadable offers on your web site.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 14, 2008
So I'm watching the "Today Show" this morning while eating breakfast and they had a story on the frenetic construction in Abu Dhabi. Knowing how many A/E firms (Burt Hill and Ellerbe Becket, for example) work in the Middle East, and thinking of how this would be great PR for the A/E industry, I watched the piece. Sadly, while the piece talked about how Abu Dhabi will spend something like $1.75 billion on construction in the next five years, the reporter, Richard Engel , NBC's chief foreign affai
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PSMJ Resources
JULY 10, 2008
Got an e-mail the other day from PSMJ colleague Dave Burstein, who heads up our consulting and training. Dave had some advice for firms looking to cut overhead. I thought I would share it here, followed by my thoughts at the end. CUTTING OVERHEAD? HERE ARE 3 THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO. Over the years, we’ve seen many firms go on overhead cutting campaigns.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 10, 2008
Amidst the turmoil plaguing the US economy and the AEC industry, there was some good news today for two well-known firms. Shares of engineering and construction firm Foster Wheeler closed at $64.17, up $2.94, or 4.8%, for the day. Meanwhile, shares of The Shaw Group rose Thursday after the construction and engineering megafirm posted a better-than-expected third-quarter profit.
PSMJ Resources
JULY 10, 2008
According to this Forbes.com article, U.S. Airways Group announced earlier this week that it was discontinuing in-flight movies on domestic flights starting in November. The move is part of the airline industry's ongoing effort to reduce costs to offset soaring fuel prices, which isn't surprising, but what is shocking is that removing the 500-pound in-flight entertainment systems will save the airline $10 million annually.
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