The day after I let our clients and consultants know I was setting up a freelance marketing and business development consultancy, I got a call from a project manager colleague who wanted a chat.

He pointed out that after spent fifteen years as a lone construction consultant he remained frustrated at the way his breadth of experience was passed over in favour of other, larger but less experienced firms. What might be done about this?

We’ve arranged to meet up and talk about the issue, and how we might help sole practitioners get together.

And then a few days ago, entirely unconnected, Nicholas Handslip who described a similar frustration contacted me on Twitter. He had an idea I thought might be useful to share with you. Perhaps we can work on this issue together?

“As small surveying and architecture firms and freelance consultants we tend to struggle juggling workload with administration, business development and maintaining networks. This is before we have even considered business strategy, how to develop brand and expand the company!

A number of twitter users have contacted @Subutcher expressing a desire or interest in setting up or become involved with group of consultants offering to mentor small SME’s or to benefit from knowledge sharing in some form or another.

I am interested in establishing a virtual network for freelance consultants and surveyor /architect SME’s looking to develop their twitter following into more tangible relationships, sharing ideas, discussing issues, accruing CPD and potentially developing business opportunities.

I am particularly keen to hear how you use social media; what internet forums you find useful; how you feel a forum could best serve you and also whether you would be interested in mentoring small consultancies.

If you would like to get involved or have any ideas on setting up a forum then please contact me on @NFranklinPM or just use hash tag #constconsult and comment.”

So, are you a lone construction consultant (or maybe, a micro business of two or so people)? What is your experience of the downsides of being so small? What do you need that we might, if we collect together and use the internet, be able to help provide?

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Please comment below, or tweet using the #constconsult hashtag. We’re collecting an archive of tweets.

[UPDATE: Typo's corrected, apologies!]

Latest tweets:

See an archive of tweets here

When I recently spoke at the CIMCIG conference on specification our chair was Chris Ashworth of Competitive Advantage, who presented some very interesting research into the habits of architects and other specifiers.

Now Chris and his company are conducting some more research to learn how people working in the construction industry are changing from reading traditional hard copy magazines and journals to online alternatives. I would like to encourage my readers to take part in the survey, if you are a construction professional in the UK construction industry, to help make the research as representative as possible.

If you can help by completing the online survey, you could win £300 of Amazon vouchers. All completed surveys will be entered into a draw to be held at the end of November 2011.

Research is being conducted by construction industry market research agency Competitive Advantage Consultancy Limited. To enter the survey click on the button below or this link.

Thanks for taking part!

I’m just back from the live blogging of the #RIBAHousing conference in Cambridge today and would like your help.

If you have viewed the live blog, either whilst it was going or since, please take a minute to complete the short survey below for me. It will help me work out how to blog better, what works and what doesn’t, so that next time I do one (and I’m booked in for next Thursday) it will be better.

You can access the short survey by following this link.

Thank you for your time.

]]> http://www.justpractising.com/can-you-help/riba-housing-conference-live-blog-please-take-the-survey/feed/ 0 http://www.justpractising.com/construction-on-twitter/googlemap-architects-designers-construction-consultants-latest-news/ http://www.justpractising.com/construction-on-twitter/googlemap-architects-designers-construction-consultants-latest-news/#comments Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:10:48 +0000 su http://www.justpractising.com/?p=1696

Since last week’s update the map has snowballed and we’ve been getting thousands of views every day. Popularity has its downsides though, we’ve had to make some changes! Here’s a run down of what’s been happening and how you can get involved and make the most of the map.

Map goes Regional – how to view

As the map filled up we noticed that it wouldn’t let us view more than 200 placemarkers at once and this was causing confusion for people adding to the map as they needed to scroll to Page 2 before they could see the placemarker they had added. In addition loading the map slowed down navigation.

To solve these problems we have split the map into four regions based upon the current density of users – Americas, UK, Europe and Africa / Asia / Australasia.

The addresses to all the maps are as follows, with links to the bit.ly click through statistics:

Global Map – http://bit.ly/ArchiMap - Statistics

‘Americas’ – http://bit.ly/ArchiMapAmericas – Statistics

‘UK’ – http://bit.ly/ArchiMapUK – Statistics

‘Europe’ – http://bit.ly/ArchiMapEurope – Statistics

‘Africa / Asia / Australasia’ – http://bit.ly/ArchiMapAfrAsia – Statistics

The main map is still here with placemarkers from which you can view the different maps. Mark has also written instructions on how to add regions into one view if you would like to:

To view the Global Map, simply add each of the geographic regions to ‘My Places’ (you need to be logged into your google account to do this). Once this is done, makes use you have opened each map (do this by clicking on each map). Then click the ‘Traffic’ box on the right hand side of the map and select all the maps. You should now be able to add or remove any map that you would like to see.

How to join the map

We were having some problems with placemarkers being moved about, so have now restricted access to only those who have been invited via email to collaborate. There are now two ways you can join the map:

1. DM us your Gmail or Googlemail address and we will invite you to collaborate. If you have a friend who already has access they can invite you too by clicking on the ‘Collaborate’ link found above the map description. Then, add the relevant gmail address into the box and click ‘Send Invitation’. [UPDATE: Mark tells me it doesn't have to be a Gmail address!]
2. If you don’t have a Gmail address and don’t want to have one you can ask us (or a friend with access) to add your placemark for you.

If you use any google service – Googlemail, mymaps/MyPlaces, picasa, Google analytics, feedburner etc you will have a googlemail address already and will need it to log into these services. With your own access to the map you can edit your own placemarker if you want to later.

Ready to add yourself? Once you have access, follow the instructions on this blog post [Link Updated].

Extra tools

Peerindex list of users – Mark has built a list of ArchitectMap Users on Peerindex which sorts social media users by various influence measures. Visitors can also turn the peerindex list into a twitter list to follow. You should be on this list if you are on the map. Visit it and ‘add suggestions’ in case we miss picking you up manually.

We have set up a Twitter list for all those taking part.

Google Earth View

How about viewing the Map in Google Earth where you can spin on a 360 degree axis to view everyone? It looks fantastic! All you need to do is:

1. Make sure you have Google Earth installed on your machine.
2. Download the KML file, which can easily be done by clicking the KML link next to the comments button on the map.
3. Once downloaded, open Google Earth and go File > Open. Locate the downloaded KML file and import it into Google Earth.

Hey presto….. now enjoy…..

Using Youtube in your bio

Ever wanted to add a YouTube video to your Bio to give it something a little bit extra? Check this article out for how to add Youtube to your bio. Any problems give us a shout.

Information sources

To read news about the map follow the #architectmap hashtag on twitter. Use the hashtag in your tweets about the map. No spam please!

Updates are also posted on the comments section of the Global Map – use the link to share with your twitter friends so we can track its usefulness. http://bit.ly.ArchiMapComments

If you need to contact us the quickest way is on twitter by tweeting @SuButcher or @MarkSchuey (especially if you need us to follow you so you can send us your gmail address privately). Or you can comment below, of course. Please let us have your twitter @handle if you do so we can follow you.

How to make the map useful

Get more people to join so that you can meet local twitter users in our industry.

• Send a tweet to your followers, such as:
  

  I’m on the #architectmap http://bit.ly/ArchiMap ask me how to join!

  [West Coast/Singapore/Manchester] architects, engineers and construction consultants on twitter – add yourself to the #architectmap

• Invite construction consultants when you meet them on twitter. Don’t forget to invite consultants such as landscape and interior designers, structural engineers and quantity surveyors.
• Put your twitter handle in your bio on the map – choose ‘rich text’ view to add the URL so it is clickable. That way people can click through and follow you on twitter.

It is interesting to reach the limitations of a tool and work out new ways to make it work for us. Do you have suggestions for how we can make the map the best it can be? Please add them to the comments below.

The map shown here is a google map of architects, designers and consultants who use the social networking platform Twitter.

View Architects, Designers and Consultants on Twitter in a larger map

UPDATE: the map above is now a master map; read the latest post for details.

All the users on the map have uploaded their own placemark. If you belong on the map please do add yourself according to the instructions below.

Those of you who have been around a while might know I’ve been trying to locate the architects twitter league on a map for some time. Here are my first and second attempts, neither of which work anymore – they were developed by third parties and I’m not able to resurrect them, though the second one was very impressive!

Fortunately Twitter has a great way of turning up new ideas and solutions to problems, and in this case the catalyst was Mark Schumann (@MarkSchuey on twitter) who is a director for Davis Langdon in Dubai.

Mark has been wandering round my blog dredging up useful things and brought to my attention the fact that the second mapping exercise was no longer working. He’d been looking for a way to put local construction twitter users, architects, consulants and designers on a map of the Middle East, so we started talking. As a result google maps came up as a solution.

Today you can make a google map (in My Places) such that anyone can edit it, which is what we have done here. We are then inviting all architects, designers and construction consultants who use twitter to put themselves on the map, share it and use it. This process is known as Crowdsourcing, where through our curation individuals can collaborate in small ways to generate something we can all share and use.

We hope you like the map. Please add yourself and tell others about it. Don’t forget to get local contacts you know to add themselves and make use of the map to find professionals local to you.

If you’d like to share the map feel free to use the shortened URL http://bit.ly/ArchiMap and the hashtag #architectmap as well to see what others are sharing about the map.

How to add yourself to the map

If you have a googlemail account you can save the map to ‘My Places’ so you can find it again. I recommend you do this first. The ‘Save to My Places’ link is at the top of the sidebar on the left hand side.

Whilst you are in the map, search for your location, or if you have a Google Places entry, your google places entry.

For a google places entry, click on the entry and ‘Save to map’ and choose the Architects, Designers and Consultants Map. Please only add your google places entry if you have an active twitter account, and make sure the account is in your entry so people can find and follow you.

For an individual, go to the map and click ‘Edit’ in the sidebar. Whilst you are editing please be careful not to move anyone elses placemarkers, and don’t edit the title and description. Click ‘done’ when you have finished editing, then you can explore the map without moving anything about.

Whilst in ‘Edit’, search for your location in the usual way. When you have reached the right place, right click and choose ‘Add a Placemark’.

Edit the placemark so that users can see who you are. We recommend using your twitter handle in the title e.g. @SuButcher.

Use the description for your twitter profile information, any links (you can use HTML here) including a link to your twitter account so people can click right through to follow you if they want. The simplest and most attractive will be if we all simply copy our profiles onto the map placemarks.

Don’t forget to click ‘Save’ and ‘Done’ when you are finished.

To add your twitter avatar as the place marker

In another browser window, go to your profile on http://twitter.com/ and right click on one of the avatars next to your tweets. Choose ‘copy link location’ to copy the url to your clipboard.

Back in the map, edit your place marker once you’ve created it, to show your avatar, by going to your place marker on the map and clicking ‘Edit’ in the sidebar.

In the dialogue box click on the marker itself and choose ‘select icon’.

Paste in the url you have copied from twitter.com and click ‘OK’ and ‘Save’ and ‘Done’.

Now go explore the map!

Your comments and suggestions most welcome

If you have any comments, suggestions for how to improve the map, or issues with it, please post them here or on the map comments and we’ll do our best to make it as useful as it can be.

How have the working processes of architectural practice changed in the last five years?

Would you like to learn how?

In the last few years we have seen huge shifts in the worlds of business and technology, with some businesses embracing new ways of working and gaining the advantages available from innovative business strategies, effective collaboration and improved resource productivity.

My friends at CAL (www.teamr-cal.co.uk) are specialists in creating smarter working teams, and are currently preparing a white paper about the changes in working practices within architect firms in the UK.

CAL is seeking contributors to its white paper, in exchange for access to a free copy of the results. To participate a practice manager, or business owner/director only needs to take part in a short telephone interview, and the white paper will be emailed to you when it is published. Participants who would prefer to complete the questionnaire via email can also take part (see email address below).

In addition to a copy of the research results, a lucky prize winner will be selected from those taking part and will win a prize worth over £2000.

Don Cooke, the researcher preparing this paper, can be contacted by telephoning 07780 500 287 or via email here.

Please encourage the practices you know to interview so that we can make a really useful research paper.

Following the riots in cities across England over the last few days, two architecture graduates, Lee Wilshire and Nick Varey have set up a venture to put property owners and tenants in touch with construction people willing to volunteer their help with informal advice, materials or labour.

RiotRebuild, which has a blog/website, facebook page and twitter account, aims to put volunteers in touch with victims needing help getting their homes and businesses back up and running.

The venture was inspired by the uplifting ‘#RiotCleanup’ (if strictly speaking not particularly effective)* campaign for which volunteers turned up in their hundreds to help clear up after the riots.

If you were affected by the riots and need help returning your property or business to its former state, you can post your requirements up on the RiotRebuild website, or get in touch with the service via Facebook or Twitter.

Architects, product suppliers, contractors, construction workers and others with useful skills can volunteer their support by the above means or by emailing Lee Wilshire at riot-rebuild@specialprojectsoffice.org

I’d also like to encourage bloggers to blog about this, and if you have any time to offer the pair collating data and posting on their site please get in touch, I know Lee is trying to do this on top of a full time job!

*Postscript: If you’d like to know more about the famous ‘brooms’ photo I’ve used here, see this post by @robmanuel

Training to become an architect is a long process, involving five years of study interspersed with two years of practical experience in architects offices, and ending in a final exam, also taken in practice. As a result students are dependant not only on a university education but also on their ability to find placements in the businesses of their elders.

The last few years have been particularly difficult for graduates (known as Part Is) and postgraduates (Part IIs) struggling to find somewhere to get enough reasonable experience and support to take their finals. As a result many will put behind them years of design teaching and debt to leave the professional conveyor belt. I know this because in the last recession, my path to RIBA Part III came to an abrupt end for the same reason.

Now something is going to be done to help at least some of these students stay in architecture. At least that is the plan. But will it work?

The Minimum Wage Ruling

Last week the the RIBA announced that from 1 July, Chartered Practices should pay PEDR students (that is, Part I and II graduates and postgraduates working towards their finals) the National Minimum Wage as a minimum.

The decision comes from a recommendation by the RIBA’s Pay and Conditions Working Group, set up last autumn to look into “significant concerns over pay and conditions for architecture students completing fee-earning work in practices”.

In her statement published last week, Ruth Reed, President of the RIBA, says that the National Minimum Wage will help students, who will soon be facing higher fees at college as well, complete their education, thereby helping the profession as a whole.

The decision on the minimum wage is seen as the first step, and the RIBA intends to work with students and practices to set appropriate rates of pay across the UK in the coming year.

What is the National Minimum Wage?

You can find out about the detail here, but the minimum wage is £4.92 an hour for 18-20 year olds and £5.93 and hour for 21 year olds and older. Most Part I graduates are 21 or older, so lets look at that figure. It equates to a salary of approximately 11,500 a year. How does that compare with what I earned when I was a Part I graduate?

What did you earn in your years out?

I completed my first architecture degree in Liverpool in the Summer of 1989, and was offered one job at £7.5k and one at £6.5k. I took the lower salary because it was a smaller practice where I thought (correctly) that I would get a good grounding in the nuts and bolts of architectural practice.

Three years later I completed my second degree, it was 1992 and there were no jobs to be had in Liverpool for a Part II graduate. Practices in London were offering placements, but for ‘expenses only’ and I couldn’t afford to take one. So I took the opportunity to do research and teaching in the University instead.

According to the Bank of England’s inflation calculator, Six and a half thousand pounds in 1989 would be equivalent to £12,600 today. So around £1000 more than the National Minimum wage. It wasn’t hard for me to live on in 1989, but I was living in Liverpool (which was, at the time, quite a cheap place to live).

I also had the benefit of a full grant to complete my education. This paid for all my university fees, plus a maintenance grant of around £3800 a year to live on. By the end of two degrees I had an overdraft of about £1800, and no Student Loan to pay back.

What does this mean for the profession?

In a few years time an architecture student is going to be looking at a debt of £30-£45,000 just in university fees. Add to that the cost of living as a student (which if it were the same prices as my education would be around £40,000 for the five years) and just the years of study are going to be out of reach for many students who studied when I did. A student loan will not cover all this cost, and many architecture students will have to work during their degrees to make ends meet.

In the long term, I feel that the architectural profession, which before the post-war expansion of the redbrick universities was a wholly elitist one, will return to being the province of the elite, in the same way that the legal profession is. Young working and middle class (or middle income) people who aspire to this profession can forget it. I was one of the lucky few.

The minimum wage sticking plaster is to be welcomed, but it is much too little, too late for the future of our profession.

What you can do

If you’re an employer, you can pay your staff fairly. If you don’t think you can, then read this post and this one about the very subject.

I’m all in favour of the minimum wage being paid to graduates. In fact, I’m in favour of graduates being paid a fair wage for a fair days work, because a good practice can turn a year out student into a profitable fee earner in a few weeks. If you aren’t doing this in your practice then chances are you’re showing yourself up as being unable to run your business properly.

Can you help the debate about the wages of architects and part qualified architects? If you are one, please take a few minutes to complete the archaos survey. Archaos is the UK architects student society, and they are gathering evidence of what people are actually earning at the moment to help inform the debate.

Complete the survey here.

Thank you.

While you’re at it, why not work out how your year out salary compares to the minimum wage?

I’ve got an interesting meeting today. I’m having coffee with a young woman who is thinking about what careers she should be aiming for. And I wondered if you could help me.

She wants to be an architect, and as you know it isn’t a career I would suggest as ideal for a young person (particularly a young woman). But you might think differently, and more particularly you probably have an idea about how she can be helped to make the right decisions for her.

What do you think about the future of architecture for young people today? What do you think are the opportunities and the threats?

If you were in that position today, looking back from where you are now, what would you do differently?

There may be other careers that someone with an interest in design, buildings, construction, the built environment, might consider. What are they?

And most particularly, what resources are available to help her decide?

I hope by asking on the blog we might collect together some ideas, advice and resources which will help the many young people thinking for the first time about becoming an architect.

Please make your contribution below, and I’ll share them all.

Thank you.
Image: The Bachman House by Bruce Goff, Architect (isn’t he an inspiration!) photo by ejojola

As you may be aware I’ve been unwell for the last month and am currently awaiting further tests. This has curtailed my blogging somewhat, for which I apologize – normal service, as they say. The good news is that I’ve been shortlisted for a Golden Twits Award.

As I’m unwell I am looking for someone to stand in for me on presentation night in London next week. Please drop in on my Just Professionals blog to read more about the awards – maybe you’ll be in London next week and would like to attend the awards on my behalf?