Not too long ago a large group of my online networking colleagues said to me, ‘why don’t you have a blog?’
Then last week one of my face-to-face networking associates said to me, ‘you should give us a 10 minute presentation – your profession is one of the most difficult businesses to understand’.
So here it is. A blog about architects.
There are three things I want to do with this blog, things I have been doing elsewhere on the internet for some years but in a pretty unco-ordinated way it must be said.
Firstly, I want to help explain what it is that architects can do, what they are good at (and not so good at), how you can use them to get where you want to be with your property, and of course, what they should be doing differently.
Secondly, I’m a bit of a networking nut and very keen on using the internet for networking, so I’m taking the opportunity to investigate how the construction industry is and is not using the internet, so there will be plenty of opinionated posts about that too.
Lastly, I’d like to ask the people who read this for your suggestions on what I should blog about. If you know me already you might have some ideas, and if you don’t, take a look at what I’ve got to say and let me know what’s missing. In good networking parlance, if I don’t know myself, I can find out who does.
Hope you like it!
Hi Su,
Great idea!
I’d personally like to see some comparison/ debate about things like construction techniques and details eg.insulated dry lining for refurb.
Also to see if anyone out there is using the web for contract admin and AIs. (I’m doing our house up right now…hehe)
To see the other side of the debate have a look at:
http://www.markbrinkley.blogspot.com/
Alex
Hi Alex,
Thanks for the welcome, and the suggestions.
I’ve asked the guys at Be2Camp for their comments on Contract Management/Architects Instructions online, they are the specialists on using the web in the construction industry.
In the meantime you might also want to have a look at the Building.co.uk forum, very knowledgeable people there on construction techniques (and strong opinions too!)
Su
Hi Su
Welcome to the world of blogging! It’s a great way to raise your profile and start some interesting debates – also gets you way up the rankings with Google etc! If you want some ideas, mine is at http://lizkentishcoaching.blogspot.com/ you can also sign up to follow my blog,a dn set yours up on LinkedIn too, so more people will see it.
Have fun!
Liz
Su, Just saw your link here on the Be2camp website.
Alex, while not particularly relevant for small house-building projects, there are several collaboration platforms (once aka ‘project extranets’) that have expanded beyond file-sharing to support industry processes. For example, in my day job I work for BIW Technologies (http://www.biwtech.com) and it offers a library of standard processes to support contract administration (eg: support for the various NEC3 processes) and many common construction business processes, from simple transmittals to RFIs, change orders to drawing approvals, etc.
BIW is a member of the NCCTP (http://www.ncctp.net), a trade body (today part of Constructing Excellence) for construction collaboration technology providers. However, in my blog (http://www.extranetevolution.com), I write regularly about many other companies offering collaboration and related services, at various different levels. Some offer quite low-priced, simple collaboration tools, some of them based on Microsoft SharePoint; some solutions (eg: Archetype) are specifically aimed at architects’ practices.
Regards, Paul
Thanks Paul,
I’ll have a trawl and see what’s there. On the subject of other blogs, I found this one today:
http://alicethearchitect.blogspot.com/
Seems to be a contemporary Honeywell Files, hehe!
Alex
Hi Su,
Nice to see the blog filling out. You’ve inspired me to set one up myself:
http://designitout.blogspot.com/
Not sure quite how much time I’ll be able to devote to it- but it’s a start.
Alex
Hi Su,
your link is taking people to the company website rather than the blog….hehe
Alex, can you point me to which link you mean?
Ahhh sorted it. It’s the link to my comment here, not to the blog – if you click on my name it was taking you to the HD website, but I changed the previous comment address to the blog and that has fixed it.
Hello Su,
I’m just a broke ass engineering student so I’m not sure if my opinion would be useful….but for whats its worth, a lot of architects that I have spoken to are very worried about the economic recession. Perhaps you should comment on that a bit, how that’s affecting firms in your regions, advice for architects who are stressing out etc. ?
Also, I’m sure people would love to see your portfolio !
Looking forward to reading your future posts !
Best,
R. Siriwardena
Hi Su/Alex,
I hope you don’t mind me commenting on your blog. I am a Marketing Manager at the RICS and I know the blogosphere doesn’t like people such as myself trying to covertly promote their products. So I thought I’d be totally up front about it.
I read your comment about Contract Admin and Architects instructions with interest as the RICS has just launched an online product designed to help the administration process of JCT contracts. I’m not going to try and sell it to you but thought it might be a good fit. It’s not a free service unfortunately but if you would like to look at it you can run a free project through it http://www.isurv.com/contractadmin
I wish you every success in your blog.
Matt