I just had one of those conversations that makes me wonder about the bosses of the world. Everyone worries about what people will think of them based on their blog or Facebook or Twitter posts. Bosses often suffer from a special form of this concern: They’re worried about how their company will look when their employees start talking about what they do all day.
Suddenly, your managers are writing policies about social media, who can use it, and what they can say. They talk about “protecting the brand” and issue fiat-type emails to their employees -- thou shalt not say this, thou shalt not say that. The level of worry seems to be directly connected to how little experience said boss has in actually using social media. In other words, if he doesn’t have a Facebook page, his threat assessment of social media is probably waaaay higher on the def-con scale than someone who’s been playing Farmville and looking at his grandkids’ pictures online.
My first response when someone asks me about establishing a social media policy for their staff is this: You do realize your employees have been talking about you in public since the day you hired them, right? Your employees have been discussing you in grocery store lines, at church, and during family get-togethers for as long as you’ve employed them. In some ways, social media is like a cocktail party that extends this conversation. People bump into each other, discuss politics and favorite TV shows, and talk about what they do and who they do it for.
If the thought of your employees at a CSI chapter meeting chatting about your company to a friend makes you nervous, then you have bigger issues than social media to worry about.
On the other hand, if you trust your administrative assistant to know who to call if she comes across a tweet in which someone is complaining about a project you were involved in, why are you panicking about her Twitter account? She may actually be a credit to your brand.
When your company is ready to tackle social media, keep this in mind: If you can trust your employees to talk about you to their neighbors, then you can probably trust them to talk about you online. You can produce policies to guide your employees in using social media, and have big staff meetings to lay down ground rules if you like. But start by making sure you’ve trained them to be an intelligent, thoughtful workforce that knows your mission and how you’re accomplishing it.
Don’t rely on rules to control what people do and say online. Next week, there will be a new social media platform that renders your carefully constructed rulebook obsolete. Instead, focus on setting expectations and guidelines that help an employee make a smart decision when confronted with an issue in social media. Give them the information they need to be a credit to you when your back is turned.
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not around. Treat your employees like part of your brand – they may be the ones doing the talking.
I’ll present “Promoting Your Business with Social Media” at CONSTRUCT2010 & The Annual CSI Convention. I’m going to post blog entries here as we get ready for the event, so if there’s a question you’d like me to answer, post a comment below or email me at jdavis@csinet.org.
In the January 2010 issue of Metropolis, I came across a Q&A segment with Bjarke Ingels, this year's keynote speaker at CONSTRUCT2010. It was a really insightful piece and a format I wanted to create myself for our blog. After reading this article, I don't think I could have created more thought provoking questions. So why should I reinvent the wheel?
I have always appreciated the art of a good interview, an interview that after reading or watching, I would have learned something very interesting from the Q&A format. In the case of reading, the format is quick and easy; you can go directly to the questions that most interest you at a glance. Not to mention, you can learn so much from the more non-traditional questions and/or answers.
In this article I especially zeroed in on his response to his favorite tchotchke – My green Biomega racing bike. Well, I have never heard of that before (I must confess my curiosity was piqued) so I went Googling. The website described bicycles as “furniture for locomotion” and a line of bicycles that is made from bamboo. Ugh! As suspected, the entire interview was very telling of the person. It fits the frame (no pun intended) of Bjarke’s talk on how architecture evolves.
Biomega’s website - Biomega represents a paradigm shift in the way bicycles are conceived. We were the first company to view the bicycle as a lush piece of design—furniture for locomotion—that could also bring about absolute transformation in today’s urban environments.
See below an excerpt from his interview and a link back to Metropolis for the full article. After reading you can leave a comment or ask your own question to Bjarke at the end of this blog for a follow-up entry.
Bjarke Ingels
The founding principal of BIG talks about refurbishing the surface of the planet, the big question, and the runner’s high.
Posted January 13, 2010
Job description
Architect/wannabe comic-book artist
Current projects
Getting a thousand city bikes, a million liters of Danish harbor water, and the one and only Little Mermaid to China for the Danish Pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.
In addition, we are completing the 8house, a 500-unit community that blends town houses, apartments, offices, and shops into a hybrid between a mountain village and an urban block, allowing people to walk or bicycle from the ground floor to the penthouse. The public realm traditionally stops at the street—here spontaneous social encounters can occur all the way to the roof. Apart from that, we are building the Kazakhstan National Library; the new Tamayo Museum, in Mexico; the Shenzhen Energy headquarters in a 656-foot-tall sustainable skyscraper; the new Tallinn Town Hall; the World Village of Women’s Sports, in Malmö, Sweden; and a zero-carbon island in Azerbaijan.
Why do you do what you do?
Architecture is the art and science of continually refurbishing the surface of our planet so it actually fits the way we want to live. And as life evolves, our cities and buildings need to evolve with it. As Darwin has taught us, life always evolves, so we architects have to tag along. Full Interview
The word, “discipline”, according to Merriam Webster can mean, “orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior”. And when it comes to managing priorities, it is critical for us to apply discipline in a consistent fashion to stay on track and accomplish our goals. People tend to favor different methods or systems for setting goals, managing time, and staying productive. And regardless of that system (MS Outlook, Franklin-Covey, or good ol’ fashion “to-do” lists), it should be something that works for you (instead of something that a colleague enthusiastically suggests because it works for him/her). If it fits with your personality and approach to managing work, then you will be in a better position to apply it consistently and with a pattern of behavior that creates efficiency and productivity. Just like finding an exercise you enjoy that allows you to stick with an exercise program, you will be more inclined to manage your priorities if you apply a method that works for you.
Equally important is having a positive attitude or mindset in managing priorities. Have you ever been in a situation where you know you need to spend time on an activity or project but it’s something you least enjoy or have little interest in doing? The thoughts you hold (e.g., “This is not something I enjoy” “This activity does not leverage my strengths”, or “I don’t have time for this.”) will have an immediate impact on your attitude which then translates into behavior and action. If the attitude is not congruent with the action, the outcome and results will suffer.
To learn more about tools and strategies for managing priorities or about applying positive mindsets around those things you least enjoy doing, then I invite you to attend my session titled, “WAAMM™: 5 Steps to Managing Your Work Priorities” at Construct 2010 on May 12th at 8:00am. Post a comment or email me at mstern@vocalconsult.com to share what tools/systems you find helpful in staying focused on work priorities and I’ll incorporate related tips in my program.
Marcie Stern, MHA is a Professional Speaker, Coach & Consultant, she can be reached at Phone: 708.373.9613
Email: mstern@vocalconsult.com Website: http://www.vocalconsult.com/.
James Benya & Deborah Burnett
Note: this is the first in a four part series on the rapidly evolving field of health and light within the design context of the emerging practice of Epigenetic Design. Due to recent breakthrough discoveries about neuro-hormonal cycles of living beings, epigenetic design research examines the physiological, neurological and epigenetic impacts of the built environment on the body and brain and seeks to apply evidence based design solutions in support of the human animal. Environmental light, in particular, plays a pivotal role. Interpreting these scientific findings into practical lighting-related applications for architects, interior designers, lighting professionals, end users and contractors is the goal of Benya–Burnett. James Benya is a world-renowned lighting designer, author, educator and sustainable design authority. Deborah Burnett is a registered interior designer internationally recognized as the leading advocate for applying epigenetic photobiological research to interior design.
The interconnection of HEALTH and LIGHT were first identified and examined by the late Dr. John Ott in his popular self published book, Health and Light: The Effects of Natural and Artificial Light on Man and Other Living Things (1973). Ott uncovered the important role played by environmental light in maintaining and sustaining health and overall wellbeing. Unfortunately, he lacked the scientific expertise to identify the actual mechanisms of this metabolic process, and he drew a series of incorrect conclusions about “full spectrum lighting” that are nonetheless, still exploited by some products today. But to his credit, he raised the consciousness of many legitimate scientists and universities worldwide and influenced a whole generation of architects, interior designers, and lighting design professionals as to the health related need for light within the built environment.
During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, mainstream medical and scientific researchers began to examine the increasing rates of health problems associated with Vitamin D deficiency, jet lag, sleep disorders, shift worker health, and winter depression related to environmental light. Further research also suggested light-and-health links to the rising rates of breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. It quickly became apparent that all were related to environmental light in some way, often exacerbated by reduced exposure to natural light and/or increased exposure to man-made lighting at the wrong time, having the wrong spectrum, or of inappropriate amounts. Two primary issues emerged: the importance of exposure to naturally occurring UV light as essential for human vitamin D synthesis and a normal diurnal “circadian” cycle of sleep and waking were both found to be tantamount in maintaining a healthy body and brain. In particular, the dim light reactive hormone melatonin was identified as playing a major role in circadian rhythm functioning. However as much as doctors and scientists understood the important interconnected roles of light and melatonin, they still lacked the knowledge of how this process worked.
All of this changed in 2002 when intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (iPRGC) were identified in the eyes of humans and other living species. The direct connection between these cells and the neuro-hormonal system finally explained how environmental light actually works to directly impact human health, behavior, emotions, and overall wellbeing. Since then, scientists have pursued the many nuances of this environmentally reactive phototransduction system discovering how specific wavelengths of light affect humans and other creatures. Discoveries amass with each passing day, providing more findings that support the evidence that the “right light” at the right time is essential for human health and all other natural processes.
While the team of Benya-Burnett is a long way from having all of the answers, we’ve put our heads together to help make the leap from knowledge to practice and take it from the laboratory directly to the job site. First and foremost, our work together begins with evidence-based theories of design centered on the human body. Every thought, idea, and design tip we share will be supported by research from reputable scientists and multiple research teams. We believe that today’s designers of the built environment need this type of information and the ability to cite a credible source when required. By combining our research and shared passion for uncovering how and why environmental light affects the human animal, we’ve found a way to explain specific physiological and neurological reactions to ordinary design elements within the spaces that we all design and provide for our clients.
We expect that this blog will have the most impact in the design of health care, senior facilities and institutions where occupants are housed for extended periods of time indoors away from the natural cycle of light and dark. But we also invite consideration of our findings for corporate, industrial, hospitality, retail and residential application. Design elements that once were only thought to excite the soul or to have “psychological” impacts are now proven to illicit a direct physical response to a stimulus involving light. In short, epigenetic design may be one of the biggest breakthroughs in design theory in a long time. We hope that you will follow this blog for the next few weeks as we post examples of practical epigenetic design application that increase your awareness of how the built environment truly does impact human health and wellbeing.
We welcome your comments over the next several weeks.
Jim and Deborah
Epigenetic theory is an emergent scientific theory of development that includes both the genetic origins of behavior and the direct systematic influence that environmental forces have, over time, on the expression of those genes. - Wikipedia
Frank Talk with Frank Anton
On December 19, I turned 60, making me an AARP-card-carrying member of the Baby Boom generation. On February 8, my oldest daughter, Emily, will turn 30, making her a full-fledged member of the Millennial generation. Every 8 seconds another Baby Boomer turns 60; every 7 seconds another young American turns 30. There are more of them (75 million) than there ever were of us (60 million).
And that’s just one difference between the generations. Consider childhood. We grew up with the World Book Encyclopedia; they grew up with Google. I grew up knowing Wonder Bread built strong bodies in 12 ways, and that dinner without red meat and potatoes wasn’t really dinner at all. Millennials grew up worried about wheat allergies and skipped the steak for an extra portion of zucchini. We did our homework; we did their homework. A Boomer family of 5 shared one bathroom; every Millennial had her or his private bath as a kid. We grew up with black and white television and three channels that showed test patterns after the 11 o’clock news; they had cable with hundreds of choices 24/7.
Think about sports. Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays. Boomers will still argue about who was the better all around ballplayer. The younger crowd wonders why A-Rod dated Madonna instead of somebody closer to his age like, Britney Spears. Then there’s soccer, which for us came down to Pele. Period. Many Millennials can name the starting line-up of the USA’s women’s World Cup Team. We remember the Purple People Eaters and the Steel Curtain; they think spread offense.
The lifestyle differences are profound. They have tattoos; for the most part, Boomers do not. Male Millennials shave their heads in order to be bald; Boomers are bald—naturally. Boomers go out to dinner around 7 or 8 on Saturday and are tucked into bed around 11, or about when Emily and her friends are walking out the door. When Boomers talk about drug use, they’re talking about Lipitor. The drugs Millennials use have a considerably higher recreational dosage. When they visit a new city, Boomers get pretty excited when they find the Oldies station on the local FM dial; Millennials carry their own play list on their I-Pod, and the play list does not include Stairway To Heaven or Light My Fire. Boomers wear Dockers; Millennials do not. Male boomers, when young, had girl friends. Male Millennials have girls as friends.
And you can’t ignore the divide around technology. Virtually all Millennials can program any remote control; Boomers worry that hitting the wrong button on the remote could launch a U.S. missle strike against a friendly country. Boomers, when nostalgic, will thumb through their high school yearbook. Millennials log onto to Facebook, 120 million times a day. Boomers have land line phones and actually call friends and relatives; Millennials text each other, 16 billion times a month.
So, at this point, you might be asking “what’s the point?” The point is this: for the last 30 years, the Baby Boom has dictated housing trends, and now that’s about to change. Millennials are set to take over, and they’ll become your customer’s (dealers), customer’s (builders and remodelers) customer (new home buyers and homeowners). Remember they’re different. They’ll want new choices and new products. They might even want your job. Are you ready or are you hoping for a return to the good old days of meat and potatoes and Top 40 list with a Beatles’s song at #1?
See and hear Frank Anton's views via video webcast.
Frank Anton is the CEO of
Hanley Wood, LLC
In our fast-paced, 24/7, never-enough-time-to-get-everything- done-on-the-to-do list world, we easily become overwhelmed. Our attention is constantly being diverted and we find ourselves tempted by distractions which take our focus away from priorities and what matters most. If we don’t know what our priorities are and how to stay on track, we will consistently feel unproductive and disengaged. The inherent challenge becomes when we act as if everything is a priority and have difficulty discerning what needs attention right now, what can be put off or what can be delegated.
What are the 3 things or behaviors that keep you from managing your priorities? For example, do you resist delegating; are you a perfectionist or do you have ineffective time management skills? As Brian Tracy said, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important things.” Consider what your work and personal life would be like if you consistently acted on what was most important. What could you accomplish and what impact would that have on you, your team, your organization and your clients?
To learn more about removing blocks and managing priorities, visit my session titled, “WAAMM™: 5 Steps to Managing Your Work Priorities” at Construct 2010 on May 12th at 8:00am. Post a comment or email me at mstern@vocalconsult.com to share what keeps you from staying focused on work priorities and I’ll incorporate related tips in my program.
Marcie Stern, MHA is a Professional Speaker, Coach & Consultant, she can be reached at
Phone: 708.373.9613 or Email: mstern@vocalconsult.com Website: www.vocalconsult.com.
Driving Results that Matter Most
This material is intended to stimulate constructive and powerful thinking on ways to improve the building design, specification and construction process for all parties. All of the content is based on actual situations as shown in photographs for discussion. Original details typically are not available. The process here is to encourage responses that reflect a broad range of possibilities, opinions or at least discussion. The solution is not always just one way.
Expansion joints and their proper closure for a building exterior typically involve many different trades and material interfacings that can lead to challenges of accomplishing a successful job for the building envelope and hopefully an aesthetic functioning system.
One of the very common challenges is the as designed verses the as built. Great expansion joint closure system details are a good start; however, the installation may suffer and end up on the short end. The job schedule, coordination and installation may cloud the importance and vision of the expansion joint complexities.
Specifications play a critical role in this process? Properly selected materials and call outs along with well defined movement criteria is critical for all parties. If the details reflect one style of product it is quite possible that changing configuration can effect the surrounding materials and installation. Not to mention overall performance. Very seldom should the specs be a laundry list of all manufactures and styles. This generally creates ambiguity and delays. Be specific for different needs, conditions and areas. Yes, this may be lots of work at first, but will pay in the long run.
Somehow due to many factors the expansion joint and/or abutting materials are: larger, smaller, higher, lower, obstructed, not there or in the wrong place, different conditions, been changed over years of “repairs”, different substrates than were designed and changes were not properly transmitted to all effected trades.
The installer of the closure system(s) inherits these conditions and many times is told to “deal with it” because to change the condition just is not going to happen. Now the finger pointing starts, potential delays and change orders begin.
The process of answering the following questions will start to show a vision of how understanding the purpose and function of expansion joints will create a solution and not a problem.
Reroof condition at a roof edge.
A. How should this be addressed going forward? If no known original or shop approved plan or elevation details only sections of typical roof and wall joint of this condition may exist.
B. What are the problems here and how might they be addressed better the next time around reroofing?
C. A wall/fascia joint is involved below the “bar”, transition to that material so the joint integrity is kept?
3-Way roof to wall vertical inside corner
A. If all three joints have only two way movements of in/out and back/forth (shear) there will be several problems with the materials shown as closures. Can you spot them?
B. Do you note a particularly difficult condition to address here?
C. What steps could have been taken to avoid these conditions? |
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Coping joint/splice condition at an expansion joint
A. Note the caulk and the condition. Is this a problem?
B. What is the relative size of the two joints, wall and coping cover at splice? Could this cause a problem in the long run?
C. What could happen should one side of the building rise or sink?
D. What could happen if one or both building moved sideways at different rates or directions as in shear?
E. What does SMACNA or a coping manufacturer recommend for this condition to be functional?
F. What is the closure system doing under the coping and on the outside of the wall?
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These are but a few of the expansion joint challenges facing the design, specification, construction industry and ultimately the building owner inherits the problems.
Ask yourself the following in addition to the above questions:
If these were on your building and causing a problem, would you be pleased?
When these are noticed how soon should they be addressed and corrected?
Are these avoidable conditions?
What or who does it take to avoid having a wrong “finished” condition need to be corrected?
Douglas Pearmain and David Dixon (not pictured) will be presenting “Expansion Joints & Closures: Solutions, Not the Problem!” at CONSTRUCTShow 2010 & The Annual CSI Convention.
Foresight IS power!
“So just how much time do you spend on this stuff, anyway?” One of my favorite specifiers asked. She and her colleagues were debating whether their firm should get into social media. Should they start blogging and tweeting? Should the company have a Facebook page? Should they all be on LinkedIn? What is LinkedIn, anyway?
The questions ran on and on, and left her exhausted. It sounded like creating a social media presence for her small company would add hours to what were already 9 to 10 hour days, with no guarantee of an ROI. My answer to her was this: the amount of time you put into social media depends on what you want to get out of it. There’s no right or wrong way to use social media. There are best practices, but what qualifies as a successful social media presence for you depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Someone who wants to tap into the sea of news, research and expert advice swirling around the web can probably spend 20 minutes a day looking at what their social network has uncovered and consider themselves informed. A person who’s looking for work is going to have to spend a little more time cultivating contacts and a meaningful online presence. That’s worth it, if that’s what the HR manager finds when they Google your name, right? The time investment for someone who’s building an online presence for a company will vary, but if you know what your goal is, you won’t waste time, and you will have a definition of success.
Regardless of what you want from social media – news, work, a more prominent company profile – the starting point is always the same. You need to pick a social networking site, create your profile, and start listening. You must experience social media the way other users do. Plan to spend a few weeks checking your profile every day, experimenting with whatever tools it offers, and watching what other people do and say. Link to people you know. Read discussion threads. Start following the stuff that interests you. Eventually, a conversation will catch your attention, and you’ll participate in it.
Here’s an experiment: look up a few of the CONSTRUCT2010 speakers you’re interested in on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook (or just Google their names):
- James Scott Brew, FCSI, CCS, CCCA, who will present “Achieving Integrated Design by 2025,” has a LinkedIn profile.
- So does Paul Bertram, FCSI, CDT, LEED AP, who will present “Green Products and Information.” See his profile here.
- William Pegues, FCSI, CCS, who will present “Working in Virtual Reality,” moderates CSI’s most active forums.
- Charles Hendricks, CSI, CDT, AIA, LEED AP, who will co-present “Transitioning from Architectural School into the Profession,” tweets at @G2Architecture.
- Follow my co-presenter, Brent Williams, CSI, CDT, at @Brent_Willams1.
I also suggest you follow CONSTRUCT2010 & The CSI Annual Convention on Twitter @CONSTRUCTSHOW , and subscribe to the blog using its RSS feature (click here), so you’ll be notified when new blog entries are posted. Let me know how this experiment goes for you. Post a comment below, email me or contact me through LinkedIn, Twitter or wherever you happen to find me.
It won’t take long for you to identify a few social media best practices, to spot people and companies you want to emulate, and to determine where the real time-sinks are in creating a social network. Once you’ve got a little experience under your belt, you’ll be better prepared to define a goal for your social media presence.
I’ll present “Promoting Your Business with Social Media” at CONSTRUCT2010 & The Annual CSI Convention. For more information I’m going to post blog entries here as we get ready for the event, so if you have questions, post a comment or email me at jdavis@csinet.org.
Foresight is Power! What does that mean? I have been asked that question a few times and my response is always the same -- the ability to see the big picture. However, it is so much more than just seeing the big picture; it is seeing the big picture and taking action with that vision.
I recently read an article on CNN.com in the business section titled, “Learn the Five Secrets of Innovation” (click here to read the article in its entirety) and I started thinking about what the researchers identified as the five skills that separate successful innovators from the rest – associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering. The article went on to outline results from their research; innovation can be a learned behavior, it isn’t an inherent trait only found in a select few. Well, I’m sure everyone has their own opinion on that last statement. However, what I found most interesting from the article are two simple values we can each practice to make us better able to see that big picture. One, innovators associate themselves with a diverse group of people, not just numerous contacts but people with different views than their own. Secondly, the ability to learn something new from people of varied backgrounds that can challenge their theory. Simple ideas, but easier said than done.
Innovators: "They are able to put together something they hear from a conference they were at last week, with a briefing they're at tomorrow, and come up with a new idea."
The idea to connect and see a vision most people can’t is what has led us to the selection of our keynote presenter, Bjarke Ingels. Bjarke offers an exciting look at architecture, by pushing the limits of radical and reality. His objective is to move the focus from the little details to the big picture. It will be an exciting presentation and we encourage you to attend.
Visit his website http://www.big.dk/ for an insight into some of his very innovative creations.
(Link to TED video) http://www.ted.com/talks/bjarke_ingels_3_warp_speed_architecture_tales.html
For CONSTRUCT this year, our challenge is to stir the innovator in you. Visit us each week for snippets on topics that will interest you from industry and non-industry bloggers.
We welcome you to join the conversation!
See you in Philadelphia,