The roots of the architect can be traced back to the times of the Ancient Greeks. The term architect, or arkhitekton in Greek, was the title given to the master builder who would oversee the design and construction
Category: Small Business
Commentary – Working From Home – How Working From Home Will Become the New Normal and How You Should Set-up Your Home Office.
There is a discussion thread on the AIA Practice Management Forum which started with the question, “How is your firm ensuring efficiency in a remote working environment?”
There have been a number of replies which I would characterize as mixed.
The comments range, from expressions of gratitude for the time regained from no longer needing to endure a commute, to complaints about having to adapt to working in pdf. Keep in mind these are Architects accustomed to reviewing large scale full size sheets. Reviewing drawings on a computer screen (in pdf) is very different from being able to make comments and corrections directly onto a drawing.
Regardless of whether you relish working from home or dread it, working from home is here to stay. The sooner people internalize this, the sooner they will be able to adapt. Only then will they achieve similar or perhaps even greater levels of efficiency as compared to working from an office.
Best Practices – Overhead Costs – What Constitutes Overhead Costs and Why Your Projects Should Not Be Paying Them.
Despite alignment on quoting these costs separately, there still seems to be little to no consistency.
Best practices -Negotiations – How A Shoe Shine Helped Remind Me About Fundamental Principles of Negotiations and Good Business.
The business lessons I got from Joseph will stay with me much longer.
Inspiration – Negotiations – Fill Your Jar with Water. Why you Need a BATNA.
I basically told him that he could do anything he wanted and I would just accept it, and with few other houses on the market, I might have to do just that.
Industry Watch – Ebert Construction – How Greed and Mismanagement Brings Down One of NZ’s Largest Builders.
Subcontractors like Hardware Direct were being exercised by Ebert right up until the day the announcement was made.
Pre-qualifying Suppliers – The Top 6 Criteria You Can Use to Pre-Qualify Your Supplier Pool.
This list of criteria should be used for pre-qualifying Contractors to participate in a solicitation.
Buy Local – “Good” / Buy American – “Bad” How the “Trump Affect” Reveals Hypocrisy in the media.
Trump’s order requires federal agencies to procure domestically produced goods and minimize the use of waivers (used to waive domestic procurement laws).
Construction Pricing – The Three Critical Cost Categories in Every Construction Quote
Whenever you solicit pricing for construction services, you should always address these distinct cost categories.
Progressive Procurement – Why Your Procurement Policy Needs More Than Just a Savings Target.
Ensuring that your procurement policy aligns with more than just the bottom line will not only enhance the value of procurement, it elevates the value of the organization.
Open Letter to My Fellow Architects. How Not to Turn Off Potential Clients.
These transgressions make bad first impressions and sometimes cause potential new Clients to simply move on.
Corruption in government procurement! The case against single source awards.
The articles goes on to correlate corruption practices in dozens of European Countries with single source procurement.