by Mike Pappas on May 16, 2011
I have a problem. I am standing in the middle of a construction site and I need to talk to my structural and electrical designers right NOW regarding a conflict between the pile cap and the desired path of the main electrical conduit running sub-grade through the building. The contractor has an army of workers waiting for an answer and time is money. The owner’s rep is standing nearby and wants to know what I am going to do.
The typical solution to this common occurrence is to tell the contractor that you need to communicate with the structural engineer and using photos and a personal description you will be able to answer in a couple days. If you’re Building-Modeling savvy, you could consult the model on your laptop to help form the question to the team, but the model is being built right in front of you and the team has a problem. Standing there you know that the electrical designer would be gone by the time you got back to the office and won’t be returning for 3 days.
How about this for a solution? Take a photo of the offending pile cap and from your 4G phone, upload to Twitter and send a Tweet to your team that the photo is there with “we have a conflict please call my company cell to discuss ASAP.”
Because of liability and shrinking fees, the architectural/engineering industry has faced its fair share of challenges trying to get answers to field questions with the kind of immediacy the industry calls for. Schedules only get shorter and staffs only get smaller.
How can we use all of the new social media tools at our disposal to make more of an influence on the industry of building buildings? These tools could help to prevent architects and engineers from losing credibility with clients and the construction team because we can’t get answers fast enough.This same scenario could be played out during a design charette or client meeting. Instead of taking an army to the meeting, just let the key players know that you will be seeking information regarding the design via Tweets, Skype or text messages and will need answers quickly on a myriad of possible questions. If you have a question, sketch it on your iPad or smart phone and send it to the team. Give them a clear question and wait for the team to answer while the meeting continues.
This technology exists today and there are great opportunities for the A/E/C industry to apply it to transform how we do business. The greatest detriment to using the tools of today in the best ways possible is infrastructure and support, as well as the possible liability of an unconsidered answer. The team has to know how you will be seeking their advice and to look for it when it comes. They also have to know that some answers should take time to be considered and not answered without planning.
It is also sometimes difficult to bridge the legal issues surrounding communicating with that speed, but make no mistake, the time is quickly coming and with this blog, Kimball is providing me with an opportunity to test the social media waters.
It is my hope to use this blog to investigate a number of ways to make the business of architecture and engineering faster and more efficient. From direct to fabrication software interoperability to Tweets from the field, this is a complex issue for the industry and a number of investigations regarding levels of BIM and communication need to be tested and tied together in the field to answer the questions. As a Revit user and building modeler for the past 7 years, it is time to take that model to the field and test it real time.
Inspire me for future posts and tell me how you’re using new technology and social media to make your A/E/C firm’s communications more effective.
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