YOU OWE IT TO YOURSELF (TO GET INVOLVED WITH CSI OR USGBC)

The standard talking points arguing for us to get involved with some sort of selfless, public-spirited activity such as CSI or USGBC emphasize the good we can do for others by our service.

That’s true.  We can all make a positive difference in our communities, both the virtual and geographic types of community, by serving.  And we should do it if we can, because it’s the right thing to do.

I happen to be pushing CSI and USGBC specifically because I already belong to these two organizations.  But if CSI or USGBC aren’t your cup of tea, substitute AIA, ALA, ASHRAE, ASID, ASCE, AGC, DBIA, or any of the other worthy organizations that try to bring order and standards to the AEC business.  Just find a way to get involved that works for you.

In addition to altruism, an underappreciated and frequently maligned virtue by the way, there’s another really good reason to get involved:  You owe it to yourself.

Here’s part of why you owe it to yourself to get involved with CSI or USGBC:

• Networking:  In this turbulent economy, you can never have too many contacts and friends.  CSI and USGBC members are plugged into the AEC business.  Come to a program, participate in the local organization, and you never know who you’ll meet or what you’ll learn about the business.
• Community:  This could be thought of as a subset of networking, but it’s much more than that.  Both organizations are part of the broader AEC community of thoughtful, smart, and, yes, opinionated people.  Plug yourself into the community and its ongoing dialog. You’ll feel validated and challenged.  You’ll gain as much as you contribute.
• Entertainment:  If the choice is between spending your evenings watching TV and working on CSI or USGBC, the choice seems clear to me.  TV is mostly sensational, worthless, repetitive crap, driven by the need to get your attention and brainwash you into buying stuff.  Be honest with yourself.  Have you memorized the dialog in all of the AFLAC duck commercials?  Does the Empire Carpet jingle (“Five-eight-eight-two-three-hundred-Empire”) pop into your consciousness when you least expect it?  Another year or two of this stuff and your brain cells will start to atrophy.  Liberate yourself from TV’s visual waterboarding by getting involved with CSI or USGBC.  You’ll be glad you did.  And you won’t feel like your time’s been wasted at the end of the evening.
• Education:  The two dominant trends in design and construction you will have to be knowledgeable about in the immediate future are BIM and green building.  Activity in CSI and USGBC is the best way to get, and keep, yourself up to speed.
• BIM:  CSI’s national technical leadership is in the forefront in integrating specs and BIM.  Sign up for the CSI BIM Practice Group monthly webinars for just one way to get started with this.  In addition, Northern Illinois CSI’s chapter programs and lunchtime call-in Roundtables run the gamut from construction issues to professional practice considerations.  You’ll always learn something from a chapter program, even if it’s not focusing on your particular area of expertise.  See what CSI is all about at:  www.csinet.org.
• Green Building:  Many organizations are doing important work in green building, but USGBC has the most comprehensive approach.  Activity in USGBC is a great way to keep learning about all aspects of green building.  Incredibly, I continue to run across people who are skeptical about green building and USGBC’s LEED green building rating system.  My advice is:  Scoff at this trend at your peril.  To be blunt, if you don’t become LEED accredited or at least knowledgeable about LEED, you’re soon going to be a dinosaur, professionally speaking. Explore USGBC at: www.usgbc.org.

Finally, I want to put in a shameless plug for you to volunteer for service in our very own Northern Illinois CSI Chapter.  For the next fiscal year starting in July 2011, several members of our chapter leadership are transitioning to other roles in the chapter.  We’re looking for volunteers to step into our old roles.

The role I’m most interested in filling happens to be newsletter editor.  I’ve been the editor of the Northern Illinois CSI Link for the last five years, and I’m moving on to another job in the chapter.  I have really enjoyed being the newsletter editor.  I got to meet and correspond with lots of interesting new people.  I learned (well, sort of learned) Microsoft Publisher.  I got to work with our chapter board, a friendly and open group of people with world-class skills.  The new editor should find her or his own path of course, but I’ve got all sorts of records and templates to pass on to a new editor to make it easy to step into the role.  And I’ll coach and mentor the new editor as much as she or he wants.

The editor job is a great opportunity for someone that wants to write, edit, and communicate, so consult your inner writer and then get in touch with one of the following to ask questions or to volunteer:

Me:  jwoneil@larsondarby.com

Chapter President Susan Johnson:  sjohnson@muller2.com

President-Elect Fred Burr:  FBURR911@sbcglobal.net

SCARLETT O’HARA, MY WRITING COACH

“I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.”  - Scarlett O’Hara, the indomitable but flawed heroine of “Gone With the Wind”, Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 historical novel of the old South.

Writers’ block does not just afflict creative writers.  It hits technical writers like yours truly, too.

When I get (spec) writers block, it’s not that I can’t write, really.  I don’t do much real writing anyway.  I mostly edit, and tweak, and modify language from master specs, and attempt to coordinate with project drawings.  No, my writers’ block takes the form of difficulty in getting an angle, of figuring out the overall strategy of the documents. 

CSI’s platitudes about making specs “clear, complete, concise and correct” are only indirect guidance when I’m trying to produce construction specifications for unusual projects (of which we seem to have quite a few). The specs may have to accompany drawings that are still in progress, making final terminology coordination difficult.  It may be tough to get the client’s attention, even though that’s vital to understanding his or her objectives.  There may be little or no documentation of project decisions and other needed data.  Key AE decision makers may be unavailable or have extremely limited time to give me the lowdown on the project.  All the while, project deadlines loom.

The biggest challenge is always to make the documents change-order proof and loophole proof, and that’s where the strategy, the angle, the AE business creativity if you will, comes in.

As a spec writer, I have come to take Scarlett O’Hara’s coping strategy - I'll think about that tomorrow - as my guide.   Whenever I’m stumped by a spec writing project, I put the project out of my mind, go home, and get a good nights’ sleep.  For years I thought I was just procrastinating, but now I realize I was on to something.

The next morning, usually when I’m tying my shoes of all things, an answer often comes to me.  I may think of someone from whom I can get good advice.  I may realize the current project is analogous to another from the past.  I may think of some way to coordinate better with the project architect even though he’s still detailing the project.  I may figure out a way to set aside other projects for a while so I can concentrate better on the current one.  The answer can take many forms.

Thanks for the advice, Scarlett.

COPING WITH THE FLOOD: MICKEY MOUSE AND ME

Like most of us in architecture and construction, I’m inundated with information of all sorts in both hard copy and electronic form.    

Some of it has to do with specific projects in our office. It’s not always easy to find a place to put stray, as yet unconnected, project-related factoids and spoken reminders so I can find them and put them to use when necessary. Will the “model” (as in BIM) be any help in this?

Lots of incoming information has to do with CSI and USGBC.  Mostly this affects my calendar so it’s easy to deal with.

I get a continuing stream of hard-copy magazines and hard-copy product literature.  I confess that although we converted the specs from MF95 to MF04 early on, I have yet to convert our product literature files to MF04, so for the time being, for example, site fence product literature is still lingering in the old Division 2, rather than in Division 32 where it belongs.

In addition, I receive an average of about 60 email messages a day at work and another 20 or 30 on personal email accounts.

Plus I use Google Reader and Google Alerts to find articles and blog posts on all sorts of subjects that interest me.  It’s now mid evening so it’s been about 9 hours since I last checked my Google Reader list during the lunch hour. Google has obediently gathered 139 items for me to look at.  I usually glance at a few of the most interesting, and I might read two or three of them carefully.

All together this flow of information resembles a real-life flood.

Reminds me of the Mississippi valley springtime floods. I grew up in the river town of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, so I know about floods. 

Trying to cope with all of this, I sometimes feel like the Mickey Mouse Sorcerer’s Apprentice character in Walt Disney’s great 1940 animated film “Fantasia”.  Sorcerer's apprentice Mickey wearies of carrying buckets of water. When the Sorcerer leaves, Mickey dons the Sorcerer’s hat for its magic powers, conjuring up a spell to animate a broom and order it to carry the water for him.  Mickey runs into trouble when the broom won’t stop carrying water and floods the place.   The sorcerer finally returns, takes control, and restores order.   

Will BIM be our sorcerer, and help us bring clarity and order to our information flood? 

Or will it be the apprentice?

NO, NO, NO!

On TV recently, I saw a short video clip of the late Senator Ted Stevens’ famous “NO” speech  It reminded me that sometimes architects have to say no to contractors. 

I know this is going to sound as though I’m biased against contractors, but I’m really not.  I cheerfully acknowledge that 99 and 44/100 percent of the time, construction contractors do the right thing.  Sometimes even when it’s not what I specify.

Still, sometimes we just have to say no.

So, taking my cue from another famous naysayer, Amy Winehouse, I have composed this little ditty. 

Sing to the tune of Amy Winehouse’s great rendition of “Rehab” (Subtitled “They wanted me to go to rehab, but I said no, no, no”).  See one of many versions of this song here.

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

Yes the spec is right and when I fight you’ll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time and the Owner thinks I’m fine

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

            I’d rather be at work on the next job

            I ain’t got any fee left

            I have to listen to you bidders sob

            That my spec ain’t deft

            Don’t you bury me in RFI’s

            Just trying to get a rise

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

Yes the spec is right and when I fight you’ll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time and the Owner thinks I’m fine

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

            How many more substitutions

            Are you gonna ask for?

            I specified eleven paints

And you want me to approve one more?

           

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

Yes the spec is right and when I fight you’ll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time and the Owner thinks I’m fine

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

            You’re billing 70 percent of the drywall

            But the studs aren’t even up.

            You forget some waivers of lien

            Still you want us to pay up

            It’s not just the money

            Retainage ain’t funny

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

Yes the spec is right and when I fight you’ll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time and the Owner thinks I’m fine

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

           

            The specs and drawings ain’t contradictory

Or full of conditions unforeseen

            Documents are complimentary

            Better than they’ve ever been

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’

Yes the spec is right and when I fight you’ll know, know, know

I ain’t got the time and the Owner thinks I’m fine

You tried to make me say OK, but I said ‘no, no, no’