Carol's Construction Technology Blog

Does a BIM Requirement Stop You From Bidding?

carolhagen — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:24:25 +0000

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become an industry standard on complex construction projects. As more Construction owners reap the benefits of BIM, more projects add a modeling component. While Architects grab Revit, the complexities feel insurmountable, especially for smaller contractors in the electrical and mechanical trades. An investment of 6-18 months and $80-100,000 is not uncommon to hear. So what is a smaller subcontractor to do?

Get Educated on BIM
The Associated General Contractors of America has an excellent publication “The Contractor’s Guide to BIM” that is a great place to start. Understanding the benefits to the Owner, Architect, Engineer, and subcontractor will make you more comfortable in the design and modeling process. It will keep you in sync with the jargon and help you see the benefits for marketing your firm.
Your local universities also offer training and educational programs as do the think tanks of the construction industry. The Alliance for Construction Excellence and the Construction Users Roundtable are excellent places to tap expertise, spot trends and peer into what the future holds.

Consider Outsourcing while You’re Learning BIM
With the economy still struggling, smaller firms that are already cash strapped will have to wait to train or hire a BIM espert for their firm. Doing a Google search for BIM outsourcing typically returns results outside your local area as the big firms all vie for Search Rank. You may want to ask your network connections, as many business who started in drafting and design have made substantial investments to offer BIM services to specialty contractors. In Arizona, my friend Donna Overton, owner of Draftek has done exactly that, offering electrical, mechanical, piping and fire protection modeling services. Watch this short video on the NAU Skydome work they delivered
and you’ll realize that outsourcing BIM is certainly a viable solution. Finding providers nearby also keeps your local economy humming.

Hiring BIM Talent is Quicker than Learning from Scratch
If you want productivity in BIM, hiring for experience is certainly quicker and easier to attain success and brand your new BIM department, albeit more costly. However, recent college grads are eager to learn and are great at augmenting a BIM department. Then you can mold your own model of a BIM professional without any “bad habit” baggage. Finding the right candidate and justifying a full-time BIM position will require a business development strategy to keep the BIM department busy.

Know Your Project Niches that Best Suit Your Strengths
Just because you have hired a BIM staffer shouldn’t mean you go out only bidding projects with BIM requirements. Business must always play to their strengths so the bulk of you projects should still be bid in the areas where you hold the most expertise. You wouldn’t bid a nuclear power plant if you never worked on any power plant before. Neither would you chase a GSA or other federal project without some experience in municipality or state work. Your BIM guy or gal should will be excited to work on more diverse projects that showcase their talents so BIM dry runs, where you are vying for the short list may help separate you from competitors. Remember to incorporate the technology in your presentations and practice the pitch.

BIM also Leads to other Technology
Augmented Reality, Laser Scanning, Immersive Environments and Digital Fabrication all are an extension of BIM. Just last week the Phoenix Revit Users Group had Jim Balding, founder and CEO of the Ant Group speak about where the new technologies are heading. Construction technology has just a short sprint left to a mobile, augmented future.

Don’t let BIM stop you from bidding. Tap into the expertise available and plan for your future. For some it may be outsourcing, for others it will be a BIM department. Just never stop learning as missed opportunities rarely resurface.

What questions do you have on BIM outsourcing and bidding do you have? I’ll tap my experts for the answers if I get stumped.

Arizona Construction Salary Survey Says…

carolhagen — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:30:10 +0000

The Arizona Construction Salary Survey provides you with the employee compensation benchmarks for budgeting and data for best practices during your salary negotiations. The Construction Financial Management Association, Valley of the Sun Chapter is in the process of compiling the results of the December 2011 Arizona Construction Salary Survey. In this sneak peek of the talent employment development section of the survey, the social media recruiting sources while growing, are underutilized, by our survey participants.

My favorite question in the Salary Survey is “What are the primary sources your company uses to recruit new hires (check all that apply)?” While the same question was asked for Field, Office and Executive recruiting, the chart below displays the comparison of office and field recruiting sources:

Source: AZ Construction Salary Survey - CFMA VOS - Dec 2011

The actual reported LinkedIn recruiting usage in the survey were 8.7% for the field workers, 17.4% for office personnel and 12% for management and executives. While Monster, Craigslist and Jobing.com usage were more popular, the Arizona construction industry has begun to embrace some social media. Facebook and Twitter usage were almost non-existent, used by less than 4% of participants. While serving the construction industry, it is still surprising that when it comes to technology that we continue to lag behind other industries. Compare this with statistics from the 2011 Jobvite Survey where

“89% of U.S. companies will use Social Networks for Recruiting”

and you clearly see the disparity.

LinkedIn is the business executives and professional recruitment golden roledex. If your Human Resources Department didn’t realize it, your professional recruiting firm does. As Jobvite has reported, “2/3 of Companies have Hired Successfully using Social Networks”. This is why I blog and teach contractors about LinkedIn, social tools and technology, because there’s a bottom line business value, and it’s not just in recruiting employees.

For those that participated in the Arizona Construction Salary Survey, the full results will be sent to you via email in January 2012. The 2011 Survey is available for purchase for $100 (2009 Survey is available for $50). Request your copy via Email.

If you are looking for ways to better Leverage LinkedIn or have successfully recruited field, office or management positions in the construction industry on social networks, please let us know in the comments. Lastly, please share this with your business connections so they can benefit too.

Are Your Construction Press Releases Social?

carolhagen — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:09:50 +0000

Press Release: You can embed Tweets in your Blog! Today I am using one blog post and a Tweet to entice my Construction Tech blog readers to my other blog and to Twitter. We need to be reminded that Construction Press Releases Need to be Social. That’s the premise in this week’s “Social Plus Websites for Small Business” Blog. It’s a great resource for social topics, business development, and marketing, still focused on construction. Here’s my most recent post as seen in Twitter:

Construction Press Releases Need to Be Social goo.gl/fb/qAuzS

— Carol Hagen (@carolhagen) December 29, 2011

Click on the link to read the article, “Construction Press Releases Need to be Social.” While you’re there, please consider subscribing to that blog too!

FYI – As my activity is more frequent on Twitter you may want to follow me @carolhagen where I’m sharing tips on Social media, smartphone apps, along with AEC and construction tech topics (just click the button above). If you don’t have a Twitter account you can still read all my Tweets aggregated by topic using this Twylah page

Perhaps you’ll use these ideas as well to share your content across the AEC industry.

May you all have a Happy and Prosperous New Year in 2012!

A New Way to Consume Carol’s Construction Technology

carolhagen — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 17:59:38 +0000

Google Currents App (like Flipboard on ios) has my construction, social media & technology content. Read it all in here from your smartphone http://t.co/uyL9HqRl

Construction: What’s Your “X” factor?

carolhagen — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 04:26:25 +0000

Successful contractors know what their xfactors are and if they align with your supplier’s, employee’s or project owner’s interests. Your differentiaters can attract talent, press and business. Just how do you leverage your xfactors?

Talent Attraction Xfactors

When it comes to talent, three items come to mind: culture match, reputation and technology. The best talent looks carefully before putting your construction firm on their shortlist. Smart leaders make sure all three shine through in their people, projects and on the internet. They empower their employees to showcase their work in the company intranet, and include employee stories in their newsletter. They keep content fresh and update their blog when new technology is deployed in the office and field. They share success stories on Facebook and YouTube that reach out to communities, showcasing company values, through volunteer efforts while making the content easily shareable. The message is human and caring. These same efforts often lead to free press.

Press Attraction Xfactors

Always looking for an angle, journalists love stories about overcoming obstacles, announcements that impact their community or improve the quality of life. Your construction projects are ideally suited to these storylines. Building a bridge? Share shorter commute times, connecting commerce, job creation and closing gaps in your press pitch. Now spin your xfactor into the story – your commitment to veteran hires or the team diversity can reflect your company’s culture.

Business Attraction Xfactors

Every completed project stands as a testimony to the special talents of the project team, but delivering on time and under budget doesn’t always convert to repeat business.

Communication and shared core values is the key. Setting clear expectations, how you handle crucial conversations and sharing key progress throughout the project team is critical. Your emod factor showcases your commitment to safety, your ability to keep project costs lower and your business values are aligned with your entire team. If your systems are well defined, software can help with the deliverables, communications and the collaboration. So can smartphones, tablet PCs and iPads.

Can a small firm (perhaps using Quickbooks) compete in technology? Surprisingly yes. Creating a central document repository, tracking milestones and collaborating can be done effectively and affordably without a Sharepoint Server. The key is delighting the team, especially the project owner. Recently Corecon announced their new Team Link Portal which extends the project management activity out to the architect, engineer, subcontractor, supplier and owner. Here are a few Screenshots:

Corecon Team Link Portal – Owner Project Financials Dashboard

Corecon Team Link Portal – Correspondence Tab

Making critical information accessible keeps people happy and coming back for more. What I like about Corecon (and why I rep for them) is the straight forward approach, recognizing that small and medium sized construction firms, who don’t have full time IT staff actually have a competitive advantage. They’re more nimble. This and other xfactor offerings can help keep repeat business occurring and attract new business too.

What are you construction xfactors and where do you share them? Please add them in our comments.

Construction Budgeting Resource for Arizona

carolhagen — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:33:12 +0000

Construction company budgets are heavily weighted to the salary and compensation plans of their employees. Whether it’s the chief estimator, accountant or IT director, knowing what the going rates are in your area can help you budget and ultimately attract the best talent to your construction firm. Here in Arizona, the Valley of the Sun Chapter of the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) is conducting an on-line Construction industry salary survey. You can get this resource for free just by participating.

Take the AZ Construction Salary Survey on-line: https://novisurvey.net/n/7g2.aspx

Many of the regional associations have been invited to participate including:

Arizona Builders Alliance

American Subcontractors Association

Arizona Roofing Contractors Association

Associated General Contractors of America

Construction Financial Management Association

Independent Electrical Contractors Association of Arizona

National Association of Women in Construction

National Electrical Contractors Association

National Utility Contractors Association of Arizona

Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association of Arizona

The results will be broken down by company demographics: number of employees and type of contractor so you can make meaningful comparisons. There are questions on economic indicators, employee development, employee benefits and employee compensation.

View the questions before taking the survey: 2011 AZ Construction Salary Survey

All contractors (GCs, highway/heavy and trades) doing business in the state are welcome to participate. Every firm that completes the survey will receive a copy of the results for free in early 2012. Everyone else will have to pay $100. Deadline is December 15, 2011. Start the survey now on-line: https://novisurvey.net/n/7g2.aspx

Copies can be purchased on-line. For more information visit http://chapters.cfma.org/ValleyOfTheSun/index.htm

Please share this with others in the industry as the more contractors who participate, the more valuable this construction resource will be.

Everyday is Thanksgiving on Social Networks

carolhagen — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:33:33 +0000

Thanksgiving is an American holiday but I see people universally thanking people across all social networks. Here’s what needs to be said on each of the major social platforms:

Twitter (My followers) - Thank you for following, mentioning and retweeting my content. If it weren’t for you no one would hear me and Twitter would be a big time waster – funny thing is that the majority of uniformed business people think this way. Let’s keep the Twitter value a secret as it is a competitive advantage, especially for the AEC sector.

Twitter (I’m following) – Thank you for unselfishly sharing your business acumen, thought leadership, and technology wisdom with me. For taking the time to answer my questions and developing lasting friendships with many I may never meet in person, I am forever grateful. I look for ways to reciprocate with you and hope to continue growing personally and professionally through your blog posts, event tweets and shared content.

Linkedin – A special thanks goes to each personal connection who has written a recommendation for me. Your “trust” gift to my profile has attracted speaking engagements and business opportunities that have contributed directly to my professional success. To my connections – your likes and shares have helped countless others with their social media, technology and business education. Thank you for sharing announcements, blog posts and networking opportunities with the construction industry. We’re all working for the same outcome – growing infrastructure opportunities, a healthy housing market and a prosperous year ahead.

Facebook friends – It’s wonderful to connect with old friends and new, sharing breathtaking photos and humorous video moments. For those also sharing business content, thanks for caring about my success. A special thanks goes to Mari Smith and ALLFacebook who continue to make facebook changes less intimidating and offers ideas for your business to leverage Facebook. For the contractors and employees who have chosen me as a Facebook friend or liked my company page, please inform your employer that Talent attraction and community outreach work well here and to the residential contractors it’s a must for reaching business opportunities!

WordPress – Appreciation goes out to all my blog subscribers, and those that have commented on a blog post. Each of these small actions (like, share, +1) has helped to drive traffic to my website often leads to business synergies.

Google+ – You’re new to the party. While few people have asked to be in my circles, many of those that have are my closest influencers, news sources and advisers. Thank you for being here – Your deserve a +1 everyday. Thank you Google for making a better social network that makes content curation, communication and collaboration easy.

To my entire Business Network (those I email, see at association meetings and call on from time to time): You know the secret to networking is just genuinely caring about the success of others and building trusting relationships. May you enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family and come back with greater appreciation for every connection you make each day.

To my family that I love dearly: I know I see you infrequently and wish that instead of video conferencing and phone call a Star Trek Transporter were available so I could be there more often, share more meals, hug, laugh and cry together. May your turkey be plump, your pies be sweet and your afternoon nap be restful.

16 Construction Management Students Are Hungry in the Desert

carolhagen — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:49:10 +0000

Students at the Del E Webb School of Construction are all thinking of their future. Earlier this week they all had a unique opportunity to learn how to leverage LinkedIn on the Arizona State University campus. Sixteen freshman through graduate students filled the workshop wanting to know how to attract employers to their profile, showcase their activities, and for 15, ultimately launch their project management career in construction.

Having volunteered to lead this workshop, students learned the importance of a LinkedIn headline, joining Linkedin groups, networking, volunteering and gaining experience at every turn – all while documenting their activities using their smartphones – capturing pictures, video and notes to showcase what students are doing outside the classroom. Each student added new elements to their profiles and contemplated what other LinkedIn applications (Slideshare, Box.net, Google Docs, etc) and social media they might want to use to enhance their findability.

With 55% of members attending the Construction Users Roundtable Conference expecting a labor shortage of construction managers, here are a few hungry students you may be interested in:
Graduate Students:
Navid Behzad
Arpita Ghosh
Christine Tancinco
Seniors:
Chrystine Bohman
Chris Celani
Jon Geele
Kim Young
Amanda Nichols
Kent Rinker
Juniors:
Sean Yeager
Sawyer Zuber
Kim Rahberger
Sophomores:
Sterling Smith
Freshmen:
Ashley Bernardez

Already Employed:
Patricia Traegde Sundt Construction

You may notice that many of these students are female. ASU excels at recruiting women to the construction careers through their Advancing Women in Construction program, connecting women business owners (mentors) with students(mentees). If you know high school students considering construction project management or engineering, share this post with them and have them consider emailing:
Dawn Rogers
Program Manager Recruitment and Retention
Del E. Webb School of Construction Management
Arizona State University

If you are looking for a speaker or in need of an educational workshop to help leverage LinkedIn, please contact me, Carol Hagen. I am available in person or via webinar for your business, group or association.

Construction Communications and the Email Tidal Wave

carolhagen — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:41:25 +0000

Email can be a contractor’s best friend or worst enemy. Construction personnel communicate frequently to achieve good project outcomes and this usually involves email and with more mobile devices, text messages. Most project managers I speak to are inundated with large volumes of email that take hours to process daily. Many have taken the time to create rules and put emails in various folders to help them sort through their inbox. They also have to keep their inbox clean with mailbox size limits set on the Exchange server. Surely there are better ways to handle project emails, instant messages, Exchange Server communications and improve your ability to find an email, when you need it later because an issue arises.

In a recent study by IBM Research entitled “Am I wasting my time organizing email? A study of email refinding” apparently putting email in folders is a waste of time! After reviewing this research, an anonymous reader writes
“There are two types of office workers in the world — those who file their emails in folders, and those who use search. Well, it looks like the searchers are smarter. A 354-user study by IBM research found that users who just searched their inbox found emails slightly faster than users who had filed them by folder. Add the time spent filing and the searchers easily come out on top. Apparently the filers are using their inbox as a to-do list rather than wanting to categorize information to find it more easily.”
While many firms have implemented project management software there are still times when replies come thru regular email in Outlook and you have to log the email into the system (more work UGH). Younger more mobile owners often want to communicate through text or instant messages and find email too slow and “old school” making a construction firm’s technology appear outdated. The fear is that communicating in instant messages or other modes will make you more exposed to risk. We all know the person with the most documentation typically wins an argument. That’s why we are papering projects to death. The correspondence can also spawn multiple copies across your computer network including your Exchange server and Sharepoint. So how can we access emails we need faster and have the confidence that we haven’t missed any communications? Perhaps your email server needs a break. Let’s look a few possible solutions.

Monitored Email Folders
Having all email correspondence directed to an email address can make sorting project related and can be integrated into your content management system. This can give your entire firm access, with proper authority, to construction project correspondence by job. Each email recipient forwards documents to the appropriate job folder. Construction Imaging (CI) has developed a solution that goes one step further, called email manager. You tag it with a job number and document type. Then it automatically indexes it into the archive. Retrievable in seconds! The CI solution only requires having the AX back end – a standard foundation to their content management solutions. You can learn more about email manager and their other solutions at www.construction-imaging.com

Email Archiving
Email searching is much faster with Email Archiving systems and is the preferred method to address e-discovery issues. For firms with an Exchange Server, there are many choices. Not as many for those with Lotus Notes or Domino, but still choices. It gets trickier when you also need further integration to popular products like Instant Messaging like MSN, Yahoo and AOL Messenger that can really make this challenging. There are also other 3rd party products that involve other departments, CRM systems including Salesforce with their social media communications center called Chatter that can make this mind boggling. There is an answer to all this – ArcMail Defender (disclosure: yes, I am an ArcMail reseller). Construction firms are attracted to this solution because it is quick an easy appliance to implement, you can be up and running in well under an hour. We’re conducting on-line webinars on email archiving with ArcMail. To Register and make email work for you, click here to request your ArcMail demo request date/time. We’ll get back to you promptly.

While you await our reply, please read a construction firm’s success story with Arcmail

Does your construction firm use Exchange server, Lotus Notes or Domino and have you implemented instant messaging? Have you considered email archiving in your contracting firm? Leave us a comment and share what you’re doing to make email work for you.

Has the Construction Industry Noticed This in LinkedIn Today?

carolhagen — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:29:25 +0000

Construction companies and the AEC industry struggle to leverage social media. They don’t understand the value that LinkedIn brings as they just see more emails notices they don’t want from overzealous salesmen. The business value is hidden in learning the obvious but overlooked features and functions. Let’s look closely at LinkedIn Today.

LinkedIn Today has a story trending about the Hensel Phelps Construction solar project and I couldn’t help but peek to see who was sharing this story. By clicking on the number in the lower right, a popup displays (shown above) of my connections up to the 3rd level sharing the story with their network. Why is this important you ask? What if this story was about your firm? If the social media maven at Hensel Phelps is paying attention there is an opportunity here that doesn’t occur when someone shares privately via email. An opportunity to make LinkedIn connections, show gratitude and strike up conversations. It’s the advantage that social media marketers have been shouting about but that your construction, engineering or architectural firm is still trying to figure out. If it catches someone’s interest and you know about it, don’t miss out on these social openings. You may find your next client!

If you found this interesting you may also like these articles:
LinkedIn Privacy
Google Loves LinkedIn

If you want to learn more about what you don’t know about LinkedIn or other social tools, I’m available for consulting, speaking engagements and strategy building.

Construction Collaboration: PDF Secrets Part 3 – Large Format Drawings and Markups

carolhagen — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:55:11 +0000

Collaboration on large format construction drawings often has the expectation that all the team players have the same tools. Architects and engineers spend countless hours in AutoCad then share their drawings with the General Contractor. Most smaller GCs have a license of AutoCad just to open these files and make a few annotations. But not everyone on the construction team is fluent in AutoCad nor has a licensed copy. To share details and collaborate the next best thing is make a PDF, but depending upon the PDF software, the drawings may not turn out as detailed as the designer created them. This is a sore spot for Architects and Engineers who are detail oriented. The more you zoom in, the more pixelated they may become. This happens because these PDF programs are not designed to generate Vector PDFs. Bluebeam PDF Revu CAD to the rescue!

Large Format drawings may have sweeping arcs that look like straight lines strung together, not in Bluebeam. The Vector graphics are retained even when you decide to reduce the size of the PDF for emailing. You don’t have to tolerate mediocre PDF conversion any longer!

For AutoCad enthusiasts, Bluebeam speaks your language with the same quick keys for inserting line, text boxes, etc you’re learning curve will be a breeze. Markups are also a snap as you can create tool sets during one markup session, save them and use them again later. A square “cloud” can be colored yellow with a 50% opacity and used over and over again, even changing the shape without having to create it from scratch.

For the non AutoCad user, the multi-click navigation to get to add a text box is eliminated, even if you aren’t familiar with Quick key shortcuts. Bluebeam designed PDF Revu with easy navigation tool bars that are customizable so you can have the cloud, Text box, line, arc, or call out handy. Put them where you want them, or surround the workspace if you like with nav buttons on the top, right or bottom.

Next week I’ll showcase the AutoCad export functions which add flexibility and save time in the the PDF creation process. If you want to experience Bluebeam for yourself, here’s the 30 day trial option.

Have questions? I’m here, yes, to answer Bluebeam questions for you in the AEC industry. If you try the 30 day trial Leave me a commment on your experience.

Construction Collaboration: PDF Secrets Part 2 – On-line Meeting for PDF Changes Now or Later

carolhagen — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 20:08:56 +0000

Construction Collaboration often involves sharing documents during an on-line web meeting. While many solutions allow for these sessions to be recorded, there are few that let you leave it open for up to 2 weeks, append to the meeting later, or provide a way to capture the log of the discussion, particularly when changes are made to a “working” PDF. The problem is the method to make these annotations because the web based sessions are typically screen captures of the presenter’s desktop. There is a better way to work on PDFs with individuals or teams which can track, log and hyperlink to the PDF area details. Automatically documenting and capturing the recorded modifications on the PDF for construction project teams with Bluebeam® Studio Server™. You have to see it to believe it.

Let’s take a look at a Bluebeam Studio Session. In this example there are questions concerning the placement of lighting. Note that the chat session captures all annotations and jumps to the view of that persons workspace when they added that annotation.

Bluebeam® Studio Server™ allows you to connect, create and collaborate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. Simply upload your PDFs to Studio and invite attendees from across the globe to view and comment on your PDFs. Chat and add markups to the same PDF together in real-time or separately on your own. Markups and chats are tracked in a Record that links back to the PDF to easily review session activity. You can even create a report of your Studio session to archive or share with your team. With Bluebeam construction collaboration delivers complete version control and report access that you can upload to Sharepoint or ingest into your Enterprise Content Management System automatically using a monitored folder.

Whether you need clarifications from the architect, engineer, General contractor, owner or principal, subcontractor or supplier you can capture the suggestions from each participant, whether you’re all on-line simultaneously, or invitees join later with new ideas or alternatives. If revisions occur later, you can receive email notification that more revisions have been added to the session. Bluebeam has more PDF collaboration power for the AEC industry. In Part 3 we’ll discuss AutoCad and Revit.

If you missed part 1, you may want to read the previous post PDF Secrets: Estimating takeoff from PDF. If you can’t wait for the rest of this series, You probably want to watch this video:
Bluebeam PDF Revu 9 – The Acrobat Alternative Or just Take Revu 9, Bluebeam Studio or Q for a spin with a 30 Free A Trial

Disclosure: Bluebeam software impressed me so much that I recently became an authorized reseller.

Construction Collaboration: PDF Secrets Part 1 – Estimating Takeoff

carolhagen — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:23:54 +0000

Construction collaboration with PDFs has been utilized poorly. Even with the Microsoft Office 2010 release that gives you the ability to convert documents to PDF built-in, it’s lacking when it comes to collaboration for the AEC Industry. To help change that I’ll share some best practices and features that contractors, architects and estimators perhaps weren’t aware of. What PDFs do best is share documents in a format that everyone can access. Print to PDF gets the document out of that technical construction software package (AutoCAD, Revit, etc) and serves it up for every construction team member, without needing the same software. This will be a series of posts that will discuss construction collaboration using PDFs for Estimating Takeoffs, Converting Large Format and 3D Drawings, AutoCAD and Revit Integration, Drawing comparisons, Hyperlink referencing, Tablet PCs, and Sharepoint.

To be clear, not all these secrets are available in Standard PDF programs but are specifically designed for the AEC industry by Bluebeam, a PDF software firm which impressed me so much that I recently became an authorized reseller.

I understand that each person learns differently so you may want to download this tutorial Bluebeam Revu measurements takeoff or Watch this video (13 minutes) to see how the measurement tool in Bluebeam will give contractors the ability to perform takeoffs from PDF. This includes: Calibrate the drawing or set the scale, use measurement annotations for area, length, volume and counts, and perform further calculation with your takeoff data. The video shows the takeoff details and how to group items into sections (this could be CSI codes, tasks or areas). There’s also the ability to price and export the details to a spreadsheet. Realize this is just one secret to Bluebeam Revu and is built-in to every version Standard, CAD and eXtreme. You may also want to view a few more sample takeoffs like the one at the top.

If you can’t wait to see all the “Secrets” for the AEC Industry, you may want to watch this overview video “Which Revu is Right for You?” to to see how Bluebeam can make your team collaboration and productivity improve with large format drawings, Revit, AutoCAD, Bentley Systems BIM and more.

Why Contractors and the AEC Industry Need Cupcakes

carolhagen — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:51:32 +0000

Contractors and the construction industry as a whole love celebrations. For Architects, Contractors and Engineers a cupcake reminds us of our childhood, the birthday parties you attended and the Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, Legos and Tonka Trucks you received. For the young women of today it might be their Architech Barbie. Every time you win a bid, finish a project, have designs accepted or get plans approved you relive these moments. Whether you’re a tradesman, project manager or CEO there’s a sense of pride and accomplishment in every task performed. It’s the same feeling around the world. So why aren’t you celebrating construction milestones on social networks and your website making them social cupcakes?

Too many construction professionals are focusing on the economic woes. Stop. You know that happiness and success attract. After attending a joint networking event for the Arizona Builders Alliance(ABA), MCAA and SMPS at Audio Video Resources yesterday it was noticeable who the happy people were and just how many others were congregating around them. Lorraine at Caliente Construction was celebrating making it onto 4 short lists this week and having 2 bids awarded. Way to go! John Ulibarri had a discussion with Mark Minter on the value the ABA brings to the construction industry. Talking points with positive messages and the people around them were listening. Even my discussion with Dennis Tsonis of Lovitt and Touche had others watching us exchange contact info using the Bump app on our smartphones. That gesture of bumping is like a high five and feels like a celebration.

All this translates easily onto the internet. Just this morning at a Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce East Valley networking breakfast we had Tim Troy of TNT Shredding celebrating the arrival of his second truck – Tim tells me he’s getting it wrapped and will be posting pictures on Facebook soon. If you need paper shredded (I’ve been to many construction offices and know you need to make some room), give him a call. Desert View Aerial Photography captures construction celebrations daily. Here’s a top off shot for Haydon Building Corp with the American Flag and evergreen cheering on the last steel beam put in place.

Many social strategy sessions end up in discussions of what to blog, tweet or share on Facebook or LinkedIn about. The content should not always be about you but on people and business you know…things happening in your community that make a difference to your clients, suppliers and employees. If they elicit emotions and fond memories all the better. That’s why Cupcakes are in the title of this post!

Tell us about what you’re celebrating in the AEC industry and let’s get everyone in a great mood. Every contruction related celebration comment will be approved. Click on the comment button at the top of this post and/or share this with your friends.

CFMA Conference Winners Were the Attendees

carolhagen — Thu, 19 May 2011 17:41:41 +0000

The Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) held their 2011 Annual Conference earlier this week and I must say those attending came out ahead. It’s not just the CPE credits and the speakers, but the networking that goes on that makes this such a success. Here are a few takeaways from the sessions, happenings and social events.

The Chapter Summit was great and packed tightly with discussions, feedback and education. Top challenges for chapters are how to get more butts in seats, increase participation, new member attraction and finding speakers with good topics. I’d be happy to offer my presentation to chapters across the country adding a spin into business development if you need a speaker. Sharing is a big thing in social networking so here’s access to my Leveraging LinkedIn and Social Media for CFMA chapters. I invite everyone to ask questions and/or connect with me on LinkedIn if you need a leg up on how to.

The keynote “connections” address with Marc Scharenbroich was a thunderous success in his approach to being authentic, a good listener and appreciative. His closing Boomba Hey CFMA is on YouTube or you can view it here. I’d recommend reading his book, Nice Bike to reinforce his message and his thank you extends the benefits … proceeds help military families.

For those wanting to know if there was a buzz during the conference may want to review the Twitter stream of #CFMA2011 as there were a few people chatting other than exhibitors. You do not need a Twitter account to view the activity. Just go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23cfma2011.

As a techie, I also thoroughly enjoyed the presentation on Smartphones and immediately implemented a mobile app for my own business…it takes up to 14 days to be added to the Android Market so I’ll update this post once it’s live. If it is well received an iPhone version will be out before the end of June. I’ll keep you posted …thank you Jim Spellos for sharing Appsbar.com as a free solution! Jim also shared info on augmented reality using the layars app and for those firms or individuals that need to read signs in Spanish you should checkout the iPhone app “Word Lens” from Questvisual.com …it will blow your mind!

I made new friends and connected with controllers, CPAs, and exhibitors from across the country. We danced, sang, shared stories, broke bread and had deep discussions. Special thanks go to Sue Marion and Amy Hanagan for making my stay fun, Diedre Aldous for our Main Street Days activities, Dina O’Rourke for keeping the CFMA engine running, John Corocoran for involving me in Chapter Summit and the exhibitors for sponsoring keynotes, meals, entertainments, etc …as catching up with friends but once a year is made sweeter by your generosity. To everyone I met “Nice Bike”.

I’ve left a few holes for those in attendance to share their experiences, education and networking stories. Feel free to share these construction education gems and also share your own by adding comments and sharing this with others.

Microsoft Takes My Advice on Skype

carolhagen — Tue, 10 May 2011 14:53:47 +0000

Microsoft’s Skype acquisition was overdue. It was January 8, 2011 when I Tweeted:

Just thinking Microsoft could have more Kinect sales if you could use it to Skype. #business

With the official announcement, Microsoft has plans to add Skyping to more than the Kinect and xBox but that alone can convert to huge revenues. By the time Christmas rolls around Microsoft will have kids complaining they can’t use their game consoles because their parents are hogging it for video conferencing. For the small business owner, contractor, and consultant with a home office, this will justify the Kinect purchase as a business expense – so the kids that don’t have a Kinect and Xbox yet, are almost certainly guaranteed a new toy.

With 170+ million connected Skypers around the world many seem worried that their long distance family time will be interrupted. Not to worry as Microsoft is sure to serve up ads on the free service to help them sell gaming consoles and games – 207 billion minutes of voice and video conversations in 2010 is a whole lot of advertising airtime. I suspect that they’ll somehow determine from customer usage patterns or social profiles that small business Skypers should also see Office 365 Ads and every other cloud based offering Microsoft develops. Most IT staff are Skypers too so the potential Ad reach is targeted to Microsofts core audience.

So does this mean LiveMessenger and LiveMeeting are dead? Not by a longshot. Wired Magazine doesn’t think this was a great business technology purchase in their Why Exactly? article, but there is overlap.

There are other factors involved that are mentioned by Forbes Combine all this with the mobile smartphone Ad reach and you see why Microsoft was willing to spend so much money.

Will you be using your gaming console at home to Skype? Will small business owners and contractors move their Xbox into their office? We’d love to hear from you and look forward to your comments.

Business Development for Construction and the AEC Industry

carolhagen — Mon, 09 May 2011 20:19:07 +0000

Business Development in construction is successful when approached as a long term strategy. With all the social networks exploding many have suggested that LinkedIn is all you need for Business to Business. What I’ve found is that business development requires networking in person and that many conversations can begin or be nurtured on-line in social media. I’ve added extensions to browsers, applications to social networking sites and plugins to email to help the business nurturing process. Here are some of my favorites:

Xobni – A plugin for Outlook (and soon Gmail) that indexes your email and makes it easy to identify the social networks your contacts use. If you have an IT department, you’ll need to have your administrator to OK this.

Rapportive – A gmail add-on that automatically finds the social profile of the email sender.

WhoWorks.At – a Google Chrome (browser) extension that lets you see your LinkedIn connections while browsing a website. This is new but has huge potential once LinkedIn add a company API

Here's the WhoWorks.At results when I browse CFMA.org

Tweets – found in the LinkedIn application directory that shows you what connections use Twitter and provides updates from those you follow on Twitter inside LinkedIn. Great listening tool for business connection nurturing.

Signals – from LinkedInLabs.com that aggregates all the Tweets in your network and across an industry. Search for Construction and filter on a geographic area to see the Buzz of what’s being said.

LinkedIn Today – aggregates news feeds from many sources and serves a snippet of hot topics. You’ve probably noticed this just below your status when checking your connection updates. Construction specific if you use the filter.

With the LinkedIn IPO coming later this year, and McGraw-Hill freeing up some of their LinkedIn shares for it…I predict an uptick in LinkedIn usage in the AEC industry. Are the PR and marketing teams in your construction, engineering or architectural firm listening?

Now that I’ve shared my favorites, will you share yours? Please add your suggestions, comments and ask questions. I’m listening.

You may Find these related posts of interest:
LinkedIn Skills Beta: Claim Your Expertise

Tagging LinkedIn Contacts

Social Media a Twitter in Construction

Construction “Trades Hub” For Quality Content Across the Web

carolhagen — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:04:02 +0000

Mike Rowe Works for You

The mikeroweWORKS Trades Hub just launched and pulls together blogs, articles and news stories relating to the construction trades,
It’s an easy to navigate site, to quickly find the popular blogs and websites that might normally go unnoticed if you’re not a regular subscriber. You may recognize the name, Mike Rowe as he’s been at apprentice in over 300 “Dirty Jobs” Episodes on TV. He’s passionate about the trades and the construction industry.

Building Up the Trades Community: “The skills gap is a real concern that’s getting more worrisome every day. Fewer skilled tradesmen in the workforce will affect us all. Younger folks need to have a better understanding of how they can benefit from learning a trade, and parents need to encourage their kids to consider this worthwhile and important path. mrW strives to reinvigorate the trades. The mrW Trades Hub will help us in that effort.”

Carol’s Construction Technology Blog is honored to be included in the Trade Hub. Here’s a screenshot of the Trades Hub and I hope you read it often!

Carol's Construction Technology Blog in Trades Hub

Your comments and feedback are always welcome. Please share this with your friends in the construction industry.

FutureTech begins Wednesday

carolhagen — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 17:31:25 +0000

Can't make it to FutureTech next week? Follow @ENR_FutureTech for what's happening! http://bit.ly/fiy6Xh via @AmyEcolino #aec—
Carol Hagen (@carolhagen) April 01, 2011

ConExpo ConAgg 2011: Social Media a Twitter in Construction

carolhagen — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 17:05:45 +0000

ConExpo-ConAgg is rockin with activity and as a techie and social media consultant it’s time to explain how visitors leverage all the social media outlets during a construction event. You must realize if attendees are looking on-line, they are seeking help, great content and suggestions as to what they haven’t found or seen yet. I noticed early on that the majority of Tweets using the #conexpoconagg hashtag were being used by media and vendors. The media was providing news but only a few smart firms understood how to serve the show’s target audience – contractors and aggregate buyers.

Smart Firm #1: Cummins has advertising that’s smart. They provided the ConExpo App for the iPhone, Android and other smartphone users. It has maps, events and more which serves the attendees well, helping navigate through the huge volume of exhibitors and educational opportunities.

Smart Firm #2: Forcontractorpros.com looked at how they could serve everyone and has the daily recap of the Las Vegas Tourism and Convention Center Channels 6-10 am broadcast of what’s happening at the show 24/7. You can’t go wrong with news and great content that feeds the appetite of the construction industry.

Smart Firm #3: Ok, it’s me. I’m making this a teachable moment. If you don’t use Twitter, here are selected tweets from @carolhagen during the first two days that you probably wish you had read sooner:

Watch #conexpoconagg on the Las Vegas Tourism & Conv Ctr Channel, 6-10 am in your hotel room or 24/7 at http://bit.ly/eZvpqO

Anyone at #conexpoconagg looking for the best place to watch March Madness while in Vegas? Here you go http://bit.ly/f4Ehat

The oldest machine on display at #conexpoconagg http://bit.ly/gWWToP via @DoctorDiesel | That beats my ’29 Packard #aec

If you’re in technology @TomSawyerENR will be @ McGraw-Hill’s booth S-10519 @ 1pm today #conexpoconagg http://bit.ly/ezgXYv

Your first day at #conexpoconagg and own an iPhone? Grab the ConExpo App off iTunes – Maps, Events and More #aec Thanks @cummins

What associations are exhibiting at #conexpoconagg in Vegas? http://bit.ly/fUZHJ8 – NAWIC missing

Great photo, gives good sense of Conexpo construction equipment displays scope http://t.co/0KbSqC0 via @AGCofA #conexpoconagg

Have you seen the “I Make America” booth GL 3221 #conexpoaggexpo via @JanTuchman | Video http://www.am.org/ #aec

After #conexpoconagg tonight you might want to check out “Best of Vegas 2010″ http://bit.ly/h3O2Vc (2011 venues out March 27)

Have you been to the John Deere Chatterbox at #conexpoconagg? http://bit.ly/hCTC5Y Going social in construction #aec

The iPad giveaways are in full bloom at #conexpoconagg http://bit.ly/gJfTsR Other good prizes http://bit.ly/g4txGc

Free WiFi in Vegas near #conexpoconagg Maps of Starbucks http://bit.ly/hXU5An and other hotspots http://bit.ly/fp9zck

For those tweeting at ConExpo, it is my sincere hope you notice that these Tweets aren’t selling my products or services. It is all giving away information that real people, enjoying ConExpo might find valuable. A few were sharing interesting tweets from others. You can’t sell anything to someone that doesn’t like you and trust you first! That’s Sales 101 right? So how come so many vendors are just blasting out “come see me” …it’s like a shouting match for airspace. They’d do better if they tweeted about the booth next to them. Sharing is caring.

The construction industry is moving into social media but their skills aren’t yet tuned to the etiquette of the tools or the construction Tweeter (yet). Knowing that Twitter is underutilized (as 14% of the US population has a Twitter account), it is best to share this in a more traditional manner… Blogging, to reach the whole construction audience. A recap of sorts from one social media tool to another…to wet your Twhistle (that’s a Twitter whistle). Should I do something similar on the use of Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn? Let me know. And please follow me @carolhageon Twitter.

Xoom for the Construction Project Manager

carolhagen — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 20:14:43 +0000

Update 3/23/11: With Firefox 4 for Android soon to be available, it is expected that Corecon will run the full version of their software on the Xoom!

The Motorola Xoom has been available at Verizon for a few weeks and all the competition keeps repeating is “there are no apps for it.” Who needs apps when smart software developers offer access to their applications in the cloud? For instance, Corecon, a construction project management and estimating system. Their Corecon mobile login provides the project manager access to his projects, job financials, documentation, correspondence, contacts, etc and a way to update directly from the field. Here’s a video showing a few project management functions on the Xoom:

It works well on all the other popular platforms too like Android, iPhone, iPad and Blackberry. This isn’t just for the commercial general contractor either. Architects, engineers, homebuilders and suppliers use Corecon everyday collaborating, estimating and responding to requests for bid, RFI’s, and more. So you know, my client’s bought Corecon from me to streamline their operations.

Personally I am awaiting the 4G upgrade (coming summer of 2011) before I grab a Xoom, but once I do, I’ll be Xooming presentations, videos and keeping projects up to date without the size limitations of my smartphone or the need to lug or boot up my laptop.

Corecon project management and videos on other devices can be viewed in a previous post entitled:Project Managers Go Mobile

PDF Editing, Sharepoint and ECM for the AEC Industry

carolhagen — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:32:54 +0000

Editing PDFs is a daily occurance in the construction industry. Architects, Engineers and Contractors have standardized on the PDF as the file type to share, email and collaborate on. PDF editing streamlines and helps clearly conveys changes, clarifications and improvements. Everyday PDFs are instrumental in the construction conversation to show mark ups on Microsoft Office documents, interactively draw on tablet PCs and then share these PDFs on Servers. But PDF editing software licensing is expensive and often cumbersome. What the AEC Industry has yearned for is One-Button creation of PDFs from within industry standard product like AutoCad, Revit and SolidWorks, and integration to their Sharepoint or ProjectWise servers. This is deliverable today with Bluebeam.

The PDF solutions Bluebeam provides to Construction Industry Professionals “are designed to improve communication, tracking, and speed. Create PDFs from any CAD or Windows file.” You can “add comments and notes directly to PDFs received from architects or consultants to eliminate extra steps or confusion and improve turnaround time.” With Bluebeam Revu, you can skip the paper process and “simply markup the PDF drawing electronically and send it off in one click from anywhere you have an Internet connection.”

Estimators will also love Bluebeam Revu. With the “built-in measurement tool, onscreen quantity takeoffs are calculated, totaled and stored in a list that can be summarized in Excel for estimates.” Bluebeam is a PDF Editor’s dream and works well for Architects and Engineers from design development through bid and construction. There are toolsets for a variety of designers including:
Landscaping Tools, Kitchen Furniture, Office Furniture, Home Furniture, Windows and Punch Symbols from Bluebeam clients along with extensive toolsets from Bluebeam

What’s missing to Bluebeam is document management which can be done in part on Sharepoint or using tools like Construction Imaging’s Content Archiver in their Enterprise Content Management (ECM) System. Content Archiver is a utility that looks at the directory structure where a document is stored, and sets the indexes or metatags of the document in the customer’s ECM system. It then sets a pointer to the document in the ECM where the original document resided. Many construction firms today are just storing documents on a hard drive where they’ve created a folder for each project. Underneath the project are more folders for RFIs, change orders, pictures, etc. What’s the benefit to doing this? You avoid accidently putting multiple copies of the same document into your ECM system and no one has to manually index the docuemnt again.

Now I hear some novices out there saying if I have PDFs then I can search through my documents and there’s no need to index them. Essentially with that scenario you index by every word in every document. While filing becomes fast, searching for specific documents can become a length chore. Do a Google search on any word and just how many results do you get? You could spend hours with the thousands of results that are returned. Substitute Content Archiver and you can find a document in 3-5 seconds.

Making it easy to capture, distribute, manage and store documents in the construction industry seems challenging, but with the right tools the job becomes a whole lot simpler. We’d encourage feedback and would love to hear from our readers. Please add your thoughts in the comment section and see if we can get a good discussion going.

Tucson Contractors Soak Up IT Knowledge

carolhagen — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:45:11 +0000

Tucson contractors have already put my presentation to good use on “All things Information Technology (IT)” at the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) luncheon yesterday. Excel Mechanical’s Carrie Stone emailed me her results this morning and I can only hope everyone in attendance will also share their success.

Topics during my 45 minute chat included: Search, Backups, Data Storage, Cloud Computing, and construction project management. Sound’s boring right? Guess again. Humorous videos, made light of heavy topics and kept the pace moving…ever see storage take a ride down a pool slide? Questions popped up while audience members confessed to being email hoarders and a few still used tape for backups. Thank you Sundt’s Kevin Burnett who was the example for how to think Lean and taking it on the chin when I explained why small firms are often more nimble than large.

There was great interest in how to get your company to show on a local search, what Removable Disk Cartridges (RDX) offer as advantages over tape and regular hard drives, and how estimating, project management and job costing can effectively be done in the cloud. I’m beginning to think that Corecon might become my top selling construction software solution here in Arizona.

Questions after the lunch were as involved as during. I don’t recall who I was speaking to, but one contractor had an iPhone so I suggested he try the CardMunch app which lets you suck in all the business cards you collect when networking with general contractors, service providers and subcontractors at CFMA events. It’s owned by LinkedIn and the service is free.

For those that didn’t take notes or can’t recall the name of a particular product or service mentioned during the presentation, I am willing to share the powerpoint, just drop me a line. Hope to hear from you soon!

Social Media Topics are Moving to “Social + Websites”

carolhagen — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:40:07 +0000

To all my avid readers who come here for social media topics, I have decided to separate the construction technology topics and the pure social media tips by starting a new blog. Social + Websites will discuss social media tips, website design and how to engage your prospects and clients using social media in social networks and on your website.

You will still get great content every week on technology issues specific to the construction industry on this blog but the social media topics will mostly appear in Social + Websites. Hope you take the time to check it out and please share this with all your friends, connections and followers.

Here are the latest posts at Social + Websites that you might like:
LinkedIn Labs offers Swarm (Search) & InMaps for Visualization
Mobile Website Surfing: Will iPhone, Android or iPad Fill Your Pipeline?

Bing Loves Facebook

carolhagen — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:54:20 +0000

Bing loves Facebook more than Google these days. If you haven’t noticed, Bing displays Facebook profile pictures in their search results using Facebook’s Instant Personalization Notifications so now you can we see all your connections to the right of the regular search results. This is great if you think your friends tastes match yours but you need to think about it from your business friend’s point of view – as a tool for branding you and your comapny – construction or otherwise.

Bing will display your Facebook friends “likes” as it pertains to your search. This is wonderful for TV Shows, restaurants, movies and music thanks to Pandora, Yelp, Rotten Tomatoes and Clicker. But there’s more to it. With Docs.com and Scribd businesses and entrepreneurs can extend their search reach and position themselves as experts with original content. What am I suggesting to the AEC industry? Architects, Engineers and Homebuilders that cater to the homeowner and are using Facebook need to get on board!

You may also want to think about whether you wish to opt out of certain applications. Here are good instructions from the Electronic Frontier Foundation on how to opt-out…yes it is one application at a time. Again Facebook makes it cumbersome to keep your privacy private.

Bing people searches will also provide recommendations for people you should friend in Facebook. Will this increase visits to profiles? Absolutely! It will also expose you to more ads, but as a public speaker discussing social media topics I’m hoping it leads to more opportunities.

I’d appreciate it if you “like” this on Facebook. You may be interested in reading how Google loves LinkedIn.