Architects are Great What???!!!

Great Marketers are Architects

the link above is for an article on Seth Godin's blog...

who's Seth Godin??? he's just this marketing guy...quiet well known, apparently...blogs a lot, writes books, about, well, marketing stuff...

I am not sure why, but a lot (a majority?) of the blogs I read have to do with marketing...Mr. Godin, metacool, gapingvoid, some others...

Is the writing more interesting?... better topics? more time on their hands?...or maybe they're just more pre-disposed than most to write their thoughts down...

I am always curious as to how people refer to "architects"..."he's the architect of that policy...", "great marketers are architects...", for instance, nice ring to that one...people seem to ascribe some status to the profession, or at least to the concept of the profession...Tom Peters is fond of refering to the Professional Service Firm, like architect have it all worked out, nice and neat...if only they knew...

how come I don't read any architect's blogs, about, uh, Architecture...please note the capital "A"...

do real architects blog? guess I'll have to find out, off to google...

if not, maybe it's just to keep the secret...

what's my excuse?

OOOoofff!!!

Out to Arizona for ISPE for a couple of days...back to the office for 1/2 a day for some critical items...off to the mountains for a couple of days R+R with the family...

sounds great, had a lot of fun, very relaxing...until...

Monday back after a full week out!!!...with a project under budget pressure, trying to maintain a tight schedule...

a full week of Monday's...

It's almost not worth taking any time away from the office...

it is, really, but what a battle to catch up and get back in the loop...

Phoenix/ Scottsdale/ Arizona

was out at the ISPE Annual Meeting this week in Scottsdale, AZ...

read the review here!!!

I had never been to that part of the country before...Interesting terrain, the flat desert plain surrounded by the rocky bits popping up around the city...hard to get used to the brown gravel desert color scheme, no grass, cactus instead of pine trees, etc...

very spread out, but I was surprised at the density in some of the developments I drove by...houses 10 feet apart, really crammed in there...I guess there's only so much room before you hit the next hill...

The conference was at the Desert Ridge Marriott Resort in Scottsdale...very nice place, beautiful inside and outside...palm courts, fountains and water features everywhere, very pleasant staff...

didn't actually stay in the resort due to oerbooking the resort, so I just had to enjoy the place vicariously at the various meeting events...

nice to see a bunch of people, lots of good seminars, but good to get home, too...

Express Yourself...

Find a way to express yourself...

Not just through work, design of structures, buildings, etc, etc...

Paint, sculpt, write an article, start a blog…

It’s easier once you get started...

You’ll find you get better at it...

Documenting your thoughts seems to generate room for more!!!

Trust

more from H MacLeod...

Technology and Trust

I find this to be true more and more...

Ultimately, this industry is about performance...

Been driving up to North Jersey a lot...

for my current project...

I listen to other radio stations as my normal station fades out above Princeton...

So I listen to college radio from that area...interesting

some stations have that quirky college radio feel...the odd presentation, the different programming...

others are surprisingly not that creative, college radio, yes, but just a lot of all the same stuff...I guess that just makes me sound like a middle-aged whiner...
"music was great when I was a kid!!! kids!!!"

and so what does this have to do with anything?

A good way to keep current is to keep some college kids around the office...
this can help keep you close to the cutting edge, or somewhat close, at least...

You can get stale real quick if you don't make a concerted effort to stay current

College radio and recent college grads will not solve all your problems, but it can be one way to stay "hooked up"...

"if it's too loud, you're too old..." this may be truer than I think...

You know you've been traveling too much when...

Your bed at home feels different, not the hotel bed...

You have a favorite radio station in a different city...

The shuttle driver asks how your kids are doing...

The Satellite Franchise Virtual Office Model

Why do we drive so far to work?

been thinking about this issue for a while...

now that gas is $3 a gallon, it may make more sense...even if it doesn't make any more sense there may be more pressure to adopt something like this...

Think of McDonalds, Walgreens, or Home Depot...

A location wherever you go, all similar, close to home, convienient...

Offices should go to the employees rather than making them come to you...gives you the best possible shot at the biggest possible talent pool...the ability to draw on every possible employee...

linked with technology to form a virtual group...Obviously, the challenge is to truly work together as a group...hey that's a challenge anyway...

the engineering company as a series of small "franchise" locations, acting together virtually to make up the required horsepower...

just athought...

the porous membrane: why corporate blogging works.

from the gaping void blog

I like this explanation...hopefully this blog and the website offer the same opportunities...

Things you might here me say...

"Actions speak louder than words..." could be considered Rule No. 1

"Make a qualitative difference..." don't just have an opinion

"Overtaken By Events..." also known as "OBE"

"There is a need for precision..." 'nuff said

"Never ignore fundamentals..."

"There is no substitute for preparation..." I'm not kidding...

"Life is not a perfect process..."

"Draw like you know what you're doing..."

"A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed later..." I thought this was attributed to Patton but I have never been able to confirm it.

"Looking spontaneous is a matter of careful preparation..." M. Twain by way of R. Heinlein.

"Make an effort, not an excuse..." taken from a poster in the gym at our local elementary school...it would be a pleasant chnage if people focussed the energy they expend coming up with excuses and reasons for not doing their work on actually doing work...

Draining New Orleans Easier Said Than Done

good article from ENR.com

In particular, check out the link to the slideshow of the damage to the levees and pumping stations...

good luck to everyone down there...

Wrapping up the summer...

at the beach today...

back to school...back to work...

it's nice to have an extra day off...I'll still be working, but at least I'll be at home...been much too busy lately

HST ...the send-off...

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

later, dude!!!


link from yahoo.com

Residential Design goes on vacation...

link from metacool.com

What People Hang on Their Walls...

I like to look at what people have hanging on their walls...
People have to feel pretty strongly about something before they hang it on the wall...at home, but especially at work...

something that makes a statement beyond "here's a picture of my wife/ kids" is rare...

Here's a story about 2 such statements...

"In the Land of the Blind, the One-eyed Man is King"- Bob Yerby

Bob had a plaque on his wall with this quote on it...I asked him if it was overall a postive or negative sentiment...He indicated that he felt it was very positive in that you maybe weren't that far from success...

I find myself thinking about the "Land of the Blind" part more often than not...


"The ABC's of Project Management"- Paul Buckham

A- know where you are
B- know where you want to go
C- know how you're going to get there

Paul had this on his wall printed on a piece of paper...how many people have you worked with or how many projects have you worked on that could have benefited from this fundamental description of the PM function...


Bob and Paul are both great guys and good engineers/ project managers...They were once referred to on Fluor's Financial message board as "oil patch renegades"...if that is true, then we could use a few more renegades in the industry...

Telling War Stories...

You know how you hate hearing "war stories"...

"we did work for them 17 years ago, it was a great job, we did this...We did that...blah, blah, blah..."

wasting time in meetings, boring, off topic, etc, etc...

Well, maybe blogs make a great place for "war stories"...

if they're interesting, topical, well written, make a point etc, etc...

so maybe I'll crank out a series of the good ones...

Astronomy Picture of the Day

cool pictures daily...if you're curious...

link to ASPOD

So it's been 20 years...

December 1984...a date with a relative degree of infamy...for me anyway...

The University of Maryland...(check out the cool "Deep Impact" program)
or more specifically the School of Architecture...

grabbed my degree and off I went...

and here I am...20 down, 19 to go...I want to retire early...I don't want to, it's just that it feels better thinking I'm more than halfway thru

So how is everybody doing?...I guess I should have gone to the re-union...
I seem to remember all of the day-to-day stuff, like staying employed, getting in the way, but I probably should have made the time

I still have such vivid memories from my time there...the people, the efforts, the struggles...the experience was the beginning of defining myself as a person (that sound's a bit much, doesn't it?)...if you where there maybe you know what I mean...

Hey, some of you are still there...Raplh, Karl, Frank, Cindy...
Others appear to be out of academia, practicing in the industry...Steve, the Arnolds...locally (New Jersy local...) the Westfields...

I hope this finds you all well, happy, and healthy...

Well, I gotta go crank out another 20...

more to come...

How To Be Creative...

from H Macleod's blog

to quote Karl DuPuy, "some good, some bad, some ugly..."

but it is still an enjoyable read...

If it was Important...

you would already be doing it...
If you're not already doing it, you don't feel that strongly about it...

If it was Important, it would already be done...
If it's not already done, you don't feel that strongly about it...


This seems to fly in the face of the Continuous Improvement theory.

Maybe you don't need a rationale...

Maybe if you think it's important just START doing it.

Engineer Interview Triage?

A neat post about interviewing engineers (software types) and pertinent questions for talent-spotting...

link from Bnoopy Blog

What questions would you ask your Architect?

The pace of change...

from a previous post over at philly pharm bio

What we do is different from manufacturing a product. We deliver a service, and we like to think that “Service” is higher up the “Value Added” chain than a “Product” and maybe it is.

I was in the check-out line at the local food store the other day... they sell digital cameras in line at the food store!!! This was a cool new technology just short time ago...now it's a commodity on display along with the skittles

It made me glad that I'm not designing electronics and fighting the back side of the technology curve...or trying to invent the next item on the "bleeding edge"...

There's been a lot of talk about the out-sourcing of the service industry...and yeah, there is a lot of pressure on the commodity services...

I still see the need for high-end service...the Client's need it...if you're good at it...you'll get paid

unless, of course, I see "How to Be an Architect" book/ software on sale at the Thriftway...

Like-minded-ness...not getting it done...

(is that even a word?...)

I had heard a story when I was in school that one of the partners from SOM made a statement along the lines of "if we all agree with each other, we don't need three partners..."

If you are surrounded people that agree with you, how are you going to get anything done? The discussions that accompany different viewpoints are where all (most...some...) of the good ideas come from...

I heard that someone from Washington, DC was presenting their ideas to a group of people... who already happen to agree... How does that change anything? or move anything forward?

These aren't the people who need to be convinced...
these aren't the people you could learn from...
Not too unexpectedly, this is a deadlocked situation with litle to no possibility of progress...

Lesson Learned: Don't surround yourself with people with agree you...especially if you want to get something done.

"Research and Development"

We use this phrase all the time...it's part of typical project scope...it's something we provide a facility for other people to do.

However, to what extent do we think about this phrase in terms of ourselves?

Research...what have we tried to discover lately? something really different...

Development...what have we learned lately? what skill have we picked up lately?

More importantly, is this part of a specifc plan? with a budget? a schedule?

Big Pharma companies have entire portions of their companies dedicated to this issue...with the biggest budgets, best facilties, etc...they know how important R+D is to their future...

more on this topic is available from tompeters.com, specifcally the re-imagine book

Cool Post From Sigurd Rinde's Blog

bad ideas, rules and other structural beams...


Link

Eats, Shoots & Leaves...

I have just finished reading "Eats, Shoots & Leaves"...

My daughter was reading this book for her English Literature class, and I picked it up...I try to read something out of most of the books the kids are using for school...No one in their class wanted to read "Withering-ly Dull Heights" or something along those lines.

What a great book!!!... I found it really funny, which is a bit peculiar considering it is a book about punctuation. It is very well written and the author has a great sense of humor. It is also very comprehensive...more than I thought I ever needed to know, but it is a fun read which move along at a good pace.

The main site for the book is here Feel free to stop by and test your puncutation skills...

On the serious side, a lot of our work consists of writing, which does not always come so easily for a lot of us...even if you strugle with the content, at least get the puncuation right!!!

I found out I use too many ellipses...which, by the way, are the 3 dot things I'm always sticking at the end of each thought...forgive me, Lynne Truss...I'm also a firm believer in the Oxford comma...boy, the stuff you didn't know!

In case you missed it, the punch line for the book is on the back of the dust jacket...it's about a panda...think about it, you'll get it...

The God Particle...

I have just finished reading "The God Particle"

What a great book!!! It is by Leon Lederman who is a very witty physicist...more about Mr. Lederman can be found here in a wikipedia and here

The sub-title is "If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question?" just in case you want something to think about late at night.

I have always been interested in physics...and in particular (great pun, huh?) quantum mechanics/ particle physics...hey, we all need a hobby, right?

Anyway, this is a very well-written, well-presented history of the evolution of our knowledge of the really small particles and such that make up our world...I found this portion of the book fascinating from both a scientific and historical viewpoint ...on top of that, it's funny!

I am actually re-reading the entire book to re-visit the portions that are not as accessible as others...after all, it's about particle physics...

The disappointment of the next big Supercollider project being cancelled leaves the book end on a down note...

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would recommend it if this field (another good one...) interests you.

Blogging Interphex 2005

Spent a couple of days at Interphex...see the posts per day:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

I've started another Career!!!...

Ghostwriting!!!...

so far it doesn't pay that well...if you were interested...

Jorge Ferreira was tapped to do a presentation to the first-ever joint meeting of the New England Chapter of the PDA and the Boston Chapter of the ASQ...
The title of the talk was "The Extra Work that goes into a Facility when it is FDA Regulated..." or something like that...

Jorge has been very busy at work on an aseptic filling facility (his specialty, of course...) and didn't think he had time to fully prepare a presentation...and as usual, I'm always up for something different to do...

So I became Jorge's speechwriter...

I didn't make the presentation, but I hear it went very well...He's been invited to make another presentation on a different topic...

Maybe I can get a fee this time!!!...

Static versus Dynamic a la Tom Peters

I'm a big Tom Peters fan...started with "A Passion for Excellence..." a long time ago...recently read "Re-imagine..."

I'm a regular visitor to his site and, although I'm starting to have some concerns with the content and focus, read most of his stuff...

I have never personally seen Tom speak, but I do look at his event slides...
Eye-catching- if you think ugly is eye-catching...(I guess I'm trying to be polite...but let's try to focus (for once...) on content rather than format...) click thru some of the presentations and see what I mean...

Anywho...he has a slide about Static versus Dynamic...the implication is that, in Tom's world, Static is Bad,...and Dynamic is Good...which initially, I had no problem with...who wants to be considered "static" anyway...

Then I started looking at the qualities he had listed under each category...All of the stuff under Dynamic sounds great...no problem with any of that...see below

Dynamic/ Different

Dramatic Difference
Disruptive
Insanely Great (Quality++++)
Life- (Industry-) Changing Event
Game-changing
WOW!
Surprise
Delight
Breathtaking
Punctuated Equilibrium
Market Creation

We should all be striving every day to achieve every item listed under Static...the supposedly "Bad" category...see below

Static/ Imitative

Integrity
Quality
Excellence
Continuous Improvement
Superior Service (exceeds expectations)
Completely Satisfactory Transaction
Smooth Evolution
Market Share


If that is what it means to be "Static"...sign me up!!!

Leading...

when you lose...

from the Philly pharm Bio Blog...

Smarter Conversations

Smarter Conversations

I'll be adding some more links to H. Macleod's Gaping Void site

Team Memberships...

now available, or not...


From the Philly Pharm Bio Blog...

The "Integrated Design Solution"

I was preparing my remarks for a Client presentation the other day and found myself considering talking about "delivering an Integrated Design Solution..."

luckily I decided to go with a joke instead...

I know what I mean when I use this phrase...at least I think I do...
but...I don't think it communicates that well to others...

So...a few words about...

the "Integrated Design Solution"...insert blare of trumpets here...

more to come

Been Traveling...

I was out of town this week...

went to College Park to look at the University and take a tour...

we also went to Washington for a rather soggy visit to the Mall and the Air and Space Museum...

I'll try to get some pictures posted...


It was a dark and dreary night, I mean, day... 

Changing Jobs...again...

I am pleased to be re-joining WGI in Princeton...

At least my list of places I've worked didn't get any longer...it's been a very unstable time for all of us...

While I don't enjoy changing jobs as often as I find myself doing it ( I find it stressful...), there are also some benefits...

It is good to get a different perspective, and see how other people do things...I find this leads to new ideas...it also keeps you informed about what the competition is doing...

As always, it never hurts to widen the network...

Living History...and Stage Set Design...

This is "Living History" week at Strawbridge School...

This years topic is Immigration...Eileen's classroom was to cover the Trans-Atlantic journey on the steamships of the day...

How do you turn a classroom into the "experience" of boarding a steamship for the journey to the New World...well it takes a gangplank, some cardboard, some paint, and last but not least, some duct tape, as usual...the kids will provide the imagination!!!

The "stage set" aspect of it is fun...create an image, suspend disbelief for a second...what does the mind need to complete the image? I enjoyed the freedom and relaxed approach...It was still challenging...

I stuck to the stage design and production(Facility Design)...I'll chicken out and let the Mom's cover the acting part of the presentation (Operations)...

Isn't that how it always is?...

Current Writing and Web Updates...

I'm thinking that this will be my new tool for updating someof the stuff I had been putting, or trying to put, on my site...

This is a lot easier to update...

We'll see how it works out...

A Good Story Later...

Well, I've now closed an office...

AMEC's Philly operation has closed up...the boxes are gone...the phones are dis-connected, people pushed out, etc, etc, etc...

Eventually this will make for a good story...

right now it doesn't feel that way.

First Post

Been trying to get the technology things sorted out...

can't seem to get this integrated in to my website http://jamesfduffy.com...

so for now I will just keep it separate...