Take Good Care: How to nurture your team, yourself, and your connections in a time of quarantine
If you want to accurately gauge how much something matters to people, all you have to do is to tell them that they’re not allowed to have it. The coronavirus pandemic has forced us into isolation and severely restricted our movement and interaction with other people. It’s also highlighting just how deeply we need and want to be around each other.
Shifting Focus During Radical, Unprecedented Change
As I write this article from my home office, California has just announced that all counties in the state, home to a population of over 40 million people, are now under a mandatory shelter in place order. Needless to say, things have escalated swiftly.
Civic Engagement as a Practice Strategy
The idea of building a profession of engaged leaders for our communities and advocates for the critical issues where we possess unique knowledge is essential to enhance the quality of life and serve our communities. It is also the foundation for a business strategy for our practices. In pursuit of this objective, we need to […]
The Key to Client Education
By the time we’re adults it’s likely that many of us have interacted with a doctor, maybe an accountant, perhaps a lawyer, or at least we know someone who has. It’s equally unlikely that the general population has purchased or been involved with the services of a professional designer of any kind. As a society […]
The Truth About Design Thinking
Design-Thinking has become a common catch phrase in the public lexicon but it’s much more than a euphemism for the design process. By understanding and applying the philosophy that underlies this powerful concept, architects can potentially unlock new sources of value. There’s something to the adage that the more things change the more they stay the […]
Work Life, Work-Life, Worklife
I have found that the best way to come to terms with work-life balance, especially as an architect that has been trained from college to expect many sleepless nights, is that balance is not the ultimate goal – adaptability is. Life is inherently messy and unpredictable. Things are not always going to go as planned […]
Is Your Firm Telling a Meaningful Story?
In my experience serving as a client representative, I have found that architects and interior designers are generally horrible storytellers when it comes to selling their services.
Designing a Better Survey
While anyone can send out a survey, designing one is truly a science. When getting my Master in Public Administration, I took an entire semester on research methodology, during which I learned how to create statistical tools that systematically describe information, apply empirical evidence to the discovery of intuitive and experiential knowledge, and inform decision making through accurate generalization and hypothesis testing
How to Effectively Communicate With the C-Suite
After such meetings, my clients rarely talk about the design process, even though I know that the designers have taken painstaking steps to create an environment around a client’s vision. With this disconnect in mind, here are several points to help get the conversation going.
Using Your Firm’s Internal Knowledge to Your Advantage
Proper knowledge management will provide a foundation that can be harnessed to grow business development and marketing efforts, support existing and future projects, and empower employees.