Big Picture, fixing construction questions

Contributed by Elias Saltz

Many of the listed contributors of the Let's Fix Construction team will be in Austin this week for the CSI Annual Convention and CONSTRUCT.  Many words have already been written by the contributors to this blog (and others) about how getting together and having face to face dialog with our cohorts help us learn to better communicate with other stakeholders in the construction industry.  This year will be no different in that regard.  At CONSTRUCT, I plan to attend a variety of seminars covering the topics of building technology and specification effectiveness which will help me as an individual to improve what I do at work, and will allow me to share my own expertise as well.  I can improve my own competence, make my company’s product better, and spread some wisdom at the same time.
 
What is a little different this year is that having become a contributor to Let’s Fix Construction, I will be thinking constantly about how what I am learning can be used more broadly by the readers of this site. I will think in terms of considering bigger picture “fixing construction” questions and not just focus on my own performance in my own little corner of the AEC world.
 
Additionally, I plan a strategy of having as many side discussions as I can with professionals across the industry, listening to their opinions on the state of construction.  I plan to build a dossier of those accumulated complaints, observations, ideas and solutions to round out my own contributions to Let’s Fix Construction.  In order to push people into thinking beyond just their immediate concerns, I am coming up with a few talking points/questions to put to the people I encounter, and hopefully others will follow my lead and we can quickly accumulate some really good ideas to share more widely.
 
The goal is to pose questions in order to gradually help people broaden their thinking.  Rather than leaping to the biggest-picture questions first, I think it’s useful to ask them to focus first on their own business, which they naturally know best, and talk about how they relate to affiliated professionals.  As we continue the discussion, I hope to provoke them to consider their own vantage of the industry as a whole and think about where they see the gaps and opportunities to fill those gaps.
 
I suggest the rest of the LFC contributor team go with a similar goal of having in-depth talks with attendees and trade show vendors in order to come back energized to make use of our new platform.  And of course, whether or not you contribute to LFC, I encourage everyone who attends CONSTRUCT to engage in as many in-depth conversations as they can in order to broaden the way we think about solving problems.  Having so many of us in one place offers an opportunity too good to miss.