I am doing the opening talk at a social media and construction marketing pre-conference training day in London on 3 February 2010, organised by Emap Networks, the events arm of the publisher of Construction News, Architects’ Journal and other publications, and run in collaboration with CIMCIG.

The event will re-unite me with former Emap marketing director now marketing consultant Ross Sturley, who will be chairing the event, and with UK architecture’s arch-Twitter Su Butcher and blogging expert Gemma Went of Red Cube Marketing. The post-lunch sessions will be delivered by Edward Charvet of Trovus – talking about LinkedIn – and by Danielle Sheerin and Ross Breadmore of Nixon McInnes – talking about using Facebook (agenda here). It will not be a day for sitting back and listening either, as delegates will be challenged to undertake various tasks between the sessions.

Perhaps showing just how powerful social media can be as a business networking aid, I met up with Su and Gemma two weeks ago to discuss the event – our meeting set up by an exchange of Tweets, including the URL of a shared Google Map. I then met Ross later the same day, fulfilling a promise made via LinkedIn. And the following week travelled back from the excellent Dell B2B Social Media Huddle in Bracknell (an event I learned about through a blog post by Neville Hobson) with Nixon McInnes founder Will McInnes.  I like to think that it’s no longer “it’s a small world” – instead “it’s just an increasingly connected world”.

There were a variety of reports within the past week that seem to verify that the national economy has come off the mat and that the root causes of the recession are being remedied. Much potential exists for a second leg down for the stock markets, another fainancial market slide or implosion if the institutions have been hiding big losses and hoping for growth to cover them, but at least there is good national news.

Third quarter GDP was 3.5%, better than the 3.1% predicted. Cash-for-clunkers, ARRA accounted for much of the growth, however, so fourth quarter numbers should be tepid, maybe even negative. The Obama administration claims 3M jobs were created/saved, but unemployment has crested the 10% mark.

 Housing market news is better. Total state existing-home sales, including single-family and condo, increased 11.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.3 million units in the third quarter from 4.76 million units in the second quarter, and are now 5.9 percent above the 5.01 million-unit pace in the third quarter of 2008.

Sales increased from the second quarter in 45 states and the District of Columbia; 28 states and D.C. saw double-digit gains. Year-over-year sales were higher in 32 states and D.C.

Financing for commercial development is showing life for the first time in more than a year. Several large insurance companies have alerted the brokerage community that their money is back in the market and are looking for deals. For developers the down side is the deals are not going to resemble anything like recent years, but most are willing to go 75% loan-to-value, a significant increase over the willingness to extend this spring. The estimates are that money coming back into play approaches $1 trillion

The most significant event of recent weeks was the Developers Diversified CMBS issue of $400 million, which sold out overnight with a reduced risk premium of 140 basis points on AAA bonds, compared to the 200 BP that was offered initially. The AA-rated portion of the bonds carried a yield of 5.75% and the A-rated portion was 6.25%. These aren’t substantially different from what was offered during the heyday of CMBS sales in 2006-2007. The assets backing the securities were retail properties which were government guaranteed under the TALF program. This isn’t a return to normalcy in the CMBS market but it clearly demonstrates demand for the products, and is at least the first issue in 18 months.

 Pace of unemployment has slowed nationally, now around 200K jobs instead of 600-700K jobs in spring. Closer to home, October’s unemployment was flat in PA, with the actual number of people working rising slightly. In western PA the unemployment rate still rests more than 2% below the national rate

Finally, the most recent quarter’s numbers from the National Association of Realtors showed the prices rose in the Pittsburgh area, where the median price in the third quarter was $124,600, vs. $122,700 in the same quarter last year. Housing starts remain low in the region, which will support current housing prices by keeping inventory low.

 None of this represents robust market conditions, but all of the data is consistent with what happens during the first quarters of economic recovery. Keep your fingers crossed for no more unexpected calamity.

Earlier today, the Twitter grapevine tweeted the news that UK construction industry weekly magazine Contract Journal (CJ) and its website, contractjournal.com, is to be shut down from the end of this month. The announcement by parent company Reed Business Information was made in an email (a tweet from Kirstie Colledge of Simply Marcomms prompted me to look in my old BIW inbox – bingo!), and – having written more than once about CJ’s online presence in my blog at ExtranetEvolution.com – I quickly cut and pasted the relevant paragraph into a blog post about the closure.

Contract Journal has been a fixture of the UK construction market for 130 years, but faced a double whammy. First, like many newspapers and magazines it suffered from dwindling circulation in the face of the digital onslaught (Laura Oliver’s Journalism.co.uk story points out that other RBI titles have also been forced into redundancies, in addition to the six at CJ; yesterday saw news of 100 redundancies at the Guardian media group). Second, CJ was also focused on an industry that has borne the brunt of the current recession. With too many firms chasing too few contracts at too tight margins, construction firms going bust daily, recruitment almost at a stand-still, and hard-pressed survivors cutting their marketing expenditure, it was perhaps inevitable that CJ – so dependent on advertising – would be at risk.

Not just the magazine

The closure also has repercussions for other CJ products. Brian Green’s almost unremittingly gloomy Brickonomics blog should, I think, survive, but other CJ efforts to embrace web 2.0 and build relationships with readers will probably disappear. (Update – 4 December 2009 – Brickonomics has been resurrected courtesy of UBM’s Building magazine – credit also to Reed’s Adam Tinworth who helped deliver the transfer.)

CJ’s two major awards programmes will also vanish from the calendar. Construction PR and marketing people will no longer spend hours each spring polishing entries for CJ’s Construction Industry Awards, or working out seating plans for the awards dinner each autumn (apparently the engraved trophies from this year’s event have just been despatched to the winners). And CJ’s Best Places to Work in Construction (which probably no longer include RBI) won’t be challenging AEC firms’ HR departments either.

The gut reaction from many industry PR and marketing people will almost certainly be one of sadness. We have lost a venerable title, six journalists (some of them long-standing friends and experienced industry-watchers and opinion-formers) stand to lose their jobs, and there will be one fewer weekly to which we can pitch our news stories and feature ideas, buy advertising space, or look for sponsorship and publicity spin-offs from events.

So where next?

Emap’s weekly Construction News clearly stands to pick up some of the advertisers but it is by no means clear how that publication is going to cope with the changing media environment. It is about to enter uncharted waters by imposing a subscription model on its online content, and UBM’s Building magazine’s recent reintroduction of reader registration hints that it may also bring down a paywall on some of its website content. Both publications are also investing in social media and in online and offline events and awards programmes.

But maybe, in the current media environment, now is a good time for us PR people and marketeers to rethink our focus on publishers and to augment some of the tools we have tended to rely upon (literature, events, hospitality, direct marketing, email, corporate websites, etc).

I would argue the recession makes this a good time to look at cost-effective ways of communicating our messages direct to customers, employees, influencers, investors, regulators and other publics. Instead of regarding the digital onslaught as a threat, perhaps we should see it as an opportunity to invest in social media tools and techniques, start conversations and take a more active role in helping people formulate their own opinions about us, our companies, products and services.

The effects of the global recession have gripped the non-residential construction market in western PA as the fourth quarter of 2009 begins. Contracting during the first three quarters of the year was down 26.6% from last year. Non-residential construction during January-September was $1.98 billion, down from $2.7 billion during the same period in 2008. “The pace of bidding was about normal for late summer but the average size of the opportunity was much lower,” says Burd. “The pipeline of projects being proposed is improving, but the competitive pressure on contractors to build backlogs is showing in bids. The tight market will continue through at least the first half of 2010”

Reduced global demand has dampened the plans for almost all of the big projects slated to start in 2009, and profit pressures on corporations, combined with poorer results from the institutional sector has limited capital expenditures across the board.

Single family housing starts fell more than 32.3% compared to last year during the nine months of 2009, but that volume represents an improvement over mid-year levels. “While there was probably some goose to the market from the $8,000 tax credit, most of the improvement came in September, which would be too late for most buyers to start and close on a home in time,” said Jeff Burd, President of Tall Timber Group. “I expect that the decline will continue to narrow as the next six months proceeds, both because the October to April period last year was so slow and because demand is recovering.” Burd cited reports from the annual Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh (BAMP) Festival of Homes, held in late September, of higher than average traffic as reinforcement to anecdotal evidence of an uptick from individual realtors. “There is still a long way to go before we see a return to the normal pace of home construction, however,” cautioned Burd.

During the January through September period 1,090 permits were issued for single-family detached units, down from 1,609 last year. Attached units also declined, with 807 units started compared to 1,056 during 2008. The overall housing construction market was down 28.8%.

Tall Timber Group, based in Ross Township, is a research and consulting firm for businesses marketing in the construction industry. Founded in 2000 Tall Timber is also the publisher of BreakingGround magazine. The totals listed below represent the number of new housing units for which building permits were issued, excluding mobile homes and elderly care complexes. The top areas were:

Last week, the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Interest Group (CIMCIG) and the journalist and PR association International Building Press (IBP) hosted a joint debate, chaired by Media Week’s Steve Barrett, on ‘The future of the construction media‘ at the Building Centre in London. As a long-time PR member of IBP and a regular at recent CIMCIG events, I went along, took a couple of photos and – along with my fellow PR Liz Male – kept up a flow of live-Tweets throughout the debate before retiring to the nearby College Arms to continue what turned out to be quite a wide-ranging conversation.

Free v Paid-for content

In line with ongoing debates about the national media, it wasn’t long before the discussion turned to the relative merits of ‘free’ (usually advertising-funded) publications versus ‘paid-for’ content, and there were some interesting moments during which the distinction between pure editorial and advertising got a bit blurred. We lurched from advertorial, through colour separation charges to what Construction News editor Nick Edwards referred to as “revenue-generating editorial” (I think talking about sponsored supplements or sponsored roundtable discussions, but the exact nature of such content was still – he said – being finalised).

As the evening wore on it was revealed that Construction News (and therefore probably the rest of the Emap construction publications, including New Civil Engineer and Architects’ Journal) would be locking down its website content and going subscription-only before the end of this year. Of course, over the past few years, we’ve got used to being able to read news headlines free (whether direct on the website or via links in Twitter and e-newsletters) so this will be a major change for many current consumers of Emap’s output. It will also be interesting to see how major rival B2B publishers such as UBM and Reed respond.

Web 2.0

Niki May Young, news editor of online-only World Architecture News, gave a very upbeat assessment of the potential of web-based publications and the power of social media. “Print is being phased out,” she said (perhaps a tad provocatively), “newspapers will become novelty not the norm”. She pointed out some publishers are increasingly converging print, audio and video content and also looking to promote greater interaction with their readers/listeners/viewers – indeed, Twitter had become part of the news-gathering regime at WAN, she said (but only a handful of people in room confessed to following a trade title on Twitter).

It was clear from both agency and in-house marketing/PR people that there remains considerable scepticism about the value of social media. Audience members talked about how flicking through a magazine was still inherently enjoyable (prompting an incoming Tweet from my friend Stan Hornagold: “The best thing about magazines? They ‘boot up’ immediately“), and stereotyped AEC marketing decision-makers as white, grey-haired males for whom “pipe, slippers, print and colour seps” are more familiar and comfortable.

The tendency for construction-related businesses to block acess to social networking sites was raised, and one attendee suggested the UK AEC industry was lagging behind the US in its use of LinkedIn for B2B marketing, prompting panelist Mike Webb from Corus to say that his company had just undertaken its first campaign on LinkedIn. Interestingly, another delegate said his manufacturing business was coping with a reduced advertising budget by bypassing conventional media and instead using Ning-based websites to engage directly with existing and potential customers (see my Element14 post); someone else added that social media was often more cost-effective for SMEs (see The internet as a lifeline for SMEs).

For CIB’s Andy Cassie, the key issue was one of research: “We need to know what is working best; we need research to show how quantifiable the trends are in the AEC marketing sphere”. If nothing else, this event demonstrated the current confusion that currently surrounds both advertisers and consumers on one side and publishers and journalists on the other; no single model effectively combining print and online has yet emerged; and some independent research would certainly be a great step forward in helping clarify what construction marketers valued and were prepared to invest in. Maybe this is something that CIMCIG should undertake? (I, for one, would be pleased to help undertake the project).

Julian Kang, associate professor and graduate program coordinator, Texas A&M University, www.tamu.edu, College Station, Texas, had a clear reason for wanting to host a BIM (building information modeling) forum in Houston—to talk about everything the industry can do with BIM, specifically in the construction phase of a project. Read More

Nonresidential Construction Industry May Have Hit Bottom

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 22, 2009) – Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) today reports that the nation’s Construction Backlog Indicator (CBI) for July rose 8.9 percent to 6.1 months from 5.6 months in June. The CBI is a gauge on the amount of construction work to be completed, measured in time, currently under contract.

“While the magnitude of monthly increase was significant and impressive, June was the lowest point for the CBI since ABC began collecting national data in November 2008. At that time, the CBI stood at 7.1 months, or 14 percent above its current level of 6.1 months,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu.

“The July data strongly reflect the effects of the stimulus package signed into law in February on the commercial, institutional, industrial and infrastructure construction segments,” said Basu. “In the months ahead, we expect higher levels of actual construction spending, a welcome sign for the industry and the economy at large, and an indication that the downturn may be over for the nonresidential construction industry, though not all segments.”

ABC’s CBI represents the only reliable leading economic indicator focused on the U.S. commercial, institutional, industrial and infrastructure construction industries at this level of detail. The indicator is published bi-monthly and data are collected from ABC members on an ongoing basis…Read More

It’s been an amazing summer with “Lost Egypt” at COSI. There were several particularly memorable experiences for me.

1. After years of looking at a small table-top paper scale model of the exhibit, it was incredible to walk into the gallery for the first time and see the real exhibits and murals and walls. Seeing the large scale murals of Egypt, as well as Brad Feinknopf’s photos in the hallway, reminded me of our trip to Egypt.
2. Watching visitors at our member event with archaeologists Dr. Mark Lehner and Ana Tavares from Ancient Egypt Research Associates, and Dr. Jonathan Elias from the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, was so great. I got to introduce two girls who want to become archaeologists to Ana as they walked through the exhibit!
3. I saw hundreds of people climb on the camel, build a pyramid, search out the archaeological clues from the Lost City site, move a pyramid block, discover artifacts, watch a show about the afterlife, come face to face with a mummy, explore tomb art, and study the forensic science behind mummies. I really hope we managed to capture some of the excitement and sense of wonder that is the science of archaeology, and share it with our visitors.
4. We performed formal evaluations, received written comments, and overheard lots of conversations about “Lost Egypt”. We really value all the comments from visitors and colleagues – everything that was said about what you liked and didn’t like, what you found compelling, beautiful, or boring, is so useful in planning our future exhibits. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Now we’re preparing to close “Lost Egypt”. I feel a bit like I’m sending my kid off on her first day of school. “Lost Egypt”is heading out into the world to tour the U.S. for the next several years. It was the most wonderful, exhausting, amazing and challenging work project I’ve ever had. I’m so grateful for the help of Josh, Carli, Jenn and all the others at COSI who helped turn the idea into reality. And the Science Museum of Minnesota team who brought it to life was incredible – I miss working with all of you, and hope we can head off to Jordan or Greece or Mexico for the next adventure some day soon! It’s been a privilege to work on Lost Egypt, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

An interview from the top of the world.

This is the final week of the Lost Egypt exhibit. It’s hard to believe that after a 5-year development process, our 3 months of hosting the exhibit is already coming to an end. What a journey it’s been. The Cincinnati Museum Center has just announced that they will host the exhibit this fall, so our team of experts will be packing up the exhibit after Labor Day, and shipping her down to Cincinnati. At least those of us close to the project can drive south 90 minutes to visit! If you haven’t been yet, I would definitely recommend you take advantage of this last week that the exhibit is open, and come down to COSI – the Labor Day deadline is looming…

3D Pottery Puzzle

COSI makes history – Newly developed model of mummy “Annie” just installed in COSI’s Lost Egypt exhibit – they are the first full-torso, life-size renderings of an Egyptian mummy to be made using the rapid prototype process. Dr. Jonathan Elias, Director of the Akhmim Mummy Studies Consortium, produced the 3D models from CT scans taken showing the various layers of the mummy’s wrappings, exclusively for COSI’s Lost Egypt exhibition.

Rapid Prototype Torso

Single family housing starts fell more than 39% compared to last year during the first half of 2009. “The buyers’ response to tough market conditions has been strong and builders have responded by keeping new inventory off the street,” said Jeff Burd, President of Tall Timber Group. “It was pretty obvious from the activity levels month to month that much of the slowdown was early in the year, when the fear from last fall’s financial panic was still palpable; however, the spring permits don’t indicate much easing of the uncertainty.”

 During the January through June period 697 permits were issued for single-family detached units, down 39.4% from the same period last year. Attached units also declined, with 614 units started compared to 641 during the first half of 2008.  The overall housing construction market was down 26.8%. 

 ”There really isn’t anything upbeat in this market, but the hopeful signs are that the decline has slowed significantly from the first to second quarter,” says Burd.  “And, the one positive trend continues to be the solid demand for living in the city, as Pittsburgh proper lead the region in single-family permits, a first since we began covering the area in 1994.” 

 Non-residential construction was down almost 18% from last year, but contracting volume was up over 75% from the first quarter of 2009.  Contracting during January-June was $1.3 billion, down from $1.58 billion in 2008.  “The pace of bidding is better than you might expect for a recession,” says Burd.  “The pipeline of projects being proposed is improving, with architects and engineers seeing some uptick in the number of proposal requests, however, the pressure on contractors to build backlogs is starting to show in bids.”

 Reduced global demand has dampened the plans for almost all of the big projects slated to start in 2009, and Tall Timber has modified it forecast for non-residential construction for 2009 to $2.4 billion. “Unless the bigger economy begins to grow sooner than it appears it will, I’m not hearing anything to suggest that AK Steel or Allegheny Ludlum will begin until next year” noted Burd. The other large industrial project, USS Clairton Works, has already been shelved.

 The totals listed below represent the number of new housing units for which building permits were issued, excluding mobile homes and elderly care complexes.  The top areas were:

This is the seventh in a series expanding on my friend Ross Sturleys’ Ten Things to Cut in a Recession Before You Cut Your Marketing (as presented in recent Construction News marketing e-newsletters and in his Chart Lane website).

Number seven: “Cut corporate entertainment”

The latest target for Ross’s cost-cutting zeal is ‘golf days’ (see his Construction News article), and he quotes  Peter Woolliscroft, chair of the Construction Clients’ Group and former head of Procure21, who told February’s CIMCIG conference that ‘the days of procurement decisions being based on golf days were long gone’.

In Ross’s view, some sales managers use golf days as a corporate excuse to indulge in one of their favourite pastimes while talking to key customers – thus betraying a lack of confidence in their ability to do anything but focus on selling. Ross suggests equipping them with skills and information that help show how they, their company and/or their products or services differ from the competition:

“Differentiate your business through clear and useful communications, your actions, and your delivery.“

Again, I would propose some Web 2.0 aspects to cutting corporate entertainment. Here’s five ideas:

1. Get blogging – I wrote earlier this year about why companies should blog and in a follow-up guest post HOK’s ‘chief blogger’ talked about using blogs to help change the external perception of the company and to appeal to future business partners and clients (strategies also shared by other firms – see Blog motivations in large AEC companies). Whether companies want to make their corporate personality more human or promote their positions on strategic issues, blogging can be a good way of helping differentiate one supplier from another – assuming, of course, that the customer or prospect reads – or, at the very least, can be directed to read – the corporate blog.
2. Get Tweeting – Similarly, if the customer or prospect uses Twitter (and a small but increasingly connected minority of AEC professionals are beginning to embrace this micro-blogging approach), then quick responses to questions, useful links or comments, can again show how you or your business can make a difference (see Should every business Twitter?).
3. Take events online – With recession-driven time constraints restricting opportunities to meet face-to-face, why not use the internet to meet customers? Using WebEx, Glance, LiveMeeting, Ustream, etc, some events (think CPD training seminars, hints and tips, Ask the Expert, case study presentations, product launches, etc) can be held online with no travel requirement and a limited time commitment. And even if people can’t attend a live event, you can usually record them and share them afterwards (including via YouTube, Vimeo and Slideshare).
4. Share the insights of other customers – Sometimes suppliers of goods or services overlook the value that is locked-up within their organisation’s relationships. Building an online community or creating a wiki that allows customers to share knowledge or information with their counterparts can help them learn from others’ good practices, avoid re-inventing the wheel, etc
5. Make virtual relationships face-to-face – As I explained in March (see People having conversations on- and offline and Meet then Tweet), social media need not be restricted to online communication. It is easy to hold an informal “Tweet-up” or to invite members of an online community to meet up for a coffee or a couple of pints. It may not be as structured as a golf day, of course, but your network of complementary professionals could be a powerful differentiator for your customer.

What other tactics could be used to redirect your corporate entertainment budget? Let me know.

Coming soon: Number eight: Cut post

In February I spoke at the CIMCIG conference (see post), and I highlighted a presentation given by Andrew Cassie of CIB Communications, talking about a CIB/CIMCIG survey of AEC marcoms professionals. I was looking forward to the full findings being made more public, and – following receipt of a CIB newsletter – I have just been reviewing the findings.

The survey questionnaire was distributed to “just under 1200″ construction marketers and achieved a 15% response rate (ie: about 180 respondents), of whom about 60% worked for industry organisations – predominantly building product manufacturers, but also some main contractors, consultants and builders’ merchants (who were the others? agency and consultancy staff, perhaps?).

As you might expect, there was some gloom with respect to the likely impact of the recession, and an acceptance that the marketing mix was changing, favouring more PR and online work, and moving away from print advertising, hard copy promotional materials and exhibitions:

• Almost half (47%) said they expected their marketing budget to decrease in 2009 (presumably as a direct consequence of the current recession). Only 14% said they expected to increase marketing spend.
• 57% of respondents regarded their business strategy as marketing-led; 14% felt marketing was an after-thought.
• 53% said it had been easy or fairly easy to secure their marketing budget or funding – roughly the same proportion as those who said marketing was considered an investment (not a cost – as it was seen by 42% of businesses).
• Amid a lot of uncertainty about how expenditure was likely to be divided among different areas of marketing, the main winners were web provision, online, CRM and press relations, while the main losers were trade advertising, corporate entertainment, exhibitions and event and awards sponsorships.
• Looking at the future importance of traditional media, respondents favoured online literature, press relations, online advertising and direct marketing. The losers were likely to be product directories, on-the-page advertising, exhibitions and hard copy literature.
• Looking at digital communications, the survey found business networking rated most highly (used by 60% of respondents), followed by e-newsletters (52%) and social networking (used by 34%). Only about 12% had used corporate blogs.

Digital marketing

Without access to the core data, I can only guess at the facts behind the digital communications findings but I would suggest:

• Having done straw-polls at AEC industry events recently, I think the figure for business networking seems a bit high. I am sure there are numerous individuals using business networks (eg: LinkedIn, Plaxo) to connect to other people, but how many are actually engaged in marketing their companies’ goods or services on these platforms? Did some respondents overlook that this question was focused on digital communication and include their offline networking activities? Or was the figure affected by the inclusion of PR and marketing consultancy types predisposed to use of such tools?
• Similarly, the third of the sample using social networking may reflect the personal habits of the respondents keeping up with their social circles, perhaps including some internal communications with colleagues, and I wonder how many of them are actually engaged in B2B digital communication using social networks? For example, how many of these AEC companies have corporate Facebook strategies, or use Twitter as a B2B medium?
• The corporate blog figure is about what I would expect for AEC organisations – which have historically tended to lag behind other industry sectors in adopting Web 2.0 tools and techniques as part of their communication mix. This is despite the potential of blogs (and other social media) to boost website search engine performance, raise organisations’ profiles and to ‘humanise’ corporate entities and build dialogues with their audiences (see also Should every business have a blog?).

All in all, an interesting survey (one that confirmed some trends from a Construction News survey last year – see Extranet Evolution post), but it would have been good to get more responses from contractors and consultants, and – assuming the sample was sufficiently large to get some statistically reliable figures – to separate out the responses of the different sectors, including agencies/consultancies and clients. Maybe Construction News, CIMCIG and CIB can co-operate on doing a bigger survey next time.

Until the recent explosion of interest in Twitter, much of the popular interest in social media as a communication tool was focused on social networking sites such as Facebook (I was going to talk about other providers such as Bebo and MySpace too, but Facebook appears to be becoming increasingly dominant).

200+ million users

Facebook recently passed its 200 millionth user landmark, adding 50 million in just three months (if Facebook was a country, it would be the fifth most populous in the world), and – according to The Guardian – now accounts for one third of all online social networking time. In the UK, there were nearly 23 million Facebook users as at February 2009.

While Facebook has become a very compelling way for people to connect with each other, its value as a PR or marketing communication route for businesses is less clear, particularly for business-to-business (B2B) purposes such as in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector. But given its spread and the low cost of engagement with the platform (mainly time), it is easy for businesses to at least make a start – perhaps as part of an internal communications or recruitment initiative.

(Having written two blog posts each suggesting 13 things to think about before AEC organisations invest time and effort in social media (business blogging and business use of Twitter), I have stuck to the same approach regarding Facebook.)

13 things to think about

1. Is your business already on Facebook? – Do not ignore Facebook completely. Most UK businesses with 10 staff or more will have at least one regular Facebook user among their employees; Facebook is also widely used to maintain alumni networks of current and former colleagues. During a recent social media audit for a UK-based manufacturer, I found an employee whose profile openly stated on Facebook who he worked for (better still, it was the “Best job in the world!” – a fabulous, unsolicited endorsement of his employer). There was also a Facebook group about the company with four members (all ex-employees) and six photos apparently taken inside the company’s premises. Like it or not, your organisation may already have a Facebook footprint; whether you simply monitor this or seek to expand it is another matter.
2. It’s so time-wasting – shouldn’t we just block Facebook access? – Some organisations block employee access to Facebook completely. But people can bypass such constraints by using external computers or, increasingly, accessing Facebook from web-enabled mobile devices. A blanket ban on Facebook may cause some resentment among employees (perhaps particularly Gen Y staff for whom Facebook is often a staple part of their social interaction), may impact on recruitment/retention, and will also prevent corporate communications people from making effective use of the medium. Other organisations allow access so long as it doesn’t contravene corporate policies on internet access and use of company ICT systems (some organisations have revised their IT usage policies to include guidance on appropriate use of social media).
3. Is the Facebook audience big enough? – Research suggests UK Facebook users visit the site approximately once every two weeks, generating some 8.5 billion page views, and spend about 20 minutes per visit. In terms of potential reach, it is a powerful vehicle for any PR and marketing people.
4. Will my target audience be Facebook users? – Initially, Facebook traffic was dominated by Gen Y people born after 1980, but in recent months, the platform in the UK has seen increased adoption by older age groups (the 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 cohorts are now all larger than the 18-24 age range), and white-collar workers, and – reflecting this – average annual incomes are higher on Facebook than on, say, MySpace (see Gregory Lyons’ post on UK Facebook demographics).
5. What might we use Facebook for? – Originally established to help American students keep in touch, Facebook certainly has appeal as a business-to-consumer (B2C) channel. While it does not have the strong B2B credentials of business-oriented networking sites such as LinkedIn, there may well be opportunities to run ’soft sell’ marketing, recruitment or cause-related campaigns on Facebook that complement other mainstream and Web 2.0 efforts (earlier this year, for example, I described – Targeting early career professionals – how ConstructionSkills used Bebo to encourage teenage girls to consider careers in construction; more recently, the American Institute of Architects used Facebook to promote the US National Architecture Week). And, as already mentioned, Facebook may already be used informally for  internal communications purposes, both between current employees and with former staff – extending into their networks in local communities, interest groups and other companies that they do business with. In short, I think Facebook can be used to creatively develop a community of friends and fans who can act as viral agents to promote and support your business
6. Is Facebook too … er, trendy? With its combination of banners, applications, quizzes and other contests, polls, photos, videos, discussion groups, events, etc, Facebook can be a powerful way for organisations to reach audiences that more mainstream campaigns don’t reach, and to do so in a more human, people-oriented fashion. Recent design changes to Facebook have helped; corporate ‘pages’ (which function differently to ‘groups’) now behave more like individual’s profiles, including a Wall where businesses and their fans can post photos, videos and messages (the Facebook page for Construction News has almost 700 fans, while contractor Laing O’Rourke’s group has 360 members).
7. How will we integrate it with our campaigns? – With such a large worldwide audience, Facebook has proved a lucrative platform for application developers, and thousands of applications can be plugged into the core platform. Only a few can or should be used to enhance an organisation’s pages on Facebook (beware of filling a page with too many widgets). It is now easy, for example, for corporate pages to display photographs and videos to enhance the brand.
8. Who will manage your Facebook identity? – Just as with other social media,  if a Facebook page is to provide a human face to an organisation, the voices have to reflect those people. In a B2B scenario, this may mean multiple employees, perhaps with someone monitoring overall content and direction – last month, I published a guest post where international AEC design practice HOK described how its integrated approach to Web 2.0 included nominating a “Facebook queen”; HOK has both a corporate page and a HOK careers page on Facebook.
9. How often should we update our Facebook page? – Adding topical notes – “Congratulations to Brian Smith who has just passed his CIOB examinations” – or details of forthcoming conferences, seminars, sporting or social events help keep corporate pages fresh. Having a nominated individual to update Facebook helps; with so much social media to manage it can be easy for some pages to become dated (sadly, the Construction News page doesn’t appear to have been updated in about seven months, while Contract Journal’s is updated almost daily).



10. Is Facebook too open? – It depends on how you manage the division between your work and social life – and between the work and social activities of your colleagues. You may, for example, need to brush up on your Facebook skills so that you know which friends and networks are sharing information, photographs, etc. Be careful about privacy issues, for example, when it comes to photographs taken at company events – you may be tempted to tag everyone you know, but they may prefer to be allowed to tag themselves.
11. Are we exposing ourselves to any risks? – Following on from the previous point, much depends on how you manage the Facebook activities of you and your colleagues. For corporate pages, you can make an explicit disclaimer regarding content – for example, Bovis Lend Lease has a Facebook protocol and privacy statement for its graduate programme in Australia, limiting its liabilities and explaining the privacy implications.
12. What can we learn via Facebook? – Facebook members are usually open to networking and, in so doing, tend to unveil useful snippets of information about themselves, their work, studies or outside interests. These can be valuable in targeting individuals for particular communication campaigns.
13. How do we measure our Facebook activities? – I don’t really expect many AEC businesses to pick up direct sales leads through Facebook (though I am sure there will be anecdotal exceptions), but modest investment of time on managing an organisation’s Facebook presence may support recruitment campaigns, help publicise events or campaigns, and provide a convenient way of monitoring the pulse of internal communications. Quantitatively, Facebook displays how many fans a page has, and the simple discussion and feedback mechanisms of the Wall can be used to provide qualitative feedback.

(I still like the alliteration of “13 things to think about”, but does this list cover most key points about business use of Facebook? Do you think I have missed something? Let me know.)

Does your basement or slab foundation need repaired?

Understanding the reasons for foundation repairs is the first step to deciding which method is best for your home. It is crucial for homeowners to not only understand the reasons for foundation repairs but also the limitations of said repairs. Homeowners must also know who to contact for these repairs. There are many different methods and solutions that must be waded through before making the correct decision for your home and family.

Foundation repair is defined as: the art of underpinning or stabilizing a structure that has moved from its originally constructed design. To underpin a home or structure one must extend the current foundation into a soil strata or layer that is deeper and more stable than the current soil that the foundation is resting upon. This is accomplished by providing additional support from the current footing or wall via piers or anchors. Methods of foundation repairs include push piers, plate anchors, helical anchors or drilled concrete piles.

The people responsible for designing and instituting these methods include foundation engineers and foundation repair contractors. A foundation engineer is responsible to evaluate the structure in question and then provide a proposal for his design. Generally the engineer will recommend a foundation repair contractor to carry out his proposed plan for repair and then sign off on this plan upon the completion of fixing your foundation problem. While it is not always legally necessary for an engineer to be involved it is highly recommended anytime structural repairs are executed.

Inadequate soil conditions are caused by several factors. With suitable building sites becoming more scarce many home builders have been building houses on less than ideal lots. These subpar lots have less than suitable soil conditions to support many structures. There are also homes built on expansive soils that shrink and swell as rainfall and moisture levels change. Due to these conditions foundation support products must be utilized to supply support from deeper layers that are not as affected by fluctuating moisture levels. This underpinning provides a way to lift the home to an acceptable level and prevent additional settlement.

Slab on grade or pier and beam foundations are the most susceptible to weak or expanding soils. Due to the nature of having a large surface area resting on the uppermost soil layers these foundations have a tendency to move as the soil moves. Most slab on grade homes are monolithically poured with the slab and beams cast together creating a rigid foundation. This rigid foundation becomes susceptible to differential settlement when moisture levels under the slab do not remain consistent. This can result from broken water lines, poor drainage or even inadequate guttering. Trees can also affect soils by their roots drying out areas under these slabs while the rest of the slab has normal moisture content.

Differential settlement causes slab on grade foundations to rise on the perimeter (dish) or fall around the perimeter (dome). Steel push piers and helical piers are generally an engineer’s recommended solution for these conditions. These piers penetrate through unstable soils down to a more consistent soil layer that has adequate strength to support the structure. These piering systems provide a deep foundation that can now be lifted off of to regain an adequate elevation.

In the case of homes with basements, expansive clay soils that have been over saturated with water can cause hydrostatic pressure on walls. This newly imposed pressure can cause wall bowing and concrete cracking. In extreme cases, catastrophic failure can occur from these wall stresses. When basement homes are originally designed it is with normal moisture content. Poor drainage often causes undue pressure to build behind basement walls exerting forces on the basement foundation. This is often the source of concrete cracking and water to infiltrate the space. Once again it is generally the differential movement that causes the foundation repair problem.

There are two common fixes to bowing basement walls. Plate Anchors (wall anchors) are an effective solution for many homes. These wall anchors are imbedded into competent soils beyond a zone of influence surrounding the structure. Threaded rods are then connected to these anchors on one end with the opposite end being attached to a wall plate inside the basement. With this system total excavation is not required and because of this additional soil load, wall recovery is accomplished over time with continued tightening of the anchor rods.

Next, there are helical tiebacks. This system of basement or retaining wall anchoring involves the complete excavation of the affected area. Helical anchors are screwed into the soil hydraulically, and then attached with a wall plate situated inside the basement wall. With the full excavation the wall can be instantaneously pulled back to plumb. The helical anchor can resist very heavy loads due to their design and the fact of their installation force equates to their resisting force.

Whatever solution you choose to repair your concrete cracks, knowing the cause of your foundation problem is the first step to fixing your foundation. Hiring a professional engineer is always the best step to making your home structurally sound. Now go out and check your foundation for a concrete crack or settlement.

Author: Kate

Our exhibit fabricator for Lost Egypt was the Science Museum of Minnesota. The camel was subcontracted out to Blue Rhino Studio, who create amazing animal and architectural models.

The first step was to research what camels look like. While in Egypt, COSI photographer Brad Feinknopf paid a guard to let us photograph his guard camel while it was lying down, from all angles.

Camel Research #1

Camel Research #2

These photos and other research provided Blue Rhino Studio with front, side and back views of a camel, which they scaled to an average camel height, width and length based upon project advisor Jonathan Elias’ recollections and other photo research. From there, artist Jim Burt at Blue Rhino amalgamated the information, started sculpting and gave Sarah the Camel her personality.

Jim Burt was the main artist and had 2 to 3 people helping him. 2’ x 4’ x 8’ urethane foam blocks were glued and then carved and sanded to get the basic shape.

Sculpting #1

Sculpting #2

Sculpting #3

Sculpting #4

This was then covered with water-based fiberglass cloth similar to a paper mache’ process.

Fiberglass

Then a water-based epoxy was applied over the fiberglass. The hair and detailing were added in the epoxy layer while it was in a soft putty state. The epoxy was then color-stained with base pigment colors and acrylic paint highlights were added after that.

Fiberglass and Paint

The project from start to finish was estimated at 12 weeks, including the photo research, back-and-forth discussion, sculpting, modeling, painting, etc. The discussions were about things such as the camel’s size; whether it should be made of soft or hard material (in order to last the 6+ years that Lost Egypt will be touring, the camel needed to be sturdy); the angle of the head in order to make it more appealing and photogenic; the color of the fur; how to give the impression of those long eyelashes that camels have; and whether we could add an interactive feature to make the camel spit or grunt (unfortunately, the budget didn’t allow this!).

Face

Body

The neck and tail were reinforced with metal tubing and fiberglassed into the foam substructure. This made Sarah the Camel very durable.

The camels ears are bent metal covered with epoxy. The teeth are epoxy. The stirrups are metal – painted to look like leather straps and act as a step up to the camel.

Ears

Ears Finished

Teeth

The saddle is modeled upon photo research of camel saddles, with wood and metal frame construction. We added foam padding for comfort, a real middle eastern blanket and an underblanket replicated from pictures.

Blue Rhino Guys on Camel

The materials used are all high quality and fire-rated, giving us a unique and sturdy ambassador for the Lost Egypt exhibit.

Finished Camel

Blue Rhino on Camel

Camel at ASTC