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CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

June 11, 2012

Finish Drywall and See the World
Filed under: Finishes — Tags: — nedpelger

A drywall contractor and friend, Erik Schouten, just told me a great story. Erik trained a kid named Jake 15 years ago to finish drywall. At that time Erik was working as a drywall finisher and writing lots of songs and performing as a musician. The music biz didn’t take off for Erik, but his drywall business did. Erik also developed one of the best new construction products, shown in the video below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nbiKLkhgeE

The story Erik told me, though, was about Jake. With a winning personality and a solid work ethic, Jake was in demand as a drywall finisher. But Jake loves to longboard surf, especially in exotic locales. Turns out that drywall finishing is an internationally valued skill.

So for the past 15 years, Jake has finished drywall in the UK, Brazil (where he met his wife), Costa Rica, New Zealand and a few more. Finishing drywall has allowed him to live an exotic lifestyle…always in search of a new place to surf.

Don’t let your dreams get crushed by what everyone else says and does. Develop your skills and you get to choose.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

June 8, 2012

Struggling in Construction? Get Wise
Filed under: People Skills — Tags: — nedpelger

What do you know about PT Barnum? Probably that he said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” So you know nothing about PT Barnum, because he never said that. One of his circus competitors said that while trying to explain the incredible success of PT Barnum. Ever notice how quickly we turn to criticism or flippancy when explaining a competitor’s success?

Turns out, PT Barnum treated his customers with the utmost respect. He offered up great wisdom in his book Art of Money Getting: or The Golden Rules for Making Money. If you want to get motivated with some great wisdom from the past that translates well today, study that book.

Here are a few insights that give you a taste of his writing:

  • By introducing system into all your transactions, doing one thing at a time, always meeting appointments with punctuality, you find leisure for pastime and recreation.
  • Be cautious and bold … you must exercise caution in laying your plans, but be bold in carrying them out.
  • I have discovered the philosopher’s stone: pay as you go.

You may think that a book written in 1880 couldn’t help you greatly improve your life. I’ve found, though, that wisdom presented from a different era often shines more brightly. Take a few minutes to read and see if you aren’t motivated to read the entire book.

Write down the parts that connect to you and make a plan to get to where you are capable of going. Plan carefully and execute boldly. What is it you’re waiting for?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n97LoVg1kaQ

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

June 6, 2012

Tech Patent Wars
Filed under: Computers in Construction — Tags: — nedpelger

I’m a sucker for a great info graphic. My buddy Kneal sent me this one called The Patent Wars: The Convoluted Battlefield of Tech IP. Click on it to get a larger view, so you can follow the logic. In a nutshell, the inside white circle represents lawsuits, with the arrow pointing to the group being sued. The outside darker hatched cylinder shows patent purchases, with the arrow end going to the purchaser.

What do I see? Apple and Microsoft sue and get sued often. That’s a sign of companies I want to avoid. Google, on the other hand, has few lawsuits, but more purchases, especially the huge patent purchase of Motorola Mobility. By avoiding the lawsuit focus, Google again shows themselves as a company I want to be associated with.

So, whether buying Google stock or utilizing their products, this slick info graphics furthers my belief that I want to hitch my little car to the big Google train.

Why should this matter to you? In construction, the technology explosion of  cloud computing will be hitting us soon. We will all be making choices who we utilize for cloud based services. I’m going all in with Google.

What does that mean practically? Of course I use Gmail, Google Calender and Contacts instead of Outlook. I changed a year ago and love the new convenience and flexibility. I’m ready to change my scheduling program from my tried and true Microsoft Project to a better sharing cloud based program. Where will I be looking? Among the Goggle offerings. I’ll let you know what i find.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

June 4, 2012

CA High Speed Rail: Looking Worser and Worser
Filed under: Industry outlook — Tags: — nedpelger

The $68B US high speed rail system proposed in California seems to be a stimulus project. Yet stimulus projects (funded by the government to prime the economic pump and get some money flowing through construction) should be spent on projects that substantially improve the country. The interstate highway system built in the 1950s achieved that goal.

High speed internet access for everyone or smart electrical grid applications seem to be great stimulus projects for today. The CA high speed rail project, though, just doesn’t pass the smell test. The huge cost to only slightly improve the commute from San Francisco to Los Angeles from the current plane, train and automobile options would never get done with private money.

In fact, one of the biggest project criticisms came from Huffington Post regarding the low projected operating costs. They write:

If the bullet train project is to pencil out, it must operate far more economically than any high-speed rail system in the world, according to the experts, who include former World Bank executive William Grindley.

Unless these extraordinary economies actually are achieved, the train will require alarmingly high annual operating subsidies “forever,” as the experts wrote in a report last month. The annual operating deficit could top $2 billion.

On another project front, ENR reports that farm groups filed a major environmental lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction to block the start of construction. Making that a double whammy, the Orange County Transportation Authority want to spend much less money and simply improve the current train service. They question all the project parameters, but particularly the demand:

“We are building something new and haven’t proven there is a pent-up demand for train travel…. I find this process almost surreal,” Orange County Supervisor and transportation authority Director John Moorlach said at a recent board meeting.

So if I were a betting man, I’d be wagering that this project will be a non-starter.

CONSTRUCTION KNOWLEDGE BLOG

June 1, 2012

Oops
Filed under: Construction — Tags: — nedpelger

We’ve been working for about a year on the pre-construction services for a $50M student housing project. We were ready to start in a few weeks. Yesterday, I got the news that our construction team is out, the owners are bringing in national builders. Oops.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9haxOZvlAFs

The gut punch feeling of receiving that surprising news hasn’t gone away. We have lots of trade contractors counting on this work, now scrambling for something else to do.

We all know that in this crazy construction business, that a job isn’t a job till signed and started…and not always then. Owners can change directions, permits get delayed, things happen.

When we lose a project we were counting on, though, we actually go through the grief process.

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

In fact, we don’t just pass cleanly through that process, we bounce back and forth between the emotions for awhile. I need to keep this insight in mind as I work through the end of project issues.

Age and experience help, though, because I know that time wounds all heels. In the long run, things seem to work out.

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