Illinois Governor signs $31 billion publics works bill

I've moved the AEC Insight blog to a new address. www.aecinsight.com. Please check it out (and reset any feeds, if you will.)I'm still working on coordinating my own feeds.ThanksJerry

"Selection Success!" should have a spot in your AEC firm library

"Selection Success!" by Lori Stanley and Hilari Weinstein, is a thorough primer on the science and art of winning a qualifications-based selection (QBS) process. As with many of the "how-to" books you'll find in our industry, the book offers its highest value to the novice, walking the reader through the fundamentals of submitting a […]

Construction Marketing Ideas

Longshots, dreams and the switch to Wordpress

This morning, in preparing the blog entry, I discovered a temporary glitch in the blogger.com server and could not access the site.I decided to move over to Wordpress and the "other" Construction Marketing Ideas blog, and post there my story about how I decided to break the rules in submitting a proposal for a project without first ensuring I have […]

Branding and public bidding

You might be thinking: "This 'branding' stuff might be relevant if I am competing for work with residential clients or perhaps for non-public commercial work, but what does it have to do with conventional public sector advertised bidding opportunities?"To some extent you are right. In the purest environment, where low price rules the spac […]

PSMJ Resources Blog

AIA Architecture Billings Index posts slight improvement

The American Institute of Architects' yo-yoing Architecture Billings Index returned to its July level with its September ABI rating of 43.1, up from 41.7 in August and matching its 43.1 number from two months ago. That July number was a six-point increase over June, so it's starting to look like August's number represented merely the latest in […]

It's funny until someone loses an account

Interesting thing happened this week at PSMJ...for the last several years we've used the same company to do our credit card transaction processing. Their services are behind the scenes and about as commoditized as you can get. Other than the transaction statements they send to our bank, we never hear from them.We were approached by another transaction p […]

Scarlett Consulting

Scarlett Letter #58: Help your network to help you! Request precise, simple steps.

In this tough economy, our professional acquaintances sincerely want to help one another—more than ever! Whether your business is struggling for new business, or you are now unemployed, your professional friends (and personal friends too) really do want to help. Simultaneously, those same individuals are making their own way during this economy. This m […]

Scarlett Letter #57: The harder you try, the more I’m willing to give…

This statement is true, whether it’s with clients, business networking colleagues, students, or even personal friends. Self-recognition of this attitude became evident earlier this week while I was teaching at Columbia College. Throughout the course of the semester, I ask the students track their progress against their pre-established Public Speaking/C […]

Scarlett Letter #56: When your firm has something ‘new’ and different…

We are well into Q4 2009. Now is the time that most of you are (or should be!) developing your strategic plans for 2010. No doubt you are taking a hard look at your business to determine what you can do to be better, brighter, faster, more profitable. Let’s face it. It’s exciting when your firm [...]