What kind of an impression does each of us make on our clients when we work with them on daily basis? Do we leave them with an experience about which they feel good? Are they likely to want to rehire us for the next project, and to ask for the same team?
The other day I had a very unpleasant experience with the financing arm of a car lease company (which shall remain nameless). They called me repeatedly during the week claiming that I was behind in my payments by two weeks. My records showed that I had actually overpaid by one month, but they hadn’t cashed the check. The customer service representative was not helpful at all and, after fifteen fruitless minutes, I asked to be transferred to an account manager who could promptly reconcile my billing.
I was put on hold for ten more minutes and when the manager finally answered I was asked to give him all the same account information that I had previously recited to the service representative. I was back to square one. Fifteen minutes later he concluded that I would have to speak to a different department altogether and asked me to hold while he explained my situation to a “higher authority.” Ten more minutes passed, yet when the new “authority” came on line I had to recite the account information all over again. By now I was thoroughly frustrated and wondering why I was doing business with this company at all.
It actually took a fourth individual, and a total time investment of one and one-half hours, to finally resolve the matter to my satisfaction. With the exception of the fourth individual, the company’s representatives were ineffectual and uncaring. To say that I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth is an understatement. I resolved to seek a different financing company once this car lease had run its course. Nice car….bad company!
At TRO JungBrannen each of us is a customer service representative in some way - whether we are answering the phones, working with user groups, overseeing construction, or managing the invoicing process. It is not enough for us to design an inspired building; we must provide our client with an extraordinary and inspiring experience as well.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Too Much Stuff?
Do you remember the George Carlin comedy bit about having a place for your “stuff”?
In light of the global economic malaise, a lot has been written lately about our country’s obsession with having a lot of “stuff.” We all have too much of everything, really, and could do just fine with a lot less. For the profession of architecture that may mean fewer new buildings, at least for a while.
The other day Paul Nakazawa, an architectural futurist (among his many other talents), spoke to the Boston Society of Architects Board about the future of our profession in the context of an economy which he believes will recover slowly over several years. He suggested that the demand right now for traditional architectural services – namely the design of new buildings – simply isn’t there. New buildings are increasingly difficult for clients to finance, and like the rest of us they are going to try to make better use of the “stuff” they already have!
Now, perhaps I am a bit more upbeat than Paul, but I believe that as the economy recovers, clients will once again seek competitive advantage through architecture and, like federal and state agencies, they will embrace sustainability as a cornerstone of their business platform and engage those firms, like TRO JungBrannen, passionately committed to the design of carbon-neutral, zero net energy new buildings.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that our firm is coping exceptionally well during this economic transition because we also offer integrated, highly specialized, multi-disciplinary design services that include visionary master planning assessments, strategic repositioning, energy conservation analysis, and a host of other analytical services that transform a client’s business or institution through enhanced efficiency and operational connectivity rather than through new construction.
George Carlin would probably acknowledge that we have the right “stuff.”
In light of the global economic malaise, a lot has been written lately about our country’s obsession with having a lot of “stuff.” We all have too much of everything, really, and could do just fine with a lot less. For the profession of architecture that may mean fewer new buildings, at least for a while.
The other day Paul Nakazawa, an architectural futurist (among his many other talents), spoke to the Boston Society of Architects Board about the future of our profession in the context of an economy which he believes will recover slowly over several years. He suggested that the demand right now for traditional architectural services – namely the design of new buildings – simply isn’t there. New buildings are increasingly difficult for clients to finance, and like the rest of us they are going to try to make better use of the “stuff” they already have!
Now, perhaps I am a bit more upbeat than Paul, but I believe that as the economy recovers, clients will once again seek competitive advantage through architecture and, like federal and state agencies, they will embrace sustainability as a cornerstone of their business platform and engage those firms, like TRO JungBrannen, passionately committed to the design of carbon-neutral, zero net energy new buildings.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that our firm is coping exceptionally well during this economic transition because we also offer integrated, highly specialized, multi-disciplinary design services that include visionary master planning assessments, strategic repositioning, energy conservation analysis, and a host of other analytical services that transform a client’s business or institution through enhanced efficiency and operational connectivity rather than through new construction.
George Carlin would probably acknowledge that we have the right “stuff.”
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Architect 50
I am delighted to report that TRO JungBrannen is listed among the top 50 firms in the country by Architect magazine in their inaugural survey, published in May. The rankings are based on a balanced assessment of profitability, commitment to sustainability, and caliber of design.
This approach to ranking design firms is a significant departure from that of most other industry publications which tend to look only at size, revenue, or market share. Architect magazine’s approach, I believe, is a more enlightened one and better reflects the overall quality of a design firm. Initially, nearly 750 firms were considered. Ultimately the top 50 list was compiled from data gathered through online surveys and editorial review.
While I have always maintained that financial well-being is fundamental to our growth and prosperity, it is particularly satisfying to see that our firm’s design ranking outpointed all but four of the top fifteen firms on the list. This is due in no small measure to the extraordinary quality of our work and to the dedication of our professional, marketing, and graphics personnel. Also, the exponential growth of our LEED accredited staff and the growing number of LEED certified projects in our portfolio assures that TRO JungBrannen will continue to climb up the list in the years to come.
To all of you in the firm who work so hard every day, and to the consultants who team with us, and to the clients who entrust their projects to our care…..thank you!
This approach to ranking design firms is a significant departure from that of most other industry publications which tend to look only at size, revenue, or market share. Architect magazine’s approach, I believe, is a more enlightened one and better reflects the overall quality of a design firm. Initially, nearly 750 firms were considered. Ultimately the top 50 list was compiled from data gathered through online surveys and editorial review.
While I have always maintained that financial well-being is fundamental to our growth and prosperity, it is particularly satisfying to see that our firm’s design ranking outpointed all but four of the top fifteen firms on the list. This is due in no small measure to the extraordinary quality of our work and to the dedication of our professional, marketing, and graphics personnel. Also, the exponential growth of our LEED accredited staff and the growing number of LEED certified projects in our portfolio assures that TRO JungBrannen will continue to climb up the list in the years to come.
To all of you in the firm who work so hard every day, and to the consultants who team with us, and to the clients who entrust their projects to our care…..thank you!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Location, location, location
The real estate broker who coined the phase ‘location, location, location” sure knew what (s)he was talking about!
Last Thursday I was in San Diego addressing a gathering of CFOs, and during lunch the conversation rolled around to the housing crisis. One of the CFOs was from the Detroit area and lived in Gross Point – the most upscale area in an otherwise downtrodden city. According to him, huge numbers of homeowners were “under water.” Luxurious homes that once sold for more than a million dollars were on the market for a fraction of that price. That evening I went on line to check it out, and sure enough, I found several four and five thousand square foot homes selling for an average of $60 - $80 per square foot.
Now, you may say ‘well, who wants to live in Detroit?’, but the same thing appears to be true in other parts of the country as well. Just look at Phoenix, for example – a very decent place to live if you ask me.
Two days later, on Saturday, I flew to San Francisco to visit my oldest son, Alex. He rents an apartment in the Russian Hill area of the city and hopes to buy a modest one bedroom condo in a more affordable neighborhood. We went to about six open houses and the prices were astounding…..a 600sf condo for $500K; a 750sf condo for $600K; and, an 800sf condo for $675K. That’s an average of $825 per square foot. And then there’s the condo fee and the taxes on top of that! And these condos weren’t even in desirable neighborhoods. The swanky sections of town are a good deal more….well over $1000 per square foot. And if you think that the recession hasn’t affected San Francisco, think again. To boot, the entire state is on the verge of bankruptcy.
The whole thing makes no sense to me. I’m thinking of moving to Gross Point and ‘working from home’!
Last Thursday I was in San Diego addressing a gathering of CFOs, and during lunch the conversation rolled around to the housing crisis. One of the CFOs was from the Detroit area and lived in Gross Point – the most upscale area in an otherwise downtrodden city. According to him, huge numbers of homeowners were “under water.” Luxurious homes that once sold for more than a million dollars were on the market for a fraction of that price. That evening I went on line to check it out, and sure enough, I found several four and five thousand square foot homes selling for an average of $60 - $80 per square foot.
Now, you may say ‘well, who wants to live in Detroit?’, but the same thing appears to be true in other parts of the country as well. Just look at Phoenix, for example – a very decent place to live if you ask me.
Two days later, on Saturday, I flew to San Francisco to visit my oldest son, Alex. He rents an apartment in the Russian Hill area of the city and hopes to buy a modest one bedroom condo in a more affordable neighborhood. We went to about six open houses and the prices were astounding…..a 600sf condo for $500K; a 750sf condo for $600K; and, an 800sf condo for $675K. That’s an average of $825 per square foot. And then there’s the condo fee and the taxes on top of that! And these condos weren’t even in desirable neighborhoods. The swanky sections of town are a good deal more….well over $1000 per square foot. And if you think that the recession hasn’t affected San Francisco, think again. To boot, the entire state is on the verge of bankruptcy.
The whole thing makes no sense to me. I’m thinking of moving to Gross Point and ‘working from home’!
Monday, May 4, 2009
Less is More
The trite architectural adage that is the subject of this blog posting can be aptly applied to a phenomenon that is gaining traction in the current recession: namely, the American consumer is spending less and saving more for the first time in decades.
The point was driven home for me this weekend while I was tidying up my desk at home and came across an interesting bit of personal history. I found a savings account book from the Waltham Savings Bank, dated 1955. It was my first recorded bank transaction, and showed me opening a savings account with a deposit of one dollar. I was eight years old. As I recall, my grandfather, George Davis, encouraged me to save the money I had earned from shoveling walks in our neighborhood during the winter and went with me to the bank to guide the process. He was a prominent Boston attorney and I believe that he was also on the bank’s Board of Directors. The account, of course, earned interest, and I soon learned that the more money I saved the more interest I earned.
This morning I opened my email and came across an article by Carol McMullen which recently ran in the Boston Herald, entitled The Frugal American Consumer: Permanent or Temporary? Carol is the President of Eastern Wealth Management at Eastern Bank. In the article she points out that the savings rate of the average American was nearly zero at the beginning of 2008. When the recession hit home for many people later that year, the savings pattern changed abruptly and at the close of the first quarter of 2009 the rate is nearly 5%. That sounds pretty good until you compare it to the savings rate in many Asian countries, which exceeds 20% in some cases. Mike Hebert, our firm’s investment advisor pointed out the other day when he met with our Executive Committee that Americans have never really been very good at saving. You’d have to go back to the mid 1980s to see our savings rate at 10%. But, according to Carol, it looks like we might be headed back to that level after more than twenty years of easy credit and profligate spending.
It is ironic that the world’s economy since 1985 grew largely on the back of the American consumer’s insatiable appetite for goods and services. And, now that we are saving more and spending less, it appears that we are not able to shoulder the burden of stimulating economic recovery, at least not exclusively. Carol suggests better balance, with Americans spending less and the Chinese, for example, spending more. The inescapable reality for American businesses is simple: We must all, TRO JungBrannen included, commit ourselves to providing exceptional value for the services and goods that we provide, both here and abroad, if we expect to compete favorably for the attention of the increasingly frugal and discriminating consumer.
I think I will call Waltham Savings Bank and open another savings account. My grandfather would approve!
The point was driven home for me this weekend while I was tidying up my desk at home and came across an interesting bit of personal history. I found a savings account book from the Waltham Savings Bank, dated 1955. It was my first recorded bank transaction, and showed me opening a savings account with a deposit of one dollar. I was eight years old. As I recall, my grandfather, George Davis, encouraged me to save the money I had earned from shoveling walks in our neighborhood during the winter and went with me to the bank to guide the process. He was a prominent Boston attorney and I believe that he was also on the bank’s Board of Directors. The account, of course, earned interest, and I soon learned that the more money I saved the more interest I earned.
This morning I opened my email and came across an article by Carol McMullen which recently ran in the Boston Herald, entitled The Frugal American Consumer: Permanent or Temporary? Carol is the President of Eastern Wealth Management at Eastern Bank. In the article she points out that the savings rate of the average American was nearly zero at the beginning of 2008. When the recession hit home for many people later that year, the savings pattern changed abruptly and at the close of the first quarter of 2009 the rate is nearly 5%. That sounds pretty good until you compare it to the savings rate in many Asian countries, which exceeds 20% in some cases. Mike Hebert, our firm’s investment advisor pointed out the other day when he met with our Executive Committee that Americans have never really been very good at saving. You’d have to go back to the mid 1980s to see our savings rate at 10%. But, according to Carol, it looks like we might be headed back to that level after more than twenty years of easy credit and profligate spending.
It is ironic that the world’s economy since 1985 grew largely on the back of the American consumer’s insatiable appetite for goods and services. And, now that we are saving more and spending less, it appears that we are not able to shoulder the burden of stimulating economic recovery, at least not exclusively. Carol suggests better balance, with Americans spending less and the Chinese, for example, spending more. The inescapable reality for American businesses is simple: We must all, TRO JungBrannen included, commit ourselves to providing exceptional value for the services and goods that we provide, both here and abroad, if we expect to compete favorably for the attention of the increasingly frugal and discriminating consumer.
I think I will call Waltham Savings Bank and open another savings account. My grandfather would approve!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Good is No Good
At the risk of alienating some of my friends and colleagues, I am going to admit to a self indulgence that I finally succumbed to last weekend. I went to The Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia! After more than 50 years of watching the tournament on TV, I accepted the kind invitation of a friend and attended the final round on Sunday. And I’m glad I did because I learned a great deal. I didn’t learn much about golf since it quickly became evident that they are not playing the same game that I am playing; no, I learned what it takes to be GREAT at whatever you do.
Here’s what happened. I was in the grandstands watching the players warm up on the practice tee before starting their rounds. All were hitting crisp iron shots and towering drives, including Tiger Woods. After a while I moved to a more private practice area nearby where the players could hit pitch shots away from the huge crowds. As I stood by myself near an isolated green with absolutely no one else around I noticed one of the players approaching with a bag of practice balls. He stopped immediately in front of me, dropped the balls at my feet and began pitching them onto the green while he chatted with his swing coach, Hank Haney. It was Tiger! For several minutes it was just the three of us and I got to watch the greatest player in the world hone his game.
As I watched, Haney suggested that he hit some full wedges. Tiger hit four of them in a row, each one about a hundred and forty yards down the fairway, all within an area that could be covered by a blanket. Then the unthinkable happened! He hit the fifth shot a bit offline…..about ten yards to the left. He stopped and looked at his coach. As Tiger reconstructed his follow through, Haney took the club in his hands and made a slight adjustment to the swing plane, then stepped back to watch. Tiger dutifully struck the next five balls with a slightly extended follow through, just as his coach had suggested. It was a minor adjustment, of course, almost imperceptible, but it made a measurable difference. Each of the five shots landed in a tight grouping no larger than a beach towel.
Of course, within five minutes the spell was broken and there were two TV cameras and about three hundred people gathered to watch as Tiger chipped and pitched a few more shots, then left for the first tee. But, I had witnessed firsthand what few people are ever privileged to see: greatness in the making.
In design, as in golf, to be truly great at what we do we must continue to learn from others, no matter how experienced or talented we may be. Good is simply no good.
Here’s what happened. I was in the grandstands watching the players warm up on the practice tee before starting their rounds. All were hitting crisp iron shots and towering drives, including Tiger Woods. After a while I moved to a more private practice area nearby where the players could hit pitch shots away from the huge crowds. As I stood by myself near an isolated green with absolutely no one else around I noticed one of the players approaching with a bag of practice balls. He stopped immediately in front of me, dropped the balls at my feet and began pitching them onto the green while he chatted with his swing coach, Hank Haney. It was Tiger! For several minutes it was just the three of us and I got to watch the greatest player in the world hone his game.
As I watched, Haney suggested that he hit some full wedges. Tiger hit four of them in a row, each one about a hundred and forty yards down the fairway, all within an area that could be covered by a blanket. Then the unthinkable happened! He hit the fifth shot a bit offline…..about ten yards to the left. He stopped and looked at his coach. As Tiger reconstructed his follow through, Haney took the club in his hands and made a slight adjustment to the swing plane, then stepped back to watch. Tiger dutifully struck the next five balls with a slightly extended follow through, just as his coach had suggested. It was a minor adjustment, of course, almost imperceptible, but it made a measurable difference. Each of the five shots landed in a tight grouping no larger than a beach towel.
Of course, within five minutes the spell was broken and there were two TV cameras and about three hundred people gathered to watch as Tiger chipped and pitched a few more shots, then left for the first tee. But, I had witnessed firsthand what few people are ever privileged to see: greatness in the making.
In design, as in golf, to be truly great at what we do we must continue to learn from others, no matter how experienced or talented we may be. Good is simply no good.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Green Council
TRO JungBrannen just formed a committee to expand the firm’s sustainability policies and practices, and to lead our many green design initiatives. The Green Council is made up of a broad cross section of the firm, ensuring that our five specialty practice areas, our four professional services, and all of our regional offices are properly represented. Jamie Newton, PE, LEED AP, and Glenn Allen, AIA, LEED AP are Co-Chairs.
There are as many as fifteen firm wide sustainability task forces being led by members of this committee, among them: Staff Development, Building Technologies, Legislative Review, Carbon Footprint & ZNEB, Building Design, Consultants & Vendors, Project Standards, and many others. Their work will ensure that our firm remains at the forefront of our profession’s dedication to sustainable design practices. Earlier this week I drafted a letter to Christine McEntee, CEO of the AIA, and pledged our support for the AIA’s 2030 Commitment….a program whose goal is to encourage the AIA’s member firms to design carbon-neutral buildings by the year 2030. In it I said “The places where we live, work, and play represent the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in America, as well as around the world. As architects, we understand the need to exercise leadership in creating the built environment. We believe that we must alter our profession’s practices and encourage our clients and the entire design and construction industry to join with us to change the course of the planet’s future.”
All of us here at TRO JungBrannen are proud of our continued commitment to sustainable design, and we recognize the vital global need for significant reductions in the use of natural resources, non-renewable energy sources, and waste production.
There are as many as fifteen firm wide sustainability task forces being led by members of this committee, among them: Staff Development, Building Technologies, Legislative Review, Carbon Footprint & ZNEB, Building Design, Consultants & Vendors, Project Standards, and many others. Their work will ensure that our firm remains at the forefront of our profession’s dedication to sustainable design practices. Earlier this week I drafted a letter to Christine McEntee, CEO of the AIA, and pledged our support for the AIA’s 2030 Commitment….a program whose goal is to encourage the AIA’s member firms to design carbon-neutral buildings by the year 2030. In it I said “The places where we live, work, and play represent the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in America, as well as around the world. As architects, we understand the need to exercise leadership in creating the built environment. We believe that we must alter our profession’s practices and encourage our clients and the entire design and construction industry to join with us to change the course of the planet’s future.”
All of us here at TRO JungBrannen are proud of our continued commitment to sustainable design, and we recognize the vital global need for significant reductions in the use of natural resources, non-renewable energy sources, and waste production.
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