1) Breadth and depth of collection

2) Netflix-like system for reserving books

I drop interesting books in my request queue on sfpl.org as I come across them.  The library has the book I’m looking for over 90% of the time.  Then three days, three weeks, or three months later I receive an automated e-mail telling me my book is ready.

Perfect.

I’d guess that I only actually read one book for every three or four books that that I skim.

So here are four books that I actually read this summer. All four have spoken to me on a business and personal level. In fact, I’ve found that the less that a book has to do with work, the more impact it ends up having on the way I think about our company and our customers.

Momofuku

David Chang and Peter Meehan

My wife Denise found this cookbook / autobiography and thought that I would enjoy it. She was right. 

The food looks amazing and we’re going to hit up at least one of their restaurants when we’re in New York in October.

Yet it is the story of the restaurant that stayed with me. David Chang and crew scrapped, hustled, and invented their way to a new form of restaurant in one of the toughest markets in the world. Their passion for teamwork and focus on execution is contagious. I understand that David Chang’s swagger is off-putting to some, but I ate it up. This is a guy who wants to cook killer food, his way, and is not going to let anyone stop him. Great stuff.

Born Standing Up

Steve Martin

I fell asleep to Steve Martin’s records when I was a kid. I had dozens of his bits memorized. This came in handy one day in the seventh grade. One of my friends told me that he was auditioning for the school musical and asked me if I was going to try out. I thought that sounded fun, so I went along with him.  It turned out we were supposed to have prepared a monologue and a song. Crap. I had decided to stay after school and audition on a whim and wasn’t prepared. Or was I? Luckily, I had unknowingly been rehearsing for months and when my turn came to perform, I nailed a monologue and song of Steve Martin’s. (I wish I could remember which ones.)  I got the lead in the play and that was the beginning of my theater days.

“Born Standing Up” is a must-read for fans of Steve Martin. But I also think it is a must-read for anyone who speaks, teaches, or sells for a living.  Steve Martin started performing when he was 12 years old. He worked at his craft for decades before any of us learned who he was. He failed repeatedly and experimented wildly. He never turned down an opportunity to work on his material, “speaking” in front of small audiences and giving his all. His endurance is breathtaking.

The Razor’s Edge

W. Somerset Maugham

Steve Martin wrote in “Born Standing Up” that his favorite book of all time was “The Razor’s Edge.” So I requested it from the library immediately.

Steve Martin’s favorite character in “The Razor’s Edge” is Larry Darrell, who dedicates his life to acquiring knowledge and searching for meaning at the expense of love and wealth. Larry spends 12-14 hours in the library a day reading. Languages, classics, history, science, and philosophy. He doesn’t know exactly what he is looking for, but he is resolved not to stop reading until he finds it. When his fiancé asks him what he wants to do with his life, he tells her that he wants to “loaf.” That’s what he calls reading 12-14 hours  a day, “loafing.” Classic.

Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!”

Richard Feynman

Do you ever find that you have gone your whole life without hearing about a certain person or book and then three or four times in one week you come across them?

That happened to me with Richard Feynman.

I noticed that people spoke and wrote with a certain reverence for Richard Feynman that reminded me of the way people talk about Kurt Vonnegut or Richard Brautigan.

“You don’t know about Richard Feynman? Oh man, you’ve been missing out.”

And I had been missing out. I read “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” in one sitting. I couldn’t stop. He’s a scholar, inventor, prankster, and teacher all in one.

If teaching is part of your job (and I would argue that’s everyone) then you should read this book.  Or if you are like me and have a grandfather and father in law who love to tinker with mechanical things just for the fun of it, then this book will give you a good laugh.

So that’s me…

What have you been reading this summer?

Chris

Prem, I agree that a practical transfer of knowledge is needed within our corporate strategies as well as our profession. Sadly, I feel that it will probably go the same way it did 20 odd years ago. The recession then caused what many in the profession call it "the generation gap". Today, we are still dealing with that gap and adding to it daily as more and more our profession’s experience leaves due to retirement and attrition. Back then, there was a gap of experienced people capable of understanding the requirements of construction as set forth in the AIA B101. The way we learned was like being thrown into the pool and asked to swim with no lessons. We did have seasoned professionals to go to called the Quality Control group which usually consisted of professionals reviewing and teaching individuals best practices of the company and the industry. Sadly, education within many firms is now considered an overhead cost so therefore through this economic timeframe it has all but been stopped. The lack of funding for the internal education and the experienced staff have been removed due to overhead costs and "is not needed". Some firms ditched their QA/QC groups as they also were considered overhead therefore they lost their resource for education.

There are companies that feel the colleges and vendors or even the individual should be responsible for education. They have given up on transferring their knowledge onto the younger staff. One also has to point out that the leadership may also not have the knowledge needed to teach. Many executives within the firm have been long removed from the process of developing the documents. Many executives do not know the tools of their trade. FLW knew how to draw, however, today that is not true. Many execs do not even know how to draw in Autocad much less BIM. It is not necessarily their fault, but what they experienced through their professional career. I know many executives from my experience that have not been a reviewer of the documents at all. Ask yourself, when has the CEO reviewed my set of CDs? It is not part of their role. Do they have someone for that role? Ask yourself, when was the last time a partner lead a learning seminar, wrote a paper, or lead a hands on education project/initiative? Who are the teachers? Also ask yourself whether or not the firm has a R&D budget and/or department/committee? Are they researching new ways of doing business, new processes, new products, etc? These are the tools that are needed for education.

Prem, you show a practical solution and the post screams that you (as others I know) want to learn, but sadly, I fear, that the teachers may be gone. The solution that you present requires that experienced professional. The problem today is that they are the ones that are being removed today. Any educational system within a company requires support from the leadership, and are they willing to invest in that? The thing that is disturbing with what is happening in our industry today is that the owners/clients expect from their architect is knowledge, but sadly firms today throw that away and go with inexperienced (and low cost) contract labor. Sadly, the gap is growing bigger.

I can’t argue with the fact that Alan’s assessment is true for many architecture and engineering firms.

I can tell you, however, that there are firms in our industry who have not only continued to teach in the downturn, but have doubled down on knowledge management investments like teaching in order to prepare for the next up cycle.

Consider the following quote from George Wood Bacon:

Fortunes are not made in boom times. . .that is merely the collection period. Fortunes are made in depressions or lean times when the wise man overhauls his mind, his methods, his resources, and gets in training for the race to come.

Clients and owners want to hire architects and engineers with demonstrable expertise. As in, “I see that your firm has built twenty student centers over the last ten years. That’s good news. But what has your organization learned from all of that experience? I’m pretty sure that the team that works on my project won’t have worked on all twenty of the projects you listed in your proposal. I’d guess that many of the team members might not have ever worked on a student center before. Who are the experts and how are they transferring their knowledge to your organization? Can you show me you are an expert instead of telling me about your experience?”

You probably won’t hear a client or owner say that out loud. But you can bet they are thinking it.

Experience is not enough in a period of hyper-competition. You have to convert your experience to expertise and then leverage it. Teaching is an essential tool for leveraging your expertise, differentiating yourself from your competition, and winning new work with healthy fees.

Here’s the late John Wooden on teaching and winning:

“I began my career as a coach with a losing season in spite of all of my experience, awards, and accumulated knowledge in the subject of basketball. In fact, one of the games we lost was to my alma mater, Martinsville High School, led by my former coach, Glenn Curtis. While I may have known as much about the game as Coach Curtis, the difference was this: He knew how to teach it and I didn’t. It was pretty much as simple as that.

As you might imagine, the leadership graveyard is full of failed teams whose leaders, like me at the outset, were very well informed but could not teach to save their soul. This is true in basketball, business, and most other organizations.

Of course, knowledge is absolutely essential. I put it smack dab in the heart of the Pyramid and called it Skill. But knowledge is not enough. You must be able to effectively transfer what you know to those you manage – not just the nuts-and-bolts material, but your standard, values, ideals, beliefs, as well your way of doing things.”

John Wooden, Wooden on Leadership

Teaching will be one of the four sessions at the KA Connect 2011 conference in San Francisco on April 27th and 28th.

Does your organization invest in teaching? Are you or someone at your firm interested in telling your story? Please contact us at connect@knowledge-architecture.com.

From the AIA Technology in Practice (TAP) Knowledge Community website:

AIA Technology in Architectural Practice Knowledge Community, in collaboration with Project
Delivery KC, Center for Integrated Practice, and International Facility Management Association, is
planning a very special nation-wide conference for November 12, 2010. The conference will cover
aspects of technology in project design, delivery and facility management from a variety of AECOO
community viewpoints. This “travel optional” conference will be held simultaneously at AIA National
Headquarters in D.C. and internet-linked regional venues in selected major cities around the US.
Presentations will also be available in real-time to individual internet viewers.

Participating venues as of August 17th are:

Washington D.C., Albuquerque, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, Salt
Lake City, San Francisco

You can learn more about this event on TAP’s Ning site or by e-mailing tap@aia.org.

Here’s what the Best Firms Summit website has to say about the event:

Presented by CE News, Structural Engineering & Design,
The Zweig HR Letter and the Environmental
Business Journal, the two-day conference will explore
topics such as retaining top talent in tough times,
workforce planning in an economic downturn and beyond,
firm cultures that motivate and inspire commitment,
retooling your current workforce, diversification
strategies, staffing and cash flow, managing overhead,
training and workforce development, benefits
integration, legal issues, and best practices, as well
as provide unlimited networking opportunities for all
involved in the business of architecture, engineering,
and environmental consulting.

Here’s what I have to say about the event:

“KA-approved” Speakers

The opening and closing keynotes are going to be given by KA Connect 2010 speakers. (Randy Deutsch on keeping employees engaged and Markku Allison on collaboration.)

John Soter and Pam Britton, also KA Connect 2010 speakers, are speaking on leadership and training.  John promises not to talk about apes this time.

Marjanne Pearson and Christine Brack, both friends of Knowledge Architecture, will be speaking about talent management and benchmarking.

And somehow…they let me slip through the cracks.

Twice.

I’ll be flying solo presenting “Beyond Marketing: Leveraging Social Media Tools for Thought Leadership, Recruiting, and Knowledge Management” on Tuesday afternoon.

Then I’ll team up with Marjanne Pearson on Wednesday morning to lead a workshop called “Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Enhance Competitive Advantage.”

Critical Topics

Employee Engagement. Collaboration. Leadership. Training. Organizational Learning. Talent Management. Benchmarking. Knowledge Management. Social Media.

That’s the stuff I see HR Directors, CFOs, COOs, CMOs and practice leaders wrestling with at architecture and engineering firms every day.

I’m really looking forward to digging into these topics with some of the best thinkers in the industry.

See you in Vegas

Kudus to Amy Walsh and the rest of her team at Stagnito Media on putting together a great program.

You can visit the Best Firms Summit 2010 website for registration information.

Hope to see you there.

                                                    © 20th Century Fox Broadcasting Company

I was a theater and choir nerd in high school.

My wife Denise cringes when we watch “Glee.”

Denise: “Is there any truth to this show? Please tell me this is over the top.”

Me: “It is shockingly close to true. It was really like that. You know, except for the fact they have cooler costumes, killer sets, and can actually sing.

Other than that – yeah, that’s what high school theater and choir was like for me.”

Denise: “Oh my.”

I bring this up because I have found myself thinking about theater lately.

Not because of “Glee,” but because of work.

We just deployed Synthesis 1.4 in beta at our first customer site. (Synthesis is our social intranet platform for architects and engineers.)

This is our fourth release of Synthesis this year, but we all feel like this one is the game changer.

Releasing the product today after three months of intense focus was a huge high. The team has been cranking for weeks and our hard work paid off. High-fives all around. Great work team!

But I can’t help feeling the way I used to in high school after opening night.

In a word, melancholy.

In retrospect, the thing I liked most about theater was the rehearsals.  You start with a script and an empty stage. Your final performance is still a fuzzy sketch in the back of the director’s mind. The team comes together over several months and day by day you discover what “the play or show wants to be.” It emerges. Your job is to help uncover it.

In “On Writing,” Stephen King likened this process to excavating a fossil. You see a small piece of bone sticking out of the ground. You don’t know if it is a tooth or a T-Rex femur. You start to remove dirt around the bone, careful not to damage it. After several minutes, or hours, or days you get your answer.

Now perhaps I’m overdoing it.

But when I think back to my high school plays I remember the people. I remember the process of discovery and creating something great together. I barely remember the performances.

So one day, twenty years from now, when nobody cares about social intranets anymore, I’ll remember days like today.

Thanks Brian C, Susan, Chad, Brian W, and Paul.

CP

The most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20^th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing.

The most important contribution management needs to make in 21^st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker.

The most valuable assets of the 20^th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21^st-century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.

Peter Drucker, Management Challenges of the 21^st Century

You’ve probably read this quote before. If not this exact quote, then something like it.

If you are like most people that I talk to, you probably agree with it.

Then what’s the problem?

If we agree that knowledge and knowledge workers are our most important assets, why do so many firms have such a hard time leveraging those assets?

Actually that’s not going far enough.

Why do firms prioritize the urgent but tactical issues of the day over the development of knowledge and knowledge workers ?

I’m not going to write about that today.

But I will tell you that I just read Multipliers by Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown.

Their take is that there are two types of people – diminishers and multipliers. Diminishers are primarily concerned with being perceived as geniuses.  Multipliers would rather be perceived as genius makers.

I think that many of the answers to my questions above can be found in this book.

It seems to me that a multiplier/genius maker mindset is a fundamental precondition to effective organizational learning and knowledge management.

(That’s my way of saying that I think you should read the book.)

KA Connect 2011 will take place beside the San Francisco Bay at the Fort Mason Center.

April 27th and 28th.

We just thought you’d like to know.

                                                                               © Anheuser-Busch Companies

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. 

Knowledge Architecture writes software.

(And we’d like to sell it to you.)

There, I said it.

We’ve got some sweet new products out and I’ve been wrestling with the best way to tell you about them.

I’ve been reading lots of product management books lately. And marketing books. And product marketing books. And while they are full of good advice, I have to admit they aren’t much fun.

If I’m going to pitch you software, it should be fun.

So I thought back to one of my favorite ad campaigns of all time, Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” for inspiration.

Here’s what I’ve cooked up so far…

Draft Transcript for “Software Tools of Genius”

Knowledge Architecture presents, “Software Tools of Genius.”
(Software Tools of Geeeeenius.)

 

Today we salute you, Mr. Deltek Vision – Active Directory Connector.
(Mr. Deltek Vision – Active Directory Conneeeeeeeeector!)

 

Phone numbers.
Titles.
Office locations.
Departments.
Is there anything you can’t sync between Deltek Vision and Active Directory?
(Where’s my Lady Gaaagaaa?)

 

Your simplicity is legendary.
They tell you the field they want to sync.
They give you a direction.
Just like that.
For as many fields as they want.
And then you make that data flow.
(Once a day or once an houuuuur!)

 

Some may ask … ”Is this software too good to be true?”
Not anymore.
Just ask the satisfied customers who left work early for happy hour.
(Don’t forget the chicken wings! )

 

So here’s to you Mr. “I brought HR, Accounting, and IT systems together and eliminated unnecessary duplication and improved data quality.”
You put the connect in connector.
(Mr. Deltek Vision – Active Directory Conneeeeeeeeector!) 

So what do you think? Should we go with it?

Contact us to learn more about the Deltek Vision – Active Directory Connector.

                              Bret Tushaus shares his story at KA Connect 2010 

I just listened to an excellent AIA podcast called “The AIA’s Knowledge Agenda: Transforming a Profession” featuring Walter Hainsfurther and Markku Allison.

There are lots of excellent takeaways in there. Randy Deutsch did a nice job of cataloging takeaways and then building upon them in his latest Architects 2Zebras blog post.

A Story about Research

I teased out one theme for group discussion on the KA Connect LinkedIn Group. I’m paraphrasing:

"We need to move the profession from sharing knowledge through oral history to becoming research-driven."

I agree with the general premise that our industry could benefit from creating, sharing, and leveraging design solutions and practice methodology based on research.

However, I think we should keep our old friend oral history around.

In Walter and Markku’s podcast, they reference the well-published findings of Walmart’s research into the effect of daylighting on sales volume. If someone on the street asked me if I thought that natural daylight in a store makes a difference on sales volume I would say yes, and explain my answer based on Walmart’s research.

Now I’ve never actually read the formal research Walmart conducted on the impact of daylighting on sales. But I have heard the story at least a dozen times. I think the story stuck since it was a bit unexpected (Walmart, design, natural light in the same sentence) but also quantifiable and concrete.

A Story-Driven Agenda for Sharing Knowledge

So here’s what I think:

Transitioning the AEC (and AIA) to a knowledge-driven agenda will ultimately need to be anchored around sharing stories. We’ve been using stories for millennia to convey complex moral, technical, or political concepts from generation to generation. Stories are the most powerful way we have to embed knowledge and pass it from person to person or organization to organization.

Stories referencing well-executed research instead of “I did this 20 times and it works” would be a welcome change. But stories will still be the primary mode of communicating knowledge, even if they take the form of blogs posts, podcasts, videos, and online discussions.

What do you all think?

Should we keep oral history around for a while longer? Do you agree that stories will help our industry to become more knowledge-driven?

Feel free to respond in the comments below or join the discussion on LinkedIn.

                                                         Image courtesy of Denise Parsons

Thought leadership as a strategic marketing and knowledge management initiative.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 6,500 the day I founded Knowledge Architecture. It was March of 2009 and I had been meeting with prospective clients and strategic partners to test-market our services. I told them that we were going to build a knowledge management and information systems consulting practice for the AE industry and that I was interested in getting their feedback.

I received reactions which ranged from supportive to doubtful. One trusted advisor told me that people would not invest in knowledge management consulting because “knowledge management is squishy.” He was convinced that despite familiarity with the term “knowledge management,” few people could define it or enumerate the benefits.

My trusted advisor was right. As I talked to more and more firms I discovered the following:

• Firms agreed that their people were their company’s greatest asset
• Most firms did not have a systematic approach for creating, capturing and sharing knowledge
• People were interested in what we had to say

We had to educate them one by one. I realized that we had two challenges as a new company: not only did we have to build brand awareness around Knowledge Architecture, we had to build a market for knowledge management services.

In short, before people could hire us, they had to understand what they were hiring us to do.

A knowledge management tribe for the AEC industry

Over the summer of 2009, I came across Seth Godin’s TED talk called “Tribes are what matter now.” In 18 minutes, Seth Godin articulated the benefits of creating a community for disconnected individuals with common interests. He called these undiscovered communities “tribes.” Tribes have a yearning to share what they know, learn from each other and connect with their peers. They are just waiting for someone to lead.

I was inspired. I knew from my history in the industry and my recent experience with Knowledge Architecture that there was a latent demand for a knowledge management tribe in our industry. However, I also knew that I didn’t have all of the answers and that Knowledge Architecture could not make knowledge management a standard business practice in the AEC industry alone. I realized that the fastest way to build the case (and market) for knowledge management was by inviting a bunch of smart folks to share their ideas and stories. Like TED, we would record all of the talks and release them for free over the web as embeddable videos to encourage sharing. KA Connect was born.

That weekend I announced KA Connect 2010 on our blog and LinkedIn. KA Connect 2010, in April of 2010, was our first knowledge management conference for the AEC industry. 36 speakers gave short talks over two days on topics such as social media, integrated project delivery, collaboration practices, and organizational learning.

As a result of launching KA Connect we have:

1. Connected thought leaders from AEC firms, academia, consulting and software development
2. Developed new strategic partnerships and deepened existing alliances
3. Connected with dozens of prospective clients and included a complimentary admission to the conference for our subscription clients
4. Built a platform for creating, capturing, and sharing new knowledge with our clients, partners, and staff
5. Positioned ourselves as a “tribal leader” in knowledge management in the AEC industry

What tribe are you going to lead?

Let’s go back to the two marketing challenges I laid out at the beginning of the article - building brand awareness around Knowledge Architecture and building a market for knowledge management services. I work with enough AEC firms to know that you are also facing differentiation and positioning challenges.

Here are 5 steps your firm can take to position your firm as a thought leader, deepen your relationships with strategic partners, and provide a learning experience for your clients and staff:

1. Find an emerging issue which connects your clients, strategic partners, and firm in which you want to plant your thought leader flag. (For example, the impact of Integrated Project Delivery on K-12 school districts.)
2. Book a venue.
3. Invite the smartest people you know to share their ideas and stories. (Yes, this will probably mean your competition. The benefits of collaboration with your competition, or co-opetition, on strategic industry issues are for another post.)
4. Invite prospective and existing clients and strategic partners.
5. Capture and share lessons learned. (This is a great way to assuage that guilt you’ve been feeling about falling behind with social media. Sharing knowledge on issues your clients, partners, and staff care about via video, your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social platforms sure beats press releases.)

Good luck! Your tribe is waiting.