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This post is brought to you by BQE Core If you want your clients to respect and treat you like the expert you are, instead of as an employee or subordinate, then you need to set clear and consistent boundaries with them. Far too often, we don’t take the time to think through the consequences of... View full entry
This post is brought to you by BQE Core. All too often architects find themselves dealing with clients and prospects who treat them as employees, rather than fellow business owners (Related: Clients from Hell… and Other Love Stories). Even if your clients aren’t difficult on purpose... View full entry
This post is brought to you by BQE Core How would you like an extra $2,800 tax deduction at the end of the year? For 2018 (filing your taxes in 2019), the IRS lets you deduct 54.5 cents per mile for business purposes. So, if you drive 100 miles a week for business, that’s a potential mileage... View full entry
This post is brought to you by BQE Core. ePayments will allow BQE Core users to speed up cash flow by sending automated invoices that clients can pay instantly via credit or debit cards. BQE Software Inc. and Stripe have partnered to help professional service firms get paid faster via online... View full entry
Demand for design services in July remained essentially flat in comparison to the previous month, according to a new report released today from The American Institute of Architects (AIA).
AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score of 50.1 in July showed a small increase in design services since June, which was a score of 49.1.
— AIA
"The data is not the same as what we saw leading up to the last economic downturn, but the continued slowing across the board will undoubtedly impact architecture firms and the broader construction industry in the coming months," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "A growing... View full entry
An organization that relies upon individual goals or performance benchmarks to evaluate employees...needs to be careful to design competitions and structure comparisons that thwart the efforts of some workers to sabotage their colleagues. Otherwise, saboteurs may bring down everyone’s numbers — including their own. — Stanford Business
Associate professor, Szu-chi Huang at the Stanford Graduate School of Business has been studying how competitions within the workplace materialize among larger teams. She explains that competition inside companies "is something that needs to be carefully structured and managed." And that while... View full entry
Companies want employees to share what they know. After all, research has found that this leads to greater creativity, more innovation, and better performance, for individuals, teams, and organizations. Yet despite companies’ attempts to encourage knowledge-sharing, many employees withhold what they know — a phenomenon known as knowledge hoarding or knowledge hiding. — Harvard Business Review
A team of researchers have been exploring the dynamics behind knowledge sharing in work environments. While this is something many leaders encourage, their study has found that sometimes individuals within a team have certain reasons for hiding knowledge that might be able to help the rest of the... View full entry
It is critical that we learn to distinguish and differentiate our roles from our self. We get into trouble when we lose ourselves in our role instead of thinking in a detached way about how the role is viewed by others...we forget that others in our organizations are reacting to the role we represent in their work lives, not necessarily the interesting and thoughtful people we think we are. — Harvard Business Review
When we identify who we are with what we do professionally, set backs at work can often prompt us to spiral down emotionally. When something is merely an organizational issue we take it as a personal issue. Harvard University Lecturer, Timothy O’Brien, talks about the importance of... View full entry
Despite recent warnings from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) of weakening billings numbers among architecture firms, the organization continues to forecast positive economic growth for the construction industry into 2020, with several caveats. According to AIA's Consensus... View full entry
Challenging conditions in the U.S. housing market, along with tighter currency controls by the Chinese government, caused a stunning drop in foreign demand for American homes.
The dollar volume of homes purchased by foreign buyers from April 2018 through March 2019 dropped 36% from the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
— CNBC
NAR’s Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate 2019 survey reports that "for the seventh consecutive year, China exceeded all other countries in terms of dollar volume of purchases, buying an estimated $13.4 billion worth of residential property, a 56% decline from... View full entry
Demand for design services at architecture firms decreased in June in comparison to the previous month, according to a new report today from The American Institute of Architects (AIA).
AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) score for June was 49.1, which is down from 50.2 in May. Any score below 50 indicates a decrease in billings. Both the project inquiries index and the design contracts index continued to soften in June but remained positive.
— AIA
"With billings declining or flat for the last five months, it appears that we are settling in for a period of soft demand for design services," said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "With the new design contracts score reaching a 10-month low and the project inquiries score hitting... View full entry
Earnings for US construction workers now outstrip the private sector average as contractors face what’s being called one of the tightest labour markets they’ve ever experienced.
The situation has led a contractors’ group there to slam an education system that produces “too many over-qualified baristas and not enough bricklayers” as employers are forced to increase pay to attract skilled workers from a diminishing pool.
— Global Construction Review
Global Construction Review reports on the recent response by the Associated General Contractors of America to June's construction jobs numbers, which signaled a continued struggle for the industry to attract enough skilled workers — despite higher-than-average hourly earnings of now $... View full entry
The overall size of new homes peaked in 2016 for this cycle and for the last three years has continued to moderate, according to new survey results from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
The Home Design Trends Survey for the second quarter of 2019—focusing on home and property design—also found that homeowners continue to place a priority on accessibility features.
— AIA
"With home sizes plateauing and lot sizes continuing to decline, it isn’t shocking to see where that additional focus is going," commented AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA. "Homeowners want more flexibility in their space, both inside and outside the house, and they want to use... View full entry
Trade often gets shorthanded to its most tangible form, the flow of goods from one country to another. But the exchange of services is also part of the equation, with building design offering a high-demand example in China amid an extended economic boom there. — Dallas News
Dallas News correspondent Tom Benning highlights the business setbacks two major U.S.-based architecture firms — HKS and CallisonRTKL — experienced while operating in China: from breach of contract, to intellectually property theft, all the way to corporate imposture, these... View full entry
Nearly 300 coal-fired power plants have been "retired" since 2010, according to the Sierra Club. It's a trend that continues despite President Trump's support for coal. That has left many communities worried that those now-idled places will simply be mothballed. — NPR
In an NPR segment, which aired in May, Jeff Brady discusses the Department of Community and Economic Development's plans to reuse and redevelop retired coal plants. Plans of action are listed in a "playbook" that outlines the attributes of listed coal plants and the pros and cons of each site... View full entry
