We Cannot Stop Talking

I’m fresh back from CONSTRUCT 2013 and the CSI National Convention held last week in Nashville. This marks the 9^th time I have attended this convention and the 8^th straight. It is always a great event, full of fun, networking and learning. I’m always exhausted by Friday night, but I never want the events to end! I always miss my family terribly, but I never want to leave!

This year was no exception. Nashville provided a beautiful and fun back drop for all of the events that make up this great convention. The brand-new Music City Center is a beautiful venue that provided the myriad of spaces needed for the show floor and all the meetings and networking opportunities. The various restaurants and bars along Broadway provided great night time entertainment and the Cumberland River Greenway provided the perfect path for the inaugural #RunCSI!

Social Media has become increasingly more visible and accessible at all CSI events, but I think it reached a fever pitch this year at CONSTRUCT. In addition to the constant tweeting and daily blogging by many attendees and the various educational sessions offered to help make social media accessible to all, there were TweetUps and other formal and informal gatherings to discuss Twitter, blogging and other forms of social media that we can use to get the word out about CSI. After CONSTRUCT was over, several CSI staffers have put together Storify stories or recaps of the tweeting that took place during many of the educational sessions so that those who attended can be reminded of the session content and view the thoughts of others and those who did not attend, can review what took place during the session. To access these stories, log on to your Twitter account and search for the sessions number with a hashtag: #H06 for example was one of the sessions presented by Joy Davis, CSI’s Queen of Social Media.

When I sat down to write about a particular session that gave me something to take back to work with me, I was fortunate enough to be able to review the Storify recap of the session and remember what my thoughts were in addition to reading those of others who were in the room with me. You can follow me @BaltoCSI on Twitter. The Storify story includes tweets from @vivianvolz, @ericdlussier, @CSICincyChapter, @specwinch and was assembled by Joy Davis (@CSIConstruction).

The session that I’m writing about was H10 “Architect/Consulting Engineer Coordination: Closing the Gap” and was presented by Cherise Schacter, @cheriseschacter AKA The Kraken. I have more on that nickname later. I am an architect and project manager for a mid-sized architecture firm in Baltimore. I work on mostly higher education projects and in particular research and teaching laboratories. There is an incredibly high level of coordination between architecture and engineering systems required by laboratory projects and while I think I’m pretty good at performing this coordination, I can always learn more, so I chose Cherise’s session to attend.

Cherise has worked for both architecture and engineering firms. She is currently employed by an engineering firm working on their office master guide specifications. In preparing for her presentation, she reviewed nearly 75 projects and in most instances, found a coordination error in less than two minutes. I was shocked and appalled to hear that. How can intelligent and licensed professionals leave such egregious errors that they can be found in two minutes? Cherise knows where to look and so do those contractors that we all know who are unscrupulous and search for change orders in our documents.

When reviewing the project documents, Cherise started by reviewing Division 01 of the project manual and continued through the technical sections of Divisions 21, 22, 23, 25 and into the 30’s, finding areas where the architect wrote something in Division 01 that the engineer then contradicted in the later technical sections. Her point being, it is difficult, boring and time-consuming, but architects need to read the specification sections written and edited by engineers in order to discover the areas where the engineer may contradict or not be completely coordinated with the architect’s Division 01.

However, Cherise also told us of a better way. She has assembled a questionnaire and checklist that can be sent to the entire design team to make sure Division 01 meets the needs of the engineering systems and that the engineers understand what not to put in Part 1 of their technical sections. I was not shocked to learn that few engineering firms hire professional specification writers, but I was shocked to learn that most engineering firms do not have a single source for the production of their specifications. Many engineering firms let the individual engineers or engineering designers write and edit the specifications. This means there could be multiple people editing mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection specifications. With so many hands touching the project manual, no wonder it is so easy to find coordination problems!

The central message of Cherise’s presentation was we all need to keep communicating. Not sending emails, but actually picking up the phone and having a personal conversation. That’s the best way to defeat the coordination errors that lead to change orders and hard feelings on the job site. I know this intrinsically, but it’s always nice to be reminded of it by other construction professionals. I’m currently working on a large project with an incredibly large and complex consultant team. As a team, we frequently fall into the trap of firing off emails rather than using the phone. That has led to miscommunication, inaccurate work and hard feelings and we are still in design development!

That leads me back to “The Kraken.” Cherise and many others are starting a movement on Twitter that they refer to as #CSIKraken. It comes from a joke around the office where when something isn’t quite right, Cherise says, “Don’t make me release The Kraken!” It’s the idea that “The Kraken” is anyone dedicated to working hard, working smart and getting the job done. Isn’t that what CSI is all about? Isn’t that what makes us and our events, like CONSTRUCT, the best in the industry? These events are about like minded professionals coming together to share ideas and have some fun. That’s what keeps me returning year after year.

If the idea of “The Kraken” interests you, check it out on Twitter under #CSIKraken. If the idea of learning how to work hard, work smart and get your jobs done interests you, go to http://www.csinet.org/Main-Menu-Category/Communities-2109-14280/Chapter-Locator to find a chapter near you. Go to a meeting and find The Krakens in the room. You’ll enjoy yourself and probably learn something to take back with you to work.