December 2019 Dear Clients and Friends, The dawn of a new year—and especially a new decade—is an opportune time to take a step back and gain perspective on where your firm is going. By that, I mean you should consider your firm’s vision as part of its strategic plan or, if your firm doesn’t have [...]
Berkley Design Professionals Insurance, Webinar, December 5, 2019
October 2019 Dear Clients and Friends, If your firm is over a certain size, it is likely composed of multiple business units, which may be a combination of market-based or discipline-based departments, groups, studios, and/or offices in a multi-office firm. In most firms, these business units develop annual business plans. A firm with multiple business [...]
August 2019 Dear Clients and Friends, These are great times for most architecture and engineering firms! Our industry continues to benefit from the longest economic recovery since WWII. From my consultant’s anecdotal perspective, my clients are doing very well, with plenty of work to go around and very healthy financial performance. Current A/E industry surveys [...]
May 2019 Dear Clients and Friends, Next week, I will be making a presentation at the ACEC Annual Convention entitled “Getting It Done! Keys to Implementing Your Firm’s Strategic Plan.” If you can make it there, great! I look forward to seeing you. For the rest of you, here’s a summary of my key points: [...]
March 2019 Dear Clients and Friends, If you’re reading this, you’re either leading your firm or would probably like to be leading it someday. Effective leadership is the single most crucial asset a firm must have to succeed. Firms that need money can borrow; firms without enough business can boost their marketing; but firms that [...]
DesignDC (AIA-DC annual conference) September 17, 2019
American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) Annual Convention, Washington, DC, May 6, 2019
Looking Back Our industry and the overall economy has been enjoying a long (and well-deserved) recovery since the Great Recession: As of December, 2018, the current economic expansion which began in mid-2009 will have lasted nine years and six months (114 months). According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER, the official arbiter of [...]
ACEC Virginia Leadership Institute, Richmond, VA, May 15, 2018