I’m back

Well it’s been a long while but I’m ready to start to write again, apologies for the delay. It feels like I’ve had a long period of writers block!

What’s happened since I was away?

Well I joined the corporate world to work at Driver Project Services and what a great experience that was. There are some good people at Driver and I wish them every success for the future. The thing is the corporate world just isn’t for me.

So here I am on my own starting out again and wondering what to write about, and my minds gone blank, or vacant, or just rusty…………however some things never change do they? Or is it just me getting old……..probably, I hear you say.

But here are the themes I’ve heard from some of the senior people that I’ve met in the recent years:

1. Why don’t they teach measurement anymore?
2. Why don’t they teach measurement?
3. Why?

Then theres…….

1. Why aren’t there any good qs’s anymore
2. Why aren’t there any good qs’s
3. Why?

Followed by……..

1. Why do we rush to start things half baked?
2. Why do we rush?
3. Why?

Lots of Why’s and not much action by anyone to do too much about it I hear you say. True. And we are guilty of that.

So what to do?

I don’t have the magic answer it’s been a series of small incremental changes to get to where we are now. Is it for the best? Us old folks don’t think so much. But younger folks think what’s all the fuss about, move with the times, use the technology, be brave, be adventurous, be collaborative, embrace technology and……………….be BIM

Better stop there, don’t get me talking yet about BIM and what I’ve seen and heard of what’s happening in the real world with this………I’ll save that for later!

Bye for now, more another week……………………….

Doom and Gloom????

Cuts doom and gloom seems to be the theme of our industry right now or should I say the media in general, nothing like a good old moan from us Brits- even the weather is doing its bit for flaming June!

The thing that bugs me though is the scale of the figures and the fact that like most business around we’ve made massive changes to respond and we are still here alive and kicking ….

Now I’ve been trying to find some stats to back me up, and perhaps someone can help me here but I remember attending an event organised by the sadly now defunct Contract Journal magazine about the Olympics (only 787 days to go). The stat was it was around £9bn of work over a 5 year period and that this represented less that 5% of the total construction output at the time. But what is the total output of the UK construction industry? That’s the bit I couldn’t find. I did find this graphic showing what’s happening to GDP though – looks like things are on the up!

So my point is that there is all this talk of multi billion pound cuts and the dramatic effect it will have on us but I remain to be convinced. The percentage of actual reduction is not that huge. How many of you out there have made huge cost savings and or cuts to your personal life and or business beyond say 5%? A huge number of us I’d guess. So for the government to make savings in it’s wasteful expenditure of our money is a good thing. Surely?

Anyway if you fancy a new mobile phone you could always take a look at how things have come on since 1922. I wonder what they were saying ………