Latest Posts

Who pays for the data? Why websites will start to charge

More and more data is being produced and consumed on the internet everyday as people become more mobile and more social. This data is paid for by the consumer to their provider whether it’s an ISP or their mobile carrier they pay for data download. Vast amounts of data we consume everyday comes from free sources whether its news sites, blogs, gaming or social networks and we ‘pay’ for this by having to see advertisements. But increasingly larger sites especially those in the business of news are creating ‘paywalls’ to access information and this has been successful for the major news and financial sites such as FT, WSJ and the New York Times. Others news organizations have also turned to paywalls but they have been met with some pushback.

Many see the internet as ‘free’ resource and many other see it as a ‘right’ to have access to information and data for free. However, the increasing issue is that for large sites advertising often doesn’t create enough revenue to cover the overhead costs and produce a profit for shareholders, so increasingly they are turning to paywalls. Many cite sites such as Facebook or Twitter that work on the advertising model and that works for sites with millions of hits per day and have a certain cachet or they can gain enough advertisers to meet the costs. However, numerous sites cannot sustain a large journalistic staff to produce quality news without creating a paywall or publishing huge quantities of gossip and tabloid level news to gain the visitors required.

The other issue is information overload and that many people now are visiting niche sites that pertain to certain interests such as design, sports, local area, etc. The news and information is becoming more fragmented, more localized and more refined as to the topic. However, many of these sites work off advertising and a store to keep themselves and a small staff employed.

Larger news sites and agencies have huge costs in employing staff and paying for data traffic. These sites we rely on will start to increase charging for the information they produce. The question is will you be willing to pay for access.

Stop going to your professional annual conference – go to someone else’s

Year after year I hear people go to the same conference. Why? Different city, different speakers? Isn’t it time your thought a little outside your profession and went to something a little or completely different. Seeing the same people year after year hearing the same ideas about what the profession should be doing or a variation on that new idea from 5 years ago. Maybe its time your went to a unconference or a tech conference or a music festival or a trade show that has nothing to do with your industry. Why? Well, think about the last time you felt inspired at the professional annual conference. Don’t you feel like everyone’s drank the coolaid and patting themselves on the back in your profession conference? Its time for a change in scenery.

If your an structural, civil, hydro engineer go to the architects or the planners conference – you may learn something and pick a bit of business. If your in PR, Marketing, Media go to CES or electronics trade show or the tourism show. If your in sales go to the distribution show or the logistics conferences.

I think you’ll be amazed at how seeing it from your customer, allied professional or another field may change the way you look at what you do and inspire you with new ideas.

 

Co-ordination is key to a great project

Landscape architects can create a great project and less problems for the client and contractor by coordinating with other design professionals and ensuring that there is constant communication between all design consultants,.

ARCHITECTS
Co-ordinating with the architects ensures the interface between the building and the landscape is complementary. Nothing is worse that exposed structure or ‘short’ steps due to lack of co-ordination with architects.

ENGINEERS
Co-ordinating with engineers avoids problems such as out of place pit lids, trees not planted as they conflict with underground services and a bare rooftops because the building roof can’t take the load or there are too many services.

LIGHTING & SIGNAGE
Lighting and signage designers often face the similar situation that landscape architects often find themselves in ie. adjusting a design to match what was built. Make your life easier and ensure you co-ordinate with the lighting and signage designers so that when the project comes together it looks like a cohesive design.

HOW TO COORDINATE?
Simply create a two-way communication stream. By informing other design professionals of changes to landscape design and requesting they send you any design changes than impact landscape design along with meeting minutes. The best way is to have regular co-ordination meetings where comprehensive meeting minutes are taken.

Always issue landscape design revision drawings and meeting minutes to all other design consultants. Also pick up the phone once in a while and discuss the progress of the project with other design professionals – take notes but if anything comes up during the conversation ask them for an official email or fax that states the issues and they also send to the client/s and project manager/s.

Remember design consultants should work as a team and regularly having a conversation about the project so that the client gets the best result.

This post is discussing larger projects but it is also key to smaller projects especially if you, the landscape architect are the project manager or lead consultant.

Book Review: Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli

Read This Before Our Next Meeting by Al Pittampalli is a new book from the Domino Project. A publishing project launched by Seth Godin “powered by Amazon”. The book is an interesting read and gives us a reminder of why we all hate meetings, especially the ones that drone on with no resolution in site.

Al gives us a way to categorise meetings and therefore who should attend and the outcome that should occur. Also Al talks about what is and isn’t a meeting and gives a good differentiation. The most important piece of knowledge that he passes on is something he calls the Modern Meeting.

The Modern Meeting is a special instrument, a sacred tool that exists for only one reason: to support decisions (1).

Before you make your preliminary decision, you aren’t allowed to call a meeting. If you invite me to a Modern Meeting for which a clear decision hasn’t been established, I’ll look at you, puzzled. I might even walk out. Modern Meetings can’t exist without a decision to support. Not a question to discuss—a decision. (2)

Pittampalli’s book is an interesting read and is available until August 9 for free on Kindle. After that its a $10-11USD. Worth reading to understand how to run a Modern Meeting and get the best out of meetings without wasting time on planning, preparing and avoid being in meetings that just don’t work.

(1) Pittampalli, Al (2011-08-03). Read This Before Our Next Meeting (Kindle Locations 226-227). The Domino Project. Kindle Edition.
(2) Pittampalli, Al (2011-08-03). Read This Before Our Next Meeting (Kindle Locations 268-270). The Domino Project. Kindle Edition.

Creating ideas

Creating ideas is different for everyone, for some people its hard to do, for others very easy. For me I can create ideas fairly easily, but its often the place that makes the difference. The place I seem to be able to easily create ideas is on a plane or train. Its something about the constant movement or being in one place for a extended period of time but with a large amount of people that rarely engage. Its like there is an energy of the all the people in that space but no engagement. Its a hard thing to pin down. I also like cafes but steer more towards the independent places that are off the beaten track, in Shanghai that means away from main streets and expat hangouts.

Creating ideas is easy to do, all it takes is a pen and paper and just think about one problem at a time or the other way is I listen to podcasts that stimulate ideas and then I take them on a tangent. I like to visually draw out ideas whether its a flow chart, doodle or a central idea with many branches.

Creating ideas is one thing but then at the end you have to stare at the page and ask yourself – ‘where to go from here?’ do you bin it or go with it. Going for it with ideas is hard and binning it is easy – but the reward you will get with continuing will outweigh the full bin every time.