Posts filed under 'Civil Engineering Issues'
Is your engineering firm too specialized to need a website?
Featured Guest Blogger: Babette Burdick Ten Haken
Sales Aerobics for Engineers
Internet Business Development Strategies for Manufacturers, Distributors and Service Companies
Connect With Babette On Linkedin 
Read The Sales Aerobics For Engineers Blog
Does your engineering firm use any of the following excuses to rationalize why your website looks the way it does?
- Our clients and prospects need to call us so we can discuss their project. Project outcomes depend on client specifications. We don’t know what clients need until we start to work with them.
- We don’t have services you can just order on the internet. We deal with complex solutions.
- Once our clients and prospects see all the projects we have completed, they will understand we can do whatever it is they want us to do.
Oh give me a break. These excuses are nothing more than elitism which is being used to compensate for the fact that YOUR ENGINEERING FIRM CANNOT DESCRIBE, IN SIMPLE AND SUCCINCT TERMS, THE VALUE THEY BRING TO THEIR CLIENTS’ TABLES.
Yep, you just read it.
Considering we live in a world of elongated sales cycles and risky funding, your business development folks can’t get to everyone individually. So just where do you think new business is going to come from? Try your company footprint on the Internet, which starts with your website.
Let’s examine each one of these rationales and translate just what they mean.
1. Our clients and prospects need to call us so we can discuss their project. Project outcomes depend on client specifications. We don’t know what they need until we start to work with them.
What if a client or prospect doesn’t want to call you to have a long, elegant conversation about a project they may not be interested in inviting you to bid on, anyway? Considering most individuals within corporations have about 1 hour of face time per week to give to business development folks (and you know how many people are competing for this time) your website serves as your first “conversation” with them. If your website offers little content to justify their even considering sending you an email, let alone calling you, why would they want to work with you? Your website’s not making it easy for them to do business with you. You are forcing an extremely busy prospective client to do things your way. Which means your firm isn’t interested in working with them – their way.
2. We don’t have services you can just order on the internet. We deal with complex solutions. No kidding. You can’t just “dial an engineer.” However, as that extremely busy client or prospect, I want simple (not dumbed-down, but easily understood) solutions based on expertise and capabilities. I want to work with an engineering firm that makes my corporate life and decision making process a little bit easier. After all, it’s all about the client. Not about the engineering firm. As a prospective client, your website has 2-5 seconds to pique my interest and grab my attention with what you can deliver. If I feel I am reading a philosophical treatise that is simply talking in circles, well, I’ll hit the “back” button and go elsewhere, thank you.
3. Once our clients and prospects see all the projects we have completed, they will understand we can do whatever it is they want us to do. OK. We’ve ALL seen websites like this one. A big flashy home page (and flash can be a real no-no in terms of search engine optimization), and then the “Project List” or “Portfolio” or “Clients” tab. You are not dealing with children, so does your website look like a story-book? Also you are assuming that prospective clients know what they are looking at… which they may not. Your internal folks may have uploaded photos from your most complex designs as a means of “wowing” prospective clients.
All prospective clients see is a bunch of complex, flashy solutions which may or may not have any relation to their needs. The more complex the solution, the less simple it appears to work with your company. Oh, also, if you are wondering why your client base is a bunch of demanding divas eating up profitability, go back to your website and see what types of project photos you have uploaded. You may be marketing to just whom you are getting as clients.
Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and create a website which is sensitive to their time constraints, decision making algorithm and their need to determine capabilities and not outcomes. You may just shorten your sales cycles and learn a lot more about your capabilities in the process.
Think about it.
Add comment August 26, 2010
A/E Firms: Social Media Guidelines & Online Identity Theft
By Carol A. Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC and
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com
Ryan Link, AICP, wrote a smart article for the CivilEngineeringCentral.com summer issue. In his article: Social Networking Isn’t Just for Fun Anymore: How Emerging Media Is Changing The Way We Market and Do Business, Ryan offers interesting insights into the A/E industry’s past and future relationship with social networking. Please read and offer your thoughts!
According to a CE News survey, “most professionals use the Internet to perform their job. Specifically, 77 percent use the Internet to attend online education activities, 86 percent follow-up on articles they read, 98 percent research engineering-related topics, and 87 percent search for information about industry trends.” Yet, even with these high percentage stats, many architectural and civil engineering firms as well as industry related associations are just now writing social media policies and guidelines.
Firms and industry associations appear unable to identify which departments are responsible for handling the companies’ social media outlets. Should marketing teams oversee social media outlets? Should the human resources divisions? Social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook help brand your firms’/associations’ identity. As Ryan discusses in his article, it is potentially an important and cost effective outreach of marketing efforts, among many other outreach items. One thing is for sure, if an A/E firm/association does not take control of its social media identity and set guidelines for itself and its employees then individual employees will set their own guidelines. Guidelines set by individual employees may not be consistent with the firms own objectives or guidelines.
Let me offer some examples:
A national A/E firm has a group on LinkedIn created by and managed by an ex-employee. The individual worked for the company for less than 3 years and stole the employers identity! Having your firm’s identity on LinkedIn hijacked in this manner can lead to a plethora of undesirable results. I am aware that several national industry associations did not pay attention to social media only to find their online identities hijacked by architects and civil engineers who started and ran their own national association group in that associations name. A/E firms and associations who do not police the social networking forums run the risk that their online identity may be misused or worse used for nefarious purposes. When your firm’s identity is used on a social media site such use is an extension of your firm. You need to be very careful regarding who is authorized to set the standard – that defines your brand.
Most of us Google our names to see how we are portrayed in the online world. We need to do the same thing with our corporate identity. Remember that a third party’s first impression of your firm may be based on information found on Google and on many of the social networking sites. We want to be sure that the first impression is a good one. The Internet and social media outlets are here to stay.
Ryan suggests in his article, five questions firms/associations should consider before entering the world of emerging media. I recommend that you consider your answers to those five questions and to share those questions and answers with your management/marketing/human resources team. Help your firm take control of their image!
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
Add comment July 7, 2010
How are you providing value to your clients and your employer?
Featured Guest Blogger: Babette Burdick Ten Haken
Sales Aerobics for Engineers
Internet Business Development Strategies for Manufacturers, Distributors and Service Companies
Connect With Babette On Linkedin
Read The Sales Aerobics For Engineers Blog
No matter where you sit around the table, you can provide value to your employer and your clients by staying current with their (not your) area of expertise.
Understanding current industry-specific issues, including financial, sourcing, materials and materials management and legal factors, can provide you with a well-rounded perspective from which to make design and engineering recommendations. Staying current with your clients’ world view is your entire organization’s responsibility, not just the guys/gals at the top.
Because the buck stops everywhere these days.
Triggering events can provide the fulcrum for differentiating your company to current and prospective customers. Triggering events are events that tip the scales and force change within an industry. Like changes in the construction code or ratings for doors used in specific buildings. Like the use of nanotechnology in building materials. Like green initiatives in various states.
Waiting around for “someone else” in your organization to disperse this information to you is not an option. You are the “someone” who must prioritize information gathering to round out your project perspective. And where you get this information is just as important as the information itself.
Because customers who perceive vendors as commodities will always base their decisions on price. Let’s face it, in the absence of any other defining factor, what else is there?
So your ability to use triggering events to enhance the insights you provide for your customers becomes an all-or-nothing exercise in impacting their perception of the value you bring to their table.
And I’m not talking about bombarding your clients with constant tidbits from news feeds or industry magazines. I’m talking about your taking the time to review information from a variety of resources and PERCOLATE that information so it impacts how you synthesize your role to your customers.
You may change your perspective in terms of how you express yourself to your customers, your co-workers and your employer. Which in turn impacts how you view your role as a client resource and solutions provider.
Not all customers call you because they have a problem that needs to be solved. They simply may want to run an idea by you that may have nothing to do with your area of design expertise. They may want you to act as a sounding board on a business decision they need to make. In other words, they consider you a trusted resource. So how do you get there from where you currently are?
Do you have the type of information in your professional toolkit to serve your customers in this manner? And I am addressing everyone up and down the corporate food chain. It’s that important.
At this point you may be asking: “OK, so I am now going to enhance my business acumen and perspective with all this great information. Just where do you suggest I find it?” Good question. And I think you probably know some really good answers.
Here are some non-traditional clue cards. And I welcome your suggestions for additional sources of information.
- LinkedIn discussion groups are a tremendous way of keeping your ear to the rail. Engineering discussion groups are the pulse of industry. There are so many technical, regulatory, financial and philosophical discussions going on within these groups that – at the very least – reading the discussion threads is an education in itself. So if you are not already a member of various LinkedIn groups, join them. If you are already a member, check out the sub groups and new engineering groups that are constantly forming.
- And while you are participating in LinkedIn discussion threads, remember that your name and your company name are included in your signature with each thread post. Participating in LinkedIn discussions is a tremendous way of demonstrating expertise without “advertising” your company. Folks want to build their networks, especially with savvy people like you who provide great input to discussion threads. Don’t you think they will notice which company you work for, as well? And it works both ways. No matter where you sit around the table, you can provide your business development folks with the names of companies you feel may be prospective clients. I think they may find your input valuable.
- Signing up for RSS newsfeeds on various topics allows you to receive industry-specific or topic-specific articles on your desktop. Discuss your findings at work or post your own discussion on LinkedIn. You may be surprised at who responds and what you learn from the interchange.
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics is an additional resource that allows you to provide context to the financial environment of each state. This information is particularly relevant if you work for a company with out of state projects. This information also allows you to understand the issues that may be impacting subcontractors you may use for these out of state projects.
And don’t tell me you have no time to engage in these activities. The nature of what we call “work” and the context of where we gather and exchange information are in flux. The entire business development paradigm is changing.
Do you want to be on the outside looking in or an active participant in growing your value to your customers and your company?
Think about it.
Add comment June 30, 2010
How to Prevent Infrastructure Disaster?
By Carol A. Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC and
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com
This August will be the 3rd anniversary of the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis and the 5th anniversary of the New Orleans levee system failure. July brings with it the 19th year mark of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. While we now understand how these events occurred, has the civil engineering industry implemented systems to help prevent future disasters? Has our government implemented systems to help?
Cutbacks in civil engineering staff across the US’s civil engineering companies and low bid contract awards from local, state and federal agencies cause some to question whether projects are being completed by the best talent available. As we discussed in a previous blog, some firms that previously hired the best engineering talent have now cut them in favor of less experienced, less expensive engineers. What effect, if any will this have on our future infrastructure?
This week it was reported that the Michigan Department of Transportation has been late on inspections on bridge reports. A state audit determined that about 10% of bridge inspections were overdue, some for 36 months or more. It was further reported that the Federal Highway Administration “ordered the state to complete hundreds of crucial bridge inspections by Dec. 31 or risk losing highway funding, a last-ditch punishment that MDOT says it will avoid.”
Similarly, Stamford, CT advocate news just announced “Hundreds of state bridges rated deficient.” Specifically: of the state’s 5,300 bridges, 10 percent, or 509, are structurally deficient and ranked in poor condition, according to the state Department of Transportation. Fifty-four percent are in fair condition, while 36 percent are in good condition.
The Monitor reporter Jared Janes wrote this week that lower than expected bids from contractors eager for work will allow the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, in charge of the construction, to complete more than 40 additional miles to raise and rehabilitate Rio Grande levees.
Our government has implemented guidelines for engineering designs and mandated structural inspections. Private industry and public agencies struggle with budget cuts. How can we prevent infrastructure disasters with contract monies put on hold and experienced staff being caught in layoffs? What are your thoughts?
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
Add comment June 23, 2010
The Ramifications of Ousting the Senior Engineer
By Carol A. Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC and
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com
As discussed in a previous blog, civil engineering firms are cutting senior staff in favor of hiring less experienced, less expensive technologically savvy engineers. The blog received a variety of comments. Among them was insightful feedback from Principal Civil Engineer Mike Prett, PE. With permission, his comments are reprinted here:
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
6 comments June 9, 2010
Civil Engineers Do Great Things, Whether People Realize it or Not!
Featured Guest Blogger: Anthony Fasano, P.E., CPC, LEED AP
Maser Consulting
Associate Civil Engineer and Professional Career & Leadership Development Coach
Click to Connect With Anthony on Linkedin and Facebook
Anthony is the author of a FREE service for engineers called A Daily Boost from Your Professional Partner. Click here to read about this service.
We as engineers absolutely do great things! I’ll speak specifically about civil engineers in this post because that is my background. Wikipedia defines civil engineering as a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works such as bridges, roads, canals, dams and buildings.
So basically, what they are saying is civil engineers design, or at least contribute to the design, of just about everything and anything you see when you walk outdoors, right? Buildings, roadways, dams, traffic signals, traffic signs, storm water ponds and catch basins, dams, utilities, curbs, sidewalks….stop me at anytime….
I think you get the picture. How many objects that we come in contact with each day are designed by civil engineers? A lot! What we do is so important to everyday society; however people rarely recognize it because they take all of these things for granted.
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
1 comment May 18, 2010
Civil Engineering “…The future is not what it used to be!”
By Carol Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC and
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com
“The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be.” Paul Valery
Forty years ago civil engineers were concerned with issues surrounding pollution to air, water and the environment, traffic congestion, nuclear power, energy, global warming and oil shortages. Today those issues still exist while additional issues of water shortages, deforestation, ocean acidification, infrastructure collapses and sustainable design strategies (to name a few) confront the industry daily.
Rear Admiral Bill Rowley offered an excellent presentation at the Air University. In 1995 he wrote:
When I was growing up in the 1950′s we all knew what the 1990′s would be like. It would be a time of great prosperity. We would live in big homes in the suburbs. There would be many labor-saving conveniences for the homemaker, and robots would do the hard chores. We would commute to work in our own helicopters. The short workweek would mean lots of leisure time that families (mom, dad and the two kids) would enjoy as “quality time” together. Space travel would be common with people living on other planets. Everyone would be happy living a fulfilling life in a peaceful world. Things sure did not turn out that way. In some cases we could not have predicted the full effects of new technology. Robots are not running around the house, but instead, we have computer chips in our toasters. Our dreams in some cases would have become nightmares. Can you imagine five hundred thousand people commuting to work in Washington in their own helicopters? We were very naive about the ways of economics and human nature. The future is not what it used to be!
How does this relate to civil engineering? In the past years the civil engineering industry charged forward planning, designing, upgrading and building. The money existed for future projects. Civil engineers thought of bigger buildings, more complex bridges and interchanges, smart highways, fast rail, upgrades to existing water treatment plants, smart grids to run our power. There was/is a market in need and excitement about the advances in technology and materials to redesign our world. We have the desire, need and the ability to create. With so many talented engineers unemployed and so many young engineers unable to find their first jobs are we missing out on the next great civil engineer of this century? When will we see the funds to get on track?
Right now, the future is not what it used to be! What do you think?
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
2 comments April 14, 2010
Whose billable time is it, anyway?
Featured Guest Blogger: Babette Burdick
Sales Aerobics for Engineers
Internet Business Development Strategies for Manufacturers, Distributors and Service Companies
Connect With Babette On Linkedin
Read The Sales Aerobics For Engineers Blog
What is your time worth? To you, your company, clients and end users of your products and services?
When does the value that you perceive you bring to your company become less-than-valuable?
There is a fine art in bringing projects in on-time and at or under budget. And in this economy, that fine line is becoming razor sharp. Delighting customers and exceeding expectations may result from the economics of the project rather than cutting edge design that carries a high price tag and unappreciative end users.
This week, some project engineers and I were discussing how to tell when a project is complete. They related how they are continually striving to make the project outcome better, add more enhancements, ask more questions of the client, constantly refine the design and contents of the project…. until their managers start breathing down their necks wondering why the project hasn’t been completed.
Let’s face it. It’s the nature of the engineering discipline. Analysis, design, improvement, redesign. Plan-Do- Check-Act. To infinity and beyond. Except, very few clients hire engineers and technical specialists simply to think….and think….and think. If that were true, we could all go to the mailbox each day and receive a huge check for all the great thoughts we had during the week before. I don’t think so.
Billable time. You know what that is. And you know the rate that you or your company bills out your time. The question becomes whether or not your company recovers that cost in terms of profit on your project.
Civil Engineers enjoy challenges and are tremendous analytical thinkers. They do, however, sometimes confuse discussing a potential project with being engaged in business development (aka, “sales”). For you civil engineers who have been thrust into a sales role without understanding the dynamics of a sales conversation, beware. Engineers are notorious at spinning out ramifications of a design, constantly asking “what if?” of themselves and other engineers. And thinking they are “selling.”
How many times has an engineer from one company called up an engineer from your company (you, perhaps?) to kick things around… on a project that is neither approved nor funded? An hour later, on your company’s dime, you/ your engineer has provided lots of consultative design insights to the other engineer. And your company never is awarded the project, if they are even asked to bid on it. And for those companies who have been forced to rely on the bid process on public projects, your profit margins are being squeezed to bare minimum.
While this scenario has been more common in the manufacturing arena, it may become more prevalent as less staff attempts to provide more functionality within civil engineering firms.
While I’m not suggesting that you dumb-down your project design and/or management efforts, I am asking you to consider how many of your projects are brought in on-time and at- or under-budget? Do you hold things up or move things forward? Do you understand when you have arrived at the best solution, although it may not be the optimal one?
Ask yourself what the gross and net profit of these projects are to your company. What was your billable time and at what rate? What is your salary?
Now you can begin to calculate what your time is worth and the value that you bring to your company. Working in a vacuum outside the context of the bigger picture surrounding your role is not a viable strategy in any economy. Especially this one.
Think about it.
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
Add comment March 1, 2010
Career Goals: Don’t Sell Yourself Short!
Featured Guest Blogger: Anthony Fasano, P.E., CPC, LEED AP
Maser Consulting
Associate Civil Engineer and Professional Career & Leadership Development Coach
Click to Connect With Anthony on Linkedin and Facebook
Anthony is the author of a soon to be launched FREE service for engineers called A Daily Boost from Your Professional Partner. Click here to read about this service.
I have said in the past that it is extremely important to have career goals, which act as a destination for where you are taking your career. It is important when setting your goals, to take the time to figure out exactly what you want, nothing more, and nothing less.
Clearly defining your goal is extremely important. Use an analogy of driving to a destination. Is it easier to get somewhere if you only know the city or state or if you know the exact street address? Your goals act as that street address that constantly tells you where you are going.
In setting these clearly defined goals, you really need to figure out what you want. Many people will water down their goals during this process because they believe they are too lofty. By doing this, you are giving up on your goal before you even attempt to achieve it. Why? You have the ability to achieve absolutely anything you want to in your career. When you are setting your goals, just think about your current situation as scenario “A” and the goal you are seeking as scenario “B” AND DO NOT TRY TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET FROM A TO B AT THIS POINT. When people think about the route they will have to take, that is when they often start the “watering-down” process. You can worry about action plans and steps you may take later, but when you are setting your goals focus on your desires, regardless of how unattainable you may think they are.
For example, let’s say you have a clearly defined goal of being promoted to Project Manager in the next 18 months. Attached to this goal is a rule that you set for yourself to work no more than 45 hours per week so that you can maintain your work-family balance. In reviewing that goal, you might say to yourself, there is no way I can get that promotion if I only work 45 hours per week, so you change it to 50. You have now altered your true goal and compromised your values by giving up your work-family balance. This decision was based on a LIMITING BELIEF.
In coaching, we help people with limited beliefs on a regular basis. A limiting belief is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a belief that you hold, that limits you in some way, shape or form. Limiting beliefs typically stem from your past. They may have developed from interaction with someone specific or a certain situation that deeply influenced you. In the above example, the limiting belief is that you cannot become a project manager by working 45 hours per week. Why not? Couldn’t you work more efficiently and delegate more? Limiting beliefs often prevent us from not only achieving our goals, but from setting true goals. When you run into a limiting belief, the best way to beat it is to question it!
Where does that belief come from?
How can I let go of that belief?
Now that you are aware of limiting beliefs start to identify, question and overcome yours today. Doing this will help you tremendously in achieving your lofty career goals!
What limiting beliefs are currently holding you back from achieving your career goals as a civil engineering professional?
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
Add comment February 16, 2010
The National Infrastructure Bank
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com
Leaders of “Building America’s Future” in their letter to President Obama commended him for his efforts and wrote in part:
“We write to ask for your continued leadership on the creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, which will help rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure, including our transportation, water and wastewater, broadband, power grid and other critical assets. As you know, the American Society of Civil Engineers identified more than $2.2 trillion in outstanding infrastructure needs. We cannot improve our infrastructure through the annual appropriations process alone.
We must renew our commitment to a National Infrastructure Bank that can help leverage public and private dollars, address regional and national needs and spur a rebirth in how our country invests in infrastructure. Building America’s Future, along with many other organizations, has educated the public about the outstanding needs throughout our country. Cities and states are struggling to find enough resources on their own.”
Critics are pontificating on the reasons why this will not work. One of their concern centers on the shortfall of the initial investment. Their thought is that we can’t find enough money to fully fund a trillion dollar need, so why fund with a “paltry” $60 billion? Secondly, critics are hung up on the term “bank.” Banks need to lend money and generate revenue, and therefore make investments that repay themselves. Since all infrastructure projects will not return large financial investment, then critics want the bank funding investment portfolio modified. Finally, the critics regard any federal organization as ineffective.
We cannot afford another eight years of inactivity and political battles.
These infrastructure repairs are desperately needed. This is our industry’s future and we support this initiative.
civil engineering jobs :: civil engineering resumes :: civil engineering blog :: civil engineering discussion
Add comment February 9, 2010
