A tale of two companies

Smoke and mirrors?

A few months ago, in "Go-to guys", I spoke of the many excellent product representatives I know, and how valuable they are to me in my job as specifier. This past month, I experienced something just a bit different. It wasn't that the product reps weren't helpful, but their corporate structure made it difficult for them to offer the help that specifiers need, which, in turn, makes it difficult for specifiers to properly serve their clients.

It all started with an e-mail from one of our construction administrators, about a substitution request. The subcontractor claimed that a substantial savings would result from using the proposed products, and went on to say that one of the proposed substitute products was, in fact, identical to one that had been specified.

Signature blocks on steroids

The first time I get an e-mail from you I don't mind if you include your full name, title, phone number, cell phone number, and fax number, along with your company name, division, department, main phone number, address, and website, and even a logo or two. In fact, I like to get all that information at one time; it's a great way to complete my contact file for you without having to ask for missing pieces. I don’t need to see a message telling me that I should save paper by not printing the message (does anyone really do that?), but I'll let it go the first time you send me e-mail.

After that, all I need is your name and phone number. Your e-mail address is in the message; if needed, I can use it to bring up your contact file.

Convince me

We've all heard countless times about the amazing technological changes of the twentieth century, going from horse-drawn buggies to a car in every garage and landing on the moon, from telegraph to cell phones, from dirt roads to superhighways, from fresh food to frozen, and so on. Many of those changes resulted in improvements in business or in our standard of living, and are so much an accepted part of our lives that we take them for granted.

Today we are witnesses to the birth and tremendous growth of social networking, and sensational claims about its future. What is that future?

CSI: More than just one - or three - types of members

In CSI membership - one more time, we reviewed the history of CSI's membership classification, and argued in favor of a single category of voting members. Although response has been favorable, two objections have been voiced, one regarding governance, the other related to practical aspects of communication with other members. The first appears to be more important, but the second affects day-to-day activities.

Board representation

As noted last month, CSI began as a group of specifiers, or, in today's terms, professional members. There also were a very few who would today be called industry members, but it was clear that this was an organization of design professionals, concerned primarily with the art of writing specifications. Over the years, the balance changed, and we now have almost equal numbers of professional members and industry members (for convenience, I'm considering industry and associate members as a single group). Along with their growth in numbers, industry members attained more rights and privileges, and there are now only a few small differences between voting members. Clearly, CSI has changed. It is not the organization it was in the beginning, but is an organization of design professionals and product representatives, with a smaller number of contractors and subcontractors.

CSI membership - one more time

Last year, our annual election ballot included a proposed bylaws amendment that would have combined the professional, industry, and associate membership classifications into a single group. Although the amendment received over sixty percent of the votes, it fell short of the required two-thirds majority required to pass. The Los Angeles chapter brought the issue before the members at the annual meeting in Philadelphia, where eighty percent of the members voted in favor of again putting membership reclassification before the members, as an amendment proposal on the 2011 ballot.

Readers of this column may recall that last year I questioned the need for changing to a single class of voting members. I still feel the same as I did then about some of the issues, but in the last couple of months I learned a few things that led me to the conclusion that the time for a single class of voting members is long overdue.

The Price of Gold

One of my CSI hats is History of Fellows Chair for CSI's College of Fellows. As such, I search for background to create or update the biographies that are on the Fellows' website, at www.FCSInet.org. This often is a difficult task even with new Fellows, who either can't find the time or are too bashful to write their own biographies. Getting information grows more difficult as time goes on, and becomes a real challenge for those Fellows who are no longer with us.

While my search generally moves along at a pace dictated by work at office and at home, some events, such as each year's elevation of new Fellows, notable achievements of a current Fellow, or the passing of a Fellow, inspire greater effort. One such incident occurred in February of this year, when Joy Davis notified me that a collection of three CSI medals - for President, Past President, and Fellow - were being auctioned off on e-Bay.

What's a vendor?

I’m not sure when it started, but in the last couple of years I’ve seen an increasing number of references to “vendor” with no definition of what a vendor is. In the context of the construction contract, there is no need to introduce another entity, as everything is the responsibility of either the owner or the contractor. That leaves exactly four options for any given item:

Go-To Guys

I recently received an e-mail from my local IMI (International Masonry Institute) representative, saying that she would be retiring in a few weeks. Even though I had known her all the twenty-plus years I have been a CSI member, and knew we were about the same age, it was a bit of a shock. After trying to convince her not to retire (not very hard), I thought about other favorite product reps - my go-to guys, some of whom retired or lost their jobs in the past couple of years.

Specifiers have a simple job: to know everything about everything. Which is interesting, given that they not only must try to keep up with new products and changes in old ones, but must somehow divine what it is that the rest of the project team has in mind. Of course it's impossible to know everything, so what they do know is phone numbers for their go-to guys. These are the people who have the right answer or know where to get it, help extract information from manufacturers' labyrinthine websites, respond quickly, and appear to remain unfazed by calls made just days - or hours - before bidding documents are issued. They're the ones who know not only their own products but those of competitors, and are able to offer advice about installation, maintenance, potential problems, and corrective measures for defects or failures beyond their control.