Are specifiers an endangered species?

For many years, there have been debates about the future of construction specifiers. Where will we find new specifiers? Are they all dying off? Is the profession no longer needed? While I believe there is reason for concern, I don't think much has changed.

Several years ago, Bob Johnson conducted an informal survey on 4specs.com, asking members to answer these questions:

• What is your current age?
• Did you receive education beyond high school?
• What was your major?
• At what age did you first prepare some significant specifications?
• Did you have a mentor in specifications?
• How was the mentor related to you (office, CSI chapter, etc.)?
• At what age did you first take a formal education seminar or course in specifications?
• Who provided the education?
• At what age did you achieve CCS (will be later for many because of when the program started)?
• At what age did you first become a full-time specifier?

Haystacks: Do construction documents do what they're supposed to do?

The purpose of construction documents is simple: They tell the contractor what is needed to complete a project.

How best to do that has been a subject of debate for a long time, even though a basic set of rules has been used at least as far back as the 1940s. In his "The Case For the Streamlined Specification", published in the July 1949 Construction Specifier, Ben John Small referred to a book titled "Specifications" that was written in 1896; the older book apparently discussed some degree of streamlining.

That's fine as far as it goes, but if the intent is to clearly communicate with the contractor, are we doing as well as we could? Architects and specifiers have a nice collection of rules for organizing information, but do they make sense for the contractor? Our rules are fairly consistent, and they are generally accepted by design firms, but can they be improved? A large project many take a year or more to complete, yet we still have inconsistencies and conflicts. Is it fair to expect a bidder, who typically has only a few weeks to figure out what we want, collect subcontract bids (many of which are incomplete or include qualifications), decide how much to include to cover the inevitable problems, and arrive at a competitive price?

Can we do better than asking contractors to find the critical information in a haystack of information that is less important?

Is it time to brush up your resume?

It's been ten years since my firm took the plunge and began moving from AutoCAD to Revit. There was a lot of behind-the-scenes research and discussion in the preceding year, after which a test team was assembled and trained. A real project was selected for live-fire testing, and we were on the way. About two years later, we did our first all-discipline project. In the next two years, the entire production staff received a full week of training. By the time the economy collapsed in 2008, Revit was our primary program, and today, it is used for virtually all of our work.

When the decision was made to commit to Revit, a few of our users made a presentation to the rest of the office, showing some of BIM's capabilities. Many of those who watched were impressed by a simple demonstration that showed simultaneously a plan, an elevation, and an isometric view of part of a model. The presenter showed that moving a door in any one of the views changed the other views in real time. As I watched, I remember thinking, "Someone is going to be out of a job."

Manufacturers' specifications don't follow CSI's Practice Guide; why are you surprised?

That spec is a real turkey!

CSI's practice documents - MasterFormat, SectionFormat, and the Practice Guides - present a unified and consistent approach to preparing and interpreting construction documents based on AIA or EJCDC general conditions and related documents. They also are applicable to documents produced by most other organizations, though some modification may be necessary. When teaching CSI classes, I emphasize the overall organization of these documents as a first principle; with that in mind, it's easier to understand why things are organized the way they are, and to see how they all work together. This sometimes leads to comments and questions, such as, "That's not the way my office does it!" and "Why don't this manufacturer's specifications follow those rules?"

Celebrate the Fellows!

Conventions are like state or county fairs: it seems they're the same year after year, and yet, if you compare this year's to the one a few years ago, there will be small differences. But sometimes, significant changes take place between one fair and the next.

Until this year, the social highlight of the annual convention was the President's Gala. A black tie dinner, with all that entails - including formal dresses and tuxedos - along with meeting the new president and witnessing the investiture of Fellows, was the grand finale. This year we tried something different. The events of the Gala were separated, some being added to other events, some becoming new events. Instead of being among the last events, the investiture of Fellows was moved to Tuesday evening, and the introduction of Distinguished Members was moved to the opening general session Wednesday morning.

You won't believe what happened!

In "Absolute nonsense", I talked about the lack of precision used in daily conversation, and the need for precision in construction documents. Nothing so serious this time; in fact, I'm not going to say much about construction documents, except for an interesting penalty paid by Lowe's to five California counties. Instead, I'm going to have a little fun and talk about some of my favorite social media peeves.

There are so many links from so many sources that it can be difficult to decide which to follow. In an effort to entice readers to follow the links, thereby increasing their value to advertisers, many updates and social media posts use headlines designed to suck you in. For me, these clever headlines are a red flag, but apparently they work.

Does anyone really believe headlines or links with phrases like "what happens next will shock you",

How may I serve you?

Institute Director Wolfe serves Director-Elect Janet Piccola
and member Betty Chavira at the Las Vegas Convention

At this year's annual meeting, CSI members will discuss a change in the way Institute directors are elected. I find the proposal interesting, as something similar was discussed by the Institute board in 2006, and probably before that. Briefly, the proposal would have all Institute directors elected by the entire membership, because directors are expected to act on behalf of the entire membership, rather than for the members of their regions.

I wrote about this issue in a Mr. Wolfe Goes to Washington articles in 2006. It was written before the passage of the governance amendment, so it talks of two directors per region, but the reasoning remains valid. I used yellow highlight to add emphasis that was not in the original article.

More specifications history

In the last post, "Where have I heard that before?", I used several excerpts from a 1920 edition of the American Architect magazine. The comments showed a general concern about the importance of specifications, and about the absence of specifications in architectural education, stating "the preparation of specifications receives less study and attention in proportion to its importance than any other phase of architectural or engineering practice."

While investigating the history of specifications, I was surprised to find references like this, as I had learned next to nothing about specifications in school (I think the word was spoken the first day of Professional Practice class, never to be mentioned again). It wasn't until I became a specifier that I understood what specifications are, thanks to my local CSI chapter. However, as good as the education and certification classes were, my understanding was that CSI pretty much invented specifications.