The Long Tail of Manufacturing

The Long Tail is one of my top read recommendations. The basic point is that in the digital world the low cost of production, the low cost of distribution and search create an unlimited number of viable niche markets. The key examples are Amazon.com and Netflix.

The question: "Is there a Long Tail in the real world - or just the virtual world?"

The article Manufacture and Sell Anything - In Minutes in Wired Magazine demonstrates that the Long Tail is expanding - even to the real world of manufacturing.

Here is an introduction to the article by Ian Mount.

Jeffrey Wegesin is a furniture maker. His most popular creation is a curvaceous side table, and even though he has sold only two copies of it, he has already turned a profit. He did it without so much as setting foot in a wood shop. And he is not alone. Wegesin is one of 5,000 merchants who have established accounts with Ponoko, a year-old on-demand manufacturing service in New Zealand.

Link here for the rest of the article.

Why Good People Do Bad Things on Projects

Here are a few more quotes from the book Broken Buildings Busted Budgets.

Quotes courtesy of Mike Wolff from ProjectSolutions Group in Virginia. The graphic is courtesy of Carlo Macaione from Gensler. Title courtesy of Randy Thompson from Cushman Wakefield.

"Traditionally, architects acted on behalf of owners to mitigate predatory contractor behavior, but increasingly they have shown themselves unsuited to the task. “Buildings have become much more complex,” inducing architects to push technical responsibility and liability onto other parties. “Designers,” he notes, “have become less interested in how the building actually goes together, which causes a disparity between design and construction cost.” The American Institute of Architects revising its standard form agreements to reduce the architect’s scope of services during the construction phase from “full time” on-site availability where it “oversaw” the construction “periodic” site availability where it simply “observed” the construction."

"Others suggest that alternate construction delivery such as fast-track or design-build methods can mitigate problems. The trade-off for owners in design-build is that while they benefit from holding a single source responsible for the design and construction of the project, they give up control of much of the process. Without a doubt, an owner who engages a design-build team must hire an independent owner’s representative to ensure that its design intent and quality expectations are properly executed."

"Few contemporary architects have firsthand knowledge of actual construction method and techniques. One of the biggest problems contractors voice is the poor and incomplete preparation of architectural drawings. While they reflect the design aesthetic desired by the architect, they do so without clearly depicting a corresponding understanding of how the particular design element is to be physically built in the field."

"The construction industry needs one or more intermediaries, firms that will reduce the amount of asymmetric information between owners and contractors and enforce fixed-price contracts. Once those institutions are in place, construction firms can begin to compete on the basis of price, quality, and time."

What are you sinking about?

Here is a remix from three friends, Kerry MacKay and Bill & Jim Couchenour. The message; communicate clearly, intentionally from the context of your audience.

How do you go about “identifying holes in your marketing strategy“.

1st - don’t think like a member of your company. You know all of the buzz words, acronyms and short-cuts. Think like those who have never seen your business, understand or care about your brand or who have no clue as to why you or anyone would be excited about what you do or provide.

2nd - be clear about what you want others to know (both inside your organization and outside). Make it easy to navigate through "the system;" on your website, when they call in, through your processes... In other words “NEXT STEPS”. Know these before you start delivering your message.

3rd - evaluate EVERY piece of communication - oral, print, broadcast, and digital media. Brand it, message it, and unify it across your organization with a non industry insider in mind. If you have to interpret it for someone it isn’t very good. They need to be able to understand it without your assistance.

4th - make sure your team knows the plan and its intent - everyone must be on the same page and it needs to be transferable. Every department filters the same plan differently. Provide a forum for a multi-angled understanding to unify your message through the countless touch points your members have clients, vendors and the community.

5th - clarify your message by gathering as much input as possible with clients, vendors and colleagues.

6th - remember, we live in a Web 2.0 world where all communication and programs are now subject to user FEEDBACK. Feedback means an authentic message is influenced by feedback and open to adjustment and refinement - and more feedback.

7th - show up open minded - don’t go into this with predetermined agendas. Agendas don’t grow…they control. We don’t do control we serve our clients, colleagues and community.

(Courtesy of Kerry MacKay)

I first saw this video in a leadership presentation by Bill Couchenour with Cogun Construction.

The Brain Software

I met with a business colleague yesterday and discussed strategies for a distribution network. I used The Personal Brain to map out our ideas. I've received several inquiries from the last blog asking about this software. The video below provides a nice introduction. I like this tool! Let me know if you try it out.

The K-Web - James Burke - Historical mindshifting

If you have not heard, watched or read anything by James Burke - you really need to. His brain works in an amazing way to tie disconnected connections of history into a unique context of understanding. His stories spur innovative thinking - or at least I feel like it when I finish one.

This video shares some of the vision and progress for the Knowledge Web

Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets Review (1)

Here are some quotes from the book Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets courtesy of Mike Wolff with ProjectSolutions Group.


There would seem to be some natural-enough intermediary candidates in construction. Such judgments used to be the bailiwick of architects, but somewhere along the line, architects lost their grip on the grimy reality of construction. There was a time when they were referred to as the “master builder”. They shrank from their historic role as the owner’s ombudsman . . .

Rarely did the great majority of architects commit significant resources to the construction administration phase of their projects. In their absence during the construction process, building owners have gotten well and truly lost.

Competitive bidding is therefore no panacea because it fails to determine the final cost or quality of the job. In order to jumpstart construction productivity, we need two interrelated devices: 1) an intermediary with some teeth, and 2) a true fixed cost (a.ka. “hard money” or lump sum) contract, where a contractor commits to build in accordance with the design intent for a precise sum.

Traditional U.S. construction contracts in fact disguised mutable-cost contracts because contractors find it so easy to raise the price during the construction process. “Competitive bidding . . . often leads to the owner getting nailed during construction for numerous extra charges by a builder intent on making up for the too low price he had to submit to win the job in the first place”.

Construction's Dysfunctional World

Barry B. LePatner is author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets (2007). A member of the New York City, New York State, and American Bar Associations, he holds a B.A. degree from Brooklyn College and a J.D. degree from Brooklyn Law School. His critique of the construction industry chronicles its dysfunctions as only a veteran attorney can.

Here is an excerpt from an interview in Building Design & Construction

"A meta-survey by the University of Pennsylvania showed that 49.2% of all labor costs on construction projects are wasted due to inefficiencies: laborers waiting for deliveries, going up and down hoists, waiting for other trades to move out of the way.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 1964 to 2003, for all nonfarm industries, productivity per worker went up 125%. For the construction industry, the output went down over 20% per worker over that period. If we just achieved a 10% increase in efficiency, we could add $120 billion a year to the economy."

Link here for the rest of the interview.