This post I will admit is going to be less informative and more anecdotal, but I think it’s observation worth noting. The lighting industry is incredibly small, especially if you isolate it to the US only. I went on a factory tour today to look at some decorative pieces, and during lunch, I mentioned one lighting manufacturer and as is almost always the case two (of the three) people in the room had worked for them at one point or another.
Manufacturers, distributors, and part suppliers all know each other and all talk. As a specifier I find it amazing how quickly one distributor or manufacturer will know about the supposedly competitive bids being sent of to clients. I think it stems from the career path of many in the architectural lighting industry. Many of us came from the theater and filtered into architectural lighting as the entertainment industry remains too small to sustain all those trained for it.
At our heart theater people are gossip kings and queens. Set more than one of us in a room and we’ll be talking about the rest of the industry in no time. As the distributor I met with today said, “it’s a very incestuous industry.” Then the manufacturer turned to me and said “by the way, how’s your old boss doing? We went to college together.”
What does this mean for specifiers out there? Just know that there are no secrets out there. Your projects are going to get talked about throughout the wider lighting community, but more over, you will likely be talked about by the wider community and some of your reputation will rest in the hands of those you meet and work with. Stay open and honest, and you’ll have nothing to fear.
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The past week Chris Cheatham at Green Building Law Update (GBLU) has produced an excellent series of posts regarding the stimulus and the availability of funds for green construction projects. These posts have caused me to think of a great deal about how the disbursement of Billions of dollars of funds will be managed and regulated. I am curious as to what mechanisms you would suggest!
As has been seen with the use of TARP funds, the government is throwing around Billions of dollars in an effort to stimulate the economy but is often not accounting for the funds and how they have been spent. Under the most recent stimulus, Billions of dollars have been earmarked for projects which either provide for new construction of energy efficient buildings or the retrofitting of existing buildings to increase their energy efficiency. As Chris pointed out some of these projects specify that they will be built to LEED standards. Anyone familiar with LEED will immediately recognize a potential problem with conditition receipt of funds on building to a specified standard. LEED certification cannot be granted until a project has been completed! If a project fails to reach its required level of certification it is too late to retract the funding! While encouraging building to “green” standards is laudable and something I firmly support, I am concerned with Billions of dollars of taxpayer money being tossed around without the ability to enforce. Perhaps, a performance bond should be a requirement for receipt of government funds (Chris, feel free to shred that idea!).
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KCast Player
KCast turns the tables as the Konstructr nation nominates Chris Cheatham to take an opportunity to ask Vik Duggal some questions. Vik takes the time to answer question about the industry, Konstructr, and two of the most feared questions: 1) What does he do? and 2)Who will be the superman of the industry?
Links from today’s KCast:
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Vik left a great comment in response to my primer on print advertising last week, asking if print advertising is still relevant for the building and construction industry. This is a question that we as marketers constantly battle with. If the answer is no, then we need to transition to other forms of media, most notably online media.
However, if the answer is yes, as I think it is, then why are we still stuck with print ads while other industries are moving on? The answer is in Vik’s comment:
I find that regardless of where advertising is placed in our industry it’s pretty poor. It’s like the contractors, designers, whomever decided to make the advertisement up themselves.
I’m going sort of off the record here for a minute and speaking from my personal opinion of our industry. We’re behind the marketing curve. Big time. Why? Because the building industry has been exactly the same for the past 50 years, and no one has been forced to adapt to survive. This, in turn, leads those contractors, designers and engineers running companies to believe they can execute their own marketing. Because of this unchanging monotony, marketing has never really driven the building products industry. So why would manufacturers find any value in it?
As someone who battles every single day to convince manufacturers of the value in other forms of marketing, trust me when I say it’s an uphill battle. Most manufacturers have just recently established an online presence, and it’s usually just as poorly executed as the print ads Vik criticizes.
Vik ends his comment with another question, asking if print advertising is sustainable. Unfortunately, I think print advertising is sustainable in our industry for the near future. This will not change until a few things happen.
1. The down economy forces manufacturers to realize the value in proper marketing. Everyone’s tightening ship. Is your product at the top of everyone’s list? If you run the kind of ads Vik references, probably not. If you’re not online, probably not.
2. Green revitalizes building manufacturers. Green may be the industry’s saving grace. I say this because so much of the green movement’s influence and information is online. The fact is, print is behind on green news. If the industry can recognize the success of the online green movement, maybe something in their heads will click and realize the same can be done with our industry.
3. A younger generation takes power. Perhaps more than any other industry, building and construction relies on leaders in their 60s and 70s who, in turn, rely on marketing methods and business models from the 60s and 70s.
4. A trailblazing manufacturer proves the value in new marketing. The minute one manufacturer shows an increase in sales due to great online marketing, you can bet there will be a flood of manufacturers wanting to do the same. I can’t stress enough how much influence and exposure this trailblazer will generate.
Times have changed, manufacturers have not.
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KCast Player
Vik sits down with Braun Allison’s David Allison to discuss why after 20+ years in the industry he’s now changing his tune and how he feels the construction industry can overcome the current economic conditions. This episode is for anyone who is looking to take the industry in the right direction.
Question from today’s KCast:
If think of ourselves as a big family, what are you going to do next?
Links from today’s KCast:
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Great post on how innovative lighting can actually increase sustainability. Give it a read.
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KCast Player
Question from today’s KCast:
How can Gregory help people better understand the value of Revit?
Links from today’s KCast:
Why Gregory wants to make a difference in the world
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KCast Player
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How Trade Publications Can Adapt to Online Media
by Mark Wanczak on March 13, 2009
in Marketing
I picked up the latest copy of Metropolis earlier this week with the intent of flipping through to check out the ads, see what’s new in the industry and ultimately get away from my computer screen from a few minutes. We’ve all heard the reasons why online media is replacing print– convenience, up-to-date, daily news, easy to find information, and permanent placement.
While every pub is scrambling to find the answer to these issues, Metropolis seems to be a step ahead of other magazines. Take the image below for example. If you view the enlarged version, you’ll see a cue taken from online media.
Across the top of the magazine page reads three topics (Industrial Design, Free Broadband and Alpine Capsule) the article below covers. However, these topics aren’t standard editorial topic groupings. Instead, they represent a print version of the tags you see attached to most blog posts (see the bottom of this post).
This is an interesting example of print taking a page from online media’s book, but Metropolis doesn’t stop there. Further along in the issue, the pub interviews soon-to-be grads about their career plans. Instead of the aged, text-based question and answer format, Metropolis again uses online formatting as a design cue. Featuring an avatar, name and brief info, the student’s reactions appear visually as many blog comments do:
The magazine even takes it one step further and includes an online call to action at the bottom of the page, asking readers to visit their site for more student responses. Unfortunately, everything Metropolis does in print to adapt to the online world seems to be forgotten in their Web site design.
Without going in great detail, the site’s home page is clustered, confusing and overwhelming. It’s hard imaging a pub clearly on the edge of evolving print design with an online presence that resembles quite the opposite.
I really enjoyed Bruce Sterling’s article, “Product Panic 2009″ (see this post’s first image) and wanted to email it to a friend, but it’s impossible to find on the site. Is this because Metropolis won’t put new content online, worried that readers will just turn to the Web site for information and drop their subscriptions? Every major newspaper in the country publishes new content even before it appears in print.
Print may be dying in our industry, but it’s not dead yet. Metropolis is proving that pubs have options, but if you can’t provide the whole package, print and web, you’re still behind.
Ultimately, trade pubs need to adapt only as fast as online media fulfills the immediate needs of their audiences. So far, I don’t think this is happening in our industry as quickly as it has in other elsewhere, but we’re running out of time.
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