The Business of Design

Category: management

  • Urban Planning Through Frugality

     Otherwise Titled: “The Frugal Consultant” The variety of places I intentionally visit on the internet is small. One of them is www.mrmoneymustache.com. “Mr. Money Mustache is a thirtysomething retiree who now writes about how we can all lead a frugal yet Badass life of leisure.” To distill what I like about the website is that it’s…

  • How to Build Mutual Accountability

    The only real accountability is that which we enforce on ourselves. In order to internalize accountability, we have to be a meaningful part of the process.

  • Understanding the Secret Value of Value

    When we are subconsultants, we are aware of our place within the world. Site design and landscape often aren’t the highest focus of attention within a project. We’ve developed approaches and skills where we try our best to deliver high value, even in the face of a lack of engagement or sub-optimal processes. We operate at…

  • Benevolent Manipulation

    To artfully manage others to assist them in reaching their potential, recognizing that this will in turn benefit us.

  • The (un)Benefits of Owning Your Own Firm

    ArchDaily posted a request today for input about The Benefits of Owning Your Own Firm. When I talk to people about this, I used to say that it was like a version of retiring. Not retiring to go play golf, but retiring INTO something that was more of your choice. I always followed it quickly…

  • Most Important Skill Ever!!! Running a Good Meeting

    I’ve had the luck to be on a commission, be on an editorial board, be involved with local professional association leadership, be involved with national professional association leadership, run my own company, and have countless discussions over “after beers” when I interacted with anyone else during the business of the above. If anyone were to…

  • Trying to Avoid Work (to Benefit Our Clients)

    Sometimes we find ourselves doing things for our clients that they don’t actually need, but it’s what they told us they needed. When that happens, it means we didn’t stop for a second to work with them to truly understand their concerns. That’s one of our main reasons for being… figuring out what root cause(s)…

  • Managing from Behind: Part 1 – Helping Our Prime Consultants Help Us

    Part 1 – Helping Our Prime Consultants Help Us We’re an independent landscape architecture firm. That means we work with a wide variety of architects, engineers and other consultants. We get to see (and experience) a whole range of project management styles and capabilities. This allows us to not only learn by example (from good…