The Business of Design

Category: strategy

  • Who’s in Control?

    When your gut feels uncomfortable, it probably means you don’t have everything you need to be in control of a situation. Should you be in control of it?

  • Remote Work – It’s Okay to Not Be in the Cloud! (…fully)

    The recent spate of remote workplace articles might make you feel that the cloud is everything! Using the right tools at the right time is what’s actually cool.

  • The Sudoku of Site Design

    A three dimensional sudoku game is a good way to visualize what we do as landscape architects in our site designs and grading plans.

  • “Thank You” as a Part of Your Brand

    Feeling Good About Ourselves When was the last time that you received a hand-written note or card, where the sentiment was crafted by someone other than Hallmark? When was the last time that someone stopped to offer genuine thanks for something you did? We often don’t remember the power of taking a few minutes of time to…

  • Design: What Are You Buying?

    Return on investment within design is an interesting spectrum of bare bones functions to excess.

  • Survey Says? Fact, Value or Policy.

    Fact. Value. Policy. What is the basis for making a decision? And who needs to be responsible for it?

  • State Your Assumptions

    Positive change. How do organizations achieve it? Part 1 – A mechanism for coordination “Top-down” and “bottom-up” are familiar concepts for discussing where change originates within an organization. They’re based within some level of organizational hierarchy, with a simplified view being that there are two levels of power: workers and managers. The power they each…

  • Getting the Project: The Interview

    As a landscape architecture firm in a remote market (Alaska), we tend to be on multiple teams pursuing the same projects when we are a subconsultant on architectural project pursuits. We share this tendency the most with structural, and somewhat with electrical and mechanical. For most proposals this is a fairly clear and straight-forward process in that we provide…

  • The Power of “Tell Me More”

    Within establishing expectations, and communication in general, we need to have the tools to listen effectively. The most basic tool is simple: tell me more.

  • Coaching, Mentoring and Metaphor

    It is essential that we find the ways to achieve mutual understanding with those around us. There are short-cuts to a more full understanding, but every shortcut comes with accompanying risks. We minimize risks with doing our research, and with establishing a framework for dialogue and iterative refinement. In short, we need to learn how…