Electronic Communications or Instant Gratification?

I think all of us agree that electronic communications and electronic media are making our lives infinitely better but also infinitely more complicated. Look around any conference room, restaurant or church and most adults have some sort of communication device visible if not in use. How many of our church services begin with the announcement to please silence our cell phones?

At the recent Middle Atlantic Region Leadership Orientation Seminar (LOS), I experienced two events that help illustrate the best and possibly worst of electronic media. Neither were overt parts of the presentations, but both caused me to think about the nature of electronic media and how it is changing some things in our professions and organization. The instantaneous sharing of content is something that we are just beginning to grasp as an industry and as a society at large.

Most of us who have given a presentation to a group of peers have experienced the fear that you may be asked a question to which you have no answer. I have presented to our chapter’s Winter Seminars for several years. I have a presentation on measurements and modifications to contract documents during construction and another on facility management. I’m an architect, so I was frequently asked questions about facility management that I could not answer! My advice was always the same: read the book, as the seminars are to prepare candidates for CSI’s certification exams and CSI’s Project Resource Manual is the Bible for that effort.

At LOS, our Institute Director, Mitch Miller, gave a presentation on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator for personality types. It was a good presentation and an introduction to the Myers Briggs personality types and all possible combinations of personalities. Mitch would introduce each of the 16 different types by explaining a bit about the personality type and then listing some famous people who share that type to help the attendees better understand the personality type.

After several of the personality types and their corresponding celebrities – some former US presidents, artists and musicians – an audience member raised her hand and asked if Frank Lloyd Wright would appear in one of these personality types. Mitch could not remember if Wright’s name appeared on the list or not. At that point, several of us reached for our smartphones or iPads and Google-searched “Myers Briggs Frank Lloyd Wright.” Within minutes, myself and the folks sitting behind me had the answer.

According to the web site most of us found, Wright was an “ENTP” which stands for Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving. Other ENTP’s are Danny DeVito, Paul McCartney, George Gershwin and Jesus of Nazareth. I have to assume the Gospel writers gave someone enough insight into Jesus’ personality so that we can infer Him to have been an ENTP.

During the question and answer period following Mitch’s presentation, the person sitting behind me dutifully reported Wright to have been an ENTP. After some discussion and nodding assent or quiet disagreement, the group moved on to the next presentation. I turned around and asked the source. The folks behind me citied the same source I had found: http://www.baylorfans.com/ – an online community for fans of Baylor University sports!

The other anecdote dote also involves Mitch Miller. Our Institute staff was unable to attend our LOS because they were attending the South Central Region Conference in Tulsa, OK. Staff had provided Mitch with a PowerPoint presentation to give on the current happenings at the Institute. Friday night in Tulsa was April Fool’s Day, so the South Central folks held a “Fool’s Ball” complete with wild and outlandish costumes. Prior to his presentation, Mitch took some images of various staff down from the Internet off of CSI’s Flickr account and dropped them into his presentation!

The instant gratification is what has struck me in both of these instances. Someone asked a question and poor Mitch was unable to get to a computer to answer the question but those of us who should have been paying attention to him jumped in an answered it for him using our mobile technologies. The other was the amazing turn of being able to see pictures from an event that happened 1300 miles away and only 15 hours earlier.

Can we learn from the Japanese and their building codes?

Welcome to the inaugural Felt Tips blog post. This blog will be a community effort among leaders and members of the Baltimore Chapter of CSI. If you have an idea or a full blog post, please contact the Electronic Communications Committee at webmaster@csibaltimore.org We would love the help!

I think many architects, engineers and builders spend a fair amount of time cursing our building codes. We all have too many stories about the beautiful design element lessened because of a code requirement. Or the client with a vague understanding of codes who makes demonstrative statements like "that's against code," when in fact, what you are proposing falls within what is accepted by the relevant building codes. You then spend inordinate amounts of time proving you are right and they are wrong, but typically lose the battle anyway!

We are all watching the events in Japan unfold with a mix of awe and horror. The destruction wrought by the most powerful earthquake I can remember and the ensuing tsunami is unimaginable to me, especially when the two events came in tandem like a one-two punch in a heavyweight bout. My closest comparison, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, do not come close to what we are seeing in Japan.

We have found some articles that indicate the destruction and loss of life could have been much worse than what it is but for Japan's strict building codes and overall event preparedness. By all accounts, Japan is the one country in the world best prepared for these events. It all began with the devastation of the Kobe earthquake in 1995. The Japanese government funneled billions of dollars into research and preparation to help prepare the country, her people and her structures for this event. Here are a couple of articles for you to read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/world/asia/12codes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/11/6246591-early-hero-of-japans-quake-tragedy-building-codes

However, are we doing enough? Many who work under the recent versions of the International Building Code recognize that much of the United States now falls in some manner of seismic zone, but is it enough? Anecdotally, we have known about the New Madrid Fault near Memphis, TN for some time and the 1812 earthquake that supposedly reversed the flow of the Mississippi River temporarily. In February 2011, almost 200 years later, we are seeing an increase in seismic activity along that fault:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110217/ap_on_re_us/us_arkansas_earthquakes

I have spent a bit of time in San Francisco and have a vague understanding of the seismic preparedness required of structures built in one of our country's most active seismic zones. But are we doing enough in the lessor known or less active seismic zones? The video footage I have seen of the tsunami leaves me wondering what we would do here? Most Japanese tried to reach higher ground because the mandatory tsunami drills instituted by their government taught them what to do. What would happen in our Mid-Atlantic region if a similar event occured?