a:30:{s:9:"weblog_id";s:1:"2";s:8:"entry_id";s:3:"661";s:6:"sticky";s:1:"n";s:14:"allow_comments";s:1:"n";s:16:"allow_trackbacks";s:1:"n";s:10:"entry_date";s:19:"2009-08-18 02:26 PM";s:15:"expiration_date";s:0:"";s:23:"comment_expiration_date";s:0:"";s:8:"category";a:2:{i:0;s:2:"16";i:1;s:2:"67";}s:9:"author_id";s:1:"4";s:10:"new_weblog";s:1:"2";s:6:"status";s:4:"open";s:14:"trackback_urls";s:0:"";s:18:"versioning_enabled";s:1:"y";s:5:"title";s:42:"Old/New Media: The Construction Connection";s:9:"url_title";s:41:"old_new_media_the_construction_connection";s:6:"submit";s:6:"Update";s:10:"field_id_5";s:42:"Old/New Media: The Construction Connection";s:10:"field_ft_5";s:4:"none";s:10:"field_id_9";s:119:"What will be the role of “Web 2.0″ and “Social Mediaâ€ be in the construction industry, and why should you care?";s:10:"field_ft_9";s:4:"none";s:11:"field_id_13";s:1:"4";s:10:"field_id_7";s:40:"Web 2.0, social media, Facebook, Twitter";s:10:"field_ft_7";s:4:"none";s:10:"field_id_8";s:5596:"<p><!--end meta--></p>
<div class=\"snap_preview\">
<p>What will be the role of &ldquo;Web 2.0&Prime; and &ldquo;Social Media&rdquo; be in the construction industry, and why should you care?</p>
<p><a href=\"http://www.finan.com\"><img alt=\"twitter-page\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-69\" height=\"162\" src=\"http://pblshr4.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/twitter-page1.jpg?w=300&amp;h=162\" title=\"twitter-page\" width=\"300\" /></a>In the August 3rd issue of <em>En</em><em>gineering News-Record</em> there was an article on Textura, a construction e-commerce firm with
38,000 users, including 25% of the ENR Top 400, that&rsquo;s venturing into
social networking.</p>
<p>The firm, which GCs use to facilitate payments, will now offer a
Facebook-like component that will allow contractors to distribute their
resumes, balance sheets, and other supporting documentation online.
Owners and GCs can decide who they want to &ldquo;friend,&rdquo; to borrow a term
from Facebook, and allow to bid on a project.</p>
<p>The construction industry is one of the strongest industries in
terms of communication, connection, and the importance of
relationships. It is also an industry that struggles with implementing
new technologies, particularly when they relate to communication or
marketing.</p>
<p>A couple of months ago there were two excellent pieces on the transition in media on <em>CBS Sunday Morning</em>.</p>
<p>One was a &ldquo;Fast Draw&rdquo; piece <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901018n\">Blogging Through History</a>. The video traced the evolution of participatory journalism from America&rsquo;s first newspaper <em>Publick Occurrence</em><em>s</em> which had a blank last page for people to type comments and pass the
paper along,&nbsp; through the growth in newspapers to today&rsquo;s blogs.</p>
<p>The second was a commentary by Nancy Giles on Twitter entitled <a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901026n\">Tweets, Twits, and Twitter, Oh </a><a href=\"http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901026n\">My!</a> . You should listen to the second piece just to get her punchline at the end.</p>
<p>Part of the problem with &ldquo;Social Media,&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;Web 2.0,&rdquo; or anything
that came before or after it is that the public discussion and the buzz
focus on the medium, rather than on the end result.</p>
<p>Having spent a large part of my career in business media, I am
fascinated as I read in e-newsletters, blogs, and magazine articles
about the ways in which business publishers are struggling to
&ldquo;monetize&rdquo; social media.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the midst of the focus on technology there&rsquo;s a total
lack of understanding of the reason that people use any form of
communication: to connect. They want to connect with an idea, with a
friend, with a business, with a solution to a problem, with a good
laugh. Anything else but human connection might be technology, or
noise, or commerce, but it&rsquo;s not communication.</p>
<p>When I was beginning my career in the early &rsquo;70s, the phrase &ldquo;The medium is the message,&nbsp; coined by communication theorist <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan\" title=\"Marshall McLuhan\">Marshall McLuhan</a> received great attention. McCluhan meant the form that we use to
commuicate embeds itself in the message, and directly effects the way
in which the message is understood. He also noted that the actual words
or images of a message may be less significant than the impact of those
visuals, sounds, or text &ndash; in other words what the overall package <em>communicates.</em></p>
<p>In <em>Understanding Media</em>, the book that he wrote in 1964 to
explain his theories, he pointed out that we could reread any page of a
book but that a movie needed to be re-screened to study it. (Who knows
what he would have made of the thousands of clips from vintage movies
that now reside on YouTube.) His point was that&nbsp; the medium through
which a person encounters a particular piece of content would have an
effect on the individual&rsquo;s understanding of it.</p>
<p><a href=\"/features/article/banding_together_networking_through_tough_times/\">A piece I wrote last week</a> for the <em>St. Louis CNR Weekly Enews</em> pointed out, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s currently a lot of buzz about Web 2.0 and social
networking. But St. Louis construction companies are also networking
in&nbsp; tough times with proven technology: a cold beer and a good story.&rdquo;
The article talked about the high popularity of informal networking
events as a way to connect and gather information in tough times.</p>
<p><a href=\"/departments/article/budrovich_big_on_you_tube/\">Another recent <em>Enews</em> article</a> covered<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi-mFgCeKfE\"> a YouTube post</a> by A. J. Ford, vice presi<a href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi-mFgCeKfE\"><img alt=\"Budrovich 550\" height=\"155\" src=\"/images/uploads/budrovich.jpg\" style=\"float: right;\" width=\"200\" /></a>dent
for sales and marketing for Budrovich Crane Rental. After I posted the
article with a link to A.J.&rsquo;s video, 196 people viewed it a total of
248 times. The time-lapse <img src=\"http://users/tom/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/moz-screenshot.png\" />video of the setup of a 550-ton crane tells a compelling story.</p>
<p>As we explore the use of Social Media and Web 2.0 in the
construction industry we need to remember: Whether the &ldquo;medium&rdquo; is a
cold Bud and a story or a Tweet, the important thing is making the
connection.</p>
</div>";s:11:"field_id_42";s:0:"";s:11:"field_id_43";s:0:"";s:11:"field_ft_43";s:4:"none";s:10:"category_0";s:2:"16";s:10:"category_1";s:2:"67";}