This is where Advanced Segments in Google Analytics can really help you understand and breakdown those larger numbers into more smaller, more meaningful numbers. Firstly, Google Analytics already comes with some pre-defined advanced segments for you to choose from. These are great but they are basic segments such as ‘search traffic’ which will display all the stats only for those who came to your website from a search engine or ‘mobile visits’ or ‘non-bounce visits’. However, Google Analytics does allow you to create your own segments based on the type of website you have and the information you want to extract from the analytics software.

One particular advanced segment I love using for all clients is the ‘Brand vs Non-Brand Keywords’ segment for measuring brand awareness and SEO efforts (search acquisition). It makes sense as most construction companies success is all based on brand awareness.

BRAND = Those who come to your website having searched for your company name/product brand

NON-BRAND = Those who come to your website not having searched for you, your company or your product brands

This particular segment basically segments the visitors who come to your website from a search engine having typed in your company name into Google and those who did not. This can also be done for all your product brands too to see if you have increased awareness of your products over a period of time. Note: Search engines will be the top referrer for all, if not most, construction product manufacturer websites so treat it seriously.

What do Brand and Non-Brand search segments look like?

Those of you who are aware of how to set up an advanced segments in Google Analytics then it should look something like this for brand (if you don’t then I’d advise you to come on one of the Pauley Creative workshops throughout 2012):

Advanced segment set up for 'Brand Visitors' from search engines

As you can see from the above image, this website received 81,811 visits of which 8642 visits were from a branded search term. This is the equivalent of 10.56%. Now you can go away and ask yourself “Has this increased over the last 12 months?” or “Has it increased since our £50,000 brand awareness campaign?”

The non-brand segment looks something like this:

Advanced segment set up for 'Non-Brand Visitors' from search engines

Note that the condition ‘excludes’ the keyword company name unlike the ‘Brand’ segment which ‘includes’ the keyword. As you can see from the above image a large percentage, 61.15%, of visitors to this website came from a search engine without entering the company name or product name into a search engine. Now, this is where your SEO efforts come into play. This is about getting your products and its content in front of those who are not aware of your products, services or brand.

What does analysing branded search terms actually tell you?

If you take all the visits from your website generated from a search engine which includes your company name or product brand then it’s a good indicator for measuring any increase in brand or product awareness. If you see a slow, but gradual increase, in the number of visits generated from people searching Google with your company name then you are doing something effective offline or online for them to have wanted to Google you.

For example, after an exhibition such as Ecobuild, people may leave the show and a few days later start Googling for your company name or products or if you have just finished a 12 months brand awareness campaign then look to see if this had any impact on people Googling your company name or products. Do you see an increase that look similar to this?

Gradual increase in traffic from branded search terms

Or does it look something like this? Oh dear!

Gradual decrease in visits from branded search terms.....worried?

The above chart may indicate a couple of things. The first, your competitors may have ramped up their marketing efforts and whilst lots of people used to talk about you and search for you and your products, they no longer do or starting not to. The second reason could be that you may have had your website pages demoted as a result of poor content, lack of freshness or using spam techniques to game Google, thus rankings have dropped and traffic has had an impact as a result.

An increase in traffic from non-branded search terms indicates that your SEO campaigns are working but are they generating enquiries? Read on.

Enquiries generated from Brand search terms and Non-Brand search terms

So now you have set up your segments you should now start to dig a bit deeper into the search reports and see overall visitor information and sport any trends in content consumption and also which particular keywords are converting visitors into enquiries.

View how many visits were generated from each segment

By viewing these numbers in segments you can quickly see how many of the total visits to your website from a search engine came from those who know of your brand and those who were looking for a company or product without a reference to brand.

Monitor the bounce rate for the non-brand segment. A high bounce rate percentage could indicate low value content or poor website design. You can make tweaks to your website or landing pages to try and lower the bounce rate and keep non-brand visitors on your website to consume more of your sticky content. If you are trying to increase product awareness then make sure your product landing pages are performing well and keeping visitors on your website.

How good is your site at keeping non-brand visitors on your website?

Now, if you have goals set up in Analytics to measure downloads, requests, sign ups, registrations, enquiries etc then you can start to see how many enquiries came from each segment. It’s amazing how many construction websites I’ve come across that don’t have conversions set up in Google Analytics. If you want to know how to set up goals in Google Analytics to measure enquiry submissions, registrations or sign ups then view this episode of MDiTV.

Exactly how many enquirers have been generated from both segments?

As you can see from the above image that it is very important to make sure your website is visible within search engines in order to drive traffic and then generate enquiries from search engines. By doing this you can also benchmark now and after a particular campaign and work out some form of return or the value of the sales opportunity. If you notice a big jump in traffic over a period of a few months from the brand visitors segment then you know your marketing is having some sort of positive effect. Remember that sometimes negative PR can also impact this. If a negative press story has just been published then people will Google for you to find out more.

So, without segmenting you can’t really see what’s working at a deeper level and which types of visitors are interacting with your website. One KPI which you can use to monitor your website is the conversion rates of brand and non-brand visitors. You may only decide to use conversion rate of non-brand visitors to asses the performance of your search engine optimisation strategy. Quality over quantity as they say.

Conversion rate for each segment

So there you have it, a detailed look into ‘Brand’ and ‘Non-brand’ traffic from search engines and how to segment this traffic in Google Analytics. There are many more advanced segments so stay tuned over the next few weeks as I write about a few more. If you would like to know more about segmentation or having any other questions regarding the use of Google Analytics then please do leave a comment below or book your place on one of the Pauley Creative Workshops in Milton Keynes.

1. Driving traffic

The main reason Pinterest has been making headlines over the last few weeks is because of the vast amounts of traffic it’s driving. Pinterest can bring new visitors to your site that might not have come across you or your products and services before. At the moment, I don’t think much of that traffic is targeted or quality traffic but this might change as Pinterest comes out of beta and more people from your target audience group sign up. Below you can see that within about a week, Pinterest is already in the top 5 traffic referring sources to our site.

Referral traffic report

When marketing to architects, imagery is very important so product manufacturers can make use of this to showcase their products and different product applications. Running competitions that encourage visitors to use your products in different ways can help promote your content online. Take a look at McKay Flooring once again who are currently running a Pinterest competition, where users have to design their own magical home or private study using at least one of their products and stating why they like that particular product or design. This can help generate buzz about the company and their products.

2. Keyword strategy

Your website and blog should be optimised to focus on a few core keywords and phrases that are relevant to your industry and the audience you’re targeting. Individual Pinterest accounts, as well as each pin board you create is being indexed by Google. Therefore make sure you give them descriptive titles containing your keywords. So, a Pinboard called ‘ 5000L rainwater harvesting tanks ‘ packed full of product images and descriptions, would be better than a board simply called ‘Our tanks’ which is generic and non-specific. The Pinterest search feature still needs some tweaking but I’m sure it will improve over the months to come and you want users to find your boards when they type keywords and phrases into the search box.

3. Link building

Pinterest is quickly becoming a huge network and generating loads of traffic so the site’s domain authority is great. Search engines are constantly indexing all the new content and the more people post your items on their boards or link to it, the more followed links you’ll be getting, helping with search rankings. Include links to your blog and website on your boards and tag individual pins with hashtags (#) which, like Twitter, are searchable. Remember that if someone ‘pins’ something off your site, you also get a followed link. The two images below illustrate this.

Using hashtags to categorise pins

Link back to your website

4. Image search

The main focus of Pinterest is imagery and lots of it. Whether you upload product pictures, case studies, infographics, posters, architecture snaps or videos – all of them have a stored link making it easy to come back to the original pin even of others have shared it on their profile. Link the photo you’re pinning to a specific and relevant URL on your site where people can find out more information. Make sure your images are name correctly and use ALT tags to make your images searchable in Google. Take another look at your website, blog, portfolio and see what ‘pinnable’ content you have that would be interesting to your audience.

5. Detailed reporting in analytics

When you look at your traffic sources report in analytics, Pinterest actually tells you which piece of content generated the referral click and allows you to click through and see that item. Other social sites, like Facebook, simply show you a referral path so you’re not completely sure what post someone clicked on to get back to your site or blog. This feature makes it easy to identify what pins and pinboards people are engaging with the most (likes, comments, repins), what is driving quality traffic back to your website/blog and then focus on interacting with these people and producing more of that type of content.

Pinterest lets you view which exact pin or pinboard sent traffic back to your site

Have you got any other points to add to this list? If you’re on Pinterest, have you seen any results yet?

We have set up a profile so come and follow our Pauley Creative pins!

Strength and breadth of digital marketing used in the approach to the show

• How many social/digital channels are being used to promote your presence at the event?
• Is the messaging consistent and regular?
• Does your website support your Ecobuild campaign eg. do you have a separate landing page or area that you’re directing specific Ecobuild traffic to?

Integration of digital marketing with offline media (such as advertising, PR etc)

• Does your advertising or PR direct people back to your website or social media accounts?
• Are you repurposing your offline coverage for maximum benefits online?

Best use of stand space and overall presence and impact at the show

• Does your stand promote your social media presence eg. follow us on Twitter @XXXX
• Is digital a feature on your stand eg showing a live Twitter feed, videos or encouraging visitors to share images.
• Are you taking your online relationships offline at Ecobuild?

Use of digital technologies on the stand to generate brand awareness or engagement

• Are you using QR codes to take visitors to a dedicated Ecobuild landing page or encouraging them to sign up to your newsletter?
• Are you being creative with technologies such as augmented reality to showcase your products or podcasts of your seminars that can be downloaded on the stand?
• Have you arranged to have your seminar or stand activities filmed so that you can turn it into a short YouTube video and share with people that could not attend (show them what they’re missing).

Use of social media at the show, converting online relationships into real contacts and business opportunities

• Are you using social media to communicate with people before, during and after the show.
• Have you planned a follow up strategy to engage with people once they’ve left your stand eg. lead nurturing through an email campaign.

Automatic disqualification for displaying female models in skimpy t-shirts to attract attention

• We’re not joking!

Best of luck to everyone exhibiting and we look forward to seeing your creative ideas. If you are attending, not exhibiting, we also want you to get involved and let us know of any stands you see that are using digital marketing effectively. Send us a tweet @PauleyCreative using the hashtag #digibuild and let us know.

Below are a few straightforward ways you can make better use of your digital marketing toolkit at Ecobuild. If you would also like to enter our ‘best use of digital marketing award‘ then tweet @PauleyCreative with the hashtag #digibuild. For more information on the award criteria please see our award blog post.

Don’t worry we’re not going to bamboozle you with weird or wonderful technologies – hopefully these are all mediums you’ll be familiar with, if not engaging in already; we’re simply hoping to make your digital marketing tactics work harder for your business objectives.

Use social…

To promote your stand and your Ecobuild activities to your audience

• Remember to add your stand number to your tweets, and any specific times that senior staff will be on the stand to meet clients.

To directly engage with any specific new business contact you may have

• Why not invite them to your stand for a coffee, or to watch a talk you’ll be doing.

To run competitions

• Engage with your audience in a fun way – asking for pictures or comments and celebrating the best

Use video…

To share your seminars or stand activities with your online audience who might not have been able to make it to the show

• This adds greater value through longevity – the videos will be relevant content on your website until next year’s Ecobuild.

On your stand as a feature

• For example why not showcase the technical capabilities at your factory or head office by showing some interesting videos on your stand?

To liven up your blog

• Why not use Ecobuild inspiration for, or merely a backdrop to some video blog posts

But don’t forget to use your website…

To support all of your digital marketing activities, so that when you successfully drive traffic

• All videos, images, stand details and activities etc should all be visible and accessible from your website

To capture data (email addresses, twitter handles or phone numbers) from the traffic you drive

• This will help you to measure whether your activities at the show have successfully expanded your audience, and allow you to continue a ‘conversation’ with them into the future.
• Don’t forget to request information on where they heard of you, so that you can clearly evaluate the tactics you used and make a simple decision on whether to continue with each of them in the future.

It’s all too easy to focus on ‘just getting through the show’… picturing yourself with a well-deserved drink and your feet up on the sofa on that Thursday evening. There’s just one more thing we’d like you to think about though…

Follow up with your newfound Ecobuild friends…

Thank you’s

• Aim to quickly thank everybody you met, through Twitter, email, Facebook or even LinkedIn – start the relationships as you mean to go on, and continue that good first impression.

Write a blog post

• To evaluate your time at the show, highlight the good bits, and make a joke about how solar panel companies seem to be taking over the world…

Plan an email marketing campaign

• Specifically to your Ecobuild contacts, this will give you a good platform to reinforce your key messages from the show, and point everybody directly to any relevant downloadable materials on your website.

We hope you’re all looking forward to Ecobuild this year, and that your marketing plan is progressing well! If you fancy trying some of these ideas out, why not enter our #digibuild award for ‘Best Use of Digital Marketing at Ecobuild’? It’s simple enough to enter, just tweet @PauleyCreative using #digibuild.

The award will recognise innovation, integration and digital marketing successes at Ecobuild 2012. Good luck and get creative!

Hope you enjoy the episode and if you have any further questions (or would like an invite to join Pinterest) then please tweet us @PauleyCreative.

Exhibitors will be judged based on their use of digital marketing in the run up to the show, activities and promotion at the show and their overall integration with PR and other forms of marketing.

Award criteria

This award will recognise innovation, integration and digital marketing successes at Ecobuild. The Pauley Creative team are judging entries based on the following criteria:

• Strength and breadth of digital marketing used in the approach to Ecobuild 2012
• Integration of digital marketing with offline media (such as advertising, PR etc)
• Best use of stand space and overall presence and impact at the show
• Use of digital technologies (such as QR codes, augmented reality etc) on the stand to generate brand awareness or engagement
• Use of social media at the show, converting online relationships into real contacts and business opportunities
• Automatic disqualification for displaying female models in skimpy t-shirts to attract attention

Your prize

The winning exhibitor will receive a fantastic in depth website audit worth £5,000, half a day’s tailored digital marketing training along with two free places to one of our massively popular seminars or workshops.

We’ll be announcing the winner at our Ecobuild tweetup on Wednesday 21st March at the Custom House Hotel. It’s opposite the ExCel building and we’ll be offering lunch and a few drinks to those wanting to put their feet up for a while! The event is free but please register your interest below so we know how many to cater for.

If you would like to nominate yourself, or another exhibitor for our award please tweet @PauleyCreative using the hashtag #digibuild.

According to research company Shareaholic, Pinterest already has over 4.9 million users and drove more referral traffic in the last two months than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined and generates over 15 billion page views a month.

The big question many of you are asking is whether this platform has any business use, especially for product manufacturers within the construction industry. My initial answer to this would be that it has great potential. Since our industry is very visual, especially when marketing to architects, who want to see the aesthetics of your products and see them in situ. What better way of doing this than sharing lots of images of how it has been used in recent building projects? There are also other business reasons to use this image based network, some of which I have listed below:

5 ways Pinterest can be used for business

• Case studies – the best way to demonstrate your expertise is by showing previous work and how you solved a specific problem. Since Pinterest is a visual site, this is perfect for uploading pictures of recently completed projects, projects that you are working on now and also any customer testimonial videos that you might have.
• Sell products – not only can you create pinboards with images of your products or upload product demonstration videos, you can also generate a price banner for your photo by simply adding the £ or $ in your pin description. Don’t forget to add a link back to your website landing page where they can read more information about the product or submit an enquiry.
• Build brand personality- why not use Pinterest to give an insight into your company culture, the type of people who work for you, what your brand stands for and simply put a friendly face to your brand.
• Competitions - run a contest to encourage visitors to create pins of your projects/products/designs that they like and then choose the finalists and get others to vote for what they like. User generated content is a powerful way to get your audience and  involved, encourages them to talk about you and your company  and even link to them on other social sites like Twitter.
• Events/trade shows – if you take part in lots of events and trade shows why not entice your audience with sneak previews of your stand, let them know where you will be and when. Include videos of previous events you have exhibited at and show interviews with visitors or client testimonials to demonstrate why your stand is worth visiting.

McKay Flooring Case study

To better illustrate the reasons why I think Pinterest has great potential, I am going to show you how UK floor company, McKay Flooring is using the platform.

McKay Flooring Pinterest profile

As you can see from the image above, that is the Pinterest profile layout. On the left you fill out your profile description (including keywords), contact details such as email and then links back to your website and other social media accounts. On the right are your personalised pinboards which are full of images and videos that you have either uploaded yourself or ‘repinned’ from somebody else. Users can then choose to follow all of your pinboards or just specific ones that they might be interested in. For example, some architects might only want to follow the ‘case studies’ and ‘architecture & interiors’ board whilst others could also be interested in different types of flooring and will therefore follow the ‘reclaimed flooring’, ‘parquet flooring’ and ‘solid flooring’ ones too. Make sure you give your boards descriptive titles as these will all be indexed and can be found in search engines by people searching for that keyword.

I spoke to Margaret from the McKay Flooring marketing team to ask what her thoughts were on the network, what they are using it for and whether they have seen any results. This is what she had to say:

“We have found Pinterest has driven a high amount of traffic to our website and blog. Pinterest is like a large catalogue of our products, creative ideas and DIY tips (these do not all have to be about flooring, but finding a common ground with your audience is a must). The great thing about Pinterest is that people can store their interests into different categories and go back and forward to them when needed. Through links on Pinterest we have come across other websites and blogs (which we probably would never have come across before) giving us great content to blog about and generate interest in our company.

We try to make each of our boards interesting to our audience without boring them with all our own products. With the recent economic downturn people are turning to DIY tips and advice to save money – so we have created a board especially for this, sharing and re-pinning our own and other pinners tips and advice. Currently Pinterest is still in beta and is invite only which I’m sure will be changed soon enough!

Use descriptive keywords when naming pinboards

Our next step is to start competitions, we hope this will bring some fun to our profile and will also largely increase our followers on Pinterest and other social networking sites. We have successfully completed a Twitter and Facebook competition where over 800 people entered. Overall we feel Pinterest is easier to use than many other social networking sites as it’s fun, attractive to the eye and gets your point across very quickly.”

Thanks to Margaret and Richard at McKay Flooring for giving us a little insight into how companies within the construction sector can use the platform. If you’re still not fully convinced, I will be writing a further blog post in the next few days identifying the SEO benefits of Pinterest, so watch this space.

But for now it’s over to you… What do you think about Pinterest, does it have potential? Have you seen any more great examples of companies using it? I am already slightly addicted to it so do let me know if there’s anyone else I should be following.

Happy pinning!

I am also a big fan of her blog which is full of useful design information and inspiration. If you would like to know more about their fabulous tiles then download the Reed Harris tile guide which gives an overview of the methods and materials used in their successful projects.

Introduction

Hello I’m Karen Brimacombe, Business Development Manager at Reed Harris. We are a long established, independently owned tile business with branches in London and Reading. Over the years we have become the leading tile specialists, synonymous with offering expert advice, cutting edge design and quality products coupled with great customer service and real value for money. People are paramount to us; we really listen to our customers and our staff to try to establish their precise needs and requirements. I am responsible for all the online social networking at Reed Harris as well as customer service and HR. I also work alongside the sales team, mainly in our London showroom, where I get the opportunity to meet our customers and keep up to date with all the latest trends. There are only 2 of us in the Marketing department, myself and my colleague who designed our website, Facebook page and works on all aspects of design.

2. You were at Ecobuild last year, how did social media you help promote your presence?

In the build up to Ecobuild last year I used Twitter to make contact with our target audience using the #Ecobuild hashtag. This ensured that not only people who were following me could pick up my tweets, but that non followers saw them too. I even made contact with the person on the stand next door to ours before I met them in person at the event.

Tweets before Ecobuild

3. How has your blog helped you to connect with your target audience and showcase your expertise?

I’m not a very technical person, so I tend to keep the blog simple and to the point. So far this formula has proved very successful. People like good practical tips which help to make their lives easier, so that’s what I consider when planning each post. For example, my post on how to measure up for tiles, was perhaps one of my most successful, in terms of feedback from Interior Designers. One of them even used it on her own blog, which was quite a compliment.

4. What is your favourite part about Twitter?

All of it! One of my friends once said that they thought I was addicted to Twitter, of course I tried to deny it at the time but I think they might be right. I just love being able to chat and share ideas with so many interesting people.

5. You follow and communicate with interior designers and architects on Twitter. Has this lead to any business opportunities?

Life is full of opportunities, you just have to make the most of them and that’s what I’d say about Twitter. I’ve worked with some delightful people who I’ve met on Twitter and as a result our tiles appear in quite a few of their projects.

Completed shower project using Reed Harris tiles

This picture shows a shower room, designed by Andrew Dunning of APD Interiors who I met through Twitter. His clever use of 3 shades of grey tiles from our ‘Life range’, gives a stunning result.

6. Have you got any advice for other product manufacturers still unsure about using social media?

You have absolutely nothing to lose by using social media. Facebook, Linked in or Twitter all have something to offer and best of all they are free. My preferred choice is Twitter, which is all about developing relationships. It’s important to be yourself and talk to people, don’t bombard them with tweets about your products and how wonderful you think they are. There is nothing more boring than a timeline full of product information. Don’t try and blatanly sell your products that will almost certainly turn people off. Engage with them, offer advice, share interesting information and most important of all – gain their trust!

Summary

A big thank you to Karen for agreeing to do this post and sharing a little insight into how valuable social media can be for any business. I completely agree with her final points that one of the main objective should be to build relationships and gain customer trust. Social networks are supposed to be ‘social’ because at the end of the day, people are still doing business with people and the evidence lies in the fact that some of these online conversations have turned into successful projects. Like Karen said, there’s nothing worse than seeing a corporate account that is just shouting “look at me” instead of “how can we help you!” If you want to find out any more information then contact Karen on Twitter or leave a comment for her below.

Speakers:

• Paul Morrell, Government CCA
• Mike Sheehan, Director of Sustainability, WSP
• Alan Crane, President CIOB
• Chris Gilmour, Design and Marketing Director, BAM Construct UK
• Karl Redmond, Construction Sector Network, Leeds Metropolitan University

Opening gambits from the panel came thick and fast:

Paul Morrell (my interpretation of what he said): Supply chain collaboration is key to successful adoption. Contractors need to work with consultants and consultants to learn about 3d modeling from product manufacturers. There needn’t be stringent standards that everyone adopts however there needs to be enough universal standards that allow confidence in adoption so as not to give rise to fear of investment in the wrong place.

Mike Sheehan (my interpretation of what he said): The main concern is too much “fluffery” around the software. The actual 3d model itself (in most cases) was not BIM but purely cosmetic. Clients need to understand the whole-life value of BIM; from design through to the FM’s once the build is complete. Adoption of holistic project management throughout an entire project, irrespective of BIM, is vital but still not widespread.

Alan Crane (my interpretation of what he said): BIM is becoming an out of favour ‘buzz word’ before adoption has really even started. There is too much talk and not enough adoption. Really, BIM is a business issue not a design issue. There is a tremendous opportunity to improve waste reduction in UK projects with BIM adoption. A huge amount of production time could be gained by clarifying the design digitally before any work commences.

Chris Gilmour (my interpretation of what he said): Echoing Alan’s comments Chris cemented the need for design to be agreed before build. The point being that all too often actual building projects are finishing at exactly the same time their designs are finishing. Chris imparted that the solution was simple: Design on the computer first and then build. He was also concerned by just how many large ‘household’ consultancy firms were designing in 2d and the contractor’s designers having to then convert those 2d drawings into 3d models in order to get the build started.

Karl Redmond (my interpretation of what he said): Karl started by suggesting that BIM should be making businesses more efficient. He noted that large consultancy firms were slower at adoption than the smaller more nimble SME’s who can see the benefits of BIM adoption. (This point was taken up by a couple of consultancies in the audience who wondered why contractors were insisting on using ‘large household name’ consultancies who didn’t use similar BIM software whilst there were many smaller consultancies who did). Karl continued that there is a fear that adoption in the wrong software would mean wasted investment and therefore, as a consequence the investment is not being made anywhere.

At this juncture the chairman invited the audience to participate and it wasn’t long before key challenges were being raised and confirmed:

The question of library standards across the industry was discussed. Some felt these were necessary others felt that standards may be too restrictive for an evolutionary process to happen. Paul Morrell raised an interesting point on adoption that related to email adoption in the late 1990’s. In his mind it is absolutely a case now that you just have to do it; there was no ‘shall we shan’t we’, if you don’t start adoption now you’re more likely than not to be left very much behind. The audience generally agreed that now was a great time to adopt BIM but influence and education was essential, not only down the supply chain but throughout the whole industry including clients. The question of who should drive BIM adoption gave rise to a debate about whether the lead should be taken by the client or by the industry – arguments on both sides were convincing.

My own point of view is that the client ought to be educated by his consultancy firm and their chosen contractor right from the start of a project. They are the experts after all. To me it beggars belief that a client will agree to a £multi-million (£multi-billion) design/build cost where no clear collaborative BIM process exists throughout the entire supply chain. However, that is the reality.

It became quite clear as the evening progressed that the main issue was with both the software and the users. Ideally consultancies and contractors will be using the same system. In reality, the consultancies have their preferred route (often 2d but possibly 3, 4, 5, 6 or as was suggested, 7d) and then the contractors a different system altogether (most probably 3d) and the two systems just don’t speak the same language. Whether it be Autodesk Navisworks or Revit or whatever, it was clear that a collaborative consistency or even confidence in the software was lacking. Contractors laid blame squarely with the large ‘household name’ consultancies for not catching up with the industry and being stuck in their old ways.

As the evening continued discussions around BIM being not ‘design’ models but ‘manufacturing’ models. Contractors believing they were in the business of manufacturing the building to the specifications of the models produced in whatever ‘d’ was put in front of them. The subtleties of a holistic project management approach was discussed and the use of ‘gateways’ and build phases as a discipline to help reduce wasted time, effort and well, waste in general, was the core of agreeable BIM adoption.

The key point here was about not racing ahead into building areas that hadn’t actually been designed yet. One cannot run into running.

Zaha Hadid’s ear’s must have been burning towards the end of the evening as the discussion turned towards none standardized products. The question was raised around the value of common libraries of products when architects like Hadid designed buildings that often had very few off the shelf elements within it – the Glasgow Transport Museum as an example.

Richard Waterhouse, CEO of RIBA Enterprises suggested that this was no longer a problem as his company’s suite of specification products actually let product manufacturers, consultancy firms and contractors’ designers input new and bespoke building elements data on the fly. In my basic mind, this functionality issue is key if buildings like the Transport Museum in Glasgow are to be encouraged and delivered in an efficient way.

The main concerns for the product manufacturers in the room were that actually they had been producing 3d drawings for around 20-30 years, more out of necessity within their own design processes. It was agreed that product manufacturers have led the way in 3d modeling since the 80’s and there was much dismay that consultancies had historically taken those 3d models and converted them back into 2d drawings to give to the contractors. Just nuts. Product manufacturers agreed that it would be less of a challenge if specifiers and contractors would agree a format (or several consistent formats) for the sharing of their 3d models.

However, as Stephen Hamil (not present at the event), head of NBS software development suggests in his article BIM and building properties “…It is unlikely that all of the information from a construction project can be contained in a single BIM. More typically there will be a number of BIMs that are stored in different proprietary format. For example, the architect’s CAD model could be in ArchiCAD format, the engineer’s CAD model in Revit and the specification information within NBS…”

So, that’s good then.

Back to the event, it was noted (on quite a few occasions) that many consultancy firms (large and small) had not adopted BIM for various reasons from cost to laziness and it was also suggested that frameworks within which a design process had been agreed might be stifling creativity and ‘strangling’ innovation. Neither scenarios were good for the adoption of BIM. There was also a feeling that some main contractors were not helping their sub-contractors in the design stages and that historically (and may I say fairly obviously) this led to further problems of cost, delay and waste throughout the supply chain. Product manufacturers also worried about the issue of cost and price. How were they expected to offer clarity in that area when different audiences were privy to different price?

Contractors, from an asset management and facilities management perspective, welcomed the idea of product manufacturers producing 3d drawings that could be ‘dropped’ into their own models. And a representative from CIBSE also pressed for a standard format for building product manufacturers to produce 3d models to and then input standardized data into. This however gave rise to the suggestion of ‘the mother of all databases’, which was generally accepted as unrealistic – The point that clients might want different data meant the variations of data would become unmanageable very quickly.

Paul Morrell suggested “…more flexibility and less standards and let innovation and creativity decide the flow and adoption of the management of information over time.” Or words to that effect. I liked Paul.

On that note the Chair summarised the evenings topic by allowing the panel to air their closing statements.

Five key points from the panel to takeaway:

1. To actually ‘want’ to work together. The industry and it’s clients must all change & Darwin would sort out the rest. In the end waste will be the winner. (Paul Morrell).
2. Get back to working in a disciplined way. A holistic approach to project management is fundamental to the success of any large project. (Mike Sheehan).
3. Work with software producers on what the industry actually wants not on what they don’t want. (Alan Crane).
4. The industry needs to make the change to BIM quickly. (Chris Gilmour).
5. Collaboration with software producers and contractors. The contractors need to take the lead and bring their sub-contractors with them. (Karl Redmond)

The event was incredibly educational for me, CIMCIG doing a great job in attracting a talented crowd. Yet, I went away feeling slightly frustrated. Frustrated at the consultancies and the contractors who were, in effect, pushing blame back and forth and pushing on with their own agendas. In my mind both camps were only reacting to BIM and not pro-actively encouraging process change. Major projects were won and consultancies selected. The basis of consultancy selection (if there was that luxury) being… ‘well, they’re the consultancies we’ve always used’, an odd attitude to take given that their systems are incompatible and that duplication of effort was inevitable.

In a perfect world maybe large contractors could pull together in a more collaborative way. And in perfect world maybe clients could bring in the consultancies, contractors and their sub-contractors to start to format some BIM standards across the industry outside of projects. And maybe in a perfect world progressing BIM compatibility and adoption across the industry could be a general goal and not be seen as an excuse to gain competitive advantage.

The unsung heroes of BIM in my mind are clearly the product manufacturers themselves. There was no talk of collaboration with product manufacturers and yet closer collaboration with them would help shape the broader 3d modeling landscape and probably wider BIM adoption. Product manufacturers are an untapped resource. Their skill at producing 3d models is undisputed however, their innovation is being overlooked while the contractors and consultancies fail to communicate clearly themselves. All this and just across the pond the first BIM Lawsuit hits the headlines. Apparently for lack of clear communication.

What are your thoughts on BIM? It will be interesting to see how far this conversation has moved on in 12 months time.

Enjoy!