In the latest edition of our "Tech Stack" series, we cover the technical aspects of image assets. Photos and video are arguably the most important assets your firm can have. What needs to be considered to make sure you end up with results that are usable for what you're trying to accomplish? Do you have what you need to effectively communicate about your project?

Highlights:

• Composition isn't the only consideration

• Why you need to know how a photo will be used before it's taken

• The role of the relationship between the photographer and the viewer

• The importance of knowing the current requirements for relevant social media platforms

• Why cropping should only be a last resort

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Fogarty Finger Co-Founding Principal Chris Fogarty, AIA, RIBA, talks with host Patience Jones about starting his own firm as he looks forward to celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Chris and Patience discuss his career beginnings at SOM, the experience of growing Fogarty Finger by almost double the headcount, and the firm's new project The Eliza, an innovative mixed-use development that combines affordable housing with a cutting-edge public library. Highlights

• How unsuccessfully trying to quit a job led Chris to more opportunities
• The reasons Chris and his business partner Robert Finger work so well together
• The role of storytelling in the firm's work
• How to measure "success" in an architecture firm
• The difficulty of simplicity, and how Chris conveys the concept to the design team as well as clients
• The importance of being able to start over
• Why self-storage units are a problem for cities, and the larger problematic issues they represent

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Connect with Chris Fogarty

• https://fogartyfinger.com/people/chris-fogarty
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-fogarty-aia-264b3414/

At some point, your business will reach a point where you can't figure out what to do by yourself. This could be the first day you open, at the one-year mark, or twenty years on. No matter when the realization hits you, the answer is to bring on advisors who can help you think through – and make better decisions about – various issues facing your firm. In this episode, we discuss what it takes to find trusted advisors and how to work with them successfully.

Highlights

• How to know when it's time to start working with advisors
• The importance of working with someone you can trust
• Why advisors should never be sales prospects
• How advisors are different from employees, friends and family
• Recognizing that having advisors doesn't mean you'll never have to make tough decisions

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Brian and Patience discuss how architectural firms can venture into new sectors, geographies, or fields of operation where they lack experience but see business opportunities. They propose three ways to ensure successful expansion: Scale, Opportunity, and Relationships.

'Scale' involves starting with smaller scale projects, showing expertise in problem-solving, and then leveraging this to secure larger scale ones. 'Opportunity' entails showcasing the firm's experience and skill set in a manner that convinces potential clients of their ability to handle different types of projects. 'Relationships' relates to using your connections in the industry to get an inside track into new business avenues and differentiate from competitors.

Highlights

• How scale matters in architecture projects
• Ways to convey project capabilities to potential clients
• Tips on how residential firms can transition into larger scale projects
• The role of opportunity in expanding a firm and how related experiences can be presented as unique qualifications
• The importance of firm-client relationships in pitching for new projects.
• Making decisions on market sector expansion choice when firms are not sure of the direction they want to take
• The importance of evaluating existing relationships when making market sector expansion choices.

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

HOK Co-CEO and Design Principal Eli Hoisington, AIA, LEED AP, talks with host Brian Jones about his journey to co-CEO of a global architecture firm and how that impacted his view of leadership. Eli speaks generously and candidly about the challenges of balancing leadership and design and what an "interdisciplinary approach" really means to the firm. He also discusses how the firm embraced a global mentorship approach that allows for cross-border mentor-mentee relationships. Noting that at the time of the recording, it's 70 degrees in February in Saint Louis, Eli provides insight on sustainability, explaining that the term needs to expand to include both wellness and equity.

Highlights

• How important it is for leaders to be able to view issues through different lenses
• The importance of involving multiple disciplines in a project from the very beginning (or getting everyone "in the mosh pit")
• Why "collaboration" is easy to say but hard to do, and how the firm prioritizes it
• How the firm nurtures and promotes design across its many offices in many time zones
• How the pandemic spawned a new global approach to mentorship
• Why it's vital for architects to make sure their process drives their choice of technology tools, and not the other way around

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Connect with Eli Hoisington

• https://www.hok.com/people/leadership/view/eli-hoisington/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/elihoisington

Internal communications channels have changed substantially over the past 20 years. We've gone from phone calls and intra-office memos to emails, texts, group messaging like Slack, internal e-newsletters, and video conferencing – not to mention tools like Google Docs and Workfront with ancillary messaging capabilities.

Without guidance from firm leadership on which channel should be used for what, you're at risk for a lot of miscommunication. One person may think the best place to note a deadline change is in the group chat on Zoom, while another was expecting an email and now the project's in jeopardy. In this episode, we break down best practices for using and managing internal communication channels.

Highlights

• How to create internal communications channel guidelines
• Assigning levels of importance and/or urgency to each channel
• The importance of consistency
• Making peace with people preferring a different channel than you would have picked

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

In this very dramatically named episode, we examine the lie we all want to believe: that marketing is something that you can set and then forget about if you can just find the right tools/agency/message. We look back at how we came to be sold this lie and how it's altered our views of what we have to do to have successful marketing. Most importantly, we identify the ways to get away from this dangerous mindset.

Highlights

• The ironic origins of our "set it and forget it" beliefs about marketing
• How advances in technology can fuel the belief that people don't need to be involved
• What can happen when you "forget it"
• How to create a marketing approach that doesn't require constant attention

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Patience and Brian Jones discuss the issue of "too many meetings" in a firm or workplace setting. They emphasize the need to establish a balance in creating meetings that do not overburden the schedule or diminish work morale. They point out that excessive meetings can lead to a culture that inadvertently necessitates meetings for every scenario, including follow-up meetings and recapping meetings, which may consume employees' entire workday. They advise firm leaders to calculate the financial cost of each meeting. This includes both the lost revenue due to the meeting time and the potential opportunity costs of work not done due to the meeting.

Highlights

• How to manage and reduce an overwhelming amount of scheduled meetings
• The negative impacts of meeting culture, such as affecting productivity and causing burnouts
• How to carefully select important meetings
• Criticism on default meeting time-frames and the negative impacts of unnecessarily long meetings
• The importance of an agenda in a meeting, and tips to keep meetings productive and short
• Respecting agreed meeting time and avoiding running over the scheduled time
• Advice on auditing the calendar for meetings and reflecting on their importance

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

With apologies to Tina Turner and Schitt's Creek, in this episode we talk about the importance of focusing on what you do (simply the) best. This isn't about indulging yourself or finding your bliss; it's about identifying the thing that you could do in your sleep, the thing that causes people to search you out, and the thing that keeps them coming back. Once you've identified This Thing, marketing, sales, and delivery of your work become much easier.

Highlights

• Why what you do best matters
• What you do best and what you enjoy the most are not always the same thing
• How to identify what you do best
• The benefits of doing what you do best

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/

Patience and Brian Jones delve into the topic of website hosting, discussing its importance, features, and how it often gets overlooked due to its technical nature. They stress the vital role of a website as the first point of contact people have with a firm, and the importance of reliable web hosting in ensuring continued accessibility. They also advise listeners to analyze the backup process offered by the hosting plan, the ability to set up an offline backup, and the possibility of accessing a production and staging environment.

Highlights

• Who should be responsible for understanding web hosting within a company
• The distinction between URL, website hosting, and email
• Backup process, staging environment and how that impacts the website functionality
• The geographical location of web servers and how that could affect certain aspects of the website
• How server location can impact site speed
• How site loading speed can affect visitor experience and site ranking on search engines
• The importance of investing in a good hosting plan

Episode Resources

Connect with Brian Jones and Patience Jones

• https://graphicmachine.com/
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-jones-graphicmachine/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/patiencejones/