education
Last month, I jumped into the New Year with a discussion of how the trends we face these days are influencing our recent experiences in business, society and life in general. In doing so, we navigated our through a mixed bag of factors - advancing technology, interesting economic times and complex legal conditions on the grand scale up alongside local, narrower issues having to do with the emergence of the watershaping business, the wayward nature of trade associations and the state of relevant education for our trades. All that was intended to set up this column's discussion of where we, as the watershaping industry, might be going in the months and years to come. Pure prognostication, however, is an imperfect process in which I won't indulge. Rather than get into the aimless game of offering predictions, I'll delve instead into
Some might say we're enduring the curse of living in interesting times; others might opine that the planet's just plain gone crazy. However you look at it, when you stop to consider what's been going on in the world, in our country and in the economy and how all of that relates to our watershaping corner of the universe, it's easy to see that important trends and even greater forces are constantly sweeping around us. So much is happening that it's often difficult to figure things out, but the most important observation I can make is that not all the news is gloomy - far from it. For a great many watershapers, in fact, business has thrived in recent times and expanded in new and exciting directions. That's so true for some that it's fair to say that there's been little or no time left for reflection. But I would argue that finding time to
During the five years I've been writing this column for WaterShapes, I've been asked by a number of people how I manage to find the time to write this column, make presentations at trade shows, teach at Genesis 3 schools and conduct my own design/consulting business. I get the distinct impression that these questions have much less to do with curiosity about the power of time management than with questions about why I'd even bother to extend my focus beyond my primary business of
It's a wonderful coincidence and a rare opportunity: From October 30 through November 3, the American Society of Landscape Architects will hold its 2003 meeting and exposition in New Orleans, followed the next day - in the very same city and in the very same convention center - by the
Occasionally, we run pairs or sets of articles that seem to have nothing in common at first glance, but that actually, on closer examination, harmonize in unexpected and important ways. To be sure, we quite deliberately revisit key themes throughout the pages of all of our issues, but sometimes, it seems, the most powerful music
Last month, I began a discussion of things that those of us in the watershaping trades can do to improve our collective profile with the public - not to mention enhance our collective self-image. Education, of course, is a huge factor. And so is the level of professional courtesy with which we treat both clients and prospects. But those two points, discussed in detail last time, have less to do with the way we approach the practicalities of our businesses than is the case with another point that bears discussion: that is, project management and how we
During a presentation to a recent conference for the swimming pool and spa industry, I tossed this nugget to the audience: "By a show of hands, how many of you in this room believe that most people think highly of our industry? Please be honest." It was a mixed group of more than 160 people representing manufacturers, distributors, manufacturer's representatives, retailers, service/maintenance firms and, in the majority, pool and spa builders. Even with all of these different segments of the industry in the room, not a single hand went up. As one who often
What started as a slow simmer has now come completely to a boil. Ten years ago, precious few of our clients had little or no interest in setting up outdoor cooking areas to go along with their pools, spas and waterfeatures. That's certainly not the case today, when fully 90% of our clients want us to set up some sort of kitchen amenity as part of their deck and patio areas. You don't have to be a marketing genius to see what's happening: It's great fun to
I love the fact that more and more people I talk to are referring to the bodies of water they create as works of art. At their best, watershapes do indeed possess all the aesthetic potential of
Change can be both exciting and terrifying. In my experience, the biggest changes often come with the potential for tremendous rewards, but also with significant risk. During the past two years, such change has come for our company in the form of an all-encompassing transformation that has involved every aspect of the way we do business. We've gone from trying to mass-produce affordable swimming pools and hardscape designs (and fighting for every dime we made along the way) to building only high-end, custom projects where we never compromise on quality - and make generous
