As the Best Construction Blog competition approaches its final days (the contest closes at 5 pm on Feb. 28), I’ve noticed that some of my personal favorites have rece
ived very few votes. This is probably because the bloggers have not campaigned. In one case, alas, I discovered a coding error which meant you couldn’t actually get to the blog to review it before voting. This problem has been fixed. With the large choice of blogs available, I’m sure some people not acquainted or supporting an individual blog on request from friends or colleagues simply are leaving things to chance, or whatever comes to mind quickly. The contest is not a perfect measure of underlying quality though the finalists who have encouraged supporters to vote for them still deserve their success.
Nevertheless, I’ll go out on a limb and recommend some blogs that so far have received few votes.
Mel Lester’s E-Quip blog provides some of the most succinct and useful information I’ve seen in a long time (I just wish he could find another suffix than .biz for his domain). His latest posting: Maximizing the Return on BD Costs is worthy of reading by anyone trying to sort out how to manage the sales budget for an AEC business.
I also enjoy Ford Harding’s blog. His most recent posting, Top 5 Traits for the Worst Marketing Meetings, should be a mandatory read before you have your next meeting. (If you need advice on how to conduct effective meetings, consider also Bill Caswell’s resources. He is our company’s primary consultant, and his meeting management approaches are critical to our operations.)
Consider also Matt Handel’s Help Everybody Everyday, the worthy “official blog” of the Design and Construction Network (to which T
he Design and Construction Report owes its existence.)
Finally, when we were starting the contest North Carolina publisher Bob Kruhm (his North Carolina Construction News blog will soon be moving to a new, well-designed site) recommended Don Short (The Tempest Company’s) Oh, By The Way. His latest posting, “What business ethics?” tackles the thorny issue of bid shopping on federal projects. Alas, you will find his conclusion to be disturbing.
Of course some of my favorites are actually doing quite well in the voting but they don’t need any help here. Remember, you can vote for more than one blog as long as you cast your all your votes on the same ballot. Once you vote, you cannot return from your same computer/IP for a second chance.
