Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT
Senior Member
Username: rliebing
Post Number: 1235
Registered: 02-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 09:38 am: |    |
110406
WHY?--- WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT?
BY Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT, CPCA, CBO
Cincinnati, OH
[To those who took note of my non-contact over the last weeks, I am still here. Any of a combination of factors just seems to always override the weekly notes. So I’ll try to get back on track from here on. Thanks for your understanding and patience]
He laid the slightly crumbled sheet of paper on the counter and smoothed it out, “There’s what I wanna do,” he said. “I need to get a permit!”. Yes, the paper was close to the old “butcher paper, slightly waxed, hard to draw or write on and certainly not meant for the floor plans and elevations for construction drafting.
What were walls, turned out to be single lines; windows were a set of brackets; doors were a dot. The dimensions seemed to appear to just hang out in space with no extension lines or other definition. Not a drawing, really, but just assorted notes with no thought to overall coordination or relationship-- but what’s wrong with that? [the man knew what he wanted to do, he just couldn’t communicate!].
You see a lot of this in a building code agency-- work people want to do but have no idea of how they will do it or what guidelines or rules they need follow. So the code and agency become the bad guys, in their simple task of trying to ensure that others follow the rules-- what’s wrong with that?
The deeply entrenched, wide-ranging and firmly-grounded concepts [or really lack of information] has continued for years and remain ever strong even together. But what is wrong with that?
Now why do we, in Specland, persist in precise, convoluted and rather complex specs—are we doing too much-- are we still relevant and necessary-- what is wrong with “letting up a little”? In many cases, this volume of work is required by the client, a manufacturer or government agency. But is it necessary, all the time? Need we use voluminous performance specs? Is there somewhere or some way in which we can simplify our specs-- fewer words, more direct language? Oh, I know of our past and the wonderful folks who created the system and developed the streamlining, correct wordage, etc., but why do we not have the efforts to reduce specs like we have for drawings?
Why not? What’s wrong with that? A LOT!! —but that is a tale for other days [hopefully!]. We need to take hold of the values of new and revised! We cannot just keep piling information and changes on a document over a long period of years. Eventually we will need a creative approach; formatting, preened data, test of relevance; adjustment to conditions. We can’t [successfully] re-sell information previously purchased simply because a “smidgeon” of new data is added. Building code agencies tried this and got blown out of the water-- there has to be a period of time for things to settle in and become routine, before we adjust and revise. Times are tough for us all, so creativity must be maximized, and new things developed. Purchase of standing entities is not progress if it is an attempt to look better but not being better.
We need to be aggressively creative-- far-sighted; problem-solving; attuned to member voices; looking to provide things not done before, but quite relevant now. New is NOT bad; neither is revised IF done on a well reasoned premise, in good form/low cost, and in a manner that is a distinct help. Chest-pounding over snippets added to “old stuff” to band-aid problems and short-comings is not a good source for PR; to be “up-to-date” is not progress-- it’s status quo.
We’re better than that! Aren’t we? Think NEW, EXPANDED, PROGRESSIVE, etc., and not just tinkering! |
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