We all are getting into social media in some fashion. Some more active than others, but how are we doing and what do we think of this new media? Penton Media just released a B-to-B Marketing study called, Truth from the Trenches that surveyed 3,000-plus folks like us. What they found is very interesting. The study drives home some alarming points on how many of us are less than satisfied with the performance of our website, social, search marketing and sales conversion efforts. 77% said their websites are not effective at generating leads. 90% are active on Facebook. 53% are active on Twitter. MORE >>

The article / interview linked below explores the concept of future generation building materials that have the capacity to repair themselves. I've advocated taking that concept to the next level and utilizing advanced materials to enable buildings to "dissolve" or otherwise self-demolish in an environmentally friendly way. The other possibility, which is likely to be available sooner than either of those sci-fi concepts is the use of modules to build, ala Legos. Currently, the best our architecture can be is carbon-neutral. You are looking to nature to go one step further? James L. MORE >>

New measures to support infrastructure projects and reduce uncertainty in the planning system for UK firms have been proposed by the Confederation of British Businesses (CBI). The business lobby group is advising the government in a new report today, “Minor measures, major results – Fine tuning the major infrastructure planning system” , to make further improvements to large infrastructure projects and ease the pre-application process of planning and construction work for UK businesses. Investing in major infrastructure projects will bring big rewards for our economy, with new jobs and growth. MORE >>

When many people start to look at ways to reducing their water usage (especially for gardening) many look to the sky. They do some quick research, crunch some numbers on how much water they can save based on their roofs and jump in their car (or go online) to go buy a 30 to 50 Read more. Green Building / Sustainable Common Sense Building & Remodeling Off-Grid Living Rainwater Harvesting MORE >>

Talked to a $3M contractor  this week who is now using a General Contractor program (American Contractor) which has been discontinued by the vendor. He is left with option of acquiring another program from that vendor which involves spending $5K to move over his data plus $15-20K for the software for a 5 user system. That’s a lot to spend for a 5 user system, especially since he is a current user. And why is he being charged for moving data between software sold by the same vendor? He can probably replace it with a new  integrated job cost/project management solution for $12-18K total. MORE >>