The Light-box continued and How NOT to sell BIM to building owner/developer clients...

I received a record number of comments (off line) on the light-box post;

Their point: why would anyone want to use light-tables when most CAD packages can perform those tasks better?

True.

I believe that there usually are two different ‘worlds’ for any project, the digital one and the hard-copy one and comparably* few people operate in both;

The light-box offers the soft way into BIM, a first step.

If you had moved on from there, good on you!

How NOT to sell BIM to building owner/developer clients...

Especially if you are an architect. (Not that my record is that great with this sector.)

Two lines that are to be avoided no matter how tempting:

·         Charge clients extra so they can have BIM and ALL the benefits it will bring.

(coordinated drawings, clash free design)

I know, fees have been cut to minimum, still clients ALWAY expect from their designers coordinated and clash free drawings.

·         Asking clients to change their way of working to be in synch with your BIM.

Clients I meet consider themselves to be in the driving seat and have very little interest in changing their ways of working. Even when they do decide to change it is never driven by inexperienced consultants trying to climb onto to BIM bandwagon and hoping that clients will ‘fund’ that change.

Saw an excellent article today: 

http://www.di.net/articles/archive/change_state_in_aec/

Look it up (Thanks Russell!)

* there are many small practices that DO manage to move between the two words fluidly – however by and large most medium to large projects are run by 2 environments being maintained side by side; You may have PCG meetings using projectors and other gadgets but most of the discussions will be based on uncoordinated, often reduced to non-readable hard copy drawings.