Construction Document Management

So, how do you manage your construction documents?  let's first have a brief look at what these things are:

Firstly there may be RFI's requests for information, exchanges of information, outline proposals these may lead to submissions of tenders  which may in turn lead to the issuing of purchase orders, and formal contract documentation.

Invariably there will follow sets of drawings and specifications,  these may be revised often several times! You need to keep track of those revisions.

 Then there is progress  (or lack of) progress reports will need to be produced, distributed these  may include images or even videos.

So much information, so many documents so, let me ask once again how do you manage your construction documents

Collabor8online enables you to share your Project Documentation securely, quickly and easily, with colleagues, clients and Subcontractors.  Automatic version control ensures that everybody always has the latest version and the inbuilt activity audit ensures that you will always know who did what, and when. Users only see, what you want them to see and our unique Chinese Walls feature means that only you know who you are sharing your documents with. Construction document management the easy way.

Holidays are great, but travelling is a pain in the Ar**

I have a new found sympathy for anyone who has to use a wheelchair. Not that I wasn't already sympathetic, or at least I would like to think at the very least understanding, but, as the saying goes, if you really want to understand somebody, walk a mile in their shoes,  well,  try wheeling a few miles in their wheels around Heathrow! and understanding shall be yours.

For a recent holiday trip to Portugal,  we took the decision to travel in the comfort of  a full-service airline for a change–British Airways consumed my Air Miles and got my business. Unfortunately, a few weeks before the trip my wife injured her back, necessitating what can only be called “wheelchair assistance". 

At our first (of many check-in’s) at Manchester, a wheelchair was offered, all we had to do was walk a few paces to the “assistance" area and one would be immediately provided–however, when we took those few paces to the “assistance area" the nice lady there knew knew absolutely nothing about our request and the wait for a ‘pusher’ would be at least an hour. When I pointed out that I could actually push the wheelchair myself, I didn't need anybody to pushing for me a wheelchair was provided immediately! What a strange world we live in.

So far so good, a pleasant lounge experience of Manchester, prompt boarding then. Oh dear–British Airways seems to have gone all “Ryanair" with cramped plastic seating with faux leather effect.  I'm exaggerating,  the seat was definitely a seat, and there was definitely some legroom, they haven't quite gone all budget airline yet but, the new aircraft with new fit out definitely showed a trend–we are all being squeezed in–even now by so called full service Airlines.

Prompt arrival at Heathrow–first problem, I thought all of BA now lived at terminal 5 – unfortunately, not their flight to Lisbon which departs from terminal 3.  The dreaded transfer route–terminal 5 to 3–not normally a big problem but, if one of you is having trouble walking anything more than a few paces then you really need that wheelchair! One wasn't forthcoming, furthermore, when we asked one of the Heathrow staff members "is it far to walk?" we received the quite remarkable answer, “Oh no it's just round the corner", round the corner was a corridor, so long it may have crossed time zones! Thankfully, about halfway down the corridor a helpful BA staff member was able to provide a wheelchair which then stayed with us all the way to boarding, unfortunately, no one seemed to consider that we might need another wheelchair at the other end, as on arrival at Lisbon. it seemed that walking huge distances was some sort of Portuguese national obsession (and not a wheelchair in sight). Still staggering, wearily to luggage reclaim area we were each able to obtain a trolley and load it with our disproportionately large quantity of baggage. Unsteadily we began to navigate our way outside the terminal building to our airport hotel, which was, we were assured, a mere 400m  away, unfortunately across that marvellous Calcada paving, which is not ideal if you're pushing the trolley with a couple of unstable bags on it,  and you've got a bad back!  Our evening  and journey ended with a rather remarkable stroll down the main road (rather than on the Calacada pavement)  with a Portuguese traffic policeman walking very helpfully in front of us and diverted traffic away from our trolleys and bags. Very helpful the Portuguese, if a little obsessed with Calcada.

The next morning , our holiday began in earnest with a short stroll back to the airport to pick up our car from Avis.  There's nothing worse than standing in a queue when the people at the desk don't seem to be doing anything, or are chatting amongst themselves, or straightening the dividers that keep the people in the queue in a straight line!  I assume I'm not alone in thinking, that I'd really like to grip such people warmly by the throat and tell them to stop messing about with the queue straitening devices and get behind the desk and distribute some bloody cars!  What makes such a queueing experience worse is that when you finally get to the front of the queue, when it's your turn and you think that all your pain and anguish and anxiety is over, things get worse! 

As I said, as a rule, the Portuguese are very helpful, unfortunately, the lady behind the desk at Avis was very much the exception. I won't describe the laborious processes of name,  booking reference, credit card, passport that led to the point where I was ultimately offered a car, for, I truly didn't think that they could get worse–but it did. Here’s how the conversation went: 

“Would I like to use the device to pay the motorway tolls",  

“How much is that?”, 

“€1.8 a day to a maximum of €18 per 10 days" came the answer

“But I'm only hiring the car for 7 days …you have my agreement in front of you"

 “Yes?"

At this point I'm beginning to give up–and try  to move on

"OK So, it's a maximum of €18 and that's it?"

"Yes.... plus the tolls"

" PLUS the tolls?”

“Yes"

“And how much will they be?"

“I have no idea"

At this point I do give up,  and so simply–“okay, go ahead"

BUT she wasn't going to let me get away that easily.

A few more clicks and words and printing noises and my documents is handed across to me with a typical continental flourish along the lines of "hereaaaaa issaaayouraa docuuumennnt", youuua willlaaa zeeee ...  okay sorry I'm going to stop doing the accent.

" You will see that there is an insurance excess of €20,000"

" How much?"

" €20,000"

 “But I have insurance, I've paid for it, it says on my car hire voucher here” says I, pointing aggressively!

" You might have insurance with whoever you booked it with, but you donnnn’taa haveaaa insurance with usszzz–if you havea anyyyy damage to the car we will charge your credit card €20,000"

At this point I thought,(but did not say) " it's a Vauxhall Astra for Christ sake, it isn't even worth €20,000",  but then, I thought better of it.

I've recently adopted a policy of using a rather marvellous credit called Santander Zero for all my holiday expenditure. I found that it gives quite a remarkable exchange rate, (almost exactly the commercial rate on any particular day) and not the rather poor rate that is severely loaded or penalised by Travel exchange companies, normal credit card companies or banks. Consequently the entire cost of this holiday to date, flights, accommodation and of course car hire had already been charged to the card which, being fairly new to me did not have any excessive credit limit. So, in the event of an accident they were going to attempt to charge €20,000 to this already heavily loaded card?

Good luck with that I thought, inwardly smirking if not outwardly. 

I must say, we enjoyed our holiday and I can at least look back on the experience and smile.

This morning I received a bill for  €43.10 for tolls, some 9 months after the trip and charged it automatically to my credit card. Apparently the Portuguese authorities and Avis had some technical difficulties.

You've got to laugh.

:-)

To Tart or Not to Tart?

I've got 494 connections on LinkedIn, the question is do I push on to get to the 500 and then be listed as 500+ connections and thereafter, run the risk of being viewed by people who think I'm connections tart? Or do I hold back and even disconnect from those people I don't truly know well and maintain at least a thin veil of respectability?

I think I must credit Martin Lewis with his excellent money-saving-expert website for coining the phrase "tart". He talks about a rate tart, being someone who continuously shops around for the interest-free offers from credit card companies or similarly is continually searching for the best rate from utilities companies, whose prices continue to head north at an alarming rate.

But try as I might, I can't find any advice on his website about LinkedIn connections or whether my friends and truly valued “close" connections will think I've become a bit "tarty" if I exceed 500 connections.

I attended an excellent course delivered by Lancaster University on the very subject of business network connections. They talked with great authority about the fact that some people will have a small network but with incredibly strong connections. So they are only “connected" to small group, but everyone in the group, would gladly go the extra mile for their connected friend. The alternative of course is someone who has a large network, but with very loose connections, in truth not really a number of connections, more acquaintances.

This is what I fear my network has become.

When considering some of my own connections, I have to admit that the only way we are connected is that we read each other's profile and clicked connect.

Oh dear, very loose, very tarty.

Having said that, when we read each other's profile, we evidently found something of interest, some common ground, some aspect of each other's public profile that inspired a click. (Speaking as a vendor of software, that helps you share files online, believe me, a click can be very prized and sometimes very difficult to obtain!)

So maybe I shouldn't worry too much if I wouldn't recognise a connections’ name, or I that I probably wouldn't recognise their face if I were to see them in the real world. Because we evidently do have something in common, some shared interest, some common ground because, after all we are connected on LinkedIn!

The end justifies the means, cyberspace, or cyber connectivity, social media call it what you will has delivered to us a methodology of achieving a large number of loose connections quickly and easily, and most people in business see the benefit of this. Yes, we might not know our connections well but we can at the very least read their profiles their endorsements, our shared connections and build an initial picture of who this person is and why we might want to do business with them. The Internet is the fuel for these connections and long may it continue.

But what of the old ways, when people only connected via social events, in bars, restaurants or at functions. I’m reminded of a comment from a friend when asked if he was related to the person he was talking to,  “only through drink” he replied. 

Colin Barnes as the CEO of Collabor8online, an  application that allows you to share files online.  Colin has been providing business software solutions for over 30 years and has 494 connections on LinkedIn!

Please replace the following ink cartridges soon!

Am I alone in screaming “I’ve only just replaced them!” at my printer almost every morning

The drive towards the sale of consumables has turned previously innocent printing machinery into hard-nosed salesman, forever urging the unsuspecting user into more frequent and quite possibly needless purchases. It is said that printer manufacturers make more money from selling ink cartridges and they do from selling printers! Perhaps they’ve also been able to lay off a few salesmen (the printers seem to be doing a good enough job on their own).

Other theories suggest that printers have an inbuilt “anxiety sensor”, which rather cleverly recognises the urgency factor of the document you’re trying to print and (you’ve guessed it) the higher the urgency factor of the document the more likely the printer is to fail, get jammed or demand attention in someway or other.

“I heard a company had named their printer Bob Marley because it was always Jammin’”

I genuinely remember placing an urgent call to my IT department one morning, and using some unsavoury language along the lines of “could you get someone up here quickly before I throw this (*^(^^(% printer out of the *%&$^$$ window! The printer in question had insisted that the cover was
open when, the cover was most definitely closed (I’d made absolutely sure of that).

The outcome is that buying the printer is no longer straightforward transaction, you need to weigh up the purchase price together with the ongoing cost of ink. Software is not dissimilar, initial setup costs need to be weighed against ongoing service and maintenance charges and the dreaded consideration of additional software licences!

However, the world of software has a solution. Software as a Service (SaaS), charges one fixed monthly fee for the unlimited use of the software.

Collabor8online has NO setup fees and NO additional software license fees,  so you can manage all of your documents and projects for one monthly fee, unlimited users, unlimited devices. (Anxiety detector absolutely NOT included).

CALL 0161 820 - 2642

North South divide Imagine, if it were the other way around

Another interesting article in this morning's newspaper about the proposed high-speed 2 railway link. Interesting because it identified that one aim was to “rebalance" the economy between north and south. I'd see that as progress, at least there was an admission that something needs rebalancing!

There were the usual arguments, in the should we, shouldn't we debate; "the costs are too high", "the routing is wrong", "the business case is not up to scratch" and so on, but let me ask one question. 

Imagine, if it were the other way around?

Imagine that the North was prosperous and thriving and in the South, it was dire and depressed. 

Imagine, (if you will) that the implosion in banking and financial services does not recover but in fact gets worse, much worse. The financial sector plagued by regulation, increased taxes and challenges from abroad all but disappears from the South East. What financial institutions are left are forced to relocate to Leeds in order to save costs.

Meanwhile the government follows the BBC (of all people) and relocates masses of administrative functions to the regions. Other companies and ancillary support services follow suit. The exodus of businesses from the south-east is widespread and it happens quickly.

Meanwhile new technology and manufacturing in the North of England and Wales expands to meet global needs. Our exit from the EU attracts masses of investment and businesses from all over the globe. High-tech factories spring up in the North and Midlands creating tens of thousands of jobs, almost overnight.

Manchester, above all establishes itself as the European hub for all media and high-tech businesses. Manchester airport adds not just a third but a fourth runway. The city becomes a gateway between East and West. Masses of US and Middle Eastern investment flows in, funding the expansion still further. There is talk of Liverpool's airport expanding into the sea, a “scouse" island if you will. 

Glasgow airport undergoes a similar expansion. This is seen as essential, as since Scotland's independence and having established itself as a tax-free haven, masses of US and Chinese businesses have built European headquarters there. The M6 toll road is expanded to 24 lanes and runs from Birmingham to Glasgow.

Meanwhile Heathrow ages ungracefully, Gatwick becomes a hub for low-cost European carriers and Stansted is sold for £1.

Unemployment is rife in the capital, there is violence on the streets. Foreign investment depart rapidly, Abramovich sells Chelsea and Tottenham and Arsenal are relegated the same season leaving Crystal Palace is the only football club south of Birmingham in the Premier league.

There is much talk about the Southeast's need to reinvent itself, for the people to travel to where the work is and for the need to adapt to the New World.

Would there be a case for a High-Speed rail link then?

Of course, with cloud-based solutions such as collabor8online, geographical location  simply does not matter. You can access or share your documents online or manage your projects online, task lists and calendars from Manchester or Margate, Lancaster or London, Dundee or Dubai,  all you need is a PC or Mac with an Internet connection. 

Collabor8online, there’s no better way to share files and communicate.

www.collabor8online.co.uk

support@collabor8online.co.uk

Or Call 020 3369 6491

I know how to get to the top of Google!

And what's more I'm prepared to share it with you.

No don't send money, plaudits or accolades I'm more than happy to share my knowledge with fellow businesses who struggle with the smoke and mirrors of conventional SEO (that's search engine optimisation) for the uninformed readers.

Perhaps more surprisingly, I should confess at this point that I am by no means a SEO expert. I have no in-depth knowledge or experience, I'm merely drawing on our own journey, that has involved dragging our own website www.collabor8online.co.uk, from the obscurity of page 3, 4 or 5 on Google search to the heady heights of page 1 (actually, and we are astonishingly proud to say this, for certain phrases number one in the list, that is if you include "uk" in your search term) - I know that's cheating but we're still proud of it!

Yes, over the last two years I've paid, met with, talked through, analysed, researched and paid again many experts in the arenas of PPC (pay per click) and SEO. The scenario is usually the same, there is a meeting, then usually a payment, then some results, possibly some fixes, usually another payment, then some more results, then another payment, then everything breaks so needs fixing, which as you can imagine implies another payment (I hope you get the picture).

The thing I’ve learnt is that knowing a little about the process is extremely valuable and knowing a little about the process is actually quite easy to achieve. I feel much more comfortable employing experts now to help me (rather than do for me) my SEO marketing and that's a crucial difference, being hands-on really is relevant.

So, here it is, the answer, the secret, the mystery unveiled–here's how you get to the top of Google.

You get the BBC to write a really positive article about you or your company, saying how good you are at what you do. It's also important that they link to your site using your key phrases. So in our case we need a link from the phrase "Online project management" to our website rather than just including our website name. Easy?

Well you've got it–NO it's not easy and that just about sums up the scenario! You need to get highly respected websites to write unique content around your chosen activities and include links around your key phrases to your own site. The reason behind this is that when higher ranking (from Google's perspective) websites link to your site you will in turn increase your ranking (around the phrases that they link to you with).

In other words, there is no shortcut, no easy way, no quick fix. You just need to build a web presence so that Google, (by gleaning information from yours and other sites) believes that you are a respected authority on the subject is covered by your key phrases.

You (well most of us) do need assistance, both in the technical areas and in the areas of actually doing the work because, producing content of the right type that you can distribute to the relevant sites does take time, effort, involvement and therefore costs in its own way. But if you're having some direct input yourself at least you can control how much of your own time and money you spend and have a good feeling of which areas of effort produce the best results and which are less effective.

Sorry if this answer is in the one you're looking or hoping for, but as I said this is not an expert view simply the views of a business owner who has trodden this path, and paid for the privilege!

www.collabor8online.co.uk
020 3369 6491

Flat tyre on a hot day like this, could things get any worse? YES read this!

Okay–before I tell you the full story, I think this is a lesson in positivity–truth is I didn't even realise I was doing it but, as this scenario kept throwing up problems for me it didn't even occur to me to quit.. I just kept going ..read-on!

On my way home from an appointment this morning, I decided to detour to the local garage to have a tyre changed that had a slow puncture in it. About 100 yards from the garage, I hit a pot hole (thank you Bury Metropolitan Borough Council!) and BANG the tyre completely deflated. I pulled into the side of the road, (into a petrol station actually) inspected the damage and realised that to change my tyre in this weather, in my shiny new suit (on the garage forecourt), was not going to be a pleasant experience. I thought, “I'm only 100 yards away from the tyre fitting garage–I'll  drive at 5 mph and 'limp' there. 10 min later, hazard warning lights flashing and with several curious looks from passing motorists I pulled into the garage forecourt only to realise it had closed down! - Forlornly I called the number above the door, "No problem they said we relocated we're about 10 miles away!" - Oh dear.

Never mind I thought, forget the suit change the tyre. Jacket off sleeves rolled up (beginning to sweat), spare tyre out of boot, jack out of boot, find the jacking points, begin to get dirty, more sweating, position the jack and start to raise the car, (remembering before the tyre leaves the ground), loosen wheel nuts!- Get wrench from boot, loosen first nut, loosen second nut (lots of sweating), get to locking wheel nut find its seized fast! Won't budge even with my considerable weight behind it! - It's no good, I'll have to limp across town to the nearest tyre garage.

Put all equipment back in boot (incredible amount of sweating and getting dirty) set off at 5 mph again,  then remember my iPhone can locate things like tyre fitting businesses–amazingly it informs me there's one near–quick phone call to Express tyres "Do you fit tyres, are you open?" "yes" came the reply, "where are you?"–"about a hundred yards away", I'll be there in 2 min" I said.

The nice man explained that he didn't have any new tyres that would fit my car, but he did have a partially worn one that would be slightly less than half price. "I'll take it" I said (at this point I hadn't mentioned about the seized locking wheel nut!)

Now my new best friend, proceeds to grunt grimace and sweat around the aforementioned seized up locking wheel nut.. However he was sweating, grunting and grimacing with the right equipment! In about 30 min he'd got the "x5$^362'er" off, and another 10 had fitted the part worn tyre, which happened to be exactly the same make as the rest of the tyres on the car all for £35! Bargain of the century!

Is there a moral to this story? Well plan A didn't work, because I got a puncture on the way to the garage, plan B wasn't much better because the garage I drove to had closed down. Plan C got nowhere because of the seized up wheel nut, it wasn't until I got to plan D that things improved and although I got a little sweaty and it took about an hour longer than it should have, Plan D was actually much better than Plan A!

My own take on the situation, 99% of sucess is down to "just keep on trying!"

BE positive with our online project management software  Collabor8online provides online project management solutions and whether based document sharing solutions for all businesses large or small click or call 0203 369 6491