Learning from Las Vegas - Cover Art

Learning from Las Vegas is the title of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown’s seminal work. In the early seventies, Venturi, Scott Brown and their associates heralded a profound shift in the understanding of buildings; not unlike the current shift in our understanding of media and communication embodied by the Blogworld Expo 2009 in Nevada.

Again, fellow architects, we are Learning from Las Vegas.  

In this second example of great advice from the Blogworld Expo, I present a gem from Irene Koehler, the social media coach at Almost Savvy. She tracked down the inimitable Chris Brogan who granted this brief interview answering the question, “How can having a blog help me or my business? ” (view video)

Now, for those of you who aren’t yet immersed in the new media, this interview with Chris Brogan is equivalent to meeting a young Robert Venturi while his theory and design were changing the way the profession thought about buildings. (If you don’t understand this reference, ask an elder architect about the Vanna Venturi House.)

Seriously, as an architectural practitioner wandering around the edges of blog production, watch this video and see if Chris Brogan’s sage advice nudges you forward. Our culture is undergoing a profound communication shift, and with it, the means of business promotion is transforming too.  It is a unique time. Learn from it and begin reaching your future clients by means of your own professional blog.

Please post your comments here. If you have specific questions, feel free to contact me (or Irene or Chris for that matter) and start moving forward on your professional blog.

Image by Jerry Renolds

As I had hoped, great stories and lessons are surfacing on Twitter from last week’s Blogworld Expo ’09 in Las Vegas. The value for us is in gleaning inspiration and insight from these accounts and applying them to our work. Among the other gems I’ve found is a list of twenty bloggers who have leveraged their online influence beyond the virtual realm. Michael Dunlop compiled the list and gives the story behind each success. You likely know of several of these people. All of them have moved beyond their initial blogging ventures to greater goals and greater good.

Michael himself holds the 21st position on the list. Barely out of his teens, this UK lad has already parlayed his blogging success to independent wealth, status as a leader in his field and even a hit television show. Who knows what he’ll accomplish when he finally hits his stride! Michael now coaches multitudes and offers a free seven day e-course on how to creat a profitable blog.

Follow the link and read his list. Hopefully it will inspire you to see your blog as a means to greater things. Creativity and passion brought you to architecture – pour the same into your blog. Provide for your readers and grow your audience. Who knows what good may come?

It’s been interesting to monitor Twitter as some of the big names I’ve been following Tweet about the awesome presentation they are attending, or about the mentor they ran into, or the peers they finally got to enjoy dinner with. I picture typical convention interactions – except everyone is in their slippers and bathrobe.

Do I wish I was there? Sure. Not Vegas particularly, but the Expo itself, yes – meeting and exchanging with the field’s leaders and shapers. There have been many annual AIA, CSI, and ULI conventions that I’d hoped to attend but didn’t. However, I believe the difference between those conferences and Blogworld Expo 2009 is the nature of the industries they represent. The former are established groups, founded on bricks and mortar, essentially seeking to adapt to the changing world. The field of blogging is, by its nature, actually leading some of the change.  

Blogging appeared as, and will always be, a cottage industry. It consists of independent thinkers (yes, sometimes clothed in robe and slippers) presenting their ideas and building consensus through a de-centralized media. The centralized, conglomerated media that grew alongside the AIA and other construction industry associations late in the industrial age is giving way to the New Media.

Professional blogging is our media, global in reach, but focused in audience. The established industries, especially those based in the physical realm of construction, will adapt to the New or they will become marginalized. We, as architect-bloggers, can lead in thought and in consensus building, helping to shape the change in our field – and to profit from its adaptation.