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At Your Service

November 17, 2010   
It has been one of those months—the kind where there seems to be a permanent target on your back. It began with my partner trying to rent a car. We both travel a lot, and are members of this company’s
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Safe Disposal Of Green Rhetoric

August 18, 2009   
I admit it. I’m tired of being lectured to about green building and sustainability. I’m not tired of the concepts; I like to think that I have subscribed to and enacted sustainable practices in my life and work for many
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More Client Expectations

February 6, 2009   
“Learn who your client is, ask about their expectations, and listen to the answer.” That was how I closed my previous column, in which I detailed some of our experiences being on the client side of the fence, while building
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Great Expectations

November 1, 2008   
Do you know what your client expects from a project? Currently, we’re experiencing life from the client side of the fence, and learning from the experience. Thorburn Associates is expanding its offices in North Carolina. We grew, we ran out
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Can You See Me Now?

June 26, 2008   
How do we have a good video meeting? The answer is the same as for a face-to-face meeting-we need to hear and see well in order to communicate and meet effectively. In terms of videoconferencing, how do we set things
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Talk It Out

March 20, 2008   
Information management. That is what project management really consists of: Information management, i.e. communication. As project managers, we need to be responsible information managers. We need to keep people informed of when and what items are needed to keep the
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The State Of Themed Entertainment

October 31, 2005   
School has started back up for the Fall, and the themed entertainment conference time has begun. The middle of September found us in Birmingham, England for the International Leisure Industry Week (LIW). The end of September found us in Maastricht,
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Devil In The Details

July 18, 2005   
Let’s look at the word “submittal.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language’s third definition of submittal is: to commit (something) to the consideration or judgment of another. From a consultant’s point of view, submittals are printed documents or
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Time Out Of Mind

June 21, 2005   
Why does the last 20 percent of the project seem to take 80 percent of the time? Our challenge in the last few months has been dealing with or trying to deal with closeout submittals-one of those nasty little things
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When is a Project a Success?

March 29, 2005   
When is a project a success? When it is done? When you are paid? When you have not had call backs? When you were not sued?! For us, it is when the customer is happy. We have given them something