“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
New Year, New ________ – our theme for this month’s ArchiTalks post – certainly invites creativity and inspiration in our answers. Great topic from Bob Borson of Life of an Architect! Be sure to check out my colleagues’ responses in the links at the bottom of the post – this month is sure to be a lot of fun!
New Year, New Outlook
Another timely ArchiTalks post… Last Thursday and Friday my team and I went on our first “Off-site” together. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the term (I had no idea what it was until my sister, who works for a very smart, hip and large company, told me about it), an Off-site is a meeting away from one’s place of business which focuses on team-building and business development. We decided to devote a couple of days during the first week of 2016 to brainstorm and strategize about our firm and our team.
Those 2 days were not only extremely productive and fun for our team, they were super inspiring for me. I’ve known I have an amazing team here at Studio MM, but over the last few days we got even better! We now have plans in place to make 2016 the best year yet!
In true architect/foodie form our activities included trekking through one of our newly-under-construction job-sites and cooking coconut curry as a family-style lunch one day. No, we didn’t play team-oriented games… Instead we focused on developing our goals as a firm and understanding and strengthening our mission statement. We talked through things like…
1. Putting systems in place for a more efficient work environment: learning and implementing Slack for project coordination; organizing and creating office standards; setting time management strategies; etc.
2. Consolidating project calendars to keep happy clients as top priority and more efficiently manage our projects.
3. Planning inner-office lunch + learns: Borrowing from a concept from a recent article we shared on LinkedIn, we are planning a “family-style” lunch around our conference table 2 days per month… The focus will vary, but I hope to re-create the energy and enthusiasm from the brainstorming sessions we had on our Off-site.
All in all I know our Off-site was a success. The image below is merely a sneak-peek… We’re going to start rolling out all of these exciting ideas at the end of this week with an updated ON THE BOARDS section of our website!
New Year, New Fun
New projects under construction, new projects in design, new Time Lapse Videos+ What To Expect posts to share… Each new year brings new opportunities and new challenges. We are looking forward to all the New Adventures of 2016!
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Please check out our colleagues’ ArchiTalks posts below:
Bob Borson – Life of An Architect (@bobborson)
New Year, New Adventures that Might Kill Me
Matthew Stanfield – FiELD9: architecture (@FiELD9arch)
New Year, New CAD
Mark R. LePage – Entrepreneur Architect (@EntreArchitect)
New Year. New Budget.
Lee Calisti, AIA – Think Architect (@LeeCalisti)
new race new year new start
Enoch Sears – Business of Architecture (@businessofarch)
New Year, New Community on Business of Architecture
Lora Teagarden – L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
New Year, New Goals
Collier Ward – One More Story (@BuildingContent)
New Year, New Business
Nicholas Renard – dig Architecture (@dig-arch)
New Year, A New Hope
Jes Stafford – Modus Operandi Design (@modarchitect)
New Year. New Gear.
Cindy Black – Rick & Cindy Black Architects (*)
New Year, New Casita
Eric T. Faulkner – Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
New Year, New Underwear
Rosa Sheng – Equity by Design (@EquityxDesign)
New Year, New Era
Michele Grace Hottel – Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
“new year, new _____”
Meghana Joshi – IRA Consultants, LLC (@MeghanaIRA)
New Year, New Plan
Amy Kalar – ArchiMom (@AmyKalar)
New Year, New Adventures
Michael Riscica – Young Architect (@YoungArchitxPDX)
New Year, New Life!
Stephen Ramos – BUILDINGS ARE COOL (@sramos_BAC)
New Year, New Home
brady ernst – Soapbox Architect (@bradyernstAIA)
New Year, New Adult Architect
Brian Paletz – The Emerging Architect (@bpaletz)
A Little Premature
Eric Wittman – intern[life] (@rico_w)
new year, new [engagement]
Sharon George – Architecture By George (@sharonraigeorge)
New Year, New Business
Brinn Miracle – Architangent (@simplybrinn)
New Year, New Perspective
Emily Grandstaff-Rice – Emily Grandstaff-Rice AIA (@egraia)
The New New
Jarod Hall – di’velept (@divelept)
New Year New Reality
Anthony Richardson – That Architecture Student (@anth_rich)
New Year New Desk
Greg Croft – Sage Leaf Group (@croft_gregory)
New Year, New Goals
Jeffrey A Pelletier – Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
New Year New Office
Aaron Bowman – Product & Process (@PP_Podcast)
New Year, More Change
Kyu Young Kim – Palo Alto Design Studio (@sokokyu)
New Year, New Office Space
Jared W. Smith – Architect OWL (@ArchitectOWL)
New Year, New Reflection
Rusty Long – Rusty Long, Architect (@rustylong)
New Year, New Direction
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This month the #ArchiTalks blogging community is joining together on this month’s post to help a friend. This isn’t something I’d normally include in a post on our website, but Rusty Long is a friend of mine, and I have to say the greatest thing about him is his endless positive attitude. Please read below for more info on how we can help Rusty and his family:
Matthew Long was born May 29th, 2013, happy, and seemingly healthy. Less than two days later his mother and I found ourselves in an neonatal intensive care unit waiting room, listening to a rushed intensive care doctor explain how our son needed immediate dialysis to save his life. The disease, he briefly explained, was one of a group of disorders called Urea Cycle Disorders, which impact the way the body breaks down protein. We later discovered that Matthew’s particular variant is called OTC Deficiency, a particularly severe form of it in fact, which results in a rapid rise of ammonia in the blood, called hyperammonemia, resulting in devastating neurological damage. This form of OTC is so severe, Matthew has virtually no peers who have survived it. Once the immediate crisis was arrested, we came to find out more about the disease and the impact of this initial event.
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