As a 27-year member of CSI, a past Chair of both the CSI Board of Directors and the CSI Foundation Board of Trustees, a CSI Fellow, and a Distinguished Member, I have invested a great deal of personal equity in CSI, which, in turn, has helped me personally and professionally. I mention that to be transparent about any bias that may be perceived in what I am about to state.
As diligently as CSI has been trying to move forward into the 21st century to catch up with an increasingly fast-paced industry, there are people (members and non-members) who seem to want to drag us back to the mid- to late 20th century. As CSI standards are being integrated into more and more digital applications and platforms, CSI should and has every right to be compensated for the products it has produced and are used by the industry. Yes, these standards rely on essential volunteer input. But the operational support behind those volunteers, the editorial effort, and the costs of production and distributionwhether print or electronicare ever-increasing costs that must be covered.
A professional association cannot survive on membership dues alone. In fact, dues this past fiscal year accounted for 22% of operating revenue. Thus, CSI relies on publications, certification programs, events, sponsorships, and standards to generate non-dues revenue to cover the remaining 78%.
Purchasing paper-based products is becoming a thing of the past as people want immediate access to information, whether they are sitting at their desk at work, at the dining table at home, or at a meeting across the country (or even out of the country). The online CSI Dynamic Standards (CDS) provides immediate access to the most current version of all CSI standards. CSI is establishing the foundation of a standards development process to ensure consistency and continuity over time with wider public input. CSI standards development will become an ongoing process with more frequent updates like those you get with online software applications. Additionally, there will be greater interaction among the standards development task teams to ensure standards are coordinated. And just think of the possibilities if we view these standards as the foundation of an interoperable database rather than a static guidebook for the systems that are the standards.
In the past, CSI was lax in enforcing its intellectual property rights. In fact, over a decade ago, CSI came very close to losing its trademark protection for its standards because it failed to keep them up to date. To maintain control over its intellectual property, using online standards offers better protection than CSI had in the past. Bound books are shared, and PDFs are posted on company networks and the internet, where they can be easily searched and mined for data. Why should large design firms that generate millions of dollars in revenue be allowed to pay the same cost as the sole proprietor or independent specifier for using CSI standards? And why should it be expected that the work contributed by CSI members be made free in order that others profit from the contribution of members, to the long-term detriment of the association and the sustainability of the standards? The cost of a CDS subscription will be used to maintain the development process previously mentioned and to continuously improve the product.
Now, before you think Iâm a compensated shill for CSI, I, too, have been reasonably critical of some things CSI has done. However, when I have done so, I have taken it to the people who can directly affect change or have the answers that substantiate why something was done. If there is one thing I have learned from my 23 years as an Air Force officer, it is to praise in public and criticize in private. In my opinion, airing grievances on public forums probably does more harm to an association than it does good. If you are a CSI member, I hope that concerns you as much as it does me. If you are not a CSI member, you may have benefited from properly licensed and paid for CSIâs products. But others of you have benefited from CSIs products and the work of its members without a financial or volunteer contribution, and, if you are one of these types of non-members, then you have no vested interest in the professional association, and the management and governance of the association are essentially none of your business.
Regarding CDS, I have pushed back on some aspects of the End Users License Agreement (EULA) and have been working behind the scenes with CSI and CIN to create a compromise that works for both CSI/CIN and the specifier. I assure you, they are fully aware of where specifiers stand and what their concerns are. Other specifiers and I have made those issues as clear as we can. If you have anything specific you want addressed, feel free to consider me your point of contact.
If you got this far, thank you for reading until the end. I love CSI, I love SCIP, I love AIA, I love CSC, and I love ICC. Each offers me something special and individual, for which I am grateful, and I am willing to show my gratitude by participating in any way I can, not only because it helps me but also because it helps the AECO industry.