I was asked by the Design and Construction Excellence Exchange www.thedcx.org to discuss the current state of affairs at CSI for the benefit of the group. DCX members are mostly contractor QA staff. There are some designers and some software vendors. Conspectus is a member.
I want to be factual, not emotional, though I have strong personal opinions. I’m looking for suggestions. What would you discuss if you were making this presentation?
I think this article is a fair accounting:
Thanks for the suggestion George. Transparency is certainly a member concern. I think I will include pricing and the software tool in the discussion too. I wonder what ever became of the product attribute comparison tool? That has not been mentioned since the initial roll out. Contractors may be interested for substitution comparison.
Depending on your audience, start with a brief history of CSI’s origins, the development of the standards and principles that attracted us to it, a a description of CSI’s heyday. That will serve as stark and implicit contrast to when you get around to talking about where things stand today.
Good idea, George. A smattering of memory lane for context.
From my view, I think the association politics should be separate from CSI’s new licensing stance through their TCS vehicle. I believe most parties outside the organization would be interested in the latter. Folks should be made aware of CSI’s new ‘licensing’ requirements and how it could impact their business.
Juste, I agree the current politics will not be of general interest, except to members (and maybe not even the majority of them). Licensing is what caused the kerfuffle and will likely be the main interest.
An important distinction. To non-CSI members the licensing is probably the only thing of interest. I agree with Juste on that point.
Although the membership issues are probably not germane to your audience in this particular case, I am very concerned that the CSI board and particularly the CEO are focusing on “the fumbled kickoff” as if once they fix those problems, everything will be fine. The Frankenstein monster they created with the ill-defined CSI/CIN relationship will still exist, and nebulous non-CSI individuals are going to end up with the spoils at the end.
I’m not sure how or if it’s even possible to convey this bizarre set up to your audience, but people should know when they buy into the dynamic standards, they really aren’t dealing with CSI anymore. Even non-members who are familiar with what CSI was probably have respect and trust for the organization and its traditional nonprofit driven motivations. That’s all gone now, or at least it’s headed out the door, and people should know that before they purchase the product.
Tough task Dave. I don’t envy you.
On the bright side, DCX asked me to talk about 4specs in the same meeting. I’m saving the best for last - end on a positive note.
David: I am certain that this is far too late for your talk, but when I discuss CSI now to people I bring up:
legacy products such as MasterFormat, page format and section format. These are often referenced by our public owners when they provide spec direction for their consultants.
it was the first trade organization that consisted of the full range of user/specifiers. Before CSI, construction trade organizations were only contractors, only architects, only carpet manufacturers. Having access to all of those viewpoints was a strength and singular in the industry. Of course, USGBC copied it, then the AIA started their “affiliate members” and that was no longer a distinction. I don’t think CSI really capitalized on that, though.
3)CSI made a substantial mistake by casting out the SCIP membership. At first, “Industry members” were considered second-class (they could not hold office, for example); then it seemed as though CSI was in a continual fight with the AIA (which was dumb) and then I think it swung too far to embrace only the industry side. I consider the SCIP membership to be the whole point of the organization – CSI was started by specifiers, for pete’s sake.
4) cross-discipline coordination is supposed to be the whole point. I think that gets lost.
Hi Ann,
All good points, for sure. I was president of SCIP when the split with CSI occurred. CSI caused the split because they insisted on putting their name on the Education Day event that SCIP was planning before the CSI convention. Hanley Wood, the convention organizer at the time, told me privately that if CSI puts their label on the SCIP event that Hanley Wood, by contract, could not help SCIP by furnishing space and advertising. So SCIP set out on our own and held the Education Day event, funded entirely by sponsors - a tradition that continues today.
The DCX discussion was lively. It was mostly centered on the licensing requirements for The CSI Dynamic Standards(sm). Many on the call were unaware of what CSI was attempting to do.
Now, with the court summary judgement for Zerodocs and against CSI, this whole licensing issue, may disappear quietly into the night, at least from the public viewpoint. I cannot say the same for the CSI Board point of view. The Board may be scrambling to understand the ramifications and risk that CSI just inherited.
I wrote a note to the CSI Board chair attempting to emphasize just how little anyone cared about the Dynamic Standards. I was at the west coast Master Specifier’s Retreat and as much as I like Keith Robinson, his devotion to owning innumerable copies of MasterFormat just seems a bit OCD to me.
I regularly get requests from public clients asking us to use “MasterFormat 2010” and basically they are just asking for the 50 division listing. I don’t know if you know, but the University of California system was wedded to the 16 divisions up until about 2014-2015. I think they got too many complaints from their engineering consultant and had to give in. We have a client in Hawaii who will think they still want the 16 division until they get the fee proposals to renumber everything.
ANNE WHITACRE
HOK
anne.whitacre@hok.com
t +1 415 356 8685 m +1 510 388 4333
Conspectus stopped taking university projects in Hawaii for this reason. The extra effort to go backwards was not worth the time spent to provide zero value.
I’m wondering if it’s development is on hold until the numbers/titles issue is sorted, or it may be that the gross ignorance (the glass/glazing question for example) of the current Crosswalk tool is keeping it from working.
Used to encounter clients like this also. Offered a high fee to cover reverse gear, and offered a discount (not the full increase) for using industry standard nomenclature.
David, I don’t think the licensing push will go away. Looking at the Institute finances, it’s clear that the Board and CEO have based the survival of the organization on income expectations from TCS/CIN/18Below Dynamic Standards. They can’t let it go or the whole mess sinks without a trace. Even money on an appeal of this decision.
I am sure CSI is weighing options - doing nothing, appeal, suing someone else… They must be wondering what the commercial value of the CSI Dynamic Standards(sm) is today if not zero. If CSI is not wondering, I am confident CIN is.