Small Project Design

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) would like to invite you to complete an online survey about an All New Contract Documents Service for the design and construction industry.

As you may know, the AIA has developed a service that features access to a library of widely-used standardized contract templates for the Design and Construction industry referred to as AIA Contract Documents.  These documents lay out the standard framework for parties working together in a wide-variety of contractual relationships and project delivery methods involved in the design and construction of buildings. These are pre-drafted documents developed by industry experts and backed by decades of case law that a user merely needs to fill-in-the blanks to have a valid draft contract.

The purpose of the survey is to better understand and ultimately improve your interaction with the AIA and its Contract Documents service. The online survey should only take 20-25 minutes to complete. Please note that if you begin the survey, and need additional time to complete it, you can save your responses and resume at a later date. We would like your survey responses as soon as possible, however no later than March 4, 2011.

Your feedback and opinions are very valuable to us.  Once we receive your completed survey, you will automatically be entered into our drawing for a chance to win one of five prizes of $100 each or one prize of $500.  (See the sweepstakes rules page at the end of the survey for more details.)

Your responses on this survey will be kept strictly confidential and will only be used in aggregate for research purposes.  Responses will not be used to identify you or your organization in any way or at any time. Upon completion of this survey, the AIA will purge all names and email addresses which will then be irretrievable by anyone.

To complete this online survey, please click on the URL below, or copy it into the address/ location bar of your browser. Please make sure to copy the whole link.

http://surveys.globaltestmarket.com/survey/gmi/187074?list=1

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Molly Lindblom
Managing Director, Contract Documents
The American Institute of Architects
Washington DC
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I received the invitation to the survey, and began taking it...about ten minutes in, a screen came up informing me that they already had enough responses from my demographic. Beyond the waste of time (and, of course, the ineligibility for any drawings), I can't help but wonder if I was turned out due to my uncomplimentary remarks about the AIA CD system, which was for years notoriously Mac-unfriendly even to the point of dismissiveness. Wish the AIA was more user-friendly regarding constructive criticism; as I always tell my clients, it's often as important to know what you're unhappy with as what you're pleased about.

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Robert Silarski AIA
Principal
Silarski & Co. ' Architecture + Design
Nyack NY
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Mr. Silarsky-

Very sorry for your understandable frustration. Response to this survey has been overwhelming, and we surpassed the quotas set up by our research company very quickly. We had quotas reset much higher to handle the surprisingly strong volume.

The Small Project Practitioners Forum is one that we were most eager to hear from, so I am very disappointed that this has occurred to you and anyone else in the group. We absolutely want to hear the criticism you may have, and many of the questions in the survey are meant to address them (we hope).

So please try again. Anyone who attempts the survey will be included in the prize drawing (I know that is not your stated concern, but just an FYI). If you are somehow unable to complete to survey again, please e-mail us at aiacontractdocs@aia.org and we will try to send you another method of input.

Sincerely, -Kyle
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Kyle McAdams AIA
Director, Contract Documents Sales & Marketing
The American Institute of Architects
Washington DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 09:43
From: Robert Silarski
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I received the invitation to the survey, and began taking it...about ten minutes in, a screen came up informing me that they already had enough responses from my demographic. Beyond the waste of time (and, of course, the ineligibility for any drawings), I can't help but wonder if I was turned out due to my uncomplimentary remarks about the AIA CD system, which was for years notoriously Mac-unfriendly even to the point of dismissiveness. Wish the AIA was more user-friendly regarding constructive criticism; as I always tell my clients, it's often as important to know what you're unhappy with as what you're pleased about.

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Robert Silarski AIA
Principal
Silarski & Co. ' Architecture + Design
Nyack NY
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I had the same response to the survey. I really wanted to tell the AIA how I felt and what the needs of a small firm are but was cut off at the knees. Obviously they don't want any criticism constructive or otherwise.

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Robert Moore AIA
Robert E. Moore Architect
Monroe NC
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-23-2011 09:43
From: Robert Silarski
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I received the invitation to the survey, and began taking it...about ten minutes in, a screen came up informing me that they already had enough responses from my demographic. Beyond the waste of time (and, of course, the ineligibility for any drawings), I can't help but wonder if I was turned out due to my uncomplimentary remarks about the AIA CD system, which was for years notoriously Mac-unfriendly even to the point of dismissiveness. Wish the AIA was more user-friendly regarding constructive criticism; as I always tell my clients, it's often as important to know what you're unhappy with as what you're pleased about.

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Robert Silarski AIA
Principal
Silarski & Co. ' Architecture + Design
Nyack NY
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I also had the same response to the survey.  As an active participant in my local AIA chapter and co-chair of the Small Practitioners Group for the AIA Chicago, I felt comfortable in making my local membership director aware of this response and he was therefore able to bring it up with the national representatives on his regularly scheduled conference call yesterday.  I believe that the national representative acknowledged that this was a missed opportunity and appreciated the feedback from members on how the dismissal from the survey was perceived. 

I have to recommend getting to know your local AIA Chapter representatives personally as I have found that I get much more out of my membership by being able to discuss issues that I have directly with the staff at AIA Chicago and they are then better able to represent the needs of their local members when they know what their members are concerned about.

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Julie Liska AIA
Principal
Liska Architects
Chicago IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-24-2011 08:22
From: Robert Moore
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I had the same response to the survey. I really wanted to tell the AIA how I felt and what the needs of a small firm are but was cut off at the knees. Obviously they don't want any criticism constructive or otherwise.

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Robert Moore AIA
Robert E. Moore Architect
Monroe NC
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Ms. Liska-

Yes it was a missed opportunity and we regret that this happened to multiple members who were eager to give us the feedback we were looking for. We apologize for the frustration, but the response was so strong that we blew through all of the quotas set on the servers of our Research Company. We have since increased the quotas to (I hope) avoid this going forward.

If you would like to take the survey at a future date, e-mail me the link that you originally were mailed to use for taking the survey. Once I know what you used, I can send another link that is different (so the system won't see you as "re-taking" the survey, and not let you in). If interested, you can e-mail me at kylemcadams@aia.org. Thanks. -K
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Kyle McAdams AIA
Director, Contract Documents Sales & Marketing
The American Institute of Architects
Washington DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-25-2011 10:09
From: Julie Liska
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I also had the same response to the survey.  As an active participant in my local AIA chapter and co-chair of the Small Practitioners Group for the AIA Chicago, I felt comfortable in making my local membership director aware of this response and he was therefore able to bring it up with the national representatives on his regularly scheduled conference call yesterday.  I believe that the national representative acknowledged that this was a missed opportunity and appreciated the feedback from members on how the dismissal from the survey was perceived. 

I have to recommend getting to know your local AIA Chapter representatives personally as I have found that I get much more out of my membership by being able to discuss issues that I have directly with the staff at AIA Chicago and they are then better able to represent the needs of their local members when they know what their members are concerned about.

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Julie Liska AIA
Principal
Liska Architects
Chicago IL
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-24-2011 08:22
From: Robert Moore
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I had the same response to the survey. I really wanted to tell the AIA how I felt and what the needs of a small firm are but was cut off at the knees. Obviously they don't want any criticism constructive or otherwise.

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Robert Moore AIA
Robert E. Moore Architect
Monroe NC
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I too started the survey and got a "thank you very much" screen after only three pages.  

Mr. Schmid-

As I responded to Silarski earlier, we have had overwhelming response to the survey, and we blew through our demographic quotas faster than anyone anticipated and I know it's frustrating to have your session terminated (that was not the intension, it was an unwelcome surprise) ...as such the research firm has increased the limits so this will be less of an issue. If you send me an e-mail (kylemcadams@aia.org) with your survey link, I'm happy to send you another so you can take it again. The survey is actually intended to gauge responses to product concepts that might address many of the frustrations you express.

Regarding the lack of Mac compatibility, that is the single biggest criticism I hear in any and all forums. You have no idea how eager I am to resolve this issue. In the mean time, we do offer AIA Documents-on-Demand which is a similar solution to what you describe for the Civil Air Patrol. Rather than MSWord docs you have to save as a PDF, this service offers PDF documents with blank fields you can fill in electronically. You buy them one-at-a-time, and you can select from our 36 most heavily-used documents. Just go to:

          http://documentsondemand.aia.org/.

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Kyle McAdams AIA
Director, Contract Documents Sales & Marketing
The American Institute of Architects
Washington DC
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-24-2011 11:36
From: Robert Schmid
Subject: Give the AIA your thoughts on Contract Documents

I too started the survey and got a "thank you very much" screen after only three pages.  

I agree with the earlier comment regarding the AIA electronic contract documents service and have first hand experience with AIA's attitude towards any negative comments about the system and lack of Mac native documents.  The AIA began this system with our dues money and failed to include Mac users.  Over the past seven years I have questioned AIA Electronic Documents ( ED ) staff and their in-house attorney many times about this lack of service and always received that same stock answer - 'yes, we understand the issue and are working on it'.  After hearing this for two years this response became a joke.  The current response includes something along the lines of 'as a Mac user you should be able to access the ED system through parallels'. Well, frankly if I wanted to use an inferior operating system prone to hacking and bugs I'd have bought a PC in the first place.

There is a simple solution - create the documents in MSWord with fill-in-the-blank cells that can be saved as PDF's.  The Civil Air Patrol uses such a format for its forms - many more than the AIA could ever hope to create - and I have yet to experience a problem in using the forms since becoming a CAP member in 2003.

Since becoming an AIA member in 1980 this is one situation where the AIA has failed miserably.  As members we should all be telling the AIA to get with the program and start serving its members.  If AIA doesn't respond we should then consider a class action law suite to recoup our dues that seeded the system.

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Robert Schmid AIA
Principal
RCS Airdesign
Denver CO
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