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AIA Practice Management Digest - April 2025

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 04-24-2025
Recruiting & Onboarding: What's Critical Now Onboarding is a critical part of recruiting and to creating an outstanding environment for new hires to thrive and for firms of any size to succeed. Leaders from across the country in all types and scales ...
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Recruiting and retaining the talent to take your firm further

By Brian J. Vitale AIA posted 04-24-2025
Brian Vitale, AIA. Co-Managing Director & Design Principal, Gensler, Chicago When planning and building a progressive, forward-looking vision for the success of your firm, the first step is bringing together the best industry talent who ...
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Personality assessment tests: Infusing objectivity & insight into AEC firm team building

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 04-24-2025
By Richard Friedman, Founder & President at Friedman & Partners Deloitte reports that 80% of Fortune 500 companies use personality tests for a variety of reasons, including recruiting, career planning, leadership development and team ...
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Virtual onboarding for a distributed practice: Building connection and competency from day one

By Leah A. Bayer AIA posted 04-24-2025
By Leah Alissa Bayer, AIA It’s challenging finding great employees to grow with your company for the long term. An increasing labor shortage only complicates the process. So, it’s important to make the right first impression. As more architecture ...
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Small firm onboarding

By Eva Read-Warden AIA posted 04-24-2025
by Eva Read-Warden, AIA, Principal-In-Charge, Arkitex Studio Intro Small and small-mid-size firm owners wear many hats and often struggle to find the time to develop a plan for acclimating new employees. Many of us wish people could walk ...
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Virtual onboarding: Best practices for virtual work environments & remote staff

By Jennifer C. Kretschmer AIA posted 04-24-2025
By Jennifer Kretschmer , AIA, NCARB, LEED Green Associate; Principal Architect, JK/A The developing landscape of work has made remote staff an asset for architectural firms worldwide. For success with remote work, firms must adopt ...
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Trends, pros & cons in A.I. for recruiting

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 04-24-2025
By Rebecca W.E. Edmunds, AIA, MFA, President, r4 llc A new—or not so new—conversation has emerged on AI in recruiting. An overwhelming chorus of articles tout AI’s potential to improve experience, efficiency, and decision-making. But every ...
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Practice content at AIA25

By Emma Tucker posted 03-20-2025
If you are coming to the AIA Conference on Architecture & Design (AIA25) this year (June 4-7 in Boston), there is an official PMKC event plus many more great sessions to consider! This guide provides you with an inside look at some of the sessions ...
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AIA Practice Management Digest - December 2024

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 12-13-2024
Technology in Practice One year after our 2023 Industry Changing Tech issue, we take an updated look at the ways technology is altering practice, including AI (Artificial Intelligence), robotics, and virtual systems. Letter from the editor ...
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Technology as a competitive edge for AEC firms

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 12-13-2024
By Rich Friedman , Friedman Partners A developing trend is the rising number of A/E/C firms with technology-based subsidiaries or divisions. This extends beyond the common tools used by architects and engineers, such as 3D modeling, ...
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To AI or not to AI?

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 12-13-2024
By Karen Robichaud A question I‘ve been hearing a lot is: should I use AI in marketing? And the answer is, it depends. I ask, what challenge you’re trying to solve? AI tools are vast, and many have been part of our daily lives for ...
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Cultural change: Life first, then architecture

By Jennifer C. Kretschmer AIA posted 11-21-2024
How changing my firm to a virtual practice allowed for a fuller life. By Jennifer Kretschmer, AIA The pandemic altered many parts of architectural practice, but we are now well beyond looking at the last few years and believing ...
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Designing for a carbon-neutral future: The role of architects in early-stage design

By Cesar R. Escalante AIA posted 11-21-2024
By Cesar Escalante, AIA , 2025 Chair Technology in Practice Knowledge Community Introduction The imperative to achieve a carbon-neutral built environment has become increasingly urgent in recent years. As the primary creators of our physical ...
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AIA Practice Management Digest - May 2024

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 05-30-2024
Research in practice As we head to AIA24, where a few of our contributors are speaking this year, let’s consider what research actually means in architecture and the why and how of adding research to your practice or partnering with a firm that does. ...
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An ambition-based approach to research in practice

By Rebecca W. Edmunds AIA posted 05-30-2024
By Rebecca Edmunds, AIA, interviewing Felix Kabo, Ph.D I spoke with Felix Kabo, Ph.D., Research Director at CannonDesign about the firm’s initiatives in research and his thoughts on what defines true research in practice. Rebecca Edmunds: ...
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Research to innovation & impact: What it takes and why it is worth the investment

By Upali Nanda Assoc. AIA posted 05-30-2024
By Upali Nanda, PhD, Assoc. AIA, EDAC, ACHE, EVP and Global Sector Director, Innovation, HKS Architects. In 2006, HKS hired Dr. Debajyoti Pati, an experienced PHD, as “Director of Research.” This was a highly surprising move at the time—the ...
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The return on investment in environmental design research

By Sean M. O'Donnell FAIA posted 05-30-2024
By Sean O’Donnell, FAIA, Principal & K12 Practice Area Leader, Perkins Eastman Co-Principal Investigator, “ Addressing a Multi-Billion Dollar Challenge .” In December Perkins Eastman published a final report for a study that explored ...
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The case for experiential research

By Melissa E. Marsh Assoc. AIA posted 05-30-2024
By Rebecca Edmunds, AIA, interviewing Melissa March, Assoc. AIA I spoke with Plastarc founder and Executive Director Melissa Marsh. The Plastarc practice model focuses on the study of “activity-based working & wellness” for organizations. ...
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A call for organized open-source software infrastructure for the AEC industry

By Renee Cheng FAIA posted 05-30-2024
By Tomás Méndez Echenagucia and Renee Cheng, FAIA The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has been notoriously lagging in productivity when compared to other industries [1, 2] . When studying the reason for this, analysts ...
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