The CIOB has given its backing to two new industry websites.
It will provide funding and direct members to designingbuildings.co.uk, a Wikipedia-style collection of articles written by readers about the process of designing and developing buildings. The CIOB may also provide articles.
The CIOB is one of four organisations that will contribute cash to cover the site’s running costs for a year, which include editors and moderators to deal with articles and comments. The others are Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Buro Happold, and Development Securities.
David Trench, chairman of Designing Buildings Wiki, said he hopes to get eight sponsors to contribute a total of £50,000.
Trench added that he hoped the site, which launched in June, would allow the different disciplines of the building industry to become more collaborative. He said: “The CIOB, with its unequalled body of knowledge and wide membership, is a welcome new supporter of the site. Together we hope to make the industry less fragmented, better integrated, more efficient and more innovative.”
The CIOB is also sponsoring the Supply Chain Sustainability School which provides tailored, online sustainability advice at www.supplychainschool.co.uk. The school, founded by Skanska, Kier, Lend Lease, Morgan Sindall, Sir Robert McAlpine, Willmott Dixon and Aggregate Industries, also holds workshops and training days for suppliers.
Emma-Jane Allen, senior project manager at Action Sustainability, a partner in the project, said the CIOB would promote it to members.
QR codes set to present Institute’s ‘friendly’ face
The CIOB is embracing QR code technology, and will print the digital code on every subscription renewal pack sent out in this year’s renewal campaign, plus all new membership cards issued from November this year.
Anyone scanning the code on a smartphone or tablet device will be taken to the landing page for a specially-devised section of the CIOB website. Content will change regularly and will include access to the CIOB’s “About us” video, as well as the monthly e-newsletter.
According to CIOB event co-ordinator Alison Clayton, the initiative is seen as both “an information tool for existing members and a way of interesting new members”.
“For members, who are the ones carrying the cards, it’s a prompt to keep up to date with the CIOB world. Or if they’re with someone who’s interested in the CIOB, it’s a way to enter a ‘friendly’ area
of the website,” she explained.
Everyone who renews their subscription by the end of December will receive a new-style membership card.
The initiative, which has been taken forward by CIOB chief executive Chris Blythe, follows a successful taster project at the CIOB BIM conference in Dublin in June. The event flyer included a QR code, and Clayton says the experiment was “quite a success”. “Not everyone has a smartphone, but they are becoming widespread and we want to reflect the technology our members are using,” she said.
