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awesome! 🙂

As far as when to get an offer in writting their should be a discusion of salary before hand. Or at least a discussion before you show up for your first day.
If they write out that they would like you to work for them and then you accept without talking money they may assume you will take what they give you.
 
As far as responses to the question…[Read more]

Nick that is very true I did not think about that.
Normally they do go lower than you ask so if you get timid and say 38 becuase you are afraid they might say NO… you are stuck with a job at 36 that you can’t pay bills with.
 
Now what good is that.

Coming from someone in the midst of buying a new car I can say that is very good advice on negotiating..
 
I might add on the last point..”They may be willing to pay you 43 but you get timid and say 38…guess what you get 38.”
 
..maybe more like guess what, you get 36.

It is taking me some time to get use to the little details that is different then AutoCAD. I have been jumping projects back and forth to see how things work. In general I found it identical and my learning curve has been so smaller since I already know AutoCAD. When trying to learn other CAD program (like Vectorworks) in the past I always hit w…[Read more]

I downloaded the program about 2 weeks ago and I have used it only a little bit.  But I don’t quite understand how the viewport system in paperspace works in the program.  I’ll be interested to see what others say about it.

Thanks a lot Jonathan!  I know that I regularly fall into the “getting timid trap” and I wanted to avoid this this time.
 
Is it better to ask for an offer in writing before we discuss salary?
 
I want to avoid canned “car-salesman” responses to salary questions, any suggestions?  (sorry can’t resist a joke)

thanks a lot!  some very good links there too!

You mentioned negotiating skills. I sold cars to help pay for college, please no jokes, and learned some valuable skills in negotiating.
I will give you four pointers
 
     1. Never give a number first.
 —Avoid this at all cost. You want to know how they value you.
 
      2. Get as much up front as you can.
 —An extra 4k up front could t…[Read more]

This article answers the question for you. Good Luck. If you decide not to take the job, be sure and give a shout out to your fellow LA’s who may be interested.
 
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2011/01/17/the-importance-of-sala…
 
Being able to negotiate requires being in a position of strength–you either have to be strongly desired over o…[Read more]

Landscape architecture is/was sustainable, growth in it was not.

Heather I agree completely was that we need to be imaginative. That is where I started with all of this. I saw this idea and I wanted to see what would happen it was explored.
 
The idea of of Master/Aprentice is maybe where the profesion should be headed. This idea of a co-op alows for that kind of relationship in a tough market and for little…[Read more]

When I buy a lawnmower I’ll give you a call.

See my post below before continuing..
 
“One of the best things I’ve ever learned about owning a business is understanding just the simple fact that you “own” your business, doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always the one for every job. It’s your ability to decipher your strong points and finding others that add strength to your weaknesses,…[Read more]

I was sort of giving you a hard time on purpose because you’re sort of ‘spamming’ the message board with a sort of off topic discussion. It’s kind of my duty (or was at one time) to delete posts like this, but I’m trying to be nice and it just so happens that we just had a discussion recently here about LA’s and Architects brancing out and doing…[Read more]

I think you will find some resistance to the idea on here, since we are all designers and love to do this kind of thing (most of us anyway) ourselves.  Also, a big component of a landscape architect’s training is to learn how to come up with a marketable concept for a design and to sell it to the client. 
 
The thing that intrigues me is how yo…[Read more]

Officially no. I guess I tend to think more of an interdisciplinary group of people working together to win larger projects.
One part of the true co-op idea that does appeal to me is the idea of mentor ship and help. I know Mark Hoverstein (hope I didn’t butcher his name) the head of the College of Art and Architecture at UI spoke about what his…[Read more]

I don’t know if this is at all what you mean, but where I worked it was primarily from RFP’s and reputation.

Developing a brand takes more than knowing html / css and throwing it up under a domain name you purchase from godaddy. 
 
I can tell you that small businesses that understand the importance of developing that brand on the onset of their business, find themselves investing less and benefiting more in the long run. You may or may not agree….and o…[Read more]