What's all this with the ™ symbol? And a logo?

If you're anything like me, the sight of a logo; a logo with a ™ symbol no less, rings immediate alarm bells; someone thinks they're going to make a fast buck here.
So I imagine you asking; 'What is that big fat ™ doing in the title of this blog?'



It goes like this; there have been many (and I mean many) initiatives within the construction sector that have sought to promote new approaches and methods, new contracts, new standards. Many of them have had excellent intentions and influential backing. Some have been enforced by government, some have been so successful that their names have entered the lexicon, but most have withered on the vine.
We hope that the Design Led Construction™(there it is again) initiative will be one of the successful ones, but the problem with success is that everyone wants a piece of it, and that can quickly hollow out value.
Take Design and Build. This has become a wildly successful 'brand' since its introduction in a modern form in the late 1970s. But what does it mean? In practice, almost anything you like, as long as a contractor is in the driving seat on the supply side. From a client's point of view, choosing a D&B approach is just the opening of a door into a bewildering landscape. From the contractor's point of view, the term is almost equally unhelpful. The term is so widely used that it has become devalued.
If Design Led Construction™ is to be effective in promoting an integrated approach to building procurement, it needs to mean roughly the same thing to everyone. It has to reliably take participants into a known set of relationships, where responsibilities, risks and rewards are clear to all at the outset. There has to be a standard.
So we propose that Design Led Construction™ should aim to become a standards association, so that firms promoting themselves as offering to work in this way will work to a known approach, to agreed standards, so that clients can be confident about what they are signing up for from the outset.
Of course, this should add value to the offer from participating firms, whose membership dues would be used to further develop training and standards, to further enhance the 'brand'... but I'm getting ahead of myself.