The Future of Architectural Communications with Robert Woodburn Park | 052

digitalization has changed.

Every industry and architecture is no exception.

In particular how architecture practices communicate has changed fundamentally.

I'm joined by Robert Wood burn park.

Uh, seasoned experts in architectural communications to explore

architecture shift from traditional to digital media in this episode.

Of architecture business club, the weekly podcast for solo and small

firm architecture practice owners, just like you who want to build a

profitable future proof architecture business that fits around their life.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

If you're a small practice leader or so practitioner in architecture,

struggling to find clarity or reach your goals, consider working with me.

I have a personalized one-to-one support, free coaching consulting, and mentoring.

This tailored approach helps you navigate your unique path to success.

Whether it's growing your practice, working fewer hours or building

your team, I've got you covered.

Just click the link in the show notes to book a call with me to

discuss your options or email John S J O n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

For more information.

Now let's discuss communications in architecture.

Robert Woodburn Park is a seasoned architectural communications expert

providing in house graphics and marketing leadership for over

25 years for successful studios such as Allies Morrison, Alison

Brooks, PLP Architecture and JTP.

He now runs his own consultancy and this year launched Bedia.

com, a new media platform for architectural business

development information.

Robert, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Robert Woodburn Park: thanks for having me, John.

great to have you here.

Oh, but before we get stuck into our topic, I'd love to hear a bit more about

what you enjoy doing in your free time.

Could you tell me a little bit about that?

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, sure.

I mean, as you can imagine, we have a new new business recently launched.

I don't have as much free time as I used to.

But yeah, I do like to get out, do a bit of exercise.

Swimming is my go to.

I try and get to the pool as often as I can.

Um, get to the galleries.

My oldest daughter recently graduated fine arts.

So, you know, we have a mutual interest in exhibitions.

And I try and Get to as many as I can.

Uh, I also graduated fine art when I was her age too.

And pub quizzes.

Love a weekly pub quiz with our team.

Oh, fantastic.

Do you have a team name that you use every week?

What's the, can you, can you repeat it on the podcast?

Oh,

Robert Woodburn Park: Bastardos.

I shouldn't have said that, should I?

Yeah.

Do you have a, I mean, is this, you know, are there rules about

swearing and watershed issues?

I think, I think we'll get away with that one

Robert Woodburn Park: You can get away with that

know, the pronunciation and whatnot, but,

Robert Woodburn Park: It's kind of a spaghetti Western kind of, you

know, a spaghetti Western reference.

I love that.

That's fantastic.

I haven't been to a pub quiz for ages, but, um, when I was in my twenties, that

used to be something that I used to do every single week when I used to live up

in the Northwest and I love a pub quiz.

I'm actually, um, the last The last quiz that I did of any kind was last,

um, new year, some friends did, uh, like a 1980s themed party and, um,

it was all like sort of 1980s, um, popular culture, like pop trivia.

So it was like films and music and all that sort of thing.

And I was the youngest person there and, uh, I won it.

So I was, I was so made up about that.

So if anyone, if you ever need like a team member for your pub quiz, um, somebody

that knows a bit about sort of, um, films and music, then I'm, I'm your man.

Okay.

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I've got you down next time you're in London.

If you're here on a Tuesday night, then you know where you're going.

Oh, that sounds brilliant.

I'll bear it in mind.

So, uh, Robert, we're going to talk about, um, communications in architecture

so that, so that architects and architecture practices can, can improve.

How they communicate what they do.

But first, I'd like us to, to go back in time a little bit.

I was wondering if you could take us back to those early

days of digital communications.

And I'm interested to hear how, how you convince some of those more

traditional architects to embrace digital strategies like a website, a website.

Social media, digital press, that sort of thing.

Do you have any, any stories from those, um, earlier days?

Robert Woodburn Park: the first architectural practice I worked

for was Foggo Associates.

It's practice set up by Peter Foggo, um, who I always thought, you know, and still

think, you know, if he, he, sadly he, he died quite young, he would have been.

Potentially being up there with the greats, I think, with Norman Foster, he

was, and Richard Rogers, he was of that ilk and era producing similar buildings,

the high tech style, and one of the first, you know, this was in the late 90s, I

started working for them initially as a And Administrative assistant filing, you

know, and helping them with the, you know, uh, letter writing and specifications

writing and things like that.

And I muscled in on on the graphic design because I just come out of art

school and I happen to have some of the software knowledge and just persuading

them to invest in a copy of the Adobe.

Software's was was one thing because it's quite expensive and, um,

competition came up actually, uh, they were shortlisted to design the Heron

Tower building in London, which was eventually won by, uh, Peterson Fox.

But we made a strong pitch, I think, and traditionally architects.

certainly Foggo Associates at that time in the late nineties, if they're

presenting architectural ideas, um, at competition stage, then they would

be cutting and pasting, you know, they would be printing out from their old, old

sort of plotters, um, pasting themselves in, in the studio, you know, with

the, with the glue and, and letra set.

And then sending it to a reprographics company for reproduction.

And typically they would reverse print.

You know, they would lay it out, you know, black, black drawings on a white.

And reverse it either like a blueprint or often they like to do it.

White lines on black.

And I said, no, no, no.

Come on.

White space.

You know, this is what you let me do it in InDesign.

Uh, or, or then it was, um, PageMaker, uh, desktop publishing software.

And we'll, you know, let me come up with an alternative layout

for you to your cut and paste.

And I did.

And, and they went with it, you know, and, and, uh.

From that point on, I was doing all of their marketing materials, brochure work,

you know, documentations, uh, in desktop publishing, helping them improve the

quality of their imagery and in Photoshop.

And yeah, that was really my first experience of using digital media to

help architects present themselves.

You know, and we, we also, uh, built the first web, their first website, which

was largely very simple, HTML website.

But it did the job, you know, in the late nineties.

Uh, a lot of websites were quite rudimentary then, but, you know,

we made it as neat and functional as as possible, and it, and it was

yeah, quite, quite good for the time.

Things certainly have moved on a bit.

That, um, description there that you, you talked us through, um, about the

presentations for the competitions that, that sparked a memory actually of, um,

when I worked in a practice in the late 1990s, and I hadn't thought about it until

you mentioned it, but that thing of where, you If you're putting a presentation

together, either for a competition or for a client meeting, something like that,

client presentation, that it would be cut and paste, like they'd be literally

there with the sort of scissors and paper and glue, sticking it all together.

And then it would be sent to the local printers.

There was a print shop nearby and then they would reproduce it,

print it out again, and they'd mount it onto a foam board.

And then that's what we thought they would use.

Robert Woodburn Park: great that we have all these new tools, but in some ways

I feel really bad for the reprographics industry for architects, you know,

I'm still in touch with some of those guys that run the, run the, run their

companies then, and I do send a bit of work to them every now and again

still, yeah, it was a great industry.

Absolutely.

When we think about developing the relationship between images and

words How do you approach integrating storytelling with visuals in architecture?

Robert Woodburn Park: Yeah.

Well, I mean, the, the story of a project is so important, you know, and,

and this, you know, it does require an understanding of the architectural

concepts behind a project, both technically and, you know, culturally.

So I always start with having.

Really good and in depth conversations with architects about, you know, what is

it, you know, what, let's try and extract something from this project that has some

kind of a narrative, you know, and it could be the physicality of the building.

It could be, you know, something in the detail.

It could be in the program, um, on use of the building, but there's always something

interesting about a building and you have to, you have to really, you know, Drill

in to find out what is engaging, what is going to be engaging because buildings

fulfill all kinds of, you know, functions, some of them quite, you know, quite, quite

basic and some of them actually, you know, quite, quite engaging and interesting.

And so that's the first step, you know, some kind of a narrative and then you

choose your images to fit that narrative and that helps you communicate a project

in a way which grabs people's attention.

So that could be.

A concept drawing, it could be, um, a series of exploded axonometrics that

divide the drawings in the, the building into, into elements or, and obviously the

photography of the finished building or, or strategically, uh, placed renders, you

know, um, but the aim is always to, to, as you said, you know, match the narrative.

To the visual content in a way that really helps

Generally, is that something that gets, that happens

often, or is that something, the storytelling aspect, is that something

that's often overlooked by practices?

Robert Woodburn Park: I think so.

Yeah.

Um, and often it takes someone else to help them extract that, you know, what

is interesting about the building, you know, what's interesting to a building

for an architect might be a very sort of minor detail, you know, or something

quite perfunctory or something, you know, uh, but what, you know, trying

to extract the story of a building in a way that, that can, can help elaborate.

It's meaning is something that architects, I think, often need a little bit of

help with not all, you know, some architects are brilliant at it, uh,

but, uh, you know, having, you know, having someone from the outside, just

prod them a little to, to, you know, test them, you know, and challenge them

on, on the story of, of the building that they designed can be helpful.

For

so.

It's, um, it's just having somebody that can give you a different

perspective on things, isn't it?

Sometimes when you're really close to something, you just can't see

what's staring in front of you.

Robert Woodburn Park: sure.

Uh, and, um, and also, you know, uh, architects.

Some are great writers, and some write brilliantly about their work, but, you

know, architects Uh, completely focused on, on, on the building blocks of what

they're trying to achieve through, through drawing and through CAD and through the

various meetings that they're having in consultation with the building.

And then to, sometimes it's a post rationalization, you know, to, to step

away after, after it's been built even, or after it's gone through planning

stages and you first start to do a bit of marketing for the building.

Um, Yeah, just to take a step back and and have a sort of wider

discussion about what the building is and how you can communicate it.

Absolutely.

Over the years, I mean, communications within architecture

have changed significantly.

Over the last few decades, uh, in, now we're in the digital age that we live in.

So, you know, everything from the way that we present our work,

presentations, how we present competition entries, our website, social media.

I mean, of all these different changes that have happened in the way that

we communicate, what do you think has been the most transformative?

that's affected how architects communicate their work.

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I mean, certainly in the past,

there weren't many avenues, you know, for communicating your work.

I mean, architectural marketing, you know, when I first started really was.

You know, largely getting a new section in, you know, the quality of renders

were not so great in the nineties.

So model photographs, you know, maybe some hand drawn sketches.

Uh, but really it was when the building was complete, you employ a professional

photographer, which everyone still does and should do and try and get

it into one of the big magazines.

You know, there was half a dozen magazines, which we were all

clamoring to get our projects into.

And that really was architectural marketing.

And if you've got a front page.

And wow, you know, you you've really done your job.

Um, uh, architects in those days won their work through networking,

you know, and we'll still do.

Uh, but it was largely networking then mostly networking.

And yeah, it evolved.

A lot of extracurricular activities with clients, usually involving alcohol late

into the evening, you know, there's a very different type of scene, you know, and

now we have just so many more options.

Uh, the digital explosion, the worldwide web, you know, it's, there's, you

know, so much more we can do now, you know, through, through our social

medias, creating our own audience.

Our own captive audience through social media and through through our websites,

uh, you know, but Offers so much more, you know in in in opportunities and and

this is why certainly With the medium to large size practices, you know um

architects have their own marketing teams now, you know people are focusing

on their social media solely people that are Focusing on, on bids, focusing on,

on press liaison, you know, some of the larger firms have large teams of people.

You know, when, when I was at allies and Morrison, we had a team of

almost 15 people working on graphic design, marketing, and communications

for the practice, and I know,

Wow.

Robert Woodburn Park: you know, the Ajay's and, and, uh, Richard Rogers

and the Foster's world have, have more, more than that, you know,

Yeah, I think, um, one of the challenges is, I mean, there's,

there's literally so many options for people now, and I think it can be,

it can be difficult to, to figure out which of those options is the right

fit for, for many small practices.

To know, like, you know, should we be, should we be taking time and energy

to post on Instagram or LinkedIn?

Or should we be doing paid ads or should we be writing a blog or

creating videos or all these many, many different options that we have?

And it can be quite overwhelming, I think, for a lot of small businesses.

Robert Woodburn Park: Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, the businesses that don't have the resources of, of the larger

firms, you know, usually it's the directors themselves or, or, you

know, trusted senior members of their team doing this work directly.

And, and I tend to think, you know, the, the, you know, when you, when

you're a small practice like this, the best way of doing it, if you're

doing it yourself is to do what really.

interests you, but in a strategic way, because otherwise it becomes

a grind, you know, our architects, uh, don't have a lot of time.

Their projects are intensive.

Um, and when you do have those kind of break between, you know, sometimes

if you're a smaller practice, there are moments when one project ends

and you're suddenly wondering where the next bit of work is coming from.

And that's the time where you're thinking about business development, uh, just be

strategic, focused, and, and, I think, you know, cause you're not going to be able

to do everything that the larger firms do.

Um, so yeah, what, what I, you know, what are the types of projects realistically

that you're trying to attract, um, for some smaller firms, you know,

the, the, uh, ready income is, is residential adaptations, extensions.

Um, you know, and if you're lucky, a new build house and, and

refurbishments of, uh, buildings.

workspaces, you know, and if you, if again, if you're lucky

enough to be in the public sector, smaller refurbishment works.

So, you know, what is your market?

How can you best, um, network within that market and how can you best

communicate what you've already done from your portfolio to demonstrate that

you'll do a great job for that market?

Uh, and that's where, yeah, being realistic and strategic is.

With your efforts because you do have to you do have to Focus in

because you haven't got all the time in the world for sure, you know

I think, um,

Robert Woodburn Park: of help and then you know budget for

that and bring a bit of help in

yeah, absolutely.

I think, um, I think it's quite an important point you

mentioned about if you are.

a small business and you're looking to DIY this, then if you're able to

find something that you enjoy doing, that also is where your, your target

market is going, is hanging out.

So in the example of social media, like if you absolutely hate video,

like recording videos, Like, you know, trying to grow up on a platform, like

say TikTok or something like that is not really going to be the best fit.

You're not going to be able to be consistent with that.

Um, there's other, other ways to be seen and communicate what you do, whether

that's blog writing or, um, you know, it.

Podcasts, there's other ways.

It doesn't always have to be like one particular medium that because

the options are almost infinite now with the different varieties of ways

we can show up and the different platforms that we have available to us.

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, certainly that's true and and but sadly I

think you know a lot of these, you know A lot of the socials getting

a website up and constructed.

There are some technical barriers, you know You think it would be easier easy

to set up a a website And I count on Meta and, and start, you know, really

pushing your socials, but it, it isn't, you know, uh, there's, there's There are

barriers still that you have to get over.

Luckily, there's a lot of online resource to help, help teach you to do it.

But that, that takes time and it can be daunting, you know, um, for,

for some people really don't have that much interest in the process

of the digital communications, um, you know, when work and design

buildings, you know, that's, that's

what they train to do.

I mean, you mentioned Robert there that if there's something

that you need help with that people should reach out, that's, that's such a

good point because I think with any of these things that we might be struggling

with within our business, if we're trying to do everything ourselves, um,

which often is this, you know, a lot of sole practitioners out there that are

trying to do everything themselves and there's smaller practices, but help is

usually closer at hand than you realize.

And one of the key things with any Spend on marketing.

This is an investment, isn't it?

It's like, you know, if, if you are not getting a return on the marketing

spends, then like you're doing it wrong or whoever you're paying to

do it for you is doing it wrong.

And I like to look at it as, um, encourage people to think of

it as a series of experiments.

It's like.

Well, we'll try this thing.

We'll, we'll do this campaign for a month or two.

And if it works great, we get a bigger return on your investment.

If it doesn't, we can, we can try something different.

So I think the idea of just like not ever needing to spend any money.

On marketing, your business is a little bit naive.

And I think whilst we go through periods of time and some businesses do manage

to survive just on referrals and a bit of networking, but it's not really

a sustainable long term strategy.

I feel that getting that mind, that mindset shift of actually.

I should be investing some either time or money or a combination to be

continually marketing my business in some way so that we don't get those, um,

we avoid the cycle of feast and famine then, but it's, it's really difficult

because like the, the average Joe.

Small firm architects or architectural technologists is

just like, Oh, I've got some work.

I'm really busy.

I'll just get on a hundred percent, 10 percent of my time

and energy is doing the work.

And then I don't need to worry about the marketing now.

And then it's like, Oh, well, hang on a minute.

I've got no work now.

Oh.

Panic, panic, quick, let's get an ad out somewhere and do some marketing stuff.

But, um, I would encourage people to think about it as an investment.

That's something that they're continually investing in, in some way, um, either

with their time or money or a combination so that they can avoid that situation.

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I do feel that it is useful, whatever scale of

your business and whatever stage of its development to strategize and budget

for that strategy, you know, and as you say, even if that time is coming out

of your own time, um, at least be aware of, of, you know, what you're doing.

You know, what, what you need to put in and the results

you're looking for, uh, yeah.

And there is sort of the direct marketing to get new work in, you know,

uh, you know, the, the B2B Institute, LinkedIn's B2B Institute recently

did a little, uh, report on server.

They, they recommend that every, you know, SME, Or even larger practices should

be spending around 55 percent of their marketing budget on lead generation and

around 45 percent on brand development.

This is what they think is the best marketing mix for architects or, or for

any business, really business to business.

Um, and.

You know, how, how, how do those projects in come in?

They typically come from, um, active pursuit, you know, pushing public tenders.

If you're, if you saw the practice that's working in the public sector,

um, direct networking or repeat commissions from existing clients,

um, now, or the phone ringing.

And that phone doesn't ring unless you're putting that 45 percent investment

into the brand development, you know, the phone rings because you've been

noticed, um, either through your socials or through, uh, magazine articles or

through your website, um, or through, through making, you know, a talk at a

cinema, a seminar, uh, all these things, you know, that you're putting yourself

out there, communicating what you do.

Um, Yeah, these are what help make the phone ring.

Uh, if you don't do it, then, you know, who's going to be calling you?

Uh, and successful businesses really, uh, require, um, you know,

a healthy mix of, of, of, uh, Recurring clients and new clients.

Uh, if you're just focusing on, on your existing client base, you're, you're, you

know, it's an incredibly risky strategy and, you know, and I've seen practices

go down because of that, because people retire, people move on, you know, uh,

you know, it's, it's, Not a very safe strategy, although it is the easiest

strategy, you know, to keep getting work from a client who already likes you.

Um, yeah, to build a long term successful business that's growing.

It's, it's, uh, yeah, you, you need to be focusing on how

you're communicating your brand.

Uh, and the easiest and the best way of controlling that is through

the digital media strategies.

At moment.

so you've mentioned there about both brand

building and lead generation.

You shared some statistics there as well from that, um, LinkedIn article.

How would you recommend that those, those are balanced?

Do you, do you agree with that percentage that was, um, quoted

in, um, the study on LinkedIn in terms of how the budget is balanced?

Do you have any other thoughts on how we should be, you know, different sizes of

practices should be balancing their brand building and lead generation efforts?

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I, I think, you know, it really is a matter of,

of, uh, you know, what each practices needs, concerns, what their current,

you know, uh, marketing conditions are, uh, and, and, uh, you know,

who they're currently working with.

You know, I think a practice, for instance, you know, you know, usually

when I start working with a, a new client.

We have these initial conversations, you know, what do you want to achieve?

What's your current body of work?

You know, what sectors are you working on?

What's your current client base?

You know, how, how are you worried about the future or,

or, you know, why am I here?

What, what do you want to achieve?

And often it's, yeah, we are worried.

We've got a good client base, but we're worried about what happens in the future.

Um, or we're a small practice and we've got projects going

on at the moment, but where's.

What's next in the pipeline?

How can we create that pipeline?

Um, So it very much depends on the situation of the studio, you know,

everyone has different is in a different place I should say and there might be

some studios that are very good at lead generation because their directors are

proactive You know, they're they're usually architecture companies that are

successful quickly have very proactive extrovert Directors that are at the

networking events talking to the right people enjoy putting themselves out

there um Usually, you know, they don't need much help in that respect, but they

may need a little bit of help with with You Making sure their brand development

is moving at the same pace as, as their networking activities, you know, uh,

making sure that they have high quality socials, high quality content on their

webs, they're winning awards, um, and they're being talked about in the press.

You know, the two really have to go hand in hand as for the various percentages.

It really differs, I think, from studio to studio.

I understand.

So if they have.

clarity on what the goals are, what they're looking to achieve from a

strategic point of view that can help inform how that balance sits between

brand building and lead generation.

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Now, back to the show.

Robert Woodburn Park: Sure.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, in some ways, brand brand building is, is, is the easiest part

of the equation because, you know, there are, there are a number of avenues to

pursue you, you, you know, if you're aware of, if you're, if you're aware of what the

avenues are, um, You know, and you're able to produce good content and then yeah,

in some ways it's, it's easier to push that lead generation does require more of

an effort and it's a little bit of luck.

Absolutely.

having marketing knowledge and the right data is obviously very

important, um, with any of this stuff, but it can be quite time consuming,

especially for smaller practices.

How can those smaller firms compete with larger companies that

perhaps have more resources for research and marketing investment?

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I think the simple answer is it's, you

know, you can't compete with them.

Uh, cause they, they, as they have full time people working on research,

you know, and they have all this information to their hands, uh,

you know, sector based information.

They developed a, you know, CRM custom.

management system that, that, that helps monitor their, their,

uh, strategic communications with potential clients and existing clients.

They have all this on ad.

So I think a smaller practice has, has to focus, you know, you,

you don't have that resource and there's no point trying to compete.

But, uh, what you can do is, is, Focus on sector, localize your, your

networking strategies, even localize your communication strategies, uh,

and pick off, um, areas of business development interest that, that you

realistically feel you're capable of pursuing, you know, I think a lot

of time and effort is spent pushing.

On, on projects and sectors that you have a low chance of achieving results

and we all are inspired, you know, by people like Zaha Hadid who did nothing

but architectural competitions, uh, throughout the 80s, you know, with

very little results and then suddenly, boom, she was, she was, you know, the

next hot thing and the rest is history.

We are, you know, Richard Rogers.

back in the 70s, you know, won the contract for the Pompidou

Center as a young architect, um,

you know, in an open competition.

Uh, these, these kind of myth making, um, examples are great for inspiration, but

incredibly hard to replicate these days.

So you do have to be realistic and, and, uh, you know, if you, if you're,

if you're, if you've got a track record of designing, uh, Housing, perhaps at

another studio, you know, uh, if you had a slightly more senior role in

another studio, we are lead leading projects, then that's gotta be the

sector you are, you are focusing on.

Um, likewise, if, if you, if you're building a, a great track record of,

of, um, domestic work or Drake, a great track record of, you know, working

community based projects, there's a, there's a lot of new up and coming.

Practices are, there's not a lot of money in it in the UK at the moment,

but, uh, you know, there's not many opportunities, but there are opportunities

for practices that really want to drill into that and become great at it, which

requires higher levels of networking than perhaps some other projects do.

You know, and, and collaboration.

So it's about knowing what you are, what you are comfortable at,

what your experience is, and then really focusing on your networking

opportunities and, and, uh.

That makes sense.

Robert, you've recently launched Bedia.

Can you tell us more about what Bedia is, what it offers and how you envision

it making an impact in the industry?

Robert Woodburn Park: Well, I mean, the idea for Bedia came from, well, just a

discussion really that we've just had, you know, but yeah, the, the larger

practices have, have all these resources, they know what the opportunities are,

um, because they've spent time, you know, finding out and tracking things, you know.

Uh, what Bedia in a nutshell was do all this research and

offer it to everyone else.

Uh, you know, so for instance, the website tracks public tenders, not every

studio, um, is able to pitch public tenders in the UK, but it's hard because

it's hard, but we also track open design competitions internationally, you know,

sometimes there's a chance of getting on a shortlist for these and increasing your.

Your status and brand, if not winning the competition, uh, and we also track awards,

you know, there's over 200 potential awards in the UK for architects, you

know, for various categories, I tend to think that, uh, you know, any project

of any scale of reasonable quality has a good chance of winning an award.

You just need to find the right awards, you know, it may not win an

RBA award, but there'll be something.

You know, and, and so yeah, we, we track, you know, as many awards that we can find

and, and, uh, you know, tell you what they are, tell you what you need to submit

for it, tell you what the costs are, and when the deadlines are, and, you know,

we also research, um, events, networking events, cultural events, you know, a lot

of architects tell me, yeah, I want to go and network, but I don't know where to go.

You know, what should I do?

You know, what, what, and what do I do when I get there?

Um, so we, we do that as well.

We, we, we publish events, um, uh, you know, and we write up stories,

you know, we, we interview people.

We, you know, who are experienced in, uh, architectural marketing

and business development, or have a interesting story or case study.

Uh, and we do other research, you know, um, in relation to, to, to, to,

uh, Business development and marketing for architects, including the social

media Zeitgeist, uh, one of the things we do with the website, which has got

one of our sort of key in, you know, in innovations, I think, is we're

tracking the social media, social media performance of, of architects.

Uh, every architect in the UK and Ireland at the moment, and we're reporting back

quarterly on whose socials are growing, you know, that's why we call, call it

the zeitgeist, you know, where, you know, which young practices, for instance, are

really, uh, pushing their socials really hard and getting a lot of attention.

You know, what can we learn from that?

Um, there's a, there's a one man practice in, in, in South Wales called

initiate architecture and they're really high on the list and it's only

because, um, that their director is, is.

His posting is really inspirational, you know, and he's, he's built up

a, uh, organic following simply by being very open in the way he

communicates his, his business.

Um, uh, and takes people with him.

You know, I've set up this new company.

This is what I've learned.

Here you go.

Uh, uh, and you know, he's got, he's got a, you know, quite a young

following of students and young, younger architects through that.

Is now beginning to convert that into project work as, as people

have noticed his socials, you know, so these things are interesting.

I think, you know, uh, who is working their socials?

Well, what can we learn from that?

And what is to be gained from working your socials?

Well, some architects complained to me, you know, that, uh, what's

the point of having a lot of people following you, you know, doesn't

always convert into direct business.

And that's true.

But, you know, as I said, you know, that phone isn't going

to ring unless you do it.

And if you do it well, it's more likely to ring.

the social media zeitgeist is really there for people to track their own

performance against their competitors.

You know, if you have an interest in your social succeeding,

then let's measure that.

One of the things about architectural marketing and communications is

almost everything is measurable.

Um, how many visitors are you getting to your website?

You know, check the analytics.

How many are new visitors?

Where are they visiting from?

Who, you know, how many new followers do you have?

You know, what, what, uh, how many awards are you winning?

What's the, what's the turnaround on your awards?

What's the turnaround on your, on your bidding?

It's all measurable.

You know, we wanted to offer another way of measuring social

media performance, really.

I think for the first, I don't know of anyone else sort of

creating this comparable measure across the whole industry before.

So yeah, that's one of the key things we do with BDM.

I love it.

It's, um, it's a fantastic resource.

And, uh, yeah, Bedia.

com.

I'm actually, I'm aware the initiate architecture that you

mentioned, Ross, Ross Hartland.

Yeah, I'm aware of his account.

He's, he's doing an amazing job.

So well done, Ross, if you happen to be listening.

And, um, if you'd like to be a guest on the show, you'd be very welcome.

Cause we, I'm sure we'd, we'd all love to hear more about that story.

Robert Woodburn Park: he would be great.

Inspiring.

yeah, absolutely.

Robert, what's the main thing that you'd like everyone to take

away from the conversation today?

Robert Woodburn Park: I think, well, there are four main elements to business

development, you know, successful architectural business development.

One, and it starts with strategy.

Uh, you know, what is your strategy?

You know, be clear about that and honest with yourself about it.

Then it's research, you know, how, you know, you, it's very difficult

to do any kind of successful business development without researching now,

you know, you can research forever.

So be focused, you know, so that's the third element, third element, be

focused in what you're trying to achieve and, and fourthly, communicate well.

You know, um, you know, you have to make the most of what you've got and

what you've got is your project work.

And if you're not communicating it as successfully as it possibly could

be, you're, you're, you're, you're minimizing your potential, I think,

you know, uh, so you have to take all of those four things seriously.

Or be very lucky, you know.

That's great advice.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, there's a missed opportunity there if people aren't doing this right.

So, um, yeah, that's really helpful.

Robert, is there anything else that you wanted to add about the topic

that we haven't already covered?

Robert Woodburn Park: Oh, yeah, I wanted to talk to you about,

um, music playlists, uh, John.

You might have noticed on the BDA website we publish a music

playlist as a bit of fun.

of want the website to be a place, you know, where people go, they

get a lot of hard information.

But it also feels like a place where, you know, we, we, we also publish

everyone's podcasts, you know, we update that on a weekly basis.

So including yours, there's 30 odd podcasts and counting out there in the UK.

And, and well, you know, it's great to be able to.

Have somewhere to go where you can, you know, plug in, listen to someone's

opinions on architecture on marketing or theory or anything, you know, or planning,

uh, anything to do with the job that you do and, and have a little listen while

you're pumping cattle or something.

And we offer a little playlist there.

Uh, and the playlist is, is.

loosely focused on, on genres of music, which are around place, uh, and time,

you know, to link it to the theme.

And you said you were going to do a playlist for us, John.

did.

I haven't, I haven't done it yet, I'm afraid.

So I will make a note of that now to remind me to put something together.

Robert Woodburn Park: So far they're genre playlists, 50

tracks, you know, and yeah, go mad.

Brilliant.

I will definitely put something together.

I have a few, a few playlists already that might be workable for it.

I wanted to ask you one other thing.

It's a question about travel.

I like to ask this of all of the guests.

I love to travel, discover new places.

I know that you are a huge fan of travel as well.

So, I was wondering if you could tell me about one of your favourite

places and what you love about it.

This could be near or far.

Does anywhere spring to mind?

Robert Woodburn Park: I mean, it would have to be far really, uh, I mean,

I've done a lot of traveling, you know, I tend to take my laptop and do

a bit of work when I'm traveling too.

So I spent most of last year in South America and there were so many great

places there, you know, hang out by the beach, uh, doing work during the day.

And then, you know, taking a swim in waters that hopefully

aren't too shark infested.

Uh, but I, I think, you know, I also love Alaska, but I think, you know,

there's something about Alaska, which is amazing, you know, uh, uh, as the

wilderness and, and the influence of, of the native cultures still in Alaska.

But I think if I was to pinpoint one place in the world that I keep going

back to it, it, it, for various reasons, it's, it's Santa Barbara in California.

Um, simply because.

I love the urbanism of the place.

Whenever I'm describing Santa Barbara, I The weather is amazing.

You know, that's always a draw.

By the sea, great beach.

But there's something interesting about the urbanism of Santa Barbara in the

sense that you have the beach, Then you have State Street that goes from the

beach, and then crossing over State Street is, uh, the 101 freeway, which kind of

separates the rest of the town from the beach quite, quite brutally, really,

you know, the only way of accessing the beach is through the underpass under

the State 101 flyover, um, which is being designed quite nicely, but I just

love the simplicity of the urbanism.

Everything in Santa Barbara is on State Street.

You know, you can walk from the beach, the end of the pier, which is at the end of

State Street, all the way up State Street, and you've seen Santa Barbara, really.

Well, obviously you haven't seen all of it, but anything that matters, I think.

The galleries, the restaurants, the bars, the, you know, the places to buy all kinds

of interesting stuff, and the people.

That are hanging out in Santa Barbara.

You know, it's known as a city where the rich and famous live.

But they tend to live in the hills, you don't see many of

them hanging out on State Street.

It's a real mix of people, I feel.

You know,

so yeah, I end up hanging out in Santa Barbara regularly.

Yeah, Santa Barbara, I've, I've heard good things about it, but

I've, I've never been to California.

So I've, uh, it's still on my, my bucket list of places to go and visit.

So, uh, maybe one day, hopefully Robert.

Robert Woodburn Park: You'll get there, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I know who to ask for some, some tips, um, before I

go, if you've been there a few times before.

So I'll, uh, I'll drop you a message about that if, and

whenever do you get to California.

Um, Robert, this has been a, it's been a pleasure having you on the show today.

Thank you so much for sharing your stories and expertise.

Um, can you just remind everybody the best place to connect with you, if they'd

like to connect with you online somewhere.

Where's the best place to do that?

Robert Woodburn Park: Oh, well, visit the BDIR website.

B E E D I E R dot com.

We have various ways of contacting me from there.

Yeah.

Perfect.

Well, look, thanks again.

Robert Woodburn Park: Brilliant.

Nice to speak to you, John.

And good luck with your podcast.

It's a great resource.

It really is.

You know, I'll keep watching.

Oh, thanks, Robert.

Take care.

Robert Woodburn Park: Bye bye.

Next time I'll be chatting about London.

Bell's 2024.

The UK is leading and largest construction show where I am

one of the events speakers.

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