My mission is to improve the way the world gets built. I believe this can be done at a local level by people throughout the world with access to the internet. It is facilitated by civil design professionals who are willing to consider a new project delivery method – Collaborative Design-Build.

Say you want to remodel your house . . . Knock out a bearing wall between your kitchen and family room and convert part of your attic to an extra bedroom. You call your local building department and ask them what you need to do. They tell you that you need a set of plans with supporting calculations. And they need to be stamped by a professional. For generations, people like you have gone from here to the yellow pages or sought references for a good architect or engineer. In the future, they’ll go online and have immediate access to construction industry professionals throughout the world. Your details may be sketched up on a napkin by a local contractor, scanned in and uploaded onto the internet for a Chinese engineer to fine tune and calculate, then drawn up by a CAD operator in Russia. The e-collaborative design build delivery method harnesses the flat world platform and allows for services / work to be performed by people in the most appropriate economic position to do so.

Here’s how it works . . .

What owner / developer does:

1. Upload project description, timeline, photographs, plans, permit history, specs, etc. to a website (instead of, or in addition to delivering this info to a local engineering office).
2. Read project-specific forum thread (on website), providing additional information where necessary.
3. Wait for proposal(s) to be developed by online collaborators (instead of, or in addition to waiting for a local engineering office to do the same).
4. Review proposals and select design team.
5. Sign performance contract.
6. Upon completion of construction documents, hire local builder.

What online engineers / technicians do:

1. Select projects of interest / expertise and participate / provide ideas in forum.
2. Use collaboration tools provided through website including Skype, Google Docs, Sharepoint, LinkedIn etc. to develop ideas and form teams consisting of any or all of the following members (as project requires): project manager, lead project engineer, project engineer, lead drafter, drafter, contract administrator.
3. Lend support to proposal development.
4. Sign performance contract as required.
5. Perform services for compensation.