Editor’s Message
Happy New Year and welcome to 2010! Joshua Mutize, PQS Construction Economist Editor any of you reading this issue are looking back at your personal milestones in 2009 and begin making plans and objectives for this New Year. Without a doubt, everyone wishes 2009 would fade off from memories. It was a difficult year for many individuals and businesses, and of course the construction industry. With this in mind, we have decided to start publishing construction industry trends for materials, equipment and construction costs. I invite you to look at the Quarterly Construction Cost Outlook included in this issue. I wrote this message, as my plane was 35,000 feet in the air, flying to Toronto for our CIQS Council meetings and the Construct Canada International conference. At that time, I had gone over my Editor’s report numerous times in preparation for our Council meeting so I was getting tired. That is when I decided to pull out the airline magazine and browse through it. As I was browsing, I come across an article that grabbed my attention. My interest was immediately immersed in this article whose heading said ‘MUST READ.’ This article was written by Dov Seidman, a graduate of UCLA, Oxford University and Harvard Law and was extracted from Dov’s book called How. “How is a radically different and compelling approach to competing in business today. We are all aware of the implications of operating in a transparent, wired, global marketplace,” says Jeff Kindler, Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc. The article reminded me of the film Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise and directed by Cameron Crowe in 1996. Jerry argues that “The Things We Think but Don’t Say.” John Wooden, Hall of Fame basketball coach put it this way, “It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.” During the time when Click Here to Return to Table of Contents
the movie was released the economy was booming and we were in a ‘Just do it’ mode. ‘Just do it,’ also a Nike slogan, clearly portrays the seemingly limitless possibilities of the decade. Many companies looking for a way to keep up with the rapid influx of capital looked for ‘shortcuts and easy solutions’ and neglected long term goals. The message to employees was clear, ‘Just do it.’ We are focusing on the bottom line. They ignored the means and methods employed. Along the way, we lost ‘How’ and we all felt it in 2009 when the economy busted. “Just do it is no longer enough,” says Seidman.
At the beginning of this century, concurrent with global growth and technology advancement, there was a sudden growth of the information age and sudden sense of disequilibrium. This flood of undigested and unprocessed information bombards us minute by minute, giving us little time to regain our equilibrium. Although, it is too early to predict without hesitation, there is credible evidence to suggest that we have started emerging from the economic ‘Black Hole.’ I disagree with some economists who are still reporting tremendous negative downfall in the industry. As you can see from the graphs and charts,
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