The larger lessons of the pandemic can’t be overstated, but bold steps taken by AEC firms to counter its effects are instructional. For example, Boulder Associates, a 140-person Colorado-based health care architecture and interior design firm, responded by revamping its approach to marketing and business development.

The pandemic made easier the overdue decision to move away from printed marketing collateral, replacing it instead with more user-friendly technology. Like many AEC firms, until recently, Boulder’s marketing materials had been stacked on shelves filled with hard-copy brochures. The firm snail-mailed postcards and holiday greeting cards to hundreds of customers. The question that arose during the pandemic-driven shutdown ended it all: “Now where do we send it?”

该公司抛弃了其季度明信片邮件，以支持电子通信。最近担任市场营销总监的校长和室内设计师珍妮·黑斯廷斯（Jenny Hastings）说：“我们想为客户提供他们正在寻找的信息，而不仅仅是告诉他们我们是谁。他们知道我们是谁。他们需要知道我们可以为他们做什么。”黑斯廷斯补充说，摆脱印刷材料的积极副作用是公司的可持续性绩效的改善。通过每年不发送数百张明信片，该公司对额超额废物流的贡献减少了。

Boulder Associates还将其流行时代的BD努力集中在保持个人风格上，即使人们分开了英里并通过视频或电话连接。黑斯廷斯说：“早期，我们不确定我们是否可以实现有意义的联系，但是我们有任何有意义的联系。”“现在，‘嘿，我们可以快速进行30件量的变焦吗？’每个人都被困在家里，我们建立了很多有意义的联系，因为每个人都处于同一情况。我首先在视频聊天中遇到了很多人，并且由于我们都在处理特殊情况，因此有立即联系。”

Hastings says the increased acceptance of video conferencing also has improved the flow of communications from office to office within the firm. For this reason, she established a schedule of regular office check-ins. “Part of my work is to keep our BD teams more connected,” she says. “We have eight offices with 140 people trying to stay connected, and if one office is chasing a project, they might be leveraging the expertise in another. It’s not that we didn’t share that information before, but it wasn’t as intentional or deliberate.”

But also, because “clients move the system,” the firm is engaging more successfully externally as well. “What has shaped a lot of what we’re doing is that relationships are king,” she says. “Internal, external, with clients, with contractor partners … everything about the work we do is relationship driven. We’re 100% health care and senior living, so we eat, sleep and breathe these projects. Everything hinges on the relationships we make and foster.”

为此，Boulder Associates正在扩大其“ BA/Science”小组的角色，内部专业人士在研究，精益设计和建筑，过程改进和可持续性方面具有专业知识。其每个成员都评估所有主要项目，以确定他们是否可以（个人或集体）提供专门的见解，新利18备用网址从而大大改善结果。

“It’s a way to bring a different lens to a project,” she says.