The insurance industry is way behind the construction industry in the use of technology. Blue Shield and Travelers are perfect examples of companies that still believe the fax machine is modern technology. I have had the unfortunate experience of having to work with both of these companies laboriously painful paper processes recently. Blue Shield who provides our employee health insurance plan does not have email access. Everything has to be mailed or faxed. Their invoices are 5-10 pages long with many pages duplicated. When I asked them to email these to me their response “we don’t do email”.
Travelers a company all of us in the construction industry know well has a slight advantage over Blue Cross. This year they provided me a temporary email address for submitting our 2009 payroll records for their annual review. This is a lot better then last years 30+ page fax I had to send them. There is still room for improvements, they should really provide clients with a portal for uploading this information and tracking the status of invoices and renewals. Even the state of CA DGS lets us go online to upload our Small business certificate documents for renewal. Travelers has made some progress but still has a way to go.
In the mean time construction companies, facility owners, and engineering firms are disposing of their paper processes at a record rate and moving to web based project management applications, BIM modeling, blogs, and virtual offices faster then these three companies can refill the paper tray on their fax machine. Many in the construction industry have recognized the limits and inefficiencies in email and are moving to collaborative applications, portals, and blogs to move information electronically.
So if you want to help move the insurance industry forward I would urge you to request all insurance documents via email, after enough requests they may finally get it.
Eric Law
EADOC Founder

I just completed a webinar with Mike Warriner from Carollo on “Leveraging Web-Based Collaboration to Deliver Quality, Cost Effective CM Services”. CMAA asked us to conduct this presentation again via webinar. This presentation was originally delivered at the 2009 CMAA conference in Orlando, Florida. If you missed the webinar the recording is available here Click here for the recording This presentation is a great opportunity for Construction Managers to learn about the benefits of using Web-Based Collaboration software for improving project control and reducing costs for their clients. The presentation provides attendees with benefits, evaluation criteria, and recommended processes for implementing a web based collaborative project management application.

J. Kent Holland wrote a great article in his monthly Construction risk report about discovery of electronic information. Electronic Discovery Requires Cooperation between Opposing Counsel The article focused mostly on which emails between a CM(Hill International) and their client were admissible based on the keywords within the emails. Because the CM was using general email for project communication where each email could not be differentiated between Hill’s multiple clients. The courts had to severely restrict the clients keyword ESI search to not expose emails from other Hill clients. Had the cm and client used a collaborative project management system for all communication then all communication for that clients projects would have been filtered before the keywords were applied. This would have eliminated the need for the court to even intervene in the discovery process for this case. CM’s and their clients need to be careful how they communicate as this case shows their is the potential for your email to be discoverable even if they had nothing to do with the project in question.

This case is a good example of why you should consider a true collaborative project management application like EADOC instead of an Enterprise project management application(Primavera) as Hill International uses. With a true collaborative application all information including communication is kept with each individual project eliminating the potential for discovery to cross project communication lines.

A couple weeks ago I was talking with one of our clients about how they were able to achieve their objectives of going completely paperless on their project. They said the biggest key to success was getting rid of the printers in their project office. The client said it was the only way to break the bad habit of their users constantly printing project documents. Talk of Green benefits, cost savings, team objectives all failed to break the users tendency of clicking print. Initially after removing all the printer there were a few grumbles among the team members but after a couple weeks there was not a single complaint within the office. We realize not everyone can make this drastic change given they may be required to have wet signatures on legal documents. For these cases you may want to consider only allowing users access to printers who must print legal documents for wet signatures. Even though you may still be printing a few docs the dramatic reduction in paper, printing supplies, and printer costs will make your finance department and green team very happy.

With the AACEI conference in Seattle a couple weeks ago and then CMAA’s first ever Water/Waste Water Summit in Las Vegas last week I have been racking up a few airline points.
This was the first time EADOC exhibited at AACEI and overall we were impressed even though our booth was located off to the side. Overall we talked with some great facility owners and Engineering firms that were very much interested in EADOC and how we could help them improve their project controls. Next years conference is in Atlanta AACEI 2010 Conference a little farther then Seattle for us but will be worth the trip I am sure.
Last weeks CMAA trip to Las Vegas was excellent. We delivered a panel discussion with our client Carollo Engineers titled “Project Controls on Water/Waste Water Infrastructure Projects”.
Panelists from the City of Henderson, NV, Carollo Engineers, and CH2M Hill gave some excellent insight into the keys to successful project controls on their current project.
You can learn more about this summit at the cmaa blog
We look forward to attending next years Summit and hope to see more of our clients their.
Eric

Check out this recent article from Software Advice on project management applications with LEED tracking tools. Track LEED v3 Credits in Project Management Software
The next challenge is getting the USGBC to publish a web services integration kit. This would allow EADOC clients to submit their lead points and supporting documentation directly to USGBC. Currently USGBC requires that clients manually re-enter their project information and supporting documentation into the USGBC online application. If anyone is a member of USGBC or interested in discussing how this would work please contact us. We are always looking to make project management easier for our customers.
Thanks
Eric