From the President, April 2002
What Happened to Technical?

For new chapters, without established committees, a technical committee that helps other committees ensure that programs, newsletters, and education programs had technical content would be useful. But if, as is the case with the Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter, the other committees have enough strength and resources to provide technical content on their own, what can the technical committee do for them? Our programs committee continually produces programs with technical topics; our newsletter offers a variety of technical articles; and our education and certification committees have a long record of success. In such cases, the chapter's Board of Directors is in the best position to ensure that chapter activities include a reasonable amount of technical content. The "technical committee" then becomes an ad hoc committee formed as needed to address issues that do not fall under the purview of one of the standing committees.

And so it is with the Minneapolis-St. Paul chapter. Regular technical committee meetings, which had devolved into a monthly coffee-and-rolls meeting, were terminated some time ago. A special committee was assembled to review a technical document issued by a masonry organization, and an inter-organizational program is in the works (see "Preaching to the Choir", November newsletter). We are planning on at least one special technical meeting next year, separate from our monthly meetings; the subject will be the Uniform Drafting System (UDS) and the National CAD Standard. Other subjects, such as coming changes in MasterFormat, or the Overall Construction Classification System, could be addressed either at chapter meetings or as stand-alone meetings, depending on interest.

There is another reason that chapter technical committees are no longer as important: telecommunication. When land mail was the common form of exchanging information over long distances, local meetings were the only viable opportunity for live, real-time conversations. Today, with e-mail, web sites, and inexpensive web meetings, discussions are no longer limited by distance or time. Committee members may now live in different cities, with little impact on debate or exchange of material. Current examples include the discussion forums on the 4specs.com web site and CSI's Infraknowledge web site.

Institute Activities

The slowdown in chapter technical activities does not indicate a corresponding decrease in activity at the Institute level. I recently ended four years of service with the Institute Technical Committee, so I have first-hand knowledge of what has been going on there. During that time, I reported what we were doing in monthly TechNotes columns. Since most of us don't have the last fifty or so newsletters at hand, I'll take this opportunity to summarize what's been going on in Alexandria.

Among Technical Committee's responsibilities, the most important are periodic review of CSI technical documents, and making recommendations for updating those documents. When I first joined the committee, our primary task was evaluation of our flagship document, the Manual of Practice. Given the direction we were headed - inclusion of all participants in the construction process - we recommended expansion of the MOP by adding modules to discuss subjects not covered in the existing document, from project conception to owner operating and maintenance. In our discussions, we agreed that the one-to-one correlation between MOP modules and certification programs would have to end; there would be no "Certified Construction Conceiver", or "Certified Owner". As the project developed, we also discussed the extraction of the "practice" part of the document and creating a separate "Manual of Practice for Specifications", which would mean that we would have two documents - a manual of practice and an overview of the construction process. After an extensive survey of potential users and negotiations with a publisher, it was decided that there would be a single new hardcover document, much like a textbook, and, later, an abbreviated companion document in softcover for students.

During the development of the outline for the new Manual of Practice, we also proposed a revised PageFormat. The existing document, which was written when specifications were produced on typewriters (I'll send you a picture if you don't know what they are), was definitely in need of updating. The draft proposal, which was based on established rules of the publishing industry and use of word processors, received more response than any other technical document to that time. The comments ranged from "garbage" to "genius", and we ended up with a watered-down, minor update of the old document.

Once the Manual of Practice was handed off to the Editorial Advisory Board, we moved on to MasterFormat, probably our most widely-used standard. There were two significant issues: dissatisfaction resulting from what was perceived as inadequate coverage of some types of construction, and lack of specificity at Level 4. The telecommunications industry had introduced a proposed Division 17, civil engineers had begun working on a system using several Divisions in the 20's, and a couple of other groups were also clamoring for attention, though they had not done as much work. The need for more definition at Level 4 was caused by a shortage of numbers at that level. Though not a problem for humans, electronic exchange of data requires a one-to-one correspondence between section numbers and products.

Looking again at CSI's intent to include all of construction, we concluded that, even though the existing sixteen divisions of MasterFormat could be made to work for a while longer, a major change would eventually have to be made. Putting that change off would almost certainly result in the development and use of pseudo-MasterFormat systems intended as additions to the sixteen divisions - or complete replacements. In other words we would begin returning to the pre-MasterFormat world of construction, when there was no single organizational system; chaos from order. To address all of these problems, the committee forwarded a recommendation that a task team be formed to develop a new system that would be acceptable by all construction organizations. The MasterFormat Task Team, under the leadership of Dennis Hall, is making remarkable progress. Visit the Institute web site at www.CSINet.org, or the 4specs website at www.4specs.com, to get the latest information.

In summary, there is still plenty of technical activity in CSI. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter offers some of the best technical information in CSI, in its monthly meetings, education and certification programs, and newsletters. Institute-level activities - which can now allow direct participation by chapter members - will undoubtedly increase as CSI expands its interests to include all members of the construction team. There is plenty of work for all!

Sheldon Wolfe, President
Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter, CSI
swolfe@bwbr.com