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Prior to seeing this show for the first time last week, it had been a while since I shed a tear because of a TV show.  I’m not old enough to have been effected by the final episode of MASH or when JR got killed on Dallas, but for one reason or another the pilot episode of Construction Intervention really tugged at my heart strings. If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s about a loud-mouthed contractor from New York City who over his 30 year career has been tasked with getting horribly off-track projects back on track and under budget.  The premise for the show(which I believe will all take place in and around NYC) has Charlie Frattini and his crew of master carpenters, electricians, painters, and their laborers take a town on their luck business that is suffering because of forces outside of their control and do a complete overhaul of their office/restaurant.  In a week.  Think Kitchen Nightmare, but with contractors.

In the first episode, Charlie and his crew were tasked with gutting and completely overhauling a failing lower-Manhattan restaurant/bar called the Blarney Stone.  The bar was originally built in the late sixties at the same time as the World Trade Center was being erected by an Irish immigrant and then by he and his two sons when they were old enough.  Following 9/11, the Blarney Stone served as a refuge and cantina for the brave men and women who were involved in the rescue and recovery.  After the owner passed away in 2005, and business dropped off in the wake of 9/11, the Blarney Stone was on the brink of closing its doors forever until Charlie and his boys decided to save the day, like the Blarney Stone had for the workers at Ground Zero.  The first part of the show showed the level of disrepair that the Blarney Stone was in, and the later parts of the show focused around a complete renovation that would have taken between 4-5 months, but instead was completed in 5 days.  I deal with the clerical and contract  side of contractors all day long, but it’s very rare that I get a glimpse of the actual work they do, and it was amazing to see how fast they were able to coordinate and complete the task at hand.

“When 9/11 happened, the Blarney Stone opened its doors to the rescue workers, and they kept this place open for nothing,” said Frattini, who said he also worked at Ground Zero. “And that’s one of the reasons I just had to come down here, because it was time to give something back to them.”

Just three weeks after construction, the Blarney Stone’s business was up 10%, and the bar had one of its best nights ever this past St. Patrick’s Day.

“These guys kept us open,” said Joe Keane, raising a glass with Frattini in his shining new bar.

“I never, ever dreamed that it would look like what it looks like now.”

If you like off the beaten path shows, or just like watching contractors do what they do best, set the DVR and check it out. It comes on Tuesday at 10pm EST(After Deadliest Catch).  This week’s episode will deal with the renovation of a restaurant owned by a member of the New York City Fire Department.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/04/11/2010-04-11_irish_bar_down_on_luck_gets_tv_fixup.html#ixzz0lZZHgZpe

As a whole, there is the perception that (most) contractors don’t utilize or see the value in using social media.  While, I mostly agree with this, the 30% of contractors that are currently unemployed could probably benefit from it.  I follow a few construction industry people on Twitter, and earlier this morning noticed that they are posting job openings!  Roadtechs GC has an entire account dedicated to only posting nationwide job listings.   Roadtechs isn’t the only construction industry member that advertises jobs on via social media, so poke around once in a while.  All these services are free, and you can lurk around without having to contribute.  If you’re out of work, spend 15 minutes cruising around facebook, twitter, and linkedin.  You might be pleasantly surprised how quickly your employment situation changes despite what your peers say about the mean with which you got it.

If your buddies will disown you if they find out you’re using the same sites as their kids do, here’s the link to Roadtechs regular website

dig around.  you’ll find something

The world is getting smaller.  Everyone has a cellphone and a computer. Grandmas are on Facebook. 10 year olds are Tweeting.  2010 is the year that an online presence is no longer a luxury but a necessity.  Private work and bids will start coming back, and the purchasers of these projects are no longer going to rely on word of mouth and past reputation.  Younger people, who have been raised on the internet, now have their own money to spend on construction projects and they WILL NOT be going to the yellow pages to find someone to do their work for them. They will be going to Google, and if you are  not there, you will not be in the running to perform the work.  Someone that works for you has a kid that can design a website, a blog, and a facebook page for your company.  Hell, in exchange for an hour of your time on the insurance end of things, I’ll help you put a facebook page and an easy to update blog together. (this blog took less than 20 minutes to setup, including having it redirect to www.dphelan.com)  The hosting sites do all the work now, and I guarantee you there is someone in their 20′s or early 30′s that can put in a little legwork to make your site work for you as a lead generation tool.  Rant off.  Check this graphic out, and read the writing on the wall.

As you know, the construction industry as a whole is at almost 20% unemployment.  Everywhere you look, you are seeing this number, and even though the overall unemployment levels are around 10%, the statistics for construction are grim and there looks to be little hope on the horizon for the immediate future.  However, the American Public Transportation Association says they have 15 Billion dollars worth of projects that are ready to start work on within 90 days, and potentially creating almost half a million jobs.  There is an election next year, and no one wants to be seen as the political party that is responsible for the unemployment levels, but also doesn’t want to be seen as the ones who brought 70 billion worth of new federal funding into the lap of taxpayers.  As a taxpayer,  I would much rather see my $s going to a project to get American’s working again instead of paying their unemployment.  Pretty interesting article on this if you have a few minutes. From the Post Gazette

Get these diggers digging!

There was an historical merger of the two software giants today.  Despite being well respected in their own industries, they knew that to survive and stay relevant, as well as profitable that they would have to join forces to be able to stand a fighting chance against their rival, Google.  It remains to be seen how this merger will effect the world of search engines, but it goes to show what is possible when two competitors align themselves against their biggest competitor.

In today’s contractor landscape, who is “your Google”?  Who is the contractor that is taking 87% of your jobs?  Who could you join forces with to try to topple them?  Sure, you’d have to reorganize your company, probably lay some folks off, but in the long run would you rather keep playing it safe and be out of business before the economy rights itself, or would you like to be the company that emerges in the new contractor landscape as the hybrid of two competitors who put their differences aside and their strengths together to beat a common enemy?

If you’re one of the people that read this blog, you probably are a person that also follows the financial news in the US.  If I’m right, and you do, you probably saw the email that AIGFP’s Jake Desantis sent to Edward Liddy yesterday.  If you didn’t, check it out here Resignation Letter.  Following the newswire discovery of this gem of an op-ed piece, the collective media crapped their pants over this man’s whining in the face of disclosing that he got a 700K bonus(after taxes).  Yes, that’s a lot of money.  More than the majority of the world will ever see in their lifetime.  More than the large majority of us make in a year’s worth of work.  However, it seems like this man may have earned it.  He doesn’t seem like an entitled AIG employee.  He had the prudence and foresight to put enough money aside for his family so that in the face of a recession, they would be alright.  He also put himself through MIT, which last time I checked doesn’t take slackers.  Believe it or not, he didn’t even major in finance.  I found this on his LinkedIn profile

Was doing a little after lunch reading today about what’s going on with the stimulus package, and whether any of these “shovel ready” projects that everyone has been talking about are actually underway.  Didn’t really find the answer I was looking for, but it was a pleasant break in the hourly updates on which of the AIG guys decided to relinquish their bonus checks they received for ruining their company.  But I digress…

Wisconsin just began construction on a $1.9 billion highway modernization project.  Rhode Island, a little closer to home,  has the shovels fired up for $150 million worth of sewer and drinking water projects.  And the new Governor of Illinois,  Pat Quinn, is urging lawmakers to pass a bill that will use 26 Billion on a statewide reconstruction project.

Not sure about you guys, but I’m enjoying reading about positive things in the news again.  Also found that it’s pretty nice to share good news with friends, co-workers, bloggers, and anybody else that doesn’t spend their days spitting doom and gloom.

To read more about the shovel ready projects going on around wherever you are, swing on by http://www.agc.org/

And if somehow, you are a contractor, and are reading this…make sure to do you due diligence when hiring new workers.  I know it can be hard to think about doing background checks when you have had 25% of your workers laid off for the last few months, but the last thing you want, is for an untrained/unqualified/unsafe worker to have a worker’s comp claim that follows your insurance program, and experience modification factor around for the next few years.  Dollars spent preventing injuries now will bring the biggest ROI in the long run.