Social Media by Design: A Q&A with Architect Lira Luis

The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) hosted its 15th Industry Roundtable from January 6 to 8, in part exploring social media’s role as it affects designers, architects, and manufacturers from some of the most present brands in the design community. Although a White Paper on the event won’t be available until next month, Contract had the chance to speak with Lira Luis, one of the panel speakers at the two-part discussion “Work: Who, Where, How. The Intersection of Culture, Workplace, and Social Media,” that looked at how social media is changing the way the A&D industry conducts business.


How has social media changed your definition of “work”?

Lira Luis: Social media—whether I’m designing a core and shell building or an interior space—has enhanced my work as an architect; I see it as a tool. For example, in a recent restaurant project, I was in search of consultants to work with, so I reached out to people in my social media network for recommendations, particularly on LinkedIn. I also ask colleagues about their experiences with specific manufacturers when searching for products to specify.

How has it changed your work environment?

Luis: The work environment has become more and more collaborative. The experience of one colleague becomes the shared experience of others in the profession from which we can all learn.

Has social media changed how you relate to clients? Manufacturers? Brands?

Luis: Yes. What I normally look for when I select products/manufacturers, aside from quality, are experiences dealing with them. I ask questions like, “Will this manufacturer help make it easier to accomplish the design objective?” Or “Will this manufacturer or brand cause delays on the project?” Then I look to SoMe [social media] for those kinds of experiences to be translated, like how responsive they would be to my questions [from their level of interaction].

As far as clients, or potential ones, I find that if you add value to connecting, more often than not it results in project leads. Sometimes it may not be directly with the person, but it will be someone from his or her own network. It's like the online version of word-of-mouth marketing.

Has it solved design-related problems you had experienced in the past?

Luis: It doesn't directly solve design related problems, but it does add another platform to make communication lines accessible to everyone in a project team.

Has social media created any problems in your work?

Luis: While SoMe has enabled the ability to constantly be in touch with others more than ever, this has become a double-edged sword. I find that if we rely solely on this type of platform for communication where body language is absent, it can lead to miscommunication.

Do you have any advice for designers looking to use social media to their advantage?

Luis: It can be a very useful tool for designers or it can be a tool for wasting a lot of time. Knowing what you want to get out of social media from the beginning is key.

Lira Luis, AIA, RIBA, NCARB, UAP, LEED AP BD+C, is a global American architect specializing in organic architecture and is the founder of Atelier Lira Luis, LLC. To learn more about her work visit liraluis.com.

Re-Thinking the Center Store Design

Grocery retailers unite! Store perimeters have gotten, well, just pretty dang awesome in recent years. I'm all for the expanded bakery sections (with my bonafide sweet tooth) and adding banks and health services to the store perimeter (Eyeglass fittings at Walmart? Check.), but I'm still looking to our design brethren to make the center store a bit more, well, less monotonous.

While perimeter sales are booming, center-store sales actually have declined on a same-store basis. And I'm not entirely surprised. Let's face it. Center store is kinda boring. How are canned veggies supposed to compete with beautifully illuminated, artfully displayed heads of broccoli and craftily merchandised bunches of carrots? Today's fickle shoppers "get in, get out, and get on" with their lives (thank you Chili's for the appropriate tagline) and the poor center store simply is not growing at the rate of the ever-exciting perimeter. Whatever are grocery retailers to do?

HELPFUL TIP ALERT!! Nielsen (our parent company....Thanks, Dad!) has just unveiled a Webinar that shares strategies and views on how best to leverage in-store innovation to generate more desirable shopper behavior, such as more frequent store visits, larger basket rings, or greater customer loyalty. It's turnign design into dollars, which to me equals "pretty cool" on my rank-o-meter. Take a listen and let us know what you think. What's in store for your clients' center store?

--DDI, sister publication to Contract

(Photo: ©iStockphoto.com/Suprijono Suharjoto)

Design Bloggers Unite!

Blogging and social media finally is catching on among the design industry--and the news of the first new media event exclusively for interior design bloggers is proof. The first Design Bloggers Conference (Twitter: #DBC2011) will be held on February 28 - March 1 at the Sofitel L.A. in Los Angeles, hosted by Internet marketing service, DesignSherpa, and aims to bring together top influential designers and design media.

Attendees will  benefit from insight into key strategies in blogging, online brand development, design media, and new media tools. Additionally, winners of the “How Blogging Has Changed My Life” social media contest will be announced. 

“Increasingly, interior design professionals and enthusiasts are recognizing the power of blogging and social media tools to build engaged online communities and personal brands that are driving meaningful public personas and significant marketing outcomes,” says Adam Japko, president of Network Communication Inc.’s Design and DigitalSherpa division, in a statement. “So we organized a first-of-its-kind event specifically for this group, with the vision to assemble today’s top minds and thought leaders and to create a networking and learning opportunity for engaged online interior design content creators.” 

More information is available at http://design-bloggers-conference.com. 

Attention Work-not-aholics!

By Gillian Wong, Editorial Intern

 Disguised as a gigantic book printed with Chinese characters, the Workaholic Pillow is actually a doublewide foam pillow that moulds to your head. Conveniently made into the format of a book, the Workaholic Pillow can be placed onto your office bookshelf, while your space retains that professional air that you took so long to create.

Unfortunately for true pretenders, the design is more appropriate for laughs than for deception: your boss may start suspecting something’s up if he or she sees the word “workaholic” printed on the back cover of this so-called book—or see that the pages you’re seemingly reading have no words on.

Of course, one could argue that the Workaholic Pillow is still comfortable to sleep on—desks can be very hard on the head.

However, the Pillow is a terrible 5,600 yen, or approximately $63.00. Surely there can be a cheaper way to get a giggle? And at a mere $24.99, you can get a decent pillow from Sealy too.

You can buy the Workaholic Pillow at geekstuff4u.com