As many of you know, my vision for Entrepreneur Architect is for our community to become an influential force in the profession of architecture. In order to pursue that vision, our mission is to inspire independent small firm architects to build better businesses, so that we may each pursue our purpose with passion and live the life of our dreams.
By building better businesses and pursuing our passions, we’ll build a stronger, more respected profession. If we each do our part and work together, we will truly make a difference.
Entrepreneur Architect is Bigger Than Mark R. LePage
My wife and partner, architect Annmarie McCarthy, and I have been successful pursuing our passion. We launched our own residential architecture firm, Fivecat Studio, in 1999 and since, we’ve worked with more than one hundred families to make their lives better through the spaces in which they live. It hasn’t been easy, but through good times and bad we’ve paid our bills, employed a staff, funded our mortgage, fed our family and lived a happy life.
On December 12, 2012, I announced my commitment to this community and a vision for my little part to make change in the profession. I’ve been making progress. The blog has grown and is slowly becoming known throughout the world of architecture. The podcast has allowed for me to connect with other professionals and to share my thoughts on business, leadership and life. I speak at national events, spreading the word about Entrepreneur Architect and have leveraged my influence (as small as it may be) to support the mission of other architects working to improve the profession in their own way.
Entrepreneur Architect is not about me though or what I have done to become successful. I share my stories on the blog and at the podcast because that is what I know. That is the information and knowledge that I have to share. For our vision as a community to become reality, we need to each pursue our passion and share what we know with others. To become an influential force, one that may inspire change and move to improve our profession, Entrepreneur Architect needs to be much bigger than Mark R. LePage.
Building a Bigger Platform
In 2009, many years before EntreArchitect.com was relaunched to become a resource for our community, I launched the Entrepreneur Architect Linkedin Group. Today, that private group supports almost 8,000 members. It’s a place where architects may go to learn from others and share what they know on a secure platform open only to other design and construction professionals. It was the first step in building our own community of Entrepreneur Architects.
Today I am announcing the next step toward growing Entrepreneur Architect beyond me. With this post, I am opening the Entrepreneur Architect blog platform to guest authors and inviting each of you to become a contributing member of our community. I have invited others to write for Entrepreneur Architect in the past and many of those posts have continued on to become the most visited pages on the site.
I love to write and will continue to post articles sharing my stories as well. Have no fear. This is not an announcement of my retirement from the blog. I’m not going anywhere, but I would like to shift my focus to building a bigger, even more influential platform.
I want everything we do at Entrepreneur Architect to be the best it can be. I want every architect on the planet to know what we are doing and benefit from the information we are sharing here. Entrepreneur Architect needs to grow and I can’t do it alone. I need your help.
Writers Wanted
I want to provide opportunity for members of our community to share their knowledge, support fellow architects and contribute as leaders in the profession. I want to develop the Entrepreneur Architect platform to be an even more valuable resource for small firm architects. So, today I am opening this blog to other voices. I encourage you to share your knowledge and spread your ideas. Submit an article for publication. Together we will grow our influence, share more knowledge and develop the platform to even greater heights.
You in?
I have developed a new page for guest authors. It includes guidelines for articles, a detailed description of our community, statistics for the platform, a list of benefits resulting from writing for Entrepreneur Architect and instructions on how to submit your article for consideration.
If you have something to say or knowledge to share, I encourage you to write an article today and submit it for publication. I look forward to your contribution.
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Copyright: peshkova / 123RF Stock Photo
Right off the bat, nothing really worth writing about occurs to me, but I sure like to know about the existence of this blog. As I live in a country which is hard-hit by the economical crisis, which in turn has taken its toll on the construction industry, thus also affecting the field of architecture, it’s been extemely difficult to land jobs here in Portugal. And we’re seeing no flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. Although I am now almost 65 years old, I feel there’s still a lot I could as an architect, provided, of course, I had the chance. So, maybe, by sharing ideas and thoughts with fellow-professionals from other parts of the world, I could get or give some sort of contribution to the problem through the blog. Quite often, it seems to me, architects are not so good when it comes to doing business, as the creative part of our job is much more appealing and enjoyable to us. But we can’t afford to ignore it. Coriolano Correa(Cori)
Sounds like you have plenty to write about. You have a very interesting story to tell about working in Portugal. What are you going through to stay in business? How are you finding work? I would love to share some non-US perspective on the blog.
Adding to what I had said before, right now I’m working as a teacher (teaching AutoCad, Construction Technology, Geometry etc, etc.). That’s how I earn my living, just like many of my colleagues. So I can’t really say I am managing to stay in business, although I may still do some architectural work from time to time. Even competitions are hard to come by these days (albeit in the past most of them were rigged here in the Island of Madeira due to political corruption.). Besides, the Portuguese Union of Architects (OA) has not been very effectively or earnestly engaged in helping its members to overcome this rather catastrophic situation. It goes without saying that, as the construction industry is at the basis of our practice, when it falls apart, there isn’t much we can fall back on, except for those renowned professionals, owners of the largest offices in the country, who somehow get by through their connections with the top brass in the govt, or by taking part in international competions. True, some young portuguese architects have managed to go abroad to countries like Brazil (where I come from), Angola, Mozambique etc, which are now growing economically, especially the former two which are booming, and where they can speak the language and with whom Portugal has a closer relationship. But this is naturally more difficult for older guys like me, who are usually discriminated against by most of the companies because of our age(which is understandable, up to a certain extent.). Besides that, portuguese architects have always suffered from the unfair competition of a broad array of other correlated professionals, such as civil engineers and draftsmen. I am sorry if I haven’t come up with any useful hints for getting over the problem our fellow architects are having nowadays as far as practising their profession in our country, unless, of course, teaching at trade shools is one of them.
thanks for the opportunity Mark, tell us where to submit articles for publication – best, Heather
Heather, please visit EntreArchitect.com/writers