Imagine a tool that brings everyone—designers, marketers, and project managers—onto the same page in real time. Figma has become that tool for us. It’s a collaborative, cloud-based design tool that allows teams to create, share, and edit design files in real-time. It’s like if you took the collaborative system of Google Docs, where everyone can work together seamlessly on the same file, with Adobe’s intelligent and responsive design framework, and put them together in one application. After introducing  this system to my team, I watched our marketing and proposal workflow evolve from near-siloed and somewhat cumbersome to smooth, collaborative, and efficient. 

In this article, I’m going to walk you through how Figma has been such a game-changer and how you, too, can leverage its features to enhance team alignment, speed up your process, and bring a new level of precision and creativity to your proposals. More importantly though, why stepping outside your comfort zone with new software can be beneficial, even if your current tools feel adequate. 

Around this time of year many marketing professionals are knee deep in planning and strategy meetings for 2025. What are your firm’s business development goals for the upcoming year? What tactics will best support your team? To answer these questions, it can be helpful to know what other firms are doing to calibrate your own efforts. Industry comparisons can help you make the case to implement new processes. They can also help you understand what your competition is doing to help spark ideas for differentiation.  

The Deltek Clarity survey and report is an excellent resource for architecture and engineering industry trends and practices. Each year, in collaboration with professional organizations (SMPS is one of them), Deltek conducts an industry survey of architecture and engineering firms and publishes the findings in five key areas:  project management, human capital management, financial management, tech trends, and business development. It’s a great place to gather ideas and can help you evaluate areas for improvement or growth – even if you are a department of one. 

SMPS Colorado’s One2One Mentor-Protégé program is now open for applications!  Find out how being a part of an official mentor-mentee relationship can benefit you personally and professionally.

 What are the Benefits of the (SMPS) Mentoring Program?

Do you run meetings where getting people to engage feels like pulling teeth? I know I do. I also know of an ancient facilitation technique that helps to break the ice, and make things a little more alive.

Yes, icebreakers can feel a little silly—and they are no silver bullet for the many challenges of running a great meeting—but I would argue that they are still an essential facilitation tool. What can icebreakers do?

In the dynamic AEC industry, we're continually on the hunt for innovative strategies and tools that will give us a competitive edge in digital marketing. One of the key challenges I've faced has been sourcing a platform that consolidates all the AI tools available, especially those I may be unaware of. Today, I'm thrilled to share a resource that I've been using for a while, one that maintains a current, comprehensive list of all AI tools available—FutureTools.io.