Gru Ram Bim...

“But we know what we want” I kept explaining to the architect. The problem with being a designer AND a client is quite enlightening. When we were in the design phase of creating our new office space in Mesa Arizona a few years ago we ended up in a real communication funk with the architect we hired. He had a thick Russian accent that was very difficult to understand at times. But the one thing I did understand was that he was adamant above adding a big gru ram bim to our office in a very prominent location. No matter how hard we tried to communicate our design ideas to him, he always brought up the gru ram bim and what an important element of the overall design it was. My business partners, Paul Howalt and Ivan Jones and I would just smile and nod our heads every time he brought it up.

There were other design issues that we were able to get him to listen to us about… but he was so persistent about the gru ram bim! It was very puzzling to me…? I was really getting frustrated when the light bulb finally went on for me. He brought in a photo of another space with a big gru ram bim in it… I was so excited to finally figure out what the heck he was talking about. As hard as I looked at this picture… I couldn’t find it! The time had come for me to swallow my pride and admit that I had no idea what a gru ram bim was? But whew… he saved me from the embarrassment when he pointed it out and said, “see this is big gru ram bim is just like the one in your space.” I tried to hold back chuckling as I said… “Oh, you mean glue lam beam.” All this time he had been referring to the huge beam in our building that was manufactured by laminating many smaller pieces of lumber together. The really sad part of the story is that I know exactly what a glue lam beam is, and I still didn’t put two and two together!

This experience made me stop and think how important communication really is. How often am I really being understood by my clients or are they just nodding their heads and smiling as I wax philosophical about branding or design? I think us so-called communication experts need to take a page out of our own books sometimes and make sure we are talking to our clients and not ourselves.

Something to think about…