Some of you maybe aware of a new campaign launched last week by the UKCG (UK Contractors Group) titled “Born to Build” with the aim of attracting the younger crowd to take up careers in construction.
I think everyone in the industry has a duty of care to make every effort possible to make the industry attractive to work in. It’s a great campaign and I’m glad to see that the focus is on the young professionals, not the brands or people behind the campaign.
Here’s the lead video to the campaign which I absolutely love!! Job well done to the storyboarders for this one!
17 reasons why Construction is massive!
The Born to Build website features 17 young professionals in various roles who each explain why they work in the industry and what the opportunities are for potential graduates should they be thinking about entering the construction industry.
Each professional his his/her own profile page each with a short video – impressive design work here too!
There is also a feature to allow visitors to the site to ask each professional a question by submitting a form – a good idea to encourage direct dialogue between those in the industry and those looking to get in.
Accessing such professionals can be difficult sometimes. Wonder if any of these professionals are on Twitter?
So, why did I choose and specialise in Construction?
I get this asked a lot by many marketers in other industries.
I go to a lot of events and when I say “I specialise in Construction” I often get the slightly surprised reply “Oh ok”. The kind of reply where the other person was expecting to hear “Software” or “Fashion” or “Travel” or some other glamorous, fast moving and overly crowded sector.
“Why Construction?”
Having been in the industry, both client and agency side, for 8 years or so, I went freelance at the beginning of the year which was a pivotal time for me. I could’ve quite easily gone into any other sector had I have wanted to. I did think about it but then I thought to myself…..I haven’t quite finished here yet.
I stuck with Construction.
I was introduced into the industry when I joined Polypipe Civils and it was here where I was exposed to just some of the big stuff you see and take for granted all around us.
Here one of the biggest reasons why I chose to stay in Construction in a simple diagram….
In my opinion, we are probably just at the early stages of that upward curve.
Only now am I experiencing marketers and business owners talking about automation, CRM, information management and mobility.
Even though some technologies may have been around for years or decades, it’s only now that it’s becoming a bit more mainstream and widely adopted within the industry.
Some Construction Porn for you:
Here’s a video that I would kinda describe as ‘construction porn’ and sums up where we as an industry are heading:
There’s more…..”Intelligent Infrastructure” – Oh my!
And then we have Intelligent Infrastructure and Smart Cities which opens up a whole new world of jobs and careers from data analysts, data engineers, visual designers and hands on engineering type roles in lots of areas within the industry and in software.
I hope we see a boom in software providers/entrepreneurs to help manage the big data which one smart city will produce, giving data to everyone from the homeowner right through to the environmental manager working for a local authority somewhere to make smarter, better decisions.
This is a superb video which gives you a taster of what’s to come in the future when it comes to a ‘connected world’. The guys in this video talk about technology, data and sustainable methods of building better buildings and cities.
Here’s a video about ‘Smarter Cities and Smarter People’:
“What part will you play?” – Born to Build
The construction industry has so much good stuff on the way. And there is so much still to be bought into the limelight – and hopefully the Born to Build campaign can unearth some of the wonders that goes unnoticed within the industry.
One example is the recent Crossrail documentary which was aired on BBC2.
It was jaw dropping.
If you travel into London frequently, then you’ll see those big construction sites boarded off and never even wonder what’s going on behind those boards. But until you see it, you’ll be amazed.
This sort of stuff just isn’t shown enough on mainstream TV. The traction and positive comments left on Twitter was also unbelievable.
To add to the list of things I never thought I’d say – the #bbc2 doc on #Crossrail was an extremely interesting & enjoyable watch.
— Corrie Corfield (@corrie_corfield) July 16, 2014
#Crossrail was excellent it’s great to see major UK engineering projects, we need more
— Nick Tune (@nick_tune) July 16, 2014
Yes, we are a generation away from change but what’s coming is worth waiting for. I’m using this time to learn as much about the industry as I can – there’s still so much more I don’t know.
Who doesn’t want to be a part of this frickin’ industry when we have stuff like this on its way?