By Anthony Dunams, PE, CVS – Editor, Value World
Due to workload, I have been in a funk with what to write for Value World and decided it is time to up my editorial game. Where do I start and what impact should these editorial writings have? I looked online to get the gist of what editorial writings should do to expand the thinking and set the tone for an e-zine journal and I looked at past editorial writings from Muthiah Kasi.
From the internet, this paragraph seems to home in on what the editorial write-up should cover regarding a good editorial:
“To sum up, a good editorial is either one or more of the following: it is an opinion maker, it is reconciliatory between contrary viewpoints or standpoints, it is balanced in its analysis of evidence and events, and it is, manifest or otherwise, crusading in its thrust.”
Back in July 2016, Kasi opined the following:
“For example, when a reader reads a theme such as FAST, he/she may be inspired and can send an article for the next issue. I will be delighted to see such enthusiastic effort. My experience and exposure are related to construction industry. Some of the Editorial board members are from manufacturing. I am hoping that authors volunteer to send articles that cover all areas of VM applications.
Last year, our Certification Director commented that we needed a forum where value professionals could demonstrate their unique way of applying Value Methodology. Our profession is based on thinking outside the box — we need innovation. We are looking for various Function Models that are practiced within the profession. Tell us what it is, how is it used and how it helps to arrive at new solutions.”
Pulling from both of these statements, I am of the opinion that we are stating through Value World what is up and coming from an international perspective, what opportunities are present for collaborating and learning from our colleagues, and hits upon the humanity of what we do in our profession (Mike Pearsall’s article this month touches upon this by asking “what is our/your WHY for promoting/using VM”).
What is not, in my opinion, being covered as much as it should be is the hard-hitting impact of our profession in driving constructability, innovation, and value-inducing improvements. We need to start using this medium to debate and display differing viewpoints on topics such as “are activities needed in functional analysis” (as Don Parker discussed in the past), how does the Value Methodology (VM) incorporate other business advisory approaches (as Jay Mandelbaum pontificated on for many years), how does VM compare to other business advisory techniques, what are different approaches and key examples of FAST diagrams that hold the workshop attendees attention and provide clear guidance on the complete picture being evaluated.
As a Society and the pre-eminent society for the VM, I want to implore and encourage all to start driving these types of conversations and articles and submit them to SAVE International to incorporate in Value World. (CLICK HERE to access the online article submission form.) I promise to then opine on what is being discussed, why it is relevant and how it is driving towards a sustainable improvement in our industry. I also think this needs to lead to more heated but compassionate discussions about VM and our industry.
So, to echo Kasi’s thoughts – let’s start seeing those articles on function and evaluation, virtual and in-person idea generation, etc. and continue the dialogue on what is driving VM forward (we should not have to wait to do this at our conferences, let’s do this year-round).
Thanks for giving this article a look, enjoy this issue and stay cool out there.
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