Designing in the Digital Garden

I think the garden and landscape design industry is going through an incredibly exciting time, and part of this is due to the technology revolution or 'information age' that we're currently privileged to be living through. When an economic or social shift like this occurs, a bit like the industrial revolution, it touches nearly all industries and people. And garden design is no exception.My belief is that you can choose to embrace this revolution in technology and communication, or you can ignore it. But ignore it at your peril. Ignoring it will almost certainly damage your business. Because the rest of the world is embracing it. And it's moving very fast. I hope that my thoughts and vision below on how technology and garden design is evolving over the next decade, may at least be food for thought, and at most will help people develop their landscape design businesses through this exciting time.Technology is a passion of mine and has been my career for the last 15 years. My passion started in the early days when I wrote a university thesis about the future of communications and technology. This was before the world had heard of the web or email. I got a first for my thesis probably because the lecturers didn't know how to mark it. But perhaps more importantly because being able to recognize and embrace a paradigm shift occurring is very useful for businesses. Anyone can recognise it. It's just too easy not to look up, and to become tied to the trenches of everyday business.I remember my Mum reading my thesis. She thought I was crazy when I told her she'd be using one-to-many and many-to-many 'electronic letters'. Interestingly - she is now a one woman spam machine. Several years later I joined a little known start up called eBay. I then told my Mum I was working for a company where people who had never met one another, trusted each other enough to pay money over the Internet, and believed that people would send them goods as promised. Again my Mum was like - wtf?!! - why don't you get a real job dear. (Look up on Google 'wtf' if you don't understand internet acronyms ;-). I also worked for a couple of start up companies who weren't as successful as eBay I might add. And learnt a lot from these too.The point of me sharing these stories is not so much because I like talking about my history (although I do!) but more that I think I've learnt a lot about embracing technologies to help grow businesses in different industries. And I'd like to share my experiences with an industry which I'm particularly passionate about.The common factor with the most successful companies I've worked with or for is that they embrace change and expect the unexpected. The real lesson I think I've learnt from years in the technology world is to stay open minded. In fact more than that, to be alert and ahead of the game in terms of what the future may hold, and how industries evolve sometimes in seemingly unexpected directions.So I think the interesting questions for garden designers are 1) how can garden designers embrace the current technologies to help grow and support their businesses. And 2) how will the garden design and technology industries continue to converge and evolve over the next decade and beyond.Today, there are already fantastic technologies available which are ripe for supporting garden design businesses. It's just that not everybody knows about them. Technology start ups tend to be the early adopters in using technology to help make their businesses more efficient, for obvious reasons. These guys are good leaders to learn from.One site which no self respecting technology entrepreneur is not registered on is www.LinkedIn.com. I believe all SMBs (small & medium sized businesses) should be registered on LinkedIn, regardless of the industry. This is not so much to network with one another (we have our own dear www.landscapejuice.com for this) - but instead to build a profile which can be viewed by and networked with other industries. This is where the investment community hang out, many web developers, marketers, and increasingly all manner of other industries are flocking to. What's great about LinkedIn, is it uses the transparency of the Internet to allow people to recommend you as well - so you can build up your credibility as a professional over time. The recommendation system also stops people from lying or bigging up their experiences. See here for my LinkedIn profile ElspethBriscoeLinkedIn. LinkedIn is really the Facebook of the professional world.So what about www.facebook.com? Just for kids and posting embarrassing photos of friends? Well actually no. I've been amazed at the contacts I've made through Facebook. And interestingly I've been invited to events and journalist interviews about garden design I'd never have had exposure to in 'real life'. If you're worried about privacy you're not wrong to be. But remember - it's really up to you how much you share about yourself. The privacy settings are there. You just have to use them.Also consider Skype and YouTube. Skype in particular is an incredible asset - because it's free! You can call anywhere in the world for free - which is great for economizing, whilst maximizing relationships with geographically dispersed clients. Many people may know Skype's value as an alternative free phone system already. What's perhaps more interesting, but less known, is that you can transfer files of any size across a Skype chat (no more bunged up email boxes from sending big photos). Many architects use Skype because they can share their designs easily and with groups of people at the click of a button. Garden designers can do the same. And most recently, Skype has enabled you to communicate via high quality video for free too. Incredibly useful for speaking to clients, and even for diagnostics in the future. More of this soon. See here for how to use Skype video: UsingSkypeVideoDon't ignore YouTube either. It's a very powerful marketing tool. If you need to showcase your work, there are millions of people searching on there every day. Example Youtube page: YouTubeThese are just a few ways technology can currently help you with your business. There are many others. But I don't want to swamp people with everything all at once (plus I'm a bit peckish and want to make my dinner).With regards to the future, I envisage a world where garden design will be one of the professions that benefits most from emerging technologies. Imagine a world where you can test the effects of pruning before you do it. Where there is a unified pictorial database of every species in the world at your fingertips. And where location becomes irrelevant, untethered by the power of visual networks.Technologies of course will never replace the joy of nature and the creativity of transforming a space into something beautiful in your head. However, there is no doubt that there are technologies in development that will change the way we work and interact, and in my opinion will revolutionize the garden design industry in the long term.I suspect I am scaring some people now. So will stop. More of this soon though...*toddles off to put the pasta on*My website: www.elspethbriscoe.comI am a student at: OxfordCollegeofGardenDesign

"Thanks for taking the trouble to reply Ian - much appreciated. Unfortunately the manuals don't help in that my machine doesn't have a reservoir or dipstick so I'm scratching my head!!! "

"Yet more good advice, charging an hourly rate is an illness which seems to be prevalent in "our" trade all it does is to devalue our skills,experience and investment in our businesses along with pandering to customers expectations for a low cost…"

"Try and price per visit instead of hourly rate. 2-3 hour slots say to custumer £90-£100 per visit.
This will be half your day if you add travel to and from the job. Or have a minimum fee of x amount per visit. If a customer wants an hour or 2 it…"

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Craig McGinty July 23, 2008 at 9:20pm

Hi Elspeth, thanks so very much for a great insight into how businesses, whatever their size, can use the tools available on the web to cut costs, show their creativity and communicate with others.
Looking forward to future posts :-)
Craig

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