The Construction Blog

We recently had the opportunity to sit down with John Chaney, Co-founder and President of Dexter + Chaney, at our headquarters in Austin, Texas. In our interview, Chaney discussed the state of the construction industry and introduced new features in the latest release of Spectrum construction software.

Step aside activists. Stand down environmental groups. Contractors are advancing the green building movement as fast as any nonprofit, green manufacturer or other eco-zealot. They are the guys taking it to the streets to single-handedly spread the adoption of sustainable design and energy efficient construction practices.

Austin recently hosted the Texas Roofing Contractors annual conference. We took the opportunity to interview Daryl Maronic, CEO of Dataforma. Here, Maronic shares his insights about the state of the roofing industry, why some contractors are more successful than others and what technology is in demand.

Every now and then we like to pull together a list of the best mobile apps for an industry that we report on at Software Advice . This time, I went digging through thousands of apps to find the ones most useful to engineers, electricians, contractors and hobbyists. Here are the top 10 for each device.

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with the CEOs from three of the leading electrical estimating software companies on the market today. I wanted to hear from the people closest to the pulse of electrical estimating where the industry is heading, trends shaping the current climate and software’s impact going forward.

Erik Cofield, head of North American sales at Buildtopia, recently traveled to our Austin headquarters to discuss the state of the home builder market. In spite of ongoing bad news, some builders are succeeding. Areas that are faring well include South Carolina, Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Oregon and Texas.

The buzz of innovative ideas on how to build cheaper, greener roads is all around us. But the green construction practices that have a demonstrated track record can’t gain traction because of an archaic contractor bidding process. This is a problem that we can no longer afford to ignore given the sheer cost and impact of our highways.

In our final round of interviews from the 2011 Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) Conference, we asked software executives about the functionality that construction software buyers are interested in today. Check out the video for their thoughts on the subject.

In our second video from the 2011 Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) Conference, we asked which segments in the industry are most active. Is there more activity within the speciality contractors, or general contractors? Why? We asked six software company executives for their opinions.

The Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA) held its annual conference this year in Grapevine, Texas. So, we decided to head up I-35 and check it out. While at the conference, we spoke with attendees about trends in construction software. We were lucky enough to sit down with six software executives.