I’ve seen this movie before, and I know how it ends.
Image courtesy Sothebys
Change can feel overwhelming, especially when it shakes the foundation of an industry. Having lived through the dot.com boom and subsequent dot.com bust as the owner of a marketing agency, I’ve seen how disruption dismantles norms, forcing businesses to adapt—or risk obsolescence.
Now, as digital tools reshape the AEC industry and socio-economic factors drive widespread change, I see history repeating itself. The challenges faced by AEC firms today echo those I experienced two decades ago. This post is about those parallels, the lessons I’ve learned, and how embracing change can unlock new opportunities for those ready to retool and thrive.
design marketing
In 1995, I owned Buzz Marketing, a leading design marketing and PR agency in Toronto. We spearheaded national campaigns for prominent AEC organizations like IIDEX, Design Exchange, the Design Effectiveness Awards, Zeidler Roberts Partnership, and Watt Design Group. By 2000, at the height of our success, the dot.com boom went bust, upending the global marketing industry and my firm along with it.
The upheaval revealed the profound transformation that had begun taking place. It had started with national advertising agencies consolidating into global behemoths. Then, traditional tools and channels began to be replaced by websites, social networks, email marketing, search ads, and SEO. Later came the mobile revolution and video. Now, data analytics, AI, augmented reality, and blockchain continue to propel marketing forward, demanding continuous agility and adaptability to manage ongoing disruption and change.
A decade later, at the beginning of the 2010s, while working at design firms active in Asia, the MENA region, and Latin America, and competing against European, Australian and American firms, I began seeing the same process playing out with globalization and consolidation now reshaping the architecture, engineering, and construction industry.
Image courtesy of Johanna Hoffmann
Then, in 2017, reading in a trade magazine that venture capital firms were backing startups selling digital tools designed to replace manual project management for construction, it all “clicked”, and the parallels with the marketing industry became obvious. In a flash I realized I’d already seen, and experienced, this process, and I knew how it would continue to unfold.
That understanding, followed by COVID, which mirrored the upheaval of the dotcom bust, became the catalyst for relaunching Oomph with a renewed purpose: to guide small and medium-sized design firms through the coming upheaval.
When markets shift and demand seesaws, and you’re fighting to just hang on, it’s easy to lose perspective and feel dispirited. I know—I’ve been there. But here’s what I learned: in times of change, for every old door that closes, many more open. The key is to recognize opportunity, retool, and reposition.
I wish someone had shared that secret with me back in 2000—to help me navigate industry upheaval, embrace disruption, and thrive amid chaos. In the coming weeks, we’ll explore these themes further, offering strategies to help AEC firms adapt and succeed in a rapidly evolving landscape.
