Titan attended the BOMA/Chicago Brown Bag on TOBY Best Practices hosted on June 21, 2017. The application process opens July 17th and runs until September 21st. The following is a summary of the Brown Bag.
PANEL
Judges: Katie Sakach, Louise Harney, Teresa Amaro, Nancy Capadona
Winners: Chris Wada, Nat Repp, David Hopwood, Adam Devlin-Brown
Moderator: Susan Hammer
WHY PARTICIPATE?
- Show-off your team
- Client/owner demand
- Process refinement for service
- Peer recognition
WHY JUDGE?
- See how other buildings are managed
- New ideas
- Support other management teams
WHICH CATEGORY SHOULD I ENTER?
- Look beyond just square footage
- There may have fewer entries in other categories
HOW TO PREPARE FOR ONLINE APPLICATION?
- Look at word counts and formatting
- Have a consistent writing style throughout
- Start paragraphs to grab attention
- Review rules
- Cut & paste from Word in order to use spellcheck
HOW DO I PREPARE FOR THE INSPECTION?
- Develop multiple inspection tours
- Prep vendors
- Review inspection form
- Have all information readily available (budgets, COI); this saves time and shows organization
- Make things easy for judges by having items like an agenda and scoring sheets
- Have a Power Point and materials prepared
- Include team participation on the tour
HOW TO PREPARE FOR REGIONAL/INTERNATIONAL?
- Adjust submissions based on judges comments
- Be specific on your programs (how long? one time only?)
- Include last fire drill / shelter in place
- Upload information to the required limits (full word counts; all photos)
- Show strength in all categories
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
- Use a professional photographer
- Start early
- Include tangible results / measurable
- Building’s community impact?
- Create a pamphlet for a take-a-way
- Go “all in”
- Use bullet points in the narrative with dates
Tags: BOMA/Chicago