| This Month's Question |
| Clinton, McCain or Obama? |
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| Background on This Month's Question |
| Senator John McCain is the expected Republican presidential nominee. The Democratic field has been narrowed to Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Whom do you support for President? |
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| Cast Your Vote |
| Clinton, McCain or Obama? |
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| The Vote Totals So Far |
| Click here to view them. |
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| Your Comments on the Question Are Welcome |
| If, besides voting, you have thoughts you would like to share on this question, click here and send us an e-mail. We may publish these comments in the future but will NOT disclose your name. We will only give your locale and type of business (architect, contractor, engineer, supplier) to put your comments into perspective. |
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| Suggest a Question |
| Do you have an idea for a survey question? Click here if you do and send us an e-mail sharing your suggestion. Visitor suggestions are always welcome. |
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| Confidentiality |
| Survey votes are tracked only in the aggregate. We do not track your individual vote. No cookies are used. If you send us e-mail comments on questions, we may publish them. But, if we do, we will not disclose your name, only generic information such as locale and type of work (i.e., General Contractor from Sheboygan; Architect from Atlanta) to put your comments into perspective. Similarly, if you suggest a question, we will not disclose your name but may give your locale and type of work for context. |
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| Results of Previous Surveys |
| March 2004 - April 2004 |
| Are rising steel prices causing claims or disputes on your projects? |
| Yes: 79% |
| No: 20% |
| Total Votes Cast: 92 |
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| April 2004 - May 2004 |
| Have you had good experiences with Web-based project management tools? |
| Good results: 29% |
| Bad results: 9% |
| Mixed results: 41% |
| Have not used these tools: 19% |
| Total Votes Cast: 41 |
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| May 2004 - June 2004 |
| Are you getting international business opportunities of any kind? (If your company has multiple kinds of international involvements, please take a moment and vote for each.) |
| No involvement: 21% |
| My company is involved with international projects: 36% |
| My company has made international investments: 0% |
| There is international investment in my company: 0% |
| My company is international and operates in U.S.: 10% |
| My company has built from designs prepared outside the U.S.: 5% |
| My company uses international major equipment such as boilers, turbines, generators, paper machines, motors, controls, switches, computers: 10% |
| My company is working in or seeking work in Iraq: 15% |
| Total Votes Cast: 19 |
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| June 2004 - July 2004 |
| Are rising cement prices causing claims or disputes on your projects? |
| No: 40% |
| Yes On projects in Northeast: 10% |
| Yes On projects in Southeast: 20% |
| Yes On projects in Midwest: 5% |
| Yes On projects in West: 25% |
| Total Votes Cast: 20 |
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| August 2004 - September 2004 |
| Have you gotten any business involving homeland security? |
| No: 73% |
| Yes On projects in Northeast: 6% |
| Yes On projects in Southeast: 6% |
| Yes On projects in Midwest: 6% |
| Yes On projects in West: 6% |
| Total Votes Cast: 15 |
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| September 2004 - October 2004 |
| Do you expect your business to improve in the next year? |
| Yes: 76% |
| No Change: 16% |
| No: 8% |
| Total Votes Cast: 25 |
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| October 2004 - November 2004 |
| Who is your choice for President? |
| Bush: 77% |
| Kerry: 21% |
| Nader: 1% |
| None of the above: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 2277 |
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| November 2004 - December 2004 |
| Are you having trouble getting payment and performance bonds? |
| No: 31% |
| Yes getting bonds at all: 27% |
| Yes limits on bonding capacity or demands for collateral: 40% |
| Total Votes Cast: 22 |
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| December 2004 - January 2005 |
| Election 2004 results: Is your business outlook better? |
| Better: 51% |
| Same: 18% |
| Worse: 29% |
| Total Votes Cast: 37 |
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| January 2005 - February 2005 |
| Is theft of your construction equipment and materials increasing? |
| Yes Equipment: 16% |
| Yes Materials: 5% |
| Yes Both: 66% |
| No: 11% |
| Total Votes Cast: 18 |
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| February 2005 - March 2005 |
| Are you interested in getting training and education online? |
| Yes I have tried online training and like it: 44% |
| Yes I would like to try online training: 44% |
| No I have tried online training and did not like it: 0% |
| No I have no interest in online training: 12% |
| Total Votes Cast: 25 |
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| March 2005 - April 2005 |
| Are you still having problems with steel shortages and prices? |
| Yes Problems are worse than a year ago: 45% |
| Yes Problems remain about the same as a year ago: 29% |
| No The steel supply situation has improved: 25% |
| Total Votes Cast: 24 |
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| April 2005 - May 2005 |
| Have you had mold problems on any of your projects? |
| Yes: 25% |
| No: 74% |
| Total Votes Cast: 338 |
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| May 2005 - June 2005 |
| Have you lost work or business in the U.S. to overseas companies? |
| Yes: 54% |
| No: 45% |
| Total Votes Cast: 11 |
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| June 2005 - July 2005 |
| Do you have trouble getting timely, accurate underground utility locations? |
| Yes: 60% |
| No: 39% |
| Total Votes Cast: 23 |
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| August 2005 - September 2005 |
| Have you seen a government agency abuse the False Claims Act? |
| Yes: 68% |
| No: 31% |
| Total Votes Cast: 19 |
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| September 2005 - October 2005 |
| Do you expect your business to improve in the next year? |
| Yes: 74% |
| No Change: 7% |
| No: 18% |
| Total Votes Cast: 27 |
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| October 2005 - November 2005 |
| Are the hurricanes causing you higher wage or material costs? |
| Yes Shortages of materials, higher prices for them: 17% |
| Yes Shortages of workers, higher wage rates for them: 2% |
| Yes Both: 54% |
| No: 25% |
| Total Votes Cast: 104 |
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| November 2005 - December 2005 |
| Do you use a PDA? |
| Yes Love mine: 44% |
| Yes Annoying but necessary: 12% |
| No But its on my Christmas list: 25% |
| No More communication than I want or need: 16% |
| Total Votes Cast: 54 |
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| December 2005 - January 2006 |
| Are you finding that key materials, equipment are available only from overseas? |
| Yes: 77% |
| No: 22% |
| Total Votes Cast: 9 |
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| January 2006 - February 2006 |
| Are you having trouble getting skilled craft workers? |
| Yes: 85% |
| No: 2% |
| No Filling our gaps with foreign-born workers: 11% |
| Total Votes Cast: 42 |
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| February 2006 - March 2006 |
| Are you recycling building materials or using recycled materials? |
| Yes: 44% |
| Interested but have not tried it yet: 44% |
| No: 11% |
| Total Votes Cast: 9 |
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| March 2006 - April 2006 |
| E-mail -- is it getting to be too much of a good thing? |
| Yes Im buried in e-mails: 31% |
| Im OK -- At least for now: 34% |
| No Im keeping up fine: 23% |
| Pour it on I like e-mails: 10% |
| Total Votes Cast: 38 |
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| April 2006 - May 2006 |
| Have rising costs delayed or killed any of your recent projects? |
| Yes Project canceled: 31% |
| Yes Project still delayed: 36% |
| Yes Project delayed but going forward now: 18% |
| No problems: 13% |
| Total Votes Cast: 22 |
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| May 2006 - June 2006 |
| Are you passing along rising energy costs to customers? |
| Yes Higher fixed-price contract prices: 36% |
| Yes Doing more cost reimbursable work: 5% |
| Yes Energy cost escalation protection built into contract: 5% |
| Yes Energy and material cost escalation protection built into contract: 10% |
| No: 42% |
| Total Votes Cast: 19 |
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| June 2006 - July 2006 |
| Are you having trouble getting large-sized tires for equipment? |
| Yes All kinds of tires: 0% |
| Yes Some kinds of tires: 62% |
| No: 37% |
| Total Votes Cast: 8 |
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| July 2006 - August 2006 |
| What is more important: good pay, benefits, work conditions or job security? |
| Good pay: 31% |
| Benefits: 25% |
| Working conditions: 31% |
| Job security: 12% |
| Total Votes Cast: 32 |
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| September 2006 - October 2006 |
| Do you expect your business to improve in the next year? |
| Yes: 38% |
| No Change: 44% |
| No: 16% |
| Total Votes Cast: 18 |
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| October 2006 - November 2006 |
| How much do you use the Web as part of your work? |
| Power user: multiple times a day: 86% |
| Steady user: once a day: 9% |
| Occasional user: several times a week: 4% |
| As little as possible: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 22 |
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| November 2006 - December 2006 |
| Are you involved in any biofuels projects? |
| Yes: 30% |
| Pursuing such work: 26% |
| No but interested: 43% |
| No: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 23 |
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| December 2006 - January 2007 |
| Do you visit blogs or chat rooms for your work? |
| Yes: 64% |
| No not helpful for my work: 17% |
| No never visited one: 17% |
| Total Votes Cast: 39 |
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| January 2007 - February 2007 |
| Have you been on projects using Building Information Modeling? |
| Yes helpful to project: 36% |
| Yes but not particularly helpful to project: 0% |
| No: 63% |
| Total Votes Cast: 19 |
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| February 2007 - March 2007 |
| What is your biggest business concern in 2007? |
| Shortages of manual labor: 25% |
| Shortages of non-manual and professional employees: 17% |
| Shortages of materials: 2% |
| Need to use imported materials: 0% |
| Fewer projects, less work available: 7% |
| Rising cost of wages, benefits: 0% |
| Rising cost of materials: 5% |
| Rising cost of tools, construction equipment: 0% |
| Rising cost of fuel: 12% |
| Rising cost of workers comp insurance: 7% |
| Rising cost of liability insurance: 2% |
| Government, regulatory, legal compliance: 10% |
| Other: 7% |
| Total Votes Cast: 39 |
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| March 2007 - April 2007 |
| Are immigration laws affecting your workforce? |
| Yes Harder to get new employees: 13% |
| Yes Impacting existing workers: 18% |
| Yes Both: 22% |
| No: 45% |
| Total Votes Cast: 22 |
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| April 2007 - May 2007 |
| Have you worked on any LEED projects? |
| Yes: 48% |
| No But very interested in trying LEED projects: 33% |
| No: 11% |
| No Not interested in LEED projects: 7% |
| Total Votes Cast: 27 |
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| May 2007 - June 2007 |
| Do you seek material price increase clauses in your contracts? |
| Yes And I get such provisions: 25% |
| Yes But there is resistance to including such provisions: 55% |
| No I know customers will refuse such provisions: 18% |
| No I am willing to take the price risk: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 27 |
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| June 2007 - July 2007 |
| Do you use your PDA to access the Web? |
| Yes For news, business updates, similar information: 55% |
| Yes For travel resources / help while on the road: 2% |
| Yes For sports news and other entertainment: 2% |
| Yes For all kinds of browsing: 13% |
| Yes Other: 2% |
| No Just use it for e-mails, phoning, addresses: 22% |
| Total Votes Cast: 36 |
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| July 2007 - September 2007 |
| What is most important in a job: pay, benefits, working conditions or job security? |
| Good pay: 33% |
| Benefits: 12% |
| Working conditions: 38% |
| Job security: 14% |
| Total Votes Cast: 54 |
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| September 2007 - October 2007 |
| Is it time to raise taxes to rebuild our infrastructure? |
| Yes: 26% |
| No Sufficient funding already is available: 30% |
| No Need is there, but the money will not be spent wisely: 42% |
| Total Votes Cast: 42 |
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| October 2007 - November 2007 |
| Do you expect your business to improve in the next year? |
| Yes: 69% |
| No Change: 21% |
| No: 8% |
| Total Votes Cast: 23 |
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| November 2007 - December 2007 |
| Does your company spend money on research and development? |
| Yes Significant Amounts: 19% |
| Yes But Only Minimal Amounts: 26% |
| No: 53% |
| Total Votes Cast: 63 |
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| December 2007 - January 2008 |
| How extensively do you use project risk management tools? |
| Revenues of $20 million or less: Risk management tools are not used on projects: 32% |
| Revenues of $20 million or less: Risk management tools are used and updated sometimes: 2% |
| Revenues of $20 million or less: Risk management tools are used actively on all projects and updated regularly : 4% |
| Revenues of $75 million or less: Risk managment tools are not used on projects: 4% |
| Revenues of $75 million or less: Risk management tools are used and updated sometimes: 8% |
| Revenues of $75 million or less: Risk management tools are used actively on all projects and updated regularly: 6% |
| Revenues of more than $75 million: Risk management tools are not used on projects: 10% |
| Revenues of more than $75 million: Risk management tools are used and updated sometimes: 8% |
| Revenues of more than $75 million: Risk management tools are used actively on all projects and updated regularly: 21% |
| Total Votes Cast: 46 |
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| January 2008 - February 2008 |
| What is your biggest business concern in 2008? |
| Fewer projects, less work available: 54% |
| Problems getting financing for projects: 9% |
| Shortages of manual labor: 6% |
| Shortages of non-manual and professional employees: 9% |
| Shortages of materials: 0% |
| Need to use imported materials: 0% |
| Rising cost of wages, benefits: 0% |
| Rising cost of materials: 3% |
| Rising cost of tools, construction equipment: 0% |
| Rising cost of fuel: 9% |
| Rising cost of workers comp insurance: 0% |
| Rising cost of liability insurance: 0% |
| Government, regulatory, legal compliance: 6% |
| Other: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 31 |
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| February 2008 - March 2008 |
| Have you gotten any business involving homeland security? |
| No: 100% |
| Yes On projects in Northeast: 0% |
| Yes On projects in Southeast: 0% |
| Yes On projects in Midwest: 0% |
| Yes On projects in West: 0% |
| Total Votes Cast: 19 |
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| March 2008 - April 2008 |
| With the economic downturn, are you bidding more public work? |
| Yes - More: 41% |
| No Change: 58% |
| Total Votes Cast: 17 |
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| Totals So Far on This Month's Question: |
| Clinton: 14% |
| McCain: 40% |
| Obama: 44% |
| Total Votes Cast: 96 |
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