Tech-Tooling Up
Part of our “Building Business” series appearing in Fine Homebuilding magazine.
By Lina Menard
Finding the right digital tools can improve communication, scheduling, and project management.
When I moved out on my own a few days after my 18th birthday, I brought along a small collection of hand tools. I also brought a laptop. Growing up with five siblings, I was the handy one who fixed the garbage disposal, painted the deck, and repaired the gate. I was also the techie who retrieved the “lost” file, configured the software, and figured out why the printer wasn’t working. I like knowing how things work and improving them, in both the real and digital worlds.
We work in one of the few industries that allows us to point to something tangible at the end of a workday: a wired-up subpanel or a built-in that fits the space just right. But technology is becoming part of our everyday work. The software programs we use to look at construction drawings, track budgets, and map out schedules on phones, tablets, and laptops are increasingly common on jobsites.
Many people grow up with a hodgepodge of tools inherited from a grandparent or picked up at garage sales. Builders often do the same with tech tools, tossing this calendar app and that file-sharing program into their toolbox willy-nilly. But your projects will run more smoothly if you have an intentional collection of tech tools that suit the work you do.
For instance, if you’re a two-person tiling crew, you’re going to keep different hand and power tools in your van than your colleague who runs a 36-person electrical company. Similarly, you may need just a few basic digital tools—email, a calendar, and a file-sharing program—to keep everything running smoothly. But your friend’s electrical company may need a whole suite of tech tools to keep track of where each crew needs to be each day as well as all the plans, estimates, and invoices for the current jobs.
Continue reading at Fine Homebuilding Magazine (Issue 340 - July 2026)
