Business by Design this month reports that this is a tentative time for many contract firms -- and, by contrast, a terrific time for a quirky, little Colorado furniture store.

THIS MONTH
+ Trying Times (cont.)
+ When Oprah Calls...

TRYING TIMES(cont.)
Commercial design firms across America are trying new strategies in an effort to recreate old success.

"Nowadays, you have to be a lot more creative in the way you deliver your message," says Len Skiba, the national operations director for Perkins & Will. "In the old days, qualifications and experience alone would get you the job. Not any more."

Skiba notes that his company, one of the nation's leading health care design firms, has diversified into other areas at a time when competition is strong and, "from a commercial design standpoint," the economy is weak.

Perkins & Will is now more aggressively pursuing such markets as K-12 and higher education, other "institutional" design, and science and technology.

With fees down in some sectors by as much as 70 per cent from three years ago, commercial firms have to do more with less.

"You have to be more lean and mean and efficient," observes Hugh Latta, the award-winning founder of Design Continuum, an Atlanta-based hospitality firm.

That, he says, means managing your time more effectively, using photos and notes to save on drawings, making fewer job site visits and presentations, and offering more creative -- but fewer -- alternatives.

"Disney used to ask for as many as five options to choose from," says Latta, whose firm has done 11 projects for the Walt Disney Company. "Now we give them one or two."

Challenging times like these underscore the importance of building client relationships, according to many contract design industry veterans.

"You need to build niches, know who your clients are, network with them and speak at their conferences," declares Kathy Ford Montgomery, a commercial designer for more than 25 years and a former ASID president. "And then you have to give them extraordinary service."

When Oprah Calls...
Bobo Modern Living was just an offbeat little Boulder, Co. furniture store. A "post modern, crunchy granola" place, it's owner called it.

And then Oprah called.

Life sure has changed since the Oprah show featured four of Bobo's pieces in a "Romantic Room Makeover" episode. And so has business.

The three references to the store on the Feb. 5 program have generated $15,000 in sales. So far.

"We've received hundreds of emails, and hundreds of calls," says Jonathan Fierer, the store's 34 year old owner. "We've been contacted by people wanting to invest, and people wanting to buy franchises."

Not bad, after less than two years in business, for a 975 square foot store whose name -- Bobo -- is short for "bourgeois bohemian."

"I would say we're yuppie-hippie," Fiere points out.

Oprah show representatives contacted the store after seeing their ad in Dwell Magazine.

When the show ran the segment on redesigning a Chicago bachelor pad loft, it included four of the pieces sold by Bobo: a Gus Modern Ottomman, a Gus Modern daybed, a Blu Dot Feltup Chair and a Blu Dot Flipme table.

Fiere and his two assistants figured they'd get some calls for no more than a few days after the show ran. They figured wrong.

The calls keep coming in, and people around the country keep sending in floor plans and placing orders. And potential financial "partners" keep checking in.

But Bobo isn't making any major changes just yet. There are no plans to increase the store size, nor expand to other cities, nor add a web store.

Nor has Fiere decided to become an Oprah junkie.

"I don't watch TV," he admits.