Last week the ThoughtWire team attended one of real estates biggest shows, Realcomm/IBCON in Nashville, TN, it was a busy week packed with incredible conversations helping to move the needle for commercial real estate technology. As we all get back to our offices and begin to synthesize those conversations, the things we learned, and perhaps the new ideas that were formulated on napkins during sessions, it’s important to start putting things into action.
Earlier this year our Chief Commercial Officer, Franco Castaldini, predicted 2019 would be the year of execution for CRE leaders. At Realcomm 2019 his prediction was in full force, CRE leaders are beginning to move from experimentation to action. Yet, some things still feel like the same old conversation we’ve been having for the last decade.
Below are some of the key takeaways the team collectively learned last week:
No solution is an island
Commercial Real Estate is entering an interesting period of hyper growth, as evidenced by the conference last week, there were a number of new names and faces exhibiting on the show floor. Our technology ecosystem continues to grow, which is both beneficial to our customers but also poses challenges during the procurement cycle. I caught up with Kyle Tooke, National Director of Sales here at ThoughtWire and he said, “my key takeaway from the event is that there is room for all of us, no solution is an island, and our focus as an industry should be to enable greater interoperability between technologies.”
“My key takeaway from the event is that there is room for all of us, no solution is an island, and our focus as an industry should be to enable greater interoperability between technologies.”
- Kyle Tooke, National Director of Sales - US
Take our partnership with ioTium for example - our joint solution simplifies the complexity of both procurement and deployment by making it easier for clients to purchase the secure infrastructure they want along with the intelligent apps that power outcomes. As technology providers we must work together to help our clients understand not just where we integrate but how those integrations deliver value to the customer not just today but over time as well.
In addition to technology providers that can help create the plug & play framework for end users, we observed that Master Technology Integrators are uniquely positioned to accelerate the ecosystem development. Remo Di Fronzo, Director Smart Buildings for ThoughtWire, interfaces directly with a few MTI thought leaders and observed, “there needs to be more workshops dedicated to MTI, vendor, and end user collaboration, these three constituencies have the power to move our industry forward.''
“There needs to be more workshops dedicated to MTI, vendor, and end user collaboration, these three constituencies have the power to move our industry forward.''
- Remo Di Fronzo, Director Smart Buildings
Building visualization ≠ Digital Twin
Last year at Realcomm 2018 there was a lot of attention on cyber security and while this years conference paid a significant amount of attention to the important topic it was clear there was a new buzzworthy topic in the air - Digital Twin. At ThoughtWire, we’ve been at the forefront of this topic for the last several years, beginning with our work navigating the complexities of healthcare.
“At its core a Digital Twin is a high fidelity data model that provides visibility and control of either a single asset, a process, or an entire organization. Depending on your objectives you add complexity to this definition to deliver on outcomes via an application (i.e. building optimization, energy management, or occupant experience).”
- Franco Castaldini, Chief Commercial Officer
What I observed is that the conversation at this years Realcomm centered around how a Digital Twin differs from BIM or other approaches to data analysis such as applying analytics to data in a data lake or down at the edge via building automation systems. “There appears to be confusion about what a Digital Twin is or should be, there are a number of definitions floating around out there, and that is to be expected,'' said Jason O’Neill, Director of Product and Data, “What we should be talking about is what approach is right for your organization and your goals, what approach works within your budget and timeline, start with the outcomes and work back to the technology. Digital Twins are versatile software models of your environment and we can work to deliver something that can continuously deliver value across the entire asset lifecycle.”
“There appears to be confusion about what a Digital Twin is or should be, there are a number of definitions floating around out there, and that is to be expected,''
- Jason O’Neill, Director of Product & Data
Let’s all stop saying the same things. Let’s standardize not genericize.
As I sat through the panel on Unpacking the Building Operating System, I noticed that in an effort to standardize, we have all started to sound the same. Many vendors that offer a discrete solution, for example guest registration or control systems analytics, refer to their products as platforms, or anything to do with people is now an “occupant experience” solution.
My biggest takeaway is that we must strive for standardization in our industry around terminology and collective understanding of technology but not at the expense of specificity. Let’s talk in outcomes instead of broad generalizations about how we are all somehow delivering the “best” building OS, IoT platform, or occupant experience solution. Let’s talk about the merits of using Digital Twin versus a Data Lake and what that means for TCO and ROI instead of generically stating that “we’re breaking down data silos in the built environment unlike any other solution on the market.”
Want to learn more? Join our Expert Webinar on June 25th or Schedule a demo to see how ThoughtWire’s Smart Building Suite of applications can help you transform your building and keep you ahead of the competition.
