Buildings exist in every part of the world. And I quite quickly realized that if we could create better buildings faster, it would resonate well across the energy side of things, operations and wasteful ways of working, and of course indoor air quality, well-being and productivity.

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What interface have 99% (I believe) of ten-year-olds been using for all their life to get things done?

What interface have 99% of the 65-year-olds been using for all their life to get things done?

What interface have 99% of the 105-year-olds been using for all their life to get things done?

The why usually explains the how

The major reason I got into buildings in the first place was that it catered to both two checkboxes I had for what I want to do with my life.

1.      To solve all problems in the world

2.      To have/be a part of, a company operating in all countries in the world.

Buildings exist in every part of the world. And I quite quickly realized that if we could create better buildings faster, it would resonate well across the energy side of things, operations and wasteful ways of working, and of course indoor air quality, well-being and productivity.

“I don’t get that we continue to stare in the rear-view mirror, utilizing the tools of the past. When we need to accelerate into a better future utilizing modern tools to get us out from the very past, we need to get away from. “

The company I started helping got everything in under a BACnet umbrella, so it didn’t matter if you were having IoT sensors in the building, or weather data, or anything else. It was all seen as BACnet devices. This was well before its time I think now in retrospect. They had some of the hurdles though in the sense that they were pure cloud and the UI/UX was similar to what was used in the business, and that the business model, albeit interesting, didn’t make much sense for the existing would be customers in the market.

However, I quickly saw the need for one API to the building. And they had just that in the sense of BACnet/WS.

Where this article from Steve Tom still is an inspiration for me and it is hands down one of the best articles I’ve ever read. Which of course was the inspiration for the topic of this article I co-wrote for the BACnet International journal in 2017

“I don’t know what those BACnet Service are… but I think I want them”. Which is paraphrasing the words from Admiral E.J. King, the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations during the second world war when he had said that he didn’t know what the hell this “logistics” are… but he wanted some of it.

Which is the same of how I felt about Digital Twins the last couple of years.

Communication Challenges within the industry, any industry.

Fragmented information. Manual ways of working. Politics. Hierarchy. Not the best solution that wins. Complacency. Skill shortage gap. Lack of interoperability. Where the most obvious two problems are:

1.      People are not communicating with each other across domains.

2.      Systems are not communicating with each other across domains.

And/or.

3.      People are communicating but not understanding each other.

4.      Systems are communicating but not understanding each other.

This in itself is of course just a result of the school system and how its built up. We are forced to think in slices and most people turn out to be domain focused, and possibly domain experts. They know a lot about what they do, but not necessarily a lot of what everyone else is doing. Or, how their idea of reality and the decisions they make, might affect others.  

5.      What happens is that not only is the domain specific knowledge challenging to understand for people outside the domain. The domain specific tools they are using in order to look at the same slice of reality (a building) albeit from different perspectives are very different. The building is there, but the tools they are using to view it are different. And as such, the systems cannot speak with each-other, nor can they understand what they are saying.

Not Enter Sandman, but enter taxonomies and ontologies. And they are of course great at creating a much-needed semantic interoperability between systems in the same/adjacent domain. But still quite challenging to do this across multiple domains across areas. Which is where interlinking is an integral part, knowledge graphs and everything in between. But what about the taxonomy of taxonomies and ontologies for people?

Does that exist? Do those exist? That can bring people of all ages, generations, across space and time on this planet we live on into a shared reality? Can it be that we somehow have missed out on this integral piece of information and we have succumbed to the folly of past generations? Who is the biggest fool really. The fool, or the fool that follows him/her, it?

The Dancing Elephant in the Building

Reality. The world. The interface most people are accustomed to and have been using all of their life is in fact… the world we live in. If you are working within the building realm, it’s… buildings. But it might be a part of that building. The mechanical side, the lighting side, the BMS/BAS side, or the user side or the maintenance, repair, construction, demolition, or anything else for that matter.

But we start at an early age to educate people in abstract ways, slicing the world we have into domains, reading about it in books, and memorising stuff out of context. Why? Well, because back in the day teachers did not have the tools to go to the other side of the world, and visualize what it was like in someone else’s reality. Or directly talk to someone in Sweden so they had to write things down. And make assumptions about it.

But what about now? Well, it just so happens that some of the tools that tackle this problem made it so easy for us to understand what they do that they even have the solution to most fragmented problems in the world today in their name.

Reality.

Virtual Reality. And Augmented Reality.

And Real-time data.

But like any other new technology Virtual Reality as well as Augmented Reality have been met with scepticism, and criticism. Probably from the same people that thought that stones were great to use forever and that smart phones and the internet were just a thing. But if you are in the business of helping people get stuff done better, faster, the easiest approach is to improve the tools you are using to get the job done. It has always been like this. But the fear of the unknown, and the comfort of the known tools of the past are holding us back as a species.

Modern tools in the right order, with the right people

I am using VR/AR/MR and even the Metaverse in everything I do. Utilizing these tools help greatly when leading AI-projects and transferring knowledge across cyberphysical domains. Which is a fancy word for making the point across using reality as a boundary spanning medium acting as a transcription…

The thing is, that I, we, everyone is making it much harder than it needs to be. Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Digital Twins, all these tools can now make it so that people are there in the real world, but from remote. To zoom in to a part of reality, affect that part, with an understanding of its context, and then zoom out again.

Coult all the emails, PDFs, articles, PowerPoints, Excel sheets, and everything that we use away from the very reality we are working in go away?

Buildings, boats, trucks, cars, products, where organizations focus more on processes, hierarchy, culture, systems, and people, instead of content. Where the content in this case, and all other cases are based.

The readers of this article mostly deal with buildings. Yet we have tools not showing a building. It’s showing a graph. And a lot of data is static and predictions and assumptions. Why do we do this when we can have real-time data and simulate what will happen before it happens? I get that this is what we have done in the past. But I don’t get that we continue to stare in the rear-view mirror, utilizing the tools of the past. When we need to accelerate into a better future utilizing modern tools to get us out from the very past, we need to get away from.

And the best tool, except for word and automatedbuildings.com is to show how a decision will affect the reality of a customer. By making a digital replica of their reality, understand what they do, show them what repercussions decisions will have before they make them. And then make the best decision available having seen the result in the virtual world.

And to show this with an interface that a ten-year-old, 65-year-old, and a 105-year-old can understand. This is of course the combination of many interoperable tools used in the right order with also processes that are aligned with culture, hierarchy, people, towards a goal that is easily understood and communicated across any domain.

Could the taxonomy, the ontology, the way of encapsulating data and information across the whole world and to convey meaning on a planetary scale be through the usage of the reality we live in? I believe so. I am currently focusing on creating collaborative change with a Global Digital Twin community that can hopefully create some change for real. If you are interested in knowing creating a better world faster together, let me know!

And of course, Smart Heating System is something that I am very interested in as well. Where we are utilizing Digital Twinning for systems, people, and Artificial Intelligence as much as we can.

How do I know this? Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

How do I know this? Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Waern
CEO, Founder and Digital Twin Specialist at WINNIIO Consulting

Ceo@winniio.io

“Ask not what you can explain about the building. Ask how the building could explain what is needed for you”

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Marc Petock wrote about the importance of Answering the “Why” in a Value Driven Age and also co-authoring an article with Anto Budiardjo about the necessity for building systems to interoperate.

I really like this initiative and have written about it before regarding smarter buildings.

But one question with a lot of these approaches are related to the possible person in the room and how fast we can get systems to “interoperate” when people cannot understand each-other? And when there is no understandable communication, nor dialogue to be had between stakeholders in the industry, or outside it?

That is of course where the Future Creation canvas can come in.

However, people in companies seldom have much interest at times to talk to anyone else outside of their domain because everything they do is great! Well, if we are measured only by the progress in a domain, by peers and vendors catering to keeping the status quo, then everything we do is of course great. And this holds true across most of the aspects of the entire real-estate lifecycle, not limited to existing buildings and building automation.

And how fast do we get things done? And who, or what should be responsible for doing this? Maybe the great companies working as master systems integrators (MSIs)?

“80% of our total time on some projects is used for consulting and educating the owners.” From the article last month, The New Professional Service for Buildings…

80% of the time is used for consulting and educating the owners. This is a terrifying number if it happens more than once. And in my book, this is not a new professional service, this is the old professional service for people related to buildings with the business model of charging for a lot of hours with business models that are stuck in the data to information stage. Climbing a never-ending uphill battle of trying to turn information into insights across domains, but failing to realize that if nothing changes, nothing will change.

The owners, integrators, installers, energy experts, and most of all users, need our help to get them get their buildings to tell them what to do.

“Ask not what you can explain about the building. Ask how the building could explain what is needed for you”

Is this not the purpose? To create Automated Buildings? Where the building can explain to all stakeholders what is happening in ways they would understand?

Not to lock people in and keep perpetuating obsolete ways of working. And to solve problems over and over and over and over again. But to help companies solve them once and then make it easier for others to create value, to invite to innovate on a global scale and to democratize value creation for the users of real estate everywhere?

This is what I am focusing on, in a lot of different areas on a global scale. And I would love to discuss value creation with people that share the same vision.

How do I know all of this? Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Waern
CEO, Founder and Digital Twin Specialist at WINNIIO Consulting

Ceo@winniio.io

What are they good for?

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Background

WINNIIO is developing a self-learning, edge-native, local control-first, smart control system for radiators and smart heating systems in Sweden. The solution can be deployed in hours, and is using small footprint AI/ML libraries to learn what the building is doing without needing any upfront data. Currently in roll-out stage across multiple assets in the Nordics.

“In every other business we make sure that it works first in a development environment, and then a staging environment and then when we know that it works, and is stable enough, that’s when we deploy it. Why do we accept anything else for real estate?”

– Head of IT, Progressive Real Estate Owner in Sweden

Leveraging the value of Digital Twins at different stages

Today in a call with some smart building enthusiasts, we were discussing what Digital Twins are, and what they are good for at what stages. During new construction, renovation, asset management, commissioning to mention a few.

In the call we had an energy specialist with 40+ years background that loves the concept of Digital Twins. The head of IT for a progressive real estate owner and another one responsible for building automation for another real estate owner.

The first real estate owner manages about 300 000 m2 across 130+ assets. Mainly schools. That’s the owner we have been working with for the last 10 months.

The new person whom I had never met before was responsible for building automation with 100 000 m2 across 1300 apartments and 200 commercial venues. He had seen a webinar about the Smart Heating Systems we had created some months ago and wanted to know a bit more.

Creating a Future Foundation

We talked about vechicle to grid, V2X and that he had bought some batteries to create a circular PV approach for his house. But then we moved into the innovation tender and how we had connected a bunch of radiators with the intent to commandeer the radiators based on its context. For the ones that have missed it, you can read about it here on how we used Digital Twinning to accelerate knowledge transfer between different actors related to Smart Heating Systems.

But, I was quick to ask what problems and challenges the new person had with their assets.

The answer:

“… Well, none. Not anyway.”

(This reminded me of the classic conversations I have had for the last 5 years. You can do anything with IoT, Digital Twins, AI, ML_insert buzzword here_!!! With the usual response, well, we don’t want to do anything really).

“Okay, fair enough. But what do you wish you could do better?”

“Well, it always takes time to get the automations systems actually performing as they should. It takes at least a couple of years to get it working based on its context. And then it’s a continuous process of aligning it with what is really going on with the buildings. It seems that the buildings are not really made to work with the building automation system and it’s almost broken from start. Could that be something for Digital Twins?”.

– YES!

Definitely! If a company would have a 3D Model of the BIM files. Then they could use that as the foundation for everything that will happen during the asset maintenance phase.

Use the 3D Models and start to “Invite to Innovate”

They could have all the information about what model/make the doors, the walls, the windows are. Where the pipes are, the electrical work, the plumbing, what products exists from where, and of course where the HVAC system is, lighting fixtures, and basically everything they would need.

Because the problem today is that all these things are not up to date. But more importantly, they exist in parallel universes where domain experts work in silos. Where communication is sparse, even during the construction project.

-> An understandable reality with all the information necessary for a shared reality across domains.

–        Understandable for anyone across any domain

–        Understandable for everyone collaborating concurrently across domains

–        A foundation for both people and systems

And what this does is that it allows an MDTI (Master Digital Twin Implementors) to Invite to innovate on behalf of the customer. We go through it here in my Podcast (that is on a hiatus right now) we use the Metaverse to collaborate and create value faster than ever. But basically it would allow the real estate owner to test solutions out virtually first, and tune them with the Digital Twin. Get them up to speed virtually first. And then once its done, deploy it in the building for real, knowing what the outcome would be.

Simulate the future in order to transcend the now

This hyperbolic heading is taken from an article I wrote a year ago about Digital Triplets. It basically revolves around the usefulness of running simulations on top of the Digital Twin to test things out first, get it right in the virtual world where time flows differently, and then deploy it in the real world knowing more of what will happen.

This is something that NASA actually are doing a lot of when designing the Mars Rover, and also where companies are using simulation tools to work around the global chip shortage. If we would apply the same idea of testing stuff out first in a simulation based on reality we could see an acceleration of faster time to value creation.

And the head of IT said it himself. In every other business we make sure that it works first in a development environment, and then a staging environment and then when we know that it works, and is stable enough, that’s when we deploy it. Why do we accept anything else for real estate?

What this means is that the 6-12 months of getting stuff in. And the x years it could take for the system to run optimally, could go down to 6-12 weeks at the most. In theory, it could be as fast as a couple of days. And that is only during the commissioning and optimization of the building automation controls.

What are Digital Twins really? And are they enough?

That’s the thing. What are Digital Twins? When do the appear? How can we create them? And how much time is needed to create any value? Well, I am leveraging Digital Twins across multiple industries right now at different stages.

The answer is, that Digital Twins, Simulation Models, Prototype Digital Twins, Virtual Twins, Visual Twins, coupled with VR/AR/MR as well as of course IoT/AI/ML approaches are being used everywhere right now. In healthcare, in construction with BIM to Twin approaches, for existing and new real-estate, in Formula 1, for data centers, Advanced Materials Manufacturing, for Digital Humans, Compute Fluid Dynamics, National twinning which is what I am focusing on. And I am also focusing on some Global Digital Twin perspectives coupled with Metaverse approaches to not only escape reality but to actually use modern tools to improve the world we have.  

But what I said to the person in charge was that whatever you do. If you have a new construction project, make sure that you get a 3D model out from either the architect, or the construction company. An IFC model/REVIT, out, or a “BIM-model” that should have some meta-data attached to it. Because usually what happens is that the BIM-model is being used during construction, but all that amazing data is being thrown in the trash, or being vendor-locked by a company.

What Real estate owners/also building automation companies want is to get it out, use it as a boundary spanning object, and create stickiness during the whole asset lifecycle. By using the 3D model of the building (with great meta-data about its assets) the one in charge of it can use it to collaborate with anyone that has anything to do with that part of reality.

This goes back to the great conversation I had last year with Joe Gaspardone.

Putting the pieces together in a fragmented industry

Digital Twins are being used, deployed, leveraged at scale across multiple industries. It’s understanding what tools to use, at what stage, and what ingredients work together in the right order. The ingredients are here in terms of people, and systems, but it seems that we work in isolated knowledge islands.

Digital Twins can be used at any part of the asset lifecycle with dramatic returns. Something to keep in mind is that if done correctly, Digital Twins have something in common with Pringles. Once you start, you shouldn’t stop. Because Digital Twinning done right should be able to work with any system of any age and discipline, as well as with any person of any age and discipline. Both past, present, and future generations.

– For construction, make sure you get the BIM-models out and control it as a tool for a visual collaboration arena

– For renovation, there are multiple scanning options that can provide value really fast. Coupled with IoT approaches you can get a lightweight Digital Twin up and running quite fast. And this can be used to scale up initiatives running MVT (Minival Viable Twin) approaches to ensure rapid value creation.

– For operations, what if you could try out everything first before deploying it in your existing portfolio? And have a reality where all the fragmented pieces of the puzzle could fit in? What is the value of creating value across the 3/30/300 rule and also ensuring a platform for new revenue streams in the future?

Summarizing thoughts – Why start now?

Well, it seems that buildings are either in or out. Possibly not so much anywhere in between.

Read this great article and you would understand. I have also written about it extensively during the last 5 years (not knowing COVID would accelerate the pace) so this is not really news. More logical and what the piece above doesn’t cover is the dramatic shift from real-real estate to that of virtual real-estate, and somewhere in between. 

Starting now in getting buildings to where they need to be is of utmost importance on many accounts. The benefits with Digital Twins done right is that better decisions can be taken, together with the right stakeholders, up to 99% faster than traditional methods utilizing traditional tools. If people don’t want to go to old, non-comforting assets. But instead need newer ones which cater to the needs of the people. Just wait until real-real estate will have to compete with virtual real-estate where the metaverse is as real as anything. That’s when we can talk about obsolescence!

And the stepping stone from Modbus, BACnet, is only three steps away from the Metaverse. And buildings with better carbon footprint, net-zero, amazing indoor-climate, lower maintenance costs with predictive and prescriptive maintenance, AI-ready, future-ready, it all could be realized in days and weeks. Not months or years.

How do I know this? Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Waern
CEO & Founder at WINNIIO Consulting

Ceo@winniio.io

Nicolas Waern comments on asking ChatGPT what we should do with Smart Buildings and the need for Subject Matter Experts

Why do we not have smart buildings everywhere?

There are several reasons why intelligent buildings are not more widespread.

One reason is the cost and complexity of implementing smart building technology. Creating a smart building requires a significant investment in technology and infrastructure, and this can be prohibitively expensive for many organizations.

Another reason is that many technical challenges are still associated with building smart buildings. For example, there are often compatibility issues between different types of smart building technology, and integrating these technologies can be difficult. Additionally, there are concerns about data security and privacy in smart buildings, which can make some organizations hesitant to adopt this technology.

Lastly, there is a lack of standards and regulations for smart buildings. This can make it difficult for companies to know what technology to use, and can also make it challenging for smart buildings to interoperate with each other. Until these issues are resolved, smart buildings will likely remain relatively rare.

Comment 1

• I like how it sort of gets it right. But misses out on some of the nuances in the real world. Everything is costly when you have no idea what the benefits are. Implementing Smart Buildings does not have to be costly in comparison to the benefits looking at it from a benefits stacking approach and across the 3/30/300 rule.
• And by using a proper methodology to invite to innovate in buildings doesn’t have to be complex. The road toward all smart buildings is the same as it’s always unique and depends on the existing challenges, needs, and wants of the users of any asset. And the ones managing the asset and everything else. The main thing is how fast you can get people to be on the same page regarding where the building is today and then move together toward a better future in steps. – Nicolas Waern

What do we need to do to assure that all buildings in the world are smart?

To ensure that all buildings in the world are smart, there are several key steps that need to be taken.

First
There needs to be a concerted effort to develop and implement smart building technology. This will require investments in research and development, as well as the creation of standards and regulations that can help to ensure that smart building technology is interoperable and secure.

Second
There needs to be a focus on making smart building technology more accessible and affordable. This could involve things like creating financial incentives for organizations to adopt smart building technology, or developing new technologies that are less expensive and easier to implement.

Third
There needs to be a focus on educating and training people on how to use and maintain smart building technology. This could involve creating new educational programs and certifications that can help people learn the skills they need to work with smart buildings.

Overall
Creating a world where all buildings are smart will require a combination of technological innovation, accessibility, and education. By focusing on these key areas, it may be possible to create a future where all buildings are smart and connected.

Comment 2

• Again, on the creation of standards. I do not necessarily think there’s a penultimate need to create new standards. Or even rally together to decide on one standard to use. I do, however believe that it is important to utilize standards and align development efforts with existing standards. Where it needs to be much easier to understand what standards have been used, where, and how. Thus making it easier to align with standards and create understandable recipes in how to correctly apply them and in what order. Not only from a BAS/BMS perspective but across the real estate industry as a whole, potentially utilizing visual/virtual Digital Twins to explain this better between new and experienced people across industries relevant to the real estate realm.
• The second and the third recommendation I really like since this is what I am doing with investing in an education company called Tenyne focusing on XR education. And also through incentivizing energy efficiency through Dcarbon Solutions where we want to reward people for saving energy whilst providing storage and computing power to a global insight network. Where the aim is to create a #web3 future (decentralized) where all buildings are smart, and connected – AND where the participants are rewarded for their efforts instead of exploited – Nicolas Waern

Conclusion

I really like ChatGPT, and I tell my co-workers to become experts in it and to automate everything that they do. Trying their best to remove themselves from the equation. The marketing team, the AI team as well as the developers and project managers. Because there will be a point where AI will rule the world even more so than the news of AI. Fake news will go rampant, and we will not be able to easily trust anything that we see (considering deep fakes) or what we hear if we trust that Microsoft can take 3 seconds of your voice and make it into something that sounds like you.

But we are not necessarily there yet. At least not when it comes to the future of Smart Buildings being predicted by AI. This is the benefit of having been in the business for some time and understanding what needs to be done. We already have the tools at our disposal, and we could solve all problems if we just understood how to apply them correctly in the correct order. Or how to invite the right people to innovate with our buildings and manage risk in the best way possible.

What you wish for

For instance, I asked ChatGPT about the benefits of Edge-native journeys, and it said that it was far superior to cloud-native journeys. Great! And then I asked what the benefits of cloud-native journeys are. And of course, it said that cloud-native journeys were far superior to edge-native journeys! This could mean that it’s someewhere inbetween and it takes a subject matter expert to get you to the last 20% of the journey.

And most importantly, make sure that the 80% is spent doing the right things. Because there’s nothing as useless as doing something great that shouldn’t have been done at all. I think it will be easier to get started and potentially also much easier to get things wrong. This is why I urge everyone to listen in to all of the sessions at the AHRexpo and learn how the Metaverse could help us with all of this, and why hybrid journeys might be the way toward BAS/BMSs in the cloud.

How do I know all of this?

Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Waern
CEO, Founder and Digital Twin Specialist at WINNIIO Consulting

Ceo@winniio.io

Nicolas Waern is the CEO, Strategy & Innovation Leader, and a Digital Twin Implementation Specialist at the consulting firm WINNIIO. He is a firm believer that the Real Estate Industry needs more of a lifecycle focus where we need to go Beyond Buildings and come back with an understanding what tools and technology we could use. And to solve the jobs to be done, together, with an open mindset.

Nicolas is working with leaders in several industries to understand how they can succeed in the age of AI. Predicting what the world will do in a week, a month, a year from now and to best utilize strategies and solutions that pass the test of time. He does this through a Digitalization- on Demand approach for anyone that needs to change before they have to.

Nicolas is also a Podcast Creator & Newsletter Editor for Beyond Buildings
Thought Leader regarding Smart Buildings & Building Automation for AutomatedBuildings
Speaker and Influencer Event Streaming Platforms as the Holy Grail for Industry 4.0 Applications
Subject Matter Expert Real Estate Digitalization Proptech Digitalization Expert
Active Member of Digital Twin working groups Digital Twin Subject Matter Expert

I can confidently say that IoT is dead on arrival. And it almost always has been.

Especially, when it comes to building automation.

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Having recently been speaking about Building Automation and IoT at a Smart Building conference in Barcelona I can confidently say that IoT is dead on arrival. And it almost always has been. Especially, when it comes to building automation.

If you want to dig deeper into what is written here so far, I recommend these articles to get some context.

• How can we create value together?
• Why faster time to value creation?
• Benefits Realization with Digital Twins

You have 1001 alarms and flags in your system

There were two major events that made me realize that the whole IoT movement has not been working well during the last decade.

1.      We have access to more information each day on the actual internet but it is not guaranteed to enable people get insights, and take action on anything else they already are doing. And the access to data, and possibly information is not a receipt for making people smarter. Just getting stuff to the “internet” or connected doesn’t seem to cut it. And who says that it’s reliable or not on its own?

2.      Alarms. All systems have them. And all technicians have turned off notifications once or twice or in the hundreds. Just by getting stuff connected, and monitored doesn’t mean that problems get solved, especially when context is missing, and the information gets stuck in a dashboard.

The world exists in silos and domains and most people, and companies tend to operate in the same domain they always have been. Which is not bad on its own. But from a holistic perspective it’s not necessarily great since we have a lot of challenges communicating across domains. From a people perspective and from a system perspective.

Text Box: i. The need for interdisciplinary communication and understandable sociotechnological dialogue, IoT Congress, Barcelona

The challenges with realizing BIG Impact from BIG Data

There’s been promises and promises. Bullish numbers about the billions of IoT sensors that should have been out there by now. The bankruptcy of Sigfox, lost packages of star networks and several LPWan tech which is not bi-directional, nor real-time enough. However we also have interesting LoRaWAN deployments at scale and the Things Network creating some global movements.

And even though great things are happening with Telco tech such as CAT-M1, NB-IoT, 5G, Network slicing or anything else related to the actual technology aspects. It doesn’t matter much if we don’t get the impact we need. Because guess what, it’s not (only) about the technology. At least it shouldn’t be that much. It is about…the Impact we can get from utilizing modern tools in the right order. Together with people, and possibly advanced analytics.

However, today most companies are starting off with the wrong end. It’s not about the holistic impact that we need. It’s not even the silo-intended impact that we start with all the time.

Today the impact of Internet of Things fail to materialize because of a failed understand on how to translate data into impact across domains, and at scale.

Where people are using IoT to get more data and try to use dashboards and siloed interfaces to turn data to information. However, the insight that is being created is often not easily translated into insight for other domains. Which means that it jumps back to the being purely data seen from another domain’s perspective. Not leading to insight, nor leading to action or the impact needed.

Crossing the chasm with the Impact to Data loop

What if we start with the Impact first and then work our way back? This is nothing new and is part of the 5 WHY’s that Toyota introduced. And also at the core of the Benefits realization framework which I have written about before.

But maybe we could illustrate it in a way that is also tied to the Data to Impact loop?

And just by putting this in writing I changed the order and also the name to align with what I mean. I have been calling it the Data to Impact loop for years now. But I will start to refer to it more as a circular model and as a Impact to Data loop. What if we started with the impact we need, across all domains. And then work back in understand the actions we need to take. Asking a series of questions:

1.      What is the impact we are after?
For most private companies, as well as public this is written in a strategic document depicting their five year plan. Or the simplest way of looking at it, save money, make more money, find new revenue streams. And today also aligning with the Triple Bottom Line where ESG reporting, sustainable ways of working is a must for people, wallet, and planet.

2.      What are the action(s) we need to take to get there and whom do we need to involve?

3.      In order to get to action, what insight do the stakeholders need in order to take necessary action?

4.      Where is the information today, and how can it be turned into insight in one domain, as well as across domains?

5.      Do we have the data today, and how can we turn it into information in one domain, as well as across any domain that also can pass the test of time?

And how do we get all of this done as fast as possible? Preferably using modern tools to help us in understanding the impact decisions will have ahead of time. So that we can ask a data fabric of what the best course of action will be, and for it to tell us that these steps are the way to go. And that the information can be communicated across domains at the speed of latency.

Where the data necessary is followed by a Digital Thread across to the Impact that we need.

Back to the Future focusing on the Impact of Things (and people)

That’s why I believe we need to go back to the future and assess the impact we are after from a holistic perspective. To not only stare at the energy savings but take into account the whole lifecycle, the building itself, and all of its stakeholders. Not necessarily to be responsible for everything, but understanding that the data and information in one vertical desperately needs to be turned into insight for others. And those others can be other systems, and other people that spans different ages as well as location on a global scale.

The building automation industry is starting to become more and more connected. But it’s still not democratized and for many it is not the easiest to go in and create value for others. We have the tools to create robust, useful, and attractive buildings for all. And by leveraging the tools and technologies in the BB-cycle, with the right processes and people, we can create impact exponentially faster, and more sustainable than any time in history.

But if nothing gets changed, nothing will change. It’s as simple as that. And if you want to change before you must, feel free to reach out!

How do I know all of this? Because it’s my job to know what the future will do in a week, a month, a year from now. And if you want to create the future before everyone else? Reach out to me and we’ll make it happen!

Sincerely,

Nicolas Waern
CEO, Founder and Digital Twin Specialist at WINNIIO Consulting