In this episode of the Beyond Buildings Podcast, we talk to the energy guru, question-asker, engineer, analytics nerd – James Dice! He is like Moses in the BAS/BMS energy space for building automation and brings his followers to the promised land. Possibly, by separating the hardware from the software and into the open we go.
We talk about:
Being humble, standing on the shoulders of giants and learning from the past
Emerging analytics platforms, and the similarities with Apple and Android
Lock-in effects, ecosystem approaches utilized for good
The separation of hardware and software paradigm
Edge and cloud strategies for smarter buildings
“The Overlay Paradigm” for buildings
The Vitruvian Virtues
James discusses the reality as it is with an overlay paradigm and that there are millions of buildings that will stay the same, not having access to cutting edge tech in a while. So we’ll be having old, old, old, underneath, new at the top, with an overlay approach that will probably go on for the next 25 years, if not more.
But why are we doing this? Why are we trying to optimize buildings? Is it for the sake of energy efficiency? People? The planet even?
– Listen and find out!
And if you like this episode and are into building automation/energy efficiency you should check out the amazing newsletter/podcast Nexus that James is running. It is awesome and you will definitely learn a lot!
– Listen in and hear what the world was like Pre-COVID and what a discussion between building automation nerds sound like.
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
A Paradigm Shift for Buildings is out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live!
In this episode of the Beyond Buildings Podcast, we talk to the Smart Building Expert Omar Yakobi. He’s a true future shaper who is helping his customers turn their buildings into strategic assets.
Will the future be about the decoupling of hardware and software? How do we move away from where we are now and how do we get to the future that we all want? We talk about:
BACnet and the AHR expo
Cloud and Edge technologies
Seamless integration experiences
Pros and cons with lock-in effects
Future-ready data centers with mesh sensors
Open controls, Open APIs, Open-source and what open means
And what the future means for building automation in general
We talk about how to bring choice to the ones that don’t have a choice today. And how the people that are last to the scene, can have all the choice in the world. Unlocking the industry starts with unlocking minds, as Omar puts it.
– Listen in and hear what the world was like Pre-COVID and what a true building automation specialist thinks about the industry!
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
Unlocking Minds and buildings is out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live!
In this episode of the Beyond Buildings Podcast, we talk about Digital Twins with the insightful Digital Twin Specialist, Ken Olling from SEKAI. Ken does a buzzword breakdown of his perspective of what a Digital Twin is, and what it means for their customers.
We get to hear about the SEKAI way where Digital Twins can act as;
A way to make sense of data from different systems, enabling analytics initiatives to create value from data coming from different sources.
The visual representation needed for people to understand what is going on from a holistic perspective, irrespective of background, skill-set and discipline.
Act in real-time, absorbing reality from any source, creating the possibilities to act ahead of time.
As an innovation platform for the future, to bring, people, ideas, systems together in a holistic, understandable way.
We talk about how their software platform helps organizations create digital twins and the global need of getting away from so-called twin washing, and that the industry needs to be more concrete and get going with real-use cases. We get to know that 80% of managers believe that Big Data is critical for decision making, but only 5% think that it delivers on the promises.
We also discuss that a real digital twin allows companies to participate and collaborate between silos and disciplines with all of the data, not just discipline-specific. And that all of the data ingested in the digital twin should be accessible within milliseconds.
– Listen in and hear what the world was like Pre-COVID and what a true future-doer thinks about the industry!
Go above and beyond, with the Beyond Buildings Podcast!
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
In this episode of the Beyond Buildings Podcast, we talk to Karel Bietje from the construction company Taimana Modular in New Zealand. And with us is also the connectivity Guru, Anthony Veri Jr.
This is an interesting episode that took place just before COVID19 started for real, and New Zealand shut down. A lot has happened since but it offers an insight into how a real change-maker thinks and operates in the construction industry.
Karel talks about an outdated industry with giants that monopolize the market.
On why projects run late and over budget
Change requests during the operating phase
And the overall need to modernize everything and putting sustainability first.
We talk about the need for lifecycle doing, not just thinking, doing more with less, and how to think about buildings as software-enabled entities.
What do you think? Will construction also be run by software companies that happen to do construction?
Listen in and hear what the world was like Pre-COVID and what a true future-doer thinks about the industry!
Go above and beyond, with the Beyond Buildings Podcast!
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
Future Proof Construction is also out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live! And finally a big thank you to Anthony!
Bridging the Skill shortage gap requires an actual medium of interaction. – Photo by Modestas Urbonas on Unsplash
Bonus episode – Background
This week started with an interview about the topic of AI and Smart Buildings.
Is the market ready for AI initiatives?
What parts of the market are ready?
Going back to basics, – what is Smart Building?
What is required for it to be ready?
What are the jobs to be done?
And much more. I have the answers to these questions, and more, if interested.
But, what interested me the most was the Skill-Shortage Gap. What is it? Can it be solved? And if so, how?
Have a listen to the mini-episode and please comment if it’s something that you agree with, have questions about, or in any other way want to know more about!
The full article will be coming out on the 30th of July!
In this episode of the beyond buildings podcast we talk to the legendary Smart City consultant, Anthony Veri Jr.
THIS is an episode you REALLY want to listen to. Anthony has an amazing mind, and his advice and insights are truly phenomenal. How do we actually HELP people achieve what they need to achieve, and meet them where they are?
We discuss intelligent camera infrastructures, partly referring to the previous episode where we discussed how dumb infrastructure can be turned smart. And we talk about business models, the importance of not talking about technology, asking questions, entrepreneurship, and what foundations are safe to stand on.
Do companies have the budgets necessary for innovation?
What benefits are solutions creating? For whom?
What happens with the phones that aren’t 5G ready today in the future?
Do companies have the processes, the people, the hierarchy, the culture, and the systems necessary to capitalize on new technology?
Or will it just be an innovation theatre?
Anthony talks about the need for democratizing data manipulation and innovation and how to succeed in a turbulent environment. Anthony also poses a question that will make everyone rethink how they do business.
This is truly a phenomenal episode about life and business with an amazing person. Listen in and find out why Nicolas loves Anthony so much right now!
Go above and beyond, with the Beyond Buildings Podcast!
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
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A Veri Innovative World is also out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live! And finally a big thank you to Anthony!
Want to make decisions in live-time, or even predict what the city will do before it happens? Then the NATIX platform is something that will interest you!
We talk about their NATIX on the edge platform, and how it can make dumb cameras smart, WITHOUT replacing existing infrastructure.
Natix.io is up to 85 percent cheaper than traditional approaches.
And up to 8 times faster.
And due to the fact it’s on the edge (doesn’t send all data to the cloud) and infused with AI/ML capabilities, data protection and security are more future proof than ever before. Instead of silos, cities can create a bowl of data where the police department, fire department, and any other stakeholder can create apps based on a dataset that is shared in the city. This leads to a democratization of smart city innovation.
How can an enabling view of technology speed up the creation of Smart Cities?
How can cutting edge technology help in reaching the global goals?
Listen in to a phenomenal episode about the past, present, and future of smarter cities and a more intelligent world.
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
Making dumb cities smart is also out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live! And finally a big thank you to Dr. Alireza, Omid and Anthony
Forget about AI. Technology should be a tool that makes life simpler. This is an article discussing what smart is, and some thoughts on how to deal with the elements of inevitability.
“AI is not a magic wand; it is not Terminator; it does not mean dystopia; it is just a tool. Treat it as a tool designed to make lives simpler.”
“…few people would say a smartphone is intelligent. Just as being good at chess does not define intelligence, it would appear being smart doesn’t either, especially in the context of phones.” – Garry Kasparov, Kasparov and AI (same article as the first quote).
Is that what we all should do with Smart Buildings? Just think about the underlying infrastructure and the ability for people to make it smart? Maybe it’s less about technology and more about the people who interact with buildings today? (of course it is).
How well can the building contribute to the needs of people that interact with the building today, and how well is it prepared to do make continuous adjustments, keeping up with the times, during its entire life-cycle?
Memoori thought piece from 2019 describes the 7 use cases for Smart Buildings that seem to focus on the building infrastructural aspects and how it can cater to the HVAC/FM needs. Which is quite standard.
The 8 first questions of 100+ questions that come to mind:
Is there one API for the entire building encapsulating the seven sub-categories with meaningful data, allowing and enabling stakeholders to get access to what they need to get access to?
Do all of the seven categories work with standardized APIs?
Are the seven categories being treated as categories by the real estate owners?
How close/far away is this from actual reality in how buildings are managed today, and what are the steps that need to be taken in order to realize this structured vision?
The skill-sets that are needed to “own” these categories from a real estate point of view, where are they today? From Vendors, integrators, do the property asset management companies have them in-house?
How integrated are these categories in real life and how well do the owners or respective categories communicate with other areas in the same/other categories, and how well do the systems talk to each other?
Which one of these areas should be prioritized, by whom, and how does it relate to the overall success for the company and/or companies providing value for and from the building?
How different is the priority list of assessing digital maturity in the above areas for different types of asset classes and does a successful integration between said areas correspond to realizing the full potential of buildings?
What is the full potential of Buildings? Humans?
Realizing the full potential of buildings… What does that mean? Who would pay for it? Who would benefit from it? Let’s say all of the above categories do talk to each other and there exists One API to the building.
Have we then realized the full potential of buildings? Or have we realized the platform created in buildings for people to define what the full potential might be? For them? Should machines work for us, and let us be more human?
“The trouble with computers is that they only provide answers; it is up to humans to set the questions…We must stop using phrases such as artificial intelligence, “instead say augmented intelligence,” – Garry Kasparov
The Stone Age didn’t end because of a lack of stones. It ended because some other tools could do a better job of providing value for an already existing outcome. Basically doing more, with something else, not necessarily less. And come to think of it, probably not faster, or necessarily better, but the total cost of ownership as lower, and new technology meant an improved value over the whole life-cycle.
We need to move over to new tools in order to take the next step and realize that the Human age (as a species) is yet to come. We’ve had civilizations in the past that have prospered in its individual countries, but it’s the clash of civilizations that has led to wars, famine, colonialism, e-inventing the wheel, and just a loss of value between different cultures. As Kasparov also states, we should see ourselves like “shepherds for machines” and in another article making this amazing statement;
“only 4 percent of jobs in the US require human creativity.” That means 96 percent of jobs, I call them zombie jobs. They’re dead, they just don’t know it. source
Creative Destruction is on the rise and all of these Zombie jobs will be destroyed at some point. So what do we need to do? For startes, we need to think about what it means to be human. The industrial revolution didn’t only make machines better, they also made us into machines. Those machines should be replaced by actual machines, and allow and enable us to become more human. Some countries that don’t have that societal infrastructure in place for actual humans, will be having an extremely hard time in the next decade. Countries that haven’t got a culture of thinking for themselves, stuck in hierarchical ways of working, might also have a hard time.
And it goes back to the element of inevitability. The majority of jobs will be destroyed, before new jobs and new roles are created. Everything that can be automated, will be automated. What sets people apart from machines today and tomorrow? Today it’s the understanding of what challenges people have had from a humanistic perspective observing a system or a problem from a very limited perspective.
Just programming systems with ideas from a human’s limited point of view is stupid. But, having a human ask a building that has all of the areas above integrated into a system that can communicate with each other in a standardized way, is not stupid.
“Innovation doesn’t start with the future. It starts with the now and continues into the future”
Having APP-store capabilities on top of buildings, fed with data from buildings, is not stupid. That’s how the full potential of buildings will be realized in the short-medium term, up until buildings will provide the value necessary by themselves operating as a key-player role in a Smart City context.
Because having systems talk to each other, find out the best options possible based on an outcome that has been set by people? Well, that can be stupid, but it’s on the way to becoming better. An example is energy-optimizing plays that have a limited amount of information available, resulting in 25% energy decrease for the building, but an indoor climate that is not fantastic, lower tenant satisfaction, less productivity and a loss of money for owners, companies in the facility, and for the country as a whole because people get sick more often, have more headaches and are more prone to diseases.
This is being done a lot right now. Cloud-based energy optimizing algorithms that don’t take the entire building into account where people are left out of the mix. Do we see a shift now Post-COVID? Absolutely. Will there… IS THERE a battle between energy optimization initiatives and the connected society at large where we use more stuff that requires electricity? YES. Is the entire grid ready for the growing demand products needing electricity? NO.
Will this be another section in this article? NO.
Final Words
The future will be different from what it is today.
How well are you keeping up with the times?
Are you, your organization leading the charge in your industry?
Are you falling behind?
Do you even know what is happening in other industries? Do you want to know?
Do your bosses want to know?
Do you have an enabling view of technology today?
Understanding where you are today, where you want to be tomorrow, and plotting out a path to get there is the first step. Will those things create an organization consisting of people, processes, systems, hierarchy, and a culture that enables you to STAY relevant in the decades to come? It might.
But it’s a serious effort comprising of collaboration, grit, perseverance, luck, and it’s not something that can be done alone. Existing companies are built to die. They don’t have to, but most of them will.
And that is why this blog and the VVIP community exists. To help those that WANT change be able to deliver change in the bestest, fastest, and mostest sustainable way possible. There are no silver bullets here. But if you want to change, and want to find people in the same industry, other industries that also want to be the change they see is necessary, this is the place for you. Alone, we can’t do much. Together, we can do everything.
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Let me know what you thought and if you got any questions, ideas, or general feedback, please comment! And reach out to Nicolas Waern directly if you have any immediate questions. If he can’t help you directly, he can find someone that can within 24 hours. Guaranteed.
In this episode of the Beyond Buildings Podcast, we talk to Tommy Hagenes – who’s helping buildings to be smarter via Proptech Bergen in Norway, his Consultant Company Energy Control AS, and also as a business developer for Airthings, an indoor climate sensoring company out of Norway.
It’s an inspiring journey from the BMS side and building controls, to his background in facility management, figuring out what would be needed to create better buildings. We’ll hear how he finds out if the BMS the heart of the building, is it the first thing people see and do people fall in love with the BMS every morning?
We’ll hear about how Tommy wants to disrupt himself so that he can help his companies and customers better.
You’ll hear about what a true leader thinks about the largest gap in the smart buildings market and listen to what Tommy thinks is happening in the smart building space, and what the whole industry needs to do! An overall great episode with a thought leader in this space!
Please leave a comment, share your thoughts, and give us some input on how we can improve for the future! Because it’s the data we don’t have, that will change our lives!
Falling in Love with Smarter Buildings is also out at Anchor and all places where Podcasts live! And finally a big thank you to Tommy Hagenes and to the Beyond Buildings podcast sponsor: Platform of Trust whos helping companies turn data into actionable insights!
Links:
Tommy Hagenes, Bridging the gap between Property and Technology. Living the Proptech life, one building at a time
