For decades, the process of proving the financial return on building efficiency projects has been stuck in the past. We invest millions in a new chiller, boiler, or control sequence. Then, we wait. We wait a full year, gather a mountain…
Beyond the Project: Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement
We have spent this series exploring the blueprint for value creation: building a solid data foundation, creating a seamless workflow to act on insights, and leveraging partnership to empower your team. But there is a final, crucial element that separates the…
The Most Important Feature is a Partnership
In the world of B2B software, we are conditioned to evaluate products based on their feature lists. We create complex spreadsheets comparing dozens of technical capabilities, looking for the platform that checks the most boxes. But in the complex, physical world…
Closing the Loop: Why CMMS Integration is Non-Negotiable
Your organization has likely invested heavily in two critical platforms: a Building Management System (BMS) to control the property, and a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) to manage the operational workflow. Now, you’ve added a third: a building analytics platform to…
Garbage In, Gospel Out: A Blueprint for a Trustworthy Data Foundation
The smart building industry has a dangerous obsession. We are mesmerized by the promise of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and advanced analytics. We see the incredible potential of these tools to predict failures, optimize energy, and transform operations. But we are…
The Empowered Operator: A Campus Case Study in Value Creation
For years, the narrative around smart building technology has been focused on the technology itself: the AI, the algorithms, the dashboards. But this narrative is missing the most important character in the story: the operator.Technology is not a replacement for human…
The End of the ROI Mirage: A Blueprint for Value-Driven Procurement
The End of the ROI Mirage: A Blueprint for Value-Driven Procurement For decades, the process of buying and selling technology in the commercial real estate industry has been built on a fundamental flaw. It’s a flaw that creates the “ROI Mirage,”…
Augmentation vs. Automation: A Better AI Strategy for Facility Management
Beyond Automation: How to Use Technology to Augment Your Team’s Expertise The conversation around AI in the smart building industry is broken. It is dominated by a Silicon Valley narrative of “automation” and “disruption,” centered on a flawed premise: that the…
Big Data vs. Right Data: The Foundation of Building Analytics
Data Janitors vs. Data Scientists: The Unsexy Work of Building a Solid Data Foundation The smart building industry is obsessed with the promise of Artificial Intelligence. We’re sold a future where sophisticated data scientists and powerful machine learning algorithms will unlock…
The Problem-First Mandate: Fixing Your Smart Building Strategy
The Problem-First Mandate: Why Your Smart Building Strategy is Backwards The smart building industry has a fundamental addiction: solutionism. We are obsessed with new technologies—the latest AI platform, the slickest dashboard, the most advanced sensor—before we have a clear-eyed understanding of…