the believer

Realcomm is calling for speakers

2010-02-21T17:34:35Z

Interested in going to Las Vegas?
Apply to be on the speakers list at Realcomm!

Calling for speakers

"Realcomm is looking for industry experts to speak at Realcomm Las Vegas 2010. If you are an experienced speaker on the topic of technology for the commercial and corporate real estate industry then we want to hear from you. Let us know if you have a story to tell about how to use automation to squeeze more productivity and efficiency out of a real estate organization. Our topics include, but aren't limited to: IT issues (applications, management, infrastructure, etc.), Building Automation, Energy Management / Sustainability. If you have a good solution to share that has demonstrated an ROI - come share it at Realcomm! For questions or more information, contact Howard Berger, Program Director, at 818.548.1818 or hberger@realcomm.com."

Find out more at the Realcomm site.

About the conference

Realcomm is the largest conference in the world focusing on the intersection of IT & Real Estate. This year will be the 12th gathering. Every year over 1000 people are attending the show.

I've had the privilege to take part of the show in 2004, 2005, 2006 and at Realcomm Europe 2009. Unfortunately, I'll not be able to go over this year. Have to go next year. It's always a pleasure to meet up with other believers.

Augmented-reality mapping will increase transparency in real estate

2010-02-17T06:10:37Z

Maybe it's my background as orienteer that makes it difficult for me to look the other way when I see a map, but this new augmented reality mapping is just amazing. Imagine what I will for the transparency of the real estate industry.

The video is from a TED presentation where Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new technology from Microsoft.

(If you're in a hurry fast forward to 3m20sec.)

Background

The technology used in the demo is from Seadragon and the visualization technology Photosynth that gives amazingly smooth digital rendering and zoom capabilities. Blaise Aguera y Arcas' is the architect of Seadragon, and the co-creator of Photosynth, and today an architect at Microsoft Live Labs (Microsoft acquired by Seadrgon in 2006). See the original Seadragon & Photosynth TED presentation from 2007.

My thoughts

This is how you will use a map to find out more about commercial properties in 5 years. Period.

Mark your calender for the "Fastighets IT 2010" event

2010-01-21T05:48:18Z

The annual IT event focusing on the real estate industry, FastighetsIT 2010, is this year to be held on the 17th of March in Stockholm. (Unfortunately, then colliding with the MIPIM event in Cannes, France.)

The event is organised by SeminarDesign with the programme (PDF).

Focus

Being a one day event covering the topic "IT" for an entire industry one has to realise that the topics of the presentations are (unfortunately) to be all over the place. This event will cover everything from social media and "the cloud" to the status of the standardisation efforts regarding property data and property automation.

See coverage from the event previous years 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Speakers

The list of speakers includes;

Two business consultants; Rikard Lindberg (LinkedIn) from Meta Fastighetsadministration and Timo Murberger (LinkedIn) from Computence.

A famous trendforecaster in Bengt Wahlström (LinkedIn) from Trender.net.

Representatives from property companies in Johan Thorberg (LinkedIn) from Jernhusen and Alf Pettersson (LinkedIn) from Uppsalahem.

Solution providers in Peter Löfgren (LinkedIn, Twitter, blog) from Redpill Linpro, Anders Moberg (LinkedIn) from CAD-Q Fastighet and Stefan Ledenstam from High Performance Systems.

Finally, Mårten Lindström (LinkedIn) from the standard initaitiv OpenBIM.

My thoughts

I'm delighted to see that there is interest enough in the market from both customers, suppliers, thought leaders and organisers to run an event like this. Hopefully, the event will have a positive energy (like last year).

IT in the real estate industry has a tendency to quickly focusing on property systems and automation. Sometimes I would like to also see focus on topics like marketing (trends in website creation & newsletters), sales (CRM) or just plain normal 'office IT' (mobile solutions, wiki and so on).

Unfortunately, I'll miss this years event since I will be down in Cannes focusing on the marketing side of the business.

Booli brings Augmented Reality to Sweden

2009-12-02T06:04:34Z

The Swedish residential search engine Booli has released Layar data for the iPhone & Android devices bringing Augmented Reality to Sweden.

It for sure looks great.
(Now I really have to upgrade my iPhone...)

Further information is found at Booli's blog.

More about Augmented Reality

See the following older posts 1 and 2.

A CEO's guide to Social Media in Commercial Property

2009-11-26T07:07:04Z

The RICS has published a great paper on Social Media in Commercial Property. It's written by my friends Andrew Waller (top) and Bob Thompson at REMIT Consulting. (RICS is 'Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors')

Benefits of reading

The primary reason to read this paper is not to start using Social Media, but to better understand it. A big step since the word 'Social Media" has been described as “I have rarely come across a word that has more negative connotations to managers in enterprise organizations”, read more.

Whats great with this report is that it doesn't advise everyone to start a fan page at Facebook or start using Twitter. On the other hand, it shows examples of where social media is (and can be) used in the industry.

Andrew and Bob writes "This report seeks to steer a middle path between these two extremes, recognising the intense individuality of social media while keeping an open mind about the opportunities it presents for the company, pointing out the threats that it may pose and suggesting strategies for dealing with both".

The outline of the report

The report of 26 pages consist of chapters like:

What is social media?
Real estate opportunities
Why must real estate engage with social media
Where next? - First steps

The authors go through the different aspect for agency, professional services, development, property management and marketing.

Social media at work

There are many aspects of social media and one is how to handle the use of social media within an organisation. A not uncommon solution is to make it impossible to use sites like Facebook or Twitter.

My opinion in this is ok if you also remove coffee breaks, lunches with your colleagues, make it forbidden to use the phone and email for private use! Those are also ways of communicating. (Not saying that it is ok to spent 2 hours a day on Facebook, but you don't ban all mobile phones just because someone is calling way to many private calls...)

Or as the Andrew and Bob puts it "In much of the world of property, status is measured by the ability to attract work and successful projects from a network of contacts. We, as an industry, encourage graduates to “get out into the market” to make contacts because we know that improving their personal brand will enhance the chances of them earning revenue for the firm. We then set up our computer systems to stop them accessing Facebook, mySpace and Twitter – the methods they have been using at college to network."

My thoughts

The use and possibilities of social media is interesting. But it's a challenging area to move into, especially if you're in the area of B2B.

I believe companies should focus on:

Understand what is Social Media (read this report)
Reflect over the internal use among employees and set guidelines (not ban!). Thing about LinkedIN, CREOpoint, Facebook and so on.
Could we use the techniques in social media internal? To improve the Intranet, make it easier to connect within the firm, an internal wiki...
Could it improve the way we communicate with the outside world? Could a blog be used to position us as thought leader?

Please, do not start a blog or fan page on Facebook just because your PR/advertising/web firm thinks that is a great idea... That will never work!

Hemnet's new commerial listing service is launched

2009-11-19T11:31:00Z

Hemnet's new offering 'Hemnet Kommersiella', a listing service for commercial properties on sale (or space to lease), was launched yesterday. See press release. (Google Translated version)

Background

It's actually more correct to say 're-launched' since the site has existed for a number of years (see screenshot below). Originally created by Svensk FastighetsData, a company that in late 2007 was acquired by Vitec (both Swedish IT firms focusing, to a large extent, on the Swedish real estate market).

The older version of kommersiella.se

However, in 2009 the domain was 'transferred' to Hemnet. Read more at an earlier post. The new version of the site is now running on the same platform as the originally Hemnet (residential listings). Very much the same functionality and also linking between them. Actually, just one way.

I guess just to keep the traffic down in the start. Otherwise, it will miss a lot of opportunities.

The business benefits

The aim with the service is clearly stated in the press release

"There is a clear need for a platform for commercial real estate in Hemnet auspices, which has been lacking. Today, if a company is looking for a property or space to rent it has to use a number of platforms to get an overview of the overall market. The ambition of Hemnet's investment in commercial properties and real estate - www.kommersiella.se - is to eventually offer a platform that gives speculators a fast, precise and reliable overview.

The commercial real estate brokers have long called for a pure business for commercial properties. When we rebuilt hemnet.se we took the opportunity and created a separate site for commercial premises and buildings, and we are delighted to now be able to launch, says Carl-Henrik Borg, president of Hemnet."

A press release that got a quick reply from Objektvision's CEO Marianne Olseryd via Twitter.

Objektvision is the largest (so far) listing service for commercial properties on sale and space to lease. In competition with services like Lokalnytt och Lokalguiden.

My thoughts

First of all, I'm delighted to see an initiative to bring better efficiency (using IT) to the process of selling a commercial property.

Secondly, I believe that Hemnet has a great opportunity to provide more traffic to those listings with an integration with their residential listing service. There are many high end buyers that interested in finding a (smaller) commercial property to invest in.

However, I was surprised to see that 'Hemnet Kommersiella' also will include space to lease. My thought is that in the longer run it is better to separate those two different markets. Especially if one is aiming for the 'real' commercial properties in a range above 100 million SEK (15 million US dollars).

Another, interesting fact is that, as far as I'm concerned, only registered commercial property brokers are allowed to post their listings on the site. With an extremely high market share in the residential field that is enough to be the biggest site. However, on the commercial side that number is lower, not to mention letting out space for lease, which in Sweden is done largely directly by the property owner.

Furthermore, the listings are imported from the two largest 'brokerage systems (CRM)' used commonly among residential brokers, but not that often among commercial brokers. To be successful there needs to be alternatives. On the other hand, the question is if the commercial brokers are eager to make all their larger listings 'public'. I doubt it.

To sum up, an interesting move with a lot of potential, but also some great challenges.

Kungsleden uses social media to create a better office product

2009-11-13T14:21:51Z

Kungsleden, a listed property company in Sweden, is displaying an innovative approach to interact with clients using social media.

An initiative that includes a dedicated site (www.lokalamojligheter.se), two Twitter accounts (@kungsleden and @mojligheter), Flickr account and a YouTube channel. Here is an article about the initiative at Resumé.

The new site

Focuses on how the office environment could be better.

One feature on the site is that one can add suggestions on how to make a better office product and then let people vote on those. (Very much like this famous example by Starbucks or Salesforce.) The highest ranked suggestion after 5 days is a central switch to turn off all lightnings in the office.

My thoughts...

I'm delighted to see a property company taking on new possibilities and give them a serious try. All of them will not work, but a least you have tried.

When it comes to property owners communicating to end users at an office it has always showed to be tricky since very few no which are the owners of 'their' office space'. On the other hand, there are millions of office workers that for sure have opinions about their physical work environment (another question if they find their way to this site).

Finally, I wish that Kungsleden gives this initiative a real try (And not just something a PR firm has convinced them to do.) Unfortunately, their start of Twitter use could have been better. 3 tweets at 2 accounts since the start 3 months ago isn't much of communication...

CEO at a large construction company starts blogging

2009-10-14T16:22:05Z

I'm impressed.
The CEO (Per-Ingemar Persson) at Veidekke Sweden, one of Swedens largest construction companies, has started to blog at http://per-ingemar.se/.

The first entry has the 'Why starting to blog?' (translated to english, using Google Translate). A highly relevant question if one start doing something that few (none?) others in the same position are doing.

Per-Ingemar says:

"... It is therefore particularly important to increase communication with both employees and suppliers in the sector and the customers we have been privileged to work with. Both by getting bring our thoughts and ideas but also to get feedback on how we can improve on to get satisfied customers and dedicated employees, and how we can become more attractive to our suppliers as partners. I think the blog is such an instrument that can serve these purposes."

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Augmented Reality Real Estate Valuations

2009-09-26T13:01:52Z

Joel Burslem who writes the blog Future or Real Estate Marketing has a great story about a French residential brokerage firm that has developed a valuation tool using augmented reality technology.

See the video here.
Looks great!

More on Augmented Reality

For further reading on the topic see an earlier post.

Fasticon launches a new HR web-service at Business Arena Real Estate

2009-09-22T05:08:24Z

It's not to common that a new IT system is launched at a Swedish real estate fair, but it happened at Business Arena Real Estate (a event with 1500 delegates in Stockholm on the 16-17th September).

The company

Fasticon, a leading management consulting firm for real estate companies on the Swedish market, has over the years increased their services in the area of Human Resources. For example, providing services for recruiting and replacement.

The solution

Their newest offering is 'FastiKompetens', a web-based system for competence management.

It has been developed in close partnership with StockholmsHem (a large municipality owned residential property company) over the last year.

The aim of the solution is to make it more visible, for both the employee and the management, what skills are present within the company, what is needed, the plan for training and a list of preferred courses.

Each employee has its own 'page' with the CV and competence plan.

The aim has been to create a system that both is easy to start using and specific for the the property industry. The technical development has been done by the IT consulting firm Sajtkonsulterna.

Next step

The system will go live at the first client on the 1st of October and the plan is to add new clients in the beginning of 2010.

Additional reading

Further reading, there is an article in Magasinet FastighetsSverige (2009, Nr 6), the press release and the site of Fasticon.