Another post that is not really about PoE, but a reflection on how prompting a conversation about it might have provided a moment of clarity about role I could play having done so.

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I recently prompted a conversation about smart building technology deployment strategies that at times appeared to prompt a “Oh No It Isn’t – Oh Yes It Is” pantomime like back and forth, or at least on LinkedIn. That totally missed the point of my original post (see here and here) and ended up with me playing both agony aunt and punchbag to different stakeholders involved during facilitating the exchange (I hope among playing other more productive roles). This one is really a reflection on one way I go about looking at what is going on in the smart buildings technology space with this business model environment lens from the folks at lean startup specialists Strategyzer (see more in it here). As well as what I am seeing by using it, and how that has all the makings of an interesting panel discussion.

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This is another bookmark post, this time for my round-up in Smart Building Magazine (SBM) of the Why is Retrofit Not Taken More Seriously in the Climate Change Conversation? panel I curated and moderated at their Smart Buildings Show last month. It is third round-up in what could be seen as series on SBM about events I curated this year (see here). Rather than repeat the talking points from the previous ones I have tried to highlight those I think worth exploring further. Hopefully more news on that soon, probably in the New Year now, but in the meantime you can read the article on SBM here and the announcement on LinkedIn here that links to the participants.

My recent post on whether Power Over Ethernet (P0E) is all it is cracked up to be sparked what at times felt like a pantomime conversation (oh, no is it isn’t vs oh, yes it is). That included questioning my motivation for asking it along with lengthy character assassination and even whether my asking the question in the first place might all be a bit moot i.e., if the 5G Mesh product from Wirepas due for release next year comes to pass. That’s one to keep an eye on along with other 5G announcements next year, which gives me time to try and understand what problem 5G Mesh helps solve to add to a growing list of other homework from Brahm Lategan at the MiX consultancy e.g., Unified Name Space, N3uron industrial IoT system architectures, etc (hopefully more on these soon).

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I recently joined a PropTech WhatsApp group and asked what events they recommended and why, some of which I have included above along with others I have been to and have been recommended to me. I am not advocating any of them although I did moderate a panel as the Smart Buildings Show this year. I have highlighted them because of an observation I made in the WhatsApp group about how much ground PropTech covers including if and how lines blur with related areas like WorkTech, as well as if some are sub-sets, e.g. ConTech and Smart Buildings technologies.

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I think one of the first Smart Building events I attended was at Cisco’s Bedfont Lakes HQ. It wasn’t that long ago and I remember the buildings there being more sparsely occupied compared to those shown in presentations by the hosts. Since then I have seen a fair few more from them including at events I have curated (see here and here), at Smart Buildings Show and elsewhere. Personally, I have found them way too salesy and to paraphrase:

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Following my recent post on Accrediting Smart Building Solutions? I am bookmarking this diagram from a post by James Dice from Nexus Labs on LinkedIn (see here). It is not exactly the kind of ‘map’ I am talking about (see here), but I think he does at least explain the problem he thinks his market place helps solve, i.e. the gap between buyers and sellers of smart building technology that he discussed in a follow post (see here). There is another one that Matthew Marson pointed out in this column for Smart Buildings Magazine back in September when he asked Do we have an honesty problem? That’s about vendors over claiming the capabilities of their solutions and/or overstating their contribution to the deployment of smart assets. What is not clear about the Nexus Labs market place is how that ‘promise gap’ is evaluated/verified/etc. Having co-written 2 books about modern marketing and judged a number of content marketing awards, I would also say there is a bigger problem and that is how badly vendors communicate who they are, what they do and why it matters. Check out this previous post on Better and more strategic marketing communications? where header graphic probably better describes most of the marcoms I see in smart buildings space.

The folks at independent PropTech consultants Trustek posted the above graphic today on LinkedIn (see here), as part of promoting their Verified Market Place. Their former head of strategy, innovation and ESG Katie Whipp participated in one of the panel sessions I curated and moderated as part of Simmtronic Lighting Control Summer Series of events to celebrate their 30th Anniversary (see here). She’s recently moved to head up partnerships at BMS optimisation specialists REsustain but will remain a non-exec of Trustek. I mention this because I have spoken to Trustek team about their Market Place because I am fascinated to know if they have a matrix or framework that the technologies they verified get plotted on to. I don’t mean a rating framework not the kind of ranking that Unissu have done (see here), but more along the lines of what problems they think solutions help solve (i.e. jobs-to-be-done) and/or how they see the technology sliced and diced along the lines of what Scott Brinker has been doing in MarTech (see more here).

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This framework for ‘New Construction Whole Life Cycle Carbon’ was presented by Rishika Shroff and Hesham Ahmad at sustainability consultancy Eight Versa in their article on The Rebuild vs. Refurbish Conundrum. As they point out, 85% of building stock in the UK was constructed before 1990s and a large number of these fall short on current energy performance standards. And that leaves the two choices they highlight:

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Another day, another protech map. This time of the New Zealand market by Sam Stewart behind proptechmap.io and you can see what’s new and the full list that’s also tagged in the comments of his post on LinkedIn (see here). It’s another one I’m bookmarking for being along similar lines of what I think is needed for the smart building technology landscape (see more here).