More on design thinking

6 November 2023

Following on from my recent Interoperability, what is it good for? post, I was reminded of Design, Unleased: Workplaces. A brand new world. Human-centred design – all or nothing paper (2020) from Hoare Lea by Michelle Wang (now at Deloitte) and Stephen Wreford (now at HBT digital advisory). Stephen participated in a symposium-like event I conceived and curated last year at 22 Bishopsgate supported by Cisco and ne of the vendor partners (see here). It’s still the closest to the kind of design thinking I have been posting about that I have seen, and particularly how that helps plug the gap between the evolution of smart buidings from the bottom-up and top-down approaches I mentioned in my previous post.

Read more

Interoperability, what is it good for?

6 November 2023

Earlier this year I facilitated a retrofit-themed round table of developers, owners and operators at Cisco’s City of London HQ with help from author and ex-Arup Smart Building Consultant Jim Read. As a follow-up, we co-wrote an article about the talking points that had emerged for Smart Buildings Magazine you can read here. That was mostly framed around the role of retrofitting in the drive towards net zero, but also highlighted a key challenge that is a backdrop to this blog:

Read more

Net Zero Challenge?

3 November 2023

Earlier this year I facilitated a retrofit-themed round table with developers, owners and operators at Cisco’s City of London offices (see list of attendees and key themes discussed here). As part of the follow-up I co-wrote an article for Smart Buildings Magazine on Retrofitting buildings and the drive towards net zero. We quoted Matthew Marson from JLL Technologies, who pointed out that there is a tough challenge ahead when it comes to drive to net zero given the yearly energy consumption target of 55kWh per m2, when average is around 160 kWh and best in class around 110.

Read more

The transformation economy?

3 November 2023

As part of the research for the book on more strategic content marketing I co-wrote pre-pandemic, I spoke to Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore. They are the co-authors of the Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage (1999). Their business theory had been cited by a number of those I had spoken to about how the late Clayton Christensen’s jobs-to-be-done framework for better understanding customer behaviour might help join the dots between not only how to develop better and more innovative products, but also take them to market (see more here and here).

Read more

Deep dive design research and sensemaking?

2 November 2023

As part of my market engagement approach I use a more immersive form of what is called contextual enquiry in user-centred design. That’s part of putting of research back into marketing, and informed by design thinking and particularly deep dive design research methodology of innovation specialists IDEO. But I also use a version of the five-phase non-linear ‘sensemaking’ process used by the team at ReD Associates to help solve business problems:

Read more

Better together?

2 November 2023

Much of my most recent teaching on grad and post-grad courses has been looking at how Lean Startup thinking and tools are changing the way organisations ‘go-to-market‘ (GTM) and that being arguably a different approach to those based on more traditional marketing ‘fundamentals.’

Read more

Smart Building Enablement?

1 November 2023

This diagram was from an article on smart building enablement in Building Magazine by the teams at Alinea (now Turner & Townsend alinea) and Arup in 2019. It was one of the first I read as part of my ‘deep dive’ into this space and found it super helpful. Re-reading it, however, I’m reminded by the French expression plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (the more things change, the more the remain the same). That’s because the onward march of technology and evolving client needs means that what a smart building is for and why evolves. And that ‘why’ being very different depending on who you speak to among the ever increasing number of stakeholders involved.

Read more

A set of canvas tools?

1 November 2023

Before moving into the smart building space, I was chief advacocy officer for author, keynote speaker self-proclaimed ‘post-purpose’ preacher Thomas Kolster and his Goodvertising agency. That was also a ‘market engagement’ role , which included helping develop his online master class that accompanied his The Hero Trap: How to Win in a Post-Purpose Market by Putting People in Charge book from 2020 that I contributed to (you can get free digest version from here).

Read more

Smart Building Project Canvas?

31 October 2023

The folks at smart research analysts Memoori facilitated the collaboration with Vanti and LMG behind this Version 1 Smart Building Project Canvas above. What’s interesting about Vanti and LMG is that they are Master Systems Integrators (MSIs) that could be seen as being ‘The Application Providers’ from the 3 types of MSIs highlighted by Nexus Labs. That’s because both have a ‘platform’ although the difference between those highlights how platform might mean different things to different people. But that is one for another post.

Read more

Digital Building Iceberg?

31 October 2023

This diagram of the smart building tech stack is by Rob Huntington at emeseye (prounounced MSI, i.e. Master Systems Integrator). That gives an idea of where Rob is coming from. It is akin to the one from James Dice and his Nexus Labs community I shared earlier (see here), but is slightly more vertical and includes cybersecurity is another layer/important consideration. It also helps better explain what is going on in the data layer and what’s needed given all the different protocals being used – particularly by all the Operational Technology at the Connected Device Layer.

Read more
Newer Posts
Older Posts
About Me

I’m an author and market engagement specialist who helps joins the dots between research, innovation, go-to-market activation and business transformation around 3 core activities: content, connections and conversations. Connect with me on LinkedIn or get in touch there.