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.’
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.
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).
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.
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.
30 October 2023
Back in the mid-aughts, I hosted a podcast series as a follow-up to the Connecting Marketing book I co-wrote with Dr Paul Marsden. One of the themes I explored was ‘brand storytelling’ and that included speaking to Annette Simmons, author of Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, The Story Factor and growing list of other titles along similar lines (listen to Episode 1 and Episode 2).
29 October 2023
Not everything I post about on here is directly related to smart buildings. I have highlighted Gennaro Cuofano‘s 4 Week MBA site because I haven’t seen any similar Freemium resource guide/course in the smart building space. Nor his kind of ‘In a Nutshell’ explanations of key concepts, e.g. the Cloud as a Service (CaaS) Business Model In A Nutshell one highlighted in this post.
28 October 2023
Back in 2021 John Gleeson and Jonathan Treece (now at Barclays) from Arcadis presented their How Smart is Smart: a point in time session at the Smart Buildings Show that looked at how the increasing number of physical and digital accredition schemes for buildings were overwhelming investors with a logo war. That’s still arguably the case, but it was interesting to see how they bucketed those rating schemes into 3 categories:
27 October 2023
Before the pandemic I co-wrote a book with ex-Google brand planner turned academic Lazar Dzamic on Strategic Content Marketing. It followed on from a series of e-publications and events I curated supported by The Drum magazine and the leading trade and award bodies in advertising and marketing. The series looked at latest thinking and best practice in ‘branded content marketing’, running from 2013-17 and reaching an annual audience 450,000+. You can see some of the editions on Slideshare:
26 October 2023
I didn’t go to many of the conference sessions at the Smart Buildings Show this year because I was mostly there for the networking. But one of the few I did attend was the No Regrets – How Smart Buildings Are Valuable in Uncertain Times one by Matthew Marson from JLL Technologies. Matthew had kindly participated in the retrofit-themed panel I’d moderated the previous day, so I had some idea about what he’d be covering.
This blog is a (rapid) prototype for sharing my ‘sensemaking‘ from my ongoing market engagement activities in the Smart Buildings industry and PropTech more broadly. Find out more about me below.
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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 via the contact form.
