@SmallBizCIO:
A blog aimed at the SMB, written by a long time IT enthusiast turned IT professional.

"Jack of all trades, master of none,
Certainly better than a master of one"

These are my personal opinions.

  1.  

    What is Connected Real Estate and why should you care?

    Now that slowly, but surely, the term Connected Real Estate is getting more traction, I often get the question about what CRE is. While there are many definitions from different sides of the spectrum, they all have one thing in common: 

    First and foremost, Connected Real Estate defines that a complete real estate project is electronically connected to the outside world, which is most commonly done through a connection to the Internet. 

    Having a complete building, shopping mall or other type of community connected as a whole, instead of through individually managed and maintained connections, opens a whole new way of generating value.

    History

    Not too long ago, the various departments in a company were disconnected from each other, while many of them had access to overlapping pieces of information. Usually, departments like Operations, HR and finance relied on their own methods to keep track of employee information of the same employee, client or vendor. Business systems have added an enormous value by giving all departments access to all of the relevant information through one looking glass, instantly and accurately.

    Change..

    Now, this change is slowly permeating the Real Estate industry as well. Connected Real Estate makes is possible for building management systems such as HVAC, fire suppression, lighting and other MEP (Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing) systems to communicate - often about the same thing - and exchange important data points.

    The collection of these data points can be used with the same purposes as the data in any other business; to improve troubleshooting, increase productivity, bring down TCO and to lead to improvements that can be used on future projects.

    Rewards

    The rewards for this effort are exponential to the size and scale of the project. The energy footprint can be drastically decreased and changes to the way energy is managed can be made on an ongoing bases. If you think that turning off a single lamp, when nobody is in the room,  helps with the electric bill, imagine what controlling the thousands of lamps in (and around) a smart building could do for the operation cost.

    From this perspective, providing Internet services to the tenants of the building really seems a secondary benefit, but one with huge implications. So big even, that providers of services can be coached to provide their services at significantly lower rates or even, to make certain investments, creating a greater benefit for all parties involved.

    All, including mother Nature. We’re getting one step closer to be self sustaining.

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