Reflections from Realcomm Europe 2009

Earlier this week I spent a couple of days in London attending the second Realcomm Europe event and meeting up with great people from the RE.net world.

First of all, congratulations to Jim Young and Howard Berger for putting this event together. I very much believe there is a need for such events. The 'IT-in-real-estate-industry' can't complain that no one sees the benefits of our solutions if we are not creating/supporting as many channels as possible to communicate our offers. It's like Christmas, if you don't give, you want receive. 

So the Realcomm team; it's we that say Thank You.

The size
There were some 140 people attending the conference, which of roughly half were from property companies. The rest were software suppliers, consultants and media. In addition there were some 10 exhibitors.

A rather small event considering that an IT-in-property-day in Sweden a few months ago also attracted some 100+ attendees. (Sweden is one 6th of UK in terms of population.)

The content
A challenge in organising an 'IT-in-the-real-estate-industry' event is that the area covers everything from Intelligent building to board room reports (including CRM, tenant reporting, marketing, property management, valuation, market information and so on). Which makes it extremely challening to put together a compelling set of presentations.

From my perspective the most interesting reflections of the day where;

'Boardroom quality dashboard online and update'
An interesting discussion took of regarding why the 'upper' management doesn't push the reporting to be more up to date than a paper report that has data that is maybe up to a month old. "Why not a screen with all the up to date data?".

The battle of an XML standard in the industry
The standard is there. Who is stopping it? The lack of interest from the clients or the software suppliers defending it's market shares? There seems to be some differences why it takes so long..

... but the banks will solve the standard issue
Stephen Spooner, Executive Chairman of PISCES, had a great presentation pointing out the current financial crisis will have "a number of regulations coming in" and "lenders need data to analyze the tenants". All this detailed data will then also be requested to be updated. In other words, "the lenders will push the evolution!".

Innovation... finally
The biggest innovation at the event didn't come from the presenters, but the organisers.

 At the final session, the Realcomm team gave out TurningPoint audience response system devices and ran a series of questions. That really sparked the conversations.

Great innovation!
Next year maybe the attendees will push it start using Twitter as a backchannel... Well, one day it happen. (Like for the standard format!) The residential brokers are already doing it.

Reflections from an IT & Property event in Stockholm

Last week I attended the third annual 'IT & Property' event in Stockholm arranged by Seminar Design. This is the third year (for coverage of 2007 and 2008.)

After a rather slow start, two years ago, this event is starting to take off. I was surprised by the energy at the event. (Even Though I would have preferred even more.) 

Some 130 people from 80 companies attended the conference. A majority of those where from state or municipality owned companies. Does it take a long term view in order to focus on the benefits of IT in real estate?

At the exhibition area a handful companies displayed their products. The one which caught my attention was Jetas Quality System.  Which "is a state-of-the-art, web based, real estate and property management and inspection tool. With a simple system of barcodes and a PDA you can maintain 100% control – no need for notebooks, bits of paper or Post-its." The service is used by, for example, IKEA and Jones Lang LaSalle.

Two reflections
What I bring with me from the event is mainly:

• "the systems need to talk to each other"
           A line that was heard repeatedly. In other words, the use of standards like
           the XML scheme from fi2 is going to increase the upcoming years.
     
• "It has to be easy to use"
           Simplicity and user friendly seems to be more important than advanced.

The best presentation
Among all the presentations there was one that stood out exceptionally; Sören Sandell, CTO at Vasakronan. One of the largest property companies in Sweden.  

Not only did he show the impressive Intranet they are using to simplify as many processes as possible with in the organisation. For example, most of the users of the Property Management system is using it through the interface of the Intranet.

However, the most impressive thing was the strategy they had to achieve it. The focus for any system development was;

1. user friendly                   "think Google"
2. well design                    "think Apple"
3. easy to administrate

At this point I was highly impressed (never ever heard something like this from any one in this industry). So when he then said that they were aggressive on eliminating the use of Excel spreadsheets in the organisation by adding easy to use functionality at the Intranet I started to applaud!

Thanks Sören for making my day.

RE.net event in London on the 4th march

Interested in technology and commercial real estate?
Then you have to visit the Realcomm events.  

Originally from the USA but has now grown to include events and tours all over the globe. In the beginning of March (4th) the Realcomm Europe 2009 will take place in London. You will find the brochure here.

        

Meet me in London
I'm really looking forward to the event. Especially since I wasn't able go the event in 2008 (which was the first Realcomm Europe event). This is THE event for IT in commercial real estate since Property Computer Show (PCS) has faded away and is now an 'agency event' focusing residential real estate.

Are you going to Realcomm in London?
Drop me a line and lets go for a beer/dinner.

Boligan wins prize at SIME

Boligan, the Danish real estate search engine that entered the Swedish market in August, looked this happy after receiving the SIME Award in category 'Best Internet Strategy'.

Congratulations to the price and keep up the great work!

SIME follow up

We didn't make it to the stage... but at least we made it to the screen at the largest Internet conference in Sweden. (Congratulations to Jaycut for beating us.)

Much has been written about the SIME event, like 1, 2 , 3 (in English), 4, 5 (in English), 6. and 7 (most comprehensive).

My reflections
This was my second SIME event and it's a conference that differs a lot from all other (real estate) events I attend every year. The SIME crew (and especially Ola) makes this more to show and entertainment. But one has to keep in mind that this is a media event focused on the Internet.

It's great to visit an event that has a different approach to Internet and gives you examples of the web that you haven't seen before. For example how the Swedish pop band Ace of Base is letting their fans alter their music and create videos on their site. They don't fight Internets implication on the music industry, they use it.

The best I take with me besides all the great meetings was the presentation by Japp Favler (Forrester) on 'Recession marketing'. Looks like a great knowledge for 2009....