Another busy month which included preparing for AHR Expo 2007 Dallas while getting the February issue online. Lots of excitement in the air as what we have all been talking about for several years appears to be coming together rapidly.

Jim Sinopoli PE, RCDD, Managing Principal, Sinopoli and Associates has been a significant contributor to our magazine over the last few months and we look forward to having him contribute on a regular basis.  Be sure to read this month's article Specifying Integrated Technology Systems in a Fragmented World  “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” - Steve Jobs, 2003  and subscribe to his newsletter reviewed in this month's Smart Buildings - WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT POWER OVER ETHERNET.

Richard Munson, Executive Director, Northeast-Midwest Institute provides great GridWeek insight with his Modernizing the Grid.  Today’s average generating plant was built in 1964 using technology from the 1950s. Utilities have not improved their delivered efficiency in some 50 years, be sure you read this prologue to GridWeek.

Terry Hoffmann, Johnson Controls, Inc. provides a response to the November article by Paul Ehrlich, P.E. Building Intelligence Group Help Wanted: Building Systems Architect in this month's Technology Contracting – The Future Is Now. I've received a lot of feedback on Paul's article with most suggesting that the word architect needs to change but all agreeing, including Terry, with the need for this service.

We welcome Lumisys® as our newest advertiser.  Lumisys® has been fulfilling building owner demands for a superior alternative to stand-alone lighting control since 1985 with lighting control that is built for integration. 

Lots of information and links in this issue use the menu on your left to explore.

We are back in North America now and focused on getting ready for AHR Expo in Dallas. Lots of interesting events brewing for AHR. Tom Lohner will chair a special meeting immediately following the IIBC meeting, to discuss the interest in forming a new "Intelligent Buildings" industry conference. This will start at 5 PM in Room D173 - Dallas Convention Center Tuesday, Jan 30, 2007 Read our November article THE Building Technology Conference for insight.

Tom's Lohner article has been countered this month by Anto Budiardjo who sees a need for an Industry Pow Wow. His article provides a scope of what this may include. I am sure that Tom and Anto's efforts will unlock many other opinions which we would love to share with our readers. I am personally still trying to sort out which convergence and connectivity pieces crossing our website will become a part of our reshaped industry.

I am very pleased with all the articles in this month's issue.   Tom Hartman provides a fourth article in a continuing series on achieving sustainability. I get to go to Sydney, Australia and learn more about connectivity control from the systems integrator, plus please welcome Jim Sinopoli PE, RCDD Principal Sinopoli and Associates a new author to our online resource and his article Coordinating the Design of Integrated Building Technology Systems.

Toby Considine brings us up to date in his interview on what is happening with oBIX

Also I get to plug a new book Web Based Enterprise Energy and BAS.

Of course lots of news; our RRS feed and News files now are only second to our home page in number of times accessed.

Lots of new products and interesting news in our AHR preview, so plan to spend some time with this month's issue.

As usual Lots of great Articles. Interviews, Reviews, New Products, and News

Our education sessions for AHRExpo 2007 Dallas have now been posted http://www.ahrexpo.com/education/. Note that also included on Tuesday at 11:00 am in room D161 is GridWise - Smart Energy Technology for Buildings and the Power Grid with our contributing editor Jack McGowan and friends.

I am also looking forward to being part of the Workshop in Dallas on Wednesday, January 31st “Building Intelligence Tour: Intelligent Building System Design”. A one day workshop focused on building owners, consulting engineers, suppliers, contractors and commissioning agents and the essentials of delivering the Intelligent Building. The event will include a keynote talk on the role of the Building Systems Architect and the importance of integrated design.

For insight read December's article Help Wanted: Building Systems Architect Paul Ehrlich, P.E.

Please join us for all these events if you make it to Dallas

We have been working on improving our web site by reorganizing how we handle the great number of news release we receive daily.  We now provide a News Feed ( Which Needs a RSS Feed Reader ) and have provided a New Our RSS news feed rendered into HTML

If you are like I was and do not know what RSS is RSS is a Web content syndication format.  The name is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Read here for more details http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss

We are slowly figuring it all out so bear with us as we install this new news service. Please share with us any suggestions you have to better use this approach and others to keep moving our web site forward to meet your needs. Our News Briefs are now handled as news feed items and archived for now in a similar format as before.

Tell our sponsors you saw their ad on the AutomatedBuildings.com web site and thank them for supporting your free access to evolving Automated Building Industry information. Click on their ads and view their valuable products and services. Please review all Our Sponsors. 

Be sure to check our event calendar to see the number events we have in our future.

As I always say, it is a great time to be in the news business for our industry. 

Send comments and suggestions to news@automatedbuildings.com

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