As we pass into the next decade let's review our clouded reinvention that includes Information, Integration, and Transformation.  There has been much discussion during the last 12 months in our online magazine.  In the coming decade we will pass into our 12th year online.  Our original rambling in articles and interviews about how the web would weave around us and take control of our future are still well read today. As far reaching as those predication and hallucinations were several years ago I  feel the cloud and our reinvention within are similar fodder that will be read for the next 10 years plus. I have included a quick review of our themes for each month of 2009 plus the content our readers have read the most.   

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January Continuing the Countdown to Chicago I feel that the ASHRAE winter meeting and AHR Expo event will mark the start of the real reinvention of our Building Automation industry. Reinvention is necessary not because we want to, but because we have to. The present financial times are rapidly redefining what is sustainable and what is not and Building Automation in its present form is not achieving anywhere close to its potential. Typical heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems are 50% efficient compared to fully integrated systems.  Source:  U.S. Green Building Council, Cisco Systems, The Hartman Co.

Nine Predictions for Smart Buildings in 2009
OpenLynx: Open Source Software
Smart Buildings meet the Smart Grid
What is Niagara Video?
Automated Demand Response 

February  A Reflection on our Reinvention I am pleased to provide a reflection on our reinvention. The scope of our industry is rapidly changing and fuelling our reinvention as our buildings become a major interactive load on the national smart electrical grid. The definition of what is included as part of Building Automation grows daily.  We are an industry which is growing taller in public profile, wider in our reach of technologies touched, and deeper in data connectivity.

 Robots in Every Building?
 Connected Real Estate
Control Valves – Sizing & Selection
Connected Real Estate “LEEDs” to Sustainability

March nurturing our networks Whether social or physical our evolving networks require our closest attention and need to be carefully nurtured to grow strong while incorporating every sustainable future possibility.

Connecting BACnet Devices to an IP Infrastructure
Sustainable Design of Building Automation Systems
A Facility Dashboard for the Rest of Us
The Smart Grid: Opportunities and Challenges
Energy Interoperability Standards
Ultra High Performance HVAC
ZigBee Resource Guide 

April B the U in YoungEnergy.org  Our April issue builds on March's theme of nurturing our personal networks by calling the young to our industry with all of us becoming the “you” in the newly formed industry collaboration called www.youngenergy.org 

The daily mindless mass migration of people to places is over. Only connected people and collaborative services and products will survive by connecting to the web of the future. As our industry reinvents itself, and we become totally connected to the enterprise and smart grid, we need an injection of new ideas from folks with web based thinking to quickly propel us forward. YoungEnergy will create a network of leaders that will influence the design and implementation of our future. The complexity of the BA industry can be greatly simplified with web services, SaaS, and browser presentations.  We need to reach out to those that have grown up with the web and cell phones, who see no other way, to help us grow. The complexities of our industry reside with us, but the reinvention and representation of our future resides with the teams we build with YoungEnergy. As our readers and the Building Automation Industry in general will you please support us in becoming the “you” in YoungEnergy? Become a mentor bringing the young into our industry.

 LEED 2009 and Building Automation Systems
Commissioning An Intelligent Building
New Current Sensing Ideas
OPC - SCADA - signage - youtube - EPRI

[an error occurred while processing this directive] May  The Reinvention Convention - http://www.connectivityweek.com  Although I did not invent Building Automation, I was there when it happened. I saw hardwired logic machines give way to mini computers with dumb panels. In 1975 I was involved with a evolutionary, possibly the first distributed computerized Direct Digital Control system for a large University Campus. So I am extremely pleased to go to the silicon valley as a reinvented digital dinosaur and be part of the Reinvention Convention for Building Automation and beyond.

BIMSTORM® Processes Guide Smart Grid Planning
Green Intelligent Buildings… what next?
SGIX - Smart Grid Information Exchange
Reinvention Convention Comes to Silicon Valley
Reinventing Building Automation 

June  The Power of the People  The theme of our June issue "The Power of the People" refers to the ability of people to create change as well as the fact that electrical power, which only a few years ago seemed to be the property of the utilities, is now perceived to be the power of the people. The Power of the People is positioned to create radical change in our industry.  This is fueled by our need for sustainable buildings, plus the rapidly evolving smart grid with its need for clean energy, and the availability of innovative people from a down turned economy encouraged by the governments created by the people.

 Future of Building Automation
Conversation-Intelligent Buildings & Smart Energy
The Green Building Power Forum
Energy Efficiency in Buildings Recommissioning

July  The Clouds of Convergence & Connectivity   I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow, It’s cloud illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all. From Joni Mitchell a Canadian musician, songwriter's song "Both Sides Now".

There are clouds on the horizon and I am excited. The summation of  My Takeaways from ConnectivityWeek in Santa Clara was that Clouds are OK. In fact the power of the data clouds and cloud computing to simplify the presentation and management of extreme amounts of data are truly amazing. We all already use these concepts every time we book air travel online or view Google Earth.

If you have never seen a BIMstorm or allowed your mind to enter the clouds here is a sneak preview of what you have been missing BIMStorm® brings Cloud Computing

My Takeaways from ConnectivityWeek
Cisco's Mediator
Intelligent Buildings talk to the Smart Grid
BAS Graphics
Ember’s Next Generation ZigBee SoCs
Utility Demand Response Programs
Social Networking & M2M
Short Fuse and the Road Map

August  Building Cloud Connections   When we started AutomatedBuildings.com we joked that our purpose was to "join the dots" of our Building Automation industry...the dot coms, the dot org etc . Eleven years later all these connected dots to our web site have led to the new focus of building cloud connections. 

The cloud contains Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') . Our new mission is to expose how the dot com & org are using the cloud to provide their products and services. The identification and use of these valuable industry cloud connectors is essential to propel our industry forward at warp speed so it can radically change to survive.

Automated Continuous Commissioning
Drilling for Dollars
Distributed Energy Resources and Storage
Airflow Monitoring
Building Automation and the Cloud
A Clean Interface to all Information
Cisco Network Building Mediator
Integrating Lighting and Building Control

September “with our feet on the ground and our heads in the cloud”  Our last few issues have been pointed toward the cloud and all of its power and how this will revolutionize our industry. It is very important that while we understand our new found powers that we keep our feet on the ground and connect this cloud to real applications and real people. Once you get it and start bantering with your fellow "cloudys" you will find that when you talk to normal folks (your clients) whose heads are not clouded you talk funny.....real funny. Take the time to explain how the connections to the concepts of SaaS, ACC, Smart Grid etc are affordable and real. Do not speak in AAA's ( Annoying Arrogant Acronyms) share your decoder ring with your audience and try to speak English the best you can. We are all ambassadors from the cloud and our future depends on our ability to walk in with our feet on the ground and talk about successes and working examples of cloud connections.

In Gordon Holness', presidential address to ASHRAE members "Sustaining Our Future By Rebuilding Our Past" which deals with Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings he states in his conclusion; "We need to remind ourselves that today we are in a virtual world. We are in the era of iPhones and Yahoo, of Google Earth and Wikipedia, of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. If we want to continue to be leaders in this industry, we must deliver the goods today, Tomorrow is not good enough." Gordon' s background in Building Information Modeling BIM and Interoperability has provided him great insight into the power of the future to solve the problems of the past. Change is everywhere and Tomorrow is not good enough.

Energy Dashboards Inform and Educate
BACnet … from the Outside In
Energy Storage
Wailing of Wireless Woes

[an error occurred while processing this directive] October  Information, Integration, and Transformation  All the articles, interviews and columns in this month's issue reverberate our theme “Information, Integration, and Transformation” which was taken from Rick Huijbregts, Vice President, Vertical Industries Cisco Canada article   The Real Value of Building Information, Integration and Transformation, that speaks of how Collaboration and communication has been re-defined, and video and mobility are some of the key instigators. Be sure to watch the youtube on this. Also I am very pleased with this comment. "Please keep reading our contributions to AutomatedBuildings.com as we explore the transformation of real estate over IP-based building networks."

Ebb and Flow of Lighting
Proactive Building Management Automation
Building Information, Integration & Transformation
The Niagara Framework® and Energy
Smart Buildings Meet the Smart Grid
State of the Electronic Cable Industry
Successful Buildings under Control™

November   Measure, Map & Manage   Our theme for November summarizes how our industry is now Measuring and sensing almost everything and then Mapping to graphical representations to developing strategies for Managing from anywhere anytime. To make this happen we need to lower the cost of sensors and their installation and increase their reach, improve our presentation models while looking to the cloud for better low cost management.

What is "Smart City"?
Energy Reporting
The Business Case for Submetering
Integrating BAS’s To Everything All The Time?
OPC UA Explained
Web Based Customer Communications
Small standards for small things

December   AHR Expo Preview  This issue provides a preview of our advertisers/sponsors and the building automation industry's involvement at this year's AHR Expo. This is our 11th consecutive year of providing free education sessions at AHR Expo and our December Preview issue has become a tradition. We will keep the preview going in our January issue with late breaking news right up to show time.