Here is the last posted monthly issue. September 2022 Connecting Community
This library archive is a work in progress, links are added and reviewed
| 2022 | ||
| January | “Defining You in 2022” | How you Adapt, Navigate, Embrace, Connected Virtually in 2022 will define you. |
| February | “Vegas Winds & Wins” | Our AHRExpo.com Show Issue |
| March | “Women Creating Amazing Opportunities“ | A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. |
| April | “Radical Reinvention Reconfiguration & Forced Evolution” | Our industry and others are immersed in immense change. The Communication of that Change is of the greatest importance and is fundamental to our forced evolution. |
| May | “Enabling Value by Improving Infrastructure“ | We all have collective technologies that help make buildings healthier, safer, securer, more efficient, and improve ESG |
| June | “Why AI?“ | We have gone past the ‘why do we need AI’ to ‘why we should participate in building AI |
| July | “ESG R Us“ | “ESG” related policies (Environmental Social and Governance)growing across all segments of the CRE industry. |
| August | “Preparing for AHRExpo 2023” | Help us curate the messages our industry wants to take to Atlanta. |
| September | “Connecting Communities” | Our industry’s rapid growth fragmented by social media needs to appear to the world as the story of the Combined Contexted Connection Industry. |
| 2021 | ||
| January | “Out of In…novation” | Our Future Reality – Real or Augmented & Artificially Intelligent? or a Covid-ized Hybrid? |
| February | Your New Vocation Building Automation | Whether you read “Building” as a verb or noun, investigate being part of our Building Automation Industry to satisfy your Curiosity, Passion, Innovation, Motivation, Location, and Edge-You-Cation. |
| March | Our Amazing Women Choose to Challenge | Be the Change from challenge comes change the IWD 2021 campaign theme. |
| April | “Adaptation” | What has 50 years in the industry taught me? The more I learn the less I know, but “Adaptation” is our survival superpower. |
| May | “Building Digital Family & Wireless Wave“ | Beyond Twins & Triplets, working with wireless wave our new connected family supports, shares, works, plays well with others. |
| June | “Pushing Digital Dinosaurs” | The theme is about the end of several eras and the beginning of new ones full of change |
| July | “Navigating Next New” | Discover what is the next new is and how we can best discover, understand, make it part of our next solution? |
| August | “Delivering Smarter Buildings” | Delivering smarter building is a challenge as the next new is now spanning over existing technologies creating bridges, sometimes off ramps to no where plus large gaps actually caverns that we can all get lost in |
| September | “Smarter Sustainability Decarbonization & Electrification“ | Our Smarter Sustainability journey refocuses our Industry Purpose and Why, while presenting an amazing opportunity for us to express to the world how we can make a difference and lead the transformation. |
| October | “National Cybersecurity Awareness Month” | Now in its 18th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month – observed every October, continues to be a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure both businesses and consumers are aware of the cybersecurity pitfalls and have the resources and knowledge to stay safer and more secure online. |
| November | “Creating Clarity” | Our success depends on bringing Clarity to the Complex |
| December | “Vetting Vegas “ | AHRExpo Vegas first F2F major event of 2022 |
| 2020 | ||
| January | Building Engagement Platforms + “Decarbonization” | Embracing the importance of the shift in smart city thinking and action in spite of National and International floundering started us on a journey of deep discussion of what “Decarbonization” and our Climate Emergency means to our industry? |
| February | “Born Again Connected“ | To catch sail in today’s winds you need to “Get Out of Your Head” and imagine what being “Born Again Connected” might mean? |
| March | “Our Industries’ Amazing Women“ | March is Women’s History Month and March 8th is International Women’s Day. Take this time to recognize the women in our industry. Thank them for their hard work, and ask how you can help support them and get more women in the industry. |
| April | Wake up to Wireless Ways | lead our Conversations/Talking to tell of “Today’s Tools” which are so much more than hardware and hammers. We need to stop hammering out our old way solutions and nail a new understanding of our today’s toolset and how we can best use them |
| May | “Global Reboot – Adopting Adaption” | Being resilient and making people count while Adopting Adaption needs to be part of our “Global Reboot ” returning from the COVID 19 Pandemic. |
| June | “Researching & Reinventing Not Normal“ | Our June issue includes many great articles/columns , interviews and reviews about how COVID-19 is changing everything in our world creating our Not Normal. |
| July | “Enlightenment of our Renaissance.“ | Reinvention, Rebirth, Renaissance the word Renaissance delineates the significant, positive break with the old and issues a welcome to the new era. What follows a Renaissance? Enlightenment, a process we are working through now to make not normal the new normal. |
| August | “Building Communities of Trust“ | The task of building communities of trust has been an ongoing journey for our industry. Some one just identified our present web site as the pioneering online magazine that containing our industries heritage. |
| September | Combining Collaborating Communities Competencies + Edge-You-Cation | “Changing Control Freaks to Scrum Masters” |
| October | “Is Your Building Cybersecure?” | Data, privacy, the cloud and security in this age of hyper-connectivity |
| November | Navigating Never Never with Mr Linkair | http://automatedbuildings.com/ was started in 1999 before blogging was a thing, we called it an online magazine or emagazine. |
| December | “Requesting Innovation” | Requesting Innovation Create your “Request for Proposal for Innovation” Innovation is a timeless ingredient, a necessary part of our successful transformation, needed now more than ever. |
| 2019 | ||
| January | “Open 2019 Editorial“ | “Open 2019” is mostly about opening our minds to the Edge of Change that is upon us. |
| February | “The Dawn of Disruption“ | The Dawn of Disruption Just back from a kaleidoscope of future peeks into the Dawn of Disruption and its’ Emotions @AHREXPO 2019 Atlanta. |
| March | “Automated Intelligence with Autonomous Interactions“ | The term “AI” “Artificial Intelligence” seems to be troweled on top of everything these days. But I feel we all are a long way from its true definition. |
| April | Holistic Cybersecurity | https://www.automatedbuildings.com/news/apr19/articles2104.html |
| May | Connecting Creative Communities | The people and their communities have staying power; the technology does not. |
| June | You Do Not Know What You Do Not Know | You Know what you know, You know what you do not know, but You do not know what You do not know? Profound words that describe our journey of digital transformation very well. |
| July | Recalibrate for 2020 Vision | We need to recalibrate while preparing for the next decade 2020, when we said the world would change, it will but we need to make it happen now |
| August | Our Education Emergency | The amount we need to learn and the speed at which we need to learn it is unprecedented. Our unparalleled requirement for rapid, deep learning and understanding is driven by simultaneous conversion of everything to an IoT world which is now further fueled by our de-carbonizing emergency supported by several major smart cities having declared a climate emergency plus our immediate need to Recalibrate for 2020 Vision. |
| September | Building Backbones and Wireless Skin | Our internet communication connections with everything are under metamorphic change. They are morphing before our eyes to glass and thin air, “Fiber” and “Wireless” from the traditional miles of copper wire. |
| October | Building User Connection in the Smart City | We need to explore how to make the building user experience (UX) seamless and amazing in our buildings and smart cities. |
| November | Sharing Data, Work-Space, Interaction, & Integration | Sharing data is expected and we all are asking questions like: How do we monetize our Building Data to attract and interact? How do we create greater value from our data? (our new money) |
| December | Building Wireless Inside Out | Wireless connectivity – We can not see it, feel it, hear it, smell it, touch it, but when it is not available, we are not available and our productivity is immobilized, we will move toward a source of better connectivity. |
| 2018 | ||
| January | The Face of Digital Transformation 2018 | We are all involved in today’s digital transformation and have an amazing opportunity to create a new softer mindfulness face for the greater good. This month’s issue talks about how we can improve our image as we digitally transform and inspires us all to envision what the world will see when we pull the string on our transformation mask to expose our new inner selves to the world. |
| February | “Building Brains“ | AI is the Brain, IoT the Body speaking with the Face and Voice of Digital Transformation.In our February issue “Building Brains” Building is used both as a verb and a noun, which makes you read each reference twice to get both meanings. This issue explores giving the face and the voice of digital tran sformation a brain. |
| March | “Transparency Transformation” | We have Open Software, Open Hardware; we just need to Open our Minds to Mindfully Build Better Bots.On our journey to people-powered buildings described in my never-ending stories, I have talked about “Building Whisperers” and “Building Better Building Bots” and in our September issue we conclude that the most important component of the open movement is opening our minds while growing younger. |
| April | “Meta-Morphing Mashup” | Ok here I go with yet Another Annoylng Alliteration, sorry I can not stop, but what is it all about? You will need to read my review Meta-Morphing Mashup for Self Creation to complete understand but here is the skinny. The Mashup is this ASHRAE’s BACnet Committee, Project Haystack and Brick Schema Collaborating to Provide Unified Data Semantic Modeling Solution |
| May | “Humanistic Digital Inclusion” | We need to use all our new found digital technologies to help us “Look, Listen, Feel and Think before Reacting” creating Anticipatory Humanistic Buildings. What is Digital Inclusion? “Digital inclusion is the ability of individuals and groups to access and use information and communication technologies.” We need to build digitally inclusive communities for each of our buildings |
| June | “Building an Awesome UX“ | UX is User Experience and refers to a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a service. Whether you view the word Building as a noun or a verb, we as an industry need to create Awesome User Experiences. |
| July | “Building Emotion“ | “Emotion” is the noun used to describe the creation and depiction of a mindful interactive relationship that conveys the conversation between the inhabitants and their physical building. It is a virtual identity, a feeling, a learning. an interactive piece, a virtual brick, and mortar that hosts the buildings’ emotion. “Building” is the verb or noun that modifies it. |
| August | “Building Whisperers” | What are Building Whisperers? Those who adopt a sympathetic view of the motives, needs, and desires of the Building’s relationship with its humanistic purpose based on rapidly evolving views and understandings. What is the process of creating or Building Whisperers? We need to clearly educated and inform our industry practitioners of the art of humanizing our building relationships. We all need to engage in the discussion of change while learning how to whisper building emotion. |
| September | “Building Better Bots Mindful and Open“ | We have Open Software, Open Hardware; we just need to Open our Minds to Mindfully Build Better Bots.On our journey to people-powered buildings described in my never-ending stories, I have talked about “Building Whisperers” and “Building Better Building Bots” and in our September issue we conclude that the most important component of the open movement is opening our minds while growing younger. |
| October | “Edge-You-Cation” | I am always playing with words when I can not find the words to express myself I create my own. Here is another one Edge-ification, the process of moving intelligence and control to the Edge. |
| November | “Edge-ifcation“ | Our November issue speaks to and is a mash up of these next two chapters of our digital transformation “Edge-ifcation” Meets Maker Movement and “Edge-ifcation” Moving the murky muddled middle to the Edge. |
| December | The “Edge of Change” | The edge of building emotion, changing collaborative connection communities, and their Edge-ifcation in the Era of Connection. Please join in the discussion by giving this month’s articles, interviews, and reviews a quick read to help understand the Edge of Change. |
| 2017 | ||
| January | “Our Assets are People, not Technology.” | I have been sensing some, Oh no! the IoT sky / cloud is falling on us. It hit me on the head, so I know it must be so, – says Chicken Little. It is so heavy we all shall be crushed or displaced or outsourced. (Big smile.) So I felt the necessity of pushing the focus back on the people of our industry, our only true assets, and putting them on the watch for Foxey Loxey in our new year of incredible opportunities 2017. Happy New Year! |
| February | Productivity & Satisfaction Deployment | Satisfaction and Productivity of corporate assets, “their people,” is an ongoing dynamic survey of human cognition’s that is creating new performance metrics from the data from our buildings. We are all struggling to develop mushy measurement methods of cognitions of well-being, satisfaction, stress, innovation and contribution to corporate purpose. Of course, comfort both temperature and lighting need to be provided as basic services with expected energy efficiency. |
| March | “Engaging Satisfaction & Wellness.” | I am in awe of the power bestowed upon us and our potential as an industry to have a significant impact on the wellness and overall satisfaction of the occupants of our automated, connected, smart, living, buildings. Increasing satisfaction and wellness by engagement means creating a dialog path that flows both ways and is a giant first step for our industry’s entry into the productivity puzzle and its lucrative paybacks. |
| April | In Search of the “Make Me Happy Button” Claiming our Piece of the Productivity Puzzle | Our industry’s wagons are circling the productivity puzzle and its lucrative paybacks as we all explore how our new “IoT” presences will provide more than Energy and Operating savings for our clients and allow us to morph to Occupant Happiness. |
| May | “The Uberization of Comfort, Satisfaction, and Wellbeing“ | The fastest growing businesses in the world, such as Uber and Airbnb, using tools like disintermediation and price transparency, create a marketing model that brings buyers and sellers together in an efficient, regulated and innovative manner. |
| June | “Sensing the Change” | “Sensing the Change” is a double entendre, a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in two ways, having a double meaning.”Sensing the change while changing our sensing. Are we fully sensing the change IoT is bringing to our industry? Keep reading to get a sense of industry reaction and interaction. |
| July | “Building Health” | Is “Building” a noun or a verb? Yes!, both. “Building Health.” is a topic that is going to dominate our future and the activating process of “Building Health” in our buildings is something we all need to do, talk about, and share/communicate with our building occupants, so it becomes the biggest part of the Happiness, Satisfaction, and Productivity puzzle. |
| August | “Autonomous Actions on the Intelligent Edge“ | Powerful low-cost edge controllers using open source software are changing the industry landscape. Intelligent Edge Computing changes machine learning’s location bringing more power with an autonomous personality even closer to the edge while providing the foundation for a decentralized architecture creating machine distributed collaboration. |
| September | “Getting There from Here” | How does the building automation industry make the transformation that it needs to undergo? This “Getting there from here” discussion deals with the shift in thinking and action that we all have to make in order to deal with the rapid change that is upon us. Our August Autonomous Actions on the Intelligent Edge discussions in addition to our theme for AHRExpo Chicago education sessions, The Future of Building Automation – ” Data at the Open Intelligent Edge” have identified an immediate problem in our industry of how the transformation we all must make will occur. |
| October | “People Powered Transformation“ | All of us are engaging in a transformation for the greater good. People-Powered Transformation will occur when and as fast as we allow it, but only when all the people it touches embrace that coming change. We need to engage with our future. We need to unlearn and rethink our vast experiences. We need to revisit our preconceived notions of what can and cannot be changed. |
| November | “Agile Adaptive Autodidactic Autonomous Accepted Actions“ | We need to embrace these six words and make them part of the IoT journey we all are on. Let me explain and better define this collection of Six “A” words that are part of our transformation. |
| December | “Are You – I o T Ready? #RUIoTReady“ | The catchphrase, R U – IoT Ready? has raised some interesting questions and responses such as, What is IoT? Why should I care? and What does “Ready” really mean? What is IoT? The Internet of Things refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for Internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. I will add to this definition “for Human-Centric Solutions.” |
| 2016 | ||
| January | The Way Forward from Paris is Via Automated M&V | Investment dollars to transform commercial building energy wasters into high performers are there, but won’t be tapped until bankers are confident in the measurement and verification of savings. – Therese Sullivan, Principal, BuildingContext Ltd |
| February | Making it Mashable | Our Role in the Transformation of Building Automation It is not the amazing IoT technological changes that are the focus of our discussions; it is how we as an industry of self-learning assets embrace and connect these change |
| March | Project-Haystack Open for Mashing | Introducing Project-Haystack’s new e-zine “Connections” Haystack is an open source initiative to streamline working with data from the Internet of Things and is evolving as one of the preferred mash up tools for our industry. |
| April | IoT Disruption Transforms and Opens | Our April issue theme is “IoT Disruption Transforms and Opens Industry”Transforming and Opening the Industry is a journey, not a destination, and will require consistent and constant attention.Our contributing editor Therese has described our April issue as something about open source being a friction-reducer mixed into the IoT/Smart Building super collider,……very descriptive for sure. |
| May | “Our Open IoT Centric Future“ | May “Our Open IoT Centric Future” The times they are a changing with the transfer of ownership of our two largest Canadian independent control companies Delta Controls & DISTECH plus European LOYTEC Electronics GmbH and Australian Daintree Networks. That is a lot of global change happening in the last few months. |
| June | Measured Variables; Health, Wellbeing, & Productivity | New Measured Variables; Health, Wellbeing, & ProductivityCreating value in the $300 part of the “3-30-300” rule Our industry has always been about controlling measured variables, but in the past these have been the likes of temperature, pressure, flow, and other physical things. |
| July | Performance Software Evolves with Self Learning | July – Performance Software Evolving with Self Machine Learning. What is Performance Software? If you do not know you need to find out, because the market for Performance Software in Smart Buildings generated $12.72Bn in 2015, and will grow at a CAGR of 8.1% to $18.78Bn by 2020. It is made up of the below categories; |
| August | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers move control and data to the edge while still making both available to the cloud enabling self learning at the device and/or cloud or a hybrid of both. My five decades in the building automation industry have made it crystal clear that we are always moving towards or away from centralization and I love this month’s theme that sees us moving in both direction at the same time |
| September | “The Self Learning Edge Revolution” | The Edge Revolution coupled with machine learning will do what the DDC Revolution with programmed logic did to pneumatic control. Completely replacing an industry while providing a quantum leap in capabilities, connection, control and apparent simplification of everything. |
| October | When Evolution Turns to Revolution | Last month theme “The Self Learning Edge Revolution” has been well received and has started some very interesting discussions, online on social media, and off line in the coffee shops and back rooms of the industry. What are they talking about? Are we really poised for revolution? |
| November | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers | Our revolutionary themes for the last few months have led us to the importance of the open software movement as part of our journey. Truly Open Edge Software provides access to all data which fuels self-learning and enables unbridled creation for the new breed of makers that will marry our industry and IoT. |
| December | The IoT Future of Building Automation | Future automation will be a full embrace of IoT. Systems will be smarter, self-learning, edgy, innovative, and sophisticated. They will automatically configure and integrate new equipment so they can optimize themselves, self-manage and self-heal while reinventing purposeful, productive, desirable buildings and accommodation |
| 2015 | ||
| Jan 2015 | Autodidacticism | Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education is the act of teaching oneself about a subject or subjects in which one has had little to no formal education. This word accurately describes the how, why and what we have all self-learned in 2014, and what our focus for 2015 needs to be. |
| Feb 2015 | Growing our Only Asset our People | I just returned from a very successful AHRExpo in Chicago. Read my review of this record-breaking show of over 62,000 attendees, and 10 acres of exhibits, from over 130 countries. This all flies in the face of the digital world and the Internet of Things replacing good old face-to-face interaction and networking. So what was my takeaway from this massive show? People are our only asset, technology may come and go but at the core of the industry is the same people that have been there for years. |
| Mar 2015 | Creating Self-Learning Cultures | Creating Self-Learning Cultures How do we create them? How do we use them to increase the value of our only assets our people? Our February editorial Growing our only Asset our People How do we motivate them to be Curious?, Passionate? generated lots of interest and comments from the industry much of which was captured on social media. . |
| Apr 2015 | Attracting Self-Learning Assets | A continuing self-learning growth is the goal we all wish to achieve in our people assets and our company cultures because it is organic and natural but most of all sustainable. Unreasonable Optimism? This video epitomizes the intent of a self-learning culture at the Chicago Collaboratory as Andy McMillan, the president of BACnet International, gives some priceless advice to a young bright mind trying to make sense of our industry. |
| May 2015 | Becoming an Autodidactic Asset | Becoming an Autodidactic Asset. What am I talking about? Let me use Google to help explain and better define my obscure title. Becoming is the process of coming to be something; Autodidactic is a self-taught person; Asset is a useful or valuable thing, person, or quality. So our May theme is the process of coming to be a self-taught person who is a valuable thing. |
| Jun 2015 | Back from the Stack | Over the years we have been the part of many new start up communities and we simply love the feeling of unbridled optimism and willingness to donate to the cause that exists at events like this. The Haystack event showed us that this is the place where the community of automation and IoT professionals comes together to learn and share the latest techniques for connecting systems and using data to advance the efficiency of buildings, equipment systems and processes. |
| Jul 2015 | Finding Reality in a Virtual World | When we started AutomatedBuildings.com 17 years ago we created an online vehicle design to connect the reality of the large building automation industry to a virtual world the internet / web. Today the ease of publishing online allows anyone and everyone to post everywhere. We all are struggling with the blizzard of information and the actual reality within the variety of virtual formats. We all seek guidance and appreciate the sharing from our trusted people and sources to find clarity and even reality within all this virtuality. |
| Aug 2015 | Transformational Change our Mission Possible | Transformational change is the process of altering the basic elements of an organization’s culture, including the norms, values, and assumptions under which the organization functions. Getting some great comments directly, off the record and in articles / comments in our August issue about the “Transformational Change” that is happening to allow the Map of the possible. |
| Sep 2015 | Change Evolves from the Possible | I am extremely pleased with the industry support I am receiving helping me define “the possible of connected buildings” because this clear definition of the possible is helping us define the transformational changes we all need to make. Change is a slow process. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.” |
| Oct 2015 | Satisfaction + Well Being = Productivity | I am extremely pleased with the industry support I am receiving helping me define “the possible of connected buildings” because this clear definition of the possible is helping us define the transformational changes we all need to make. Change is a slow process. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.” |
| Nov 2015 | Our Connection Collection | Not sure that any of us could have projected the amount of things our buildings would be connected to and interact with. Today our understanding of the possibility of connection is much of the value we provide. As an industry, we need to start collecting, quantifying and qualifying all of the possible connections to our buildings. Our November issue provides a start but I would like all our readers to join in helping us build “Our Connection Collection” |
| Dec 2015 | Transformational Change for Automation | Very pleased to be doing our 17th year of Free Education Sessions at AHR Expo 2016 in Orlando. Pleased to be joined by several industry experts to help us all better understand the change upon us. Also extremely pleased that our industry is able through the voice and video of Control Trend’s Awards “CTA” to recognize AHR Expo’s amazing support. Be sure to read the other Ken’s CTA interview. Here is a snippet. |
| 2014 | ||
| Jan 2014 | Concurrent Collaboration | Happy New Year! Hang on tight because it is going to be a wild ride in a year of radical change for our industry. Be sure to read all the articles, predictions and takes on the changes for 2014 plus my views in the rear view mirror of 2013. Our January issue is themed “Concurrent Collaboration” and speaks to the power of concurrency inside the cloud and how it can propel us to new solutions at dizzy speeds in our journey to achieve the ultimate in collaborated converged products and services. |
| Feb 2014 | Mobile Collaboration | Mobile Collaboration that leverages the power of the cloud, coupled with Bring Your Own Device “BYOD” is our newest do-all power tool. Often in the presence of our legacy laptops we still reach for this handy mobile tool that seems to carry out our wishes quicker with a much more personalized interface. The millions of hours of development of mobile devices with the feedback of millions of users balancing device and cloud power is starting to show that its real collaborated power is greater than either device or cloud. |
| Mar 2014 | Ownership of the Collaboratory | Ownership of the Collaboratory In our education sessions in New York one clear component of every successful energy integration project was a team of champions who asserted ownership of the project’s collaborator. Another observation was that the projects were truly morphing into a dynamic collection of people, things, and internet interactions; a collaboratory not just a project. |
| Apr 2014 | Keeping the Cloud Open | If we are not clear on Keeping the Cloud Open there is a dark side, a concern of an evolving trend towards Proprietary Cloud. I grew up in the industry during the DDC revolution and saw the floundering of the early proprietary DDC systems that evolved quickly with amazing capabilities, but rapidly became obsolete and impossible to maintain. Several early DDC system companies failed and those that succeeded were liberated with the development of open protocols with total project integration and interaction with several vendors. |
| May 2014 | 15 Years in the Collaboratory | 15 years in the collaboratoryMay’s theme is our 15th-year anniversary issue. It has been a labour of love providing you with a new way to explore AutomatedBuildings.com. While we wallowed in the memories of the last 15 years it reminded Jane and I that this is not our story but the story of industry giants helping us create an online collaboratory of their powerful thoughts. |
| Jun 2014 | Our Industry’s Collaboratory at IBcon | Our June issue speaks to our Industry’s Collaboratory attending IBcon Vegas June 17-19. This is the event that will take us all to the next level of collaboration. I originally was focused on providing a preview to this event for our June issue but as we started to assemble the previews, articles, interviews, news releases, we met our AutomatedBuildings.com collaboratory on their way to their next great collaboration opportunity. All were full of new leading-edge ideas to share with this event based on their long experience in the industry. |
| Jul 2014 | “Our Assets R U” | I find it interesting that in the blur of technology at this year’s IBcon in Vegas; the largest gathering of authorities with international case studies on the topic of open architected, interoperable and integrated IP centric smart, connected, high performance and intelligent buildings, my biggest takeaway is that it is the people of our industry many of who are part of our AutomatedBuildings.com collaboratory are our cashable assets, not technology. |
| Aug 2014 | Working Together. Separately. | Although our August theme seems like an oxymoron the cloud enables us to “Work Together” while flexing our greatest resource our people, a group of individuals that separately create pieces that fit the cloud puzzle. I recently found clarity in the cloud and have started talking funny but now have a clearer vision of our future, a collaborative mosaic of our industry “Working Together, Separately”. |
| Sep 2014 | Education for Your Vocation | It seems natural that September should be our educational issue as most of our young folks are getting back to school. I like this old retro picture of the dinosaur student as it reminds us that there is a little dinosaur in us all and we need to keep at the task of self-education |
| Oct 2014 | Automated Diagnostics Analytics | We were looking for a theme for our October issue and we polled the industry about articles featuring occupant productivity and how our industry has an amazing interaction with productivity within a building. Although all agreed that this was very true and a very powerful relationship, the general feeling was we need to keep working on how to shape occupant productivity into a real measured variable for our industry before we can include it in our ROI payback calculation. |
| Nov 2014 | The “I of Me” of IoT | Your present IoT understanding, which I choose to whimsically call “The I of Me” greatly controls your comprehension and expectations of what those three letters might mean to you and those around you. The art, science, and social interaction of our time “The Internet of Things” (IoT), reflects life and is affecting all of our lives daily so get over it. You cannot go back, sorry…..smile. |
| Dec 2014 | Creating Your Collaboration | Our December theme “Creating your Collaboration” started with my puzzling with the process of how industry knowledge gets past on. AHRExpo is the annual event where we present our free education sessions to the industry. This is our 16th year of presenting these sessions and hosting the third annual Connection Community Collaboratory meeting. Online Collaboration is how today’s education occurs. |
| 2013 | ||
| Jan 2013 | Happy New “Era” | No it is not a spelling mistake, we wish you a Happy New Year, and we also wish you a “Happy New Era” We are rapidly entering a new Era in building automation that questions all we have done before. An era denotes clearly defined periods of time that which significant change occurs. |
| Feb 2013 | Humanizing Your Cloud | Your cloud provides a lofty anywhere, any device, view of you and your corporate’s connected services. We need to humanize its interaction reflecting our expertise and connections to reality. We all need to talk about how we plan to meet and interact in the cloud. Our combined expertise in getting data ready is the value we bring the cold heartless data cloud. |
| Mar 2013 | Platforms, Frameworks and Databases | Our March theme – Platforms, Frameworks, and Databases focuses on the fact that our industries’ connection communities have all converged at a similar place and point to the cloud. We all work with real time data or very fluid data and need to stabilize this slippery substance. The conclusion is we must store this data somewhere with a time freeze so we can analyze and visualize from anywhere by any device. |
| Apr 2013 | Events Evolve Everyone | Our April theme – Events Evolve Everyone was born from the chatter of many articles and interviews in this month’s issue speaking to the importance of upcoming industry events. One of the most important functions that these events provide is they provide deadlines to present new concepts, products and services. |
| May 2013 | Dynamic Data Fuels Deep Analytics | Our May Issue theme – “Dynamic Data Fuels Deep Analytics” speaks to the importance the next level of deep analytics of almost everything will have and how we as an industry will provide a new level of deeper analytics connecting inquiring minds to almost everything with low cost real time data. |
| Jun 2013 | Data Models Alter Industry Dynamics | Just returned from a first ever very successful Haystack Connect event in Chattanooga. What I learned is it is not just the naming of data but a consistent data model that allows us to free our data to a world of dynamic dimensions for our own purposes. No longer must data be predefined before use if an accurate self-discoverable model is present. This new way of viewing data allows us a new world in which data can be used in several different ways as a dynamic subset of many scenarios |
| Jul 2013 | Building Data Delivery | The new deliverable in our industry is data. Not that we are freed from providing our core deliverable of the best environmental control for the lowest possible energy use in a sustainable manner. It is just that we need to provide anywhere data to prove that we are achieving our original deliverable. Whether you use Building as a noun or a verb it is now all about Building Data Delivery. |
| Aug 2013 | Who R We? | Who R We? or Annoying Acronyms R Us is our August theme. It may be not so much Who R We? as what do we call ourselves? A lot of discussion by industry folks on various Linkedin groups about these names and acronyms. |
| Sep 2013 | Automatically Smart | Lots of focus on the term “Smart Buildings” and what that might mean. Albert Einstein gives us good advice; “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” He goes on “Creativity is intelligence having fun” & “imagination is more import than knowledge” my personal favourite “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” We need to think differently. |
| Oct 2013 | Build Bridges not Fences | Lots of focus on the term “Smart Buildings” and what that might mean. Albert Einstein gives us good advice; “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”He goes on “Creativity is intelligence having fun” & “imagination is more import than knowledge” And my personal favourite “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” We need to think differently. |
| Nov 2013 | Delivering Disruption | Delivering Disruption seems like an unlikely topic to speak to but it is exactly the business we all are in today as we provide new solutions that leap over and significantly change our existing marketplace. |
| Collaborating Convergence | ||
| 2022 | ||
| January | “Defining You in 2022” | How you Adapt, Navigate, Embrace, Connected Virtually in 2022 will define you. |
| February | “Vegas Winds & Wins” | Our AHRExpo.com Show Issue |
| March | “Women Creating Amazing Opportunities“ | A world that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. |
| April | “Radical Reinvention Reconfiguration & Forced Evolution” | Our industry and others are immersed in immense change. The Communication of that Change is of the greatest importance and is fundamental to our forced evolution. |
| May | “Enabling Value by Improving Infrastructure“ | We all have collective technologies that help make buildings healthier, safer, securer, more efficient, and improve ESG |
| June | “Why AI?“ | We have gone past the ‘why do we need AI’ to ‘why we should participate in building AI |
| July | “ESG R Us“ | “ESG” related policies (Environmental Social and Governance)growing across all segments of the CRE industry. |
| August | “Preparing for AHRExpo 2023” | Help us curate the messages our industry wants to take to Atlanta. |
| September | “Connecting Communities” | Our industry’s rapid growth fragmented by social media needs to appear to the world as the story of the Combined Contexted Connection Industry. |
| 2021 | ||
| January | “Out of In…novation” | Our Future Reality – Real or Augmented & Artificially Intelligent? or a Covid-ized Hybrid? |
| February | Your New Vocation Building Automation | Whether you read “Building” as a verb or noun, investigate being part of our Building Automation Industry to satisfy your Curiosity, Passion, Innovation, Motivation, Location, and Edge-You-Cation. |
| March | Our Amazing Women Choose to Challenge | Be the Change from challenge comes change the IWD 2021 campaign theme. |
| April | “Adaptation” | What has 50 years in the industry taught me? The more I learn the less I know, but “Adaptation” is our survival superpower. |
| May | “Building Digital Family & Wireless Wave“ | Beyond Twins & Triplets, working with wireless wave our new connected family supports, shares, works, plays well with others. |
| June | “Pushing Digital Dinosaurs” | The theme is about the end of several eras and the beginning of new ones full of change |
| July | “Navigating Next New” | Discover what is the next new is and how we can best discover, understand, make it part of our next solution? |
| August | “Delivering Smarter Buildings” | Delivering smarter building is a challenge as the next new is now spanning over existing technologies creating bridges, sometimes off ramps to no where plus large gaps actually caverns that we can all get lost in |
| September | “Smarter Sustainability Decarbonization & Electrification“ | Our Smarter Sustainability journey refocuses our Industry Purpose and Why, while presenting an amazing opportunity for us to express to the world how we can make a difference and lead the transformation. |
| October | “National Cybersecurity Awareness Month” | Now in its 18th year, Cybersecurity Awareness Month – observed every October, continues to be a collaborative effort between government and industry to ensure both businesses and consumers are aware of the cybersecurity pitfalls and have the resources and knowledge to stay safer and more secure online. |
| November | “Creating Clarity” | Our success depends on bringing Clarity to the Complex |
| December | “Vetting Vegas “ | AHRExpo Vegas first F2F major event of 2022 |
| 2020 | ||
| January | Building Engagement Platforms + “Decarbonization” | Embracing the importance of the shift in smart city thinking and action in spite of National and International floundering started us on a journey of deep discussion of what “Decarbonization” and our Climate Emergency means to our industry? |
| February | “Born Again Connected“ | To catch sail in today’s winds you need to “Get Out of Your Head” and imagine what being “Born Again Connected” might mean? |
| March | “Our Industries’ Amazing Women“ | March is Women’s History Month and March 8th is International Women’s Day. Take this time to recognize the women in our industry. Thank them for their hard work, and ask how you can help support them and get more women in the industry. |
| April | Wake up to Wireless Ways | lead our Conversations/Talking to tell of “Today’s Tools” which are so much more than hardware and hammers. We need to stop hammering out our old way solutions and nail a new understanding of our today’s toolset and how we can best use them |
| May | “Global Reboot – Adopting Adaption” | Being resilient and making people count while Adopting Adaption needs to be part of our “Global Reboot ” returning from the COVID 19 Pandemic. |
| June | “Researching & Reinventing Not Normal“ | Our June issue includes many great articles/columns , interviews and reviews about how COVID-19 is changing everything in our world creating our Not Normal. |
| July | “Enlightenment of our Renaissance.“ | Reinvention, Rebirth, Renaissance the word Renaissance delineates the significant, positive break with the old and issues a welcome to the new era. What follows a Renaissance? Enlightenment, a process we are working through now to make not normal the new normal. |
| August | “Building Communities of Trust“ | The task of building communities of trust has been an ongoing journey for our industry. Some one just identified our present web site as the pioneering online magazine that containing our industries heritage. |
| September | Combining Collaborating Communities Competencies + Edge-You-Cation | “Changing Control Freaks to Scrum Masters” |
| October | “Is Your Building Cybersecure?” | Data, privacy, the cloud and security in this age of hyper-connectivity |
| November | Navigating Never Never with Mr Linkair | http://automatedbuildings.com/ was started in 1999 before blogging was a thing, we called it an online magazine or emagazine. |
| December | “Requesting Innovation” | Requesting Innovation Create your “Request for Proposal for Innovation” Innovation is a timeless ingredient, a necessary part of our successful transformation, needed now more than ever. |
| 2019 | ||
| January | “Open 2019 Editorial“ | “Open 2019” is mostly about opening our minds to the Edge of Change that is upon us. |
| February | “The Dawn of Disruption“ | The Dawn of Disruption Just back from a kaleidoscope of future peeks into the Dawn of Disruption and its’ Emotions @AHREXPO 2019 Atlanta. |
| March | “Automated Intelligence with Autonomous Interactions“ | The term “AI” “Artificial Intelligence” seems to be troweled on top of everything these days. But I feel we all are a long way from its true definition. |
| April | Holistic Cybersecurity | https://www.automatedbuildings.com/news/apr19/articles2104.html |
| May | Connecting Creative Communities | The people and their communities have staying power; the technology does not. |
| June | You Do Not Know What You Do Not Know | You Know what you know, You know what you do not know, but You do not know what You do not know? Profound words that describe our journey of digital transformation very well. |
| July | Recalibrate for 2020 Vision | We need to recalibrate while preparing for the next decade 2020, when we said the world would change, it will but we need to make it happen now |
| August | Our Education Emergency | The amount we need to learn and the speed at which we need to learn it is unprecedented. Our unparalleled requirement for rapid, deep learning and understanding is driven by simultaneous conversion of everything to an IoT world which is now further fueled by our de-carbonizing emergency supported by several major smart cities having declared a climate emergency plus our immediate need to Recalibrate for 2020 Vision. |
| September | Building Backbones and Wireless Skin | Our internet communication connections with everything are under metamorphic change. They are morphing before our eyes to glass and thin air, “Fiber” and “Wireless” from the traditional miles of copper wire. |
| October | Building User Connection in the Smart City | We need to explore how to make the building user experience (UX) seamless and amazing in our buildings and smart cities. |
| November | Sharing Data, Work-Space, Interaction, & Integration | Sharing data is expected and we all are asking questions like: How do we monetize our Building Data to attract and interact? How do we create greater value from our data? (our new money) |
| December | Building Wireless Inside Out | Wireless connectivity – We can not see it, feel it, hear it, smell it, touch it, but when it is not available, we are not available and our productivity is immobilized, we will move toward a source of better connectivity. |
| 2018 | ||
| January | The Face of Digital Transformation 2018 | We are all involved in today’s digital transformation and have an amazing opportunity to create a new softer mindfulness face for the greater good. This month’s issue talks about how we can improve our image as we digitally transform and inspires us all to envision what the world will see when we pull the string on our transformation mask to expose our new inner selves to the world. |
| February | “Building Brains“ | AI is the Brain, IoT the Body speaking with the Face and Voice of Digital Transformation.In our February issue “Building Brains” Building is used both as a verb and a noun, which makes you read each reference twice to get both meanings. This issue explores giving the face and the voice of digital tran sformation a brain. |
| March | “Transparency Transformation” | We have Open Software, Open Hardware; we just need to Open our Minds to Mindfully Build Better Bots.On our journey to people-powered buildings described in my never-ending stories, I have talked about “Building Whisperers” and “Building Better Building Bots” and in our September issue we conclude that the most important component of the open movement is opening our minds while growing younger. |
| April | “Meta-Morphing Mashup” | Ok here I go with yet Another Annoylng Alliteration, sorry I can not stop, but what is it all about? You will need to read my review Meta-Morphing Mashup for Self Creation to complete understand but here is the skinny. The Mashup is this ASHRAE’s BACnet Committee, Project Haystack and Brick Schema Collaborating to Provide Unified Data Semantic Modeling Solution |
| May | “Humanistic Digital Inclusion” | We need to use all our new found digital technologies to help us “Look, Listen, Feel and Think before Reacting” creating Anticipatory Humanistic Buildings. What is Digital Inclusion? “Digital inclusion is the ability of individuals and groups to access and use information and communication technologies.” We need to build digitally inclusive communities for each of our buildings |
| June | “Building an Awesome UX“ | UX is User Experience and refers to a person’s emotions and attitudes about using a service. Whether you view the word Building as a noun or a verb, we as an industry need to create Awesome User Experiences. |
| July | “Building Emotion“ | “Emotion” is the noun used to describe the creation and depiction of a mindful interactive relationship that conveys the conversation between the inhabitants and their physical building. It is a virtual identity, a feeling, a learning. an interactive piece, a virtual brick, and mortar that hosts the buildings’ emotion. “Building” is the verb or noun that modifies it. |
| August | “Building Whisperers” | What are Building Whisperers? Those who adopt a sympathetic view of the motives, needs, and desires of the Building’s relationship with its humanistic purpose based on rapidly evolving views and understandings. What is the process of creating or Building Whisperers? We need to clearly educated and inform our industry practitioners of the art of humanizing our building relationships. We all need to engage in the discussion of change while learning how to whisper building emotion. |
| September | “Building Better Bots Mindful and Open“ | We have Open Software, Open Hardware; we just need to Open our Minds to Mindfully Build Better Bots.On our journey to people-powered buildings described in my never-ending stories, I have talked about “Building Whisperers” and “Building Better Building Bots” and in our September issue we conclude that the most important component of the open movement is opening our minds while growing younger. |
| October | “Edge-You-Cation” | I am always playing with words when I can not find the words to express myself I create my own. Here is another one Edge-ification, the process of moving intelligence and control to the Edge. |
| November | “Edge-ifcation“ | Our November issue speaks to and is a mash up of these next two chapters of our digital transformation “Edge-ifcation” Meets Maker Movement and “Edge-ifcation” Moving the murky muddled middle to the Edge. |
| December | The “Edge of Change” | The edge of building emotion, changing collaborative connection communities, and their Edge-ifcation in the Era of Connection. Please join in the discussion by giving this month’s articles, interviews, and reviews a quick read to help understand the Edge of Change. |
| 2017 | ||
| January | “Our Assets are People, not Technology.” | I have been sensing some, Oh no! the IoT sky / cloud is falling on us. It hit me on the head, so I know it must be so, – says Chicken Little. It is so heavy we all shall be crushed or displaced or outsourced. (Big smile.) So I felt the necessity of pushing the focus back on the people of our industry, our only true assets, and putting them on the watch for Foxey Loxey in our new year of incredible opportunities 2017. Happy New Year! |
| February | Productivity & Satisfaction Deployment | Satisfaction and Productivity of corporate assets, “their people,” is an ongoing dynamic survey of human cognition’s that is creating new performance metrics from the data from our buildings. We are all struggling to develop mushy measurement methods of cognitions of well-being, satisfaction, stress, innovation and contribution to corporate purpose. Of course, comfort both temperature and lighting need to be provided as basic services with expected energy efficiency. |
| March | “Engaging Satisfaction & Wellness.” | I am in awe of the power bestowed upon us and our potential as an industry to have a significant impact on the wellness and overall satisfaction of the occupants of our automated, connected, smart, living, buildings. Increasing satisfaction and wellness by engagement means creating a dialog path that flows both ways and is a giant first step for our industry’s entry into the productivity puzzle and its lucrative paybacks. |
| April | In Search of the “Make Me Happy Button” Claiming our Piece of the Productivity Puzzle | Our industry’s wagons are circling the productivity puzzle and its lucrative paybacks as we all explore how our new “IoT” presences will provide more than Energy and Operating savings for our clients and allow us to morph to Occupant Happiness. |
| May | “The Uberization of Comfort, Satisfaction, and Wellbeing“ | The fastest growing businesses in the world, such as Uber and Airbnb, using tools like disintermediation and price transparency, create a marketing model that brings buyers and sellers together in an efficient, regulated and innovative manner. |
| June | “Sensing the Change” | “Sensing the Change” is a double entendre, a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in two ways, having a double meaning.”Sensing the change while changing our sensing. Are we fully sensing the change IoT is bringing to our industry? Keep reading to get a sense of industry reaction and interaction. |
| July | “Building Health” | Is “Building” a noun or a verb? Yes!, both. “Building Health.” is a topic that is going to dominate our future and the activating process of “Building Health” in our buildings is something we all need to do, talk about, and share/communicate with our building occupants, so it becomes the biggest part of the Happiness, Satisfaction, and Productivity puzzle. |
| August | “Autonomous Actions on the Intelligent Edge“ | Powerful low-cost edge controllers using open source software are changing the industry landscape. Intelligent Edge Computing changes machine learning’s location bringing more power with an autonomous personality even closer to the edge while providing the foundation for a decentralized architecture creating machine distributed collaboration. |
| September | “Getting There from Here” | How does the building automation industry make the transformation that it needs to undergo? This “Getting there from here” discussion deals with the shift in thinking and action that we all have to make in order to deal with the rapid change that is upon us. Our August Autonomous Actions on the Intelligent Edge discussions in addition to our theme for AHRExpo Chicago education sessions, The Future of Building Automation – ” Data at the Open Intelligent Edge” have identified an immediate problem in our industry of how the transformation we all must make will occur. |
| October | “People Powered Transformation“ | All of us are engaging in a transformation for the greater good. People-Powered Transformation will occur when and as fast as we allow it, but only when all the people it touches embrace that coming change. We need to engage with our future. We need to unlearn and rethink our vast experiences. We need to revisit our preconceived notions of what can and cannot be changed. |
| November | “Agile Adaptive Autodidactic Autonomous Accepted Actions“ | We need to embrace these six words and make them part of the IoT journey we all are on. Let me explain and better define this collection of Six “A” words that are part of our transformation. |
| December | “Are You – I o T Ready? #RUIoTReady“ | The catchphrase, R U – IoT Ready? has raised some interesting questions and responses such as, What is IoT? Why should I care? and What does “Ready” really mean? What is IoT? The Internet of Things refers to the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature an IP address for Internet connectivity, and the communication that occurs between these objects and other Internet-enabled devices and systems. I will add to this definition “for Human-Centric Solutions.” |
| 2016 | ||
| January | The Way Forward from Paris is Via Automated M&V | Investment dollars to transform commercial building energy wasters into high performers are there, but won’t be tapped until bankers are confident in the measurement and verification of savings. – Therese Sullivan, Principal, BuildingContext Ltd |
| February | Making it Mashable | Our Role in the Transformation of Building Automation It is not the amazing IoT technological changes that are the focus of our discussions; it is how we as an industry of self-learning assets embrace and connect these change |
| March | Project-Haystack Open for Mashing | Introducing Project-Haystack’s new e-zine “Connections” Haystack is an open source initiative to streamline working with data from the Internet of Things and is evolving as one of the preferred mash up tools for our industry. |
| April | IoT Disruption Transforms and Opens | Our April issue theme is “IoT Disruption Transforms and Opens Industry”Transforming and Opening the Industry is a journey, not a destination, and will require consistent and constant attention.Our contributing editor Therese has described our April issue as something about open source being a friction-reducer mixed into the IoT/Smart Building super collider,……very descriptive for sure. |
| May | “Our Open IoT Centric Future“ | May “Our Open IoT Centric Future” The times they are a changing with the transfer of ownership of our two largest Canadian independent control companies Delta Controls & DISTECH plus European LOYTEC Electronics GmbH and Australian Daintree Networks. That is a lot of global change happening in the last few months. |
| June | Measured Variables; Health, Wellbeing, & Productivity | New Measured Variables; Health, Wellbeing, & ProductivityCreating value in the $300 part of the “3-30-300” rule Our industry has always been about controlling measured variables, but in the past these have been the likes of temperature, pressure, flow, and other physical things. |
| July | Performance Software Evolves with Self Learning | July – Performance Software Evolving with Self Machine Learning. What is Performance Software? If you do not know you need to find out, because the market for Performance Software in Smart Buildings generated $12.72Bn in 2015, and will grow at a CAGR of 8.1% to $18.78Bn by 2020. It is made up of the below categories; |
| August | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers move control and data to the edge while still making both available to the cloud enabling self learning at the device and/or cloud or a hybrid of both. My five decades in the building automation industry have made it crystal clear that we are always moving towards or away from centralization and I love this month’s theme that sees us moving in both direction at the same time |
| September | “The Self Learning Edge Revolution” | The Edge Revolution coupled with machine learning will do what the DDC Revolution with programmed logic did to pneumatic control. Completely replacing an industry while providing a quantum leap in capabilities, connection, control and apparent simplification of everything. |
| October | When Evolution Turns to Revolution | Last month theme “The Self Learning Edge Revolution” has been well received and has started some very interesting discussions, online on social media, and off line in the coffee shops and back rooms of the industry. What are they talking about? Are we really poised for revolution? |
| November | Low Cost Powerful Hybrid Edge Controllers | Our revolutionary themes for the last few months have led us to the importance of the open software movement as part of our journey. Truly Open Edge Software provides access to all data which fuels self-learning and enables unbridled creation for the new breed of makers that will marry our industry and IoT. |
| December | The IoT Future of Building Automation | Future automation will be a full embrace of IoT. Systems will be smarter, self-learning, edgy, innovative, and sophisticated. They will automatically configure and integrate new equipment so they can optimize themselves, self-manage and self-heal while reinventing purposeful, productive, desirable buildings and accommodation |
| 2015 | ||
| Jan 2015 | Autodidacticism | Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) or self-education is the act of teaching oneself about a subject or subjects in which one has had little to no formal education. This word accurately describes the how, why and what we have all self-learned in 2014, and what our focus for 2015 needs to be. |
| Feb 2015 | Growing our Only Asset our People | I just returned from a very successful AHRExpo in Chicago. Read my review of this record-breaking show of over 62,000 attendees, and 10 acres of exhibits, from over 130 countries. This all flies in the face of the digital world and the Internet of Things replacing good old face-to-face interaction and networking. So what was my takeaway from this massive show? People are our only asset, technology may come and go but at the core of the industry is the same people that have been there for years. |
| Mar 2015 | Creating Self-Learning Cultures | Creating Self-Learning Cultures How do we create them? How do we use them to increase the value of our only assets our people? Our February editorial Growing our only Asset our People How do we motivate them to be Curious?, Passionate? generated lots of interest and comments from the industry much of which was captured on social media. . |
| Apr 2015 | Attracting Self-Learning Assets | A continuing self-learning growth is the goal we all wish to achieve in our people assets and our company cultures because it is organic and natural but most of all sustainable. Unreasonable Optimism? This video epitomizes the intent of a self-learning culture at the Chicago Collaboratory as Andy McMillan, the president of BACnet International, gives some priceless advice to a young bright mind trying to make sense of our industry. |
| May 2015 | Becoming an Autodidactic Asset | Becoming an Autodidactic Asset. What am I talking about? Let me use Google to help explain and better define my obscure title. Becoming is the process of coming to be something; Autodidactic is a self-taught person; Asset is a useful or valuable thing, person, or quality. So our May theme is the process of coming to be a self-taught person who is a valuable thing. |
| Jun 2015 | Back from the Stack | Over the years we have been the part of many new start up communities and we simply love the feeling of unbridled optimism and willingness to donate to the cause that exists at events like this. The Haystack event showed us that this is the place where the community of automation and IoT professionals comes together to learn and share the latest techniques for connecting systems and using data to advance the efficiency of buildings, equipment systems and processes. |
| Jul 2015 | Finding Reality in a Virtual World | When we started AutomatedBuildings.com 17 years ago we created an online vehicle design to connect the reality of the large building automation industry to a virtual world the internet / web. Today the ease of publishing online allows anyone and everyone to post everywhere. We all are struggling with the blizzard of information and the actual reality within the variety of virtual formats. We all seek guidance and appreciate the sharing from our trusted people and sources to find clarity and even reality within all this virtuality. |
| Aug 2015 | Transformational Change our Mission Possible | Transformational change is the process of altering the basic elements of an organization’s culture, including the norms, values, and assumptions under which the organization functions. Getting some great comments directly, off the record and in articles / comments in our August issue about the “Transformational Change” that is happening to allow the Map of the possible. |
| Sep 2015 | Change Evolves from the Possible | I am extremely pleased with the industry support I am receiving helping me define “the possible of connected buildings” because this clear definition of the possible is helping us define the transformational changes we all need to make. Change is a slow process. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.” |
| Oct 2015 | Satisfaction + Well Being = Productivity | I am extremely pleased with the industry support I am receiving helping me define “the possible of connected buildings” because this clear definition of the possible is helping us define the transformational changes we all need to make. Change is a slow process. There is an ancient Chinese proverb that goes: “When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills.” |
| Nov 2015 | Our Connection Collection | Not sure that any of us could have projected the amount of things our buildings would be connected to and interact with. Today our understanding of the possibility of connection is much of the value we provide. As an industry, we need to start collecting, quantifying and qualifying all of the possible connections to our buildings. Our November issue provides a start but I would like all our readers to join in helping us build “Our Connection Collection” |
| Dec 2015 | Transformational Change for Automation | Very pleased to be doing our 17th year of Free Education Sessions at AHR Expo 2016 in Orlando. Pleased to be joined by several industry experts to help us all better understand the change upon us. Also extremely pleased that our industry is able through the voice and video of Control Trend’s Awards “CTA” to recognize AHR Expo’s amazing support. Be sure to read the other Ken’s CTA interview. Here is a snippet. |
| 2014 | ||
| Jan 2014 | Concurrent Collaboration | Happy New Year! Hang on tight because it is going to be a wild ride in a year of radical change for our industry. Be sure to read all the articles, predictions and takes on the changes for 2014 plus my views in the rear view mirror of 2013. Our January issue is themed “Concurrent Collaboration” and speaks to the power of concurrency inside the cloud and how it can propel us to new solutions at dizzy speeds in our journey to achieve the ultimate in collaborated converged products and services. |
| Feb 2014 | Mobile Collaboration | Mobile Collaboration that leverages the power of the cloud, coupled with Bring Your Own Device “BYOD” is our newest do-all power tool. Often in the presence of our legacy laptops we still reach for this handy mobile tool that seems to carry out our wishes quicker with a much more personalized interface. The millions of hours of development of mobile devices with the feedback of millions of users balancing device and cloud power is starting to show that its real collaborated power is greater than either device or cloud. |
| Mar 2014 | Ownership of the Collaboratory | Ownership of the Collaboratory In our education sessions in New York one clear component of every successful energy integration project was a team of champions who asserted ownership of the project’s collaborator. Another observation was that the projects were truly morphing into a dynamic collection of people, things, and internet interactions; a collaboratory not just a project. |
| Apr 2014 | Keeping the Cloud Open | If we are not clear on Keeping the Cloud Open there is a dark side, a concern of an evolving trend towards Proprietary Cloud. I grew up in the industry during the DDC revolution and saw the floundering of the early proprietary DDC systems that evolved quickly with amazing capabilities, but rapidly became obsolete and impossible to maintain. Several early DDC system companies failed and those that succeeded were liberated with the development of open protocols with total project integration and interaction with several vendors. |
| May 2014 | 15 Years in the Collaboratory | 15 years in the collaboratoryMay’s theme is our 15th-year anniversary issue. It has been a labour of love providing you with a new way to explore AutomatedBuildings.com. While we wallowed in the memories of the last 15 years it reminded Jane and I that this is not our story but the story of industry giants helping us create an online collaboratory of their powerful thoughts. |
| Jun 2014 | Our Industry’s Collaboratory at IBcon | Our June issue speaks to our Industry’s Collaboratory attending IBcon Vegas June 17-19. This is the event that will take us all to the next level of collaboration. I originally was focused on providing a preview to this event for our June issue but as we started to assemble the previews, articles, interviews, news releases, we met our AutomatedBuildings.com collaboratory on their way to their next great collaboration opportunity. All were full of new leading-edge ideas to share with this event based on their long experience in the industry. |
| Jul 2014 | “Our Assets R U” | I find it interesting that in the blur of technology at this year’s IBcon in Vegas; the largest gathering of authorities with international case studies on the topic of open architected, interoperable and integrated IP centric smart, connected, high performance and intelligent buildings, my biggest takeaway is that it is the people of our industry many of who are part of our AutomatedBuildings.com collaboratory are our cashable assets, not technology. |
| Aug 2014 | Working Together. Separately. | Although our August theme seems like an oxymoron the cloud enables us to “Work Together” while flexing our greatest resource our people, a group of individuals that separately create pieces that fit the cloud puzzle. I recently found clarity in the cloud and have started talking funny but now have a clearer vision of our future, a collaborative mosaic of our industry “Working Together, Separately”. |
| Sep 2014 | Education for Your Vocation | It seems natural that September should be our educational issue as most of our young folks are getting back to school. I like this old retro picture of the dinosaur student as it reminds us that there is a little dinosaur in us all and we need to keep at the task of self-education |
| Oct 2014 | Automated Diagnostics Analytics | We were looking for a theme for our October issue and we polled the industry about articles featuring occupant productivity and how our industry has an amazing interaction with productivity within a building. Although all agreed that this was very true and a very powerful relationship, the general feeling was we need to keep working on how to shape occupant productivity into a real measured variable for our industry before we can include it in our ROI payback calculation. |
| Nov 2014 | The “I of Me” of IoT | Your present IoT understanding, which I choose to whimsically call “The I of Me” greatly controls your comprehension and expectations of what those three letters might mean to you and those around you. The art, science, and social interaction of our time “The Internet of Things” (IoT), reflects life and is affecting all of our lives daily so get over it. You cannot go back, sorry…..smile. |
| Dec 2014 | Creating Your Collaboration | Our December theme “Creating your Collaboration” started with my puzzling with the process of how industry knowledge gets past on. AHRExpo is the annual event where we present our free education sessions to the industry. This is our 16th year of presenting these sessions and hosting the third annual Connection Community Collaboratory meeting. Online Collaboration is how today’s education occurs. |
| 2013 | ||
| Jan 2013 | Happy New “Era” | No it is not a spelling mistake, we wish you a Happy New Year, and we also wish you a “Happy New Era” We are rapidly entering a new Era in building automation that questions all we have done before. An era denotes clearly defined periods of time that which significant change occurs. |
| Feb 2013 | Humanizing Your Cloud | Your cloud provides a lofty anywhere, any device, view of you and your corporate’s connected services. We need to humanize its interaction reflecting our expertise and connections to reality. We all need to talk about how we plan to meet and interact in the cloud. Our combined expertise in getting data ready is the value we bring the cold heartless data cloud. |
| Mar 2013 | Platforms, Frameworks and Databases | Our March theme – Platforms, Frameworks, and Databases focuses on the fact that our industries’ connection communities have all converged at a similar place and point to the cloud. We all work with real time data or very fluid data and need to stabilize this slippery substance. The conclusion is we must store this data somewhere with a time freeze so we can analyze and visualize from anywhere by any device. |
| Apr 2013 | Events Evolve Everyone | Our April theme – Events Evolve Everyone was born from the chatter of many articles and interviews in this month’s issue speaking to the importance of upcoming industry events. One of the most important functions that these events provide is they provide deadlines to present new concepts, products and services. |
| May 2013 | Dynamic Data Fuels Deep Analytics | Our May Issue theme – “Dynamic Data Fuels Deep Analytics” speaks to the importance the next level of deep analytics of almost everything will have and how we as an industry will provide a new level of deeper analytics connecting inquiring minds to almost everything with low cost real time data. |
| Jun 2013 | Data Models Alter Industry Dynamics | Just returned from a first ever very successful Haystack Connect event in Chattanooga. What I learned is it is not just the naming of data but a consistent data model that allows us to free our data to a world of dynamic dimensions for our own purposes. No longer must data be predefined before use if an accurate self-discoverable model is present. This new way of viewing data allows us a new world in which data can be used in several different ways as a dynamic subset of many scenarios |
| Jul 2013 | Building Data Delivery | The new deliverable in our industry is data. Not that we are freed from providing our core deliverable of the best environmental control for the lowest possible energy use in a sustainable manner. It is just that we need to provide anywhere data to prove that we are achieving our original deliverable. Whether you use Building as a noun or a verb it is now all about Building Data Delivery. |
| Aug 2013 | Who R We? | Who R We? or Annoying Acronyms R Us is our August theme. It may be not so much Who R We? as what do we call ourselves? A lot of discussion by industry folks on various Linkedin groups about these names and acronyms. |
| Sep 2013 | Automatically Smart | Lots of focus on the term “Smart Buildings” and what that might mean. Albert Einstein gives us good advice; “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” He goes on “Creativity is intelligence having fun” & “imagination is more import than knowledge” my personal favourite “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” We need to think differently. |
| Oct 2013 | Build Bridges not Fences | Lots of focus on the term “Smart Buildings” and what that might mean. Albert Einstein gives us good advice; “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”He goes on “Creativity is intelligence having fun” & “imagination is more import than knowledge” And my personal favourite “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” We need to think differently. |
| Nov 2013 | Delivering Disruption | Delivering Disruption seems like an unlikely topic to speak to but it is exactly the business we all are in today as we provide new solutions that leap over and significantly change our existing marketplace. |
| Collaborating Convergence | ||
| View AutomatedBuilding’s Hstory by Timeline view Online Chapters of our Digital Transformations Full History of AutomatedBuildings 15th Anniversary Celebration |
Exploring the AutomatedBuildings Library on Pinterest
Join the conversation
Our LinkedIn group has more than 4,000 members + 21,880 LinkedIn connections
