March was a very busy month, a real blur. Jane and I winning the Buildy Industry Vision Award at BuilConn put the icing on the cake. Thanks to all who supported our nomination.  We are pleased to have our efforts recognized, but feel that all the other visionaries that were nominated are the true winners because all we do is bring their stories to you our readers.  Please congratulate them and thank them for their amazing visions the next time you meet them.

Much insight into our industry's metamorphous is contained in my review of the BuilConn event. I particularly liked keynote speaker Rick LeBlanc's call to get us all to make the necessary transitions and transformations as an industry raised in the boiler room to a industry that can lead in the boardroom. Amen, Rick :).  Change is the only thing constant in our industry as we morph, evolve, and generally come of age. Exciting times, particularly to be in the news business. Our magazine's readership continues to grow and for the first time ever we have over 52,000 monthly global visitors.

The general public is becoming very interested in what our industry is doing. The following general interest story was published In Computerworld.

The Rise of Smart Buildings   Building-automation systems used to function in separate technology silos. Now vendors are rapidly adopting IP, Web services and other technologies that are beginning to converge with traditional IT infrastructures.  Story by Robert L. Mitchell http://www.computerworld.com/networkingtopics/networking/story/0,10801,100318,00.html  

From Engineered Systems - This May ES introduces a Quarterly Special Section entitled "Intelligent Buildings Today".  A unique feature of this piece is that it will be mailed out separately to a list of 5000 Chief Information Officers, as well as printed in the May issue of ES. Our guest authors Jack McGowan PE and Ken Sinclair, editor of AutomatedBuildings.com will discuss a whole new series of Internet and network communications developments that truly elevate average structures to Intelligent Buildings. ES will look at and beyond the concept of building comfort, security, and other fundamental requirements integrated into customer delivery systems along with information technology.

As soon as the April issue is online we must get focused on that special supplement for ES - Wow!  5000 Chief Information Officers taking a look at our industry.  We have all been working hard and we do have a lot to show them, so it should be fun. The message is very clear that our industry, plus many other real time data industries, are the focus of corporate restructuring to simplify operation, reduce manpower, reduce energy usage, and allow reorganization based on function not just geographical location.

Talking about the April issue; lots of great articles and interviews that will alter your thoughts on what you think building automation is :) Alarms on cell phones, Security Video Management, Buildings Generating “New Found” Revenue with digital signage, Demand-Controlled Ventilation (DCV) and many more check them out.

A new wind is blowing in the industry and it is building speed. Products and services built on open systems and XML now dominate our online magazine. This year's BuilConn is the focus of much new news. We provided some insight last month and continue to provide more in our March issue. We should all be proud that Frost and Sullivan chose a CEO from our industry. This is exciting news not only that it is our contributing editor Anto, but the fact that they chose someone from our large building automation industry. Lots of excitement in the industry the long awaited announcement of Siemens Building Technologies, Inc., and Cimetrics, Inc., forming a strategic alliance to provide customers with the industry’s most comprehensive facility data analysis and optimization service, featuring “next generation” building performance analysis technology. I feel that this will be the first of many corporate combines to rush into the lucrative market of data mining real time information.

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Jane and I are extremely pleased to be nominated as Finalists in the 2005 Buildy Awards. The Vision award will be presented to the industry professional that best demonstrates a vision of whole building integration and interoperability through advocacy, promotion, educational, and training endeavours. I am particularly pleased that all of Jane's efforts have also been recognized as the editor of me and the industry. We have been seeking advice from last year's winner Paul Ehrlich who in 2004 won the first ever Buildy Vision Award. In his interview Paul provides this advice.

Ehrlich:  Probably the best advice is to continue the good work that the two of you have done for many years. Keep working on spreading the word on how we can be doing better as an industry – that there are great possibilities ahead – for those that are creative, to adopt and embrace change, and work to improve the value that we deliver as an industry.

I think that this is great advice whether we win or lose and Jane and I intend to do just that.  A special thanks to Paul for his encouragement. A second challenge we would like to take on is the task of spreading the news of our industry to other interconnected industries. We feel there is much work to done in this area to help package and sell our industry to the world. We would welcome articles, interviews and/or any other ideas you might have on how to do this.

Our action today on executing this task includes the following;

Jack McGowan and I are preparing a supplement for the May issue of Engineered Systems that we hope will reach 5,000 CIO's.

What is a CIO? - He or She is the person in charge of the flow of information in and out of the company, who also guides the technology used in information systems.

We feel that it is important to reach out and let these folks know that our industry is now capable of "Synchronizing their Enterprise with Real Time Information".  

Here is a quick abstract of a potential direction that we could go with that supplement, please feel free to email me with your thoughts and comments.

The enterprise networks have recreated and redefined the corporate identity and are now preparing for the next really big wave “Real Time Information”.  Real time information changes everything, it breaths life in to static databases and allows interaction and integration of service and function never before seen. The connection and successful application of real time information to powerful web services located on and off the corporate enterprise will have as much impact on the new corporate identity as the original application of the enterprise did. The large building automation industry, the M2M industry and all other real time information industries have been busily working preparing open standards, data communication protocols, and XML schema to pipe this real information to the enterprise. We now have the tools to Synchronize Your Enterprise with Real Time Input. This supplement will provide insight into the exciting process of Enterprise Synchronization while providing connection to now available tools and those new tools that will be the game changers of the future. Real examples of applications of real time interaction with the enterprise will be included as well as new industry directions and opportunities.

We were also pleased to have our paper "Latest Trends in Networked Buildings" accepted for presentation at the 8th REHVA World Congress Clima 2005 Lausanne at Lake of Geneva, Switzerland and also published on their homepage www.clima2005.ch

Interest in AutomatedBuildings.com continues to build with a record 45,000 visits for the short month of February 2005. Lots of great articles, interviews, news and new products that are reshaping our industry.  Be sure to read our March issue carefully as some of these changes are bound to effect you.  

  is a very busy month, with two of our industry major events almost colliding.  AHR Expo is later this year, (February not January) and BuilConn is earlier (March not April) and XML Symposium has its own day in Orlando so we have a tremendous amount of industry information to share with you.  As well as writing about these events I am personally involved with presentations at all of them. Dave Branson and I have our four free education sessions at AHR Expo, plus AHR Expo is the time of year when our industry introduces new products and services and has always been a busy time to be in the news business. I am moderator for the XML-Related HVAC Industry Initiatives Session 10:45 - 12:00 Wednesday, February 9th at the XML Symposium as well as a track leader for CaseStudies@BuilConn. Our interview section is bulging with industry leaders' views on open system integration issues that will be presented at BuilConn. Be sure to give them all a read.

Our feature article Beyond Commissioning: The Role of Automation explores the power of our open automation systems to automatically commission on an on-going basis as conditions demand.  Michael R. Brambley and Srinivas Katipamula, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

You have a lot of reading to do in this issue to catch up with our rapidly evolving industry, and as I have outline in my February Engineered Systems column The Only Thing Constant Is Change.

January and February 2005 have been great months for us with our total visits to our magazine well over 40,000 per month and lots of new sponsor plus requests for increase ad spaces from our existing sponsors. Thank you industry we are please to be your B2B magazine.

Also lots of new products in our January issue be sure to check them out.

As always there are lots of other great articles, interviews and sneak previews is this issue.

 Check out and our newest sponsors.

Thanks to all Our Sponsors for allowing us to provide our industry online information service to you for free.

Send comments and suggestions to news@automatedbuildings.com

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