Sunday, January 29, 2017

Shows, Rankings, Boards, and More

After starting the new year with lists, trends, and reviews, I had a bunch of other items piling up.  So time to do some catching up with a handful of different industry related takes.

--  The National AIA show is changing its name. It will now be known as the AIA Conference on Architecture and it’s a part of a bigger rebrand.  So the questions are- will it actually make the show better for the exhibitors and will it help the AIA recover from the continuing angst from its membership over the infamous press release after the US Presidential election?  My initial answers are no and no.  This show will always be about the architects getting their educational credit and between lack of time and desire a legitimate visit to the floor is just not in their plans.  Plus as long as AIA has a floor with companies desperate to get a visit from a real live breathing architect they’ll never be meaningful change in the schedules to even give folks a better chance..  And as for the “revolt” it surely seems to be real as there’s still a massive dialogue featuring people that are talking about not renewing their membership and using this issue to point to other deficiencies inside the organization.  So we’ll see if in April at Orlando (a traditionally awful trade show town anyway) if anything really has changed other than the name. 

--  Thanks to the folks at Azon who tweeted out a link to the Top 10 countries (Not including the US) for LEED usage.  It was a stunner for me to see the #1 on the list wasn’t my awesome friends in Canada… but China.  Yes China is now at the top thanks to obviously some massive projects as they had 1600 fewer buildings but still produced more square meters of LEED than Canada.  The whole list is HERE and don’t worry my friends in the North- you are always #1 on my lists….

--  GlassBuild America formally announced it’s dates for the 2017 event in Atlanta.  Be there September 12-14!  As always I believe it will be a fantastic show (I’m obviously biased, I work it, I love it), but I was very pumped to see that the GANA Fall Conference will be held during/at the show as well.  That is HUGE.  As an industry guy, the tough thing is the expense of travel to all of the events I want/need to attend.  I know I am not alone.  By simple collaboration this sort of move helps so many be more efficient and more active in our industry.  Great move and adds another angle to an already exciting process!

--  I saw that the NFRC released their new board member list and laughed a bit thinking back to the days when my life was consumed with trying to affect change by getting fresh blood in those spots.  My candidate Cliff Monroe would’ve been the best board member ever- that’s for sure.  Anyway the next laugh I had was a ton of the “new” board looks exactly like the boards and power players from 2006 etc. Baker, Bipin, Hayden, Charlie etc…  it’s unreal.  My only hopes there are with Paul Bush and Kerry Haglund.  Excellent people who I know will at least listen to other views.  Though hopefully me mentioning them as “good” won’t get them blackballed.

--  There’s been a lot of chatter in the construction world on usage of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) in the building and design process.  Also in the sales funnel too.  I did a lot of research in to AR and I really like the potential from a sales and marketing standpoint.  Pricing is still high and you have to have a solid sales staff but my goodness it could be a game changer if used effectively.

--  Last this week… the Super Bowl is now lined up- my condolences to my pal Mike Synon of HHH who is also an owner of the Green Bay Packers.  Tough one.  This should be a very good game.   As always I am really looking forward to the commercials to see what 5 million dollars for a 30 second ad gets you these days in the way of creativity and memorable moments.  I’ll give you my favorites on next weeks post.  Also next week… preview of BEC, a great video from Guardian, potential good news for fellow road warriors and more!

LINKS of the WEEK

New evidence in the DB Cooper case?  This one always fascinated me…

Another remnant from my childhood- the Ringling Brothers Circus is going away.

This one baffles me.  You make boots- you would think you’d look at the footprint it made before producing.  These guys didn’t.

VIDEO of the WEEK

This basketball flop is beyond anything I’ve seen in a while… wow…



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