Maya Functionality in Revit/AutoCAD 2012
Very cool. We need to find time to start testing.
BIM More Important in 2012?
While yesterday’s “Why BIM Will Become Even More Important in 2012″ commentary is takes a simplistic view, we cannot disagree with Mike Delacey’s viewpoint. Yes, our industry should:
- Use the right tools efficiently and effectively
- Consider the full lifecycle of the project
- Collaborate more
HP: Pumping the Brakes?
In keeping with our recent theme of posts, we’d like to discuss a recent article proposing that innovation is yesterday’s news at Hewlett Packard (HP). To frame the piece, author John Paczkowski provides a graph, suggesting that since HP has gradually applied for fewer and fewer patents, they have “fallen off the cliff.”
But isn’t quality more important than quantity? Head over to the HP website, and you’ll see the HP TouchPad (quantified, it’s probably their version of the iPad), and it’s completely sold out. Mosey on over to the cellphone section, and you’ll find the Pre3, with an interface that is more than similar to the iPhone.
Perhaps HP has been “innovating,” but only just enough to keep up with the Jones’ (read: Apple). And, it seems they’ve matched the whole family:
(photo courtesy of HP.com)
At one point in the article, Paczkowski touches upon the printer business, reminding us that “HP can’t maintain the same margins on ink cartridges that it has in the past.” And apparently, there’s nothing in the works as far as HP printers are concerned. It’s tempting to look at the fairly recent tablet and smart phone technology and feel as though “it’s all been done,” but the printer market is different. There’s room for innovation there, and HP should seize the opportunity.
Q5, QR, and Returns on Innovation
New York City, 2011—At the onset of a new year, the city decided to bring in a new kind of pro. Her name is Rachel Sterne and her job is to plunge NYC into the age of Twitter, Facebook, and all other variations of social media. The plan is encased in her “Road Map for the Digital City” proposal, detailing precisely how the city will reform their process for the current age of digital media and communication.
But for now, it’s a work in progress. Sterne notes, “It’s important to look at social media just as you would any other channel: It needs to be done correctly and strategically.” She points out that it’s an investment, and that the success of the various media outlets should be prone to evaluation and refinement.
We can relate. In a sense, Sterne’s ideas and course of development refer to what we call “ROI,” or, Return on Innovation. While in a constant state of upgrading our process and technology, we measure our successes by our returns on innovation. It shows us what works, what doesn’t work.
Another part of this article that we particularly enjoyed: the QR codes on the city’s building permits, allowing a smartphone to access “what’s being built, who is doing the building, and what (if any) complaints have been filed against the permittee.”
You can check out the whole article here, and in the meantime, we look forward to seeing how these new social media changes work out for NYC. We’re thinking Rachel Sterne is onto something.
Innovention?
On the self-explanatory website Cult of Mac, Mike Elgan explores the reasons why Apple is all finished with their inventions, and how, in the future, the company will continue on to “only…perfect the platforms it already offers.”
Or…is this what Apple has been doing all along? Reading this article reminded us of a previous post reviewing “The Innovation Zone” by Thomas Koulopoulos. Based on some of these ideas, perhaps the author, Elgan, is using the word “invention” incorrectly. He points out such products as the iPad, referring to them as brand new, and previously non-existent. But, isn’t the iPad a glorified iPod touch? And isn’t the iPod touch an expansion on the traditional iPod, which was formed from intensifying the idea of an empty hard drive mixed with a Walkman?
You can start to see where we’re going with this. Maybe Apple has been more innovative and less inventive. Elgan notes, “Apple is the most successful company in the world because Apple has the greatest business strategy ever devised: Fix what’s broken about creating and consuming content.”
Key words: “fix what’s broken.” In a convoluted industry, our VDC deparment seeks to do the same. The pieces are on the ground, and we constantly rearrange them to look even better than before. You don’t need invention when you have the potential for innovation. And if Apple and VDC have anything in common, it’s corporate innovation strategy.
Check out the full article here.
Thomas Lane Examines UK BIM
In this recent article on building.co.uk, Thomas Lane explicates the inner workings of Building Information Modeling (BIM), first prefacing readers with the question of “It sounds great in principle – so why isn’t BIM the norm rather than the exception?” We think that’s a great question.
Unraveling some of the challenges, he points to costly software upgrades, extensive training, and problematic questions of who is to blame for errors, as potential obstacles to full scale adoption. Surely understandable, but what many don’t perceive is that the benefits far outweigh the costs.
As a case study, Lane points to Manchester (UK) Central Library’s remodel—a project that opted to utilize BIM for the duration. Members of the Manchester City Council believe this will save money in the short term and increase the capacity to manage the building in the future. (Yes!)
Lane continues on to cite various industry members and their experiences with BIM, inquiring “How are you using BIM?” and provoking their responses to “pros” and “cons.” We think this is a solid article, providing real facts and honest perspectives. Check it out here.
37Signals Offer a Little Advice with “Rework”
Not only should “Rework” be easily located in every VDC team, it should probably have its own shelf. Let’s face it. Those of us implementing VDC deal with countless, complicated problems each day; from technical malfunctions with Revit to sweat-worthy HR decisions, it happens to the best of us. But for every problem that could arise, Fried and Hansson from 37Signals give us the wisdom to rework our mindset and execute to the best of our ability. For instance, if you are deciding which VDC Modeler to hire, they make the decision process easy: hire the better writer. Concerned with a project manager’s productivity? “You don’t need more hours, you need better hours”; send him/her home at five o’clock.
Fried and Hansson don’t cite the intricate principles of Japanese business practices or applied marketing strategies to prove their points; rather, they challenge the very core of the workday and how it holds us back. They argue that employee meetings are “toxic” and “the worst interruption of all,” and quip that “you’re better off with a kick-ass half than a half-assed whole.” Fried and Hansson deliver a convincing, concisely-worded strategy set for succeeding in business. They shift between an entrepreneurial focus and more generalized guidance, making the book essential to any process-transformation team.
The funny thing is, this book reminds us of the lessons we already know but like to forget: don’t do too many things at once, don’t expand too quickly, don’t put off decision-making, etc. Mixed in, though, Fried and Hansson provocatively call attention to problematic phenomena like the “workaholic” and the inability to just say “no.”
“Rework” is a quick read, packed with inspiration for the entrepreneur in all of us.
“The Innovation Zone”
Thomas Koulopoulos’ “The Innovation Zone” serves as a practical companion to “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by taking the ideological foundation established by Clayton Christensen, and expanding it into a more pragmatic how-to guide. Numerous present-day examples and case studies drive Koulopoulos’ instructions, giving the reader a solid basis for his argument.
One of the first and foremost tenets of the book is the notion that innovation is not invention. Koulopoulos distinguishes between the two by stating that “while you need invention to get to innovation, invention on its own creates volume—not value.” Since he cites Steve Jobs throughout, an appropriate example for this statement would be the iPod. Apple ‘invented’ the iPod, but has maintained their status as an ‘innovative’ company through the constant reform and refinement of the initial iPod concept—from the big, bulky original model to the sleek iPod Touch of today. Koulopoulos is quick to dismiss silly concept ‘inventions’ such as the steering wheel laptop (um, dangerous?) and the toaster that monograms your bagel. Yeah, we didn’t know those existed either.
Koulopoulos doesn’t just preach. Instead, he includes precise methodology and a particularly useful worksheet in the back of this book, where a company can test their ‘Innovative Capability.’ These questions allow you to see where you’re at, why you’re lacking (or doing well) and what you can do to improve (because you can always improve). Through these detailed measures, Koulopoulos helps a company to see whether or not it is as truly ‘innovative’ as it believes. He communicates that an innovative idea does not equal an innovative company. In fact, an innovative CEO does not even equal an innovative company. Innovation has to be embraced companywide. A quirky assessment of this: if a grassroots idea had come from the accounting department, would your company have considered it?
Innovative companies must ‘abandon the success of the past,’ be willing to ‘fail fast,’ and ‘challenge conventional wisdom.’ It will not happen overnight, and it will not change with one PowerPoint. Rather, it is a culture shift—a new way of practice for a company to adopt. Real innovation will enable each and every employee to be innovative, and will result in a company with Koulopoulos’ stamp of approval.
“The Innovator’s Dilemma” Encourages Disruptive Technology
In “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” author Clayton Christensen methodically (okay, sometimes painfully) turns modern business practices upside down and throws them out the window. He prods management of all industries to take what they’ve learned about sustaining customer satisfaction and forget about it. Yes, pretty much all of it. At the beginning you’ll wonder if it’s all for shock value, but some of Christensen’s examples compel us to think otherwise. If everything we’ve learned about achieving success in business is truly relevant and useful, why then, did successful companies like Sears Roebuck, IBM, and Digital eventually weaken? Maybe he’s onto something.
The role of a VDC team is ultimately innovation and process transformation; Christensen’s points relate to us entirely. In a way, we have already embraced his business plan. To make his point, Christensen carefully defines the difference between established technology (standard textbooks, printed greeting cards) and disruptive technology (custom-assembled course-specific textbooks, free internet greeting cards). Also, he cites the inclination of leaders in various industries to produce for their current profitable customers, and not for the future of their market. Big mistake.
It’s nice that in principle, VDC and BIM line up with Christensen’s idea of a successful business model. Christensen writes, “… the only instances in which mainstream firms have successfully established a timely position in a disruptive technology were those…[with an] autonomous organization charged with building a new and independent business around the disruptive technology.” If we think of BIM as the disruptive technology, isn’t the autonomous organization the VDC department? The “Innovator’s Dilemma” is printed validation of VDC’s vital role in the construction industry.
“The Checklist Manifesto”: Reduce Your Screw-Ups
Since our mission is to eliminate the dysfunctional nature of our industry, perhaps the first step is going back to basics. How much more efficient would we be if we developed detailed checklists on how to troubleshoot all types of BIM clashes? How much would communication improve if we performed a checklist prior to submitting every project proposal?
We often associate them with time-management lectures and type-A personalities, but in “The Checklist Manifesto,” renowned surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande argues the value of checklists across a wide spectrum of industries. Gawande believes that from medicine to aviation, construction, and more, a checklist is the key strategy for surmounting failure.
Speaking from his own industry, Gawande cites a project called the ‘Keystone Initiative’ to prove his point. At Michigan’s Sinai-Grace Hospital, the risk of central line infections in patients was 75% higher than the national average in 2004. Keystone Initiative called for the use of checklists to ensure medical teams were following proper sanitation processes, and not skipping any crucial steps when setting lines in the patients. To make a long story short, Gawande tells us that two years later, “…Sinai-Grace Hospital cut their quarterly infection rate to zero [outperforming] 90% of ICUs nationwide…all because of a stupid checklist.”
We know what you’re thinking: “Well, I go through a checklist in my head when I do this, and when I do that.” Sure, you probably do. But, this is precisely the method of operation that results in preventable errors. Gawande wants tasks confirmed, verified, discussed, and finally, checked off. Try it. You might be pleased with the results.