Real Estate Investors back in the Market: Britain
Posted by Jim Foster in Good on ya on June 16, 2009
Some British real estate investors think we are at the bottom, and who am I to say if they are wrong/right, it’s jsut nice to see activity. The Times reported this morning that some funds were oversubscribed for real estate investment as they have people getting back into the market as the combination of low rates and depressed prices is too hard to ignore.
Autodesk Posts 2009: Revit Continues to Outpace
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Revit on June 16, 2009
Autodesk released its fiscal 2009 annual report and I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at the numbers. First, and most importantly to me is the growth within in their AEC segment. This segment in general posted a revenue gain of 9%, whereas the Revit family or products produced a revenue gain of 22% compared to itself in 2008. I could boldly state that this is proof positive of Revit’s market acceptance, however, this is also an easy to mask would could be lousy performance. For example, if I sold one box of cookies last year, and this y I sold two, voila 100% gain. By seeing the actual numbers you are more likely to come to the conclusion that I am lousy cookie salesman, and this does not necessarily reflect on the product at all.
When looking at revenue by Geography, Revit posted a 40% Revenue gain compared to 2007, and compared to the AEC segment of 26% as a whole. Again comparing it to itself does not shed a ton of light on the subject accept for the fact that Revit is accelerating.
If we look at this on a macro level, anyway you look at it, this is positive. Autodesk could be discounting products in order to maintain top line growth. Do I care? No, since I do not own Autodesk as a stock holder, but am very invested in it as a user/developer. So while a shareholder might be more interested in margins, I’m more about top line growth and adoption, so the fact that Revit is posting better revenue gains compared to the rest of the segment, I’m happy.
Strategically, I like the fact that Autodesk has almost $1 billion cash on hand in cash and cash equivalents, and that they have no problem making acquisitions of companies in their target zone. What’s their target zone? The way I look at it, imagine a building from conception to destruction and everything in between. If you carve out a space in there you are in their target zone. Interestingly they dropped FM Desktop which leaves a gap in their portfolio. The fact they picked up Navisworks, Constructware, Ecotect, etc. shows they are serious in owning this space and that they do not want you to have to leave their product of families to do your work. Hello Microsoft. How this plays with their commitment to IPD and cross platform compatibility will be interesting. IPD is too big a deal to pay lip service too so I imagine they play along, continuing to create value within the BIM and IPD space, and acquiring companies who provide value added tools.
And if you are a Revit user, or thinking about switching over, signs look good that Autodesk has your back. FYI Gartner Research reported in 2007 a 12% growth rate for BIM and Revit is beating those estimates. If I get a bit more motivated I will try and break out Revit revenue from the AEC segement, breakout the % revnue from subscription and divide by average single seat license or average seat license and see if we can get to an installed base #, last time I tried something, and this was very unsicentific I had it around 300,000+. I’ll follow this post up if I get some more cofee in me and can get excited to go through the annual report, 10K’s etc. in more detail.
Atomic BIM
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM on June 15, 2009
This is an excellent article, Atomic BIM by John Tobin. The question that needs to get answered is how do we deal wtih BIM instead of BIM dealing on us. For example, we need seemless translation between authoring programs. That is Navisworks collision detection data needs to move seemlessly for back into the model and then disseminate that information wirelessly to handhelds for those who need to know, etc. Unfortunately, we are a long way off from there so what do we need to do to get there, and let’s make make sure not to fall into the same traps and lousy work arounds. Anyway read the article.
GM Embraces BIM
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Built Environment, Point to Point Laser Technology on June 15, 2009
So I am reading this article on ‘GM Embraces BIM‘, and wondering if I should post it, becuase, well, GM has had better days, but the points they made such as “…GM estimates that they are able to construct a building 25% faster, saving 10-15% of construction cost. And they can do this much safer than in the past, setting industry records on safety.” Is worth mentioning.
I have been reading a variety of articles recently that mention laser scanning, including this one, matter of factly, on how to capture the built environment in BIM, when in fact it can be a time intensive and laborious practice. While we are looking forward to the day when anyone can walk into a room and wave a wand and have a BIM pop out you need to look at the technologies available today, they type of project and what your deliverable needs to be to make the most informed decisions. Many times using PPLT (Point to Point Laser Technology) can be the most cost effective option.
NEBFM Tradeshow: Less is More
Posted by Jim Foster in Uncategorized on June 15, 2009
Stopped by the NEBFM (Northeast Buildings & Facilities Management) Show & Conference. What I learned from the vendors with booths was that traffic had been slower than in years past (no big surprise there) but the quality of people and contacts they were making were much better, one booth said the contacts they believed were going to turn into sales was a multiple from last year. One can attribute that to either a real poor effort last year or the fact that there is less people window shopping but those out there want to do business. I would say the vendors seemed cautiously optimistic if not positive and were positive in general about the tradeshow.
Something I have noticed during my day to day is that almost everyone has been effected in one way or another by this recent economy (again no surprise there) but what is surprising to me is the more people who are willing to engage in conversations and look for new ways of doing business. There seems to me a spirit of community; more of there is more that ties us than divides us spirit. Now does it bite that so much had to tank for us to get here, you bet, but we’re here so let’s take a look. As an entrepreneur I am always encouraged, I think that is part of the insanity, but I am encouraged because there are still technical innovations happening everyday yet most companies are retrenching, cutting R&D, cutting staff which to me means there should be a lot of people working in garages rebuilding, innovating, creating the next wave. Does it stink to be in this trough, I mean it feels and smells like low tide out there, yeah it stinks but through these cycles we must go. Joseph Schumpeter, in his book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy” called it creative destruction. A corollary is the sort of corporate cannibalism that states, ‘eat your own.,’ that is innovate or die. A lot of entrepreurs always thought of it as ‘grow or die’ And while many of us want to put our heads in our shell and wait for something to happen, it’s exactly the time to make something happen.
I remember when I was running a race with friends, a small piece insanity called Reach the Beach, and it was around 3 in the morning, and I was running up hill in the rain and an Aussie Gal called out to me as I passed her, albeit very very slowly, “Good on Ya!”
So keep talking people, keep moving, good on ya.
IT Spending down at Design Firms except for BIM
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Revit on June 12, 2009
Recently posted by Jeff Yoders and available at Zweigwhite form their 2009 Industry Survey it stated that while most design firms are cutting their budgest an IT investments, upto 65% will be increasing their use of BIM in 2009. Autodesk had the lion’sshare of CAD users with 81% penetration and Revit leads BIm with 61%.
Revit Rumble
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM, Revit on June 12, 2009
As a preface to this article, I wanted to say that the employees that came through my business and went to architecture firms to become designers are still gainfully employed despite the multiple haircuts sic. layoffs the industry has gone through. I can attribute that to my acute acumen and hiring skills, although I always believed these individulas were exceptional. Or we can look at the skills they needed in our environment which was always to build, draft and think in 3D, so they both came out of our shop with refined Revit skills which I think is becoming one of the most important skills on your resume, or at least a skill that anyone in the profession is developing.
The AIA in Portland, Ore has put together a Revit Rumble for both employed and unemployed designers to show their chops.
Labor Productivity Declines in the Construction Industry: Causes and Remedies
Posted by Jim Foster in BIM on June 10, 2009
This is an article by Paul Teicholz from Stanford it’s older but still very relevant today. If you don’t intend to make the jump the nut of it is the lack of collaborative tools within the construction industry is inhibiting productivity gains. Even as better tools and methods appear their adoption is slow and buildings are becoming more complex.
Typically, as informally described by PMs in the field, after the steel goes up or there’s a major renovation HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc. want to be in first, why? Less problems and issues downstream, no worries if your stuff is colliding with anyone elses and minimum change orders. Compare that to the last one in, who’s chases are now filled with other equipment, who’s runs are compromised by a plumbing stack or HVAC trunk. I’d want to be first one in too.
One of my friends, and clients has a design/build firm. He was a trained architect but got more into the building side. He brought us into document the existing conditions of a residence. We brought it into Revit and he then he sat down with someone from my team to design the proposed. We phased it, rendered it, he used it for a variance hearing, etc.
Now the plans needs a stamp. The architect does not work in 3D so need to export everything into 2D, not a problem since the architect does not work within the Autodesk family of products, I am not trying to be a shill for Autodesk I am just showing the problems going cross platform, so he is going to use our stuff to trace over. We export the floorplans, sections and elevations. He goes to work. Now the landscape architect still works with pencil and paper. Even though we had a plot plan and brought it into Revit so all the grades and current information is in the model, the landscape architect went back out with a transit and paper and created his own plan on paper.
What is the number one cause of inefficiency due to interoperability. “The manual re-entering of data.” This was reported in the 2007 Smart Market Report from McGraw Hill. They also cite :
• Time using duplicate software
• Document version checking
• RFI processing
• Cost of data translations
and it is not difficult to see the time sink this becomes.
Now take the other end of the spectrum. We sat in an IFMA round table at MGH (Mass General Hospital) where they told us they used BIM and IPD (Integrated Proejct Delivery) and they did everything digitally. Scheduled it, collision detection, etc. and they found tens of thousands of collisions on the computer before anyone went into the field. I have seen estimates, and I will try and dig up the source for you, that each collision was valued between $3,000 to $5,000. That should provide enough of an answer as why anyone should switch to BIM. And I keep coming back to what one of the construction mangers said to me, “we now have the time and inclination to things right.”
Mass TLC Unconference
Posted by Jim Foster in Good on ya on June 5, 2009
The unconference is just about over in Burlington, MA. I must say I had no idea what to expect as I was not sure how you would define an unconference but now I can atleast take a stab at it. It’s like going to a pub minus the beer and televisions. Some of you may say, ‘well that’s not a pub I’d want to go to.’ Well hold on, without the tv the entertainment is conversation and the groups breakout by the areas they are interested in. There are four defined time slots with about 15 groups going at any one time slot. Most definitely there will be a topic you want to learn more about or want to discuss. And if there isn’t you can put your own up on the board. If your interest wanes you can pop next door to the next one. The topics range from cloud computing to sales generation, to networking and funding start ups. The styles from people who ‘ran’ the groups went from professorial to colloborative.
I ran into collegues from other networking groups, fellow entrepreneurs, indsutry professionals and even someone I had been to a mutual friends wedding with. I sat down to lunch with some smart people who I would never have a chance to run into who schooled me on things from twitter to pirates. Because of one of those conversations I went from viewing twitter with mild contempt to seeing at as a valuable resource for learning and networking. I will being opening an account today.
I sat in sessions run by Simeon Simenov formerly of Polaris Ventures and now of fastignite who spoke about what type of capital would be right for you and Bill Warner who founded Avid Technology and Wildfire and is now helping entrpeneurs fulfill their dreams.
I like to to subscribe to the Woody Allen adage of 90% of life is just showing up. And while showing up sometimes can prove more dubious than others this was more than worthwhile.
First Trace File Management for AutoCad LT
Posted by coleparker in Uncategorized on June 4, 2009
Well the head line really says it all but First Trace has announced a file management system for AutoCAD LT.
Check it out.
