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Reflections from Realcomm Europe 2009

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Earlier this week I spent a couple of days in London attending the second Realcomm Europe event and meeting up with great people from the RE.net world.

First of all, congratulations to Jim Young and Howard Berger for putting this event together. I very much believe there is a need for such events. The 'IT-in-real-estate-industry' can't complain that no one sees the benefits of our solutions if we are not creating/supporting as many channels as possible to communicate our offers. It's like Christmas, if you don't give, you want receive. 

So the Realcomm team; it's we that say Thank You.

The size
There were some 140 people attending the conference, which of roughly half were from property companies. The rest were software suppliers, consultants and media. In addition there were some 10 exhibitors.

A rather small event considering that an IT-in-property-day in Sweden a few months ago also attracted some 100+ attendees. (Sweden is one 6th of UK in terms of population.)

The content
A challenge in organising an 'IT-in-the-real-estate-industry' event is that the area covers everything from Intelligent building to board room reports (including CRM, tenant reporting, marketing, property management, valuation, market information and so on). Which makes it extremely challening to put together a compelling set of presentations.

From my perspective the most interesting reflections of the day where;

'Boardroom quality dashboard online and update'
An interesting discussion took of regarding why the 'upper' management doesn't push the reporting to be more up to date than a paper report that has data that is maybe up to a month old. "Why not a screen with all the up to date data?".

The battle of an XML standard in the industry
The standard is there. Who is stopping it? The lack of interest from the clients or the software suppliers defending it's market shares? There seems to be some differences why it takes so long..

... but the banks will solve the standard issue
Stephen Spooner, Executive Chairman of PISCES, had a great presentation pointing out the current financial crisis will have "a number of regulations coming in" and "lenders need data to analyze the tenants". All this detailed data will then also be requested to be updated. In other words, "the lenders will push the evolution!".

Innovation... finally
The biggest innovation at the event didn't come from the presenters, but the organisers.

 At the final session, the Realcomm team gave out TurningPoint audience response system devices and ran a series of questions. That really sparked the conversations.

Great innovation!
Next year maybe the attendees will push it start using Twitter as a backchannel... Well, one day it happen. (Like for the standard format!) The residential brokers are already doing it.

 

 

A giant SaaS solution is rolling out in Sweden

Don't believe in the SaaS (Software as a Service) model?
Check this out... Microsoft is rolling out their hosted version in Sweden starting on the 19th March.

The solution includes:

  • Exchange Online (read Outlook)
  • Sharepoint Online
  • Live Meeting
  • Office communication

Read more at Microsoft (Swedish, English).
One of their first clients in Sweden is one of the largest hotel chains in the Nordic countries, Scandic (IDG article in Swedish).

My thoughts
I believe that the majority of small and medium sized business will use hosted versions of tools for mail, communication suites, wikis and so on. The fact that Microsoft is moving in here will make this transition faster than ever.

Still don't believe in the SaaS model?

 

Two new property blogs

Over the last weeks two new property blogs have started in Sweden.

Newsec
This is an interesting initiative. Newsec is one of the largest real estate valuation and advisory companies (commercial real estate) in the Nordic area. (Full disclosure: I'm partner in Stronghold Invest where Newsec is on the portfolio companies. Read more.)

Their blog (dubbed 'the property blog') will be the first in the Swedish commercial property industry (as far as I'm concerned).

 

REALgood AB 
This blog is from a system supplier of property management system which has started with a number of posts the first week.

 

More blogs...
... are found at my list.

 

Reflections from an IT & Property event in Stockholm

Last week I attended the third annual 'IT & Property' event in Stockholm arranged by Seminar Design. This is the third year (for coverage of 2007 and 2008.)

After a rather slow start, two years ago, this event is starting to take off. I was surprised by the energy at the event. (Even Though I would have preferred even more.) 

Some 130 people from 80 companies attended the conference. A majority of those where from state or municipality owned companies. Does it take a long term view in order to focus on the benefits of IT in real estate?

At the exhibition area a handful companies displayed their products. The one which caught my attention was Jetas Quality System.  Which "is a state-of-the-art, web based, real estate and property management and inspection tool. With a simple system of barcodes and a PDA you can maintain 100% control – no need for notebooks, bits of paper or Post-its." The service is used by, for example, IKEA and Jones Lang LaSalle.

Two reflections
What I bring with me from the event is mainly:

  • "the systems need to talk to each other"
             A line that was heard repeatedly. In other words, the use of standards like
             the XML scheme from fi2 is going to increase the upcoming years.
       
  • "It has to be easy to use"
             Simplicity and user friendly seems to be more important than advanced.

The best presentation
Among all the presentations there was one that stood out exceptionally; Sören Sandell, CTO at Vasakronan. One of the largest property companies in Sweden.  

Not only did he show the impressive Intranet they are using to simplify as many processes as possible with in the organisation. For example, most of the users of the Property Management system is using it through the interface of the Intranet.

However, the most impressive thing was the strategy they had to achieve it. The focus for any system development was;

  1. user friendly                   "think Google"
  2. well design                    "think Apple"
  3. easy to administrate

At this point I was highly impressed (never ever heard something like this from any one in this industry). So when he then said that they were aggressive on eliminating the use of Excel spreadsheets in the organisation by adding easy to use functionality at the Intranet I started to applaud!

Thanks Sören for making my day.

 

RE.net event in London on the 4th march

Interested in technology and commercial real estate?
Then you have to visit the Realcomm events.  

Originally from the USA but has now grown to include events and tours all over the globe. In the beginning of March (4th) the Realcomm Europe 2009 will take place in London. You will find the brochure here.

        

Meet me in London
I'm really looking forward to the event. Especially since I wasn't able go the event in 2008 (which was the first Realcomm Europe event). This is THE event for IT in commercial real estate since Property Computer Show (PCS) has faded away and is now an 'agency event' focusing residential real estate.

Are you going to Realcomm in London?
Drop me a line and lets go for a beer/dinner.

 

While I was in Costa Rica...

... quite a few things happened.  

I spent January in Costa Rica surfing some of the best waves on the planet (Santa Teresa). It was a brilliant.

The first three weeks was offline and then I worked remotely the last two weeks. Combining a Swedish lifestyle (6 weeks vacation a year) with the possibilities of the web is great.  (Also happy to give Michael Arrington more fuel...)

Hemnet - Major changes in the management
The largest search engine on Swedish market is looking for a new CEO after that Björn Dietmann has stepped down. The news was picked up by PropertyPortalWatch. Impressive. The press release is found here (in Swedish).

There are more changes at Hemnet. After seven year as chairman, will Lars Kilander be replaced by Per Johnler(who also is CEO of Fastighetsbyrån, one of the largets brokers in Sweden). However, Lars will still be on the board. Finally, Hemnet also has a new Director of Sales; Andreas Löwgren(an article in Resumé).

The question is; has the pressure from Booli and Boliga forced those changes to occur?

Boligan launched in Norway
The Danish residential search engine is continuing its Nordic growth. On the same day as Inman, they entered the Norwegian market. Press Release is found here. More is found at PropertyPortalWatchand an earlier post on this blog.

The Inman Conference New York 
Early in January the Inman event Real Estate Connect NY 2009 took place in New York. Read about it at Inman, Mike's Corner, Notorious Rob, Jay, Matrix and Dustin. 

I had the opportunity to visit their event last summer in San Francisco and it is for sure an energy boost. (Even though I prefer more commercial real estate focus.)

If you are Premium member of the Inman service you have a great source of information from event on their site. Including for example a 25 pages summary paper and video of quite a few of the speeches! Way to go.

For the first time ever (I guess) there was a Swedish firm represented on the stage, Booli (a residential search engine, covered here). Unfortunately, they haven't put this video on the web yet.

Zoopla raised more money
The UK based residential property information and valuation service has raised another £ 3,75 million. Great coverage at the Renthusiast.

Morten Lund was declared personally bankrupt
Not much real estate connection (more than that the bank took his house), but what a believer in the web Morten is. This story is a must read for any entrepreneur. Don't miss the video (at the bottom) of his speech at Le Web a few months ago. Read more at his blog.

 

An IT supplement in a CRE magazine

In Sweden there is no publication focusing on the use of IT in the real estate. However, one of the largest CRE magazines, FastighetsTidningen (owned by The Swedish Property Federation) has at least a IT supplement in one of their yearly issues.


It is named IT & Property and it's 52 pages covers a wide range of topics.
The ones that got my attention were;

The customer satisfaction is rising
A survey, conducted for the paper, among clients of Property Management Suppliers shows three large conclusions:

  • Most clients are satisfied with their suppliers (but wasn’t from the beginning)
  • The area with most complaints is the user interface (especially to make it easy for non-hard core users)
  • The suppliers are moving online (finally... if you ask me...)

Status among the Property Management suppliers
In two articles the status of the 15+ suppliers of Property Management Systems are analyzed, with the highlights of:

  • DinaFastigheter has been around for 2 years and has 250 clients
  • Estatus which in 2006 was founded in 2006 has now a complete web-based system with 10 clients (and has been acquired by SoftOne Fastigheter)
  • Modus which has, since 2003, been developing a brand new system together with MKB (large property owner in Malmö) is still some time from a public release
  • Fast2 is developing SMS service for renting of student housing
  • LEB is working on a complete new code version which will make their system much easier to personalize
  • VITEC has created a much more customer focused organisation
  • 5D-system is focusing on integration using XLM standard
  • PONDUS has released a web version

BIM is moving forward, but it’s a long way
The topic of BIM (Building Information Model) is covered extensively.  Especially the academic research conducted by Rogier Jongeling. You find all his publications here. An additional article here in Byggindustrin (in Swedish).

More about the supplement
It is written by Björn Åslund, a freelance journalist and among other things a blogger about environment topics.

The entire supplement could be downloaded as a PDF version here (5 MB).

 

Brilliant wish list from Remit Consulting

Got a 'Merry Christmas Greeting' today that included a list to great to spare.
It is Remit Consulting in the UK that put together a wish list for the property industry.

10. We would like one standard reference code for every individual property so that all systems can add information to a property accurately – perhaps searchable on Google?

9. We would like completely standard form, web-based leases so that negotiations for new premises can be swift and cheap. And, in the UK, we would like standard 5 year terms.

8. We think “Black-box” property trading (e.g., I want to buy 3 shops at 6%) would reduce the cost of trading property and commoditise a whole class of property investments. An alternative to derivatives?

7. We would like to see Google Earth updated by live satellite images – perhaps even zooming in to see truck or car movements on our managed sites;

6. We want listed companies to agree a standard of reporting on publicly accessible reporting dashboards – online detail which would make investing in property companies more transparent;

5. We would like to see the last of chasing cheques from tenants – let’s enforce the use of direct debits and monthly rentals in advance – an end to collecting rent on horseback, as Bob puts it;

4. Why can’t we have daily property revaluations? Whole swathes of the residential property market relies on automated valuations – surely there is a mid-way point between a full inspection with detailed analysis of scarce comparables and no valuation at all;

3. Wouldn’t indexed rents be a step forward? Our apologies to the UK rent-review surveyors but this would modernise UK property leases at one fell swoop;

2. Longer lunch breaks to give more time for discussing how to make things better – we are working more remotely, and with tighter deadlines; let’s take the time to consider how things could be done;

And, at number 1 position:

1. We want banks to start lending to each other again. ‘Nuff said.

 

Brilliant! 
It also make you understand the differences that exist between countries; like 10, 5 and 3...   ;-)   

Keep up the great work and Merry Christmas to you Andrew, Mark, Melita and all of the rest. 

 

Swedish construction firms starts blogging

Burson-Marsteller (global public relations and public affairs firm) has published a white paper (in PDF and SlideShare) on the use of blogs in companies on the OMX Large Cap list (the Nordic exchange list and the Norwegian counterpart)

The conclusion is;

Approximately 9.1%, or 12 companies, of the 132 Nordic Large Caps have company sponsored blogs. This number represents a lower percentage than the 14.8%, or 72 companies, with blogs on the Fortune 500 list in the U.S. A reason for the lower penetration among Nordic companies could be that the U.S. market in general is ahead on the adoption curve when it comes to both social media and innovation in marketing communications.

More about the white paper is found at Svd (a large Swedish newspaper).

Construction firms in the study
Both Skanska and NCC were among the companies blogging. Both of them to have a conversation with students. You find them here; NCCs blog and Skanskas blog.

Next step
Hopefully they will take this way of communicating to the next step. Anyone that has lived or worked close to a construction site would appreciate information what is happening with the project. A blog could be a great channel for this.