Article
Founder Note
7
min read
James Dice

Are analytics crossing the chasm?

December 15, 2020

Good morning!

Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter, podcast, and membership community for smart people applying smart building technology—written by James Dice. If you’re new to Nexus, you might want to start here.

Here’s an outline of this week’s newsletter:

  1. 🤔  On my mind this week: stories that move us forward
  2. 📚  What I’m reading: our new whitepaper, Woz’s new company, construction tech
  3. 💡 New from Nexus: explaining what Microsoft is up to in smart buildings
  4. 🧐  New to me: this week’s new company
  5. 🧱  Foundations: a new essay about the course

Enjoy!

1. 🤔 On my mind this week

With the release of the whitepaper below, it’s been fun to begin to see some of Nexus Labs’ consulting work come to light. More exciting and nerdy stuff is yet to come.

I thought it would be a good time to clarify our partnership philosophy: Nexus Labs is vendor-neutral and does not endorse products or companies. Our goal is to help tell remarkable stories that will help educate and move the industry forward.

If you’d like help telling your nerdy smart building stories, you can add your project to the waitlist.

2. 📚 What I’m reading

---

New whitepaper from Nexus Labs and Clockworks Analytics—In case you missed it yesterday, Nexus and Clockworks Analytics (formerly KGS Buildings) collaborated on a new free whitepaper. Of all the content Nexus has published this year, this is one of the pieces I’m most proud of.

By the way, Clockworks last week announced an $8M Series D round of funding, and perhaps more newsworthy, 34% recurring revenue growth in 2020. For a 12-year-old company, that’s compelling. This is further proof that:

  1. Analytics are turning a corner (or crossing the chasm?)
  2. As I wrote in wayyy back in March, they’re more important during/after the pandemic, not less
  3. You should read that whitepaper

---

Steve Wozniak is starting another company, 45 years after co-founding Apple with Steve Jobs—This time, it’s a green tech and blockchain play called Efforce. It’s a marketplace for building owners to have energy efficiency projects funded.

Wozniak created Efforce "to be the first decentralized platform that allows everyone to participate and benefit financially from worldwide energy efficiency projects, and create meaningful environmental change," he said.

Blockchain + cryptocurrency + M&V… what could go wrong? 😉 Count me as one of the skeptics on this one, friends.

---

Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar industry—We mostly focus on existing/brownfield buildings here at Nexus, but it’s always important to remember that the construction industry is upstream. This is a great look at those challenges and some exciting startups. (note: second half of article is behind paywall)

As one of the least-digitized sectors of our economy, construction is ripe for technology disruption.
Construction value chain
On top of being laborious and error-prone, the lack of real-time data is extremely limited, therefore decision-making is often based on outdated information.

This installment of NEXUS is free for everyone. If you would like to get full access to all content, join the NEXUS Pro community. Members get exclusive access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, monthly events, weekly deep dives, and all past deep dives.

Join NEXUS Pro

3. 💡 New from NEXUS

4. 🧐 New to me

Even though the Nexus Vendor Landscape has over 100 vendors on it, I still learn about new companies/products to track every week.

Here is this week’s discovery:

Spinalcom—French digital twin startup that has created “a Building Operating System in the form of a digital platform able to centralize, analyze and manage its data to supply all the necessary information for effective operation and for its occupants’ well-being.” (h/t Memoori)

5. 🧱 Foundations

In case you missed it, I wrote an essay last week about why I created the Nexus Foundations course: to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made and seen others make that have caused great pain. 😂

It’s called the Top 5 ways we f*ck up smart building projects and I hope it helps explain what the course is all about.

Early bird pricing for Cohort #2 (which kicks off in late February 2021) is available now and will run until midnight on 12/31/2020. If you’re interested in taking the course, I recommend enrolling sometime before then to reserve your spot and capture the discount.

OK, that’s all for this week—thanks for reading Nexus!

—James

Upgrade to Nexus Pro to continue reading

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Upgrade to Nexus Pro to continue reading

Upgrade

Good morning!

Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter, podcast, and membership community for smart people applying smart building technology—written by James Dice. If you’re new to Nexus, you might want to start here.

Here’s an outline of this week’s newsletter:

  1. 🤔  On my mind this week: stories that move us forward
  2. 📚  What I’m reading: our new whitepaper, Woz’s new company, construction tech
  3. 💡 New from Nexus: explaining what Microsoft is up to in smart buildings
  4. 🧐  New to me: this week’s new company
  5. 🧱  Foundations: a new essay about the course

Enjoy!

1. 🤔 On my mind this week

With the release of the whitepaper below, it’s been fun to begin to see some of Nexus Labs’ consulting work come to light. More exciting and nerdy stuff is yet to come.

I thought it would be a good time to clarify our partnership philosophy: Nexus Labs is vendor-neutral and does not endorse products or companies. Our goal is to help tell remarkable stories that will help educate and move the industry forward.

If you’d like help telling your nerdy smart building stories, you can add your project to the waitlist.

2. 📚 What I’m reading

---

New whitepaper from Nexus Labs and Clockworks Analytics—In case you missed it yesterday, Nexus and Clockworks Analytics (formerly KGS Buildings) collaborated on a new free whitepaper. Of all the content Nexus has published this year, this is one of the pieces I’m most proud of.

By the way, Clockworks last week announced an $8M Series D round of funding, and perhaps more newsworthy, 34% recurring revenue growth in 2020. For a 12-year-old company, that’s compelling. This is further proof that:

  1. Analytics are turning a corner (or crossing the chasm?)
  2. As I wrote in wayyy back in March, they’re more important during/after the pandemic, not less
  3. You should read that whitepaper

---

Steve Wozniak is starting another company, 45 years after co-founding Apple with Steve Jobs—This time, it’s a green tech and blockchain play called Efforce. It’s a marketplace for building owners to have energy efficiency projects funded.

Wozniak created Efforce "to be the first decentralized platform that allows everyone to participate and benefit financially from worldwide energy efficiency projects, and create meaningful environmental change," he said.

Blockchain + cryptocurrency + M&V… what could go wrong? 😉 Count me as one of the skeptics on this one, friends.

---

Construction tech startups are poised to shake up a $1.3-trillion-dollar industry—We mostly focus on existing/brownfield buildings here at Nexus, but it’s always important to remember that the construction industry is upstream. This is a great look at those challenges and some exciting startups. (note: second half of article is behind paywall)

As one of the least-digitized sectors of our economy, construction is ripe for technology disruption.
Construction value chain
On top of being laborious and error-prone, the lack of real-time data is extremely limited, therefore decision-making is often based on outdated information.

This installment of NEXUS is free for everyone. If you would like to get full access to all content, join the NEXUS Pro community. Members get exclusive access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, monthly events, weekly deep dives, and all past deep dives.

Join NEXUS Pro

3. 💡 New from NEXUS

4. 🧐 New to me

Even though the Nexus Vendor Landscape has over 100 vendors on it, I still learn about new companies/products to track every week.

Here is this week’s discovery:

Spinalcom—French digital twin startup that has created “a Building Operating System in the form of a digital platform able to centralize, analyze and manage its data to supply all the necessary information for effective operation and for its occupants’ well-being.” (h/t Memoori)

5. 🧱 Foundations

In case you missed it, I wrote an essay last week about why I created the Nexus Foundations course: to help you avoid the mistakes I’ve made and seen others make that have caused great pain. 😂

It’s called the Top 5 ways we f*ck up smart building projects and I hope it helps explain what the course is all about.

Early bird pricing for Cohort #2 (which kicks off in late February 2021) is available now and will run until midnight on 12/31/2020. If you’re interested in taking the course, I recommend enrolling sometime before then to reserve your spot and capture the discount.

OK, that’s all for this week—thanks for reading Nexus!

—James

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