Founder Note

Every Wednesday, we send out "the single best resource on technology for buildings", Nexus' Founder Note. Each issue includes a note from Nexus Labs Founder, James Dice, along with a podcast, featured speaker, an event list, and more. Sign up today.

Latest Articles

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Case Study: QuadReal Rolls Out Passive Optical Networks for OT Devices

Brad Bonavida

QuadReal Property Group is a global real estate investor and operator with over $73 billion in real estate assets and counting. In 2019, Thano Lambrinos joined the QuadReal team. Amid the building industry's transition to digitizing everything, Lambrinos and the QuadReal team were eager to embrace new technologies to differentiate themselves from competitors.

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Part 1: How to navigate the smart buildings marketplace

James Dice

Hey friends, For years, we’ve been trying to make the vendor swamp, AKA the smart buildings marketplace, less murky. We’ve been tracking the marketplace for many years and sharing insights with the Nexus Pro Community.

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Case Study: Limbach Holdings is Digitizing HVAC and Controls Service

Brad Bonavida

Limbach Holdings provides mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and control (MEP+C) contracting services to building owners throughout the United States. The Limbach team struggled with consistently gathering the data and insights they needed from different building equipment in a standardized fashion to provide efficient and data-driven services to those buildings.

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Gaps in your smart buildings program

James Dice

Hey friends, Smart buildings are created by long-term programs, not individual technologies or projects. But in our interviews with 50+ smart buildings technology buyers, we uncovered an inconvenient insight that is holding back our industry: 

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🎧 #161: Nexus Labs Update - People Counting, Marketplace, and NexusCon!

James Dice

Episode 161 is a Nexus Labs Update featuring James Dice speaking on the shifts in focus of Nexus Labs. Enjoy!

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Case Study: University of California Irvine overhauls BAS, adds FDD

Brad Bonavida

University of California, Irvine (UCI) is a 36,000-student, 224-degree public university in Irvine, California. UCI has partnered with Altura Associates, an engineering advisor and trusted master systems integrator (MSI). Since 2016, these two entities have been collaborating on a campus-wide project to bring the campus facilities technology to the forefront of the industry. 

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Guest Essay: Crossing the AI Chasm

Drew DePriest

Hey friends, This week we have a thought-provoking, future-looking guest essay from Drew DePriest, Director of Real Estate Operations Technology at McKesson.

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6
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Occupancy Counting <> HVAC: An Uphill Battle for Buyers

James Dice

Hey friends, Thank you for all the feedback on last week’s first-of-its-kind newsletter. In case you missed it, we helped two different Buyers narrow the vast occupancy counting marketplace down to a shortlist of the 2-3 best vendors for them.

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Results: Occupancy Counting Vendor Selection

James Dice

Hey friends, Today, let’s change it up around here with a new type of newsletter. ✨ Nexus Labs has just completed two vendor selection processes for Buyers. Now, we’re sharing the results

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🎧 #160: Case Study: KIPP DC Schools wants autonomy, deploys IDL, FDD, Supervisory control, CMMS

James Dice

Episode 160 features Nathan Morris from KIPP, Stephen Dawson from Normal Software, and Terry Herr from Intellimation. This conversation explores KIPPs partnerships between Normal Software and Intellimation to better manage school facilities and increase savings to bring money back into the classrooms. Enjoy!

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Decarbonization on the WattCarbon Marketplace

James Dice

Building owners have many opportunities to decarbonize their own buildings to meet their carbon targets, but sometimes their money can be better spent decarbonizing other people’s buildings. That’s WattCarbon’s thesis, and one we believe in too. So much so that we (along with dozens of you) invested in their seed round last year.

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Smart Buildings x Murder Mysteries

James Dice

Happy New Year! It’s delightful to be back at it after unplugging from work over the holidays. I needed some rest—and found it in the form of movies, TV shows, and of course, English Premier League soccer. 

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Invite: The Buyer’s Guide to Controls Software [Marketplace #10]

James Dice

The software operating commercial buildings hasn't changed much since before I was born. The first Building Automation Systems came about in the 1980s, with the ability to schedule equipment operation, create setpoints, and program sequences of operations. They could also store data (“trends”), display that data on a graphic, and alert operators to alarming readings (“alarms”).

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🎧 #159: Case Study: Quadreal rolls out passive optical networks for OT devices

James Dice

Episode 159 features Thano Lambrinos from Quadreal and Wayne Kim from Andorix. This conversation explores the partnership between Quadreal and Andorix and how the implementation of a new network has made an impact on Quadreal. Enjoy!

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NexusCon: Save the date + 50 early bird tickets

James Dice

We’ve been convening the changemakers of the smart buildings industry for 4 years. In 2024, it's time to finally meet up in person—at the very first NexusCon.

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Case Study: The Empire State Building

James Dice

This case study discusses the Empire State Realty Trust's systematic approach to building retrofits and technology deployments with Kode Labs.

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🎧 #158: Case Study: Limbach Holdings digitizes HVAC and Controls Service

James Dice

Episode 158 features Richard Davis from Limbach Holdings. This conversation explores how Limbach Holdings is integrating FDD and energy management softwares into their HVAC and plumbing services. Enjoy!

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Demystifying “Use Cases” [Marketplace #8]

James Dice

The Nexus Pro community manager, Eric Larsen, posed a compelling prompt to our 600-member community: “Many of us agree that “Use Cases” are the building blocks of a Smart Building. However, I haven’t heard a single, significant, concise definition. How can that be if they’re so important?!”

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🎧 #157: Case Study: Decarbonization on the WattCarbon Marketplace

James Dice

Episode 157 features McGee Young from WattCarbon, Alan Greenberg, and DR Richardson from Elephant Energy and is our 7th episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies. This conversation explores how WattCarbon can bridge the gap for property owners and vendors, while simultaneously validating their decarbonization efforts. Enjoy!

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Invite: The Buyer’s Guide to the Data Layer [Marketplace #6]

James Dice

The filterable Nexus Labs content library on our website tells me that since 2020, we’ve published 21 podcasts, 16 newsletters, and 10 members-only events on the independent data layer, building operating systems, digital twins, or single “pains” of glass. What do all these buzzwords topics have in common? They’re all used to describe the technologies at the data layer of the smart buildings stack. They’re all used to bring data from multiple silos together so it can be leveraged in software applications for better outcomes. 

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Case Study: Sleep Country Deploys AI-Enabled Thermostats in 200+ Stores

James Dice

This case study explores how Sleep Country responded to challenges by deploying “AI-enabled thermostats” in its 214 stores.

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“But every building is a snowflake” [Marketplace #5]

James Dice

We have a funny saying in our industry: “Every building is a snowflake”. Have you heard it? It’s used to describe the complexity of scaling smart building technology.

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🎧 #156: Case Study: Sleep Country deploys AI-enabled thermostats in 200+ stores

James Dice

Episode 156 features Mary de Guzman from Sleep Country and Omar Tabba from BrainBox AI and is our 6th episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies. Mary and Omar discuss the benefits of installing AI enabled thermostats in several hundred retail stores. Enjoy!

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“Vendor First” buyers [Marketplace #4]

James Dice

Last week, we summarized the ‘Category First’ buyer—the ones who start the buying process by assessing an entire category of technology vendors. Only after validating that the category moves the needle do they engage the marketplace in a serious way.

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When “category” comes first [Marketplace #3]

James Dice

We’re back with another installment of our Marketplace series of newsletters. In the smart buildings technology marketplace, there’s a type of buyer I call “Category First” buyers. They start the buying process by assessing a category of technology vendor. And only after validating that the category moves the needle do they engage the marketplace. 

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🎧 #155: Case Study: The Empire State Building

James Dice

Episode 155 features Dana Schneider from Empire State Realty Trust and Etrit Demaj from KODE Labs and is our 5th episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies. These are not marketing fluff stories, these are lessons from leaders that others can put into use in their smart buildings programs. Dana dives into their systematic approach to building retrofits, leading with The Empire State Building, and why they publish what they do. Enjoy!

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September 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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Jamestown’s Approach to the Innovative Building

Natalie Patton

Carrie Denning Jackson gives the Nexus Pro Community a candid run-down of all her efforts across the forward-thinking organization.

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Wading through the vendor swamp [Marketplace #2]

James Dice

We’re back with another installment of our Marketplace series of newsletters. One of the unfortunate truths holding back the smart buildings industry is that buying technology takes so much work that it could be a full-time job. For each new technology added to the program, here are the steps it takes:

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Case Study: Enhancing Cybersecurity and Speeding Up Remote Operations at BGO

Danielle Radden

In this case study, we explore how BGO successfully implemented a cybersecurity platform using the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework and Zero Trust architecture.

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🎧 #154: Case Study: University of California Irvine overhauls BAS, adds FDD

James Dice

Episode 154 features Joseph Fleshman from University of California, Irvine and Jim Meacham from Altura Associates and is our fourth episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies. Joe and Jim talk in depth about the systematic overhaul of University of California Irvine’s building automation system, operational technology networking, and deploying fault detection and diagnostics software. Enjoy!

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🎧 #153: Case Study: Unpacking BGO's cybersecurity program

James Dice

Episode 153 features Ben Cooper from BGO (BentallGreenOak) and is our third episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies. Ben talks about the asset type due diligence and rate of adoption for their new infrastructure platform, the overall efficiencies created, and the future proofing abilities with a cloud connection application layer. Enjoy!

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The synergy between the data layer and IoT sensors [Marketplace #1]

James Dice

Buyers: This new ‘Marketplace’ newsletter series is written just for you. Being a Buyer in the smart building technology market requires you to start thinking in categories. The Nexus Marketplace currently has 47 different categories—and counting!

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August 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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The IoT Sensor Debate: Should Sensors Have Recurring Fees?

Natalie Patton

The August Pro member gathering doubled as Nexus Labs' second debate. See how Liam Bates, Tom Balme and David Sciarrino argued for and against recurring fees for IoT sensors.

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SME Workshop: The ROI of a Smart Building Solution

James Dice

“The most effective form of return on investment (ROI) that is tangible and measurable is operational expenditure (Opex) savings”

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🎧 #152: In The Field: Stacks+Joules Graduate Nathanseth Cruz

James Dice

Episode 152 is the second episode in our new workforce series, In The Field. In The Field features people working boots on the ground in the built environment, giving real-life perspectives on their roles, backgrounds, and aspirations. Episode 152 features Stacks+Joules graduate and senior controls technician Nathanseth Cruz of Dual Fuel and Stacks+Joules Founder and Executive Director Michael Conway.

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🎧 #151: What we do @ Nexus Labs

James Dice

Episode 151 dives into what James and Rosy do at Nexus Labs beyond the podcast. From the pro membership community, to the courses platform, partnerships, and the marketplace, this episode brings you up to speed on all things Nexus Labs.

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SME Workshop: Edge Cloud (Fog) Computing in Buildings

Danielle Radden

Edge cloud has the promise of both the benefits of full cloud, and all the benefits of staying on-premise. This is the middle ground—that Goldilocks sweet spot of not too big, not too small. Not too flat, not too on-prem. ‍

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The smart buildings shortcut I wish I had

James Dice

Today, I want to tell you a quick story about my career.This will help explain the changes I made 6 years ago that I credit for helping me make an impact in smart buildings industry—changes that might help others trying to find their feet as the industry blazes forward.

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There is no killer app

James Dice

Here's something to ponder: Do we have any apps that 'assure the success' of smart buildings technology? Unfortunately, the answer is no.

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Case Study: Integrating FDD into Service Operations with LONG Building Technologies

James Dice

The story of a 5-year effort at LONG Building Technologies to integrate fault detection and diagnostics, or FDD, into their service operations.

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🎧 #150: Case Study: LONG Building Technologies on FDD

James Dice

The 150th Nexus Podcast Episode! Episode 150 features LONG Building Technologies and is our second episode in the Case Study series looking at real-life, large-scale deployments of smart building technologies.

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July 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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The Integration Challenge of Smart Buildings

James Dice

Tyrone Mawing joins our APAC/Australia Monthly Pro Member Gathering for a discussion on the integration challenge of smart buildings.

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The power of windshield time

James Dice

This edition of the Nexus Newsletter is brought to you by Butlr and Tietoa. Hey friends, When I was growing up, I loved road trips. Jumping in my mo

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Smart Building Success Stories and Lessons Learned for Municipalities

Natalie Patton

Mandy Omrani of Infrastructure Ontario tells the Nexus community what’s working and how.

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Cybersecurity in Smart Buildings: Strategies for a Secure Future

Danielle Radden

Cybersecurity is critical to protect the confidentiality and integrity in the data from both our IT and OT systems. Mike MacMahon from Newcomb & Boyd tells us everything we need to know and where to find out more.

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LinkedIn's approach to smart buildings

Natalie Patton

June’s Nexus Pro Member Gathering featured a comprehensive breakdown of LinkedIn’s Smart Building program from leading engineers Cristal Ortiz and Andrew Knueppel

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Tech Integration part of Design and Construction? How and Why

Danielle Radden

Mahmoud Shouman from JB&B gives an insightful presentation about how to integrate smart building technology and data into the design and construction process and why it makes perfect sense.

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🎧 #149: Change My Mind: The Independent Data Layer

James Dice

Join us for lively debates with Nexus Pro Members live in the audience. Engage in thought-provoking discussions on controversial topics within the world of smart buildings. Prepare to have your perspectives challenged and expanded! And of course we had to start with today’s ultimate debate: The Independent Data Layer!

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🎧 #148: Foundations: Intro to Horizontal Architectures

James Dice

Immerse yourself in expert-led monologues focused on a single topic. We’ll share their wisdom and knowledge, giving you the tools to build a solid foundation in key areas of interest. This season, yours truly tackles The Horizontal Architecture.

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🎧 #147: Deep Dive: Audio/Visual Systems and The Role They Play

James Dice

Dive into fascinating interviews with experts who explore the boundaries of "smart buildings." From cutting-edge to established technologies, we'll uncover the latest trends and innovations in the field. This season, we dive into the overlaps between Audio Visual Systems and smart buildings.

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🎧 #146: In The Field: Facility Manager Mary Gloven

James Dice

Get ready for insightful boots-on-the-ground interviews with changemaking facility managers, technicians, and more. We're hitting the ground running with Mary Gloven, a phenomenal facility manager at The Alliance Center in Denver.

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🎧 #145: Early Stage: Waste Tracking with WATS

James Dice

Discover the future of innovation as we chat with seed stage changemaking startup founders. This season, we're thrilled to feature WATS (Waste Administration and Tracking Software). Their vision will have you rethinking the way we handle waste in real estate.

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May Pro Member Gathering Recap: Interview with Jamestown's Becca Timms

Natalie Patton

This month’s Member Gathering featured a wide-ranging conversation with Becca Timms, Director of ESG at Jamestown. For this recap, we’re formatting it as a written interview to cover the topics discussed in chunks.

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🎧 #144: Case Study: How the University of Iowa integrated FDD into maintenance operations

James Dice

Learn valuable lessons from buyers who have successfully deployed mature tech solutions at scale over multiple years. We dive deep into their experiences to uncover the insights and challenges faced throughout their transformative journeys. In this first episode, we hear from The University of Iowa on their 9-year effort to transform their maintenance operations around FDD software.

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🎧 #143: Updates + AMA

James Dice

You asked for it, and we're delivering! Our Nexus Pro members will have the chance to ask Rosy and me anything. We'll be answering your burning questions, sharing our experiences, and providing hot takes.

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Case Study: The University of Iowa’s FDD Program Spanning 7 Million Square Feet

James Dice

The story of a 9-year effort at the University of Iowa to integrate fault detection and diagnostics, or FDD, into their maintenance operations.

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Applying and advancing Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Natalie Patton

Nexus Pro SME workshop hosted by Krigh Bachmann to the Nexus Pro community focusing on how to leverage BIM to improve smart buildings.

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April 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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June 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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Dream's Net Zero Target and the Technology Involved

James Dice

April's members-only SME Workshop was a master class in showing how a roadmap to Net Zero includes operational technologies.

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6
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Quadreal's Quest for "The Operations of the Future"

James Dice

April’s members-only gathering was an honest and insightful take on Quadreal’s efforts rolling out “The Operations of the Future” across 55 buildings.

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Let's catch you up

James Dice

It’s been a week of celebration, as we hosted a successful happy hour event in Denver, Colorado, bringing together our team and community members for an evening of fun and networking.

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March 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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Introducing: The Decarb Roadmap

James Dice

As an energy engineer for the first 10 years of my career, I always felt like I was doing important work. I loved studying mechanical rooms and putting together retrofit projects that helped my clients save money by saving energy. 

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The Founding Story

James Dice

Since the beginning, it’s felt like I’ve been pulled into creating Nexus. It felt like a calling. I’m simply answering the call—while each day trying to hone my listening skills (so I can interpret the call correctly) and remove my ego (so I can minimize getting in the way).

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Introducing “Who-Is, I-Am": our speaker database for conference organizers

James Dice

Today’s newsletter is a collaboration between Nexus Labs and our newest creator, Drew DePriest, Senior Director of Digital Facilities Management at CBRE. Drew and I are among the select few invited to speak at most smart buildings conferences.

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🎧 #142: Living buildings and where technology fits

James Dice

"The building industry can be the first to show the world what it looks like for an industry from within itself to transform itself in line with a sustainable future."​

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8
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Insights → Operations

James Dice

Today, we’re kicking off a new monthly Nexus Labs column called Insights → Operations. We’ll explore best practices with leading building owners and our fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) category partners. 

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🎧 #141: CRE Market Talk #2 with Mandi Wedin and Joe Gaspardone

James Dice

"So many organizations are selling ESG solutions, but very few have their own ESG statements, goals, or positions. If you don't want it, why would I?"

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4
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Launching our Partner Program!

James Dice

Today’s newsletter is part 5 in our series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem.

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February 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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🎧 #140: The value of occupancy data and reducing risks with leak detection

James Dice

"You can't just sell the data. It's got enormous value, but it needs to be manifested and taught in such a way that people can react to it." Episode 140 is a conversation with Bayron Lopez Pineda, Director of OT Operational Technology at Kilroy Realty and Mike Moran, Chief Markets Officer and Chief Risk & Sustainability Officer at MicroShare. We talked about Killroy Realty's Smart Buildings Program and got into the weeds on how they're thinking about occupancy data and leak detection, which are two topics we've discussed on the podcast, but not in detail.

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4
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Announcing the “seller” ecosystem

James Dice

Today’s newsletter is part 4 in our series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem.

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🎧 #139: Q1 2023 M&A Roundup with J³

James Dice

Episode 139 is a conversation with Joe Aamidor of Aamidor Consulting and Jeanne Casey of Nuveen. If you add me in, you get J³. This is the fourth installment of our M&A Roundup series, recorded in February 2023 all about what's happening in the marketplace right now. We unpacked the most interesting recent mergers and acquisitions in the smart buildings industry and dove into why, our reaction to them, and other trends they’re related to.

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🎧 #138: The one where James gets interviewed

James Dice

Episode 138 is a special episode with Nexus Labs' new COO, Rosy Khalife. We introduce you to Rosy who, for the first time on the podcast, turns the tables on me and interviews me. We talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs, the founding story of the company, and the future. If you're looking for some background on Nexus Labs, this is definitely a good place to start.

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The Voice of the Customer

James Dice

Today’s newsletter is part 3 in our series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem: Voices of the buy personas. We have this saying in our industry: “every building is a snowflake.” Do you say it? It’s true… but we shouldn’t let that be an excuse for inaction or resisting change.

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🎧 #137: Jigar Shah wants to fund your Virtual Power Plant

James Dice

"We pay $10 billion per year for balancing the grid using natural gas, peaker plants, etc. when we could be paying that to households for those services instead."

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The humans of smart buildings: our "buyer" personas

James Dice

Today’s newsletter is part 2 in a series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem. Here’s a summary of the series: Part 1: The two sides of the ecosystem: buyers and sellers—where do you fit? (last week) Part 2: The humans of smart buildings: our "buyer" personas (today)

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🎧 #136: Innovation and case studies of grid-interactive efficient buildings

James Dice

Episode 136 is a conversation with Cindy Zhu, Director of Grid Services at Prescriptive Data. We primarily cover grid-interactive efficient buildings, or GEB, my second least favorite acronym in our industry (behind SPOG of course).

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January 2023 Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.

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The ecosystem: where do you fit?

James Dice

Buildings (and the industry supporting them) are transformed by humans and organizations of humans. Today’s newsletter kicks off a series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem. Here’s where we’re headed:

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59
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🎧 #135: Transforming the market, with regulation and without

James Dice

Episode 135 is a conversation with Cliff Majersik, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Market Transformation, a nonprofit that’s focused on regulatory and nonregulatory ways to push the economy toward decarbonization.

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10
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Why we invested in WattCarbon

James Dice

Last fall, we launched the Nexus Labs Syndicate and started off with an investment in Xeal. Today, I’m excited to announce our second investment in WattCarbon!WattCarbon, led by Nexus Pro member McGee Young, allows energy consumers to offset their energy use on a time and locational basis from renewable energy projects, demand response dispatch, and electrification projects sourced from their own communities, turning local buildings into decarbonization assets.Our investment was part of WattCarbon’s $4.5 million seed round led by True Ventures, with participation from Village Global, Jetstream, Not Boring Capital, Keiki Capital, Greensoil PropTech Ventures, and others.

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🎧 #134: The building operator's role in decarbonization and digitization

James Dice

Episode 134 is a conversation with Comly Wilson, CMO at Enertiv. I enjoyed this one because I believe in a lot of what Comly was saying about workflows being the key to decarbonizing buildings. And not just decarbonization, really implementing any new technology or changing the way things are done in any way requires you to start with the way people work currently and meet them where they’re at.

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New white paper: The 5 Vital Roles

James Dice

Our latest white paper summarizes the five vital roles that every smart building program needs on the team. We talk a lot about the flashy new technology required for smart buildings. But we must always remember that when we're changing how things are done, it's people that make it happen.

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🎧 #133: How the building automation supply chain works (and when it doesn't)

James Dice

Episode 133 is a conversation and history lesson with Leroy Walden, a veteran of the building automation system integrator ecosystem in Atlanta, Georgia. We unpacked how the building automation supply chain functions, including the roles of the manufacturers, distributors, and integrators responsible for controlling HVAC systems in major metropolitan areas. And of course, we talked about the downsides and opportunities of that status quo when it comes to implementing smart building technologies. And as we’ve talked about in the past HVAC controls are one silo in the building that operates similarly to the other silos, so the insights in this conversation are applicable to access control, lighting, electrical products, etc.

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Where we're headed in 2023

James Dice

First, we must acknowledge what I believe is the giant elephant in the room: ME.

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🎧 #132: Refrigerants: the Cinderella of the Decarbonization Movement

James Dice

Episode 132 is a conversation with Tristam Coffin, Co-Founder of Effecterra. We started, as usual with Tristam’s background which includes heavy experience in the grocery vertical. But our main focus here is on sustainable refrigerants. We’ve spent a long time covering how the buildings industry needs to decarbonize by electrifying heating systems using heat pumps, but we and the industry as a whole have overlooked the elephant in the room: the GWP of refrigerants themselves and how they contribute to climate change and every organization’s progress toward net zero. Or, as Tristam said, refrigerants are like Cinderella: they haven’t been invited to the decarbonization ball.

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Kickstart your learning this year

James Dice

I'm back after taking a few weeks off for R&R and some exploration off of my normal beaten path. I can't think about smart buildings 24/7/365, can I? Before we talk about smart buildings, I have some carveouts to share from my explorations:

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Nexus Labs' Year in Review

James Dice

2022 Review: As we celebrate the holidays and start to wind down the year, I'm reflecting on the progress we've made in accelerating the transition to digital and decarbonized buildings.

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The commissioning agent

James Dice

We need a coordinated and systematic approach to testing and verifying that all of a building's systems are working together properly. That’s where the commissioning (Cx) agent comes in.

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🎧 #131: Google's BOS Program & Creating Software-Defined Buildings

James Dice

Episode 131 is a conversation with Kathy Farrington, Digital Buildings Lead at Google. This is the 4th episode in our Google series, which unpacks different facets of their global smart buildings program and dates back to 2020. This one with Kathy is probably where we should have started because as she shares, she was involved from the beginning when it was just a side project she focused on with her 20% time.

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The Network Manager

James Dice

The Network Layer is a vital part of a smart building's infrastructure. It is: ...a dedicated layer with its own hardware, software, standard operating procedures, and key stakeholders who take responsibility for doing it right. It should be converged, monitored, maintained, and have redundancy.

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11
min read

It's Time to Rethink Physical Access Control

Lee Odess

The access control industry is in the midst of a transformation. This transformation is the difference between a $10B industry, which focuses just on security, and a $100B+ total addressable market.

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🎧 #130: Allianz's smart buildings program and the importance of the BOS

James Dice

"For us, it's simpler to work with applications that go on top of the BOS because we can control the information being accessed. Without the BOS, transparency is limited, which limits the number of use cases.By adding this data layer, we're dramatically increasing transparency and the possibilities of what else can easily be added on top."

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10
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Your November Member Digest [Nexus Pro]

James Dice

Hey friends, Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you ti

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13
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The MSI

James Dice

As we celebrate the holidays and start to wind down the year, I'm reflecting on the progress in our industry in 2022. One definite area of progress is defining the specialist roles needed to make smart buildings successful. In this series, we're summarizing five vital roles that every smart building program needs on the team.

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