March 2021 Digest & Recording

Hey friends, happy hump day!

Welcome to another monthly digest… a collection of member updates and ideas I’ve been thinking about and working on this month.

Enjoy.

1—Today’s Member Gathering Recording

Here’s the recording from this week’s Member Gathering. This was a super fun conversation with 6 panelists that are on the cutting edge of attacking the integration problem in our industry.

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2—Deep Dives from March

In case you missed it, members received one deeper dive this month:

• My (updated) framework for evaluating new smart building technology

It’s been fun getting your comments and responses on this one.

This is great and couldn’t be better timed for the role I’ve taken on developing our smart building strategy. I’ll put this to use and send some feedback, thanks again!

Keep them coming!

Also, I’ve obviously been writing less than usual this month. That will change in April as the Foundations course winds down!

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3—Fun Conversations

This month, there have also been some fascinating LinkedIn and Connect conversations, in case you missed any of them:

• Has anyone heard about using a CBRS network for smart-building connectivity?
• Who's been in a facility management office like this?
• True or false: Productivity increases from smart building technology can be quantified.
• Defining AI and ML

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4—Who should build the CRE software platform of the future?

One of our Nexus Foundations students, Jack FitzGerald, asked me a super insightful question this month that’s been on my mind quite a bit. Jack identified three categories of software platform developers and asked me to weigh in on the best approach:

• Category 1: Platforms developed by large OEMs: JCI’s OpenBlue, Honeywell’s Forge, etc.
• Category 2: Platforms developed by independent software startups: Switch Automation, Facilio, Willow, etc
• Category 3: Platforms developed by owners and/or developers of large real estate portfolios: Rudin’s Prescriptive Data’s Nantum, Lendlease’s Podium, EDGE Next, etc.

This is a fascinating question that took about 20 minutes to unpack, only leading to more questions:

• Can Categories 1 & 3 actually build good software?
• Can Category 2 get enough market share if these large owners don’t need them?
• Which Category is best suited to create the app marketplace that we need but don’t have?

What do you think?

Thanks for reading and thanks for being a Nexus Pro member. As always, I’d love if you hit reply and let me know how I can improve your membership.

—James

P.S. for all of you new members, here are some handy links:

• Anonymous member feedback form (constructive criticism is always appreciated!)
• Modify your account (E.g. change your email address, modify your plan from monthly to annual, etc)
• Submit your podcast interview idea
• Submit your friendly rant podcast idea
• Add your personal Nexus Pro podcast feed to the player of your choice (so your phone automatically downloads members-only podcasts)
• The Nexus Vendor Landscape
• The Archive (all posts with a 🔒 are for members only)
• Add your project to the Nexus Labs consulting waitlist