May 24, 2012 - Technologies that make buildings smarter and more energy efficient continue to evolve at a rapid pace, says Pike Research, “with new entrants and solutions announced every week”. Many of the new products and services centre on the big data that buildings produce in real time. Buildings have been producing volumes of information for many years but, according to a new white paper from Pike Research, many companies are starting to leverage the cloud as the basis for rich software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings.

May 15, 2012 - “Building Information Modelling (BIM) will change everything,” said Dennis Neeley (SmartBIM), noting that “the change is becoming very evident [and] is happening at unprecedented speed.”

The newly published third edition of the ASHRAE “GreenGuide: The Design, Construction and Operation of Sustainable Buildings” is an updated version of this reference, covering the need-to-know information on what to do, where to turn, what to suggest and how to interact with other members of the design team in a productive way.

I am often asked how one can learn more about the transitions now occurring in our building industry. One way is to travel to a warm location in January, and be part of the World's Largest HVAC&R Event and my 11th consecutive year of providing free education sessions at AHR Expo in Orlando, Florida (www.ahrexpo.com).

We are all ambassadors of the power of cloud computing, and managing buildings effectively and to the satisfaction of owners or tenants depends on our ability to talk about our successes and provide working examples of using cloud computing to connect to sustainability, conservation, and energy real time information.

There are clouds on the horizon and I am excited. The summation of my takeaways from ConnectivityWeek in Santa Clara, California, early in June was that Clouds are OK. In fact the power of data clouds and cloud computing to simplify the presentation and management of extreme amounts of data are truly amazing. We all already use these concepts every time we book air travel online or view Google Earth.