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out—just because motion was detected, doesn’t mean have a great office, they are comfortable or because they
someone is in the room. It just means that motion was just got a job offer at another company? Technology is
detected. We may find correlations between data, but per- working on a lot of correlations and deep connections—but
haps it’s the wrong data sets and the wrong correlations; we still are not at the point to understand the causality or
then your subsequent action may not be the optimum even true intent.
choice.
Why do you attend Realcomm | IBcon?
And finally, cause and effect. We’ve been using basic A big imperative for me in 2019 is to help other people
triggers to provide better service: people walk into a room grow. I see a strong collaboration in our industry around
and a sensor turns on the lights. But beyond the trigger is real estate and technology. This is an incredible trend
the question: why? We just assume if they enter the room and we can move forward together. Participating in the
they want the lights on. We talk a lot about the occupant Realcomm | IBcon conference is a great example; sharing
experience, but what is better for them? Lights going on is how we’re doing and what we’re doing, best known meth-
configured automated action, a contrived cause and effect. ods, having open discussions, collaborating with others.
But what if we wanted to find out if an employee is happy? We believe by helping other people grow, it’s going to help
Are they happy because the food was good today, they us as well.

On the Cover

CLINT OSTEEN
SR. DIRECTOR OF IT
GRANITE PROPERTIES

Clint Osteen is Sr. Director of IT at Granite Properties, a
privately held commercial real estate investment, devel-
opment and management company founded in 1991.
Clint has spent the past 15 years aligning Granite’s IT
strategy with company strategy and vision. He is respon-
sible for the company’s digital strategy and information
security. In addition, he oversees tech support, software
development, and all things related to computers, audio/
visual and communications. Prior to joining Granite, Clint
spent 10 years in management consulting in the com-
mercial real estate space with Kenneth Leventhal, Ernst &
Young, and RealFoundations.
which saves the Property Experience Team time each
What were some of the major technology projects month by eliminating the need to print and mail invoices
you started or completed last year? for miscellaneous billings.
Granite has spent the last several years focused on
improving customer experience and the way we pro- During the Customer Portal pilot, we discovered that one
vide services. As a result, this has been a big focus for of the most time-consuming tasks was entry of miscel-
IT, both in looking for opportunities to provide services laneous billings from our cloud-based work order system
to our customers and how we can make the Property into accounting and billing systems. At the time, this was
Experience Team more efficient. One of the projects from a very manual process that (like all manual processes)
2018 was to create a Customer Payment portal allowing was inconsistent from asset to asset. Through the use of
for invoice and payment self-service. We are very excited Robotic Process Automation (RPA), we were able to save
to provide this new service to customers in our buildings, the teams hours each month as well as improving accu-

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