Page 35 - RC19 RealcommEDGE 2019 Fall Issue

Everything is seamless, from the way on their needs at any given time is Microsoft is a very partner-focused
you get to the campus (whether driv- something that came out very quickly. organization, and an important goal
ing, carpooling or public transit) to This is not purely about technology— was determining how to engage the
entering the building and accessing it’s not about lights flashing and cam- multiple partners: identifying their
the services within it. That’s just one eras going off—but allowing people to strengths, mapping them within the
example, and it extends to any campus do what they want, where they want whole build life cycle. It’s important to
building and any connected activity, so they can achieve more. This is identify the various phases because
whether it’s finding people, organizing what a smart campus is all about. you may have different partners if
you are designing a building, building
it, or managing it.

What technology, automation
or innovation trends do you see
impacting corporate real estate
the most?
I think the ability to seamlessly unite
dataflow across systems and subsys-
tems is one of the largest enablers
going forward. There has been mas-
sive innovation with technology that
goes into a building in areas like PoE,
PoE++, mesh networks, visualization
and simulation, devices, and sensors.
If you look at technology areas such
as computer vision, natural language
Global Digital Transformation Team processing, artificial intelligence,
robotics; all have direct application to
your day, eating, having quiet time or What are your highest priority enabling services in a building where
physical activity. The goal is to create technology initiatives for the a person spends most of their time.
a campus where you can be the most next 12 months? As the individual systems start to get
productive version of yourself while Our biggest initiative is building a better functionality, the ability to unite
also maintaining a balance of physical global platform on which we can inte- dataflow will be crucial. No individual
and emotional wellbeing. The beauty grate and connect multiple disparate supplier can work in a silo; all must
of it is we can create a service that building systems. The platform would share and use data to deliver value.
anybody can use anywhere in the allow us to easily connect to any
world—and they believe that service building automation or subsystem, Data collection is another area
was specifically designed for them. giving us seamless access to data to because of the variety of standards
drive intelligence of how that space across the family of devices—which
Were there any surprises as you could be more effectively utilized. are also evolving. In deciding how
discovered which experiences best to use sensors to support
were important to people? In addition to the global platform, a key plug & play, to support varying data
There definitely were. Some are obvi- issue is the translation of the experi- collection needs (while avoiding
ous, for example, meeting rooms—we ences and validating their business duplication), we look at the best
know employees want a seamless and technical feasibility. This involves way to collect this data. Should data
experience where everything in that identifying: 1) the hardware; 2) the collection go through the lighting
meeting works. But then you begin to protocols and connectivity; 3) whether fixture where we can set up a mesh
think about unintentional meetings; these experiences must be custom network, or is there a better option?
how do we create avenues so people built; and 4) who in our partner eco- There are companies that offer smart
can bump into each other, enabling system we should collaborate with. glass, lights, infrastructure. Other
different types of collaboration? How There may be certain experiences that vendors talk about connected assets,
do we allow people to find a space are dependent on devices or hardware which can provide you the data you
that suits productivity needs and gen- that don’t exist in the market today; we need. You also have 5G; how do we
erates satisfaction? We discovered let our partners know what is valuable incorporate 5G in the services we’re
it’s not about beautiful spaces. Giving and what we need so that we can work designing? All of these will affect
users the flexibility to choose, based on ideas and solutions together. future buildings.

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