I had a GREAT concept for this post the other day, wrote down the title and then wandered off for 72 hours. When I sat back down the only thing I could remember was how awesome the thought was but nothing about the details. So I apologize for this entry not being as amazing as intended.
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Technology is everywhere. Our TVs, phones, thermostats, security systems, and computers are all “smart.” Our workplaces have cool tools and devices. Many of us buy cutting edge “toys” to play with at home that are 4 years ahead of anything we’ll be getting at work. We live in a smart world.
But that actually makes everything else harder. I get emails weekly asking if there is a better way to crunch numbers than Excel. People assume that the technology behind Excel is now over a decade old and there has to be something better. I hate to say it but for most users there is nothing better out there. (Yes, there is R and Tableau and a slew of other products but they all require some level of non-typical understanding.) Our immersion into technology has convinced us all that there are better ways and it is disappointing when there aren’t.
Technology is a tremendous curse for corporate IT. Every user now thinks they now what to do when problems occur but they forget that their solutions don’t work on corporate locked down devices which makes a bigger mess. And then IT comes along behind to clean it up. It’s largely a mess of corporate’s own making, but try convincing them of that. Rules are supposed to be fixed and stable things. Not changing just because everyone has surpassed the time when they were made.
But for Real Estate. Technology is the biggest curse. How many buildings were constructed with the idea of being wifi friendly? How many buildings still don’t have fiber to the server closets? How many buildings will never upgrade to Cat6 wiring? How many buildings don’t have enough ethernet ports to accommodate the user demand? How in the world will the infrastructure be upgraded to meet this demand in a world of reduced budgets?
Real Estate has it worst on the Technology front and most don’t even realize it. How often is a wifi topology map part of the building selection process? Sure, you can throw more routers at it, but you’ll always have dead zones. What about cell signal strength? I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to go into buildings and have zero bars. This is a real estate issue – not a corporate IT one.
There are new ways that everyone must look at the world because of technology. Real Estate included.