Aug 10 2012

Does Social Media Belong in CAD Applications?

Via the excellent TenLinks newsletter, I found this Cadalyst article by Robert Green on social media in the CAD workplace. Robert admits he is not a big fan of social media in the workplace:

I do see some value in it for CAD managers, as long as it is used judiciously. However, I foresee nothing but problems if users are allowed to access social media as they see fit on corporate networks.

He then invites other people’s views on the topic, so I have dropped him an email.

My perspective

Being social in the workplace is nothing new. Before we had Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, we had numerous other ways to communicate online, through bulletin boards, chat-rooms, mailing lists, etc. Email, in particular, enabled users to keep in touch with friends and family from their work computer and rarely caught the eye of the line manager because, unless he or she looked closely, it looked like the user was working. And if you took away our internet access and our smartphones, we could always pick up the telephone, break out for a coffee and a chat about football with Fred from the office next door, or go to the toilet. I am also old enough to remember working in construction businesses which limited access to email, and later restricted access to the world-wide web…

Social media has its place in the work environment, but its use needs to be carefully managed and employees need guidelines on what is (and isn’t) appropriate. In many cases, this may be an extension of existing guidelines on work access to the web and use of email, stopping people from looking at porn sites, or sending malicious or offensive emails. IT departments can support line managers by monitoring internet content access; if employees know their web habits are being scrutinised, they often modify their habits.

Once controls are in place, users can be guided on how to use social media effectively. For example, many CAD/BIM-related websites and communities have embraced various social media platforms, but for the newbie it can sometimes be difficult to separate the useful from the time-wasting. As a Twitter power-user, I use a desktop client to monitor and search for key terms relevant to my daily work (I really value the energy of my UK BIM friends on Twitter); I use Google Reader to monitor relevant blogs, and Google Alerts to track certain companies or topics. Indiscriminate use of social media, like surfing the web, can be time-consuming, presenting the user with lots of information, but by being targeted I make sure I find just what I need and little more. And occasionally asking Twitter for help can be useful, with targeted responses and recommendations bypassing endless Google searches. As Clay Shirkey suggests, there is no such thing as information overload, only filter failure.

I do wonder sometimes about the push to include social media sharing into line-of-business applications, but there are instances where it can be appropriate. I have talked to organisations that use Salesforce Chatter or Yammer (recently acquired by Microsoft, of course) as an internal Twitter-like tool for collaboration and information sharing (post). As an observer of the SaaS-based construction collaboration scene, I have also seen vendors begin to adopt interface ideas that are familiar from social media – using a “wall” for comments on designs rather than threaded discussions, for example. And the growing use of smartphones and tablets is driving increasingly real-time discussions that once used to take place asynchronously via email, so we are likely to see more online collaboration that is optimised for mobile platforms.

You are right to be concerned about vendors using social media as a marketing channel to reach CAD users, but I have also seen social media used very effectively as a customer service platform. I have twice received exemplary support from companies (Orange, for example) via Twitter, neatly sidestepping their overloaded email, bloated websites and laborious telephone systems (“your call is important to us, please wait until a representative becomes available”), and some vendors’ user communities can offer even more rapid help than the vendors themselves (I have picked up a few useful work-arounds via LinkedIn user groups, for example).

I will be interested to hear what others have to say on this topic.

Update (14 September 2012): Judging from the feedback that Robert received, the majority of his CAD manager respondents shared his frustration about social media. Read his follow-up article: CAD Managers Resist Social Media Infiltration.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/08/does-social-media-belong-in-cad-applications/

Aug 07 2012

Xpin offers new interface ideas

Last week I met Matthew Jennings, business development director, and online director Richard Hulbert of London-based digital agency Code Vanilla, which has developed a cloud-based collaboration platform called Xpin (described here). Following an introduction via Su Butcher, Matthew had asked for feedback on the Beta release of Xpin and whether it might be of interest to architects.

Explaining Xpin

In a nutshell, “Xpin is a web-based collaborative management tool that enables distributed teams to work together on visual backgrounds.” After a quick exchange of emails, I received an Xpin invitation and was registered in seconds.

The interface is clean and simple, with new users immediately invited to upload images (currently only PDF, JPG or PNG). Such images then form what Xpin terms a live “canvas” which can be shared with fellow project team members, who – as the branding suggests – can add “pins” and start conversations around these pins. Each pin, via navigation tabs for activity, details, uploads and alerts, can carry user-generated comments and links to further files of supporting documentation, capturing threaded conversations.

More importantly, pins aren’t just places for user interactions. Pins can also represent entities such as tasks, pieces of equipment, rooms, buildings or even people. Each can be configured to record attributes (condition, availability, etc), and to support real-time, item-specific conversations. So, for example, if an item of construction plant is moved, operatives can update the pin position on the site plan so that its new location is instantly visible to the site manager and other project team members.

Xpin also maintains an audit trail so that users can review past conversations, or the history of a particular asset. You can scroll back to see how how things looked at a previous time in the project and then roll-forward to see how things changed, when, where and why. Xpin also offers flexible searching and filtering, and configurable permissioning, alerts, and email and SMS integration.

Xpin for construction project delivery?

Richard explained that Xpin had been developed as a generic Software-as-a-Service collaboration platform, and that architecture was just one potential market; Code Vanilla has experience in pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and event management, and some Beta testing is already under way in a manufacturing environment.

Depending upon the price of the application and the licensing strategy, I could see the potential of Xpin to support SME projects where a simple, intuitive way of sharing and collaborating upon programmes, drawings and other graphic information is needed. But more sophisticated projects undertaken by larger teams may be better served by existing construction collaboration platforms, which deliver extensive functionality to support collaboration (including drawing mark-up and commenting), version control, workflow, quality assurance and reporting.

Asset management

However, the more I learned about Xpin, the more I began to think about its potential as an asset or facilities management platform. If Code Vanilla can create an easy way to import as-built data from the design and construction phases of a project, then Xpin could prove invaluable to non-construction staff responsible for operation and maintenance of built assets and the fixtures, finishes, furniture and equipment within them.

Richard told me that hierarchies of pins could be created. For example, pins could be used to identify plant-rooms, and then, within each plant-room, each item of equipment could be documented via its own pin. We also discussed geo-location of items (GPS is on the product road-map) and how the platform might potentially be integrated with RFID, QR codes (post) or augmented reality systems such as Layar. There is also, in my view, an opportunity for integration with real-time environmental data (we talked about Pachube – recently rebranded Cosm – and the ‘Internet of Things‘), so that pins’ data can be automatically updated via other devices, as well as by human intervention.

Mobile web-based collaboration is also critical to Xpin’s future, enabling real-time updates of the location or status of a particular asset from the field rather than retrospectively when the user returns to the office. Meantime, Code Vanilla is currently looking for Beta testers of Xpin, with the latest round of development due to finish in September 2012.

My take

There are several low-cost, simple construction-specific collaboration platforms that can be used to support planning, detailed design and on-site project delivery (I have looked at UK vendors Woobius (post), Clouds UK (post) and Collabor8Online (post), among others, previously), but, as with their often more expensive and sophisticated rivals, collaboration tends to be document-centric. While Xpin’s “canvas”-sharing is along similar lines, its alternative, asset-centric approach to capturing and recording the histories and statuses of particular rooms or items within rooms is different and likely to be more user-friendly. If relevant as-built data from design and construction can be imported during project handover, then Xpin could become an intuitive and powerful information tool for owner-operators, facilities managers and their supply chains involved with the upkeep of buildings and the systems, equipment and furniture they contain.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/08/xpin-offers-new-interface-ideas/

Jul 30 2012

From Asite to Adoddle

London-based Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration technology vendor Asite has a completely new website and has also renamed its platform Adoddle.

A hand-drawn cartoon character resembling (to me) a cross between a light-bulb and a rocket is used to personify and represent the offering (previously branded simply Asite). ‘Addodle’ is shown beating the ‘chaos monster’, and, in a new overview of the company’s Key solutions, is progressively equipped with more kit:

The website also features similarly hand-drawn representations of Asite’s key markets. The company no longer sees itself as mainly focused on the AEC sector; it highlights its potential for corporate use, FM, infrastructure, government and financial services clients too, while its Adoddle video uses a simple manufacturing example of web-based sharing and collaboration.

The new branding coincides with the latest version of Asite’s platform. Release 15 includes Revit plug-in support for publishing building information model files from Revit directly to Asite’s cBIM (collaborative BIM) platform. Its BIM features also include an integrated model viewer, model file versioning and version comparison, and the ability to instigate workflows (eg: RFIs, submittals, etc) from the model viewer, and to attach views while creating comments or workflows.

My reaction

Asite CEO Tony Ryan has been tweeting for a while using the Twitter handle @Tonyitsadoddle, so I was already beginning to associate Asite with the word “doddle”.

If anyone is puzzled by the word “doddle,” it is a noun of British origin meaning something simple or easy to do. I don’t think Asite is trying to muscle into the easy-to-use territory initially claimed by Woobius with its “simply simple” approach to collaboration (post; and its use of hand-drawn imagery) or Collabor8online (post; coincidentally, I spoke to CEO Colin Barnes earlier today), among others, but the Asite website is now cleaner and simpler to navigate, with prospective customers presented with a range of Adoddle modules (“Adoddules” maybe?) appropriate to their particular industry requirements.

Asite has also retained its other social media places, including its community blog and forum, on its website, plus links to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. These are fairly long-standing social media initiatives, being started around three years ago, and I will be interested to see how the Addodle approach is received by Asite customers and end-users. In particular, will the website revamp generate increased interaction between the business and its stakeholders?

Marketing managers among Asite’s competitors should also be interested in this quirky marketing strategy, I think, as it differs markedly from the serious, somewhat bland, professionalism of the websites of the likes of Aconex, 4Projects and conject (post).

Update (10 August 2012) – Credits: the video was produced “in the old jittery style of Roobarb and Custard cartoons” by Mallard Productions for Asite and agency BlueHat.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/from-asite-to-adoddle/

Jul 25 2012

How Does Project Management Work?

As a marketeer and social media enthusiast, I like this simple short video from  Collabor8online, a UK-based vendor of low-cost construction collaboration technology,  shared on the company’s blog and via YouTube. CEO Colin Barnes told me last year how keen he was to use social media to help market the company’s platform.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/how-does-project-management-work/

Jul 25 2012

EADOC links to scheduling tools

I had an update this week from EADOC Software‘s Founder and CEO Eric Law regarding the California-based collaboration technology vendor’s latest Software-as-a-Service release and its trading performance.

We set up the call after Eric emailed me regarding new integration between the EADOC platform and planning and scheduling tools MS Project and Oracle Primavera P6. Of the two, integration with MS Project was easiest to achieve, Eric said, but this didn’t really address the market opportunity. Around 90% of EADOC customers and supply chain members tended to use P6 and, as this involves much more data processing, it took longer to develop the integration.

P6 integration

Historically, sharing and collaborating on project schedules has not been easy on most web-based construction collaboration platforms. Often Gantt charts were simply saved as PDFs and shared online with relevant project team colleagues. However, EADOC enables users to import schedule activities from MS Project and P6 into the EADOC application. These activities can be linked to documents and to cost items like change orders and risk items. Users can now display schedule-based activities in their relationship diagrams along with documents and cost items (as previously described, EADOC is almost equally geared towards document management and project cost management*).

Clicking on an item in this view allows the user to explore other relationships and to generate reports detailing all the stages in a particular process and their associated documents or other items. Such audit trails can be invaluable in quickly determining which company did what and when during a project – reducing potential disputes and litigation and speeding the discovery process should lawyers need to investigate a project’s history.

In 2010, Eric mentioned EADOC plans to develop its own scheduling tool, and this integration looks to be a significant transitional step towards that goal. In the nearer future though, Eric says EADOC plans to develop a real-time link to the server version of P6, so that the collaboration environment is constantly updated with any changes to project schedules, though he accepts this will also require changes in how many companies deploy P6: “Many are still reliant upon having stand-alone copies of P6 on their own machines (and many are still on P3!).”

BIM also features in future EADOC development plans. Eric mentioned a recent partnership with Bentley envisaging BIM data managed on the EADOC platform being passed to facilities managers for future operation and maintenance use on-premise, and also talked about building a BIM model viewer into the EADOC application.

Market conditions 

Earlier this year, EADOC reported 25% revenue growth and a 40% increase in its customer base in 2011. Eric says his company has continued to thrive in industrial sectors such as water and waste-water projects, and that there are strong pockets in the commercial market (eg: the San Francisco Bay area, Washington DC, the Carolinas) but outside the metropolitan districts conditions were tougher, particularly where contractors and supply chains were more reliant upon public agencies.

[* Most European-based vendors offer little project cost management capability, with the exception of conject, which recently announced that London-based international contractor and construction manager Mace had adopted its Commercial Management module – see Construction Enquirer article.]

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/eadoc-links-to-scheduling-tools/

Jul 23 2012

Incite imploding?

Two independent industry insiders in the increasingly competitive Australian SaaS construction collaboration technology sector have both told me that Leighton Holdings‘ subsidiary Incite continues to experience problems, 17 months after firing its senior team (post). The perception is that Incite Keystone is unreliable (with work focused on stabilising the platform and bug-fixing, not adding enhancements), amid rumours suggesting the company is considering switching to a rival AEC software platform – possibly Aconex.

And is it possible that Incite could be sold? Leighton has been divesting itself of non-core businesses, including HWE last year and, more recently, Thiess Waste Management, amid speculation that some of its high-tech operations could also be sold (see The Australian) to reduce debt and rebuild its balance sheet. Financial analysts are speculating that Leighton may sell off its Nextgen telecoms business, its property operation, its Metronode data centre business, its cloud services business, Infoplex, and John Holland Aviation Services.

Infoplex and Metronode are inextricably linked with Incite, providing infrastructure which supports Incite’s services – though the latter are increasingly focused on supporting Leighton Group projects. In the past, I have argued that construction businesses should be focusing on construction not on running IT systems, and many contractors and consultants adopt similar approaches, outsourcing their construction management applications from specialist external vendors.

In my view, it is a shame that Leighton stopped investing in its Incite business. If it had persevered with the Keystone innovations being developed by Michael Baker and his team, and if it had grown an external (non-Group) market for these tools, then today we might have been talking about a lucrative spin-off (as I suggested last October) rather than a fire sale.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/incite-imploding/

Jul 20 2012

Document control saves $1million

Engineering Document Management, Control and Collaboration with McLaren SoftwareLast month (Document control takes a vacation?), I linked to an infographic produced by McLaren Software regarding the potential value of document control within a major capital project when something goes wrong (that infographic is now linked from a new McLaren blog, Document Control Unplugged, by the way – good to see another vendor start blogging).

I have just been sent a link to McLaren’s latest infographic, which underlines a point about audit trails and dispute resolution. In many traditionally-managed projects, disputes could arise regarding who was at fault for an error or oversight (specifying the wrong paint, for example); establishing the facts might involve a complex forensic investigation across multiple email servers and other systems. Hosting information in one central repository simplifies this investigation: there is a secure audit trail showing who did what and when. With the facts established, expensive litigation can then be avoided.

Update (23 August 2012) – McLaren is maintaining its once-a-month average for output of infographics, with one showing how concurrent engineering, enabled by document control, can allow multiple projects to run in parallel to reduce plant downtime and lost production in the operations and maintenance phase of a plant or facility.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/document-control-saves-1million/

Jul 17 2012

Comindware and ElasticData flexibility

I wrote about Comindware last August, and the company has been in touch regarding an update release of its web-based workflow automation and task management solution.

While this is not a construction-specific solution, it is aimed at project-based industries (I have just been looking at example workflows for marketing projects or HR processes; there are solutions for IT helpdesks and software development, among others), and the latest update:

  • makes Comindware Tracker available from mobile devices, and
  • enables tasks and items to be created via email.

Comindware’s website highlights its use of “ultra-flexible, next-generation data management technology” (last year I think it described this as ‘Semantic Data Storage’):

ElasticData is based on the Graph data model, a type of database which was conceived to overcome the restrictions and rigidity of the Relational data model. The Graph data model inherently provides much more flexibility in defining data structures and modification of those structures on-the-fly. This is due to a much more flexible approach to storing and managing data.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/comindware-and-elasticdata-flexibility/

Jul 16 2012

#MobiBIM 2012

One of the best events I attended last year was a conference on building information modelling (BIM) and mobile IT, organised by COMIT (Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT). I applauded the combination of the two topics when it was announced last year, and I am pleased that COMIT is running the event again – this year on Thursday 15 November 2012 at London’s Building Centre (draft programme here).

This will be a timely event as it will be around the time that BIM champion Paul Morrell steps down as chief construction advisor. A highlight will be chance to hear David Philp (aka @ThePhilpster on Twitter) give a Cabinet Office/BIM Task Group perspective on BIM, and on building information mobility (like this new alternative abbreviation!) into our processes. As construction continues to move towards delivering the information required to operate our built assets, the need to capture and use that data in a mobile environment is even more important.

COMIT’s conference will look at numerous aspects ranging from site communications through to the accuracy of real-time location-based services. I am pleased that a talk is planned on data (pencilled in provisionally for either Highways Agency or National Grid) as I think current BIM debates within construction still tend to focus on BIM replacing documents and drawings instead of looking at the challenges of ‘Big data‘. At last week’s ThinkBIM event in Leeds, it was clear that the post-construction challenges of data management and access are every bit as important – and I would like to see more debate on how we prepare for the forthcoming explosion of structured and linked data.

Disclosure: I will be there as COMIT’s social media partner, live-blogging and tweeting from the event, and I look forward to seeing some of my regular readers there (and, like last year, if you go, please tell COMIT I sent you!)

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/mobibim-2012/

Jul 09 2012

Making QR codes more useful

In January this year, I wrote about ICON and its potential use of QR codes for asset management. One US-based company is already providing this service, I hear. Syed Ali, CEO of EZOfficeInventory, has been in contact, highlighting the value of a web-based delegated model where everyone plays a role in updating and verifying information on a regular basis. It supports both fixed assets and inventory.

EZOfficeInventory logoEZOfficeInventory, based in Carson City, Nevada, offers an affordable Software-as-a-Service solution that can be accessed via a browser interface or via smartphone apps – both iPhone and Android are already supported (helping avoid the need for separate scanner devices). Their mobile focus did initially mean the company had to manage three implementations, but Syed says: “We have just incorporated ‘Responsive Design‘. This ensures we can now build and deploy new features in one go to all platforms – eg: iPhone, Android, tablets, desktops, etc.”

Making QR codes useful

It’s easy to forget that QR codes can be easily repurposed so that, when scanned, the end-user is directed to whatever information the originator wants him or her to see. For asset management, for example, users might see the asset’s record, but if an item got lost, the webpage could be changed. EZOfficeInventory’s blog describes how this might be used to help recover an item:

For normal inventory tracking EZOfficeInventory has always allowed direct access to data for logged in users who scan QRCodes. But what about assets that get lost and are found by a stranger. Chances of a stranger returning a lost item are slim to none when an item is found in an open environment eg a food court, a mall’s restroom etc.

Likely reasons for this being that most individuals would assume the original owner will return and find the item where they last placed it or that the hassle of tracking down the original owner to be too much. But WHAT IF QRcodes could be updated to display information such as “Oh Great, you just found our lost laptop. Please call 1408-xxx-xxxx and we’ll be really happy!”. Or how about, “This is the property of ABC corp and is NOT for resale, please contact us at …. to return”.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2012/07/making-qr-codes-more-useful/

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