The Future of BIM – that is quite a bold topic to tackle for my first article. So first off maybe I ought to introduce myself, my company and where we fit into the amazing world of BIM.
I’ve been involved in technology for over twenty years, I clearly remember right back into the early days of Virtual Viewing and a firm of consultants I’d appointed to help develop one of the businesses saying that we shouldn’t develop an online installation option as they “weren’t too sure how long this internet thing was going to last”!
I also remember making the first sale of e-mail accounts in to the UK’s then largest regional newspaper publisher and them only buying 5 accounts as they “would have to see if it was going to be used”.
The Internet has revolutionised the world: most of us are slaves to e-mail and Virtual Viewing is still selling the future today. We still come up against the same wariness or lack of belief in what the future holds.
We still hear the Betamax vs VHS argument although much less than in the 90s! Today it’s more Android vs iOS however, it is interesting that selling innovation is still challenging although with a 20 year track record of getting it right, it’s easier than it was. We are now paid for our opinion and sought out for our roadmaps to the future.
As an innovator, entrepreneur and, as one publication recently labelled me, a “prop-tech revolutionary”, I love, truly love. Future gazing and shaping the world we are going to live in, how we can be a part of it and how we can be successful in doing so.
I see BIM as one of the greatest opportunities of the current age-certainly the biggest for property and the built-environment and its impact will be felt right down to the individual as we build our world towards Smart Communities and Smart Cities. For BIM is the DNA of our Smart Cities.
If, as an industry, we can embrace BIM Beyond Build™ and start to explore the future benefits of BIM on our society then I believe we will lift the lid off a cornucopia of wonder.
In this future of 3D printing your own replacement kitchen parts, creating predictive energy models for your own home, using big data to get the very best deals for your community for everything from a pizza delivery to localised micro-generation permits will become yesterday’s “been there, done that”.
Having an intelligent relationship with your building whether it is a home, an office or a retail shopping mall, will be the norm and more than that probably not an isolated relationship but one that your building will have with others and you will have will multiple buildings.
BIM is the DNA of our Smart Buildings, Smart Communities and Smart Cities – it is the base that our future technology will grow upon, in future articles I will be exploring the some options and opportunities we have in the here and now to guide the Future of BIM. I look forward to getting your feedback on the articles I write, hopefully, stimulating some great discussions and see how us BIMmers are going to change the world!
Stewart Bailey
Virtual Viewing
Stewart.bailey@virtualviewing.co.uk