The Smart Building Conference 2013, to be held at Dexter House, London, on Tues. Oct., 15th begs the question, “Why is Smart Building so important?”
InfoComm and CEDIA (co-owners of ISE as well as the Smart Building conferences) clearly believe if you are in pro AV or residential installation, the most important subject for our future is Smart Building.
Smart Building is the shift in building technology that parallels our own industry’s shift from analogue to digital technology.
What makes this shift important is the same reason why IP made networks important to all involved in AV: previously you could be in AV and ignore IT but with everything running over IP, it’s now very hard to avoid IT.
That’s now the same with building technology: previously you could ignore construction-related trends because AV was an add-on, its own island of technology. But with Smart Building, everything must connect up-- and IP is the new building network.
It doesn’t matter if it is a room, an apartment, a home, an office, or a concert hall… if it’s being built now, there are expectations that all the technology should run over IP.
You might close your eyes and hope for plug-and-play: but you know it’s never that simple. This trend to Smart Building is even bigger than IT and brings together many different industries, all of whom are struggling to convert to an IP-driven world.
InfoComm and CEDIA actually believe that your experience in integration means a big opportunity in Smart Building, a chance to play a bigger and more lucrative role. As an AV integrator, you are probably further along in your understanding than some other industries. In fact, you are well on your way to becoming a building systems integrator if you can appreciate how many technologies you already do understand in order to make your AV pieces fit.
The Smart Building conferences are designed to introduce you to this opportunity…they intend to show you the future…to introduce you to new partners…and to give you the broader understanding you need to make the decision of what your role might be in Smart Building.
You’ll meet experts from related-industries as well as consultants, architects, researchers & analysts, real estate developers, channel partners from other industries, and your peers.
If you are looking ahead a few years, trying to figure out how to grow your business, there is no more single important action than to learn about Smart Building. (Just like in past years, you had to learn about IT. But now you’ve already conquered one transition to IP networking and that experience gives you the right to lead the next transition.)
AV integrators could become drivers as well as passengers of the trend Smart Building. But you’ll never know unless you sign up for the conferences. You can’t drive a car if you haven’t first learned about the Highway Code.
