One of the most re-watched episodes of the comedy series Seinfeld is ‘The Label Maker’ when Elaine’s gift to a friend at Christmas was re-gifted to Jerry before the Superbowl. True, a thing for tagging other things was not a fun or romantic gift in 1995. And, perhaps Bryan Cranston’s fictional dentist didn’t get it. … Continue reading Appreciating How Metadata Makes AI Possible
Vendor Lock-in of Your Data Could Happen Again: Protocol Wars are Moving from Cable to Cloud
Smart Building Owners should remain vigilant in the battle against vendor lock-in of their building data. “Take back the Internet!” is the Net Neutrality movement’s rallying cry against big telecom and cable companies. “Take back your life!“ say digital privacy advocates in warning against the online advertising industry. “Take back your enterprise!” is how the … Continue reading Vendor Lock-in of Your Data Could Happen Again: Protocol Wars are Moving from Cable to Cloud
Climate Action, Digitalization and the Opportunity to Reenergize the Buildings Industry
Climate laws and agreements are being enacted, and big building technology companies like Siemens are positioning to come out heroes It has been an eventful few weeks for Climate Action watchers. From tree-huggers to eager capitalists, there are a lot of people happy to see moves that will curtail fossil fuel burning. California signed SB32 … Continue reading Climate Action, Digitalization and the Opportunity to Reenergize the Buildings Industry
Recapping Realcomm/IBcon 2016
As a Silicon Valley local, I was asked multiple times during last week’s Realcomm/IBcon conference in San Jose whether I was a fan of HBO’s Silicon Valley TV series. Of course, I am! Anyone following the show knows that the latter part of the Season 3 storyline hinges on the right metric to gauge the … Continue reading Recapping Realcomm/IBcon 2016
IoT Makers in Legoland
Like kids set loose in a roomful of legos, IoT product developers around the world are making brand new things to connect to the Internet out of smartphone components and open source software stacks. Makers are taking advantage of the supply chain built by the mobile computing industry. They have low-cost compute devices like Arduino … Continue reading IoT Makers in Legoland
Putting a Value on open, standards-based BAS
Last month I wrote about how open source communities are fertile ground for launching new companies and about how they spurn any software that seeks to trap data into proprietary silos. Two pieces of news over the last weeks prove those points. The latest news is that GE Current just acquired Daintree Networks for $77M.Daintree’s … Continue reading Putting a Value on open, standards-based BAS
Open Source is the New Marketing- Part 2
The internet democratized software development, creating the open source movement. And now, the open source mindset is democratizing how marketing is created, analyzed and measured. Participation in open source communities can be a vector into the buying process. You need people on your marketing team capable of engaging with developers. I work in words, but … Continue reading Open Source is the New Marketing- Part 2
VizLore Interview: How Will the IoT Create More Intelligent Buildings?
In covering the growing power of the open source/open data movement in commercial buildings, I learned about VizLore and its Software-Defined Network (SDN) approach. SDN is an open programming model that is foundational for new Platform as a Service (PaaS) IoT applications like VizLore’s. VizLore soft sensors and analytics derive insight and value from … Continue reading VizLore Interview: How Will the IoT Create More Intelligent Buildings?
‘Death of Controls Industry’ as Explained by Darren Wright of Arup
Darren Wright, a Director at Arup, has released a video stream of his presentation on the history and future of the controls industry on youtube. It’s a very on-point statement on the topic from the viewpoint of an experienced building commissioning expert. His understanding of the development of control automation goes all the way back … Continue reading ‘Death of Controls Industry’ as Explained by Darren Wright of Arup
Selling to Developers: Open Source is the New Marketing
I hope you’ve seen the new Project-Haystack Connections ezine for Spring 2016. Here’s a link. Project-Haystack is certainly growing in strength as an open-source software organization as it advances the technology of semantic tagging and data modeling for smart devices, buildings, energy systems and the general Internet of Things. The new zine was launched with the mindset … Continue reading Selling to Developers: Open Source is the New Marketing
Building Context 