Award Winners and Keynote Speaker Point to Importance of Fresh Thinking in Today's Climate
For the impressive 1,300+ audience of corporate real estate executives gathered here in the Big Easy for a look at what's driving 'business unusual,' the early indications emerging from this CoreNet Global Summit are both encouraging and energizing.
That's not just because of the more upbeat vibe we're feeling as the general economic trend swings back up. After all, the reality for the corporate and commercial real estate (CRE) industry's supply side is that we likely won't see total recovery for another couple of years. The fast-improving outlook is also welling up from the opportunity to share new ideas and approaches. It's a positive sign that we're all getting ready to move ahead.
The Summit's first moments reflected that mood swing, starting with the announcement of CoreNet Global award winners recognized for industry excellence, sustainable leadership and economic development innovation.
Kudos to these 2010 Global Award Winners for differentiating themselves at a time when the need to remodel ourselves has never been greater:
- Space Metric Design Consultants won the Sustainable Leadership Design and Development Award for its work on the T-Zed project. It's an ecologically-conscious multi-family enclave concept located in the Whitefield suburb of Bangladore. It's the first LEED Platinum rated residential apartment development. Considering the location, it's a noteworthy case to keep an eye on in the future.
- The Economic Development Leadership Award was presented to the Kansas City Area Development Council for its out-of-the-box thinking. The council took a legacy industry, the cattle yards, and leveraged it into a new scientific venture. It's called the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor, and it's gaining recognition as the world's largest concentration of animal-health industry assets. It's already captured one-third of the world's market share in this unique niche.
- Europe-based WICELY accepted the Industry Excellence Award for its best practice surrounding scientific measurement of mobile work activities. This has remained an elusive performance metric dating back to the early days of telecommuting in the mid-1990's. It's a big advance from the early baseline forms of measuring mobile or remote work that were sometimes called "workpoint accounting."
Each of these winning cases demonstrates a growing body of knowledge now rippling across the 'business unusual' landscape and that answer the critical question, "How do we need to adapt to the new economy of scale, the so-called 'new normal' we find ourselves in?"
They also represent an important turning point. Sooner or later, more and more companies are going to leave the current cost-cutting mentality behind in favor of promoting new growth. Innovation, as the Summit theme emphasizes, will be an important aspect of this change moving forward.
As the opening keynote speaker, Peter Sheahan, pointed out to a group of senior-level CRE executives following his presentation, "We're going to reach the point sooner or later when corporations have squeezed out all the cost they can find on their balance sheets."
In other words, effectiveness may one day soon again overshadow mere efficiency.
Let's hope we're not too far from that crucial pivot point!
- Richard Kadzis