IFMA’s World Workplace “Create Your Own Success” will be held Oct. 3 to 5 in Charlotte, N.C. More than 4,000 facilities management and related professionals are expected to attend from 40 countries and every state in the U.S. The attendees represent 2,000 companies in facilities management, IT, PM, HR, engineering, security, real estate, sustainability and energy.
Attendees can learn from more than 100 education sessions. Attendees can earn CEUs and 20 CFM maintenance points. Click here for full details on earning your points.
From deja-vu lessons about emergency preparedness for California wildfires to navigating and utilizing gender differences in the age of #MeToo, IFMA is offering critical seminars for today’s FMs.
Here are some education and government courses that The McMorrow Reports is excited about:
1.04 Accessibility in Corporate Real Estate: How Microsoft and its Partners are Designing for a Diverse and Inclusive Workplace
Thursday, October 4, 2018 1:45 PM – 2:45 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 207D
With over 1 billion people with a disability globally, learn about the many ways Microsoft is improving accessibility and inclusivity for their workforce and how that is raising the bar for the company’s mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Hear from members of Microsoft’s Real Estate and Facilities team as they focus on two elements of their accessibility initiatives; Accessibility and Inclusive Design in the built environment, and the Supported Employment program, which creates job opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities. Practice leaders Martha Clarkson and Brian Collins will be joined by partners from CBRE in a panel conversation as informative as it is inspiring. Additional Speakers include Martha Clarkson and Brian Collins from Microsoft. Gillian Maguire and Holly Warnick from CBRE. Separate bio’s sent in a separate email to Cynthia Thompson.
1.09 Space Utilization in Real Time – How Sensors and the Internet of Things are Providing Essential Data to Support New Ways of Working.
Thursday, October 4, 2018 1:45 PM – 2:45 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 209AB
For decades, facility managers and planners have relied on guesswork to know how workspace is actually utilized. The problem has become acute as new ways of working are resulting in offices and cubicles remaining mysteriously unoccupied for many hours in a given day. The Internet of Things is ushering in exciting new technologies that are providing real-time data on how workstations, offices and meeting rooms are actually used. For the first time, facility managers have reliable data to evaluate new workplace approaches like hoteling and shared desking. Conference and collaboration rooms can be sized for real needs rather than crude estimated requirements. Motion sensors, heat sensors, cameras that can accurately count occupants, wifi-enabled location tracking, trend analysis and floor-plan heat maps are providing the data needed by workplace strategists to achieve dramatic improvements in workplace efficiency and effectiveness. The session will explore a range of emerging technologies that will transform the interaction of people and buildings. Case studies showing how organizations are using this technology today will be shared and the session will explore the real issues of personal privacy raised by these technologies.
2.11A Highlights from the 2018 New Ways of Working Fifth Biennial Global Benchmarking Study
Thursday, October 4, 2018 3:00 PM – 3:30 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 208A
This session is not to be missed. It will offer insights into workplace trends across the past decade from “The Once Alternative Workplace Strategy Fifth Annual Benchmarking Report (2018).” Based on 10 years of trend data, covered topics will include: workplace strategies, workplace design, work practices, change management practices, where work is conducted, executive sponsorship, and more. The report was developed by a trio of Workplace Evolutionaries (WE), Chris Hood (Advanced Workplace Associates), Kate Lister (Global Workplace Analytics), and Gaby Nagy, Ph.D. (Haworth, Inc.) and additionally supported by WE/IFMA. Check out this month’s FM Journal for more information.
2.10 Emergency Preparedness – No More Flying by the Seat of Your Pants!
Thursday, October 4, 2018 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 207A
With so much focus on headline scenarios like active shooter, most organizations are not prepared for the more common events, such as power anomalies and HVAC failures; which can have a significant impact on productivity, customer satisfaction, and the bottom line. In this session, we will provide five simple steps for developing an Emergency Response Management (ERM) Program and preparing the FM department and the organization for all that goes bump in the night.
3.01 50 Greener Shades; The March to Sustainability
Thursday, October 4, 2018 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 202AB
Feeling pressure to engage in sustainable practices? Motivated to do something but not sure where to start? Trying to please everyone with limited funds? Feeling a bit guilty that you can’t substantially influence the future environment? Well, you’re not at all alone. This is the world that most Facility Managers live in. Is your parent organization or those occupying your facilities embracing stewardship of the environment? The expression most often is that “it all starts at the top” and in most cases that may be true however, we can make some change that just may be the spark that motivates a larger portion of the stakeholders to endorse our initiatives. We will explore an array of options that can be undertaken to either initiate or strengthen programs in reducing energy, water and waste streams along with some newer areas such as healthier materials used in our workplaces. Finally, we will explore the Harvard Medical School lessons learned to date focused on existing, not new facilities. These efforts have been ongoing since about 2001 but in earnest since 2012. For instance, a 21% reduction in energy usage in an existing, predominantly wet laboratory environment.
education too
4.09 Blockchain for FM and RE – Is This for Real Yet?
Friday, October 5, 2018 8:00 AM – 9:00 AM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 209AB
The annual investments in R&D on Artificial Intelligence are immense, ranking into billions on a global scale. The results of these innovations are gradually reaching into the realms of Real Estate and Facility Management. One of the first proponents of the use of AI has been discussed for some time now: predictive analytics. Beyond these types of applications of AI, we now see new types of software applications emerge which incorporate the use of AI and Machine Learning. Interesting types of applications emerge around the principle of speech recognition, which allows software developers to design completely new principles of interactions with users: not by touch but by voice and other means. In this session we will explore what is happening today in ‘no-touch’ applications and how that can be applied in our field or RE & FM.
5.04 Healthy Buildings, Improved Experience
Friday, October 5, 2018 9:15 AM – 10:15 AM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 207D
Workplaces are quickly evolving to be more sustainable and provide more amenities to improve the wellbeing and productivity of employees- what does this all mean for a facility manager? Maureen Ehrenberg, internationally recognized leader in the facility management field, will moderate this interactive roundtable discussion featuring panelists whose perspectives range from academia to corporate real estate. We’ll engage the audience during the discussion to determine their current understanding of factors that affect workers’ productivity levels in the workplace. As part of the FM team, you can elevate your role by raising these issues to management and offering solutions that make the buildings healthier for all end users, impact the experience, increase productivity, and ultimately the bottom line. We’ll discuss the powerful link between healthy buildings and increased productivity and measurement. Dr. Joe Allen, professor and researcher at Harvard University, will discuss the COGfx Study 3 currently underway in office buildings across the world and how productivity is impacted with changes to the work environment- including air quality and noise. Bob Best, who leads sustainability efforts for JLL’s IFM practice literally wrote the book (“SMART, Green + Productive Workplace” – 2018) on how organizations can combine smart buildings with sustainability concepts to make employees healthier, happier and, in the end, more productive. He will focus on what this all means for FMs. Don’t miss this conversation that will help you consider the health of your buildings and how your management teams will consider the economics behind the changes to the human experience that your FM team will impact.
How to Preserve an Iconic Building: Harvard Medical School – Gordon Hall
Friday, October 5, 2018 9:15 AM – 10:15 AM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 203B
Iconic flagship university buildings play a special role on American university campuses. They are the visual symbol of the college or university. Gordon Hall is one of five white marble buildings by Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge Architects built in 1906 as part of the Harvard Medical School quadrangle on Longwood Avenue, Boston. It stands as the focal point of the Quadrangle and has become the iconic flagship building for the Harvard Medical School Campus. This presentation will trace the process from initial maintenance concerns to the comprehensive repair and restoration of the building. The case study will present the many key steps in the methodical process of inspection and assessment, university decision making, design and documentation, procurement and successful restoration. The project combined traditional stone restoration techniques and cutting-edge use of cathodic protection for concealed steel beams and blind pinning of 2000-pound marble volute dutchman, all work was completed while the building was fully occupied.
FM Utilizes the Research Capability of the Student Chapter
Friday, October 5, 2018 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 208B
In a changing facility management (FM) environment, a large chapter has identified the importance of innovation in its survival and success. They identified the need to have a research capability and identified and utilized the student chapter at Arizona State University as their research arm. A visionary FM knew that the facility had a roof replacement requirement [$800K]. Even though the Facility manager and facility team opted to go with the traditional roofing consultant design approach, the visionary recommended and steered the team to utilize the chapter’s research capability. The researcher used a totally different approach. With 25 years of experience in the roofing industry, the researcher had developed an approach that utilizes performance information, competes different roofing systems against each other and assigns the expert vendor responsibility for both the roof design and installation performance. The approach moves the owner FM professional’s job to one of quality assurance and the FM associate’s job to quality control. The researcher identified the top performing roofing contractors in the Phoenix Valley and they competed with four different high-performance roofing systems. The lessons learned from the roof installation is that FMs no longer need to have technical knowledge of facility systems. Expert FM Associates can provide quality roofing systems without being directed. The FM Associate managed their own project despite numerous attempts by the traditional FM team to take over the project control. The researcher was directed by the traditional FM group to do certain tasks that were not needed. The researcher and FM Professional’s biggest challenges were the resistance from the FM professionals at the site. The roof was successfully installed with very high performance and value.
7.04 Navigating Gender Differences in the Workplace
Friday, October 5, 2018 11:45 AM – 12:45 PM
Venue: Charlotte Convention Center – West Wing
Room: 207D
With increasing awareness and navigating gender in the workplace, we will discuss how men and women can learn to work together to achieve optimal results. It is imperative to cultivate our gender intelligence to effectively collaborate with the opposite sex. This dynamic panel, comprised of 2 men and 2 women, will give situations and objective views to different scenarios. You will hear from both on how to change your mindset to understand each other’s perceptions.