Tag Archives: be2camp

Learning and Sharing in the Time of Corona

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In these tough days of Covid-19, social distancing and isolation we can also look for the light of opportunity to share and to learn. We are hearing it is possible that physical, face to face events will not be happening for months, until the UK is clear enough for travel for home events, and until the EU is clear for EU events.

Not surprisingly then, we are seeing many events, workshops, exhibitions, film festivals, from book clubs to concerts to design shows, move into the online space.

We have a range of communication platforms to help us do that, from basic to more elaborate and feature rich platforms. It is good to see the virtual world of Second Life being used for Billions of Us – “an (emerging) creative community and collective devoted to using virtual technologies to improve the real world in this time of vast systemic change.” (Thanks to Pam Broviak for sharing this through her Public Works blog. Pam and I met in Second life back in mid 2000’s and then with Paul Wilkinson and Jodie Miners formed Be2Camp – now dormant but Paul has an archive of posts on his ExtranetEvolution blog)

Indeed there is nothing new to online exhibitions and fairs – back in 2014 we used Hyperfair for a number of events, complete with in-world talks, exhibitors and social events a few years ago with (Construction21 and Others) see Sustainability made Cool? Day one at #EXPOC21

A New Normal Built Environment

For us in the built environment, we are starting see that the world of design, construction, supply chains and communications will not be the same post Covid19. We will cannot return to the normal we knew, for that normal is in too many ways responsible for the problems we have now.

Preparing for a new post Covid19 normal must be part of a ‘never waste this crisis’ approach that practices and companies need to take. And now is the time to take that development, when employees are home based, with more time to learn, develop and help shape a future business.

We cannot waste this crisis and we must emerge stronger, ready to address a different environment, when addressing the climate and ecological breakdown will be very high, if not top of the agenda. We have see, through remarkable images of how air quality dramatically improved as activity stopped in Wuhan and Italy. We have seen, after only a short time of ‘shut down’ how nature can thrive, here in the UK (shut down of modern life allows nature to thrive), in the canals of Venice and beyond.

To this end I am running in-house, online inter-active CPD style sessions through Zoom or Teams for a number of my clients, both here in the UK and overseas. (If you are interested in this for your organisation please get in touch)

Zoom Regenerative

A weekly 45 minute Zoom meet up for those interested in learning more or are practising regenerative approaches, in sustainability, in the built environment, in business etc. Each session will feature an introduction or presentation from a regenerative colleague from around the world, followed by a lightly facilitated discussion. Starting on April 7th, I plan Zoom Regenerative to be held Tuesdays at 8pm UK (but possibly shifting an hour or two to allow participation from Australia at a sensible hour)

Link for the Zoom session will be on my twitter feed under hashtags #ZoomRegen

RESTORE COST Newsletter

An extract from my Contribution the the RESTORE Cost Action ..

It is possible that every sustainability practitioner, academic and student globally is now home working. Through communication technologies we can share and discuss the work of RESTORE and regenerative sustainability. There are many working groups discussions taking place through Zoom, but we can do more. For example

LFE (Living Future Europe) has started a weekly Resilience Lounge hosted by Carlo Battisti. (Wednesdays 5pm UK Details)

Martin will be starting a weekly Zoom Regenerative series starting on the 7th April with guest from around the world sharing their regenerative voices, actions and approaches. (Tuesdays 8pm UK Details and #ZoomRegen)

There is a global Transition Town discussion group on Monday 30th hosted by founder Rob Hopkins

There are also many on line book clubs which have caught my eye, for example The Living Mountain as a twitter based book club – search #CoReadingVirus and a Nature Writing Course hosted by Emergence Magazine starting on 5th April 12.00 PST

Connectivity with Nature, its importance to mental and physical health is a key theme that runs through the work and outcomes of RESTORE. It is a sad consequence of housing design and construction over recent decades that many many families are now isolated in homes with no views, no access to nature, and in some cases in city centres with no windows. We will undoubtedly see a rise in mental health, anxiety and domestic violence. You may have noticed an increase in the sharing of nature based images, videos, art and music across social media. This in a small way, may give a little comfort to those without access or views.

Lets use our collective and individual social media accounts to share, and lets use the hashtags #NoticeNature and #CostRestore

Suggested reading In Times of Uncertainty, let nature be your refuge Lucy Jones – author Losing Eden: Why Our Minds Need the Wild.

Monarch Butterfly (see Why is there a Monarch Butterfly on the cover of FutuREstorative …)

Klout closes this week: are we now living in the world Klout built?

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@klout May 10 To all of our fans: after careful consideration we have decided to shut down the Klout website & the Klout Score. This will happen on May 25, 2018. It has been a pleasure serving you, and thank you for your ongoing support over the years. Details here: lith.tc/2wtAAEp

Klout came into the world of social media back in 2008, the same year as we founded Be2Camp, a network to explore application and potential of social media within construction. (At that time an alternative to Klout, PeerIndex was founded in 2009 by Be2Camp member Azeem Azhar)

Klout, the leading ‘influence score’ platform, ever-present over the last ten years, has generated much debate on influence scores and metrics, and been the back bone to many influence lists. Many of which I have appeared in, and delighted to have done so, from the early Guardian Sustainable Business lists to Global CSR influencer lists, Tridos Bank Sustainability Colour of Money listing, to the current and excellent Jim McClelland’s weekly (Built Environment/BIM/Modern Slavery) Top 500 series.  I think my highest Klout was 68 and I think of that as something to be proud of..

We will no doubt see one of Klout’s current competitors take its space – Kred. (And I hear today from Jim McClelland that the BIM Top 500 has adopted Kred)

Or maybe Kout has achieved what it set out to do, creating an influencer economy and reached the end of its ride – as Liriel Higa wrote recently in New York Times, We’re living in the world that Klout built.

On May 25, Klout will shut down, but not because what it set out to do is irrelevant. On the contrary: Klout is closing because, well, we’re living our Klout scores now. The “influencer economy” is thriving, and it has created a new vocabulary. I just reached 500,000 Facebook fans! My YouTube video went viral. OMG, did you see who commented on my Instagram post? I’m trending worldwide. I checked in so many times I’m the mayor of my local bar.

I was happy to get a professional boost from social media influence; today, entire careers are built on it. In our influencer-driven world, Kim Kardashian gets paid $500,000 for touting a product on Instagram. Product placement on social media is so rampant that Olivia Wilde felt compelled to include the hashtag #notanad when she posted a picture of new sustainably made sneakers by Nike.

Within my social media workshops and coaching sessions I point out the work of Kasanoff in 2013, that true influencers across social media, are Generous and Expert,in that they, we, are proactively generous with expertise before people need that information. As Munish Datta wrote in a contribution to FutuREstorative, Sharership is the new Leadership. And, as such, maybe influencers do not necessarily need a score or a ranking to be recognised.

However, we all, or many of us, like listings, high scores and the recognition to be ranked highly in listings. Listings based on Klout algorithms were once a pleasing mix of companies and individuals, demonstrating individuals have as much influence on improvement as large organisations, particularly in the construction world of sustainability, CSR, BIM etc, Such lists now topped out and dominated by large corporate and institutional organisations, suggest Klout scores have been compromised by perceived importance bias towards of organisations. It will be interesting to see how Kred rankings pan out on the large organisation / individual influence issue.

Klout may be no more, but the influence of Klout will live long.

The Connected Construction Generation

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F U T U R E S T O R A T I V E  Extract Page 139

CHAPTER SEVEN: A DIGITALLY FUELLED RESTORATIVE FUTURE 

The rise of social media has led to a communications shift in the way construction industry professionals share information and participate in conversations. In many ways, this new social dimension – based on engagement, relationships and trust – is at odds with the historical construction industry approaches of competitiveness and fear of sharing.

bridge-bricks-steel-cables-suspension-bridgeWe are seeing the emergence of a new ‘connected construction generation’ sharing information in real time across organisations, sectors and countries, and forming digital communities of practice. Good examples are the influential #Be2Camp and #UKBIMCrew, cross-organisation communities sharing social media and BIM knowledge.

Groupings of conversations with a focus on sustainability, BIM and collaborative working are creating communities whose participants are both ‘Generous and Expert’. That is, they are …

FutuREstorative – Working Towards a New Sustainability

 

Sustainability through Diversity

On the 14th october I presented the above pecha kucha to Be2Camp Be2campOxon event on Ada Lovelace Day, taking the perspective of a young Ada, looking to a career in construction, in sustainability, in IT, in BIM, and the challenges she may face. Not only a glass ceiling but perhaps a triple glazed ceiling.

Initial thinking was triggered by the excellent Nilofer Merchant article in TIME You Are the Industry. You Must Be the Change, pointing out to Satya Nadella, Microsoft that it is not good enough to call for change in the (IT) sector – but that those in power, like Satya Nadella, should affect change.

And so it is in the built environment, particularly construction, where it is no longer acceptable for industry leaders, industry groups and strategy authors to record the fact we have a gender and diversity problem – but time to do something about it and affect change.

Co-collaboration

So what is co-collaboration?images (1)

In a recent publication, Towards New Innovative Collaborations, on recent blog posts, and I dare say in workshops and presentations,  I have used the term co-collaboration. It’s a clumsy term I know, one I have been taken to task on and one that needs clarification, but in my mind, describes the emerging collaboration brought about by increased used of social media and networks

It is now widely excepted that collaboration on a project is a key success factor, its no longer a nice to have skill, but a capability must have.  Its more often than not a high scoring topic in bids and PQQ’s.  (But, incidentally, poorly measured and monitored throughout the project, unless that is things go wrong and relationships revert to un-collaborative type)

Learning and sharing within a collaborative team is an essential, but our industry is moving towards the point where this is not enough. There is a growing expectation to share experiences, share lessons learnt, often within the context of ‘stories’, beyond the project team, beyond company barriers, for the good of the not only our built environment sector but also our clients sector. And it is in this exciting area where I find myself working more and more.

Communities of practice are growing, freely sharing and co-creating  to advance understanding and development. For example in the BIM arena with UKBIMCrew, in social media with BE2Camp, the networks associated to twitter tweetchats on CSR (#CSRChat) the Bathroom and Kitchens tribe (#kbtribechat) and our own sustainability leadership conversations (#sustldrconv) and many other social / un-conference groups

As individuals, we are increasingly are contributing to and sharing more on industry wikis such as designing buildings wiki and through industry, organisation and company blogs.

And it is this emergence I refer to as co-collaboration, a mashup or co-creating + collaborating

“We must harness the collective power of unconventional partnerships to dramatically redefine the way we thrive in the future” Hannah Jones, Nike

Yet recognition of the importance of this co-collaboration is slow, with leaders seemingly reluctant to move from keeping best practice in house or wrapped as PR when communicated. It may well be a future success factor for leading organisations  who embrace the ‘value of what we know is in sharing it” ethos.

Related:

Collaboration makes construction lean  June 17, 2008  In this excellent article by Karen Wilhelm which mashes up collaborative working, lean, BIM, 3D and 4D design, collaborative contracts, value chains ….

Sustainable futures require collective power of unconventional partnerships May 2013 Early today I came across this excellent quote* from Hannah Jones, Nike’s global head of sustainability and innovation …

Towards New Innovative Collaborations  November 1 2013 Our recent publication “Towards New Innovative Collaborations” exploring PPP Public Private Partnerships and Collaborative Working within a changing built environment is now available through Amazon …

Team Building in the Age of BIM May 1, 2014 http://www.architectmagazine.com/ Building Information Modeling (BIM) by itself does not cultivate meaningful engagement. Collaboration skills and processes are essential, and they transcend technology and tools. I would underscore the point that it is the less tangible elements of collaboration—a nuanced and subtle skill set—that provide the magic that transforms the most challenging projects into great works of architecture.

 

 

 

 

Be2Camp at Green Build Expo

Social Media meets Sustainability – From Mindfulness to Oculus Rift 

logoBe2camp returns to Green Build Expo in Manchester this May – this time on the main arena stage with probably the best yet line up of social media meets sustainability shorts. Below is our exciting agenda for the afternoon, but as with all things be2camp a degree of flexibility and ‘unconference’ is to be expected!

Join us from 13.30 on the 7th May and be sure to Register with Green Build Expo here

gbe13.30 Welcome, Introduction and Be2Camp Sustainability Manifesto. Martin Brown, Fairsnape @fairsnape

13.40 Your brain as your best renewable building material. Anne Parker @BrainyToolBox

13.50 Social Sharing in a Circular Economy Alex Whitcroft, &Share @alexwhitcroft

5 Min Break

14.05 Sustainability Event sharing across social media, Claire Bowles, Green Vision @lsigreenvision

14:15 Construction Carbons Vassos Chrysostomou, ConstructCO2 @constructco2

14:25 Social Studio, Collaborative Learning for Sustainable Futures, Jenni Barrett UCLAN @cloud_meme

14.35 Scissors, Tweets, Stone: social media the new paper? Claire Thirlwall, Thirwall Associates @thirlwallassoc

5 min Break

14:50 A census of sensors – Internet of things, Mike King Innovys

15:00 Immersive Environments – The Social Building Model, David Burden, DADEN @davidburden

15:10 Immersive BIM – Through the Looking Glass, Vin Sumner Clicks & Links @vinsumner

15:20 BE2 and the Be2Awards 2014 Martin Brown, Be2Camp @be2camp

You can follow and engage with us during the session on twitter using the #be2campgbe hashtag. And as usual a live stream feed live on the be2camp pages.

Other, related,  Green Build Expo sessions of note on the 7th May

10.45 I will be Introducing the Living Building Challenge with Claire Bowles at Green Vision in the Yellow Seminar.

13.00 Claire is in the Blue Seminar Room talking Healthy Buildings with Skanska.

Its going to be a great day, so do join us.

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BIM: Gaming Down Barriers

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I had the opportunity to experience the gamers device, the Oculus Rift, at a recent Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club event on BIM, courtesy of Vin Sumners from Clicks and Links, taking a virtual tour through the Manchester Town Hall linked to the BIM model for that project.

Interesting to see then that Second Life friend, Jon Brouchoud at Arch Virtual is pushing commercial boundaries of BIM and Oculus Rift in his article BIM Goes Virtual: Oculus Rift and virtual reality are taking architectural visualization to the next level 

“The first thing people do when they put on the Rift is to reach out trying to touch the walls or furniture they see in the virtual model, even it doesn’t really exist,” said Jon Brouchoud, “It’s an almost involuntary reaction, which I think that says a lot about how immersed they are. They really do feel as if they’re occupying a completely different place.”

Rift-side-by-1024x306

(Jon presented live from the USA / Second Life at the first Be2Camp event way back in 2008, there is a link to Jon’s Be2camp presentation on slideshare here)

At the time I tried the Oculus Rift I commented that we can add much more data, augmented reality, into the virtual experience, for example when touching walls, if we could see for example the sustainability data of components, health data, manufacturing data, time to replacement and cost data.

But more importantly such gaming devices can make construction and BIM exciting for all generations, fostering greater collaboration across disciplines in both a virtual and real environment – Gaming Down Barriers.

Gaming Down Barriers is the title of a Innovation Voucher funded report produced by Martin Brown and Paul Wilkinson for Clicks and Links which should be publicly available in the near future. The report makes the argument that BIM through gaming could break down collaborative working barriers as did the original Building Down Barriers programme.

Construction virtual trade show for Europe

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60199455601729109971916966764nfSave money!  Reduce CO2 emissions!  and visit leading innovative sustainable construction solutions and projects from across the European continent.

UPDATE: Construction21 Chapters and Green Building Councils from France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia and Montenegro have joined Construction21EXPO, with many more to be announced shortly.

Construction21EXPO EUROPE be held the 18th & 19th of February 2014 and will bring together 500 exhibitors and 20,000 participants including architects, engineers, project managers, investors, and other essential stakeholders.

Exhibitors will be able to reach the most active green building professionals across Europe with a very small investment. Exhibitors can gather high quality sales leads from EXPO visitors from both existing and new markets for sustainable construction solutions.

Booth setup is very simple but will create very attractive exhibits with your desired branding. Review the website and watch the video at Construction21EXPO.eu to see the conversational features and rich interactive experience our virtual tradefair will provide.  Fees are explained in the Exhibitor section of the EXPO website.

Potential exhibitors will also want to visit the Construction21EXPO EUROPE Community to download theIntroduction document highlighting more details on the event plan.

Related on isite: Living Building Challenge UK is UK Partner for EXPO

ConstructCO2 wins social media award at #Be2Awards

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Delighted that ConstructCO2 picked up a social media Be2Award  yesterday for the best ‘internet of things’, location-based or mobile app.

“Runner-up a few years back, ConstructCO2 has now moved on considerably. It has matured its monitoring of Construction Carbons at project, offices and company levels. It is now operating globally with projects in the UK, Europe, Americas, Far East and Australia.

However, the significant development this year is on the localism theme and the ability to monitor construction spend throughout the supply chain, based on project and supply chain locations, on set radials from the project.

Securing a Be2 means we successfully gained the recognition and endorsement of a substantial online community.”

The Be2Award trophy is made from recyled glass by Bottle Alley Glass in Yorkshire (website, Facebook orTwitter) who sponsored the awards.

The best ‘internet of things’, location-based or mobile app was sponsored by Tekla 

Construction21EXPO – the first virtual tradeshow for Green Buildings for the whole of EUROPE!

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Construction21EXPO.eu EUROPE - logo

The “business case” for green buildings is understood by many of Europe’s leading project developers. Now we need to quickly enable design, construction and management teams to deliver the expected results for green new construction and renovation projects.

Construction21EXPO will bring together, in a cost efficient manner, green building investors, designers, solution providers and the many other important stakeholders in a two day virtual expo; saving money and eliminating travel time and associated carbon emissions with physical meetings.

UK_collaborative_logoWe are delighted that the UK LBC COLLABORATIVE* is a key UK  partner in this exciting project that is  supported by Green Building Councils and Construction21 Chapters across Europe as well as many other expert organizations.

As such we can offer additional discounts on the Exhibitor fees, but be sure to obtain a discount code from us prior to registering.

Watch the promotional video here  and download the Construction21EXPO_ Introduction for more information,  and do not hesitate to contact the EXPO team listed in the introduction document with any questions.

The UK LBC COLLABORATIVE is driving Living Building Challenge awareness in the UK and is hosted by the Leeds Sustainability Institute, Green Vision, Fairsnape, CKE and Be2camp