Tag Archives: social media

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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Why EXPOC21 is a vital event for the built environment

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Time was, to uncover the latest thinking and developments in the world of sustainability meant a lot of travel and time investment. I recall, whilst developing and driving the Mowlem Sustainability Strategy for Prime Contracting at the end of the 90’s, having to trundle to conferences in London, or to Defence Estates in the Midlands, spending a whole day in conference mode, only to pick up a few nuggets of intelligence or inspiration.

Today we can pick up most intelligence via the web and social media. We use webinars and online events to share. Physical events such as Eco Build, now wrapped in social media and web applications, certainly have their place. But mainstream trade fairs haven’t as yet really embraced the potential of the online world, by going completely virtual.

One organisation driving the emerging virtual expo space is HyperFair – and it is their technology, that allows visitors to attend exhibition as an avatar, that the forthcoming Construction21 virtual trade fair will be using.

Construction21EXPO.eu EUROPE - logo

Over two days, 14th and 15th May, EXPOC21, will enable you to visit a number of greenbuild product stands, talk to leading sustainability organisations on their stands, be inspired and talk with a number of leading greenbuild  thoughtleaders, engage in panel debates and network with construction and sustainability professionals across Europe and Globally.  All with a vastly reduce commitment on your time, and on your carbon emission, without leaving the office or your kitchen table!

And, I think there is another important reason visiting EXPOC21 – to experience and interact with others within a virtual environment.  One of the great drivers for todays industry is BIM, information management and modelling, and the associated emergence with 3D environments.

60199455601729109971916966764nfEngaging with others in virtual environments, discussing proposed designs with clients and contractors and end users, whilst moving through the design itself, will become an established aspect of our industry – and a key skill to hone now. Those who have experience of Second Life, Minecraft or even Sims will feel at home, but for others, this is an experience not to be missed, and attendance as a delegate is free.

See you there!

Links for the show:

To register go here

Check out the Thought Leader Presentation series

Green Build Panel Debate hosted by World GBC Europe, covering topics such as Economics of Green Building projects, Scaling up for Retofit, Green Responsibilities and Sustainability performance Directives

Follow the show via Twitter #EXPOC21 #EXPOC21chat and @C21EXPO_EUROPE

Tweetchats and Twitterviews held leading up to the show, with more in show interviews to come.

Construction21EXPO Background and Team (pdf)

 

Disclosure: I have been supporting and advising the Construction21 team on social media and related sustainability aspects.

Are you pedalling on Square Wheels?

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Have we wasted a good crisis?

In an earlier blog post I used the expression of pedalling squares to illustrate how progress and development in sustainability is often a clunky and inefficient activity.

Within construction we have some great new round wheels available to us that will improve our business, our services to clients and image, for eg BIM, Social Media, Circular Economy and Restorative Sustainability to name a few. These nice new shiny round wheels are necessary in a construction organisations baggage – we need to use them in PQQ, PR and interviews to demonstrate a sense of being tuned into current industry improvement programmes

Many organisations have started to do a wheel change – some encouraged through the never waste a good crisis thinking – seeing the lean times as time for investment in the future, some through Innovation Vouchers or other funded support.

Think about starting 2014 with a more efficient approach by understanding how organisations – often your competitors – are implementing new wheels.  Find out more.

Related:

Sustainability: in equilibrium … or pedalling squares?

A TQM for the social media, digital age?

Mindful Construction – pre-frontal cortex ramblings

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photo (2)I caught up with Anne Parker last week over a morning tea and stroll around the grounds of the Apple Store Cafe in Scorton where we discussed mindfulness in construction as a key to unlock many of the current  issues facing construction, including sustainability and technology. We started to scratch out possible format, content and venue for a Mindful Construction Conference in the new year, but more on that over the coming weeks.

Anne delivered a Be2talks talk at our event back in September following which I asked her for a few thoughts on mindfulness:

Ramblings from My Pre Frontal Cortex – Anne Parker

The hills had never looked so green, the motorway signs had never looked such a Mediterranean blue, the mid summer sunset wrote lyrics all of its own.

Had I just taken some playful hallucinogenic drugs?  No of course not – I had just left a CIOB AGM! Yes, I had just given a talk on ‘Mindfulness in Construction and Engineering’ at this professional forum and it had given me the most amazing experience and affirmation.  Let me explain.

‘Mindfulness’ is a way of living, a way of managing the mind and the body that has origins in Eastern Traditions and has been steadily tested, researched and validated by Western Science.  What do you know about your brain and your body?  Have you learnt about it so that you can maximise the quality of your daily life?  Can you maximise the power of your brain to optimise your performance at work?  Do you understand the range of processes within your mind and body that influence your ability to innovate, tolerate change and work collaboratively with others?  Perhaps you thought that this was at the level of skill or talent without going any further into anatomy or physiology.

This is a hugely exciting time as sciences converge.  The fusion of ideas is generating new insights and models but more interestingly means that new language, metaphors, images or styles import and export ideas and practices from one arena into another.

I had found that it was my mission to bring Mindfulness into certain industries without any pictures of rainbows or women sitting on beaches in yoga postures.  With no reference to ‘Gods and Goddesses Within’ or to Yin and Yang I had found a set of idioms with which I was bringing this stuff into industries with possibly a very low tolerance to ‘airy fairy ideas’.  I was passionate about communicating the genius of these practices to men and women who could feel the benefits of this learning in their busy lives in practical or demanding jobs.  So far the exercise had been a thorny experience but I knew it was what I was here to do.  I persevered.  The talk at this CIOB AGM was part of my mission.  And it was a turning point.  This audience on this summer’s night gave such an enthusiastic, high energy response to the teachings of these disciplines that I was lifted beyond measure.

The joy of my internal world was being reflected back to me on that motorway drive home.  Brains, Mind, Body, Wellbeing, Buildings, Construction – the whole concept was beginning to flow.  Surely everything that has ever been built or made or constructed started off in someone’s mind?  So isn’t it worth having a look in there, exploring it? Working with it or taming it?  The construction of the outside reflection is what we shall live in years to come…..

Mindfulness.  It is worth your investigation.

Is the next step a conference on Mindfulness and Neuro-Leadership for the Construction and Engineering industries? Would love to hear your thoughts….

Anne’s talk to Be2Talks, The Cuddle Hormone’: Mindfulness, Sustainable Construction and Social Media  can be viewed here 

Constructing social media leadership …

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOver the last year or so we have seen growth and a big change in attitudes to social media, with perhaps in twitter particular, now an accepted element in today’s communication mix.

Those who a few years back were adamantly against social media have now joined, often with a fanfare of “we’ve arrived, we’re innovative” (look at us!) and with some organisations once totally anti social media now proclaiming expertise in helping others.

Back in 2012 I wrote in the Guardian (Why the construction sector should engage with social media) that one of the barriers to social media take up, and hence by default a barrier to collaborative working communications,  BIM, learning and sharing  and general construction improvement is the reluctance of directors and senior managers to recognise, embrace or enable social media. Of course there are as ever some great exceptions to this,  But all too often directors have tinkered out of curiosity, and empty LinkedIn and twitter accounts set up now tell a different story … of organisations and directors who are poor communicators.

So why are built environment organisation leaders slow to embrace these communication platforms? Maybe its the:

Need to retain control – the beauty of social media is in its open sharing, we can never know who staff will reach, converse with, learn from, share with, collaborate with and how those we converse with will respond.

Lack of understanding Digital communications is expanding rapidly, beyond the understanding of many. Consequently many directors feel vulnerable in engaging with something they don’t understand, so stay away.

Fear of just being a fad. Without a clear vision of how social media will evolve, and how it can be used strategically to benefit an organisation, many directors are reluctant to invest in seemingly unchartered waters.

And all this is sad for a 21st century construction sector, where communications are so often the root cause of most of our problems, where most companies promote a vision of innovative, open, collaborative and where most directors sell themselves as enabling role models for innovation.

Social media presence is increasingly used as a good test of an organisations, and indeed the organisation’s leaders  claims within PQQ’s, Bids and PR material to be innovative, having effective internal and external communications.

Earlier this year we started Sustainability Leadership Conversations, powered by social media, to enable leaders of smaller built environment organisations to engage with the sustainability conversations that take place across across social media. Initially these are  monthly twitter conversations with leading individuals, but will expand to facilitate conversations between organisations, between UK and USA SME organisations. Join us and discuss on the 01 Oct  for our next sustainability leadership conversation by using and following the #SustLdrConv hashtag.

Having a strategy for social media in your organisation is essential, as it is with other initiatives, and should be the starting point for adopting social media approaches. To discuss support for getting your strategy underway, get in touch (Martin in UK, Andrea in USA)

If you are UK based, we can help you apply for Innovation Voucher funding to ensure your social media, digital communication and BIM journey sets off on the right footing. (Next application closes in October)

A TQM for the social media, digital age?

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I see Harvard University are initiating a Digital Problem Solving programme for the digital age.

The Digital Problem-Solving Initiative (DPSI) at Harvard University is an innovative and collaborative project piloted in Fall 2013 that brings together interested students, faculty, fellows, and staff and enables participants to work in teams on practicable and concrete digital use cases – problems and opportunities – across the university.

The pilot offers students and other participants a novel opportunity to enhance and cultivate competency with digital tools and online activity as teams engage with research, creative production, and policies governing the digital world.”

This looks an interesting project, dusting down the 80’s and 90’s Total Quality Management, (problem solving, team work, quality circles and more) and re-inventing for a digital age. Anyone remember great work done through National Society for Team Work (NSQT)?

Wondering if any UK University would be interested in or is running a similar pilot?

Before all those programmes and initiatives, and indeed the foundation for them all was the Deming improvment PDCA cycle ( Plan Do Check Act) which still holds great significance in a social media, digital enabled world.

PDCA_Process

For all projects, we need to consider the planning, the execution, the checking and importantly how we will act and improve for next time around.  (Which makes the Deming cycle an ever improving spiral) And of course requires continual effort to maintain equilibrium as my last blog post explored

The Checking is not just numbers and inspections, but critically the stories from those involved – as evaluation. Today, social media  can really enable the collation, sharing and analysis of stories, and hence has a huge part to play in future KPI’s (key performance indicators) as we move forward to ever more social businesses and organisations.  (Subscribe to this blog for future updates and support on this topic)

Helping your planning, doing, checking and improving efforts keep in equilibrium 

Launching the Sustainable Leadership Conversation

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imagesSustainability is moving into new territories, with new leaders and leadership styles emerging.

Across all industries, we now see many leading organisations stepping forward and placing sustainability truly at the core of their leadership.  At the same time, the use of social media is increasingly being used as a powerful tool for engaging, learning and sharing for collective sustainability leadership and organisational development.

Whether through corporate accounts or personal accounts tied to corporations, social media has the power to provide role models who are willing to share their experience and wisdom with others – through content creation (articles, blog posts) and content curation (sharing of key research or important discussions happening in a variety of places online).

The development of this sustainability leadership, amplified through social media is to be celebrated and shared broadly to impact the biggest picture we are all so passionate about – a sustainable future.

That’s why we, Andrea Learned and Martin Brown, have decided to come together, collaborate, and to co-host something we’ll call #sustldrconv (Sustainability Leadership Conversation). Our intention is to develop a sustained (pun could not be avoided!) and fluid conversation on just this topic.

Ideally, this will develop into a programme of Twitter conversations (and move into other networks) all toward understanding the issues facing sustainability leadership and how to use social media to learn and grow as quickly and solidly as possible.

We hope that our independent backgrounds and solid sustainability social networks will ensure a thoughtful and fun transfer of sustainability learning across sectors – and indeed transatlantic collaboration across ‘the pond’ and beyond.

The built environment, perhaps more than any other field/industry/category has huge influence on sustainability, and cannot be considered in isolation.  Every corporation, NGO, private and public sector organization operates within it.  What happens in the built environment has huge implications for all.

#SustLdrConv will kick off (July 30 at 12 noon PT, 3 pm ET, 8 pm BST) with a tweetchat, with examples of such partnerships, ideas or powerful new ones  and exploring the questions: So just what is sustainable leadership? Are we ready to partner with built environment organisations to co-create a sustainable future?

#SustLdrConv will, in the future develop beyond tweetchats, and include interviews, case studies, learning material and coaching.  The intention will be to continue these conversations across and outside social media boundaries.

#SustLdrConv is about how companies and people, those already on the journey and those still under the radar, are gathering experience and wisdom that we can all learn from.

#SustLdrConv will enable the transfer of innovative leadership

#SustLdrConv will support leaders in using social media for effective business engagement and future co-creation.

Background Reading:

A Low Carbon Diet For Construction Boards

Why the Sustainability Leadership Pipeline Begins with Women 

Are tweetchats the new digital benchmarking

Andrea, (@AndreaLearned) based in Seattle USA, is an author and communications strategist with a deep background in marketing to women (her book: Don’t Think Pink), but an even deeper passion for forwarding sustainability thought leadership.

She leverages social media to build “face to face” relationships between and among the field’s big thinkers – nurturing partnerships, developing content and spreading sustainability wisdom through every channel. Andrea’s personal interest in the built environment arises from her belief that it is the one unifying topic from which almost any business can see the case for sustainability.

Martin, (@fairsnape) based In Lancashire UK, is a business improvement advocate and consultant, founder of Fairsnape. As a built environment strategist he is committed to enabling success within and across organisations with a focus on sustainability, collaboration and social media. He is a Living Building Challenge Ambassador and partner with Green Vision, facilitating web-enabled events and #GVisChat tweet-chats for a green built environment.

(This blogpost  also appears on Andrea’s blog and elsewhere)

Plans A and B – changing the sustainability debate?

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Yesterday may well be remembered as a significant milestone in the world of sustainability with two major events: Marks and Spencers celebrated their Plan A with Al Gore and others, meanwhile Richard Branson was part of a global team that launched Plan B.

And there was  much relevance for the built environment and construction sectors, on carbon, supply chain management, social responsibility and on the urgency to change, away from business as usual. Now.

It was also a significant milestone for social media – in particular twitter, with so much of the events being shared, enabling many around the world, like me, to listen in, share key messages and comment. (Hashtags #PlanB and #PlanA2013 – see Storify links below))

If ever there was a reason for built environment organisations committed to sustainability to have a presence on twitter – it was yesterday.

Despite some of the contradictory language – “Plan A because there is no Plan B” and “We need a Plan B because Plan A isn’t working” – the two should definitely be seen as complimentary.

Many, like myself have seen and blogged on the complimentary messages from the two events, for example the UKGBC opinion article The day the debate changed: Plan A or Plan B and the article by Eddie 

There was so much information and comment shared during the day, I have captured the tweets on to storify for later reading and digesting. The storify records are raw tweets so I can go back and read, but please read and be inspired. As I re-read them I will tidy up to curate a better stori-fy.

Plan A : raw tweets from Marks and Spencers Plan A Conference 2013

Plan B – raw tweets from the launch of Plan B – a global conversation and new sustainable business era

Improvement through PAS 91

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PAS 91 has recently been updated to align with the Government Construction Strategy.

PAS91-CoverHere are some of my thoughts on recently providing PAS91 support (training events, webinars and live bid support)

As with all bidding the trick is to:

 “delight the client to attain maximum scores and score higher than your competitors”

Easy?

PAS 91 used properly could significantly improve the SME contracting sector, on topics such as Diversity, Quality Management, Environmental Management and of course Building Information Modelling.

The scoring I have seen to date heavily favours certification – to ISO 9001, ISO1400 and PAS1192. Providing these certificates scores full marks, and exempts the bidder from completing a large number of questions in an attempt to describe arrangements that meet the standards, and only score eg 75% of available scores. (in one case up to 12 sides of A4 are expected!)

A contractor without these standards in place are already scoring less than those who have, before they start to articulate their practices.

It makes attaining these accreditations a no brainer, whilst of course providing the benefits of accreditation. From a clients PAS91 perspective it allows further in depth questions in the Specific Questions Module, for eg delivering value, evidence of localism, sustainable material procurement.

The BIM optional module in PAS 91 contains some tough questions, but also provides a useful guide as to what bidders should be preparing for.

Top tips for maximising PAS 91 points:

  • Get a (free) copy of PAS 91
  • Practice, prepare and fine tune  your responses, get them internally and independently checked.
  • Ensure you provide complete responses to all parts of the questions
  • Evidence, Evidence Evidence – use real evidence (think business storytelling) to support.
  • Be consistent between what you say in the bid, demonstrate on your projects and say on your website and or social media (watch those linkedin profiles!)

We will be providing further training, public and one to one webinars, and live PAS 91 consultancy support over the coming months. Do get in touch 

We are also developing 91Cloud a PAS91 portal due to launch soon – watch this space

Also in addition in conjunction with ibepartnership we have developed a low cast but high value package for achieving ISO 14001 for smaller SME contracting organisations. Again, please do get in touch 

Green Vision for Social Media at Green Build Expo

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logoBe2Camp returns to Greenbuild Expo in May with Green Vision.

This year’s session, taking place on 8th May at Manchester Central from 1pm, will be the most exciting  yet, with an amazing line-up of speakers (see below for programme).

GreenBuild Expo itself attracts over 4,000 built environment professionals and takes place on 8th and 9th May. It features over 100 free seminars and workshops on all aspects on sustainable buildings, from integrating renewable energy and BIM for beginners to skills for Green Deal and strategies for climate change adaptation. Speakers include UK Green Building Council, Energy Saving Trust, Warm Up North, Manchester City Council and many more. For free registration visit www.greenbuildexpo.co.uk.

Be2Green

The speakers will include some of the top presentations from Green Visions last three years’ programme, along with BE2 friends old and new. Join us for the whole afternoon, or one of the three great sessions we have planned.

1.00 Welcome

1.15 – 2.00 Green Knowledge – how social media can help us learn, share and advance green sustainability knowledge, including essential tips on promoting your green credentials and featuring ‘Integration is the name of the game’ Paul Toyne , Global Head of Sustainability WSP

2.15 – 3.00 Green Materials – transparency in green and healthy materials, featuring presentation from Kelly Grainger, Interface and Janet Beckett,Carbon Saver UK

3.15 – 4.00 Green Futures – what’s emerging in the world of green building, featuring ‘Green Towns’ Prof Angus McIntosh , Oxford Brooks University and a keynote live presentation from Amanda Sturgeon, VP Living Building Challenge, from the recently completed Bullitt Centre in Portland, called by many the greenest commercial building in the world. (Not one to miss)

Do you have something to share, Pecha Kucha style (thats 20 slides, each 20 seconds) that will fit one of the above sessions? We will keep one slot free for ‘on the day’ contribution But if you are interested please let the Greenbuild Expo organisers know in advance. (1st come, 1st served ….)

As in previous years, our afternoon session will be live streamed and web enabled allowing real global sharing from and into the event.

BE2 (Be2Camp) are Greenbuild Expo’’s social media partners, and a social media advocacy for built environment sustainability and collaborative working

Green Vision, part of the Leeds Sustainability Institute and Centre for Knowledge Exchange and committed to driving sustainable change for construction professionals