I may not be your saviour but will not be your scapegoat either… (A bit of self-indulging winging on a gloomy Saturday)

As I’m getting settled into my new job, the members of my immediate family are crossing their fingers behind their backs;

They may even be mouthing silently while doing so:

‘please don’t blow this one up… or at least do it slowly’…

Despite of their hopes and my best intentions, I start here with ‘a hiss and a roar’, setting of a real war for opportunities to meaningfully apply BIM.

Of course not everyone sees this as a ‘just war’ and quickly I get to be considered as someone that claims to know the answers to everything.

An obnoxious persona, with a ‘My way or the highway’ attitude,

ready to throw a mighty Drama Queen fit, at a drop of a hat when things do not go her way.

I sure believe to deserve the title of ‘the Queen’,

‘The Queen of knowing just-about-everything that does not work in BIM’.

I am a proud owner of more than two decades of ‘live experiments’ trying out just-about-any theory that there was, on how BIM should be applied to design, documentation, construction support and claim management within the AEC industry. A bit of operations and FM too, post construction.

Tiny projects and absurdly large, public and private. Traditionally procured and those highly speculative. Supported by some great people and obstructed by many more, not so great.

I put everything into this 25 yearlong experiment, time, work, knowledge, money, the family’s past, present and future.

Self-titled Queen or not, I of course am not alone in these battles.

As more and more people get involved in the ‘movement’ it is interesting to observe how various individuals take on the challenge of responsibility for the ‘success of BIM’ – whatever that may mean in reality.

Also, how the long awaited and wished for mandating of BIM turns out to be quite a challenge for some of the loudest of BIM promoters of the past, forcing them to urgently look for new BIM doers to blame if things don’t work out as planned.

And things rarely work out as planned, so when a PR dress-up of a failed BIM application is not an option, somebody got to take the blame.

Some BIMmers learn quickly how to duck for cover, others tend to be happy as sitting ducks. Because they are either eager to please by nature or believe to be aiding the progress of humankind, they take on everything that comes their way.

I have seen sitting ducks turn into cover-duckers after being repeatedly shot at but never the other way around.

It’s a tough world out there in the current BIM world…