Is the ‘rarefied bubble of advanced best (BIM) practice’ of the UK AEC under a threat suddenly?

I copped a bit of flack when I wrote in my blog recently about the status of the UK BIM being the ‘rarefied bubble of advanced best (BIM) practice’ – even though I dutifully quoted the original source of the claim.

Barely a month after this confident statement the author is somewhat rattled, his latest writing says:

“BIM is a very seductive concept, but the allure of solving the ills of industry should not distract us from recognising the challenges associated with implementation.”

I love the world ‘challenge’ – it so often is associated with BIM.

 While in some other fields it may mean ‘some difficulty in achieving desired results’ when it comes to BIM, more often than not, it means ‘don’t bother, can’t be done…can pretend for a while to try it, anyway’.

There is a point in every committed BIM-mer’s  life, when the big question pops up – often totally unexpectedly, sort of coming from nowhere;

And from that point his/her life will never be the same again - regardless on which one of the two possible paths s/he chooses to accept to follow in the future.

This is the point when one realises that ‘Santa does not exist’ and the ‘tooth fairy really is your mum’. Just, translated to BIM – the entire idea of a single model co-operation based BIM is as far from reality as the little blue people of the Smurfs world are.

This time, as Mr Barker calls for leadership for BIM to happen I may not be the only one noticing a drop of confidence.

I am a bit sorry for him softening his tone – though I’m always ready to jump in and criticise – he sounds like a really Intelligent fellow, writes pretty agreeably – someone worthwhile of giving the benefit of a doubt.

And then, look at his title: ‘Peter Barker is managing director of BIM Academy’ – I do respect it, yet how funny is that on the contrary, myself,  the more I know about BIM the less of a title I want with it.
I just want to be known as a sort of an ‘honest doer’.

Dear Mr Barker, I am so sorry to see the word ‘challenge’ in your writing.

I do hope you reconsider and re-establish that ‘rarefied bubble’ from the beginning of the story.

It gave me such a buzz.

http://www.building.co.uk/communities/construction/bim/bim-needs-leadership/5062269.article#!