For me, probably
the most irritating thing about the ‘BIM field’ within the global AEC industry
is its un-preparedness to face up to reality.
I have
previously likened it to a big baby not willing to grow up; nowadays even that
parallel seems too mild for it.
I went into this
area over 20 years ago and I was not the only one, there was a considerable
part of the industry that had similar interests, goals and dreams as I valued
and believed in.
What happened in
the last 2 decades is that many of those enthusiasts left the field due to realising
the futility of an unwinnable war, while others mellowed themselves into a
marginal group of specialists that are by now getting just enough attention
from the industry to justify the long, hard work they suffered at the coalface.
Where these
loyal devotees are making their current mistakes is by giving their own, hard
earned credibility to the ones that for years had ridiculed them for not
understanding how money was made within the AEC industry.
These ‘ex foot soldiers
of the BIM innovation’ are now brought in en masse to rub some of their
expertise over the many ‘dinosaur companies’ up till now largely BIM ignorant,
so their brazen leaders can carry on calling themselves as the ‘leaders’ of the
industry.
Those same
leaders, pushed by more recent peer pressures to ‘keep up with BIM’ readily buy
into strategies that the alien BIM expert will be the necessary catalysts for
their companies to burst into the limelight of BIM excellence, yet they ignore
the age-old saying that ‘One swallow does not a summer make’.
And for most of
these ‘swallows’ the time is slowly running out, they themselves, once the
leaders of the field are finding it hard to keep up with the ‘enabling
technologies’ they used to feel so comfortable in – their bodies and minds are
getting better suited for wise, advisory roles than the pretence of being the
fresh-digital-innovator jockeys these ‘catalyst’ roles ask them to be.
As pessimistic as
this view may sound, I do not see the status of BIM within AEC to be that bad
or worse than it deserves to be considering its origins.
It is, what it
is and I concur with this situation.
What I see to be
catastrophic in this, is the reluctance by almost anyone at any level of
operation to name, examine, let alone accept publicly and set out to genuinely do
something about the way the SQ of BIM in AEC is.
So, again, those
that once fought the ‘good war’ of innovation, bringing better processes,
increased productivity or just more enjoyable working methods to the industry
are willingly being used to legitimise the industry embarking on another 1, 2
or 5 years of pilot BIM projects, timewasting conferences and endless theories
that have never, and most importantly are unlikely to ever work.
20 years ago, I
believed in my own generation to bring on the innovation, 10 years ago I still
did, but putting my faith in a more mature set of strategies than those simply
relaying on smart tools and processes.
Up to a year or two ago my hopes shifted to new
generations to come – trusting some savvy young opportunist to see more in this
massive global market than a giant pot of money easily harvested with a bit of
non-comprehendible techno-jargon.
These days I continuously
re-examine this belief, as the young ones I see do not seem to be in a hurry to
take charge of this vital industry. Even if they have the will, knowledge and bravura
to give it a go, they seem to lack the experience of the seasoned fighters that
fought these battlefields to take on the incumbents in no hurry to change.
Unfortunately to
them the old pioneers have compromised themselves too much to become real
allies in their younger counterparts’ quests, so the most capable ones of the
new generations are leaving this particular field for some easier targets to
aim for.
Maybe those last
2 decades will prove to be too big a gap to bridge for the AEC industry and BIM.
Pictures of my
nephew Viki;
