Opportunities Ahead for Geomatics

A new year and a chance to meet and greet at GEO Business in May. Meanwhile, we have work to do in explaining to clients what Geomatics can offer them, like our key role in BIM.

At the turn of year we often reflect on the previous year’s events, be they good or bad. My family had a wonderful wedding, when my eldest daughter got married. It was wonderful to see everyone in one place and enjoying the time together with one another. This reminds me to think forward to GeoBusiness14 and the opportunity for all involved in this industry of ours to “meet and greet” at The Business Design Centre in late May. Have you submitted a paper abstract or signed up for the event yet? You can be sure your colleagues, friends and competitors will be there. What about you?

Members Worldwide Join Debate

At the Geomatics professional group board meeting just before Christmas it was terrific to see many of our colleagues from all around the world and we had some interesting debates about the state of the profession worldwide. There are so many issues to address that a clear focus is needed to try not to attempt far too much with the limited resources at our disposal. We had a discussion around the way the RICS can influence the situation on projects in several African countries.

There is an opportunity for RICS corporate to influence the funders of projects to insist upon appropriate standards being applied at all stages within these projects. So often there is not enough attention to for example, the specification. This is often over specified or not appropriate and there is always reference to “the engineer” deciding what is needed. The engineer may often be from a large international consultancy, who may have little understanding of modern surveying techniques, so there is a need for an “informed client” to oversee such matters. An opportunity for us?

It is always interesting to follow up on some of the latest news stories on the internet. One story in particular comes to mind. I can remember many years ago using a presentation slide showing a pizza delivery man using co-ordinates from GPS for the location of his customer which seemed pretty far fetched at the time. Well, fast forward 20 years and we have Amazon talking about delivering parcels using unmanned aerial systems, so I wonder how long this will be before this is the norm?

This also sets me thinking about the future and you will soon be hearing about “RICS futures,” building on a paper from Professor John Radcliffe on RICS Strategic Foresight 2030 published in 2011. The RICS futures sets out the so called “7 Pillars”: Thinking ahead, Leadership and Inspiration, Sustainability, New skills and Multi-disciplinarily, Networks, Technology, Ethics, values and Standards.

Tell us about your BIM Experiences

Some of my contacts are telling us that BIM is beginning to have some impact in providing new opportunities for our members with the larger commercial property companies. These companies are beginning to realise that to unlock the potential of BIM, they need good, competent surveyors from our specialism, so long may it continue. Naturally, I would be keen to hear of the experiences of such surveyors, especially if they are training other colleagues about BIM.

As a final thought, I wonder who actually reads these columns. Is this an appropriate medium to communicate with you or should we be focusing our attention on Tweeting or LinkedIn?

This article was published in Geomatics World January/February 2014