I attended Trimble’s Dimensions in
Las Vegas, NV, this past week, and I think the mood and focus of the attendees
and exhibitors is particularly revealing and applicable to our present
situation.
Given that attendees had not only to
pay for transportation and accommodations, but for a rather large registration
fee as well, conventional wisdom might suggest Trimble’s Dimensions was facing
tough sledding, right? Not according to the 2,300 or so attendees who, along
with a regiment of Trimble employees and instructors, listened to the daily
keynote addresses, weaved their way back and forth through the exhibit and
dining areas, visited the outdoor demonstration venue, and filled the classrooms
to capacity for three jam-packed days.
The message the attendees brought
with them was perfectly tuned to the one the sponsor had in store for them: The
past was dead, exposing the gulf that was rapidly separating the technology
haves from the have-nots. Either you adapted to the emerging
situation or you were apt to become carrion on the electronic job-site
battleground.
It may seem amazing to some how far
the electronic job site has come in the last five years, but the handwriting has
been on the wall for a decade, and what you see of this revolution that is
taking place is still in its infancy. No sooner have the productivity advantages
of GPS and laser-based machine-control systems been recognized by a swelling
number of contractors, than the notion of real-time connectivity among all the
components of a total job site—call it a Telematics revolution if you wish, but
it is far more when you consider all of the tools and media that can be
incorporated into a super network—is heaving into view, poised to obsolete many
of the project management practices on which our businesses are
founded.
The message attendees carried home
with them was that of the burning need to thoroughly review and, where
necessary, overhaul not only their practices and operations but even the
assumptions on which these have been based.