Editor’s note: Jim Young is the Founder and CEO of Realcomm. At a recent Yardi Executive Briefing, he spoke about CRE 5.0. In this guest blog post, he further expands on the subject. The commercial and corporate real estate industry has many moving parts. Change is the only constant as companies around the world continually add and subtract from their organizations and portfolios. A merger today and a disposition tomorrow requires a complex network of individuals and processes to keep up with the changing real estate needs of a company. The people and processes involved in keeping a real estate portfolio moving smoothly require a significant amount of technology, automation and innovation. It is no longer possible to keep asset, lease, utilization, energy, operations and other data in spreadsheets or other disconnected information silos. In addition, there are four primary categories of technology associated with commercial and corporate real estate, 1) Real Estate Operational Information; 2) Transactions; 3) Smart, Connected, High-Performance Buildings; and 4) Next Generation Space. Over the course of the last 30 years, there have been five major phases of automation that have impacted the commercial and corporate real estate industry. Following is an overview of this CRE Tech evolution: CRE Tech 1.0 started over 25 years ago. Companies like Manhattan, Tririga, Yardi, MRI, CTI, J.D. Edwards, Argus, Angus and others, were the first to enter the real estate technology space. Their primary functionality was targeted on lease administration, asset management, accounting and property management. CoStar, which was founded in 1987, emerged as an industry giant, although the company has focused more on transactional and market data. Comps Inc., another market data company (acquired by CoStar), was also an early pioneer as were DataQuick, Damar, MetroScan and others. On the smart building...

Jim Young has taken his industry-leading commercial real estate technology conference, Realcomm, all over the globe to learn from the latest innovators. Now, the company is sending a mission to the final frontier – space. In February 2013, a Russian Soyuz rocket will blast off for the International Space Station carrying a new round of science projects from around the globe, and a Realcomm and CALIT2–funded, high-school student designed experiment will be among them. “Big ideas really do come out of the space industry, and those technologies that are being used in the space station probably will make their way to buildings over the next 10 to 15 years, a good example of that is Solar/LED lighting systems” noted Young. “Given that the ISS is the ‘most intelligent building in the universe,’ this fits very well with the mission and vision of Realcomm. “ But the real impetus behind this educational venture in outer space was motivated by a concerned dad’s desire to improve the education of his two daughters – and that of other American kids, too. During his first Realcomm international intelligent buildings tour in 2004, a trip to a classroom in China pushed Young to take a hard look at the U.S. education system, where it was falling short, and seek out opportunities for innovation and elevation that Realcomm and its community could fund. Over the years, the Realcomm community has donated significant amount of dollars to math and science. The students who will devise and create the space experiment are part of Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering (BE Wise), part of the San Diego Science Alliance. Young’s oldest daughter Grace, 14, is a participant in the program, which pushes young women to see math and science as...