It’s happening again.
Once, knowledge was sequestered away on manuscripts in Monasteries only to be set free by the printing press. Suddenly, the Renaissance. The Reformation. The Industrial Revolution.
Men read, collaborated and created. Our modern world was born and lives were transformed.
Now, a succession of technologies—the internet, the cloud, big data, and machine learning—has unleashed a powerful and ubiquitous digital revolution, freeing both knowledge and its actionable companion, intelligence. (Knowledge is the information one acquires through experience—intelligence is applied reasoning or aptitude.)
Knowledge, and now intelligence, has again been freed. This time not from inside carefully guarded stone walls, but from the minds of men into the vast ether, and now gathered into repositories of big data.
We are only beginning to graze the surface of what this means to our world and to those business models that serve society. One thing is certain, a brave new world is here and lives will be transformed.
In fact, automation has already begun to frame our world, morphing, innovating and expanding everything it touches.
The effect on apartment operations: streamlined processes, improved NOI and increased asset value and that’s just the beginning.
What’s ahead? As you will read herein, combining technology with behavioral insight—up and down the service chain from owners to residents—has great potential in improving asset management and performance for owners—and convenience to residents. The new knowledge aided economy is not just an Internet of Things, but a source of intelligent action apart from human intervention.
Improving asset performance, and service to our residents who call our communities home (and sometimes “office” in this world of the virtual workplace) is our life’s work. We have a great opportunity, even a calling, to transform decades of knowledge into new business models of operation for our apartment businesses. Still, with any investment, there’s inherent risk. In today’s automated-internet-squirrel world, it’s distraction.
Attention spans have shrunk. Willpower has atrophied. Studies suggest that we are falling down a rabbit hole of the superficial. “To be everywhere is to be nowhere,” said ancient philosopher Seneca.
All of the greatest innovations begin with focus—solving another’s pain connects us and we thrive.
Focus is the new genius.
As executives, business owners and operators, managers and humans, we share several divine traits. We are holistic creatures. Focus, willpower and thoughtful living are choices that affect the whole being. As it is with humanity.
Through changing economies and workforces and value chains, humans are made to find purpose and thrive. Knowing this connection is truth, which begets integrity. And therein lies the irreplaceable human purpose inside the business model.
Things are about to get very exciting.
