IDRC Abstracts

A look at recent major presentations of the International Development Research Council (IDRC), the world’s preeminent association of corporate real estate professionals.

“Interactive Member Survey and Awards Luncheon,” IDRC San Antonio
Fall World Congress for Corporate Real Estate Executives, Nov. 2, 1998:

This interactive survey provides likely the most persuasive evidence of the growing importance of integrating Corporate Infrastructure Resources^TM (CIR). For example, 63 percent of respondents say their companies are already integrating their corporate infrastructures, and 75 percent see an increase “over the next two years in the need for integration among the HR, IT and CRE functions.” This report also spotlights IDRC’s honorees for Best Practices Awards, the Krafsur Award, the J. Holmes Davis Award, plus listing the first group to meet all requirements for certification from the Board on Certification for Corporate Real Estate.

“Blur: The Speed of Change,” IDRC San Antonio Fall World Congress
for Corporate Real Estate Executives, Nov. 4, 1998:

This session offered insights on how connectivity is changing the real estate game. Christopher Meyer, co-author of Blur: The Speed of Change in the Connected Economy, and a partner and director of the Cambridge, Mass-based Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation, reduced the speed of today’s economy to a simple but multifaceted equation: Speed X Intangibles X Connectivity = Blur.

“Connections possible among people are multiplying,” Meyer pointed out. “This is leading to an integrated web in which the links are more important than the nodes [specific locations, such as factories and offices], because they allow us to move informational value around.” Not long ago, the nodes mattered, because the links were less ubiquitous, he explained.

“Opening General Session Address by Alan Webber,” IDRC San Antonio
Fall World Congress for Corporate Real Estate Executives, Nov. 2, 1998:

Workplace configurations play a crucial role in today’s “revolutionary . . reinvention of leadership,” said Alan Webber, Fast Company magazine editor and former Harvard Business Review.

“Physical space defines what your company is,” Webber emphasized. Competitive edge, Webber said, rests in innovation and individual talent, “but to make the soft stuff work, you have to redesign the tangible stuff, the work space.”

Webber cites a number of innovative ideas in space configuration, including L.L. Bean, Bloomberg News Service, ION Storm, the city of Portland, Ore., and Toronto’s “Citytv.”

“Think Out of the Box,” IDRC San Antonio Fall World Congress
for Corporate Real Estate Executives, Nov. 4, 1998:

Mike Vance, co-founder of the Creative Thinking Assn. of America and former dean of Disney University, supplied both insight and hilarity in this luncheon address. “We need to modify the physical environment, the place,” Vance said. “We’ve reengineered things, but we still have the old architecture in place. Space needs to be more intellectually designed rather than designed for aesthetics.” Vance’s rapid-fire quips included observations about Walt Disney (“the ultimate out-of-the-box thinker”), brother Roy Disney (“the model for Jimminy Cricket) and Jack Welch (“he has 50 TVs on all the time!”)

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