Let’s Get Connected

Kevin Dollhopf
IAMC Chair

In 2015, members will be able to network in more ways, at more locations than ever. And we’ll roll out plans for a comprehensive education initiative. We’ll do both while preserving and nurturing IAMC’s powerful core principles.

In September, we attained a new membership high of 616. The same month, IAMC put on its first outside-the-US Professional Forum in Quebec.

Canada was every bit the host we expected. And Québec City charmed the attendees with its walkable Old Town, riverfront and historic sights. The program featured such notables as Fox News business commentator Lou Dobbs, logistics guru General Gus Pagonis, manufacturing technologist Dr. Bill King, energy company CEO Thierry Vandal and Nike’s Global Innovation Director Shaifali Puri.

As IAMC’s first international Forum, Québec was the perfect launch platform for expanding our networking and education offerings in 2015 through IAMC’s International and Local programs. We’ll have at least six IAMC International events next year and 10 IAMC Local, each an opportunity for members to grow through professional education and network development.

As always with IAMC, program quality is paramount over quantity. Expect consistent and careful oversight of both the Local and International programs. They’ll receive guidance from their member committees and ultimately the board of directors. The governance structure has not changed. And all programs are accountable for IAMC’s three long-time core principles: service to real estate professionals in manufacturing and industrial environments, a balanced attendance of member types at events, and absence of overt salesmanship. We are committed to these.

" The board has adopted exciting new goals for 2015 to make IAMC organizationally stronger, financially more robust and globally more accessible."

The board has adopted exciting new goals for 2015 to make IAMC organizationally stronger, financially more robust and globally more accessible. We plan to grow the Active membership. We want to register 100 Actives for a Professional Forum and increase Forum attendee satisfaction scores — we have two great venues next year to achieve these goals: Palm Desert and Cleveland. And we plan to define and implement a world-class education program as our mission states; we’ll kick this off at the January board meeting with an expert-facilitated brainstorming session. The new education offerings will be delivered through the Forums, our overseas events, IAMC Local in North America and other channels.

Achieving the 2015 goals will increase IAMC’s value to every member: Active, Economic Developer and Service Provider. Forum education and networking will improve. And the additional IAMC Local and International events will better enable you to connect with other members wherever you live and work in the global economy.

Best Regards,
Kevin Dollhopf, IAMC Chair

Kevin Dollhopf
IAMC Chair

Intrapreneurship & The Age of Disruptive Innovation

Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa

n addition to taking place in one of America’s most exotic locations, the Spring IAMC Professional Forum in Palm Desert, California, deals with leading-edge issues worthy of the nation’s West Coast culture, notable for high-tech business incubation and the sometimes chaotic impacts of new technologies. These topics will leaven an education program also offering the usual array of sessions on important workaday corporate real estate issues. The Forum happens April 25-29, 2015. You can register at www.iamc.org.

The conference title is “Intrapreneurship & The Age of Disruptive Innovation.” Merriam-Webster says an intrapreneur is “a corporate executive who develops new enterprises within the corporation.” Put another way, an intrapreneur acts like an entrepreneur while working within a company. The connotation is positive.

The title’s tag phrase seems oxymoronic. Innovation is good, but who needs disruption? The coiner of the term “disruptive innovation,” Harvard’s Clayton Christensen, says, “An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers at the bottom of a market access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill.” A classic example is smart phones, which are owned by more people in emerging economies than have indoor plumbing.

Decades after the world adopted lean manufacturing and just-in-time inventory supply chain models, innovators of the 21st century are questioning the corporate efficiency-at-all-costs mantra and challenging tomorrow’s business leaders to think creatively. Lessons from Silicon Valley and other leading tech centers challenge conventional wisdom about how and where things are built. The Forum will address topics relevant to supply chain and corporate real estate, including innovation & technology, site selection and real estate optimization.

Palm Desert Professional Forum attendees will enjoy a cool oasis in an iconic desert setting. Nestled among 45 acres of lush gardens, Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort & Spa provides the quintessential Palm Desert experience. Located within the exclusive Indian Wells community, the resort’s unmatched hospitality, service, and easy access to a myriad of activities invite guests to relax, play and indulge during their stay.

— Joel Parker and Rya Hazelwood

Simple Ideas, Major Impacts

Mert Livingstone

hen Mert Livingstone was Vice Chair of IAMC in 2011, he advanced the concept of using a few important ideas to shape the future direction of IAMC. Three years later, these ideas are still in play.

Globalization has blossomed into the IAMC International program, with education and networking events and tours in five countries in three global regions. Currently, the program conducts events in Birmingham, UK; Mexico City; Munich, Germany; Singapore; and São Paulo, Brazil. Since 2011, the International program has introduced hundreds to IAMC.

Technology applications represent major opportunities for CRE departments in almost every company. Since 2011, IAMC has delivered many technology–focused education programs. One of the most popular at Professional Forums demonstrated how to use the iPad and similar tablet computers for real estate applications.

Managing the corporate workplace is a major activity and budget item for most CRE departments. In 2013 IAMC collaborated with SIOR to produce the white paper “Designing Flexibility into the Industrial Workplace,” and now have launched phase two of this project, examining three facility prototypes.

The role of the corporate real estate manager is evolving, stimulating Forum program development on such topics as facilities management, logistics and sustainability in response to Active members’ interests.

Demonstrating CRE’s value and increasing its relevance to the C-suite is taking on growing importance among the Active members. Departments paying too little attention to this issue may face budget cuts and outsourcing of some of their functions. The Distribution Industry Group meeting at the Québec City Professional Forum dealt with the topic through a program entitled “CRE as Business Partner — Providing Greater Value to the C-Suite.”

These five simple-but-big ideas introduced in the 2012 strategic plan have changed IAMC, and remain part of the organization’s strategic framework today. — Joel Parker