As professionals in the year 2018, we can feel an urgency about keeping our professional skills up to date. The corporate real estate and facilities management fields are advancing at a fast and accelerating pace. Today, I could not do my job with the knowledge base I had five years ago.
Let’s look at what experts say about this process. According to a study by Oxford Economics, a survey of thousands of U.S. workers found that the typical respondent believes half of her/his skills become obsolete every three years and their companies are not geared up to provide this training.
Another big change factor is the application of increasingly capable artificial intelligence (AI) to automate some real estate tasks. Industry literature on commercial real estate is rife with discussion of how it will be affected by AI. Michael Beckerman writes in a recent CRETech blog, "I think that the areas that tech will be the most impactful in the short-term will be HOW we work, with AI taking over many of the manual tasks, such as research, data, analytics, marketing, communications and more. This is also going to have a pretty significant impact on jobs in the commercial real estate industry."
Such changes in commercial real estate will have important impacts on corporate real estate. The two are tightly integrated.
Change is under way, and it’s normal in business. Where will you go to find the professional education and networking resources to keep you up to date? I believe IAMC is an important part of the answer. One of IAMC’s strategic value propositions has been and will continue to be enhancing your career.
We offer some great programs and tools and strategies to help you:
- The Sunday Forum Leadership Development programs receive high marks from participants and will undoubtingly sharpen your managerial skills.
- Technical Webinars, white papers and Forum CRE professional development workshops can update your technical skills.
- A key new resource to all of us is Cornerstone, our recently launched online portal, through which members can access IAMC’s knowledge center, discussion boards and on-line communities.
I urge you to take full advantage of your membership to boost your career. Attend, explore and participate! The bottom line is this: Think of IAMC as another vehicle to help you accelerate your career growth.
Best regards,
Mark Eichkorn
Chair, IAMC Board of Directors