Best of Both Worlds: CRE companies get exposure to real estate tech and smart building info at upcoming Realcomm/IBcon

Two popular conversations among the commercial real estate and wireless industries, real estate information management and smart buildings, will become one when the 2018 Realcomm and IBcon takes place at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on June 6-7.
Realcomm is a leading conference that’s focused on technology, innovation and automation for the commercial and corporate real estate and facilities industries, per the conference’s website. The discussion among commercial and corporate real estate professionals will focus on how technology, automation and innovation will continue to impact how real estate is used, operated and transacted.
“Realcomm deals with real estate management,” Realcomm CEO and co-founder Jim Young said. “In other words, a computer software platform that’s someplace: on the cloud, in your phone, a server or on a PC. I don’t care where it is, but it manages some part of the real estate process from tenant acquisition to lease administration to bill payment.”
Meanwhile, IBcon, the Smart, Connected, High Performance, Intelligent Buildings conference, has grown to become the world’s most comprehensive and leading-edge discussion on the next generation of smart, connected, high-performance, green, sustainable and intelligent buildings. The conference is not about the traditional one building, one system, one vendor smart building of the past, but rather the integrated, and IT centric smart buildings of the future.
Although the conferences are listed as their own entities, attendees will have exposure to real estate technology and smart building conversations. Up until a few years ago, there was a divider on the floor between Realcomm and IBcon, but after an advisor’s suggestion, it was removed and floors are now merged. Attendees may go back and forth between real estate information and smart buildings talks all day long.
“For a very deliberate reason, we decided to integrate the exhibit floor,” Young said. “In the early days when we started talking about smart buildings, the real estate technology guys didn’t want to talk about it. They said, ‘My engineers will take care of that.’ We said that sooner or later, their engineers are going to have to put their stuff on their networks, and they were going to have to be interested in it. While we have seen that change, there’s still apprehension by some CIOs who don’t think the smart building discussion is in their world. They are now bringing their engineers into these (smart building) rooms and saying that they have to listen to these discussions.”
As for the conference itself, things get going on Wednesday, June 6, but social and pre-conference events will precede it on Monday, June 4 and Tuesday, June 5 respectively. CBRE CEO and president Bob Sulentic will be a keynote speaker at the General Session on June 6. “He is working to transform CBRE into a digital model, getting buildings ready for the 22nd century,” Young said.
Real estate investment management company JLL will discuss its innovation projects and from there, the conferences will evolve into programs and breakout sessions, according to Young. One of the bigger sessions will revolve around privacy and when buildings are wired, what happens if they’re hacked.
The conferences will conclude on Friday, June 8 with innovation tech tours where attendees can get a behind the scenes look at several innovative experiences in the Las Vegas area. Although Las Vegas does not have a lot of smart buildings, Young says the tours will focus on the digital signs and visual communications that are put outside and inside the walls of a building.
“If I could sum up those five days in an elevator pitch, it would be, 20 years, 2000 people, 30 countries, 200-plus speakers and over 170 leading edge solution providers on a sold out exhibitor floor,” Young said.