The Long Tail of the Built Environment - An Introduction

On the 8^th of October I attended a Be2Camp event at the Working Buildings 2009 conference at London Olympia.    Be2Camp is a loose confederation of AEC industry and I.T. folks who are interested in exploring Web 2.0 and how it can change the built environment.   I was fortunate to have the opportunity to present to the group and share with them some of the perspectives we have gained in our evolution as a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform for supply chain collaboration since 2001. 

The title of the presentation was – Social Media, SaaS, and PaaS in a For-Profit World.   The talk was a bit wide-ranging – but centred on how web-based technologies and business models are changing the global AEC industry and how we at Asite see the future opening out for platforms that support global project-delivery. 

A couple of weeks later, on the 22^nd of October, Tony Ryan (Asite CEO and fellow blogger) gave a presentation to the Cloud Computing World Forum 2009 at the Institute of Physics in Portland Place, London – entitled Cloud Computing – The Enterprise and the Long Tail.  Tony went in-depth on what cloud computing really is and how SaaS platforms are leveraging the cloud to transform the supply chains of traditional industry.

Both presentations are embedded below, along with video feeds.  This blog post is an introduction to a series of six follow-ups which will explore these ideas in more detail. We will explain the opportunities which are opening up to deliver the Extended Enterprise; to support the change which industry needs – and to make absolute business sense along the way. 

There are a number of fundamental ideas which I believe must be grasped in order to deliver the business platform to do this. And I don’t see any convincing contenders in the market today – no one has nailed it yet.  We are totally focused on doing just that for our customers and we don’t intend to stop working through the nights, ever. (Don’t worry though – we’re ‘follow the sun’ – even global SaaS Platform folks need a few hours’ kip now and then.)

In six follow-ups we’ll get into these fundamentals:

1.       The Long Tail - and the Head

2.       SaaS is a License Model, Stoopid!

3.       The Enterprise - It Takes a Platform

4.       Business to User (B2U)

5.       Get Social – Remain Commercial

6.       Open Open Open (And Free!)

In the meantime here's the content from our two presentations last month.

Tony’s presentation slides from Slideshare: