Back to Silicon Valley — The New Daedalus

I am off to Santa Clara for the week to participate in Connectivity Week. It should be fun.

There are pre-conference sessions on OpenADR, Caifornia's new Demand-Response standard and on how construction Specifications have to change to meet the needs of intelligent buildings.

I have been busy the last few days getting ready for a track I am running Tuesday on Green Enterprise / Green Buildings we are calling Buildings 2.0 meets Web 2.0. We will discuss the changes in building integration needed to enable new business models for building systems and their interactions with the power grid. The resulting new market will dwarf all others in opportunity over the next decade. This track brings together experts in building systems, the electrical grid, e-commerce, and standards development to discuss the new (to the world of engineered systems) skills and approaches that leadership in this new economy will require.
Look for experts in enterprise interoperability, in e-commerce, and in new open source efforts for building-enterprise middleware.

I am participating in other tracks as well. I'll try to post, but I may be quite busy until next weekend.

New Daedalus

Daedalus designed buildings, automated statues, and built wings for human flight. Daedalus worked by eye and hand, his designs scratched with a stylus on wax tablets. Until recently, we merely perfected his means of work, using better pens, and paper, and finally drawing on computers.

It is only recently that we have begun to leave the methods of Daedalus behind.

Simulations and digital twins guide each decision. Intelligence, or at least behaviors, imbue each system and device. Cyberphysical systems replace household servants and chauffeurs, operate factories, and manage energy logistics. The most pressing concerns are how intelligent systems and buildings will respond to us, and to each other.