“57 channels and nothing on.” - Bruce Springsteen I am losing my f-in mind!!! What I used to hear in my head was “Bruuuuuuuuuce” and it has officially been replaced by “Zooooooom”. Just because someone can appear on a webinar or video doesn’t mean they should. Sorry. That sounds shitty and very judgmental I know. But as someone who has been in the content business for 35 years, I think I have a good handle on what good content is and what is crap. Everyone is talking Covid-19. And everyone is talking “back to work”.  And everyone is doing a Zoom webinar or posting videos on-line. And I mean, EVERYONE! The media. The conference co’s.The brokerages. The VC’s.The landlords. The tech CTO’s. The law firms. The accounting firms. The consultants. The banks. And on and on.  On top of that, every business big and small in the world is piling on and doing webinars. You literally look at your newsfeed on LinkedIn and it’s all Zoom webinars. And I am the first to admit, I sometimes don't put out great content. I will own up to it.  And what are people saying on all of these webinars? Not much that is unique, original, insightful or even provocative. It’s just “57 channels and nothing on!” Now don't get me wrong, there is some great content out there. And I do think it’s a good thing that content has been democratized in general. More voices. More diversity of opinions, etc. And I still consume a great deal of content daily but I am much more selective about it than I have been in the past. Here are some examples of content that I found to be stellar on the pandemic, “back to work”, investment strategies and real estate. The Crisis, the Recovery, and the CRE Markets with Starwood Capital Group’s CEO, Barry Sternlicht Virtual event: A conversation on workplace safety and reopening the economy What coronavirus means for the global economy | Ray Dalio Fly on the Wall Ep. 6: Dr. Peter Linneman, CEO & Founder, Linneman Associates Connection Next - Temporada 1 E1 - "El nuevo escenario del Real Estate según el MIT" Steve Weikal Preparing the built world for the new normal | Part 1 | Openpath & CRETech Leading through a Crisis Day-by-Day In the good ole days, when we had these things called “physical conferences”, it was really, really f-in hard to speak at one of my events. I would get quite a few emails from people who were pissed off that they couldn't speak. Our standards were so high and it was really hard for most people to accept that. It wasn’t snobbery. It’s that I had a duty to my audience to put the best content on the stage, period!  And the feedback we consistently received was that we had the best content in the industry. But today, with the stage now being Zoom, everyone thinks that they are welcome.  This is not always a good thing. The audience suffers as a result and begins to tune it all out in time. (I think that this is already happening, actually.) It’s the same reason why I do not personally get my news from social media. Just too many damn opinions out there and I really do still believe in real journalism (shocking, I know). If I read something in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, TechCrunch, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg, Fast Co. etc, I know there was a process involved in that reporting. Sure they make mistakes but these reporters are professionals. It’s there job! So, what do we do about this? I am saying right here and now that I am going to be doing less webinars. While our audience at CREtech is massive (nearly 100,000 globally), I don't want to contribute to the noise just because I can. Less is more. You will absolutely see less webinars from CREtech going forward. If you do see something from us, trust me, we thought really hard about it. My advice for others is to do the same. Do less. Think harder. All of your efforts will soon result in diminished returns as the entire business sector is overwhelmed and wants to hit “pause” on all of these webinars and videos. Be thoughtful about your content. Ask the hard questions; Is what you are presenting incredibly unique and thought-provoking? And if the answer is no, then spend your time doing something more productive. I, for one, and perhaps many others, will thank you. Rant over. Beckerman out!      

Big tech! One of the most extraordinary outcomes we are witnessing (or shall I say being bombarded with) on a daily basis is how “work” as we know it is now being challenged during the pandemic. Not a day goes by where I am not inundated with content from companies doing surveys, studies, making suggestions and plans on how we will all get back to work and what the future holds for the real estate industry. And I have no doubt that you are facing the same content onslaught. As I have written about recently, our “little PropTech” world is now the world's domain. Perhaps the three most talked about, and challenged-to-adopt, industries during and post pandemic will be 1) healthcare 2) education and 3) real estate. What do they have in common? They have all changed very little in the way they operate over many generations. They have all made huge amounts of money by embracing the status quo and they all resist the call to innovate. Why take chances when everything (like making massive amounts of money over the last ten years) is just fine the way it is? But now that “work” has replaced “PropTech” as an all encompassing, catch-all category, guess who is now seeing $ written all over the place? Big tech! They thrive on inefficiencies in delivery and distribution (think what Amazon did to retail). They have massive resources to bring simplicity and functionality to processes that are disparate and unorganized (think Apple Music). They bring trusted brand identities known for reliability into your personal lives (Think Google Home via Nest or Alexa). And they capture, analyze and utilize data in ways most of us cannot even comprehend, or worse, are largely unaware of. And now that “work” is being analyzed, scrutinized and theorized by seemingly every Fortune 500 company, as well as every small business in the world, there is a focus on real estate from outside the industry like never before. Check out this beautiful, intuitive approach from Salesforce about offering solutions for “work”... or how the pandemic has impacted not the square footage of the physical spaces people inhabit but their health and wellness… or how organizational structures might change. Given that real estate is on most people's minds and that absolutely now includes big tech, let me weave a scenario for you given all of the emphasis on how we are going to “work” in the future (which, by the way, extends to how we “live” as a byproduct). Big tech sees their opening to now enter and dominate the biggest industry on earth. They see real estate as a massive opportunity to scale the sales and usage of their products like voice. Maybe they offer one of a myriad of work-flow, access control/mailbox solutions or health/wellness products. Perhaps they bring sensors to monitor building occupancy and energy management controls. And of course they all offer the end-user a wonderful, trusted UX and Voila! Guess what happens??? They control the data! And as a result they own the customer relationship, which is the holy grail in the real estate industry. My friend and the brilliant tech guru James Whittaker has been preaching this forever! In this scenario, landlords are giving away their control of the customer relationship as they give away all the data. And, brokers also lose since big tech is then positioned to directly connect customers with real estate—not brokers.  Incumbents have historically not been keen to use technology to service tenants because they never had to. However, the Space as a Service (SPaaS) movement  and the pandemic will force companies to adopt “flex” space solutions that will drive more leasing volume than most anticipate. While the amount of space that will be leased in this environment is anyone’s guess at this early stage, the increased demand for flex space terms and configurations is absolutely going to happen, as there will clearly be people coming back to work in stages, a migration away from density and less people in the workforce. Given that the great work from home experiment was largely a success for most, consumers are also going to question where and how they live in the future, as this sadly won't be the last pandemic of our lifetimes. What Can We Learn From Finance & Fintech... Buy or Build One illustrative example from the world of Financial services shines a clear light on how the industry is future proofing itself. Morgan Stanley acquired E-Trade for $13 billion not to join the day trading business, but because it was willing to pay $2,500 for each of E-Trade’s 5.2 million customers. This move “significantly increased the scale and breadth of Morgan Stanley’s Wealth Management franchise,” perfectly positioning it as an “industry leader in Wealth Management across all channels and wealth segments,” according to the company. Now that is future proofing on a massive scale! A New York Times piece on the deal saw the clear connection as well, given that Morgan Stanley can now “tap into a new source of revenue: the smaller-volume trades of the country’s so-called mass affluent, people who are wealthy enough to have some savings but not rich enough to buy into hedge funds or seek out a money manager.” Beyond mergers and acquisitions, companies also get creative when accessing and leveraging large customer bases. Goldman Sachs’ customer acquisition attempt, Marcus, was launched in 2016 as an online platform offering unsecured personal loans to consumers. Although this venture has lost $1.3 billion since its launch, Marcus “helped lure tech talent to the firm and has proven that Goldman can stand up new businesses,” according to executives. They also noted that Marcus’ savings accounts “have gathered $50 billion in deposits, a new type of low-cost funding for the bank,” reported Liz Hoffman and Peter Rudegeair from the Wall Street Journal, who also mentioned that Goldman recently acquired Clarity Money, a personal finance app boasting more than 1 million users. Further, a partnership with Apple Card—as “the issuer of the card… responsible for underwriting, customer service, the underlying platform, and all matters related to regulatory compliance—marks another significant step in growing the firm’s consumer franchise and realizing the broader vision of Marcus by Goldman Sachs to create a leading digital consumer platform, with partnerships as a core pillar of its strategy.”  Customers remain king, and splashy fintech acquisitions and new product launches show other industries how to proactively integrate their businesses with tech investment that results in MORE customer stickiness! Signs Real Estate Tech Isn’t Waiting to be Disrupted GreyStar’s partnership with Google Home and Amazon investing in SmartRent are good signs that the real estate and tech sectors understand the advantages of partnering with big tech. There are indeed a few large, forward-thinking landlords that are embracing and working closely with big tech as several have shared with me the partnership pilots they are working on with many of these giants. The deployment of STRATIS throughout the GreyStar and Google Home pilot launch is one such public example. But we can also see examples of large real estate owners/developers leading the way by capturing data and information to better service their customers like AvalonBay and Equity Residential which are now using MeetElise. And many, many landlords are using tenant engagement/communication platforms such as Eden, Livly, HqO, Rise Buildings, Equiem, OfficeApp and others to understand their customers in ways unimaginable just a few years ago. Getting unseated from the customer experience is the single greatest threat that tech poses to those who do not adopt it. Proactivity is table stakes to avoid giving away the keys to the fortress. The benefits of embracing tech are not all one sided, though. Leveraging real time data on your customers empowers landlords and operators to more effectively manage and monetize their square footage. Landlords can also therefore communicate information more efficiently and proactively to their tenants as they will be now armed with all sorts of new types of essential insights.  From important and timely building updates and operating controls to all safety/wellness protocols, when owning and understanding their own data, the power remains in the owner/landlords hands. Tech-enabled building operating management built on data driven insights makes the occupants feel more secure and safe, which is critical during this pandemic. Just look at how brilliantly RXR has responded with their own tech tools during this pandemic which I have zero doubt will brand their buildings as among the safest in New York City! Now more than ever, owners and operators in this environment, where every employee of every company is deeply concerned about safety, wellness and communications first and foremost, must now shift their focus to being data driven with a great sense of urgency. And how best to do that is to make an investment in tech. Every aspect of their spaces, from how they operate to how they communicate must be centered around strategic technology investments that will prepare them for all that is changing in the world around us and especially in commercial real estate. The stakes are high here—losing customer access and acquiescing their data to big tech will cost the industry dearly. And they will never be able to recover! Heed Residential We’ve seen this playbook already in residential. Zillow put the customer first, and over the course of a decade won hearts and minds. Now agents and brokers are dependent on Zillow for access to buyers and sellers. It’s nigh impossible to unseat Zillow from the throne—it owns the customer relationships. There’s no easy solution, though. Every major brokerage/franchise is developing its own “all-in-one” platform so this doesn’t happen again. Compass acquired Contactually, and RE/MAX Chairman and Co-Founder Dave Liniger views the acquisition of booj—now a central component of RE/MAX’s new system—as the “smartest investment” they’ve ever made.  Will it work? They may be too late to the game, but the verdict is still out. Sitting on Your Hands and waiting for this cycle to end is not an option  Tread carefully when ceding control to tech players that can turn the tables on you down the road. But also keep in mind that customers now expect convenience. People won’t use 30 different apps and websites to conduct their lives and nor will tenants and residents. Be the single source provider of all their needs by understanding them. Data will provide you with those insights. You can either invest proactively alongside big tech or watch them eat your lunch. Tech is an investment the industry now has no choice but to make. Now is the time to accelerate your company’s adoption of tech in the right strategic areas to protect your most valuable assets: your customer relationships. Tech is imperative to maintain future relevance, so whatever you do, do something—nature abhors a vacuum and your competition won’t wait until you’re ready.  Given this environment we are now all having to come to grips with, the nature of work and how/where we live feels like it’s forever changed (until the next big cycle emerges of course). But with “work” now the domain of everyone on the planet, big tech is coming in sooner and faster than most realize. It can be a great thing for the consumer and the tenant but it can be devastating to the real estate industry. The real estate industry has a clear choice… either embrace big tech and collaborate or ignore them at your own peril.

Don't worry, CREtech isn’t going anywhere nor is our industry 🙂 In fact, I have no doubt that my company and our industry as a whole will emerge from this pandemic stronger, wiser and positioned for an entirely new era of innovation in the real estate industry. Thanks to everyone who commented and gave me feedback on my recent blog. It was truly amazing to witness the outpouring of support and high level of encouragement I am seeing from our community. Perhaps it’s because everyone has more time on their hands 🙁 but don't think I have ever received so many comments on something that I wrote. And I have also been so touched to see how so many in our industry are helping those who need the assistance during this global pandemic. Bravo real estate tech sector! And now, onto my new blog. As a continuation of the themes I wrote about in my most recent blog, this one will touch on a sensitive topic that may cause some in our community to question if I have lost my mind (and they probably wouldn’t be wrong to assume this given these times we are living in). It’s something I have actually been thinking of for a while, pre-pandemic. And given how much everything has changed in our sector so quickly, I am now certain of this... It’s time we said goodbye to the term CRETech and PropTech (and perhaps soon to Built World, although, I have less of an issue with that one)!  To be honest, I always had a hard time when people would ask me the difference between the two terms and what each actually meant. I would get that question literally every day. In Europe it was mostly PropTech. In the U.S. we always used CRETech as we were much more focused on the entire commercial sector and “Prop” seemed limiting. “CRE” could mean data, transactional platforms, FinTech solutions, etc. while “Prop” seemed much more about the physical nature of the industry. And “Prop” also felt very residential when we were more office, multifamily, logistics, etc. Then I started to see more and more professionals using terms like “Built World” as an attempt to see the entire sector through the lens of the built environment in which we all live, work, shop and travel. Makes sense but also just added to the noise and confusion that already existed in defining our sector. So last year, I started thinking there has to be something bigger than what we are all struggling to describe. Why is FinTech so universally adopted and yet we have so many disparate terms? Why is BioTech so universally understood?  Let me be clear and direct, those of us in the position of trying to control the narrative are the ones inevitably screwing up the narrative.. So as always, I accept the blame. After all, I do own two companies... one called CREtech and the other FUTURE PropTech 🙂 Guilty as charged, as always!!!!!! And this was my thinking PRE-PANDEMIC! Now the world has been turned upside-down. The future of work, in my opinion, will never be the same. Companies simply are not going to send their employees back to the same workplace environment. No way. This pandemic has so fundamentally changed the psyche of the workplace that the fear of who is in the office, where they came from and how the professionals in an office interface with one another is simply not going back to the way it was before. And much good can also come of it as distributed work, flex time and innovation will be embraced like never before in the history of the workplace. For our world (which is obviously focused on real estate as I outlined in my last blog), this industry is now going to transform in more profound ways than I have seen in my lifetime. We will transform in two primary ways:  Real estate owners, brokers, asset managers, mortgage/finance companies etc., will need to finally have the sense of urgency we have been waiting for to invest in their own internal tech infrastructure. They will need to be able to do as much of their business using all of the digital tools that are in the marketplace and, unfortunately, do more with less people and put greater focus on their company's bottom line as every real estate company is going to see their financials squeezed.  The actual physical world of real estate will need to be transformed to meet the new realities of our times. The way people live and work, where and how they shop and travel, where and how they get their food, how they bank, etc. will never be the same again. From the way space is utilized by corporations (open floor plans really?) to how they access, operate and control their living spaces — the physical world will be transformed in ways never seen in my lifetime. And, perhaps even the great city migration we have been witnessing over the past few years will also be reversed as more people work remotely and in less dense environments. And if you think I am overreacting, forget my babble and listen to what Bill Gates has been saying for a while. So... Given the magnitude of change that's in front of us, and the true excitement of the opportunities to rethink everything and how tech and the real estate world will now truly converge like never before, our new company branding is going to be much more aspirational and inclusive, and much less specific, categorized and pigeonholed... “Reimagining Real Estate”   This is a big vision for the largest industry on earth, I know. But it's OUR opportunity as a community, an industry and as professionals to drive innovation and change this massive industry for the good! Let’s not think of ourselves as a category. Let’s no longer define ourselves so narrowly. Every real estate company must make innovation part of their DNA or they simply won't survive the extraordinary changes taking place in the world today. To quote that amazing Chiat Day ad for Apple, it's time for us to all “Think Different.” So, what business am I in? “I am in the business of reimagining real estate.” Where do I work? In tech. In construction. In leasing. In capital markets. We are ALL innovating. We are CREtech is Reimagining Real Estate. We are the largest international community of professionals devoted to technological innovation in the real estate sector. Our mission is to help the industry embrace, adopt and future proof their businesses. CREtech’s intelligence and event platform inspires the next generation of ideas, processes and people to champion the world's largest asset class. In the coming weeks you will see a series of announcements on some exciting new product and service lines from CREtech that will help the real estate industry “reimagine” itself. P.S. Yes of course, my company name will remain CREtech but that's just our name and not the industry we work in. And we are also CREtech with a “little t”, just saying.