Last week (November 12-15, 2012) I was lucky enough to attend the 2012 Be Inspired Awards held at the Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky in Amsterdam as a member of the press for TenLinks.com (www.tenlinks.com). According to the official conference program;
Bentley’s annual Be Inspired Awards program is the only competition of its kind that is global in scope and comprehensive in the categories covered, encompassing all types of infrastructure projects. Its goal is twofold: to advance innovation and best practices in design, engineering, construction, operations, and project delivery; and to promote the extraordinary work of organizations that help sustain the world’s infrastructure.
The competition is open to all users of Bentley software, and the winners are selected by independent panels of jurors comprising industry experts.
While only one winner in each of the 20 categories went home with a trophy each of the 60 firms/projects participating in the competition this year are winners in their own right. As a colleague said as we were leaving – “…what he likes about the Be Inspired is it shows that humans can still create great things...” which is something we tend to forget in today’s chaotic world.
The list of all the 2012 Be Inspired award winners, along with the other finalists and a brief description of the projects can be viewed at:
If you want to get a feel for what people were thinking during the conference head on over to Twitter and do a search on the conference hash tag #BeIn2012. If you look around a bit you might even see some of my witty comments (tweets).
Two of which come to mind;
Rande Robinson @randerobinson
The Swedish transportation admin was BIM before BIM was cool #bein2012 though I doubt they put peanuts in their coke...
This tweet intrigues me because it is the first time I have ever heard an organization actually explain what BIM means to them and what they expect it to look like in a project deliverable. I can’t wait to re-watch the video of the presentation when it becomes available.
Rande Robinson @randerobinson
Common theme in the projects I've seen so far at #bein2012 Bentley software speeds them up...compresses the traditional project time frame
This tweet was about the common theme that using/ applying Bentley software allow all of the projects to be finished on time and within very tight schedules. Presenters were adamant these projects would have been impossible without it. This one simple statement kept popping up in every presentation I attended. The question I had and still have about this is simply. Does technology speed things up or does a shorter time frame force people to refine and reassess the way they do business? It is something we need to think about.
That’s it for now in my next blog post I’ll take a look at some of the interesting things that came up at press briefing on the first day of the conference. So stay tuned.
Note: Bentley Systems graciously covered expenses and registration for the event but did not in any way influence the content of this post the information and opinions presented are my own.
