Todd:
Welcome to another edition of From the Front Lines, where we discuss both the day-to-day, and one-of-a-kind issues facing real estate managers. In this episode, we talk to Vik Venkatraman with Blueprint Events about Blueprint 2024 in Las Vegas, including who’s speaking and what to expect from this real estate and technology event. Welcome to the podcast, Vik.
Vik:
Hey, Todd. So happy to be here.
Todd:
First, can you introduce yourself and tell us what Blueprint is?
Vik:
Absolutely. I'm Vik Venkatraman. I'm the chair of Blueprint. And Blueprint is an ecosystem of folks who are at the cutting edge of technology and the Built environment across asset class. We host an annual conference. This year will be our 4th annual Blueprint. It is from the 17th to the 19th of September at the Venetian in Las Vegas. And at Blueprint, you'll find folks who are at the leading edge across asset class and up and down the value chain. People at Blueprint work on single family, multifamily, office, retail, hospitality, industrial, warehouse, data center and more. And companies, largely technology companies that touch all aspects of the value chain from sourcing, procurement, the transaction, mortgage and mortgage tech, construction, construction tech, property management of course, but also leasing payment, Fintech, asset management, new materials, smart cities and more. If it's technology or new business model that impacts the Built environment, you think of that as in scope for Blueprint. Folks at Blueprint tend to be the leadership of companies across the Built space technology companies of every stage and those who invest in them, including the venture capital ecosystem, corporate venture capital markets and more.
Todd:
So why is it important for real estate professionals to keep track of prop tech and the real estate technology ecosystem today?
Vik:
You know we live in a world that is evolving rapidly. Just the past few years have seen not only macroeconomic changes, movement and behavior across asset classes. We have to talk about multifamily office hospitality. Through the ups and downs of the past few years, rate uncertainty and rate increases have been really interesting and in some cases challenging for folks who are acquiring, managing or refinancing properties. And of course, expectations for customers and tenants across asset class have been changing a ton with different amenities, different pricing structures, different ways in which you're supposed to communicate, catalog information, use information to improve tenant outcomes, customer outcomes, stakeholder outcomes. Certainly we believe that technology is a driving force. Real estate, I think no differently than maybe any other business is at this really interesting inflection point where we've had now, depending on who you ask, between 5 or 15 years of interesting changes in the way technology is used and how people find properties, manage them, develop them, construct them, visualize them, manage the data. And it's been our observation that across the Built space, those who have been forward leaning on the deployment and the evaluation of new technologies have been quicker to learn, quicker to evolve and ultimately produce better outcomes on a return on capital or return on human effort basis. We're certainly, we're bullish on technology, that's our bias. But if you are a manager, an owner, an investor in the Built space, I think those who are not looking at technology may find themselves surprised in a few years when a lot of their competitors have been playing with, experimenting, and deploying accretive or operationally improving or tools that are better for the end users than those who haven't.
Todd:
So can you tell us about the program at Blueprint 2024? Can you give us some highlights?
Vik:
Absolutely, Todd. We've got a fantastic lineup of speakers this year at Blueprint and we're honored that some of the cutting edge leaders across the Built environment and certainly in the real estate services space choose to spend some of their time with us. On the software side, we have the founders of top flight companies most people want to hear from such as VTS, Versatile, Summer, Alfred. On the Built side, we've got the leadership from large asset managers like Fornado, PGIM, Nuveen and certainly of course leaders from the services side like Greystar, CBRE, Colliers. There is no shortage of people who are thinking about how the services side of real estate adds value to the ownership and to the end user. And a lot of that discussion is happening this year at Blueprint.
Todd:
And what themes will attendees see emerge from the program?
Vik:
I'll be honest with you Todd, we are still early in the planning process for Blueprint this year, but I think some of the themes that are bubbling up for us may not be a surprise to to those who are listening. A lot of people are thinking about, working on, worried about the impacts of generative AI and its applications, maybe especially in the way that it can relate to tenant experiences and field team management communication heavy parts of the real estate services side. There's a lot of interesting work happening with the way information is managed at buildings, and that goes, you know, down past BIM through Digital Twins, the way you know all everyone from AEC to construction to developers to owners or thinking about information, certainly that's a major theme. Something that I'm sure I this group has seen over the past many years is the nascent but rapid rise of robotic applications both within job sites and within buildings. Hospitality, multifamily, and many commercial buildings are doing some really interesting things with robots both inside and outside of the structures from a service perspective. We're pretty excited. And I think between now and the end of the year, there's a lot of time for dominant themes to arise that are hopefully different than what's happening with rates and some of the other things that are always in the mind for this group.
Todd:
Where and when is Blueprint 2024, and how do people sign up?
Vik:
Blueprint this year is September 17th to the 19th at the Venetian in Las Vegas. It's a gorgeous venue. We held it there last year as well. And our website, blueprintvegas.com is the very best place to sign up or grab yourself a ticket.
Todd:
What can attendees expect to take away from Blueprint 2024?
Vik:
Todd, we try really hard to have Blueprint be the place where we can drive inflection points. Ideally for all of our attendees. Folks at Blueprint have come away with key hires, massive new customers, interesting investment opportunities, closed investments. People have come away with new ideas and partnerships that have driven entire new business units for them. We don't always know going into Blueprint exactly what's going to happen. Our team is laser focused all year. We work on this all year to bring together the right group of people to ask enough of the right questions and create a forum where people can meet one another, ask each other what they're working on, explore their challenges and their solutions and ideally come together as a community to Built, bring the whole built environment forward. That's really what we're up to at Blueprint and we're looking for anyone that wants to join us on that journey.
Todd:
Thanks for joining us, Vik.
Vik:
Absolutely, Todd, thank you so much for having me.
Todd:
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