Why Can't We Be Friends?

Hi. Glad you're home. Long day? Sorry to hear. You may want to sit down for the next bit. I've poured you a cold one. Take off your shoes. Relax. You said some things and I said some things which is really difficult for both of us to talk about. And we need to talk. It's not you, it's me. It's not that we've grown apart. It's not that I've been thinking about seeing someone else. Well, sort of. And I really want to be friends. We can be friends, right? Take another sip and I'll explain. There's something I need to confess...

When Revit was released over 10 years ago - it wasn't the best at anything. More than 10 years later, it's still not the best at anything. But again, this really isn't the point. Revit isn't supposed to be the best at anything.

When I demonstrated Revit during sales presentations, people were very quick to raise the numerous objections:

• 3DMax was a better tool for modeling
• VIZ was a better tool for rendering
• AutoCAD was a better for detailing and documentation
• Excel was a better for creating spreadsheets and schedules

And you know what? They were right. And they still right. Compared feature to feature, Revit can't compete with those kinds of tools. And even though Revit has evolved a lot in terms of functionality - those other tools have evolved as well.

But what many failed (or didn't want) to understand was the value proposition of Revit was about the sum being greater than the parts. So while, over the last 10 years, Revit has significantly evolved from a feature comparison point of view, none of those individually superior tools could (or has) become an integrated design solution.

This difference can't be overstated: what Revit afforded was not a superior set of individual features. Rather, Revit offered:

• Overwhelming simplification of choice
• Ease of use over complexity
• Integration over fragmentation
• Compelling advantage of concurrent information

10 years later, Revit remains the gold standard for integrating design to documentation. Yes, there are some rumblings at Bentley and Graphisoft...even Dassault. But a decade later, no one has yet managed a close second. Which is why (full disclosure) I remain a very bullish Autodesk investor. Because if you want to build a building, and you've hired someone to design it, you'd better hope that Revit is a significant part of the toolset.

So why the cold beer, slippered feet and relaxing iTunes? Well, I'm trying to let you down gently. Like I said, it's not you. It's me. I'll continue...

Revit has integrated the process of design to documentation. But BIM is a much larger ecosystem. And although Revit represents the integration of design, the ecosystem of BIM; the processes between designer, manufacturer, builder and owner - remains incredibly fragmented. Of course the individual tools used in those domains have evolved over the last 10 years; meaningful and valuable functionality at the application level has been created.

But as we've all observed with the success of Revit, it's not merely about the features or functionality of individual applications - it's about ease of use and integration. It's the integration between domains that has yet to be addressed. Here are a just a few of the the present challenges:

• Exported and decoupled data
• Distinct tools for designers, manufacturers, builders and owners
• Lack of collaborative, concurrent access to project information
• Bridging Intent (Design) with Content (Fabrication)

In other worlds, while individual tools may be sufficient, their combined use is untenable in terms of integration. Applications create silos. Exported data means that the everyone is working in separate versions of the truth; empirical information differs from emotive visualization. Efforts to analyze and resolve construction is distinct from ongoing design iteration. And by the time someone gets the "right" answer they're usually exactly wrong because the design has moved on to a new idea.

Collaboration and Integration - the real promise of BIM - remains elusive and little more than a concept.

So what's to be done? Pick one tool (many have suggested Revit) and evolve it into an all encompassing Design, Manufacturing, Construction and Owner toolset? I don't think so. None of the tools that surpassed Revit in functionality could have evolved into Revit. Or had any one of them evolved, their evolution would have been indistinguishable from simply (if only it were that "simple") starting over.

So I don't believe that Revit is capable of evolving beyond it's designed intent as a tool to resolve coordinated documentation. Yes - Revit creates valuable data which is useful outside of the Revit ecosystem. And other data can be brought into Revit (usually geometric context). But Revit isn't the center of this ecosystem of geometry and data; it seems to orbit other applications (Navis, ProjectWise, etc) that in turn attempt to integrate data across domains.

Those of us that have worked on some of the largest and most complex BIM projects in the world know the challenges of trying to integrate design across multiple BIM platforms, applications and domains that presently exist. What to do if you're using Revit for the Architectural design, but the best curtain wall consultant in the world uses Catia? What if the structural engineer uses Tekla but the MEP engineer is well-versed Mechanical Desktop? What if the best Interiors consultant is incredibly lyrical with ArchiCAD? Should we realistically expect everyone to stop thinking in their language of expertise and speak one language?

So what is really at the center of this BIM universe? Should we honestly expect real collaboration and integration across domains? Is it reasonable to expect our software and technology partners to create collaborating and integrating "best of breed" solutions?

I'm convinced that it can be done. But the challenges to discovering, developing, selling, marketing and implementing such a solution isn't merely technical. There are deeply dividing cultural barriers.

And this is why we've grown apart. And I've noticed you're on your third beer and getting a bit sleepy. And it's not you. It's me. Let me tuck this blanket around your feet. That's better...

After 10 years, I think we can admit that it's unlikely to ever expect all the world's designers (and more) to agree use a single design tool. But at the same time it seem even more unlikely to expect any of our existing technology partners (Autodesk, Bentley, etc.) to create a unifying process or platform which, at a minimum allows:

• Agnostic Aggregation
• Multi-user / Multi-platform / Multi-OS
• Concurrent Information - both Geometry and Data
• Compute Intensive

The standards are settling; the technologies exist. So what challenges remain for our established technology partners? Only the challenge of dedicating the resources (money, people and time) to create a new, unifying technology which will eventually perceived as undermining and starving their successful, existing products. And if such a technology existed, it would also allow their customers to be able look over the fence and consider other platforms (present and future) made useful by such a development.

Christensen called it "The Innovators Dilemma".

Or as someone once explained to me:

"It's culturally untenable for an existing company to develop disruptive technology."

In other words, while it takes an incredible force of will to deliberately make successful technologies obsolete, it's even more difficult to do so from within the company that created the technologies you're trying to make obsolete. Not to mention that the first efforts at integrating technologies may not even complete feature for feature with the individual technologies being replaced!

But once again, Revit usurped Max, Viz and AutoCAD not because it was the best at anything, but because was the best at everything. Sum vs. Parts.

So if we're we're ever to help realize the promise of BIM - the collaboration and integration across multiple platforms and domains, I'm convinced we'd better plan on getting started somewhere...else.

Sleep. Dream sweet dreams...

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Up next: Give Me A Second Chance! I Can Change!!!