Meet Wendy.  A fictional “persona” at this point, the way that Wendy works seems futuristic, but is not that far from reality, according to Joseph Poskie, Product Marketing Manager at technology company Trimble, who spoke to corporate real estate (CRE) executives at the CoreNet Global Summit being held in Philadelphia this week.

Wendy wakes up, checks her phone, checks the status of work projects and emails from overnight, and then may move to a tablet, or computer, or other device to update her work. This work depends less on the concept of mobility, than on ubiquity, and this is something that CRE executives must be able to provide for workers.

Wendy may ask her digital assistant to update her on traffic patterns and build her schedule for the day. Wendy may go to work at a café, a client’s office, the beach or her physical office.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Wendy will use location-based services that are integrated with her phone, and will communicate with her office to reserve a desk, specific to the type of setting that she needs for the day: quiet, collaborative, one on one, or group setting.

Her technological platform will check her in, advise her of food menus for the day, when and where her visitors have arrived, and will check in guests. All of this information is stored and tracked in the form of data that will be used by the company to design workspaces based on need.

Poskie projects that productivity increases by 32 percent when an employee can make these choices.

Now for Wendy’s task at hand.

In the U.S., there were 1.5 billion square feet of commercial construction available in 2014, and a total inventory of 83.5 billion square feet. Therefore, we are not, Poskie says, going to replace all of the commercial real estate with these types of smart buildings any time soon. That means that the existing supply will have to be updated.

So Wendy will use a virtual or augmented device as she walks through her project to create a digital twin of the interior. Then she will determine the types of systems that will go into the building to create a smart building.

Looking at an office through an augmented reality lens, for example, will allow someone to see graphics on top of light fixtures that need to be updated, or sinks that need to be fixed.

If a new piece of furniture is needed, Wendy will send the instructions to a virtual printer, where it will be made.

A day in the life of Wendy, could be seem rather normal, very soon, Poskie says. And it will be up to corporate real estate executives to envision, plan, and deliver systems to employees on behalf of the companies that want to keep them.

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