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WHAT'S NEXT FOR AV AND SMART BUILDINGS? the group's report, "The vision of a truly smart building appears to be gaining significant momentum, while the technology and market awareness to truly deliver on the vision have not left the starting blocks." The board, in turn, green-lighted the next phase of the association's intelligent building initiative, dubbed the Smart Building Imperative (SBI). Joe Bocchiaro, InfoComm's vice president of Standards and Industry Innovations adds, "The answer is looming in the future, and is so important that the task force sees it as imperative that we take notice now — to get ready for the big changes to come. Specifically, the Smart Grid, the zero-energy consumption initiatives ... and the upcoming International Green Construction Code are powerful drivers that all depend on efficiencies in building technology interconnectivity." Going forward, the IBT Task Force will be replaced by the Smart Building Task Force (SBTF), which will focus its efforts in two main areas: quantifying the requirements and capabilities of smart buildings and identifying business opportunities and solutions. "Our efforts this year will be to help the InfoComm leadership and InfoComm constituencies understand what the roles are in a smart building and how each of the existing disciplines within InfoComm can evolve to capture the opportunity," Wilts says. "So, for instance, we're going to itemize and describe exactly how an integrator's scope can expand to fill the void in the smart building construction team, how a programmer's scope can expand beyond AV, and how a consultant can work with the design team to meet the unmet needs in the design and planning of a smart building." But because the Smart Building Imperative is much bigger than one industry, it will require other strategic efforts. As currently envisioned, these efforts will fall to five additional working groups, which will fall under the direction of a SBTF. The five other working groups will focus on: Market Development and Awareness. Not only will it be important educate InfoComm members on the smart building opportunity, it will be important to constantly reach out to other trades, as well as building owners and operators. This working group will encourage members of the building design and construction team to include AV professionals and it will work to develop standards and best practices. STEP Evolution Recommendations. The Sustainable Technology Environments Program and STEP Rating System, launched by InfoComm and now run as a standalone foundation in cooperation with other technology associations, offers 50 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / FEBRUARY 2013 a logical path for helping building owners implement and measure the benefits of smart building technology. Therefore the SBI will aim to coordinate its efforts with STEP and identify common goals. Develop SBI With Standards and Trade Organizations. Clearly, it will be important for the Smart Building Imperative to move ahead in conjunction with other building trades. Therefore another SBI working group will identify and align with the right organizations and standards bodies, such as BICSI, the association for IT systems; ISA, the International Society of Automation; and ASHRAE, the industry society representing HVAC professionals. STEP and Smart Building Education and Certification. A core component of the SBI will be multidisciplinary education — the kind of training that would apply to InfoComm members as well as members of other building trades. The goal is to develop such training with relevant input from outside the AV industry so that it is acceptable to the larger design and construction industry. Long-term, a Smart Building Certification, conceived and designed to adhere to ANSI standards, would generate a community of experts who could design, implement, and run smart building systems. The CSI Division 25 Roadmap. Today, the Construction Specifications Institute's (CSI) MasterFormat includes a section — Division 25 — dedicated to building automation. Because MasterFormat is commonly used by architects, contractors, and suppliers, Division 25 would appear to be an important entry point for technology professionals when it comes to designing smart buildings. But in a survey sent by the IBT Task Force to commercial architects, only 16 percent said they used Division 25 on their projects. The final SBI working group will develop guidelines for implementing Division 25 specifications and raise awareness of the important new section of the MasterFormat. In all, the newly christened Smart Building Imperative represents a multiyear commitment by InfoComm to seize the bull by the horns. The question now is, who will cut through the confusion and bring together the entire ecosystem of smart building professionals in a coherent, standardized way? The answer, increasingly, is the InfoComm industry. This article was originally published on InfoComm International's website at www.infocomm.org/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0BB29A3EAA7E1752/infocomm/hs.xsl/31923.htm. CPM Brad Grimes is an award-winning writer/editor for InfoComm International. WWW.PLANNING 4EDUCATION.COM