Winter conference season is upon us folks. I just wrapped up two weeks of conferences and I wanted to share some things that I learned or had reinforced through talking to some amazing facility planners and managers.
The first conference that I attended was the Florida Educational Facility Planners Association (FEFPA) Winter Conference. There is no trade show at the Winter Conference, so I was able to mingle with the attendees rather than manning a booth. Over the course of three days I was able to catch up with some familiar faces, as well as get to know some new people.
Just this week I also attended the National School Plant Managers Association (NSPMA) National Conference. This was a more traditional trade show and conference. This year the trade show was limited to four hours of dedicated exhibit time. Although the time was short, the traffic was steady and we were able to have many great conversations with both urban and rural school districts.
The biggest theme I took away from both FEFPA and NSPMA, as it relates to the work that we do (since not everything is about Deferred Capital Renewal and Maintenance – unfortunately!), is that no matter whether an organization is big or small, whether they have lots of capital funding or they do not, whether a College, University or a School District, whether they have consistent and defensible data or not, people are still struggling to translate their data/information into terms that their stakeholders can understand.
Really this challenge comes down to figuring out how to tell your asset management story. If you follow my blog you will know that we have seen a shift in the market over the last two decades where the focus has shifted from reports to data and now most recently to a need to leverage that data by engaging non-facility stakeholders. Our shared history tells us that stories are the most compelling way to get a message across.
Good data is not enough any longer. It’s how you use it that counts. Although not everyone was talking about story specifically, I was very encouraged to see so many people looking for the solution that story provides – communicating highly technical information to a non-technical audience to explain the challenges associated with chronic underfunding of capital renewal and maintenance.
Evolution can sometimes lead to revolution. Here’s hoping as more and more organizations and individuals shift their focus to telling their story to their various audiences (stakeholders) that we can continue to build momentum and solve the world’s deferred capital renewal and maintenance backlog crisis.