CoreNet Global

The H. Bruce Russell Global Innovator's Award is CoreNet Global's ultimate and most prestigious award. Beginning in 2008, this award is elevated to an even higher plane, as it recognizes innovation at the highest level. Instead of accepting nominations for this award, nominees will be selected by a panel of judges from submissions to the three awards in the Global Awards Program which demonstrate true innovation:

Innovation is defined as an activity or initiative which brings about a paradigm shift in the way business is done in a rapidly globalizing economy. It reduces a new concept to practice and makes it a commercial success. It concerns the search for and the discovery, experimentation, development, imitation and adoption of new products, processes and organizational set-ups.

The 9th annual H. Bruce Russell Global Innovator's Award finalists met at Harvard University 6-7 August 2008 to present their cases before a panel of senior-level real estate executives and university academics. The 10 finalists represented organizations from a wide spectrum of the industry, including economic developers, end users, service providers, and collaborative ventures as each shared their companies' innovations with enthusiasm, pride and conviction.

Then ten finalists were selected from a field of 70 submissions to the 2008 Global Awards Program. They were chosen by the judges of the Sustainable Leadership and Development Award, the Economic Development Leadership Award, and the first year Industry Excellence Award to be elevated to the finals of the Global Innovator's Award. These finalists displayed innovation in their initial award submissions that deemed worthy to be included in the Global Innovator's Award competition.

The judging, divided into a two-day event, began on Wednesday afternoon with presentations on Economic Development and Sustainability. Three nominees made presentations on how their respective organizations have developed programs that have influenced both change and positive results for their communities and extending beyond the local to the global level by their example and innovation.

The three presentations on Wednesday represented Economic Development and Sustainable Leadership:

University of Arizona - Global Advantage Program was presented by John Grabo, University of Arizona and Michael Darch, Ottawa Global Marketing. Founding members are Tucson, Arizona; Ottawa, Canada; Berlin, Germany; and Manchester, England. The program objective is to promote internationalization leading to economic growth in high tech sectors. For companies expanding into international markets, Global Advantage partners provide a "soft landing" system that includes: trade and export promotion, local market intelligence, location services, university connections, technology transfer, incubation programs and professional services. As John Grabo stated "Globalization is a reality - embrace it or perish." Through this growing alliance of international cities - the most recent to join the alliance is Guadalajara Mexico - their network of collaboration and global cooperation is growing. See their expanded synopsis submission.

San Antonio and Windcrest, Texas, represented by Mario Hernandez of the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation, and Ray Watson of Windcrest Economic Development Corp. introduced Rackspace, a global web hosting company that established its headquarters in San Antonio, Texas, in the vacant Windsor Mall. Working together, the two economic development organizations developed an innovative approach and plan for bringing this growing company to their city. To the nearly bankrupt city of Windcrest, referred to as a "retail ghost town," this venture was a life-saving breath of new commerce, a revitalized community, and a stepping stone to new growth. By converting the deserted retail mall to the Rackspace Headquarters, and facing and solving many challenges, the result has brought life back to town. See their expanded synopsis submission.

Roger Gaudette of Ford Land presented Fairlane Green, an innovation involving building a 1 million-square foot green retail destination center atop a closed company-owned landfill in Allen Park, Michigan. Innovative in its broad interpretation of sustainability, Fairlane Green serves a community need while being economically viable and environmentally responsible. The project converted a brownfield site into a productive new development that is 60% less dense than traditional retail centers and has earned LEED® Gold certification. Fairlane Green also demonstrates innovative geotechnical engineering solutions to ensure the integrity of the landfill while accommodating the new construction. See their expanded synopsis submission.

Following the first round of presentations, everyone gathered for a reception and dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club. The award finalists had the opportunity to informally talk to the judges, meet the sponsors, and network with one another.

Presentations began early on Thursday morning with the seven remaining finalists, representing the most innovative cases from the premier year of the Industry Excellence Award submissions.

Herman Miller and Hewlett Packard teamed up in a reversal of roles in a technology innovation inspired and developed by the two companies, "Space Utilization Service." An electronic means of capturing occupancy data "at the seat", this patent-pending system uses wireless technology to collect highly accurate space utilization data throughout the day. HP Labs developed the technology, and Herman Miller took it to create a simple motion sensor and developed the service around it. The service is innovative both in how it harnesses wireless technology to capture utilization data, as well as in how it uses that data to inform transformational thinking about workplace strategy. Hewlett Packard served as the test site on their Houston campus. Debra Cesaro of Herman Miller and Chris Hood of Hewlett Packard presented the HP case study. See their expanded synopsis submission.

Recognizing and acting on the need to reclaim waste water for irrigation was the motivation for the Cushman & Wakefield /Discovery Communications innovation. Joe Schechtel and Bradd Meadows of Cushman & Wakefield, and Karen Kiley of Discovery Communications, presented this simple, easily implemented, but highly innovative initiative. The Irrigation Reclamation System allows for the recapturing and reusing of irrigation run-off at Discovery's below grade parking garage at its headquarters in Silver Springs, Maryland. As Joe Shechtel shared with the judges, while simple in design, "it was the right thing to do", to save run-off water from the Discovery Communications Headquarters to provide irrigation for surrounding landscaping, thus showing a 28% savings in water consumption in the first five months of 2008. See their expanded synopsis submission.

The Jones Lang LaSalle / Motorola team - Debra Moritz and Susan Wasmund of Jones Lang LaSalle, and Gillian Lund and Tim Tourville of Motorola- introduced The iPlan Tool, a software tool developed by Jones Lang LaSalle that enables the Motorola iWork to be highly efficient. iPlan translates occupancy data into real estate solutions by generating automated workplace recommendations for individuals and business units. iPlan synthesizes data into automatically generated profiles of workers and business units, and information gathering takes several forms, including Population Forecast Form (PFF), Space Utilization Study, and Work Style Study. The data is fed into iPlan so it can be analyzed in multiple ways automatically, reducing cycle time, enhancing transparency of decision-making, functional alignment of job requirements with space solutions, and eliminating a time-consuming task, freeing planners' time for higher value-add activities. See their expanded synopsis submission.

How can we create a Guidelines document that will be engaging, visionary and adaptable for the entire organization in a time span of 90 days? This was the question that the Gensler answered in their description of the development of the Guidelines for Hewlett Packard. The innovation was not only the completed document, but the process engaged for creating it within a tight window of time. Reaching beyond the scope of traditional guidelines, this demonstrates how a corporate real estate initiative can reinvent its workplace design philosophy and its facilities on a global scale. Presenting the Global Designs Guidelines were Chris Hood of Hewlett Packard and Amanda Ramos of Gensler. See their expanded synopsis submission.

Shell Oil Company introduced the ShellWORKS, which leverages workplace research and best practices in sustainable development, business alignment, technology integration, mobility and collaboration. As a global company with diverse cultures and businesses, a one-size solution would not meet stakeholder needs. ShellWORKS is holistic, encompassing site selection, workplace design and operation. ShellWORKS contributes to the business key success factors: fostering enterprise first behaviors, enhancing employee value proposition, financial performance and acting as a culture change catalyst. It: provides consistently effective, and inspiring workplaces; inspires creative thinking, external focus, openness and confidence; ensures financial prudence, fit-for-purpose, safe, sustainable offices. Kim Savageau, Fiona Bradley, and Jeri Ballard presented this highly innovative case. See their expanded synopsis submission.

Jim Blaschke of VFA, Inc. shared how Deutsche Bank wanted to transform corporate real estate (CRE) to be a more strategic partner at the table and move away from the classic reactionary function to a strategic asset management program. Deutsche Bank employed VFA, facility software to both provide a central repository of asset data and provide tools for long-term capital planning. The system enabled the bank to create multi-year renewal forecasts and conduct "what if" funding scenarios and identify investments needed to address the lifecycle of a property. Assessment results documented in the software included recommended maintenance and repairs, as well as renewals for major building systems such as heating, air conditioning and power. Along with each requirement, the associated cost and urgency was also documented. See their three-page award submission.

Kurt Nahikian and Peter Skornia of Workstage were the final presenters of the morning. They introduced Workstage RE, a tool that ties business drivers with real estate drivers. It comprises a combination of proprietary benchmark data and public data sources for over 300 market areas in the U.S. and Canada. It is completely web enabled to allow the facilitation of one-on-one sessions or multi-site sessions where key stakeholders can participate remotely - anytime, anywhere. The tool has begun to revolutionize the way that companies weigh the costs of real estate holistically- evaluating both building costs and the cost implications of using buildings to accelerate employee productivity - enabling companies to integrate 'smart buildings' into their strategic planning and growth.