AIA: Show Reports: AIA and CMD provide Insight for Architects

In a series of remaining AIA Atlanta show reports, we today kick-off an overview of both a new product and partnership between the AIA and the CMD Group called Insight for Architects. I had the chance to sit down with Richard Remington, COO, and Daniel DuBois, VP of Data Strategy, at CMD, in their booth at the AIA Atlanta show back in May.

What was on hand was a brand new online product offering exclusively for AIA members called Insight for Architects.

Insight for Architects

Insight for Architects is an all-new online destination for architects. Developed specifically for AIA members, Insight for Architects is a web-based data and analytics application. Once logged in, Insight for Architects gives users instant access to projects across the United States with a vast array of business intelligence data behind it. The simple goal is to help architects find and win new business.

01 – The main dashboard initial view in Insight for Architects by AIA and CMD. The new data analytics tool offers architects insights into their markets so they can strategically plan business development to attain more work. Networking, relationship building and trends analysis are some of the ways AIA member architects can make use of Insight for Architects.

Inside architects find a clean dashboard user-interface with menu control items on the left, comprising the following areas: Snapshot, Forecast, Analyze, Leads, Track and Exports.

Snapshot gives you a quick glimpse of the total projects in the system, new projects, projects per state on a map overlay graphic, and the number of subscribed companies in the system. It also gives you the number of pre-design leads based on those led by Architect, Engineer or General Contractor (breakdown).

Analyze is where you get into the heart of the data. Users can quickly assess how many projects fit a certain project value, as well as look at projects by type (civil, medical, commercial, residential, etc) or other criteria, including project size and value.

Leads provides tabular views of project leads with bid dates listed. Once inside a Lead detail view, one can see notes, additional project details, project participants, prospective bidders and additional details about plan and spec data.

Value to Architects

The primary value to architects with Insight for Architects is that they can track both large and smaller trends, see where projects are developing and what sectors, and see who the participants are so they can network more affectively.

02 – A view of the graphical analyze dashboard (partial view) showing the CSI wheel lower left.

The system provides users with saved search results and filters for finding the type of data that interest them.

There is also the opportunity to convert Revit files into VIM (visual information modeling) whereby CMD converts Revit file data into VIM for free. At AIA Atlanta, I had the chance to try on a pair of VR goggles and try out the CMD VIM experience. Using gaming technology, I could walk around a BIM model and query any object I could see and highlight using the VR hardware to produce a popup info chart directly within the 3D virtualized space.

Insight for Architects is free to AIA members and accessible via the AIA website.

To learn more about CMD and Insight for Architects visit them online here. AIA Members can find the tool once logged into the AIA’s website.