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Electron Jack Tackles the Human Protocol

I smiled when I read a recent quote from Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric, "Within 18 months, all our suppliers will supply us on the Internet or they won't do business with us." ("Now It's Electron Jack," Fortune, Sep 27, 1999) Wow, how are all those suppliers and marketing folks going to climb the learning curve that quickly?

It reminded me of something that Eric Powers, Director of Broker Services at NAI told me a while back, "Peter, the most difficult thing is not the technology; it's the human protocol." In other words, the real challenge is getting your professionals proficient and comfortable with a new way of doing business.

This point was driven home last week when I attended an informal gathering of Silicon Valley corporate real estate professionals discussing their use of project management and lease admin tools, e.g., CRESystems, BidCom.com and Blueline Online. To a person, they agreed that their biggest challenge by far was getting their staffs and third-party professionals motivated to learn and communicate with these new systems. Hey, if we've got these difficulties at Ground Zero of the Internet revolution, we've got a Long Road Ahead!

Question... How are you spreading the use of the net around your organization? ... Send your ideas to me , and I'll report more in a future Dispatch... Here's my (self-serving) tip: Sign up your whole office for the Dispatch. (Your administrative assistance can enter addresses quickly on the PikeNet home page, or send me a text file of e-mail addresses.) Then your colleagues will read about the latest real estate tools, resources and success stories every week... Check out the numbers below to see if your company is getting the message. Thanks!

Company Counts... Here are the PikeNet Dispatch subscriber counts for investment and finance firms: GE Capital 47 (They hear you, Jack.), Equity Office 21, AEW 16, Spieker 12, AMB 11 and Cornerstone Properties 11. ... For national service providers: CB Richard Ellis 199, Grubb & Ellis 114, Cushman & Wakefield 100, Marcus & Millichap 95, Staubach 68, Trammell Crow 40, Jones Lang LaSalle 32 and Studley 29. ... It's hard to know exactly. But I believe that the large networks like Colliers International and NAI have even more subscribers than CB Richard Ellis because networks don't often share the same domain name. For regional firms: The Seeley Company (Colliers--Los Angeles) 73, Colliers Arnold (Tampa, FL) 67, Business Real Estate Brokerage Co. (NAI--San Diego) 37, Colliers Parrish (Silicon Valley) 35, Colliers Commerce CRG (Salt Lake, UT) 27, Colliers Bennett & Kahnweiler (Chicago) 26, Lee & Associates (CA, AZ, NV) 22 and Collins Real Estate (Los Angeles, CA) 21.

--Peter