July Newsletter

Our current newsletter is now available. You can find it here

In response to what we've seen and heard from our clients in these challenging economic times, we've been focusing on further developing our tools to support real estate marketing efforts. This issue contains articles on:

• Ways in which we can help boost leasing performance


• How to use INDEXIO as part of your disaster planning strategy


• A link to an article on John Zsolt in Canadian Property Management Magazine

If you're interested, you can add yourself to our subscriber list here.

Pandemic Readiness

Is H1N1 the next killer flu? Or is it over-hyped? We probably won't know for certain for the next several months. But whether or not this is the next Spanish Flu the fact is that our modern society is extremely vulnerable to a pandemic. Crowded cities and rapid international travel mean that a lethal and contagious virus could be absolutely devastating.

Swine flu? Bird flu? SARS? Whether it's this year, next year, or five years from now, it's very likely that we will be facing a deadly pandemic in the near future. Landlords and property managers will have a key role to play when this happens.

Here are a few resources to help landlords prepare for a worst case scenario:

• Infonaut is a software company that has developed infection tracking software that can be used to track outbreaks on a regional or municipal level or even within a building such as a hospital.
  
• Infonaut also publishes a news blog focused on tracking outbreaks - and they have a twitter feed too.
  
• BOMA Canada has set up a Pandemic Planning site that includes a planning guide as well as a toolkit. There's tons of information here - from how to plan resources and staffing to how to communicate with tenants and the public.

Let's hope that the current H1N1 virus does not spread or become more deadly. But we have to be prepared for a major pandemic at any time. Quick action - containment and quarantine, could save literally millions of lives. Landlords have a key role to plan in these mitigation strategies.

What's in a name?

We've given some thought to the names of our software and services and we've decided to make some minor alterations. The changes are reflected on our website and in our applications.

Software and Services

We used to list all the things we offered under one rubric: 'Solutions'. We've broken this into two sections:

1. 'Services' describes the type of consulting work that we perform.
   
2. 'Software' lists the web based software products that we offer.

Software Brands

Tru-Measure

Tru-Measure is the application that manages surveyed building drawings. It has sophisticated security controls; a work request ticketing system that integrates with the leasing process and it controls distributed content that appears in numerous marketing websites. We used to call this module 'Space Database' - this made sense when it was the only module, but recently it's been confusing to login to Space Database and then drill down to Space Database. Tru-Measure organizes your 'Measured' drawings and keeps them up-to-date and 'Tru'.

INDEXIO

INDEXIO is an application that will help you organize all of your old archived drawings. Original blue-prints, architectural, structural, mechanical drawings, new and old, can be archived in a single database. We scan paper drawings and format electronic ones. We then upload each file and tag it with a set of pertinent data fields. This information then acts as an 'index' so you will always be able to find what you are looking for.

Space Dashboard

Space Dashboard is our lease management application that links lease related data to the floors and suites in your buildings. It's a lease management tool, but it's also a summary reporting tool that gives you a 'dashboard' view of the performance of all of your 'space'. This module was originally called 'Lease Dashboard'. We substituted the word 'lease' with 'space' to strengthen the connection to Space Database and to emphasize our focus on space utilization as well as financial performance.