JBKnowledge's SmartBidNet Software Reveals Latest Technology in Construction Bidding

Sets new construction technology industry standard for user interface, system navigability and customization.

Bryan, TX - November 27, 2012

Released this morning, under the tagline “Construction software never looked this good,” information technology provider JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc. has introduced a new version of their cloud based invitation to bid software, SmartBidNet. The revamped user interface was developed to look and feel like a consumer application and has redefined usability in construction technology. The added functionalities and ease of use are being applauded by clients who had the last month to test out the Beta version of the system.  

"I’ve been using Version 12 since the Beta was first released. The software looks and feels like a more polished version of its former self with improved performance to boot… I’m thoroughly impressed!” stated Seth Cheever, LEED AP, Preconstruction Manager at Stiles Construction.

The completely renovated user interface includes a drag and drop dashboard with customizable widgets, skin color, and the highest resolution window to fit any display. The web-based bid management system also features multi-lingual capabilities in English, Spanish, and French on both the general contractor user side and their subcontractors’ side of the portal. With dramatically faster load times, time to load on all screens has dropped by as much as 75% in testing and users now have the ability to search all subcontractor and project data in real-time with instant results on their data grids.

“We believe construction professionals should not settle for any less in their business software than what is available in their consumer technology.  With this latest version, we’ve made our user interface as intuitive and customizable as any personal applications our clients use. The user interface is essential to a positive user experience and there is no reason business software should not be applying the same quality of design as consumer software,” stated JBKnowledge President James Benham.

Hundreds of commercial construction companies across the US, Caribbean, Canada, and Middle East currently use SmartBidNet to manage commercial construction prequalification, invitation to bid, subcontractor data, and project document distribution and collaboration. Version 12 will be available to all clients on an opt-in basis, at first, and officially implemented for all users in November 2012.

To learn more about SmartBidNet Version 12 and get an online demo or 30 day free trial visit: http://www.smartbidnet.com/version12

Innovative Technology of the Week | Mind Controlled Devices

New developments in electroencephalography (EEG) devices have made it possible to remotely control a toy helicopter by simply thinking about it. 

"As you focus your mind on something -- whether it be a math equation or the lyrics of a song -- your brain produces electric signals...The headset monitors those signals and converts them into flight commands..."

While concentrating your brain waves can only make the helicopter raise off a surface and descend back to it, the implications for such EEG technology are tremendous. And the fact that they are advanced enough to be available to consumers, in a toy, is pretty exciting. One version of the toy will allow users to customize what they want the console to control. Instead of the helicopter, for example, they can turn the TV on and off. They are pitching the product as an aid for improving concentration - whether it proves to do so or not, we hope to see more of this hands-free technology developed for industry use. 

Click here to learn more about this brain-controlled helicopter technology 

Innovative Technology of the Week | Energy Dashboards

We love end-user focused technology; it's Software as a Service for not only clients but also their clients. A new customer engagement platform for the utility industry called Opower is redefining the way utility companies, not usually known for intuitive, graphic interface design, interact with their customers. And they've taken their industry's goal of energy efficiency to heart. 

"Opower is probably best known for pioneering the Home Energy Report. Think of it as a more interesting incarnation of your gas or electric bill. More than 4 million homes receive our reports today, and they’re on track to save hundreds of millions of dollars on their energy bills."

We like that utility companies are their clients, but their software design and development (and even language of their website) is driven by the end-user.  Maybe your utilities provider has or will be adopting such a platform soon. We always preach that demand starts with the end user - let your providers know what will make your experience with them most useful. If they are worth your business, like Opower, they will listen. 

In the meantime, check out why we like Opower's design and functionality here 

JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc. Honored at the 8th Annual Aggie 100

Recognizing the Fastest Growing Aggie-Owned or Managed Companies 

COLLEGE STATION, TX. (Friday, October 26, 2012) – Texas A&M University recognized JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., makers of SmartBidNet and SmartCompliance, of Bryan, TX as a member of the 2012 Aggie 100 honoring the fastest-growing companies in the world, owned or operated by Texas A&M University former students. JBKnowledge was ranked 60th with a compound annual growth rate of 41.97%  from 2009 through 2011. The Aggie 100, a program created by the Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship in Texas A&M University’s Mays Business School, honors graduates from across disciplines for their success as business leaders and entrepreneurial endeavors.

JBKnowledge was started in 2001 by then Corps Staff member and Mays Business School senior James M. Benham in partnership with his father, James T “Jim” Benham. JBKnowledge has provided custom information technology services for small to large firms in the construction and risk management industries ever since, and established two web-based software products, SmartBidNet and SmartCompliance. SmartBidNet is a leading construction bid invitation software in the commercial building industry while SmartCompliance provides certificate of insurance management technology to risk managers across all industries.

“We’re incredibly proud to accept our fifth Aggie 100 award this year. I had no idea how far this company would go when I started it in my corps dorm room, but I knew we had a great business model and some incredible people to pioneer it for our clients. I’m proud to represent the application of the incredible education Texas A&M can provide,” stated JBKnowledge President James M. Benham.

The 100 Aggie-owned or managed companies with the highest annual revenue growth were recognized at a formal luncheon in the Zone Club on the Texas A&M University campus, Friday, October 26, 2012. More than 650 honorees, families, employees, faculty, administrators, and well-wishers were in attendance to celebrate their success.

“Aggies have paved roads to success across industries and business sectors, as well as across generations,” said Dr. Richard H. Lester, Executive Director of the Mays Business School’s Center for New Ventures and Entrepreneurship. “Aggie leaders have proven time and time again that even in tough economic times, solid business ideas, tenacity and hard work pay off.”

The Aggie 100 list in its entirety may be viewed at www.aggie100.com.

Innovative Tech of the Week | QR Codes Still Going Strong

"More than 20 million U.S. mobile-phone owners used a mobile device to scan a QR code..." stated a recent article from CFO magazine. And so more than just marketers are looking to employ the dynamic bar codes for better data management and integration. Not only are QR codes becoming more and more popular at industry events for associating speakers, presenters, and exhibitors with their brands and further information, payment platforms and financial services are also exploring how QR codes can be incorporated into the 'mobile wallet.'

"Corporations beyond the retail sector are realizing the benefits of receiving quicker payments from the use of QR codes and other mobile-payment systems. In August, VeriFone, along with Google, Isis, and PayPal, teamed up with a number of banks, credit-card companies, and U.S. network operators to form the Mobile Payments Committee, a subgroup of the Electronic Transactions Assn. The group plans to educate merchants and the public about the growing use of all mobile payments. Your accounting firms could be next."

Click here to learn more about QR codes and how financial services firms are putting them to use

Construction in the Cloud: What Are You So Afraid Of?

Published in AGC TechBrief
By James Benham
President of JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc. and SmartBidNet

There’s a good chance the entirety of your personal data resides in the cloud (e.g., email, social media accounts, banking accounts, calendar, etc.). You’re able to access the digital information you need every day from your home and mobile devices because the cloud centralizes, organizes, and disseminates that data to the most convenient access point for you. Some of you may read the privacy and security statements before signing up for online banking, for example; others assume that the large population of people already employing the service know what they're doing. Either way, you put a great deal of trust in your consumer technology services and devices every day. In return, your technology gives you a mobility, redundancy and efficiency that was unattainable before the original cloud, the Internet, graced our horizon.

Now consider the technology you use exclusively at work on a daily basis. How much of your information is stored on your computer desktop, in a file cabinet, on the company's internal servers, or on servers hosted remotely via cloud services? I'm willing to bet the amount of work data you access from the cloud is significantly less than the amount of personal data you access from the cloud. The 2012 Construction Technology Integration Report revealed that out of over 450 commercial construction industry respondents, 30.4 percent...

Click here to read the full article 

Innovative Tech of the Week | Felix Baumgartner's Red Bull Stratos Jump Equipment

Last Saturday, the name Felix Baumgartner might have meant nothing to you. 8 million views of the live "Red Bull Stratos Jump" later, we can't stop reading about how he did it. While Felix's stone cold guts should be applauded for such a feat, the collaboration and innovation achieved behind the scenes, before and during the jump, was nothing short of incredible. From the suit Felix sported to the scensors that tracked him the entire way, the information technology involved set the tone for future space stunts, exploration, and research alike. If for some reason you missed the jump, below is a video.

And click here for a great article from CNN on the tech behind his jump

7 Days...

Until we officially launch SmartBidNet Version 12, a new era in construction bid software. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn for daily updates and peeks at the new look, feel, and voice of SmartBidNet construction bid software.  

Construction Technology Standards

Published in Constructech Magazine​
​October 9 , 2012

At last week’s Technology Day conference, held October 5 at the San Mateo Marriott, much talk centered on mobility. A number of technology providers were showcasing new solutions and speakers were identifying trends in the markets. But another age-old topic garnered a bit of attention as well—standards.

On Friday, Sage North America, www.na.sage.com, Beaverton, Ore., announced it has been accepted as a member of COSA (Construction Open Software Alliance),www.constructionosa.org, which is a new organization dedicated to empowering better sharing of information between all project participants in the construction industry regardless of the systems they use.

COSA’s aim is to encourage the adoption of agcXML, which was developed by the Associated General Contractors of America, www.agc.org, Arlington, Va., in 2008 in an effort to standardize and encourage the exchange of data among technology applications in the construction industry. Since that time, a small number of technology providers have adopted the agcXML standard—although many have discussed the value of such as standard. Enter COSA, which was founded in August of this year and includes members such as SmartBidNet, eSUB, NoteVault, To-Scale Software, which provides Cloud Takeoff, and Online Plan Service.
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​Click here to read the full article

Innovative Technology of the Week | iCache Geode Mobile Wallet

We've written about technologies trying to replace your credit card with your smartphone, but one innovative product is simply hoping to merge the two, at least until the idea of all your financial data in your smartphone sounds less daunting. Enter the iCache Geode Mobile Wallet.

"Essentially, it is an iPhone sleeve outfitted with a fingerprint reader (for authentication), an E Ink display on the back for loyalty card barcodes and a single, dynamic credit card that can be temporarily and securely encoded with any of the credit cards you upload into the app. (It also comes with a detachable magstripe reader that you use to swipe and upload your cards into the secure element in the sleeve...)"

While it doesn't work/isn't accepted everywhere, the design seems intuitive and user-friendly, putting yet another every day function into a seamless mobile app. It'll be interesting to see how businesses and retailers adapt to facilitate future payment technology and how difficult such technology makes a risk manager's job. There's no doubt that payments of the future will go entirely digital at some point, the question is how long it will take and how secure it will end up.

Click here to learn more about the iCache Geode Mobile Wallet 

Innovative Tech of the Week | The Million Year DropBox

"'The volume of data being created every day is exploding, but in terms of keeping it for later generations, we haven't necessarily improved since the days we inscribed things on stones,' Hitachi researcher Kazuyoshi Torii told AFP. 'The possibility of losing information may actually have increased,' he said, pointing out that CDs and tape storage are predicted to last less than a few decades at best, and in many cases fail within years." 

Hitachi has therefore proposed a new storage medium: quartz glass. They argue that data lasered in binary formatted dots on the glass in four layers can be stored at 40MB per square inch. And unless the glass is broken, the data will last hundreds of millions of years in the glass. In addition, since the dots can be read using a simple microscope, future readers of the data should be able to decipher it even if technology has changed drastically. 

We like being reminded that no matter how advanced technology gets, some of the core problems, like physical materials to store data in, can still be solved by 'basic' glass and dots.  

Click here to learn more about Hitachi's glass data storage 

2012 Construction Technology Integration Report Reveals Lack of Cloud Adoption and Need for Integration in Construction Industry

Published in Construction Business Owner
September 13, 2012

Compiled from survey responses of over 450 construction professionals, the report shows a surprising number of companies still storing and transferring project data in spreadsheets. 

Bryan, Texas (September 13, 2012) - First presented at the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) IT Forum in Chicago, the results from the 2012 Construction Technology Integration (CTI) Survey have been released in a full report and accompanying infographic by JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., developers of SmartBidNet construction bid software. The 2012 CTI Report compiles and analyzes responses from over 450 industry professionals who answered questions on their companies’ cloud construction software usage, mobile expectations, and application integrations.

“I recently stated in my keynote address at the 2012 AGC IT Forum, and still believe, that many firms in the construction industry are “just this side of pen and paper when it comes to technology.” Too many companies are not integrating data or seeking solutions that integrate data. I hope this report serves as a call to action to both construction software end-users andproviders to raise expectations and standards of data integration to the levels offered in other industries,” stated JBKnowledge President James Benham in the Foreword of the CTI Report.

The report holds a number of enlightening and concerning statistics on construction software and the integration capabilities available and in use. While more firms are considering mobilecapabilities in purchasing decisions, many firms are still afraid of accounting software “in the cloud.” In the end, a high percentage are still settling for the manual transfer of data via spreadsheets instead of adopting automated, integrated software. A glimmer of hope lies in the surprising number of firms adopting Building Information Modeling software, a technology previously viewed as a luxury only for larger scale design and build firms.

After exploring the different categories and brands of software in use, the report investigates how many applications each professional uses in a day and how those solutions transfer data internally, if at all. The numbers indicate a serious lack in cross-application integration between construction processes due to a lack of integration development between individual software providers. In the conclusion, the report evaluates the cause of slow adoption of integrations among industry software providers and how the Construction Open Software Alliance (COSA) hopes to overcome the obstacles. COSA is committed to developing standards in open APIs, based on of the 2007 AGC XML initiative, to facilitate integration between the industry’s various software providers.

To download a free copy of the 2012 Construction Technology Integration Report visit:http://www.smartbidnet.com/ctisurvey.
To view the 2012 Construction Technology Integration Report Infographic visit: http://www.smartbidnet.com/infographics

An information technology services and products provider, JBKnowledge specializes in enterprise applications and databases, electronic data interchange, strategy consulting, mobile solutions, and web design and development. Makers of SmartBidNet, construction bid software, thecompany is based in Bryan/College Station, TX, and serves construction clients on an international basis.

Click here to see the original article in Construction Business Owner 

COSA Targets Industry Growth | Constructech Magazine

For several solution providers, one way to encourage adoption of technology solutions in the construction industry is to come together to create a set of common standards. Enter COSA (Construction Open Software Alliance), www.constructionosa.org. 

COSA’s goal is to create and promote a standardized data format that enables the sharing of information between and among software applications in the construction industry. According to Phillip Ogilby, president, To-Scale Software, www.toscaleplans.com, Cincinnati, Ohio, the credit for the alliance should go primarily to James Benham, founder and president, JB Knowledge Technologies, www.jbknowledge.com, Bryan, Texas, and Benny Baltrotsky, vice president, eSUB, www.esubinc.com, San Diego, Calif., who came up with the idea. 

Click here to read the full article 

Construction Technology Integration – Infographic | Construction Today

JB Knowledge Technologies, Inc., makers of SmartBidNet, conducted its first annual construction technology integration survey May 30 through June 16, 2012. The online, 20-question survey was emailed to thousands of commercial building professionals and promoted via social media including the Construction Today blog, eliciting more than 450 responses.

The results were first presented by JBKnowledge President James Benham at the Associated General Contractors (AGC) of America 2012 IT Forum in Chicago Aug. 16. This infographic provides a snapshot of the survey results.

Click here to read the full article 

Innovative Tech of the Week | The Kid's Tablet

Finally - a solution to feeling dumber than our kids when they teach us how to do something on our iPad. Starting October 1, Toys R Us will debut the Tabeo, a tablet just for kids running on Android OS. 

"The device is wrapped in a soft "bumper" to protect the hardware if it falls out of a child's slippery fingers. It also includes extra controls in the device's built-in browser. For example, parents can set different Internet safety controls for up to eight users, either by blocking certain categories of content or disallowing access to specific sites. The Tabeo can also be set to allow Internet access only on certain days or during certain hours." 

It will be interesting to see if parents prefer to get kids their own or keep letting them use the family tablet. While the Tabeo seems much more kid-proof, many of the child safety apps and cases available for regular tablets can render any tablet "safe for children." 

Learn more about the Tabeo kids tablet here