When it comes to embracing technology, burying heads in the sand is the quickest way to get left behind. Real estate companies around the world are adopting strategies to make sure this doesn’t happen, but few are likely to be as simple, or as literal, as US residential developer Lennar International’s.
Speaking at New York Real Estate Tech Week, company president Chris Marlin revealed there are photos of dinosaurs pinned up on the walls throughout its offices to make sure no one forgets what not to become.
“The visual reminder helps people to stay focused on looking ahead,” he said. Wouldn’t work at EG. Diary would be too busy looking at all the cool dinos.
Meditation’s all you need
Despite the peaceful environment of Canada Water, with its curving roads and general lack of population, some of the property execs heading to Printworks for EG’s Future of London event seemed a little stressed.
Fortunately, the conference organisers were prepared for this – with a 15-minute mindfulness session.
But even the catchy, inspirational quotes from such great thinkers as Gandhi and Kung Fu Panda (“yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery”) failed to draw some audience members away from their phones.
Even the instructor couldn’t unplug. After a five-minute pep talk he whipped out his phone – but only to blast out a shrill beat for everyone to breathe along to.
Under the Wether
You can’t fault the dedication of Wetherspoon chairman Tim Martin – he isn’t going to let a little thing like hospitalisation stand in the way of running the company.
The pub chain’s trading statement this week had all the usual stuff – it’s a sound financial position and intends to open between five and 10 pubs in the current financial year, etc.
But it added a statement from Martin: “I am currently recovering from an operation after a burst appendix, so intend working part-time from home for several weeks. Many thanks to the fantastic doctors, nurses and staff at the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital.”
Free drinks for all of them?
Taking the urine
Excitement gripped the internet recently with news that students in Cape Town had unveiled a brick made of human urine, using waste collected from the gents’ toilets on campus.
“A house on the yellow brick road: Scientists create building blocks made from URINE by adding sand and bacteria to human waste,” yelled the Daily Mail.
Diary, sensing outrage, immediately went to the comments section. Ivor Lottarmoney delivered the goods. “Disgusting,” he said. “Whatever next.”
But we have bad news for Lottarmoney: scientists have form here. In 2011, Yorkshire Water and Leeds University unveiled bricks made from sewage. In 2009 students from a school in Indonesia won the Global Social Venture Competition with their “EcoFaeBrick“, an easily manufactured, low-cost building material made from cow dung. And, indeed, British Celts used wattle and daub – a mixture of clay, straw and animal dung.
We are, it seems, going both back to the future – and down the pan.
A glimpse into another world
Diary has previously noted the creativity of shopping centre CGI renderers and the trademark-adjacent signage they use to give a sense of what is to come (we still wouldn’t drink at “Café Douge”).
However, a stock image on a recent EGi story reminded us of the fine work of these artists, who – far from simply changing the odd letter on a logo here and there – we like to think are actually offering us a look into an alternate reality.
On this strange-yet-familiar Earth, household names include Strata, Wagapapa, Myron and Aimee’s Italian – and wherever they are out there in the vast multiverse, we hope some of them are faring better than their sound-alikes back here.
Twitter offered its own favourites from CGIs past, including Nxet, Aggos, H&N and – best of all – Starducks.
Sggerg the bakers
Up in Newcastle, the sign on the Northumberland Street branch of Greggs was on backwards.
The result of some Halloween trick? Nope. With huge crowds set to gather for the big reveal of department store Fenwick’s festive window display opposite, Greggs cannily took steps to make sure its illuminated sign reflects the correct way round on shoppers’ photos on social media.
That is truly next-level marketing.
Yo!-ho-ho
Simon Woodroffe wants to take over your life. And make it better.
The Yo! entrepreneur has just agreed a deal to buy a 100-acre island in the Bahamas. He says his dream now (as if being able to afford a 100-acre island in the Bahamas was not enough…) is that people will eat at a Yo! Sushi, stay at a Yotel, live in a Yo! Home… and now come visit his YoTopia.
He said it, not us.
To send feedback, e-mail jess.harrold@egi.co.uk or tweet @estatesgazette
