Join us Tuesday evening, February 12 as our hosts Perkins & Will
http://www.perkinswill.com welcome us to their New York offices,
offering us an inside look at their first-rate IT operation. Committee
participants Louis Chibbaro and Michael Walters will focus the
evening's discussion on how the NYC office functions within their
large national practice. Highlighted discussion will focus on:

- Perkins & Will INTRANET communications
- Videoconferencing and collaboration
- Budgeting - planning cycle / technology refresh
- Migration to ADTr3
- Database/Knowledge management - problems, successes, challenges
- Staffing, helpdesk, Management oversight and support

Additionally the firm's IT group is proactive in a number of other
technologies that may arise during the evening's discussion, such as
Voice over IP (VoIP), to name just one.

Perkins & Will, founded in 1935, has grown to become an organization
of more than 550 design professionals, with 75 employees in the New
York Office. This professional service firm of architects, interior
designers and planners (with offices in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte,
Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Miami, Pasadena, and
Shanghai), practices on an international basis and has completed
projects in 49 states and 40 countries, and was awarded the AIA 1999
Firm of the Year Award.

Projects of the firm have received hundreds of awards, and its
principals have been honored for their contributions to their
profession. Notable current clients include:
- AOL Time Warner
- New York Stock Exchange
- International School of Beijing, Seton Hall University
- Massachusetts General Hospital, the Mayo Clinic
- New York Presbyterian Hospital, Pascack Valley Hospital
- Pepsi Bottling Group, Deloitte & Touche

LOGISTICS
---------
TOPIC: Technology Open House
HOST: Perkins & Will http://www.perkinswill.com
WHEN: Tuesday, February 12, 6:15pm - 8:15pm
WHERE: One Park Avenue - 19th floor (between E.32 & E.33 streets)
ID: Bring picture ID and allow time for building security!
VIA: IRT #6 (33rd st) convenient Penn Station, Grand Central
CES/LU: 2.0 AIA Continuing Education Units (valid for NYS Arch.Reg.)
RSVP: by email mailto:jhowell@aiany.org or tel. 914-589-0278

LAST MONTH'S MEETING / FUTURE MEETINGS
--------------------------------------
Many thanks to the active participants that came with their ideas to
last month's IT Committee 2002 planning session. Many ideas and topics
were discussed, and several will be followed up upon immediately.

Future meetings (exact month to be determined shortly) include:

- The Wireless Campus: A focus on why there is a growing trend for
wireless college and business campuses; risks vs. benefits; who's
doing what and where. MARCH - tentative date

- "Moving one's office / Moving your client" I am working with
Gensler NY to discuss the complex subject of moving a business - your
own AND your client's. APRIL - tentative date

- Alternatives to 2-D CAD - we will look at what other firms are doing
with 'other' design and production tools. MAY - tentative date

- Cornell Graphics Lab: Don Greenburg & Co. from Cornell University
are excited to present to our group. JUNE - tentative date

- IT and the City: What it the current IT state of the art in the
Bloomberg administration. What are the features of the NYC GIS map
that has been developed over the years. Date TBD

- Lighting & Acoustical Design. Exploration of computer toolsets for
the designer/engineer. Date TBD

- 4D Environments. What visualization (with time as the 4th
dimension) is doing in reshaping business environments. Date TBD

- Collaboration with the AIA's Banking & Finance Committee. Perhaps a
coordinated facility tour of a trading floor or other technology rich
environment. Date TBD

- Legal Issues and Digital Data. Skipped last year, but requested to
return to our agenda. Date TBD

Meetings: We will continue to organize meetings on the 2nd Tuesday of
the month throughout the year, with occasional exceptions. Pre-mark
your calendar!

CALENDAR
--------
The AIA publishes a list of Greater NYC events of interest to the
Architectural community http://www.aiany.org/calendar

TECHNOLOGY NEWS BITS
--------------------
STATS ARE IN: TECHIES ARE SOCIAL TURKEYS AT XMAS
IT staff are at the bottom in the popularity stakes at a Christmas
party, ZDNet UK reported Dec 11, 2001. Surveys by e-learning company
NETg found that one-third of company employees avoid social encounters
with IT staffers. Reasons cited were that the techies would "talk
shop," or are too introverted. Accountants didn't do much better, with
29% of their colleagues preferring not to sit next to them at a
Christmas party. Personal assistants or receptionists secured the
popularity vote, with 42% of colleagues choosing to sit with them in
order to get gossip. NOT ME! WORK ON IT GUYS & GALS - ed.

US WEB USAGE REACHES 54%
The U.S. Commerce Department found that 143 million Americans, or 54% of
the country, were using the Internet as of September, the Wall Street
Journal reported on Feb 4th. The number was up 26% from a year
earlier. Despite concerns that interest in Internet usage might cool
as many dot-com businesses vanished, the government report put new
users at two million per month in 2001. E-mail continues to be the
nation's favorite online activity, and 45% of the population now uses
it regularly, up from 35% in 2000. The report found 174 million
Americans, or 66% of the population, were using computers as of
September, with those numbers substantially higher among children and
teenagers. The data show that 48 million Americans between ages 5 and
17, 90% of that population, use computers.

EMAIL & PRIVACY
---------------
TO BE REMOVED FROM, CHANGE ADDRESS, OR ADD A COLLEAGUE TO OUR
DISTRIBUTION: Please reply to this email, or tel. 914-589-0278. To
protect your privacy, we will not sell or give this list to other
parties.

Best regards,
John M. Howell, AIA RCDD
Chair, AIA NY Information Technology Committee
http://www.aiany.org/committees/InfoTech
mailto:jhowell@aiany.org
tel. 914-589-0278