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I don’t wear a cape or anything, but my trusty iPad app kind of saved the day

Editor's note: This is a sponsored article. All text and images were provided by the sponsor company.
June 26, 2013
2 min read
66fb16651a3f59cd53d4fcdf Blog 18

Editor's note: This is a sponsored article. All text and images were provided by the sponsor company.

 
Have you ever had this happen to you? You’re in the middle of a trade show/sitting in a conference/at the gate in the airport/sitting in your child’s recital and an urgent email comes in, requesting your signature. But there are no printers, much less scanners or fax machines, to be found.  What do you do?
 
Well if you’re lucky, you tell the stranger sitting next to you that you need access to a printer so you can sign off on the submittal you just received and they whip out an iPad app designed to do just that. This is precisely what happened to me last week while attending AIA in Denver. I briefly sat down at a table to jot down some notes on my interactions with a few manufacturers and this question was asked of me.  Not knowing who I am or who I work for, I chuckled as his question couldn’t have been posed to a better person.
 
“Although I don’t have a printer, I just so happen to have an app on my iPad that will let you sign and email the submittal back again.”  He didn’t believe me at first, but after I opened the submittal he emailed me and showed him how to sign the PDF with his fingertips, he was a believer. The guy sitting across from us asked if we had planned the whole interaction, as he was in disbelief that a random interaction could be timed so perfectly.
 
It’s times like this I see the reality that technology really is changing the way we work. Digital communication tools are revolutionizing project review cycles, allowing real-time collaboration like never before. Being able to review, comment, and reply to critical, time-sensitive issues in a timely manner is key to the success of many projects today. That got me wondering, what jams have you been in which technology totally saved the day? Or are there specific areas you see in which the tools for digital communication need to improve?

About the Author

Sasha Reed

As Vice President of Strategic Development at Bluebeam, Inc., Sasha Reed collaborates with leaders in the architecture, engineering and construction industry to guide Bluebeam’s technology, partnerships and long-term goals. She joined Bluebeam in 2007 and co-created the Concierge Approach, a distinctly branded process of customer engagement, product feedback and solution delivery to which much of Bluebeam’s success is attributed, and which today is replicated at every organizational level.

Sasha is known industry-wide as a “conversation facilitator,” creating platforms for exchanges necessary to digitally advance the industry, including the BD+C Magazine Digital COM Blog, which she authors and manages. She’s been a featured presenter at numerous national and international conferences, including the 2014 Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA), Federal Project Delivery Symposium and NTI Danish BIM Conference. Sasha also co-chairs the Construction PDF Coalition, a grassroots effort to provide a common industry framework from which to create and maintain construction PDF documents, serves on the City College of San Francisco BIM Industry Council, and is Advisor to the Board of Direction for the National Institute of Building Sciences BuildingSMART Alliance.

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