Tishman Speyer's Tech Brains - Carapola, Rich, Mohen

Interactivity Generates Best Results... Let's say that a major international real estate developer hired you to be its first Chief Technology Officer. Let's say that your portfolio totaled 40 million square feet located across the United States, Europe and South America, including landmark properties like Rockefeller Center in New York City. And, finally, let's say that, in addition to the ongoing management of your existing portfolio, you faced a continuous flow of new construction and property acquisitions.

Your mission: to assist corporate management do its job better, faster, cheaper. What would you do first? How would you prioritize your tasks? How would you spread the word? These were the questions facing Art Carapola, hired by Tishman Speyer Properties (TSP) as its brand new Chief Technology Officer in May 2001. Last week I visited with Carapola (pictured with IT colleagues Joe Rich and Jim Mohen) in his Manhattan office.

Carapola divides TSP's technology initiatives into two broad areas: developing collaboration tools and automating business processes. Virtually all applications have been developed internally, using Microsoft's .NET tools and WindowsXP. Team Services, TSP's collaboration application, enables a TSP professional to quickly build a project web site accessible to both internal and external parties. As an example, Carapola demonstrated a private, due diligence web site for the pending acquisition of a major East Coast property.

Perhaps Carapola's loudest message is DON'T automate a business process without examining the process itself. Don't automate a flawed process. Make sure that each new application has a business "owner." Disaster awaits those trying to roll out complete, end-to-end "solutions." Carapola's advice: Develop incrementally. Launch a piece of a new initiative. Gather feedback from users. Incorporate this into the next release. Gather more intelligence. Launch again. Repeat. Interactivity breeds long-term success.

--Peter Pike