Alphabet Soup (or acronym hell ?)

Do you get confused or just plain frustrated when you are reading the industry press reporting that AIA, CURT and AGC have formed the 3XPT Strategy Group, GSA has published an IFC based MVD requirement for BIM concept models, NBIMS is adopting IDM, CSI is supporting the IFD Library and promoting PPD, AGC has published agcXML, ICC is developing Smartcodes, AIA TAP recommends using MPS, NIBS is sponsoring COBIE, or by all of the references to IPD, LEED and VDC. If you are an international reader, just substitute your local variations such as Avanti, be2camp,CIB, CRC, etc.

Regretfully, here at Newforma we too have been guilty of speaking in acronyms on occasion. For example, in December 2008 we sent you an email blast entitled “PIM and the DNA for IPD” inviting you to join us for a free webinar …. when what we really wanted to talk to you about was email management as an integral part of the project delivery process and to show you how firms like yours are tackling out-of-control inboxes to mitigate risk by capturing email decision trails and to improving team communication.

Through this blog we will be making every effort to demystify much of the industry jargon rather than just pile on and add to your confusion. We aim to be diligent about explaining exactly what the most important acronyms stand for, convey a fundamental understanding and provide an informed opinion regarding the importance of the specific project or initiative. As a start down that path, the links provided above (for anyone who wants to take the time to explore them) have been carefully selected to point you to an authoritative source that explains who or what is behind each of the acronyms used as examples above.

If we do err again, please call ‘foul play’ to get us back on track :-)