Dan Rossiter FCIAT, Sector Lead at BSI, reflects on his attendance at digital construction week. In particular on how he attends DCW to engage with a community of like-minded professionals. BSI are the UK’s national standards body, responsible for curating national, European, and international standards. Many of which relate to digital construction, such as the ISO 19650 series on Building Information Modelling (BIM) and ISO 42001 on artificial intelligence management systems.
It is fair to say that my approach to Digital Construction Week has changed drastically over the years. At its inception, I would have a hard copy of the seminar schedule to circle the talks I wanted to hear. In those days, I would attend a Rob Jackson talk to better understand COBie or hear from David Philp on the latest around the BIM Level 2 mandate. In fact, it was nine years ago at one such talk at DCW that I met Emma Hooper (now RLB), a dear friend and possibly the best authority on digital construction.
As the years went by, I transitioned from a consumer to a contributor. I began submitting talks about my own BIM journey to digitalise my home or to promote interesting standards BSI was working on. Over the years, I’ve tweaked my approach and dare I say stumbled upon a ‘hack’ to improve the success of getting a talk accepted.
Dan’s DCW ‘Hack’:
When submitting a talk, it’s important to do the following two things:
Include cult references where possible; and
Collaborate with someone else.
For example, my favourite seminar I’ve given was ‘Trouble at Tracy Island’. I presented a hypothetical story about Parker trying to decipher the as-built records for Tracy Island. In doing so, he’d struggle to find the right document, allowing me to highlight how good information management and a golden thread would have helped.
This year, my approach differed. Through a happy accident, all my submitted talks were collaborations; I was lucky enough to have them all accepted. Emma and I spoke on a new BSI PAS under development, PAS 1958, which aims to unify the plethora of digital construction standards; Gordon Mitchell and I spoke on our collaborative work between IWFM and the IMI Framework to better represent facilities management professionals within the IMI; and Vikki Reynolds, Henry-Fenby Taylor, and I spoke about whether our examples of digital construction are ‘digital twins’ or should go in the ‘digital bin’. However, the seminars weren’t my highlight of the conference.
What makes Digital Construction Week truly special is seeing my friends and colleagues. No event brings us together better than DCW. Apparently, BSI had a stand? I say apparently because at no point did I visit it (oops!). I spent the two days either presenting or catching up with people near the Nima stand. Worst still, on LinkedIn, I saw people who had attended that I didn’t get a chance to speak to (sorry, sorry).
In addition to catching up with friends and colleagues, what I’ve enjoyed are the events which occur on the periphery of DCW. For example, for the second year running (pun intended), we’ve hosted an ‘unofficial’ DCW 5k the morning of day 2. With a route kindly planned by Andrew Evans, we endured the British weather and watched planes take off from London City Airport as we ran around the ExCeL. Best still, mid-run we encountered Jas from Standard Life. An attendee of InfoSec 2025, Jas was permitted to join us following a brief security check, making this run a pan-conference event!
Ultimately, what I’ve learnt from attending Digital Construction Week over the past decade is that it is less of a conference and more of a community. It’s the coming together of like-minded people to share ideas, respectfully debate topics, and enjoy a brisk run after a busy evening of networking. As such, as Digital Construction Week continues to grow, I hope you’ll continue to present thought-provoking seminars, engage in lively discussions, and remember to bring your running shoes next year!