[Please note this page is a part of our 10th anniversary collection. It was written in 2009 and has not been updated.]
 

Looking Back - and Looking Forward

Ten years ago I was the MD of Enigma, a small full-service communications agency with a vision to create an online news and information service for the FM community. There was nothing in the marketplace like this - the magazines could only report on a monthly basis, making most of the 'news' seem more like history by the time it was published.

We were full of the passion and enthusiasm that anything was possible provided you put in the time, blood, sweat and more than a few tears along the way – and of course the money necessary to fund a self-financed start-up. A new magazine would traditionally take 18 – 24 months to establish itself and to break even. However, this was the web – there were no rules to follow or financial models showing the returns to hope for. Looking back, it was an amazing leap of faith: as a small company, we couldn’t survive a long ROI period!

We moved from concept to fruition in what seemed like a heartbeat at the time – all handled by a young and talented team (many still with us, just not so young). We were untraditional and worked in an amazingly relaxed but productive space and culture, with remote working already firmly established. And there were no dress-down Fridays – just dress up days for when clients were coming in.

Once set up and delivered, i-FM didn’t take long to be recognised as the best-in-class service provider for news, research, features and comment. In addition, we went on to create some specific sites to offer dedicated services, such as www.i-FMjobs.net and www.fmpages.net to provide the industry with access to the latest jobs coming onto the market and a directory of service providers for buyers and sellers.

We won many awards over the years, too, which was great – but admittedly in a marketplace where there was not much competition. How things have changed! Now every trade magazine, institute and association has its own website and uses email to promote its value and services – some of them clearly showing our influence (to put it politely).

But none offers the breadth of market knowledge and regular research that we provide our users and, indeed, none has anywhere near the penetration into the FM market that we can provide to our sponsors and advertisers – somewhere in the region of 3.5 times better page views than our closest competitor, for example. The jobs site has an email subscriber base 6.5 times larger than the leading institute's job site - ensuring far better responses.

What’s not changed in 10 years is the environment in which we work. It's still all wood and brick with plenty of shiny Apple Macs and their oversized monitors. We are certainly longer in the tooth, but with that comes the experience and industry knowledge that means we can quickly filter what's important from all the irrelevant, overly promotional or too general information available in this marketplace. Timely, relevant information is the business we're in; and our licence holders agree - anything given away free is usually not worth having.

Now ten years on, the site has been dramatically re-engineered. Visitors will see the changes to front-end design and usability, note the new sections and, we hope, like the new layouts. And behind that there have been big changes to ensure the site remains fast, flexible and easy-to-use, as we keep pace with the possibilities offered by developing technology.

The vision we had all those years ago remains the same, though. We want www.i-FM.net to be the only news and information resource that a facilities manager ever needs.

David Emanuel is Managing Director of Enigma Publishing and i-FM.
 

Doing It Our Way

i-FM ten years ago: a brick and wood loft, some Apple Macs, a row of geeky web designers, loud music, a real understanding of an industry borne from providing marketing services for some of its major players, the buzz of the first wave of dot.com and a whole heap of (probably very naive) enthusiasm.
 
Let's launch the definitive web portal for the FM industry, we said one day - and the next day we did!
 
We had a vision - to be the complete source of news and information for an evolving industry, online and on-time, delivered direct to every desktop, with one-click access to everything anyone in FM needed to know. It seemed that easy - and in many ways, driven by youth and our ability to track down news and information, it was.
 
There was nothing like i-FM so everyone wanted it. There is still nothing like i-FM, and although I have moved on to what seems like more grown-up worlds - and indeed, i-FM has grown up itself - it is still the first thing I read everyday.
 
It's easy to look back with envy for those dot.com days when everything felt possible. We'd wear shorts to work and keep our suits in the cupboard in case we had to go and see a client; we'd hit the volume button on the CD player when the phone rang. We owned a racing car - which was our version of corporate hospitality. Conversation was short because none of the geeks liked talking; instead they wrote fabulously erudite emails and instant messaged across the office. Everyone loved technology and music. Instead of having a Christmas party, we'd all get an Easyjet flight to a European city and go sightseeing and dancing.
 
We thought we could do it our way - and in many ways, we did.
 
Happy Birthday i-FM!

Fiona Perrin was a key member of the original development team, a frequent contributor of news and features, and briefly (before moving on to those grown-up roles) i-FM's editor.

 

i-FM in a Fast Changing Market

As facilities management professionals we are all accustomed to the constant nature of change and its implications for the organisations we serve. Workplace change is an inevitable consequence of changes in society, the economy and technology, and the last ten years have seen some dramatic moves in the way we work and the nature of both the FM profession and the industry that supports it.

At the end of the 20th century as i-FM was born, we were just beginning to understand the opportunities that the internet might offer. Google was still a baby, YouTube was years away  and employers were trying to control the activities of those staff allowed access to the World Wide Web in much the same way as some now do with sites like Facebook.

The FM profession was in its third decade but still immature and sadly lacking in a structured career path and qualifications strategy. Twenty years of outsourcing growth had created a substantial support services industry, and the first PFI projects and major national FM contracts were becoming a reality.

One of the biggest problems faced by facilities managers then, as now, was the challenge of keeping up-to-date with the fast moving pace of the sector, regulatory change and professional innovation.  The few magazines dedicated to FM, while excellent, were published monthly - fine for case studies and features but inadequate for news in a market as vibrant and dynamic as facilities management.

Into this breach came i-FM, a beacon of FM light in the 320 million pages on the World Wide Web. As a practising facilities manager, to me this was a truly exciting development providing a much needed focal point for the facilities professional and the wider FM community. Knowledge sharing, incisive comment and up-to-the-minute information made a visit to www.i-fm.net an essential part of the FM day. The i-FM top 50 and the profiles of FM notables became indispensible reference point for all FM activists.

Since then the web has grown by some 32 billion pages and there are plenty of other sites covering facilities management issues and offering daily news services. However, i-FM still retains a leading position in its field offering a uniquely independent view of the sector and providing column space for all shades of opinion on the issues of the day.

I was invited to contribute very early in the site's life and feel privileged to have continued that involvement to the present day. The FM's need for news and knowledge has not diminished; however, today the problem can be information overload. I know that I can trust the i-FM editorial team to filter out the newsworthy from the dross and keep me up-to-date with the exciting world of facilities management.

As we look forward to the next ten years it is to be hoped that we will finally address the problems of profile, skills and representation that have dogged our profession for so long. The robust debate that such issues demand can only be facilitated with the continued assistance and progressive encouragement of the FM press, who have all been incredibly supportive in the past. I am certain they will continue to do so in the years ahead, for which we should all be truly grateful.

Martin Pickard has been an invaluable source of knowledge and advice throughout i-FM's life, as well as a regular contributor of news and comment.
 

Learning Experience

In 1999, in the midst of an ongoing mid-life crisis, I decided to jump ship from a (relatively) secure job in print publishing to join the newly launched online news service i-FM as its first full-time editor. I went from being one of the youngest people in an established SME to one of the oldest in a new start-up venture.

Swapping sedate Kent for vibrant Islington, traditional offices for converted light industrial space by the canal and an ageing PC for a funky Apple Mac, I clambered aboard the dot.com boom (shortly to turn to bust for many others, but that's a different story).

I remember a feeling of excitement - anything was possible, we were making it up as we went along and a great idea thought up in the morning could be reality by the afternoon. Mind you, so could some really terrible ideas.

When you can publish anything instantly, the pressure is to do just that - the deadline is now! Picking the bones out of a company's trading statement in five minutes to get the story up before most people start their day was both the upside and the downside of working on i-FM. The business was created by a great team, many of whom are still involved. I learnt a lot in a very short time (not least to work to music) and so I'm happy to raise a glass - congratulations on your 10th birthday i-FM!

Richard Byatt was i-FM's first full-time editor, serving from 1999 – 2004.