Synchronizing the chaos into a system of systems

This post kicks off a four-part series, “Everything BiM-Everywhere GiS-All Together DigitalTwins-All at Once Ai”

I’ll trace the arc from early linking of BIM and GIS to today’s proofs of scale at in cities, buildings, infrastructure, and beyond. The throughline is simple: if AI promises we can “ask anything,” then our assets, buildings, campuses, and infrastructure must be ready to answer everything, grounded in standards, context, and trust.

Part 1

1.1 Synchronizing Vision and Proof
25 Years of BIM + GIS: From the Coast Guard to the State Department

In 2001, I sat at ESRI headquarters with Jack Dangermond and the U.S. Coast Guard, sketching a system-of-systems approach to connect BIM and GIS. ESRI had already built its reputation on services and live maps. BIM, by contrast, was still locked in files, handovers, and one-off projects. That early meeting stretched from a one-hour demo into a full-day workshop, and it planted a seed: if we could connect building information to maps and services, we could create living digital twins.

That vision has guided my work ever since, but it’s also been a source of frustration. For two decades, BIM standards focused on monolithic file exchanges, while GIS matured as a service-based platform. I built my own tactical workarounds (BIMXML, BIMJSON, minimum viable BIM) while supporting broader efforts at buildingSMART and NIBS. The pattern was clear: standards matter, but without tactical enforcement, they remain shelfware.

For decades, the building industry has operated in a world of ‘everything everywhere all at once,’ with acronyms, standards, roles, and tools colliding. In 2001 at ESRI HQ, we began sketching how BIM and GIS could bring order to that chaos. 

Fast forward to 2025, back at ESRI HQ. This time, there was proof of innovation and action.

1.2 OBO: Strategy and Tactics Aligned

For the first time, Jay Kline of the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) presented metrics from the State Department’s Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), with which we had partnered for years to make standards tactical.

• 396 buildings validated across 44 projects worldwide
• 15–20 buildings checked every month with zero site visits
• Thousands of BIM deliverables validated at scale, not just at handover
• Managed by just 2.5 BIM managers
• Tens of thousands of data points delivered directly into OBO’s CMMS

My Observations: Proof at Scale

That’s not Hollywood BIM. That’s COBie and IFC checks enforced at every stage, not just at the end. And it proves the connection between vision and execution: the system-of-systems idea we sketched in 2001 is real today because OBO chose to enforce structured standards in both tactical and strategic ways.

OBO’s enforcement of IFC and COBie demonstrates what happens when you turn chaos into clarity through governance, enabling the ability to ‘ask anything’ of your data and trust the answer.

1.3 Horizontal Infrastructure: Why Networks Leapfrog

At the conference, John Messner and I highlighted transportation and infrastructure as domains where buildingSMART standards are gaining traction more rapidly than in buildings. Roads, bridges, and railways can’t afford silos. Connectivity is their lifeblood. In transportation, everything is connected and that makes BIM a natural fit for networks.

It’s no surprise that horizontal infrastructure is leapfrogging vertical BIM. The same system-of-systems logic that guided the Coast Guard in 2001 and OBO in 2025 is playing out at the national scale.

1.4 Owners Need Simplicity, Not the BIM Buffet

Clive Jordan warned against the “BIM buffet.” Too often, owners demand everything , LOD 600 digital twins, COBie, IFC, every bell and whistle, and end up with waste.

“When you ask for everything, you don’t get what you need,” Clive said. Instead, his team boiled it down to 17 things, essential requirements owners can actually enforce.

That echoes OBO’s approach. Success doesn’t come from chasing more; it comes from enforcing a minimum set of structured, valuable data.

1.5 Fractals of Complexity and Simplicity

Radu Dicher described digital twins as an “LOD fractal”,  infinitely complex below the surface, but legible at the top. This metaphor mirrors what we saw with OBO: structured validation at the surface level creates trust, while deeper data remains available for those who need it. Simplicity and complexity coexist in a system-of-systems.

1.6 Synchronization, Not Static Models

Marc Goldman of ESRI reminded us that digital twins aren’t static, beautiful 3D models. They are synchronized systems, updated at predictable intervals.

This definition has been part of GIS for decades. Now BIM is learning to synchronize, aligning design, operations, and sensors into living, service-based streams of data.

And this is exactly what I came here looking for. If we truly want to connect everything, everywhere, all at once, file exchanges alone won’t get us there. Standards and file-based exchanges have enabled interoperability and laid a strong foundation. But the next step is real-time data — synchronization at set intervals — so digital twins can cross over from BIM into GIS, and into the automated buildings and systems world.

1.7 The Power of Where: Finding Our Way with Jack Dangermond

For readers unfamiliar with him, Jack Dangermond is the founder and president of ESRI, the company behind ArcGIS. Over the past five decades, ESRI has shaped the entire field of geographic information systems (GIS). Every time you pull up a map on your phone, track logistics on a dashboard, or visualize city infrastructure, you are touching work influenced by Jack’s vision.

What has always struck me about Jack is not only his impact, but his generosity with time and ideas. On the ESRI campus this summer, I was surprised to run into him — and even more surprised when he agreed to a quick five-minute Café ZAi meeting. That “five minutes” turned into 52 minutes of conversation about AI, trust, and the future of digital twins. Jack remains as curious and future-facing as ever, still learning, still asking questions, still connecting the dots.

My Observations: Still Pointing the Way
All of the voices at ESRI this year, from OBO to infrastructure to validation workflows , trace back in some way to Jack’s system-of-systems framing. In 2001, he initiated a conversation about integrating BIM and GIS into a unified federation. In 2025, he was still pointing the way:

“Collaboration happens at the speed of trust,” he said. “AI is an instrument for learning. The Living Atlas is becoming a new foundation for the planet.”

Jack’s consistency underscores the arc: vision and trust are essential, but execution matters. The OBO results demonstrate that standards can be effective if owners enforce them.

And perhaps it’s fair to say, without Jack’s vision, the world really would be lost, unsure of where to turn.

1.8 Closing: From Monkeys to Antibodies, and Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

In recent years, I’ve described the industry’s state as “monkeys on the loose”, missing assets, poor handovers, and hallucinations (both human and AI). At Redlands, I saw antibodies: OBO validated data at scale. Infrastructure leapfrogged silos. Owners boiled requirements down to essentials. GIS and BIM are finally synchronized. And Jack reminded us that trust and systems thinking must underpin it all.

It’s also where I want to honor Ken Sinclair and his 50+ years with AutomatedBuildings. Ken has chronicled the evolution of building automation and innovation over the past half-century. His history reminds us that change is constant, but so is the need to connect the dots. Today, those dots are BIM, GIS, automation, and AI, converging into everything, everywhere, all at once.

The phrase comes from the 2023 Academy Award–winning film where a character is overwhelmed by infinite realities colliding at once. That’s not far from our industry today: BIM standards, GIS, IoT, AI, and building systems all swirling in parallel. The lesson isn’t to escape the chaos, but to connect meaning across it. That’s what digital twins, grounded in standards and context, make possible.

And that is what I came here looking for: proof that we can move beyond file exchanges into synchronized connections across BIM, GIS, and automated building systems. The foundation is here; now it’s time to operationalize it.

This is Part 1 of a four-part series from buildingSMART USA’s openBIM Workflows at ESRI HQ. Here’s what’s coming next:

• Part 1 – Everything BiM-Everywhere GiS-All Together DigitalTwins-All at Once Ai
  • Synchronizing the chaos into a system of systems
• Part 2 – Planes, Trains, Buildings & Synchronized Assets
  • Voices from the stage: OBO, Plannerly, Autodesk, ESRI, DOTs, and more. What worked, what didn’t, why validation matters, and how to openBIM.
• Part 3 – Unsafe by Design for Operations
  •  The inherent dangers of siloed building data, and why open source is the solution.
• Part 4 – From Sandboxes to Action and Ai

Media Sponsors at the buildingSMART USA openBIM Workflows: AutomatedBuildings and Café Zai.