Later today I will be leaving for Boston to attend the third annual Parcel User's Conference (and the first conference since EDR acquired Parcel earlier this year). Over 75 people will be at the event representing both the environmental consulting and mortgage lending industries. There are several goals associated with this conference. First, EDR will provide attendees with an overview on how Parcel adoption has been progressing since the acquisition. Second, the EDR Solutions Group will be laying out the planned enhancements to the application for all to see and comment on. And third, Parcel users and lenders will have the opportunity to share within the community their real world experiences in using the platform.

In the 12 month period prior to the acquisition, approximately 3,900 due diligence projects were authored using Parcel. This figure equates to 2% of the total market opportunity. Since the acquisition, the annual run rate for Parcel usage has increased by almost 300% to over 15,000 projects and during the next 12 month period we anticipate usage exceeding 30,000 projects.

In addition to increased usage, over 300 unique and completely customized templates have been created that allow the final report to have the same look and feel as a report authored in MS Word or in an internally developed application.

The timing for this event could not be more perfect given the recent slow down in transactional due diligence activity resulting from the late summer's events in the capital and credit markets. It is entirely possible that we may be leaving one portion of the business cycle and entering another. For the past several years, all of us have been riding a great wave where transactional activity was increasing between 2% and 5% per year. This trend continued for most of 2007 but came to a screeching halt in September. Although the month isn't quite over yet, I expect to see year-on-year due diligence transactions decline in September for the first time since 2000.

It is anyone's guess as to how long this portion of the cycle may last but one thing is for certain: in a flat to down market, history tells us that this is exactly the time when companies look closer at internal processes and search for ways to become more efficient. This usually leads to outsourcing more non-core activities in order to spend more time developing new sources of business.

Now for the really important stuff. In addition to the above topics being covered at the conference, we will all be attending a Red Sox vs. Twins game on Thursday night at Fenway Park. Given last night's Sox win and Yankee choke (I mean tough loss), things are shaping up where we may be able to witness the AL East clinching game in person. While I hope this comment doesn't lead to too much lost business for EDR in New York, I just couldn't resist :)

For the first time, this year EDR was asked to provide our parent company (the U.K.'s Daily Mail and General Trust) with information about the business that would be used to help determine what DMGT's global carbon footprint is. The information we provided was done so in survey form and included details on things such as paper usage, annual airplane flights and average drive time to work. The survey was developed by ICF and, presumably, ICF will then compile the survey results from all DMGT companies in order to arrive at a consolidated carbon footprint for the entire organization. While the type of information we were asked to provide in the first year is rather general, I have to think it will become much more specific and granular in future years. As a result, it seems this may be a great business opportunity for environmental firms doing property condition assessments.

This is occuring at a time when the line between "environment" and "energy" is blurring. In order to quantify an organization's carbon footprint accurately, one needs to assemble property specific information about a property's physical characteristics as they relate to energy consumption. This includes details about the properties windows, heating and cooling systems, insulation and more. To me, the PCA process appears to be the perfect place to collect, organize and update this type of data. Already, several PCA firms are beginning to offer carbon footprinting services as an add-on to the basic PCA.

The end game will be to know whether or not the organization is in a position where it may need to buy credits to become carbon neutral or can sell credits to others. While the development of carbon trading markets in the U.S. is still a few years away, it is coming. For proof, just look at the recent developments in California and several northeast states that are leading the way towards carbon neutrality.

MySpace and YouTube. Wikipedia and FaceBook. It seems that everywhere these days communities are forming around user generated content. But what about the commercial real estate due diligence community? Where can someone go to access content about commercial real estate that has been contributed, edited, updated and commented on by professionals? I think there is significant pent-up demand for this type of information and, once someone develops the platform for the community, participation will be high.

I didn't think this until recently and the following situation changed my mind. A few years ago, EDR introduced a feature to our web service called FieldCheck. This feature allowed clients to either move the location of a mapped property to a more accurate spot or plot a site that EDR had been unable to plot. EDR would then generate a report that showed the locational changes made by our customer. However, these locational changes would only show in that report and would not show up in a report run later on in the same area. However, behind the scenes, EDR has been keeping a record of all locational changes and improvements made by our customers.

The amazing statistic that blew me away was that as of today, over 18,000 properties across the U.S. have been field verified and more accurately located by environmental consultants. Clearly, there is a willingness in our industry to proactively interact with the data and improve upon it when more information is uncovered during the assessment process.

So the question now is this: Are environmental consultants only willing to contribute content about a property's location or are they willing to contribute, share and receive other forms of content? I am not positive what the answer to this question is but over the course of the next year we intend to find out by releasing additional levels of functionality that will allow the environmental professional community to share more content.

There are many other categories of content that in theory could be collected and shared within the community. Perhaps the location of the local library or historical society could be contributed and shared. Maybe consultants would like to enhance information about a property within the government record itself, much in the same way Zillow allows homeowners to edit and update the tax assessor's records about their home. Or perhaps the EP community would see value in contributing aerial photography in return for having access to other's aerial contributions.

With each of these questions our industry will find itself facing many of the same issues that other industries are confronting regarding content ownership, transparency, data reliability and liability. However, if there is one thing we can learn from observing other industries, it is that each of these issues can be managed for the benefit of everyone provided that user generated content is displayed and described in an accurate manner.