It has been a few months since The UK BIM Alliance, the independent, not-for-profit organisation established in 2016 to champion implementation of building information modelling (BIM) in the UK, announced a rebrand to ‘nima’. 

In this guest blog, Vice Chair of nima, Casey Rutland explains more on the rebrand. Including how it renews the organisation’s emphasis on information management, and what comes next for nima.

Many of you will have seen or heard, that what was the UK BIM Alliance has recently evolved to become nima. The rebrand is set to make the organisation more open and active, with the intention to increase the organisations relevance to more people.

Although the word nima is found in many languages, we’re using the Greek origin which means ‘thread’ and is not an abbreviation. It’s also a planned coincidence that the word nima has the letters ‘im’ in the middle of it!  Whilst our new identity comes with a slick logo and fresh, new brand colours, it’s not just about what happens on the website.  It‘s about a change in behaviours, a change in approach and a change in how we engage with the industry… after all, we exist to serve it.

The shift of focus to Information Management (IM) doesn’t mean we’re dropping all the great work that has been done with BIM as a focus – quite the opposite.  Our primary purpose is still to promote the use of the UK BIM Framework.  We’re building on the successes of that and making it available to the masses, but speaking in their language rather than the ‘BIM language’ that has come to be a blocker for some.

We’re also reinforcing the relationship between nima and buildingSMART UK & Ireland (bSUKI); in 2015, the UK BIM Alliance took over the day-to-day management of bSUKI (from BRE) and since then, they have essentially been one and the same organisation.  With a focus on interoperability and data structure, bSUKI are more relevant now than they have ever been – by sourcing and representing the UK & Ireland’s interoperability needs at a global level. As a dual brand, nima + bSUKI are stronger than ever.

Our new identity approach has already worked; we have a new international Platinum Patron in Glodon, we have a new Affiliate member in ZERO Construct and have begun conversations with various other organisations reaching out into the world of PropTech, real estate, building safety and sustainability.

It doesn’t mean we have to ‘do’ all this work ourselves; we are after all, a volunteer organisation.  What we do need to do however is to connect and influence other industry digital initiatives, make them aware of IM for the built, and natural environment and what benefits it brings to their work.  We need to connect the communities.  This is working in practice immediately – we’re planning a crossover event with nima x bSUKI x ZERO – bringing IM to decarbonisation that will be held in January 2023.

So our community is growing, we’re connecting with others, inspiring companies, national institutions and international organisations to be involved, but how can we become more relevant to individuals?

We’ve made a conscious decision to change the way we connect in person.  Rather than attend one or two large conferences and exhibitions each year and expect people to visit us, we’re going to be present at a greater number of events but perhaps in a smaller, more personal way.

Already this year, we’ve been either exhibiting or speaking at UK Construction Week, Highways UK, Education Estates, LondonBuild and all this since our launch in the first week of October.

We won’t however, be reducing our presence at key events such as Digital Construction Week (DCW). As a primary event and one that we’ve helped as content coordinators over the years, what started as the ‘BIM Village’ is now the ‘IM Stage’ for case study and announcement style presentations and the ‘IM Exchange’ for more interactive sessions.  In a significant step forward, as nima, we are now partnering with DCW to deliver a coordinated catalogue of IM sessions at DCW2023 across all aspects of the show… it’s fair to say that ongoing discussions about future events beyond 2023 are exciting.

As well as in-person events, we’re evolving our own meetings, workshops and social events all with a much more open aspect to them, enabling greater access to them partly due to the positive outcomes of a global pandemic – it truly has changed how we operate.

Recognising how different people consume information in and around our industry, we’ve also overhauled our social media presence; we’ve launched a podcast, TikTok and Facebook accounts and designed all of them to complement our existing Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and website channels.  With a greater focus on short form video and links to more detailed content, we’re hoping that we can reach, engage and inspire a whole new demographic as well as maintain the interest of our existing audience.

So what is next? For nima, we’re doing more, with less, more openly and reaching more people in order to drive adoption of the UK BIM Framework and to accelerate the digital transformation of our industry.

If you’re keen to learn more or even better, to help us, please do get in touch.