Here are a couple of early articles/thoughts on Terminology for the Property/Asset Management Profession. In the spirit of best laid plans, this article was the first of what was to be a series of articles on the Terminology Standard, written by me in January 2001.
It's Just A Matter of Semantics...
The New ASTM Standard for Terminology
Jim Dieter, CPPM CF
Standards are rules or bases of comparison used in judging capacity, quantity, content, extent, value, or quality; levels of excellence or attainment regarded as a measure of adequacy.
Success!
The announcement by ASTM of the first set standard semantics for Property and Asset Management is certainly a milestone for our profession. And hopefully that milestone will become a building block for our individual and collective efforts to build and expand the body of knowledge supporting our profession. But for the benefits to be realized, we must actually use these agreed upon terms.
An important way to begin to integrate these terms into our professional vocabulary is to promulgate the accurate use of the standard terms and definitions in our literature - this magazine, NPMA training courses, the NES Proceedings, presentations given at local, regional, and national seminars, etc. Writers and presenters should be among the first to familiarize themselves with the standard terms. The consumers of this information can help by noting correct and incorrect usage and offering corrections in an appropriate manner.
All of us can further contribute by participating in the ongoing ASTM Terminology Standard development effort. The current standard terms need to be corrected as necessary and updated as appropriate. We need to reach agreement on additional terms, and add them to the standard.
Moving Forward
The discussion of semantics in our profession is pivotal to the growth of the NPMA, and to the development of ever better property professionals. Shared semantics are critical to communication, communication is critical to understanding, and understanding is critical to improvement. Simply stated, we can't measure things until we agree what those things are. As members of the NPMA, we must continue to be the leaders in standardizing semantics associated with our profession.
An ongoing discussion of the terms and their relationships and background should aid and enhance our adoption of the standard terms. While we'll all face some difficulty in accepting some of the definitions and the words associated with them by the standard, we should not be afraid to change and adapt. Disseminating these terms should be of benefit to all NMPA members and their employers.
An interesting aspect of the development of the terms that may not be immediately obvious when looking through an alphabetical listing of the terms is the inter-relatedness of the terms. It's a challenge just to assure that standard terms used in the definitions of other terms are properly used. Additionally, many of the terms should be viewed as parts of logical hierarchies of terms. Future articles under this heading will deal with the semantics hierarchies that are basic to our profession, with other semantics related topics, and with the standards development process for terminology.
I did get as far as a second article, which was written at the same time as the first article, but I don't believe was ever published or distributed.
It's Just A Matter of Semantics...
A Basic Property Hierarchy
Jim Dieter, CPPM CF
"Property" means something or a number of things in which one has the rights and interests subject to ownership. It includes both tangible property and intangible property.
Hierarchies
An interesting aspect of the development of the ASTM Terminology Standard was the importance of maintaining consistency in the development of the individual definitions. Care had to be given in this interactive, iterative process to assuring that each definition correctly used terms defined elsewhere in the document. Additionally, many of the terms were parts of logical hierarchies of terms, requiring that each "block" within each level of the hierarchy was included and properly defined. The opportunity remains to identify and define many more such hierarchies of property terms - wouldn't it be great if we had agreement on the use and relationship of "category", "class", "group", "type", etc.?
When reading an alphabetical listing of the standard terms, this or other hierarchies may not be obvious, thus obfuscating part of the potential benefit of use of the terms. One important and basic hierarchy that is a part of the initial set of standard terms is a hierarchy of property based on the legal view of property and ownership.
A Basic Property Hierarchy
Many of us are still getting used to "generic" definitions of terms, like the definition of property that leads this article. We spent many years learning a set of definitions prescribed by regulation or organizational policy. Generally, these definitions were fine within the confines of a single organization or business area, but often caused problems when dealing with "outsiders". So, let's start fresh, and delve into a set of related terms flowing from this "generic", standard definition of property.
Two additional terms are mentioned in the definition as subsets of property - tangible property and intangible property. What are the standard definitions of these terms?
"Tangible Property" means property having physical existence and hence capable of being valued monetarily. Property other than intangible property.
That seems straight forward enough. Pretty much a match for what us property folks are concerned about. Things we can put tags on and create records of.
But what else is there?
"Intangible Property" means knowledge derived from study, experience, or instruction, or knowledge of a specific event or situation. Property that is not tangible.
Whoa! Wait a minute here. Property that is intangible? Knowledge is property? "Yes" is the answer to both questions. Let's say that you work as a scientist for a research lab and have made an important discovery. They had required you sign a form when you went to work there that said anything you discovered while working there was the property of the lab. One day you get a terrific job offer from a commercial business. You tender your resignation, and carefully leave all your lab notes and other items related to the discovery with your assistant at the lab. You report to your new job, and the first thing they say is that they want to commercialize the discovery you made while working at the lab. In fact, that's the only reason they hired you. You are aware of the agreement you signed at the lab, and that agreement extended beyond tangible property associated with a discovery, to the idea of and information about the discovery - the intangible property. Sharing that intangible property of the lab with your new employer is precluded. Time to hope you have another idea!
So, the top of out hierarchy looks like this:
.
So, while the concept of intangible property must be recognized, at least for now, it is outside the scope of "Property Management" as practiced by most (all?) members of the NPMA. Our focus is on Tangible Property.
Three Types of Tangible Property
"Tangible Intellectual Property" means tangible property that is intellectual in nature, including software, technical data, printed information, and legal documents (such as claims, debts, insurance policies, stock certificates, and evidence of indebtedness).
This is of course closely related to the concept of intangible property, with the important distinction of having physical existence. The lab notes from the discussion above is a good example. But again, for the most part, tangible intellectual property is outside our scope. Of course we could get into a long discussion of tracking software...
"Real Property" means land and rights in land, ground improvements, utility distribution systems, and buildings and other structures. Real property is tangible property other than moveable property or tangible intellectual property.
This type of tangible property is of some interest to NPMA members, especially when we're perusing the Help Wanted ads! Those folks think that they're Property Managers! They just manage apartment buildings!
"Moveable Property" means tangible property other than real property or tangible intellectual property; it is moveable and visible.
So, this must be us! Except the term moveable property is not familiar. This is of course what has been commonly referred to within the NPMA as property. But we've seen that in accordance with the generic, standard definition of property, there are many other types of property. Well, we knew that all along, but chose to ignore it for professional purposes. We can no longer ignore this reality. The definition here is critical, but the term moveable property should still be a matter of discussion. It is important that we either agree on this term to describe our primary focus, or come up with another that we can agree on through the consensus process. Or perhaps we should coin a word, as the real estate professionals did when they invented the term "realtor" to describe themselves.
End Notes
We are trying to identify standards that will be as applicable to a university as to a federal agency; as useful to a state government as to a government contractor; and as appropriate for the current membership of the NPMA as to future members.
Your input, and broad discussion and agreement within the NPMA, is the path to the establishment of meaningful Property/Asset Management Standards. Please criticize; please suggest; please use and help develop our standards.
