My digital life: David Partridge

Argent’s managing partner David Partridge and the man responsible for transforming King’s Cross reveals what tech means to him. The biggest challenge for the property industry when it comes to embracing digital transformation is… Understanding the impact that Big Data will have, not just on the infrastructure of both buildings and cities themselves, but also on the way people will interact with them in the future. The moment I realised the time had come to make a change was… When I read that the City of Toronto was giving Google a tract of land to masterplan a new piece of the city. Traditionally, this is what developers within the real estate industry think that they are best at doing. If I could pass on one piece of advice about trying to futureproof a large company, it would be… Design yourself around an idea, rather than a product. Businesses – and not just real estate businesses that are product-focused – risk becoming antiquated as that product gets overtaken, especially nowadays as digital transformation reinvents the needs and desires of customers more and more quickly. It is essential to define the idea your business stands for, as the means and the medium through which you will deliver that idea will need to change. Argent’s ultimate tech goal is… To be at the forefront of truly sustainable transformation of cities. This is our ultimate goal, not just our ultimate tech goal. And of course harnessing tech to this end will be vital. My avatar name would be… Frank Lloyd Wright. A company without a digital strategy is… Lost. The simplest way to adopt new technology is… To review what everyone else has done with it, before diving in head first. My biggest tech fail was… Not figuring out how to use Apple. I am a PC, not a Mac! The tech company I most admire is… Google. I have always wanted to know everything that there is to know, and at Cambridge I used to sit in awe in the University Library, knowing that every book that had been published was available there. When it comes to digital transformation, there is no such thing as… Too much. The piece of technology I can’t live without is… My Blackberry Priv. You can get hold of me via… E-mail (or WhatsApp, if you are family). Main image © Louise Haywood-Schiefer A version of this article appears in the October 2018 print edition of EG Tech with the headline “Let’s get Digital”