For the past several years, the AEC industry has heard nothing but good things about Building Information Modeling. It saves time. It saves money. It avoids delays. It diminishes change orders. It minimizes clashes. And, depending on whom you ask, it's the greatest thing to hit the construction industry since two-dimensional CAD. But like most things, it has its weaknesses, the biggest two being its lack of standardization and interoperability. This month's first article features a look at what happens when models don't speak the same language.

Also this month, Larry True presents a review of new handheld devices that are garnering attention on jobsites, and Gordon Aronson discusses the pitfalls to avoid when playing the delay claim game.

WPL Publishing has been busy in the past several months. In addition to improving the design of our website and launching a new website, http://constructionadvisortoday.com, we hosted a five-part series of webinars on BIM - BIM Roadmap 2009. We are in the midst of presenting a four-part series of webinars on green building - Green Building Best Practices 2009. And, we have attended seminars and conferences hosted by industry leaders to bring you the latest industry news and commentary. You can read about each of these events here and on our other websites, http://greenbuildinginsider.com and http://constructionclaims.com.