GlobeSt.com: What else will be different about the conference this year? Will there be any particular topics of discussion?

Kasselman: There is a renewed interest in all things technology from our membership. It may have to do with our demographic. Our average member age is about 54 years old, and 45% of our members are independent brokers, meaning they do not work at a Jones Lang LaSalle or a Colliers or an NAI, and they are truly independents. As independents, they may not be getting the training or exposure to technology products and services in the way that someone who works at JLL or CBRE might. So they're getting a lot of that know-how at SIOR. Even the people who work at the bigger companies aren't necessarily getting that exposure or that education. They are increasingly telling us that they want more technology content, know-how and awareness of products and services. We're trying to program more of those things into the conference. We're not trying to be a technology conference – we are a real estate conference – but what you will see is a much more digital orientation in both content and execution. You have the ability to manage the entire conference on an app, and that has been a huge hit for us. The content is becoming more tech-centric, and we are even going to have a tech day in Chicago in the fall.

GlobeSt.com: Has the commercial real estate industry lagged behind others when it comes to being tech savvy?

Kasselman: There's no question about it. It's historically been an industry that was extremely profitable just the way that it is, or was up until a few years ago. So it was hard to get the decision makers' attention for incremental change when the prevailing attitude was that they were making a bunch of money and things were working great. Part of it was the age and demographic of the decision maker. That's not knocking anybody or being age discriminate, but the people who are running much of our industry are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. They made a lot of money without using the technologies and the computers, and they don't assign the same value to it that somebody who's much younger and digitally entitled might. And they're not of the same risk profile that a younger person is. Often they're at the end of their career, they don't need to take the same risks they used to take, they may be hanging on until they get to retirement – they don't necessarily want to go back into today's workforce and compete with a digitally enabled professional in their 20's or 30's for the same job. For all of these different reasons, there was a reluctance to embrace. Then the recession hit, and everybody went into survival mode, which again was not the right time for them to innovate in technology. Now that it seems like the industry is back on steady footing, maybe beyond recovery and into a growth mode, and because the knowledge worker of tomorrow has become today's workforce, and they're demanding it and because there's been a squeeze on profits during that downturn, all of a sudden everyone seems to be amenable to it. It seems to be a perfect storm of opportunity and a rush to catch up.

GlobeSt.com: How has SIOR personally helped the way you do business?

Kasselman: The education and exchange of best practices, both in terms of executing my day to day business as a broker, and as a small-business owner, has been very beneficial. Much of the knowledge exchange that takes place at SIOR has to do with running a brokerage as much as it is executing day-to-day brokerage work for clients. There is also the networking and getting to know like-minded, highly accomplished SIORs from all over the world because I execute national business for my clientele. I like to know who is assisting me on those projects rather than just looking up a name in a book and taking a chance with a relationship I've spent years or decades developing or nurturing. You don't want to risk a 20-year relationship with a guy you don't know. SIOR gives you the ability to really get to know each other on a repetitive, recurring intellectual and personal level. You really get to understand someone's nature and character. And it's been a decent source of revenue for us. We've carved out a niche as being quality practitioners with an overlay of sustainability and technology know-how, and that makes us different from all of the other SIOR brokers in Chicago. We probably get two to five SIOR deals a year, which not only pays for our membership and travel costs, but it's become a reliable part of our revenue.

GlobeSt.com: How are things going in the Chicago market; has it weathered the recession?

Kasselman: It's a great real estate market here for a number of logistical, economic and geocentric reasons. The office market here does pretty well, the industrial market does very well, retail is doing great, it's good for data centers. Personally, our company is doing great because we are treating technology, real estate and sustainability as one deliverable - everybody who leases space or owns a building also consumes energy and technology at the same time, and those pieces together represent the total cost of occupancy, and the impact is magnified when multiple properties or locations are factored in. Our industry has long been oriented to only servicing the real estate piece and not the other two legs of the stool, and we are oriented to service all of them together. Our core business is bundling those together and that message is resonating. We're hitting our stride and the market is performing really well. There has been no new construction until the last few months and steady demand in these varies sectors brought vacancy rates down, occupancy rates up, and even rents are starting to tick up. It's a good time to be in this business.