HOUSTON—Technology, demand and right-sizing are revolutionizing traditional office from every angle. NAIOP's O.CON: The Office Conference, held June 24-25 in Houston, leads the conversation on what's driving the future of office. (NAIOP is a GlobeSt.com Thought Leader.) The inaugural O.CON will showcase creative spaces and retrofits that meet today's demand, and talk about what to do with dinosaur inventory, hear from end-users on space requirements, and talk with developers and investors who are doing the deals.

Brandon Weber, co-founder and CEO of Hightower, is a panelist on "High-Tech Tools and Systems Revolutionizing Office Real Estate." GlobeSt.com recently caught up with Weber to find out how technology has changed the office sector.

GlobeSt.com: How much has technology changed the office sector?

Brandon Weber: The technology that brokers use hadn't really changed in 20 years until recently. Now all this technology is hitting the industry and it's changed office, industrial, multifamily—all sectors.

GlobeSt.com: What has been the game-changer?

Weber: Smartphones and tablets have been a game-changer. Real estate is an inherently mobile business. It's collaborative and data driven—brokers are leveraging big data, spreadsheets and the like. They used to be tied to their desktops for that; now they can access all this information in real time analytics. They've gone from static to mobile and it's sped up the industry tremendously.

GlobeSt.com: Was this an organic change?

Weber: It's been an interesting confluence that brings domain influence, and it takes expertise to build this process, to allow us to build software that really works.

GlobeSt.com: What is driving the velocity of this change?

Weber: Portfolios are growing and becoming super complex, and we're going from regional to global. Accountability is also a big factor and that's where data access in real time comes into play. In the past this is what caused the old infrastructure to buckle spawning a need for a better platform.

GlobeSt.com: What will the next few years bring?

Weber: The next three years will bring more change than the past 15 have. It's going to be a pretty wild ride for commercial real estate.