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Disagreement can be a wonderful thing. It's how we test our ideas and beliefs, explore their limits and open ourselves to competing views that shape and strengthen our understanding.

Delivering keynotes is fun, mainly because they usually require the person delivering them to pull together multiple strands of thought into a single coherent narrative.

One of the biggest risks with any emerging technology is that potential customers will fail to see the improvement opportunity the technology offers. With transformational technologies, the risk is particularly acute, as potential users may struggle to imagine the impact on today's business.

Most new ideas or ways of working don't spread quickly, until they do. It's a bit like Hemingway's description of bankruptcy happening in two ways, "gradually, then suddenly." Something similar might be happening at the moment with multifamily's tech-enabled reinvention of its long-standing operating model.

"There's no smoke without fire" has always been a dubious expression—and one most commonly heard in the context of gossip. It came to mind as the rumor mill started up again following the most recent local government action against revenue management (RM), this time in Seattle.

A little over a year ago, I recorded a series of interviews with the leaders of technology companies helping our industry address the growing problem of fraud.The interviews developed a couple of themes emerging from the most recent 20for20 Annual Survey. Fraud had jumped to the top of many executives' priorities, and there seemed to be an unusually large number of software vendors helping to address the problem.

Two major themes seem to be coming up lately in multifamily technology and operations. One is centralization—the dominant idea in how companies are restructuring work. The other is tech bloat—the growing problem of companies buying too much technology without fully accounting for the associated costs. As with so many big topics in multifamily, the two ideas are starting to converge.

In the weeks following the recent launch of this year's 20for20 Annual Survey, some of the most interesting briefing calls have focused on one central observation: There's a lot of tech.

The year has started with a lot of fresh insight into centralization. First, there was the recent release of the new white paper about how third-party managers are progressing toward a centralized operating model. This week, the focus switches to another big centralization topic: maintenance.

Readers of this blog will know that I frequently study and write about centralization. It has featured heavily in the last four editions of the 20for20 annual survey, and—SPOILER ALERT—it will get more coverage next month when the 2025 edition drops.