This week I attended Environmental Data Resources’(EDR) annual Property Due Diligence Client Summit in Arizona,which gathers many top due diligence professionals and bankerstogether. The EDR Client Summit was titled "MobilizingChange: Where Technology and Opportunity Intersect" and itcertainly lived up to its billing.

Rob Barber, CEO of EDR, led off with a series of bigannouncements regarding their investments in better data in termsof city directories and aerial photographs. EDRalso provided a great preview of their new product code named“Lightbox”, a product that will allow due diligence professionalsto do more with their mobile devices. The grand finale wasDennis Firestone with CBRE's demonstration of camera equippedhelicopter that could be controlled by an iPhone. Suchdevices could potentially be used in property inspections. All in all the show was very interesting for due diligenceprofessionals and some of these things may be valuable forcommercial real estate in general.

A few of the most interesting sessions are discussed below: