I agree with your thesis and would like to anecdotally expand on your second point. It's been my experience that people in the construction industries -- and I say this as someone who comes from a multi-generational family of builders -- tend to be on the leading edge of technology adoption.
For example:
- Quick adoption of pagers, cell phones (originally the physically installed "car phones", later, Motorola's "brick"), Sprint's "Direct Connect", to now using iPhone or Android-based devices for on-site visual status updates.
- GPS and RFID vehicle, inventory and tool tracking.
- Computer-assisted design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM).
Not to mention all sorts of back-office software and tools.
All of these things need to be vetted in light of risk mitigation, as you stated. Most builders I know have been burned multiple times in the past when tools and processes fail, so they tend to hesitate before jumping to the "next-greatest-thing-ever".
For example:
- Quick adoption of pagers, cell phones (originally the physically installed "car phones", later, Motorola's "brick"), Sprint's "Direct Connect", to now using iPhone or Android-based devices for on-site visual status updates.
- GPS and RFID vehicle, inventory and tool tracking.
- Computer-assisted design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM).
Not to mention all sorts of back-office software and tools.
All of these things need to be vetted in light of risk mitigation, as you stated. Most builders I know have been burned multiple times in the past when tools and processes fail, so they tend to hesitate before jumping to the "next-greatest-thing-ever".