The First Facility Management Blog

Founded in 2004, ABRAFAC, the Brazilian Association of Facilities, celebrated its fifth anniversary last year. The association now represents more than 450 members from across Brazil. ABRAFAC has worked to raise the profile of both those working in the field and the facility management (FM) profession as a whole.

The formal concept of FM began to be used in Brazil around the middle of the 1990s. Although the activity is well established within large organizations and continues to evolve and gain status, FM still remains to be totally understood by local Brazilian organizations.

Brazilian facility managers (fms) have been enthusiastic in the search for both professional and organizational development, and since the 80s (before the formal adoption of the title of FM, many informal support groups came into existence, each aimed at promoting the exchange of experiences, benchmarking, and good practice. Today’s fms are now tasked with working within the additional framework of the organization’s wider environmental and social objectives and are therefore involved in corporate sustainability in its widest sense.

FM is also the subject of formal qualifications, ranging from a variety of introductory operational/vocational courses promoted and supported by ABRAFAC, to a formal MBA at POLI/USP (one of Brazil’s most respected universities), now in its seventh year.

In other international FM news, Stan Mitchell was honored in October 2009 with the BIFM Award for Overall FM Industry Impact. As BIFM Chairman from 2002 to 2004, he played a key role in the restructuring of the Institute during a period of rapid growth and change. He was also a key player in the workshops, discussions, and negotiations that culminated in a series of meetings in Philadelphia in 2005 to establish the Global FM alliance.

Back in 1985, Terry Gilliam directed an offbeat film entitled, Brazil. Very dark, the film never achieved commercial success. Yet, it presents both a futurist and retro interpretation of the absurdity of administrative bureaucracy—one that still holds true today in many ways. Think of George Orwell’s 1984 with a dash of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (the Argument Sketch, for instance), and you get Brazil.

Here’s the opening scene:

Which is immediately followed by this scene:

The underlying messages of this opening for those of you who haven’t seen the film, which is funny in places (”Hi there. I want to talk to you about ducts.”), while being extremely dark and foreboding (”bad sportsmanship” is quoted as the cause of terrorist attacks) is best summarized by the words of ChrisJMoor, originator of the offering on YouTube:

Terry Gillian’s comic masterpiece is inspired by Orwell’s 1984. Set in a shopping-crazed, terrorist-plagued totalitarian state, it extends on Gillian’s obvious hatred of bureaucracy…. It has little to do with the country Brazil.

A stark warning about mass surveillance and personal privacy issues from the days when CCTV was barely existent and personal records minimal and not stored on computers.

The end of the second scene is a bit like today’s workplace and “recreational” Internet surfing (while the boss isn’t looking)…sort of like what you’re doing right now…

It’s one of my favorite films and has been since it first came out.