US National Telecommunications and Information Administration | Federal Communications Commission
Data Points (2023 Estimates for 193 countable nations):
Global Gross Domestic Product (GGDP) ~ $106.17T
Anglosphere (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) ~ $31T (or ~32% of GGDP)
United States GDP $27T (or about 1/3rd of GGDP)

“Livres des Merveilles du Monde” 1300 | Marco Polo | Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Today we break down consultations on titles relevant to the technology and management of the real assets of education communities in the United States specifically; but with sensitivity to the global education markets where thousands of like-minded organizations also provide credentialing, instruction, research, a home for local fine arts and sport.
We steer away from broad policy issues and steer toward technical specifics of public consultations presented by national member bodies of the International Electrotechnical Commission, the International Organization for Standardization, the International Telecommunications Union and the American National Standards Institute. If there is a likelihood that the titles published by these workgroups will be incorporated by reference into public safety or sustainability legislation; or integrated into the cost structure of education communities in any other way, we will listen carefully and contribute meaningfully where we can.
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations | 1961
| “Even apart from the instability due to speculation, there is the instability due to the characteristic of human nature that a large proportion of our positive activities depend on spontaneous optimism rather than on a mathematical expectation, whether moral or hedonistic or economic. Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits — a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities. Enterprise only pretends to itself to be mainly actuated by the statements in its own prospectus, however candid and sincere that prospectus may be. Only a little more than an expedition to the South Pole is it based on an exact calculation of benefits to come. Thus if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die; — though fears of loss may have a basis no more reasonable than hopes of profit had before.”
“The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” — John Maynard Keynes, 1936 |
American National Standards Institute
2026 World Standards Week TBD. NEMA will host
Setting the standard: Grange members can be voice of rural users in standardization system
ISO/IEC/ITU coordination – Listing of New Work Items (New: Passwords Required)
New ANSI Education Initiative Supports the Next Generation of Standardization Leaders
International Code Council
2024/2025/2026 ICC CODE DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULE (3/17/2023)
International Electrotechnical Commission
International Electrotechnical Commission | CDV Consultations
IEC Open Consultations: 20 December
IEC 87th General Meeting | Cairo, 22 – 26 October
Results from IEC General Assembly 2022 | San Francisco
Extended Versions Certain standards are required to be read in tandem with another standard, which is known as a reference (or parent) document. The extended version (EXV) of an IEC Standard facilitates the user to be able to consult both IEC standards simultaneously in a single, easy-to-use document.
International Telecommunications Union
The case for standardizing homomorphic encryption
Outcomes of the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference
World Radiocommunication Conference
International Standardization Organization
How ISO codes connect the world
New partnership for ISO and ICC
Must-have skills for the green economy
A partial list of projects with which we have been engaged as an active participant; starting with the original University of Michigan enterprise in the late 1990’s and related collaborations with IEEE and others: (In BOLD font we identify committees with open consultations requiring a response from US stakeholders before next month’s Hello World! colloquium)
IEC/TC 8, et al System aspects of electrical energy supply
IEC/TC 22 Power electronic systems and equipment
IEC/TC 62 Electrical equipment in medical practice
IEC/TC 64 Electrical installations and protection against electric shock
IEC/TC 82 Solar photovoltaic energy systems
IEC/SYC Electrotechnical Aspects of Smart Cities
Standards Michigan Workspace for IEC/ITU Consultations
ISO/IEC JTC 1 Information Technology, et. al
ISO/TC 205 Building environmental design
ISO/TC 229 Nanotechnologies
ISO/TC 232 Education and Learning Services
ISO/TC 260 Human Resource Management
ISO/TC 267 Facility Management
ISO/TC 268 Sustainable cities and communities
ISO/TC 301 Energy management and energy savings
ISO/TC 304 Healthcare organization management
We collaborate with the appropriate ANSI US TAG; or others elsewhere in academia. We have begun tracking ITU titles with special attention to ITU Radio Communication Sector.
main( ) { printf("hello, world\n"); }
We have collaborations with Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Sapienza – Università di Roma, Universität Zürich, Universität Potsdam, Université de Toulouse. Universidade Federal de Itajubá, University of Windsor, the University of Alberta, to name a few — most of whom collaborate with us on electrotechnology issues. Standards Michigan and its 50-state affiliates are (obviously) domiciled in the United States. However, and for most issues, we defer to the International Standards expertise at the American National Standards Institute
ANSI INTERACTIVE MAP: INTERNATIONAL TRADE & DEVELOPMENT
Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
More
Data Point: Global Construction Market is Expected to Reach $11 trillion by 2031
General Public Participation in ANSI ISO Activities
March 2021 edition of the TMB Communiqué.
ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1, Consolidated ISO Supplement
International Electrotechnical Commission Annual Report 2019
ANSI Education & Training Overview
ITU Digital Technical Standards
* A “Hello, World!” program generally is a computer program that outputs or displays the message “Hello, World!”. Such a program is very simple in most programming languages (such as Python and Javascript) and is often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language. It is often the first program written by people learning to code. It can also be used as a sanity test to make sure that a computer language is correctly installed, and that the operator understands how to use it.
Public Input on the 2029 Edition will be received until January 6, 2027
Books cannot be killed by fire. People die, but books never die
No man and no force can put thought in a concentration camp forever
— Franklin Roosevelt
Many education communities build and maintain cultural resource properties whose safety and sustainability objectives are informed by local adaptations of consensus products developed by the International Code Council (ICC) and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). We need to understand the ICC and NFPA product suites as a pair. For most real assets in the education industry they move “roughly” in tandem even though they are produced by different organizations for a different set of customers. Sometimes the out-of-step condition between NFPA and ICC permits subject matter experts on technical committees to make the best possible decisions regarding the safety and sustainability agenda of the interest group they represent; but not always.
Occupancy classification is always a first consideration and both the NFPA and the ICC have a claim to some part of this occupancy concept*. In the ICC suite we find code requirements for many “cultural places of worship” tracking in the following sections of the International Building Code (IBC):
Section 303 Assembly Group A-3
Section 305 Educational Group E
Section 308 Institutional Group I
Note that Sections 305 and 308 recognize the accessory and multi-functional nature of occupancy types in the education industry – i.e child care and adult care function can marge and be an accessory to a place of worship. The general rule in the IBC is that accessory religious educational rooms and religious auditoriums with occupant loads of less than 100 per room or space are not considered separate occupancies. Other standards developers are guided by this rule.







Close coupled to the IBC for this occupancy class is NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship. From the document prospectus:
• This code describes principles and practices of protection for cultural resource properties (including, but not limited to, museums, libraries, and places of worship), their contents, and collections, against conditions or physical situations with the potential to cause damage or loss.
• This code covers ongoing operations and rehabilitation and acknowledges the need to preserve culturally significant and character-defining building features and sensitive, often irreplaceable, collections and to provide continuity of operations.
• Principles and practices for life safety in cultural resource properties are outside the scope of this code. Where this code includes provisions for maintaining means of egress and controlling occupant load, it is to facilitate the evacuation of items of cultural significance, allow access for damage limitation teams in an emergency, and prevent damage to collections through overcrowding or as an unintended consequence of an emergency evacuation.
• Library and museum collections that are privately owned and not open to the public shall not be required to meet the requirements of this code.







Since we are hard upon release of the 2021 Edition of NFPA 909 let us take a backward look at the current (2017) version of NFPA 909 Code for the Protection of Cultural Resource Properties – Museums, Libraries, and Places of Worship. Chapter 14 covers “Museums, Libraries and their Collections”. Chapter 15 covers “Places of Worship”
The 2025 Edition is now open for public input. Let us pick through proposals for the 2021 Edition to inform our approach to its improvement by referencing the technical committee transcripts linked below:
Public Input Report: January 12, 2023
N.B. We find committee response (accepted in principle) to Standards Michigan proposal to articulate conditions in which places of worship and libraries are used as community disaster relief support facilities. We consider this a modest “code win”.
Circling back to the ICC suite we find elevated interest in hardening community owned facilities to tornadoes, hurricane and floods and other storm related risk in the structural engineering chapters of the International Building Code.















Leadership and facility managers for enterprises of this type are encouraged to contribute obtain their own (free) NFPA public participation account in order to directly participate in the 2025 revision of NFPA 909 by logging in here: https://www.nfpa.org/login.
Public consultation on the First Draft of the 2025 Edition closes January 4, 2024.
This document is also a standing item on our periodic Prometheus, Lively and Fine Arts teleconference. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.![]()
Issue: [15-258]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
*See NFPA 101 Life Safety Code
LEARN MORE:
Guidelines for the Security of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Other Special Collections, Association of College & Research Libraries, American Library Association, 50 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60611-2795.
“A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections,” Malaro, Marie, second edition 1998
“Risk and Insurance Management Manual for Libraries,” Mary Breighner and William Payton, edited by Jeanne Drewes, ALA 2005 ISBN 0-8389-8325-1.
Wisconsin Historic Building Code, Madison, WI:Wisconsin Administrative Code.
The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee has completed a chapter on recommended practice for designing, building, operating and maintaining campus exterior lighting systems in the forthcoming IEEE 3001.9 Recommended Practice for the Design of Power Systems for Supplying Commercial and Industrial Lighting Systems; a new IEEE Standards Association title inspired by, and derived from, the legacy “IEEE Red Book“. The entire IEEE Color Book suite is in the process of being replaced by the IEEE 3000 Standards Collection™ which offers faster-moving and more scaleable, guidance to campus power system designers.
Campus exterior lighting systems generally run in the 100 to 10,000 fixture range and are, arguably, the most visible characteristic of public safety infrastructure. Some major research universities have exterior lighting systems that are larger and more complex than cooperative and municipal power company lighting systems which are regulated by public service commissions.
While there has been considerable expertise in developing illumination concepts by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Illumination Engineering Society, the American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers, the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Commission on Illumination, none of them contribute to leading practice discovery for the actual power chain for these large scale systems on a college campus. The standard of care has been borrowed, somewhat anecdotally, from public utility community lighting system practice. These concepts need to be revisited as the emergent #SmartCampus takes shape.
Electrical power professionals who service the education and university-affiliated healthcare facility industry should communicate directly with Mike Anthony (maanthon@umich.edu) or Jim Harvey (jharvey@umich.edu). This project is also on the standing agenda of the IEEE E&H committee which meets online 4 times monthly — every other Tuesday — in European and American time zones. Login credentials are available on its draft agenda page.









Issue: [15-199]
Category: Electrical, Public Safety, Architectural, #SmartCampus, Space Planning, Risk Management
Contact: Mike Anthony, Kane Howard, Jim Harvey, Dev Paul, Steven Townsend, Kane Howard
LEARN MORE:
The Illumination Engineering Society is one of the first names in standards-setting organizations with a catalog routinely referenced in design guidelines and construction projects. Because of the money flow into illumination technologies worldwide the IES occupies a domain that is relatively crowded:
There are others. With illumination power requirement on a downward trajectory where footcandles can be driven at information & communication technology voltage and current levels; we find relatively new entrants into the market with deep pockets and for good reason. In a typical building, the interior lighting load is the major electrical load (on the order of 40 percent) and a major contributor to the functionality of the building. There are a number of other trade associations that are participants in research and open source standards for faster moving parts of the illumination science. We will cover these in future, related posts.






Last year a new standardization project was launched by the IES. From the project prospectus:
IES LP-2-201x, Designing Quality Lighting for People in Outdoor Environments (new standard)
Project Need: This document is not intended to supersede existing IES application RPs, rather it will link the various documents together, augmenting them in subject areas not otherwise covered, including but not limited to sidewalks, bikepaths, pedestrian paths, parks, outdoor malls, pedestrian-only business districts, plazas, amphitheaters, large outdoor gathering areas, campuses, pedestrian bridges, and pedestrian underpasses.
Stakeholders: Lighting practitioners, electrical engineers, civic planners, civil engineers, architects, community-based planning groups, general public. Lighting recommendations for non-vehicular pedestrian applications using recommendations beyond illuminance only, which ultimately fails to provide a complete guideline for the visual experience of pedestrian-based tasks. The RP will be a comprehensive approach for light levels, glare, adaptation, spectrum, and contrast while addressing safety, timing, and perceived security. Application of these recommendations will ultimately enhance the pedestrian’s visual experience while also respecting the environment.
Soon to be released, a related product covering technical specifics of a familiar battleground — lighting controls:
IES LP-12 Lighting Practice: IoT Connected Lighting
The consultation closed May 24th and the agenda of the committee writing this standard is being administered. Very often technical committees are receptive to new ideas after a comment deadline if those ideas are submitted to a committee member directly. We invite anyone with an interest in this topic to click in to any of our daily colloquia to begin that process.
Not far into the future: individually controlled luminaires responsive to the use of campus pathways. There are already some pilot projects on higher education campuses.
A few other technical committees relevant to educational communities should be identified, though we will sort through the standards setting activity in separate posts:
Edu-Lib-Ofc Lighting Committee
Outdoor Environmental Lighting Committee
Outdoor Public Spaces Committee
Roadway Lighting Committee (Many large research universities own miles of roads)
We always encourage direct participation by space planners, workpoint experts and academic unit facility managers in IES standards development process. Contact: Patricia McGillicuddy, (917) 913-0027, pmcgillicuddy@ies.org. 120 Wall Street, Floor 17, New York, NY.
We coordinate most of our electrotechnology standards advocacy with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets 4 times monthly in European and American time zones. Its meeting agendas and login credentials are available on its website. Since illumination technologies are present in all spaces in education communities, IES consensus products will appear on the standing agenda of most disciplines. See our CALENDAR.
Issue: [19-50]
Category: Electrical, Space Planning
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Glenn Keates, George Reiher
*We find that when the SSO has heavy manufacturer support, its standards development facility lies in the upper-quality tier.
Public Input on the 2029 Edition will be received until January 6, 2027
MSU's relationship with @Pewabic dates back to the 1920s, when Pewabic tile began to appear throughout campus.
Years later, MSU absorbed Pewabic for a short period of time as they transitioned from a production pottery to an educational facility to help ensure their future. pic.twitter.com/SsebtJOjlx
— MSU (@michiganstateu) February 27, 2026
“Wir haben Kunst, damit wir nicht
an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehen”
Not every student is passionate about Graph Algorithms, Green Policy or coding the Internet of Things but wants to devote their energy and talent to making the world a better place by making the world a more beautiful place. Spaces for the “creatives” among them are elevated risk spaces. Today we examine the literature for designing, building and maintaining these occupancies in the safest and most sustainable way; among them the spaces for textile research and fashion design; usually co-mingled with drawing, painting, and textile creation space.
The garment industry is multi-disciplinary and is larger than the energy industry. It contributes to the standard for civilization; even though subtly so. For this reason, starting 2023, we will break down our coverage of the literature that supports the fashion industry from the fine arts domain in separate colloquia every quarter.
Fine Arts 200. Exploration of best practice for spaces used for various forms of creative expression that are appreciated for their artistic or aesthetic value, often involving skills and techniques that require specialized training and expertise.
Fashion 300. Best practice literature for the spaces needed for the creation of artworks using textiles and fibers, such as weaving, quilting, or embroidery. Research and teaching spaces in this domain; at the foundation of the garment industry — one of the largest sectors in the economy in any nation — present surprising challenges
See our CALENDAR for a schedule of those session.
US-based standards developers with a footprint in the fine arts domain:
Committee D13 on Textiles Celebrates a Century
2021 International Building Code: Section 305 Educational Group E
Underwriters Laboratories
Lorem ipsum (product testing: kiln heat specifications, fabric and paint flammability, wet and dry fire extinguishing systems, etc.)
National Fire Protection Association
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
Leveraging User-Provided Noisy Labels for Fashion Understanding
Institutional Guidelines
Federal Regulations & Recommendations
Environmental Health and Safety in the Arts Guide for K-12 School, Colleges and Artisans
Global standard developers: (partial list)
Open to everyone. Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
🌤️🌺⛲🌳 pic.twitter.com/bRL7eIY4gg
— Cranbrook Academy of Art (@cranbrookart) July 3, 2023
Architect and Engineers Data Sheet Download | Updates January 2026
These are generally downloads. We are happy to pick through the changes to the Electrical stack depending upon interest.

Left Panel Of George Julian Zolnay’s Allegorical “Academic, Business & Manual Education” Granite Frieze At Francis L. Cardozo High School (Washington, DC)
All fifty United States have their own “signature” disaster with which to reckon; some more than others. California has earthquakes, Florida has hurricanes, Missouri has floods; and so on, Life and property loss are preventable; but losses will persist because technical solutions notwithstanding, culture determines human behavior. It is impossible to be alive and safe.
FM Global is one of several organizations that curate privately developed consensus products that set the standard of care for many industries; education communities among them. These standards contribute to the reduction in the risk of property loss due to fire, weather conditions, and failure of electrical or mechanical equipment. They incorporate nearly 200 years of property loss experience, research and engineering results, as well as input from consensus standards committees, equipment manufacturers and others.
If you want FMGlobal as your insurance carrier, or to supplement your organization’s self-insurance program, then you will likely be assigned an FMGlobal conformity professional.
A scan of its list data sheets indicate a number of noteworthy updates of documents establishing minimum requirements for safety technologies common in education facilities:
Technical Reports Supporting Code Change
Note that the bulk of the safety concepts in the foregoing titles incorporate by reference the safety concepts that cross our radar every day FM Global provides direct access to the full span of its documents at this link:
FM GLOBAL PROPERTY LOSS PREVENTION DATA SHEETS
Note FM Global updates its standards every three months:
To respond to calls for public consultation you will need to set up (free) access credentials.
We keep FMGlobal titles — and the literature of other property insurers involved in standards setting — on the standing agenda of our Risk, Snow and Prometheus colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next meeting.
Issue: [Various]
Category: Risk, Facility Asset Management
More
Deloitte University: Innovation in Insurance
University of Pennsylvania demonstrates the critical importance of sprinklers in dormitories
Syracuse University presents an eclectic mix of risk management challenges
Representative force majeure clauses.
Example 1: Basic Force Majeure Clause
“Neither party shall be liable for any failure or delay in performance of its obligations under this agreement due to events beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, war, terrorism, civil commotion, labor strikes, and natural disasters. The affected party shall promptly notify the other party of the force majeure event and take reasonable steps to mitigate its impact on performance. During the continuance of such events, the obligations of the affected party shall be suspended, and the time for performance shall be extended.”
Example 2: Detailed Force Majeure Clause
“In the event that either party is unable to perform its obligations under this agreement due to a force majeure event, the affected party shall promptly notify the other party in writing, specifying the nature and anticipated duration of the force majeure event. Force majeure events shall include, but are not limited to, acts of God, strikes, lockouts, government action or inaction, war, terrorism, epidemics, and natural disasters. The affected party shall use reasonable efforts to overcome or mitigate the effects of the force majeure event. If the force majeure event continues for a period of [specified duration], either party may terminate this agreement by providing written notice to the other party.”
IEC 60364-1:2025 (6th edition, published September 5, 2025) replaces the 2005 edition (5th edition). This is a major technical revision with significant changes which we will cover throughout 2026 — after NESC and NEC work
Technical Committee 64 develops the International Electrotechnical Commission consensus product that covers similar territory for the global electrical power industry as NFPA 70 (National Electrical Code). Keep in mind that the safety traditions of the NFPA suite of consensus products are inspired by fire safety considerations. IEC 60363 Electrical installations and protection against electric shock — the parent document that applies to the wiring systems of education and healthcare facilities — was inspired from voltage safety.
The scope of IEC 60364 is reproduced below:
– concerning protection against electric shock arising from equipment, from installations and from systems without limit of voltage,
– for the design, erection foreseeable correct use and verification of all kind of electrical installations at supply voltage up to 1 kV a.c or 1,5 kV d.c., except those installations covered by the following IEC committees: TC 9, TC 18, TC 44, TC 97, TC99
– in co-ordination with TC 99, concerning requirements additional to those of TC 99 for the design, erection and verification of electrical installations of buildings above 1kV up to 35kV.
The object of the standards shall be:
– to lay down requirements for installation and co-ordination of electrical equipment
– to lay down basic safety requirements for protection against electric shock for use by technical committees
– to lay down safety requirements for protection against other hazards arising from the use of electricity
– to give general guidance to IEC member countries that may have need of such requirements
– and to facilitate international exchanges that may be hampered by differences in national regulations.
The standards will not cover individual items of electrical equipment other than their selection for use. Safety Pilot Function: Protection against electric shock.
KUPDF Commentary on 60364 and comparisons with NFPA 70 National Electrical Code
Since neither the USNA National Committee to the IEC (USNA/IEC), nor the US Technical Advisory Administrator (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) has a workspace set up for responding to IEC 60364 calls for public comment, we set one up for ourselves several years ago for education facility and electrical engineering faculty and students:
IEC | USNA IEC Workspace | Updated 12 June 2023
Note that anyone in the world is welcomed to comment upon IEC documents, contingent upon obtaining (free) login credentials. To review the the strike-and-bold you will need login credentials. Alternatively, you may click in to the 4-times monthly teleconferences of the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Massimo Mittolo, Giuseppe Parise
Most nations follow the day/month/year format (07/01/19 for January 7, 2019, for example), but the United States adheres to its own format of month/day/year (1/7/19 or 1/7/2019). The potential for misinterpreting dates across national boundaries is the logic for ISO 8601:2019 – Data Elements And Interchange Formats – Information Interchange – Representation Of Dates And Times, the ISO format for dates represents year, month, and day from the largest unit to the smallest, most specific unit of time. The ISO date format is the date format used in SQL and is the default date setting on many computers.
ISO 8601-1:2019 Date And Time – Representations For Information Interchange – Part 1: Basic Rules
More
How the ISO Date Format Tells Today
Date and time formats used in HTML
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
Standards Michigan Group, LLC
2723 South State Street | Suite 150
Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
888-746-3670