(Illustration by Nancy Soulliard for ENR)

An industry consortium working to promulgate new technology in construction is hosting an online auction in which participants get $1 million to invest via sealed bids among 15 categories of new technology. The money is imaginary, but the auctioneers hope the acumen of the bidders will not be. They hope the bid-style survey will offer insight into the directions technology developers should go.

"We think construction industry people will relate to bidding," says Charles Wood, manager of the project for Austin, Texas-based FIATECH. "It should also provoke more thought about not only the bidders' interests, but the perception of what the bidders' industry competitors will value," he says. Bid documents are at http://www.fiatech.org and results will be posted there later.