Thinking Big & Bold in Utility Joint Use Asset Management

The 2025 Alden Conference opened with a spirited welcome from CEO John Sciarabba that did more than just kick off the event. It set the tone for what promised to be an exciting and collaborative gathering. 

Sciarabba explored how the Alden ONE community is scaling not only in size but also in impact on joint use operations, emphasizing the importance of thinking “Big Vulcan” big. Vulcan is Birmingham, Alabama’s, iconic 56-foot cast-iron statue standing atop a 124-foot pedestal and weighing more than 101,000 pounds. In other words, Vulcan is BIG.

As the largest cast-iron statue in the world and the largest metal statue ever made in the U.S., Vulcan is an apt symbol for what Alden aims to help our clients achieve: meaningful, scalable, and powerful change in utility joint use and asset management operations.

Embrace the 10X Mindset with ‘Big Vulcan’ Thinking

“Big Vulcan” was the prevailing metaphor of the morning. 

Sciarabba referenced a mock campaign to generate support for creating an even larger statue than the current Vulcan behemoth. The new statue, according to the campaign, was to be 10 times the size of the original.

While the campaign wasn’t real, the idea behind it was: Think beyond constraints. The example served as a prompt to think boldly, unbounded by current limitations or the way things have always been done.

Sciarabba encouraged attendees to imagine what’s possible when we aim for transformational—rather than incremental—growth, the kind of growth that positively impacts all stakeholders in joint use and real estate asset management. We believe that we work better when we work together.

Growth By the Numbers

At Alden, we’ve adopted the “Big Vulcan” mindset, which has enabled us to achieve considerable growth. 

• The 2025 Alden Conference saw 5X growth since its inception. This is a clear signal that collaboration is no longer optional. It’s never been more important for joint use stakeholders to connect with each other, their internal cross-departmental teams, and their external partners, including other owners, attachers, engineering service firms, and construction providers. 

• In 2024, customers uploaded data for 19 million additional utility poles into Alden ONE—and there’s another 10 million on the way. Customers added more than 300,000 streetlights, along with additional vaults and cell towers. As users manage more assets—and asset types—within the platform, they gain greater value through centralized, secure, and unified data access. 

• Customers completed more than 151,000 Conversations in the past year alone. That’s a lot of work! Kudos to all the unsung heroes working tirelessly to connect, power, and inform our world. We see you, and we thank you.
  
  
• Customers processed more than $100 million in transactions, with $60 million through ePay online payments! It’s 2025, and everyone deserves to have the option to safely, securely, and immediately pay online. 

Alden ONE Software Evolution

A lot has changed since the 2024 Alden Conference:

• Expanded asset management tools and increased support for violations, streetlights, and towers.
  
  
• Integrated online payments, including ACH and credit card support, plus easier reconciliation. Learn more.
  
  
• A family tree visualizer, which offers a new way to view relationships between related Conversations for greater transparency.
  
  
• Multilingual capabilities (in testing), through which customers can set per-user language preferences to support global teams. 
  
  
• Improved data handling to drive faster imports and robust analytics powered by the Alden ONE Data Lake. 

The bottom line: Alden’s mission is to build a smarter, faster, and more secure platform to meet our clients’ rapidly evolving needs.

Takeaways from the 2025 Alden Conference 

In addition to the importance of the “Big Vulcan” approach, conference attendees also learned more about how Alden Systems is helping usher in the future of joint use and asset management.

Raising the Bar on Security

In an era in which cybersecurity is top of mind for most organizations—and for good reason—Alden has officially achieved SOC 2 Type 2 certification. This third-party audit verifies that our operational and security practices meet the highest standards—a critical necessity for enterprise clients navigating new compliance and risk management requirements. 
 
“We’re keeping it safe and secure,” Sciarabba said. In a world of escalating cyber threats, that commitment matters more than ever.

Keeping Client Stories Front & Center

This year’s conference focused on the Alden ONE community at large. Client-led sessions showcased how our clients are using the system to improve their work processes, save time, and increase efficiency. 

Throughout the conference, Alden ONE clients presented case studies and shared how they’re driving real-world impact at their companies.

Collaborating & Elevating

As the joint use and utility infrastructure world becomes even more interconnected, Sciarabba reminded attendees of a shared mission: “We all have one common goal—positive impact on our communities.” After all, Alden’s motto is “Better Communities through Better Infrastructure.”

Alden’s mission is to help you scale your impact, whether you own or manage poles, attach to assets to provide services, or support utility operations as an engineering or construction partner.

What’s Your Big Idea?

The challenge is on! This isn’t just an invitation to dream. It’s a nudge to act. Think boldly, collaborate widely, and take steps toward meaningful industry transformation—one pole, one process, one partnership at a time.

In our upcoming articles, we’ll highlight several of the customer use cases and stories presented at the conference. Stay tuned!

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