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TRXL

Evan Troxel

Join architect Evan Troxel as he explores important topics surrounding the co-evolution of technology and architecture. Guests from the architectural community and beyond join in long-form conversations about the influence digital transformation is having on the profession with long digressions on leadership, change management, knowledge transfer, where all this may lead to in the future of the building industry, and more.

  • 169: ‘Shaping an Innovation Culture’, with Matthew Krissel
    169: ‘Shaping an Innovation Culture’, with Matthew Krissel

    Matthew Krissel joins the podcast to talk about his extensive 25-year journey in the architectural field including his history at KieranTimberlake and now at Perkins&Will, his new design leadership course at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Architecture in which his students design new business models for architectural practice, integrating Artificial Intelligence in architectural education, creative friction, group dynamics, the power of questions, the role of safe spaces for creativity, the impact of organizational structure on creativity, reimagining digital practice in architecture, the importance of presentation skills, encouraging entrepreneurship in architectural education, reimagining workflows with AI, and the impact of AI on architectural education and practice.

    Episode links:

    About Matthew Krissel:

    Matthew is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and has led the design and construction of transformative architectural projects in North America and Internationally for over two decades. He is a principal at Perkins&Will, a global, interdisciplinary architecture and design firm.

    In 2023, Matthew co-founded the Built Environment Futures Council (BEFC), a diverse, multidisciplinary group that advances design, technology, and Artificial Intelligence in Architecture and Construction with actionable leadership and insight. He also founded and directs Creative Lab 3, an innovative research and design platform focusing on architecture, writing, and photography to catalyze and shape ideas and research that inspire change and transform our collective future.

    He regularly shares his work, methods, and ideas, speaking and publishing nationally and internationally on architecture, design, and the intersection of technology and the built environment. As an adjunct faculty member at the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, he is invested in developing the next generation of design leaders.

    Before joining Perkins&Will, Matthew was a Partner at KieranTimberlake in Philadelphia. His design work over nearly 20 years at KT helped shape the firm’s most significant and impactful projects, including iconic, institution-defining architecture and small homes with big ideas.

    Notable completed projects include the award-winning Paulson Center at New York University, Scaife Hall at Carnegie Mellon University, the U.S. Embassy in London, and Cellophane House™, which was featured at the Museum of Modern Art.

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    Episode 169 Transcript:

    169: ‘Shaping an Innovation Culture’, with Matthew Krissel

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. In this episode I welcome Matthew Krissel. Matt is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a Principal at Perkins&Will which is a global interdisciplinary architecture and design firm. Of course, you already knew that. In 2023, Matthew co-founded the Built Environment, Futures Council, a diverse multidisciplinary group that advances design, technology, and artificial intelligence in architecture and construction with actionable leadership and insight. He also founded and directs Creative Lab 3, an innovative research and design platform, focusing on architecture, writing, and photography to catalyze and shape ideas and research that inspires change to transform our collective future. Before joining Perkins&Will, Matthew was a partner at KieranTimberlake in Philadelphia. And his [00:01:00] design work over nearly 20 years at KT helped shape the firm's most significant and impactful projects, including iconic institution defining architecture and small homes with big ideas. He regularly shares his work methods and ideas speaking and publishing nationally and internationally on architecture, design, and the intersection of technology and the built environment. As an adjunct faculty member at Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, he is invested in developing the next generation of design leaders.

    Today, we talk about his extensive 25 year journey in the architectural field, including his history at KieranTimberlake and now at Perkins&Will. His new design leadership course at Carnegie Mellon in which his students design new business models for architectural practice, integrating AI in architectural education, creative friction group dynamics, the power of questions, the role of safe spaces for creativity, the impact of organizational structure on creativity, re-imagining digital practice in architecture, [00:02:00] the importance of presentation skills, encouraging entrepreneurship and architectural education, re-imagining workflows with AI, and the impact of AI on architectural education and practice.

    As always, I would appreciate your help in giving this podcast a boost in the vast media landscape by subscribing, wherever you listen.

    And if you'd like to receive an email, when new episodes are published with all of the links and other information from the episodes as they come out, sign up at trxl.co.

    This was a great conversation with Matt and I hope you'll not only find value in it for yourself, but that you'll help add value to the profession by sharing it with your network.

    And now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Matthew Krissel

    ​

    Evan Troxel: Matthew Krissel welcome to the podcast. Great to have you. Finally,

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. Thank you, Evan. Great, great to be here. I know we [00:03:00] bumped into each other at the convention

    and it was one of those moments where I've been a long time listener of the podcast and, uh, you just kind of came alive in front of me and we had a chance to chat, uh, in person. It was wonderful to get to finally talk to you and, uh, chat a little bit about some of the things on your mind and what you're up to.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. And, and, and before you make this about me, I want to make it about you. So the, the idea of, of this podcast is really around, or that the topic is really around this course that you're teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in the School of Architecture, which I think is in the Department of Fine Arts.

    Is that what it is?

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: Okay. and you have a lot of other things going on in your life as well. So. Before we get to that topic, maybe you can just give us a bit of let's just call it recent past, your history here, your trajectory of, of what you've been working on. I mean, I think we've probably known of each other for a decade or something, maybe even longer, but online only until we, until we saw each [00:04:00] other in DC at the AIA conference.

    But give everybody

    who's listening an idea of, of who you are and what you've been up to. Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: So I have been in practice for a little over 25 years.

    My story began in architecture, really, at the University of Buffalo, where I went for college. Uh, four year degree program. I moved to New York City, 1997. Incredible time to be in New York. Incredible time. The economy was booming. Uh, I joined Skidmore, Wings of Merrill. I jumped on a bus with two duffel bags, moved to New York City, didn't know anybody, threw myself into the work.

    I was there for about a year and a half and then transitioned to Cone, Pettersen, Fox. I was there for about four years and then the opportunity to go to graduate school presented itself. I applied to the University of Pennsylvania and began there and moved to Philadelphia at the end of 2002 and was there from really in the program from 03 to 05.

    And that was that incredible time, Evan. You know, just remember that period of that transition [00:05:00] from, so when I was in college, we were hand drawing still.

    Evan Troxel: Yep.

    Matthew Krissel: I moved to New York. I've got to learn AutoCAD. I transitioned to ComparisonFox. They're using MicroStation. Halfway through my time there, they retrained the entire office to AutoCAD.

    And then I go to Penn and it's all, you know, the emergence of Rhino and 3DS Max and Maya and all these other tools. You know, before Autodesk kind of bought all these things, things like EcoTAC,

    these like, These, like, abstract, these odd programs on the periphery, these fundamental drawing and modeling programs.

    And so early on, I was getting this sense of how you kind of start over that, that importance of being data nimble and kind of tool agnostic, as I describe it, that there's, you know, the ecosystem of architecture is going to be one that's always dynamic and always changing. And so Penn, you know, was transitioning from kind of a traditional pedagogy to this incredibly digital forward in that period of 03 05 that I was there.

    [00:06:00] While I was there, I got introduced to some folks at KieranTimberlake practice here in Philadelphia. And I started working there as a summer intern, and I had, you know, in New York, I was working as skyscrapers all over the world, and I joined this incredible practice that was just really starting to take off in terms of some notoriety, some wonderful projects.

    But what was fantastic was they had just published the book, Refabricating Architecture. And what I found when I got there as both a summer intern and then I joined full time in 2005 when I graduated from Penn was that they were a place invested in, uh, at the leadership level all the way throughout the culture, this idea of fostering exploratory behavior.

    And so it was a little bit of reading that book and seeing it come to life in the sense of, uh, integration of research, of computation, tools, technology, and the value of looking outside of architecture. So. Through the book, it looks at the shipbuilding industry, the carbon, how can we look at other people to see [00:07:00] how might we think differently about fabrication is one way or the way we draw, but we organize ourselves.

    So that's hard to plant another seed. So one is starting to become more nimble. Two is starting to look around outside architecture. And so when I show up there coming out of Penn, I was one of the few people who could model and render at the speed of design, as I like to describe it. I could actually change the workflows and how we were working and thinking, not just as a production tool, but as a design tool.

    And so there's this wonderful, opportunity and confluence of starting to see what it means to integrate technology and research into every design project, uh, throughout. Um, and of course, James and Steve, the founders, James Timberlake, Steve Caron, the founders, recognized my propensity for an interest in technology and computation and research.

    I was involved in the research group. I was involved in all the competitions. I was at the kind of forefront of a lot of Really interesting, speculative, sometimes proactive work that was going on in the practice. [00:08:00] And so that was the first key thing within my kind of 20 years that I was at CUNY Timberlake, was that first, that kind of leadership investment, and that shapes and drives the culture, of course, of that interest in kind of exploratory behavior in integrating research and technology through everything we do.

    The second big milestone as I kind of reflect on my time there and how much that's shaped my point of view was in 2008, they hired Billy Faircloth to be the research director. And she came in and just completely, so I was part of the research group. It was a little bit of a wild west. We were jumping on all kinds of interesting things.

    It was, um, extremely exciting and fun and a dynamic place to be. She came in and just brought a clear vision, intentionality, new energy, and focus, and accountability to a way that research could shape practice in a fundamentally different way than, you know, And

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Matthew Krissel: this concept of [00:09:00] transdisciplinary design and started to set a course of how to hire and aggregate talent with all these different backgrounds to create a core group of people that then, as she and I began to work together on things, we'd start to figure out ways to deploy all these different skill sets on different teams.

    So whether it's computational backgrounds, ecology backgrounds, creative writing backgrounds, and you're putting them into design teams that normally would just be full of architects, and then you'd have your kind of, you know, usual kind of consultant collaborations. So that was the kind of a second key thing as, as Billy came.

    And so we really reorganized the fundamental trajectory of what it means to be, you know, a research integrated practice where there weren't that many models and architecture, really, it's more common now, but at the time, it was certainly at the forefront. And how much that changed and started to create a different sense of agency.

    Uh, in practice and what you could do and what you could accomplish and then really again focusing in on how you [00:10:00] think of the way we organize ourselves as an active design, you know, to do great work, we have to design the relationship to each other. as much as we design the things around us. So that was the second kind of pivotal thing that really started to shape a point of view and an interest in, uh, this thinking of organization and the people we surround ourselves with and how critical it is to have that kind of diversity and multi dimensional, uh, thinking.

    The third one was this opportunity that was presented to me, um, so coming out of the Great Recession, firms starting to build up, as I mentioned when we when I started there. 2005 was about 30 people. Uh, at its peak, it got up to about 130 people. When I left in April of 23, it was around 100 people.

    So at this time, coming out of the Great Recession, we're starting to build up.

    We won the U. S. Embassy competition that I was working on, and work was starting to come in. We're building the firm back up, and James Timberlake pulled me aside and challenged me to kind of re imagine digital design at KT. What might this be? [00:11:00] You know, they'd always been at the forefront of this. Uh, through the, you know, the challenges of the economy and everyone trying to keep the firm together and running, you start to, you know, those kind of initiatives can drift and the investments in those can start to drift.

    And here we had a chance to refocus, re, reinvest, really reimagine. And he gave me complete flexibility to come up with something, see what he can come up with. And. So I set it back and this is one of those first chances I had, you know, chance to kind of rethink an entire structure of a firm and what were some of my observations, what might we do differently?

    And one of the observations there's, you know, this A lot of people like to write things down, create plans, strategic plans. And so the way I've phrased it back was how about instead of a plan, we just build a platform. We need something that's less about writing things down that you can never keep up to date.

    We need to just start putting people in conversations with each other. If we want to move ideas effectively, through an organization, we've got to be [00:12:00] faster, more fluid, uh, more organic discourse. And so I pitched this idea of we had a research group, communications group, and architectural teams, uh, about creating a new digital design platform.

    Involve these kind of three key components, which was the visioning group, which brought together people from communications, graphic designers, architects, different, um, diversity of age and experience and research group members. There were times where to have strategic conversations once a month, there were times I'd bring in a summer intern, you know, who's there for a couple of months, have a strategic conversation, anything you could grab onto to get a different.

    Perspective, different idea, pulse of what's going on outside the organization as much as what people are seeing inside.

    So I had a chance to start to set up these kind of monthly strategic conversations. And then the second tier of that was we established these unique task teams. And one thing we learned was you really need to be.

    Um, for digital design, you have to be addressing day to day needs. There's so many day to [00:13:00] day needs in an organization.

    Um, but at the same time, you also have to be thinking far out into the future. You can't just be so focused in on putting out fires all the time.

    So we created this range of taskings that eventually consolidated over time.

    But in the beginning, there were so many conversations that people wanted to have. And on the far end of the spectrum, Billy and I co created this group we call Near Future Practices. And this set up a, a bi weekly conversation where again, all the different disciplines firm would come together and have a conversation about what you're seeing out in the industry.

    What are you seeing outside of the industry? Um, what are some of the great ideas you're seeing in projects that are just getting crushed into the, The, the weight of deadlines and, and all that kind of, um, you know, value engineering exercises, a space to pull things out of project based exploration and get into another space that could have a different timeline to it.

    We can nurture it differently. We could talk about it differently. And because the firm had always built [00:14:00] in a way for some proactive work, we had an opportunity to then actually engage and develop out ideas, just at least to get a little further. And it's amazing how many things spun out of that. Um, that the firm was involved in and just how that then feedback feeds back into the firm and practice throughout different projects.

    The third component of that was, again, to get the entire firm conversation going. This was creating more robust knowledge communities, which, again, sounds really common now. But back in 2012, 2013, just wasn't happening as much. And this was monthly conversations. The whole office got together at one o'clock on Fridays, everybody.

    And again, if the leaders show up

    the room and engage in discourse and conversation, and it gave a chance to really create a forum of really robust design discourse and debates and, um, Demonstrate tools and workflows, demonstrate something on a project. We started a group. I'm going to refine that into themes, but basically all those parts working together began to redefine just how [00:15:00] ideas and knowledge flowed through the practice.

    And so that was a, um, those are kind of three things. And when I really think about those 20 years that I was at Cure in Timberlake, were pretty crucial to starting to set up this, this mindset, um, and this way to kind of work and operate. So in April of 23, I decided to leave. Karen Timberlake. And I was, uh, made a partner in the firm in 2015, and I've been working on remarkable projects.

    I was getting involved in all these initiatives from digital design to the research group to hiring, um, and leadership opportunities on various projects. But I found, and I know you've talked about this too at times, it's a little bit of this kind of restlessness starts to settle in. And, uh, as amazing as it was, and I'd reached the pinnacle of the profession in many ways,

    it was also

    I was getting very comfortable.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: And it's, uh, it's one of those things.

    Evan Troxel: I'm thinking of this whole idea of like, it's an [00:16:00] interesting struggle to, your whole life as an architect, being an architect. Comfortable with being uncomfortable. And then you get to a point where you're comfortable and you're like, Whoa, like, and a lot of people stay there, right?

    Like, be honest, right? Like a lot of

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: at that point in your career, it's like, you've earned it. And

    then on some level you kind of feel like that. And then there's, there's people like yourself who are, you're, you're thinking like, I kind of don't like being that comfortable and you have this, this discomfort with comfortability all of a sudden.

    you want to, you want to kind of flip that over again.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. And to go back to, you know, where I began with all this constant change through my career, whether it was tools or just cultures or different elements, I, and just in my normal, non architecture life, all my hobbies and other interests. I enjoy new things, starting things over, building something from scratch.

    And so here is getting a little restless, feeling a little comfortable. I know that to do great work, you kind of have to be [00:17:00] uncomfortable. It helps if you're really trying to stretch yourself, being uncomfortable is a wonderful way to do it as, as difficult as that can be. Um, so I wondered, was I losing a little bit of an edge?

    Was things getting a little too easy?

    and so I started, I just started an open conversation with my partners and, uh, they were in full support. I decided to, to depart. My projects were in a great place. The firm was in a great place and I just needed a, a change really. And so I stepped away and I honestly had no specific plans.

    Evan Troxel: mm

    Matthew Krissel: fortunate to be in a financial position that my wife and I and my family could take some time and, you know, consider my options

    and really just step back and reflect. And so I stepped away in April of 23 and there are a couple of things that I did. So one I, I started to just re engage with so many people that I'd lost touch with, and you know, when you're in the AAC community long enough, you forget [00:18:00] how many relationships and just people you've met, people you've worked with over the years, whether it's really intense on a project and you haven't talked to them in a long time, or old friends from New York that I worked So I started to reconnect with people, talk to people who started their own practice, listen to their origin stories, see how they were doing it.

    Randy Deutsch and I co founded a Futures Council, the Built Environment Futures Council. So I had this idea about, um. Everything that started to bubble up in 22 and 23 about artificial intelligence, it was very academic and there was no one really talking about what it means in practice. my natural inclination at my point in my career is when I see something, I just want to get some people together and let's talk about it and see if we can make it better.

    Can we take a crack at it? Can we do something? Can we engage somehow? So my instinct is to build a group. And so we, uh, in this period of where I, where I, after I left KT, uh, Randy and I started [00:19:00] a conversation about building this national, diverse, transdisciplinary group of design and construction leaders.

    And it was specific about this conversation around artificial intelligence, uh, bring our leadership, bring our insight, um, and make it specific to, to, you know, issues in practice. And because we had so many relationships, we were able to get Uh, landscape architects, people in robotics, people in software, authors, uh, people in construction, fabrication, um, and architects at all different scales of companies and organizations.

    And we met once a month for a year and just started to continue. We did two hour workshops and just got a conversation going and we would connect us. What have you seen? What have you heard? What are you working on? And we took the approach within that. It was kind of a ground up infiltration into practice about, uh, synthesizing all these conversations.

    So, so I step away. I've got the flexibility and freedom of time. I'm having [00:20:00] conversations. I start this futures council. That's great. The other thing it is. 1 of the folks I called was Omar Khan at, uh, Carnegie Mellon. And this is where this kind of feeds into this course. He and I met back, he was at the University of Buffalo before.

    I'd given a talk up there. He'd run these wonderful ceramic workshops with Boston Valley, bringing outside partners in with the school. I have a really nice relationship. And so one of the things I did was I pitched a few ideas and it gets back to this opportunity I had that as I was reflecting on, you know, what I've accomplished, where I've been, the kind of work I've done.

    There's a chance to say, you know, I've got a lot to give back.

    And in this moment of pause and reflection, I could figure out a way to get back to, you know, teaching and

    really sharing, sharing what I've, what I've learned and what I've,

    Evan Troxel: was that instigated by you or was that prompted by him? Or how, how did, how did, uh, who, who, who knocked first

    Matthew Krissel: uh, I called him, uh, he had seen the news that I had left and was curious as to what I was [00:21:00] up to and I said, Hey, you know, I'm in Philadelphia, Carnegie Mellon's in Pittsburgh. It's about 5 hours away. I've got family there. I did a project there and I know the campus very well that had just finished up as I departed.

    And so I said, Hey, look, you know, I'm interested. I've got a couple of ideas. Can we have a conversation? I want to see if this gets any traction. And so I pitched this idea of this course, this idea of creating cultures of innovation and design leadership and agency. And with the. content that it was this conversation around something that was not trying to, well, within the professional practice realm, which has so many things they have to do for their accreditation and topic areas, there was a whole bunch of reality of practice that just doesn't fit into those boxes you have to tick that a typical professional practice course has to land.

    So I pitched it as this idea of a seminar, uh, something that would bring [00:22:00] unique guest speakers and find sources of, of, uh, reading and listening, um, and really kind of reposition. a conversation about putting people intentionally at intersections, putting people at crossroads to look outside architecture for inspirational models of working.

    And so I kind of loosely pitched this idea. He said, gosh, that sounds great. Why don't you work on it, build something up? How would you do it? So this is, you know, spring of, of, of 23, wasn't, wouldn't have time to do it by the fall. So I had till the spring of 24 semester to develop this out. And so I spent some time with him to develop these ideas and concepts out, which we'll, we'll get into a little bit more.

    So in that year, I start to build this class. I am reflecting and having all these conversations. I decide to launch my own practice. I had a couple of opportunities bubbling up. So I launch. I practiced, which was called Creative Lab 3, and I got a couple of projects out of the [00:23:00] gate, doing some concept designs, doing some work, institutional work, some residential work, um, got this wonderful, uh, master plan at a museum to work on.

    I started to, I brought, uh, a person on to work with me, and after about a year, things were going pretty well, I was actually at a point where I needed to start to grow. And had to really start to, again, I was at a crossroads of, okay, you know, right now I'm bankrolling everything out of my savings and,

    uh, and anything that came in, just reinvesting it into the practice.

    And it was at this point of, okay, if I'm going to grow, that's a whole nother kind of financial investment, intellectual investment. Well, I'm in this kind of crossroads and opportunity bubbled up and this was a conversation that started with the folks at Perkins&Will. So I had a conversation with the managing director from the New York office, um, about this opportunity to, they had, uh, uh, just the beginnings of a filled office studio.

    And, you know, would I be [00:24:00] interested in doing what I'm doing now, which is building a practice from scratch, going and getting work, hiring people, building a culture of design and innovation? Would I do it with them instead? And, At first, I wasn't quite sure. I had already invested so much and started my own practice.

    As I started to really think through, um, you know, if it was 10 years ago, maybe I'd have the energy for doing, continue to do everything myself. And when you're running your own practice, the chance to, um, really, um, a mature practice and infrastructure, the opportunity to be entrepreneurial, still build something in Philly, shape culture, design, talent, clients who we're going to work with within this incredible global interdisciplinary firm.

    It became something it was almost too good to pass up. And so

    as I'm having conversations now, I've never, you know, I haven't, I hired hundreds of people, but I haven't interviewed for a job in 20 [00:25:00] years. I'm in a totally different position. It's a principal level position. It's so it's just a very different process that I was kind of learning on the fly.

    So you're having a lot of lunches, dinners, and you're meeting, just having conversations, you know, is this a good fit? And so some of my criteria of, okay, they do outstanding work. Do aspirational work, check. The other big one is at this position in my life, I just want to work with great people.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: you know, I need to be surrounded by outstanding talent and people.

    And so the folks in New York I was meeting, and then the woman, my counterpart here in Philadelphia, principal of the firm, her name's Laura Morris, super talented, smart. Uh, met with her and had a really frank conversation about what, what the opportunity really was. What does it mean to build a new studio within this, you know, a place of 32 studios around the world.

    And we had a great conversation and, um, Again, just became an opportunity is too good, too good to pass up. So I had to make the difficult decision to wind my practice down over the [00:26:00] summer, uh, begin to phase in at Perkins&Will. I said, I'm just kind of getting started. Um, so a lot of business development, a couple of projects I've been able to jump on.

    Um, but that's where I am right now in October, 2024. I'm at the frontier of this new chapter with this incredible practice that I'm still getting to know and learn. Um, and the opportunity to really kind of build up the talent and growth and aspirations to reach for something, this capacity for positive impact that I just couldn't do building a practice from scratch on my own, you know, boarding this kind of rocket ship that's already in motion and the infrastructure and talent already in place,

    um, it allows me to kind of pair and sync up with where I'm at and what the opportunities really are for, for impact.

    Evan Troxel: Your career potential is what you make of it, right? Like, this is one of those things where it just kind of illustrates that it's like, what can [00:27:00] you do for your country kind of thing, right? Ask

    your country can do for you. Like, what, it's like, what, what can architecture do for you? Or

    what can you do for architecture?

    And it seems to me, like, if you have the motivation and the will, like, there's so many ways that you can do it. Make an impact in architecture, right? And I think we'll, we'll talk more about your course and what you're trying to do with that, but it really seems like is a great example of that. And, and I imagine that this also makes for some great storytelling, uh, with your students that you have in the course, right?

    Because you've, you've lived this. I imagine that there's, there's a lot of great information that becomes part of this, this course that you're teaching at Carnegie Mellon. Mm

    Matthew Krissel: yeah, the idea that I, you know, joined a practice that had this incredible robust idea that I was a big part of shaping the culture over 20 years, to then going out on my own and having to build something from scratch and all the facets that entails, and then now [00:28:00] joining a place with a chance to build something from scratch, but now with a whole different set of infrastructure.

    It's almost every possible way you can imagine. Different ways to begin, um, and, and develop over time. And

    Yeah.

    it's an incredible opportunity, great moment, and I'm excited to share it and develop it into this, this course.

    Evan Troxel: It's interesting to think of you teaching this course that is really about the All of these outside influences and looking for maybe new ways to operate, new ways, different ways to build teams. And, and you're, you're doing that in a larger construct now at Perkins&Will, which is a stat, like how old is Perkins&Will, right?

    It's

    old, right,

    Matthew Krissel: in 1935. Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: right, right. So 90 years

    almost. Right. and, and, um, It's, it's interesting to think about, and I've been through something similar, the firm that I was at was probably close to 85 years old now. Um, And, and developing something in, and it's not like every, nobody in the firm has been around that [00:29:00] long, right?

    It's, it's obviously, but they've been there a long time and there's behaviors, there's,

    there's just ways of working

    that are embedded and so hard to break free of.

    You do have a little bit of a different scenario there where you're in a new location for them, right? You're in,

    where you are, you know your, you know your, area probably better than they do in some senses, and in other ways they have so much expertise in these different market segments, and you're trying to kind of merge something. Pulling all of these things together again, though, in a really established place and, and innovating in an existing environment is not easy, right? Like, I've been through that. It's, it's really difficult. Um, I, I'm just curious to kind of, obviously they're open to that. And so maybe before we get to your course, I mean, if you have some words around building intrapreneurial ship, right?

    Like doing something inside of a firm. versus doing something outside of a firm where you are [00:30:00] starting your own practice and you have a complete carte blanche, right, to go off and do whatever you want. I'm just curious, like, what your experience or advice you could give people about doing that kind of a thing inside of an existing organization and how it might be different than starting fresh.

    Matthew Krissel: can just say, you know, when I interviewed, that's part of what I pitched,

    you know, there's plenty of people, 20 plus years of experience who just needs, you know, somewhat competent to go get some work and run a technically sound studio. But if you want somebody who's interested and you've seen my background, like.

    Project experience and the kind of things that I've done, the other spaces that have been involved in. There are a few other things I didn't quite mention in that quick overview, but, um, if you want all that, you know, within this, this framework, um, then let's talk because that that's interesting to me.

    And in fact, the challenge of. Um, merging those two spaces when you have a very mature practice, there's a lot of momentum there that [00:31:00] sometimes can be an uphill battle to untangle. Um, but if you have people that are actually open and receptive, you can then wire that energy in the right direction and just kind of reoriented to a different trajectory.

    So, the key thing for me was, uh, so, uh, associated with the New York studio and New York studio leadership. And then I got to meet people throughout the corporation. But those early conversations were all around, uh, there's fresh leadership. Throughout the organization, um, there is a desire for fresh ideas, for what it means when you bring new people into a place, uh, to intentionally agitate, to stir a little bit of a different direction, and, um, you know, what I was bringing was mutually beneficial.

    I was bringing, you know, a totally different perspective and a way of working and a way of thinking. I'm still just getting started. So we'll see. I haven't hit a lot of resistance and roadblocks. Actually, what I found is if you have really great ideas and you've demonstrated it, you've got a track record for it.

    People are open to it. [00:32:00] Um, at least as, as where we are now, um, it's, it's, it's. It's been well received and exciting for, for the kinds of folks that have been able to meet. But it is different. It's a place that is, you know, very, uh, market sector and practice based. I'm a generalist. And so, one of the ways I framed it was, you know, we've got all these folks in the Northeast.

    Well, Philly can be this generalist practice that then actually fits in as a great collaborator with all the other studios by virtue of being a, you know. organized around horizontal thinking and less about kind of the vertical thinking to compliment that we don't need to duplicate and start competing with all the other studios in the Northeast by trying to build up these, you know, highly specific, uh, market segment areas.

    But I've got experience across a lot of these spaces and therefore it works really well to combine those. So that's part of the big picture strategy we're starting to map out. And now it's about how to actually execute that. And then, you know, the goal and purpose of this is to do better work by

    That kind of, [00:33:00] uh, alternative organization, you know, the non status quo

    version of practice is ultimately to do better projects, the create a better process.

    Uh, the clients like it better. It's more enjoyable. The build team likes it better. It's more successful. The, the execution, the ideas, the innovation,

    the whole purpose of all that intellectual diversity

    is to actually ultimately create a better outcome for people.

    Evan Troxel: Well, let's talk about this course that you've got. Um, the, the idea behind it. I, I want you to introduce it. Um,

    but, but the, the name of the course is design leadership, creating agency, a culture of innovation and fostering entrepreneurship in the built environment. Right? And you were kind enough to share with me your syllabus and some other documentation that happened, I guess, from the first time that you put this course together, like you mentioned, last spring.

    And you're gearing up for another round of this course, um, just to kind of set the table here for what it was. And, and so it's all architecture students. [00:34:00] Is that

    correct?

    Matthew Krissel: So it's, yeah, it's in the graduate program at Carnegie Mellon, all active students. It was about 23 students. Um, when I pitched the idea, that was, yeah, essentially the title and then the high level was, hey, you know, I want people to essentially design a practice of what it can and should be. Um, and I will lead them through with guest speakers and other types of conversations, um, and get them introduced to new ways of thinking to start to find new gaps to start to find new ways to think organizationally.

    I found a couple of things when I kind of critiqued. Academia is the, there has to do so much and architectural education is incredibly complex. When you think of everything you're trying to prepare someone for.

    Evan Troxel: The word that comes to mind is rigorous.

    Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: I mean, you think about, you know, everything you have to do for accreditation, everything you have to do.

    If you're just trying to design something, you want people to graduate with all the things you want to expose them to and get them interested in. There's an enormous amount of ground that has to be covered. The reality is the professional practice [00:35:00] course has a lot of. boxes it has to check right to meet accreditation.

    Evan Troxel: Mm.

    Matthew Krissel: those are all important and real things that you need to at least have a sensibility around from the contractual issues to zoning to just all the kind of elements that are fundamental to a professional practice course. What I pitched was, okay, There's another part of professional practice that probably doesn't have boxes to check as part of the NCARB accreditation of the program, but are actually vital.

    And so there's an awful lot of, um, uh, gaining of knowledge. There's an awful lot of kind of implementation and architecture program, but there's not a lot of people talking about how you organize. And organization, when you think about Cultures of innovation is that third stool element of great ideas, and I can execute, you have to actually know how to organize people, get people in the right place, get the right people working on things.

    So I wanted to develop something that would get people to think about that truly as an active design. Not as, again, [00:36:00] just a kind of, um, a subset of their circumstance or an outcome of a circumstance of which they feel they have no control over. I got to put on this team or I joined this firm, it was the only job offer I got, whatever it was.

    It's just the kind of

    flipping that around to see that as

    something you have agency over

    and to organize that in a different way to think about, you know, how we did it. So the opportunity here was to say, okay, at the scale of practice, if you were to design a practice,

    how would you do it?

    Because students certainly have a lot of opinions about the profession,

    they certainly have a lot of opinions about what's missing out there and things and territories they feel they should be involved in, or why are architects involved in this?

    Why aren't architects involved in that?

    Evan Troxel: Well, yeah, and graduate students are coming from a variety of backgrounds, right? They're not coming from architecture all the time. They might be coming from finance, or they might be coming from engineering. It could be a number of things, right? And so, curious just of the make up of the first cohort, what did you see as kind of, like the thing that you were just saying, architects should be involved in this, they should be [00:37:00] involved in that, and maybe or maybe not, they have any exposure already to architecture, working in firms. I don't, I don't know where these students are in their curriculum, but have they had any experience? Have they already identified some gaps that exist in practice or are they coming at this with fresh eyes?

    Matthew Krissel: Uh, some are pretty fresh eyes. There were a handful that just went straight through undergraduate to graduate. Maybe they've done some summer internships. There were a number that had worked for three or four years, so had a little more exposure, worked on a project, maybe got something built even.

    Certainly some had different backgrounds in architecture.

    And so that already is like the first great mixing chamber, right? The fact that you already start with something that's evidencing where we're trying to go, which is, you know, great work doesn't come when everybody's the same, right? It's coming from us, uh, and, and being able to leverage our differences.

    Um, so that's an important part of the, uh, the initial starting point was that, yes, we already had something to kind of, kind of work with. And [00:38:00] it's funny, I, um, so there's a couple of things I initiated as part of this, which is, um. Um, You know, I remember being in graduate school and I hated any time, you know, it was a group project or, oh my gosh, you know, and

    Evan Troxel: then you graduate and, and guess what, right?

    Matthew Krissel: everything's in groups and people.

    So,

    so I do acknowledge that. Okay, look, you're going to work in groups. And I realize that half of you probably really don't like that. Um, but it is essential and essential skills. How do you work well with other people? Because

    Evan Troxel: absolutely.

    Matthew Krissel: is something that requires not only other people in your practice, but obviously the team you build, the broader team, the consultants and groups, but when you get into the build teams, it's more and more that becomes integrated,

    Evan Troxel: don't forget the clients. the clients are on your team too.

    Matthew Krissel: yeah, so it is, um, you are always working with other people for sure. So getting people, um. Yeah. So I asked them to design their own group. So I start the class actually with a kind of workshop, freewheeling workshop and and first couple of podcasts. I have them listen to and we'll come back to why I do podcasts, [00:39:00] but.

    Um, it was all about like the importance of diversity of groups and diversity of thinking. And of course, all the students are always thinking about,

    uh, these questions of diversity, equity, inclusion, all these kinds of conversations are happening. So then I asked them to form their groups, the next class would come together and look at the groups and like, wait, you guys all just made groups with your friends.

    Like you just listened to a podcast about the importance of designing a group by finding people who have complementary skill sets. They're not like you, there might be creative friction and the strength of that, you know, that it was kind of funny to see already the first task was like a fail because you go back to your old habits.

    But,

    Evan Troxel: But,

    of course, you, you expect that as well, right? I mean, that's, it's a great learning moment, teaching moment, because you know it's going to happen,

    Matthew Krissel: yeah, you know, it's going to happen. Are they already like, oh, yeah, you're right. We probably should have taken our own advice.

    Evan Troxel: We just go, we just went with the path of least resistance, right? It's like, where's, where's the comfort lie? Let's do that. That, that's how we'll start.

    Matthew Krissel: Right. So there are a couple of things I set up within this. So when I pitched this, I'm like, gosh, you know, there's this whole sense of [00:40:00] like, how we organize it seems to be missing. And there's some, some things around the edges of what I would consider professional practice. I'm just never going to fit into the standard template of all the stuff you got to cover.

    Um, and to, you know, Omar's credit, uh, a wonderful, uh, person, a visionary, a great thinker. He's always kind of, uh, interested in thinking about collaboration and new modes of thinking. He got excited by it too. And it's like, Hey, this sounds great. It's exactly the kind of stuff we're, we're always talking about.

    We just haven't had a place to kind of stitch some of this together or make it kind of coherent. And so I organized this around a seminar style so that it would, foster conversation. Um, and because I'm not a lifelong academic, you know, I also probably taught it a little bit differently than most people would.

    I, I organize this all around, uh, podcasts, as I said, because to me, that's the contemporary mode of how you get great information in a kind of conversational way. It's, it's unrealistic to ask students to read a book a week.

    and come back and be ready to have a conversation around. [00:41:00] You know, if we have a book by an organizational psychologist that you're going to read as a way to just think a little differently about how they see the world, that's in practicals.

    But an hour and a half long conversation in a podcast after they just published the book is a great way to get the deluge of ideas, but get them to kind of really, um, in a, Fairly quick, but, um, more engaging way because of the nature of the back and forth that helps contextualize the information. Then again, if you just kind of read it, you get a little bit more of the background story.

    So, what I did, what you were referencing before this, this giant Miro board, that's another thing in practice, you know, we use, you need collaborative. You know, infinite whiteboards to share and gather work. I organized this around this idea of this being one giant kind of class diary of ideas and observations.

    And so I would issue a couple of podcasts a week. There were occasional chapters out of a book. Cause there wasn't anything you could listen to that they had to read. But for the most part, it was, it was listening. But the thing I did with [00:42:00] that, I don't know, was the other key thing I've learned as an architect this time that I just don't think it's Is taught or it's kind of hard to teach.

    So maybe you have to do it through something like this. It's a couple of things in our case, you have to be able to frame a great question. Build a culture of how you ask questions as an active design and you have to be able to make observations and be insightful on your feet because you're walking a site with a, with a client, you are,

    uh, everyone in the room looks at the architect and say something smart, you know, when you're like looking at something and no one knows what to do, or you're at an interview trying to get work or you're, you know, just kind of, you know, the nature of how business development works.

    Um, so I, what I thought was, gosh, you know, how do you listen to these things? And every week we're going to have this giant mirror board where you have to formulate, you know, one to two questions and one to two observations, and it's got to fit on the little mirror sticky. So it can't be long. You have to be succinct, and you're going to see every, you're going to see everyone else's questions, and that's why I tried to show you a couple snapshots just so you [00:43:00] got a feel of it.

    One, you see how incredible this just idea and conversational board becomes as a collection of thoughts and observations and questions, but two, because they see each other, they also force them to also think about other facets of what they just listened to, so they're not all asking the same questions.

    And through that repetition, I hope they got, you know, they ultimately became better at asking questions. I think they did.

    And just being more insightful, how you just take something, listen to it, distill it down to

    two or three key themes that were most compelling to you.

    And you had to write it in a way that became generative so that we could then talk about it.

    So then I would, the conversation, I would use that board.

    I'd put a few dots on some of the interesting ones and we would start the conversation.

    in the seminar the next week about, you know, what they basically produced as a way to frame the conversation.

    Evan Troxel: just the act of practicing asking open ended questions is a huge skill for anybody in that position to actually have. [00:44:00] If, if It's a great role play to do in a small team when you're prepping for an interview, for example, is, is to number one, just ask questions that, like, try to figure out what questions the clients are going to ask you.

    I think every firm probably does this, right? They go through the, what objections are the clients going to have with this presentation? What could they ask us so that we can pre address it internally

    so that if they actually ask it, we have an answer, right? But, but even. Reversing that and, well, so you become the question asker, but learning how to ask open ended questions to get more insightful, just, just more context to work with as the designer is huge, right?

    I mean, it's one of those skills that is, most people aren't even aware that the questions that they're asking are yes, no, green, blue, like, what's the answer?

    I'm not just looking for the answer. I'm looking for.

    the next sentence in this conversation. I'm not looking for the answer. I'm actually looking for [00:45:00] where this could go, not knowing where it could go, and that's where these open ended questions really come in handy, right?

    Because If you don't know what to say, ask a question and get the other person to do the talking. They're happy to usually,

    right? Everybody loves to talk and talk about themselves. And as an architect, that's exactly what you want

    them to do is talk about themselves, talk about their issues, their challenges, their problems, their What are they endeavoring for? What's not on your website? Like what are, what are some,

    there's, there's so many ways to kind of engage people in a conversation like this course that you're talking about and coming up with new ideas, I imagine that can really only happen through the conversations that are, it's not just through my observations of what I heard in a podcast, it's like, it's the actual conversation.

    It's the actual unfolding

    with those people in the cohort. Having that conversation together and one idea sparks another. I mean, it actually now come to think of it, like in the Adam Grant video

    that you link [00:46:00] to in your syllabus, where it's like a TED talk podcast, and he's talking about with the creators of the daily show.

    And they talk about this idea of what they call it burstiness. I had never

    heard that term. Right. But this idea of it's kind of like the ideas just start popping out. And so when

    you're talking about organizational structure and who should be on the team, And creating a space where creativity and innovation can happen.

    You really need to foster the ideas of, I think Adam calls it psychological safety. I've always just called it a safe place, right? But psychological safety is a great way to, to really hone in on it because you, you are more likely to put forth Possibly absurd ideas, knowing that, like, it's just for the sake of, like, this brainstorming session, and it doesn't, it's not going to get shot down, it's not going to get stomped on immediately, but having these conversations in an educational environment, the academic environment that you're talking about, I can imagine, led to A bunch of things that people didn't write [00:47:00] down through the conversation.

    And it's all about kind of this open ended conversation, continuing and snowballing as it goes to really create a creative and useful conversation to inspire, to spark insight and, and, and new ideas.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, and that's, you know, the essential thing is how do you make it generative and action oriented because that's exactly right when you're doing programming, you're meeting with a client, you're trying to understand again, if you're doing service oriented stuff, and you're just trying to, you're just building your first draft, you probably just take whatever they say, and you just go do it, right?

    But if you're talking about doing transformational architecture, we're talking about actually making significant impact. You have to dig beyond what people are saying. So even in the initial conversation and you're learning about how they use a place or you're touring an existing space that they're using a couple of things I've learned.

    One, people will tell you one thing, but they'll act differently. A lot of times in these programming companies, people will describe kind of how they think they work. And, or even sometimes how they imagine where they're trying to get them. Um, but it's not [00:48:00] necessarily how they actually are. So you have to always complement it with kind of observational reads.

    You have to like actually go and go, go show me your desk. Let me go see your storage. Let me see what's going on. How do you actually do this? And you start to read between the lines and you're starting to fill in the conversation through the observational side. But it's an essential part of digging deeper.

    And so starting to get them comfortable with not only debating design together, And design discourse, creating that creative friction, but how to just use, you know, question asking as a fundamental infrastructure for doing great work. And, you know, there's a simple thing like the, you know, ideas tool, which is always, you just start everything with the, how might we, how might we, and it gets people already shifting their, their thinking into a future action oriented way.

    How might we do this? It just, it changes the nature of what you can get out of, um. The environment that you need, the people you need, your understanding of place, and it starts, that incredibly starts to spark things. There's like two things that I see consistently crush innovation. There's probably, there's definitely a lot [00:49:00] more, but two of the most common ones are, you didn't ask the right question.

    Right? And people converge too quickly. And those two things tend to, tend to crush, crush innovation. Um, in architecture, so if you're not asking the right question, of course, you're, you can continue to do things that you're just going in the wrong direction. And the other component is, you know, gosh, design problem.

    So architecture tends to be fairly lean on the margins. So your innovation and your exploration tends to happen through projects. Now a lot of places can have incubators or separate research groups and spaces that can explore outside of projects, although I think they all should. It's a, it's a worthy investment.

    But when you're only using your projects for that, they also get crushed because it's the timelines, the pressures, the reality of a product. You just can't get to all these things and do high quality design and technically competent work and be trying some new tools and be trying a new material and be prototyping something over here and be trying to convince them to try, you know, something that's never been done before.[00:50:00]

    It's very, very hard. So these are the kinds of things that, okay, these weekly rhythms of asking questions and forming observations around material that you've never heard before.

    And I'm glad you brought up the one about Uh, the Adam Grant one, because I thought that was wonderful kind of parallel to think about how architects like the design process.

    So this is one where he, he basically is an organizational psychologist and he goes in to learn from Trevor Noah and the team. Hey, how do you create a show every single day?

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Matthew Krissel: required. You have such a short turnaround time. It makes an architecture phase, a schematic design phase of three months seem generous, right?

    You know, what if you only had 12 hours, right? Sometimes we only do, but, um, but I loved it because I got thinking about when I, I loved about how he talked about, um, how they come together for these kind of brainstorming conversation, that burstiness where everyone's getting excited at the same time. But then at the same time, he talks about how important it is to then step out of the big group and a smaller group comes together to do the editing [00:51:00] and the refining and the final polish of the idea or the joke in their case, the comedic part.

    Ultimately, Trevor has to deliver it. And so he has to kind of put it in his voice and dial it all in. That's a beautiful way to think about how to, you know, Reorganize the way you think about design and the design process, and what it takes when you bring a group together,

    and the, all the issues of group think and problems with brainstorming,

    um, but that point of when you think about editing and refining ideas

    and how you can reorganize the group, split off, go into smaller groups, do interesting stuff, you might come back together.

    So it's a great one to, to kind of think about, again, through this other lens, if someone had to create through a different way that we can

    think about as architects, how we might change our own design process at a different pace with a different type of ideation.

    Evan Troxel: It reminds me of a talk that's on YouTube. I'll try to find the link to it to put in the show notes, but John Cleese has a wonderful talk on creativity

    and he talks about that highly [00:52:00] creative time, but also the really introspective polishing time that you just referenced, right? It's like you, you have to have both and sometimes one might be bigger than the other, but it's relatively impossible to be creative on the spot. Right? You, you, this is something you show up and you do the work every day and, and that's what flexes that muscle so that maybe someday you actually can just be creative on

    the spot, but like you were talking about earlier when you're walking the site with a client and you need to have kind of insightful comments on the fly, um, that comes through having done it a lot,

    right?

    Um, but, but this idea of actually kind of identifying creative time and putting in the work. You know, I think a lot of times that was with their group, you know, with the, when they were making Monty Python and, and coming, it's, it's very much kind of probably like a daily show writer's room kind of a thing, right, where it's everybody's just throwing out. absurd [00:53:00] ideas, right? And making people laugh and, and, and, and actually noticing what are people laughing

    at? What are people interested in, in an architectural context? It might be, it might not be laughter, right? But it might be, you still need

    a

    Matthew Krissel: good idea. Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: you can throw absurd.

    I think it was Bjarke Ingels who, During it, maybe it was the Netflix abstract series, the episode on Big, um, if I'm remembering correctly, but he talked about like this, having a safe space for creative work to actually happen and, and, and he actually used the word absurd, right?

    You have to have a place. Where people can have absurd ideas, because it's not until afterward, when you actually go down

    that path, that you can look back and think that

    that thing actually made a lot of sense, but in the beginning it made no sense at all, right? What do you mean we're gonna do a, a, a waste plant with a ski hill on it, in a, in a flat area? you know, in, in Copenhagen, right? And talking about what's the name of [00:54:00] that? I think it was called Copenhill,

    right? It's like, It's this energy plant and recycle, like waste recycling, and they put a ski hill on it. And that is a, if you think about it without the context, like it is a completely absurd idea.

    And yet it's a reality and everybody looks at it. Maybe not everybody. I'll generalize a little bit here, but it's like. What an, what an innovative idea to make multiple uses out of something that nobody would ever think of doing, right? Um, but having a design studio

    where those kinds of ideas can even be proposed. A lot of places don't have that,

    right? It's, it's too much check the box. And I think Adam Grant says it in the beginning of that, that podcast. He's like, large groups are where creativity goes to die,

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah,

    Evan Troxel: It's not a creative place. And yet here's, here are, here's, here's the daily show. Here's John Cleese and his troop of comedians.

    And here's Bjarke Ingels group, right? Where they, they, they have a group. of people and they come together [00:55:00] and through their wide range of experiences can come up with extremely creative ideas and then execute

    on them and and do what they need to accomplish with those because they have built a culture of creativity and psychological safety,

    but also have the execution behind it to back it up.

    Matthew Krissel: yeah. I mean, that's where I try to begin the class, which is where do good ideas come from? And just having a conversation because that kind of combinatorial thinking and approach that you just described is, um, one of those that again, you have, that's an intentional act. You have to put yourself at crossroads and intersections.

    You can't just be in the constant flow of the way it's always been. Um, so that changes who, again, who's in the room, who are you hiring? How do you make a team? You know, what skillset and background do they have? Um, and then who are you bringing on as consultants and of course, who you're selecting in terms of your clients.

    If you're in a position to be selective, um, all those things need to come together, but you have to design the process and the organizational thinking to allow those things to happen, create the culture for you to have people to speak [00:56:00] up, to be able to explore, to engage, and you have to still do it. And meet all your usual timelines and deadlines for architecture.

    So it's, it's a beautiful design challenge of people and place and culture of how you kind of bring all those things together. But it's a, it's a wonderful, to me, it's, it's so much of the world is becoming more of that mixing. We want spaces that do more than one thing. We need spaces to do more than one thing.

    Whether it's through the lens of sustainability and adaptive reuse and resilience, we can't have things that just do one thing anymore. I mean, some, some things you have to very specialized spaces, but most things you want that kind of adaptability, that transformation, it can do a couple other things, or has value

    beyond its initial purpose.

    We add that kind of 4th dimension of time to all these things, and you're starting to use that again as part of the design process and the way of thinking that that is a, um,

    a wonderful driver to kind of instigate.

    Again, this question of how we kind of think about the organization of people.

    So it's, [00:57:00] yeah,

    Evan Troxel: coming up with a balance in that group, right? Uh, because I think, you know, it's something that I think they addressed in that, in that video again, but, but this has come up many other times, right? If you have an overbearing or an extremely talkative person. Maybe, maybe they're a leader in, in that room. Like a lot of things just defer to that person because they talk the most or because they're the boss or whatever. And so

    in your, in your class, you're that person, right? And So maybe I, I would be curious to hear how you handle You know, this, this discourse of ideas, but all the students are pretty much on a level playing field.

    So maybe there isn't necessarily, there's like, there's no corporate structure in academia when it comes to the student body. Right? So, but in, in, when you're in practice, professional practice, there definitely is. And something that I've also heard about. And I could be incorrect about this, but like, there's this Japanese meeting culture where, um, the idea is that the, the junior est people get to speak [00:58:00] first, and the senior est people get to speak last, so that those ideas come out, and they're not just agreeing with something that a senior person said or completely deferring, because that naturally happens, right?

    In these kinds

    of organizational hierarchies that people are in, and then, and then they just don't say anything at all, or they just nod their head and agree, even if they think it's a terrible idea, because politically that's the right thing to do, you know?

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, that's the designing your culture and sometimes you can influence this. So if you're again, meeting with a client and you can or a user group and you're trying to manage a stakeholder engagement with all these different personalities, you can set up the exercises of engagement to allow that kind of free flow.

    I think so you don't get. You know, through either anonymity or through other sorts of kind of games, interactions that you can design to get, you know, to break down those, those barriers, um, in our own internal organizations. I mean, this obviously is something that's plagued architecture because it's [00:59:00] for a long time and built around a cult of a personality, right?

    It's the singular lone pollinator, the lone genius who moves around the room, sharing and tapping on the shoulder with a great idea and sending you off your way. And so part of this is, you know, how do you create a culture of collective fluency? How do you shift that, that model radically? And these are a number of things that I got to experiment with at Kieran Turmer Lake when I was there.

    And I went, as I was moving through the organization, I had this wonderful opportunity to just re imagine the entire digital practice, coming out of the great recession. You know, there's, everyone was just kind of trying to hang on, you know, and there's this chance where James, Timberlake pulled me over and was like, Hey, you know, we need to, we used to be a leader in this.

    We need to really reimagine some of this, you know, and it gave me a chance that it was one of the first opportunities I had to sit down and really think about, Hey, if I could design kind of hive of activity, how would I do it? And so I, I pitched him this idea, like, gosh, you know, there's a couple of things I noticed is, you know, we've got [01:00:00] people in the communications group are doing something, you got architects doing something, we've got the research groups, we use similar tools, we have similar challenges, but no one's talking to each other.

    So we devised this idea, like, developed this, what we call the digital design visioning group. And it was intentionally, I had to go around and select people there and you made sure you had, you know. extremely inexperienced people in the room, extremely experienced people in the room. You had people from the communications group, the research group, the architecture, you had technical people, you had the kind of blue sky thinkers.

    And so we made an intentional kind of Petri dish of all these mixes and created a space for that kind of conversation to happen. And so we would meet regularly. And one of the groups we devised was called near future practices. And every week to build discourse, it was about. All the things you're thinking about, the stuff that was getting crushed in projects, but you had a great idea, needed a space to move out of a project and just survive a little longer to get a little nurtured a little bit, and it spun out so many wonderful things.

    And of [01:01:00] course, the firm, you know, we were set up to do software, hardware, design buildings. I mean, do all kinds of amazing things, remarkable infrastructure in place. But part of it, that opportunity, this was 2012 when I had a chance to kind of re imagine this. It was my first chance to like, not only just think of it, but then deploy it in practice and see it actually work.

    So some of those things then became essential for my own development about ICON. you know, how I run a stakeholder engagement, how I organize people to make sure you're in a place where people can speak freely. But even in your own culture of design, how do you shift from a place, you know, again, around the call to personality to a place about ideas and, you know, really about the best ideas are going to be what moves forward.

    Sometimes, like I said, you still have to have maybe a smaller group kind of eventually kind of edits and helps refine and select, but at least creating the space for that kind of exchange and dialogue Discourse to happen. So, so vital. Certainly what I saw in practice, certainly what I've carried forward [01:02:00] any place I, you know, go and operate at any scale.

    And so for this class, you know, how do I, so one of the things I did, um, and it kind of is, it solves a couple of things. Every class I start with it just didn't ask me anything.

    Evan Troxel: Mm.

    Matthew Krissel: what I realized, one, it helps diffuse the, the, uh, any kind of sense of hierarchy in the space to some degree in terms of just like, Hey, I'll talk about anything you want to talk about and it kind of relaxed, calm way.

    But it also gave him a chance again. I had this opportunity. For everything that I have done, I had a chance to share in ways that they just don't have the platform for that kind of communication. So I would get questions about writing cover letters, you know, because I did all this hiring, like how, how do you write a great cover letter?

    What are you looking for when you open an application? What, what, you know, uh, to negotiating salaries to, um, when you present complex environmental. information to a client group that doesn't understand how have you been successful in driving these, you know, unique innovations. And [01:03:00] we talk about visualization and presentation skills and things like that.

    So there's a chance that you kind of just diffuse a little bit and then ease into it. And for me, I, maybe it's my personality, but I try to just stay as conversational as I can. I'm not there to lecture

    there. I really am just hosting a conversation.

    And if you treat it more as a,

    Fireside chat. We're all sitting around camping.

    It's a different kind of conversation in unity as opposed to me standing out. I'm the expert. I'm going to lecture to you all.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah,

    Matthew Krissel: there to just, I'm just guiding a conversation. I'll, I'll,

    you know, try and draw people in who are a little quiet. I'll try and reshape it or reorient it if it gets off track a little bit, but

    Evan Troxel: I want to take that a little bit further, and that is, uh, I mean, that is a, an amazing strategy to employ, because I think most architects are in the position of interviewing or presenting to win work, or, you know, most of the time where, where this comes up, where they're [01:04:00] leading a presentation, and it really is kind of a one way, until maybe the last 20 minutes is then opened up for Q& A, right?

    A lot of times when you're, when you're presenting for work, it goes to that, but. I've done talks like about the kind of topic that you just talked about, which is just engagement. How do you engage people as an architect, right? And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier about asking good questions. But the key is engagement, and that is how do you get the, whoever you're talking to, to be engaged in what we're talking about today, and starting your course off with an Ask Me Anything is a great way to just immediately make this a conversation, right? It's not just me delivering on a topic today, and I've, I've talked to AIA groups about a digital, you know, connection like the one we're having today as we have this podcast, right?

    We're doing a remote recording here. And a lot of times, you know, especially during COVID, it was done this way. This was how interviews were handled. And, [01:05:00] and even today, like just let's cut out the travel expenses. Let's cut down on, you know, flying somewhere or driving somewhere to do something. Let's do it remotely.

    And how can you engage? And still, it's, it's not like by showing drawings and screen share and showing renderings, it's, it's by asking questions, it's by within the like the first six minutes, I think, is what the research shows. You have to engage the audience within the first six minutes or else. They're going to pick up their phone, and they're going to start doing email,

    right?

    And they're going to start doing other stuff, because you're actually not talking with them. You're talking to them, and maybe they're interested, but probably they're not, right? And they've got other stuff to do. Everybody's really busy. And so, I think it's an interesting strategy. For you to kind of open up the, the discourse for that week to do the ask me anything and just say, you know, like, I'm not here to tell you something, let's have a conversation about whatever you want to talk about, you know, that's a, that's a great way

    to, because if it's, if it, if it's them [01:06:00] driving it. They're invested, right? And, and they're going to actually get more out of it because they might have a little bit of a different angle than you're proposing for that, for that day. Right. So I'm really interested to hear like, what, how long did that ask me anything go on for? Like, did you have to stop it?

    Did you have to cut it off because it just kept going or was it,

    Matthew Krissel: I let it go as long as if we want to spend the whole two hours.

    That's

    fine with me. If it's only 15 minutes and we get on to, you know, the mirror board and the conversation from the, you know, the, the, the assignment, that's fine. Um, the other thing I will say that I think really resonated and again, I'm in a privileged position to be able to do this.

    Um. Because of the projects I've done, but also the opportunity that because I happened to design and built a building on Carnegie Mellon's campus and it just opened, I also use that as a way to everything we talked about each week, I tried to bring something from practice

    Evan Troxel: Hmm.

    Matthew Krissel: to just evidence. This is how this is.

    This is why this is [01:07:00] important. This is how it has real impact. So I guess the first class way I kick this off as I do an interactive workshop. So I. This is how I would design a stakeholder engagement. I'm here to learn about you. You're here to learn about me. And so I ask questions like, what, give me three words that define your principles of who you are and that drive your actions, right?

    And you got five minutes and they have little post its and they got to put them up on the wall. We talk about them. Then I tell them the three words I did. You know, these are how I, you know, define myself. And then we go through, you know, three or four questions like that. And I share my, my own version when I ran it essentially by myself to myself to test the questions.

    But I already start to open up and try to connect through some of that. But the next week when we came back, I do a short lecture on, okay, I'm going to show you. So for this Carnegie Mellon project, I'm going to show you the, uh, process we did in terms of some of the interview, how we won the job. Uh, some of the insight we brought so they got a sense of like the slide deck of, you know, how you kind of present and think when you just have kind [01:08:00] of an RFP environment.

    Um, but then I showed them the, the, the engagement we developed with, uh, faculty, students, builders, and the kind of, um, users we assembled to a day long set of interactions. And I showed them a number of them. What we did, the questions we asked, the outcomes, and then I showed how it changed the program and how it actually changed the project so they could

    Evan Troxel: Hmm. Mm

    Matthew Krissel: the activity to like actual impact.

    It wasn't just some icebreaker exercise that seems kind of silly and ridiculous. Like, these are, these are real acts of design that shape. You know, rewrote the program, changed opportunities within the building, re centered priorities based on real faculty and user and student feedback on what the building could be and how vital that is.

    It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. When you just get the program, it's a bunch of numbers in an Excel file. You start with just these really high level questions and you have your own observations of a building type. That's very similar. Precedent research gives [01:09:00] you a kind of a roadmap for some of these.

    building types go. But to get to that next level of specificity, intentionality, real context and history and place and what it means to be a mechanical engineering building on Carnegie Mellon's campus at that corner of that site in this year, at this time, with everything going on in the world,

    um, these are the things, you know, that's how you get to that next set of layers of intentionality and purpose.

    That just make the work so much richer and compelling. So, so part of it, I think too, is that diffusing a little bit, shifting that, that hierarchy and sense of hierarchy,

    but then really being able to evidence,

    uh, some of the things that we're talking about that might seem a little bit on the periphery to show how you've been able to deploy it in practice.

    Evan Troxel: That, that's really cool that you're able to do that, right? And they're, they are there in that space that you know so much about to be able to

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, we can just walk over to the other side of campus. At the end, I give a tour of the building, uh, and they can hear it directly, some of the [01:10:00] anecdotes and some of the stories.

    Evan Troxel: That's cool.

    Matthew Krissel: But the other thing, oh, go ahead.

    Evan Troxel: yeah, go. No, you go ahead.

    Matthew Krissel: I just said the other thing you brought up that I thought was interesting is the question of, um, uh, you know, how you build trust and relationships and whether this is a staff interaction or a client or a user group, you know, in order to get people to open up and to talk and be more kind of vulnerable and clear about what they need and want.

    Um, you have to kind of establish some of that. And some of that too is that the kind of mentoring and trajectory of developing a culture of design over time. And it's interesting because through that kind of COVID period, when we shifted to all online, it demonstrated we can do a lot of things. Um, it did shift a little bit of the nature of how you build trust, uh, the people you had relationships with before COVID happened and you shifted online.

    It was very different than when you meet a new employee. virtually, if they just joined the organization. Uh, the how design discourse, designer views through a zoom lens versus being in a room. [01:11:00] Um, it's amazing how the technology has opened up more opportunities for some of those. And it's also showed us in my mind, the value of why we still come together.

    and the purpose of convening and when it's, it's, it works and is appropriate for, for being able to handle and do things virtually. And it's amazing to me to see the kind of, some of those patterns about, you know, one on one, I think virtually works really great. I think even sometimes when I was working with just a small team, like three people, two people, the virtual interface, you can have that kind of exchange or space for people to talk, space for people to iterate.

    As the groups get bigger, it gets harder and harder through that format because you just can't have the simultaneity of the conversations the same way. Um, and the nature of just the way the room behaves versus in reality, if you were all there and the conversations before the meeting, or you go out to dinner and kind of all the other stuff that builds relationships that happen around at the times we convene and gather,

    but this art of gathering.

    Uh, and one of the podcasts is this woman who wrote this [01:12:00] book on the art of gathering and she's talking about through the lens of social interactions, uh, weddings, uh, corporate events, like the nature of gathering in a different way.

    Again, you can begin to see that through how we internally in an organization, in a company come together and why and when that value of being in person versus when we can facilitate it in other ways.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. That, that's, I, I agree that that is one of those things where, especially in, in an environment where you are doing brainstorming and there's a multitude of ways, it's not just through conversation that it's happening. You might be sketching, you might be pinning stuff up, you might be pulling stuff up on a device, you might have stuff already on the wall. Um, but, but all of those things also, there, there's other layers to it that are body language and initial reactions that you will notice that somebody will have when, you know, a page is turned. That is really difficult to do, uh, through a screen, right? And, and having that kind [01:13:00] of, I don't know, it's, it's almost like you're an anthropologist on some level and you're there and you're, you're interviewing, you know, live in person.

    And, and you're actually seeing. the the behavioral reactions and just the, the, all of those subtle things that we can read as humans, that's really difficult to do through a, through a 2D screen. So

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, and the passive learning part, you know, it's hard to go back and think about what it was like when I had two years experience and didn't know anything and was just trying to like pay attention to everything going on around me and what's happening. Um, but as we, you know, again, develop these cultures of innovation, the question of how you really grow wonderful talent and ideas through an organization, how good ideas spread through a place,

    um, how people develop their own sense of professional development.

    And you get the complexities of architecture. There is a part of passive learning, just being in the environment, surrounded by creativity, that, that hive of stuff [01:14:00] happening, um, in the spontaneity around it and the impromptu parts of it

    that, uh, it's fascinating to me as we think about the future of the workplace, how we begin to continue to develop and balance those as, as technology and the kind of analog space of reality, the physical space.

    Continue to push and pull until we find this, you know, each culture has their own,

    uh, kind of, uh, equifinity of where it's, where it kind of lands and, um, what that feels like and what it should be. And that's, you know, those are some of the things you talk about when you're developing a place is what are we going to be?

    How are we going to interact?

    How do we gather? Are we spread out around the world and that gives you a certain reach capacity? Um, are we all together? When are we together?

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Well, let's talk more about some of the specifics of this course. So, generally, you've kind of laid out the idea, and then you have like a series of case studies, and podcast listenings, and video watchings, and all four. Like, [01:15:00] where are the students going with this information that they're kind of working their way through?

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, ultimately, there's a couple of things along the way. And so one is to create these unique collisions. So getting them introduced to new people, new ideas, new ways of thinking, and bringing things together that may seem separate, but suddenly when you start talking about it, you realize there's a lot of, a lot of interaction.

    So along the way is a couple of milestones. One is the ultimate goal is they design a practice and they have to develop an actual mission statement. They have to actually develop sense of organization. They have to develop design principles. They have to define. You know, what's the change that they seek?

    They actually have to be able to describe that and what they would do, the kinds of projects they would work on, the kind of people they want to work with, um, and some, you know, landed in kind of traditional architectural, let's say, um, outcomes, but with unique ways of how they wanted to get there. And some are already shifting into uh, user experience and technology and different kind of media and in a sense of bringing the [01:16:00] built environment and digital media together in a way that was kind of a hybrid between let's say a graphic design, a kind of user design and architecture firm kind of space, right?

    So it was funny to see the, or interesting to see kind of the range of, um, total outcomes that came in terms of the products they imagined they would produce. But to get there along the way, they do a gap analysis, you know, starting to understand what's out there, what aren't people talking about. You know, what are, and so started getting them exposed to all these other unique design environments and people is for them to start to see these hints of things that might be new territories architects could operate in or spaces that they could certainly draw into a kind of traditional architectural outcome like a building.

    So they're starting to do some kind of gap analysis, start to get them to look around. They asked him to identify a company can be any company doesn't have to be an architecture firm. Um, that they admire and why and have them really kind of study a place and think about what is it about when you just evaluate a [01:17:00] place, what is it that you really admire about them?

    Why do you like them? Why are you drawn to them? What are they doing that's so interesting to get them to think about how you kind of present? yourself, uh, to the world and how you organize yourself in that way. Um, and then, so they have to, along the way, they make an elevator pitch, uh, and I help guide them and refine them when it's open for everyone to kind of give feedback to.

    Uh, along the way, they also study, uh, places that have fostered innovation. So I do want to bring it back to some point, uh, there's a conversation around the physical environment that helps enable all this, this great ways of thinking and working. Um, so I, you know, task them with a set of case studies and get them talking about.

    It was amazing. No one had heard about Bell Labs. No one had heard about. MIT's, Building 20, so there's like the one which is no design and like chaos, but it created all this incredible innovation and outcomes, Building 20 at MIT, then you have the like high design of the time, both [01:18:00] mid century incubators, you know, the Bell Labs and the Saarinen, uh, kind of overlay to the whole thing, you know, everything was so specifically designed.

    to create those kind of interactions and spaces of innovation. This year I'm going to introduce a few other ones that are more contemporary that I want them to kind of look at. So I do want to have a conversation then around the kind of spaces to get them again going back to how you think architecturally about our environments, the physical environments, um, and the spaces that we can create that can actually help enable these.

    These kinds of ways of thinking

    Evan Troxel: Very

    Matthew Krissel: and so then the other component to this I've realized is, you know, coming in again from the outside, uh, students, it's, uh, writing, writing and presentation skills are challenging again. It's something that isn't taught. Um, I don't know how students are expected to do it because no one's teaching it, but 1 of the most essential skills and practice is communication.

    [01:19:00] You have to, you have to be able to write to clarify ideas. You have to be able to write to communicate to the world. Um, you have to be able to present. and pitch and get people excited in really succinct and clear ways. So the other component to this is I'm going to, I can't solve, I can't solve all those things.

    So, okay, let's, let's try and just help them improve their presentation skills. So through this, each of these things are going to be less writing, more presentation. So get them to get things down 15 minutes. So group of five people, you got 15 minutes to do a case study at 15 minutes. Pitch your, your firm, your organization idea.

    Um, and so even the final project

    this year, I'm going to get rid of the final paper,

    um, and just get it, just focus on delivering a great presentation because ultimately

    their stage when they go into practice, if they can at least present, whether it's internal design dialogue or they do start their own place and they got to go pitch somebody an idea.

    Um, let's see if I can help them on their presentation skills. Just get them more [01:20:00] comfortable and, uh, yeah, how you kind of organize ideas, pitch ideas. Okay.

    Evan Troxel: Nice. A lot of this is reminding me of a book I read a long time ago. I'm looking over here on my bookshelf, but it's probably here still. It's Simon Sinek's Start With why, And he cites a few companies as case studies as well for kind of the types of places that they have where they've, these interesting things have come out of, you know, he talks about Apple, he talks about Nike, he talks about Southwest Airlines, he talks about Harley Davidson. And because all of these companies had a why, um, maybe they've strayed off course since then, maybe they haven't, maybe

    Matthew Krissel: hmm.

    Evan Troxel: they've been really successful with that. But, but I think that that was always interesting, right? It's like a lot of companies get, you know, Here's what we're going to do. Here's how we're going to do it, right?

    Especially in a service

    industry like architecture, right? It's usually an extremely complex checklist, right? Of, you know, you've got to get these people's approval, then you've got to [01:21:00] get these people's approval, then you've got to do this set of drawings, and then you've got the bids, and then you've got, and it's just like thing after thing.

    Milestones and project management is just information management on steroids. It's insane, right? But it's the big idea is what you're talking about.

    Like what's the big idea and how that

    all the decisions have, it's like a party diagram and architecture, right? Here's the big idea and all of the decision making supports staying on course with what's the party say that we're supposed to do, right?

    It's, it's, it's like an overarching set of guidelines that we can say, it all makes sense if you look at it from, from this origination point. That whole idea of start with why,

    why being the most important, why does this company deserve to exist? Why do we exist? Why do we operate like this? Why do we speak the way we do? The why question is so, so, so important and I, a lot of architecture firms, Maybe start out [01:22:00] that way, but it's, I think it's difficult to stay on that course if you don't continually, I mean, and you're allowed to rewrite the why at

    some point, right? You can totally have a revolution or an evolution in your practice, but I think a lot of that gets lost over time and just becomes like, this is the way we do it because this is the way we've always done it.

    And here's, here's the checklist because it's all about efficiency and productivity and managing that part of it. And, and. Then it kind of waters down the creativity, and it waters down the innovation, and it waters down the impact that it could potentially have.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, and even just the connection. I mean, you know, when you go after enough work and you lose enough work and you get feedback from people, they didn't select you, you start to hear some of these common themes and it happens a lot in architecture because we're so fascinated with process

    and because process is so critical.

    To be able to do what we do,

    um, but it's not that interesting to most people when they just need a building that does something [01:23:00] really great or they're trying to create a great teaching space or a wonderful place for students to live. Um, and so that whole, it's exactly why that, those kinds of, I, I, I, um, bring in Simon Sink's book, The Infinite Game.

    Evan Troxel: Mm

    Matthew Krissel: recommend that book. It's fascinating to think when you think.

    Evan Troxel: Mm

    Matthew Krissel: about, you know, architecture is not a game. It's not something you win. Um,

    Evan Troxel: There's no end. Yeah, it's

    Matthew Krissel: no end, the, the rules change, people come and go.

    Evan Troxel: and there's no there.

    Like, it's just going to go to the next thing

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. And why you don't focus on your competition, which is part of like, don't just look at other architecture firms and wonder how I'm going to do a little bit better than them.

    Or these are all the people going into this interview because then you just become this kind of diluted version of essentially an averaging of everyone you've just been like.

    Evan Troxel: Reactive.

    Matthew Krissel: over you instead of really getting to what are we doing? What is our purpose? And so that start with Y is exactly that too, which is trying to really think of what exactly we're doing.

    So you, so I actually start the first, the first line of the syllabus.[01:24:00]

    There are some great quotes, uh, that I think help, help bring, give people a sense of the range of the way I want them to think, but the first way I start was we imagine a world where meaningful, transformative building spaces and ideas are accessible to more people in places, inspiring change and enriching individuals and their communities.

    And then start with, okay, you're going to design a firm and we're going to meet every week and da, da, da, and oh, by the way, you know, it's like just, just the changing it around, putting it back to where you're trying to go

    Evan Troxel: Mm.

    Matthew Krissel: know, and inspiring people in a way. Um, but really the biggest thing is just talking about what they actually want and need and putting it in terms that they understand.

    Whether again, you're pitching an idea to your own team. teammates, where you're trying to go, that, yeah, the party, the clarity, the big idea, because then everyone orients and gets behind it. You get everyone pulling in the right direction, everyone that the trajectory is set, and now you're aligning resources and intellect immediately towards a common place where If you're all over, [01:25:00] these things that are all over the place and people are imagining all kinds of strands and tangents, it just becomes an incoherent mess of the people in the room, what's going on in their, their brain right now.

    And, you know, we talk about collaborative cultures and you can have, so you can invite all these interesting people to the room, all these different backgrounds, you can do all that hard work.

    But if you, if at the end of the day, the space itself isn't fostering it,

    It's pointless.

    They're all just, they're all drifting and they're on their phone.

    They're not following you. They have no idea what you're talking about. They you're using a piece of technology. Nobody can engage. It's why simple whiteboards are so great. Everybody can jump up and use it. Um, so you could, you know, half the people in the room can't collaborate. It's not a very collaborative environment.

    So.

    Evan Troxel: Right. Yeah. So you've talked about kind of this idea of identifying gaps in practice. What kinds of gaps have they identified that they are willing to maybe take on, at least in this course, as a thesis for the project that they're going to be [01:26:00] doing?

    Matthew Krissel: Uh, in some ways, the.

    There's a lot of conversation, certainly housing is one that is that people are talking about. Uh, that's fairly common. It's certainly resonating through academia and schools. People are understanding the concept of reimagining intergenerational housing, different housing needs, and that potential, a lot of conversation around adaptive reuse, about resilience, what that means, um, people paying attention to all these empty buildings around.

    And getting kind of excited, you know, seeing those as opportunities. How do you reimagine those? Um, there's, and partly because I think it's Carnegie Mellon, there's a lot of people thinking about technology and technology spaces. Some either getting into literal software development, uh, or how you begin to bridge

    digital and physical environments and the kind of relationship between them.

    Whether again, you're kind of a media company that can work comfortably in buildings and spaces, or you're building spaces that are augmented with media

    Evan Troxel: [01:27:00] Mm

    Matthew Krissel: different unique ways. So certainly some of those are coming out as kind of focus areas from the first class, first set of groups in terms of the thing that they wanted, the change they were seeking to, to impact.

    Evan Troxel: Randy Deutsch wrote a book called Adapt as an Architect, and I'm sure you're aware of it.

    Um, but he talks about, right, you're, you're in the profession. What kind of entrepreneurial or entrepreneurial things could you do, or innovative things could you do in a practice that you're already in, or, or outside of practice, but staying in the profession? in architecture, I think is kind of the main idea, And it sounds to me like this course is pretty similar to that in the overall idea, right? It's like, you're bringing this back to designing a practice, identifying opportunities

    within architectural practice for innovation, and then building these projects around that.

    And, um, There's a lot of people in architecture in the last decade that have left architecture to go pursue technology, [01:28:00] maybe, you know, for, for a variety of reasons, right? There, there's work life balance, there's pay, there's, there's

    all kinds of things behind that. You know, like how long it takes to, to ascend the ladder in, in a corporate structure, architectural, right?

    Because of the business, the way that they're designed. And I'm curious, like, If you're intentionally steering students to stay in architecture within kind of the context that you're, because you're giving them a lot of outside influences, I would love to talk about the sources that you kind of, that you drip throughout the class

    to them, for them to, to expand their view and get other ideas from, but are you, Are you really honing in on keeping it inside of architecture, quote unquote, like the profession or AEC in general? Or are you allowing them to go outside of that as well?

    Matthew Krissel: Uh, certainly for this, this course, they're allowed to go anywhere they, as long as they can make the case and they can [01:29:00] get up in front of the class and defend it in the first go around. And if it survives the pitch, I'm here to help them with great ideas and great opportunities and great prospects. Um, the architectural education allows you to do so many things well, and the world, we need hope.

    We need to see this manifested in whether it's the buildings we do, or if you, you know, whatever your kind of entrepreneurial spirit, you know, uh, sees a path forward to make the kind of improvement that we need to see around us. I certainly am here to help guide and edit and, and, and, and prompt and get them excited.

    Ultimately, I would love some form of, um, helping to describe the shape of what, what we're doing. What is architecture evolving towards

    and where is this all going because traditional practice, there's still a lot of traditional stuff happening, but it is definitely, um, under pressure to change, uh, you know, [01:30:00] some of the things I talked about in the syllabus, this, this need to redefine even what a project is, you know, the pressure points that we are constantly under to operate differently.

    The relationship of time and money to outcomes are real and things need to shift and change and grow. So for architecture to. survive as an idea, um, we need to also evolve what we produce when we get involved. How do we get involved, you know, before a project begins? How are we still valued and, and able to produce wonderful things after a project's done that's still relevant and useful to the world as part of that project?

    That initial vehicle and platform. So moving from kind of product thinking to kind of platform thinking, allow things to kind of survive and evolve and change. Um, but all of those things are a part of, um, getting it to think more entrepreneurially sometimes. You know, and you've got a range of personalities.

    You've got some people who really just are excited to go design a house and build a house. I just got to [01:31:00] get it out of my system. And then there's people who are really like, I don't know, I'm in this architecture program. I'm not even sure I want to be an architect. So, the other thing through this course is I bring in guest speakers and.

    All these wonderful people I know, I get an opportunity to invite them in and give talks. And so I had, last year I had a venture capitalist come in and talk about, they're one of the largest venture capitalists in the AEC industry. So in terms of how they think about innovation and how they identify, uh, people in the space to what to fund.

    within architecture and construction. I had, uh, you know, a woman from, uh, mass design, a design director there talk a little, it's such a unique practice and how they're organized and their origin story is beautiful. Um, there's a different way of thinking that is it, And for all intents and purposes, an architecture practice, as anyone would imagine, but they do such different and unique work and are meeting different needs around the world and in a really beautiful and special way.

    So, so [01:32:00] through guest speakers, this next one, I've got a software developer

    coming in. I've got, um, uh, in academia, uh, we're teaching and creating frameworks for, for that next generation of where. The teaching pedagogy needs to go in a conversation around that. So I do try to draw in, uh, you know, the, the listening and reading allows me to draw on really.

    different influences to help build that big pool of ideas for them to draw from to do interesting stuff. And then the guest speakers are a little bit more specific, but they're often people that, you know, what I asked them to do, I give them pretty, you know, a lot of flexibility to develop whatever they want for a presentation.

    And then. Carry a conversation with the students. They often tell 'em, just start with your story.

    Just tell your trajectory. And I, it really helps when students hear that not everybody just goes, gets the job and just works there for, you know, 30 years. Uh, a lot of people, they move around a few places.

    They're not sure what kind of architecture they [01:33:00] wanna do. Like you said, some drift out of it, but they're on the edge or they're still servicing it. Um, but a different way, um. And then some have left it, you know, kind of entirely or never really were an architect like this venture capitalist, never really trained as an architect, but now is a critical part of innovation in architecture and construction because they are working on a financial side of how you make ideas happen.

    So it's a, um, it's a nice combination of guest speakers that again show reality about how some people have developed their trajectory and that there's lots of opportunities around that.

    My hope, you know, as someone who's deeply invested in the built environment, I want the smartest and brightest people working on the buildings that shape our world.

    Um, so I hope the great talent stays within it and they just find the ways in which, as the profession continues to evolve, they become real

    leaders in shaping the evolution of it.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. I'm curious, are there I assume you maybe did a little bit of research about the overall [01:34:00] idea of this course. Do you know if there are other courses out there? Because I think this is a topic that came up in my episode that you have a link to in your syllabus with Ian Janicki. And we talked about kind of the scratching your own itch and entrepreneurship Um, trained as an architect, but kind of maybe, maybe doing any number of things from that. And really talking about entrepreneurship in. Architect, architectural education, because a lot of it really isn't a lot of architectural, it's just about design, or it's about whatever that school's kind of Purpose is, and, and most, most of the time it seems like that goes back to teaching people how to be, become great designers. But there's so much more opportunity out there, and, and it seems like there's probably a dearth of, of classes around entrepreneurship specifically because we've got so many other classes that we, so many things that we have to check off because of accreditation and things. Do, do you know if other ones exist and, or,

    Matthew Krissel: I, I know, I know it's a, it's [01:35:00] a kind of buzzword that a lot of people will say, you know, whether they're actually able to execute it as, as an actual course, as opposed to maybe as a one week topic in a, in a space or a conversation. Um, certainly I, I got to imagine a lot of studio briefs are shaping around that, you know, the studio professors probably developing a way to kind of think as a product or something new, something different and try to try to expand the thinking.

    So that's a great way to compliment. You know, if I'm talking a lot about organizational side, then you have the kind of, uh, you know, the building manifestation side of that through a studio, uh, course is a great way to visit. But when you look around at all these amazing universities and you see there still aren't the kind of cross pollination you might expect or desire, like why?

    You know, you have like, uh, like University of Pennsylvania, I don't know, just the Wharton School. Ever really, could you get a Wharton student on your studio project as a collaborator? What would happen if you could convince someone to work with you for two weeks on an idea, [01:36:00] or could you actually develop some things that actually start to link with a business school program or with, you know, some of these other spaces where people are talking about similar things in terms of forming ideas to make big change in the world.

    But they all have different skills and means how they want to do it. So it would be wonderful to see not just within the programs themselves, but how you kind of start to de silo even the kind of architecture schools. If again, the goal is to try and do this at the, that point of, of education, certainly in practice, in the real world, we can, we can, we can do that.

    We can create those relationships, foster those kind of conversations. In fact, the story of mass design is a beautiful, that origin story, if you're not familiar, um, and I'm paraphrasing, uh, but the way it was described to me was, you know, the founders essentially went to a lecture in the medical school, and, uh, this doctor was talking about all these things that, For there, these two architecture students were thinking, Gosh, this sounds like a lot of [01:37:00] architecture happening in here.

    They went up to him afterwards and said, You know, who's the architect you work with on this?

    I don't work with an architect. What are you talking about? I've never even talked to an architect.

    Hey, could we be your architect

    Here's what we can do for you. You know, those kinds of, um, just even getting out of the architectural, let's say, lecture circuit.

    and figuring out what's going on in the other programs, whether you're a professional or student still,

    uh, you will find ways to start to build relationships and connections that will start these kind of cross disciplinary,

    uh, moments and that kind of combinatorial thinking.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, I would say any, any, any organized group would benefit from having an architect in it. Like any board of directors for, any kind of organization because we are trained a little bit differently than almost any other kind of professional organization. S uh, you know, outcome, uh, it's like architects are problem solvers, but in a very different way than most people.

    Like if you, if you had a group [01:38:00] of, like you're talking about a board of directors at a, for, it could be a city, it could be a healthcare, it could be law, it could be real estate, it could be anything. And I think. If you had an architect on there, they would have such a different point of view when it came to the challenges that they were dealing with and how to go about solving some of those that they would be like, Whoa, and you don't have to even be talking about architecture. It doesn't have to be an architectural answer, right? It could be just how do we go about figuring this out? And to me, I think there's so much value in. the training that we have, like you said earlier, can be applied to so many other things. And that, as an architect then, gives you inroads

    to become the go to person when any one of those people and, and beyond has a, a challenge that they need kind of architectural thinking applied to. And it builds amazing relationships and opportunities.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. And it's one of those things I think we take for granted. We forget that, um, [01:39:00] because we are so used to working with uncertainty, we're so used to operating years in the future. Our whole life is a simulation, right? All our work is, it doesn't exist. I'm designing a world that doesn't exist. I'm constantly in a simulation, right?

    Evan Troxel: Right. Living in the future. Yep.

    Matthew Krissel: And even just how to operate comprehensively and holistically, just like how to really step back, reframe, think more broadly, make sure you're thinking downstream, all the simultaneity of complex problems, uh, if you, we take that for granted, I think, unfortunately, that that is a rare set of skills that a well trained architect, uh, can't have.

    who's done a few things in their career,

    uh, does bring a different mindset and capacity and wherewithal to, uh, engage, keep a couple plates spinning at the same time, uh, be open minded,

    Evan Troxel: Micro, macro at the

    Matthew Krissel: thoughtful, yeah, moving and changing scale seamlessly. And again, that kind of comfort with knowing when things are [01:40:00] hard and complicated, but solvable.

    So you don't have to worry about that right now. People get wound around the axle around things that are like way out of sync with the first order problems you got, the first principles you got to hit.

    Hey, that's hard. We'll get to that. We've got time later. Let's just focus. These three things are where we need to get to today.

    That is a, uh, it's, you know, and that's not a universal skill of every architect. Obviously there's lots of diversity in the profession, um, but the training itself is geared towards that way of thinking.

    And, um,

    yeah, there's, there's value in the hardest part, I guess, is probably that people just don't have time.

    So

    it's, it's the other age old problem in the profession is how do I find the time to go

    Evan Troxel: Find more time. Yep.

    Matthew Krissel: be on these boards and start engaging with these volunteer groups or, you know,

    uh, so if only we could get the, you know, the broader societal appreciation and interest in that,

    That cross pollination.

    Evan Troxel: Well, we'll talk about that, the value of an architect and where you spend your time. Like, like, [01:41:00] yeah, okay, you do have to find, maybe you have to find more time. Maybe you can spend less time doing some of the incredibly mundane stuff that architects are tasked with doing. Automate that stuff, right? Like outsource it to, Yeah. a computer, right? Whatever you, however you want to frame that. But, but then really applying your time to where the value of an architect is to show people, show others around you what the value of an architect is. Like that seems like a self fulfilling prophecy on some level. It's like that's the kind of work we should be doing and that we want to be doing. How could we facilitate that happening? It's by actually taking the step forward. to start to do that, that then starts to become more of what you do. And, and, the, the, society's perception of what an architect does has nothing, usually is incongruent with what we actually end up doing, right? And, and there's all of this You know, hand wringing around nobody understands the value of an architect and the fees are [01:42:00] keep getting lower and lower and it's like, well, because what are you doing about that?

    You're just continuing to do the mundane stuff that somebody can outbid you for because it's a race to the bottom. You know, fees just keep going down for that kind of stuff because it doesn't, it is a commodity. Like that, that part of it is commoditized. You need to focus on where the real value is. It seems to me like, Participating these kinds of things, finding the time, making the time to participate in these kinds of things are actually where the value is created. It's like, if you

    give somebody a way to do something that they thought was impossible, and for you it was like, that was impossible? If you think that's impossible, you should see what we do, you know,

    Matthew Krissel: all day long, yeah,

    Evan Troxel: all day long. all the time.

    Matthew Krissel: goes back to

    asking the right question is so critical and the other great skill I find architects do that a lot of people aren't as capable is, you know, when to kind of expand the problem or when to redraw the boundaries of a problem, uh, just [01:43:00] because you start in one place doesn't necessarily mean you have to actually, you know, did you, did you really, you know, kind of reorganize things?

    And this is, you know, going back to what we, Yeah. The earlier part of the conversation around the, that kind of frontier period of 2003, four or five, all the emergence of these new tools with the promise of all this efficiency gains. And then you'd hear all the kind of the folks who never really engaged the digital tools, but were.

    Plugged into the amount of work, how many people it took to do a product. Hey, there's been no efficiency gains. What's going on? The project still takes 10 people and I'm this and we're not we're getting all this technology. Where is it?

    And when you really start to think back to that time period, you know, living through that and being one of the ones in that production mode through those tool sets.

    You start to realize, like, I remember when we would make these huge leaps in gains, you know, when a rendering would take a week and now it would take three days, now it took one day, we never stopped to ask, hey, what do I want to do with this time? We gained. I just made more options. Like I [01:44:00] did more rendering.

    So, so we just, we filled that vacuum with busy work. We filled it with

    now. Part of it is when you do great projects, you say, well, maybe. You know, seeing the problem or being able to see more parts of the building, be able to cut more sections and walk through the building at some point and probably made the project better.

    I made the design better. I saw things I would have missed or I was able to develop an idea in a different way because I could see it in a new way. So there were probably there's a threshold somewhere in there where it wasn't all a waste of time, like the extra 5 days. I never got back just by generating a bunch of strop and options.

    Um, But I don't know where that line was somewhere in there made the project better and somewhere it probably was too much and we could have dialed it way back. We didn't need 10 options. We needed 3 really good ones, right? That's it, you know, refocusing your time to think through what are the 3, what are the 3 really good ones, you know, that are actually going to set this project up for, instead of just generating a bunch of stuff, just filled up the screen.

    So I sit there and I say, you know, where we are now, we're on this next frontier. [01:45:00] We're on the precipice of another radical reorganization of our relationship to time. Right. So we think about artificial intelligence, cognitive computing and automation, all these other things we, we think we can do part of the excitement.

    After the novelty of all the goofy image making wears off is this question of, Hey, can I really reorganize my time and what would we do with this time if we get more time? So what I don't want to see the pressure to do what happened 20 years ago. We just filled the time with busy work. We filled the time with just more and more and more and more and more because we're already getting asked to do more for less, right?

    The fees are getting tighter. The time is getting tighter, but we have to draw more in order to meet. You know, all that kind of insurance and liability issues and more risk gets shunted, you know, onto the design team to draw more, put more details in and all that. But this question of if we start to change our relationship to time of what we're actually doing.

    What do we want to do with it? It's a real question. I want to see the profession tackle, because it could be, hey, that now allows me to do [01:46:00] these three other things. It allows me to do these things that expand my business development opportunities. It allows me to make the project better by doing something other than just iterating, for example, um, or it allows us to take on some of the other, you know, Larger systemic challenges of the profession, burnout, too much time, you know, overtime, the pay issues, just a number of things.

    And the kind of frivolous nature of some of the work that happens,

    you know, if we can let some things go and architects, it's hard to let things go. Sometimes we are used to being in control and having, you know, a lot of precision and, and, and, you know, pulling all the strings to gain some things. We're probably gonna have to let some things go.

    And so that question of what do we want this to be, you know, this is that embrace our agency to be changemakers and let's design what we

    Evan Troxel: It is a design problem.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah,

    let's just not let,

    Evan Troxel: think about our businesses as a design problem or our, our, our, approach or, but it is, it,

    it's all a design problem. yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: yeah. And that's part of what I want to get the students in this class to think about. Part [01:47:00] of what, when I talk about, you know, we talked about, we've been in these kind of lecture circuits in the same orbit for a while. Part of the things I've been challenging folks in this space is to think a little bigger, think a little broader, but also really be introspective about how we're operating, how we're using our time, how we're organizing ourselves, uh, to really embrace this moment

    and and not.

    Just, you know, get swallowed up with all the demands of projects and running a practice. That's easy to take those efficiency gains and just squander them again. And then it just, then it just becomes the new norm. Now everyone's expecting a thousand, you know, renderings and all these kinds of things instead of more thoughtful, more intentional, more useful, and actually just move the right ideas at the right time by just aligning our resources differently.

    Evan Troxel: So what kinds of outcomes have you seen come out of this course that you were excited about? Um, it seems like we keep talking about outcomes. And we talked about kind of identifying gaps and looking for opportunities. [01:48:00] I'm curious if what came out of the first run through in this class that you thought was really interesting. hmm.

    Matthew Krissel: it was the, um, the conversations that I knew were just not happening in any other space. So there are people talking and debating about design and ideas and things that were important to that. There just was no other real space for that kind of

    the full graduate program to kind of have that exchange as opposed to just in your studio or in a small group perhaps.

    And some of the feedback I got from the students were like, gosh, this was, this is, you know, one of my favorite courses. This was so great. I just, we just,

    Didn't have access

    the same way to the kind of conversations, but even just the, the way I was able to bring some of, um, real world examples in and

    Evan Troxel: Well, because it's a haystack out there, right? And finding the gold in there is it's difficult. There's so much content, there's so many books, there's so many podcasts, there's so many YouTube channels. And so you've curated [01:49:00] a lot of this over time. Maybe before you finish your thought there, you could just list some of the people that you are drawing from to feed to these students.

    Matthew Krissel: yeah, well, yeah, so the, uh, the quotes I put on the cover was, uh, one from Bruce Mao, a designer, Seth Godin, who's an author, but really in the marketing space, Ryan Holliday, who's an author, but writes about stoic philosophy. Sarah Lewis, who's an art historian up at Harvard. Ed Catmull, who's um, co founder of Pixar, but he really kind of started, he wrote a great book, Creativity, Inc.

    Really started as a computer

    Evan Troxel: another one on my bookshelf

    Matthew Krissel: my gosh, so good.

    Adam Grant, as we talked about, an organizational psychologist. He teaches at Wharton. Uh, and then the one, Kind of architect, Molly Hunker is an architect and Kyle Miller is an associate professor at Syracuse. They have a wonderful book, Building Practice, which they just spent some time meeting all these young practices and really talking to them about where they're trying to go, where are they seeing, [01:50:00] you know, opportunities and really focused in on.

    The not the same old space, the same old firms that always get talked about, uh, as the ICONS of the profession. Um, how do we get out of those echo chambers? They did it. They went out and talked to other people doing interesting work that aren't getting the same kind of traction, uh, in traditional media.

    So those are some of the folks that use these quotes in terms of the podcast world. Let me pull some of these up. So, um, so Steven Johnson, Uh, gosh, he does the one where the great ideas come from, wonderful TED talk. He's got a couple of amazing books. Farsighted is one of the, one of the great books

    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm.

    Matthew Krissel: Uh, Your Podcast with Ian, which is great. There's such a good conversation around entrepreneurial. He has a certain idea and approach how to do that, execute that. Uh, Wes Coates is, is a writer. She talks about building a culture of rigorous thinking. So how authors build, A culture of kind of thinking and how they can operate in a great conversation.[01:51:00]

    One of my other favorite books, David Epstein wrote this book, um, called range and it's about kind of skill stacking. And he,

    it's a, it's a cool conversation around specialists and generalists. And he gave us this great example where he was, you know, kind of a young scientist and he kind of put scientists in quotes and when he was in the space of scientists, he was kind of marginal at best, but the moment he went to and said, I'm going to be a sports medicine kind of scientist.

    I want to talk about what's going on through the lens of science in sport. All of a sudden he's a genius. He's the smartest person in the room in that topic area. And he talks very candidly. Um,

    uh, and this is, I think this is the Chase, the Chase Jarvis, which he is a photographer, so he actually talks a lot about creativity through the lens of photography and other people in that kind of space.

    But, um, David Epstein, that book is just fantastic. Highly recommend it. Really about kind of how you, if you just transfer your same skill set [01:52:00] transferring into other places, you can go from being marginal to fantastic pretty fast. Uh, but it's a great discussion. It does a whole compare and contrast of Tiger Woods as kind of the specialist.

    And, uh, Roger Federer as the kind of generalist where he, like, didn't really focus on tennis until much later and how it just cultivated such a different kind of person and the way he still reached the, the peak of his, his, uh, profession. Um, uh, there is Tony Fidel, um, who was a long time designer at Apple, wrote a beautiful book called Build, wonderful book about just getting to execution, how to bring products to market.

    Wonderful, wonderful book. Uh, Ellen Lupton, she's the chief curator of the contemporary Cooper Hewitt, Adam Grant, Simon Sinek. As I mentioned, you mentioned the book Why, I think the book The Infinite Game, highly recommend. Sarah Lewis, as I mentioned, she wrote a book called The Rise. Blind Spots and Grit are two chapters in that [01:53:00] book I asked the students to read.

    And then there's a podcast, which talks about she's an art history historian background, um, Jim Collins. So this was, uh, Tim Ferriss's. He does really wonderful, uh, interviews. He's focused a lot on kind of entrepreneurial, uh, discussions. Jim Collins is kind of the, he wrote the book, Good to Great,

    and he does this one about the flywheel and just talks again about kind of organizational thinking in a really unique way through the lens of kind of business.

    Seth Godin, as I mentioned, he's got a book called The Practice and, uh, through the lines of it, more as a marketer, but he talks really about how you just got a delivery, talks about like, um,

    one of the things he debunks is like writer's block. It's like, you ever notice how

    there's no such thing as plumber's block?

    Like a plumber doesn't show up and just say, you know what? I can't, I, I, I

    don't know. I can't, they just go, right? They just go. And so sometimes how to like break through some of those blocks,

    you just got to get comfortable with doing terrible work.

    And so it's not writer's block. [01:54:00] You're actually just, you're afraid to do bad work.

    So you don't start.

    Evan Troxel: Stephen, Stephen, I think he references Stephen Pressfield quite often. They, I'm sure they have some kind of relationship, but he has a wonderful book called The War of Art, instead of The Art

    of

    Matthew Krissel: yeah.

    Evan Troxel: right? And, uh, it's about, and, and another one I think called just Do the Work. It's just, that's the, the title of the book, Do the Work.

    And they're, they're very much about showing up and doing, like trudging through the things that you have to do, so that when the moment arises you're already there, like you're ready for it.

    But you, it's, if, if you don't use those muscles, they atrophy, right? And so you have to actually consistently build those muscles so that you can show up and do the work.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. The last

    class I'm going to do this semester, there's two things I want to focus on. One is Ethan Mollick's book called Co Intelligence. Fantastic book about artificial intelligence. It's beautifully written. And he actually references some architecture in there.

    Um, and I want, so I want to do a class on collective intelligence and Co Intelligence and have a conversation.

    So,[01:55:00]

    Adam Grant's book, um.

    Hidden Potential, Chapter 8, Collective Intelligence. Beautiful chapter about how you see this kind of collective intelligence, which to me is how an architectural practice should be organized.

    So I want to have a conversation around collective intelligence and co intelligence

    as we think about technology augmenting

    Evan Troxel: Nice.

    Matthew Krissel: people in the room.

    Evan Troxel: Well, let, let's start to wrap up here and talk about artificial intelligence. So I know you're, you have a piece in your syllabus about the use of generative AI. And I'm also, I'm sure this is something that. kind of dovetails into maybe some of the hesitancy or, uh, I don't know how you would describe it in, in your practice, but maybe there isn't any hesitancy.

    Um, but, but just kind of this over, this new technology, this new wave of things. And, and I thought it was interesting that

    you say in this course, you're expected to use generative AI programs. And I would, I'm very curious to hear why you say that. Um, and then, and maybe how that Dovetails between [01:56:00] academia and practice because you're, you're on both sides of that as well.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. Um, so I will say I had the benefit of when I went out on my own, it was also when I was able to start to explore with a lot of these tools. So one, it gave me time, but also meant I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. I just did whatever I wanted to do. So I built my own research, uh, work.

    Uh, I developed the Built Environment Futures Council with Randy Deutch.

    She and I co founded that with 15 folks around a national conversation that we met once a month for over a year. debating this about what's happening in practice. What are people seeing? So I spent a good year where I had essentially no constraints around. I could explore and experiment in doing this course.

    I expect people to do it because that's what people do.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: The cat's out of the

    Evan Troxel: you're

    you're basically giving them permission to do something that they're already doing, right?

    Matthew Krissel: what I do is I point them to, I would say Carnegie Mellon has some really well written ways of how to engage, um, incite the work. And so, of course, what I want people to do is [01:57:00] use it if it makes you smarter and better and allows you to do other things, or you can, you can query it and ask questions.

    So it makes you, you know, again. More kind of comprehensive in your thinking, if you're seeing the problem differently, the thing I just want them to do is start to learn. Okay. Now, how do I cite that? How do I talk about that? How do we frame some of this? So there's some guidelines that Carnegie Mellon provides for that.

    Certainly things that are that are written or image generated, but certainly in the conversation, I want to be able to talk about, you know, if they're using it for research, they're using it to kind of. I mean, ultimately, this is where a lot of this is going is you've got five humans in the room and there's going to be three or four non humans participating in a conversation and iterating work and whether it's someone guiding it through prompts and interacting live in a kind of design review kind of environment, or you've done something outside of it and brought it in, or you're using a chat bot as a kind of conversational tool.

    I'll be using it for [01:58:00] role playing conversations, you know, in the world of architecture, it's a great opportunity for role playing. You're thinking about you know, work in an area or a neighborhood or an area of expertise you don't know yet. Um, you can play, you know, uh, devil's advocate with it to get it to ask you different questions, take different positions than you can.

    Um, so that, that is happening. It's already out there. People are doing it.

    So I'd rather create an environment where people, as long as they talk about it and are open about it, we could figure out how to do it ethically and openly, um, not pretend like we're not using it for something.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: Um, let's acknowledge it and let's see how can we make ours all better through it.

    I've also dialed way back on the, the kind of, so they're not writing essays and things like that, where it gets, it's very complicated if somebody, you don't quite know what everyone says. So the fact that people have to get up and present work. You know, if they generate things, they use it for a lot of research, and even if it helps frame some of the things they might say, they ultimately have to stand up and defend the work and talk about it [01:59:00] and they have to answer questions.

    So, once you put it in a back and forth, you have to own it in a different way. You can't just pass it off like the way you can just write something and publish it. And who knows, you know, if anyone can ever have a back and forth about it. So,

    so part of it is the framework allows it to be utilized, I think, in a, in a productive way.

    And, uh, useful way,

    uh, and, and to be honest with you, it's just acknowledging that it's already happening, so let's figure out how to teach people to use it the right way or a productive way.

    Evan Troxel: It's an interesting arms race, right? Because it is just a race to be the commodity. I think it's, it's like BIM in that manner, right? for architects. It's like, everybody saw this as a differentiator. Maybe it was some other design technology. Maybe it was 3d modeling. Maybe it was some real time rendering, whatever it is.

    Like now everybody does all those things. Right. And, and it's, it's another tool in the tool box. And it. All of these companies are really competing with each other for your [02:00:00] money to ultimately just be the tool that everybody has, right? It's kind of interesting to think about it that way, but to your point, like, it is the elephant in the room, only if we never talk about it, right?

    It's like this thing that is, if you're totally transparent and say, this is a tool that we are leveraging. And, and maybe it's to our advantage. Maybe it opens up something that we didn't think about and maybe not, right? But it's still a valuable conversation to have in this environment and even talk about how it can be leveraged for other, other, in other ways.

    I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a, it is interesting to me how many people are shying away from that conversation.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. I find it, you don't know what it's good at and what's not good at until you actually use it. And I think part of the things, you know, once the, as you start to experiment with its image generation or using, you know, large language models, um, or really useful things like upcodes and some of those where it just natural language interface for [02:01:00] complex things, or just uploading a complex PDF and be able to just communicate with it differently.

    Um, what you start to find, and this is another, I, I didn't integrate this into the course, but another great book for your listeners to check out, there's a book called, um, Filter World, and it's about the kind of cultural flattening that happens

    from algorithms, essentially, guiding so much of our thinking through the world of algorithms.

    So, so much of the media that we consume has been pushed forward by a series of decisions of which we didn't necessarily make, but actually a fairly small group. And so the reason why he gives one example, why do all the coffee shops kind of look the same? Everyone's got a Bayer Edison bulb and the reclaimed wood chair in the corner.

    And

    he's like, whether I'm in Japan or Brooklyn, they're like, they're all the same. Design

    Evan Troxel: vibe. Yeah.

    Matthew Krissel: because the, you know, that the kind of culture is all accepted. This is what a, a new coffee shop looks like. This is what a third way of coffee shop. Like that's that look and feel I want. So everyone hands their design or the same.

    mood board, right? [02:02:00] And then the designers, they get that, that's all kind of been assimilated. Oh, this is what new and good looks like, right? So to me, I, I, I listened to that, or I read that and I go, okay, this is pretty interesting. If you, if you now take this one step further from, let's say the algorithms of social media and other sort of things that are pushed to us.

    We think about that through the lens of artificial intelligence. Now we're the director. I'm guiding the image generation. I have to be aware that ultimately this is going to just average out to something mediocre. And in one of the talks I give, you know, you just do a search of AI. architecture, Google image search.

    And you start to, God, it all looks the same and your eyes blur on you. Okay. Cause it's, it's, everything's kind of promoting the same things and responses, right? To me, this gets me excited about this is if you see it opportunistically, you say, okay, and this gets back to some of the value of duration, guiding, editing, learning how to do some of that is that a lot of this is just going to make really [02:03:00] mediocre, really bad stuff, mediocre, and a lot It's just averageness.

    It's gonna kind of even out in terms of aesthetic or writing style. It all kind of gets Somewhat bland and repetitive, but you don't, at first it's so dazzling. You don't see that until you do it enough, but then you realize, Oh, wait a second, I still have a lot to add here. I can actually make this a lot better.

    Yes. This rewrote it in a really interesting way, or allowed me to put it in the voice of someone differently, or critiqued it for me in a way that I couldn't get that feedback any other way, or on the image generation, I could quickly experiment with something, it would just take too long to generate any other way.

    But at the end of the day, I'm still seeing immense. value of that human interaction. With that, now this is, we're nearing the end of 2024, that will change. Right. And that our role and relationship with all these will continue to evolve. But to me, the best way to learn is you've got to experiment and, and start using it, um, in practice.

    There's more [02:04:00] challenges to that. Um, I use it in my own practice with real people. projects and real clients in effective ways by inverting certain workflows to kind of reframe goals and aspirations at the beginning of a project. I could capture it a certain way. I could create the interaction a certain way to make it useful and expand the way you'd use a precedent study, for example.

    But anyways, it's a, it's something, so I expect people to use it. I want to be able to talk about it. Let's put it on the table and hopefully

    Um, you know, people get excited about the, Hey, wait a second, I could actually make this better. Or, this is all, this is nice, but it's not. It's just,

    again, a kind of averaging of everything around it.

    And you see that opportunistically as a designer.

    Evan Troxel: yeah, it's a great starting point beyond nothing, right? So, because typically we're starting from a blank page, right? It's like you, you start with the asking good questions or putting together that, that mood board, you know, whatever it is, like you're, you start to, it's a, [02:05:00] a recent interaction that I had was, uh, I was, I was just down in San Diego for Autodesk University.

    And on the way back, I got to stop and talk to some friends while I was in Southern California where I used to live. And, uh, one of my friends said, Hey, so have you ever had a conversation with ChatGPT? And I'm like, well, like, what do you mean by that? Because of course I've used it. And I've, I've, I've had, I've typed something in or I've said something into my phone and then it gives a response.

    And then I, I, I might ask for, you know, okay, with this feedback, what would you do differently? Like, and so, so maybe it's like one or two or three or four back and forth. But. He's like, I just had like this mind blowing experience where I had a 45 minute long conversation with ChatGPT while I was driving down here. And he said, I would just challenge you to do that and

    see what happens. And so I was going to be driving for two hours to Palm Springs, two and a half hours from San Diego. And, uh, and so I decided, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to give that a try. And I, [02:06:00] I ran some ideas through it and it asked me some very interesting questions as I did it.

    And it was this really interesting conversation and it forced me to think about things that I hadn't thought about when I was presenting this idea to it. And then it gave me feedback on my

    answers. And. I thought it was genuinely useful

    to kind of come away with that with what I would call a starting point.

    Right? It's not an endpoint, it's a starting point. And what's even better about it is, at the end, it can give me a list of action items. And it can give me a summary of the things that we talked about. And it can give me, like, here's some next steps, here's some homework, basically. And I thought that was so entirely useful.

    And so I would just throw that out there to the listeners of this audience. Try that out and just see what happens. Like, of course, there's no guarantees that

    it's going to be insightful or useful at all. I think it

    You'll get out of it what you put into it. Right? It's one of those things where it's like, if, if you really [02:07:00] try to do some challenge, think through something rather challenging, it'll give you a direction to go if you don't know which direction to go, at least as a way to start, you know?

    And I thought that that was really a, a useful thing for it. It was pretty cool.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah.

    seeing it as, again, just another person in the room, another person on the team. It's not the end all be all, you're not jumping to the finish line without doing the work. But if you see it as a collaborator,

    somebody that's offering a different point of view, it phrases things in a different way, organizes information, it finds things that you maybe never would have found,

    which is really useful actually.

    And just as another facet to the whole discourse and dialogue, it's still up to you to, to reorganize, repackage, extend it, do something unique with it, um, as a kind of broader design set of tools and resources. I mean, we've used precedent research all the time in architecture

    Evan Troxel: of

    Matthew Krissel: and, you know, whether you're getting, you know, oh, here's this great Tom Pfeiffer, [02:08:00] Pavilion down at Rice University and like Kengo Kumano over in Japan.

    But gosh, I'm doing one up in Maine. It's so different. And so the fact that we can now hybridize, iterate, reorganize through the media that architects are really useful, which is visual. If you think of it as just a faster way to sketch or to test something, I just want to, I need a building on a city street with a big landscape in front, just so I can scroll through it.

    Sketch on it. You can use it just to create even a quick framework as an underline. It's, you know, not as the final solution, but I just need something with some proportion and reality to it

    that I can just draw on top of.

    That, um, allows you to just work differently. So what I love is it goes back to what we were talking about before, the chance to reorganize our relationship to time, but our workflows too, and, you know, kind of how we're going to work together and, um, really reimagine, which hopefully is part of the, part of the excitement can really get us past some of these other hurdles that we're seeing internally and externally to the [02:09:00] profession.

    Evan Troxel: is there anything else that we haven't covered, Matt, that we should, that you wanted to cover today?

    Matthew Krissel: We've covered a lot of ground.

    Thanks, Evan. Really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you today. Of course, I wanted to. Thank Omar Khan and the faculty at Carnegie Mellon, giving me the opportunity to create this course, uh, teach it last year. You know, they took a chance on me on something I pitched a unique idea.

    Um, the feedback's been great. I'm excited to be back again this year and hopefully subsequent years to continue to shape, refine it,

    develop it out, um, and see where we can really take this together. Um, I'm going to go ahead and wrap I'm hoping that,

    Evan Troxel: I'm hoping that other people who are hearing this will, will be like, every architectural education curriculum needs to have something like this. It's just, it's really incredible. And while you're thanking people, I'm just going to thank you for giving back to the architectural profession in this way.

    It's, it's really amazing what you're doing there.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah, thank you. It's, it's been great to [02:10:00] reconnect and, you know, take so much of what I've learned and be able to have a forum and a platform to share that Yeah. Totally inspiring. Yeah, thank you. Of course, I, um, I wouldn't, this kind of point of view, all this background, this experience, I also just want to share that, uh, you know, my time, Karen Timberlake was really pretty incredible and as I mentioned earlier, I've come to really appreciate how special that was, especially at this midpoint of my career, that kind of late 20s to mid 40s period, the opportunities that were presented there, my partners, the, and the support, um, being in a place that just really challenged everyone at every level to integrate research, to think about technology, uh, reimagine different ways in which we could work.

    Really shaped my trajectory and pointed me in a unique direction and I couldn't think of a better place to have been. So really wonderful. I want to thank all the folks there to you that have helped and supported me along on the way. And of course, the opportunity at Perkins&Will [02:11:00] now, where I am just just getting started, um, but certainly my partners there, um.

    And this chance to help build out the Philadelphia studio, grow culture, create a place of innovation, uh, and be a part of defining the future of architecture and wherever this goes in this next step of my, my career.

    Evan Troxel: You had this really incredible first act, right, that you just talked about it, Karen Timberlake, and you had this really tiny second act. Now you've got the beginning of a third act, right? Like, this is kind of how it goes in, in lives and time spans and stories and all these things. And I mean, who knows if this is really the third act or not, but, um, it's, it's incredible to have witnessed, uh, You know, what I've watched over the last probably 10 years of the things that you've been up to, uh, here and there, the things that you've posted online, and then through the, like, this lecture circuit that you did with the AI stuff, and now that you're teaching this course, and, I mean, it's just, it's, it's really cool to see architects like you, [02:12:00] I mean, and, and here you are. putting things out like that to really challenge people to think differently and to think about the profession differently than, you know, the, the common trope of this is the way we've always done things. Right. So, uh, I, I appreciate that and that you have had the, the serendipitous, you know, chances of being in the places that you have to, to be where you are now, like all of that you look back and you can see the path, right?

    You could

    never have seen it. I've seen it back then, right, but it's, uh, it's pretty cool to, to have

    been somebody on the outside looking in on it as well.

    Matthew Krissel: Great. Well, thank you very much, Evan.

    Uh, I will say, you know, there are things that, uh, as I've critiqued this course, things I, I need to do better. I gotta continue to expand, um, the resources, the people diversify, some of the, the, the, the reading and listening I'm organizing. Um, it's a continual, um,

    kind of curation effort that I'm, I'm working [02:13:00] on.

    So I'm happy to share

    where I'm at. Uh, please don't see it as the end all be all. I'd love to hear. You know, in the comments or other ways that people can give me feedback, um, you know, other great things that should be, would participate well within this context of how we as architects look beyond architecture and outside of these usual echo chambers of our practice to find inspiration.

    Uh, so that would be really helpful to help.

    Evan Troxel: well, so speaking of feedback, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you and, and provide feedback or have a conversation? Mm

    Matthew Krissel: Uh, certainly on LinkedIn is helpful, uh, in terms of the messaging that is one easy way. Um, I do do some stuff on Instagram, more through my interest in photography, which I know you and I have a passion for photography. We'll have to do another conversation around. I love photography and through the lens of how I've become a better architect through photography and the way we think of photography.

    Um, that's a conversation for another day. Uh, my, the firm that I started, I've now kind of transitioned to just kind of a research platform. So I've got a [02:14:00] new section on that that I published a couple of my,

    uh, essays I wrote about some thoughts on artificial intelligence, some other things I try to keep up to date there.

    So that's creative lab 3, number 3.

    com. Uh, that's certainly worth, uh, if you want to look at any of that stuff, but I would say probably LinkedIn would be a good way to get a conversation going.

    Evan Troxel: All right. Well, I will put links to all of that in the show notes for this episode. Thanks so much, man. This has been a fun conversation and thank you for doing this work. I think that it's extremely important and, uh, I'm glad that Troxel podcast has a couple of footnotes in your, in your syllabus so that students can get a little bit deeper insight into what other insights people have around architecture that they've shared on this podcast.

    So thanks for that. That, that's been a cool thing to see and I appreciate what you're doing.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. And likewise, thanks for everything you do. The other one is Daniel Davis's that I've used from yours. You host wonderful conversations. All this is, you know, comes from all these different [02:15:00] inspirations and these conversations. So what you're doing is a big part of, you know, again, how we move the broader conversation forward.

    To me, this is just a way to begin. I'm happy to share anything and hopefully more folks are able to pick this up and run with it.

    Evan Troxel: Awesome. Thanks, Matt.

    Matthew Krissel: Yeah. Thanks a lot.


    5 November 2024, 2:00 pm
  • 168: ‘The Challenges of Under-Digitization in AEC’, with César Flores Rodríguez
    168: ‘The Challenges of Under-Digitization in AEC’, with César Flores Rodríguez

    César Flores Rodríguez joins the podcast to talk about various challenges and opportunities in digitizing the under-digitalized AEC sector and what the latest thinking in digital twins brings to the table. We cover real-time monitoring, cost reduction, and energy efficiency, and more. We get into the specifics of Nemetschek's new, open DTwin platform and the chellenging task of driving industry adoption.

    Episode links:

    About César Flores Rodríguez:

    César has more than 25 years of experience in the cloud space, especially in solutions for the AEC/O industry: Prior for joining the Nemetschek Group, he was Managing Director of Radius Telecoms Europe and CSO of the listed NFON AG, both companies active in the Telecoms and cloud space. Before that, César was one of the founders and managing director of conject Group, the leading Common Data Environment (CDE) provider for the construction industry in Europe, which he successfully sold to Aconex (now part of Oracle).

    His early career was formed in strategy consulting at Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman). He holds a German Spanish double diploma in business administration from Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Madrid) ICADE and ESB Reutlingen.

    Provide feedback for this episode

    Connect with Evan:

    Watch this episode on YouTube:

    Episode Transcript:

    168: ‘The Challenges of Under-Digitization in AEC’, with César Flores Rodríguez

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel, and a little bit of housekeeping before we get into this episode, because October is a busy month for me. And I just returned from the AEC Acoustics Leadership Retreat in Melrose, Florida that I spoke about in the recent episode with Phil Reed and Adam Thomas. I highly recommend that you check that episode out if you missed it.

    And the links in the show notes to learn more about the event, because if I could sum up that retreat in one word, it would be: transformational. And that is not hyperbole.

    The good news is they have another event coming up in April, which has a different angle. It's a little bit more technical. So again, check out the links in the show notes for that episode with Phil Reed and Adam Thomas.

    I'll also be attending Autodesk University once again, this time in San Diego, California, [00:01:00] as I'm sure many of you will be too. And if that's the case, connect and message me on LinkedIn while you're there, I would love to say hello.

    Okay. In this episode, I welcome Cesar Flores Rodriguez. Cesar is the Chief Division Officer of the Planning and Design Division and Digital Twin Business Unit Lead at Nemetschek. Cesar has more than 25 years of experience in the cloud space, especially in solutions for the AEC industry. Prior to joining Nemetschek Group, he was Managing Director of Radius Telecoms Europe, and CSO of the listed NFON AG, both companies active in the telecoms and cloud space.

    Before that, Cesar was one of the founders and managing director of Conject Group, the leading common data environment provider for the construction industry in Europe, which he successfully sold to Aconex, which is now part of Oracle, his early career. It was formed in strategy [00:02:00] consulting at Mercer Management Consulting, which is now Oliver Wyman. He also holds a German Spanish double diploma in business administration.

    In this episode, Cesar and I talk about various challenges and opportunities in digitizing the under digitized AEC sector. A lot of today's conversation is framed by looking through the lens of digital twins, which I know can be a trigger word for a lot of you, but I think it's worth hearing about how Nemetschek is approaching this because it is a little bit different. We cover real-time monitoring, cost reduction, energy efficiency, and a lot more. We get into the specifics of Nemetschek new open DTwin platform and the challenging task of driving industry adoption.

    As always, I would appreciate your help in giving this podcast a boost in the very big media landscape by subscribing, wherever you listen. It really does help. And if you'd like to receive an email, when episodes are published with all of the links and other information [00:03:00] from the episodes , You can sign up at trxl.co.

    This was a fantastic conversation with Cesar and I hope you'll not only find value in it for yourself, but that you'll help add value to the profession by sharing it with your network. And now without further ado. I bring you my conversation with Cesar Flores Rodriguez.

    ​

    Evan Troxel: Cesar, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Thanks for having me here, Evan. It's a great pleasure.

    Evan Troxel: And as we just said, we're on opposite sides of the planet right now. And that's not new for this podcast, but it's in the evening where you are, it's in the morning where I am. You're coming from Munich, Germany. I'm coming from Oregon on the west coast of the United States. And it's a pleasure to have you here, but also just thinking about it, like how it applies to the AEC industry and how teams have become global, and I know you're not new to that concept, [00:04:00] maybe, maybe you can, uh, just Take us through a little bit of your history and how you've gotten to where you are at Nemetschek.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I'm happy to do so, Evan, um, so I started in this industry, uh, in the year 2000, uh, approximately, uh, given that I founded a startup at that point in time called Conject, that was very much focused on the collaboration between the different parties, uh, involved in complex projects, uh, like architects and engineers and owners, investors, and all the consultants.

    That's how it all started. It eventually moved on, uh, given that we sold it to a company called Aconex at that point in time, uh, and then, uh, we sold Aconex, uh, to Oracle, uh, and then I moved on and did some consulting works, uh, and that's how I got in contact with Nemetschek again, which is, as you're probably aware of, a very well renowned company [00:05:00] here in Germany for fully focusing on software for the AECO industry.

    Evan Troxel: and how did you get interested in, in AEC? Was it purely through the connections through the software industry or was it something else?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: In my very first life, job life, uh, I had been doing some consulting already before at two companies, Ruhlenberg and Oliver Wyman. And during these jobs, I actually came the first time into real contact with the real estate and construction industry. Uh, I was fascinated and I also saw the endless possibilities given that.

    Our industry is under digitized. Um, I still see, even now after 25 years, probably that's why I've got gray hair for the ones who see me on video. Um, I see the many possibilities, um, our segment offers. And I realized this very early on, I was fascinated and we started to work on it, uh, with a couple of [00:06:00] friends.

    And, uh, that's how it all began.

    Evan Troxel: So when you say under digitized, I mean, I, I hear that term a lot. Can you, from, from your perspective, kind of explain what you mean when you say that? Because I think a lot of people repeat those words because they've heard somebody else say it. It must be true. Tell, tell us what, what you mean by that.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: And have seen many, many processes that are either manual or or paper based, or in every sense very unproductive. So let me give you a couple of examples.

    Evan Troxel: Perfect.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: If I look at something like permitting, it's still a process, at least I can say that for some countries where I'm very close to here in continental Europe, that you need to print out everything that was digitally produced at the very beginning, be it in some nice BIM authoring tools and including all the documentation related to it.

    You print [00:07:00] everything out. And you bring it to your local authority regarding the local permit for it. And then they scan it again and put this back with some feedback. And you do exactly the same. You kind of introduce all these changes back again. into your digital document and then you print it out again.

    So that's for me, something that is a little bit outdated and these are changes. I think that where we can have a very positive effect upon, um, and this is just one example. The same is true for the handover process, which is. It's also something that has been done for decades manually, and it's still partially being done manually, instead of having a proper handover process in a digital way in front of you.

    And we have seen already some very positive changes, um, seeing the introduction of CAD software at some point in time. Now with BIM software [00:08:00] illusionizing into the architect's, um, uh, field. So there's many, many, many good examples, but there's much more that we can do in order to digitize our industry.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, I think about all of the different municipalities, all of the different, uh, areas in the process, the steps along the process where just because the technology exists does not, there's no guarantee that people will adopt it or even properly, um, trying to think of the right word here, but adopt is, is what's coming to my brain, right?

    Like there, there's just because it exists, doesn't mean that that is going to happen. And so there's training. And there's, there's so many, they have to see the value in it, but they also have to understand where it goes beyond them. Right? And I think a lot of times we introduce these, or we don't introduce, we continue to do these steps because My incentive isn't there to make it necessarily easy for the [00:09:00] next step to happen, right?

    This is the way we've always done it, is something that comes up a lot on this podcast, and that, that kind of plagues the, the industry, right, when it comes to moving forward, is, well, this is the way we've always done it, and that we use that as an excuse, and, and the we is multi layered, right? There's, there's many layers to the we onion. And, and so when we think about this idea of technology existing, and you can see the vision of where it can go, but then there are so many individuals along that pathway, and all of these different, you know, machines that already exist out there. And, and I mean, that's something that you're coming up against quite often at Nemetschek, right?

    Like you, you create software for the industry and you listen to a lot of people, but at the same time, there's a lot of people who are just not open to hearing. These things, right?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I couldn't agree more with every word that you just said, um, given that that's how I have experienced it as well. and Nemetschek as well. When he started this company 60 [00:10:00] years ago, and then eventually came up with software solutions for all the engineers, calculating, statics, and other things, that's how it all started.

    He had to overcome all these obstacles, and that's the same still today. I'll make a very recent example. As you know, we just started the digital twin here at Nemetschek, and It's not a resistance, it's rather sticking to the old habit of how a building is managed and how it's been refurbished and maintained.

    It's such a pity that 95, there's no software or digital replica of a building in so many cases around the globe. Even of very prominent buildings around the globe, there's no digital representation of it. And I believe that represents a huge opportunity, uh, for all the software vendors around the globe as well.

    Evan Troxel: There, there's been a few people come on the podcast to [00:11:00] talk about digital twins and some of the conclusions that we've come to on the show, uh, have to do with owners who, what we would call maybe like a serial owner, they, they have many properties or many buildings. And it tended, at least at the time of those conversations, it tended to make sense for owners like that, who are going to. Really be invested in the operations facilities management in a, in a very digital plus analog sense as they move forward. But the onesie twosies, the, the, the small, you know, if, if, if, if an owner has one building or two buildings, like understanding the value proposition of, What a digital twin could potentially be for them.

    I think it was is a hard pill to swallow. It's very difficult to have adoption in there. Has anything changed in the in the past few years in that regard when it comes to I mean because like let's be honest. There's a big. step. There's a big [00:12:00] threshold to cross for an owner to continue to maintain a digital twin copy of their physical building, right?

    I mean, there, you have to learn software. You have to keep that software up to date. You have to train those people to do that in addition to, you know, the, the physical manual work that they're potentially doing on the building as well. I mean, has anything changed in the past few years in that regard?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Uh, not really, with maybe a couple of exceptions related to, The reality capture has become far cheaper and far easier to realize. If I compare that to, let's say, even five years ago. Um, the second bit is that the connection to existing BMS systems or sensors in a building has also become far easier with some of the connectors becoming more standardized.

    Most of the sensors now having an IP address that you can [00:13:00] actually call and therefore then have a proper and meaningful insight into that room or into an outdoor sensor related to temperature or humidity or whatever it is. And so some things have changed, but still, it needs some work. In addition to it, to get it really up and running and to maintain it.

    It took us three days to do a full reality capture of the Nemetschek headquarters, for example. It's a 40, 000 square meter house. We connected then all the sensors and we connected also all the sensors to some of the assets. That are in the building and effectively it took us, I'd say, two to three weeks time depending on how detailed you want to go to really fully capture this building into a digital twin.

    Now, the value that we perceive, and that's the turning point, is that it must be higher. then eventually the cost that you have in A, getting it [00:14:00] fully captured and B, maintained at that level. So what we see more and more with our customers as a value for them that they perceive as very high is cost efficiencies, energy reduction, then also playing with sustainability and sustainability reports as well that play a vital role, but also some of the processes given that.

    You can actually, for example, do some part of the inspections, even remote, um, if required. So there's, for the owners that have maybe a portfolio of buildings, the value is higher, and the more complex the building is with more assets, um, so asset density plays a vital role. I think the higher the value that is perceived out of the digital twin.

    Evan Troxel: It is interesting to think about this from an owner's perspective, because I think the criticism of digital twin technology in AEC is that it's a solution looking for a problem, right? It's like, it doesn't equally apply to everybody, I think is one way to look at that. [00:15:00] the other thing is, is like that you were just talking about, the value has to be higher than what it's going to take to actually do this and then do it over time, a very, you know, for as long as the building exists, potentially, right?

    So, um, that is a, that is a difficult, um, problem statement for many to say, yeah, we're willing to go down that path. And, um, I come from a world of architecture in the public realm, right? And what I have found on projects that I have worked on, several projects, they don't even have a budget to maintain the building once they get it built.

    Like they're spending all of the money just building the project. And they, they're like, we'll figure that part out later. And I think that that's wild, right? And so, Is there even the, the possibility of this digital twin technology being useful, valuable for them? So it sounds like what, what you're saying is, is from a sustainability standpoint and from [00:16:00] potentially even a remote operation standpoint. I mean, there's definitely value to be found there, but, but again, the owners still have to be willing to do that, right? Mm hmm, mm

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I agree with what you just said. So the owner needs to be willing and to realize that value, um, is there always a budget for it? No. So it's really on us together working sometimes with a client and if I look at the, uh, public site and it's about then going through a tender as well and there needs to be a budget for that tender then in order to really make it happen.

    But eventually the outcome of cost efficiency. Uh, and equally, uh, uh, well, combined with energy, um, uh, reduction or consumption, a reduction, plays a vital role. And I believe that's going to happen more and more as we see a regulation coming in strongly in a way to Let's say, control energy in buildings much better as we [00:17:00] have seen so far.

    I don't know if you are aware, but in Spain for example, there has been some regulation in place, that at 10pm, in inner cities, you have to turn off the light. Um, in shops and in banks, for example, so where you don't need light, but you need to control that. You need to have a report on that. You need to ensure that it really happens from a customer perspective.

    That's where something like a digital twin can really help you because this, I believe, is only the start of it. There will be much more processes of that kind coming through regulation.

    Evan Troxel: It's interesting to think about this situation from kind of a, um, What's the word I'm looking for? It's like when you can play these scenarios out in advance, right? You can, you can basically do a simulation on if we turn this off at this time, or if we manage these things in this way, maybe it's the window shades to manage solar heat gain, or then we can, you can actually tie those. things to budget numbers, [00:18:00] right? And then you can actually play that out ahead of time without trying it in real time. Try it in the computer, right? First before you do it in the physical world to actually see what you can expect potentially to come out of those things. I mean, is that, are you seeing people kind of play these digital twins kind of like a video game where they're doing these scenarios, running scenarios for all kinds of things like that?

    And maybe you can give some examples of the types of things people are doing with them.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yeah, I think what you're alluding to is simulations of these kind of things. It may be all sorts of things, by the way, it may be heating, um, for example, it may be lightening, um, and we see that very often, uh, at Nemetschek, um, overall. So we have seen customers that even then, uh, turned off full buildings.

    We had that for the first time two years ago, um, during the sort of energy crisis, as we called it here over in Europe. Um, given that there was a [00:19:00] strong power shortage, um, and then customers slowly started to turn off full office buildings and said we're going to redirect all our people to go to the other building.

    We put some integrated workspace management that allows the people then to book their places and go in and we shut down. Water, electricity, and every other consumption, um, source, um, in the other building. And now they are starting off, well, again, some buildings, as people are getting back more and more to the offices.

    But that's how they manage it. And now they are starting to optimize that. Because, um, actually office buildings are very inefficient, in a sense that they are not used at night, and they are usually not used over the weekend. So they are actually consuming energy, nevertheless, in all these times. So there's a lot of optimization in the not office hours that can happen for a building.

    [00:20:00] I

    Evan Troxel: office buildings didn't turn off and nobody was going to them, but they continued to operate as if they were full of people. I mean, I saw that first firsthand, you could have three people in an office, but it was operating as if it was full of 300 people with the lighting, with the cooling, with the heating, with the window shade, with, with everything. And that building had sensors. It had the ability to do the things that you're talking about. And so is, is it, does it actually just take a crisis? Like what is actually going to get people to change their behavior in order? Again, the tools exist. You can actually link the digital twin to the building management system.

    You can remote control a building. You can get these reports. You can run these situ simulations. And yet, I mean, it's amazing to hear that, that that's happening in a place like Spain, but I, I think in the U. S. I, I would be surprised if it's happening hardly anywhere. I mean, maybe it is happening in, in [00:21:00] very large urban areas in, in certain situations, but, and our building stock is so old compared to, you know, having lots of buildings don't have sensors, right?

    Lots of buildings don't have these remote control abilities. So there, there's this huge spectrum of. technology that exists in the physical world. There's so many barriers to something like this. I mean, it just sounds like a monumental thing to overcome. And, and I'm just wondering, like, is it actually just going to take more critical, urgent scenarios, like an energy crisis for people to actually perk up?

    And because in my house, I'm sorry to go on so long here in my house, when I leave for vacation, like I, I do all of these things because I pay the bills. Right? And so, and so, like, people who manage buildings, I don't, like, it's not their money. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a corporate entity's money, and [00:22:00] it's just the cost of doing business.

    And again, like, kind of really critically analyzing these things is, again, back to my idea, is such a monumental task to, to really take this on. And so Is it a crisis? Is that what we need? More crises to, to drive

    behavioral change?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Okay, so first of all, Exogene factors like the energy crisis, um, uh, obviously, obviously have fostered many changes in the world. Take home office as a good example. Suddenly home office was everywhere. Um, so that's a typical example of how things can change rapidly. I think regulatory also helps as well.

    Um, probably we are more prone to it here in Europe, um, as we kind of Uh, always looking up to the state to regulate such things, or the European Union if some new act comes into act. third, The example that I made about that office [00:23:00] building that was in Germany, this was a big industrial company that has to really manage costs really tightly.

    And what they saw was that in their portfolio of buildings, since there was no use of the building, the energy bill was still so high, given it was the energy crisis and the electricity really, Uh, the electricity prices were sky high. They decided to say, we need to do something about it. There must be something that we can do about it.

    And the introduction of software helped them to reduce, uh, the energy bill during that time, um, in terms of KWH consumption as one example, also water and all the other, uh, sources. So for me, it's. It's sustainability is a big issue and that's becoming stronger as well in Europe. It's cost reduction, it's regulatory, and it's some exogene factors.

    So, I believe these are four major drivers to kind of really [00:24:00] initiate these kind of changes from outside as well.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the new Digital Twin platform. I saw a word on the website that really piqued my interest, which was open. And maybe you can start off by talking about an open Digital Twin platform.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yes, I think that goes and ties back a little bit to the NEMATRAC history. NEMATRAC has been always promoting IFC and open standards. Um, that's something that we really believe in. We don't want to create proprietary standards and proprietary formats, but rather have the data really, flow freely between the different applications.

    Um, given for some of the buildings, there is already data that is existing in very different formats and from very different vendors around the globe. I'll take BIM as a good example for that. We have created our digital twin platform in such a way that Any [00:25:00] format we try to read in, even if it's not a Nemetschek format explicitly, that is, um, if by design, um, that means that any of our big competitors of Nemetschek, we can read in their format in a proprietary way and thereby then analyze the data for the ideal usage of the digital twin.

    That's true also for point clouds, it's true for photogrammetry, they're very different formats. And we have built it up in such a way that it can be read in, so we can, we do not create silos, we create something that is a real open platform.

    Evan Troxel: Interesting. So give us an idea of what it actually means to use your platform. So it sounds like it's, it can be authored that the, the model can be authored just about in any way, right? It could, it could start as a BIM and it could go like the building hasn't even built yet, but you could also do photogrammetry.

    You could also do a laser scan of an existing building and bring that in. And then what are you doing in the platform and how are we accessing that? Is it a desktop [00:26:00] application? Is it through a web browser, et cetera? Give it, give us an idea.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: So, what you do is usually for existing buildings, in this case, because that's really most of our cases that we are currently finding, is to really fully digitize that building. And that means that we take point clouds with some of our partners, we do photogrammetry, we take photos with drones, and we combine it with everything that we can find that already exists digitally.

    That means any BIM model or CAD model. And what we are able to do is to overlay all that information. Um, so what we, we have eaten or drank our own champagne, um, and we have actually, as I said already before, done the same for the Nemetschek headquarter, and we had different formats and different, uh, authoring tools, CAD and BIM that had been used in the past.

    And we combined all that information with the point clouds and the photogrammetry and photogrammetry to come to a real complete [00:27:00] view of. what the building currently actually is. We then connect to the BMS system here. We installed, because nowadays sensors are relatively cheap, indoor sensors everywhere in the building as well, to measure occupancy, temperature, CO2 levels.

    Even, you may laugh now, Virus Intensity, that's also measurable nowadays. Radon, and all of that is very applicable, not only to us, but also to hospitals as a good example for that, or for airports when it comes down to really measure a temperature rise in some corner of the airport where you don't see the fire, but it's kind of there, and you need to control it.

    So, these are very Active examples of what we see, how a digital twin can be used, and how really to implement it in trouble.

    Evan Troxel: So I imagine the authoring process, though, of kind of, um, filtering through many different layers and different types of information to [00:28:00] really get it down to something that is lightweight and useful is still a process that, that takes People have to go through, right? And, and then you're, you're not just connecting to a BMS.

    You're also placing some representative node of what those sensors are, where they're located, right? In the model. So there's, there's still, can you give it an idea of And I know it would be different for every project, but just like, what is the process you go through once you capture the building that you then go through to get to a usable digital twin for various outcomes?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yeah, um, good point. So what we do then is really to locate all the sensors and, um, really connect them with the right asset, the right room, and everything that is already in that digital representation of the asset itself. Once that is done, we connect all these points then, um, in such a way that It connects to our BI engine that [00:29:00] is in our digital twin.

    We also extract from the authoring tools every bit of information that we can get, be it all the attributes, for example, from a BIM model. Whatever we can find, we try to really extract. And then we combine it to reports for the clients. It depends on what the client wants. It's very easy to do that, but in the end, there's some, let's say, logic that you need to apply to combine, for example, the occupancy sensor with all the rooms and then say, okay, please come up with an occupancy report that shows me on average per day occupancy for the specific floor, for example, if you want to do it by floor in order to make a decision how many floors you want to heat up.

    Yeah. That's maybe a good example for that. So you connect the dots of the different data silos in the platform, and then you need to create the report out of it. Whether it's for cost reduction or whether it's for sustainability, as I mentioned [00:30:00] already before, it doesn't matter. In the end, that's the groundwork that you need to do.

    Evan Troxel: It is interesting to think about this as like, uh, there's multiple interfaces, right? There's, there's the actual model, but then there's the, the BI, the business intelligence, the reports, the dashboard side of it, right? Which doesn't take a BIM operator. That basically democratizes the output, so that anybody can actually make a decision from it, or at least gain some insights from that.

    And if it's a real time Dashboard, right? It's a living document, and it's something that people can actually follow and track trends over time, and that's where insights actually come from, right? It's by using this all the time, and it also kind of changes The decision making function early on in the process to say who is going to use this because it's not like once you get the model, once you plug in all the [00:31:00] sensors and you plug in the data for the different spaces and what they're used for and what are their hours and, you know, is it a meeting room versus a restroom versus a storage room versus a, like, there's so many different Typologies of space inside of these buildings, but it democratizes who can make decisions because it makes it available to so many more people, right?

    Once that data is, is it exists or the collection can happen and the reporting. So is there a whole framework on the business intelligence side of things to make it easy to start getting insights quickly, once all of that data is put into the digital twin?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Absolutely, yes. That's what we are trying to achieve, to make the UX, the UI really simple to use from a user perspective. Um, you already asked before and I didn't give you an answer, I just realized. This is a SaaS product, so it's going through the web browser. So it's very, very easy to invite a new user and give [00:32:00] that person access to the data, so that he or she can really come to its own conclusions, take its own decisions, whatever is needed.

    So he goes to the, she goes to the BI engine and then starts with what is the kind of data that I would like really to see for which kind of building. So he can do a building deep dive and then combine the different data sets that I have at my hands to come to one comprehensive report that I need in order to take my decision in a proper way.

    Evan Troxel: So, so talk a little bit more about what people are experiencing, like the kinds of benefits that they're experiencing by doing this, because if it's a SaaS model, it has to provide continual value. It has to provide value over time. And so just give some examples potentially of, of what, what you're hearing from your customers.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: So it's really real time monitoring is one of the major values that is realized and that by that real time monitoring the whole time they're actually capable of [00:33:00] then achieving as I said before already cost reduction through energy reduction but also Uh, come up with some new reports that allow them to make decisions around refurbishments or maintain, maintenance.

    Uh, I'll make one of my favorite examples, um, if you've got a big facility or actually a set of facility, a portfolio of facilities in one place, you may want to take the decision, to replace your air cons that you have on site. But for that purpose, you would need to know how many air cons you have, what model you have, what is the energy consumption of that air con eventually.

    So, if you buy a new one, what's the break even then? So, you need to compel all the information from the existing ones that you already have in your digital twin, and then extract that information and compare it with a potential new one, that actually has maybe an energy consumption that is half of it and half the price [00:34:00] therefore.

    So then you need to also add the capex cost and the installation cost of it. And that's your beautiful business case. So that's something, but there, there are also very simplistic cases. It may be even just to check the fire extinguishers as simple as that. So it's a point cloud and we have written, written a routine to really.

    identify all the fire extinguishers because a lot of companies do not know where are my fire extinguishers, how many do I have? It's very simple cases as well that we are trying to solve for our customers.

    Evan Troxel: That's a really great example. I mean, because it's not like the fire extinguisher has a sensor on it, or maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but right, but, but knowing where they are, what model it is, when they need to be checked, when they need to be serviced or replaced. And it's things like that that enable. An effective ma because what, what would be worse than having a fire extinguisher that is broken or does, it does it's expired, [00:35:00] for example, right?

    When something wrong actually goes wrong. I mean, that, that to me, if you can have a dashboard that basically lays out a thing for your facilities, maintenance and operations team to be doing all the time, that seems to make a, a great use case right there for something like this.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: It's even very basic processes like the identification of these fire extinguishers as they don't know where some type of, most of the cases actually where they are. That also applies for all sorts of things like sprinklers or so many little components in the building. um, that make a difference, but they need to be controlled, they need to be checked, the battery needs to be replaced, and instead of doing that continuously, you can really measure it.

    They sometimes have an IP address in the meantime, uh, so you can really fully integrate them into the digital twin, um, there as well. And, uh, AI, that's incredible, the [00:36:00] advances that we see there, allows us to identify, um, easily, in the point clouds, many of these aspects. So if the point cloud has a certain quality, we are able to identify The fire extinguishers or the sprinklers or whatever it is.

    At least then we have the location and then we, somebody can be sent to really take on the very little nitty gritty attributes of that fire extinguisher if we don't have it. Because for most of the existing building that information does not exist. Here we can help with a concrete use case that is very pragmatic.

    Evan Troxel: And it actually lays out a plan for you to follow to be able to get the most value out of something like this, right?

    I think that's what's actually interesting about it is like somebody doesn't have to figure that out. like you're saying, AI can do that. So what I'm assuming what you're saying there when you, when you talk about AI, it's like, if you have a photogrammetry model or a laser scan and accompanied with 360 degree photographs, right? You can, you can do like a [00:37:00] computer vision analysis of that. And it can say that is a fire extinguisher with 98%, you know, positively like that. That's what that is. That's a light fixture. That's a fire extinguisher. Now we know where they are, and then you can actually have. A to do list to send your building maintenance out to identify and catalog, or just apply those attributes to those points in the model so that you have a full, uh, you know, exactly what's in your model.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yes,

    Evan Troxel: then

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I couldn't describe it better. We are going to the extreme that we are working not only on this concrete little pragmatic use cases, but to have a full, what we call, scan to BIM automated. That means, if you have a point cloud and photogrammetry of the building, Our AI engine is not perfect yet. We are at a level of, let's say, 95, 96%.

    It's not perfect yet, but we are getting there. And as a matter of [00:38:00] time, we will release something that will allow our customers then to create an automated asset register of its buildings. That is a great value, and it will exactly know, okay, that's where maybe that, I don't know, table, um, chair, and everything is located, and it's located in a certain room, and it's lo So you've got all the information, and you've written it at the moment.

    Collecting all of that is a manual, typical manual, tedious work. that can be automated and it becomes an object, a database object, and not just some points in the cloud or just some pixels in a photo. That makes it really valuable information.

    Evan Troxel: that would need to be updated from time to time because furniture moves around, for example, right?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: There are some goods that, and assets that will be moved around with certainty, so it depends on the accuracy of the use case needed, uh, how often you want to digitize than you're building [00:39:00] inside. Um, probably not that often, but a lot of the assets are actually quite fixed. within a typical room, be it the heating, be it the lightning, uh, lighting, be it the switches, be it sockets, be it whatever it is, all of that is quite fixed.

    And identifying these structures is extremely valuable depending on the use case. Think about a hospital, for example. In a hospital, having that information, if you've got an old hospital somewhere, having that information is extremely valuable. Or for an airport, this is exactly the same.

    Evan Troxel: Right. It, it seems too that what else is valuable is what is in the walls, what is above the ceiling. Is there, has there been any advancements in capturing that kind of information that, I mean, obviously it's, it's tedious, it's probably going to remain tedious, but has the technology gotten better to capture that, maybe not in a wall, but above a suspended ceiling, for example, of what's going on up there with piping and ductwork [00:40:00] and locations of things. Any advancement there?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yes, um, actually, um, so we're playing around with LIDAR technology, um, to look at least a little bit behind the walls, as good as we can. Um, again, it's not yet there, as perfect as we want it to be, maybe in that sense we're a bit too German, um, but, That's something I believe requires accuracy, uh, so when we really look behind the walls.

    Um, so, I think two examples we just used make so much sense and they will create so much value, because looking behind the walls is something at the moment that is extremely tedious, as you need to really I don't know, scratch off the wall or go to the ceiling and remove some of the blinders, whatever it is, that's the surface there.

    That's tough. So LiDAR may be a technology that can help us here. So we are seeing some advances there and we're working together with some startups. [00:41:00] But I mean, the basics already would be great. Scan to BIM already would be a great move ahead. I mean, looking behind the walls and ceilings, that would be just the next step already, but Already the first one needs to be made.

    Evan Troxel: So, so you, your, your company, you obviously understand the value of, uh, the, the BIM asset, right? And, and when you go from scan to BIM, depending on the age of the building, I mean, you could get very different. Output from that process, if the building is 200 years old, which, you know, in Germany has probably not, I'm sure there are many examples exist versus something that is, is much more newly constructed as far as like, Parallel walls and level floors and level ceilings.

    And I mean, so, so doing the scan to BIM process, there is a level of accuracy that is useful, but then there's also a level of accuracy that is, as an architect, when it comes [00:42:00] to being able to do things with that BIM model, it is impossible if it is too accurate sometimes, right? Like it, it just. If the floors are, are not level.

    Okay. On some, in some way, that's actually not useful to me as an architect, I need the floor to be level so that I can do things to it. In the software, how, how does that balance get achieved in that scan to BIM process? From, from Emtex point of view, like, like how are you giving people the con, the control that they want to get out of that rather than making that decision for them? Because I've again been through the process where. I got a BIM model from a scan and it was too accurate. The wall was slightly off. Okay, well that's not useful to me because maybe we just didn't have that conversation up front. Are you guys having those conversations? How is that being affected? How is that affecting the outcome of the scan to BIM process?

    Okay,

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: is exact, is one case [00:43:00] where it's needed in a very high, well, relatively high accuracy level, given that there is a maintain, maintenance process going on or refurbishment, whatever it is. Most of the use cases are more oriented towards operate. and managing a building, but coming back to your point, I think it really depends on the type of building you're in.

    For some of the buildings, the accuracy that is needed is that high. I'm talking, I make now an extreme example of a semiconductor building, or a plant, I should say. Accuracy, accuracy there is like everything. It's like you need to be super precise about everything. Whilst if I'm looking at an office building, well, that's not really needed.

    It depends on the use case is the answer. So we need to ask our clients, what do you really want? And the same is true also for the point clouds that we advise our customers then to take. What is the level of accuracy that you need? So is it like, I don't [00:44:00] know, a point like two millimeters or is it two centimeters?

    What is it that you really need for your specific use case?

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, the tolerance is a big issue, right? Because the LiDAR can do something that photogrammetry can't, for example. Uh, and when we draw something from scratch in BIM, we're drawing everything parallel and flat, right? And that's what CAD does. has been designed to do. That's what BIM has been designed to do. And then when it actually gets built, it's something else, entirely, usually, right? And, and so, it goes through, then you have to kind of go through that as built process, and you have to do the comparative analysis of a LiDAR scan to what was built, and then you have to reconcile that in the model. But, again, just like telling the whole story about Digital Twin, this is all part of that.

    Like, this is all part of There's so many layers to this onion, and, and it is, it's not easy to, for, for an owner, I think, to actually understand the true [00:45:00] cost, but also the true value proposition that it, that it gives us.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: What you just described perfectly matches also, uh, with our view. So, this whole design through construct process, and then you need to compare, especially when it comes later on to issue management and to hand over, what has been built, and then there are deviations. I've never seen a building where the deviation

    is not there.

    It doesn't exist, in reality.

    And it also changes over time, um, not only physically only, but also in, in the building itself. There's all sorts of changes, sometimes smaller, sometimes big, sometimes bigger ones. And that has an impact, um, on building, um, overall. So, it, it, it, we need to really educate our customers and potential customers on that.

    And we see some of them. Realizing the value very early on. Universities are [00:46:00] actually a prime example of that. Um, they actually realize that they have usually kind of old buildings, or a good set of old buildings, sometimes also new buildings, and they're trying to read to match them and to be able to read to manage them properly, uh, in everything that they do with them.

    Uh, here Additional Twin is a massive step ahead.

    Evan Troxel: Mm. Mm. I'm wondering if there's anything else on the agenda here today that you want to go over when it comes to digital twins that we haven't covered in this conversation so far. Have we missed anything?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I believe if there's one thing that I would like to add, it's that it's beyond the owner. What I'm realizing, or what we are realizing more and more, it's that It's an operator, and it's also the architects, and also the engineers, and also the ones who write the certificates, for example, for buildings related to sustainability and everything else, that will realize the value out [00:47:00] of such a digital twin.

    So we're seeing big companies and consultancies around the world taking the data, And creating new values out of that, like I was just describing, like certificates is a good example for it. Or continuous reports on the building. Um, so there's a lot of value that will be derived just by once and for all having the data of your building in one place.

    And that's, I believe, something that at the moment it doesn't exist and that I think it's underestimated at the moment.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, just, just an owner knowing what they own is a huge value proposition

    that I think, especially in large buildings. There's not a complete understanding of, of what is actually there. What are the assets? What are their ages? What are their model numbers? What are their warranties? When are they expected to be replaced? And there's so many layers to that, [00:48:00] that I, I think there is a lot of value there. But at the same time, You're talking about a very proactive scenario in a very reactive world, right? Which is, we're just going to wait for that. And, and of course, in many examples, like you've cited in airports and hospitals and fire stations, etc.

    Like we can't wait for stuff to break. We have to be ahead. We can't have that scenario rise up because it literally is life or death for me, for people. But when it comes to regular buildings, I'll just say it that way, it's a very reactive world. They wait for the roof to fail. They wait for the air conditioning unit to stop working in the classroom over the, you know, in the school. And that behavior change is very difficult. Um, I'm, I'm rooting for you to help figure that out because I, I do think that not only is there value along the whole path of operations for. new businesses to exist and to extend [00:49:00] relationships. For example, with architects, right? Often like once the building is open and it's occupied, architects are onto the next project. They are not continuing to stay involved. They may do a after occupancy kind of survey to kind of see if it's working out. But, but that relationship really doesn't continue along with that. Owner group or that building because they built it, right? And now we're going to move on to another one, but this does provide an opportunity to stay involved in the satisfaction of using that building the way that it was designed in the operations of that building moving forward. And there are new value propositions, new ways of doing business, I think, that are afforded in, in, with technology like this and with this new way of thinking. So, in that way, I'm very much rooting for you because I feel like architects, if, if people don't understand the value of architects, it's not going to get any better by stopping the relationship when the building [00:50:00] becomes occupied, right?

    It actually needs to continue beyond that. And I think architects are in a very good position to, to help owners. Get the most out of their new facility that they just went through this huge, uh, process with to, to bring into reality. So, I, I'm, I am rooting for you and I, I think that, I think that there is legs here, but I, I think it is, uh, you're, you have a monumental task ahead of you.

    And it's not just you. Right. There are many people kind of trying to tackle the digital twin. There's the digital twin consortium. Autodesk is obviously has a big push into this. Nemetschek has a big push into this and several startups with the scan process, the scan to BIM process and making sense of all that data.

    So, um, it's very interesting to kind of get this update and see where things have come in the last few years, but also potentially where they're going. Okay.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: I can only agree to so many things that you just said, and I am seeing as well that big architectural offices around the [00:51:00] globe are extending their offering into the operate and manage phase as well, for exactly the reason that you just stated, because it makes so much sense. Um, there is also the possibility of extending with a digital twin the lifespan of a building or of an infrastructure.

    And allow me to make one very nice example where we have a digital twin of the Kühlbrandbrücke in Hamburg. That's the second most used bridge in Germany.

    So this bridge, which crosses a sensitive point in Hamburg, was built 50 years ago. The city does not have money to actually build a new one. So they need to extend the lifespan of the existing one. They have no money. connected 500 sensors to that bridge and created a full digital representation for it.

    So they completely, [00:52:00] point clouds and photogrammetry, they created a full BIM model, combined all the sensors and they are measuring live the bridge in order to make sure that they don't miss anything so that the lifespan can be extended, um, given it will take another 10 to 12 years until the new bridge or the new tunnel will be built.

    So that's quite a very interesting example where it's not about sustainability or consumption or anything else. It's extending the lifespan of an asset or an infrastructure in that case.

    Evan Troxel: It kind of is about sustainability,

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yeah, true.

    Oh, good point.

    Evan Troxel: because if you're keeping an asset longer, I mean, that, that is a, that's a worthy goal. What kinds of things are they measuring when it comes to that? Is it, is it stress on the members? Is it cracking? Like what kinds of things are they actually measuring?

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: All and more. It's temperature, humidity, some sensors are inside the concrete and measuring [00:53:00] constantly the cracks and there's also some, I think some noise of sensors if I'm not mistaken. So it's really all sorts of sensors

    to really come to a full and comprehensive view of the bridge.

    Evan Troxel: Interesting. Wow. Fascinating. Well, thank you for sharing all that and I appreciate you coming on the podcast to share about the latest in Digital Twins and this new open platform that you've created. Maybe you can, we can just finish up here and you can let people know where they can go to learn more about this and then we'll include links to all of those places in the show notes.

    But where, where's the best place to send people if they want to learn more about what

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Well, um, there is two, uh, places where they can go to. Either they go to Nemetschek. com, where they already will find a lot of information. And the other, uh, address to go to is Nemetschek DTWIN. com. That's where they will find the specific, um, information related to DTWIN. [00:54:00] That's the name of our platform.

    Evan Troxel: Nemetschek, D TWIN, and that's one word, no spaces,

    just D T W I N.

    Cesar Flores-Rodriguez: Yeah, well, the URL to create is nemetshek dtwin and no space, no dash, no point in between.

    Evan Troxel: Okay, great. I will put both of those links in the show notes for this episode. Cesar, thank you so much. it was a great conversation 

    8 October 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 167: ‘The Battle Over Building Codes Continues’, with Scott Reynolds
    167: ‘The Battle Over Building Codes Continues’, with Scott Reynolds

    Scott Reynolds joins the podcast to talk about the ongoing legal and legislative battles surrounding building codes and their accessibility. He gives us an update on the latest news and happening regarding the Pro Codes Act and elaborates on the contentious issue of copyrighting building regulations that impact AEC and beyond.

    Episode links:

    About Scott Reynolds:

    Scott Reynolds is a co-founder and the CEO of UpCodes. Scott comes from a background in architecture, having worked for several years in Hong Kong and New York City at firms including both Kohn Pedersen Fox and Hassell. Being a Y Combinator alumni he has leveraged both industry and startup experience to launch and scale UpCodes.

    Provide feedback for this episode

    Connect with Evan:

    Watch this episode on YouTube:

    Episode Transcript:

    167: ‘The Battle Over Building Codes Continues’, with Scott Reynolds
    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel, Scott Reynolds returns to the show to discuss the ongoing, legal and legislative battles surrounding building codes and their accessibility. When I was welcoming Scott to the show that you're just about to listen to, I said it was this third time on, but no, I went back and checked the records. This is actually his fourth time. Scott is the co-founder and the CEO of UpCodes. He comes from a background in architecture, having worked for several years in Hong Kong and New York City at firms, including both Kohn Peterson Fox and Hassell. Being a Y Combinator alumni, he has leveraged both industry and startup experience to launch and scale UpCodes.
    Today, he's here to give us an update on the latest news and happenings regarding the new Pro Codes Act and elaborates on the contentious issue of [00:01:00] copywriting building regulations that impact AEC and beyond.
    In this episode, we talk about the implications of restricting access to the code, the history of lawsuits, and the new push towards legislation that is currently happening.
    I encourage you to use the show links in the show notes as a next step, after listening to join in the public discussion and advocacy of this important issue.
    As always, I would appreciate your help in giving this podcast a boost in the vast media landscape by subscribing, wherever you listen to let me know that you're a fan.
    And if you'd like to receive an email when these episodes come out with all of the links and other information from the episode itself, sign up at trxl.co, where you can also directly support the show by becoming a member. So, thank you so much for listening. And now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Scott Reynolds.
    ​
    Evan Troxel: [00:02:00] Scott Reynolds, welcome back to the podcast number three for you, and I feel like, uh, we're just on this wheel, it keeps turning, and the, and there is a similar theme that we've experienced on this podcast, uh, but there's updates, and so, I, I hate to say it like this, but like, the more things change, the more they are, they stay the same, right?
    And, and through the march of 2020, Progress and technology. There's also still kind of this idea of the old guard really, really, I don't know what's right. They're clamping down, they're hanging on really tightly to the way things maybe, maybe were, or maybe just the way they want things to be, but let's introduce this, this topic and then give us kind of a, um, uh, a background on what you're doing at Upcodes so that that really kind of creates the Venn diagram of the topic that we're actually going to be talking about today.
    So start with, well, let's just catch up [00:03:00] on, on like the, the new developments and, and what's, what's going on with the whole idea behind. Copywriting the law.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you for having me back. Great to connect again and chat through this and certainly a lot of updates. Um, so yeah, it's a broad context. Uh, at Upcodes, we take a lot of the regulations and put them together into one searchable database online. Now we've gone, um, you know, added a lot of features and functionality on top of that, but, you know, at the crux of it, That's kind of what we do.
    We just, um, aggregate a lot of regulations, uh, into one place and just make them freely open and available to, to the industry. Um, and I know we've covered that in previous, uh, podcasts.
    Evan Troxel: Well, put a, put a scale to that because when you say a lot of regulations, like you mean a lot of regulations. So give, give an idea because there's, how many municipalities in the US and everybody's got a different concoction of coded options. And so there's just, there's a ton of stuff out there that people, that architects, engineers, building designers, everybody has to deal with, right?
    And, [00:04:00] and so I, that kind of sets this, the idea of what you're actually dealing with when you're providing your service.
    Scott Reynolds: yeah, absolutely. And just to talk about the breadth, um, these regulations affect you at the federal level, the state level, city level, and sometimes local, uh, county level. And we try and track as many of those as we can, generally at the federal level, state level, and some cities. So, I think we're over 75 or roughly 80 different jurisdictions, and that's a mix of what I mentioned before. But just to kind of put a number to that, in terms of the code coverage, we have over 6 million sections of code. Those could be sections from the building code, the plumbing code, electrical code, fire codes. And it's constantly evolving over time. So we update over 7, 000 sections per month on average. And actually that number is growing as the library grows.
    So it's, it's both a very broad database, but one that constantly evolves. And, and candidly, that's what we spend a lot of time, um, [00:05:00] focusing on and building the technology around is the backend system. How do we actually aggregate all this data and keep it up to date going forward?
    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Right. So, okay. So now that we have an idea of that's incredible. Six million code sections. And, and I can't, I just, the scale of updating. So why are you updating so much every month? Is that because the code is changing that fast or like, give, give us an idea of like, what's behind that.
    Scott Reynolds: Right. Yeah. So it's the code changing both the base adopted codes, but also the amendments. And if you're in one particular jurisdiction, uh, you know, maybe it updates once, twice a year. If you're in somewhere like New York City, a little bit more frequently than that, and everyone's on their own cadence. But when you put, you know, 75 of these jurisdictions together into one place, those updates happen very, very frequently across, um, jurisdictions. across the U. S. So it's, it's just this constantly churning process where we're kind of, you know, it's almost like playing whack a mole. It's maybe Connecticut updates and maybe California updates and Texas and [00:06:00] then New Hampshire. Um, so it's constantly keeping this balance and using our research team to keep on top of these changes and, and track this kind of constantly morphing, um, uh, target.
    Evan Troxel: That's incredible. Because as a design professional myself, right? I, I obviously have to, like, like my job is to incorporate my, Design with the building code to land that building in a particular location. And I can't keep on top of those changes. I have to like, I always joke, like with the building product manufacturing industry, where I get an email or a cold call or something for about a new product.
    It's like, You're not the only, I can't even spend, if, if every building product manufacturer called me and wanted to spend 20 minutes on the phone, I would never, ever get any work done. And, and that's just one little piece of designing a building, right? There's, there's way bigger fish to fry in the sea of.
    designing a building, the building code being a huge piece of that. And for me to be able to rely [00:07:00] on an updated source of information is a very big deal because I have to comply with that, right? To get my building through the AHJ so that it can actually get built.
    Scott Reynolds: And in fact, that goes back to the origin of, of the product. I was working in. And, you know, you'd have a project, uh, come in and you're, you're working on it and you're trying to aggregate and pull together what the code is, like get a complete picture of, of what the code is. And we would go to the physical library, you know, get some of the books out, we'd go to the government sites, PDF saved to the company server and try to not only, you know, stitch this together, but understand did those things actually change, you know, since we bought the book and put it on the shelf or the PDF saved down to the company server.
    So
    Evan Troxel: Oh, we would always have the new the new slip sheets that would,
    you know, there were a different color so that we knew when a new version of that page was put in and, and they would release different colors of the pages, a physical paper that went into this three ring binder. throughout the year for the, or, you know, three years, whatever the code cycle was.
    And, and it was pretty, I mean, [00:08:00] just, just the cognitive kind of, I don't know, it's not, that's not the right, the right word, but like the administrative level of, of, of, of, of, of, Constantly going in and making sure that you have this current. It was very difficult and so much so that, I mean, you're talking about providing access to the building code and I really think about the younger generations when I think about access to the building code because the older generations like you would go to.
    This person who had been an architect for a very long time, and they lived in the code, and they, you would ask them, you would not go to the book first, you would talk to somebody who knew where to look in the book first, they were basically like a librarian for that, the code books that we had, and, and that was an incredible resource, and those people are far and few between in the industry now, and so when you're providing access, You're actually making it, I mean, this whole idea of what technology does, right, and it kind of gets rid of the gatekeepers of this kind of a thing over time by providing access [00:09:00] to more people so they can get into there and find what they're looking for because some of those resources don't really exist as much anymore.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And there's such a barrier to entry. If you're new to the industry, um, say your recent grad or just joining, you don't have those years of experience to jump into the building code and slowly accumulate that, that knowledge. And you end up relying on the few kind of technical leaders in the firm, and they end up getting overwhelmed because everyone's coming to them, knocking on the door and asking these code questions. And that's for a recent grad or someone joining the industry. Or you could be a veteran, but you're jumping into a new project type, you're jumping into a new jurisdiction. Historically, it's been so hard to build up and, and this, this knowledge set of that particular project type and jurisdiction and the, and the codes associated with it. And that's exactly the focus we do is removing those barriers, removing that, that friction, uh, to, to jumping into new code. And, you know, providing free and open access is, I believe, the first step and the kind of the foundation of that. But [00:10:00] what we're really interested in is going beyond that. How do we build automation?
    How do we build tools, project management, capturing institutional knowledge for these firms so they can disseminate that through their whole, um, their whole firm,
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Right. So catch us up on what's happened since the last time that we talked because I, I, I didn't go back and listen to the episode, I'll be honest. I mean, too many episodes to go back
    through. But, but the last time we talked, you know, there was, we talked about the whole idea of copywriting the law, and there were lawsuits that had been filed in an attempt to copyright the building code.
    And so maybe you can kind of speak about that in a general, but, and then in a more specific way, like the whole idea behind copywriting, something that, and who it belongs to as kind of a foundational concept before we get into maybe the, even the changes that have happened since the last time we talked.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and this debate has been going on, you know, for literally decades for, for a long, long time. I think the first lawsuit [00:11:00] 2002 or 2004, uh, VEC versus SBCCI, which would go on to become, um, ICC. And it's it's the, uh, what we call the law publishers claiming copyright on, on the kind of content of the codes that get, uh, get adopted into, into law. Now, one of the notable things here is that a lot of these codes are written by volunteers. So industry professionals, uh, government workers coming together to actually write these regulations. Um, now organizations, um, like the ICC or NFPA, um, Convene those committees and they bundle up that code and then sell it back, you know, to the same individual, same volunteers or, you know, other folks in the industry and homeowners, uh, at a pretty substantial price.
    So, um, these organizations often do north of a hundred million dollars in revenue. So kind of very substantial cash generating business, um,
    and
    Evan Troxel: And that's really based on the packaging aspect that you're talking about, right? So there's like a, and you tell me like how they deliver [00:12:00] that now, because I'm not, I'm not up on that, but is it a digital delivery? Is it a paper delivery? Is it a little bit of both still? Where are we at with that?
    Scott Reynolds: a little bit of both. Um, so
    historically, primarily it was on the physical, uh, book side, and now they've started to migrate into the digital side.
    Um, so, so really nice to see that kind of progression and see the kind of advancement of this, you know, portion of our industry. Uh, so, but today it's, it's very much in, afoot in both camps,
    especially on, on their side.
    Evan Troxel: Okay. So that packaging is what they're then charging for. And, and, I mean, at, working in an architectural firm, there was, there was many code books in this, the office of the size that we had. And, you know, every studio had their own set of code books. And so, I mean, it was, and it was a pretty substantial cost every time they were going to, Go to a new code cycle because the entire book basically needed to be replaced at that point.
    And, and that's what's leading to this kind of revenue generation for these publishers.
    Scott Reynolds: Right. And, and historically, uh, absolutely the case. But even today, when it's migrated to digital, In many [00:13:00] cases, you actually just pay for access. So these things are behind paywalls and it will vary per, you know, per publisher and how they handle it. But ultimately a portion, and we can get into this, like how big is that portion or, you know, the size of it. Uh, but some of that comes from limiting access to the law. So whether that's complete limitations on, on those laws or restricted access, like not allowing copy paste printing
    or for people to build tools on top of that. So it's, it's very much. a kind of monetization by bottlenecking and restricting access to,
    to these, to these laws.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's kind of like, uh, It's interesting. I mean, I kind of draw an analogy to, like, uh, the music industry, right? Like, you can't, I couldn't put a backing track of some artist on this podcast and publish it without paying a royalty ahead of time and getting that agreement ahead of time.
    Like, first of all, if this was going on YouTube, it would just get struck immediately for, it would get flagged. And, You know, you would probably [00:14:00] have to prove that you had somehow paid for the use of that, but you're talking about like that level of thing where you can actually, there's restrictions, limitations, or just flat out.
    No, you can't, you can't even re copy paste, put that onto your drawing set. I don't know, like, tell me kind of what, what are the normal use cases that you, that people may want to do, but are, but can't do with these kind of limitations in place.
    Scott Reynolds: And, and yeah, and I will say the, like, so there is the restrictions, uh, but first just to cover the analogy with the music side. Um, I think, you know, like candidly, in my opinion, that makes a lot of sense on, on, on the music industry, but very, very different from construction. The codes we're talking about are literally the law.
    They're, they're
    adopted into law
    and it's a legal requirement. And, um, Unfortunately, uh, and I'm sure we'll cover this in more detail, but the laws, or sorry, the courts, uh, repeatedly have just decided you can't copyright the law. Now that sounds, you know, sounds obvious, but we did need to go through the legal system, needed, uh, [00:15:00] that to be said, all the way up to the Supreme Court.
    And, as I said, in extremely clear terms. Um, But just to go back to the use cases and the attempted kind of, uh, uh, limitation of, of those use cases. So exactly like you're saying, um, copy, uh, pasting, putting it onto a drawing sheet or just coordinating internally. Um, so sending, um, code between, um, uh, project stakeholders inside the office, outside the office, talking to the homeowner, talking to the developer owner, uh, talking to the GC. including that in specifications. There's so many overlaps, uh, where you need to exchange this, this, uh, this information because it's just that we live, or we work in a very collaborative industry that relies on that exchange. So if
    you constrict that, that flow of information, you're constricting the industry itself.
    Evan Troxel: And so that flow of information is cut off. Like you can't, is that, is that part of the terms of use is that you cannot do that kind of thing?
    Scott Reynolds: Right, exactly. And it'll [00:16:00] vary by publisher. Um, But that's what we see and limiting, um, uh, the, the flow and, and the kind of reproduction of it. Uh, but also hold another category, which is building tools. So it's, it's limiting, um, Kind of third parties or people to go in and, and build automation or workflow tools to actually help with that, uh, that process. And we could draw analogies to other industries like, like lawyers who have just a huge variety of tools that they can, and products they could put in their, in their tool belt to actually do their day to day job. So it's, it's not just the kind of the, the baseline access to the codes, but also the adjacent tools and, and workflows attached to those that get limited.
    Evan Troxel: Could you give an example of kind of the, you know, just what are you talking about here? Like the, and I don't know if it, if an example of something people wish they could do, but they can't or some, or some examples of things that people have tried to do as far as these automations and tools go.
    Scott Reynolds: [00:17:00] Yeah, absolutely. So, um, so one example, someone had reached out to us saying, you know, how do you do what we do? Cause we do a lot of automation and project management, um, in this, in the space around codes and, and their idea was around fire sprinklers. So they wanted to do a calculator that would determine how many fire sprinklers you needed for a building, how far apart they should be and starting to help in the schematics so you could start to lay that out and, and, and plan. So it didn't need to be, you know, very manual. Uh, process, but in developing this, uh, he, you know, was, was threatened by, um, a lot of these publishers saying like, Hey, we're going to, we're going to sue you out of business, like stop what you're doing. Uh, don't develop with that. Don't release it. And, and unfortunately that's exactly what happened.
    He stopped working on it and it never saw the light of day. So that's the kind of innovation that I think gets suppressed when you don't have that open access to, to a lot of these laws. Yeah.
    Evan Troxel: And, and what was the reason behind why they couldn't do that? Like, what, what are they accessing [00:18:00] there that was deemed inaccessible?
    Scott Reynolds: Well, I believe the stated reason was just the reproduction of the laws themselves. So in
    that calculator, there was references saying like it, this sprinkler needs to be, you know, this distance apart. And here's the code section. That actually
    determines that, so you could,
    you know, have some transparency in terms of that process. So it's the reproduction of those actual sentences. We're not even talking like, like, you know, chapters or, or different, uh, codebooks. This is just excerpts from that that they
    didn't want to reproduce. Now,
    that's the stated reason. I think a secondary reason is probably some nervousness around the automation of some of these things. Um, I think there's just a little bit of discomfort with some of the publishers when you start to build sophisticated tools. On top of the, the regulations,
    Evan Troxel: And that's the case then with what you're doing at Upcodes, right? Like that, that discomfort about building on top of and displaying and making accessible information that otherwise is behind a paywall.
    Scott Reynolds: right? And, and [00:19:00] we just fundamentally, uh, disagree with the fact that you need to pay, uh, to see the loss. We, we believe that everyone, no matter who you are, industry professional or homeowner, should be able to see the legal requirements that, uh, control and, and set up the constraints around your building. Um, but you can build a business model around the tools on top of that. So the free and open access is the foundation. You can build automation, project workflows, educational content that sits on top of that. And that helps the, you know, the power users, the industry professionals, the homeowners kind of navigate through the code.
    So
    we have a very kind of bright line rule where you don't, or we believe you should never charge people to see and understand the laws. But, but you can create products and workflows that, that, that, yeah, help them navigate through that, that
    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Interesting. So you said that there, this has gone all the way to the Supreme Court about not being able to copyright the law and that that's been very clear. So maybe just lay out that that process for everybody so that they know what it's [00:20:00] taken to get to this point. And then we can talk about the twist that that has recently happened.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, absolutely. So, so I think I mentioned before, but that, that original case of VEC first SBCCI happened in 2002 or 2004. But since then, there's another eight cases that have happened. So a total of nine cases, um, in all different parts of the country. And one of them went all the way to the Supreme court. But regardless, every single case. Publishers brought has not succeeded. And
    Evan Troxel: And were those always initiated? They were always initiated by the publishers, I
    Scott Reynolds: correct. Right, right. And in every single case, the judges all came down to the same analysis that you can't copyright the law. Now they inspected it through a bunch of different lenses. Does it, you know, um, does it risk the, the kind of the ongoing operation of some of these publishers? They looked at that in extensive detail. They obviously get. Um, all the information behind the scenes and document discovery and see their financials and it all determined it, it was not, um, a [00:21:00] risk to the ongoing operation of publishers and that ultimately people needed open access to the laws.
    So in all nine, the, the, um, the judges and the legal system have just reinforced the fact that you can't copyright the law. And. And in fact, that is a direct quote from the, um, Supreme Court who looked at one of these cases. And I, I believe it was, um, I, I, I, I think maybe Justice Roberts. Yeah, it was Justice Roberts said, no one can own the law. And that is a direct quote. And, and there's many really good quotes through that, uh, decision. But ultimately, all nine have, have come around the same thing, saying, you can't, um, copyright these, these building codes.
    Evan Troxel: And so, so tell, tell us about this, just what U. S. copyright protection is. Like affords somebody who, like, so as an architect, my drawings are, are copyrighted, uh, just through the creation of them. So that, because those, somebody is paying me to [00:22:00] produce those, right? And therefore those plans then are then used as an instrument to build.
    One building, right? It's not like it's, it's actually in, in the, the contract, but as, as well as just the copyright law of the drawings themselves, they can't just be taken and applied on some other location and built. I mean, Because I know architecture, I also know that that would be very foolish, right, because utilities don't come in in the same place, the building's not oriented the same, the soils are gonna be different, like, there's all kinds of reasons there, but it has happened, like, people have tried to just take this and plunk it down over there, and copyright, in my opinion, for me, means something.
    I think it means something maybe a little bit different here, but can you just explain like why they're going for copyright protection beyond just limiting who can build tools on top of their, on top of the laws?
    Scott Reynolds: Right, yeah, and it's a great question. And I think it [00:23:00] highlights that these cases and this kind of argument is a very thin kind of slice of industry. This is just talking about the regulations and the law. So are you legally bound? And is this literally the law that that is, that is kind of setting these constraints? And that would be very, very different from, um, like the drawings you do, the creative work that, that people, um, do. Um, doing these, in these drawing sets, uh, and then also like the music, uh,
    example that you brought up.
    So like very kind of, these are polar opposites and, and I do agree with you, like that is a good thing for people to have protection over the creative work and, and that works really well for, for the industry. I think what we're talking about here is, is just the legal requirements and in, in a democracy, can you or can you not copyright the law? And that, that now is kind of cleared up, but, um, but yeah, very different worlds, I would say. To answer your questions about the, the incentives and motivations, um, unfortunately, I think it, it just comes down to revenue generation that you look at these organizations and it, they make [00:24:00] a shocking amount of revenue from the attempted copyright of, of these regulations.
    Like I said before, some of them, uh, north of a hundred million in revenue, often their CEOs are paid over a million dollars. Um, I think ICC's CEO is nearly 1. is 10 times the national average of a nonprofit CEO. So when you look at the tax filings in the 1990s, it looks a lot more like a for profit company than a, than a nonprofit.
    Evan Troxel: So what's happened since, I mean, I assume that the Supreme Court ruling was the last one in the kind of that series. Is that how it went? It kind of culminated there in that, that one case that they looked at.
    Scott Reynolds: Well, you would, you would think so, uh, but there's been cases since, uh,
    there's a recent one in Texas that, I mean, again, like followed exactly the same reeling is, is, um, the Supreme Court, but believe it or not, it, the, the cases continue now, you know, I'm like, or like years ago, I was [00:25:00] like relatively new to the legal system and, and how it works, but, uh, unfortunately it does seem the case that you can quite easily Continually launch new lawsuit after new launch. Even if you lose that argument, you can launch it from new jurisdiction or you can slightly change it. And I think it's, it's a lot what people refer to as, uh, Lawfare. So it's, it's, it's a way to weaponize the legal system, to impose distraction, impose cost, uh, to uh, to other people. So. You would think so, and I would have thought that the Supreme Court would kind of be the bookend for that, for that argument. And in fact, it probably was in terms of the argument, but you could still launch more lawsuits just to its kind of imposed cost.
    Evan Troxel: Okay. So, so, okay. So there's definitely that side of it. I, I assume like launching it in different jurisdictions is also strategic in a way to try to get a favorable ruling, right? Because it's a different jurisdiction than maybe the previous ones were launched in. So there's, there's that hope, but there is kind of this weaponization through, I mean, how much are these lawsuits costing [00:26:00] these different companies?
    It's gotta be incredible.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, I mean you can look at the publisher's tax filings, like it's very illuminating when you look through the numbers, but I, I think it was the ICC in one of their initial years when they launched a lawsuit against us, it was multi million dollars per year. Um, spent on the litigation law firm. So it, these are massive resource drains, especially, um, on, on their side.
    So it, it is kind of a very, unfortunately kind of a very destructive, um, uh, like endeavor for, for both sides.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, wow. Okay, so those were unsuccessful as far as the attempt to copyright the law, and, and it's been deemed nine times now that you can't copyright the law. So what's the new twist in the story since we talked last time?
    Scott Reynolds: Right. So, so I think now that we're accumulating a mountain of case law on one, one side of this, this fence, um, a lot of the publishers have now turned towards Congress. Going to [00:27:00] Congress to introduce a bill that would, in effect, try to, um, be like a runaround through the, uh, around the legal system. So a bill saying, um, uh, giving copyright on, on the, uh, on the, on the base codes for, you know, the same, the same argument.
    It may be slightly different here, but, um, yeah, but, uh, but effectively trying to do a runaround, uh, the legal system and go through, go through Congress.
    Evan Troxel: And so, I mean, this wasn't done in the beginning, right? I mean, this, this, there was no law introduced when building codes were being formed early on. So, is it, is it purely just so that, because they can't win in court, or so it seems, nine times now, this is just a new tactic, right? To give it, realize their goals.
    Scott Reynolds: Right. Exactly. And when you rewind to. 2002, 2004. There was just the one ruling, you know, and I maybe, you know, like the people perhaps didn't know exactly the way, you know the courts would rule. [00:28:00] But by the time you get the second ruling, the third ruling, the fourth ruling, the fifth it, it starts to paint a pretty clear picture.
    And that's where we, um, saw the publishers start to do the lobbying efforts, start to spend millions of dollars going to D. C. trying to influence individuals there to get this, this bill passed. But we saw that introduced towards the, you know, the back half of these, these nine lawsuits. So I think when the case laws started to pile up and it became pretty, pretty clear in the legal system, they really looked for a, for a plan B.
    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm. Okay. So, so talk about the, the, argument that they're making there because there, there is a website that you can go to and you can read the, the argument that they lay out about why this would be beneficial, right? Uh, from, from their side of the fence, for sure, right? So can you, can you list kind of what the benefits they're stating in the, in this legislation would be?
    Mm hmm.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah. And I think it, it boils down to one primary argument. Kind of argument or, or a [00:29:00] claim and it's that they need to retain copyright, um, to fuel and fund the development of the codes going forward. So that's that by and large, that's, that's the big claim they make now for a couple of reasons. We don't think that's the case and, and also the courts also don't think that's the case. So a lot of these courts, um, have kind of examined that exact argument, but also equipped with their financial statements. They go through document discovery and, um, and testimony to, to look at that exact argument. And none of the courts have agreed with, with that argument. Seeing the kind of money generation and a lot of the services and revenue that actually does not come from publication sales. So when we talk about that side, like where does the revenue come from
    for these organizations? If you look at ICC, for example, 88 percent of the revenue comes from things that are not selling the code. So it's things like consulting, Certification, Training, and Product Evaluation. So they're, [00:30:00] uh, the vast majority of that revenue actually does not come from, um, uh, selling access to, to the codes.
    And that varies, of course, by, by publisher. Um, but I think that claim is, is perhaps like a little bit misleading, considering such a small fraction of the revenue actually comes from publication sales. Especially looking at just the. Uh, rather kind of bloated nature of, of their, you know, uh, compensation packages being 10 times bigger than the national average.
    So I think there's a little bit of, of optimization they can do and they don't need to exert, um, kind of restrictions and bottleneck, uh, on the codes to generate revenue from that side.
    Evan Troxel: Interesting. Interesting. So, so what other kind of nuances to the argument are they, are they making that are different than what you've seen before, or maybe the same as what you've seen before?
    Scott Reynolds: Well, it's, it's the same. Yeah, I mean, that argument is exactly the same that they've been making, uh, through these lawsuits and, and that's why the, the, uh, legal system and the judges had an [00:31:00] opportunity to inspect that, um, uh, inspect that argument.
    Um, I mean, in fact, looking at the VEC versus SBCCI, just to, just to quote the, uh, the ruling there, they said, it is difficult to imagine an area of creative endeavor in which the copyright incentive is needed less. So
    like the, like these, these rulings are really illuminating when you read the actual language. The judges come in pretty strongly
    to, to to really suppress that and, and, um, and I think it's because they get such a transparent x ray through the organization and understand like what it, it looks like behind the scenes.
    But they, they are very clear, uh, on, on that point.
    Evan Troxel: Interesting. Very interesting.
    Let's just talk about kind of how this process has been going, where it's at in, in the legislation. Like, what, where, where are they in the submission and, and the process along the way to get, uh, legislation passed?
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, so, so, and candidly, this is very new to me, um, you know, the, the, uh, [00:32:00] the whole system of how a bill progresses through the House, to the, to the Congress and onwards, um, is new, so I'm also getting up to speed, um, but just from a very high level, they've been, uh, working on the bill for, I think, three years, you know, millions of dollars deep in, in trying to push it. Um, it was in the House, and I think it was just a couple weeks ago now, uh, maybe the end of last month or so. So, then it went to suspension, actually it went to a vote that moves the bill from the House to the Senate, and the vote failed, so in that kind of attempted pass it, it did fail. I think a lot of people started to get word of what this bill actually meant.
    It seems to be somewhat of a wolf in sheep's clothing.
    Um, so, so the bill failed in that regard, but I think People are still, or the publishers and the lobbyists are still going to push it towards the end of this year. And who knows, they've been working on it for three years. Um, the session ends this year, so they'll have to [00:33:00] reintroduce the bill next year if it, if it fails. Um, so we assume they'll, they'll probably try that. But, um, but yeah, so fortunately it did fail that vote. Um, but we, we imagine they'll try and mount another vote and, and bring it to, bring it to the floor again.
    Evan Troxel: Is there any precedence for these actions anywhere else? Are there any other jurisdictions worldwide that, that do ha provide copyright protections for legis for, for the law like this?
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, great question. So, um, so I, so it's funny you asked. So, so the most recent ruling was in Texas. And I think that actually had to do with Canadian building codes. Now,
    you know, it's kind of odd. I don't understand why the nuance and why they were doing it, you know, litigating it here in the US and in Texas.
    But, um, but lo and behold, they agreed the same thing. You can't, um, you can't copyright the law. And this was, this was Canadian building codes. Now, that being said, I don't want to, like, disparage all of the Canadian building code regulation. I know one province, [00:34:00] I think, rescinded the copyright and apologized for having charged for access to the building code.
    I forgot which province had done that. So they seem, uh, like, progressive on that front, um, but still working their way through it. So I know there's that, um, uh, precedent in Canada. And, uh, in, in Australia, interesting. Interestingly, the, the, uh, the government actually pushes for innovation. So they're approaching different startups.
    Like we, we had engaged with them, um, saying like, Hey, here's our building codes. Can you develop tools? Can you, can you build technology to help our industry and, um, kind of progress, uh, the, the innovation forward. So they were very, very forward looking, not only making it available, but also encouraging people to, to operate on it.
    Um, you can look at Singapore who, um, I mean, this goes back to the nineties. I forgot the name of it. Core, Core, CoreNet, I think was the name. Um, they, they tried to do automated compliance through the building and planning department. So for, and, and [00:35:00] fully government funded where you, for no fee as a developer or an architect, you could submit your plans or your BIM model and, and they would assess it, they would, you know, do a scan of the model, like a spell check, and then give you back compliance. Uh, report, kind of like a plan review, but really, I think, kind of amazing to see a government spend millions of dollars trying to, to, to build the tools themselves to give for free to the industry and help them along that progress or that process.
    So, yeah, so we've actually seen a lot of movement, I would say, internationally, uh, which is, which is inspiring in these, these different countries.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. I, so I was expecting you to say, yes, this country has protected the building code and people do have to pay, but you gave opposite, the opposite examples of what I thought you were going to do, because it seems like, okay, well, there's got to be precedent somewhere that they're following here to, to use as like a, an example of, of what would be a successful outcome for them.
    But no,
    Scott Reynolds: Uh, no, [00:36:00] we don't, no, we don't, we don't see them pointing elsewhere. I think, um, Um, you know, I'm, I'm obviously a little bit biased here, but I think the, uh, internationally we've seen this kind of discourse move forward a lot faster. And it could come down to the way the American legal system works and the fact that you can, you know, do this nine times.
    You can, you can
    launch lawsuit after lawsuit and I, unfortunately, I think that really, uh, slows down the progress in an
    unfortunate way. I think other countries kind of have got to that conclusion a lot faster than, than we're getting
    Evan Troxel: Interesting. Interesting. Wow. So, so where does it go from, from here? Like what, you said that it did not pass the vote, right? In, in the house. And so you said they could reintroduce it again next year. So is that, is it dead for now until potentially next year? Or, or where do you see the, this leading?
    Scott Reynolds: So, so unclear, they, they could try to mount it again in a month or two, uh,
    as a final, like, last gasp of, of air before the end of this session.
    So that's a possibility, uh, they could introduce it [00:37:00] again in next session, which starts, uh, early January of, of next year. Um, but in terms of what's next, we, we're just trying to shed as much light.
    I, like, I think it's a, uh, I think it's a really important topic for the industry and why don't we just want to have, you know, people decide on both sides, but it should at least be something, uh, that, that people are aware of and talking about, um, and and fortunately, I think it's starting to go a little bit more, more mainstream, like I know Forbes, um, Forbes had covered this, they had a great piece called the threat to justice. The Pro Codes Act would copyright the law and we've seen a lot of online forums and, um, areas starting to discuss it, which I think is very, very healthy. It just needs to be in the public discourse, scientists, uh, discussed and, and, and moving away from kind of behind the scenes operation where there's a lot of, of money spent by private entities trying to, you know, create the law and, and, and have that happen.
    Yeah. Again, behind the scenes and in the shadows. So we're, we're just trying to put a light on it. [00:38:00] Let people talk about it, give their opinion, and then also reach out to the representatives. There's been a massive wave of people, I think, when they kind of became aware of this, starting to reach out to the representatives, to their congresspeople. Um, uh, to, to kind of give their opinion to talk about, you know, being a homeowner or being an industry professional and the impact that this would have on them going forward. So we've seen that start to happen in a pretty significant way, and we hope that kind of continues over the next couple of months, just so the elected representatives are just as aware as people in the industry.
    Evan Troxel: I believe that Forbes article was kind of coming at it from a different angle. It wasn't, wasn't. architectural or from the building industry, right? Like that perspective was offered because it seems to me like this would, could set a precedent if it were to pass, obviously, to be applied to a lot of different laws
    Scott Reynolds: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. yeah,
    Evan Troxel: of the, the, the, danger, the potential danger from the [00:39:00] author's perspective of that becoming a law.
    Scott Reynolds: Exactly, and I think, um, that's why it's getting a little bit more into the public realm,
    um, for exactly that. And I think the author brought up the example of tax law. So, like, we all have to fill out our taxes, and that's, you know, governed by the law. But can you imagine if that was copyrighted? We're
    not allowed to see the tax laws that, you know, that govern how much we have to pay the government.
    And it's a very similar analogy, and that's what the author was talking about. Like, it's a very, very dangerous precedent and slippery slope. Whereas if you give copyright to a private entity in one area of the law, can, why can't you do that in other areas of law?
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Right. Right. It seems like it would, it would kind of snowball. So Okay, so it's, it's interesting to see how this is developed. I, I'm curious to hear now, um, what people, you mentioned a little bit about what people could do about it. There's another subject that I want you to address specifically too.
    So, um, [00:40:00] maybe I'll save that one. You talked about people can, can reach out to their congresspeople. We'll put a link in the show notes, um, that, and, and I believe that, that some of this is being driven through the EFF, is that correct?
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, there, there's actually a lot of organizations like the American Library Association, association of Research Libraries, the EFF, like you said, Wikimedia Foundation,
    um, foundation for the Blind. There. There's a lot of public interest groups kind of take, like putting, putting foot forward and, and stepping into the ring.
    So EFF is is one of the prominent ones, but, um, but there, there's a lot. And, um, but yeah, you're right. EFF would probably be the right, uh, right link to share.
    Evan Troxel: It's an avenue, right? That, that, that kind of. preloads some generic verbiage about why you may or why you would support sending information to your congressperson about how you feel. But then I thought one of the interesting things about that was it actually says, you know, did you add your own?
    Perspective to it. Did you add your own words to it?
    And if you try to say yes, even if you didn't, it's [00:41:00] like you need to add your own, you need to add your
    own thoughts to this. And I thought that was great because it actually does kind of personalize it and, and make you think, I mean, to me, it's, it's like, how many form letters have you signed in your life?
    Probably a lot, right? And, and it's because you agree in principle with. Um, but I think it, it's a nice reflective moment to say, no, like, why do I actually care about this? And, and add my own perspective as a design professional, in my case, to, to why I think what, what I think about it before I send it off.
    But it makes it easy to send it to the right person so that hopefully they're going to read that and, and understand what their constituency thinks about this proposed legislation.
    Scott Reynolds: And you're right. And the tool is also really good to determine who is the right person. I think you put in your postal code and it looks up who your representatives and the
    Congress person is. And like I was mentioning before, like I'm very new to this and I didn't know who exactly the person was. I know, you know, the, the names [00:42:00] in the area and in the state, but, uh, like who is that one person that you should, should be talking to?
    It, the tool does a great job. You just throw in your. And it says, here's their email address. Here is like the three people. Um, and then, like you said, like suggest some verbiage, but, um, you can change it. I also just got on the phone with them because, um, so I could describe it a little bit more, you know, describe my background and like the impact it would have from, from both a homeowner's perspective, but also an industry professional.
    So, um, yeah, there's both avenues to go.
    Evan Troxel: Well, that's a good segue because you've said several times now that you are biased right in this and, and you, you're have a company called Upcodes and Upcodes is designed to provide access to the code, as you stated in the beginning. But can you just talk about your business model? Because I think, you know, I've heard several times, you know, free access to the business model.
    The laws and regulations that are governing what gets built and how it gets built, right? To protect the health, safety, and welfare of the general public. And so, can you talk about your business model and [00:43:00] how UpCodes works? Because I, I don't want people to expect that everything that you do is just, It's for free, like you're, you're not building this business to just offer access to the codes for free, you're building on top of the codes to provide a modern service in a, in a very particular way.
    So lay that out so that this is totally transparent with, with how this goes.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, for sure. And maybe I'll actually rewind a little bit back to when I was working, you know, day to day in, in, in the architecture offices. So, so how, I was so surprised that when it came to codes and regulations, there's so little tooling and, and, and software built for, for that workflow. And like we mentioned before, you know, the, the updated inserts in the books and PDF.
    So really the ambition when we started was to get this information together to one place. Make it available, but then build those structured workflows and build those tools and, and, and see what we can use, look at other industries and, and get inspiration from the, the tools that they had. And the former [00:44:00] CEO of, of Google, um, Eric Schmidt had a great term.
    It's called combinatory innovation, and it's looking at the changes in technology and what opportunities are available when you combine these new changes, often looking at other industries and put it into your own industry. Yeah. Sorry, I know that's a little bit abstract, but to answer your question more specifically, in this case, um, it was building search, it was building project management so you could start to save the code sections, you could comment on it, you could collaborate with your office internally, um, you could collaborate externally with other folks, educational content to understand what does the code actually mean, how do you actually, um, uh, you know, parse this very dense language and give visuals and details and assemblies. And then more recently getting into the AI side, like we mentioned before, there's such a broad base of, of information over 6 million sections of code. So actually, how do you as an individual kind of parse that? How do you start to understand, okay, I'm building a [00:45:00] high rise building in, um, let's say like Virginia.
    What, you know, what's applicable to me and,
    and instead of manually and tediously going through every single book and potentially missing sections, Saying let's, let's leverage LLMs and AI to, to tie that together. Now it's not going to, you know, it's not, it's not a fully automating way that, that process by any means, but it's a, it's a much more sophisticated starting point where you could get a high level overview and kind of be like a router.
    So it'll start to route you out to the places you should start to look like here's a couple of sections in the building code, here's a couple in the fire code, here's an electrical code. And then again, bringing in the collaboration. So you can save that down. You can start to comment and then bring different people in. And, uh, into the project. So from a very high level, the foundation is free and open access to the codes. And then the paid service or product built on top of that is those workflows, is that automation and project management.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. I, I think one of the misunderstandings in the general public, definitely not, I, not for the listeners of this podcast. I think people who listen to this [00:46:00] podcast are, are deep in the industry and they understand that the code is not. necessarily prescriptive, right? It doesn't tell you if you're building a building here in this location, in this jurisdiction, here's everything you need to worry about.
    Here's exactly how you should do these things. It's actually not like that at all. Right? So the general public point of view is that I think the code is really prescriptive and it's saying, but, but we know it's not right. Like I know that if I have several different options when it comes to construction type of a building and occupancy and side yard setbacks and.
    All of these different things that then influence decision making along the way to create the ultimate final output of that process, right? So if I choose, Type four, type five construction, type three, like whatever that, whatever I'm going to go, that actually sets me on a different course right then that I could have.
    And so a tool like yours, I think this is something that we talked about years ago, [00:47:00] Scott was like, okay, now that maybe it even says. Here's what you could choose, and it's kind of like a choose your own adventure, right? It's like, okay, well, if you choose this, it means A, B, and C. And if you choose this, it means D, E, and F, right?
    And so, now you're making an informed decision based on this question. Kind of cause and effect that if you were to choose this in the code, then it means you have to follow this path. And if you, if you choose this in the code, you could follow this or this path and it starts to open it up. And I think what was so exciting for me talking to you years ago was like, it gives access to people who don't know how to decipher that because it is so overwhelming when you look at that code book sitting on the desk, where do I even begin?
    And, and the, the decisions that afford you different options that could be extremely or extremely advantageous or disadvantageous to you when you're designing a building on behalf of your client, right? [00:48:00] So it's like all of these things that like you learn to dance with the building code. And it is not saying you need to do it exactly like this.
    I mean, a lot of times, great architecture comes with great workarounds in the building code, right? I mean, it's not prescriptive on purpose. And, and to me, having new tools built on top of this existing, uh, You know, database, as it were, of code gives people the ability to learn how to dance with it at a much earlier level in their career.
    And I think that is absolutely fundamental to the profession going forward, right? Because, I mean, we've complained for years and years and decades, right? Of, we don't learn this stuff in school. Architects don't learn how to dance. Use the building code in school. There may be some schools that have some course and construction methods that may force you to do that, but some of them don't as well, right?
    And, and a lot of this is learned [00:49:00] by doing in practice once you graduate. And if you don't have that that amazing resource of a person who's been doing it for 40 years and they can point to the section that you need to go to, then you don't have that. Where do you go? And that to me is where innovation actually makes a huge difference when it comes to using tools like this and technology for, it's not just for new people in the industry, right?
    Like, let's be honest, but, but this, it can be useful for just about anybody, but search alone is a big deal in the building code, right? To, to really boil it down to a most basic level.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, and you're absolutely right. So the, the, the barriers there are in a couple of different ways. And I think historically this code research happened often by the senior person and it would happen in a project. Yeah. The next project you do, you reinvent the wheel. Maybe it's the same person doing it, maybe it's a new person doing it, but a lot of what we do is trying to capture that institutional knowledge, like what were those decision points?
    What was that code research? And what were the downstream implications of different trade offs, like your [00:50:00] construction type or occupancies? So capturing that in the project management. So when that person who's, who's new, or, or, or maybe you're just cribbing off a historical project, you can actually, um, duplicate that, that project, migrate it into a new jurisdiction or a new code year.
    It automatically changes all the, um, the code sections and, and calculations for that, that new project. But it's a way to recycle and kind of build like, and compound on your, your, your code knowledge personally, but also in your firm. So
    you're, maybe you're in the New York office, but you're. So if your, your Washington office, uh, had done a similar project, you can, you can crib off that and you, you can kind of, you know, standing on the shoulders of giants, you can, you can, um, uh, kind of start, uh, from a very progressed, uh, starting point. Now, just to touch quickly on another thing, you mentioned the downstream implications, you make one little change and you're doing this dance with the code. So we work a lot on code calculators and it's a way where you can, you can have these inputs and kind of dials and knobs where you. [00:51:00] You have a construction type, you have your occupancies, and a lot of these decisions that have very big code implications. But you can model that out really quickly, and you can make one quick change, and within seconds see the downstream implications. Okay, here's, um, you know, maybe this worked really well in heights and areas, but not in travel distance or in fire ratings. And the system will start to flag and give you warnings. But like you said, the code is not binary, you know, it's not prescriptive, and it's not, um, exact in its language and there is room for interpretation. So those warnings have to be kind of more like guardrails. Like we're not making the decision for you by any means, but we want you to be informed.
    So you can make a little code change and we'll flag it like, Hey, you know, uh, based on what we think this, this is, this is an area for concern and you're going to want to address this. Probably something to discuss with your, uh, plans examiner or the inspector, but, but starting to raise that automatically. So people understand very quickly. What are those downstream implications of
    [00:52:00] each small decision?
    Evan Troxel: That's a huge deal. So back to this business model idea, I mean, that's kind of what you're, this institutional knowledge capture and proliferation, like building a library is, is a big piece of your revenue, right? Like, that's how you work to, cause you're, you're providing maybe, and maybe you can just be really specific about this.
    You're providing access to, uh, Is it all the codes, some codes, at what level, and then, and then, and then maybe your business model actually turns on when it comes to, okay, bookmarking things, saving things, collaborating with other people. Can you just lay all that out?
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, yeah, so so all the the codes and regulations we bring together on the site You can go on there and see for free and in terms of coverage We're just costly expanding bring it up more and more jurisdictions and more codes over time The the library today looks a lot different than it did four years ago or five five years ago So it's just costly It's constantly expanding, but to be very explicit, that, that is not where we [00:53:00] generate revenue.
    That's not, uh, we don't charge for any of that. That's just put on there, um, and, and kind of offered for free. We do integrate things like local amendments and that's also, um, offered for, for free. Where we, uh, start to monetize is more on the, um, on those product management tools like we were talking about, like those code calculators, the diagrams, capturing the knowledge and, and, and those decision points, um, is, is, uh, Yeah.
    Kind of where we, where we draw the line. So all of that functionality built on top of the open access.
    Evan Troxel: And so, I mean, there's a value there. I, I'm curious just to hear what people find in that value, because that, to me, is, is. That's kind of the magic of upcodes, right? And so maybe you can speak to just what, what that is, give you, give you a moment here to get on your, your sales pedestal and just talk about like, what, where the, the value is that people are finding using a tool like this.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah. And I think it's, it's a lot of those same guardrails. I, you know, I think we have a lot to go and a lot to build, but fortunately [00:54:00] I think we have fulfilled some of that original ambition to give the guardrails when doing code research. So cribbing off of your, your, maybe your more senior or technical leader in the and having caught that person's. Knowledge and leveraging that yourself so you can jump in there, get up to speed yourself. And I think the, where we are the most, um, kind of excited is when we hear those stories where a person who's maybe not as familiar with the code or, or jurisdiction or project type can, can get up to speed, can teach themselves, can, can look at the prior work the firm had did and then be very effective, um, you know, without, um, you know, having to constantly knock on the door of, of the more senior person.
    So, so I know that's a little bit wordy, but basically if I had to boil that down, it's just empowering each individual in the firm with the tools so they can confidently navigate through the code and then also look at their firm's knowledge.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Empowering is a great word. I mean, that to [00:55:00] me is, so there's different areas of the practice of architecture, specifications, building codes. There's right where it's like, I didn't go to school for that. Like, I, I want to design buildings. Well, you've, you've got to do this stuff to get to there. And, and there's special, there's specializations in firms and then there's the generalists.
    Right. And I think, Yeah. Providing early access lets you understand, to the building code in particular, lets you understand why you need to do something a certain way, or why you decided to do something a certain way. And that to me, and the ability to kind of save this information and make it easy to find later, like why did we decide to do that?
    Um, I think in traditional projects that was very difficult, unless somebody was really specifically doing that so that they could. You know, pull it back up later. I think, I think that rarely happened, right? So now if, if I actually can go back and kind of see the breadcrumb trail, uh, because that happens all the time, right?
    Somebody's like, [00:56:00] why are we doing it like this? And maybe they're new on the project or they haven't been involved or they, they missed an email or something. It's like, well, okay, now we can actually walk them through that because a lot of an architect's job is doing that. It's like justifying why things turned out the way that they did.
    So many times the, the, there's a fluidity to the team who is on the project, right, whether it's on the the production side, the design side, or the, even the client side as well. Right? And so, um, that, that definitely is a, a necessary part of it, I think, and, and it was lacking for so long. It's like, well, Okay, now I'm going to try to remember, or I'm going to go try to figure out why we decided that, um, and, and this gives us a way to kind of bookmark and create a, a breadcrumb trail of, okay, we made this decision in September of 2018, and that's what started us down this path, and then we built and built and built on top of that, because that's how the nature of our industry works, right?
    We have to make if not millions of decisions on every project, right? So, [00:57:00] um, having a way to access even that. pathology along the way is, is incredibly useful. Um, anyway.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, and just to draw a point of comparison here, so when we jumped in early days at Upcodes, I was doing software development, probably not that great, I think every single line of code I've written has since been removed, but we had to start somewhere, and it was eye opening to me when I was learning how to write code, how robust the communities online were, and
    how easy it was to teach yourself, and the resources were there, the communities were there, and every single question I ever had. For every nuanced little piece of code or challenge I had, there was somebody else who had asked that question online and
    was answered in a really thorough way. And just the, the resources and, and also just like online courses and in addition to these, to these forums were just absolutely incredible and very, very vibrant and robust. And it just doesn't exist to the same extent in architecture or
    [00:58:00] construction. It's a shame because if you're, you're trying to get more familiar, like, where do you start? It's so difficult. You graduate from school, um, you realize that maybe, you know, you didn't learn actually how to put a building together.
    You learned maybe how to, you know, do some, some fancy designs, and, and that's great. But, you know, the, the, the reality of putting something together is very different, at least what I, than what I learned in school. And there, I, I was hungry for that information, but could not find it. And, and I had to try and, try and get it from, from my colleagues.
    And, um, I, I was just so inspired seeing the, the software, engineering side of, of that process online.
    Evan Troxel: It is interesting to think about, right? Like the whole, think, think of software development without stack overflow. Like what, where would we be? Uh, or, or GitHub or, you know, these communities that, that do exist, these repositories. Uh, it's it's absolutely incredible. And the entire world runs on software now.
    Right? Like that's what, If you, if you want to think about it, like think about the device in your pocket, think about this thing [00:59:00] that we're talking through right now, it's all running on software and it's all running on software that gets developed. I mean, I hate to, I'm not a software developer, so I shouldn't say software gets developed quickly, but, but in like the timeline of architecture, software goes very, very fast, right?
    Architecture takes. It takes a long time to do one project and this idea of not having to start with a blank page in software development because of the resources that you just cited, right? As far as like, like understanding that they exist is fundamental to that working and for the proliferation of amazing software.
    And it does not really exist in architecture, and that is, I mean, and architecture has suffered because of that, and this reinvention, this starting with a blank page on every project is, it's a very difficult concept to have to be forced to deal with. I mean, when we're thinking about our industry, it's kind of a sad, sad state of [01:00:00] things.
    Scott Reynolds: And if you look around at different software, it all looks very different. You know, it functions and the aesthetics look very different, but a lot of the building blocks behind the scenes are the same. And they're more often than not, they're open source packages, uh, different repos you can, you can find online.
    And then you, you kind of bring them together again, choosing from a pretty wide variety. So you
    Evan Troxel: It's like a, it's like cooking a recipe in the kitchen, right? It's like you've got access to all this stuff and how you put it together. Right. You get a different output because you put a different combination of it together. But that's, that's kind of what you're talking about. You're talking about these chunks that already exist.
    Like anybody who spools up a new WordPress site does not have to code the thing from scratch,
    Right.
    They, it's, it's really, it's really foundational in the way that, that technology works today.
    Scott Reynolds: And, and, and it's really nice in a way because you don't have to focus on and spend time on the things that are the same in every site. So user account management, login flows, those are all the same. And there's nothing that will set you apart if you spend a lot of time innovating in those areas. [01:01:00] But what will make a difference to, to your end users and to the industry is if you spend all your time innovating on the areas that, that are unique to that industry, unique to, to that workflow or to to the end user. In this case, you know, obviously like architects and. Homeowners and GCs and governments, but, you know, get all those building blocks together, like the recipe, like you're saying, and then that, that remaining, you know, 40 percent or whatever it is, 30%, that's where the magic happens. And I think that's where you start to adapt these things specifically for those, those workflows.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, absolutely. So what's the call to action here? Is it to reach out through the links that we'll put in the show notes and let your voice be heard and tell your representatives why this matters to you?
    Scott Reynolds: Exactly. I think just the more open dialogue there is, uh, people can share their perspectives and opinions and just getting in touch with the representatives. Because at the end of the day, that's what the representatives are for, is to be the, the, the kind of vocal point and broadcast, you know, what their constituents care about.
    Um, [01:02:00] so it's, it's, it's really just educating them on, on how you feel and how it impacts your, um, your day to day. So I think, yeah, it's exactly that. And I think the EFF link would be a great, great place to start.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, we'll include that. We'll include the link to the Forbes article so you can see another perspective on, on the, you know, somebody, somebody's thoughts about what the potential outcomes of something of legislation like this could be, um, across multiple industries, uh, and if there's anything else, I will throw it in there that you can throw my way, Scott.
    But otherwise, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation and to expose this information to people. I think. Everybody's so deep buried on their projects. It's, you know, it's difficult to know everything that's going on, but this is a big issue for the building industry. And so I think it's something worth being educated about.
    So thanks for raising the flag and saying, you know, let's expose this information so that more people can be a part of whether it passes or not.
    Scott Reynolds: Yeah, thank you for having me on. It's great to [01:03:00] share and put a little bit of a spotlight on the topic. So I really appreciate it. So
    yeah,

    24 September 2024, 1:00 pm
  • Confluence podcast S2E4

    Bringing Newforma to the Cloud

    Confluence podcast S2E4

    Carl Veillette of Newforma joins Randall and me on the show to talk about the transformation and integration of BIM Track with Newforma to revolutionize project management in the AEC industry, while bringing it all to the cloud for collaboration.

    In this episode, Carl shares his journey from architecture to leading product development and the challenges of merging two powerful platforms. Dive into the evolving role of 3D models and data integration, the impact of AI on project activities, and strategies for bridging communication gaps between field and office teams. Learn how they are enhancing user experience, adopting asynchronous communication tools, and balancing AI trust with human judgment to reshape the industry's future.

    Episode Links

    Watch this episode on YouTube

    Subscribe to the podcast on YouTube

    Listen to this episode

    18 September 2024, 6:01 pm
  • The Now and Future of Generative Design

    I recently hosted a live webinar with Britton Langdon, Chief Strategy Officer at Snaptrude, and Clifton Harness, CEO of TestFit. The discussion covers recent advancements in—and possibly the re-emergence of—useful generative design tools, focusing on early-stage concept design, land use, feasibility, and evolving digital workflows in architectural practice.

    In this replay you will learn about how Snaptrude's cloud-based collaborative design software and TestFit's feasibility software for commodity buildings are bringing useful generative design tools to the market. Discover how these tools integrate with industry standard platforms like Revit and how they are focused on improving and simplifying architectural workflows to save users a lot of time in the design process. And don't miss the Q&A portion where many great questions were asked by the audience.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Introduction and Host's Background
    01:03 Meet the Guests: Britton Langdon and Clifton Harness
    01:42 Britton Langdon's Journey and Snaptrude Overview
    03:58 Clifton Harness and the Evolution of Generative Design
    05:35 Challenges and Progress in Architectural Technology
    09:22 Generative Design: Past, Present, and Future
    16:13 TestFit Demo: Real-Time Generative Design
    24:42 Snaptrude Demo: From Concept to BIM
    29:04 Internal Use of Design Tools
    29:52 Understanding Level of Design (LOD)
    30:28 Solving Workflow Problems in Architecture
    33:42 Generative Design: Hype and Reality
    34:39 Future of Generative Design Tools
    42:36 Interoperability and User Questions
    48:36 Case Studies and Real-World Applications
    52:25 Regional Adaptation and Pricing
    54:17 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

    🎙️Clifton Harness, CEO of TestFit and Altaf Ganihar, CEO of Snaptrude have also been on the TRXL podcast. You can find out more about them by finding their episodes here and here.
    13 September 2024, 3:52 pm
  • 166: ‘Dirty Little Secrets’, with Parley Burnett and Chris Shafer
    166: ‘Dirty Little Secrets’, with Parley Burnett and Chris Shafer

    Parley Burnett and Chris Shafer join the podcast to talk about the hidden inefficiencies within the AEC industry. We discuss the automation of industry standards, educating software users in real-time, streamlines processes, the importance of BIM model health, eliminating technical debt and the ROI associated with these things, and more.

    Episode links:

    About Parley Burnett:

    Parley is the CEO of ICONIC BIM and original visionary of the product Guardian. Parley has spent many years working in the AEC industry believing in a better, more proactive approach to managing BIM standards, model protection and best practices. Today, Guardian is used by leading firms worldwide and it has proactively guided users into a better workflow several million times. Previously, Parley has lead product and customer success efforts at UNIFI Labs, worked as a BIM manager, lead large content development efforts for manufacturers and served on several different BIM standards committees. He enjoys the challenge of solving large, complex problems in simple ways. Parley has also taught several Revit courses at Montana State University and enjoys sharing his passion for better processes.

    About Chris Shafer:

    Chris has nearly 20 years of experience as an architect and leading large firms in their adoption of Design Technologies and Revit. Chris recently joined Guardian to help digital design and BIM leaders better support their staff in their use of Revit. Prior to Guardian, Chris Shafer was a Senior Project Architect and the Digital Delivery Leader for HDR Architecture. As the Digital Delivery Leader, he led global teams in North America, Australia, and Germany developing and implementing firm-wide digital design technologies, standards and processes. In addition to working with Guardian and HDR, he has also worked with Perkins+Will and CBT Architects in Boston.

    Provide feedback for this episode

    Connect with Evan:

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    Episode Transcript:

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. In this episode, I welcome Parley Burnett and Chris Shafer. Parley is the CEO of Iconic BIM. Previously. He has led product and customer success efforts at UNIFI Labs.Worked as a BIM manager. Led large content development efforts for manufacturers and served on several different BIM standards committees.

    Chris has nearly 20 years of experience as an architect and leading large firms in their adoption of design technologies and Revvit he recently joined Parley .To help digital design and BIM leaders better support their staff in their use of Revvit. Previously, Chris was a senior project architect and the digital delivery leader for HDR Architecture, where he led global teams in north America, Australia, and Germany, developing and implementing firm-wide digital design technology. standards and [00:01:00] processes. Previous to that. He worked with Perkins+Will and CBT Architects in Boston.

    In this episode, we discussed the hidden inefficiencies within the AEC industry. We discussed the automation of industry standards, educating software users in real time, streamlining processes, the importance of BIM model health, eliminating technical debt and the ROI associated with these things. And more. It was a fantastic conversation with both Parley and Chris, and I hope you'll not only find value in it for yourself. But that you'll help add value to the profession by sharing it with your network. Please give this podcast a boost in the vast media landscape out there by subscribing wherever you listen.

    And if you'd like to receive an email, when new episodes are published with all of the links and other information from the episode, sign up at trxl.co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at the site as well. So as always, [00:02:00] thank you so much for. For listening. And now without further ado, I bring you Parley Burnett and Chris S ​

    I am joined today by Parley Burnett and Chris Shafer, and it's great to have you both here. Welcome to the TRXL podcast.

    Parley Burnett: Thank you, uh,

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, it's going to be great conversation. I, I am excited to hear kind of where we're going to go. I think of this, uh, the topic that we're going to be speaking about today is kind of like the industry's dirty little secrets, but there's other ways to, to phrase it. I think with waste in the industry and, and things that, that people actively ignore.

    The, the idea of, of Dirty Little Secrets, I think is a good enough clickbaity kind of, uh, title for this episode. So, uh, that's why I'm going with it. But, but before we get to that, um, because I think a lot of people will be able to kind of nod along in agreement, but also I'm hoping we can, we can really hear about some ideas to, to [00:03:00] move forward in, in the industry.

    Let's hear your stories first. So Parley, why don't you kick us off and tell us how you got to, uh, where you are today?

    Parley Burnett: Yeah, perfect. try to keep it brief, I guess.

    Evan Troxel: No worries. This is long form. This is podcasting, man. This is where people get to get to know who you are. So yeah,

    don't, don't try to keep it brief. Just, Just,

    tell the story.

    Parley Burnett: yeah, I guess I, I usually, I, I usually say that, um, fundamentally I'm a Revit nerd, right. So just to begin with, been basically working with Revit since 2005, and I think I quickly gained a passion for Revit having come from AutoCAD architecture desktop, um, and basically kind of. Went into drafting, thought I wanted to be an architect, quickly changed my mind, thought I wanted to be a developer. I think I got a D in my first class of, uh, of, of that.

    Evan Troxel: D for development. I mean,

    Parley Burnett: yeah, D.

    Evan Troxel: [00:04:00] sounds right.

    Parley Burnett: So I, I guess I

    was sort of not sure what to do, but I knew I had interest in the building industry and design industry. So, um, went to UNLV construction management, But really have always been working with Revit in one way or another and kind of had my own drafting service for a time there to get through school, but then really gravitated towards especially the content side of Revit and the content strategies, everything else that goes around with that created a lot of content. And I think perhaps most. impactful to my career was my time at Unifi Labs. So I joined up with them in the very early days. It was 2010, really, before it was even called Unifi. We went through several different names, and I was, I think, the third person there. [00:05:00] And together with a couple of really close colleagues, kind of, Conceptualize the idea of cloud based content management, and, uh, that was a, an incredible learning experience.

    Um, it obviously kind of took hold on the industry as a, as a concept. Um, now there's other products, of course, and now UNIFI is acquired by Autodesk, as a lot of us know, but during my time there, my 7 or 8 years, I, I, was, uh, a manager of content creation efforts for like manufacturers back when Autodesk Seek was a thing.

    So we've developed a lot of content for that. And then I became a product manager and then near the end I was leading our customer success efforts. So, um, you know, I, I, there's been a couple stints where I was a BIM manager, but typically for like smaller [00:06:00] firms where things were much more nimble. Um,

    but then that was kind of complimented by a lot of conversations held with other firms during my, my time at Unify. Um, so kind of to the Guardian story, I guess, um, back in 2018, left Unify and really wanted to do something that was unique for the industry. A lot of times I would be on the phone with, um, firms of different sizes, different disciplines. But I would always hear the same kind of problems, right? And a lot of them trying to address those problems in the same way. So, first off, it felt like an opportunity was there to kind of level that out a little bit and not make everybody take on so much on their own. but also do things in a much more, like, natural, intuitive, um, way. in the [00:07:00] flow kind of process, right? I, I, I had seen firsthand how anytime you have software that requires user interaction, like, literally any buttons that you have for users to click on, that's a barrier for adoption, right?

    So we

    really wanted to do

    Evan Troxel: you say this and I'm like thinking about the apps that people use on a day to day basis and there's hundreds and hundreds of buttons, right? And so you're saying anytime there's a button, right?

    Parley Burnett: anytime.

    Chris Shafer: Yep.

    Evan Troxel: it's like, you pull up these, like, it just reminds me of like the dashboard of an aircraft, right?

    It's like, Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of buttons here, right? Uh, I can, it's completely overwhelming for a lot of people. And, and you're talking about software that it just keeps adding buttons, like is, that's kind of a fundamental feature. It's buttons. We added buttons. Yeah.

    Chris Shafer: Yeah.

    Parley Burnett: Yeah, a feature is that we removed buttons, right? That's kind of the way we [00:08:00] would like to think of it. Um, that just introduces more complexity. So we really do think hard about any time we're adding interface for the users. Um, that's it. That's almost a bad thing. It has to be done out of necessity.

    So, um, kind of quick profile now. It's been about six years. We work with firms all over the world now and the hundreds, and it's just been quite a wild ride. Chris has been a big part of the story actually, even though he's joined the team recently.

    Chris Shafer: Yeah. Parley and I go way back. Um, him and I first met, uh, during the unified days. So, um, he was, you know, he was our customer. with my previous firm and, and we just instantly, I think we instantly connected on a lot of things he talked about, especially when it comes to the content and the, and the, the problems [00:09:00] that, that we're both seeing, um, and, and fundamentally understood them from, from the same perspective.

    I actually come from. Come from a whole different perspective and kind of path kind of getting to where I am here at Guardian is I actually started off as an engineer in the aerospace industry. Um, but I was really lucky early in my career, um, you know, working for General Electric producing jet engines.

    I was actually part of a team. They call them the, uh, the blue sky team because they always said their heads were in the clouds. And, but we were, we were responsible of converting the assembly process of jet engines from a analog one to a digital one. And, this was a really interesting learning development for me was we were, we were responsible first and foremost to solve problems that were kind of plaguing the assembly of jet engines.

    Um, and, but as we did that, we would introduce technology into solving the problems and making sure those problems don't reoccur. And one of the things I really [00:10:00] learned as an engineer solving these problems was. At the root of every problem, there's the lowest common denominator, and that is the driver of that problem.

    And it's through research, it's through data analysis, and, and just testing to get to what is that lowest common denominator. And so, fast forward, always wanted to be an architect, but for whatever reason, at 18 years old, I chose, chose engineering first. Um, but then, after doing that for almost six years, I decided to go back to school and become an architect. And as soon as I got into architecture, I was like, Whoa, this, I'm, I'm stepping back 20, 30 years from a technology perspective. Um, but then Revit came out and I was like, wow, all right, this is the tool. And, and I started using it in about 2008, 2009. And I was like, this is the tool that will drive the industry to the future.

    Um, [00:11:00] and, and I kind of fast forward, um, many years as, as being a, a project architect, um, leading projects, you know, make, you know, through design and construction, done everything from, you know, from the very beginning to the end of the projects, every step along the way. Um, and. I really came down to, there is a few drivers in our industry that is really preventing us from really maximizing the potential that's in the technology that we have in front of us, right?

    And one of that was, was content, and I think that was partly had mentioned as well. Um, you know, simple, simple logistics, right? If we are digitally building buildings, we need the parts and pieces for those piece, for those buildings at our fingertips. It's not available. What do we do? I think we all agree.

    We just kind of all make it up. So early on when, um, when I went to HDR, I just went back as, um, when I moved to [00:12:00] HDR, I was like, all right, I'm done with the technology side of things. I'm just going back to architecture. And, and so it's been my first year there doing architecture and designing a building in the Boston Seaport.

    And then, um, Then I just happened to see, someone had mentioned to me, um, within, within the office, like, oh, I did see there's this corporate role for a content manager opened up, and I was like, I'll give it a go, I'll give it a go, and that's when I took the role, um, I met Parley and Parley had, Parley and I had a lot of conversations about, you know, content management and the, the issues that kind of plague the industry and so on and so forth, um, And then, then Parley went and started Guardian.

    Um, and from, from then, Parley and I spoke almost on a weekly basis for the last six, seven years, um, about what's happening. So, um, as, as my career grew at HDR, we're, um, end up leading our, what [00:13:00] we call digital design. It was, um, digital design and delivery, which is alternative to digital practice. Um, you know, We were always talking about, you know, what are those needs and what are these fundamental problems that's, that's, that's limiting the industry, um, and from, from really meeting that, that potential that's right in front of us.

    Um, so yeah, um, after, after kind of, kind of, In my off hours helping Party help from time to time, uh, this past, this past spring, I finally made the leap and said, All right, let's give this software development thing a try. Um, and so it's been, it's been an interesting three months now since I've been here. Guardian.

    Evan Troxel: Nice. The thing that you, you mentioned about when you were, when you were working at GE and transitioning from analog to digital process in order to solve problems that were plaguing the, the process of building these [00:14:00] engines. I'm curious how you, do you see an, an analogy there, I mean, with what you're doing now?

    I mean, the whole point of, technology implementation is typically process, right? It's, it's on the, rarely do people focus on the people side, right? There's, there's, which I think is, is another issue, right? Like you can't just put software into the pipeline and, and then just say, okay, check, done, solved, right?

    It's not like that at all, but working together between people and process is the key thing here. And, and I'm curious if you. Like you said, at some point, Revit came along, you saw that as the future, and you said, Okay, like this, because before that, you said we were 20 to 30 years behind what you had already experienced.

    Aerospace, right? So I, I'm just curious, like I just threw a bunch of stuff out there. What, what do you see as the, both of you, what do you [00:15:00] both see as kind of the current state? You, you have your fingers at, you know, you're on tap with a lot of people in the industry, across the industry, you have international customers, as well as.

    You know, customers here in the US, what are you, because, because you said something earlier too, that, that just, all of this is just kind of firing off in my brain at the moment, so I apologize for it being so sporadic, but, like, you, you hear the same things all over the place, and I'm, same thing here, I hear the same things all over the place, I think a lot of people think, oh, we're, only we're having this problem, um, But it's not true, like everybody's having very similar problems, if not the same problems.

    And so, just thinking about all that, I mean, your story, the development, the path that you've been on, the trajectory that you've been on. really matters when it comes to kind of thinking about these industry wide issues, touching base with a lot of customers, really matters when you're, when you're considering how you're going to solve problems for people.

    And then there's [00:16:00] implementation and then there's training, like there's the actual people side of it and getting back to Parley's initial thing about adding or removing buttons, right? That's to the actual user of, of the implementation to solve these problems. And, and all of this kind of ecosystem, I'm just curious, what are you guys hearing, feeling as kind of the pulse of the industry?

    Are we still really far behind? Are we not far behind? Are we, are we cutting edge? Like, where are we on the spectrum? And then, like, what, what are you still hearing as kind of the issues plaguing the industry? Either one of you, take, take that and run with it,

    Chris Shafer: probably if you don't mind, if I'll start off with sort of the analogy that you asked about that is one, it does start with people. Um, that is one of the things I first learned about, um, when solving these problems, these the majority of time, unfortunately, it was people problems, right? It wasn't, It wasn't intentional or, or, um, [00:17:00] bad intentions, um, by anyone.

    I mean, if you think about it, it doesn't matter what you're doing. And I would say, especially if you're doing something where you're producing something, the same thing over and over and over again, it becomes mentally taxing. Right. And when it comes to the jet engines, one person would be responsible for fastening, say 700 bolts over an eight hour period.

    One of those bolts wasn't fastened to the proper torque. That was enough for an engine failure. And so like, how, how do we use technology to ensure that everything is done exactly the way it should be the first time? Right. So, So you don't have these downstream mistakes. That's just human nature. And, and kind of time us back to, to architecture is we are a, a deadline driven industry.

    Um, there's big deadlines, there's small deadlines, there's daily deadlines, right? [00:18:00] Always, we're always working at 100, 110%. When you're working at that capacity, you're bound to make mistakes

    Evan Troxel: or take shortcuts, right? Like that,

    Chris Shafer: or, or take shortcuts. Yes. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um, and, and so, and that's where I kind of see Guardian comes along, and I'll let Parley kind of extrapolate on that, but it is, there's so much of what we do is, is really repetitive, and it is common, um, throughout the podcast.

    All of design. Um, you know, one may argue that when you're doing commercial construction versus residential, you know, the parts and pieces are a little different and whatnot, but if you're in commercial design, if you're designing high rises or whatnot, there is, there's a lot of, you're using the same kit of parts.

    more or less. Um, it's just the arrangement. So there is a lot of repetition and commonality in so much of what we do. Um, and I think there is a, [00:19:00] I think there is a, I don't know how to phrase this, but a A thought in the industry, what we do each and every time is unique. And, and the way I see what we're doing is we're saying, well, let's be honest here that there, there is this thing we do over and over again.

    Let's figure out how we can apply technology to that. So, you know, those little mistakes aren't happening, or we're not cutting corners because we, to prevent those downstream impacts on, on all of that. And partly, if you want to. expand on how Guardian is, is helping, you know, solve some of those.

    Parley Burnett: Understood. Yeah, I think it's, those are great questions and it's true that we do talk with a lot of different firms every day, right. Um, and it's fascinating. It's really interesting to kind of, um, step back a little [00:20:00] bit and ponder what the what's this culture at this firm look like. Right. and you and you can see a lot of themes kind of extend throughout.

    The entire workforce that we touch and talk with, um, kind of on the software side, we kind of look at ourselves as, as software, of course, but, but really more on the human side of things, where we're more of a reflection of a firm's existing culture. Um, basically everything in Guardian, just in case anyone hasn't seen it yet, everything has a setting and it's highly customized.

    that setting. So as you're a BIM manager, a design technologist, kind of setting up Guardian, it tends to reflect your own [00:21:00] personal style, really. Um, we're there as a tool to kind of just allow you to scale that, right? Um, so I think that's, that's what we see as, um, you know, maybe Guardian is sort of an analog tool, basically, in that You've got the soft skills that are still required.

    Um, and then if you develop that, then it can be very effective to driving culture and change at your firm.

    Chris Shafer: I think there's one thing that's, sorry, go ahead, Evan,

    Evan Troxel: you go ahead, go for it.

    Chris Shafer: is I think that's one of the things that's, that's really important is when it comes to digital practice, we'll just use that as the kind of catch all phrase is, is from my role and I, you know, from my, my peers in the industry, a lot of conversations we've had is everything that the practice does. The, [00:22:00] The crossroads of where all the, you know, the, the marketing, the, the sales, you know, the project management, the technical leadership, you know, the project delivery, it all comes to that crossroads at the, at the interface of people and technology. And, and so understanding those dynamics and understanding the people behind it and what their needs and how they operate is really important.

    And I think that's, um, from my own career, that's what I've seen is, is really understanding what are those needs of the people. Um, that are doing the work and making sure that all the other externalities within a firm and those requirements are being communicated and being, being adhered to throughout the process.

    Um, And because at the end of the day, when that deliverable, you know, when the deliverable is, is out the door [00:23:00] or whether it's, you know, doing the QAQC process, you know, all that is, has to be done before that, that, that juncture in the project, right. And getting the people to start thinking about things kind of ahead of time, you know, before, before things become problems, before they become mistakes.

    Um, it is about really understanding. The people, their mindset, what they're thinking about, what their priorities are and how they like being communicated to as well. I think that's a big aspect of what we do is understanding communication in a firm, big and small, is really difficult. And how do you communicate the needs of technical leadership or design leadership or whatever it may be while you're in the flow of producing? So I think that's a really important, um, aspect of what we do is, is think about the people and how people communicate and how [00:24:00] people interact with one another.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, it's interesting for you to bring up the needs of the technical leadership, because I'm trying to think if I've ever heard of that being phrased like that before. I feel like the thinking in firms is that the technology is there to serve the people, as tools, but not to serve the people. Not that there's needs there that need to be met.

    It's more like, no, the function of this stuff is just to do what I tell it to do, however I tell it to do it. But you're reframing that to say, like there's a structure that is required, it's required that you adhere to it, so that we get the value, the benefits out of it. You know, probably later, right? But a lot of people are totally willing to hijack later for the, the, the comfort of like now, and by comfort, I just mean like getting something done, right?

    Like I just need it off my list. [00:25:00] Um, and that's where this kind of perverse incentivization happens, right? Which is like, just take shortcuts now. The idea of technical debt creeping into projects because people aren't willing decisions, or they don't know what they don't know, you know, early on to benefit the project, to benefit the value of what technical leadership needs out of projects.

    Um, that, that just gets, you know, the, to use the Karate Kid metaphor, right? Sweep the legs, Johnny. Like, just, just cut the legs out from underneath, underneath it now, because it just, I have a deadline, like, to your point, Chris, I have daily deadlines, right? I just need it to, Kind of work now, and I'm, I'm, you know, screw around and find out, right?

    That, that's what ends up happening, right? And so, this idea of kind of, okay, so, so, okay, so here's the other thing that's going on in my head, based on what [00:26:00] Parley was saying, which is It's every firm's the Wild West, you know, and to what you said, Chris, every, every project is unique, right? Everybody thinks their project and, and, and to some extent, yes, unique assemblies, unique site, unique client, um, environmental orientation, all these things.

    Yes, but using the same parts to put, put things together. And so, um, what's interesting to me is you guys are responding to. That situation and saying, well, your, your culture is unique because it's made up of individuals. who come together to form that culture and we want to meet you where you're at rather than force you to use a tool in this very specific way, which is big platforms kind of do that, right?

    They force people to use the software that their way. Um, and that's where all of this screwed up. Behavior happens, right? It's like workarounds, like that's what this is because it's complicated and not everybody has the same training [00:27:00] and the same know how and, um, they haven't been using it as long as the person, you know, the expert over there.

    And so I don't want to ask somebody and look stupid, risk looking stupid. So I'm going to like YouTube it, or I'm just going to try to figure it out and I'm going to figure it out, not the. standard way that the technical leadership needs. Like we've seen all of this happen all the time, right? And I think it's really interesting that you're approaching this problem from a different perspective, which is, okay, your firm culture is unique in what you're doing and how you're delivering it and how you're using the tools because you have different people.

    You've got different standards than that firm. You've got different content than this firm. You've got different market segments and different project types and all these things, right? Those are, those are differences. And you're saying like, we tailor it to you rather than forcing you to use it a very specific way.

    When I. Throw all this at you. I, I apologize. Like, I feel like super unstructured about how I'm, how I'm talking about this, but this is [00:28:00] very much like, Oh, I'm working all this out in my head. And I, and you prompted it, Chris, by saying, you know, what technical leadership needs and, and based on some other things that they came up before that, like, this is the kind of stuff that I think lots of people are struggling with.

    Right. And, and I know firm leaders out there who have just said, like, we just declared digital bankruptcy and we let the teams figure it out. Right. And, and then we're just there to put out fires and we're there to kind of smooth over the road bumps and we're just trying to just keep it going. Right.

    Just keep the tire, keep the wheels on. Right.

    Chris Shafer: Exactly.

    Evan Troxel: and there's another, there's the other side of that coin, which is like, it's super structured. You have to do it this way. Um, and, and I mean, You know, trying to limit technical debt buildup. So if I throw all this out there, I mean, I'm really interested in how you're kind of approaching this from a different angle than like the big platforms even can.

    Right? You can't. And so what you're saying [00:29:00] is like, Guardian is super customizable to the way firm cultures and people use the software and what their technical leaders need to get out of it and all these things. Um, I, I just imagine that, like, at some level, and maybe I'm wrong, that's got to be a little hard to manage because everybody's doing it a little bit differently still, right?

    Um, there's no industry standard here, right? Like, this is still kind of firm culture, firm standard kind of stuff. So, I mean, what does that trigger for you guys? Kind of, like, me bouncing this back at you.

    Chris Shafer: One of, one of the things, hearing, hearing that is, take a simple thing, say, browser organization. is

    Evan Troxel: You're talking about the Revit, like,

    Chris Shafer: the Revit browser, Project Browser Organization, right? Something as simple as that, right? All that is, is an, is organizing of your views and sheets.

    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm.

    Chris Shafer: Um, Especially early on in, in, in my career and using, using Revit.

    And this [00:30:00] happens with everyone in architecture. You kind of bounce from project to project, right? And you go from one project to the next. And the browser organization is completely different than the other. There's a learning curve. And there's just, you know, talking about waste in the industry, right?

    That's, that's just waste.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Chris Shafer: And then you would have, then you would have, say, you hire a new architect or a new architect or a junior architect and like, well, my last firm, we organized it this way. And they go in there and start changing their organization right within that active project to that organization.

    And then you have just, Layers and layers of all these other standards, and at the end of the day, you've got nothing, right? Everyone's just confused and I think we've all been there. We spend 20 minutes just looking for a view. And so with, you know, one of the things with Guardian is we're not saying what that browser organization should or shouldn't be.

    We're just saying, hey, this is something that is set up by the company as a company standard. Those, you know, [00:31:00] the administrators, the digital, digital design leaders in the firms, they're the ones who's responsible for setting that up. But Guardian just ensures whatever was set up by those leaders that is being adopted and adhered by all the team, all teams and everyone on there.

    And if, if the Guardian administrator chooses to do so, people are prevented from changing it, right? So they're being asked to kind of follow the rules and there's a lot of layers of tools that make sure that, you know, those, you know, those standards are set. And they're easily adhered to. And I think that's something that's really important is it's one thing to say, Hey, here's your standards, but it's another thing to say, say, well, we're making it easier for you to do your job by the standards are kind of set.

    You don't have to think about it. They're there. And whenever there's something that is not meeting the standards, we're, we're just going to change it for you. We're going to change it to the [00:32:00] standard. Um, but partly actually has a really. Um, cool history on, on where he ran into a situation where, um, someone wasn't a big fan of, of the standards or lack thereof, and, and how, how a simple interaction, and again, come back to communications and people, um, how that led to, um, actually winning someone over.

    Parley Burnett: Yeah, yeah, it's a fun one. Um, but, and I'll share it, but Evan, I think you said it better than I did. You know, we, we do try to arrive at where they're at from the beginning and we kind of view our role in, in the lifespan of our relationship with a firm as consulting them and guiding them. And taking the good parts that we see at other firms and kind of allowing them to kind of morph into a more positive culture. Um, and technical debt [00:33:00] for sure is a, is a concept that as, as software developers, we're, we're well familiar with, right? Um, and, and the reality is like, we are technology people. And so sometimes we're not aware of the technical debt that we're accumulating. Now, think about Revit, right? We're working with artists and designers who, who may not be as technically minded, they don't even know they're creating that technical debt.

    Right. And so, so we kind of see that as our role is to kind of bring that to light as well. And the story that Chris is talking about, um, in software, we, we often say, or there's this phrase, you know, we need to eat our own dog food. Right. And so, um, early in the development of Guardian. We put it into practice with a close firm here locally, um, kind of in partnership with them.

    We deployed it to the users and, you know, we, I think we had a [00:34:00] prompt show up to users when they went to the line styles management dialogue, um, that basically said like Chris was saying with the project browser, okay, this is our standard. If you're going to make a change, tell us what you're changing.

    And, and we had a user there that was like, well known for being the bull in the China shop, right? Just kind of go, go, go. Um, very quick, um, not really caring about

    Evan Troxel: Move fast and break things. Right. Yeah.

    Parley Burnett: Just break everything. Yeah. Notorious for this. And he sent me this message of the guardian dialogue. Like, Hey, how do I get rid of this?

    Right. He's, he was quite adamant about this. And I basically had a conversation with him. I was like, well, why do you want to get rid of it? Well, I'm, I see it every time I go to Align Styles. And then I asked, well, What are you trying to do there? And he's like, well, I, I'm trying to make a red line style that I can mark my plans up with so I can come [00:35:00] back later and make changes as like, well, sounds like that's something that you're doing on every project, right?

    It's like, Oh yeah, for sure. It's like, well, now that I know this, I can add that line style to the template and you'll never have to do this again. Right. And that's when the, the light bulb went off to that user. Um, and became almost the biggest advocate for it at the firm.

    Evan Troxel: Something you mentioned earlier, Chris, was the 20 minutes that somebody could spend just kind of learning how to navigate a project. And this is, I guess, what I was alluding to in the very beginning about like these dirty little secrets. It's like nobody really wants to recognize that this happens all in many different forms.

    with, right, it is not always just the inexperience of, of a user, right? It is, it is often because we are, you know, ad hoc, you know, as a previous title of an episode, AEC is an adhocracy, right? It's like this [00:36:00] idea that every team we disperse, we come back together in a different form. Uh, different phase of a project, different project type, different template maybe for that project, different project leaders, different technical advisors, uh, different structures in these files, these giant databases that we all get into to work on a project.

    And, okay, so what we've buried so far is just like what Guardian does, and you've mentioned a few things about it, but I think from a, I, I would like to, uh, to set this up so that you can talk about what Guardian does in a more comprehensive way so that people can get like, they can actually say, Oh, okay, I get it now.

    Um, but using this as like the way to get into there, which is like this 20 minutes that somebody spends just learning how to navigate through the views, how to find a view that they're looking for in a, in a project browser. That's one example. And you've talked about line styles and you've talked about content and you've talked about kind of these, these pop ups that happen that [00:37:00] You know, maybe they give somebody information, maybe they ask them to make a decision, maybe they're, you know, they're these prompts that happen.

    Um, so all of this has, has been stated, but now I, I want you to kind of give a, a, a broad overview because I know we can't get into the specifics of every single thing that Guardian does because it's so comprehensive. It's like as comprehensive as Revit is itself, right? It's like, Yep, it does everything, um, but, but at the same time, like, I want you to give it, give people an idea, like, why is it called Guardian?

    Like, what is it guarding? What, what is going on here? Um, and, and how is it addressing, um, The dirty little secrets of every single project that people get into and how nobody wants to actually say that time matters and it adds up and it is worth something. What can we do about it? Right? Like to me, that's, that's really what we're talking about here.

    And we're talking about a tool that kind of helps us address those issues. I

    Chris Shafer: Yep, Parlec. [00:38:00] Yeah, I'll take that. Yeah. So, Guardian, um, at its core, what it does, it automates consistency across standards and processes and best practices. It educate users in the moment of, you know, what are those best practices? that firm's standards, best practices and, and, and processes. Um, but then also provides, you know, actionable insights on how people are actually utilizing for, to actually execute their projects.

    And so we really see that, that standards and process is, is such important to the culture of what a firm is. And, and so what Guardian really does is, does it kind of on a almost a command by command basis under tries to figure out to how are your users utilizing that command and how does your digital practice, your digital delivery leaders, how are [00:39:00] they working to make sure that everyone understands what are those standards around those with the process around each and every command.

    Um, and in addition to that, you know, it, having the, the data behind all that, it helps. It helps the digital practice leaders to understand with this particular command, and we can just go down the list there of, of all the different features, um, and commands that, that Guardian is addressing. By providing that data, it gives them the opportunity to say, well, I see this amount of people are using this command incorrectly.

    Maybe I need to focus our training this week on that. on that command or, or that process or that best practice. So fundamentally it's a way of providing consistent standards process and, and communications around that. Um, I, I think what [00:40:00] most people know Guardian about is, is the command prompts. When a user goes to execute a command, rather than instantly, Going into that command, Guardian will prompt the user a customizable message by the firm, which can also be customized at the project level as well, um, of how, how this command is to be used, the best practice, the process, and so on and so forth.

    And so it's a great tool of just communicating standards, processes, and best practices.

    Evan Troxel: want to raise my hand here and say, okay, that sounds, and I'm no, no offense, Chris, that sounds terrible. That sounds terrible. And because I think people are going to hear that and be like, what do you, now it sounds like everything's going to take twice as long, right? Because every time I click on a tool, it's going to prompt me.

    And I know that's not how it works. So I want, I want you guys to, to, to, to, Take that little bit of feedback right there in the way that you talk about your tool and talk [00:41:00] about that because, because addressing that is definitely going to be a concern for people. It's like, because I mean, one thing is as a former digital practice leader myself, right?

    It's like, we talk about the difference between handcuffs and freedom when it comes to standardization. of processes, right? And, and the way that we use things. It's like, some people say, that sounds terrible. That sounds like handcuffs. And at the same time, we're, we're saying, okay, but if we reframe it to say like, okay, now you don't have to think about that stuff anymore because we've taken care of it.

    And now you can go focus on stuff that really matters. Like that's one, one example, right? But the things that you're talking about here, it's like, it's not, It's not slapping you on the hand every time you do something, right? It's, but, but it is a training tool in the moment. And I love how you said that, where it's like, it's in the moment.

    And it says to, to Parley's point earlier, all I wanted to do is create a red line, right? So that I could mark up my, my drawing so that I wouldn't forget what [00:42:00] to come back to. And it's like, well, and then it, then it enables. It's a communication to happen for people to understand because what's the ratio of BIM managers to users out there?

    Like what are you guys seeing? Is it like 50 to one? Is it bigger? I don't even, I don't even know where it is, but it doesn't scale. Everybody knows it doesn't scale to all the problems that happen on a daily basis with all the team members. And this is another dirty little secret in the industry, right?

    It's like it, that it doesn't scale. And so we need tools like this to automate that process of. Engagement and not accruing technical debt over time so that we can get the value out of these exquisite models that people craft on a daily basis. And so I, I want you to speak to that point about like, okay, it's not like just, it's not gonna take twice as long to do this stuff because it's actually training people to not have to worry about doing it like the wrong way again, right?

    Chris Shafer: Yeah, exactly.

    Parley Burnett: Chris has some good experience [00:43:00] implementing

    Chris Shafer: Yes, yes. Um, you know, having implemented to over 1000 users, I've seen and heard it all over the years. Um, but just from my own personal experience, um, you know, I having been a Revit user, a Guardian user for years, I developed a little saying. I don't get in a car without fastening my seatbelt.

    I don't get into Revit, without having Guardian, um, even as a power user myself, I've experienced where, hey, our natural tendency is to, you know, to just, to cut corners sometimes or, you know, I can, I can, I can get away with this, right? I'll come back to it. And sometimes those gentle reminders are like, Hey, you're, you know, we're all prone to making mistakes, especially when we're in a hurry or under the gun of a deadline.

    Um, I actually have a, an interesting, my very first project utilizing Guardian, um, [00:44:00] we, this was a developer driven. building in, in Boston, you know, very fast pace and whatnot. And just, just five, you know, 400, 000 square feet. And we were, it was a really interesting case study here where, where we had the team.

    all operating, um, in the same direction, rowing in the same direction. Right. And, and another saying I have said over my career is, you know, Revit's like death by a thousand cuts, right? It's never this big thing. It's always this one little thing, but over the course of a project, you know, all these little cuts add up to something big.

    And what we saw with this project, with the help of Guardian, is we stopped. Cutting those, those cuts never happened, right? And so what you saw was you're constantly just moving the ball down the field, right? You're going towards your project deadlines [00:45:00] more efficiently and you're in many ways you weren't, you know, fixing mistakes along the way, right?

    You weren't being that firefighter that you had mentioned earlier. It was all about just moving that project forward, everyone in the same direction, and it And that in the day, um, it was a very tight schedule, a very tight budget. Being developer driven project is always a tight budget. We ended up making 17, 17 percent profit on that given project, which was unheard of.

    You just stop doing the little things, the little things that set you back and moving it forward, that's when you start seeing the real value that That not only Guardian provides, but also Revit provides, right? Is, is coming, we talked earlier about the potential that Revit has. When you're actually getting that potential out of it, some great things can really happen.

    Parley Burnett: And, uh, yeah, I think it's definitely a [00:46:00] case of like how you message that too, right, Chris, like sharing the wins with the users, um, can really build that consensus, that, that kind of mentality that this is a good thing for us. We do talk a lot about, um. communication. So like before you put out a dialogue that you kind of communicate to users, but what that's going to look like. Um, and then the other thing is, um, just to shed a little bit of light on some other aspects of Guardian too, because it's not just like workflow prompts. It's also like, Hey, somebody else is syncing their model right now, right?

    Evan Troxel: Mm-Hmm.

    Parley Burnett: Just, and so users appreciate knowing that so that they can add themselves to the Guardian queue.

    without having to face that like 2x sync time that they would have faced otherwise. So like, over time they really start to [00:47:00] see the benefits of that. And there's other things behind the scenes like works at automation, things get put on the work set just automatically as things are placed or drawn. Parameter prompts. There's a lot of like automations behind the scenes. That's, that's what I would like to say is that it's not always a prompt and there's a reporting component to it as well.

    Chris Shafer: One thing I would like to add regarding the prompts and that you had alluded to, Devin, is like, oh, I'm being slowed down, but that's prompt. Um, and one of the things, and who I heard this mostly from was the power users. And, you know, as, as someone who was leading. You know, the whole firm of, of Revit users is.

    I would always remind them, I'm like, well, usually as the power user, you're the person responsible for fixing the mistakes of others. And so while, yes, you may have a prompt that, that pops up once [00:48:00] every, you know, two hours when you're working in the day and that prompt takes you five seconds to read and go and to clear and whatnot, that is much less time it takes than cleaning up the mistakes of others on your team.

    As the power user, you're the one who's responsible for. doing the cleanup, doing the fixing, and that takes a lot more time. And so the peace of mind knowing that the others on your team who are prone to making mistakes just from inexperience or not knowing or knowing your firm standards or whatever it may be, you know, just that actually creates more time for you and whatnot.

    Um, but then ultimately there are tools within Guardian to you know, for your power users saying, well, you know what you're doing. You don't, you know, you don't need this as well. So, you know, there's coming back to finding that balance of how do you communicate, but not over communicating or being too much of a burden on this user.

    So, [00:49:00] you know, there's something as party alluded to earlier that we're always striving for is, is how do we, how do we figure out how to lessen that impact

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, I think part of this is, you have to communicate this to all the different levels, right? You've got, you've got the user level, like, and then there's a spectrum there, beginner to expert, um, user level. Then there's technical management leadership, and then there's, like, firm leadership. And just talking about the value proposition at every one of these levels has got to be, you know, I mean, I'm interested to hear from you guys how you do that because I think a lot of technology vendors need to do the same thing, right?

    Um, and, and I'm just curious how you do it because I'm reading this book by Cal Newport and, and the idea, like he's, he's had a few different topics kind of all around this idea of, Pseudo productivity, uh, and [00:50:00] doing deep work, right? Like, like our life is full of distraction. We've got teams or Slack running all the time.

    There's constant messaging. There's email, there's notifications. There's all these things. And yeah, I'm busy. I'm busy doing email. Like nobody became an architect to do email. Right. Um, but that is what, how much of our day is spent like just. Addressing the inbox, right? New things to do. Like that's what your inbox is, right?

    It's new things for you to do given by somebody else who didn't have permission to tell you to do something, right? It's just like, but that, that's what it becomes, right? And, and firms don't address like firm leadership. If they, if they actually counted how much time people spent in Outlook every single day, they'd be like, what?

    We're not doing projects when we're, when we're doing Outlook. Like you may be addressing a client's concerns, or you may be kind In a roundabout way, you know, getting something done by assigning somebody a task or, you know, consult, you're [00:51:00] talking to a consultant or something like that. But in an inordinate amount of time gets spent doing email, which is not doing architecture, right?

    So if, and we don't talk about that, like we don't talk about how much time people are just spending. Chatting, which is, you know, maybe it is project oriented when they're chatting on teams or slack or something, but a lot of times it isn't right. And so, and it's not like we need to be 100 percent productive all the time.

    That's not what I'm saying, but there is a huge amount of like, we just don't address the waste that's going on here. And so from a leadership, like people who do the work know exactly what I'm talking about. It happens all the time. We're all guilty of it. Um, and at the same time, we're, we're. Quote unquote using these tools to get work done, but we're kind of not at the same time, right?

    And so from a messaging to the leadership standpoint when you guys talk about addressing Waste that's going on. And what is the return on that investment of getting that time back? How do you [00:52:00] communicate to those people? Because to me, like they're the decision makers in the firms, like users of any level can go say, Hey, like I heard about this thing.

    It sounds incredible to actually get us all on the same page and, and, and enable us to get more value out of these intricate, incredible models that we're building over many years and it's standardizing our data and it's standardizing, you know, when, when. Sally goes from this project to that project.

    She's going to know right where to pick up because we're developing these with the same standards and there's lots of value to be gained in that. How do you communicate that to leadership so that they actually understand that?

    Chris Shafer: So I'm going to provide a little antidote here to start answering that question is when when I first implemented our model health strategy and Guardian was a vital tool in that process with my previous firm. It. In my role, and I guess my, [00:53:00] my boss who I reported to, we never felt like we had the, the authority to actually require it.

    And then after a couple of years of doing this on a, I wouldn't say a voluntary basis, but we were, we were really focused on our largest projects, um, getting the teams to utilize, uh, utilize the model health strategy. Again, Guardian was a critical part of that. And, um, And that equate that covered about 60 percent of our firm and and as we are wanting to do and grow and, you know, ask for for for more money to do other things as well, we were presenting the savings that we were seeing with.

    And with our model health strategy and one of the things that we were presenting was just say sync times party had mentioned earlier is we were through that model health strategy. We were able to reduce our sync times by over a minute across the firm. Um, and when. each

    Parley Burnett: sync.

    Chris Shafer: [00:54:00] each sync. And so when you look at that across the board, you know, that equated to almost a 600, 000 a year savings.

    Just, you know, obviously not all that is seen or gained or whatnot. The reality and coming back to dirty little secrets, everyone knows as well, people kick sync and then they go check their Outlook or they go to their IMs or they go get a cup of coffee. Right. So. That two minute, right? So that two minute syncs ends up being 10, 15, even longer, right?

    It becomes a distraction. And so

    Evan Troxel: doing something else, right?

    Chris Shafer: exactly, exactly. So how do you eliminate the simple setbacks, the simple distractions that lead to larger distractions? And one is, is, is, is quite, I'm going to say, you go down the list of so much of what Guardian does and you start looking [00:55:00] at how, how much this actually costs a company by not preventing, you know, mistakes or misuse or, or whatever it may be, or the lack of standards.

    And, And on its surface, the ROI is just instant. It, you're just like, wow, you know, this, this pays for itself in a matter of weeks here. But then the layer of additional waste that comes out of this, you know, the, the secondary, the tertiary, um, downstream impact, you know, that's not really accounted for that.

    Um, and, and a lot of times making this argument to leadership and say, Hey, having everyone operating in different ways And we're not even, don't even have the word to bring up the word standards, because even a lot of leadership, they start to like, Oh, here goes the standards thing again. Right? Um, just saying, Hey, just, just having people just all operating in the [00:56:00] same direction and doing things really in the same way, really being a team and the way that they do things and making sure the needs and the of the project and the needs of the team are being met throughout the course of the project.

    That alone has tremendous value and it's measurable value. Um, and And when you see it in the profitability, um, on projects, you know, that makes it, you know, makes it an easy, sometimes an easy sell.

    Parley Burnett: And Chris, you even got your hand slapped a little bit by leadership once they understood that, right? They're like,

    Chris Shafer: Yeah. Yes. Yes.

    Parley Burnett: why aren't we using this on every project?

    Chris Shafer: yeah. Um, where, like I said before, I never felt in my role that I had the authority and, and, and my boss, who I directly reported to didn't have the authority to say, no, this is mandatory. And the president was like, why aren't we doing this on? This is such, this provides such tremendous value to the company.

    Why aren't we [00:57:00] doing it on every project? Why isn't everyone following this? And I think that's something a lot of people in that digital practice role. They're kind of caught between right there They're given this tremendous responsibility to make sure the firm the fundamentals of the firm are being Executed but they're not given the authority to do so

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Chris Shafer: And, and what Guardian does is, is it ensures that the best practices, the standards, but more importantly, the knowledge and experience of your digital practice people are being, being gained by everyone, all the time, by every project.

    And, and there's a tremendous value about having that knowledge and expertise right there as people are doing their work. And not being, and not being the firefighters, right? You know, preventing mistakes before they happen versus being the person for cleaning up the [00:58:00] mistakes.

    Evan Troxel: Right. It seems like that kind of just in time methodology of of providing. Insight prompts, um, you know, action items, training. There's a lot of different ways you could kind of categorize these things is so important because I mean, to your point earlier about kind of, you know, technical debt and just saying, you know, I'm incentivized to figure out a work around right now and I'll come back and I'll fix it later.

    And then you get distracted and you're doing a bunch of other stuff. And then. It's, it snowballs, right? Like you forget about this one and then somebody builds on top of that, which relies on what was already done and it was already done wrong. So now we have to do it a little bit wrong, some more, right?

    And then, and that, that just keeps snowballing. And at some point it's like, who's going to fix this and what do we do? I mean, how many times early on in those, in those early days, Chris, 2008, 2009, right, did you say, okay, export to AutoCAD right at this [00:59:00] point, because we just can't We can't deal anymore, right?

    Like everybody's, everybody who's been doing this a while has lived through that, right? And at some point, like now, now that's not an option, right? It's like now we just are completely weighed down for the rest of the project because it gets so bad. And I'm, I'm just curious, like what other kinds of examples you have besides like sync times when it comes to communicating, you know, so, so a more fundamental question is like, Are architects very good at like, valuing their own time?

    And I, I tend to think no, because we're all trained to like, just solve the problem, no matter what it takes. Like we're up for the challenge. We know that there's an answer. We'll figure it out if we just try hard enough. And everybody, like to your point earlier, Chris, like everybody goes to work wanting to do a good job, right?

    Like they don't, they're not going in saying, man, I'm going to take a bunch of shortcuts and leave early today. Like that doesn't, doesn't really happen, right? So, [01:00:00] so people want it there. They want to do the right thing. But at the same time, like they do have the real constraints of deadlines and, and sync times is one example.

    But like. When it comes to learning how to value our own time, let's put some values on that right now and like, what are some other kinds of qualitative or quantitative metrics, either category there that you're really seeing that tools like this can, can provide to the users and the firm leadership alike.

    Chris Shafer: Yeah. Um, one of the things I would just quickly hit on, we have a feature called delete protections, um, where, so for instance, is when someone goes to delete something and there's a, an item that is hosted to that element. Well, everyone has conditioned themselves to ignore the yellow warning box that Revit produces.

    And just hit delete, right?

    Evan Troxel: even sees that corner of the screen.

    Parley Burnett: If it shows up. Yeah.

    Chris Shafer: Right.

    Evan Troxel: Complete blind spot.[01:01:00]

    Chris Shafer: and, and so, so what Guardian has done is provided a prompt that shows you everything that's being deleted and all it does, and, and, and I've heard you mentioned this another podcast, you have to go, you have to go slow to go fast. This is slowing people down just enough to say, yes, I intentionally.

    want to delete all this other stuff that I don't see in front of me, right?

    Evan Troxel: You're right.

    Chris Shafer: Um, and, and

    Evan Troxel: think I shared a story with you where every day I'd come into work, and the main stair in a three story school classroom building was gone. Every day. And it was like, somebody was deleting something. They had no idea that somebody else had pinned another out the stair to that element.

    And they were like, this, this element does not need to be in here. Like it, but, and so, so every day we'd roll that model back to grab that piece out of it and bring it back into the new model. And then the next day it'd be gone again, because somebody would be like, what, [01:02:00] what I thought I'd delete, I'm going to delete it again.

    Right. And, and it's gone. And so to your, to your point, it's like, if you don't know, You're, you're not doing it wrong on purpose, but if you don't know, I mean, all you're doing is saying like, Hey, here's some additional context you might want to be aware of.

    Chris Shafer: that's exactly right. And, and it is just communication, right? Communication. Hey, these are, these are the things, because we, we understand, Many of us understand with Revit, I, I call it the butterfly effect, right? You touch one thing and something on the other side of the model is, is impacted. A lot of people just fundamentally don't understand that about Revit, right?

    There are things outside of your immediate view that you're impacting. And, and all we're doing is bringing awareness to that. And we're seeing that in the data, how, how frequent people are actually saying. No, I don't want to delete all this. Right? Um, and so when we, so I don't have the exact numbers off the top of my head on how [01:03:00] much this is being used, but this is one of the most common data points that we see is people just have stopped, um,

    Evan Troxel: Well, and if you use my story as an example, like every single day, we're going back and opening the old model. We're pulling that piece out. We're copying it. We're pasting it into every single day. And then somebody else is finding that element and deleting it every single day for a week, right? And it's like, okay, well, there's, that's just one version of, of.

    you know, why this kind of thing exists, right? And it's like, it is, it is an actual amount of time. It is not incidental.

    Chris Shafer: right? And coming back to your example is, is And why does someone keep on repeating that? Because they don't know that they're, they're deleting the entire stair while we're at it, right? And so, having the information about who deleted it, when, and where, and what not, provides the BIM manager, the model manager, to, hey, this so and [01:04:00] so went and deleted the stair, let's go have a conversation with them about, hey, I understand that you're just, you weren't trying to delete the stair, you're only trying to delete this, right?

    This provides an opportunity to have an educational moment and say, well, by not knowing that they're deleting this shows a, a, a fundamental misunderstanding of how Revit works and also opens the opportunity to have a teaching moment and say, Hey, this is, this is the way, say, annotation and Revit work and so on and so forth.

    Right? Um, you know, annotations, views, specific, well, model elements is, You know, in every view. Um, and you know, those type of things, you know, a lot of that is, is missed. You know, those simple opportunities to teach are missed. Um, and by not knowing and kind of sweeping it under the rug actually doesn't really help. Anyone in that situation, and especially the person, um, the person who's deleting the stare, right? No one, no one wants to make that [01:05:00] mistake, right? Um, and so have an opportunity to, to help people before they get into that situation is, we feel is like the, the better opportunity or the better position to be in.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Parley Burnett: We've, we've heard from a lot of interns and that junior level of designer, Brevitt user, um, appreciate the fact that the guardrails are up right to that point. Nobody wants to make the mistake. Um, on that feature, the number, Chris, is about 50 percent of the time users are canceling. So, so we do track, um, the cancel rate on every kind of prompt, um, which is incredible information to show leadership.

    That's another way that we kind of go up there, Evan, and kind of inform them about what Guardian's doing. Um, yeah, 50 percent and the numbers aren't small too. We're seeing a lot of cancels and it does track the actual elements that would have been deleted. So [01:06:00] when you see that, there's a lot of work product that would have gone out the window.

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Parley Burnett: Um, another

    Evan Troxel: gotta be, I'm interested how you talk to firm leaders who say, what do you mean I have to get another piece of software to plug all these holes in the main software we use to deliver projects? Like, I mean, that's gotta be a sentiment of, you know, You know, I've I don't know what, you know, we've got to be frustration there for sure, right?

    But, I mean, it's great, great for you to be able to create a business out of all the holes that do exist, but the, the platform is not solving these problems. And that's got to be a little disheartening for, for people to say what, you know, we already spend probably the biggest chunk of our software budget on this platform that everybody uses differently in very different ways, you know, and, and, and there's all these.

    potential problems that just creep up here and there. And now I've got to get [01:07:00] this other thing to help do that. I mean, what, what do you, how's the story go? How's the communication go around that?

    Parley Burnett: I mean, back to that example of, um, CAD and, you know, like, Let's, let's just print this all to CAD, right? And kind of scrap it,

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Parley Burnett: export to CAD. I think there's been enough of that in the past that, um, a lot of leadership does feel like the promise of Revit hasn't been realized, right? And it's unfortunate. I wish it wasn't like that. Um, I think we, we try to convey that we're a complement to the tool and providing a level of customization that, like, Um, a company like Autodesk isn't likely to, um, who knows, um, seek, seek after providing. What's your take on [01:08:00] that, Chris?

    Chris Shafer: Yeah. And, and if you think about it, is Revit's designed to, to the tallest skyscrapers in the world to

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Chris Shafer: residential sheds, right? Um, and, and, and a little inside joke. Um, um, and, and everything in between, right? And, and how do you, how do you create a tool that has to work? that broadly. And, but then so specifically for a firm that does a residential versus a firm that does healthcare specifically, right?

    Um, I don't know how Autodesk, um, could do it, um, in a single platform. And then I think that's where Guardian really comes in is like, well, Guardian is really providing that layer of your firm's culture, your standards, your processes to that where you can customize basically [01:09:00] how your users are using Revit to deliver projects in the way that you want to, um, and, and not have this sort of open, open book or open process.

    Um, so in, in many ways, and this is something that I've heard over the, over the years, um, whether it was in my previous firm or, you know, here with Guardian is, is there's a, there's a level of comfort and you, you had mentioned freedom, right? There's a level of comfort knowing that. A lot of this has already been figured out you, you have the runway to focus on your job, right?

    You know, the standards, the processes, everyone doing the things in the same way that's taken care of. And then you can focus on doing your job.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Interesting. I, I know that this, this is sounding, I don't know, maybe people think it sounds too good to be true. I mean, everybody [01:10:00] has that story. I have this, I hear this story from my wife all the time who literally hates using Revit every single day. And, and I know not every, there's a lot of people who love using Revit every single day, but I, I do want to, like, to your point.

    I saw a comment earlier, Parley, about, about junior architects or graduates coming into firms and saying, because every one of them, I guarantee you is coming with bad habits to your firm, right? 100%. Like this, the, the training that people get in school when it comes to digital tools is probably zero and they're learning it on their own from their friends and the internet, right?

    And so when they come in, like, I guarantee you they're doing it. Wrong, right? In air quotes, because they're not doing it to your standards, your firm standards. And I mean, you mentioned it also from people coming from other firms and how we did it there is how I want to do it here, because that's my experience and that's, I'm comfortable with that.

    And so I want to implement that on my [01:11:00] project and bringing that consistency back to the firm's, you know, culture, technical leadership requirements, you know, profitability, like all of these things. It's a really big deal, like in, in, in, in, or we mentioned earlier, like this stuff just doesn't scale with a per at the personal level because the technical staff, there's just not enough.

    There's never enough. Right? And, and these tools are table stakes. They're just a guarantee. We're going to use these tools on every single project. This is how we deliver projects. We don't deliver projects any other way. We're not going back to hand drafting. We're not going even back to CAD. We're not doing any of that stuff anymore.

    Right? And so to not understand that, that. This has a huge business impact, as well as a culture and training and professional development impact, like you have to realize that in leadership at these levels to understand why any of this matters, um, and, and to me, like, I know [01:12:00] at some level, maybe this does sound too good to be true, but at the same time, like, it's not.

    You guys have done it. And, and that's why I wanted to highlight it on the podcast, because when I saw what this is, like, I have all of these scenarios and I started out this whole rant right here about what I hear from my wife, which is like, I've, Why doesn't it do what I want it to do? And like, she's working for very small architects here and there doing modeling and every one of them does it differently.

    And, and so constant battles, constant internet searches on how to figure this stuff out. And so Chris, like you bring it up, like somebody's already figured this out so that you don't have to. And having a way to convey that to staff who doesn't know what they don't know. is huge. Like it's just absolutely huge.

    And so kudos to you guys for, for doing the work and, and plugging a lot of these holes that do exist. And, but, but also like educating people through the process and meeting them where they're at. Right. Because it's not [01:13:00] just handcuffs and it's not just slaps on the, on the back of the hand or on the back of the head as sometimes it might be.

    Right. But it's like, That you're, you're taking a different approach to it. And I think it's a, it is a very personal approach, uh, and it's a very human approach because those are the people who are actually using these tools to deliver these projects. And so it's worth highlighting, like absolutely worth highlighting.

    And, and so I appreciate you guys coming on the show to talk about that today. And I want to give you the opportunity, if there's anything that I've missed here that we, we need to talk about. I think we've, we've talked about a lot of the problems, but we've also talked about ways to handle that. And, and some interesting ways to handle these things through, through the people approach to the culture approach.

    Um, is there anything that we missed that you guys want to bring up before we, we call it quits here? Yeah,

    Parley Burnett: It's been fun to talk about it with you. I think I, um, I would just say that we're not done yet. Right. It does a lot for sure. It does a lot, but the, [01:14:00] the challenges there in Revit are quite many. So we look forward to continuing the path.

    Evan Troxel: I don't hear the same rant from my wife every time. It's always a different thing, to your point, right? It's like there's, there's a lot more work to do. So, uh, and, and I, I appreciate that you're up for it because I know obviously there's a business case for it, but at the same time, like you're interested in.

    Firms getting better at what they're doing, delivering better products to their clients, because I know you guys as, as people, right? And these are the things that, that you're passionate about. So, um, yeah, so thanks for bringing that up because I, yeah, like it's not over. It's, and, and software is never done, right?

    You, there's, there's, I'm sure you've got a roadmap that, that, that's enormous. So, um, that's cool to see. It's cool to see things coming out, new ways to address these problems. And, and, uh, thanks for taking the time to talk about it today.

    Chris Shafer: Yeah. We really appreciate the opportunity, Evan. [01:15:00] Um, this has been, it's been fun.

    Parley Burnett: Yes, it has. Thank you. 


    9 September 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 165: ‘Transitioning to Leading People in AEC Tech’, with Phil Read and Adam Thomas
    165: ‘Transitioning to Leading People in AEC Tech’, with Phil Read and Adam Thomas

    Phil Read and Adam Thomas join the podcast to talk about leadership development, the crucial balance between technical know-how and soft skills, cultivating interpersonal relationships, stress management, mentorship, where to go to foster leadership skills and behaviors, accountability, and more. You’ll also learn about the upcoming AEC Acoustics retreat that is blending leadership and technical skill enhancement through collaborative discussions in a low-key, energizing environment.

    Episode links:

    About Phil Read:

    Phil is the CEO and co-founder of Read | Thomas - a global BIM/VDC consulting group and go-to-market startup advisor.

    In 2020, Read | Thomas founded the AEC Leadership Retreat, an annual event focused on developing good leadership skills for people in the high stress / low control AEC industry.

    About Adam Thomas:

    Adam is the Co-Owner and COO of Read|Thomas LLC, an AEC/O consulting firm dedicated to delivering business continuity solutions to teams involved in the creation of buildings, products, and software. Read|Thomas specializes in on-demand BIM management, Revit modeling, and technical assistance services.

    With a background in architecture, business administration, international studies, and construction, Adam brings extensive expertise in BIM and PIM implementation across Revit Architecture, Revit MEP, Revit Structure, Enscape, Rhino, and SketchUp. He has developed over 50,000 fully parametric families for manufacturers worldwide. In addition to his technical expertise, Adam excels in conducting training sessions, workshops, and consultations on Revit, while also managing the implementation of Revit systems.

    Adam has authored a comprehensive Revit standards manual for multiple architectural firms across the U.S., India, and Australasia. He co-authored the chapter "Revit in the Classroom" for Autodesk’s official training guide, Mastering Autodesk Revit Architecture 2011, and served as a technical editor for the Revit Architecture Essentials series in 2011 and 2013.

    Provide feedback for this episode

    Connect with Evan:

    Watch this episode on YouTube

    Episode transcript:

    165: ‘Transitioning to Leading People in AEC Tech’, with Phil Read and Adam Thomas

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. And in this episode, I'm talking with Phil Read and Adam Thomas about the complexities of transitioning into leadership within digital and strategic roles in an AEC firm.

    We talk about the crucial balance between technical know-how and soft skills, cultivating interpersonal relationships, stress management, mentorship, where to go to foster skills and behaviors, accountability, and more. You'll also learn about AEC Acoustics, an innovative retreat, blending leadership and technical skill enhancement through collaborative discussions, which I will be attending in just over a month from now. And just for listeners of this show, Phil and Adam have extended and incredibly generous offer to get the early bird pricing, even though that time has already passed. So on the registration form, you'll see Phil's email address and once you register, you can email [00:01:00] him and let him know that you heard about it here, and you'll get that early bird price. You can find the link to learn more about AEC Acoustics and register in the show notes for this episode or on my website at TRXL.Co. You can also visit AECacoustics.com.

    Please help this podcast by subscribing wherever you listen.

    And if you'd like to receive an email, when episodes are published with all of the links, like I just talked about and other information from the episode, sign up at trxl.co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at the site as well.

    As always. Thank you so much for listening. And now without further ado, I hope you enjoyed this conversation about mastering leadership transitions in AEC tech with Phil Read and Adam Thomas.

    Evan Troxel: [00:02:00] Phil and Adam. Welcome to the TRXL podcast. It's great to have you both here. And Phil, it's been a while since we, chatted. It was Denver Airport, United Lounge. Uh, and I'm going to put links to those episodes. In the show notes, but something you said during that conversation, uh, it really piqued my interest and, part of the conversation was about the transition in leadership, especially when it comes to like digital tools and strategy, and there's, there's kind of a technical side to it, and then there's this transition to leading a team, and you talked a little bit about that during our last conversation there. And that being a difficult transition for a lot of people. We, we

    work our way up, solving problems, working with the tools, really technically oriented. And then it's like the next step in that natural progression is, okay, now you're going to lead people to do that same thing.

    And it's, and then we, we trip over those speed bumps that happen, right?

    So like [00:03:00] set up the beginning of this conversation. Let's just go from, from that. And let's elaborate on that a little bit, because I think it's going to lead us in some interesting

    Phil Read: Well, that, you know, there is the, kind of truism that you get promoted to your point of incompetence.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, There's a name to that

    rule. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but

    Phil Read: we should do this like Rogan and go, Adam, look that up for me. Can

    you, what's that, what's that thing called? It's not Murphy's Law, it's something else.

    Evan Troxel: I

    don't have, I don't have an intern at my fingertips. So, yeah.

    Phil Read: right. No, so there, so, That's the thing that happened to me. And if I had known there was a strategy, like read these books or go to these things or talk with these people, cause it's going to be stressful, then I would have known that being stressed is okay. But when you don't know why it's stressful and it just feels completely unfamiliar, it becomes even more stressful. So I really struggled with that. And then only to find out, like there's [00:04:00] been people that have attended, The leadership retreat after the fact that I managed during that very stressful time.

    They said, Oh, you're the best boss ever had. It was great. And I thought, you weren't inside my head. I

    Evan Troxel: I was,

    barely hanging on, man.

    Phil Read: yeah, it was so, I didn't know what I would, what I had accomplished. When I was at Autodesk, I knew at the end of a day, a week, a month, a quarter, like in detail, what stuff did we do to help the customer?

    And then I went to a place where I don't even know if the decisions we're talking about are going to happen. How do I know I'm making the right decision? And so it was very stressful. I still find it stressful.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting predicament to, to get yourself into without like, this is not the kind of thing you get trained for in school ever.

    So if there is, let me know that that exists because I don't know that that exists. It's just, it's like, And I saw this with other positions as well. It's like you become, you get promoted to becoming a project manager.

    Like there was no, in architecture, there [00:05:00] was no project management school. There was, and it was just like, you just learn by doing along the way, but then all of a sudden it goes from maybe you're doing one project to now you've got five projects and all of a sudden you're, you're overloaded. You got to. And you get, you get buried deep, right? And, and it's like, where do you go for help? And I think that, that to me is what is kind of interesting. And maybe kind of the theme about what we're talking about today is like, where do you go for help? Where do you get

    Phil Read: Well, the money trail to go higher up in the organization is tempting. And I mean, that's like, Oh, I should follow the money, right? That's what adults do.

    But then you might, yeah, but the thing is, well, one of the things we talked about in Denver was the process of becoming a technical high performer. It's okay if that's trial and error, because you can squirrel yourself away after hours. And just put your [00:06:00] head down and figure out a way that that'll work, that you can implement. And that trial and error is invisible to everyone else. Trial and error with people, it doesn't work. You'll end up alienating

    customer, you'll alienate your staff, you'll alienate your business partner. Hey, Adam. I think Adam does way better at it. He's more of a extrovert than me. I would, I would say in that he works with a team of people that works with. Big customers, and I primarily just still work within customers and I have to periodically connect to the team that makes software that we're implementing, but yeah, having a team of people that are unpredictable and, uh, yeah, I still find it stressful,

    Adam Thomas: It is Yeah, it is

    stressful.

    Phil Read: well, then you just accept the stress.

    Yeah, I,

    Adam Thomas: right, yeah, roll with the punches a little bit.

    Phil Read: Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: So, Adam, talk about that transition. I mean, [00:07:00] you, you're the youngest here, so you've gone through this probably the, the most recently. I, I definitely went through this transition myself, and I'm happy to talk about it, and I know Phil, we talked about it a little bit in our last set of conversations in, on the podcast, but So, so you, you've, we've all been through this and I think navigating this is something that we're all going to have different experiences with and how, how we accomplish navigating that. But to Phil's point earlier about this becomes, you know, it's attractive because there's more money, but there's more money because the expectation is now you're going to multiply your skills amongst a team and you're going to help take our organization to the next level. But there's not necessarily a. a thorough roadmap of how to do that, right? It's like figure it out, which is, this is the, this is architecture in general, right? This is, you know how to figure things out. And I have faith that you're going to figure this out because I [00:08:00] don't have time to train you how to do it. I don't know what the resources are.

    We all learn differently. We've all done it a different way. And somehow it's all just kind of worked out and I'm sure it's not going to be any different with you. Go. But what was your experience like?

    Adam Thomas: Well, so yeah, I am the youngest, um, but I, I think I threw myself into it because I saw a problem with the first few architecture companies I worked with, there was no direct path. It was, I'm going to be a BIM manager and you're only going to talk to two people. And actually the first one I worked with said that I wasn't allowed to talk to certain studios.

    So I couldn't effectively be a BIM manager then. Because I have to talk to the studios, the people, to be able to increase productivity. Um, it's a psychological problem, not a technical problem. And so I think 15 years I've been fascinated by the psychology of people more than the technical output of people.

    And if I can somehow roll with the punches enough [00:09:00] to get someone to be successful in their own life, it comes back to their professional life, which goes back to their personal life, and it keeps building on each other. Um, and so I would rather get on the phone with someone and say, you know, how can I, how can I de stress you?

    Or how can I help alleviate some stress in the next 10 minutes? And with some clients, it's literally, they just want to talk about their grandkids, because no one at the office wants to do that. But that's coming from a place of I get told all the time that the way we deal with architecture firm A or construction firm B, if they tried to deal with it internally the same way, they would be told to leave.

    So there's a position of kind of,

    Evan Troxel: Privilege.

    Adam Thomas: privileged to say like this outside resource, we're going to listen to them, even though that same internal person has said it before. And I've talked with those managers. And I don't think they are ignoring the internal manager. I don't think they're in, they're ignoring that internal [00:10:00] person.

    I think what that internal person has done is they've built up a kind of a tremendous wall in front of them. And they're talking at people instead of with people, or they're talking to directly, or they're making it all about them versus everyone around them. And we can come in and say, Oh, well, you figured it out.

    I just did the last 2%.

    We can highlight the person

    without fear of our job being compromised, where an internal person might be guarded.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, there's

    politics, there's baggage, and, and you're, you're talking about kind of a, a counselor or a therapist relationship, right? Where, where it's like, I'm paying for this outside. ear, and they've, they're going to listen to me. I can't, and that, that it's

    not than going to a therapist.

    Phil Read: it's not just about the job and I like the way that Adam frames this. Our, our company, the goal of our company is to take people's stress away. And that takes lots of forms, yeah. So if your job is [00:11:00] to be a great reddit technical person, I think you're coming up short. If your job is to take people's stress away, whether you're making a cup of coffee for someone, whether you're helping them figure out, you know, a complicated family component or a construction issue, really, they're just paying you to help take their stress away. And that's how we always have framed it. And Adam was the one that brought that up. And I was like, yeah, it's a really good, that's like, to me, it's like a principle based approach to what is your big goal? What is the overarching goal?

    Evan Troxel: How do you, how did you come up with that framing, Adam? Because I think it, do you think it's innate to you is my question, I guess. Or do you think it's something that you learned in how to deal with this and how to open people up when they're coming to you with a high stress situation that they need this problem solved right away? I'm, I'm, I'm curious about where that came from.

    Adam Thomas: So, it's probably not innate, I can give a lot of credit to my father and mother, because they had me at a really [00:12:00] young age, they had to work twice as hard to move forward in life. And they took a tremendous amount of risk. They, they might not have been the best parents or the worst parents, but at the end of the day, they took ownership for what was going to, going to happen and move forward with it.

    And where I grew up in the small town, Northeast Georgia is called Gumlog. Um, the closest big town is Toccoa, realistically. Um, so, you know, 28, 000 people. Um, Gumlog has 1200 people. And. It was you and your word are all you have, nothing else. So you really dig into you as a person becomes kind of your book or being, and then that's the only way you can move through life.

    So you never. You never cross anyone. You never allow someone to go stressed out for multiple days or multiple weeks. You always help where you can. And I think, I think I was doing that at a really early age. Now I was, I was part of a church at a [00:13:00] really early age. So we had like elderly outreach and things like that.

    I got, I got, I was able to help people just all the time.

    And right.

    I had the opportunities to do it. And I don't think you have as many opportunities. In larger cities or in certain family structures. In our family structure, we kind of had to help each other. My dad was one of like 12 kids, right? So you had to help each other.

    And, um, with your word being your bond, you didn't really have contracts where I came from. I had to learn how to write a contract after school.

    It was just, can we shake on it and let's do it. And I

    was trusted to do it. And that's a really hard thing to just teach someone. You have to let them do it, and then you have to hold them accountable.

    I was being held accountable as a six year old, an eight year old, and so accountability comes natural. But now we have 30 year olds transitioning into management, and they want the leadership and management position, but they don't want the accountability necessarily. And I would rather have the negative so that my [00:14:00] team doesn't get it.

    I can set with a tremendous weight on me for a very long time because I've been doing it for a long time. But that's not something that's easily just, you know, you can't do it through matriculation is what I always say. I can't just sit with you and all of a sudden you can bear a huge burden and help your team.

    You have to work through it. You have to go through some bumps and bruises with everyone. And everyone on our team's been through them with me. And for better or worse, they trust that I'm going to get it done. And every client we have trusts that we're going to get it done. If I can't do it, I ping Phil.

    If Phil can't do it, he pings Gaines. If Gaines can't do it, we ping Will or Elizabeth or Don, goes on and on. Um, And we've got a bit of a network there. I might be the first touch point sometimes with some of the really stressful stuff. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of treating it as if What did you used to say, Phil?

    What's the If you don't know the answer, don't be afraid to say you don't know the answer. But tell someone you'll find an answer,

    Phil Read: Yeah, don't

    just say, [00:15:00] I don't

    Adam Thomas: and then do

    Phil Read: let me find out. Yeah,

    Adam Thomas: And we've done that for over 10 years now. And that's the only reason we have the client base we do. Because when I send an email, we have

    Phil Read: work in a high trust environment. We have very simple contracts. We try to keep them as, like, I think our contract is two pages, Adam,

    Adam Thomas: two pages, that's it.

    Phil Read: and we try to keep it as clear as possible because ultimately, if it takes 20 pages to work with a customer, It's going to get too complicated. And so the advantage of being in a high trust environment where people trust people and you're not just there as a transaction to do a, to do a job for an amount of money, but ultimately to take their stress away, um, that ends up building really good relationships with customers because you're, they understand you're there for the whole person, for the whole team, not just for here's the product that you wanted, here's your invoice. [00:16:00] And sometimes projects go sideways, and Adam's had situations where projects, where, where maybe there's people coming in or some expectations not being met, but if you've built trust, someone else is going to reach across that table for you and go, no, no, no, these guys got it. Yeah, so that's how we tend to approach it from a, from a stress standpoint.

    If your business isn't taking people's stress away, if all you're doing is providing a transaction. Then, um, I think you're right for competition.

    Adam Thomas: I,

    Phil Read: When

    Adam Thomas: I tend to,

    Phil Read: and says, Oh, we do it for a dollar less. And they go, uh uh, no, you can do that for a dollar less, but you can't take my stress away for a dollar less than these guys do.

    Adam Thomas: I, I tell people, I tell people all the time that my, my first goal is to meet the goals of the project. My second goal is to get you home to your wife and kids, your husband and kids five minutes faster today.

    That's it. Those five minutes add up. I have a four year old now, so I realize it more than ever.

    That, that time It always goes [00:17:00] away. I can't just go to the end of the weekend and say, okay, I would like two hours back with my daughter and wife. I can't do that. And when I'm thanked, and thanking is hard for people to do too, but when I am thanked, I'm not thanked for being a technical expert. I'm thanked because they got to go home one hour early on Friday because I said I would handle it or the team would handle it.

    If I'm the only one there, I'll open my computer and fix it. If we're still in the office, the team jumps in and fixes it.

    Phil Read: But isn't that

    Adam Thomas: later, they'll say, thanks.

    Phil Read: isn't that the aspiration of architecture school, is that we're going to do this thing and that's going to allow us and afford us all this time to be. You know, the life of the party and, you know, waving our glass and talking about our projects. But the reality is we just work unforgivably long hours and then somehow it's worth it. Adam and I say to each other, you can make money, you can't make time. So you better find balance.

    Evan Troxel: So, Phil, talk about this transition to overseeing a team [00:18:00] that you experienced, because I think that's where a lot of like that transition is very difficult, as we alluded to early on in the conversation. and and so, like, there is a progression to get to that point, and I think the strategies that Adam just laid out totally have a lot to do with becoming that person, that trusted individual who becomes kind of the go to person to be, you know, identified as a potential leader when it comes to digital practice, design technology, BIM support, you know, there's many variations of very similar technology kind of stuff.

    But because you're so in the weeds with. Solving problems, tech, operating the applications and the computers and all the different technologies, the way they talk to each other, all these things. Now we're adding a layer of soft skills, you know, or people skills on top of that. And that starts to naturally build up. percolate you as the individual to that position for potential becoming that, that [00:19:00] spot. And then all of a sudden you're not doing the technical stuff anymore. You're not doing the, the nitty gritty details. You are making sure people are handling the right things. You actually have to completely change your day to day.

    And, and that is a really tough transition.

    Phil Read: Oh, it's easy for me. Managing people is so easy now. I just say, Adam, could you do this thing? And then Adam manages the

    Evan Troxel: Uh, yeah,

    Phil Read: I mean, that's, that's, I mean, I could, I've talked to executives now who've run multi hundred person, large companies. You go, how do you like structurally

    Evan Troxel: delegation. Yeah.

    Phil Read: And, well, the, the last time I spoke to a guy that I worked with back in the nineties and he said, well, I have teams of 10. And my team is 10 and they have teams. Each of those people have teams of 10 and it scales.

    But I, it's hard to do that in a small organization. Cause there's, you know, the organizational structure is a phone pole. There's nobody, everybody has to do everything. I think Adam's great at it. Cause he has people that he [00:20:00] trusts and he delegates to. I don't really have to organize or manage a team. I'm primarily working with the Chaos team and the leadership of the Enscape and Chaos team. Um, I work with directors of companies that are implementing software, have technical issues primarily around Enscape. It's a go to market service. But as far as having a team of people under me, I'm still in that weird position of by the time I delegate, I would just do it myself.

    Evan Troxel: But you did go through this transition earlier in your career, right? And And that's kind of

    Phil Read: Oh yeah, I was terrible at it. Yeah, it was terrible. I was stressed out and you can't, I mean, you're asked, you're like, Oh, you're smart. You're going to teach all these people to. Figure this out. And then I find out Adam and I have a dominant gene where you just can't not show up, where you just

    can't not get it done.

    And not everybody has that weird dominant gene. And it is a feature in a lot of cases, but it is a horrible bug in a lot of cases. [00:21:00] Um, you know, with three little kids and you got to be there on time and on budget, and I'm the, you know, field marshal trying to march people along. I should have just relaxed more. So managing teams at a big, big E& A firm, I have a team of people that I manage, probably a dozen people or so. It was stressful and I never felt good at it. I just felt like I was barely above water and I never knew if any decision, I mean, we were solving the technical problems, but there's a, there's a, You're so detached from actually solving the problem where you're turning a gear that turns a gear that turns another gear. I don't know. Is it turning another gear in the future? Um, I still struggle with that part of it immensely, and I don't have to actually do that a lot in my day to day. What I do really like now from a leadership standpoint is, and I've learned a lot of this from Adam, and I finally just, Started talking to people who had been executives in big successful technical [00:22:00] companies going, just talking about, I mean, to be honest, I would go to breakfast with them.

    That's what I started doing is these guys that I started with a guy that lived in the house, two doors down. He worked at a company called HALOID, which became Xerox. And he was a technical consultant at the beginning of DRY. printing and he loved it and we would go to breakfast and Ralph was amazing and he would tell me stories and I would tell him stories and talk with Ralph on Thursday morning is why Adam and I got in business because he's like, Phil, you should

    just go into business for yourself. And that had never occurred to me in that way. So it's the part of it that's easier for me is I've learned not to have the hijack in my stress center of my brain when I hear something that I don't like. Because probably I just don't have enough information. And um, there's a, a frame to this. I sent it to Adam actually the other day.

    It was a, it was a, a Meaningwave song. Who is he, who is that [00:23:00] guy talking to? Is it Akira the Don and he was talking to Jaco? So every time he hears something that's bad, quote unquote, bad news, he goes, Oh, good.

    Adam Thomas: Yep.

    Phil Read: That's like a frame. Oh, you hurt your arm. You, you, you blew out your knee working out. Good. Now you got time to rest. Uh, you didn't get the promotion. Good. Now you got time to be better. You didn't get the funding round. Good. Now you own more of the company. It's always good. And so I think the, Amygdala hijack is, I guess, what they technically call it, of hearing bad information. I just used to kind of get so stressed out, like, oh man, I got another thing piled on my plate, where now I

    go, oh, I don't know what that means. Let's, what, what's going on? And then when you sit down and actually discuss, you're like, oh, that, that's okay.

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Adam Thomas: early conversations with Phil when we would talk about this with, you know, he, he was able to experience 20 years before me. And, and go through 20 years of what he calls failures. So I should learn from those failures Phil

    Phil Read: why it's so easy for you.

    Adam Thomas: [00:24:00] yeah, right. If you have good, if you, if you have good examples, just don't replicate

    Phil Read: do what he did.

    Adam Thomas: And, um,

    Evan Troxel: If only my

    children would follow, would follow

    Phil Read: Hey, we make better grandparents. We know that.

    Adam Thomas: right.

    Phil Read: I'll be, I'll be a better granddad.

    Adam Thomas: but we, we, I think we discovered, um, in the first couple of years of business when. When there's an itch, I tend to scratch it, and Phil tends to think around it. Or if there's pressure, I tend to go toward the pressure, and Phil starts thinking about what the pressure is going to do.

    And I just attack it, because

    I was a,

    Phil Read: things different ways.

    It's good.

    Adam Thomas: I don't, I don't mind diving into a pressure situation, because in my experience, pressure creates diamonds. So, if I finish a presentation, the first question out of my mouth is, what could I have done better? Now, what itch can we scratch? I don't think that's a normal thing to ask people.

    Um, but it's because I [00:25:00] want people to hold me accountable. Now, Phil wants to be held accountable too. He just doesn't want to be held accountable for people he controls, necessarily. Or people that are under him, or people that work for him. I think everyone works with me, no one works for me.

    Phil Read: Yeah. I

    Adam Thomas: So, we're all

    Phil Read: Yeah. I like to work with people. I don't like to

    work for, or

    Adam Thomas: yeah,

    that's right. So if you set up that relationship, what happens is your accountability is everyone's accountability and it kind of takes the pressure and distributes it

    all So I'm okay with that.

    Phil Read: Is that there's a mindset and there's a, there's a, uh, venture capitalist named Involve that talks about this in terms of the owner's mindset. There's an owner mindset and there's kind of the employee mindset. The owner mindset is you hit your, your, the first thing when you start to wake up in the morning and it's not even 5 AM, it's 3 30 AM, now your mind is already thinking about, you got to make money for the day.

    You got to hunt another project. You can't just put the [00:26:00] pen down at five o'clock at the end of the day. And that owner mindset, both Adam and I have that. Kind of owner mindset. And I think you want to look for people that have that same owner mindset, where they take ownership. Who's the champion, who's going to see it through. You don't have to chase people.

    And if they cost a little bit more, it's a bargain. Like, I don't

    Adam Thomas: so, so rare.

    Phil Read: members that are going to add stress, right? We're trying to take stress away. I want people to have the same mindset. They want to work on a team cause they take the team stress away.

    Adam Thomas: I do think that people are fickle, and Phil is a 1 percent of 1% er in terms of how he thinks about things. And if he expects that people are going to think about things the same way he does, he's likely not going to find that person. And when he does, that person is going to butt heads with him every damn day.

    Because they're not going to think exactly the same, but they're both ultra high performers. I've never had a single person reach out to me and say, Phil has failed us. [00:27:00] Ever.

    Phil Read: have pissed me off, but he didn't fail us.

    Adam Thomas: He, he might have said something I didn't agree with, but everyone else agrees with, so we did it. And it's like, good, he made you scratch an itch.

    He made you put things in a pressure chamber. Um, I don't tend to try to look for those people. I tend to try to look for people that have qualities of that 1 percent person, and then give them the tasks that match those qualities, so that they can hit home runs. More often than sacrifice flies or bunts, right?

    I want to,

    I want to, I want to build the field around somebody in a way that makes them succeed versus trying to find someone that can build a new field in order to succeed.

    I don't necessarily need that.

    Phil Read: yeah, I don't

    Evan Troxel: you're getting, I think you're getting to kind of the leadership qualities of finding success means helping others become successful

    and they, you

    are more concerned about them and, and what happens then with your progression [00:28:00] becomes a natural process. outcome of your helping them achieve their goals and achieve what

    they are capable of, even if they can't see what they're capable of themselves. You probably, if you have this relationship with that team, like you're talking about, you actually can see what they're capable of, even if they can't, and helping them achieve that raises the whole boat, raises

    Phil Read: Oh, yeah, don't think that Adam and I always see eye to eye. We have different ways of approaching things. He is, I think we both have the same kind of characteristics around curiosity, around ownership, around responsibility and obligation. And, you know, the thing they say in the South is, uh, on time is, early is on time, on time is late, and late you're fired. both, but we express them in different ways. And we'll talk about obscure things, like even our investment portfolios, the way Adam will approach investments, and the way I approach them. We both have had very successful investing. experience, we approach them [00:29:00] differently. I think the, the way I tend to look at it overall, I heard a statistic not too long ago, and I'll try to remember the source, that the, the square root of an organization generates half the revenue. Now, if you're talking about a team of a hundred people, that's ten people that generate half the revenue.

    Oh my gosh, what you could do with that team of ten people and not have the HR issues and the drama and the politics of 90 more people. And I think technology facilitates that. If you can find the 10 right curious high performers and build a team around that, you can run circles. I mean, it's just amazing. And I, feel like we have that.

    Evan Troxel: the, the, the whole tool stack of what we have at our fingertips now versus five years ago.

    It's completely different and it really speaks to what you were just saying, like, if I was starting my own firm today, one person, I can probably do what five people did [00:30:00] five years ago, right? Because of technology as a lever, the correct, using the right technology and the right application. can yield so much higher results now because of the interconnectedness of things and just the on, onward march of progress here, right? it's

    Adam Thomas: We, we don't have

    Evan Troxel: kind of think

    what's going to happen in the next five years.

    Adam Thomas: we, we don't have a technical drought though, Evan. We have an interpersonal drought.

    Evan Troxel: AgRead Yeah.

    Adam Thomas: can create a team that makes the best technology in my team's eyes with fewer people than ever. But I still have to go sell that and selling is about this relationship.

    If you can't do this, you can't sell anything.

    You can't create anything. It can, something in a silo or in a bucket off to the side is not really a creation because no one can enjoy it. If I painted and my art never left my barn, am I an artist? I might think I'm an artist, but once others start to

    appreciate

    I'm really, Right. I'm tech, yeah, I'm technically [00:31:00] capable of painting, but I'm not an artist yet.

    And so I feel like something has happened and I've seen it in the last five or six years where our interpersonal skills have actually diminished

    while our technical skills have increased. So I, I talk to people all the time. Yesterday included, I went to lunch with somebody who thinks they are capable of being a leader and they're upset that they're not in a leadership position.

    And then when I asked them to define leadership. It said nothing about accountability or personal resources or psychology or stress management. Instead it was, well, I've made all these cool add ins for our teams and I'm not being respected for it. And I'm like, well, it sounds like you're a technical head.

    You're not

    necessarily a leader. Yeah, you're a very technical person. How about you work your way into that position? Well, I have to work myself into leadership to be a partner

    in the firm.

    Evan Troxel: is not a position. It is a skill set. Mm.

    Adam Thomas: I always say that leadership is earned, not given as well. You [00:32:00] can, you can attempt to mirror leadership S qualities, but until others start saying you are a leader, you're not one.

    Phil Read: It's hard. It's a big piece of it. I think it's just building trust, right? You have to build rapport. You have to build trust. Um, and that takes time and early on you build trust and people want to know, okay, what's the angle? What's he trying to get at? You really just have to build honest to goodness trust where people really can rely on you and you're not in it for an angle. And that

    takes a long time and you can undo it quickly. Um, that's a, that's a big part of it. It's, um, yeah, the leadership piece. I don't know that it's something that just has to be innate. I think people are more empathetic naturally. They're more curious naturally. Uh, or they're either curious or, or not, or they have high, they're high in empathy, or they're high in other kind of characteristics of what good leaders probably do. But I think they can be taught to a point, otherwise they're just blind. I felt like I was blind to it, but once somebody [00:33:00] pointed out, like, what are the ingredients? I was like, oh, so those are the ingredients? Oh, I have horrible empathy. I have an impatience gene that's severely dominant. If I'm going to be a good leader, I need to turn that.

    I need to be aware of it. And, um, once you're aware of the ingredients. Like even the craziest thing, Evan, breathing. Like breathing is a thing that you could do of not jumping to the answer. Like I tend to get too excited. I want to just jump into the conversation and pile on. Pausing and thinking, or when you get news, like I do breathing exercises when I get stressed out, Oh my gosh, they're amazing. Nobody told me about these ingredients. You could just kind of like. Settle yourself. Adam does a thing and he's taught me a thing where if you have to talk about something stressful, do it when you go, do it while you walk. That's like the simplest

    ingredient. It doesn't even make sense. Oh my gosh, does it make sense? Like just when you have to talk about something [00:34:00] stressful or figure something out, that's not going to be, may not be an easy answer. You got pieces that don't fit, go for a walk. And the thing that I've learned working with Adam, I guess it's been this year's 11 years. Adam, did we just have an anniversary?

    Adam Thomas: we're about to, we're about

    Phil Read: was, I thought it was June, end of June.

    Adam Thomas: I thought it was

    August.

    Phil Read: have to, I'll have to

    Adam Thomas: This is like a married couple,

    Phil Read: I know we don't care anymore. We stopped counting. We just love each other. Um, but so the thing is more times than not early on when I have to go into conversation and believe me, when I'm 20 years older than Adam, it's a, you know, approaching things like adult child relationships does not work.

    You have to both be adults. And then at the end of conversations, I thought I was so glued to an answer. And then we would talk about it and we would end up coming with a third answer. I'm like, Oh, this third answer is so much better. So I've just over time learned to trust that that's going to happen.

    And we even talk about it at the beginning of conversation going, okay, now I want to [00:35:00] do it this way. You want to do it this way. But if we talk about it, we'll come up with a better way.

    Adam Thomas: Yeah, there's, there's two things there. One thing is never have a serious conversation setting. So if you can at least stand, I'm standing right now, I would never have a serious conversation or an interview or anything setting. You don't think well while setting in my experience. You're not as creative.

    Stand up. If you can, go for a walk. I have 95 percent of any problem solving call walking the rail trail behind our office. 95 percent of them. Or I'm at least outside standing. So that's the first thing. The second thing is don't say things how you think they should be said. Say things how that person needs to hear them to understand what you mean.

    That means you have to, I call it being a chameleon. When I like go to a company and talk about soft skill leadership, you have to first understand that person and then become a chameleon of that person and then say it, how that person needs to hear it. I would prefer to say things direct, Phil, you're gaining [00:36:00] weight.

    Lose weight. You'll live longer for it. But that doesn't work. That

    doesn't work anybody

    Phil Read: though. I want you to know I've been trying to lose

    weight. I'm actually in a pretty good fighting weight now.

    Adam Thomas: right. I told him, five years ago, he was getting a bit tubby. No, he just did it on his own because

    Phil Read: No, it's,

    I, I, I agree with Adam. I would rather be more direct sometimes and just cut to it and then you burn a bridge. So you just

    Adam Thomas: You can be direct with us.

    Phil Read: Oh yeah.

    Adam Thomas: fine.

    We, we are okay receiving it. We just can't give it that way.

    Phil Read: No,

    you have

    Adam Thomas: in, guess, same in marriage.

    Phil Read: What do they call it? Um, like mirroring or mimicking or,

    Evan Troxel: right.

    Adam Thomas: it's, it's, yeah, it's

    Phil Read: that's a communication style as well that we've, I've, I've noticed people in sales meetings, they talk about kind of try to detect the energy of the person, because if you go in all excited, and they're trying, they're relaxed and cautious, you're going to like the bullshit detector is going to go off. It's too

    Evan Troxel: right. Yeah.

    Phil Read: have to meet that energy and, um,

    Adam Thomas: Listen to the cadence.

    To how they're [00:37:00] enunciating. If, um, you can also sway a conversation a bit like that. You have to be extraordinarily on to do these things though. And I don't think most people can be this on all the time. It burns your brain up, right? Like if you have a fire in your brain, you can't perform, but if someone's coming in with high energy and you know that you need to bring their energy down, you bring your energy way down and they meet your

    energy, like, like training and they'll come down and then you'll have a better conversation. If you need somebody to be more fired up about something, I can't talk to you like this. I have to really get fired up to boost them.

    And, yeah, it's like, hey, we're going for a run right now. And it's like, I'm not going for a run. Yeah, you're going for a

    run.

    Phil Read: for a run.

    Adam Thomas: I'll drag your ass outside. We're going for a

    run.

    And then get outside and we have a nice walk because I've set the expectation. We're about to sprint for a few minutes. Now we can have a nice walk because you were, you know, dragging a bit today. Or feeling down or feeling bad for yourself. Move the energy the way the energy needs to be moved. But that's, that's, that's easy.

    That's [00:38:00] actually something you can train. You just have to practice it. Um, it takes a tremendous, tremendous amount of practice.

    Evan Troxel: Just right before this conversation, I was outside doing some, some work with my, my youngest and he, he, he had done something, put something in the wrong place.

    Phil Read: How old is your youngest? Just frame this. I want

    Evan Troxel: he's 18. he's

    1. So he's

    not that

    Phil Read: okay. He's not like eight.

    Evan Troxel: and

    Phil Read: He's

    Evan Troxel: it's

    Phil Read: not.

    Evan Troxel: so, so the stuff, the thing that he put in the wrong place needs to be moved.

    Oh, he says, I'm not going to do that. That's absurd. He said, I'm not going to do that again. He said it twice.

    I said, fine, I'll go do it. He goes, well, I'll go do it.

    Phil Read: Oh, yeah. No, you won't.

    Evan Troxel: I

    Adam Thomas: I'll do it. I'll do it

    Evan Troxel: to do it So I'm

    Phil Read: No, you can't do it.

    Evan Troxel: go do it.

    Phil Read: right.

    Evan Troxel: You just have to give them permission to want to do it, I guess. I don't. Yeah, it is interesting. [00:39:00] If only there were a place where people could have more conversations. Like this. So this is my, my

    segue into your, your retreats that you offer. You offer two different retreats. So you have a spring retreat and a fall retreat. Maybe, maybe let's just pay a tribute here to the spring offering because they are different from each other. And I

    know you have a, a, a banner that you put these under, which we also must address. These are called AEC Acoustics. This is where you can go to learn all about acoustical treatments and materials.

    And

    Phil Read: It's down to attenuation, bad

    Adam Thomas: That's right. STS ratings, right? Yep. Yep.

    Evan Troxel: transmission, right? So, so let, let's set the record straight first around the name because that's the overarching banner of the two different, um, retreats that you offer.

    Uh, but, but then we'll go, we'll get it, we'll pay homage to the spring one and then we'll get into the, because I think what we're talking about here really lends itself to the, the fall [00:40:00] retreat, which is, which is coming up.

    So, Let's talk about the name.

    Phil Read: Let me just go back up a little meta on this. You would not believe the flurry of text messages Adam and I went through going back and forth. I was so excited. About this like acoustic idea, AEC acoustics and metaphors and ICONs and, you know, why it's acoustic. And I thought it was so obvious when we got the little ICON label and my goodness, architects going, why are you doing an event about acoustics?

    It's kind of niche. I mean, to

    me, that ICON is the metaphor for why it is so obvious.

    Adam Thomas: by the way, no one else. No, no one else had an issue. Engineers didn't have an issue. Contractors

    Phil Read: That is true.

    Adam Thomas: It was just architects that had the issue. But I, I, probably remember this story really clearly. We were talking on the phone saying there has to be something that's conversation focused, not sponsorship focused, or just like hard teachings on PowerPoint or with technology open.

    [00:41:00] And I used to play the guitar. Phil still plays acoustic instruments all the time. And we said, well, conversations kind of have a melody and a rhythm. Right? We went really highbrow with it, and um, said, I wonder if, like, acoustic something is taken. It had

    to have been, right? Because there's so many insulation companies and things like that, and I, I got on Hover.

    com, AC Acoustics, no one has this.

    Why does, why don't they have the com for this? I was like, yeah, I'm going to put it in the cart just because

    Phil Read: Yeah, we should

    Adam Thomas: we're talking about rhythm and

    Phil Read: Every business starts with a website. You have to get a good domain.

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Adam Thomas: exactly. So if you ever had a conversation with a company that's not in rhythm or not in melody, it's a terrible conversation. It's a terrible company to work with. But if you go in into a business and talk to them and they have a rhythm and a harmony with each other, you're like, this is going to be a really special project. Right. So why not set something up that, uh, attempts to. allow people the [00:42:00] opportunity and the place to develop rhythm and harmony. and have conversations. That's where

    Phil Read: Adam used to always say the best part of every conference were the conversations you'd have after the presentation. Because during the presentation, that whole presentation always works. It's amazing. It's like, look at this technique. And then you ask the speaker question quietly. You don't want to ask them in class and embarrass them or ask them a tricky question.

    So later on, you kind of corner. What's the deal with this thing? And they go, Oh yeah, that doesn't work. Here's what you, you might want to do it this way.

    Evan Troxel: Under Perfect Conditions

    Phil Read: I know under, under, in the, in front of a hundred people, yes, it works. But when you want to do it a little bit off script, Oh yeah, that'll break.

    So we, Adam used to say, you know, these presentations after the conferences are the best part of the conferences. So that was kind of a meta theme, the idea of something being acoustic, is that it's quieter, it's the acoustic version of the louder events, which are all great, we have to go to them,

    but sometimes you just want to get away from the, from the noise for a while, get [00:43:00] away from feeling that you're being marketed to at every moment, you're being advertised to. So it's the acoustic version of

    Evan Troxel: MTV Unplugged.

    Phil Read: Yeah, well, we thought about like BIM, BIM Unplugged. That was

    kind of a thing. And Adam and I had been talking about this a long time and there, there just didn't seem to be the right. inflection point. Um, because we had some great, I mean, we have Autodesk University, there's Basecamp every couple of years, we have BILT in North America, and then when it looked like BILT wasn't going to happen this year, I was like, Adam, if we're going to do something, and we're not going to have an event with 500 people or even 100 people, I think part of that acoustic theme is that you have to be able to have honest conversations with people and get to know people.

    So keeping it at 50. is one of the things is like, we're not going to have an event of 500, we're just going to have an event of like no more than 50 people. Oh, and coincidentally, that's how many people fit on a motor coach to go for an

    offsite. So instead of having

    the first motor coach that

    everybody rushes to get on, then you have another bus with three people [00:44:00] kind

    of like going, oh, this is a boring bus.

    Yeah, so you just want to, and it removes complexity, like all the stuff Adam and I talked about. Like a conference that doesn't have lanyards, doesn't have PowerPoint, doesn't have big brought to you by signage, doesn't have obligatory marketing sponsorship. It's just like, let's just

    Evan Troxel: Gold

    Tier, Silver

    Phil Read: that. No, no, no, no. And we've, we, people have asked to sponsor the event and we've said, I don't want anyone turning into Lake Swan Camp, seeing brought to you by. It's just like, no, this is, this is about you. It's about good food. The best things in life to me are good meals with friends. And so it's about that.

    It's about sharing with people that you trust. So that's the overall idea of AC Acoustics. And if you look at the only thing I did that tweaked it, cause Adam like went out and nailed it. It's like, okay, it's this, it was a word bubble with a sound wave and the nice colors, the blue, the blues. And I changed the word bubble just to [00:45:00] make the second little. What are those little pointy thing called on word

    Adam Thomas: Yeah. Like the waveforms.

    Phil Read: No, no. The little pointy bit. So I was like, we should have two little

    Adam Thomas: Oh, you may. Yep. That's a

    Phil Read: And, and, and underneath that image, there was all of these red lines where things lined up and stuff, and I send it back to Adam, but, and then the other thing was the waveform instead of being waveform is, it's a metaphor for a skyline, which is a reference of course, to AAC. proud of ourselves. And I'm

    Adam Thomas: See, I, I, I'm not

    intelligent to, I'm not enough go a hundred percent. I just had to get it to 95%.

    And hand

    Phil Read: you show it to people and they go, why are you guys doing acoustic events? It's kind of niche. So, yeah, so,

    Adam Thomas: laid plans.

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Phil Read: event. First, that was in 2020 during pandemic and Evan, you and I talked about why that was important to me personally, and then Adam has endeavored to do a technical event focused on best practices. And [00:46:00] really getting people in a room to figure out, nobody knows what's going on, but what are some good vectors? And we, we held the first one this spring and I thought it was just a wonderful success, like suspiciously wonderful. It was great. Like some smart people, really super smart people, like Harlan Brum was there from Autodesk and Carl Storms was there and Craig Barbieri, like really smart people and saying some wonderfully complimentary things like, Somebody back, we were chatting one day on the deck, and this is a very modest environment.

    It's a camp in North Florida. but we book out the whole camp and then we

    Evan Troxel: it fits with the acoustic,

    Phil Read: it does. And somebody said, we need more of this. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, this, we need more of this. And he's standing on the deck looking at the lake and he goes, we just need more of this. And I thought, you know what? That's it. That's it. It's okay. It's

    Evan Troxel: That's a

    good endorsement right there.

    Phil Read: Yeah, we need more of this. So, yeah. And this is a guy who goes to all the big events [00:47:00] that we love, but sometimes you just need to unplug a little bit. We have the technical event. How would you describe that, Adam, if we're focused on the technical side of things?

    We still have good conversations, but it's not

    Evan Troxel: a,

    round table format, right? And the way that you, you do it, it's not like a one to many. It's, it's, we, we come together, we have a discussion about a topic potentially, right?

    Phil Read: Mm hmm.

    Adam Thomas: Yeah. So you, you have basically a host, And the host is kind of frame the topic and Phil and I help narrow the topic a little bit based on the people coming. Because you wouldn't want to speak about something that no one wants to discuss, right? You wouldn't want a topic that's seemingly random.

    Um, it has to be on some kind of vector, so you have to curate it a little

    bit. But, um, this, this, the inaugural event for the round table was one to many. Because there was, there was enough people to generate a large discussion with

    each topic.

    Phil Read: discussion. Yeah.

    Adam Thomas: we did realize afterwards that that's probably as big as it can get.

    Like we would have to [00:48:00] break it into different conversations, but there's opportunities to do that because what a general contractor is facing technically and needs to have conversations about might not be the same as an architect, but they should both be able to read each other's leave behinds. And that's what we're trying to do.

    We're trying to capture those conversations as well, and executive summaries and follow up, um, podcasts and recordings just to, to help keep the conversation alive on the website for, you know, the next year

    so people can see what's actually happening. Um, if you could, Also record the conversation that happens after the conversation is supposed to stop.

    That's the real special

    Phil Read: Yeah. That was even

    Adam Thomas: almost a primer.

    Phil Read: Yeah.

    Adam Thomas: Yeah, that's right. It's almost that you created a primer for people to stay up. Grown men and women staying up until 1 a. m. Talking about something that they thought they didn't care about. And you have to like, look at your door and go, Hey, could you guys keep it down? It's [00:49:00] one,

    it's 1am.

    No, one's drunk. No,

    No,

    Phil Read: way. That's right. Not loud drunk.

    They're just

    Adam Thomas: Yeah. They're, not,

    They're, just having conversations like, Oh, I really appreciated when so and so brought up this. I haven't thought about it that way.

    Um, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for people that in our industry, you would not know they exist.

    And they came to this conference and I'm like, why are they hiding? have a wealth of knowledge that their team understands they have, and they're moving into a management or leadership position. But the industry needs to hear them. There's a, there was a tremendous amount of value, um, in doing that.

    And my family got to come. So it was really easy for me to make the

    decision.

    Phil Read: In line with the idea of being the kind of quiet acoustic environment, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of posturing in the industry. You know, the people that get to speak, get recognized. There are so many smart people that don't have the, I want to speak gene. But when you get to know [00:50:00] them and talk about what they know, you learn a lot. And I feel like, you know, this is an environment for t shirts and shorts. And. Leave your expensive watch at home. We don't even have lanyards. Like, that's just another complexity for creating an event for 50 people. And you have these, you know, if we're, if we're the conversation after the presentation, to Adam's point, we end up being discussion after the conversation.

    It's like,

    it goes, it goes to a deeper level. And, and it's, if, if I put it, if I said there's 50 people at AU that I've got to catch up with, they're like all there. Like, Marty Rozmanith, who was the original Revit product manager, was there, and Harlan Brumm was there, who's the present Revit product manager. Like, we had good discussions and got to be part of that as well, and I think we just don't have enough of that. We have so many technical discussions about finishing the project, where teams have to get together and talk about, okay, what's going on this week, what's the deadlines, what's going on? But from a leadership standpoint, [00:51:00] The idea of getting together and going, okay, how's the team?

    What's the energy like? How are people doing? What's happening? We don't have conversations like that. And

    that's what I think that even happens at the technical event. So I really like this balance of having an event that's technical, where we can share things or at least vectors with the industry, like Carl Storms did amazing.

    I think he was the, he was the first

    Facilitator, he talked about AI, and he had been going through a series called 100 Days of AI, all this stuff. But Carl didn't get up and speak and tell us what he thinks for an hour and a half. We went around the table. I learned about tools and technologies I didn't even know existed that had nothing to do with visualization.

    It was amazing. So the technical event feeds that part of me that is curious about all these tools and all these techniques. They're hard skills. You could probably

    get on a vector.

    Adam Thomas: if everyone's ever been a part of a book club, right, You, when you go to book club, you read the same book and then you discuss the chapters. This is like a book club where everyone [00:52:00] read a different book, but you get to learn what book they read. So I can say I read 30 books this year now because everyone read a different book, or you may have read part B of the same book and I read part A because I'm from the South.

    I may have interpreted what the book said differently than somebody from another part of the world.

    And those conversations are real. Well, as we learned, they're actually really difficult to facilitate and we need to have more like learning objectives, learning cues or ways to get conversations going instead of just setting.

    Because my number one rule is conversations should be when you're standing up or moving. We set the whole time. So I, I learned immediately that we had great conversation, but we can still do better.

    And I actually think this round table event is a good segue. into the leadership event. So for the technical people that are highly technical and want to discuss things at broad, but it doesn't have a psychological aspect at all, or [00:53:00] an empathy focused aspect, come to that event.

    But if you see yourself being moved into a position of empathy and adaptability, and you're going to have to start taking accountability for things at a higher level, you should come to the second event. You should now come to the leadership event. Um, or if you want to do that, you aspire to do that, then you should

    come to the leadership event.

    Phil Read: Look, it's hard to transition from technical guru, where you are holding on and in control, and you've got hands on gears and dials. You know, the metaphor might be like, you know, the steam engine, and you're the engineer in the engine, and you've got all these dials. And now, The reality is, I think, in order to be very successful, you have to let go of that and learning to let go is stressful. Um, and, and we've all dealt with smart technical people that will have it their way or the highway and this is how we're going to do it. And boy, do people just not trust them because you can't, you can't enjoy the success of doing it that way. [00:54:00] But if people, if you'll actually let go and trust. I read this about Churchill during the war. Um, he would have loud yelling matches with his generals, but he never overrode them. And his thinking was, if he was right and they went into the next campaign, they couldn't take ownership of that. And if he was wrong, they would despise him because people were, what happens? And, um, but I think letting go is, Letting go and trusting, not just delegating, but actually letting go and let people have ownership is the only way to succeed in that sense.

    And it's a hard thing for technical people to do because we have been conditioned that the way to success is figuring out the quote unquote right answer and then making sure that that right answer is implemented. And sometimes the right answer is. Let's just, I had a great mentor and Adam knows him, Dave Heaton at Revit Technology and later Autodesk. He would just say, well, [00:55:00] what do you think we should do? And I would go, well, we could do this or this or this. He goes, yeah, well, which one we should do? I think we should do this. He goes, well, let's just do that. And if it doesn't work out, we'll do something else. And that answer to doing something a certain way of, well, let's just do it that way.

    And if it doesn't work, we'll do something else was so freeing and so stress relieving that if I was wrong, I was going to be accountable and, and demoted or whatever. It's like, Oh, well then let's just do that. And then we'll do something else. If it doesn't work out, it was like, Oh, not only can we do it this way.

    And I think that that's a good way, but if it doesn't work out, we could do it another way that I think might be the good way. And Dave taught me that in a, in a wonderful way. I've been fortunate that I've had good mentors. So I think that's what the leadership part of it is about.

    Evan Troxel: So these are the kinds of things that people could experience there. You've got a wide range of experience and you've got, so you've got people who have been [00:56:00] there, done that. And

    to your point earlier, Adam, like Phil's got 20 years of experience and he wants you to be successful. So he's going to, Not have you start from a blank page and figure everything out on your own and reinvent the wheel and, you know, there's all these cliches we could say about, about doing it that way, but then there's, like, this is a place you can go and tap into the knowledge base of people who have literally been there and done that and

    have had a wide range of experiences. and help you formulate how you're going to achieve the next thing that you're going to do. Yeah, I mean that the opportunity here is very different from other conferences where you sign up for a bunch of classes And you walk an expo floor and it's very salesy on the expo floor side of things Not always right, but but

    you go to see the wares too. So, you know what you're signing up for But but you're going there to like tick off a bunch of boxes.

    I get the feeling that going to [00:57:00] a conference like this, you don't know what the boxes are, right? It's like you're going in and it's a very open minded and that should be the approach to this is maybe, maybe you identify some goals ahead of time of like, here's what I would like to walk away

    Phil Read: Oh, we have a structure. Yeah, sure.

    Evan Troxel: is your oyster at this and you get to figure out who can help you get to where you want to go.

    Hmm.

    Adam Thomas: yeah.

    Phil Read: Randy's done a great job. We have a framework around good leadership. That, I mean, it goes back to 2020, you talk about, you know, the, the, the kind of ingredient skill set, and this year we're going to explore that more in the context of, uh, implication from leadership standpoint, like how you communicate up, how you communicate down, how you, how you listen, how you, yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a framework and structure for that. I think the, the big pieces from a leadership standpoint is leadership is not headcount. You might have a team of [00:58:00] three people, just to be a good leader, just to be someone that's trusted. People can't come to you and tell you bad news if they think you're gonna pop. Good leaders don't pop. Good leaders go, Oh, good. Tell me more. Let's figure it out. And having that appropriate blink reaction, um, and then ultimately if people trust you more, You end up with more opportunities. You end up growing, you didn't need to grow a team of people or a team of trusted connections, but that it's nice. But I think for me, the key has been, you just have to let go.

    And it's hard to go of. That feeling that, oh, if you're just not worried all the time, something's going to sneak up and get you. Like you have to let, like letting go of the inevitable, letting go of the worry, and not being detached to the point of suspicion. You still have to care, but being And not confident that you always know the right answer.

    [00:59:00] That's what we're trying to facilitate with the leadership retreat. And it's helping people. It's helping in the most, in many cases, high technical performers go from being recognized as the high technical performer. Cause we know people that technically perform at a very high level. And then they don't know that people go, I can never work with them. They'd be so difficult to work with. And they keep losing opportunities. And they're smart people. Help them make that transition

    Evan Troxel: And then there, that frustrated other side of the conversation that Adam had, like, I want to be recognized for what I've accomplished and what I've done. And it's like, on the outside, I can see exactly why you're not being considered for that position. Right?

    And, and you can, yeah,

    it does happen. So let's, okay, there's two subjects I want to talk about.

    I want to talk about the other aspects of the leadership retreat. That are location exclusive kind of things that you guys do. I want to talk about the food, like, because I think your approach is really interesting when it comes to that. [01:00:00] Um, but before we do that, I want to talk about permission because there are people in situations where they can just say, I'm going, I'm going to something like this, or I'm going to go next year, or I can't go this time.

    But, but the spring one sounds great.

    They're, they have that, they have that ability to do that. But then there's a lot of people who are like, man, I really want to do this. I have no idea how to get approval for that from my organization, from some

    leadership. Can you guys just talk about what, what has, I know you have talked about this before.

    So let's talk about that part of it.

    Adam Thomas: No, you actually have a really, I think, good way of thinking about this. I'm actually met with probably 50 50. Because of where I am just in my age and my progression, there are less people in a managerial or leadership position. Most people are still five to 10 years away from it. And so they see this. I actually had somebody tell me Monday of this week, Adam, I want to go, I need to [01:01:00] go to better myself first, knowing that it will better the people around me.

    And better the business around that. So I call that communicating in three prongs. You have to communicate inward to yourself first, outward to your direct team and upward to your management. And if you can't do all of those, you failed. And some of us do one of them really well, or two of them really well.

    And they have no capability to communicate up to management because management is so disconnected from their current position that these people are thinking about taking five days off and paying for it out of pocket

    because they think it's such a value. And I would say half. Maybe

    Phil Read: some do I know people that do it because they're

    like, I don't want people in the company that know about this, so they don't ask because they're afraid it'll get out.

    Evan Troxel: Oh, or, or you just, you just see the value of investing in yourself, right?

    And, and, and ultimately it may come down to that in some cases,

    Phil Read: you know, even if you go to like the Autodesk University, they do this thing where it's like, Oh, do you want to convince the boss to go download this form? [01:02:00] Right? And it's, it's, it's, it's the thing you have to download because they're like, well, how, how is this going to return on the investment?

    And so there's lots of things about both events that we try to keep below the fold. Like the first thing that you see when you log in is not that we bring a French chef to a private event.

    That's below the fold. The first thing is, Probably quotes by smart people who have been that said why this improved their relationship interpersonally, in our office, with customers, um, every, you know, I think management realizes that good leaders and, and the team that's managing the business have to have good soft skills, or at least somebody on that team needs to have the soft skills that are important for, you know, Keeping people from leaving because they get frustrated. Um, so for people that are already kind of in management leadership positions, they can kind of delegate like they have things that they can go to. It's the ones that are on that cost to go. I should go to a leadership things like, oh, we don't want you to be a leader. You're the [01:03:00] manager. We try to keep the important things on why good leadership is important, even for BIM managers. Above the fold. So without scrolling down, what should the C level see if they go to this website? And we do that for both events. We try to keep, so there are some very practical things by keeping the event at a private camp in North Florida and bringing a chef, including, like you sign up for these events that are 2, 000 and then you still have to pay for your transportation and hotel. Our events are below 2, 000, like early bird for the leadership retreat is 1, 500. That's everything about how to get there. That's your accommodation, that's off site, that's food, everything for the week, so that there's no surprises. So it's like, oh, you paid 2, 000 for the event, and then you had to get a hotel that was 300 a night.

    No. So in practical terms, keeping, it's reducing complexity wherever you can. I think Adam and I agree, it makes a better event.

    Adam Thomas: I think I have two call to actions I think about because every, everything I do [01:04:00] has to be, it has to be a call to action and accountable. Otherwise, there's no point talking about it. Um, one is like, if you're thinking about one of these events, show management that whoever signs off on your budget, show them the videos, let us speak for it.

    So you don't have to.

    Phil Read: Yeah.

    Adam Thomas: the first thing, because then we're accountable to that manager, not you. That manager can call us. He can call Phil or I. We'll both have a very different conversation, but both conversations will end with you wanting to send someone to go. And hold us accountable for the event, not the person asking to go.

    Secondly, if you're in a position, like the many I've talked to in the last couple of weeks, where management doesn't apply a budget to them, I would say, Roll the dice on yourself. It's a cheap enough entry fee, and it's a quality enough outcome of conversation and networking, and just the psychological part of it, and the empathy part of it, and the managerial part of it.

    [01:05:00] Gurus charge, you know, 30, 000 for this. Do you want to go to Tony Robbins, or do you want to go to Randy Ben? Randy Ben will teach you everything Tony Robbins is talking about, but with no ego. And it's not 30 grand to go see him. And there's, there's armed security around the building. So take a risk on yourself.

    Like if I was in where I am now at a, at a, I would like to believe I would be in a management role, but let's just say I'm not, I would take off and I would take a gamble on myself because that gamble pays dividends. If you think investing in Nvidia three months ago, Our four months ago was going to pay dividends, invest 1, 500 now and see the dividends in five years.

    Um, so I would say that there's two ways of solving that problem. Hold us accountable, first of all, because that's what I want to be. I want to be held accountable for anything we turn over.

    Um, so let

    Phil Read: for your management.

    Adam Thomas: right. Let it, let us speak for it so that we don't have to train you to speak for it and [01:06:00] then come learn how you're going to speak about it for others.

    and fight for others to do events like this. I don't suspect this will be the first event of its kind. think it will be replicated. I think it would be replicated all over the world in the next five years. I think that people are going to get back to a kind of a grassroots, smaller format, highly conversation based retreat.

    I think people

    are craving it. Everyone I talk to craves it. It's just always, well, I don't know if I can take the time off. I don't know if I like how to explain it to management. Let us explain it to management.

    Send them the links, send them the podcasts.

    Phil Read: but it's, it's, I think we want to create an event that if people said I would spend my own money to do to the, go to this. But, but for some people they go, fortunately my company pays for it. But for other people, they go, you try to create an event that people will say, I would spend my own money to go.

    Cause I go to technical events that I think some of them, I mean, I know I have to go to, but I don't necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily spend my own [01:07:00] money to do it. And so if you create the kind of event that people would personally want to attend, and we have people that do, um, and they, they've told me why they do it that way. They pay for the event, they take personal time off, then you're creating something that's. Authentic.

    Evan Troxel: It's personal, right? That to me is what, what makes it so valuable. Because I think a lot of people go to something like an Autodesk University. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. You can actually go hide there, right? It's in Vegas. You can actually just go to a casino the whole time if you wanted to.

    There's no accountability in that. In a small event like this, it's extremely personal and it is interactive and participatory and kind of what you put into it. I think you're going to see dividends on getting back out of it. But it is completely different. And you can still talk about the same kinds of topics you can with AEC leaders that you have access to at either one of these events.

    One of [01:08:00] them, they're going to have five minutes for you, Max. In an event like this, they're going to have an hour for you, right? It's just you have personal time because you don't have all the distractions. You don't have the entire schedule, everything crammed into a day. And you've got to be on this side of the expo center at this time.

    And you've got to be in this conference room. It's not like that. Right, you're

    in venue.

    Phil Read: it's, I have had people ask, they've looked at it and they've, um, said, you know, this looks like a junket. You guys have a, do you guys have an offsite on Monday at the beginning where you go down this river and people paddle or they paddleboard? And, um, I would approach it this way. When you mention it to your senior that you want to go to the event, go, and by the way, it's alcohol free. Cause that doesn't happen in the industry. You go to these events and there's open bars all the time. To me,

    that's the junket and that's where it gets noisy. And Adam and I have done that. We have, there's no moral obligation. It just introduces complexity. Like there's a, there's a [01:09:00] lake, there's paddle boards, there's canoes.

    I can't have the risk of anyone drinking and getting hurt. And then people wake up before sunrise and they go for a walk. So it's kind of a, it kind of works out, it kind of fits all together. But if you tell your boss, I want to go to this conference or this retreat or this round table, and it looks like there's no alcohol for the week.

    To me, that kind of sets an air of, oh, this must be a serious thing. Like it's, you're going to be unplugged for a little bit

    Adam Thomas: a lot of those, a lot of the, let's call them the, you know, the bigger AAC companies that go to the larger conferences. I've heard that they know they're sending people there. And they don't get anything back from it. Like even the, the recap afterwards, Hey, Evan, I'd love to send you to so and so conference this year.

    Um, could you do a 45 minute presentation when you get back? And six months later, they're still asking for the 45 minute

    presentation. And then

    still send them to, they'll send them again the next year

    Phil Read: Next year.

    Adam Thomas: they,

    they [01:10:00] think without visibility, they don't maintain their status as a company. And you just, you just kind of cued into it.

    You're actually kind of invisible because there's so many people. So if you're trying to be visible. That's not the right place to do it. And if you're trying to be accountable, that's not the right place to do it. The right place to do it as a small circuit, a small conference of some kind. and then you can be highly accountable and you can be highly conversation based and you can actually do that 45 minute presentation the week you get back.

    I mean, quite frankly, you could do it with just notes because you're going to have so many notes on a little eight and a half inch notebook that you could wing 45 minutes. The thing you're never going to be able to impart on people is the, the associative feeling of being at an event like this, where like people can understand what it's like to be in Vegas.

    We've all seen movies, but I

    don't know how to explain to, right. I don't know how to [01:11:00] explain to people The feeling associated with the noise being shut off and you being able to focus on a conversation for two whole hours. I had two hour long conversations with people that didn't exhaust me.

    But in Vegas, the first morning I'm exhausted.

    Phil Read: Look, there's

    a thing, and it's just part of the, it's part of how it flows. You go, you get in all these classes and you're packed in and you're, you know, elbow to shoulder trying to make your way to the next session. And then at the end of all of that, the exhibition hall opens up and it's loud music and you're in line with your ticket to get a drink, to have a chat, to decompress. And so we're just going to do the whole thing where you're decompressed. If decompress means, like, in the afternoon, we decompress and we, for three hours, it's open time to just, if you want to go for a walk, if you want to journal, if you want to read, if you want to have a chat, if you want to go down lakeside and grab a paddleboard. And then after dinner, like, Randy would go, you know, guys, let's just go down to the dock and watch the sunset [01:12:00] at the lake and we'll have a wrap up session. Like why, why have a set aside time where you decompress? Why not make an environment for a week where the whole thing is meant to decompress and reconnect with people.

    Try to put your phone down for a bit. I mean, during the open time, people have to sometimes send email and get back to the office. But create an entire week where people can decompress. And I was really nervous about the first event of not having alcohol because we were going to do something a little different.

    And someone came up to me at breakfast and said, you know what? Normally at these events, I would be a little hung over in the morning and I'm kind of tired and groggy. But this morning I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm went off. So I thought I'll just go for a walk and watch the sunrise. It was really nice. And I thought, oh, that's what I like.

    Yeah, go watch the sunrise. I mean, when's the last time you watched the sunrise?

    When's the last time you watched the sunset? Like those moments, they're, it's a beautiful, quiet time. And doing that after a nice meal with peers where [01:13:00] you're learning stuff. Anyway,

    Evan Troxel: it's a cool

    Adam Thomas: I, I think there's one, there's one thing that I learned that is probably not apparent, but it's a huge value add. I learned it at the last event is I used to go to the large conferences to see the new things, see what people have been working on.

    I

    saw more new, I saw more new technology from just Kerry Thompson alone than I would have an entire exhibit hall from

    one man.

    Phil Read: Some

    guy from New Zealand. He came all the

    way to this round table event. He's a,

    he's a mad scientist.

    Adam Thomas: world and he was, he was the expo between classes. Like, Hey, have you thought about this for doing this? I use this for this other thing. These other three tools have helped me do this. And I'm like, wow, you've just done 50, 000 worth of marketing for those

    companies.

    should really

    get a kickback from it. But I learned that if you're going to see the new things, the people that are highly curious and know what the new things are. I [01:14:00] have conversations twice a

    week with startups. I can tell you a hundred pieces of technology you shouldn't be using. And I can tell you the three you should care about.

    Phil can do the same, but we're not going to go set up a booth at a large conference to tell you those things. We want a small group that's polite and casual and we can do it there. But just from carry

    Phil Read: lot of

    Adam Thomas: I learned, I had a

    Phil Read: Kerry's

    Adam Thomas: full of products. could talk about

    Phil Read: No, you go to conferences and there's booths and there's this technology, you know, it's like this, it's like the presentation where it works in front of a hundred people. This technology is amazing. You go back to the office a week later and you're trying to catch up on working this week forward.

    You start playing with it like, this doesn't do what I thought it would do. And then you have to kind of go through the stages of grief to figure out if it's even going to work. I like the nice thing about talking to people that have used it, that can tell you where the landmines are and how to, okay, it's really good for this, but it's not good, but don't think it's going to meet your expectations over here, but here's why you still might want to use it.

    Like to me, those conversations are really [01:15:00] valuable. It's um, the, the thing about the leadership retreat is we make these transitions in life from being a young technical person to then having families and mortgages and there's stresses outside of the office and inside the office, but it's just like the leadership retreat has helped me in my own just personal life, trying to just, you know, the kids are getting older.

    Like, what's your purpose? Once the kids are grown, why do you keep wanting to do what you do? What's your, what, I still think struggle is important in terms of purpose and having something that you struggle with. Like learning to let go and learning to find good mentors. Randy Ben is a wonderful mentor.

    And the fact that we get to sit in a room with him and we talk about these topics, and then I noticed that people will go away and have one on ones for half an hour or an hour, and I don't know what they're talking about. And I don't want to know. So the thing is like at the round table event, all the stuff that we learned there, we can share in whatever form we want to, whereas at the leadership retreat. What you learn can be shared, but what is shared [01:16:00] stays. We don't have executive summaries. Of the leadership retreat, like we would have for a round table of that. Um, maybe sometimes people share things that are a little bit close to home. Stays inside the retreat.

    That's it. And that's why it's a, it is a safe space.

    Yeah. Randy sets the ground rules for that right at the beginning. He's like, what we learn, you can share. What we share stays here. And people respect that.

    Evan Troxel: that's cool. Well, I feel like we should wrap up, but I can't finish without talking about the cuisine aspect of this. Can you talk about, about that? Because I think, uh, this is, again, this is an anomaly when it comes to conferences and how you handle this.

    Phil Read: Well, we like to have the big fancy dinner at the end of the event. We're like, well, why don't we just do that all week long? So I've known chef Charles,

    Adam Thomas: three fancy dinners a day,

    Phil Read: I know to the point that people go, actually, I've said last year, I was like, Charles is too much food. It's amazing, but we can't do this three. Yeah, Chef Charles is a French [01:17:00] chef who started his apprenticeship when he was 14. And there's actually an interview, a long form interview on YouTube with me and Randy and Charles. And you just get to see the wonderful, beautiful energy and spirit that he is. And without exaggeration, he prepares meals for heads of state, for rock stars. for multi billion industry executives. And then he loves to come to Lake Swan camp and be part of this group and make cookies. And, uh, he's just wonderful. So what we do is, I mean, Lake Swan makes amazing food. It's camp food. It's camp plates. But I thought, you know, if we could just have some, I was thinking the second year, like, who could we have? And I realized, Jeff Charles is just, I should just talk to Charles. And Charles drives his own car from Charlotte. He goes to Sam's or Publix or wherever. He gets all the food, you know, what, because you can get certain food with like ordering systems, but Charles wants certain things. I'm just about to release a menu.

    Adam's seen it. He does an amazing [01:18:00] job three times a day for our onsite, offsite events. He'll have snacks ready, you know, uh, infused waters, cause you got to have nice healthy drinks and, um, he just, They love him. They love him. Chef Charles shows up, he comes out, he, oh, the food is not served like you stand in line and ask people for more of this and less of that and could have a little more of that. It's all served family style. So you might have to say, Adam, could you pass me those potatoes? You know, it's like a table full of people asking each other food and the food comes out. Charles, Charles plates it. He brings it out. He describes what he did. And, uh, then he goes, bonjour y'all. And he goes back to

    Adam Thomas: Yeah, my, look, you, you, you just said it. My, my favorite part, right, is that. Because he's French, and because he's polite, he doesn't just give you food. He tells a story about the

    food, and then he presents the food. And, I've never been to an event in my life where you [01:19:00] can have five star dining, in shorts and t shirt, and feel comfortable, and feel like you're at home.

    And he somehow does that by telling a story, and then saying, If you need anything, let me know,

    have

    Phil Read: yeah. Yeah.

    Charles loves it. He loves it. He's, he's, uh, he's just wonderful, wonderful energy. Oh, Charles Sun works for Autodesk. He's the HR director in EMEA. Like, that's just a weird thing. And, uh, but Charles will come out. Yeah. So it's a little aside. I get so excited. He comes out, he describes what he's done.

    He puts plates out and every dietary restriction is covered. Um, you know, he knows all of that and, uh, but he's just part of it. Like any event, I don't think we've ever been to an event where the chef comes out and talks to you and says, this is what's going on and here's what I've done. And, and, um, so there's just a wonderful familial event to that. And, um, I think the best things in life are good meals with friends. It's such [01:20:00] a simple thing, but there's nobody sweeping under your chair and trying to get you out so they can put the next table in. And I remember, I get giddy now when I see people pull out their phones when Chef Charles brings out food and everybody's like taking their own little photos. but then I, it was Nick Kramer, uh, he's director at LPA on the West Coast, and Nick looks at me once and he goes, Phil, I'm eating Instagram food on camp plate. And I thought, yeah, okay. That's a good way. I like it. It's,

    uh, it's authentic. It's authentic. it's Instagram meals on camp plates. Yeah.

    Like, you know, the plasticky, how clamp camp plates kind of clink and clank like your school trays when you're a kid. It's

    that sound. It's

    not fancy silverware. Yeah.

    Adam Thomas: one, one story I have to tell is my, my daughter came, so she was three at the time when we, uh, the last event came to the round table event

    and we don't do sugar. Like, we just don't eat sugar. She doesn't have sugar, uh, she doesn't have iPad, she doesn't have phone, she plays with Legos, and she plays outside.

    That's what I did, that's what she's gonna do. [01:21:00] You can learn the computer later, you can eat sugar later. And Chef Charles brought out like a, a pound cake he had made with ice cream on the side and went to set it down in front of us. We're like, ah, we, we'll, we'll skip this. And he goes, you'll have Chef Charles pound cake. have Chef Charles ice cream. And he goes, and, and the little one can have twice as much. And I was like, but we've, we don't do sugar. And

    Phil Read: we don't do it.

    Adam Thomas: he's like, it'll be okay. It's Chef Charles,

    and I was like, okay, fair enough. So now

    she'll ask, my daughter will say, when, when are we going to go see that guy that made all the food?

    Evan Troxel: The

    Adam Thomas: Um, and let me, and let me have ice cream. And I'm like, well, I can go see him right now. You want to drive and see him? Chef

    Charles would think it's amazing,

    but he's gonna, gonna feed you a dessert. So,

    Phil Read: Adam looked over at the round table event and goes, we got to hold on to Chef Charles.

    Adam Thomas: actually in our post mortem, right? I said, I don't care if we get rid of anything else, he is staying.

    Phil Read: We got to

    Adam Thomas: We can [01:22:00] change everything, but I will fight tooth and nail to keep him at every event and until he wants to leave. And then I'll still fight to make him come back.

    Phil Read: Yeah, he, uh, he just does the photos online of him preparing lamb racks for one of the events, like how he sources his food. All of this stuff is beautiful. And the first year he said, Phil, I'm very busy. You know, I'll do it once, but I can't guarantee that I'm ever going to be doing it again. And then on the second day of the event, he was lakeside, sitting in the lifeguard chair, doing FaceTime call with his wife, Lee. He's going. You gotta come. This place is amazing. I love these people. And then by the end of the week, he's like, you know, if I was ever gonna retire, I could, I could work. What am I talking about? This is crazy talk. I'm never gonna

    retire. He's just wonderful energy. And

    it's, it's just, it's, just, a, it's just all these wonderful pieces have come together and the sum is greater than the parts.

    And I'd love for other people to experience that. And Adam would too.

    Evan Troxel: Well, and you framed it, you [01:23:00] know, in there somewhere about having a meal with friends, right? And that, and it goes back to your early having breakfast with mentors to glean insights. Like, it's a great spot to have meaningful conversations. And it doesn't have to be about work. It doesn't have to be about professional development. But all of these things, we know, they weave into each other in different ways. We find something that you, you pull out of this conversation and it applies over here where you would have never been able to

    connect those dots, should you not have been in that conversation to have that experience, right?

    So, this is a place, that is fertile for this kind of interaction and, and participation. And I think that that is worth talking about. So I've just, at this point, I think, invite you to give the details about what, when, where, you know, all those kinds of things. And, and we'll put links to all of this in the show notes for the episode as well.

    So I want you to tell everyone, but then [01:24:00] everyone should also know that all of the details will be in the show notes for this episode.

    Phil Read: A EC leadership retreat. Dot com.

    Adam Thomas: No,

    don't go there.

    Evan Troxel: Don't

    go to

    Adam Thomas: No, it's just, it's just AACAcoustics. com. Click

    Phil Read: Oh yeah, that's right. Sorry.

    Adam .

    Adam Thomas: no, you're good. Um, they're

    Phil Read: Ac acoustics.com.

    Adam Thomas: all the interviews we've talked about, they're still live on the website from the previous years. They're all there. Go see how Chef Charles talks. Go see how Randy talked. And then hold us accountable if you don't think they present themselves well.

    Reach out to

    Phil Read: Talk to

    anybody who's been there in those photos. You probably know 'em, or you could figure out who they are. Send them an email and ask them.

    Adam Thomas: yep.

    Phil Read: Yep.

    Evan Troxel: I appreciate how

    you guys offer advocacy on other's behalf to make the case for why it's valuable to go to something like this. So, I hope people do take you up on that, for sure. So, I'll have links to your LinkedIn. [01:25:00] Profiles and aecacoustics. com in the show notes for the website. So people can reach out to you if they have additional questions, if they need help, uh, making the case.

    Uh, and, and thank you so much for, for having this conversation today. I think, you know, big picture. The transition from technical to people, from single to teams, is a huge jump in one's professional development, and there is not necessarily a road map, and this is a great place to go get shortcuts. So that we don't have to start with a blank page with people who have been there and done that in their way over, you know, various years and years and years of time. Um, so it may not directly apply, but I think you're going to get some amazing ideas and amazing insight. And you're going to meet the people who have, who have accomplished what you're talking about. So this is, this is a great, great thing for people to definitely pay attention to. And I hope [01:26:00] that, uh, everybody can, you know, enjoy it. 50 people at least will show up and, and be at this retreat. It's going to be great.

    Phil Read: Thanks Evan.

    Adam Thomas: Thank you, Evan.

    2 September 2024, 10:30 am
  • 164: ‘The Technology in Architecture Practice (TAP) Knowledge Community’, with Ryan Cameron
    164: ‘The Technology in Architecture Practice (TAP) Knowledge Community’, with Ryan Cameron

    Ryan Cameron joins the podcast to talk about the recent AI focused Technology in Architecture Practice (TAP) Symposium at AIA’24.

    Today he shares insights from the symposium headlined by keynote speakers Phil Bernstein and Dr. Mehdi Nourbakhsh, PhD, who have both previously appeared on TRXL, and he provides an explanation of what these knowledge communities are and how they fit into the AIA.

    Tune in to learn more about what TAP is doing at the growing intersection between technology and architecture, the importance of sharing across the profession, how TAP’s volunteers are leading the charge in this community, and some exciting opportunities for innovation grants being offered by TAP.

    Episode links:

    About Ryan Cameron:

    Ryan leads digital integration efforts at CMBA Architects that range in practice from data analysis and strategy, technology, and data-driven design. You may have heard of Ryan from his long list of public presentations and innovative work have been commonly cited as representing the vanguard of critical directions for the industry. Ryan is recognized in the field as having reached tens of thousands of AEC professionals around the world with his vast technical skill and speaking opportunities. You can also find Ryan prominently featured in Randy Deustch's critically acclaimed book: Superusers: Design Tech Specialists and the Future of Practice.

    Provide feedback for this episode

    Connect with Evan:

    Watch this Episode on YouTube:

    Episode Transcript:

    164: ‘The Technology in Architecture Practice (TAP) Knowledge Community’, with Ryan Cameron

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Troxel podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. In this episode, I welcome Ryan Cameron. Ryan is the digital practice leader for CMBA Architects. In this episode, we discuss the recent AI focused Technology and Architecture Practice, also known as TAP, Symposium that happened at the AIA National Conference in Washington, D. C. Ryan's going to share some insights from the symposium that was headlined by keynote speakers Phil Bernstein and Mehdi Norbakish, who was also on the podcast previously, and provides an explanation of what these knowledge communities are and how they fit into the larger AIA. Ryan is the 2024 AIA TAP Chair, so he knows what he's talking about.

    We also talk about the origins and evolution of TAP, their mission, their annual symposium, their online forums, and future initiatives aimed at supporting small and [00:01:00] medium sized architecture firms, what TAP is doing in the growing intersection between technology and architecture, the importance of sharing across the profession, how TAP's volunteers are leading the charge in this community, and some exciting new opportunities for innovation grants being offered by TAP. Before we jump into the conversation, please help the podcast by subscribing on both YouTube and in your favorite podcast app to let me know that you're a fan. And if you'd like to receive an email when episodes are published with all of the links and other information from the episode, you can sign up at trxl.co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at the site as well. So as always, thank you so much for listening and I hope that you find value in this episode. And so now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Ryan Cameron.​

    [00:02:00] I am joined today by Ryan Cameron. Ryan, welcome to the podcast, great to have you.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah, no, this is great. Thanks. Thanks so much, Evan, for having me.

    Evan Troxel: We just saw each other in Washington, D. C. at the TAP Symposium that happened, and that was like an all day event. That was the day prior to the actual conference kickoff, I believe, if I, if I got my timeline right. So, um, maybe we could start there and, and just talk about what TAP is before we get into maybe how that symposium went.

    Because I know, Event planning is hard. I've

    done it

    Ryan Cameron: yeah, we'll talk

    Evan Troxel: only imagine. Yeah, I can imagine what you went through to create an all day event with, I mean, a couple hundred people were there for that, so it was a fantastic turnout and fantastic content shared during that. I especially Um, the keynote speakers were just incredible.

    So anyway, let, let's rewind a little bit. And, um, actually even before we talk about TAP, let's just talk about you and maybe you can give us your [00:03:00] origin story and your trajectory through the AEC tech side of things.

    Ryan Cameron: Oh, Yeah. Um, so I, I think a lot of folks might know me from speaking at AU or

    back in the day it was called RTC or those, those types of things. Um, but yeah, my, my goal in life was to become an architect. And so that's what I went to school for it in Nebraska. Um, I went to college with, I think a lot of people are familiar with like, uh, uh, Nate Miller, um, of Proving Ground and, uh, maybe Dave Patera of, of DeRofus. Um, and so. A couple of us, you know, took the technology route, it seems like, and, um, I am still practicing architecture. I'm stamping drawings, doing specs, all that fun stuff, but I also kind of do this whole technology thing on the side, too. Um, I think a lot of folks know me from back in my days at maybe DLR Group, but now I'm with CMBA Architects as their digital practice leader. And so that's just a fancy way of saying I'm here to help modernize the practice. [00:04:00] Um, and so, let's see, I've been licensed for, I don't know, 13 years, been in the biz for 23 years. Um, so, yeah, I've, I've gotten to know a lot of folks, and it's just an incredible community, and I'm really excited to share more about TAP, um, today, because it's, it's super important, and I don't think a lot of people know about TAP.

    So, yeah.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    let's jump into that part. Uh, and, and maybe you can explain your role there and kind of how that side of it works as well, because there, there is kind of the organization part of it and, and anybody who's an AI, a member can participate in that. But also there's just like this, like the structure of TAP and how it works and how long people are, um, you know, committed to it when they're involved.

    And there's that whole side of it as well, which I would love to talk about so that people get a full understanding of what TAP is and how it's. Helping the profession.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. Who are we? Why are we here?

    What is TAP? So, yeah, no, I'm

    glad you asked. Um, so [00:05:00] TAP, Technology and Architecture Practice is, is one of over a dozen, maybe even two dozen AIA knowledge communities out of all the, uh, something like 52 community groups that the AIA has. So I think depending on what you focus on in architecture, I feel like most people know about maybe like the COTE, um, Knowledge Community, or the COTE group, I

    try to

    pronounce both ways,

    Committee on

    the Environment, the Academy of Architecture for Health, Project Delivery, Practice Management. So, TAP is the only one, well one, that has ever had a conference at the larger, like, national AIA conference. Number two, the only one that holds a symposium every year. And so formally, we called it Building Connections Congress. Um, so we're really thankful to have that opportunity. I feel like we do a really good job at it.

    We draw a lot of folks, um, for a number of years. It was just hosted at the D. C. headquarters and we were limited to, I think, a hundred folks. But now [00:06:00] we're basically whatever, whatever we can fill. And usually we're 200, 300 folks,

    um, attending every year. So it's, yeah, at a high level where it fits into the broader AIA national organization. Um, and so, yeah, so a knowledge community, that's, that's what we are, we're, we're. Uh, component of, of the IA, but why are we here, Evan?

    That's, Yeah

    so

    at

    the TAP, yeah, we strive to provide like world class resources that improve designers experience in learning about new technology. So we've got the online forum, um, we hold the symposium every year. We're, we want to be that resource hub. We're, we're, you know, trying every year to, to bring more information, more knowledge to everybody, have conversations about technology. Um, And we do this by building a community that focuses on the value of sharing insights and managing knowledge and discovering the emerging trends, um, with the future of practice. And right now we have roughly 15, [00:07:00] 600 subscribers, if you will, people

    that,

    that sign on for

    the, the TAP forum online.

    So we feel like that

    represents a pretty good chunk of the overall 100, 000 or so. Um, members, uh, these are just the folks that are a little bit, maybe a little bit more technology focused and want to see, you know, how to improve the, the business from that angle.

    Evan Troxel: So your mission, like, as you stated, is basically to provide exposure of new ideas, technology, new ways of doing things to the broader AIA community. And I feel like, you know, being part of larger firms, as you were with DLR and you are currently, and when I was digital practice leader at HMC Architects, like, we have access to resources that a lot of small and medium firms don't, right?

    We were part of the large firm round table, large firm. Uh, just automatically segments that into a certain group, right? And that's

    not the majority of the AIA, right? The majority of the AIA, so something like over 80 percent is small firms that, that make up the AIA. So [00:08:00] that's a lot of people who are underrepresented when, when it comes to.

    technology sharing, things like that. And obviously resources are also more scarce in smaller firms. I would, I would just venture to guess. Um, I don't know budget numbers or anything, but so, so TAP really becomes kind of an all access. Anybody who has an interest or wants to be included, just opts in as an AIA member to that.

    Right.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. It's free to join. There's no, there's no additional charge or anything like that.

    Just,

    um, jump on the forum and post a question. We try to get back to you as soon as we can. And in your first year, and I'll, I'll mention this later, but your first year, the first year of your five years, we, we try to have that person monitor the conversations and keep, keep that active. Um, in a sense, uh, to, to help folks who are maybe struggling, just have a question about, you know, what, what software does what, how much should it cost, uh, how long should I expect,

    who do I ask for training, [00:09:00] um, yeah, just, there, there could be a million questions, and we'll, we'll, we'll talk about this here later, because I, I, I feel like, um, uh, the small firm exchange, which is also a component, um, we formed a group here at, at TAP, um, last year, and, um, I formed a group I'm in charge of it, I guess. Um, and we want to, we want to get out a survey. So we're going to work with National AIA to kind of come up with a survey of like, what are your questions? Um, and then Tesla, uh, Collier with HMTV, she's on the, on the committee with me. Um, she's been super helpful at, at helping get that move forward too. So that's, that's something to look forward to, um, that, that's coming.

    We want to understand what is going on at small firms and how TAP can better serve. Um, we're volunteers by the way, a hundred percent unpaid, but we, we still know, I just deep down, I feel like we can do better and we need to do better. And so that's, that's one angle that, that, you know, [00:10:00] I'm here for and I'm in my halfway through my third year on the tap board.

    So I want to make sure that this becomes a full thing every year to help keep small firms under a hundred, granted ten and under. And 11 to 100 is small and medium, but we want to make sure that group is represented, because as you mentioned, it's something like 80 percent of firms in the country are under 100, well

    under

    100.

    Evan Troxel: Right. Yeah. Probably, probably less than 10, right? So

    oftentimes leaders in those firms are wearing many, many hats, right? And so technology can be a very small hat

    when it comes to what, what they have time for with all the other clients and project deadlines. And you know, the, they're, they're dealing with submittals and emails and all these other things.

    And that becomes quite, quite a burden. So yeah, it seems appropriate to reach out and ask them there. What they are interested in [00:11:00] hearing more about and what kinds of questions they have, because I can imagine that they have very similar questions to a lot of other people. I always found this even in the large firm.

    It's like, are you dealing with this? Are you struggling with this? It's like everybody raises their hands. Yep. Even though you feel like you're dealing with a lot of this stuff in isolation. You're totally not. It's just firms don't really reach out and talk to other firm owners about these kinds of things that often or other technology leaders.

    It's like only during these conferences or symposiums is when that really happens at a, at a much higher frequency, right? So creating, I mean, it seems like everybody's connected all the time, right? So it shouldn't be that hard to figure out ways to engage, uh, and, and get people's questions answered. But also you're going to.

    I, I don't like this term, but you know, you're killing multiple birds with one stone, right? Every, lots of people have the same question, right? It's so, so by answering somebody's question, you're going to help a lot of people out. And it seems, seems like this shouldn't, this should be a no brainer. There's easy to do.[00:12:00]

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. And so we just kind of want to help monitor the development of technology and keep those conversations, discussions going. And then, like I said, provide resources, and actually AIA California came up with an absolute dynamite resource on their website. It's kind of like a, like a toolkit. It's like

    you

    pick the size of your

    firm, you pick what area of practice, marketing, design, um, another pull down, and then you pick, um, um, something else. And then it comes up with a whole, granted it's a spreadsheet that comes back, but it comes up with a whole spreadsheet of like, here's Revit, here's cost expectations, here's, um,

    you know, reviews and here's Enscape and here's the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And all of these things, it's like every software imaginable.

    Here's how much, you know, you should expect to pay for Photoshop and, um, how many firms are using it. And it's just this amazing, uh, database of information that, that firms can, can access for, again, for free. Um, so hats off to that team

    for, for developing that.

    Evan Troxel: Nice. So how, what kinds of [00:13:00] initiatives are you, are you doing beyond, beyond that one at TAP?

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. So we've really picked it up a little bit. Um, it used to be, you just came in and put on a show and then you just sort of like, Relax for the rest of your duration. Um, I, I came in and I, I got really moved by the small firm exchange conversation.

    Um, I, I basically

    just sat in, um, on a, on one of their calls and just happened to be focused on like AI or technology and everybody was hurting. And I, that just really struck me inside. I was like, wow, what, what CAA, what's, hey, you're, you're going to be the chair someday for TAP. You better. Like, get on top of this, and like, help, help these firms, like, this is ridiculous that they, I, sorry, hopefully I don't get in trouble here, but, like, it's, we should be, like, helping, um, these firms that are, that are members, um, like, at least, at least come up with a playbook

    of how to, how

    to develop this, or strategize, and, and, and [00:14:00] help them move forward, and so that, that's where the, the theme from TAP really came from, we did, uh, brainstorming, uh, Smash Buzzwords Together session, But, um, that's where, where it really came from.

    It went from being like developing a toolkit to really thinking like, no, it's bigger than that step back. It's a, it's a playbook. It's like an approach, right? We, AI can't like make, we shouldn't be making like demands or things like that. Like you have to do it this way, you have to do it that way. We should have a general playbook of like, hey, here's a case study of how you could do it. Um, and here's like a playbook of like, You've got these players, you've got this coach, you've got this team, here's how you can, you know, make play calls, um, sorry for the sports metaphors here, but here's how you can make play calls with these different options depending on the defense or offense you're going against, and what, you know, what's your strategies and objectives, are you going for delay of game, are you going for field goal, are you going for a touchdown or a 10 yard pass, like, that's how [00:15:00] businesses operate essentially, it's like, what are our positions, What are our people?

    How much is it going to cost? How much time is it going to take? Like if you think about a game clock running down and your resources available to you, like you, you want a playbook that everybody, the coaches and the players are reading from. And so that's, that's really where that, it's important, right?

    It's, it's important for firms to have that. So we want to help develop that. And then we, just like every, every person ever, Oh, Hey, I got it. Like, Oh, I know this. We didn't know anything. we we went into the second call. And we asked a couple questions and it's, it's scattershot. And so we, we realized that this is going to take a year to, uh, of probably half a dozen phone calls, like, like the ones we were having with a full map of different areas of technology, um, that, that need, um, you know, a resource management guide, essentially, again, a playbook, uh, for [00:16:00] folks to understand, like, when to, like, when, when are you. Large enough to move, um, from your, like a smaller enterprise resource, um, tool to a larger enterprise resource tool. Like, when you move from a JIRA, Dell type JIRA to, uh, a different time sheet management payroll type thing. Or, are you insourcing, are you outsourcing, um, that? Um, it's just, it's just amazing the conversations we started having.

    So we started to break those into different categories that, like design, marketing, um, project management, um, all, all the different categories. And we're coming up with surveys. We're at the point now where AIA has a survey team that, um, we're going to be talking with to actually do a better job of, of, of doing that.

    Cause that's, that's their full time job. That's, this is more of my hobby. So they will do a much better job. I just, Tesla and I, and that the rest of the team had just had the ideas to get this thing, um, off the ground. So that's, that's really what we're hoping to do over the next year. [00:17:00] I'm really excited about it.

    Evan Troxel: I have to just pause and say hello to Tesla myself because I know she listens and every time I see her, I love her. Talking to her and seeing her. So hi, Tesla.

    one thing that's interesting to me about technology and practice, it's right in the name, right? It's like, and this is something that we saw a big transition when I was at the firm that I was at, which is that technology impacts all the different aspects of practice.

    And it's not just IT, right? I think before I really went into the role of digital practice leader, it was IT, and it was very reactive, putting out fires, setting up people with hardware, getting software installed, but it wasn't, it didn't include the perspective of the actual practitioners. It was more of a, it was like a service that operated within the firm that was just constantly, you know, Dealing with problems.

    And so it was very hard for that to be proactive because all [00:18:00] of the time was spent being reactive. Right. And I'm sure smaller and medium sized firms feel like that all the time. And it's like, how do you get ahead of things? How do you get strategic with technology? And the things that you're talking about are in alignment with that.

    And so for our firm to move from reactive IT to proactive digital practice, like what we were talking about, we, we're always talking about it like it was the future of practice, but, but it's just practice, right? This is how practice has evolved, right?

    Ryan Cameron: modernize.

    Evan Troxel: And, and people still think of it, though, as like these different buckets, like there's architecture, there's design, there's sustainability, there's technology, and it's no, it's actually horizontal, it's like, those things are in all areas of practice, so it could be HR, graphics, marketing, rendering, delivery of projects, QA, Specifications, like there's all these different pieces of [00:19:00] architecture that make up a project and make up how firms run that technology impacts.

    And what you're talking about is kind of cohesively looking at all of that, right? Because you talked about practice operation software, right? It's like, how are we tracking what we're doing? How are we tracking our billing? How are we? How are we getting people to, to know what to do and when to do it and how, how do we get ahead of that when we're staffing projects and all of these things?

    Like all of these things have to work together and it needs to be a cohesive strategy. I mean, that to me is where TAP can really make a huge difference in firms who are struggling with the transition of the way that we used to do it, to the way that people are doing it now. And when new people are joining firms, they're expecting.

    this level of technology and they're just, they're, they're walking into firms and they're seeing the way that, that it's always been done still, right? So there, there's an, a natural contrast there that they're, it's like, [00:20:00] it's kind of shocking when graduates come out of school and they go into a firm.

    where it's like, they're not modern. They're, they're still doing things the old way. Right. And, and I can, you see other verticals out there and it's like, they look really so much more attractive because they are just evolving and keeping up or getting ahead of it. So transitioning from reactive to proactive and strategic seems to be one of those things that TAP can really help with the conversation around and helping people make those transitions.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Super important. Super important.

    We mentioned Tesla. We should probably mention all the board

    committee

    Evan Troxel: Do it.

    Okay.

    Ryan Cameron: I don't

    want anybody to feel left out. We have an amazing group of appointments over the last two decades. I can't list everybody, but just the folks that are on now. Thank you. Um, yeah, they just deserve a lot of credit, and so our current group consists of Nick Cameron, FAA, who just got FAA,

    um, yeah, um, he's, he's been on your show,

    um, he's from Perkins and

    [00:21:00] Will, um, he's my 16th cousin, no doubt, we have the same last name, um, both from Scotland and at some point in our lives, and in our history, I'm sure, um, and then, uh, Joel Martineau, DeRofus, um, he's in his, his 4th year, so Nick's in his final year, um, on the, on the board, and then Joel's in his fourth year. Um, myself, I'm in my third year in the chair for this year, um, so I think people, people remember that event. Um, then next up we have a, a good friend of mine, um, co, a co speaker for Top Speaker Award in, at 18, Cesar Escalante. Uh, he's at Autodesk. Um, and people know Cesar, he's on the AI California board, and, um, he's very active in the community.

    Um, yeah. Created, like, San Francisco Computational Users Design Groups, things, things

    like that. Um, leading a whole bunch of things. He's amazing. And he'll be my successor next year as chair. And then, um, our newest five year member is, uh, Vicki Harris. Um, also very well known from, from her [00:22:00] Bill at RTC days. Um, and she's at, uh, HKS. And so those are, those are our five year members. Um, but also, um, last year, um, we decided we were overwhelmed and we needed help. And so we expanded. Um, our, our committee and we, we thought to ourselves, Hey, we, we need like a design technology leaders group. We need a CFO or I'm sorry, a CIO, CTO, large from round table type people. And so, um, uh, luckily Alex, uh, Pollack, uh, Thornton Tomasetti, um, joined us last year and this year. And then we've, uh, got Brent Malti from, uh, Turner, am I pronouncing it right? Turner Fletcher.

    Um, Yeah.

    he's the CTO there, and so, um, they're, they're forming a little group, and so that way we have, uh, just an olive branch, if you will, to the, the other groups that are out there that deal with technology, because it, it seems like we're doing something, and they're doing something, and we just want to [00:23:00] make sure that we're not doing duplicate work and stuff like that.

    Um, then we mentioned, uh,

    Tesla, of course, from HNTB, and then, uh, Sarah Lobman with, um, uh, Lord Ack, Sargent. LAS. Um, and so all amazing folks and they're on, um, the subcommittee, uh, small firm exchange subcommittee with me and, um, sustainability. Um, so we have, we're not trying to take over any other groups. We just, we, we know that there's a lot of technology branches that, that we can help with.

    And of course, Emma Tucker Emma Tucker is our AIA, uh, knowledge community liaison, uh, does like all the heavy lifting and she's super helpful in, in all aspects here. So. Um, hats off to her as well. So that's that's everybody. Um, and then, uh, we will be bringing on someone new probably in December or January. So

    yeah.

    Evan Troxel: Can you talk about that process and what the commitment is, how it happens, so that people who are interested just have an understanding of what the expectations would

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. [00:24:00] This is, I wish I would have known what, what I know now. So if you're listening to the podcast, get ready. Cause, uh, you know, we'll tell you that it's like an hour a month kind of thing, but that's, that's just the call. That's just the monthly call that you're on. Um, I'm not saying it's like 100 hours a month, but there are, uh, especially in your third year, there, there might be a pretty lengthy time commitment because you're, you're obviously sitting down with, with folks and, and, and trying to put on a conference that you've probably never done before.

    But, um, and so initially, and I, I think, um, I think submissions for new members on the board are closed now, or it might still be open for another week, um, but we, we take submissions. So it's, I don't want to say it's an intense process, but we will sort of interview you. We have a list of questions we ask you. We ask that you provide like a cover letter. Why do you want to be on, uh, the TAP committee? Um, the, the most important thing [00:25:00] is let your firm know. Get, get, get somebody in. leadership, whether it's the CEO or CIO, let them know that you plan on joining, because there is some financial commitment that the firm needs to make.

    So we do need a letter from someone at your firm that, you know, helps sign the checks, because there will be times where we can't reimburse you for a hotel or a flight or something like that, or an opportunity comes up and we need, we offer people, you know, the chance to go. to a leadership summit, um, like in DC or something like that, which is an incredible opportunity. We just need to let folks know, um, and then a resume. And so those three things, um, just, just to kind of get in the door. And then the, the five, five year people, um, kind of sit down in a, in a zoom call and, and go over them and then we kind of vote on it and we accept that the next person onto the, onto the team. Because again, it's like a, it's a, it's a [00:26:00] moving, um, situation.

    It's a

    five year commitment to Rolling.

    So,

    um, and so first

    year, so now we're getting into it. Welcome to the like admissions component of this now, now that you're on, um, it's, it's like a, your first year. We just try to, like, ease you into the process.

    You're basically in charge of the online forum, so discussion groups, um, comment section, that sort of stuff. Just, and we do that just so that you get to know the community a little bit. It's not the most active forum by any stretch of the imagination, but you can

    kind of

    roll back and see,

    um, names and stuff and, and see what people are posting.

    Just get a better feel for, um, the community, all 15, 16, 000 members or so. And then your second year. Um, so we've had to change now that we're, um, on the first day of the conference and hopefully that's going to continue. Um, we've had to change the role of second year and fourth year. So second year we're having that person, um, be in charge of, [00:27:00] um, what we call the forum day.

    So don't forget we have symposium day, but then usually two days later we have open forum, which is like a 90 minute session. Um, and, and so that's, um, all the, all the different AIA tap chapters. Um, we usually call on them to come up with like a 15 minute presentation about the latest thing they're doing or what they're seeing. And that brings a lot of exposure to, to the folks that do show up to that. So hopefully second year, you've got the online forum under your belt. Now we're doing an in person forum for a, for a 90 minute session. Then by the time you're third year, you can put on a conference, right? I mean,

    don't get me wrong, you get a lot of help.

    It's Natural progression.

    yeah. And so, a lot of the people that join have, so I have experience doing that with like the BIM workshops with Todd Shackelford and Carla Edwards and Bill Allens we talked about before the call. Um, like putting on something, at least, at least I had some ability to do that. My wife actually did the website for the BIM [00:28:00] workshops back in the day, this had been 12 years ago or so.

    Um, so I, I, I kind of knew what was going on there, and I'd been to probably 40 different conferences speaking at every one of those. Um, so I, I had an idea of, of how to do that, so it was a little bit less stressful for me. Um, and then by your fourth year, you're looking, um, to tackle what we call now the Innovation Grant. And so, um, that's just us, uh, and this is sort of the first year of, of us doing this. It used to be called the BIM Awards, then it became the Innovation. Uh, awards, and then it was, I want to say it might have been like Ryan Johnson, Brad Prespo, who are, who are, you know, retired from the board now, and, and Nick and, and Joelle, um, said, hey, why don't we, why are we not making an investment in this?

    Why are, we're giving like a piece of paper, great Revit award kind of thing. Why don't we take some of our funding and provide an investment? Um, for folks that are coming up, [00:29:00] maybe it's a Revit plug in, maybe it's the next test fit, maybe it's the, maybe it's an AI tool that could help architects, like, Yeah, I could go off on a rant on this, on how low the investment profile of, of AEC is in general.

    We're like the fourth largest industry in the world. In the world and we're like the last place in terms of like investment for for technology and innovation. It's

    I've got all kinds

    of stats on that just it's super super frustrating. So we so we're like, let's do our part Let's do what we can and that evolved into yeah the innovation grant.

    And so we've we've got some award winners That I don't know where that is because I'm not I'm not in charge of that But look for that in the in the coming months and years and then Nick We he's got Ideas from the five people before him. He can talk to the four people behind him. Um, we call it SAGE advice, and so the fifth year, you're kind of like helping set the direction.

    Now that you've got like, you know, [00:30:00] almost a decade worth of, of, you know, just group knowledge there,

    um, we, we want

    that person to fill in where they, where they can, because they've done everything, right? They've done everything that the fourth year, third year, second year person's done, and and give us any kind of advice that they have, help us, you know, uh, improve our network. Um, and reach out to folks, and, and just, just give us sage advice. That's, that's what we say. It's, it's more

    than

    that.

    Evan Troxel: kind of an, it's kind of an advisory position at that

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah.

    Yeah.

    And so it's, it's

    the place to be.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Ryan Cameron: But, I mean, if, if for some reason the, the chair can't, um, meet, meet the, um, you know, they get sick or they have a funeral or something that, that they can't make up, it's kind of the fifth year person's responsibility to kind of pick up the pieces.

    Yeah. Be the co chair real quick. Um, if something like that were to happen, it's like it's a good gap

    stop. Um, so Yeah. [00:31:00] and so that's, that's what you can expect. I mean, there are months where, you know, it's, it's probably two hours a month and there are months where 50 hours a month could be very, very much could be. So, especially in your third year, when you're putting on a conference. With

    amazing speakers. We should talk

    about the speakers and

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Let's talk about the conference that you just had. The symposium was fantastic. So you want to give us kind of an overview of, of it and then we can get into a little bit more detail into each one of those

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Yeah. So, um, everybody knows, well, I shouldn't say that, but everybody knows Phil Bernstein. So, I'm just super, super happy that, that he said yes. Um, I, I honestly, when we, when we first started, I, we didn't even approach him because we, we thought we wouldn't be able to even get his attention and the fact that he came in and knocked her out of the park was, was incredible. Um, and he could meet, um, the afternoon. And so, um, [00:32:00] some of us knew, um, Mehdi Norbashk, and so I got in touch with, with Dr. Mehdi, and asked him if he could, um, be our morning keynote.

    And pretty much right away, you know, I explained everything that was going on, how we'd be a great fit, and after probably one or two conversations, he accepted, um, and he had, uh, I'm so glad he did, because And, um, it's, for a second there, I didn't think he was going to, and we were getting to be late February, early March, maybe even late March, and, um, it would be really hard on short notice, like a two month's notice, to get anybody else, so I'm super glad he said yes, and he, he's got the book out now that's called Augment It, and

    I

    gave a couple copies away at the, at the, at the session, because that's, that's what I do, that's one thing that I'm known for, is I always give a book away when nobody's, nobody's expecting it, Um, and so his discussion was around how design professionals can augment themselves or the practice [00:33:00] with this concept of superintelligence, as we all know, AI, artificial intelligence.

    So, um, absolutely mind boggling session. So it's un, it was unlike your typical session where you kind of sit back in a passive mode and just listen to a speaker. No, no, no. He has this great presentation that it's just this mix of like passive active, passive active. And so he would get up and kind of explain the thesis. And then we would break into, um, not small groups or anything, but whoever's sitting at your table, um, or group of tables. And he would just kind of broadly ask questions and you could use your phone to get onto this app and like explain like a quick survey, um, Mentimeter or whatever it was called,

    and really got help firms.

    I'm going to simplify this as much as I can. Helped everybody in the room at least start to get to a strategic thinking point written down that they could [00:34:00] take with them about how technology works in their practice and how they could do it better.

    So that, that in itself was probably worth the hundred bucks, you know, to show up that day. That was absolutely phenomenal. And so it was again, him talking and discussing like, here's where it is, here's where it could go. Here's what other folks are doing. Here's what I'm doing. And then let's sit down and discuss it. in a way that helps you. And then he'd get back up and he'd do another thesis and then we'd sit back down.

    So it was absolutely, you, you were there. I mean, yeah.

    What was your

    Evan Troxel: yeah.

    A couple things about, about Mehdi. Mehdi's been on the show before and I've been through his workshop as well. And I think one of the things that I appreciate about his approach, number one, is like the, the way that he engages with the audience and has that, the, the delivery of information, and then there's like the active part that you were talking about, right, where people are having an active discussion and then maybe reporting back out of that.

    It's fantastic because it keeps everybody on their toes, it keeps people thinking [00:35:00] and participating, not just sitting there, it's not just a one way conversation. But what I, what I appreciate about him is, is two things. Number one is that he gets everybody on the same page in a really, he does a really well, a good job at that.

    Because the big problem with technology often is that people hear something, Secondhand, thirdhand, it could even be firsthand, but they're hearing a version of it that number one may not be current, and number two just might be scary enough to say, I'm never going to touch that. And so AI is definitely one of those things, right?

    And this is his expertise. And so what he does is he takes everybody through, like, this is what, first he defines what it is and gets everybody on the same page. And then we start to talk about practical applications. Yeah. But the goal isn't just to find something to do with technology. So the other thing that I appreciate about his approach is that he's, he gets everybody to think about what they do best or why they do what they do.

    And then we figure out if what [00:36:00] the right technology is to approach tackling that, right? So it's just like any tool. You need to use it for its purpose, right? And so you're not trying to find something to do with AI. You're trying to solve a business problem, or provide a value for your clients, and then you're going to pick the right tool to do the job.

    And sometimes that might be AI, right? And METI's great at walking people through that. So, number one, it kind of gets rid of the fear and turns it into excitement about the possibilities, and then we start to think about what the possibilities are, and then we say, okay, are these tools the right fit? to start to try to accomplish those possibilities.

    So overall, I totally agree with you. His, the way that he delivers his keynotes is fantastic. And it is very much like a workshop style of a, of an interaction. And I, I feel like we're all there to like, we, we're up for the challenge. We're architects. Like, this is what we live for is solving problems. And so he has a really [00:37:00] great way of kind of engaging people to flex those muscles that we already have.

    in, in our industry and really like turn that in with everybody else in the room, kind of turn that into a really amazing session.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah, it was, it was very exciting. So I was taking pictures and taking video the whole time because we would try to scrapbook it too and collect all that. Um, and a lot of people had no idea that three hours went by.

    They, they said it was not long enough and it was just so incredible. so yeah. Um, yeah, that was, that was great. Um, and then we obviously broke for lunch. We had our, our sponsor, um, Guardian for Revit, um, kind of give a little, uh, discussion. So, hats off to them. Um, with, you know, without our sponsor's help, we, we wouldn't have been able to pull this off either. Um, and we had Nemshug Group as a sponsor. Um, and we had them give a presentation later.

    And that's, you know, Nemshug Group, DeRofus, and Bluebeam, and, and all the, all the crazy awesome softwares we use. Um, and then we came [00:38:00] back from lunch, um, and we had Phil Bernstein, and in, in, great presentation name, it was something like the overwhelming, unintelligible, meaningless mess, how will AI make sense of digital design, or will, will AI make sense of digital design,

    um,

    Evan Troxel: a great clickbaity

    title.

    Ryan Cameron: Ha ha Ha he, I know he does that on purpose, so, um, but yeah, I mean, just. Again, wonderful presentation that so many takeaways just, um, about how to be skeptical, but positive and, um, how to really investigate, um, and research, you know, a little bit like, like what Betty was saying, um, you know, right tool, right, right time, right, right project, right goal. And how, how AI has evolved since like 60, I think it went back to like the 60s or

    Evan Troxel: Fifties or the sixties. Yeah.

    Ryan Cameron: And so he just took us through that timeline to get us to today and then he took us from today where it [00:39:00] could go. And, you know, some of their, there was some stuff for, for shock value of maybe, maybe it doesn't go there. There was some stuff that's like shock value, but it is happening. And then there was some stuff that's like, it's not quite there yet.

    Um, but it is developing, but it's maybe five years out. Um, so it was good to see how that branched off. In, in all the different corrections. Again, fascinating. Um, presenter. It's absolutely, you, you missed out if you didn't See, if you've never been to one of his, um, they're, they're so well curated. It's, it's hard to describe.

    Evan Troxel: Absolutely. Yeah, his talk was, it's always, his talks are always filled with information, but in a really, he doesn't just present information. The way that he connects dots, I think is, is what really makes it valuable and meaningful to, to hear them in person because he, he has a way of, like his, His [00:40:00] understanding is, is vast, but also his experience is vast.

    Like from, from his working at Yale and Autodesk and being, his involvement with AIA and Pelle Clark Pelle, and you know, he's, he's worked in the firms. He's worked at the, at the product, you know, providers he's, he's worked with the AIA for a long time. He's taught he, so he, he, he runs the whole gamut of.

    age groups, right? Students all the way to the people who've been in the practice for a really long time. And so he, he brings a great perspective that is, is pretty all encompassing to the table. And so when he speaks, I mean, it's, it's, it's very well, not only researched, but delivered. And, and he has a research group at the school that's, that's helping pull this information together and put it into diagrams and really.

    explain things in a way that architects can understand, right? Like it's, it's very visual, the things that he's saying as well. So he backs that up with, with, uh, the diagrams. And [00:41:00] I always find that to be particularly useful in the way that he gets his message out. So, uh, and recently wrote, wrote the book on AI and ML, right?

    So this, this is kind of an ex this talk was an extension of what was even changed since that book came out, which was not that long ago.

    Ryan Cameron: Right, Right.

    Also, a book I gave away at the conference, both, by the way, both their books, um, for the first time were at the a i A bookstore and both books. That's sold out at the AIA bookstore. So any future speakers that have a book, um, just, just know that we, we sell, sell out.

    Evan Troxel: You help sell copies, right? Which is hard to do in today's world. So, yeah, good

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah, Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. So yeah, again, we, we also want to be as, as, you know, gracious with our speakers as possible and offer them as much, you know, more than just a free meal that day. We want to. really connect with them and help move their message forward in whatever way we can. We're non profit, we're, we're a sub category of a [00:42:00] non profit, like, so we, we, unfortunately, we've never really paid a speaker, um, and, and so, um, I, I think we maybe got them gift cards or things like that, but, like, we've never, you know, never paid them, so that's just great that they were, um, able to do that pro bono for

    us.

    Uh, yeah,

    then we

    Evan Troxel: For the betterment of the community,

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. Yeah.

    Um, and then we had a panel session and typically tap is just, it's like all panels for the longest time. It was very few like keynotes and presentations and things like that. Um, it was like, maybe we'd have a keynote and then the rest of the day was, was panels. Being the chair that I am, I wanted to change it up and wanted to totally change it up quite honestly and make it more interactive and make two keynotes and still include a panel because I still want people to hear from different groups. And we also wanted to [00:43:00] activate and involve other cases. Um, that don't get this opportunity, so obviously we reached out to Jeff Huber, he's on the Strategic Council. Um, Scott Knudson is the co chair, or former co chair of, um, Project, uh, I'm gonna say it was Project Management. And then, uh, Laura Wake Ramos, um, she's also involved in the Strategic Council. And then she's the co chair for, um, Project Delivery, she's with Mortensen. And so we wanted to mix as many Um, and we've been trying to get as many of our friends as possible into this and ask the AI question to project management, project deliveries.

    How is the AI strategic council viewing this? Because this is a big, this is a big question right now. And it has been for three years, but like, it seemed like this year, like we're bursting at the seams with AI. Like it's this new miracle drug that arrived suddenly with this glowing promise and skepticism and how are firms using it? And how, how do we, how do we use it? She's even just [00:44:00] asking generally, like, how would project delivery use AI or how would construction use it? How would design use it? Um, and so we wanted to help people at least engage in the discussion to learn how to develop an AI strategy for firms and easy to do it steps. And so that's what that panel was all about. And just, um, it was moderated by our very own Alex Pollack. Um, again, she's on the, on the committee. She's a one year volunteer, but we hope to get her back another year. She's just been doing great, great stuff. Um, and so she had a whole list of questions. We, we batted a whole bunch of AI questions around, and I, I think she did a fantastic job.

    Learned, learned a lot.

    Evan Troxel: and can you talk about like why you picked those ones to, to participate in this?

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah. So again, it just happened to be, I don't know if it's pure luck or just, I, I just started talking with folks and that's

    really

    what my, I guess my strategy was as chairs and just to get to know people. And, um, I got to know [00:45:00] Laura a little bit. Um, and she was just, how can I help? How can I help? How can I help?

    And I was, I was just turning my head. I was like, I don't know how this is going to fit in until it clicked one day. And I was like, Oh, okay. Let's, we can't like, Help you put on a conference, but you can be part of ours. Like, is that helpful? And she, she'd loved that idea. And, and so then we're like, okay, let's, let's think about this.

    And again, Alex Pollock's super helpful on this. Um, help me kind of like formulate this. It's again, it's, I I don't ever want to get the impression that I, I put on the conference. That's not about, that's not even close step, how it happened. Like everybody on the committee helps and you're just kind of the, the. phase for the day, I guess. And then you're exhausted. Um, but, uh, yeah, so this tremendous amount of help from, from all the committee members.

    Evan Troxel: Nice.

    Ryan Cameron: So that's, that's how they got on. And then, uh, Scott and I, and I want to say Jeff and Evelyn Lee were going to submit, [00:46:00] um, a, a full session at the AIA National. And I think it was something, I'm paraphrasing, it was like AI for dummies or something like that.

    And just like, Basically this session, but like a little bit different and so we, we kind of remeshed it up and, and Scott didn't want to present it. And I was like, no, this is kind of your idea. So you're definitely on the panel. And then Jeff was also involved in that. Um, and he

    teaches down in Florida as well,

    um, at the university.

    So he, uh, he was absolutely super supportive. Fantastic on this too. Very knowledgeable, very well connected, um, and he's on the strategic council and hats off to him because the strategic council like two weeks before AIA National kicked off, they said that they were going to have a meeting on the first day, so he broke out of his strategic council meeting just to sit on the panel

    for that

    hour and [00:47:00] then went back and, and He did his voting and stuff like that, so he's a very busy guy, and I'm super grateful that he was able to come in and share his knowledge about how the Strategic Council is viewing AI. Because it's still very new, it's still like, what are the legal ramifications, what are the ethical ramifications? So those are the things that they're dealing with, and we're hoping that sort of comes back to us now that TAP has made these connections. So, to answer your question, I got really lucky.

    Evan Troxel: Okay. So, so let's talk about the feedback that you've gotten from this. So I assume there's a lot of positive feedback, but I'm also interested in critical feedback as far as, you know, you had a lot of participants there. What did you hear when it came to how the day went?

    Ryan Cameron: Um, yeah, everybody wanted, wanted more. And, um, yeah, I, I wanna say it was Ed. Ed Atkins. I, I wrote a post on this, on, on LinkedIn and it was something, I'll paraphrase it, but it was [00:48:00] something like he'd never been to something that had so much information in such a short amount of time, um, that was so digestible. Um, and so that's again, good, good criticism. I'd, I'd rather have that than, than the opposite. And so just tremendous feedback from folks. And it wasn't just him, I'm still, I'm still getting stuff, you know, a month later, you gotta remember this was only

    last month. So, I, I kind of expect to get an email out of the blue, hey can you give me, we, we've had a lot of presentation requests as well.

    From, from Phil and, and Mehdi, and and recording requests. And unfortunately it's not in our budget to record anything. So those, those are kind of the, the, uh. I guess non critical feedback things as we don't typically, we can't afford to have a videographer, but we can give you the presentation. So reach out to me. I'd get you, um, uh, a condensed, um, very shortened, abbreviated version of, of Phil's that, that he shared with us, which is [00:49:00] phenomenal. Um, and then Mehdi's presentation. Um, you can't really capture their energy and their involvement in those, but at least you'll

    have

    the, the quote

    unquote digital paper copy. Um, other

    things are the, the, everybody wants to do AI again next year. It seems like some of the feedback and, um, that's, that's not up to me, that's up to, to Cesar Escalante, my successor. And I, and I have a feeling that it's going to be a little bit more driven towards like sustainable efforts. So,

    um, just kind of

    dropping that out there for folks.

    Um, again, we, we want your feedback if that's a direction, um, people are interested in. I'd, I'd love to get feedback from that too. Um, but yeah, just more, like, okay, great. We've, we, you gave us world class presenters and filled our heads with, with knowledge. What's the next step? And I think that's, um, where we're going with this is that after every previous TAP, TAP [00:50:00] symposium, which was BCC, Um, you talked a lot, you got a lot of handouts, and then now what?

    And so we're redesigning the website or updating the website, I should say. To where we are going to start putting these resources up that are just a little bit more available So you don't have to like reach out to me or the next chair and say where do I get a copy of this? We're we're working on like the next step like okay now you've done this Here's how you get in touch with Mehdi if you wanted to come in and give a presentation Or or Phil if you want him to come into your firm or zoom call into your firm and give that presentation because again Seeing them in person is totally different than just reading it on your laptop screen. It's totally different You're gonna learn so much more if you hear from them. And

    so

    that's, sorry, does that answer your question?

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, no, I, I am interested in where this is going because it, uh, I think often, you know, Phil Reed says it best. He says that the best thing about conferences is the conversations after the [00:51:00] presentations, right? So, and so a lot of people are left kind of after that, just kind of, okay, that was a, an amazing experience.

    Now, what do I do? And so you do need to provide, I think, as a, as an AIA level, you know, group here, like, what are some actionable steps? How can I now, what, what is the next step that I need to take? It's like, not even 20 steps away, but what's the next step that I can take to start to implement these ideas?

    Or who do I talk to? Where can I get help? I mean, um, all of these are, are, seems like the natural progression, so it's great to hear that you guys are actually putting that into practice.

    Ryan Cameron: and anybody can reach out to me at any time. I'm fully available on LinkedIn. I do get emails and questions all the time about where to get started. And so that's Even even starting with me. I'm a great connector of like, hey, what's your problem? Oh, this is a really good person for that or here's my friend Bill. You know, [00:52:00] like you should talk to him. Like I can definitely help facilitate that as well. I mean, it's

    We don't need a

    website for that. We just need human connection, right? That's that's

    where it

    starts. That's where I feel it should stay

    Evan Troxel: Maybe, maybe let's just go in that direction for a minute. As we, as we wrap up here, I think, you know, what you just said and the thing that you're talking about doing, being good at doing is so important in our industry, and maybe you can just talk about how that has been valuable to you, the whole, like building the network, because.

    When I was starting as digital practice leader, I mean, to go back to one of your earlier points, there was no playbook. No playbook at all, right? And so it's like, who do I look at as examples? Who can I talk to? And it became about building the network, which is where this podcast came from, right? It's just building this network over time.

    That's added value to me. Now I'm giving back and I want to add that value to everybody else. whoever [00:53:00] decides to listen to these. But for you personally, and maybe just to kind of talk about the power of networking and why it's valuable, not everybody's extroverted. I guarantee that most, I think more people are introverted in architecture than, than extroverted.

    So it's, it's difficult, but just talk about the value from your perspective of networking, in person events and, and where that value can be, can be found and had, um, for the benefit.

    Ryan Cameron: Yeah, it it takes a while it doesn't happen overnight, but I

    think

    my path if people were interested, I Probably was an introvert. I'm definitely not an extrovert. I'm maybe an ambivert I can

    like

    just kind of go between, between

    them. I

    definitely like smaller groups. Um, so getting up on, on stage and speaking at 40 or so, you know, different conferences.

    I'll be speaking at AIA Nebraska. I'll be speaking at AIA Louisiana later this year. Um, [00:54:00] so that was not a natural progression for me. I, I'm going to give it to you raw. Here's what happened. I got laid off in 2011 or something like that. So Thanksgiving 2011. And, um, that, that kind of stuck with me. And that's when I started that, the architect machines that I haven't mentioned yet, but, uh, because I lost all the models that I was creating and they weren't necessarily my property.

    I was being paid from the firm that I worked for went out of business, but, and I never wanted that to happen to anybody ever. So I created architect machines, which is like a model. I just would upload my Revit models and Dynamo scripts and Grasshopper scripts and say, take them for free. Like, I don't want to lose them.

    I got them backed up on. You know, this website that has backup to backup to backup. So anybody can have it. There's free, free to log in and download a bunch of cool Dynamo scripts. Um, and so that's, that's what happened there. And then I, I thought about it and I was getting involved, um, eventually got hired at another firm. Um, [00:55:00] and I got involved in putting on a conference and that was like BIM workshops, again, Carla Edwards, Todd Shackelford, Bill Allen, a whole bunch of like HDR, Louie, Daily Deal, our group of folks, and that was in Omaha, Nebraska. And I went from like helping, you know, like I mentioned, my wife actually did the website for him. Um, I went from that side of things to actually presenting at it. And like, Steven Schell introduced me at my first ever speaking gig. Like, that's a huge, huge honor. That guy is amazing. Um. And so I started speaking and that led to another speaking gig and that led to another speaking thing. And all of a sudden I'm speaking at AU and BUILD, and I even got some research published and presented at Healthcare Design. Um, so a very mixed, like an M shaped person, right? Not a T shape or a pi shape. Like, very broad, very like,

    I go

    deep in like a lot

    of different categories, I feel like. Um, and so that just, I meet this person and I saw him again at another conference, and I [00:56:00] saw him again at another conference, and hey, we should team up. And that's like, that's how my relationship with like, Cesar Escalante started. Like, we've been friends for about a decade, because we just, when we're together, we just kick butt. It's like, sorry, like we just do, we're just, I don't know why, we just really Get along. We have a lot of the same common, common traits coming. Um, yeah, so, um, that's how that all started. And that's taken about 15 years, um, to do that. Was it 20? Okay, maybe not 15. 2012 to 2024. And so, yeah, that led to, you know, being published in, in Randy's book. I'm, I'm heavily featured in

    his

    Superusers book. Um, and it's just constantly, you know, getting on an airplane. And putting together, um, great material. Again, like, Cesar and I, we, I, I, I'm not, I'm not there to present to do a bad job. I'm there to be top speaker. and and we would consistently be top speaker. It's, it's gotta be great material. Right, Evan? Like, this is why you do the

    podcast.

    You, [00:57:00] you, it's gotta be great material. You've gotta have your, your research done. It's gotta be, Top notch world class stuff. That's just how I how I think of it. That's where I've I'm not there yet But like like that's that's where I want to be and so

    that's

    that's where all the network

    and connections and the human connections All came in and just slowly and slowly, you know, the business card pile started adding up I was giving away tablets at AU I talked to NVIDIA into giving me like 20 tablets when they were making tablets still I'd give those away at AU at my session and it's just, I've had the most incredible fun time like racing

    Ferraris and stuff with, with, uh, some folks for free.

    I just get out there. It's, you can have

    a ton of

    Evan Troxel: That's great. Well, and, and those conferences, to me, the value of those conferences is the people who attend them, right? And, and to have those conversations after the presentations, because that is really where you get to know people, right? Like you, when it's not driven by the agenda of the [00:58:00] presentation or the order of the slides, it's like, well, what, what else is going on there?

    What are the actual struggles? What are the things below the surface that we can dig into? And, you know, let's go grab a beer and talk about it, or let's go grab some food, or let's go grab some coffee, or let's sit down right here in the hallway. There's so many great conversations happening. And, again, like, just to bring it back to the show, the idea of publishing those for other people to hear, I find is, it's incredibly useful for, to build the community

    around these amazing conversations and the amazing people that are the basis of these conversations and why they're passionate about doing what they're doing.

    Uh, that to me is the real value of these conferences. I always go for the people, not for the classes, not for the symposium. Sorry, Ryan, but like the,

    like there's people in that audience, right? Who are in there and those keynote speakers that like we've said many times during this talk, it's like you had to be there.

    You did, you had to be there, right? To, because if you just download the [00:59:00] PowerPoint, you are not going to get all the information and you don't get what, what was happening in that room at that time. So, and, and you know, there's say what you want about hybrid work and remote and, and onsite and all those things.

    Right. But. There is a value to being around other people and sharing ideas or just absorbing ideas through things that you hear in real time during those conversations and during the right after those presentations. So I just want to put a plug out there for people who are, you know, thinking about TAP symposiums and hearing about these things.

    Like there is a lot of value, uh, and information that's shared at these that you have to be there. So I'm just putting it out there. Great. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to Tell everybody about TAP and I'm hoping that this will bring some more exposure and awareness to technology and architecture practice and the knowledge community.

    Um, we'll put links to everything where people can find out more about that on, [01:00:00] in the show notes for this episode. Also put a link in there to connect with you on LinkedIn. And, uh, is there anything else that you want to let people know about before we say just, um, yeah, come, come help us make it better than it, than it is now. Yeah, we need your help.

    Ryan Cameron: Love it.

    Evan Troxel: Great call to action. All right. Well, Ryan, it's been a pleasure and, uh, I'm sure we'll talk soon. Be able to do this again, uh, have another conversation. So thanks so Thanks.


    27 August 2024, 1:00 pm
  • Confluence podcast S2E3

    AI in Architectural Practice

    Confluence podcast S2E3

    Charles Portelli of Perkins&Will joins the show to talk about the themes presented in his talk at the Confluence event in Brooklyn, New York, focusing on the application of AI and machine learning in architectural practice. Key discussion points include strategies for handling unstructured data, the practical implications of AI for project management and design, and how emerging technologies can revolutionize architectural practices.

    As a Digital Innovation Strategist at Perkins&Will, Charlie takes us behind the scenes and offers a deep dive into the dynamics and evolving processes within architectural teams and shares his experiences in integrating AI tools to enhance productivity and innovation. The episode also explores the future of the profession and provides valuable advice for architecture students and professionals.

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    21 August 2024, 10:35 pm
  • 163: ‘Confusing Evolution With Innovation’, with Nirva Fereshetian
    163: ‘Confusing Evolution With Innovation’, with Nirva Fereshetian

    Nirva Fereshetian joins the podcast to talk about the complexities of implementing and managing digital practice within an architecture firm, including the challenges posed by tool fatigue, the importance of understanding business problems, and the intricacies of vetting and adopting new technology.

    Our discussion covers the evolving role of technology in architectural practice, the benefits of collaboration between firms within the AEC industry, and the importance of building a continuous learning culture. Nirva also shares insights on integrating technology seamlessly into architectural practices and fostering innovation through effective communication and relationship-building.

    Episode links:

    About Nirva Fereshetian:

    Nirva Fereshetian is a Principal & Chief Information Officer at CBT Architects, a Boston based award winning design firm providing services nationally and internationally in Architecture, Interior Design & Urban Design. With an undergraduate degree in Architecture and master’s degree in Architecture & Computation from UCLA, her career has been at the intersection of business and technology solving business challenges with the right tools and people. She specializes in leading and managing technology solutions in creative design environments, technology adoption and change management. She is currently responsible for aligning technology strategy to meet primary business objectives. She leads multiple teams within the Digital Practice group, including Design Technology, Business Technology and Computational Design. She is a results driven Technology executive delivering Practice Services (BIM, AR, VR, Automation), Knowledge Services (Collaboration, Corporate Knowledge, Training management) and Business Technology Services (Infrastructure Management, Vendor Relations, Application Deployment). Her experience includes delivery of cost-effective information services, outsourced business models, virtualization, cloud computing, collaborative technologies, and business analytics.

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    Episode Transcript:

    TRXL 163: ‘Confusing Evolution With Innovation’, with Nirva Fereshetian
    [00:00:00]
    Evan Troxel: Welcome to the Troxel podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. And in this episode, I welcome Nirva Fereshetian. Nirva is a Principal and Chief Information Officer at CBT Architects, which is a Boston based award winning design firm providing services nationally and internationally in architecture, interior design, and urban design.
    Nirva holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and a master's degree in architecture and computation from UCLA. At CBT, she leads multiple teams within the digital practice group, including design technology, business technology, and computational design. And in her day to day role as CBT's CIO, she was also named one of the Top Women in Tech in Boston this year.
    In this episode, Nirva and I explore the complexities of implementing and managing digital practice within an architecture firm, including the challenges posed by tool [00:01:00] fatigue, the importance of understanding business problems, and the intricacies of vetting and adopting new technologies. Our discussion covers the evolving role of technology in architectural practice, the benefits of collaboration between firms within the AEC industry, and the importance of building a continuous learning culture.
    Nirva also shares her insights on integrating technology seamlessly into architectural practice and fostering innovation through effective communication and relationship building. As always, my ask of you is to help the show by subscribing to Troxel on YouTube and in your favorite podcast app to let me know that you're a fan.
    If you're watching this video on YouTube right now, please click that like button, and if you'd like to get an email when episodes are published with all the links and other information from the episode, you can sign up at trxl.co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at that site as well.
    Again, that's [00:02:00] trxl.co. So, thank you for listening, and now, without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Nirva Fereshetian.
    ​
    Evan Troxel: to the podcast. Great to have you and see you again. It hasn't been that long, but it's always a pleasure to
    speak with you.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Well, thank you for having me, Evan. Um, I have certainly been the beneficiary of listening to so many great conversations you've had with other guests. So, I'm hoping that, uh, this conversation will be a good one for others.
    Evan Troxel: I'm sure it will be. I, you know, I want to focus on the practice side and definitely give voice to that part of it. part of AEC tech, right? Because the practice side has to implement, we have to train people, we have to vet the software and the tech and we have to roll it out. And I know that you know how difficult that is, but I want to give voice to that and what [00:03:00] digital practice leaders are dealing with out there in the real world, not just kind of the fantasy world where everything works perfectly because. Turns out it doesn't, doesn't really go that, it's not smooth sailing like everybody
    hopes it could be, right? So give us an idea of, of your, what your role is at CBT. I mean, we've, let's assume that I've already read your bio because people listening to this will have already heard it, but introduce what, what you're actually doing because there's, there's a title, but then there's what you actually do at a firm and, and give us an idea of the size of CBT and, and where your
    practice is located.
    Okay.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Right. Um, sure. Um, so the title is chief information officer, but as you said, uh, title is, uh, one thing, but what we actually do in different firms, depending on size of firms or the practice culture, it's a lot, a little different. Um, for me, um, um, for the, due to our size, um, it's everything digital. But my main interest [00:04:00] is that I have an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree in architecture.
    So my main difference is, um, the intersection of technology and architecture. But firms our size, I also have to take care of everything else. That is the framework. So, um, a lot of learning that has happened on that end. So, um, we have a business technology group. Uh, Design technology group, computational technology group, and a couple of years before, I've added a knowledge manager and a training, um, um, team member who is attached to our digital practice, um, and not to, um, HR, or, um, so it has been really, um, a journey, sort of, and my responsibilities have grown as the culture and the tech and the, um, implementation of things have changed, um, um, Recently, and more, you know, in the last 10 years, but more recently, right after COVID, um, I think the [00:05:00] opportunity to connect with the business, the opportunity to solve the business problems is what me and the rest of the group are really interested in.
    Evan Troxel: and so maybe you could give, paint a picture of what it, that evolution has looked like and, and maybe not every step along the way, but, but what, what do you traditionally see as, as this kind of a role in a firm and what you used to do versus what you're doing now? Kind of paint, paint a picture of
    what that looks like.
    Nirva Fereshetian: I think the phenomenal difference has been that, um, A lot of, uh, you know, a lot of people have started similar to me, where they have an architecture background and somehow got involved to technology. Um, and, uh, but the major difference I see from now than it was before is that, um, technology has gained, um, to be not really in the forefront still, but to be on the table of the discussion.
    Before [00:06:00] used to be, can you make something work? Or are we using the right version? Or can we get on Revit? We're on AutoCAD. But I think now the difference is, um, do we understand what the business does? Can we solve their problems? Can we enhance the, the, the strategy? Um, and so it's a very different role.
    Um, especially firms our size. Um, I think if you are in the much larger and you still have a lot of segregation of, you know, infrastructure technology and other, um, things versus digital practice, uh, for our size, um, it's really or interdependent. And I think the main purpose of our existence is to show that it's not about the software, it's about the people and it's about how we implement and how we.
    Um, PR it inside our firms. I mean, certainly none of these skills were things [00:07:00] that I learned neither at school nor at graduate school, or so seems a lot of the skill sets that are necessary, um, to, um, implement things is less technical, more, um, I'm not going to call it soft skills, but a lot of understanding, um, and a business acumen, um, uh, Relationship Acumen, PR, everything.
    Everything that comes in that,
    um, scope. Um, it's one thing to be good at the technology, um, but it's another thing to have those skill sets, and not just for me, but even the team members. Um, they have to have that convincing aptitude, um, and the psychology behind the scenes to make something happen.
    Evan Troxel: feel like that's kind of a role of something, at least an outcome that I would like to see come out of episodes like this is giving people the tools to be able to have those conversations because by hearing [00:08:00] us talk about these things, it kind of sets the table for how we talk about technology and the practice of architecture and the merging of those things to give people I don't want to necessarily say the arguments.
    It's not like you're trying to win an argument, but at least present these things in a way that, to your point, drives business forward, solves business problems. And that is a great approach to getting technology implemented in firms. It's not just, here's the latest thing that we should be using, but here's why we should be using it or why we should be testing it and trying to find out if this is the right tool to use.
    Because the end goal is why do we practice architecture at all? Why do we do things the way that we do them? It's not the tools that we actually use, right? You, you want to define the goals and then backfill that with potential ways to accomplish those goals. That could be any number of technology. It could be any number of people, teams, training, [00:09:00] coaches, all kinds of things to get to that end goal.
    But you have to kind of state what that end goal is and then reverse engineer it. And, and to your point, like, Why do we do what we do? What that, that is the real driver and how do we do business? And then how are we gonna achieve those are much more secondary to all that.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Uh, to understand the goal is certainly the first, um, Requirement and a lot of team members when they, I always recommend them to go and sit to different presentations, different lunch sessions, even though it's not involving technology, because that's how you understand the business. And you could see their side of the story.
    Um, so just set up standards and say, you need to follow them or, or set up things. It's just doesn't work. So the goal is the very primary, but I think moving. Um, Achieving that goal is, um, the key element is how to talk about it, how to present it, how to, not just [00:10:00] internally, but even working with the technology companies, even working with the startups, um, it's how you present and how you receive.
    that makes a success. Sometimes, um, they don't understand what the workflow is, although some of them claim to be, have had past architectural experience or, um, not claim, but they really have had it and then moved on to work, um, at a startup. And some do not really understand why are things not working.
    And essentially a lot of it is about how you present it and how you talk about it. Um, Technology is factual, you know, does it work or does it not work, or, but a lot of others, the, that, that part you can fix, what you cannot fix is if you've accidentally messed up the implementation, you know, so, um, sometimes you can never have those people back, um, to use the same tool.
    So, [00:11:00] um, some things that work in other offices don't work in, um, Our office and vice versa. I think to understand the culture to understand sort of to be in their shoes Is how you can implement? You can't just say well, this is our stamp And why are you not following it or this is the tool we use and therefore we're not going to give you the other tool So it doesn't work that way So
    Evan Troxel: how you learned how to do that. If it was just kind of how you're wired already as a person, or if these are techniques that you developed along your journey to get to where you are now, because When I, when I was leading digital practice at my firm, I felt like my success in that role was very much dependent on my career as an architect, getting to that point, working with client groups, learning how to, as a designer, I had to synthesize ideas [00:12:00] from 30 to 50 people on a project into a single, into a real project, right?
    And actually implement their ideas and design. And that happens through building consensus, communicating clearly, taking people through a step by step process to get from A to Z, not just starting at the end, right? And so I developed those skills over two decades to learn how to do that effectively. And then when I stepped into digital practice. I could actually do that inside the firm. I didn't have to go outside the firm anymore, right, to do that. But there's various stakeholders of all different levels inside the firm that you need to build consensus, get everybody on the same page, talk about a, a strategy that, that encompasses all of those aspects of training and PR and communication and implementation and support and all of those things. I'm curious how that worked for you to get to, to where you
    are.
    Nirva Fereshetian: I certainly wasn't [00:13:00] wired like that, so I think it's a and And I think it's, um, the status is always learning and in, in process, you know, so I don't think there is a place you can achieve that you could say, oh, well, I'm perfect at this. I can, I can do any implementation or I can communicate. It's, um, it's personal relationship building inside the firm.
    Um, we, I have tried to rely on, um, the team. Storytelling the way our designers, I've tried, I've aspired to do the storytelling that our designers do on a daily basis when they present to their clients. Um, it is about that and it's hard to explain to younger staff who are very savvy in tools and very savvy in coding and computational design and very frustrated when they cannot find the right words.
    That, um, communication with the parties that they're trying to [00:14:00] work with. And, um, and I always think that there is a, it's all about human relationships, how we can make, we can understand each other and it's less about technology and it's more about trying to relay, um, my position to them and their position to us.
    Um, so how can we bridge the gap, uh, where You know, typical problems are like, we want to, we don't want everyone to do whatever they want, but at the same time, we want to have the leeway for people to experiment. So it's a very fine balance, and I think every day is a new day to figure out how to do it better.
    With who? Depends on who is on the other side. Personalities are different. People's experiences are different. There's always, well, we did this in another office or something. You know, so, there's always that challenge that comes by. And, um, yes, it might [00:15:00] be different with clients, with different team members.
    And we just have to learn to adjust. But we also have to relay properly why are we as technologists saying that these things are important. So, it's, it's, you know, it's a very collaborative and yet very fractured process to me. Like, the designers at the front end produce things, um, and, um, without really, um, I'm not going to use the word caring, without really thinking through of how downstream.
    that might or might not affect, um, other people's work. And then the kind of, the ball is passed forward and other team members take the, uh, model. And then it's passed forward and other team members take the CA process and pass forward to the owner or, so my take has been like, how can we make sure that all of us care about the same thing?
    Because everything is connected and it's not just, you know, do my task [00:16:00] and throw it. Over the fence and send it to somebody else and the success of a firm I think is about understanding that and then carrying that success on a project level outside of our firm It's highly corroborative, but very much not caring about the transitional aspects And once those pieces come together, um, you are have a successful project It shouldn't be that hard to convince at each stage that there is something to think about when you move forward Move the baton.
    Evan Troxel: You have not once said, and I congratulate you, you never said the word handoff. And this gets back to that communication thing, right? It's like, what words do you use? And, and you're using like, Words that are building, you're using, moving the ball forward, you know, progressing, you're talking about this in a, handing the baton, like it's a progression to the next, who's going to take this and build upon it, right?
    Instead of, [00:17:00] The idea of handing off has always been kind of a dirty word in practice, right? It's like the designers hand it off to production, then the production people just grumble, grumble, grumble, hate the designers for all these things that they, no, it's a, how can we smoothly transition and get the most without having to redo work, without having to guess at what somebody was trying to do, without, You know, screwing it up. They did it wrong, and now we have to build, we garbage in, garbage out. Like, there's a, there's definitely a completely different approach. And that, to me, I think, is one of the, one of the really cool things that digital practice enables. And to your point earlier, where earlier in practice, technology was very much kind of an add on menu item.
    It was like, well, do you want renderings? And then you're going to pay for those, and you're going to get them at these milestones. And it was really, It really was because it was so hard and it was so time consuming. It really was an add on, but now it's not like renderings are free, right? That's just part of the design process. And that has really evolved. [00:18:00] And that's just one example of this kind of integration, uh, and not only integration, but it's like, Technology is the backbone, right? It no longer is an add on. It is the way that we deliver projects and getting everybody on board with, with that process and how it can be utilized in a very efficient and positive way to enable success at every step along the path of project delivery is really where digital practice is.
    And early on when you were just talking about digital practice at CBT, you mentioned off four or five groups. Can you mention what those are again to kind of give everybody a holistic picture of what digital practice is? Because I'm sure it
    didn't start off like that.
    Like it probably started off as
    IT, like that's right.
    And, but now it's
    evolved into something
    Nirva Fereshetian: Right. So, it started as IG T and I was the component of computer aided design or taking care of the um, um, [00:19:00] specific tools for this vertical. But, I have tried very hard the last ten, more than ten years to remove that word word. Um, and not talk about IT, but talk about digital practice being, encompassing all of that.
    Um, so there is the business technology, um, which is just, um, basic, um, need for, uh, things to work. You know, um, whether that is internet access, your devices, your communication, and, uh, Um, design technologists who are, um, individuals with architectural background, passionate with technology, try to, try to stay, um, 5 or 10 steps ahead of everybody and, um, do the research.
    And then computational design is, um, something we have tried to, um, Plan and do for the last, uh, last 4 or 5 years and now has taken off in terms of the necessity as being part of the design technology. [00:20:00] Colleagues and then, um, the last 1 was, um, something we added right before coven and because I thought that, um, Just parading these technologies without proper training with proper monitoring of those training.
    So that's a knowledge manager that we have that manages our learning programs or our individual set up programs. Um, and, uh, lunch and learns, or, you know, I think a lot of it comes from, um, seeing, um, so. The ticketing system is a database of everything, Evan. I feel like if you look at it, you can figure out what is the pulse of the company, where are we lacking, why are they asking so many questions, something is broken, we haven't set it up correctly, or we haven't taught them or trained them.
    So a lot of the training ideas come from that. So if it's repeatedly asking the same thing or repeatedly we're having [00:21:00] issues, um, in, um, um, setting up a model or whatever that means that I always say it's not them, it's us. And I want to make sure that there is no them and us. I shouldn't even have used that word.
    I've tried to make it feel like we are embedded in their teams, that we are the partnership and not, hey, call them and something's wrong. And, um, so. That is the entire effort. Are we successful a hundred percent of the time? No. Like I said, it's always a new day and a new way of working, but we want to be considered as part of their embedded teams, be part of them, be part of the business.
    And even on the business technology side, which is a little bit further out than all the others architecturally, I always tell them that if you don't understand what we're doing, you can't fix our devices. Because you have to understand what the outcome of the business is and what they're trying to do to give any [00:22:00] kind of support.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. That, that's a great point. And so when you said ticketing system, obviously
    you're talking about help
    Nirva Fereshetian: Helpdesk, yeah.
    Yeah, but all these, all these three, four groups look at that ticketing system, you know? So, yeah, so it's one common system. If the, whether there's a computational design issue or a design technology issue or a knowledge issue or some training issue, everybody looks at it. And You know, it's kind of, to me, it's the psychology of the firm, you know, you could really detect there what is the pulse of the firm, what is our, um, uh, support structure, um, how many people are having problems, and so it's, it's a lot of help for decision making, just, just in general.
    Evan Troxel: Mm hmm.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Are people even, Evan, are people In the right groups, you know, uh, in the right teams with their skill sets, you know, sometimes, as you know, scheduling happens, um, on the [00:23:00] fly in all of our offices. Well, let's grab this person and that person because they're not, they're available. Um, so we can detect that immediately that the person might not be, um, available.
    In the right role or might need something to be in help of or training of some kind to be in the right role. So I, I feel like, um, we're trying to connect technology, the right technology with the right people constantly, whether it's inside or outside.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. That, that's interesting. How, how large is CBT?
    How many
    Nirva Fereshetian: Oh, we're between 200 and 250. Depends when you ask us. Yeah.
    Evan Troxel: Okay. I'm just curious because I think, you know, there's smaller firms
    that don't have help
    desks implemented. Right. And so at some point it becomes like, this is how we manage the flow of information in these ways, like for support or for information, right. That you're talking about. So, uh, smaller firms probably struggle with that a little bit more and they don't have the data to look at.
    But I think [00:24:00] this kind of makes an argument for a system like this, because if you want insight into the pulse of. And, and it has to be a thing where people get results out of, or else they're not going to use it. Right. So if you have a help desk and you're just collecting information, you're never acting on it, like
    that doesn't work either.
    Right.
    So people just won't use it. And then you still won't have insight into the pulse of what's actually going on on the floor of your office. So this is, these all go together. And I think what's so interesting about kind of what the structure that you just laid out as far as digital practice goes and how, Yeah. It operates as one unit, but you have several different special roles within that or groups that it really is a holistic, strategic endeavor. And you have to think about it that way, or else it's just not going to be effective in
    your organization.
    Nirva Fereshetian: right. And I see it like, um, A practice unit, you know, like, you know, interior design is a practice unit and then urban design is a practice unit. And it's a practice unit. That kind of, [00:25:00] um, is the center of all of the practice units to try to help as, you know, it's not only just. One size doesn't fit all outside of our firms, but one size doesn't fit all even inside of our firms, depending on the scale of a project or, um, the typology of a project and, um, the people that are involved in the project.
    Evan Troxel: When I used to present the structure of digital practice and how it would be comma thing at the firm that I was at, first I thought about it as like we have these different practice groups and digital practice was a layer that kind of ran on top of all of those. But later on, I switched the diagram to be more like what you just said,
    where it's a hub
    in the middle. And all of these pieces come off of, but also feed back into. That hub, because it really is, like I said earlier, like the backbone of how we deliver projects. We're not going to do, we're not going to deliver projects any other way. We're not going to deliver Vellum, we're not going to, [00:26:00] right, we're not going to do Blueprints, we're not going to make, we don't have the Ammonia machines.
    We're not doing it like that anymore, so we actually have to reconfigure the way that we think about this, so that everybody can use it to its fullest potential. Because if you, if you can't get out of your old way of thinking about the way that technology was implemented as a separate layer, if you can't think about it the new way, it's not going to actually reach its potential in the, in the
    organization.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Right, and I think it's the hub that, and the success of the hub is how far the extensions are and that relationship. To the surrounding,
    um, I don't know what you, whatever you call it, either typologies or studios or whatever you have in terms of structure of an office or practice units, other practice units.
    So, if you have, and I've tried to establish that on different levels of communication. So I have a group of people that I've picked from those practice units [00:27:00] as I call them like, um, technology allies, you know, so to kind of run some of our ideas with them. Um, first. Um, to say, hey, is this right? And then also get information from them as the inner workings of their practices and what their, what their experience has been.
    Why are people complaining? Uh, what is it that not, what is it that, um, truly not working? Not the technology, you know? So those are, like, not the fix and break things, but what, what is the process? And in some instances it, the solution is ha might not have anything to do with technology, but it might have something to do with the way the process is set up or the, the way client demands are different from other, uh, projects.
    So
    there is so many factors and essentially, um, I think that we have changed processes. Yes, we don't use vellum and we don't use other things, but in some instances we haven't changed the way [00:28:00] we think. So. We, there, there is this, uh, you know, I think I can give the analogy of if your native language is not English, you kind of end up thinking or counting or whatever in your head with your native language, although you are saying it in English, right?
    So I feel that that's the analogy. A lot of people are so much, um, um, rooted in the old way of doing things, even though the technology has changed and it's a PDF now, but, uh, and not a piece of paper. but their thinking hasn't changed.
    and, and and that's fundamentally an obstruction in moving forward. And, and that goes outside of our firm into, you know, uh, not change contractual agreements.
    Now, I feel in some ways, the technology is a little bit ahead of the game always and kind of retracts a little to support this types of, um, Thought [00:29:00] processes that are not changing. So it's funny because last week someone told me and on a projects like, Oh, you know that, you know, what do you mean the RFIs will be less?
    Well, then that party that is benefiting from Making money out of the RFIs is not happy. So, Evan, how, how can you solve that problem when technology is out there?
    Yeah, technology is out there to solve that, but we don't want to solve it because certain people were out of business for that, right? So, the same goes to, internally, when we show all these tools about, um, clash detections or other ways of figuring out things and solving problems before it gets to site, then these They ask us, well, are we contractually supposed to deliver these things?
    Why are we doing these things? Well, wait a minute. You know, we're,
    that's what, yeah. Which is why I said
    that it says it's a collaborative firm, uh, collaborative ecosystem. But it's not [00:30:00] actually a collaborative ecosystem because, Um, we have, we're still thinking the old ways, we're delivering in new technologies and I can't wait to see what that AI thing is going to do in terms of that type of process, right?
    So,
    um, we, the tools have changed but mine, it's hard to change mindsets.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah. I, for the longest time I said behavior and I found out that people don't like their behavior to change. They don't like that idea, right? So mindset's a better word to use there because it's not so offensive to people. Uh, but, but your, your point is absolutely correct. It's, there's this, picture that gets painted of an ideal future scenario. And the only thing we can actually disrupt is ourselves and our processes, because there are so many hard constraints just outside of the organization, whether it's who's doing plan check or how they're accepting submittals or what's in the [00:31:00] contract, who wrote that contract? How has that ever been updated?
    Like there's so many
    things that we're kind of butting up against all the time. Like Clifton Harness from TestFit said, if you want to change things. The industry changed the
    owner architect contract
    like that. The agreement is where you need, you need to start there, not in the digital twin that you deliver, right?
    Because like that, that to me is like, you're, you're aiming at the wrong thing. You have to start at the fundamentals that are actually going to have. the ability to ripple throughout the ecosystem to actually create change if you want to see change happen. But so many times we're focused on the shiny thing that looks like it's going to do something when in fact it's just, it's never going to make it because we can't get past the other barriers that are really hard to disrupt because that's somebody's That's where they're making their money, right? There's no incentive there to get rid of that for them, and so why would they? And we fight up against that all the time, and I think it's important for [00:32:00] technology companies to understand that ecosystem approach that we have to operate within as architects and engineers because we don't have control over the changes that are happening over there.
    We have to work within the system that exists. It is evolving slowly, um, but it's very slow. Like, let's be honest about that.
    Mm hmm.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah. And I think, uh, you know, I always, um, you know, there is all these things about innovate and what firms are innovating. And I've spoken in places where the titles of the conferences are innovate, and it's hard to see that a lot of things a lot of us are doing can be labeled as innovate. Um, I think innovate means to me that a fundamental change of the practice overall.
    The entire ecosystem, we can only innovate when we get there using different tools and kind of solving internal problems or evolving to better practices. [00:33:00] Yes, it gets better. You know, we get better at it. It gets
    less. Yeah, it's not. Yes, it's absolutely evolution. And, you know, I know the reputation is that change doesn't come easily.
    Um, to specifically, it doesn't come easily to any humans, but specifically to this industry largely because we are chained to all these mindsets and not until those are collectively worked on and changed. I don't see innovation. I see gradual evolving of things to get a little bit better than yesterday, but I can't see innovate.
    You know, there's some examples of, you know. Um, there's always that Uber innovating, you know, the whole process of, uh, the taxi, um, situation. Um, I, I think that's a, like a, um, a complete change of how we do things, um, that can be called, you know, beginning of innovation. But [00:34:00] Swapping some tools for others or creating some automations, which are necessary, um, to avoid waste of time or redundancies or things like that are good things, definitely, but not necessarily innovating.
    Evan Troxel: There's confusion around those words because the confusion even comes from within our firms themselves, right? Our marketing departments in our firms want to. Pat ourselves on the back in front of our clients and say, look,
    we're innovating. Right. And so there's, there's confusion because a lot of times it's like, well, we're doing AI in our firms and here's some, maybe some different ways that we're doing AI, right?
    So that at least we look like we're. Um, but the fact is like, a lot of times that's, that's like innovation theater being put out there and it's not actually taking a foothold in the offices themselves. And, and it becomes this [00:35:00] game that we play with words to position ourselves to get the right perspective, like to, to, I shouldn't say get the right perspective, but to, to tailor the perspective that others
    have about
    us, right?
    And so then we start using those words inside the firms, and then there's confusion, like what's actually happening here? Is it really innovation or is it just evolution? And, and, and words do matter, but at the same time, getting back to kind of, people's interests, like where the incentives are. The incentive is to show that we're leaders.
    And how are we doing that? We're doing it through innovation. But how are we really doing that? By automating parking layout. Like, not really, right? So, we are
    at odds with these
    Nirva Fereshetian: Alright, I, I, I, but I think I've learned, um, you know, like I said, there is a lot of things that I learned along the process of skills that, um, not that I, I, that skills that I should be interested in improving, not that I am there, but perception is everything, Evan, you know, so, [00:36:00] yeah, so, even in technology, perception is everything, even though it is, you know, Technology to me is just black and white.
    Does it work or does it not work? You know, so I, I can never be a salesperson because when those people start, they can embellish everything. Yeah.
    So, so,
    but still perception is everything. Like, I'm going to come back to what I said in terms of how you. How you, uh, present it, how you say it, how you talk about it, and I think, uh, you know, we work with dozens of startups.
    It's something that I am very, very passionate about. That it is anybody in this ecosystem needs to contribute to those, all those people that are trying hard to innovate, you know? Do something very different, or go up against incumbents that never Had, had, was not a real reality in the last decade. So I think by contributing [00:37:00] whatever, you know, I think we're a beneficiary of others who've contributed and worked with the, um, startups.
    And so we need to put in some things to our share of it. So I feel very, um, passionate about that. And we have worked with lots of them. Um, but I feel like, Them and us, it's all about perception, and sometimes they're not good at showing, you know, um, they're not good at presenting, they're not good at, um, although their product is good.
    And sometimes they're so good at presenting, but their product is not good. You know, so, yeah, so, and the same goes for us internally, um, it's how good are we, um, to communicate with all and with all those other practice units and, um, collaborate. I think it's all about how we're perceived. And once we're, you know, we're, once with a bad perception is broken, Evan, it's, it's [00:38:00] like trust.
    It's hard to get it back. Right.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, I was speaking with a building product manufacturer just yesterday, actually, and innovation is happening. Evolution, I'll say, is happening in their, in their category of product, but maybe an old version of that project, of that product. didn't fly with architects, right? And therefore the category has been written off.
    And it's very hard to reestablish yourself as, well, we fixed all those problems and now
    you can count on
    us. That's a super hard barrier to overcome. And so you're talking about that from like technology standpoint, right? It's the same. It's, this is a human condition. Like this, it happens in all categories.
    It's like, Oh, I don't trust that brand of vacuum
    because.
    Nirva Fereshetian: You've had one
    Evan Troxel: me after a week. It doesn't, yeah, it's, it's all based on experience and it is very hard to, to reestablish, um, maybe a new
    version of that in the market once you've already created [00:39:00] a, a bad situation. I want to talk about these startups that you're working with, not necessarily by name, but just in implementation, because something that you've talked about
    is tool fatigue.
    I've I've categorized it as digital fatigue or app fatigue. It's like more and more of our time is consumed sitting in front of a screen, whether it's a desktop or a tablet or a phone, right? It's just more and more screens. And there's so, we're being inundated with with the tool explosion that's going on in AEC, but everywhere else as well, right?
    So they, these do bleed into each other for sure. And you talked about the different groups that operate under digital practice. And I'm interested from an implementation standpoint, because we're getting the fire hose of new tools, especially right now, it feels like more than ever now with, with AI and everything's AI, and there's all these different. Really specific AI tools, not to really
    go down the AI lane here, but just tools in [00:40:00] general in AEC. I'm, I'm interested in vetting and implementation and support and training. And just for you to kind of tell a story about how you go about trying to accomplish that. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because these tech companies come to you like they are the only thing that you need to pay attention to right now. Because that's their world, right? It makes sense, but at the same time, they don't really look around and have the bigger picture perception that you have to have as a digital practice leader, CIO of CBT architects to say, we have to look at everything and how everything works together and how we would roll this out to 200 plus people across this many offices, and then we have to support it and we have to train. Like all of that responsibility falls on you. All they have to do is sell you the subscription. Right. And get you to buy into that subscription. But talk about the real world challenges with all of those things. Once it actually gets through the wall and maybe even step before that, how do you, how do you even go about vetting [00:41:00] or trying out or getting excited about these tools that are
    on offer?
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah, I think, I think, um, the, you know, I don't know, there are lists, AEC hub everywhere, over a thousand tools to look at, and,
    Evan Troxel: Only a
    Nirva Fereshetian: yeah, I don't know, over a thousand or whatever, but also the entire other ecosystem of non AEC tools that there is also, uh, a thousand of them to look at, and I think that, um, It's very much for me that I'm, one of the other skill sets is, uh, uh, I now investigate how they're backed up and what's their VC funding, things that I never looked at before, Evan, like, uh,
    Evan Troxel: Because of longevity
    Nirva Fereshetian: right.
    Oh, because things that, you know, I always say that we're putting bets on the table. Um, and sometimes the company is disappearing. Like, uh, we never attested one, but like, I think the company's named co design or something like after four or five years, they just. Disappeared.
    Right. They closed for good. And, [00:42:00] and that doesn't only happen with startups.
    It happens with, uh, established companies, you know, like, um, Autodesk decided that they're not going to support Formit anymore, although they, they
    really hard pushed it for a few years before that. So it's, it's, um, there is certainly risks. Um, but I think part of it is that I kind of categorize tools. Um, it's very important to look at them as to what process they belong to.
    So, for the front end, and which is why everybody, you know, when you ask, does an office use AI, and mostly they talk about the image generation part of AI, because, you know, I think not only that is the most, you know, design seems to be the king of our, you know, it's always the flashiest, uh, role in our offices, you know, so, but beyond [00:43:00] that, it's more of a one to one relationship with the tool.
    So. if it's an individual workflow, it's relatively easy to say, well, we can test all of these things. And it's just personal preference to say yes or no. So the examples are that if, if, um, they want to use Verus because they used it a couple of times and they think it's good, or even on a basic level, the, you know, we have designers who want Enscape, others want Twinmotion, others want something else, but those are relatively easy to say, well, we can test it.
    And even if we don't. You know, if there's personal prefaces, we can, uh, kind of consent to that, right? So, this designer uses that and not that. Um, but when it moves beyond that, it becomes extremely critical to make, um, try to make good decisions. Um, and kind of pass it through, it says, uh, a couple of things.
    Does, is this, uh, uh, solving a problem? Is this better [00:44:00] than what we, is it replacing another tool we have? Is it an adding to another tool we have? Um, definitely. Is it providing some, um, service that we can, um, do now that we weren't able to do before because we didn't have the tool? It has to kind of comply to one of these things.
    Is it faster than what we have? So we, Kind of, I divide it to parts. It's some things the design technology team looks at some products as a replacement to an existing product that is not working or people in the teams have heard it or tried something and they think that it solves a problem they have.
    So our initial step is to actually create a small, um, testing, uh, group, whether it's inside our teams or, uh, the design technology and kind of validate that before we move on. And in many instances, it's real hard conversations with the [00:45:00] startups to explain to them if that fits or does not fit in our workflow.
    So, even established products is hard, uh, to implement if it doesn't fit. So, sometimes there's so many overlaps, um, the product builds a 3D model, but our designers don't want to use anything but Rhino. So, how does that work out? Because then they ask for the plug in to Rhino to that product and not build it there.
    So, if you don't understand, um, the workflow, Um, if you're trying to build something, um, where there is a industry accepted, uh, sort of industry accepted product, if you're replacing that, you need to at least be as good as that. Don't come before that. You know? Don't come before that because we're not replacing it.
    So there is so many things to look at as barriers [00:46:00] to move, and then there are things that are really expert products, like, I give the example of Upcodes and, um, it just services a small group of people, you know, our code experts use it. But then we proliferated that to say, okay, it's also kind of a training and education for people who are up and, up and coming and trying to learn that.
    But that's sliver of a, you know, it's not, it's not really everybody. Um, so the last thing is, the most challenging thing is to implement platform products, which are supposed to be used by everyone. Otherwise it doesn't make sense.
    So, and those decisions are really hard to revert. So if we made a mistake, and we don't want to use that, or we want to transition to another product like that, it takes a long time, because all that data sets are there, we have to move them to the new place, we have to train everybody, um, so the having the training [00:47:00] person attached to our department certainly helps, but, um, really looking at all of the implementations in their own context is what we try to do.
    We try to make sure that we're not inundating people. So for example, a lot of things are now possible and available in Construction Cloud, including marking up drawings or whatever. So the question is, do we really need these other extra tools? But they're used to it, Evan, you know, so like, it takes a, it takes a, a whole training session to say, well, you could stay in this one product and do some of the things that you're doing with parts and pieces of other tools.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. I think the, the, what you're, what you're saying about implementing at the platform level is it is very difficult because of the reasons it plus, plus cost, right? It's, it's also a very expensive endeavor plus training and all of [00:48:00] the things that you have to do to bring people up to speed and keep them up to speed as it evolves. But then those platforms naturally leave holes, like they can't do everything perfectly well. So we see startups coming in with really specific things that they do and Now we're feeling like okay Well, I need to use this for the feasibility
    study then I need to
    use this for the programming I need to use this for the Conceptual design, then I need to use this for the design development and construction documents, and I need all these other plug ins to do all the little holes that those platforms leave, and all of a sudden we've just, we've gotta know a lot about a lot of apps out there.
    And this is, and then you have to manage that. Your group manages all of the, all of the help desk tickets that come in for all those different apps. And I, and I just, it's worth saying all this because this is what firms are dealing with every single day. And then there's the cloud, and then there's where are the files, and then there's the governance and [00:49:00] the ethics around the AI stuff.
    And there's. There's all these other pieces to that puzzle, and it is incredibly complex to manage all that, and have happy users, and get great outcomes, and all of those things, and that's what, that's what you're in charge
    of at your firm,
    Nirva Fereshetian: Right.
    I, I think that we have to learn, um, um, celebrate small victories in order to get the,
    the, to kind of have the bigger victories. So sometimes the, these tools plug holes, but you have to really think about, um, was it really worth the time and effort to learn something totally new because it plugged a temporary hole.
    Some of them are plugging real holes. and really worthwhile to give it an effort. And the other thing is like, um, the, the, the way some of the startups are progressing is incredible. You know, something that did not work a couple of [00:50:00] weeks ago, they can make it work in two weeks. So you can't just leave them and say, well, it didn't work.
    So in some of our instances, um, it's so refreshing to talk to owners and, um, Um, directly or developers directly on the issue, um, and immediately get response and fix it. And those are really, um, great experiences we're having in terms of using products that, you know, develop that fast or change that fast.
    Um,
    Evan Troxel: Versus the ones that
    Nirva Fereshetian: that's right. That's versus the ones that, you know, people have been complacent about, right? So it's not going to work. That's it. We're set where we have 10 different workarounds and that's how we're going to live. Uh, because we know that nobody's going to do anything about it. Yeah.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah, so, so how do you keep, uh, a, or how do you develop and And just keep a [00:51:00] continued, um, like learning environment going, because there's probably all kinds of experiences around that. There's the, like, oh, I'm just going to keep doing it the way I've always done it because I know it works, and I'm okay with the holes because I know the ten workarounds that I need to do, versus, you know, vetting through a myriad of options of, of promises to fill those holes and finding the one needle in the haystack that actually works. Like, okay, that could be fatiguing just going through that process. Right. And that, that leaves, you could get a lot of different outcomes there. I'm just curious about how you keep this culture of continuous learning going and create. time for people to actually try new products because that's, I think, another thing a lot of firms struggle with, right?
    It's like, we have deadlines. We don't have time to figure out if this new tool is going to do something for us. And so
    can you talk about that side of
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah. I mean, time, time is essentially the root of the challenge. [00:52:00] Actually, it's not the cost of the products. It's actually time, uh, to you. Um, implement it properly, test it properly. Some of the startups don't understand that things can't happen in 30 days. You know, so, oh, yeah, you're going to have to give, I'd rather pay, um, and have a paid trial.
    So we all can sanely think about it, you know, rather than 30 days and so and so had the deadline and all we good intentions. We want to try it and they'll have a lot of eager people who want to try it. But, um, you know, how the deadline driven are we and how last minute projects change and then people get pulled from those.
    So I think. Time is really a challenge. And, um, a lot of times it's the person's enthusiasm that has made a mark, Evan. And people have gone, if the product is good, have gone above and beyond, uh, to test it, even outside of our working hours to make it work. Um, so, but that, I'm not advocating that at all. But what I'm, [00:53:00] what I have tried to do is present the successes through Through, um, others, not through our team members.
    So, uh, we want to, uh, showcase in our presentations, them, not us. Is, they trust each other more than they trust someone
    saying that, Hey, you know, we think this is better than that, or you need to use this tool and that. So, let's show them. It's all by example. If we haven't been able to successfully make a team use it, make a few people test it, and share the outcomes, then there's nothing to talk about, Evan.
    Absolutely
    Evan Troxel: like, That's great framing. And I think that's a great way to think about it because it may, and it makes so much sense because it actually makes, it puts the impetus on the information coming from them to you rather than the other way around, which like now you're in a mode
    of supporting for success.
    Right. But you're not going to go out and find the [00:54:00] things and then
    force them to use
    Nirva Fereshetian: Right, and it's, it's, if the, we always want, we're always in search of success stories, whether it's computationally, we've helped someone, uh, automate something, or we've helped someone to use a different tool, um, to figure out something, or we asked a, a group of people, like I said, we do have, um, what I call our technology allies inside different practices.
    And we rely on them. Um, and some of them have gone above and beyond to test something to a way that sometimes we, we don't have a real project to test on, so we go back and use an old project, uh, that has that scenario and say, can we, can we, if we had this tool, then would it have made a difference? Um, but these are real, but these are real commitments of time and effort and enthusiasm, um, that not, it's not like everybody has it.
    So, you, [00:55:00] you kind of have to pick and choose and, uh, accommodate people's schedule, which is kind of hard to explain to our startups. Like, they, once we start, they keep emailing me. So. What happens next? Are we doing it? So, are we going to buy it? And unfortunately, I understand their predicament because they have a certain amount of money and a certain amount of time to prove themselves.
    And I think that's the, that's the challenge we have together to minimize. So, understand each other to minimize that. So, it's a beneficiary, we're, we both are a beneficiary of the process. So, which is why I think that this ecosystem needs to collaborate, really collaborate with the big C. You know, so, sometimes, um, for example, I have found it refreshing that, um, some startups have set up calls where many of the people who have tried, like us, other firms, are sharing in the conversation.
    It's not just us and the [00:56:00] startup. But we're getting the outcomes of others who have tested, because we cannot do this alone. And so you, lots of people have made lists of some kinds, and I've commented on the list, and like, don't put things in there that you've never, have never touched or know about, you know?
    And, and so, or make us contribute and say, we've tested this, and I don't mean in a, In a negative way necessarily, you know, but sharing of our experiences and sharing why it worked in some place and did not work in another or contributing on how they continue to develop the product is really important.
    So, one of the other factors is that there remains big name products that are, um, uh, like Rhino and Revit that are the dominant tools and everything else kind of has to talk to them. And if they don't talk to them in the beginning, it's just not going to work. [00:57:00] So,
    Evan Troxel: seems like the strategy is, is it has to talk to them before
    it can replace
    them, right?
    Because, because of the, there's so much already invested by the firms into those platforms. It's going to be very tough to switch to something at, at some point anyway, right? So it has to work its way.
    The Trojan horse
    has to work its
    way into the
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah, and even if it's not replacing them, Evan, it still has to work with them.
    Evan Troxel: Absolutely.
    Yeah.
    Nirva Fereshetian: And, and there's a lack of understanding that and then A lot of overlap, you know, so like I said, so if you're developing your startup and there is a tool out there that is doing some part of your thing very well that I don't see why you're building it.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah,
    Nirva Fereshetian: I don't see why you're building it. Yep.
    Evan Troxel: I want to talk more about your, this, the refreshing change in practice of this, this outward sharing, because I don't, I think that's kind of a, lots of firms have kept things to themselves and they're developing ideas and they're, they want to, they [00:58:00] think it's their IP and they want to keep it to themselves and, and there is much more of a sharing culture developing there.
    Before we go there though, I just wanted to ask, how do you, Spotlight these success stories that you talked about with the people who are doing interesting, useful, valuable things with technology in your firm. Do you, do you have an intranet? Do you post those on there? Do you do it outside of the firm as well?
    Like, how do you approach that and how do you
    actually communicate those
    Nirva Fereshetian: We, um, we internally have, uh, sessions every other week or at least, um, at least two or three times a month that something is profiled, something that has been done. And, uh. Mostly, we try to encourage others to present or co present with them. Um, we developed recently, um, a platform called Employee Experience Platform, uh, which is purely based on, um, communication.
    It's a communication site. And, uh, Not an intranet. I don't want to use that [00:59:00] word, uh, is that as that is like a documentation and a depository of things and this one, so we just Deployed that about a month ago, month and a half ago, and we're trying to use that also as a way and means of internally sharing that information.
    Part of the stuff is like sometimes people complain Oh, I didn't know we knew that or I didn't know we were using that so that's, that's a Equally. So I have tried very hard to pr that externally. Like I said, I've learned a lot and still need to learn a lot to move some of that engagement outside of our firm.
    Um, even
    I've organized things with our clients, with our internally, uh, with our clients and collaborators to have sessions inside to talk about things. How could we have done something better or how could have we collaborated? It starts small. I think the personal relationships are key. We can put things out there, but it's very hard, [01:00:00] Evan, to make them read, to make them see, and even in the communication site that we're trying to push information to, my take has been like, say short things, put an image so they can, yeah, so they can see like something changed, you know, maybe I should, yes, the attention is
    and truthfully, I'm, always worried at the amount of information we're pushing or amount of tools and training we're pushing and I always say that Well, they roll they need to have time to spend to live to live and learn their professional expertise Evan, you know, they're interior designers and architects and urban designers who need to learn and learn Uh, educate, you know, keep, keep, uh, their professional growth, you know, for their topics.
    On top of it, there is an avalanche of tools and technology and things like that. And in some instances, some people can't keep up with it.[01:01:00]
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah, the outward communication also I'm sure helps with recruitment and just, just getting eyeballs on the types of work, the kind of things that you're doing, the way that you're going about doing it to attract talent to the firm, which otherwise is kind of a black box, right? It's like they see a job posting on LinkedIn or wherever, and they, they get to read what their roles and responsibilities would be because they're just like everybody else's roles and responsibilities for that job profile.
    But, but then there's like, To me, it seems like there's this opportunity for these channels to be presented out there for people to tune into and, and get more insight into the practice of architecture at CBT, as an example, and the kinds of user profiles and wins and success stories that you're talking about, that to me is a great way to get the word out about the culture at CBT and the, and so like the audience there is, you know, people who are interested in that content, but [01:02:00] also people who are job hunting, right?
    And looking for a fit for them and their, the kind of culture they want to work for.
    So I could see that being
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah, I think that social media in general, specifically Instagram type things, are mostly translate, you know, um, Mostly they are presenting our culture, mostly it's for recruitment, mostly it's to have an idea of what kind of a firm are we. Um,
    really the, uh, I think it's rare that people have found us and even given us a project because they've seen us, uh, um, on an Instagram feed or something.
    It's, it helps. After they know about us, or after they talk to us to check out all of those things, uh, to figure out what kind of a firm are we and what are we posting and what are we talking about and what our thought leadership is. So, I have, I think that part of it is that, [01:03:00] uh, learning internal PR is 1 thing also learning how to do external PR and, but also making that as, um.
    Not just about technology, not, it can't be about technology, it has to be about the business and our technology things should be incorporated in the project examples or what did it do for the project or what did it do for the team building or because the story is not about the tool, it's the story is about the outcomes.
    And technology is just a facilitator to make some outcome better. or create an outcome that we couldn't have created without it. But it's, the story is about the end result. It's not about technology.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. It's why, why
    do we do what we do,
    right?
    If you're, if you're into architecture, if you've chosen this as your career path, it should be to, change the built environment to make a better built [01:04:00] environment to affect, like I did schools, right? It's, it's like to create the best learning environments possible for,
    for children,
    right?
    And tools that help us get there are, are exactly that. They're leveraged to get there faster, better, cheaper. more beautiful. Like there's so many different ways that we could go about doing that. But, but that those aren't why we do what we do, right? Those are how we do what we do and what we use. But the clients often even don't care how you get there.
    It's like, just create the outcome. That's the value in it for them. And that's what matters for our
    businesses to survive.
    Nirva Fereshetian: And absolutely don't care about the tool. Why should they care? All they should care is about the outcome. And even internally, you know, at the end of the day, when there is this discussion about this tool or the other, I always say like, stop and let's go back and ask why are we doing this again?
    Why are we doing this? Is it because we're going to change the outcome? So the [01:05:00] basic example is, you know, Enscape has taken off like fire and, um, as in many firms and when other things come into play, um, there's always this workflow issue, you know, like, um, somebody can't pick up somebody else's work if you do it in a lot of different formats, right?
    Which, which is an efficiency issue. But, so when, when, Another product comes into play, then we always ask that, yeah, you can use that product, but is it doing something that this other product is not doing? And you, if it's an outcome based, and that you want to put motion that the other one isn't doing well, or you want to put some, um, you know, um, uh, different, um, analysis that the other, then it is rightfully so the tool to use.
    But the client doesn't care whether we use A or B, all they care is they ask for something and they got it.
    Evan Troxel: It's always interesting to me when a client does kind of prescriptively say we want this to be used on this project and you're like, okay, now, now,
    we have to talk about [01:06:00]
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yes, yes.
    Well, that was a long time ago, decades ago when people wrote in the, in the project RFPs, uh, BIM and Revit, and really didn't know what they were asking for.
    Evan Troxel: They didn't
    have any
    Nirva Fereshetian: they had no clue. Yeah,
    they had no clue. And I'm not,
    Evan Troxel: hadn't trained
    anybody how to use
    it. And yeah, any of those things that actually come along with that request. Let's get back to the, that collaboration or, you know, the, the sharing that's going on within the industry that you were talking about seeing on some of these panels that are put together or these, these zoom meetings or whatever they are, but also at the large firm round table that, that you're a part of that I used to be a part of. That was definitely a shift that's been happening is there's been a lot more sharing, and there's a lot more acknowledgement that these tools and these workflows are not IP for a firm, right? They're, it's like, are you having this problem? Raise your hand. Everybody raises their hand. Okay, it's not just us, right?
    Let's talk about [01:07:00] this, right? It makes it easier to talk about things when, when we acknowledge like, oh, I thought it was just us. No, it's actually everybody. talk about the culture of sharing the evolution that you've seen there and, and why that's important for the industry to do more of. Because it's,
    it's leading to something.
    Nirva Fereshetian: Yeah, so at least from that end, you know, in terms of the A, you know, the large form round taper is mostly A's. You know, although some of the firms are, have, um, um, easy, uh, with them, um, there is a considerable effort to, um, share. And as you know, the large firm roundtable from the large firm roundtable, um, a group has developed called innovation design consortium, where it's officially sharing information and being a member of that.
    Um, there's, um, It's, it's really, um, not very hard to think that many of us are doing the same things, um, and that could benefit [01:08:00] of making, sharing those, uh, resources or doing it once and sharing it all and not seeing it as a competitive advantage because they're not. Um, so, I feel, so that has started about a year ago and, um, certainly they're making progress.
    They have, uh, um, uh, they're trying, they have, it's outside of the large firm roundtable. It started from there, but, uh, it's an independent organization now. And, um, hopefully it gives a voice also to develop things, um, together. Or have a voice to talk to, um, um, with the larger numbers, you know, because, uh, not every firm is two, three thousand people and has the leverage, um, to, um, make a change or request a change.
    So, um, but there is certainly common things, uh, computational things or, uh, things that every firm is doing on their own. And we hope that we share that and do it once [01:09:00] and share it. And, uh, so that's, that's moving along. But I feel like, um, The first success of the ecosystem, something has to be developed that kind of goes across, uh, the entire chain, um, all the way to, um, the people who are operating the building.
    Um, like I said, you know, before, um, the, it is born in our offices, the data sets as designers, but how we move that downstream and make it at least partially, um, Beneficial down and without recreating it at every phase and rehiring people to It's a very big disconnect. So The same similar way where we all are trying on the A side Share and give a boost to our ecosystem.
    And in terms of just time, we share a lot of information about who has [01:10:00] tested what, and that information is valuable when you have a thousand things to look at, you know? So, and, and, um,
    if that framework can move downstream, um, and also on every Every process need to be re examined, you know, contractual things, uh, relationships as we move from one phase to the other.
    Um, if that becomes more and more thought about and those are the things that give us a heads up how to innovate, how to change us completely. And, you know, I think that, um, in this, um, I'm not sure we can evolve in AI. It's a drastic, drastic change. Um, the fact that we use small tools, uh, um, you know, render, rendering tools, or code tools, or anything, um, is not necessarily, in my opinion, make any difference.
    A big use of [01:11:00] the AI ecosystem yet, you know, once the data sets are coming in, once we're making real conclusions, once we have shared, um, data sets where we're making some, um, Deductions from our previous projects, collectively experiences, so that we can project, um, you know, Potential predictions for how should we move ahead with the next project?
    And what is the learning that's going to happen across that platform? Those are AI things, uh, which we are still pretty far from.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Where's the standardized, structured
    data between all
    Nirva Fereshetian: That's right.
    Evan Troxel: How, how's that gonna
    Nirva Fereshetian: That's right. We can't even structure our own data in one firm. But I think those are the things that would let us innovate and that's actually the term that we can legitimately use if we do collaborate on that level and, and change the way we think. We still are, we [01:12:00] still are in the old mindsets of how things should be.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, yeah, interesting. I'm curious about this idea of the tools proliferating their value beyond the role, our current role as architects, and what, what the incentive is there, because the business model hasn't changed or is it changing? Uh, the contracts haven't changed or are they changing? I'm just curious what the incentive is.
    I mean, there's, I think everybody agrees that that would be great if we didn't have to
    redo the
    work at all of these different steps and pay somebody to implement that. And it seems odd that that happens, but it does happen because there's no incentive for the, like, like at that point, it
    literally is a handoff.
    Right.
    And so. So what is the incentive to drive that from the architect's and engineer's point of view?
    Nirva Fereshetian: It is changing. but not at a speed way. So I think before where, um, [01:13:00] years ago where we never gave our Revit model to anybody, um, that has drastically changed. So, yeah, I mean, even if we gave it, we gave it with all kinds of written statements not to use it, not to measure it from, you know, so,
    but now, um, a lot of our, uh, contractors and CMs are saying, well, we want to use the model.
    So, and if that means that we need to be a little bit better at building it, or understand how,
    Evan Troxel: Can you
    imagine? I can't even imagine being a, a Suffolk construction getting Revit models from all these different teams and all these different firms and the different Wild West nature
    of every single project out there and having to pick that up and deal with it. It's just gotta be
    crazy
    Nirva Fereshetian: It is crazy, but the technology's out there to kind of, before when the, you know, years ago when there was this IPD concept, the technology wasn't there to support it. Like, I know we [01:14:00] experimented it with a little couple of different things. Uh, projects where they had to come to our office and, or we had to come to their, go to their office because the structure was not there, uh, we couldn't share a Revit file, so we had to use Revit server, whatever, but now I think there has been the cloud and, uh, posting about all of that content there, uh, makes it really, gives hope that these things are, can be, um, shared and work together.
    And if you think about it, I, uh, the, you know, the, if you think that we are one company and do downstream everything, then we would behave very differently.
    Right?
    So if we are the designers and have the engineers and it's just there is a big company above it and all of us are working for the same concept to make it if but the fact of it is is just so [01:15:00] fractured that no one can see that this is it's a it's possible if we worked for one
    Owner, which is, I guess, what the IPD thing was to make an, to make an organization that is, um, one ownership and make sure that everybody, um,
    Evan Troxel: In this together,
    Nirva Fereshetian: is together.
    Yeah, so not until we feel that, I think it's hard to change anything because we don't feel that,
    Evan Troxel: Are there tools out there that are making that kind of restructuring of data, maybe even after the fact, easier? Is that even a
    possibility, do you
    think? Hmm.
    Nirva Fereshetian: I feel in one sense, some of these platform based things, um, are making, um, like Speckle and others are, have, I think they have a great future. The problem I see is that we are so much chained in products, um, and before if I [01:16:00] feel that it's, before I felt changing of tools is, uh, uh, an issue. Now I feel the platforms are the issue.
    Evan Troxel: Mm
    hmm.
    Nirva Fereshetian: changing of tools is relatively easier. But because we post and collaborate in certain platforms, um, that is not going to go away. So,
    um, it is hard to see, to be optimistic about that. I'm trying, but it's hard
    Evan Troxel: that, that is a very difficult reality to deal with, right? Because all of the, the consultants on the team have to also
    be using
    Nirva Fereshetian: The same thing.
    Evan Troxel: the same version of
    the software,
    right? Not, not just the same platform, the same version, exactly, right? Or else you're going to run
    into potential problems.
    Yeah,
    Nirva Fereshetian: Definitely. Um,
    Evan Troxel: Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about before we call it?
    Nirva Fereshetian: uh, no, I, I really enjoyed the conversation. Uh, it's been great, Evan. And, [01:17:00] uh, I hope, um, the, I, I hope that these conversations and multi, uh, layer and multi people conversation actually make us, uh, become more aware of how we can contribute to this, uh, ecosystem. I think, um, We do a lot of talking, we do a lot of, uh, planning, but, um, IC not very much action, and all of us complain, uh, all of us are, uh, not happy, um, but I hope that, um, we actually do something about it.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah, the complaint department, right? And then, and then the, the accountability part of, of like the next part after the complaint. It's like everybody kind of
    looks over their shoulder. I
    Nirva Fereshetian: Blaming somebody else, yes.
    Evan Troxel: To actually do the thing to fix this problem is not the complaint part. That's the easy part, right?
    The hard
    part is the actual
    Nirva Fereshetian: That's right. I mean, I hope, I mean, I see some [01:18:00] hope on some of those things and some conversations of real change and some conversations of sharing, but, um, there's definitely less action. I mean, uh, uh, podcasts like this are terrific, Evan, in terms of, um, bringing us, um, bringing our voices from different perspectives, from different roles from together to, um, to validate all of our issues.
    But, um, what, what is disappointing is there's less, little action and more, um, more conversation. So, I, I do see some data, um, efforts, uh, the common data platforms and other things that, um, several, um, companies or other efforts that are coming together between the, Different European architects and others that are trying to work together for that, but, um, it's just too slow, Evan.
    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah. [01:19:00] Well, this has been a
    fantastic conversation,
    Nirva Fereshetian: Thank you
    Evan Troxel: much. And I think just shifting the perspective more downstream, like you were mentioning there, if we think about our work product as Think about the next people who are going to get it. That, that alone is, is something worth contemplating and how it might start to affect what you do today to not incur
    technical debt,
    right?
    Because That's if you do something now that, that just, um, benefits you in the short term to meet this deadline, but it breaks 10 things downstream, it's not worth it. And so to be thinking about
    and have empathy for
    those future users of
    that data is,
    Nirva Fereshetian: So, the small example is within the office, but the bigger example is, you know, from design phases to construction. That's the, that's the small example. Think about the other teams, but also think about the larger. workflow of moving it from one, um, office to the other in terms of making the building built at the end and, and operated.
    I mean,[01:20:00]
    Digital Twins and all of this, all these conversation, um, if everything's going to be starting all over again, and that's really a huge problem to solve.
    Evan Troxel: Waste in the
    Nirva Fereshetian: That's right.
    Okay.
    Evan Troxel: Thanks,
    Nirva Fereshetian: Thank you, Evan.
    ​

    20 August 2024, 1:00 pm
  • 162: Campfire Series - ‘BLDGBLOG Turns 20’, with Geoff Manaugh
    162: Campfire Series - ‘BLDGBLOG Turns 20’, with Geoff Manaugh

    In this special Campfire Series episode, Geoff Manaugh joins the podcast to tell us the story of BLDGBLOG.

    We discuss how he maintains an online presence while playing the algorithm games of social media and talk about the topic of content ownership and the evolution of blogging.

    We also get into the creative opportunities Geoff has found by blending architecture with other disciplines, learn about his journey from blogger to author, talk about his Hollywood experiences with his fictional writing, and hear about some upcoming projects including a new book on archaeology.

    Episode links:

    About Geoff Manaugh:

    Geoff Manaugh is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer regularly covering topics related to architecture, design, and technology for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, MIT Technology Review, WIRED, FT Magazine, and many others. He has taught graduate architectural design studios at Columbia University GSAPP, USC, and UC Berkeley, lectures at cultural venues around the world, and has exhibited twice at the Venice Biennale of Architecture.

    In 2023, his short story, "Ernest," was adapted into the Netflix film, "We Have a Ghost," which was the #1 Netflix movie in the world for three consecutive weeks and reached #1 in 69 different countries. His 2016 book, "A Burglar's Guide to the City," was a New York Times bestseller for two consecutive months and was optioned for television by CBS Studios. His 2021 book, "Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine," written with Nicola Twilley, was named a Guardian, Time Magazine, NPR, and Financial Times book of the year. Since 2004, he has also been the author of BLDGBLOG (bldgblog.com), read by millions in the two decades since it was launched.

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    Episode Transcript

    162: Campfire Series - ‘BLDGBLOG Turns 20’, with Geoff Manaugh

    Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I am Evan Troxel, and today I welcome back Geoff Manaugh to this special Campfire series episode of the podcast.

    Geoff is a Los Angeles based freelance writer covering topics related to cities, design, crime, infrastructure, technology, and more for the New York Times magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times Magazine, New Scientist, Cabinet Magazine, The Daily Beast, Wired UK, and many other publications.

    He is also the co author with journalist Nicola Twilley of Until Proven Safe, the History and Future of Quarantine, which was published during the pandemic in 2021, and in 2016 he published A Burglar's Guide to the City on the relationship between [00:01:00] crime and architecture. He also writes fictional stories that have been adapted into films, like his ghost story titled Ernest, and We Have a Ghost which can be found on Netflix. Now, if you heard that and are thinking, that doesn't sound like the normal type of guest for the show, you'd be wrong because Geoff has already been on the podcast. In this episode, we go off the beaten path and reflect on 20 years of BLDGBLOG, which is Geoff's blog and the evolution of online writing.

    Geoff launched his blog on July 7th, 2004, and I invited him back after last speaking with him four years ago in episode number eight to talk about this rare internet milestone.

    He recently put up an Instagram post that prompted me to reach out to him and catch up, and in that post he snarkily said, "Wild to think, it's been 20 years, I genuinely miss the camaraderie and friendship of the earlier phase of the internet, replaced today by an online culture so cynical and empty and sloganeering and [00:02:00] pointlessly embittered on every level. Alas."

    And while that's true, Geoff and I continue to endeavor in creating valuable material for our audiences. And I've been a huge fan of his work for a very long time.

    I also thought it was appropriate, as we find ourselves completely buried in AI generated content, found online today. And so, as we delve into today's conversation, Geoff provides valuable insights into maintaining an online presence while playing, or perhaps more appropriately, abstaining from participating in, the algorithm games of social media, the topic of content ownership, and the shift from traditional blogging to modern platforms like Substack. We get into the creative opportunities of blending architecture with other disciplines explored by Geoff, learn about his journey from blogger to author, his Hollywood experiences with his fictional writing, and upcoming projects, including a new book on archaeology.

    As always, [00:03:00] my ask of you is to help the show by subscribing to TRXL on YouTube and in your favorite podcast app to let me know that you're a fan.

    And if you're watching this on YouTube, Please click that like button that's right down below. And if you'd like to get an email when episodes are published with all the links and other information from the episode, sign up at TRXL. co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at the site as well. Thank you so much for listening and watching.

    Okay, so now without further ado, grab a beverage, pull up a chair, and gather around the campfire as we celebrate two BLDGBLOG in my wide ranging conversation with Geoff Manaugh.​

    Geoff, welcome back.

    It's been four years, almost to the day since you were on the podcast. You were a very early guest so this is a little bit of a [00:04:00] reunion, but it's an even bigger reunion of your blog turning 20 years old, which funny. I, okay. So I'm thinking about blogs in terms of timelines, and this is kind of geologic time for a blog and

    you're super into geology and, and architecture and all these things too.

    So maybe that's fitting. What do you think?

    Geoff Manaugh: Well, yeah, I mean, it's a, it's, it's funny to think of my online writing as, as, uh, geologically aged. But, um, but yeah, in, in today's climate, that seems accurate. Yeah, 20 years is an extremely long time for, for a blog, especially because, I mean, blogs as such now are You know, have been replaced by newsletters and Tik Tok and even just longer posts on social media like Twitter and Or Blue Sky even for that matter But um, so yeah It's funny to look back and realize that it was 20 years ago this month that I first put anything up on on On the website and the fact that you and I spoke nearly four years ago is also pretty pretty pretty amazing

    Evan Troxel: about that time, but not in one place. Like, I, I've, I've always been, [00:05:00] like, searching for, you know, so there was Posterous, and there was Tumblr, and there was the Mac blog, and there was Blogger, and I've been on all those. And, and then I eventually kind of settled into, you know. Um, where I was recently at Squarespace for a long time, and now I'm on Ghost, but, but, I, like, moving this stuff around is not easy, for one. How have you found the whole, like, you know, because, because ultimately you have a catalog of posts, you have books worth of posts. of posts, right? And it's like to have like the cotkey. orgs out there where it is a 20 plus year compendium of, of writing and stuff where it actually is all in one place. maybe there was some foresight there. I don't know. Did, did you plan ahead for longevity with this or what were you thinking?

    Geoff Manaugh: I mean, I don't necessarily know how much I was thinking about genuine longevity, but I did think that the organizational, uh, pleasure of having all of my writing in one spot, and that [00:06:00] you would know where to find it, and that, um, you know, it was a, it was a single URL that you could visit, and I would just have, you know, basically an online portfolio of writing, um, that I could direct people to, um, was definitely a conscious decision.

    Um, you know, there are, there were aspects of, you know, articles that I've written that, uh, to this day, even though, uh, I'm, I'm way less, uh, prolific on BLDGBLOG than I used to be. Um, but where I still kind of want to take old articles and just put them on BLDGBLOG, just simply to literally have them all in one spot.

    Um, you know, to republish them there. But, um, but it's, I think it's great actually to have, have one's writing in, in one place. You know, there are a lot of people who I know who, similar to the description that you just gave of your own trajectory, you know, they've got writing all over the internet at different websites.

    And Um, you know, some are defunct, you know, sort of, uh, groups that don't exist anymore or longer posts that they don't necessarily link to on older, on sites like Archonnect or, or that kind of thing. But, um, but yeah, having everything in one spot is, is great. Uh, the, the migration, I did actually change it at one point.

    Um, I started, well, uh, BLDGBLOG on Blogger. [00:07:00] Uh, which, uh, you know, was pretty, uh, at the time was, was great because it was free and I didn't feel any obligation whatsoever to post because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't, I, I had no money in, uh, tied up in the, in the venture. Um, but around 2015, I think it was, I switched to WordPress and, uh, the migration, my friend Jim Webb, who's a, a, a web guy in, in, uh, Washington DC, was a, was a huge help with that. But migrating, you know, I think there were. I've deleted a lot of posts, but I think that there were something like 1, 600 posts that I had to migrate over from the old BLDGBLOG to get to the new, the new one on WordPress, and then, um, you know, it was There were some issues there too, just because every once in a while I'll reuse a title.

    Like for example, I used to have a series of posts called Books Received, and it was just about books that I'm reading, or books that have been sent to me for reviews.

    But I found, only after going back through my website on WordPress, that WordPress, the migration tool that we used, had mixed up the Books Received, so that like, a Books Received written in 2009 had been replaced by one written in [00:08:00] 2014,

    and then I had to go back and figure out which ones were which, and you know, it was a It wasn't, wasn't very fun, but uh, but that's a minor, minor issue, you know, when the, when the, when the reward is that you have a place that you can post and you can get your voice out there and participate in, in the, in the larger architecture culture.

    So, you know, the headaches, the headaches are worth it.

    Evan Troxel: It's interesting to think of now with new context around ownership of your own stuff, right? So, I mean, to your point a minute ago, right? Blogging on other platforms like Medium or even on LinkedIn now, people put up longer articles. Um, there's, and they're not ours, right? Even, even Substack to a certain extent. It's your Substack, but it's still on Substack, right? It's a, it's a, and there's a reason people go to those platforms if they want to monetize their writing and have it behind a paywall or have subscriptions or whatever. But, for you to have your own place that you can monetize, It's yours, right? I think is, is kind of a, an interesting, [00:09:00] uh, it's, it's a great thing to have.

    Like I, I own mine too. But the idea of having it all under your control is. I think something of value.

    but it's also not where the eyeballs are anymore, right? even RSS is basically dead, right? When it comes to, to reading, we used to use Google reader to subscribe to RSS blogs or some other app that was an RSS reader.

    So we would get notified at least when a new article was posted and we didn't have to visit a site that like, to your point, you're. You're not as prolific as you used to be on BLDGBLOG, right? So

    BLDGBLOG, you maybe post every six months or something now, but it could have been any different timeframe.

    It could have been three days. It could have been every day. It could have been multiple things a day, right?

    Bloggers have different frequencies that they, that they publish stuff. And, and it was nice to just get notified and not have to go check.

    And that's not even, nobody goes to anybody's website anymore.

    Now you kind of have to have just a hookup to social media so that when you post people get notified and that's where they see it. [00:10:00] And they might. You might go back to your site to read it, whereas LinkedIn or whatever, people are doom scrolling on LinkedIn,

    even, even on LinkedIn, right?

    And they might see your,

    your article there, uh, and, and, and, and catch when that you've published something, but it's a, it's a completely different world now.

    And even with AI now, and just kind of, there's the recent thing that I've seen people trying to do is opt out of getting crawled by for AI training stuff. Um, and. I mean, this is something that architects are constantly worried about as well, with copyright and, and ownership of instruments of service and, and renderings and all this kind of stuff and, and being used for training data potentially.

    And there's like, it's kind of a scary world out there right now. How, how do you feel about all that kind of stuff? Because Google used to crawl our stuff too, and it still does. Like I don't have a robots do text file that says, don't crawl this. Um. Because I do want to show up in search results, right? Um, and I publish my transcripts for my podcasts on my website and, and all that kind of thing [00:11:00] because I want to show up and, and also, you know, the exposure is nice, but also that, that it provides value when people do search for things.

    How do, how do you feel about that whole side of things and platforms and monetization and paywalls and subscriptions? I mean, it's open ended, so you can take it wherever you want.

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, no, I mean, it's a huge question, but, um, I mean, because the, I agree with you that the industry, uh, has changed, and I don't mean the architecture industry, but the, the, the field of online writing and of all kind of online content production, um, has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, and, uh, I do think that a lot of, I mean, if you look at, for example, what Elon Musk did with X, aka Twitter, Um, you know, the whole point for people who will pay for the premium subscription is that you'll just put, you know, a, a 4, 000 word post up on Twitter because you, you have enough space for it now.

    And that's where the eyeballs are, that's where the retweets are, that's where people are who are actually going to read the content. And then also it algorithmically down, uh, ranks, um, links out to [00:12:00] things like BLDGBLOG or even to LinkedIn or certainly to Substack. You know, there was a

    Evan Troxel: They all want native, native posted content,

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, and then Google will do things like, you know, list your website and allow you to show up in search results, but often at the penalty, in my opinion, of having your material stolen for AI to study and that kind of thing. So it really is a different world that is controlled more top down. And, um, it definitely felt way more bottom up, so to speak, back when I started, which was that, yeah, you can just start almost like a media empire using a keyboard.

    And, um, owning the copyright of your material, or at the very least, you know, doing sort of copy left, uh, sort of, uh, share alike, sort of, uh, licenses that, that, that were more popular at the time. Um, but, yeah, I mean, there's not, and I think this is one of the things that has affected my, I mean, many things have affected my pace of posting on, on BLDGBLOG, including other professional, uh, uh, obligations now.

    Um, but one of them certainly was that, that, you know, uh, it's just harder, people don't, are, [00:13:00] are, are in, are, are substantially less likely, not just to go to a BLDGBLOG as a, as a kind of, um, you know, that people have just lost interest, but people just don't go to blogs as, as, as much as they do anymore.

    So, I mean, the temptation would be, well, I could join, you know, I could start paying for an X account and start putting stuff there, or I could start, um, putting things on other platforms so that more people see them. Um, uh, but. It's, it's tough, I mean I feel like the payoff there is that certainly I don't want to, you know, writing for Twitter or X means that I'm just enriching other people who are profiting off of my material in a way that my own website shouldn't necessarily be something that they make money off of.

    Um, but at the same time if it allows me to make money, like is it, is it, am I doing my own self a disservice by, you know, putting, not taking money that's sitting there on the table waiting for me to grab it? Um, by, by not, you know, being more flexible in the platforms that I use. But, um, you know, there are a lot of problems with WordPress and, and the, and the individual hosted blog anyway, but I think a lot of those are more like [00:14:00] technical and typographic and user based.

    You know, there are aspects of, of WordPress in particular that I really don't like. There were, there were aspects of Blogger that drove me insane, which is why I left it. Um, there are aspects of Substack, having sort of experimented a little bit with Substack, that, that I also don't like. Um, I, I personally, the entire newsletter idea.

    I mean, I know it's where everybody is right now, but I, the one thing in the world I don't want more of is email and, uh, the idea that, you know, I've, I subscribe to multiple Substacks and some of them are daily, but it's just like, my God, I wake up in the morning and I've got, you know, 12 emails and nine of them are Substacks and it's, it's pretty overwhelming actually, like I, I'm, I guess I'm old school enough that I, I would rather actually just go to your website and just see what you have there, you know, I haven't been there in two weeks or I haven't been there in a couple of days, like what's new.

    Um, I know a lot of people find that too labor intensive, but I think it's worth it personally, and it's better than being having my inbox explode with just what feel almost like, um, [00:15:00] you know, those, those notes that used to exist in the 80s, what were they called, like, uh, you'd get a chain letter, you know, and then you were meant to forward it on to somebody else, but, uh, it just, it just sort of feels a little overwhelming to constantly get everything as an email.

    Evan Troxel: Well, and those nine Substack emails are book length, right? Like, they're

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, totally.

    Evan Troxel: book length, but they're, they're cliff

    Geoff Manaugh: They're, they're articles. yeah, yeah,

    Evan Troxel: and, and it's a lot of reading, and I mean, and this is coming from somebody who publishes really long podcast episodes, right? So, uh, it's just, it's just a different medium.

    It's, it's kind of, it's similar in, in, you know, total output. It's a lot to listen to. And it's interesting to me to think about podcasting as kind of actually being one of the only places where it was like the true intention of the web, which was like, it was Yes, it was the Wild West, but it was, it was open and it was yours,

    right?

    To create that media empire that you, you mentioned, right?

    And that's what podcasting still is. I don't think Spotify is doing anything to [00:16:00] try to help that. I think they're trying to actually hurt that with. Right, creating, again, this is a platform, they're creating a platform and they're trying to get you to go to their platform and subscribe to their music and then you get the podcasting and all those kinds of, and, and that is against kind of the, the original idea, just like so many businesses are against the original intention of what the, the web was about or what podcasting was about.

    So

    it's kind of interesting to me that, Apple being the largest podcast directory in the world hasn't messed that up, right?

    They

    haven't intentionally screwed it up and tried to monetize it. Um, they've just kind of been a benevolent overlord of it in some way. Um, so, it is interesting to me to kind of think about how this is also another long form way to deliver. ideas, content, conversation to people like writing is on, on was on the blogs and on internet. And at least there's a [00:17:00] subscription model still with podcasting that works pretty well. And by subscription model, I don't mean pay for, I just mean like to subscribe to be notified

    when, when episodes come out.

    So, um, Yeah. it's, it's, it's a similar but different and I hope it doesn't change because companies are interested in changing it for sure.

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah, it's interesting actually just listening to you describe that because, uh, I mean, I do think that so many of these, these super platforms are going out of their way to make sure that you never leave. So, you know, if you go to x. com, you know, you'll read this article and then this video and then you'll watch an entire feature length film that's been released on X or documentary or that kind of thing, and so you just never leave, um, or same with other social media platforms or even things like Apple, et cetera, et cetera.

    Um, but what's interesting is that I think that, you know, the, you could arguably sort of compare that to the growth of things like big box stores that took something like a very specialist butcher, put that out of business by absorbing butchery into the meat department of, say, a Walmart. Um, and then there was, you know, a local clothing store that, [00:18:00] you know, was selling quirky t shirts, but now it's out of business because now Target is selling those quirky t shirts.

    But this, this kind of thing where you get absorbed into a kind of retail empire. Um, you know, and even to the point now where, uh, there was a, a, a, a minor, I'm not gonna say controversy, but a minor conversation online about a plan for Costco to that was, uh, they were putting out, uh, a new building where in order to, uh, uh, go along with local regulations, had to add housing and residential, uh, uh, uh, space to the, to the Costco.

    Evan Troxel: that.

    Geoff Manaugh: Um, so the idea though, you know, just to be cynical for a brief moment, although I'm very pro housing and pro dense, you know, walkable, uh, urban cores, um, you know, cynically though, you know, it's like if you actually live at a Costco or the kinds of apartments now that you can buy that are actually in shopping districts, uh, basically inside shopping malls, um, it's kind of an extension of this idea that you can never leave the one place that you go into.

    You're, you're now in the kind of retail super family and I, I definitely think that that's what X is trying to do under, under Elon.

    Um, you know, where just basically, yeah, [00:19:00] like you'll have podcasts, you'll have feature films, you'll have, uh, you know, photography, uh, exhibitions, like you'll have live events, everything will be on this one platform.

    Um, but I do miss the, that other earlier internet, you know, where you did go to the individual butcher and then this one strange bakery and then this one whatever. Um, because I feel like that's what it felt like in terms of going to just find individual people's voices and this is their website, this is how they designed their website.

    Um, these are the things that they linked out to. It was, it was much more sort of personality based. And, um, I definitely miss that aspect of things where everything feels much more shoehorned into a kind of, even like with Medium, you know, you go to Medium and you can, you know, everything's in the same font, everything looks the same.

    Um, you know, or Google's, um, their automated, automated page, uh, design, uh, thing that they, that they, that they put together, um, about 10 years ago now. But where it just basically made everything look identical, so,

    the New York Times looked exactly like a post on BLDGBLOG, which looked exactly like, uh, somebody else's rant about something, which looked exactly like [00:20:00] a, a restaurant writing about, uh, you know, a, a new night that they had coming up.

    And so the internet became much more difficult to differentiate between types of content, Um, types of voices and even levels of expertise where it was difficult to understand what you're getting in, into. Is this a, is this an essay or is this an op ed or is this an advertisement? Everything looked the same, even typographically.

    And so I think that that also, in tandem with decreasing media literacy skills in the general public, I think has definitely led to a lot of the things that we see now, where people just do not know what to trust or who to trust or what to believe. And, um, I, I don't see a way out of that problem right now.

    I mean, aside from perhaps it completely absurd minor changes, like allowing more, um, visual differentiation between, um, users of major platforms, like X or Medium, uh, etc, etc. There, you know, there has to be a way to make things that they don't all look like it's just internet mush, and you have to read through it and decide what's true.

    Because I feel like that's the [00:21:00] situation that we're in now.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah, it's a, it's a, the lowest common denominator kind of template, visual template. advertising of everything that, Facebook did it, I think, because

    remember, MySpace was totally customizable, and then it

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, notoriously.

    Evan Troxel: were, and it was just the standard layout. You couldn't, you couldn't inject your own CSS code into the, into the boxes and, and make, make the flashing headlines anymore, because, I mean, at some level, like, yeah, it would, it looked really bad on MySpace, but at the same time, it was kind of yours, and so, Apple's done the same thing with the phone, right?

    And it was, they, they don't let you do a lot of things because it wouldn't look like a great Apple device if everybody was allowed to do whatever they wanted to it. And so there's like this weird, it's your, it's your device, but it's not, you don't get to decide what it looks like,

    right? As, as, as it's, you can see this kind of all over the place.

    You can also see it in automobiles, right? Everything's starting to look like a Camry, for example,

    right? It's like all the cars start to kind [00:22:00] of look the same.

    And. But there's always kind of that culture that of outliers, but it's a very small percentage of people who actually do any of those things. So it could be car customizing.

    It could be, you know, computers that could, you know,

    there's, there are going to be people who still buy and build their own computers and run Linux. Right. So,

    um,

    Geoff Manaugh: It's a very small minority of people, but

    Evan Troxel: it's a very small minority.

    Geoff Manaugh: But you know, it's funny, it brings to mind, um, you know, the famous example of, uh, you know, the Gesamtkunstwerk in architecture, you know, where, uh, you know, if Mies van der Rohe is, is not only designing the buildings, but then also insisting on the placement of window shades, and the colors that those window shades can have, so as not to violate the artistic purity of the architectural space, of the structure.

    Um, you know, I think arguably we're just kind of butting up against the kind of social media Gesamtkunstwerk where, you know, everything is being controlled, uh, for us. And, uh, and I don't like the results, so it's kind of funny, I wonder, um, you know, I don't want to sound like an old man yelling at a cloud, but I do [00:23:00] wonder what would happen if I moved into a building where I couldn't change the window, uh, you know, shade, color, due to the vision of the original architect.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah.

    Geoff Manaugh: It's interesting, but I feel like we're in that phase right now of the internet, or a comparable phase, I should say.

    Evan Troxel: Right.

    Right. yeah.

    I mean, well, let's shift the conversation to what you do instead of writing on the internet, which is, well, you tell us, I mean, you're writing books, but you have other obligations as well. You're doing, you're doing a lot of stuff. Um, but There still is this option to write books, right?

    Physical books, right? And to design the cover of those books and the layout of the books and the topography and the hierarchy visually and obviously the structure of the chapters and all this stuff so that it really is this stand alone thing. bespoke thing, right? Um, I mean, yeah, they end up getting mass produced, but, but this, it is a design, right? Um, so talk about your, your author, like where, where you been? Because the last time we talked, you had, you [00:24:00] were on the cusp of releasing a book about the pandemic that you started writing, I think in 2016, if I'm remembering correctly.

    And so it was pre pandemic writing, you did a, and then the pandemic started and then you were. I think you said that the, it was at the publisher and it was like, okay, now we have to make some changes because a lot of this has, has happened now. And we know more than we did before you, before you started that publishing process. So take us kind of where we've been in the last four years since you were on the cusp of publishing your book on the pandemic

    or pandemics, not the pandemic.

    Yeah,

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah, sure. I mean, specifically, um, yeah, the book is, um, it's about pandemics in the larger sense. Uh, it's specifically about quarantine as a spatial phenomenon and how architecture can be used to prevent the spreading of, of, uh, pathogens and diseases between people and animals and plants. Um, which I think is a, which I just, I just be, I'm specifying there because it's a, I'm trying to show that, you know, you can write about architecture.

    Um, in ways that aren't necessarily, you [00:25:00] know, uh, stylistic criticism of existing buildings or historical monographs of architects who lived in, in the past. Uh, and I know there are a lot of other types of, of architecture writing. Um, but you can also look at how architecture plays roles in other fields.

    And so, you know, um, my, the book before that that I wrote, A Burglar's Guide to the City, was about architecture in crime and crime prevention. Um, and specifically in the field of burglary, you know, which is a spatial crime because it involves, uh, illegally accessing interior space of architecture.

    Um, and so with the quarantine book is similarly, it was looking at architecture as a, as a kind of frontline, um, medium through which we protect ourselves from the unknown.

    Um, but so yeah, the book came out in, uh, 2021, came out ironically actually about exactly a year after our last, that, that conversation that we had, uh, because it came out in July of 2021. Yeah. And, um, since then, I, well, let me back up slightly. So since around the time of Berger's Guide to the City [00:26:00] came out in 2016, um, a kind of smaller secondary career of mine took off that then became my number one career, um, which was working in Hollywood for film and TV adaptations of things that I'd written.

    And so, uh, that was gradually kind of growing in the background of all of these things and, uh, led to a situation where quite a lot of articles and short stories and even a burglar's guide to the city, uh, things that I'd written were getting optioned for adaptation in, in, in, in Hollywood. Um, and it got to the point where I think at one point I had 12 active projects.

    Uh, you know, Hollywood is, is a funny place, so they'll, they'll often option something and not, literally not do anything with it. Or, or they'll take it all the way up to the finish line and then decide, Oh, nevermind. We're not going to, we're not going to work on this project anymore. Um, you know, which is sadly is what happened with the Burglars Guide to the City TV show.

    Um, it got all the way up to the, the, the final decision about what they were going to release in the fall. And, uh, we had the pilot script, uh, anyway, everything was in place and then, and then, and then it [00:27:00] got turned down,

    but, um, but yes. And then in 2023. Uh, a film finally did come out, a Netflix movie, uh, based on a short, short story of mine.

    And, um, and that was exciting. It was really fun. I got to go to the, the red carpet premiere. And it was a, it was a Netflix movie, so it was only in the cinema for literally just one night, uh, when they showed it at their own cinema that's here, uh, a specially built place here in Los Angeles.

    And, um, got to meet the, the stars and, and, uh, I knew, I knew the director already and that kind of thing.

    But, um, so that was pretty, that was exciting, um, and for me. And, uh, but so yeah, in the last four years I've been working still on. Um, a lot of short fiction that is now in the adaptation pipeline. Um, I'm working on a new book now, um, and I'm still doing some reported non fiction for outlets like, uh, MIT Tech Review, Wired, I just had a piece in, um, Financial Times, uh, things like that.

    Looking at different, different aspects of architecture. Cause still, at the same time that I'm, I'm diversifying maybe the audience for what I'm writing, um, I am still writing [00:28:00] about architecture. Um, in that sense that even a quarantine book is about architecture, uh, a book about a, a series of heists is about architecture.

    Um, you know, even the story that got adapted into a Netflix film, um, was about a haunted house. Uh, so, you know, it's a, that's, that's a, uh, fundamentally has a, has a, an architectural, um, setting or an architectural structure around the, around the, the, uh, the idea of the story. And so, I think that that's, uh, going back to the conversation we were having about audience and platform.

    Um, I definitely think that anybody listening to this should consider not just, um, you know, it's great to have your writing in one place online, um, but consider writing in different formats, uh, you know, writing in short fiction, maybe experiment with a screenplay, um, you know, do reported non fiction rather than just an essayistic or, uh, you know, just sort of a blog post.

    Actually get in touch with people and do reporting. You know, quote people, go, go on first person reporting trips to see things in person and, and write about them. Um, and those kinds of things I think really do open doors in other [00:29:00] fields, whether it's a documentary film or whether or not it's a, you know, a feature film like the Netflix movie that I was a part of.

    Um, but it's, there's a huge audience for writing and there's a huge audience for ideas and there's a huge audience for cultural production. Um, but I think it's easy to get frustrated when you put something up on a personal blog and it doesn't immediately catch fire. Um, well some of that is because people haven't seen it.

    You know, it's the wrong audience. You might have an audience, uh, but it's not the right people for giving it, uh, getting it into the correct context to get picked up by Hollywood or that kind of thing. Um, but I think that if you're willing to seek out those kinds of audiences and try to figure out ways to write for them or get in touch with people or put your work in front of different audiences, um, I think the results can be really, really rewarding and fun.

    And, um, for me, certainly have broadened the horizon of, of, of, uh, things that I cover and, and, and, yeah, where, where I cover them and that kind of thing, and, and for whom I do so. But, um, it's kind of a long winded answer to that question, but I feel like that's the kind of stuff that's been happening in the last four years, so, yeah, a lot of, [00:30:00] um, a new book, some Hollywood stuff, and, uh, some non fiction.

    Evan Troxel: Interesting. And, and, like, you didn't plan that out in advance, right? It, it, like, it's it's interesting that, that what you're saying is you, you, you chased some of these, interesting ideas and they turned into something that opened a door for something else. And one of the things we talked about in our last episode was this idea of kind of connecting the dots.

    You see these interesting connections. I mean, the name of the episode was this reminds me of that, right?

    And, and so you, you, you're, you're just constantly observing and noticing and you see something and, oh, that reminds me of this thing over here. And that reminds me of this, The, the tunnels remind me of the subways and, and the inside of this and, and the under that.

    And I think that that's really interesting how you're willing to chase those, not knowing where they're going to lead, which I think

    is kind of like any design problem that's open ended. It's like a

    wicked problem, right? You don't know where it's going

    and you're figuring it out as you go down that path.

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah.

    Evan Troxel: And to me, [00:31:00] like that, that's kind of what architects are, are built for, right? Like

    that, that is, you're looking for interesting mashups, which I think every time I hear what you're working on, it's an interesting mashup. Like

    I, Oh, I didn't think of those two things together before.

    Right. And I think it's interesting that the kind of the thread that runs through this is architecture. And so we're, and we, we probably talked about this on the last episode, but it's been four years, so let's, let's refresh, like, where does that come from for you? Like, why, why is that the thread for you?

    Geoff Manaugh: Uh, yeah, that's a, that's a good question. I mean, I can answer in the specific, I guess, uh, just, you know, for me in particular, I guess I, I, I, I noticed that so much of what I'm interested in, um, can be traced back to architectural or spatial questions. And so You know, as a child I was super interested in things like lost cities in the jungle and, uh, and, and ancient ruins [00:32:00] and I read a lot of, like, fantasy and played Dungeons and Dragons and I was really interested in the lost kingdoms of, uh, the past or whatever, but that's fundamentally it was about, it's an architectural obsession with,

    um, lost buildings or abandonment or dereliction, um, and then similarly when I was got really into science fiction more as a teenager, um, you know, so much of science fiction is, um, Um, at the very least, set in an interesting environment, whether that's a, an alien planet, or a megastructure, or some kind of city, or a mining camp on an asteroid, or that kind of thing, but there's a spatial aspect to science fiction.

    In fact, often in science fiction, the spatial setting, is the thing that makes it clear that it's science fiction. It's set on an alien planet. You know, it could be a, it could be a novel about a father and a son, but it's set on Mars. It's science fiction. Um, you know, or it's in a, it's set, you know, on a city on the Atlantic seabed.

    Oh, it's science fiction. Um, the setting is often, um, not, it's not just the presence of technology or the fact that it's set in the future. It's [00:33:00] also the setting that it takes place in. Um, but so I also began to notice that with things like heist films, when I got really into, into those and crime. Um, that, uh, and, and, and, and those overlap quite quickly with things like action movies.

    Um, but you, I began to notice that it's architectural, you know, that you have people in a heist movie are actually talking to one another explicitly and out loud about how you get from this room to that room. How do we get inside a building without no one

    Evan Troxel: some wireframe 3D model that

    Geoff Manaugh: Totally, exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's one of the only genres that you can get away with people looking at blueprints.

    And it's not boring, it's actually like key to the plot. You want to see those blueprints. Um, you know, it's really difficult to get away with that sort of architectural obsession. Yeah. Uh, in a different genre. I mean, other than maybe, uh, like a murder mystery where you're trying to figure out how somebody got into that room.

    Um, but so, and then of course, you throw in actual architecture, by which I just mean buildings and the built environment and cities and trans questions of transportation and, uh, you know, uh, park design and streets and, uh, even [00:34:00] now things like sea level rise, um, and then the aesthetic aspects of that as well.

    Buildings I like, quote unquote, you know, just something as simple as that. Um, you know, the things that I like to see, uh, or the buildings that I like to be in spatially and atmospherically. Um, you know, again, those are all spatial questions. Um, and then things like, uh, you know, other aspects of things that I'm interested in, like warfare, and, uh, the results of war, such as, uh, you know, refugees, and, um, the, the, the humanitarian aftermath of, of conflict.

    Those are also architectural questions. You know, where do, where do people go, uh, What was the, the, the, what aspect, how was the destruction wreaked by the people who did it? Um, you know, there are a lot of, there are a lot of aspects of, of, of those kinds of, of questions that are, that are spatial and architectural.

    But so, I say all that to, that, that I then realized that I could write a site like BLDGBLOG, and it was kind of a magic moment where I suddenly, where, uh, and it, and it switched on over about maybe the first year of writing the [00:35:00] blog, the first six months even, where It just became clear exactly how much someone can cover if they're still focused on architecture.

    Um, and so I think that the last 20 years really were just exploring that. And so everything from astrophysics to, again, like, uh, um, geology and mining, uh, to, of course, the issues that we were just talking about, social issues of transportation, um, you know, aspects of historical preservation and archaeology.

    Um, all of these things can be written about through an architectural lens. It's just right there in the middle of, uh, at least for me, of so many different interests. Um, you know, and for me that was a great realization that I can actually cover thousands of topics and it's still on the same website because it's all relevant to the same underlying topic.

    Um, and so that for me was pretty, pretty, pretty magical. I mean, I could imagine someone doing that for, and people have done this, but, You know, for music, you could just look at acoustics and sound and not just music, but, um, you know, uh, just all kinds of different aspects of, [00:36:00] of, of vibratory energy that re that results in, in sonic, uh, material.

    Um, you could do that with arts and art history. You could do it with a cinema. I mean, there's any number of different topics that you could take and just figure out ways of, of looping these other apparently irrelevant topics onto that. It's almost like an embroidery pattern. And, um, You know, but as far as, just to go back to your question, um, go, go chasing after something where I don't know where it will go, um, I do agree that that's something that a lot of architects do as well, because, I mean, when you sit down to design a building, or think about a house, or think about whatever it is that you're working on spatially, um, you clearly don't know exactly where things are, how you're going to get from, you know, Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, or from the first floor to the second floor, um, all of those things are questions that you solve as you work on the problem, and I find that as a, for me as a writer, and I think other writers do this differently, Um, I really enjoy not knowing where I'm going when I sit down and I start writing about something and, um, you know, this reminds [00:37:00] me of that.

    The thing, the that that I just mentioned is often not even front of mind when I started writing about it. It's just that two or three paragraphs in, I'll remember something or realize, oh yeah, this. And, you know, the older I get, the more I feel like, um, writing for me is, is kind of the way that you see people, uh, you know, they play Sudoku or they, they do other cognitive games in order to try to keep themselves young or keep themselves fresh.

    Um, but for me, that's writing. Um, you know, writing is my way of keeping cognitive connections open of, of discovering new ones, you know, of kind of keeping the brain flexible. And, um, I think that can happen in architectural design certainly, but, um, I definitely think that that's one of the reasons why writing for me is such an exciting practice.

    Um, it's just a way to consolidate memories and build connections between things and try to remain cognitively. uh, attuned to the world in a way that, you know, knock on wood, you know, I can, I can stave off dementia for a few more decades, but, uh, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a good way to keep the brain flexible, and so I think that, yeah, that's a very long winded [00:38:00] answer to that question, but that's, those are some of the things that were so appealing, uh, about BLDGBLOG when I started it, uh, and, and remain appealing about architecture and writing, uh, today in terms of how one can organize one's own interests into something that can be communicated to others.

    Evan Troxel: You and I are very alike when it, as far, I would, I would call you a man of merit, of many interests. You have a lot of different interests and I'm like that as well. And I encourage that on My other podcast, ArcaSpeak, to architecture students or people working in architecture is like, get away from the desk, get away from the computer, take those vacation days, go do things that you normally, like, don't, don't do staycations, right, go travel, see things, because it makes you a more interesting person, number one, to have experiences like those, but also those experiences lead back into your projects.

    Right? Those are things that feed, and you never know when that's going to happen, you never know how it's going to happen,

    you [00:39:00] don't even know why it's going to happen, but it's going to happen.

    And that, I think, is what is so, what makes architecture interesting, because every project is pretty much a team sport, and everybody's bringing that to the team, and you don't know what that is.

    Because every project is an assemblage of a different team, typically, right?

    So, unless it's a small office, um, especially in big offices, teams disperse and they come back together in a different form on every single project, maybe even on different phases of a project. And, it's really interesting to me to see, I mean, it happened in school, it doesn't really happen in the real world, where, you know, there's one brief in the design studio, and you get 16 different Versions of that one brief, right?

    Because everybody's bringing something different to the table. And I think that's what makes architecture really interesting. When you're solving a, it's a particular problem that can be solved a million different ways.

    Right. And we're going to solve it the way that we solve it [00:40:00] because it is an organic thing.

    But I think that's what's so interesting is what people are bringing to it. And so you, you have a list of interests, right?

    And they, you've talked about a few of them, like geology, archaeology, uh, burglary, crime,

    architecture. Uh, you're, you're a photographic enthusiast, right? You, you're, you do a bunch of different things.

    You travel, you, you hike, you get outside. Um, Can you just talk about kind of what are those various things in a, in a better explanation than what I just gave of like the bullet list. But because the things that you, I, the main place I follow you now is on Instagram, and

    this is where I see kind of where you're getting out and you are experiencing things.

    And I can only assume that, I mean, obviously you love to do that, but it is also informing what you do as a professional.

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a, I, I, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a big question, but I do think that travel is certainly a, a huge part of my, the way I sort of keep my batteries charged. Uh, [00:41:00] it's a big aspect of my life. Um. I don't know if, I mean some of it is maybe that, you know, I moved around a lot as a kid, so I got very used to showing up in new places, you know, we were, I was going to new schools every four, four years or so, um, you know, and I know that other people have moved much more than that, um, but nevertheless every four years, uh, since I was born, you know, I had to show up in a totally different state, go to a totally different school, and meet totally different people, and figure out a totally different lifestyle, um, you know, different regions of the country, different sizes of metropolises from a tiny rural town to cities.

    Um, and so I think I've always enjoyed that, showing up in places and meeting people and seeing new things. Um, and, yeah, I was a very enthusiastic budget traveler when I first graduated from college. Uh, almost immediately, I'd say about two weeks after graduating. Um, you know, I was off to go backpacking, I was in China, I was in all over Europe, and that set a pace that hasn't necessarily flagged.

    Um, it's easy because my wife and I don't have children or pets, so it's quite easy for us to leave the house [00:42:00] and go do things together. And, um, and not worry about things like, yeah, where the kids are going to be or what happened, what's going to happen to the dog or the cat or that kind of thing.

    Um, but I do think that, yeah, taking the time to see places is, is super important, especially if one is interested in architecture.

    Um, you know, being able to see certain, going into structures and experiencing them. It's really not even a seeing at that point, you know, you're experiencing, you're hearing, you're literally feeling a space. You know, whether or not it's a draft or. the temperature inside, or if it's just the fact that the ceiling is a hundred feet above you and the acoustics have changed.

    Um, you know, just recently I was in Norway for a part of a reporting for the book that I'm currently working on, which is about archaeology, and somebody gave me a tip to go see this really fascinating museum. Um, it's, uh, it's two brothers, the Vigeland brothers, and I think it was the Immanuel Vigeland's museum.

    Um, the other Vigeland is the brother who designed, um, a sculpture park, um, that is this incredibly [00:43:00] weird, uh, park in Oslo. Yeah, it's super strange. It's kind of homoerotic, but also sort of, uh,

    a celebration of family and human virility. It's very, very strange. Um, but in any case, the, uh, the chapel, uh, that I went to, and maybe you've been there actually, um, was his brother's, uh, work where it's very weird.

    It's a, it's a church cathedral, or sorry, it's a chapel, um, or chapel like space. That's, uh, it's quite a long walk. I walked there. It was a nice day. So it was about an hour walk from my hotel. Um, but it's in the outskirts of, of Oslo, and um, it's, when, when, when I went inside, uh, what was interesting is that it was so crowded I had to wait in the lobby before they would let me in.

    Um, but then eventually when I went inside, I, uh, everyone else had left by the time I was standing in there, so I was actually alone inside this place. Um, but so there's very little light. Um, so when you first walk in, you cannot see if there are other people in the room, you can barely even understand what's happening.

    Um, but the human eye gradually gets used to the darkness quite easily. In fact, amongst creatures, we have extremely good night vision. Um, and then gradually you realize that you're in [00:44:00] this huge room that has maybe 40, 45 foot tall ceilings. Um, all of the walls are painted with these weird, almost paganistic, uh, sort of, um, writhing bodies.

    It's all very fertile and very kind of Scandinavian folk horror. It's very, very, very weird. It's almost a Dantean, uh, Um, and, and as that comes out of the darkness, uh, also, and I remember when I accepted the fact that I was alone, I realized that I could start making strange sounds. And so you, I got to experience the space acoustically, you know, through little claps or, or click, clicking my tongue.

    In fact, I made a recording, uh, just to, to hear it, cause the, the decay on the sounds was, was like seven to nine seconds long. It was very, very long.

    And, um, I, I mentioned that as an example because, you know, you can look at pictures of a, of an, of an interesting chapel outside Oslo, and you can say, wow, that looks really cool.

    Or you can go to it and you can stand inside of it and you can feel the air and you can listen to the sounds, uh, and, and really kind of, uh, and even just adjusting your eyesight within a space and seeing more detail emerge as your eyes get used to things, [00:45:00] um, is a pretty incredible spatial experience.

    And to be able to do that with other types of buildings, you know, I, I, I had a bucket list trip, um, in, uh, I think it was 2019 where I got to go to Cappadocia, which is part of Turkey where, uh, for hundreds and hundreds of years, the Hittites had dug huge underground cities. Um, into very soft rock that after it's exposed to air hardens.

    Um, and so you have these massive labyrinths of underground cities that you can explore. And, uh, my wife and I went and just were inside these places for just hours and hours at a time. And then when you go out into the greater landscape, you find hundreds, literally, of, uh, abandoned Christian chapels. Um, 99.

    9 percent of which have been defaced since, since the, they were constructed. Um, but the frescoes are still in there. So you find a hot, you know, from one side, it looks like a hill. And from the other side, it's like a broken open geode,

    um, you know, which is a hollow rock with crystals in it. Um, but it's a broken open hillside that has an old Christian chapel, you know, with fading frescoes.

    And then you realize looking [00:46:00] out over the landscape that you're surrounded by dozens and maybe even hundreds of churches that are just hidden inside hills. Um, it's a, it's an amazing experience. And so, um, you know, and let alone going to major tourist sites, like going to the Colosseum in Rome or going to, uh.

    Angkor Wat in Cambodia, or seeing the Great Wall of China, or, you know, other large architectural undertakings. But so, you know, travel isn't cheap. But on the other hand, you know, you can, when I, I know when I was fresh out of college, I was, it was quite easy to get student deals. I still have some of my old student ID, IDs that you could get international student identity cards and get really good discounts on things.

    And, yeah, totally. And I mean, I definitely, I, I think that's a hugely valuable aspect of things. And then you mentioned hiking. I do think that Um, I know that not everyone is a, is a big hiker, and everyone has different levels of physical ability to, to, to do these sorts of things. Um, but to those who are physically able to hike, I do think that it's a, an incredibly invigorating and, and exciting way to experience the landscape, to actually be out there, um, [00:47:00] outdoors.

    Uh, you know, if you go to places like Zion National Park in, in, in Utah, or Canyonlands, um, the architectural forms that are revealed, uh, some might use the word architectonic instead of architectural, which implies human design. Um, but the architectonic forms that are revealed over long term of, uh, erosion and uplift and earthquakes and landslides and just like general rainfall over millions of years.

    Um, you end up with these absolutely beautiful sort of hulking geometric forms that you can walk around and you can experience the shadows and listen to the wildlife. And it's a really architectural experience. You know, it's a spatial way to engage with landscape. Uh, it's a way to bodily invest oneself in the world.

    And, um, I think all of those experiences are, are, are very important. Um, having said that, you know, other things are also quite important. Like, I think as an architect, um, or rather for architects, I also just recommend looking outside of the architecture building. Um, not just by going to the Grand Canyon, but literally look at things that are happening in different [00:48:00] departments.

    Uh, look in different fields if you're not in school anymore. Um, you know, you might find something quite fascinating if you go to an astronomy conference, or if you go watch a movie about something you didn't realize you were interested in. I often find with a lot of architects who are very pressed for time, as you know, architecture is a notoriously overworked field, um, that there's a feeling of, not urgency, but of lack of time, and so, you know, if you're going to go see a movie, I know, I know many architects who feel like, well then it might as, it should be as architecturally relevant as possible, or if I'm going to read a novel, it should be a novel that is as architecturally relevant as possible, because I don't have, I don't have a lot of time to read a murder mystery.

    I don't have time to go see this kind of thing. Um, but I find very often, not always, but I, I, a very, very high track record of success and going to places outside of the field of architecture and finding something where you're like, Oh, wow. I hadn't thought of that from a spatial point of view, or the fact that what they're talking about has to be designed by somebody.

    Um, you know, [00:49:00] I mean, even just an example is in the quarantine book, you know, we went to an agricultural, uh, disease research center that was under construction. And, you know, you might think to yourself, what does agricultural disease research have to do with architecture? Um, but we actually got into this conversation with this guy who's designed the building, um, about things that I had just never thought about, like, uh, extremely advanced HVAC systems that allow negative pressure disease research labs to maintain negative pressure, so the air is always pumping out of the room.

    Or no, excuse me, I take, I take that back. The room is, it's the other way around. The, the, the air is always pumping into the room to keep the pathogen isolated. Um, but it was a building designed to get, uh, to survive being hit by a, a category five or a level five tornado. And so the idea is that when you have even extreme barometric changes in the atmosphere outside the internal barometric systems of the, of the building will, will maintain their own pressure and the way in which that was maintained and, and the technical expertise that that requires.

    Um, you know, my point is that that is an [00:50:00] architectural phenomenon and it's a technical question. And you wouldn't know that if you didn't necessarily follow, you know, disease research or, for that matter, looking to tornado proof, uh, you know, cities and, and structures in the, in the Midwest. Um, but I just think looking outside the box generally makes you realize how little is inside the box.

    And I think that that's a really important lesson, uh, in my opinion for life in general. You know, don't assume that your life inside the box is everything, because it's not.

    Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah, you, you really strike me as kind of an explorer or adventurer for sure. And, and the idea, like some of the pictures that you've posted of your travels in Southern Utah through the national parks, like my wife and I got married in Zion. I mean,

    that's one of the reasons we chose that space.

    Right. And I've done slot canyons there and we, we hiked the narrows for our, our wedding party, right? Like that

    was what we did instead of. you know, doing it a golf course, right? So, um, but, but because it is so architectural and the national [00:51:00] parks of, of Utah are absolutely incredible.

    Geoff Manaugh: Mm.

    Evan Troxel: It's just like, they are kind of edifices, right?

    But they're, they're just natural. And like hiking out to Delicate Arch and Arches National Park, right? It's, it's, it's, you, you you go on a journey to experience this thing and you wait for sunset and you walk back under the full moon and it's, it's absolutely incredible to have those kinds of experiences.

    And they do inform the work that we do. I mean, it's, you can't not have it inform the work that you do. And it, I think it, it makes for some really interesting ideas to come out of. Who knows where they come out of, right?

    It's like you can't even explain it. But,

    but there's some, there's some really interesting work that you've posted on your Instagram where you've, We've kind of done deep dives into geologic illustration, right?

    And I remember following those really closely because you're kind of unearthing from these, that are out there, right? [00:52:00] People have done these really intricate cross sectional drawings through, through the earth and,

    and you're relating it back to kind of a spatial nature. Like,

    I think we talked about this in the last episode, right?

    It's like, we don't, it's not just the ground that we stand on, right? It's like, there's a lot going on under the surface. Spatially with plate tectonics and with stratification and the bending of all that and just, it's kind of a, it's an ever evolving thing as well. It's not static, it's dynamic.

    And I think to me, maybe you could just explain kind of what, what that study was that you did because I, I'll throw some images here into the, into the video portion of this for those who are interested in

    seeing what I'm talking about.

    But, uh, The, the, the things that you were surfacing, I thought they're, they're really beautiful, scientific, right? They were, they

    were done for research, but they're amazing drawings. And, and

    I think that's what's interesting about the work that you're doing, Geoff, because, I mean, you're a writer, but you're [00:53:00] also very visual in the presentation of the work that you're doing. And I can see kind of how, where you're drawing that inspiration from, because you're kind of doing this deep dive into case studies or, or again, just kind of chasing Um, a trail down and not knowing where it's going to go and you're finding some really incredible stuff.

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, the geology stuff, um, was, uh, er, is, uh, yeah, just delightful to look at, and I think that some of that goes back to, uh, one of those sort of if this, then that sort of realizations, which was that, you know, if architects are looking at space through things, through visual techniques like section, and if geologists are doing something similar when they're going to see, say, a road, what's known as a road cut, so when, um, you know, someone built a road through a hillside, you then see what was inside the hillside, so you can see levels of rock, etc.,

    the straight, the stratification of the rock, you know,

    Evan Troxel: Can I just pause you for one second? Because we've talked about this, I think, offline. But, like, my grandfather was a geologist. [00:54:00] We mentioned it in the last podcast. But he did a study in Death Valley of a road cut, and it's a very famous road cut. It's actually published in, like, one of the top 10 road cuts, like the

    total geology nerd stuff, right?

    But it's, like, number two in the top 10 road cuts kind of compendium out there.

    So it's just funny, like, when you bring that up. These are the kind of thoughts that are flooding my mind. Mm

    Geoff Manaugh: that right there would be, uh, you know, the top ten road cuts. That would be a fun architectural project for someone to take it upon themselves to go visit those. You know, go see the top ten road cuts. Um, there's a, there's one I really like that's just north of the city here in Los Angeles.

    Um, it's right when you're driving into a city over the mountains called Palmdale. Um, but as you drive through, it actually, the cut goes more or less through the San Andreas Fault. Um, you are a little bit off the fault, but, um, it's still a spectacular way to see the kind of, like, compressed waves of rock that have been jostled and, and deformed over millions of years by tectonic movement along the San Andreas.

    Um, but I would definitely say that if that isn't in that, in that [00:55:00] list of top 10 road cuts, it should be. But, um, but yeah, so I think the realization that geologists are visualizing internal layers of the earth in a way that architects are doing for the internal layers of a building, um, was a really exciting thought process and led to Um, at one point I was teaching a class at Columbia GSAP that was looking at the San Andreas Fault as a setting, um, where the idea was to, for students to design a San Andreas Fault National Park, and, um, it was also there too where I challenged some of my students to, to develop representational techniques that could be applied to architecture and the earth, so that you could see, you know, what was beneath your feet, but also, uh, what was inside a building.

    Um, and then, so, when I started looking into these USGS, the United States Geological Survey, um, the, these documents and reports that have been, that are all uploaded and free. It's one of the reasons why I'm a, you know, patriotic taxpayer, because I feel like, you know, we have incredible government services, um, and, and I'm a fan of those, but [00:56:00] so the USGS has this amazing archive of, of free geological research that's published, and, uh, the ways in which they, the, the geologists and the geological illustrators that they worked with, Figured out how to represent complex landscapes are incredible and I think that if you could show those or adapt those to an architectural setting Um, there are things like the, one of my favorite techniques is called a fence diagram Um, which is basically you're taking a section not just through one hill or one part of the landscape You're taking a section behind it and then a section behind it But then you're also taking sections perpendicular to those So you end up,

    Evan Troxel: it's

    a grid of sections,

    Geoff Manaugh: Totally, yeah, exactly, exactly.

    And so, you know, you could imagine a fence diagram, a grid of sections cut through Boston or, you know, or cut through London, you know, cut through wherever you might want, cut through Cappadocia, the place in Turkey I just mentioned. Um, you know, the things that would be revealed by that is, would be absolutely incredible.

    Um, and then also [00:57:00] isometric diagrams of mines, um, uh, maps of, uh, of mine tunnels, you know, that the USGS has produced, where You'll often have, you know, one layer of the tunnel in one color, or excuse me, one layer of the mine in one color, um, and then below that, uh, looking, you're looking at a plan, a sec, a plan of the mine.

    Below that will be a different color, which will be mine level two, and below that is a different color. And you end up with these things that almost look like, you know, sort of, um, you know, abstract art meets a kind of mandala. And, you know, just the, the, and then as, as you know, from working in architecture, you know, um, mentally unpeeling what layer goes where and how they're connected, um, you know, goes back to the sort of the cognition stuff we were talking about earlier.

    Like, it's a great way to just sort of keep cognitively flexible because you understand what you're looking at visually. And I mean, these tools then,

    yeah, exactly, yeah, you're interpreting it.

    Evan Troxel: like, it's like using AutoCAD, where different layers were just represented with different colors,

    or different elements where, where, you know, you [00:58:00] had seven colors or eight colors that you would boil everything down to, but you knew exactly what you were looking at, just based on the color that the line was, right?

    Geoff Manaugh: And, uh, I think that those kinds of things are beautiful to look at, scientifically communicative, and inspiring in terms of architectural thinking or architectural representation. And so, I still have unbelievable quantities of those geological, uh, materials, so I should, I should continue uploading them.

    But, um, the, uh, the amount of stuff on the USGS website is, is unbelievable. And then, and then, and then, not only just those kind of 3D mappings, but even just, uh, or 3D diagrams, but, um, two dimensional maps that have been drawn that show the sort of weird fractal geometric forms that exist beneath our cities.

    If you follow where the bedrock goes, or where the bedrock changes from one type of rock to another, or where it becomes topsoil, you get these shapes and lobes and outgrowths that look a lot like fractal [00:59:00] geometry, but are actually just what's beneath us all the time. And we just don't see it like that, because we can't peel away the soil, or for that matter, lift St.

    Louis up in the air to see it, to look into the ground. But that's what's underneath St. Louis, you know, or that's what's underneath Oklahoma. Um, and also I find that many places that are allegedly quite uninteresting. You know, the, the fame, the famous boredom of the American Great Plains. Um, when you look at it in a geologic map, it's actually spectacular.

    It's, you know, it's an unbelievably interesting place. And it goes to show that if you change how you represent something, you can often change your own level of interest in that thing. So to say that something is boring just means that it's been represented in a boring manner to you so far. Um, and there, there's a new way of looking at it and that, that those ways exist.

    And so it's also exciting to see. Um, the USGS is a kind of a way of changing, um, yeah, changing how we think about representation and how we think about, uh, what, what we're capable of producing in terms of depicting, depicting the earth. But, um, but yeah, I mean, I think also then, you know, getting in [01:00:00] touch with geologists has, has been pretty exciting.

    I've, I've, I've spoken with many geologists and, uh, plate tectonics researchers and all of this stuff informs my writing, my thinking. Um, and I certainly think it would be true for others as well, you know, to speak with people outside of your chosen field and get to know even just the vocabulary that those people use.

    You know, like a fence diagram. It's an interesting, it's an interesting phrase to have in my pocket.

    Evan Troxel: heard of that before

    I saw that post that you had done.

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah, and so,

    Evan Troxel: I didn't know what that was called.

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah, so getting, challenging your students to design fence diagrams of, uh, you know, buildings would be, would be quite exciting.

    Evan Troxel: right.

    Yeah,

    you strike me as a very much of an inside out, like the way that you experience things, uh, you like, it's, it like you said earlier, it's spatial, I think a lot of architects are kind of outside in, we, we, We start at a very high level, we zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, zoom in, then we zoom back out, and then we zoom in, and then it's kind of this constant modulation between zooming out and zooming into the big picture and the tiniest details. And [01:01:00] obviously there's a spatial component to that and how all these things come together and spaces that people inhabit that are the things we actually create, but there's still kind of this aesthetic tendency that we, but you're talking about an experiential. Spatial, acoustical, right, light, like these are very architectural, like the very foundations of architecture, and I think it's so interesting to think about the spatial, they're not, They're not buildings, but they're still, a lot of times, they're man made things, like mines, like you were talking about, like subways, and different, uh, ways to convey people and objects through space, and mine shafts with, with carts, and obviously the shafts part, and it just seems to me like they're so experiential in nature.

    I think that's really interesting, in the way that you, you even communicated, experiencing that chapel in Norway, right? It's, it's very inside. First, [01:02:00] outside, maybe second. I don't know. Um, but, but the idea of that experience I think is, is really the, the nugget of, of this part of the conversation because you don't get that looking at images.

    Right? You just, you talked about that earlier. You, you, you can't just flip through Pinterest or Google or as it used to be magazines and books or in school we would do case studies. It was never the same as going to school. the place and experiencing it for yourself. And maybe even doing that multiple times. A recent, a recent example for me with this was, you know, I had seen images and I had heard other people talk about, um, the African American museum on the national mall, right in Washington, DC. And that's not the full name of it, but the full name of it is very long and I don't remember it exactly. So, uh, I'll, I'll put it in the show notes, but what an experiential. Museum to visit. I don't know if you've been there or not, but it's, it's, it's, you know, it's, I've been to the [01:03:00] Guggenheim in New York as well, and that is experiential, right? Like, it's like, go to the elevator, go to the top, and then work your way back down. And this one, it was the opposite. It's like, go to the bottom, and experience a timeline from beneath the ground, dark, and it still gets lighter and lighter, and, and it's, this progression through spaces on the inside is absolutely phenomenal.

    Like, it blew me away. And it's not something you can take in in one sitting. Visit either, right? You need to go multiple times. There's so much content. There's so much to read. There's so much to think about. Um, I think that it, it is unfortunate that we are always so pressed for time working on projects and, and you don't get to take the time to really build your rapport with space as it were, right?

    Doing these things to be able to then take that experience and apply it to your work that you do. Um, I mean, obviously people can choose to do that, but oftentimes it's like that these are the things that end up on the back [01:04:00] burner. But the work that you're doing, you're, it seems like you're very intentional about doing these travels, having these experiences. Um, if you were to, if you were to kind of lay that out for people, like how much time are you spending? I'm sure there's a blend, like you're probably working while you're doing this stuff too. But, but if

    you were, the experience side versus the doing side, like what, what do you feel like you're, Your breakup is there, or the percentages of those.

    Geoff Manaugh: I mean in terms of travel specifically, or

    Evan Troxel: yeah, just, just like the experiencing of the, all of the different things that I see you posting about versus like the actual, like you're sitting down to write. And if you were

    Geoff Manaugh: oh sure,

    Evan Troxel: give some numbers to that.

    Geoff Manaugh: um, uh, well yeah, I think that that number definitely changes over time. I think that, not that, and not in one direction, but there are phases in my life where quite a lot of time is spent more reflecting on things and writing about them. Whereas there are other times where it's very much more sort of doing centric, [01:05:00] so to speak.

    Um, you know, where it's about the experience, it's about taking things in. Um, I find that when I'm traveling, one of the things that's so good about, and I like so much about being a writer is that it's quite difficult to not find something to write about. Uh, especially if you're traveling to a location where you're already kind of in Keyed up to see things because you're in a, you're in a different location.

    You don't know, you don't know what's going on. So you're noticing more, um, very basic things that people take for granted as a, as part of everyday life, seem really exotic and strange. Um, you know, travel has that effect of heightening your sensitivity to detail. Um, and so if you also go, and that's even for people who aren't writers.

    So if you, if you are a writer or a photographer or doing anything involving documentation. Um, you know, you'll begin to notice that, wow, I could actually write a piece about this building, or about this person, or about this place that I visited, or this landscape, or this historic site. Um, and so, it often means that when I'm traveling, I get to [01:06:00] see things that I might not otherwise have expected to see, or that I might not otherwise have gotten access to.

    Um, because if you get in touch as a, as a journalist in town, you know, often it's, it's much easier to, for doors to be open to, to you. Um, and so that's one aspect of, of, of this that I like so much. So there's a, there's a, a friend and colleague of mine who, who I admire, um, who started an entire organization called the Infrastructure Observatory, um, because I can't remember this place he was trying to get into, but I, I want to say it might have been a data center.

    Um, but the origin story was that he was trying to get a tour of a data center and they were like, why would we give you a tour of our data center? Who are you? Are you with an organization? And so about, he came away from that with the realization that, uh, all he, all he

    had to do, yeah, so he started this thing called the Infrastructure Observatory, um, and then got back in touch with some of these people and, and, you know, got a group of four or five other infrastructure nerds together.

    and all of a sudden he was getting permission to go inside places and see them because they were the infrastructure observatory. [01:07:00] Um, so I think that, you know, having a reason to see stuff is definitely, um, good for getting access to those places, um, beyond just showing up as a tourist, you know, and taking pictures and realizing that how cool it would be if you could see that, but you can't get in because you didn't, you didn't call ahead or that kind of thing.

    But, um, but yeah, I think it's definitely, you know, with travel too, I mean, I do find that It's not all, uh, time off, you know, so I will often have days where I'll be in a great city or I'll be in a really interesting landscape or place. But I have to spend hours in the hotel room working on, you know, either a piece of writing that's due or preparing myself for what I just said, like a tour or an interview that's coming up later that day.

    Um, and so, you know, it's not always, you know, it feels a little silly, like you've spent all this money to go to halfway around the world and you're sitting in your hotel room for five hours. Um, but, you know, that's the trade off, is that you have to get the work done and, and actually, actually do this stuff.

    Um, and so it's a mix of, yeah, business and [01:08:00] pleasure, I guess you could say. But, um, speaking of the, uh, the African American Museum, though, I mean, one of the things that blew me away, spatially, specifically and only in terms of spatial, um, is just that, is just how much larger it is inside than it appears to be from the outside.

    It's astonishing, actually. Because even, I've been back to DC several times since I was in there, and every time I drive past, or walk past, it always, it's always amazing, amazing to me, because it does not look like a large museum,

    um, but it's an absolute cavern, it's enormous, so yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a nice, that alone is a nice architectural trick.

    Evan Troxel: I knew you would like it because of the underground nature of the,

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, yeah, well, any, any, any basements,

    Evan Troxel: it's big underground. It's bigger than the footprint that is above ground, you know,

    from what I can tell. I mean, I haven't studied any drawings, but that's my sense of it. It's kind of like the Griffith Observatory, right?

    There's like,

    you go into the planetarium, you go down below and you're underneath the front plaza. It's, it's kind of similar to that. Yeah.

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah, yeah,

    Evan Troxel: It's very cool. Um, there was something I was going to ask you about there. I'm trying to remember what it was.

    Geoff Manaugh: uh, we were talking about travel, and workload, and [01:09:00] doing versus experiencing,

    Evan Troxel: I was, I was, and I, I will echo what you're saying about starting the infrastructure observatory. That, that's what a podcast will get, uh,

    an architect as well. I mean, basically I am a member of the press by having a, I don't, I don't even know what the timeframe would be, but I obviously been doing this for a while.

    So I, I don't necessarily want to hinge it on a longstanding podcast, but I would assume also with your, with BLDGBLOG and things like that, like all of that helps, right. To be able to. Then apply for press credentials because I mean, whether you talk about it or not, like you're still a member of the press, right?

    And

    you then have opportunities to do things that the general public doesn't necessarily have access to. And so I would encourage people again to, if you come up with reasons to talk about this stuff, come up with reasons to write about this stuff, come up with reasons to draw these things and just put a name behind it.

    And you

    can also do the things that Geoff was talking about. I've. It's a first hand experience. It's great. [01:10:00] I think

    it's absolutely fantastic. And those opportunities would not be available, and nor would I have foreseen them in any, and I still don't, right? But they

    do show up, and I think it's absolutely fantastic to

    have that ability to access those things that other people can't.

    Geoff Manaugh: yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. I think that, you know, we live in a time where other people might be more inclined to take the influencer route, so to speak,

    where, you know, you hear such nightmarish stories where somebody, you know as, as an influencer, oh, you know, I'm an influencer. I'm gonna depict your hotel room, so do, can I get a free, a free week in this hotel?

    Or, you know, I'm gonna take a, I'm gonna upload a picture of my dinner to Instagram, so can I get 50% off the bill?

    Um, you know, being an influencer purely to just get free crap from,

    from, from places I think is definitely not the right way to go.

    Um, but I think that, you know, having something like a podcast or a blog or a newsletter or just even just being, even if you're just a journalist for someone else's platform, Um, you know, you can still get access to places that you wouldn't normally get, get into.

    I mean, I clearly don't [01:11:00] recommend that you take advantage of that and, uh, you know, put people out of time by pretending that you're going to cover something that you're, that you're not going to.

    Um, but, uh, but I do find that, yeah, it's an extremely useful and, and great way to, to learn more about places and also I find people are very generous, you know, I think that, um, we live in a funny time, but I do feel like people are, they do want to share their experience in their life and their, and their, and their everyday environment and the things that they do for work and I, I often find that, you know, when I'm working on an article in particular, um, you know, people who do such interesting work that I can't believe that they're not inundated with requests to speak to the press or like, you know, They're practically like superheroes in my mind, you know, people, but they're people working on random scientific problems or people working in architecture offices or archaeologists doing something with technology.

    Like in my opinion, they're celebrities and I can't believe they even will take the time to reply to me over an email. Um, but then I meet them and, and we talk and you realize that not a lot of other journalists have reached out to that person, you know, or not a lot of other people have actually expressed interest.

    And I think as you'll, you'll find, I'm sure anyone [01:12:00] listening to this podcast will, will, will have found often your own family and friends. are a little tired of hearing your shtick. And so, you know, they don't want to hear it either. And so, you know, you might be the most interesting archaeologist in the world, but maybe your spouse is just tired of hearing about it, um, and doesn't want to talk about that anymore.

    That's just work stuff. So when a journalist or a blogger or a podcaster shows up and wants to actually learn about and cover these things, I think that it's actually pretty refreshing and exciting for, for many people. And just kind of adds to a feeling of human camaraderie that is lacking when you're sitting at a terminal all day.

    You know, just, uh, you know, in a, in a dark room, you know, where, where you're not interacting with people and you've got headphones on and you're staring at a monitor, you know, I think it's easy to lose a sense of, of, of human companionship and, and the idea that, you know, there are other people out there that are excited to know you and talk to you.

    And, um, that's, and to have you around, I think that's just a really refreshing thing to be reminded, especially after the last four weird years of COVID and post COVID, [01:13:00] but,

    Evan Troxel: My 18 year old son, you know, has a hard time striking up conversations with people and it's because of the way that he approaches it. It's like, what can I tell them about me? And I

    said, don't do that. I said, ask about them.

    Like your job is to learn as much as you can, but there's something interesting and unique and mind blowing about every single person out there.

    And you have no idea what it is. Your job should be to try to figure out what that is about every single person you meet. Because I guarantee you, like, it's, it's something that will blow you away. Like, you

    just have no idea what people have under, under the surface. Yeah, it's,

    Geoff Manaugh: It's funny too, because I don't mean to give a more cynical reason for that, but it's also easier. Uh, you know, I find that if, uh,

    I absolutely agree with what you just said. But in addition to that, if you can't convince your 18 year old son, I would just say, it's a lot easier, man. Like, if you go to a cocktail party and you don't know what to say, like, just ask questions.

    You could be there for three hours. And also people will then remember you as a really fun person, because you'd [01:14:00] ask them questions. And, uh, like, oh, that person was really interested in me. And they'll, you know, it's a, it's a fun thing. But yeah, if you, if you aren't feeling social, I feel like that's the other thing to do is just start asking people what they do.

    Oh, did you grow up here? You know, what are you working on now? You know, have you, you know, they're just stupid little small talk questions that, um, allow you to actually just sort of not have to come up with something interesting to say. And, um, I find that 80 percent of, uh, cocktail party banter for me is that, you know, it's just, uh, asking people things about the world.

    But I agree, then you get to the less cynical stuff, which is like, yeah, you actually learn genuinely interesting things. I mean, there are so many things that I've written about, um, or think about, or have popped up again in my work or in my life, are just random throwaway comments from someone who had a bizarre line of work, or had a strange experience, um, or was going through something with their family that it just was so dramatic and bizarre that I, you know, I still think about it.

    Um, and then, and then that's where, that's where the non cynical value of talking to people is. [01:15:00] It's just fascinating to realize what other people are going through. And especially when you realize too, that like, if you're going through a bad spot, and then you realize that other people are too, or that they've gone through that, and they've come out of it.

    It's also just a way to remind yourself that you're not alone, and you're in the difficulties of life, because there are many of them. And it's, uh, it's easy to be, to get that feeling that somehow you've been singled out for, um, like suffering or badness, but it's just not true. You know, life is a very difficult, constantly aggressive, um, sort of threatening environment to, to be in, and it's, it's, it can be reassuring to know that other people experience that too, but that's, that's a different conversation, so I'll just leave it at that.

    Oh,

    Evan Troxel: I'll give an example of, of this wild phenomenon, right. And, and this just happened like two days ago. I, I met a guy down the street at a outdoor food place and I, I'd follow him on YouTube and I was like, Hey, I recognize you. He's like, Oh, cool. Nice to meet you. You know, I'll follow you back.

    And that was it. It was just like So then [01:16:00] I, I started looking through his videos on Instagram and I see him doing a 50 mile trail run with another guy that I'm familiar with, an acquaintance of. And so I, I then see that guy that he's running with. And I was like, Oh, I saw you in a video with this ADU guy.

    And I, I was like, so, so you're a, you're a endurance runner. He's like, I had no idea that he's an endurance runner. Well, it turns out that he ran the Pacific Crest Trail in 51 days.

    Straight record holder. Like this guy is a better than Olympian quality. And I had no clue. And I found this out and then now I'm doing the research, right?

    I'm like, look, I look,

    it up. It's on the fastest known time website. They're making, they're making, they're producing a documentary about it. And he ran the Pacific rest trail from the border of Mexico in the U S to the border of Canada in the U S in 51 days straight, no rest days, 50 to 60 plus miles per day of running [01:17:00] fully supported just by his wife and kids in an RV.

    Right?

    So, some days he's off in the trail, in a bivy, just, you know, in a very small pack, but, but this guy just goes and goes and goes and goes, and I had no idea. Right? And it, and how would have, I, I was like, Hi, I'm Evan. Hi, I'm Timothy. Oh, you're a runner? I'm not, I'm not a runner. I didn't, I don't care about running at all.

    Right? But, but I, I asked him about his running and it led to this. just, he blew my mind with, with what he's capable of. And I thought that was such an, and, and, and now I get to tell it to you on this podcast. I just thought it was so interesting that, that like all of the, the conversation led here, but anyway, it's really interesting. So

    Geoff,

    yeah, it is. Um, so tell us what's next for you. We'll start to wrap up the conversation here, but what are you, you, you mentioned you're working on another book. Uh, obviously you're doing, you're doing other things too, but give us an idea of, of where you're headed

    in the, the near future.

    Geoff Manaugh: Um, yeah, I guess I'd say in the, in the near future, uh, of, I still have a couple active [01:18:00] Hollywood projects. So, Fingers Crossed, Knock on Wood, do, you know, whatever, whatever it takes to, to get these, uh, one's a TV show and one is a, a feature film. Um, but they're, they're still plugging away, uh, and, uh, I'm, I'm optimistic, but they're based on two short stories of mine, so it's based on fiction.

    And, um, and then, just, again, in the near future, uh, yeah, then I'm working on this archaeology book, which has been absolutely a blast in terms of reporting. Um, for me, specifically, archaeology was the, you know, when people ask you what you thought you were going to be when you were seven, um, or nine, or eight, or whatever the question might be, um, you know, for me, it was an archaeologist.

    I was, I was, I was just totally fascinated, yeah, by abandoned cities and ruins and temples and artifacts. Everything about it just blew me away. Um, but, uh, so for me, it's also just exciting to be covering a topic that, that I'm excited about, but, um, but it's also architectural, so it's specifically looking at.

    Um, different ways of representing the past of, and, and buildings that are no longer standing, but they're [01:19:00] still, they are still present if you use the right instruments. Um, and so I just got back from a long trip in April where I was hanging out with geophysicists who have designed experimental electrical devices that can see through the floors of cathedrals.

    Um, there were some people that are working on an autonomous ground vehicle that can find Viking settlements. buried Viking settlements, uh, you know, it's, uh, and that's, that, that's on top of some research I was doing, uh, for the same, for the same project, uh, a couple of years ago where I met a guy who wants to basically start a kind of European space agency, but that's looking down instead of up.

    So it'll be a terrestrially focused, archaeologically, uh, informed subsurface agency. Um, so I'm putting all that together into one book and, uh, I still have some travel and some, some likely some telephone interviews in some cases, just to clarify some details. Um, but I've just seen some devices and machines in person that, that blow me away.

    I've met amazingly interesting people who again, in my opinion, are celebrities. [01:20:00] And I met them and they were like, yeah, no one's, no one's asked us, like, you know, we are, there are not a lot of journalists who are interested in what they're doing. Um, but so I'll be working on that for the next probably year and a half and, uh, some more short fiction that I hope is coming out soon.

    And, um, then of course, like personal travel that I don't think will be too interesting to either the listeners of your, of, of your podcast. But, um, trying to stay busy and, uh, succeeding, at least at remaining busy. And, uh, we'll, we'll see. Uh, I don't know if I'm succeeding at success, but We'll, we'll, we'll see how that goes.

    Evan Troxel: from, from the out, outward looking in, it looks like you're having a great time. And that to me looks like success. I have to imagine that you're a fan of Atlas Obscura.

    Geoff Manaugh: Oh yeah, sure. Of course.

    Evan Troxel: that, that just seemed like that's a great, just for anybody who doesn't know what that is. It's a fantastic website and there's, there's book version as well.

    But if you are ever traveling and you want to take the road less traveled and find the ruins that exist, that have just been kind of forgotten [01:21:00] about or are neglected, it is an amazing resource to,

    to find cool stuff, uh, that is kind of in the realm of what we've been talking about in this episode.

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah. Um, briefly, uh, I don't know if there'll be time, time, but uh. I also just want to say, just plug very briefly, my wife is also a writer and just put out a new book, uh, it came out about four weeks ago. Um, but it's called Frostbite and it's about how refrigeration has changed food in cities and that kind of thing.

    Um, but I mention it because, uh, even though it's about basically the science of food preservation, Um, there are so many urban and architectural, uh, takeaways and, and sites of interest in, in, in the book, everything from, Um, ice caves that used to be used and pits where, uh, snow and ice would be stored, natural snow and ice would be stored with food to, to keep them, uh, fresh over long periods of time.

    Um, to the point where actually one archaeologist had a, has a theory that one of the reasons why there are so many myths of, of little people living around the British Isles, um, you know, hobbit like creatures and [01:22:00] folkloristic creatures. Um, is actually because ice caves, uh, you know, used to be, uh, you know, carved into a hill with a tiny door that was just enough to reach in and take snow and ice and put some food in.

    And so you'd have little hills all over, all over the British Isles with tiny doors in them. Um, you know, they sort of looked like, uh, you know, looked like, uh, Middle Earth.

    Um, but, you know, we got access to places, again, that, like, just to continue this theme, um, that blew me away. Like, uh, there's a, there are caves and mines all over the Midwest, uh, especially in Missouri.

    Uh, that have been turned into gigantic food storage, uh, facilities.

    And so, you know, like the nation's frozen pizza is basically inside mines and outside St. Louis.

    And, um, these places are huge, you know, so we drove around for, for not hours, but for 20 to 25 minutes just driving around in a Tacoma. Uh, you know, with these huge pillars holding up the earth's surface above us.

    And then just like, yeah, underground and then five to six floors of, of, uh, shelving holding Kraft cheese and ice [01:23:00] cream and all the, all, basically the nation's food supply, you know, is being held inside these huge, um, artificial, uh, caves and mines in, in, in the, in the American Midwest. But, um, so I could go on for a great detail, but it's, it's a great book and it's exciting and it's also, um, Evidence that even something like refrigeration, um, is going to have architectural implications.

    And you can still come back to that spatial question and that architectural question. Um, you know, it really does underlie almost everything. And, um, that's just one major takeaway I would, I would say to anyone listening.

    Evan Troxel: I will definitely be checking that out. And if you could just say her name and the name of the book one more time, and I will include it in the show notes so people can just click, but

    Geoff Manaugh: Sure, it's called Frostbite and it's by Nicola Twilley.

    Evan Troxel: Nice.

    Geoff Manaugh: I can, I can text it to you as well.

    Evan Troxel: Okay, sounds good. Um, I will put links to BLDGBLOG on, on there and your Instagram. Is there anywhere else that where

    people can follow along with, with what you're working on?

    Geoff Manaugh: Um, I mean I've been, for now I'd say that's probably good. Uh, you know, I do have an ex slash Twitter account, but I don't really use it, and [01:24:00] um, I've been playing around with SubSack, but it's not really architecturally relevant, ironically. It's just like me randomly writing crap, so uh, you know, I'm not sure I want to institutionalize that yet, but um, but uh, but yeah, I'd say, uh, yeah, Building Vlog and Instagram I think are good, good, good places to go.

    Evan Troxel: Fantastic. Well, Geoff, thanks so much. This was great catching up with you. I know we went

    all over the place with this conversation, but I think, uh, you know, it was well warranted. This was so many fun, interesting things to talk about here. I couldn't not do it. So, and, and congrats on 20 years of BLDGBLOG.

    That's incredible.

    Geoff Manaugh: No, thanks.

    Evan Troxel: And, uh, if, if you could post a little more often than every six months, I'll just

    put in a vote because I love the content that you put on. The, the latest article that you posted right around the 20 year anniversary is absolutely fascinating. Like, it's just, and I don't, we don't need to spoil it.

    I would love it if people would actually go to your website and read this article and see the incredible imagery that goes along with it. Um, it's just, it's, it's really fascinating [01:25:00] stuff. And so if you're,

    if you're interested in the conversation that we've had today, you will definitely find Geoff's articles just as interesting.

    So thanks

    so much for hanging out

    Geoff Manaugh: Yeah, thanks for having me back.

    13 August 2024, 1:00 pm
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