The Construction Tech Disconnect for AEC Leaders to Build Tools Field Teams Use with Tyler Campbell

0:00 [SPEAKER_01]: On this week's show, The Proof is in the field with Tyler Campbell from Field Proof. [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, Nathan Wood got a new background back in the office and it's starting to shape up, how about he? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, got there. [SPEAKER_00]: Our summit teams behind us. [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I was leading our contractor fueled formerly family feud team, but yeah, no, excited to be back home and diving in with with Tyler.

0:38 [SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna be a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is going to be fun. [SPEAKER_01]: It's always good when you got somebody who's smooth on the microphone with you. [SPEAKER_01]: So Tyler, Campbell. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for sitting down, man. [SPEAKER_01]: How you doing? [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I feel rusty.

0:51 [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not on a microphone today. [SPEAKER_02]: This thing's not even plugged in. [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's where the echo came from. [SPEAKER_01]: You should have just left it there so the geeks are new. [SPEAKER_01]: I just thought, like, what happened to the sound?

1:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Tyler, fix your stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: What are you doing? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, man. [SPEAKER_02]: That's not an SM- seven B. What the heck, dude? [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: He's dropping the lingo. [SPEAKER_01]: That's right. [SPEAKER_01]: You guys know, we will dive in to learn more about what Tyler's up to you, but before we do, we're back on YouTube.

1:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Check us out. [SPEAKER_01]: YouTube.com, four slash at the content crew. [SPEAKER_01]: You guys have heard that one enough these days, but those shorts are blowing up, and the subscriptions are too. [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for doing it for us, guys. [SPEAKER_01]: All right. [SPEAKER_01]: So.

1:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Tyler, Campbell. [SPEAKER_01]: I love sitting down with you over time. [SPEAKER_01]: We've been through your iterations, the things that you're up to. [SPEAKER_01]: Enjoyed, you know, the relationship over the years. [SPEAKER_01]: So this is really fun for me to sit down with you, man. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, dude.

1:46 [SPEAKER_02]: Pleasure, as always, to be here. [SPEAKER_02]: I just, I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I love geeking out with you guys too. [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, now the way I'm Nathan in the room too, this will be a lot of fun. [SPEAKER_02]: Because last time we did this on contact crew, it was just you and me.

1:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, this is still, like, is this enemy territory? [SPEAKER_00]: You know, construction brothers. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, podcast versus podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Are we still in that state now or are we involved? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, definitely. [SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.

2:12 [SPEAKER_02]: There's going to be so much friendly fire. [SPEAKER_02]: It's insane dude. [SPEAKER_02]: Lobbing hand grenades. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, love it. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what we fun. [SPEAKER_01]: Not at all loving competing shorts. [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to like put out our, you know, our just cooler than yours is.

2:24 [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So on side side bar here. [SPEAKER_02]: My brother's son. [SPEAKER_02]: He has a YouTube channel and he literally posted a short the other day that got a million views. [SPEAKER_02]: No, like, so Eddie and I are sitting over here like, what are we doing with our lives, man?

2:39 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, what the heck? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, his son is just like, taking us to school on this stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Darry, ask what category the video was in? [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's, it's video gaming. [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, okay. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.

2:54 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: He figured out the one hard thing, everybody wanted to see how you do it, shared it, and there you go. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you get everybody to follow on. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Very man. [SPEAKER_02]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: He's wicked smart.

3:05 [SPEAKER_02]: I got a hand that's to him. [SPEAKER_02]: So he did a very sneaky thing where it just like sits in loops. [SPEAKER_02]: And like he's just mining views and people are resharing it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's insane. [SPEAKER_02]: Like Eddie and I are over here. [SPEAKER_02]: Why didn't we think of this man?

3:19 [SPEAKER_02]: We need to be mining views. [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Can you send me his resume? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't like we're losing our touch here, man. [SPEAKER_01]: This is crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: We are my man. [SPEAKER_01]: We are speaking of, you know, change.

3:31 [SPEAKER_01]: You got a new thing going, buddy. [SPEAKER_01]: Field proof, huh? [SPEAKER_01]: So kind of catch everybody up who doesn't know about kind of where you are right now and what you've got going on. [SPEAKER_02]: Really, what I started noticing over time and maybe if you'd saw some of the stuff that I was posting on LinkedIn, I was kind of ranting over construction tech for a little while.

3:53 [SPEAKER_02]: And Eddie, I got a hand it to him. [SPEAKER_02]: He kind of came to me and he was like, dude, are you going to rant about this? [SPEAKER_02]: You're actually going to go out and try to fix some of this stuff? [SPEAKER_02]: And so we got a good brotherly call out there. [SPEAKER_02]: And you know, really kind of put a burn in my saddle and I said, OK, what would it look like to actually go out and try to connect people in the field, pros actually out there doing it.

4:19 [SPEAKER_02]: I say field, but like you get it, like people actually doing the work, making the stuff happen. [SPEAKER_02]: connect those people with the construction technology brands that are, honestly, they're interested in making their tech more sticky. [SPEAKER_02]: They want more people to use it.

4:34 [SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna make the industry a better place if we can actually find, you know, the things that bring value back to the pros. [SPEAKER_02]: So, really started thinking through that and also coming back to my own experience as being a steel detailer and, you know, feeling the pain of not being heard when I needed something.

4:52 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, hey, there's this app that was it was sold as this amazing thing we opened it up and then we realized holy cow this things a load of garbage doesn't do anything that I needed we close it, but we never actually feedback or tell the company why we're not using it anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like [SPEAKER_02]: My own frustrations mixed with Eddie given me a little bit of a bump in the forehead saying like, all right, man, well, how about you step up and actually try to solve something that led me to field proof.

5:25 [SPEAKER_02]: So right now, [SPEAKER_02]: Look, that looks like we're developing partnerships with MAP contractors, concrete companies, steel fabrication companies. [SPEAKER_02]: Anybody out there putting bricks and sticks in the ground, general contractors too. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll throw you guys in there.

5:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Anybody putting bricks and sticks in the ground, forming partnerships with them so that we can gain access to their people to give feedback back to these technology companies without it being a sales pitch. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a big part of this. [SPEAKER_02]: And then also helping those companies who are partners overcome some of the technological issues that they're facing.

6:05 [SPEAKER_02]: So, hey, we have an issue with our inventory management. [SPEAKER_02]: We will help through our knowledge of the construction technology space to connect them with the right product that fits what their needs are that actually people really like. [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, we got a PDF viewing problem here.

6:23 [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's all right. [SPEAKER_02]: You're in a blue beam like let's do stuff like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And so we're trying to come back and provide value back to these contractors who are part of our network, but also we get value by. [SPEAKER_02]: getting access to their people and learning more about their day-to-day.

6:40 [SPEAKER_02]: So pretty pumped about it. [SPEAKER_02]: It's taking shape. [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of road bumps along the way. [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to get in touch with superintendents and people out there running around doing the thing, but it's really valuable to talk to them. [SPEAKER_02]: Those are the voices that are often not heard.

6:55 [SPEAKER_02]: It's usually your project managers, your technology managers, those people that are championing that stuff, which isn't bad, but also [SPEAKER_02]: the adoption it's so critical to get the feedback from the field in order to actually get it sticky people using it. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's been the mission.

7:14 [SPEAKER_01]: I want to break you down on a couple things there because I don't think and we've had you on the show obviously a couple times and people forget because you you know construction brothers and your online presence and some of the other things that you've done [SPEAKER_01]: they forget you were a practicing steel detailer right that that this goes all the way back to you were elbows deep in fact one of the earliest things you said to me that I still carry to this day is like how many of those steel detailers are not only carrying a heavy workload and overworked but that [SPEAKER_01]: You know, steals structurally foundational to the build itself.

7:57 [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of pressure pressure. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a ton of pressure and and like you were like, yeah, so do you really want a sixty hour a week person under pressure all the time? [SPEAKER_01]: not being helped out, not being heard. [SPEAKER_01]: So talk a little bit about where, you know, I think that fire was in your belly the whole time and I, and I, I would agree with your brother.

8:18 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that he did it. [SPEAKER_01]: Now you're getting a little salty last year. [SPEAKER_02]: So I was getting a little bit salty. [SPEAKER_02]: I, I, I, I'll give you that. [SPEAKER_02]: Um, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, wait. [SPEAKER_02]: We all go through it. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: We all go through that phase.

8:29 [SPEAKER_00]: I went through it. [SPEAKER_00]: I went through it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, hey, no, you got, you put it out there and then somebody, like you said, bumps you on the head. [SPEAKER_01]: So go back to the, the steel, steel, G-chiller, not being heard because I think that's something that, and I would call them the field, right?

8:43 [SPEAKER_01]: You said this to this is the other piece of this is like, I think we need to widen the perspective of the field as where the work is classically getting done. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's Detailers. [SPEAKER_01]: It is shop floors. [SPEAKER_01]: It is the field itself, absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: The trailers.

9:01 [SPEAKER_01]: So talk about, you know, how you widen that and how that came from your own steel detailing background. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I started up when I was nineteen. [SPEAKER_02]: So I came in as an apprentice in my dad's company. [SPEAKER_02]: Luckily, dad started up a bin company in two thousand three, which is pretty freaking wild.

9:19 [SPEAKER_02]: So when was rabbit, like, when did BIM become a thing guy? [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I didn't know. [SPEAKER_00]: Otis bought rabbit in like two thousand six. [SPEAKER_00]: So that was like three years before. [SPEAKER_00]: I just even bought it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was, yes. [SPEAKER_02]: That was, yeah, everybody says like, oh, yeah, BIM started in like [SPEAKER_02]: like they go back to this place and I'm like guys like my dad was doing this in two thousand three so it wasn't even been when he started it was just modeling you know we're just modeling building in three D and so I grew up around that scene [SPEAKER_02]: buildings in three D my whole like middle school high school experience right and so I came into the family business at nineteen kind of reluctantly like I don't know if I want to do this like I don't know that's construction I want to get a Nashville I want to play guitar like I want to sing like that's what I want to do right I'm really glad that I didn't honestly

10:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, now I can look at that and hindsight and be like, yeah, that was probably not the best move. [SPEAKER_02]: But did that for ten years? [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, sat with my brother, sat with my dad, and dad wasn't just a retailer, his whole life. [SPEAKER_02]: He was a general contractor for years.

10:29 [SPEAKER_02]: He had a bad experience on a job, down in Florida, where he had mounds and mounds of RFI on his desk from a steel retailer that just [SPEAKER_02]: Literally just was a jerk watch and like just really an opportunist and Before that my my grandfather was in the industry my great grandfather was in the industry great great grandfather was in like it goes back So construction is really in kind of the DNA here, but I got that training [SPEAKER_02]: in being a detailer and getting in shouting matches on the phone over all sorts of sort of crap, you know, making misses that were worth fifty grand.

11:09 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I had a, I missed an angle on a wawa down of Florida, cost fifty grand, missed one angle detail. [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: Oops, fifty grand. [SPEAKER_02]: That's the thing is like you start feeling that pressure. [SPEAKER_02]: as a detailer. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a hard freaking job, man.

11:28 [SPEAKER_02]: And you go to talk to a lot of detailers and they're pretty cynical, like they're very cynical in a lot of ways. [SPEAKER_02]: Because they've seen a lot. [SPEAKER_02]: Like most of the times in the construction industry, you're going to be looking at what a couple jobs a year. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, if you're working at a GC, you'll work at a couple jobs a year.

11:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Detailing, we would do over a hundred jobs in a year. [SPEAKER_02]: So my eyes would cross over a hundred sets of drawings, structural and architectural, so more like two hundred sets of drawings per year. [SPEAKER_02]: And I would have to model that stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: And so really educated me on like how stuff comes together.

12:05 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very thankful for that background. [SPEAKER_02]: Rose up through the ranks, led the team there for a minute, decided, hey, I need to get out of here and try some other stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: We had started the podcast by then. [SPEAKER_02]: And so, yeah, I mean, when you say, like, I've got this background in the industry, yes, I really do.

12:21 [SPEAKER_02]: And not just my own background, but growing up here in my dad Grouse about stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's, that's also helpful and, you know, being next to my brother, who's incredibly knowledgeable. [SPEAKER_02]: He started detailing in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in [SPEAKER_00]: I can't believe we haven't talked about all this.

12:57 [SPEAKER_00]: So you said rather early on, but I assume at some point you guys went to either like Tecler S.J.S. [SPEAKER_00]: too. [SPEAKER_00]: What was your regret? [SPEAKER_00]: What year was that? [SPEAKER_00]: Be me this way. [SPEAKER_02]: No, we were using Tecla. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we were using Tecla.

13:09 [SPEAKER_02]: And then, uh, so dad bought Tecla in t-thousand three. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, oh, okay. [SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't revenue. [SPEAKER_00]: You were using Tecla into that. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, we never used to have it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we never used to have it. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, good.

13:20 [SPEAKER_02]: Frank, Frank, they have a lot of problems with revenue. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot. [SPEAKER_02]: I have some choice words about Revit that I'll break from, but I just, and I'm not saying the tech list, the best thing ever either. [SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of these modeling platforms are behind and they need to catch up and they're fat and happy.

13:39 [SPEAKER_02]: I really think the modeling platform suck. [SPEAKER_00]: Amen. [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't believe we haven't just kind of, I'm going to just say that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I'm surprised when I talked about this more before, because I don't know much, I told you of my background obviously, GC side, but working mainly with either Rebar or Steel Detailers in Tecla.

14:00 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was the Tecla Bim guy that was on the receiving end, but in some not just two projects a year, like one project every two or three years with these California healthcare jobs. [SPEAKER_00]: And so you're there for a long time. [SPEAKER_00]: And you talk to details. [SPEAKER_00]: And so I knew very early on coming out of schools, like I know I don't know anything.

14:18 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just soaking up all this knowledge from all these details and it's like you said like you learn everything from the field and there's so many GCs that come in as thinking that they're know it all. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you're here to learn from them, but then bring perspective of what may be they're not seeing in making larger decisions that can have negative or positive impacts on them.

14:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Like you have to play very much the polyticking game a lot more, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It's like it's different, but yeah, good. [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so we detail for a living and Eddie and I were like, dude, we're going to start with this podcast because we felt like we had something to say.

14:56 [SPEAKER_02]: We felt like we could teach the industry how to do better because we knew the way to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: And so there was a level of arrogance that was associated with this when we started it up. [SPEAKER_02]: As retailers, we think we know a lot because we see a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: I sense that early listening early on.

15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: I could sense that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can hear that. [SPEAKER_02]: Now that started to get beat up real fast because we started talking to really, really smart people. [SPEAKER_02]: and we started realizing, oh, we only know this much of the industry. [SPEAKER_02]: We know our little sector.

15:33 [SPEAKER_02]: That's it. [SPEAKER_02]: That's all I know because that's all I did for ten years. [SPEAKER_02]: Who am I to sit here and tell an owner how they should operate? [SPEAKER_02]: How they should put their contract language in this way or that way or GC to do this, that and the other, my dad who has more experience in that work, he's a lot more qualified to do that, even that he is.

15:51 [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a lot of arrogance in me. [SPEAKER_02]: And so when we started this podcast, man, like, and ended up being just this master class of like, wow, rethink everything you thought you knew as a detailer and realize how much bigger this industry is and how much more complex this industry is.

16:08 [SPEAKER_02]: Detailing hard, it's very hard, it's very technical. [SPEAKER_02]: It took me seven years to get to a place where I felt really confident. [SPEAKER_02]: And like, I actually was like, I could say I like had my ten thousand hours and I was a professional. [SPEAKER_02]: very difficult, but man, that's one facet.

16:23 [SPEAKER_02]: That's just steel. [SPEAKER_02]: It took me seven years to get proficient at that. [SPEAKER_02]: Think about all of the other things that go into a building. [SPEAKER_02]: Who am I to sit here and say, I know the best way to do it? [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's the realization that occurred here.

16:38 [SPEAKER_02]: So it's like, I started in the industry, kind of grow call us, thinking that I knew it all, started the podcast, and then just got mercilessly beat on over time, just to be said, like, dude, you don't know anything. [SPEAKER_02]: You got to realize you don't know anything. [SPEAKER_02]: Stop being so arrogant, shut up and listen, which I struggle to do because I talk a lot.

17:01 [SPEAKER_00]: As Jeff's just saying, I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better.

17:06 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting better. [SPEAKER_02]: But no, I think the podcast was a thing that shifted me more into that mindset, their Nathan, which is like, oh, wow, I'm starting to see the GC's perspective as to why this occurred, or I'm starting to see the owner's perspective as to why this happened.

17:25 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, talking to people like Melanie Ford over at University of Georgia, huge, huge, talking to people like Nick Burnt, who's another owner. [SPEAKER_02]: This is stuff that you don't pick up when you're a dealer. [SPEAKER_02]: kind of got the full experience across the board just hearing about a lot of things, talking to a lot of people, digging into a lot of stuff and realizing the massive dysfunction that we have with a lot of the different software solutions and things that we have out there that aren't really helping people, they're just adding to the noise.

17:57 [SPEAKER_01]: It's a cool art to see you go through that and I feel like it happened a second time, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You went through it all those incredible people and got to a point and then, you know, kind of bubbled over and thought you knew it and then said, wait a minute, I got to fix it. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go out and, you know, we're going to dive into what you're doing with that now because it's important.

18:16 [SPEAKER_01]: But I want everybody to realize that like, I think each one of us has gone through that because I know multiple times I've gone through it and [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you mentioned some people and I can tell you, you know, there's a gentleman who's retired now, Randy Paulson, who is one of mine.

18:34 [SPEAKER_01]: I remember standing up in front of a room with Randy and saying some things and him stopping me cold and just, I mean, it was like he took an exacto knife and cut me into pieces and it reshaped. [SPEAKER_01]: Nathan was in the room when it happened so he could laugh. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I remember vividly.

18:55 [SPEAKER_01]: But that was the point of arrogance. [SPEAKER_01]: What it taught me was that I could go into every room after that with a reverence. [SPEAKER_01]: Because I still keep going, and I have been doing this now for ten years, hundreds of episodes, hundreds of events, thousands of people [SPEAKER_01]: that I've spoken to spoken in front of, run classes with.

19:17 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you go in with the reverence, what you realize is no one's ever going to know this whole thing. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what pisses me off about the McKenzie reports and the beating over the head of the things is like, y'all don't understand that like, [SPEAKER_01]: It's way bigger than any one thing that can solve it.

19:37 [SPEAKER_01]: It's not solve a bull is actually the problem is the thing, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It can improve and continuously improve. [SPEAKER_01]: But there's nobody who's going to solve it, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's a huge puzzle that's going to keep growing as technology, as building materials, as our needs as a world change.

19:53 [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm really psyched because I think you're now taking all of that experience and all of that [SPEAKER_02]: kind of arrogance broken down to reverence and yeah now what are you doing with it like what is that all guided you to in field proof teaching other people who are building the technology solutions to be reverent it's fun to come into a room with a tech founder who thinks that they might have it all figured out and being able to kindly share uh hey let's go talk to the superintendent over here [SPEAKER_02]: and then break it down.

20:31 [SPEAKER_02]: And then they start realizing, oh, it's not as simple as I thought. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not as simple as I thought. [SPEAKER_02]: I love that, man. [SPEAKER_02]: So it's so much fun to be able to connect these pros with the people building technology and seeing what happens from that in the conversations that are sparked.

20:49 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's so much fun for me to sit back in a room and one of these interviews now. [SPEAKER_02]: First couple interviews that we did when we started this, it was hilarious where, you know, the tech founder was like, oh man, what if we did this? [SPEAKER_02]: What if we did this feature for you?

21:02 [SPEAKER_02]: And they were like really psyched about it because I knew they were really psyched about it before our meeting. [SPEAKER_02]: And the soup just went mad and never used it. [SPEAKER_02]: And just shot it down. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm over there just going, like just giggling. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, and this is why we need to ask, right?

21:18 [SPEAKER_02]: Because we got to find the things that are really, they're paid. [SPEAKER_02]: The things that really drive value in their day. [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we think stuff is not getting adopted at the field level? [SPEAKER_02]: Because it doesn't, it doesn't help them. [SPEAKER_02]: If we can distract them, you're asking them to do one more thing.

21:36 [SPEAKER_02]: Now, if we could find ways to make the tool, [SPEAKER_02]: that you've built useful for somebody in the field. [SPEAKER_02]: What does that do? [SPEAKER_02]: They start putting more data in, where does that become useful at the top? [SPEAKER_02]: So we've done this thing where we've started to, we've said we gotta go top down, which I don't disagree with, but there has to be some sort of meeting in the middle here.

22:00 [SPEAKER_02]: Because the top down, what they're looking for, often, data, dashboards, information, kind of their instrument panel in the airplane that they can look at and get read on. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what the top is looking to get. [SPEAKER_02]: But we haven't given any incentive to anybody down here at this field level to actually feed that data back up.

22:23 [SPEAKER_02]: So now, okay, we've got this top down pressure, but we're about the bottom. [SPEAKER_02]: So I think we need to start cultivating down here at the bottom, not to be belittling or anything like that. [SPEAKER_02]: That's not what I'm referring to. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying at the field level, can we get those people engaged and give them tools that they're excited to use, that they input data into, that then feeds the systems up top that we need to use.

22:50 [SPEAKER_02]: So you can try your best to say, use it, use it, use it. [SPEAKER_02]: But if they don't find value in it, it's going to collect dust. [SPEAKER_02]: every time. [SPEAKER_01]: Ed cost an expensive dust. [SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you expensive expensive dust my friend. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just talking to Charlie done about this.

23:10 [SPEAKER_01]: And what's really cool is what you're talking about is the old way of doing things is building tunnels. [SPEAKER_01]: We're trying to go underneath and come up the other side and fix it. [SPEAKER_01]: And what you're saying is no, we need to build bridges. [SPEAKER_01]: You can see where bridges are going.

23:25 [SPEAKER_01]: We can agree on getting across and we can come together to build a bridge to build a software that works for everybody. [SPEAKER_01]: Because I recently did this in consulting with a really large software company in the industry before I joined Bluebeam and they were doing interviews of me and we were just kind of putting out content and giving them my thoughts and and they talked about this this top doubt and I'm like [SPEAKER_01]: It's not wrong that top down that, hey, we need to digitize.

23:56 [SPEAKER_01]: We need to have access to this data, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's fine. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: The key notion is that that is true and that is what's in it for you as leaders, as business owners. [SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't flip and go down and be empathetic and get to the field level and understand what it is that they need and communicate why it's important to them that you get this information.

24:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: And the person on the other end of the phone was like, wait a minute, stop. [SPEAKER_01]: Are you saying that that's the different the reason? [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm, yes, that's the reason if, if you can tell them, listen, if you put this in there, even if it's an extra step.

24:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And I told you as a detail or Tyler, this is an extra step. [SPEAKER_01]: But as an organization, I can understand our finances and our ability to pay your paycheck every week. [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, grow your career and grow our company. [SPEAKER_01]: But without this, I can't do it.

24:51 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing it blind. [SPEAKER_01]: And I almost made a mistake and cost the company, which would cost you your job. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you can go get another one. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's not a fun situation. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And they were blown away. [SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing that it's not wrong.

25:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Neither approaches wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: And they're not the top or the bottom. [SPEAKER_01]: They're the finance and the work. [SPEAKER_02]: It's the carrot and the stick analogy, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so for the longest time this top down approach has become more of the stick mentality.

25:21 [SPEAKER_02]: We're taking our stick and we're hitting the donkey with it. [SPEAKER_02]: Really hard saying you need to move. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to move. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to move. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to move. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: You need to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes the donkey takes a step reluctantly.

25:36 [SPEAKER_02]: And I think that that's kind of where we're at right now. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I don't want to call everybody in the on the front lines, a donkey, aka an ass. [SPEAKER_02]: That's not what I'm saying, but I'm saying is the donkey needs incentive to move. [SPEAKER_02]: Give him a carrot. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what I'm looking for now in tech.

25:59 [SPEAKER_02]: What are the things at the field level that can become a carrot? [SPEAKER_02]: What you just said I think is really interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I need this information so you can get paid, carrot. [SPEAKER_02]: You want to get paid? [SPEAKER_02]: Give me this information. [SPEAKER_02]: We need to help identify what those carrots are for the people at the field level.

26:17 [SPEAKER_02]: We haven't been doing that. [SPEAKER_02]: We've just been beaten them over the head with a stick and wondering why they're pissed. [SPEAKER_02]: It's tail is all this time. [SPEAKER_02]: find a way to make a valuable for them. [SPEAKER_02]: The data then trickles back up stream. [SPEAKER_02]: Look at that.

26:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody at the top is now happy. [SPEAKER_02]: That was what they were hoping for. [SPEAKER_02]: The reason that things are atrophying and falling off and not working within a company is when you get something that comes in and it doesn't provide value necessarily to both ends. [SPEAKER_02]: One end gets value, but the other end does not, but they rely on each other.

26:53 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just seeing this massive disconnect here that needs to be overcome. [SPEAKER_02]: And so my part of my answer to this is talk to them. [SPEAKER_02]: When we're building the technology, talk to the people that are going to feed the data into the platform that you're selling. [SPEAKER_02]: If you can make it valuable for them, if you can give them a path, that's clear, and they say, oh my gosh, it'll do this in this and it'll make my life that much easier.

27:23 [SPEAKER_02]: Then we're connecting the construction industry. [SPEAKER_02]: We have started asking these people because dead gone it. [SPEAKER_02]: These people out in the field are much smarter than the ones out in the office, much smarter. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I want to connect this back to because I think you're hitting on it and you alluded to it a few times.

27:42 [SPEAKER_00]: I've like this, this notion, this mindset, this paradigm that because I'm higher up in the organizational food jam, I am there for better than you. [SPEAKER_00]: I know more than you or anything, which is a false notion. [SPEAKER_00]: as we've pointed out. [SPEAKER_00]: And whether it's a project level, you know, GC to trade or within an organization, I think, you know, I look at whatever business school taught this notion that I learned about a T-shaped person.

28:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, where is your deep domain of expertise? [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like the low you are in that quote unquote food chain. [SPEAKER_00]: All that means is you know that much more about the stuff that's actually going on. [SPEAKER_00]: And if those in leadership took that sort of a more empathetic mentality towards it, it's like, how can we both teach industry to think that way, but then also teach software to develop tools that it's like, it's a, it's a, yes, and right, or to check in an egg.

28:32 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was really funny. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, first job we ever do with Hilfruf, not to go out and find ten superintendents. [SPEAKER_02]: You know the most common thing that was said to me during that process. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody's asked. [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody's asked.

28:50 [SPEAKER_02]: They've just told us in their pissed. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not an easy solution. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to sit here and say that this is the only way that this is going to. [SPEAKER_02]: It is definitely way. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like there's top down stuff that needs to occur to that we need to repair for sure.

29:07 [SPEAKER_02]: but the bottom end, the people putting the bricks and sticks at the ground, man, they've just been ignored. [SPEAKER_02]: And they've been forced into doing stuff in a lot of ways. [SPEAKER_01]: No, all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of ways. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of wins. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of them out there, but they're not equally distributed.

29:24 [SPEAKER_01]: Nor necessarily understood. [SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, I'll take you all the way back to the beginning, you know, when you talk about the modeling platforms and being fat and happy, [SPEAKER_01]: That is an actual product of success. [SPEAKER_01]: Like success is one of the worst things for software companies because you start to take your eye off the prize and you start to continually look at the growth of your margins and your user base and and in all honesty all the sudden then it starts to fall off or you start to get these these problems that you're talking about and you go back to wondering why and it's because you took your eye off the prize the prize is the field [SPEAKER_01]: In those areas that we've redefined it as getting more value out of the products and the things that you are developing and integrating them into creating a better life like that fifty thousand dollar wall a error an error checking system built on top of that.

30:30 [SPEAKER_01]: Tyler buys it, loves it, leads it, and every time it catches something, he does a little jig because he didn't just lose with a thousand dollars. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a part of a broken process, though. [SPEAKER_02]: So on my process on this was we would get a set of documentation and then we would do a blue beam overlay, which I love that tool for one.

30:47 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like the biggest fan of overlay, but this was one of those instances where my eyes didn't catch it. [SPEAKER_02]: So AI could have helped me out in a big way there, right? [SPEAKER_02]: That's huge. [SPEAKER_02]: However, let's trace it back a little bit further. [SPEAKER_02]: Why am I having to model this thing over and over and over and over and over again?

31:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Why can't I just share the model back with the engineer? [SPEAKER_02]: Why can't the engineer share the model back with the architect? [SPEAKER_02]: Why can't we have a single source of truth that is a modeling platform? [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, what then? [SPEAKER_02]: Right? [SPEAKER_02]: That's where I'm going with a lot of this stuff, man.

31:24 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, we're all of these software solutions. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say all so many of them are built off of the back of solving a broken process at its core. [SPEAKER_02]: Right? [SPEAKER_02]: Why? [SPEAKER_02]: Do we need all of these other disparate systems? [SPEAKER_02]: It's because the process of building is broken.

31:49 [SPEAKER_02]: And we're putting these little hack job solutions in all up and down the technology food chain. [SPEAKER_02]: And nothing's wanting to communicate with each other. [SPEAKER_02]: And we're wondering why it doesn't work and why we're delayed and why we're more frustrated when we use technology versus even paper for crying out loud.

32:08 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, interesting, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Is that just me? [SPEAKER_02]: Is that just me? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, if the engine's broke, the engine's broke, you can pour as much gasoline accelerant on as you want. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, if it's broken, it's not going to go any faster.

32:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Eventually it's all got to come together, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like we've got to start somewhere. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not saying all of this innovation is bad. [SPEAKER_02]: Of course not. [SPEAKER_02]: It's made progress. [SPEAKER_02]: But we've got just this, this, this, this scattered spaghetti on the wall.

32:35 [SPEAKER_02]: And now we've got to piece it back together. [SPEAKER_02]: And what I'm wondering is like, if we all step back as an industry, we say, what's a better way of going at this process overall and what tools will we need to make that happen? [SPEAKER_02]: I guarantee freaking to you if you think about it long and hard, you're not going to come back to a project management platform.

32:55 [SPEAKER_02]: You're not going to come back to a this or a that or the a lot of the products that are out there, the past job solutions for a broken industry. [SPEAKER_02]: We've got to start back further. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but even, I mean, let's just go with generic pro core, the first problem they were out there to solve was RFI's and submittals with the problem you just described, right?

33:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think they all start from a problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think, yeah, if I'm feel free of asking a startup, it's like, hey, what problem are you here to solve? [SPEAKER_00]: And the first thing out of their mouth is some technology, like AI, or I was like, no, no, I didn't ask you about the solution.

33:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you've got the problem. [SPEAKER_00]: And if they can't tell you, it's like, well, we got a journey to go on here. [SPEAKER_02]: And there are so many different problems. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, all right, we've got to figure out how to solve each one of these individual problems. [SPEAKER_02]: But eventually, everything's got to do this.

33:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and. [SPEAKER_02]: But I tend to wonder, like, and this has kind of been the thought pattern that I've been in lately. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, forgive me for kind of going to most soapbox here for a second. [SPEAKER_02]: But I truly think that if we step back and we start looking at the ProCours, the ACC's and everything that are out there, that's not the solution.

34:02 [SPEAKER_02]: that's a patch. [SPEAKER_02]: What would be the solution? [SPEAKER_02]: That's not a centralized source of truth, really. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not because it is what we feed it, right? [SPEAKER_02]: But if it just was, if it just was the project. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of why I come back to this modeling platform is like, what if [SPEAKER_02]: the owner, the architect, the engineer, the GC, everybody up and down the chain had the same model, one model to communicate from.

34:37 [SPEAKER_02]: Would you need Procore? [SPEAKER_00]: Would you need Autodesk? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, in my experience on IPD, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, and I can take you back fifteen years ago to an IPD project where I was asking those exact same questions and getting pushed back on, well, but it's company best practice to [SPEAKER_00]: It print them out and put them in the steering binder and I'm like, but I already did that in blue beam, like, why do I have to do that again?

35:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And so this whole idea of duplicate entry because different people want it in different formats. [SPEAKER_00]: But if that superintendent in his way of how he used to always go to that paper set and look for that RFI and if it wasn't there, then therefore I never asked the RFI and it was never answered because it wasn't where he was looking for it.

35:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So there's an, which is your original point, right? [SPEAKER_00]: If we're not focusing on the field, but thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's this dilemma. [SPEAKER_00]: We are really in a, and a technology transformation dilemma that both sides are right and both sides are wrong at the same time.

35:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And the answer somewhere in the middle, if we just respect each other. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm pro-innovation. [SPEAKER_02]: I am pro-innovation. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm pro-technology solutions fixing and patching these issues that we have. [SPEAKER_02]: I want to find those issues because I think ultimately we have to identify them in order to fix them long-term.

35:55 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think what you've described, too, by the way, of everything getting disparate and then needing to come back together, that's an ebb and a flow of the industry itself. [SPEAKER_01]: And I will challenge you that even with a single platform for modeling, you need field tools. [SPEAKER_01]: The thing about it is those field tools are going to change and your pro-course of the world [SPEAKER_01]: Like Nathan said, they started as an RFI and a tool.

36:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Bluebeam started as Mark up and started as, you know, quantity take off those kinds of things, solving real problems. [SPEAKER_01]: As a modeling platform comes out, if it's to do those things, everybody else in the ecosystem is going to have to adjust. [SPEAKER_01]: to doing what they do to keep providing that value.

36:38 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's okay. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I was saying to you is the fatten happiness, what unfortunately happens versus the continuous innovation and improvement of looking at, okay, how are these things changing and how do we need to adapt to them? [SPEAKER_01]: And, oh, by the way, like how ubiquitous can they be?

36:56 [SPEAKER_01]: I love a good modeling platform, but that requires in many respects a certain amount of expertise in size that the construction industry is of many sizes. [SPEAKER_01]: There are far more, I'll push on that. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_02]: Does it with good user experience with NDI? [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, with good UI and AI?

37:15 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, maybe not. [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what my kind of thinking is, is like, okay, if you can figure out a better user experience and make it more intuitive for people to come in and just build the way they know how to build, make it kind of feel right, like thing, like a steel detail or heck, even an director.

37:35 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: They're going to know how the steel is going to come together and what they need. [SPEAKER_02]: But a lot of times the thing that they they disconnect from is like, how do I model it in place? [SPEAKER_02]: How do I connect it? [SPEAKER_02]: What buttons do I need to push to do this this this this this this this this this and it takes so much training.

37:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And so like if I can make it easy for an director to come in and actually use a modeling platform. [SPEAKER_02]: and then give them some AI tools within that platform to get the job done more efficiently. [SPEAKER_02]: Then you push to this other place, which is, do I need to even have shop drawings?

38:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Do I need to have assemblies? [SPEAKER_02]: Do I need to have e-drawings? [SPEAKER_02]: Or can I just have a model? [SPEAKER_02]: What are robots need? [SPEAKER_02]: They don't need PDFs. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't need them. [SPEAKER_02]: Why do we need PDFs? [SPEAKER_02]: People. [SPEAKER_02]: But can we not use a three D model for that too?

38:27 [SPEAKER_02]: Could we not have AI created PDF or a flat, two D drawing automatically? [SPEAKER_02]: It's like when you start to kind of pull it apart, I hope you kind of hope I'm explaining this well. [SPEAKER_02]: But like once you start to pull it apart, yeah, it starts to kind of go, oh wait, hold on a second, there might be something there.

38:44 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the reason why I bring it up is it's more to challenge the thinking that's happening right now, which is I'm seeing a lot of very similar solutions come across my desk. [SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of them are solving a patch. [SPEAKER_02]: They're patching. [SPEAKER_02]: And I wonder if we take a step further back and we ask ourselves as an industry, what do we truly need as an operating system?

39:06 [SPEAKER_02]: We need to be able to build the building before it's built. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what we need. [SPEAKER_02]: And the current tools that are out there to do that, they're not strong enough. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't have the stuff necessary to do it. [SPEAKER_02]: They don't have the depth.

39:22 [SPEAKER_02]: don't disrupt the current product line. [SPEAKER_02]: Don't disrupt the current product line. [SPEAKER_02]: That is what you hear in a lot of these larger organizations. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to make some freaking enemies by saying that. [SPEAKER_02]: But it's true. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what's getting said behind the scenes.

39:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Tyler, I don't think I disagree with anything you just said. [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing I will push back on that we may be neglecting here is we do live in a world with contracts as the general contractor in the room. [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of, it gets good. [SPEAKER_00]: I've proposed this all the time to software company.

39:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is what you should do based on my very limited, very, you know, you know, definitely small, small percentage of the industry experience of IPD and doing these things that you're describing. [SPEAKER_00]: Because again, we solved that fifty thousand dollars deal issue a week before the podium, you know, roof was about to pour.

40:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was, it was that hero moment. [SPEAKER_00]: He was such a cool use of them, but it was such a rare [SPEAKER_00]: experience to have, and it was only because we had that contract, we had all those folks, and what we keep going back to is, why can't we have contracts that incentivize us to do this in the first place?

40:34 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's, yeah, how do we fix that? [SPEAKER_02]: That's a good point. [SPEAKER_02]: That's a good point because that's another area that I'm asking questions around is like, how could we make this contractually workable? [SPEAKER_02]: because that's the another reason for not sharing models is like how many NDAs are all sorts of contracts?

40:50 [SPEAKER_02]: So I have to sign in order to get a Reddit model sent to me as a detailer. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, locked. [SPEAKER_02]: Like my first corn has been signed over at least ten times. [SPEAKER_02]: It's insane. [SPEAKER_02]: In order to get a model. [SPEAKER_02]: And so how can we navigate that?

41:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Like how can your IP, the your IP, my IP, the mine, and still be in the same spot? [SPEAKER_02]: And so then you kind of run into this issue of like maybe it is better that it's separated. [SPEAKER_02]: guys, this is a challenging problem to solve. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not gonna be the one to solve it.

41:23 [SPEAKER_02]: I know this. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not smart enough, but it's definitely something I've wondered. [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, what if, what if as an industry we could go there and what can that potentially look like? [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this goes to leadership. [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership is asking a hard question and understanding that you're not necessarily the one here to answer it.

41:40 [SPEAKER_01]: You're just the one to keep asking the question and keep incentivizing people to make [SPEAKER_01]: incremental improvements with a goal of finding the solution. [SPEAKER_01]: So I want to take it back to that because you have been out there in the field doing some things and you've seen some stuff.

41:56 [SPEAKER_01]: So what, let give us a good story before we roll off. [SPEAKER_01]: Give us a good story, buddy. [SPEAKER_02]: All right, so I had kind of alluded to this early on, but now I'm trying to get out into these shops a little bit more, so I actually went together to visit a mechanical shop a couple weeks ago.

42:12 [SPEAKER_02]: It was really interesting. [SPEAKER_02]: Now, they're using their, they're doing a large large products, well, our projects massive projects, very recognizable in the data center space. [SPEAKER_02]: And what's really interesting to me is that we're walking around and we're seeing everything.

42:30 [SPEAKER_02]: But we walk into this one room and there are bins and bins and bins of paper. [SPEAKER_02]: And I went, really? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, why aren't you guys getting rid of that? [SPEAKER_02]: Why? [SPEAKER_02]: Why? [SPEAKER_02]: The reason was a lot of these owners are asking that everything be physically delivered back to them.

42:51 [SPEAKER_02]: So all of these paper documents they have to use paper per the contract. [SPEAKER_02]: boom. [SPEAKER_02]: What? [SPEAKER_02]: Huh? [SPEAKER_02]: Dude, I know that that was a thing. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm over here going like, yeah, why are you using paper? [SPEAKER_02]: What the heck? [SPEAKER_02]: They have to.

43:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And then even better than that, some of these other companies they're requiring owners will say are requiring tokens. [SPEAKER_02]: Or sorry, poop as a coupons? [SPEAKER_02]: It might be coupons. [SPEAKER_02]: The people that know are probably going to blister me in the comments section.

43:24 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry guys. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm trying my best here. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a steel guy. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a meathead. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm a meathead. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So they need these coupons in place. [SPEAKER_02]: So at the start of a day when you're using a machine, if you're doing some sort of like heat, the fused material for piping, you need to fuse a piece of pipe at the start of the day.

43:42 [SPEAKER_02]: And then put like basically a coat on it that says, here's the start of the day. [SPEAKER_02]: And at the end of the day, you need to fuse two pieces of pipe together again. [SPEAKER_02]: at the end of the day. [SPEAKER_02]: All right. [SPEAKER_02]: So what that does is it shows here's what the machine was doing at the beginning and here's what the machine was doing at the end of the day.

43:59 [SPEAKER_02]: Every single one of those machines does that. [SPEAKER_02]: And then all of those get thrown into a massive pallet and delivered back to the owner for God knows what as a quality control measure. [SPEAKER_02]: So if something goes wrong, then they have those coupons that they can pull and say, this was on the same day from here to here to here.

44:23 [SPEAKER_02]: But they have physical pipe that they have fused together twice a day from each machine. [SPEAKER_02]: That gets delivered back to the owner. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a QAQC on the ability of the machine throughout the day to prove that [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, think about this, this is law enforcement, right?

44:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is, did you calibrate your radar gun at the beginning of your shift? [SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of your shift, and can you produce that when I got the ticket and show up? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and they'll do that, and then they take each one of the QR codes that comes off of the machine, where they fuse the thing together, and they'll put the QR code that the machine prints on the drawing next to that elbow or whatever it is that they're fusing.

45:09 [SPEAKER_02]: They'll put that there. [SPEAKER_02]: Guys, there's a steel detailer. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe you guys knew this? [SPEAKER_02]: I did not. [SPEAKER_02]: But that was one of those holy smokes for these serious moments where that's where it's the top. [SPEAKER_02]: That's mandating the bottom, do something.

45:26 [SPEAKER_02]: Why could we not just take some pictures? [SPEAKER_02]: Could we not have a better x-ray system? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: There has to be a better way for something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: So that's one of those instances where the top is screwing the bottom by not understanding what that means necessarily or even asking, is there a better way to do this?

45:46 [SPEAKER_02]: And so now that same mechanical companies doing the same thing for every single project, whether or not [SPEAKER_02]: the owner requests it because they were getting enough requests that they just decided to make that their process. [SPEAKER_02]: So one bad owner, two bad owners, three bad owners, cause that process to happen in that shop which now happens on every single project that they ever do every time.

46:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Because they don't want to change it. [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because there are people and this is what's cool is we're recording this now and the cumulus episode is coming out where a lot of this stuff is important to be documented but but the way we're doing it is ridiculous and cumulus was the first one in the data center market they're doing the hyper scalers [SPEAKER_01]: on the electrical side, because as much as what you just learned has to happen, if you see the amount of certifications that have to be done on the electrical side of things, and that's what cumulus talked to us about, because in that respect, not only did they have paper Tyler, they had to have a person stand there to at a state.

46:52 [SPEAKER_01]: So you had the electrician and the attestator standing there and producing all of this and what they've done is the tools themselves can record it and can then deliver that information digitally to have the same thing without having to have all those people in all that process and speed it all up.

47:15 [SPEAKER_01]: And oh by the way, [SPEAKER_01]: because of the tooling that they've built into it can say like, oh, you did this. [SPEAKER_01]: Did you know you should be doing this? [SPEAKER_01]: And the humans miss it all the time. [SPEAKER_01]: The tools don't. [SPEAKER_01]: So you're absolutely right, but it took rethinking it.

47:35 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm gonna go back. [SPEAKER_01]: Your biggest thing is we got to lose the arrogance and we got to rethink it at every stage. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's okay to build a patch, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Patches are important and solutions to today's problems are important because the other problem and construction was doing this for quite a long time when I first got in.

47:59 [SPEAKER_01]: We were waiting for like the big disruption thing. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll just jump to that and it's like, [SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, you have no idea you're not gonna be ready. [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a muscle that you gotta be in the gym. [SPEAKER_01]: And this is like saying, hey, both Lex is coming out.

48:15 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm just gonna wait for both Lex and I'll be good. [SPEAKER_01]: The first time you sit down on that thing, you're not gonna have any, you need it to be in the gym using the regular stuff getting ready to use it, because it's a muscle and you gotta train it. [SPEAKER_01]: And people out there need to understand that training it and getting better at it and what, you know, field proof is doing by bringing that field, [SPEAKER_01]: knowledge that that user knowledge back to the company's building and then connecting it to the leadership is a key component to making change.

48:49 [SPEAKER_01]: So it's awesome. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, my hope is that we need the patches right now, like we desperately do, but over time, the more people we talk to, the more data we can aggregate around, like what these pros are seeing on the job sites across the United States, the more prime we're ready to really solve the problem holistically.

49:08 [SPEAKER_02]: We'll get a better picture, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Right, now we don't even have a picture. [SPEAKER_02]: Everything's different. [SPEAKER_02]: Every owner's different. [SPEAKER_02]: Every GC's different. [SPEAKER_02]: Every sub is different. [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many ways to do construction.

49:22 [SPEAKER_02]: And so, please, like, if you hear me rant about this stuff, don't hear it as somebody who's like thinking that they have it all figured out. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, I'm just thinking about this out loud and trying to say, well, what if this happened here in the future? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know when that future is, right?

49:39 [SPEAKER_02]: For right now, I'm trying to solve the problems that we have in front of us, but long range thinking, ten, twenty, fifty years, what is the industry need to try to move towards? [SPEAKER_02]: But we're going to need to have [SPEAKER_02]: this feedback to make that stuff happen. [SPEAKER_02]: Make our lives easier, man.

49:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we'll have fewer shouting matches. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we're gonna have fewer people leaving the industry. [SPEAKER_02]: Stress out. [SPEAKER_02]: Talk to somebody a couple weeks ago who's a soup out on site who's leaving the industry because he's had to go to the hospital over a panic attack because there's so much going on.

50:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Like people are leaving the industry because we're stressed out. [SPEAKER_02]: And so there are ways that tech can help us there, but we also need to communicate this back to each other and make industry a better place overall. [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have it all figured out, but hopefully we can start getting that feedback loop in place to help us figure some more stuff out.

50:30 [SPEAKER_01]: I like it. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can see the change in you over time and and yeah, I'm better now. [SPEAKER_02]: I work out less. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I was like, I could hear the change, not not see the change. [SPEAKER_01]: But you know, yeah, maybe I used to go and turn them there as people were on camera all the time.

50:50 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very aware of those things and the changes. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I look back at some of the early episodes. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not as gray, you know, we all change a bit. [SPEAKER_01]: People have a tendency to listen to the white beard now, though. [SPEAKER_01]: It's really quite funny.

51:03 [SPEAKER_01]: But no, man, it's two things. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a vision of where we need to go. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's a focus on what we can do today because the value of the learnings today are going to drive into those platforms of the futures, those connections to the future that ultimate change.

51:18 [SPEAKER_01]: And my last one, too, and you didn't say it and I love it because you talked over and over about getting the information, making change, rethinking. [SPEAKER_01]: The big one I hear when I hear startup founders is we're going to disrupt. [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to disrupt. [SPEAKER_01]: Just realize that disruption is a buy product not a goal.

51:36 [SPEAKER_01]: The goal of the industry is to improve the lives of the women and men that build the world around us, that model it, that detail it, that make it happen. [SPEAKER_01]: And in the end, if that disrupts something that we're doing, so be it. [SPEAKER_01]: But ultimately, it is about changing lives and keeping people in this industry and making it available to the next generation.

51:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Because we are losing [SPEAKER_01]: on both fronts every day. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's where the industry can really benefit the carrot for the industry to adopt technology and make change is to consistently and considerably continue to be viable. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's real. [SPEAKER_02]: I could go fifty thousand different other ways, but I'll shut up.

52:22 [SPEAKER_02]: like I learned on the podcast to shut up. [SPEAKER_00]: We have to make this like a quarterly rant. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so box with Tyler. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we'll call it the crew soapbox with Tyler and anybody can join. [SPEAKER_01]: Tyler soapbox. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Tyler soapbox.

52:38 [SPEAKER_01]: That's it. [SPEAKER_01]: Tyler soapbox. [SPEAKER_00]: We're just trying to pull them down from it. [SPEAKER_01]: Get down here. [SPEAKER_01]: Come back. [SPEAKER_01]: No, stop. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't do it again. [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get sued. [SPEAKER_01]: No. [SPEAKER_01]: No. [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, keep doing it, man.

52:51 [SPEAKER_01]: We need you to keep doing it. [SPEAKER_01]: We need you to keep pushing. [SPEAKER_01]: We need you to keep changing and you're modeling the change that so many people need to understand is that it's okay. [SPEAKER_01]: to get out of hand and then check yourself and to have, you know, an Eddie in your life that can tap you on the head and, you know, and well, maybe we'll bring him on as an as the opposite and we'll be like, hey, listen to this episode with Tyler now, tell him everything he needs to hear from your perspective.

53:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wait, maybe somebody has a show where they do that already. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Two brothers on the show. [SPEAKER_02]: Let him listen to this and then bring him on to be like, all right, tell us all the ways the Tyler's full of crap. [SPEAKER_02]: I would love that.

53:30 [SPEAKER_02]: I'd be so great. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm dropping you right now. [SPEAKER_00]: Eddie, you have a carte blanche call me. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's a lot of notes here that I did not hit on. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, we could definitely do a whole lot of stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: There will be more to come.

53:43 [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you guys know where you can find Tyler. [SPEAKER_01]: Find him on LinkedIn. [SPEAKER_01]: He's a great follow. [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to learn a lot. [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to see a lot of fun stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: But also check out fieldproof all one word.io. [SPEAKER_01]: That's where, you know, he's recruiting people to get in there.

53:55 [SPEAKER_01]: We really, truly want industry folks to reach out to Tyler because I think they path that you're on is going to be a really, really powerful for software in for the industry itself changing. [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for doing it, man. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, appreciate it, Mary. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.

54:09 [SPEAKER_01]: Nathan, thanks for sitting down with you, man. [SPEAKER_01]: I always enjoy having you here riding shotgun. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man. [SPEAKER_00]: This is fun. [SPEAKER_01]: I always love a good rant. [SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for tuning in the day to geek out for our interview with Tyler Campbell.

54:21 [SPEAKER_01]: To read all our news stories, learn more about our guests and to listen to this show, visit the contentcrew.com. [SPEAKER_01]: This is the contentcrew signing out. [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, enjoy the ride and geek out.