Gareth McGlynn: Jeff Sample, welcome to the Preconstruction Podcast.
Jeff Sample: Well, thanks for having me, Gareth. It's awesome to be here. I appreciate you bringing me on.
Gareth: Good man. You're in the mountains or the woods in Pennsylvania?
Jeff: Yep, in Pennsylvania actually.
Gareth: Wonderful. Nice.
Jeff: I just came off of my annual ten-day hiatus from technology and just hanging out at the lake. I highly recommend everybody does it. It gives you a different view of, of really, a world without technology is quite fun for a little while.
Gareth: That’s very good. Now, let's let's hear the real reason. You're detoxing after Advancing Preconstruction.
Jeff: You're absolutely right. Yeah, it was it was a wild ride this year. It was great. It has some [indiscernible] put on an incredible show. I mean, Advancing Precon was a lot of fun.
Gareth: Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, let's start there then because obviously, we all know about the Advancing Preconstruction conference. It was in Vegas. How it was getting bigger and bigger every year? How'd you guys find it at Join?
Jeff: Well, I will tell you the Join team. We were there last year and obviously, you know, grain of salt, because last year was still kind of coming out of COVID. But man, I was I was really impressed with how many people showed up and not just how many people showed up this year but the quality and the change in those people. You know, the quality of conversations going on, the change in the conversations on stage. It's fantastic, man. We saw, you know, a lot more owners. I have one particular owner panel there with a very diverse background of folks from different industries, you know, different sectors of the building world. And they had a lot of the same, you know, the same things they wanted to talk about, you know. They want and demand new things out of buildings. It's not like getting big-- building buildings is getting easier, right?
Gareth: Yes. A hundred percent. And that's what I love about these meetups and these groups, these communities. It has to happen because everybody's sitting in their own little box in their own way state-- in their own way they said they’re thinking, “Oh, my God. I'm having these problems.” And they don't realize everybody else is having the exact same problems until we actually open up our mind and share the problems with each other and as a collective, find solutions. It's going to be difficult for everyone. We can make this industry as easy as we want and Join is obviously part of that. I even forgot to introduce you. But Jeff Sample, you are the-- I want to say you've just changed. You’re the Industrial Evangelist.I like that.
Jeff: Yes. So, I’m the Industry Evangelists here at Join. So I joined the company about 18 months ago. I was employee number 17. We were pretty small at that point. Just the product had been around for a while, had been growing, but it was the right time and we're just excited, man. We're a first of its kind preconstruction platform. We fit in a space that we think and we've doubled down and I think Advancing Precon showed this that, you know, modern collaborative construction delivery methods are the future. And you know, we've staked our claim on that we think that's the case. We think our customers have done the same and we've seen that they're growing faster. I mean, that was the, that was the interesting thing. You know, when we were in Advancing Precon last year, we were, you know, sort of new to the world. This year, we got to see a ton of our customers and hear about, you know, the successes that they're having, in general. I don't think Join ever really wants to take credit for being the thing that makes them successful. We just think we're a great tool to support these transformations, these changes in processes, these ways that, that, you know, general contractors are meeting the needs and demands of owners, and of architects too. Changing anything is hard, right? But anything worth doing is gotta be a little hard. If it was easy, then it doesn't feel as worthwhile. Right? This is a-- it's not easy, man. So we love that they're doing it, but we really think they deserve a new set of tools that we're just missing, right? You have your estimating platforms and those are really important. Those were born out of Excel. Right? It was like, “Oh, well. Excel is doing these things.” But you know, we need to centralize those databases, we need to make that reusable. We need to make it collaborative, you know, things like, you know, back in destiny that really, you know, amplified that world. We feel like we're running a parallel course in a new spot where, yeah, Excel is doing a lot of what Join does, but we're centralizing it. We're collecting the data. We're harvesting it. We're making it available to use in the future. We're powering those teams because, Gareth you know this, while it was cool and Advancing Precon was growing, it's not like preconstruction folks grow on trees.
Gareth: You know the old saying the future of construction is preconstruction. The future of preconstruction is talent and technology. And listen, the capacity deficit, the amount of hospitals, schools, apartments we have to build in the next 20 years is getting, it's actually getting worse because of COVID. It's just-- they’re just stacking up on top of each other and it's impossible. The flow of people, the flow of town is not there. So we need technology and talent to work together. And--
Jeff: You know, one of the guys that I work with, and I always like to say, you know, the cool part for us is, when we finally get Join into the hands of a team. They'll turn around and tell us, “It feels like you just gave us superpowers to just do more.” And you know, that we say this-- I say this over and over. In construction, and it's part you know, it's part to be a part of the process, right? This isn't just a blame game on any one group or particular, you know, software or anything, you know. Everything starts off slow. It's bifurcated and then it evolves. That's where we are in construction is that it has to allow teams to stop working in the project and working on the project. It's the same thing for businesses. Construction companies spend too much time in construction and not on the company itself, on growing it, on being able to scale to take these talented people that you're talking about because they are. I mean, sit down with any one of them. I don't care if it's a superintendent, a project manager, a senior estimator, a VP of precon or a CEO, or a Chief Operating Officer. You sit down. These are amazing people that you know, love to build whatever it is they're building. But they've got to be unleashed to do that more consistently through good tools, right? Then you can really, like you said, hospitals, schools, housing, we've got to build all those. It's not slowing down. It's not going away and in fact, you know, if you're out there building, it's not like your timelines, you're getting more time for projects. You're not? You're getting less. It's not like they're getting less complicated. They're getting more complicated. How do you manage that? How do you, how do you-- go ahead.
Gareth: [Indiscernible] How do you manage that? How do you get these mundane tasks off people's desks? The burnout rate within preconstruction and estimating, it's too high. I mean, we're asking people to come into this industry, and then we're losing all that-- we're not that-- I tell you what we're not doing. We're not retaining the knowledge of the really senior people, or the mid-level people that are getting burned out that we'll be doing it for 10 years, and aren't getting any help, and are asked to bid on five, six projects a week now, compared to two or three, two or three years ago. And that would be a big problem for me. And technology has to be the answer there.
Jeff: Well, you're right. It has to be the answer. And, we're asking them to do that with less and less information, right? We call that at Join pricing in the white, you know. We want these in modern delivery methods were at the table very, very early in schematic design. Sometimes it's a napkin sketch, and they want to know a good rough idea of, of what that's going to cost them. You know, that could take two or three weeks, and you're asking for all of these. We've got to be able to do that and, you know, it segues into what we're doing. When I said, our customers, when we come across them, they say we do it in Excel, and we say “good.” That's, you know, that's a, that's a testament that we listened to how this process works. But now we've built a tool that you're gonna do more with and at Advancing Preconstruction, we were, we were proud to announce our insights, and to showcase something we're going to release here soon, which is project comparisons, which is the ability to to leverage that data early on in the process to generate a good estimate based off your other estimates that you've used previously, allow you to do a little bit of escalation up or down depending on you know, changing the area or changing the time-frames, etc., and then pretty much generate a good idea quickly, because it's all about unlocking the talent to work and continue to not be beat up in that mundane process, right?
Gareth: Yeah.
Jeff: Because it's a rough order of magnitude that we have to come up with early. We have to do them quick and we have to articulate our expertise, right? I had one of our customers tell me this, Jim Gentile. He said, “You know, everybody's within 10% of one another.” That's worth their mettle when it comes to design builds, right? So how are you going to stand out? How are you going to win work? Well, you're going to do it through incredible teams and that's what everybody I come across. I had Jim and Larry Lantero on my podcast and they said, “It's all about the people. It's all about the people.” But then you've got to give them good technology to amplify and communicate that expertise to the client and get them to to want to engage, because who says this thing has to be no fun?
Gareth: Yeah. Oh, it has to be. And I'll tell you what, it ain't any funny at the minute. People are getting bombarded, and they're getting hassled. But you mentioned about the people, it's all about the people> People do business with people. I don't care whether if you're the best GC and yes, or you're a mid level GC. If people like you and you communicate well, and you're honest, and your integrity is in a good place, they will give you the business. But you've got to then back it up with the technology to be able to go because you can't disappear then for three months, and all of a sudden, just produce something. There's got to be communication. There's got to be transparency. And I think that's one thing when I look at Join, is the collaboration and the transparency. I think that-- and is that the new release project comparison? Is that helping transparency at a very earlier much earlier stage?
Jeff: Yeah, it helps it in the earliest stages. You know that when they asked, you know, “Hey, how did you get to these numbers?” Well, it's like, here's my estimating system, right? That's not consumable by an owner. It's not consumable by an architect, the rest of the team, right? It's not supposed to be, right? It's purpose built for what it does. But what Join is capable of doing is creating a report around that, that you can then open up and bring all the stakeholders in and say, “Hey, here's the variables that we calculated. Here's the things that we thought. Here's our experiences in these areas and and how we got here.” Because you're right. It is about the people, but what the tools can do is we can increase transparency. We can let people understand. People are, “Oh, well, I show them my Excel spreadsheet.” I'm one of those people. I don't really understand it, right? It's really hard for me to see that.
So it has to be in a different platform for it to be consumable. And for people to feel free to move about the data and look at it from their own angles, something I think we get wrong in modern delivery methods that I've learned from owners is, we're assuming, you know, when you hear target value delivery, we're assuming and target value delivery that we know their value. Well, we really don't, because we don't know their-- completely understand their perspective. It's our job to communicate all the opportunities, give them an ability to digest that information, apply their own view to it, and then make an informed decision. That's how things get moved forward. And, you know, you talked about the talent in the people that we have in the industry and unlocking them something that Excel does, and we heard this early on from one of our early customers, is it's a barrier to field folks coming over applying that great, great knowledge to precon because they're not an Excel wizard. And we had an early customer tell us that listen, Join makes me super powerful in preconstruction and unlocks my ability to do more work, because it's easy to use. It's simple, I can do it. And that's powerful man, because we need to unlock we need those Supers, we need those project managers, we need those experience folks coming into preconstruction, because that's where we can make the most impact on design and get to fabrication and get to modular and get to these other opportunities so that we can build faster and better.
Gareth: Brilliant, I love it.
Jeff: The shifts [crosstalk].
Gareth: And that is a way [crosstalk] that shift is happening. If you looked at four or five years ago, at the GC, the resources they had, I would say 75% were in operations. You got to remember now that 25% that were in precon, I can see them jumping over getting involved earlier, and there’s no, coming back to it to 70/30. And I hope to see it at 60/40 because the more precon, the more decisions are made earlier on the better and the more success you're gonna have. Just on the three legged stool and your reaction at Advancing Preconstruction to project comparisons, I always talk about three legged stool, the architect, the owner and the GC, who's going to eat who's going to benefit most from that. Is it going to be everyone? Or what was the reception like?
Jeff: It was interesting, because I would have said beforehand, it would be the GC. The GC, this is just a workflow that's a lot of back and forth that would just allow them to really get to pursuit faster and get their numbers out there and be confident and understand it. But we had a chance to show it to a lot of owners and architects, and they said immediately, “Oh, wow! This can truly impact our understanding of a project's viability and where it is right now real early and put it in our own terms.”
So I think the GC is ultimately, right now, will get the most value but I already see owners really leaning into, you know, tools like ours and then you take a tool like something like TestFit that can, you know, give them an idea if something's viable early, and then they get to join the, “Okay. Now this is really what construction is going to look like and it is continuing to be viable and here's where my gaps and understandings might be.”
The other thing then, though I find interesting is that I think we're gonna see architects and trades really benefit heavily because the access to prefabrication technology and tools and products needs a path, right? It needs to be at the table early in the discussion. And I, when I came from the company I was with before where there was this idea of like, everybody needs to be at the table. And I've said this over and over. That's like, inviting your entire family over for Thanksgiving dinner, and having a political conversation. Nobody leaves satiated and happy unless the pie is killer. Right? Because the tables too big, but all of us, all of us GCs architects, everybody is banging on the door trying to sit at that table for every meeting and wasting time, because they just want to be there when they need to answer that one question. Right? That they know they're going to be involved. Well, modern platforms allow them to be involved when they need to be to allow those decisions to be heard, to be heard when they're supposed to be heard, and to, you know, then consume it. So a good, what's a good thing around that if you're building out a huge hospital, and you're going to redo bathroom pods over and over? Well, if you don't get those bathroom pods involved at 50%, DDs before that, they'll tell you, the manufacturers will tell you, it's not worth it anymore.
I toured, you know, you said Advancing Precon. We went to Advancing-- I went to Advancing Prefab, which by the way is growing leaps and bounds along with Advancing Preconstruction. In fact, I think they should do it in here, guys. I think you should do him like, I can't say week to week, because now that would just kill me for two weeks in a row. But there's got to be more drawn between the two because they they're both growing so fast. But I saw SurePods and Advancing Prefabrication and that's what they told us. But they make these custom killer bathrooms that fit everything they need that have all and they they're just so well built. But if they're not heard and not brought to the table early, it's not going to happen. So I think, you know, a platform like Join that connects collaborators at the right time for the right decisions, is going to help everyone and a lot of things we're doing in there are just born out of what we're hearing from our customers, right? Any any technology company that tells you we know better, you should be a little bit worried. We just think that we're really good listeners and we're really good at doing what we do. We're, I mean, all of us, I know this in our DNA, we're all really excited to be a part of construction because where else do you get to walk around and see something that you physically saw digitally at some point in the world?
Gareth: Amazing.
Jeff: Where else do you get that?
Gareth: Yeah, digital fabrication, it has to it has to happen. But as you say, as well, if you've got everybody in the right at the right time coming into your project, and given their expertise, their area of expertise, and understand that, surely the time between just after design or predesign, right up to precut middle of preconstruction, surely that goes from there to there. And we can build things much faster, much safer, much bigger. That's amazing, yeah?
Jeff: Yeah. I think that's the thing that we've learned too, is like, decision making is one of the most critical KPIs that exist in the industry. But making a fast decision doesn't mean it's good decision. It needs to be a very well informed decision and understanding all the things that go into making a good decision is what we've been doing. Where else you're going to do that but in preconstruction, right? Where most of the earliest decisions and a lot of the back and forth decisions are getting made. So we're starting to understand what it takes to do that. Well, and you're right. Charlie Dunn, and I have this conversation all the time. There's a compression happening and unfortunately, with modern delivery, precon grew a little more than it should have because of the back and forth, right? Well, the schedules didn't change. So we are continually compressing our people in the field. We need to learn more about the decision making up front so that we compress that and allow construction the time it needs to deliver effectively and efficiently and safely. That reduces risk. It reduces all sorts of things if you can do that well. And again, it wasn't that the people in preconstruction were wrong to increase that. They didn't have a tool set that could compress that and that's what's being built.
Gareth: And I think 100% of that but I think as well the operations guys not been involved in preconstruction and not having 15, 20 years of building hospitals involved in preconstruction hasn't helped that either. So if you combine both those, the technology, the platform, and the experience, and I think you're only a good thing, and I'm seeing both happen, the amount of companies that are no acceptance technology and understanding that a, it's a good recruitment tool, because if I'm not if I haven't got the technology that the client wants or needs, or the subcontractor wants and needs, I’m gonna mess certain job, after job, after job, after job. If I haven't got that, and the staff, then I'm an baller. I think I can see the penny dropping.
Jeff: Yeah, I know but I think we see that over and over. You know, I was on the PM side of things for quite a while and when I was in construction, and it was like, it's great if you go recruit these people and tell them all the great things we can do in construction, but if you hand them a clipboard, when they hit the jobsite, you've already lost them. They're gonna-- they're not gonna love it. So, you know, I think it's a unique piece that we have to understand it's a recruitment tool, you know. Hey, listen. We use this great technology, but it's also efficient and effective. We saw, just with modeling tools, we saw taking people out of the field, bringing them in allowing them and teaching them to model gave them the ability to continue to provide and pass that information along, you know, in the VDC world to say, Listen, it's great to model it this way. But if you don't understand that you're not leaving enough room in the angle of that pipe for me to actually install it, you're killing me.
Gareth: Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent.
Jeff: And, the only people that know that are the people in the field. And we need to unlock their information. And, you know, Gareth, we think about this is like generation to generation. I'm also thinking it of-- I see a ton of companies who-- it's really interesting, I will meet their people at all different conferences across the country and I'll visibly see the silos in their own company where they're not sharing that knowledge and expertise, because it's not easy to do. And that's a bummer because if you've got something going on and say, you know, the central United States, and you've got something different going on and struggling on the East Coast, why not access how to do it better? Why not collaborate across your own company silos and release that information.
Gareth: Absolutely.
Jeff: And that's some of the powers that we need here. We need that in preconstruction. We need it from true builders so that we set our projects up for success. I mean, if I was talking to anybody that's out there in the field right now working, coming into the office can have the biggest impact because you can be a one to many. Right now you're one-to-one on a job. But if you can bring that knowledge into the office and provide it across multiple jobs, now you're helping everybody
Gareth: A hundred percent. That's incredible. And I see maybe out of the E&R top 400, I would say 35, that are doing it really, really well, but have been doing it for five or six years. I'm not talking about the last couple of years, they've been doing it for 5, 6, 7 years, and they're silently doing it. No, I don't agree with that. Because I think they should be sharing their successes, they should be sharing their failures, to get everyone up to speed. I don't believe that them sharing that information will make the other company win a job over the top of them. They're always going to have the edge. They’re are always going to have the people. They have the knowledge. I just think we need to start opening up our mind and sharing as much information as possible. Because as you say, 10% think is the difference. You should always be within 10% That's not going to be the changer. At the end of the day, if everyone's within 10%, it's going to be the people with-- the company with the best people and which the client likes is going to end up to win the job.
Jeff: Yeah, I mean, you have to have a strategy to drive your culture but culture eats strategy for breakfast. It's your culture and your people but culture without strategy, that's a common misconception. Culture without strategy is not going to get you anywhere. It's not pointing you in the right direction. And I fully agree with you Gareth. The cool thing I'll bring it back to Advancing Preconstruction is what I have noticed this year, is those folks that were silently doing it before. I don't know if it's them finally coming to the surface and socializing it, realizing that they need to do that, or if it's just that more people have picked up on it, and they're socializing it. But I saw more and more of that sharing, and I will challenge any GC that thinks that that secret sauce is going to help them in that if you're the only one doing it, then you've got to teach each owner. You've got to fight each time. If everybody's adopting these processes, you can stop worrying about that and start worrying more about delivering and competing. And that's what you want to do. We talked about this with the trades. All the trades I come across want to teach the other trades and smaller contractors how to do fab, how to do modular, and how to model. Why? Because they want that requirement on every job. They want everybody doing it like this is the way. Right now I can go, “Oh, well, you'll stick build it?” Great. I'll go to them instead. We don't want those things to go. And the only way we get there is sharing that information. The rising tide lifts all ships is absolutely real man.
Gareth: I love that. Yeah. I love that, man.
Jeff: There's just no two ways about it.
Gareth: Yeah, a hundred percent. You know what? The industry is part of precon. The VDC and BIM industry, I find those guys unbelievable at sharing stuff. They are incredible. Always out there been vocal influencers, proper influencers, teaching proper things. It's amazing the value added-- the value added service that they give to general contractors without even working for them charging for it, it's unbelievable. I think within a preconstruction, and I think preconstruction has gotta be, can't be an overhead, it's got to be charged for. If you're not charging for precon, you're missing a trick.
Jeff: Yeah, I think you're right. And I will say, you know, my Twitter account doesn't see a ton of activity, but I use it really to focus on a few areas, and it happens to be those BIM and VDC folks. I'm amazed at their willingness to share information, like Dynamo scripts and automations. Watch out for these things. And, you know, like even when new releases of major products come out, they're warning each other and sharing and they can easily be fighting, and they're not. And, you know, you go to Advancing Prefabrication, and you go to these events where the BIM and VDC folks are, and they're just super passionate. I think it's because most of them have realized that it's a one to many in their own lives, at their own companies and that it isn't some secret. Their Dynamo script isn't their secret sauce. It's their ability to understand and work from a model to a deployed, fabricated building, you know, or infrastructure of some sort. So they're just-- it's in their DNA. And, you know, I'm a host with-- on the construction dorks with three BIM and VDC guys, and you bring them on all the time.l
Gareth: Anybody who hasn't tuned then, you got to tune into these. You got to subscribe, the boys. I've listened to a few episodes. Brilliant, top class entertainment, as well as technical knowledge.
Jeff: We have a little bit of fun with it, and a lot of technical knowledge. It really is the place to go get geeky. If you if you want to geek out, that's where you go to really dork out and get deep into the details. And we're all about it. I think that's part of the socialization of what we're doing. That's why you know, you've got a podcast, it's growing. I look at it this way, you know. My early podcasts seem to compete with one another and then all of a sudden, somewhere along the lines, podcast started to realize that like, “Oh, no! We could actually cross pollinate.” And I'm like, every industry goes through this. You think it's your thing, and then all of a sudden, you go away. I'm far more powerful by sitting down talking to Garrett than I'm far more powerful having three shows and having everybody come on in different perspectives and talking. There's like, there's no one ring to rule them all in anything and not in this medium, either. I mean, this is all about sharing and getting out there. So--
Gareth: And you always learn something, Jeff. You listen to your podcast and construction. You're learning something. You're taking something away from that and you're more knowledgeable and more powerful for it.
Jeff: Yep. I cannot tell you how many, I mean, I've interviewed so many people. And, I mean, that's the-- the humbling part for me is that people want to come on and share information just like you've done the same. I always learned something from you. Yeah. I always take a nugget away where I'm like, Oh, this is great.
Gareth: How did you come up with that? Did you just start digging, and you just start digging, and then before you know you had the treasure?
Jeff: Yeah.
Gareth: Cool. Give me an idea. I know you've-- as you say, you've interviewed a lot of good people. What's the biggest things you've learned over the last 12, 24 months? And even coming out of COVID because COVID was difficult and I'm saying coming out of COVID or not. We're not through that just yet, but it's looking a lot brighter. How difficult was it? What was the biggest lessons coming from you?
Jeff: The biggest lessons, you know, really early on, I interviewed a guy named Andrew Coren. And his take on COVID was very unique because there was no more option not to go remote, not to go virtual, not to do these things. And he said, It's amazing when there is no other option that you can actually get it done. Because his teams had been telling him for years that they couldn't do it, couldn't do it. All of a sudden with enough pressure, they could do it, and they did it. And that was one of the biggest lessons. The other lesson for me is a little bit more nuanced. It came from talks again, with serial builders and owners that are opening up and sharing their information more is that the needs for buildings, the needs for the infrastructure, the needs for the things that we're constructing in the future are going to be very, very, very different. You know, Salla Eckhardt , from Microsoft put it so well, “Stop bringing me things that are five years old. I'm not concerned about that. What I'm concerned about is a kid in elementary school will want to come and work on one of Microsoft's campuses when they're an adult.” And so if we're thinking five years in the past, and they're thinking 15 years in the future, we are completely off. We need to start thinking about what these facilities will be. And it was interesting I, in a pre-call, I made that same comment to Dan Galavan, from Payette Architects. And he said, “Yeah, Jeff. Think about this. We build an architect and design a lot of higher education, a lot of colleges who thought you'd need a drawing[?] room. What?
Gareth: If you have told someone that, they would have went “No chance, no chance.”
Jeff: No chance. No chance. And so I think that understanding the value that our owners want, and delivering more in the future, and less in the past is going to be critical. The builders that can find those new innovative systems and incorporate those systems and future proof what they're doing for their customers are ultimately going to be able to win more work and design better buildings. I mean, I think that the other thing is we never know if another COVID is going to hit. We never know what's going to hit. But we need to be able to adapt, and as humans, still communicate and do business and work. While Silver Lining, Zoom, these things were cool, and really helped us stay connected, there's a there's a disconnect here a bit. So I think mixed reality being involved in buildings in the future will be a huge thing. And I think the contractors that can understand that and can solve our problems when it comes to not only that, but let's be honest here, decarbonization is one of the biggest problems. You know, our planet is going through a terrible moment and it's not past the point of no return. But we're looking down the barrel of that gun. We in construction have some of the biggest opportunities to solve those problems. People like to beat us up that we're the biggest carbon producer. Well, look, you can chase down the building product and manufacturers. You can chase everybody down. Everybody has culpability. Stop looking at that and start looking at how we're going to solve it. How are we going to change our concrete mixes? How are we going to build, you know, infrastructures that feed themselves? How are we going to implement new electrical technology that saves us on electricity? How are we going to integrate these new techniques into our construction, so that we can compete and win more work and be the builders of choice and be the change that we want to leave, you want to talk about bringing people into your company, I guarantee you, you can bring a whole bunch of people into your company, if you can say that's where we're headed. That's what we're doing. That's what we care about. And we're using tools and techniques that are truly achieving it. And that's how you're gonna stand out.
Gareth: But the only way you can do that is by talking and by opening up and challenging yourself because it tells you what, there's a load of companies out there in their own heads. They think they're the best thing since sliced bread. I can tell you there they aren't. And until they start talking about it and getting their staff to talk about it. And they're showing them that are unbelievable and don't talk about it. They need to come out and just talk about it, and and let people know that they're here. They're here to stay, what they're doing about decarbonization. They're revolutionizing without telling people how do it. And that's fine. I mean, if you want to sit and you don't think you got to talk about it and share things and think they will benefit from.
Jeff: You want to look at it, great. Well, look at the Mace group and Mark Reynolds. I've been just-- I'm hoping I keep mentioning along these things. I hope one day I get a call from them or LinkedIn line or something because Mark's really inspired me personally, to take it to heart and take to having the conversation. Part of this is socializing it but also not whipping each other around for it, but just saying, “Hey, come on out. Let's talk about it.” And you're right, Garrett. There's a ton that are out there talking the talk and they aren't walking the walk. And there's a bunch out there walking the walk and not talking. So we really need you talkers, you thinkers to get out on the forefront, and lead the industry. What a great place to be. And, hey, if we do this, right, with all the tools that are being created, there's so many fantastic tools. I can't even mention all of them that I love, that are building this connected ecosystem that's going to really truly give construction, its next level change, to succeed, and it shouldn't be fun. Now with the next group in and going.
Gareth: And I just hope-- I just hope they're not ahead of their time. They've got to be-- we've got to get up to their level quick. And if Mark’s listening out there, head up, Jeff, and get on his podcast. There you are. That's a [indiscernible].
Jeff: Thanks, Gareth.
Gareth: Cool. So Jeff, tell me, just a bit of fun, though. What is the funniest thing you've ever come across within construction? It can be anything.
Jeff: Funniest thing I've ever come across in construction? Well, I gotta go back to my IT roots. Right? So I'm an IT guy, right? And early in my first first company I ever was the IT guy for in construction. And, you know, lots of things were, you know, aging infrastructure needs help, but things are, you know, we were starting to change things. And we're starting to figure out where our points of failure were and, and then I kept getting this call, every day that this one area would go down. And I was like, okay, um, you know, let's, let's try to let's try to investigate why this is going down. And then they say, you know, they come in in the morning, “CAD died in the afternoon.” And then we came back in in the morning, and it would work again. And I started climbing around looking, I'm like, where are all these computers going? And way back underneath a desk, I said, “Does anybody go back there very often and [indiscernible]? “Oh, yeah. We were told to unplug that thing and plug in this thing that keeps the mice out at night.”
[Laughter]
Gareth: It's the mice. It's always the mice.
Jeff: And I looked up underneath, and there was this network switch mounted underneath, and they were unplugging--
Gareth: Oh merciful God.
Jeff: --and plugging it in. And that’s why that group would go down every day. And so I said, “Okay, well, we have we have more than one problem here. But we're gonna solve this a little differently. We're gonna go in the walls, and we're gonna do a few things.” But yeah, that was--
Gareth: A few traps.
Jeff: A few traps. That was-- that's probably the craziest thing I've seen on the IT side of things when it came to construction
Gareth: And how how was it solved? Communication?
Jeff: Communication? I asked a lot of questions. I asked a lot of questions.
Gareth: Yeah, a lot of questions. That's the key. That is the key. Jeff, you've been absolute legend. I'm going to do this again. Pretty soon just to find out where you guys are going because-- and if anybody hasn't listened to Andrew Zukoski, get on and listen. Co-founder of Join. Incredible, incredible podcast episode. That guy's an absolute genius. And I can't wait to see where you guys go?
Jeff: Yeah, he is and he was the inspiration come on. I really appreciate you bringing him on. I even learned from that episode with him. It's always funny when you're close to something and then you get a little, a little space and listen. But thank you, Gareth, for all you do. I listen into the show all the time and I've getting into the minds of the people that are delivering and really working hands and heads down in preconstruction, helps all of us that are supporting it. We can't do it if we don't really know and you give them a great platform to be free with that. So, you know from my side as a as a fellow podcaster, I truly appreciate what you're up to and what you're doing, what you've been able to accomplish along the path.
Gareth: You're a gentleman, Jeff, thank you very much. Looking forward to seeing you in person soon.
Jeff: Thanks, you too, Gareth.
[End]
