Latest / Activating Curiosity® | Leading Change in the Construction Industry / Reducing Friction in Construction Decision-Making Without Replacing Expertise

Transcript

Reducing Friction in Construction Decision-Making Without Replacing Expertise · Activating Curiosity® | Leading Change in the Construction Industry

• 0:58
  Scott: Can we build dedicated and structured tools to help designers, to help builders, to help owners just understand what are the codes?
• 1:05
  Scott: Bring those together into one place, start to hyperlink them together, make it easy to read, access, copy, paste, print, talk to the AHJ, talk to the owner or developer, talk to the consultants, and really just facilitate this exchange of conversation.
• 1:19
  Scott: Just trying to get a foundation where everyone's operating from the same information.
• 1:24
  Scott: We're not struggling to stitch together this patchwork of regulation and updates and amendments.
• 1:30
  Scott: Just simplify that layer so that the more interesting conversation can happen on top of that.
• 2:08
  Ryan: And this conversation today, we're going to focus a lot on technology that we haven't had a chance to talk about on the episodes.
• 2:15
  Ryan: A new kind of way to look at technology and with someone who has spent a career similar to mine, background-wise, and finding a way to shift into it to solve some problems for all of you that are out in the industry.
• 2:29
  Ryan: So today I have with me Scott Reynolds.
• 2:32
  Ryan: He is the co-founder and CEO of Upcodes.
• 2:35
  Ryan: Hey Scott, how are you doing?
• 2:36
  Scott: Doing doing well.
• 2:37
  Scott: Thanks for having me on the show, Ryan.
• 2:38
  Scott: Looking forward to this conversation.
• 2:41
  Ryan: Yeah, I appreciate you being willing to talk.
• 2:44
  Ryan: I know I've been following yourself as well as your brother.
• 2:48
  Ryan: Um, when I was out in California and a lot of the work that you were doing, it sort of intrigued me because I was like, there's got to be a way to address how we access building codes at the time.
• 3:00
  Ryan: And I think that's when I started spotting uh you and started communicating with you as well as your brother.
• 3:07
  Ryan: So I appreciate this conversation and a lot of the work that you're doing.
• 3:11
  Ryan: Um, but before we dive into the episode, why don't you tell a little bit about yourself?
• 3:15
  Ryan: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:17
  Scott: So I studied architecture at Syracuse University, uh, went through the five-year program there, pretty quickly went abroad and worked in Hong Kong for a couple of years, worked on international projects, typically like mixed-use projects.
• 3:31
  Scott: Um and then after a couple of years, moved back to the US or working on uh domestic projects, went to the New York City office.
• 3:41
  Scott: So my background very much comes from the architecture side from the industry side.
• 3:46
  Scott: Um, and a lot of what we work on today is a reflection of a lot of the kind of inefficiencies and and challenges I faced, you know, as as an architect, but but also all my former colleagues and and peers and talking to them and and really um kind of you know going through the frustrations of initially uh of going through code research and applying the code and managing the code through through the whole process.
• 4:11
  Scott: So that's my background.
• 4:13
  Scott: That's kind of where we've started.
• 4:14
  Scott: The products changed pretty substantially over time, but that's certainly like where where we got our roots.
• 4:20
  Ryan: Yeah, I well, congrats on being in Hong Kong for a little while and and coming from New York.
• 4:27
  Ryan: The opportunity to kind of work abroad probably opened your eyes and in different ways as well.
• 4:31
  Ryan: And I'm sure you'll kind of get into that.
• 4:33
  Ryan: I know that you talked about a lot of those changes um that are going on with the company, but but you know, an area to really kind of focus on uh for the conversation is there's something that you said, like, hey, there's inefficiencies in a lot of the ways that we're doing some of these things.
• 4:50
  Ryan: And you spotted something right off the bat and said, you know what, I need to figure out how to fix this.
• 4:55
  Ryan: And you started having conversations with other people about how you might be able to address that.
• 5:00
  Ryan: So uh tell us a little bit about what that initial problem was that you were like, you know what?
• 5:06
  Ryan: I I think I really need to try to figure this out.
• 5:09
  Scott: Yeah, well, going back to Hong Kong.
• 5:12
  Scott: So, you know, it's one of my first jobs um working in in architecture firms.
• 5:17
  Scott: And when you're in academia, you're you're doing so much design work and you're you're you have the kind of these like pure projects that are that are unconstrained.
• 5:25
  Scott: And you can, you know, no, no budgets, no, no like codes, no regulations to follow, and all those things.
• 5:31
  Scott: So it's just totally right, totally free form.
• 5:33
  Scott: You you you join your first job, you get it to practice, and you realize you really don't know how to put a building together.
• 5:40
  Scott: You don't know the codes, you don't know the regulations, you don't know how to work it to it to a budget, to a client's brief, to the to the you work with consultants, work with the government.
• 5:49
  Scott: There's all these uh challenges.
• 5:52
  Scott: Now I had done internships in in in New York, in like in, you know, working on US projects, but my first real full-time job was in Hong Kong.
• 6:02
  Scott: And we were going through these challenges, and a lot of it was the regulation and and and the codes.
• 6:08
  Scott: The projects were in mainland China.
• 6:10
  Scott: Um, so you know, obviously the codes are not in English.
• 6:13
  Scott: And I thought that was the biggest hurdle.
• 6:16
  Scott: I I thought, you know, we were passing information back to, I was at an Australian firm first, so passing information back to like Sydney and Melbourne design teams, um, you know, dealing with the challenges there.
• 6:29
  Scott: Then when I transferred to a US firm, uh, design team was based in New York City.
• 6:34
  Scott: So transferring back all these regulations there and huge amount of inefficiency.
• 6:38
  Scott: Um, just to understand like what are the parameters, what are we trying to design to?
• 6:42
  Scott: I kind of attached those difficulties to the fact that the codes were not in English.
• 6:48
  Scott: It is a different language, it's hard to get through.
• 6:51
  Scott: Um, so amongst other reasons, I, you know, with that firm, I transferred to the New York City office.
• 6:56
  Scott: But I was really looking forward to, you know, what I thought would be more simple, the kind of world of regulations.
• 7:03
  Scott: But lo and behold, the US is is pre-advanced in the regulations.
• 7:06
  Scott: And yes, they're written in English, but they're extremely dense, they're extremely hard to work with.
• 7:12
  Scott: And there was no modern tools to do it.
• 7:14
  Scott: Um, we were working with physical books in our office.
• 7:17
  Scott: We had like binders where there's like the code updates and and and they had to insert, then you're trying to navigate through amendments to the codes based on different jurisdictions.
• 7:27
  Scott: And it seemed like such an analog, uh uh kind of like very high friction workflow that really didn't need to exist.
• 7:38
  Scott: Um, so at that time I you know, talked to my brother.
• 7:42
  Scott: He was at another um kind of like a technology startup at the time, planning grid.
• 7:48
  Scott: And I was asking him, like, can we build software around this?
• 7:52
  Scott: Can we can we build dedicated and structured tools to help designers, to help builders, to help owners just understand what are the codes?
• 8:00
  Scott: Bring those together into one place, start to hyperlink them together, make it easy to read, access, copy, paste, print, you know, talk to the AHJ, talk to the owner, developer, uh, talk to the to the consultants and really just facilitate this exchange of conversation.
• 8:17
  Scott: Just trying to get a a foundation where everyone's operating from the same information, we're not struggling to stitch together this patchwork of regulation and updates and amendments.
• 8:29
  Scott: Just set just simplify that layer so that the more interesting conversation can happen on top of that.
• 8:35
  Scott: So that's really like kind of the the the pain point that we were trying to solve at the at the time.
• 8:42
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 8:42
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 8:43
  Ryan: So it sparked, you know, it sparked this area for you of like, hey, you know, I gotta go grab a binder, and maybe we only have a couple, and I'm trying to find it on somebody's desk.
• 8:54
  Ryan: I, man, I can remember pages falling out.
• 8:58
  Ryan: You know, they got you got the little sticker you got to put on it to make sure it stays in the binder.
• 9:03
  Ryan: So yeah, it felt inefficient walking around an office being like, well, who has this, who has the the code book um for you to find when it was, you know, that's how we sort of done it.
• 9:15
  Ryan: I know today I, you know, you can find building codes sort of online, but it I go back to when I first started and thinking about, you know, building codes.
• 9:25
  Ryan: And I I started my career in in Charlotte, North Carolina.
• 9:28
  Ryan: And at that time, they were releasing um was uh I think it was called IBC, International Building Code.
• 9:36
  Ryan: It was supposed to stop all of the state codes, essentially, right?
• 9:41
  Ryan: It was supposed to be this uniform building code kind of IBC.
• 9:45
  Ryan: And then we ended up with every state rewriting their own building code.
• 9:50
  Ryan: So as you stated, it's like when you come out of university and you start to practice, and part of your job is to understand fire and life safety and get to a building code and what all the different materials are and and how that's going to impact everyone, like it shouldn't be difficult.
• 10:10
  Ryan: Right?
• 10:10
  Ryan: It shouldn't, like, hey, that's an ethical thing.
• 10:14
  Ryan: It's a moral thing.
• 10:15
  Ryan: Like you've got to figure it out.
• 10:16
  Ryan: But if it's hindering you to accomplish your your task and get it done efficiently, um, all of those things, like that drives down net profit, like all the things just keep burning hours and create frustration.
• 10:31
  Ryan: So you spotted something I think that hits a lot of a lot of us as we started in this journey.
• 10:36
  Ryan: Um so you so you talk to your brother and you said, okay, like there's gotta be, there's gotta be a way to do this in a digital format.
• 10:46
  Ryan: So talk about some of those kind of early days when you first started exploring this.
• 10:53
  Ryan: Like, hey, was there was there hesitancy?
• 10:56
  Ryan: Were you getting feedback from other people who were like, yeah, this is a problem I really have?
• 11:01
  Ryan: Like, how did you really stretch that lens into like this is how we're going to attack it?
• 11:07
  Ryan: These are the areas that are the primary focus.
• 11:10
  Scott: Yeah, and I I think at the time we we didn't realize how pervasive that issue was and probably continues to be.
• 11:18
  Scott: So the initial part was was just starting with some iteration of the product.
• 11:23
  Scott: And it was very crude, it was very simple.
• 11:25
  Scott: I think at the time it was uh I think there was a few codes on it, but we were really focused on like New York City at the time that expanded to California and it eventually would get we'd become statewide or uh countrywide.
• 11:36
  Scott: What one of the common themes, even to this day, is you start pulling on a thread.
• 11:41
  Scott: There's a pain point, there's a friction point or inefficiency in the industry.
• 11:45
  Scott: And you start trying to solve and and build software around it, and and you start to talk to a lot of the community and um and and folks in the industry.
• 11:54
  Scott: But when you start pulling on that conversation thread, it it just so many more pain points come up more and more and more.
• 12:01
  Scott: Um, for instance, like I think we started with the building and accessibility code, and then you know, people are saying, well, we need the fire code, we need the electrical code, we need all these other codes that that are um that you know that are referenced.
• 12:13
  Scott: So starting to bring all these together as like, well, we need better ways to filter, we need to search, we need to project manage, we need to do collaboration around it.
• 12:23
  Scott: So it's the start point looks a lot different than where you end up, but I think once you start, you start pulling on that thread and it just it just the the amount of uh uh feedback and and user requests is is pretty substantial.
• 12:37
  Scott: But I I will say like the community grew pretty pretty quickly from from the early days.
• 12:44
  Scott: And the larger the community, just the more voices and the more requests you're gonna have.
• 12:49
  Scott: Um so just an interesting theme is is how do you think uh listen to and keep your finger on the pulse of what people care about, where the use cases are so diverse.
• 13:02
  Scott: You might have a homeowner who who you know cares about a deck, let's say on their on their home, or maybe it's an architect working on multifamily residential, or an architect working on you know large-scale commercial projects, or maybe it's a GC, or maybe it's a subcontractor, or the building department, the fire department.
• 13:19
  Scott: They all engage and interact with codes in very, very different ways.
• 13:24
  Scott: And as a result, the user requests will be very, very different.
• 13:27
  Scott: Like, hey, can we can you think about solving this pain point?
• 13:31
  Scott: And it's it's been one of the really probably one of the most challenging things for us is you know, when you have a you know a finite amount of resources, where do you spend those resources?
• 13:40
  Scott: Which which friction points do you do you do you do you work on today and which ones do you, you know, uh uh kind of deprioritize to to to tomorrow or like or or next year?
• 13:50
  Scott: I think that's the the trickiest thing is just the the constant you know feedback and all these requests that you that you get.
• 13:59
  Ryan: Right.
• 13:59
  Ryan: So when you were doing that, was there you know, more of a target audience uh for lack of a better term there?
• 14:08
  Ryan: You mentioned like homeowners to the architects.
• 14:11
  Ryan: So when you first started, there was an MVP that you must have put in place based off some of those initials.
• 14:16
  Ryan: That's when you began getting this feedback that was, like you said, a thread.
• 14:22
  Ryan: But you started to get to a deeper root problem because of the feedback.
• 14:28
  Ryan: You're starting to, you know, maybe people are responding to that thing that's hot topic for them at that moment, like you said.
• 14:34
  Ryan: I think that could throw initial software companies off a lot, is that, you know, do you go so far off of your targeted goal in what you set out to do?
• 14:48
  Ryan: So I appreciate you kind of saying, hey, because that was part of that conversation of an obstacle, like those obstacles might be coming up of like a lot of requests coming in from a lot of directions that aren't aligned with the exact direction that we were planning to go.
• 15:06
  Ryan: But it started to open up this curtain of like, hey, this seems to be a repetitive theme.
• 15:12
  Ryan: This seems to be a problem within the industry or inefficiency.
• 15:16
  Ryan: So you were starting to see some of those things.
• 15:18
  Ryan: Was that was the feedback and the ability to like address those, you know, everything is time is of the essence in this industry.
• 15:29
  Ryan: So did that become like an obstacle for people to go, like, I don't know, um, be slow to adopt this or slow to kind of see it as an opportunity to pull it into their firms and their use?
• 15:41
  Scott: Well, not to go down a rabbit hole here, but just to go back to what you mentioned about the the target audience or like the target market and and and you know being being focused.
• 15:51
  Scott: I think for us, what made it so much more challenging is is that if we think about our underlying goal, it was just and it continues to be just make the codes accessible, make them friendly, make make allow anybody who wants to understand what the codes are, uh, to get in there and and understand and and work with the codes.
• 16:11
  Scott: That would lead to more um you know, or safer buildings, more compliant communities and more resilient communities.
• 16:18
  Scott: And the codes are always changing and evolving.
• 16:20
  Scott: And um, you know, you look at LA fires and things like that, like how like how do we make more resilient communities?
• 16:26
  Scott: And I think that is from no matter who you are, making the codes as accessible as possible and and easy to work with.
• 16:32
  Scott: But when you have a uh a goal that broad, I would say, it doesn't give you the ability to say, okay, we're just gonna focus on say like single family residential.
• 16:44
  Scott: Like you can't do that because then you'd be turning your back on everybody else.
• 16:47
  Scott: And and if the mission is just to like get all these codes out there and help people through it, it's it is a delicate balance because you know, we want to help the architects as much as possible.
• 16:57
  Scott: But we want to hope help that homeowner who's trying to do a deck extension or understand like how to fire uh fireproof um uh their their home.
• 17:06
  Scott: But we want to help the GC and we want to help the the trades.
• 17:09
  Scott: Um so so that's where it comes so difficult.
• 17:12
  Scott: And you know, I think in a way in a in a in a different universe, like if we were just focused on one segment, it would make the roadmap a lot easier and a lot more clear.
• 17:21
  Scott: Um, but the horizontal nature, like the breadth of what we want to tackle, it makes that I would say substantially more challenging.
• 17:30
  Scott: But I think it like that is what's motivating to us.
• 17:34
  Scott: I think that's like a lot of the team comes from from the industry.
• 17:37
  Scott: They're former architects, for you know, they used to be engineers or working in government departments, in addition to a lot of like, you know, from the technology side.
• 17:44
  Scott: But like that is motivating to to the team, just getting getting the codes out there.
• 17:48
  Scott: But I will say it makes yeah, it does make the job a lot, uh, a lot harder.
• 17:53
  Ryan: Well, I I mean I appreciate you sharing that because I think that is, yeah, as a business model, right?
• 17:58
  Ryan: Like it's figuring that out and trying to to pull that into what's the most effective use, not only of our time, but our funding and what we have, you know, available to us to put this together.
• 18:11
  Ryan: But, you know, like you said, it's almost not impossible, but very difficult to start to separate them when, you know, yes, there's residential codes and yes, there's building codes, but people sometimes cross different lines and how they practice or build.
• 18:29
  Ryan: So creating that database, one, you said, let's make it accessible.
• 18:34
  Ryan: Because right now, the way we've all kind of started in our professions, like it wasn't as accessible.
• 18:42
  Ryan: So you started in New York, then you went to California.
• 18:45
  Ryan: Were you seeing certain states say, you know, or other, you know, certain states be more receptive, whether it's the state itself or just the individuals within it, in order to get this to be beyond, you know, just a local jurisdiction to an entire state, to getting in into a region and expanding it.
• 19:05
  Ryan: Um, like, did you find certain states being more adaptable to it and the people within it?
• 19:12
  Ryan: Or, or was everyone just like, hey, like I gotta have this?
• 19:17
  Ryan: It's this is this has been something I've been wanting for a long time.
• 19:21
  Scott: Yeah, it's it's really interesting.
• 19:23
  Scott: I I think the especially the fire departments and the building departments and planning departments, the tool itself is something I think they've wanted for a long time.
• 19:31
  Scott: And I would now I I can't say like for everyone, it was really fast adoption.
• 19:36
  Scott: Cause there, you know, there there are people that for 20 or 30 years they've used physical books and there's a certain workflow to that where you, you know, dog ear and and notes in the margins and and posts and notes, and you know, uh you know there's that whole workflow.
• 19:49
  Scott: And um so but I would say the because a lot of these government agencies are so deep in the code, and maybe they're an inspector and they're they're on site and they have like you know, like 20 pounds of of of books in their in the trunk and they're lugging around these these these code books.
• 20:07
  Scott: And if you can just pull up up-to-date amended codes for that jurisdiction on your phone or your tablet, it it just makes their life a lot easier.
• 20:16
  Scott: Um so I will say um the adoption within there has been quite smooth.
• 20:23
  Scott: And we work with departments across the the country.
• 20:26
  Scott: I I think where it's really interesting is the the amendment uh authoring process.
• 20:33
  Scott: So like you're mentioned before the different states, you know, like while while we were supposed to have this unified singular code that could be across the country, like that's not where we've netted out.
• 20:43
  Scott: Um, you know, for some time it seemed like that's where we're headed, but states are just creasing more and more amendments and modifications to to that code.
• 20:52
  Scott: Now that amendment process will actually lend a lot of our QA, QC.
• 20:57
  Scott: Tools, technology, that the team to vet the amendments and send it back to the departments.
• 21:05
  Scott: So if a department has started to author amendments and maybe they've released drafts or they've they've released like in advance upcoming amendments, our our team and our processes will flag potential issues.
• 21:18
  Scott: Those could be like grammatical spelling, numbering, uh inconsistencies, duplicate uh sections of code.
• 21:26
  Scott: Like there's a there's a large variety of, you know, unfortunately errors, it's a human process, it it happens, right?
• 21:32
  Scott: That that will come from those agencies.
• 21:34
  Scott: And we'll send, we'll send back like feedback.
• 21:36
  Scott: We're like, hey, here's, you know, kind of take it or leave it, but here's like a list of things you might want to consider.
• 21:41
  Scott: I think the reaction to that, that's where we see a lot of variability.
• 21:45
  Scott: On one hand, some agencies are fantastic to work with, and we'll send that back.
• 21:51
  Scott: And and it's it's very much like um, like I think it think of it more like a partnership where we can lend our resources to help, you know, help in that that process and and and they can benefit from that and incorporate that.
• 22:04
  Scott: Uh on the other hand, uh, or the other side of the spectrum, we just see some of the opposite where they're not, and I don't know if this comes down to an individual level, like maybe more work on someone's desk, but like, you know, if we send them back a dot a document and it says like here is like 35, you know, things you might want to look at in in that draft amendments or like maybe even amendments that are that are live, but we we think you know you ought to take a look at.
• 22:28
  Scott: Um, some people don't react well to that.
• 22:31
  Scott: I don't know if they want to turn a blind eye to to to trying to like get you know parse and make these as as clean as possible, these these changes and amendments.
• 22:39
  Scott: But uh that that's where we see a lot of variation, I would say.
• 22:43
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 22:44
  Ryan: Well, it it seems like it's it's that human nature for some of like, yeah, I thought this was off my desk, and who are you to maybe tell us we're wrong, or you know, put pick any emotion that kind of comes out of it.
• 23:01
  Ryan: Um who knows how that individual is feeling.
• 23:05
  Ryan: So there it sounds like there has been acceptance, maybe in an open-minded side of things where they're you know they're open-minded about it, they see a real opportunity with it.
• 23:16
  Ryan: They they know in the end that it is about life safety, right?
• 23:21
  Ryan: It is about protecting humans and all of that.
• 23:24
  Ryan: So we need to make this accessible to everybody we need to make sure that that it's correct.
• 24:39
  Ryan: You know, I mean, that's the whole point of going through a code review is that, yeah, architects expect a correction letter, you know, that's going to come back.
• 24:47
  Ryan: And when it, you know, a clean one comes back, it feels like a huge, huge victory because you don't want to fall back in the line.
• 24:54
  Ryan: So so Scott, I know that you, you know, you've mentioned before, you guys have sort of expanded beyond that that initial sort of approach with with the building codes.
• 25:06
  Ryan: Um, what else are you, you know, investing your time in and starting to look at as far as problem solving?
• 25:14
  Ryan: And like you said, it's very diverse and there's a lot of feedback that are coming into play.
• 25:20
  Ryan: But like, what are some of those other things that have really caught your interest?
• 25:23
  Ryan: And you're like, yeah, we we see this as uh adjacent to what we're doing, but it's all tied, right?
• 25:30
  Ryan: But it is another way of getting some of those efficiencies taken care of.
• 25:34
  Scott: Yeah.
• 25:34
  Scott: And and I do I do want to mention one quick thing in in terms of you know the code and the changes and the the government officials.
• 25:42
  Scott: We changed uh on average over 12,000 sections of code every month.
• 25:48
  Scott: So across the country, when you look at all the different jurisdictions, it's over 12,000 sections of code will be changed on average.
• 25:56
  Scott: And sometimes that goes up to like 18,000 a month.
• 25:59
  Scott: There's 40 people who just research, talk to HJs, um go through that whole process of incorporating and studying and QAing and uh all those changes.
• 26:10
  Scott: We were taking a look at 2025, they spent over 55,000 hours doing that.
• 26:15
  Scott: And you think about a, let's say, like a local AHJ.
• 26:19
  Scott: They might have, you know, a handful of people on staff who are really busy.
• 26:23
  Scott: They have just a pile of applications for on on the permitting side and maybe they have inspections to do.
• 26:28
  Scott: They they don't have 55,000 hours to to research and do all this.
• 26:33
  Scott: Um I you know, I I think uh in a way, just just having that that free and open access and like we we can take that a lot of that work on ourselves and then give it out to the community for free.
• 26:45
  Scott: Like they don't have to do that in in the department.
• 26:47
  Scott: And and and then the architect doesn't have to spend all their time you know researching and cobbling that together.
• 26:53
  Scott: So I just wanted to yeah, just touch on that quickly.
• 26:56
  Scott: But to the to the second part of of your comment, you know, where where have we expanded?
• 27:02
  Scott: I think the core competency of the team is is aggregating very fragmented resources and then building streamlined workflows just to make that a lot easier.
• 27:13
  Scott: There were a lot of adjacent, or continue to be a lot of adjacent workflows to codes that you know have similar fragmentation and kind of disjointed workflows.
• 27:21
  Scott: One of them was uh assemblies, so things like UL assemblies or GA assemblies.
• 27:27
  Scott: Another one was building products and materials, and then more recently specifications.
• 27:32
  Scott: But all of those have a degree of fragmentation.
• 27:37
  Scott: So you have to go out and stitch together a lot of different resources, pull it together.
• 27:42
  Scott: But interestingly, they all relate to one another.
• 27:45
  Scott: So the specifications highly dependent on the codes, like what is what is applicable and your certifications, the assemblies, or the products themselves, of course, and like what variants have been approved for a jurisdiction, what's available, what hits the performance criteria.
• 28:03
  Scott: Um, and then if you're looking at um, yeah, say like building products, like going through and does that match the specification?
• 28:11
  Scott: Does it match what's available in your jurisdiction?
• 28:14
  Scott: So there's a lot of these interdependencies that I think our team, you know, has has cut our teeth for many years doing in the codes.
• 28:22
  Scott: Now we're just kind of scaling that up to a lot more workflows.
• 28:26
  Ryan: Yeah, I mean, they are so adjacent or intertwined.
• 28:30
  Ryan: Like you can't, you know, you can't separate the building code, like you said, from the specification.
• 28:35
  Ryan: And if you got to get three equals, you got to go find, you know, product manufacturers or or you know, building materials that all are in line with that.
• 28:43
  Ryan: And you so you're going somewhere else, you're taking that step in another direction.
• 28:47
  Ryan: And for those who, you know, want to know how old I am, I was going to a library to grab the suites catalog, you know, because the internet was new.
• 28:55
  Ryan: So like now you now you can research things at at a deeper level, you know, on the internet.
• 29:01
  Ryan: And, you know, there is proprietary specs that people want to go grab, but there is a lot of time spent trying to marry those things together to know like we this is something I want because aesthetically it's exactly in line with the design intent.
• 29:19
  Ryan: But, you know, hey, three products over here match it, and the fourth one I want doesn't work within the code for some reason.
• 29:28
  Ryan: Um, you know, whatever, whatever that reason is.
• 29:30
  Ryan: So so you're starting to deep dive into this, you know, platforms to, you know, they do their initial building code review, and now they're having, like you said, an aggregated form of data to start to align with, I'm assuming, some criteria that they're setting into there to go be able to search material, find out more information, get those classification or certification information.
• 29:57
  Ryan: Is that what how I'm understanding exactly.
• 30:00
  Scott: Amongst other things too, like like you're saying, like aesthetic quality, performance data, certifications, like like EPDs.
• 30:08
  Scott: Um but to your point, like it could be really hard to go out and find like three equals, for instance.
• 30:16
  Scott: Um the just the amount of performance data you have to like look through, what actually can it can match and and and fit in here.
• 30:25
  Scott: Um yeah, is is is just um, you know, we've seen it with our users talking to the users, but it can be quite uh quite quite a challenge.
• 30:33
  Scott: And I I think the the the real shame is when a manufacturer a new manufacturer has come out with a new product and maybe it's more uh environmentally friendly, maybe it has better performance, maybe it's a better cost, lower embodied carbon.
• 30:49
  Scott: But the designer will not get there and realize they could actually choose that because they just simply don't know about it, or they couldn't parse the documentation.
• 30:57
  Scott: And the community, when we've talked to to folks on, on the site, they've expressed exactly that.
• 31:03
  Scott: They're like, I I think this product would have worked, but I just do not have time to spend hours to research through the relatively dense documentation and see if this works.
• 31:14
  Scott: But it seems like it should work, but I just I don't have the time to do that.
• 31:17
  Scott: I'm gonna fall back on the product we used two years ago because we spec'd it, we got the spec ready to go.
• 31:23
  Scott: We, you know, we know it meets the rec the bear requirements.
• 31:27
  Scott: And I think that's really a shame.
• 31:28
  Scott: Like everyone loses in that situation.
• 31:30
  Scott: The owner, developer loses because they don't, they didn't get the best possible product.
• 31:35
  Scott: The manufacturer loses because they couldn't, you know, they spent all this time developing this great new product that they can't now sell.
• 31:42
  Scott: Um, and then the environment loses too, because now you have a product in a building that is not performing to the same extent that another product would have.
• 31:51
  Ryan: Yeah, I mean you're starting to you're starting to answer even the next question that I had, which is like, uh, why is it so important for us to really kind of resolve this?
• 32:00
  Ryan: And and as you're getting into it, it's we are very time poor as an industry.
• 32:09
  Ryan: And we end up, as you just described, going back to default mode.
• 32:15
  Ryan: We just grab the tried and the true that worked in the last situation.
• 32:20
  Ryan: Now, current situation may not be the same for that product that you specified or that solution that you specified two years ago, but you don't have time to research the new piece.
• 32:30
  Ryan: So as you're describing it, I hear a huge opportunity, one within jurisdictions of like, we don't have enough codes and plans examiners in jurisdictions now.
• 32:42
  Ryan: And there are no, there's no Calvary coming.
• 32:44
  Ryan: There's no, there's we're not filling, and there are recruitments for those areas aren't that high.
• 32:50
  Ryan: Yes, there's other ways that we're looking to sort of resolve that, but by as you're addressing it, finding ways to utilize technology that speed up our research process, right?
• 33:03
  Ryan: This is what we're all talking about with AI, to aggregate that data in a way that allows us to actually be the one who makes the choice of the solution that we wanted to use, not punting on it because, oh, I don't have time to research it.
• 33:21
  Ryan: So you're right, everyone's losing.
• 33:24
  Ryan: So to me, I mean, I'm sure this is why you got into it, but like there's a huge opportunity to solve like what you're doing, solve some of these problems, to give back more time, to design the way we want to without spending a lot of time researching and finding out, like, hey, this didn't, it doesn't work.
• 33:46
  Ryan: And I can't really apply it to the project.
• 33:48
  Ryan: So, I mean, I'm I'm assuming your your answer to this is yes and more, but like from your viewpoint and and and your team, like what makes this so important to solve for the industry?
• 34:01
  Scott: Yeah, and and I I I really like your point about the Calvary is not coming.
• 34:05
  Scott: And and it's it's so true.
• 34:06
  Scott: It's it, you know, the uh plan reviewers and and government and um agencies are short-staffed, and there's no plan to bring to double their staff, like that's not coming in the next couple of years or foreseeable future.
• 34:20
  Scott: And then on a similar way, in in in architecture, we're time constrained, like you said.
• 34:26
  Scott: And we like right now, there could be a lot more work, like a lot more projects would benefit from architects looking at them.
• 34:35
  Scott: And I think the kind of this the resource scarcity, whether it's like, you know, money or or time, um, can push people to not giving architects a chance to make the best possible products, or even like even consider that project.
• 34:51
  Scott: Like maybe, you know, maybe it goes to like a uh a builder that that is doing cookie cutter developments and it would, you know, very little, I'd say design aesthetic, but also performance research coming from the architect.
• 35:03
  Scott: Like we are we are resource constrained.
• 35:06
  Scott: We just we need way more the uh I want to say more way more architecture, but if you know what I mean, like like buildings need to be considered by architects to a far greater extent than they are today, because architects do a very, very uh uh beneficial good for the the building itself, but also the community and then also the the the climate.
• 35:27
  Scott: But I I think to your point, like we often don't have the choice.
• 35:32
  Scott: Like we we just don't have the time to figure out what are the three best choices, and then to me, do the most interesting thing, which is decide amongst the three and apply that to the project and balance out all those factors.
• 35:42
  Scott: But I do think AI can can really or can help get us, can help push.
• 35:47
  Scott: I don't know if it's like the batch bullet necessarily, but it can certainly help in terms of like aggregating that data, queuing up those decisions for you and doing a lot of that busy legwork that you just don't have time for.
• 35:59
  Scott: And like can, and that's exactly what we're building towards.
• 36:02
  Scott: Can we queue up those three options to you?
• 36:05
  Scott: Give you an analysis, say like here's the highlights, here, here's the couple of reasons, you know, the the pros, the cons of each one.
• 36:12
  Scott: And you know, kind of good luck.
• 36:13
  Scott: But like, but at least a lot of that work is done, and like here you go.
• 36:16
  Scott: Like we we queued it up for you.
• 36:18
  Scott: Um, and now you at least you get to make that decision, which I think is the most interesting part of the job.
• 36:25
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 36:25
  Ryan: I it it, I mean, that's why I wanted to be an architect, right?
• 36:29
  Ryan: It was uh to make the choices and get the design intent the way I wanted.
• 36:34
  Ryan: And it was not to pass on something because I don't have time because everyone's rushing me through the design.
• 36:40
  Ryan: And I, you know, my personal opinion is like we're not looking at how we're building things, you know, from a methodology standpoint sometimes that is also limiting the way that we get to select some of the solutions that we want to match our design intent.
• 36:58
  Ryan: And we just give up on those things.
• 37:00
  Ryan: We we and I always say, like, well, then who's making the choice, right?
• 37:04
  Ryan: Like if we want to make the choice as humans, then who's making it if we're just going to allow our poor time industry to just be like, well, I'm just gonna pass on it because I don't.
• 37:17
  Ryan: And AI isn't a silver bolder magic bullet, like you said.
• 37:22
  Ryan: It I see it as, you know, instead of me needing to go pick up a sweets catalog back in the day, it arrives at my desk with it knows, like, hey, here's what you're looking for, here's all the potential manufacturers.
• 37:38
  Ryan: And I might when I say a sweets catalog, it was a you know, wasn't a binder, it was a hard-backed book.
• 37:45
  Ryan: And if a company, like you said, came out with a new solution, it was not showing up into that catalog unless we bought new catalogs.
• 37:53
  Ryan: So the opportunity, you know, Suites has online.
• 37:58
  Ryan: I think there's fourspecs.com, but not every manufacturer like ends up in the right bucket, and it's not really telling you what you need from a building code standpoint.
• 38:09
  Ryan: There's still more uh research and there's a lot of work that has to go into that.
• 38:15
  Ryan: So I do see this as a huge potential, Scott, of what you're talking about is like getting things to people's fingertips to make the choice that they want to make, to give them back that freedom of that choice, um, opposed to the choice of like, well, I'll just stay in default mode.
• 38:32
  Ryan: We'll just repeat the last thing.
• 38:33
  Ryan: And that that comes with the warning sign too.
• 38:36
  Ryan: And I I know we could be a simple product or something that's in a building, but sometimes, like, you know, I'm not saying this happens, but if we just let things go, situations change and they're not exactly the same as that last project.
• 38:50
  Ryan: And and you could be wrong.
• 38:53
  Ryan: Like that could, it could be the wrong answer, not just aesthetically, just other factors within the design that aren't allowing you to align that.
• 39:01
  Ryan: I know I'm saying a lot there, but you kind of spark something in me.
• 39:05
  Ryan: Like, I see this opportunity to give people back precious time to do what they wanted it to do when they came in this industry.
• 39:15
  Ryan: Like to not, you know, sit and give up on things, to be able to go design the way they want to go design and find those solutions and explore.
• 39:26
  Ryan: So um, yeah, I guess the question would be is like then what like if this isn't solved, right?
• 39:32
  Ryan: If we if this isn't resolved, you know, the cavalry's not coming inside the architecture industry, it's not coming into construction either.
• 39:40
  Ryan: Like, how do you how do you see us continuing to be able to get housing out faster, more infrastructure done quickly, if some of the things that you're thinking about as a team don't don't get to people's fingertips and then in front of them for decision making faster?
• 39:57
  Ryan: Like what what happens, you know, if we just continue to struggle to accept that?
• 40:02
  Scott: So I I I think the the best case scenario is you chose the wrong product and maybe the client overpaid or it's not as performative and they're gonna lose you know money on whether it's like heating the house or the the you know the climate lost.
• 40:17
  Scott: Worst case scenario is you're dealing with a bunch of RFIs because you chose the wrong product and or maybe a product that's discontinued or that variant is not available, and now you're just the the costs associated and kind of headache, the cost associated associated with with all of those RFIs.
• 40:34
  Scott: I think that's the downstream implication.
• 40:37
  Scott: Going back to the the point about the book, the suites catalog.
• 40:41
  Scott: While that might have been a really, really big book, I'm sure it did not capture all the possible products out there.
• 40:48
  Scott: And you know, our product library, I I, you know, I can't say it's like on every product in there.
• 40:53
  Scott: Like that is our ambition.
• 40:55
  Scott: We want to get there eventually.
• 40:56
  Scott: But on the way, we currently have over 800,000 products.
• 40:59
  Scott: It is it is enormous.
• 41:01
  Scott: And those products have variants and they have different uh pieces.
• 41:05
  Scott: So I I think only with modern technology can you actually parse the breadth of real to like uh potential options in front of you.
• 41:15
  Scott: Right with without assistance, you're really narrowing down the the possible options like substantially down.
• 41:22
  Scott: And like we're saying before, like everyone loses in in that case.
• 41:26
  Scott: Right.
• 41:26
  Scott: And I I would point out too, like we're we're talking about design primarily, like researching and and documenting and and and drawing those products or like the assemblies.
• 41:38
  Scott: Another challenge is the installation, because you like let's say in a world like you actually chose the right product and and it is the right product and you you documented that and you got in the spec.
• 41:47
  Scott: By the time it hits the the site and and the you know the the builder is is on site, they can break the spec or flip the spec.
• 41:55
  Scott: Um not you know because they think the product's gonna be more performative, but simply because they've installed another product last year on a different project.
• 42:04
  Scott: Their crew is familiar with that that product.
• 42:07
  Scott: Uh they they they're friendly with the the local distributor, they can get it on site.
• 42:12
  Scott: Um there's a variety of like real world considerations they have as an individual and a company that might override the best intent from the designer.
• 42:21
  Scott: So they get on there, they say, like, we're gonna substitute, we're gonna bring in something else, maybe, you know, um, yeah, maybe they'll they'll petition to do that.
• 42:31
  Scott: So so there's this whole kind of downstream consideration set as well.
• 42:36
  Scott: Like, how do we make sure we find the right product?
• 42:39
  Scott: But how do we make sure that right product uh kind of persists through through that process and actually gets installed and actually gets installed the right way and then actually you know goes through the building inspection and and and into occupation for for the owner.
• 42:53
  Scott: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Ryan: Well, I mean, it's it it goes back to that kind of like the three equal part, right?
• 42:58
  Ryan: I always put that in because that's how public entities work, right?
• 43:01
  Ryan: You gotta have three equals.
• 43:03
  Ryan: But if you think about pulling a spec out, it'll list, depending on where you are in Master Spec, right?
• 43:11
  Ryan: Or how it's set up in your office, like it's gonna list all of these different manufacturers.
• 43:16
  Ryan: Well, if you have a spec writer and you're a designer over here, right?
• 43:20
  Ryan: Like you might have different perspectives of those systems.
• 43:23
  Ryan: You might select one, and all of the other eight or ten get left in.
• 43:30
  Ryan: Nobody's weeded it out, nobody's spent time kind of figuring that out.
• 43:33
  Ryan: And like you said, because it's in the spec, they have a choice to pick one of those, and you find out it isn't exactly what you wanted as a designer.
• 43:43
  Ryan: So this is that piece that you were talking about so you know, early on in the conversation was it is all connected.
• 43:52
  Ryan: Codes, everything being within compliance, code compliant in there, the classifications to the certifications, all of those things, testing.
• 44:01
  Ryan: That is critical to get aligned with the right aesthetic and the and the solution that you're trying to bring to your client.
• 44:09
  Ryan: Well, it's a lot easier if you could be aggregated and you get it to three or four that you know are going to work, and you're giving that contractor those three or four.
• 44:18
  Ryan: Force them into you know, submitting a submission request, right?
• 44:23
  Ryan: Force them to submit it and make them run through the same exercise.
• 44:28
  Ryan: Like, does this meet that criteria uh before you submit it?
• 44:32
  Ryan: So, yeah, I I do this goes back, I think about all the time kind of spent doing this.
• 44:41
  Ryan: This is I this was a passion of mine.
• 44:43
  Ryan: I, you know, I love doing estimates and going through the specifications and getting all of those put together and weeding everything out.
• 44:50
  Ryan: And I couldn't imagine the time.
• 44:52
  Ryan: I might have actually made some soccer matches with my kids when I was a little younger because I had time back.
• 44:58
  Ryan: And I think about how the industry, engineers and architects and everyone else, like we said, we are we put a lot of hours in because we care about what we're doing and the value add that this industry brings to its owners and its communities.
• 45:14
  Ryan: Like, imagine spending the time on really high return areas, but having this solution, like you're you're talking with upcodes, of linking all of these things together and how much time you would get back, how much areas of other parts of the business you could focus on and as individuals.
• 45:35
  Ryan: So it just seems like there's a lot of pluses to it, um, you know, for for businesses to be looking at.
• 45:43
  Ryan: So tell me, I am curious because you you said this.
• 45:46
  Ryan: I'm assuming that the manufacturers are almost the most receptive to make sure that these things are put in place and getting in front of people, like you said, to where they weren't visible or could be invisible before.
• 45:59
  Scott: Yeah, and the reception has been really strong for exactly the reasons you you're mentioning.
• 46:05
  Scott: Um the the um the reception's been really good, but it's it's very interesting.
• 46:11
  Scott: And um, the set of challenges a manufacturer faces is very different.
• 46:16
  Scott: And for us, it was it was very new, and we we learned and continue to learn a lot through the process.
• 46:20
  Scott: But a lot of it is just getting the data about these products.
• 46:24
  Scott: And that sounds very simple.
• 46:26
  Scott: Um, because you can go online and you can see a manufacturer's site.
• 46:29
  Scott: Well, actually, you know, maybe this won't be surprising because people have probably worked with manufacturers, but there's a lot of information that's not on the website.
• 46:36
  Scott: There's right there's more up-to-date information.
• 46:38
  Scott: There might be new products coming in the pipeline that they they haven't disclosed on the on the website.
• 46:43
  Scott: There's a lot of information that you currently can't find out without talking to a rep from the from the manufacturer.
• 47:46
  Scott: So we're working with them saying, okay, that may have been the way you worked in the past.
• 47:52
  Scott: You have architectural reps working or field services, and that's great.
• 47:57
  Scott: Like you should continue to do that.
• 47:59
  Scott: But there is a large segment of the population that they want to self-serve.
• 48:04
  Scott: They want to find and educate themselves on the products.
• 48:07
  Scott: They don't necessarily want to jump on the phone and spend a lot of time with a representative from 15 different manufacturers.
• 48:13
  Scott: So let them get the information themselves and and queue up that information to make it as easy as possible.
• 48:19
  Scott: Um now, I think more often than not, that's just a technical challenge they have.
• 48:25
  Scott: They're like, we we want to keep the website up to date.
• 48:27
  Scott: Uh, we want to get the information out there, but we don't have the the pieces in place to do that.
• 48:32
  Scott: And that's where we can come in and we we say, like, okay, we've we've built the system, the content management system.
• 48:38
  Scott: It's really easy to update.
• 48:40
  Scott: Our team can work with you, and we're just gonna get that data out there so people can see it for themselves.
• 48:45
  Scott: They can, they can research themselves, they can they can leverage AI on that.
• 48:48
  Scott: And when they're ready, they can talk to you and and they'll reach out to your to your representative and just try to connect those those dots a little bit more.
• 48:56
  Scott: Um but I will say it's really surprising with a lot of the folks we've on the manufacturing side we've talked to uh so far, when we're like, hey, like as a starting point, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna get the data from your website and then we're gonna we're gonna supplement that.
• 49:10
  Scott: And the response often is like, no, no, don't don't do that.
• 49:13
  Scott: The the data on our website is is not good, it's not high quality.
• 49:16
  Scott: We're gonna get you a better set of data, uh, which to me is a little bit surprising in the in the modern age, right?
• 49:22
  Scott: Like to to have websites that are not reflective of you know the the data and all the performance of the products out there.
• 49:29
  Scott: Um, but that is just the reality.
• 49:31
  Scott: So that yeah, you know, it's a very simple pain point, but it's just getting the data out there and having it up to date and reflective of the actual products.
• 49:39
  Scott: Uh and then we can fan like focus on the fancy workflows, like AI suggesting products or like better filtering for looking at performance data or certifications.
• 49:49
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 49:50
  Ryan: Well, I mean, I'm not surprised by anything that you just said.
• 49:53
  Ryan: I mean, I think you know, websites like everybody has to have a website, and then it kind of just becomes like the back door, and you're like, oh yeah, I forgot that's there.
• 50:02
  Ryan: Um, maybe we'll update it because there's so many other avenues.
• 50:08
  Ryan: And I I do think there are gatekeepers for information.
• 50:11
  Ryan: And I think in this industry, me personally, like the industry needs the access when they need the access.
• 50:20
  Ryan: And I know we all want to know, because we're all in business, get that person in the CRM.
• 50:26
  Ryan: I need to make sure that I'm calling them.
• 50:28
  Ryan: I I can remember people visiting my office and dropping stuff off and talking about epoxy flooring and making sure I spec it in the next job.
• 50:36
  Ryan: And I'm like, I don't have epoxy floor in anything I'm working on right now, but I definitely will, you know, get this into the library.
• 50:44
  Ryan: That's how we, like you said, that's how we all used to do it.
• 50:48
  Ryan: It's like you got to be present, you gotta show up, you gotta be at the top of the email.
• 50:53
  Ryan: Well, we talked about choice and how everybody wants it, you know, 800,000 different products, like that's a lot to go through.
• 51:02
  Ryan: Um, so the manufacturers seeing this as an opportunity to not just for you, you know, from your perspective, but I think in general, is like you want to be top of mind, have easily accessible information that an architect and an engineer and a contractor can review, understand what it is, what your solutions are, and how to get it specified.
• 51:29
  Ryan: So the quicker somebody can get access and say that was easy to use, it was easy to find, and it was easy to get it into the solution, the more likely someone is going to use it.
• 51:40
  Ryan: If it's a simple thing that gets overcomplicated, people become frustrated.
• 51:45
  Ryan: If it's overcomplicated and you try to make it way too simple, they're going to be frustrated.
• 51:50
  Ryan: So manufacturers finding that balance of getting that information from a code review, but from a specification and an estimate and a pricing.
• 52:01
  Ryan: And I get it.
• 52:03
  Ryan: Like you can't just put the price on the website.
• 52:05
  Ryan: But there has to be in 2025 a possible different approach than the way it was in 2000.
• 52:14
  Ryan: Um, and how we look at, you know, building manufacturers and building materials.
• 52:18
  Ryan: I'm glad you shared it because, you know, building a building material is also different than methodology or a method of construction.
• 52:29
  Ryan: So I'm curious, like, you know, just from a product standpoint, like we we know kind of mass timber is really one of those things that's really starting to evolve.
• 52:41
  Ryan: Codes are starting to change, we can start to build taller, people have more curiosity towards it.
• 52:47
  Ryan: Modular is a whole nother thing, uh, or prefab and prefab systems, right?
• 52:53
  Ryan: So you're getting into special construction, you know, specification section and codes are starting to shift.
• 52:59
  Ryan: Like, how are you, as delivery models change and methods construction and beyond the building manufacturers?
• 53:07
  Ryan: Like, how are you exploring some of those things or how do you see that kind of impacting your business?
• 53:12
  Scott: Yeah, and and it's hard to keep going back, but I do want to mention one thing because it's such a good point.
• 53:16
  Scott: You know, the accessing the information from the manufacturer at the right time is so critical.
• 53:22
  Scott: Like lunch and learns and CUs are very popular.
• 53:26
  Scott: Um, conferences are very, very popular, but it's a random moment in the calendar when they might stop at your office or they or you might go to the conference.
• 53:34
  Scott: But the reality of putting these things together and making the decisions, it looks completely different.
• 53:39
  Scott: Like this is not in a perfect lab in perfect conditions.
• 53:42
  Scott: It this might be Friday night.
• 53:44
  Scott: It's 9 p.m.
• 53:45
  Scott: I'm putting together a drawing set or maybe I'm reviewing specifications.
• 53:48
  Scott: I'm not looking to pick up the phone and have a long conversation if you're even a rep is even available at a manufacturer.
• 53:56
  Scott: I kind of just want to, I kind of just want to go home and and and you know get this drawing set out to the to the to the client.
• 54:02
  Scott: Um I I am gonna choose easy mode.
• 54:05
  Scott: I am gonna choose whatever has the least friction, you know, to to to do to complete that set or or you know to a to a decent level.
• 54:16
  Scott: But those are like the realities of like, you know, in the field or well, this is in the office.
• 54:20
  Scott: But you know, the reality of of actually going through these, and you really have to meet the user where they are and just make sure they have the information, they can actually access these things and you know get it along to at least a reasonable place in these moments that actually happen.
• 54:34
  Scott: Or maybe maybe it's not late on a Friday, but you're hitting a deadline.
• 54:37
  Scott: Maybe you're you know, 12 p.m.
• 54:39
  Scott: You got you have to submit this so the consultant has it.
• 54:41
  Scott: Like there are just realistic deadlines and and time constraints we have to deal with and have to navigate in the industry.
• 54:48
  Scott: And blocking access to information, whether it's codes, whether it's products or any of these things, is is just an absolute like hurdle to to doing these things in the job.
• 54:59
  Scott: Um happy to jump to that, the the second part.
• 55:04
  Scott: Um, you know, delivery models changing and uh so I I think it's it's really interesting.
• 55:10
  Scott: So, you know, everyone's gonna have a different experience, but it it in my experience, the organization of a firm, you would have a lot of individuals who are very interested in different topics and and maybe they're pushing the envelope and bringing in this knowledge of like a new delivery model, or you know, they're curious about a different area, like like, or yeah, maybe it's like uh uh mass timber.
• 55:35
  Scott: Historically, at least from what I've seen, it's been very hard to share that information amongst the office, especially if you work if you have multiple offices and you know across different regions.
• 55:45
  Scott: It could be very hard for an expert in, say, like Northwest Regional to share that with East Coast offices.
• 55:52
  Scott: So, how how do you think about capturing institutional knowledge, get like empowering individuals within the firm to come to push forward that this research and and kind of break new ground, but then also share that back to the office and and have different individuals be able to leverage the kind of hive mind or or institutional knowledge these organizations build up over time.
• 56:16
  Scott: That's an example from an architecture office, but if it's a a building department, you know, someone might do deep research on um on a sports stadium and like an unusual application they haven't dealt with before.
• 56:30
  Scott: And maybe another one could really benefit from that.
• 56:32
  Scott: Um, although those are so uncommon.
• 56:34
  Scott: Maybe I'll use like a hospital or something.
• 56:36
  Scott: Um, so it was they can really benefit from, but I feel like so much of the knowledge in the industry is siloed, whether it's information, you know, uh across different organizations, but even inside organizations it can be siloed.
• 56:51
  Scott: So now that's a really abstract answer to your question, but we really think about how do you capture the knowledge, that know-how, that's that hard-earned know-how, and how do you amplify individuals, whether they're, you know, a seasoned um uh professional or maybe they're you know a little more um uh fresh or green coming coming out of school.
• 57:11
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 57:11
  Ryan: Well, I mean, I I think you're you're right in the in the siloed piece, and that, you know, the way the industry is shifting with architecture firms as an example, you know, there's a lot of mergers and acquisitions that are going on.
• 57:24
  Ryan: And they're, you know, it's it's you got boutique firms, small firms, right, that exist.
• 57:30
  Ryan: I kind of started feeling this and thinking this was coming when I left architecture in 2013, to large firms.
• 57:38
  Ryan: I mean, large firms spread all over the country.
• 57:40
  Ryan: And you got me thinking about how somebody could utilize the system.
• 57:45
  Ryan: So I'm assuming like a company is utilizing the software, they can see as an entire company things that are going on, the research that's kind of happening, projects that are kind of seen when they're able to aggregate that better.
• 57:59
  Ryan: Like somebody, like you said, has done that, you know, in the Pacific Northwest, better understanding the mass timber.
• 58:06
  Ryan: They're sitting in Indianapolis and want to do a library with mass timber in the same firm, they can pull data, the building codes within Indonapolis, right?
• 58:15
  Ryan: It's going to be different than the Pacific Northwest, but they're able to do that in a in a quicker manner.
• 58:24
  Ryan: And you said something else.
• 58:26
  Ryan: I think we all like to be guardians of information.
• 58:29
  Ryan: We see it as I won't call it like we hold on to it like we want to remain relevant, but like there's a sense of pride.
• 58:37
  Ryan: Like I own this, I did the work, therefore I don't want to share it.
• 58:41
  Ryan: I'm not saying there's 100% of that going on, but there is a tendency to whether it's you know happening because you're you're making it happen or you just you've already got on to the next job.
• 58:55
  Ryan: And if it's there's no way to share it, there's no platform or way to share it because you know you're just you're like you said, it's Friday night getting the deadline out on Saturday, you're on to that next project, and and things are just moving, and there's no way of knowing within it within an office whether somebody's actually done this before.
• 59:14
  Ryan: So other ways to be able to share information that people are curious about, that want to learn more without having to go sit through a CEU or go walk across an expo floor that they're going to forget about.
• 59:31
  Ryan: And the times you got to dig through a business card to try to find the right contact to call or whatever, because you're trying to remember what was that company's name and what event was it that the person shared that information, opposed to being able to do deeper dive research on.
• 59:48
  Ryan: I'm thinking this sort of solution, this is what I want in the project from a design contextual standpoint to be able to aggregate that much quicker.
• 59:58
  Ryan: So I find it all well, you know, jealous, not practicing anymore, not working in the industry as deep, like to have that sort of power at my fingertips, just the amount of time that I could have back, right?
• 1:00:14
  Ryan: And and sparking more curiosity and exploration.
• 1:00:18
  Scott: Yeah, and and that kind of cues up a whole other topic that we we think about quite a lot, which is what what does it mean for a services-based industry to move into the AI era?
• 1:00:29
  Scott: Notably, how do we leverage AI within our firms to amplify our know-how?
• 1:00:36
  Scott: Because if you if you zoom out, what a lot of firms kind of trade on is their reputation, is is their brand, but most importantly is their know-how.
• 1:00:45
  Scott: Like we we've we've done this for 50 years.
• 1:00:47
  Scott: We we've we've built stadiums before, we've built hospitals before, or we have a great track record with multifamily residential development.
• 1:00:54
  Scott: And they're trading on that, that know-how.
• 1:00:57
  Scott: So, how do you how do you combine the know-how or or or you know the track record and and the brand with AI as we kind of navigate into this AI era?
• 1:01:08
  Scott: And the way we think about it is kind of training, or I don't know if I say training, but like equipping an AI that's unique to your firm, that has access to the projects, you've documented your decisions, you've documented your research.
• 1:01:21
  Scott: It's it's private, it stays within your walls, but amplifies every individual.
• 1:01:25
  Scott: So if someone's going to a new project, they get a brief, um, they they can query the AI system and it's going to reference historical projects, the firms worked on, ongoing projects, different discussion points.
• 1:01:39
  Scott: And all of a sudden, you have an AI that's more equipped with those decades of know-how from your firm, and you continue to like develop that as you do more research, and it gets stronger and stronger.
• 1:01:50
  Scott: And and and now you're breaking down the walls.
• 1:01:54
  Scott: So like maybe a little bit more junior or mid-level person can actually answer relatively hard questions because they're kind of combining a lot of other people's um knowledge from from that firm and like what they've contributed to to this firm's uh know-how.
• 1:02:08
  Ryan: Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  Ryan: I mean, I I think that is so needed.
• 1:02:14
  Ryan: To one, like you said, it's protected, it's within their walls.
• 1:02:18
  Ryan: It's information there that, hey, all of your years of experience, you are now able to share it more quickly.
• 1:02:25
  Ryan: Um we want it at people's fingertips because I think the industry, it can't be as curious as I want it to be, you know, me personally, because of the constraints on time, because of the current, you know, labor force that we have in all aspects of the bit of the industry and our businesses.
• 1:02:46
  Ryan: Like there's just not time to do the important things, the reasons we all got into it.
• 1:02:53
  Ryan: And if we didn't, then we're neglecting something else, right?
• 1:02:55
  Ryan: Something else is getting neglected because it's just that's just how time works.
• 1:03:01
  Ryan: So if Like you're saying, there is there is that's where AI, and I see a huge opportunity in it, is the humans still have the agency to define how you want to utilize it.
• 1:03:13
  Ryan: You're treating it as all of those minutes that you've either punted on and not taken advantage of to explore something, you're getting those back because now you are asking a technology to do that for you.
• 1:03:28
  Ryan: And I think that's, you know, that's one of those areas that that firms can look at, uh, construction companies can look at, uh, building departments, manufacturers.
• 1:03:39
  Ryan: The reason I called the podcast Activating Curiosity is because I don't think CEUs drive innovation.
• 1:03:45
  Ryan: They don't drive curiosity.
• 1:03:47
  Ryan: They get you a credit to go listen to somebody, and like you said, no one's gonna, they may remember, may not.
• 1:03:54
  Ryan: It's not at the right time.
• 1:03:55
  Ryan: So curiosity shouldn't really be a huge cost and a huge lift to answer a question, to have things at your fingertips, to have, you know, that accessibility that you're talking about.
• 1:04:08
  Ryan: So 10 years in, you're starting to think about all the things that you're putting into place.
• 1:04:13
  Ryan: AI is accelerating and all of these things, but you know, from your vantage point for the industry, like what do you think success looks like?
• 1:04:24
  Scott: I think that goes kind of back to where we started the the podcast.
• 1:04:27
  Scott: And it's really delivering on on that initial vision and mission, which is just getting all the information together, getting that into people's hands so they're queued up for the right decisions.
• 1:04:39
  Scott: Um if we kind of boil that down to like one example, I I really like the one we were talking about before where it's like you you have like you want to have three options and you want the three best options so you can choose.
• 1:04:50
  Scott: I think we've done our job well if we have queued that up to to the end user and and we represented all the possible options, the hundreds of thousands of options, you know, whether that's codes, assemblies, building products, specifications.
• 1:05:03
  Scott: We've just queued up and and taken away a lot of that um kind of busy work that would prevent them from doing the rigorous research otherwise, and done that rigorous research.
• 1:05:14
  Scott: So we A, give them the best options, and then B maximize the chances that it's the right choice.
• 1:05:20
  Scott: Uh, it's it's a choice that the designer's happy with, the homeowner or developer is happy with, and then benefits the climate or makes it just more resilient homes as well.
• 1:05:29
  Scott: So I think it's really just aggregating that information and just getting it into people's hands in as efficient and as streamlined a way as possible.
• 1:05:38
  Scott: And I will say that's intentionally vague because it could change.
• 1:05:42
  Scott: Like it, you know, our picture of that looked very different four years ago before modern LLMs burst onto the scene.
• 1:05:48
  Scott: Now it looks a lot different powered with AI, but who knows what what that's gonna look like in four or five years.
• 1:05:54
  Scott: But uh that that's why we just stick to the core fundamentals of of the vision.
• 1:05:58
  Scott: Right.
• 1:05:59
  Ryan: Well, I mean I I think what you're aiming to do is is important for the entire industry, but I think what you're giving people back is, you know, choice.
• 1:06:09
  Ryan: Like, like you're giving them back the agency to begin to make choices where otherwise they might punt on it, they may never see it, they may never find it.
• 1:06:19
  Ryan: And and I know I've I've said this before in other conversations of like that's been the biggest hurdle for us as an industry in and talking with young designers or talking with engineers or anybody, you know, even in construction, is like take a contractor.
• 1:06:35
  Ryan: We're getting specification sections that don't like none of this stuff exists, the manufacturers aren't like no one had time to review it or this and that.
• 1:06:42
  Ryan: And it's like no one wants to do that.
• 1:06:46
  Ryan: Like no one got into this profession and this industry to like not be able to make all of the choices that we were aiming to make in order to design a space and a building and an environment the way we wanted to do it, meeting whatever criteria that that the project was set out to do.
• 1:07:07
  Ryan: So all of these solutions that are aiming to say, like you're doing the your passion is look, I saw this and I said, this is a lot of wasted time from if it's just me, right?
• 1:07:21
  Ryan: I have to think about all of the other millions of people that are in this industry, like this has to, this has to be, you know, huge amount of of dollars that are being wasted inside of firms or wasted opportunity for choices.
• 1:07:37
  Ryan: And I commend you on, you know, taking a step back, having that conversation with your brother to be like, look, I I recognize this, I see it as an opportunity to try to help other people get back their, you know, their opportunity to design and build the way that they they wanted to.
• 1:07:58
  Ryan: So um, you know, if someone's listening and they're like, hey, I I'm curious now.
• 1:08:04
  Ryan: Um I want to take some action steps and kind of understand a little more, like what are some of those steps they could do?
• 1:08:10
  Ryan: How can they continue to to kind of activate their curiosity?
• 1:08:13
  Scott: Well, I think they could um, you know, go go on Google, you know, throw us in there and up close it to Google and it'll take you to the site.
• 1:08:20
  Scott: So you can there there's so many free resources on there that you can just put to use, I think, or hopefully, you know, right away to find this information and get in there and understand it uh a lot better.
• 1:08:31
  Scott: Um but secondly, a lot of what we work on is from hearing from the community.
• 1:08:36
  Scott: Like we we make a very big point to talk to to folks in the community, uh, hear about their pain points.
• 1:08:43
  Scott: Like, like I was mentioned before, yes, it's hard because you hear a lot of different perspectives and and requests, but a lot of what we focus on um just comes from talking with people.
• 1:08:52
  Scott: So we we just love connecting with the community, whether it's um, you know, at a at a conference, an in-person event, over a Zoom call, over a webinar, whatever it is, we just love connecting with people.
• 1:09:01
  Scott: So I think on the one hand, it's it's just utilizing the resources that are there.
• 1:09:05
  Scott: And then on the other hand, it's just connecting and just kind of surfacing these problems to the limelight, putting a spotlight on them so we can focus on them.
• 1:09:13
  Scott: We've talked about a bunch today, but uh, there's so many more and ones that other people are gonna tackle and think about.
• 1:09:20
  Scott: But we can't really do that if we're not conscious of of the friction points.
• 1:09:24
  Scott: So it's it's just getting that discourse, just talking about it, surfacing it, putting a limelight on it so it can get tackled by us or by by others.
• 1:09:32
  Ryan: Yeah, I like that you shared that it's that you know, we are we are gonna just scratch a surface in our conversation, but I'm sure what what would be helpful is that if there is someone out there listening and you you do that research, kind of see what Scott and team have going on at at Upcodes, that openness that you have, that open door sort of policy of like, hey, we can only improve this if you're willing to give us that feedback and and and try to help us understand like where your pain points are and those friction points.
• 1:10:01
  Ryan: Like, like that's must that's that's just so critical because I think a lot of times it's less that and more of like, well, that's what we have to offer and go from there.
• 1:10:10
  Ryan: And that is fine in some instances, but with what you're trying to address, Scott, like you're saying, it's like there are a lot of different variables that are put into place because of the local jurisdictions, the state, all the different code requirements, all the different, you know, other certifications and things that go into place.
• 1:10:31
  Ryan: So you've got a heavy lift.
• 1:10:33
  Ryan: You, you know, you you've stepped out of your architecture career, but you're you're still giving back to the industry and this, and your, you know, your brother being willing to kind of dive in with you.
• 1:10:45
  Ryan: I I appreciate the fact that you guys, you know, saw a problem and said, you know what, let's take a shot at this, right?
• 1:10:53
  Ryan: Let's see, let's see what we can do.
• 1:10:54
  Ryan: You're 10 years in.
• 1:10:56
  Ryan: I was excited to see the the product side, the building manufacturers and everything kind of evolving in your AI direction that you were heading since I've been following you.
• 1:11:06
  Ryan: So I appreciate all that you're doing, Scott.
• 1:11:10
  Ryan: I am so um grateful that you were willing to be a guest on the podcast.
• 1:11:14
  Ryan: And we want to spark more curiosity.
• 1:11:17
  Ryan: And I I will share all of your information, all your links, so that if the listeners want to reach out and and kind of understand a little bit more that they're they're able to.
• 1:11:27
  Ryan: So thanks, Scott.
• 1:11:28
  Ryan: Thanks for uh being on Activating Curiosity.
• 1:11:31
  Scott: Well, thanks for having me, Ryan.
• 1:11:32
  Scott: And and I really like the podcast.
• 1:11:34
  Scott: I like the fact you know, people are getting on there.
• 1:11:36
  Scott: We're talking about how we can you know learn more and as you say, like activating curiosity and get in there just just so we can motivate and and and have those discussions and and discourse.
• 1:11:46
  Scott: I love the conversations today and looking forward to uh hearing all the future guests as well.
• 1:11:52
  Ryan: All right, thanks, Scott.
• 1:11:53
  Ryan: Great, thanks.
• 1:11:54
  Ryan: So that is the episode with Scott Reynolds with Up Codes.
• 1:11:58
  Ryan: And I I thought listeners would be interested in this one because I, you know, building codes are such a vital part of everything that we do within design and construction.
• 1:12:09
  Ryan: It is all about protecting the humans within the within the facilities, within the buildings and around the buildings.
• 1:12:17
  Ryan: And, you know, whether you're an architecture all the way through in manufacturing, all of those things that we talked about are intertwined.
• 1:12:27
  Ryan: Like you can't look at designing a space in a project without linking it to building materials and methods of construction and solutions and those materials that are used within those areas without thinking about the building codes.
• 1:12:45
  Ryan: And there hasn't been this moment where someone has aimed to stitch them together to find a way to get an access point where you could go through deeper dive of discovery and research, providing you with information at your fingertips based off that criteria that you're setting.
• 1:13:10
  Ryan: You know, before it was.
• 1:13:12
  Ryan: It was going to a library, it was grabbing, you know, catalogs off of a shelf, then you got into the internet, and we could do deeper, you know, exploration from websites.
• 1:13:24
  Ryan: But Scott brought that up as well.
• 1:13:27
  Ryan: Like websites are it's it's junk in, junk out.
• 1:13:30
  Ryan: If websites are not updated routinely, if only half the information is there, you're only going to get so much access before you're hitting a roadblock, before you're hitting that point where you now have to engage someone else.
• 1:13:45
  Ryan: And I get it from a manufacturer's standpoint, like you want to get a product out to someone, you want them to see uh what you're capable of, what makes you different than anyone else.
• 1:13:59
  Ryan: Like all of that is fair, but I don't think it's a this or that situation.
• 1:14:05
  Ryan: I think it is still possible to provide an avenue for people to get to a quicker um solution or decision-making process without giving up that choice, like Scott was saying, giving up the choice to just not go grab that last spec and put it in because you don't have time.
• 1:14:26
  Ryan: Scott's team is really looking at this area of how to give everybody within the process of designing through construction and building review and local jurisdictions back more time to do the things that we as humans are more effective at doing and things that we're passionate about doing, those things that are intrinsic to who we are, why we got into the profession in the first place.
• 1:14:52
  Ryan: So I'm excited about where Scott and his brother and his team are going.
• 1:14:59
  Ryan: I think that they have uh an area that they are focused on that that others haven't really tried or maybe oversimplified.
• 1:15:08
  Ryan: But the thing that Scott said is explore and get it, get within their community.
• 1:15:15
  Ryan: You know, if you're in their community and you can share information and you can share your experiences and you can ask more questions and piquing their curiosity as well as your own, then then I think that we can continue to um find ways to get to the solutions and without punting on them, without giving them up and giving up our agency around choice because we just don't have time.
• 1:15:42
  Ryan: So until next time, I hope you stay well.
• 1:15:45
  Ryan: I hope you continue to look at those areas within your life that you said, hey, I find this to be repetitive or a problem that I would really like to solve.
• 1:15:54
  Ryan: And I hope that you are able to continue to activate your curiosity as well as activating curiosity and activating curiosity, curiosity connected connected curiosity, curiosity, which is leading with curiosity.