Duct Taping Tech and
Other Thoughts on Construction

AJ Waters:

Hello everyone and welcome to our webinar today, Duct Taping Tech and Other Thoughts on Construction. We’re really excited that you’re joining us today. Just a few housekeeping items, all attendee lines are muted, but there is a Q&A box if you would like to use that. Also, a chat feature if you are experiencing any technical difficulties.

Today’s webinar is brought to you by InEight. InEight is helping customers see the bigger picture when it comes to data in your construction or capital projects, specifically breaking down those data silos and working to avoid the duct tape solution.

So with that, I’m going to start by introducing our excellent panel for today. My name’s AJ Waters. I’m your host, vice president of Industry Solutions here at InEight. But we’re going to go around the room quick and have everyone give your name, your current role, and then also your background a little bit as it pertains to construction. We’ll go in this order. We’ll start Tyler, Eddie, and Stephan, go that route.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Very nice, AJ. Thanks for inviting us here, man. So I’m Tyler Campbell. I own Storybuilder, which is a company that basically helps construction companies fix labor shortages by using marketing strategies. So my day-to-day looks like taking a lot of videos and photos and running advertisements and stuff like that to help construction companies out.

In a previous life, though, I worked with this guy over here in our family business as a structural steel detailer. So made a little bit of a career pivot, as you can tell. So, yeah, worked as a detailer for a decade and learned a ton about the industry through doing that. Yeah, just happy to be here today. We run Construction Brothers Podcast as well and talk to a bunch of cool people. So that’s how we met, and forever grateful for being able to meet you, AJ, man. It’s been good.

 

Eddie Campbell:

All right. Well, I’m Eddie Campbell. I’m the older brother. So we do this Construction Brothers Podcast together where we learn a lot, talk to a lot of really cool people. Then on top of that, the day job is ABSI, which is the BIM steel detailing company that Tyler just mentioned. I’ve been in that for 18 years and had some experience in the field, in commercial and residential construction, prior to that. So construction’s in the blood here. I’m looking forward to the conversation today.

 

Steffen Waite:

AJ, Tyler, Eddie, my name is Steffen Waite. I’m with Tech-Clarity. I’m VP of research for AEC software and industrialized construction. My background in construction started back in the early ’90s with heavy construction, concrete towers, bridges, tunnels in Europe, and then I migrated back to … I live in Vancouver, BC. I migrated back to Canada to participate in metro construction and also multi-residential. Back in 2010, I explored my own business where we got into CNC manufacturing for cladding systems. Today I take more of a role in getting involved with software research you can get and explaining the value of that software to people in the construction industry.

 

AJ Waters:

Awesome. Then prior to my life at InEight, I was in a GC role. So worked in both pre-construction and some project controls. Also spent time with a large capital projects owner. So I’ve seen things from the top level of the food chain, if you will, when it comes to construction versus maybe a steel retailer’s point of view. But we have a good mixed bag today, I think. So this’ll be really good.

So our first topic of discussion today, before we dive into things like the tech side of the house, is construction’s still a people business. Very much starts with the people, ends with the people, and we’re in a time where it’s harder and harder to find people. But each of you recently I know have had some pretty cool interactions, or at least insightful interactions, with field teams out and about.

And so, we’re going to change the order up a little bit. We’ll start with Tyler again. But, Steffen, you go second, and then Eddie third. What’s one of the more insightful things that you’ve had happen or have learned from recent out and about with the industry?

 

Tyler Campbell:

Yeah. So I get to spend a little more time in the field now. I’m doing more photo and video stuff, and that’s amazing. I love getting my boots dirty. It is a good day when I have a site day. And so, one of the things that … Whenever I post a lot of stuff on LinkedIn and I have just a little following over there and people comment and they’re like, “Hey, yeah, you’re making construction look cool,” and I want to push back against that a little bit. It makes me cringe. I’m like, no, no, no, no. That’s not hard because construction is pretty freaking cool. It is an amazing industry. We get to build bridges and cool towers. We get to see so much stuff. It’s not hard to make it look cool.

I think what I’m seeing and the insight that I’ve gained is that we’ve done a bad job of showing the cool. We’ve done a horrible job of showing off the cool. And so, from one side it’s like, well, it’s difficult to get new people into the industry when we’re struggling to show them how cool the industry is. It is cool. So I don’t know, that’s my little insight there of what I’ve been seeing lately is that the industry is cool. We just need to highlight it more.

 

Steffen Waite:

That’s a good point, Tyler. There are certainly a lot of toys in construction to build. I really like the automation that’s coming out of Europe, self-actuated excavators, a lot more robotic manufacturing for design and assembly, a lot of prefab offsite.

Lately I was spending a lot of time in Europe, and particularly also in Ukraine. I took an adventure into Ukraine to understand what’s really happening there now that the country is in a conflict zone with Russia. To my amazement, a lot of ambitious people wanting to work hard and still construct. I was blown away with the amount of tower cranes I saw in Ukraine, in Kyiv, I probably counted 40, and meeting with architects and engineers and how they’re exploring and the software tools that they’re working with was a pretty exciting time.

 

Eddie Campbell:

All right. So my viewpoint, and we’ve highlighted this before, as steel detailers is at the end of the chain, at the bottom of the pond, so to speak. And so, we are given a lot of information, and then we push out shop drawings on that. And so, we deal with the trickle down of construction. And so, my recent dealings, and many times my dealings, are trying to get information back and forth through a design team, trying to make sure that I can traverse this project manager to project manager to designer and maybe into the owner and get the right information from the right person.

This whole chain of command thing a lot of times is where I am stifled, stymied when I’m trying to go and get something that I need to finish my job. And so, I might even get a little angsty about that and say … Just many times when I hear chain of command, that is me hearing you’re not going to get what you need in any kind of short order. You’re going to wait.

So I think it’s pertinent to the conversation today, because talking about information and how it moves and how we can effectively move information, and maybe change our processes up a little bit, take another look at this chain of command thing, I think it could be a really good thing to talk about today.

 

AJ Waters:

I like it. Yeah, it’s interesting you mentioned the flow and you said a couple of different roles in there, Eddie, of different steps that maybe sometimes the tech is doing less enabling and more hindering, like you mentioned, and everybody has a hard time getting to the same things. For you as a detailer, those drawings or the person who authored them are a mile away, whereas for the GC, they’re at the next desk maybe. It feels like you have different distances to traverse. Is that what you’re saying there?

 

Eddie Campbell:

Yeah. Let me describe chain of command a little bit, and maybe our viewpoint of it. So I am sub-tier of a sub-tier in some ways. So I’ve had recent projects where I am a third tier subcontractor. So we’ve got a general contractor and that general contractor has hired a specialty contractor, say a heavy pipe manufacturer, somebody’s coming out to bring heavy pipe out of the site. Then that company has hired somebody to put the steel in to support said pipe, and then that company has hired me.

In order for me to traverse that whole structure, I have to go to a steel fabricator’s PM. That steel fabricator’s PM has to move up through that pipe guy’s PM. That guy might have some other people in shop. Then that has to go up to the general contractor’s PM or assistant PM, whoever’s handling that. I have to get to the right person in the general contractor’s office, make sure they understand. If I write an RFI, which RFI or … I mean I don’t know anybody that loves RFI. They’re devil and anybody-

 

Tyler Campbell:

It was a curse word growing up because our dad GC.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Right. We really don’t like it. Well, they’re responsible supposedly for 1% of the cost in construction on jobs we do. So these RFI, I write one, maybe it gets rewritten by the PM so it’s clarified and it gets clarified again. There’s this game of telephone going on as it goes up the chain. It finally gets to the designers. The designer, maybe the architect is in charge of disseminating that back down to the people that work for him or her. And so, there’s a lot that goes there.

Then it gets to the right desk. Because of the process, the question may have been miscommunicated. It comes back down and it gets to my desk and I go, “Man, that’s not what I was asking at all.” Not only do I not get the answer and can I not move forward, but there was also probably a week, a two-week time lapse as I am going from desk to desk to desk to desk, and it is death when I get that back and realize, oh, man, I’m going to have to go back into the meat grinder again. This is going to have to happen again for me to get where I need to go.

And so, you talked about distance from information. I would love to think creatively, imaginatively as an industry about how we can make people more equidistant to information. And so, I might have the drawings in hand, but I might need to know something about those drawings. How am I going to get to the parties and information that I need in order to keep me moving?

 

Tyler Campbell:

When you say that too, I want to bring up this idea of a wagon wheel. I really like visualizing communication like that, where we have that central point and then we have these little branches that come off, each one of these spokes that come off, and everybody’s just equidistant to that information. I feel like if we move to more of a wagon wheel model … Maybe there’s a better way of saying it, I don’t know.

I think I’ve heard blockchain as an answer to this too, I really like the idea of trying to get those things close, because one of the things I don’t think you mentioned there in the RFI is that sometimes within that chain, they will actually cut out your text on your RFI template and they’ll put it over on their own, and they’ll tweak the text, which completely changes the question. And so, now it’s gone up the chain and it’s asked the wrong dang question. It comes back down and you say, “Well, where did my question go?” I’ve had that happen on projects, too. So when you’re talking about that, that popped into mind as well.

 

Steffen Waite:

So let’s also put that into context-

 

AJ Waters:

That’s where the duct tape comes in.

 

Steffen Waite:

Yeah. Let’s put it also into context what the benefit of shortening the chain of command or, let’s say, using your hub and spoke type of model. You mentioned, Eddie, I think, or Tyler, that RFIs represent 1% of the cost of construction. So typically a large high-rise, concrete high-rise, multi-residential project can be in the way of $80 million to $100 million. So we’re talking about the benefit could be a million dollars in savings if we were able to shorten … Or at least maybe let’s say half of that, if we were able to shorten the amount of time spent and friction that comes out of RFIs.

So that’s a huge reason to even focus from a project-to-project perspective on how we can shorten that chain of command and ensure that the communication gets up to the people that need to make the decisions.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Yeah. We had an interview-

 

AJ Waters:

One of the things you mentioned-

 

Eddie Campbell:

Sorry, AJ. We had an interview with-

 

AJ Waters:

No, go ahead.

 

Eddie Campbell:

… Aja Bareh from the University of Melbourne, who did a study on RFI, and this 1% metric was presented to us. His study really focused in on how do we write an RFI? How do we get the best responses? How do we conduct ourselves in order to streamline?

I think we could take that a step farther and actually think about what is broken about the current processes of getting RFI where they need to go, how we can streamline that, because even streamlining on a million dollars, if we could streamline and gain 50%, I would take that money. That would be good money to have. More than that, that would be good schedule to have back.

That may be the sunken cost that nobody sees is the schedule that goes to the wind as we’re just trying to communicate. All we’re trying to do is talk. That should be a barely simplistic process, but it’s very complex.

 

Steffen Waite:

Are you seeing any improvements in technology, Eddie? I mean you’re a detailer. You’re obviously working in BIM models. Are you finding some tools that are improving communication and shortening perhaps that distance to the decision-maker?

 

Eddie Campbell:

Yeah. AJ, you can’t squeeze the word in edgewise, can you, man?

 

AJ Waters:

No, that was what I was going to say. So you stepped ahead of me.

 

Eddie Campbell:

That’s awesome. All right. Well, yes, I do think that there are some tools out there, but as with many tools, when new technology comes along, new tools come along, many times we have to learn how to use them well. And so, those tools may have things available within them that would make these processes work. They may be sitting right there for us ready to grab, but our thought processes and approaches haven’t matched the new tech. And so, maybe we’re still thinking in a very linear way because of what used to happen with RFI when we had to mail them and not confuse things.

 

Steffen Waite:

Well, at Tech-Clarity, we just recently did a survey on a collaboration in the AEC industry. To my shock, when people talk about collaboration, the largest form of collaboration in the industry is email, still today.

I think to your point, Eddie, some of it is we have tools, but are the people getting the training that they need? Is the time even given to provide that? There’s a lot of fluidity happening in the industry. People move between companies. Is the investment happening in the people for them to be able to leverage tools?

 

Tyler Campbell:

I think there’s an argument also to be made that there are so many tools.

 

Steffen Waite:

Yup.

 

Tyler Campbell:

There are a lot of tools to select from. So you’re coming to this going, all right, so our fabricator is using one set of tools completely for their project management. The GC is using a completely different one, whether it’s InEight or one of the others, they’re using some of these different tools, and it’s just scattered. Everybody has their own way and their own method of doing things, which is I get, and we should be able to innovate, but there’s no cross-pollination to find a better way even within that.

Then there’s a lack of feedback into tech to help solve the issues even more. So there’s a big crazy ball of an issue within the industry right now within tech, I feel like. It’s because there are a lot of options out there. So it is very difficult to wade through and find things. It almost feels like you’re feeling in the dark sometimes to try to find solutions.

 

AJ Waters:

So if you went back to your example you gave earlier, Tyler, where you … Does someone copy the RFI text from one and put it into the other? Steffen, you mentioned seeing automation when it came to equipment. Have you seen any sort of automation in these sorts of processes, where we’re talking about integrating those tech stacks or breaking down the silos, or …

I think sometimes BIMs got it right in a certain extent because IFC is an industry standard file type, or BIM. Are we headed that direction with tech? Have you seen any of that in some of your surveys or your searching?

 

Steffen Waite:

Certainly the technology is there. I mean we’re seeing a convergence of what Tyler just mentioned of fabrication together with construction. I mean a manufacturing environment is a lot different than a project environment, which is a one-off construction event. Manufacturers want to have consistency and repeatability in what they’re doing. But tools are certainly out there and they’re available. It’s understanding how to use them and how to make them effective in the way of communication.

But even more than that is people need to take time at the start or at the kickoff of the project and define the plan of how we’re going to communicate. So the BIM execution plans are, for instance, a great example of how it does touch on chain of command, but it divides up rules and responsibilities and sets up a framework of how the communication is meant to happen.

With BIM models, it’s a database. So it does offer the opportunity for writing scripts so that the people that are on the design team … I mean one way to get rid of or lower the amount of RFIs is to deal with them before we have construction documents. To have that relay of quick turnaround and communication when there’s an issue, you can code it directly into the BIM model and communicate within the BIM model amongst the design team. But it’s also understanding what is it we’re trying to achieve from a building code perspective and from a material performance.

I mean the complexity of these jobs has increased tremendously. So it’s not like it’s easy, but certainly competency and awareness of what it is we’re doing and the codes that we are navigating within, we have to have that as a baseline when we show up to do a project.

 

AJ Waters:

So one of my favorite stories when I look at mega projects over history, and I’ve referenced this a lot of times in different cases, so if you’ve heard me tell this story, I apologize, but is the Empire State Building. The Empire State Building was built right around a year and was the largest building in the world, biggest project ever done. But they had this board of directors where essentially what would be an RFI today, they were all handled in a room at once with the owner, the real estate agents, the designer, the contractor, specialty subs, all in one room, handling it each and every time.

Have we harmed ourselves with how big the world has gotten, especially after the pandemic? Have we harmed ourselves with how dispersed our teams have gotten? Tyler, Eddie, has it gotten worse in the last three years, or how’d that change?

 

Tyler Campbell:

I’d like to send you a snapshot of my calendar right now and all the meetings that I have. I’m sure any one of us can do the same thing. It’s meetings on meetings on meetings, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s that connected with the world thing that you talk about that’s difficult. When I’m thinking about the board of directors, that’s fantastic. I think ideally it would be amazing to have all of those stakeholders in the room to talk through issues and get through stuff.

But in the world right now, it is very difficult to nail down all those people. It is very, very difficult to get your steel fabricator and your MEP sub and the people that know, that really know it, not just your PM that just came into the industry, but the people that actually have the experience. To get them at the table, oh man, that’s some cost investment, too.

I don’t know if you have statistics on the Empire State Building and how cost-effective or efficient it was, because they might have spent a heck of a lot more money to just have those people there on retainer. So it’s worth discussing that, I think, but I don’t … Yeah.

 

Steffen Waite:

I’m curious-

 

AJ Waters:

I’m very certain all their offices were very close.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. They had to commit to that too, right?

 

Eddie Campbell:

So I’m curious about that because … Steffen, I believe it was you that mentioned this in a previous conversation. But with this extra time we gain because of the new tech and tools that we have around us, we don’t just say, “Oh, we’ve got free time now. I guess we’ll go to the beach.” We actually use that to just take more work on, and more work on. And so, rather than having a project in isolation that we’re hyperfocused on, we’re moving in a lot of different directions. Am I mistaken? I think it was you that mentioned that before.

 

Steffen Waite:

Oh, [inaudible 00:24:04]. Right. I certainly did mention that. We look at tech as a possible cost-savings to the cost of construction, but in the essence it’s making us more efficient to those that know how to harness it and to making those more efficient. But at the same time then we’re taking on more work because then we can be handling more jobs concurrently, making more money for the companies that we work for. So whether it’s a gain in efficiency for the project itself, that’s open to debate.

To the point of the Empire State Building, I mean that was a different time when the city of New York had its own infrastructure of contractors. Steel fabrication was done down the street. People could communicate very effectively in a short amount of time together. Today we’re seeing consolidation and also diversification through metropolitan areas. How close is a steel fabricator now to the City of New York? It could be coming from Arizona.

And so, you have larger distances, which technology is enabling that communication portal. But at the same time, we have different time zones. Buildings are just more complex. From a design perspective, there’s a lot more understanding around moisture penetration, how the ambient temperatures are meant to be in a room, various energy performance criteria. So it hasn’t gotten any easier.

 

AJ Waters:

So, Eddie, we had a couple of comments come in through the chat that I think resonate pretty well with how you started your stories today and would like to hear your thoughts, if you will. So the first comment was no tool or tech or communication mechanism can replace direct face-to-face human interaction, followed up shortly after with email is still used more as a “pass the buck” cop-out mechanism.

 

Tyler Campbell:

I love that. I love that so much. Well done.

 

AJ Waters:

Thoughts on that?

 

Eddie Campbell:

So thoughts on that? How do I wade in? Face-to-face interaction is amazing, but face-to-face interaction is difficult to get. Everyone is very accustomed now to jumping on a webinar rather than everybody driving somewhere so that we could all be together today. So we are currently leveraging our ability to be together, though we are not together, and technology is enabling that. We are leveraging our ability to be together, though we’re not together, to communicate together, though we’re in these disparate parts, to try to unify as a team, though we are separate small teams. Email sucks because it’s broken down into these … That’s the real professional thing.

 

Tyler Campbell:

That’s a very professional way of putting that. Thanks for that.

 

Eddie Campbell:

No, it’s broken down into not only now am I tethered to an individual team, I’m tethered to an individual within the individual team. And so, I know even in our organization, I have the worry of paper trail and whether the person that established the paper trail, if it was via email, whether I can get back to it someday if I ever needed to.

And so, this is, yes, an issue, but there’s been a process. I mean we grew out of a day when we were mailing things back and forth or carrying them in paper, and then we grew into email and FTP. Love those FTP servers. Really miss them.

 

Steffen Waite:

Eddie, you leapfrogged the fax machine. Remember answering [inaudible 00:28:26] fax.

 

Eddie Campbell:

I do.

 

AJ Waters:

Yeah, it’s the middle.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Totally remember the fax machine, the bid day war rooms. Maybe the telephone was in between there in some ways, where we’re logging phone calls. So I think we’re getting a better project record now in some ways. But, man, there’s a lot of information out there.

 

Tyler Campbell:

There’s a lot more talk, but it’s not clear and it’s not effectively executed. There’s a heck of a lot more information. The velocity of information has increased like crazy. And so, now whenever you’re managing a project, it feels like you’re just drinking from a fire hose. I’ve got to read 50 email in order to understand this one decision that we made, instead of just picking up the phone and talking to people or being face-to-face. That’s the challenge that I felt whenever I was still detailing as a project manager, man. Best thing I could do is pick up the phone and just talk to somebody, if they were available.

And so, I don’t know. Face-to-face interaction is, I feel like, the best form. Shortly after that is probably voice, just because you can get tone across. Email, I feel like we should probably kill. I do not like it. I hate it so much.

 

Eddie Campbell:

He is [inaudible 00:29:51] about it.

 

Tyler Campbell:

I am very angry about email. I feel like it’s a very inefficient way. I get the argument, blah, blah, blah. It’s just my opinion. I freaking hate it.

 

Steffen Waite:

So, Tyler-

 

Tyler Campbell:

Shut up. No rebuttal. No rebuttal. No.

 

Steffen Waite:

So, Tyler, you being the youngest guy in the mix here, what’s your thoughts on the metaverse and extended reality in using ways of getting together as a group through these profiles or these avatars? It’s a technology that I’ve been looking at, which I have a lot of hope for. I think that this is a way we can short-circuit the separation and distances we can get together in meetings. Even though it’s through a digital avatar, we can still look at a BIM model one-to-one through the metaverse. I have a lot of hope for that. What’s your opinion on that?

 

Tyler Campbell:

We have a ways to go on it, for one. I’ll admit that readily, because I actually attended a webinar in the metaverse one time. I got invited to it. I was like, wait, what? And so, I had to go create an avatar and everything. I had the spiky hair and I was carrying a guitar with me and all that stuff. I was looking pretty cool.

But I went in there and I was walking around looking at the different art in this virtual room and stuff that they had posted, and it’s really cool. Then right as we were about to start, it froze and everything crashed. And so, I think we do have a ways to go with that.

But I think the idea of getting in a virtual room and working through some stuff is definitely a good way of potentially getting that, I’m going to say, “face-to-face” time as just an alternative to it. We have some catching up to do from a model standpoint too, ingesting those models into those environments to where we actually have information that we can act on within the metaverse, or wherever, the Facebookverse, whatever they’re calling it now. You know what I mean? That’s a challenge.

And so, I feel like I think we’re going there. We’re not there yet. I’m excited for it. It’s going to be an interesting thing to see how it affects the day-to-day operations of a construction project, though. I feel like there’s going to be some cons to it, similar to email, similar to some of these other things.

 

Steffen Waite:

Well, to your point, and probably Eddie has a few words to say to this, the importance is the BIM model that is actually correct and accurate, the ingestion of it. There we go back again to people. It’s not the … BIM is a container. It’s a database. It’s a graphic representation plus a database. But it still takes people who have experience in construction and assembly to actually build these models. A question to Eddie. What are you seeing in the way of talent out there for people who are capable of making or assembling accurate BIM models?

 

Tyler Campbell:

Well, that’s a great question.

 

Eddie Campbell:

If you ask a BIM person about their experience and their ability to do their job, one of the first things you’ll hear out of their mouth is whether they’ve ever stepped foot on a construction site or in a manufacturing facility. They’ll tell you if they’ve been out there two weeks.

So why do we do that? It’s because we want to say I actually understand what happens in the field. I understand real construction. Therefore, I can make the real thing happen in the model, in an accurate fashion that actually has the real world in view.

What we’re finding is, I mean, it takes a long time to develop that talent. It takes a long time to be an expert pipe fitter. It takes a long time to be an expert erector. It takes a long time to be an expert steel fitter, welder, whatever. It takes a long time to develop the skills necessary to put together accurate fabricatable BIM models, like high-level detail BIM models, and the talent and the talent pool that’s going to be developed is struggling.

I know this is another topic of conversation we were going to try to move to. I feel you nudging me, so I’ll just go ahead and open the can. But I believe that we are going to have to start dealing with each other in a much better fashion and stop abusing each other, basically, if we are going to continue to extend that talent pool, because it’s very difficult to find people, period.

It’s very difficult to create an environment where they’ll stay, because detailed BIM is a kick in the head for your trouble. It’s very difficult then, once you get them to stay, to continue to get them to stay. We are going to have to talk a whole new generation into coming in and being the people that drive these models, do that to a high level of detail, do it accurately, because all the robotics are going to rely on it. We are going to use constructible BIM to drive the robots in the field. And I see a problem.

I mean we had a little podcast on that not long ago, and just described the BIM technician that everybody’s looking for as a unicorn, because it’s like good communication skills, also knows exactly how to detail all of this element that’s actually fabricated in this isolated pocket. Do you know how many isolated pockets there are in construction that somebody can know a lot about? A lot, and we need to fill all of this. It’s an issue.

 

Tyler Campbell:

There’s an example that we can pull personally here. I mean you were talking about how long it takes to invest in somebody to get them to the point where they will actually be profitable and a valuable part of the team.

For me, I came in completely cold. I was like, “What’s a column? What is that?” It took me time to develop. It took me, we say, about seven years to get to a point where I was worth something, where I could actually walk into a room and know what I’m talking about, not look like a moron, put a model together, and detail it out and get it right. Seven years.

I stayed for two more and then I started feeling that weight, that pressure of I can never get anything right. Nothing is ever good enough. I’m always getting berated I’m always getting, “Why can’t you get this right?” falling into a pit of anxiety. Then I just threw up my hands and I said life’s too short.

So when I’m talking about this marketing stuff too, like what I do of going out and helping people drive more skilled workers to their businesses, that’s one part of the equation, guys. That’s one way we can get people in the door. But ultimately being a good place to work, that’s how we actually fix this labor thing that you’re talking about.

 

Eddie Campbell:

As an industry.

 

Tyler Campbell:

As an industry. And that is a big, big problem. I don’t just mean big as in like, oh yeah, we have a lot of people. I mean it’s a complex problem because it involves people. So I don’t know. That’s my experience with this is I got sick of being kicked in the head and I said screw this. I’m going to go own a business instead. It’s easier to own a business than it was to detail steel by far. By far.

 

Steffen Waite:

AJ, you want to-

 

AJ Waters:

You make an interesting … Yeah, so there’s an interesting point in there, and some of the questions have come in and lean toward this, too. You mentioned we’ve got a ways to go to get to the metaverse. You mentioned what it takes to get somebody up to speed. The individual, the human with the skillset to be a good detailer or a good BIM modeler, those people are coming out of high school and college right now in droves. They have computer skills that we’ve never imagined because of how they were raised. But we’ve got to get them into the industry. So that’s step one.

The other thing that I think construction has historically forgotten is every other industry that’s been digitally transformed or has taken this step to that next evolution figured out a way to do what Eddie said, and get everybody equidistant or have a consolidated source of the information, where the BIM model, a picture says a thousand words. If it’s the consolidated source, then we can hang robotics off of it, then we can hang communication off of it, then we can use it for constructability things.

And so, a two-part question. What does it take, and Tyler alluded to this a little bit, to get people who have these skills that are readily available? Oh, by the way, building stuff is cool to the industry. Then what does it take for us as technology providers or us as contractors to make the commitment that we’re going to consolidate the data to get that single-source picture that will allow us to do all this other work?

 

Tyler Campbell:

I can answer the first part of that because that’s where I reside in the getting people here, is I mean really it’s just a matter of being very, very intentional with showing off your people and making sure that your brand doesn’t look like a dumpster fire with raccoons jumping out of it, which is the most cases for a lot of contractors. They don’t look that great.

Making sure your brand looks good, making sure that you show off. We, I say, as an industry get better at showing off all of the potential things that you can do, all of the great stuff that you can accomplish and the amazing career that you can have in the industry. We need to get really good at showing that off, because other industries are spanking us when it comes to this. They are kicking our tails, and we have to react. We have to get better at this.

So I will readily admit, though, that is a sliver, that is the first part of the equation. But if we really want to take it, that next step, there’s a whole other bucket of things that we’ve got to figure out. So that’s my answer to the first part of that question there, AJ.

 

Steffen Waite:

Tyler, you mentioned other industries. So let’s take a look at the automotive industry. There are 16 brands that command the automotive industry across the globe. They have 16 labels and they have about 60 brands within those labels.

The point that I’m trying to make is that’s a fairly consolidated industry compared to construction. One of the challenges in our industry is that it’s highly fragmented. And so, I do see consolidation happening. I do see owners and portfolio owners getting a lot more involved in what it means for their assets and long-term performance of the assets and to be able to control them from a central place.

So I think the industry could do well in providing a bit more of a sense of career growth and career opportunity, which probably typically hasn’t been available in the past. In the past, people have come into the construction industry through experimentation or because it’s an easy industry to get involved in. But as we move away from onsite manual assembly work to doing a lot more productization and industrial construction, pre-assembly and warehouses or factories, we have the opportunity to build much more structured career paths for people. I think that would come also within a level of respect and empathy that I think that Eddie and you have been touching upon in this discussion.

 

Tyler Campbell:

We don’t do a good job of showing them those career paths and saying, “Hey, here’s your first step.” Show of hands, I’m just curious, because I know our answer over here, how many of us fell into the industry, like didn’t intentionally get it but just fell into the industry? Or did you get in … Okay. Yeah, right, exactly.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Even you, AJ?

 

Tyler Campbell:

Even you, AJ. Look at that.

 

AJ Waters:

Yeah.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Every single person that I have talked to you lately, that I asked that question, I’m not kidding, they throw their hand up in the air and say, “Yes, I fell into the industry.” That’s not good. Let’s take the college example.

College is kicking our tails when it comes to marketing. They’re killing it. They’re driving kids from 18 straight in there, taking out big loans, going straight into college. What if we had that kind of power? What if we had that kind of funnel as an industry? Because right now we don’t.

We are fragmented, like you said, Steffen. We’re super fragmented, and that’s a lot of contractors across the board. So I don’t know. I’m just saying we’ve got to get better at funneling these kids in there and change it to where when I asked that question 20 years from now, I really, really hope that it’s, “No, I chose to get in the industry. I wanted to be in the industry. I’m here on purpose. I didn’t do it because I fell in.” All of us, all four of us, sitting here fell into this industry. I said I’d never be here. Look at me now.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Why?

 

Tyler Campbell:

And I love it.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Why?

 

Tyler Campbell:

Because my dad. Because of my dad. Because I heard of all of the stuff that he went through, man, all of the roadblocks he hit, all of the yelling and screaming matches that he would have to endure during the day. I’m like life’s too short. Life’s too short, and it’s sad.

 

Steffen Waite:

Hey, I want to give a bit of a plug, though, for the industry as well. So I fell into the industry because I actually wanted to become a mechanical engineer and actually work for an automotive or an aerospace company. But because my grades weren’t high enough for university, I was offered study programs in civil engineering. And so, I just took them out of necessity because I didn’t get into mechanical engineering.

But once I graduated back … I’m going to place myself here now, back in 1989, I was still going to school, but the Berlin Wall fell and we moved into a whole new, let’s say, world order, and there was tons of opportunity in Eastern Europe, Eastern Germany. I got on a plane and was able to work in Europe for about seven years. I got to travel and see everything.

So the industry itself offers a lot of opportunity to see the world and see many different things that you would typically not … If you’re working for Ford Motor Company in Detroit, you wouldn’t come across. So there are some good benefits, especially if you’re young.

There’s a lot of great business skills one can learn in construction. One can learn how to work with one’s hands. There’s just a lot of skills to be developed.

I think that we’re losing also the ability to communicate that to young people, that there’s a lot of just general life skills and opportunity for learning in the industry that then when you’re in your 30s or 40s, you can decide if you want to stay there or continue. I think that’s how we get creative minds back into the industry, too. Talk about the good things.

 

AJ Waters:

Yeah, I was the same way, Steffen. I fell into the industry because I went to school to be a teacher so that I could coach sports. Then my high school sweetheart, now my wife, came behind me and said she wanted to teach, and, mathematically, that didn’t make sense. So what does a math teacher fall back on but engineering.

But at the same time, some of the projects that I’ve gotten to build, some of the places I’ve gotten to go, unreal. My favorite project to always brag about is the College World Series stadium. Eddie, I know you want to see that one someday. Invite’s always there.

But the stuff that you get to point at, think of the people who built SoFi, the people who built Allegiant Stadium in Vegas, the people who built the Mercedes Stadium in Atlanta, all of these facilities are construction projects. That’s the construction industry. The Empire State Building, the Burj Khalifa, the Freedom Tower. All construction. The bridges, the roads, the dams. All construction. Just like you said, put a plug in for the industry too because there’s some cool stuff.

 

Steffen Waite:

I get to go around the world, including anywhere from Miami to Hawaii, to China to Berlin, Dresden, England, Northampton, Scotland. I can revisit projects that I worked on, whether it was from the drafting table back in the days when we were still doing things by pen and vellum, to just from a project management. There was a lot of impact that I was able to do.

That’s what really inspires me in going back to Europe and hoping to participate in reconstruction of Ukraine, where we can give back to the community, and those that are challenged in rebuilding their lives, with the experience that we have and the technology that we understand and the experience we’ve had to be able to build good buildings that perform well and that people enjoy being in and can rebuild their lives with. So, sorry, I’m getting a little [inaudible 00:49:07].

 

Eddie Campbell:

I want to highlight the fact that around the room here, we’ve said construction’s hard to be in, and then we’ve paired that over against what I’m hearing is a love for the craft. That’s the fun part of construction. There are many people that love the craft. There are kids all over the place that love to build. I mean it’s a very common thing for a kid to just … That’s how they want to play.

I mean I fell into the industry, yes, but I learned to love it. Now what I don’t love is how we treat each other all the time. What I don’t love is how broken it can be. It’s maddening watching how broken it can be. But that’s why we try to be a place where conversation can happen so that we can improve. We’re all improving this thing.

It is a complex problem. This isn’t like the auto industry. It’s much more complex than the auto industry. It’s less isolated, it’s less uniform, and, therefore, there are a lot more variables that we have to cover. But at the core of that, I love being a builder. I love getting to solve constructability problems. That’s the part of my job that keeps me coming back. I love that part.

And so, I want to raise that up. That’s the part I want to hand to that new generation and say … I think what Tyler’s saying, let’s highlight that. You get to build things. You get to look at what you did and you get to see these cool things that you were a part of. You get to see the world if you choose to do it that way. I’ve seen a lot of Milledgeville, but it is a cool industry to be a part of, for sure.

 

Tyler Campbell:

It’s so cool. I love what I get to do every day and showcase this industry. I flipping love that. That’s amazing, and it’s worthy of it. We do some amazing stuff. It’s so worthy of it.

Like you said, man, I came into this like, “I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.” Then here I am 11 years later going, “Actually, I really like construction. I love it. I really do,” because of the complex problems that we get to solve. There’s just so much learning that can be done here. There’s so much growth.

Steffen, you were talking about learning how to run a business, learning about project management, learning about building, all that stuff. I learned that in the industry. I didn’t go to college. I didn’t go the traditional route. I went in through an apprenticeship. And so, it’s really cool to sit back and go, you know what, the industry gave me a lot. Construction gave me a lot.

And so, I’m looking at this going I want other kids to be able to have that, too. But I also don’t want them to go through the meat grinder that I did. I really don’t. I want it to be a better place than when I found it.

 

Steffen Waite:

Well, I think, fortunately, we’re becoming a lot more aware of human values in today’s world. But to your point, Tyler, one thing that really inspired me in this industry is the ability to be an entrepreneur, or to at least live within an entrepreneurial spirit, because if you can solve problems and you want to solve problems and you have ambition, there’s no other industry that’s going to give you that opportunity, especially at an early age, to be creative, to have a voice.

Even though there’s a chain of command, there are people that will listen to you for what specialty you bring to the table. That for me was the most inspiring of it all.

But the business skills that one can learn in this industry, it’s a tremendous amount of money that’s exchanging hands, supply chain management, logistics, accounting, finance. It’s a lot to put together to get a $100 million project realized over a three-year period, and then even have the design components that’s before them. So from that perspective, it’s quite inspiring and I have enjoyed it a lot.

 

AJ Waters:

So we’re starting to run short. I love talking with you guys. The conversation’s so easy with this group of folks. But one question to wrap everything back up, and then we’ll get to the end, which is something I’ve been waiting for a really long time.

But before that, what can we learn from the people side of construction, the empathy side, of what it takes … And what the field craft have to go through. What can we take from what we’ve heard in this discussion that could help us in ultimately delivering better tech solutions, not necessarily from a provider standpoint but even from the company who might be selecting a solution that … What can we take from all this to understand our field better or our craft better?

 

Eddie Campbell:

Can I?

 

Tyler Campbell:

Take it. Get it.

 

Eddie Campbell:

I want a team sports analogy here so bad. AJ-

 

Tyler Campbell:

Is it going to be baseball?

 

Eddie Campbell:

… it’s the moment you’ve waited … It’s just really all team sports.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Okay. Okay.

 

Eddie Campbell:

I wish we would act more like teammates in a true sense, in that rather than being there to kick somebody in the head for an error, when they come back to the bench after making an error, we’re picking them up. You got it. What’d you learn? What happened? What’d we learn? All right, man, you got it. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad ball player. This didn’t mean you’re bad at what you do. You’re good at what you do. The next time you’re going to make the play because you just learned something. But let’s get back in there. You’re good, you’re good.

Having more of that mentality that we learned, just simple sportsmanship we learned when we were in youth sports, would do us very well to implement in the industry. I think we would people better if we did that.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Human better?

 

Eddie Campbell:

Yeah.

 

Steffen Waite:

So I agree with you that teamwork is definitely critical. Failing forward, understanding that mistakes are equally as important as success, and we learn more from our mistakes than from our success. But then AJ also pointed out technology, how does that all interweave in all that?

Just reflecting on InEight’s university where software companies, technology companies, it behooves them to really help us make it easy to learn about the industry and learn about their software. You go onto InEight’s university website, it’s tremendous the amount of stuff that you can learn just in project management and construction in general. There’s other technology providers out there as well that are doing large strides.

But we all need to work together for the training, because you come out of any college or vocational program, essentially you’re just equipped with a license to learn. So we need to really harness that teamwork and encourage the continuous learning.

 

Tyler Campbell:

All right. So tech and people. The thing that I keep coming back to is that tech is not the answer, which I know is probably blasphemy in this scenario. But hear me out. I believe in tech. I do. I spent a decade in BIM. I get it. I know there is value to be had in new innovation, and getting better detail and communicating more effectively using tools. There is value in that. But don’t lose sight of the people equation.

So often we treat tech like flex tape. Have you seen that commercial where the guy slaps flex tape on the side of a tub and stops a leak? We treat tech like flex tape. We’re just slapping it over problems left and right.

The reality is we really need to get a higher level view of this. We need to start making sure that we make solid decisions about technology and we invest in the people that are using those tools. There is so much more that can be accomplished if we’re actually investing, we’re actually getting training. Like you said, Steffen, getting training on these things.

We experience that training detailers. We give them a world-class piece of software and say, “Here you go. You got it.” What’s the first thing they do? These are newbies out of college. “Uh, I don’t know.” It’s the person driving the technology that matters.

So focus in on your people. I believe in tech. I love it, like I said, but do not lose sight of the person that’s driving it and make sure that you support them.

 

AJ Waters:

All right.

 

Steffen Waite:

Yeah. Make technology decisions on the ability for the technology provider to support the people in executing the work.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Yup.

 

AJ Waters:

Yup. So we’re at time, but I still want to do this real quick, because I’ve always wanted to. Shout out again to the Construction Brothers Podcast. Excellent podcast. You guys, at the end-

 

Tyler Campbell:

Thanks, man.

 

AJ Waters:

… ask a megaphone question. Tyler, you already threw yours out there, so you don’t get to do this now. Because your megaphone answer is the tech’s not the answer.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Every time.

 

AJ Waters:

But if you had a megaphone and could speak to the industry, real quick. Eddie, your hand’s up, so you’re first.

 

Eddie Campbell:

I’d say do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

 

AJ Waters:

I like it. Steffen?

 

Steffen Waite:

I would say there’s no false deadlines. I would say that continuous learning, like read, study, ask questions, work with superintendents, the guys that are running the jobs in the field. How can I learn? How can I become better at what I’m doing?

 

AJ Waters:

All right. Thank you, gentlemen, for today.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Thank you.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Of course.

 

AJ Waters:

I appreciate it. It’s been an honor working with you. Any parting thoughts before we go?

 

Tyler Campbell:

I’m good, man.

 

Steffen Waite:

[inaudible 01:00:16].

 

AJ Waters:

All right. Thank you so much for joining us. We’ll see you on the next one.

 

Steffen Waite:

Thank you, AJ, for all that. That was a great exchange.

 

Tyler Campbell:

Thanks, AJ.

 

Eddie Campbell:

Thanks.