Episode 22 – Nicholas Childs PART 1: From Analog Roots to Digital Frontiers

In Part 1 of this BUILT2SUIT two-parter, host Greg Simpson sits down with Nicholas Childs, Senior Sales Specialist at Autodesk Forma, for a wide-ranging conversation about unconventional career paths, the realities of early tech sales, and how curiosity, not credentials, often drives success.

Nicholas shares how bouncing between colleges, working direct sales at Square, and launching games with Ubisoft all shaped his philosophy of listening first and solving real problems. This conversation explores analog vs. digital mindsets, lessons in early technology adoption, and why meaningful change almost always starts with a little pain.

Join us as Nicholas lays the groundwork for his journey into Autodesk and the deeper industry conversations to come.

This is the show built to build what's next. This is BUILT2SUIT.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

As a salesperson, right, I don't think of myself as selling. I think of myself as listening and trying to figure out if I can solve a problem. And what comes out of solving that problem is usually something that is a new technology that we're selling to someone. So first and foremost, that the organization that I'm working with has to be ready, right? They they have to be in a place where they're ready for change, right? And there's usually some kind of pain associated to that.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

I didn't even know that. Yeah, so they have a real vested interest in it not leaking. And so they had to use glue casks and all that stuff. I don't know about look, I know how to drink it, but I do not, honestly, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

I did work at a distillery in college.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Uh so what part did you do? What's a distillery? What do you do to distiller?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Let me say this. When I say I worked there, I did the social media management for a distillery in college. I didn't do any hard labor. No, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

No, I was thinking you're like pouring up the bottles and taking something every now and taste. You're talking last night you don't drink.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I didn't. I used to.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I honest, honest to God, I wish I I I've I've gotten to where I drink a lot less, uh, for sure. Unfortunately, when you get in the social space in our space, it it becomes kind of drinking your hand, and that's it's not easiest. Uh, but it's empty calories, and so you don't look like you have any issue with calories today. So I don't I don't think you have I don't think you have any problem, Nick. Uh but uh Hey gang, Greg here. Welcome to the Built the Suit Podcast, the podcast that's built to build what's next. Now occasionally someone comes along that you just want to talk to. And today you're gonna find we have an excellent choice that fits the bill for sure. Nick Childs of Autodesk, I guess Nicholas is the pure name, uh, but he is just one of those people you don't need a title to know when you are smart. And frankly, he's one of the smartest guys in tech I know, and I think it's a real important time today for us to introduce him to you. So welcome, Nick. Hey, thanks for having me. So I'm this analog guy. Yeah. You know I'm an analog guy. I grew up, I've got no hair, I'm and you feel like that you're kind of more of a digital guy, but you seem old enough to have investigated that whole analog space. So you enjoy tech. So tell me where that came from.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Ah, good question. So um it it really stems from like when I was I was a kid. So I grew up in Minnesota. Um, my dad is actually a physicist, he's a high molecular physicist. My mom happens to be an occupational therapist. So my dad originally was working for Honeywell and Lockheed Martin, which is why we ended up in Minnesota, started his own company doing chip manufacturing, and um, that really kind of propelled me into technology. I was also like a big gamer as well, kind of growing up. So yeah, it all stemmed from that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I was like, so you got this career arc that starts. And obviously, you didn't start at Autodesk, you started somewhere else, but sounds like you started someplace like technologically focused. Talk a little bit about your beginnings because I think a lot of times people in industry think you just start where you're gonna work, yeah, and you've got everything figured out, but you, like a lot of people, really worked your way there.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, yeah. So it was always interesting, like when I got into college, I went I was uh I went to a couple colleges, let's say it that way, right? I started off in pharmacy school in North Dakota. I moved over to Montana. And when I went to school in Montana, it was kind of an interesting place. Montana was changing a lot at the time. Um, it was moving from kind of your traditional like ranchers and cowboys and all those types of people, right? To now it had um started up like the management information systems group. And it was really starting to become like it started calling itself the Harvard, Harvard of the Mountains, right? And when that was going on, there were some tech companies that were kind of taking um notice of that. And I first started off, I want to say my first job was Square payment systems. And it was really interesting. That was um like at the beginning, right? If you if you guys know Square, Squares, like you know, those little card readers that you plug into your phone, right? Well, they didn't have any marketing. They didn't have, they when they originally launched into the market, they went to college students and they said, Hey, go out to these individual vendors and sign them up on Square and we'll pay you money to do that. And I was like, okay, I'm super broke. So direct sales. Yeah, direct like knock on the door type sales, right? And uh and then you're you're sitting there with like, you know, someone selling custom stocks or something, right? And you're like, hey, by the way, we want a percentage of of what you make to process all these fees and you know, to do all of your payment processing. So that was that was an experience, and it it was it was a good one because I got to I got to work with vendors. It was my first time really working with people who cared about their business, right? So I'm walking into the door and I'm talking to someone like yourself who runs a business, and I'm like, hey, how hard is it for you to take payment? And they're like, you know, I take these checks and I have to go to the bank, and then it's three days before I get paid on it. And I'm like, here you go, 1.75 of all the things that you make. We'll take a little tiny piece of that, and then you get all of this convenience, right? And that was really the beginning of like, okay, I think I do like tech. I think that there's a use case in this tech. And one of the things I think that I really kind of gravitated to was technology can improve people's lives at a very basic foundational level. And so I was like, okay, how far does this go? Right. And I kind of just tracked that all the way through.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

You know, you're a gamer, so that's an interesting pivot to things can change people's lives in gaming, but you took gaming to a whole new level, right? You actually worked doing some gaming at some point.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Oh man, that was cool. So um the next role, so Square, great, was like a summer-ish type thing. It was a whole year, but it really I only did it in the summer. And then um Ubisoft, I had the opportunity to represent Ubisoft, one of 40 students nationwide. And at the time, this was kind of a pivotal point for Ubisoft because Ubisoft was getting ready to launch um these types of like open platform games. So Assassin's Creed was the first game I launched, and I did Just Dance 2, which was less cool. But um, what was really cool about that is you know, it was a bunch of college kids. I was throwing parties where people would come in and they would get to test out new games before they launched or whatever it was. Um, and I just got to have fun. So it was it was like, you know, the typical gamer, right? You think of gamers, you're like guy sitting in a room eating hot pockets, right? Like, like, like gaining weight. Yeah, gaining weight, right? And then I see this other side of it, which is like this fun, exciting, like we're bringing people together and we're getting their inputs and they're having a good time. And yeah, that was really, really good excite exciting time in my life to be able to work for a tech company, but also kind of own it in my own business.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Well, that's interesting because I guess that's where you got introduced to autodesk products, right? Yeah, Maya and and 3D Studio Max and some of the products of I guess the past that have come into a more contemporary mode now. So, is how did you make the jump from being in the gaming space, seeing those products to ending up at Autodesk? That seems to be a lead.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And I think this is something that a lot of younger people kind of go through, especially in this world right now, where they're they see something that they like, but they don't really understand how to connect the dots to it. And I really didn't either. I came out of college and I went and worked for a different company. I was working under a large company's brand doing reselling. And um, and that was cool, but I was like, no, there's something in this technology. I really want to experience it. And I remember being like, okay, I I did research on how did Ubisoft develop their games. And this company kept coming up, Autodesk, right? And I had no idea what Autodesk did, right? Most people that I even talk to now, unless you're in our field, yeah, probably wouldn't know. Have no clue, right? And so I'm like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna apply for this, blindly apply, okay. And I remember coming into my interview, and I'll never forget my boss at the time. He he offered me the job. And I remember going afterwards and being like, Why did you offer me that job? And he goes, Because you lied to me in the interview. And I go, What? And he goes, Yeah, you lied to me in the interview. And I knew because you you were willing to lie to me that you were willing to do whatever it took to work here. And I was like, Oh, okay, most people probably would have called me a liar and fired me, but that's okay. You know, and that's how I got here. So it's been a it was an interesting journey.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Okay, but there's another part that I kind of skipped over that I want to go back. You actually work for a drone company, right? A drone startup. Yeah, I did. And obviously we look at DJI now as kind of the drone leader and maybe not in the spaces that are more AEC focused, but talk a little bit about your journey with a startup.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Oh, startups are fun. Everybody, I think everybody should get should do a startup. Like at some point, if you really, if you really think you want to do a lot of jobs, carry a lot of a lot of water, um that that's where you go. And um that was interesting. So I was you know working at three uh at Autodesk, and I got a knock on the door, and you know, at the time, Autodesk was really kind of trying to transform. We were really, you know, we had built Revit and AutoCAD built, acquired, developed, right? Well, that's built by Autodesk standards. Right, right, right. So we had we were going through this transition, and at the time we had launched the Forge platform, right? The original APS that is is now today. And we were looking for these partners to be on the forge platform. Well, here comes 3DR. 3DR is saying, hey, we we build a drone with a massive camera on it, and we want to be able to connect that drone data into Autodesk's environment, right? And so they were one of the first partners on the forge platform. And I saw that, and at the time I was a BDR, so I was just making phone calls and doing, you know, the grunt work around the company.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

You could, you could see, you could see an upgrade. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe Nick 2.0 is in your future. I get it. We all get to that spot. We're earning our career, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Right. And um, and then you know, I get this opportunity, talk to the sales manager. He's like, hey, would you come over here and help us through like kind of bring this thing to market? We have this product, it's almost there, we think we're gonna get it out. Um, but there's some pieces that we really want to develop. Like, we know how to sell drones, but we don't really know how to sell drones in AEC necessarily, right? And what what are the value prompts to that? So I went over there and oh man, the beginning of drones was was interesting. A lot of doors closed, slammed into your face, right? Um, so that was really, I mean, limiting factors were equipment, hardware at the time. Like you couldn't put a camera on a on a drone and have it fly long enough to really capture the site, so you'd have to come up with ways of manipulating the software so that you could do multiple passes on that site with the limitations of the drone battery. Um, and then you started we started working with different drone manufacturers, and that kind of opened up the space, but then as you're doing that, you're worried about security because now you don't own all of the hardware and the software that does the drone. So it was interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Looking back, I mean, what did that job teach you that frankly that you might not have really thought about is directly relevant. It's directly relevant relevant to what you do today, but what it what did it teach you that you probably didn't know then? That you probably learned a little bit later. And we can we can stay off of the the the kind of enigmatic uh founder kind of portion of that, because we can get to that in a minute. Because that I think is the I think that's the whole thing of a startup. But did you learn something about that that ultimately said, hey, I want to go back to autodesk site?

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah, yes, I did. Um I think I think I learned some of the biggest lessons in that role. Um, first and foremost, I was out on site before that. You know, I was conceptually selling things to people, right? Oh, yeah, you can use this and this would work for you out in the field. You know, once you're in the startup and I got my part 107, so I'm actually flying sites, going on with with surveyors, laying points, doing the whole thing. What I realized is the people we serve they work hard. They work hard and they work long hours. And that was and and those hours aren't always um spent doing the right motions, right? Um, you know, I I constantly would see surveyors out in the field like just trying to get the job done when and and they weren't willing to leverage technology. And this is one of the proudest moments. Like I remember we had a 70-year-old surveyor manager, and uh before this, this man would not touch technology, he wouldn't even touch an iPad with a 10-foot pole, right? A surveyor's pole, of course. Yeah, exactly, exactly, right? And I remember one day um we flew his site and we came back in and we gave him an iPad and we showed him, hey, you want to get your elevations? Like we we just did all of the site. Here's all the control that we set. Do do do here's your elevations. And I I will never forget I saw his mind change immediately. He from that day on, that seven-year-old man, we could not take the iPad out of his hand. He flew every single site, he generated all of his topos off of drone footage, right? Like it just changed him in that fountain fundamental way. And I I realized at that point what we were doing even in just portion of AEC, was getting ready to change the entire game.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

So you come to Autodesk, uh you you get your stardom long before I meet you, for sure. Uh you're working in what you call cloud. Describe cloud, what it would mean and and what it encompasses really at Autodesk today.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I think that as a company, we see the cloud as the connected data environment that removes the restrictions of hardware and it democratizes the ability for people to in to um to work together in shared spaces without having the um the cost to enter that market, right? Well think about like when we were, you know, let's just say roll back 10 years ago, you wanted to open up a a massive Revit model or you wanted to view something, right? You had to have the hardware, you had to have the computer, right? Sun microsystems, like let's go all the way back, right? You those things were compute was real, it was real, it was real, and it cost, and then it would it it was hard for companies to actually upgrade and and all of those things. So this is you know, for us, the way we see the cloud is we see it as the connected place where all people can actually work. Um and I think that that's also transforming as we bring in more things like AI and all of the other things that are coming out.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, we'll we'll get to we'll get to those two letters down the way. But let's talk a little bit about adoption of uh uh BIM360 ACC format. Yeah the the the the the the product that just keeps on name changing good. But I respect what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it, but you still have a lot of people on on-prem product, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Oh yeah, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

So what does that feel like as you're the cloud guy and you're trying to get people to embrace uh this kind of brave new world? And obviously Brave New World comes at a cost. It does not it it's it's not free. I mean, it it layers on top of your software licensing. And so you have to have, I guess, those use cases that that put you there. But how do you start to mentally shape the opinion of somebody who is on-prem today uh to get them to that those few value propositions and say, well, maybe we ought to try this?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

That that is a that's a craft question that has taken me very many years to to understand. But really, when I think of this, number one, and I, you know, as a salesperson, right, I don't think of myself as selling. I think of myself as listening and trying to figure out if I can solve a problem. And what comes out of solving that problem is usually something that is a new technology that we're selling to someone. So first and foremost, that the the organization that I'm working with has to be ready, right? They they have to be in a place where they're ready for change, right? And there's usually some kind of pain associated to that. You know, I've had clients over the years that have been hijacked, right? You know, they their entire server system gets hacked, and then all of the data is then held as ransom, and they have to pay X amount of dollars to then unlock that data. And I had one customer that even after they paid a lot of money, right? The the hackers gave them back corrupted files.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

So it it was, you know, they in that case I've heard that uh they put their best people on encryption and they put their worst people on decryption. Exactly. So you yeah, you but it isn't probably a good business model for them not to give files back. So that probably those guys might not be in business, but let's let's talk about uh change agent from 2015, 2016 to now the change that's it that's really accelerating. Um is what we're heading for the same as we've always seen? Do we do we feel like these increments that we saw from the time we started doing CAD till we did a little bit more CAD till we did a little bit of Revit and we still did a little bit of CAD? Do we see it continuing on an incremental path or do we feel like that maybe there's some inflection point that we should be concerned about?

SPEAKER_01 20:46

Uh this is this is the you know 800-pound gorilla in the room, right? Um I think that what we're all about to get ready to experience is exper um uh a rapid change that's gonna be um it's nonlinear. It will increase the change will increase over time and it will get more rapid over time. And the reason is is if you think about it, right? Um one of the hardest parts of getting to where we are now was getting things digitized. So as we uh work with uh organizations, okay, you're gonna get it digitized. Once I have all the digitization, then I have to give it some some um some layering to understand what am I looking at? Okay, now all these documents are here. What information do I want to extract? From there, you start to open up doors that really um accelerate the market a lot faster because now I can use that information to create additional layers or additional items a lot faster than I could when everything was still on paper, right? On paper, you know, hey, give me this PDF. PDF, this PDF, I'm gonna read it, and then I'm gonna put it all here, and then I'm gonna take that the new PDF and I'm gonna generate something. Now, with the digital world, I can just take all of those pieces of paper and say, hey, generate this thing, okay? And then from that thing, I want to generate five other new applications or whatever on top of that. The other thing is that data is getting more accessible. And so as we try to understand how people want to interact with that data, you know, we're listening. And so I think we're we're trying to bring value through what we're being asked over just building tools and things, right? Many tech companies have done that in the past, where we're like, yeah, we want to, we want, we think that the market's gonna love this, we're gonna go build it. Now I think companies are saying, hey, we hear you, right? And it's gonna, we are going to do that. Um but we're gonna do that faster. We're gonna get there quicker, we're gonna do that better, right? And that's what we're really focused on.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Uncertainty, disruption, relevance. Have we just not figured it all out yet? I don't think we ever will.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I don't think it's just uh, you know, I think that especially in our industry, there's so many let's be real. I mean, people are doing extremely cool stuff, exciting things, right? And they're pushing the needle. Um, and so we probably won't ever get there. But, you know, I think we're gonna get faster and we're gonna get better and we're gonna get more accurate. I think that's what the market's really been looking for is like, hey, how do I do more but have the same level of accuracy?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

So what's the biggest thing in AEC right now that we're just not feeling yet? What's the biggest thing in the industry that is probably already there? We probably should know it's there, but we don't yet, and you can't say fear because I've got plenty of that uh with what could happen or what may happen, but what what do you think is is out there that we're just not seeing that's already available to us I think, you know, and I think a lot of our leadership talks about this a lot.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Um for me, the biggest thing is convergence. I think that a lot of organizations are are missing the factor that manuf the the idea of manufacturing and fabrication being separated from AEC is is going away, right? Those those worlds are getting closer and closer and closer. And what's gonna happen through that is the ability to make decisions on how I want to build something based on the process it would go through in the manufacturing side. So being able to have true lead times for when things are gonna happen on site. Companies haven't really gotten not a lot of companies, let me say it that way. Some companies are are dabbling their toes into it, but I think in the future, all companies are gonna have that ability to reach into a manufacturer and say, Hey, I've got these pipes that need to be ordered. What is the true time for fabrication? And when can I actually get them on site rather than, hey, I submitted an order and I was given a two-week lead time, right? We're gonna get really precise with these things and accurate, and projects are gonna start to transform in that way where schedules are gonna get tight. They're gonna be real tight. And and but at the same time, responsibility is gonna be held in the right places, right? Rather than architects always inheriting the problems, right? Hey, this is your issue. We know whose issue it actually is now.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah. React to this statement. Um, software moves faster than people.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Does. I love that statement. I say it all the time, you know. And and it, you know, Greg, I think it's it's really important. I say that, and I say it, you know, I say it to the biggest companies and I say it to the smallest companies, right? And the reason is is many people come to me and they say, Nick, I want to be, I want to be at the top level of them. I want to, I want to understand asset information, GIS information model. I want to do all this cool stuff, right? Teach me your product. And I go, by the time I teach you 100% of this product, there'll be 30 more percent left for me to teach you. So, so we're all trying to catch up to the technology. Um, and well, I feel like that's we're on a we're gonna be on that journey for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So, what you're kind of telling me, what's changing is well, we're not talking about drawings and files really anymore. We're not talking about the project finish line anymore, we're not talking about tool adoption anymore. What we're really talking about is changing our behavior, learning to collaborate, and this idea of this continuous datum, this data continuum. So, how do we start to reframe because that really gets you to forma. Right. Honestly, how do we start to to redo our mindset? Because until we redo our mindset, I don't think we're going anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Yeah, I agree. And you know, a lot of the times, you know, especially, I think one of the the the areas, and this is where I've been focused for the last few years is working with owners. Um, I think a big problem in the market for a really long time is that owners didn't know what to ask people for. So they would ask for everything, right? And you would give them everything, and then they wouldn't know really what to do with it, right? And and then, next thing you know, there comes all of these complaints and issues and all these other things because the request wasn't right. What you were asking for in the initial Git wasn't correct. And so, what we're really trying to do, what I've been focusing on, is how can I help owners understand what their true problem is so that when they reach out to an AOR or an EOR, GCs, and everybody, you know, within the project environment, they can ask the question intelligently. They can, they can request the thing that they need without having to decipher a thousand different ways of trying to achieve that same goal, right? Um, and I think that's, you know, owners really, I think that's been a big portion of the market that's not necessarily adhered to the way of everybody else. Architects have been in Revit for a while. GCs have been in Revit and AutoCAD and Avisworks for a long time. How many owners do you know, right? You go knock on their door and say, Hey, what's your Revit practice? And they have one, right? Um that in itself is kind of like we need to start there.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, it reminds me a lot. We've done obviously some finance and accounting software, and some of the stuff we've purchased uh fundamentally isn't ready for use. So you get to that conundrum that you just spoke of. Well, what do you want it to do? Right. And one of the ways we frame that argument after failing a bunch of times would be how does it want to work? Yeah. How does the product want to behave as opposed to can it do this? Well, of course it can do that. I can write this to make it do that. Well, after you do that four or five times, what you realize is you've perverted the product into something that isn't what it was ever intended to do. Now, you guys don't do a lot of I don't think certainly you respond to the user base, you bring forward new features, uh, but I think you're not in a pure customization space with customers at this point. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

That's it's very fair. I mean, when you're when you're building commercial off-the-shelf goods for millions and millions of users, um, you can't you can't customize at every level, right? And I think that's actually a really good point because it's it's going to be at the firm level, at the organization level, right? Where companies like ours, we're gonna produce a really powerful piece of software, but that piece of software might only get you to 80%, right? That last 20%, that's where the really fun stuff within an organization similar to yours or other organizations really comes in, and where you're gonna find a lot of that IP that you want to tag in at the back end, right? Is like, you know, we're gonna build a lot of good stuff, but we're not gonna solve the problem for you. We'll give you an opportunity to be able to solve that problem, but you you still got to do the work, right? And so that's where I think is it's you know, a lot of companies are struggling.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Yeah. Kobe, Kobe, Kobe, doing work. So if a firm says we're digital, what does that mean in the way they need to be able to behave? Not simply in the software space, but they they come to you and they say, Hey Nick, I'm digital. Uh, what behaviors do you look for to prove that?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Hmm. How do you how do you work with information, right? How do you pass data back and forth? Where do you store that data? That's usually, you know, when we think of of digital, I think of tools, right? Processes, and then storage, okay? Because the tools need to be digital, most of them are, right? Most people aren't using a light table and pencil and you know, paper anymore. Still happens out there. But then where I start to see companies where they're like, we're digital, but then I go, but what about your processes, right? Because your processes can still be very manual. You get into some of these organizations and they're they're doing site walks, but they're doing that with a pencil and paper. Then the PM or PE is coming back and they're uploading that into the system. Well, hold on. That's a problem right there. That's that's that's a potential area where you're not digital. That is very much analog and very much manual work, right? So it's really about cleaning up storage process or tool process storage, right? And then finally that storage. Like you can't store things in a file cabinet and be digital. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

So, where do you believe most firms are? You you talk to firms every single day, and you you're really quick to share that digital maturity matrix. And you're a this if you're a three, or you know, it's it's it's almost like a beauty contest. Oh, I'm a fud. Uh but how do we how do you assess the industry as where they are? And and I guess I'll I'll give you, I'll let you off the hook for the folks that haven't embraced kind of uh forma and and the folks that kind of have, if we look at that have, they still have a long way to travel, but talk about where you assess them today.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Yeah, yeah. So to produce a digital maturity, first and foremost, to answer your question, um, most companies, and this is actually something that we do from a research perspective at Autodesk, um, they fall at about a 2.3 on a level of five, five scale, okay? Um, which is a lot better than it was five years ago because they're all one, okay? And and really, what does that mean? Um, we do an assessment, we call it a workflow map or a tech stack map, where we go and we say, Hey, teach me what you do and how you do that from administration all the way to handover, right? And and walk me through the tools. And one of the things that happens during this process is, okay, let's just say that you use Excel. Okay, so you're using Excel and we're we're asking you, okay, so you use Excel for your estimate. All right. So your estimate sits in Excel, your guys get a get a project, they get the sheet, they go through boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, they throw it in Excel. Then what do they do? They grab that manual document and they drag and drop that into a folder, and then that folder then is shared out to someone else who comes into the Excel document and they input their data, and then that comes out and so on and so forth, right? Well, each one of those manual drag and drops, right, is is kind of a notch down in your digital maturity scale because as you go up that maturity rating, automation comes in way before the two-letter word at the end, right? When you get to stage five. People forget that automation has been around forever, right? And these things, the things that really drive organizations down on digital maturity scales are the tedious tasks that their employees are mandatorily have to do over and over and over and over and over and over again, right? When a company comes to me and says, Nick, I want 3%, it's way easier for me to go get 3% by reducing and automating than it is for you to cut out a margin or a percentage of what you're doing inside of a process, right? It's it that's where I think people forget the gold is at.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yeah, repetitive, repetitive process probably is the first place I would look to uh to get to some level of automation, which gets you some efficiency. But you're saying a lot of people still are having that person redraw that same thing over and over and over, and that probably keeps them from maybe escaping 2.3 or whatever whatever whatever there's they're they're supposed to be. Um so you convince me I'm I'm I'm now sold. I wasn't sold before. Uh but if if there was a best entry point for me to start, and we and I want to carve this into two pieces. I want to carve this in the piece for the architect, but then I want to slowly pivot to who you really work for, the institutional customer. I want to get out and talk with them just a little bit. Um which where do I start? I mean, what's the best place to start?

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Where do you make money? That's always my question, right? Or where do you lose money? That's my bigger question. So I walk in and you say, Hey, you know, where do I start? And I go, where are you bleeding? Because that's usually the place that there is the fastest return on the investment, right? And I'll give you a good example. You know, a lot of architects really struggle with design review because they're bringing in models and things that they either own all the way or they might not own everything within it, and they're producing design review with a bunch of different stakeholders, right? And then next thing you know, it needs to go out, and there's all the the comments that come back and forth. So, you know, when I break into that design review and I start understanding that you're using three different tools, that then from there, the tools then you know produce a document that then you store as a PDF set in this file that's on your C drive, right? And then in order for someone to access that, you have to give them access to your firewall that then they have to go in there and get that document, and then they pull that into their system and Bluebeam, and right. It's that stuff that I think is the, especially in the architect's world, it's like if we can just per if we can just get through design review faster, how much more money is in your pocket? How many more people can you apply to these different projects? So I think there's there's very easy, simple things. The the biggest thing I would say is don't overthink it, right? Find an area where you can find immediate value and improvement and test it. This is what we do best in the industry, right? Is we engineer things. Engineer your own organization to be better, right? And find the find that the angle that will make you a little bit money.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

That's what we do. We engineer things, and we engineered Nick Childs to come back with us again. I know he talked all things bim in this episode, but next time we're gonna see him in the middle of AI. And what's next? That's the Build to Soup podcast, the show Built to Build. What's next?