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When an individual who has been working for a company for a really long time put their time in and is watching other people be promoted over them simply for biased reasons, that that individual can freely pursue work without having the their employee overlord.
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When that when when there is a system in place that serves that individual, that's what success looks like.
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I am Ryan Ware, and just want to say I appreciate all of you as listeners and to everyone who is sharing the podcast with your network.
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Continue to do that.
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It helps us build that awareness out into the community, uh, the things that we're aiming to do with the podcast and keeping our curiosity at the highest level.
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So, with that, I'm excited about the guest today.
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We have Mandy McGill with Aedifico out of Seattle.
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Uh hey Mandy, how are you?
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Hello, I'm doing well.
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Thanks so much for having me, Ryan.
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Yeah, I appreciate it.
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I'm glad you're willing to do this and be a part of it.
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So before we dive into Activating Curiosity, why don't you tell a little bit about um your past, how you um where you kind of got started in this industry?
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Sure.
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Yeah.
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So I've been a part of the sort of CRE AEC industry for about 15 years now.
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Um, always an entrepreneur, or at least, you know, subtract six months from that, where I did try working full-time for someone.
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Um, and started out as a recruiter doing recruitment services for lots of different companies in Seattle.
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Um, sort of rode the uh the tech wave, if you will, like, you know, so many buildings going up.
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We had the most cranes in the sky for like 10 years in Seattle.
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So um, you know, so kind of rode that wave as an entrepreneur and a recruiter helping um AEC team teams grow and um, you know, helping my clients find the right talent for, you know, the types of projects they were building.
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And um, you know, through through that, have, you know, served on different uh public task forces, learned a lot about the development process and you know, uh, where we're missing pieces and where it's really not uh sufficient and and and working the way that it could be.
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Um and then about two and a half years ago, um, I was meeting with a lot of candidates who were feeling frustrated with their employer.
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And I just started feeling this sense that like I can no longer place people in new roles in good conscience because um I knew that the culture uh that they were trying to leave is the same one that they would enter again.
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It would just be different faces, right?
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So um so I I started asking myself in what ways could I help these people like launch their own thing?
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And um thinking about how maybe I could do BD for them or business development um and and helping them grow in that way.
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And but meanwhile, I also um just had this obsession with technology and um saw how uh fintech was starting to change the way that we use money.
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And so I started thinking about how that's gonna change our industry pretty drastically.
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And so I got my um certificate in financial technology from the University of Washington.
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So, like that was all kind of happening at once, where uh this technology piece was always in my head.
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And I was thinking about how do I scale something, right?
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So um, so that's kind of like the the beginning of you know how Aedifico came to be.
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And by the way, it is Aedifico.
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So um yeah, yeah.
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People get it eventually.
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Yeah, it's all good.
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Yeah, no, thanks for clarifying that.
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I think it, you know, the there's something behind the story of that name that I'm guessing the the Aedifico name um and that journey that has kind of gotten you to this, like sounds like there was a bit of a aha moment.
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Like I'm sending people down a path that is just creating a frustration that maybe uh came to to light for you in there.
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But how the name Aedifico, like how did you come to that?
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Sure.
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Um, so I I worked with a team and um, you know, so they were my co-founders and and we created this really fun startup community amongst us.
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And um, so we were throwing a lot of names out there, and one of the individuals is actually from Colombia.
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And so we were playing around with uh, you know, different, just different languages, right?
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And um so we fell on Aedifico um because it's Latin for I build.
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Um, and so I know we'll dive deeper into like what Aedifico is, why it exists.
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And so it just felt like that name really um struck a chord.
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And also because we had an international team, it was just um honoring kind of that piece that um, you know, if the platform were to become worldwide, that, you know, there would be a lot of people that that name would really resonate with.
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Um it did not resonate with venture.
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So um, you know, I've I've been told multiple times that I need to change it.
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So, you know, there's that.
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Uh you know, it makes a lot of sense when you say the the I build, but there's a story behind it, right?
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Like you just got to tell that story of how you like there's a purpose.
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There's a greater purpose for why you started the company, which allows you to tell the story by the name because it's not like you know, Mandy McGill consulting or something, right?
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Like or something that's like, oh well, it's just you know, it maybe doesn't have the the power that you were hoping for.
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So I wanted to hear that story because that's actually the first time I've gotten the chance to.
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Uh thank you for setting that up.
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And I think you you gave some insight into this next question, but um you you got to this point.
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So what what is the biggest problem that you're aiming to solve?
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Yeah, IDFICO actually solves a lot of problems, but I think fundamentally it aligns the industry with the future of work.
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Um, so what does that mean?
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Well, we we sort of designed all the way we work around the industrial revolution, which is companies coming together and you know, as a group of people and employees.
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And there are many, many reasons for why we got to where we got to with employers.
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Um, and those things were important at the time, um, you know, protecting workers and and things like that.
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Um, but we our our industry is definitely not designed around the digital revolution, which is where we are now.
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Right, right.
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So um uh uh essentially what this does is uh it decentralizes work and gives individuals the power to work on projects that they want to work on, not just the projects that the company they work for happen to have won.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's an interesting way to put it.
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And and I want to make sure that it's it's clarified.
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So decentralized being a big part of it in the in the concept, which you know, we can dive into that that word, I think, a little more.
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Um because it's one thing within operations of a team, and I'll go to like active operations where you're putting the the problem solving closer to the customer or to to that group as they're working on it.
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And I think in your what you just described as this from an industry standpoint, putting people closer to their own purpose, is it decentralized because it's not connected necessarily to one corporation?
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Yes, that's right.
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Okay.
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All right, so maybe maybe dive in then into the word decentralized and kind of break that down.
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Cause I think it's a tremendous idea in this well, let's go back to the beginning of work.
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Like you said, the industrialized revolution, there's been four of them.
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And this fourth one that we're currently in, the pace at which it's happening, um, in a global market.
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Um finding talent from anywhere to do anything that you're needing them to do based off sort certain platforms.
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So when you're talking in this construction industry, is putting individuals more aligned with their purpose and their passion for what they want to be working on.
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Describe that a little more uh if you can.
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Sure.
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But first I think it might help for a little more context.
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Okay.
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The way j just so that people can understand, instead of like talking theory for a second, let's just like here's how the tool is used, right?
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So you go to Aedifico, and so you are a developer.
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Okay.
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You're a developer, you can be a small one, a small multifamily developer, or you could be an end user developer, right?
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And you go to the platform and and it's not like LinkedIn where you're like, oh, let me like search for keywords.
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I mean, keywords are a part of it, but what you do is you enter your scope of work and then the scope, then we use AI to match that scope with individuals who can perform that scope of work.
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Um, and so just to make sure that like that feels clear for your audience that um that that's how it works.
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So it's it's a developer tool as much as it is uh a tool for individuals who don't want to work for a company.
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And so because they're entering a scope of work instead of a job description, it aligns um the the whole industry around staffing a project instead of staffing a company.
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Okay.
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Yeah, I think no, that makes that makes a lot of sense, right?
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So we think about it all the time of these ebbs and flows in the industry.
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And we've seen we, you know, we saw it in 2008.
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Um, unfortunately, during that downturn or even COVID, of like you have build an entire team for a business.
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Um, there are projects and certain sectors come and go, and how do you shift around that as they they tick up?
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So you're I I think you've you laid it out in the sense that it isn't just about the individual searching, it is about you know, that developer, regardless of you know, where they are in that spectrum of what they're you know, actually want the building to be, right?
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Whether it's like you said residential side to to larger corporate facilities, it gives them a platform outside the noise potentially of LinkedIn, of like there's just millions of people, you know, coming in and bearing HR with resumes.
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The other side of that is individuals feel like, hey, I'm not even I'm not even visible to any of this.
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You're providing if you, you know, here is actually what I'm needing for this project.
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Not a here's a long-term contract and commitment and employment.
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It is this is very specific.
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This is based off who do you, you know, who has the passion and the talent to align with that.
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Yep.
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Right.
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Okay.
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I want to make sure that we we nailed that down because I think it's it is a very different approach.
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And we'll get to this because I think I'm starting to already hear like there's a lot of mindset shift towards this um for a lot of people.
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Um, so you know, is that so given that then is that one of the biggest sort of barriers is is how to, you know, for teams or businesses to well, you know, now this is here versus the old traditional way of like, well, how does that change culture?
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How does that change uh process?
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How does it change how HR and operations, you know, all the whole the whole business needs to be thinking about this?
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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Is what other obstacles, or maybe we drill into that a little bit of like how they should be thinking about it to be successful then?
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Yeah.
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Um the these these are definitely the obstacles, right?
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Because it it requires you to think in a very different way and the way that you staff anything, and there are entire departments of companies that exist um to do what IDFo does.
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So on a smaller scale, uh, you know, it's HR is is, and when I say smaller scale, what I mean is if you're an AEC company, um, HR, like they may want to use the tool, but the tool kind of replaces them.
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And and so it's it's challenging uh for the AEC companies to think about using it in this way.
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Um, I have also, I'm under NDA with several different uh end users.
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That that's a lot of my network is them.
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And I I see this being a tool that they could adopt um faster because they already, like a lot of them are tech companies themselves, right?
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So, you know, so they're they're sort of encouraged to adopt things like this.
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However, in this case for them, uh the challenge is procurement.
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And the procurement department doesn't really understand how to treat us because they're, you know, they're they're used to just bringing on an AEC company to to do the work, right?
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So um I I'm not under NDA with Boeing, for example.
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I mean, I spoke with the head of construction and real estate for Boeing.
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We had lunch, he was mind blown, just stoked about how this could literally change his life personally.
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Right, right.
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And yet when he spoke with procurement, um, they were like, we don't know what that is, and we don't want to spend the time to know what that is.
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And um, you know, there there's room there, there's still follow-up that needs to happen and will happen um at in the right time.
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But um for now, uh it, you know, those are those are the things they have processes, and because this this Aedifico doesn't fall into their um normal way of working, it it makes it really challenging.
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And also if we could go back to decentralization just for a second.
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Um I think you know, that term does get thrown around a lot and it all it it it there are lots of different contexts in which you can look at decentralization, but in this case, um centralization just really is defined by employment and decentralization is is you know taking the work and and scattering it uh such that it it can reach more people.
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Okay, yeah.
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Yeah, I'm glad you went back to it, because just thinking about getting that clarity and thinking about what you just kind of brought up with with the challenges.
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So centralized being like, hey, HR goes does the traditional route, you're you're bringing in employees um through recruitment and then and then retainment.
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In this case, it is taking that piece out, getting a broader look at the skill set and the talent aligned with the need that you're looking to fill for that project, not just in a national but potentially global footprint.
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That's right.
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Okay.
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And then so with that, like you just said, then it's not that there's procurement, HR.
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And I think we, you know, as we we think about everybody's mindset around AI, oh my gosh, it's gonna take my job, it's gonna take my job.
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Well, the third the second industrial revolution and then the third, right?
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Like we were never meant to continue to work the way we're working, and in some countries that's not the case, but in the United States, like where we were supposed to see a decrease due to those, you know, industrial revolutions, like we actually increase the amount of hours we spend.
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That's right.
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And doing a lot of things that we may, you know, are we busy or are we busy?
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Um, and what are we focused on?
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And I think with this technology, as you're saying, it's this our mindset around what should we actually be focused on?
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What should we be doing?
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Because with HR, you just mentioned it, like will it replace them, or does the role of HR within a corporation or within another business disappear, or the role shifts to this new approach of the way we, the way you're discussing kind of forming, think about building, going from first plane concept all the way through occupancy.
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Um then I think about procurement too, and something you just said, which is interesting, is anything new, anything new that's brought to the table, it's always like, well, I don't recognize it, so boom, I'm going to default mode.
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So default mode is, you know, it's that system in our head that's like I, you know, I haven't built a habit or routine around it.
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So therefore, it's a lot more energy for me to to look at this new thing and put together a process for it.
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So you know, whether it gets solved, you know, something we're talking through today, but I think it's interesting in that it doesn't mean it's a wrong answer, it means that it's new territory.
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And what does that look like for procurement teams?
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Okay.
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Who generally, you know, it's a they write a contract, like you said, and sign and bring somebody on board.
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Um anything else that you can think of from a barrier?
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I mean, those are definitely ones that you know will act get us curious, like how do we how should we be looking at this differently?
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Um, is there anything else that you you've come across like where someone's not accepting it or pushed back and and how to think about it differently?
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Yeah, I guess I guess the one thing that I would just add, it you know, and it comes along the same line as like culture and process, and this is familiar, is that the this is one of the very few industries that uh relationships still matter.
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And they matter a lot.
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Um, and I say that as a human who appreciates relationships.
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Um on the other hand, what ends up happening when you just keep going to your same contractor is that like the good old boy's flywheel just keeps on going, right?
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And um and so I I do think it's going to be disrupted.
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Um it has to be for other reasons we could go into.
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Um, but I think that that uh that is one of the main barriers as well, is just that um well, I got my guy.
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My guy does it for me, right?
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And and so the even if you can supply a less expensive, way more amazing, talented person that's not my guy.
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So yeah.
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Well, and that's fair.
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And I think you know, you're located up in up in Seattle in the Puget Sound, right?
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And and we having worked there or even around the Bay Area now, you know, in Ohio, it's like everywhere I've been, the industry can feel enormous, but at the same time very small, like very small and tight, as you said.
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And and I don't I don't think the what you're saying is like, hey, you got to get rid of all of these things.
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It's like we we know we have a labor challenge.
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And to be honest, I've been trying to not say uh labor shortage, because I think with the word shortage, my own personal belief is that we think, oh, we just fill it with supply and it's it's taken care of.
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Well, that's you know, that's not happening.
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Like there's you know, that's a real problem for all industries, not just construction.
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So how can we reframe, you know, where the talent will be um when we're choosing to live where we we sort of want to live, and there's there's a need to go build a hospital in West Texas.
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Well, you're building cities in West Texas to build hospitals because you know, the talent pool uh isn't regional, so these things are already starting to occur to go away from I've got my person and I do I like how you you know you have empathy for it.
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Like we're all human, it's complex, it's just very complex.
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But it doesn't mean that procurement teams and HR shouldn't be thinking like, well, what is that future of work, like you said?
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Because we're going to see, you know, in the next few years and decade, like this mass sort of exodus, retirees towards other jobs starting to peak interest, people leaving, and the AGC will tell you, like, hey, we have an empty bucket, or even an architecture firm.
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So the problem's not being solved now by having my person, right?
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Like that's right.
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Um, so reframing it and thinking like again back to this mindset um onto that new territory and how I've never I've never seen this or thought about it.
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But I, you know, if we were to think like, hey, here's the construction industry, is there an industry where you're seeing this concept?
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Or you know, I think about like traveling nurses, right?
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Like yeah.
00:24:27.279 --> 00:24:31.119
So okay, so with that, I'm gonna I'm gonna hand it to you.
00:24:31.119 --> 00:24:35.519
What how did what drew you to say, hey, like this is working in other industries?
00:24:35.519 --> 00:24:36.319
What have they done?
00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:38.720
How did they break down some of those barriers?
00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:40.000
Yeah.
00:24:40.000 --> 00:25:07.759
Um, so I really looked a lot to upwork as an example for how this could be done, um, and really kind of designed it very similarly to upwork, um, other than acknowledging that our industry has a lot of very specific um needs and licenses and and you know, certain education um that is really important.
00:25:07.759 --> 00:25:10.480
So that was sort of built into the system.
00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:20.319
Um but yeah, certainly Upwork and and it is it is being done in um obviously in tech a ton.
00:25:20.319 --> 00:25:28.000
Um I I I know that Upwork has a lot of big contracts with Microsoft, for example, right?
00:25:28.000 --> 00:25:39.359
Where where they just they just utilize the talent that's on the platform and um and they have kind of a a special kind of deal with them, I suppose.
00:25:39.359 --> 00:25:42.799
So that that really is is kind of how I saw it.
00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:46.000
And I I think what's really interesting to think about.
00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:48.799
So this was like I'm talking two years ago, right?
00:25:48.799 --> 00:25:54.000
Two two and a half years ago, that like all of this was like formulating in my head.
00:25:54.160 --> 00:25:54.400
Right.
00:25:54.720 --> 00:26:03.839
Now, you know, and and because things are are advancing so rapidly, um, I recently interviewed Robin Jesuthasson.
00:26:03.839 --> 00:26:10.720
Um, he's the author of, well, he's the author of lots and lots of books and is part of the World Economic Forum and all of this.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:12.880
And this is not a political statement, believe me.
00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:14.400
So don't come at me for it.
00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:25.279
But um he is um with Mercer, and Mercer is a consultant that uh works with really big HR firms.
00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:38.240
And so I know, for example, that IBM has already implemented the platform model um in both internally and externally.
00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:45.200
So that means that like internally, everything is designed around a project.
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:56.000
And if you are a full-time employee at IBM, you can say, I want to work on this project, I want to work on this project, I don't want to work on this project.
00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:06.079
And then they supplement through other platforms like Upwork, um, those jobs that they don't need internally.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:09.039
And companies, they just they don't want to hire.
00:27:09.039 --> 00:27:10.799
They just straight up don't want to hire.
00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:16.880
And right now, like the the fact is AI is going to replace many jobs in AEC.
00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:25.039
Um and so I I think like this is the way that I'm viewing it now.
00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:36.319
This can kind of continued through that thread of decentralization, is that that's even happening within companies now, um, where they're no longer like, here's a job.
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:40.720
Um, the the title of Robin's book is uh Work Without Jobs.
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:48.240
Um and and so you know they just don't even talk about jobs and job descriptions anymore.
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:50.240
It's just here's a project.
00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:56.720
Um, are you capable of like being a part of this project team or not?
00:27:56.720 --> 00:27:58.480
And cool.
00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:02.160
And and and it like literally like people flow.
00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:07.839
They flow to the work when it's needed and then they flow away from the work when it's not needed any longer.
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:16.319
You know, I I can't help but think, like as you just described that, like that's what happens inside of businesses naturally.
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:40.960
It's just pulling it into a larger forum of they may not be in your business because as projects come and go, especially in the architecture side, you know, where I came from, like there's studios, there are experts in those areas, and even in large general construction companies, like there are people who focus on like that's all they do is that one client.
00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:50.240
Like if you think about you know, this isn't true in every area, but if you bring up the big GCs on the West Coast and some of the other areas, that's how they function.
00:28:50.240 --> 00:29:07.839
So it's not, it's not, you know, it's just stretching our minds, maybe a little bit of like you're sort of taking what you know and saying, like, what if you had a way to find, you know, that person out there that was in studio A or Studio B.
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:14.000
They're just now similarly NM studio here or there, and you're connected to them.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:21.519
And again, when you just said it, that started making me think like we we already do that.
00:29:21.519 --> 00:29:44.400
Like architects already partner, and so do GCs through it's not always JVs, it doesn't have to be to that contract model, but like there are small architecture firms who become the architect of record versus the design architect based off skill sets in regions where they can't go, uh, the way NCAR works with with lincensure and companies or settings.
00:29:44.400 --> 00:29:59.839
So again, back to the is this totally new, or is it uh just a different way of thinking of how we're already doing it by stretching the opportunity further than we've we've seen it before?