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"Building owners need a lot more than what siloed systems are capable of. Smart building solutions need to solve that problem by integrating with those systems, and in the next phases, adopting more of a horizontal architecture where building owners are not buying all of these redundant layers anymore from a bunch of different vendors. But if we're all speaking from different sheets of music, we're never going have that infrastructure and we're never going to be able to do these more sophisticated things with our buildings."
—James Dice
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technology—hosted by James Dice. If you’re new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industry—together. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 138 is a special episode with Nexus Labs' new COO, Rosy Khalife.
We introduce you to Rosy who, for the first time on the podcast, turns the tables and interviews me. We talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs, the founding story of the company, and then Rosy asks some fun questions.
If you're looking for some background on me and Nexus Labs, this is definitely a good place to start.
Without further ado, please enjoy Nexus podcast episode 138 with Rosy Khalife.
You can find Rosy and James on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
👋 That's all for this week. See you next Thursday!
Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways Nexus Labs can help you:
1. Take our shortcut to learning the Smart Buildings industry here (300 students and counting)
2. Join our community of smart buildings nerds and gamechangers here (400 members and counting)
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4. (NEW) Our Partner Hub is launching soon. This is an opportunity to be featured on our website, get original content, and tap into the Nexus community. Email us at partners@nexuslabs.online
Music credit: Dream Big by Audiobinger—licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
[00:00:31] James Dice: Welcome to the Nexus podcast. This is a special episode. That one might call the James and Rosie show. This could be a new series, maybe, maybe not. If we decide we like it, if we get some good feedback on it, we're gonna introduce Nexus Lab's, new coo, Rosie Califf.
Hi Rosie.
[00:00:52] Rosy Khalife: Hello Hi James.
[00:00:55] James Dice: it's great to have you the, then Rosie's gonna kind of turn the tables on [00:01:00] me and interviewed me potentially. I think for the first time on this podcast, we'll talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs. We'll talk about the founding story of the company and then I think you have some fun other questions, miscellaneous questions that you have in store for me.
Uh, I really don't like being the center of attention, so I'm gonna squirm throughout this whole episode. Uh, but if you're in the audience and you're looking for some background on me, uh, and the company, this is definitely a good place to start. But we're gonna start with Rosie first. Um, and I thought we'd start with a new icebreaker question.
I'm still sort of searching for the beginning icebreaker question for this show, but we'll start with this one. Rosie. If you could create a billboard that the whole smart building industry would see, what would it say on it?
[00:01:51] Rosy Khalife: Such a hard question. There are so many things that come to mind, but I will have to steal. One of the Nexus style [00:02:00] billboards, and that is the got i d l question mark. And James, maybe you could tell us quickly, I, I believe one of our Nexus Pro members designed a shirt that has that on it. Is that right?
And then actually ended up making it
[00:02:15] James Dice: Yeah. So we posted our first shirt on our pro member, uh, chat room and Brian Vaughn of Kris Cushman Wakefield responded and said, that's a, he said that's a cool design, but how about this one? And he had like photoshopped his own design and it said, got IDL just like the, in the same font as the old got Milk campaign.
Um, and if you're in another country, we realized yesterday that if you're in Australia or Europe or Asia, you might not have had the got milk campaign growing up. So you might not understand, but Got IDL is in reference to the got milk commercials of our childhood with the milk mustaches on [00:03:00] all the celebrities and everything like that.
[00:03:02] Rosy Khalife: I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. That, that would be my billboard.
[00:03:06] James Dice: So we'll put the links to these t-shirts in the show notes. Um, We have a got IDL T-shirt that I will be wearing at the AHR Expo coming up. All right. That's a, that's a great billboard. I agree. Um, let's start with a little bit of your background, Rosie. How did you get here? You're now working at Nexus Labs in the smart buildings industry.
You weren't always in the smart buildings industry. How'd you get here?
[00:03:32] Rosy Khalife: Yeah. It's an interesting story. So I, my first kind of gig in life, I was, I'm an entrepreneur by background, so I started a company, it was in a completely different space. It was a kids company all about getting kids. Off technology, interestingly enough, and doing things in the real world. I started with my sister, we ended up going on Shark Tank for the idea.
We got investment, we grew the company. And then it got acquired, uh, years later. And then I [00:04:00] kind of jumped into the VC world, started another company, and I've just been always loving, you know, what's new, what's interesting. Uh, I love entrepreneurship. And then I joined a, uh, IOT startup and that's kind of how I met James and Nexus and got into the smart building world.
So that was sort of my first foray into it and I've been hooked ever since. And now obviously with Nexus, just more in that world and have really loved getting to know it and understanding all the gaps and the opportunities within.
[00:04:35] James Dice: You breezed right over the whole Shark Tank thing. Um, can you just tell the story of, of Shark Tank and Rosie real quick.
[00:04:44] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, sure. Um, so I went on Shark Tank when I had just graduated college. So I had started the company while I was still a senior in college, and I was, I got accepted into an accelerator at the same time, and I was running, you know, the [00:05:00] company and also finishing up my undergrad degree. Interestingly enough, I got a 4.0 that year as I, I was so busy, but it was just such a interesting lesson that I carried with me that when you're so busy, you really have, you don't have time to procrastinate and so you really prioritize everything.
Um, and so we started that company. It sort of took off and then we landed on Shark Tank in such a, it was such a process. I don't know if, if listeners know, but. It's kind of like the American Idol of the entrepreneurship world. So you apply, thousands of people apply from all over the world and it's a whole process.
And you still don't know if you're ever gonna actually air. You don't know if you're gonna make it. So you work on this for months and months, you know, and it takes time away from you building your company and you're not sure. It's kind of a gamble. And so we did all of that. And even when you go to Hollywood to actually film, you still don't know if you're gonna air, because not every single company [00:06:00] that films in front of the sharks.
Actually airs on television. And the reason being is if every single company, you know, why wouldn't you invest in every company? Because they're gonna get, obviously, a spike in sales, right? the 8 million viewers. So you would probably invest more, you know, frequently cuz you know there's gonna be a bump.
And so you could take advantage of that as an investor. And so not all the companies end up airing. So you, you just don't know this whole thing if it's even gonna work out. You just have to have faith and believe that it will. Um, so we, that, you know, shark Tank was an incredible experience. We ended up raising money from Kevin O'Leary.
It was very dramatic. I won't ruin it for folks that haven't watched our episode, but, um, the company name is Surprise Ride, if you wanna look it up. But, um, we went on there, we got an offer from Robert. We didn't take it right. He got really upset as Robert often does. And we left the tank without an offer.
So, you know, we were so sad and, and were [00:07:00] disappointed and then we, you know, felt like it was for the best. So we continued to raise funding outside of Shark Tank. We grew the company and then Shark Tank reached out to us and wanted to do an update on the company and on us. So they came to dc, which is where I'm located, and filmed an update on us.
And then Kevin O'Leary. Mr. Wonderful surprised us and it was a real surprise. We had no idea. Everyone says, you got, you two are such good actors, but we were not acting. He literally called us and said, Hey, I'm here. I'm in dc. I'd like to come by. And they were filming, they were filming an update, but we didn't know he was coming.
And then he came and made us an offer and then we, we partnered with him.
[00:07:40] James Dice: So fun.
[00:07:41] Rosy Khalife: Super cool.
[00:07:43] James Dice: All right, so you came into smart buildings and I guess with joining. Nexus, it's your second company in Smart Buildings. I'm wondering, I feel like that was a key decision point. You could have came into smart buildings and then because you're an entrepreneur, you could have said, well, [00:08:00] I want to go to some other industry next, do my thing elsewhere.
But you said, I'm gonna dive into Nexus. I'm gonna stay in the smart buildings world. So I'm wondering why, why that is for someone like you.
[00:08:10] Rosy Khalife: Yeah. It, it's funny you touched on something that I definitely thought a lot about when I was sort of making my decision of what I wanted to do next, and it felt like I had learned so much about this industry or this space, the smart building space, and I had really loved the people. I, there's so many equation, you know, parts of the equation that came, came to life.
So obviously the actual space itself and, and what folks are trying to achieve here. I like that. Then there's the people involved. I met so many great people. I, I really like those people, you know, from conferences and, and from clients, and it was just, that felt right, and so there was all these different pieces that were coming together that made it feel.
I had learned too much to not continue working in this sort of space, and I had really enjoyed my time in, in [00:09:00] that field. And so it, that, that was one of the big reasons that it made a lot of sense to me to, to sort of continue. And then of course with, with Nexus, you know, that was more of a no-brainer of, of wanting to join Nexus as well.
[00:09:13] James Dice: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Why, why you think that was a no-brainer, um, why you decided to join us here? Join me, I guess,
[00:09:22] Rosy Khalife: of course. So I, I would say it's probably, um, I thought you could think about it in two buckets. So the first one is how I felt before I actually got to know you. And so there's, there's what I thought about Nexus before I met you and got to know you and all that. And then, What I thought about it after I got to know you.
So I would say the first one is before knowing you, I, the way I learned about Nexus is, uh, a colleague of mine sent me the Nexus newsletter and said, you know, there's this great newsletter that comes out every week. It part of this bigger platform all about smart buildings brings together a lot of cool, [00:10:00] smart people.
It's modern, there's nothing like it. And so as I was learning about Nexus, I became a pro member right away. As soon as I heard, you know, as soon as I read the newsletter, I wanted to be a pro member and join the community. And I just felt like there was something here because no one else is doing anything like this.
and I'm a big trend spotter, so I love spotting trends. I love to kind of figure out what's the next big thing. I, I, it's kind of, I think of it as a superpower of mine. So it comes in handy when I'm investing, it comes in handy as I'm making life decisions, I always think of, you know, what's that? What's that next thing?
And so I remember telling my husband about Nexus way before I, I met James or anything like that, and just told him, you know, this is, this is so, there's something here. There's something really interesting and there's like a sort of magic that's happening within this community that no one else is doing, and no one else is seeing this opportunity in the way that.
This founder has, has done and has [00:11:00] created Nexus. And so that was before I met you. And so I knew there was something here. I knew this was needed. As someone who was in the smart building space, I was praying for something like a Nexus. And then so when, when I learned about Nexus, it was like, oh, this is it.
This is what I've been wanting. I've been wanting a platform to educate myself. I've been wanting a platform to connect with other like-minded people. You know, it just brought together all those things that were at the forefront of my thinking, and then I got to know you, right? And so that was a whole other dimension because I didn't know you before.
And so when I met you, I instantly felt like there. something about you that was special and you know, that made me want to be part of you, your sphere and, and what you're working on and what you're building. I wanted to help you build that. And so even before I officially joined Nexus, you and I were always talking and we were always connecting.
We were [00:12:00] always finding ways for us to, you know, collaborate just even in in the mind space of talking about ideas and brainstorming. And I loved that it was always so seamless. It was always so easy to to talk to you. And I loved how you were approaching building Nexus. So it was a little bit of before I knew there was a secret sauce and then I met you and got to know you, and that secret sauce concept even got bigger and bigger.
[00:12:25] James Dice: Brilliant. This is the part where I get uncomfortable.
[00:12:28] Rosy Khalife: I know I love when you get uncomfortable. It's my favorite thing.
[00:12:33] James Dice: Well, we have built a special bond very quickly and uh, thank you for, thank you for joining. Thank you for coming into the community. It's been very fun so far. And I'd say, just to add to what you said, you have done an amazing job. How long were you, how long have you been in the industry? Two years, a year and a half.
[00:12:53] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, it, it's almost two years now or, yeah, something
[00:12:56] James Dice: One of the things I've been surprised about working with you for [00:13:00] what this is our fourth week, three and a half weeks, is like your technical understanding of the industry is like beyond your years, which is. A, a breath of fresh air for me as a technical person, I don't feel like I have to explain a ton to you, which is is awesome.
Really, really, really cool. Um, and part of that is we've been developing this partner program together. Um, and I thought we would use this, maybe take a few minutes to go a little bit deeper into it from your perspective as a marketer. Um, can you talk a little bit about what is the partner program, at least in its initial offering.
We actually don't know where this is gonna go, right? Because we're kind of developing this for the first time. We're sort of innovating this concept. What is it right now for people?
[00:13:49] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, so the partner program right now is kind of two twofold, two main components. The first one is the partner hub, which, uh, is kind of an ecosystem of all the [00:14:00] partners. They'll live in this, in this hub. That will be a new part of our website. You'll go on there, you know, as a buyer you're looking for, you know, occupancy.
You need to buy something that will help you sort of meet that need of yours. You can click into occupancy, see the vendors there, which are our partners that meet the Nexus standard that, you know, we vetted, we've talked to those founders and, and those, um, those folks there and, and explore that technology further.
So that's one kind of aspect of it, which is the partner hub. The second aspect is the content piece, and so that looks like we will be creating, nexus will be creating content. On a number of categories that include, you know, um, asset management, energy management, you know, occupancy, all the, all the different kind of components that make this whole ecosystem work.
So we will be creating content on those, and that looks like once a quarter we'll have different pieces of content, long form, [00:15:00] thoughtfully created content on these different categories.
[00:15:03] James Dice: Yeah. So the, these partners are basically signing up to be a part of that ecosystem and, um, make sure that some of this content gets produced, um, and help us in doing that. It's, it's, it's innovative. Maybe you could talk about why it's innovative. Why is this concept new to you? Content production, but also new to all the marketers out there that like are, we're asking them to buy into this new concept, but they really haven't seen something like this before.
[00:15:36] Rosy Khalife: Right. Yeah. So as we were developing, as James and I were developing this whole concept, it's been, it was obviously a lot of challenges of trying to figure out, you know, what has been currently happening in the industry and how can we take and build on that and make it better. And so I think the reason, one of the big reasons why it's so innovative is because this is vetted, vetted vendors.
So we're [00:16:00] not, if you right now, you know, come on and you wanna be a partner of ours, We're gonna vet you. So not just anyone can be a partner. And I think that as a first step is different than what's out there usually, right? Uh, if you pay, you can play. And that's how it works. And that, and that's a first kind of distinction of what's different about us.
Uh, the second one is that the content piece itself is super interesting, right? It's, it's actually researched content. So it's not just salesy material. We're gonna be doing the research ourselves. So if a vendor comes and tells us, you know, I do these things super, super well, we're gonna f we're gonna ask the hard questions.
We're gonna find out, do they actually do those things really well, right? And so I think those two things are, are creating an ecosystem for a buyer, like a building owner that can come on and really feel like they are supported. They're getting these recommendations, they're seeing these partners, they're seeing this vendor hub, they're reading the content, they're not being sold [00:17:00] to.
They are, you know, we're there to support them. Right? And so I think all of those pieces make it really interesting and not like anything I've, I've seen done before in this industry or in really any other industry.
[00:17:12] James Dice: Totally. And, and so you, you come from a marketing background. You were chief marketing officer directly before this role. When you're thinking about selling this concept to other marketers, why? Why do you feel like, I've heard you say this as a no-brainer before, like you would've bought this immediately in your old role.
Why? Why do you think that is?
[00:17:33] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, I definitely think it's a no-brainer and we have designed it in a way where it feels that way for anyone, right down to what it's, what we're charging for it. So it's, it's a, it's a affordable price for, you know, a early stage startup all the way to a series company. You know, everyone can, can sort of afford this.
So that was an important thing. But the reason I think it's a no-brainer is because as marketers, you know, [00:18:00] usually the things that are available to us are very salesy types of content. So, you know, you'll read an article or you'll get an award that says, you know, you're the best, uh, building technology out there.
And the way that that company got that award is they paid for it. And I think it's just, As a buyer, if I'm gonna put myself in the building owner's shoes or in the sustainability leader's shoes, um, I don't that stuff, I just glaze right over it. As soon as I see an article, the first sentence says, you know, this company is the best at doing this thing.
It's not po there's, that's not true. There's no way you're the best at doing this thing. Right. There's, so you're, you might be the best at this particular use case, but it, so, so it just kind of makes, it gives me, um, I just glaze right, right over it, I guess as a buyer. And so what I think is a really interesting guy this way of seeing the world is we're giving you content that you can literally take and send to your sales team.
And they can [00:19:00] share it with customers, they can share it with prospective customers because it's unbiased, it's well researched. They're gonna actually learn something from this, this article that we're putting together versus just learning that you are the best. And because you said you're the best, you know?
Um, so I think all those things. , you know, it really creates a system or, or kind of an ecosystem where people are getting credible content, they're getting credible sources, they're seeing our partner hub. We're trying to really keep that integrity as part of the, our core value of this whole partner program.
And I haven't seen that a lot in other places.
[00:19:39] James Dice: Yeah. And, and I think the last thing I, I wanted to point out so far, just like reflecting on this experience, being super transparent, is I've been super excited about the trust that people, so how many partners do we have on board already? There's probably five, something like that.
So this thing does not exist yet.
And yet people [00:20:00] trust us enough to sign up for this thing based on this idea. So I think we should say thank you to all of our, our early adopters that have jumped onto this program. Cuz I think once it launches and people see it, they're, everyone's gonna wanna be a part of it.
Um, but we've had people that are, you know, already said, we want in.
We haven't seen it yet. It's just a bulleted list in an email at this point to those people. And they're like, all right, we trust you guys. Go, go build this thing. So it's
[00:20:28] Rosy Khalife: And, and just to add to that, uh, what I've been saying to the partners, the early adopters, in full transparency, I've been saying, you know, I thank you for trusting in us and you have our word that we will make sure that this is exactly what you want it to be. And it will never be, you know, a salesy piece of content.
It will never be these things. And I think just them knowing that we have their best interest at heart, it has created such a great equilibrium of everyone feeling like we're on the same page.
[00:20:56] James Dice: Amazing. Um, alright, let's [00:21:00] turn the tables. This is the part where I get nervous. I get very nervous to be interviewed. Uh, but yeah, you take it away. What, what do you want to ask me?
[00:21:10] Rosy Khalife: Okay, great. Well, thank you for your questions and uh, they were fun to answer. I thought I could also start with some fun questions for you and we'll just, I'll just kick it off with some rapid fire questions and then we can jump into the more in depth ones. So my first question for you is you're always posting photos or sharing stories of you snowboarding.
And you know, we know you do that. We know you love doing that. We know you're an avid runner and you play soccer, used to play soccer even in college. So I, I thought it would be fun for you to maybe share with us what is a hobby or an interest of yours that we don't know about you that, that we wouldn't expect even.
[00:21:52] James Dice: Totally. I think the first one I'd share that I don't think, I think you just learned this about me today, um, is I've, [00:22:00] I've done quite a few silent meditation retreats, so there's a retreat center here in Colorado that I've been to a few times. I went there for a 10 day silent retreat one time, and I actually left after seven.
I had to go to a. An event that I didn't wanna skip. I didn't leave because I hated the, the voice inside my head, which was the voice inside my head was difficult. But I left because I had planned to leave. Um, but I, so I've done a seven day retreat and I've done a couple different three and maybe five day retreats elsewhere as well.
Um, I, I have had a more dedicated meditation practice than I have right now in the past. Um, but I'm, I'm definitely trying to get back to where I was before all the time.
[00:22:44] Rosy Khalife: Awesome. That's such a good one. Any others that come to mind?
[00:22:48] James Dice: Uh, I think it's, it might be obvious to people, but I, I think it, it, when I think about like why I love to build Nexus so much, I love smart buildings and I, I am endlessly [00:23:00] fascinated by smart buildings, but I'm also endlessly fascinated by just the concept of building a company. Um, and so, I think one of my hobbies is learning about entrepreneurship and learning about building businesses.
Um, people have heard me talk about the acquired podcasts and other podcasts that I listen to. I just love learning from other people's paths and entrepreneurship, and I love thinking about ideas for how to make Nexus better. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm often like several years ahead of where we're actually at , I mean in, in my ideas.
Um, but I, I, I am endlessly fascinated and it's definitely a habit of mine to learn about business itself.
[00:23:41] Rosy Khalife: Cool. I love that. Yeah, it's, it's evident in how you're running Nexus and all the interesting things that you've come up with so far. Um, okay. What smart building term would you love to never hear
again
[00:23:55] James Dice: that's a great question. Um, I think everyone [00:24:00] knows, or at least everyone that reads. My LinkedIn feed knows that I, I hate the Spag single pane of glass acronym and anyone that wants to understand why that is, we're not gonna go into why that is right now. That can go read the newsletter on this. Uh, we'll put it in the show notes.
Um, and I'll maybe just do rapid fire on a couple more. I think the word words futureproof are way overdone. Um, I think when building owners hear futureproof, it's like, it's like sponsored content. They immediately just, their eyes glaze over and you become sort of a, a not credible source of promises that you're making to that building owner.
Um, I think digital twin is close to getting there. So when you say digital twin, I feel like building owners also start to glaze over a little bit. And then I added this this last one this morning because I was just thinking through a lot of people, like, say this term, it's kind of like a trope. Every building is a [00:25:00] snowflake and.
That is true, right? Every building's different. It was built differently, different materials, different systems, different people running it, different businesses that are sitting inside that building. So in that, in that respect, it's true, but I feel like our industry kind of uses that, uh, as an excuse to not make progress.
They might say every building is the snowflake and therefore this technology doesn't apply. And I just feel like that is not true. Right? There are, there are universal truths that can be applied to every building, and I would love to hear us not use that as an excuse anymore in the industry.
[00:25:37] Rosy Khalife: Hmm. That's really good. I like that a lot. Um, okay. What foods could you eat every single
day
if any?
[00:25:48] James Dice: Um, I mean, I do eat a single food every day, and that's oatmeal. I start every, I start every day with oatmeal. Um, , and usually it's the same you, you've [00:26:00] inspired me to, to kind of diversify my toppings a little bit. But every day starts with oatmeal and I, I, I, I don't eat chips and guac every day, but I kind of wish I did.
You know what I'm saying? I, I love chips and guac as well.
[00:26:14] Rosy Khalife: Do you like your guac with a lot of onions? Light on the onions or no
[00:26:18] James Dice: Light. Light on the onions.
[00:26:20] Rosy Khalife: Okay. Got it. I have a really good guac recipe that I will have to share with you sometime. I learned it in college when I was living in London. It's so
[00:26:30] James Dice: All right. You, you will share that. We might have to put that in the show notes as well. Now. Um, okay. So wait, so wait. Before we move on, more questions. I feel like I need to ask you. of these fun rapid fire questions. This is one of the things that people will notice about the podcast, is you have immediately made me want to have a little bit more fun on the show rather than just ask questions that are related to smart buildings all the time.
Um, so I have a few questions for you. What advice would you give [00:27:00] someone that wants to win Shark Tank? What would you, what would you say?
[00:27:03] Rosy Kahlife: Ooh, that's such a good one. So I have helped a lot of people get on Shark Tank and I've helped a number of companies get investments from Shark Tank. So it, it's something that I
love
[00:27:13] James Dice: Shark Tank consultant.
[00:27:15] Rosy Kahlife: I'm always trying to help help other people make it work because when we were going on Shark Tank, we got a lot of great advice from companies.
So I would say be authentic. I think that's really important. So go on there, be honest about why you actually want the money. Don't just say an answer because you think that they're gonna like that and want to invest in in you because of that reason. So I would say that's super important, is just really thinking through all the business reasons why you need actual funding from them.
They will smell, smell you right out. If you're going on Shark Tank just for the publicity, you will not get investment from them. They wanna invest in, in companies that actually need money from them. So you'll often see where, you know, entrepreneurs have already raised, you know, [00:28:00] 10, 15 million and then they end up on Shark Tank and the sharks are like, what do you need my help for?
You're killing it like, you don't need me. And they don't want that. They wanna feel. You know, seeing, they wanna feel like they're helpful. So I think that's super important to make sure you're actually going on there because you need their investment and you need their help. And knowing exactly what you need their help on, and knowing what each shark can help you do and, and vocalizing that.
[00:28:24] James Dice: Love it. All right, question number two. is there and what is the correct way to cook Mushrooms,
[00:28:31] Rosy Kahlife: Oh, man. So I can't believe you asked me this question. I'm very passionate about how you cook mushrooms and I love mushrooms, but right way. There's a, there's a right way and a wrong way. And, you know, I'd love to hear, if anyone wants to talk about this, I'm happy to. But basically, I'll give you the abridged version.
You have to get a pan. You cook it like you're cooking a steak. You cook mushrooms like you're cooking a steak, so you need the pan to get very hot. Then you [00:29:00] add a little bit of oil, then you put your mushrooms in. Each of 'em have to have their own surface area. Do not crowd the pan. put a little sprinkle of salt, walk away.
We're talking three minutes. They're gonna be sizzling, making all kinds of noises. Resist the urge to stir them around, and then I do a little bit of black pepper. Then I flip them sometimes one by one if I want it to be very perfect and get that great char. Then once the other side has the great char, little bit of white wine if you want, or lemon juice, and they're good to go.
You can do a little bit of fresh garlic and then they're just perfectly colored, toasty and knot squishy. That's not what
[00:29:40] James Dice: Yeah. So you're trying to like sear the outside, caramelize the skin, and then the white wine picks up the
caramelization
[00:29:46] Rosy Kahlife: white wine deglaze,
is
[00:29:48] James Dice: it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, last one. This one's even more off the wall than the mushroom question. Do you believe in past lives?
[00:29:55] Rosy Kahlife: know, it's one of those things that I think about often, [00:30:00] and I don't have a complete yes or a no. I'm kind of in the middle. I'm still figuring out my position on this, but I often meet people, not often. I sometimes meet people like James that I feel like surely him and I, the way that we connect and the way that we get along and finish each other's thoughts, and there's just such a flow that happens with us that I feel like surely I must have known this person some way in some other life form, because how else could this be the way it is?
And so you make me believe in past lives. I'm still figuring out how I feel about it
[00:30:36] James Dice: I feel the exact same way. I, I'm a very like science. Person. Right? And so, but when I meet someone like you, uh, my wife's the same way. When we meet each other, it's like, oh, this person, like, we go deep. And how, how do we figure that out? Right? How, how is it that we go deep like this so quickly? So
[00:30:56] Rosy Kahlife: Right, exactly. Such good questions. Thank [00:31:00] you for putting me in the hot seat. Now it's back on. You
[00:31:04] James Dice: I tried to dodge it, I tried to get it off me for a second.
[00:31:07] Rosy Kahlife: I know. And it worked. And now we're, we're, now we're back. So, uh, obviously listeners know a lot about you, but I don't think they know kind of what led you into the smart building industry. So I'd love if you could take us back a little bit to some of the, those early moments of how you got into this world.
[00:31:27] James Dice: Yeah, I, so I'm, I'm an engineer. I started, uh, as a mechanical engineering student in college, uh, in St. Louis. . I took a sustainable energy class my senior year, and that was probably the bug that I got bit by. Um, I didn't even know that I wanted to work in buildings at that point. Uh, I had had a few internships that were basically like AutoCAD jockeying you might call, you might call it.
Um, so I wasn't enthused about buildings until I took [00:32:00] the sustainable energy course and it kind of, you know, semester long course. It kind of gave a broad overview of all types of, um, clean energy, all types of clean tech in a way. So I'm super grateful for that professor for teaching that course. Um, during that course they had guest speakers and, uh, this woman came in, her name's Anne Hill.
She was. Um, I don't remember. She was a VP at a local mechanical contractor that her family had started as a family business called Murphy Company. They're in St. Louis and Denver and Fort Collins now. Um, they, she, she basically wanted to come in and talk about energy efficiency in buildings. So she came in, gave a talk, and that was like the second bug I got bit by.
I was like, oh, like I had experience with buildings. I knew what mechanical systems looked like and now there's this, you know, kind of like decarbonization or is what we call it now. But back then it was kind of like a, you know, climate mission that it [00:33:00] had to it as well. So she hired me right after school.
Um, I started, uh, in their design build group, so designing HVAC systems, mostly like small retrofits. And then she started within Murphy Company, she started an energy retrofit and retrocommissioning group. within Murphy Company, and then they actually spun it out and rebranded as its own thing, and they called it M 360.
And I really spent like several years at the beginning of my career focusing on energy modeling, project development for energy retrofits, uh, measurement and verification. And really that's like, like the beginning of me becoming like a true nerd, honestly. Um, I loved all of the technical side of that. Um, a few years into this, I don't remember how this exactly started, but somebody brought in the concept of it not really being about the project.
We were, we were making money off of projects, often [00:34:00] contractors, that's how they make their money, right? We were making money off of projects, but someone at some point realized, Hey, this isn't really about the project. It's about the ongoing performance and the idea of using F D D software to monitor the buildings after we did the retrofit.
I got super, like, obsessed with this idea, like obsessed. And I became like the, the team's go-to person on how we're gonna use F D D. And I was still like, still pretty early in my career, but it, it really felt like something that was like gonna be my thing for a long time. And so a few years later I joined, uh, they, so they shut down M 360, uh, M 360 no longer exists.
They, they let go, like half the team and the rest of us basically left. Uh, and went, went to other places. I realized that I, I wanted to do that. I didn't wanna stay at the company because if they weren't gonna do that, then I had to go basically. So a few years later I joined, uh, a consulting firm and they were just [00:35:00] starting down the f d D journey.
They were just like getting started with analytics software. And so I really had the opportunity to kind of decide and sort of design how they build out their services and how they integrated F D D into their existing services. Um, so I created a monitoring based commissioning offering, a subscription offering, created a utility data monitoring offering.
And we were serving, um, healthcare systems throughout Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Chicago area and universities mostly. Those were our kind of bread and butter, you know, big campuses. And, um, from there we, we realized that it wasn't just about the analytics, it was also about controls. And so that's when I started getting into designing and consulting on control systems.
Um, fast forward, yada, yada, yada, and eventually ended up at N Rail. Um, and NREL hired me to basically be one of the internal subject matter experts on analytics software for [00:36:00] the whole government. Basically, the way that n r works is they have a commissioning group. It's not all research. I didn't do very much research.
We were basically a consultant, an internal consultant to the government. So GSA would hire us, FEM hired us, the Navy hired us, and we sort of, we were like an expert that anybody in the government could sort of rely on. Um, and so as part of that, I kind of extended my, um, you know, sort of expertise on, they call it energy management information systems, um, so emmis, but basically the same thing as I had been doing for a really long time.
And then at that time, nexus was like, became my side gig. And so I started, started working on Nexus while I was at nre, and then eventually Nexus grew into the full-time thing.
[00:36:50] Rosy Kahlife: Cool. I didn't know that when you were at nre, you were consulting all different kind of departments or areas of the government. [00:37:00] That's super interest.
[00:37:01] James Dice: Yeah. Yeah. And so like Fem was writing a guide for all federal agencies to use analytics software. And so I wrote that guide. And then like the Navy, they were deploying Sky Foundry out into the entire portfolio for the Navy. And so we helped them with that deployment. So it was a bunch of different, kind of the same projects I was doing in the private sector, but just doing it for the, for different government agencies.
[00:37:26] Rosy Kahlife: That's awesome. Um, and what was your least favorite part of that work that you were doing over those, you know, number of years?
[00:37:34] James Dice: Yeah. It, I'll tell you, it, it wasn. , it wasn't site visits. I love site visits. Site visits are one of my favorite parts. I love like doing audits. I love mechanical rooms and I actually really miss it. So it's something I hope to get back to soon. Like if we start to think about doing case studies and things like that, I want to get back in some mechanical rooms.
Um, but I think the least favorite parts, [00:38:00] um, I felt like that there were just basic, there was basically basic education that I felt like was missing. You know, when we talk about our foundations course, we talk about helping people get it and I'm using get it in air quotes here. Yeah. People getting it is sort of the first prereq requisite to walking down a smart buildings path if you're talking to people on a project by project basis.
And most of those people don't understand. What smart buildings are, why they're important, why we should even start down that journey. It can feel a little bit like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill day after day after day. Um, I remember this, this project, it was a hospital in Kansas City and we were the commissioning agent on the, on the, it was a new, new hospital.
We were the commissioning agent and we were under contract to do analytics and monitoring based commissioning as part of that commissioning process. And I walk into the job site [00:39:00] and the people on the job site didn't even understand what commissioning was, let alone then make the leap to monitoring based commissioning and using analytics software.
And so it was like, not only did I have this really hard thing that a lot of people didn't do, especially in Kansas City, you know, 6, 7, 8 years ago, but I also had to then justify why I was even there in the first place. And so there was a lot of that that I just felt like. If, if there were more broad basic education across the industry, it would make everyone's jobs a lot easier.
So that's the first thing. Um, with that, I feel like everyone sort of hoards best practices and lessons learned,
[00:39:40] Rosy Kahlife: A hundred
[00:39:41] James Dice: right? If I, if I learn something on a project that becomes sort of like a trade secret, and I felt like the only way I was gonna be able to learn. I, I read Ashray Journal a lot. I, I often found people at conferences and I would make sure that they weren't a competitor of mine before I started asking them questions, [00:40:00] right?
So, um, Altura, who is one of our partners now, Altura, they weren't in St. Louis 10 years ago. And so I remember meeting them for the first time and I was like, basically like, Hey guys, like you're ahead of me on this journey. Like, but I'm not a competitor to you. Can you share some stuff to me? And I just felt like that whole.
It's kind of like an ethos, like it's the way the industry works. I, I thought that was stupid because when you're trying to lead, we were trying to lead our customers and our clients on this journey, and if we were still unsure and still learning ourselves, then it was really difficult to lead them. And so I just felt like there was like this, you know, we need to share best practices more.
Um, the last thing I'll say is I could, I could, you know, sitting as a contractor, sitting as an energy person, sitting as a consultant and then sitting at nre, I feel like I saw all the different ways in which the problem was really complex, but I didn't feel [00:41:00] like as I was sitting in each of those roles, I didn't, I never felt like I could make things happen faster.
So I've always felt like I was working on a project by project basis and there was more I could do to help every project go faster. Everything just felt really slow to me. And so that was probably. That, that's probably a good summary of, of how frustrated I got, you know, in each of these roles.
[00:41:26] Rosy Kahlife: And have you ever made the correlation between, you are frustrated that things were going too slow, and then with Nexus you have a platform where you're able to really influence on kind of a broader scale. Do you think that's part of why Nexus looks the way it does now because of your frustrations in some of those roles that you had?
[00:41:44] James Dice: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there are probably many days where I was, you know, contracted and very frustrated and I didn't see the bigger picture. Right. I was just thinking about my project, but I think I definitely have used in building Nexus, I've used that [00:42:00] frustration and kind of channeled it and said like basically saying I know there are people that felt like me or, and still feel like me, still feel like I did, that are out there doing project by project, you know, today.
[00:42:11] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah. And I, and we meet them, you know, they're, some, some of 'em are pro members and, you know, we meet them at happy hours and it's, it's like they share a bond with you and, you know, they're, you know, you get me, thanks for voicing how I really feel. And it's, it's like a moment, emotional moment for them.
And it's, it's special to witness. And I saw it recently at a happy hour that we had, and I felt like that person was really happy that you existed and were sharing the things that you do.
[00:42:40] James Dice: And I feel like that's our north, like we have to remember that that's our north star it feels like, is like remembering that there's people out there and how do we make their, each project that they're doing, you know, easier than the one before it and, and make it so that they don't feel like they're alone in those projects.
That's kind of, I think we always have to [00:43:00] remind ourselves that that's kind of it, you know.
[00:43:02] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, that's the north star of, of the per the, the purpose of all of these things that we're doing. Uh, I loved hearing about your background, so thanks for sharing. Um, I'd love to hear, you know, now we're kind of at a point where you are, you have started sort of nexus. Maybe you could take us through. How did you come up with the idea for Nexus?
[00:43:22] James Dice: Yeah, I, I think first of all, you've probably learned this already in the three and a half weeks we've worked together. I have ideas all the time, um, and most of the ideas that I have around starting businesses, I, I like totally ignore. I might write them down in my notebook and then I never come back to them again.
But this one, I remember daydreaming with Nexus. I remember daydreaming this idea, and maybe I even journaled about it, you know, probably five, six years ago, basically saying like, I wish this existed. Um, and thinking like, you know, I can write, I probably have the skillset to do that, but then I just kind of set it aside.
[00:44:00] Um, and it. It took kind of going to enrail to realize that, oh, like I can share my trade secrets now, like I said earlier, I can, I can, I don't really have any competition. Um, as a National Lab, Enrail doesn't theoretically have any competition, and so the trade secrets can be shared with anyone. And so that's when I basically just, you know, said, Hey, what if I start to share what I, what I've picked up and share my questions and share just lessons learned along the way.
And so I signed up for a writing course called Rite of Passage. Um, took that on the weekends when I was at en r and their first assignment was to create a weekly newsletter and basically commit and tell people that you were gonna show up at the same time every week with a new essay. And that's kind of where it, that's kind of where it began,
[00:44:48] Rosy Kahlife: Wow. What if you hadn't taken that course?
[00:44:51] James Dice: you know, it was really helpful because I was so nervous and it, it allowed me to say to people, Hey, , I'm taking this writing [00:45:00] course and their assignment was to create a, a newsletter. So it kind of made it so it was like, Hey, they're telling me to do this thing because I don't know that I would've had the confidence to basically say like, cuz who wants to hear from, you know, this was my internal voice in my head.
Who wants to hear from me? Um, who wants to hear from me every week even, right. .
[00:45:19] Rosy Kahlife: right
[00:45:19] James Dice: Um,
and so I was able to say like, Hey, I just took this writing course. My assignment was this. Uh, do you wanna subscribe? That was an easier ask than, you know, someone like me who's shy and doesn't want to be the center of attention.
So,
[00:45:34] Rosy Kahlife: Which is so ironic if you, I'm sure people don't think that you, people must think that you like being the
[00:45:41] James Dice: well, engineers don't want to be, I think all the engineers out there are gonna identify with, I think facility managers are the same. We don't want to be the center of attention. We don't want to stick our noses out, and we don't want to say that like, my ideas are better than the group's ideas. It's just not something that is in the [00:46:00] engineer's ethos.
Right?
[00:46:01] Rosy Kahlife: Mm, true.
So what did the early days of Nexus look like versus.
[00:46:08] James Dice: Ooh, that's a really good question. I think the, the first thing is very obvious if someone's listening to this in that you're now here. So that's a really great thing because there was three years where I was basically alone on this thing, felt like I was on an island and no one really understood me.
Right. Um, just kind of doing this all alone. Um, and, and that's not to say that there haven't been people that have helped out along the way. And obviously everyone in our community makes me feel, uh, uh, like I'm, you know, part of the community as well. But, you know, it is a different place being on this side.
Of, of Nexus now that you're, you're here, you probably understand that. Um, and then the early days, like there were two, there were two phases of early days, I'd say. So when I was, when I was on the, the side, doing it on the [00:47:00] side at n r, um, there was a lot, lot of long days. Luckily it was during Covid, right?
So I was up to, by the time I quit at nre, I was working about 40 hours a week on Nexus and about 40 hours a week for nrel. And so it, it, it led to some burnout. So I'd say that was like phase one. Um, and as you've discovered, I've had to kind of set some hard boundaries around, you know, let's not burn James out again.
Um, so I can kind of do this for the long term. Um, I think another one is just kind of feeling around in the dark. I feel like at the beginning, and really up until very recently, I don't feel like I really understood what this thing was like where it's headed. What is the, the, what is Nexus and what, what are we actually building here?
Um, and it really has been a process of like, each individual step has made sense. So like, once the newsletter became a thing, the podcast was a good idea, right? Once the [00:48:00] podcast became a thing, the community, the pro community was a good idea. And so each individual step has made sense, but I didn't really have a clear sense of like, okay, where's this thing headed to?
Right? Um, whereas now I think like in the process of you bring, like bringing you on board, I feel like I now have a clear sense of like what this is gonna be and I can kind of like see it in, in more detail than I had before around what this is gonna be five years from now even.
Um, I think the last one I'd say is that, um, I did a lot of consulting.
I think people ask me all the time, like, is this is Nexus full-time? Like how do you make this work? Is this a real business? And the, the reason it was able to be a real business at the beginning is cuz I just did a lot of consulting so that I could pay myself, right. Um, and it's only really been less than a year, which has crazy to think it's only been less than a year where Nexus has been a full-time thing.
So now this company, which is [00:49:00] crazy to say, employs me and it employs you and other part-time people, but like, that's only been true for like a little under a year. Um, so that's definitely changed a lot.
[00:49:13] Rosy Kahlife: so cool. Um, I'd love to, you know, they asked us a lot, uh, of entrepreneurs and, and founders, you know, was there a moment, what was the moment when you felt like you actually had something here? And was it a moment, was it a series of moments? You know, so I'd love to hear from you what that looks like for you in starting Nexus.
[00:49:34] James Dice: Yeah, I don't think there was one moment. I think it's been a, definitely been a series of moments. So I, if I think back to like, I told a story around the newsletter when I first started sharing the newsletter, um, I didn't have any LinkedIn followers. I didn't really have like a network to share it with, so I just started like DMing people on LinkedIn, like, Hey, I just started this newsletter.
Um, and it was probably like that for several months, but [00:50:00] then at one point I remember it kind of starting to grow on its own, right? It wasn't like I was out there DMing people and then they would sign up. It was like, I didn't DM people and five, 10 people would sign up in a week and I was like, oh, people are actually sharing this and talking about it outside of, you know, my own conversations.
So that, that was probably the first one. Um, and then when I started the Nexus Pro community, 50 people joined and paid in month one. Uh, and I just remember thinking like, Holy shit. Like how did, how is that possible and how did that happen? Um, and yeah, I think there's been things like that throughout the whole journey here.
And then really I'd say, I still question whether I actually have something. I think people might not realize that, right? But it's still definitely a question in the back of my mind, like, uh, really culminating in you joining, like, I think I've told you, like, is she really gonna join? Like, that was in the back of my head, like, why would she really [00:51:00] want to join this little thing?
Uh, so, uh, it's, it's an unfolding series of moments I'd say.
[00:51:07] Rosy Kahlife: I think that the way that you feel that last bit that you shared helps as a founder. It's good to feel that way because it helps you continuously question everything you're doing and make sure, am I creating services and products and things that people actually want to read? Am I, you know, serving them and always having them as the North Star?
So it's obvious that that's how you feel, and I think it shows. and how you handle Nexus the community and whatnot. So I, I actually like that
You feel that way,
[00:51:38] James Dice: might call it anxiety, but you can cha you can channel the anxiety into, into a good thing. Yes.
[00:51:44] Rosy Kahlife: Definitely. Um, okay. Let's, let's switch it up a little. What is, or what has been the most surprising part? You know, I love surprises o of starting Nexus.
[00:51:56] James Dice: Oh, man. Um, [00:52:00] I think really that the people that I've attracted, so I, I think I'm a, a different sort of engineer in that I'm not totally introverted, right. They're, I'm definitely introverted in that I feel like the thing I wanna spend my time doing is sort of deep work on my own a lot of times. I think people give me energy too, and I love connecting with people and developing relationships with people and the caliber of people that I've met just by putting my ideas out there and then seeing who shows up.
That's been really, really cool. Um, I, I knew that could theoretically happen. Um, that's kind of the whole premise of that Rite of Passage course that I talked about, but then actually seeing it happen, I, I like pinch myself every day with like, the caliber of people that I get to get to work with, like you.
Um, and then I, I, I think this is maybe a deeper answer, the second one here, which is, [00:53:00] I'm surprised at how much I learn about myself through the entrepreneurial journey. I feel like there are tons and tons of ways in which growing this company shows me the ways in which I need to grow as a person all the time.
um, ev like weekly, maybe even daily, on a daily basis. It's really kind of intertwined with my own spiritual path, and I wouldn't say that's like, it's, it's probably not surprising to a lot of people that have grown a company before, but this is my first company and so that's definitely been a surprising, surprising part of this.
[00:53:37] Rosy Kahlife: I love that. Such a good answer. Uh, okay, so you, very helpful context. I'd like us to go a little bit behind the scenes of Nexus. Get into your head. You know, obviously I was a pro member and a member of the community before I joined. The other side. And so I've, I have kind of an interesting perspective cuz I've seen, you know, both sides of [00:54:00] the coin in terms of how people feel about Nexus.
And I often hear just, you know, this is the modern place, nexus is so different, nexus is unique. It's so innovative. You know, I, I've heard that a lot throughout the time of, of knowing Nexus. And so I wanted to hear from you and in your own words why you think Nexus is special or what makes it special.
[00:54:20] James Dice: Yeah, this is a difficult question to answer because I have a, a, a very, very sharp and loud critic in my head all the time. That's always looking at Nexus like, oh, it should be better in these ways. Um, so I always feel like there's ways in which we could do better, do a better job. I could do a better job at doing these things.
Um, , but I, I do have, I think I, I have a list here and I, I posted this list on LinkedIn really talking about how I feel like the media companies in our industry should be different. But I was really talking about like, these are the [00:55:00] things that I want to lean into for us, right? Um, and, and one of the first one is deeper content.
Um, and it's not just deeper content, it's deeper content created by the practitioners of this technology, right? So nothing against journalists, right? But like, this isn't a journalist that's writing, you know, fact based articles, right? It's really about people that are actually doing this, telling their stories, and really getting below the surface.
We say cutting through the fluff a lot. I don't know where that came from, but that's been around since almost the beginning. Basically like, I'm sick of the marketing fluff. Let's get through it. Let's call out the buzzwords. Let's get below the surface a little bit. Um, . Second one I'd say is, and, and when I get through this list, you should tell me if this is accurate, right?
Coming into this, and maybe the audience can tell us whether this is accurate too. Um, this is like Nexus is best self is what I'm, I'm describing here,
[00:55:58] Rosy Kahlife: Okay. I love [00:56:00] That's a
[00:56:00] James Dice: yeah. So the second ones, don't let sponsorship dollars drive the editorial or educational agenda. So I feel like, I think Nexus is different because sponsorship is not a, the main part of our business model, right?
People might not know, they might be listening to this and not really know. Nexus, we make money off of courses and community, so we're building out education and building community. Those are our two primary revenue drivers. Sponsorships are part of it. And, and building our partner program is sort of like sponsorships, even though we already talked about how it's different.
But it's not the main way in which we exist as a company. And I think that was a design decision from the beginning that I think lets us make different decisions than other media companies are able to make that are 100%, you know, driven by sponsorship dollars from vendors. Right. Um, on the flip side though, we don't want to do what I, I [00:57:00] heard someone say this one time at a conference.
They felt like they were getting put in time out because they were a technology vendor, right? They're being,
there's like a vendor pen over there and the vendors can't come out of their pen. Right. Um, and I, from the very beginning, you can look back at the, you know, the history of the podcast, 100 and plus episodes.
We have elevated the voices of technology vendors from the beginning and. and not because they're paying us, right? But because I believe that those are the people that are innovating, they have a lot to say. If they can put aside the sales messages, they can say and point a picture like, here's our technology, here's how it works, here's how it might work for building owners.
And I feel like there's two sides that we need to sort of promote. We need to promote what do the building owners want, and we need to promote what can the technology vendors do? And we can't silence either side of that. We need both. Um, another [00:58:00] area where I feel like we could do better on, but we're, we've been doing it from the beginning too, is, is we're, like I said, we're not journalists.
We're here to be opinionated. Um, and what that means is like there's a path that we're all working towards here. And if we're doing a good job of listening to our community, We should be able to synthesize and sort of paint that roadmap for people. And we're, we're starting to do this more and more. We did this with our Nexus lore white paper last year in 2022.
Really say like, okay, what, what are the ways in which we all agree here about how smart buildings should be done? And I don't feel like a lot of people do that enough in terms of, let's be opinionated on how this industry should transform. And I think what that means sometimes is that we're, we at Nexus are not actually as independent as [00:59:00] people sort of want us to be. Like I think we have opinions about like, if we meet, you know, the five vendors in the industry that are the best at this category, I don't believe that we should say like, well there's actually a hundred vendors that do this. No, we should probably point people towards the. The five best ones that we've evaluated.
So I think we'll probably lean into that more, like you said with the partner program, um, that we're actually not as independent as maybe a journalist might be. We're not going to promote ideas that don't line up with that roadmap that we have, you know, decided is the, the best way forward. Um, last one I'd say is that I, I, I think that we're different in that I, I've tried to, and, and we'll do better at this in the, in the future, try to find voices in the industry that are a little bit less well known.
Um, [01:00:00] and promote them and let them, you know, speak, give them speaking spots and really interviewing people because I feel like we need new voices. We need diverse voices. Um, one example is, Rachel Kennedy, who's been on the podcast before, we can link to her episode. She's, you know, five, six years outta school and she has for the last three years run our foundations course with me.
She helped create it. She's been there from the beginning. Um, she's a rockstar and I just felt like once I met her, she should be in front of more people and be in more of a leadership position. And I think we're gonna continue to do that as we build the company. And I hope that remains part of our, our sort of ethos.
[01:00:45] Rosy Kahlife: Those are all so good. Um, you talked, you hit on this in, in one of your answers, but I'd love to kind of hear from you if you can share, you know, how the smart building industry has sort of been operating and versus [01:01:00] how you like it to be, or the Nexus perspective on that.
[01:01:04] James Dice: Yeah.
[01:01:04] Rosy Kahlife: And before you answer, I think that this is the thing for Nexus. I think that this is super interesting and it hits on even why I joined Nexus, or why I think this whole, you know, smart building space is so interesting. It's this, this piece.
[01:01:21] James Dice: Yeah, and this is also what I find myself, you know, if people want, like I spoke at Greenbuild last fall, it's all about green buildings, but I found, I found myself going back to this message with basically what the green building community needs to know about smart buildings. This is kind of the message, and I, I keep bringing it up because I feel like more people should, should jump on this bandwagon with us, right?
And we're gonna be talking about it a lot at the A H R Expo next week as well. Um, well, by the time this gets published, it will be last week, but, um, we'll link to the nexus lower slide deck and, and [01:02:00] white paper in the show notes here. Um, . I think these, the, it's, it is important to point out that I didn't make this up, right?
So this came about, I think it was like we were on Nexus podcast like 125 by the point that we started, you know, producing this sort of roadmap for our industry. Um, it wasn't developed like, you know, in my home office, right? It was developed by talking to all these people, right? So, um, I think the first thing to point out right in, in sort of thinking about the industry's history is the siloed systems, right?
So if we think about a building's technology architecture, most of the time it's a bunch of different siloed systems that all have their own unique purpose, different inputs and outputs, different key stakeholders that are used to interacting with that system, different life safety functions, yada, yada yada.
So we're talking about HVAC lighting control systems. [01:03:00] Access control systems, they all have their se own separate stacks of technology often overlapping with each other. So the same components just in different stacks. Um, and what we've realized, I think as an industry is that building owners need a lot more than what those siloed systems are capable of.
So there's a, there's a big gap between, you know, we talk about decarbonization, we talk about indoor air quality, we talk about the experience of the occupant. These sale, these siloed systems aren't capable of enabling that level of performance that building owners need. So that's really the, that, that gap is like the main thing that we talk about here.
Right. If there was one thing, one nugget that's, it's that, . And I think if we think practically smart building solutions need to solve that problem by integrating with those systems, we're not gonna replace all the siloed systems. We can't rip and [01:04:00] replace everything in every building, you know, worldwide.
So when we talk about smart building solutions, we're talking about usually an overlay sitting on top of those existing silos to sort to pull data out, talk to them, um, and then really start to combine systems together to, to knock down those silos. Right. Um, and we're almost up to what you might call like phase one of the industry, which is really, we have a bunch of overlays.
You know, I, I heard, um, calmly from Ener tiv, he talked about one of their clients. You know, 50 different technology systems across their 50 building portfolio, right? And so some people call this point solution spaghetti, right? Where you have all these different, you know, software and hardware systems sort of interconnected together in an ad ad hoc way.
And you have all these different user interfaces, all these different products to log into [01:05:00] basically creating a ton more silos than we started out with, right? And so I think the phase we're entering into now is sort of reaction to that, which is instead of all these vertical solutions getting put up next to each other into more silos, we're talking about the future being more of a horizontal architecture where building owners are not anymore buying all these redundant layers, redundant stacks from all these different vendors.
They wanna start to buy applications that share a common infrastructure, right? So, um, , we've talked about this on the podcast with Google. We've talked about the podcast with Allianz. We've talked about, I think a lot of leading, leading building owners are sort of heading in this direction and the layers of the stack.
When we talk about horizontal, we're talking about building up from the, the, you know, the, the baseline of the building, which is all of the devices in the building are at the bottom of the horizontal architecture. And then we're layering on the, the infrastructure for starting to connect with [01:06:00] those systems, right?
So the next layer up is the network layer and then the data layer or the idl, the got IDL layer, the independent data layer is next. And then on top of that sits the application layer. So instead of having this whole stack for each of our individual applications, we have one infrastructure stack, and then we have applications that sit on top of and share that, that stack.
And I think that's sort of the, the future that we're sort of pointing people towards.
[01:06:29] Rosy Kahlife: Super interesting. Thank you for summarizing that. I feel like it's something that comes up in a lot of the conversations I also have with vendors and partners, and it's, a lot of people have gotten a lot of value from how you've synthesized all of this in a way that's easy for people to understand. And I think it's a complex concept, obviously.
Uh, so that's, that's
really
[01:06:52] James Dice: Let me, let me tie it. Yeah, real quick. So when I, when I talk to like conferences like Greenbuild, I'm not really getting into [01:07:00] the weeds of the architecture, but I'm trying to point out with this, that if they want to do things like enable green interactive buildings and they want to decarbonize their buildings, there is an infrastructure that they need to think about.
That is all of your control systems, all of your networks, all of your data layers, hopefully just one data layer that is gonna enable that success you're looking for. And I feel like that's, That's the, the bandwagon we need everyone to get on, like stop trying to sell grid interactive buildings. When you're building owners that you're selling that to, don't have these basic infrastructure layers set up, right?
And so if they were to say, yes, I want you to do grid interactive buildings, but uh, you also need to realize that your shared infrastructure is not set up to do that, then we could all start to speak on the same, from the same sheet of music. And then when, you know, I go to sell green interactive buildings and that, that some some day, [01:08:00] finally, when I come across a building owner that has this done already, it's gonna be really easy to enable great interactive buildings.
But right now, if we're all speaking from different sheets of music, we're never gonna have that infrastructure and we're never gonna be able to do these more sophisticated things with our buildings that we know that we need to do.
[01:08:18] Rosy Kahlife: That is the nugget right there. I think.
[01:08:21] James Dice: Totally.
[01:08:22] Rosy Kahlife: Okay, great. Um, so I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the recent things you've been expressing and, and you know, for folks that are listening, uh, James is a frequent contributor on LinkedIn. He's always, I think he posts almost every day, which is, which is really cool. And sparks a lot of great conversation in the comments.
And I've met people from those comments just from replying to each other. So it's, it's a great space also. But you've recently shared, you know, a few posts about conferences and some of your, uh, thoughts that, you know, the things that are sort of irking you these days [01:09:00] about conferences. And what was interesting is there's a bunch of comments, really lively discussion in, in, you know, on that post.
I wanted to hear from you, you know, if you could share kind of how you're feeling about conferences and or maybe what the community has shared about it as well.
[01:09:15] James Dice: Yeah, I think a lot of this got started when we started to. Calendar for the year, like what conferences are we gonna go to? And I started to get this sort of sinking feeling in my gut like, oh, now I have to like picture myself going to these conferences again. And I think there are a lot of people that sort of feel like, cuz I've heard from them, people that are technical, that want to go learn something at a conference.
I think there are a lot of people like me that are a bit frustrated and I, I'm not talking about really in the individual conference, I'm not picking on anyone. It's really more in general. Um, but I, I, I don't want to take this negative, but I think it's important to like, sort of point out these things. I think the first one, and by the way, we have [01:10:00] several posts that a lot of other people have weighed in on.
I'm gonna try to synthesize those thoughts here. Um, the first one is diversity is a pretty big problem. Um, drew Dupree, who is one of our members, really valued member of the Nexus community, he did a study, it's just like his own study during 2020, um, where he looked at all speaking slots across, um, real estate tech, sort of focused events.
And he found that only 13.3% of those slots were women, which is insane. Let's just like call it what it is. Um, and that's really cool that he did that. We can kind of dig up, dig up his, uh, link to show people. . And so I think part of that is, is is gender diversity. Part of it is racial diversity, and part of it is just diversity of ideas, right?
People that haven't historically gotten [01:11:00] speaking slots, I feel like conferences should go out of their way to sort of find those new voices. I think it's imperative that they do so. Um, and I think one of the ways we men that, that get invited, I get invited to a lot of different panels. I get invited to speak at a lot of different conferences.
I think men need to push back on this a little more. Um, I just did this last week. I got asked to be on a manhole and I said, Hey, like, let's make, let's either replace me or bring in a woman and really try to get other men that are making these decisions to see the value of, of diversity. And I think I go as far as to say that like we, we.
I don't think there should be any more men only panels in the industry. Um, I think as a member of the audience, I, I think, and as a speaker on men only [01:12:00] panels, I think it just, there are so many reasons why, and people can go into my posts to like, go into detail on what I think, but there's so many reasons why I think that should be something, something of the past.
What, what are your thoughts?
[01:12:12] Rosy Kahlife: I, I think that other industries have sort of gotten this already and have been very aware of it and are careful of it and are not, and you know, try to solve for it and have solved for it. But I think this particular industry in terms of the smart building space is still figuring this out and it's is still in the early stages of making that not a thing anymore.
But if you look at, you know, if you go to a startup, It's unlikely that you'll find a panel of just men. Like, it just, it's not, it's not as much of a thing, uh, or, or some other ones. But I think in general, all industries are, you know, moving
having more diversity in general.
[01:12:51] James Dice: Yeah. Like when I went to Green Build and I went to Verge in the fall, those are a little bit outside the smart building sphere. They have more like smart [01:13:00] buildings as a topic in this broader umbrella of topics. Both of those conferences did a really good job on diversity. I think when you look like this is a place where the actual real estate tech focused conferences need to do, need to do a better job.
[01:13:15] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah. And I think some folks will say, you know, let's just base it off of merit and. That should be the only, you know, the only focus. That's what we're looking for. And while I definitely agree with that, of course we wanna have speakers of, of a high caliber. Cause I, as a person in the audience, I wanna be learning something.
So of course that's, that goes without saying. But I think if you just don't create those opportunities for those other types of people, you know, it's just perpetuating a never ending cycle. Right. And so at some point someone has to sort of break the cycle so that it can continue from there and grow to a different place.
So yeah, I love, I love your position on that and you know, more people need to approach it in the way that you do.
[01:13:57] James Dice: Thanks. Um, so [01:14:00] next is depth. Well, actually before we move on from that, I think we should talk a little bit about what we're gonna do at Nexus in the, in this category. Um, we're just kind of in the early stages of implementing this, but um, I think this is a little bit of a challenge to the other sort of media companies out there.
I think the bare minimum we can do is set targets. And Drew and I were kind of going back and forth in the comments on LinkedIn about this, but it feels like each of these organizations, us included, should have a diversity target that we're trying to hit. We should publish where we're at on that, our progress towards hitting those targets.
And then we're gonna do a couple more things that we'll announce here in the next couple months. But I think those, doesn't that feel like, just like a basic level of expectation, um, if you care about this thing, which a lot of them are saying that they care about it, why not publish your goals? Why not publish your progress [01:15:00] towards those goals?
[01:15:01] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, that seems like a great first step.
[01:15:03] James Dice: And right now, we're, we're collecting the data to be able to figure out where we're at. I don't know that I'm gonna love where we're at once we collect the data, but that's kind of the first step in doing it.
[01:15:13] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah.
[01:15:14] James Dice: The next thing I feel like is, is conferences. This is kind of what I was hitting at with, with. The technical members of the audience like me, a lot of us feel like the conferences lack depth. Um, and I think I've talked to a lot of, a lot of like actual practitioners that have stopped showing up to conferences.
A couple people commented this, a couple people have just said when we're talking to them like, Hey, am I gonna see you at XYZ conference next week? We just hear back like, no, I'm not, not going because, and I think it's not worth their time. The people that are out there doing projects, the conferences need to make it worth those people's time to get off of that project.
And with that you have to learn something like, like you have to teach those people something. And I think a lot of times, conferences. [01:16:00] Sort of cater to the least common denominator in a way. They, they cater to the beginners. And I believe in teaching beginners, like that's what our entire course is all about.
Teaching beginners. That's not, that's very, very important, but I feel like you, an, you alienate the practitioners when you have every conference that's just like repeating the same basic things over and over again. Um, and yeah, I think there's a lot that we could go into there. Um, but maybe I'll just give a little bit of a rapid fire on some other ideas that people had.
Um, we had Tim Erman said, you know, the audience attention and engagement sucks these days. So this is kind of calling out the audience rather than the conference
[01:16:42] Rosy Kahlife: That's a good one. That's a great, I, you know, not something you always think about. He's
[01:16:46] James Dice: Yeah. When you're up on stage and you see the people's, the tops of people's heads because they're buried in their phone somewhere, it's like, why are you here? Why did you come to this conference? Why did I take my own time to prepare this panel and this [01:17:00] presentation for you, if you're gonna be in your email?
Uh,
it's, it's a little bit infuriating. Um, I think people need to realize that like a lot of people that are up on stage are spending their own time when they could be working on their business. They could, they're donating their time a lot of times to be up on that stage. And I think we could, we could pay 'em a little bit more respect.
Um, a lot of people said pay to play and keeping vendors in time out. We've talked about that a little bit. Um, but I think this is just a business model thing for conferences. I don't know what they should do here, because if they're built on sponsorships and selling speaker slots, I'm not sure that they can do a whole lot, but I think that brings down the quality of the content.
[01:17:45] Rosy Kahlife: Mm-hmm.
[01:17:46] James Dice: And then the last one is from Drew said, um, creative interaction. So I think I, I agree with him. I think conferences can do a better job at facilitating interactions and not just, [01:18:00] Hey, it's our happy hour time, right? But more like, let's, as a group talk about this thing and maybe we disagree, maybe we can have a debate and, and sort of facilitating that interaction, that way we're not all just reinforcing the same ideas all the time.
And, and Verge did a really good example of this, the Verge Conference, um, over in the fall. It's a Green Biz conference. They, they sat me down at a table during lunch and they said, You know, anyone that wants to talk to James Deis about why single pane of glass is a shitty acronym. I can't remember exactly what the prompt was, but they basically said like, you know why the single pane of glass is not, you know, the pania we're all panacea, we're all looking at, at it as and, and 10 people-ish came and had lunch with me.
And we talked about all the stuff that we're talking about here on this podcast. And it was great. It was a great way to interact with the people in the conference. [01:19:00] So that's, those are some ideas, and I think a lot of people are asking us, is there a Nexus conference that's gonna
[01:19:06] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, I was read my mind. You read my mind
literally
[01:19:10] James Dice: these are good ideas.
Um, but I think you and I both sort of respect how much work it is to put on a conference and so, We do. We do all you conference organizers. We do respect you and respect the work that it takes to, to do a conference, but it might be something if none of them change, that we are forced to do in the future.
Cause we want to create a space that people like us want to be. And I can't say I feel that way right now about a lot of the conferences.
[01:19:41] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, and I think we hear that all the time. And I think maybe the first or the way that we can sort of get our feet wet is, um, you know, doing a hosting a day at one of the conferences that a lot of us usually attend, making it like a nexus day. And you know, James and I can [01:20:00] hours and hours figure out exactly how it'll be the best that it can be taking in all this feedback and all these suggestions.
And I think we could probably handle doing that, but I don't know if. Having a whole conference right
now
[01:20:11] James Dice: Yeah.
[01:20:12] Rosy Kahlife: is, the right next step.
[01:20:13] James Dice: I think the challenging part of that, and we've talked to. some conference organizers about this. Um, the challenging part of that is it's gotta be worth our time to make these conferences better. And I think a lot of the conferences kind of treat us like we're gonna come and show up and do a lot of work for free.
And that's, it's, we're, that's a place that we're kind of stuck right now, I'd say, is we have to figure out what, what makes sense for us in that, in that department. So that's our conference update for anyone that's wondering.
[01:20:46] Rosy Kahlife: that's good. Everyone was wondering, I'm sure. So, you know, we touched on so many different things. I think as a, as a listener, you know, you're probably wondering what's next? What do we have to look forward [01:21:00] to in 2023 for Nexus? So maybe James, you could give us some of the highlight reels of, of what to expect.
[01:21:07] James Dice: Yeah, absolutely. I, I wrote about this in the first newsletter of the year and we can link to that. Uh, I'll kind of share some of that, but a little bit of new stuff as well. Um, generally I think with you coming on board, you are taking a lot of the operations, sales, marketing stuff that I'm, you know, we are kind of a yin and yang in that way, in that you can take a lot of stuff off my plate that I shouldn't have been doing anyways.
Um, and it allowed me to sort of put a lot more time into content. I think you and I are also like creative thought partners a little bit, and so we'll be just by the fact that you're on the team. I think we'll be improving the way that we do things like improving the podcast, improving the pro membership community, improving the consistency and the really just the diversity of, of thought on the content that we're [01:22:00] already doing.
So just basically getting better, I think. Um, we've talked about the partner program. I think the partner program is gonna drive deeper content, so, um, , we're really gonna, you know, work with these partners that come on board to find the best stories of the best projects that they're working on and their best customers, right?
And dig into can we create case studies on those? Can we create ongoing columns? Can we create white papers on the best practices with that particular, um, partner in particular category? I think that's gonna be really fun. And then finally, we're, we're gonna create this creator program. We have, I think we have 42 applications at this point, um, of people that, that would love to contribute to what we're doing.
And I think that's a really, really amazing, started that a little bit already where we've had other people come on the podcast like Joe and Gene and other Joe and [01:23:00] Mandy. Um, we're gonna do that more and more. We've started an access control column with Lee oDesk, which is great. Um, , we've mentioned Drew De Priest, he's gonna be coming soon too.
So we're gonna have creators come on board that are gonna be sort of diversifying the voices, um, on this platform. And then finally, courses. So we, we have one course right now, our foundations course focused on kind of helping beginners start to think strategically about smart buildings. And we're gonna do more courses, more topics.
Um, one of the things I'm excited about creating soon is an awareness level course. So somebody, a, a course for someone that is sort of on the periphery of the industry, uh, that can understand in a couple hours why smart buildings and how they work and that kind of thing. Um, so that if you think about like, uh, a condo board member, right?
Why [01:24:00] should that condo building get more intelligent, right? Something for them to absorb in a few hours that gets them sort of down the path and like I said earlier, make more people sort of get it, you know?
[01:24:12] Rosy Kahlife: Mm.
[01:24:13] James Dice: So that's kind of where we're headed. Do you think we can do all that like next week?
[01:24:17] Rosy Kahlife: I think tomorrow what, you know, we'll just block out the whole day. Oh man. It was so much to look forward to. This has been so interesting. I I, before we sort of wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, is there anything else you wanna share with our listeners that you didn't have a chance to?
[01:24:35] James Dice: Uh, I think that was a lot.
[01:24:38] Rosy Kahlife: Was in a good way? In a good way,
[01:24:42] James Dice: Um, so I think we should probably make this and do a series and we'll probably have more thoughts at the next episode.
[01:24:50] Rosy Kahlife: Cool. That sounds good. So before you go, I wanna ask you a, a very James question, so I'll just throw it back at you. Is there [01:25:00] a book or a podcast or a TV show that you've been loving lately that has made an impact on You
[01:25:06] James Dice: This is hilarious coming from you because I feel like I send you like three podcast episodes every weekend. Uh,
[01:25:14] Rosy Kahlife: It's amazing. I don't know how you have the time to listen to them, but then I said that to you this weekend and you told me, well, you know, I had a two hour run and then I had a two hour drive, and then so then it made sense of how you can do it.
[01:25:28] James Dice: Yeah. I spent five hours in the car this weekend and I had Yeah, spent over three hours total running. And so yeah, you can consume some podcasts in that time. Um, I think the one I'll share, and I want to hear your carve out too, um, the one I'll share, and it's one I sent you this weekend, which is Brene Brown's podcast.
Um, She's got one on Spotify called Unlocking Us. And the last couple episodes before she sort of leaves Spotify are really good talking about how people can live big in their [01:26:00] life. Um, and if, if no one's, if, if people that are listening to this that haven't sort of discovered Brene Brown, she's all into sort of vulnerability and sort of living a fulfilled and, uh, you know, a life full of sort of happiness, um, and kind of walking down your own spiritual path.
And she talks about living big, which is setting boundaries so you can live in your integrity and be generous. And I feel like that really resonated with me. Um, and she did an episode on, on that sort of framework. So I'll share that if anyone, if anyone needs help setting boundaries in their life, they might want to check that out.
[01:26:40] Rosy Kahlife: Okay. That's a good one. Um, I will share mine. Uh, tough one. There's so many. I feel like you are. If I could list you as a carve out, you'd be a carve out, but I'm not, not my answer.
[01:26:54] James Dice: That's not the
place for that.
[01:26:56] Rosy Kahlife: that's not my answer. Um, so you [01:27:00] recommended a book that I should read and I have read it and it's called the 12 week Year and I had never read it before.
And it's really about, sort of thinking about instead of thinking about our year in this arbitrary, you know, 12 month cycle, and we do, you know, we have a New Year's resolution and we sort of just plug along every month and, and whatnot. We really think about our, our, our time on this earth in these 12.
Sprints. And so I really love that. And I just love how the book is written even, and there's so many concepts in it that you can apply to so many different areas of your life. But one of the things that I thought was just an interesting thought, um, you know, at one point, you know, the author is writing, you know, if you've had, if you said, these are the things that you're gonna accomplish today, just don't sleep until you do them, or, or kind of something like that.
And I just as a concept thought that was really interesting because sometimes a lot of us can make these long to-do lists, right? And, and they're not [01:28:00] realistic, so you're never gonna finish them in a day. Right? And so it's, it's kind of a twofold lesson. It's the lesson of. Figuring out actually what can you accomplish in a day and being realistic about that.
So I think that's part of what he was saying. And then the second part is really committing to whatever it is that you said you're gonna do today, actually getting it done. And I live my life that way, so I, and most people, I've never really read it written in that way where people agree, cuz I'm, it's a little bit intense of, of, as a concept of don't sleep until you finish.
And that's me. And so I thought, I, I think it just made me feel,
seen said that
I feel bad. Like that's okay. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, that's a good one. I highly recommend it. And that is a James recommendation,
[01:28:45] James Dice: feel like I'm glad I recommended that to you because you can help me sort of reign in all of my ideas. And you, you've already done this a bit too in terms of like, what, what, what, James, like what can we actually accomplish this [01:29:00] quarter versus like, James wants to do everything right now,
[01:29:03] Rosy Kahlife: It's good. Good
[01:29:05] James Dice: Well, thank you for doing this.
I wouldn't have chosen to do this. If it weren't for you pushing me,
[01:29:13] Rosy Kahlife: Good. Well, I'm happy that I could get this, get this out of you in a way. And I think that listeners are really gonna enjoy listening to your backstory and how you got to this point.
[01:29:24] James Dice: let us know. So if you're listening to this, uh, 90 minutes in at this point, let us know. If you like this and you want us to do more of the James and Rosie show or not, you can tell us if we should never do this again too.
[01:29:37] Rosy Kahlife: just be kind though. I'm not James. So James is good with just blunt feedback. That's not me. So just keep that in mind you're telling us what you
[01:29:47] James Dice: Send us an email and don't copy Rosie or copy Rosie and make it kind. But I, I want the, I want the raw version. If you think that, if you think this is full of shit, just let us know. [01:30:00] Let me know. All right. Bye
"Building owners need a lot more than what siloed systems are capable of. Smart building solutions need to solve that problem by integrating with those systems, and in the next phases, adopting more of a horizontal architecture where building owners are not buying all of these redundant layers anymore from a bunch of different vendors. But if we're all speaking from different sheets of music, we're never going have that infrastructure and we're never going to be able to do these more sophisticated things with our buildings."
—James Dice
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technology—hosted by James Dice. If you’re new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industry—together. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 138 is a special episode with Nexus Labs' new COO, Rosy Khalife.
We introduce you to Rosy who, for the first time on the podcast, turns the tables and interviews me. We talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs, the founding story of the company, and then Rosy asks some fun questions.
If you're looking for some background on me and Nexus Labs, this is definitely a good place to start.
Without further ado, please enjoy Nexus podcast episode 138 with Rosy Khalife.
You can find Rosy and James on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
👋 That's all for this week. See you next Thursday!
Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways Nexus Labs can help you:
1. Take our shortcut to learning the Smart Buildings industry here (300 students and counting)
2. Join our community of smart buildings nerds and gamechangers here (400 members and counting)
3. (NEW) Join the Nexus Labs Syndicate for opportunities to invest in the best smart buildings startups that cross my desk each month.
4. (NEW) Our Partner Hub is launching soon. This is an opportunity to be featured on our website, get original content, and tap into the Nexus community. Email us at partners@nexuslabs.online
Music credit: Dream Big by Audiobinger—licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
Note: transcript was created using an imperfect machine learning tool and lightly edited by a human (so you can get the gist). Please forgive errors!
[00:00:31] James Dice: Welcome to the Nexus podcast. This is a special episode. That one might call the James and Rosie show. This could be a new series, maybe, maybe not. If we decide we like it, if we get some good feedback on it, we're gonna introduce Nexus Lab's, new coo, Rosie Califf.
Hi Rosie.
[00:00:52] Rosy Khalife: Hello Hi James.
[00:00:55] James Dice: it's great to have you the, then Rosie's gonna kind of turn the tables on [00:01:00] me and interviewed me potentially. I think for the first time on this podcast, we'll talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs. We'll talk about the founding story of the company and then I think you have some fun other questions, miscellaneous questions that you have in store for me.
Uh, I really don't like being the center of attention, so I'm gonna squirm throughout this whole episode. Uh, but if you're in the audience and you're looking for some background on me, uh, and the company, this is definitely a good place to start. But we're gonna start with Rosie first. Um, and I thought we'd start with a new icebreaker question.
I'm still sort of searching for the beginning icebreaker question for this show, but we'll start with this one. Rosie. If you could create a billboard that the whole smart building industry would see, what would it say on it?
[00:01:51] Rosy Khalife: Such a hard question. There are so many things that come to mind, but I will have to steal. One of the Nexus style [00:02:00] billboards, and that is the got i d l question mark. And James, maybe you could tell us quickly, I, I believe one of our Nexus Pro members designed a shirt that has that on it. Is that right?
And then actually ended up making it
[00:02:15] James Dice: Yeah. So we posted our first shirt on our pro member, uh, chat room and Brian Vaughn of Kris Cushman Wakefield responded and said, that's a, he said that's a cool design, but how about this one? And he had like photoshopped his own design and it said, got IDL just like the, in the same font as the old got Milk campaign.
Um, and if you're in another country, we realized yesterday that if you're in Australia or Europe or Asia, you might not have had the got milk campaign growing up. So you might not understand, but Got IDL is in reference to the got milk commercials of our childhood with the milk mustaches on [00:03:00] all the celebrities and everything like that.
[00:03:02] Rosy Khalife: I love it. That's awesome. Yeah. That, that would be my billboard.
[00:03:06] James Dice: So we'll put the links to these t-shirts in the show notes. Um, We have a got IDL T-shirt that I will be wearing at the AHR Expo coming up. All right. That's a, that's a great billboard. I agree. Um, let's start with a little bit of your background, Rosie. How did you get here? You're now working at Nexus Labs in the smart buildings industry.
You weren't always in the smart buildings industry. How'd you get here?
[00:03:32] Rosy Khalife: Yeah. It's an interesting story. So I, my first kind of gig in life, I was, I'm an entrepreneur by background, so I started a company, it was in a completely different space. It was a kids company all about getting kids. Off technology, interestingly enough, and doing things in the real world. I started with my sister, we ended up going on Shark Tank for the idea.
We got investment, we grew the company. And then it got acquired, uh, years later. And then I [00:04:00] kind of jumped into the VC world, started another company, and I've just been always loving, you know, what's new, what's interesting. Uh, I love entrepreneurship. And then I joined a, uh, IOT startup and that's kind of how I met James and Nexus and got into the smart building world.
So that was sort of my first foray into it and I've been hooked ever since. And now obviously with Nexus, just more in that world and have really loved getting to know it and understanding all the gaps and the opportunities within.
[00:04:35] James Dice: You breezed right over the whole Shark Tank thing. Um, can you just tell the story of, of Shark Tank and Rosie real quick.
[00:04:44] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, sure. Um, so I went on Shark Tank when I had just graduated college. So I had started the company while I was still a senior in college, and I was, I got accepted into an accelerator at the same time, and I was running, you know, the [00:05:00] company and also finishing up my undergrad degree. Interestingly enough, I got a 4.0 that year as I, I was so busy, but it was just such a interesting lesson that I carried with me that when you're so busy, you really have, you don't have time to procrastinate and so you really prioritize everything.
Um, and so we started that company. It sort of took off and then we landed on Shark Tank in such a, it was such a process. I don't know if, if listeners know, but. It's kind of like the American Idol of the entrepreneurship world. So you apply, thousands of people apply from all over the world and it's a whole process.
And you still don't know if you're ever gonna actually air. You don't know if you're gonna make it. So you work on this for months and months, you know, and it takes time away from you building your company and you're not sure. It's kind of a gamble. And so we did all of that. And even when you go to Hollywood to actually film, you still don't know if you're gonna air, because not every single company [00:06:00] that films in front of the sharks.
Actually airs on television. And the reason being is if every single company, you know, why wouldn't you invest in every company? Because they're gonna get, obviously, a spike in sales, right? the 8 million viewers. So you would probably invest more, you know, frequently cuz you know there's gonna be a bump.
And so you could take advantage of that as an investor. And so not all the companies end up airing. So you, you just don't know this whole thing if it's even gonna work out. You just have to have faith and believe that it will. Um, so we, that, you know, shark Tank was an incredible experience. We ended up raising money from Kevin O'Leary.
It was very dramatic. I won't ruin it for folks that haven't watched our episode, but, um, the company name is Surprise Ride, if you wanna look it up. But, um, we went on there, we got an offer from Robert. We didn't take it right. He got really upset as Robert often does. And we left the tank without an offer.
So, you know, we were so sad and, and were [00:07:00] disappointed and then we, you know, felt like it was for the best. So we continued to raise funding outside of Shark Tank. We grew the company and then Shark Tank reached out to us and wanted to do an update on the company and on us. So they came to dc, which is where I'm located, and filmed an update on us.
And then Kevin O'Leary. Mr. Wonderful surprised us and it was a real surprise. We had no idea. Everyone says, you got, you two are such good actors, but we were not acting. He literally called us and said, Hey, I'm here. I'm in dc. I'd like to come by. And they were filming, they were filming an update, but we didn't know he was coming.
And then he came and made us an offer and then we, we partnered with him.
[00:07:40] James Dice: So fun.
[00:07:41] Rosy Khalife: Super cool.
[00:07:43] James Dice: All right, so you came into smart buildings and I guess with joining. Nexus, it's your second company in Smart Buildings. I'm wondering, I feel like that was a key decision point. You could have came into smart buildings and then because you're an entrepreneur, you could have said, well, [00:08:00] I want to go to some other industry next, do my thing elsewhere.
But you said, I'm gonna dive into Nexus. I'm gonna stay in the smart buildings world. So I'm wondering why, why that is for someone like you.
[00:08:10] Rosy Khalife: Yeah. It, it's funny you touched on something that I definitely thought a lot about when I was sort of making my decision of what I wanted to do next, and it felt like I had learned so much about this industry or this space, the smart building space, and I had really loved the people. I, there's so many equation, you know, parts of the equation that came, came to life.
So obviously the actual space itself and, and what folks are trying to achieve here. I like that. Then there's the people involved. I met so many great people. I, I really like those people, you know, from conferences and, and from clients, and it was just, that felt right, and so there was all these different pieces that were coming together that made it feel.
I had learned too much to not continue working in this sort of space, and I had really enjoyed my time in, in [00:09:00] that field. And so it, that, that was one of the big reasons that it made a lot of sense to me to, to sort of continue. And then of course with, with Nexus, you know, that was more of a no-brainer of, of wanting to join Nexus as well.
[00:09:13] James Dice: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Why, why you think that was a no-brainer, um, why you decided to join us here? Join me, I guess,
[00:09:22] Rosy Khalife: of course. So I, I would say it's probably, um, I thought you could think about it in two buckets. So the first one is how I felt before I actually got to know you. And so there's, there's what I thought about Nexus before I met you and got to know you and all that. And then, What I thought about it after I got to know you.
So I would say the first one is before knowing you, I, the way I learned about Nexus is, uh, a colleague of mine sent me the Nexus newsletter and said, you know, there's this great newsletter that comes out every week. It part of this bigger platform all about smart buildings brings together a lot of cool, [00:10:00] smart people.
It's modern, there's nothing like it. And so as I was learning about Nexus, I became a pro member right away. As soon as I heard, you know, as soon as I read the newsletter, I wanted to be a pro member and join the community. And I just felt like there was something here because no one else is doing anything like this.
and I'm a big trend spotter, so I love spotting trends. I love to kind of figure out what's the next big thing. I, I, it's kind of, I think of it as a superpower of mine. So it comes in handy when I'm investing, it comes in handy as I'm making life decisions, I always think of, you know, what's that? What's that next thing?
And so I remember telling my husband about Nexus way before I, I met James or anything like that, and just told him, you know, this is, this is so, there's something here. There's something really interesting and there's like a sort of magic that's happening within this community that no one else is doing, and no one else is seeing this opportunity in the way that.
This founder has, has done and has [00:11:00] created Nexus. And so that was before I met you. And so I knew there was something here. I knew this was needed. As someone who was in the smart building space, I was praying for something like a Nexus. And then so when, when I learned about Nexus, it was like, oh, this is it.
This is what I've been wanting. I've been wanting a platform to educate myself. I've been wanting a platform to connect with other like-minded people. You know, it just brought together all those things that were at the forefront of my thinking, and then I got to know you, right? And so that was a whole other dimension because I didn't know you before.
And so when I met you, I instantly felt like there. something about you that was special and you know, that made me want to be part of you, your sphere and, and what you're working on and what you're building. I wanted to help you build that. And so even before I officially joined Nexus, you and I were always talking and we were always connecting.
We were [00:12:00] always finding ways for us to, you know, collaborate just even in in the mind space of talking about ideas and brainstorming. And I loved that it was always so seamless. It was always so easy to to talk to you. And I loved how you were approaching building Nexus. So it was a little bit of before I knew there was a secret sauce and then I met you and got to know you, and that secret sauce concept even got bigger and bigger.
[00:12:25] James Dice: Brilliant. This is the part where I get uncomfortable.
[00:12:28] Rosy Khalife: I know I love when you get uncomfortable. It's my favorite thing.
[00:12:33] James Dice: Well, we have built a special bond very quickly and uh, thank you for, thank you for joining. Thank you for coming into the community. It's been very fun so far. And I'd say, just to add to what you said, you have done an amazing job. How long were you, how long have you been in the industry? Two years, a year and a half.
[00:12:53] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, it, it's almost two years now or, yeah, something
[00:12:56] James Dice: One of the things I've been surprised about working with you for [00:13:00] what this is our fourth week, three and a half weeks, is like your technical understanding of the industry is like beyond your years, which is. A, a breath of fresh air for me as a technical person, I don't feel like I have to explain a ton to you, which is is awesome.
Really, really, really cool. Um, and part of that is we've been developing this partner program together. Um, and I thought we would use this, maybe take a few minutes to go a little bit deeper into it from your perspective as a marketer. Um, can you talk a little bit about what is the partner program, at least in its initial offering.
We actually don't know where this is gonna go, right? Because we're kind of developing this for the first time. We're sort of innovating this concept. What is it right now for people?
[00:13:49] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, so the partner program right now is kind of two twofold, two main components. The first one is the partner hub, which, uh, is kind of an ecosystem of all the [00:14:00] partners. They'll live in this, in this hub. That will be a new part of our website. You'll go on there, you know, as a buyer you're looking for, you know, occupancy.
You need to buy something that will help you sort of meet that need of yours. You can click into occupancy, see the vendors there, which are our partners that meet the Nexus standard that, you know, we vetted, we've talked to those founders and, and those, um, those folks there and, and explore that technology further.
So that's one kind of aspect of it, which is the partner hub. The second aspect is the content piece, and so that looks like we will be creating, nexus will be creating content. On a number of categories that include, you know, um, asset management, energy management, you know, occupancy, all the, all the different kind of components that make this whole ecosystem work.
So we will be creating content on those, and that looks like once a quarter we'll have different pieces of content, long form, [00:15:00] thoughtfully created content on these different categories.
[00:15:03] James Dice: Yeah. So the, these partners are basically signing up to be a part of that ecosystem and, um, make sure that some of this content gets produced, um, and help us in doing that. It's, it's, it's innovative. Maybe you could talk about why it's innovative. Why is this concept new to you? Content production, but also new to all the marketers out there that like are, we're asking them to buy into this new concept, but they really haven't seen something like this before.
[00:15:36] Rosy Khalife: Right. Yeah. So as we were developing, as James and I were developing this whole concept, it's been, it was obviously a lot of challenges of trying to figure out, you know, what has been currently happening in the industry and how can we take and build on that and make it better. And so I think the reason, one of the big reasons why it's so innovative is because this is vetted, vetted vendors.
So we're [00:16:00] not, if you right now, you know, come on and you wanna be a partner of ours, We're gonna vet you. So not just anyone can be a partner. And I think that as a first step is different than what's out there usually, right? Uh, if you pay, you can play. And that's how it works. And that, and that's a first kind of distinction of what's different about us.
Uh, the second one is that the content piece itself is super interesting, right? It's, it's actually researched content. So it's not just salesy material. We're gonna be doing the research ourselves. So if a vendor comes and tells us, you know, I do these things super, super well, we're gonna f we're gonna ask the hard questions.
We're gonna find out, do they actually do those things really well, right? And so I think those two things are, are creating an ecosystem for a buyer, like a building owner that can come on and really feel like they are supported. They're getting these recommendations, they're seeing these partners, they're seeing this vendor hub, they're reading the content, they're not being sold [00:17:00] to.
They are, you know, we're there to support them. Right? And so I think all of those pieces make it really interesting and not like anything I've, I've seen done before in this industry or in really any other industry.
[00:17:12] James Dice: Totally. And, and so you, you come from a marketing background. You were chief marketing officer directly before this role. When you're thinking about selling this concept to other marketers, why? Why do you feel like, I've heard you say this as a no-brainer before, like you would've bought this immediately in your old role.
Why? Why do you think that is?
[00:17:33] Rosy Khalife: Yeah, I definitely think it's a no-brainer and we have designed it in a way where it feels that way for anyone, right down to what it's, what we're charging for it. So it's, it's a, it's a affordable price for, you know, a early stage startup all the way to a series company. You know, everyone can, can sort of afford this.
So that was an important thing. But the reason I think it's a no-brainer is because as marketers, you know, [00:18:00] usually the things that are available to us are very salesy types of content. So, you know, you'll read an article or you'll get an award that says, you know, you're the best, uh, building technology out there.
And the way that that company got that award is they paid for it. And I think it's just, As a buyer, if I'm gonna put myself in the building owner's shoes or in the sustainability leader's shoes, um, I don't that stuff, I just glaze right over it. As soon as I see an article, the first sentence says, you know, this company is the best at doing this thing.
It's not po there's, that's not true. There's no way you're the best at doing this thing. Right. There's, so you're, you might be the best at this particular use case, but it, so, so it just kind of makes, it gives me, um, I just glaze right, right over it, I guess as a buyer. And so what I think is a really interesting guy this way of seeing the world is we're giving you content that you can literally take and send to your sales team.
And they can [00:19:00] share it with customers, they can share it with prospective customers because it's unbiased, it's well researched. They're gonna actually learn something from this, this article that we're putting together versus just learning that you are the best. And because you said you're the best, you know?
Um, so I think all those things. , you know, it really creates a system or, or kind of an ecosystem where people are getting credible content, they're getting credible sources, they're seeing our partner hub. We're trying to really keep that integrity as part of the, our core value of this whole partner program.
And I haven't seen that a lot in other places.
[00:19:39] James Dice: Yeah. And, and I think the last thing I, I wanted to point out so far, just like reflecting on this experience, being super transparent, is I've been super excited about the trust that people, so how many partners do we have on board already? There's probably five, something like that.
So this thing does not exist yet.
And yet people [00:20:00] trust us enough to sign up for this thing based on this idea. So I think we should say thank you to all of our, our early adopters that have jumped onto this program. Cuz I think once it launches and people see it, they're, everyone's gonna wanna be a part of it.
Um, but we've had people that are, you know, already said, we want in.
We haven't seen it yet. It's just a bulleted list in an email at this point to those people. And they're like, all right, we trust you guys. Go, go build this thing. So it's
[00:20:28] Rosy Khalife: And, and just to add to that, uh, what I've been saying to the partners, the early adopters, in full transparency, I've been saying, you know, I thank you for trusting in us and you have our word that we will make sure that this is exactly what you want it to be. And it will never be, you know, a salesy piece of content.
It will never be these things. And I think just them knowing that we have their best interest at heart, it has created such a great equilibrium of everyone feeling like we're on the same page.
[00:20:56] James Dice: Amazing. Um, alright, let's [00:21:00] turn the tables. This is the part where I get nervous. I get very nervous to be interviewed. Uh, but yeah, you take it away. What, what do you want to ask me?
[00:21:10] Rosy Khalife: Okay, great. Well, thank you for your questions and uh, they were fun to answer. I thought I could also start with some fun questions for you and we'll just, I'll just kick it off with some rapid fire questions and then we can jump into the more in depth ones. So my first question for you is you're always posting photos or sharing stories of you snowboarding.
And you know, we know you do that. We know you love doing that. We know you're an avid runner and you play soccer, used to play soccer even in college. So I, I thought it would be fun for you to maybe share with us what is a hobby or an interest of yours that we don't know about you that, that we wouldn't expect even.
[00:21:52] James Dice: Totally. I think the first one I'd share that I don't think, I think you just learned this about me today, um, is I've, [00:22:00] I've done quite a few silent meditation retreats, so there's a retreat center here in Colorado that I've been to a few times. I went there for a 10 day silent retreat one time, and I actually left after seven.
I had to go to a. An event that I didn't wanna skip. I didn't leave because I hated the, the voice inside my head, which was the voice inside my head was difficult. But I left because I had planned to leave. Um, but I, so I've done a seven day retreat and I've done a couple different three and maybe five day retreats elsewhere as well.
Um, I, I have had a more dedicated meditation practice than I have right now in the past. Um, but I'm, I'm definitely trying to get back to where I was before all the time.
[00:22:44] Rosy Khalife: Awesome. That's such a good one. Any others that come to mind?
[00:22:48] James Dice: Uh, I think it's, it might be obvious to people, but I, I think it, it, when I think about like why I love to build Nexus so much, I love smart buildings and I, I am endlessly [00:23:00] fascinated by smart buildings, but I'm also endlessly fascinated by just the concept of building a company. Um, and so, I think one of my hobbies is learning about entrepreneurship and learning about building businesses.
Um, people have heard me talk about the acquired podcasts and other podcasts that I listen to. I just love learning from other people's paths and entrepreneurship, and I love thinking about ideas for how to make Nexus better. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm often like several years ahead of where we're actually at , I mean in, in my ideas.
Um, but I, I, I am endlessly fascinated and it's definitely a habit of mine to learn about business itself.
[00:23:41] Rosy Khalife: Cool. I love that. Yeah, it's, it's evident in how you're running Nexus and all the interesting things that you've come up with so far. Um, okay. What smart building term would you love to never hear
again
[00:23:55] James Dice: that's a great question. Um, I think everyone [00:24:00] knows, or at least everyone that reads. My LinkedIn feed knows that I, I hate the Spag single pane of glass acronym and anyone that wants to understand why that is, we're not gonna go into why that is right now. That can go read the newsletter on this. Uh, we'll put it in the show notes.
Um, and I'll maybe just do rapid fire on a couple more. I think the word words futureproof are way overdone. Um, I think when building owners hear futureproof, it's like, it's like sponsored content. They immediately just, their eyes glaze over and you become sort of a, a not credible source of promises that you're making to that building owner.
Um, I think digital twin is close to getting there. So when you say digital twin, I feel like building owners also start to glaze over a little bit. And then I added this this last one this morning because I was just thinking through a lot of people, like, say this term, it's kind of like a trope. Every building is a [00:25:00] snowflake and.
That is true, right? Every building's different. It was built differently, different materials, different systems, different people running it, different businesses that are sitting inside that building. So in that, in that respect, it's true, but I feel like our industry kind of uses that, uh, as an excuse to not make progress.
They might say every building is the snowflake and therefore this technology doesn't apply. And I just feel like that is not true. Right? There are, there are universal truths that can be applied to every building, and I would love to hear us not use that as an excuse anymore in the industry.
[00:25:37] Rosy Khalife: Hmm. That's really good. I like that a lot. Um, okay. What foods could you eat every single
day
if any?
[00:25:48] James Dice: Um, I mean, I do eat a single food every day, and that's oatmeal. I start every, I start every day with oatmeal. Um, , and usually it's the same you, you've [00:26:00] inspired me to, to kind of diversify my toppings a little bit. But every day starts with oatmeal and I, I, I, I don't eat chips and guac every day, but I kind of wish I did.
You know what I'm saying? I, I love chips and guac as well.
[00:26:14] Rosy Khalife: Do you like your guac with a lot of onions? Light on the onions or no
[00:26:18] James Dice: Light. Light on the onions.
[00:26:20] Rosy Khalife: Okay. Got it. I have a really good guac recipe that I will have to share with you sometime. I learned it in college when I was living in London. It's so
[00:26:30] James Dice: All right. You, you will share that. We might have to put that in the show notes as well. Now. Um, okay. So wait, so wait. Before we move on, more questions. I feel like I need to ask you. of these fun rapid fire questions. This is one of the things that people will notice about the podcast, is you have immediately made me want to have a little bit more fun on the show rather than just ask questions that are related to smart buildings all the time.
Um, so I have a few questions for you. What advice would you give [00:27:00] someone that wants to win Shark Tank? What would you, what would you say?
[00:27:03] Rosy Kahlife: Ooh, that's such a good one. So I have helped a lot of people get on Shark Tank and I've helped a number of companies get investments from Shark Tank. So it, it's something that I
love
[00:27:13] James Dice: Shark Tank consultant.
[00:27:15] Rosy Kahlife: I'm always trying to help help other people make it work because when we were going on Shark Tank, we got a lot of great advice from companies.
So I would say be authentic. I think that's really important. So go on there, be honest about why you actually want the money. Don't just say an answer because you think that they're gonna like that and want to invest in in you because of that reason. So I would say that's super important, is just really thinking through all the business reasons why you need actual funding from them.
They will smell, smell you right out. If you're going on Shark Tank just for the publicity, you will not get investment from them. They wanna invest in, in companies that actually need money from them. So you'll often see where, you know, entrepreneurs have already raised, you know, [00:28:00] 10, 15 million and then they end up on Shark Tank and the sharks are like, what do you need my help for?
You're killing it like, you don't need me. And they don't want that. They wanna feel. You know, seeing, they wanna feel like they're helpful. So I think that's super important to make sure you're actually going on there because you need their investment and you need their help. And knowing exactly what you need their help on, and knowing what each shark can help you do and, and vocalizing that.
[00:28:24] James Dice: Love it. All right, question number two. is there and what is the correct way to cook Mushrooms,
[00:28:31] Rosy Kahlife: Oh, man. So I can't believe you asked me this question. I'm very passionate about how you cook mushrooms and I love mushrooms, but right way. There's a, there's a right way and a wrong way. And, you know, I'd love to hear, if anyone wants to talk about this, I'm happy to. But basically, I'll give you the abridged version.
You have to get a pan. You cook it like you're cooking a steak. You cook mushrooms like you're cooking a steak, so you need the pan to get very hot. Then you [00:29:00] add a little bit of oil, then you put your mushrooms in. Each of 'em have to have their own surface area. Do not crowd the pan. put a little sprinkle of salt, walk away.
We're talking three minutes. They're gonna be sizzling, making all kinds of noises. Resist the urge to stir them around, and then I do a little bit of black pepper. Then I flip them sometimes one by one if I want it to be very perfect and get that great char. Then once the other side has the great char, little bit of white wine if you want, or lemon juice, and they're good to go.
You can do a little bit of fresh garlic and then they're just perfectly colored, toasty and knot squishy. That's not what
[00:29:40] James Dice: Yeah. So you're trying to like sear the outside, caramelize the skin, and then the white wine picks up the
caramelization
[00:29:46] Rosy Kahlife: white wine deglaze,
is
[00:29:48] James Dice: it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, last one. This one's even more off the wall than the mushroom question. Do you believe in past lives?
[00:29:55] Rosy Kahlife: know, it's one of those things that I think about often, [00:30:00] and I don't have a complete yes or a no. I'm kind of in the middle. I'm still figuring out my position on this, but I often meet people, not often. I sometimes meet people like James that I feel like surely him and I, the way that we connect and the way that we get along and finish each other's thoughts, and there's just such a flow that happens with us that I feel like surely I must have known this person some way in some other life form, because how else could this be the way it is?
And so you make me believe in past lives. I'm still figuring out how I feel about it
[00:30:36] James Dice: I feel the exact same way. I, I'm a very like science. Person. Right? And so, but when I meet someone like you, uh, my wife's the same way. When we meet each other, it's like, oh, this person, like, we go deep. And how, how do we figure that out? Right? How, how is it that we go deep like this so quickly? So
[00:30:56] Rosy Kahlife: Right, exactly. Such good questions. Thank [00:31:00] you for putting me in the hot seat. Now it's back on. You
[00:31:04] James Dice: I tried to dodge it, I tried to get it off me for a second.
[00:31:07] Rosy Kahlife: I know. And it worked. And now we're, we're, now we're back. So, uh, obviously listeners know a lot about you, but I don't think they know kind of what led you into the smart building industry. So I'd love if you could take us back a little bit to some of the, those early moments of how you got into this world.
[00:31:27] James Dice: Yeah, I, so I'm, I'm an engineer. I started, uh, as a mechanical engineering student in college, uh, in St. Louis. . I took a sustainable energy class my senior year, and that was probably the bug that I got bit by. Um, I didn't even know that I wanted to work in buildings at that point. Uh, I had had a few internships that were basically like AutoCAD jockeying you might call, you might call it.
Um, so I wasn't enthused about buildings until I took [00:32:00] the sustainable energy course and it kind of, you know, semester long course. It kind of gave a broad overview of all types of, um, clean energy, all types of clean tech in a way. So I'm super grateful for that professor for teaching that course. Um, during that course they had guest speakers and, uh, this woman came in, her name's Anne Hill.
She was. Um, I don't remember. She was a VP at a local mechanical contractor that her family had started as a family business called Murphy Company. They're in St. Louis and Denver and Fort Collins now. Um, they, she, she basically wanted to come in and talk about energy efficiency in buildings. So she came in, gave a talk, and that was like the second bug I got bit by.
I was like, oh, like I had experience with buildings. I knew what mechanical systems looked like and now there's this, you know, kind of like decarbonization or is what we call it now. But back then it was kind of like a, you know, climate mission that it [00:33:00] had to it as well. So she hired me right after school.
Um, I started, uh, in their design build group, so designing HVAC systems, mostly like small retrofits. And then she started within Murphy Company, she started an energy retrofit and retrocommissioning group. within Murphy Company, and then they actually spun it out and rebranded as its own thing, and they called it M 360.
And I really spent like several years at the beginning of my career focusing on energy modeling, project development for energy retrofits, uh, measurement and verification. And really that's like, like the beginning of me becoming like a true nerd, honestly. Um, I loved all of the technical side of that. Um, a few years into this, I don't remember how this exactly started, but somebody brought in the concept of it not really being about the project.
We were, we were making money off of projects, often [00:34:00] contractors, that's how they make their money, right? We were making money off of projects, but someone at some point realized, Hey, this isn't really about the project. It's about the ongoing performance and the idea of using F D D software to monitor the buildings after we did the retrofit.
I got super, like, obsessed with this idea, like obsessed. And I became like the, the team's go-to person on how we're gonna use F D D. And I was still like, still pretty early in my career, but it, it really felt like something that was like gonna be my thing for a long time. And so a few years later I joined, uh, they, so they shut down M 360, uh, M 360 no longer exists.
They, they let go, like half the team and the rest of us basically left. Uh, and went, went to other places. I realized that I, I wanted to do that. I didn't wanna stay at the company because if they weren't gonna do that, then I had to go basically. So a few years later I joined, uh, a consulting firm and they were just [00:35:00] starting down the f d D journey.
They were just like getting started with analytics software. And so I really had the opportunity to kind of decide and sort of design how they build out their services and how they integrated F D D into their existing services. Um, so I created a monitoring based commissioning offering, a subscription offering, created a utility data monitoring offering.
And we were serving, um, healthcare systems throughout Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Chicago area and universities mostly. Those were our kind of bread and butter, you know, big campuses. And, um, from there we, we realized that it wasn't just about the analytics, it was also about controls. And so that's when I started getting into designing and consulting on control systems.
Um, fast forward, yada, yada, yada, and eventually ended up at N Rail. Um, and NREL hired me to basically be one of the internal subject matter experts on analytics software for [00:36:00] the whole government. Basically, the way that n r works is they have a commissioning group. It's not all research. I didn't do very much research.
We were basically a consultant, an internal consultant to the government. So GSA would hire us, FEM hired us, the Navy hired us, and we sort of, we were like an expert that anybody in the government could sort of rely on. Um, and so as part of that, I kind of extended my, um, you know, sort of expertise on, they call it energy management information systems, um, so emmis, but basically the same thing as I had been doing for a really long time.
And then at that time, nexus was like, became my side gig. And so I started, started working on Nexus while I was at nre, and then eventually Nexus grew into the full-time thing.
[00:36:50] Rosy Kahlife: Cool. I didn't know that when you were at nre, you were consulting all different kind of departments or areas of the government. [00:37:00] That's super interest.
[00:37:01] James Dice: Yeah. Yeah. And so like Fem was writing a guide for all federal agencies to use analytics software. And so I wrote that guide. And then like the Navy, they were deploying Sky Foundry out into the entire portfolio for the Navy. And so we helped them with that deployment. So it was a bunch of different, kind of the same projects I was doing in the private sector, but just doing it for the, for different government agencies.
[00:37:26] Rosy Kahlife: That's awesome. Um, and what was your least favorite part of that work that you were doing over those, you know, number of years?
[00:37:34] James Dice: Yeah. It, I'll tell you, it, it wasn. , it wasn't site visits. I love site visits. Site visits are one of my favorite parts. I love like doing audits. I love mechanical rooms and I actually really miss it. So it's something I hope to get back to soon. Like if we start to think about doing case studies and things like that, I want to get back in some mechanical rooms.
Um, but I think the least favorite parts, [00:38:00] um, I felt like that there were just basic, there was basically basic education that I felt like was missing. You know, when we talk about our foundations course, we talk about helping people get it and I'm using get it in air quotes here. Yeah. People getting it is sort of the first prereq requisite to walking down a smart buildings path if you're talking to people on a project by project basis.
And most of those people don't understand. What smart buildings are, why they're important, why we should even start down that journey. It can feel a little bit like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill day after day after day. Um, I remember this, this project, it was a hospital in Kansas City and we were the commissioning agent on the, on the, it was a new, new hospital.
We were the commissioning agent and we were under contract to do analytics and monitoring based commissioning as part of that commissioning process. And I walk into the job site [00:39:00] and the people on the job site didn't even understand what commissioning was, let alone then make the leap to monitoring based commissioning and using analytics software.
And so it was like, not only did I have this really hard thing that a lot of people didn't do, especially in Kansas City, you know, 6, 7, 8 years ago, but I also had to then justify why I was even there in the first place. And so there was a lot of that that I just felt like. If, if there were more broad basic education across the industry, it would make everyone's jobs a lot easier.
So that's the first thing. Um, with that, I feel like everyone sort of hoards best practices and lessons learned,
[00:39:40] Rosy Kahlife: A hundred
[00:39:41] James Dice: right? If I, if I learn something on a project that becomes sort of like a trade secret, and I felt like the only way I was gonna be able to learn. I, I read Ashray Journal a lot. I, I often found people at conferences and I would make sure that they weren't a competitor of mine before I started asking them questions, [00:40:00] right?
So, um, Altura, who is one of our partners now, Altura, they weren't in St. Louis 10 years ago. And so I remember meeting them for the first time and I was like, basically like, Hey guys, like you're ahead of me on this journey. Like, but I'm not a competitor to you. Can you share some stuff to me? And I just felt like that whole.
It's kind of like an ethos, like it's the way the industry works. I, I thought that was stupid because when you're trying to lead, we were trying to lead our customers and our clients on this journey, and if we were still unsure and still learning ourselves, then it was really difficult to lead them. And so I just felt like there was like this, you know, we need to share best practices more.
Um, the last thing I'll say is I could, I could, you know, sitting as a contractor, sitting as an energy person, sitting as a consultant and then sitting at nre, I feel like I saw all the different ways in which the problem was really complex, but I didn't feel [00:41:00] like as I was sitting in each of those roles, I didn't, I never felt like I could make things happen faster.
So I've always felt like I was working on a project by project basis and there was more I could do to help every project go faster. Everything just felt really slow to me. And so that was probably. That, that's probably a good summary of, of how frustrated I got, you know, in each of these roles.
[00:41:26] Rosy Kahlife: And have you ever made the correlation between, you are frustrated that things were going too slow, and then with Nexus you have a platform where you're able to really influence on kind of a broader scale. Do you think that's part of why Nexus looks the way it does now because of your frustrations in some of those roles that you had?
[00:41:44] James Dice: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think there are probably many days where I was, you know, contracted and very frustrated and I didn't see the bigger picture. Right. I was just thinking about my project, but I think I definitely have used in building Nexus, I've used that [00:42:00] frustration and kind of channeled it and said like basically saying I know there are people that felt like me or, and still feel like me, still feel like I did, that are out there doing project by project, you know, today.
[00:42:11] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah. And I, and we meet them, you know, they're, some, some of 'em are pro members and, you know, we meet them at happy hours and it's, it's like they share a bond with you and, you know, they're, you know, you get me, thanks for voicing how I really feel. And it's, it's like a moment, emotional moment for them.
And it's, it's special to witness. And I saw it recently at a happy hour that we had, and I felt like that person was really happy that you existed and were sharing the things that you do.
[00:42:40] James Dice: And I feel like that's our north, like we have to remember that that's our north star it feels like, is like remembering that there's people out there and how do we make their, each project that they're doing, you know, easier than the one before it and, and make it so that they don't feel like they're alone in those projects.
That's kind of, I think we always have to [00:43:00] remind ourselves that that's kind of it, you know.
[00:43:02] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, that's the north star of, of the per the, the purpose of all of these things that we're doing. Uh, I loved hearing about your background, so thanks for sharing. Um, I'd love to hear, you know, now we're kind of at a point where you are, you have started sort of nexus. Maybe you could take us through. How did you come up with the idea for Nexus?
[00:43:22] James Dice: Yeah, I, I think first of all, you've probably learned this already in the three and a half weeks we've worked together. I have ideas all the time, um, and most of the ideas that I have around starting businesses, I, I like totally ignore. I might write them down in my notebook and then I never come back to them again.
But this one, I remember daydreaming with Nexus. I remember daydreaming this idea, and maybe I even journaled about it, you know, probably five, six years ago, basically saying like, I wish this existed. Um, and thinking like, you know, I can write, I probably have the skillset to do that, but then I just kind of set it aside.
[00:44:00] Um, and it. It took kind of going to enrail to realize that, oh, like I can share my trade secrets now, like I said earlier, I can, I can, I don't really have any competition. Um, as a National Lab, Enrail doesn't theoretically have any competition, and so the trade secrets can be shared with anyone. And so that's when I basically just, you know, said, Hey, what if I start to share what I, what I've picked up and share my questions and share just lessons learned along the way.
And so I signed up for a writing course called Rite of Passage. Um, took that on the weekends when I was at en r and their first assignment was to create a weekly newsletter and basically commit and tell people that you were gonna show up at the same time every week with a new essay. And that's kind of where it, that's kind of where it began,
[00:44:48] Rosy Kahlife: Wow. What if you hadn't taken that course?
[00:44:51] James Dice: you know, it was really helpful because I was so nervous and it, it allowed me to say to people, Hey, , I'm taking this writing [00:45:00] course and their assignment was to create a, a newsletter. So it kind of made it so it was like, Hey, they're telling me to do this thing because I don't know that I would've had the confidence to basically say like, cuz who wants to hear from, you know, this was my internal voice in my head.
Who wants to hear from me? Um, who wants to hear from me every week even, right. .
[00:45:19] Rosy Kahlife: right
[00:45:19] James Dice: Um,
and so I was able to say like, Hey, I just took this writing course. My assignment was this. Uh, do you wanna subscribe? That was an easier ask than, you know, someone like me who's shy and doesn't want to be the center of attention.
So,
[00:45:34] Rosy Kahlife: Which is so ironic if you, I'm sure people don't think that you, people must think that you like being the
[00:45:41] James Dice: well, engineers don't want to be, I think all the engineers out there are gonna identify with, I think facility managers are the same. We don't want to be the center of attention. We don't want to stick our noses out, and we don't want to say that like, my ideas are better than the group's ideas. It's just not something that is in the [00:46:00] engineer's ethos.
Right?
[00:46:01] Rosy Kahlife: Mm, true.
So what did the early days of Nexus look like versus.
[00:46:08] James Dice: Ooh, that's a really good question. I think the, the first thing is very obvious if someone's listening to this in that you're now here. So that's a really great thing because there was three years where I was basically alone on this thing, felt like I was on an island and no one really understood me.
Right. Um, just kind of doing this all alone. Um, and, and that's not to say that there haven't been people that have helped out along the way. And obviously everyone in our community makes me feel, uh, uh, like I'm, you know, part of the community as well. But, you know, it is a different place being on this side.
Of, of Nexus now that you're, you're here, you probably understand that. Um, and then the early days, like there were two, there were two phases of early days, I'd say. So when I was, when I was on the, the side, doing it on the [00:47:00] side at n r, um, there was a lot, lot of long days. Luckily it was during Covid, right?
So I was up to, by the time I quit at nre, I was working about 40 hours a week on Nexus and about 40 hours a week for nrel. And so it, it, it led to some burnout. So I'd say that was like phase one. Um, and as you've discovered, I've had to kind of set some hard boundaries around, you know, let's not burn James out again.
Um, so I can kind of do this for the long term. Um, I think another one is just kind of feeling around in the dark. I feel like at the beginning, and really up until very recently, I don't feel like I really understood what this thing was like where it's headed. What is the, the, what is Nexus and what, what are we actually building here?
Um, and it really has been a process of like, each individual step has made sense. So like, once the newsletter became a thing, the podcast was a good idea, right? Once the [00:48:00] podcast became a thing, the community, the pro community was a good idea. And so each individual step has made sense, but I didn't really have a clear sense of like, okay, where's this thing headed to?
Right? Um, whereas now I think like in the process of you bring, like bringing you on board, I feel like I now have a clear sense of like what this is gonna be and I can kind of like see it in, in more detail than I had before around what this is gonna be five years from now even.
Um, I think the last one I'd say is that, um, I did a lot of consulting.
I think people ask me all the time, like, is this is Nexus full-time? Like how do you make this work? Is this a real business? And the, the reason it was able to be a real business at the beginning is cuz I just did a lot of consulting so that I could pay myself, right. Um, and it's only really been less than a year, which has crazy to think it's only been less than a year where Nexus has been a full-time thing.
So now this company, which is [00:49:00] crazy to say, employs me and it employs you and other part-time people, but like, that's only been true for like a little under a year. Um, so that's definitely changed a lot.
[00:49:13] Rosy Kahlife: so cool. Um, I'd love to, you know, they asked us a lot, uh, of entrepreneurs and, and founders, you know, was there a moment, what was the moment when you felt like you actually had something here? And was it a moment, was it a series of moments? You know, so I'd love to hear from you what that looks like for you in starting Nexus.
[00:49:34] James Dice: Yeah, I don't think there was one moment. I think it's been a, definitely been a series of moments. So I, if I think back to like, I told a story around the newsletter when I first started sharing the newsletter, um, I didn't have any LinkedIn followers. I didn't really have like a network to share it with, so I just started like DMing people on LinkedIn, like, Hey, I just started this newsletter.
Um, and it was probably like that for several months, but [00:50:00] then at one point I remember it kind of starting to grow on its own, right? It wasn't like I was out there DMing people and then they would sign up. It was like, I didn't DM people and five, 10 people would sign up in a week and I was like, oh, people are actually sharing this and talking about it outside of, you know, my own conversations.
So that, that was probably the first one. Um, and then when I started the Nexus Pro community, 50 people joined and paid in month one. Uh, and I just remember thinking like, Holy shit. Like how did, how is that possible and how did that happen? Um, and yeah, I think there's been things like that throughout the whole journey here.
And then really I'd say, I still question whether I actually have something. I think people might not realize that, right? But it's still definitely a question in the back of my mind, like, uh, really culminating in you joining, like, I think I've told you, like, is she really gonna join? Like, that was in the back of my head, like, why would she really [00:51:00] want to join this little thing?
Uh, so, uh, it's, it's an unfolding series of moments I'd say.
[00:51:07] Rosy Kahlife: I think that the way that you feel that last bit that you shared helps as a founder. It's good to feel that way because it helps you continuously question everything you're doing and make sure, am I creating services and products and things that people actually want to read? Am I, you know, serving them and always having them as the North Star?
So it's obvious that that's how you feel, and I think it shows. and how you handle Nexus the community and whatnot. So I, I actually like that
You feel that way,
[00:51:38] James Dice: might call it anxiety, but you can cha you can channel the anxiety into, into a good thing. Yes.
[00:51:44] Rosy Kahlife: Definitely. Um, okay. Let's, let's switch it up a little. What is, or what has been the most surprising part? You know, I love surprises o of starting Nexus.
[00:51:56] James Dice: Oh, man. Um, [00:52:00] I think really that the people that I've attracted, so I, I think I'm a, a different sort of engineer in that I'm not totally introverted, right. They're, I'm definitely introverted in that I feel like the thing I wanna spend my time doing is sort of deep work on my own a lot of times. I think people give me energy too, and I love connecting with people and developing relationships with people and the caliber of people that I've met just by putting my ideas out there and then seeing who shows up.
That's been really, really cool. Um, I, I knew that could theoretically happen. Um, that's kind of the whole premise of that Rite of Passage course that I talked about, but then actually seeing it happen, I, I like pinch myself every day with like, the caliber of people that I get to get to work with, like you.
Um, and then I, I, I think this is maybe a deeper answer, the second one here, which is, [00:53:00] I'm surprised at how much I learn about myself through the entrepreneurial journey. I feel like there are tons and tons of ways in which growing this company shows me the ways in which I need to grow as a person all the time.
um, ev like weekly, maybe even daily, on a daily basis. It's really kind of intertwined with my own spiritual path, and I wouldn't say that's like, it's, it's probably not surprising to a lot of people that have grown a company before, but this is my first company and so that's definitely been a surprising, surprising part of this.
[00:53:37] Rosy Kahlife: I love that. Such a good answer. Uh, okay, so you, very helpful context. I'd like us to go a little bit behind the scenes of Nexus. Get into your head. You know, obviously I was a pro member and a member of the community before I joined. The other side. And so I've, I have kind of an interesting perspective cuz I've seen, you know, both sides of [00:54:00] the coin in terms of how people feel about Nexus.
And I often hear just, you know, this is the modern place, nexus is so different, nexus is unique. It's so innovative. You know, I, I've heard that a lot throughout the time of, of knowing Nexus. And so I wanted to hear from you and in your own words why you think Nexus is special or what makes it special.
[00:54:20] James Dice: Yeah, this is a difficult question to answer because I have a, a, a very, very sharp and loud critic in my head all the time. That's always looking at Nexus like, oh, it should be better in these ways. Um, so I always feel like there's ways in which we could do better, do a better job. I could do a better job at doing these things.
Um, , but I, I do have, I think I, I have a list here and I, I posted this list on LinkedIn really talking about how I feel like the media companies in our industry should be different. But I was really talking about like, these are the [00:55:00] things that I want to lean into for us, right? Um, and, and one of the first one is deeper content.
Um, and it's not just deeper content, it's deeper content created by the practitioners of this technology, right? So nothing against journalists, right? But like, this isn't a journalist that's writing, you know, fact based articles, right? It's really about people that are actually doing this, telling their stories, and really getting below the surface.
We say cutting through the fluff a lot. I don't know where that came from, but that's been around since almost the beginning. Basically like, I'm sick of the marketing fluff. Let's get through it. Let's call out the buzzwords. Let's get below the surface a little bit. Um, . Second one I'd say is, and, and when I get through this list, you should tell me if this is accurate, right?
Coming into this, and maybe the audience can tell us whether this is accurate too. Um, this is like Nexus is best self is what I'm, I'm describing here,
[00:55:58] Rosy Kahlife: Okay. I love [00:56:00] That's a
[00:56:00] James Dice: yeah. So the second ones, don't let sponsorship dollars drive the editorial or educational agenda. So I feel like, I think Nexus is different because sponsorship is not a, the main part of our business model, right?
People might not know, they might be listening to this and not really know. Nexus, we make money off of courses and community, so we're building out education and building community. Those are our two primary revenue drivers. Sponsorships are part of it. And, and building our partner program is sort of like sponsorships, even though we already talked about how it's different.
But it's not the main way in which we exist as a company. And I think that was a design decision from the beginning that I think lets us make different decisions than other media companies are able to make that are 100%, you know, driven by sponsorship dollars from vendors. Right. Um, on the flip side though, we don't want to do what I, I [00:57:00] heard someone say this one time at a conference.
They felt like they were getting put in time out because they were a technology vendor, right? They're being,
there's like a vendor pen over there and the vendors can't come out of their pen. Right. Um, and I, from the very beginning, you can look back at the, you know, the history of the podcast, 100 and plus episodes.
We have elevated the voices of technology vendors from the beginning and. and not because they're paying us, right? But because I believe that those are the people that are innovating, they have a lot to say. If they can put aside the sales messages, they can say and point a picture like, here's our technology, here's how it works, here's how it might work for building owners.
And I feel like there's two sides that we need to sort of promote. We need to promote what do the building owners want, and we need to promote what can the technology vendors do? And we can't silence either side of that. We need both. Um, another [00:58:00] area where I feel like we could do better on, but we're, we've been doing it from the beginning too, is, is we're, like I said, we're not journalists.
We're here to be opinionated. Um, and what that means is like there's a path that we're all working towards here. And if we're doing a good job of listening to our community, We should be able to synthesize and sort of paint that roadmap for people. And we're, we're starting to do this more and more. We did this with our Nexus lore white paper last year in 2022.
Really say like, okay, what, what are the ways in which we all agree here about how smart buildings should be done? And I don't feel like a lot of people do that enough in terms of, let's be opinionated on how this industry should transform. And I think what that means sometimes is that we're, we at Nexus are not actually as independent as [00:59:00] people sort of want us to be. Like I think we have opinions about like, if we meet, you know, the five vendors in the industry that are the best at this category, I don't believe that we should say like, well there's actually a hundred vendors that do this. No, we should probably point people towards the. The five best ones that we've evaluated.
So I think we'll probably lean into that more, like you said with the partner program, um, that we're actually not as independent as maybe a journalist might be. We're not going to promote ideas that don't line up with that roadmap that we have, you know, decided is the, the best way forward. Um, last one I'd say is that I, I, I think that we're different in that I, I've tried to, and, and we'll do better at this in the, in the future, try to find voices in the industry that are a little bit less well known.
Um, [01:00:00] and promote them and let them, you know, speak, give them speaking spots and really interviewing people because I feel like we need new voices. We need diverse voices. Um, one example is, Rachel Kennedy, who's been on the podcast before, we can link to her episode. She's, you know, five, six years outta school and she has for the last three years run our foundations course with me.
She helped create it. She's been there from the beginning. Um, she's a rockstar and I just felt like once I met her, she should be in front of more people and be in more of a leadership position. And I think we're gonna continue to do that as we build the company. And I hope that remains part of our, our sort of ethos.
[01:00:45] Rosy Kahlife: Those are all so good. Um, you talked, you hit on this in, in one of your answers, but I'd love to kind of hear from you if you can share, you know, how the smart building industry has sort of been operating and versus [01:01:00] how you like it to be, or the Nexus perspective on that.
[01:01:04] James Dice: Yeah.
[01:01:04] Rosy Kahlife: And before you answer, I think that this is the thing for Nexus. I think that this is super interesting and it hits on even why I joined Nexus, or why I think this whole, you know, smart building space is so interesting. It's this, this piece.
[01:01:21] James Dice: Yeah, and this is also what I find myself, you know, if people want, like I spoke at Greenbuild last fall, it's all about green buildings, but I found, I found myself going back to this message with basically what the green building community needs to know about smart buildings. This is kind of the message, and I, I keep bringing it up because I feel like more people should, should jump on this bandwagon with us, right?
And we're gonna be talking about it a lot at the A H R Expo next week as well. Um, well, by the time this gets published, it will be last week, but, um, we'll link to the nexus lower slide deck and, and [01:02:00] white paper in the show notes here. Um, . I think these, the, it's, it is important to point out that I didn't make this up, right?
So this came about, I think it was like we were on Nexus podcast like 125 by the point that we started, you know, producing this sort of roadmap for our industry. Um, it wasn't developed like, you know, in my home office, right? It was developed by talking to all these people, right? So, um, I think the first thing to point out right in, in sort of thinking about the industry's history is the siloed systems, right?
So if we think about a building's technology architecture, most of the time it's a bunch of different siloed systems that all have their own unique purpose, different inputs and outputs, different key stakeholders that are used to interacting with that system, different life safety functions, yada, yada yada.
So we're talking about HVAC lighting control systems. [01:03:00] Access control systems, they all have their se own separate stacks of technology often overlapping with each other. So the same components just in different stacks. Um, and what we've realized, I think as an industry is that building owners need a lot more than what those siloed systems are capable of.
So there's a, there's a big gap between, you know, we talk about decarbonization, we talk about indoor air quality, we talk about the experience of the occupant. These sale, these siloed systems aren't capable of enabling that level of performance that building owners need. So that's really the, that, that gap is like the main thing that we talk about here.
Right. If there was one thing, one nugget that's, it's that, . And I think if we think practically smart building solutions need to solve that problem by integrating with those systems, we're not gonna replace all the siloed systems. We can't rip and [01:04:00] replace everything in every building, you know, worldwide.
So when we talk about smart building solutions, we're talking about usually an overlay sitting on top of those existing silos to sort to pull data out, talk to them, um, and then really start to combine systems together to, to knock down those silos. Right. Um, and we're almost up to what you might call like phase one of the industry, which is really, we have a bunch of overlays.
You know, I, I heard, um, calmly from Ener tiv, he talked about one of their clients. You know, 50 different technology systems across their 50 building portfolio, right? And so some people call this point solution spaghetti, right? Where you have all these different, you know, software and hardware systems sort of interconnected together in an ad ad hoc way.
And you have all these different user interfaces, all these different products to log into [01:05:00] basically creating a ton more silos than we started out with, right? And so I think the phase we're entering into now is sort of reaction to that, which is instead of all these vertical solutions getting put up next to each other into more silos, we're talking about the future being more of a horizontal architecture where building owners are not anymore buying all these redundant layers, redundant stacks from all these different vendors.
They wanna start to buy applications that share a common infrastructure, right? So, um, , we've talked about this on the podcast with Google. We've talked about the podcast with Allianz. We've talked about, I think a lot of leading, leading building owners are sort of heading in this direction and the layers of the stack.
When we talk about horizontal, we're talking about building up from the, the, you know, the, the baseline of the building, which is all of the devices in the building are at the bottom of the horizontal architecture. And then we're layering on the, the infrastructure for starting to connect with [01:06:00] those systems, right?
So the next layer up is the network layer and then the data layer or the idl, the got IDL layer, the independent data layer is next. And then on top of that sits the application layer. So instead of having this whole stack for each of our individual applications, we have one infrastructure stack, and then we have applications that sit on top of and share that, that stack.
And I think that's sort of the, the future that we're sort of pointing people towards.
[01:06:29] Rosy Kahlife: Super interesting. Thank you for summarizing that. I feel like it's something that comes up in a lot of the conversations I also have with vendors and partners, and it's, a lot of people have gotten a lot of value from how you've synthesized all of this in a way that's easy for people to understand. And I think it's a complex concept, obviously.
Uh, so that's, that's
really
[01:06:52] James Dice: Let me, let me tie it. Yeah, real quick. So when I, when I talk to like conferences like Greenbuild, I'm not really getting into [01:07:00] the weeds of the architecture, but I'm trying to point out with this, that if they want to do things like enable green interactive buildings and they want to decarbonize their buildings, there is an infrastructure that they need to think about.
That is all of your control systems, all of your networks, all of your data layers, hopefully just one data layer that is gonna enable that success you're looking for. And I feel like that's, That's the, the bandwagon we need everyone to get on, like stop trying to sell grid interactive buildings. When you're building owners that you're selling that to, don't have these basic infrastructure layers set up, right?
And so if they were to say, yes, I want you to do grid interactive buildings, but uh, you also need to realize that your shared infrastructure is not set up to do that, then we could all start to speak on the same, from the same sheet of music. And then when, you know, I go to sell green interactive buildings and that, that some some day, [01:08:00] finally, when I come across a building owner that has this done already, it's gonna be really easy to enable great interactive buildings.
But right now, if we're all speaking from different sheets of music, we're never gonna have that infrastructure and we're never gonna be able to do these more sophisticated things with our buildings that we know that we need to do.
[01:08:18] Rosy Kahlife: That is the nugget right there. I think.
[01:08:21] James Dice: Totally.
[01:08:22] Rosy Kahlife: Okay, great. Um, so I wanna switch gears a little bit and talk about some of the recent things you've been expressing and, and you know, for folks that are listening, uh, James is a frequent contributor on LinkedIn. He's always, I think he posts almost every day, which is, which is really cool. And sparks a lot of great conversation in the comments.
And I've met people from those comments just from replying to each other. So it's, it's a great space also. But you've recently shared, you know, a few posts about conferences and some of your, uh, thoughts that, you know, the things that are sort of irking you these days [01:09:00] about conferences. And what was interesting is there's a bunch of comments, really lively discussion in, in, you know, on that post.
I wanted to hear from you, you know, if you could share kind of how you're feeling about conferences and or maybe what the community has shared about it as well.
[01:09:15] James Dice: Yeah, I think a lot of this got started when we started to. Calendar for the year, like what conferences are we gonna go to? And I started to get this sort of sinking feeling in my gut like, oh, now I have to like picture myself going to these conferences again. And I think there are a lot of people that sort of feel like, cuz I've heard from them, people that are technical, that want to go learn something at a conference.
I think there are a lot of people like me that are a bit frustrated and I, I'm not talking about really in the individual conference, I'm not picking on anyone. It's really more in general. Um, but I, I, I don't want to take this negative, but I think it's important to like, sort of point out these things. I think the first one, and by the way, we have [01:10:00] several posts that a lot of other people have weighed in on.
I'm gonna try to synthesize those thoughts here. Um, the first one is diversity is a pretty big problem. Um, drew Dupree, who is one of our members, really valued member of the Nexus community, he did a study, it's just like his own study during 2020, um, where he looked at all speaking slots across, um, real estate tech, sort of focused events.
And he found that only 13.3% of those slots were women, which is insane. Let's just like call it what it is. Um, and that's really cool that he did that. We can kind of dig up, dig up his, uh, link to show people. . And so I think part of that is, is is gender diversity. Part of it is racial diversity, and part of it is just diversity of ideas, right?
People that haven't historically gotten [01:11:00] speaking slots, I feel like conferences should go out of their way to sort of find those new voices. I think it's imperative that they do so. Um, and I think one of the ways we men that, that get invited, I get invited to a lot of different panels. I get invited to speak at a lot of different conferences.
I think men need to push back on this a little more. Um, I just did this last week. I got asked to be on a manhole and I said, Hey, like, let's make, let's either replace me or bring in a woman and really try to get other men that are making these decisions to see the value of, of diversity. And I think I go as far as to say that like we, we.
I don't think there should be any more men only panels in the industry. Um, I think as a member of the audience, I, I think, and as a speaker on men only [01:12:00] panels, I think it just, there are so many reasons why, and people can go into my posts to like, go into detail on what I think, but there's so many reasons why I think that should be something, something of the past.
What, what are your thoughts?
[01:12:12] Rosy Kahlife: I, I think that other industries have sort of gotten this already and have been very aware of it and are careful of it and are not, and you know, try to solve for it and have solved for it. But I think this particular industry in terms of the smart building space is still figuring this out and it's is still in the early stages of making that not a thing anymore.
But if you look at, you know, if you go to a startup, It's unlikely that you'll find a panel of just men. Like, it just, it's not, it's not as much of a thing, uh, or, or some other ones. But I think in general, all industries are, you know, moving
having more diversity in general.
[01:12:51] James Dice: Yeah. Like when I went to Green Build and I went to Verge in the fall, those are a little bit outside the smart building sphere. They have more like smart [01:13:00] buildings as a topic in this broader umbrella of topics. Both of those conferences did a really good job on diversity. I think when you look like this is a place where the actual real estate tech focused conferences need to do, need to do a better job.
[01:13:15] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah. And I think some folks will say, you know, let's just base it off of merit and. That should be the only, you know, the only focus. That's what we're looking for. And while I definitely agree with that, of course we wanna have speakers of, of a high caliber. Cause I, as a person in the audience, I wanna be learning something.
So of course that's, that goes without saying. But I think if you just don't create those opportunities for those other types of people, you know, it's just perpetuating a never ending cycle. Right. And so at some point someone has to sort of break the cycle so that it can continue from there and grow to a different place.
So yeah, I love, I love your position on that and you know, more people need to approach it in the way that you do.
[01:13:57] James Dice: Thanks. Um, so [01:14:00] next is depth. Well, actually before we move on from that, I think we should talk a little bit about what we're gonna do at Nexus in the, in this category. Um, we're just kind of in the early stages of implementing this, but um, I think this is a little bit of a challenge to the other sort of media companies out there.
I think the bare minimum we can do is set targets. And Drew and I were kind of going back and forth in the comments on LinkedIn about this, but it feels like each of these organizations, us included, should have a diversity target that we're trying to hit. We should publish where we're at on that, our progress towards hitting those targets.
And then we're gonna do a couple more things that we'll announce here in the next couple months. But I think those, doesn't that feel like, just like a basic level of expectation, um, if you care about this thing, which a lot of them are saying that they care about it, why not publish your goals? Why not publish your progress [01:15:00] towards those goals?
[01:15:01] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, that seems like a great first step.
[01:15:03] James Dice: And right now, we're, we're collecting the data to be able to figure out where we're at. I don't know that I'm gonna love where we're at once we collect the data, but that's kind of the first step in doing it.
[01:15:13] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah.
[01:15:14] James Dice: The next thing I feel like is, is conferences. This is kind of what I was hitting at with, with. The technical members of the audience like me, a lot of us feel like the conferences lack depth. Um, and I think I've talked to a lot of, a lot of like actual practitioners that have stopped showing up to conferences.
A couple people commented this, a couple people have just said when we're talking to them like, Hey, am I gonna see you at XYZ conference next week? We just hear back like, no, I'm not, not going because, and I think it's not worth their time. The people that are out there doing projects, the conferences need to make it worth those people's time to get off of that project.
And with that you have to learn something like, like you have to teach those people something. And I think a lot of times, conferences. [01:16:00] Sort of cater to the least common denominator in a way. They, they cater to the beginners. And I believe in teaching beginners, like that's what our entire course is all about.
Teaching beginners. That's not, that's very, very important, but I feel like you, an, you alienate the practitioners when you have every conference that's just like repeating the same basic things over and over again. Um, and yeah, I think there's a lot that we could go into there. Um, but maybe I'll just give a little bit of a rapid fire on some other ideas that people had.
Um, we had Tim Erman said, you know, the audience attention and engagement sucks these days. So this is kind of calling out the audience rather than the conference
[01:16:42] Rosy Kahlife: That's a good one. That's a great, I, you know, not something you always think about. He's
[01:16:46] James Dice: Yeah. When you're up on stage and you see the people's, the tops of people's heads because they're buried in their phone somewhere, it's like, why are you here? Why did you come to this conference? Why did I take my own time to prepare this panel and this [01:17:00] presentation for you, if you're gonna be in your email?
Uh,
it's, it's a little bit infuriating. Um, I think people need to realize that like a lot of people that are up on stage are spending their own time when they could be working on their business. They could, they're donating their time a lot of times to be up on that stage. And I think we could, we could pay 'em a little bit more respect.
Um, a lot of people said pay to play and keeping vendors in time out. We've talked about that a little bit. Um, but I think this is just a business model thing for conferences. I don't know what they should do here, because if they're built on sponsorships and selling speaker slots, I'm not sure that they can do a whole lot, but I think that brings down the quality of the content.
[01:17:45] Rosy Kahlife: Mm-hmm.
[01:17:46] James Dice: And then the last one is from Drew said, um, creative interaction. So I think I, I agree with him. I think conferences can do a better job at facilitating interactions and not just, [01:18:00] Hey, it's our happy hour time, right? But more like, let's, as a group talk about this thing and maybe we disagree, maybe we can have a debate and, and sort of facilitating that interaction, that way we're not all just reinforcing the same ideas all the time.
And, and Verge did a really good example of this, the Verge Conference, um, over in the fall. It's a Green Biz conference. They, they sat me down at a table during lunch and they said, You know, anyone that wants to talk to James Deis about why single pane of glass is a shitty acronym. I can't remember exactly what the prompt was, but they basically said like, you know why the single pane of glass is not, you know, the pania we're all panacea, we're all looking at, at it as and, and 10 people-ish came and had lunch with me.
And we talked about all the stuff that we're talking about here on this podcast. And it was great. It was a great way to interact with the people in the conference. [01:19:00] So that's, those are some ideas, and I think a lot of people are asking us, is there a Nexus conference that's gonna
[01:19:06] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, I was read my mind. You read my mind
literally
[01:19:10] James Dice: these are good ideas.
Um, but I think you and I both sort of respect how much work it is to put on a conference and so, We do. We do all you conference organizers. We do respect you and respect the work that it takes to, to do a conference, but it might be something if none of them change, that we are forced to do in the future.
Cause we want to create a space that people like us want to be. And I can't say I feel that way right now about a lot of the conferences.
[01:19:41] Rosy Kahlife: Yeah, and I think we hear that all the time. And I think maybe the first or the way that we can sort of get our feet wet is, um, you know, doing a hosting a day at one of the conferences that a lot of us usually attend, making it like a nexus day. And you know, James and I can [01:20:00] hours and hours figure out exactly how it'll be the best that it can be taking in all this feedback and all these suggestions.
And I think we could probably handle doing that, but I don't know if. Having a whole conference right
now
[01:20:11] James Dice: Yeah.
[01:20:12] Rosy Kahlife: is, the right next step.
[01:20:13] James Dice: I think the challenging part of that, and we've talked to. some conference organizers about this. Um, the challenging part of that is it's gotta be worth our time to make these conferences better. And I think a lot of the conferences kind of treat us like we're gonna come and show up and do a lot of work for free.
And that's, it's, we're, that's a place that we're kind of stuck right now, I'd say, is we have to figure out what, what makes sense for us in that, in that department. So that's our conference update for anyone that's wondering.
[01:20:46] Rosy Kahlife: that's good. Everyone was wondering, I'm sure. So, you know, we touched on so many different things. I think as a, as a listener, you know, you're probably wondering what's next? What do we have to look forward [01:21:00] to in 2023 for Nexus? So maybe James, you could give us some of the highlight reels of, of what to expect.
[01:21:07] James Dice: Yeah, absolutely. I, I wrote about this in the first newsletter of the year and we can link to that. Uh, I'll kind of share some of that, but a little bit of new stuff as well. Um, generally I think with you coming on board, you are taking a lot of the operations, sales, marketing stuff that I'm, you know, we are kind of a yin and yang in that way, in that you can take a lot of stuff off my plate that I shouldn't have been doing anyways.
Um, and it allowed me to sort of put a lot more time into content. I think you and I are also like creative thought partners a little bit, and so we'll be just by the fact that you're on the team. I think we'll be improving the way that we do things like improving the podcast, improving the pro membership community, improving the consistency and the really just the diversity of, of thought on the content that we're [01:22:00] already doing.
So just basically getting better, I think. Um, we've talked about the partner program. I think the partner program is gonna drive deeper content, so, um, , we're really gonna, you know, work with these partners that come on board to find the best stories of the best projects that they're working on and their best customers, right?
And dig into can we create case studies on those? Can we create ongoing columns? Can we create white papers on the best practices with that particular, um, partner in particular category? I think that's gonna be really fun. And then finally, we're, we're gonna create this creator program. We have, I think we have 42 applications at this point, um, of people that, that would love to contribute to what we're doing.
And I think that's a really, really amazing, started that a little bit already where we've had other people come on the podcast like Joe and Gene and other Joe and [01:23:00] Mandy. Um, we're gonna do that more and more. We've started an access control column with Lee oDesk, which is great. Um, , we've mentioned Drew De Priest, he's gonna be coming soon too.
So we're gonna have creators come on board that are gonna be sort of diversifying the voices, um, on this platform. And then finally, courses. So we, we have one course right now, our foundations course focused on kind of helping beginners start to think strategically about smart buildings. And we're gonna do more courses, more topics.
Um, one of the things I'm excited about creating soon is an awareness level course. So somebody, a, a course for someone that is sort of on the periphery of the industry, uh, that can understand in a couple hours why smart buildings and how they work and that kind of thing. Um, so that if you think about like, uh, a condo board member, right?
Why [01:24:00] should that condo building get more intelligent, right? Something for them to absorb in a few hours that gets them sort of down the path and like I said earlier, make more people sort of get it, you know?
[01:24:12] Rosy Kahlife: Mm.
[01:24:13] James Dice: So that's kind of where we're headed. Do you think we can do all that like next week?
[01:24:17] Rosy Kahlife: I think tomorrow what, you know, we'll just block out the whole day. Oh man. It was so much to look forward to. This has been so interesting. I I, before we sort of wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, is there anything else you wanna share with our listeners that you didn't have a chance to?
[01:24:35] James Dice: Uh, I think that was a lot.
[01:24:38] Rosy Kahlife: Was in a good way? In a good way,
[01:24:42] James Dice: Um, so I think we should probably make this and do a series and we'll probably have more thoughts at the next episode.
[01:24:50] Rosy Kahlife: Cool. That sounds good. So before you go, I wanna ask you a, a very James question, so I'll just throw it back at you. Is there [01:25:00] a book or a podcast or a TV show that you've been loving lately that has made an impact on You
[01:25:06] James Dice: This is hilarious coming from you because I feel like I send you like three podcast episodes every weekend. Uh,
[01:25:14] Rosy Kahlife: It's amazing. I don't know how you have the time to listen to them, but then I said that to you this weekend and you told me, well, you know, I had a two hour run and then I had a two hour drive, and then so then it made sense of how you can do it.
[01:25:28] James Dice: Yeah. I spent five hours in the car this weekend and I had Yeah, spent over three hours total running. And so yeah, you can consume some podcasts in that time. Um, I think the one I'll share, and I want to hear your carve out too, um, the one I'll share, and it's one I sent you this weekend, which is Brene Brown's podcast.
Um, She's got one on Spotify called Unlocking Us. And the last couple episodes before she sort of leaves Spotify are really good talking about how people can live big in their [01:26:00] life. Um, and if, if no one's, if, if people that are listening to this that haven't sort of discovered Brene Brown, she's all into sort of vulnerability and sort of living a fulfilled and, uh, you know, a life full of sort of happiness, um, and kind of walking down your own spiritual path.
And she talks about living big, which is setting boundaries so you can live in your integrity and be generous. And I feel like that really resonated with me. Um, and she did an episode on, on that sort of framework. So I'll share that if anyone, if anyone needs help setting boundaries in their life, they might want to check that out.
[01:26:40] Rosy Kahlife: Okay. That's a good one. Um, I will share mine. Uh, tough one. There's so many. I feel like you are. If I could list you as a carve out, you'd be a carve out, but I'm not, not my answer.
[01:26:54] James Dice: That's not the
place for that.
[01:26:56] Rosy Kahlife: that's not my answer. Um, so you [01:27:00] recommended a book that I should read and I have read it and it's called the 12 week Year and I had never read it before.
And it's really about, sort of thinking about instead of thinking about our year in this arbitrary, you know, 12 month cycle, and we do, you know, we have a New Year's resolution and we sort of just plug along every month and, and whatnot. We really think about our, our, our time on this earth in these 12.
Sprints. And so I really love that. And I just love how the book is written even, and there's so many concepts in it that you can apply to so many different areas of your life. But one of the things that I thought was just an interesting thought, um, you know, at one point, you know, the author is writing, you know, if you've had, if you said, these are the things that you're gonna accomplish today, just don't sleep until you do them, or, or kind of something like that.
And I just as a concept thought that was really interesting because sometimes a lot of us can make these long to-do lists, right? And, and they're not [01:28:00] realistic, so you're never gonna finish them in a day. Right? And so it's, it's kind of a twofold lesson. It's the lesson of. Figuring out actually what can you accomplish in a day and being realistic about that.
So I think that's part of what he was saying. And then the second part is really committing to whatever it is that you said you're gonna do today, actually getting it done. And I live my life that way, so I, and most people, I've never really read it written in that way where people agree, cuz I'm, it's a little bit intense of, of, as a concept of don't sleep until you finish.
And that's me. And so I thought, I, I think it just made me feel,
seen said that
I feel bad. Like that's okay. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, that's a good one. I highly recommend it. And that is a James recommendation,
[01:28:45] James Dice: feel like I'm glad I recommended that to you because you can help me sort of reign in all of my ideas. And you, you've already done this a bit too in terms of like, what, what, what, James, like what can we actually accomplish this [01:29:00] quarter versus like, James wants to do everything right now,
[01:29:03] Rosy Kahlife: It's good. Good
[01:29:05] James Dice: Well, thank you for doing this.
I wouldn't have chosen to do this. If it weren't for you pushing me,
[01:29:13] Rosy Kahlife: Good. Well, I'm happy that I could get this, get this out of you in a way. And I think that listeners are really gonna enjoy listening to your backstory and how you got to this point.
[01:29:24] James Dice: let us know. So if you're listening to this, uh, 90 minutes in at this point, let us know. If you like this and you want us to do more of the James and Rosie show or not, you can tell us if we should never do this again too.
[01:29:37] Rosy Kahlife: just be kind though. I'm not James. So James is good with just blunt feedback. That's not me. So just keep that in mind you're telling us what you
[01:29:47] James Dice: Send us an email and don't copy Rosie or copy Rosie and make it kind. But I, I want the, I want the raw version. If you think that, if you think this is full of shit, just let us know. [01:30:00] Let me know. All right. Bye
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