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"Today we're trying a new format that we're excited about. This will be a short form for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. So towards the end, we have an ask me anything where pro members can call in, and James and I can answer your questions."
— Rosy Khalife
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Episode 143 is a conversation with the Nexus Labs team Rosy Khalife and James Dice.
Summary
Episode 143 is the first new podcast after taking a break to reformat and expand our podcast platform. Updates + AMA will be a series of shorter episodes for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. Towards the end, we have an ask me anything (AMA) where pro members can call in, and James and Rosy can answer your questions. Excited to start sharing these new ideas with you and please let us know what you think!
You can find Rosy and James on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
Nexus updates (01:36)
Ask me anything (07:03)
Music credit: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S439547-15083.
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!
[00:00:00] Rosy Khalife: If you are listening to this and you are a Nexus Pro member, we have a hotline that we're really excited about that's giving off 1990s vibes, but I'm here for it. James, are you ready for this?
[00:00:13] James Dice: I'm so excited. I can't wait. When they edit this, I gotta get the nineties vibes comment.
[00:00:21] Hey friends. Did you know the best way to continue learning beyond the Nexus podcast is to sign up for our newsletter? The Nexus Newsletter is your one-stop shop for staying up to date on the latest smart building trends. Sign up today free of charge, and we'll drop this industry leading resource right into your inbox every Wednesday.
[00:00:36] If you're already signed up, double high five and thank you. But now tell your coworkers and your friends once you're signed up. The best way to continue the learning is to join the Nexus Pro Membership community, or our online course offering. Headlined by our flagship course, nexus Foundations. Diving into these products allows you to connect with our global community of like-minded Changemakers Lakes are below in the show notes and now on the pod.[00:01:00]
[00:01:05] Rosy Khalife: Hi, everyone who's listening. This is the Nexus Labs podcast. Today we're trying a new format that we're excited about. This will be a short form for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. So towards the end, we haven't asked me anything where pro members can call in, and James and I can answer your questions.
[00:01:28] So let's get started.
[00:01:30] James Dice: I love this because I love hearing their voices, so stay tuned for. Some awesome recordings from our members.
[00:01:36] Rosy Khalife: Yes, for sure. All right. First things first. What's happening around Nexus Labs? Lots has been going on. It feels like a very busy time for us, but one exciting thing is we obviously have launched our partner program.
[00:01:50] We, James and I had chatted about it on the episode where I interviewed James, and that was before we had launched. So we've since launched. We [00:02:00] have a bunch of companies. That are there, that are doing really awesome work and some of our new partners that I wanna shout out, Kaiterra, really great company that does indoor air quality monitoring, Brainbox Ai, another amazing company, and we're just excited to have a lot of change makers be part of our partner program.
[00:02:21] We're getting a lot of great feedback from the industry, from buyers, from the actual providers of tech and service solutions. So we're continuously making that even better and better.
[00:02:32] James Dice: And when these partners come on board, we're excited for the first couple things they're gonna do when they start working with us, which is they're gonna record demos.
[00:02:39] We're gonna publish together case studies that we call deployment profiles. We're gonna start interviewing their customers for large scale technology deployments that we're super excited about because they have lessons learned and shortcomings and all the different ways in which technology is happening in the real world.
[00:02:57] So we're excited to tell. Those [00:03:00] stories as well. And then we're gonna be partnering with them on developing buyer guides, so helping the buyer community, um, really understand for each different category of technology. Basically a guide to navigating the vendor marketplace and navigating the purchase. Why you would purchase it, how you would use it, what to look out for lessons learned from other buyers that have purchased it.
[00:03:25] So we're gonna be publishing those right around mid-June, starting with the F D D category.
[00:03:29] Rosy Khalife: Cool. What else is going on from an event standpoint for our pro members?
[00:03:35] James Dice: Yeah, so our members have a couple events per month. Recently we heard from Thano Lambrinos, that QuadReal. He talked about what he calls the operations of the future, which is a super cool look at how they're, you know, thinking about using technology to operate their buildings differently.
[00:03:51] So that was very cool. We also heard from Dream the folks at Dream out of Canada as well. They talked about the tech stack that is sort of [00:04:00] enabling their sort of march to net zero carbon emissions. So that was really cool. It was things like fall detection, diagnostics, uh, different ways to control things, occupancy data.
[00:04:11] So they talked about where all those things fit in context, and so I thought that was, that was a really cool subject matter expert workshop. And over the next month or so, so by the time this gets published, these events will already happen, but we're hearing from one of our members Krigh Bachmann about building information modeling and where that sort of overlaps with the smart building stack.
[00:04:33] And then we're hearing from Becca Timms from Jamestown, the director of E S G at Jamestown, about their tech stack that's enabling their march to zero carbon emissions. Um, and then finally what we're excited about is our new creator program. So we have our first creator on board that's helping us sort of.
[00:04:52] Provide the different community aspects in the Nexus Pro community. Her name's Natalie Patton. Her day job is with buildings i o t, so [00:05:00] she's on board. She's gonna start sort of writing about these events and sort of telling the story to a wider audience. So that's gonna be fun.
[00:05:06] Rosy Khalife: Super excited for all of that.
[00:05:08] I think that people don't always realize that we do events, virtual events, and you know, the community comes together and connects and we try to make it really interactive and with breakout rooms. And we've heard from our pro members that the breakout rooms are everyone's favorite, where they come together and they actually get to meet and talk and it ends up, you know, resulting in them meeting in person and having dinners together and working together and whatnot.
[00:05:32] So excited for all of that. How is the foundation's course coming along, James?
[00:05:38] James Dice: Yeah, so we have cohort six of our foundation's course happening right now. There are 88 students that are taking cohort six, which is amazing. They're from all over the world. And it's so fun seeing them interact with each other.
[00:05:51] And we do usually do intros at the beginning of every, every call. And it's so fun seeing someone from, you know, California, meet someone from [00:06:00] India or Australia or you know, the UK or Ireland. And it's just so fun seeing all these different interactions. I. So Rachel Kennedy is our course lead. So this is the first cohort where she's taken over that role.
[00:06:12] She's doing a great job of running this cohort. So shout out to Rachel. Um, I wanted to let everyone know that by the time this episode gets published, we will have converted the course to an on-demand model. So instead of waiting for a cohort to happen in the fall, If you're listening to this right now and you're interested in taking it to the course, you can take it.
[00:06:32] Let's go to our website on Nexus Labs, dot online slash foundations, and you'll be able to enroll right away. And then the final fun update is that we're in the beginning conversations with the development of a bunch of new courses. So we're looking at things like intro to hvac, intro to controls, how to sell, and then how to buy.
[00:06:52] So really adding, you know, Infrastructure, sort of around the foundation's course to cover these other topics and we'll [00:07:00] continue to develop more and more courses over time.
[00:07:03] Rosy Khalife: Amazing. Let's get into my favorite part. I am so excited about this. This is the Ask Me Anything section where we will hear from our pro members.
[00:07:13] Pro members have a special phone number that they can call in and leave us a voicemail asking us a question. You can also send us. A voice memo via email or uploaded onto Nexus Connect, and you could be featured in an upcoming episode. So why don't we get started? James, are you ready for this?
[00:07:34] James Dice: I'm so excited.
[00:07:35] I can't wait.
[00:07:36] Rosy Khalife: All right. I hope some of these questions are extra challenging, but let's see what, let's see what we come up with.
[00:07:42] Eric Larson: Hello nexus. This is Eric Larson from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was part of the initial Nexus Foundation's cohort and have been a pro member and alumni mentor ever since. I had a question for you on the show today, but wanted to give some context first.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] So, I work for Wired Score and lead our accredited professionals or AP program across North America, and I'm privileged to work with smart building experts in architecture, engineering, construction technology, and integration. And out of all of those groups at the end of the day for a construction project, who do you think should be responsible for successful smart building implementation?
[00:08:28] So if you're curious, my thoughts, uh, and answer in a caveat, but I think it should be the engineering or n e P firm, because they already have a lot of this technology expertise in house and many are building out smart building practices today. The only caveat is that I feel most of them at this point are saying that technology is this extra addition and not necessarily weaving the smart building expertise throughout their m and e or mechanical and electrical disciplines.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] I'd also like to see the master systems integrator or MSI brought in earlier in these discussions as well. Curious your thoughts and thanks for the answer.
[00:09:11] Rosy Khalife: Thanks, Eric. We love that question. I also love how you asked it as though this is a radio show, so I appreciate that. I loved it. Um, okay, James, before you answer whoever's listening the audience, maybe you can just take audience, take a second and you answer this question in your own mind in terms of what you think and what you believe.
[00:09:32] And then obviously we'd love to hear what James thinks. And then I'd, I'd also be curious if. What James thinks is what you all think. So go ahead James.
[00:09:43] James Dice: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Eric. I'd like to also give a shout out to Eric, who is the one that went first. So we posted this prompt for questions. Eric was brave enough to submit a first question for this new podcast series.
[00:09:55] So I have worked at an m e p engineering firm, Eric, as you [00:10:00] may or may not know, and, and you're, you're right, that one of the primary challenges. Here is that these firms haven't really integrated that smart building expertise and, and sort of smart building practices and know-how into the teams that are actually doing the mechanical, electrical, et cetera design piece.
[00:10:18] And then one more challenge, I think there are a lot of challenges here. I'll just kind of list that are ones that are coming to my mind. One more challenge that these teams are actually siloed within each of the engineering firms. So generally, even though they're working on the same building, typically the mechanical and electrical aren't really coordinating in that design.
[00:10:35] And then yet another challenge is that even if all these teams within each design firm, um, are coordinating on the design, There's usually more than one design firm on the construction team. Or you might have a different process, like you might have a design build process where they're actually designing.
[00:10:54] The design is coming from these different contractors who are each responsible for their own design and construction. [00:11:00] And then finally, there's a bunch of way, bunch of challenges here. The last one that's coming to me is that none of these designers. Are typically responsible for the layers in the stack above the device and network layers.
[00:11:13] So when you talk about an M E P engineering firm, Eric, You're actually talking about only half of the smart building stack. So we still need a data layer. We still need these applications to come in. Typically, these contractors and designers aren't necessarily specifying or designing those systems. And so I think to navigate all of these challenges, we can't really say that the m e engineering firm is really the best one to take this on.
[00:11:40] I think the best approach here is to. Choose a separate smart building design consultant that is responsible for crafting the strategy and vision with the owner and then working directly for the owner. So in other words, pull them out of the construction process, have them work directly for the owner, not the general contractor, not the [00:12:00] architect, et cetera.
[00:12:00] They're responsible for the technology and they're really the owners. Sort of consultant for after the building is built as, as well. So, Charlie Buscarino talked about this on the Nexus podcast. So did Bruce Duyshart down from Australia about their role and how they see themselves and the role they play for building owners.
[00:12:20] And then finally, Eric, you talked about the msi. So um, the MSI can work directly with that design consultant, and then also I'd throw in a commissioning agent as well. So these three different roles, They're part of the five vital roles that we talk about in our white paper that we call the five vital Roles.
[00:12:39] So you're, you're right, Eric. All three of these roles should be involved earlier. Most of the time they're getting involved way too late on construction process. And I think pulling them back to the design phase, letting them all be a part of that design face and then. I think all three also work directly for the owner.
[00:12:57] So again, pull them out of this [00:13:00] hierarchy that's responsible for building buildings. Have all three report directly to the owner and I, I think that's the path forward that I think most people have agreed. Someone disagrees with me, they can call in for the next episode.
[00:13:13] Rosy Khalife: All right, cool. It, I guess to summarize, it sounds like it's not an easy answer, correct.
[00:13:21] All right, cool. Um, we have another one. We have actually two more, so let's get your thoughts on this one.
[00:13:29] Aviva: Hi, nexus team, love the new podcast format. I'm a member of Nexus. I'm actually new to the industry. I work as a consultant in digital transformation, and my role has recently become more focused on the built environment.
[00:13:43] My question is, how does the concept of smart buildings differ across building types? Thanks for a answering and keep up the great work.
[00:13:51] Rosy Khalife: What do you think?
[00:13:52] James Dice: I love that. Welcome to the industry, Aviva. We love the newcomers to the industry. I, I love when we see them in our [00:14:00] foundations course and they, like, they meet other total newcomers and they can finally feel like everything's not over their head.
[00:14:07] Finally feel like they're not like totally drinking through a fire hose, trying to understand what are all these acronyms, what are all these concepts, et cetera. So onto this question, I think it's easy to forget that when we say smart buildings industry, that doesn't actually exist. So the smart buildings really isn't an industry.
[00:14:24] We have a bunch of industries that have buildings and technology can help those buildings, right? So all different buildings across all these different industries, they all share a common set of problems. So we have siloed systems. We've talked about many times on the show before, and then we have many ways that new technology can help improve what those systems can do, right?
[00:14:45] So they can decarbonize help sustainability, they can help improve the occupant experience, they can help operational efficiency, basically help, you know, operate and run the building better. They can help provide more healthy spaces, et cetera. And then finally, all buildings [00:15:00] have some sort of facility management or operations or sustainability stakeholders, right?
[00:15:05] There are people that work for those building owners. Sometimes they're outsourced, sometimes they're a consultant, sometimes they're a single person. If we summarize what's similar across all buildings, across all industries, generally they need to improve these things, and generally they have technology that's not capable of improving these things.
[00:15:22] But then they differ based on what actual industry we're in and what actual size of the building and, and, and many other factors. And it's best, I think, to use different types of buildings as examples. So if we think about an example of a hospital, um, and then an example of a, like a class, A office building.
[00:15:41] And then maybe we use like a firehouse in a rural town. So those are three different types of buildings. We can't possibly say that those are the, the same industry, right? They're actually way, way different in terms of how those businesses function. One of 'em is not even a business. So the, the first way that they differ is we ask like basically who is the occupant?
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] Who are we trying to optimize the experience of that building for? In some ways, the customer and the user of technology is the occupant, right? And so in other words, who are we trying to improve that experience for? When are they there? What are the activities? What are they trying to accomplish? And so like the hospital example, generally those are the patients who are trying to improve their health.
[00:16:19] The doctors, we're trying to support them in improving the patient's health. Right office, it's the office worker. I'm trying to come in to the building. I'm trying to get my stuff done. I'm trying to interact with my coworkers. And then the firehouse, those are the firemen and women who are living there, basically cooking meals.
[00:16:36] They need to be able to get out as soon as possible, those types of things. And then there are the sort of regulations and business requirements that apply to each type of building. So in a hospital, I need to meet code. So each state has their different code and their different requirements of the building.
[00:16:53] They need to enable a certain patient experience. And then a lot of people don't realize that, um, the compensation of a hospital is [00:17:00] driven partly by. Patient surveys. So if I say, this was my experience at this hospital, that affects the compensation of the hospital. And then the state inspects hospitals on a random, usually random basis.
[00:17:13] And so they're thinking about that all the time. Offices, we have the office worker's expectation, so if I'm in, you know, Manhattan, I have a different expectation of what my office building is gonna be like versus if I'm in Albuquerque or Omaha or whatever, right? So there are different differences there.
[00:17:31] And then Firehouse, those are smaller buildings, so they're typically not sort of regulated like larger ones. And so there really isn't a whole lot of requirements, business requirements there. And then finally, I, I said the other big difference here is the ownership structure. And sort of the relationship between the different stakeholders in that industry.
[00:17:50] So hospitals are typically. Nonprofit, owner occupied, owner managed right in-house facility management, et cetera. Offices are typically owned [00:18:00] by investment trusts that no one can find, right? They're not actually humans, they're just some investment fund out there. They're usually third party managed and then they're tenant occupied.
[00:18:10] So we're, there's a really, a lot of confusion around the different responsibilities there. And then Firehouse, those are public institutions, right? It's owned by the city. Uh, so there are, you know, public. Stakeholders, public requirements, elected officials that are responsible for those types of buildings.
[00:18:26] And so we really had to think about in each of these different industries, and this applies to schools, universities, data centers, these are all different industries, and we forget that what technology can do really depends on what we're trying to accomplish in each of these different industries. Thank you, Aviva.
[00:18:44] Great question.
[00:18:44] Rosy Khalife: Such a good answer too. Um, we have a last question, and this comes to us from one of our partners, Bueno, and the question is from Leon, the founder, and c e o. So I will play that now. [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Leon Wurfel: Hi James, this is Leon Wurfel. I'm the founder of Bueno. We first met, uh, at a Haystack Connect conference back in 2017 at, in Tampa, Florida.
[00:19:12] James Dice: And back then, I remember we stayed up many late nights talking about how much technologies like, and closed loop optimization and advanced supervisory control just made sense and seemed just around the corner from mainstream adoption. So the question that I've got for you is, how crazy is it on a scale of one to 10 that we're still, uh, all sitting here talking about these technologies and everyone isn't just doing them already?
[00:19:43] Rosy Khalife: Such a good question. Such a Leon question. What do you think, James?
[00:19:47] James Dice: I love how even keel Leon is when he asks this. I think most vendors when they think about this question, they're like, blood starts to boil and he's just, that's just. Who Leon is, he's just so calm about everything. So thank [00:20:00] you. Thank you, Leon, for asking this in such a calm, calm way.
[00:20:03] I, I think if you were to ask me this back then, in 2017 when we were staying up too late, I would've said that you were like 10 out of 10 crazy to be like where we're at now and 20, 23, 6 years later. I think we all thought things were about to explode back then, especially like Leon and I, right? We come from this energy management background.
[00:20:24] We have this software here that has been around for over a decade and it helps so much in energy management. Why wouldn't every building implement this right now? Why isn't this an emergency, right? Um, but obviously I've kind of thought about this a lot more since then, and I think now I'd say I'm less surprised.
[00:20:44] And I think the Crossing the Chasm framework is actually really insightful and useful here as to why I think many products in the marketplace haven't really been ready for primetime. And when I say primetime, I don't think they're ready for risk-free deployment by really [00:21:00] risk-averse real estate owners.
[00:21:02] And so there's been a lot of piloting and a lot of these pilots have fizzled out when the product doesn't do what it. Was claimed to do. And often what we've found with, especially with around the energy management use cases, is that in order to produce those results, these products need to be paired with expert humans.
[00:21:19] And this is something that our mutual friend, Tom Baum, also, uh, Australia, he calls this human analytics, right? So it's not analytics. You have to pair it with a team of. Really smart humans. And it turns out that human part is actually quite difficult. Right. And there are a bunch of different models for that human piece.
[00:21:39] And I think what we're talking about basically operationalizing a technology into these human operational processes that weren't intended to use the technology. And that takes a really long time. And yeah, I think finally, and we've talked about this on our episode around the horizontal architecture. We haven't always had the infrastructure for these [00:22:00] applications, so the time to value and the risk of these projects increases because they're sitting on this brittle infrastructure that basically is the device and network layers especially.
[00:22:13] But I'd say Leon, I know you're very optimistic about this. I think I'm still optimistic as well. I think great products are still rising to the top, so those that reduce that human effort required to get the results, those are the partners that we're looking at partnering with and those different categories that you mentioned.
[00:22:33] We're also seeing organizations and we have a couple in this season and the next season of the podcast we're, we're seeing them. They've been implementing these technologies for many years. They're starting to integrate them into operations and we're seeing a playbook for how to do that, which is exciting that other people can sort of copy.
[00:22:50] And then finally, there's just like bigger macro trends that are still gonna continue to push building owners to use them. So if it's not happening yet, I think it will happen in the future. [00:23:00] Such as, you know, operations folks retiring and the turnover there, they need to be able to do more with less people.
[00:23:07] And then finally, decarbonization, right? So we think about that need to decarbonize buildings isn't going away. And we know that these tools are core and, and required as part of the stack to enable that. So I, I don't think the need is gonna go away. It's just a, a, you know, maybe it's never gonna blow up like we thought it would.
[00:23:26] Maybe it would just be, maybe it's just a linear adoption. From here on out.
[00:23:31] Rosy Khalife: Hmm. So what's your number one through 10?
[00:23:35] James Dice: Yeah, I think I was originally 10 outta 10. I think I'm now more like a five. Um, I still feel that my blood boiling as well, but it's more like I understand why it's, it's not blowing up right now.
[00:23:47] Rosy Khalife: Fair. Okay. Cool. Thank you Eric. Aviva, Leon, thank you for calling in. Thank you for asking us a question. If you are listening to this and you are a Nexus Pro member, we [00:24:00] have a hotline that we're really excited about. That's giving off 1990s vibes, but I'm here for it. The number which I'll share. But if you're a pro member, your question will be answered live on the podcast.
[00:24:11] That number is 1 3 0 3 8 7 6 1 0 7 7. And leave us a voicemail. Say your name, where you work. How long you've been in the Nexus community, and then your question, and if you are not in the United States, no problem. Feel free to send us a voice memo with your question to Hello Nexus labs.online. We're excited to hear from you and hopefully we'll be answering it on an upcoming episode.
[00:24:40] So thank you all for listening. I hope this was interesting. We will leave the things that we mentioned below in the show notes so you can easily find them, and we're looking forward to chatting with you again soon.
[00:24:57] Okay friends, as we're trying these new formats, [00:25:00] please let us know what you think in your podcast player right now, or on the episode page on our website. There's a link to a survey for this specific episode. We'd love to hear from you and we wanna hear your feedback. Also, don't forget to sign up for the Nexus newsletter or invite your coworkers and friends with a link below.
[00:25:17] Catch you next time.
"Today we're trying a new format that we're excited about. This will be a short form for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. So towards the end, we have an ask me anything where pro members can call in, and James and I can answer your questions."
— Rosy Khalife
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 143 is a conversation with the Nexus Labs team Rosy Khalife and James Dice.
Summary
Episode 143 is the first new podcast after taking a break to reformat and expand our podcast platform. Updates + AMA will be a series of shorter episodes for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. Towards the end, we have an ask me anything (AMA) where pro members can call in, and James and Rosy can answer your questions. Excited to start sharing these new ideas with you and please let us know what you think!
You can find Rosy and James on LinkedIn.
Enjoy!
Nexus updates (01:36)
Ask me anything (07:03)
Music credit: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S439547-15083.
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!
[00:00:00] Rosy Khalife: If you are listening to this and you are a Nexus Pro member, we have a hotline that we're really excited about that's giving off 1990s vibes, but I'm here for it. James, are you ready for this?
[00:00:13] James Dice: I'm so excited. I can't wait. When they edit this, I gotta get the nineties vibes comment.
[00:00:21] Hey friends. Did you know the best way to continue learning beyond the Nexus podcast is to sign up for our newsletter? The Nexus Newsletter is your one-stop shop for staying up to date on the latest smart building trends. Sign up today free of charge, and we'll drop this industry leading resource right into your inbox every Wednesday.
[00:00:36] If you're already signed up, double high five and thank you. But now tell your coworkers and your friends once you're signed up. The best way to continue the learning is to join the Nexus Pro Membership community, or our online course offering. Headlined by our flagship course, nexus Foundations. Diving into these products allows you to connect with our global community of like-minded Changemakers Lakes are below in the show notes and now on the pod.[00:01:00]
[00:01:05] Rosy Khalife: Hi, everyone who's listening. This is the Nexus Labs podcast. Today we're trying a new format that we're excited about. This will be a short form for us to discuss industry news, what's happening behind the scenes at Nexus, and to answer questions from our pro members. So towards the end, we haven't asked me anything where pro members can call in, and James and I can answer your questions.
[00:01:28] So let's get started.
[00:01:30] James Dice: I love this because I love hearing their voices, so stay tuned for. Some awesome recordings from our members.
[00:01:36] Rosy Khalife: Yes, for sure. All right. First things first. What's happening around Nexus Labs? Lots has been going on. It feels like a very busy time for us, but one exciting thing is we obviously have launched our partner program.
[00:01:50] We, James and I had chatted about it on the episode where I interviewed James, and that was before we had launched. So we've since launched. We [00:02:00] have a bunch of companies. That are there, that are doing really awesome work and some of our new partners that I wanna shout out, Kaiterra, really great company that does indoor air quality monitoring, Brainbox Ai, another amazing company, and we're just excited to have a lot of change makers be part of our partner program.
[00:02:21] We're getting a lot of great feedback from the industry, from buyers, from the actual providers of tech and service solutions. So we're continuously making that even better and better.
[00:02:32] James Dice: And when these partners come on board, we're excited for the first couple things they're gonna do when they start working with us, which is they're gonna record demos.
[00:02:39] We're gonna publish together case studies that we call deployment profiles. We're gonna start interviewing their customers for large scale technology deployments that we're super excited about because they have lessons learned and shortcomings and all the different ways in which technology is happening in the real world.
[00:02:57] So we're excited to tell. Those [00:03:00] stories as well. And then we're gonna be partnering with them on developing buyer guides, so helping the buyer community, um, really understand for each different category of technology. Basically a guide to navigating the vendor marketplace and navigating the purchase. Why you would purchase it, how you would use it, what to look out for lessons learned from other buyers that have purchased it.
[00:03:25] So we're gonna be publishing those right around mid-June, starting with the F D D category.
[00:03:29] Rosy Khalife: Cool. What else is going on from an event standpoint for our pro members?
[00:03:35] James Dice: Yeah, so our members have a couple events per month. Recently we heard from Thano Lambrinos, that QuadReal. He talked about what he calls the operations of the future, which is a super cool look at how they're, you know, thinking about using technology to operate their buildings differently.
[00:03:51] So that was very cool. We also heard from Dream the folks at Dream out of Canada as well. They talked about the tech stack that is sort of [00:04:00] enabling their sort of march to net zero carbon emissions. So that was really cool. It was things like fall detection, diagnostics, uh, different ways to control things, occupancy data.
[00:04:11] So they talked about where all those things fit in context, and so I thought that was, that was a really cool subject matter expert workshop. And over the next month or so, so by the time this gets published, these events will already happen, but we're hearing from one of our members Krigh Bachmann about building information modeling and where that sort of overlaps with the smart building stack.
[00:04:33] And then we're hearing from Becca Timms from Jamestown, the director of E S G at Jamestown, about their tech stack that's enabling their march to zero carbon emissions. Um, and then finally what we're excited about is our new creator program. So we have our first creator on board that's helping us sort of.
[00:04:52] Provide the different community aspects in the Nexus Pro community. Her name's Natalie Patton. Her day job is with buildings i o t, so [00:05:00] she's on board. She's gonna start sort of writing about these events and sort of telling the story to a wider audience. So that's gonna be fun.
[00:05:06] Rosy Khalife: Super excited for all of that.
[00:05:08] I think that people don't always realize that we do events, virtual events, and you know, the community comes together and connects and we try to make it really interactive and with breakout rooms. And we've heard from our pro members that the breakout rooms are everyone's favorite, where they come together and they actually get to meet and talk and it ends up, you know, resulting in them meeting in person and having dinners together and working together and whatnot.
[00:05:32] So excited for all of that. How is the foundation's course coming along, James?
[00:05:38] James Dice: Yeah, so we have cohort six of our foundation's course happening right now. There are 88 students that are taking cohort six, which is amazing. They're from all over the world. And it's so fun seeing them interact with each other.
[00:05:51] And we do usually do intros at the beginning of every, every call. And it's so fun seeing someone from, you know, California, meet someone from [00:06:00] India or Australia or you know, the UK or Ireland. And it's just so fun seeing all these different interactions. I. So Rachel Kennedy is our course lead. So this is the first cohort where she's taken over that role.
[00:06:12] She's doing a great job of running this cohort. So shout out to Rachel. Um, I wanted to let everyone know that by the time this episode gets published, we will have converted the course to an on-demand model. So instead of waiting for a cohort to happen in the fall, If you're listening to this right now and you're interested in taking it to the course, you can take it.
[00:06:32] Let's go to our website on Nexus Labs, dot online slash foundations, and you'll be able to enroll right away. And then the final fun update is that we're in the beginning conversations with the development of a bunch of new courses. So we're looking at things like intro to hvac, intro to controls, how to sell, and then how to buy.
[00:06:52] So really adding, you know, Infrastructure, sort of around the foundation's course to cover these other topics and we'll [00:07:00] continue to develop more and more courses over time.
[00:07:03] Rosy Khalife: Amazing. Let's get into my favorite part. I am so excited about this. This is the Ask Me Anything section where we will hear from our pro members.
[00:07:13] Pro members have a special phone number that they can call in and leave us a voicemail asking us a question. You can also send us. A voice memo via email or uploaded onto Nexus Connect, and you could be featured in an upcoming episode. So why don't we get started? James, are you ready for this?
[00:07:34] James Dice: I'm so excited.
[00:07:35] I can't wait.
[00:07:36] Rosy Khalife: All right. I hope some of these questions are extra challenging, but let's see what, let's see what we come up with.
[00:07:42] Eric Larson: Hello nexus. This is Eric Larson from Charlotte, North Carolina. I was part of the initial Nexus Foundation's cohort and have been a pro member and alumni mentor ever since. I had a question for you on the show today, but wanted to give some context first.
[00:07:59] [00:08:00] So, I work for Wired Score and lead our accredited professionals or AP program across North America, and I'm privileged to work with smart building experts in architecture, engineering, construction technology, and integration. And out of all of those groups at the end of the day for a construction project, who do you think should be responsible for successful smart building implementation?
[00:08:28] So if you're curious, my thoughts, uh, and answer in a caveat, but I think it should be the engineering or n e P firm, because they already have a lot of this technology expertise in house and many are building out smart building practices today. The only caveat is that I feel most of them at this point are saying that technology is this extra addition and not necessarily weaving the smart building expertise throughout their m and e or mechanical and electrical disciplines.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] I'd also like to see the master systems integrator or MSI brought in earlier in these discussions as well. Curious your thoughts and thanks for the answer.
[00:09:11] Rosy Khalife: Thanks, Eric. We love that question. I also love how you asked it as though this is a radio show, so I appreciate that. I loved it. Um, okay, James, before you answer whoever's listening the audience, maybe you can just take audience, take a second and you answer this question in your own mind in terms of what you think and what you believe.
[00:09:32] And then obviously we'd love to hear what James thinks. And then I'd, I'd also be curious if. What James thinks is what you all think. So go ahead James.
[00:09:43] James Dice: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you Eric. I'd like to also give a shout out to Eric, who is the one that went first. So we posted this prompt for questions. Eric was brave enough to submit a first question for this new podcast series.
[00:09:55] So I have worked at an m e p engineering firm, Eric, as you [00:10:00] may or may not know, and, and you're, you're right, that one of the primary challenges. Here is that these firms haven't really integrated that smart building expertise and, and sort of smart building practices and know-how into the teams that are actually doing the mechanical, electrical, et cetera design piece.
[00:10:18] And then one more challenge, I think there are a lot of challenges here. I'll just kind of list that are ones that are coming to my mind. One more challenge that these teams are actually siloed within each of the engineering firms. So generally, even though they're working on the same building, typically the mechanical and electrical aren't really coordinating in that design.
[00:10:35] And then yet another challenge is that even if all these teams within each design firm, um, are coordinating on the design, There's usually more than one design firm on the construction team. Or you might have a different process, like you might have a design build process where they're actually designing.
[00:10:54] The design is coming from these different contractors who are each responsible for their own design and construction. [00:11:00] And then finally, there's a bunch of way, bunch of challenges here. The last one that's coming to me is that none of these designers. Are typically responsible for the layers in the stack above the device and network layers.
[00:11:13] So when you talk about an M E P engineering firm, Eric, You're actually talking about only half of the smart building stack. So we still need a data layer. We still need these applications to come in. Typically, these contractors and designers aren't necessarily specifying or designing those systems. And so I think to navigate all of these challenges, we can't really say that the m e engineering firm is really the best one to take this on.
[00:11:40] I think the best approach here is to. Choose a separate smart building design consultant that is responsible for crafting the strategy and vision with the owner and then working directly for the owner. So in other words, pull them out of the construction process, have them work directly for the owner, not the general contractor, not the [00:12:00] architect, et cetera.
[00:12:00] They're responsible for the technology and they're really the owners. Sort of consultant for after the building is built as, as well. So, Charlie Buscarino talked about this on the Nexus podcast. So did Bruce Duyshart down from Australia about their role and how they see themselves and the role they play for building owners.
[00:12:20] And then finally, Eric, you talked about the msi. So um, the MSI can work directly with that design consultant, and then also I'd throw in a commissioning agent as well. So these three different roles, They're part of the five vital roles that we talk about in our white paper that we call the five vital Roles.
[00:12:39] So you're, you're right, Eric. All three of these roles should be involved earlier. Most of the time they're getting involved way too late on construction process. And I think pulling them back to the design phase, letting them all be a part of that design face and then. I think all three also work directly for the owner.
[00:12:57] So again, pull them out of this [00:13:00] hierarchy that's responsible for building buildings. Have all three report directly to the owner and I, I think that's the path forward that I think most people have agreed. Someone disagrees with me, they can call in for the next episode.
[00:13:13] Rosy Khalife: All right, cool. It, I guess to summarize, it sounds like it's not an easy answer, correct.
[00:13:21] All right, cool. Um, we have another one. We have actually two more, so let's get your thoughts on this one.
[00:13:29] Aviva: Hi, nexus team, love the new podcast format. I'm a member of Nexus. I'm actually new to the industry. I work as a consultant in digital transformation, and my role has recently become more focused on the built environment.
[00:13:43] My question is, how does the concept of smart buildings differ across building types? Thanks for a answering and keep up the great work.
[00:13:51] Rosy Khalife: What do you think?
[00:13:52] James Dice: I love that. Welcome to the industry, Aviva. We love the newcomers to the industry. I, I love when we see them in our [00:14:00] foundations course and they, like, they meet other total newcomers and they can finally feel like everything's not over their head.
[00:14:07] Finally feel like they're not like totally drinking through a fire hose, trying to understand what are all these acronyms, what are all these concepts, et cetera. So onto this question, I think it's easy to forget that when we say smart buildings industry, that doesn't actually exist. So the smart buildings really isn't an industry.
[00:14:24] We have a bunch of industries that have buildings and technology can help those buildings, right? So all different buildings across all these different industries, they all share a common set of problems. So we have siloed systems. We've talked about many times on the show before, and then we have many ways that new technology can help improve what those systems can do, right?
[00:14:45] So they can decarbonize help sustainability, they can help improve the occupant experience, they can help operational efficiency, basically help, you know, operate and run the building better. They can help provide more healthy spaces, et cetera. And then finally, all buildings [00:15:00] have some sort of facility management or operations or sustainability stakeholders, right?
[00:15:05] There are people that work for those building owners. Sometimes they're outsourced, sometimes they're a consultant, sometimes they're a single person. If we summarize what's similar across all buildings, across all industries, generally they need to improve these things, and generally they have technology that's not capable of improving these things.
[00:15:22] But then they differ based on what actual industry we're in and what actual size of the building and, and, and many other factors. And it's best, I think, to use different types of buildings as examples. So if we think about an example of a hospital, um, and then an example of a, like a class, A office building.
[00:15:41] And then maybe we use like a firehouse in a rural town. So those are three different types of buildings. We can't possibly say that those are the, the same industry, right? They're actually way, way different in terms of how those businesses function. One of 'em is not even a business. So the, the first way that they differ is we ask like basically who is the occupant?
[00:15:59] [00:16:00] Who are we trying to optimize the experience of that building for? In some ways, the customer and the user of technology is the occupant, right? And so in other words, who are we trying to improve that experience for? When are they there? What are the activities? What are they trying to accomplish? And so like the hospital example, generally those are the patients who are trying to improve their health.
[00:16:19] The doctors, we're trying to support them in improving the patient's health. Right office, it's the office worker. I'm trying to come in to the building. I'm trying to get my stuff done. I'm trying to interact with my coworkers. And then the firehouse, those are the firemen and women who are living there, basically cooking meals.
[00:16:36] They need to be able to get out as soon as possible, those types of things. And then there are the sort of regulations and business requirements that apply to each type of building. So in a hospital, I need to meet code. So each state has their different code and their different requirements of the building.
[00:16:53] They need to enable a certain patient experience. And then a lot of people don't realize that, um, the compensation of a hospital is [00:17:00] driven partly by. Patient surveys. So if I say, this was my experience at this hospital, that affects the compensation of the hospital. And then the state inspects hospitals on a random, usually random basis.
[00:17:13] And so they're thinking about that all the time. Offices, we have the office worker's expectation, so if I'm in, you know, Manhattan, I have a different expectation of what my office building is gonna be like versus if I'm in Albuquerque or Omaha or whatever, right? So there are different differences there.
[00:17:31] And then Firehouse, those are smaller buildings, so they're typically not sort of regulated like larger ones. And so there really isn't a whole lot of requirements, business requirements there. And then finally, I, I said the other big difference here is the ownership structure. And sort of the relationship between the different stakeholders in that industry.
[00:17:50] So hospitals are typically. Nonprofit, owner occupied, owner managed right in-house facility management, et cetera. Offices are typically owned [00:18:00] by investment trusts that no one can find, right? They're not actually humans, they're just some investment fund out there. They're usually third party managed and then they're tenant occupied.
[00:18:10] So we're, there's a really, a lot of confusion around the different responsibilities there. And then Firehouse, those are public institutions, right? It's owned by the city. Uh, so there are, you know, public. Stakeholders, public requirements, elected officials that are responsible for those types of buildings.
[00:18:26] And so we really had to think about in each of these different industries, and this applies to schools, universities, data centers, these are all different industries, and we forget that what technology can do really depends on what we're trying to accomplish in each of these different industries. Thank you, Aviva.
[00:18:44] Great question.
[00:18:44] Rosy Khalife: Such a good answer too. Um, we have a last question, and this comes to us from one of our partners, Bueno, and the question is from Leon, the founder, and c e o. So I will play that now. [00:19:00]
[00:19:00] Leon Wurfel: Hi James, this is Leon Wurfel. I'm the founder of Bueno. We first met, uh, at a Haystack Connect conference back in 2017 at, in Tampa, Florida.
[00:19:12] James Dice: And back then, I remember we stayed up many late nights talking about how much technologies like, and closed loop optimization and advanced supervisory control just made sense and seemed just around the corner from mainstream adoption. So the question that I've got for you is, how crazy is it on a scale of one to 10 that we're still, uh, all sitting here talking about these technologies and everyone isn't just doing them already?
[00:19:43] Rosy Khalife: Such a good question. Such a Leon question. What do you think, James?
[00:19:47] James Dice: I love how even keel Leon is when he asks this. I think most vendors when they think about this question, they're like, blood starts to boil and he's just, that's just. Who Leon is, he's just so calm about everything. So thank [00:20:00] you. Thank you, Leon, for asking this in such a calm, calm way.
[00:20:03] I, I think if you were to ask me this back then, in 2017 when we were staying up too late, I would've said that you were like 10 out of 10 crazy to be like where we're at now and 20, 23, 6 years later. I think we all thought things were about to explode back then, especially like Leon and I, right? We come from this energy management background.
[00:20:24] We have this software here that has been around for over a decade and it helps so much in energy management. Why wouldn't every building implement this right now? Why isn't this an emergency, right? Um, but obviously I've kind of thought about this a lot more since then, and I think now I'd say I'm less surprised.
[00:20:44] And I think the Crossing the Chasm framework is actually really insightful and useful here as to why I think many products in the marketplace haven't really been ready for primetime. And when I say primetime, I don't think they're ready for risk-free deployment by really [00:21:00] risk-averse real estate owners.
[00:21:02] And so there's been a lot of piloting and a lot of these pilots have fizzled out when the product doesn't do what it. Was claimed to do. And often what we've found with, especially with around the energy management use cases, is that in order to produce those results, these products need to be paired with expert humans.
[00:21:19] And this is something that our mutual friend, Tom Baum, also, uh, Australia, he calls this human analytics, right? So it's not analytics. You have to pair it with a team of. Really smart humans. And it turns out that human part is actually quite difficult. Right. And there are a bunch of different models for that human piece.
[00:21:39] And I think what we're talking about basically operationalizing a technology into these human operational processes that weren't intended to use the technology. And that takes a really long time. And yeah, I think finally, and we've talked about this on our episode around the horizontal architecture. We haven't always had the infrastructure for these [00:22:00] applications, so the time to value and the risk of these projects increases because they're sitting on this brittle infrastructure that basically is the device and network layers especially.
[00:22:13] But I'd say Leon, I know you're very optimistic about this. I think I'm still optimistic as well. I think great products are still rising to the top, so those that reduce that human effort required to get the results, those are the partners that we're looking at partnering with and those different categories that you mentioned.
[00:22:33] We're also seeing organizations and we have a couple in this season and the next season of the podcast we're, we're seeing them. They've been implementing these technologies for many years. They're starting to integrate them into operations and we're seeing a playbook for how to do that, which is exciting that other people can sort of copy.
[00:22:50] And then finally, there's just like bigger macro trends that are still gonna continue to push building owners to use them. So if it's not happening yet, I think it will happen in the future. [00:23:00] Such as, you know, operations folks retiring and the turnover there, they need to be able to do more with less people.
[00:23:07] And then finally, decarbonization, right? So we think about that need to decarbonize buildings isn't going away. And we know that these tools are core and, and required as part of the stack to enable that. So I, I don't think the need is gonna go away. It's just a, a, you know, maybe it's never gonna blow up like we thought it would.
[00:23:26] Maybe it would just be, maybe it's just a linear adoption. From here on out.
[00:23:31] Rosy Khalife: Hmm. So what's your number one through 10?
[00:23:35] James Dice: Yeah, I think I was originally 10 outta 10. I think I'm now more like a five. Um, I still feel that my blood boiling as well, but it's more like I understand why it's, it's not blowing up right now.
[00:23:47] Rosy Khalife: Fair. Okay. Cool. Thank you Eric. Aviva, Leon, thank you for calling in. Thank you for asking us a question. If you are listening to this and you are a Nexus Pro member, we [00:24:00] have a hotline that we're really excited about. That's giving off 1990s vibes, but I'm here for it. The number which I'll share. But if you're a pro member, your question will be answered live on the podcast.
[00:24:11] That number is 1 3 0 3 8 7 6 1 0 7 7. And leave us a voicemail. Say your name, where you work. How long you've been in the Nexus community, and then your question, and if you are not in the United States, no problem. Feel free to send us a voice memo with your question to Hello Nexus labs.online. We're excited to hear from you and hopefully we'll be answering it on an upcoming episode.
[00:24:40] So thank you all for listening. I hope this was interesting. We will leave the things that we mentioned below in the show notes so you can easily find them, and we're looking forward to chatting with you again soon.
[00:24:57] Okay friends, as we're trying these new formats, [00:25:00] please let us know what you think in your podcast player right now, or on the episode page on our website. There's a link to a survey for this specific episode. We'd love to hear from you and we wanna hear your feedback. Also, don't forget to sign up for the Nexus newsletter or invite your coworkers and friends with a link below.
[00:25:17] Catch you next time.
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