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Episode 184 is a conversation with James Dice, Rosy Khalife, and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs.
Episode 184 is a conversation with James Dice, Rosy Khalife, and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs. In this episode of the Nexus Podcast, the Nexus Labs team dives into details and teasers for this years NexusCon.
Introduction (0:50)
Conference Layout (1:30)
What are we excited about? (8:48)
Who’s signed up (17:28)
Teasers (21:25)
Calls to action (25:28)
Sign off (27:00)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S706971-16073.
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!
James Dice: [00:00:00] Hey friends, if you like the Nexus Podcast, the best way to continue the learning is to join our community. There are three ways to do that. First, you can join the Nexus Pro membership. It's our global community of smart billing professionals. We have monthly events, paywall, deep dive content, and a private chat room, and it's just $35 a month.
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The links are below in the show notes. And now let's go onto the podcast.
Welcome back to the Nexus podcast. It's James. I have Rosie and Brad here with me. Hi guys. Hi. Hello. How's it going? We're going to do a special episode today, [00:01:00] which we're very excited about. It is eight weeks when we're recording this. It'll be seven by the time this gets published, uh, eight weeks until Nexus Con 2025.
And so we thought we'd do the Nexus Con episode. Uh, Brad has been. Like neck deep in the conference. And so he thought it'd be good to let people in on what we're working on right now. And so let's just jump right into it. If, if people haven't engaged or they weren't there last year, let's do a quick overview of what this conference is, why it's different, how it's laid out, um, versus other conferences they might've been to.
Um, I'll, I'll start and then you guys build on. So first of all, we've built it to where people fly in on Monday. Uh, if you're on either coast, fly into Denver on Monday, it starts on Monday afternoon, you're done, uh, mid-afternoon on Wednesday, so you can still get back to your family in two days away. So that's the [00:02:00] first piece we designed.
Brad Bonavida: I'll add on the sessions. We're always talking about the sessions. That's like the main pieces of content. The, the body of the whole conference is these. 18 different sessions that are all themed differently about smart buildings topics, and we've selected presenters for each one of those. 160 abstracts submitted.
Um, and we took the best of those and grouped them together with their counterparts to build these very specific sessions that'll cover, you know, the most important topics about the smart building industry.
James Dice: And you can't buy your way on the stage onto the stage.
Brad Bonavida: That's right. All those, all those abstracts were, you know, gone through with a fine tooth comb from our whole team, and we determined what stories are real and have real outcomes and others are gonna be able to learn from.
And we selected those ones to be the ones that. We're gonna, um, have on stage,
James Dice: and then one of those, well, in each of those sessions, there's breakout rooms, breakout sessions, so you get private discussions with your peers during those 90 minute sessions. And then one of [00:03:00] those is what we call the symposiums.
And so we split the vendors at the conference up from the building owners. And then each of them talk about the other side and talk shit. I'm just kidding. Um, they talk about how they can move the industry forward in their separate rooms, so it's a little behind closed doors, vibe. What else?
Rosy Khalife: All right. Uh, let's talk about the expo hall.
Uh, this is a little bit different than how other conferences do it in. We have a small number of exhibitors. You know, rather than having a 300 sort of vendor exhibitor floor that's overwhelming and really busy. We have about 60 vendors that are gonna be exhibiting, and you can think of our exhibitor floor as a meeting space where you can, you know.
Chat with them, get a demo, have some, you know, relationship building, have a one-on-one conversation. There's no espresso machines. There's no puppies. Like that's not the vibe. It's really meant to be a place where you can have a real conversation [00:04:00] and when the sessions are going on, the exhibitor floor is closed.
That is really important because I know all my fellow marketers and salespeople and business development folks, they're always stuck at the booth. They're there for so long, right? And they're missing the sessions. They're missing where the real conversations are happening, where building owners are sharing what they're working on.
And that's just not fair. And so we, we, we decided to change that and it worked really well last year.
James Dice: Yep. Yep. And a piece of that is that there's the, while the expo floor is open, the demo stage is also open. And so we've challenged all the vendors who are exhibiting, they can sign up for a demo slot and they've been challenged to show the audience on that stage what's new and novel, what are they, what do they develop.
That has sort of moved the, the bar up in the industry in the last year. And so that stage, I think some people just like. Sit there at that stage the whole time and just watch these demos, which is kind of cool.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, it's fun. [00:05:00] I literally just got off a call with all of the demo stage judges to talk about the rubric and how we're gonna score it this year.
And you kind of hit on the main point is like you can't just go up to the demo stage and talk about who your company is and what you do. It's you have to pick out. What is innovative that you guys are working on? Product feature specific and share how it works, why it works, why it's different from what other people have done, and what it's gonna do for the industry.
Like what are people gonna do with this feature that's going to change their jobs and change the way that they do things? That is. Embedded in the rubric that they'll be judged on. So we're really pushing all those people to, um, you know, bring those new features to the demo stage. That's gonna be
Rosy Khalife: amazing.
James Dice: That's awesome. So excited. Let's close this section out. Yes. Okay. What else is novel that we do at Nexus? Convers others?
Rosy Khalife: Let's talk about pods. Pods. We need to talk about the pods. Um, okay. Pods. What are pods? Sounds crazy. Think summer camp meets a sports team. You're gonna [00:06:00] be assigned to a pod. It has about 20, 25 people.
When you are coming from a company that you know, maybe three or four people are coming from your same company, you will not be put in the same pod. The idea is that you will always have a friendly face. You're gonna see each other a few times, or you'll be designated times where you'll meet with your pod.
There'll be a pod leader, like, it's so cool. Um, when we did the surveys last year, a number of people said that was their favorite part of the conference. So we're gonna do it even better this year, but it's gonna be awesome.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, we, we do so many different things that are basically like, the theme I feel like of the conference is take this group of professionals and find all of these different ways of getting them with a small group of other people that they'll, you know, identify or connect with in some very specific way.
And ha let them have good conversations with that group and then mix it up and then have that happen in another way. So the pods is one way that happens another way is the lunch table, uh, discussions. So we'll have a lot of people who wanna talk about very specific topics [00:07:00] and. The way that we handle that, or one way that we handle that is we're gonna have all these lunch tables that'll have like, call it 10 or 12 people at 'em, but they're all centered around a very specific topic with a topic leader.
So there's gonna be one person at that lunch table who's really, you know, inclined to talk about something. Um. An example is, uh, lead five, lead V five just came out. So if you're really curious about Lead V five, what that means and how you can implement into your buildings, we'll have one table with a leader who's gonna be sitting there, who wants to talk about with other people about that subject times 25, 30 other tables.
So you can have that good conversation with people who have the same problems or curios.
Rosy Khalife: And we'll share this list ahead of time. By the way, that was one thing last year. Like people want to plan ahead. So we'll make sure you have that list so you can be really, you know, like diligent about where you actually wanna have your lunch and be intentional about that.
James Dice: And last thing that makes this different is sort of the, the, it's not a vendor fest, right? So we will have roughly 40% of the, of the people at the [00:08:00] conference will be building owners. We have, we're expecting about a hundred building owner organizations that are gonna be there this year. And so it's not necessarily the conference you would go to to keep up with your vendor friends.
It's about a balanced group of, of people at the conference. So 40% owners, 30% service providers, 30% tech vendors essentially.
Rosy Khalife: And one quick thing I wanna say. That's really important about that is sometimes when you go to a conference, you feel like you're around vendors the whole time. And that's great for what James was just saying, like keeping up with what they're up to and connecting with them and partnering, whatever.
But this is really about you meeting other types of people. So you will be in a pod that has building owners and you will be in a pod that has service writers and so on. And so it's about creating that diverse environment for you to connect with your peers.
James Dice: Okay, great. Alright, that's, that's it for that section.
If you've never heard of nexus com before, that's what makes it different. Um, and so let's move on. Let's talk about 2025. So this is our second year of doing this. What are we excited about? That's [00:09:00] new this year. And Brad, we'll start with you.
Brad Bonavida: I am very excited about our, our theme going into this. Uh, so I don't know if you've seen our design, but it's really cool.
Our theme is that we're kind of basing it on the Dune series, so go watch the movies or read the books if you're gonna come and aren't familiar with them. Ka cough Rosie. Um, but it's gonna, it's gonna bring, it's gonna bring a lot of fun to it. 'cause like you can always play off the dune thing, but without going too much into detail.
Spice is very important within the Dune series. It's this big, magical part of the whole, uh, storyline. And we're all about bringing the spice to Nexus con. And what we mean by that is bringing spicy topics, spicy conversations, getting to the tension points in a healthy way to try to really understand what's not working and why with like really healthy constructive conversations.
So for example, one way that we're doing that, and this is based off feedback that we got last year that people wanted more of, this is debates. Within each of the sessions when we're talking about a particular [00:10:00] subject, we're going to introduce debates about how to, how we've heard different people think about that particular subject and let's hash it out and figure out why both sides do or don't make sense.
Quick example, in the ITOT track, so for our data people. Uh, we have a case study session about data layers in the wild. So, um, or building owner organizations who have actually implemented data layers into their buildings. And after we hear those case studies, we're gonna introduce a couple of spicy debate topics like, for example.
Should you buy a data layer or should you build a data layer as a building owner? 'cause you can go to these technology vendors who will kind of sell you that solution. Yet also you can kind of put one together yourself. Um, and does a data layer just move your vendor lock in up the stack, meaning that now you're just locked into this data layer provider who you have or does it?
Unlock interoperability. I had mentioned one session that's in the itt uh, ITT O OT [00:11:00] track, but I didn't explain. There are these persona based tracks, so we have three different tracks of sessions that you can attend, and that's based on kind of your role or what you know you're focused on throughout your professional career.
We have, I mentioned the ITT o OT track, which is for people who are integrating and connecting and trying to, you know, network their buildings together. We have an energy management track. For people who are interested in building performance controls optimization. And then we have a facility management track, which is for, um, digitizing and improving the efficiency of maintenance and operations.
So you can kind of tailor which sessions you're gonna go to based on what roles are important for you. Um, and then James, last thing real quick is you mentioned the symposiums, which is one of the session types, and last year was all about pilots and there was a lot of great tension about do pilots actually help?
How do they, how do you make 'em work? And we're gonna take that, we're gonna build on top of the pilots thing. Then we're gonna introduce the new tension point or debate point of, um, FE features versus outcomes. So, [00:12:00] you know, you have technology vendors who are selling a lot of features. You have these building owners who need outcomes, these customers who need outcomes.
How do we translate all that? How do we speak the same language? And, um, we're gonna have a really good conversation between both sides of that.
James Dice: One other thing around the agenda is that we haven't just done this abstract, sort of academic based, um. You know, process for selecting sessions and speakers.
We've also added, anytime anyone's talking about a project that happened and they wanna like tout their success, we also require the building owner to be there, um, in like 99% of cases. And so there's also this other layer of the people that are actually gonna be on stage are not vendors talking about selling their things.
It's, it's a vendor. Building owner team most of usually. And that is something you don't see a lot. And so when we're talking about these sessions, we're not talking about these like randomly [00:13:00] assembled panels with three quarters of the panel being sponsors. We're talking about like when you see someone talking on stage, they, number one got selected 'cause the project is cool.
And then number two, they got selected because the building owners actually there talking to other building owners about their project. And I think that that is what makes me excited.
Brad Bonavida: It's hard to make happen and it's worth it. It's great. It's the right way to do it.
James Dice: It's really hard to make happen. Yeah, it's definitely not easy to do it like that.
Um, I'll say one of the things that we're excited about for this year that I'm most excited about is I, I had a call with Matt Sexton from BXP back in February. Now we're talking about, you know, they're coming again. Like, um, what do they wanna see this year? Because we're trying to build for building owners.
And Matt said, you know, um. There was a huge variety of sophistication and maturity of smart buildings programs there last year, and he said, I think it'd be good if you, you. Basically got all of us together in the room before the conference [00:14:00] and talked about, um, the different, you know, sort of maturity levels and let the people that have been down the road of building the business case, building a coalition, being the champion internally, like really getting their program off the ground.
Let them talk to the, the building owners that haven't exactly got their program off the ground and let then, then that can be the sort of foundation and basis for the, the building owners to sort of absorb the rest of the conference. Right. And so we're gonna do a building owner precon that is, um, right before everything starts, uh, hour and a half, and, and let you guys form peer groups and talk to each other and, um.
Yeah, that, that, that'll be a, a first time thing that we're adding on. That I think will be a powerful thing for those newcomers because this, the industry where we're at right now is there are a lot of building owners that are interested. There are a lot of building owners that are really starting to get like, um, started, but it's really difficult to sort of get that program off the ground for the [00:15:00]first time.
And so I think that would be a good, a good boost for them.
Rosy Khalife: That's awesome. Um, what I'm most excited about, I mean, as you can tell, that there's a million things I'm excited about, but one of the things that we heard last year that we tried to build off of is people wanted opportunities to meet each other and create those like meeting moments where they had one-on-one meetings.
And so we doubled down on that this year and have built that into the app experience. So we have a better app this year. Um, more premium. It was more expensive, obviously, all those things, but hopefully it'll create a better experience and you'll be able to two weeks before the actual conference start messaging people and booking meetings.
And so we will not only have the meet, you know, the app experience that helps you do that, but also at the conference there's a dedicated meeting space. And so when you book that meeting, you'll show up to that meeting room. There'll be a spot for you to sit down, have a real conversation, open up your laptop, like really hash things out together.
And I think that's gonna be, um, a really [00:16:00] powerful piece of the experience. And so as I'm talking to folks and they're trying to tell me, you know, how, how many people should I bring to Nexus? You know, it's up to you, right? But the more people you bring within, within limits, obviously we don't, we don't want 15 of you, but, um, you know, five, 10 people, um, will allow you to take, take advantage of the meeting app and all the other capabilities that we have, the pods, um, the pre-con, all of those things.
And so that's one way to think about it.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. And, and Rosie, another cool part about the app, uh, for the meetings is. You can get in there and you can find people you wanna meet and select them and schedule a meeting, but it also has a really good survey or wizard at the beginning that learns about you and recommends people that you might wanna get in touch with that you might not even know at the, at the uh, conference.
So it's gonna do a really good job of figuring out who's gonna be useful for you to talk to.
James Dice: I love it.
Rosy Khalife: I'm so excited.
James Dice: I'm kind of laughing right now as I'm listening to us. We, we've gone [00:17:00] on quite the journey with the app. We had a terrible, oh my god, a terrible experience with the app last year and uh, yeah.
We intend to make that a better part of the, the, the setup this year. Yeah. Alright. Um, let's move on. Um, I think those are some good things that we've added. If, if we look back, uh, on the, this team of three, I'm proud of us for not only setting the bar high last year, but also then like improving upon it this year.
Um, let's talk about who signed up we're that we're excited about. Um, we have, we have probably what, two thirds. Maybe, maybe a little bit higher of the attendees that we're expecting registered. So when we look at a, across the, the people that are registered so far, who are you guys excited about?
Brad Bonavida: Um, there's some building owners that represent really cool portfolios that I'm really excited to meet and learn more about.
Um, Alex Perlman is the director of Energy Storage at Prologis, and Prologis is, I believe, the largest, [00:18:00] uh, solar panel owner. In the United States with the amount of buildings that they have. Um, that's
Rosy Khalife: amazing. I'll have
Brad Bonavida: to fact check that, but they're up there. I think so. Yeah.
Rosy Khalife: Um, but I've had,
Brad Bonavida: I've interviewed him for, uh, previous, you know, articles that we've written, and he's a genius with the way that they're thinking about grid interactivity and stuff.
Um, and he's presenting about the way that they're doing that. So I'm really stoked about that. And then I don't even know either of these people, but. Jenny Gerson is the CEO of Data Bank, and that's a, you know, data center company. And they're gonna talk about how they're thinking about smart buildings.
And then a facility manager for the Hyatt chain of hotels just signed up, who I believe is also going to be in one of the presentations. So, to hear about those, you know, other building types and hear, hear how data centers are thinking about this stuff, hear how hospitality and big hotel chains are thinking about this stuff, there's gonna be a lot of diverse perspectives from the building underside that I'm excited about.
Those are, that's a good list, Brad. That was a good list. Yeah. Um,
Rosy Khalife: yeah, every time someone signs up, to be honest, I get excited. So each [00:19:00] time we get that email saying like, so and so registered, I'm looking who they are. I'm like, who referred you? Like, I wanna know who referred you and what your role is. And so there's a constant level of excitement happening here.
But um, last week I had someone register that I was very excited about. That's Joe Allen. Uh, many of you may know him from all of his amazing work around healthy buildings. He's a Harvard professor. He's also the founder of, uh, nine Foundations and he will be speaking at the conference. I met Joe in a previous, in my previous role, where I was doing indoor air quality and have always had a lot of respect for him.
So, you know, to see him sign up, it was kind of like a fan moment where he. You know, bought a ticket, signed up on his own. He is gonna be speaking like, it kind of felt like a full circle moment for me. Um, so I'm really excited to get to see him and talk to him.
James Dice: That's awesome. It's great.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah.
James Dice: Um, I will go with different building owner types.
Brad, you [00:20:00] started, you started down this road, but we feel that we're starting a movement here. And so it's not just about the classic smart buildings. Types of portfolios that we're, that we're seeing sign up, which is great. Like for every JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs talking about their buildings in New York that they wanna, you know, attract all of the greatest investment bankers.
Um, and all of the, you know, Ivy League higher. Institutions. Those are amazing. That's the core of the Smart Buildings movement. But what we're trying to do is grow the smart buildings movement. So when I see, um, building owners sign up from outside of the core, so I'm gonna say like, um, Brad, you mentioned Hyatt Hotels.
That's a great one. Um, that's a really tough vertical to sort of get into because of the ownership structures there. Um, we're seeing more momentum around healthcare. We're seeing data centers, we're seeing, um, fast foods. We have Wendy's coming this year. [00:21:00] Um, we're seeing, um, continued logistics growth, I think so.
So different types of buildings, Albuquerque public schools. Um, and so yeah, so we're just seeing different types of buildings, different, um, people outside of the, the beaten path, I would say is what I'm most excited about.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, I love that too. That's a great one. Um, that's such a good point.
James Dice: Alright, let's talk about a couple of exciting things where.
People will only find out more if they actually register to come.
Rosy Khalife: Ooh, scandalous.
James Dice: All right. Okay,
Rosy Khalife: I can get started. So, um, this year we are having an after party, and it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be really fun. It will be happening on day two. So the conference starts on day one, Monday with a welcome reception, you know, with whatever registration, blah, blah.
You'll meet your pods, welcome reception, so on. And then you will wanna go have dinner with folks that night. You could sort of feel free to plan for that. [00:22:00] But Tuesday. Uh, there'll be a happy hour service provider, happy hour, and then the after party will happen later in the night. Um, and it's gonna be great.
There'll be, you know, obviously open bar, mocktails, cocktails, all that. Um, food. I can't tell you too much though. I forgot I was getting all into all the details, so it's, it's gonna be fun. It's a teaser, it's gonna be fun. Um, we have a few sponsors so far. Code Labs is one of them. Um, we, those sponsors are basically paying for us to make a really awesome after party, so we are grateful for them.
And so if you're interested in that, feel free to hit me up.
James Dice: And last year we did, we did this like weird, uh, like WhatsApp group, like there are different ones. And we did Uber's downtown Denver. This is gonna be a much more. Organized
Rosy Khalife: a better experience night. We are upleveling people. We're upleveling.
Yes. We're upleveling. Yes.
James Dice: Um, Brad, what's yours?
Brad Bonavida: Uh, well, last year we did a hike after Nexus Con because if you [00:23:00] haven't spent a lot of time in Colorado, we're like. 20 minutes from the base of the Rocky Mountains when, when we're at the conference. So we, we went to the Flatirons, which is the mountain range in Boulder, and did a group hike.
And the, I guess the, uh, the teaser is that last year we wanted to do a hike. I, I wanted to do a hike that I know that's pretty famous in Boulder. And Joe Amador, who lives in Boulder, told me like. Three weeks before Nexus Con that that hike was closed because they were rebuilding the trail, so we had to like completely audible and go to a different one.
That was still great. That hike is now back open. So without giving the name of it, I'm really excited 'cause it's the one I wanted to originally do with everyone and I think it'll be great. A good, uh, a good, so it's the
James Dice: quintessential intro to Boulder Hike. There you go. Yeah,
Brad Bonavida: yeah,
Rosy Khalife: yeah. One more ask for help just for our listeners.
We do wanna also uplevel the hike this year, like last year. Similarly, we did Uber XLS and like carpools and whatever. That was fine. But we would love to do a [00:24:00] shuttle sort of experience for people this year have water like. Snacks. Uh, so if anyone wants to stipend that extravaganza, also let us know.
Brad Bonavida: We appreciate it.
If you're, if you're a sustainability and climate focused company, what's better to sponsor than a hike? Appreciating the outflow. For real. For real.
James Dice: Um, I commit to going on a hike this year because last year I was so exhausted from the whole thing that I just. Collapsed at the end of the conference basically, and didn't make it on a hike.
So I'll be there this time.
Brad Bonavida: Cool.
James Dice: Nice. Um, I will say, I'll tease the keynote. Um, I think that Smart buildings needs an upgrade. There needs to be a new name for this movement and it is sort of bubbling up in our community, I think. And so it's kind of about putting a label on it and. [00:25:00] That's all I'll say at this
Rosy Khalife: point.
Good.
James Dice: Yeah.
Rosy Khalife: I was gonna, I was gonna,
James Dice: you were gonna, you gonna stress me? I'm really excited about that. It's gonna be good. Yeah, me too.
Rosy Khalife: I'm gonna change everything.
James Dice: Okay. Alright. Last, last section of, of things here. It's by the time people listen to this, it'll be in between seven weeks to who knows how long it takes them to listen.
Maybe it's three, four weeks to the conference. Um, what do you guys want them to do right when they hear this?
Rosy Khalife: I was just gonna say you've been on the edge of your seats to either you've signed up already. If you have signed up, book your hotel. If you have not signed up, talk to your manager, talk to your team, figure out how you can make it happen.
Talk to your family and buy your ticket like that. You don't wanna miss this. It's gonna be awesome, we promise.
James Dice: I'll say that we just love when people wait till the last minute to register. Yes. Oh my God, that's so great for our planning, really. It's really helpful for our planning. Yeah.
Brad Bonavida: The, we'll add to the show notes [00:26:00] here though.
So if we weren't clear, that conference is at a hotel, um, which is really convenient and actually makes it. Much better. 'cause the hotel's really nice and you get to stick around. Um, we'll add a link to book the room as well. So you buy your ticket and you book the room kind of all in one piece. Um, also on our Nexus con webpage is the full agenda.
So we gave you a very small preview of what, two out of like 19 or 20 different sessions so you can learn a lot more about what all the topics are gonna be and who's talking there. Oh, I have one more too. Let me, let me also say, we had mentioned the lunch round table discussions. And that's one volunteer piece that we still are looking for some help with.
Just in terms of if you are joining and you'd like to lead a lunch round table discussion, if you have a topic that you'd like to talk to other professionals about, let me know and we can get you in there and make sure you have a table that's gonna talk about that. You can just email me direct actually for that, Brad at Nexus Labs online and I'll talk to you about it.
Rosy Khalife: Awesome. Alright,
Brad Bonavida: [00:27:00] let's close. Alright, carve outs. Carve outs. Uh, what
James Dice: do you guys got for us?
Brad Bonavida: Okay. I, I listen to a, a podcast. It's, it's a for fun podcast. It is like a, I guess it'd be a true crime podcast, but it's called Sea of Lies. Okay. And it's about sea as in SEA, like the ocean. Yeah. And this body that was found, um, off the English channel and.
How the cops basically lucked out like 20 times. Okay, Brad, don't tell us the
Rosy Khalife: whole thing. What did you mean? That's all I'm telling you. There's, there's
Brad Bonavida: so much luck that occurs where you're like, wow, how did they solve this case? This is outrageous. Okay. And they've admitted it. They're like, how did we get this?
Lucky to find all these. I don't know. It's all luck. It's very well done. It's good. Nice. Cool. That's great. Rosie,
Rosy Khalife: okay. I have, I have stepped out of our industry and, you know, both smart buildings industry and the world of companies and businesses. And I'm reading a memoir by Ina Garten, who you all may know her.
She's, she has a food networks show and, um, [00:28:00] she's a chef and whatnot. But, uh, just her life and how she got into this, and one thing that I've learned so far is she's just this such a happy go lucky person. Sort of luck finds her similar to what you were just saying, Brad, like she just got so lucky at so many different times in her life, and it's so fun to read.
It makes you feel so hopeful. And, um, it's, it's a great read so far. So I, I'm, I'm about halfway through so far. How about you, James?
James Dice: Um, mine is super weird. I've been going to the Boulder Bookstore a lot, so when people come to Colorado and if they're in Boulder, they should definitely go to the Boulder Bookstore.
It's like one of those three stories, like you can just get lost in there for a day. But they have a great recommendation section, so all their employees are avid readers and you can go in and be like,
Rosy Khalife: I really like
James Dice: what Kara normally recommends. And so, oh, you, Kara recommended this book. Shout out to Kara.
She recommended this really weird little Japanese novel called If Katz Disappeared from the World and is [00:29:00] like, sit down and read it in a couple hours sort of thing. And so I did this last weekend and just the main premise of the book is that this man has a terminal illness. It's fiction, man has a terminal illness.
Um, he doesn't know how long he has to live until the, the devil comes to him. And the devil like basically tells him you'll die tomorrow unless you, unless like we. Give up something like, make something disappear from the world. And at first he thinks he can choose the thing and no, the, the, basically the devil starts choosing things for him.
And so then he, each day of his life, he wakes up. And the devil reappears and says like, how about X? And, uh, that's all I'll say, but it's, that's so interesting. Really cute little novel that goes really fast and like you could read in a, in a weekend day sort of thing. So that's cool. Cool world.
Brad Bonavida: Love it
James Dice: all.
Thanks for sharing. See everyone at Nexus Con Denver, October 6th. Oh,
Rosy Khalife: get excited.[00:30:00]
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Episode 184 is a conversation with James Dice, Rosy Khalife, and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs.
Episode 184 is a conversation with James Dice, Rosy Khalife, and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs. In this episode of the Nexus Podcast, the Nexus Labs team dives into details and teasers for this years NexusCon.
Introduction (0:50)
Conference Layout (1:30)
What are we excited about? (8:48)
Who’s signed up (17:28)
Teasers (21:25)
Calls to action (25:28)
Sign off (27:00)
Music credits: There Is A Reality by Common Tiger—licensed under an Music Vine Limited Pro Standard License ID: S706971-16073.
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!
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The links are below in the show notes. And now let's go onto the podcast.
Welcome back to the Nexus podcast. It's James. I have Rosie and Brad here with me. Hi guys. Hi. Hello. How's it going? We're going to do a special episode today, [00:01:00] which we're very excited about. It is eight weeks when we're recording this. It'll be seven by the time this gets published, uh, eight weeks until Nexus Con 2025.
And so we thought we'd do the Nexus Con episode. Uh, Brad has been. Like neck deep in the conference. And so he thought it'd be good to let people in on what we're working on right now. And so let's just jump right into it. If, if people haven't engaged or they weren't there last year, let's do a quick overview of what this conference is, why it's different, how it's laid out, um, versus other conferences they might've been to.
Um, I'll, I'll start and then you guys build on. So first of all, we've built it to where people fly in on Monday. Uh, if you're on either coast, fly into Denver on Monday, it starts on Monday afternoon, you're done, uh, mid-afternoon on Wednesday, so you can still get back to your family in two days away. So that's the [00:02:00] first piece we designed.
Brad Bonavida: I'll add on the sessions. We're always talking about the sessions. That's like the main pieces of content. The, the body of the whole conference is these. 18 different sessions that are all themed differently about smart buildings topics, and we've selected presenters for each one of those. 160 abstracts submitted.
Um, and we took the best of those and grouped them together with their counterparts to build these very specific sessions that'll cover, you know, the most important topics about the smart building industry.
James Dice: And you can't buy your way on the stage onto the stage.
Brad Bonavida: That's right. All those, all those abstracts were, you know, gone through with a fine tooth comb from our whole team, and we determined what stories are real and have real outcomes and others are gonna be able to learn from.
And we selected those ones to be the ones that. We're gonna, um, have on stage,
James Dice: and then one of those, well, in each of those sessions, there's breakout rooms, breakout sessions, so you get private discussions with your peers during those 90 minute sessions. And then one of [00:03:00] those is what we call the symposiums.
And so we split the vendors at the conference up from the building owners. And then each of them talk about the other side and talk shit. I'm just kidding. Um, they talk about how they can move the industry forward in their separate rooms, so it's a little behind closed doors, vibe. What else?
Rosy Khalife: All right. Uh, let's talk about the expo hall.
Uh, this is a little bit different than how other conferences do it in. We have a small number of exhibitors. You know, rather than having a 300 sort of vendor exhibitor floor that's overwhelming and really busy. We have about 60 vendors that are gonna be exhibiting, and you can think of our exhibitor floor as a meeting space where you can, you know.
Chat with them, get a demo, have some, you know, relationship building, have a one-on-one conversation. There's no espresso machines. There's no puppies. Like that's not the vibe. It's really meant to be a place where you can have a real conversation [00:04:00] and when the sessions are going on, the exhibitor floor is closed.
That is really important because I know all my fellow marketers and salespeople and business development folks, they're always stuck at the booth. They're there for so long, right? And they're missing the sessions. They're missing where the real conversations are happening, where building owners are sharing what they're working on.
And that's just not fair. And so we, we, we decided to change that and it worked really well last year.
James Dice: Yep. Yep. And a piece of that is that there's the, while the expo floor is open, the demo stage is also open. And so we've challenged all the vendors who are exhibiting, they can sign up for a demo slot and they've been challenged to show the audience on that stage what's new and novel, what are they, what do they develop.
That has sort of moved the, the bar up in the industry in the last year. And so that stage, I think some people just like. Sit there at that stage the whole time and just watch these demos, which is kind of cool.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, it's fun. [00:05:00] I literally just got off a call with all of the demo stage judges to talk about the rubric and how we're gonna score it this year.
And you kind of hit on the main point is like you can't just go up to the demo stage and talk about who your company is and what you do. It's you have to pick out. What is innovative that you guys are working on? Product feature specific and share how it works, why it works, why it's different from what other people have done, and what it's gonna do for the industry.
Like what are people gonna do with this feature that's going to change their jobs and change the way that they do things? That is. Embedded in the rubric that they'll be judged on. So we're really pushing all those people to, um, you know, bring those new features to the demo stage. That's gonna be
Rosy Khalife: amazing.
James Dice: That's awesome. So excited. Let's close this section out. Yes. Okay. What else is novel that we do at Nexus? Convers others?
Rosy Khalife: Let's talk about pods. Pods. We need to talk about the pods. Um, okay. Pods. What are pods? Sounds crazy. Think summer camp meets a sports team. You're gonna [00:06:00] be assigned to a pod. It has about 20, 25 people.
When you are coming from a company that you know, maybe three or four people are coming from your same company, you will not be put in the same pod. The idea is that you will always have a friendly face. You're gonna see each other a few times, or you'll be designated times where you'll meet with your pod.
There'll be a pod leader, like, it's so cool. Um, when we did the surveys last year, a number of people said that was their favorite part of the conference. So we're gonna do it even better this year, but it's gonna be awesome.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, we, we do so many different things that are basically like, the theme I feel like of the conference is take this group of professionals and find all of these different ways of getting them with a small group of other people that they'll, you know, identify or connect with in some very specific way.
And ha let them have good conversations with that group and then mix it up and then have that happen in another way. So the pods is one way that happens another way is the lunch table, uh, discussions. So we'll have a lot of people who wanna talk about very specific topics [00:07:00] and. The way that we handle that, or one way that we handle that is we're gonna have all these lunch tables that'll have like, call it 10 or 12 people at 'em, but they're all centered around a very specific topic with a topic leader.
So there's gonna be one person at that lunch table who's really, you know, inclined to talk about something. Um. An example is, uh, lead five, lead V five just came out. So if you're really curious about Lead V five, what that means and how you can implement into your buildings, we'll have one table with a leader who's gonna be sitting there, who wants to talk about with other people about that subject times 25, 30 other tables.
So you can have that good conversation with people who have the same problems or curios.
Rosy Khalife: And we'll share this list ahead of time. By the way, that was one thing last year. Like people want to plan ahead. So we'll make sure you have that list so you can be really, you know, like diligent about where you actually wanna have your lunch and be intentional about that.
James Dice: And last thing that makes this different is sort of the, the, it's not a vendor fest, right? So we will have roughly 40% of the, of the people at the [00:08:00] conference will be building owners. We have, we're expecting about a hundred building owner organizations that are gonna be there this year. And so it's not necessarily the conference you would go to to keep up with your vendor friends.
It's about a balanced group of, of people at the conference. So 40% owners, 30% service providers, 30% tech vendors essentially.
Rosy Khalife: And one quick thing I wanna say. That's really important about that is sometimes when you go to a conference, you feel like you're around vendors the whole time. And that's great for what James was just saying, like keeping up with what they're up to and connecting with them and partnering, whatever.
But this is really about you meeting other types of people. So you will be in a pod that has building owners and you will be in a pod that has service writers and so on. And so it's about creating that diverse environment for you to connect with your peers.
James Dice: Okay, great. Alright, that's, that's it for that section.
If you've never heard of nexus com before, that's what makes it different. Um, and so let's move on. Let's talk about 2025. So this is our second year of doing this. What are we excited about? That's [00:09:00] new this year. And Brad, we'll start with you.
Brad Bonavida: I am very excited about our, our theme going into this. Uh, so I don't know if you've seen our design, but it's really cool.
Our theme is that we're kind of basing it on the Dune series, so go watch the movies or read the books if you're gonna come and aren't familiar with them. Ka cough Rosie. Um, but it's gonna, it's gonna bring, it's gonna bring a lot of fun to it. 'cause like you can always play off the dune thing, but without going too much into detail.
Spice is very important within the Dune series. It's this big, magical part of the whole, uh, storyline. And we're all about bringing the spice to Nexus con. And what we mean by that is bringing spicy topics, spicy conversations, getting to the tension points in a healthy way to try to really understand what's not working and why with like really healthy constructive conversations.
So for example, one way that we're doing that, and this is based off feedback that we got last year that people wanted more of, this is debates. Within each of the sessions when we're talking about a particular [00:10:00] subject, we're going to introduce debates about how to, how we've heard different people think about that particular subject and let's hash it out and figure out why both sides do or don't make sense.
Quick example, in the ITOT track, so for our data people. Uh, we have a case study session about data layers in the wild. So, um, or building owner organizations who have actually implemented data layers into their buildings. And after we hear those case studies, we're gonna introduce a couple of spicy debate topics like, for example.
Should you buy a data layer or should you build a data layer as a building owner? 'cause you can go to these technology vendors who will kind of sell you that solution. Yet also you can kind of put one together yourself. Um, and does a data layer just move your vendor lock in up the stack, meaning that now you're just locked into this data layer provider who you have or does it?
Unlock interoperability. I had mentioned one session that's in the itt uh, ITT O OT [00:11:00] track, but I didn't explain. There are these persona based tracks, so we have three different tracks of sessions that you can attend, and that's based on kind of your role or what you know you're focused on throughout your professional career.
We have, I mentioned the ITT o OT track, which is for people who are integrating and connecting and trying to, you know, network their buildings together. We have an energy management track. For people who are interested in building performance controls optimization. And then we have a facility management track, which is for, um, digitizing and improving the efficiency of maintenance and operations.
So you can kind of tailor which sessions you're gonna go to based on what roles are important for you. Um, and then James, last thing real quick is you mentioned the symposiums, which is one of the session types, and last year was all about pilots and there was a lot of great tension about do pilots actually help?
How do they, how do you make 'em work? And we're gonna take that, we're gonna build on top of the pilots thing. Then we're gonna introduce the new tension point or debate point of, um, FE features versus outcomes. So, [00:12:00] you know, you have technology vendors who are selling a lot of features. You have these building owners who need outcomes, these customers who need outcomes.
How do we translate all that? How do we speak the same language? And, um, we're gonna have a really good conversation between both sides of that.
James Dice: One other thing around the agenda is that we haven't just done this abstract, sort of academic based, um. You know, process for selecting sessions and speakers.
We've also added, anytime anyone's talking about a project that happened and they wanna like tout their success, we also require the building owner to be there, um, in like 99% of cases. And so there's also this other layer of the people that are actually gonna be on stage are not vendors talking about selling their things.
It's, it's a vendor. Building owner team most of usually. And that is something you don't see a lot. And so when we're talking about these sessions, we're not talking about these like randomly [00:13:00] assembled panels with three quarters of the panel being sponsors. We're talking about like when you see someone talking on stage, they, number one got selected 'cause the project is cool.
And then number two, they got selected because the building owners actually there talking to other building owners about their project. And I think that that is what makes me excited.
Brad Bonavida: It's hard to make happen and it's worth it. It's great. It's the right way to do it.
James Dice: It's really hard to make happen. Yeah, it's definitely not easy to do it like that.
Um, I'll say one of the things that we're excited about for this year that I'm most excited about is I, I had a call with Matt Sexton from BXP back in February. Now we're talking about, you know, they're coming again. Like, um, what do they wanna see this year? Because we're trying to build for building owners.
And Matt said, you know, um. There was a huge variety of sophistication and maturity of smart buildings programs there last year, and he said, I think it'd be good if you, you. Basically got all of us together in the room before the conference [00:14:00] and talked about, um, the different, you know, sort of maturity levels and let the people that have been down the road of building the business case, building a coalition, being the champion internally, like really getting their program off the ground.
Let them talk to the, the building owners that haven't exactly got their program off the ground and let then, then that can be the sort of foundation and basis for the, the building owners to sort of absorb the rest of the conference. Right. And so we're gonna do a building owner precon that is, um, right before everything starts, uh, hour and a half, and, and let you guys form peer groups and talk to each other and, um.
Yeah, that, that, that'll be a, a first time thing that we're adding on. That I think will be a powerful thing for those newcomers because this, the industry where we're at right now is there are a lot of building owners that are interested. There are a lot of building owners that are really starting to get like, um, started, but it's really difficult to sort of get that program off the ground for the [00:15:00]first time.
And so I think that would be a good, a good boost for them.
Rosy Khalife: That's awesome. Um, what I'm most excited about, I mean, as you can tell, that there's a million things I'm excited about, but one of the things that we heard last year that we tried to build off of is people wanted opportunities to meet each other and create those like meeting moments where they had one-on-one meetings.
And so we doubled down on that this year and have built that into the app experience. So we have a better app this year. Um, more premium. It was more expensive, obviously, all those things, but hopefully it'll create a better experience and you'll be able to two weeks before the actual conference start messaging people and booking meetings.
And so we will not only have the meet, you know, the app experience that helps you do that, but also at the conference there's a dedicated meeting space. And so when you book that meeting, you'll show up to that meeting room. There'll be a spot for you to sit down, have a real conversation, open up your laptop, like really hash things out together.
And I think that's gonna be, um, a really [00:16:00] powerful piece of the experience. And so as I'm talking to folks and they're trying to tell me, you know, how, how many people should I bring to Nexus? You know, it's up to you, right? But the more people you bring within, within limits, obviously we don't, we don't want 15 of you, but, um, you know, five, 10 people, um, will allow you to take, take advantage of the meeting app and all the other capabilities that we have, the pods, um, the pre-con, all of those things.
And so that's one way to think about it.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. And, and Rosie, another cool part about the app, uh, for the meetings is. You can get in there and you can find people you wanna meet and select them and schedule a meeting, but it also has a really good survey or wizard at the beginning that learns about you and recommends people that you might wanna get in touch with that you might not even know at the, at the uh, conference.
So it's gonna do a really good job of figuring out who's gonna be useful for you to talk to.
James Dice: I love it.
Rosy Khalife: I'm so excited.
James Dice: I'm kind of laughing right now as I'm listening to us. We, we've gone [00:17:00] on quite the journey with the app. We had a terrible, oh my god, a terrible experience with the app last year and uh, yeah.
We intend to make that a better part of the, the, the setup this year. Yeah. Alright. Um, let's move on. Um, I think those are some good things that we've added. If, if we look back, uh, on the, this team of three, I'm proud of us for not only setting the bar high last year, but also then like improving upon it this year.
Um, let's talk about who signed up we're that we're excited about. Um, we have, we have probably what, two thirds. Maybe, maybe a little bit higher of the attendees that we're expecting registered. So when we look at a, across the, the people that are registered so far, who are you guys excited about?
Brad Bonavida: Um, there's some building owners that represent really cool portfolios that I'm really excited to meet and learn more about.
Um, Alex Perlman is the director of Energy Storage at Prologis, and Prologis is, I believe, the largest, [00:18:00] uh, solar panel owner. In the United States with the amount of buildings that they have. Um, that's
Rosy Khalife: amazing. I'll have
Brad Bonavida: to fact check that, but they're up there. I think so. Yeah.
Rosy Khalife: Um, but I've had,
Brad Bonavida: I've interviewed him for, uh, previous, you know, articles that we've written, and he's a genius with the way that they're thinking about grid interactivity and stuff.
Um, and he's presenting about the way that they're doing that. So I'm really stoked about that. And then I don't even know either of these people, but. Jenny Gerson is the CEO of Data Bank, and that's a, you know, data center company. And they're gonna talk about how they're thinking about smart buildings.
And then a facility manager for the Hyatt chain of hotels just signed up, who I believe is also going to be in one of the presentations. So, to hear about those, you know, other building types and hear, hear how data centers are thinking about this stuff, hear how hospitality and big hotel chains are thinking about this stuff, there's gonna be a lot of diverse perspectives from the building underside that I'm excited about.
Those are, that's a good list, Brad. That was a good list. Yeah. Um,
Rosy Khalife: yeah, every time someone signs up, to be honest, I get excited. So each [00:19:00] time we get that email saying like, so and so registered, I'm looking who they are. I'm like, who referred you? Like, I wanna know who referred you and what your role is. And so there's a constant level of excitement happening here.
But um, last week I had someone register that I was very excited about. That's Joe Allen. Uh, many of you may know him from all of his amazing work around healthy buildings. He's a Harvard professor. He's also the founder of, uh, nine Foundations and he will be speaking at the conference. I met Joe in a previous, in my previous role, where I was doing indoor air quality and have always had a lot of respect for him.
So, you know, to see him sign up, it was kind of like a fan moment where he. You know, bought a ticket, signed up on his own. He is gonna be speaking like, it kind of felt like a full circle moment for me. Um, so I'm really excited to get to see him and talk to him.
James Dice: That's awesome. It's great.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah.
James Dice: Um, I will go with different building owner types.
Brad, you [00:20:00] started, you started down this road, but we feel that we're starting a movement here. And so it's not just about the classic smart buildings. Types of portfolios that we're, that we're seeing sign up, which is great. Like for every JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs talking about their buildings in New York that they wanna, you know, attract all of the greatest investment bankers.
Um, and all of the, you know, Ivy League higher. Institutions. Those are amazing. That's the core of the Smart Buildings movement. But what we're trying to do is grow the smart buildings movement. So when I see, um, building owners sign up from outside of the core, so I'm gonna say like, um, Brad, you mentioned Hyatt Hotels.
That's a great one. Um, that's a really tough vertical to sort of get into because of the ownership structures there. Um, we're seeing more momentum around healthcare. We're seeing data centers, we're seeing, um, fast foods. We have Wendy's coming this year. [00:21:00] Um, we're seeing, um, continued logistics growth, I think so.
So different types of buildings, Albuquerque public schools. Um, and so yeah, so we're just seeing different types of buildings, different, um, people outside of the, the beaten path, I would say is what I'm most excited about.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, I love that too. That's a great one. Um, that's such a good point.
James Dice: Alright, let's talk about a couple of exciting things where.
People will only find out more if they actually register to come.
Rosy Khalife: Ooh, scandalous.
James Dice: All right. Okay,
Rosy Khalife: I can get started. So, um, this year we are having an after party, and it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be really fun. It will be happening on day two. So the conference starts on day one, Monday with a welcome reception, you know, with whatever registration, blah, blah.
You'll meet your pods, welcome reception, so on. And then you will wanna go have dinner with folks that night. You could sort of feel free to plan for that. [00:22:00] But Tuesday. Uh, there'll be a happy hour service provider, happy hour, and then the after party will happen later in the night. Um, and it's gonna be great.
There'll be, you know, obviously open bar, mocktails, cocktails, all that. Um, food. I can't tell you too much though. I forgot I was getting all into all the details, so it's, it's gonna be fun. It's a teaser, it's gonna be fun. Um, we have a few sponsors so far. Code Labs is one of them. Um, we, those sponsors are basically paying for us to make a really awesome after party, so we are grateful for them.
And so if you're interested in that, feel free to hit me up.
James Dice: And last year we did, we did this like weird, uh, like WhatsApp group, like there are different ones. And we did Uber's downtown Denver. This is gonna be a much more. Organized
Rosy Khalife: a better experience night. We are upleveling people. We're upleveling.
Yes. We're upleveling. Yes.
James Dice: Um, Brad, what's yours?
Brad Bonavida: Uh, well, last year we did a hike after Nexus Con because if you [00:23:00] haven't spent a lot of time in Colorado, we're like. 20 minutes from the base of the Rocky Mountains when, when we're at the conference. So we, we went to the Flatirons, which is the mountain range in Boulder, and did a group hike.
And the, I guess the, uh, the teaser is that last year we wanted to do a hike. I, I wanted to do a hike that I know that's pretty famous in Boulder. And Joe Amador, who lives in Boulder, told me like. Three weeks before Nexus Con that that hike was closed because they were rebuilding the trail, so we had to like completely audible and go to a different one.
That was still great. That hike is now back open. So without giving the name of it, I'm really excited 'cause it's the one I wanted to originally do with everyone and I think it'll be great. A good, uh, a good, so it's the
James Dice: quintessential intro to Boulder Hike. There you go. Yeah,
Brad Bonavida: yeah,
Rosy Khalife: yeah. One more ask for help just for our listeners.
We do wanna also uplevel the hike this year, like last year. Similarly, we did Uber XLS and like carpools and whatever. That was fine. But we would love to do a [00:24:00] shuttle sort of experience for people this year have water like. Snacks. Uh, so if anyone wants to stipend that extravaganza, also let us know.
Brad Bonavida: We appreciate it.
If you're, if you're a sustainability and climate focused company, what's better to sponsor than a hike? Appreciating the outflow. For real. For real.
James Dice: Um, I commit to going on a hike this year because last year I was so exhausted from the whole thing that I just. Collapsed at the end of the conference basically, and didn't make it on a hike.
So I'll be there this time.
Brad Bonavida: Cool.
James Dice: Nice. Um, I will say, I'll tease the keynote. Um, I think that Smart buildings needs an upgrade. There needs to be a new name for this movement and it is sort of bubbling up in our community, I think. And so it's kind of about putting a label on it and. [00:25:00] That's all I'll say at this
Rosy Khalife: point.
Good.
James Dice: Yeah.
Rosy Khalife: I was gonna, I was gonna,
James Dice: you were gonna, you gonna stress me? I'm really excited about that. It's gonna be good. Yeah, me too.
Rosy Khalife: I'm gonna change everything.
James Dice: Okay. Alright. Last, last section of, of things here. It's by the time people listen to this, it'll be in between seven weeks to who knows how long it takes them to listen.
Maybe it's three, four weeks to the conference. Um, what do you guys want them to do right when they hear this?
Rosy Khalife: I was just gonna say you've been on the edge of your seats to either you've signed up already. If you have signed up, book your hotel. If you have not signed up, talk to your manager, talk to your team, figure out how you can make it happen.
Talk to your family and buy your ticket like that. You don't wanna miss this. It's gonna be awesome, we promise.
James Dice: I'll say that we just love when people wait till the last minute to register. Yes. Oh my God, that's so great for our planning, really. It's really helpful for our planning. Yeah.
Brad Bonavida: The, we'll add to the show notes [00:26:00] here though.
So if we weren't clear, that conference is at a hotel, um, which is really convenient and actually makes it. Much better. 'cause the hotel's really nice and you get to stick around. Um, we'll add a link to book the room as well. So you buy your ticket and you book the room kind of all in one piece. Um, also on our Nexus con webpage is the full agenda.
So we gave you a very small preview of what, two out of like 19 or 20 different sessions so you can learn a lot more about what all the topics are gonna be and who's talking there. Oh, I have one more too. Let me, let me also say, we had mentioned the lunch round table discussions. And that's one volunteer piece that we still are looking for some help with.
Just in terms of if you are joining and you'd like to lead a lunch round table discussion, if you have a topic that you'd like to talk to other professionals about, let me know and we can get you in there and make sure you have a table that's gonna talk about that. You can just email me direct actually for that, Brad at Nexus Labs online and I'll talk to you about it.
Rosy Khalife: Awesome. Alright,
Brad Bonavida: [00:27:00] let's close. Alright, carve outs. Carve outs. Uh, what
James Dice: do you guys got for us?
Brad Bonavida: Okay. I, I listen to a, a podcast. It's, it's a for fun podcast. It is like a, I guess it'd be a true crime podcast, but it's called Sea of Lies. Okay. And it's about sea as in SEA, like the ocean. Yeah. And this body that was found, um, off the English channel and.
How the cops basically lucked out like 20 times. Okay, Brad, don't tell us the
Rosy Khalife: whole thing. What did you mean? That's all I'm telling you. There's, there's
Brad Bonavida: so much luck that occurs where you're like, wow, how did they solve this case? This is outrageous. Okay. And they've admitted it. They're like, how did we get this?
Lucky to find all these. I don't know. It's all luck. It's very well done. It's good. Nice. Cool. That's great. Rosie,
Rosy Khalife: okay. I have, I have stepped out of our industry and, you know, both smart buildings industry and the world of companies and businesses. And I'm reading a memoir by Ina Garten, who you all may know her.
She's, she has a food networks show and, um, [00:28:00] she's a chef and whatnot. But, uh, just her life and how she got into this, and one thing that I've learned so far is she's just this such a happy go lucky person. Sort of luck finds her similar to what you were just saying, Brad, like she just got so lucky at so many different times in her life, and it's so fun to read.
It makes you feel so hopeful. And, um, it's, it's a great read so far. So I, I'm, I'm about halfway through so far. How about you, James?
James Dice: Um, mine is super weird. I've been going to the Boulder Bookstore a lot, so when people come to Colorado and if they're in Boulder, they should definitely go to the Boulder Bookstore.
It's like one of those three stories, like you can just get lost in there for a day. But they have a great recommendation section, so all their employees are avid readers and you can go in and be like,
Rosy Khalife: I really like
James Dice: what Kara normally recommends. And so, oh, you, Kara recommended this book. Shout out to Kara.
She recommended this really weird little Japanese novel called If Katz Disappeared from the World and is [00:29:00] like, sit down and read it in a couple hours sort of thing. And so I did this last weekend and just the main premise of the book is that this man has a terminal illness. It's fiction, man has a terminal illness.
Um, he doesn't know how long he has to live until the, the devil comes to him. And the devil like basically tells him you'll die tomorrow unless you, unless like we. Give up something like, make something disappear from the world. And at first he thinks he can choose the thing and no, the, the, basically the devil starts choosing things for him.
And so then he, each day of his life, he wakes up. And the devil reappears and says like, how about X? And, uh, that's all I'll say, but it's, that's so interesting. Really cute little novel that goes really fast and like you could read in a, in a weekend day sort of thing. So that's cool. Cool world.
Brad Bonavida: Love it
James Dice: all.
Thanks for sharing. See everyone at Nexus Con Denver, October 6th. Oh,
Rosy Khalife: get excited.[00:30:00]
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This is a great piece!
I agree.