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.
Sign-up (or refer a friend!) to the Nexus Newsletter.
Learn more about the Smart Building Strategist Course and the Nexus Courses Platform.
Check out the Nexus Labs Marketplace.
Learn more about Nexus Partnership Opportunities.
Episode 185 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida, Rosy Khalife, and Ainsley Muller from Nexus Labs.
Episode 185 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida, Rosy Khalife, and Ainsley Muller from Nexus Labs. In this episode of the Nexus Podcast, the Nexus Labs team breaks down the top stories relevant to energy managers, facility managers, IT/OT managers, and workplace managers.
Introduction (0:50)
At the Nexus (1:25)
Smart Building Champions (19:59)
Integrating, Connecting, and Securing Devices (25:41)
Digitizing Operations and Maintenance (26:28)
Workplace Experience (27:52)
Sign off (30:30)
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 Boeing professionals. We have monthly events, paywall, deep dive content, and a private chat room, and it's just $35 a month.
Second, you can upgrade from the pro membership to our courses offering. It's headlined by our flagship course, the Smart Building Strategist, and we're building a catalog of courses taught by world leading experts on each topic under the smart buildings umbrella. Third, and finally, our marketplace is how we connect leading vendors with buyers looking for their solutions.
The links are below in the show notes, and now let's go on the podcast.
Brad Bonavida: Okay, welcome to the Nexus Podcast everybody. This is not James. This is Brad. I am your interim host for the week. Uh, but like normal, we're gonna walk through [00:01:00] what's going on in the Nexus Lab community. Uh, we like to let you listen to you know, what we're doing while you're walking your dog or you commuting to work or whatever it is that you do.
We're glad to be part of that. Um, obviously for the full experience, the best way to keep up with what we're doing is to be subscribed to the Nexus newsletter. So we'll put a link, uh, in the show notes. If you're not already just subscribed to that, that's where you should see what we're doing. Um, but we're gonna start with at the Nexus.
Um, and the biggest thing at the Nexus with what's going on with us is that we have a new member of our team this week that we wanna introduce. So Ainsley has joined our team. Uh, welcome Ainsley. Uh, first, why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you're doing for us.
Ainsley Muller: Alright? So, uh, nice to meet everybody.
I look forward to meeting everybody at the conference, so hopefully you're making it. And, uh, yeah. My name is Ainsley. I'm coming to Nexus from, uh, a slightly different corporate world of content, but, uh, I'm, I'm really looking forward to working on, uh, as head of content for Nexus. Uh, and that [00:02:00] means I'll be working on, uh, newsletter articles will be coming up.
So, uh, many of you'll look forward to interviewing over video and meeting at conferences, as I mentioned, and also hearing feedback, uh, as we send out the newsletter in the coming weeks. So, um, I probably will be in your inbox pretty soon.
Brad Bonavida: Great. And you did do the newsletter last week and it looked fantastic.
Um, I think one interesting thing about you is where you live. So why don't you tell people where you're at?
Ainsley Muller: Okay. I live on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Uh, sort of right. Slap dead in the middle of it. And uh, yeah, that's kind of unique. We have black bears that wander around our neighborhood and, uh, cougars and that kind of thing.
So there's more wildlife than people.
Brad Bonavida: Multiple episodes of alone have been filmed on that island, right.
Ainsley Muller: Indeed. Yeah, I think the first three and then they came back again, I think season five or so. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. And it's true. I can tell you it does rain as much as it does as they showed in that article.
Rosy Khalife: Oh my goodness.
Brad Bonavida: That's great. Okay, so, uh, I know we did a [00:03:00] Nexus Con episode last week. We have a handful of things related to Nexus Con that we wanted to keep bringing you so that people are up to date with what's going on. Um, I'm gonna start with one that we're really excited that we talked about as a team last week.
Um, we are doing a Community Builder award at Nexus Con this year. So the Community Builder Award goes out to whoever, uh, provides the most referrals to others to sign up for Nexus Con. So when you sign up for Nexus Con, the last question is who referred you? And we've been keeping track of those and we have decided on our award for that, which we're pretty excited about.
Uh, Rosa, do you want to tell everybody what the award is?
Rosy Khalife: Sure. Yeah. We're really excited. It was, it was really hard to come up with what the prize is, uh, for this whole concept. So we, we knew we wanted to do something like this when we opened up ticket sales, you know. A, a while ago, right? Like last year.
And so that's why we added what if you, you know, go to register. We [00:04:00] added something that says like, who referred you? And that was because we were planning from that moment that we would do something like this where we had a contest and you could win a prize. So that was always in the works, but we were having a hard time figuring out what is the actual prize that you're gonna get.
And so, um, as a team, we came up with this and we are really pumped about it. It is an all inclusive. Paid trip, A ski trip, uh, nexus does a ski trip once a year, and so this person will be able to join that ski trip. Their flight will be paid for, their hotel will be paid for, their lift passes will be paid for.
Um, and it'll be really, really fun and you'll get to hang out with us. So we're excited about it. Hopefully it'll work out where you can bring. The way that we did it where, you know, we want you to bring someone with you, so maybe you could bring your partner, your spouse, your, your kid, your, you know, teammate, whatever that looks like for you.
But it's gonna be really fun.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. So we've done this nexus con winter ski [00:05:00] trip two years in a row at, you know, James and I are both in Colorado, so we do it in Colorado. Uh, we did it. At Copper Mountain last year, and we did it at Vail the year before. So I'm not sure what mountain it'll be, but it'll be something in that area.
And James and I know those mountains well, so we can, uh, guide you through the, the map a little bit. But yeah, we're gonna include your travel, your hotel, and your tickets and your rentals to, uh, to come to next the Nexus Khan Winter Ski. Fest for lack of a better name. So, and if people
Rosy Khalife: are not really good skiers, are you willing to give some coaching, Brad, because I hear you're a very good skier.
Brad Bonavida: Absolutely willing to give coaching. We can. I'm, I'm not a, a true coach, but I've been doing it for a while so I can offer some pointers. There's also good, like we could get you into a lesson as part of the package, and I really hope this doesn't happen, but if you happen to win and be. Uh, I don't know, allergic to skiing or something.
We will, we will work with you on another [00:06:00] cool Colorado trip, but we're hoping that, uh, whoever wins, wants to come skiing with us. We think it'll be a really fun time. Um, so this o obviously this, you know, we record this podcast and it doesn't come out for a couple days, so I'm gonna give you the status of the leaderboard today, but I don't think it's gonna stay this way for very long.
Um, we have the top 10. I'm not gonna do the whole top 10, but in, in the top three right now. Uh, Devon, Tracy of Lockheed Martin has the most referrals right now. She's crushing it. So she, she's crushing, she was on the
Rosy Khalife: podcast, if you are, she was just like,
Brad Bonavida: yeah. A week ago, two weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so she's winning, I think, by one referral, and then in second is the Neve team.
So when people said, who referred you, they said the organization Nev as a whole. Um, so we've got our points of contact there. They're gonna have to determine, uh, who, you know, if they find theirself on the top, who gets the prize. Um, but we're allow, we're kind of doing that, like we're allowing companies or [00:07:00] individuals to be on this leaderboard.
Um, and then in third place right now is Alex Bel of Building Logics. Uh, and I know Alex Wale's, uh, coworker Dan is a really big skier and snowboarder, so he's gonna be happy to hear maybe he can sneak in there and, um, help, help make them some things happen with more referrals. Um, and then Brad, or at least the whole top 10 list on our, on, you're
Rosy Khalife: wondering, um, is there a specific ticket type?
Is it any ticket type? Like how should they think about this?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, so it's any ticket type. Good point. Um, so as we've discussed previously, uh, the first three building owner tickets for any organization are free for you to attend, and those count as referrals as well. Um, so if you just want to remind a building owner who would, you know, have a great time at this conference and learn a lot.
That they should sign up and you refer them. It's free for them to, uh, attend the conference and you're still going to get that point for the referral program. And then that also is true for service [00:08:00] providers or vendors that you refer as well.
James Dice: Awesome.
Brad Bonavida: Okay, cool. So maybe we'll have to like, make this a weekly podcast thing that we give leaderboard updates or something.
'cause uh, I don't think it's gonna stay static like this. It could change by the time this comes out. Yeah. Um, a couple of other nexus con things. Uh, we were just talking about this the other day, so I thought it was good to bring up. But, uh, what makes Nexus Con different than other conferences? One thing is our really leaning into making people pay attention while you're there.
You travel here, you make it a priority to be here. Uh, we want an audience that's engaged in paying attention. Uh, I, I was just going through some of our clips from last year, uh, during the award ceremony. And Chris JTA from Walmart, he won the award for the best case study. And I think Rosie, you were like, Chris, do you wanna say a couple words?
And he gave him the mic and he was like all surprised. But what he said was actually like really good and poetic almost. He said, I was really impressed with what people said, but I was [00:09:00] more impressed with how people listened. And I think that's like literally. The motto of Nexus Con is you're there to pay attention, you're there to listen.
And some examples of that are that we ask you to refrain, refrain from being on your laptop while you're there. Uh, you can work the other 362 days a year on your email if you want, but these three days, you're, you know, present. And if you do, I mean, everybody's got stuff. You're gonna have a meeting or an email.
We will ask you to step aside and go handle that somewhere else so that everybody who's there can be present and not be distracted by that. Um, and we're also doing a lot of breakout discussions as well, where like you're breaking out to a small table and discussing, and we're playing with the idea of having one breakout table per session.
That's like the. We're gonna need to find a, a polite term to say, but it's, it's the not paying attention table, right? Like, if you are not going to be engaged in this breakout conversation where people are really trying to improve their own smart buildings programs or learn something, then go to this other table where it's okay that you're not part of [00:10:00] the conversation.
Um, but. If you're at that table and you're part of that breakout discussion, we want you to be engaged, listening and sharing your thoughts. So the table of
Ainsley Muller: shame.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, and I don't know, I don't, I don't wanna fully shame them, but like, if you're not paying attention, then we're gonna address that and you're not gonna be part of that conversation.
That's, that's kind, it's gonna be. Okay. Uh, next up Rosie, you had some thoughts on the marketplace floor. Can you talk about how that's a little different this year?
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, sure. Um, so we had a chance to go visit the conference venue, um, just yesterday. I was there and. The whole team was there together. It was awesome.
We got to see, you know, our event team and the staff and AV and all that. It was awesome. But aside from that, what's really cool this year is where the vendors are gonna be, which is the marketplace. So all of our partners are exhibiting. All technology vendors, um, and service providers are gonna be, you know, part of the exhibitor floor [00:11:00] and it's gonna be awesome.
You'll walk in and you'll get to meet everybody and it's really interactive, but this year it's, it's in a different location than where it was last year. So, um, there's big windows, it's really open space, high ceilings, like, it's such a nice vibe in that whole area that I think it's gonna really lift the vibes of the marketplace.
And we're planning a lot of fun stuff where. There will be, you know, coffee station inside of that, that space. There'll be, um, the bar and, you know, drinks and stuff will be served from there during the welcome reception on the first day. So we're really hoping to make it the epicenter of the conference.
And even the demo stage. The demo stage is, is right outside of those doors, like in, in that same area. And so, um. Even lunch, like lunch is right, you know, two steps away from the doors of the marketplace. And so everything is just like happening there. It's gonna be buzzing with life. And, um, we're really hoping that all of the partners that are exhibiting [00:12:00] feel that energy and everyone sort of, you know, leans into that and, and kind of like hangs out at the marketplace all the time.
And like, we want it to be loud and fun and exciting and stuff. So, um, that's the vibe that we're going for. And I think the room itself. Just based on how airy it is will really help bring that to life.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, the room is beautiful. I mean, last year the, the whole conference venue is beautiful, but last year the marketplace room was an internal room, so it didn't have any like outdoor windows and it was smaller, so it was like it was tighten there.
This year it's going to be where everybody's hanging out, which is kind of a benefit to everybody, like if you're manning a booth or womanning a booth. Uh, it's going to be like everybody's gonna be around you. You're already in the place that everyone is. Whereas last year, I know a lot of people were in the hallway too.
I don't think it's gonna quite be like that. You're either gonna be hanging out at the demo stage and watching those demos, or you're gonna be physically in the marketplace and you're gonna have all those exhibitor booths around you to, uh, go through. Yeah. Um, and then [00:13:00] the other part, which we did last year, but it's really cool, so I wanted to mention it for this year too, is we.
We orient all the exhibitor booths by the layers of the stack. So if you're familiar with, you know, the way that we visualize a lot of things, uh, at Nexus, we do the layers of the smart building stack, from the device layer to the network layer, to the data layer, to the application layer, and then service providers.
And you can physically walk through the exhibitor hall. With that. So you're looking at like the data layer companies, then the network layer companies, or excuse me, device layer, then network layer, then data layer, then application layer. So it's a lot easier for somebody who's trying to just wrap their head around what these, you know, vendors and service providers are providing.
It depends on where you're at within the marketplace, and that's a real helpful way to kind of be able to navigate it.
James Dice: Totally.
Brad Bonavida: I like
Ainsley Muller: that we're working also on some ways to connect, uh, attendees, building owners to the different vendors that will be there, uh, by, based on interest. So, uh, watch the space.
We'll doing some surveys [00:14:00] coming up in the, in the next few weeks. That'll help connect that two together. So, uh, you'll get even more from the conference because you'll be speaking to the right people.
Brad Bonavida: That's a great point. Yeah. Well that survey, if you're a building owner, you'll receive it and it'll ask you kind of the state of what you're, what you're trying to get outta the conference, where your buildings are at.
And if you fill it out, like Ansy was saying, we will let you know who we recommend you talk to, what sessions it's important for you to go to. Like we'll help you, uh, kind of curate your whole nexus con experience. Um, that is a good segue into also speaking of the experience, the, the app. The app is called Umbrella this year.
I think we talked about it a little bit in our last podcast, but another part that I wanted to mention that we've kind of got set up a lot better now after two weeks of working on it is, um, umbrella is really built for matchmaking. So when you first create your umbrella account to be an attendee of Nexus Con, it's going to ask you some basic questions like, are you a building owner or a service provider [00:15:00] or a tech vendor?
What category of solutions are you interested in? Are you interested in buying or just learning more, or selling all sorts of things like that. And what that does is it's going to automatically match you up with other people who answered similarly, uh, when they went through the wizard. So right off the bat, you have some people that you may or may not know that you might wanna, you know, try to connect with, uh, when you're at Nexus Con.
And then taking a a step further, it's really easy within that app to. Plan a networking, uh, one-on-one meetup with them so you can find them, you can recommend that you guys meet in person. We have an actual, we have two rooms dedicated to these networking meetings where you can, you know, pick that person out on the app, say, Hey, I'd love to talk to you and you guys can schedule a 15 minute meeting to actually, you know, be there in person with each other at Nexus Con.
Rosy Khalife: Amazing. Can't wait for that. It's gonna be awesome. Cool. I love that we have a dedicated space where you can have the meetings. I feel like that's always a miss at conferences where you're kind of like walking around like, oh, [00:16:00] can we, where should we sit? Like, let's go here and there's never a good spot.
So the fact that there's two meeting rooms with tables and chairs and like comfortable people can open a laptop. You can show like a mini demo, like you can really get into it. Um, I think is, is gonna be really fun.
James Dice: Yep. Okay, great.
Rosy Khalife: Brad, maybe you can tell us some of the sessions that you've, I mean, first of all, shout out to the team for adding the speakers on the web website.
If you haven't seen that yet, go over to Nexus Labs, do online and our conference page. You will see a bunch of the speakers that are gonna be at the conference. So many great names, so many great faces. A lot of powerful people that are in our industry making a lot of really big things happen. So feel free to check that out, to get excited.
Um, but Brad, maybe you could tell us a, a couple of sessions that you're excited about.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, definitely. So we have what I think 20 different sessions going on, and each of those is times. Somewhere between [00:17:00] three and six different presentations. So there is a lot of stuff going on and you can hear a lot of different stories from a lot of organizations.
Um, one that I was just looking at today that I'm really pumped about is in the it OT track. Uh, it's called Data Layers in the Wild Case Studies. So these are true case studies from building owners of their data layers, how they're thinking about their building data. Uh, a lot of people refer to digital twins when they're referring to their data layer.
Um, but in that one we have, Amazon is going to give kind of a, a run through about how other building owners should think about building their digital twin and their data layer and how they can build that in the cloud using Amazon Web Services or Azure or other tools. Um. Willow is going to be there and they're bringing Northern Arizona University with them.
And Willow and Northern Arizona University have done a pretty incredible project at that university about bringing all their data together across the [00:18:00] whole campus. And then the team at Intelli Build and Code Labs will be there with. Goldman Sachs and um, you know, a lot of people have heard about the Goldman Sachs is doing some pretty incredible things with their building portfolio and using code and Intel build to build out this data layer.
So they're gonna be telling that whole story as well. Um, and then, uh, shout out to Kenny Trowers. He is our, uh, mc for this session, but he's gonna be moderating a debate at the end of it too. So this is gonna be one of our spicier sessions, I think. Um, and we have a couple of cool prompts for that debate.
One of them is buying a data later data, data layer versus building a data layer. And I think that's gonna be really good because we have case studies of both of those things here. Like Amazon clearly is talking about how you can build your data layer, whereas Willow is coming in and offering a lot of those surfaces to Northern Arizona University.
So we'll be able to see both sides of that. Um, and I think he'll also be [00:19:00] hosting another, uh, part of that debate on do data layers. Just move your vendor lock-in up the stack. So the whole idea of the data layer is, it kind of opens up a lot of freedoms for you, or one of the big outcomes of it is that it opens up freedoms that you can use all these different vendors, um, you know, you can bring in different applications and see how they work and then get rid of them or, you know, make, grow them very easily.
But are you just getting locked into a data layer provider? Some could argue that. So I'm pretty excited to kind of hear both sides of both of those debate topics and see how that goes.
Rosy Khalife: That's gonna be awesome. I hope I, I wish I could be in more than one room at once because I was looking at the schedule and like, it's a real thing where there's a few things happening at once that are right.
Really cool, interesting topics. So
Brad Bonavida: it's gonna be hard for people, like what I just explained is one of 20, so there's 20 of that level of sophistication to these sessions, which is really cool.
Rosy Khalife: That's really great.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. Um, so let's move on. I know we just have a little bit of time [00:20:00] left. I did want to talk about our building owner meetup, 'cause we haven't talked about that since last time we did it.
Um, so just really quick, I think it was two weeks ago now, we did a building owner meetup on AI for facility management, so AI for operations and maintenance. Um, we had, I think. 75 or 80 different building owners there. And we had three tech vendors, uh, 75 F Neve and Mode, and all three of those vendors gave a demo of how they're incorporating AI into their facility management and operations tools, which were really cool and well received.
And then we broke it into these discussions where the building owners got to talk to one another about, um, where they're at in this whole journey. So, uh, let me open it up to you guys. Uh, first Ainsley, what did you think since it was your first building owner meetup?
Ainsley Muller: Yeah, it was fascinating. I've never been in something like that, to be honest.
Uh, uh, it was really interesting just to hear and see how open building owners were, are to being able to discuss these things. And also much like the [00:21:00] conference, how we've, it's been organized where there's, uh, owners at different levels of integration. So ones that were further ahead or further behind, ones who wanted to learn, ones who could help and, and, uh, like a peer group assist each other.
Uh, really fascinating, uh, to, to be a fly on the wall and observe that. Um, so I really enjoyed it and I think anybody who's thinking of attending one in future, it'll be the best hour of your month if you, if you sign up for that, you'll learn a lot, um, from people who have done it or are in the process or in the weeds right now, busy and, uh, doing what you're trying to accomplish.
Rosy Khalife: That's awesome. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Insley. Yeah, it is pretty unique if you've never, you know, like we sort of created this approach of getting these, you know, getting these types of people together and, um, we always hear positive feedback coming out of it, so that's awesome to hear that you also enjoyed it yourself.
Um, what I thought was really interesting was the. Diversity of the types of building owners that were there. Like they're coming from all [00:22:00]different types of verticals where I think sometimes they, for better or worse are sort of lumped together. Like if you are a building owner, um, for an office building, you know, you kind of have a group of other people that are in similar types, you know, managing or, or who own similar buildings to you.
And I think what happens when you're in a group where there's someone that's, you know, managing a data center. Someone who owns a retail store, someone who I is from a higher ed institution and so on. It just brings such diversity of thought to the conversation and you know, everyone is at a different stage.
They're learning different things and so that part is really fun. Um, Brad, maybe you could share, like if I was a listener right now, like obviously if I'm a building owner. I have an open invitation to attend, right? So, um, how do I sign up for that? And then the second question is, if I'm not a building owner and I'm a vendor or I'm a service provider, like can I still attend somehow?
Or like, how, how can I [00:23:00] be a fly on the wall?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. So, um. Like you said, if you're a building owner, these are free. We do them monthly. Um, our one for September is going to be on, uh, constructing data layers, very similar to the, uh, session topic that I was just talking about. So we have a form that we will put in the show notes as well, where it's just like.
Fill this form out if you're a building owner, and we'll make sure that you get invited to the next one. Um, and it, we say this all the time, but building owner is a, is a term that we use here at Nexus Labs to talk about anyone who is helping manage a portfolio. So it doesn't mean that you are the person who actually writes the checks for the building, but maybe you're the energy manager for IT or the facility manager for it, or you're on the IT team for it.
All those type of things. Um, if you're a tech vendor or service provider, the, the way that we do it is that we will bring like th two to four call it, of our, our Nexus lab partner companies that are vendors and service providers to the topics that they're experts at. So for this [00:24:00] AI, for, uh, operations and maintenance, 75 f, Neve, and Mode are all three like.
Kind of leading the charge here in terms of the tools that they're building for that. So we give them a very, like a, a platform to demo that in front of the building owners who we know are interested in that, which is pretty cool. And then, you know, for the data layer one, we'll have a whole nother group of companies who are focused on those, um, you know, build, helping people build their data layers out.
So it's very specific to the, um, the topic of the month, what, um, tech vendors and service providers will bring in.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, that makes sense, Brad. It's super important for us to curate who those people are that are gonna be there because. Obviously, you know, everyone doesn't have a ton of time in their day, right?
And so we wanna make sure that hour that they're spending with us is really worthwhile. So even the demo that, that they're seeing from, from these companies, like we wanna get in there, like real demo, live, like show us real data and, and get into the meat of it rather than kind of [00:25:00] keeping it super high level.
So, um, excited for the next one.
Brad Bonavida: Yep. Great. Okay, uh, let's keep moving here. Um, you know, the way that we normally do these podcasts is to talk about the articles that we've come out with over the last week or last two weeks. We haven't done that 'cause we've done these two nexus con ones. So I'm just gonna do like, super sneak peek or I guess it's not really a sneak peek 'cause these are out, but rapid fire is a better term of what has come out since, uh, since we've last talked about it on the podcast.
Um, and we've had three weeks of articles come out so. You need to go read them all 'cause we're not gonna go into them in depth here. But first, uh, for our it OT folks for integrating, connecting, and securing devices, James came out with this article called Manual Chaos to Connected Operations, the Roadmap.
And this is go, this is the, this is the start of something. I think there's gonna be a lot more about this topic. You can see the, uh, flicker in James's eye about this topic. Like he's really excited about it. And this is just like step one of what we [00:26:00] wanna talk. About regarding it, but he really lays out the roadmap of how, um, you know, you start with these silos and how you're building operates and regardless of what part of the organization you're in, you can slowly start to get to the point that you're, the apps you use are in the cloud and the apps you use are connected to other people's apps, and you're growing into this idea of.
Connected operations throughout your building, which is really cool. Um, the other one that James came out with in the last two weeks is for our digitizing operations and maintenance, uh, beat. So that's like facility managers, those type of people. Um, and it's called technology for uptime, tools for fms, managing mission critical spaces.
So, you know, a lot of times when we're talking about, uh, facility management and operations and maintenance, we're talking about. Um, having as little downtime as possible, but this is kind of that idea flipped on its head where if you're in life sciences or you're in healthcare or data centers, it's actually all [00:27:00] about how can you keep as much uptime as possible.
So it's kind of all about, um, you know. What you can do to keep things running when they're mission critical. How you prepare for short, um, periods of, uh, of time when you know you can go in there and do the maintenance. It, it reminded me of, I used to, uh, do work in, in operating rooms and their, their smart building technologies and we would have windows of like.
One night where you can change the building controls within an operating room, and you had those eight hours and it was like bomb squad operations. Like you gotta go in there and change things and they're losing money and you know, there's if, if it's uh, if it's not open for as long as they plan. So great article on that.
Um, and then the last one I wrote, uh, last week, uh, this article about biohacking, your building, how tech can improve health and wellness. Um, and it's just. Really cool what some people are doing to buildings to make them better for their [00:28:00] occupants. So we kind of structured the article into two parts.
There's step one is like make sure your buildings aren't literally making your occupants sick or worse than they would be. And that's where a lot of us are unfortunately. So what are your CO2 levels? Do you have VOCs in your air? Uh, do you have spaces that are actually, you know. Helpful to what people are trying to do.
And then the article gets into how some people are taking it a level further. Um, shout out to Elevated who has done some incredible tests of what you can do to make your people more productive. And when it comes to things like lighting, um, air. Plants, walkways. Like there's so many things you can do in studies that prove that in, uh, it can help with cognition.
Any thoughts on those three guys?
Rosy Khalife: Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I know at Nexus Con Joe Allen's gonna be talking about his work around all of this, um, with indoor air quality and healthy buildings. And so that's gonna be, I'm sure a very popular session. Um. I'd hate to be [00:29:00] at that time, so I have to check who else is at the same time as that one.
It's gonna be a good one. Uh, there's a bunch like that. So, um, but yeah, I love that article and I really enjoyed hearing from the elevated team around how they've been able to really apply these things. In their own office for themselves as a way to really sort of use that as a test bed in terms of efficacy and, and how they wanna take that beyond their own office spaces, which I think is really cool.
And it's a really great approach for anyone, you know, start doing it in your home first. Do it in your own office and then kind of like see where, um, you wanna take it from there.
Ainsley Muller: I, I really enjoyed that article. I thought you did a great job, Brad. I, and one of the things that was an eyeopener for me was about relative humidity, uh, and bacteria viruses, and how that relates in some of the articles you brought up about not having case to K or person to person transfer of viruses.
That's crazy. As a germophobe, that was like, that really, that really hit home for me. I'm like, wow, I want to work in a building that, [00:30:00] that, uh, doesn't make me sick. So, uh, that was a great article and really enlightening. I'd also add to the, uh, connected operations, the manual case chaos to connected operations that James wrote.
Um, I think anybody who wants a glimpse into what the keynote is going to be about and what is going on in James's mind as to where this industry is going, read that article, because it is definitely a spark, I think, in the beginning of something that's gonna be much larger. And I'll leave it at that.
Brad Bonavida: Yep. That's great. Let's, uh, let's close it out with our carve outs. So this is just something that's a little more personal, that's in each of our lives that we wanted to share. Something fun that's been on our minds. Uh, Rosie, do you wanna go first?
Rosy Khalife: Sure. Um, so, so random, but I'm sort of calling on our listeners for help also at the same time.
So I am building a bar in, um, in my living room, and I had envisioned that it would be like this copper. Metal sort of bar with like glass [00:31:00] shelves, like bistro bar sort of vibe. And that seemed totally doable and fine. And so then I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find this thing or like getting it made or built or whatever.
And it's crazy. Like it is so expensive. It's so hard. I thought I could DIY it. You can't, I don't know if I'm like not knowing what to look for, but even just. The metal itself is so expensive, and then obviously the glass is a whole other thing, but it's this whole world. So now I've gone down the rabbit hole of Etsy and like having someone make it for me in some other state and then like shipping it here.
Um, but it's literally thousands of dollars. Like I'm, I'm pretty shocked to be honest, so if anyone listening has any tips or ideas for me that I haven't thought of, I will welcome them. But that is where I'm at right now.
Brad Bonavida: So you have like this grand vision in your head of what it looks. It's like it that grand.
So you can't go buy it's, but you can't go buy something at like a local store. No.
Rosy Khalife: You wouldn't be able to buy it because [00:32:00] it has to be built in the wall. Like, you know, it's custom.
Brad Bonavida: I could show you photo. Very custom.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, it's more custom. Um, I'll show you photo later, but yeah, what I want. Nice. I don't think I can just buy unfortunately.
So here we are.
Brad Bonavida: Here we are. All right. Ainsley, what's your carve out?
Ainsley Muller: Sure. So, uh, recently I've got a rooftop tent for our Jeep, which is kind of awesome because it allows us to be able to go living where we live. There's so many, just like. Logging roads and off, off grid camping and things, and love to do that.
But the problem is, uh, where we live, to get into any of the, the campsites, the provincial or the, that's the Canadian aver equivalent of a state, uh, camp Park, uh, you have to. If you have to plan so far ahead, you have to basically book in February for the end of summer and you know, I don't know what I'm doing next week, let alone six months from now.
So having a rooftop tent has barely, uh, meant that when we've got a, a little bit of time we can literally hop in the [00:33:00] Jeep Drive 30 minutes and we're in the middle of nowhere and camping and it's great. So,
Brad Bonavida: uh, nice.
Ainsley Muller: 10 outta 10 would recommend.
Brad Bonavida: Cool. That's great. Alright. Mine is, um. Mine is the story that I, I actually started the biohacking your building article with the story, but I didn't know about it until I wrote this article, but I wanted to, if you haven't heard of Biosphere too, it's a pretty crazy story.
So it was in 1991, they, it was in Arizona. There was this plan to build this plan. It actually happened. They built this 3.14 acre. Glass and steel structure in the desert. And it was, the point is it was supposed to be a science experiment to seal off. I think there were eight, uh, people within it. And they were gonna be in there for like two or three years to try to, uh, mimic what it would be like to try to like, build life on Mars, right?
Like, can you build this like totally sealed environment that has all the plants you need? It had like chickens in it. They had a whole garden, they had everything you possibly need. [00:34:00] Uh, and it kind of just. Went to shit, for lack of better term. So the, the reason I had it in that article is that that, uh, indoor air quality became really bad.
Um, and they got in a bunch of fights. They created different factions. I read that, uh, cockroaches kind of like took over. They like couldn't get. Like they, they were like the species that was taking everything over. Uh, they weren't eating enough. And I guess it ended with like, well, there's a bunch of controversies, but somebody opened the door like in the middle of the experiment, which like, that is the quickest way to fail an experiment of sealing people off as long as you can.
I don't know, it's a grand story of like, that's really cool. Failure for something that was actually supposed to be pretty cool. There's a bunch of YouTube videos about it. Um, and there, apparently there's this sitcom, or not sitcom, it's. A movie called Biodome, which uh, I believe is probably terrible. It's got 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's, I have not seen it. It's pretty, seen it in some, I, I
Ainsley Muller: saw it a long time ago. I mean, it's like, I think it [00:35:00]came out 95 or something like that. It was a long time ago. And it was, it was, it was. Yeah, it's pretty terrible, but it's like funny. Terrible.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, I have to watch it 'cause I've talked about it a bunch now, but it's supposed, anyway, it's supposed to make fun of that whole thing.
These guys like stumble across, uh, biosphere. So yeah, I thought that was a funny story. Awesome. I'm gonna
Rosy Khalife: check that out. Good one, Brad.
Brad Bonavida: All right, well that's gonna wrap for us and we'll see you guys, uh, at the next episode. Thanks an Leslie. Thanks
Rosy Khalife: for listening. Thank
Brad Bonavida: you.
Rosy Khalife: Bye.
Okay, friends. Thank you for listening to this episode. As we continue to grow our global community of change makers, we need your help. For the next couple of months, we're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. It would really, really help us out.
Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.
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.
Sign-up (or refer a friend!) to the Nexus Newsletter.
Learn more about the Smart Building Strategist Course and the Nexus Courses Platform.
Check out the Nexus Labs Marketplace.
Learn more about Nexus Partnership Opportunities.
Episode 185 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida, Rosy Khalife, and Ainsley Muller from Nexus Labs.
Episode 185 is a conversation with Brad Bonavida, Rosy Khalife, and Ainsley Muller from Nexus Labs. In this episode of the Nexus Podcast, the Nexus Labs team breaks down the top stories relevant to energy managers, facility managers, IT/OT managers, and workplace managers.
Introduction (0:50)
At the Nexus (1:25)
Smart Building Champions (19:59)
Integrating, Connecting, and Securing Devices (25:41)
Digitizing Operations and Maintenance (26:28)
Workplace Experience (27:52)
Sign off (30:30)
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 Boeing professionals. We have monthly events, paywall, deep dive content, and a private chat room, and it's just $35 a month.
Second, you can upgrade from the pro membership to our courses offering. It's headlined by our flagship course, the Smart Building Strategist, and we're building a catalog of courses taught by world leading experts on each topic under the smart buildings umbrella. Third, and finally, our marketplace is how we connect leading vendors with buyers looking for their solutions.
The links are below in the show notes, and now let's go on the podcast.
Brad Bonavida: Okay, welcome to the Nexus Podcast everybody. This is not James. This is Brad. I am your interim host for the week. Uh, but like normal, we're gonna walk through [00:01:00] what's going on in the Nexus Lab community. Uh, we like to let you listen to you know, what we're doing while you're walking your dog or you commuting to work or whatever it is that you do.
We're glad to be part of that. Um, obviously for the full experience, the best way to keep up with what we're doing is to be subscribed to the Nexus newsletter. So we'll put a link, uh, in the show notes. If you're not already just subscribed to that, that's where you should see what we're doing. Um, but we're gonna start with at the Nexus.
Um, and the biggest thing at the Nexus with what's going on with us is that we have a new member of our team this week that we wanna introduce. So Ainsley has joined our team. Uh, welcome Ainsley. Uh, first, why don't you tell everybody who you are and what you're doing for us.
Ainsley Muller: Alright? So, uh, nice to meet everybody.
I look forward to meeting everybody at the conference, so hopefully you're making it. And, uh, yeah. My name is Ainsley. I'm coming to Nexus from, uh, a slightly different corporate world of content, but, uh, I'm, I'm really looking forward to working on, uh, as head of content for Nexus. Uh, and that [00:02:00] means I'll be working on, uh, newsletter articles will be coming up.
So, uh, many of you'll look forward to interviewing over video and meeting at conferences, as I mentioned, and also hearing feedback, uh, as we send out the newsletter in the coming weeks. So, um, I probably will be in your inbox pretty soon.
Brad Bonavida: Great. And you did do the newsletter last week and it looked fantastic.
Um, I think one interesting thing about you is where you live. So why don't you tell people where you're at?
Ainsley Muller: Okay. I live on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Uh, sort of right. Slap dead in the middle of it. And uh, yeah, that's kind of unique. We have black bears that wander around our neighborhood and, uh, cougars and that kind of thing.
So there's more wildlife than people.
Brad Bonavida: Multiple episodes of alone have been filmed on that island, right.
Ainsley Muller: Indeed. Yeah, I think the first three and then they came back again, I think season five or so. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. And it's true. I can tell you it does rain as much as it does as they showed in that article.
Rosy Khalife: Oh my goodness.
Brad Bonavida: That's great. Okay, so, uh, I know we did a [00:03:00] Nexus Con episode last week. We have a handful of things related to Nexus Con that we wanted to keep bringing you so that people are up to date with what's going on. Um, I'm gonna start with one that we're really excited that we talked about as a team last week.
Um, we are doing a Community Builder award at Nexus Con this year. So the Community Builder Award goes out to whoever, uh, provides the most referrals to others to sign up for Nexus Con. So when you sign up for Nexus Con, the last question is who referred you? And we've been keeping track of those and we have decided on our award for that, which we're pretty excited about.
Uh, Rosa, do you want to tell everybody what the award is?
Rosy Khalife: Sure. Yeah. We're really excited. It was, it was really hard to come up with what the prize is, uh, for this whole concept. So we, we knew we wanted to do something like this when we opened up ticket sales, you know. A, a while ago, right? Like last year.
And so that's why we added what if you, you know, go to register. We [00:04:00] added something that says like, who referred you? And that was because we were planning from that moment that we would do something like this where we had a contest and you could win a prize. So that was always in the works, but we were having a hard time figuring out what is the actual prize that you're gonna get.
And so, um, as a team, we came up with this and we are really pumped about it. It is an all inclusive. Paid trip, A ski trip, uh, nexus does a ski trip once a year, and so this person will be able to join that ski trip. Their flight will be paid for, their hotel will be paid for, their lift passes will be paid for.
Um, and it'll be really, really fun and you'll get to hang out with us. So we're excited about it. Hopefully it'll work out where you can bring. The way that we did it where, you know, we want you to bring someone with you, so maybe you could bring your partner, your spouse, your, your kid, your, you know, teammate, whatever that looks like for you.
But it's gonna be really fun.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. So we've done this nexus con winter ski [00:05:00] trip two years in a row at, you know, James and I are both in Colorado, so we do it in Colorado. Uh, we did it. At Copper Mountain last year, and we did it at Vail the year before. So I'm not sure what mountain it'll be, but it'll be something in that area.
And James and I know those mountains well, so we can, uh, guide you through the, the map a little bit. But yeah, we're gonna include your travel, your hotel, and your tickets and your rentals to, uh, to come to next the Nexus Khan Winter Ski. Fest for lack of a better name. So, and if people
Rosy Khalife: are not really good skiers, are you willing to give some coaching, Brad, because I hear you're a very good skier.
Brad Bonavida: Absolutely willing to give coaching. We can. I'm, I'm not a, a true coach, but I've been doing it for a while so I can offer some pointers. There's also good, like we could get you into a lesson as part of the package, and I really hope this doesn't happen, but if you happen to win and be. Uh, I don't know, allergic to skiing or something.
We will, we will work with you on another [00:06:00] cool Colorado trip, but we're hoping that, uh, whoever wins, wants to come skiing with us. We think it'll be a really fun time. Um, so this o obviously this, you know, we record this podcast and it doesn't come out for a couple days, so I'm gonna give you the status of the leaderboard today, but I don't think it's gonna stay this way for very long.
Um, we have the top 10. I'm not gonna do the whole top 10, but in, in the top three right now. Uh, Devon, Tracy of Lockheed Martin has the most referrals right now. She's crushing it. So she, she's crushing, she was on the
Rosy Khalife: podcast, if you are, she was just like,
Brad Bonavida: yeah. A week ago, two weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so she's winning, I think, by one referral, and then in second is the Neve team.
So when people said, who referred you, they said the organization Nev as a whole. Um, so we've got our points of contact there. They're gonna have to determine, uh, who, you know, if they find theirself on the top, who gets the prize. Um, but we're allow, we're kind of doing that, like we're allowing companies or [00:07:00] individuals to be on this leaderboard.
Um, and then in third place right now is Alex Bel of Building Logics. Uh, and I know Alex Wale's, uh, coworker Dan is a really big skier and snowboarder, so he's gonna be happy to hear maybe he can sneak in there and, um, help, help make them some things happen with more referrals. Um, and then Brad, or at least the whole top 10 list on our, on, you're
Rosy Khalife: wondering, um, is there a specific ticket type?
Is it any ticket type? Like how should they think about this?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, so it's any ticket type. Good point. Um, so as we've discussed previously, uh, the first three building owner tickets for any organization are free for you to attend, and those count as referrals as well. Um, so if you just want to remind a building owner who would, you know, have a great time at this conference and learn a lot.
That they should sign up and you refer them. It's free for them to, uh, attend the conference and you're still going to get that point for the referral program. And then that also is true for service [00:08:00] providers or vendors that you refer as well.
James Dice: Awesome.
Brad Bonavida: Okay, cool. So maybe we'll have to like, make this a weekly podcast thing that we give leaderboard updates or something.
'cause uh, I don't think it's gonna stay static like this. It could change by the time this comes out. Yeah. Um, a couple of other nexus con things. Uh, we were just talking about this the other day, so I thought it was good to bring up. But, uh, what makes Nexus Con different than other conferences? One thing is our really leaning into making people pay attention while you're there.
You travel here, you make it a priority to be here. Uh, we want an audience that's engaged in paying attention. Uh, I, I was just going through some of our clips from last year, uh, during the award ceremony. And Chris JTA from Walmart, he won the award for the best case study. And I think Rosie, you were like, Chris, do you wanna say a couple words?
And he gave him the mic and he was like all surprised. But what he said was actually like really good and poetic almost. He said, I was really impressed with what people said, but I was [00:09:00] more impressed with how people listened. And I think that's like literally. The motto of Nexus Con is you're there to pay attention, you're there to listen.
And some examples of that are that we ask you to refrain, refrain from being on your laptop while you're there. Uh, you can work the other 362 days a year on your email if you want, but these three days, you're, you know, present. And if you do, I mean, everybody's got stuff. You're gonna have a meeting or an email.
We will ask you to step aside and go handle that somewhere else so that everybody who's there can be present and not be distracted by that. Um, and we're also doing a lot of breakout discussions as well, where like you're breaking out to a small table and discussing, and we're playing with the idea of having one breakout table per session.
That's like the. We're gonna need to find a, a polite term to say, but it's, it's the not paying attention table, right? Like, if you are not going to be engaged in this breakout conversation where people are really trying to improve their own smart buildings programs or learn something, then go to this other table where it's okay that you're not part of [00:10:00] the conversation.
Um, but. If you're at that table and you're part of that breakout discussion, we want you to be engaged, listening and sharing your thoughts. So the table of
Ainsley Muller: shame.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, and I don't know, I don't, I don't wanna fully shame them, but like, if you're not paying attention, then we're gonna address that and you're not gonna be part of that conversation.
That's, that's kind, it's gonna be. Okay. Uh, next up Rosie, you had some thoughts on the marketplace floor. Can you talk about how that's a little different this year?
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, sure. Um, so we had a chance to go visit the conference venue, um, just yesterday. I was there and. The whole team was there together. It was awesome.
We got to see, you know, our event team and the staff and AV and all that. It was awesome. But aside from that, what's really cool this year is where the vendors are gonna be, which is the marketplace. So all of our partners are exhibiting. All technology vendors, um, and service providers are gonna be, you know, part of the exhibitor floor [00:11:00] and it's gonna be awesome.
You'll walk in and you'll get to meet everybody and it's really interactive, but this year it's, it's in a different location than where it was last year. So, um, there's big windows, it's really open space, high ceilings, like, it's such a nice vibe in that whole area that I think it's gonna really lift the vibes of the marketplace.
And we're planning a lot of fun stuff where. There will be, you know, coffee station inside of that, that space. There'll be, um, the bar and, you know, drinks and stuff will be served from there during the welcome reception on the first day. So we're really hoping to make it the epicenter of the conference.
And even the demo stage. The demo stage is, is right outside of those doors, like in, in that same area. And so, um. Even lunch, like lunch is right, you know, two steps away from the doors of the marketplace. And so everything is just like happening there. It's gonna be buzzing with life. And, um, we're really hoping that all of the partners that are exhibiting [00:12:00] feel that energy and everyone sort of, you know, leans into that and, and kind of like hangs out at the marketplace all the time.
And like, we want it to be loud and fun and exciting and stuff. So, um, that's the vibe that we're going for. And I think the room itself. Just based on how airy it is will really help bring that to life.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, the room is beautiful. I mean, last year the, the whole conference venue is beautiful, but last year the marketplace room was an internal room, so it didn't have any like outdoor windows and it was smaller, so it was like it was tighten there.
This year it's going to be where everybody's hanging out, which is kind of a benefit to everybody, like if you're manning a booth or womanning a booth. Uh, it's going to be like everybody's gonna be around you. You're already in the place that everyone is. Whereas last year, I know a lot of people were in the hallway too.
I don't think it's gonna quite be like that. You're either gonna be hanging out at the demo stage and watching those demos, or you're gonna be physically in the marketplace and you're gonna have all those exhibitor booths around you to, uh, go through. Yeah. Um, and then [00:13:00] the other part, which we did last year, but it's really cool, so I wanted to mention it for this year too, is we.
We orient all the exhibitor booths by the layers of the stack. So if you're familiar with, you know, the way that we visualize a lot of things, uh, at Nexus, we do the layers of the smart building stack, from the device layer to the network layer, to the data layer, to the application layer, and then service providers.
And you can physically walk through the exhibitor hall. With that. So you're looking at like the data layer companies, then the network layer companies, or excuse me, device layer, then network layer, then data layer, then application layer. So it's a lot easier for somebody who's trying to just wrap their head around what these, you know, vendors and service providers are providing.
It depends on where you're at within the marketplace, and that's a real helpful way to kind of be able to navigate it.
James Dice: Totally.
Brad Bonavida: I like
Ainsley Muller: that we're working also on some ways to connect, uh, attendees, building owners to the different vendors that will be there, uh, by, based on interest. So, uh, watch the space.
We'll doing some surveys [00:14:00] coming up in the, in the next few weeks. That'll help connect that two together. So, uh, you'll get even more from the conference because you'll be speaking to the right people.
Brad Bonavida: That's a great point. Yeah. Well that survey, if you're a building owner, you'll receive it and it'll ask you kind of the state of what you're, what you're trying to get outta the conference, where your buildings are at.
And if you fill it out, like Ansy was saying, we will let you know who we recommend you talk to, what sessions it's important for you to go to. Like we'll help you, uh, kind of curate your whole nexus con experience. Um, that is a good segue into also speaking of the experience, the, the app. The app is called Umbrella this year.
I think we talked about it a little bit in our last podcast, but another part that I wanted to mention that we've kind of got set up a lot better now after two weeks of working on it is, um, umbrella is really built for matchmaking. So when you first create your umbrella account to be an attendee of Nexus Con, it's going to ask you some basic questions like, are you a building owner or a service provider [00:15:00] or a tech vendor?
What category of solutions are you interested in? Are you interested in buying or just learning more, or selling all sorts of things like that. And what that does is it's going to automatically match you up with other people who answered similarly, uh, when they went through the wizard. So right off the bat, you have some people that you may or may not know that you might wanna, you know, try to connect with, uh, when you're at Nexus Con.
And then taking a a step further, it's really easy within that app to. Plan a networking, uh, one-on-one meetup with them so you can find them, you can recommend that you guys meet in person. We have an actual, we have two rooms dedicated to these networking meetings where you can, you know, pick that person out on the app, say, Hey, I'd love to talk to you and you guys can schedule a 15 minute meeting to actually, you know, be there in person with each other at Nexus Con.
Rosy Khalife: Amazing. Can't wait for that. It's gonna be awesome. Cool. I love that we have a dedicated space where you can have the meetings. I feel like that's always a miss at conferences where you're kind of like walking around like, oh, [00:16:00] can we, where should we sit? Like, let's go here and there's never a good spot.
So the fact that there's two meeting rooms with tables and chairs and like comfortable people can open a laptop. You can show like a mini demo, like you can really get into it. Um, I think is, is gonna be really fun.
James Dice: Yep. Okay, great.
Rosy Khalife: Brad, maybe you can tell us some of the sessions that you've, I mean, first of all, shout out to the team for adding the speakers on the web website.
If you haven't seen that yet, go over to Nexus Labs, do online and our conference page. You will see a bunch of the speakers that are gonna be at the conference. So many great names, so many great faces. A lot of powerful people that are in our industry making a lot of really big things happen. So feel free to check that out, to get excited.
Um, but Brad, maybe you could tell us a, a couple of sessions that you're excited about.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, definitely. So we have what I think 20 different sessions going on, and each of those is times. Somewhere between [00:17:00] three and six different presentations. So there is a lot of stuff going on and you can hear a lot of different stories from a lot of organizations.
Um, one that I was just looking at today that I'm really pumped about is in the it OT track. Uh, it's called Data Layers in the Wild Case Studies. So these are true case studies from building owners of their data layers, how they're thinking about their building data. Uh, a lot of people refer to digital twins when they're referring to their data layer.
Um, but in that one we have, Amazon is going to give kind of a, a run through about how other building owners should think about building their digital twin and their data layer and how they can build that in the cloud using Amazon Web Services or Azure or other tools. Um. Willow is going to be there and they're bringing Northern Arizona University with them.
And Willow and Northern Arizona University have done a pretty incredible project at that university about bringing all their data together across the [00:18:00] whole campus. And then the team at Intelli Build and Code Labs will be there with. Goldman Sachs and um, you know, a lot of people have heard about the Goldman Sachs is doing some pretty incredible things with their building portfolio and using code and Intel build to build out this data layer.
So they're gonna be telling that whole story as well. Um, and then, uh, shout out to Kenny Trowers. He is our, uh, mc for this session, but he's gonna be moderating a debate at the end of it too. So this is gonna be one of our spicier sessions, I think. Um, and we have a couple of cool prompts for that debate.
One of them is buying a data later data, data layer versus building a data layer. And I think that's gonna be really good because we have case studies of both of those things here. Like Amazon clearly is talking about how you can build your data layer, whereas Willow is coming in and offering a lot of those surfaces to Northern Arizona University.
So we'll be able to see both sides of that. Um, and I think he'll also be [00:19:00] hosting another, uh, part of that debate on do data layers. Just move your vendor lock-in up the stack. So the whole idea of the data layer is, it kind of opens up a lot of freedoms for you, or one of the big outcomes of it is that it opens up freedoms that you can use all these different vendors, um, you know, you can bring in different applications and see how they work and then get rid of them or, you know, make, grow them very easily.
But are you just getting locked into a data layer provider? Some could argue that. So I'm pretty excited to kind of hear both sides of both of those debate topics and see how that goes.
Rosy Khalife: That's gonna be awesome. I hope I, I wish I could be in more than one room at once because I was looking at the schedule and like, it's a real thing where there's a few things happening at once that are right.
Really cool, interesting topics. So
Brad Bonavida: it's gonna be hard for people, like what I just explained is one of 20, so there's 20 of that level of sophistication to these sessions, which is really cool.
Rosy Khalife: That's really great.
Brad Bonavida: Okay. Um, so let's move on. I know we just have a little bit of time [00:20:00] left. I did want to talk about our building owner meetup, 'cause we haven't talked about that since last time we did it.
Um, so just really quick, I think it was two weeks ago now, we did a building owner meetup on AI for facility management, so AI for operations and maintenance. Um, we had, I think. 75 or 80 different building owners there. And we had three tech vendors, uh, 75 F Neve and Mode, and all three of those vendors gave a demo of how they're incorporating AI into their facility management and operations tools, which were really cool and well received.
And then we broke it into these discussions where the building owners got to talk to one another about, um, where they're at in this whole journey. So, uh, let me open it up to you guys. Uh, first Ainsley, what did you think since it was your first building owner meetup?
Ainsley Muller: Yeah, it was fascinating. I've never been in something like that, to be honest.
Uh, uh, it was really interesting just to hear and see how open building owners were, are to being able to discuss these things. And also much like the [00:21:00] conference, how we've, it's been organized where there's, uh, owners at different levels of integration. So ones that were further ahead or further behind, ones who wanted to learn, ones who could help and, and, uh, like a peer group assist each other.
Uh, really fascinating, uh, to, to be a fly on the wall and observe that. Um, so I really enjoyed it and I think anybody who's thinking of attending one in future, it'll be the best hour of your month if you, if you sign up for that, you'll learn a lot, um, from people who have done it or are in the process or in the weeds right now, busy and, uh, doing what you're trying to accomplish.
Rosy Khalife: That's awesome. I'm glad you enjoyed it, Insley. Yeah, it is pretty unique if you've never, you know, like we sort of created this approach of getting these, you know, getting these types of people together and, um, we always hear positive feedback coming out of it, so that's awesome to hear that you also enjoyed it yourself.
Um, what I thought was really interesting was the. Diversity of the types of building owners that were there. Like they're coming from all [00:22:00]different types of verticals where I think sometimes they, for better or worse are sort of lumped together. Like if you are a building owner, um, for an office building, you know, you kind of have a group of other people that are in similar types, you know, managing or, or who own similar buildings to you.
And I think what happens when you're in a group where there's someone that's, you know, managing a data center. Someone who owns a retail store, someone who I is from a higher ed institution and so on. It just brings such diversity of thought to the conversation and you know, everyone is at a different stage.
They're learning different things and so that part is really fun. Um, Brad, maybe you could share, like if I was a listener right now, like obviously if I'm a building owner. I have an open invitation to attend, right? So, um, how do I sign up for that? And then the second question is, if I'm not a building owner and I'm a vendor or I'm a service provider, like can I still attend somehow?
Or like, how, how can I [00:23:00] be a fly on the wall?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. So, um. Like you said, if you're a building owner, these are free. We do them monthly. Um, our one for September is going to be on, uh, constructing data layers, very similar to the, uh, session topic that I was just talking about. So we have a form that we will put in the show notes as well, where it's just like.
Fill this form out if you're a building owner, and we'll make sure that you get invited to the next one. Um, and it, we say this all the time, but building owner is a, is a term that we use here at Nexus Labs to talk about anyone who is helping manage a portfolio. So it doesn't mean that you are the person who actually writes the checks for the building, but maybe you're the energy manager for IT or the facility manager for it, or you're on the IT team for it.
All those type of things. Um, if you're a tech vendor or service provider, the, the way that we do it is that we will bring like th two to four call it, of our, our Nexus lab partner companies that are vendors and service providers to the topics that they're experts at. So for this [00:24:00] AI, for, uh, operations and maintenance, 75 f, Neve, and Mode are all three like.
Kind of leading the charge here in terms of the tools that they're building for that. So we give them a very, like a, a platform to demo that in front of the building owners who we know are interested in that, which is pretty cool. And then, you know, for the data layer one, we'll have a whole nother group of companies who are focused on those, um, you know, build, helping people build their data layers out.
So it's very specific to the, um, the topic of the month, what, um, tech vendors and service providers will bring in.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, that makes sense, Brad. It's super important for us to curate who those people are that are gonna be there because. Obviously, you know, everyone doesn't have a ton of time in their day, right?
And so we wanna make sure that hour that they're spending with us is really worthwhile. So even the demo that, that they're seeing from, from these companies, like we wanna get in there, like real demo, live, like show us real data and, and get into the meat of it rather than kind of [00:25:00] keeping it super high level.
So, um, excited for the next one.
Brad Bonavida: Yep. Great. Okay, uh, let's keep moving here. Um, you know, the way that we normally do these podcasts is to talk about the articles that we've come out with over the last week or last two weeks. We haven't done that 'cause we've done these two nexus con ones. So I'm just gonna do like, super sneak peek or I guess it's not really a sneak peek 'cause these are out, but rapid fire is a better term of what has come out since, uh, since we've last talked about it on the podcast.
Um, and we've had three weeks of articles come out so. You need to go read them all 'cause we're not gonna go into them in depth here. But first, uh, for our it OT folks for integrating, connecting, and securing devices, James came out with this article called Manual Chaos to Connected Operations, the Roadmap.
And this is go, this is the, this is the start of something. I think there's gonna be a lot more about this topic. You can see the, uh, flicker in James's eye about this topic. Like he's really excited about it. And this is just like step one of what we [00:26:00] wanna talk. About regarding it, but he really lays out the roadmap of how, um, you know, you start with these silos and how you're building operates and regardless of what part of the organization you're in, you can slowly start to get to the point that you're, the apps you use are in the cloud and the apps you use are connected to other people's apps, and you're growing into this idea of.
Connected operations throughout your building, which is really cool. Um, the other one that James came out with in the last two weeks is for our digitizing operations and maintenance, uh, beat. So that's like facility managers, those type of people. Um, and it's called technology for uptime, tools for fms, managing mission critical spaces.
So, you know, a lot of times when we're talking about, uh, facility management and operations and maintenance, we're talking about. Um, having as little downtime as possible, but this is kind of that idea flipped on its head where if you're in life sciences or you're in healthcare or data centers, it's actually all [00:27:00] about how can you keep as much uptime as possible.
So it's kind of all about, um, you know. What you can do to keep things running when they're mission critical. How you prepare for short, um, periods of, uh, of time when you know you can go in there and do the maintenance. It, it reminded me of, I used to, uh, do work in, in operating rooms and their, their smart building technologies and we would have windows of like.
One night where you can change the building controls within an operating room, and you had those eight hours and it was like bomb squad operations. Like you gotta go in there and change things and they're losing money and you know, there's if, if it's uh, if it's not open for as long as they plan. So great article on that.
Um, and then the last one I wrote, uh, last week, uh, this article about biohacking, your building, how tech can improve health and wellness. Um, and it's just. Really cool what some people are doing to buildings to make them better for their [00:28:00] occupants. So we kind of structured the article into two parts.
There's step one is like make sure your buildings aren't literally making your occupants sick or worse than they would be. And that's where a lot of us are unfortunately. So what are your CO2 levels? Do you have VOCs in your air? Uh, do you have spaces that are actually, you know. Helpful to what people are trying to do.
And then the article gets into how some people are taking it a level further. Um, shout out to Elevated who has done some incredible tests of what you can do to make your people more productive. And when it comes to things like lighting, um, air. Plants, walkways. Like there's so many things you can do in studies that prove that in, uh, it can help with cognition.
Any thoughts on those three guys?
Rosy Khalife: Yeah. Well, I'm excited. I know at Nexus Con Joe Allen's gonna be talking about his work around all of this, um, with indoor air quality and healthy buildings. And so that's gonna be, I'm sure a very popular session. Um. I'd hate to be [00:29:00] at that time, so I have to check who else is at the same time as that one.
It's gonna be a good one. Uh, there's a bunch like that. So, um, but yeah, I love that article and I really enjoyed hearing from the elevated team around how they've been able to really apply these things. In their own office for themselves as a way to really sort of use that as a test bed in terms of efficacy and, and how they wanna take that beyond their own office spaces, which I think is really cool.
And it's a really great approach for anyone, you know, start doing it in your home first. Do it in your own office and then kind of like see where, um, you wanna take it from there.
Ainsley Muller: I, I really enjoyed that article. I thought you did a great job, Brad. I, and one of the things that was an eyeopener for me was about relative humidity, uh, and bacteria viruses, and how that relates in some of the articles you brought up about not having case to K or person to person transfer of viruses.
That's crazy. As a germophobe, that was like, that really, that really hit home for me. I'm like, wow, I want to work in a building that, [00:30:00] that, uh, doesn't make me sick. So, uh, that was a great article and really enlightening. I'd also add to the, uh, connected operations, the manual case chaos to connected operations that James wrote.
Um, I think anybody who wants a glimpse into what the keynote is going to be about and what is going on in James's mind as to where this industry is going, read that article, because it is definitely a spark, I think, in the beginning of something that's gonna be much larger. And I'll leave it at that.
Brad Bonavida: Yep. That's great. Let's, uh, let's close it out with our carve outs. So this is just something that's a little more personal, that's in each of our lives that we wanted to share. Something fun that's been on our minds. Uh, Rosie, do you wanna go first?
Rosy Khalife: Sure. Um, so, so random, but I'm sort of calling on our listeners for help also at the same time.
So I am building a bar in, um, in my living room, and I had envisioned that it would be like this copper. Metal sort of bar with like glass [00:31:00] shelves, like bistro bar sort of vibe. And that seemed totally doable and fine. And so then I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find this thing or like getting it made or built or whatever.
And it's crazy. Like it is so expensive. It's so hard. I thought I could DIY it. You can't, I don't know if I'm like not knowing what to look for, but even just. The metal itself is so expensive, and then obviously the glass is a whole other thing, but it's this whole world. So now I've gone down the rabbit hole of Etsy and like having someone make it for me in some other state and then like shipping it here.
Um, but it's literally thousands of dollars. Like I'm, I'm pretty shocked to be honest, so if anyone listening has any tips or ideas for me that I haven't thought of, I will welcome them. But that is where I'm at right now.
Brad Bonavida: So you have like this grand vision in your head of what it looks. It's like it that grand.
So you can't go buy it's, but you can't go buy something at like a local store. No.
Rosy Khalife: You wouldn't be able to buy it because [00:32:00] it has to be built in the wall. Like, you know, it's custom.
Brad Bonavida: I could show you photo. Very custom.
Rosy Khalife: Yeah, it's more custom. Um, I'll show you photo later, but yeah, what I want. Nice. I don't think I can just buy unfortunately.
So here we are.
Brad Bonavida: Here we are. All right. Ainsley, what's your carve out?
Ainsley Muller: Sure. So, uh, recently I've got a rooftop tent for our Jeep, which is kind of awesome because it allows us to be able to go living where we live. There's so many, just like. Logging roads and off, off grid camping and things, and love to do that.
But the problem is, uh, where we live, to get into any of the, the campsites, the provincial or the, that's the Canadian aver equivalent of a state, uh, camp Park, uh, you have to. If you have to plan so far ahead, you have to basically book in February for the end of summer and you know, I don't know what I'm doing next week, let alone six months from now.
So having a rooftop tent has barely, uh, meant that when we've got a, a little bit of time we can literally hop in the [00:33:00] Jeep Drive 30 minutes and we're in the middle of nowhere and camping and it's great. So,
Brad Bonavida: uh, nice.
Ainsley Muller: 10 outta 10 would recommend.
Brad Bonavida: Cool. That's great. Alright. Mine is, um. Mine is the story that I, I actually started the biohacking your building article with the story, but I didn't know about it until I wrote this article, but I wanted to, if you haven't heard of Biosphere too, it's a pretty crazy story.
So it was in 1991, they, it was in Arizona. There was this plan to build this plan. It actually happened. They built this 3.14 acre. Glass and steel structure in the desert. And it was, the point is it was supposed to be a science experiment to seal off. I think there were eight, uh, people within it. And they were gonna be in there for like two or three years to try to, uh, mimic what it would be like to try to like, build life on Mars, right?
Like, can you build this like totally sealed environment that has all the plants you need? It had like chickens in it. They had a whole garden, they had everything you possibly need. [00:34:00] Uh, and it kind of just. Went to shit, for lack of better term. So the, the reason I had it in that article is that that, uh, indoor air quality became really bad.
Um, and they got in a bunch of fights. They created different factions. I read that, uh, cockroaches kind of like took over. They like couldn't get. Like they, they were like the species that was taking everything over. Uh, they weren't eating enough. And I guess it ended with like, well, there's a bunch of controversies, but somebody opened the door like in the middle of the experiment, which like, that is the quickest way to fail an experiment of sealing people off as long as you can.
I don't know, it's a grand story of like, that's really cool. Failure for something that was actually supposed to be pretty cool. There's a bunch of YouTube videos about it. Um, and there, apparently there's this sitcom, or not sitcom, it's. A movie called Biodome, which uh, I believe is probably terrible. It's got 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It's, I have not seen it. It's pretty, seen it in some, I, I
Ainsley Muller: saw it a long time ago. I mean, it's like, I think it [00:35:00]came out 95 or something like that. It was a long time ago. And it was, it was, it was. Yeah, it's pretty terrible, but it's like funny. Terrible.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, I have to watch it 'cause I've talked about it a bunch now, but it's supposed, anyway, it's supposed to make fun of that whole thing.
These guys like stumble across, uh, biosphere. So yeah, I thought that was a funny story. Awesome. I'm gonna
Rosy Khalife: check that out. Good one, Brad.
Brad Bonavida: All right, well that's gonna wrap for us and we'll see you guys, uh, at the next episode. Thanks an Leslie. Thanks
Rosy Khalife: for listening. Thank
Brad Bonavida: you.
Rosy Khalife: Bye.
Okay, friends. Thank you for listening to this episode. As we continue to grow our global community of change makers, we need your help. For the next couple of months, we're challenging our listeners to share a link to their favorite Nexus episode on LinkedIn with a short post about why you listen. It would really, really help us out.
Make sure to tag us in the post so we can see it. Have a good one.
Head over to Nexus Connect and see what’s new in the community. Don’t forget to check out the latest member-only events.
Go to Nexus ConnectJoin Nexus Pro and get full access including invite-only member gatherings, access to the community chatroom Nexus Connect, networking opportunities, and deep dive essays.
Sign Up
Nexus Labs exists to move the smart buildings industry forward, without the fluff.
On Wednesday, we send out the renowned (and free) Nexus Newsletter.
This is a great piece!
I agree.