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Episode 189 is a conversation with James Dice and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs, as well as Tom Balme from Lendlease.
Episode 189 is a conversation with James Dice and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs, as well as Tom Balme from Lendlease. 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 (3:40)
Sign off (39:15)
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.
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The links are below in the show notes, and now let's go on the podcast.
Welcome back to the Nexus podcast. It's James, I have Brad with me. Um, hello. We also have Tom Balm here today. Uh, second time podcast guest. [00:01:00] He's the National Building Services and Technology Manager at Lendlease. Welcome Tom. Good to see you all. Thanks again for having me. Last time you were on the show, we talked, we were with, you were with Bryce, I think
Tom Balme: it was, it was, that must have been three or four years ago now.
It was a
James Dice: while ago. We talked about tech enabled services, which, which is what we've named it now, but back then we didn't even have a name for it.
Tom Balme: No, no. Yeah, that was, that was all around sort of FDD and changing service contracts and the difficulties of trying to get BMS vendors to, to sort of change their contracts.
And it's funny, like since that point, it's like, it. Most building owners over here have now sort of gone down that, that journey and they actually hire Bryce as well. So, um, Bryce has probably done better out of that than anybody else.
James Dice: Uh, we'll put that episode in the show notes. It's probably still relevant, like based on how things slow things move in our industry, it's probably still great for people that are looking at renewing their service contract.
Um, so you were fresh off [00:02:00] of coming to the States for Nexus Con. Um, somehow it's been two months since then. I don't understand how that's true. Uh, but thanks for making the, the, the journey all the way over to see us and you won the. Mic Drop Nexi Award. Um, can you, can you fill the audience in on why you won the Mic Drop Nexi Award?
Tom Balme: I think, I think you, I, I, I think you were just sort of calling out to the audience and I think for some reason you kind of picked me out. The discussion had sort of got to, uh, explaining more around what, what sales and marketing fluff is. And then I think you just sort of called me out and said, Tom, can you, can you help answer this question?
And then I think I got a little bit Australian on the answer and just sort of said, well, did sales and marketing bullshit? Yes. Um, and that was, that was it. Um,
James Dice: and then I. We were trying to define what fluff was for the newcomer building owners [00:03:00] in the room, and you helped us. Yes, yes, yes. You helped
Tom Balme: us. Yes.
Yes. Provided a, a small, a small bit, bit of guidance into, uh, in somewhat fluff really means. Yeah, no, I think I was sitting next to, to Chris from Walmart. I think he just sort of like gave me a pat on the back and I think he used another word to, to describe it, which we probably won't, won't share.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You, you won, you won. Mic drop Beyond just that moment though, every time you were on stage, you had something spicy to say, which is, you know, what we were aiming for. So it was more than one sentence. Give yourself some credit.
James Dice: Yes. We'll talk about, you gave two presentations. We'll talk about those in just a second.
Um, let's do a quick, uh, overview of what's going on in the Nexus community. People probably haven't heard from us much lately. We've been. Deepen the workshop. Uh, getting ready for 2026. Um, one thing is we're recording this tomorrow after we record this, so by the time this recording comes out, our early bird ticket sale will be live for Nexus Con 2026.
And so we [00:04:00] actually have dropped the early bird price. So if you're on the vendor side and we, we forced you to buy tickets, we're giving away $999 tickets, which is way, way, way, way, way cheaper. Then it will be if you wait till later in the year. And so that is live on our website now. Um, what else Brad?
Brad Bonavida: Uh, we are going to announce the, the location as well with the, you know, early bird ticket drop.
Do you want to, do you wanna fill 'em in on location?
James Dice: Yeah, yeah. We're gonna go, we're gonna, we're gonna start moving Nexus Con to cities where we can more deeply integrate the conference into the local building owner community. And so we're starting with Detroit, Michigan, um, and we're really excited about all the building owners there.
We can't. Announce anything yet, but we're basically starting a new era of Nexus Con, where if we think about the first two years, right? We were in a suburb of Denver, which is great, and we had a lot of [00:05:00] building owners there, but we were a little bit disconnected from the actual fabric of the community.
And so moving to Detroit kind of starts a, a new era for the conference where we're focused on actual deep partnerships. When we hear case studies, when we, um. You know, go to a building, well actually just take the building that the conference is in. Um, it is owned by Bedrock and Bedrock's gonna be at the conference, right?
So it's like they're, they're our host. And so the vibe is gonna shift a little bit to where we're not just talking about abstract ideas, we're talking about how. Technology is actually transforming a specific city. And so that's, that's kind of the new era we're headed into
Brad Bonavida: the, I'm excited about the venue too.
Like this is like a brand new state-of-the-art building, which I think is gonna kind of level up the whole thing as well. Uh, it's called the department at Hudson's, if you like. Google Maps, Detroit, Michigan. I think the pin, if you just put Detroit almost lands directly on the [00:06:00] venue. Like we're in the heart of everything.
It's right where things are going on and yeah, like you said, James, like. Yeah, just the fact that we're gonna be talking about buildings in a, it's not gonna be like hypothetical anymore. It's gonna be like, yeah, we're talking about those buildings right there, or this building that we're in, or, you know, that guy manages the building across the street.
Uh, it's gonna change the vibe a little. I think it's gonna really just level it up quite a bit. We're pretty excited about it. It seems obvious, but
James Dice: it, I guess it's not,
Brad Bonavida: yeah.
James Dice: Yeah. Uh, what are
Tom Balme: your thoughts, Tom? Uh, love it. Um, love that. If, uh, if it gets to come back to the States, we'll be going somewhere new again.
Probably have to travel another couple of hours to get to somewhere from Australia. But once you've already gone like 15 hours, like what's another two kind of thing? Yeah, yeah.
James Dice: Yep. Um, so people can get, um, we're only releasing 50 early bird tickets, so if you're a vendor and you want that low price, go ahead and do that.
If [00:07:00] you're on the owner side, we're capping free owner tickets at 150 this year. And so that we expect to sell that to, to go probably around June we're thinking. And so don't wait. If you're on the owner side and you want to get your, your free tickets, um, yeah, that's also
Brad Bonavida: don't, don't, uh, don't sleep on the deal of the early bird ticket.
Like we are limiting it to 50. It's about 50% of the price as the people who buy like right before. So you can save some serious money if you're a little proactive here. It's actually a really good deal.
James Dice: Yep. Next thing real quick before, before we get into Tom's presentations here is we have our next event in January.
Um, it's called Getting Control of Your Building's, OT Devices. Um, it is a new format for events. We talked about this on the podcast a couple times already. We're calling it Nexus Cast. It's basically a four hour virtual conference, and so we have an expo floor. We have booths, [00:08:00] we have demos very similar to, to Nexus Con except for you're sitting in your home or your, your office.
Um, obviously we can't replace the face-to-face. You run into someone, you know, in, in person at Nexus Con, but it, it does hit the same sort of vibe we're trying to hit. And it's a little bit different in that Nexus Con is focused on, um. All the different tracks we're focused on one track and really one or two specific problems that building owners are trying to solve right now.
So this one's on device management, and we're still looking for a few case studies for that. Right, Brad?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, so the format is that we'll have six building owner quick hitting case studies about what they're doing as it relates to this topic. We'll kind of go in stages of like the beginning, which is like discovery all the way to like the remediation that people are doing about their OT devices.
But yeah, we're kind of in the thick of planning that agenda right now. We've got some, some really [00:09:00] good speakers already slated, but we are looking for more spots. If you're interested in speaking, we do have an application on that page. You just go to our website and then at the top you can see the Nexus cast and you click there and it says, do you, you know, apply to speak like right below the title?
So if you're, if you're interested in doing that, now is the time to apply. 'cause we're converging on what that agenda will be.
James Dice: And, and Brad, what are the six steps that we're gonna walk them through? Putting you on, but yes,
Brad Bonavida: I'm prepared. So we, it's, it's kind of the first version of the OT device management playbook that we've built of like talking and interviewing multiple building owners who have approached this problem and the way that they've done it.
And what are those steps? Um, so we're trying to assign the six case studies to the six steps that we've defined of device management. So it's starting with discovery of devices, then assessment of devices. Classification of devices. So like what is upstream of it? What's downstream of it? What rooms is it associated with?
What other subsystems is it [00:10:00] associated with? So that's, those three steps are kind of all like discovery, auditing, like getting your shit together. And then the second. Three steps of the action phase. So remediation. So once you find your problems, what are you gonna do about them? Maintenance, how do you build this so that like, it's not just a one-time thing, but it's, it's ongoing.
And then standardizing, which is related to maintenance, but that's more like. How are you getting this into your specifications for your next build? How are you training people on it? How are you doing change management on it? So we're trying to match a case study to each one of those six steps. So we'll hear six different building owners say, this is how we approach this step.
This is how we approach, uh, the next step and so on. We'll get kind of this very holistic picture about the how whole, how the whole industry is approaching it.
James Dice: Tom, I'm wondering for you to hear this as just a community member who comes to our events. What are you thinking when you think about us doing a virtual conference?
What, what's the thought?
Tom Balme: I think it's [00:11:00] fantastic because it's, it's kind of the same problem that we've got over here in Australia is a, it is just like, the states is just so huge. Um, and to get everybody together is a really hard thing to do. So the fact that you do Nexus Con is obviously fantastic. You can get everyone there once a year, but if you're able to get everyone.
Online together, talk about a particular topic, go really deep into that topic. It's another way for the community to connect on a regular basis, talk about a specific to topic that we know is relevant, that we know is a bit of a hot topic. Um, and we do a similar thing here in here in Oz. You know, we, you know, it's, it's, it's picking one topic and, and going real deep and allowing the community to nerd out.
On that, on, on that one topic and getting the diverse opinions from owners, from consultants, from contractors, from, from tech vendors. So I think it's great. It's just another way [00:12:00] that, you know, the smart building community can learn from each other. Um, and, you know, if, if that topic is really of interest, then I'm sure people will attend.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. The other thing I know you're thinking, Tom, is that it's at the, uh. Crack a dawn, a Australia time, and you're not going to actually maybe be there, but maybe, uh, some solace if you do register. And people in Tom's situation, the the, uh, whole recording will be on demand afterwards. So if you register after it's over, you'll get access to be able to watch it and see what you missed.
Um, I, I did wanna bring up one other thing too is like. We've been doing virtual events at Nexus Con, or excuse me, at Nexus Lab since before I was here. Obviously James, you've been doing this forever. They've got a good reputation. It's like very open, you know, everybody gets a chance to speak. They're great.
They've been like basically just Zoom calls where we're just maybe use the breakout session thing and, and people love 'em, but like, I just want to make sure our audience understands like how much we're leveling it up on this Nexus cast. This is not just like [00:13:00] a Zoom call where everyone's gonna be on it.
We have created a program where. We'll have a stage where people will come on and off and we'll have a demo stage and we're gonna have, uh, virtual booths that you can go and free time to network with other people. And like it's very curated to be as close to Nexus Con as possible, although it's, um, remote.
So I think it's gonna be pretty cool.
James Dice: Yes, we have gone through a whole tech procurement process. To find the software that allows us to be as close to in person as possible while allowing everyone to sit at their own computer. So. Um, all right, let's jump into, so Tom's presentations. Tom, you were a part of three different sessions at Nexus Con.
We, we really worked you hard. Wow.
Tom Balme: Yeah. If you, if you're gonna make the journey all the way over, you know, you might as well squeeze every bit of juice out it possible.
James Dice: Yeah. Um, so let's start with the first one you shared, Lendlease Cybersecurity [00:14:00] journey. I haven't watched that one yet, but Brad has. So let's, let's dive into that.
Tell me about it.
Tom Balme: Yeah. This was, this was, um, really, you know, cybersecurity, you know, not only is it just a, a bit of a hot topic, but it's been, it's been the cornerstone of, I suppose, the rework technology strategy that we've deployed, um, at Lendlease Investment Management. You know, it's. It is, you know, when we were coming up with a revised tech strategy and we, we really wanted to sort of pick a starting point, like, where are we gonna start with, right?
Like, there's so many areas of technology where I think you could start, and for me, the, the sort of obvious starting point before you go and think about all these kind of different types of technologies, whether it's platforms or networks or data layers or device management, whatever it might be. You know, I, I think starting with cybersecurity is, is, is the logical starting [00:15:00] point.
So before you start thinking about value creation with technology, start thinking about value protection and risk mitigation. Um, that'll be equally as important, um, if not more important, um, particularly on the, on the owner's side of things. So, so this was, this was really the cornerstone. Um, of the strategy that we pitched to our fund managers, that we pitched to our business that we got approval for.
Um, and we, we started this journey back, uh, in FY 25, which is kind of, sort of one July, 2024. So it's been about a year and a half that we've been through this journey. Um, and it was really about presenting, how did we take. Um, or I suppose how do we come up with our program and how do we break it down into phases or scopes of work, um, to deploy over multiple financial years?
Um, and, and we sort of talked through that whole program and how we sort of switched around the, [00:16:00] the starting point there. So, um, and it was. I, I, I actually love being a part of that, of that session. There were some excellent presenters who went on before me, um, who talked about some of the horror stories of cybersecurity, which is probably, probably the best starting point for that discussion because whilst we can talk about the things to do and the steps to take, it was the wonderful presentations by Joe and, uh, and others talking about like, why do we care about cyber security and.
You know, I, I think Joe in particular went through, you know, some of the, some of the incredible cybersecurity horror story that had happened in commercial real estate, and I think. I think for a lot of building owners in particular is that maybe they feel like, I think they still get asked the question, like, oh, you know, like why do we have to do this?
Like, do we really need to invest in cybersecurity? It's just ot. Like is someone just gonna come on and flick a light switch on and off, or change a temperature on A [00:17:00] BMS? Is that all they're gonna do? So there's a lack of understanding, you know, as to the threat, the impact, and the severity of what happens with this cybersecurity attack.
And Joe really helped point out. What the real, um, sort of value prop here is and what the real impact is. Um, you know, and when you started talking about the fact that leasing deals, the ability to attract and retain tenants is now actually impacted by the fact that, you know, if a building has a cybersecurity attack, maybe you won't get a tenant to resign that lease, or you won't be able to attract a new tenant into that building.
And that building, that organization then becomes synonymous. With the fact that they aren't able to secure their base building OT systems. And if you start losing leasing deals, um, you know, that's when you'll start pricking the ears, um, of, you know, the asset and the fund managers, um, across the building owner organizations.
James Dice: I should have said at the beginning of this that anyone [00:18:00]that wasn't there, which includes me. We are working on posting all the recordings from from Nexus Con, so you will get an email from us, um, and if you're a Nexus Pro ber, which is $350 a year, but it includes other stuff as well. You'll be able to watch Tom's recording and Joe's recording and all the other presentations at, at, at the conference and all of our other events.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Yep. And to promote kind of the story that Tom is, is telling here. You, you mentioned in the, in your presentation. You secured over 125 OT systems across 12 million square feet of buildings in less than six months. So like to other building owners listening, like this was a massive, large scale thing that you overtook.
Um. I wanted to kind of ask you one part about it. You talked about how you followed the NIST five step process, which is like nearly identical to the the six step process that we're gonna be going over in Nexus Cast [00:19:00] NIST is identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. Um, but what I thought was really interesting is you kind of gave a golden nugget insight to other building owners about how, you know, it's identify and then protect, but how you kind of got this advice that.
Well, the identification, the audit phase is gonna tell you to secure all of your OT cloud connected systems anyway, so just start with action to show results rather than waiting for this audit. Can you kind of talk through how that went and why you flipped those two steps?
Tom Balme: Yeah. When we were, when we were looking to put together the OT cyber program, uh, as you mentioned, we wanted to leverage an existing framework.
And be able to then take that framework and build it out into a scope of work. And there are numerous standards and frameworks out there, but the one that really resonated with us in terms of developing a program of works was the NIST framework. And we, we, we probably don't have the time to sort of deep dive into all the elements of that [00:20:00] framework, but as you mentioned, it's got this wonderful five step process, um, and typically.
Not just Ns, but you could argue a lot of frameworks. They typically start with some kind of identify or audit or investigation step as step one. Which is like figure out what you've got, like understand your current state. And in the world of OT cyber, this often means starting with some kind of physical site audit, coupled with a vulnerability assessment that you would run on your OT systems to really identified, you know, how many servers, how many devices.
How many things do you have in your OT systems and are there any vulnerabilities associated with those? With those devices. And so when we put together the program of work, initially we had, as our first step to do this big audit piece upfront. As in we [00:21:00] would send, we would run an RFP, we would select a vendor and that vendor would then go to go to each avail buildings.
They would do a physical audit, see, see how the um, OT systems are architected, how cybersecurity are effectively determine their cybersecurity posture. And then run a vulnerability assessment across every single OT system that they could find. And then the second step is then protect, which is then, okay, now that you've run the audit and you've figured out, you know where your vulnerabilities are at, then you start doing some remediation work, you start doing some level of protection.
And then when we started Cons, when, when we put together that initial or sort of draft scope of work, we then presented that to some subject matter experts that, that we knew over here in the industry. And they all gave us the same bit of feedback was that don't wait for the outcome of a lengthy audit process to actually start protecting [00:22:00] and uplifting the cybersecurity posture of these buildings.
If you don't have. The two fundamental elements of a firewall and secured how your tenants, your contractors, and your FMS remotely access those OT systems. Then go ahead and just do that thing. Because if you run an audit. You do that vulnerability assessment, it'll pick up the fact that any anything that's exposed to the internet, you need to protect it from the internet and it will pick it up as the most critical thing to do.
So if you already know the outcome of that audit and what it's gonna put at the very top of that priority tree. You don't need to wait for the outcome of that audit, just simply go ahead and do it. And they said, yeah, get your firewalls in and make sure you have secured your remote access methods. And so it was based off that advice that we heard from numerous people that we then flipped that first and second phase around.
So we started with protection and then the audit piece has actually come afterwards. And [00:23:00] so we ran an RFP where we've, um. Where we've deployed the need, secure my access solution across, yeah, it was 19 buildings covering 11, 12 million, um, square feet and yeah, o over 125 OT systems we would now consider sufficiently protected.
Um, in terms of the firewalls that they've got in place and how, um, all those external parties remotely access those systems.
Brad Bonavida: That's awesome. And, and then just from like a, you know, you mentioned how it, it, um, accelerated things, but also just from like a program management perspective, you're able to have this quick win like right away.
'cause you started with just action rather than this like a hundred page audit where you're going to get permission to do all these things. You haven't actually had any wins yet. Like that made a lot of sense to kind of. Prime the pump with some wins to, to make the program keep moving.
Tom Balme: Yeah. It, it's, it's essential for any program that you are able to [00:24:00] demonstrate value back to, you know, asset and fund managers quickly because they give you a whole bunch of money.
You have to go back and tell them how well you've spent that money, right, and what value that they've got for it, because that then helps unlock funding for future phases of the program. We saw this as a win on multiple fronts and, and the, the ability to demonstrate value quickly. You know, as, as we said, you know, the vendor that we selected was able to deploy that secure remote access solution across those 19 buildings, those 125 OT systems, in less than six months, we got rid of a whole bunch of legacy VPNs and port forwarding and all these things that effectively just punch holes in your cyber.
Security posture really quickly, and then we were able to go back to the asset and fund managers before our next budget cycle began, and actually say, Hey, remember all that money that you gave us to actually [00:25:00] improve the cybersecurity posture of the buildings? Well, here's the results. We've been able to do it in six months before the start of the the next budget cycle.
Great. Thank you very much. We understand. Well done. Can you now give us more money to then actually con contribute towards the next stages of the program? And we were able to do that and now we're getting going with that second phase. We are right at the start now of the audit and the vulnerability assessment phase.
Um, and we're gonna hope to then unlock future funding in future financial years, um, to continue the, you know, the further stages of, of, of that program. Nice.
Brad Bonavida: That's awesome. So that is so directly connected to what our Nexus cast, um, you know, content will be about. You shared the story pretty well. It sounds like you guys are very much on that, like those first steps of discovery and then remediation.
Uh, what would you look for us to cover during that Nexus cast on the whole lifecycle of, um, dev [00:26:00] OT device management? Like is there anything that stands out that you wanna make sure that we. Get within that event.
Tom Balme: I think, I think the six steps that you've outlined, I think just, just even providing that initial guidance to everybody, I think is, is kind of the key first step, right?
Like it's, it's always the case of what's the starting point. I think that's sometimes the hardest thing and, and people will have different ideas about what is the right starting point. And I think the thing that. I think Nexus Labs has always done a really great job of is, is figuring out how to, how to provide a bit of a North Star to people, right?
Like it's not giving specific advice around how to do it, but it's providing that sort of North Star around, well how do you start, what needs to be included in that program? And you know. You know, how do you get to that kind of endpoint there? So I think, I think for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, again, you've provided that kind of guidance around look, you know, here's, here's what we think is that North Star, and then you guys need to now go away and figure out how you're, [00:27:00] you know, how to develop your own strategy, your own program.
How long will it take? Um, and the thing that, that kind of resonated with me the most when I sort of read through that, that six step program. Is the, is the governance piece. Like I think, I think people sort of understand the identification piece and figuring out like what do you actually have in your, in your buildings and your assets.
But the hardest piece I think with any technology program is, is kind of like, how do you take an idea? Or something that you want to change, and then how do you manage that change and actually get it into effect and into action? And that's where the building owner and the vendors that they partner with have to take a lot of that responsibility.
Right? It's, it's how do you then get it into effect, whether you, whether you specify into a service contract, whether you, um, you know, create standards and specs. Great. You know, like, like, like get those things into the contractual documents that matter. But unless you have a [00:28:00] governance program in place to police it, to manage it, to report the success of it, then you're never going to get that change management done correctly.
And I think for me, that's the, that's the bit that we are still trying to figure out. What we're gonna do is that, you know, once we've, once we've identified all these devices, we figured out the vulnerabilities and we figured out. You know, you know, what's our current state? It's how do we then get to that end state and how do we actually start changing how our vendors and our contractors manage the devices and change their behaviors?
Because the behavioral change is always gonna be the hard bit. The selection of the technology and the procurement of it is always gonna be the easier bit. Um. So that's the bit that kind of struck a chord with me, the fact that you've got that in there, but each organization is gonna have to figure out how they actually do that governance piece.
Yeah, and I think what I hope you'll tease outta that Nexus car session is some great ideas from owners and vendors and contractors around how to do that.
James Dice: Love that. I love that. Um, [00:29:00] this actually gets to your second presentation at Nexus Con, which I felt was more not necessarily. Talking about any specific technology, it's more program management related.
Do you want to give a quick overview of, of that presentation? The Anatomy of a Failed smart building project, which is provocative. I like it spicy. Yeah.
Tom Balme: Um, yeah, look, it's, it's, it's, it's all around, it was all sort of based around sort of sharing the learnings that, you know, from, from initiatives that I.
You know, personally been involved in, um, both tech vendor side and building owner side around like, why do initiatives fail? And I think, you know, one of the great things that Nexus has done has always sort of encouraged people to be candid, not just around celebrating the wins and the successes, but trying to teach people around how to do things better and the [00:30:00] lessons learned and how do we do better next time.
And so when I thought about. What to present on. You know, I really wanted to, to sort of dive into, well, why do initiatives fail? And it it, it actually sort of got spurred James from a question that you actually put out into the LinkedIn universe. I think it was earlier this year where you actually put a, a survey out to the audience and said, who do you think is more responsible?
For why an initiative fails? Do you think it's more on the tech vendor side or do you think it's more on the building owner side? And I think the result of that survey was that 70% people thought it was actually on the building owner side and the tech vendors were only 30 Finger pointing responsible for it.
Yeah, it was. Now I, I don't know if the people that were responding to that survey were maybe more tech vendors who thought like, oh yeah, our product's great. It's definitely on the owner's side of things as to why these things fail. But, um, it, it kind of got me thinking and then it [00:31:00] got me retrospectively thinking about some of the initiatives I've been a part of.
And when I started to analyze the reasons why these initiatives failed. I saw that it wasn't just solely just the owner's fault, and it wasn't just the tech vendor's fault, it was a shared responsibility. Somewhere along the line, the tech vendor and the building owner diverged in terms of what they thought success was, things that had gone wrong, and the relationship and the technology just wasn't able to marry up in, in the way that people thought it was gonna happen.
And so we sort of. Dove into that analysis. Right. Um, and then, and then really paired that with some, with some case studies of particular technologies. Um, and sort of, and then I asked the audience, you know, did you think for this particular scenario, do you think it was more on the tech vendor side of things or do you think it was more the building owners, um, reason why this failed?
And people, you know, it was, it was like a 50 50 [00:32:00] split kind of thing. Like some people thought the vendors, some people thought the owner, and it sort of showed the audience that. It is a shared responsibility, right? Like it's never a case. Mm-hmm. From the tech vendor's point of things that, you know, they, they've deployed the technology, they've given it over to the building owner.
It's over to you guys, right? So the success depends on you. And if this fails, it's not on us. Like we, we've done our job. And I still see that in, in a few tech vendors today that have that kind of mentality of we've got you onboarded, we've trained you up over you guys now to run it. If you are not keeping tabs with your client and you're figuring out where the problems are, maybe why things aren't working, and you're not investing the time on your side to ensure that you've reached that mutually agreed point of value.
That unfortunately, you may not get that renewal like it might last a year or two or three, but you might not get the renewal at the end of that contract term, and that owner might be looking for one of your competitors. [00:33:00] And I think we, we see a lot of that. In the industry, like people run a technology maybe for, for the initial contract term, if it's three years or five years, and then they go out to market again.
And tech vendors should be asking themselves, well, why are they going out to market again? Is it because they feel like they just have to stress test the market? Or is it because they actually think they can get something better or there's something missing?
Rosy Khalife: Mm-hmm.
Tom Balme: So, and then on, and then on the owner's side of things.
Yeah, like, like owners also need to share the responsibility here, if particularly. The tech vendor hasn't lived up to the sales and marketing material that they put in front of you during the sales cycle? Um, you know, I think historically, you know, I'd argue that owners and operators maybe haven't done a great job of actually doing their due diligence on tech vendors and figuring out exactly what the actual value prop is.
Um, and sort of as we said, cutting through that sales and marketing. Fluff and, and [00:34:00] figuring out exactly exactly what you're going to get. And if, if you haven't done your due diligence on as an owner, um, then that's on you as well. Right? So yeah, it's, it's this, it's this tricky, tricky sort of, yeah.
Balancing act.
James Dice: I think you're gonna like some of the changes that we're gonna make next year, which is the concept of playbooks and the concept of maturity moves. Um, and when we think about all of the sessions at our events in 2026, they're gonna be focused on individual playbooks. Um, a playbook might be condition-based maintenance, for example, or, um, um, HVAC sequence optimization.
The, the repeatable projects that all building owners in our community are thinking about doing or already doing or have done. Right. But then there's these concept of maturity moves that go across a program and aren't related to the playbooks individually. And so some of the [00:35:00] ones that you covered in your presentation were more maturity moves than they were.
They, they weren't tech, they weren't focused on in any individual tech or outcome. It's really. How are you piloting projects? How are you assessing new technologies for how they might change your current workflows? How are you selecting vendors? How are you actually doing change management? How are you doing governance on the program that you're running?
Right? And so what we're planning on doing is not necessarily having sessions related to maturity moves. Um. But having each session also have a maturity move component. So if someone's presenting a case study, we're gonna ask them to also cover the maturity moves that they made to enable that playbook.
And then when we do things like the buyer vendor symposium, I think you're gonna love this because it's not necessarily like a, a building owner only can do these maturity moves. They need the, [00:36:00] the vendor is what you're saying to buy into. Their pilot process. So they need a vendor to buy into the change management process that they're, that they're undergoing.
And so it's really helping me, like when I listen to you, I'm like, oh yeah, this is where all this stuff fits together. And it's funny for, you know, having been doing this for five years. I feel like just in the last few months, I'm like, oh, this is how all this information needs to be organized. And uh, yeah, you're definitely part of that, helping us figure that out.
So thank you Tom.
Tom Balme: No problem at all. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you'd use a classic example of of FTD 'cause I feel like FDD it was amazing at Nexus. Like, I feel like FTD has just become table stakes now. Um, yeah. You know, something that, mm-hmm. That maybe not, you know, a lot of owners, you know, did maybe sort of like five, 10 years ago has now almost just become part of the course.
And the best thing was that people weren't presenting around. You know why you should do FDD. It was all around how do you make it a [00:37:00] success? And it's all those change management bits that make it the success. It's the restructuring of your contracts, right? It's getting your HVAC and BMS vendors enticed to actually use it, building it into their workflows.
How do you report on the true success of it and make sure that you actually. It's not just a case of just deploying the technology and leaving it up to the vendor, sort of do all the hard work for you. There's all these structural elements, all these legacy structural elements of. How has maintenance been done historically?
How do you actually get the vendors to just make it a part of their day to day? And so those are the elements that actually make an FDD program or a data-driven maintenance program a success. Mm-hmm. And I think many people have made the mistake of just deploying the technology. And hoping that they'll get the right outcome.
It's no, it's, it's, it's getting the people that are managing it to properly ensure that that change is now being actually built into the BMS and HVAC vendors day to [00:38:00] day, so that all of a sudden, you know, the point that everyone wants to get to is where they're just doing it themselves. You don't almost need a managed service.
You don't need a human in the loop anymore. All of a sudden, the insight goes straight to the contractor. They fix the issue and they report on the outcome. You're not gonna get there on day one. You're gonna have to go through that change management process and get to that, eventually get to that end point.
Right. So, yeah, you know, that was, that was one of the great examples that I sort of saw at, at um, yeah, at was Gone.
James Dice: It's a point of pride for me because it's one of the reasons why we created the conference in general. Like, like we would go to conferences, um, this is before Brad joined me, but like Rosie and I would go to conferences and it was all the stuff that you talked about at the beginning there, which is like.
What is FDD and why to do FDD? Like what is smart buildings? Let's get a definition of smart buildings down and we've, we've sort of forced, not forced everyone, we've invited everyone to move past that, which is all the nitty [00:39:00] gritty stuff, which is what you find at Nexus Con. So if you're listening to this out there and you want to dig into the nitty gritty with the community, that's, that's what we do.
Yeah, that's what we do. Alright. We gotta, we gotta close this, close this up. Tom, thanks so much for joining us. Um, let's end with some carve outs, something from your personal life. Um, I'll go first. So, so Tom, I know you're, you're a Tottenham fan. I'm gonna just point everyone to the, to the, the Premier League table, uh, as of December 9th.
Where Arsenals at the top. That's my carve out. Google, Google Premier. Sorry, Tom,
Tom Balme: I need to carve out. I need to get whoever's editing this podcast just to carve out that, that little, that's your carve out.
Rosy Khalife: That's your carve out.
Tom Balme: I like. Tottenham Tottenham are back where I remembered them for most of my, for like most of my life, which is kind of mid table junk.
Um, they, they sort of pretended to be a good team for a [00:40:00] few years. And like Harry Kane and Song Men, I miss them dearly. Um, I wish they came back. Why do we ever sell them? But, um, yeah, it's uh, it's always interesting, like, yeah, they might finish fourth, they might finish 17th. They might win a win a trophy.
Do you know what? Last season I saw them win a trophy for the first time, and I can't even remember how long that's, that's how long it had been. Um, so that was, yeah, that was almost like a highlight of, uh, yeah. Yeah. Earlier this year. But yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, cheers.
James Dice: You're welcome. Brad, what do you got?
My
Brad Bonavida: mine also has to do with Tom. Uh, you know, Tom, we've been talking remotely for a long time 'cause you've been part of the Nexus community and you've been running, uh, you know, uh, events in Australia. So seeing you at NEX Con was one of my highlights. And you came on the hike, the Royal Arch Hike, and we got to do most of that together, which was really cool.
But what I thought was funny that I, I haven't got a chance to connect with you yet, is that. [00:41:00] You were asking me about like what you should do with your final day in Colorado. You hadn't spent much time, or maybe it was the first time you'd been there and you're like looking for recommendations and I was thinking really hard based on like the amount of time you have and stuff, like what's a good recommendation.
And I landed on Netherland James, which obviously you're super familiar with, just based on the amount of time you had. I was like, you should go there. Yeah. Well, the day I told you to go there. There was like a huge fire that like took out a ton of the town. Really sad, but I remember waking up and seeing the news and I'm like, oh my gosh.
Like, did Tom start the fire? Is Tom in the fire? Like, I was concerned and I never got a chance to talk to you about, I don't think he went right. I I don't think that worked out.
James Dice: No, he went, it didn't go because we went out to coffee. We went out and had coffee that day. Yeah, that's
Tom Balme: right. Yeah. It, it was, it was like a weird turn of events.
Like I'd hired a car. Um, I'd like, or I'd organized like a, a hire car sort of like a couple of days before that. And my plan yeah. Was very much to do exactly what you told me to do. And then when I woke up that [00:42:00] morning, I went to the car hire place, which was just down the road from where the conference was.
And I got there and they had no cars available and they'd like, run out of cars. And I thought like, how do you run outta cars in America? Like, this has just gotta be like an insane, an insane thing. And, um, and so blessing in disguise. Yeah, it was, it was a blessing in disguise. And then I got back to the hotel and I bumped into Christian Nielsen.
Great guy that I met at the conference. And as you said, Brad, like I, like, my highlight of that whole conference was actually just meeting a whole bunch of people that I'd only ever known in two dimensions up until that point, including yourselves. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, Christian was one of those great guys that I met and he was keen to go for a hike and so we actually just went.
Back to the starting point of the hike the previous day, and then we just hiked up one of the other flat irons. Is it called? Nice? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. Which was, which was great. And then we sort of did the hike, that beautiful view [00:43:00] over. Boulder and, and, and, and the whole of Colorado. And then, yeah, we caught up with James for a, for a quick coffee before literally having to get, get to the airport and jump on a plane back to us.
So, yeah, no, that was a great way to kind of end it
James Dice: all. Uh, all right, Tom, you gotta carve out.
Tom Balme: My carve out was, was gonna be some, some kind of baby hack, but I think, um, I think after af, after hearing all of that, I think, I think my carve out is actually just, just gonna be, um, getting to Nexus. Like, like honestly getting to, getting to Nexus, meeting a whole bunch of awesome people.
Um, over, over those sort of three, four days, I, I felt like if we had like another three, four days could've met even more people. It was, it was almost, um, it was almost overwhelming, but. Um, for me also getting to the Rockies, like, like, like getting to the Rockies and getting to Colorado has been a dream of mine, um, forever.
Like the, the mountains, the skiing, if you'd done nexus con in winter, I, [00:44:00] I probably would struggle to actually go to the event. I, I'd probably just be up on the level on the, on the skis. So I, I, I just, um, yeah, just had a brilliant time for like three, four days or so. And, um, who knows if, if, if you, if you do end up doing Nexus column back in.
Denver again and doing the hikes and all that kind of stuff. I thought it was brilliant.
James Dice: All right. Ne Tom bombed was not paid in the production of this podcast, but he says come to next, next year. All right. Well, thanks Tom. We'll let you, we'll release you to the beginning of your day as we end ours over here on the other side of the, the earth.
Good to see you buddy.
Rosy Khalife: Okay. 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 [00:45:00] good one.
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Episode 189 is a conversation with James Dice and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs, as well as Tom Balme from Lendlease.
Episode 189 is a conversation with James Dice and Brad Bonavida from Nexus Labs, as well as Tom Balme from Lendlease. 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 (3:40)
Sign off (39:15)
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.
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The links are below in the show notes, and now let's go on the podcast.
Welcome back to the Nexus podcast. It's James, I have Brad with me. Um, hello. We also have Tom Balm here today. Uh, second time podcast guest. [00:01:00] He's the National Building Services and Technology Manager at Lendlease. Welcome Tom. Good to see you all. Thanks again for having me. Last time you were on the show, we talked, we were with, you were with Bryce, I think
Tom Balme: it was, it was, that must have been three or four years ago now.
It was a
James Dice: while ago. We talked about tech enabled services, which, which is what we've named it now, but back then we didn't even have a name for it.
Tom Balme: No, no. Yeah, that was, that was all around sort of FDD and changing service contracts and the difficulties of trying to get BMS vendors to, to sort of change their contracts.
And it's funny, like since that point, it's like, it. Most building owners over here have now sort of gone down that, that journey and they actually hire Bryce as well. So, um, Bryce has probably done better out of that than anybody else.
James Dice: Uh, we'll put that episode in the show notes. It's probably still relevant, like based on how things slow things move in our industry, it's probably still great for people that are looking at renewing their service contract.
Um, so you were fresh off [00:02:00] of coming to the States for Nexus Con. Um, somehow it's been two months since then. I don't understand how that's true. Uh, but thanks for making the, the, the journey all the way over to see us and you won the. Mic Drop Nexi Award. Um, can you, can you fill the audience in on why you won the Mic Drop Nexi Award?
Tom Balme: I think, I think you, I, I, I think you were just sort of calling out to the audience and I think for some reason you kind of picked me out. The discussion had sort of got to, uh, explaining more around what, what sales and marketing fluff is. And then I think you just sort of called me out and said, Tom, can you, can you help answer this question?
And then I think I got a little bit Australian on the answer and just sort of said, well, did sales and marketing bullshit? Yes. Um, and that was, that was it. Um,
James Dice: and then I. We were trying to define what fluff was for the newcomer building owners [00:03:00] in the room, and you helped us. Yes, yes, yes. You helped
Tom Balme: us. Yes.
Yes. Provided a, a small, a small bit, bit of guidance into, uh, in somewhat fluff really means. Yeah, no, I think I was sitting next to, to Chris from Walmart. I think he just sort of like gave me a pat on the back and I think he used another word to, to describe it, which we probably won't, won't share.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You, you won, you won. Mic drop Beyond just that moment though, every time you were on stage, you had something spicy to say, which is, you know, what we were aiming for. So it was more than one sentence. Give yourself some credit.
James Dice: Yes. We'll talk about, you gave two presentations. We'll talk about those in just a second.
Um, let's do a quick, uh, overview of what's going on in the Nexus community. People probably haven't heard from us much lately. We've been. Deepen the workshop. Uh, getting ready for 2026. Um, one thing is we're recording this tomorrow after we record this, so by the time this recording comes out, our early bird ticket sale will be live for Nexus Con 2026.
And so we [00:04:00] actually have dropped the early bird price. So if you're on the vendor side and we, we forced you to buy tickets, we're giving away $999 tickets, which is way, way, way, way, way cheaper. Then it will be if you wait till later in the year. And so that is live on our website now. Um, what else Brad?
Brad Bonavida: Uh, we are going to announce the, the location as well with the, you know, early bird ticket drop.
Do you want to, do you wanna fill 'em in on location?
James Dice: Yeah, yeah. We're gonna go, we're gonna, we're gonna start moving Nexus Con to cities where we can more deeply integrate the conference into the local building owner community. And so we're starting with Detroit, Michigan, um, and we're really excited about all the building owners there.
We can't. Announce anything yet, but we're basically starting a new era of Nexus Con, where if we think about the first two years, right? We were in a suburb of Denver, which is great, and we had a lot of [00:05:00] building owners there, but we were a little bit disconnected from the actual fabric of the community.
And so moving to Detroit kind of starts a, a new era for the conference where we're focused on actual deep partnerships. When we hear case studies, when we, um. You know, go to a building, well actually just take the building that the conference is in. Um, it is owned by Bedrock and Bedrock's gonna be at the conference, right?
So it's like they're, they're our host. And so the vibe is gonna shift a little bit to where we're not just talking about abstract ideas, we're talking about how. Technology is actually transforming a specific city. And so that's, that's kind of the new era we're headed into
Brad Bonavida: the, I'm excited about the venue too.
Like this is like a brand new state-of-the-art building, which I think is gonna kind of level up the whole thing as well. Uh, it's called the department at Hudson's, if you like. Google Maps, Detroit, Michigan. I think the pin, if you just put Detroit almost lands directly on the [00:06:00] venue. Like we're in the heart of everything.
It's right where things are going on and yeah, like you said, James, like. Yeah, just the fact that we're gonna be talking about buildings in a, it's not gonna be like hypothetical anymore. It's gonna be like, yeah, we're talking about those buildings right there, or this building that we're in, or, you know, that guy manages the building across the street.
Uh, it's gonna change the vibe a little. I think it's gonna really just level it up quite a bit. We're pretty excited about it. It seems obvious, but
James Dice: it, I guess it's not,
Brad Bonavida: yeah.
James Dice: Yeah. Uh, what are
Tom Balme: your thoughts, Tom? Uh, love it. Um, love that. If, uh, if it gets to come back to the States, we'll be going somewhere new again.
Probably have to travel another couple of hours to get to somewhere from Australia. But once you've already gone like 15 hours, like what's another two kind of thing? Yeah, yeah.
James Dice: Yep. Um, so people can get, um, we're only releasing 50 early bird tickets, so if you're a vendor and you want that low price, go ahead and do that.
If [00:07:00] you're on the owner side, we're capping free owner tickets at 150 this year. And so that we expect to sell that to, to go probably around June we're thinking. And so don't wait. If you're on the owner side and you want to get your, your free tickets, um, yeah, that's also
Brad Bonavida: don't, don't, uh, don't sleep on the deal of the early bird ticket.
Like we are limiting it to 50. It's about 50% of the price as the people who buy like right before. So you can save some serious money if you're a little proactive here. It's actually a really good deal.
James Dice: Yep. Next thing real quick before, before we get into Tom's presentations here is we have our next event in January.
Um, it's called Getting Control of Your Building's, OT Devices. Um, it is a new format for events. We talked about this on the podcast a couple times already. We're calling it Nexus Cast. It's basically a four hour virtual conference, and so we have an expo floor. We have booths, [00:08:00] we have demos very similar to, to Nexus Con except for you're sitting in your home or your, your office.
Um, obviously we can't replace the face-to-face. You run into someone, you know, in, in person at Nexus Con, but it, it does hit the same sort of vibe we're trying to hit. And it's a little bit different in that Nexus Con is focused on, um. All the different tracks we're focused on one track and really one or two specific problems that building owners are trying to solve right now.
So this one's on device management, and we're still looking for a few case studies for that. Right, Brad?
Brad Bonavida: Yeah, so the format is that we'll have six building owner quick hitting case studies about what they're doing as it relates to this topic. We'll kind of go in stages of like the beginning, which is like discovery all the way to like the remediation that people are doing about their OT devices.
But yeah, we're kind of in the thick of planning that agenda right now. We've got some, some really [00:09:00] good speakers already slated, but we are looking for more spots. If you're interested in speaking, we do have an application on that page. You just go to our website and then at the top you can see the Nexus cast and you click there and it says, do you, you know, apply to speak like right below the title?
So if you're, if you're interested in doing that, now is the time to apply. 'cause we're converging on what that agenda will be.
James Dice: And, and Brad, what are the six steps that we're gonna walk them through? Putting you on, but yes,
Brad Bonavida: I'm prepared. So we, it's, it's kind of the first version of the OT device management playbook that we've built of like talking and interviewing multiple building owners who have approached this problem and the way that they've done it.
And what are those steps? Um, so we're trying to assign the six case studies to the six steps that we've defined of device management. So it's starting with discovery of devices, then assessment of devices. Classification of devices. So like what is upstream of it? What's downstream of it? What rooms is it associated with?
What other subsystems is it [00:10:00] associated with? So that's, those three steps are kind of all like discovery, auditing, like getting your shit together. And then the second. Three steps of the action phase. So remediation. So once you find your problems, what are you gonna do about them? Maintenance, how do you build this so that like, it's not just a one-time thing, but it's, it's ongoing.
And then standardizing, which is related to maintenance, but that's more like. How are you getting this into your specifications for your next build? How are you training people on it? How are you doing change management on it? So we're trying to match a case study to each one of those six steps. So we'll hear six different building owners say, this is how we approach this step.
This is how we approach, uh, the next step and so on. We'll get kind of this very holistic picture about the how whole, how the whole industry is approaching it.
James Dice: Tom, I'm wondering for you to hear this as just a community member who comes to our events. What are you thinking when you think about us doing a virtual conference?
What, what's the thought?
Tom Balme: I think it's [00:11:00] fantastic because it's, it's kind of the same problem that we've got over here in Australia is a, it is just like, the states is just so huge. Um, and to get everybody together is a really hard thing to do. So the fact that you do Nexus Con is obviously fantastic. You can get everyone there once a year, but if you're able to get everyone.
Online together, talk about a particular topic, go really deep into that topic. It's another way for the community to connect on a regular basis, talk about a specific to topic that we know is relevant, that we know is a bit of a hot topic. Um, and we do a similar thing here in here in Oz. You know, we, you know, it's, it's, it's picking one topic and, and going real deep and allowing the community to nerd out.
On that, on, on that one topic and getting the diverse opinions from owners, from consultants, from contractors, from, from tech vendors. So I think it's great. It's just another way [00:12:00] that, you know, the smart building community can learn from each other. Um, and, you know, if, if that topic is really of interest, then I'm sure people will attend.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. The other thing I know you're thinking, Tom, is that it's at the, uh. Crack a dawn, a Australia time, and you're not going to actually maybe be there, but maybe, uh, some solace if you do register. And people in Tom's situation, the the, uh, whole recording will be on demand afterwards. So if you register after it's over, you'll get access to be able to watch it and see what you missed.
Um, I, I did wanna bring up one other thing too is like. We've been doing virtual events at Nexus Con, or excuse me, at Nexus Lab since before I was here. Obviously James, you've been doing this forever. They've got a good reputation. It's like very open, you know, everybody gets a chance to speak. They're great.
They've been like basically just Zoom calls where we're just maybe use the breakout session thing and, and people love 'em, but like, I just want to make sure our audience understands like how much we're leveling it up on this Nexus cast. This is not just like [00:13:00] a Zoom call where everyone's gonna be on it.
We have created a program where. We'll have a stage where people will come on and off and we'll have a demo stage and we're gonna have, uh, virtual booths that you can go and free time to network with other people. And like it's very curated to be as close to Nexus Con as possible, although it's, um, remote.
So I think it's gonna be pretty cool.
James Dice: Yes, we have gone through a whole tech procurement process. To find the software that allows us to be as close to in person as possible while allowing everyone to sit at their own computer. So. Um, all right, let's jump into, so Tom's presentations. Tom, you were a part of three different sessions at Nexus Con.
We, we really worked you hard. Wow.
Tom Balme: Yeah. If you, if you're gonna make the journey all the way over, you know, you might as well squeeze every bit of juice out it possible.
James Dice: Yeah. Um, so let's start with the first one you shared, Lendlease Cybersecurity [00:14:00] journey. I haven't watched that one yet, but Brad has. So let's, let's dive into that.
Tell me about it.
Tom Balme: Yeah. This was, this was, um, really, you know, cybersecurity, you know, not only is it just a, a bit of a hot topic, but it's been, it's been the cornerstone of, I suppose, the rework technology strategy that we've deployed, um, at Lendlease Investment Management. You know, it's. It is, you know, when we were coming up with a revised tech strategy and we, we really wanted to sort of pick a starting point, like, where are we gonna start with, right?
Like, there's so many areas of technology where I think you could start, and for me, the, the sort of obvious starting point before you go and think about all these kind of different types of technologies, whether it's platforms or networks or data layers or device management, whatever it might be. You know, I, I think starting with cybersecurity is, is, is the logical starting [00:15:00] point.
So before you start thinking about value creation with technology, start thinking about value protection and risk mitigation. Um, that'll be equally as important, um, if not more important, um, particularly on the, on the owner's side of things. So, so this was, this was really the cornerstone. Um, of the strategy that we pitched to our fund managers, that we pitched to our business that we got approval for.
Um, and we, we started this journey back, uh, in FY 25, which is kind of, sort of one July, 2024. So it's been about a year and a half that we've been through this journey. Um, and it was really about presenting, how did we take. Um, or I suppose how do we come up with our program and how do we break it down into phases or scopes of work, um, to deploy over multiple financial years?
Um, and, and we sort of talked through that whole program and how we sort of switched around the, [00:16:00] the starting point there. So, um, and it was. I, I, I actually love being a part of that, of that session. There were some excellent presenters who went on before me, um, who talked about some of the horror stories of cybersecurity, which is probably, probably the best starting point for that discussion because whilst we can talk about the things to do and the steps to take, it was the wonderful presentations by Joe and, uh, and others talking about like, why do we care about cyber security and.
You know, I, I think Joe in particular went through, you know, some of the, some of the incredible cybersecurity horror story that had happened in commercial real estate, and I think. I think for a lot of building owners in particular is that maybe they feel like, I think they still get asked the question, like, oh, you know, like why do we have to do this?
Like, do we really need to invest in cybersecurity? It's just ot. Like is someone just gonna come on and flick a light switch on and off, or change a temperature on A [00:17:00] BMS? Is that all they're gonna do? So there's a lack of understanding, you know, as to the threat, the impact, and the severity of what happens with this cybersecurity attack.
And Joe really helped point out. What the real, um, sort of value prop here is and what the real impact is. Um, you know, and when you started talking about the fact that leasing deals, the ability to attract and retain tenants is now actually impacted by the fact that, you know, if a building has a cybersecurity attack, maybe you won't get a tenant to resign that lease, or you won't be able to attract a new tenant into that building.
And that building, that organization then becomes synonymous. With the fact that they aren't able to secure their base building OT systems. And if you start losing leasing deals, um, you know, that's when you'll start pricking the ears, um, of, you know, the asset and the fund managers, um, across the building owner organizations.
James Dice: I should have said at the beginning of this that anyone [00:18:00]that wasn't there, which includes me. We are working on posting all the recordings from from Nexus Con, so you will get an email from us, um, and if you're a Nexus Pro ber, which is $350 a year, but it includes other stuff as well. You'll be able to watch Tom's recording and Joe's recording and all the other presentations at, at, at the conference and all of our other events.
Brad Bonavida: Yeah. Yep. And to promote kind of the story that Tom is, is telling here. You, you mentioned in the, in your presentation. You secured over 125 OT systems across 12 million square feet of buildings in less than six months. So like to other building owners listening, like this was a massive, large scale thing that you overtook.
Um. I wanted to kind of ask you one part about it. You talked about how you followed the NIST five step process, which is like nearly identical to the the six step process that we're gonna be going over in Nexus Cast [00:19:00] NIST is identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover. Um, but what I thought was really interesting is you kind of gave a golden nugget insight to other building owners about how, you know, it's identify and then protect, but how you kind of got this advice that.
Well, the identification, the audit phase is gonna tell you to secure all of your OT cloud connected systems anyway, so just start with action to show results rather than waiting for this audit. Can you kind of talk through how that went and why you flipped those two steps?
Tom Balme: Yeah. When we were, when we were looking to put together the OT cyber program, uh, as you mentioned, we wanted to leverage an existing framework.
And be able to then take that framework and build it out into a scope of work. And there are numerous standards and frameworks out there, but the one that really resonated with us in terms of developing a program of works was the NIST framework. And we, we, we probably don't have the time to sort of deep dive into all the elements of that [00:20:00] framework, but as you mentioned, it's got this wonderful five step process, um, and typically.
Not just Ns, but you could argue a lot of frameworks. They typically start with some kind of identify or audit or investigation step as step one. Which is like figure out what you've got, like understand your current state. And in the world of OT cyber, this often means starting with some kind of physical site audit, coupled with a vulnerability assessment that you would run on your OT systems to really identified, you know, how many servers, how many devices.
How many things do you have in your OT systems and are there any vulnerabilities associated with those? With those devices. And so when we put together the program of work, initially we had, as our first step to do this big audit piece upfront. As in we [00:21:00] would send, we would run an RFP, we would select a vendor and that vendor would then go to go to each avail buildings.
They would do a physical audit, see, see how the um, OT systems are architected, how cybersecurity are effectively determine their cybersecurity posture. And then run a vulnerability assessment across every single OT system that they could find. And then the second step is then protect, which is then, okay, now that you've run the audit and you've figured out, you know where your vulnerabilities are at, then you start doing some remediation work, you start doing some level of protection.
And then when we started Cons, when, when we put together that initial or sort of draft scope of work, we then presented that to some subject matter experts that, that we knew over here in the industry. And they all gave us the same bit of feedback was that don't wait for the outcome of a lengthy audit process to actually start protecting [00:22:00] and uplifting the cybersecurity posture of these buildings.
If you don't have. The two fundamental elements of a firewall and secured how your tenants, your contractors, and your FMS remotely access those OT systems. Then go ahead and just do that thing. Because if you run an audit. You do that vulnerability assessment, it'll pick up the fact that any anything that's exposed to the internet, you need to protect it from the internet and it will pick it up as the most critical thing to do.
So if you already know the outcome of that audit and what it's gonna put at the very top of that priority tree. You don't need to wait for the outcome of that audit, just simply go ahead and do it. And they said, yeah, get your firewalls in and make sure you have secured your remote access methods. And so it was based off that advice that we heard from numerous people that we then flipped that first and second phase around.
So we started with protection and then the audit piece has actually come afterwards. And [00:23:00] so we ran an RFP where we've, um. Where we've deployed the need, secure my access solution across, yeah, it was 19 buildings covering 11, 12 million, um, square feet and yeah, o over 125 OT systems we would now consider sufficiently protected.
Um, in terms of the firewalls that they've got in place and how, um, all those external parties remotely access those systems.
Brad Bonavida: That's awesome. And, and then just from like a, you know, you mentioned how it, it, um, accelerated things, but also just from like a program management perspective, you're able to have this quick win like right away.
'cause you started with just action rather than this like a hundred page audit where you're going to get permission to do all these things. You haven't actually had any wins yet. Like that made a lot of sense to kind of. Prime the pump with some wins to, to make the program keep moving.
Tom Balme: Yeah. It, it's, it's essential for any program that you are able to [00:24:00] demonstrate value back to, you know, asset and fund managers quickly because they give you a whole bunch of money.
You have to go back and tell them how well you've spent that money, right, and what value that they've got for it, because that then helps unlock funding for future phases of the program. We saw this as a win on multiple fronts and, and the, the ability to demonstrate value quickly. You know, as, as we said, you know, the vendor that we selected was able to deploy that secure remote access solution across those 19 buildings, those 125 OT systems, in less than six months, we got rid of a whole bunch of legacy VPNs and port forwarding and all these things that effectively just punch holes in your cyber.
Security posture really quickly, and then we were able to go back to the asset and fund managers before our next budget cycle began, and actually say, Hey, remember all that money that you gave us to actually [00:25:00] improve the cybersecurity posture of the buildings? Well, here's the results. We've been able to do it in six months before the start of the the next budget cycle.
Great. Thank you very much. We understand. Well done. Can you now give us more money to then actually con contribute towards the next stages of the program? And we were able to do that and now we're getting going with that second phase. We are right at the start now of the audit and the vulnerability assessment phase.
Um, and we're gonna hope to then unlock future funding in future financial years, um, to continue the, you know, the further stages of, of, of that program. Nice.
Brad Bonavida: That's awesome. So that is so directly connected to what our Nexus cast, um, you know, content will be about. You shared the story pretty well. It sounds like you guys are very much on that, like those first steps of discovery and then remediation.
Uh, what would you look for us to cover during that Nexus cast on the whole lifecycle of, um, dev [00:26:00] OT device management? Like is there anything that stands out that you wanna make sure that we. Get within that event.
Tom Balme: I think, I think the six steps that you've outlined, I think just, just even providing that initial guidance to everybody, I think is, is kind of the key first step, right?
Like it's, it's always the case of what's the starting point. I think that's sometimes the hardest thing and, and people will have different ideas about what is the right starting point. And I think the thing that. I think Nexus Labs has always done a really great job of is, is figuring out how to, how to provide a bit of a North Star to people, right?
Like it's not giving specific advice around how to do it, but it's providing that sort of North Star around, well how do you start, what needs to be included in that program? And you know. You know, how do you get to that kind of endpoint there? So I think, I think for me, it's, it's, it's, it's, again, you've provided that kind of guidance around look, you know, here's, here's what we think is that North Star, and then you guys need to now go away and figure out how you're, [00:27:00] you know, how to develop your own strategy, your own program.
How long will it take? Um, and the thing that, that kind of resonated with me the most when I sort of read through that, that six step program. Is the, is the governance piece. Like I think, I think people sort of understand the identification piece and figuring out like what do you actually have in your, in your buildings and your assets.
But the hardest piece I think with any technology program is, is kind of like, how do you take an idea? Or something that you want to change, and then how do you manage that change and actually get it into effect and into action? And that's where the building owner and the vendors that they partner with have to take a lot of that responsibility.
Right? It's, it's how do you then get it into effect, whether you, whether you specify into a service contract, whether you, um, you know, create standards and specs. Great. You know, like, like, like get those things into the contractual documents that matter. But unless you have a [00:28:00] governance program in place to police it, to manage it, to report the success of it, then you're never going to get that change management done correctly.
And I think for me, that's the, that's the bit that we are still trying to figure out. What we're gonna do is that, you know, once we've, once we've identified all these devices, we figured out the vulnerabilities and we figured out. You know, you know, what's our current state? It's how do we then get to that end state and how do we actually start changing how our vendors and our contractors manage the devices and change their behaviors?
Because the behavioral change is always gonna be the hard bit. The selection of the technology and the procurement of it is always gonna be the easier bit. Um. So that's the bit that kind of struck a chord with me, the fact that you've got that in there, but each organization is gonna have to figure out how they actually do that governance piece.
Yeah, and I think what I hope you'll tease outta that Nexus car session is some great ideas from owners and vendors and contractors around how to do that.
James Dice: Love that. I love that. Um, [00:29:00] this actually gets to your second presentation at Nexus Con, which I felt was more not necessarily. Talking about any specific technology, it's more program management related.
Do you want to give a quick overview of, of that presentation? The Anatomy of a Failed smart building project, which is provocative. I like it spicy. Yeah.
Tom Balme: Um, yeah, look, it's, it's, it's, it's all around, it was all sort of based around sort of sharing the learnings that, you know, from, from initiatives that I.
You know, personally been involved in, um, both tech vendor side and building owner side around like, why do initiatives fail? And I think, you know, one of the great things that Nexus has done has always sort of encouraged people to be candid, not just around celebrating the wins and the successes, but trying to teach people around how to do things better and the [00:30:00] lessons learned and how do we do better next time.
And so when I thought about. What to present on. You know, I really wanted to, to sort of dive into, well, why do initiatives fail? And it it, it actually sort of got spurred James from a question that you actually put out into the LinkedIn universe. I think it was earlier this year where you actually put a, a survey out to the audience and said, who do you think is more responsible?
For why an initiative fails? Do you think it's more on the tech vendor side or do you think it's more on the building owner side? And I think the result of that survey was that 70% people thought it was actually on the building owner side and the tech vendors were only 30 Finger pointing responsible for it.
Yeah, it was. Now I, I don't know if the people that were responding to that survey were maybe more tech vendors who thought like, oh yeah, our product's great. It's definitely on the owner's side of things as to why these things fail. But, um, it, it kind of got me thinking and then it [00:31:00] got me retrospectively thinking about some of the initiatives I've been a part of.
And when I started to analyze the reasons why these initiatives failed. I saw that it wasn't just solely just the owner's fault, and it wasn't just the tech vendor's fault, it was a shared responsibility. Somewhere along the line, the tech vendor and the building owner diverged in terms of what they thought success was, things that had gone wrong, and the relationship and the technology just wasn't able to marry up in, in the way that people thought it was gonna happen.
And so we sort of. Dove into that analysis. Right. Um, and then, and then really paired that with some, with some case studies of particular technologies. Um, and sort of, and then I asked the audience, you know, did you think for this particular scenario, do you think it was more on the tech vendor side of things or do you think it was more the building owners, um, reason why this failed?
And people, you know, it was, it was like a 50 50 [00:32:00] split kind of thing. Like some people thought the vendors, some people thought the owner, and it sort of showed the audience that. It is a shared responsibility, right? Like it's never a case. Mm-hmm. From the tech vendor's point of things that, you know, they, they've deployed the technology, they've given it over to the building owner.
It's over to you guys, right? So the success depends on you. And if this fails, it's not on us. Like we, we've done our job. And I still see that in, in a few tech vendors today that have that kind of mentality of we've got you onboarded, we've trained you up over you guys now to run it. If you are not keeping tabs with your client and you're figuring out where the problems are, maybe why things aren't working, and you're not investing the time on your side to ensure that you've reached that mutually agreed point of value.
That unfortunately, you may not get that renewal like it might last a year or two or three, but you might not get the renewal at the end of that contract term, and that owner might be looking for one of your competitors. [00:33:00] And I think we, we see a lot of that. In the industry, like people run a technology maybe for, for the initial contract term, if it's three years or five years, and then they go out to market again.
And tech vendors should be asking themselves, well, why are they going out to market again? Is it because they feel like they just have to stress test the market? Or is it because they actually think they can get something better or there's something missing?
Rosy Khalife: Mm-hmm.
Tom Balme: So, and then on, and then on the owner's side of things.
Yeah, like, like owners also need to share the responsibility here, if particularly. The tech vendor hasn't lived up to the sales and marketing material that they put in front of you during the sales cycle? Um, you know, I think historically, you know, I'd argue that owners and operators maybe haven't done a great job of actually doing their due diligence on tech vendors and figuring out exactly what the actual value prop is.
Um, and sort of as we said, cutting through that sales and marketing. Fluff and, and [00:34:00] figuring out exactly exactly what you're going to get. And if, if you haven't done your due diligence on as an owner, um, then that's on you as well. Right? So yeah, it's, it's this, it's this tricky, tricky sort of, yeah.
Balancing act.
James Dice: I think you're gonna like some of the changes that we're gonna make next year, which is the concept of playbooks and the concept of maturity moves. Um, and when we think about all of the sessions at our events in 2026, they're gonna be focused on individual playbooks. Um, a playbook might be condition-based maintenance, for example, or, um, um, HVAC sequence optimization.
The, the repeatable projects that all building owners in our community are thinking about doing or already doing or have done. Right. But then there's these concept of maturity moves that go across a program and aren't related to the playbooks individually. And so some of the [00:35:00] ones that you covered in your presentation were more maturity moves than they were.
They, they weren't tech, they weren't focused on in any individual tech or outcome. It's really. How are you piloting projects? How are you assessing new technologies for how they might change your current workflows? How are you selecting vendors? How are you actually doing change management? How are you doing governance on the program that you're running?
Right? And so what we're planning on doing is not necessarily having sessions related to maturity moves. Um. But having each session also have a maturity move component. So if someone's presenting a case study, we're gonna ask them to also cover the maturity moves that they made to enable that playbook.
And then when we do things like the buyer vendor symposium, I think you're gonna love this because it's not necessarily like a, a building owner only can do these maturity moves. They need the, [00:36:00] the vendor is what you're saying to buy into. Their pilot process. So they need a vendor to buy into the change management process that they're, that they're undergoing.
And so it's really helping me, like when I listen to you, I'm like, oh yeah, this is where all this stuff fits together. And it's funny for, you know, having been doing this for five years. I feel like just in the last few months, I'm like, oh, this is how all this information needs to be organized. And uh, yeah, you're definitely part of that, helping us figure that out.
So thank you Tom.
Tom Balme: No problem at all. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, you'd use a classic example of of FTD 'cause I feel like FDD it was amazing at Nexus. Like, I feel like FTD has just become table stakes now. Um, yeah. You know, something that, mm-hmm. That maybe not, you know, a lot of owners, you know, did maybe sort of like five, 10 years ago has now almost just become part of the course.
And the best thing was that people weren't presenting around. You know why you should do FDD. It was all around how do you make it a [00:37:00] success? And it's all those change management bits that make it the success. It's the restructuring of your contracts, right? It's getting your HVAC and BMS vendors enticed to actually use it, building it into their workflows.
How do you report on the true success of it and make sure that you actually. It's not just a case of just deploying the technology and leaving it up to the vendor, sort of do all the hard work for you. There's all these structural elements, all these legacy structural elements of. How has maintenance been done historically?
How do you actually get the vendors to just make it a part of their day to day? And so those are the elements that actually make an FDD program or a data-driven maintenance program a success. Mm-hmm. And I think many people have made the mistake of just deploying the technology. And hoping that they'll get the right outcome.
It's no, it's, it's, it's getting the people that are managing it to properly ensure that that change is now being actually built into the BMS and HVAC vendors day to [00:38:00] day, so that all of a sudden, you know, the point that everyone wants to get to is where they're just doing it themselves. You don't almost need a managed service.
You don't need a human in the loop anymore. All of a sudden, the insight goes straight to the contractor. They fix the issue and they report on the outcome. You're not gonna get there on day one. You're gonna have to go through that change management process and get to that, eventually get to that end point.
Right. So, yeah, you know, that was, that was one of the great examples that I sort of saw at, at um, yeah, at was Gone.
James Dice: It's a point of pride for me because it's one of the reasons why we created the conference in general. Like, like we would go to conferences, um, this is before Brad joined me, but like Rosie and I would go to conferences and it was all the stuff that you talked about at the beginning there, which is like.
What is FDD and why to do FDD? Like what is smart buildings? Let's get a definition of smart buildings down and we've, we've sort of forced, not forced everyone, we've invited everyone to move past that, which is all the nitty [00:39:00] gritty stuff, which is what you find at Nexus Con. So if you're listening to this out there and you want to dig into the nitty gritty with the community, that's, that's what we do.
Yeah, that's what we do. Alright. We gotta, we gotta close this, close this up. Tom, thanks so much for joining us. Um, let's end with some carve outs, something from your personal life. Um, I'll go first. So, so Tom, I know you're, you're a Tottenham fan. I'm gonna just point everyone to the, to the, the Premier League table, uh, as of December 9th.
Where Arsenals at the top. That's my carve out. Google, Google Premier. Sorry, Tom,
Tom Balme: I need to carve out. I need to get whoever's editing this podcast just to carve out that, that little, that's your carve out.
Rosy Khalife: That's your carve out.
Tom Balme: I like. Tottenham Tottenham are back where I remembered them for most of my, for like most of my life, which is kind of mid table junk.
Um, they, they sort of pretended to be a good team for a [00:40:00] few years. And like Harry Kane and Song Men, I miss them dearly. Um, I wish they came back. Why do we ever sell them? But, um, yeah, it's uh, it's always interesting, like, yeah, they might finish fourth, they might finish 17th. They might win a win a trophy.
Do you know what? Last season I saw them win a trophy for the first time, and I can't even remember how long that's, that's how long it had been. Um, so that was, yeah, that was almost like a highlight of, uh, yeah. Yeah. Earlier this year. But yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, cheers.
James Dice: You're welcome. Brad, what do you got?
My
Brad Bonavida: mine also has to do with Tom. Uh, you know, Tom, we've been talking remotely for a long time 'cause you've been part of the Nexus community and you've been running, uh, you know, uh, events in Australia. So seeing you at NEX Con was one of my highlights. And you came on the hike, the Royal Arch Hike, and we got to do most of that together, which was really cool.
But what I thought was funny that I, I haven't got a chance to connect with you yet, is that. [00:41:00] You were asking me about like what you should do with your final day in Colorado. You hadn't spent much time, or maybe it was the first time you'd been there and you're like looking for recommendations and I was thinking really hard based on like the amount of time you have and stuff, like what's a good recommendation.
And I landed on Netherland James, which obviously you're super familiar with, just based on the amount of time you had. I was like, you should go there. Yeah. Well, the day I told you to go there. There was like a huge fire that like took out a ton of the town. Really sad, but I remember waking up and seeing the news and I'm like, oh my gosh.
Like, did Tom start the fire? Is Tom in the fire? Like, I was concerned and I never got a chance to talk to you about, I don't think he went right. I I don't think that worked out.
James Dice: No, he went, it didn't go because we went out to coffee. We went out and had coffee that day. Yeah, that's
Tom Balme: right. Yeah. It, it was, it was like a weird turn of events.
Like I'd hired a car. Um, I'd like, or I'd organized like a, a hire car sort of like a couple of days before that. And my plan yeah. Was very much to do exactly what you told me to do. And then when I woke up that [00:42:00] morning, I went to the car hire place, which was just down the road from where the conference was.
And I got there and they had no cars available and they'd like, run out of cars. And I thought like, how do you run outta cars in America? Like, this has just gotta be like an insane, an insane thing. And, um, and so blessing in disguise. Yeah, it was, it was a blessing in disguise. And then I got back to the hotel and I bumped into Christian Nielsen.
Great guy that I met at the conference. And as you said, Brad, like I, like, my highlight of that whole conference was actually just meeting a whole bunch of people that I'd only ever known in two dimensions up until that point, including yourselves. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, Christian was one of those great guys that I met and he was keen to go for a hike and so we actually just went.
Back to the starting point of the hike the previous day, and then we just hiked up one of the other flat irons. Is it called? Nice? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty cool. Which was, which was great. And then we sort of did the hike, that beautiful view [00:43:00] over. Boulder and, and, and, and the whole of Colorado. And then, yeah, we caught up with James for a, for a quick coffee before literally having to get, get to the airport and jump on a plane back to us.
So, yeah, no, that was a great way to kind of end it
James Dice: all. Uh, all right, Tom, you gotta carve out.
Tom Balme: My carve out was, was gonna be some, some kind of baby hack, but I think, um, I think after af, after hearing all of that, I think, I think my carve out is actually just, just gonna be, um, getting to Nexus. Like, like honestly getting to, getting to Nexus, meeting a whole bunch of awesome people.
Um, over, over those sort of three, four days, I, I felt like if we had like another three, four days could've met even more people. It was, it was almost, um, it was almost overwhelming, but. Um, for me also getting to the Rockies, like, like, like getting to the Rockies and getting to Colorado has been a dream of mine, um, forever.
Like the, the mountains, the skiing, if you'd done nexus con in winter, I, [00:44:00] I probably would struggle to actually go to the event. I, I'd probably just be up on the level on the, on the skis. So I, I, I just, um, yeah, just had a brilliant time for like three, four days or so. And, um, who knows if, if, if you, if you do end up doing Nexus column back in.
Denver again and doing the hikes and all that kind of stuff. I thought it was brilliant.
James Dice: All right. Ne Tom bombed was not paid in the production of this podcast, but he says come to next, next year. All right. Well, thanks Tom. We'll let you, we'll release you to the beginning of your day as we end ours over here on the other side of the, the earth.
Good to see you buddy.
Rosy Khalife: Okay. 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.
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This is a great piece!
I agree.