September 11, 2023 • 24 mins
Can you imagine a world where automation and efficiency form the backbone of architectural practices? Let's explore this exciting intersection of tech and architecture with our guest, Brian Stridam, the Digital Practice Manager and Senior Associate at FX Collaborative. Brian's passion for data and technology and his unique perspective on teaching will guide us on a journey through his career, from tech-enthusiast to a leader in digital practice.
But we're not stopping there. We're also hosting Micah Kahlo, the AEC Technical Director at Esri, who's ready to share his insights on the role of GIS in digital transformation. From his humble beginnings as a GIS Technician to leading digital transformations at Arcadis and now Esri, Micah's journey is filled with lessons to inspire us all. Prepare for a deep dive into how location forms the core of design and construction and the critical role it plays in integrating data and executing new projects.
Hang on, there's more! We're wrapping up the episode with Mike Kahlo, also an AEC Technical Director at Esri, who's going to unveil the fascinating world of graph databases and their revolutionary impact on digital twins. Here's a chance to grasp the power of location in digital transformation and understand the immense potential of GIS and BIM integration. So, sit back, tune in, and get ready to be inspired, informed, and intrigued by the captivating world of digital transformation.
But we're not stopping there. We're also hosting Micah Kahlo, the AEC Technical Director at Esri, who's ready to share his insights on the role of GIS in digital transformation. From his humble beginnings as a GIS Technician to leading digital transformations at Arcadis and now Esri, Micah's journey is filled with lessons to inspire us all. Prepare for a deep dive into how location forms the core of design and construction and the critical role it plays in integrating data and executing new projects.
Hang on, there's more! We're wrapping up the episode with Mike Kahlo, also an AEC Technical Director at Esri, who's going to unveil the fascinating world of graph databases and their revolutionary impact on digital twins. Here's a chance to grasp the power of location in digital transformation and understand the immense potential of GIS and BIM integration. So, sit back, tune in, and get ready to be inspired, informed, and intrigued by the captivating world of digital transformation.
Contact the Future Construct Podcast Produced by BIM Designs, Inc!
- BIM Designs, Inc.: minority-owned, US-based, union-signatory preconstruction technology firm, offering turnkey BIM modeling, laser scanning, coordination management, and other VDC solutions to the AEC industry.
- Schedule a free consultation: sales@bimdesigns.net.
- Subscribe to our weekly blog and our Future Construct Podcast
- Suggest a podcast guest
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Future Construct.
I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of themDesign Zinc.
We're here at GeoWeek 2023 inDenver, colorado.
I'm joined today by BrianStridham at FX Collaborative.
He's the Digital PracticeManager and Senior Associate
there.
Welcome to the show, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
This is great, fantastic, brian, I'd love to understand you a
little bit about your historyand what brought you to FX
(00:32):
Collaborative.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that's a long story.
I'll try to sum it up.
So, basically, I always lovedsigning things, I always loved
making things and my father wasa mechanic his whole life, so he
loved using his hands, right.
He asked me to help him build ahouse in South Africa and I
went over there and I said allright, I'll stay here, I'll help
you build for three months ifyou pay for my tuition for
(00:54):
Motorcycle Technician School.
He agreed by the time we weredone there in three months, I
turned around and applied forArchitecture Schools and, funny
enough, my cousin is in Seattle.
He also is an architect.
So I felt at that point, okay,I can do this right.
And I went through school, didmy five years and I got a one
class on Revit and I said, oh,this is a game changer.
(01:16):
I never touched AutoCAD againFrom there on out I just worked
from single person firms to like30 people and I just really
loved the technology a littlebit more than the documentation.
And I find an opportunity at FX.
At the time I was at FXCollaborative and from there I
was starting as a digitaltechnology specialist.
(01:37):
I quickly turned that around tobe not need a big manager, this
is a bigger job Within the nextcouple years.
We transferred to digitalpractice so digital practice as
an idea and did so.
I was now the digital practicemanager and from there I just
branched out from BIM and I said, all right, I got the BIM thing
, let's figure out somethingelse.
(01:57):
And I just got sucked into databig data From there on out.
I just loved understanding howdata works between people.
We're a bit of a mid-sized firmabout 120 people, and we do lots
of different types ofarchitecture and that means that
we need to be really nimble, sothat means we have to be very
efficient.
So that made it more importantfor me to try to push data
across the entire office, notjust what I do for them in BIM
(02:19):
QC.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
That's a fantastic history and thank you for
sharing a little bit aboutyourself and both FX
Collaborative.
I understood when you saiddigital practice that that may
have been something that youwere very passionate about and
defined at FX Collaborative.
Can you help give me a littlebit of context behind the
digital practice and what thatbrings to the firm?
Sure?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So we started out with probably a couple people.
Right, we had IT manager.
We now have a CTO, who was justmy director at the time, but
now CTO I'm digital practicemanager, so the three of us kind
of run the game on kind ofdigital practice as of a couple
of years ago.
We also pulled in a couple ofpartners into the fold in
addition to a couple ofchampions, so people that are
(03:01):
actually just working on projectteams, but they also help us
out with other initiatives thatI don't have time to do, or it's
their specialty during orcomputational analysis and
things like that.
So that's kind of our team thatwe were slowly pushing into.
We have three studios.
We're pushing into threestudios and getting people more
educated in technology becausethat's what I love doing.
(03:22):
That's all I ever did,naturally.
I did it in school.
I was 10 years old andeverybody in school, they went
back to school, so I justnaturally would tell people
that's interesting, let's talkabout that.
We get into something and Icarry that with me into my
career, where I really enjoyeducating people and helping
them, because I learned fromthem too and I never got
certified for anything.
I literally took it at oneclass and read it.
(03:43):
I taught myself everything.
So to me that was just reallygreat and I really wanted other
people to appreciate that aswell.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
What's your approach to helping individuals and
groups in a training setting,but also helping them be the
best they can be?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Train the person.
That's it right.
If someone doesn't want tolearn, there's nothing you can
do to help them.
So for me, it's trying to findthe thing about them that
they're going to want to do andreally just push that, push it
hard and get them involved inmore than one thing at a time so
that they can kind of see wherethings are going, rather than
(04:21):
maybe falling back and sayingthat didn't work out and I'm
just not doing anything else.
So I try to kind of push peoplein multiple directions at the
same time.
Whenever I see them eitherstruggling or I see an
opportunity where they took theinitiative to do something, so I
said, oh, I took the initiativeto do something.
Well, let's see, maybe you likethis, because I thought I found
a connection between that forme, so maybe I can work for you.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Very cool, and how have you applied that experience
to FX Collaborative Well?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I created our first Dynamo Discoveries group that's
what I called it and I've neverused Dynamo before, so I taught
myself a few things and I wantedto basically be more lazy.
So I wanted to automate somestuff that I didn't want to do
and through that I kind ofgained some ideas about
standardizing and being a littlebit faster at things.
(05:06):
So I started pulling people inthat were interested in being
fast, or people that would cometo me and say, hey, is there a
better way to do this?
And then so I just started thegroup.
I pulled in some people and nowthey're doing the things on
their own.
They're creating their ownscripts and doing their own
stuff with Dynamo In addition toBIM leads.
So for me, having someone on theteam who is my eyes and ears
(05:29):
because I have 120 people, 90Revit users it's a lot of
projects I can't be a never seenone so for me to be able to
kind of mentor somebody as a BIMlead and have them understand
what I need and then they teachme what they need and that makes
me a better manager.
So we've definitely supportedand branched out a BIM lead role
on every single project and Ithink that has bled into
(05:52):
sustainability lead in yourproject.
Because our firm is heavy onsustainability on our projects.
That accessibility lead thatwas huge.
I mean having someonespecifically talking about and
looking for accessibility issuesin a project on top of
sustainability, and then someonefor BIM for me I mean I just
love the way that that has justpercolated across.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, that's wonderful.
I'd love to talk a little bitabout sustainability and how
sustainability applies to BIM orwhere the two of those
intersect.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Oh, you're talking about big stuff here.
Let's see, all right, okay, sofor us it's really important to
understand the big picture atthe beginning, right, because
once you've gone to SD, thebuilding is pretty much what
it's bulk is going to be.
So we have a separatesustainability analysis group,
(06:39):
environmental group, and they'vebeen trained on different
analysis tools throughGrasshopper, rhino and all of
that.
So it's like really earlydesign.
Or we also have people just dozoning, they do early, early
design.
So we pull those people in tounderstand how to use those
tools and then that then feedsinto either a consultant or just
(07:00):
even the team itself to helpthem remember and understand the
things that they need to knowfrom that early analysis.
Perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So I understand you'll be presenting here at
GeoWeek.
Would you help us understandthe topic and a few key
takeaways that you'd want youraudience to take away?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Sure.
So the title is digital datadriven digital practice and the
idea behind it is how we as asmaller firm or commit size
small firm, have tried to be asefficient as possible with
getting information from and topeople, and it highlights also
(07:34):
my BIMQC dashboard, which is themost developed portion of our
data driven analysis so far, andfor me, the takeaway there is I
hope the takeaway from that isthat people understand that it's
people first, it's nottechnology first, and as soon as
you understand the people andunderstand what you want to do,
all the other stuff can comeinto place as soon as you have
(07:55):
the resources.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, that's fantastic, and I love how that
drives back to the keynote, theoriginal kickoff keynote.
Would love to talk about whatyou also observed here at
GeoWeek, what your learningswere and what you'll take back
to FX Collaborative Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Besides there being a million ways to scan something
which I don't personally havevery much experience in, but I
do have a few projects that areusing point clouds and scanned
it in and all that.
So we understand that we couldbe broad, but to see how many
kinds of technologies there are,whether they're walking or
droning or whatever but there'sone in particular that I really
(08:30):
like and I forgot the name.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So yeah, brian, you had mentioned it was Erebus
earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, so this company.
From what I got from theirgreat presentation was that
they're kind of AI driven pointcloud development, so it's a
plug-in for Revit, which for usis huge because that means that
we have less magnets to dealwith, right, the stuff that I'm
doing high maintenance, this nomaintenance, so fantastic, and
the idea of it is that theydon't do the modeling for you,
(08:57):
and we've been interviewing alot of and using a lot of
different companies, because wedo have to have a lot of
existing conditions modelsdeveloped for us, but they're
not really done in a certain waythat we really want as an
architect, so for us to seesomething that makes us go
faster, maybe possibly inmodeling it ourselves.
I think it's huge and I'm reallylooking forward to actually
talking to them more and maybedo a bit of a demo with them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Very cool.
I'm sure they would appreciatethat.
What do you see as the future?
What do you see next year atGeoWeek?
Maybe that might pop up.
Super trick question.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Robots.
I'm thinking I really want to.
I guess one thing that I reallywould like to see I focus on
micro.
Right, a lot of people herefocus on macro and then other
people just take it to the wallwith it.
I would love to see a bit ofmore bridging on the micro and
macro.
Only because I'm able to talkabout it so much, because I'm
(09:53):
kind of in the dirt doing it,where a lot of other companies
are choosing big top solutionsto make those solutions done.
I kind of want to see a littlebit more melding of that.
Very cool, but everything justseems pretty fantastic here.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Wonderful, yeah, I agree completely.
Well, brian, thank you so muchfor joining us.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, it was great, and goodluck at your presentation.
Thank you, hello and welcome toFuture Construct.
(10:31):
I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of BIMDesigns Incorporated.
We're here at GeoWeek 2023 inDenver, colorado.
I'm here with Micah Kahlo, theAEC technical director at Esri,
yep.
Thank you for having us.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me on,absolutely.
I'd love to hear more aboutyour background, micah, and how
you ended up at Esri.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's kind of a windy tale.
I worked in AEC for a long time.
I started out working in GISactually Georgia GIS
Clearinghouse and then startedworking at Bechtel Savannah
Riversite with Bechtel for 8, 10years, something along those
lines, and did a little stint atgovernment to try to do some
GIS stuff.
I realized it was a little bitslow from my liking and went
(11:10):
back to the commercial side withArcadis In Arcadis I spent
almost 20-plus years there,started as a GIS technician,
worked my way up through and inthe end was running
client-facing IT and digitalsolutions for clients and
working on the overall digitaltransformation of Arcadis.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's a very impressive career.
And then at Esri, your focus isthe AEC industry.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, so we had talked at Esri quite a bit and
obviously my original backgroundis GIS.
I was doing a lot of differenttechnology things and at the
time we started having someconversations with Esri about
what their focus was.
Esri had always been obviouslya big part of what we do in AEC,
but it was oftentimesservices-driven.
(11:55):
It was maybe for the waterindustry or for the
transportation industry or localgovernment, which, where Esri
played a big role in the AECs,were kind of not looked at as
AECs.
They were looked at as part ofsome other sector.
And so I think Esri started toreally realize that the AECs
were evolving through all thisdigital transformation stuff
that was going on and some ofthe opportunities and the
(12:16):
technology as it's evolving, andthey started to see them as a
potential sector, somebody thatneeded focus and a different
focus, because AECs are soproject-focused right, it's not
like government where we'rerunning a utility for the next
150 years.
So made a number ofconversations, really
interesting stuff back and forth.
Over time it got kind of up anddown and then at the time they
(12:39):
announced the Ezri and Autodeskpartnership and once that
partnership got announced westarted looking at talking a
little bit more seriously aboutwhat Ezri wanted to do with the
partnership, and so we got intoa pretty significant
conversation.
We made some right moves on thehiring.
My boss, kathleen Culey, cameover from Rockwell Engineering
who did a lot of the originalconnectors in ArcGIS or in
(13:02):
AutoCat Well, I should say Civil3D and in Infraworks, and then
we acquired Rockwell and aboutthe same time when Kathleen
became the director, I was allon board because it was really
interesting.
I felt like from an industryperspective I could start to
make a lot of the changes that Iwanted to make, that I had seen
where industry had had problemsover the years and when I was
(13:24):
doing all the digitaltransformation stuff, it kind of
made a lot of sense to get outof the industry as a whole
myself and start to try toinfluence from a data and
technology perspective, and Ithought I'd have more impact for
the next hopefully 15 yearswhen I before I retire.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Very cool, yeah.
What are some of the changesthat you've been able to
influence?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
We started to really push hard on the understanding
and the idea of projects right.
So AEC is project driven, it'scommercial driven, it's profit
driven, it's about winning workand doing work and running their
business, starting to try toelevate the GIS programs.
One thing we noticed about,like the digital transformation
stuff, is that a lot of thecompanies start to panic and
(14:02):
jump on board and start to movedown the direction and they
initially think it's all abouttechnology and then they start
to quickly realize it's reallyabout business transformation
and technology kind of comes asa backstop to that to help it.
Well, gis was kind of gettingleft behind and I see this in
many of the big AECs andsometimes even in the small ones
where they're hiring in thesedigital people.
(14:24):
They're bringing somebody fromAccenture or the Lloyd, they're
doing all this reallyinteresting stuff.
They start hiring datascientists, data engineers and
they start to pull away from thecore engineering applications
and the GIS and the GIS folksare just kind of heads down
making maps and getting billablework done and I think that
we've kind of lost all thatinstitutional knowledge that GIS
(14:45):
has learned, because in a lotof ways GIS in a lot of these
cases is the original digitaltransformation.
We are data driven from thebeginning, right.
We were all about kind ofscaling, we were about being
collaborative and web based.
I think now that BIM has comealong, we're starting to see
that community move from CAD,which to me was kind of the
equivalent of Adobe Illustrator,up to a BIM, a model-driven
(15:08):
process, right to buildsomething, and so now that puts
them kind of on an equal footingin a data-driven approach and
then that aligns us with all theother data-driven things that
are out there, things like yourbilling and your ERP and your
finance and your projectschedules.
So I just see that as a reallyinteresting opportunity to bring
all that together.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Fantastic.
So what are some of the thetools at Esri that are helping
bring those those topicstogether?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Well, obviously, at our core it's the platform.
Right, I say platform, I knowwe don't like to use that
ecosystem, whatever we're kindof calling it today but ArcGIS
online and enterprise, or at ourcore, whether you're on-premise
or whether you're wanting to doa SaaS solution, and then
everything else is really anapplication that hangs off that
center, which is kind of thedata management and the web kind
of component of it.
Things like ArcGIS Pro for theprofessional, even things like
(15:55):
ArcGIS for AutoCAD, or thisArcGIS connector in Civil 3D
that Autodesk has created, turnsthose products into potential
editors, just tools that editgeospatial data, and they can
interact with it.
And then, vice versa, we cannow read that BIM information
over onto our side and then fromthere, I mean, I guess the
biggest thing that we do in AEC,the truly the biggest thing, is
(16:17):
field.
Aecs are about providingservices and businesses.
So if you really look at whatwe have the most of, it's going
to be field data collection,it's going to be our survey one,
two, three applications, fieldmaps, quick capture and now kind
of the whole image and realitystuff is really starting to
change that whole game, right,but that's our focus, right,
it's the, it's the applicationsand then, as you move off of
(16:39):
that, you start to get to well,the ability to make a map and an
app, put it out on the web,combine it with a dashboard, put
it in in JavaScript, make itinto.
We have a lot of our AECcompanies are also our partners,
which is kind of unique insideof Esri.
A good majority of them arepartners and they're creating
solutions where they'reembedding the Geospatial inside
of their applications thatthey're delivering on.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Beautiful.
Thank you so much for thatexplanation.
Here at GeoWeek, I've heard alot about location and the
importance of location and howlocation isn't just XYZ, and I'd
personally love to learn moreabout that.
Yeah, I think we've.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
You know, obviously, there's been a new term that's
pushed out into the market andeveryone's all buzz and are
talking digital twins.
And then they argue over the ofwhat it actually means.
And you know, it's just, really, in all honesty, it's a
marketing term that sets thetrajectory of what we're all are
being going to.
In a lot of ways, when youstart to talk about these things
, location is at the center.
Right, we're standing in aconference room in the Denver
(17:36):
Convention Center, at GeoWeek,in the city, in the county.
We have location.
Everything around us haslocation.
Right, this room, the airtemperature in it, it's
everything has location.
So, when people start talkingabout bringing things together
people and process and buildingthings and sequencing and
staging areas and supply chain,those are all location problems.
(17:59):
Now, is location everything foreveryone of those problems?
Absolutely not.
But location is fundamental tojoining that information
together.
Right, it joins unjoinable data.
So for us, we focus heavy,heavy on the idea of location is
what's important.
Right, we can't do design workin a vacuum.
If you're designing a newbuilding or a bridge, you need
(18:23):
the context of what that bridgeis going to affect, how the
traffic is gonna be controlledwhen you're building it, how the
traffic's gonna flow when we goover it?
Are there any environmentalimpacts that we need to be
worrying about?
You've gotta use location inorder to get to that, to get out
of designing in the vacuumright and for me, that's the
biggest thing that we push forby using location.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And thank you so much for that explanation.
And we're talking about the GISand BIM and how those things
are coming together.
So is location at the centerpoint of that integration.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Absolutely.
It is right when we start totalk about BIM and GIS perfect
example of that right.
We've struggled on the BIM sideof things to make sure that
they're using real-worldcoordinates right.
Just that one little step makesall the difference in the world
.
Because now, if you give methat design in real-world
coordinates, I can give you backwhere the wetlands are, how the
(19:11):
people are moving, I can pullin sensor data, I can start to
join all this information thatcould be critical in design or
to making a more efficient oreffective design in the long run
.
And, as Jack said today onstage, it's really about that
kind of sustainability stuff.
And this goes way beyond carbonright.
It's about people, planet,profit, purpose or, if you
(19:32):
really talk about it, it's thesustainability economics and the
environmental right.
So putting those thingstogether and thinking about them
more broadly, what we do isaffecting our ecosystem and
we're building new ecosystems,and location is at the center of
all that.
It's the only way to bring thatinformation together and to
really think about it.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Fantastic, thank you for that explanation.
So, shifting to GeoWeek you'representing this week.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, I did an initial workshop on Monday.
It was well attended and wetalked a little bit about the.
We ran through kind of theprocess of plan, design and
build from a civil perspective.
We talked about how we need tobe thinking about pulling that
data from the EIS, the EIA, theenvironmental impact assessment
or the environmental impactstatement, and making sure that
(20:16):
it's not just a hand report thatdumps on somebody's desk so
that the regulator can approveit, but there's a lot of data in
there that is needed all theway through to construction.
So we talked about pulling thatthread of data into design so
that design engineers are nolonger moving shape files from
one point to another and we stopplaying this file movement game
and start connecting to eachother's systems record or common
(20:38):
data environments.
And then how we pull all ofthat data forward for the
construction team.
So when they know, hey, wheredo the silt fences need to go?
What do we need to bemonitoring for on traffic?
How do we initially bid on this?
Where do we know where theutilities are?
All that information existed inthe preliminary phases of that
project, so that workshop reallyfocused on that.
In the latter half of it we hada good time.
(20:59):
We actually started asking alot of customer questions and
getting feedback Because we'retrying to understand what are
the true personas in AEC, whoare the people and what are the
jobs that they're actually doingand where would they use GIS to
get those jobs done.
So that's a big part of what wetry to get to with our
customers.
And then, kind of going forward,I've got a presentation, a
panel.
It's the same topic, right,like how do we stop designing in
(21:23):
a vacuum?
How do we start to bringlocation into the picture?
I've got two construction firmsand a member from the OGC Open
Geospatial Standard Committee onthe panel.
I think we've got a goodconversation.
That'll go.
I really like that.
We're beginning to resonate andtalk to more construction people
.
I think that theirunderstanding of what GIS can do
(21:43):
for them is very minimal.
They understand drawings andpaper drawings and shop drawings
and all the stuff that they get, and they're beginning to
understand models and sequencingin 40 and 5D.
But they do location all thetime.
They just don't do it in areally organized way very often,
and so we're beginning to startto have them in more of our
conversations because we'retrying to understand what do
(22:05):
they need?
What are they doing?
And for them it's field, field,field, right.
Yeah, there's a lot around theback office and the pre-bid and
the planning and the financesand that's where a lot of the
white-collar guys make theirliving.
But I mean, it's really aboutthe blue-collar guys.
They're actually building thething right, absolutely, as
you've heard here today.
They're building behind us,right.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, they're adding a new level to the convention
center Incredible, and then wedon't even hear it happening.
Good mic, I'm very impressedwith that, so thank you so much
for that.
In terms of other technologiesor other presentations this week
, what are you most excitedabout or what have you seen that
sparked an?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
interest.
I saw it really interesting.
We continue to see a lot ofback and forth with Ezra and
Autodesk and we're seeing thatat the developer level, deep
down in the bowels of what theydo how they structure file types
and how they're doing 3Dmodeling and open I3S layer.
So we're really beginning tosee that collaboration with
Autodesk grow in a big way andit's really cool to see them
developing together and workingtogether.
(23:03):
Other things I'm interested inthere's obviously a lot of the
vendors.
I personally, if you're outthere, I'm looking to understand
who's doing GPR and who'smapping that data straight away,
instead of creating just lineson the drawing and paint on the
road.
I want to see data coming out ofthat workflow because we could
use it to tighten up bids in thelong run.
And then, for me, I'mconstantly looking for who's
(23:25):
kind of innovating, who'sthinking about things like graph
databases to support thatdigital twin, because everyone
talks about digital twin fromthe nice gaming engine, fancy
picture perspective, but thereal reality of a digital twin
is going to be the graphdatabase, that interconnection
of the data itself, not of theRevit file or the Civil 3D or
the ArcGIS shape file or any ofthose things it's going to be
(23:47):
about the core data that makesup this building, that makes up
the walls, makes up theenvironment and the soils below
us, and how we connect thosethings has often been a hard way
to go and we've done it withnumbering sequences and all
kinds of other things.
I think things like graph arestarting to open up big
opportunities in that space.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Very cool.
Well, Mike, thank you so muchfor joining us.
I'm very excited about yourupcoming panel and I look
forward to meeting you soon.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thanks have a good one.
Hello and welcome to Future Construct.
I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of themDesign Zinc.
We're here at GeoWeek 2023 inDenver, colorado.
I'm joined today by BrianStridham at FX Collaborative.
He's the Digital PracticeManager and Senior Associate
there.
Welcome to the show, thank you.
Thank you for having me.
This is great, fantastic, brian, I'd love to understand you a
little bit about your historyand what brought you to FX
(00:32):
Collaborative.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that's a long story.
I'll try to sum it up.
So, basically, I always lovedsigning things, I always loved
making things and my father wasa mechanic his whole life, so he
loved using his hands, right.
He asked me to help him build ahouse in South Africa and I
went over there and I said allright, I'll stay here, I'll help
you build for three months ifyou pay for my tuition for
(00:54):
Motorcycle Technician School.
He agreed by the time we weredone there in three months, I
turned around and applied forArchitecture Schools and, funny
enough, my cousin is in Seattle.
He also is an architect.
So I felt at that point, okay,I can do this right.
And I went through school, didmy five years and I got a one
class on Revit and I said, oh,this is a game changer.
(01:16):
I never touched AutoCAD againFrom there on out I just worked
from single person firms to like30 people and I just really
loved the technology a littlebit more than the documentation.
And I find an opportunity at FX.
At the time I was at FXCollaborative and from there I
was starting as a digitaltechnology specialist.
(01:37):
I quickly turned that around tobe not need a big manager, this
is a bigger job Within the nextcouple years.
We transferred to digitalpractice so digital practice as
an idea and did so.
I was now the digital practicemanager and from there I just
branched out from BIM and I said, all right, I got the BIM thing
, let's figure out somethingelse.
(01:57):
And I just got sucked into databig data From there on out.
I just loved understanding howdata works between people.
We're a bit of a mid-sized firmabout 120 people, and we do lots
of different types ofarchitecture and that means that
we need to be really nimble, sothat means we have to be very
efficient.
So that made it more importantfor me to try to push data
across the entire office, notjust what I do for them in BIM
(02:19):
QC.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
That's a fantastic history and thank you for
sharing a little bit aboutyourself and both FX
Collaborative.
I understood when you saiddigital practice that that may
have been something that youwere very passionate about and
defined at FX Collaborative.
Can you help give me a littlebit of context behind the
digital practice and what thatbrings to the firm?
Sure?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So we started out with probably a couple people.
Right, we had IT manager.
We now have a CTO, who was justmy director at the time, but
now CTO I'm digital practicemanager, so the three of us kind
of run the game on kind ofdigital practice as of a couple
of years ago.
We also pulled in a couple ofpartners into the fold in
addition to a couple ofchampions, so people that are
(03:01):
actually just working on projectteams, but they also help us
out with other initiatives thatI don't have time to do, or it's
their specialty during orcomputational analysis and
things like that.
So that's kind of our team thatwe were slowly pushing into.
We have three studios.
We're pushing into threestudios and getting people more
educated in technology becausethat's what I love doing.
(03:22):
That's all I ever did,naturally.
I did it in school.
I was 10 years old andeverybody in school, they went
back to school, so I justnaturally would tell people
that's interesting, let's talkabout that.
We get into something and Icarry that with me into my
career, where I really enjoyeducating people and helping
them, because I learned fromthem too and I never got
certified for anything.
I literally took it at oneclass and read it.
(03:43):
I taught myself everything.
So to me that was just reallygreat and I really wanted other
people to appreciate that aswell.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
What's your approach to helping individuals and
groups in a training setting,but also helping them be the
best they can be?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Train the person.
That's it right.
If someone doesn't want tolearn, there's nothing you can
do to help them.
So for me, it's trying to findthe thing about them that
they're going to want to do andreally just push that, push it
hard and get them involved inmore than one thing at a time so
that they can kind of see wherethings are going, rather than
(04:21):
maybe falling back and sayingthat didn't work out and I'm
just not doing anything else.
So I try to kind of push peoplein multiple directions at the
same time.
Whenever I see them eitherstruggling or I see an
opportunity where they took theinitiative to do something, so I
said, oh, I took the initiativeto do something.
Well, let's see, maybe you likethis, because I thought I found
a connection between that forme, so maybe I can work for you.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Very cool, and how have you applied that experience
to FX Collaborative Well?
Speaker 2 (04:46):
I created our first Dynamo Discoveries group that's
what I called it and I've neverused Dynamo before, so I taught
myself a few things and I wantedto basically be more lazy.
So I wanted to automate somestuff that I didn't want to do
and through that I kind ofgained some ideas about
standardizing and being a littlebit faster at things.
(05:06):
So I started pulling people inthat were interested in being
fast, or people that would cometo me and say, hey, is there a
better way to do this?
And then so I just started thegroup.
I pulled in some people and nowthey're doing the things on
their own.
They're creating their ownscripts and doing their own
stuff with Dynamo In addition toBIM leads.
So for me, having someone on theteam who is my eyes and ears
(05:29):
because I have 120 people, 90Revit users it's a lot of
projects I can't be a never seenone so for me to be able to
kind of mentor somebody as a BIMlead and have them understand
what I need and then they teachme what they need and that makes
me a better manager.
So we've definitely supportedand branched out a BIM lead role
on every single project and Ithink that has bled into
(05:52):
sustainability lead in yourproject.
Because our firm is heavy onsustainability on our projects.
That accessibility lead thatwas huge.
I mean having someonespecifically talking about and
looking for accessibility issuesin a project on top of
sustainability, and then someonefor BIM for me I mean I just
love the way that that has justpercolated across.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, that's wonderful.
I'd love to talk a little bitabout sustainability and how
sustainability applies to BIM orwhere the two of those
intersect.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Oh, you're talking about big stuff here.
Let's see, all right, okay, sofor us it's really important to
understand the big picture atthe beginning, right, because
once you've gone to SD, thebuilding is pretty much what
it's bulk is going to be.
So we have a separatesustainability analysis group,
(06:39):
environmental group, and they'vebeen trained on different
analysis tools throughGrasshopper, rhino and all of
that.
So it's like really earlydesign.
Or we also have people just dozoning, they do early, early
design.
So we pull those people in tounderstand how to use those
tools and then that then feedsinto either a consultant or just
(07:00):
even the team itself to helpthem remember and understand the
things that they need to knowfrom that early analysis.
Perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So I understand you'll be presenting here at
GeoWeek.
Would you help us understandthe topic and a few key
takeaways that you'd want youraudience to take away?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Sure.
So the title is digital datadriven digital practice and the
idea behind it is how we as asmaller firm or commit size
small firm, have tried to be asefficient as possible with
getting information from and topeople, and it highlights also
(07:34):
my BIMQC dashboard, which is themost developed portion of our
data driven analysis so far, andfor me, the takeaway there is I
hope the takeaway from that isthat people understand that it's
people first, it's nottechnology first, and as soon as
you understand the people andunderstand what you want to do,
all the other stuff can comeinto place as soon as you have
(07:55):
the resources.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah, that's fantastic, and I love how that
drives back to the keynote, theoriginal kickoff keynote.
Would love to talk about whatyou also observed here at
GeoWeek, what your learningswere and what you'll take back
to FX Collaborative Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Besides there being a million ways to scan something
which I don't personally havevery much experience in, but I
do have a few projects that areusing point clouds and scanned
it in and all that.
So we understand that we couldbe broad, but to see how many
kinds of technologies there are,whether they're walking or
droning or whatever but there'sone in particular that I really
(08:30):
like and I forgot the name.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So yeah, brian, you had mentioned it was Erebus
earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, so this company.
From what I got from theirgreat presentation was that
they're kind of AI driven pointcloud development, so it's a
plug-in for Revit, which for usis huge because that means that
we have less magnets to dealwith, right, the stuff that I'm
doing high maintenance, this nomaintenance, so fantastic, and
the idea of it is that theydon't do the modeling for you,
(08:57):
and we've been interviewing alot of and using a lot of
different companies, because wedo have to have a lot of
existing conditions modelsdeveloped for us, but they're
not really done in a certain waythat we really want as an
architect, so for us to seesomething that makes us go
faster, maybe possibly inmodeling it ourselves.
I think it's huge and I'm reallylooking forward to actually
talking to them more and maybedo a bit of a demo with them.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Very cool.
I'm sure they would appreciatethat.
What do you see as the future?
What do you see next year atGeoWeek?
Maybe that might pop up.
Super trick question.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Robots.
I'm thinking I really want to.
I guess one thing that I reallywould like to see I focus on
micro.
Right, a lot of people herefocus on macro and then other
people just take it to the wallwith it.
I would love to see a bit ofmore bridging on the micro and
macro.
Only because I'm able to talkabout it so much, because I'm
(09:53):
kind of in the dirt doing it,where a lot of other companies
are choosing big top solutionsto make those solutions done.
I kind of want to see a littlebit more melding of that.
Very cool, but everything justseems pretty fantastic here.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Wonderful, yeah, I agree completely.
Well, brian, thank you so muchfor joining us.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, it was great, and goodluck at your presentation.
Thank you, hello and welcome toFuture Construct.
(10:31):
I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of BIMDesigns Incorporated.
We're here at GeoWeek 2023 inDenver, colorado.
I'm here with Micah Kahlo, theAEC technical director at Esri,
yep.
Thank you for having us.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me on,absolutely.
I'd love to hear more aboutyour background, micah, and how
you ended up at Esri.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
It's kind of a windy tale.
I worked in AEC for a long time.
I started out working in GISactually Georgia GIS
Clearinghouse and then startedworking at Bechtel Savannah
Riversite with Bechtel for 8, 10years, something along those
lines, and did a little stint atgovernment to try to do some
GIS stuff.
I realized it was a little bitslow from my liking and went
(11:10):
back to the commercial side withArcadis In Arcadis I spent
almost 20-plus years there,started as a GIS technician,
worked my way up through and inthe end was running
client-facing IT and digitalsolutions for clients and
working on the overall digitaltransformation of Arcadis.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
That's a very impressive career.
And then at Esri, your focus isthe AEC industry.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Yeah, so we had talked at Esri quite a bit and
obviously my original backgroundis GIS.
I was doing a lot of differenttechnology things and at the
time we started having someconversations with Esri about
what their focus was.
Esri had always been obviouslya big part of what we do in AEC,
but it was oftentimesservices-driven.
(11:55):
It was maybe for the waterindustry or for the
transportation industry or localgovernment, which, where Esri
played a big role in the AECs,were kind of not looked at as
AECs.
They were looked at as part ofsome other sector.
And so I think Esri started toreally realize that the AECs
were evolving through all thisdigital transformation stuff
that was going on and some ofthe opportunities and the
(12:16):
technology as it's evolving, andthey started to see them as a
potential sector, somebody thatneeded focus and a different
focus, because AECs are soproject-focused right, it's not
like government where we'rerunning a utility for the next
150 years.
So made a number ofconversations, really
interesting stuff back and forth.
Over time it got kind of up anddown and then at the time they
(12:39):
announced the Ezri and Autodeskpartnership and once that
partnership got announced westarted looking at talking a
little bit more seriously aboutwhat Ezri wanted to do with the
partnership, and so we got intoa pretty significant
conversation.
We made some right moves on thehiring.
My boss, kathleen Culey, cameover from Rockwell Engineering
who did a lot of the originalconnectors in ArcGIS or in
(13:02):
AutoCat Well, I should say Civil3D and in Infraworks, and then
we acquired Rockwell and aboutthe same time when Kathleen
became the director, I was allon board because it was really
interesting.
I felt like from an industryperspective I could start to
make a lot of the changes that Iwanted to make, that I had seen
where industry had had problemsover the years and when I was
(13:24):
doing all the digitaltransformation stuff, it kind of
made a lot of sense to get outof the industry as a whole
myself and start to try toinfluence from a data and
technology perspective, and Ithought I'd have more impact for
the next hopefully 15 yearswhen I before I retire.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Very cool, yeah.
What are some of the changesthat you've been able to
influence?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
We started to really push hard on the understanding
and the idea of projects right.
So AEC is project driven, it'scommercial driven, it's profit
driven, it's about winning workand doing work and running their
business, starting to try toelevate the GIS programs.
One thing we noticed about,like the digital transformation
stuff, is that a lot of thecompanies start to panic and
(14:02):
jump on board and start to movedown the direction and they
initially think it's all abouttechnology and then they start
to quickly realize it's reallyabout business transformation
and technology kind of comes asa backstop to that to help it.
Well, gis was kind of gettingleft behind and I see this in
many of the big AECs andsometimes even in the small ones
where they're hiring in thesedigital people.
(14:24):
They're bringing somebody fromAccenture or the Lloyd, they're
doing all this reallyinteresting stuff.
They start hiring datascientists, data engineers and
they start to pull away from thecore engineering applications
and the GIS and the GIS folksare just kind of heads down
making maps and getting billablework done and I think that
we've kind of lost all thatinstitutional knowledge that GIS
(14:45):
has learned, because in a lotof ways GIS in a lot of these
cases is the original digitaltransformation.
We are data driven from thebeginning, right.
We were all about kind ofscaling, we were about being
collaborative and web based.
I think now that BIM has comealong, we're starting to see
that community move from CAD,which to me was kind of the
equivalent of Adobe Illustrator,up to a BIM, a model-driven
(15:08):
process, right to buildsomething, and so now that puts
them kind of on an equal footingin a data-driven approach and
then that aligns us with all theother data-driven things that
are out there, things like yourbilling and your ERP and your
finance and your projectschedules.
So I just see that as a reallyinteresting opportunity to bring
all that together.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Fantastic.
So what are some of the thetools at Esri that are helping
bring those those topicstogether?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Well, obviously, at our core it's the platform.
Right, I say platform, I knowwe don't like to use that
ecosystem, whatever we're kindof calling it today but ArcGIS
online and enterprise, or at ourcore, whether you're on-premise
or whether you're wanting to doa SaaS solution, and then
everything else is really anapplication that hangs off that
center, which is kind of thedata management and the web kind
of component of it.
Things like ArcGIS Pro for theprofessional, even things like
(15:55):
ArcGIS for AutoCAD, or thisArcGIS connector in Civil 3D
that Autodesk has created, turnsthose products into potential
editors, just tools that editgeospatial data, and they can
interact with it.
And then, vice versa, we cannow read that BIM information
over onto our side and then fromthere, I mean, I guess the
biggest thing that we do in AEC,the truly the biggest thing, is
(16:17):
field.
Aecs are about providingservices and businesses.
So if you really look at whatwe have the most of, it's going
to be field data collection,it's going to be our survey one,
two, three applications, fieldmaps, quick capture and now kind
of the whole image and realitystuff is really starting to
change that whole game, right,but that's our focus, right,
it's the, it's the applicationsand then, as you move off of
(16:39):
that, you start to get to well,the ability to make a map and an
app, put it out on the web,combine it with a dashboard, put
it in in JavaScript, make itinto.
We have a lot of our AECcompanies are also our partners,
which is kind of unique insideof Esri.
A good majority of them arepartners and they're creating
solutions where they'reembedding the Geospatial inside
of their applications thatthey're delivering on.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Beautiful.
Thank you so much for thatexplanation.
Here at GeoWeek, I've heard alot about location and the
importance of location and howlocation isn't just XYZ, and I'd
personally love to learn moreabout that.
Yeah, I think we've.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
You know, obviously, there's been a new term that's
pushed out into the market andeveryone's all buzz and are
talking digital twins.
And then they argue over the ofwhat it actually means.
And you know, it's just, really, in all honesty, it's a
marketing term that sets thetrajectory of what we're all are
being going to.
In a lot of ways, when youstart to talk about these things
, location is at the center.
Right, we're standing in aconference room in the Denver
(17:36):
Convention Center, at GeoWeek,in the city, in the county.
We have location.
Everything around us haslocation.
Right, this room, the airtemperature in it, it's
everything has location.
So, when people start talkingabout bringing things together
people and process and buildingthings and sequencing and
staging areas and supply chain,those are all location problems.
(17:59):
Now, is location everything foreveryone of those problems?
Absolutely not.
But location is fundamental tojoining that information
together.
Right, it joins unjoinable data.
So for us, we focus heavy,heavy on the idea of location is
what's important.
Right, we can't do design workin a vacuum.
If you're designing a newbuilding or a bridge, you need
(18:23):
the context of what that bridgeis going to affect, how the
traffic is gonna be controlledwhen you're building it, how the
traffic's gonna flow when we goover it?
Are there any environmentalimpacts that we need to be
worrying about?
You've gotta use location inorder to get to that, to get out
of designing in the vacuumright and for me, that's the
biggest thing that we push forby using location.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
And thank you so much for that explanation.
And we're talking about the GISand BIM and how those things
are coming together.
So is location at the centerpoint of that integration.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Absolutely.
It is right when we start totalk about BIM and GIS perfect
example of that right.
We've struggled on the BIM sideof things to make sure that
they're using real-worldcoordinates right.
Just that one little step makesall the difference in the world
.
Because now, if you give methat design in real-world
coordinates, I can give you backwhere the wetlands are, how the
(19:11):
people are moving, I can pullin sensor data, I can start to
join all this information thatcould be critical in design or
to making a more efficient oreffective design in the long run
.
And, as Jack said today onstage, it's really about that
kind of sustainability stuff.
And this goes way beyond carbonright.
It's about people, planet,profit, purpose or, if you
(19:32):
really talk about it, it's thesustainability economics and the
environmental right.
So putting those thingstogether and thinking about them
more broadly, what we do isaffecting our ecosystem and
we're building new ecosystems,and location is at the center of
all that.
It's the only way to bring thatinformation together and to
really think about it.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
Fantastic, thank you for that explanation.
So, shifting to GeoWeek you'representing this week.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yeah, I did an initial workshop on Monday.
It was well attended and wetalked a little bit about the.
We ran through kind of theprocess of plan, design and
build from a civil perspective.
We talked about how we need tobe thinking about pulling that
data from the EIS, the EIA, theenvironmental impact assessment
or the environmental impactstatement, and making sure that
(20:16):
it's not just a hand report thatdumps on somebody's desk so
that the regulator can approveit, but there's a lot of data in
there that is needed all theway through to construction.
So we talked about pulling thatthread of data into design so
that design engineers are nolonger moving shape files from
one point to another and we stopplaying this file movement game
and start connecting to eachother's systems record or common
(20:38):
data environments.
And then how we pull all ofthat data forward for the
construction team.
So when they know, hey, wheredo the silt fences need to go?
What do we need to bemonitoring for on traffic?
How do we initially bid on this?
Where do we know where theutilities are?
All that information existed inthe preliminary phases of that
project, so that workshop reallyfocused on that.
In the latter half of it we hada good time.
(20:59):
We actually started asking alot of customer questions and
getting feedback Because we'retrying to understand what are
the true personas in AEC, whoare the people and what are the
jobs that they're actually doingand where would they use GIS to
get those jobs done.
So that's a big part of what wetry to get to with our
customers.
And then, kind of going forward,I've got a presentation, a
panel.
It's the same topic, right,like how do we stop designing in
(21:23):
a vacuum?
How do we start to bringlocation into the picture?
I've got two construction firmsand a member from the OGC Open
Geospatial Standard Committee onthe panel.
I think we've got a goodconversation.
That'll go.
I really like that.
We're beginning to resonate andtalk to more construction people
.
I think that theirunderstanding of what GIS can do
(21:43):
for them is very minimal.
They understand drawings andpaper drawings and shop drawings
and all the stuff that they get, and they're beginning to
understand models and sequencingin 40 and 5D.
But they do location all thetime.
They just don't do it in areally organized way very often,
and so we're beginning to startto have them in more of our
conversations because we'retrying to understand what do
(22:05):
they need?
What are they doing?
And for them it's field, field,field, right.
Yeah, there's a lot around theback office and the pre-bid and
the planning and the financesand that's where a lot of the
white-collar guys make theirliving.
But I mean, it's really aboutthe blue-collar guys.
They're actually building thething right, absolutely, as
you've heard here today.
They're building behind us,right.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, they're adding a new level to the convention
center Incredible, and then wedon't even hear it happening.
Good mic, I'm very impressedwith that, so thank you so much
for that.
In terms of other technologiesor other presentations this week
, what are you most excitedabout or what have you seen that
sparked an?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
interest.
I saw it really interesting.
We continue to see a lot ofback and forth with Ezra and
Autodesk and we're seeing thatat the developer level, deep
down in the bowels of what theydo how they structure file types
and how they're doing 3Dmodeling and open I3S layer.
So we're really beginning tosee that collaboration with
Autodesk grow in a big way andit's really cool to see them
developing together and workingtogether.
(23:03):
Other things I'm interested inthere's obviously a lot of the
vendors.
I personally, if you're outthere, I'm looking to understand
who's doing GPR and who'smapping that data straight away,
instead of creating just lineson the drawing and paint on the
road.
I want to see data coming out ofthat workflow because we could
use it to tighten up bids in thelong run.
And then, for me, I'mconstantly looking for who's
(23:25):
kind of innovating, who'sthinking about things like graph
databases to support thatdigital twin, because everyone
talks about digital twin fromthe nice gaming engine, fancy
picture perspective, but thereal reality of a digital twin
is going to be the graphdatabase, that interconnection
of the data itself, not of theRevit file or the Civil 3D or
the ArcGIS shape file or any ofthose things it's going to be
(23:47):
about the core data that makesup this building, that makes up
the walls, makes up theenvironment and the soils below
us, and how we connect thosethings has often been a hard way
to go and we've done it withnumbering sequences and all
kinds of other things.
I think things like graph arestarting to open up big
opportunities in that space.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Very cool.
Well, Mike, thank you so muchfor joining us.
I'm very excited about yourupcoming panel and I look
forward to meeting you soon.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Thanks have a good one.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.