December 23, 2025 • 65 mins
In this episode of CO Pod, we’re joined by Andrew Neilson and Chris Mahaffey of Infoworks and Jason Sain, Founder of 1 Degree Consulting. Together, they explore how data, technology, and people-first leadership are transforming the construction industry.
The conversation dives into the challenges construction companies face with disconnected data, inconsistent processes, and cultural misalignment—and how live dashboards, scorecards, and clear performance metrics can bring clarity, accountability, and better outcomes. From improving jobsite communication to aligning leadership expectations, this episode highlights why transparency, simplicity, and measurable standards are critical for sustainable growth in construction.
The conversation dives into the challenges construction companies face with disconnected data, inconsistent processes, and cultural misalignment—and how live dashboards, scorecards, and clear performance metrics can bring clarity, accountability, and better outcomes. From improving jobsite communication to aligning leadership expectations, this episode highlights why transparency, simplicity, and measurable standards are critical for sustainable growth in construction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of CEOPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and today I'm joined with a
few more friends than usual. So today we are joined
by Andrew Nielsen, who is a client executive at Infoworks,
Chris Mahaffey hopefully I didn't butcher your last name too much.
(00:23):
He is the director of Analytics and Data Visualization at Infoworks,
and then by Jason Sayin, who is the founder of
One Degree Consulting. All right, that was a mouthful. I
(00:44):
need some water just after saying all of those names.
How are you guys doing.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We're doing great.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome by the means of the Internet to Nashville. Beautiful Nashville, Tennessee.
Here where it's actually raining and it's gross, but typically
it's perfect weather in autumn and place where everybody wants
to be. And I will shameless plug. I met you
(01:13):
and your fearless leader Lou when you came into town
about six weeks ago, and had a great time out
with you downtown in Nashville, and so encouraged by what
you're doing not only with lumber but also with construction
owners and your podcast. So thanks for including us today,
we look forward to an energizing conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Awesome, and I mean it's kind of hard to not
have fun in downtown Nashville, especially when you're with Andrews.
So if y'all have the chance to do that, take
him up on the offer.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Guys, come and see us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yes, awesome. Well, let's just go ahead and start this
off really easy. I'd love if you guys could just
give me a little bit of background on yourselves and
kind of, you know, your journey to get to where
you are. So I'm going to throw this to Jason
first and then we can all just kind of chime
in about ourselves after sure.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Hey, yeah, thank you for having me and honored to
be here. Graduated from Auburn University in ninety nine. Was
a traveling healthcare project manager for a number of years
and over my career believe it or not, coming up
(02:26):
on twenty five, twenty six years, heavy operationally with construction technology,
construction financials, and even risk mitigation, and I founded one
Degree Construction Consulting two years ago where I handle essentially
just that for subcontractors and general contractors all around the Southeast.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Chris Mahaffey kind of similar to Jason. I graduated from
Vanderbilt University, and while there I started working with info
Works under an internship and that led to a twenty
five year career with them. Shortly after starting with them,
I got into O LAP design and architecture and grew
(03:12):
into data solution architecture, eventually branched out into data visualizations
because so many data projects were failing from an adoption perspective.
People were not understanding their data, so no matter how
well you built it and plumbed it, it was still
not resonating. And as I've worked in that space and
(03:34):
brought some of my data management skills to it, We've
had a lot of success and been able to position
people to take better advantage of their information.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Awesome Thanks Chris, and last but not least, Andrew Caroline.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Thank you so much. I am here at Infraworks at
our headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. I came to info Works
by way of Microsoft and Google, where I was there
for ten years scaling cloud sales teams. My background has
been in data, but it has been in geographic information systems,
(04:15):
of which at the University of Georgia I graduated and
thought I was going to go work at National Geographic
in Washington, d C. Little did I know that I
was going to join a country band and tour the
world playing country music for about ten years. So I
had a little bit of a detour, came back to
selling technology and bleeding edge technology solutions for the hyper
(04:40):
scalers meaning Microsoft and Google, and eventually landed at infoworks
over the Pandemic, where I now help position our one
hundred plus employees and work with our great partners across
six different industry verticals, including now construction in which we
work with one Degree in Jason.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Awesome. Well that was like a whole Sparknoes version of
your guys' lives for the past what twenty five years? Awesome. Well,
if you guys haven't heard about one Degree Consulting or
info works yet, let me give you guys a little
bit of background here. So infowork specializes in for the
(05:23):
purpose of this, construction related dashboards that track what matters
most safety, schedule, quality, fees, and customer experience. They also
help companies improve people, processes, performance, and yes profit. Their
solutions measure departmental performance and monitor critical company wide metrics
(05:45):
like overhead buyout, efficiency, workforce processes, and profitability, all in
real time. Infoworks also is a great partner with one
Degree Consulting and one Degree Consulting provides program management services
and fractional COO and CEO consulting services for construction companies. So,
(06:09):
all of my listeners out here, if you need some
consulting services, please reach out to One Degree Consulting. You'll
hear a lot more about what they do today from Jason.
But let's go ahead and start it off. I'm gonna
throw this first question over to Jason and Andrew. I
kind of want to hear a little bit about the
(06:30):
history of infoworks and one degree and kind of how
it has evolved since you guys, or since Jason, at
least since you first founded it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I was.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Get a lot of request from contractors and subcontractors on
how do we measure construction projects? How do we measure
the performance of construction projects? Because every company really thinks
that they do it differently and they have their own unique,
you know, spin, or approach on it. But there's a
lot of fundamental building blocks that that are the same.
(07:06):
And I worked with Andrew on another project prior and
have the opportunity to build a live, interactive scorecard for
a new client in downtown Nashville, did an r f
P and and and Andrew and Chris's firm won it
and we blew the doors off. That did just a
great job. So we were like, hey, I think we
(07:28):
have something here that that the market could really really use. So,
you know, my expertise is the construction and the operational side,
and info Work expertise, which is a lot more than
mine is the data and the individuals you know, writing
the code and they make the vision come true in
(07:49):
a simple, measurable, live way.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, well said I think the reason Jason and I
brought this partnership together essentially has a lot to do
with our history. So our history at info Works as
we were born out of IBM in the late nineties
and so over the past twenty eight years, we've worked
(08:16):
with almost four hundred organizations in and around the Mid
South across healthcare, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and public sector.
And really what we've seen in the past ten years
of just exponential growth in our area is that we're
neglecting the industry of NC, of engineering and construction and
(08:40):
all the great things that Chris Mahaffey who has been
with us. He's a shining example of a consultant within
our ranks that has stayed around for almost the entirety
of that twenty eight years, solving complex projects and being
a subject matter expert in the area of our data science,
(09:02):
strategy and management services. We have four impactful pillars of
service which are management, consulting, technology and strategy, implementation, strategy
and design for product development, and then that final area
that I've I've already mentioned data science, strategy and management.
(09:23):
So when Jason came to us and said, hey, you know,
I have this this operational mindset. I have this fractional
C suite mindset where I understand how the construction leaders
run their businesses. I understand macro and micro themes to
what matters to them, and I really think they're not
(09:46):
being serviced appropriately through connecting their data and business insights
for their data that these these other industries take for granted.
So we just want to bring that same level of
care and that same level of intentionality to servicing this market,
especially as we're growing exponentially and building. You know the bird,
(10:13):
the city bird that I tell my eight year old
and nine year old son is the crane, and so
they know that that city bird in Nashville is the crane.
We're building like crazy, and we want to be able
to service the industry that is just making our city,
turning our city and transforming it into a really big
player in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, and you know, Andrew, you actually brought up a
really good point there where you know, historically a lot
of the construction industry has been disserviced by a lot
of different things, and it is such an important industry
that we're now seeing you know, new companies and new
partnerships like one Degree and Infoworks kind of come out
(10:58):
of that disservice and really come together to be focused
on improving the industry. And I mean, we all know
construction is such a complex industry. You start looking at
the data, you start looking at even payroll, and it's
just complexities out the wazoo. So maybe that could be
(11:19):
part of the you know, disservice that we've been facing
for so long. But at least it's created partnerships like
this that are meant to combat those specific problems exactly right.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I think it's important that there's expertise matched with all
the technology that's now out there that really allows firms
of a certain size general contractors and subs of a
certain size, maybe the mid market, to excel because they
may not have that type of talent in house.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yes, exactly. And you know, Andrew, you kind of talked
a little bit about how infowork serves you know, a
multitude of different industries. So how as you know, your
experience and all of these different sectors kind of informed
your approach to construction.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, I want christa weigh in here too, but experience
across these highly regulated operations heavy sectors directly shape how
we approach construction. Healthcare industry, for instance, there is a
literally a slogan within healthcare and healthcare tech which is,
let's get the doctors and the providers operating at the
(12:32):
top of their license, meaning providing care at the top
of their license. They don't want to be in a computer,
they don't want to have to be following the disparate
or the non connected data around. They want to have
focus on their patients and they want to cure or
care for them, right, So all of the admin tasks
(12:55):
get in the way of that, and so we bring
a little bit of that understand into every industry we
go to. Whereas there's a problem, we lead with the
foundational tenets of data architecture and just making sure the
data is connected in what's called democratized. It's available for everybody,
it's good for everybody. Then we frame up with KPI scorecards.
(13:19):
These are key performance indicators, project management rigor change management
rigor how are we going to do this if we're
changing right? And this all leads to construction specific dashboards
that drive the outcomes that are needed for everybody in
the organization to work at the top of that license
to do what they really want to do in their day.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I love that, Chris. Do you have anything to add
in there as well?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, And it's less about the verticals of the different
lines of business, which does impact things because you find
and I say this as someone who's worked across a
number through my career, find the ability to carry over
that knowledge to other areas. But really I was thinking
more along the lines of we have we span a
(14:10):
swath of client sizes. We work with fortune and fifty
to companies with five people, right, And the reality is
is because of that we bring that enterprise experience and
planning mindset with us to even our smaller clients. Jason
(14:31):
can attest to this one. We were recently working on
a lot of my initial questions to them and getting
them kind of situated was around, Okay, I know you
need this today, but are you where you're going to
need to do this and this and this or that's
going to impact this workflow, et cetera. And it was
stuff we weren't even directly responsible for, but because of
our experience, we knew, hey, if we're going to set
(14:53):
you up for success, we need you. You know, we're
going to help you get positioned, even if it's not
something you're asking to do directly. So I think when
you talk about what do we bring to construction, we
bring all of that experience, whether it's different size clients,
the different industries, and you know, especially Nashville, you know,
(15:14):
being based here, we do a lot of healthcare, and
as highly regulated as that is, it's so stringent we
can work in these other models pretty easily and adapt.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, and you know, kind of on the you know
the other hand of that, you know, with one degree, Jason,
you guys are focusing solely on construction So, you know,
how has that kind of approach of really you know,
focusing on one industry and really just deep diving there.
How has that, you know, approach been working for you
guys at One Degree. What have you guys seen kind
(15:47):
of in results wise from just doing that?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, I'd love to share what our mission is, which
is to enhance the lives of those in construction, both
at home and at work. One Degree a day, behind
behind every construction project, behind every brick that's laid, every documentation,
there's a person. Right, there's a high turnover in construction.
(16:13):
Construction is hard. It's not for everybody, but the majority
of the turnover is not because construction hard is hard.
It's because of the culture of the company. You know,
in construction there are projects in downtown Nashville that last
two or three years, right. And look, you can walk
(16:33):
on a project and if you ask somebody's opinion of
the health of that project, it could vary from my
opinion too. If I had a bad weekend and I
come in Monday and I walk that job, I could
have a completely different opinion. And what One Degree and
Info Works are doing now for the industry is able
to provide what I call a recipe for clarity is kindness.
(16:56):
And you know, I have three daughters. My youngest is sixteen.
She's never played football, but she could tell you some
KPIs about a football game just looking at what we
call a scoreboard. And we've developed that for a much
more complicated process on a construction project, and it's really
(17:18):
increases the support, but it also challenges the folks to
have a clear concise recipe for you know, how is
your construction project, how is your construction people, and how
is your construction company? Is it healthy or not? And
with their expertise with many markets and with my expertise
(17:38):
only in one, it's really a team that we can't
wait to This is up just a launching pad for us,
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, And you know I feel that energy, you know,
between you guys as well, and you know what you
guys are trying to do together, and it's really inspiring
to feel that. And also I think think, you know,
what I've really picked up from this, you know, about
your guys' partnership is really you know, you're reducing the
complexity behind these projects and really making it human focused again,
(18:13):
you know. So that's something I really love to see.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, you talk a lot about in your other podcast
episodes around just tak taking care of construction industry workers, right,
I do think that I don't want to get into
automation taking over jobs or anything like that. I just
I've always thought, we've always thought at info Works that
there's technology for good, that there's data for good, but
(18:41):
it has to be wrapped around, it has to be
in the context of really understanding the industry. So we
couldn't do that without Jason being that kind of keystone
for us, really speaking the language and knowing what matters
on job sites, in the boardroom with the operations folks,
with the project managers, and on the software technology platforms themselves,
(19:08):
so that we can bring the same thing we bring
to the enterprise down to the general contractor and sub level.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, and that's really what it's all about, you know,
That's why we're doing any of this. I know, for
me personally, it's it's really about making everyone's lives easier.
This is a hard job, this is a hard world
that we live in. Let's all work together, you know,
pick up where each other lack, you know, support each
other and what we do well to you know, not
(19:39):
only make their jobs easier, but their lives.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I just need to add this. My personal goal is
it's hard to make construction easier, but I do want
to make it simpler. And I really want the individuals
to give one hundred percent at home and one hundred
percent at work. I don't believe in this fifty to
fifty year. I know that my wife is one hundred
percent of me in my well, I am my in
(20:02):
boss now, but white people expect one hundred percent of me, right, So,
you know, providing a measurable way to where people know
how they're doing for some reason is is a foreign
concept in construction, but a lot of other industries have that.
A lot of other industries have that. So we're proud
(20:25):
to help not only construction companies, but the people that
you know do the hard work as well.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, you know, and this this also kind of trickles
down into company culture as well. You know, in the
company culture that you guys are building at one degree
and at info works, you know, not only just to
mirror that with what you're doing with your clients, but
also your internal teams as well, you know, and both
of you guys, you know, you emphasize being people first.
(20:57):
But you know, how does this culture also translate into
client success and project delivery? I think that question, cou
could go to any three of you guys, if you
guys want to take a stop at it, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I am happy to so. Uh. Typically in our contracts
as a GC or a subcontractor, there's typically very clear
language on what success looks like as far as time schedule,
what risk are there. But what what doesn't get translated is,
you know, how do those carry over to the actual
(21:31):
individuals on the job site every day? So you know,
what what we're able to do is just make sure
that that that information uh is passed along and all
that data lives in a software on somebody's computer, whether
or not it is advanced or it's you know, Microsoft Excel,
(21:55):
and and oftentimes the leadership of the company, from the
project manager or the superintendent, something will happen. It's it's construction,
and the question is how did we get here or
how did we not see this coming? And look, not
every situation is black and white, but I'll tell you
nine out of ten times, UH, the data or the
(22:18):
documentation was there or it was lacking, and no what
it just has the time to investigate in there, so
working with the leadership of the team and really getting
them to define how they define a successful project, a
successful person, and then putting that into a simple, measurable, live,
(22:39):
interactive scorecard, and then and then giving them access to that.
Just like when you're watching a football game during the
entire course of the game, I can log on my
phone and see KPIs during the course of the game.
It's it's it's we want to make it that simple.
The airline agency has mastered disc, the sports industry has
(22:59):
mastered this, healthcare has mastered this. I mean I can
drive down I sixty five and see the weight time
in an er.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Right, Jason nailed it because we often talk about it
from a tactical or technical side of developing a culture
of analytics with the stakeholders, right and to Jason's point,
clearly defining what it is we want to measure, you know,
how we measure it, what success and then giving that
visibility to the people who are boots on the ground. Right.
(23:30):
And we often also talk about making your data accessible.
You want people to have access and see it. If
you've got to sort away in some database or on
someone in Excel on someone's machine somewhere. It's not doing
it's not giving you your full value. It may still
be doing some good, but the reality is you're not
getting all the value you could be. And so yeah,
(23:51):
it just it comes back to that, Let's let's make
it our data actionable. Let's get the insights we need
from it right And to Jason's point too, when you
talk about dashboards or scorecards and stuff, you know, we're
trying to make it so that people glean easily glean
the insights that they want and need right away. We
(24:11):
don't we don't need to make something convoluted where you
need a PhD In mathematics to understand it. We want
it to be clear, concise if you need you know,
we also want to make it self service. If you
need to dig into this doesn't look right or what's
going on here, you have it at your fingertips. You
can go do it. You're not left asking someone else.
So that all goes into our approach for positioning people
(24:34):
with their their data visualization and storytelling journey.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Chris, I think I have a new term for making
all that data easy to read, Caroline proof and you know,
I think what you guys are talking about. It also
probably helps And Jason, I'm sure you've seen this a
million times. Probably helps with the communication from the field
to the back office. Well, there's so much miscommunication from
(25:05):
field to back office that this is probably like striking gold.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, and I can tell you I have seen it
also benefit when I was actually building buildings, we were
showing our clients in presentation how we measured ourselves. It
was a launching pad. We didn't even hardly need a
business development person because once you start measuring right and
(25:36):
then you show your results, even when they're not so good,
there's just vulnerability in the world is seeing wow, these
you know, this firm really is wanting to improve and
actually sharing their results. It was a launching pad for
our people and our business.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, the vulnerability and transparency was so far, so far,
you know. And kind of just keeping on this topic here,
you know, what are some guiding principles that you guys
kind of you know, keep in mind as you navigate
complex technology projects and client relationships.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Guiding principles are quality in your data, knowing that there
is a lot of legwork to do, no matter if
you have pro core acumatica lumber say whatever it is, right,
you are not just connecting, You're not just building dashboards
(26:39):
for these key performance indicators, right, you are connecting platforms
and people. And that is eighty percent of the time
I think Chris will tell you maybe even less than
twenty percent of the time is actually building these glowing,
blingy you know, dashboards and things that you'll actually view
(26:59):
right to run your business or to run your project.
It's all of the plumbing and getting everything together and
making sure that it's quality from all of these disparate
points of where the data is coming from to then
make sure that that is giving you the right reliable
data insights that you need to run your business.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Definitely, and I kind of, you know, I want to
jump in a little bit more and talk a little
bit more about the construction industry and kind of you know,
your guys's solutions here with dashboards and everything. So just
kind of to kick that off, Andrew, you know, what
are some of the industry pain points? And you know, Jason,
I'd love for you to jump in here as well,
(27:42):
but you know what are some of these pain points
that you guys and your partnership solves.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, I'll be real quick and I want Jason to
kind of double click into this. It's safety, it's schedule,
it's quality, and then getting all of that into a
single version of the truth.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, you know in in construction, you know there is
a high turnover. There are projects in downtown Nashville that
are on their fourth and fifth p M. And superintendent
right and and as a client and even a subcontractor,
if if if, if the general contractor has a revolving
door of people, it affects the culture on the job, right,
(28:22):
and it affects so many things. But oh, the progress,
the schedule, you have, the safety. But I'll tell you
companies that have what I call s o p S
standard operating procedures or core processes, if they have a
playbook for how they define success, it's still not good
(28:46):
if people r leave, but the you can reduce a
lot of the catastrophe right afterwards if you have a well, hey,
this is how we handle submittals, r f I S,
change orders, UH contracts, OAC meetings, scheduling meetings to where
(29:06):
it can be somewhat of a plug and play. But
that's an inherent problem that a lot of these companies
do not have They don't have standards in place. And
if you have some people that come from other companies
right right, they have their own way of defining success,
but it may not align exactly with with yours. So
(29:28):
that's definitely top of the scorecard. Live data will shine
a light on the lack of consistency and processes. But
the good side of that is once you do that,
now you know and you can't unsee that, right buy out,
(29:51):
you know, or spending contingency and and and you know
how much contingency is being spent on a monthly basis
or by an individual is such a good factor that
all construction companies internally measure. But once you put it
on a P and L sheet and you actually track
it and measure it, you'd be amazed at you know
(30:14):
where they say what what? What you measure matters?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yes, you know what? And Jason, that's actually so funny.
You actually kind of took the next question out of
my mouth. You know, why is it even important for
construction companies to track its performance through a scorecard or
a dashboard? You know, we've talked about it being you know, easier,
more readable.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Why else, because inherently when your leader, when your boss,
when you go to a job site. Look, if I
had a rough night the night before, I may view
your project differently. If I only give you an annual
review once a year, right, Right, it's just not fair.
I'm going to remember things that you have done or
(31:02):
haven't done, maybe over a four to six week period. Right.
We tend to also remember. I know that I tend
to remember not quite the story that happened right four
or five months ago, or even nine months ago. So
(31:22):
it also sets the expectations for the people that I
lead during the course of the year. This is how
we will grade you. This is how we create a project.
And lastly, I'll say construction is very competitive, right, right,
And on projects where there's an interview process and the
(31:43):
client wants to choose the best contractor, Look, I'm going
to go in there and try to convince him to
hire us, But it's really just based upon my own opinion,
which is very biased. Right. If I were to show
years of data how I have improved the safety on
my project, and not just from me, but even from
(32:05):
a third party safety auditor, right, it just validates, right,
and it shows proof, it shows documentation, It shows a
vulnerability of Hey, this is where we started and this
is where we are now.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It's the transparency. It's that open communication that's so important.
It really is awesome. All right, let's talk a little bit,
you know about in the industry, we talk about data
being so important, having you know, that open visibility to
the data, you know, really to be able to make
(32:40):
all the decisions. So, Chris, I do want to throw
a question at you here. I've seen you be waiting
so patiently over there. So Chris, how do you approach
data stream? How do you approach data strategy and analytics
to help construction companies make better operation decisions? This can
(33:02):
kind of get thrown at Jason as well, but kind
of really want to talk about how you guys work
together in that.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, and I'll take again from the technical or tactical
side and say, you know, first of all, every situation
is going to be unique. There's you know, different levels
of maturity, but even within the same tiers of maturity,
you've got much different positions and situations. You know, first
and foremost you need to understand how is this organization,
(33:31):
what you know? What is the maturity? Right? How much
data are they collecting what do they have, you know,
are they running their organization off Excel spreadsheets and an
access database or do they have pro core and other
enterprise type tools that you can pick up and leverage. Right,
And it comes back to some things Andrew was touching
(33:51):
on earlier too, which is once you understand what their
maturity is, how trustworthy is their data? Right before we
even start jumping to try and do any kind of visualization, scorecards, storytelling.
Can we trust what we're working with?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
And I know we've probably dropped the term internal plumbing
multiple times. That's something we'd actually said for years and
years and years. And one of the reasons we say
that is because no one's really worried about their plumbing
for the most part, until it doesn't work right, and
then it's the most important thing. And so the reality
(34:29):
is is we spend a lot of time focused on
getting that internal plumbing set up so that you can
report on it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Let me throw it to you first, Jason, So, how
do you approach data strategy and analytics to help construction
companies make better operational decisions?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah? It it really all aligns with that construction company
or that subcontractors expectations on job site. Oftentimes I'll take
a subcontractor the owner of a cabinet company or a
(35:10):
site work company at one time was very good at
operating equipment or building cabinets, and before they know what,
they've got millions of dollars of revenue and twenty to
thirty employees and they have a business to run. They're
not building cabinets anymore or doing site work. They're trying
to run a business. So oftentimes I'll just ask the
(35:30):
leadership of the business, what are your expectations on this
scope of work or contracts or how to handle change orders,
submittals or ordering materials, And I will write that down
as they're talking, and then I'll ask them, all right, now,
I'm going to go ask your employees what their expectation
(35:52):
is of what their perception is that your expectation is.
And ten times out of ten times so those just
don't align, just don't align. There'll be some similarities, but
but but they just don't align. And you know when
the owner when something happens and you know they're upset
(36:14):
and how did we get here? And how did I
let this happen? You know, there's not clear expectations. So
that's where s ops can come in, come in, you know, handy,
but just trying to write down on a piece of
paper and then have a live, interactive scorecard, uh, to
(36:34):
give that person literally a score you know on the
on the scorecards that we've done, there's seven or eight
There could be more, but normally there's seven or eight
attributes of a healthy project, you know, financial schedule, Uh, safety,
there's there's a number of them. But adding all those
(36:57):
up and giving a total score has been has been
really helpful. And then you would not believe the how
difficult it is just to get someone to agree upon
a definition, uh, because it the the it they wanted
(37:18):
to change and and it's and it's difficult when a
definition of something just continues to change, so it can
change or can improve over time. But uh, there are
stats out there on Major League baseball players, right, football players,
(37:38):
and there are stats out there on Delta airlines. But
they all have the same thing that we have to
deal with. It's labor, it's weather, it's materials, right, it's people.
All of our decisions would be so much better if
we didn't have to deal with people, right, Right, So
every industry really has the same construs, ranks, and issues,
(38:02):
and just if you can find a way to measure
them in a clear, clear, consistent manner to give the
people on the other side of our leadership visibility. It
seems like a magic trick, but it's but it's really not.
(38:25):
And I'll tell you once that is done. What I
have found is those companies they just inherently their revenues
go up, their their retention goes up or down depending
upon how you look at it. Even the subcontractors have
a better experience with the general contractors that that do
that their clients do.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, I love that. I kind of I want to
throw that to Chris too as kind of you know,
a technical answer there to get really both sides. But Chris,
how do you approach the data strategy and analytics to
help construction companies make those better operational decisions? We've heard
it from the construction POV. Now I want the data
(39:10):
analyst POV.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah. I think it all starts with understanding the maturity
of the organization when it comes to their data. And
even within the different tiers of their maturity, you can
have you know, varying positions or complexities, And the reality
is is, you know, this is all a part of
trying to position everyone to do what they're best at
(39:34):
and to be successful. Right. So, you know, there's some
of the things that are going to be complex that
we want to be handling in the back end and
in the internal plumbing, as you hear us commonly refer
to it. And once we've got that there, we want
to understand, you know, what is the level of data
quality you have? Right? Is this data trustworthy? Because we
(39:56):
don't need to start trying to give visibility and transparency
things that we can't trust are correct. Right, We're going
to be shining a spotlight, but we want to know
that the conclusions we're making are correct conclusions, right, you know,
good or bad? Right, And so you know, once we've
got that and we're sure of that from a strategy perspective,
(40:17):
we'll move into you know, making things visible and accessible
to everyone. And then from that point you start launching
off into your you know, more advanced areas, uh that
you know, for mature organizations and start looking at things
like AI or machine learning or things like that. But
the realities is, you know, even even at times when
(40:39):
people try to tell you can run.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Before you crawl.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
You really do need you've got to set that foundation.
And so uh that and as we've been doing a
lot more in the construction industry, that's what we're seeing.
We're seeing a lot of varying degrees of maturity. And uh,
you know organizations that might be some might be run
their business off Excel and access. Others got enterprise level tools,
(41:05):
things like pro Core, et cetera. And they're much better
positioned from a data perspective to jump in and start
doing some of those more advanced steps. The other ones
can still do it. They've just got to position themselves
a little to get into some more scalable architecture.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Definitely, definitely. And Chris, you know, I have to ask this,
what role does AI have in all of this? How
the hell can we automate some of this?
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Well, evidently that's like a trillion dollar question these days,
And the reality is there's so many different ways you
can approach that and answer that. I mean, we all
probably find ways that we're using it individually, whether it's
in our own workflows, our work career, professional, home lives,
what have you. I think when we shine a light
(41:56):
more into how does that fit into your data strategy.
I think that's where you start looking at things like,
what are some maybe some quick wins where we can
do some like natural language querying type stuff, Whether we
can build some like quick start stuff that helps, you know,
start the bid process a lot quicker and give us
more reliability and more insight, et cetera. There, you know,
(42:20):
once you get a little more advanced and can maybe
start bringing in external sources that you don't have naturally
in your data, then you can start getting some really
neat and exciting things with some of the machine learning
and developing your own models that might go around things
like the predictive nature of some of your bids or
(42:41):
things you need to account for and some of your
projects right taking into account the weather patterns and other
things that might not be built into your plan naturally.
But again, it all kind of comes back to there's
a million opportunities. You've got to position yourself so you
can even start entertaining some of them.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yes, yeah, you know set up. I mean it's so cheesy,
but the foundation is so important in construction for your tech,
for your data, you also need that strong foundation. So
that was my dad joke of the day. You all
are very welcome for that.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You know, Caroline as a contractor. The hardest way to
learn that is if you're sitting across from an attorney
and the attorney starts asking you questions about, well, hey,
you know, when was this approved or when was this
not approved? And when did you order this? Why did
you make this decision? And the person that made it
(43:38):
is no longer with the company, and you're having to
go back and look at emails and text and that's
that's no way. It's a very expensive way. So you
only have to do that a couple of times to
realize I need a term I have learned is clean
data and actually defining clean data, you know, and the
(44:01):
enterprise level construction programs have done a great job of that,
where it's the status is you know, approved or revise
and resubmit or rejected or uh the statuses are how
I have found uh in defining those statuses where you're
you're people are logging in, you know, in the correct status.
(44:23):
Just like the airline agency has statuses right stand by
and baseball has the batter's box and you're on deck.
I guess the same principles is just defining, Ah, where
you are and you know who's uh all the court is.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In exactly I'm sensing, Jason, either you want to go
traveling or you want.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
To go to a ball game.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
There's so many similarities. And construction is inherently, you know,
years behind every other industry. They just is.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, and you know we're talking about you know, all
of these amazing dashboards and views that you can give
to your customers. And you know, this is all amazing
in theory, of course, what isn't. But now I really
want to hear from you guys how this is actually
playing out in real life, you know, the real you know,
effects of your guys's partnership. So, Jason and Chris, can
(45:23):
you guys share either you know, an example or a
case study where you guys have helped a construction company
transformance operations through this data and technology.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, I'll tell you the project that we just
finished a local contractor in downtown Nashville. I think they're
going on seventy five years of age. The CEO had
a vision of building a dashboard or scorecard, had actually
written it on a piece of paper like a like
(45:57):
a vision of his had been he had been wanting
to figure out how to do it for about three years.
We did it in like six weeks, so it and
he's not the only one that that has that vision
of how do I put all this data in multiple
softwares in into one scorecard and even at the end
(46:22):
of a project, compare how we estimated it to how
we actually, you know, built the job, and there's so
many lessons learned. Uh and he recognized that. But look,
clients come first and employees come first, and you're running
a business and you're like, I don't, I don't. They
don't have an overhead position that strictly handles data. You know,
how do we how do we do this? So that's where,
(46:46):
quite frankly, uh I didn't have the expertise. Info Works
had the expertise, and it was specifically Chris and Andrew
who came in and asked the right questions and started
digging on on their data and you know, si weeks
later there was this really good looking scorecard that's going
to help their people and the company. And I would
(47:07):
argue their clients are going to demand more of them.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, Chris, I'd love to hear about that experience from you.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I mean it was fantastic and it was you know,
it was really great working with Jason on that the realities.
He made everything so easy. And what was probably one
of the most telling things to me about the engagement
because you asked about how it impacts the company, is
you know, we're going through the process of collaborating with them,
(47:36):
digging into where they want to get information, things like that,
and it's all the non technical stuff that you can
really see the impact and how it resonates. Right, we
go to define something and as Jason pointed out earlier,
everyone's got their own thoughts. Once you finally get them
in a room, say hey, we're putting something on the screen.
These number of people are going to be seeing and
(47:57):
that's how we're going to measure things. Then you start
getting kind of you started getting everyone on the same
page and here's what we're going to do. And we
saw too as we were doing that. You know, we
would work with the key stakeholders that were tasked with
giving us access doing things, et cetera, and we'd bring
things to them. All of a sudden they start realizing, oh,
(48:19):
there's some things we might need to do to improve
this process. Oh there's some other things over here, or
maybe it's not as clear, or you know, had people asking,
hold it, where did that come from? And you mentioned, oh,
that's pulled up from this is what we're doing this
and that system insto this and and the reality was
is it was less about the scorecard and more about
(48:40):
helping them improve their workflow and their business operations. The
scorecard was giving a spotlight.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah, definitely eliminating the redundancy. Is that what you're going
to say, Jason, Oh, yeah, one hundred percent. And you
know sometimes even you know, finding a solution for one
problem brings up ten other ones. But it's like they
wouldn't have been able to find those ten other ones,
and that would have all still been a mystery, you know,
(49:09):
if we hadn't had that same visibility that we do now.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
Yeah, I will tell you in my experience, there's nothing
typical about this. But typically when a firm launches this
initiative and a scorecard and they begin to measure what
I say, inside their own four walls, right, not only
their people and their culture and the accountability will rise,
(49:37):
but typically their net profits will increase around one percent
just just by improving their own workflows, their own processes.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
You don't even have to go.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Get more work, just becoming more efficient, right, and you'd
be amazed. I was with a firm where we grew
from fifty million to five hundred million, right, And overhead
grows and people grow and people have new ideas, but
they're it is a little bit more difficult to control
(50:11):
right at that side. So having processes in place and procedures,
and you know, I've been involved in projects that are
upwards of two hundred and fifty million dollars and three
years long, so you really have to have some stringent
processes and procedures in order to have what I say,
(50:32):
reliable data so I can make reliable promises.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Definitely, And you know, I think it's it's just so
important for now and also for you know, thinking of
the future of the industry too. You know, as you said,
you know, our industry is notoriously ten fifteen years behind
every other industry, so you know, we're finally catching up
on the technology, on the AI, on all of that.
(50:55):
And Andrew, I kind of want to look to you
here and say, you know, what does this partnership, you know,
kind of what's it going to evolve to with all
the different technologies, all the different things happening in construction
right now, kind of where do you see this partnership
going to help best serve your clients.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, I think history repeats itself a bit, and it
seems very similar to about fifteen years ago in cloud
computing technology, where we saw digital transformation really proliferate or
spread across the industry. And all that means is it's
the confluence of people, process and technology coming together to
transform your business into something you never thought possible. Operational efficiency,
(51:41):
happier people, happier clients. That's what digital transformation is supposed
to be. And so as you think about intentionality in
what you provide for E and C engineering and construction,
you want to bring that same intentionality of digital transformation
that you brought over from other industries into this industry
(52:03):
and say, Okay, it's about your people, it's about your
process and your workflows. That that then you start to
discovering how to be more efficient and how to make
better And it's the technology and the data that weaves
together to really transform your business. And so that's where
it goes. But it starts small and you can't do that.
(52:24):
You can't skip a wrung in the ladder. You have
to go one ladder and one piece of scaffolding by
one piece of scaffolding. That's and yeah, and to your point,
that's how you do it. All. It is history repeating itself.
It's digital transformation, but it's digital transformation in the way
that you know will actually be adopted and we'll stick.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Well, I mean adoptions. You know, a whole another issue here,
you know, we have I think the industry is very split.
You know, we have the people who are very technology forward,
who really see the value in this, and then you know,
there's still a lot of people out there and you
know technology might not be their thing. You know, they've
done it for X amount of years this way and
(53:08):
why do I need to change? So, you know, maybe
I'll throw this one at you, Jason. You know, how
do we deal with you know, those owners, you know
those executives that you know, change and technology is just
not their jam.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
And it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to
be to have a successful construction project. But I will
tell you that I think ten out of ten people
want to know, what are your expectations of me? You know,
I keep saying clarity is kindness. Right, So once once
(53:43):
I show them, Hey, if you don't want to use
this technology or to your benefit, that's fine, that's your choice.
But this is how we as a company, or this
is how we as a as a group have to
find success, which is these seven or eight attributes. And
I will tell you that once that gauge starts to
(54:06):
you know, turn yellow or even turn red or go
out of green. Uh, people tend to what I say.
We want to motivate the right behavior.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
So on a construction project, you know, if the window
is leaking, Uh, but if I have a piece of
rubber base that is not glued on the wall, I
want to tend to the window that's leaking and not
the rubber base. Right. It's so priorities and communicating what
is more important. No matter if you have don't like
(54:39):
technology or not. Everybody wants to know, you know, are
you for you Caroline?
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Or you for me?
Speaker 3 (54:46):
And in order for me to figure out if you
are for me, you know, are you clear on your expectations? Uh?
You know, certainly if you're my leader, i'd.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Hope so awesome, Well, great job guys, I think you know,
I really want to end it out here with probably
the toughest question I'm going to give you guys today,
and also for any of my viewers, any of my listeners,
if there's anything you should take from this podcast, you
should record these next five minutes here. So, guys, for
(55:23):
construction owners looking to improve their business and operational efficiency,
what are three practical steps or advice other than calling
one degree in infoworks that they should do? Toughest but
most important? So, Chris, why don't I throw this to
you to be our first little victim here for this question?
Speaker 4 (55:46):
Oh wow, I'm going to bring it back to something
that was discussed earlier is as a generalization, the construction
industry is a bit behind and where some other lines
of businesses are when it comes to embracing some of
the technologies and their data. I think given that that's
(56:08):
that's something that's going to happen today, right is understanding
the value you have there. There's so many other industries
that have a service but are also now data organizations
like their data. The value of their data is such
a commodity that they don't even just view themselves as
(56:30):
providing the service that they provide they view themselves as
a data or company, right, and I think you're going
to find that that's going to be something that starts
bleeding in as well, and that those who embrace it
will be the ones who you know, take off and
are able to navigate the new the new order of
(56:50):
things as we integrate the AI and machine learning into
our companies and how we do business. So anyway, I'll
give you that one and let Andrew jump on one.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
Oh great, we should end with Jason on this.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Three practical steps and great question for Infoworks because we
are the firm that comes with practical solutions. That literally
is our tagline. So in terms of practical solutions for
construction owners looking to improve business and operational efficiency, you know,
(57:35):
I think what is one percent top line revenue or
one percent additional margin worth to you? And I will
say fortune favors the bold. Typically right now, your competitors
are not doing this, and now more than ever, it's
(57:59):
more easy, more simple, and faster to do it today
than any other time in history. Just need some good help.
So I would say, understand the opportunity in front of you,
be bold, don't wait, sit on your hands and get
yourself some expertise, you know.
Speaker 1 (58:21):
Honestly, Andrew, for a minute there, I thought you were
going to say, step one, call info works. Step two
call info Works, call infoworks.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I'll save that for the next one when we dive
into the next round.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
All right, Jason, let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yeah, I do want to everybody to hear that our
goal is to consult our way out of consulting. We
understand that. Yeah, we won't be your partner forever, but
but that is our goal as a as a partner.
But here's three things that I would tell you if
you don't if you don't hear anything else. There's so
(59:00):
many items that you measure on a daily basis. You're
financing recipes. Even this podcast, we're over about fifty six seconds, right,
it was supposed to be an hour long. Fuel time
you measure everything, right, Survey your people and ask them
to define how the company measures, the project, the person,
(59:24):
and the company. Those are your three things, the project,
the person which is themselves, and the company and ask
them to literally define it. And if everybody's answers align
with yours, you don't need us. If every if you
can measure those attributes for the project, the person and
the company. You know, you don't need us, and if
(59:48):
the answers are different and you can't measure them, give
us a call.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
I love that. And this has been an amazing episode,
you know. Kind of before we sign off here, I
do want to give you guys, you know, a little
bit of time here to get some last comments in.
You know, Andrew can sit here and tell you guys
to call infoworks three times over and over again.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
If you do that, it's like like rubbing the Genie bottle.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I mean, I am putting all the links in the description,
so I could put it down there three times and
we'll see if the magic works.
Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
You who is the Halloween episodes? It's like, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah, So that'll be our tagline here is uh, info works,
info works. Info works awesome. But if you guys want
to just go ahead and go around and give your
last thoughts here, just anything to tie this up here.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
I will add that, uh, what we are proposing here,
it's not snake oil. We're not making this up. This
stuff really really works. It really works. You do have
to be bold. I love what Andrew said, bold to
shine the light on what's not working. But the reality is,
if I want to get better, if I want to
(01:01:08):
get healthier, it starts with me. I've got to make
decisions and have wisdom and vision, but I have to
have courage. And that's the hardest part. Just listening to
this podcast will not make your business better or your
people better. You actually have to have courage and do
something about it. So the way it would work is
you would contact either myself or Andrew. We would come
(01:01:29):
to your office, come do an interview with you and
figure out what system do you use, what processes you use,
what technology, ask a couple questions. We would give you
a proposal that would be a team proposal, even with
the schedule. As soon as we have an agreement in place,
we go. We would be off to the races with
(01:01:49):
your key leadership and begin to improve your projects, your people,
and your company.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Awesome, Andrew, Chris who wants to take it next?
Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
I think Jason did a great job of summarizing it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
The reality is is, you know, while we're not in
the construction industry, a lot of you know specifically what
we do is very relatable to it, right. I mean,
we talked about foundation throughout we do project based solutions.
We you know, we're there to help guide you and
get you what you need. We're happy to be a
(01:02:27):
partner and come back if you need us. You're ready
for round two of something, you're ready to improve upon
something else, et cetera. But you know we're there to
help you go through that in the same way you
they help their clients get to where they need to
be and so. And the reality is, you know, you
just want to position everyone to be successful, do what
they're best at and so and that that's what we're
(01:02:50):
really talking about, and being focused on and not being
afraid to take that step. You know, the courage that
Jason and Andrew had been speaking to. You know, there's
there's a lot of opportunity and it's amazing how much
some of this resonates with the stakeholders. With the you know,
the leadership. You can get everyone on the same page,
(01:03:12):
moving in lockstep, and it just improves your entire organization
and it leads to profitability.
Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
So awesome any last thumbt.
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Well said, no, not at all. These guys have made
it awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I mean, that's why we invited them right to do
the talking for us. Awesome. Well, we are going to
go ahead and put all of the websites and emails
down below for Jason, Andrew and Chris. So if you
guys have any comments, any questions, feel free to reach
(01:03:48):
out to them. But just another huge thank you to
all three of you for being here today. This conversation
was great. I love having you guys here and I
am ready for our next night out in Nashville. When
is it?
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Yeah, it is sooner than later. Yeah. Yeah. At that point,
we can just we can probably send out a promo
to your listeners for a data readiness and scorecard fit session.
Oh yeah, marche one one hour workshop free of charge
on info Workstime.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Well you heard it here first. Awesome and thank you
guys all so much for tuning into today's episode of COPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and I'll see you all next time.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yousssssss
All right, hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of CEOPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and today I'm joined with a
few more friends than usual. So today we are joined
by Andrew Nielsen, who is a client executive at Infoworks,
Chris Mahaffey hopefully I didn't butcher your last name too much.
(00:23):
He is the director of Analytics and Data Visualization at Infoworks,
and then by Jason Sayin, who is the founder of
One Degree Consulting. All right, that was a mouthful. I
(00:44):
need some water just after saying all of those names.
How are you guys doing.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
We're doing great.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Welcome by the means of the Internet to Nashville. Beautiful Nashville, Tennessee.
Here where it's actually raining and it's gross, but typically
it's perfect weather in autumn and place where everybody wants
to be. And I will shameless plug. I met you
(01:13):
and your fearless leader Lou when you came into town
about six weeks ago, and had a great time out
with you downtown in Nashville, and so encouraged by what
you're doing not only with lumber but also with construction
owners and your podcast. So thanks for including us today,
we look forward to an energizing conversation.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Awesome, and I mean it's kind of hard to not
have fun in downtown Nashville, especially when you're with Andrews.
So if y'all have the chance to do that, take
him up on the offer.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Guys, come and see us.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yes, awesome. Well, let's just go ahead and start this
off really easy. I'd love if you guys could just
give me a little bit of background on yourselves and
kind of, you know, your journey to get to where
you are. So I'm going to throw this to Jason
first and then we can all just kind of chime
in about ourselves after sure.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
Hey, yeah, thank you for having me and honored to
be here. Graduated from Auburn University in ninety nine. Was
a traveling healthcare project manager for a number of years
and over my career believe it or not, coming up
(02:26):
on twenty five, twenty six years, heavy operationally with construction technology,
construction financials, and even risk mitigation, and I founded one
Degree Construction Consulting two years ago where I handle essentially
just that for subcontractors and general contractors all around the Southeast.
Speaker 4 (02:49):
Chris Mahaffey kind of similar to Jason. I graduated from
Vanderbilt University, and while there I started working with info
Works under an internship and that led to a twenty
five year career with them. Shortly after starting with them,
I got into O LAP design and architecture and grew
(03:12):
into data solution architecture, eventually branched out into data visualizations
because so many data projects were failing from an adoption perspective.
People were not understanding their data, so no matter how
well you built it and plumbed it, it was still
not resonating. And as I've worked in that space and
(03:34):
brought some of my data management skills to it, We've
had a lot of success and been able to position
people to take better advantage of their information.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Awesome Thanks Chris, and last but not least, Andrew Caroline.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Thank you so much. I am here at Infraworks at
our headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. I came to info Works
by way of Microsoft and Google, where I was there
for ten years scaling cloud sales teams. My background has
been in data, but it has been in geographic information systems,
(04:15):
of which at the University of Georgia I graduated and
thought I was going to go work at National Geographic
in Washington, d C. Little did I know that I
was going to join a country band and tour the
world playing country music for about ten years. So I
had a little bit of a detour, came back to
selling technology and bleeding edge technology solutions for the hyper
(04:40):
scalers meaning Microsoft and Google, and eventually landed at infoworks
over the Pandemic, where I now help position our one
hundred plus employees and work with our great partners across
six different industry verticals, including now construction in which we
work with one Degree in Jason.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Awesome. Well that was like a whole Sparknoes version of
your guys' lives for the past what twenty five years? Awesome. Well,
if you guys haven't heard about one Degree Consulting or
info works yet, let me give you guys a little
bit of background here. So infowork specializes in for the
(05:23):
purpose of this, construction related dashboards that track what matters
most safety, schedule, quality, fees, and customer experience. They also
help companies improve people, processes, performance, and yes profit. Their
solutions measure departmental performance and monitor critical company wide metrics
(05:45):
like overhead buyout, efficiency, workforce processes, and profitability, all in
real time. Infoworks also is a great partner with one
Degree Consulting and one Degree Consulting provides program management services
and fractional COO and CEO consulting services for construction companies. So,
(06:09):
all of my listeners out here, if you need some
consulting services, please reach out to One Degree Consulting. You'll
hear a lot more about what they do today from Jason.
But let's go ahead and start it off. I'm gonna
throw this first question over to Jason and Andrew. I
kind of want to hear a little bit about the
(06:30):
history of infoworks and one degree and kind of how
it has evolved since you guys, or since Jason, at
least since you first founded it.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
I was.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Get a lot of request from contractors and subcontractors on
how do we measure construction projects? How do we measure
the performance of construction projects? Because every company really thinks
that they do it differently and they have their own unique,
you know, spin, or approach on it. But there's a
lot of fundamental building blocks that that are the same.
(07:06):
And I worked with Andrew on another project prior and
have the opportunity to build a live, interactive scorecard for
a new client in downtown Nashville, did an r f
P and and and Andrew and Chris's firm won it
and we blew the doors off. That did just a
great job. So we were like, hey, I think we
(07:28):
have something here that that the market could really really use. So,
you know, my expertise is the construction and the operational side,
and info Work expertise, which is a lot more than
mine is the data and the individuals you know, writing
the code and they make the vision come true in
(07:49):
a simple, measurable, live way.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, well said I think the reason Jason and I
brought this partnership together essentially has a lot to do
with our history. So our history at info Works as
we were born out of IBM in the late nineties
and so over the past twenty eight years, we've worked
(08:16):
with almost four hundred organizations in and around the Mid
South across healthcare, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and public sector.
And really what we've seen in the past ten years
of just exponential growth in our area is that we're
neglecting the industry of NC, of engineering and construction and
(08:40):
all the great things that Chris Mahaffey who has been
with us. He's a shining example of a consultant within
our ranks that has stayed around for almost the entirety
of that twenty eight years, solving complex projects and being
a subject matter expert in the area of our data science,
(09:02):
strategy and management services. We have four impactful pillars of
service which are management, consulting, technology and strategy, implementation, strategy
and design for product development, and then that final area
that I've I've already mentioned data science, strategy and management.
(09:23):
So when Jason came to us and said, hey, you know,
I have this this operational mindset. I have this fractional
C suite mindset where I understand how the construction leaders
run their businesses. I understand macro and micro themes to
what matters to them, and I really think they're not
(09:46):
being serviced appropriately through connecting their data and business insights
for their data that these these other industries take for granted.
So we just want to bring that same level of
care and that same level of intentionality to servicing this market,
especially as we're growing exponentially and building. You know the bird,
(10:13):
the city bird that I tell my eight year old
and nine year old son is the crane, and so
they know that that city bird in Nashville is the crane.
We're building like crazy, and we want to be able
to service the industry that is just making our city,
turning our city and transforming it into a really big
player in the United States.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yeah, and you know, Andrew, you actually brought up a
really good point there where you know, historically a lot
of the construction industry has been disserviced by a lot
of different things, and it is such an important industry
that we're now seeing you know, new companies and new
partnerships like one Degree and Infoworks kind of come out
(10:58):
of that disservice and really come together to be focused
on improving the industry. And I mean, we all know
construction is such a complex industry. You start looking at
the data, you start looking at even payroll, and it's
just complexities out the wazoo. So maybe that could be
(11:19):
part of the you know, disservice that we've been facing
for so long. But at least it's created partnerships like
this that are meant to combat those specific problems exactly right.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
I think it's important that there's expertise matched with all
the technology that's now out there that really allows firms
of a certain size general contractors and subs of a
certain size, maybe the mid market, to excel because they
may not have that type of talent in house.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yes, exactly. And you know, Andrew, you kind of talked
a little bit about how infowork serves you know, a
multitude of different industries. So how as you know, your
experience and all of these different sectors kind of informed
your approach to construction.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, I want christa weigh in here too, but experience
across these highly regulated operations heavy sectors directly shape how
we approach construction. Healthcare industry, for instance, there is a
literally a slogan within healthcare and healthcare tech which is,
let's get the doctors and the providers operating at the
(12:32):
top of their license, meaning providing care at the top
of their license. They don't want to be in a computer,
they don't want to have to be following the disparate
or the non connected data around. They want to have
focus on their patients and they want to cure or
care for them, right, So all of the admin tasks
(12:55):
get in the way of that, and so we bring
a little bit of that understand into every industry we
go to. Whereas there's a problem, we lead with the
foundational tenets of data architecture and just making sure the
data is connected in what's called democratized. It's available for everybody,
it's good for everybody. Then we frame up with KPI scorecards.
(13:19):
These are key performance indicators, project management rigor change management
rigor how are we going to do this if we're
changing right? And this all leads to construction specific dashboards
that drive the outcomes that are needed for everybody in
the organization to work at the top of that license
to do what they really want to do in their day.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I love that, Chris. Do you have anything to add
in there as well?
Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah, And it's less about the verticals of the different
lines of business, which does impact things because you find
and I say this as someone who's worked across a
number through my career, find the ability to carry over
that knowledge to other areas. But really I was thinking
more along the lines of we have we span a
(14:10):
swath of client sizes. We work with fortune and fifty
to companies with five people, right, And the reality is
is because of that we bring that enterprise experience and
planning mindset with us to even our smaller clients. Jason
(14:31):
can attest to this one. We were recently working on
a lot of my initial questions to them and getting
them kind of situated was around, Okay, I know you
need this today, but are you where you're going to
need to do this and this and this or that's
going to impact this workflow, et cetera. And it was
stuff we weren't even directly responsible for, but because of
our experience, we knew, hey, if we're going to set
(14:53):
you up for success, we need you. You know, we're
going to help you get positioned, even if it's not
something you're asking to do directly. So I think when
you talk about what do we bring to construction, we
bring all of that experience, whether it's different size clients,
the different industries, and you know, especially Nashville, you know,
(15:14):
being based here, we do a lot of healthcare, and
as highly regulated as that is, it's so stringent we
can work in these other models pretty easily and adapt.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, and you know, kind of on the you know
the other hand of that, you know, with one degree, Jason,
you guys are focusing solely on construction So, you know,
how has that kind of approach of really you know,
focusing on one industry and really just deep diving there.
How has that, you know, approach been working for you
guys at One Degree. What have you guys seen kind
(15:47):
of in results wise from just doing that?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, I'd love to share what our mission is, which
is to enhance the lives of those in construction, both
at home and at work. One Degree a day, behind
behind every construction project, behind every brick that's laid, every documentation,
there's a person. Right, there's a high turnover in construction.
(16:13):
Construction is hard. It's not for everybody, but the majority
of the turnover is not because construction hard is hard.
It's because of the culture of the company. You know,
in construction there are projects in downtown Nashville that last
two or three years, right. And look, you can walk
(16:33):
on a project and if you ask somebody's opinion of
the health of that project, it could vary from my
opinion too. If I had a bad weekend and I
come in Monday and I walk that job, I could
have a completely different opinion. And what One Degree and
Info Works are doing now for the industry is able
to provide what I call a recipe for clarity is kindness.
(16:56):
And you know, I have three daughters. My youngest is sixteen.
She's never played football, but she could tell you some
KPIs about a football game just looking at what we
call a scoreboard. And we've developed that for a much
more complicated process on a construction project, and it's really
(17:18):
increases the support, but it also challenges the folks to
have a clear concise recipe for you know, how is
your construction project, how is your construction people, and how
is your construction company? Is it healthy or not? And
with their expertise with many markets and with my expertise
(17:38):
only in one, it's really a team that we can't
wait to This is up just a launching pad for us,
you know.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, And you know I feel that energy, you know,
between you guys as well, and you know what you
guys are trying to do together, and it's really inspiring
to feel that. And also I think think, you know,
what I've really picked up from this, you know, about
your guys' partnership is really you know, you're reducing the
complexity behind these projects and really making it human focused again,
(18:13):
you know. So that's something I really love to see.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, you talk a lot about in your other podcast
episodes around just tak taking care of construction industry workers, right,
I do think that I don't want to get into
automation taking over jobs or anything like that. I just
I've always thought, we've always thought at info Works that
there's technology for good, that there's data for good, but
(18:41):
it has to be wrapped around, it has to be
in the context of really understanding the industry. So we
couldn't do that without Jason being that kind of keystone
for us, really speaking the language and knowing what matters
on job sites, in the boardroom with the operations folks,
with the project managers, and on the software technology platforms themselves,
(19:08):
so that we can bring the same thing we bring
to the enterprise down to the general contractor and sub level.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, and that's really what it's all about, you know,
That's why we're doing any of this. I know, for
me personally, it's it's really about making everyone's lives easier.
This is a hard job, this is a hard world
that we live in. Let's all work together, you know,
pick up where each other lack, you know, support each
other and what we do well to you know, not
(19:39):
only make their jobs easier, but their lives.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
I just need to add this. My personal goal is
it's hard to make construction easier, but I do want
to make it simpler. And I really want the individuals
to give one hundred percent at home and one hundred
percent at work. I don't believe in this fifty to
fifty year. I know that my wife is one hundred
percent of me in my well, I am my in
(20:02):
boss now, but white people expect one hundred percent of me, right, So,
you know, providing a measurable way to where people know
how they're doing for some reason is is a foreign
concept in construction, but a lot of other industries have that.
A lot of other industries have that. So we're proud
(20:25):
to help not only construction companies, but the people that
you know do the hard work as well.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, you know, and this this also kind of trickles
down into company culture as well. You know, in the
company culture that you guys are building at one degree
and at info works, you know, not only just to
mirror that with what you're doing with your clients, but
also your internal teams as well, you know, and both
of you guys, you know, you emphasize being people first.
(20:57):
But you know, how does this culture also translate into
client success and project delivery? I think that question, cou
could go to any three of you guys, if you
guys want to take a stop at it, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
I am happy to so. Uh. Typically in our contracts
as a GC or a subcontractor, there's typically very clear
language on what success looks like as far as time schedule,
what risk are there. But what what doesn't get translated is,
you know, how do those carry over to the actual
(21:31):
individuals on the job site every day? So you know,
what what we're able to do is just make sure
that that that information uh is passed along and all
that data lives in a software on somebody's computer, whether
or not it is advanced or it's you know, Microsoft Excel,
(21:55):
and and oftentimes the leadership of the company, from the
project manager or the superintendent, something will happen. It's it's construction,
and the question is how did we get here or
how did we not see this coming? And look, not
every situation is black and white, but I'll tell you
nine out of ten times, UH, the data or the
(22:18):
documentation was there or it was lacking, and no what
it just has the time to investigate in there, so
working with the leadership of the team and really getting
them to define how they define a successful project, a
successful person, and then putting that into a simple, measurable, live,
(22:39):
interactive scorecard, and then and then giving them access to that.
Just like when you're watching a football game during the
entire course of the game, I can log on my
phone and see KPIs during the course of the game.
It's it's it's we want to make it that simple.
The airline agency has mastered disc, the sports industry has
(22:59):
mastered this, healthcare has mastered this. I mean I can
drive down I sixty five and see the weight time
in an er.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
Right, Jason nailed it because we often talk about it
from a tactical or technical side of developing a culture
of analytics with the stakeholders, right and to Jason's point,
clearly defining what it is we want to measure, you know,
how we measure it, what success and then giving that
visibility to the people who are boots on the ground. Right.
(23:30):
And we often also talk about making your data accessible.
You want people to have access and see it. If
you've got to sort away in some database or on
someone in Excel on someone's machine somewhere. It's not doing
it's not giving you your full value. It may still
be doing some good, but the reality is you're not
getting all the value you could be. And so yeah,
(23:51):
it just it comes back to that, Let's let's make
it our data actionable. Let's get the insights we need
from it right And to Jason's point too, when you
talk about dashboards or scorecards and stuff, you know, we're
trying to make it so that people glean easily glean
the insights that they want and need right away. We
(24:11):
don't we don't need to make something convoluted where you
need a PhD In mathematics to understand it. We want
it to be clear, concise if you need you know,
we also want to make it self service. If you
need to dig into this doesn't look right or what's
going on here, you have it at your fingertips. You
can go do it. You're not left asking someone else.
So that all goes into our approach for positioning people
(24:34):
with their their data visualization and storytelling journey.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Chris, I think I have a new term for making
all that data easy to read, Caroline proof and you know,
I think what you guys are talking about. It also
probably helps And Jason, I'm sure you've seen this a
million times. Probably helps with the communication from the field
to the back office. Well, there's so much miscommunication from
(25:05):
field to back office that this is probably like striking gold.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, and I can tell you I have seen it
also benefit when I was actually building buildings, we were
showing our clients in presentation how we measured ourselves. It
was a launching pad. We didn't even hardly need a
business development person because once you start measuring right and
(25:36):
then you show your results, even when they're not so good,
there's just vulnerability in the world is seeing wow, these
you know, this firm really is wanting to improve and
actually sharing their results. It was a launching pad for
our people and our business.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, the vulnerability and transparency was so far, so far,
you know. And kind of just keeping on this topic here,
you know, what are some guiding principles that you guys
kind of you know, keep in mind as you navigate
complex technology projects and client relationships.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Guiding principles are quality in your data, knowing that there
is a lot of legwork to do, no matter if
you have pro core acumatica lumber say whatever it is, right,
you are not just connecting, You're not just building dashboards
(26:39):
for these key performance indicators, right, you are connecting platforms
and people. And that is eighty percent of the time
I think Chris will tell you maybe even less than
twenty percent of the time is actually building these glowing,
blingy you know, dashboards and things that you'll actually view
(26:59):
right to run your business or to run your project.
It's all of the plumbing and getting everything together and
making sure that it's quality from all of these disparate
points of where the data is coming from to then
make sure that that is giving you the right reliable
data insights that you need to run your business.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Definitely, and I kind of, you know, I want to
jump in a little bit more and talk a little
bit more about the construction industry and kind of you know,
your guys's solutions here with dashboards and everything. So just
kind of to kick that off, Andrew, you know, what
are some of the industry pain points? And you know, Jason,
I'd love for you to jump in here as well,
(27:42):
but you know what are some of these pain points
that you guys and your partnership solves.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yeah, I'll be real quick and I want Jason to
kind of double click into this. It's safety, it's schedule,
it's quality, and then getting all of that into a
single version of the truth.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, you know in in construction, you know there is
a high turnover. There are projects in downtown Nashville that
are on their fourth and fifth p M. And superintendent
right and and as a client and even a subcontractor,
if if if, if the general contractor has a revolving
door of people, it affects the culture on the job, right,
(28:22):
and it affects so many things. But oh, the progress,
the schedule, you have, the safety. But I'll tell you
companies that have what I call s o p S
standard operating procedures or core processes, if they have a
playbook for how they define success, it's still not good
(28:46):
if people r leave, but the you can reduce a
lot of the catastrophe right afterwards if you have a well, hey,
this is how we handle submittals, r f I S,
change orders, UH contracts, OAC meetings, scheduling meetings to where
(29:06):
it can be somewhat of a plug and play. But
that's an inherent problem that a lot of these companies
do not have They don't have standards in place. And
if you have some people that come from other companies
right right, they have their own way of defining success,
but it may not align exactly with with yours. So
(29:28):
that's definitely top of the scorecard. Live data will shine
a light on the lack of consistency and processes. But
the good side of that is once you do that,
now you know and you can't unsee that, right buy out,
(29:51):
you know, or spending contingency and and and you know
how much contingency is being spent on a monthly basis
or by an individual is such a good factor that
all construction companies internally measure. But once you put it
on a P and L sheet and you actually track
it and measure it, you'd be amazed at you know
(30:14):
where they say what what? What you measure matters?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
Right?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yes, you know what? And Jason, that's actually so funny.
You actually kind of took the next question out of
my mouth. You know, why is it even important for
construction companies to track its performance through a scorecard or
a dashboard? You know, we've talked about it being you know, easier,
more readable.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Why else, because inherently when your leader, when your boss,
when you go to a job site. Look, if I
had a rough night the night before, I may view
your project differently. If I only give you an annual
review once a year, right, Right, it's just not fair.
I'm going to remember things that you have done or
(31:02):
haven't done, maybe over a four to six week period. Right.
We tend to also remember. I know that I tend
to remember not quite the story that happened right four
or five months ago, or even nine months ago. So
(31:22):
it also sets the expectations for the people that I
lead during the course of the year. This is how
we will grade you. This is how we create a project.
And lastly, I'll say construction is very competitive, right, right,
And on projects where there's an interview process and the
(31:43):
client wants to choose the best contractor, Look, I'm going
to go in there and try to convince him to
hire us, But it's really just based upon my own opinion,
which is very biased. Right. If I were to show
years of data how I have improved the safety on
my project, and not just from me, but even from
(32:05):
a third party safety auditor, right, it just validates, right,
and it shows proof, it shows documentation, It shows a
vulnerability of Hey, this is where we started and this
is where we are now.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It's the transparency. It's that open communication that's so important.
It really is awesome. All right, let's talk a little bit,
you know about in the industry, we talk about data
being so important, having you know, that open visibility to
the data, you know, really to be able to make
(32:40):
all the decisions. So, Chris, I do want to throw
a question at you here. I've seen you be waiting
so patiently over there. So Chris, how do you approach
data stream? How do you approach data strategy and analytics
to help construction companies make better operation decisions? This can
(33:02):
kind of get thrown at Jason as well, but kind
of really want to talk about how you guys work
together in that.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
Yeah, and I'll take again from the technical or tactical
side and say, you know, first of all, every situation
is going to be unique. There's you know, different levels
of maturity, but even within the same tiers of maturity,
you've got much different positions and situations. You know, first
and foremost you need to understand how is this organization,
(33:31):
what you know? What is the maturity? Right? How much
data are they collecting what do they have, you know,
are they running their organization off Excel spreadsheets and an
access database or do they have pro core and other
enterprise type tools that you can pick up and leverage. Right,
And it comes back to some things Andrew was touching
(33:51):
on earlier too, which is once you understand what their
maturity is, how trustworthy is their data? Right before we
even start jumping to try and do any kind of visualization, scorecards, storytelling.
Can we trust what we're working with?
Speaker 3 (34:06):
Right?
Speaker 4 (34:07):
And I know we've probably dropped the term internal plumbing
multiple times. That's something we'd actually said for years and
years and years. And one of the reasons we say
that is because no one's really worried about their plumbing
for the most part, until it doesn't work right, and
then it's the most important thing. And so the reality
(34:29):
is is we spend a lot of time focused on
getting that internal plumbing set up so that you can
report on it.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Let me throw it to you first, Jason, So, how
do you approach data strategy and analytics to help construction
companies make better operational decisions?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah? It it really all aligns with that construction company
or that subcontractors expectations on job site. Oftentimes I'll take
a subcontractor the owner of a cabinet company or a
(35:10):
site work company at one time was very good at
operating equipment or building cabinets, and before they know what,
they've got millions of dollars of revenue and twenty to
thirty employees and they have a business to run. They're
not building cabinets anymore or doing site work. They're trying
to run a business. So oftentimes I'll just ask the
(35:30):
leadership of the business, what are your expectations on this
scope of work or contracts or how to handle change orders,
submittals or ordering materials, And I will write that down
as they're talking, and then I'll ask them, all right, now,
I'm going to go ask your employees what their expectation
(35:52):
is of what their perception is that your expectation is.
And ten times out of ten times so those just
don't align, just don't align. There'll be some similarities, but
but but they just don't align. And you know when
the owner when something happens and you know they're upset
(36:14):
and how did we get here? And how did I
let this happen? You know, there's not clear expectations. So
that's where s ops can come in, come in, you know, handy,
but just trying to write down on a piece of
paper and then have a live, interactive scorecard, uh, to
(36:34):
give that person literally a score you know on the
on the scorecards that we've done, there's seven or eight
There could be more, but normally there's seven or eight
attributes of a healthy project, you know, financial schedule, Uh, safety,
there's there's a number of them. But adding all those
(36:57):
up and giving a total score has been has been
really helpful. And then you would not believe the how
difficult it is just to get someone to agree upon
a definition, uh, because it the the it they wanted
(37:18):
to change and and it's and it's difficult when a
definition of something just continues to change, so it can
change or can improve over time. But uh, there are
stats out there on Major League baseball players, right, football players,
(37:38):
and there are stats out there on Delta airlines. But
they all have the same thing that we have to
deal with. It's labor, it's weather, it's materials, right, it's people.
All of our decisions would be so much better if
we didn't have to deal with people, right, Right, So
every industry really has the same construs, ranks, and issues,
(38:02):
and just if you can find a way to measure
them in a clear, clear, consistent manner to give the
people on the other side of our leadership visibility. It
seems like a magic trick, but it's but it's really not.
(38:25):
And I'll tell you once that is done. What I
have found is those companies they just inherently their revenues
go up, their their retention goes up or down depending
upon how you look at it. Even the subcontractors have
a better experience with the general contractors that that do
that their clients do.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, I love that. I kind of I want to
throw that to Chris too as kind of you know,
a technical answer there to get really both sides. But Chris,
how do you approach the data strategy and analytics to
help construction companies make those better operational decisions? We've heard
it from the construction POV. Now I want the data
(39:10):
analyst POV.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Yeah. I think it all starts with understanding the maturity
of the organization when it comes to their data. And
even within the different tiers of their maturity, you can
have you know, varying positions or complexities, And the reality
is is, you know, this is all a part of
trying to position everyone to do what they're best at
(39:34):
and to be successful. Right. So, you know, there's some
of the things that are going to be complex that
we want to be handling in the back end and
in the internal plumbing, as you hear us commonly refer
to it. And once we've got that there, we want
to understand, you know, what is the level of data
quality you have? Right? Is this data trustworthy? Because we
(39:56):
don't need to start trying to give visibility and transparency
things that we can't trust are correct. Right, We're going
to be shining a spotlight, but we want to know
that the conclusions we're making are correct conclusions, right, you know,
good or bad? Right, And so you know, once we've
got that and we're sure of that from a strategy perspective,
(40:17):
we'll move into you know, making things visible and accessible
to everyone. And then from that point you start launching
off into your you know, more advanced areas, uh that
you know, for mature organizations and start looking at things
like AI or machine learning or things like that. But
the realities is, you know, even even at times when
(40:39):
people try to tell you can run.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
Before you crawl.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
You really do need you've got to set that foundation.
And so uh that and as we've been doing a
lot more in the construction industry, that's what we're seeing.
We're seeing a lot of varying degrees of maturity. And uh,
you know organizations that might be some might be run
their business off Excel and access. Others got enterprise level tools,
(41:05):
things like pro Core, et cetera. And they're much better
positioned from a data perspective to jump in and start
doing some of those more advanced steps. The other ones
can still do it. They've just got to position themselves
a little to get into some more scalable architecture.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Definitely, definitely. And Chris, you know, I have to ask this,
what role does AI have in all of this? How
the hell can we automate some of this?
Speaker 4 (41:34):
Well, evidently that's like a trillion dollar question these days,
And the reality is there's so many different ways you
can approach that and answer that. I mean, we all
probably find ways that we're using it individually, whether it's
in our own workflows, our work career, professional, home lives,
what have you. I think when we shine a light
(41:56):
more into how does that fit into your data strategy.
I think that's where you start looking at things like,
what are some maybe some quick wins where we can
do some like natural language querying type stuff, Whether we
can build some like quick start stuff that helps, you know,
start the bid process a lot quicker and give us
more reliability and more insight, et cetera. There, you know,
(42:20):
once you get a little more advanced and can maybe
start bringing in external sources that you don't have naturally
in your data, then you can start getting some really
neat and exciting things with some of the machine learning
and developing your own models that might go around things
like the predictive nature of some of your bids or
(42:41):
things you need to account for and some of your
projects right taking into account the weather patterns and other
things that might not be built into your plan naturally.
But again, it all kind of comes back to there's
a million opportunities. You've got to position yourself so you
can even start entertaining some of them.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
Yes, yeah, you know set up. I mean it's so cheesy,
but the foundation is so important in construction for your tech,
for your data, you also need that strong foundation. So
that was my dad joke of the day. You all
are very welcome for that.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
You know, Caroline as a contractor. The hardest way to
learn that is if you're sitting across from an attorney
and the attorney starts asking you questions about, well, hey,
you know, when was this approved or when was this
not approved? And when did you order this? Why did
you make this decision? And the person that made it
(43:38):
is no longer with the company, and you're having to
go back and look at emails and text and that's
that's no way. It's a very expensive way. So you
only have to do that a couple of times to
realize I need a term I have learned is clean
data and actually defining clean data, you know, and the
(44:01):
enterprise level construction programs have done a great job of that,
where it's the status is you know, approved or revise
and resubmit or rejected or uh the statuses are how
I have found uh in defining those statuses where you're
you're people are logging in, you know, in the correct status.
(44:23):
Just like the airline agency has statuses right stand by
and baseball has the batter's box and you're on deck.
I guess the same principles is just defining, Ah, where
you are and you know who's uh all the court is.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
In exactly I'm sensing, Jason, either you want to go
traveling or you want.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
To go to a ball game.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
There's so many similarities. And construction is inherently, you know,
years behind every other industry. They just is.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, and you know we're talking about you know, all
of these amazing dashboards and views that you can give
to your customers. And you know, this is all amazing
in theory, of course, what isn't. But now I really
want to hear from you guys how this is actually
playing out in real life, you know, the real you know,
effects of your guys's partnership. So, Jason and Chris, can
(45:23):
you guys share either you know, an example or a
case study where you guys have helped a construction company
transformance operations through this data and technology.
Speaker 3 (45:35):
Yeah. Absolutely, I'll tell you the project that we just
finished a local contractor in downtown Nashville. I think they're
going on seventy five years of age. The CEO had
a vision of building a dashboard or scorecard, had actually
written it on a piece of paper like a like
(45:57):
a vision of his had been he had been wanting
to figure out how to do it for about three years.
We did it in like six weeks, so it and
he's not the only one that that has that vision
of how do I put all this data in multiple
softwares in into one scorecard and even at the end
(46:22):
of a project, compare how we estimated it to how
we actually, you know, built the job, and there's so
many lessons learned. Uh and he recognized that. But look,
clients come first and employees come first, and you're running
a business and you're like, I don't, I don't. They
don't have an overhead position that strictly handles data. You know,
how do we how do we do this? So that's where,
(46:46):
quite frankly, uh I didn't have the expertise. Info Works
had the expertise, and it was specifically Chris and Andrew
who came in and asked the right questions and started
digging on on their data and you know, si weeks
later there was this really good looking scorecard that's going
to help their people and the company. And I would
(47:07):
argue their clients are going to demand more of them.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Yeah, Chris, I'd love to hear about that experience from you.
Speaker 4 (47:16):
Yeah, I mean it was fantastic and it was you know,
it was really great working with Jason on that the realities.
He made everything so easy. And what was probably one
of the most telling things to me about the engagement
because you asked about how it impacts the company, is
you know, we're going through the process of collaborating with them,
(47:36):
digging into where they want to get information, things like that,
and it's all the non technical stuff that you can
really see the impact and how it resonates. Right, we
go to define something and as Jason pointed out earlier,
everyone's got their own thoughts. Once you finally get them
in a room, say hey, we're putting something on the screen.
These number of people are going to be seeing and
(47:57):
that's how we're going to measure things. Then you start
getting kind of you started getting everyone on the same
page and here's what we're going to do. And we
saw too as we were doing that. You know, we
would work with the key stakeholders that were tasked with
giving us access doing things, et cetera, and we'd bring
things to them. All of a sudden they start realizing, oh,
(48:19):
there's some things we might need to do to improve
this process. Oh there's some other things over here, or
maybe it's not as clear, or you know, had people asking,
hold it, where did that come from? And you mentioned, oh,
that's pulled up from this is what we're doing this
and that system insto this and and the reality was
is it was less about the scorecard and more about
(48:40):
helping them improve their workflow and their business operations. The
scorecard was giving a spotlight.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah, definitely eliminating the redundancy. Is that what you're going
to say, Jason, Oh, yeah, one hundred percent. And you
know sometimes even you know, finding a solution for one
problem brings up ten other ones. But it's like they
wouldn't have been able to find those ten other ones,
and that would have all still been a mystery, you know,
(49:09):
if we hadn't had that same visibility that we do now.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
Yeah, I will tell you in my experience, there's nothing
typical about this. But typically when a firm launches this
initiative and a scorecard and they begin to measure what
I say, inside their own four walls, right, not only
their people and their culture and the accountability will rise,
(49:37):
but typically their net profits will increase around one percent
just just by improving their own workflows, their own processes.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
You don't even have to go.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Get more work, just becoming more efficient, right, and you'd
be amazed. I was with a firm where we grew
from fifty million to five hundred million, right, And overhead
grows and people grow and people have new ideas, but
they're it is a little bit more difficult to control
(50:11):
right at that side. So having processes in place and procedures,
and you know, I've been involved in projects that are
upwards of two hundred and fifty million dollars and three
years long, so you really have to have some stringent
processes and procedures in order to have what I say,
(50:32):
reliable data so I can make reliable promises.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
Definitely, And you know, I think it's it's just so
important for now and also for you know, thinking of
the future of the industry too. You know, as you said,
you know, our industry is notoriously ten fifteen years behind
every other industry, so you know, we're finally catching up
on the technology, on the AI, on all of that.
(50:55):
And Andrew, I kind of want to look to you
here and say, you know, what does this partnership, you know,
kind of what's it going to evolve to with all
the different technologies, all the different things happening in construction
right now, kind of where do you see this partnership
going to help best serve your clients.
Speaker 2 (51:16):
Yeah, I think history repeats itself a bit, and it
seems very similar to about fifteen years ago in cloud
computing technology, where we saw digital transformation really proliferate or
spread across the industry. And all that means is it's
the confluence of people, process and technology coming together to
transform your business into something you never thought possible. Operational efficiency,
(51:41):
happier people, happier clients. That's what digital transformation is supposed
to be. And so as you think about intentionality in
what you provide for E and C engineering and construction,
you want to bring that same intentionality of digital transformation
that you brought over from other industries into this industry
(52:03):
and say, Okay, it's about your people, it's about your
process and your workflows. That that then you start to
discovering how to be more efficient and how to make
better And it's the technology and the data that weaves
together to really transform your business. And so that's where
it goes. But it starts small and you can't do that.
(52:24):
You can't skip a wrung in the ladder. You have
to go one ladder and one piece of scaffolding by
one piece of scaffolding. That's and yeah, and to your point,
that's how you do it. All. It is history repeating itself.
It's digital transformation, but it's digital transformation in the way
that you know will actually be adopted and we'll stick.
Speaker 1 (52:46):
Well, I mean adoptions. You know, a whole another issue here,
you know, we have I think the industry is very split.
You know, we have the people who are very technology forward,
who really see the value in this, and then you know,
there's still a lot of people out there and you
know technology might not be their thing. You know, they've
done it for X amount of years this way and
(53:08):
why do I need to change? So, you know, maybe
I'll throw this one at you, Jason. You know, how
do we deal with you know, those owners, you know
those executives that you know, change and technology is just
not their jam.
Speaker 3 (53:23):
And it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to
be to have a successful construction project. But I will
tell you that I think ten out of ten people
want to know, what are your expectations of me? You know,
I keep saying clarity is kindness. Right, So once once
(53:43):
I show them, Hey, if you don't want to use
this technology or to your benefit, that's fine, that's your choice.
But this is how we as a company, or this
is how we as a as a group have to
find success, which is these seven or eight attributes. And
I will tell you that once that gauge starts to
(54:06):
you know, turn yellow or even turn red or go
out of green. Uh, people tend to what I say.
We want to motivate the right behavior.
Speaker 4 (54:18):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:19):
So on a construction project, you know, if the window
is leaking, Uh, but if I have a piece of
rubber base that is not glued on the wall, I
want to tend to the window that's leaking and not
the rubber base. Right. It's so priorities and communicating what
is more important. No matter if you have don't like
(54:39):
technology or not. Everybody wants to know, you know, are
you for you Caroline?
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Or you for me?
Speaker 3 (54:46):
And in order for me to figure out if you
are for me, you know, are you clear on your expectations? Uh?
You know, certainly if you're my leader, i'd.
Speaker 1 (54:59):
Hope so awesome, Well, great job guys, I think you know,
I really want to end it out here with probably
the toughest question I'm going to give you guys today,
and also for any of my viewers, any of my listeners,
if there's anything you should take from this podcast, you
should record these next five minutes here. So, guys, for
(55:23):
construction owners looking to improve their business and operational efficiency,
what are three practical steps or advice other than calling
one degree in infoworks that they should do? Toughest but
most important? So, Chris, why don't I throw this to
you to be our first little victim here for this question?
Speaker 4 (55:46):
Oh wow, I'm going to bring it back to something
that was discussed earlier is as a generalization, the construction
industry is a bit behind and where some other lines
of businesses are when it comes to embracing some of
the technologies and their data. I think given that that's
(56:08):
that's something that's going to happen today, right is understanding
the value you have there. There's so many other industries
that have a service but are also now data organizations
like their data. The value of their data is such
a commodity that they don't even just view themselves as
(56:30):
providing the service that they provide they view themselves as
a data or company, right, and I think you're going
to find that that's going to be something that starts
bleeding in as well, and that those who embrace it
will be the ones who you know, take off and
are able to navigate the new the new order of
(56:50):
things as we integrate the AI and machine learning into
our companies and how we do business. So anyway, I'll
give you that one and let Andrew jump on one.
Speaker 2 (57:07):
Oh great, we should end with Jason on this.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
For sure.
Speaker 2 (57:15):
Three practical steps and great question for Infoworks because we
are the firm that comes with practical solutions. That literally
is our tagline. So in terms of practical solutions for
construction owners looking to improve business and operational efficiency, you know,
(57:35):
I think what is one percent top line revenue or
one percent additional margin worth to you? And I will
say fortune favors the bold. Typically right now, your competitors
are not doing this, and now more than ever, it's
(57:59):
more easy, more simple, and faster to do it today
than any other time in history. Just need some good help.
So I would say, understand the opportunity in front of you,
be bold, don't wait, sit on your hands and get
yourself some expertise, you know.
Speaker 1 (58:21):
Honestly, Andrew, for a minute there, I thought you were
going to say, step one, call info works. Step two
call info Works, call infoworks.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I'll save that for the next one when we dive
into the next round.
Speaker 1 (58:34):
All right, Jason, let's hear it.
Speaker 3 (58:38):
Yeah, I do want to everybody to hear that our
goal is to consult our way out of consulting. We
understand that. Yeah, we won't be your partner forever, but
but that is our goal as a as a partner.
But here's three things that I would tell you if
you don't if you don't hear anything else. There's so
(59:00):
many items that you measure on a daily basis. You're
financing recipes. Even this podcast, we're over about fifty six seconds, right,
it was supposed to be an hour long. Fuel time
you measure everything, right, Survey your people and ask them
to define how the company measures, the project, the person,
(59:24):
and the company. Those are your three things, the project,
the person which is themselves, and the company and ask
them to literally define it. And if everybody's answers align
with yours, you don't need us. If every if you
can measure those attributes for the project, the person and
the company. You know, you don't need us, and if
(59:48):
the answers are different and you can't measure them, give
us a call.
Speaker 1 (59:53):
I love that. And this has been an amazing episode,
you know. Kind of before we sign off here, I
do want to give you guys, you know, a little
bit of time here to get some last comments in.
You know, Andrew can sit here and tell you guys
to call infoworks three times over and over again.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
If you do that, it's like like rubbing the Genie bottle.
Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
I mean, I am putting all the links in the description,
so I could put it down there three times and
we'll see if the magic works.
Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
You who is the Halloween episodes? It's like, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah, So that'll be our tagline here is uh, info works,
info works. Info works awesome. But if you guys want
to just go ahead and go around and give your
last thoughts here, just anything to tie this up here.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
I will add that, uh, what we are proposing here,
it's not snake oil. We're not making this up. This
stuff really really works. It really works. You do have
to be bold. I love what Andrew said, bold to
shine the light on what's not working. But the reality is,
if I want to get better, if I want to
(01:01:08):
get healthier, it starts with me. I've got to make
decisions and have wisdom and vision, but I have to
have courage. And that's the hardest part. Just listening to
this podcast will not make your business better or your
people better. You actually have to have courage and do
something about it. So the way it would work is
you would contact either myself or Andrew. We would come
(01:01:29):
to your office, come do an interview with you and
figure out what system do you use, what processes you use,
what technology, ask a couple questions. We would give you
a proposal that would be a team proposal, even with
the schedule. As soon as we have an agreement in place,
we go. We would be off to the races with
(01:01:49):
your key leadership and begin to improve your projects, your people,
and your company.
Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
Awesome, Andrew, Chris who wants to take it next?
Speaker 4 (01:02:02):
I think Jason did a great job of summarizing it.
Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (01:02:05):
The reality is is, you know, while we're not in
the construction industry, a lot of you know specifically what
we do is very relatable to it, right. I mean,
we talked about foundation throughout we do project based solutions.
We you know, we're there to help guide you and
get you what you need. We're happy to be a
(01:02:27):
partner and come back if you need us. You're ready
for round two of something, you're ready to improve upon
something else, et cetera. But you know we're there to
help you go through that in the same way you
they help their clients get to where they need to
be and so. And the reality is, you know, you
just want to position everyone to be successful, do what
they're best at and so and that that's what we're
(01:02:50):
really talking about, and being focused on and not being
afraid to take that step. You know, the courage that
Jason and Andrew had been speaking to. You know, there's
there's a lot of opportunity and it's amazing how much
some of this resonates with the stakeholders. With the you know,
the leadership. You can get everyone on the same page,
(01:03:12):
moving in lockstep, and it just improves your entire organization
and it leads to profitability.
Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
So awesome any last thumbt.
Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Well said, no, not at all. These guys have made
it awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
I mean, that's why we invited them right to do
the talking for us. Awesome. Well, we are going to
go ahead and put all of the websites and emails
down below for Jason, Andrew and Chris. So if you
guys have any comments, any questions, feel free to reach
(01:03:48):
out to them. But just another huge thank you to
all three of you for being here today. This conversation
was great. I love having you guys here and I
am ready for our next night out in Nashville. When
is it?
Speaker 2 (01:04:03):
Yeah, it is sooner than later. Yeah. Yeah. At that point,
we can just we can probably send out a promo
to your listeners for a data readiness and scorecard fit session.
Oh yeah, marche one one hour workshop free of charge
on info Workstime.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
Well you heard it here first. Awesome and thank you
guys all so much for tuning into today's episode of COPOD.
I'm your host, Caroline, and I'll see you all next time.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yousssssss
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The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.