How BIM and Digital Twins are Future Proofing Construction Workflows
Yeah. You're listening to Autodesk's Digital Builder Podcast, the show that inspires construction professionals to innovate and use technology to improve how they build their world. I'm Eric Thomas and I've been working in construction for nearly a decade and now I have the privilege to sit down with industry trailblazers to hear how they're solving construction's biggest challenges and redefining the future of the built environment. Welcome to another episode of Autodesk Digital Builder podcast. I am your host, Eric Thomas.
I am sitting down today in Boston in the Autodesk technology Center with Amr Raafat, the Chief Innovation Officer at Windover Construction. Windover recently won a second Autodesk Excellence Award in 2022 for accelerating Transformation for their groundbreaking use of technology on a housing project here in Massachusetts located outside of Boston. This project leverages some of the cool technology that was developed right here in the space that we're sitting in.
So I'm really excited to be here. And before we get too deep into it, of course, if you're out there listening and you're one of our tried and true audio listeners, we are in the technology center. And so you should head over to YouTube for just a minute and take a look at the cool space right here. I am sitting right next robot. There is a geodesic dome that is being built out for outer space right behind me. There's a bunch of cool stuff.
If you're unfamiliar with the owner of this technology centers. It's located in the Seaport Innovation District, and it provides access to a large format fabrication equipment, a wide range of robotics training, and a bunch of expertise from the Autodesk personnel. And it's a really cool space place where global leaders come together and really find ways to bring innovative tools together.
Amrs have been working in this space for the last five years. Ahead them on the show about a year and a half ago. I'm really excited to catch up with you. How are you doing today? Hi Eric.
How you so excited to be with you today? I've been watching your video interviews. It's a great educational content, really, about sharing ideas and helping us move the industry forward through this exchange of ideas. So, so excited to be with you today and we appreciate you because, you know, the show wouldn't be anything without guests like yourself having the opportunity to to share their experience. And I know you've you've been involved in the technology centers for a number of years now, I think starting since 2019. Can you tell me a bit about that experience and the impact that it's had on your business and, you know, just the impact on the construction industry? I consider that Autodesk a tech center as a hub for innovation, where we can share ideas and the collaborations we built, global collaborations. And here was a manufacturer of such as how we can use Eland and it makes it a reality.
Experts and the builder of software like Twin Build and Photograph and Australia as our focusing kind of. So we building these collaborations that can really transform as an industry forward, you know, innovative construction company like us who are experts in construction technology, along with developers of software, along with robotics and automation experts and manufacturer of machines. That's how we can really bush this industry forward. And I'd like to give a shout out to the center team and to the community here, because the extent of team is very supportive.
They actually embrace and the teams is a series that takes center and they help us make these connections, connecting the dots, basically. And it's such a cool community and I think community is the real word there. We've got some other guests coming on later on this week that also work here and just the enthusiasm for the opportunities that generate here.
And, you know, just try and stuff out. It's it's a really cool opportunity to step in and just find a place to consider new ways to either use existing technology or create brand new technology that simply hasn't been out to market before. And so as your company's been in the space for a while now, how has working in the tech center impacted the financial side of your business or the growth of your business and, you know, protected your team's bottom line a little bit? In the last few years? It's been crazy to put it lightly since since we last spoke. Absolutely. I agree with you.
So many of the technology leading edge technologies that we developed provides it incentives. It's not being used on construction sites before actually, Wendover Vision is to apply these technologies, stop testing and start the building. That's our vision there is that we apply it on jobs with really casual to provide value, whether it's cost efficiency for our clients or efficiency to save time. So many of the projects that work at home here was just prefab. And this machine is the machine behind me here. It was a hallway with bigger 3D printers.
We took additive manufacturing, for example, on our historic preservation project north of Boston to create exact replicas for that historic preservation. So using additive manufacturing, I consider the space here is our our gateway to cross industry innovation. There are technologies that's been used in automotive, in industrial construction, aerospace that we can really apply into our construction workflows to make it provide huge cost savings for our clients, as well as increase quality as well. So that's that's what we actually been doing. And actually through the last three years, it's been a safeguard for our what some of our projects we created and says, I was on trust during the COVID time where I don't think we were able to deliver it some other way.
It was a waiting that waiting for these parts to come and arrive on site was almost a year. We're able to create it in 15 hours here at the tech center and very efficiently cutting 70% of the cost and the time using some of the most innovative technologies here combined with the BIM data in fusion, as well as the machinery itself, to produce and enhance and streamline production. And if you're out there listening and you're curious about those machines, make sure you go back and listen to the last episode that I had Omron because we went in-depth with with him on how to really learn what they are. And I think at the end of this episode, we might take a moment to go actually take a peek at them. And I'm excited to be sitting in front of it instead of at my desk out on the West Coast having this conversation. So it's, it's pretty cool.
And one of the earlier conversations that you and I had, you mentioned that A.I. is playing a big part in some of the historical renovation that you're doing and that preservation work that you're doing that you're just alluding to. Can you tell me more about your use of A.I.,
both in the realm of that preservation and the other impacts that it's having on, you know, just your business and construction at large, actually, as well. A couple projects that we're working on right now for historic preservation that use this, that prefab enabled BIM platform such as fusion. It can make simulations and so we can really test how these parts will become identifies the critical elements of our design design for manufacturing the assembly for me, which is a big part and out of them we're taking BIM data that only originally came from laser scan of existing conditions, taking that beam data to manufacturing. And that's how our actually VTC team at Wendover is focusing on taking beam to action to making that of the things. And that's how we can enhance and actually help advance the way we build everyday in our job sites.
Driver Shortage. This is one of the ways we can tackle using AI enabled platforms. That's how we can tackle shortage of skilled labor, things that's been done by hand 120 years ago.
We don't necessarily have the folks who have the skill set or even the time to build these sports so we can really create these parts very efficiently with any material using CCI technology. So that's that's why we we trying to push all the time and clients. I'm excited about it. I noticed in the last three years it doesn't take much to convince a client that this is the way to go because it's providing cost savings. High quality when CCS assembles is that we're going to do it later.
This is a high quality into it. So actually we have their in bushing guy into our manufacturing process and the slide construction and it's it's so refreshing to see because we've we've been talking about prefabrication and modular construction and more of these innovative methods for a long time. And there's been a lot of skeptics in the resourcing in the technology. And the tools hadn't necessarily converged in a way that they we were kind of forced to in the last few years in some situations.
And it's just very encouraging because I remember when I was still touching proposals and responding to RFP is when I was working at General Contractors, which feels like two decades or three decades ago. At this point we would talk about prefab and it it was all very low hanging fruit. It was like casework and, you know, electrical stuff that was very minor or, you know, cabinetry and such.
And to be able to step back and go, we can pre fabricate these elements at such a scale. And it's not just a nice to have, it's a core element to the building and how we built now it's just changed everything. And again, if you if you're excited about what we're talking about right now, you really should go and listen to our previous conversation because we get really deep into prefab and some of those other really cool technologies. But as is, we're looking at the future right now is thinking about AI and some of those other adjacent technologies like machine learning. How do you think they're really going to impact construction in the built world? Like if you look in maybe five, ten, 15 years, where do you think we're going to be sitting in contrast to today? We actually have an opportunity in our field in the ICU space to make a big difference in the carbon footprint for the for our planet. And we we have a great opportunity with the technology we have right now.
For example, Wendover right now is building a building in Connecticut for Blueprint Robotics. It will be the largest mass timber industrialized factory for mass number in in the United States, in North America. Wow. And we are building that. It's going to be near zero and it's going to be 40 mass timber structures. So that's actually pushing prefab to solve the problems like global warming. And they tackle these issues and important aspect of it is tackling the long lead items with manufacturing pieces very efficiently, identifying, perfecting the buildings that we can build this like.
And we learned that a long way from automotive industry and how to make parts of the building more efficient, ready to be assembled onsite was high quality as well as in areas like in New England. We had Wendover built when I was a go to for almost go to for modular construction, New England. There was a building at Endicott College that we built is I don't think is there's a way to build it other than modular. We built it modular because it worked snowstorm after snowstorm. So we're able to take away that built in onsite components and we believe that was ready. Modular using modular components.
That's a very high quality built in a factory assembled onsite in a very short the time to tackle these issues, to meet casual issues, and they also deliver the high quality for the client. So the future is a really combination of how we use industrialized construction. We spend data and it's all coming along instead of silos of technologists to work in harmony together to deliver a solution based to tackle these challenges. And we're kind of turning that old, that building model on its head. Where we go, the owner decides, okay, I want a building, I'm going to design it from start to finish, okay, Now I'm going to put it out to bid. Now I'm going to hand to the contractor and they're going to build it with no interaction with the designer who put all these plans together.
Then we hand it over the nature of our scheduling, the nature of our resourcing, and everything means we have to be a bit more fluid than we've ever been comfortable being before, especially when we don't have as many talent coming into the construction industry and all of this ongoing challenges. And so is we find ways to merge innovative approaches like yours. As long as we can convince the owners that these are viable solutions and can have real conversations about it. I feel like we're in a very good position to mitigate some of those risks that we're all, you know, looking down at in the next 5 to 10 years as well.
And I appreciate the focus on the environmental impact, too. And I think some people get tired of thinking about the quantity of waste that we contribute to in construction, But it's something we can we can have an impact on. It just really means that we have to step back and think about those ideas. It's a big picture and then implement in an effective way. Because if you don't train everybody, if you don't connect all the dots and use the right technology, so your your factory is connected to people who are out there building, you're still going to have risk. And that's where I hear the most pushback from field teams.
They go, Oh, they built that off site and they never talk to us. It's never going to connect or whatever. But I don't think that's true. If your systems are set up correctly. Absolutely.
And to tackle actually a construction industry has been known as if it's only for the hammer. But now we try. And actually Wendover is working with technical schools in our area to let them use innovations like new graduates know that it's more about innovation. You can still use robotics and automation and actually things that looks like video games. With VR.
Yeah, get them excited about the industry to get into it and you can have a bright career in our industry. So that's what we trying to push in there and that's how we can actually overcome and tackle all these challenges with skilled labor. And all you have to do is step back and show me a place like this, like you can come and work in a space like this and use robotics and all these other tools. And it's not just pouring concrete and pounding nails. And obviously that's still always going to be a part of what we do in construction. We are building things, but the the approaches are so different than they were even ten years ago.
And so I agree with you. I think it's there's a perception issue and there's a communication issue that we need to tackle where we're communicating in a more accurate way what people are signing up for when they get into our industry and, you know, all these different tools and ways of optimizing are also doing away with like when I was doing proposal management and, you know, contract modifications eight, ten, 12 hour days all the time. And I know as we can dial that back to a more equitable and reasonable work life balance that also has some more appeal to it because it's hard to sell somebody on six days a week, 10 hours a day. That's rough. So I know we are also speaking about some digital digital twin technology. The last time we were connecting and I would like to hear a little bit more about how you're leveraging and implementing that on your project.
And also if those decisions were driven by the owner of those projects or if that was something that Wendover brought to the table. So we constantly at Wendover are looking for ways to deliver high quality and improve the workflows for our clients and bring them the latest and greatest solutions that can save some time and have them have a user friendly platform. So for years, for years we've been delivering books like Oh, and in many worlds, Yeah, and a mountain of bid documents and hand over package that goes in a filing cabinet for the next 30 years. It doesn't make sense anymore is the time for this has been done in most of our projects. Almost 90% of Wendover projects, for example, and other as our builder great builders, we have, we end up with a fully coordinated 3D and coordinated model with all the trades in it you have. It may be mechanical, you know, and then when we ended it, does it make sense? Is that at the end we we deliver to the clients as those books.
We wanted to invest a little bit more into those models and make them user friendly, comprehensive data and add on in many world data through EAI, we use, for example, Autodesk Random, which is very easy to use. We, we, we. Then we transform as a way we hand over the hand out process to our clients. Our clients loved it. We just finished a project that's Phillips Exeter Academy in our new dorm there.
When we deliver this, you have access to us from there. I bet the facility management team is really transforming to help facilities managers can use their buildings because at their fingertips you don't even need to have code in their fingertips. You can go to any room, click on all of the image handling units, even lighting fixtures and all this information which you to come up when it was installed.
Model numbers, one key information, everything. And then we are taking that even a next step by adding sensors into these these elements in the building so you can keep track of building performance which will and that's the next that's the future step. I'm seeing a lot of that too.
I'm a nerd in the Internet of Things world as far as my home being connected, but in a facility like we're in right now, it's an entirely different level and it's it's more engaging and it's more modern. And I think it also very positively impacts the cost of owning and maintaining that facility. And so I'm impressed that you're able to convince your owners and say, Hey, this is a worthwhile thing to add on because it's hard to pivot into the world of digital twins if you do it when construction's done.
Like that's that's a difficult moment to do that. But if you're thinking about it through the whole process, you're going to have something that lives and breathes and functions right alongside the building for the entire history of the you know, until that facility ends up being renovated or replaced in the future. You bringing up a great point, Eric. This would become a living document that can get updated in ten years when please, at every handling unit, you can plug in all this new data.
So it's a living document. And we we our goal is to make this a standard for our projects. This we are working on our third project. We did one for our Harvard University faculty housing as well as the Endicott College, with becoming more and more of a standard for our end. The over process to provide good value for clients is you can build that one for many times.
We think that this handover process is the end of the project lifecycle, but it's actually the start of for the client and building user and that's how we should think about it. Look at it. Yeah.
Is your relationship is a is a builder extending beyond handover then to help them with those models to continue that maintenance or the owners that you're working with, are they handling that themselves? Not necessarily. Actually the methodology we're using is that we build these detailed models and with very minimal trainings we can take on this process as facility managers in those at those campuses to take it on in the future. So we developed a really comprehensive data, easy to use, user friendly for them so they can see you can enjoy using it and these you can even grow with within their campuses. So that's the goal is to make it self sufficient. When we hand it to the hands in the project, it's encouraging to hear because that's one topic that I've heard as far as pushback goes, where if you're not a serial builder or necessarily have those tech chops in house, there's some concern of, okay, you hand over this digital twin package and your handover process and they're not sure if they can maintain it or keep it up to date.
And this you alluded to a moment ago, if it isn't up to date in ten years, when you change all those things, the value starts to diminish over time because you don't really have that accurate insight into what's under the skin as far as what's in your building. So I appreciate that context and it's good to know that they don't they don't require extensive training and, you know, beam tools and everything else to continue, you know, leveraging these these tools that you hand them. Absolutely. Yeah. So what else do you think contributes to the success of a digital twin after that handover process? Is there any advice that you would give for the owners to to keep that process, you know, alive and in creating that document that we're talking about, to start is a process from the very beginning to keep in mind that at the very beginning of the project, all the if it's good for me because the nation, it would be good for digital twin builders and we'll just make sure that all the models will include all the traits, all the geometrical data. Then we can add at the end when before we just deliver the handover. Also and in manual and design and geometrical information, which is catalogs and links to two different things.
Actually, we don't have to be experts, the client. And that's that's what actually changes the way we view this. The twin in the last two years is that clients don't have to be experts to use these models.
So BIM experts built those models so for many years to come, clients can use it easily. So starting was adding all these data from the beginning will make it really easy towards the end to really invest a little bit more with a week of to work in these platforms and disappoint them to to deliver information which data for our clients. And if you're an owner out there, the soliciting around this is a sort of push to make sure you're including guidance on this in the RFP from the from the onset, because I think the owners who are thinking about this from that point ensures that the bids that come through are considering that as far as how they build everything and how they work together. And if you've set that baseline, you know, for every bid that you receive or they're thinking about the digital twin, is that end state, it's going to be a lot easier in your selection process to make sure that you have everything covered.
I'm obviously showing my my former history being a proposal manager right now. I've received too many trophies that were copy and pasted from a prior building. And I'm like, these requirements make no sense. But I think is is is we get more progressive in the technology that our owners are adopting. It's it's now a requirement to include what your expectations are in that RFP stage as far as the technology and the level of depth that it has. Because if you don't set your knees up for success when they're going through that bidding process, you might surprise them.
And I think also the geeks out there listening, if you're owner is and thinking about these tools and you recognize the value of them, especially if you have a strong relationship with them, that's when you start talking about this and you receive the RFP and you say, Hey, this is all great, especially in the commercial world. This is harder on the federal side of things. Hey, this is great. Did you think about this? Because this is a betterment that we can offer your organization that is going to, you know, leave you as the owner in a much better position in 10 to 15 to 20 to 30 years versus, you know, the standard RFP that didn't consider the technology at the scale that we're talking about right now. And it doesn't even have to be a new construction.
We are working with the clients right now is that we have laser scanning because their facility and maybe facility and creating detailed model of it to add to add it to a platform, a digital twin platform so we can keep track of building property across and support the future facility management. So it can be an existing building that built 70 years ago and we built a digital twin for us. It doesn't have to be actually a new construction and you make a fantastic point there too. And I had somebody telling me about this the other day and I can't remember who it was, but there is room to make that happen if it's already been built.
Obviously, the process is a little bit more involved, but like you said, the tools and the technology are available to us now in a way that they simply weren't before. And so if you are looking to take your facilities and maybe half your campus has been built and half of it is not, you can still get that whole facility. It just takes some really focused, you know, intention as far as the data that your capturing and the amount of data that we have in our BIM documents and all of these tools and technologies, now it's it's so much more actionable than it ever has been historically for those working out in the field and who are building those who are in the office for the owners as well, because they have more visibility on the process in the progress of your construction, when you give them dashboard in access to that data in a way that they might not have had unless you're, you know, having a your weekly owners meeting where you tell them the good and the bad news. And we've been doing this in so many cases, like in an indicator college, we documented the whole entire campus was reality capture with drone later and then we embedded into facility management. We did that as a client to support is our future facility management and growth for the campus. Same thing with a town city here in New England.
We documented the whole area. All buildings took it from only a small one building to the comment with a drone leader, the whole city, and we embed this to their facility management, the city database, so we can support it with this digital twin information which they're to the future projects. Yeah, I think we're finally at the point now where the old entrenched facilities management tools, they still have their place. That's not a full replacement, but there's there's a layer that we can add on to this that adds a whole lot more actionable, valuable data. I mean, do you really want your facilities team on your ten mile long campus? If there's a light bulb out to drive to that building, climb up a ladder, get the light bulb out, look at the model, or drive back to figure out how to replace it.
Or do they pull up the digital twin and go, this is the light bulb that was installed two and a half years ago. This is the model, this is what we need. And they just order it and send it off and put it in the amount of savings you have there is huge and, you know, have a guy on the ladder twice as much as he would have needed otherwise.
So there's a safety aspect to it, too. Absolutely. So I think it's safe to say that Wendover has developed a much larger global presence since the last time we spoke. I know you're working with Howick and some organizations over in APAC, but what is really enabled this rapid growth outside the borders of the United States since the last time we spoke? It's actually the trust, the trust we developed with our nationwide clients.
We do work in California right now in Los Angeles with Ben Walker and the reality capture we do walking Pennsylvania with historic preservation. We're doing work in Texas with multifamily and globally and we've been working with one of the great Dubai developers doing work in Australia. What actually we built is that we built a trust between us and them utilizing that technology in a very practical, efficient and effective ways to deliver value with a cost savings.
We are we are working with towns and cities nationally and internationally to support them, to expedite permitting process, for example. So it's about trust building meetings with great people. The people aspect in that innovation, it's what is what really helped us grow globally and make a good quality product in addition to the use of technology, go hand by hand. So innovation as two pillars that people aspect to it or has passion and the transparency and the trust it with, as well as the technology, we have access to one at some of the leading edge technology, which is set a thick center of our collaborations globally. And that's how we can really change the way we build.
And we think that as a way to extend. We launched two years ago the IDEA platform, which is innovations for design, engineering and automation, to really extend our leading edge technology capabilities to architects, engineers and other builders throughout the US and globally to really push, hey, this, this works and that's how it will work. And we apply it whether it's a small project or a larger project, scale doesn't matter. It's about the big idea.
Actually, some of the smaller projects cannot afford it. Losing money cannot afford it. The risk of of a big error is that's why you see so small market as well as a larger project. So it's really built upon trust. Yeah. And those two things are also deeply interconnected to the trust and people are not to separate, you know, conversations and the technology is in a third separate conversation from it. And if you look in really in your businesses as well, the trust necessary to adopt these new methods in these new tools and technologies and processes is fundamental to being successful with your business, because sometimes it's hard to change perceptions, especially as you alluded to earlier, We've been building things for 8000, 120 years in a very similar fashion and for good reason.
But now that we're starting to get new technologies and tools in the necessity to do these things at a faster pace or at a different scale, or has really forced us to to be innovative. But if your people don't trust you when you bring these tools to them and you don't have an honest conversation about it, there's going to be some hesitancy and it introduces a lot of risk into your business as well. And I don't I had an interesting conversation with a gentleman when I was talking about this before because I don't necessarily mean turning your entire company into a democratic process. Everybody votes on the tool that you're going to implement, but you have to have that two way conversation. You have to go to your super attendance and you say, Tell me about your process. And if we did this, what would happen or how would this change this or how would this impact you? Because if you don't, one, you might be introducing a process that makes the job harder. I've been hearing more of that, too.
It's it's a balance of understanding that deeply enough where the tools that the office is asking to implement in the field aren't burdensome, but actually an asset to those teams. And the only way to get those implemented and make that happen is through this conversations and through the trust that you're talking about here. Absolutely. Most of our time is actually communicating very well in real time with a field, a team, as well as a project management team in the office on how we can listen, learn and respond with all the technologies and capabilities we have to offer the service solutions.
So our work is always about mitigating risk, having no surprises on site or saving costs. With additive manufacturing, for example, we get the code. That's how it would cost the traditional method, and that's how we get to do it with digital prefabrication.
And the aha moment actually is when you find the cost savings as well as the better quality. That's a balance we always do. And our some of our core values is taking intelligent risks as is intelligent risk, as well as building great things with great people, which is a part of the culture of embracing innovation. When we go to our superintendents on the side and we told them about this new unprecedented way of tackling this leader scan idea or idea Z embrace it and say, Let's try it, let's see it.
And when it works and we provide that value, is it mitigating risk or increasing safety? That's when it gets implemented across the board for our projects. In your point there, that that idea moment, that aha moment is huge and it really shows that you've created that culture internally because if you don't set people up to be comfortable to take some risks and potentially fail on occasion, as long as the scale of that failure is something that is manageable and can be contained and doesn't negatively impact the overall project, scope and scale, it's okay sometimes for that to not go well because you're still trying to figure these new tools and new technologies out, and then you have an honest conversation that's not a gotcha conversation. It's just what didn't go well and why. And what do we do the next time to, you know, augment or mitigate that challenge? And that's a very different conversation.
I've unfortunately also been in the room where we've had grown men standing on the other side of a conference table, you know, screaming at each other over a schedule slippage or a material delay that they weren't anticipating. And I have empathy in that situation because there there are big implications when you're working on a $400 million project and you have liquid like liquidated damages every day of five grand or something, if you go overschedule, there's a reason to be concerned, but there's also a way to approach that conversation that has a bit more, I think, equity and honest appreciation for your staff and especially the younger people we were talking about earlier, they're not going to respond well if they're getting screamed at by their boss, that's just not how that sits. And so I think as you build that culture, it really sets everybody up to be in a wonderful position. Absolutely. I agree with you. A culture of constant learning, too. Like here, as a tech center, we utilize the different equipment, different machines, different robotic arms to do the same solution.
And we found out that that one is the most efficient and best one. It's a part of the learning curve. So next time we're going to do a similar project, we know the way to go. That's how we learn it. We look constant learning.
We learn something new every every day, and that's how we're actually in the bend. More. The innovation process.
We can always advance our way of thinking and our applications too. We're really fortunate to be sitting in this industry at this moment right now because, I mean, we've all seen that horrible statistic where construction isn't innovative and increase productivity and years. I hate when I see it in presentations.
Now because I'm like, that is not true. Like it's just simply inaccurate. Now we have so many opportunities for growth. There are so many things changing and what a fun and just neat time to be sitting in a space like this. Like, look around us. We have a giant robot arm sitting, you know, three by three feet to my right. It's it's just a really cool moment.
And I appreciate you taking some time to share some of your experience and knowledge about the industry with us today. So you likely remember me asking this question the last time you were on. And I like coming back the second time because, you know, sometimes you get some new answers, some interesting ones.
So I can't help but ask again. But what is one tool that you will always use on every project that you work on? It's actually the pencil I stuffed every thought process with a pencil and paper. It helps me brainstorm and the ideas before going digital, which is very important. All my work is actually on computers and robotics and drones and these are scanners. But before I get there it is that that pencil ideas that they can sketch and the stuff is a slow process.
And the nice thing about a pencil, it can always help us correct ourselves. When I do a mistake, I can erase it and quick to the best. It goes towards justice at the end. So actually the pencil is the only one thing I use every day. And in our thought process and in any thought process, actually it's nice to hear because there's something to be said about getting something out on paper, like a physical thing.
I'm much like you. 99% of my my work in my workflows and everything I do, whether it's, you know, all the things sitting in front of us right now or what we're doing on our computers is is a digital realm. But sometimes like my to do list, for example, I, I have to write everything on paper. I just, I can't help it.
And it's also so satisfying to just, you know, check those things off once you've, you know, achieved whatever task you're working on. But I like that perspective, like we're largely digital environment now, but, you know, sometimes the pencil and paper still has its place. So I've got one question for you.
What's the best way for listeners out there to reach you, or is there anything you'd like to share with our listeners today that you're working on or that you think that they should be, you know, aware of? So you can always reach out to me and who am I, LinkedIn or Wendover website? It's out there. I would be speaking to, for example, in Australia in mid mid-May doing a keynote for Construction Innovation Forum. They're speaking in the Netherlands next week for the Japan Great Conference. So folks from Europe or from New Zealand or Australia would love to see you there in Australia as well as more events coming in. Phenix.
So love to these these events in of course at Autodesk University to these events is really how we can exchange ideas and learn from each other. It's about the big ideas and how we show a love always when they speak in these events to showcase studies how we did that too. It's an educational content to folks and that's what I would say if that's possible, that we use in our jobs too. And you have doing the same through your amazing episodes is to to let folks know what's possible out there to advance our industry.
And that's one of the more fun things about our industry, too. Like obviously everybody has their, you know, competitive intel and such that they might not be as interested in sharing. But as far as bringing our industry forward, all these events that you're talking about, those are the levers to pull to be able to do this. I can't wait until Autodesk University this year where we get some of the people together to to talk about all of this technology and share. And you can just feel the excitement with, you know, other people such as yourself. And I'm just flattered that we have the opportunity to sit down with you.
I mean, you're keynoting all of these events and, you know, you have some really great passion for the industry. And I appreciate you joining me today. Thank you so much. So everybody out there listening. Of course, this is another episode of Autodesk Digital Builder podcast.
If again, if you are listening on Spotify or Apple or anywhere else, make sure you click the link in the show notes and go check out what we're doing over on YouTube. The the video experience is, you know, an extra exciting overlay on top of our traditional audio format you may be familiar with and love already. Also, if you have a moment to go out and rate our show on any of the players that you're listening to, I'd appreciate five stars, but give us whatever it feel appropriate.
It does make a big impact on the back end. And then of course, if you're over on YouTube, you can find us on the Autodesk Construction Cloud YouTube page. There's a playlist of all of those different episodes, and it's pretty easy to find. And if you want to talk to me, of course, I'm always happy to connect on LinkedIn. You can find me. I'm Eric Thomas or on Twitter App Builder Underscore Digital.
And without further ado, goodbye.
2023-08-21 22:55
