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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
Digital Twin? That’s a Dumb Flex.
In this brutally honest episode of KP Unpacked, the number one podcast in AEC, KP Reddy and Jeff Echols take a sledgehammer to one of the industry's most overused and misunderstood buzzwords: digital twin.
What even is a digital twin? KP unpacks why most people using the term don’t know what it really means, why having a 3D model doesn’t qualify, and how the lack of real-time sensing, integration, and meaningful data makes the concept nearly useless in today’s built world.
From hilarious real-world anecdotes to blunt industry truths, KP explains how chasing digital twin hype makes the whole AEC industry look foolish and what we should be focusing on instead.
You’ll hear about:
- Why BIM ≠ digital twin (and never did)
- The difference between useful models vs. empty tech flexes
- The real ROI (or lack of) in pursuing true digital twins
- Why too many people use tech to avoid getting on job sites
- How AI is learning from the wrong people
Plus: A sneak peek into the launch of Catalyst, KP Reddy Co.’s new community for forward-thinkers in AEC.
This episode is packed with insight, no-BS takes, and the kind of field-first perspective the industry desperately needs. If you’ve ever used or been confused by the term "digital twin," this one’s a must-listen.
Ignite what's next
We're launching something new... It’s called Catalyst.
It’s a space for AEC forward-thinkers are reimagining what’s next. This is where the top minds in the industry are sharing ideas, leading change, and pushing the future of AEC forward.
Sounds like you? Join the waitlist at https://kpreddy.co/
Check out one of our Catalyst conversation starters, AEC Needs More High-Agency Thinkers
Hope to see you there!
Hey, welcome back to KP Unpacked. My name is Jeff Eccles. I am the executive director of Catalyst, which is we're recording this. Today. Catalyst is officially launched. There are people coming off of the wait list into the community. So I have to jump straight back from this recording over into Catalyst to do some orientations and to welcome folks into the community. So that is super exciting for us today and we're back from a little bit of hiatus.
Speaker 1:We haven't recorded for a few weeks. I don't know if you'll even realize this is based on publication. Probably not. It's funny when we have these time-shifted things weeks. I don't know if you'll even realize this is, you know, based based on publication. Probably not. It's funny when you, when we have these time shifted things. But uh, kp has been traveling all over the place and, um, we've been busy getting this catalyst thing launched. So we're back at it now. So I am joined as usual today by kp ready. He is the CEO and founder of KP Reddy Co, the founder of Shadow Ventures, as well as author speaker. What else? What else should I put in your bio today?
Speaker 2:I have all the jobs. I have all the jobs, all the jobs Okay.
Speaker 1:He's a jack of all trades.
Speaker 2:I don't know, I do them all slightly above mediocre.
Speaker 1:Well, at least you're self-aware. We come here every week to record KPM Packed. We started this I don't know this version of the podcast a year and a half ago, I suppose, of the podcast a year and a half ago, I suppose really to dig into the popularity of your LinkedIn posts, because you're there posting a couple times, maybe three times a day, something like that, and some are long posts, some are short posts, they're insightful, sometimes they're pot stirring, and this is our opportunity to dig into some of those most popular posts, and so that's why we call it Unpacked. We come here and we unpack one of those posts every week. I'm going to let this dog out real quick. Usually she's asleep beside me, okay, all right, let's get back to it. Yep, asleep beside me, okay, all right, let's get back to it.
Speaker 1:So we're back here this week for, uh, to unpack another, another one of your LinkedIn posts and, um, one of the things that we're going to talk about, a topic that is, it's not a new topic. I don't know that we really talk about anything that's all that new. It seems like this whole conversation of innovation in the AEC world. When we look out at the broader world, I suppose we know it's a laggard industry, and so it seems like a lot of the innovation that we talk about is not necessarily new, or a lot of the topics we talk about are not necessarily new, but this is a popular topic and it has been for a long time. So hang on to your hats, because I'm going to read KP's post and then I'm going to give you a little bit of context here. So the post goes like this In AEC, please never say digital twin ever again. It doesn't exist and it will never exist. And you're already laughing. So, all right, we're going to get into that here in just a minute.
Speaker 1:But first let me set the stage. Let me give everybody a little bit of context. I know many people have heard the term, many people are familiar, many people have quote unquote worked on digital twins. Before we unpack that post, let me give you a little bit of a definition. A digital twin is a digital model of an intended or actual real-world physical product, system or process. A physical twin that serves as a digital counterpart of it for purposes such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring and maintenance. A digital twin is a set of adaptive models that emulate the behavior of a physical system in a virtual system, getting real-time data to update itself along its lifecycle, managing to prescribe real world actions for optimization and or mitigate unexpected events. Observing and evaluating the operating profile system. All right, that's a lot of words. I think that was relatively understandable for for most people. So, given that definition and your post, don't ever say it again. What? What do you see as the reality of the digital twin?
Speaker 2:Well, I see what happens is let's take a step back about how people look at technology in this space. Right, we drew on paper, vellum, whatever, and then we went into cad and then we went into bim, and then it wasn't good enough to say, hey, I'm a bim manager or a bim draftsman or whatever, right, whatever that may be. We decided we need to say that we're in the business of digital twins. Um, not sure why, right, not sure why people brought it up. Um, maybe just to be different, differentiated, but these are one of these things.
Speaker 2:I think the reason I posted about it and get focused on these things is the more you say dumb things, the dumber the industry looks. So, okay, so when people are on linkedin or whatnot, talking about things as they have, as they think they may have, authority, but they're saying dumb stuff, it makes us all look dumb. So I feel like it was a public service announcement like stop saying it, because you make us all look dumb okay and and the reason being is, if we think about a digital twin, let's think about, like, why people bring it up.
Speaker 2:It's because they get a, they they see bim, they have a 3d model and they somehow think, because they have a 3d model that is, a 3d representation of the building, quote unquote that it's a digital twin. Right, right, absolutely not. It's just absolutely not Right. I mean a digital twin. If you look at history, right, and I think in that article I sent you um cause I was like you know, let's, let's, let's just make sure we're not. You know, kp is not just saying this to be a jerk, right, this is actually what the facts are. This is the definition of a digital twin. I didn't read it, you read it. You read it off the internet, right?
Speaker 1:so it must be true must be true.
Speaker 2:Um, so this idea that, like a 3d model, is a digital twin is just not even close, and to say so is quite ignorant. Because it has to be a, it has to be a. Nowhere does it say 3d. Nowhere does it say 3D. Did you see 3D on there? No, it said a digital representation of the real reality.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And so everything I've seen in digital twin is you know, I can't open and close the window, I can't open and close the door, I can't set the. You know, I can't see what the building system, the VAVs, were open or closed. So unless we're going to sensor buildings and have a sensor on everything, including the revolving door, including the flooring, how do you create a digital representation of reality to predict analytics? And the best use case of this has been from GE for their engines. Right, they were running LIDAR scans, they had sensors all in the motors, right, and if one of the blades had a minor flaw in it, it would get represented. And then they could say with this flaw, if I run it another thousand hours, what's it going to do? Is it going to break? What's the issues going to be? And so it requires a level of sensing in the physical system to actually feed data to the digital system.
Speaker 1:And we don't have that.
Speaker 2:We're not even close to it. And we have to remember a building is not a building, a building is a system it's an entire system.
Speaker 2:so it's not good enough. Like, oh, I have sensors on all the mep, it's a digital twin. Like, no, you need to have a sensor on the door because I don't know how many times that door opens and closes. Like, right, yeah, interesting, one of our portcos fluixix. They basically say, hey, we can put facilities on autopilot using AI and their AI system sits there and monitors the BMS system and monitors everything. And they were working with a client and they didn't understand why they're having all these energy spikes.
Speaker 2:And it turns out some door was getting opened, some big warehouse door was getting open and left open for too long and that was changing the dynamic. Well, how do you know that? Like, a digital twin should know this, right, but there's no sensor on the big door. There's no sensor that says it's open or closed or how long it's open or what percentage it's open and what are the outside weather conditions in terms of temperatures. On that there's so much more complexity to it. When we think about a building system and the number of sensors and touch points that you have to have, it's just not possible. So we should stop saying it. You don't sound cool because you say you know digital twin. You sound dumb.
Speaker 1:Is a digital twin possible? Sound dumb is is a digital twin possible?
Speaker 2:it's possible. The question would be what was? What's the return on investment?
Speaker 1:right we.
Speaker 2:There's sensors for everything you know. You can get sensors from 25 to 100 right and um or more, but can you put a sensor on every door, every window, every you know? You know, the running joke I have is if you live in a historic home, like an old home, right?
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:So if I digital twin your own house, do all your windows open exactly the same Of course not.
Speaker 1:Why? Because they're old, Because they're old right, right.
Speaker 2:So we would need a digital representation of every window, because if I wanted to say, hey, what if I, if I wanted to run a simulation Other part of it I want to play around with my thermostat. You went and bought a fancy nest thermostat, right, and I want to play around with. If I open these three windows upstairs to release some heat, can I mess with my thermostat, right, right, it's a? I don't know, it's a great simulation. I'm one of these guys that walks around, I check, I check my registers, like everybody usually has all their registers open or like that one room, that extra room you're not using, you close it all the way.
Speaker 2:I'm the weirdo that walks around and mine are like, oh, that one needs to be about three-eighths open. Um, like I don't know why we don't have VAVs in homes anyway. But if you wanted to run that simulation, well, that that extra bedroom where the window doesn't open all the way cause it's like old, the digital twin needs to know this.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right, the digital twin. You know like, you can never open that window because it's been painted shut Cause it has four layers of paint on it sure, yeah, yeah. So at the very least it's not practical probably not yeah, so you can argue that are there great other granular you know. Could you put a thermostat in every, could you put a thermometer in every room of your house and maybe that's how you're getting there. So there there's different, but but I think that the my general point is that no one's doing digital twins.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And um, and we might be able to. You know, some folks might think they they're impressing each other in our industry. Go talk to an engineer in the NASA and talk about digital twins. You look like a moron.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. So we shouldn't. We shouldn't say digital twins, because we don't actually have digital twins. It is possible to create digital twins, probably not practical, and the big question, of course, is ROI. So what's the point? You know again. You know, when I opened I said this is not a new topic.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:You know we've been talking about digital twins for a long time. So where did where did the idea come from? Or, or, or, maybe more importantly, why did we start talking about digital twins? What were we, what were we actually envisioning when we started talking about digital twins?
Speaker 2:I think people were envisioning this idea.
Speaker 1:The real deal yeah.
Speaker 2:That a building is a system and whatnot. But I think you know some of this stuff comes from people. Go talk at conferences. Look, there's words I can use in our industry that are five years old but might sound new to the industry and be very impressive. So I think what happens is you know you have conferences, you have people that talk about this stuff, you have people that you know. I think I posted something a couple of years ago and I was like never did an owner ask for a digital twin. They just want a building on time, on budget, that operates, performs within their criteria. They don't ever ask for a digital twin. That's like. It's not. No one cares. It's a big, so what sandwich?
Speaker 1:you know, I think that's you know that I don't know well we we may have owners asking for digital twins.
Speaker 1:If people are out there talking about digital toys they go, oh right, and and know, we know that one of the things that has has driven BIM adoption in AE firms is owners saying, hey, I heard about this BIM, you need to be using BIM. And many times it's the mechanical systems. Right, I mean, you've been using different versions of mechanical systems a lot as examples here, but many times it's, and I think maybe it even goes back to lead, right, okay, we're going to get this lead, it's going to be. We're going to have it third-partied and then we're going to need to monitor. You know how this system works.
Speaker 1:This system works, and there are you used the word earlier there are granular ways or different tools and systems to monitor this, that and the other, which some owners do actually really want right, looking at how their building performs. But then you know, back to the question of digital twin is that really what we're after or is it just simply what's the efficiency? Or how's unit number three on level number two running on June 20th 2025. Is it? Is it in line? Is it is it, does it require maintenance, et cetera?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think part of it is if we're not doing the basics, let's stop trying with you know. Look, we commission a building, yeah, and then we never touch it again.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like that's, that's insane. It's just like absolutely insane. Right, we's insane. It's just absolutely insane, right, we can't find warranty and perform. I was talking to a large flooring manufacturer and I was like, hey, after you sell your flooring once, shouldn't you just automatically get your salespeople, should just get a lead that says, hey, it's about time for this carpet to be replaced. Like, you know what the lifespan is of a, you know you put carpet in a hospital. You know probably in three years it needs to be replaced, right, it's not, it's not. There's no special math here. It's they. They know these things. Like that'd be great if we knew where our carpet was. We have no idea where our carpet is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's kind of amazing, isn't it?
Speaker 2:But. But if you think about it, even just the serviceability, the planned maintenance, forget about unplanned maintenance. Right? Unplanned maintenance is what a digital twin should predict.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Which goes back to that definition that I read.
Speaker 2:Right, we can't get planned maintenance down.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:We can't even get that. We're worried about unplanned maintenance, you know. So I think there's just this idea that it's fun to talk about. Fun to talk about. You know and say digital twin, and I think you can say it in an audience that doesn't know any better Because I digital twin. And I think you can say it in an audience that doesn't know any better, because spend time with people in aerospace and aviation and industrial. They'll quickly explain to you why you have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:So what? What should we call? And there's no standard to any of it. But what should we call what we're doing?
Speaker 2:we're building 3d models. You know, um, I don't even know that from a, you know, from a bim to a 3d model, is there a difference?
Speaker 2:they're not mutually exclusive I mean, I, I don't. I don't know that. You know, if you, um, if you create a 3d model using revit, just because you used revit, does that automatically make it them like? I remember this is years ago. This was before they had revit mep. Funny enough, they didn't have revit mep and I was working with a model and they did mechanical modeling how they do mechanical model. This is fantastic. What did they do right? These? This is fantastic. What did they do right? These guys were using the handrail family and editing it to become pipe. I was like this is fantastic. It's kind of like fantastic, right? So did that model? Did it look like the mechanical system? Yes, but if I pulled data from it, it was a handrail, it wasn't.
Speaker 1:Well, that also brings up a good point, right? What's if, depending on where you fall in the A, the E or the C, what's the point of having a model Revit or whatever product you use? What's the point of having a 3d model with mechanical systems in it for the, the majority of the lifespan of bim? The reason to have to show the mechanical was to look for conflicts, to look for crashes. It wasn't about the performance of the of the systems. It was hey, is this pipe going to run into that? Are we going to to run this sprinkler pipe through the middle of this return?
Speaker 2:Yeah, which, once again, I love because we have our integrated owners forum. So I'm spending so much of my time with owners and I like playing back stuff to them. It's like so we don't design buildings like without clashes. We basically design a building with lots of clashes and then go fix it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you're paying for this, by the way. And oh, by the way, the architect is supposed to be coordinating, right, that's the whole point is they're supposed to be coordinating. And so a lot of the conversation I've been having with owners have been especially with AI. The idea is that architects are in AI, speak, architects are supposed to do orchestration and everyone is an agent. That's what they're supposed to be doing, and this idea that it's not happening, but we'll deal with it later. Deal with it later. Right, it's just wild and you start talking to owners and they're like, yeah, that is messed up.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, yeah, it is Like yeah, but they kind of don't know, they kind of don't care. But when shown to them they start to understand like, oh okay, this is really strange.
Speaker 1:It is strange, I'll agree. I mean, there's an awful lot of resources spent on fixing those clash, detect those clashes, whether in the model or in the field, and there's obviously a lot that plays into that, right, one of the realities of construction is, once you start moving dirty, it's messy, right Like, literally and figuratively. So what's causing that in the field? Because none of this happens in a bubble, none of it happens in a vacuum. There's, there's reality that that sometimes not all the time, I mean, but but sometimes forces some of these things. And you know, sometimes it's just, you know, from from the design side.
Speaker 1:One of the things that used to kill me all the time is you walk into this room and you're supposed to have this whole row of of can lights, right, that's aligned over the kitchen island or whatever, or you know some of these and you know they're, they're dimensioned that way on on the drawings, right, and the electrician installs them, which, again, hey, we created this 3d model and then we printed it out on 24 by 36 inch sheets of paper. So there's that but that, but. But the electrician, did they actually read the plan? Or were the the um ceiling? Yeah, you know, were the the ceiling members. Yeah, placed properly there's. There's all all kinds of things, right but?
Speaker 2:but you're bringing up an interesting point like um things right, but you're bringing up an interesting point like and you know, check out previous episodes where I said Ben is dead. Just Google that Ben is dead, but I remember working on a courthouse and this was the early days of 4D. We're going to tie construction to a construction schedule and we went through.
Speaker 1:It was like a federal a construction schedule and we went through.
Speaker 2:It was like a federal courthouse. We went through so much effort this is the sequencing and this is what makes sense and I go out to the job site and they just didn't follow it. And so I asked the superintendent like what the hell, like dude, what has happened, like we put in so much work? Like well, the mvp guys got here first and they were ready to go. And I was like like the mechanical guys showed up and they were ready to go and they'd already fabricated their stuff. So they, you know, first in, first out.
Speaker 1:They won.
Speaker 2:They won. I was like this is what I stopped doing 4D. I was like this this is dumb. Like clients would ask me to do 40. I'm like, no, I won't do it. Like we'll pay you. I'm like, no, it's dumb, it's just. It's just, I refuse to do it. I'm not going to spend hours of my life, whether you pay me or not, doing something that will never be used.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think you know the the most important quote that we can bring into a conversation like this is, of course, mike tyson. Right, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face, um you know that's, that's real.
Speaker 2:Is this our google it moment?
Speaker 1:hey, google it yes, google it google it, kids you don't know who mike tyson is? Google it, um and hint, he's not an actor in the Hangover. Yeah, I mean he is, but that's not why. But if you bring it back around to, okay, why the idea of digital twin, which we've established the fact that it's rarely, if ever, exists? You know, we've, we've established the fact that it's it's rarely, if ever exists, um, you know, even the idea, as, as you were talking about it earlier, in the sensors, I'm thinking just in this room, again, old house, um, you know, why would I even bother? Why would I even bother trying to figure out if this window opens or closed? The walls are so leaky, right, I mean, this house is you know that old right and so.
Speaker 2:So what about that window? Um, do you have any situations where, if you plugged in something into three plugs in the same room, it trips the?
Speaker 1:breaker. I, I do not, I do not, but but that's real, that's's real in old houses certainly yeah, I have a you saw fuses.
Speaker 2:Do you have like this screwy? I do not. No, those are awesome.
Speaker 1:But there are some, there are definitely some of my neighborhood, that do, yeah, knob and tube wiring, all of it. But you know, I'm thinking like, just in this room, this little this is a bedroom, was a bedroom, um, how many sensors would I have to have in this room alone to you know? And I guess it would depend. What do we want to do with that digital twin? Right, that that's another piece of it. Does the digital twin, I guess, if I guess the, the, uh, the theoretical digital twin has it all right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the theoretical digital twin, like, all right, yeah, the theoretical digital twin. Like I said, you have planned events, you have unplanned events yeah what a digital twin is. To mitigate is to reduce the number of unplanned events, to make the majority of them planned events right. And if you think about it's interesting. Like the airline industry, you know, in cars we look at mileage, right. That's.
Speaker 2:That's what drives maintenance in most cases, which I think I kind of I don't understand the whole, like mileage or months for an oil change yeah, somehow oil goes, oh, it gets bad I think it's like a made-up thing, but um, but we do understand mileage as it relates to motor wear and tear and all that, whereas now in the airline industry it's hours, right, it's hours of service. Also boots, yeah, and they figure it out predictably, like in this many hours of service. Because, honestly, a car, if you left it idling for six days, right, it doesn't matter that you didn't drive it right.
Speaker 2:It's the motor's been running. So I think that's kind of some of the thinking around it. But you know, if the goal is to, like, mitigate unplanned events and really that should be the goal, right I mean that should be the ultimate goal. I think the other ultimate goal is, if you do have some unplanned maintenance or renovation or something else, to be able to quickly estimate what needs to happen. Oh, we need to replace, you know, you know, carpets out, hardwoods in, right? How many square feet is the room you're in? No yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You have to go measure it, right.
Speaker 2:If you had digital, you wouldn't have to measure it. You'd be at home Depot and you had some wild hair. You watch a video and you're like, oh, I'm going to put in my own hardwood floors because that sounds like something I can do this weekend. You don't have to go back and measure. You pull up the digital twin at your house and right, I mean so, yeah, sure, fine, right, yeah. But I think that's kind of the point around. This is it should really be on the world of the maintenance side the reduction of unplanned events, making almost everything a planned event.
Speaker 2:Now I've also argued there's a digital twin aspect to construction. But that means you need to. You need to really like understand the site logistics. You've got to understand materials management, you have to understand, like, where the work, and I don't think you have to simulate little people walking around the job site with hard hats per se. I think that would be cool.
Speaker 2:But I remember I did a whole study for a college campus actually over at Emory, where they were building a new hospital wing and they were just very sensitive about pedestrian traffic and we had to demonstrate that to them, based on where construction was, which sidewalks were going to be closed off and where the detours were going to be. And they had to get comfortable. And we were able to show them like, oh, on day 50 of construction, this is what it'll look like. These sidewalks will be shut down, these will be open, the kids are going to have to walk an extra hundred yards to get to class. You know, whatever it is right, but we were actually able to show them on a day-by-day basis, based on the construction schedule, which was obviously wrong the minute it we hit print, so to speak which, by the way, I had another post right after this digital twin post was like are we still doing cpm and gant? That we're still doing? Are we still doing CPM in Gantt? Is that what we're still doing?
Speaker 1:Are we doing?
Speaker 2:anything different now? So that's weird. There's been zero innovation in that since we started using. We invented CPM. I think it was like Booz Allen or the Navy to build boats yeah, it was to build boats. Cpm was all about building boats, which was fine because you had everything in a contained vessel. Mostly, right when you think about construction and you think about CPM. We don't extend CPM out to the supply chain, right? We're not integrating into Honeywell's supply chain to know when things are coming, so it's like I don't know. Or traffic we're not running traffic simulation to know like concrete trucks could actually be there two hours late right, right.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, it comes down to usability right, I mean yes, the the whole idea that the technical idea of digital twin is is the predictive side of it, the unplanned side of it, and so maybe you this doesn't necessarily fit into it, but what about you know, those, those planned aspects that you're talking about? Right, what's what's actually useful about this model, whatever we call this thing? Um, you know, I think the construction example is super interesting, uh, very, very complicated. Super interesting, uh, very, very complicated.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I was speaking in norfolk, virginia, a while back and at lunch, which by the way, for those that aren't aware, they build a lot of ships in norfolk, virginia. If you ever have a chance to go see a shipbuilding operation, yeah, instead of doing the walking tour at aia I don't think they'll ever do ai at norfolk. But instead of doing the walking tour at aia, I don't think they'll ever do aia at norfolk. But instead of doing the dumb walking tours, go see a shipyard. You'll learn a lot more yeah, yeah it's, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:And I was sitting at lunch with somebody and they were we were talking about we didn't talk about, quote-unquote digital twins, but we were talking about models, we were talking about visualization and you know this idea that the hull of a ship is basically built like a wedding cake on its side with these slices, and so they have to splice this one to that one to that one to that one to make the hull, and of course it gets dark in there hull, and of course it gets dark in there, and as you start to splice these together, you need to start removing bracing.
Speaker 1:if you remove the wrong bracing, you've got a disaster. And so the the people I don't even know what you call that trade, that's that's down there in the hole that's cutting the bracing away had their tablet or whatever. They had their goggles, of course, their welding mask, but they had their VA, I guess, goggles and they were able to highlight on their tablet, in the plan or the model, I guess, the brace that needed to be cut next.
Speaker 1:And then, through their goggles, they could see the brace and they could cut it. And then, you know, go through this process and I thought that is brilliant. Is that a digital twin? No, but it's a brilliant use of of some of the 3d technology that we have and, um, you know, I think the just usefulness you know, as you're saying this, right, it feels like all we do is borrow terms from other industries of course we're behind for self-validation like what?
Speaker 2:why can't we invent anything? Cpmpm we took from the Navy, BIM is like 3D CAD. Cad was not. You know, the MEP people were doing CAD. Right, we don't really invent anything, do we?
Speaker 1:We just take things from other industries and Wouldn't we have to get ahead of the curve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. Let's come back to the digital twin topic for another hypothesis I have.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Shoot. I think we do a lot of digital tools under the name of optimization and that there's a benefit. I think people are just afraid of going out into the field. I just think people want to be in their office or their cubicle or at home on their laptop instead of walking a job site. One of our founders is just like a fantastic founder of track 3d nk. Yeah, he's like just one, just like just a kind, amazing person human right, yeah, absolutely it's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but when he know and he's from india. So when he launched track 3d funny story and he loves telling the story, but I'll tell it so he basically came to my website, filled out a form. I set up a call with them, liked what they were doing and gave them a term sheet like three weeks later and funded them like six weeks later, and he was like I thought you had to like know people in vc. I'm like no, you just reach out and I answer you know, it's like we operate a little bit differently, right, and so he's done, fantastic. But he was from india and so he moved here and I told him, like stop being on zoom calls, stop shooting out emails, I'll help you, help you get some of your first clients. And we did. I'm like go sit on a job site.
Speaker 2:Just spend all your time on job sites, and he would. He'd go two, three weeks to see how his product was being implemented. He showed up to the job site. He talked to everyone because that's his personality. He's one of those guys. He's going to talk to everyone on the job side because it would be rude to do differently, it'd be rude to ignore anyone. The guy pushing the broom he's going to go talk to. Like I said he's a better human than I, but he did it. It's such a big difference in him understanding the business.
Speaker 2:I sometimes feel like the people that are on LinkedIn all day, present company included, the people that don't talk about the industry a lot but don't, or never on. You know, I don't have my OSHA training anymore, right, like it's like there's those of us that just talk a lot, which is me, but I've been there before. I just choose not to anymore. But I think there's a lot of people that use technology as avoidance to going out to the job site. I'm gonna get someone to go fly a drone for me. I'm gonna sit behind my computer. Oh sure, you know it's. It's like. I think partly it's like. Maybe you know, um, maybe we'll just talk when you talk to the early and mid-career folks, right? Maybe the first three months of the job you don't get a laptop. You just go to the job site, you just go to the job site.
Speaker 1:Here's your clipboard and a piece of paper and a red pen.
Speaker 2:And pay attention. Pay attention. Don't sit there on your computer, don't sit there on your phone. Pay attention to what's going on, ask lots of questions. I have a lot of curiosity about how the different trades are doing their job and I think, like for architecture and engineering especially, that are office jobs, it should just be a requirement. Instead, we're worried about people's you know, do you know how to use Revit in the latest version? Right, like who cares about that? I mean who cares. I mean learning Revit is not some superpower. Knowing what to do with Revit is like probably more of a superpower.
Speaker 1:The idea that I heard somebody talking about they used chat to do something, to write something or whatever it was, and they said it sucked. It's like, well, yeah, you have to learn how to use the tool in a way that actually moves the needle for you in some way. If you just say, hey, write something about this, it's going to suck. Write something about this, it's going to suck.
Speaker 1:But if you treat it maybe as a, for instance, if you treat it as, as your intern, you know how would you explain to the intern how to use this? There's, there's, um, you know you can use a pneumatic nailer fantastic tool and it could really suck right If you don't use it right for a lot of reasons really suck right If you don't use it right. For a lot of reasons that's good, but yeah, I think there's a lot out there.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously, you know what we're talking about here is what people say, what people call things misnomers, perhaps so there's definitely that side of it. And then there's the side, I think, of people not really knowing how to use the tools and not use them effectively. Because we've talked about this before right, if you use AI just for efficiency, you're sunk. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But think about this right. So now we have all the GPTs and we have all the stuff right AI stuff and AI learns based on the users right, based on what we're putting in and all that so specific to our industry. The people that are spending the significant amount of time in these AI tools are office people. I don't think the superintendents are, so the body of knowledge that AI is being fed is from office people and somewhat theorists right.
Speaker 2:In other words, if a superintendent, the guy that's been in or gal that's been in the field all their life, if they were coordinating duct work, they're going to have a different point of view than maybe the MEP engineer or the BIM manager at the MEP contractor. And so you think about that. The body of knowledge that ai is getting is most likely from the people with the least real world experience yeah, I think I'm sure that applies to every industry, not just ours yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, I think, and maybe this, maybe this becomes a topic for another show. I think that's an age-old problem, I think it's amplified now that we have AI and other emerging tech.
Speaker 1:But when so when I went to architecture school kind of growing up around construction uncles in construction and friends and friends of friends in construction, things like that almost every job I had when I was a kid, even all the way through architecture school, was somehow a construction-related job Framing, electrician, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:And then I went to architecture school and even after I graduated I see so few people coming through school or even out of school even my bosses that had any construction experience at all, and so you know, maybe they were going out in the field, maybe they learned some things, but it was theoretical, right, they weren't swinging a hammer, they weren't turning a wrench, they weren't whatever. And I think we're still at that point now. Right, If you know there's pressure, you know get this done, get that done faster, this whatever. But I think if, if, on the design side, as a, for instance and I'll, I'll pick on that side because that's where I come from but, um, right, if, if we don't have firsthand knowledge of how to do this, then it doesn't matter what our tools are yeah, you know what's really funny?
Speaker 2:Buddy of mine I won't name him just raised a bunch of money for his AI startup and he was doing interviews on the TechCrunch and all the usual places that tech entrepreneurs that raise a bunch of money are on, and he said something that just made me laugh out loud. He was like yeah, we're a hybrid. People asked him about and he's a youngish guy, he's like 27 or something. He's like yeah, we're a hybrid. You know, people asked him about like and he's a youngish guy, he's like 27 or something. And they asked him like well, what do you think about like work styles, you know, being a young founder? And blah, blah, blah. He was like yeah, we are a hybrid workforce. Or, you know, we tell my team it's hybrid.
Speaker 2:You either work on the client side client site or you're in the office. It's hybrid. I was like exactly right. So think about this. We have all this mobility right. These BIM managers, these architects everybody's got a laptop. Why wouldn't you park them on the job site Instead of letting them work from home? You give them all this laptop. You're giving all this connectivity right, zoom and everything else, instead of saying you're allowed to work from home and I'm sure I'll get some hate mail. Don't let them work from home. You're either in the office or you're on the project site. There's the only two places you get to work, because in both places you will actually learn something, hopefully. Right Right, you're not going to learn anything working from home. We didn't give you all this mobility for you to hang out in a coffee shop. Is that what we just spent all this money on? No, it's a hybrid workforce. You're either in the office or you're on the job site.
Speaker 1:That's the tweet or in the coffee shop.
Speaker 2:That's the tweet.
Speaker 1:That's the tweet. That's the tweet. Hybrid is here or there, but not over there.
Speaker 2:I will tell you I'm really missing, or there, but not over there. I will tell you I'm really missing, like I have a little office in san mateo but, um, and so I've made some friends at my. We work right and I will tell you like, because I have some friends there and you know like there's a social dynamic but there's a little bit.
Speaker 2:You know, get off a shitty call and just someone to like talk to my three-year-olds, tired of like hearing me talk about you know, mark, your three-year-old therapist yeah like, hey, dude, like we need more dpi and our, you know like he's just tired of hearing about like my investment was but um, but it is kind of interesting when you're in these like in-office dynamics, like you kind of miss, you miss it, like when you're having a good day, a bad day, whatever, and so I think I think we might all be getting to that point where we actually miss being in an office.
Speaker 1:Maybe I think you know it's that one, that one's going to be easy or not easy, that one's going to be interesting to see how it plays out over time, because it's the paradigm has shifted or has broken and and hopefully you know, it's a an exploration now of what makes sense, and I think you know your argument, your friend's argument for job site or office, especially especially for maybe a younger person that's, and you've got supervision right and you've got mentoring and things that are necessary, even through licensure processes.
Speaker 1:But, um, you know what? What makes sense? You know how do we get better at what we do? Is it working in a coffee shop? I, you know, I don't know. I like coffee, but I really like coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as do I, but I think there's this idea, though, like the balancing of the head If you can do heads down work at home, if you can do heads down work at a coffee shop, you can also do it at a job trailer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, that's all I'm saying. And are you more likely to build a relationship? Learn something new, whatnot on your job trailer, right you know then, I mean, I remember when I was a young engineer you went out to the job trailer, you had meetings, but you had to get back to the office because your computer was back in the office.
Speaker 2:All your things were back in the office yeah, yeah, took your handwritten notes back yeah, um like, why aren't we using mobility to be closer to the problems, closer to the projects, versus further away from it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, that's interesting. We should unpack that one um, there's a lot to explore there yeah all right okay.
Speaker 1:Well, we, kp and I have been unpacking his post. Let me start with the definition. A digital twin is a digital model of an intended or actual real-world physical products, system or process. A physical twin that serves as a digital counterpart of it for purposes such as assimilation and integration, testing, monitoring and maintenance. The Digital Twin is a set of adaptive models that emulate the behavior of a physical system in a virtual system, getting real-time data to update itself all along its life cycle. The Digital Twin replicates the physical system to predict failures and opportunities for changing, to prescribe real-time actions, for optimizing and or mitigating unexpected events, observing and evaluating the operating profile system. So that last part of that definition right there is. We focused a lot on that in our conversation today and we're giving you that definition because the post KP's post that we unpacked today reads simply in AEC, please never say digital twin, ever again. It doesn't exist and will never exist.
Speaker 1:If you are not following KP Ready on LinkedIn, you should be. It's pretty simple. Just type in the search bar K, the letter K, the letter P, ready, r-e-d-d-y, and a guy that looks a lot like this guy that's sitting across from me right now will pop up and you should follow him. He posts two, maybe three times a day on insights from innovation for the built environment. We do this every week, and one of the things that we're celebrating today, as we record this, is the fact that we have launched Catalyst, our community of innovators for the built environment. It's a place where we're tearing down silos. It's a place where we can do and will have deep conversations about the things that matter most for innovation in the built environment. We're pulling people out of the wait list right now and letting them in today as we speak. In fact, I'm going to wrap this up here really quickly because I've got to go do an onboarding session.
Speaker 2:And real quick on that note. I think a lot of people don't realize. If you notice me on LinkedIn, I never respond to your comments. I respond to comments in Catalyst, like.
Speaker 1:I interact with people on.
Speaker 2:Cat with catalyst. I don't really. Some people are just trying to troll me on linkedin. I'm catalyst, I know. I know what they look like, so I know where they live.
Speaker 1:On catalyst so that was an invitation for the trolls to move over to catalyst? Is what you're saying?
Speaker 2:yeah you have to get through the wait list and get through you. There's a little bit a lot more barriers, a lot more barriers.
Speaker 1:Great.
Speaker 2:Now.
Speaker 1:I'm going to start interviewing a bunch of trolls. I have averaged about 10 to 12 interviews per day over the past month or so. I guess it's been because I'm interviewing everybody that puts their name on the wait list to verify that they're a good candidate for the community. So it's been great meeting a lot of people. It's been great letting a lot of people well today, letting a lot of people in, and it is going to be quite the vibrant community. My name is Jeff Eccles. I'm the Executive Director of Catalyst here at KP ReadyCo. I'm joined as always, at least in this version of the podcast I'm joined by our CEO and founder, kp Ready. We'll be back again next week where we will unpack another one of KP's posts, probably this one on workplace culture, or maybe not. Thanks, kp, all right, I'll see you All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks, kp, all right, I'll see you All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, depending on the version, and we'll see you next week. Thank you.