173: ‘Raising Digital Literacy’, with Cody Winchester

173: ‘Raising Digital Literacy’, with Cody Winchester
Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel in this episode, I'm talking with my friend and former colleague, Cody Winchester about his journey from traditional practice, into the realm of digital practice and technology training in architecture. My pre-podcast-preamble (trademark) for this episode is a bit longer than usual and for good reason, because today's conversation is near and dear to me, as I revisit my past role as director of digital practice at HMC architects. Cody is HMCs lead technology trainer, where he has embodied my original vision of integrating technology training, and education directly into architectural practice for the benefit of staff development. As we all know, architecture is a profession of continuous learning and technology moves at an incredible pace.
So it just makes sense to directly address and integrate tech training into the daily operations of a firm. Luckily HMC is an organization that also believes that to be [00:01:00] true. It's also worth noting that it's not an easy commitment for leadership to make, as we've seen many firms steer clear of this facet of what I think is table stakes for the evolving practice. Many have naturally asked, and you've probably heard this before. "What if we train them and they leave?" but the question one should be asking is, "what if we don't, and they stay?"
You see, in a previous life, I taught emerging technology courses at the undergraduate and graduate level for over a decade in the architecture department at Cal Poly Pomona in Southern California. And this conversation is really a result of my experience at the intersection of education, architecture and technology.
One of the goals of digital practice at HMC was to continuously raise what we call the digital IQ of the staff by creating a dedicated technology training wing, whose mission was to create and deliver an ongoing curriculum for the staff that included tools, workflows and a whole lot [00:02:00] more.
Cody took that vision and ran with it, creating a successful integrated technology academy within the organization that continues to this day. Fast-forward to mid 2024, where Cody was proposing a talk for Autodesk university to tell the story of how a culture of digital literacy had been created at HMC over the last five years. And once his talk was accepted, he reached out to me and we talked and recounted some of the history of HMCs digital practice that led up to his hiring in 2019. Some of what I shared with him he was just hearing for the first time. And he took some of that and he included it into his talk that he gave at AU.
Cody's curiosity during our chat sparked memories, I hadn't thought of in years. And it was great to have this conversation with him so that it could be shared with all of you through that talk at AU. My hope is that this story that we're sharing today will inspire others to also go down this route. Today he shares insights from his recent [00:03:00] case study that he presented in the fall of 2024 at Autodesk University, which I've provided a link to in the show notes discussing the evolution of digital literacy and technology implementation at HMC architects.
We also explore the importance of bridging the gap between practice and technology, The role of training in modern architectural education and in firms, The critical need to capture and transfer knowledge from experienced professionals to the next generation and the challenges and successes of integrating technology into architectural practice as the underlying technology continues to evolve at a pace that is difficult to keep up with. Before we get into today's conversation, I would very much appreciate your support by subscribing to the show wherever you watch or listen. And please leave a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It really helps get the show out there. If you'd like to receive an email from me when new episodes are published with all of the links and other information as they come out, you can sign up for that by becoming a free or paid [00:04:00] member at trxl.co. Just click the big join button in the lower right-hand corner.
Speaking of paid memberships. One of the perks of that are my episode analysis that I publish in my Leadership Edge newsletter. These episode briefs provide key insights for forward-thinking leaders who are seeking innovation in AEC, but are also short on time, offering the context of each conversation without the need to listen to the full episode. They're designed to keep you updated, spark your interest and encourage you to tune in if those ideas resonate. Leadership Edge newsletters are only available to paid members of TRXL+, and you can become one at trxl.co.
To get a taste of what's on offer, you can search for Leadership Edge on trxl.co for a few previously published examples. So now without further ado, I bring you my conversation with Cody Winchester.
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Evan Troxel: [00:05:00] I'm really happy to be having a conversation with Cody Winchester today. So Cody, welcome to the podcast.
Cody Winchester: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you a lot.
Evan Troxel: This is going to be a fun conversation because you recently did a course, what would you call it? A seminar, a
workshop, a class, something, you know, there's
Cody Winchester: Uh, yeah,
Evan Troxel: you do for a living.
Tell me what this thing was.
Cody Winchester: they deemed it a case study. So as a kind of a overview of what we had done around training in digital literacy at HMC, your, your former haunt.
Evan Troxel: That's right. So Cody and I have known each other for a while and Cody was hired within our digital practice team to lead our technology training. And I think people still kind of raise their eyebrows at the whole idea of a company investing in that kind of a thing. So I think we're going to get there, but maybe before we do, uh, tell us about you and what you've been up to in [00:06:00] your career and your trajectory to
become what you have become.
Cody Winchester: Yeah, I mean, that was incidentally a big part of the talk, because I felt to that point, like, how does one end up in a role like this? There's no real, no road map for that when you
go to architecture school. So I was pretty much set on a very kind of traditional path. And I think. One of the key points that I wanted to illustrate, um, in that talk and kind of speak, you know, answering your question, um, kind of where things came from is, you know, I went through four years of college never using anything, um, in terms of like technology.
It was really, it was all drafting tables and may lines and triangles and templates, trace paper, Mylar. You know, we were trained to do that
for four years.
Evan Troxel: I'm getting the [00:07:00] feels. right
Cody Winchester: Yeah.
Evan Troxel: there, there is a nostalgia
to those tools, right? Like still, There definitely is. If you had the opportunity to use them, it's like, we're never going back.
Like, let's not, that's not going to happen. Right.
But I still have them. Like I'm pointing, they're right over there in my
room, in the office that I'm sitting in right now.
Cody Winchester: Yeah, I have a whole,
you know, file cabinet full of stuff and stuff in the attic. I'm like, one day I will never use those things. Um, but yeah, it's, it's still just this important. It's part of like that, that journey, it's still kind of forms the basis for how I think in a lot of ways. So, you know, from that journey, it's sort of like how, you know, finding this, uh, inclination towards using the technology, um, that's become available, um, and how that kind of starts to align in the career path.
And then some ways, like how you come up against. the resistance in the, [00:08:00] in the practice towards using it. And it kind of, in some ways pushed me away from that traditional path. It's sort of like, once you know that you can do it that way, why would you pretend that it's not there? Um, and so that led me to, you know, that this role that I have now as a lead technology trainer, which brought me on.
Um, at HMC, you know, more than five years ago now. And that was never a role that I thought was, that would exist, nor a group such as a digital practice. I had always been a kind of, um, you know, club inside of a larger practice. And maybe you'd have some time, and most of the time you wouldn't, um, to really push that kind of agenda forward.
So that's really led to this kind of open ended way of working in a lot of ways, you know, that you need to be able to [00:09:00] deliver high quality training material, be available for project teams and walk through, you know, how to do things that are best practice and kind of leveraging, you know, that past experience in the practice itself.
Um, but it's still kind of, even at this juncture after five years, it's sort of like, where, where does it go from here, even, you know, we put out or we launched a kind of formal learning management system, and there's a lot of kind of consuming that data around training and trying to, you know, Figure out how to translate that into KPIs for the business, which is kind of hard.
It's sort of, you look back on your own career and like, well, I went to school and I did these things and I know stuff and I'm able to do what I'm doing right now. But like pointing to a particular class or a particular grade or some outcome in terms of like what you do now, um, is still kind of difficult to [00:10:00] gauge.
Um, you kind of hope you see that on the other side of efficiencies in a project team, but that's kind of the culmination is as short as that was, um, of kind of where I've been and kind of what I'm doing now.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. So you went to school for architecture. You've worked
at firms, firm slash firms. And then you were, I think you were at Gensler, right? When I hired you away from there. And then
you came to lead the technology training team at HMC Architects. And I, like I said a minute ago, like that, people still kind of raise their eyebrows.
Like, what, like that, that is an investment that, that the company decided to make, was to actually. Put together curricula and put together stages of software
learning, of workflows, of all of
Cody Winchester: Mm hmm.
Evan Troxel: so that we could really leverage the technology that we were implementing, right? Because you can't, you can't just expect people to know how to do it or to figure it [00:11:00] out on nights and weekends. And obviously there's a lot of resources out there, but they're all real kind of piecemeal, right? It's like, Oh, I could find something about this one on YouTube. I could find this thing out on LinkedIn learning. I could, you know, whatever those, those resources are, but no like real set. for any of that stuff.
And, and I had taught for, I think it was 10 years in a row. And then a few more times after that at the university and it was all technology training. Right. So like, it was like, well, that's the answer to me. It was obvious that that was the answer. Like we have to, we have to do this. And you worked in a really large firm, right?
Um, And, and I can't even imagine what kind of Wild West scenarios were there because I mean really what you're dealing with in a digital practice and kind of making sure everybody's on this from that standpoint of making sure everybody's on the same page with standards and technology use and workflows and those kinds of things is people come with bad habits like students are one thing, professionals are another,
and you've got all [00:12:00] of it, right?
And so I guess we just Kind of decided early on that we were going to take this, this situation, uh, into our own hands and, and, and do something really strategic and structured with that in mind. And it's interesting that this kind of ended up turning into a case study at Autodesk University because, Like you said, there's no playbook.
There's no playbook for your career and your job title. But there was also no playbook for a digital practice
in an architecture firm, right? And
so I think it's really cool that it's actually evolved to the point where you are giving a case study to Start to write that playbook for other people like that's also kind of what this podcast is about too, right?
So it's still it's still working. It's really cool to kind of see how that's
played out over the last five years,
Cody Winchester: It really
is amazing. I, I, I do kind of find myself. pinching myself that this actually exists, that I'm actually working in this role because it's only in a [00:13:00] place or within a group like that that you can even can experiment with these things that are coming down the pike. There's just so much all the time and it hasn't slowed down.
I mean from five years ago we knew like here's some things around standards and workflows for you know classic Revit and Rhino and, you know, rendering, like those things are still true, but it's so much more complicated now.
And it's, and that complexity is kind of, there's, there's no forecasting it. And especially when we get into conversations around AI, like we all know it's going to change everything.
We just don't know exactly how
it's going to do it.
Evan Troxel: that that many
people are just choosing to avoid right like you mentioned a minute ago, right? It's like oh these tools exist Why wouldn't we? Figure that out or play with it or leverage it or, you know, find the business use case for it or, or define the business use cases and then [00:14:00] decide what the right tools are to use for those even may, may or may not be something like AI.
But, but to your point, like, Yeah. like this stuff is just evolving so quickly and you, you can choose to get in front of that with doing the kinds of things that you're doing, or you can choose to just kind of, you know, wait and see, which I think a lot of firms. Are are in that ballpark too. Bigger firms have more resources
maybe to, to put into this. But at the same time, it is a, it is a strategic choice to do that. Right. Um, and, and so I'm curious from your point of view, like where you were before coming to HMC, what kinds of experiences did you see there? So, and that, that really, when you saw this opportunity made you think like, oh, I, I
wanna be a part of that
Cody Winchester: Yeah, I think it was the fact that creating a dedicated group seems kind of self evident, even, you know, eight years ago, ten years ago. Because once You know, working in primarily as [00:15:00] like a BIM manager role, or like a design technologist role, it's like, this guy knows how to do Revit really well, or knows how to run a few scripts to solve these problems, or can handle this entire project from a digital standpoint, is, there's so much time you'd have to, invest in figuring that stuff out.
Like the nights and weekends, like you mentioned, you're just like, I need to know how this works. Otherwise, you know, it's all on me. So like no one else can just figure this out and doing that enough times and not being able to kind of take those lessons out of your experience on a project and really cultivate them into something that could be used strategically.
And. being placed on new projects, you would sort of have to abandon what you learned, because now you have to focus on achieving what needs to be achieved for this project. What you did in the last one doesn't necessarily fit what you're doing [00:16:00] here. So enough of that happening leads to that conclusion, like, I wish we just had time to do that, where I didn't have to work on the project as much as I do.
You know, after some, you know, time, you know, gaining that skill and work with other people that know how to do that. And, you know, you started to find some of those folks and, you know, in my past life and, and Gensler, there was enormous talent. They were just spread around the country. And you kind of find, find them in this kind of like, uh, strange way.
It's almost like you can sense there's this disturbance in the forest. You're like, I know someone also is doing this. I, you can, and you just kind of start gravitating towards each other. It was, it does, it does kind of feel like that. You ask enough questions and enough people start listening. You're like, actually, I am doing that.
Um, but I'm in Baltimore
or
Evan Troxel: kind of this shadow network, right? Like it's this, it
is. real grassroots and, but then there's, there's like these messages that go out, Hey, and then, and, then you [00:17:00] learn kind of
who those people are and yeah, you build connections and over time you build
relationships and then you just know like who to go to that, that applies to lots of different stuff inside of architecture firms, right?
It could be detailing, it could be code, it could be lots of stuff, but, but to your point, like, and on some level, there's even people who are hiding Amazing
skills in this stuff because
Cody Winchester: true.
Evan Troxel: I mean, I mean, there's
reasons there's reasons why, and that that's pretty sad. I think so. It's like it coming at it from this different angle of like really identifying a group of people who is responsible for this.
And then you are actually looking for those people in the firm to identify that can be kind of ambassadors. And potentially trainers or, you know, you just kind of identify who's really good at this stuff and who has the, the capacity to do it, but then it starts to really build a bigger, a stronger
backbone in the company of, of these skills, right?
Cody Winchester: And it worked that way. There was this kind of like [00:18:00] tribal alliances that developed from that. Um, and I, you know, after a while though, you know, you get to a point where it's like, okay, now this is our tribe. And we maybe even like semi formalized with. You know, in our case, there was a design technology group, as it was called, and we would meet regularly and discuss these things, but we were only allowed to spend like 20 percent of our time doing it.
It's like, well, you have 20 percent of any given week that you could do that, and then the rest of the time you're on the project. However, if you do have those capabilities, and you're plugged into that network and you're, you know, solving project issues like that or really taking it to the next level, then people start asking more of you as a result of that.
So that 20 percent quickly evaporates and you might be able to attend the meeting, [00:19:00] but you're not, you're not able to like really take that and turn it into something. So you always keep hitting that wall and you're like, I'm sorry guys, but we really just need to make this like our job. and we can help projects, but we can't be like, um, beholden to them on the kind of same hourly model that is typical of, you know, other project designers.
So, you know, that, that was, that frustration was, was there and it's not, you know, Gensler's fault or anything like that. I think it's, it's our industry's, uh, paradigm around
how we structure the business.
Evan Troxel: Yep. Yeah.
Cody Winchester: well, you know that, and you, you know, you leverage that for this project, but it's just kind of like, um, working on an organ grinder, and you kind of pay the money, and you kind of do your stuff, and there's this performance of, you know, design technology tricks, and then the project's over, and then you have to do it again, and it's never really, like, taken up into, like, [00:20:00] should we be changing the business around this, or should the business kind of reformulate itself around this?
This capability and I think that's what was so energizing and exciting about, um, when I came on board with digital practice at HMC is like, I'd never heard of that before. I knew that we had, you know, design technology and I've seen plenty of firms that do that. Um, but no one that had a group that says, here's our team that just does that.
And especially five years hence. I don't see how we could have done the things that we've done thus far, even the things that we tackle on a daily basis. It's like, how would you even do this if you didn't have a team that was like spending a lot of time figuring out the ins and outs of some new software integration or even asking those questions around, generative AI and using stable diffusion like we were trying [00:21:00] to do, uh, and know it enough to even explain it to an executive committee that's interested in that as a strategy.
So otherwise, I think you just kind of, you're just constantly reacting to what's coming. And I think architects are actually really well equipped to do that. I think that's one of the strengths that we have as practitioners and You know, the pedagogy of, you know, our, um, our training in school. Um, but then we never, like, turn that into, um, a real set of, like, knowledge and philosophy.
It's always this kind of reactive, um, equation.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Talk about kind of the structure that you've started with and maybe have evolved. You know, I, I have definitely haven't been able to keep current with the story, but so I'm curious to hear where things have come over the last five years when it comes to how you deploy this training and maybe talk about it from the business side, but also the, the doing side. One of the big things [00:22:00] that I think a lot of people are. People again, raise their eyebrows about with this whole digital practice and especially training is like the idea is, is it billable or is it overhead? Right? And,
and so I would love to hear you kind of explain the approach and maybe some evolution of if there has been of that approach as you've, as you've moved through
it over the last five years,
Cody Winchester: Yeah, I think operating primarily as, as overhead is, is key. And that allows for that self motivation and having that oversight that comes in and is asking those questions, but also not like, well, where are these hours for every little thing? Cause I think what is not unlike a maybe software developer track, I can't speak to that precisely, but just having, you know, acquaintances and contacts that have worked in that industry is like you kind of, um, have to like deal with the problems as they kind of [00:23:00] emerge.
Like you never know, like, Hey, we're going to be asked to do this thing. How long is it going to take? It's sort of like, I don't know, no one's ever done that. Um, we're going to have to kind of really get into the weeds with this stuff. And it's not like we're delivering drawings to be, um, reviewed by some agency that has jurisdiction under a budget and things like that.
It's, it's, it's nebulous in that way. Um, but. It does make us wonder still, like, even in that kind of open ended structure, like, where are we spending, like, spending our time? And I think as we've, um, been able to deliver more on just releases of, uh, or adoption of certain workflows or software, Um, we start to get asked to do more than just the design technology things like the bread and butter of modeling a building and documenting a building.
Now it's like we have a whole ERP system or a, a timekeeping system [00:24:00] and, um, our LMS system. like you start to be seen as like, um, cross functional experts on all of those things. So you get aligned to those groups that are trying to, you know, deploy something like that. And then it kind of does congeal around a project, but it's really still kind of an overhead operational piece.
And I think that is the sweet spot for it. Um, and there have been times from like a training standpoint, where you may try to. create a whole curriculum, like, like I've done, like here are the things that we should do. Here's an e learning component that gives you the basics that's published elsewhere that's, it's quite good, um, and kind of has a, a common commonality that everyone can approach.
And then there's a hands on, like live portion of it that we work with things that are relevant to our standards. And that, I think that worked [00:25:00] really well during the pandemic. Um, kind of been crunching some of that, that data now getting towards the end of the year and, you know, seeing these like spikes and when that kind of regularized curriculum of like, it's this course in this order, like there's lots of people that did that.
I think maybe the kind of economic upheaval, the kind of catastrophe of it, the should I be an architect anymore kind of
Evan Troxel: existential. Yeah. Right.
Cody Winchester: It very much, very much was. Yeah.
Then there was like this huge scrum of like, I need to just learn stuff. I need, I don't know what's going to happen from here.
Um, and then as the, um, kind of, economic environment, project building environment, um, settled and actually started doing really well again, and like lots of projects coming in. People didn't really have that, that bandwidth for regularized training, but they still needed to know these [00:26:00] things. So what I've done really in the past year is like, I can't keep pushing this rigorous curriculum.
It just doesn't line up with the, um, the culture of projects right now. And it's more like I'm going to make sure this stuff is still available, um, that there's a lot of it, a lot more of it that's on demand, but then showing up for specific projects, uh, when they need it. I'm just like, okay, do you have time?
How much time do you have? What do you want to cover? Let's just dive into it. And I can kind of. cherry pick from some of the curriculum that's still valid, but then we might invent something new. Um, and that has been a lot more prevalent, I would say in the past year and a half. Um, save for some things where it's like, I don't think we have anybody that knows how to do this.
And then it's like, okay, well I do, I can help with that. Let me jump in and for example, like work on building like custom curtain wall components, which was like a old thing that I [00:27:00] used to do in my, my former role. And then, yeah, I just do that. But that's an, that still was like an investment where on some pieces of it, I could still build to a project, but other pieces were like, you know what?
Actually, this is really valuable for the firm at large. Like this is something that I'm just going to take. and develop further into what could be other curriculum for the rest of the firm. And that kind of helps give an on ramp to the building. So they're not just, you know, charging my time necessarily.
So really it's been kind of, well, not to kind of be hypocritical with what I was saying earlier, but it is kind of reactive in some ways right now. Um, but I think the, Really pulling out the data from the training built upon that learning management system, I think is where we're going to be asking those tougher questions of that, that value, um, that return on investment and like how that's going to, um, really [00:28:00] track our, um, like key performance around training.
Yes. it's like a title of one of my previous episodes with the Slantis crew was AEC
Evan Troxel: is an adhocracy, right?
And, and I, that's how, project work is, right? Like, like you said, like you, you just have to be reactive at some level because it's new problems, it's new context, it's. You, like you said, maybe you have to invent something, right? That's very ad hoc. It's just in the moment. It's like,
whatever the situation requires. And as architects, you're up for the challenge, right? Like that's, you're used to working like that. You're not, you're not like overwhelmed by that idea. That that's kind of exciting in some ways, right?
To show up to work and what,
what's it going to be today? Who knows? Right.
And then, and then there's the other side of it, which is like, there's, there's structure. And there's, there's things that people can rely on that are maybe long, long form. Maybe they're [00:29:00] sequential and maybe they're working their way through some kind of training materials.
But, but it's a balance of all of that. There's stuff that's going to be applicable to a studio or to a team or to an office or to the whole firm. And there's other stuff that's like, man, we're never going to do, do it like this again. But we have to do it for this project kind of a thing. And, and really just understanding that from. An
orchestration standpoint across the firm and being able to translate that to leadership, who wants performance and accountability and ROI numbers and metrics and all these things. It's like, well, you don't, you can't have it for everything. It's like, it's like saying, well, just try to qualify. Qualified the value of design, like
what's the bottom line there? It's like, well, it's a
hard thing to do, right? Like there's certain things that are, that are very difficult to do that on. But, but I, I want to go back to this idea of like risk versus reward for implementing. like this. I mean, and there's other things that you could apply [00:30:00] this to as well, but, but we'll stick with training for now. Like you're constantly kind of evaluating what's the old adage. It's like, well, what if we train them and they leave? And then the second question is, well, what if we don't? And they stay right. and, and
and, and the whole idea of, of trying to, Establish standards and workflows so that people can agilely work on one project and then another and then in this office and then in that office and on this team and on that team without having to re learn how that team does it, right?
And we all know that this happens in lots of different ways. Lots of offices out there. And so there's risk and reward at that level. And there's risk and reward in like the whole, tell us like how much are, what is this doing for our firm? What, how is
this applicable to the business? Right. And,
and, and I'm sure you could, you could pretty easily say, well, man, [00:31:00] here's the benefits, right.
Of, of actually doing this. So I'm just curious from your standpoint, when you're kind of looking at the whole thing and, and, and if you just go back to the beginning and say. If I had to make that argument then, now, knowing what you know now, because people who are listening to this haven't done this, I mean, some
have, right, but a lot haven't,
Cody Winchester: Mm
Evan Troxel: like, what would you just generally say are kind of the risks versus rewards and, and where, I mean, I think you're going to be a little biased here, right?
I think you're going to be more on the reward side, but, but, But just the overall kind of like thoughts and feelings and, and maybe even some hard number, maybe not numbers, but like, like things you can point at and say, man, like if you've already kind of said it, like, man, I can't even imagine if we didn't do this now.
Right? Like, but there's people who haven't done this. And so how, how would you kind of sell this idea as being important enough to really follow through on
implementing?
Cody Winchester: I think the [00:32:00] biggest thing that I could point to, and I kind of pointed to it in my talk is, you know, you started the group, you know, circa 2018. And we got on our feet really by the fall of 2019 on the eve of one of the biggest events that's happened in a hundred years in the world, which, you know, we, we kind of look at it now in the past, like, yeah, you know, this pandemic thing happened.
It's like, you
Evan Troxel: That's how I looked at it. That's
Cody Winchester: Yeah.
Evan Troxel: it right as it was happening. I'm
like, ah, we'll Be back in the office in
two weeks.
www.
Cody Winchester: the effects are still present now, you know, like everything that has transpired on the, on the planet right now, like geopolitically, um, business wise, finance, inflation, like a lot of these things, like guys, you know, there, there is one key event that this all ties back to, like this pandemic was [00:33:00] the singular most affectatious thing that's happened in the world in the last hundred years.
Um, well as far as like pandemics, not excluding world wars, but it's at that scale, it's something that, you know, really wanted to emphasize, like this was such a massive shift in our thinking, in our working, in our doing, and the way that we form community, all of these things that we're affected by. Um, distilling that down to just the simple like, okay, now we don't have project work, I don't think if we didn't have a digital practice, at least up and running to the degree that we did, um, with the folks that were brought on board.
Um, and what we had to do to shift the entire business off of like local servers and like local desktops and move them all up into a cloud infrastructure and set up ways to collaborate [00:34:00] remotely. I don't think we would have been able to do that as quickly as we did. without having the team that we had in place at that time.
In that respect, I feel like we were very lucky. Like, larger firms, I think, you know, like my former firm in Gensler, like, they were already set up to do that in a lot of ways because they're multinational. The remote infrastructure was already there. Um, and a lot of that kind of shift to the cloud happened in like the early part of my tenure there.
And it was, it was very practical in order to work in these different markets and, and, and collaborate with everyone that was in those markets. But for, for HMC, really just localized California firms, like used to everyone just kind of logging into servers and working that way. I don't know. How long it would have taken for that kind of change to, uh, been adopted if there wasn't already a team that had some background and capabilities [00:35:00] around that.
So, I think that's a key point right there, to having that type of group. Like, in terms of risk and reward, it's like, can you respond to a changing technology landscape? Can you, um, adapt to a changing business landscape? Like, Like what we saw in the pandemic, um, if you don't have folks that are kind of already there, like thinking and forecasting and experimenting and testing and working through those scenarios and in some maybe tangential way.
And I'm, you know, even now, like the things that we're trying to do to, um, digitally transform the, the company, it's like all of these, all of the steps along the way, it takes people like full time figuring out how to do that. Yeah.
not just from an IT standpoint. I think that's a, that's a key part. I think a lot of firms will think, well, we have our IT group.
It's like, they are
not architects. Yeah.
So [00:36:00] they're,
they're really great at solving those problems, but they're also going to have to extrapolate a lot from what you're telling them. And in some cases they're just, they're just not going to get it. It's just not the same language. We As a user, Yeah.
Evan Troxel: as a user, you're almost always going to walk away from that conversation very dissatisfied, right? Because they don't understand where you're coming from. And I, I'm glad you brought that up because I think that is a key distinction to make when it comes to technology teams and,
and their, and then training, right? Is. Like, you come from the practice side, I came from the practice side, and that was very much, like, the intended audience of all of this stuff. It was not computer nerds, it wasn't, you know, like, it was, there was five generations
in the office, right? There's very literate, technologically, people, and there's very illiterate, and there's every, the spectrum in between. And, and you have to talk to each one of those. Because the common language that we speak is [00:37:00] architecture. Right? So, how do we translate these things to all of these different kind of languages of, not just generations, but all kinds, you know, there's all kinds of ways you could dissect the demographics there.
Right? Um, it's, it's really interesting to kind of think of it from that standpoint that it really is rooted in the practice side. It's not
IT coming at, at solving this problem.
Cody Winchester: Mm hmm. Absolutely. And it's, it's funny because you do have to have this hybridization. Like, it's not just like, let's just get architects together with IT. It's like, those are, you know, spectrally, like, like mutually exclusive in a lot of ways. like,
Evan Troxel: There's no Venn diagram.
Cody Winchester: Not really, especially if you're, you know, someone in one of these
older generations, even including the elder millennial like myself, it's like, I used, uh, ink and Mylar for four years
and it wasn't really [00:38:00] until
like, uh, yeah.
So it's like, if you have folks that like almost went into their career well, well into their career doing that, like, where is that, you know, where is that then? overlap. So it's like, again, it's like, how do you capture like that, that tribal, um, grassroots assembly of a group of folks that have a technology talent that are, or coming at it from a native standpoint, like, yep, this is the only way that I've ever done it.
Like I started my first year of school using Grasshopper or Dynamo or, you know, Python scripting or what have you. Um, You need those folks that have that tendency in the practice to be able to be an effective interlocutor with IT, like very brass tacks of the technology infrastructure. And that hybridization I think is It's kind of the secret sauce and I've really come to appreciate how we [00:39:00] did that in the last couple years where it's like, this group needs to be part of this group under one technology umbrella.
I don't think it has quite the right name for it. Um, right now we're just calling it technology. We still have digital practice and we still have IT and they still have these like separate identities, but this kind of like, Lovechild, we have that like makes all the other things, you know, come together where it's like, yep, these, these applications are relevant to the practice.
They're going to support our, um, production in Revit or Rhino or what have you. Um, and then we need help to figure out how to implement that from the actual infrastructure. Like, how does this work on, on Azure? How do we set up those permissions? How do we intake users? Um, how do we, um, manage all those licenses?
Because all of that together is what creates that seamless experience for deploying and using the technology. Cause it's, all that effort, it's so easy when it [00:40:00] just minorly fails. Um, people are like, yep, it sucks, I hate it, it doesn't work, and then they don't use it. And you're just like, oh man, this took us months
to get this far.
Um, but having that way to communicate across, um, that, that spectrum is, um, super, super important. You need folks that are learning each other's language and have that, yeah, bilingualist, um, type of approach to working in technology in their practice.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. You brought up Grasshopper and Python scripting and, and, and for, for those people who maybe are in, in leadership roles, who've been around the block a few times, don't
even maybe know what that means. Right. And, and, And, the way I would describe that is like, that is the way that younger generations. Like that's like them pulling out the trace paper with a Pentel kind of a sign pen that they're that's what they're doing there. They're coding it could be actually writing lines of code in [00:41:00] Python. It could be visual scripting like Grasshopper or Dynamo. It could be. You know, using walls and various symbols and things, and, and, and then you have all the generation skipping all the way up to, you know, somebody who is actually rolling out a roll of trace and drawing on that trace is different forms of sketching.
Right. And what I think is interesting about kind of labeling
this technology,
Cody Winchester: Mm.
Evan Troxel: definition of technology. That is, is anything that
changes how you work. It
could be language. It could be a physical pencil. It could be a pen. It could be trace paper. It could be an app. It could be hardware. Right? So technology is everywhere and everybody uses it.
But there are people in firms who are allergic to that term because they don't think like that. And I'm using my
famous podcasting here quotes, right there. They think of architecture as. a one on one conversation with somebody. They think of it as a relationship. They think of, they think of
it in, you know, in, in, [00:42:00] uh, uh, you know, a very analog process potentially, right?
Not a digital process, but technology really is anything that improves a process. And, and so everybody in a firm is a technologist. And I think what is interesting by you guys combining digital practice and IT into this technology group is basically saying. Like this is how we do business and I, that was something that was, I went through the years of sustainability as a checkbox, right?
Sustainability is not a checkbox. Sustainability is not optional. It's how we do things. digital practice or, or design tool, you know, whatever these technology tools are. It's a checkbox. Do you, do you want us to employ those? No, it's just, it's the way we work. You don't even have to care what tools we use.
Like they're, it's what we use to do our work, right? You would never ask a mechanic, like, are you using Craftsman or Snap on? You wouldn't care, right? You would just be like, fix the car, right? So, um, And to me, [00:43:00] it's, it's kind of interesting that you have this approach, which just says like, no, this is just, this is how we operate.
And all of this goes together. Here's the magic fingers coming together to really like bind this stuff into the practice of our, this is how you practice architecture now. Have we, have we delivered a project non digitally? No, we haven't, right? And we're not going to. Like, this is how we do it, right? So, it's a, it is kind of interesting.
I'm curious from your point of view, you, you talked about the, you know, somebody who's a digital native versus somebody who came to it later or maybe not even at all. What, what do you really see from an educational standpoint and architectural education today when it comes to digital training and the skills that, that students are coming to practice with? Because I think we've, we've seen the gamut, right? We've seen it where that wasn't a thing and now it's. It's a thing like, and I know schools are, some are maybe doing some technology training, but many are not. They're just saying, students figure it out, right? This is architecture school 101. Like, we had to build [00:44:00] physical models.
Did they teach you how to build physical models? No, they did not. You had to figure it out. It's the same with digital tools in many educational, uh, you know, situations nowadays. So I'm curious, like, what are you seeing when it comes to that? And then how are you addressing what you're seeing when it comes to You know, bringing some cohesion and, and semblance of standardization to the firm when it comes to like this wild west, like everybody comes with their own good or bad habits and anywhere in
between.
Cody Winchester: I think you pointed to something really important about, just fundamentally by definition what technology is. Um, there was definitely some really good coursework. I, I did in. In, in grad school where, you know, we would talk about some of that stuff and we'd come across different, like, theoretical writings on it, you know, discussing, like, technology in the Renaissance, [00:45:00] you know, the perspective as a, as a piece of, you know, technology and, um, you know, straight edge rulers and things like that, like, I think when you look at it that way, it's like, yes, we are, we're all, you know, students of technology.
We live in the 21st century. We are. Inundated with these things and we, I think the key thing is, is that we lack the self awareness of that in some sense that those things are actually influenced in the way that we even think or do influencing what we even think is possible. So that's why I think traditional architectural education can be really strong in terms of like, Going through that history and seeing like what people were able to accomplish in, in those eras.
Because it also, you should also, I think, include the technology piece of it. It's like, okay, so the Duomo was achieved by [00:46:00] this, um, but that came with their understanding of what was possible and what they were leveraging the technology that they had, that there's always this kind of like technological addendum to that problem.
And the part that always kind of frustrated me when I was in the practice is I'd be trying to use these things to better the, the outcome. It's like, if we leverage these things in this way, we're going to be able to create things that we didn't think we could or manage to think the complexity that we thought.
that we could, but it was so oft just, um, you know, relegated to being just a tool. It's like, well, that's just a tool, but we're doing architecture. It's like, no, you're not. Like this, you are, you are using these tools to do architecture. They're kind of, it has a symbiosis. The things that you think that you're able to do in architecture is a function of what you're using.
And it's like, yeah, but you can do that in AutoCAD. It's like, that is another piece of technology. the [00:47:00] way that you're thinking about this problem and how you are thinking of solving it, even using AutoCAD versus something like Revit. It's like, do you understand that that is your paradigm of design is a function, um, or is at least mediated through the technology that you're used to.
So I think that's an important educational piece, um, to include in this, in this dialogue with larger firms, like looking to implement a technology. program is that you have to have some self awareness of the fact that you are doing the things that you are doing right now because of the capabilities of the technology that you have available.
You know, this is it.
Evan Troxel: Which is where the training comes in,
right?
Cody Winchester: well that's that self awareness component of it, and like, asking an architect for humility may be a bridge too far, in some cases, but, um, I think, I think it's really helpful in having that honest assessment, and it's, it's really just, you know, [00:48:00] taking a, a good business argument.
It's like, what are we doing and how are we doing it? If we had a new way of doing it, would we be doing things differently? And the answer is yes. What is it that is kind of hindering that and what is the things that we would prioritize to ensure that we are maintaining relevance into the future? Um, but yeah, I think that, you know, that technology as a paradigm in and of itself, um, I think is, is an important component to this.
Evan Troxel: I have another question, but I still want you to talk about kind of what you're seeing with, with graduates coming out of school. So I'm going to try my hardest to remember what I, what I want to ask you, but jump onto that, that section of it. Just, just talk about, because I think a lot of firms look at young hires as,
Like they already have the skills that I need.
The schools are doing the training. And then like when I, when I was teaching at [00:49:00] school, that, that might've been the case, but I know, I know the school that I was teaching at got rid of all the digital coursework because they had to fill it with other classes that were required and, and there are so many. resources available out there, good and bad, but, but they just say, you know, have at it, like figure it out. And, and they obviously talk to each other a lot and teach
each other, but that's, I've seen that whole spectrum and I'm curious what you're seeing now when it comes to that and, and maybe what, what advice you give to people doing the hiring when it comes to the skills that you see graduates coming in with. Obviously, they're very prepared and they're at a stage of their life where they can pretty much learn anything, right? And, and that was something that I always thought was so cool about hiring these people and then therefore getting materials in front of them very quickly to say this is how we do it because that's really important, right?
So I'm curious
your take on that.
Cody Winchester: Yeah, we're gonna begin on that. There's [00:50:00] um, a lack of skill in certain, like, core functions of, of architecture from new graduates. In essence, Revit. There's very few people that come out of school that know that. They might have taken, like, a course on it. Mm hmm. Um, you'll find a lot of folks that are pretty good with Rhino.
Um, still some folks that are still pretty good with, with AutoCAD. I haven't come across too many people. I, I always have to ask anymore in my training, especially when I'm talking about Rhino. It's like, well, Rhino, underneath the hood, you know, thinks like AutoCAD in, in many respects. It's like part of its, its, um, kind of lineage.
But, you know, it's like, but anyone in the room remember AutoCAD? It's like, okay, good. Everyone still does. It's actually one of the number one products still for, for Autodesk. Um, but I think the other part of that is, you know, we had, or architecture, the royal architecture, [00:51:00] we have, um, kind of operated as this kind of apprenticeship for ages.
That you come in and you have tutelage under a master designer and you're kind of there to absorb and learn that trade. It's not something that you can be taught in school so much. So, the theoretical framework that comes with a lot of, you know, traditional architecture school I think is really important in order to you know, develop that self awareness, criticality, uh, generalistic, um, framework for, for approaching problems.
But that actual practice of architecture, it's called practice for a reason. Um, we should assume that folks are coming in to learn how to do architecture. And we've seen that most directly too, in more recent years following the pandemic is. You know, we were kind of looking at how we can bolster retention [00:52:00] because, you know, there was this hold on for dear life during the pandemic.
And then there was this kind of like epiphany following that, like, well, maybe I don't have to do this anymore or this traditional path of architecture. I'm not really able to learn as much as I want to. I just have to like do RFIs and submittals all the time. And then my kind of creativity tanks after a couple of years of that.
So what we're seeing and kind of even preparing for the talk that I gave and kind of reaching out to our human resources and kind of discussing some of these things, because we worked on a lot of the learning together, is the feedback around from them was saying, we're seeing people that aren't even sure they want to be in this field anymore.
They went to school, they graduated, they're getting a job here, but they're like, well, Is this what it's going to be though? Like, am I just going to kind of trudge away with that? And there is a greater expectation from [00:53:00] younger generations and the folks that are coming out of school, that they're going to have a pathway to learn and develop, and that that's just going to be a constant.
And I think that, you know, the more that I think about this and try and like plan for this in the curriculum that I'm developing is You know, how do, how does this affect university? Like how does this affect, you know, going to school for that long with that kind of debt like, I, like, I certainly have and probably and will have for probably the remainder of my life.
Um, like what is the value there when I have to learn all of this stuff here anyway? Like, I need to continue this, this journey somehow there needs to be a pathway for me, and that's true of the folks that are going in the traditional line of architecture. But I think, you know, I also speak to this in like, you know, how do you make a digital practice?
Um, that's super important for the folks that have that inclination too. Cause those folks are gonna be the most, um, [00:54:00] readily alienated in a prac typical practice model. Like, I have this interest in technology and applying that to practice. But my leadership or my immediate manager is telling me like, don't worry about that.
Just get it done. Like we don't have time for that. We don't have the hours for that. Like that's going to alienate those folks and they're going to, they're going to feel like there's very few pathways for them to stay in, in the industry. Like their expectation really is like, I'm interested in this. I want to learn more.
I want to be aligned with people that know it so I can learn from them in the kind of traditional respect of like, being an apprentice, um, but also having access to those resources that have, you know, kind of lay out a path for me. Like once I get this, get to this level of understanding technology and the practice, where do I go from here?
It's not just senior project architect. It's not, you know, principal of the studio. [00:55:00] Um, like there needs to be an avenue that like aligns, uh, to that as well. So it is still this kind of. Topic to be explored. I still think about it a lot, but I think the short is that folks are coming out of school, coming into the practice, and they're expecting a firm to have a learning path for them because it's not given to them in school.
School gives them just a framework for thinking.
It doesn't give you practical skills. Otherwise NCARB wouldn't exist, right? So it's like, come on guys, like this is, we built this whole, um, structure of being licensed around this. This isn't that different. You have to invest in the, the teaching and the learning.
And I think that, um, interaction is where there's strain. There's probably because there's not a lot of time.
To do that, like everyone's super busy and understaffed or, um, [00:56:00] under, uh, paid in a lot of cases that they're like, I don't have time to teach you. I just need you to know it. But it's like, that is antithetical to kind of what we're set up to do and kind of what the expectations are.
Evan Troxel: There's definitely a lot of finger pointing there, right? We've all seen that. It's like the schools are pointing at the firms, the firms are pointing, the practice is pointing back at the schools. You're not training them to be effective, you know, workers as soon as they, Get into a cube, right? Um, and like you just said, like it's actually designed this way. And if you don't like it, like redesign it, like actually work together and redesign it. And to me, that's what implementing a training department, a technology training department is actually for. It is to design the future of your company inside your own company. Because one of the things you said earlier was like, well, who, we, Who are we?
How do we get our work done? And usually that comes back to tools and process and workflows. And, but it's also, who do we want to be? [00:57:00] What kind of projects do we want to be known for? What do we want to be known for? Why do we exist? And then designing a path toward that. And this, this module of the company. can be a key leader in making that happen, right? Because you can attract people who are already doing that, or know about that, or people who are apt to learning about those things before everybody else, and implementing them, to then train the rest of your people on how to do that. I think where a lot of things get lost, or broken down, or, however, stalled out along the way, is by saying, how do we just keep doing what we do, but make it more efficient? Like, that's not progress, right? That, you, you might be able to look at a spreadsheet and see something there that makes your argument. But it's not the, that's not why you exist. Like, you're, you're a business for a reason. You're a collective of people for a reason. And so I, I really feel like, like these kinds of groups in a [00:58:00] company are, the purpose of them is to
evolve the company and not just stay doing what you're
doing.
Cody Winchester: Mm hmm. That, I kind of want to go back to one thing that you said about kind of the audience here, like for leaders of a firm that, you know, may be hearing these terms around like, what is grasshopper or visual scripting or things like that? Why does that matter when, you know, we're, Doing drawings with dimensions and sheets to submit to the city for review.
Like, why does that matter? And
to that point of like, where do you want to be? One specific example we had about using Grasshopper by way of Rhino is, the goal wasn't to use Grasshopper for the group. Um, so we had this initiative where, just to back [00:59:00] up, we had this initiative where we said, Okay, we have a lot of people using SketchUp, as you remember, um, and we would really like them to not be working in SketchUp that much.
We'd really like them to be working in Rhino. And the reason why we would like them to be working in Rhino is because you have access to Grasshopper. And Grasshopper has this capability and so on, but it's not just that kind of thing. The business strategy around that is we want to, as a firm, for our project to be able to leverage data and analytics more for the production of our projects so that we can validate sustainability principles, that we can, um, validate, um, the efficiency of a curtain wall system or, um, How this stuff is going to go together, the, the tectonics of the building, um, and that we have a way to interoperate between our other [01:00:00] software more readily.
I think it's not just this import, export, manually convert. It's that the goal is to be able to leverage data more to achieve these goals around sustainability, efficiency, etc. Uh, and then this is the vehicle to, to, to do that. So that's, uh, You know, that's something that I think is really important for setting that mission, um, for, for a forum with this group, and the reason why this group can, can do that is that they're, they're always thinking about how to, um, translate those, those goals via, via the technology.
Like, well, now that we can do this, what could, what else could we do? It's not, you know, to your point, it's not just like making things faster. Cause that's kind of like making an old process better, but that process, you know, is going to deprecate before too long anyway, it's like having, it's like any discussion around line weights that you have in a, in a firm, like, well, you know, Revit line weights, they aren't as good as [01:01:00] AutoCAD.
It's like, well, they, they don't. I hate to say it, but they don't matter that much anymore. And it's in one respect, I mean it's like, they do only from a very kind of rudimentary readability standpoint. But having like 12 line weights as an example. The reason, like, an example there is that those line weights were meant to contain information and translate that in this other way to Um, a reader or a viewer of that, that document who also had literacy in what line weights were so that they could understand the mechanics of a building through this symbolic representation of a floor plan.
That method worked in encoding that information with AutoCAD and even old pen styles. But now that we have robust three dimensional models that contain tons of information and data, like that's actually not serving that purpose anymore because you literally have access to that [01:02:00] stuff now. Um, and you have to start seeing that and then saying like, well, what else could we do with that?
Like, what is, where can we take this now from, um, not only from optimizing our current processes, but like developing entirely new ones.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. I didn't know this was gonna be a podcast about line weights, but now it
is.
Cody Winchester: It's just one of my, one of my tics, cause I hear it every, so often, and it just always just like, ah, just brings up so many bad memories, like what, like, they,
I hate to say it, it doesn't matter,
it doesn't matter anymore, they're already there,
like, however it looks, it's, it's not the most, it's like the 12th most important thing, and like the, the things that you want from your, your project.
I
Evan Troxel: That whole point of digital practice was not so people could just geek out on technology, right? It was, it was to identify the outcomes, identify [01:03:00] where we wanted to go. And then figure out how we were going to get there using tools as leverage to do that.
And, and again, tools is a, is a very, and tools and technology, it's a very wide ranging definition, right? It's anything that helps us get to where we want to go and be who we want to be and serve who we want to serve. And, and to me, I think, like, implementing something like this is a key to actually achieving that, not just staying who you are.
And, and it's not race to the bottom, it's race to the top. Like, how do we get to where we want to go? It's like, aim there, and then figure out how to, how to do that. Uh, I'm, I'm curious from, from an implementation standpoint, obviously there's been lots of lessons learned over the last five years. Um, and, and you got to present this case study at Autodesk University.
Like, I'm curious. about maybe three different things. I'm curious about the kind of feedback that you've gotten from people who have, are in the firm, who have, who have benefited [01:04:00] or, or not. I don't know, you know, you tell me from what you're doing there. The second one is like, what are the lessons learned that you think are worth sharing? And then, and then kind of icing on the cake is like, what, what should people look out for? Like, what hasn't worked? What are the failures of it that people shouldn't waste their time with? I'm sure there's a couple.
Cody Winchester: had to think about that a little bit because I think it depends on the firm in terms of like how much feedback they're willing to give, like some are more forthcoming than others. Um, but I think one of the, I think the lessons that we learned is there, there was a time where. Um, we appeared to be too elite in, in the firm and, and removed from the everyday experiences, um, of folks on, on project teams that we could kind of, you know, sequester [01:05:00] ourselves up into a technologically ivory tower, technological ivory tower, and just kind of noodle on these things and like issue decrees on, on, on standards and processes with, with, with, uh, you know, Kind of little regard to what's actually happening.
Um, so we did go through a kind of, um, Um, process of like deep survey of, of the company. Um, like just to fill out a survey, but also a lot, lots of one on one meetings to just really gather that feedback. Cause we were starting to kind of see this resistance and kind of. almost kind of palpable, um, uh, disdain in some cases, not always.
I think, you know, most people are very professional, uh, and polite, but you could just tell you're like, I don't think you were totally, like, wanting to hear what I just said about X, Y, or Z. Like, you should, you know, here's a process that you should do. Like, yeah, we don't do it that way. Um, it's like, [01:06:00] I think maybe we're, we're kind of missing, we're missing each other here.
Um, and there had been enough of that, um, as well as like, you know, explicit complaints to, to, to leadership to be like, we, we need to kind of assess this across the board and see what's going on. So we, we did those series of surveys and, you know, that's where we started to get some of that feedback that, you know, you guys seem like you're kind of off in your corner and, you know, not really dealing with what we're doing in this kind of high and mighty way.
Um, and some of the adjustments that I. In that we did see there, I know we had this discussion on like, yes, we should, a digital practice should mostly be an overhead type of operational department. I think that's still true. Um, it's, I think the inversion from like a past, like design technology group or kind of informal group where it's like, well, you have 20 percent of your time, um, where you get to work on like technology initiatives.
I think in this case, you have to identify the folks [01:07:00] on your team. Not everyone. Um, but you know, a good portion of it, especially when we're talking about, uh, BIM management and like computational efforts, like folks like that should be a lot more on projects too. not most of their time, because I think that gets, that starts to become counterproductive to the larger goal of a digital practice and the kind of, um, trans like digital transformation of a, of a firm.
Um, but if they're not involved in those projects and they're not able to really sympathize and adjust and tune, uh, workflow processes, um, to the needs of folks, and then they don't have that rapport in that respect. Like you're not in this project, kind of fight with me on this, on this project, because every project kind of feels like a, this kind of slog or this battle.
Um, I think like we have a lot of like war euphemisms in our practice around that stuff. This old warhouse, Welcome to architecture. Yeah,
[01:08:00] uh, warhorses and workhorses doing, you know, doing CA on projects. It's like, you know, people are, it's, it's a lot of work to do architecture. It's really hard. So you need folks that can kind of, you need the people who are coming up with these ideas around technology and trying to initiate some sort of strategy around it, um, to be able to, um, share that pain or share that experience.
Um, I think that's a key component of it and it's, we're kind of humming along in that, in that way. There are some key people that are like, Well, also aligning to work, you know, where your folks on your team want to work, you know, some people do want to just like take problems out of projects and just really noodle on them for a while and like, I want to find the solution to this or at least a kind of hypothetical strategic solution that will affect more projects.
Uh, and other folks are like, I love having this space, but I [01:09:00] really want to be in there working on these problems with the folks on, on project teams. And we found a pretty good balance on that. We have our folks that are like really involved, um, in, in the projects and are able to give us a lot of like real feedback, um, from, from the practice.
So I think that's, that's one key lesson learned. Um, Other things would be, you just, you just don't know what you, what you don't know. And some of this stuff, when it comes to like testing software and deploying software, we've had tons, we've had just tons of like hiccups around that. We have, we have one going on today, um, that kind of took up part of the morning.
It's like, Avadesk, um, desktop connector, we'd been putting it off for a long time. And then now we have to use this new version. Um, or the version that's been out for like, you know, 10 months now or so. Um, and it was a [01:10:00] huge disruption or the installs didn't go right and we just didn't have enough time to like really test every case.
And I think acknowledging what you don't know on that from a digital practice standpoint, you may say like, yeah, we just update to this thing. This is, you know, what we need to, uh, keep this suite of tools running or our app stack kind of, um, up to date. Um, is you really do need to leverage that expertise from your like IT group or like developers, really looking outside that group.
Anyone who has experience in like product management and, and release and um, kind of UI and ux and how to gather feedback, um, from, from customers to deliver, um, an an app, um, so that you can. Get ahead of those hiccups because every little mistake that comes up in the deployment, um, does harm to the reputation of, of the group.[01:11:00]
Like I said earlier, it's like you may be spending all this time to arrange all this thing and get all of this complicated information behind the scenes and connections to this or that to, to work. Um, but as soon as a user logs in and it doesn't work. Um, there should be like, nope, sucks, you guys suck too, by the way, you know, because you didn't figure it out and you're just like that part's really hard because you, you just like, in some ways, because we came out of the practice and we're in, you know, into technology, we just don't have a lot of that, um, understanding of those things either.
It's like, well, what are the steps that we should be taking to like move through like alpha, beta release, you know, of, of a, of an application. So I think that's something that's. We're still kind of learning. And when you're looking at putting together a group like that, it does matter the kind of array of expertise that you're bringing together.
You have your Revit folks, you have your Rhino folks, your Grasshopper [01:12:00] folks, your, um, you know, visualization folks, but don't underestimate the value of like folks that know how product management works, um, that know how, um, development works. alongside even folks that know how to really gather that feedback and market it too.
It's like, well, what is a good communication plan? We've suffered a lot on communication before too, where it's like, we just didn't get the message across. We didn't find the places where people were actually checking, you know, it's like, Oh, we have this post on our internet. Um, we also emailed it to you.
We're like, yeah, but did you show up in person to my meeting? It's like, you have to recognize the culture. Um, of the folks that you're, you're trying to support also, which comes with some of the expertise around like, um, marketing and product management and development and things like that.
Evan Troxel: We can see why some people throw their hands up in the air, right? And like, oh, this just
sounds like a massive [01:13:00] headache.
Cody Winchester: Yep. It's like, I'm
Evan Troxel: Yeah, back to your earlier point lesson, your first lesson learned about just kind of the, the, elitism. Um, you know, I, I've definitely changed my thoughts around this early on. I definitely thought of. especially the design technology team as being kind of a skunk works or a SWAT team, or, you know, a really kind of high proficiency, high performing in and out, like we do black ops. Right. And, but, but to support everybody, but to your point, my thinking has really changed around that because I think the more you treat a group like that, like consultants, that don't own the outcome in the project, you're going to get what you get. Right? And I think that groups cannot operate at like a consultant level, especially inside the firm, because they do need to own it. [01:14:00] They need to own the process and the outcome and be a part of it and understand the nuance of How it fits in the overall workflow of what's trying to be achieved with project delivery, or else, uh, I think you're just, you are going to get a lot of problems there. Um, so I would,
Cody Winchester: your colleagues.
Evan Troxel: right, right, and like to really have each other's back, you, it, it can't be more than just like this,
this incision point, right? It really
has to be fundamentally like a relationship over time. So because everybody, everybody can count on all 10 fingers, right? Like how many times it's gone wrong when we've tried to do something like that. And it's, and it's not that it goes right every time you do it the other way, but the chances are much higher when you have a relationship and when it's not a consultant relationship, it's actually like we're on the same team kind of a relationship and we're really here to support, like support. It is, is [01:15:00] such a interesting word, right?
Because I think we think of like, Oh, I have to make this phone call and go through the telephone tree and have to talk to somebody on another continent with a, and I have a language barrier. Like that's, that's, not the kind of support you're looking for, right? Like
there's all those things that they could be anybody you hire.
Like that, that could be how it is. But at the same time, like, like we're, there's a reason we started with, like. It's important that you came from practice and it was important that I came from practice. It was because of like the understanding of. what the people who did the work needed to accomplish.
And they weren't just reacting to putting out fires all the time, right? Like we put out fires on projects, but we also like, this is why we do projects. Right. So you have to speak that language. And I think you have to be there. You have to be that person who's really like you have each other's backs in
That situation.
That's definitely a great thing to look out for. I agree.
Cody Winchester: that's, that is a crucial, crucial point, is you need your folks that are in [01:16:00] these roles to have come from the practice and have had sufficient time in the practice to have experienced what happens in the practice and how to communicate the solutions and be mindful of the deadlines, too, that people are facing, because That's another kind of asynchronicity with, um, technology and project work, especially in architecture.
Like, your deadlines are coming faster than it takes to develop a solution for that project from a technology standpoint. It can take a long time. It can take weeks or months to, like, build out a, like, formalized algorithm to, like, accomplish something. And it doesn't just work right away. And in some cases, you might have to say, Hey, I need to give you something just off the cuff, but I'm not going to forget about this and still have a way to like, um, um, work on those solutions and your kind of, uh, other digital practice role, but that sensitivity, uh, to the needs of [01:17:00] the team only comes, I think, from having experienced that.
And it kind of reminds me of a key point, um, for, for those in, you know, looking to. To create a group like this or interesting and kind of what that looks like is you have to be able to see this talent, um, happening on your project teams. Um, and, and cultivate them, they're not, it's not some like external hire that you can say here's this person, they're really, they're an expert in Grasshopper, this is all they've been doing their whole career, they work for McNeil or something like that, or they work for MongoDesk and they're gonna come and help us, and like, well, that person is the software expert, but they're not the practice expert, and that would be a mismatch if you're trying to just like, hire that into the practice as a solution.
I think there's ways where this is, this is organically happen, happening. There's kind of, without exception, there are folks that have talent around technology and architecture. It's just, I think it comes with, with our [01:18:00] trade. Cause again, like we are, we're all technologists, whether we're aware of it or not.
Um, but being able to cultivate and have that pathway for those folks to. grow into those positions of leadership from a digital practice standpoint, or even leadership within the studio itself, that, that practice, um, kind of transition is, is key to making a work, uh, a group like that work and be able to provide that support.
Evan Troxel: Nice. Is there anything else that you covered in your case study at Autodesk University that you think is worth mentioning? We'll definitely have a link to that course
that you pre recorded, um, in the show notes for the episode. But is there anything else from your presentation that you feel is worth
pointing out?
Cody Winchester: having Developed a training curriculum, um, placed it onto a formal learning management, plugged it into, um, you know, our, our job functions in the [01:19:00] firm and the kind of, uh, alignment with all the different, uh, stakeholders in the group is, there's a key part that we haven't totally mastered that, um, kind of amplifies and makes this scalable, and I think it comes to like the knowledge management piece of it.
That's kind of like where I, where I end this talk is like, how do we have a way to not only provide that, um, training, but how are we going to capture knowledge from everyone else in the studio, you know, whether it's solutions from a technology standpoint, but also just that expertise in the practice, like someone who's an expert in K through 12 or, you know, and, um, you know, museum design or what have you.
It's like, there's this key part where, you know, I think you, you've said it to me in, in, uh, in passing before, like, you know, architecture tends to be like this pyramid scheme where there's [01:20:00] the person on top, like the expert and everyone's kind of under them. And the only way that you move up is if that person retires or passes away.
Um, but I think not to be so glib about it, but it's like, I think what we struggle with in this industry too is that it takes such a long time to master this trade and you get to that point and once folks are ready to retire. or move on, there's this open question, like, well, how do you capture that, that, that wisdom and that knowledge from those people?
Uh, how do you translate that into a training program that can, like, bolster the next generation without kind of going to the next, uh, tier of, like, old fashioned, you know, apprentice? Like, you're no longer a Padawan, you are now a master. Like, that kind of anointing ceremony that happens in architecture. I don't.
I don't think we have like a real formalized like business operational way to do that.
Um, [01:21:00] so the knowledge management I think is going to be a really interesting next step. I mean, there's definitely platforms out there to support it. But the, the point that I ended on, because so much is in the digital realm now, everything that we do, is mediated by technology somehow.
Like our whole existence is almost like virtualized now through all these different, um, bubbles of, of information and technology interface that we have, that there's so much that we're generating in terms of, of content, uh, and information and knowledge that I, you know, went as, went so far as to propose this notion that, you know, I put it out there and I want to explore what this is.
And it, and it borrows from. a familiar phrase that knowledge equals data. And it's how we can capture all of these streams of information and data that make up [01:22:00] our business knowledge, that make up our trade knowledge, our expertise, so forth. The things that AI is being trained on right now, whether we like it or not, is how do we make that more symbiotic and leverage it in a way that is in line with how we're moving forward in the future.
That we're, we're not just like sharing it colloquially. We're not sitting next to each other the way that we used to. We're not having that same kind of apprenticeship with like, you know, My boss teaches me everything, I'm there every day, we go on site, and certainly there are still those ways, but, um, anymore, it's all done through some kind of technology.
Technology that can listen, that can transcribe, that can, um, start to create new knowledge, um, out of that. Um, so I think that's kind of where we're at. An important piece to then fold back into what we're going to be teaching ourselves in the future, that we're going [01:23:00] to have to find these ways, um, to capture our experiences through our profession, um, and translate that in a way that, um, can be, um, consumed by this next generation, because it's not going to be done through, um, kind of interpersonal relationships, um, that have happened in the past.
So that's that last, that last piece that, um, I'm curious about going forward.
Evan Troxel: Codifying that wisdom is a key piece of the recipe. And I kind of think of it as this progression right. It's like data, information, knowledge, wisdom. And, and to get to wisdom is where you're really connecting the dots through experience. And those are the The wise
sages in our industry, right? And, and the reason everybody's bummed when they walk out the door is because they, they were put into a box typically of performing their [01:24:00] magic day in and day out. But, but most of it was just translated verbally and
not captured, right? Uh, and, and, and so that's
where the bummage comes in, right? It's like,
Oh my God, what are we going to do without, without that person? Um, because they are walking out the door with so much wisdom, right? I mean, yes, they have knowledge.
Yes, there's a lot of data points. Yes, yes, yes. Um, but it's the wisdom that everybody's going to miss, right? And that is what large language models don't have. Right? What, what large language models understand is that these words usually show up next to each other or these pieces
of words show up next to each other a lot in language or these colors of pixels show up a lot together in this kind of image.
Right? They don't understand space. They don't understand the architectural process. Right? And so to me, like, this is where you really want to leverage tools to capture [01:25:00] wisdom. So that you can employ new ways of knowledge transfer in your firm so that you can get to where you want to go. more effectively and faster, right?
Because if you, if you can't do that and those people do walk out the door, like you're just doing what you're doing, like you're not going to get any better at it. You're probably going to get worse at it because you don't have that resource anymore. And so everybody has to be a teacher. Everybody has to, and you can't just speak it, you have to capture it somehow, right?
So you capture it through writing, you capture it through audio, you capture it through video, and you use that maybe for this training, or, you know, whether you're thinking about training an AI model, or you're training people in a classroom setting, or any of the various ways in between, you have to get to that, or else you're just Like, just feeding the machine that, that isn't going to get any better over time, really, right?
It might actually get worse, right? It's like, it's kind of like the fear of large language models is, like, there's so much junk [01:26:00] content being created now, it's just going to water down the effectiveness of even that, right? So it's like garbage in, garbage out. So if you really If you want to break that cycle, you really do have to figure out ways to capture these incredible human resources that you have in your firm on the wisdom side of things, right?
I mean, that, that to me is, is, that is such a key element. And I'm glad you brought that up at the end because, like, it really is about the people. And you think about
this whole thing, like, we're not doing this To use tools, we're doing this to do architecture, architectures for people, the people who make the architecture have this incredible wisdom, um, that they've built through experience over, you know, four or five, six decades, right?
I mean, um, it's, uh, it's, this is a, a nut that needs to be cracked. And, and, and, and I think what's so interesting is you'll watch startups like. Stop at nothing to figure out how to accomplish their goals. And I just feel like architecture firms are usually like, how do [01:27:00] we just keep doing this for cheaper?
Right. And, and that to me is not, this is a lot of people aren't choosing architecture because of that. They're looking at the leaders and they're being like, well, why would I want to be like that one day? I don't want to be like that. I want to be like. This dynamic, you know, person who goes after challenges and, and really solves interesting problems.
I don't, I'm not interested in trying to figure out how to charge less fees and do more work, right? So we, we're at this crossroads and every firm is kind of has their destiny in their hands and they have to figure out how they're going to do this. And so. I'm so glad that you could come on the show and just kind of talk about the process that we went through to, to really, like,
try to figure that out.
I mean, this is
just one component of that. But,
um, this, this is the kind of stuff that, that, you know, I, I think it's exciting. It's exciting, it's a design problem. And I think that was, you know, talking about us coming from practice. And looking at our own internal way of working and [01:28:00] how, what we wanted to be and how we were going to move forward is a design problem. And as architects, like we're up for the challenge. That's, that's what we like to do. We like to
do, take on design challenges and we just looked at ourselves as one of those. And I think more and more firms
need to be doing that.
Cody Winchester: real live question of how long this industry stays the way that it is. With, I mean, we're looking at a 10 year timescale and it's, it's kind of an open question.
It's like, is there something out there now that exists right now that could consume the entire industry in some way?
The prospects around AI and even just Autodesk has its own competitor to every other architect for that matter. Like the things that they're capable of doing. Um, that's a question that I think every firm should ask themselves is like, just assume that the way you're doing things will not exist in generously 10 years.
What are you going to do now that's going to [01:29:00] move towards a new way of working that still maintains this expertise that we have? I think someone in our firm said it really well. It's like, I don't think architecture will be around in the future, but I do think architects will be. So it's a matter of like, what is it that architects will be doing in the future without architecture as it's come to be?
Uh, and it revolves around these questions.
Evan Troxel: goes back to the whole idea of what is the value proposition of an architect or an architecture firm, right? Like, what do you really do Where's your value truly lie? Is it in production of drawings, right? Or is it in, you know? There's a lot of ways you could kind of stage that question as a framework, but I think it's worth pondering, right?
Who do we want to be? Why do we need, why do we deserve to exist? What, what is our, what is our value proposition in the world? Because, um, you know, somebody said it, really well to me, uh, I mean, something I really latched onto is like, do you want to be a top 500 firm or do you want to be a top five [01:30:00] firm?
Like there's a huge difference in what it takes to be one of those a huge difference. Like, because when you think about how you present yourself to the world, like you, you actually want to say like, we're here. Cream of the crop. Like, if those are the kinds of clients, if those are the kinds of projects you want to do, if that's where your true benefit and value to society is, like, you have to be operating at a very high level, otherwise you're just the same as everybody else, right?
And I think not many people are stepping back enough to say, look at what we've built here. Is this going to get us to where we want to go? If not, what do we want to be? Who do we want to be? Why do we want to be there? And how do we get there? And look at yourself as that design problem.
So.
Cody Winchester: acquired by somebody else that has these solutions or are you going to shut your doors?
Um, but yeah, but
it's time to. Embark on that, that journey through transformation and evolution. Like the practice needs to [01:31:00] answer this question differently.
Evan Troxel: Cody,
thank you so much. We'll have a link, have a link to your LinkedIn so people can connect with you. Thank you so much for sharing what you've learned with the Autodesk University community and this podcast community. It's, uh, it's amazing. I love it. I love seeing this and, uh, I
appreciate you coming on to talk about it.
Cody Winchester: there too. Like we, all this technology, it still comes down to the people that are doing it. And that's where we should always, uh, be cultivating ourselves and making ourselves better and supporting each other too.
Cause it's, it's a weird thing to do inside of architecture.
Um, and we, we need to support each other. So, cheers to that. Thanks so much. This is, this is a lot of fun.
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