התמלול המלא של Technology Only Matters When the Field Wins – With Usamah Hayes

BIM like it's a deliverable, rather than a process, you know. it's just like, we've been this, it's it's coordinated. because, you know, many times we'll have to come back to the table, something will happen, a bulletin will come out down the line, and we'll you know, have to change something else, but something up, but it'll be like, but but it's already coordinated. We don't, you know, wanna do that. Like that's sort of the the the temperature, you know, in the room. But then when you bring like a really valuable thing, you know, based on the bulletin and the changes that are gonna happen, it's just like, well, maybe we should all relook at this and figure out how to reduce the amount of RFIs that are gonna come from this bulletin, or at least better define the RFIs. So yeah, that's what I would say. It's just, you know, working it into all the processes, the the safety, the obviously the planning, but also the scheduling and and everything like that. Hayley Swords: And how do you measure whether BIM's been successful? Usamah Hayes: well I would say, you know, with fewer RFIs, projects don't struggle as much. and over overarching is there's no disconnect between operations and you know the the technical aspect and the modeling. It's all a cohesive connected. thing, the the field teams are involved. Hayley Swords: And in your opinion, what's one simple thing every contractor essentially could do tomorrow that would immediately improve field abduction? Usamah Hayes: Simple. Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: bring the foreman and superintendents into them earlier and and stop building models for the field and start building models with the field. Hayley Swords: Yeah. I feel like I hear that a lot in the industry. Whereas if you actually get everyone involved in the beginning and you work through them processes and workflows together, then it's less less error down the line, right? Or changes down the line. Usamah Hayes: Yeah. Hayley Swords: And you regularly speak about sort of helping foremans, superintendents, installers. What are the biggest frustrations they still face today? Usamah Hayes: The biggest frustration that I've noticed they face is uncertainty. So field teams constantly ask what change, you know, who's in the way and what information they can trust. Like that that right there is, you know, really heavy as far as what information you can trust because I guess the whole point of building information modeling and and BIM coordination and VDC coordination is to express what the drawings have failed to express. And and just because there's not enough time in the design phase in order to get all of the kinks worked out in between how the materials and the systems need to interact with each other. And so that's where kind of the distrust. you know, comes from is because a d a detail that wasn't necessarily worked all the way out or or didn't have a chance to w work all the way out. New materials have been introduced. You know, every project wants to have the newest material, the best kind of building materials that you can have on a on a building, the best looking, best, you know, environment, best performing, and and those are new advancements. And so you often find that, yeah, not only has you know, the design partner not necessarily work through all the kinks in between those building materials and how they interact with each other, but, you know, the the manufacturers haven't because they just haven't put the materials and and systems together in that way before, necessarily, on a on a building. So Hayley Swords: And what would make, I guess, field teams trust it more? Like what things would you implement to to win that trust or or or buy that trust? Usamah Hayes: my theory how I interact with the field team is less actually no, you know, no dictating all questions, you know, and and from the questions that I ask them, the answers that I get back leads to better questions. for me to ask them. And the more that communication happens, they start to see that, you know, because I you know, I'm I'm working, I'm a construction manager, you know, and so I'm bringing it the design partners, the trades, all into the same room. And, you know, because it's my meeting, the coordination meeting is my meeting and I'm driving the process is often mistaken that I want to run the show or make the decisions or or that sort of thing and and actually it's there it's actually none of that. I just want to point people in the right direction for that information that they need in order to get their job done. And so it's it's asking questions. It's You know, how would you do this? would you install it that way? Those sorts of questions really really gets them going to a place where they, you know, understand that I'm there to support them, not to tell them what to do. Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, definitely. It's more like an open forum, right? I think in environments like that, it's asking the questions to almost let them uncover their own pain points and then being able to give that solution sort of in real time on on on what that looks like or at least working together to get there. Usamah Hayes: No, yeah, absolutely. Hayley Swords: And how do you get experienced tradespeople to I guess embrace new technology? Usamah Hayes: partner with them, spend time on the job site, understand you know the sequencing and and support the operations that way. it's you know coming from being a framer. If you see somebody out there and they're they're you know in charge of your in charge of your work, in charge of a workflow, but they're what's the the saying? they don't have any mud on their boots. Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: It's it's really hard, you know, it's just a a mental barrier at that point to just, you know, think that you can engage with them if you're not actually out there kind of seeing what they're going through, and and you know, just understanding how they add value, understanding their

pain points, understanding what they're going through, that's the really, really the only way to kind of drive the adoption is because then you can build solutions based on their problems, not based on what you think. their problems are. It's what their actual problems are. And y and you'll be so surprised once you do that. Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: Like Hayley Swords: Yeah, I think it earns a lot of respect right as well, when you're actually in the field I call it saying in the trenches with everyone, actually seeing what them problems look like firsthand as opposed to I guess assuming what they could be right and then trying to build a solution off that. So I feel like that's where that trust element can come in because you're with them in the field, seeing that first hand. Usamah Hayes: Yeah. Elbow to elbow. Hayley Swords: And you've presented yeah, exactly that. And you've presented about projects where scam to BIM has saved millions of dollars. Can you tell us a a little bit more about that? Usamah Hayes: Yeah. so I'll just kinda walk you through my first experience driving the process and how that came to be. so it was a while ago, I think I want to say twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, not to age me or anything, but I shaved today so that you can't see all the gray in my beard. but it Hayley Swords: Fresh face. Usamah Hayes: It what happened was we you know had went through BIM coordination for this building. it was a high-rise post-tension structure, and we had precast panels coming in. Sorry, my light keeps flickering, Hayley Swords: Jessica. Usamah Hayes: but we had precast panels coming in, and the precast panels have to be hung on embeds for the post-tension structure. And essentially the first truckload showed up, the first crew showed up in order to install those precast panels, and they couldn't hang one panel. So there was about fifty thousand dollars sitting there and a crew, which is you know, another, I want to say it was probably another. $10,000 worth of crew just who had to find something else to do for the day because that was what they were hired to do that day. and so we had a question, and so again, this is gonna date me, but I was experimenting with some augmented reality software. I won't it it's not even around anymore. And I was just wondering, I knew that laser scanning. And LiDAR worked, but this was a cheaper, right? Cheaper solution because you didn't have to get a laser scanner and all that. And so I went and it kept on it kept on getting out of scale. each time I would walk this, you know, down the site, I would walk column to column. That's how I was kind of gauging, you know, whether it was scaling correctly the model within the augmented the augmented reality that I was using and it wasn't scaling correctly. So I was just like, okay, drop it. And then I grabbed a laser scanner. you know, it wasn't that easy easy of a conversation by the way. but grabbed a laser scanner, started laser scanning that

floor and started going up and going up and then delivering that information to the trade contractor who was in charge of installing the embeds. So not the actual panels, but the embeds. And eventually we got to a hundred percent. But it did take some time. But for each one of those, you know, I could literally count the dollars for each Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: time that the panel showed up and they couldn't be hung and the panel showed up. And so I brought that that's that's like the most beaming example. That was my first example. It's what, you know, really taught me how how that works. But There's there's several other instances where I've saved, you know, millions of dollars just from well, I won't say just from laser scanning, because when you when you say it like that, it's just like, okay, the laser scan is gonna create a model that's gonna save everything. No, you have to do a little bit of work. Present it in a format like and that's kind of the biggest thing, is presenting it in a format that everybody understands. The design partner has to understand it. The trade partners have to understand it. The owner needs to understand exactly what's going on in order to deliver that. And what, you know, typically only reality capture specialists understand is point clouds. Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: Right. So you gotta get it into a format which is a plan elevation sections to kind of show, okay, yeah, that penetration is three inches off and This is repeating about a hundred times throughout this whole four floor plate. So what can we do to, you know, rectify this before the trades come in and install their scope and and put it in front of the trades and say, Hey, you know, plumber, can you work with where this penetration is at? Is this gonna throw your system off? And then work with the architect and say, Hey, you know, this is where the plumber can't. you know, work through what they need to have their systems installed exactly where that penetration is at. can we, you know, move the wall? You know, can we get this pipe centered in the wall? And so going through, you know, I've worked on projects where, you know, again, we've had hundreds of those instances where, you know, if you just leave it be, you don't bring the reality into the model and do that comparison and then present it in a way that people can understand it, then you don't get the good answers and you still wind up with questions on site. People still have to stop, you know, reinstall work, you know, cut new openings or, you know, reorder material and it just becomes, you know, again, millions of dollars worth of loss instead of saving yourself millions of dollars. Hayley Swords: Yeah, exactly that. And where do you think owners are still underestimating the value of reality capture? Usamah Hayes: I I think they're underestimating the value of knowing conditions with certainty. it's an underestimation of how much how much uncertainty is really out there. Even even if you're building a new project, you know the cost the cost of knowing is usually or Cost of not knowing is usually much higher than the cost of capturing reality. Like, surprises are costly. So Hayley Swords: Yeah. Yeah detrimental o on some projects, right? Usamah Hayes: Yes. Hayley Swords: And what role does data play in construction, like once the construction actually begins? Usamah Hayes: data I mean it becomes valuable when it shortens the distance between a problem and a decision. So Hayley Swords: Mm. Usamah Hayes: and I often say data, you know, data's like meaningless unless you're actually turning it into information. Because then you know, just the word information, you're informing somebody about what's happening with the data, giving them plain data, hey, here's a list of clashes. Is like, okay. But if you can this is an example, right? If you can bring those clashes together, you know, and make it a concise issue and say, hey, you know, we found this sort of clash in about fifty different spots and I think the right thing to do is to have this trade move their scope, but you know, what do you think, you know, we should do? And you present it like that. Now it's, you know, grouped, it's spread out and it's consolidated. So the last thing that a person in the field wants or needs, right, is another decision to make Off of very little information, you know. Like I can't tell you how many times I hear the pain points of having to go hunt down this drawing and that drawing and that drawing and then check this middle and then check the spec. And it's it's a simple. problem to solve, right? It's a simple question to ask, but in order to get to the right question, you have to go through, you know, six different documents in order to even get to the right question. If you can help the field team, just sh here's the question. That's that's Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: the question that we need to ask. You know, does this RFI look good? Or you wanna, you know, that's a much simpler ask for a field team. to you know, help you with an RFI versus hunt down all of these clashes, all of these details, all of these and then, you know, do all that work because they gotta move on to the next thing. They have to execute, you know. So Hayley Swords: When you've spent a lot of time, I guess, mentoring people throughout your career, why has that always sort of been important or or mattered to you? Usamah Hayes: mentoring matters because nobody succeeds alone. You know. every opportunity in my career came because somebody invested in me. And just knowing, you know, how that feels, you know, both ways, right? To not have someone invest in you and then to have someone invest in you it it really made a difference to me. And so I just I hope that by mentoring others that I'm I'm making that difference to them to showing them that hey you may not know everything that I know, but you got value and you know you got drive. So let's let's get

that. Hayley Swords: Yeah, and I think with that it's I think everyone looks back on their career, right, and there's always that one mentor that that can stand out that I guess not took a liking, but they they was like, I can see the potential, I can see the passion. If I can give you that knowledge and then move you along in your career, like that's what it's all about, right? It's like passing forward knowledge. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, exactly. Hayley Swords: And how do you separate a good BIM coordinator from someone who can become a great leader per se? Usamah Hayes: A good coordinator solves technical problems. And a good leader helps other people solve problems. and it working in the industry a long time, one of the things that I've found and like what I'll say is like people often People often feel like what they do is who they are, because so much of who they are is wrapped up in what they do. So it's a reasonable thing. It's a it's a human thing, you know. but it's it's not in order to be a leader, you have to understand, okay, well, what I do, that's not who I am. I can help somebody else do this thing that I used to do. you know, like run a VDC coordination meeting and just have them come to me with with questions about, you know, what I would do in particular situations. And it's not to, you know, it's not for me to say exactly how they should do it. I just need to give them, you know, how I felt in that experience when I experienced it. so so that's what I would say. It's just like helping the other other people solve problems and like not giving them a full recipe, but just giving them like, yeah, you know, for my cookies I used two cups of sugar and, you know, five maybe that's a lot, five, five cups of flour or whatever, and you know, Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: but your cookie doesn't have to taste the same way. It doesn't have to be the exact Hayley Swords: Course. Usamah Hayes: ingredients. You just need to make sure that you get cookies out of it, you know. So yeah, that's how I would say. Hayley Swords: Yeah, no for sure. I feel like with that as well, as mentioned, it's again leading people down the right path, asking the questions and then getting them to sort of solve their own problems. I feel like as a a sole contributor as well, sometimes you're very, I guess, unintentionally tunnel visioned in terms of your job, your work, but as a great leader, it's thinking about that bigger picture, everyone within the team and then getting everyone sort of working towards that same goal. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, that's that's the important part, yeah. Hayley Swords: Yeah. A and how do you I guess develop confidence into younger V D C professionals maybe coming into a team or into the market? Usamah Hayes: I believe that confidence, just from my personal experience, that confidence grows through supported experience and opportunities to work slightly outside of one's personal comfort zone. So it's identifying, you know, and and you have to do it repeatedly, right? Because for each growth each plateau that you come to, you have to realize that you're at a plateau, right? Like, I'm not climbing anymore. I've I've found flow. I I do this thing really well now. And the again, the natural human response to something that comes easy is to continue doing the easy thing when in order to grow and be be confident, you have to approach the hard thing, you know, and and So it it's it's it's more of that kind of understanding what's gonna be the harder thing and and everybody's different, right? We have different personalities for some people just speaking from like a VDC coordination meeting standpoint, for some people public speaking comes easy and and the social aspect of it comes easy and they're really able to bring people together just through their personality. And for other people it's like the technical part comes easy and you know, so it's just you know, finding out where your flow is at and then trying to help your flow meet, you know, what's a little bit harder for you. Hayley Swords: Yeah. And I feel like in speaking with you and how you speak about sort of people in your teams or or your experiences, I feel like you definitely get this in your leadership approach. But how important is like emotional intelligence when being a leader? Usamah Hayes: It's the most important intelligence. I think that I think it's the most important intelligence that we we all need. You need to know how to communicate with people. You know. so in technology adoption, you know, coming from being way, you know, over here or out there with technology adoption and coming into a conversation with somebody who has, you know, very little knowledge of the type of technology that they need to adopt or have already it, you know, started to adopt, but haven't found success in it. And then, you know, it really takes working with the person and figuring out what their again, what they're good at, what their what their flow is, what their flow state is, and then like trying to figure out how to bring those two things together. Like, you know, so it and you have to be in tune with, you know, what what makes them tick, like what what excites them, what Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, this the Spider Man movie just came out and I was I was talking to one of my trade partners and he was really excited, you know, about Spider Man going to see it. I went to see it. I'm a Marvel I'm a nerd, self proclaimed nerd, you know, read the comic books, have to watch the movies. Hayley Swords: Still need to see it. Yeah, I love Fadwell. Love that. Usamah Hayes: but you know, so during our conversation, even though we're talking about the inner workings of some of the authoring software that we have to work with in the industry, you know, we we started to relate on a higher level based on Spider-Man of all things, right? And our emotional, you know, responses to Spider-Man. And so it it drove a better conversation.

Had nothing to do with the technology, right? Like it's just Hayley Swords: Yeah, of course. I feel like that's that's the best one, isn't it? Because then that's when you start to actually build relationships and people are buying into you and so forth. We in my last company, we done we used to do these tests basically. Do you know like a psychometric test? I don't know if you've ever done one, but essentially there's really random questions, you'll answer the really random questions, but they're so interesting because red so so at the end of it you'll get a result of yellow. Red, green, and blue. And if a lot Usamah Hayes: Mm-hmm. Hayley Swords: of your answers were red, it means that you were someone who you could just throw into a task, right? If you tell them like this needs to do him, they don't know anything about it, they you can throw them into that and they'll they'll sink or swim, right? Whereas, say a blue, their mind was trained to be super process driven. So if you was to give them a task, you couldn't take that approach of them. You'd have to really sit them down and be like, This is the task and this is step by step. And then that's how they best work. And it never made me think about I guess collaboration in work on a wider scale. I'm a super red person, right? So I don't need to know, don't need to know the processes, don't need to know the steps, but I'll get it done. But then on my team, I used to work with a lot of blues and their results were blues. So if I come to them with something, it was very much with the approach of just get it done. Whereas their mind don't work like that. I need to sit them down, sit down the processes. Then when I started to learn, okay, the characteristics of everyone, how their mind works, how it ticks and how they take that information in, I could then approach it in a way of, right, you're a blue, this is how we go about it. Your results are more red, this is how I could go about it. And it was really interesting because I'd never thought from that perspective before. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, that we we I've interacted with those tests and or assessments as they were. I don't know if it's a test because it's not pass or fail, right? it's just like Hayley Swords: Yeah Usamah Hayes: so yeah, it I love that. It's super interesting and like to see it play out and be able to understand people in a deeper way. because that's that's all that Hayley Swords: Yeah. Yeah, no, definitely. That's what life's about, right? Usamah Hayes: Yeah, I mean that's all the tech is, right? Like it's just like better communication. You know, all of this building information modeling, it's it's actually just to help people communicate better. Hey, Hayley Swords: Exactly. Usamah Hayes: you see a three D model, this, this and that, and and now you have a better communication tool than just a two dimensional plan, you know, so Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, definitely. And you've invested time learning AI, sort of the key buzzword in

the industry right now, VR and so forth. What have you or how do you see these fitting into the construction industry? Usamah Hayes: with a small note to say it's small note AI should amplify people, not replace them. and that's how I see it fitting into the industry. i it's you know it's it's education and so if you utilize it correctly Right. you have to have the the preface or the base knowledge of the thing that you're working with or the thing that you're working on, or at least know what that thing is gonna be used for, right? So you can't come into it just, you know, fresh or blank or whatever. You have to have some context, and that's that's what the people are for, right? To build your context, to build your experience. But then with that experience, you can then have something run through all of the information that you need and get you to the data that it takes to make that informed decision much faster. And that's that's what I see the power of AI to be in our industry is to instead of spending You know, the earlier the scenario where you gotta go hunt down these six different parts of the construction documents in order to get to an answer. Artificial intelligence can hunt that down as long as it has access to your data and it's looking at it from the right, you know, the model is built so that it understands what that data is, what it should be looking for. So looking at it from a construction management aspect or from a construction aspect. And as long as it has that. Then it's gonna approach it the right way. It's gonna essentially filter through all of that data and deliver you some information that's gonna be really useful. So instead of spending hours hunting down all of these documents just to come up with a question that it's gonna take you, you know, 10 to 15 minutes to write, you know, you just take the 30 minutes and then you you write that RFI or you write that, you know, change order or whatever, and and now you know, you get an answer faster. So I I think that's where AI is gonna play the most prominent and powerful role in the construction industry. And it's it's just gonna get better, you know, because right now it's more I I guess the I would s if I had to condense it down to one thing, chats are playing more of a role in in the construction industry. So being able to go out and chat with an agent in order to you know have it find things and and and bring you that data in an informed way. But in the future, as computer vision becomes better, you know, being able to take a picture and you know, put it in there and have it identify things from a construction standpoint, right? Have it identify maybe a picture that you take on site or even a, you know, walk through a video. And then being able to have that do some of the the figuring out, okay, I'm looking at a stud wall and I'm looking at a conflict with where you know the plumbing is coming up within the stud wall. It's let's go find this information from our construction documents and in the model and everything like that, just based on that image, and then it's just starts generating those desk. That's where I see it going. and yeah. And I'm here for it all. So it's gonna be really Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: cool. So Hayley Swords: And do you think we're entering another technology shift similar to when I guess BIM first arrived? Usamah Hayes: Absolutely. Yes. because now, you know, the With every introduction to a new technology like building information modeling, the thing that was kind of underplayed, I would say, and and even cat to some extent. but the thing that was under plate was like the cognitive load that it takes in order to compare drawings to a model. You know, find all the drawings, you know, find all of this information, you know, it takes cognitive load. And what I see the shift becoming is, you know, with AI and and and VR and augmented reality and things like that, I see that reducing the cognitive load, which frees the human mind up to produce better questions, which then become better answers, which then becomes faster construction. Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, for sure. a and what technology do you think people are are still overlooking in the industry? Usamah Hayes: honestly The true, you know, I I would say like Bim, like the true power of it. Like there's so many avenues that you can take in order to get predictive analytics from building information modeling. And right now, I mean, even in my conversation, just because the industry is still there, I speak more towards coordination. but that's just the absolute lowest hanging fruit. And the higher the you know the fruit is, and not to get completely physical world speak, but the higher the fruit is, the more sun it gets, the riper the blah blah blah, right? Like so the the closer to the top that you you get, the the better and more the more important the information is going to be. because just improving something that's Closer to the beginning of a process is going to have compounding benefits. The further you get from the beginning of the process. You know, so it just compounds. So if you can start to discover things early, you know, scope issues with within the building information model, or with, you know, just and start presenting those earlier on in the conversation, start presenting that to the team, and all of those inferences that you can get. from takeoffs, from you know, four D planning, from from all of those things, and the further up you can get that, the better the outcome is going to be for the project. So I would say that's that's overlooked. and then like secondly is probably like laser scanning on a regular basis. So Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, I hear that a lot in having conversations with people. They think like over time or not so into the near distance future, reality capture will just be standard workflow within the industry and that'll start being integrated more and more. In your opinion, what

should construction leaders be learning over the next few years and I guess the way the industry's going? Usamah Hayes: Hmm. That's a what should Just to kind of wrap it back to, you know, emotional intelligence, we spoke about it. That's what construction leaders should be learning. It it's we have all of this tech and we're building these extraordinary buildings and we're doing it faster and you know, timelines aren't going to shrink. And from the outside looking in, the construction industry probably looks like a material handling, you know, scheduling budget and and you know safety sort of industry. Like those are the highest impact things within the industry, but that's just from the outside looking in. At the end of the day. It takes people to interact with all of those processes and the people have to communicate with the other people. So the better or the more not necessarily even efficiently, but the better you can communicate with other human beings, the better the outcomes are going to be. And you could you can only do that by developing, you know. empathy and you know treating people like you want to be treated like like let's say earlier like that that's the only way we just have to become better communicators with each other and you know so yes technology ai for sure you know understand AI understand BIM understand reality capture understand how all those things come together but if you know And I've these are things that I've struggled with in my past. It's like if I can't convey the value of that to the person in the field, I might as well not I might as well have not done it because they're not gonna use it. So you have to communicate with the person. You have to be able to get that common ground. So emotional intelligence by far, that's that's the one. Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, for sure. Like you said there, I think you can have all the knowledge, right? But if you can't convey that or turn that into a conversation or be able to interact with someone, I guess from a a a professional standpoint, but on a human standpoint as well, right? It's like i it's all pointless really when you think about it. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, and that needs Hayley Swords: I didn't really Usamah Hayes: like that needs to be the root of it too. Like for me, that's the root of it. I understood the problems and then I got the technology. And then I was just like, Okay, I understand how this technology can solve these problems, you know, like but it it came from a really human standpoint. Like, I don't want to deal with these problems. I don't want to have to rip my walls Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: apart. You know, like this is this sucks. I just built that, it was perfect, and now it's not, you know. So Hayley Swords: And what excites you about, I guess, the next generation entering construction today? Usamah Hayes: excites me about the next generation is How they're going to be able to bring new perspectives to old like construction, no one will argue with this, right? We have like the oldest processes, we have the oldest, like buildings have been built like they've been built for years. Like yeah the industrial revolution, like not a lot has changed since the industrial revolution as far as Putting buildings together go. So it's just, but with every generation, with every, you know, different person entering the construction industry, there's that different perspective. And there's gonna be that there's gonna be there's always gonna be that question, like, you know, as soon as they run into something that they think sucks, but like I think is like the best thing since butterbread, you know, is like and they're gonna be like, Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: But can we do this better? And they're gonna have this idea, and I'm and it's gonna for me, and this has already happened to me. That's why I'm like explaining it this way. It's just really like, yeah, why don't we do it that way? Like, you know, and Hayley Swords: Ha Usamah Hayes: it's just gonna so that's what I'm really excited about with this new generation and and how they, you know, they they really For them, like technology is not even necessarily in a they don't have to adapt to it because they already had it, right? Like and again, this can be stepped back. So the technology of our day, my day, you know, not to lump you in with this, but like V CRs, people probably Hayley Swords: Right. Usamah Hayes: won't even know what that is. But V CRs and, you know, the tube televisions and th that that sort of technology and and then computers. coming into like when I was young, computers were like still having a personal computer was still like pretty new to people like being able to go to school and be on a computer. and so I just see like so it was something that we had to, you know, adapt to, but it was younger in our lives or whatever. So for this generation with the smartphones and, you know, Even social media, how social media works, like I don't know, Snapchat or what's the other one? The I I'm not on many social medias. Yeah, TikTok. And the way that that Hayley Swords: TikTok, Instagram. Yeah, it's quite a few. Yeah. Usamah Hayes: just the way that that technology works, like you you have to go through a video fast and you have to understand what you know, what's going on in the video fast. It's just a short video or whatever, but you and like I just see that that is gonna influence the industry. in a very, I think a very positive way because it's just gonna be, they're gonna be used to the newer generation is going to be used to taking these short videos and making something out of it. So like a training video, just think about a training video on a construction site and being like, okay, yeah, yeah. Okay. So then I got it. And it's just like a, you know, 30 second thing versus a document that, you know, and it's just gonna have the highlights of what you should know about the process. Sure, you can dig into the process a

little bit more. Once you but it'll give you the you know, it'll drive the interest to the long form is how I see it. So that's what I see the power of this this new generation coming in. It's just their Hayley Swords: Yeah, it made me laugh when you're talking I think about when I was like really young. I remember even like a a C D player, for example, I'd have this big round, like boofy thing that used to open up and then you'd put your C D in with like two tracks on. And like when we bought our first computer, like the big box on the back like you was absolutely buzzing about. And it yeah, it's just crazy how it has evolved. I've got like younger left views and things like that, and you give an iPhone and they just work it out super quickly. Whereas back in the day it would almost be alien. And I think one point that you mentioned there, growing up, if you're looking at all these short videos as you mentioned, you're taking in information rapidly, being able to process that rapidly from a young age and then implementing it. Whereas before, if I had a question or if I was looking up something, you have to get it from a book or do this or do now you go to Chat G V T or Google and J so you're processing information. slowly to a degree, whereas there you're processing so much information. So moving into a world of technology, it it's almost like second nature at the that stage with the newer generations coming in and how they've processed information growing up. Usamah Hayes: Yeah, it's super super interesting to me. Like 'cause there's a lot of you know, studies about how it's, you know, negatively affecting the brain or whatever, going through such vast amounts of content so fast and it's just like, Yeah. But we're our our brains adapt. And Hayley Swords: Mm-hmm. Usamah Hayes: it's just like if that's what they're you know, it's it's I'm sure I wasn't there, but I'm sure that the same argument was made when it went from scrolls to books. It's just like, Well how can you you know, how are Hayley Swords: Hmm. Usamah Hayes: you supposed to even you can turn through the pages so fast. The brain's not gonna and now look at us, we're just a book is, you know Hayley Swords: It's true it is true though, because I was reading a book before about all the different chemicals in the brain from the the natural standpoint. And say Doom scrolling, for example, you just sit there and you scroll through a feed, whether that's LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, that does actually release the chemical dopamine in you. So you get it Usamah Hayes: Mm-hmm. Hayley Swords: at such a high hit where you're constantly scrolling. So if you're doing that for 20 minutes to an hour, when you come off that, your brain does have a crash. So if you're doing that throughout the day, and that's just one form of sort of what chemical it's releasing and so forth, I'm sure there's loads of interesting articles or research into it, but I've not gone that far. But there's definitely a definitely a connection there. Usamah Hayes: yeah. Yeah, no, I won't I won't say that it's not as different. But it's so new. Like Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: We don't know how this generation is going to improve the way that they interact with that sort of technology really. Like we we 'cause we, you know, computers, they're so they're different now, right? Like could you imagine that you would have a handheld computer when you were talking about that big, you know, heavy computer? Hayley Swords: Yeah. Yeah, I would not be carrying that around. Yeah. I don't think I could carry that around. Usamah Hayes: But now you got this miniature thing that does it's way faster. It stores way more information. It's you we adapt it. We adapted to it and we made it work. And so just hang in with this new generation. They'll do they'll Hayley Swords: Yeah. Usamah Hayes: they'll move mountains with it. Hayley Swords: Yeah, hundred I I'm excited about it. I think as as you mentioned there, it's it's just the natural evolution, right? And then it's just getting up to speed of it and then it just becomes integrated and then everyday life. And then sort of as you know it, it it's it's already integrated it in a flash before you even notice. If say if every contractor adopted one new digital process tomorrow, what would you choose? Usamah Hayes: What would I choose? Hmm. I would choose if every contractor adopted it would be the the same It would be something that brought them all together. It'd be the same information in the same place. Like 'Cause that's the only that's really the only barrier is as far as technology is concerned from a strictly technical standpoint is getting from point A to point B and and and not not having access to it or not you know and and what I hear from a lot of the you know people that I work with it's like they go from one project and they're working on one platform. They go to the next project, they have to work on another platform. They have to learn. But there's there's no time for them to learn. So it's just like, you know, that would be my that would be my wish. Or or for the different platforms to just make their processes so similar and I understand what I'm saying by the way. The competition, the I already understand what I'm saying. But if if that was if that could be a thing, which I think it can be, but that would be the the thing that I would have everybody adopt is just a way to have that single source of all of the project Hayley Swords: Hmm. Usamah Hayes: information. Hayley Swords: Nice, nice. And and in your opinion, what does a truly connected job site look like? Usamah Hayes: It's really it boils down to like how the people interact with each other. so there's no There's no you versus me. It's us versus the schedule. It's it's us versus, you know, whatever problem is being presented. Cause that's that's kind of how it that's kind of how the job sites fall apart or become disconnected. One person might make a

mistake, something gets exposed, and and I mean that from like the design partners, all the way, you know, the owner, you know, if it becomes this understanding that. Like we're all in this together. We all want this building to open on this date. And then if we work it out from there, like that's a truly connected you could throw whatever technology inside of that equation, but once once it's there the people you'll see, just like we're talking about, people adapt. People will be able to adapt to whatever technology is in there as long as they understand that they're together and they they'll find a way to kind of make it work together. So that's what a truly connected site looks like for me is that it's just one that everybody works together and have that understanding that they're just one team, not, you know, plumber versus electrician or, you know, that sort of thing. Hayley Swords: Yeah, no, definitely. And a quick fire round from our side, you gotta choose one. BIM versus digital twin. Usamah Hayes: Digital twin. Hayley Swords: Office or job side. Usamah Hayes: Job site. Hayley Swords: AI or automation. Usamah Hayes: Automation. Hayley Swords: Biggest productivity killer. Usamah Hayes: Mm, biggest productivity clear. Hayley Swords: Yes, yes, Usamah Hayes: Information gaps. Hayley Swords: Favourite construction technology? Usamah Hayes: Favorite tech reality capture by far. Hayley Swords: Yeah, I thought you could say that. One leadership habit you'll never skip. Usamah Hayes: Getting to know the person. Hayley Swords: Emotional intelligence. Best career advice you've ever received. Usamah Hayes: This is so it probably doesn't convey or or translate like it does for me. but Thomas Ober Obermeyer, rest in peace, he was my actually he was my instructor in college. and he said, draw what you know and figure out what you don't. And it was he had all these quirky sayings, but that was the one that stood out to me. And as I go through time, I understand what he meant more and more. Like if you just it's it's like reality capture. You just capture what you know and then figure out what you don't know, but really study what you what you can know. And if you study what you can know enough, the details, they come together, you know. So Hayley Swords: Yeah, nice. The rest will follow suit. Usamah Hayes: Yeah. Hayley Swords: And in terms of say the prediction, what's one construction technology trend you believe will become mainstream that people are currently underestimating? Usamah Hayes: I'm gonna go with reality capture. Like I don't think it's mainstream yet, but I think that that's the one, you know, robotic dogs and whatnot. It's just there's too many implications of and more specifically like point cloud technology to get accurate measurements. Hayley Swords: Yeah, I I I hear that a lot as mentioned. I I do think that's really gonna come on in the next couple of years. And what's the biggest challenge construction technology leaders will face over the next five years? Usamah Hayes: r cognitive load, I think. knowing knowing what's right to adopt and what's not. Because I get a barrage of emails, phone calls, all sorts of things that you know it's it seems like there's a new offering every day. Somebody's offering something new And then but you dig into it and it's just like, well, it does the thing that this other thing does. And so I think that that's gonna be the the challenge is being able to sniff out what's truly going to improve your processes and what's just, you know, sales, essentially. Hayley Swords: Yeah, it's trying not to go after that next shiny big thing, right? Usamah Hayes: Yeah. Hayley Swords: And what advice would you give to someone wanting to become a future leader in this space? Usamah Hayes: I would say start from the heart and let your brain follow. Hayley Swords: Nice. I like that. Yeah, I like that. And finally, what does building tomorrow mean to you? Usamah Hayes: Building tomorrow means embracing technology. Embracing the technology of the future, but with all the lessons that you learn from the past. Hayley Swords: Nice. Nice way to end on. Thank you so much for coming on and letting us pick your brain. It's been a absolute pleasure. Usamah Hayes: And thanks for having me, Haley. I appreciate Hayley Swords: Editor. Usamah Hayes: your time. Hayley Swords: Likewise. How's that? Usamah Hayes: it's fun. I like talking about this stuff. Hayley Swords: Yeah. Yeah, no, I like I like when it becomes a bit free flying.