Keep Exploring | Keep Communicating featuring Matt Brennan from Part 3 and 'What the RFI?!' podcast

We found a kindred spirit with Matt Brennan- host of the podcast “What the RFI” with his ambition to improve project documentation and construction administration (CA) through that oh-so critical practice of communication!

This is the Deliberate Words podcast, hosted by David Stutzman and Steve Gantner, leaders in Conspectus, the specifications company….where words have a power that can create trust, transparency, and transform the process and can significantly impact the success of a construction project and team!

Beyond his podcasting success, Matt is an architect, a construction administration enthusiast, and a product specialist with Part 3, a software solution designed for the architectural community. The simplify CA by bringing consultants, owners, and contractors together—providing the tools, insights, and collaboration that empower teams and drive informed decision-making. Yes! That’s what we’re talking about!

This collaborative language has no borders, from British Columbia to the Jersey shore Matt, Steve, and Dave reveal ways to reduce RFIs, love your project team, and ultimately enjoy life! Listen in on this fast-paced, nugget-filled, super-fun episode of Deliberate Words, and “Keep Exploring, Keep Communicating”!

Transcript

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We're off and running then. I don't see the, yep, it's recording. We're doing it. Is it live or is it Memorex? Now you're just dating yourself, Steve. those old commercials, the guys in the chairs gets blown back by the sound. that's right. The old iconic image too, right? know, good old Dolby Atmos. Yes, that's right. What was the brand for that, by the way? we remember the branding behind it. We just don't remember who it was associated to. right? So it was really effective, wasn't it? I totally was. like, you know, the guy, you he had his sunglasses. It was, know, you can just vision, you know, put it back in your mind there and just, yeah, clearly that was the experience. A leather coat, long hair. that's right. Yes, but the fact that none of us can remember the brand. That's the problem. Hahaha Well, I know it Memorex, it was Memorex audio tapes, like when we did things on tape. Yeah, maybe that was it. The good old, yeah, now we're ordaining. That's why it doesn't really exist because that has come and gone. What's really funny is it's great because I was at a concert the other night and they were selling an audio cassette of their latest album. It was like, and they had vinyl next to it. Like what's next? we going to, you know, are we going to bring back 8 tracks? It wouldn't be surprise. Well, like I got an email the other day, like, you know, it was the summer of the 90s. And actually I was in Wisconsin and I'm very tempted because it's like all the bands I listened to in 90s, you know, got Nickelback and Theory of Dead Man and all the list went on. But it was all like the high school, you know, like I was that's where my was I was born, you know, was born in 83 and I was into the 90s in music and the rock. And, you know, that's where everything is. Now it's all all these guys are doing these retours of the 90s. And I'm seeing our Our Lady piece. this Sunday so haven't seen them since I was like I said when I was like 17 to you know early 20s You know what you get when you combine 50 cents. crap, I just blew it. You dare, didn't you? What you get when you combine 50 cent with nickel back? you just said it. What do you got there, Steve? Yeah, that's true. That's simple math, You guys are talking about the wrong genre of music for me, gotta tell ya. Yeah. What do you listen to? It's your fancy, Dave. Big band from the 40s. yeah, yeah, I enjoy all this. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's one playlist. Like if I have to get work done, I go on my Apple account and it's called Classical Tronics and it plays in that classical realm, but more of a new age in a sense. So it's just, I don't know. It's a variety of stuff. It's something that you might actually find, but yeah, if you want to get focused, sometimes it can be really good. Some amazing pieces and you just run with it. No, focus, I turn it all off. No way. Mm-hmm, gotta have something in the background. Low in the background though, low in All off. Is that when you're like trying to get through those specs and you're, got that deadline and yeah, Silence. Silence is golden. It depends on the early days of the specs. It's light jazz in the back, instrumental in the background. And then when you get towards delivery and deadline, you just crank it up. Totally. dear. Well Steve, here we are rambling and rambling and we haven't even introduced our guest today. Yeah, fellow podcaster actually probably better than us. Let's not go that far, you know, let's be modest here. far. We'll be modest. You're better than us. So Matt Brennan with, dang it, part three, that's right. Too many Matt Brennans in the world. I know. Yeah, I know. only have a few, but you only have a good, you know, you need to have only one. Right? So Matt, tell us a little bit about yourself, if you don't mind. Absolutely. Well, in high level, yeah, my name is Matt Brennan. I've been in this industry, this beautiful architectural industry for the past 22 years, seen and done at all. And like, in when I say that, like, you know, I started in residential housing, you know, sub developments, eventually got into high rises and all that kind of stuff. Found myself into doing K to 12, you know, all that institution side of things. That's really where my passion is. And I stayed in that sector for a long time. You know, early days, I actually did a, did a little bit of reselling for Autodesk, given the industry where it was, went through that process, got to work with some amazing architects, which kind of prompt me to where I landed my feet with Renovation Negron Architects. And, you know, I really developed a lot. That was where I my real passion. Those are the glory days and, yeah. And then, like I said, kind of going back into the architectural industry and then coming to this point, You know, company by the name part three approached me about three and a half years ago. And what part three is it's all about construction administration, but design for architects. You've got the pro cores of the world, which is great for the GCs. Happy to use that if I was a GC. But as, as architects, we've been left in the dust and CA really hasn't changed much over the years, other than going from physical shop drawings to faxing them to emailing them. And now it's kind of stalled for the last, you know, 15 years. And, you know, can we do better? And that's where part three came into my life. And at that point, you know, I used it, you know, for two years and I was like, wow, this is, this has been a solution in the industry we've been screaming for. And through the opportunity came up and actually joined the company. So I've had multiple lives in this, you know, these last, you know, two decades with it. And, uh, yeah, I just find, you know, audio video has been on the side, of course. And, you know, and of course podcasting since, you know, September is a new, new, new game for me as well, but it really enjoying it. So that's it in a nutshell, really. well, in a nutshell, that's awesome. Tell us the name of your podcast so people can listen to it. yeah. So it's called what the RFI and, you know, it. Tags onto the, know, that kind of fun aspect to it, but it's all about construction administration from the lens of an architect, from a project coordinator, consultant perspective. again, lots of amazing architectural podcasts out there talking about design, but even in today, like in your schooling in, you know, just general forums or anything is just, no one talks about CA, but yet. Hmm you have that passion for it, there's so many stories that go with it. You can sit down, have a drink, and the stories come alive between everyone. Everyone's had their different experiences, different frustrations, but the core elements are there about CA and what they are. And that's what it's about. Each week I post Monday morning and it's all about, like I said, it's all about CA. I do guest interviews as well and definitely that's kind of a big roadmap item for 25. Well, every week you're ambitious to be able to get that podcast done weekly. So I want to just back up. Part three, there's a connection, right? There's a reason for the name. So tell us what you think the reason is. for the part three. Well, when I was first introduced to part three, I thought it was a BC building code, because in our like, being out of Vancouver, BC, we have our building code part three is all about the commercial side. So if you're designing a school, you're gonna design your school around the part three of building code. So of course, when we were introduced to the company, and that was the first question I personally asked was what is and I've had, you know, clients ask the same thing. Part three was it was established out of Ontario, Canada. And part three out of Ontario represents CA. Part two is bids and tenders and part one is design. So that's where the name came about was that general section of CA and hence part three. So we have a connection to specifications too because of part three, which is essentially all the field execution work, right, which fits right into CA. That's right. Absolutely. it's, is key. it's like, again, part three is kind of more on the, you know, again, from it's on the CA side. And that's where like, I've always enjoyed working with specs. I always did, but we brought it early on in the stage. But the reality is it still comes in into CA, you know, from that early days of I would actually probably get our specs moving after we've completed a building permit package. That's when we'd launch our specs. We'd do it. finalize it up to your tender point, modify it during tender, that process. Once that tender was closed, then your specs were locked into it. And then hopefully you got it all right, because if you didn't do anything right, that's where the cracks would form. And that's where the extras would come in on those school projects. Okay, so we've said CA multiple times, but we haven't said anything about what CA means. I know and I said that's a downfall of my own self, but CA is construction administration. Contract administration is another term, but technically instruction administration, CA. So the design side of managing construction, primarily. yeah, basically the moment. Yeah. What is if you, yeah. When I have to explain it to, know, when I go out with my partner and she's introduced me to friends and what do you do? And it's very simple. The way I explain it is basically construction administration is the moment the contractor starts taking those blueprints and starts building it. There's a whole bunch of paperwork that comes through it. And that phase is called construction administration. And I think that's probably the best way to explain it, but I'm open to hearing a different way. I think you have a kindred spirit here on the call with us today. because I've always explained it to as, because I stumbled into specifications through construction administration. So I worked for a contractor and then I became a CA for an architect. And when people ask me what I do, was like, basically I take the design documents, the specifications and the prints and make sure that it gets built according to that. Or if it can't answer the questions as they come up to make sure it gets as close to that design as possible. And you're right. that's the end of the day, like the whole point of the construction administration, the CA phase and the architect's role is all through this design phase, you've been designing, the way I like to explain it, you've been designing this BMW, right? You've got this beautiful car, you've designed it, you've got this beautiful project, this beautiful building. The role of the architect, the CRP, is to basically ensure that the contractor is building as per what you've designed and specified. And that's why specs and drawings are so key and they both have to match. They both got to coordinate. They both got to talk to each other. Cause at the end of the project, you want to basically, you know, hold up that rendering and then drop in and go, did we do what we, we told the client we're going to do? Did we give them the BMW or did we give them the Honda Civic? Right. And that's where your budget constraints, you know, through that process during that CA were things may get cut, you know, maybe there's Valley Engineering, anything like that, but that's your job is to ensure that you're delivering that product and following those guidelines. So being intimate with your drawings and specs definitely goes a long way. Yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed CA because just because the interaction you had with this contractor and the architect and finding the right ways to do things. Because as an architect, we think we have the right answer, but the person who's done it for all of their life might have a better answer to get you the same result. And it's great talking to them. like what we find too, like it's Like we did one little project, one of last projects I was heavily involved in before I left and joined the part three team was we did these six daycares. Now this daycare design was the same thing, right? It was a province they were launching. needed daycares throughout the, you know, through a certain city and everything, certain district. And the way that we put the contract is we designed one building other than some buildings may have a little bit of an extension on one side of the wing, right? It was kind of like a U shape, but it was going to six different sites. And because it was six different sites, they ended up deciding that let's tender it six different ways. Like let's let's tender it. So you had in the end, I think there was four GCs, four separate GCs building this. And of course, when it came to the, you know, the building in the CA phase, everyone had different questions. They were picking up different parts of the specs, different questions. One built it with very minimal, you know, requests for information, RFIs and stuff like that. But then some were asking a huge amount of questions. It was actually easier to draw a school, you know, do a CA on a school than these day cares because it just depend on who it is. And we've even seen that with details like a parapet detail where we've issued this parapet detail for years, right? It's the same details, pretty straightforward. And we had one contractor come to us later, you know, when they're building it and said, we want an extra. Okay. Please clarify. Well, you got your angle and your steel deck coming in. So that's about a quarter inch. So we want some strapping at the top to, when we put in our final piece of backing plywood and then they do the membrane and everything. And it was one of those little details you're like, are you serious? You just really want to strip? Oh yeah. And they priced it out. I think we got, was like a $15,000 extra. So of course, You don't just stop there. You go back and look through the drawings and yeah, okay, fair enough. I see the problem. You go measure it up. And then in the end, it was worked out to be about three pieces of, you know, three sheets of plywood in that respect. But interesting that you just give that detail to most builders, most contractors and something simple like that. don't, you know, they, just want to get the job done. But then you've got these organizations that like to pick that stuff apart and it all, it all the range, but again, same detail. You think it's right. You had it right on many others. and now it's coming up to being challenged basically of how you can do it. And then you just take that stuff with, you you take that on a serious note, you can, you know, tell them to screw off or you can say, all right, fair enough, I'm gonna be better going forward. And then from there, from that particular incident, all our details had this little quarter inch strip at the top to ensure that we didn't get stung with an extra. Do you think that's the cause that documents have gone from six sheets to a thousand sheets? Yes, because like working on a lot of old schools, like we did one out in Langley, BC, and it was built in multi phases and it was like the 1950 something. It was kind of the first wing and then they did another one in 1960 and then another edition in 1977 and stuff like that. we took all these drawings and it was like exactly like that, Steve, where the first original sets were 10 pages and the next set was 20 pages. And then when we issued our drawings, you know, they were on a brand new middle school. It's at least 130 sheets, right? Like every interior elevations documented, like even if it's just like a border panel of a wall, right? Everything is physically documented because we just don't want to deal with, you know, that wasn't in contract or something. We've included 3D isometrics now to ensure that, yes, you can see that material is returning. Yes, we didn't call out that one tiny little cove in the plan. Wait a minute. Why don't we just issue the models? Wouldn't that solve everything? Isn't that the BIM promise? Yeah, I see that going. I know I've had my discussions with contractors on this one too, there Dave. And I think it's just a recipe for disaster because when you give a simple like, say if we, yeah, whether it was a simple little shed or like an actual project, right? The reality is, and today's, you know, multi-users, got, you know, juniors, you got seniors. And I don't think it doesn't matter whoever's doing it. But the reality is if we drew say a custom millwork Counter-talk. Okay, and you label you didn't tag that material you put as generic material while you're you as the architect You wanted that to be granite or you know marble or whatever Well, how am I supposed to know the model just shows as generic is the whole thing mod like? even if you took the the due diligence and modeled every single thing how many hinges and I guess that's where specs would come in, but I It would be a nightmare. No end. think it would be a way to pick away at every unique detail to no end, right? You know, it would just, I think it would be, it would just create a bunch of extras if that was the only thing you're issuing. Good point. What's interesting about that is there's been a lot of talk lately about digital twins. just presented a talk the other night about digital twins. And what struck me as interesting is can you really have a digital twin? And for those that may not be familiar with it, it's basically a virtual representation of what was built in a reality. Can you really have a digital twin where you don't have the specification data, the information? in the model. It's tough, like, let's take like a door, right? Mm-hmm. is not just a door, right? Like we know it's a slab, right? We know that, you know, is it hollow? it, you know, is it fire rated? All the, all those details. And let's just get to the door hardware. Like why do we have door hardware consultants? The reality, it's a complicated thing because everything ties into the code and everything. So are you going to note that on drawings? No. Right. Same thing like ULC ratings. Like you could least call up a ULS. Like we had a page dedicated to certain ULC ratings. Like, you order to build this fire rated wall, you had to follow the ULC rating, which, you know, spacing for the, you know, the screws and nails or whatever had to be out these patterns. Otherwise, it didn't qualify to meet that ULC rating. And it's the same thing with like, it's a door hardware, like all those nuts and bolts, like you're not calling up individual screws on plans. That'd be insane. Your drawings would, even though you think your drawings would be perfect, I'm sure the contractor would find something to pick away at and go, you didn't include the nails on this sheet. my goodness, we've seen that with we've seen that with tags, right? Like with wall tags, where we had the whole plan, all wall tagged up and one wall we didn't tag on the plan. And it was an extra layer of furring, right? Because we had all these bump outs and conduits and steel. So we had to run a whole brand new up, but it was clear visually. And it was clear on the sections like the you know, the 10 different sections and then the blow up of those sections, it was clear and it was tagged there, but because we didn't tag on the plan, they wanted an extra for that wall. And that was where, do the whole mountain, molehill kind of thing. Where do you put your foot down? Where do you, you know, set the precedent going forward? That was one of those scenarios that we said straight up, like, no, we're not, we're not, we're not allowing that as an extra, 100%. Yeah, but that's an interesting, I just can't help but wrap my mind around, you may have a visual representation of what your building is, but you don't know what your building is with a digital twin. Like, Steve? Yeah. yeah, and you may not have the data to support it in the model, which I think is where you were going. And we've seen examples of that where we actually had an architect use a curtain wall family in the model to represent a brick and block cavity wall. Now, why would you do that? I have no idea, other than they just didn't change the data to have it match what they actually drew. Yeah, and you're right. that's kind of where sometimes that's where technology limitations stop you. And like, again, with Revit in the past, you know, and it's always evolving and, you know, it's still being improved, thankfully. But yeah, you're right. That makes a good point, Dave, because we would use the curtain wall tool to make a railing sometimes. So had a crazy feature. Like we would do a workaround. Hey, we want this comp. This is what we're trying to do from the vision for it. Revit's limiting us. We can't do it. How do we do it? And well, hey, we figure, you know, people have done those work around those little cheats and everything with Revit. Well, going back to the digital model and tendering it, is this a curtain wall or is this a railing? What is it? You know, and that's where the gray becomes it. But digital twins, very, it's an interesting thing. Like it's a great tool for a facility manager, but it depends on who's managing and controlling that data. Cause I've seen that where it's always gone through one individual and if they shut down shop and the whole thing's lost. honestly, I think architects should be controlling that data going forward and it becomes an extra value proposition that they can resell. back to their clients and maintain those relationships, right? So like, for a good example is like, rather than just putting your mechanical units all throughout the network, give them QR codes to the maintenance manual. Cause no one's going to walk around with a book that's, know, know, thousands of pages thick. It's not convenient, but what they do have is a phone in their pocket. So put all that stuff in the digital cloud. Everyone has wifi and internet. put QR codes on the equipment in there. How do I operate this operable wall? Put, you know, put a little QR code with your little logo or whatever, the owner's logo, snap. That's how you operate and where you go. And even to like on big walls, like say, for example, Hey, we're going to open up this wall and, we're going to install something. What's behind that wall? Well, before they boarded, someone goes there and takes a photo of every single wall, puts that in their architectural digital model. And then basically they can, as the architect, can just walk up, hold their phone. yeah. There's this pipe, this pipe, this pipe, this beam, this, you know, cross brace. It's a little bit more complicated. We got to figure out something different. And I think that's where architects can really go from a feel silly management side and extend that extra side of business as a contract with their owner and maintain it and continue and be that architect or record to do those changes. That's a great idea. STI, a while ago, specified technologies, they do fire stopping, sealants. A few years ago, I was with another firm at the time, but they had us up there. They were experimenting with QR codes and fire stop assemblies. And what they would do is they would take a picture of the assembly, it would print out a QR code, they'd stick it next to the assembly, and then it had all the data. who installed it, when it was installed, what was installed, so that when they had to do their fire stop inspections, and this was for hospitals, because they had to do them annually or whatever the authorizing agency came through. But they could just QR code them and give them all the data right there. And then a map of the entire hospital showed them where everything was. Exactly. like, to me, that's what digital twin should be, right? Like it's, it's like, like I went to one presentation, you know, get a real clear understanding. And at the end, it's like, well, if you want to add more chairs and all that, I'm like, well, people aren't going to do that, right? You're not going to go spending. And it was all this extra consultant fees and stuff, but like that data. That's key, right? When you need to go back in time and it's years, what is the easiest way to grab that? Right? And that like, again, all about CA and CA logs, again, having the logs intact is so critical to ensure that things are being followed. Data is king, as you know, you want it, it's not finger pointing, it's just called accountability. Who did what and everything. And that's just a prime example of why it matters. So how is it, Matt, that part three is helping the architects manage all of the CA? So the common theme, and this is where like CA really hasn't changed over the years is Every off like we basically naturally just gravitated to the tools we had in our disposal. Right? So we had Mike, we had outlook, we had Microsoft word and we had Excel. So what would be the easiest way to track when an RFI came in? What would you do? You would kind of notate it, maybe try your, you know, your server in that sense, but you would naturally just kind of log into Excel. So the problems with Excel in that sense and going that method is the reality is you're a, you're manually inputting it. you're human, you're going to make mistakes, right? So maybe you don't know, or if you go away on holidays and someone else jumps in to try and maintain that, that's one thing. It's not a standardizing the office. Everyone becomes their own little silos and they start doing their own little logging and the tracking in that way. So that's kind of the problem, what we've kind of developed and just as the norm, right? So where part three comes into... the table here is it automates that whole entire process. Whereas a contractor uploads issues in new RFI or shop drying, anything, it comes into the part three database. Again, it's an all-in-one CA application designed by architects for architects. And it immediately notifies the right people that, there's a shop drying needs to be reviewed. And again, the days of me, the old ways where I would get that shop drying, come into my office, right? Maybe the contractor CC the right electrical mechanical, if this was like a rooftop unit, great. I would physically log it, note that so-and-so got it, then make sure that, you know, they're reviewing it. Then mechanical sends back their review of this shop drawing. Okay, I've got some pages. Macat electrical eventually, you know, I send it to electrical and then he sends it back. Oh, by the way, he marked up the original one, the contractor said, Oh, my goodness, now I got to combine three shop drawings together into one, or I can just give the contractor from a 50 page shop drawing two times three now 150 pages and the headaches and, and this is where errors really start to happen because electrical marked on page 49 and the tiniest little red note. it's supposed to be a three phase versus a single phase or something like that. So where part three comes into that aspect is rather than doing that archaic process, we're basically come around the table right now and market the shop drawing in real time in one platform that's managing it. And then it's all being communicated in one entity, logging in at the same time, and then pushing it back to the contractor. And then when you introduce the world of where the contractors in Procore, That's a whole nother world in a sense where you're inundated from all his stuff and the contractors taking the right approach, right? If I was a GC, I would use Procore and Heartbeat because it manages all that from their end of the world, right? And it's not, it totally is, right? And rightfully so. It's it's a great tool for that, right? It manages their subs, it manages their own budgets and everything, but it inundates the, the architects with emails of the painter opened up the spec. I don't care. I don't need an email. I have clients. creating separate email accounts just to house these pro core emails. And that's kind of the beauty with part three and pro cores. have that really, that partnership relationship and the two connect together. So again, the contractor has his data and the architect now controls his data. And a good example is like RFI closeouts. know, RFI comes in, it logs it. When you return that RFI, it logs it. And then when it gets closed, so the example, like a personal example, I'd be at my site meetings with some of these GCs and they would be like, Matt, when are we going to get a, you know, RFI 30? It's, been with you for three, four months now. Actually pull it Procore. It's in your court. Cause I can see my data shows that I returned it the same day. was in and out in the same day. Oh, you're right. Shoot my bad. And, by the way, when you're closing that RFI 30, can you close the 10 others that are still in your court? They're, they haven't been closed. And that's where having data at your fingertips is key. And it even goes on beyond that too, Dave, because it talks about like, because everything's data driven, I can pull up dashboard data and find out who is the slow consultant, not responding to stuff, right? Is it that mechanical? Is it electrical? Is it, is it us as the architect? And. When a delay claim comes, I need that proof. I need to know where things are slipping through the cracks. And that's where it shows you. And with those like leaderboards, whether you show them or not to your team, it's an amazing tool because it actually changes human behavior. I've seen consultants go from really bad consultants to amazing consultants because they didn't want to be that guy. being last on the list to return anything. They didn't want to be 15 days on an average response time for RFIs or shop drawings. And in a nutshell, it's a data management tool that's basically streamlining it, using AI to help review shop drawings, and then just providing that accountability. And the best part is you don't have to touch Outlook ever again. You can actually work through the platform. in a nutshell, that's what it is. Dave, can we get part three? Hahaha No email sounds good to me. Well, exactly. And that's that is the ugly trend. Like, this was supposed to be a tool that was going to save us like, my goodness, we're going from the days of mail to, you fax. Well, that was a new thing of doing things. And then email, was send an email. Well, how many emails how many nonsense emails do you get in a day? Like, it's just open up the door to in a date or inbox. And like when I was, you know, in a data with CA and before the part three days, like, yeah, it'd be 150 emails a day, know, 100 to 150. And I would say 20 % were non-actual items, meaning that I could go in, read, move to the next. So I didn't have to do anything. But a good portion of these emails were, shoot, I have to file this. I have to log this. I have to do something with this email. And maybe it's even just logging it, but either way, when you start looking at all those tasks that you're doing, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes, bam, at the end of the day, where did my time go? Well, I was a professional emailer. You certainly were. That's all you did today. Yeah, and as an example, I looked at my email list at noon today because I hadn't touched it all day. There were over 150 sitting there waiting for me and that was only four hours. And yeah, and that's, that's the reality of the architect. Even again, having your email on the side of your pocket, like that helps. It's nice that you can get to some of those quick and efficiently, but I think it's at the end of the day is how can we do it differently? Again, email is not going to leave, right? We get that as a form of communication is good and it ties into that, but how can we do it better? Right. Why again, like going back to the days of CA, like you get this RFI, you get the email, you do it, you send it to your people. Like you're doing all this actions. Can I just basically get into one place and hit return and be done? That's kind of what the end of it like is that that's what made me so efficient and like why even believe in part three, because like my last firm is an associate there and I went from three to 15 jobs with this software. like Right away it was when the opportunity came up. I certainly want to be part of this because I believe it's a tool. believe when Revit came to my doorstep when Autodesk just acquired it, I looked at it went, this is the future. This makes so much sense in drawing stupid dumb detail lines. That line can be anything. It could be wiring, could be a wall, it could be a door. There's no one not intelligent to it. So when Revit came to the table, It just made sense. You walked away with this ball, slow wall model within a few hours, the client makes changes. You'd move the wall. Everything would update in a parametric way. It just made sense. That's kind of where, like I said, that's where I see part three. I call it the new Revit of CA because it is, it's a new way of doing it in that respect. That's awesome. Go ahead, Steve. no, because you've mentioned BC a number of times today. British Columbia. For anybody else that might not know. Obviously Canadian. Yes. Just curious, what are your favorite things about Canada? We're going to take a little bit of a sidestep here. because a lot of our audience is US based and ABC, I fell in love with it when I visited Kelowna, it was awesome. Kolo is a very beautiful place. And it's only about three hours from where I am. like. Yeah, kind of bring in kind of some context, the whole great white north basically. Yeah. So I'm on the far west side, you know, just outside of Vancouver, which is basically, once you get Vancouver, you're at the water, you know, that's as far as we can go. If we go south, we're going to hit Seattle, Portland, Oregon, California, et cetera. Right. So that's on my kind of spectrum with it. So while I'm actually in Harrison hot springs, which is kind of a, it's a, it's a, it's a touristy town in a sense, but we've got national hot springs. We've just like, it's. Right to my right here, got this beautiful lake of it. It's incredible. It's a great place to be. And yeah, like I said, I'll get into the stuff that I love to do here in a second, but BC is just so beautiful. You've got your mountain ranges, right? You've got, you know, it's a lot of... natural rainforests. again, when, for example, yeah, so being in the lower mainland, if I start driving north up to Prince George, you're going to go through like three different climates. And you know, like you'll go into that really hillside and then eventually get to the dense forest once you get up to Prince into Quinnell Williams Lake, right? know, Timber Kings, the guys that build the cabins, that's where they're based out of. But if I, rather than going north, I go, you know, east. Well, next thing you're going through the Okanagan Valley, which is like a desert, right? And, know, you've got that natural landscape. And then again, another few hour drive, you're in the Kootenays and again, just that wild wilderness. It's all over the map. It's beautiful. It's incredible. And if we kind of, from there, if we kind of go along the border between BC and Alberta, that's where we got the Rockies, right? So that's where you got, you know, you got bam. You know, everyone loves Banff. It's a very touristy town. We got Jasper, which unfortunately went through the big wildfires last year and a good portion of the town just caught. They had no chance. It just happened too quick. And even Canmore where The Last of Us was filmed. I love Canmore. It's a cool little mountain town, kind of like a Montana, but in Canada. And then, like I said, then you kind of fly over all everything else. And eventually, you know, you're going to have Manitoba and eventually you're going to have Ontario, you know, the big, you know, center of it and Quebec and, then to the PAI and that. So I want to go to the Far East at some point, check out those and, and traveling, you know, my life and everything. personally, I've been, I've been across the country. Yeah. I want, I'm staying. I, I want to stay in BC to me. It's, it's my, if you're an outdoors person, This is the place to be. You've got your lakes. There's thousands of lakes around you within, you know, minutes to a couple hours of driving. I do a lot of, you know, recently I got back into overlanding and off-roading. So I bought a brand new Bronco and everything. And, we've been just having a blast with it. We've been, doing a lot of the forest service roads, the FSR roads where we're, know, it's just miles and miles of You know, it's, charted based on the logging industry, but some amazing wicked hidden gems for that. And, you know, like there's, there's apps out there that kind of even. prompt you and give it to you. One of them is called on X and everything. It's all about, you know, anyone who wants to go off road and check out these cool hidden gems go there and you kind of see it. so I applied to them with the amount that we're starting to do. I applied to be a trail guide for them and we got accepted. So now I'm out for them and get free swag and it's all fun. Right. But what I like about it is it just encouraged me to be like, I haven't been here. Let me just go here. Let's go explore and you know, hey, we know there's some natural hot springs up here. Let's go check it out. Let's go explore it and bring the bathing suit and bring the camping gear. And, and yeah, like I said, if you're outdoorsy, it's, it's, a, it's a playground on its own. And like, you look at the big map of like just British Columbia by itself. And it's like, I've only been up to Prince George and there's still another province up there. Like, you know, I mean, there's still a half of it left to explore and the deeper you go, the more wildlife, everything. It's incredible. is a really beautiful place. So I'm very grateful, you know, born and raised here. So when you're out doing your trail mapping, do you camp? Do you spend the night sometimes and just enjoy it? 100%. Yeah, you got to. And we like even on the tailgate, Steve, we've got a little drop down table. It's just awesome. Because like, you know, you basically wherever you want to have lunch, just pull up the drop the tailgate back, you pull up this little table and boom, and then just put your Coleman on there or your heater, your cooker or whatever and and away you go. yeah, there's nobody around. So if you're doing a big trip, you know, I'm like provincial parks or something like that because it's nice to have a I you know I I'm okay to go for a few days without a shower but I like my showers so that's that's the only thing you know that exactly of days. So if you found a place to get your Broncos stuck, I haven't, we haven't got stuck yet. I don't want to curse it, but definitely. Yeah. That's there's a couple of big outdoor adventure shows come into like Vancouver place and stuff. So I'm definitely going there with a shopping list, like get into the radios and get into, you know, like again, just till recovery. Like there's no winch on it right now, but those are things to start looking into it. Cause yeah, if you get stuck, Penn, like sometimes we've gone and we haven't seen a single soul. So if that's the case. You just don't want to be out there. if anything, do your due diligence, know, plan your plan, your routes, make sure you've advised, you know, two different separate people and you know where you're going and make sure you tell them when you get back and all those things of just, you know, do your due diligence plan, be safe and yeah, just don't take any risks. That's kind of like backpacking in a way. You do the exact same thing except you're in a car or an off-road vehicle, sorry. me be more specific. It almost sounds like, hey, we have roads here in New Jersey, but you get in the back pine barrens and you have to wonder, will I ever see another person? I can imagine you get out on a trail like that. Yeah, you have to be especially careful. Well, yeah, and like, again, wildlife and everything, like we've got another trip planned kind of early June up to Bella Coola. So basically, again, looking at a map, you're to go up to Williams Lake, which again, everyone kind of sees and they drive through, but it's a whole nother rainforest on its own to basically going west of that. And that's where, you know, again, grizzlies and everything. we're very excited, but at same time, doing your due diligence, planting your roots and seeing, again, there's a ton of little off roads. There's actually, there's one waterfall. Apparently it's the tallest in Canada I've been told about. So I can't remember the name off the top of my head, but we've got that on the list to basically explore. And then when we get to Bella Coola, it's such a, you know, here's such a cool town. We've got a ferry book that's going to take us through the channel through all the different micro islands. And it's a 10 hour trip to get to Vancouver Island, which again, it's a, it's an old and beautiful place too. like. There's yeah, if anyone's on the fence of it, they've never been. Yeah, you get definitely got to check that out and you can't do it. Check it out on a weekend. You know what mean? Like every year I'm going on different vacations and even the weekend war, you know, weekend warriors still doing that kind of stuff. It's it's tough. Yeah, it's awesome hearing your stories about it. And I said, when I fell in love with Kelowna, I can just imagine everything else is probably as beautiful or more so. yeah. And Kelowna, yeah, that's kind of like a California, but it's one that sees all the seasons, right? You get the beautiful fall, you get the, you know, you get the big dumps of snow. And then when, you know, when you get the summer, like it's, it's, it's incredible because of, it, you know, it's like its own beach town, right? And it's a definitely, it's a fun place. Been there many times. I did a lot of schools up there. lot of great, the school district that I worked with there was fantastic and great bunch of people. And it's all about relationships when you do these road trips, because, you know, you can't, yes, you can do it in and out one day, but you're exhausted, you know, spend the night, take that client out for a steak dinner or something, build those relationships as it just goes, that just goes the extra mile, right. And in terms of the industry, right. It goes with anything. You have a built-in benefit for negotiating with contractors. You just take them outdoors and go sit at a restaurant. I mean anywhere in BC. How can anybody be mad? Look at the scenery. Look at the weather. It's great. It's awesome. Exactly. A hundred percent. Yeah. And you mentioned contractors. did one job where, yeah, was, we were up in Kamloops. So different than Kelowna. I would go to Kelowna versus Kamloops, but anyways, but yeah, we were doing a job with them and it was, it was great. And afterwards like, you know, you guys are going to be in the town cause they flew where they were flowing, uh, flying in from Alberta and all in Calgary and everything like that. And They stay the night, we were staying the night. like, well, what do want to do? So we ended up going to the casino to one of those steak places there. And we grabbed a few Tomahawk steaks, which I've never done before. what a riot we had after that. And again, it's all about relationships, right? And that's if you can do that kind of stuff and enjoy it. goes, yeah, it goes a long way, 100%. it sure does, because it's all about the people building the relationships. Yeah. And that ties into like the projects too on its own, because, you know, if you can do that and work and communicate, and work together, it's, it's, it goes a lot better, right? It's, it is a team environment. You're going to scratch my back vice versa. I'm going to, you're going to find faults in my drawings, but you're going to, I'm going to find faults on, on site that you guys miss something. How can we work together? Right? It doesn't have to be us versus the contractor relationship. If you work together at the end of the day, you really do. come together and create a big product. Because when you do wrap that project up, you do want to bring that bottle of champagne and crack it open and have a great moment. Look what we did. We stuck to the drawings. We did all the attention to detail. And look what we have. This is incredible. Well done, team. You don't want to go into that point where you guys are fighting and everything. And it's just not fun. It's just not the same thing. Well, and you'd like to be able to finish the job and say, let's do another one together. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And we've had those contractors like, until like when you know, there's all these pre qualifications as well for a lot of jobs, like school districts will do a prequalification. It's not just for, you know, architects, but they also do it for contractors. And, and you're right, that's, you know, it does play a role into would you work with this contractor again? Yes or no. And just, you know, you speak professionally about everyone, of course, but Yeah, I know there's, there's, some contractors that school districts will not work with because of lawsuits or whatever, just the way they handled the business. Right. And it's unfortunate that you, you know, you've, you've been locked out and we're travel fast. the architectural industry is small, right? You know, it's, you don't, you don't talk negative about anyone because the end of the day, you might be working with them next or rejoining with them, you know, a few years later, right? It's just, it's such a small industry, a hundred percent. And the specs, I'm assuming it's the same thing, right? So even smaller. That's right. Don't mess in that one. Yeah. So Matt, we're almost at our time here, at least our planned time. Well, let me interject something before you go there because I, Matt, let's have you back on again. Cause we're gonna wrap this up here in a few minutes, but this is a great conversation. And I'm looking at my notes from when we talked earlier and there's like four or five items that we didn't even touch on that I would love to touch on with you later. So let's continue this discussion. And maybe if you want, we can overlap. We can answer, ask some of your questions on your podcast. Then you come back to ours and we'll figure that out. Yeah, we can definitely, that would be a lot of fun to prepare. yeah, cause that's the thing with drawings and specs. Oh, there's, there's so many conversations you can have about that from, again, from your experience, those stories. And again, how can we be better going forward and how can we, you know, minimize the errors on site and the extras, right. And coming up with that again, that BMW. How I can make you lose money as a specifier and how you can make me lose money as an architect, That's right, that's a topic on its own. Lots of ways. Anyway, sorry Dave. I just wanted to make sure that Matt was coming back. Well, now that you've grabbed the microphone, Steve, maybe you need to take this home. All right. I think, Matt, we're going to ask you because of the podcast name. In five words or less, how can you improve our Words are important. Yeah. OK. words or less, how can the You were. viewer. Okay. get in trouble all the time. I'm glad it's not just me. not five words, maybe four. Three would be desirable by the sounds of it. So five words or fewer. Go ahead, Steve. so in fewer or less than five words, how can the industry improve CA? Dave's head is spinning in circles right now. Yeah, my head spinning too. That's a loaded question. Clearly we can't use five words. We've established the ground rules. So has to be four words or less. We can use five. five words or fewer. I think if I had to kind of narrow down, and this can go so many ways and maybe I can explain, but communication is key, right? And that goes with everything that ties back to the early days of the drawings. It ties into the way you communicate on site, your mannerism when you're running a site meeting, communication is key and it's about doing that. three words. good, very good, very good. Actually, I think that those three words can go with just about everything in life. Yes, 100%. It is. It's your legacy, right? What are you doing? At the end of the day, when you're hanging up your coat, your hat at that moment, what did you leave behind? What was the thumb prints that you left? both professionally, of course, but personally too. And to drive it home, you could use three words. Communication, communication, communication. 100%. Absolutely. Yeah, you guys. stop at three. Everybody will just get tired of hearing me if I keep going. But yeah, no, thank you so much. Really appreciate the opportunity to be here and chat. like that went like that, you know, it went quick and like, absolutely let's do it again. There's a whole other segment of, of, like I said, specs drawings, all the other topics that we can definitely go in and dive into. again, just leave that mentorship of how people can be better. How can they do things better? Matt, a pleasure to have you join us today. Thank you for taking the time and awesome insights. And I loved hearing the stories about your mapping trail. So something different for our listeners. 100%. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Keep exploring. Life is short and you want shot of make it beautiful. Alright. Thank you, Matt. I feel like the title could be keep exploring. else yeah i'll put that on the bronco keep exploring Well, Matt, we'll see you around hopefully at a conference or two coming up. yep. there starting to come up. I submitted my CSI proposal, so we'll see if we'll see if we'll be speaking to. We submitted one too. One of our clients had asked us to join them in submitting a proposal. So we'll see how that goes. And if not, do you go to DBIA or AGC? Not those ones like CSI is on the record. Autodesk University is on the record. AIA National in Boston. So that one will definitely be booked in the next day or so. So we'll be flying out there. We'll see you there. Yeah, we'll be bringing the podcast equipment. absolutely we'll be doing something there too. I'll be bringing it with me. So if I run into you, gonna, we'll go grab a, maybe not a Tomahawk steak, but we'll go grab a steak and record it as we're At least photos. gonna hit stop, just make sure everybody stay on just for a second.