Brooke Grammier, CIO and Joel Yow, Director of Digital Products at Cannon Design

This transcript was made in part by an automated service. In some cases it may contain errors. 

Joel: [00:00:00] There’s parts of our day to day that aren’t necessarily adding value to that design process or to, to that role, or, you know, just how you feel about your work in general. And we’ve done a really great job through like Brooks leadership and others of listening to what people are hearing in their pain points and then utilizing technology to really solve some of those pain points.

Andrew: Welcome to barriers to entry, podcast on the surround podcast network. This is the show where we obsess over the not. Two distant future of the architecture design and creative industries and the ideas, tools, technologies, and talent that will take us there. I’m Andrew lane, co founder at Digby, and I’m joined as always.

By my weak voiced co host, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Sandow Design Group, Bobby Binet. Bobby, I know we’re supposed to banter here, but you’re still coming back from a New Year’s or January bug there, huh?

Bobby: Yeah, it must be a three week New Year’s hangover. I don’t think I said my voice was [00:01:00] weak.

I think it was it’s lacking the total strength needed to do a clean intro read. Well, and

Andrew: you know, and that’s noteworthy because for one of the few times on various entry, we actually have two guests joining us today. So that voice fortitude will certainly be required to do them justice as we welcome them to the pod.

Yeah, I’ll cut short our typical banter. Sure. Go for it, Andrew. Get right into the meat of this here, and you can save your voice for the riveting questions that we have for the group today. So without further ado, let’s get in today’s conversation. Joining us on the pod today are two leaders in technology and strategy at one of the leading architecture and design companies in the country.

Canon design. That’s right. We’ve got not one, but two folks in the hot seat today. Brooke premier is the chief information officer at Canon design. She joined the firm in June, 2022, and has been leading the way in championing the value of innovation across the organization. Brooke is also one of the founding members of the [00:02:00] innovation design consortium, which we’ll talk a little bit more about today and is the executive committee chair.

Alongside Brooke is Joel Yao. Director of digital products at Canon Design. Joel is a trained architectural designer who has spent his career as a solutions generator in the data, technology and automation space. And since joining Canon Design in March 2024, he’s partnered with Brooke to develop and execute a fast moving roadmap to position the firm as a leader in developing and implementing AI driven technologies.

Welcome to the pod, Brooke and Joel.

Brooke: Yeah, thanks for having us. We’re excited. Glad to be here.

Andrew: Amazing. So you’re, you’re both pretty new, uh, to Canon. Maybe you can just tell us a little bit about how you both landed there. Um, you know, Brooke in 2022, Joel in 2024, what did the mandate look like? AI has come on like a steam train in recent years.

So obviously I’m sure this has been fast moving and love to kind of hear how you’ve gotten up to speed and ahead of the curve so quickly.

Brooke: Yeah, I’ll start. So, uh, I’ve been in the AEC industry my entire career. I’m not an architect or [00:03:00] engineer. I’m a technologist. I just kind of fell into this industry and I.

Can’t seem to get out of it. I love it. I like how challenging it is um And when I was at my last firm, we were starting up the innovation design consortium I was heavily involved in it and so was the ceo of canon design Um, and so we got to know each other really well I got to know canon throughout that process and saw canon as a really innovative company that I Really wanted to be a part of, uh, there were several reasons I joined one being the DEI initiative that they had and the inclusivity and things like that.

But really what drove me was the variety of revenue streams that Canon has. So a traditional AE firm might have your architects and engineers and interiors. And at Canon, we also have, um, FOSS, which is a software as a service platform. We also have a consulting arm, which is Blue Cottage. Um, and at the time we also had a manufacturing arm.

And so for [00:04:00] me as a technologist, uh, coming in and being able to do various, you know, different types of service streams was really exciting. And, you know, to your point, the mandate for data and AI, you know, Canada is a firm that Is super innovative and not just in the way that we do our day to day work, but in the investments that we make through our strategic framework.

And so I just saw a huge opportunity to make a really big difference. And that’s why I ended up joining Canon.

Joel: Yeah, I think, um, my journey is similar to Brooks in that I’ve always had this underlinement of technology and data throughout my career. And prior to joining Canon, I was a co founder of a consultancy where we actually worked with Canon a lot on projects.

So I got to see firsthand under the hood a little bit, right? So not necessarily The types of information that you’d be able to have access to if you’re just out looking for a job, so to speak. So I got to see the leadership, the quality of the people that work there, [00:05:00] to Brooke’s point, the diversity of thought, ideas, and, uh, the firm’s commitment to not just talking about doing things, but really investing to make those things real and make them happen.

And that was probably, I’d say, the combination of the people and the purpose. Behind technology and the way that those things are being approached at Canon was really what led me to go back into like an architecture firm, as an example, and I think that that’s what I’m really excited about, like for these conversations is the leadership, the ability to stand behind what they say they want to do and not it just be, Hey, we’re going to go out and sell this widget or do this thing.

It’s there’s some serious like push internal to the company and drive to make it real and to make make an impact in our industry. And I think I’m grateful to be a part of that.

Bobby: Brooke, when you got started, Jill talked about the company ethos on moving fast and moving forward. I can see why the CEO glommed on to you, Brooke, since you were talking about diversified revenue streams.

That’s probably something that they were excited [00:06:00] to know about you as soon as they came in contact with you at the design consortium. When you started, what did the mandate look like for you in terms of moving either as fast as possible or deliberately or somewhere in between in terms of driving scalable development, leveraging data, leveraging AI and leveraging similar technologies?

Brooke: I think Canon as a whole moves pretty fast. Um, I’m just the type of person. I think I move maybe faster. Um, I get bored easy, so I’m constantly just You know, what’s the next thing we’re going to do. So when I came on board, that was the expectation. Like that was the bottom line that we were going to come in and do some cool stuff.

And Canada had already done some things. There’s stuff already in the works as far as differentiated revenue streams. Uh, there was some foundational. Things that needed to happen too. So as a CIO, I had to also focus on that. So, um, when it came down to it, I’ve been moving a little slower because of that.

But instead of trying to do the foundational [00:07:00] things and waiting until that was done to start moving in the future, I started doing both. And so on one hand, we’re taking care of some foundational items. And the other hand, we’re trying to build it. An in house data and development team. Traditionally, all of the development had been done outsourced, so I just started hiring people.

Like I said, the company was willing to invest in this future, and so we were able to hire. I think the team is up to about 10 people now, Joel, I think, and so that’s within, you know, two and a half year time frame. We Are looking for kind of your normal data and development specialist, but also people that are founders of their own firms or people that have a history of building product and selling it and bringing in revenue who understand that type of business where it’s not just kind of coming in and doing [00:08:00] internal development for operations and things like that.

It’s actually building a business. Um, And so that’s what we’re heavy in the middle of bringing in. Joel last year was really a huge part of catapulting that forward much faster. Um, so yeah, I think we built a data warehouse. We’ve put in a lot of work to bring in some of the internal data. Look at design data and how we can start bringing in design data into, uh, the mix.

And, you know, Joe can talk a little more here about our future thoughts on AI and machine learning on all that data.

Andrew: I’m curious just in terms of the approach to team building, like as the hiring manager and owner of a infinitely smaller company, I certainly see. You know, the fact that, Brooke, you knew the CEO.

Well, Joel, you’d worked with the company for some time. You know, those are two pieces of a 10 person team that you’re continuing to grow. But how are you thinking about the [00:09:00] team building as you bring on these people from different backgrounds with different skill sets, and you need them to come together to kind of all pull in the same direction?

I

Joel: think, from my perspective, it’s really prioritizing two things, critical thinking and curiosity. Being able to engage with folks on the team that may have a background exactly for the skill set that we need, you know, software developers or engineers that can write prolific code and are just really passionate about that type of work to folks on the UI UX that care deeply about our design standards as a company and the fact that what we put out there in the world reflects the reflects those standards and our goals and it’s canon design.

Right, like we’re trying to push things out that meet that standard that the company is set at a top line. So for me, curiosity and critical thinking play into that. And if you can check both of those boxes and are willing to learn, willing to expand, willing to be a part of a team and collaborate, then we’re looking for you.

And I think we’ll like, and Brooke Brooke has mentioned we’ll, [00:10:00] we’ll find ways to leverage that type of energy and skill set internally and the firm backs it. The entrepreneurial spirit can be kind of a misnomer, a negative sometimes these days. And so I don’t want to oversimplify it to that. But the The fact that we’re looking for folks that have been there, done that, worn 20 different hats and still like understand enough about the core business that we want to do.

That’s, that’s super valuable. And it’s, it’s, it’s harder to find.

Andrew: I was going to say needles and haystacks to some extent with that for sure. Yeah, it’s, it’s a challenge, but I think that it’s an emerging skill set for sure. Every, every episode, almost we hear more people who are kind of looking for some variant on that theme, which is great to see for the industry.

Bobby: Yeah, I really appreciate that. That viewpoint on prioritizing curiosity as well. We talk about that all the time in our organization, not doing something today because that’s the way it was done yesterday. I’m sure that’s incredibly important for a department like yours, brookie. You said something that intrigued me to ask this [00:11:00] question and there might not be a clean answer, but you said we’re in the middle of it right now.

Are there ways in which you contextualize for the team what the end might look like? You know, is it, is it a rolling project basis? Is there a major north star you’re accomplishing? Obviously the work’s never done, but I’m sure it can be tough to lead a team where you’re always in the middle of it and tomorrow is going to look different than it does today.

Brooke: So our entire technology team is about 50 people. Our development side of that, that Joel leads for digital products, that’s the 10 people. Yeah. Folks. And then we have, we have 40 other people and we all work together. So none of this really happens in a silo. We have our design technology team. We have our it team.

We have a lot of people that go into making this happen. Um, so we have a leadership team and our leadership team gets together twice a year in person. Our team, by the way, is spread across the entire world. So we don’t have the luxury of being in one room all the time. So I find it really important to bring at least the leadership together.

And we do have this. [00:12:00] North star is a company. It’s called our strategic framework. The strategic framework is built with all employees get to have a voice and into what we focus on strategically. So we have a current five year strategic framework that we’re following. And one of the buckets is called dream it and do it technology.

And so I pushed a lot on that dream part of it. I think the bigger we dream The bigger we’re gonna like, the more we’re gonna accomplish. If you dream big, you’re gonna accomplish big things. If you dream small, you’re gonna accomplish small things. So are like, my big dream is that we have this full on software company.

Uh, that is. Developing product and we’re selling software and we’re building platforms and we already have As a firm two software products that we sell that we’re also heavily involved in growing that as well Um, but what’s next and what are those other things that we’re looking for? So a lot of what we do is really the [00:13:00] end game of how do we build this to its own?

Like completely separate, um entity from canada design That is developing products

Andrew: We’re at this point right now where there seems to be a couple of schools of thought. One, that AI can be scary for the design industry. And then another, that it’s an inevitability. Curious how you kind of balance that conversation.

You’ve talked a lot about the types of data. That you’re looking at where a I plays a factor in all of it. So kind of where is it that you’re you’re putting your thinking and your focus on that debate.

Brooke: I think it starts with helping employees of the firm see. Where they fit. So I think when you talk about AI and you talk about it, generically, it scares people because there’s thinking, am I going to have a job?

What am I going to do if this thing comes in? And so I like to get more into the weeds of it with people and smaller groups to [00:14:00] say, okay, Now, if we go sit with the sustainability team or we go sit with the quality team or whoever we’re sitting with, we’re wondering like, what are your pain points? What are the things that you’re doing today?

And it can be anything. And then we can start to draw those parallels to say, well, these. Things can be solved with AI machine learning and data. And then you can focus a lot more of your time on critical thinking and problem solving and design and creativity. And you say that to a designer and they’re like, I’m on board, bring it in.

And so once you start to help people see where they fit into the equation, it’s an easy conversation and it’s a lot of They become your evangelist. Like, you don’t have to push it. They’re pushing it.

Andrew: I’ve really found in our own consulting and even I moderated a panel at a design show here, um, last week, that is AI going to take my job is starting to give way to, okay, this is great, but is it ethical and is it secure?

So how are you guys talking about ethics as well as [00:15:00] data security in that conversation?

Brooke: We’ve developed a committee at Canon design. It’s our, for lack of a better phrase, our AI committee.

Andrew: Good name. Really well named.

Brooke: Perfect. So we have people from all over the firm that represent, like we have someone from, we have two people from legal.

We have two people from design. We have someone from marketing, someone from tech. We have people kind of from. That represent different areas of our firm that are part of that committee. And what’s interesting is it’s really being driven by the business more so than technology, which I think is going to be more successful that way, because That way again, like going back to that evangelist thing, they’re the ones running it.

So we have people that want to use tools and there’s tons of tools. I think we have a list of like 40 that are in the queue for being reviewed. We actually take the request in the committee. Runs it through a process. So we look at our legal team looks at [00:16:00] terms and conditions. We come up with how can you use this at Canada design responsibly?

What licensing do we need? So we put the guardrails on there for people and then there, you know, they take that and then they use it. So in the beginning, though, it wasn’t that smooth. It was like the wild west people were using all kinds of crazy stuff. And we were like, well, we can’t do this because if you read terms and conditions for some of these tools are kind of scary.

Um, so we purposely only pick tools that have pretty clean terms of conditions that we can comply with that give us the ownership of what we’re doing. And then from a security perspective, you know, our cybersecurity manager is also highly involved and reads through those terms and conditions, but if I gave advice to Anybody out there, the number one thing you should start with is those terms and conditions, because there’s some crazy stuff in, in those.[00:17:00]

Bobby: So, Jola, it sounds as if, at this point, at least, When you walk into a room of architects and designers at Canon, you’re not like, you know, the, the boogeyman from legal or finance there. There’s probably some excitement around, okay, maybe Joel’s going to solve some problems for us. So what do those solutions and those processes look like that you and the team have worked on to improve the way in which Canon team members work, thanks to AI.

Joel: The way I like to approach it is there’s process and technology and understanding the design process the way that we do. I really want to, I really challenge our design folks to say, how much of your time are you spending on the things that you’re passionate about? And that may look different to each person, right?

You may have someone out there that that loves details that someone out there that loves big picture or master plans. There’s all these different aspects of design, but there’s parts of our day to day that aren’t necessarily adding value to that design process or to that role or process. Great. You know, just how you feel about your work in general.

And we’ve done a really [00:18:00] great job through, like, Brooke’s leadership and others of listening to what people are hearing and their pain points and then utilizing technology to really solve some of those pain points. HR, onboarding, enhanced search through our documents, making it easier to put a team together for a proposal.

These are all things that sound, you know, really almost benign and not related to design, but as a designer or someone working on a team, and that’s What I’m being asked constantly is do you know this person in this office and have they worked on this project and those things like that. It pulls focus away from maybe the task you’re really excited about working on and being able to improve someone’s day to day and small percentages really becomes a much better cumulative experience.

At the end of the year, they can look back and say, wow, since we rolled this tool out, I’ve spent a lot more time doing what I really care about and not these other things. And so it’s taking the noise out of their day and approaching it from the standpoint of. What are the tasks that you don’t really enjoy doing that you don’t feel add value to your role or your job or your daily work effort and then being able to utilize technology to solve for some of those as much as [00:19:00] we can?

There’s always an edge case. There’s always going to be work that you don’t want to do that you have to do. That’s the job. But at the end of the day, we’re really trying to trying to lower that and have folks excited because they can spend the time doing the things they’re passionate about.

Andrew: I absolutely love that.

And I think that there’s been much more written about this. It feels like in the last couple of years after we’ve emerged from the other side of covid where people spent so much time left to their own devices, you hear so much about like, um, the opportunity cost of switching between tasks and the detriment of having 80 d and not being able to have deep focus time.

So the idea that you’re finding these ways to keep people on track and in their flow, I think must be it. Mhm. Probably even more powerful than they would be able to sort of internalize and quantify because of the fact that they’re not having to shift to the left and do this thing that disrupts them in ways they don’t even intrinsically understand.

So kudos to you guys on that. I tend to always go this direction with these sorts of topics is This [00:20:00] is you guys listening really well and getting feedback from the experienced professionals on your team from the greater business. Well, how does this translate when it comes to bringing new talent into the organization when you’re onboarding people for the first time, when you’re teaching them how to go from, uh, you know, crawling to walking to running, how does it play a role there?

Joel: I think, uh, one clean example is we rolled out, uh, Billy, our enterprise, like, assistant last year, and now it’s being integrated across our onboarding materials for legal and HR and finance and compliance, and it, what it’s doing from day one is users are getting used to that experience of asking something, like, I joined Canon Design, I have this resource from day one.

For folks that have been at Canon for a while, that may not be a habit. To naturally go do these things in that, in that particular way. And so it’s arguably easier for newer folks because they may be used to this technology outside their, outside their work, their personal life. You know, chat GPT is new as a product, but the concept has been around since 2017, 18, it’s [00:21:00] been integrated in other areas.

And folks are used to that experience. And what we’re doing is we’re now blurring the lines between what they might be having on a personal device or on their own laptop at home from a frictionless perspective and putting it in their corporate environment, which I think gives them again ability to go, Wow, I solved this a lot faster.

They may not realize how long it took before, but they’re going to get used to kind of that expectation moving forward. And it empowers our team to continue to develop features, integrate new data sets, build things out in ways that again are focused on The value creation of the time spent doing the right sort of things for for our clients and for our internal teams themselves,

Brooke: not just for one by one new hires.

But when we acquire a firm and they join us, we’ve seen in our statistics that. The usage is super high when we have, uh, new firms joining us for months. And so if you imagine you’re new to a company, there’s 50 people that have joined [00:22:00] or a hundred people and they can’t all like be bombarding the same people with the same questions.

They just go out to Billy. They ask the questions. We learn what they’re asking. We add more data to the, to the chat bot. And it’s been really great.

Bobby: Do you feel as though Brooke. Canon at this point has a reputation for being forward looking forward thinking from a tooling standpoint. I’m wondering if when you’re either acquiring a firm and bringing them in house or you’re chatting with prospective talent, if they’re aware yet of the focus that the firm has on being a leader in this space.

Brooke: I would say yes. I mean, we are pretty known. I mean, even before I joined, I knew Canon is a pretty innovative company. We’re involved with a lot of fast company type events, and we’ve been awarded several of their innovation awards. And people definitely see Canon as an innovative company. And I think coming in, it was like, okay, well, how do we take it Even to the next level, because that’s great.

But [00:23:00] we really don’t, we don’t want to just be known as a leader. We want to be known as driving the industry and helping other companies come along because this goes into the I. D. C. Conversation a little bit, the innovation design consortium, because as an industry, we’re woefully behind technologically and we need to move forward and there’s disruption coming and This is really a conversation of, do we want to be disrupted or do we want to be a part of the disruption?

We’re probably not going to be the ultimate disruptors, but being part of it and being a leader in that, uh, is really important to Canon.

Bobby: We talk a lot on this podcast about internal collaboration and then collaboration with clients, but we don’t really spend much time. I don’t know if we’ve ever spent time and you’re talking about collaboration between firms, the I.

D. C. Just going to read off of their website for a moment. Platform of 41 firm [00:24:00] members. When you look at the logo bar, Canon, H. O. K. Slam, Smith Group, Corgan and many others, And I believe the mission for the IDC is to develop key initiatives, tools, and products for the profession. I think we’d love to hear what those behind the scenes conversations look like when the group gets together, Brooke, you know, what’s the mission?

How are you feeling as though you’re making progress toward that mission?

Brooke: Yeah, it started. So in architectures, the A. I. A. We have these large firm roundtables and they’re they consist of the C. E. O. S. The C. I. O. S. The C. F. O. S. All the C. Suite people each have their own group. So for years I’ve been a part of the C.

I. O. Group and are. Uh, CEO has been part of the CEO group and so on and so forth. And so we’re pretty like used to talking to each other. But in, in that context, it’s more kind of talking at each other, if you will. So like sharing, but it’s, it’s somewhat one directional and then we leave the meeting and we’re off back in our worlds, kind of doing our own thing.[00:25:00]

This. Consortium started, so there’s 66 firms in that LFRT 41 of the 66, which is are the largest architecture firms in the U. S. Founded the I. D. C. And so our goal was to again, like not be disrupted. We wanted to bring industry change technologically. And so, for example, There were several of our firms building the same tools.

So we’re all spending the same amount of money. We’re all hiring the same like developer type people were building these exact same tools. What’s not really giving us competitive advantage. So why not? Spend the money once and for all and share the tool and move on to the next thing because there’s tens of thousands of ideas of tools that we could build in our industry, especially if you look at engineering and construction, which we do, um, the goal of this was we would start [00:26:00] it small with architecture, but we would add an engineering, we’d add construction and owners and anybody else who wants to join this Consortium because the goal is to move the industry forward.

And so our conversations are very open. Um, in fact, we’re going through these data and AI workshops with a consultant that we’ve hired. DS 30 has owned by the previous CDO for Arab, which is a very large engineering firm globally. And so we’re going in person. We have Consortium. The CEOs and the CIOs and some innovation leaders from the 41 firms coming in person for three day workshops to figure out where we all are in our journey for data and AI and where we all need to get and how do we get there together so that if we’re all kind of rising, then the industry will rise.

Um, and so that we can then start sharing data. And so ultimately, that’s the big goal is how do we share [00:27:00] data How do we do it responsibly? How do we do it in a way that doesn’t scare individual firms that we’re sharing trade secrets? How do we do it in a way that benefits the industry? So I would say the conversations are very raw and they’re very open and super transparent about what we’re all kind of doing individually so that we can figure out how to do it better together.

Andrew: We use the word data a lot in this conversation, and rightfully so, when you get more down to the executional level, can you, like, coming from your consulting background especially, just speak to what a challenge that can be in this industry and how important it is to be thoughtful? Because AI is great, but none of it happens if the data is not in the right place.

And I think that that’s a perspective that some are missing at this point.

Joel: Yeah, I think it’s really critical to understand that the data side of the equation Has to happen correctly and it needs to happen in a way that is as flexible for the type of work that we do as designers while adding value to the [00:28:00] business.

So a lot of the work that we’ve done a lot internally has been to understand where the business value lies within our data and also then. Yeah, kind of concurrently educating the design side of the house to say this is why it’s important that we’re asking you to maybe shift your workflow slightly in order to achieve these things.

I’m not out there necessarily telling folks that you have to name this thing the exact same way on every single project, right? Like that’s I wish that was the case, but I was an architect and a designer in a previous life and It’s just not the reality of the business. And so what we’re really focusing on is driving that business value from data initially, while collecting as much information as we can, that is salient to the problems that we want to solve.

So it’s not about grabbing everything that we have and throwing it somewhere and then, Turning AI loose on it and saying, figure out and tell us where it’s valuable. It’s really sitting down again, like Brooke mentioned, listening to our firm, listening to the leaders and the different business groups and the different folks throughout the company and saying, what problems are you seeing?

Because I see [00:29:00] data and technology is very intertwined. Technology is like just giving us way to access the data that we’re generating and that we’re interacting with. I want to be able to explain that to folks and say, this is why it’s important. To think about your projects, not just from the terms of the quality of the design, but the quality of the data that goes in there, because this is how we can make your lives easier next year or in three months or tomorrow, depending on how the process looks.

Bobby: We mentioned earlier, Andrew mentioned earlier, this idea of divergent perspectives on AI and danger, danger versus opportunity, opportunity. Now that you’re working amongst and you’ve obviously been working amongst the IDC, Brooke, do you run into. tension or moments of like, you know, clashing between firms in terms of their perspectives.

I’m just thinking, you know, on my end, there was a webinar just this week that I tuned into a few moments, which definitely had the [00:30:00] like danger Will Robinson approach to AI. Um, and there were representatives on firm side in that panel. So do you obviously if you’re amongst a group of like minded folks There’s probably priorities given to let’s be thoughtful and think about how we can harness and appropriate these tools.

But there’s got to be tension somewhere. So where does that come into play, Brooke, whether it’s with IDC or in conversations that you’re having with other contemporaries at other firms?

Brooke: Yeah, I mean, we’re definitely all at different Stages of the maturity scale. And so as we’re going through this work with DS 30 through the IDC, we’re all in a room and we’re all sharing kind of where we’re at with, with data and AI and that journey.

And there are some firms that are at ground zero, right? They’re just kind of like. Thinking about it. They’re researching. They’re asking a lot of questions. There’s a lot of nervousness. There’s a lot of, um, hesitation. There’s that scary, that scare factor. And I think as [00:31:00] firms kind of grow down that scale and as they get into different phases.

They start to have tangible examples and then it becomes less scary. I think, I think you’re always, even in firms like ours where I feel we’re a little more mature, there’s still people that are terrified. And again, I think it always comes down to education. The more educated you are on the good. And some of it really just comes down to some people are naturally pessimistic and some people are naturally optimistic.

And so I’m a naturally optimistic person. I’m aware of the concerns. I’m aware of the risks. I’m aware. We definitely pay attention to them. I don’t lead with it typically. Um, and I, I just think some people tend to lead with it, even though they’re on board with it, it’s just kind of the way they lead. So we definitely have those conversations from the CEO level, all the way down.

What we’re trying to do is educate the CEOs so that it starts at the top, because a lot of this change, like when you think [00:32:00] about business. Transformation, which is what we’re kind of going through is this digital transformation. If you will, it’s has to be led from the top of the company, you know, so it has to have the CEO understanding what’s going on and on board and okay with it.

And that’s. What we’re working through right now with our IDC efforts.

Andrew: I would just say, and I wonder if both of you have experienced this in a similar way, but I’m not native to the design industry. I’ve been in for four or five years now, and I’ve really found that the industry is by nature somewhat.

More malleable than others. So this idea that we’re in a transformation space, whether it’s a design transformation or technology transformation, I do really feel like leaders in this space get that and they’re open to it. And I just wonder what your experience if your experiences have been have been similar.

Brooke: I agree. And I think it just goes back to the education piece. The more they get educated, it’s interesting. We had a workshop in December. Both Joel and I participated with [00:33:00] other CEOs and CIOs and, and tech people. And throughout the workshop, it kind of started, you had several CEOs who came in and they were very vocal about how skeptical they were about even being in the workshop, feeling like, was it really?

Going to be worth their time and then you get two and a half three days in and by the end. They’re like this was Amazing. This was changed my mind completely. Like we had a CEO that went back to their firm the next day and sent me an email a week later and said, I’ve completely changed what I’m focused on in 2025 based off these conversations.

So I agree with you, I think. People are willing to kind of take in the info. I think it’s how you present the info matters a lot. Um, because we’ve done it two different ways. We’ve done it where it’s more presentation. You sit in and it’s heavy presentation talking to. This particular workshop, we changed it to be very hands on very [00:34:00] like sit down at the end of every kind of session and think about what this means to your firm and write it and write things down and it was like night and day totally changed the conversation.

So I think it does matter how how it’s delivered.

Joel: I’ve always said with like these types of efforts, context and culture is really important. And I think that, um, the culture at Canon is one that that’s why I was excited to join the firm. They were pushing not just the, the innovation side externally from what you see on social media and everything else, like, look at all the cool stuff we’re building.

Everyone’s doing that. But when you get in and you see what’s actually going on under the hood, that’s where I got really excited. And there’s a culture there that’s, that’s pushing forward. And I think this is a time. Uh, like you, you mentioned malleability within our industry. I think that’s that’s fairly true.

I do feel like there’s still a lot of fear around the unknown, especially with when, because designers and I’m speaking as a designer here are notorious for our desire to control as much as we can. And AI removes a lot of that from us from a culture [00:35:00] perspective. And so for me, it’s that to Brooks point, it’s the education.

It’s talking about it, not as a fear, but saying this is the opportunity, the opportunity that that these tools just Like any tool in your toolkit, is to help you do what you want to do more efficiently, more quickly, or do more of it. Make it better, make it more refined. And I think that if we work backwards from the goals of Canon, which is to deliver, like, the most well designed, built environment and experience that we can for humans, then AI is just a tool in that toolbox.

And I really want folks to see it that way, as something that can be collaborative. It’s reasons that we don’t talk about, you know, The tools that we’re building as automation and replacing jobs. We talk about replacing tasks. We talk about like adding value back to what you do on a daily basis because I do feel like that’s the real like message that resonates specifically with like designers and folks that are seeing the tools that are.

Arguably designed and purpose built for creativity being used as a collaboration mechanism and not something [00:36:00] that’s kind of taking away the control that they desire on a project or on a, on pretty much anything.

Bobby: You’re both extraordinarily forward looking and forward thinking. Brooke, you’re spending quite a bit of time with other firm leaders and just driving innovation generally for the industry.

There’s always, you know, head nodding. Brooke, you shared earlier that. You know, this industry tends to be a little bit behind the times when it comes to technology. At the same time, the architecture and design industry is undeniably one of the most prolific trendsetters from an industry standpoint, design changes happen, and that cascades into changes in terms of how people work in terms of how people live and so on.

I’m wondering if you could, like, look at this as a prediction or look at this just as how you’re kind of prognosticating out into the future. How will conversations around data look different three years from now? Three years from now can feel like an eternity. It can also feel like tomorrow. But from your perspective, you’re on the cutting edge.

You’re helping to guide conversations. You’re guiding change in your organization. How will this conversation be different a few years from [00:37:00] now?

Brooke: You know, I think it’s probably less about how Data and I specifically and it’s more about the insights and the outcomes. So I think. We’ll spend less time using the word data and using the word A.

I think we’ll spend a lot more time because it should be just kind of normal, normalize a little that the focus will be heavier on the outcomes and the analytics and the insights, which will send focus on what are the inputs. So are we, you know, we have this conversation at cannon where we have people that want it.

Yeah. Certain insights into the business and, but they’re not collecting the data that they need to get the insights. And so it becomes this conversation of, well, what do you, what do you try? And what do you, what’s the outcome you’re trying to go after and how do we get the input in? So we’re already kind of shifting that conversation a [00:38:00] little bit where we’re talking more outputs and inputs.

Um, so I’m hoping in three years, this is like the data and AI, I think just a normalized. Type, you know, table stakes thing that we’re not so focused on talking about directly that it’s more about what are we trying to do? I mean, the big goal, I think, an AC is to build a better world for people. Um, a more sustainable world, just a better experience for people.

And so. I think that conversation continues i don’t think that ever stops and i think it’s just a different way to go about it

Joel: yeah i think to echo that a bit it’s it’s gonna be less on the what it’s more on the how so it’s not gonna be about what or why are we utilizing these things and kind of the friction that makes us today around that environment but how are we doing it it’s part of our daily flow like you mentioned.

Inevitability. That’s, you know, to me that that’s the influx of data and AI machine learning into any and [00:39:00] all industries is fairly inevitable. It’s happening today. They’re not necessarily going to roll it back, right? Like chat. GPT is not just going to disappear and shut down. This isn’t this isn’t Web three.

This isn’t like like blockchain and that sort of way. It’s something that what we’ve seen are concrete examples of value. And I think that over the next three years, we’re going to be able to tie that value back to the business metrics that are really critical. So instead of it being these abstract conversations around productivity, hopefully in three years, we’ll be talking about P& L and actually the management of the, of companies that are utilizing AI and the difference that they’re seeing in AI.

Thanks. At that level as a way to talk about, this is the return on the investment that we’ve made. And I think Brooke’s done a great job internally of teeing those conversations up with folks. Like the reason that we’re investing in these things isn’t for tomorrow’s return on the investment. It’s for the time period of building the right foundation for this, because we’re all kind of building the plane as we’re flying it.

I think Canon has just got a really great strategy around the design of the plane and how they, and where they want to go from a [00:40:00] destination perspective.

Andrew: You landed that analogy. Mm. Very nice. Yeah, you know, I find it really interesting the way that terms are referred to in sort of popular culture to like, if you think about what the way we talk about, like our phones or our emails and things, those are just things that we use every single day.

But data and AI are still very much in the place where you can see that, like the powers that be, big tech, whatever you want to call it, we’re still generally educating. People and I’m, I’m interested to see how long that curve lasts for, um, to your points before it just becomes normalized. And we’re not talking about it because we’re teaching anymore.

We’re talking about it because we’re doing and it’s normal. So it’s an, it’ll be an interesting little run of years here to see where, where we get with that.

Joel: Yeah. How long is it going to be until there’s an AI term that’s used like Google? Right. Right. Google is now added as a verb, like that’s accepted as the English language.

What’s the AI version of that?

Andrew: I’m going to deep seek it, I think is the Ha

Brooke: ha ha.

Andrew: Let me ask Billy. Yeah, there you go. I had [00:41:00] to, I had to throw it in at some point during this conversation.

Brooke: Waiting for

Andrew: it. Yeah, exactly.

Bobby: I’m going to pop in and you know, we like to wrap each episode by giving you all the floor to plug or promote things that you’re working on at your firm as a side hustle or even with the I.

D. C. So Joel, if you want to go first and plug away,

Joel: I think some of the things I’m really excited about this year are continuing to scale our existing software service and platform as a service business false and simple bid. So, um, getting back to the, you know, creative, curious, critical thinking folks out there that are, that want to be involved in a well architected, well designed system and help build that out into that, the vision that Brooks described on this podcast for Software Company, then that to me is something I’ll, I’ll plug all day long.

It’s something I’m excited to be working on.

Brooke: Yeah. We’re definitely looking for, I think you said it earlier in the call, like that unicorn, the visionaries, the people who bring something [00:42:00] a little bit different with a lot of different angles to it, if that makes sense. So, you know, we’re looking for people that have founded companies before we’re looking for people that have spun off companies and software specifically.

I think it’s just a different type of person, which is. Hard in this industry because AEC traditionally like the it’s not like we’re all swimming in money over here Um, the margins are a little smaller but when you get into software, which can it is like they become bigger and then it’s like you We need to be hiring people that are outside of this ecosystem They have to really coming from tech or coming from other spaces.

So um, yeah, and I think from an idc perspective and this is where my mind sets of course i’m Super hyper focused on growing Canon design, but I fully believe that if the industry grows, so will Canon design. And so I’m also equally focused on the innovation design [00:43:00] consortium and working with other firms to bring our industry up to a higher technological level, because I do believe that will bring Canon design up, um, as well.

Andrew: Is there any advice you’d give or resources you’d share with a listener out there, uh, who’s looking to build their innovation muscle or trying to explore new technology or try something new?

Brooke: I would say the biggest thing I run into are people are kind of worried they’re behind or not sure where to start.

And so you get kind of paralyzed by just not knowing where to start or what to do. So my biggest piece of advice on what I always do when I join a new firm or I’m doing a new thing is I just. Start just pick something. It doesn’t really matter. Just start with hiring one person or start with one tiny project.

Um, especially in this space around data and AI and what you’re trying to do here or even developing new products start super small. Like go to your finance team and ask for two visualizations that they’re [00:44:00] creating with crazy spreadsheets and try to turn that into a power BI or something like that.

Like start small. It starts to work. Allow people to see what’s possible and then what I’ve noticed is when you start, you’re going slow, but once the stakeholders understand what’s possible, you’ll get flooded and then, and then you’re off and then you’re just, you know, moving. So my biggest piece of advice is just start.

Joel: Yeah, I think mine’s pretty similar and it comes from when I was doing like consulting with both architecture firms and like hospitals and healthcare systems that is to look at how you do your work. And is how you’re doing your work how you want to be doing your work and be able to then, to Brooke’s point, identify the quick wins out of that so you don’t feel like you’re boiling the ocean.

This is a space that’s constantly evolving. If there’s anything that it’s gonna, that the only consistent is change, right? And I think that for me, it’s a, it’s an environment of continuous learning and that can be overwhelming. And I’m someone that reads prolifically, but that’s not the expectation on everyone.

And it shouldn’t [00:45:00] be. It’s unfair. And so for me, I think it’s really deeply understand how you do your work, how the, how your business operates and how and be able to distill that down into, well, the value of doing X and Y is this. And here are where those quick wins are that can get momentum behind it.

Because to Brooke’s point, where we’ve seen a lot of success isn’t on the big transformational idea. It’s on the little thing that really helps someone’s day to day. And then thinking about that through the lens of that person. We’ve got 1300 people at Canon. If I can make 1300 people’s lives incrementally better at scale, Canon is a much happier company.

And I think that it’s thinking about it through the lens of you don’t have to solve the world’s biggest problem right now. What you need to solve is the one that folks are really hung up on. And that may be not obvious. It may be something that feels really bland or benign or isn’t exciting. But if you solve that, they’re going to trust the next thing out there that might be just a little bit more pushing the envelope a little bit further down the line.

And you’ll have that credibility because you focused on something that’s really important to the end user that you have. [00:46:00]

Andrew: I love that. That’s such a such a great

Bobby: approach. Yeah, you both, you both really hit on that intimidation factor. Sometimes it’s hard to get started because you don’t know where to start.

Sometimes it’s hard to adopt because you might feel like you’re not an expert. Um, but, you know, finding ways in which you make these technologies accessible, the proof is in the pudding ultimately. I think that’s, that’s what y’all are doing. Um, Joel and Brooke, great, great job. We really appreciate you joining us today.

Thank

Joel: y’all.

Andrew: Pleasure to be here. Yeah. Thank you both so much. This was a great conversation. Really appreciate it. Bobby, you want to take us out?

Bobby: As always, we’d like to extend a big thank you to the Barriers to Entry production team, our producer Rob Schulte, and everyone else back at the studio by Sandow PodCave.

Barriers to Entry is part of the Surround Podcast Network. Make sure you go to surroundpodcasts. com. That’s podcasts with an S. Smash the follow button, of course, and join us next time as we continue to break down the barriers to entry.

By the way, I read also Joel, but it’s mostly Babysitter’s Club [00:47:00] and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Brooke: I have the whole Diaries collection right now.

Bobby: Diversity of thought is really important.