Who is accountable for innovation in construction?

Speaker A: It's a shame, I think, that we say, like, well, I would do bim. If the owner required it, I would use this document, you know, management tool. If the owner required it, I would be more sustainable. I think we've sort of gotten over this now. It's like, are we really still talking like this? And I think we have to stop that. But I also think it's still our responsibility as the owner to require these things and demand them, because we are having to build more with less.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Power of Construction. We are recording live here at Groundbreak. I am Chris Langiza.

Speaker C: And I'm Brick King.

Speaker B: And we have a very special guest today, uh, Amy Marks. Thank you for joining us, Amy.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me. And thank you, everyone, for showing up. I really appreciate it.

Speaker B: We were talking about this, and it is a packed crowd, standing room only. So we love that. So Amy is, uh, widely recognized as the queen of prefab, which. She loves that name. I'm not embarrassing her too much on that one.

Speaker A: Not a self. Not a self given name.

Speaker B: Not a self given name. But, um, but you have been. You have been a really predominant figure in the industrialization of construction. Um, I know I've watched your content for quite some time, and I think what you've contributed to the industry has really helped shape how we think about the global perspective on bringing together design, make, and operate models into the built environment. So thank you for coming and joining us. And, um, this is a podcast about construction and construction tech today, but we might get into a little bit of rugby. Uh, we'll see.

Speaker A: I love that. My favorite topic.

Speaker B: Yes. Awesome. Well, let me set the stage a little bit today. And we know that the construction industry needs to grow significantly. Um, the annual growth needs to double in order to meet the demands of, uh, 2040, uh, according to McKinsey. And you think that we can meet that demand, but we won't do it unless we do things differently. And I want to dive into that a bit more. And, you know, we're here at Groundbreak, and we're talking a lot about the importance of AI and some of the underlying physical infrastructure that's necessary. And, you know, candidly, kind of the global AI war that's happening around us. But you also understand that innovation oftentimes only occurs when owners, which you represent an owner, uh, requires others to do it. Right. And maybe even they pay for it, some of it. So, Amy, I'd love to start off, like, tell us a little bit more about your role at Compass Data Centers. And how you're thinking about innovation in this space and maybe what's some of the costs of not making these strides in innovation that we're expecting to.

Speaker A: Wow, that was a big first question. So I'm the senior vice president of innovation at, uh, Compass Data Centers. Thank you for having me again. And within our purview, we have a few pillars of new ways of making new technologies, all of sustainability, as well as the worker centric initiatives and workforce development, including safety, underneath innovation at Compass. And so it's a big job, actually, and I think a big role for us in general. But, you know, I think the way we look at things, uh, is that, you know, we do the right thing all the time, and then the right outcomes happen. Right? So, like, even when we talk about sustainability, we're making the right business decisions based on our culture, based on doing the right thing, based on our employees, our stakeholders, our neighbors. And because we're doing the right thing for 100 year campus, we are making the right sustainability choices. We're making the right choices for safety, we're making the right choices for the return on investment for our investors. And I think we are really thinking about it differently. You're right. It's a shame, I think that we say, like, well, I would do BIM if the owner required it, I would use this document management tool. If the owner required it, I would be more sustainable. I think we've sort of gotten over this now. It's like, are we really still talking like this? And I think we have to stop that. But I also think it's still our responsibility as the owner to require these things and demand them, because we are having to build more with less. Right. And productivity is not just about doing more with less the way we used to talk about it. It's about how do we use amplified intelligence plus human intent now? What are the outcomes we're looking for? That's really the equivalent of productivity now. It's not just we want to put more bricks in place with less people. It's like, wait, we have the ability to have amplified intelligence now and we should use it and we should take that domain expertise for the people that are leaving and build some agents while they're still here before they leave.

Speaker B: And how has that mindset been, you know, so ingrained in the culture at Compass? And, you know, how is that really impacting the way that you partner with your. Your partners? Because that's what you refer to them as, your partners.

Speaker A: We do. We don't use that word lightly. Partners we say closely coupled partners. So I'm not picking on anyone in particular, but a lot of people throw that word around partners. And it's like, it's not just a word. It's like with our partners, whether it's Schneider or Vertiv or rk, uh, mission critical. Like we're writing checks and they're writing checks and we're connected to them for long periods of time and we don't have to do a lot of transactions after that first transaction. So I like to make the joke. It's like the movie Stepbrothers. Like, we've already built bunk beds so we have lots of room for innovative activities. You know what I mean? Like, we don't have to do bids anymore and we don't have to like fight with each other. So we're just like, what's the next product development we're going to do together? What, how do we create a, uh, more sustainable, you know, enjoyable experience for everybody? And I think it's really important because we are finding with empirical data that we are, we have a smaller carbon footprint with those products that we've co developed with them. Whether it's the hybrid liquid air cooling units with Vertiv or our power centers with Schneider. I think it's really important. It's like I look across at all the people I know in the audience and it's like, why would you deserve their best if you're only gonna hire them once and they have no idea if you're ever gonna hire them again and they have no idea if what they're giving you, you're not gonna give to their neighbors. Like, we deserve to be treated the way partners should treat each other. And we take that very seriously at Compass with our closely coupled partnership and our culture. And I say it starts at the top. It starts with our CEO and our leadership team that we have really good people running the company and that, that you have to start there. If you start with bad people and seemingly like good words, it doesn't really make a difference. You have to have good people that want to do the right thing at the top.

Speaker C: Do you find in at the same time the partners? It starts at the top with them too, clearly. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: I mean, like, they don't have to be our partner. Right? Like these days, look, I look out there and I'm like, you don't have to work for anybody you don't want to work for right now. There is plenty of work out there for everybody and we want the A team. And so we Want the A team not just on one project. We want them on every campus we have forever. Right. Like, we don't want to switch partners. We want to make sure that, you know, we're working and learning all together and not having to relearn things. I mean, think about the efficiencies we get just from working with the same people on every single building on campus to campus.

Speaker C: Yeah. I think the thing is, you'll get people wanting you to knock on your door again. So you've got to keep your eye on those other partners, potentially. Yeah, that's a different conversation.

Speaker A: I guess it is. And I think we're super great at answering the phone. We actually have an innovation framework that we look at and filter new ideas and innovations. We have a roleplay wheel with all of the, uh, lenses and eyeballs from all the other divisions looking at things together so that, you know, it's not whether I think it's a good idea or somebody else thinks a good idea. We. We want to look for known unknowns. We're not looking for, like, permission from the other people in the divisions. We're actually saying, like, we want to look at this thing. Have any of you ever looked at this thing before? Do we know anything about this? Is this really match our business model before? We really do a lot of work on something so you can end up getting in the door. Um, I think it's just. It's good that it's harder for the. The big pillar, you know, partners that we have, it's hard to displace them. But that. That should encourage you to want to be in the ecosystem because, you know, it's hard to get displaced. Right.

Speaker C: Keeps everyone hungry.

Speaker A: Yeah, it keeps everybody wanting to either.

Speaker B: I think, you know, you talk a lot about, you know, the idea of innovating. Right. And coming up with new ideas, but a lot of that's driven by transparency. Um, when we were prepping, you said, you'll never hear the words intellectual property come out of our mouths. And can you explain that a little bit more and why that's so important when you're working with, whether it's, uh, a partner or a vendor or building tools together, coming up with some of that innovation and driving it through that framework.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think probably Criss Crosby, our CEO, sees our intellectual property as the culture and the people there. So when we work with partners, you know, we are coming up with new types of power centers, a new way of cooling. And I've never heard anyone at, uh, Compass say, like, yeah, but only Just for us and nobody else. It's like, you know, Chris is very big about like we want, we are co creating these products and yes, we want to get them first and we want to make sure we can always get them from our partners. That's why we have commitments with you. But if you want to sell things to other people, that's great too. We want you to be healthy as our partner. And I've seen some amazing things from that situation happen where partners have given us money back, Chris, you know, and our team has not taken increases they could take at the time because they want partners to be healthier and people are like, we ha. You've given us too much money. Like this is not fair at this point. Like we, we were get, we got really productive or we had this change and then people just start acting like good humans. Like I know that sounds crazy, but like they just act like good people because they want to, right? They, they want to do best by their partners. And that starts with our relationships. Like Chris literally has a call with all of the CEOs of the multi billion dollar companies. The CEOs, like on a weekly basis, on a bi weekly basis. And they have real relationships from the CEO. We have real relationships from, from him down, all the way down to everyone that works together. And everybody has a voice. Everybody can say, I don't agree with that. Everybody can say there's a better way. Everybody can ask, is there an easier way to do this? I hear that all the time. But nobody ever says like, no, no, no, like really secretive things or like we don't want, like it doesn't, of course, like we have NDAs and things like that. But like anything that we make with partners, you can buy on the open market now. And I think Chris really believes he wants to rise, uh, all, you know, raise up all boats. Because it's an opportunity. If you think about it right now, there's so much scale in data centers, right? Like we all know there's like more work in data centers than anywhere else. I think in this, in this business right now, what we're learning to do together as partners, the products we're making, the way in which we're using technology, it's going to trickle down from all these big giant projects and campuses and into the next manufacturing building, into the next multifamily residential building, into hopefully single family housing one day. And it's like disruption happens like top down for an ecosystem, unfortunately. Like it's the innovator's deception. It doesn't Happen bottom up. Like Clayton Christensen taught us about an industry, this is really complex. So it behooves us if you want better infrastructure in this world, like in data centers, we have a real opportunity to set the tone.

Speaker B: I love that. And when you, when you talk about transparency, you know, traditionally and in the model of, you know, the broken model, I would call it, Right. Historically, opacity has been what drove profit in contractors and vendors and trade partners. But now what you're talking about is that, that transparency is what will drive success and therefore drive, you know, profit. You know, the innovation doesn't have to get descoped. Right. Because we're all sharing in it. And even as budgets tighten, which they always do, we still find ways to share, to be transparent about what's important to us, about what we're innovating on. And, you know, you said it, you want your partners to make money, uh, you want them to make more money with you than they do with everyone else so that they keep coming back and collaborating with you. Right. And so you had mentioned when we were prepping and talking about this, that there's a disconnect between, between owners and GCs and their partners. And it's really a language problem around business models. Can you expand on that a little bit more and talk about some of those structural blockers that are there?

Speaker A: I think it's really true. Right. So if you think about it, um, in the past, you know, I grew up in this business. I'm 54. I say my age all the time. Like I was a little girl, my family business, and my dad used to drive around job sites with us and he would see a bunch of people, tradespeople, looking in the ceiling and they would point to the ceiling and my dad would say, we're either making a lot of money right now or we're losing a lot of money right now. I don't know which. But some misinformation, some lack of information, some, something has happened. We're like, there's an, there's an opportunity or a threat going on right now. And I think with AI and all of the ability to see things and to track things these days, I always challenge people. If you're making money on waste right now, on the lack of information or the misinformation or the opportunity to take advantage of somebody right now, you're probably not going to be in business much longer because you've got to find a way to make money on value now that the world is very transparent and open and you can scrape the data from anywhere. I think once you get that settled and now you're a GC again, we have to change our language, right? So, like, my friends that have actually come over now and started working with Compass since I've been there, it's almost like we break the brains of our partners when they first get there. And I remember I was talking, um, to one of my friends at RK and I was like, imagine everything you've ever wanted in an owner. Imagine it happens. And then do you actually know how to talk at that point? Like, do you know what to say back? Do you know how to challenge how to. How to say things are easier? Like, I know when I sit a year later, having been at Compass now, and I hear GC say things like, oh, there's a problem. Well, that's not in our scope. And I'm like, I'm almost taken aback. Like, I'm almost like, what is that? Like, wow, that's such a strange reaction. Like, my reaction now that I hear most often is like, okay, M, where's the problem? How do we all, like, roll up our sleeves and how do we go to the source of the problem and figure it out together? It's so shocking to me when I hear like, the regular language of change order. Not that that never happens, you know, but just like the regular, like, pointing fingers, blame game situation. I think that's part of the language that has to change. But then I think it's just the language of like, level loaded production. Like, we don't say that in construction like we do in manufacturing. We don't say forecasting of like, different things the way we do in manufacturing. And it's like we look at our buildings like we're manufacturing buildings. And so when you work with a Vertiver Schneider, they're manufacturers, they know how to talk like that. When you start talking to GCs and they, they start thinking of things like contingencies and um, you know, like all the fear, the things that have, like process entropy that have just been there forever based on fear and misinformation, it's almost like they can't let those go and that language go to talk about what you actually need and what, what manufacturers have figured out. When it's like, about being transparent on their margins of their, like, QA QC programs about, you know, Lean Manufacturing. It's like we just don't speak like that in the most. Don't speak like that in the construction industry. Not anyone. But like most.

Speaker C: It's quite. It's contractual speak Isn't it? It's like we're covering ourselves from past experience, the pain that's happened before, and you're breaking that down.

Speaker A: It's very protectionist. It's like, uh, I'll never forget. I don't want to say the construction company, although I don't think they would mind. Years ago, we were at the prefab conference, advancing prefab, and they said, like, yeah, everyone needs to be more like a systems integrator now at the GCS, and one of the GC CEOs was on stage with me, and he said, listen, we said that to one of our data center customers, and we said, we're like a systems integrator. And they said, great, we'll send you our systems integrator contract. And he's like, we didn't know any of the words in the contract. Like, we didn't even know what they were asking us to do. We had to Google phrases because we were like, we don't. We don't do any of those things. Like, that's not what we meant. You know what I mean? He was honest about it, and I was like, yeah, we. That is not the same language. Like, just because, you know the word doesn't mean you know how to do the behaviors that match the words. And I think the behaviors, uh, are. It's time for us to learn how to do things. It's an opportunity right now for us to learn how to do things differently. Right. Like, I was at the AI agent builder. Yeah. Uh, and I'm like, I just wanted to talk normally to the agent builder. Like, I talk normally to my. I have a relationship with my AI and it's like, we almost forgot how to talk like normal people to ask for normal things. And we have to back ourselves up a minute and say, like, how would the other person hear this information? The best way possible, just in a normal conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah, I just imagine you having a conversation with your AI and ending with like, did we just become best friends?

Speaker A: We're always best friends. My AI and I are definitely best friends. I think the south park episode came out, and my kid, my daughter, my boyfriend looked over at me. Every time they said, she's having a relationship with her chat GPT. And they. I was like, stop looking at me in the room. I don't know if you're south park

Speaker B: fans, but I want to go back to something you said, which is, we have to focus on how do we create value. Right. Instead of making our money on the waste. Uh, are there new Business models or new things that GCs and trades partners that they need to be thinking about embracing to really remain competitive and to. To become more profitable.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, this notion of, like, we do innovation, like, as our side job, or, like, only when we're allowed to, or only when the, you know, owner asks us, or we have our own innovation team, but we don't. Like I asked yesterday, actually, when we were in the executive forum, you know, like, how willing are GC teams, Innovation teams, because you have them now. How many? Raise your hand if you're on the innovation team and any of your. A couple of people, yeah. Oh, good. So, like, they don't really, like, run up to us and say, like, hey, we'd love to meet with you guys on a monthly basis and show you everything we're doing at this GC and what are you doing? And in our 2026 goals, we want to leverage our partners, our closest couple partners, even more than we do now by just really talking to one another so that we're all either working on some things together or we're purposely not working on the same things together so that we can, again, do more with less, but, like, still move generally in a good direction together. I think it's important that we start talking with each other as if we're all going to be here together moving forward.

Speaker B: Well, and I think it's really important when you think about those big ideas, like, we all can dream big, but we can dream even bigger if we do it with others. Right. And be collaborative and really start to challenge ourselves, um, even disagree candidly, and push each other to go outside even further than we have before.

Speaker A: For. For sure. We're not trying to hit a compass. We want small, incremental improvements more than grand slams, even. So learning the language of how do you do innovation? We teach a lot of things. And every time when I've, uh, talked about innovation and if I ask people, we're in a very big period of change right now, and everyone goes, yeah, we have a lot of disruption, a lot of change. We've got to move. We got to do things. And I'm like, yeah, we got to innovate. And they're like, yeah, we got to innovate. And then I'm like, how many of your companies teach you how to innovate? And then they're like, wait, what? Well, I. I can learn how to innovate. Like, you don't have to be born with, like, pattern recognition to innovate. And it's like, yeah, we have to teach people that every day. You can ask yourself, is there a better way to do this? And then a framework to be able to, like, implement that, bring attention to it. Have air cover to try some things in the framework at your company. Like, that's a big thing I believe in is air cover. Having been a troublemaker my whole life, like, you know, innovator, and, uh, you know, I like to say bully, whatever, whatever those words are that they used to use. Now they say innovator, which is great, but, um, you need air cover, right? Like, you need to be able to say, like, I think differently. And I think we could be doing these things and build a coalition in a safe framework that someone's like. And by the way, if you fail, that's a good thing. It's good. Just learn from that and move on. So, like, we have fail. I don't know if, you know, we have failure awards, the Wile E. Coyote Awards at Compass. And you put yourself up for these failure awards. And I put myself up. I've been there a year now, and I've won one failure award. And they announce it. Everyone claps for you at the all hands. They celebrate you. And they read all the failures off, and then they pick one. So everyone knows you failed whether you win or not, which is great. And then you learn from that. You never do it again. But when I picked up my trophy the, uh, next time I was at the office, they were like, here's your envelope. And I was like, what's the envelope? And they were like, you got a $500 gift card. Let me say that one more time. I got a $500 gift card for totally failing at something badly enough that I won. And I was like, wow, this is great. Like, and now I'm like, that was not really that painful to actually win a $500 gift card just to admit that I had done something wrong and, like, learn from it and share about it. But, like, who does that in construction? We're like, no, don't say anything's wrong ever.

Speaker B: You know, like, well, and you think about it like, so many people probably have maybe even had that same idea that you failed on. And then to hear it, either one, oh, I probably shouldn't try that, or, hey, I have a way to maybe do it and not fail.

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: Which is an improvement on it, because maybe the outcome will be even bigger, Which I just love this. You told the story before, and I think it's fantastic.

Speaker A: I, uh, bought a belt. Just so you know. I bought a Nice belt with my money.

Speaker B: I was gonna say I was hoping the trophy was actually like the anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote, because that would have been absolutely fantastic.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Does that reward go up with inflation?

Speaker A: I don't know. I've only been there a year. But I can put that in the suggestion. We don't have a suggestion box, but maybe innovate on the award, like, you

Speaker C: know, 550 next year.

Speaker B: Ah, I love it. I love it. So let's talk about that innovation for a second, because we talked about the need to think about how to innovate, or for a while, I think everybody was calling themselves a disruptor. But we need to take that innovation, we need to turn it into something. And we've talked a lot about how do we turn innovation into really operational strategy. You have focused on one innovation quite a bit, which is this idea of productization and really reusing components and processes and designs, a lot of that industrialization of the manufacturing and construction process coming together. But, you know, it's pretty key. Like, in order to deliver on those things, you, collaboration is absolutely essential to that process. And, and your approach at, uh, Compass has been, hey, we're going to focus on a few areas. And those areas are prefabrication. They're digital twins, and then a lot of internal R and D. And I can imagine, like, hey, you said small incremental changes can make a big difference when you're repeating things. But can you talk us through a little bit more? Like, what does productizing construction really mean in practice? Like, what does that actually mean to someone who's sitting here in the crowd right now?

Speaker A: So first, I'll tell you that, like, I loved in the executive forum, you had the Rogers o', Brien, I think that's the company, the chief innovation officer saying, first you have to put language to things, right? That was the first thing he said about change. And I thought, wow, that's so true. You know, and again, like, being someone in the space that, like, has been in a lot of hotel rooms the night before, I had to do some gigs and consulting and say, what are we going to call that thing? And we're like, let's call productization. And they're like, that's a mouthful, Amy. And I was like, I know, but I don't really know. It's a verb, right? Like, so there's a lot of words we've had to put to things in prefabrication. Whether it was like the words industrialized construction was not a phrase, like, for A long time. You know, off site. The name of my old company was like a play on words on that. Like, there was not the off site continuum. Um, there wasn't things like, you know, all the words that we use now that we think are so normal around prefab, which I'm like, super thankful for. I think first and foremost, when you make up words to create change, you have to let them go, right? Like, so sometimes people, I'll see a lot of slides and my friends are like, oh my God, that's your slide. I'm like, I'm so happy somebody else is saying it. Like, it doesn't really count. If you make up things and nobody else uses them, you're not a thought leader. If that happens, those are just still your own thoughts. Just for the record, I want to throw that out there. Like, you first have to have your own thoughts, and then other people have to repeat those thoughts and people have to like, build on those thoughts to actually execute things on those thoughts. And I think we've really come a long way in the prefabrication space for that. Not just from my thoughts, but other people that have really participated and gotten on the bandwagon. But it's true of anything. Like, it's not just about the physicality of that component part. It's about what do you do with that now? What data is associated with that component part? How do you actually. What's the life cycle of that component part? Everything from, like, how do we reuse? Why do we have to draw things anymore? If I'm utilizing the same component part, why can't I just, like a compass, have, you know, a prototype design that is standard reference design, basically, that we is fungible when we need to make certain changes, but is really the design is the design is the design, right? So it's like that notion of, like having a physicality of something allows us to have less digital waste, and it exponentially leads to less physical waste in our landfills for sustainability purposes. Like every single time. Like, if you prefabricate something and productize it where it's standardized, I mean, we have proof of that. Even working with Schneider as an example, like, they have a factory, that um, fabrication shop that they have only compass product. On one side, it looks like there's almost nothing in the space and it's super clean. There's very little packaging, there's very little people actually in it. And on the other side, they do a lot more iterative product and they've. They have a picture of it. On their website, they've shown in public. And it's like, that's their iterative approach. And you can see there's like a lot more people, a lot more packaging. And I would say, like, why is this a better way to do things? And they were like, well, we have a, we have a, we have a standard with you guys. That's why this is better. We make more money, it's easier. Less carbon footprint, by far by the. Less copper, less packaging. And I'm like, yeah, but it's not. The standard doesn't make it so. It's the partnership that we decided we would have a standard that makes it so. And I think if you leave that out like that hard, heavy lift, you sort of missed the point. It's not just about like making something, a word, a standard, a product. It's like everything you have to do in order to get that product to market, per se, you know, with each other.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think that's really interesting. It's not the fact that you standardized, it's how you got there.

Speaker A: Right? Uh, right.

Speaker B: It's how you, you came together to figure out what that standard would be and what's going to be repeatable because you had to accept probably like, and make some, make some concessions on something that's, you know, repeatable and they had to be able to figure out what they could actually manufacture and drive together for you in order to get there. How has that like changed like the profitability for you and, and for your partners? By just knowing, like, hey, we know how we're going to do this every single time. Like, how is that making an impact?

Speaker A: I mean, I look out at the audience like, don't you think that would make a difference for all of you? Like if you had a standard product with a standard team that worked on it and iterated it to be a 2.0, a 3.0. Uh, right. Like we've heard this for years. Like we just can't get ahead because everything's so bespoke. It's such a snowflake. You know, it's funny, I thought of an old story as you were talking. I haven't told this in a long time, but like one time I was on a job site and a very big GC said to me, like, I just want to make it like ikea. And I'll tell you a story, Amy. On Tuesday I ordered a dresser and my 12 year old daughter and I were going to put it together on Saturday, but by Friday I wasn't home. Yet and she put it together all by herself. And, and he said, I want things to be that easy. Just like it was to put together that Ikea dresser with one tool for my 12 year old. Isn't that what we want? And I said, yes, except what you didn't discuss is like how many engineering hours went into the fact that they had to think about if a 12 year old put this together, what should the only picture directions look like? How do we only make it so she only has to hold one tool and what's the easiest way to package this so that she knows what every single piece is? It's like if you don't want to put that upfront work in, like you got to do all that so that your 12 year old could put together. That's what you should really learn from the experience. Not that she was able to put it together on a, like a Friday without you.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, I love that. I love that. All right, I'm going to go a little bit different direction here for a second and I want to talk about data control, which ties into the standardization for sure. But you know, when you talk about data oftentimes we've had this discussion before, many companies, they don't, they don't own their own data, especially on the owner side, or they can't access it in a really meaningful way. And that leads to some disconnected experiences, some disconnected platforms and kind of a lack of visibility into what we could do and then makes a struggle for us to innovate. Um, you all have taken a little bit different approach to that. And how do you think that data ownership and having that visibility, having that transparency, having shared data across your entire teams has really tied into innovation and also, uh, accountability in a big way.

Speaker A: I mean, the data is everything, right? And I don't mean just like the data we're all talking about here at Procore, but like even in the innovation team, right? So like when I got there, Nancy would say this if she was here, my chief innovation officer who's unfortunately retiring soon. You just saw her main stage, she's amazing. And I said, Nancy, like we have a bunch of spreadsheets about things and like, we get a lot of like rocks through the windshield and we have to like fix something or do something differently. And like, how do we slow that down so that like, we really do what the business needs and not what the business wants on a daily basis to innovate on? Right? Like, how do we really do that? Like, we were really lucky that like in this case we decided to use. I mean, we have procore, obviously, and we can take a lot of data from procore and what we're doing there. But, like, we needed something that didn't exist and we ended up finding like, one of the partners that you have in Hoylu, and we put together a board, an innovation board, where we're basically like, we track all of the use cases and metrics that are necessary for us as owners, and then we also track all the ideas, uh, that every day that people come up with on that board and we match them to the use cases in, in the buckets of ESG for ourselves to make sure that we're doing the right thing and where they fall. But we do that in that software because, like, we can hit a button then and tell ourselves where is everything in every, Everything we're working on, every pilot, every ask first, every, you know, wherever it is in the gates of, uh, the company, we're able to utilize technology there and the data just to drive our everyday behavior in innovation. Like, not even talking about what we do for our delivery, which is what we call our construction group or like our design group. I just think, like, there are little things you can do to own your own data in your own space, like. And yes, as owners, we of course want to own all the data so that we can get better at this, um, better with our partners and like, share in the data. We're transparent with our partners with the data. Right. So we want them to see what we're doing or what things cost or how things are working. But I do think, like, if you're not, I look across here and I see a lot of people younger in their career. If you're not in charge of, like, you're in. If you're not the CEO, there are little things you can do and there are. You have a budget to buy certain things and do certain things that are going to allow you to take control of some portion of your data that allows you to make better decisions. And ever since we made that board, to be honest, it wasn't a product that people knew within our company. I've had several groups come up to me and they're like, what's up? What's that board that you. What's up? That's. That board is legit, actually, was the last thing somebody said to me, and I was like, thank you. And, you know, it didn't take us that long to build it. We didn't have to really even ask permission to do it. It was a very small investment for us, but we wanted to take our own data and to drive our own behavior in the right direction every day. Right.

Speaker C: So, um, I'm interested to find out more how you prioritize that, because often you can. You can see the board, and then it's whoever shouts the loudest about the board or those items.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So how do you choose there?

Speaker A: Because, I mean, the good news is once you start, like, organizing things, then you start filtering and prioritizing things. It's like, you can't do that, though, until you've organized it. Right. See an update, see it. And so visual first is one of our priorities and our. In our culture at Compass. And it was great that we could all of a sudden see and like, okay, we have. I don't know, right now we have 180 people that work at Compass. Only think about how big our company is. That's what we have for people. And it's like, we don't have the capacity to actually do these things. And also for our vendors, I would say this, like, you don't want to have to call 15 people to get a new idea across encompass. You want to call one person that can bring it to 15 people, talk about it, and either say yes or no or like, maybe call us in six months. It just. It. It. It literally dispels a bunch of waste by just organizing it, starting to look at it, visually measuring it, having people weigh in on it. Because, uh, if we're in a room now with 15 people and we go, wait, we want to do that? And we go, yeah, but there's six other things. Which. Which one's more important?

Speaker B: Yeah, Is this. Is this the most important thing for the district?

Speaker A: Yeah. And you can see it, right? It's like, well, you've got six. You're the steward of six other innovations right now. What? Like, do you have time for a seventh? Like, do you have anyone else that could steward this? If not, we actually have a kill button that says, like, no steward, no champion. Basically, like, we don't have time for. And it's the best and thing, but we just. We don't have time for it.

Speaker B: And then it's, uh, a no, not right now.

Speaker A: It's a no, not right now. But the great part is, with our board, we can actually go back every three months and be like, what thing? At a push of a button, I can say, what are the things that we said were commercially viable but didn't have a steward? And we said. And I can literally get instantly a chart and a List and what metrics they associate with what problems they solved anytime I want. Because we were able to visually use that board to see what we're doing as an example. And it's been game changer for us. Like, literally, I'm on the spectrum, as everyone, I think knows and that listens to me. Like, diagnosed in second grade. Like, I would see these smartsheets and spreadsheets and start breaking out in hives. Like, I was, like, going to bed at night. M. I'm like, I don't know what to work on today. Like, and so now I feel really good about the fact that I wake up and I'm like, yeah, we don't have time for that. Like, I love saying no. Nancy will tell you this. I love saying no. Like, Nancy, nobody wants that innovation right now. We've talked about it. We're not meeting with that vendor. We don't have time. And she goes, okay, great, I'll tell them no. And, like, it's almost like it helps us again, more room for activities. Like, we made bunk beds with our hoylu board. And, like, we have room for. I'm going to live by that, that phrase this week. And, um, you know, we have room to do things because we've really, like, culled first. We got rid of some stuff first that we didn't was like, noise in the system that gave me hives. You know what I mean? It gave a lot of people hives, you know, not just me.

Speaker B: Well, I think we did just become best friends, so we just become best friends. All right, well, Brett, now's the time of the day where you get to ask, uh, some rapid fire questions of Amy. So don't worry, they're not too tough. But, Brett, why don't you take us away on our rapid fire?

Speaker C: Yeah. So, Amy, um, what book would you most recommend?

Speaker A: I love it. Starts with one. It's a great book about change.

Speaker C: I love it. Starts with one.

Speaker A: Yeah. I think on page 28 is a really great graph, if you want to look at it. It's fantastic.

Speaker C: Brilliant. Um, what is your go to source for gaining, uh, a different or more informed, uh, perspective?

Speaker A: I asked my daughter. She's 17, and she loves to tell me the real hard truth.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Love that.

Speaker C: And brutally sometimes, I'm sure.

Speaker A: Oh, she loves the word hideous. Or like. Yeah, she loves that word.

Speaker C: Alrighty. If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

Speaker A: Man, it's going to be rough, but, like, push through because it was a little rough. Push through because, like, you're incredibly resilient, more resilient than you know, and, like, there are good people out there that are going to sponsor you in life. And, like, I always say, thanks to Nancy Novak for always sponsoring me. And we had a lot of reciprocal sponsorship.

Speaker C: Great. Okay. Uh, what's one trend or innovation that you think will shape the future of construction?

Speaker A: I think it's just mindset shift. Right. Like, I know that sounds strange, but I'm going to say, like, we got to stop. Everyone has to stop trying just not to lose. And, like, we should just try to win once in a while. Like, mindset shift to win.

Speaker C: That's, like, really people centric. I love that. Yeah, absolutely. Great. All right, last one. If construction as an industry had a tagline, what would it be for you?

Speaker A: I make as much money as the men in this space. You should come here. Maybe I make more. Just for the record. I love that.

Speaker B: I love that. And such a great way to end well. Thank you all for joining us at Groundbreak this week. Thank you, Amy, for joining us on the podcast. Uh, if you like the conversations that we had today or on any of the other podcasts, please, like, subscribe and share, and we'll continue to bring you the stories of leaders harnessing the power of construction.