Peggy Smedley Show

Henry Purdy, CMO, ConstructConnect, talks about the importance of product integration and how the company prioritizes integration efforts. He addresses how the company works with various integration partners.

Don Henrich, COO, Assemble Systems, addresses the changes in BIM (building information modeling) and VDC (virtual design and construction). He talks about how contractors are leveraging the technology in new and different ways.

Bassem Hamdy, executive vice president of marketing and enterprise strategy, Procore, talks about how the market is changing, the role of apps and integration, and how contractors need to take advantage of all of this innovation that is emerging.

Peggy identifies trends related to project management, integration, and mobility. She says effective project management has always been key on construction projects, but what is changing is how technology is leveraged by field staff. She says integration is key in construction, and Procore is addressing this.

Peggy says the trend toward more technology in the home began more than 10 years ago when AHT (automated home technology) was first being installed in homes. She says what followed was the emergence of devices that offered opportunities to create that smarter home. Looking to the future, she predicts voice assistance will become more common, as artificial intelligence grows, and security will beco...

Jeremy Gilbert, cofounder and CEO, Autobrain, says with technology converging, it saw an opportunity to bring connected-car technology to the masses. He explains the device plugs into a standard diagnostic port of any vehicle, and it communicates to anybody that is connected to that car. For example, a parent of a teen driver can get an alert about driving or gas.

Terence Mauri, author, The Leader's Mindset: How to Win in the Age of Disruption, says it has never been easier to waste time on the wrong relationships and social media. He explains every day you have to focus on the MIT (most important task), and that is the key takeaway. In a 24/7 connected world, there is an unrealistic expectation that we should always be at the disposal of other people, he s...

Peggy starts the show by talking about biometrics, and says the need for accurate and secure identification of a user's identity extends far beyond just mobile devices. She says authentication in smartphones will pave the way for other applications in homes and cars. She talks about research on brainprints, which uses brain wave responses to different stimuli.

Peggy takes listeners to the future, predicting a time when voters won't have to go to a polling place at all, and instead this will all be able to be done securely from devices. However, she says first it starts with ensuring we can keep the data secure, and this is what the industry needs to work on in the next four years.

Merle King, executive director, Center for Election Systems, Kennesaw State University, continues the discussion, and talks about voting online. He says voting is different is different from other forms of transactions, and the issue is there isn't anything that is analogous to it in terms of the transaction, and it has to do with the secrecy of the ballot. He explains we are in the infancy of Int...

Merle King, executive director, Center for Election Systems, Kennesaw State University, says the mechanics of collecting votes has been different in the terms of the sheer volume and velocity of discussion than it has in the past. He explains a voting system is a very specifically designed collection of components that does a simple set of tasks including capture voter intent, tabulate results of...

Peggy starts the show by talking about the widespread wearing out of voting machines as a major concern among American voters. She explains voting technology is the next big issue in election administration in the U.S., and elections seem stuck in the past.

Peggy continues her forward-looking discussion, focusing this week on connected cars and how we can keep hackers out of our automobiles. She says we need to identify how to create a culture that is prepared to handle the vulnerabilities that exist within vehicles

Alex Schwarzkopf, CEO, Pillar Technologies, says the construction industry is very reactive, and how do we adjust to strategize? He says since this behavioral shift is new, Pillar is very approachable, and the company has taken a lot of time and energy to make the sensors easy to move and the dashboard really intuitive.

Alex Schwarzkopf, CEO, Pillar Technologies, says the problem the company is attacking is a very small piece of the connected jobsite by deploying a network of smart sensors that are monitoring the changing conditions of the building. He says it can provide insight into early warnings like fire and water. He explains that contractors have a lot of responsibility already, and putting another dataset...

Peggy says, as an industry, we need to jump ahead of the curve and be proactive around cybersecurity. She explains a new study suggests end users are leery when it comes to connected-device security, and there is a need for more education around cybersecurity.

Peggy talks about the future of agriculture, and says a wearable device can detect fatigue and stress of farmers to recognize when they are overworked. She says this is just the beginning, and in the future, everything will become connected, with a data point harvested on a crop being leveraged much later, but the industry needs to come together to make this vision a reality and to help to leverag...

Padraig Stapleton, vice president of engineering, Argyle Data, says the telecom and mobile industry creates vast amounts of data on a daily basis. Enter machine learning, he says it steps in and looks at the data in any form you want to deploy it in. He explains the work it is doing with Carnegie Mellon University is to detect fraud in the mobile industry.

Ole Mengshoel, principal systems scientist, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, CMU, Silicon Valley, says the development of artificial intelligence has been going on at universities for a while, but it is only recently that there is more commercial interest. He explains the improvement in hardware and improvement of algorithms are driving commercialization.

Peggy talks about how smart cities use better resources, explaining they are more accessible and convenient for citizens and visitors, as well as more economically competitive. She says one of the latest research studies shows that roughly half of government officials say the IoT (Internet of Things) will provide value.

Jake Fields, CEO and founder, Treeline Interactive, says the company is working with clients and partners that want to leverage the IoT to make their business more efficient. He explains in the past couple years there has been an explosion where people have started to embrace connected devices and the sensors that are feeding the data. Now, it is a matter of identifying how to tie it to the core o...

Jay Kim, chief strategy officer, APX Labs, says wearables are the next big thing in industrial workforce technology, replacing things like paper and even smartphones, and explains wearables can become an integral part of a daily job, especially for hands-on workers. He continues that his company is in the business of creating a human working with machines environment, rather than a human versus ma...

Steve Latham, founder and CEO, Banyan Hills Technologies, says when his company develops a relationship with a customer, it truly is a relationship that helps the client understand the business challenge, and making sure that they aren't looking at IoT just because of the hype, but because it is really applicable. He defines the Internet of Things as taking a device and enabling that device with t...

Peggy talks about some of the industrial Internet of Things hurdles and says skimping on security is the riskiest move in the long haul. She explains she can't think of a single industry that can afford to skip the Internet of Things, and therefore can't afford to sidestep security. She addresses the importance of standards in the industrial IoT.

Bryan Kester, director of Internet of Things, Autodesk, Inc., says the technology company has a lab that is working on nanotechnology materials. He explains the costs for the IoT have come down dramatically in the past several months, making it more affordable, and now businesses can scale as a result.