The Construction Dorkcast

It’s the end of the year and that means a DorkCast year end wrap-up. For episode 57 we went live and invited in our friends. We all shared our tech and event year in review as well as what we’re looking forward to in 2023. Thank all of you for listening, thank you for sharing, thank you for your support, thank you for a great year, thank you to those who joined us live. We are all looking forward...

In this week's episode, the Dorks talked to Brad Hendricks and looked specifically at how ITM has begun to resurface as the preferred content style for those who fabricate.

We continue the theme of alternative pathways into and through construction in episode 55 of the DorkCast. We brought on Sasha Reed from Procore.org to talk about her professional journey. We originally were going to title the show “College Dropouts”, but in the same way our careers have pivoted Jeff decided to change the name to “The World is My Classroom” and it is truly fitting. Sasha is always...

In episode 54 of the DorkCast, we sit down with Brett Stacks of Viatechnik to talk about Trade-ing Places. A theme we keep seeing in construction technologists is the varied paths we’ve all taken to get where we are. Brett is no exception. Starting off as a sheet metal worker, taking stops through contractors and software alike, and finding himself as a VDC Director. This was a fun discussion abou...

In this special episode of the Dorks, we sit down with Mike Zivanovic on the last day of Autodesk University to talk tech from the exhibit hall.

Look at us keeping kind of a regular schedule! Here is DorkCast Episode 52 where we welcome in our friend Kyle Johnson of Avvir. Kyle, in our opinion, is one of those unsung Dorks. We see him around the circuit fighting the Dork fight and thought it was time to bring him in and sit down for a talk. Kyle gets passionate about reality capture and proptech, whatever that means. Hope you enjoy the con...

Welcome back to DorkDom! We’re back after a short summer hiatus. The four of us sat down and got reunited and it felt so good. We talk about our summers. We talk about custom home construction versus commercial construction. Hint: we all suffer from the same problems. We talk about the kickoff of conference season. We talk about the future. We hope you’ve missed us as much as we’ve missed you. Loo...

We made it! Episode 50!!! And there was much rejoicing! Yaaaaayyyyy. And to celebrate making it 50 episodes we brought in Sara Curry from JE Dunn to talk about one of our favorite topics, Prefab. Sara has a brand-new role that she is stepping into. Not just brand-new to her, but to her company and the industry. This is a fun conversation about how different GCs and CMs are thinking about taking on...

Dear listeners, it is time to bow to our robot overlords. Here we are at Episode 49, I’m not sentient, YOU’RE sentient. We are joined by Melvin Newman from PataBid and we talk all things AI and ML, as well as estimating and the shared pains we all have around construction drawings, documentation, and processes. This one was really a treat. We were down two Dorks this time but were lucky to have Me...

DorkCast Episode 48 – Construction Tech’s Gone Plaid! In this episode we bring back an old friend Jake Olsen, formerly of DADO and now the VP of Construction Technology at Stanely X, and his new boss, Michelle Bockman, President of Stanley X. We dig into Michelle’s background in manufacturing and what it’s like herding cats like Jake in her new role managing innovators. We had an absolute blast wi...

DorkCast 47 is all about content and for that we brought in our first international guest, The Godfather of Content, Andy Robbins. Nerd alert on this one. We talk about APIs and C++ classes. We also discuss the differences between RFAs and ITMs and why some of you might want to consider getting on the ITM train. There’s also some talk about why partners would want to work with specialty trades tha...

Episode 46 of the Construction DorkCast. There isn’t much to say here. We gathered to celebrate the life of Buck Davis. This was a very hard episode to do, but we still had some laughs remembering the love and passion Buck brought to the industry. Buck, you’re very much missed. This episode is titled Make Friends and Help People in your honor.

If you’ve followed the podcast this far or you have been involved with it, you know we’re not ones for plans and scripts. Sometimes, though, a guest has the audacity to ask us ahead of time what we want to talk about. That’s what Taylor Cupp did to us and why Episode 45 is called Going Off Script. I think we mostly talked about the bullets we gave him, but I already lost the napkin we wrote them d...

DorkCast 44 – BIM is Reality! In this episode we are down two Dorks again, but we bring in three guests, Chad Lucks from US Engineering, Rob Miller from Faro, and Gabe Munes from OpenSpaceAI to talk about reality capture. We cover current uses, where they see the future going, and why construction is so broken. We have some laughs as always and get some good insights on how we should be using diff...

Hole. Eee. Shite. This was a fun one. Sitting down with this year’s DOTY, Bri Willams and the man who helped create the award, Nathan Wood. We had to get through this one down two Dorks, but I think Jeff and I did an okayerish job. We got some extra help from a surprise guest… this is what we call a tease in the biz. This episode is full of passion and knowledge bombs and fun as we talk about the...

Welcome to Episode 42 of the DorkCast, Putting the Industrial in Industrialized Construction with Bob Snyder of Binksy and Snyder/Conivate. Bob is one of our favorites in the industry for the way he not only speaks on change but then he also turns around and rearranges his own company OR creates a new company to implement the change. His passion for the industry is palpable and his desire to make...

Here we go again, same old schtuff again…. Episode 41, MEP Innovations, that was legit! We sit down with Stacy Zerr, the Supreme Ruler of the MCAA Technology Committee to talk about the MEP Innovations Conference. What we liked, what we didn’t, what we’d like to see in the future. The Dorks hit the field down a player, but we feel Stacy did a great job keeping us on our game with another fun and i...

It’s time! DorkCast 40, You’re a winner, now what? We sit down with the three winners of prestigious and fraGEeeLAy Innovator of the Year Award from the MEP Innovation Conference. SMACNA’s winner Steve Hunt, NECA’s winner Jared Christman, and the MCAA’s winner Jeff Elwell join us to celebrate and share. One common theme came out of our conversation, sharing just might be the secret to winning next...

Here we are, finally, DorkCast episode 39, Don’t Call It a Comeback. After a pause through the holidays and fighting through a busy start to 2022 the Dorks come back strong-ish. In this episode we just hang out, the four of us talking about what we’ve been doing, the reboot of live conferences, and some of the things we’re looking to accomplish in the coming year. Please share the movement and if...

Here we are at episode 38 of the Construction DorkCast, Sparkies Unite. In this episode we bring in two friends we’ve gotten to know in the electrical world, Sean Lazarian and Jared Christman. We talk about the journeys that their respective companies have been on as the electrical trade finds its way through the tech revolution. We talk about the benefits of openly sharing lessons learned and the...

In this episode the construction dorks welcome Rob Sloyer and Reuben Gil to talk about the challenges of taking on the unorthodox position that is BIM / technology / IT / innovation / VDC /whatever else digital we feel like adding to it, and how to turn that position into a career path that can move you forward in construction.

In this episode of the DorkCast we welcome back Alex Belkofer who approached us with the idea of talking about what’s been going wrong in the world of Design Assist contract delivery. Alex is fresh off the DBIA conference so was fired up and wanted to lead this conversation. To round it out we invited in Josh Hudson and Adam Davis to bring even more insight from the side of the trades. This is a f...

Here we are, finally, another episode of the Construction DorkCast released on our almost semiregular schedule, sort of. The Dorks believe in being well rounded and attempting to find balance in life and, in light of that, we brought in Jon’s doppelganger Aaron Krovance…. Or maybe Jon is Aaron’s doppelganger. You be the judge. Anyway, the point of this episode is to talk about the things we do whe...

We're out in Denver at the Stratus Innovate Conference talking fabrication software and techniques with some of the leading software providers in the fabrication space and some of the contractors at the cutting edge of what's going on in MEP prefabrication. Now the DorkCast always tries to be software agnostic, but when in Rome.

I know. I’m sick of hearing and saying it. You’re sick of hearing it, but here we are. The Normal New. I mean the New Normal. We bring in Todd Weyandt and Nathan Wood to talk about The New AB Normal here in episode 33. What will work look like? What will events look like? What special incentives might Todd offer for buying an in-person ticket to MEP Force next year? Listen closely to find out!