The Nexus Podcast

“I recently read a great quote, 'Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.'" —Louise Monger My Highlights Louise’s background (2:10) What Louise has learned coming from the client side to vendor side (24:41) Trends in real estate technology (29:20) ‘Open’ systems and SE’s approach (44:13) Role of the MSI and SE’s approach (49:04) Software partnerships and SE’s a...

“Joe Allen made this very clear business case around cognitive function that any real estate sales person with a pulse could pick up and say, 'Hey, if you're going to double cognitive function with better air quality, Class A offices must offer this increased air quality." —Ben Myers My Highlights IAQ today (15:08) The Clean Air in Buildings Challenge and what this means for the industry (20:31) H...

“The big caveat is that it's a fully vertically integrated stack, but it's composable and open." —Corey Clarke My Highlights Summary of Cory's work at RXR Realty (8:50) Cory’s contrarian take on the future of tenant apps (19:10) Why View bought WorxWell and their product strategy today (22:05) How landlords can measure occupant experience (44:36) Carveouts (52:15) You can find Cory on LinkedIn. Wa...

“Just knowing about real estate in the real estate industry is now necessary but it's not sufficient, because fundamentally the industry is moving from being product-based to service-based." —Anthony Slumbers My Highlights Overall real estate trends for techy types (16:22) The current sustainability trends in decarbonization and changes in the real estate industry (46:53) Smart Assets defined (54:...

“Carbon neutrality is a big lift and technology is a cornerstone of that. The way we look at our assets now is from a supply and demand perspective. We've really been able to hone in our demand side through investments in building automation technology." —Ryan Knudson My Highlights Macerich’s sustainability target and plan (11:09) ESG reporting and the emerging so-called “data gap” (22:25) New tec...

My Highlights What problem was Sidewalk Labs trying to solve when it created Mesa? (8:56) Use cases for Mesa (16:07) How Mesa collects tenant feedback to optimize the heating and cooling of buildings (28:47) Mesa's success with schools and offices in reducing their energy consumption (33:22) How Mesa delivers a quick ROI to buildings (49:27) Carveouts (51:09) You can find Rachel and Josh on Linked...

“We realized that we needed to go out to tender nationally for our BMS and HVAC service contracts. We needed to transition these contracts from what was traditionally a plan-preventive-maintenance approach to a much more data-driven approach that ensured we created a collaborative engagement between our service contractor, the analytics vendor, and AMP. Without that collaboration, we realized that...

“Our mission is to make the built environment people-aware. Our vision is to replace passive infrared. That, by definition, is a horizontal vision. By definition, you can't have applications for all those different types of end users." —Rags Gupta Highlights Butlr's founding story (13:22) Butlr and their products (21:00) Why Butlr chose to go the API-first route (25:23) Use cases and Butlr partner...

“By making controls simple and transparent every day and for every building, you massively increase energy efficiency without even talking about analytics or AI." —Alex Rohweder My Highlights Before the acquisition of J2 Innovations (3:20) Why Siemens wanted to acquire J2 Innovations (9:23) What separates J2 Innovations (12:44) Where does fin stop and J2's customers' products begin? (16:09) Democr...

“The fragmentation is a very real issue. I don't see it necessarily resolving anytime soon, just because of a lot of these other trends in the market." —Joe Aamidor My Highlights Why are we talking about this? (3:02) Deal #1: IBM buying Envizi (9:39) Deal #2: View buying RXWell and IoTium (24:19) Deals #3: Occupant experience apps (37:13) Overall Trends (54:14) You can find Joe on LinkedIn. Watch...

“I've been giving presentations on why commissioning agents should be using data analytics and commissioning since 2013. It's completely unsatisfying to me to do it the other way. And still the vast majority don't... But the construction industry is different. By the end of the project, they're saying they'll never do another project without analytics. That transformation will happen much faster."...

“You've got control systems in the building and interesting applications up in the cloud. And then there's something in the middle and it's really gnarly and messy and ugly and a pain in the butt to work with. That's what we do." —Andy Frank My Highlights Novant's founding story (2:47) The challenges Andy sees in the smart building market today (14:36) Where Andy sees the smart building market goi...

“You're never going to fix the decarbonization challenges we have today with just data and adjusting active systems. You also have to fix the envelope. And vice versa: envelope only approaches don't solve it either. We need data science AND building science." —Craig Stevenson My Highlights Building science + Data science = Zero Carbon future (11:37) Building science deeper dive (16:14) Data scienc...

“What we need is a carbon reduction plan for every existing building on the planet. And we can do that immediately." —Christopher Naismith My Highlights What did you do as an energy engineer / consultant? (3:27) After target setting and benchmarking, we need to scale up the building decarbonization process. Where are most organizations at today? (5:19) What are all the ways in which the process is...

“Humans are great sensors, but we're not very good at dashboarding anything. Having this IAQ data can become a change management tool and it could really impact the culture of the occupants in the space." — Shona O'Dea My Highlights Founding story of Kaiterra (6:52) Shona on the history of IAQ practice (9:16) Making sense of the wild wild west of IAQ - state of the industry (23:08) Making the busi...

“Stop talking, start doing. The tools are in place. The vendors exist. The folks that understand how to bring this stuff to life exist. So start doing it." —Thano Lambrinos   My Highlights QuadReal's smart building strategy (8:42) What is a Building Operating System? (17:30) Thano's "utopian state" (29:24) Why they say that the "operators love it"? (45:29) Command and control capabilities (59:29)...

“I like to say 'Use what your mama gave you.' Your building is already a battery. Every building is a battery." —Deepa Lounsbury My Highlights History of Extensible Energy (7:07) History of demand management → load flexibility (9:14) Why the focus on the typically ignored, 100k square foot and under buildings? (24:24) Case studies / real-life examples (50:51) You can find John and Deepa on LinkedI...

"Real estate companies are not going to go bankrupt because they're inefficient. It's actually just a blip on the bottom line compared to much bigger drivers. Those business drivers are the keys to tackling climate change..." —Carlos Flores   My Highlights History of NABERS (6:02) The way things were 15 years ago (19:30) Drivers that have created business transformation (22:30) The way things are...

“My position is that in this space, when you're really getting systemic you need to be connecting all three (Buildings, Utilities, and Policymakers) in ways that we aren't yet. That's where we'll succeed or fail is how we make the right connections across these sectors." —Colleen Morris My Highlights Lots of innovation in only two of the three stakeholders (Utility, Policymakers, and Buildings (5:...

“We needed an incredible sophistication at the building level, but we also need to do this in a way that is not just reliable, but also makes sense from an affordability standpoint and more and more makes sense from a sustainability standpoint." —Lincoln Bleveans My Highlights Why is building technology important? To the U, to students, to other stakeholders. (7:29) Energy & Sustainability - unpac...

“Step one (of 3) on reducing embodied carbon emissions is to start thinking about if we have to build a building at all. So if we just stopped building right now, there's plenty of empty space for us to put all that square footage into that we say we need. And beyond that, we have more than we need." —Stacy Smedley My Highlights Quick overview of Stacy's background - lots of activities! (2:02) A p...

“You can build anything on top and change things rapidly. Because of the platform business model, there's an ecosystem, so things are continuously evolving." —Jon McFarlane My Highlights Founding story of PlaceOS (4:32) Other industries besides office that are being disrupted by the internet (8:25) What is PlaceOS? (13:00) Platform approach - what is a platform (29:44) Why open source? (35:27) Hot...

“Those that adapt and recognize what's coming will continue to live on and those who want to keep their Blockbuster stores open with videos on the shelves, they're not going to be here in a few years' time." —Rob Huntington   My Highlights Mike Brooman on defining the MSI and the types of stuff they do: it's about mastery of technology and people skills to be the glue that brings all the systems t...

“I know people have different views on what digital twins is all about. I think that if digital twins are fundamentally an integration challenge then the most pressing problem is how to make things work with each other." —Anto Budiardjo   My Highlights Reflecting on 30ish years of integration efforts (5:54) The smarter stack framework, how it came about, why it's valuable, and how it describes a n...

“You hear so many arguments defending the status quo.” —Andrew Rodgers   My Highlights Andrew’s answer to my favorite question is the pain-consumer distance and how the market isn’t self-regulating The difference between open ecosystems and open source How it all comes down to capabilities that are unlocked and personal preference Open vs. interoperable Where open source fits Walking up the stack...