Future Construct: Thought Leaders Discuss BIM and Construction Solutions for the AEC Industry

Transforming Smart Homes: Insights from Jim Flaherty of Marvin Windows

• Mark Oden and Amy Peck • Season 4 • Episode 4

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How can a background in sociology and criminology lead to groundbreaking innovations in home design? Today, we explore this fascinating journey with Jim Flaherty, the Director of Digital Product and Engineering at Marvin. Jim unveils how his unique career path has shaped his understanding of user behavior, leading to people-centric solutions in the realm of digital home technology. From the importance of end-to-end product development to the critical role of channel partners, Jim shares invaluable insights for aspiring professionals emphasizing adaptability and a holistic view of user interactions.

Get ready to discover Marvin's forward-thinking approach to modern home design, particularly with their exquisite new product line, Modern. Imagine homes graced with large glass panels and motorized windows that not only enhance aesthetic appeal but also bring the convenience of automation into everyday life. Jim takes us inside the Marvin Connected Home Lab, a pioneering space in the Twin Cities where new digital products undergo rigorous testing. Highlights include the Awaken Skylight, an innovative motorized skylight that promises to redefine how we think about natural light and ventilation in our homes.

We also delve into the technical intricacies of integrating smart technology seamlessly into existing home designs. Jim shares the challenges and triumphs of maintaining aesthetic consistency while embedding advanced features like automatic locking, rain sensors, and egress capabilities. He emphasizes the balance between innovation and practicality, ensuring that technology simplifies rather than complicates daily tasks. Looking ahead, Jim envisions a future where homeowners experience seamless connectivity, with smart windows that anticipate and respond to every need—reducing the necessity for manual intervention. Join us for an enlightening conversation with Jim Flaherty, and get a glimpse into the future of smart living spaces.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Future Construct. I'm Mark Oden, the CEO of BIM Designs Incorporated and guest host of Future Construct. Today I'm with Jim Flaherty, the Visionary Director of Digital Product and Engineering at Marvin, leading the innovative Marvin Connected Home team. Jim pioneers groundbreaking interactions with windows, doors and skylights, transforming living spaces. His mission To actualize Marvin's purpose of redefining living standards. A collaborative leader, jim cultivates talent and champions digital product evolution. With a rich background in Fortune 500 companies, he's a seasoned expert in digital innovation, specializing in smart solutions from mobile apps to security systems. Jim's journey is a testament to his commitment to revolutionizing established industries, paving the way for a smarter, more connected future. With Marvin at the forefront, with so much experience, you continually and positively influence the digital construction market. Thank you for all of your many contributions in the AEC space, jim.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for having me and thanks for a good intro.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, fantastic, so happy you're here, jim. So in the pre-call we were discussing that you went to the University of Minnesota and Duluth for college and you grew up in Minnesota, so I'd love to start with how, from early childhood and into college, your experiences impacted your career and interest in digital innovation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a great question. I am a Minnesota boy at heart, as we were talking about. I would say I'm a little non-traditional in this space. I didn't go to school for engineering or your standard business path. What I wanted to do is work with people. I didn't go to school for engineering or your standard business path. What I wanted to do is work with people. So I'm more of the sociology, actually criminology, wanted to work with people, help people, and so college was actually a great time where I learned those skills on researching people, understanding people's behaviors, how to change people's behaviors, right, that was kind of the non-traditional path I do.

Speaker 2:

But as you look at what we try to do in some of the companies I've been at Marvin obviously being the best example of that is understanding people. How do they use these products in their home? How can we enhance how they use them and make their lives better? So we enhance how they use them and make their lives better. So, um, yeah, kind of that Midwest low key, I would say a little bit. Uh, only went away from home about two hours, uh, but learned some great skills up there at UMD to bring back here. Um, with some good Minnesota companies building out some tech.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for sharing that and and and. Let's uh, if we go a little bit further back into your childhood, what got you into sociology and helped you focus on that?

Speaker 2:

who I had for a couple of classes and really opened up just that vision of again understanding people. So there's probably not much more than that other than that was an early thing I grasped onto and then started to push my degree towards that. I will say I've always been someone who was interested and open to how technology kind of changes things. Open to how technology kind of changes things. I always tinkered on things. You know, kind of my first car, which was not all that reliable or great, I was always working on that early into computers, everything else. So I guess I don't necessarily know why that led me to it. I was just naturally gravitated towards those type of things.

Speaker 1:

I've seen in my own past experience in relationships folks that have a psychology background performing really well in the business space. So how has your sociology background affected your performance in business?

Speaker 2:

You know, the number one thing is anchoring it back to the people, right? So, excluding all the internal conversations and that's a huge part of you know the roles of trying to get these things in that constant reminder every day that we're doing this for the homeowner or, as I expect we'll talk about a little bit today a huge portion of what we do is making sure our channel partners are set up for success. Right, that's half of what makes these products great is not just what they do or the tech that we put in them, but how they're supported by us as a company. And you know, our trade partners, like smart home integrators or others, that kind of bring that vision to life. So I'd say that that core, which obviously that's what it is, is focusing on the person. I think that's what makes these products great, rather than, you know, some tech is built for tech sake and like, how can we challenge what we're doing here from a product sake standpoint A little different than what we're trying to do here at Marvin?

Speaker 1:

Fantastic yeah, solving for the people. I love that. Yeah, brilliant. And with your diverse background in digital product development, what advice would you give to aspiring professionals looking to enter this field?

Speaker 2:

Back on that same point is focus on the end to end. We talk as a team. You know discovery to death People actually using the product is a huge portion of that. But how they learn about the product for the first time, how they're educated on it before they buy, the actual buying process is obviously a big one for these type of products, all the way through service Right, and we don't like to talk about it.

Speaker 2:

But smart products have an end of life. Right On something like a window and a door that's much longer than something like your phone or other. But we want to be aware of that, we want to plan for that. And so I would say younger people in their career, if you're going to be a developer, that will help you be a better developer, even though you're very, very focused on certain things is to take a step back and understand a little bit more and be part of the broader conversation. And I think in our industry a lot of people can get kind of hyper, focused on their rabbit hole. We try as a team to kind of keep everyone a little higher level.

Speaker 2:

The second point is don't get frustrated when people don't use your product in the way that you want them to. It's so frustrating, right? I'll give an example with our product, our new smart windows. We've got one up here behind us there's about seven more in the little room I'm in here. We've built in a feature like the core of what we're doing is we're motorizing an automated smart windows.

Speaker 2:

Surprisingly, no one's really done this from a manufacturer standpoint. So there's bolt-ons that are kind of big and ugly and loud and they don't quite integrate into good systems. Marvin's, we're not dipping our toe, we're jumping two feet in and it's fully integrated. You don't see anything. It's very quiet. It comes with a warranty, which is always great.

Speaker 2:

But one of the features we added in that's a little more innovative is, instead of just pushing a button on the window or the wall or in your mobile app, we can sense the outdoor temperature and humidity. And your home, we say it, will breathe on its home, right? So whenever you say it's nice out, it'll open up and then when it falls outside of those conditions, it will close. And we think people are going to love this feature, but we don't know, right, like people will respond. Of course I want my windows to open and close automatically when it's nice out.

Speaker 2:

We're getting a lot of our first, you know, real world experiences. It takes a while for these jobs to develop and homeowners move in, but we're interested. Are people actually going to let their windows open automatically? If they don't, great, we just learned something new and we'll go pivot our resources towards different features. But if they all come back saying, hey, add indoor air quality, add all these other dynamics of make this smart window open and close without me having to touch it. So back to your question. A lot of times we design these things and have these grand hopes of how people will use them. Don't get frustrated when people do the complete opposite. Right, it's just another good learning. You move on, you start to develop for how those people are actually using it, not how you want them to.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic, jim, and I'm so curious. Already, you know, talking about the technology and getting into that, and I'd love to do that with you after the break and getting into that, and I'd love to do that with you after the break. But before the break I'm just curious a little bit more about you know, what navigated you further into the realm of, specifically, smart home technology? How did you find it? How did you fall in love with it?

Speaker 2:

My first role out of school was actually selling home products, control products. I was at Honeywell at that time Thermostats, indoor air quality, all that fun stuff, right, the common stuff. You think about a big home controls for HVAC. A couple of years into that I started, I would say, bugging the product team, the product development team, and they were bugging me a little bit, using me for some of the market stuff and getting in contact with customers and to be honest, I think both sides just kind of said Jim, your brain is a little more towards you're doing well in sales. I think I did well in sales, I hope. But the questions you're asking and you're trying to kind of tunnel into some of these future products is a clear fit. So the home side of things was just naturally those were the things I was selling and started to connect really well with the product teams and their processes and helping with that. And then they stole me into that world and I haven't looked back right. So they were also a great. I always tell people they were a great company to kick product development off.

Speaker 2:

For me personally they did very traditional processes in product development while also doing big things. I was on that team, not leading the program, but I was on the team when they were starting to do connected thermostats Right. So we had smart thermostats. They could do schedules and do some cool things. But that same time Honeywell was doing that, nest came out and so you have this explosion of one of the first big categories of smart devices. And it was an interesting time to be part of a product development team when most home products unless you were working with these very high-end systems, like with integrators you know the earlier control force systems, crestron systems it did a little bit. It was really the first time you got that standard level a simple device like a thermostat becoming connected, becoming smarter, having a digital experience along with that. So, selfishly, I was there at the right time. We had some great leadership on the team at that time that kind of taught me those core product management skills.

Speaker 1:

I love that background and I see a lot of parallels in my transition from software engineering to software product management. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that, because it was a blast in the past for me as well. We were talking about the importance of learning from homeowners and their interactions with your products. I'm really curious, jim, coming out of that conversation, how are your smart home components designed to work with that learning?

Speaker 2:

yeah, it's, um, you know, marvin has pretty clear and definitive uh goals. Um, enhancing air, light and views is one of them. Um, we talk about that also all day long and imagine and create better ways of living. Those are kind of the what we try to live by here, and, as you talked about that lived experience, our team is just trying to fit within those Marvin goals, right? So, as we talk about air, light and views, most fenestration companies it's window and door companies, but, specifically, marvin has done a huge amount of effort, a lot of investment, like with our core R&D team, to maximize those views, to maximize that light coming in team, to maximize those views, to maximize that light coming in. We have a newer product line that's launching that last few years, called Modern, and think of these big sheets of glass that can be five feet wide, 10 feet tall. We have doors that span 50 feet wide, really maximizing, like kind of that all glass house or modern house theme. They're used everywhere, but it allows architects to realize their vision right. Whereas a lot of traditional, older windows were a little bit smaller and couldn't. They had less glass right, a lot more wood. What we tried to do, though, is take a step back and focus on the air portion. So, if you think long back, all of the companies and focus on the air portion. So if you think long back, all of the companies again Marvin included who are really maximizing the views, maximizing that light that can come in.

Speaker 2:

But the traditional way of cranking open your window or put some windows will push out, or we're in the Midwest, it's double hungs, you're kind of sliding them up and down. No one had really done a full faith effort. We talked about that a little bit earlier. Right, some people are dipping their toe in. There's third parties that have these big bolt-on motors and everything else. As we look at how do we enhance air, convenience is probably number one. And homeowners to be able to hit a simple switch on the wall and have 10 windows in your home open all at once. We talked about being able to program the system to kind of breathe right, when it's nice outside, just let it come in. We also work with voice assistants as well. So just that simplicity and ease of helping people open their windows is a huge one that we're doing, of helping people open their windows is a huge one that we're doing.

Speaker 2:

And then, second, it's that peace of mind. We know with a lot of smart devices, half of it is how do I use the product? But think of a garage door opener. I just want to know when I left my home and I'm gone all day did I forget to shut my garage door right, like at my home? I have a smart garage door. I also have kids, so every night at 11 PM, if it's not shut, it shuts itself. Those are the kinds of things that we can kind of take from historical smart devices and bring over to windows, so anchoring it from a homeowner perspective in that simplicity of getting air in your house.

Speaker 2:

The second portion that we like to push on again I'll push back to the channel is our architects. You think of these big, you know giant walls of glass. Or they have tall ceilings in some of these nice homes. Well, hot air gets trapped. Most people don't know that Very hot air gets trapped when you design some of these. And we know an architect isn't going to make an operable window 20 feet up where a homeowner takes out a pole and starts to crank a window open. Could they design that? Yes, Would the homeowner actually use that? Probably not. So these type of products are helping our architects, our smart home integrator partners kind of bring that to life in a more real world situation, whereas they couldn't before. Before it would probably just stay hot up there and they don't like that or they'd throw an operable window somewhere else. That's not ideal for them. So for us, a lot of that's bringing that vision that people want. These products can help you do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can speak from experience on the manually crank operated skylight. Yeah, and you know, being 20, feet high and just simply not getting any functionality, even though it was built to vent. You know you have to pull out this mega long pole. That's awkward and it becomes work to do that.

Speaker 2:

We have. By the way, we can follow up after the call. Right above me is Marvin's smart skylight. We can follow up after the call. Right above me is Marvin's smart skylight. It's called the awakened skylight and it has it's motorized open and close, with built-in screens. It has a motorized shade and we even have augmented lighting. So at night at your home you probably experienced that big black hole in your ceiling, like the void we actually have on both sides of the skylight where it can pump in light so it mimics daylight things get dark and it can.

Speaker 2:

It has circadian lighting so you can go from you know that nice warm light to nice bright, bright, bluish, white. So that was a perfect softball for me. There You're talking about, we have one. There's one right above me.

Speaker 1:

Oh, very cool. Well, tell me actually more about the Innovation Center that you're in. Is that for architects, is that for homeowners, channel partners? Tell me about the Innovation Center there.

Speaker 2:

So we talked about War World earlier, home base for Marvin, a huge research and development team there. That's where they're working on what we call the core R&D products the wood, the glass, every other material we have there. What we've done down here in the Twin Cities now recently, since we started developing these digital products, is we have a new Marvin Connected Home Lab. That's what we call our team. I'm in our outdoor space. We actually have two spaces here, one inside where we have a big test wall. We've got a ton of products that we're developing. Our mobile apps are developed here. Our developers are actually here in the Twin Cities, our people who test our product owners, product management. We're very proud of that that. We're kind of a full-on Twin Cities-based team.

Speaker 2:

And then where I am is actually it's basically a tiny house. We call it our lab house. This is where we get to install the product in its more finished form, test out how it's operating, do some of the final firmware testing, app development testing. But, as you alluded to, this is a space that we will bring some of our channel partners to experience. Hey, when you open seven windows, you can feel that right and you can use our voice assistants. This little guy right here that's a control four system, and so our integration into those smart automation systems for our integrators, this is a place where we can have a little bit of that lived experience with them.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic. Thanks for sharing a little bit more about that. To transition into the broader sense of the industry, what are some emerging trends or technologies in the smart home industry that you find particularly exciting or promising?

Speaker 2:

in my role. Everything's starting to get to two things One, smaller right. Things are starting to get smaller, and not just smaller, because there's a lot of miniaturization that happens, but small and robust. That's kind of a key for us. Here we have about a 1.1 inch by 1.1 inch area within the frame of our windows. Our goal in this program.

Speaker 2:

One of the challenges we talk about in this program is seamless integration. The homeowner doesn't want the smart window looking different than their standard window, right? They don't want it to have different sight lines, they just want it to be completely behind the scenes. We also don't want to have a separate product line that all looks great, as in seamless, that our architects have to design when they already have a great product line that they're doing. They don't want to have to mix and match. That's tough for our channel to do. So the challenge for our team was get all this stuff in this tiny little area.

Speaker 2:

But we can't have. We can't have, you know, fast, casual tech Sometimes we call it where it's designed for a year or two years or even five years. These products have to meet the quality requirements that Marvin sets forward with very long warranties. I can say that we offer a five-year warranty on all of the smart components, the actuators, the boards. You don't hear of that type of standard warranty in most tech devices. We kind of had to set a little higher bar, since these are going to be in your home, for you know, much longer and they're not just a throwaway device so small because we've got to fit it in, but robust. That's a huge thing we're focused on on this team.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, that's actually just breaking my head. Actually, you're fitting the entire smart home component controller in a 1.1 by 1.1 inch area in the window. That matches prior form factors, so that architects can reuse their existing design schema. It is it's not easy.

Speaker 2:

It's brilliant and I can you know not going too technical. But we have two different actuators because not only do we open and close the window, we automatically actuate the lock, which is it sounds simple. It's not that simple. We have a rain sensor on board so if it's raining, your windows automatically close. You don't have to worry about that coming into your house. And we have a couple different boards obviously running the system. And we have a couple different boards obviously running the system and we have backup power. Now, they're not batteries, but we have super capacitors, so if the power goes out in your home at any time, we can still close and lock your windows. That goes to some of the questions on that lived experience.

Speaker 2:

And going back to our architects, we didn't want that big. Hey, you bought the connected home products. Now here's the list of kind of we call them the asterisks, but this but this, but this but this A casement window which kind of opens. This way you can use all the same sizing, all the same glass types, the colors, basically all of the operations. So you can do a swap out from a manual crank out to our motorized, with very little exception there, even down to one of our patented features, which we're always happy to talk about, we still offer egress capability.

Speaker 2:

So egress is like, let's say, your master bedroom. You need a way to get out. If there was danger like a fire, right, you need a way to get out if there was danger like a fire, right, that would have been much easier for the Marvin team to say well, this one, if you do motorize, that won't egress. Right, just put egress somewhere else. But that's not what we heard from homeowners and our professionals is they just want that one big window. They want to put another window into set because that's code, right, you can't build your house without being able to get out.

Speaker 2:

That patented lock feature allows it to be motorized, but I can walk over to this window next to me and I can manually flip that lock switch and push out the window so I can get out even if all power is gone, even if anything has happened. We want to keep those homeowners safe. Those are the features that I think we're most proud of at Marvin is not just putting out tech and I keep saying this not just putting out tech for tech sake, but we offer egress, we offer giant glass sizes, we offer all this customization and we just want this to fit within that ecosystem, and that's it's not the easiest task, you know, trying to fit it in little spaces.

Speaker 1:

It's an impressive feat of multi-trade engineering that you've accomplished here. It's absolutely incredible, jim, so you have tremendous experience in bringing digitally focused solutions to the market for Fortune 500 companies. What are some of the key challenges that you've encountered and how have you overcome them?

Speaker 2:

uh, the biggest challenge is making sure you're backed with the right investment. So, um, dipping your toe into these type of companies for legacy companies, I think is a pretty common trend and that's where my experience has been, and marvin's no different than that. Right, we, we're cut. We're on a fourth generation coming up on fifth generation company, not just owned but led right. Paul marvin, marvin, christine Marvin are some of our leaders in the company actually running the company, which is fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Legacy companies, like we said, can just dip a toe. We're a window company. Let's see and throw out our first version of connected devices and see how it goes, see if we want to invest more. That's not how they did it here. They did some early projects that were focused on innovation. That Skylight we talked about was one of those projects, doing some early partnership with some external partners, because Marvin didn't have that muscle of app development, they didn't have that muscle of electromechanical expertise and how do we make these things operate? Right. But they did recognize we can go for some of the first pass. Uh, invest in a proper way, innovate in a proper way, market it in a proper way and then kind of phase two, which is where marvin connected home comes in, was investing at the right level to start bringing all of that horsepower internal to marvin. So that's about the time I was brought in.

Speaker 2:

Now we have, like we said, we have developers front end, back end developers here in the Twin Cities. We hired product management, product ownership. We have dedicated sales, dedicated service. That's one overlooked thing on the team, right. So what I would say is challenges a lot of time.

Speaker 2:

We trust the teams and then I say this to my team a lot I trust you're going to make a great product right. You're going to overcome the very clear challenges of fitting in this little one inch by one inch space. You're going to find a way to overcome the challenge of moving a four foot by 10 foot piece of glass. That's how big. We move these motors right. They're these giant pieces of glass. Full faith in the team.

Speaker 2:

What gets a little harder is making having the company do the investment on all the other things around the product that make it successful. Like we said, like we have a, we have two dedicated service people here in the Twin Cities. If you call, we answer and we're helping you out right. Those are the in that new tech within Marvin. We felt that necessary to make sure we're augmenting our already great service team. So again, a little shout out to our leaders. They invested in the proper way to make sure that we weren't, you know, light on everything that we needed, which is which is different than I've experienced at some other companies.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you for sharing, yeah, sharing that experience. I can relate for sure. So, jim, in your role as director of digital product and engineering, how do you balance the innovation of new technologies with the practicality and functionality required for everyday use in home environments? Physicality and functionality required for everyday use in home environments.

Speaker 2:

Um, it's a big one. Um, I actually think that's one of the reasons. Um, this worked out between me and marvin and that journey when they reached out and said they had a position, uh, open was more of that b2b to c experience. Um, again, coming from honeywell, coming always having a channel professionals in the middle, we have a fantastic team before the Marvin Connected Home team, we have a dedicated team here. We still have a dedicated team here called the Marvin Design Lab, and they were kind of challenged with do things differently and innovate. And we did that, they still do that, and where Marvin Connected Home now comes to is bring the practicalities of that, the constraints of product design right, kind of a little bit more of that balance within the innovation and actually getting things out to the market in the proper way.

Speaker 2:

For us, like we talked about a little bit in the beginning, practicality is everything for us. So we don't want to design the tech and fit it into the windows. We want to start with the windows how are people using them and then work backwards. So we're always going to land on practicality first. We're always going to rely on reliability, stability.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking of some of the sprint work that's being done right now on the team and we're planning, you know, our next summer release and getting into the details and we have this big stacked chart.

Speaker 2:

Now our product owner pulls together of this dark blue area which is all our tech debt and kind of the security stuff and making sure we're good there and it's a lot of the list right, those are always going to get prioritized Make sure when someone hits a button at work, make sure we are secure, make sure we are stable, make sure everything in the system of the basic stuff again, just simply hitting a button or having the rain sensor work. The team knows that that will always be our first go around and then we start to talk about hey, what else can we add to that error algorithm? How can we, you know, how can we partner with a new company and, you know, get into a new smart home system or a new voice assistant? So I would say for us it's an unfair balance because of the industry we're in, because of the expectations of the homeowner. You know it's always balanced towards kind of that practical side of keep things working.

Speaker 1:

So thank you for sharing that, Jim. And what role do you see digital innovation playing and shaping in the future of home design and living experiences?

Speaker 2:

I think it's more the practical side it's taking, like we've done in our windows here, if people were already opening their windows. We can help you do that. We can help you do that in a better way, a more insightful way, or even a way where you don't have to think about it, which is, again, our grand vision you never have to touch your windows again. But overall in homes, I think that's what everyone's been trying to do, which is what are homeowners doing today and how can we use technology to just make that more seamless, more reliable and an easier experience. The example we give on connected home here, whenever we talk about it, is you wake up in the morning you know, for me, 60 degrees is about perfect, maybe 55, a little bit crisp and you wake up and you may or you may not, depending on your home, open a window in your master bedroom and then you go over to one of your kids rooms and then you go to your main level or another part of the home and you open your living room and then you open one across your house because you want that nice crossflow ventilation. Well, a lot of people just don't do that because it's like well, I'm just going to get ready for work and I'm going to leave in an hour anyways, I can live without that, right? This is a perfect example where you can just wake up and say, hey, google, open all my windows and you're just, your day is ready. You didn't have to think about hey, I got to walk all around the house. Now we we joke about. You know how hard is it to go walk around and open windows in your house. It takes just a few minutes. It's a very simple task, but we we want to recognize, while simple, a lot of people don't do that. Right? It's probably one of the biggest challenges within the window industry is we make these gorgeous windows and no one opens them. Right? We want to start helping people open them. So I think for us, that's a very clear example of just make it easy for everyone. That'll go across other device types.

Speaker 2:

Another good example that I use because after I joined the team, I remember last summer I'm probably going to have it this summer again, by the way I had my son in my truck and I forget where we were driving to for dinner and it's perfectly clear out and we leave and 10 minutes later, right when we get there it starts pouring and all the windows in my house were open and I just remember getting in and like driving as quickly as I could without speeding too much of like there's going to be water in my house, cause, right you just, you just have that fear of oh no.

Speaker 2:

Well, hey, I could have just opened up the mobile app and said close all my windows, or like we had talked about. I don't even have to open my mobile app. We have sensors in the window that will pick up if water's coming in and it'll close. So again, it's not that we do this magical new experience for the homeowner, it's we make it easier, more predictable of what they're doing. So again, across homes, all devices, I think that's what we're gonna see more of.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, across homes, all devices. I think that's what we're going to see more of. Yeah, brilliant examples, jim. So we've talked about a few different projects and products that you've launched and worked on. Is there a particularly memorable product launch from your career and the lessons learned from it?

Speaker 2:

It has to be my first product. This is my time working on home controls and it was actually a pretty straightforward project. So a humidifier in your home? It's pretty simple. They put it on your furnace or air handler.

Speaker 2:

Gets real dry here in the Midwest Horribly dry, as most people know who live here and it just adds humidity to your home. And they were controlled by very old school technology of a little dial, no real smarts in it, and we wanted to provide a digital controller. And there was one. It's more accurate, which is what digital technology can bring. We love that. It looked better, so we're kind of set to go there.

Speaker 2:

But one of the features that we had in some of our smarter digital controllers was, as it gets colder, the humidity tends to want to condense on your windows. So if we monitor the outdoor air, we can change the level of humidity in your home just to the perfect level where you get the most humidity, without having all this dripping happening on your windows. And again, anyone who lives in a cold climate has experienced the sweating window effect. So it was great for this. But the challenge in this program is we wanted to include it standard, so we actually took one of our existing thermostats, retuned it with some different sensors, but it's the same housing. It was actually almost an identical board, same screen, and we kind of retuned it with some different sensors, but it's the same housing. It was actually almost an identical board, same screen, and we kind of retuned it. So that was a good entry into product management of sometimes it's not thinking about the greatest innovation.

Speaker 2:

You know that utopian vision of what could we make this little humidity controller? I don't know if there is a utopian vision there. It's a pretty simple product but there were very clear constraints on cost. Pretty simple product but there were very clear constraints on cost, very clear constraints on ease of install, ease of use, and so that's probably my favorite. It was also a product that was not optional. We were going to include it on all of our humidifiers, which is always great. You know it's going to have adoption right away and I will call out that that was the.

Speaker 2:

We don't tell this to a lot of people, but my favorite feature I've ever added to a product was that product. All you would do to set that temperature or you know that level of sweat on your windows was a one through 10. Very simple If your windows are sweating and you're at a seven, go down to a six, wait a day or two, see if your window still sweats. The easiest user experience, right, just go up or down depending on whether your windows are sweating. But if you were at a 10 and you still didn't have enough humidity and you didn't have sweating on your windows, we let that controller go to 11. So you could go from 10, go to 11. We call that humidity boost and it would add another 10% and go crazy. We had a lot of spinal tap jokes. For those of that generation who know that like we're taking it to 11. It's probably my favorite product and product and feature I've ever done is a product that went to 11.

Speaker 1:

So that's awesome. So, actually, speaking of spinal tap and taking it to 11, outside of your professional endeavors, how do you balance your passion for biking, playing guitar and happen to have it listening to death metal? With your demanding role at Marvin.

Speaker 2:

I don't know why that's in my bio. I probably put it in there. I do like some heavier bands. Again, this one I'll come back to specifically Marvin. No-transcript at Marvin. To create that balance Doesn't mean we don't have stretches where we're coming up to a launch or we're having to invest a lot more time.

Speaker 2:

But we've actually had that from comments from some of our developers who have been in a little bit more environment where it's go, go, go, go, go, never stop. Just try to get as many points done. For those who know Jira and story pointing just go, go, go. And again one of our developers said on this team and it feels like in Marvin we're actually focused on where we're trying to get what we're trying to do and not just that grind of how much are you getting done? So again I'll call this one back to Marvin of they do they want to focus on let's do the right thing, let's get where we need to go. And then back to what we talked about earlier invest properly in the resources, make sure the teams are the right size. We've got the right people to make this happen.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing. I'm excited to hear that you have that work-life balance and it's supported on both spectrums. I believe in the same and, as a final question of the show and a traditional future construct, if you could project yourself out 25 years and wanted to have any device or technology that would benefit you personally, what would it be and what would it do? Technology that would benefit you personally what would it be and what would it do?

Speaker 2:

I don't know what the technology would be to call it. I think as we start to push further, obviously one of the things we try to do here is kind of the big data. Let's learn everything right here at work. I try to learn everything. I think our broader team tries to do that. We try to understand and not just at work, but personal.

Speaker 2:

Right the news, new music I love. I love finding new music to listen to in bands. I'm always sharing that. Don't give me some type of personalized spotlight in a better way of the news, and I know there's some companies trying to do that Same with music. I haven't found some of the big streaming music providers to really tailor to what I want. So the core I say any technology that can allow me a better balance between staying connected while allowing me to be disconnected is the utopian for me is get me less screen time, get me less investment of time while also getting my efficiency of soaking that stuff up. So I'm happy to hear about some of the AI or assistance or you know calling out things like Copilot, obviously for corporate world. I don't know if that's the future, but hopefully in 25 years that can start to help us come along and be a little more efficient at what we're doing.

Speaker 1:

I agree, and I drive, you know I drive to efficiency every day with my own, my own life and and I can't imagine how, in 25 years, technology will just support that, that overall effort for all of us, and create more time, you know, more time for productivity or free time. Hopefully that's the idea right. Well, fantastic. Thank you, jim. From your sociology background to your construction and tech focus, I'm truly excited to have taken it to 11 with you. Thank you for joining us on Future Construct and thank you to our listeners. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me, absolutely.

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Amy Peck

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Mark Oden

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