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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
What Happens When We Design Without Listening
In this episode of KP Unpacked, the number one podcast in AEC, Jeff Echols sits down with Frank Thalakotur, Senior Research Advisor at KP Reddy Co., to dig into one of the core issues holding the AEC industry back—chronic misalignment between design, delivery, and owner value.
Frank brings experience across HVAC engineering, MEP project management, startup innovation, and owner’s rep work. But in his current role, he’s stepping back from solutions and going deep into problem discovery.
Together, they unpack:
- Why the AEC industry keeps solving symptoms instead of root causes
- How contracts—not outcomes—are driving behavior
- Why owners remain disconnected from the value chain
- What it takes to shift from isolated innovation to system-level alignment
- Why “data is the new concrete”—and what happens when no one’s pouring it
This is real research, real voices, and real stakes. If you’ve ever asked “Why does this keep happening?” in AEC, you’ll want to listen in.
🎧 Powered by KP Reddy Co.
🎙 Hosted by Jeff Echols, Executive Director of Catalyst
🧠 Featuring Frank Thalakotur, Senior Research Advisor, KP Reddy Co.
Ignite what's next
We're launching something new... It’s called Catalyst.
It’s a space for AEC forward-thinkers are reimagining what’s next. This is where the top minds in the industry are sharing ideas, leading change, and pushing the future of AEC forward.
Sounds like you? Join the waitlist at https://kpreddy.co/
Check out one of our Catalyst conversation starters, AEC Needs More High-Agency Thinkers
Hope to see you there!
Hey, welcome back to KP Unpacked. This is where the biggest ideas in AEC and AI and innovation they all collide in one podcast that's powered by KP ReadyCo. In this podcast we break down the trends, the technology, the discussions and the strategies that are shaping the built environment and beyond. My name is Jeff Eccles. I run our incubator and our mastermind programs and obviously host all of our podcasts and events here at KP Ready Co, and in the original version of KP Unpacked I would be joined today by KP Ready. If you're watching the video version of this right now, you know that I am not joined by KP Ready today because I'm working on a special project with our research team. We have launched a new research project here at KP Ready Co and I'm going through the process of interviewing our entire research team to talk about what they bring to the research, what their outlook is, the lens that they're viewing the research through, and then what they think is going to come of the research and why it matters.
Speaker 1:So today I am joined by another one of my teammates. He's part of the KP ReadyCo research team. He's no stranger to this podcast or the KP Ready environment because he's been involved in our mastermind groups. He's been involved in our incubator. He's no stranger to this podcast or the KP Ready environment because he's been involved in our mastermind groups. He's been involved in our incubator. He's been here on the podcast before, so it's very comforting to me to have an old pro joining me here. Frank Thalicatur, thanks for joining me today. Glad to see you.
Speaker 2:Happy to be here, jeff. Thanks for having me on again, always a pleasure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. We've had some fun here. We've talked about your background before we're going to on that and the purpose behind this research, but one of the things that I think that people really need to understand is that this research team that we have there is a depth of experience, a depth of expertise, a depth of knowledge, and it covers from my view, it covers the breadth of designing, building, the products that go into building and operating the built environment, the places where people live and they work and they play and they worship and they eat and all the things that we do in the built environment. So I'm really excited about the fact that we have these teammates, especially on the research side, that really cover that whole ecosystem. So, for those who don't know you, for those who have not heard you on a podcast before or met you in a mastermind before, give us a little bit of your background when you know, where'd you come from, how did you get to this point, and then why does that matter in terms of the research that we're doing right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2:So for some of the listeners that may have heard me speak previously, it was more about kind of AI and MEP engineering and so you know I think that was very solutions oriented and so I think a lot of what you'll hear today when we talk about is more on the problem side and pain points. But you know I say that to kind of allude to my career has been most predominantly in MEP engineering. I started out as a HVAC engineer and you know I think one of the luckiest things that happened to me in my career is I was exposed to alternate project delivery and improved collaboration and bringing projects together, and this is all as a kind of young HVAC engineer and so it just kind of got the wheels turning very early on in my career and I had this kind of desire I wanted to bring it to life and you know that was something I sought out to do in my career and I had this kind of desire I wanted to bring it to life and you know that was something I sought out to do in my career. And so I continued down the career path of being an HVAC engineer, MEP project manager and leading projects for a while and you know, I'd say I kind of struggled to really bring it to life. I don't know if it wasn't the tools that were available or just kind of people were maybe stuck in their own ways. I don't know if it wasn't the tools that were available or just kind of people were maybe stuck in their own ways. I don't know, that's part of the research we're going to do, right. So I don't want to spill the beans here.
Speaker 2:But after some time in my MEP career I was like, okay, you know what, Maybe it's the tools. And so I started my own company called TableCalc. That I thought would be a way to streamline MEP design workflows, improve collaboration. And it was my little way of being saying okay, if I can't solve it, at least I can try to contribute to a solution. And that was helpful and kind of let my creative juices out and let me work on a little passion project.
Speaker 2:But ran a challenge with that and trying to kind of you know how do we improve our collaboration, project delivery, um, and building operations, right.
Speaker 2:So then I kind of transitioned to the owner's rep side of the business and, um, you know, I thought, okay, now I'm quote, unquote moving into a little higher area of the project hierarchy, where I'm able to work with all project team members and act on behalf of the owners and to deliver the projects and as it informs the building operations and whatnot. So I thought, okay, this could be a unique opportunity to once again improve project delivery, improve that collaboration, and I kind of fell flat there, right. So I think, finally, coming here, it was an opportunity to say, okay, you know what? I think? I've been trying to look at solutions for a long time and our research is just focused on the problems and pain points, as I had mentioned. And so you know, it was kind of a refreshing change of pace in terms of, instead of bringing the solutions on projects, just being one step away from the projects and just going deep on the research and taking more of a scientific approach to understanding what those problems might be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, one of the things that's unique about your experience and our relationship, our knowledge of each other, our collaboration with each other, as you've also gone through, the startup incubator, which is one of the roles that I play here at KP ReadyCo, is to direct the startup incubator and, as you know, and you know, as, as folks have been listening to this podcast and these interviews, they hear this from time to time but our incubator focuses on because, because we we work with early stage startups and many times pre-revenue startups, we focus almost exclusively on customer discovery, right, what are the problems that customers have? You know, bring the solutions, of course, to those customers, but it's this deep dive into interviews, talking with customers, understanding the value propositions that they see, that they perceive, that they see that they perceive, and it's this exploration that I don't think is altogether different than the research that you're doing now, right, it's, in a way, it's that same sort of exploration. What are the problems? And one of the things I posted when I shared the press release actually for the Internet Owners Forum is no matter what business model we're talking about, if it's a startup, if it's an engineering firm, if it's an AE firm, a construction firm, whatever it is, if we're not focused on the value that our customers or our clients, probably in most of those contexts, if we're not focused on the value that they perceive, we've got a problem. And so I think it's to me it's really interesting the work that you and the rest of the research team are doing to try to get to the bottom, to first, as you said, to identify the problems before we jump into hey, here's some solutions. So you bring your MEP engineering, your HVAC engineering, to the table for the research as you go through the process, and I guess I should say, right as as as we're talking right now, you know, in the those for those that need some inside baseball, right, we record all of these, of course, and and our production team works on them and then publishes them at some date in the future.
Speaker 1:As we're talking right now, david and I have have done an interview, and Ted and I have done an interview, and Hope and I have done an interview, and tomorrow, I believe it is Zig and I are doing an interview. And as I look at the scope, David, deep construction background. Ted, deep building product manufacturer background. Hope, deep owners background, and then Zig, deep architecture background, and then you bring the engineering side to this. So I again, I think that that covers the breadth of the built environment work completely. I think it's fantastic that we have this team, this makeup of this team. So as you approach it from the engineering background, see it through the engineering lens. What are you expecting as you get into this research? I know you're already into it, but what are you expecting as you get into this research? I know you're already into it, but what are you expecting as you come into it and what's your methodology for the conversations? How are you going to work in in this realm of research to uh, to find out what those problems are?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, um, I'll start by saying nothing's off the table. You know it's kind of um we started.
Speaker 2:We started this podcast kind of just talking about, oh, my experience and everything, but I really have to just kind of show up to the table and almost forget everything that I've ever learned. Right, it's part of my part of our research. Methodology is kind of just as you mentioned the parallels with customer discovery is just keep asking why, right. I mean, I mean, you know, I think as an industry, and especially as an engineer, you know we have a bad habit of, okay, you hear a problem and here's the solution. Right, that's just like the engineer's mentality. But you know, the mindset shift is okay, let's not just try to help them provide a solution, let's try and help by digging deeper. You know, I think as an industry we get caught in trying to solve for a lot of the symptoms and we don't take time to dig deep enough and find what the root causes are. And when you talk about methodology, we really feel as a research team that if we can find some of these root causes, look for these patterns and trends, then we can really make some meaningful change as an industry. And so, from some initial conversations well, I should start with just from my experience you know, I, I've seen and heard a lot of the problems firsthand, you know, and I think that's kind of where there's a bias and I have to remove that bias when I'm having these conversations and just keep asking why they think the problem's there, why the pain points are there, why is the project delayed, why is it more expensive than it should be, and just kind of keep going until we get to some of the root causes. And so you know, I've already had my perspective change from some of the initial conversations that we've had with people and just the initial conversations that I've had with people. And you mentioned my colleagues on the research team and some of the conversations that they have worked continually in discussion and just kind of sharing learnings from each other. And I think that's some of the true value that we're going to be able to provide as the research team, you know.
Speaker 2:And so, with the specialties that everyone has, we're kind of a lot of us are focusing on kind of the owners, of the owners, and you know we really do feel that as part of the integrated owners forum, it's going to bring some perspective from the owners to to light. I mean, I think historically owners and innovation have kind of really had the same mindset and they want to innovate. They want to do well, but um, for a lot of owners that are facing design and construction projects, their primary goal isn't to innovate their design and construction process. It's to innovate their operational business. That generates revenue for a business, and this design and construction is sometimes a means to do that. So they might not have the frequency of project as contractors architects, engineers and so even when we talk about startups and tech companies, they're geared towards creating solutions for people that have projects every month, new projects coming in, new projects going out, projects in process and so we just don't think the focus has been there on owners and really understanding their pain points and problems and seeing what that might look like for them and how that turns a path on innovation for them, and so that's kind of what we're really trying to do, and I kind of mentioned some of the initial conversations we're having.
Speaker 2:It's pretty cool because our colleagues are having a conversation with building product manufacturers and saying, ok, what does it take for you to guarantee cost certainty, remove risk and whatnot, and then we'll take that.
Speaker 2:Learning in our conversation with the owners is like okay, are you, would you feel comfortable doing this to remove, uh, the uncertainty from the uh, building product manager, building product manufacturer side and you just trying to understand what that looks like to push innovation forward. And so you know one thing with our integrated owners forum, I mean we've really just created this initial push for the owner research program right now and you know we're in the process of developing the research partner program where we'll continue the conversations as a research team with architects, engineers, contractors, building product manufacturers, in the eventual hopes of, okay, talking to owners, understand their pain points. We know what the industry kind of wants and needs and now we know what our architects, engineers, contractors, research partners are pushing for innovation. Our architects, engineers, contractors, research partners are pushing for innovation. And we feel like if we can kind of create a marriage between what the industry wants, what the industry is working on, we can really push progress in the industry faster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, One of the things that you said in there that I think is really important you know and I've KP loves to point out that I'm the oldest guy in the room.
Speaker 1:I'm a few months older than he is. That's sort of the running joke, but after three decades in this industry, it's absolutely confirmed for me that we have historically had a lack of perspective into how does our work as an architect, as an engineer, as a contractor, whoever it is how does our work impact the business or the life, or whoever the owner is right, whatever the context for them is, how does it change their life? Right, because that's where their value proposition is going to be. Oh, this project with this engineer, this contractor, it allowed me to do this, it allowed me to be more profitable, it allowed me to shorten the time to delivery, or whatever it is. And what you said a minute ago about that, I think is really important. I think it's a real blind spot, has historically been a real blind spot for the industry and really focusing on the owner problems and how our work from the design, the construction side, the material side, how it impacts the business of um, of the owners, of the, of the developers, of the operators. So I think I think that's really important and you know you were talking about innovation and KP and I um, I think, as we're recording this now, I think this just published.
Speaker 1:But uh, kp and I sat down and had a conversation a week, maybe two weeks ago now, about your innovation team. So your in-house innovation team at your engineering firm, your construction firm, whoever you are, and the necessity to be able to pitch. Well, not only to communicate in-house to your internal clients you know, this is what innovation is, this is what we're doing but also to your external clients, to these owners that we're talking about and it's not about, hey, we're more efficient. You know we've got this plugin for Revit or whatever, whatever the things are. We've got this new AI chat bot, but it's why does the innovation in my firm matter to you, the owner Right?
Speaker 1:You know what is the innovation in my firm doing to move the needle for you, the owner right, and that's the leap that we often don't make. It's the link that we're often missing and it's the part of the value'm really glad that that's what you're looking at and that's the way that you're approaching this and you know understanding that you, of course, you have a bias right. You've got years of experience. You've got such a depth of knowledge in a variety of areas right as your career has evolved over time, so you come with those biases, but if but you remain curious right as you go through this process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, and I mean I think you know kind of what you talked about innovation at firms. You know, I've definitely been part of those discussions when I was on the design side or on the rep side, and I think there's different approaches, you know, and I've sat in conversations with the CFO of the firm where it's like, okay, this is like someone mentioned this software, someone mentioned that software, someone's mentioning this software and it's like you know, one taking a step back from is it actually providing value to the clients or not? I mean, just from a business case, you know, firms can't pay for every software that is out there and hoping that it'll make them innovative. So then, like, how does it kind of make sense to these firms that want to innovate but are seeing technology solutions as a vehicle to doing that right, technology solutions as a vehicle to doing that right? And so I think that's why, for even engineering firms working with architects, working with the cross-section of the industry, okay, now, what does it look like to deliver value for the owner?
Speaker 2:And that's what we're hoping to help uncover, work with our research partners to kind of create that feedback loop and eventually hope that, you know, there's alignment there. So then okay, instead of just buying this software and that software, what we actually need to do is create our own knowledge base or some. I don't know. I'm kind of shooting from the hip here. I hope to speak more intelligently about this in the future, once we have some more research under our belt. But I mean, that's kind of the results that we hope to kind of garner in anonymously from our owners to the research partners and saying this is maybe where you want to think about spending some time and effort on your innovation program, because this is what we're hearing that the market needs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know, you know obviously what the market needs. Yeah, yeah, I know you know, obviously, you and Zig and Ted and David, and Hope you've all got big goals in terms of the number of conversations that you're going to have, the depth of those conversations, you know, this is, this is legitimate research that's going to have a large sample size. I'll say it that way. Right, this is not going to be hey, we're each talking to one person, this is going to be hundreds, and so the sample size is a legitimate sample size.
Speaker 1:So, again, understanding your background is different than Zig's, different than David's and Ted's and Hope's who are the people or what types of people are you specifically going to be interviewing for this research?
Speaker 2:So my primary focus is going to be with owners, for sure, but then with engineering firms as well, right, and I say that because you know I think in a lot of markets there's. I mean, we talk about project delivery with what we talked about for the most part here in terms of your capital expenditure, but then when we talk about facility maintenance and ongoing management of the building, there's a lot of engineering aspects in there and engineering decisions that help impact that side as well. You know so. You know from owners. You know I'm not just looking at it from a capital expenditure perspective, but also an operational expenditure, right, and how that informs engineering decisions and how engineers might look at their decision making in their process. I think we're very attuned to okay, this is the cost, budget and schedule we need to meet on this project, and how can we make that happen that sometimes we don't look at what I call the lifecycle of the building and how a impact, a decision during design, impacts the operation and maintenance of that piece of equipment and the service contracts that that generates and how that actually impacts the owners. You know. So I think that's a piece where, once again, both sides of the spectrum are extremely important in understanding how owners think about this. Is it truly important to them or is it a small matter for them? And then, how engineers thinking about it? Are they thinking about it in a perspective that is bringing value to the owners and clients bringing value to the owners and clients or why are they? What drives their decision making from this kind of facility maintenance perspective?
Speaker 2:And I think that's something we hope to kind of create a little bit more knowledge on both sides. You know, I think I've, from some of our early research conversations, I've heard all sorts of things like it doesn't really matter, it's a drop in the bucket for us, as opposed to oh well, it really matters Because you know, if something goes wrong or we're out of compliance with something or something shuts down, well, now this, that's a whole square footage section of revenue that we can't be generating for the day, and so you know. So I'm kind of mixing between a couple building types and sectors here. But going back to our methodology, that's why it's important to get a nice cross section of different market sectors and whatnot, because there are different drivers and different things that create value for people along the project delivery and building operation lifecycle and understand the pain points for who, when and where are going to really help us make some change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's important. A couple things there. You know, back in November I hosted our executive briefing down in Miami and we had, we had, you know, that's for those of you that may zoom out to a 30,000 foot perspective. You may. You may say, oh aha, that you know, that was the seed that led to um, to this conversation, to the integrated owners forum, could be, could be um, but one of the things we heard, from stage was an owner talking about the, the capex and the opex right and um, you know their, their comment at that particular event, that particular owner at that particular event
Speaker 1:said, hey, I know, I forget what the number was, but they had built a large number, let's just say, of projects in 2024. And he said I know what it's going to cost to construct this. I know the CapEx piece of this. What I really need to know, what real sort of black hole is around the OpEx right? And I need right? It would be very valuable for me if our designers, our contractors, et cetera, could shed some light on the OPEX side, because that's, you know, you mentioned lifecycle. That's what drives the operational, that's what drives the cost, the investment, the return on the investment of this facility that we're constructing into the future, right After, after finished, grading, is, is done and the landscape is, is, uh, is planted, um, so I think that's that's a really important point and, um, it's one that I I wonder how often that's overlooked, because it was an aha moment for some in that room in Miami, uh, last year, last November, I think it was, so that that's a great point. Now, the the other, the other thing that you said that I wanted to key in on, was it reminded me of the conversation that I had with hope a couple of days ago, as we were recording, and she comes from the owner side, business development person through and through. She's got relationships with connecting owners and designers et cetera, and and and basically you know, finger on the pulse of what the owners need, want, value, etc.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that Hope pointed out was the different verticals. You kind of touched on that. Different project types is maybe a better way to say that, and that's a question that has already come up right. We've sort of been leaking this information for a week or two now, kind of teasing it out here, and one of the questions has already started coming up. So what kind of, what kind of owners are you talking about? What kind of projects are you talking about? Is it? Is it data centers?
Speaker 1:or is it health care or is it, you know, whatever, um, and you touched on, but can you shed any more light on, maybe specifically, your goals as you, as you have your conversations for the research? Um, are you going to be a project type agnostic? Are you going to, uh, chase down certain rabbit holes, or how's that going to work as you do your research?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean, I think you think you mentioned kind of like the scientific method where we're trying to get a large number of subjects. So, you know, I think the research team and I we have a perspective that we want to chase down every rabbit hole, you know, and really understand what's going on in there and what problems and pain points that's generating. And you know, I think, in order for us, I genuinely want to be shocked and surprised by what we uncover, and so I think, in order to do that, we need to kind of talk to every market sector, and so I think that's going to be really important. You know, I think the big problems that we have in our industry, I think everyone experiences.
Speaker 2:I think there's going to be a subsect of problems that are maybe industry specific and those are still very important. I'm not trying to downplay the intensity of those problems and how it impacts owners, their budgets and schedules, but there is, I think, a commonality of problems across multiple market sectors that if we can uncover what those are and the root cause of those, then I think that's what's going to really make our research powerful, right, understanding what patterns and trends there are amongst different market sectors going down. Maybe it's not OPEX, maybe it is more on the capital project delivery side side, maybe it's upstream of that on the real estate side, right? Um, we're not really ruling anything out. I mean, if, if you are tasked with spending on real estate project delivery, design, construction, facility management and operations, we really think there's something we can learn from yeah, yeah, it's big goals yeah yeah, yeah, but important goals right there's.
Speaker 1:I remember going to a uh, this will resonate maybe with one or two people that are listening, but can we? My background is architecture. In case you know for those listeners that uh, that don't know that, um, samuel Mockby was an architect. He, he was sort of uh, um, labeled, I guess. Maybe maybe he even created or coined the term, I'm not sure, but citizen architect. He was one of the founders of Rural Studio at Auburn University and I went to a lecture of his a long time ago. He passed quite a few years ago, but one of the things maybe the only thing I even remember from his lecture was nothing worth doing is easy. So you guys are definitely in the realm of worth doing and it is a big task, uh, but it's an important task.
Speaker 1:A minute ago you talked about shooting from the hip, so I'm going to put you on the spot. What's a? It's not that bad. What's, what's a hot take that you have? What's something that you think is going to come out of this research? I'm asking everybody this question because we're going to come back in a couple of months or somewhere down the road after you've got a significant amount of research under your belt and we're going to revisit it.
Speaker 1:Okay, frank, you said this. You know, when we recorded back in April, you said this how's that going right? Are you still there? What have you learned that challenged that or whatever? Right, we're going to revisit it and I think that's going to be a lot of fun. Right, it's, it's part of the reason to do it. It's hey, what are we learning as we do this research?
Speaker 1:So, um, I fully expect for much, if not all, of the team to say something in these, in these conversations, and come back in a few months ago yeah, it's, it's not that or something else. So what's? Yeah, absolutely A hundred percent. That's that's sort of the definition of growth, right there? Um, so what's one, one hot take that you have right now? You've already started, you've done a little bit of research, already started the process. What's something that you, based on your, your knowledge, your background, the people that you know you're going to be talking to? What's something that you expect to hear and and maybe even have confirmed as part of this research project? And we'll we'll test it down the road in a couple of yeah.
Speaker 2:So, um, you know, I I think there's two things that come to mind in terms of like broader brushstrokes, and so I'm gonna ask for one, but I'm just so we can revisit both of them later.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna kind of uh let it go I mean I think the first one is, you know, the the AC industry, it's not lacking innovation, I think it's lacking alignment. You know, I think contracts drive our behavior more than outcomes, and I think that's something that, if we looked at it from a different perspective, it might be different. I mean incentivized more for outcomes as opposed to making sure everyone does right by their individual contracts is an interesting thought for me and I think you know, like I said, I think it is driving some of the behavior that we have now in the industry. The other I'll take in, if you're in MassFound Incubator part of the circle community, uh, the catalyst network that we have. I think you've probably seen, uh, some posts from me on this. But I mean, you know, I'll say it this way, data is the new concrete for construction, but nobody can inform the things that are going on when the building's operated and not keep it in PDFs, excel documents and whatnot. We'll start seeing some progress.
Speaker 1:All right. You heard it here first Data is the new concrete for construction and no one is pouring the foundation. I like that. I like that. All right, let's wrap this up with a final thought around you know, the folks that are listening to this right now do they need to be? Because we're at the beginning. We're at the beginning right now. We're at the beginning stages of this research that's going to go deep, it's going to be significant, all of those things. So, for somebody that's listening to our conversation right now, at the beginning of the process, what do they need to be paying attention to and watching for as the work progresses?
Speaker 2:to and watching for as the work progresses.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think the message I want to put out there is that there's honestly room for everyone to get involved.
Speaker 2:You know, I think today we talked about a lot about owners and we talked about architects, engineers, contractors, facility operators and whatnot, and you know those kind of are more arbitrary titles and roles that we play in our traditional building design industry.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think if, even if you're tangentially involved from a real estate perspective, facility, ops, design, construction, I think it's important for us to hear your perspective. You know, like if you talk to anyone on our research team, like everyone is very curious and we feel like we have a lot to learn from others, even though we've been in the industry and doing our things for decades. But I don't want to misconstrue in saying, whoa, we're talking to this person or my goal is this or that, that we don't care about your perspective. And so I encourage everyone to please reach out to anyone on our research team or anyone at the KP Ready company to see how you can get involved in the research, because your perspective matters and we're not going to be able to move the needle unless we hear everyone's voice and let that inform the research that we're doing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are great points. And, as you were saying that, you're talking about the depth of experience in the industry and I always hated this, you know, when I was doing a lot of business development and marketing, consulting and coaching, I always hated when firms did this. But this, you know, it's just, it's a big part of professional services. I was kind of doing the math on my fingers and amongst the research team itself, I I would estimate that there are well over a hundred years of experience in the in the AEC, aec industry. So that's so there. There is an awful lot of experience brought to the table here and they're all putting their biases aside and they're all staying curious and they all want to talk to you, the listener, about your perspectives.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that you can do, of course, is um, you can go over to the KP ReadyCo website, so kpreadyco slash IOF, which is where the uh, the information about the integrated owners form is. There's a form there on that website, so you can do that. You can also reach out to either me or Frank on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:I say this when I'm sitting with KP and having conversations with KP for the original version of KP Unpacked, which I do on a weekly basis, I always say, hey, you can't connect with KP on LinkedIn. His number of connections is maxed out. Number of connections is maxed out. Frank and I are a little bit more accessible on LinkedIn, so you could reach out to us, you could message us, certainly, and you can go to kpreadyco, slash, iof and, as we're talking about all of these things, we've mentioned the mastermind groups. We've mentioned the incubator, we've mentioned integrated owners forum. We've mentioned Frank, mentioned our circle community, our catalyst network.
Speaker 1:Our production team will put the links for all of these things in the show notes down below, so you don't need to go back. And what would they say? How do I find that? Just go to the show notes. The production team will have all the links there and uh, and point you in the right directions, including our. You know the links to our LinkedIn profiles, um, so you can, you can reach out to Frank, uh, or me specifically if you'd like to do that.
Speaker 1:We're always happy to make those connections and have those conversations, but, um, um, the the research team needs your help, they need your perspective, they need to hear your voice. So we hope that you'll participate in this project with us. Frank, thanks a lot for bringing this to us today. Thanks for coming back to the podcast. I always love these conversations with you and I'm really looking forward to the product you know what you're learning specifically and then the product that that's going to come out from the, from the entire research team. So thanks for the work that you do and thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no thanks for having me, jeff. Look forward to being back here from a few months in on the research and see when we'll talk about them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, we'll have that gotcha moment in a few months. Hey, this is what you said, how's that going now? So we'll have some fun with that. I think we'll also do a sort of like a big panel discussion. We'll bring the whole research team together and we'll have some fun kicking around, have some fun kicking, kicking around, uh, how the work's going, and things like that. So, um, you know, join us back here on the podcast in a little while. For those, of course, uh, we'll be back. You know. Um, the next, the next thing that publishes for the podcast, maybe KP and I unpacking one of his LinkedIn posts. It may be Frank Lazzaro and I unpacking AI for AEC.
Speaker 1:We've got all these different versions of KP Unpacked that are coming out multiple times a week now, as well as on the YouTube channel shorts and long form of all of these conversations, and what I would say about the YouTube version of all these is go over there and make comments, ask questions, make suggestions about things that you want to hear us unpack and things that you want to hear us talk about, because, at the end of the day, it's not that much different than the research. If we're not talking about the things that are important to you, you're not going to be coming back. You're not going to see the value in this podcast. So we appreciate it. We always appreciate your comments and challenges and suggestions that are there. So again, thanks, we'll be back again next week.
Speaker 1:This is the KP Unpacked podcast. It's where the biggest ideas in AEC and AI and innovation they all collide. It's powered by KP Redico and this is the place where we break down the trends, the technology, the discussions, the strategies that are shaping the built environment and beyond, the places where you work, you live, you play, you do all the things that you do in the built environment.
Speaker 1:So thanks for joining us, Frank. Thanks again for joining me and we'll see you again next week. Thanks everybody.