the biggest mistake that I see people making particularly around employee experience sensors Etc is they're getting together collectively as a real estate team maybe with some HR involvement and they're going through the motions of picking products and implementing Solutions they're not going to the end user to say hey what do you think of this right and I've seen massive failures where where companies have gone down that route implemented products and as soon as it hits the floor of of being the end you know the actual occupant of the space the employee of the company experiences they say no this is just not right and I think it's a big mistake it it's been the problem with real estate all along foreign welcome back to Connected conversations I'm Bob masichetti and I'm gonna start this one by saying this person needs very little introduction because everybody knows Simon I'm very excited to have Simon Davis with me today from purposeful intent to talk about the future of real estate technology Simon how are you buddy doing good mate good to see you good to see we're both bringing our A-game here as as always so it's uh it's always right one of our one of our calling uh cards that's right we gotta keep it keep it tight I actually got it I think I think it was Robert T who referred to as the best hair in the industry so oh I'll take it let's get it let's get it so Simon you know again we're in season two of connected conversations We're Going Back to the Future looking at all things future I know you see share the same views as I do in terms of hearing the same kind of buzzwords regurgitated uh some of the things that we see in the industry kind of over and over again and I think that's why you know you you branched off and started your purposeful intent uh conference Network which I've taken apart and and I think is a great uh great thing for the industry but first before we get into all that can you take us back and give us your statement of qualification I've known you for quite some time now we we swapped roles at one point in our careers so can you take us back and just explain to everybody that knows Simon give them a little more so that they really know Simon how did you yeah take it take take me through it how did you end up here today yeah I mean I gotta admit you know I I didn't uh so I was born and raised Ireland and I didn't grow up in in Ireland dreaming of being a real estate technologist um I think I think like a lot of us it was kind of a career that that I fell into but has become a passion and actually you know almost 25 years now uh working in the industry um I think the the the the core piece of my background you know when I was growing up I was a massive fan of of La law and uh you know as a kid in at that point in the UK watching La law like that was my thing and actually did legitimately get me into wanting to be a lawyer um I went through some of those motions in the UK I did a law degree um and then actually decided part way through that frankly that my fellow colleagues were just not the type of people I felt I could be around every day for the rest of my life um just very different personalities very you know very intense and just just wanting different things out of life um the the big thing I took away from that from a career perspective is is in my very last year I did a uh I did a a a course on intellectual property law and this was way back when you know this was I remember one of the first classes we did was um somebody whose initials were MTV MTV had the URL mtv.com and they were being sued by MTV for the URL like you know literally the second year I was at University was the first time that I actually had access to a computer and had my own you know email address right so it was very much in the infancy um but I really enjoyed the intellectual proper property side of the law and it really got me into technology from that perspective um decided that unlike a lot of my friends who were bumming around Europe I would go and do further education and I did a master's degree in business with it which was sort of really the launch the launch pad for me to get involved um came out of college got a job at a uh a retail bank as a programmer I was possibly the worst programmer uh that you would ever meet uh frankly because I have as as many of my bosses will probably tell you I'm not I'm not big on attention to detail uh which is is probably the biggest prerequisite but I found that one of the things that I was very good at was being that sort of communication link between between the techie developers and the business so being able to sort of explain to people you know in whichever parlance they were coming from how something should work why we were doing something why the business needed something how technically it should be built um and so sort of my my real sort of performance of career started off as as a business analyst sort of uh transcribing those types of requirements um in 2000 that would have been what 2001 2002 uh came across with my company uh big Center which was later acquired by by accruent um and actually so big was a client of mine in the very early days of iwms um and you know worked with them for about four or five years ties into every aspect of my life you know trip to Arizona I met my now wife we just celebrated 18 years of marriage that's why I live in Arizona I worked for a big Center for eight years um and you know really I think that's probably the the piece that most people don't know about me um but then just through the course of you know I think my inquisitive nature with the exception of big I've never really stayed at places too long um so I've sort of seen every aspect of it you know every aspect of the business the grounding of big was fantastic for me uh because you know they were a technology company at heart but they also had you know facilities management call center they had lease Administration teams they had space planners on site so you would learn on a daily basis what was good what was bad with the product and you'd understand the business as well and I think that was one of the more unique aspects like getting the foundation in real estate whilst also being a technologist run every aspect of Biggs business um then kind of just got burnt out uh went into startup mode uh you know eyes gleaming thinking I was gonna make billions of dollars and the first one I went to was an absolute disaster um that I think I lasted for about a year and a half then got into the Consulting world uh various different startups at different levels including as you alluded to earlier Sarah review uh more recently salt mine is as the first employee so sort of seeing things grow from that and kind of I think the way the reason that I've ended up where I have a purposeful intent is a few different things right for me the the pandemic I learned something very significant to me which is you know as many of you do know I have a five now she she tells everyone she's five and a half she's not five she's five and a half but I have a five and a half year old and spending all that time with her during the pandemic was was I think the best uh medicine that you could have in terms of getting through it but also made me realize how much I wanted to be a big part of her life um which is something I didn't necessarily have my dad was traveling all over the world um so didn't really sort of have that close of a relationship growing up and I wanted to change that and then I think also you know the my my view on a lot of things and purposeful intent sort of the event side being the most visible is I think I'm in a position now where I have a network and I have a platform and I have connections that we can do things differently right so I'm kind of looking at things like conferences and I'm looking at where I think they're broken and where they could be enhanced upon which is why Pi uh has come out the way it has um I think a couple of the other things that I feel that have been you know uh not necessarily broken but just not given the attention they need in the industry one of them is definitely is educated education we're doing some really exciting stuff on the education front that we're going to announce in a couple of weeks with some tremendous players in the industry um and then the other one that we talked about a bit before we got started uh it was my long-standing hatred for for pay to play in any aspect of the industry you know particularly when it comes to things like advisory reports right so somebody who is not a day-to-day technologist they have to make a decision on a product they go they spend three to five thousand dollars buying a report that tells them that they should look at these products they don't understand the intricacies of how these reports come about and they don't understand I think the nature of Investments sometimes required in order to be at the top standing uh you know it used to be a bit of a joke because there were major players in some of these reports that weren't even in the reports back in the day um and and it was it was an eye-opener for me actually working on these things way back at Big you know and sort of spending all my time uh you know trying to improve our position in the market and then frankly being told one day you know if your parent company spends more on marketing and research with us then your position would approve and given by nature and my being that's just not the way I work um so I I'm really happy that I feel I'm in a position where I can actually impact things to to a great extent and actually change the way that some of the the pieces of our business have been done over the years that's awesome and what I I always love those conversations because we have a lot of similarities in our background I have a criminal justice degree I wanted to be a cop or an FBI agent I don't know what I wanted I watched too many action movies in the 80s thinking I was Bruce Willis and die art or something like that so I have a criminal justice degree and I never really did I did a little bit when I first got out of college and then 9 11 happened and I ended up in the facilities world but much like you I worked for a consulting firm for for 10 years where we also sold the services like you mentioned I had space planners on site I was a space planner at one point on site at Pfizer through that company so I got to see the way the technology worked didn't work I implemented it I implemented a solution once upon a time when I was a space planner at a proper end user and I really got to see what works what doesn't work and that has still proved to be one of my strengths as I continue in the technology space and listening to customers and things like that so I really that really resonated with me and also when you said your life changed when you went to the pandemic in little quora right um you spent time with her and I had things that I had to do in my own personal life with my father uh being a senior citizen in the pandemic and where he was at the time and that came a lot out a lot in our first season of the podcast where it drifted more towards the human aspect and the share a traumatic event we all went through and you made a big change I made a big change and that leads us here today and just like what you're trying to do with purposeful intent our podcast and what we're trying to do with connected conversations uh with Fred our producer so diligently helping us along the way with with the stuff in the background is to engage with the Simons of the world engage with the Robert teeds of the world and really understand what's real what's noise and where are we really going as an industry because we all know one another we we cross paths at conferences we swap jobs some someday we may work together who knows but I I like the opportunity to take my platform your platform and share a conversation with two people who've been there done that is not going to give you a bunch of buzzwords and maybe people can learn something out of this so with that said let's jump into the foundation of the episode so season two we're going back to the future I picked subject matter experts in certain Lanes to talk about specifically what they do and what they see the future of what they do from my perspective your real estate technologist whenever I have a question have you heard of this solution do you know these guys I always text you you're the person I go to First so as we look to the future we just talked about again and this is part of what's driving this conversation you had a great post on LinkedIn I think it was yesterday or the day before where you were talking about research reports number one they're behind a paywall number two the people who engage in those research reports it's pay to play um so I'd rather hear it from you so Simon Davis as we put this out to the world you could start wherever you want to start and I'll help kind of shape us as we go along what is the future of real estate technology look like what's real what are what's not real give us your hot take you're always good for a hot take it's your cold dig but take us on the journey what are you seeing yeah I mean I think that question about what's real is is a really big one right um there's there's I I wish I could remember who first coined the phrase but there's there's I think a very pertinent phrase that people use around the industry saying you know there are a lot of solutions like that's problems that don't exist um so you know you have people that are trying to sell you on a value proposition for something that might actually really be a true issue but I think what is what is sort of clouding the waters to some degree um has been and still maintains to be the the just sheer level of investment in the industry um and you know when I look at things from the education perspective one of the first things that I do is I sit down with people and say look you know if somebody comes up to you and says they're an expert in proptech they're not nobody can be you know if you think of the of the foundational aspects of proptech it's everything related to buildings right including building of buildings but also you know when you look at things like multi-family industrial retail um corporate commercial right and to me you know our world and specifically where I'm playing a lot is very much in a sub set of you know let's say prop Tech commercial real estate Tech and it's the other little cre exact the corporate real estate Tech right so that's the first thing I would say is you just to my mind you cannot be an expert in all of those things because they're very very different disciplines and even within you know the bounds of of uh sort of the technology that we work with you know typically what we're doing within the corporate world is is we're providing solutions to help manage a portfolio right we're not we're not sort of you know creating a a bigger ecosystem than that and I think that's one thing that people really have to think about and also when you see sort of the big big headlines I mean you know the the corporate real estate Tech uh you know reports on in on Innovation and investment I think 34 billion dollars invested last year we're tracking to be higher this year incredible number but if you break that number down about eight percent of that isn't commercial and so what the subset of that is in corporate is even smaller no not to not to sort of um disregard it but I think you know there are a lot of big headlines out there as there are in the world pointing you in one directions it's not necessarily true I do see that continuing to be significant investment I mean I think yesterday alone uh both Butler and XY sense announced raises um which is great to see and it's you know it's great to see I think just sort of some of the changes that we're seeing in in the market um you know we're like sort of in the last couple of years uh a few things that I see from a trend perspective that are going to change how we operate um you know when I talk and I have talked before about sort of the whole concept of of what I would call Cre times cre and that's commercial and corporate and I realized uh it took me a while but I realized late last year that you know frankly if you're in corporate real estate or commercial and let's just say the difference is commercial is anything on the investment side whether it be landlords REITs Brokers Etc corporate is anything on the management side a lot of those products are actually uh very similar in terms of function um I would say I have literally seen products that are geared towards tenant experience in the commercial world that if you change the title to workplace from tenant you have a whole new market around the workplace experience side of corporates and I think that's one of the trends that we're going to see more and more of is companies that have traditionally sat in one of those silos um you know I look at companies like Navigator cre I look at any of the sensor manufacturers like a density or Verge sense um I look especially at companies like VTS and hqo right that are that are really moving into the corporate world from the commercial world and I think for from our perspective it brings some interesting things one you know certainly changes I think that the Innovation um projections it changes the investment side it changes the applicable tools for the end user the difficulty then is now all of a sudden you have a ton more applications uh that that become you know part of things that you should start looking at and I think even further dilutes the ability of some of the traditional reports to give you a real picture of of where you should be going you know if I look over the last two years and this is this is reading from a list that I presented an event last week but you know VTS not only are coming into the space but they acquire two of the large applications around tenant experience Lane and rights hqo you know recently announced the partnership with jll and sort of acquisition or takeover of jet but I think more importantly the acquisition of leasement which was really the workplace experience Index right so how is a technology platform going to take that forwards um you look at you know plan on acquiring um Equinox or moving very much into the iot space you look at the whole space IQ Alchemist Sarah review ioffice right what is that going to be and then and then at the other level you look at the sort of MRI acquisition of Manhattan and what is that going to make that so I think we're a really fascinating time um and I think you know we would talk about systems and you know your kind words Bob that you would go to me on Solutions on a day by day it's changing or I got a message today about a brand new solution that I'm going to take a look at but the work that I did with impact and with Henry before I left and that he's taking on which I'm very happy to see you know we're up to if you think when I started in the industry and when iwms was a thing you were probably looking at five service lines you're probably looking at 10 to 15 products right in reality we're there um now just based on on the work that mpac have done um you're looking at probably 19 different streams of of uh of service line across 250 plus products so if I'm sat there as an imp as a you know real estate workplace or even you know and more and more these days a HR executive being asked why are people coming back into the office how do I get get them into the office Etc and then I also need to understand the technology landscape uh it's it's a difficult position to be in and that's that's why I do wage war on on sort of those pay-to-play reports because um a lot of people that is their first frame of reference right they go to one of these reports because they've heard the name of the company that's supporting it and they you know they read it they digest it and they're immediately sent in my mind down a wrong path um because they're not really looking at you know us they're looking at a as a solution as opposed to trying to understand you know the use cases around their problem um so I know that was a lot of different topics but but I really think the key one to take away from that is a really changing still growing right now I think it's going to shrink but a changing ecosystem uh a lot more players coming in still a lot of money coming in you know we we invest very little back in an innovation you know and you know frankly if you look at Legacy products versus some of the new products they they aren't as good as commercial growth as sorry as as you know the applications we use on daily basis I think that's going to change but I think that's why the money is going to keep coming in because there is still several unicorns uh in this space um that people just haven't even touched the surface of yeah and you know I I that was one of the things I was going to ask you and you touched on it was prop Tech what does that even mean and you you just said it so well because at the end of the day the ring doorbell cameras that can be considered prop Tech right you know because at the end of the day it's technology that that leans into the residential Marketplace so it's this big term that can mean a lot of things and I think you said it very well because both you and I pretty much swim in that that commercial that corporate Real Estate Lane and then getting down to that it's like what's real and what's not really real because there's so much money flowing into the space and and I do hope that there are some unicorns out there but there are some pretty redundant Solutions in my opinion um there there's a lot of the same and uh some of that same is based on and I don't want to call anybody out older technology when I ask a question well what do you foundationally how are you collecting this data and they tell me a certain way and I'm like well you're way behind and it's like you're a dime a dozen so I guess from that perspective what do you see what's the best way is is maybe coming to a purposeful intent uh meeting you know not and I this is what I like about it because you got real end users there there's no booths there right I think the exhibit Halls that's my odd take they're dead you go to those people are avoiding them like the plague so how do you Wade through this stuff and how do you get to the good stuff to where is it the pi type end user event is it talking to your peers how do you get to it I I think it's I think it's combination but it's certainly the talking piece is the important part right I think it's being able to to speak to people in the industry about what they've done what's worked and what hasn't worked um you know the conception behind Pi was very much that there are a lot of end users out there trying to work out towards next that I would say more more apparent than ever any time in the industry they want to talk and be around each other but they're going to events where they're being talked out by you know in some instances paid sponsors not always a bad thing there's a space for all of these things but I think a lot of them want to just sit down and talk about you know how are you dealing with this what problems are you are you trying to solve what are you addressing you know what what is working what is it I think that's the big thing as well right because I think a lot of people are sitting there thinking okay we have mandates coming down from the CEO to do X Y and Z you know we're trying to do things to bring people back if we think it's right or not um what are other people doing what is actually working um and I think that's where where the connected conversation part you know needs to come in so yeah absolutely urging you know leveraging leveraging peers in the industry leveraging you know thought leaders in the industry of whom there are a lot and I think you know um platforms for like both yours and mine I think what we can do is is we can also raise up new voices like I'm seeing like a lot of younger diverse Talent out there that wouldn't get the the um you know they wouldn't get the the time on air without people being able to help lift that up and that's one of the things that we're going to do with pi is we're bringing in speakers you know I have the speaker coming to La uh his name is bills Banji and I met Mills in London he was presenting at a HR conference uh actually sorry interesting he was thinking the future of work conference where the only people in the room except one were HR people which is another I think Maelstrom coming because you know a lot of our our world is around corporate real estate HR is having more of an impact than ever because of the people side of this which I think is right you know Mills is going to come over to LA and one of the things we're going to talk about is a report that he just released about you know how do you track gen Z Black Talent right things that people aren't necessarily thinking about I saw him speak you know he was talking about platforms and websites and rating systems and things I'd never ever come across because I wouldn't I'm a you know 40-something white guy and it's not my it's not sort of you know in in my mainstream it needs to be if I'm also you know somebody who's recruiting and trying to scale and bring you know diversity of thought and being into the industry so I'm super excited for him him to come and talk about that and I I think the platforms that we have can help with that as well as you know help with the whole communication side um I think as well I mean one thing that we're releasing probably next month in partnership with with impact um is we we have created a a another iteration of the utilization workplace guide uh that we're going to get out there is going to be a slight cost to it but just to really cover the costs of of the work in doing this because we have done it independently it's not sponsored by anybody um so you know all of our opinions are sort of you know true and correct they're not influenced by by any other area and I I think we need to sort of kind of how last year we started shedding light on uh James dearsley from unisu I think coined the phrase mammals right panels that were just guys um we shed light on that we're changing that and we have the ability to change it within our own foundations I have very publicly stated and still will that I will first thing if I'm asked to be on a panel I'll ask who else is on it if it's all people like me then I'll suggest other people that could be on the panel and I'm starting to help curate panels now as well we are bringing sort of different thoughts in so I think you know being able to help uh grow the industry from a knowledge perspective is is something we can all give back um and and have the platform to do that so so I want to touch on a couple things you said there and it kind of hit home for me it didn't kind of hit home for me when I started my career I was um in in the corporate real estate technology space let's go to that point and I'm working for a consulting firm and I had come from the functional side I had come from sitting on a client's I saw a lot of things they never let me even go to a conference I was not allowed to go to conferences it was it was a great honor and if maybe you had a great sales year you could go to the conference as a reward and I had no voice I was and I had one of my largest projects was for a defense contractor most successful um great deployment led to more business they were speaking at an industry event and I had to beg to even go and I led the project I led the project because the old heads were like no this this is what we go to and quite frankly they were even at that point some of them were very stale and it was like you you haven't seen what's going on out in the world and I would love to share my voice again that comes back to the podcast that comes back to personal intent and giving the the gender the different Generations a platform now we can do it with tech back then we didn't have this we didn't have all this that we have today and then I want to come back to you know the the point you are making about diversity and inclusion that came out a lot in season one my brother as a matter of fact runs diversity and inclusion he did he did at IBM for a while he's a big um voice of diversity inclusion and and was on some boards there and now works for a company called Beauty for all where he's part of what he's charged with is diversity inclusion for that company and you know that's really important for you know what you're doing on on panels and I've seen all the posts and I I agree with them 100 percent um we do that here at Connected conversations where we want strong voices whether you're male female it doesn't matter we've kicked off we even kicked off that's why I went to Kimberly Castle our friend to start the podcast in general I was like I know a great strong female voice you can give us a great take on the industry but I think what you're getting at is the future is the human-centric connectivity of one another to decide what Technology Solutions are going to be real having diverse voices asking a little bit of everybody from every background every industry every vertical within within the corporate real estate or commercial industry to say what works and what doesn't work if I'm hearing you correctly yeah no absolutely and I mean I get some of those most interesting facts on products right everybody can do if you can't do a great pitch and a great presentation and have a great slide deck you shouldn't be even in the business right but for me where you get the best information is is actually from certainly from speaking to people that have experienced the company's experience the highs and lows you know we all know that every tech product is going to have some sort of teething issues or problems with deployment or problems and for me it's making the choice of of the company that you feel is going to be best addressed or best equipped and willing to address those problems and to kind of grow and build with you um you know whenever ISO consult on on that side of the business I always say to people you know if you if you when I was a big if you asked me for references I I could probably name the three companies I would give you because they were my three best clients and you know a couple of them were my best friends you know and they would always give a great reference whether they felt it or not and I I mean I I felt that the products were compelling and certainly the price points were out but don't expect if you ask for reference it's like you personal right if you're applying for a job you know you're not going to give a reference to somebody who's going to say bad things about you yeah so I always say to people look if when you go for references ask for clients that have left because a lot of clients will have left for very valid reasons you know maybe it's a change change direction it's changing sort of you know what they're trying to do but they will have a great feedback about the product and about how well it actually delivered and I find I get much richer information doing that um than you could any other possible way because you're actually getting a true account of what's happened um so you know certainly I think using those things and using a peer Network right purposeful intent one of the things that we you did on the back of it is we built a slack Channel That's end user only and the end users will go in there and they'll post questions about things they're working I love it any any aspect right and just saying hey I'm looking at workplace experience what would you recommend we're coming across products that we hadn't heard of and solutions we haven't heard of and you know you mentioned Kim you know the resources like the the cbre's and and jlls cushmans and newmarks of the world they have some of that insight some of you have to take with a bit of a pinch of salt because they also have a lot of investment in these products these days um but you know again I think for an end user you have a wealth of of people out there who want to talk to you right you've just got to be able to Wade through the sales jargon and and get to sort of the real understanding of what you're trying to achieve um I'll say something that has really surprised me is in the last sort of six months is talking to people about some of those Technologies around workplace experience and coming across more and more companies where they've built their own product because a lot of the products that are out there getting Kudos in the market didn't meet security requirements of large corporations right um and I think there are those other types of considerations that you can shortcut very very quickly by addressing you know the right people the the Kims the Henry Masseys of the world that can actually give you that quick and easy tie-in um I I would also go as far to say is that there are definitely organizations out there that are making a lot of money by advising Consulting and implementing products that aren't necessarily the best product of what you're trying to do it's their business it always has been always have been those out there but again the the average consumer isn't going to see that right they're just going to see the name tied to a big company and think well you know you know they used to say right nobody nobody gets fired for you know picking a Deloitte or picking an IBM yeah um and that's not that I'm directing at those particular companies but you know it's often easy to make that that leap to somebody that you perceive to be a leader but you have to I think go into it all all eyes open I think you know when I'm again I always look for the nuggets and the things that I'm going to take away from these podcasts and that that I hope the audience does as well um it's really looking at proptech as a whole and understanding what Lane you as a company or you as a buyer needs to be in to arrive at the right solution the next thing I'm hearing is that the community is going to shape the future of real estate technology I don't think the firms developing I work for a technology company we're not going to necessarily shape the future unless our end users arrive at that conclusion that we are future proof and we have a road map and we have the technology that's going to serve them today in the future and I'm really impressed with what I just said there but I'm going to credit that to you because that's what I just took away from it's not going to be the technology companies that shape the future it's going to be our community yes dude the the biggest mistake that I see people making particularly around employee experience senses Etc is they're getting together collectively as a real estate team maybe with some HR involvement and they're going through the motions of picking products and implementing Solutions they're not going to the end user to say hey what do you think of this right you know I you know I work for company X I'm going to be the person that's using these products on a daily basis I don't and in many instances I'm going to be using it to make a decision on do I come into the office or not I should be informed and I've seen massive failures where where companies have gone down that route implemented products and as soon as it hits the floor of of being the end you know the actual occupant of the space the employee of the company experiences they say no this is just not right and I think it's a big mistake it it's been the problem with real estate all along you know if you if you read Chris Kane's book where's my office right it's always been a transactional business that's driven by Finance with very little attention paid to the people actually in the box and I think now more than ever we have to pay that attention because to your point it's the it's the occupiers of space the actual employees are going to drive what's next not only I think in terms of you know acceptable solutions to existing problems but also the future you know if employees decide on maths at a company they're not going to come into the office really changes what our Technology Solutions can should and will help provide right and and I think those types of things going forwards are going to be a bigger a bigger input you know if if companies are you know more more focused on working uh models that are I like to still call it sort of work from anywhere I think a lot of the terms are getting you know people are people are putting their own phraseology behind things like hybrid and remote but I think I think people want the ability to work when where and how they want and I think that will continue um whether you're a company that says okay you can do this five days a week you can do this one day a week you can do it you know for 30 minutes every Wednesday when it's raining that's their decision point to determine you know on that but I think the employee power base about what they need to do their jobs is is going to drive a lot of what we're doing and I think it's going to drive one big change in our industry that would make me very very hesitant in certain areas if I was looking at purchasing systems which is I think we're going to get the big big players and I'm talking you know the likes of Salesforce servers now Google Microsoft coming into our domain you know they never really looked at workplaces as a 10x of investment to bring their money back but if if you look at those companies and particularly I'll you know pick on in a good way Salesforce right what is slack slack is a tool to enable hybrid communication enable asynchronous work it's the biggest it's the biggest product or you know it's sort of the biggest growth product that they all have and as you've seen as publicly announced you know they're leasing out a large proportion of their space I won't quote the numbers because I can't remember them accurately but you know they're they're doing that because they see the power of their tool in delivering this new way of working um and you know all of a sudden you might be a company and if you think about it right with the exception of service now or probably the company that have been in our field the longest and still not really that long let's say they're a company of five to ten thousand developers take them out of the equation most companies in our space most of the 230 companies on that list that uh impact have put together probably have between 10 and 150 developers maybe 200 adults they're all of a sudden going to be competing with Salesforce and slack and Google and I think that could be a major change to how uh you know how this industry operates because you know you're going to have bigger players coming in um you know similar like certain the servicenow model was always a good one because they would have an install base on the it help desk so how big a stretch is it to then you know look at additional component pieces right um and you see the same thing across the board company has slack company out Salesforce you say you know what we actually through all of our technology teams Etc you know we could actually say you know this is how often Simon and Bob email each other this is how often they chat on teams you know this is the projects they're working on we can see the threads of discussion and the number of question marks and we can say you know what this is when you should come into the office so if you're looking for a hybrid or a work from anywhere enablement tool to help you with the biggest problem which I think is going to be you know right sizing your real estate so that everybody is happy and and that really comes down to I do think a degree of scheduling when people are in the office when they need to be in the space that's your Solutions right there all right and that that's me if I was if I was coming up if I was on that sort of you know trend of a newer company in an orange already in an already condensed space and all of a sudden I'm also going to be competing against Googles of the world and the salesforces of the world that's I I'd be hesitant definitely it's funny you know again nuvolo being an you know an independent uh scoped application on the servicenow platform uh we understand that and that's why that's the platform we chose to develop on but at the end of the day we're purposeful built and what I have I have a bit of a hot take having been in this world for a little bit um when you deal with those those companies that are now just embarking on these Journeys um they don't sometimes know our space they may see it they may see it from a reservation perspective or an engagement perspective but then they start to try and spend oh we yeah we could do all these other things they can't tell you what a triple net lease is I can but they can't tell you that they can't tell you what Obama standard is I can so you have to they may have 5000 developers but do they have the experience the customers and the Acumen to sit down with a space planner a capital planner or real estate manager and have these real conversations and understand what they're doing I haven't seen that but to your point yes again having a platform our platform being serviced now absolutely that it's trending in that direction but there's the new Volo out there that does a guy like me and partners that we know to partner with uh like like you know impact group that you mentioned or or a CBRE or some of those folks or even a Deloitte because we know we recognize we need those people who compare the functional there's a lot of that's missing from those the big boys no agreed agreed absolutely but I think if you know when the investment becomes a point or when the potential return becomes significant enough that's you know that's what they can bring that on so I think the way that I phrase it to people is I think you know this year next they're going to dip that toe in the water and we'll see what comes out of that um I think the other interesting Trend as well is I think we're going to see you know I I talked to sort of let's say let's say more traditional companies and you talk about you know who who are your competitors Etc and and and they will typically you know they'll they'll sort of run off the same names and I think a lot of companies in our space they're not looking at they're not looking over their shoulder um at I think the newer companies that are coming in that are making a lot of a lot of Headway you know I look at like I I have no there's no Insider baseball here but you know I look at a company like density you know last year they announced 150 million Rays I think it was um and the same day they also announced the the acquisition of a product that essentially was uh you know let's call it a sort of a digital twin enablement tool um fairly it was a fairly small part of the announcement but I immediately jumped on that and and I see a company like that as having the the potential the funding to actually become more of a holistic competitor you know I I firmly believe for a long time that no no I I don't believe a company is going to rule the market by just being able to provide sensors and you know a year and a half ago most of these companies were one chick Pony in terms of of the sense of solutions as they provided so you didn't even really have a holistic offering I do think that these companies when they build out in addition to you know sensors to help track and understand the use of space and the design of space they build tools to help design better space um and they build you know those sort of functions in there in in more of a you know digital twin sort of metaversity type development way that they're going to I agree I was gonna ask you to touch on that I digital twin right now it's not there I don't care what anybody says Microsoft's probably the closest but when when I see digital to win on somebody's website and it's like all right I I don't know how much stock I put in that that's my hot take I think digital twins are coming I think they're years out but to you it needs to what you said it needs to be a holistic solution we have the sensors you know we have the inputs we have the apis and then we have the the platform to render the digital twin it can't just be we're a digital twin solution it needs to be the sum of Parts if I'm hearing no that's absolutely it it needs to be the sum of that part and that's the only way you in my mind you're going to get a holistic implementation of some of these products is they have to be more like um just a bit of a preview this utilization report we're coming out with the two things that struck me most one was of 25 or so companies that we commissioned to look into there are only two that even have considered building uh analytics from non you know from from alternative products into the solutions by which I mean there are only two companies that are actually building let's call it sensor agnostic data platforms that can ingest data from an altitude of sources which I think is crazy because I think there are still going to be needs for people to use different sensors for different environments so why not build an analytics platform that does have that ingestion capability um the other thing that really surprised me um is again I think off the top of my head out of the 25 or so products there are only three that dealt with any issues uh where where in addition to track working sort of utilization occupants in the traditional aspects they also looking at IAQ and I think they were Verge sense they were sentient and uh zero and to me again like a dumb sensor that just does one thing in for some companies that are installing those products right now by the time they're installed they're going to be redundant yeah right and I think I think when we look at sort of the future it is looking at that it's looking at that road map it's looking at what are these companies going to be you know I looked at when when r0 acquired co-worker I found it intriguing at the time because I thought why is you know why is it essentially a a very high-end hospital-grade cleaning company buying a sensor manufacturer now it's it's fairly apparent because they're also building and developing devices that that are more driven from the sensor information right and can actually clean on a use spaces that to me is a valuable use case somebody going out and buying a sense of solution to understand how many people are coming back into the office it's money just sort of being thrown oh I agree with you on that one my favorite phrase is show me the heat map every meeting you're going to show what are you gonna do at your heat map well you can do it the heat map tell me it's true and I think I think it goes to another future need which is is the talent the company he's going to want to have which I think is a lot more around you know data science and understanding that you know you could have the you know the USS Enterprise of a dashboard out there with all the lights going off but what do they mean if Simon sat at his desk eight hours a day does that mean he's doing anything or is he just you know binge watching I used to say squid games but I don't even know what I binge watch these days um and I think there's that there's that connectivity and it's work that that Corrine Murray um you know who joined me in starting Pi does incredible things around which is looking at you know how the workplace and and ways working actually make you more effective as an organization right it's that driver it's not it's it's not just efficiency right it's not just the old barometers it's actually effectiveness of what you're doing so there's some interesting places to go I think we're still very much in a in a wait and see period right I think right now we're at that point where virtually everyone I speak to is saying you know we'll get through the summer and then we'll we'll expect to start seeing whatever's next you know in the in the fall um so you've given us a lot of great tidbits and uh you know throughout the course of this podcast it's and I think we arrived at that the community of end users is going to drive the future um not necessarily the technology companies because at the end of the day the end users and their experiences are going to drive that um I think it's going to move more towards you know purposeful intent type events collaborative round tables discussions less about vendor vendor-centric uh uh exhibit halls and things like that and and conferences that that give you a sales pitch as opposed as opposed to a direction ago I think we both agree that digital twins are coming um they're just not there yet and that digital twin Solutions need to be holistic I think we touched on Hardware Solutions need to be more than a one-trick Pony um I definitely agree with that again not to call anybody out but if you're based off an older technology that we know doesn't give you the best kind of output you're gonna die and it's not only that you have to do other things and not just one thing so I think we got a lot of great things out of this podcast and they don't leave you one last one last question for you Simon give me give me a hot take whatever you want I'm gonna I'm gonna give you your hot takes are the best in the business what do you I don't mean to put you on the spot but I do mean to put you on the spot give me a hot take to wrap up the podcast uh I mean I I mean I do think I think one of the things that we need to start looking at more and more um is is a wider audience of product when it comes to work right and take the place out of work work is the important thing it's what happens is the reason we all exist the reason corporate real estate sort of developed and is where it is is because we decided that the best place to do that was in was in a box somewhere arbitrarily I am seeing tremendous content coming out of events that are tangential to you know the corporate real estate World which is which is a lot of these HR based events you know where people are talking about things like culture not being just bricks and mortar without having necessarily vested interest right we think about it are based on the people that we sell to they all have an interest in in physical real estate being a thing and don't get me wrong I do believe there's incredible power in the industry um I love you know Sarah Anderson is one person at Genentech she always talks about that you know the power of casual collision and I think it's so big like for me even when I travel a lot of the best conversation like meeting Mills who now is going to become a big part of Pi was just because I decided to go to an event and then you know ended up sort of cornering him at the lunch buffet and having a conversation that would never have happened in a remote world I think you can see conferences and I think you can see trade shows presentations Etc going a lot more virtual um because you know why spend forty thousand dollars and fly a team of four people out to have a trade show booth where people are going to attend make it virtual have people come and present whatever content they want you know we started doing that at impact and it was incredible participated in that that was a great idea no just just because it gives people that that open foundation but um you know I I think we're going to see a lot more impact we're seeing it I would say already from a decision-making's perspective you may have a view on this but you know whereas pre-pandemic did maybe be two or three people that truly were decision makers and a tech buy now it's more like 10 because now in addition to real estate and potentially I.T you also do have HR that is is going to be a big big piece of that and rightly so because at the end of the day all we're doing is we're enabling people to do work right so our involvement in that is has got to be I think more closely parlayed with HR and I think a lot of people do have to think a lot more about why are we bringing people in what is the benefit of space how do we make those experiences better and I'm already you know people that are talking well there's three days a week better than four or five it's not the right question to be asking right you need to be looking at what is the purpose of people being in the space that absolutely is real benefit to that but I don't believe uh anymore that for for knowledge workers at least it's not you know 40 hours a week you know five days a week uh 52 weeks a year it's should be more based upon what are you actually trying to achieve so what's the output and you you said it great because a lot of the but in the early early stages the pandemic and when we're starting to see our way through it people were saying it's return to work and it's like it's not return to work the work never stopped that means you don't understand it's returned to an office it's a return to a place it's a return to your Cube or your um you know your four walled office the work never stopped and if you say return to work you you've completely missed what's happened what's going to happen and I I think that's what you're getting at that the and I don't mean to speak for you but my take on it is everybody needs to just get over it I'm tired of it it's we need to be able to do our work I'm here in Colorado you're in Arizona but yet we're still executing on creating some content it's the work it's the output get over it I think you might have coined something new that bulb which is RTP would turn to place because there is value to that place but that place doesn't necessarily need to be your traditional hardwood offices right and uh it's gonna be interesting I think I think we've got a lot of things that we're going to learn in the next sort of year and a half about about where we're truly going to end up the one thing I'll say is that I haven't heard anybody come out yet and say you know what we open up the offices and we've had more people come back than we were expecting I have not heard daddy I've heard we've had significantly less people returned to the office and with that I'm gonna leave it there um with every podcast though before you go Simon I end every podcast with a bit of gratitude and it's not just for this hour you spent with me uh again I've known you five or six years now um any time I've and I've said this before but I'll say it again here on the podcast anytime I've ever asked you for help you've given me that help and you've never once asked for me anything in return for me not that I wouldn't I'd always be here to help you with whatever you need uh moving forward with purposeful intent I wish you the best of luck we participated in the New York event I really enjoyed my time there but what I want to say to you is anybody who doesn't know Simon if you need help Simon is the person who can help you and understand that it will be genuine and he will not expect anything returning that's the way I view you Simon I truly appreciate it Bob thank you thanks a lot you're you're very welcome so with that another great episode of connected conversations everybody maybe we'll call that we'll call this one Freddie Freddie we'll call this one everybody knows Simon so with that we talked about the All Things Future Property Tech and where we're going within our community that me and Simon have invested our whole careers in and I think this is a great conversation I thank Simon once again for helping me out when I asked him for help so everybody thank you for joining us and I'll see you on the interwebs foreign [Music]