what I hear all the time is show me a heat map show me a heat map what are you gonna do with the heat map [Music] welcome to Connected conversations I'm here as I mentioned with Chris Keane who's the head of channel for verdsense Chris as we start this off I only have a couple rules number one you be your authentic self that I know and love uh number two um no buzzwords we have a no buzzword policy on on this on this interview and number three just have fun with it we're not here to be too Steffy Talking Heads um I just want you to um express yourself in the way that I know that you can do so well so Chris let's start out with your statement of qualification tell us a little bit about yourself my background is primarily in uh in iws that was where I started about a little more than 10 years ago I worked for a company called Manhattan software which had since been acquired by Trimble and another company called MRI most recently um stayed there for about five years and then after that I went where I actually worked with with you Bob as you recall at uh at Sarah View um until Sarah view was acquired by um some private Equity firms a little little theme going on here huh and hers with some others um and then I eventually moved over to uh Verge sense but in the time that I was at Sarah view we got exposed to a lot of accounts that were very interested in utilization data particularly that coming from sensors or from Wi-Fi routers um it just kind of took a liking to it and that was one of the reasons that I went across to bird senses that they're uh more or less the the leader when it comes to uh overhead occupancy sensors at least here in the States now the idea of what we're doing here today is this is called connected conversations even though even though we're different places in the world uh even though we don't work in the same office we don't even work for the same com company anymore we're connected by what we do and we're connected by our history in the industry as much of us are so I'm going to throw three words at you and then I want you to kind of start talking about it and tell me kind of what what that means to you and where you see things going and those three words are the connected workplace so when I say to you Chris the connected workplace what what what does that mean to you and what does it what kind of thoughts and what kind of ideas does that evoke when I when I throw those three words at you I think the emotion that it evokes is similar to what a lot of our our prospects and and customers feel which is just general confusion right what exactly does that mean um how do I get there um is there a formal definition right it's kind of like saying smart building what exactly oh buzzword we don't like that it's one of those things where I think every company has to Define it for themselves and that's something that most people won't tell you but if you think about it like even in your own house you may consider your house as connected if you have a way to get in your front door by unlocking it for someone else who's trying to get in Via a mobile app I would call that a connected house if you think it's connected house it's your house right so it really all depends on how you want to think about it but I think we're most companies get stuck is they think we can't afford a connected workplace because that would mean a global rollout that's not what we mean in a lot of cases you might just have a connected couple of floors in your most popular spots in Chicago right maybe a couple floors in Philly big dollar big dollar geographies right exactly it all depends right and everyone's situation is unique but don't let a lot of these buzzwords make you think that you can't have something like that for yourself it's just you know a lot of time I see I'm jumping out of my seat anytime I see iot smart building digital twin AR VR I check out on a consultant's website and they're like oh we'll come in and build you something but really what you need to do is Wade through what you said where are my most expensive properties how well are they being used so that you can start to really hone in on can I deploy a connected workplace in this building is it is it new construction is it old construction then I'm gonna really have to heavily retrofit is it a lease that expiring soon so I think those things need to contemplate and I think that's a really smart thing that you say your Hardware vendor you want them and that just goes to show why I would work with Chris Keane because you want a big company to buy sensors for every single building but really that's not a good approach you got to pick the right buildings the buildings that make sense the geographies that make sense so you can make smart informed decisions in those buildings when I think about the connected workplace I think about this right I think about how we can collaborate even though we're on opposite sides of the country almost and I think about providing those tools and processes to people that enable them to do their work it's connecting people places and things but it doesn't have to be this catch-all that these Consultants like to put out there where they throw the buzzwords and they say we're going to build you something that is iot smart building and I think I think that's what you're trying to hone in on when you get down to the heart of it the connected workplace is more important than ever today and sometimes it happens in Pockets but it has to be throughout the fiber of the organization with certain tools and certain processes no I totally agree and there was one Prospect I remember talking to years ago and we were talking about smart buildings and all these other things and he was like look you know this this is all you know this is technotopia right and we don't we don't need this we just need a couple things that are super important to us and for them it was all about occupancy percentages this is like seven years ago right so utilization wasn't really even a thing when their leases expire and how much much money they were spending on FM those are the three things they cared about right and if there were simple tools technology or other methods they could use to get there they would consider themselves I'm sure even even today to have some sort of a connected workplace in a sense if everyone was able to do their jobs effectively talk with each other and get things done and the employees felt the same way as well the general employees of the company weren't spending all their time entering a work order as an example right they could just simply go in and say Hey you know it looks like the front door isn't working at XYZ property and be done with it not have to chase down an FM in person and all those other good things that we've all had to do working for unconnected companies so I guess with all that said um you know I think about I think about Verge sense and I think about what we do at nuvolo and I was recently reading this report right and I I love these reports that come from some of the bigger service providers now you got You Gotta Be You Gotta read these with a little bit of a filter on it because obviously they're they're REITs at the end of the day they invest in properties they lease properties um and some of the stats that came out of it that I cherry-picked these stats just for you Chris um it was basically one of the stats was 83 percent um of organization surveyed now I want to tell you how many people they actually had respond to this they had 48 respondents across the globe across multiple of sectors um with 350 million total square feet under management 83 percent plan or have a utilization strategy in place um and bought only 26 percent of them said they used sensors and sensors were recognized as the the best source of utilization data with the rest of them using badge data yeah I would say that's really common so there there are a lot of of companies who just use security badge swipe data right as a way to be able to get this utilization information there are other ones who are um kind of hacking if you will other systems like uh Wi-Fi um or um you know static uh network connections to figure out how many people are on a floor I do think though that number of 83 percent is a little high because I I would say that um all of us in this field have have a tendency to beat our chest a little bit be like yeah we're doing that absolutely we track utilization but is tracking bad swipe data um in one or two or five of your 100 buildings really tracking utilization I would argue no you're only tracking utilization if you're going all out to the best of your ability getting that badge access data to you know your critical properties that are costing you the most money that are going to help you achieve your cost reduction outcomes otherwise Chris I gotta stop you there I gotta stop you there you just said some really smart things and what I view as the correct way to use utilization you talked about cost savings you talked about your critical buildings and understanding how well they're used what I hear all the time is show me a heat map show me a heat map what are you gonna do with the heat map okay I get it you want to know if a floor is densified or not for social distancing and all those other things every demo I go on somebody tries to be the smartest person in the room and throw the heat map buzzword out there when in reality what I would like to hear is the head of corporate real estate who manages their lease renewals and transactions say show me an output of how well utilized my portfolio is so I can make informed decisions on which buildings I need to divest in or which areas I need to grow and execute more leases or flexible space in instead I hear show me a heat map all the time so the heat map is the ultimate Sizzle right we all love it that thermal view that's showing kind of it looks like a Doppler radar when you're looking at the weather right very quick directional information about what's going to happen next or what has happened and I and that's how we instruct people a lot of times to to look at a heat map just you know be critical of it get some direct directional information that just says okay it looks like people tend to congregate in these areas cool but beyond that it doesn't really add a whole lot of value and the weird part is Bob it seems like the more senior you are in an organization the more you want to see a heat map I don't know why right but you know if you're the VP of real estate you want to see that heat map because I think that's just what you've been trained in your mind to associate with sensors that they're going to show me this really cool like things moving around the floor but I'm here to tell you that none of that matters the companies that do this well are doing math in the background to looking at seating ratios and figuring out okay we're going to assign 10 000 people to share a thousand seats and we're going to save a hundred million dollars let me stop again because this brings this kind of brings it full circle between what I do and what you do what you currently do and that's the connected workplace when you connect certain things that make sense to give you what you need to either rationalize your portfolio or make informed decisions which are kind of Buzzy type phrases and Consultants speak but it really really does mean something because you can drive true Roi out of that what I always tell people is leave the heat map in Verge senses dashboard and then bring the metrics of attendance and real utilization of that building into your space planning report so you could start looking at allocation versus attendance and it's like that's the way you need to think about it it's like what do I need to bring into my Cafe my iwms my space planning Point solution whatever it doesn't need to be nuvolo what do I need to bring in here from verdsense or a sensor that makes sense as opposed to something that's pretty that I can show on a PowerPoint um in a presentation to somebody who doesn't understand what they're looking at yeah I think you know we have this conversation all the time that's um it's really important for you to think about when you're when you're thinking about sensors connected workplace like we're talking about but think about all the systems that you have and what the most critical piece of information you get from each one of those is or what it does for you day to day so an item you mess like Bob was saying our space management Capital whatever you want to call it it's really good at tracking your allocation of space right that is primarily what it does whether or not that facilitates chargebacks and other things from a space perspective I'm talking so if sensors are really good at tracking anonymously which spaces are used if you can take the data from sensors and you can put that into a system that tracks allocations voila right you have the best of all worlds not only do we know who it's allocated to but we know specifically how often are all those spaces underneath that allocation being used and that's that's really the holy grail for clients if they can get to that but how many people get to that Chris very few right people get so enamored with the heat measures to me and how often are people using my phone Boost as it's the right design and for some organizations that that can be okay right if you're just trying new um increased productivity which is very hard to quantify or if you're a designer Chris if you're you're a designer and you want to know you know how many High boy tables I need to have versus couches and bean bag chairs and phone booths and all this other stuff you need to know that from a design concept so let's not you know I'm not saying that nor do I think you're saying that it depends on who's using it what the outcome is but at the end of the day you know you're not going to get much out of just a heat map you have to have somebody and I think it also comes down to somebody who's smart about this stuff and even though we work we work for one specific company right we can we sell something you sell Verge sense we sell nuvole right where where it's kind of tough to Wade through all this is where you're even though you're selling something you still want to give a recommendation and that's what I struggle with because they're like oh it's just the sales guy you know trying to win the business or in some cases not always there are people who have worked with in the past that bring me back again to do initiatives with them but it's kind of that struggle to say hey all that stuff is well and good but what about this over here and do you have somebody on your analytics team who might want to dig into this and that's what I struggle with a little bit and it's like I'm not trying to be sales guy I really want to see you be successful because a year into our contract if you say this isn't helpful to me and I'm not happy with this that doesn't do me any good down the road this is all I've ever done this is my industry same with you we're going to end up in the industry somewhere whether we it's five years from now a year from now and we're staying at the same company or going somewhere else and I struggle with that a little bit I don't know how you feel about that but I definitely you know we have to protect our our integrity right 100 people across the sales people are seeing stress and advisors and we see something similar where a lot of people say Chris you sell sensors that that's great but we can never afford these there's no way we could put them in across our whole portfolio and I usually have to say that's not what I'm proposing actually what I'm proposing is you look at your most expensive real estate which might only be less than five percent of your whole portfolio you consider whether or not having really granular information about how that's used is going to help you achieve your outcomes right and then for the rest of the world you're probably not going to use sensors just being realistic right you you may use Wi-Fi you may use some access card data you may use different sensor in a different Market because you have a different use case but really what we're trying to advise is a good solution for that client based on a variety of different factors right to make sure that they're happy like you said Bob because we're going to be calling the same person a couple years from now saying hey do you want to look at whatever I'm representing now as as a professional salesperson consultant what have you you know and if you blow it they're going to be like now get out of here you sold me a bunch of heat Maps bro is it's like you think about a sensor I mean it's super expensive right I mean everyone knows this sensors are expensive you need to think about where am I going to put these in where is it going to add the most value does it even make sense to put them in in some of these locations maybe in the midwest where my cost per square foot is really low I would argue in a lot of cases it doesn't unless those are really important spaces to you for some strategic region reason but usually they aren't you know it's funny and to tie into this at the company we work together at I had this customer one of the big boy tech companies now this really happened and it's not necessarily it is a sensor story and it is an iwms story but it's really not um it's more of understanding the data and understanding in another consultant speak garbage and garbage out they were running reports on their portfolio and they thought they needed more space this really happened now a lot of people like to float this story but this really happened to a customer of mine the report the data they were feeding into the report was no good and they executed a brand new lease and it costs them millions of dollars only to find out they had a building that was 20 occupied and when when the forensics was done it was like oh we were feeding the wrong data into the wrong report and like what a story to be able to tell if you could take verd sense connect it to your iwms like new Volo run those reports and then go back to the CFO and say we knew only 20 of the population was showing up to this building in San Francisco of which is our most expensive lease we terminated that leasing we saved the company X millions of dollars how powerful is that how powerful is that because that's a real story that was a real customer real story not even using the tools they had in its basic form to understand their portfolio that actually happened yeah it's and that's true those types of things do do happen I think it's interesting we're seeing actually a lot of financial services firms that are kind of looking at it through that lens where they're like look not only do we want to take our utilization data and feed it over to our occupancy team that's going to look at the allocations and our our planned occupancy versus our capacity all this other stuff right but we also want the lease teams and all the transactions folks to get together with them they're never they're they never do though but they never do they never do and I don't know the most important thing right if because if the people on the ground that are negotiating the leases understood how little a lot of these buildings are being used um then then they would make a lot different decisions than they do today not like the story I just told they wouldn't have made that decision and get and be stuck in this however many years for a building they don't even need and it's just like all the time I'm I'm on these meetings and it's clear the space management team does not talk to their corporate real estate team they may be part of the same group or their lease Administration team because in some cases maybe it's outsourced to a third party and the space planners are internal and vice versa but at the end of the day it's like how are how are they not connecting the dots and I always said if I can tell that story and get people to listen and let that resonate with them that wins the day and that really doesn't just connect the workplace it connects the workplace strategy it's not just to connect when I think of the connected workplace I think a little bit of the employee I need something I need to collaborate I need this to do my job but at the same time the CFO needs to you know with with lease accounting standards they need to represent that on their books you know and it's like smart decisions here could really be made if some of this stuff was connected into the overall portfolio strategy well that's where like you know the the traditional value prop of an iwms really comes into play and I'm I'm not advocating that every client whoever they buy from on the items side implements every single module right to it agreed yeah because that's just not realistic sometimes you Outsource FM sometimes you Outsource transactions whatever it is but at a minimum you should be at least using a lot of those modules and the reporting um even if it's just to consolidate everything up into one Central Area so yeah Bob said if you're having that review with the CFO it's much better to look at that data and then even be able to click into it and be like well yeah let's look at the details about what's happening in Manhattan why utilization's so low here's some of the trends and then you're gonna have a real conversation versus what happens now as we all know is a lot of guessing right nobody likes guessing especially when the decision could be you know have tens of millions of dollars and consequences I mean at the end of the day that's another thing that I talk about a lot especially with new Volo and kind of the way um again I'm not trying I'm here to have a conversation I'm not trying to sell anybody on anything but it's really taken that platform approach find a platform in your organization where it makes sense and then connect everything connect everything to that platform or the things that are important right the biggest Roi you can get out of an IW Mass my opinion is appropriately managing those leases and the renewals and and the way in which your space is used you can really get a the most significant we used to have this slide when I was at the SI I think it was 10 uh Roi if it's done correctly but I think nowadays now that things have gotten smarter you throw in that utilization uh point of consumption Verge sense and then you tie that and you tie that into your iws you tie that into your platform whatever you're using to rationalize that portfolio again fancy consultant talk I know I'm a big shot over here I've been doing this a long time um but the the point is like you can really get some bang for your buck and more often than not again and I'm going to ask you about this in a minute I get caught in feature functionality discussions it's like can you hatch a floor plan or color by a floor plan this way or that way or can I do this type of move or can I can I measure the distance from a wall to the desk in the iwms and I'm like if this is what we're really talking about um then you know this tool is not being leveraged and I don't think iwms has been leveraged in a way that can really provide a true Roi and I think sometimes you probably run into that too I want to know how many people on this is the one and this will I'll give you a talking point here I want to know how many people are in the cafeteria right now so if I can go get my lunch so I don't want to wait in line to get my lunch at the cafeteria but for me it's feature function around say measuring a wall you know what do you hear like where you're just like besides heat maps I mean the most common one that describes me nuts is when people grind us out on accuracy so the sensors are about 95 accurate is better than nothing which is what you had without a sensor right um but people will literally grind us out and say how can we get closer to 100 well why does it matter and if we were able to get it to 100 what would that mean for you right would that mean that you're able to save an extra five percent on your portfolio probably not it's just you splitting hairs thinking about something that isn't as important because that's just kind of the world that we live in it's like I need something instantly but if you really think about it it's like why why do you need real-time data about what's going on in your portfolio right this second usually you can answer that when you think about it logically well I actually don't if it's every five minutes it's okay right every 10 minutes okay it does depend a lot on your use cases but I do find that a lot of people just get so enamored with the bells and whistles a lot of times that they forget what the top level outcome is so that the hardest thing to do as a salesperson as you know Bob or as a consultant is to keep all of that stuff you know at the top level front and center right so what are we trying to do save money does this help us save money how and at the end of the day do all these little bells and whistles matter in a lot of cases they don't some cases they do but you know yeah that's the and that goes back to what I was saying about my struggle where I sometimes try to be a consultant and it's like you know you kind of get put in the Box well he's just he's a sales guy or he's this or that um and he's just trying to win the business but I really do wish sometimes I could walk into an account and sit down with certain people at the table and say don't talk about that don't worry about that don't put that in the RFP you know kind of stick to this and you'll win the day and get somebody who really wants to dig into this thing and make sure everything's connected so we we've talked a lot about that that's kind of the the back end side of things what about the front end and the employee and the people that that go in every day and and either request something or consume something from these tools um you know what's real what what do you think is real what what do you think is important yeah so the most real thing um request that that we see a lot of times is people want to know just like your example with the cafeteria how busy or not busy is a particular space or a floor so being able to pull up on a mobile app where are people on this floor how busy is it is there room for me is usually what people are trying to figure out um and then go to that floor is that now has that been over the course or the pandemics obviously Amplified that and we've been beaten over the head with all these covid Solutions and um you know contact tracing and all this other nonsense how is that Amplified and how do you solve for that because I know what the use case is and I think you can articulate it a little better I think that um you know the use cases is really in a lot of cases that that companies want um their employees to be able to be more productive in space in a lot of cases so the outcome they're trying to achieve is increased productivity so if people are able to find a space faster without having to wander around the floor and be like is someone sitting here I see a purse you know they can just literally sit down in a spot that they located on their mobile device so they feel safe in this current climate hopefully not in the future because because I'm worn out on floram macrame or whatever we got going now Mommy grounds yeah whatever I'm worn out on it but they also want to feel safe right so I think your apps and your Hardware Solutions can truly give that because if you pull up your phone and pull up the verbsense dashboard it's going to tell you hey that four is at 50 occupancy and corporate standard is to cut it off at that so I'm not going to that floor yeah plus it might be too loud there's certain people who need to work quietly so there's there's a lot of things that come into play with that I think those are those are all really interesting use cases I think what would be what would be more interesting to see with the real-time availability like we were just talking about is does the market swing back to this mentality of open or agile or unassigned seating where it's truly free people aren't booking spaces in advance people are just coming into the office they're literally taking this sounds foreign to all of us but they're just gonna hop in their car be heading to work they're sitting at a stop like oh I wonder how many people are on the floor that I normally sit on right and just kind of lackadaisically go in but also follow the guidance of the technology they have today that's the reality because everyone's so so scared rightfully so right can I book a space is there enough room for me can I eat without my mask on you know there's too many things do you think that the market will move will adjust back to where it was pre-covered which is more of this kind of fluid Dynamic um and in my mind right personally fluid Dynamic and connected collaborative environment that that we used to have now we're trying to like rebuild that and it's it's it's baby steps right yeah and then from my perspective I I agree with all that and I find that really interesting because didn't HP move to that model years ago where they went to a hundred percent unassigned nobody's assigned a space anymore I always give that example and as we know Australia adopted this APAC the APAC region adopted this way before anybody uh where it's it's this truly open concept to to the workplace now you know you'll have a lot of Consultants who want to tell you a lot of things and things that you need to do but you made me think that we've turned this thing into uh like a geometry test where it's like you gotta have a reservation you gotta do contact tracing you got to do this you got to reserve a parking spot a robot needs to come out and grab my bag as I get out of the car and it's like take it easy already it's like I I just when I walk into the conference room I want the lights to automatically adjust the air conditioning to turn on to the optimal temperature it's like whoa whoa take it easy this stuff is all bells and whistles that don't really have much tangible value but on my side of things I think when I think of the connected workplace and I think of what I would want to deliver to an employee because I've sat in those real estate departments my phone has rang and I've gotten the phone call can you raise my desk up I was like no it's bolted to the floor I can't do that you get all these requests you get some wild requests all the time and it's like I think for me what I would like to see is one place you go to one place and if you need these types of how many times Chris in our careers have we seen for facilities requests you go over here uh for it requests you go over here and for an HR request or some type of soft service request you go over here yeah it's like I want to see one I want one portal um that makes logical sense I'm not saying what I guess what I'm saying is sometimes some things are great and the verdesense dashboard and some things are better suited in your you know your employee Centric I need something for lack of a better term I need something portal and that's what I think people need to kind of drill down on and stop with the robots stop the lighting control stop with the the the digital signage that welcomes you the minute it auto detects your retina scan as you walk through the door and it's like I just made that up I don't know if that's really a thing but I'm sure so I've been on some wild meetings where it's like what do you want what do you really want do you really want an iwms so that's kind of I think I think so too I mean I think it's just you got to kind of you got to think about your systems and say okay some of these things we need these are critical for the admins on the back end that are using these systems to be able to evaluate through our outcomes and then there are always a couple things that you need to work to make make a lot easier on your employees on the front end so you know how do I submit that work order how do I submit that ticket for it how do I see a heat map over the floor to see how busy it is right now and just make that all accessible but yeah that is the number one right but any company I'm sure both of us have worked for it's the same thing it's like oh you need to enter an I.T service ticket you need to use this system and then I need to create a login and create a new password and I forget that password and then I'm like I'm having to ask somebody else Center to take it for me by the time I'm done entering a ticket it's about two weeks late and I don't even need a fix to that issue anymore it's keep it simple stupid right and I I think we've gone on a plate go on LinkedIn go on LinkedIn scroll on LinkedIn it's it's exhausting and I try not to do that I try to I want to do with this you know what we're doing here is have these real conversations with people who've been there done that can State their qualifications and back up what they're talking about I've worked with many Fortune 500 Fortune 100 companies as as of you I've seen really smart approaches and I've seen really bad approaches to things and I like to share that and that's what we're doing here today but I'm going to wrap this up with this Chris um and I want to show you some gratitude and I want to show you some respect and love I don't just consider you a colleague in the industry I consider you a friend we fish together I've met your lovely wife who is very good at laying uh flooring and tile and I do need to contract your services but you're a good dude you're one of the guys I will always come to when I need some advice or need to bounce an idea off you it's because I respect you as a professional and as a friend and I thank you very much for doing this today with me thank you Bob it's my pleasure can't wait to go fishing again soon okay so with that that's connected conversations I'm Bob maschetti that's Chris Keane I'm with nuvolo he's with verdsense we thank you for tuning in today take care [Music]