Podcast appearances and mentions of aaron gorka

On this week's episode of Control talk now, we talk with Scott Cochrane and Aaron Gorka. Scott is the president of Cochrane supply and engineering. Aaron is the chief innovation officer at aunt technologies. We discuss how using building airflow and airflow pressure can help reduce the spread of viruses like COVID 19.

Episode 337 of ControlTalk Now the HVAC and Smart Building Controls Podcast for the week ending Nov 3, 2019 features two special guests. The team from Next Generation, Aaron Gorka and Brent Burrows fill in for HVAC and Smart Building Control Pro, and co-host of ControlTalk Now the HVAC and Smart Building Controls Podcast. Aaron and Brent bring their unique perspectives to HVAC and Smart Building Controls. Both are young superstars in HVAC and Smart Building Controls. Listen as they bring you the HVAC and Smart Building Controls News of the Week. Look for Ken to return next week.

With Ken Smyers out for this episode, Eric turns to two Industry favorites to help out. The host's fo Next Generation Innovation, Aaron Gorka and Brent Burrows join Eric on this week's Episode of Control Talk Now. Brent is a smart building controls tech at Entek in Atlanta. Aaron travels the world with his company Ant Technologies. Ant provides paperless, cloud-based, operational technology for HVAC & Control Contractors. In this raucous and entertaining conversation, Aaron and Brent bring a younger perspective to the show. Here are some things to listen for: What attracted Brent and Aaron to the Industry and how you can use this to find younger talent. Why selling Energy Savings Should be the last thing you should pitch to your Smart Building Prospects. How to motivate your millennial employees. How to establish a Company Culture that empowers teamwork A proven technology that can solve the labor shortage for HVAC and Smart Building controls contractors. This and much more on Episode 324 of ControlTalk Now.  

Episode 315 of ControlTalk NOW The Smart Buildings Podcast features our video interview with Realcomm’s Founder and CEO, Jim Young. As you will soon see, a paradigm shift is underway in Smart Connected Building Space.  ControlTrends looks forward to coverage of two important industry events taking place in the next few days: 2019 Haystack Connect in San Diego, and EasyIO’s 2019 World Conference, in Amsterdam. Young Gun champions, Aaron Gorka and Brent Burrows lead on with Next Generation Innovation Episode 10, and much more News of the Wee

CTN 308: ControlTalk NOW -- Smart Buildings VideoCast and PodCast for week ending Mar 24, 2019 features Young Gun Brent Burrows, a Systems Integrator with ENTEK, who explains Alarm Fatigue, and much more,  ENTEK provides HVAC, Building Automation and Energy Services  in the Atlanta, GA, area and throughout the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Are You ready? Is Your AI Device Smarter than a six year old? Our transcription service, as you will see is not! I tried to correct as many errors as possible in the transcript of Episode 308, but could not get them all, so be kind as you read this: Episode 308 ControlTalk Now The HVAC and Smart Buildings Podcast Eric Stromquist: Do you suffer from alarm fatigue? Well four out of five facilities managers iand HVAC controls professionals do. So what exactly is this insidious disease and how can you cure it? Hi, I'm Eric Stromquist from controltrends.com and stromquist.com. And on this week's episode we're going to dive deep and into alarm fatigue and how you can solve it. Our guest this week is a young integrator out of Atlanta, Brent Burrows, he's a young gun. So Brent is going to be with us. The whole show is going to be fantastic. We get Brent's perspectives which are just absolutely stellar. So the other thing you need to know is that controlledtrends on our youtube channel, controlltrends smart buildings, youtube channel. We've started a new video series called HVAC tech school and it's designed specifically for the HVAC technician and we get into everything from how to size a valve to how to troubleshoot a gasregulator and topics specifically for the HVAC technician. So take a minute, subscribe to the Youtube Channel. All right, relax. Enjoy the show. Eric Stromquist: Alright here we go. One, two, three. Welcome to ControlTalk Now, the Smart Buildings podcast for the week ending March 24 2019 this is episode this is the show where we talk about all things smart controls, HVAC controls and pretty much anything else we want to. And I tell you what, I've got two legends today. One is the one, you know, Ken Smyers, the man, the myth, the legend, the control man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And joining us today is a legend in his own right is ControlTrends Young Gun Brent Burrows, from Atlanta, Georgia. Brent is with Entek.. He's one of the rising stars in the controls industry. And if you were at the 2018 CONTROLTRENDS AWARDSawards, you know that Brent was inducted into The Young Guns class of 2019. So fellas, welcome to the show. Eric Stromquist: Well thank you Eric. Yeah, you took away all my firepower I suppose to get some of that introduction on Brent Burrows. But uh, yeah, we got a real live young Gun here and uh, it, it, it's so good to see the right, it looks like the type of guy who's going to be taking our place one day. So he's, he's learning, he's got some great background. He's a true integrator, does everything from the programming side of it. And it was all about analytics, but he could do, you could do the terminations to make stuff work. So that's a welcome to the show Brent. Brent Burrows: It's good to have it. And that's what they're talking about on the show every once in a while. I really appreciate it guys. And uh, yeah, actually the only real thing I have in my office, the Home Office here, uh, you know, I may have to make up some more awards for myself or some certifications. Eric Stromquist: No, no young guns. Pretty much all you need man. And now you're 60 and a young gun or 65. I can send Claire and a young gun then you're doing really, really good. Okay. Brent man would move. You know, we're talking about young guns and may one of the wraps that the young guns, the millennials get his man, they just can't be on time. I know this year here, but tell us about our other guest where is he? Brent Burrows: who else was supposed to be on the show with us. Uh, I, that's going to be my new cohost, Aaron Gorka. Ah, I'm not exactly sure where Aaron is now. Maybe they don't do daylight savings time in Canada or different things. He didn't, he didn't change his clock around. Eric Stromquist: Right. Well, in fairness they are, and man, he has been traveled a lot here and Gorka from ANT technologies, one of the hardest young working guys in the industry. Uh, he is, uh, does the podcast, next generation innovation and brand. I guess the big news is you're going to be joined and Aaron as his cohost. Brent Burrows: Yeah. Um, so, um, I had been reading some stuff lately and you know, I listened to you guys on a control talk now on iTunes and I'd always wanted to get into pocket casting and uh, and it just so happened I was featured on a, on an episode, um, a few months back and just really enjoyed it. I've worked with Aaron, we actually use aunt technologies, um, to do a track or project side. And uh, so me and him get along and you know, we vibe well. So I reached out to reach out to you and was like, Hey, what do you think this idea? And uh, and you were all for it gave Aaron a call. He was excited to have a cohost. So that's what we're going to be doing. Eric Stromquist: Well, I can't wait for you guys to take to work together. Aarons just doing a fantastic job so far and it's kind of fun with the cohost, you know, so the, but if you're going to get good at this, you have to practice saying this right off the bat. The man, the myth, the legend, let me hear you say it because if something ever happens to me, you know, it's going to be between you and Aaron to step in. But Kenny is very picky about who gets to be his is to introduce them. So one time, Brent, you're on, here's your audition, Brent Burrows: here's the audition, alright, we're on control. Taught now, you know, and in memory of the late, great. Eric, strong quick. No, he's in a better place now. But I am your new cohost and I am going to introduce the man, the myth, the legend Ken Smyers: Ken Smyres take it over again. Right. That was awesome man. He passed it. He might, he might not even wait for me to die, man. He might just nice. Did you guys read the second brand? You just put no, he might. He might give me the boot right after the show did. That was a little too good bread, but well listen dude, before we get into more of the show, talks about what you do and, and in tech, I've known your dad for years and a, you guys have a fabulous company, but, but talk about about Entek and what you guys do. Brent Burrows: Uh, so in tech where our ar can about a local, regional, regional and a national company, uh, have handled, you know, many national accounts over the years. Uh, so we have that side of the business and then we have more of our, uh, what I'd call our local and core business here in Atlanta. Um, we specialize in commercial office space. Um, but you know, also do, you know, hospitals, industrial work, really anything you need, um, we can provide the service and the expertise to work in those areas. So we do anything ranging from, you know, mechanical service, installation retrofits and then, you know, hopping into the controls, the building automation, you know, H Vac, lighting, integration, all of that stuff. And we even do system access controls everywhere. So in tech really is a great one stop shop to fill all your building needs. Ken Smyers: Yeah. One of the things that I saw on the site and we'd talked offline, there is analytics and the impact we have one of our posts we'll be talking about here as we review the posts. So you're actually a delving into analytics now. Tell us about some of your experiences so far. What do you think? Is that, is that the next great a goldmine to dig into? Brent Burrows: Well analytics, no, it's, it's been around, um, in, in the HVAC industry for, for a little while now. And it's kind of, you know, it's interesting, you'll go to these conferences or you know, you'll read stuff and you've got, you know, you got kinda these bud buzzwords or one of the big ones that are, and you know, when I kind of look at buzzwords, there are a lot of terms that people throw around, but then they'll just kind of throw it around and they don't know the meaning of it and they're just like, oh yeah, Iot and analytics and, uh, and you'll just see them, they pop up a lot of conferences, but, uh, but you know, really, uh, been seeing analytics get hammered for the last couple of years now. And basically, you know, one of the great things that you can kind of, they're doing in the industry now, you know, what, you know, everything being more standardized, like, you know, backnet lawn, um, you know, different protocols come then normalizing the data. And then a, you know, a huge one that I know you guys have talked a lot about and they got the big accounts coming up is haystack. Um, you know, basically being able to take all the data in your building, you know, sensor information, uh, whether it's, you know, discharge temps, she knows zone temps, uh, you know, all those things and you're building lighting levels, all this stuff and take it in and get that data. So you kind of get to that point with an integration and it's like, okay, well let's just say, you know, I got a 10 story building, uh, so, you know, got 10 air handlers, chiller plant, and then, you know, depending on the level of integration, let's say I've got 20,000 data points in my building, you know, what are you really doing with that? They're there are, they're acting out there and they're just doing their thing. But you know, unless you can hire somebody 24, seven to watch those sites and be like, oh, this is doing this, this is doing this. Um, it's, it's, it's hard to keep track of it. You kind of get into this, uh, you know, very responsive state. Um, you know, trying to manage the building. It's not forward thinking. It's not really effective. So analytics comes in and does, is it basically, it's like, you know, it is, it's, it's a 24, it's 24, seven program that looks at your building, looks at your data and can alert you to the issues going on. And then also in some cases make responsive writes back to correct issues. Eric Stromquist: Well, that's well said. Well said. And then I think one of the things that Kenny has sort of picked up early on in, and you were talking about sky spark a little bit because that's what you're working with. But, uh, you know, for years back, even when your dad and I were doing this stuff, you know, those old guys, I mean you could always alarm, right? But it got to the point that he had so many alarms, just like my emails, you just become null and void to me just don't pay attention to anymore. So it seems like one of the things analytics allows you to do is to write rules, for example. So if something goes out of temperature for a while, you could give an expert at a time before it sends out an email or an alarm. You could also maybe we'd send a command to say, hey, try to reset it or whatever before you do that. And so are you finding that that's driving some of your customers interest into it or her? What sorts of things when, when they say analytics, like I said, it's a buzz word, but when they come to you or do they actually know what they want her, it's just, hey, I want an analytics package and you shouldn't have to talk him through it. Brent Burrows: Uh, so it, it's interesting you were talking about, uh, my dad, uh, uh, actually met with him this week and he brought up some of the alarming going on from the 90s, and he was, uh, so, uh, I won't name them, but you know, big retail client, um, and they, you know, obviously they have sites all around the country and, uh, they had like a fax machine that sat on the side of this room and this thing continually like it reports and the, I think they actually set up a system where it just like fed into like a dumpster or shredded all it did for 24 hours a day. And they were like, he was like, what is that? There was like, oh, that's the, uh, that's the alarm matrix. Yeah, I remember those things. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but you don't know the, to Eric's point, uh, I think, um, we've seen several, uh, programs now coming out like controls, condoms, coming up with Detroit with the Cochrane supply, Scott Cochran and his team put together this thing. Raven, where you could really, you could eliminate anything. You didn't want to hear all the chief, you know, and just, just get to the nuggets that you needed to know. And then they teamed that down so much that it would be in a proximity presentation. So top chef, chef get that right. We don't want people to think, okay, go ahead. I'm sorry, but God, we got that quick. I'm sorry I couldn't, I'm spit balling here too, but no, go ahead. Saving, saving, saving. Um, so the, the thing that Scott Cochran believed in is it Derek's point that we're so overwhelmed with this is data being pushed at us that we ignore it. Now again, we've always self defense mechanisms. We turn off our phones, we don't have to hear the pagan, you know, and then, but then you really could miss that one really important alarm because you're so, you know, unconditioned to respond to it. The uh, that stuff became packing. They had say, generate so much. I. Dot. Matrix printing stuff that no, he didn't shred but then that shredding to him went back, got recycled back in the, in the shipping department. But I'm so yeah, so a, the raven thing was a real clever a response. So that not only did you restrict the amount of alarms you got, but they were, they were sent specifically to who needed it and it reduced all that additional traffic. Eric Stromquist: So yeah, Brent is a cool app if you haven't seen it. It actually works like with you know, notifications on your iPhone and stuff like that. So you can just set up just the notifications you want to see. So, uh, Scott Cochran's one clever dude and controls con's going to be a great conference and uh, we get, we actually have a discount code for that, don't we county. So we should do, if you put any controlled trends when you registered and put it in a controlled trends, you get a 10% discount and that you'll get 15 but I know it's just a matter of time for you blonder and it's going to cost you an alternate code, a code word. You get 20% off if you mentioned chafing cause that's right. So you are going to be a great cohosts. He's good. He's picking right up on this. Uh, but uh, but so what else? So the analytics, are these primarily the facilities managers asking for this or should it go on up higher? Cause I know you, you know, Dana and the rest of year or down to the rest of your sales staff deals at the c level suite a lot. Is it mainly being pushed down from the c level suite or consulting engineers asking for it? Or how is this even coming into consciousness? Well, it's a, it's interesting. So I'm going to go back real quick to the original question that you asked and mentioned something that, uh, you know, it Kinda all goes along with, uh, with the APP. You're talking about the raven, the alarms, and you mentioned that, you know, just kind of getting, you know, hounded with all this data. And it really does, you know, whether it's, you know, cause I'll, I'll copy myself on the emails most of the time for the alarms. And you know, sometimes it'll just, I think I went through this morning, there was a point that went in and out of alarm, I didn't delete like 600 emails. Brent Burrows: You get into the point of getting alarm fatigue. So yeah. So in the process, let's just say that you have something that does, does alarm and you get, you know, over the course of three or four months, 600 emails, you're going to be like, oh no, just delete all those. Don't worry about that. And sandwiched in there and one or two of those. Yeah. What was important data. So that's why it's important, you know, when you're doing the integration is the freestyle. Yeah. Make sure you set up, you know, your alarms and your, so there are going to be alarms that happened, but you know, maybe just only send out, you know, prioritize with your alarm classes. Um, but, but then to get back to a, to what you're mentioning about what level do you kind of see the requests from analytics coming? Um, I think it really depends. Uh, so a lot of what we, uh, we deal with customers we deal with in the Atlanta market. Um, you know, we'll go into existing buildings and whether, you know, we're upgrading them from, you know, DDC from the 90s or just straight pneumatics and everything, uh, you just hit it. There are different levels of involvement from, you know, different companies and, you know, different positions. So, all right know, I've got to figure out what's going on and I cannot, I don't have the time to pour through this site and I don't want to, you know, pay a monitoring company, you know, just every, every month. Because you know what, that's great. You know, the, there were a few people that we followed around in Atlanta or would go to and there was like, oh yeah, we paid this company $2,000 a month. Just watch this. It's like, but it takes you six hours to get him on the phone. And then sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. But they'll always let you know when that checks in the mail. The, um, the analytic thing, one of the big impulse or impacts was when Niagara JACE started coming with 25 free analytic points to get you a taste of it, you know, and then we started to see people dabble at it, but we really didn't have a whole lot of, uh, you know, takers. And then once they got into it, uh, so it all became, you know, a basically about templating it. But, uh, the Phil fearless fills Zito had a really nice, uh, extract on when he did a synopsis on end for about what he said that what they added to inform and to analytics too. Dot. Oh, was that make capabilities where the preexisting analytic data model it was in, it was inherent embedded a base algor algorithm library and then a realtime on premise analytic control. So one of the things that we saw now was that people, if they wanted to start to dabble, they got a good free tastes that, or a complimentary tastes of analytic points that they could take a couple of points and do exactly what you're saying. Pick out the top, maybe ones that you're getting those multiple alarms, you know, and then have it so that you could control the amount of alarms that you got from that point. So, uh, again it's, it's still, it's just touching the, uh, the, you know, the top of the iceberg because a sky founding of course was the, the industry leader. I mean they basically defined analytics to us. Well, no, it's cool. We can, I've got a question where I think we might have a new vocab word here and I wonder if you've heard of this before. No, no, no, no, no, no. Alarm fatigue has the first time I heard that if you heard the term alarm fatigue before, actually I have this, but I heard it said in that perspective, that context. But you're right, I mean, so I think Brent is coach and he's got his first new phrase, alarm fatigue. Okay. We're, we're going to give you a nickname or get you a tee shirt. It'd be Brent Burroughs alarm fatigue. So I did write that down though. So that's a great one brand. I like that a lot. So bread for our integrators out there who may be, have not gotten into analytics or you know, Skype specifically sky foundry, um, kind of walk them through. I mean, how difficult is it? Is it to get started with it because know there are a lot of integrators, outdated, heard of analytics and maybe you know, think they can do it or don't think they can do it, but what do they need to know? If you're just starting to scratch your ears, assistant center grader and you haven't worked with analytics, sort of walk them through it. Uh, so obviously, you know, um, like the sky spark, um, sky spark software, you know, like anything else, uh, to be able to sell it, you know, you have to get signed up with a distributor, all that. Um, so, you know, first need to find somebody that can not distribute it. And it's really important, you know, when you're kind of going into a new software, I believe this with anything, is to make sure that you've got a good support channel. Um, you know, like in between you and then, you know, and sky foundry, which I'll say for sky foundry, their online database of like help, documentation, everything. It's phenomenal. Um, I have used that a ton. It'll actually basically walk you through setting up site, uh, comes with a great demo site so you can look at how everything's set up and then, you know, reverse engineer. Cause you know, as a, as a systems integrator or you know, anything else, it's, it's similar. You know, it's, it's just like physically, you know, kinda like building an engine or something. How do you really figure out how an engine works? Well, take one apart and put it back together and you're going to have a good idea of what those components do, where they go and everything. Same thing applies to the software. So, uh, getting started there. Go ahead. Eric Stromquist: No, that's a good analogy. And you know, and I think that's where you're talking about the division of labor and, and the, and the support structure, you know, some of the, some of the great products. And so the great applications that have failed, uh, did so not because it wasn't a great application is because people didn't take to it well, they didn't have a support structure, he didn't have that engaging support that you're talking about. And some of these new people, new products and solutions we see coming in, especially in North America, you know, the, the contracting mentality as they wanted so they can understand it and they want to be able to do that physically create an analogy. So this is how you put it together and it's how you take apart and by the time you do that, you know, the steps are all procedural and the methodologies very consistent and then you get really good at it. I think the, the commitment, this guy foundry is significant, but once you get there, you've got it's money well spent and you just, it's a gold mine, right? Can, it will listen and Brent, this is a, that a, you're going to probably have to do with Aaron Gorka called stable datum, right? Because we, as we're assuming that our entire audience listening to the show right now understand what Skype boundary disguised park is. So Kenny, if you don't mind, would you just give our audience just a quick overview of what it is because I think people have heard of analytics, they've heard of data, but they may or may not have heard of skies park. Uh, if they don't listen on a regular basis. Kenny, let's give our audience a little stable datum on exactly what guys foundry isn't what sky's parks are. Ken Smyers: All right. Well, you know, I would recommend everybody to Google or not Google, but to come to our website control to trends. And then just to take a look at John Patsy or look at sky found in there because we have multiple videos of John explaining it, what it is through interviews or whatever. But essentially the synopsis, The Sky Spark is an open analytic platform from sky foundry that automatically analyzes building data from sensors, automation systems, meters and other smart devices to provide useful building insights, sky spark insights, help facility managers, building owners and business managers identify trends, issues, faults, correlations. And opportunities for cost reductions and building improvements. Uh, and then also the, the, the growth of it. You know, so we were asking about, you know, who wants it and how is it implemented? And it comes from all different dimensions. It doesn't come from consistently the COO or the CTO or you know, a smart building owner. It comes from people that have problems that need them fix. So just give me an idea. There's more than 10,000 facilities around the globe that are using sky spark right now. They analyze buildings, data over 650 million square feet of buildings. Imagine that. Then they went over a billion. And by the way, that's further on, but commercial buildings, apartment buildings, apartment complexes, hotels, resorts, data centers, industrial facilities, educational campuses, government buildings, large multi-use retail spaces and other large complex facilities. But if you remember the one crazy thing about it is we start small with one building using the sky, spark and sky foundry or analytics, you know, because there'll be other versions of analytics. But in order to get to the smart cities, you've got to start small. It's a modular thing. So you'd go from one building building. Exactly. But this whole thing crescendos into a smart city where you're, everybody is getting that data there knowing that usages and aren't in and we're occupancies are they knowing when they have about, you know? Right, right. And I think, you know, again, John Petze used to be president of tritium, one of the brightest guys on the planet. Great Drummer too. Buddy rich has nothing on John Petze. But uh, you know, we only all went sky spark first came out or sky founder first came out. It was kind of cost prohibitive almost just simply because to connect the data points together really required somebody to go in and link this to this, to this, to this, to this. But that's all changed now. It's gotten super formed. Super, Super Price Competitive Kenny because of drum roll. HAYSTACK CONNECT. I tried to download, try new vocab words. I need another cup of coffee. That's a good one buddy. I know you want to do that. And Yeah, because again, we're trying to promote project haystack to the best of her abilities and really get the community excited about it. But I think we're getting other people excited about it. I think there's people that are learning outside of the HVC, bas industry that understand that haystack tagging. For instance, we had Samsung, uh, from, uh, the smart car. Don't trick me again here. Most of name again, can we need first and last name for try again? Go, go, go, go, go, go to the Control Trent website, highlight her name and then have Google pronounced that JMC futurist, right when, anyhow, she took the, the haystack tagging to heart and talk. It was an, you know, it's, it's just absolutely vital to eliminate all the friction and bring down to two. We're belongs as quickly as possible. There should be cooperative. You ready for an analogy? Haystack tagging is to sky foundry every other analytics or control system as gasoline is to a car. What do you, what do you think about how, how bad is like, you know, uh, I mean, you know, and not another analogy. I think one of the great things about having haystack, it's, it's basically this organization that says, yes, you know, hey guys, instead of re reinventing the wheel, here you go, we're going to give you the tools or instead of making all your own custom stuff, here's the tools to do it. You know, it'd be kind of like every kind of like, you know, I guess it's, you know, not using haystack tagging. I feel like doing your analytics to standardize it. It's kind of like going back to the, you know, Dark Ages or the prehistoric times of, you know, where you just have different tribes and they have like all their own forms of communication. Like, you know, I don't, most marriages, well, you know what I do, I think that's going to, that's going to work there because if you hear John pets he talking about, he actually gets mad, he'll, he'll start out real calm and mellow and hills. He'll start saying, but, uh, his patients in the industry I think is waning because it's a choice. And you know, again, a lot of people have, you know, big legacy investments and they've got, you know, look at corporations are run and, and they, they really truly have to control the rate of adoption and, and, and is it his money comes it. I mean we had the guy from Sweden tell us, you know, all these things could have been fixed many, many, many years ago if there wasn't a, you know, an economic reason not to do it. So brand have an economic reason to get them right. Now where I am, Brent needs to know this, cause I know your listener brown button it Kenny. This is the part of the show where we come up with are conspiracy theories. Okay. Okay. No, no, no, no, no. And I want to do something right now too. It's certain, Huh? Jam Fee. So that's not sued. Sud h a JMT j a m t h e. Dot. The Jaffe. Right. This Suda Hey, you know what I practice, come on. Say it. And you know what? I'm going to sit on this one because I, I haven't had a chance to write it down and sanded it out. But I think this is like a good idea for like a new bit. Eric Stromquist: You should do Kenny Kenny's words a week and put a word down and then have them like phonetically sounded. I know Kenny. No, no, we got one of this when Kenny's word of the week. Shaef Chase, rub your face with a scarf or something and you scraped, I think he's in a different context today, which is like the data was shaved off of the sound. No, it was to do with the wheat and, and the other stuff. Boys in the shaft, not the shape. You're not going here. Let's get back to those two words are a little too close. Well, you know what I think so. I have a lot of those. So look at that. That's a good sign. That means that your brain's working. Okay, so let's get back to Brent. Meanwhile, back to Brent. So Brent, again speaking to integrators out there that maybe haven't taken the punch to do an analytics and his specific way sky founder, you sort of walk them through the steps, you know, they can call Ken or Eric, that should be your distributor., STROMQUIST.COM And after you get with your distributor, what happens next? So after you get with your distributor, uh, hopefully they can set you up on SKY FOUNDRY Um, so you can get into the resources you can access. Um, it's pretty cool once you get everything set up. Um, sky spark actually has a demo and all you have to do is just pretty much upload the demo and then you can go through all the steps, all the steps they give you online. Brent Burrows: They give you like a five part, um, kind of do it yourself. Um, you know, set up the data points and you know, add the equipment, add the points, add the tags, go, go view the data and do everything. So you get practice, like kind of like we talked about putting something together. So you get practice doing that and then you start going, all right, I can see this, I can see how this will work. Uh, and then after you do that, you're going to want to go to one of the sky's spark, uh, analytics, uh, classes. Typically I think it's like a two or a three day class. Um, they get you all set up on there. After that you are going to be able to, uh, to sell the product and uh, and really do it. Um, and one of the cool things is, is basically, you know, if I had to like look at it and you know, just look at, you know, your customer set and figure out 10 rules, figure out 10 things that you want to look for. You know, the last thing you want to do is be like, oh, I got to come out with, you know, 500 something rules or I've got to figure out how much, you know, k w port per square foot. You know, when people, uh, you know, have a Dell computer or laptop in there, it's like, okay, just, just kind of back it off. Keep it simple to start, like one of the biggest ones, uh, that, that I see and you know, I see it around Atlanta a lot. You've got these, um, these old [inaudible] use that still have to use pneumatic a pneumatic actuators. So, and you'll see that and you'll see, you know, you'll use a DDC controller, goes to a, uh, goes to a transducer and then that sends the air pressure pneumatic actuator and you know, it, they've, they have it that way because the cost to retrofit one of those, as you know, it's like four hours and you know, maybe like a $340 part, you guys posted something a long time ago and I think strong Quist offered a retrofit part. It's for those, uh, to basically take that internal damper and then change it over to, you know, have an external, yeah, it was, it was trying, I wasn't sure if we were mentioning manufacturers or anything. So I remember that then. And we'll, you know, we saw a lot of that too. Yeah, that was a, that was an excellent demo and I'm very successful to do, to kind of move things on. I don't know. Hang on real quick. I can't, if you don't mind. There's one other thing I wanted to sort of bring around because Brent, I think it was brilliant. You know all the rules come up with 10 you can, you can come up with, so for example, for our property management people out there, you got building a and it is using 50,000 kw per month. You've got building B, it's using 25,000 kw month and you've got building c, which is just in 150,000 kw a month. Which one is most energy efficient? One uses the most energy. Well and you do that, that's easy. But you know, basically it, you can Kinda, you can organize the data because you know, what if one is a single story building, how many square foot, how many people are occupied. So you, and part of the reason I brought that up was you used the term earlier, which for our owners out there who might not think this was, I didn't think this way, it was explained to me part of what Brent's companies able to normalize your data because oddly enough, the small, the one with the least amount you spend the amount of money on might be the most energy efficient, the one that you're spending the most on because this maybe 10 times bigger might be your most energy efficient. So unless you can normalize it. Eric Stromquist: And what I mean by normalizes taking random data points or data points, bringing them together and setting their criteria like square foot footage, occupancy times a number of people and that, so that's a big part of us gotta be one of the first ones that you guys would go for. I would take if you have multiple facilities. Right. So, um, so I'll go, I'll go back. It was just kind of that the brief example with the damper, and I know I was kind of explained some technical stuff on it, but it's, you know, like a real real simple rule is like, you know, and you can compare it, you know, how many VAVs PKI use, things like that. Kind of like you're talking about. But you know, the big ones that you can see, you know, a Vav is it open at 100% not satisfying the CFM. Brent Burrows: So either we've got mechanical problem, we've got a design problem, you know, somewhere in the chain. And also the biggest thing, one of the things I see the most money wasted on, like with that particular style of box is this thing has electric heat strips in it. So electric heat, huge energy user. I mean just unbelievable. So it's got the heat going, right? Trying to satisfy the space and you've got a bad damper bladder and there that's not in 600 800 cfm through. So I'm simultaneously heating and cooling space. I'm basically dehumidifying your space when you get to pay for it. As long as this thing has occupied and you know, put that over a 15 story building and let that happen, you know, uh, on a cup on each floor. And just remember that the first real calm I become, and you've met right? You know, Smith and he said that, uh, their biggest, um, why I got this one. Can I do this one? Okay. You just cause I don't, I normally don't know much about, I do know this. So Brandon, Darryl Smith, random Microsoft campus back when Kenny and I first met him, and this is the best example of alarm first as rules base did I ever heard. And what Daryl was saying was a, this huge campus, huge, huge energy bills. They never got an alarm because the Microsoft campus was the most comfortable campus. You could be anywhere. All those buildings were comfortable. They put in a program similar to sky's bar and they realize the reason their energy was so high and the reason nobody complained about the temperature was that their heating and cooling ran at the same time to maintain temperature. They had no idea that was happening until they put the analytics package. And so then what happened, consequently, after that was, uh, you know, they fixed that problem. They started getting a lot of alarms and Bill Gates got mad at Darryl Smith. So there you have it. You have anything you want to add to that, Kenny? I'm sorry. No, no, no. It was, it was the whole thing we said to you, you know, some of the things that they were saying is the valve of the heating valve was clogged, blocked, open, you know, it wasn't Seton properties. So then it was leaving too much heat into the space and an air conditioning or the, you know, Viv is letting, calling in. So the bottom line was that you could have no, uh, alarms are no complaints that nobody's complained about the temperature of being too hot, too cold, but that's not necessarily a good thing. So what they started to analyze, uh, was if the state changes doesn't change over a certain period of time, that there's reason for concern, something that should be going up and down based on different, uh, the different, uh, aspects of the building, different times of day, different whatever. But nothing should stay the same. No temperatures and stayed 72 for longer than maybe like 60 minutes. And if it does, that'd be one of the rules we'd say somebody needs to look at it probably got, you know, something's going on there that you said requires some investigation. But um, I am, I'm a little bit concerned that we're, we're going to get the time, uh, isn't slip away so we should throw in some of these posts so that they get more friends. Comments on your bread. Eric Stromquist: This is part of the audition here. Now we're going to go through some post of the week and you got to make it yet like really astute comments about them. Okay. I don't want to suppress them cause you know, you're, you're a systems integrator and you bring like a different perspective. Absolutely. Is this relevant to your world or not? You know, what's one posts you want to talk about? For now, we'll just go kind of lighthearted cause uh, you know, again, the two and you know, nuggets to take away into some of this has kind of superficial stuff with like the next post you want to talk about and get Brent's comments on is the, the new facility manager might be a robot. Uh, and how will artificial intelligence affect your building? We know from Ken Sinclair that artificial intelligence is common. It's a real thing, how quickly they adoption rate's going to be and whatever. Or is it happening with or without our knowledge? Uh, and he calls it automated, intelligent, not intelligence, artificial intelligence. So the question would ask you there is that you, do you think that artificial intelligence has a foothold already? Uh, w what's the adoption rate with your end of the world or your from your perspective? Um, Brent Burrows: so, uh, in, in terms of, of running buildings right now where we're at and you know, Atlanta, Georgia, um, I haven't seen a whole lot of artificial intelligence in a, and the particulars particular areas where at, um, obviously that's the way am, I mean every, everything's moving that way, you know, whether we still really haven't seen a whole ton of, you know, a voice stuff come in to, you know, the building automation world. So I feel like you're going to see that come in and then you're going to see AI. But that's kind of the analytics thing too, is, you know, and we were talking about earlier, you know, it used to be you'd pay somebody to monitor this and they would watch it and now you have a computer that's doing it, you know, a, a program that that just looks at. It looks at rules, it compares the data, and then it gives you an outcome. So go ahead. So based on how you define artificial intelligence, in many cases, some of it's already there, it's just not called artificial intelligence. God was charging two grand a month to technical data. I mean he's already been replaced by a robot. Right. Which is a shame. That'd be a sweet deal. So Eric, uh, so I got it said Jan, Jan. Okay. Now, so the next, the Kenny, he's like, it's not jam. J A M is Shanthi. It's a softer version. Okay. So if we're doing artificial intelligence, let's take this thing to the next level. And we had this very intelligent futurist and she is the real McCoy. She is internationally, globally recognized for her, her understanding and divisions that are coming. You know what our world is going to look like in five 10 15 years. But she did this thing on smart buildings and powering smart buildings, smart cars and the whole idea of sustainable building, sustainable energy cars that are driving and they're basically collect the energy, putting in a battery. The car gets to the building that it works, it's parked at and plugs in and instead of the building powering the car up again, cars powering the building up in an emergency situation that you could really exploit this cause it's just moving energy. You know, cars are literally collect the energy and then moving them to where they needed nick actually plug into a building. Um, not, not that we're going to see this anytime soon, but what do you think that, uh, the Atlanta metropolitan area is that, is that kind of technology receptive? You see that? I know that a, with Eric, with your smart car, you're a customer, your test, the, one of your biggest issues at first was the charging stations. They could be busy, it might not be available, but you know, it was, it was trying that new technology. Does it fit, do you see us moving a year end of the world there, uh, Brent taking, adopting that kind of technology or is it kind of an out there kind of like, I dunno, I'm sure had you asked the question, you know, 20 or 30 years I had like, had you asked when maybe Eric and my dad were working together a little bit, like, you know, hey, where are you thinking we're going to be in 30 years with us in buildings? It's like snack. I'd be met that it's not going to matter. All our cars going to be flying around anyway. It's kind of local conceptions out there. Oh, we'll get to your point. I mean, I look at this thing every day and I'm all, I marvel over the iPhone every day because I just, I can't get over it. Cause my wife's German, she talks to her sister's like we're talking, you know, across the street. And it doesn't cost a dime. They used to be my third biggest expense. You know, we had mortgage, car and then phone. Right. Well, you know, Kenny, I had been on my, I'm like, rephrase the question a little bit because you know, I think the car was just sort of an example of the fact that you could use a battery to power building and Nissan actually did with their corporate headquarter and a suit. The JMT talks a lot about, uh, about the fact that you can now contribute to the grid and said you're just drawing off the grid. And I think a more Germane sort of, uh, uh, question might be do see a day where maybe Ken Smyers: the batteries are powering the buildings. Um, yeah, I mean, you know, tech technology continues to evolve and to just things that you just never thought were possible. Kind of like, you know, like the analogy there of a, you know, thinking about a battery charging and building. I mean, you know, absolutely. It's possible. What, you know, what Ken just talked about, you know, with that right there, I'm sure you guys saw him back in the, uh, you know, maybe even the 80s, the early nineties. Like what are the first cell phones look like? Where did the first computers, they'll quite white mainframes hold clinic rooms and now this is more powerful than the first computer mainframe huge rooms that were created. I'm really glad you cleaned that up for me cause I'm not, hang on, hang on. I'm not done yet. I've got a Mike, my conspiracy theory and then you can come back to you Ken. So I have a conspiracy theory cat because Brent, you know, you guys hard Johnson controls is wanting the lines you handles was Honeywell on this tech Johnson controls is one of the largest car battery or manufacturers in the world. Okay. So you start thinking about that and then you put into the fact that Tesla developed something called the power wall, right in California. What that because you know, you could have the solar energy coming in but you pretty much had to use it or lose it. What the power wall, you were able to store it. Okay. So I think Johnson and Tesla are getting together right now. I think what's going to happen is you're going to have solar panels on the building. There's going to come down to some sort of a power wall that will hold the charge, that will charge the battery and then the battery will charge the building. Well Eric, to your point, I think, uh, I'm glad you did it cause I was thinking the same thing. We know that Johnson controls made a major investment and batteries. And one of the scenarios we saw Brent was really cool was that, you know, uh, with a DC AC wars mobile. Derek and I used to cover the Westinghouse versus Tesla and how, uh, it was a power station thing who could transmit the power of the further Stacy one but DC. Now it's coming back in. And many people were saying, why are we taking power, making it a scene and converting it back to DC inside of a building since every something inside of the buildings operating on DC. What about we put a big battery in the basement in, you know, some mechanical room or whatever and we power it up. And from there we power the entire building with 24 volts DC. Ken Smyers: And then you have power over ethernet and we have all these really incredible ideas. But so to your point, and I agree with you 100%, it's not, it's just a matter of when we get the opportunity to deploy these technologies are here. It's just, it's in the economic constriction. It says the economic, you know, friction, you gotta, you gotta make money and people have to transition from one technology to the other. But it doesn't mean it's not going to have, it's just the question of when. Right. So I, you know, it's really interesting to about, um, you know, buildings doing that. Obviously it'd be much easier, you know, as with anything, um, you know, if you're building a brand new building to be able to Spec that stuff and then absorb it into the cost of, you know, of doing the building as opposed to looking at a building that has everything that has ac powered, whether, you know, lighting, HPAC equipment, you know, literally everything and being like, all right, we're going to rip all this stuff out and then we're going to put all of this and, and it's going to cost you, you know, x and whoever owns the building or she come managers of the building, it's like, no, we're not. It's a great point, Brent and know that my father in law lives in New Mexico, right? And they used to subsidize solar panels, but then the electric company, conspiracy theory started, you know, not making as much money so they don't subsidize any more. So now it's cost prohibitive to do it. But I tell you what, I think, uh, I want to get back to Ed Tech and your dad a little bit because your dad is when I got to be kidding me, your dad is one of the brightest businessmen know. And when your dad would say is, if you want to have heard him say this over the years, you want to paint it blue, I'll paint it blue. You want to back you on a battery power building, not give you a battery painted battery power building. Right. So, uh, uh, and I, and I think at the end of the day, it's, this is, you know, a lot of conjecture on our part. It's fun to talk about, but at the end of the day, uh, what's going to make the most sense for the owners is what they're going to do. Yeah. My favorite ones are listen to the Paul Oswald and listen to, uh, George Thomas from contemporary controls. The, these guys are the more senior faculty in our, in our industry and they say, you know, we keep talking about this absolutely wowed off the wall technology when we still don't fix belts and we still don't do it. Most primordial maintenance you need, uh, you know, and keeping the motors running and stuff like that. So I think what you have to do is you have to keep one foot on its tectonics. It's moving and shifting when it applied. Yeah. Plate tectonics. There we go. Brent and we still have a vocabulary from you yet. What have we done? We got it. Tig. Hold on. Protect. Yes. Right. I'm sorry I got circled them when you said that. I will give you credit when I like something that somebody says something cool, I write it down and at the end of it when we have to write the show notes up or whatever, I can run through all these little circles, nuggets there and alarm fatigue is circled. We're going to, we're going to take this thing into a macro level again, and we're going to shift gears and just security, cybersecurity. We're going to go into your version of cybersecurity. How often you bump into it, what does it, what does it scare you to death or you got to, you got a handle on it. What's, what's going on from your perspective? Brent Burrows: Um, you know, cyber security, obviously you now have extremely important, I would say as important as, uh, eh, as anything you're, you're really doing in a building, you know, as long as you know you're not, when you're putting in controls, you're not just absolutely wrecking the equipment. What's the, the other thing, keeping, you know, unauthorized people from entering your site? Um, if you can isolate it. That, and that's the biggest thing was cybersecurity, uh, that I'm kind of saying, um, from our end is things need to be isolated. Um, so like you really do, you need to have like, you know, for your h Vac, building automation, security access, all that stuff. Um, like to isolate it if you can on, on separate networks. I mean, you know, you don't have to look far, uh, with different, you know, cybersecurity issues and large retailers, whether it's through, you know, the credit card scanners or you know, however these hackers get in to access, you know, a bunch of people's personal data at places. Like it's just kinda like, holy crap. I thought that was a very unimportant, this thing just turns the lights on, turns the lights off and now they've got access to, you know, social security numbers of all the data that we're keeping over here. So, um, there's some really cool products out there. I'm like, you know, one that y'all rep, uh, that, uh, yeah, that, that's it. I really liked that. Um, you want to talk about security like that is that, that is the deal. Um, the, the ease access is, you know, not as much like, you know, you can't just start grabbing a bunch of random devices and, and doing it. There's got to be a little bit more prep work, but you want to talk about secure and a and manage like dad is awesome. So it's not that expensive dye tee people. Cause I guess a part of the question would be are you running it up when you put a system or the it people now more concerned or they come, do you say you're going to try to what to my network or I know you guys work on a different sort of size building and stuff like that, but uh, yeah, uh, I actually had a meeting with a, with a 19 manager, um, just just recently within the last couple of weeks. And he was wanting to know like a, you know, what are you going to do or how does this need to be set up and everything like that. And uh, it's, it, it's a good conversation to be able to have with them in person. Like don't try and pass it off to someone else that isn't going to be working on the technical side because it's just that then things get misinterpreted and people get defensive. You're not putting this on my network and all this, you know, it turns into like a little peon contest when you don't need it. It's just, you know, a good conversation to have. And that's one of the things Tridium does a good job with is, you know, they have a, they've got it out there. I'm not sure what the most updated version is, but it's called the hardening guide, which, uh, um, basically goes through and it'll tell you how to most securely set up your system. And if you can go through that with an eye with, you know, manager or, or whoever, then everybody can be comfortable. All the data can all be out there. And then, you know, you make sure that you're putting in the most secure option. You know, so ironic you said that because I sent that to somebody this morning. Um, the issues were on the audit trails and about, you know, uh, who gets into the system and then when I have as the Niagara for hardening, it's from six 28, 2018. So I'm sure there's one, uh, more recent than that, but you're exactly right. It's, uh, I think it's a 48 page document. Let's see. Yeah. And it really goes deep dives into a 42 pages. So, um, but what we have, uh, for, for the controlled trans community is we have a responsibility to keep, keep cybersecurity as a concurrent trend is the top trend. We post the NIST released in ist and they give us, you know, the checklists and take people on an individual level and organizational level, uh, you know, a corporate level and then a city level. Ken Smyers: So we have two posts that I just want to bring them up real quick. One is the, a Schneider electric has a cybersecurity, a Webinar you can sign up for and it has a, a lot of great information. And then two, for the people that are really in the business dot have deep, we have a smart and secure city, the community challenge expo and Washington DC July 10th and 12th. And it's about security. Cybersecurity on a, on a macro level. So, and ist the US Department of Homeland Security and sciences, the technology, are they basically the sponsors of it? It's a free registration is free, but you have to preregister it's required for attendance. You can't just walk in there online and we have a hot button to it. But so cybersecurity is, you're right. So Brent, Brent, you just hit three correct answers in a row. So we're going to over and cybersecurity is one. It's as important as anything else. We're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're, we're working with now if we have to have a responsibility, we have to own that responsibility and learn about it. We don't necessarily have the solution for it, but we can be part of the solution or part of the problem. Well said. Well said. Well, listen, dude, uh, let's, let's talk about a couple more things. A couple of other vets and then we're probably going to need to hop off here. But, uh, where Brent, you gotta talk to your dad about this cause you want to go to this conference? Edi. Oh, easy. Easy. I know they call it easy time. What are the dates on these? Okay, you want to go to Amsterdam with this bra? Yes. Sounds great. Yes we do. It's, it's May 17th through the 19th, and it's going to be in Amsterdam and it's going to be an extraordinary event. We're taking the lid off this thing now because, uh, there's, um, the importance of it is growing. Uh, what ECI is doing is they're going to really walk us through the roadmap and they'd been the innovators. It'd probably been the strongest leading innovator company of all the recent companies for just the, the ability to get things done quickly. Put an FSL server size to controller inside of a regular, you know, fit the build of a, of a know basically a controller that it's core for core processors, quad core processors and, and, and it just sort of new paradigm as shaking all the other vendors in there. You're doing something incredible now. They're kind of, they were going to reduce it. They're going to get fs 20. So it's going to use smaller compact is you had the same from inability. It's just cost less money. And so they do the wireless thing. So they've got the FTO for coming out and all those things. Clever and amazing thing. Lim who in charge came up with some very, very interesting things. Eric Stromquist: No, Kenny, you're, you're, you're so right about the technology. But listen, let's focus on the event itself because these guys know how to throw a party where up go to Europe. Okay. And write it off on your taxes. These guys, you'll learn stuff. But man, we've been to all the major soccer stadiums. I made these guys know how to throw a party. It is the best time you'll have. You'll learn a lot. You meet integrators from all around the world now Kenny, Brett and I are going to be there. Maybe Aaron Gorka even show up if he gets out of bed long enough to see what's going on here. But uh, but so that's going on. We've got that. We got real calm. Be Con coming up Kenny in Nashville, Tennessee and then we've got the Afore mentioned a HAYSTAK CONNECT. Hey look, get started. We got to start at the beginning here. We got national [inaudible] you got, what do you mean? We have to start at the beginning to see that much 26 this week we got a major event down in Baltimore. And anybody close to that, you go to it. It's one of the best, uh, you know, uh, in, in our, each department of the country and is great to network and get great training. Uh, it's start, just wait, we have controls con coming up May 2nd through the fourth up there in Detroit. And I'll tell you why that's another one. We have a discount code putting in control trends when you registered. Then we go to project haystack. Okay. May 17th and 18th. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. May I have, we just had the post up so, uh, that's on the side. You can go to the site and check it out, but I'm just with my, my, my emphasis is on bang, Bang, Bang. But the, uh, it's gonna be uh, uh, a resort area too. That's extraordinary. Anyhow, you're right, it's at the Paradise Island, Paradise Island. And uh, it's May 13th through the 15th. I ride right before we go to go to Holland. But it last but not least, June 11th through the 14th real calm. I be con that's going to be in Nashville, Tennessee. And we also have a controls trans code coming from Jim Young and the, excuse me, Howard Berger and Lisa, which too. So we're excited about it because we're starting as a pivot point for this, this incredible information. Obviously people can't make it to all of them, but that's where you need to do your homework. If you're an integrator and you're learning about this stuff, uh, you know, you might want to go to a haystack because you can start using that template. If you're, you're into the integration and you want to work with the latest and greatest set of tools, do you need to get the easy Ios Global World Conference? You get the additional benefit of some travel and they do have a spectacular today program. Uh, and then if you're in the real estate business and you're servicing people that make the need to know how they can make a smarter, more intelligent, more connected building, then you need to go to real calm. So hang on. There's one more county. Hmm. Very well done. That was nicely done. Okay. Very succinct to the point. I love it. Now, if you need an integrator to put all this great technology and we know a pretty good one in Atlanta on name Entech Brett, tell us how people get hold of Edtech and, and some of the things you guys do, Brent Burrows: uh, to get ahold of Entek.com. Uh, you know, go to our website, all the contact information, um, or call Eric and he'll get you over to us. Um, but, uh, but what we do is we try to offer, you know, an an all in one solution. You know, we'd like to thank you. Now we'll do a little bit of everything. What we'll do. Anything that you let us do, you know, Kinda like you said before, you want me to paint it green, I'll paint it green. Yeah. Um, so, uh, so, you know, we do a, the HPAC controls, uh, cardax card access, integrating those systems together. Uh, and then the mechanical HPAC, uh, you know, do all that systems analytics. Um, you know, we try and be, you know, either an all in one solution or if, you know, take one. No, extremely happy with your mechanical company. We'd love to do your controls, vice versa. Eric Stromquist: Well, the other thing too, Brent and I want to bring up your dad and your company has and more national account work. So if you're a big box or even a little box retailer that has multiple locations across the United States, your dad's been doing that for the last 40 years with major accounts. So, you know, a lot of times people that they like assist and they want something put in and uh, uh, I'm going to tell us about your dad before we go. You'll like this canning, uh, all across the country. So you guys do national accounts as well and do a great job with that. So here's the story. How many of you know who doctor Laura is? I don't. Oh Gosh. He had to talk to her. She was like a battle ax. It's like, you know, you've got to be tough. You've got to do this and you, you know kind of like a doctor Phil on steroids, although Dr Phils Kinda cuter and she is but uh anyway your dad is doing a borders bookstore and doctor Laura is, they're doing a book signing and your dad's up on a ladder working, not working on the Vav box and all of a sudden he hears this voice, hey come over here and move these books and he kind of looks down and goes, who's doctor Laura or she's asking me to go do some stuff. So I just waved at her and went right back up and just anyone you ever get a chance to talk to branch dad had worlds, one of the funniest guys and then she wanted the best story tellers rent. Man, thank you so much for being on the show this week. Very excited about what you and Erin, you're going to come up with a herons. Episode seven is up on control, a controlled product. I'm going to see control controlled fence.com was a great episode and I guess starting at episode eight will probably be you and him working together. So excited about that and they controlled trans community is lucky to have you on board, so thank you for doing this. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me looking forward. All right, so now, now I know you normally listen to the podcast so we got to practice this outro, Ken Smyers: two more things real quick. I'm sorry this is part of the show. Okay, go ahead. Well anyhow, uh, we do have a shout out. We want to shout out to Bill Schafer. He commented on the Scott Cochrane, um, article that we posted in Scott's comments and the, you know, just to give you an idea of the flavor and the interesting inputs we get controlled transits that I've read Scott Cochrane's article on automated buildings. I've been involved in a couple of projects with temporary networks were necessary. So I found Stanford solution. Interesting. Your article left me with a couple of questions and thoughts about using Ip controllers versus MSTP controllers and how vendors in it departments handle them. And so we have, uh, an opportunity for we forward that to Scott for a response, but we invite all our control trans community to please, these are the kinds of conversations and dialogues we'd love to have because everybody benefits from it. You might get your own little answer. Uh, you know, you might get your own private answer or young interest answer, uh, responded to, but we all benefit from it. And then last but not least, I want to compliment Eric Strom quest, who's the most hardest working creative, innovative social media guy out there? Eric, he put up four youtube videos. Tell us, tell us about each one real quick. One minute or less on each one of them. Eric Stromquist: Why? Can't really remember all. But as we said on the show last week, we get content up quicker on the youtube channel. So Brent, I don't know about you, but you know how long, a lot from youtube. So we get a lot of questions. Like, for example, we have one on, what's the difference between two way and three way valves, which a ghuy like you knows , but we created a video for that. Uh, and so we are going to be putting more and more HVAC TECH TRAING VIDEOS on our YOUTUBE CHANNEL. Youtube content up here. So please subscribe to the channel. New Speaker: stromquist.com dmsconytrols.com ent https://kit.com/ControlTrends/gear-we-use-to-shoot-the-show https://kit.com/ControlTrends/books-we-recommened

In this episode, your host Aaron Gorka, interviews two of eh smartest young kids in HVAC and Building controls and services. This weeks guests are First-up we have Bart James, Interim President & CEO @ ACCA, and Greg Brooks @ Brooks Landscaping / livelifenow365.com. Check it out and tell and HVAC friend to check it out too.

In this episode, your host Aaron Gorka, interviews two of eh smartest young kids in HVAC and Building controls and services. This weeks guests are First-up we have Bart James, Interim President & CEO @ ACCA, and Greg Brooks @ Brooks Landscaping / livelifenow365.com. Check it out and tell and HVAC friend to check it out too.

How will Artificial Intelligence Change the Smart Buildings Industry? Dollar Driven Decision-Makers want Data into Insights, Insights into Action, and Action into Revenue. Will AI Deliver? CTN 305 Interviews: Show Notes Eric Stromquist: 00:00:00 Hi. Welcome to Control Talk Now, you’re Smart. Buildings video cast and podcast for the weekend in March 3rd., 2019 . We give you all the Smart Building and HVAC Controls News of the Week. and That’s right. Folks marches here. Episode 305 I am Eric Stromquist. , I am joined as usual by your co host and mine The Man, The Myth, the legend the one, the only Kenny Smyers the control man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Kenny. you’ve been out sunbathing today, right? Ken Smyers: 00:00:26 No, I have not been sounds good. We got another two to four inches of snow again last night. And, February beat us up pretty bad, but we’re looking forward to the break in the weather. Eric Stromquist: 00:00:52 well, listen dude, we don’t have time to talk about that. We don’t have time to talk about much of anything. You know why we got two fabulous guests lined up. So, let’s get right to that. But before we do check out the post on controlled trends this week a big one, our friend Aaron Gorka, another next generation innovation podcasts dropped on Friday,, so be sure to check that out. Alot of good stuff on the on that which we’ll come to. Well you just have to go to the site to read it at controltrends.com Kenny with that, let’s introduce our first guest Ken Smyers: 00:01:27 Our next guest is the one and only Ken Sinclair, owner editor of automated buildings. And this month we’ve got something really interesting because I think Ken is going to help us differentiate between artificial intelligence and automated intelligence. Welcome to the show. Ken Sinclair. Ken Sinclair: 00:01:45 Welcome Ken! Thank you very much. ControllTrends. Always a pleasure to be here I appreciate it. Eric Stromquist: 00:01:51 I guess we should just start with you have to be intelligent before any of that’s relevant. Ken Sinclair: 00:01:59 Actually. Actually you’re quite right on, I’m one of the tweets. They actually picked that up and uh, they just pointed out that the, the, the intelligent part is us. We keep forgetting that we, I think we tried to imitate the artificial piece of artificial intelligence rather than the intelligent part. Uh, and it’s hard. It’s harder to be the intelligence. Ken Smyers: 00:02:20 No, I guess just going to say Ken, you know, it’s another great addition. Uh, just, uh, keep a common and is an amazing benefit to our industry that you’re, you’re able to grab all this new stuff coming out and start to make sense of it because when I read, whereas reading some of your, your, uh, entry, sir, in your first, uh, your editorial, when will we ever see a artificial or automated intelligence come into being? I mean, we close. I mean like when you didn’t have, are like, say Scown foundry and I had mentioned, you know, you know, you got, uh, somebody collecting information data. So we wrote a program, so you’re autonomize or automate the collection data, sends it somewhere Ken Smyers: 00:03:00 where it’s being processed by another basically program. So we took the humans out of the elements is going from, you know, machine information, but that back to computer machine information and it completes it. In your opinion, artificial intelligence or what does that sort of striving for is that we maybe try and redefine that a little better once it’s done and once it works and once it’s successful, I believe what it is is automated intelligence, right? And what we’ve done is we’ve learned how, and we probably did that through augmented intelligence and we may have used a artificial intelligence from computers to create that. But in the final analysis, it’s when it’s done, it’s actually a couple of lines of code in this machine and a couple of lines of code and that machine pushing information back and forth. So really all we’ve done is does that look any different than the DDC? Ken Sinclair: 00:03:59 Looper you know, it’s just, it’s just artificial or pardon me, automated intelligence. I keep getting my words mixed up here. The other thing is, uh, took a look at Wikipedia unwell. They define artificial intelligence and it’s totally clear that they’re confused as well. One of their, one of their best definitions is that they like is that artificial intelligence is what hasn’t been done. And I kind of liked that definition too, is every once in a while we hear somebody thinking about something that’s never been done and they actually believe that they can do it. And uh, once they do it, I think it changes. I think it is no longer artificial. I think it’s either automated and it’s either augmented, uh, it’s uh, you Eric Stromquist: 00:04:49 Ken, you’re going to go down in the history books for this cause Descartes said, I think therefore I am. And now I think you’ve just rephrase that to I think therefore I am artificial. Ken Sinclair: 00:05:00 Well actually there’s a good one. Whoever, whoever chose the acronym for for this, this broad method of having machines out think us and they called it artificial, you know, and it’s like wow, artificial has never been a positive word. I don’t think. I don’t think it’s a, it’s an adjective that we, you know, you look real artificial. I think it’s optimistic thinking on our part. But you’ve told us a story right before we turned the recorder on about the, the two machines and the camera. Will you tell our audience that story? Cause I think that is very interesting now. Okay. What kind of goes along like this is a, as we start to automate intelligence, we, we have two machines. The first machine, uh, is, uh, is uh, a ring. Somebody’s doorbell and it, it sees the person walking up and re prerecorded it. And when they push the button and it sends that prerecording to another machine than the other machine determines whether it’s going to allow that person in. Ken Sinclair: 00:06:02 And there’s all this data going back and forth. But when the artificial intelligence machines, uh, they start to, so the decisions are no longer made by people. The two machines, they get together and they say, these people are so dumb. Why did they bother generating a picture and sending the file when in fact, all we really need is the data. Because we don’t look at, we don’t know what a picture looks like, getting way, we just know what the data looks like. So we see that face. There’s a Pi data pattern. When we see that data pattern, that’s what we let the person in. So all of a sudden this gets really scary because they can do stuff faster, quicker and better than us. Uh, so that’s sort of getting into what I think artificial intelligence is, is when the machines start mocking us. What’s, I think they may be doing a bit now. Eric Stromquist: 00:06:51 Well, but Ken, I mean this is what Ilan Musk and some others have really gotten up in arms about and concerned about and I, and he’s a hell of a lot smarter than I am, but okay, so let’s take that same conversation between the two machines and instead of, they’re so dumb. They got it. You know, why do we don’t need a picture too? They’re so dumb. Why do we need them? So let’s just, we got him in the building over there was talk to our friend, the building automation system and building x, and we’ll tell building automation says to lock all the doors and turn the heat on and override the bypass on the boiler. So blows up. That’s one where we could get rid of, right? I mean, this is Ken Smyers: 00:07:25 Guys, you know, there’s several, there’s several books on this and I’ll tell you what, I’m reading one right now and it’s by a Daniel Sora as it is exactly that. It’s the Damon. So the guy passes away and as he leaves behind a, a giant Damon that runs and competes against the top minds in the world where it’s based on a game. So your concept, can I, I’m digging it and here’s why. I looked up their artificial intelligence and it basically just as anything that’s not human. So you have human intelligence that’s, that’s an eight to us that’s coming out of great minds like yours and Eric’s and, and some of mine. But the, Eric Stromquist: 00:08:01 these are such thing as a dumb ass machine, right? Ken Smyers: 00:08:05 When anything is not human is considered to be non human or artificial. So, but I think what we’re seeing, um, and, and again, I think we move into it because of exactly what you just said there. The data going on so fast with the recognition a week, last week, our big thrust, uh, on controlled trans was we did a shot, a recognition. So you had to ballistic sensors and things that could move so much faster. It makes so quick notifications. They can, human errors couldn’t differentiate between shot a gun or I’m sorry, a bullet being fired versus a backfire from a vehicle where the odd, the sensor could distinguish it immediately threw the ballistics through the, um, the sound acoustics and, and the, um, the flash she gives and notify something in three seconds, which takes a human that they’re not sure what they heard. They don’t know what to do, they’re stymied or whatever. Ken Smyers: 00:08:56 So that disbenefit, uh, is, is exactly, I think too, it’s, it’s an artificially gained intelligence where we did, we don’t have the capabilities in Nate Dar, so I’ll, we, we turn it over to our, our algorithms that are powered by Ip conductivities and Zip. We, did we get the benefit of this artificially, uh, you know, provided intelligence that is, or isn’t the bad guy or is, or is it the good guy? Whatever. So anyhow, great, great, great subject. Eric Stromquist: 00:09:26 No, no, no but, but, but I just want to get one step further. Kenny and Kevin Hart had a chance to listen to last week’s episode, but you know, Roger, even I can Honeywell come up with this sort of, you know, using those centers and then incorporating them so that if something does happen, you know, the first responders know exactly where, where to go and it can save a lot of lives. But Kenny, you know, the next step of this is they’re not going to send first responders. You can just send a drone in there. A drone is going to go into school and track those guys down or are bad people down just like that. So again, it’s very ironic that a one level we get very, very much, much safer and everything has a lot more convenient. But on another level, we’re really open ourselves up to some huge vulnerabilities here. Eric Stromquist: 00:10:11 If Elon Musk and some of these other folks are right, it’s okay. I’m not worried about gas cause I’m already, you know, Elon Musk has got this deal. He’s already started this company where they got the chips for the brains. And I’ve already, I’m on the, I’m on the waiting list for that and if it gets too bad with the machines, I got a ticket tomorrow so I’ll be out of here. But maybe I’ll go back and spinning off of Ken’s comment is that his definition of artificial is anything that doesn’t involve us. And I think, uh, I’m not sure about you, but I’m not sure I want to talk about anything that doesn’t involve us. So that’s what happened back to automated intelligence and action camp. But the other component has to be the self learning aspect of it too, right? I mean that has to filter in whether it’s automated or harder official that he can begin to learn right. With the cell phone in Algorithms. That’s gotta be a piece of it. Ken Sinclair: 00:11:02 Thanks Ken. But I’m not sure that, I don’t see that as a, that’s again, as an automated intelligence is basically, it’s just learning, learning how to better automate cause another perception, the way you look at that. Anyway, it’s early days. Um, the, uh, I don’t know if you caught the end of one of my articles there and then I talked about awful made it buildings and uh, uh, we were, we went through eight, we went through a period, it’s actually a 2002 article that I included a linking to. And uh, what happened with, uh, this was as we hit the web. So we went through the DDS, we went through awful, made it building several times. We went through awful, made it buildings. In the early days of DDC we had all these DDC systems that didn’t really work, but there so exciting that we kept on pursuing the, we actually figured out how to make those things work. And then we hit the web and we started getting a whole bunch of stuff as a web controlling MREs, the DDC controller. We have those. And I don’t see this as any different. We’re exactly in the same spot, except we’ve got this intelligence automation that’s Kinda falling from the sky on us. And, uh, we’re, we’re into another period of awful made it buildings until we get this straightened out. Eric Stromquist: 00:12:21 Hmm. What do you see some of the possible headwinds? I mean in terms of the problems, when you say awful, awful, made it, I mean obviously we went from pneumatics to DDC, there was a learning curve and things sorta had to, to get worked out. Do you see anything different with on the automated Ken Sinclair: 00:12:38 controls now it’s going to go faster if there’s going to be more people involved in it because of the iot industry. And ultimately I think, I think, but the problem is, is the uh, uh, Ben Ben, back to what Ken said, is it artificial is defined as things that don’t involve us. And I think if somebody, if we turn loose a machine, it’s not going to run the building the way we want, whether it, whether it attacks us or, uh, even if it doesn’t attack this as even tries to run it to the best of it’s knowledge, it’s going to need some guidance and what we need to learn. So what I see the, uh, intelligent automation phase era, that’s the year I think we’re in right now is we need to learn more about what we can do with this technology. How much should we can machine learn, uh, because we got to learn how to walk before we can allow AI to run our buildings. Ken Smyers: 00:13:42 Well, I, I agree with you and again, it’s always fun to take things to a, you know, an immediate, uh, you know, the word, the farthest point from, from reality, you know, or likelihood. But, um, in the, um, in your march edition, you also, we have another, a great article and great background to some really heady thought, but actually it gives us the, the nuts and bolts of it from a sit. How young thing again and, and, and how, you know, she takes the example of autonomous vehicle and how it would, it does, it reduces the risk of life. It reduces, you know, allows, it frees humans to do more things. Uh, you know, that the car can do that. It alleviates you from doing work. It’s, you know, it’s like a, the amazing thing the locomotive did versus the horse and buggy thing. So she has a great article in there. Um, what, what, what did she bring to you as far as the, you know, her insight using the autonomous vehicle? A analogy to our buildings. I mean, it’s a great article, but I thought, you know, what was your synopsis of that? Ken Sinclair: 00:14:42 I summarize, summarized it in a, in a tweet this morning and the fact that we were pushing back and forth some stuff and it, uh, I said that, uh, you know, the having your driverless vehicles running into our buildings I think is really good stuff because this whole atonomous side of the automated vehicle has whole bunch of social issues. It has a whole bunch of quick control things you were talking about. There’s no way that you know, that some of this stuff can be controlled so quick, but, and that’s of course, the second part of our theme that we were talking a theme is the automated intelligence with autonomous interactions. I don’t know that we’ve really thought of of it in two pieces like that. Here’s the intelligence of what it is we’re going to do. And then as soon as we do it, there’s a reaction, let’s put in another control loop to control the reaction. Ken Sinclair: 00:15:38 And I think if we look at the auto industry, they’ve got their spending scabs of bucks on this and they’re moving through. So I think we need to kind of try and understand better what they’re doing. Ironically enough for articles this month or right on our nose talking about, uh, what they’re doing in Stanford there. And, uh, the young girl on energy prediction is amazing. It picks up on last month and fills right in and she’s particularly well spoken and she’s speaks to it. I think what we also have to, you know, get used to, as people are going to call it artificial intelligence or call it augmented intelligence or automated intelligence and, uh, we’re going to be getting used to the fact that maybe it’s just best we call it AI and then substitute our own, uh, uh, okay. Okay. Different definition of that connotative definition. Yeah, that’s, that’s, yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah. Well, okay. Got It. Cool. Eric Stromquist: 00:16:41 Let me hop in real quick, if you don’t mind, Kenny, before we get to the next article, I think one of your buddies is responsible for all these annoying phone calls I’m getting from these chat bots. Oh those damn things are talkative as hell. But uh, but speak a bit if you would, because it seems like we might be going from a Gui graphical user interface, you s C U I, which you’ve been talking about for a while. But now I see it in black and white and I connecting the dots are going inadvertently can you’re responsible for all these damn calls. I’m getting Ken Sinclair: 00:17:19 no doubt, no doubt. My only defense is as they all, they all sit that they all come with an autonomous interaction. And the autonomous interaction is as if you don’t ever answer the phone or say hello. They won’t, they don’t do anything. So if you actually can out think them. So if you, uh, when it comes, you get one of these chat bot calls. If you don’t say anything and nobody says anything for about a half minute or something, you can just hang up cause it’s no person. So anyway, uh, the, yeah, the, you see, what do we call it? User interface, text voice. The more, so we’re seeing this, I mean it’s running rampant now with the speakers and all kinds of devices that actually have, uh, these, Ken Sinclair: 00:18:08 the Hay googles and the Alexa’s built right into them. And I think we’re going to see more and more of that. And now what I think the, the, the conversational user interfaces is that now devices, we’ll start talking like that and we can start using whatsapp, WeChat, uh, ims soldier and in some of these things. And actually, uh, the very quick segue is that we could actually, uh, you know, text to turn the lights on. The big advantage of that is it keeps a record of all of the commands you can, you can, you can say to your wife, you turned the heat up. And she said, no, she didn’t. And she says, it shows that Santa Time you put it up five degrees. So how that conversation goes, that damn machine is obviously wrong. Ken, you’re not going to win that argument or call my lawyer. Actually, I was going to bring that up. I was going to bring that up early when, when Ken was talking about how, how carefree these machines, good thinking. I think that was the biggest single thing is that the machines can move without lawyers. So that’s the thing that mobilizes us all. Well there then, you know what, there might be a silver lining after all I’m ever my friend. Eric Stromquist: 00:19:27 Ken do you have any more question for Ken? Ken Smyers: 00:19:30 No, no, no. I just, again, that does so much to talk about every time we were bringing something up. So again, it’s a collection of jewels I think, you know, because uh, you know, going over the march articles and how they come together, like you say, it’s like a phenomenon. You started at subject and all of a sudden something provides, you know, it’s like willing it into being like you get this critical mass and all of a sudden people were also thinking that way and just that part from Sydney. Uh, the article from us sit on a jump. The, that contributions inside that article or immense because it talks about, you know, the, you know, the energy, the automatic provisioning of, of, of, you know, in other words, if we had a limited amount of energy on the grid and we had sustained the most important critical buildings and whatever, uh, you know, we’re going to one day rely on that to be done, you know, through uh, I just watched a presentation on, on a new drive coming from Siemens and this drive is already smart grid ready. Ken Smyers: 00:20:29 In other words, it’s ready to go to the next level, uh, and not go into the network would go right to the cloud and put VFDs on, on an application, uh, and it can alleviate a btu meters because the, the VFD can calculate the flow and see how many BTUs you’re using saving of Dagon. Holy Moly. This is, this is another thing that you were talking about right before we have our session here. I listened to this and I’m thinking this is getting really, really interesting because if you could put this artificial intelligence or augmented intelligence or automated intelligence to work, we are going to become a greener planet quicker. We’re going to be able to use this to make our take the best steps forward. But you know, I think would you said true that if somebody doesn’t answer the phone, guess what? Nothing happens. No, no artificial or augmented intelligence occurs because people don’t start using this technology in buildings. We’re not getting anything done. Eric Stromquist: 00:21:31 Well yeah, but you’re saying it’s reactive now, meaning you have to initiate this step, but Ken Smyers: 00:21:36 pretty easy. Did you have to make this step, you have to take the investment, you have to invest, you have to invest in technology, Eric Stromquist: 00:21:40 right? No, you have to invest in technologies. But would your, your point, which is a very valid one. We like your, Ken’s point about the following. If you just don’t say anything, right, it doesn’t, it doesn’t activate, you know, the program. Yeah. But, and I think that’s kind of a very calm, you know, good thought. But then eventually it will be where they’ll just be proactive. They’ll figure it out, west cans and clear again. I’m just going to start damn talking cause I know he’s not going to answer first and then, uh, then we’ll start sending pictures or something to you. That’d be crazy. But Ken Sinclair: 00:22:13 I think this might be the, the edge of the automated automated buildings and automated interfaces and stuff that we need to work out. And I think that’s why we have to be involved in this too, as I, yeah, I’m not sure that artificial intelligence is going to be able to figure that out and come up with any better solution. Uh, what it would say is it’s a solution we don’t want to hear is don’t ever talk to a human. They’re just, they’re just impossible. Only talk to machines. You know? It’s funny you say that because, Eric Stromquist: 00:22:45 you know, I was thinking while you were talking about what’s the definition of artificial intelligence, you know, Kenny had a good one. You had a good one. And I was going to say that, well, uh, you’d have to have an original thought to not be artificial intelligence, but then I think about it, I’m not sure. Most humans have many original thoughts either. You know, there’s some of us who do, but it’s a, it really is fascinating. And then what I’m really interested, forget the buildings. I am serious about this, putting the brain, the chip and the brain. I mean, have an augmented intelligence on board connected to your mind. And Musk has been working on that. So it’s literally, you know, you’re not gonna have to go to school and, and what are you just going to buy the, uh, the chip for American history and you’ll know everything you need to know about it? Ken Sinclair: 00:23:30 Actually, uh, I think, uh, as, I was really pleased with Theresa’s article this month, and, uh, I think it came partly from her going up and spending some time with the folks at bedrock and in Detroit and watching what they’re doing up there. She, she came out and she’s picked up on this theme and she calls it the community of practice in building automation. Uh, you can actually even drop the building automation because it’s basically, I hadn’t seen it so clearly as she depicts it, that we all belong to a community of practice and both of your supply companies are, they are communities of practice and basically that’s what you’re selling. Then that’s your, you’re really your value and automated buildings is a community of practice. People who actually believe in somewhat a common belief of, you know, of how we might automate buildings. We also have things like backnet, which is a community of practice. Ken Sinclair: 00:24:27 We have Niagra and basically what’s happening is they’re becoming the building blocks of our industry. And this is how we build stuff is uh, when you find a community of practice that you haven’t, haven’t been exposed to, you guys are all excited and then you figure out how can we make that community of practice part of our community of practice and that increases your value. That’s a lot of what I, I think we all do is, is basically share this information. The advantage of attaching yourself to a community of practice is it comes complete with resources. People, people who understand that and we need to keep creating those and, and basically distributing that information. So anyway, I think that’s going to be our next direction. That’ll not, that won’t be the theme for, um, April because the theme for April is going to be cybersecurity. Speaker 4: 00:25:25 But halfway through it I’m going to write an article on the community of practice and just kind of tie all of these communities together. And if you just let your mind role and think how important, how important are all those things to your business, your everyday business. I mean, you could say you could, you could almost go down your drawers there, your La Aisles, and you say this belongs in the back net. This is a Nagra. This is a Johnson. This is a, you know, all of them are communities of practice that you’re doing it. What’s your big claim to fame? One of your big claims to fame is that you crossover many lines of a communities of practice. Ken Smyers: 00:26:04 Hmm. Not sure when I read that I had this word Papa, they kept coming up with that was, or your collaboratorium. In other words, you know, the, the thing that I think I’ve witnessed or we’ve all witnessed, but in particular is how quickly certain things get done when there’s that collaboration or does community of practice where you overlay all these experts and all this, all these, you know, leading, uh, you know, uh, pioneers because we’re talking about three things right there that we’re are all articles, project haystack, biennial, haystack connects conferences coming up from San Diego, mid May, uh, Co controls con con a skull, Scott Cochran. He’s got a great spring Ken Smyers: 00:26:44 conference coming up where the, uh, you know, Cochran is going to share a great deal of information, um, you know, regarding new technologies and things that the, uh, you know, it’s very important. So yeah, I did that community practice. It makes total sense what you’re saying would tree says, but um, can you see it? I’ve shared it that she went back to this Nydia and got approval to reproduce this graphic. But if you Kinda, if you kind of just read all the little, uh, you know, things that are written around there, that’s what you do every day, right? Listening, challenging buildings, sharing everything that’s on that thing is basically what your companies do to pull together your community, give and get support. Yup. Yup. So, uh, you know, just it’s, it’s kind of, I dunno, we used to, you know how you have to filter because there’s so much out there. Uh, the malty general generational engagement. So there’s our young guns. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s kind of amazing that, that this is kind of a map of who we are and where we came from. Um, and I think we need to work more on this map so we can better understand what I might be talking about. Cause I probably don’t understand what automated intelligence might be. I think what we have to do is kind of maybe do an intelligence inventory. Eric Stromquist: 00:28:14 You know, Ken, listen, listen, you’re missing the whole point here. Look, I’ll have my machine, my machine call, uterine machine and they a lunch and figure all this stuff out. We’re not going to have to communicate anymore. We just have the machines. We’ll have the community of practice. That’s, that’s where you’re going with this, right? Ken Sinclair: 00:28:30 Uh, well I dunno, look, look at, look at all the touchy feely things on the, on the docket there. Yeah. That’s one thing that machines aren’t y’all like, you know, like you’re saying caring, healing and listening or new superpowers. Yeah. Eric Stromquist: 00:28:46 I’m going to tell you some, most of it you have to ask yourself a question is empathy, which is what all those things are. Is that a learned skill? Cause I told you this on a show before when I was in southern California about two years ago, the debate on the radio, because they just come out with the sex Bot and they were teaching them artificial intelligence that can be more empathetic and the debate on the radio as a view if you had sex with the sex bot where you cheating and so it’s, you know, it’s, I maybe you think about it. I think empathy is learned. We teach our children how to be empathetic. I think I’m at least, I think that we could debate that. Whether that’s an innate human quality or dress up. We just learn when we get culturized by growing up by our parents and going to school. It is the question, then we’ll be able to program it into the machines and there’ll be more empathetic than we are. Ken Smyers: 00:29:36 Well, to Ken’s point, I think that’s both. I think that’s what you can’t put inside the artificial intelligence or machines is you can’t put Ken Smyers: 00:29:42 that inate stuff. And you know, you have different psychologists saying different things, but we all come from the same well of consciousness. You know, we pass through a w what’s his name, your different Freud. Another colleague came through with young where we all with this guy, Joe Campbell travels the world, hundred 50 countries and how 150 different countries come with the same basic belief system. You know, about how you got here and where you’re going afterwards, you know. But to your point, I think, um, the, uh, subjects that we’re talking about is, is that this thing almost looks like a 1970. Remember how we did the we generation iGeneration we generation or the me Generation Innovation is almost looks like our whole concepts or taken a different direction where it used to be individuals, there were the major players in the industry and they dictated science stuff and now we’re seeing all this technology come in and it’s just dumping all these new possibilities. Ken Smyers: 00:30:41 And so this community of practice to me is an extension of of basically the thing you did with the collaboratorium. I’ve never seen so many people be willing to share so much what used to be like a sensitive information or proprietary information, but they want to get something done in order for them to get their agenda done quicker. They collaborate with somebody that’s also doing something better than they are and instead of each trying to create your own wheel, they’re putting together a, you know, this, this, this community and it’s an amazing thing because Hastac is it? We’re going to talk about haystack some at some point and, and we just have to celebrate what they did because that’s what they did. They did this, this amazing linkage of, of a lot of people that couldn’t really define how they were going to get there. Somebody laid down a map and then people contributed to it. And next thing you know, you’ve got a yellow brick road. Eric Stromquist: 00:31:29 Well listen, I want to, Ken, I want to follow up, uh, on your last episode, uh, El or semi last, last month’s edition because you know what, you had become quite a cult hero amongst the young young guns in our industry for, for numerous reasons. But the big one is a, and I’m going to ask you to expand on this is, you know, when you become, when you’re disrupted disruption. And so one of the questions we got from our community has asked, can you know, talk about the process of disrupting disruption. I mean, how would I do that? Because you know, you’ve seriously the young, I mean we were bringing in it kind of like a hero to these folks. Now again, how do we disrupt disruption? Well, I think it’s interesting once you learn how to grow younger, which is a, is a skill that takes a bit and you basically, Ken Sinclair: 00:32:27 yeah, Ken Sinclair: 00:32:27 bring these guys on his trusted advisors and start to understand and try to get inside their heads are at least closer to it. You understand this whole what the significance Ken Sinclair: 00:32:40 of being a digital native is. I mean, we’re looking at this from such a wrong way. You know, all our, we keep going off on these tangents. They don’t even think about that. They grew up with all this stuff falling on them and they understand they had been, don’t have the fear of the machine that we do because they understand the machine, they understand data that give it the data. We take the data away, you know, and uh, I think they just see it in a completely different light. So for them disrupting disruption, although they do it to themselves as well because they’re there a way ahead on the front. Some of the stuff they’re disrupting is totally amazing. I barely understand. But our disruption is easy. It’s easy to disrupt us and to disrupt the disruption is, is uh, is easy as well because our industry is slow to move. Ken Sinclair: 00:33:32 And, uh, we’re actually starting to see some of this stuff coming. We’re actually seeing, uh, you know, wifi sensors. We’re seeing the wire disappearing in our buildings and more, more devices, more it devices starting to appear. So that’s, that’s very disruptive. But it inside of it comes a gazillion opportunities and we’re getting where we had a, like a very small slice of the industry, things that were involving, now we’re involving integrator piece of the industry. So yeah, I don’t know. That answer wasn’t very good answer. I was kinda hoping you’d say something like, we know we got to kill the machines or something like that. You know, that’s what I was going for, Matt. Ken Smyers: 00:34:20 Well, I’ll tell you that again. You got an amazing job to kill the kids first day. Cause that’s the, they’re, they’re, they’re becoming closer and closer to these machines and they’d rather talk to the machines and us. I saw somebody put a, uh, I don’t know where it was, linkedin or somewhere, but it had all these kids in this beautiful museum in front of one of the most classic art and they’re all single child was looking up at the art, uh, and they were on their phones, iPhones or smart devices or whatever. And it just really caught it. Oh know to be in the middle of it, you know, our world thinking that we had, we had put these things on the wall to the epitomize the highlights of humankind and our loftiest, you know, artists and these kids just totally not interested. And so we’ll accept it. It’s funny cause sometimes the guys looking at it and what they’ll tell you is that’s not really the original. The original is in Spain, in the small town, this is a copy. Ken Sinclair: 00:35:21 We’re always checking facts. You assume that sometimes they’re, you know, they’re doing something different, but sometimes they’re just, they’re just way ahead of you. And lucky. Now, I’ll tell you what I learned my lesson and I, when we were talking about an old timer, walks into the office, a Johnson controls had a uh, a, a couple years ago, Eric and I were at it and they explained the mistake. They’d invested so much money in recruiting the top a young guns that could possibly get their hands on. Uh, and, and then they were losing them after the second year and it all boiled down to their boss and, and the one classic example they gave through where they had the outbrief thing and the people had to, could, could hear what they were being accused of or the bosses criticism from the young person’s perspective. And here it was that the guy who thought they were all screwing around on their smartphones and they were actually doing work and research because the companies that their, their, their, their computer system was so slow and lagging and they had so many security still at that they couldn’t get the information they needed to complete the project that was due. Ken Smyers: 00:36:20 So they were actually doing double time using their own device to get some information that the computers that they were given to is their work. Computers couldn’t perform and be, he looked outside, he said, everybody’s playing with their phones or playing games. There was an assumption that they were screwing off and here they were very, you know, professionally you’re trying to get the Dang job done. And they were being, you know, uh, there were being hindered by, anyhow, we, you’ve got a couple of good articles, this thing by Marc p talk and it’s got a picture and it says, you know, the built environment has been changing drastically, but what, what does mark say he says is two nights, 2019 the year of truth for the built environment. And he has all these questions. He has, well, two nights, 2019 be the truth that our dialogue senators around the proven technologies. So what’d you think about that? And it’s like the 10 commandments of, of the built space. Ken Smyers: 00:37:14 Yeah, that’s good. I’ve been, I’ve included in my article a link to it. Uh, it’s super mark. Mark always is very succinct and being able to kind of pull out around, uh, and it’s okay. So maybe this is the truth of artificial intelligence that I’m talking about is that I’m saying maybe, maybe we don’t want to call it that. Maybe we want to call it art or a automated intelligence. And I don’t know, sometimes by just calling something different, you start to discussions and I think that’s what I really want to do is start the discussion. We can, I think you’ve got an add on. Your name needs to be automated buildings and intelligence. How’s that? That’s right. Well the other problem is if I didn’t call it automated intelligence yeah then that’d be obsolete. I’d have to, I’d have to, how I got it. There was two choices. I either had to change automated buildings.to artificial buildings.com and I don’t think I would’ve sold with it after 20 years. Automated building Sterns to artificial buildings. So we had to, had to go to automated intelligence. I like that. I do automated versus our, I don’t like artificial either. Not to think about it cause you know, it always meant something unnecessarily sinister but not necessarily Ken Smyers: 00:38:31 as, as as you know, as firing as it could be. Artificial means that’s made up and, and, and not genuine. And so maybe we will help the mate, the next group of solution providers change it from artificial intelligence to automated intelligence. Eric Stromquist: 00:38:46 So Ken, uh, listen to about march of March issue is out automatedbuildings.com, be sure to check the I can, would you be able to hang around a bit longer and talk with us with our next guest?. Okay. Ken. So where are you going to be traveling this spring where it looks like we might be crossing paths a little bit. Okay. Well we’re off to Detroit and early May to control con we was just before this conference call, I was talking with Scott and the bedrock, a Joe from bedrock and uh, exciting stuff happening there. Actually. He, he just come back from Korea and some going to be some amazing stuff. I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you, but don’t, don’t, don’t do that. We’re going to be there too. So it’s going to, okay, I told you today I’d have to kill you. But Scott was Scott. Speaker 4: 00:39:32 It was Scott in Korea or a the gift. Actually, Scott Scott was a fighting icebergs and a theory coming out of the lake or something like that. He was driving in his car, asked for video, and he took his phone and held it up against the windshield and told me I was driving. So, so listen to, you can still go there. Are there links both on automated buildings.com site and control trends, uh, hey, be get a chance to go to this conference is fantastic. And uh, the next big conference had coming up is haystack and our next guest is going to be able to talk a bit about that, Kenny. So how about introducing him? Ken Smyers: 00:40:07 I’d love to, in fact, um, I’d like to introduce Ruairi Barnwell. He is a group principal at d l r and the DLR group, uh, was recently recognized that the controlled trends awards because they won the project haystack award. And that’s a very, very exciting thing. And, uh, we’re very happy to welcome to the show, Rory Barnwell. Welcome to show Roy everyone. Good to see you again, buddy. Ruairi Barwell: 00:40:32 Hey guys, how’s it going? Great to be here. Eric Stromquist: 00:40:34 Good to see you too. You were on episode 222 and uh, I’ll always remember that it was great, lively conversation and, uh, could you give a sort of a refresher and an update on what’s going on with DLR group? Ruairi Barwell: 00:40:48 Sure. Well, thanks again guys. Really excited to be back on again. Um, I guess just to recap on DLR group who we are and what we do. And so we’re a large design firm. Um, you know, 1200 people, 30 offices around the, around the globe, um, architects and engineers, um, you know, our core American sectors or education, workplace justice and civic, uh, hospitality. We’re actually the largest education design firm in the world. So that leads us down some pretty interesting paths. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of a, we’re busy. I’m sitting here in Chicago right now and looking out the window and, uh, all the cranes and all new construction going on. So, yeah, Ruairi Barwell: 00:41:32 we’re trying to make it, Ken Smyers: 00:41:36 yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, we’re really happy to see you down in Atlanta and, uh, recognize you right away. And we have to say hello before the show actually gotten underway. But, uh, you wonder, pretty impressive. Tell us about the project Haystack Award and how you guys won that. Ruairi Barwell: 00:41:54 Well, it was quite an honor. We’ve obviously been big believers in haystack and you know, practitioners, the haystack methodology and what we do and how we, you know, collect and, uh, organize and analyze data to our, our smart building a praxis are amongst monitoring based commissioning. Uh, you know, how we, what we call building optimization. That’s the practice I lead. Um, so yeah, it was quite an honor, right? I mean, well, the night that was a controlled times Lord. Eric Stromquist: 00:42:36 Yeah. So an engineer and designer standpoint as well as a, you know, an energy optimizer and buildings for our community might not know. What do you see the advantage is to project haystack? Ruairi Barwell: 00:42:49 Um, well, again, for us, you know, a large part of what we do within DLR group, uh, our building optimization practice is, I mean, it’s just dealing with data and at the end of the day, um, we’re answering the try to answer the same questions as everyone else in our community is what do we do with that data? How do we make it actionable? How do we organize it, you know, create some actionable insights from that data. So what are, we’re trying to optimize the energy use of a million square foot commercial office in downtown Chicago or, you know, a college campus in the suburbs. MMM. It’s, you know, it’s the same drive trying to answer the same questions as everyone else. Ken Smyers: 00:43:35 What are your clients asking for now? What are your types of clients and what do they ask? So you’re the largest provider of services to the education world. What are they asking for? Ruairi Barwell: 00:43:46 Yeah, I mean, as an example, you know, we’re working with large school districts here in Chicago across the country. Um, you know, going and getting ready to go out for a large bond referendums, you know, they’re trying to answer some big questions like, are we, uh, you know, how are we, you know, here in Chicago, we’ve got a couple of districts going out for $180 million contract for, and then down in Texas, they don’t, they’re close to a billion. I mean, figuring out Texas, right? But we’re all trying to answer the same questions. You know, are we, should we build new versus renovation, throwing good money after bad, you know, how are the buildings performing and should we invest in these existing buildings? Should we decommission them, build a new, know you were high performing buildings and, um, you know, they’re, they’re asking the same questions. You know, how, you know, how do we benchmark buildings? Ruairi Barwell: 00:44:40 You know, I think we’re, we’re recognized as a, as an industry and this community in particular that, you know, energy benchmarking alone. There’s not a, it’s not a good indicator of how well, or poorly performing. So we’re starting to look at the other key performance indicators that, you know, how is, how, how, how well a building is performing. I in indoor environmental quality tracking, indoor air quality and thermal comfort of occupants, Acoustic Comfort, visual comfort, your user functionality. Now these are, these are things that we’re trying to tie real data to versus, you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about him, I think this conversation has been pretty mainstream for the last couple of Ken Smyers: 00:45:22 the metrics. Are you able to provide additional metrics to improve the understanding of how important those, those things that you had mentioned, lighting, acoustics, I mean, does that, does that really have a profound impact on the educational environment or is that more, is that hard? Ruairi Barwell: 00:45:38 No, no, absolutely. I think we’re getting past, we’ve made a very focused decision to kind of try and there’s so much noise and marketing, you know, yeah. Spills everyone to call them. Um, we’ve already focused on trying to get some good case studies and trying to, you know, for example, in a couple of cool projects you’re working on right now we’re doing a large project with the GSA. We’re part of the Harvard School of Public Health. Um, it’s doctor Joe Allen’s group, um, where we’re trying to evolve their post occupancy evaluation process. Um, really tried to add another dimension to, um, to their, you know, what they’re, they’re trying to fill it up and evidence based design library so they can continually iterate there. We’re working directly with their workplace, um, uh, workplace global workspace leader and um, you know, adding in that realtime indoor air quality, indoor environmental quality is more than just the air quality and all the occupants satisfaction. Ruairi Barwell: 00:46:44 Um, putting real metrics to that and tying that back to work or productivity. So that’s again, I think that’s been a manager in conversation now for, for a couple of years where I’m, I’m pretty excited with the crossover between, you know, worker productivity, the workplace, um, you know, getting some proper metrics for that to education. So now we’re starting to see equal amounts of research being done and if not a little more now at the moment with, um, you know, students, you know, student achievement, you know, how does the, out of the class, how did the before, how does the performance of the built environment, the classroom impacts a student’s learning ability, you know, the cognitive of a, of a child brain. How that, um, how, you know, is is the classroom ventilated enough? Is it too hot, too cold or the acoustics poor, the lights too harsh or too damn, you know, we’re working in a school districts that have, you know, kind of okay lighting retrofits that were driven by energy, not so much the, you know, the function of the classroom. Um, and, and again, and try and tie that back to, you know, how engaged the student is and ultimately student achievement. And I think we’re looking at more or less the same ties as a, as far as on the workplace side and an office and productivity. Ruairi Barwell: 00:48:11 Okay. Well, uh, honestly we’re in the middle of, uh, of working on this GSA project is ongoing. It’s on the boards right now. That’s why it’s top of my mind. But he’s kind of, well, I’m, I’m excited about. Um, so I would say look for the, I think this would be the third iteration of the cog effect study from Harvard School of Public Health. Um, and so that, you know, that’s only going to get, there’s just going to be more iterations of that until, you know, I think, okay, we’ve withdrawn it’s common sense, you know. Um, I think that we’re just trying to put real data to it. Um, you know, another project I’m really excited about, we’re working with Chicago public schools and the third largest school district in the country where, you know, there, uh, there, uh, exploring an initiative for a lot of textile and that’s zero school and you know, we can have a, it’s really easy. You haven’t that Sarah School, right? Turn off the light board up the windows, tell the kids the worst, some colts and light some candles. You know, we want a second, but Marcy sophisticated approach than that. Um, so we’re, uh, you know, using the same data gathering, collecting, collecting data, organizing it, analyzing it, modeling it for future retrofits, you know, trying to show, uh, I’m not, uh, basically a roadmap for how can we get to the zero? What is it feasible? I mean, that’s the question we’re trying to answer. Ken Smyers: 00:49:51 Amazing work bringing our, bringing emotions to buildings. In other words, we’re taking the things like comfy that began way back when, where it was giving people with smart devices the opportunity to interface with building automation system to get some kind of an immediate response if they needed air conditioning or heating, whatever. And as soon as they were company, they hit a button, say coffee. So Ken has done a lot of studies and a lot of work on it. Can, I know you got to have a good question for Rory regarding these, these exact studies because isn’t this the chance that they, the, the emotional side of a building can be exposed through these new retrofit new programs? Ken Sinclair: 00:50:29 I think he has an excellent start. And actually I’d like to start by applauding what, uh, what he’s doing. And his company is certainly for a major consultant to embrace haystack and, uh, the other health parameters of buildings and put them in their lead is, is significant than I think he is definitely an example to, oh, a lot of consultants who are, are kind of hiding, hiding their head from all of this. And uh, so he’s well on his way and as the exposes all his data, he is going to be able to interpret the emotion of a building. I’ll be better than anybody. And uh, the fact it’s going to be in haystack standards, uh, is also exciting, uh, because that means that when we do analytics and we start to use a voice interface and device lifts interfaces and the autonomous interactions, uh, I think he’s ahead of the game and even even to speak to our, uh, our march theme, the Automated Intelligence, uh, I think he’s well on his way to achieving that as well. So I would probably just start with a whole bunch of Kudos. Ruairi Barwell: 00:51:51 Thank you. Ken Sinclair: 00:51:54 No, actually the question I would like to ask you is how do we get a string of consultants like you? I mean that’s our problem as an industry is really have traditional consultants that are controlled by lawyers that are immobilized and they’re putting in their 1956 system because they worried that they’re going to get sued if they try anything new. So you guys somehow, uh, moved over into risk management. They’re looking at changing world. How’d you do that? Ruairi Barwell: 00:52:31 We’re talking about energy or whatever we’re talking about indoor air quality, indoor environmental quality in general. The level of transparency. We’re at the tip of the iceberg there. Um, you know, the sensors are becoming cheaper and more available. You know, we can, where we can practically do realtime indoor air quality monitoring. We’re working because you know, a friend of the show, Albert, he’s on it, you know, how is already working on a real time. We’re going to be using his sensors for, to, to track this real time. It’s very affordable sensors that are high quality that are going to still meet the well building standards for accuracy. The problem with answers as you got what you pay for. So if you can get, you know, the correct, mmm, Ruairi Barwell: 00:53:26 nope. We’re tracking typically CO2, that’s the one we all kind of default to, but also PLCs, how the material selection impacts the environments. Um, pm 2.5, you know, how the, how to particulate matter in the air stream, you know, how well are we still trading the air, how clean was the air. A lot of this technology comes from China, I believe it or not because the outdoor air so poor over there. This is kind of initiatives, you know, the badge of honor in China is to show that, hey, it’s not necessarily I got to lead platinum building , I’ve got to building with clean air.. You start to see initiatives like, uh, you know, the recess, uh, certification reset in the certification. That’s primarily based on just, uh, it’s only based on indoor air quality, you know, so, Speaker 6: 00:54:19 right. Ruairi Barwell: 00:54:25 Well, you know, it, it’s, it’s, it’s a fun vibe, you know, practice a little bit. You know, scary time, you know, for, for uh, when we disclosed this amount of information to a building operators, we work with property management firms. We work with a nutshell reads, um, ourselves as a design firm. Now our level of transparency, our post postdoc, the evaluation for our own designs, it’s become a lot more rigorous. So, you know, not only are we focused on energy and the outcomes and okay, are we know we got to hit this Gui for the building. What now? What are we going to hit this threshold for co two levels for particulate matter or you know, for um, the materials that were, that, you know, everything from them at the carpet that’s been selected impacts the indoor air quality impacts. Ken Sinclair: 00:55:16 Go ahead. No, I was just wanting to pick, pick up on that. That’s another interesting side of it is as the devices and the things are starting to talk to us, I just came off a conference call with getting ready for the control con event in Detroit and Joe from bedrock had just come back from Korea and he’d been talking to the LG folks and the LG folks on their units are absolutely prepared to provide complete open all of the information they have internal to their units and so all of a sudden pick up. That’s like a whole new world to us was where the OEM always kind of kept everything and you bought it and you know he never really knew what it does now into your transparency of data. You’re having this, these machines and as a consultant you can control that in the fact that you say, I want devices that are more transparent and that they give me new data. If they don’t give me my data, I’m going to buy product B, not product day because Ken Sinclair: 00:56:24 this guy gives me more data every week. Gives me the most data, maybe the product as long as it gets Ruairi Barwell: 00:56:32 after your original question. And how do we get more people on board? I think the really nice thing about working with an entity like the GSA is that they’re doing this to be the, to be a leader. Everything we’re doing is going to be published publicly available. There’s no secret there. You know, everything. We’re going to be doing this completely open and we’re kind of share best practices super. And that’s why, you know, so we’ve teamed with Harvard, uh, there they’re just going to continue to do great things and change the industry. Um, uh, we’re starting to see, you know, Lawrence Berkeley national labs and the Department of Energy got on board with these, you know, these same metrics and uh, um, ourselves and, uh, four or five or order pure group, uh, your, um, companies are, are currently work in the early stages with the national labs and Department of Energy to, to kind of just a roadmap out how prevalent types of analytics that we’re doing. Ken Smyers: 00:57:34 A couple of things, you just came back from an important trip this morning, didn’t you? You were in Minneapolis, Minnesota this morning and you came back. Ruairi Barwell: 00:57:41 Yeah. Minneapolis is a near and dear to my heart. That’s where if my second city, so I grew up in Ireland. If you can’t tell from my accent, cargo is my city. Been here for 20 years now, but my wife is from Minneapolis, are on Minneapolis office. Nope. We’re kind of tied at the hip with, with, uh, with them how we’re structured regionally, our CEO, it’s up there. Um, so yeah, I came back from probably the only place right now do any major city that’s colored in Chicago at the mall. I didn’t, I wasn’t very sure if I’d make it out with the smell. Um, but I was up there. Yeah. For a, a very special read them. We were actually taken off, well, don’t kick it off. My good friend, uh, broad culture over at Hga, uh, has, uh, has over the past a year, 18 months. It’s been very successful with a couple of more teammates that heads up there and getting the big TC, uh, group going up at the building intelligence group, twin cities. And um, so we had a great, uh, meeting. We thought I had some great meetings over the past couple of months and that’s really, uh, so last night there was maybe 60, 70 people. Um, kind of the same cross section of card that you’d see at real calm. I’d be gone, you know, systems integrators, vendors, you know, some more proactive, um, design consultants, you know. MMM. Usual Xbox, you know. Um, Ruairi Barwell: 00:59:22 but everyone comment that, um, there’s really no outlet for smart. There’s really no smoking. We got USG, we see receive, got Ashrae for the engineers, but there’s really no local connection point or you know, people in the smart building industry. I was amazed. I had done a fantastic job up there. In fact, I should probably got him on Eric Stromquist: 00:59:46 right. It’s very dynamic individual. Ruairi Barwell: 00:59:50 Oh yeah. It’s fantastic. And uh, he’s done a great job with that. So, um, as a result of the success of a big building intelligence group, twin cities, we’re going to start a big shy here, April. So we’re saying we’re going to basically start the Chicago franchise here for anyone out there that’s in the Chicago area. Hit me up and I’ll give you the details on the first meeting. It’s going to be on April 11th year. We’re going to host the first one at our office, uh, looking for volunteers and Geneva, our committee members and everything else. So we’re looking to get a good group here. It’s a kickoff. The, uh, the first one, Ken Smyers: 01:00:30 critical. How’s the soccer program going? I understand. Last time we talked to you, you are, and your soccer outfit because you were heading down practice, Ruairi Barwell: 01:00:39 right? You know, uh, I got one thing I have in mind for soccer. I have plenty of sad. Ken Smyers: 01:00:45 Yeah. Ruairi Barwell: 01:00:47 Liverpool happened to have my liver big Liverpool Fan, so nervous times at the moment that we got them to every run in here for the Premiere League. Hopefully. Uh, the first year [inaudible] 92 I think so, Eric Stromquist: 01:01:07 yeah. We’ve got a pretty good soccer team down in Atlanta now that make us do Ruairi Barwell: 01:01:12 awesome. Yeah, no, I’m a, I’m a big Chicago fire power as well. They were doing nearly as good as your guys are doing. Ken Smyers: 01:01:21 Yeah, you can pay more money. Eric Stromquist: 01:01:31 You know, I wanted to sort of ask and sort of cycled back around to, it seems like you’re doing things and getting things done that, you know, we treat very few consultants sort of getting the traction. You aren’t terms of changing how people are doing, building automation controls and, and making a more emotional and all that stuff. You know, for our audience in mind, I know you guys have all of the offices I think in 30 countries or there abouts. Ruairi Barwell: 01:01:57 Well it’s, it’s 30 location. The majority of those are in the Norton in North America. We’ve got an office in Shanghai, Dubai in Nairobi stuff. The kind of global reach it. Yeah. Yeah. Ken Smyers: 01:02:09 So I was just curious if, if you see things differently or done differently in different countries and is it part of how you guys are sort of being innovative, the fact that you sort of have a global perspective instead of a just a North American history Ruairi Barwell: 01:02:23 perspective? I think it’s definitely an advantage. You know, I think myself personally, we have a lot of interactions with my, my old college buddies are working across the world and uh, your fellows kind of been a front runner, but I truly believe we’re in the right place here and not there. There’s so much exciting things going on here in North America. I think the change that’s going to happen from here, there’s so much innovation, so much, uh, so much, okay, it’s mainstream now. You know, we’re not talking about someone, not something on the periphery. You know, when you see big players like the GSA, you know, when you see people like Chicago public schools, you know, I’ve mentioned there their public sector. I think I actually Ma personally got most enjoyable working with developers that I, you know, I enjoy the fast paced nature of a working with developers. Ruairi Barwell: 01:03:16 And you know, when you start to see, you know, the people who are typically focused on dollars and cents and bottom line and that’s it gotta be like that when they start to focus on wellness and amenities. But you know, again, it’s still dollars and cents. Attracting and retaining the best tenants in your building is still attracting and retaining the best talent for those tenants. So when you start to see, you know, a smart building, uh, strategies start to filtrate into the, into the mainstream because it makes sense for these dollars are the developers to do it. You know, that that’s a woodwind. Eric Stromquist: 01:03:55 Yeah. Cause it seems like the buildings are going to be more competitive as Ken Saint Claire, who’s our resident millennial here has pointed out that, uh, you know, you better have a nice space if you want me to come into the office and work. So, so I think, you know, there’s a lot of awareness about wanting to have a great space and energy efficient space and obviously a space that leads to productivity. So it seems like that conversation is shifting. Where will you say developers and owners are more open to having that versus just being driven by energy or low cost when so hopefully that trend will Ruairi Barwell: 01:04:25 absolutely. Yeah. I mean one of the most progressive developers we’re working with here locally in Chicago, Sterling Bay, you know, they uh, they, uh, Google’s Midwest headquarters, Mcdonald’s global headquarters, moved downtown from suburbs group on Gogo, go down the list. And uh, you know, we’re doing a lot of work with them on their existing building side. But also we’re, we’re really lucky in Chicago. We’ve got a very progressive utility as well. So we’ve got combat in Chicago and we’ve got some legislation at the state level, like the future and jobs act, that kind of mine bass. But these guys have to invest in energy efficiency programs. But we’ve got the monitoring based commissioning program here in Chicago, which is really a, you know, it’s a fantastic

Episode 301: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for week ending Feb 3, 2019, features interviews with Ken Sinclair, owner and editor of Automated Buildings, who helps to navigate our journey through the perilous “Path of Least Disruption,” and rising entrepreneur and SandStar founder, Alper Üzmezler, CEO of BASSG and Alta Labs. Listen to Aaron Gorka’s Next Generation Innovation Episode 5: Teamwork For Better Performance; Is Siemens’ new RDS 120 the Smartest Thermostat yet?; Niagara Releases Cyber Security Statement: Reviewing Guidelines for Niagara Framework Cyber Security; EasyIO’s upcoming World Conference starts May 19th in Amsterdam!; How will the Right Smart Building Controls will Change Facilities Management?; and Automated Buildings’ February theme is the not so scary feature: “The Dawn of Disruption.” Episode 301: Controltalk Now The Smart Buildings V Cast from Eric Stromquist on Vimeo. ControlTalk NOW First Interview: Taking the Path of Least Disruption with Ken Sinclair. In one of the most comprehensive editions of Automated Buildings to date, Ken Sinclair has collected sufficient compelling and convincing industry testimony to evince that we are deep in the crux of structural change that will eclipse pneumatic’s yield to DDC, and DDC’s yield computers, and computers’ yield to IoT. Many of the fearful aspects of disruption, in the right mindset, are actually opportunities in wait. ControlTalk NOW with Alper Üzmezler, CEO of BASSG and AnkaLabs. Visit Alper’s websites to learn about the product offerings of BASSG and the exciting prospects of Project SandStar. Alper’s site offers a lot of insight and training in what he considers to be the inevitable outcome of our BAS Industry: Open Source and Collaboration. Next Generation Innovation Episode 5: Teamwork For Better Performance. Episode 5 brings Teamwork and Performance to-the-table, for the Smart Buildings and HVAC community. We use a couple good metaphors in Sports and Music for each. First-up is (recently Young Gun inducted) Brent Burrows and Chad Erwin from ENTEK. I performed Project Tracker Training with them and was fortunate to witness their exceptional Teamwork; we explore how they’ve become such a good Team and offer suggestions for you! Next is my Brother, Adam Gorka and Myself! We had just finished our very-first-recording of NGI. Siemens RDS 120 Advanced Cloud Connected Thermostat for Light Commercial and Residential Applications. The Siemens RDS 120 Smart Thermostat is an Advanced Cloud Connected Thermostat that offers a package of strong benefits. It figures out the perfect room climate and guarantees optimized energy consumption in your home. In addition to achieving these goals, the Smart Thermostat gives you many other benefits, proving that it fully UNDERSTANDS and SATISFIES your needs. OPTIGO Networks Hosts Introduction to Networking with Distech Controls — Feb 21, 2019, 11:00 AM PDT/ 2:00PM EST. Do you struggle to communicate with your IT colleagues? Do they use concepts and language that go right over your head? OPTIGO is hosting an introduction to networking with Distech Controls that will get you caught up on the essentials of IT speak. Register for our webinar to find out about key terms and concepts. We’ll cover the basics of networking including how VLANs work, the role of IP routing, and the importance of subnets. Niagara Cyber Security Statement: Reviewing Guidelines for Niagara Framework Cyber Security. Dear Niagara Community Member, over the past few months, there has been some well-needed government and media discussion related to the cyber-security posture of control systems. Cyber-threat watchers note that there continues to be a significant number of control systems configured in an insecure manner, and most concerning, exposed on the Internet. Our goal is to have zero Niagara Framework® deployments that fit these descriptions. EasyIO World Conference in Amsterdam May 19th-May 21st, 2019! EasyIO’s World Conference will be held May 19th through May 21st! This year the location for our Global event is Amsterdam. The conference is a great opportunity to meet the EasyIO team and your colleagues from the BMS branch. There will be interesting presentations about game changing new products for building automation and energy management. How the Right Smart Building Controls will Change Facilities Management. With changes in Smart building controls the world of facilities management will change forever. These changes include:the adoption of truly open systems; Agreement upon data tagging models; The availability of usable data; and Advances in artificial in intelligence and machine learning. Ken Sinclair’s Automated Buildings’ February, 2019 Editorial Theme: “The Dawn of Disruption.” Recently returned from the 2019 AHR EXPO and wholly inspired by peeks into the future and the Dawn of Disruption, Ken Sinclair, owner and editor of Automated Buildings, believes the time has come for us to prepare and build elegant mindful bridges between the throes of disruption, the limits of innovation, and the inevitability of the new reality. The post Episode 301: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for Week Ending Feb 3, 2019 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 300: ControlTalk NOW — The Smart Building and HVAC controls Videocast and PodCast for week ending Jan 27, 2019 celebrates the 300th episode of ControlTalk NOW with our guests: Lynxspring’s Marc Petock, Jackson Control’s Roger Rebennack, and EasyIO’s Mike Marston, and Lim Hoon Chiat. A very special thanks to all the members of the ControlTrends Community that joined in on our celebration, particularly, the team at Jackson Control; Ken Sinclair, Automated Buildings; Howard Berger, Realcomm; Jim Hayman, CGNA; Aaron Gorka, ANT Technologies; and Stephen Johnson, McKenney’s. Eric and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts, as we make ready for the next 300 episodes. Standing Room Only Session –> Next Generation HVAC Controls: Open Hardware – Open Software. The panel of Brad White, Nicolas Waern, Calvin Slater, and Zach Nestov laid out their concepts of next generation of Open Hardware and Open Software to a standing room only crowd at their session at the 2019 AHR EXPO. The opinions from the attendees was remarkably candid and often contrary to the panel’s as the transformative changes disrupting the BAS industry naturally set many of the old-school traditionalist’s viewpoints at odds with the extraordinary economic implications of espousing open (free) hardware and software. Tridium University: Don’t Miss These Training Courses offered Throughout 2019. Tridium University is offering a wide variety of training courses across the world in the coming months. Our award-winning instructors and certified training partners stand ready to help the global Niagara Community innovate with Niagara solutions. The Smart Building Automation Evolution: From Ethernet to Emotion. Join Ken Sinclair, Therese Sullivan and Brad White as they discuss Smart Building controls evolution over the last twenty years. The smart building controls evolution is closely coupled with the internet. What has changed in the 20 years of the Internet? Cost is down; speed is up, everything has an IP address, the Internet has become clouded with powerful microcomputers that are out on the edge, self-learning and sharing their intelligence with everyone – and everyone is continuously connected. The post Celebrating Our 300th Episode of ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 297: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for week ending Dec 30, 2018 brings us to the brink of another New Year. Join ControlTalk NOW and our special guest, Marc Petock, as we engage in a comprehensive review of 2018, and then take a slightly serious and perceptive look at what 2019 is likely to bring — and which TRENDS will emerge. Don’t miss the “Very Special Conversation Video with John Sublett.” Cochrane Controls’ Controls-Con 2019 — early bird deadline is approaching; LOYTEC Introduces their LIOB-585 I/O Controller; Aaron Gorka’s Next Generation Innovation, Episode 004, Future Proof Your Business; and a Holiday IoT Cyber Security Heads up from the National Cyber Awareness System. ControlTalk NOW guest Marc Petock, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Lynxspring, Inc. reviews many of the trends that made the biggest impact in 2018, which Marc considers to be — a “Year of Significant Advancement.” Marc also shares critical insight into what we can expect in 2019: the greater adoption of edge devices, IP Controllers, and application metrics like the 3/30/300 metric, will continue to drive more measurable and successful business outcomes. Happy New Year 2019 from ControlTrends! We wish our ControlTrends Community the best of health and happiness during this holiday season — and a successful New Year. Thank you for making our world relevant, as we look forward to the ControlTrends Awards in Atlanta, January 13th. Please VOTE today! Voting ends December 31st, 2018. We look forward to another challenging year of keeping up with the TRENDS and highlighting the great people, products, and solutions of our industry. A Very Special Conversation with John Sublett. I had a chance to interview one of the greats in Smart building controls. Listen as I chat with the former CTO of Tridium, John Sublett. John shares stories of the early days at Tridium, as well as, how he got into the smart building controls industry, and words of wisdom he acquired along the way. I hope you enjoy this episode of ControlTrends People, which was recorded shortly before John left Tridium. Controls-Con 2019 — May 2-3, 2019 at the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit, Michigan. Early Bird Registration Ends 1/1/2019. The time has come. Registration for Controls-Con 2019 is officially LIVE and the best time to register is now! Controls-Con is a bi-annual conference proudly presented by Cochrane Supply & Engineering that explores the latest technologies and possibilities of Building Controls, Building Automation and the Internet of Things (IoT). LOYTEC Building Management and Control Solutions — Introducing the LIOB-585 I/O Controller. LOYTEC LIOB‑585 I/‌O Controllers are IP-enabled, compact, programmable automation stations for LonMark Systems and BACnet/‌IP networks with physical inputs and outputs and integrated graphical visualization. 6 UI, 2 AO, 5 DO (5 x Triac 0.5 A), 1 Pressure Sensor. Episode _004 Next Generation Innovation: Future Proof Your Business. In this episode of Next Generation Innovation, your host Aaron Gorka, from Ant Technologies, shares a talk he gave at the 2018 Honeywell Momentum smart buildings conference. The topic was How to Future-Proof Your Business. Listen to get great insights from the Young Gun perspective. As the business climate in HVAC and Smart Building Controls get’s even more competitive, this is a very timely talk. Great work Aaron. IoT Cyber Security Heads up from the National Cyber Awareness System: Securing New Devices. During the holidays, internet-connected devices also known as Internet of Things (IoT) are often popular gifts—such as smart TVs, watches, toys, phones, and tablets. This technology provides a level of convenience to our lives, but it requires that we share more information than ever. The security of this information, and the security of these devices, is not always guaranteed. The post Episode 297: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for Week Ending Dec 30, 2018 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 295: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for week ending Dec 16, 2018 features our interview with ACI’s Tech Support Manager, Matt Buchholz, who is a finalist for the 2018 ControlTrends Awards Technical Support Person of the Year. Next up, Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager at Ant Technologies, joins us with a discussion about what’s new with the Next Generation Innovation (NGI) Videocast/Podcast. Belimo creates customer value CESIM; Contemporary Controls announces new BASstat Series of BACnet-compliant thermostats; and ACI’s Interface Devices save you Time and Money. Our first ControlTalk NOW interview is with ACI’s Tech Support Manager, Matt Buchholz. Matt shares valuable insight into his early entrance into the HVAC and BAS industry coming on board with ACI directly out of college. Matt also recollects the best advice he’s received from his mentors, and offers some great advice to those who are new to the industry. Patience, persistence, and a good ear for details are all so important, because a full understanding of all the issues will identify the problem and lead to the solution. Belimo’s CESIM — Small Devices, Big Impact — Creating Customer Value with CESIM. Belimo’s CEO, Lars van der Haegen and his team explain their simple, yet powerful and all-encompassing philosophy in creating customer value with CESIM, which is the Belimo-method to innovate building technology with sensors, valves, and actuators. CESIM ensures Comfort, Energy Efficiency, Safety for people and their property, while also ensuring easy Installation, commissioning and reduced Maintenance efforts. Click here for more information. Contemporary Controls Announces New BACnet Wi-Fi and MS/TP Compliant Thermostat. Contemporary Controls continues its mission of “Building on BACnet” by introducing the BASstat series of BACnet-compliant wired or wireless communicating thermostats that are BTL Listed to ensure effortless integration into BACnet/IP (Wi-Fi) or BACnet MS/TP (EIA-485) networks. BASstat thermostats are suited for single or multi-stage heating, cooling and ventilation binary output control applications such as RTU or AHU. Matt Buchholtz Demos ACI’s Interface Devices — Solving Problems while Saving You Time and Money. ACI Interface Devices: Solving Problems While Saving You Time and Money! ACI manufactures an extensive line of Interface Devices designed to solve problems. Many of our interface products are used to convert one signal type to another saving you time and money on retrofit projects. Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager at Ant Technologies, is excited about his stewardship of the Next Generation Innovation (NGI) series, and the opportunity to introduce many of the “Young Guns” shaping the future of our industry. Absolutely interesting dialogue! From mentorship, reciprocity, and the occasional need for a simple pat on the back, Aaron introduces us to a few of the emerging leaders he has met along the way during his global campaign to bring Ant Technologies‘ paperless technology to the forefront. The post Episode 295: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for Week Ending Dec 16, 2018 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 276: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for week ending July 30, 2018 features another field interview update from Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager, ANT Technologies; Sentient Buildings’ David Unger at Realcomm20/IBcon Live; Vykon releases Niagara 4.6; Honeywell Name Reveal: Resideo; Blue Ridge Technologies’ Dennis Swaboda’s BACnet Journal article: BACnet and Total Environmental Control; and don’t miss this week’s Flashback Friday: The Beatles and the Smart Buildings Controls Renaissance video. Sentient Buildings’ “Building Awareness” at Realcomm20/IBcon Conference — Conference Live Launchpad Interview with David Unger ControlTrends learned about Sentient Buildings at the Realcomm20/IBcon Conference Live Product Launchpad. Sentient Buildings provides Cloud-Connected Controls and Gateways for Building Monitoring and Control Systems — transforming the built environment delivering real-time “building awareness” through the application of IoT technologies connected to smart controls and gateways reporting to cloud platforms. VYKON Announcement: Niagara 4.6 is Here — Modernize Your Framework to Save Time, Effort and Money! Dear valued partner, Tridium has released Niagara 4.6, a significant advancement in our open framework. Niagara 4.6 provides fertile ground for developing applications that drive building automation systems forward and help businesses take full advantage of the IoT. Niagara 4.6 (4.6.96.28.4) follows the internal release of Niagara 4.5, a build used internally for testing and validating technology upgrades found in this newest release. Honeywell Homes Name Reveal: A Message from Michael G. Nefkens, President and CEO, Resideo. As you’ve heard from previous communications, Homes and ADI Global Distribution will be spinning off from Honeywell to become an independent company. We expect the spin to be completed by the end of 2018. Many of you have been wondering how we’ll continue to deliver on the heritage and reliability of a great brand like Honeywell and have asked what will the brand become after the spin. In this letter, I’m excited to share with you the new corporate name of the Homes business, how we will go to market using the Honeywell name and a little background on the development of the name. Listen in to some great heads-up interviews with ControlTrends Young Gun, Aaron Gorka, Innovations Manager, ANT Technologies, and four guests: Nick Benton, Manager Professional Development, HARDI. Columbus, OH; Jake Charleston, Territory Manager, Charleston, Inc. Omaha, NB; José Loubet, Owner, Rafacciones Loubet. Tijuana, Mexico; and Raul Ruiz, Owner — Refaccionaria Ruiz., Ciudad Victoria, Mexico. ANT Technologies are providers of paperless, cloud-based, operational technology for HVAC & Control Contractors. Technicians love this paperless solution that simplifies the business end-of-the-stick, and allows them to focus on maintenance. ANT Technologies solutions add more value! BACnet and Total Environmental Control: Shining a Light on BAS Controls. With all the conversation about the 3-30-300 metrics and Ken Sinclair’s thoughts on the humanization of buildings and the new ways occupants and buildings will interact, it was interesting when I came across this article from the team at Blue Ridge Technologies (published in the recent edition of the BACnet International Journal). Flash Back Friday: The Beatles and The Smart Building Controls Renaissance. Ken and I first noticed the controls Industry was in a renaissance period in Paris, at the EASYIO Global Conference. Sitting at a side walk cafe, drinking cafe au lait, discussing what we had seen and heard from the participants at the event,it became apparent that the smart building controls world as we had known it was changing and would never be the same. Over the next year, we noticed how quickly things had changed, and it was at the at EASYIO Global Conference in Manchester, that we confirmed that the New Age and Smart Building Controls Renaissance had indeed arrived, and there was no turning back. The post Episode 276: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for Week Ending July 30, 2018 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 271: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for week ending June 17, 2018 features an interview with Ken Sinclair (recently returned from Helsinki, Finland), who delivers an amazing account of the European thought process when it comes to our common denominators: buildings, occupants, and trends. Aaron Gorka travels to Minvalco, MN, where ANT Technologies trains on paperless solutions; Dwyer Instruments designs and manufacturers innovative controls, sensors, and instrumentation solutions; CUBE brings compelling efficiencies and cost savings to systems integrations contractors; and Honeywell sunsets their W7752G2000 fan controller. Ken Sinclair, owner and editor of Automated Buildings (automatedbuildings.com) proved his reputation as a building automation prophet and seer (proof paragraph from 1999 to follow) a long time ago. Our ControlTrend’s interview with Ken (recently returned from the Nordic Smart Building Convention) presents an informative update on the ways other parts of the world go about their business of making Property-Tech’s supreme variable — the occupant — happy and more productive. Plus, a quick review of Automated Buildings’ June edition. Proof Paragraph: ” In 1999 we started AutomatedBuildings.com, during the dot-com days, we wrote, we have selected this article to be in our first launch issue because we think it sends us all a wake-up call as to how significant the internet is going to be in the future. The concept of a large building as an internet identity with its own web address is now the latest step in presenting and managing your Automated Buildings.” Dwyer Mission Statement: “To continuously improve our position as a Global leader in designing and manufacturing innovative Controls, Sensors and Instrumentation solutions.” We work tirelessly to get it right. That’s why Dwyer holds over 650 technical patents and that number grows every year. We are an enthusiastic group of people headquartered in Michigan City, Indiana with satellite locations around the globe. We take great pride in the intellect and integrity of our employees who are passionate about the work we do, the products we develop and the industries we serve. Cube Technologies saving HVAC Contractors money How Can Smart Building and HVAC Contractors be More Efficient and Save Money. As we begin our video tour of the 2018 RealComm|IBcon conference held last week in Las Vegas, we begin with a company we were not familiar with — Cube. In this video, Hector Hernandez, the CEO of Cube, tells us about his software and how it saves contractors major dollars by making sure all the data needed to run a successful smart building or HVAC contracting business is in one place and easy to access. ControlTrends Young Gun, Aaron Gorka, Innovations Manager, ANT Technologies, providers of paperless, cloud-based, operational technology for HVAC & Control Contractors. Aaron (back from his honeymoon) conducted training at Minvalco, with John Hyden, and Archer Mechanical. Technicians love this paperless solutions that simplifies the business end-of-the-stick, and allows them to focus on maintenance. ANT Technologies solutions add more value! Honeywell W7752G 2000 Fan Coil Unit to Be Discontinued. As Honeywell adds new and improved controllers to their product portfolio, they need to let older products go. So heads up: the W7752G 2000 Lonmark Fan Coil unit is being discontinued. If you need some of these reach out to your local Honeywell authorized distributor to buy any inventory they might have. A better option would be to have your local Honeywell distributor recommed a good replacement controller. Although, I found many of these on eBay, I would steer clear of that option ( no warranty, no tech support, and you have no idea were the controller has been). As my dad use to say, “trouble cost more than quality”. The post Episode 271: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings Videocast and PodCast for Week Ending June 17, 2018 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 235: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings PodCast for week ending August 13, 2017 features two insightful interviews with Marc Petock, Lynxspring’s Chief Communications Officer & Vice President, Marketing, and Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager for ANT Technologies. Check out ACI’s European Smart Homes 2017; ControlTrends Discovers Monnit Wireless Sensors at Realcomm|IBcon 2017; Belimo’s Correcting Low Delta T Webinar: Internet of Things (IoT); Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017; The Dark Web Goes Corporate; NIST Cybersecurity for IoT Program; and Therese Sullivan: Appreciating How Metadata Makes Artificial Intelligence Possible. Internet of Things (IoT) Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2017 Introduced by Senators Mark Warner, Cory Gardner, Ron Wyden, and Steve Daines. On August 1, 2017, the U.S. Government took a significant “lead by example” step forward in the battle of Internet of Things (IoT) security. Chief among the vendor commitments — that must be made to the U.S.Government: That their IoT devices are patchable; that the devices don’t contain known vulnerabilities; and that the devices don’t contain hard-coded passwords. ACI’s European Smart Homes 2017 will be taking place in London, UK, on 25th & 26th of October 2017.Join European Smart Homes 2017 conference on 25th & 26th October in London, UK and hear John Hutchins’ presentation entitled “Smart Homes and Utility Customer Experience – exploring the link between smart homes, connected devices and better customer experience for utility customers.” The Dark Web Goes Corporate, by Josh Fruhlinger, CSO. By Josh Fruhlinger, CSO. The “dark web” is a phrase strikes an ominous tone, conveying an impression of a marketplace where anything is for sale: hacking tools, weapons, drugs, child pornography, even freelance assassination services. And according to experts we spoke to, all of that’s still true. But something has changed in the way the dark web does business. If there was a time when venturing online to buy these illegal items was like taking your life in your hands in a dark alley, today the experience in quite different. ControlTrends Discovers Monnit Wireless Sensors at Realcomm|IBcon 2017. One of the really cool things about covering shows like Realcomm|IBcon is that we quite often get first looks at new vendors and technologies. Although wireless sensors are not new to Smart Buildings, Monnit’s approach and product offering are. Check this video out to see why. Monnit remote monitoring systems can be setup in just a few minutes and our intuitive interface makes managing your system a snap, and Mommit’s optimized RF communications platform provides superior wireless range for covering large areas. Ken’s Calendar: Belimo’s Correcting Low Delta T Webinar, Wednesday, August 23 at 1:00 PM EDT. Chilled water provided from a utility plant is commonly used in a building’s HVAC system in lieu of installing chillers. This results in lower return water temperatures which decreases the efficiency of the entire chilled water system resulting in the condition known as “Low ∆T Syndrome.” In this webinar we will review the design of a district chilled water system and discuss a study of a building where “Low ∆T Syndrome” was corrected at the point of water to air heat transfer. NIST Cybersecurity for IoT Program (20.8 Billion Connected Devices in Use by 2020). Though each of us, in our own way and at our speed, has willingly or unwillingly, become more acclimated and accepted the rapid proliferation of IoT devices connecting us to the data bases in the clouds, it is still a challenge to fully comprehend the impact this hatching reality will have on our personal lives and professional careers — and we probably should know a lot more. Among the many sources of valuable insight and guidance available to ControlTrends Community, the NIST’s Cybersecurity for the Internet of Things is certainly one of the best. Therese Sullivan: Appreciating How Metadata Makes Artificial Intelligence Possible. Therese Sullivan, editor of BuildingContext.me, and our ControlTrends’ eyes and ears from Silicon Valley, takes us on a data journey that begins at the ethereal origins of Artificial Intelligence (Dartmouth, 1956) and delivers us to metadata and Project Haystack — introducing some of the label makers in between. ControlTalk NOW’s first interview is with industry veteran Marc Petock, Lynxspring‘s Chief Communications Officer & Vice President, Marketing. Marc first updates the ControlTrends Community on the 2017 Lynxspring Exchange, which is open to everybody. This will be the best Exchange ever. Everything is good: Location (Scottsdale, AZ); Speakers (Roberta Gamble, Frost & Sullivan; Tom Schircliff and Rob Murchinson, Intelligent Buildings; and Mark Jewell, Selling Energy); can’t miss technology and product updates, and an all-star cast of Vendor-Sponsors. Marc also addresses Cyber Security, Edge Controllers, and the 2017 ControlTrends Awards. ControlTalk NOW’s second interview is with Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager for ANT Technologies, who extends the ControlTrends Community a special offer with Ant Technologies. ANT Technologies software portfolio is designed to make contractors more profitable. Aaron grew up in the contracting world — working with his father in a family business environment. He knows the business and financial challenges firsthand. ANT Technologies has the curated software tools: Management of Projects, Service Tools, and Tenant Energy Billing — that will make contractors more efficient and, more profitable. Click here to find your local CGNA distributor and take advantage of Aaron’s special ControlTrends offer that he made during the podcast. The post Episode 235: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings PodCast for Week Ending August 13, 2017 appeared first on ControlTrends.

Episode 223: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast|PodCast for week ending Apr 30, 2017 takes on a special dimension as we videoed the show on location at the CGNA Synergy Conference at the Peabody Hotel, in Memphis, TN. Additionally, EasyIO releases VAV using Wi-Fi Mesh and Live Wiresheets; Hepta Systems’ Jason Houck, Award-Winning Master Systems Integrator on ControlTalk Rewind; Acuity Brands Introduces SiteView Energy Solution; AHR interview with Dimitri Papadopoulos of Johnson Controls; ControlTrends Rewind with Therese Sullivan; and new Edge Controllers from Lynxspring. ControlTrends CGNA Vendor interviews with Earl Doyle, Director, Product Management & Smart Systems Efficiency, VERASYS, Johnson Controls’ Plug-and Play Controls System for Light Commercial Buildings; Josh Felphrin, Senior Sales Manager, Siemens’ TRA and BT300 Solutions; Gina Elliott, Marketing Manager, Small to Mid-Markets, Schneider Electric’s New Building Insights, Small Building & Energy Management System; Aaron Gorka, Innovation Manager, ANT Technologies’Paperless, cloud-based, operational technology for HVAC & Control Contractors; Barry Gordon, Senior Sales Engineer, ACI’s New DLP Differential Low Pressure Transmitter; Maggie Talbert, North East Regional Sales Manager, Functional Devices’ new products and continued partnerships; Bill Dunkleberger, President, Blue Ridge Technologies’ BACnet Unified Lighting Solutions; and Mike Sackett, Executive Director, CGNA Elite — Industry’s Elite Working Together. EasyIO is CHANGING the Game — Again! VAV using Wi-Fi Mesh and Live Wiresheets. EasyIO is CHANGING the Game — Again! This time with VAV using Wi-Fi Mesh, Live Wiresheets, and you can mix wired and wireless, all running BACnet IP, with free tools and no extra fees. Does it get any better? And you get to keep the labor and wiring savings, as we are not charging a premium for this awesome device. See this in Manchester, UK, May 22-23, 2017, at the Global EasyIO Partner Event. Hepta Systems’ Jason Houck, Award-Winning Master Systems Integrator on ControlTalk Rewind. On this episode of ControlTalk Rewind, we replay our interview with Hepta Systems’ Jason Houck, Award-Winning Master Systems Integrator. Jason, and Hepta Systems are all about taking the Smart Building Controls concept to the next level — and making their service available through The Panel Shoppe! Inquire within. Acuity Brands Introduces SiteView Energy Solution! Real-Time Power Metering to Manage Energy Consumption and Costs. ATLANTA – April 25, 2017 — Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE: AYI) today introduced its SiteView Energy solution, which combines power metering devices and a digital dashboard, to create a detailed, real-time look at actual energy consumption within a building. The SiteView Energy solution takes advantage of software that is hosted within nLight ECLYPSE smart building-ready controllers, also from Acuity Brands, to help building owners track and analyze weekly, monthly and yearly energy data to identify trends and savings. Catching Up with Dimitri Papadopoulos and Johnson Controls at the 2017 AHR Show. ControlTrends interview with Dimitri Papadopoulos of Johnson Controls, who tells us all about Johnson Controls’ new Niagara Analytics and the Johnson Controls new technology on display at the 2017 AHR Expo. Johnson Controls featured their FX Supervisory Controllers, which are web-based supervisory-class controllers in the Facility Explorer product family. FX Supervisory Controllers manage networks of field controllers using open communication protocols, such as such as BACnet®, LONWORKS®, and N2 protocols. Edge Controls the Smart way to do Smart Building Controls: Lynxspring explains at the 2017 AHR Show. ControlTrends stopped by the Lynxspring booth at the 2017 AHR product show case. See what Marc Petock and Chris Ryan had to show us about the edge and Edge controllers. The Edge is the next great frontier in making smart building controls smarter. Smart Buildings ControlTalk Rewind: Therese Sullivan. On this episode of ControlTalk Now Smart Buildings Control Rewind we feature Therese Sullivan, editor buildingcontext.me. Therese is writer/technologist and marketing professional providing news and analysis for commercial building system integrators, facilities managers and real estate professionals about innovations in building automation with emphasis on data analytics, mobile apps, cloud services and wireless networking. The post Episode 223: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast|PodCast for Week Ending Apr 30, 2017 appeared first on ControlTrends.