Marc Goldman with esri

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Welcome to the industrial talk podcast with Scott Mackenzie. Scott is a passionate industry professional dedicated to transferring cutting edge industry focused innovations and trends while highlighting the men and women who keep the world moving. So put on your hard hat, grab your work boots. And let's go again, thank

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you very much for joining industrial talk a platform, a wonderful platform, a platform that is ever expanding with great individuals like the one that's next to me, that are focused on solving problems. We celebrate you here on this particular podcast because you are bold, brave, you dare greatly and you're changing lives and you are changing the world. That's why we celebrate you on this podcast. And as you can tell by the buzz in the background, sort of buzzing about this. It's pretty calm down. But we are here at the Q1 first quarter of OMG. And it's a collection once again of incredible professionals that are solving problems. And if you have a problem, I guarantee you need to reach out to omg.org. I guarantee you they're going to have somebody that definitely knows what's going on. All right. esri, esri, it's lowercase. So don't even look at it for you know, capital letters. And his name is Marc. And he is in the hot seat. And I'm looking forward to the conversation. And right off the bat, Marc, I'm gonna blow your mind. Blow Your Mind. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready. I grew up in Barstow, California,

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Barstow, California. Did you really? Yeah. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Well, you're I see red.

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That's the office that's not where I am. That's that's where about about 3000 ESRI employees though. reside or at least drop in on on a regular basis. We got a huge campus there. It's like an oasis in the middle of the Inland Empire. Yeah, I was

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all bummed out because I used to go to Redlands all the time. Did you?

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When was last time you were there?

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I can't remember you wouldn't recognize it. No, I can't remember we went out. I went grown up in Barstow when we were we would call Godus. We get our school closed. Down the hill over the past down the hill into San Bernardino, Redlands and Riverside.

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That whole area down there. Yeah, that's the company's dumping ground at least. Yeah.

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Well, that's just bombed. Oh, it No, it

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has completely changed in the last few years. I could say in large part to ESRI. I was there maybe 20 years ago, when I was in construction tech for another company and visited and it was maybe three or four buildings with a bunch of trees. But now, like I said, 3000 people are there with it's literally an oasis of beautiful landscaping and, and boulders and glass buildings that you just you wouldn't recognize. I think

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redwoods as a whole gets underappreciated. Yeah. I mean, you gotta you got Yeah, I was born in in. Was that boy? Forgot Fontana. Fontana, who is Fontana? It's Fontana. It's all in that areas. And

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well, the Inland Empire that whole area kind of has a myth. People don't brag about that area as much as maybe they should. Rollins, I'm

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telling you, man, not a bad place.

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I almost moved there almost almost had to do that. I joined the Esri three and a half years ago just before COVID and made a three or four visits there. I was starting to some house hunting. And then we proved we could do our job wherever we lived. So

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and it makes it makes complete and utter sense. So how did we get now? All right, for the listeners out there, bark just started a level set on on who you are. Background. While you're incredible professionals from St. Louis

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fish? Yes, yeah. Well, like I said, I joined ESRI about three and a half years ago, having worked in the construction technology industries in the AEC. Industry as it's often known for about 25 years prior to that. I've worked at Autodesk a couple of times worked at hexagon consulted to the likes of Trimble and cross paths with most of the construction technology companies over my 30 or so years. I got involved real early on in the days of CAD, computer aided design, gotten involved in building information modeling BIM back in its earliest days, that worked for the big companies, like I mentioned, as well as a few startups that I've helped to get off the ground. What are you? What, 75 years, I'm 75 years I actually started work at six years old out of kindergarten. Yeah, they recruited me off in the playground.

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And then I did this and I did that. I got mad skills here and my CDs. And he said, I haven't even started. I haven't started any startup. She's Yeah, I'm there. He's smarter than me, which is not saying much. Just FYI, that hurdle is quite high.

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Oh, my friend. Is that a compliment to me then?

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It is. It's okay. It's a it's a darn good one. I'll take it. Yeah, it's a darn good compliment. All right. He's given me questions which I'm going to struggle with because I don't want to make say, if it's here, you can see it. And he's just winging it just winging it. Oh, yeah. Okay, you're having a good quarter. really meeting here? Yeah, I

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actually had a few minutes just just before this right a chance to give an update on the National Institute of Building Sciences, and organization of the US government who ensures that we build things most effectively use technologies, rather than doing things the old fashioned way, funded by our tax dollars to improve the way the built world gets built. So

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isn't it just it's a common struggle, right? The technology is the technology, right? It smart people developing the technology all good stuff. But the reality is, is it it's always a human equation. And when you're sitting there talking to a body of whatever, you just got it? Are they gonna adopt it? What are they gonna they're gonna embrace it, they're gonna run with it, they're gonna say, oh, or what? Are they gonna burn my house down? What is?

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Yeah, people want change, but they never want to change. So it definitely is the human element, you can get the best technology, the best software, the best Marceting around it, the best learning tools don't matter if people don't understand the value of the improvements that you're trying to, you know, what do you think

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it's like it's down to like the value? Or is it just, I don't want the headache? I mean, are you? Are you telling me I gotta do something that I've been doing for X amount of years? And you're just saying, I gotta do it differently? That's a headache. That sounds like a headache to me.

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Oh, there's, there's always that element of we've always done it this way. I've always done it this way. You're making my life harder. And yeah, you got to balance what might be a big picture improvement, versus the individual who's got to change the way they think. And yeah, it gives them a headache every day. Why am I why am I not using paper paper is easy.

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And it's like, the devil, you know, it's like, yeah, it could be better. But I'll just do my write on this piece of paper. Well, that's,

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you know, that's been the way of construction forever, I saw something the other day, someone pulled up an image that dated back 3000 years, I guess there's essentially a floor plan for a pyramid or something, which, you know, pretty basic square, I guess. But um, you know, walls and window openings and door openings carved in stone, and then right next to it a drawing from maybe 10 years ago, which looked identical. So, you know, we haven't changed in some ways all that much in 3000 years. And yet, yeah, there's right on the edge of some really big changes that we're talking about here at the digital twin Consortium.

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No doubt about it. I just think it's exciting time. So how are we changing? How are we how are you saying, hey, this industry is going to change because of this technology. And by the way, listener, if you're out there, and you're saying, I still like paper, just just take a deep breath, and learn this stuff. Just FYI.

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Yeah. So I don't know if necessarily, it's because of the technology by we're changing the technology certainly is, is changing the way we work. But I think the reasons behind it are bigger than than the fact that software is just everywhere, I think that there's a few things going on. So folks, like you and I who are in our last few years of our career, sorry, man. I've never read this, whether you're retired or not, someone else is going to come in and they've grown up with a phone in their hand since birth, they've been in front of a computer screen for 20 or 30 years more than you. And they're just going to expect when they go to work. I mean, do your job. No tech, no tech. As we're in front of

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multiple computers right here, and I got cameras, and I'm doing my

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you're a tech enthusiast. There really is a big shift. And it started way before COVID are way before digital twins were being discussed. The fact that baby boomers had been retiring, and they're being replaced by millennials, who, like I said that you know, tech is just their native language. And you're not going to want to go into work when you have to do things on paper, when everything else in your life is done from the palm of your hand.

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And I agree with you 100% On that, I think that old guys like us have to just get out of the way and allow the youth to come in that just makes decisions differently moves, navigates the challenges a little bit differently. I say, I I like the refreshness of that, like a nice cold

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boat and you know, construction industry, even the biggest construction companies are still very much relationship based. Often generational, you know, the grandson takes over, took over for grandpa. And in that instance of taking over generationally, that dynamic of the grandson coming in who was a digital native, changing the way whatever his dad implemented 20 years ago when they first started using CAD is now 3d modeling and using GIS where I come from, you know, going out in the field with survey tools that are completely digital and abandoning the transit and abandoning yellow pads for tech.

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So with that said, I'm looking at your notes. I'm trying to what do you what's, what is G? How does GIS impacting the industry?

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Yeah, so GIS is something that quite honestly as an architecture engineering construction technology guy was on the sidelines for me, I was deeply involved in the tools for drawing and doing 3d modeling. and GIS, which stands for Geographic Information Systems, essentially digital mapping, spatial analysis, putting together all kinds of layers to help you understand context was not something that was in my toolbox as I was in the fields of architecture, engineering and construction. But for the last five years or so, ESRI, who I work for the largest company in this space, decided to make a significant shift in its strategy as it pertained to the AEC space, instead of competing with Autodesk, we formed a partnership with them. So no longer are we vying for the same dollars and going neck to neck and head to head for, for project opportunities with our software, we're collaborating, our tools work together. So now you might do your planning and your design work in a CAD application or a BIM application, you'll bring it directly into the GIS tool, or you'll create some maps and GIS made up of all kinds of layers, and then have them underlay your model. So you know, where that bridge is in context of the city grid, and you'll know where that building is and how it's oriented relative to the prevailing winds or traffic flow or where the competition is for the client who you're working with. So GIS is making huge inroads.

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So why is this important? I get it, I, it would be great to be able to know exactly where that road goes and exactly know where that bridge is set in that building and all of that, why I don't, for the listeners explain why that's important.

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Yeah, um, I think it boils down to one word context. And the work that designers do, planners do often exists without context, they'll start out their application, whether it's a computer aided design CAD tool, or building information, modeling BIM software with a blank screen, and they've got to put that first line down representing a wall or representing an alignment line through a city or a rail road yard that wants to expand and without the context of what is around you. I don't see how these days you could make that educated guess how you can make design decisions without that context. And that's what GIS brings uniquely compared to all these other technologies that folks use, they can see not just the city grid, they can understand where neighborhoods that need investment might be they can not horsetail. Okay,

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how do they okay, how do they know that? So I got it, but how do they know that? Take us?

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Yeah, I'll take you first. So yeah, I mean, GIS is a little bit of of a black box, to a lot of folks. And a lot of industries, they haven't worked with it, you know, whereas drawing tools and modeling tools, you're dropping roads onto a virtual piece of paper, or you're putting the building footprint onto a piece of paper, but GIS is all about data layers, those layers might be satellite imagery, they might be census data that's been organized so that you can actually understand the demographics of a location, it might be important points of interest, whether it's landMarcs or restaurants or grocery stores or hospitals, it might be weather patterns, like I said, so all these layers come together into a map like location, intelligent environment. And then on top of that, you start doing your planning and your designing and your construction planning

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it, it brings about it a more holistic view of that area. And you can it you can probably layer in whatever your mind, Oh, whatever. Okay, here's, these are non negotiables, you got to have this, this, this and this, and there it is right there. But we could pull in this and we could do this, we could do this, we could pull in all of that. And boy paid a hell of a picture.

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Yeah, no, I mean, the kinds of things you can do with all the kinds of imagery that's been generated from satellites, fixed wing drone, you can take those images now, run a deep learning model against that, and generate details about every single tree that's in your city. Details about your lamppost that exists just through imagery. overlay that, like I said, on top of the traffic flow

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patterns. Okay, okay.

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Mind blown. Mind blown. Oh,

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man. Yeah, but I am going to, how do you keep up? Let's say when you say, trees, trees change, things change? Yeah, everything changed. How do you how do you keep up

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with the imagery is being collected on a daily basis, our entire earth is being mapped by satellites at whatever, 100 miles or 10s of miles above the surface. If your project is more dynamic than that you can't rely on quarterly views from satellites that might be in your region, you might hire an airplane, you might hire a survey crew who are now flying Cessna 170, twos, that whatever, 4000 feet, capturing images and they use images actually aren't just a top down view. They're coming in at multiple angles, able to generate a 3d model of your environment with the trees.

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Okay, so here, so I with that dynamic activity of identifying and keeping current with all of the different layers and I could see that it just who's, who's pushing that. Now you're not you're not, you're you're just providing a platform that can be able to do that. Yes and no, because I was He's gonna say if I come to you, and it's like, Hey, I'm gonna be doing something here.

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Yeah, yeah. I mean, so. So as we are the software provider, we're the ones who put together the desktop tools in the cloud based tools, and all kinds of extensions for doing all kinds of analysis against data. We ourselves aren't flying airplanes. But we've got I think, 3500, almost 4000 partners, there you go, go out and collect data, who build extensions who do consulting services on top of our software. So off the top of my head, a company called near Mount a company called arrow metrics to companies who have dozens, if not hundreds of planes, companies like maxar, who are, you know, have satellites circling the globe at any time and can get them to exactly where you need them to be to capture that imagery. And then we host that on a site called Living Atlas of the world, where if you're an Esri user, you've got to log in, you go to that site, you're

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gonna get a free login, don't don't tell, you can

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go to living Atlas dot s3 dot com, and access this information. Some of it is freely available, some of it is through subscription. Some of it you need an ESRI software to plug it into. And then those are your biggest fears.

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Because the reality is, is that your software, if you have a constant flow of information that continues to add and create value for your platform, the more valuable it is for me. Oh, certainly. It makes it simple.

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Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, we we can't expect every individual to go out and fly their own airplane to capture in the drone. So we find partners that do that, or partners find us. You know, we're about 50 years old, the founder started the company come out of Harvard, 50, something years ago with a degree in landscape architecture, opened up a business in Redlands, California, from Boston. And since then, has grown it to and we're we're a multi billion dollar company with 1000s of employees. And although we might do you know, in the neighborhood of a billion or $2 billion a year, our partners are another 10 to 20 times of that. So we're building out an economy of 20 $30 billion around this GIS space through ourselves and our partners.

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And the reality is, is that I see one, if I understand all of these patterns, and I overlay it in an area, then then it helps me, and I'll simplify it dramatically. make better business decisions. Yeah, exactly. That's all it is. Yeah. Do I really want to be here given this that the other thing because it's all accurate data? So that's interesting. Well,

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yeah, business decision, you know, through my lens of architecture, engineering and construction, it's how do you want your building oriented? And how do I use less energy on this building? It's all going around the built world. But if you're Walgreens or Target or Walmart or Starbucks, you want to know where your store should be. And you want your store to be based on the best demographic information, competitors on where the traffic flow is going all that?

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You know what I think I think Walgreen finds the place and then GNC goes across the

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street. Well, they very often do. I will tell you if you're GNC, you want to know where all the Walgreens? Where were they successful, and where did they only last for six months.

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So listener, if you go out there and find a Walgreens, I guarantee there's a GNC someplace near

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put up the glass on that map and draw a circle around the rain there. And you'll find at least one GNC within an orange juice glass away.

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Even in my small towns, I go. Anyway. So where do you see it going? Where do I see it? What's what's what's the future look like outside of the fact that this is pretty doggone

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cool. Create a crystal ball here? Yeah, looking at

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that on your own current x hat on,

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you know, in some ways, what we're talking about here at this conference, digital twin consortium, we've been doing for a long time, we've been building virtual models of our physical space, collecting information of that physical space, and then visualize and somehow in a 3d environment, hopefully, so that you know, what's going on, that's just going to become mainstream and commonplace for projects of all size. Typically, in the past, it was projects that were more complex that were more mission critical hospitals and airports. Certainly, this has become standard. I think these capabilities of putting sensors in buildings, understanding their conditions, and then automatically affecting that building, opening windows turning on chillers, controlling traffic, automatically is going to become standard practice as sensors and physical models and the virtual model and great visualization all come together.

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Did we cover everything?

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I think we covered a lot. I don't know. I could talk about this for hours. Yeah, man. I

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can. Well, I could too, but I don't tell you. It is what it is. Very cool. Very cool stuff, man. I'm just telling you. I'm all I'm all giddy about the

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future so bright. I gotta wear shades, right?

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Yeah, by the way. I like your glasses. Thanks, man. All right. How do people get a hold of you? They can

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probably find me on LinkedIn individually and personally really easily Marc Goldman Marc with a C esri.com/aec is where you'll find the website where we're talking about everything that as he does for the architecture engineering construction industry. And how about AEC info@esri.com for an email address.

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Please Marc it Sold, everything doesn't work out. He's got a great future in podcasting. Looking forward to it. You're absolutely spectacular. All right, as usual, we're going to have all the contact information for Marc. ESRI out on industrial talk.com. So if you're not, don't don't worry, you'll be able to get a hold of them. The future's bright, learn more about it, connect, collaborate, find out more. Go to Oh, yeah. Here's the plug. omg.org make that happen. Find people like Martin, with a seat. All right, we're gonna wrap it up on the other side. Stay tuned, we will be right back.

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You're listening to the industrial talk Podcast Network.

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Again, thank you very much for joining industrial talk. And for your continued support. I can't encourage you enough to go out to all omg.org. That was in DC that was Q1. And it is it's it's a collection of these professionals that want to solve problems and want to big time help you succeed. And at defining those standards, you get people like Marc, M A R C not k, Goldman, ESRI is the company. And they're doing a lot with GIS Bims, digital twin, it's happening. And the only encouragement that I can get you is that you continue to educate. You continue to collaborate, collaborate with Marc, and of course, the innovation that has to happen because it's happening. And so just make it happen. That is omg.org Find out more yet. They're great, great, great people. I can't say that enough. All right. Industrial talk. It is an ecosystem that is continuously expanding. And and it really wants to just highlight the professionals, the individuals within industry, and just really celebrate what's taking place. You need to be a part of it. It's easy, just go out to industrial talk.com Reach out to me and just be able to say, Hey, Scott, I want to be a part of this organization, this platform. Then we have a conversation. It's just that simple. You need to be able to be a part of it. All right, be bold, be brave, dare greatly hang out with people like Marc with a C, and you're gonna change the world. We're gonna have another great conversation coming from OMG Q1 shortly so stay tuned.