How 3D LiDAR Scanning Cuts Construction Change Orders by 50% — Colin Gillis, Smarter Spaces

0:03All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today we have with us Colin — Colin Gillis from Smarter Spaces. Smarter Spaces is a Canadian pioneer in 3D scanning and laser technology, and really — happy to have you here today, Colin. I'm glad to be here, thanks. Tell us — I know we've had a few guests from Cape Breton — so tell us a little bit about your journey and where you came from, your schooling, and sort of how Smarter Spaces came about.

0:35Yeah, sure. Colin and myself — Dan MacIntosh, my co-owner — we actually grew up together. We went to high school in Port Hawkesbury. Port Hawkesbury, yeah. And we both kind of went our separate ways for quite a few years, and then we landed later in life at Bell — both working at Bell Alliant. And I got tired of it first. I got tired of the whole corporate world and went off on my own, and I started a company called IPECC Project Management, which managed construction projects and —

1:02— helped with commercial relocations. And I look at it now as a low-paying job for about 10 years, and the way to cut my teeth as an entrepreneur. But then in 2016, Dan joined me and we started Smarter Spaces. We identified the timing was right, and we purchased a mobile 3D scanner called GeoSLAM — which we're probably one of the first in Canada to bring into the country — and it kind of cracked open the door. And is that in lieu of the tripods that you would see, like —

1:31Yeah, absolutely. And we still use it today. There are different types of technology, which we can get into if you have questions. But the mobile was unique in the fact that it was a LiDAR scanner that you could carry in and walk with at pace, so it really cut down time and changed the industry quite a bit. And it really has taken from 2016 to today — I would really say COVID accelerated the whole construction industry related to 3D scanning, technology, and drones. But —

1:58— really, it's just still turning the corner. I sometimes call it the wild west — it's just crazy out there, how much is going on, how much money you can save. And it often baffles my mind that some of the building owners and developers are just throwing money out the window because they're stuck in their old ways. They just do the same thing over and over again. They're not bringing Smarter Spaces in preliminary to find things they otherwise wouldn't catch.

2:22Exactly. And like, where's the column? Moved here a couple feet to the right, and then you have to have a change order, and this and that. Those kinds of things. Yeah. Well, the impact on change orders is huge. That's one of our value props. Really, if you're looking at a $10 million project, typically — it's hard to believe, but typically in construction you're in for 14 percent in overages no matter what. And it's just kind of crazy how it's just accepted. But —

2:46— just by engaging us, bringing us in to update existing conditions, just on that aspect alone we've reduced change orders by about 50%. So on a $10 million project, you're talking about 1.4 million in change orders — so you're going to save about $700,000. Yeah, that's pretty positive for the developers on that end. What does the gear look like? What does that LiDAR scanner look like — is it a backpack? And —

3:18— or what does it look like, just for our listeners? Yeah, so there are a lot of different options. The mobile one — you're going to see us walking around with it — is a backpack, and you're carrying the scanner up front. It's got a top that rotates 360 degrees and it shoots about 40,000 points a second. So you're really just going to see us slowly walking through the rooms. And it's kind of funny to see — if you're in the office, we've actually done scans with people in the office. That's —

3:42— one of the things that's pretty unique about the mobile LiDAR: you don't have to empty the office. It doesn't in this case take high-def photography, so it's great. We used it in nursing homes and hospitals where they actually don't want photos, right, because of privacy issues. So we've even set it up — we've gone into boardrooms where they know we're coming, they're in a meeting, knock knock, didn't get the memo. They'd be like, "What does this guy do?" Walk around, walk around the table, and —

4:05— and out. So from there you've got raw data, which is your point cloud — point cloud and LiDAR data — which our production team then turns into something that's useful. So on the other side of the coin, there are terrestrial scanners, which are pretty impressive, and which we also use as well. That's depending on what you're trying to do. So in that use case, the nursing home — they really just needed updated 2D existing conditions because they're going to renovate. So you're going to —

4:31— reduce those change orders. They didn't need high-def photography; they were just interested in the accurate existing conditions. Where you get into some other projects, we can take the terrestrial in and use high-def photography along with it. Like we're doing for a local developer here — a project we're going to go in and 3D scan. It's all demolished inside, but they're ordering the windows. And from their experience, it's a historic building that's been gutted, right. They've ordered windows and they've not fit — like they've been —

5:01— using laser handheld lasers and measuring tape. So we'll go in with an RTC360 — that's a Leica product — and its accuracy is one to three millimeters, and it shoots like a million points a second. So it's much more accurate. You've got high-def photography, and then you can even sit at your desktop and measure the window. So in some cases, the developers and owners of buildings — especially construction project managers — they really like it that we can scan the —

5:29— the building as construction is going on. They can sit at their laptop and measure that window, or measure whatever they want, and get millimeter accuracy. Now that's really come a long way — two years ago you couldn't do that. The point clouds and the raw data were far too big to use on a laptop. But that is one of the improvements that has come along. And then in other scenarios — like the window example — our team will model out all the windows in —

5:53— the whole building, produce that drawing package, and then that gets sent to the window supplier so that they get things fitting perfectly. Yeah, it's amazing how much time you eliminate by having that technology. Yeah. And one example — like windows — you do a lot of ceiling plenums too, right, in these old renovations, just to see what's up there and how things are running, and if it compares to whatever old drawing set they might have. For interference drawings? Yeah. The ceiling stuff — I really love it. I —

6:18— get excited about it. It's something that we identified about 18 months ago — we said, "Here's a problem we have to solve." That's kind of how we approach everything. It's not about technology. A lot of people see Smarter Spaces as a tech company, and we are and we aren't — from the perspective that we're really trying to solve problems for clients. So it was identified that above ceilings in hospitals is about the most complicated, awful thing to experience for a renovation. And —

6:44— we've got so much of it going on across the province that we were brought into the Halifax Infirmary. Infection control — you've got all kinds of things going on. So in the traditional way, you would have your firm come in with a flashlight, pop his head up, and try to guess what was up there. But some of those change orders I talked about before — above-ceiling can be even worse, like 75 percent over. It was just ridiculous how much — yeah — gets pushed —

7:08— through, because you don't know what's there. So in this case, we're not using LiDAR — there's so much infrastructure up there, it really is at this point hard to get in. If you think about popping one ceiling tile, taking a scan, and then going to the next — it's just so busy. But what we did find was really effective is using 360 cameras. So we take 360 cameras with HDR. What that means is, with HDR, they take three different shots with different exposures in them. So it —

7:36— in layman's terms, it just lights it up so that the space is not dark. So then what we did is — through COVID, we started doing 3D virtual tours. It started with marketing; it was kind of a pivot to fill that gap as COVID was happening. But we went and took the above-ceiling and dropped it into our 3D virtual tour platform that we developed. So you can jump from below ceiling to above ceiling. You have a reflected ceiling plan on the right side —

8:00— with even a radar overlay on it that moves back and forth, and you can tell where you're at. So if you think about that specific project at the Infirmary — we did that for the whole side of the building that the renovation was going on. And we had hundreds of consultants — some in Nova Scotia, some in Calgary, all over the place — just accessing that data to trace pipes, to plan how to move things around and do connections. So it really produced a lot of time savings, and at the end of the day reduced those —

8:26— change orders again. Because what would have happened in the past is they would have guessed, and then the contractors would have gotten in and said, "Surprise, this is here — it's going to cost you X amount of dollars for us to fix that." What does it look like for you guys to gather that data? Is it a reference point in every room where you pop a ceiling tile out, or is it — it could be more technical, but it's kind of funny in the fact that today it really is — pop the —

8:48— ceiling tile. We have a laptop below with the reflected ceiling plan, and we're actually using whiteboards to mark north so that we know the direction. And then the technicians — our production team — puts it all together so that it all makes sense. And that's kind of the other part, I guess, of Smarter Spaces that I'm really proud of. Like, most of our team are graduates from community college — a lot of them right here locally from NSCC. One of the things that we found is, from —

9:16— collecting field data, it doesn't really matter where it's at, but for every hour we're in the field — and there are a lot of variables — there are probably three to four hours of production to turn that into a usable item, a usable version that the client can use. So it really creates jobs here for us in Nova Scotia. If we hire one person in Toronto, you're basically going to hire two or three here in Nova Scotia to process that data. We're not in Toronto yet, but — yeah, but —

9:42— the time will come. Yeah. And so hospitals are a big client that way, because of the complexity when it comes to renovations. You've done some work at IWK and Queens? Absolutely, yeah. So it's really about reducing those change orders and letting them know what's there. And like you said, there's so much going on in healthcare across the whole province — between new builds and renovations — that they're really starting to see the value in that. Yeah. Give us some other examples of some other —

10:10— clients other than healthcare that really benefit from having these preliminary scans when it comes to renovations. Like, I guess heritage buildings and heritage properties as well, right — just to maintain whatever it is that needs to be kept in place, and then also for structural things and all kinds of stuff like that. Yeah, so using LiDAR is a pretty good way, and it's progressed a lot in terms of — if you're looking at different levels of construction. Like if we jump into —

10:39— new builds, we do some pretty cool stuff. Local developers here — we've done some stuff with BANC Group and with Alluvian, where we go in and scan — as an example — geothermal pipes. So we've got some examples where from the original drawings to what we scanned and where they're actually located could be off by as much as 10 feet. So five years from now, something happens in the parking lot and you've got to dig it up — you dig into a geothermal pipe. Suddenly a quick fix of something in the parking —

11:08— lot goes from $10,000 to $500,000 to fix something. So they're starting to recognize the value — just as you're getting in the ground — to do that kind of stuff. Some other scenarios: we've got some historic properties where they're saving — in some cases maybe it's just the facade of the building. So safety is the first thing. We're going in and 3D scanning to measure on a weekly or bi-weekly basis — is that facade shifting? And if it shifts a couple inches over two weeks, then that's enough —

11:38— to say, "Okay, let's go check this out and shore it up to make sure it doesn't fall and hurt somebody." But then the historic preservation is, of course, the second priority — to just make sure that it doesn't fall down and that you lose that history. Yeah. And you were talking before — before we came on air — about the Press Block and just how that building is a historic property right next to Province House. And so you're involved down there doing —

12:03— that very same scenario that you just spoke about. Yeah, it's a pretty fun project. We're working with Louis Lowen and his team. My business partner Dan does a lot of projects with them and works closely with them. So down there looking at the site — that's kind of step A — and then as they progress, you can kind of keep going. And that's where the industry keeps progressing. I did notice you guys had some people on from Dexel there earlier —

12:30— I watched one of your podcasts, and just some of the conversation there where they're building 3D models of these buildings, incorporating mechanical, electrical, and everything, before they ever build the building. Which links directly to what Smarter Spaces does. So they come up with a 3D model that they're using to build the building, and then by us coming in as they build it and doing regular 3D scans, they overlay them into their model and they pick up changes or clashes. So maybe it was supposed to be built this way, but in —

12:57— reality, what happens on the ground is often very different, right. And so by doing the 3D scanning, you're picking them up as you go and not picking them up three months later when you suddenly realize something has to be changed. So — are you guys doing scans at certain intervals throughout the construction process, or is it the same on everyone, or — exactly, each project's custom. But yeah, the idea would be — the timing depends on the complexity of the project. But —

13:23— potentially you could come in every two weeks, every month. And on larger projects it depends on how quickly they're building. But in some cases I've seen some projects in the U.S. where they're even going as far as scanning daily. Now, you'd have to have a pretty big budget to look at that. But it really is to pick up those clashes and those things that are going on before they become problems. The other side of it would be — we also bring in our 360 technology, which we —

13:52— talked about earlier. So as the building's going up, we're doing 360 scans behind the walls and above the ceiling before they're sealed up. So that's really leading to the lifecycle and the maintenance of the building. On average, I think the last city I looked at was Toronto — you're spending about $3 a square foot in terms of maintenance costs. So if you think about tracing leaks and stuff down the road — if you can pull up on your phone unit 302, jump into that unit, and —

14:21— see where all the pipes are located, exactly what's above the ceiling — you have the problem solved a lot quicker. And one of the crazy stats I love to talk about is: a sprinkler head — if you knock a sprinkler head off — any type of damage is about $10,000 a minute. Yeah, the insurance company's first thing — yeah, been there. Tell us about some other stuff that the technology is valuable for. I know —

14:49— sometimes like measuring volume of materials, different things like that. Yeah, there are cool projects we've done. On a regular basis we do salt domes for the province. So we go in — and that's where we use our mobile LiDAR. We talked about the terrestrial. Some of the salt piles are high and hard to navigate, so we use the mobile. We walk over the pile. The first time you go out, you scan the salt dome itself, and then every other time you're just —

15:13— scanning the pile, and then we're able to produce a volumetric report that says, "This is the amount of salt." And you can get into interesting calculations — this really isn't our core area, but it's kind of funny — like, you're measuring wood chips versus salt; you've got to look at the difference in porosity, which means how much air is in it. There are all kinds of math that gets into those. So floor leveling is another odd thing that's come up that we've done more and —

15:40— more of. So you have a brand new floor. Actually, we did some interesting stuff with the 22 Minute Studio, where it was really important for the cameras to roll smoothly on the floor. So we went in and did a scan of it and produced a report that kind of showed the differences in height and where you had to make adjustments — did it before and after — and it allowed them to make sure that they don't have any hiccups. Where's that studio? I —

16:06— believe it's in the new Cultural Link building. Oh okay, which is the old World Trade Centre, right? You did something on George's Island too, didn't you? Because I saw your videos — looked kind of infrared, yeah — when you walk through the 3D. And it was the cannons under George's Island, or something really cool like that. Yeah, we did a team event where we went out to George's Island and we took the scanner with us. And that was more of — just for —

16:27— fun. And the tunnels out there are amazing, like — yeah, yeah — people need to see the underground tunnels and all these cannons under there and stuff. Yeah, people have no idea what's under there; you just see the top of it. So we're in touch with Parks Canada, looking at some of those things, and even things like Citadel Hill. Yeah, just for preservation again — if you think about the different things, if you've had something burn or fall down, you can always go back to these —

16:53— kind of digital records to rebuild. And it's unique in the fact that in a lot of projects, you can go in with your 3D scanners and your LiDAR and capture everything, but you don't necessarily have to model it all out at once. So we'll have some clients where we go in and do a whole building and there may be just one area they're focused on. So we kind of say, "Well, let's — we're here — let's do the whole building. We'll hold it for you. When you —

17:15— go to do the next floor, we'll pick it up as a separate project and model it out." So yeah. I have to think that a lot of these LiDAR files would be really valuable for municipalities — like what's under the roads — and I know DesignPoint was on at one point talking about when you get to the civil part of a large development, downtown especially, you just never know what you're going to dig up, right. Yeah. I think — are you guys seeing that —

17:41— like, is that a target? Is that bringing a lot of revenue into that area of things, or could it? Yeah, I think it definitely could. For us, we're really focused on buildings. We've kind of learned our lessons — you've got to stop chasing squirrels sometimes. Like there are cool things you could do — like you said, underground and cities, mining, all kinds of different applications you can use — but your target is mainly commercial construction, buildings, heritage properties —

18:08— hospitals, development projects, anybody with a lot of buildings, like portfolios. So we use the term portfolios — but universities, hospitals. And then on the developer side, people like Louis Lowen and his team at Dexel are great. Joe Ramia and his team at Paige and Ranking — so yeah, we just did the exterior mall for Joe at McMac Mall. So just existing conditions. Be interesting to see — I don't have the insight yet on what's going to happen there. But yeah, what is the plan —

18:36— there? There's a lot of talk, there's a lot of hype. What's going on there? I think it's — yeah, it wasn't shared with us, so. Initially, that's — that's a lot of projects we get in early on. And in this case — you guys are always on the ground level. Well, you've got to be — no pun intended. But it's like you're always there right at the start and you get the cool stories and the background and the cool stuff going on. Yeah. So it's —

19:00— unique. If you think about McMac Mall — we'll probably move into the interior later, but they're starting with the exterior and they've got to look at even the parking lots and the land around it. Like, we don't get into land surveying, but we have the LiDAR there, we capture a lot of things around it. And we found a lot of our clients — especially if they have architects in-house — they like the raw data just to kind of —

19:23— look at it and catch the landscape and see how things work. So yeah. What about other provinces? Are you picking up a lot of requests from New Brunswick and Newfoundland, PEI — or are you mainly focused in HRM and other parts of Nova Scotia? Yeah, pretty much Atlantic-based. We do a lot of stuff in New Brunswick and PEI. COVID has slowed some of that down, but regular trips around the province — in both provinces. And it's one of those things — Atlantic Canada — I —

19:49— think, is kind of unique. Like, often we'll get a project in New Brunswick and then we'll call up our clients and say, "Hey, we're going to be there anyway," and you kind of pick up other projects. Same thing really comes into play with Newfoundland. Newfoundland — it's a flight. So if we're going to do something over there, I'll call our contacts at Crombie and let them know. Hey, we're going to be there — different people that we know, some of our clients that have properties across all four provinces. And —

20:16— futuristically, I think we have a lot of opportunity for growth. And that's when — as I talked about a little bit earlier — you put somebody on the ground in a bigger city, the production still is going to happen here in Nova Scotia, allowing us to create some jobs here. Yeah. And you guys — I mean, this is pretty frontier stuff for Atlantic Canada. Like, you're really not competing with any other major players that are doing exactly what you do, as far as the laser technology and that kind of stuff —

20:41— right? Yeah, there are a few people poking around. And I'm really passionate about growing the industry and educating — and there's so much in construction going on that there's nothing you have to worry about with the competitors. No, exactly. And we had a great partner in the U.S. — I think you and I talked offline earlier — that has taught us a lot of things, and I've really taken their model to heart. Who's that? From the start, they're called Zealous — so they're one of the largest 3D —

21:11— scanning companies in the U.S. So where are they located? When you went down to visit, were you at their headquarters? Yeah, they took us down to Phoenix. So we were down for a 3D scanning conference called — SPAR 3D Expo — and it was in Texas. So on the way down, we stopped in Phoenix and spent the whole day with them. And that's really where — it amazed me. At that time I would have been back in 2017, and they just —

21:35— shared everything. Anything you asked, they would tell you how they did it. And it kind of opened my eyes that there's so much going on, especially in construction, especially here in Atlantic Canada, that it doesn't really matter. I don't care who's going to do it — I just really want to educate and stop building owners from throwing money away. There are just so many opportunities to save money using technology that it just kills me sometimes to see people ignoring it. So we did a lot of —

22:01— education. Even earlier today I was on with NSCC with one of the professors there, talking about creating new programs related to augmented and virtual reality — and kind of, what are the opportunities? Not just in construction, but there are all kinds of things in that to be trained on. The specific technology that Smarter Spaces uses, right. Well, there are all kinds of — that's one of the things that's evolving. And like you've probably heard the term "metaverse" — it's becoming an overused term, I think, but there are all kinds of things —

22:29— going on in that industry that'll blow your mind. Between creating imaginary, fake worlds to real places — where Bill Gates predicts that all meetings in business in the next three years will go on in the metaverse, like avatars. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of crazy. Yeah, that is crazy. And you're using technology like Unreal Engine and those types of things in the background? So we do have one — like, video game software. Yeah, building cities and building these — yeah —

22:59— yes. We've hired one new grad from last year. He's a gaming tech and he kind of runs our 3D virtual tour division, which is newer. And it uses different software. Like, when you get into the design side — everything we talked about — the wider majority of the time you're using Revit, which is an Autodesk 3D architectural software. But yeah, it's a whole new ballgame on the 3D virtual tours. And it's things like Unity and Unreal Engine that you start to look at for customizing things. And that's —

23:27— where it's kind of exciting, that you can look at building new things. Like, we do a lot of renders for local developers as well. So before they even build the building, we'll render out what the building's going to look like so that they can pre-sell units. So right now we've got a couple up — you can go to The Margaretta, which is BANC Group, or The George, which is the Alluvian Group. We've done them for both of those guys. You can go in and tour the —

23:51— units before they're even built. And that's helping them pre-sell them. And some of the things we're starting to work on now — which would be the next evolution — is, can I change the countertop? Can I see what that looks like in marble? Or yeah, even the flooring and the paint colors. And then you're going to be able to start pre-selling and customizing those units before they're ever built, and getting supplies and orders in. Like, potentially some of the stuff we've talked about — not just with the pre-selling, but if you could —

24:18— pre-sell 80% of your units and know what kind of flooring you're going to use, then you can place a bulk order even on that kind of stuff and save money on those supplies. Yeah, that's so neat. Like, you're really building on — I think the industry's headed toward BIM and Revit — to have the building built virtually on the software before it gets built physically. And that helps eliminate errors and stuff. And then you —

24:43— guys are just taking that one step further where you're actually — and all the software is interchangeable and you can collaborate between those softwares, like with Revit and Unity and that stuff — and your higher-end renderings and the laser technology. And yeah, it's just great to see the technology actually put to such good use, right. I mean, sometimes it isn't, but this is really — like you said — it's catching a lot of things that otherwise you'd be guessing at, and you're going to be wrong —

25:13— half the time. And there's no other way to catch it, and you're saving so many dollars and cents for these building owners. Yeah, it really is. We always come back to: what problem are we solving? And really try to work backwards from there upfront. And then you kind of see, is there a technology to fit? Like, even I had a conversation with somebody in the insurance industry, and he wants to know what in older buildings is the condition of —

25:37— wiring and what's there, and all this stuff. And he wants an x-ray through the wall. And I said, "It's not there yet. I'm sure it's coming." Yeah. But at this point there are some things we can't do. Yeah, you can't open up the walls like you can in the ceiling. Yeah, yeah. But there are different things. Like another problem that we recognized early on was around fire safety. So we went out and — at exit planning and egress, yeah. So we recognized that a —

26:04— lot of building owners weren't covering it. And fire safety is legislated through the National Building Code. So any new building needs to have a fire safety plan and evacuation maps — and you need those things even to get your occupancy. But it's all about keeping people safe. We recognized that there was a large gap there, and the Auditor General from the city shone a big light on it recently. Identified that there have been a lot of buildings in the city here that —

26:31— haven't been inspected in years. So we're starting to see the ramifications of that. We're getting a lot more calls from clients that maybe we did geospatial projects for, and now they're recognizing, "Okay, I need to — I've got three weeks to update my fire safety plan." So that's the beauty of how they link together. If we were in and did the — we already have the files, the drawings, for the — yeah. So we've developed the expertise to do the fire safety plan itself and then incorporate the drawings —

26:57— and the evacuation, the site plans, to close that process out. Anything else on that front other than fire plans — it's kind of evolving where you're seeing another thing, a service you can provide, with the same kind of baseline that you have? Yeah. So the next evolution we're working on — we just got certified with Rick Hansen, which is for accessibility. So it's a whole other topic, which you may want to have somebody on. It's Accessibility 2030. So by 2030, there's going to be — for the built environment — a —

27:25— lot of things that have to change to make buildings accessible. So looking at the technology we have — that's again where we could come in and scan the building. And back to one of my earlier comments: on accessibility, you could sit at your computer instead of running back and forth to site. Like, you're getting into all kinds of things where light switches and door knobs and everything have to be at certain heights and doors have to be certain widths. So instead of making repeated site visits, you can kind of use these models to —

27:54— figure that stuff out, go through, get everything lined up to fix. And then we do a lot of practical upgrades from what's existing, right. So yeah. In some cases — like, we've talked to FBM, we do a lot of work with them — and with Doug, who you had on here, with RCS Construction. The three of us have had conversations about: okay, Smarter Spaces goes in and scans the space, FBM designs what the changes —

28:19— have to be, and then RCS comes in with Doug's team and makes the adjustments and the renovations. Yes. You guys are tied in with architects and generals and you're kind of the middle ground for that. Yeah, we're getting more and more calls every day, just especially with the professional service engineers and architects. Atlantic Canada — I would say in the past was behind, but I think we turned a corner. I think during COVID some lights snapped on, and more and —

28:45— more — like, you had a guest on from Dexel, and they are building all their buildings in 3D Revit before they start. And that's kind of the future of the industry. And every week we probably get more interest from architects who in the past just did 2D drawings — that, hey, what can we do to get these into 3D models, and how can you help me? Yeah. You guys have any plans to kind of branch out? I —

29:15— know you were saying earlier it's so busy here in Atlantic Canada — why bother right now? But are there plans for Smarter Spaces to kind of venture west at all? Definitely. We've got an aggressive growth plan. We'd like to be a $10 million company in the next five years. To do that, we're going to have to go beyond our borders here — there's just not enough volume, population, and projects at this time. So, don't know which city — and that's where it's —

29:41— kind of a unique opportunity. Like, as I said earlier, once we identify a market that's a fit for us, it doesn't really matter where it's at. You get one person on the ground collecting data, and we bring it back to Halifax here and keep hiring new grads out of NSCC, Holland College, and NBCC — they all have great programs. So we keep creating jobs here. Yeah, definitely going to grow beyond Atlantic Canada; it's just trying to figure out where. Yeah. You mentioned NSCC and Holland College —

30:12— and your conversation earlier today with one of the instructors on maybe a new course that's in line with training some of the technology that Smarter Spaces uses. What programs are your hires coming from? Is it architectural technology that these students are coming out of that you're hiring? Yeah, so we hire out of NSCC. We've got a great relationship there with Barbara McDonald — she's our main go-to. And they've got a couple of programs —

30:42— drafting is one of them, and Architectural Engineering Technology is another. So they have slight variances, but we hire from both. At that point they both have skills in Revit, so for us it's really about the personality and the fit with our culture and our company. But it's definitely our first go-to. We go in every year. We just did one a few weeks ago — unfortunately had to be on Zoom because of COVID — but we went in and did a demonstration to her —

31:09— classes and kind of showed them what's possible and what we do. And it's a bit of an education process too for what we do. I like to say Smarter Spaces — we solve puzzles. Like, just hearing some of the conversation we had today, we're doing a lot of interesting and cool things, but we're not architects. We don't design new buildings. So I always try to be clear with students on that side: if you really want to work with an architect and design buildings, that's not us. We have a great fit for —

31:34— these other things. So that usually helps and kind of gets the right people on track to come on board. Yeah. It's a great name — Smarter Spaces — it really kind of encapsulates what you guys do. And I find like there are a lot of companies out there similar to you guys where it's kind of hard to explain exactly what you do. Like, it's not like, "Well, we're an electrical company," you know? Well, people know what that is. They know what they do. But when —

31:59— it comes to certain companies that are frontier, or they're a new service or what have you — if you can't get in front of people for a meeting, they don't really resonate with exactly what it is that you do. And then when it comes to the new media platforms that are here now, with YouTube and Spotify and the whole podcast domain and stuff, sometimes having an in-depth conversation as a media tool is really helpful for someone —

32:30— to tune in. And then after listening to a conversation for half an hour instead of some 30-second ad, it's like, "Oh, okay, I get what Smarter Spaces is now, because I just listened to a conversation about it. Now I understand what they do and the value they bring, and the service, the technology they use." So I think it's cool to have guests like you guys come on, have a fluid conversation, and then people can tune in and it kind of sheds light on —

32:57— well, now I understand what they do. I mean, obviously your clients understand, but outside the industry — other people that might have just heard of you — might not understand exactly the value that you can bring them, right? Yeah, it's really interesting. Because even our clients — it's all about education. And surprisingly, it's kind of like the lights go on. Like, you get in and do one project, and then they kind of open their mind a little bit more and then, "Well, we can also do —

33:23— this," and they're kind of like, "What? Yeah, you can save me that much time and money?" So I again — the lights always go on when they hear you can save the money, right. I mean, that's their foot in the door. Yeah. And we've struggled too. We've got a couple of investors on board — Brad Langeland, Wayne Crowley, local people here — that have been great for us. And it's been fun trying to educate, especially Brad. Brad's been —

33:47— a mentor of mine for years. But trying to get him to understand exactly what we're doing. So we worked really hard on recognizing that it's really not about the technology — it's about the value and the problems you solve. So at a high level, coming in to talk to somebody who owns buildings, it's kind of highlighting: okay, we can help your pre-sell units, which is going to get you better interest rates at the bank. If you're doing a renovation, I'm going to reduce your change orders by 50% —

34:13— that's a lot of money. Those kinds of conversations. Lifecycle maintenance — like, how much is it worth to be able to see behind the walls when you have a leak five years from now? That's probably the toughest sell — to spend upfront to save five years from now. But if anybody's been in the industry and has had something happen like that, then they get it. And same thing with the change orders — if somebody's building a new building for the first time —

34:42— they won't use us. But they build again two years later? It's a different story. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Tell us about the team. Tell us what the team at Smarter Spaces looks like — how many employees, what are the positions? A little bit about that. Sure, yeah. We've got a great team. We've got Dan and I as owners. Like we said earlier, we've known each other forever; we really jive well together. I'm really outgoing — sales, marketing — and he's on the —

35:09— operations side, completely able to keep things moving and running. And it's funny — he used to say that he's not a salesperson, but if you look at what we do, existing clients are 80% of our business and he manages those relationships, so he does a fabulous job there. And then underneath him running it, we've got two team leads — that's the way we've structured it. So we've got Greg Hanlon, who's been in the industry for years and runs our —

35:36— geospatial side. So Greg takes care of all the 3D scanning and all that technology side, where Tim is on the emergency planning side. So Tim and Greg work really closely together. And Tim's an expert — in a previous life, a firefighter. He spent 20 years at Mount Saint Vincent in fire safety and security and those kinds of things. So the two of them together — we manage the techs under them. We've got, as I said, a couple of techs that we hired last year —

36:05— from NSCC. And then we've got a field team as well. So we've got two field people. Brendan is our lead field tech — amazing guy. He actually came from out west, and he's one of those people that moved from BC. And I wouldn't be surprised if you see his family following — they've come out to visit and they just love it here. But we really tried hard to create a culture where people enjoy what they do, they want to come to work —

36:33— through COVID. We used to have an office downtown, and after about six months we started to talk about it — the office is sitting empty and here we're paying rent for downtown Halifax. And we had a group discussion, and it was 10 for 10: does anybody want to go back to the office? The answer is no. I think it makes a big difference. When you have production like ours, our productivity has really gone up. And a lot of our team — on the technical side, Brendan's in the field all the time —

37:01— he's different, but he wasn't in the office anyway. But the tech team — they'd rather be on their own setup. Yeah. And it's an evolution. We have monthly team events, like we're doing an online cooking class next Friday. So once a month we do stuff like that to keep people engaged. Boost morale — it's something different, it's not work. And it's online, but it's still like you're together; you kind of have the team spirit and stuff like that. Yeah. And it's an evolution — the —

37:27— pendulum swinging back and forth for a lot of companies. But we're pretty solid on that — we're not going to pick up another office. And we've got lots of great partners. Even some of the developers I mentioned today — like Joe Ramia and Louis Lowen — have often said, "You need a boardroom, just let me know and come on down." So we take advantage of those kinds of things. And still — like, once a month when we were allowed over the last two years, we've gone out to lunch and —

37:52— done different things with the team. But you're out selling, you're at meetings all day — it's not like you're sitting home in front of the computer all day every day. That's not the feeling that some people might get, you know. And it's interesting — all your employees voted, and they'll just work from home. A lot of people want the hybrid model. Yeah, but you still get the hybrid model if you're working from home and you're tech-based — you're on software, —

38:13— on computers — but then you're out for lunch, you're out for a meeting at two o'clock, and so you get that social, healthy element too. Yeah. And for the team, I think the biggest thing is we meet daily. We always have. So we have daily huddles in the morning that involve the whole team, and we interact. And then the leadership team meets again at 4 p.m. So there's constant contact during the day. And using technology like Microsoft Teams, we've encouraged interaction between team members — like, don't always just go —

38:41— to Greg if you have a question, right. Teams is always on. Yeah, message them, video chats, have a chat between yourselves. Yeah. So trying to get them to connect and get to know each other, and it seems to work fairly well. And I don't know how Greg did it — he's a wizard — but he can now train anybody from anywhere, which kind of changes the business model too. If you had a hard-to-fill resource, now we could hire somebody in Toronto or Vancouver and they could work from there —

39:06— yeah. And except for collecting the data, it's not like you have a geographic boundary to expand your business. No, you just need to get that data collected and then everything else is done. Yeah. Just sales is the other side of it. And right, that's a big thing too — I can't underestimate that side of things. If you're not there face to face it's really tough, yeah. Depending — that's kind of where we're looking at our evolution. And we're not —

39:30— sure where we'll grow outside of Atlantic Canada. But one of the obvious is to start looking at your existing clients — like Crombie, who is national. Armco — national. So we haven't made any moves yet, but that's kind of the key area that you can start to look at first: who can you start doing work for elsewhere that you already do work for today? That's some of the things we're looking at. And for sales guys from Cape Breton — those are the best personalities — so that's going to help —

39:54— business tenfold right there, right? No, exactly. And I'm actually shocked — through COVID I was surprised. As COVID opens up, people are craving — we are starting to have coffee meetings. But I really do enjoy doing sales through Zoom. Like, I'll do phone calls, but I'm much better seeing someone's expression and kind of being able to — it's a more thorough way to communicate. Yeah. And on the positive upswing of that, the result of that for me is I find it a lot easier to get —

40:26— meetings on Zoom than it is in person. If you think about the time it takes to go meet somebody for coffee — by the time you leave your office and come back, you're gone for two hours at least. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff that tends to happen on Zoom now that surprises me. But that's where the world is changing, and we're going to kind of have to see where it goes. I think as restrictions keep lifting here, I think you're going to have a —

40:50— flood of people meeting in person and then it's going to balance out somewhere in the middle. Yeah. Well, it must be exciting for the team at Smarter Spaces just with how things are going — the growth plans and all the work you have here in Atlantic Canada, and then the plans to grow into the western provinces. And you know, it's exciting stuff. The technology — so much value in it, right. I mean, you're seeing the results, you're —

41:17— getting thanked, you're getting the satisfaction from these building asset owners and developers, and government — municipality government buildings, healthcare — where without you guys, they're not going to want to do another job unless they bring you guys in after trying it out once, right? Yeah. And that's key — we often see the light go on once we do one project with them. Then it's like, "I'm never going to do anything without this ever again." And it kind of domino-effects. And that's —

41:44— that's kind of why we do run-off projects. And there are interesting things — we're doing some interesting stuff with Meta Materials right now, where we're helping them render out what their future office will look like. In terms of that kind of thing, it's a commercial business entity where it's a one-off project, but there's still interest in those kinds of things where the owner there, George, can look at something and say, "Oh, I like that," or, "I don't like that," and you're changing it —

42:09— before it's ever built, right. Yeah. Well, thanks for doing this, Colin. Any last things you want to touch on before we wrap up — anything that's on your mind, maybe that we didn't touch on? No, I think the biggest thing I communicate to people is: stop throwing money away. Like, I don't care if you work with Smarter Spaces. And you're seeing it — you know, it's too evident for you, right? You're right there seeing it every day. Yeah, it's just — look at the tech —

42:36— and like I said, it doesn't have to be Smarter Spaces. But look at the savings, and to me it ties into the bigger picture. The money spent — whether it be private sector or taxpayer dollars — it's just the funds that we can save collectively as a province and reinvest in more growth and development and creating jobs. It's like, why wouldn't you? Yeah, exactly. Like, you're elevating the whole industry with that service, you know. Yes. You just want other people to benefit who haven't jumped on —

43:02— the wagon. It's hard to get people to try new things, though. Yeah, it's — I think it's turned the corner, though. I think COVID has done some acceleration that may have taken another 10 years. But it just takes a pandemic for us all to kind of take a step back, get a little isolated, and start thinking a little more creatively, right. Yeah, yeah. So no, that's the biggest thing: keep your mind open and look at new opportunities. And there's so much going on in —

43:27— construction that there's just so much money to save. Check it out. Yeah, yeah. And I couldn't agree with you more. Really appreciate you coming on. It's been a great conversation, really interesting stuff. And again, like I said, to have these fluid conversations and then have other people be able to tune in and listen and kind of be part of the conversation — and hopefully I ask some questions to lead them along the way, to just get —

43:54— their heads around the value you guys are providing at Smarter Spaces. And it's a perfect fit, and exactly the kind of company that we want to have these conversations with. Really appreciate you coming on, and thanks for chatting with us on all the great stuff that's happened at Smarter Spaces. Yeah, thanks for your podcast here. I think it's just creating a lot of synergies — like, just seeing some of the guests you've had that we've done work with or —

44:20— partnered with. And it's kind of — the whole industry is so related, but I think these conversations help connect those pieces together and educate people on how things work. Great, Colin. Cheers, thank you very much. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to follow us on any podcast platform you use. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Instagram at Atlantic Construction Podcast. Be sure to send us a comment or a review — we'd love to engage with you.