Welcome back to the Bold Brand Show.
On today's episode, I'm excited to be chatting with one of the leading voices in the AEC
industry, Evan Troxel.
Evan is a licensed architect in Oregon and California, founder of Troxel Media and host of
the industry leading Troxel and ArcaSpeak podcasts, where he interviews the AEC industry's
most innovative thinkers.
His work sits at the intersection of design, technology, and communication.
He brings over two decades of experience in architecture, education, and digital practice
leadership, most recently as principal and director of digital practice at a 400 person
architecture firm.
This background gives him a rare blend of real world leadership experience and deep
knowledge of emerging technologies.
Evan's passion lies in helping architecture and design leaders cut through the hype,
overcome cultural and technical barriers, and help them adapt and thrive in an evolving
industry.
I think I first came across Evan Troxel on the Brand Groupies podcast as I was doing some
initial planning for relaunching my show about a year ago.
So I'm excited to be having this conversation over a year later.
So Evan, welcome to the Bold Brand Show.
Thank you, Josh.
It's great to be here.
Well, on this podcast, we always like to hear what our guests are thinking about in terms
of challenges you're facing, successes you've had, and some of the boldest moves you've
made in the AEC industry, specifically for you.
You've built a unique career uh spanning between architectural design and now really
leaning into media.
And something that you and I think have in common is I had a prospect last week, say,
You had a lot of hyphenations, a multi-hyphenate title in your LinkedIn bio.
curious to hear about your various roles today and kind of how you're splitting your time.
I think that actually springs out of my, just the way that I'm wired.
I've always been a, I want to do everything kind of person and sample, you know, the, the
buffet of, you know, has always been attractive to me.
And, and so that curiosity, I guess, that's just innate in me as an architect is also, um,
expresses itself in, those kinds of ways as well.
So that multi hyphenate, I know I've never thought of it that way, but you're right.
It's a,
It's one of those things where it's the jack of all trades, master of none, Swiss army
knife, uh Renaissance man, polymath.
I don't know.
Like I don't feel like any of those are the right words, but because it's like I've also
looked at other people who are so focused and I'm just like, man, what's that like?
I bet that's amazing because you, aren't spread too thin.
I constantly feel spread too thin.
And so um that also is part of.
how I'm wired because I'm always lamenting how spread thinly I am and my wife's like,
yeah, you should just pick a couple things.
It seems so obvious.
It seems, yeah, I wanna do all the things.
I wanna do all the things and all the hobbies and so, yeah.
So what was the question again, Josh?
So let's dive into that.
Because yeah, I don't feel like a wreck, but you're right.
And it's one of those things where uh because I am multi-hyphenate, I am taking input as
an architect does from the multi-headed client, right?
Which is I used to sit in rooms with more than 30 people telling me what they wanted in
their new building.
And it was my job to synthesize that into a building, not 30 different buildings.
And so I do that now.
across the things that I'm involved in.
And so I can take this thing of context and this piece of context and this piece of
context and weave it together in a way that makes sense.
And that's where the kind of the architecture and technology and communication then
diagram comes together of like those are kind of the main categories for what I do.
But
It's because I'm dabbling or aware of or curious about all these different things that I
then can take that context and synthesize it into something that makes sense in the moment
that a lot of other people just they're so in their lane, right?
That they don't look outside of their lane.
And I'm constantly looking around like, is anybody else seeing this?
And pulling that together and going forward with that.
So.
Again, what was the question Josh?
You
Well, you know, I've got this same thing going on, you know, and I'm constantly like,
well, maybe I should write a screenplay this year, or maybe I should, you know, veer off
into some other angle that I haven't even touched on.
And, you know, I think maybe a related thing is um good or bad.
Like I've kind of struggled with perfectionism throughout my whole career.
So I'm curious if that correlates for you too.
100%.
Yes.
To a degree that which I have tried to be less of a perfectionist.
And it's hard because I'm married to one too.
And so the level of expectation is out of the camera frame here, right?
It's very high.
And so that is difficult.
And at the same time, know, I think about stories I've heard about George Lucas, right?
Where it's like,
No, they didn't try to be perfect.
They tried to be good enough and they say, you know, good is the enemy of great.
So where do we actually, I think you have to pick and choose, right?
So, because I've done what you're talking about.
I've written a book, I've started podcasts, I've done deep dives into projects where like
you can only learn the things that you're gonna learn by doing the deep dive and not just
staying at the surface level.
I would say, yeah, because I am much more of a generalist than an expert in any one of
those things, there's also a disadvantage that comes with that.
You just don't know the details.
And so there are things in which I try to really get into the details and get into the
weeds and like learn by doing in the trenches.
And then there are other things where it's just like, man, there's just no way.
I don't have the bandwidth for it all.
Right.
And so
I think the mantra I keep coming back to now is like, sounds like the best thing to do
right now?
Because there are so many things to do.
Which one sounds the most attractive?
Which one sounds the most fun?
Which one sounds maybe the most rewarding?
Even if that means doing really hard work, really difficult things, um because I am an
architect, I do know that through difficult things come really beautiful things, right?
So.
Wow, I don't know if I'm really saying anything, right?
These are the kinds of things that bounce around inside my head all the time.
which is the thing right now that has that attention, the thing that sounds the most fun,
that's the most challenging for you at the moment.
Yeah, yeah.
uh For me, it's like I've spent most of my career in the branding side of things,
especially in the AEC industry and really film and video and figuring out how to tell
corporate stories without it feeling corporate.
It's kind of uh the personal challenge right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm there with you.
think, you know, how does an architect come to start a media brand, media company?
And it really has to do with telling the stories that matter to you.
As you know, Josh, like if you don't tell the stories, somebody else will.
if you don't say the things that are authentically you, somebody else will just attach
ideas to you and your brand that maybe aren't true, but it's their perception.
And I think, you know, it's a big message from me to people that I work with in this
industry.
You are a media company, whether you do something about that or not.
And so you're constantly putting things out into the world.
And so how are you thinking about that?
Are you thinking about it holistically?
Are you thinking about it with intention of like how those things link to your values and
what matters to you and why you do what you do in this world and what you're passionate
about?
Because that is a unique thing about you that, you know, you're competing in a field and
that field often has so much overlap with what you do.
What makes it you that people want to work with?
Because people hire people to work with.
They hire
the people they want to spend time with for that period of time, whatever that is, if it's
architecture, it's years.
So how do you position yourself so that you create the alignment so that you're attracting
the people that you want to work with?
And so it's through kind of that need to tell authentic stories that I've really gone down
the media route.
Like I look good, you look good on this podcast.
I sound good, you look good.
We are 98 % above the cut of most people who just show up with a laptop with the
up-to-nose cam in a noisy room and try to sell expensive processes and workflows because
they take so much time.
And they're competing against YouTubers.
They're competing against TikTok people nowadays, right?
Like it's literally those people are
better positioned to land a message than an architect is because of that.
And so it's these things that are merging in my brain to like there's a huge need out
there.
What are you doing about it?
And I can help you do that.
You know, there's this paradox too, I think, with uh production value that a lot of um
viewers will see something that looks maybe too polished, that feels too much like a
commercial, and that could turn them off where the up-the-nose cam or the iPhone in the
SUV feels more authentic.
Where do you think that comes from, and what's the happy medium of?
Obviously, I would never...
advise an architect to make it look worse.
For sure, I think that that comes from there's way too many communications in this world
being read off a teleprompter.
We see it at the AIA conference from top leadership.
They are paralyzed without a teleprompter, for example, right?
Just picking on them because it's easy.
eh It's everywhere, it's literally everywhere.
I'm actually looking at you through a teleprompter right now.
And because, but the reason why is I'm not reading anything.
It's because I want you in front of the lens.
And so that we have eye contact.
And it's things like that that really, it's things, it's when you don't have that, that it
completely breaks down, right?
And so somebody's walking down a street in New York City, holding their phone, filming
themself and their hand is bouncing and you know, just because they're walking and there's
all this background noise.
And I won't watch that for a second.
If I see that that's what the video is, I have to turn it off.
It's like I can't even hear what's actually going on because there is so much going on.
It's super distracting.
so, like of course it's somewhere in the middle, right?
Authentic conversations that are well lit, that the sound sounds great and that it looks
good.
You have just an enormous chance of actually talking to somebody.
in a more meaningful way and them hearing what you're saying.
like that, remember them in the pandemic, had, everybody had zoom fatigue, zoom fatigue
became a verb, right?
And so it was like this thing where it's a, no, I can't do, I can't be on meetings all day
long.
It's the quality of those meetings.
It's the quality of the sound.
It's the quality of the video.
It's the quality of the content, of course, but it's, it's the lack of quality, right?
So
If you simply up your game, you will land better conversations with people that can be
more authentic and off the cuff, just like this one is, by putting a few tools in your
tool stack that actually facilitate that to happen so that the receiving end's brain
doesn't shut off and say, wow, like this is total junk, my brain can't handle it.
And it's also not the other end of that spectrum, which is...
And now I sound robotic because I'm reading off of a teleprompter.
Because that's not authentic.
Well, I think that uh that Zoom fatigue idea too had a lot to do with even what you're
talking about with the teleprompter.
Like, I feel like I'm looking at you, but I'm looking down and you look like you feel like
you're looking at me, but you're looking down as well.
Or your head is like just barely in the screen or all the weird things.
And it's funny because I work in the architectural field.
These people get composition.
They get understanding.
They understand like aesthetic and the quality of light and the quality of shadow and all
of these things.
They're just not applying it to themselves.
They're just, they're thinking of it as the project, but in order to get the project,
you've got to connect with people to be able to do that.
And so I don't know how we ended up here, but this to me is important and not enough
people are.
There's still not enough people taking it seriously.
I can't even tell you how many times I saw how many laptop companies needed to put the,
instead of putting the camera at the top of the screen, they put it at the bottom.
And so when people would go to type, it was like these giant fingers were typing there.
And it was like, really?
That's what I get to look at?
It's so crazy.
And that people just said, yeah, that's what I've got.
So that's what I'm gonna use.
Doesn't take a lot of investment to up your game a lot.
with very little.
And that to me is something that we still are just seeing crazy artifacts from.
People are just allergic to online meetings where they don't turn their camera on at all.
You can literally command a meeting with very simple technology tools to make yourself
look and sound great.
Always prioritize sound over look, by the way.
But just by doing that, you will literally command a meeting and command the direction and
the outcome of that meeting with very little input.
This is all part of building a brand.
The word bold doesn't even come into it.
These are table stakes and yet there's so many people who aren't doing this stuff.
It's crazy making to me.
Well, I talk all the time about, you know, in our industry, you know, you're not going to
buy from anyone that you don't like, know, and trust.
And I think video is always a really great um hack, if that's a fair word, uh maybe an
advantage that if it's somebody you haven't met before, video is one way to get a feel
for, um you know, what it might be like to work together because you're kind of seeing
mannerisms and you're seeing attitudes, you're seeing, getting a feel for that
interaction.
uh And I would imagine for you too, especially with the hundreds of episodes of podcasts
that you've done that that audio has Has kind of been that way for you as well where
people are like, oh, I recognize your voice or I'm getting to know your personality
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's what I've been in lines talking to somebody at a conference and somebody will turn
around actually even weirder.
I was just sitting at a bar at a place in San Diego during Autodesk University a little
over a year ago and I ordered my food and somebody was like are you having tronxel?
And I recognized your voice.
And so that's one version of that story.
where it's a little bit like, whoa, okay, there are people out there because you never
know who's listening and you don't know what the engagement really is.
I think one of the huge um benefits of working in this space of podcasting is you build
relationships with people you don't even know you're building.
And...
They tune in just to hear the characters who show up for this show every week or two weeks
or whatever the cadence of release is.
And they go on the journey with you.
They really do.
And you would be surprised who's actually listening.
I had a principal in my previous firm say, you know, I've been listening to your podcast
for a long time.
I had no idea.
I had no idea anybody.
You don't know who's listening, right?
You just don't have that kind of magnifying glass into the metrics.
And he's like, it's interesting, you've changed your mind on some things over the years.
And I'm like, I hope so.
But it was a little bit of accountability too, right?
Where it was like, I'm listening.
And it's not like they're listening as like the authority of, it's not a police kind of a
thing where it's like, I heard you say something you shouldn't say, but it was like.
No, really, I do listen, I tune in and of course they don't hear everything you say, it's
going on in the background while you're doing dishes and somebody yells and the dog's
doing this and whatever, but it's still making its way in there and those thoughts.
And so you can have a very, you can build authority over time without coming with a
prepared agenda of what you're going to speak about every week, right?
And I think that's super interesting uh in a world where
social media has become the normal way for people to be connected with each other.
And podcasting, don't consider social media, but there's pieces of it that kind of overlap
with that realm, where people are just kind of up, keeping tabs about what's going on in a
particular part of the industry or with particular individuals.
And that builds authority over time.
mean...
I never started out to build a bold brand in podcasting.
It's the 13 year long overnight success, where it's like, you're an uh authority in
architectural podcasting.
It's like, well, yeah, I'm consistent.
I saw recently that, you know, I've not been doing this as long as you.
My first show was in 2016.
So still a little long in the tooth as podcasters go.
But, you know, back in 2016, if you weren't on the Apple platform, it was sort of all that
mattered was Apple's podcast platform.
then fast forward a little bit, Spotify had sort of taken over that.
And I saw recently
If you take video into account that YouTube is now far and away the primary place where
people are uh consuming podcasts, maybe not even always watching them, what's your take on
the video element for your shows going forward?
So there's, we've tried it every different way since we've been doing this for so long.
Forever we just did audio podcasts and so much, just let me illustrate that.
I didn't even meet one of my co-hosts for three years.
Never saw them because we didn't even do a video like just between us when we were
recording it was audio only.
It literally was like recording a telephone call between three people for years.
And so three years into it I met
person at an AIA conference in person for the first time, a host, co-host.
And that's still a fun story to tell.
But we had met on social media before that on Twitter.
And so that's how we started the podcast, ArcaSpeak.
But this one, because we've been around for so long, we've tried different things over the
years, right?
And so one of the things that we've done is moved to YouTube, not moved to YouTube, but in
addition to strictly podcasting as an audio output.
Not getting into the weeds of what it takes to produce video versus audio only.
It is a different beast.
uh We did that to meet people where they were.
So I think not everybody's on Apple podcasts.
Not everybody's on Spotify.
And so it's just a diversification of platforms where your audience is or could be and
meeting them where they are.
Can you just publish audio to YouTube?
Yeah, and we do that too.
for those who listen, because YouTube music and podcasts has become a big, big thing, a
huge thing.
But video for me going onto YouTube with these shows is really about having a presence
there, establishing ourselves.
I think one of the early comments we got on ArcaSpeak was, wow, you guys look great.
I had no idea.
It was like, I had this mental image.
They had this mental image of us and what we looked like and whatever.
And they were like, wow.
And so I think also kind of coming into it at a high bar with video quality was the right
choice to make and not doing kind of what I think most architects would have done in that
case, which was just like whatever the camera is that's built into the laptop and just
taking that as it was.
um that was, and I thought it was more.
It was important to make an impression and establish, like we're real people because
audio, you know, and our episodes get edited.
So we take out a bunch of junk, right?
We don't take out a bunch of junk that nobody wants to listen to.
And so the video, I think, was still just kind of building a bridge between.
us and the listeners last watcher and knowing that they're not going to watch us for an
hour or an hour and a half or two hours or however long our episodes go because like we
lean into podcasting as long form media and one of the last bastions of it.
Right.
This is there's people who write books and there's podcasters and then there's people who
make movies right um or episodic series and podcasting is just one of those magical places
where people will consume.
any length of media and YouTube is not like that.
don't people are not going to watch your podcast for that long, but it's still important I
think to have it and don't don't ask me why yet because I don't really know but I still
think it's important to have it as an option just at least for those few people who are
going to watch the first 30 seconds before they send it to a tab in the background and do
whatever else they're doing and just have it rolling in the background.
No one wants to watch talking heads for that long.
I can't imagine that they do, for those that do, it's there.
Anyway, feel like video is super important.
You might as well have it.
Platforms like the one that we're using right now capture it by default.
And so I don't think you want to throw that information away because there are going to be
people who want to.
I mean, it makes a great introduction to somebody that you finally do meet at a
conference.
You know what they look like.
You don't have to rely on just how they sound.
And so uh I think it is advantageous to publish video and it's not that hard.
Yeah, the first show that I did, I think we were recording over Skype back in the day and
we just threw the video away.
It's crazy to think how many of those conversations we could have then later created video
episodes of, but I don't think we hung on to much of any of that.
Speaking of innovation and growing and one of the...
ongoing jokes that I have is people will say, hey, Josh, what do you think the future of
the industry is going to be like, or how are we going to handle marketing or branding
differently in the future in AEC?
And I always just joke, let's just look at what every other industry is doing already.
And that's probably what AEC will be doing in a couple of years.
Now, I do think we've caught up a little bit.
And I've heard you talk about
kind of the speed of innovation or the lack of innovation even in AEC at times.
What do you think is the root of that or the of the state of the industry?
The root of it is, and I want to qualify the idea that there's tons of innovation
happening in AEC, but the adoption is very difficult of new technology.
And that's why I think we see the struggle because, I mean, there's adoption and
implementation and standards and then there's this higher standard of care and there's
intellectual property.
tied into all these projects and stuff like that.
And so it gets very difficult from a privacy and a security, especially in large firms
where you've got 400 people.
You can't just have people putting whatever they want into chat GPT and sharing that with
a language model that is being trained on what you're saying.
I mean, you have confidential information, you've got all kinds of, it's difficult for
sure.
But I think the root is,
You know, I had it a minute ago, Josh, and now I lost it.
I was so proud of myself right there for bringing it back.
And then it's like, well, what was I bringing it back to?
Okay, I know what the root is.
The root is deadlines, project deadlines.
And so we've got stuff to do and we know how to do it.
We're gonna do it the way that we did it the last time.
Like it worked, right?
Even if it was painful, like we still know the way to get there.
And so constantly having your fingers on the pulse of everything that's changing is like
impossible, especially now.
And it seems to be only getting worse from like, what can this tool do now that it
couldn't do three weeks ago?
it turns out it can do new things.
But we already made a decision about that tool and it, because it didn't do the thing back
then.
And so we wrote it off or whatever.
And so now there's this constant, you know, my advice is like this constant reevaluation
process of.
how fast software is changing, how fast tools are updating to increase their core
competencies, like do things really well.
um It's amazing, the speed.
And yet, our project deadlines are shorter than ever, and we have to move at this speed.
And the way that people have always gone after that is by doing it with the expertise that
they already have.
And so,
Constantly bringing new tools into the pipeline and new workflows into that's practically
almost impossible to do and so I think that's where this this lagging behind comes from
and I don't know how you get out of it other than through intention of you know constantly
evaluating and bringing something in that is going to help you get to on the next project
it's like
And that's the other hard part, think, is that midstream, very difficult to bring in new
tools midstream.
And so, wait for the next time that you're going to do a thing and try to implement then.
And also go through that re-evaluation.
Maybe you're evaluating it for the first time, but maybe you're gonna need to do some
re-evaluation of tools that have already come across your desk at that point to say,
what's the best way right now?
And if you...
write things off, I think you need to stop writing things off.
You need to constantly now be looking at it from a reevaluation point of view so that you
can implement the best thing now.
And I guarantee you, it's not gonna be the best thing in six months anymore.
There's gonna be something else.
And so this, think getting comfortable with being uncomfortable in these situations is the
new normal.
Like you can't, of course you can.
You can choose to ignore all that stuff.
And I think there will be successful firms who just say, you know what, we don't do any of
that stuff.
And here's why.
Like it matters to us to do this by hand or to do this in the most authentic way possible.
And because, because like you could totally argue that a lot of this stuff is just
watering everything down also, right?
It's not giving you superpowers.
It's making you like everybody else in some ways.
And so do you,
Who do you want to be?
So what are your values?
Does the tool stack align with your values?
I think this is something that you could take, you can literally take a step back and say,
wow, we're paying for all these subscriptions.
We've got all these tools.
We've just kind of gotten here somehow.
We don't even know how we got here because so much has happened.
And reevaluating, saying like, what really matters?
And then what are the tools today?
that help us achieve what really matters, getting back to that idea of what aligns you
with your clients, what are your values, why are you doing what you're doing, and how can
you do it differently than other people in meaningful ways, and realigning your tools to
go with that.
think it's not easy, but this is a new concept that I've been exploring on the podcast.
I think it's fascinating.
uh To me, it sounds very intriguing because we all are...
literally being struck with the 20 different fire hoses of tech and advancement.
um You know, those are in air quotes, right?
But maybe they are, maybe they aren't, maybe they're just trying to sell you a new
subscription model.
But it's not an easy thing to do, but also it is, I think it's extremely necessary to
constantly be reevaluating as you go.
Well, I like how you're kind of focused in more on the change management aspects of this
idea versus any in particular technology or platform or AI or whatever.
I mean, at the end of the day, you got to figure out what you're about, what your firm
needs to focus on, and which of those tools are actually going to be helpful for you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and we're not the only industry that's in flux.
mean, everybody is just about, just about every industry is going through this uh identity
crisis of sorts right now.
uh What are some outside of kind of this framework that you're describing?
What are some of the areas that you think are most important for AEC firms in particular
to be looking at uh in this crazy time of change?
Man, yeah, what are they?
So I like to come back to communication.
I like to come back to authenticity.
And so what are the things that can help you do that?
I guess that's why I'm kind of more on the media side of things because like what is your
authentic voice?
What do you actually care about?
Of course there are projects that you could show that you could then pull things out of
that illustrate.
those things and how that mattered for your clients.
But how are you gonna tell that story to people?
mean, is it just on your website?
Is it just through this really long piece of text that, how many people are gonna read
that?
How many people are actually gonna go to your website and read that?
I think that, again, every company is a media company.
And so being,
Like you're a good media company, you're a great media company, or you're not.
And the stakes have never, well, the barrier to entry has never been lower than it is now.
And it's hyper competitive too.
Like how do you grab somebody's attention?
I do think that the tools are now are better than ever for surfacing results for
somebody's search query to find you if you are in alignment with them.
And so, you know, the internet has been an amazing way for weirdos to find each other.
And by, don't mean that derogatory, in a derogatory way.
It's like everybody's got the thing that they're interested in, whether it's, you know,
Dungeons and Dragons or Comic-Con or, you know, amazing space that, you know, transforms
the way that light strikes and causes, you know, does all the things that architecture can
actually do.
And so the only way people are going to find you is if you are publishing ideas, the
things that matter, those stories of transformation for your clients, whatever those
different things are that you could be talking about that matter to you.
So to me, I kind of come back to the media side of things with what I'm just seeing
happening is, again,
never been easier, but it is something you have to do with intention.
Like it doesn't have to be perfect, but it needs to be good enough that these robots can
index it and bring you to the top so that people can find you.
Because this industry relies on people finding you, whether it's through word of mouth,
whether it's through a website or a podcast or a blog series or marketing materials or
interviews or whatever it is.
uh So if you don't have stuff out there for those for that mechanism to happen like you
need to seed that ground so that things will come out of it uh and and It's never been
easier to do that But it does take time and it takes a schedule and it takes a commitment.
How many do you know the numbers Josh?
It's like 90 % of podcasts never make it past episode number 10 and then another 90 %
never make it past the next 10 or something like that, right so
There's a lot of non-commitment out there to these things.
And I think if you just simply did that, if you committed to a season or two of episodes,
you would be well positioned to be found in an industry that the competition is fierce,
but it's also broadened quite a bit because of the internet.
You know, I think the stat that I saw was five episodes, like most of them don't make it
past five.
So when we launched, we did six.
We're already above the line.
That's right.
Well, you know, in addition to your own two shows, you're also helping other firms kind of
with some white labels, the wrong way to call it, but you're helping guest hosts and.
Talk us through kind of that strategy and what are firms looking for where it makes sense
for you to be a part of that versus them kind of taking on the load themselves.
I mean, it's kind of like the digital version of hand holding, right?
It's like, we can't do this or we don't want to do this or it's risky or it's scary or
whatever, know, whatever the, those are like the bait.
Those are real words that people don't want to use, but they're there.
These are feelings.
And so you look at somebody like me, like, it's easy for Evan to do this stuff.
And it's only easy because I've done so much of it.
uh But yeah, to me, this is, this is the
The path that I'm currently on, em it's fascinating to see who is willing to do that and
who's not.
It takes a huge investment.
You can't just build something and they will come to it.
So you can't just publish podcast episodes and people will start listening.
You've gotta tell them about it, you've gotta market it, you've gotta share it, you've
gotta make little pieces of it that are shareable.
It's not the same landscape it was back when we started.
podcasting in 2013, 2016 where there weren't that many shows in the architecture and
design category.
Now there's quite a few.
So how do you get listeners?
And so I don't know if it's important to even focus on that.
What's important to do is have the real reasons of why you want to do that and then figure
out the way to get there.
So what I do now is I help companies, and this is interesting because this is,
happened organically, I've had companies do a series of podcasts in order to pick the
brains of the people that they wanted to have.
So it was totally selfish.
Like I want to have people come on the show so that I can hear what they really think.
And cool byproduct, we can publish it for everybody else to hear it too.
That is exactly why I started Troxel Podcast was like, my God, these conversations are
amazing.
Like the information.
that's in these conversations and no one else gets to hear it except for me?
Like that just seems wrong.
There's no playbook for this in the industry.
Nobody has taken the time to do all this research and write it all down and publish it all
in a book or on a website or whatever.
Well, I guess I could do that too.
I think that that's been probably the most, I mean it's a selfish reason but it's also a
very.
giving reason to put something out there and create resources for those who are in a
similar position to not have to start with a blank piece of paper.
I think that that's a travesty in today's and age of you have to start from scratch from
everything.
I think that that's ridiculous, especially with how much is available, the information
people are willing to share and freely give away incredible information.
I find that like that
that's my service to this industry is to do that and to help raise this industry.
Whether it's successful or not, whether people actually do something with the information
or not is something I am not in control of, but I can get it out there and make it
available so that people could do something with it.
And I think that this is not a new idea.
This is something that's happening in every industry, in every.
niche that exists out there.
And so for those who are doing it, I mean, I applaud it because I know it's not easy to
show up with an unsponsored podcast for a decade and keep making episodes.
But there are people getting value out of that.
And then the opportunities that do come out of that, you will not be able to foresee what
those are.
And it's absolutely incredible.
Yeah, I mean, that was entirely why I started my first show as well, originally called
Obsessed with Design.
And now it's all at obsessedshow.com.
And all those old episodes are there, but it was all like my peers, everything from peers
to heroes in the graphic design and branding and illustration and uh architecture and
interior design.
Just anybody would design in their title.
was like, I just want to...
have these conversations with these people, maybe pick their brains, maybe learn something
from them myself, and then uh to be able to pass that along to an audience of thousands of
people is pretty special.
Yeah, totally.
And can I just, I wanna voice one of my, um what's the right word here?
It's like I wanna pick on our audience a little bit here.
We have an audience, my audience of architects, incredibly stingy with their attention,
right?
I totally get it.
Like there's only so much time, it's competing with the projects, whatever.
But man,
the lack of support from, and this is why I say I'm picking on them, by support, mean
subscribing to a show, sending an email with feedback every once in a while, giving
something a thumbs up or whatever, just to like juice the algorithms.
People don't understand that that's what needs to happen.
It totally needs to happen.
Everybody listening to this episode right now needs to go to Josh's podcast and give it a
review of,
an authentic review.
You need to spread the love by doing that because it is, it's how we can continue to do
what we do.
It's how we can build these platforms to attract even better guests, even better
conversations.
And without that kind of bi-directional love that needs to be spread, it doesn't go
anywhere.
It just doesn't.
Like if you're trying to build uh a media company, you need people to watch that show.
And how does that happen?
These algorithms have a mind of their own and they will amplify things and they will push
things down that aren't getting engagement, right?
Because these companies that host this stuff are thriving on engagement.
And so, yeah, great.
If you listen.
every week, maybe you've subscribed, I don't know, but what's the next step you can do to
really help ensure the success?
And I think, going back to that idea of where does this come from?
We talked about just this idea of deadlines and things like that earlier with adoption,
that's difficult, but where does this come from is this hyper uh competitiveness that is
ingrained in architects from day one in architecture school.
And so it's like, people are very,
They don't give out very much help to somebody else because they've got to our own stuff
to deal with, right?
And so if I could just put out a call to action, just be giving with feedback, thumbs up,
comments, sharing of episodes and ideas with other people.
I think a lot of times people hear this stuff and they're like, man, yeah, this is great.
I'm gonna use this, I'm gonna keep it, and I don't want somebody else to be successful as
I am.
So I'm not even gonna share this episode with them, but this is not a scarcity issue.
Like this information was not designed to be kept in the black box.
This is stuff that's meant to be shared and get out there to raise the whole, like step
back and take a bigger perspective of the industry, of the professions that we're dealing
with here.
and help everybody get more successful.
That's what actually needs to happen.
It's not just your silo, not just your firm, not just your organization that needs to get
better.
Everybody deserves to get better because this whole industry, I hope, deserves to exist in
the future.
If it doesn't, that's something else.
That's another topic.
But that's my call to action.
And I wanted to pick on the audience because I don't think that message gets out enough.
It's like, just listening isn't enough.
If you can really help Josh, you can really help me, you can help these shows that mean
something to you, do more, have a bigger impact across the industry and to you, right?
It'll come back to you too if you are willing to do a little bit of legwork on your end.
Yeah, that's awesome.
love the encouragement there.
the algorithm doesn't know what to do with the content when listeners are lurkers, when
they're just sort of taking it in, but they're not interacting with it.
You're not giving them any signals of why the algorithm should give you the next episode
or even remind you when it's available.
And it's funny, right, because some people will complain when there's one episode that
doesn't resonate with them, but the eight other ones that they listen to did, but they'll
only talk about the one that didn't, right?
Don't do that either.
Right.
Right.
Critical feedback is great, but also like be giving with the ones that really do resonate
with you too.
Don't just let those ones pass by.
Well, what our audience on this show didn't get at the top of the show was right before or
maybe right after I hit record, you said something like, well, let's just see where the
conversation goes, which was awesome.
And it was a great way to start off.
Coincidentally, we got through about 30 % of the questions that I had for you because we
just talked about the things that kind of naturally happened.
But before we let you go, I do want to ask you if you have any bold predictions for the
AEC industry.
you know, look into your crystal ball.
know that you sort of live in the future.
What do you think's coming next?
Well, think, okay, so this is super timely because I kind of foresaw this question coming
and uh this question is a difficult question, right?
I think there's nothing for certain.
The thing um that's come across my desk literally today is this whole idea of, because
people have been talking about this word, but it never really clicked with me until today,
which was this whole idea of AI agents.
And the thing that actually helped it click for me, a tool that I use quite a bit, Notion,
I don't know if you use Notion at all, but I use it, my whole life is inside of this
platform.
And they came out with version 3.0.
And it doesn't really have to do with that tool in particular, but just the concept of AI
agents and the idea that...
everybody is going to be a manager of several agents.
And how can you start to think about that so that you can start to build kind of this new
version of yourself and the information you have access to and what you can do with it.
So I don't know about how you run your back end on your podcast, Josh, but everything in
my podcast is in Doshin.
Every episode, every guest, every transcript, every thumbnail.
uh Keywords, topics, uh summaries, newsletters, everything that I do for my brand and my
shows is inside of Notion.
so the challenge now is how can I leverage that?
Because that's what tools are for, right?
Tools are for leverage.
Like literally a box wrench, know, open-ended box wrench from Craftsman is a tool that you
are going to use to turn a bolt that you can't turn with your fingers.
That's what it's for.
These tools are digital tools, but they're leverage.
What can you do with this information?
How can you use it to transform your value into more value?
That's really the purpose.
This thing that came out this week with Notion was now they're going all in on agents and
the way that agents can talk between different tools.
take different data sets and build new things out of them.
That's what design is.
It's taking, that's actually what innovation is.
It's taking things that already exist and putting them out in new combinatorial ways,
right?
So innovation is not coming up with something brand new.
That's called invention.
So people are always looking at innovations.
how come we're not seeing innovation?
How come we have this huge appetite for new things?
Innovation is actually taking things that already exist and re-
combining them in different ways and connecting different dots that maybe nobody else saw
before and coming out with that.
Oh wow, that's kind of cool.
So I'm sitting on this mountain of information, total mountain, and a lot of firms are and
lot of brands are.
They're sitting on a mountain of information.
It could be in your email box, it could be in your calendar, it could be in your Notion
database, it could be in Airtable, it could be in Excel, could be all kinds of places, it
could be in Slack.
And what can you actually do with that to leverage it?
and tell new stories or come up with ideas, use it as a way to be a collaborator.
Okay, I've got this mountain of information.
What can I do with it?
Have you ever asked chat GPT, like tell me about me?
What do you know about me?
It knows a lot about you.
It's pretty cool actually to be like, that's what you know about me, just through the
interactions and like kind of things that it has gleaned through its memory, right?
So um I think that this is gonna be a game changer.
And what's interesting is it's probably not the tools that you use to do the design work,
but it's probably the things that inform that design work.
And it's the way that you tell the stories about that design work and those interactions
with your clients and what you solved and how you did it and interesting little things,
but then also big picture things, right?
Like there's gonna be little insights.
that are shareable and then there's gonna be big takeaways that are also shareable and I
find that to be kind of a superpower that didn't used to exist.
You literally had to throw pencils at a wall before to try to come up with these ideas or
spaghetti or whatever and now uh you can have these conversations with these tools if you
have the information in there.
So I guess the call to action here is get your information somewhere.
Get it somewhere that
that you can access it or that these things can access it.
And that's what, to me, is pretty exciting is it's now possible for these things to talk
through multiple sources and kind of pull things together.
I think that there's going to be some really interesting things that come out of that.
Yeah, and I know Christopher Parsons too, that was kind of how we kicked off our
conversation on the show a few episodes ago.
We'll link to that in the show notes as well.
But that whole agent thing is just beyond fascinating, all the things that we might be
able to use to leverage those as well in the future.
That's my deep dive this week.
I feel like this is one of those, it's kind of cutting edge at the same time.
Like people have been talking about it for a while, but it didn't really click and now it
clicked.
that's what we're talking about.
Okay.
So now I need to learn about that because I don't want to be late to learning about this
because I think there's a lot of leverage to be drawn out of these new tools.
Well, the one thing that I've learned from our conversation is we're probably going to
have to bring you back for season two so we can get through some more of these questions.
But uh before I let you go, tell our listeners where else they can find you and all of
your various podcasts on the interwebs.
uh We are now kicking off season three of the Confluence podcast, which is a podcast that
we call the Director's Commentary Track to AEC Software Development.
So if you like developing software or if you find the tools that we use kind of
fascinating and the ideas behind that, why does that, why is that like that?
We try to do a deep dive.
But we also go, we actually had a guest on Brent Seals, Dr.
Brent Seals from the University of Kentucky who
is one of the pioneers of AI and using that to read the Dead Sea Scrolls that are
literally pieces of charcoal.
incredible stuff.
really fun topics on the Confluence podcast.
uh ArcaSpeak, as we mentioned here, is we're now in our 13th year, coming to a close of
our 13th year of podcasting.
um That is at ArcaSpeakpodcast.com.
And the Troxel podcast, is my last name without the vowels, TRXL, is at trxl.co.
And that podcast is really about the overlap of technology and architecture and how they
are evolving over time.
So uh that's a passion project of mine for sure.
I've been able to have some amazing, incredible guests, including Chris Parsons, who you
just mentioned for several episodes.
And that show is...
is I feel like it's a driving force in the industry for architecture and technology.
that's where you can find everything that I'm doing on the internet.
Well, awesome, Evan, has been a pleasure chatting with you.
Appreciate you hanging out with me for a little bit today.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you, great to be here.