150: ‘Embracing Change’, with Timothy Halvorson

150: ‘Embracing Change’, with Timothy Halvorson
Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. And before we get into this episode, if you're a regular listener and are enjoying them, please use the subscribe button on both YouTube and in your preferred podcast app to let me know, you're a fan of the show. Your subscription is incredibly valuable in supporting my efforts. And I genuinely hope that you find these conversations that are published here, enriching for yourself and valuable for the AEC industry, being a subscriber, which is completely free. Directly influences two things.
My ability to attract sponsors that help keep the show going and my ability to attract high profile guests, which is great for you. My goal is to deliver quality episodes, to provide value to you and the industry as a whole. So if you haven't subscribed, I encourage you to do so. As I mentioned, it's free and a great way [00:01:00] to support TRXL okay today.
I welcome Timothy Halvorson to the podcast. Timothy is an expert technologist in the AEC industry, trained in architecture since starting practice in 2013. His passion is to unlock designers, creative potential expression, and efficiency through harnessing the best tools available in the market today.
His daily obsession is to catalyze innovation in the hearts and minds of curious creatives. Like you, who are listening to this. In this episode, we discussed the challenges of technology implementation in firms and Timothy shares his experiences in both traditional and tech focused roles in the AEC industry and underlines the importance of understanding people, processes, and the potential of technology we touch upon the struggle of change in firms, the evolving role of a BIM manager. The role of AI and creativity and efficiency, the importance of automating low-level tasks, the role of standards in a firm. The shift to cloud-based [00:02:00] software and the complexity of modern software. Timothy also introduces his new venture 7fold aimed at bridging the gap between academia and commercial practice, providing tailored solutions and strategies to people in firms, interested in digital transformation. This was a fantastic conversation with Tim and I hope you'll not only find value in it for yourself, but that you'll help add value to the profession by sharing it with your network. I've been working on getting more representation from the practice side on the podcast. And I believe it's an important point of view to highlight in this conversation of tech and AEC.
So without further ado, I bring you Timothy Halvorson.
​
Evan Troxel: I am joined today by Timothy Halvorson.
Welcome to the podcast. great to have you.
Timothy Halvorson: Thanks for having me, Evan. It's great to be here.
Evan Troxel: I'm very interested in our conversation today because I've been [00:03:00] wanting to get solid representation on the show of people who have
been working in the practice of architecture and getting that perspective because the audience, I think, is pretty well distributed across the industry in a EC, but also I think mostly on the tech side and mostly in
the delivery of technology side. And then there's this whole audience of people who are like, yeah, yeah, I've experienced that. Me too, uh, who have been working in it, but
I've been a little. Behind on getting those kinds of people on the podcast to actually get those conversations, more exposure. And I've
lived it. You've lived it
and I'm excited to have this conversation
today.
Timothy Halvorson: me too. Let's get into it. I'm so excited.
Evan Troxel: Well, let's talk about you first and you journey and, and how you've gotten to where you are in the practice side
of architecture.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah, so I guess a little back background story. So [00:04:00] I, uh, grew up in Minnesota, but I went to school in North Dakota State. Shout out bison, uh, was got my master's degree there, so it was a four plus one degree, and then did two internships, BWBR in St. Paul, and then HGA down in Rochester, Minnesota, got exposure to the Mayo Clinic, et cetera.
And then jumped full time into professional practice, traditional architecture out at HDR in San Francisco. Um, and that was, saw everything from concept to completion. Um, you know, got on some inter interesting international projects doing healthcare hospital expansions. And from day one really. Was doing both Revit, rhino and Grasshopper in conjunction.
So it wasn't just Revit or just Rhino. Uh, our school definitely emphasized that and so hit the ground running. Um, what's interesting is in the mix, you know, challenges with thesis, I sort of struggled my way through learning Grasshopper. And right, in 2015, starting my professional career, I also published 24 videos in two months on a YouTube channel.
[00:05:00] Sort of made the videos I wish somebody had given me. And that's prompted my whole content education journey, um, kind of in parallel to traditional practice. And, you know, lots of interesting projects we can dive deeper on. But I had an opportunity to work, uh, doing some standardization on a certain account for a healthcare, uh, system, doing a lot of Kita parts, deep Revit family work, et cetera.
Um, standardizing data room, data sheets, et cetera. And then saw a couple projects through construction administration. Fast forward to present day. I did a year working on, uh, the construction side of the business. That was kinda my first exposure with a team of 15 to 16 computational designers doing deep, uh, light gauge, ornamental steel, uh, fabrication, all in rhino grasshopper.
And then, you know, so saw that kind of model based delivery connection so you could actually, you know, we were the razor's edge in the model and then tolerance to assemble it and build it was from the, the other teams downstream. [00:06:00] So that was really impactful to see how to collaborate in that, that way.
Um, and then once, uh, you know, COVID hit 2020, uh, sort of automated my way out of a job there. Then, um, got the opportunity to go to Gensler as a dedicated design technologist. So back on the design side of the equation. And was in the southwest region. So I served 850 designers, a thousand people in six offices, and got exposed to, you know, 20 to 24 practice area types.
And so that really opened up all the different, just getting exposure to the different types of design, all the challenges with schedule, you know, teams. And then trying to mix in, um, how do we, you know, get more building science simulations, you know, sustainability, that kind of simulation we woven into the process.
So I spent about half my time for two years really going deep on the simulation software and again, navigating how to introduce that and integrate it to the design [00:07:00] process without being overly disruptive to how people exist worked. So we can definitely dive deeper on that as well. And, uh, so now I'll just wrap up with sevenfold.
That's my, my own business trying to bring to the industry, uh, you know, consulting services to help drive digital transformation. And self-paced courses to upskill, uh, everybody. That's the goal.
Evan Troxel: Nice. I'm particularly interested in the implementation part because you, like you said, you came from kind of this
background doing ornamental metal steel fabrication where you're working with a
really specific part of the industry and really like becoming an expert in that. And then
you're moving into design and design technology and design technology implementation and try, like you said, not trying not
to disrupt the way people were working and, and there's this weird balance working in a firm of trying
to navigate [00:08:00] that, right?
Because I think. So we met at the Confluence conference in Orange County. Right. And this, and, and the, the topics that were being talked about there were ai it's, it's very cutting edge, you know,
leading edge stuff, topics and excitement in a EC around these. And then there's the actual practice side, which is having to potentially change the way they work to use these new tools.
And that is disruptive when everybody's focus is
on the project deadline.
And that has never changed. Right. And so that the, the, the difference between innovation and adoption
is only getting bigger and bigger because more and more technology is being
developed and released all the time.
Timothy Halvorson: mm-Hmm
Evan Troxel: Our attention spans are getting shorter, and yet the, the goal of the practitioner has, has never changed, which is, I just have to deliver this project.
And it's. it's. It is disruptive when, and, and I
[00:09:00] think there's a, a fatigue around that in firms for, for a majority of people. In firms. Not everybody. 'cause there's certain
people who are just wired in a firm to constantly be looking at
and trying new things and that's how they operate. But for the most part, it's not like that at all.
And they just
see it as like, seriously, another one. Right? Are you kidding me? Why is there even a new version
of whatever program every single year? Can we just have a break? Right?
And can we just like, settle in and deliver on what we already know how to do really
well? And so there's this battle that's raging inside firms and you've worked in one of the largest firms and I'm really curious to hear your experience from that side of things because how, how do you balance. Bringing in new ways of working that are potentially way better, way more efficient, way more data rich, which
has its own [00:10:00] implications as we
move down the pipeline. Right. Versus this like, stop, just stop. I don't need another way to do this. Or I don't need a new way to do this because my deadline is Friday.
Right? So I would love to,
I just spit out a lot there. But I know you've lived this and you've lived this in much more recent history than I even have, and because I know how hard it was from a leadership standpoint to get teams to adopt technology, but you're working much more boots
on the ground in the firm. What, what are your experiences there? Because I, what I really want
to get outta this conversation is I want technology providers to really, truly understand what it's like to work in a firm. Because a lot of times they're coming at it from the
outside. They may have a history of working in a EC. Most of them don't maybe.
Uh, and, and
so just what is it actually like from an implementation and usage standpoint on a day to day of
the life of an architect?[00:11:00]
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah. Small question. I mean,
Evan Troxel: Yeah.
Small que just, just pick, just if you could just answer that really quickly,
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah.
Evan Troxel: Yeah.
Timothy Halvorson: Um,
Evan Troxel: complex and it's nuanced, so, so I think you could pick anywhere to start off and let's, let's
jump into this conversation.
Timothy Halvorson: I'll start here. It's, you know, how do you get into a design technology role? You know, I get asked that question a lot. Well, you sort of, people with interest, curiosity, that knack for 1% better.
They have that investigative curious mind. They get better and better at the tools and next thing you know, they're sort of, okay, you're a really good doer of using the tools, but are now we're gonna throw you into leadership, which is people not tools
Evan Troxel: skillset. Yeah.
Timothy Halvorson: And I think that's the inherent challenge is navigating the internal psychology and emotions around change, which gets right back into change management, you know?
And so it's not just. Technology and change. It's, it's the broader, you know, everyone's struggling with this. And so [00:12:00] I was surprised how much time I thought about how people learn and how people think and how that's different than myself. So there's never a waste of time, uh, when you deeply understand the people that you're trying to serve, how they wanna work, not how you prefer to work.
And if you're trying to impose something on them, eventually it's gonna kick back. And so having, you know. In terms of technology providers. And that's part of my job was actually, if I'm talking to the principal in charge, I would teach technology in terms of managing client's expectations. If it's talking to a design manager, I'm talking in terms of staff scope, fee and schedule.
Uh, if I'm talking to a design director, it's design intent and expression. What's the vision? And if it's someone doing the modeling effort, it's the buttons and the workflows and the small sized bite sized deliverables. So in a weird way, I was operating like a project manager, but like specific to the workflows of technology to get to a deliverable.[00:13:00]
And that was one thing that we can come back to maybe if you want, but it's, it's enhancing that kind of managing up conversation from the people who are boots on the ground, as you mentioned, doing the work, giving them the language so that they can set better expectations and not burn out. But we can circle back on that.
Um, in terms of just being on the inside though, you know, the pace of change has to slow down. You're, you're completely right. Um. You know, just when we sort of had it all figured out in humming 2023 hit and AI was sort of publicly released, even though people who were in the inside knew AI was sort of brimming, they just decided, okay, this is the year it's all coming out.
And you know, being architects, we go with the shiny object syndrome. And I've heard that when I was in San Francisco for four years, talked to enough startups and there's this quick kind of spike of adoption and then people realize, how do I actually use this? And what is the actual ROI? And I think that's the pros and cons of architects.
They're sort of really, we're really quick to pick something up new, but then, [00:14:00] you know, it's sort of getting excited about the emotion, the possibility, and assuming that it immediately makes an impact towards differentiating my practice from everybody else. And that's really what I, I've been trying to nurture is the value-based conversation.
So it's not just picking up the latest tool, going faster and more efficient. It's saying, how does this extend and enhance my or our firm's unique creative voice? And so when it comes to data, I started to pick up this term, you know, data informed or design led, data informed. I used to talk about data driven design, which sort of assumes that the data is one, making all the decisions and the designers sort of put in the backseat, which is a fallacy in my mind.
You know, we need to get better about understanding the data we're given and how that relates to our decision making. So how am I allowing that to inform my process? Which, [00:15:00] you know, some things are subjective, some things are objective, and I think people who are very technically oriented want the data to, to decide everything for them.
That's a mistake. Um, I see that with, in my mind when I hear, I think of like the in quotes, you know, true engineering mind, which sort of says I'm gonna build the perfect product and people should just know it works and it's the best because of all the things happening out of the hood. And yet the first user shows up and they can't even get past the user interface 'cause it's so cryptic, right?
So there's that line to walk, like it may be beautifully bundled from the person who made it, but you know, how usable is it? How intuitive is it? So there's always that line to walk again on how people's people navigate visuals and, you know, the whole UX psychology. Um, but I, I found just cultivating the conversation, you know, I call it creating the mental model.
We, we do with digital models all the time. But if I can't [00:16:00] imagine where I'm going, what I'm trying to achieve, it's not trying to be deterministic with your approach, but it's saying. We need to go in this direction and these are the important pieces, right? Am I measuring my carbon footprint or am I trying to balance the budget time and schedule or, you know, all these factors we have to deal with.
So the, the, the fundamental nature is that architects are getting pulled in every direction more than ever before. I personally see the opportunity if we wanted to as architects to return more design build scope, where it's kind of done all in-house end to end if they wanted to. Um, the technology's there, which could simplify the process.
Um, 'cause then you have less people involved or less, less room for playing telephone, you know, or the opposite where you actually have a true seamless model to model exchange. And we do fully embrace digital twin technology, and that is the source of truth. And [00:17:00] we understand the implications of. Really robust, high quality, fully vetted data that composes our models, you know, and I think both can exist in the design world today.
So,
Evan Troxel: The problem is people, Timothy, the problem
is people right there, right? Because like,
and and you've experienced this, right? Like you have this vision of what the true potential of the digital
twin, uh, ecosystem
throughout the entire process could be. And then once again, I'm just gonna probably end up, keep coming back to this, which, which is my incentive
is to hit the deadline on Friday. And so therefore I take shortcuts to make sure that happens because my job, my bonus, my
salary actually depends on that. It actually depends on not implementation and like true precision in the process and making sure that this data is useful later on for somebody else, for me, for the client. Because like, honestly, the thing that [00:18:00] actually matters is we have to deliver the
project on time, on budget,
right?
So
Timothy Halvorson: I can come back to that. I
Evan Troxel: that is hard. It is hard because you can't, it's hard to enforce, especially in a big firm. I mean, and I guess that's kind of
another thing I would love to hear about from your experience is how, how do you get people on board? How, how did you sell that vision? Because I think it is kind of a selling at some point.
Like it's, you're doing marketing and promotion of a process within a firm for a better outcome. Um, because it does go in opposition to the incentives of, right. My,
my how it affects
me as a person who does the work. If I'm the person who's driving the machine at, at,
at, in the office.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah, that, that, uh, people are quick to identify people who are trying to drive change and they'll label 'em and put 'em in a box. And so [00:19:00] there is that variable. I swapped out the word sales for persuasion.
Evan Troxel: There you go.
Timothy Halvorson: it people have a
certain connotation with a salesperson
Evan Troxel: Sales is dirty.
Yes. Right.
Timothy Halvorson: It's like these vendors who were trying to get on my calendar just get away.
You know? I don't know. But
Evan Troxel: I think designers
are allergic to the word sales too, even though they're selling design. Right.
So, yeah, I, I agree with what you're
saying
Timothy Halvorson: But that unfortunately that was part of it. I had to get into semantics and be like, okay, this is getting a visceral reaction. This is opening the door to the conversation. And you'd have to read that in real time. Like, I couldn't. Book a meeting and then read it. And I started to learn.
Over time you have enough conversations, you realize the number one question out of everyone's mouth first is, I don't have any time. I don't have time. And in prepping for this conversation, I realized it's not that you don't have time, it's that you're not making time because it's not. And we're such creatives.
I'm like, we should, we love making things. [00:20:00] Why don't we
Evan Troxel: That's a mindset. It is a
mindset. Yeah.
Timothy Halvorson: And, but you see, how am I finding those little slivers of opportunity for the 1%, 5% of my time? I'm making time for coffee, I'm making time for happy hour and making time for chatter with my friends at the office. And if we are more decentralized in hybrid, how am I buying back that time?
Because I'm more productive at home 'cause I'm not as distracted. Why don't I reinvest that in?
Getting more skilled in my technology. Right? So how we reinvest the time we're buying back shouldn't immediate. I, I think we need to have a slice of that that goes to research and development while we're staying profitable.
And I like to joke with people. I made a full-time living, pausing folks when they would say the word just because, so right On the other side of it, there was this sort of, you know, okay, here's the shortcut. The they don't have enough information. They don't have time to, in their mind, to take to research and find the right solution.
Again, write in quotes, because what is best [00:21:00] practice? I mean, it could literally be different on a per practice area basis. And that was something I had to learn. Going from a place that was maybe three, four practice areas to 24 to 26 practice areas. There's very different timelines, very different constraints.
You know, the team's, three people, that's a different animal than someone that's 250 people. And so going global on a 24 hour clock versus everyone's in the office. That's a whole different dynamic, you know? Um, so it's just interesting how we, on one side, the bigger you get, the more you have to enforce communication protocols and points of contact, et cetera.
But I think, you know, really that point, am I making time? And we should have better conversations around what's the priority? What's the trade-offs, how are we, you know, delegating the work amongst the team and not just, okay, this is the work you have to do. It's like people have a vision to the jobs they want to grow into.
So then as long as they're getting that growth path [00:22:00] as part of their work, they'll roll up their sleeves and do the stuff they have to do. You know, they'll make the time for that. And that's what I'm constantly thinking about is how to kind of pair up tutorials and resources and thought processes that break it down to be small enough.
It's not abstract, it's concrete, it's actionable. And it's tied to the latest and best technologies. And that's the goal is being, you know, I'm not trying to sell sevenfold at all, but like the goal is that eventually is helping facilitate that third conversation, which is practice innovation, you know, for the whole industry.
Because people will sort of figure something out and then keep it locked away in their firm. And then the rest of the, you know, rest of the industry maybe suffers 'cause they haven't caught up. And then 10 years go by. I, you know, I, I'm tired of that being the case and I think we need better incubators to research this.
anyway, so lots of thoughts on that. But again, you, you have to get really comfortable sort of recognizing that the same series of questions always come out of people's [00:23:00] mouths. And so you don't just dismiss it and say, well you should do the best technology. 'cause just because it's important and it's the best and it's the latest, it doesn't work.
You have to recognize that there's real constraints So if you can qualify and say, Hey, I'm asking for one hour of your time. We're gonna do this study. This is the outcome you can expect here. You know, I'll train the person, this is who will do it. And then moving forward you can reuse that.
So the time you're investing once can be not spent on the next project. And so you find ways to break it down super small. And then over time you establish that trust and then you don't waste the trust that you build with with people. So then when you recommend something, they actually listen to you. So it's really very relational.
Very relational.
Evan Troxel: I wanna go back to something you said earlier about speaking
different languages depending on who you were talking to and, and I don't think you said it just like that, but Right. It is a different vocabulary or a a point of view that they have. So [00:24:00] somebody in project management is
going to think a certain way and someone in leadership is gonna, they have different things that they're concerned about, so they're gonna think a different way.
And somebody who is in design technology, somebody who is just in project, not
just somebody who is in project delivery, right? They're, they're doing different pieces of the, they're, they're a, a
unique piece of the puzzle that the puzzle needs all the pieces, but you're a bridging the gap between all those pieces potentially when you're talking about training and technology and, and making sure that the data. Is uncorrupted across the, the time, the
timeline, as it touches each one of those people, and in different ways. It's sometimes simultaneously, so sometimes in
parallel, sometimes in serial, and, and it is complex and nuanced, but where did you learn how to speak to different people in different ways? Like where does that, you noticed that, first of all, that it was needed, and then how did you
develop that skill?
Timothy Halvorson: I bought a textbook. No, I'm just [00:25:00] kidding.
Evan Troxel: yeah. Which book. is that? I, I'll write down.
Timothy Halvorson: yeah. Yep. No, my book. No, I'm just kidding. Um, it's funny because I think there's this, you have to give yourself permission to get in there and get messy. Um, I think we have to lay our egos aside, really seek to listen, understand, ask better questions, you know, makes making safe.
It's all these psychology things. Make a safe space to hear somebody and then yeah, you have to work at understanding it. It doesn't just happen. You can't just bump heads and you get it. It's like people have different priorities and so, you know, we all, it's a team sport and I don't want to go off on a team.
I'm a huge sports fan and, uh, you know, former athlete before I got into college. But like, we're playing a team sport. It's not just one architect. We, and we know there's hundreds if not thousands of people that touch our projects from concept two completion and occupancy. And so the more we can appreciate the fact that everyone's bringing something to the table, the more we [00:26:00] can say, okay, where's my, how am I interfacing with that team?
Because not only am I understanding my role, but hopefully it sparks a better conversation on the role I can grow and want to grow into. And so now there's hope and incentives. So I'm, like I mentioned earlier, roll up my sleeves to do the things I have to do because I'm, I'm positioning myself in the direction I wanna take my career.
And people can get really stifled. I think there's a huge attrition problem, which I won't talk too long on, but because they don't feel like they're being invested in, they feel like they're being pigeonholed. And so, you know how to inter, how to interface, how to collaborate. We use this word a lot, but it's actually asking better questions, so I'm getting the right information out, you know?
And so the point is, is it goes all the way back to just. Uh, you know, like it could be as easy as Googling more specific questions so you get more specific answers. So, how do I ask a good question or a good query? You know, now we're [00:27:00] calling it prompt engineering with ai, but okay, if I'm aiming that in an AI engine, that's one source, what if I ask better questions?
Who is subject matter expert at my firm? 'cause they've got 25, 30, 50 years of experience, maybe I'm gonna get a higher quality answer if I approach them right? And so we need to understand where is my source? What is a higher quality source versus a lower quality source? What's a better question versus not a, you know?
And so then over time you start to realize, okay, this person in their functional role. Is caring mostly about scope, fee and schedule. And you can make some general generalizations 'cause they're just operating in that day to day. And then you get, after the operations, you get into the specific personality, uh, and the specific practice area type.
So, you know, people on bigger projects are a bit more rigid and a bit more, you know, kind of train, train master. Everything's on time and budget and everything's clicking along. Smaller projects, it's much more nuanced and go with the flow [00:28:00] and so you just kinda learn over time. It literally just comes with repetition.
Um, I, I wish I could say you could go to a textbook and watch a webinar, but you just have to, you know, I've spent more time studying personal development and psychology with my, with architecture in mind. You know, the craft, the actual doing of the work. But it's really team dynamics and how people think and create.
So the more I studied that, the more it became easier to just navigate this on the fly.
Evan Troxel: I think that's the kind of
thing that leaders need to pay attention to is who are the people who
are doing what you're talking about? Because a lot of times a technical role in a firm.
Doesn't have those skills. The person, not the role, the person who is filling that role oftentimes doesn't have those skills. And then when technology implementation, I mean, enforcement happens, right?
It's, it is not welcomed. There's [00:29:00] no empathy there, there's no, like the things that you're talking about, like being a psychologist and trying to understand
how this is going to land with that person
based on their persona, their role, their incentives, their deadlines, what they actually do on the pro.
Like you're, you're trying to figure all that out
so that your message lands with them is very different than somebody who's just like
the BIM police, right? Who,
Timothy Halvorson: Mm-Hmm.
Evan Troxel: you know what I mean? And, and, and I think a lot of times leaders are not thinking about the role that you're talking about
being really human.
It has to be really relationship driven because. To build trust, to build relationships over time. I, it takes the kind of understanding, and I didn't learn this from a book, I didn't learn it by asking Google questions or chat GPT questions, which is probably a pretty, pretty interesting way to do it. I, I think now you could, you could ask chat GPT for example, [00:30:00] to build personas within a firm and then coach you on how you could come up with questions to, to get what you need outta them.
I think that
there's some pretty interesting potential there. But for me it was by
being in the trenches, by working on projects, by being a designer and having to work with clients and multi-headed stakeholder groups and community involvement and, and just learning how to talk to people. I mean, working in the service industry is a great primer to
when you just have to deal.
Like I
worked in an Apple store for two years.
Timothy Halvorson: mm-Hmm
Evan Troxel: There were people who would come into the Genius Bar and they would be the nicest people ever, because they just wanted help. And they knew if they turned on the charm, they were gonna get better service. And then there were the, the assholes. Right. And it was just like
the, the the geniuses who worked at the Genius
Bar had to be able to deal with all
those and take it in stride and have a thick skin when they needed to so that they didn't piss [00:31:00] off the client.
But,
but you learn that in the trenches and, and, uh, me working my way up through design, I learned how to work with people. I learned how to communicate. I learned how to change my vocabulary like you were talking about earlier,
depending on who I was talking to, to really connect them to what we were doing and not talk
over them or beyond them, because then they're, they're out.
If, if you do that,
they're out. They're, they, their eyes glaze over, they pull out their phone, they start getting distracted by something else intentionally, because I. You're not talking
to them, you're talking at them or over them. Right? And so all of those things are something that leadership should be, these qualities are things
that leadership should be looking for in their technologists because their technologists are driving the
future potential of their company, right?
Because the future potential is largely driven by technology and implementation of it
at the human level within their firms. And so these [00:32:00] things, they're, you have to operate at
that
intersection.
Timothy Halvorson: I totally agree with you. I'm sitting here brimming, like, ah, yes, yes, yes.
one thing I wanted to add is. Technology is like an extension of yourself, right? We invent tools. It's like, I don't
Evan Troxel: Yep.
Timothy Halvorson: the Ironman analogy, but
it's because we couldn't do it with our own hands and feet.
Now we have a pen and paper, okay? That can communicate,
Evan Troxel: I mean, yeah, we're, we're tool makers, tool users because it gives us
leverage in many different ways,
Timothy Halvorson: as old as time, right? And so that's just part of what is the extension of humanity? Well, eventually it turns into our cities and our, all of the things in society, right? Like all the systems, all the building and the means by which I know we always say means and methods, ah, don't touch that word, but yet, but you know, okay, that's for like us constructing the building in reality.
But now we actually have the ability to analyze the before it's when it's in its concept stage, when [00:33:00] it's just forming, we're creating that feedback loop, and it's a different set of means and methods that isn't really tied to all the liability that's downstream, right? So we should be saying, Hey, this opens up a different way of thinking.
That's why I got so excited about it back in college, was you watch a tutorial and all of a sudden you're like, holy crap, that's possible. You try it out and then you just start to riff. It's like you're learning a whole new, you know, instrument. We talked about music when we started, but it's just, there's a way to express myself.
And so yeah, I'll get the efficiency back of producing the deliverable, but better than that, I can really explore different creative avenues. And I think learning, this part should be automated. This part should be delegated to some AI stuff. Here's my creative expression over here, and now you can start to see where those lines are drawn a little bit better.
And to your point, I mean, I'll just, so one more point is the bi I, I've stopped using the word BIM manager because design technology is bigger than bim, right? [00:34:00] Computation vis sustainability, ai, like there's way more buckets that have emerged just in the last five, 10 years, right? And that's the goal, is to be more of a, a guide trusted partner collaborator who understands the nuances of the design process someone else is trying to achieve.
And then pairing up being a curator of what's out there to extend and enhance their creative voice. And so that's really the intent because otherwise, like you said, BIM police, you're running around trying to implement standards all day long in, in this sort of intent of saving time and templates everywhere.
And this is the way Revit should be used and or whatever tool, you know, ArchiCAD. And I just think, you know, eventually we, we will get to a point where we see I don't need to customize this whole piece. I can just accept standards. And then this area over here is where I can really express my creative freedom.
And, you know, I don't think people really have a clear understanding of the trade-offs between, [00:35:00] oh, if I customize this, it's not really buying me any time back, so why am I rethinking it, you know? So, yeah, I'm, I definitely wanted to kind of break that perception of BIM manager. I mean, again, I know there's a role out there.
They've got functional jobs with that. It's just the perception that took a long time to reset at my previous firm was coming alongside people as trusted guides. They wouldn't just kick their problems over the fence to you to come clean up after they're done. 'cause, oh, the model's too heavy or it's moving slow, or it can't publish or print.
It's like, no, it, it's not just health. You know, it's creative opportunity. And so you, you can hit both If, if the door is to save time with doing better BIM standards, okay, great. Use that time, buy it back, and then reinvest in the exciting things that can help make your process even better. So we spent long conversations sorting out how to iron out, how to improve that relationship.
Evan Troxel: Yeah, I like the [00:36:00] way that you're explaining that, it makes a lot of sense to me. And I, the, the idea, I think, and this has been floating around a lot in technology, of focusing on automating the things away that are less valuable so you can spend more time on the more valuable things. And so coming from a, a standpoint of, of doing that implementation in firms, what has that conversation been like for you?
How, how have you convinced people that that is a useful. Thing to pursue, because I think a lot of times we do go back to, we default
to the things we already know. We know how to do those really well. It looks valuable. It's perceived as valuable because I'm checking all the boxes,
right? People say, I'm busy doing this thing and busy is valuable.
How are you doing? How, how's the week going? Oh, so busy. It's just busy, busy, busy. What if it wasn't like that? I mean, that, and, and I think what I'm wondering from your, from your experience is how, [00:37:00] did that conversation go and how, when did you ever see the light bulb turn on where you show somebody something's possible and they're like. Whoa. Okay. I'm, I'm interested in that.
And, and so just, just talk through that because you, you've, you've lived it, you've experienced it. So I, I'm, I'm curious because I know there's a lot of people
really struggling with that, right? Which is no, like people
literally have their hands up go away. I'm not interested because I already know that, like, the way that I do it is perceived as valuable to the person who's signing my timecard or my bonuses attached to that or
whatever. So again, my, my goal is to give technology companies and founders and people who are, are coming at this from the outside and understanding of what it's like where the rubber meets the road. Because you're, you're trying to teach people in the, your firm's process could potentially depend on
the things that we're talking about here, right?
Whereas they're, [00:38:00] they're selling a new tool to try to make that better, but they can't
connect the dots to the actual people who you have to get
to adopt to use it.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah.
Well, I mean, I can, I can speak from my experience, you know, I'm sure it could be getting evolved in other places, but so with not every firm has maybe the luxury of having dedicated. Design technology leaders at their firm. Right. But when that's there, you know, the, those are the gatekeepers for new vendors to get into firms.
Eventually, even if someone finds it, you know, a designer do not run out and take the firm's logo and stamp it on your website until you have licenses and you've got projects and, alright. So that's my little spiel on that. But I was one of those gatekeepers on a team of people who, in different areas we had different focuses.
So depending on the sort of area, we were able to, we had enough staff that we could focus on different, different types of [00:39:00] tools. Right? It wasn't just one person for all design technology, which was nice. 'cause then you could get deeper on a certain area. Like I was very deep on sustainability tools and simulation software.
So, you know. The next step was then, okay, we've got this bucket of tools. We've got people who know your point of contact internally. We would intentionally mask that, uh, because we didn't want everyone ringing our phone. We wanted to have that room to research, uh, evaluate, do the comparisons, build the ROI right, and then bring it back to leadership for consideration.
And you may have to wait until the next, until certain license agreements are out, because you don't know if they already have a three, five year agreement in place. So that's unfortunate because okay, they may be the perfect fit on every functional need, but they've already got their budgets allocated for these longer commitments.
So I can't really, so that's just a reality. Sometimes with business, they'll negotiate longer term deals. And then, uh, in terms of [00:40:00] evaluation, so getting it used, I mean, there's a lot to persuade people to try it out. You know, a lot of times I. Again, if you had that person who had the high aptitude or the dedicated specialist, they would try to build up a proof of concept.
So I would work with the team, I'd identify the projects, we'd, we'd persuade them that this was valuable to just try this one new tool or this one new approach on a very specific, you know, 12 week engagement or 15 week engagement. And then throughout we'd show them how we were gonna gather feedback and be there to support them and, you know, ensure that they had success no matter how good or not good the tool was, right?
We, they were gonna be successful no matter, no matter what. So giving them that assurance was everything. Now, you know, the challenge was fulfilling that because, okay, you could say everybody in the firm needs this tool, but if you can't win one project, how are you expecting to win every project? And so you really had to sort of land [00:41:00] there.
See it through, take the time necessary to do it really well. Document the process, capture the story, get the, get it in terms of the words from the designers, you know, and then I was one of those people who was also translating the feedback from the designers to functional requirements that the engineers from the toolmaker would then consider as part of the roadmap to improve the software next.
So that relationship was really important, to, you know, give that two-way feedback. And so, it was like client relationship management, you know, certain individuals at the firm had ownership over certain accounts and certain, so I couldn't just reach directly out to certain vendors depending on the relationship.
So that was real. Um, so I realized that the challenge is just finding the right person to talk with. And, but I think the more you can get a proof of concept, even internally, I would take that story and then we would start to use that. As a way to establish precedent and then other people would jump on again.
It was one project at a [00:42:00] time and until certain stuff just took a grind, other things, they were just like wildfire. Everyone just saw the value immediately and overnight. We adopted the tool, but most of the time
getting people to appreciate the value. It was a process and we
Evan Troxel: How did you do that? I mean, like, like how did you So, so
there's the idea of like a lunch and learn, right? Where it's, let's show off what we did on this project. It is not unlike a building product manufacturer coming into the office and buying lunch for the people who are willing to sit through their presentation so that they can learn about a building product that they are 99.9% not gonna use on the project that they're working on right
now.
But it's just putting a seed out there to say, this thing exists. I'm the person you should call if you're ever interested in
using it and creating a connection. Right. And so, so the
expectation I think, is there from both sides. That is correct. Which is the the outsiders coming in and saying, look, here's this [00:43:00] thing, here's what it
does, here's why you should know about it. And also know, also knowing that it's not gonna hit right now, it's not gonna find its feet on
everybody's project who showed up to that room, but just saying, look, this thing exists. The people coming to that presentation are also acknowledging that
they're interest because they're curious and because they want the sandwich, they're gonna show up and they're going to listen and, and just file that away for later because it's not for right now, most likely,
I think that this is not unlike that.
Right. Because it's this one way to, to get, and I'm, I'm going through all of this painstaking process to say like, how does technology even get visible
exposure inside of a firm when. There's definitely the people doing like little r and d here and there on their own time, their own curiosity, going out and searching on YouTube for tutorials on how to use it or talking to somebody that they [00:44:00] know and they do hold onto it because it's like secret sauce.
It's kind of special. It kind of makes them kind of special. And then there's your job, which is finding and identifying the big, the big stuff that can make major changes. And then showing everybody with the potential, how do you get that message out? Right? Because I think I want, again, technologists and technology providers to understand what's actually going on in the firms to get their products visible.
I mean it's,
or their, or a new workflow or
any little
piece of the solution because it's, there's a lot of work
Timothy Halvorson: a good point. Yeah, you're totally right. And, uh, I would say, so I'll try to simplify the process just to a Cliff Notes version. Then we can expand if you want. But, uh, again, like if, if it's a big, if, if you can identify the gatekeepers, uh, you know, I was in a position like that before where you get, you'd evaluate it, you sort of have a [00:45:00] one-on-one, they'd give you a product demo.
You'd say, this is pretty cool. You'd then bring it back to the bigger team within that department and you'd say, okay, is this worth considering, you know, someone who may actually have the purse strings or may have more visibility across the firm to say, yeah, I know a principal is doing this and they have a project upcoming.
So we started to get to a position where we were, again, it took a while to, but the design technology group started to get more optics as partners in the business building process. Like how do we actually turn digital differentiator or technology as something that is a. A differentiator for the practice to, to land the work.
So then we were getting involved with the business development and the pursuit. So if you could start to associate upstream with the right tools and the right tech stack, that then sets the firm apart and maybe 95% of its standard and five research, right? Then you can start to find those [00:46:00] opportunities to pilot the tech sooner and without, 'cause it's sort of rolled up into a pursuit marketing budget.
It's not sort of carved out from the fee that they've pitched on. And then over time that started to see the value and then they would actually set hours into the schedule to have that freedom. You know? So I, I think it's always challenge, but moving upstream and then to your point, like, okay, I do think getting that pre prequalification process is essential because, uh, in my previous experience we were doing our own internal CEUs.
We would actually. Curate our own training content, go get it approved for continuing education and then, you know, show it to the, to the region or to the firm, and, and that would get approved. And so people would prioritize that because they knew we'd taken the time to pre validate or vet what content was being shown.
And so sometimes it was bring a vendor in for half of it. Sometimes it was we [00:47:00] do half, or sometimes we'd get a presentation behind the scenes before we'd bring it publicly to the firm. Again, that's all just internal promotion. Um, so, you know, there's plenty of vendors that we had relationships with.
Again, I'm speaking of my last firm's experience, but you know, I, it is a challenge because it's hard to see, you know, am I talking to the right individual and does that individual know how to take the information I'm giving them back to the right person? I think that's the challenge is again, as mentioned, managing up If I'm a, you know, a user or a modeler, someone who's in the work every day, I've got my desktop up, I've got my research up, I'm sort of always heads down, I'm not doing all the other business development activities. They may be your best advocates because they're using it, but then they can't communicate what they're finding back to the right person.
Um, who then has the actual authority to make a decision on piloting that. [00:48:00] So, you know, that's really what I saw as the process is as long as that point of contact is extremely well known internal to the firm and everybody out there is sort of the extension, the fingers, they're familiar with it, then they know how to create that feedback to get the conversation flowing.
And now you actually have, you know, you have the opportunity to, to present to somebody that can make a decision. So it's a challenge. I'm not gonna say it's not, especially in a, you know, I was at a big firm, it's not like. Everyone's talking between offices. I mean, each office was kind of, I don't know. I mean, sometimes they're connected, sometimes they're on an island under themselves, and it was different on a per office basis.
So yeah, it's a challenge for sure.
Evan Troxel: I think companies, tech providing companies know this. Right. And they're making, I think we've seen
a huge shift into cloud
software, cloud-based software. Right. And that I. Targets the user, right? And so it really does put the onus on the users to try [00:49:00] to create a grassroots effort in a firm. It, it actually enables
them to be able to do that because they don't have to ask for it's
permission necessarily to do something. I'd say that's a big shift, right? Where in the olden days, back when I was, you know, practicing architect and doing design, it was like, um, can I please get this piece of software? I had to actually say, here's the value that it's
gonna deliver to me and my job and our timeline on this project, and it's worth this much. I already know how to use it. I, you don't even have to pay for any training. And that was to speak about the gatekeepers. Right. And now these companies realize that like, wow, it just runs in a tab.
Anybody can use Miro or Arco or whatever, right? And it's like, that's a totally different thing. And so now there is much more potential for grassroots efforts to start. At the same
time to speak to what you were just [00:50:00] speaking about, leadership is completely disconnected from the complexity of modern software and therefore it's like. What do you mean? We need another tool to do that? We already have these tools. We spend a lot of money on these tools. Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on Autodesk
and Adobe, just to name two.
Right? Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for a
medium size to a large size firm is going to two companies. What do you mean we need more? Like those
things do it all. I was watching, uh, Nicola ER's, uh, presentation at the Arco retooling a EC event,
Timothy Halvorson: Mm-Hmm.
Evan Troxel: and he showed his famous Revit railing graphic that he put
together.
Have you seen this graphic? It's like, it's just the railing tool and it's all the
parameters of the railing tool. Which ones are buried? Three levels deep, two levels deep, one level deep. How? And it, it's a program unto itself.
The railing. Tool in Revit, [00:51:00] just like the stair tool is. It's like a whole app and there's so much complexity to that tool. If you showed that to a, this would be an amazing Lunch and learn, show that to your firm's leadership and say, this is what it takes to drive a railing. Like you see the railing, you have no
idea what it took to make that railing in software to actually control the parameters. Make sure that it gets coordinated with the details and the section cuts and the plan views the elevations, like everything for it to look just right, for all of that to actually work for the spacings to line up to
meet a DA and do all these things because it's a special handrail.
It's not just like a typical
guardrail, right? It's a special handrail and that's, this is what it takes to drive that. I think they would be blown away because it's like, what
do you mean it's just a railing? I. You know, everybody has railings in their projects, but, but this, this, this shows the opportunity for new software to come in and, and
do something better.
For sure. And at [00:52:00] the same time, from the top, we're getting this pushback of, what do you mean you need more tools? Like we already have a tool that does that, so why are you
wasting your time looking at other things? And this is not a conversation
that is going over very well in firms and I, this is what tech
providers are also up against.
Timothy Halvorson: I, yeah, I would say if you want to establish trust, uh, and break in, if you can nurture, be part of the nurturing of that value-based conversation. I feel like tech providers are great at, maybe I'm just speculating here, but going for funding and having that elevator pitch and having 10 slides to get seed funding.
Well, how can you empower the users to have a concise version of the value just like that from their perspective, you know? And then they're, if you help them with that, they'll be your best advocates where it's just an extension of your sales team. 'cause it's internal and to your point, um, I remember it's the build versus buy conundrum.
You [00:53:00] know, I remember just 'cause you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. And started, I remember deep diving on Dynamo and Grasshopper as a grad student way back. And then you get all excited with the possibility of, you know, no constraints and everything's possible and you're all excited.
And then next thing you know, you know, everything is a nail to hit with your hammer, your newfound hammer that you, because, but then the moment you try to show someone all of that, you know, that algorithm, just everything that's happening under the hood, their eyes glaze over and they just dismiss you.
Right? And I've, I remember when I was a younger professional having, why can't we just, and it was from a leader, there's that word, uh, there, use AutoCAD instead of Revit.
Evan Troxel: Mm-Hmm
Timothy Halvorson: why can't we? And
they were focusing on the churn and the deliverable, and they had a point, you know, but they wanted to understand why Revit versus AutoCAD, that classic question.
I thought we were already past that point, you know? And [00:54:00] same thing, you know, is it grasshopper versus dynamo? And honestly, who cares, in my opinion, should we buy the tool versus build the tool? And. To your point, it, it feels like that because just the moment you buy the tool, it's like you're not leveraging it.
And that's really where I've made a full-time job out of taking the existing tech stack that was already procured and making the most of it. And
Evan Troxel: Which is a huge, huge, huge investment that that existing test
tech stack is a huge, it's, and like you said, it could be, you could have already bought it for the next
three or five years, right. to
Timothy Halvorson: yeah.
Evan Troxel: a
little even more complex.
Timothy Halvorson: And I, the challenge is, you know, unfortunately, I don't know, I mean it's, it's basically, I would probably still be in architecture if I didn't see such a huge need for this, right? Like having the dedicated job to integrate focus on integration application so you're not just talking in abstract terms.
You know, I mean, that was [00:55:00] everything from publicly available tools to proprietary tools. And it was the same problem. If you can't get real, tangible, practical feedback from users or if they, there's all these little moments where they get stuck,
Evan Troxel: mm-Hmm
Timothy Halvorson: using it
or, you know, do I have permission from my leadership and management to actually use the tool?
So they're worried about doing something wrong. They may be super aptitude, like the best aptitude, best tool, best user interface, and they don't have permission from leadership. So again, they need to be able to serve
Evan Troxel: You have to align all of that. Yeah. You have to get it
all in alignment. It's hard.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah. And so nurturing that conversation again was like 70% of my time.
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's a good
segue to talk about what you're doing now with sevenfold. And to be clear, that's the number seven
and then fold and sevenfold. We'll, we'll
put a link to it in the show notes. Uh, so you can see what Timothy's up to. So you have obviously [00:56:00] recognized that
there is a void in the market. You said it earlier yourself. Not every firm
has a design technologist, a person who understands the nuance of speaking, the different languages of the different
people who are working in the office to connect the dots along the whole production pipeline and make sure we're not
losing data along the way so that we can actually see the, the true potential of what the
technology and the software has to offer throughout the entire process. And there's an aspect of training to that as well. So, I, I just want to hand over the, the mic to you at this point and talk about why you're doing what you're doing and then, and
then what it's all about.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah. I really appreciate the, the platform and the space, uh, Evan, and this is, I'm glad you're hosting these conversations. It's so needed. I. Um, yeah, so Sevenfold is, it was born outta kinda what we've been talking about. You know, there's two arms to it. There's a Sevenfold Academy, which is self-paced courses that help, you know, [00:57:00] raise, that all ships rise with, you know, the change of technology.
So I'm launching a series of, you know, core practice courses that can help. I'm targeting emerging professionals, zero to seven years of experience, um, to help baseline, and then from there, launch more specialized courses depending on what the need of the market is. But really what we've been getting at is more of the consulting arm.
So how to drive, you know, taking what the trainings provide and then integrating that to the specific firm, uh, requirements, project requirements, accounts, et cetera. And having a true holistic digital transformation strategy, not just. Buying the next cool software and sticking you in the hands of your whizzbang, uh, designer, you know, but really getting that alignment from top to bottom so that the whole firm can move in sync and lockstep.
And it's lining up the client expectations, the fee scope and schedule to the actual capabilities of the software. So, you know, driving that digital [00:58:00] transformation, yes, my background is architecture, but I'm positioning more in that middle space to bridge academia and commercial practice as well as construction and software providers.
So again, I'm mostly serving architecture firms, but I've already been having conversations with folks on the, you know, the material providing side who are trying to provide architects with tools or, you know, it's really just trying to help bridge that digital transformation. So. Um, you know, you'll be seeing courses.
I've got three courses planned for 2024. Um, you know, first a hundred students, they get part of a pilot group, uh, you know, to join me and asked their questions. Not trying to just launch yet another Revit course out there. It's, um, you know, it's, it's, I, I wouldn't be making it if I didn't see the need because it's everything we talked about today.
It's that outcome driven, value driven mindset woven into the capabilities of the tool. And so I hope that, you know, as I continue to partner with other, [00:59:00] uh, trusted tech providers, you know, that's one way they've engaged me as well, is providing technical documentation, developing tutorials, um, helping bridge that into firms.
So a lot of times, and this is my final thought, is, um, you know, the design technology leader inside a firm may be overwhelmed with fixing problems all day long. But then they can't ever get their head above the water and look ahead to research and actually differentiate where the firm's going. So that's another way where I can help mobilize that initiative, give it a spark, and then with the goal of empowering people in the firm to take it forward.
And then you sort of throttle back to just being available on an as needed basis, you know? So I'm really all about empowering, empowering people, not creating any sort of codependent relationship. So that's my goal.
Evan Troxel: I think it's in incredibly important that you
are coming from a practice role because [01:00:00] you understand.
What they're dealing with on a day. You understand the deadlines, you understand the limitations or the possibilities of the technology, probably even more so than they do, right? Because you, you've taken the time to dedicate a huge chunk of your life to becoming, to, to really be having an expertise
in these different platforms. And so you may just know that things exist that they don't, and that could be a huge help immediately. But you also know how to apply it and how
it affects the outcome of the project, which is, again, I think it, this is incredibly important for the tech side to understand of why these people like you need, why, why you need to exist in the marketplace.
Because there are, there's a huge lack of resources in so many firms. Out there. So who is your target audience
for the things that you're working on? I mean, there's all different sizes of firms, there's all different technologies being used already that they, people have, [01:01:00] they've invested hugely in and it's very hard to switch out of.
But
I'm sure you have kind of like a, you, you talk about this initial cohort. Who are you really looking for to,
to become a part of that?
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah. Uh, so I'm, I like to say I'm serving firms in teams of sizes, one to 1000. I've worked on some international projects, very comfortable working on multinational, multi-office projects. Um, but my initial cohort for the academy, that's my long range vision to grow that. So I'm starting with emerging professionals.
That's my term for zero to seven years experience. So everything from students who are in school trying to get that first internship. I want anybody who comes through the Sevenfold Academy to be at the top of the resume stack, um, to be the sought after talents. And then folks who are new to us, software that maybe are bridging from, you know, I dunno, AutoCAD to Revit or SketchUp to Rhino, or Bridging from a new software that's also a perfect group, um, who want the shortcut
to getting high [01:02:00] impact, high value training.
I've been there searching Google and YouTube, um, for partial solutions all over the place. I wanted one place that had sort of the bedrock, uh, and then have the conversation on what we wanna specialize into. So really that's, that's the goal, is to create that one place. Um, you know, and I, if, if it was already out there, I would've, I wouldn't be making it.
So
Evan Troxel: Yeah. Again, I appreciate what you're doing because it gives firms who don't have those dedicated resources an option. Uh, even if they can't dedicate resources to those, they, they probably can afford to have somebody come in and really inject, really pointed high value information and process into
what they're already doing.
Timothy Halvorson: Yeah, and I'll just add, I mean, this is the one call to action. You can go to the sevenfold I website, hit the contact button, request a discovery session, and I've got a menu of things that people have been reaching [01:03:00] out about that I can offer expertise to. But again, the benefit is getting that tailored solution to the needs of your firm.
And I'm, so, if, if it's beyond my scope of expertise, I'll gladly let you know. But, um, you know, I want to create that conversation. And again, the tailored experience is what I specialize at. So.
Evan Troxel: Yeah, fantastic. Well, the website is seven, the number seven fold.io, and that's Timothy's new venture. I'm excited for you, man, and I hope that, uh, this is gonna work out well for you. I think the things that you shared today really do kind of give the peak behind the
curtain of what it's like to deal
Timothy Halvorson: Mm-Hmm
Evan Troxel: with digital technology, design technology, bim technology training.
All of you know what I would consider like a digital practice kind of. This was just a great insight, a window into
what it actually takes in a firm to make that kind of thing happen. It's not a walk in the park. It's incredibly nuanced. There's a lot of audiences within a firm. There's politics,
there's [01:04:00] budgets, there's all these things, there's contracts, there's risk, right?
And these teams are the ambassadors of a lot of these tech companies into the firms. And they have a lot working against them. They also have a lot working for them. You know, if they are like Timothy and they've developed relationships with leadership and they are the kind of people who understand a lot of this nuance, that's a huge benefit.
But at the same time, there's a lot of people out there who don't have
all that as well. And that is, um, I, my goal was to, was to kind of
pull the curtain back. And I wanna do it with more episodes with people in who have had different experiences or in, are different positions in firms. So look for this series of. Practitioners on the Troxel podcast to grow. But
it was great having you here, Timothy, to be the,
to be the first one. So
I'll put links to your LinkedIn and your website on in the show notes, but if there's anywhere else that you wanna
let
people know about, now's your chance.
Timothy Halvorson: That is the place to be. [01:05:00] Sevenfold.Io is the check place to check out, and thanks for having me, Evan. I'm, I'm hopeful, you know, if you wanna have me back, I'd love to be back. This is obviously a deep conversation and looking forward to seeing who wants
to, you know, see where, see where it goes from here.
Thanks again.
Evan Troxel: Great. ​