209: ‘Leading by Connection: How TAP is Redefining Integration Across the AIA’, with Cesar Escalante

209: ‘Leading by Connection: How TAP is Redefining Integration Across the AIA’, with Cesar Escalante

Evan Troxel: Welcome to the TRXL Podcast. I'm Evan Troxel, and in this episode I welcome Cesar Escalante. Cesar is a practicing architect turned technologist who now serves as global technical marketing manager at Autodesk, and is the current chair of AIA's Technology and Architectural Practice, AKA TAP Knowledge Community.

His career connects design, technology and leadership. From being the first in school to use AutoCAD to helping firms adopt BIM and computational design, and now to leading national conversations that bring together sustainability codes and technology.

Born and educated in El Salvador before completing graduate work at the University of Texas, Cesar has worked in small practices, large firms and tech companies, giving him a unique perspective on how the tools we use shape the work we do. In this episode, we talk about the idea of practical AI and architecture, what it really means for firms today and how smaller practices can make meaningful progress without getting overwhelmed. We also discussed TAP's recent sold out symposium, how the committee is connecting different parts of the industry and the group's effort to recreate technology "recipes" that firms can actually put into practice.

Along the way, Cesar shares his thoughts on risk, interoperability, IP and how major shifts in the economy or technology can open new doors for those willing to adapt. One of the most interesting threads in this conversation is the arc of reinvention, how curiosity and adaptability can shape a career.

Cesar's story starts with being that person in the office who's always experimenting with new tools. Maybe you can relate over time, each challenge and industry shift became an opportunity to build new skills and take on new roles, even if he didn't see those coming. That same mindset now drives his work leading TAP, where he's helping connect knowledge communities that don't often overlap in official settings, like those focused on codes, sustainability and technology to move the profession forward in a more coordinated way. It's a great reminder that innovation in our field usually happens through people who are willing to stay curious, explore the edges of the profession, keep learning and bring others along for the ride. As always, you'll find more information in the show notes. You can find them in your podcast app if you're a supporting TRXL+ member, or at the podcast website, which is TRXL.co if you're a free member. And if you enjoy these conversations, please share the episode with your colleagues or jump into the discussion with me on LinkedIn or YouTube.

I really enjoyed this one. So now without further ado, here's my conversation with Cesar Escalante.

Cesar, welcome to the podcast.

It has been in the books in the making for a while now. I mean, obviously I've been aware of, you way before where you are currently. Uh, you were involved in a lot of technology. What, what should we say? Industry groups, uh, dynamo groups, Revit groups in the Bay area And before you are where you are now.

But I would love it if you could kind of tell us a, a story of, how you got into. Architecture technology eventually Autodesk and the AIA Technology and Practice group. So let's go for it.

Cesar Escalante: I'm an architect. I'm based in California, in San Francisco. Uh, my current role is, uh, global Technical marketing, uh, manager at Autodesk. Uh, I am a spoke man of innovation coming out of the product line, focus on, uh, building, uh, in architecture. I've been here for about five years. but at the

Evan Troxel: Already, geez,

Cesar Escalante: time

Evan Troxel: that's, that's flying by. Yeah. I.

Cesar Escalante: Uh, yeah. And, uh, but prior to joining Autodesk, I be, be, I mean, I work as an architect for about, uh, 20 years. Um, and, uh, um, study architecture in El Salvador. That's where I'm from originally.

Evan Troxel: Okay.

Cesar Escalante: Uh, studied my Bachelor of architecture at University Centro Americana, uh, in El Salvador. And I'm not gonna say the year, but

Evan Troxel: You, when, when you just said that you, you, you were in the industry for 15 and then you've been at Autodesk now for five years. I'm like, you do not look a day over 32. I'm gonna say

Cesar Escalante: well, thank for the compliment.

Evan Troxel: Uhhuh.

Cesar Escalante: Um, but, uh, you know, back when I was a student of architecture, uh, I was one of the first, I was the first person in my, uh, uh, tier presented a design works in AutoCAD. remember, uh, unfolding, uh, a very, uh, old set of, uh, uh, prints in, uh, you know. Laser dot printer to my teachers.

And they were like, oh, what is this? This is AutoCAD. And I think I was using AutoCAD, 20, no, uh, it was AutoCAD, uh, six or seven. And they were just very, very impressed about computer aided design. Um, and, um, there I opened a big debate inside the faculty about what

Evan Troxel: sure.

Cesar Escalante: for, for, uh, education and for practice.

And, you know, I, was, uh, I moved, eh, some influences to get the first computer at my university. Very, very old, uh, desktop. Uh, but, uh, and, and you know, my work was displayed as a, in a gallery in, uh, the lobby of the university as this is introduction would be, uh, uh, CAD and, um,

Evan Troxel: Into the program.

Cesar Escalante: into the program.

Evan Troxel: I, so, so what's interesting is I, okay, so we're, we're rough, you know, similar, um, as far as like,

Cesar Escalante: Mm-hmm.

Evan Troxel: was one of the first as well and it was met with so much friction in my program. And, and what I wanted to kind of just go over real quick was it sounds like they were like. Whoa, what's this Really curious about what you were doing but also and putting it on display and welcoming it Because I think that wasn't my experience.

My experience wasn't a bad experience where I was, but it wasn't welcomed. There was a lot of friction, there was a lot of pushback because it wasn't the training that they were supplying and it wasn't the training that they had when, you know, my professors who, who were, you know, I was looking to the side because I'm looking for my, I actually still have my rapidograph ink pens over here somewhere.

And I was looking, because when you had to hand draw, you had to pick the different line weights, you know, with the pen that you used if you were doing ink on vallum or ink on Mylar and what a painstaking process that was. Right. And. I have kind of mixed feelings to this day about being able to draw lines and then just delete them or move them or, you know, all the, the, the modern kind of affordances that computers give you because you just don't have to be as committed and careful and all of those things, like when you're actually drawing with.

Pens, and obviously drawing with graphite is a different story. We all had electric erasers and eraser templates and all, all of those tools as well, because yeah, you could just erase a line, but if you did it in ink, it was a not an easy process to, a lot of times you would just start drawing over again, right, because it was, it was going to look terrible on the page and obvious that you had drawn a line or something in the wrong place and had to get rid of it, right?

Because it would actually chew up the, the material that you were drawing on. And it was obvious to see that. So, uh, just, just an interesting point that, that how, how, you talked about how you were in a gallery and it was on display and it was like, here comes the next thing and that they, that they did that.

Cesar Escalante: And I have to say that this is the result of the confluence of two things. My dad is, was a general contractor who had, um, a developer office, back in the days, he bought personal computer for his practice with, uh, all box of AutoCAD,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: he did not, he did not understand how to use.

Evan Troxel: Sure.

Cesar Escalante: it was good, but, uh,

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: I was actually, I learned it from, uh, uh, English, manual.

I mean, back then AutoCAD came with this really thick manuals.

Evan Troxel: sure.

Cesar Escalante: I, I read it from to

Evan Troxel: All software did. All software came with, with volumes of manuals, right? Yes. Yeah. It was a big

Cesar Escalante: remember

Evan Troxel: yes.

Cesar Escalante: And me being trained in school in English, I, I, I, I learned it very quickly. I pick it up. Uh, and then, uh, the second thing that influences that as a student, I intern at a architectural office a fresh, uh, graduate, well, young architect come from the, uh, who study at University of Texas, uh, was supporting the production of architectural work. And, and she teaching me the way to do produce, uh, construction documentation. Uh, it was one of, probably on the first offices who use AutoCAD. And so this combination of, oh, I had an AutoCAD at home and I'm. Being

Evan Troxel: That was huge.

Cesar Escalante: new person, new professional from either the us that opened up a new door into technology that I had

Evan Troxel: for sure.

Cesar Escalante: and gave me

Evan Troxel: For sure.

Cesar Escalante: uh, competitive advantage.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Wow.

Cesar Escalante: um,

Evan Troxel: A and then the other thing you mentioned was printing. And you said like you printed it out on like, what kind of printer did you print? Do you remember?

Cesar Escalante: metrics, uh, and

Evan Troxel: matrix printer. Okay. So those things make this terrible sound as they're printing on. And the paper has the, the whole punch edges to roll through the machine at the right amount each time a line needed to, to advance forward.

I mean, this is before laser printers. This is before inkjet printers. This is before even laser printers, I think. Uh, and, and so you're talking about like eight and a half by 11 sheets of paper, I assume

Cesar Escalante: and, and, and they had like a, a white format, I think it was, uh, 17 inches wide.

Evan Troxel: 11 by 17. Wow. That, that, that probably cost $5,000 by itself. Like just that printer. Right. So it was, things were really expensive. So this was a huge investment. On your dad's part, right? To to to buy this machine, to buy the software, to buy the printer. And then you still have all these limitations that you had to deal with, right.

With printing and, right. You didn't get these size sheets or e size sheets or anything like that. You, you had smaller stuff to work with. And this was before pen plotter days. It was probably about the same time, but that was a whole other technology. Right. You could actually buy a pen plotter with different types of pens and it would swap out the pens and draw the lines.

And that was really fun. We had one of those in school too, but, uh, but wow. I mean, it's just fun. It's to go back down memory lane here and, and be nostalgic as we kicked things off for this conversation. It's really cool.

Cesar Escalante: exactly. And so, um, I became an evangelist of technology from the early, those very early

Evan Troxel: Nice.

Cesar Escalante: because I needed to explain what this was about, uh, how it was used and what is the value that it brings to my professors

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: and then, uh, make a value proposition to support the, uh, procurement of, uh, the first computer lab at the university. taught, uh, computer, uh, aid design, uh, on my fifth year. And as soon as I graduated, I got a scholarship to study at University of Texas

Evan Troxel: Okay,

Cesar Escalante: the that my mentor went. Um, so, um, I, um, study a master's in Design with climate because there was, sustainability wasn't around back then.

Evan Troxel: Uhhuh. Right.

Cesar Escalante: and I did a, a two year program. another master's degree in urban Planning, another two year program. So I studied four years in Texas, um, and then I moved to the Bay Area, uh, where I've been ever since. Um,

Evan Troxel: So can I just talk about the culture differences going from El Salvador to, where was it in Texas? Where's the university? Austin. Okay. So, I mean, Austin wasn't the Austin it is today, back then, right? I'm sure it was probably pretty different. And then to San Francisco, to the Bay Area. I mean, those are three, I'm what I assume are three very different cultures.

And, and was that something that was really amazing to experience? Was it very difficult? Like what, what was that like?

Cesar Escalante: It was a culture shock. I mean, for a young guy in my twenties, um, who never took a flown of an airplane before, uh, moving to Texas, uh, uh, was, uh, uh, hard at the beginning. Uh, I had to, refine my academic English big time. Uh, that put me in a, in a disadvantage with other people.

Evan Troxel: You just have to do that at the same time you're doing your schooling, right? Like you just had multiple jobs to do all at the same time because of that disadvantage.

Cesar Escalante: Exactly. Um, then culturally, uh, Texas is, um, um, uh, well, Austin was, uh, uh, like a bubble in the middle of, of Texas, eh, college town is still very well known for its music history,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: I, I, I joined a very small program. It was seven of us, I believe, in the master program

Evan Troxel: Wow.

Cesar Escalante: years. um, but they devoted a lot of resources.

I was part of a exchange program that send us to London, uh, and Amsterdam. So for me it was like, uh, it opens a new world that I had never expected. Uh, and, uh, uh, great mentors and professors who supported my academic work. And, uh, also work in, at the university as, computer assistant in the lab assistant, uh, because I had experience with CAD and I could explain terminology to students. Um, and that's, uh, helped me go through, some of the, uh, living expenses or going through college. Uh,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: a lot to technology. Um. Uh, I did not, like the geography of Texas, it all flat, very cold. Uh, winters very, very hot and humid. Summers, thought the rest of the United States was like Texas.

Evan Troxel: Of course. Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: when I went on a, um, when I went on a, a summer trip to San Francisco, I saw a completely different, uh, uh, world. And I say, oh, this is where I want to go after

Evan Troxel: Wow. Wow. Very cool.

Cesar Escalante: and uh, my first job. As an urban recent graduate in urban planning, it was called the Urban Researcher. And what that means, it was, um, I thought it was very academic work, but when I was being interviewed by this small firm in no longer exists, I think called three Divisions, they were asking me, how good are you at riding bikes? Um, what would you do if you get challenged by somebody on the streets?

Evan Troxel: Wow,

Cesar Escalante: uh, if a dog follows you, what would you do? Like, what the hell is this?

Evan Troxel: were alarms going off, like, what is going on? What, why are you asking me this stuff? Because there's, there's what you see and then there's what you actually experience when you live there, and those are probably two very different things.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah. So it turned out that the Trinity Vision had a, um. Uh, consultants work for the city of Oakland, uh, with a goal of, uh, survey digitally every intersection of the streets and validate whether the ramps were compliant or not. And so my

Evan Troxel: Oh yeah.

Cesar Escalante: on a, a seven hours a day with a hand handheld device connected with uh, S3 databases

Evan Troxel: Wow,

Cesar Escalante: plug every corner and measure it and document whether it was compliant or not. uh, yes, I will. I think I walked the entire state of Oakland.

Evan Troxel: wow.

Cesar Escalante: and that's probably, I'm so dark in my skin from hours

Evan Troxel: So,

Cesar Escalante: the sun.

Evan Troxel: so did you actually get chased by dogs and uh, and all of those things that they had asked you about when you were interviewing?

Cesar Escalante: No, but people confuse me as a, a police agent and they would run out of businesses thinking that I

Evan Troxel: You're doing surveillance.

Cesar Escalante: I surveillance or giving them, uh, traffic tickets.

Evan Troxel: Wow.

Cesar Escalante: So I was, um, international student. I didn't, I was not a US resident. the pressure mounted because, uh, in the graduate programs or offer or educational programs offer one year OPT, they call it, which this an opportunity to work for a year after graduation. And, uh, if you can find a sponsor to allow you to stay in the United States, you have to leave the country. And so I basically search everywhere for an opportunity to work. it turned out that the positions available for H one V Visas, uh, are to technology focus. Um. Math and science. is considered, uh, one of those, uh, fields where you can get a, a sponsorship. Urban planning is a social science, uh, in the books of the, uh, state. uh, that's,

Evan Troxel: Hmm

Cesar Escalante: practice urban planning at all.

Evan Troxel: hmm.

Cesar Escalante: a very low pay job, uh, for standards of San Francisco, uh, working as a card monkey

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: a very, very small firm. um, uh, this firm, in this firm, I did all the AutoCAD work.

Um, but eh, seven years with them, I was able to help them secure my, eh, green card,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: a sponsorship. Now it's, that's. Super. That's very difficult to do nowadays. Uh, uh, and yeah, I, I, that opened the door for greater and better opportunities. Uh, so it's, um, a, I jumped from, uh, a firm of 12 people to, uh, flat Architects, which is a, a corporate office based on the Midwest, where I worked for, uh, about four years, uh, as a project architect capacity. Uh, one of the feature projects there was, um, the new Salesforce campus that was never built in San Francisco, uh, designed by Ricardo La Gorea in Mexico City. And,

Evan Troxel: cool.

Cesar Escalante: eh, because I knew Spanish and, uh, flat was big on bim. Um, I was sent to, uh, train Ricardo Loretta's office in Mexico City, uh, for six months, and I get to, um, get to know, uh, the city, uh, work with a very high profile, uh, architect, uh, help them transform their internal operations. that was very satisfying, um,

Evan Troxel: I bet.

Cesar Escalante: do. Yeah.

Evan Troxel: City is wonderful. I, in my experience, it's just an incredible place.

Cesar Escalante: Yes, it is. Um, full of contrast rich and, um, great people.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: so after working with Flat and, um, I think that was 2012, I worked, um, I switched careers and then, oh, I went to work for I idea eight. a reseller of Autodesk products that had an educational department, uh, and a consultant to support firms in the process of implementing bim.

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: my, my job was to teach Revit and support companies, uh, from 2D to, to bim. I did that for about 4, 3, 4 years. And in that capacity, I trained a big corporate, uh. I build relationship with people from Gensler, from HOK. And as a result of our relationship, end up securing a job at HOK as a regional design technology manager, uh, in the San Francisco office, supporting about 200 people in the West Coast. And that opened also, uh, the door for more technology, uh, exposure and, uh, advising teams on, uh, how to align and, uh, best tools for the different scope of work, uh, helping teams, uh, right, uh, beam execution plans, um, uh, what a Beam manager would do. Uh, then I will, uh, I switch companies to Gensler. Um, the San Francisco's San Francisco office landed with one of the biggest projects in the West coast back then. Um, the, uh, Santa Clara City Center is about 1.2 billion square foot, uh, 300 acres of land. One of the last few remaining big spots next to Levi Stadium. Uh, I was a BIM director for that project, and then COVID hit, and as a result, I, I lost my position there and, um, I started to look everywhere, somewhere else.

Eh, that's where I joined Autodesk. Um, and I've been

Evan Troxel: Interesting.

Cesar Escalante: for five years. Yes.

Evan Troxel: Wow. And, and you, I'm, I'm curious about, just as, as we're still kind of in the, the, your story state, the transition from CAD to bim, that sounds like it happened at Flad for you, was that what, what was that like for you? Was it easy, natural? Was it difficult? I mean, obviously you had a technology background, so.

It probably wasn't as difficult as somebody picking it up for the first time. Right. But it is a para, it was a paradigm shift back then even, and, and many times teams would just declare bankruptcy on projects and just export to AutoCAD. Right. They just, we can't take it anymore. It's everything's broken because nobody really knew how to, how to use BIM super effectively in the beginning.

It was a learning process and we spent a lot of time learning on projects and breaking tons of stuff. And so, like I said, a lot of people would just hit the eject button and, and go back to AutoCAD. But I'm just curious what that process was like for you as a technology native. I think at that point.

Right, but but also a paradigm shift.

Cesar Escalante: I think I skipped that part of the story and I should go and revisit it. Uh, in the recession in 2007, uh, the small firm where I was account manager, saw a big loss of, uh, uh, income and I was let go. Curiously, that happens like a month after receiving my green card, and it was just a, uh, an alignment of the stars to see if I had let go during the process, I would have been forced to return to El Salvador.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: I am with a green card, unable to find jobs during the 2007 recession, and I say, well, I need to do something different. So I, I think I enroll a Revit class at San Francisco State

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Cesar Escalante: a civil engineer, and when I'm mechanical engineer, Elisa Mo. You're hearing this, thank you for teaching me Revit. And, uh, I like the software so much, uh, that I went, I did the, the three levels that they offer back then. Then, um, eh, I spend the, the next two, three months looking for a job. I couldn't land on anything, so I put a Craig List ad offering, uh, tutorial services of Revit for five, I think $12 an hour. And to my surprise, I started getting calls and emails from a lot of corporate who wanted to learn Revit. In, in less than a month and a half, I have my living room full of with their laptops, trying to learn Revit and coming with their own projects, with their own uh, trying to help me solve. And I have to be honest, uh, many times I did not know what, how to

Evan Troxel: To do.

Cesar Escalante: of the issues, but gave me the challenge to understand how to move forward. And, uh, I became a problem solver for a lot of them and the go-to person for, support. so from that, uh, from that, uh, engagement with, uh, as a, as a tutor, uh, I got a, call from an ex-colleague who used to work with me in this small firm. Um, and I worked for Flat. And he say, we're looking for somebody who knows Revit, and now you've been teaching Revit. And that got me a job.

Evan Troxel: Nice.

Cesar Escalante: it's, um. Those moments of downturn, recession, downturn that, uh, ha I have make switch in my career path. At first,

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: the first recession when I lost a job me into Revit until learning Revit. And then COVID is the one who make me switch from, architectural practice into, into Autodesk.

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: interesting that alignment

Evan Troxel: yeah,

Cesar Escalante: uh, recessions with the career

Evan Troxel: yeah. Pivot, right? Because you're, but but also credit to you for, for being like, like you had to hustle and you did, and you figured out a way to make something work, which of course you didn't foresee those opportunities. You were just trying to get by and survive. And through that natural process of just hustling, it just opened up.

These people saw what you were doing. Uh, it's so interesting to think about like, you're doing this for one reason, but then there's people from the outside. Seeing, seeing what's happening, maybe checking in every once in a while, and obviously you're, you have friends in the industry and you're talking every once in a while and about different experiences, and then somebody else connects the dots and they're like, oh, Cesar's the one we need to call for this.

I That's, that's really interesting. That's very cool. That.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah. And, uh, I, I think that as a, as a professional coming from a different country where English is not my native language, over felt in a position of disadvantage. But I think my like. My affinity for technology to understand workflows and process and, and technology processes me a stepping stone to move forward in my career in a different path.

Not in the traditional sense of designer, uh, project manager or, you know, eh, but in a path that I could not imagine it would turn it away. So

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: was forging my, my path,

Evan Troxel: Right.

Cesar Escalante: there wasn't any precedent back in those days on how you could be a technology leader. This, this, this roles were just coming up in the market, right?

And

Evan Troxel: Yeah, they were being invented as, as needed,

Cesar Escalante: exactly.

Evan Troxel: yeah. And you were at the right place at the right time and, and ahead of the curve as it were. Right, because you already knew how to use the tools when somebody finally realized that they needed somebody who knew how to use the tools. And I mean, that's rare too.

A lot of times I think people are in a position of we're behind, how do we, okay. What are we gonna do to catch up? And, and for you to already have been there, like, so you could just step right in is just like you said, you, you had kind of unintentionally forged that path, but it, it really worked out in your favor.

It's really cool.

Cesar Escalante: beginning I saw it as a diversion from a traditional path that

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: a, in the wrong direction because

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Right.

Cesar Escalante: any role model that I could follow and like, oh shit, I'm doing this as consulting for

Evan Troxel: You're always wondering. Yeah. I mean, you, how much, how much like stress did you have over I I would imagine, uh, it's sometimes that that is overwhelming. It's like, I'm not doing the thing that is obvious. The thing that they say that you have to do one of these three roles. You can be a designer, you could be a, a project manager, you could be a technical person in a firm like that was it.

Cesar Escalante: Yes, exactly.

Evan Troxel: all of a sudden there was other roles because the necessity arose. But there was, there's a lot, I think a lot of consternation around, uh, what am I doing going down this other path that, that is not defined.

Cesar Escalante: And the, at some point I just gonna see there, this a temporary patch in my career

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: gonna do this temporary while I land into something better. But it

Evan Troxel: Right,

Cesar Escalante: that, that something better was open up in front of me, uh, on the

Evan Troxel: right.

Cesar Escalante: side, uh,

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: planning it. It was more as a result of, uh, business, uh, and industry changes around, uh, technology. Yeah. Needs, yeah.

Evan Troxel: I think there's a lot of really important messages in there, so I'm glad we took the time to kind of go through your story and, and so now I'm, I, I wanna shift gears and talk about how you first started to get involved in the TAP side of things. So if you could just really quickly, so we've had, we've had a previous episode, I had Ryan Cameron on who was the previous chair of TAP on the podcast maybe about a year ago.

And we talked about what TAP was up to then. But I, I'm curious about how you, if, if you could just step back and, and for those who, who missed that one or don't know what TAP is, if you could explain what it is, but then let's tell the story of how you got started to get involved with that.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah, TAP is the technology and architectural practice knowledge community, uh, that sits under the national AIA, that um. Uh, advice, uh, are the AIA about the, uh, institutional positioning, uh, in an adoption of technology, uh, in an architectural practice. Uh, we are a group of, uh, five people coming from industry, uh, with a lot of different, uh, practice areas and expertise, who, uh, uh, uh, work in creating, uh, different type of initiatives in support of the technology needs of the AIA. Um, we have, um, I started engaging in AIA activities as a result of my involvement with the the Dynamo user group. So when I was working at HOK as a design technology manager, I, uh, welcomed the visit of Colin Croon, who back then was, uh, um, uh, the technology evangelist for Dynamo. And he give us a presentation, Hey, this is Dynamo.

You can bend Revit into doing something that's not meant to do. And I got super excited. I got so into it I started talking with peers in the. Uh, design community in San Francisco and we formed this user group that meet once a week, once a month, just to talk about how to use Dymo. And so, uh, after I left HOK and then we didn't have any place to meet and I reach out to the AIA and say, can we use your space to, we hold these meetings? And we did that for a couple of years, continued doing, uh, expanding the focus of this user group into computational design, uh, work, work processes. And then, um, the AI approached me and say, Hey, why I think there's an opportunity here to make this, uh, under the AIA. Would you be interested to lead that?

And yes, uh, the group was change, change name from Dynamo user group, uh, to back then it was the technology. Design technology, uh, knowledge community. And uh, um, then, uh, I did that for a couple of years. Then I was invited to sit as a, in the board of director of the San San Francisco. And, um, and from there I, became aware of what TAP National was and, uh, started, uh, bridging conversations at the AIA convention who they were rank.

I met rank fr from the same circle of dynamo enthusiasts. uh, I think I, I, I came across Brian at uh. I had a corridor in Art University and he, he told me that he was part of TAP and that was working on advising the AIA and, um, say, how, how can be part of that? And he invited me to apply. I, I got picked up um, uh, leadership of TAP, uh, it is on a rotational basis. you get to be the chair of the, uh, committee on your third year, uh, of five volunteer mandatory years. I'm the chair right now, uh, getting close to my, uh, to the end of my, commitment period. And, um, as a chair, uh, you lead the, uh, program and the definition of the annual TAP symposium, which is the event where you and I met last a couple of years, no, this year I think. That's where last time I saw you. Um, the TAP symposium is, um, is our signature event. Uh, that, uh, uh, it was first conceived as a pre-conference of the AIA

Evan Troxel: Right.

Cesar Escalante: Convention. And,

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm.

Cesar Escalante: uh, now it's part of the, technology focus, themes in the, uh, in the program of the, uh, of the convention. And so I am, uh, this year I focus in creating a program around sustainability and um, uh. Uh, and technology in conjunction with the AIA Code Committee. Uh, Dan Stein, who is member of the AI National, uh, agreed to collaborate with us in this, uh, joint program, and we were able to put together a very interesting, uh, and successful program. Um, we invited, uh, Corey Square, to talk about, uh, uh, the impact of AI in design and sustainability.

Very inspirational. And we have three panel discussions. Uh, one focus on, uh, sustainability certification and how technology support certification strategies and the rise of. A lot of, uh, uh, local and state, uh, uh, uh, carbonization regulations. Another, another panel, um, was focused on reducing carbon emissions through technology and the use of, uh, LCA tools. Uh, Ian Molo, ESS Jack Rosk, uh, was part of that, uh, uh, Northco. uh, in the afternoon we had a couple other panels, ways to strategies decarbonization on small and medium firms. And then, um, we had a, we closed with, uh, uh, a panel about, uh. Different, uh, technology, uh, technology recipes for different practices.

'cause I think one of the goals the symposium was only display what's new and what's our, uh, some of the challenges that industry has around the decarbonization, but also what are practical things and takeaways in the form of, uh, technology recipes uh, practitioners can take home and start using and building, new offerings and, and new services around decarbonization. whole thing at the TAP has been really focused on, uh, sustainability, how technology supports sustainability, sustainability practice. Um, we, uh, the event got a lot of, uh, positive, uh. Uh, feedback. I think this partner for the first time, there is a symposium that saw the presence of two committees working together, uh, code and, um, and, uh, TAP.

We had about 200 people, eh, in the room. It was, uh, sold out. Um, and yeah, now we are in the process of assembling a task force for next year TAP symposium led by next year chair. Uh, Vicky Harris. Uh, Rick Patel HKS, uh, is the incumbent in the new, is the new, uh, chair.

Evan Troxel: Nice.

Cesar Escalante: the, the focus for next year, I think is, uh, practical ai. Uh, the themes are getting formed, but it's something around ai, how ai AI can be, adopted right away.

Evan Troxel: I think the theme, wasn't it, the, the one before the last symposium was also about ai. You had medi. And Phil Bernstein speak, and then you had some panel discussions around that as well. And obviously it's changing under everybody's feet all the time, so the topic will likely shift between now and then.

But, um, it's really interesting to me to hear how you're working with other knowledge communities and, and to build bridges. I mean, that it, it's also interesting to me to think about, and I, I'm curious from your perspective, how you've seen the growth of the AIA TAP knowledge community during your tenure being a part of it.

Just, just what have you observed as far as like people's participation? It seems like, you know, you said that the event sold out. It seems like there's more interest all the time, obviously from a focus on this podcast, and I'm sure that the people who listen to this podcast are very aware that technology touches every single part of practice and it's only getting bigger and bigger all the time as far as like how we do anything anymore.

Right. It's, it's gone from the day of you were the one student using AutoCAD to, there isn't a student who does anything by hand anymore practically. Right. It's completely shifted and thus the, the practice of architecture is completely shifted. And so that one knowledge community out of, how many did you say?

Five. I mean, it's not that many knowledge communities. Right. So, but it's a huge, it's, it's become this, it, like I said, it touches everything. So I'm just curious then, as far as participation. With the events that you're running, there's regional events, there's, there's like kind of local events, there's national events.

What, what have you seen as far as participation and just interest in this part of the overall organ? The professional organization of the AIA. Hmm.

Cesar Escalante: Um, so, uh, when I was pitching the idea of, uh, the TAP Symposium to my colleagues, uh, I did some research and I was digging some numbers on is the interesting technology in the industry. so I, I came across, uh, uh, a work in progress report from ncarb, the 2023 ncarb analysis of practice that, uh, of the, uh, metrics presented there were pretty interesting.

Uh, one of the survey results indicated that. Uh, 89% of national firms are interested in adopting, new technology, uh, and that 92% of all firms are looking, uh, adaptable professionals technology as the first skill from out of school. That's a staggering number. And so the expectations of, uh, the use of technology is, it was very high. then the number of submissions of technology related, uh, uh, uh, talks and discussions at the AIA, uh, so a big increase from 2000, uh, uh, 20 to 2025 is almost, uh, it was 10 times what it was before. And so I think, uh, the trend of. Uh, the interest of technology as a, as a vertical, topic in the, in the, in the architectural discussions and architectural forms, uh, was outstanding.

It's pretty high, and I think, we need to capitalize in the interest that the, the community has because technology seems to be this thread that connects all the different knowledge community, uh,

Evan Troxel: Right.

Cesar Escalante: uh. Practice, uh, design for equity is interesting in technology, um, education, um, uh, committee for, uh, residential design and, um, all that there, asking questions about how technology can support. And I think, uh, yeah, I realized that it was time to get, uh, technology as a standalone vertical that could be visible in our, um, in the national convention. And, um, we as a committee are asked to participate in vetting, uh, uh, now the, uh. Uh, technology focus, uh, submittals. Uh, we have a greater presence in discussions across different groups.

We are brought in as, um, subject matter experts, uh, uh, committees need an advice on how to start looking at within their own domains. Um, and, um, uh, the, uh, AIA, uh, infrastructure is undergoing some changes to try to consolidate a lot of the forum discussions, uh, with the use of ai, um, uh, to try to, help our, uh, architects, uh, arrive to the question they're asking about technology across all these different, uh, committees. So I think, uh, uh, our with the AIA, it's been instrumental in, leading the conversations around technology. Uh, and the other thing that we are working, but it seems to be a little challenging, it's in reinvigorating the, uh, network of, uh, local TAP chapters across the United States. there are different degrees of, um, participations in different a i chapters, uh, being metropolitan.

Uh, cities obviously have the strongest one, but there are smaller, uh, uh, offices that have reached out and ask us how do we start a TAP in our, uh, city. And, uh, one of the things the committee is working, it has a task force, to write a, a playbook on how to, get started, uh, TAP, committee with language that can be, um, across all the, uh. The different AIA offices, in the United States. Um, so, uh, the other is, uh, we have individuals in our committee that have years of experience use implementation and adoption technology. And these, um, uh, allow us to, put forward, um, and curate programming, webinars, talks, uh, case studies, uh, that inform, uh, the community, for example.

Yeah, I've been, a lot of, a lot of us in the committee, uh, have, uh, arms. different, uh, industry, events where we're asked to participate as subject matter experts. And so the five of us, we could easily put together a lot of, uh, uh, important, uh, thought leadership webinars. Then, uh, AIA uh, um, uh, talks, uh, and right now we're working about how we can produce more of that content or reach out and network to bring more people into creating content that are interested and align with what our, the architects need. AI is the biggest one for sure.

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: Um.

Evan Troxel: it also seems though, that like this, you, of course, this is volunteer positions, right? And that, so, so the, the leadership is all, is it all volunteer?

Cesar Escalante: It is volunteer, correct? Yes.

Evan Troxel: So all this work that you're talking about is in addition to your day job and the commitments and the travel and the meetings and all that stuff.

So, I mean, this stuff takes time naturally to do. I, I, I guess I'm just curious if you could talk a little bit about what, what you feel like, how, how you feel like you're, you're accomplishing your goals from, at that level. And, and of course like this is all in addition to the regular work you're doing.

And I, I only say that just to say like, it's a very respectful thing that you're doing. I want to give you the respect that you deserve for it, because. It's not easy to do this in addition to what you're doing. And I could also imagine on some level it's pretty frustrating, like the speed at which things move because there just isn't, you can't dedicate all the time that it needs to actually move the needle faster.

So like, what, what, what does that bring up when I bring up those things? What, how, how do you feel about that?

Cesar Escalante: Yeah, I think everyone who's part of the leader, uh, TAP leadership group, uh, it's in, uh, position and leadership within their own organizations.

Evan Troxel: Hmm.

Cesar Escalante: no one here is, uh, busy

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: has big agendas. I think, uh, I don't know. I think when you're passionate about, uh, the goals and the, uh, objectives of an organization that's aligned with your interests that you know that it may. Leave an imprint in the way the industry is moving. you just make it happen. Uh, we make

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: to meet on a monthly basis, and

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: we all have busy schedules, we all spread in different initiatives. we all make time to, uh, participate in the calls, um, uh, play active, um, roles in the execution of, uh, these initiatives over time. um, if you're there, it's because you're passionate. Uh, and,

Evan Troxel: yeah,

Cesar Escalante: we make time. We basically make time.

Evan Troxel: yeah.

Cesar Escalante: Um, and, uh. And not only that, there's a, uh, there's people who also is not only sitting in this committee, BKI for example. She is a, she not only leads, uh, the Beam, uh, initiative at HKS, she's also a mother and she's part of the AI TAP.

She's also part of the AIA newly formed AI task force. how she does all that. It's also, I mean, it's, I I think it's, we are moved by the passion and the, the common goal of, uh, trying to make some changes, some imprint in how,

Evan Troxel: For sure.

Cesar Escalante: uh, we look technology through practice. Yeah.

Evan Troxel: So I, I wanna ask you about this. You, you talked about how you're advising the AIA at large and obviously these other groups are. You know, interested in technology and adoption and, and implementation and what would work, what would help for them? And how does that, how do you handle that? Because to me it seems like okay, on one level, amazing that they're asking.

And on another level, it's like, we should have been asking that five years ago. So, so, because I mean, that it's, it's a, this is a big organization, right? Things do not flow quickly, uh, when it comes to, you know, solving these issues, getting people up to speed. I've been there, done that too, right? With, with adoption and implementation and all of those kind, it's difficult.

And, and so I mean, what, what's your sense about the speed at which the organization for this profession moves, reacts? Is proactive, is it not proactive? I don't know. Like you tell me kind of what your, where do you guys. Where do you fall on, on those different spectrum of, of different things that are, I mean, these are real things and, and the a, the, the profession, not, not the professional organization is criticized often for, uh, slowly adopting technology or slowly reacting or sitting on the sidelines and watching.

And obviously, you know, as well as I do, amazing technology has been implemented. The profession has changed drastically since we have become a part of it. Right. Uh, as far as it comes to technology. And yet, I mean, there's still a long ways to go. You look at adjacent industries who are really plowing ahead full force, and I think there's still a lot of architects on the sidelines just watching and waiting.

Cesar Escalante: I think, uh, a lot is coming not from AI leadership, but for AI constituents. Uh, there's been multiple surveys through the past, uh, couple of years asking, uh, our members what you care about, what's, uh, what are the things that you would like us to serve, what you would like the AI to serve. And technology comes at the first

Evan Troxel: Mm.

Cesar Escalante: that comes at the first, uh, answer. And I think the need for our constituents to stay current, that understand how this, how technology evolves and how it's gonna impact their practice, uh, is, uh, a reality. Uh, and it's a. It's a source of anxiety for a lot of our members and the need for answers and guidance, it's has reached out to, you know, the strategic, um, uh, leadership levels on the AIA.

And so we continually receive the feedback, uh, from AI liaisons in our group that how instrumental our role is only, uh, for, what we do, but for the, uh, AI at, uh, members at large. I think, uh, the main things that we are hearing people being interested is how to address risks and liabilities brought by technology. And as the technology become more digital through AI uh, questions of how. Uh, ips are respected, uh, how data and interoperability, uh, protect, uh, intellectual property. Uh, it's, it's at the core of, uh, uh, our members, uh, uh, concerns. And I think, uh, TAP, uh, the experience we have leading this topics in, in our own practices, in our own, domains, uh, we have at our position that, give us some authority and, uh, provide some answers.

I don't think we have all the answers, but I think we can, uh, help facilitate those guidance. Um,

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: the other is, um, um. Uh, the inequities, the potential inequities that technology can do by creating a digital divide between, uh, those who can afford, technology through deep pockets and those small firms that do not. And

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: uh,

Evan Troxel: I was, I was gonna bring up that anxiety you talked about earlier, because the majority of a, i, a membership is very small firms, you know, one to five people. It's, it's more than 80%, it's probably higher than that. And. It's interesting to, you know, the group who, who makes up the AIA committee, you know, the leadership is from large firms or large technology companies, right?

And so obviously that's also that there's a benefit there because you've done that, you've implemented, you understand technology and a very high level. Um, but you still have to have that empathy of being able to stand in the shoes of the people who you were just referencing, right? Who don't have the revenue stream to support, you know, 30 different subscriptions to software to do all the things and to keep up with learning them and to implement those and have standards and et cetera, et cetera.

So it's a, this is a big spectrum that you're representing, uh, when it comes to technology integration and the practice of architecture.

Cesar Escalante: Indeed. And I think, well, we have, uh, yeah, we have big firms represented in the committee. Sarah Law, the men, and, uh, and Brent Monte from, from mid-size firms, we would say. but I think we are listening. I mean, we. We understand that, uh, uh, the need of, uh, pushing equitable access of technology and ensuring that the, uh, the access of technology doesn't create fruit and inequities.

And, and that's high up, higher up in the, um, strategic, uh, council agenda. And I think, uh, in response to that, uh, well first the symposium for next year, it is really big part of the program is, not only to move us away from the vision on what AI can create or could create uh, make it more on the practical side.

What you as a small practitioner, uh. Uh, can do with the tools available today, uh, to enhance the operations of your practice and align it, uh, to an AI iBud, uh, uh, uh, uh, firm. And, uh, I think that's, I think that's the focus that Vicki wants to, uh, the needle for next year. Uh, things still forming, so don't quote me that that's the final topic, but I, that's part of the, discussions that we're currently having. Um, and then the other, the other initiative that it's taking time to, to bake, and I think Ryan May have spoken to you about this, is the need to, support, uh. that provides a toolkit for small practitioners. Uh, in other words, uh, based on the experience that large firms had from testing technology, what are the low hanging fruits in, technology that, uh, practitioners who are thinking and opening new practices, uh, or small practices that are thinking in modern, modernizing their operations and who do not have, uh, the resources to, test, evaluate and adopt, uh, what can they do easily, what recipes they can have easily to, uh, eh, modernize and transform their firms. Uh, and I think that's important initiative. Uh, and it's a, the ultimate goal is to have a, uh, dynamic. Database of, uh, readily available, low cost technol, low to free cost technology, that's proven to be effective. Uh, that's proven to, elevate the, or improve the operations of firms, uh, uh, from project management to design uh, um, and Act, act as a, as a readily available, uh, database that firms can use, uh, to adopt, uh, and modernize their operations.

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When you say database, you're, are you talking about just like a proven set of tools that will. Create some kind of results? Or are you actually talking about project level data that would be accessible to a wider audience?

Cesar Escalante: it's, uh, it's

Evan Troxel: Okay.

Cesar Escalante: tools.

Evan Troxel: Okay.

Cesar Escalante: yeah.

Evan Troxel: So you're basically coming up with a tool stack for maybe different levels of firms who are looking to get started in doing something.

You know, maybe, maybe it's in the sustainability column, or maybe it's in the design delivery column. I don't know what the different columns are. Right. But, but then you're, you're basically saying here are the proven players in that area that you should definitely check out based on the information you have.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah. And based on real and on proven outcomes,

Evan Troxel: Okay,

Cesar Escalante: because a lot of tools are proof of concept that are really focused on doing

Evan Troxel: sure.

Cesar Escalante: things really good. But it,

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Really specific. Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: it comes to scale it, and, uh. And wide adoption is not already there. And

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: think we wanna stay away from those technologies large firm have had the capacity to understand what works and what doesn't work.

And

Evan Troxel: Yeah,

Cesar Escalante: in that experience, there are things that are very expensive and there are things that are readily available at very cost.

Evan Troxel: yeah,

Cesar Escalante: uh, exposing that, uh, know-how to, uh,

Evan Troxel: sure.

Cesar Escalante: is something that,

Evan Troxel: There's value there for sure. Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: a big value there.

Evan Troxel: Yeah. I mean, you've, if you've been through that process and you know, okay, this works for this reason, that that information should be given away to the profession to help accelerate adoption so that they don't have to do all these small firms don't have to do all the testing and the vetting and spinning their wheels to come to the same conclusions.

Right? That, that seems obvious.

Cesar Escalante: And then the, yeah. And then the other things that I think people is really interested is understanding and addressing the risks and liabilities that AI may post. Uh, that's a gray area that's still, um,

Evan Troxel: Changing. Yeah. All the time.

Cesar Escalante: yeah. And so we're

Evan Troxel: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: uh, but we, uh, in task force or within organizations that have these conversations.

And I think, uh, uh, the reason of making this, uh, webinars and this, uh, symposium is to bring people who can, uh, give us a fresh outlook on where we stand on these questions. How intellectual properly is being challenged, uh, by this, uh, machine learning processes or ai and, uh. Uh, how the new interoperability, uh, collaboration tools, cloud connected data, uh, how do we, how do architects protect their work, uh, or how the notion of protecting work needs to change to accommodate this work. Um, so it's, um, uh, those are important topics that I think we

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: Uh.

Evan Troxel: So you mentioned early on in the conversation, kind of this paradigm shift of you being the first cad, you know, drafter, you do, you did your projects in school, in cad and obviously things have progressed way, way, way beyond that, and you've seen all of it. Right? And so I want, I wanna put you on the spot, but I hope you'll play along, uh, which is, you know, I, I think as we close out the conversation I do, is, are there any conversations happening?

In these larger communities, and it doesn't have to be specific to AIA, it could just be things you're interested in, people you're talking to. I'm, I'm just curious from your point of view, because this has come up in conversations with people in my circles, which is, okay, if you were gonna start a firm today, because you mentioned that a minute ago, right?

You talk about like, these, if people are gonna start, like where do they start? It's a, a wildly different set of tools, and I'm not looking for specific names of any startup or tool company or anything. I, I'm just curious about the topic in general and, and I'm hoping that this is happening at a national level, but.

A lot of times we hear, okay, well you could incrementally get better at this thing if you adopt this tool and you could get a little bit better here if you adopt this, or you could get maybe a lot better if you just implement this in this specific thing. But none of that is like a holistic. Okay. What if we were starting from scratch, and so I'm just curious if those conversations are happening in your circles as well, because I think it's important that they are happening so that we acknowledge, because I, I recently had Patrick Chopin from Cove on the podcast.

Right. And they're talk, they, they started up cove architecture, which is starting with, you know, an a AI tool set. And obviously they're software developers and they, they're coming from, you know, a different cut of cloth, right? Let's, let's just put it that way. They're not coming from 20 years of practice and going from.

Hand drafting to cad, to bim to, and then adding tools and, and replacing tools and doing, they're, no, okay. They did something else and now they're doing this, and they're starting at zero with, at a very high level, right? Of, of being able to deliver projects in a, in a different way. And so I'm curious if you're, if you're having these kinds of conversations in your circles, because what I don't want us to do is think like every firm just needs to get a little bit better, a little bit better, because the firms who are focused on getting a little bit better, they're established, right?

Maybe they want to make something a little bit better, but they're gonna be competing against firms or technology companies who are coming at this from a completely different perspective. Are those conversations happening?

Cesar Escalante: It is, but uh, you have to remember, I'm, I, I shift a and I'm, uh, more involved in. Uh, on the software development side that I'm with, the, with the, with the customers. In fact, you know, my, in my role, I sit between marketing, product development and strategy. Uh, and, this is the people I have conversation on a daily basis.

Uh, they rely on the expertise I have from, industry, uh, to, uh, have informed discussions on where how the product, uh, need to evolve in a better way. But pretty soon, domain expertise was, will be easily, uh, uh, I, I'm no longer doing projects and I'm no longer building, building designs, uh,

Evan Troxel: Right.

Cesar Escalante: and the, the technology I was exposed to five years ago, it's very suddenly being, being challenged by, uh, the new paradigm of AI and, and process

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Disruptive. Yeah, disruptive technology is like the, the hockey curve graph, right? Like the hockey stick

Cesar Escalante: But, but

Evan Troxel: sure.

Cesar Escalante: you that the, the conversation, at least from the domains that I'm part of, uh, have, uh, and you've seen the announcement. I dunno if you, you familiar with the new, the announcements of that art has done around, uh, AI at Artists University. this is shifting, uh, we're an inflection point, uh, in the software industry where, because it's so fast and it's easy to produce, um, uh, software, uh, uh, it's, uh, enormous opportunity, to put in the market, uh, fresh value propositions that, uh, look at the design. Uh, design lifecycle and challenges from a new, fresh perspective. there's no big solution that I've seen in industry yet that can address it. Uh, but it's, it is, there's a race get there from many fronts, and I, I think it's, and I'm, I'm speaking as myself here, not as a, as an out as employee.

I think market and the ability to develop, uh, software solutions using AI agents and AI the rights software, uh, provides enormous opportunities for new players that can challenge the, the traditional players in the industry. And I think, uh, from a personal perspective, uh, that is a, a positive thing for the industry. Uh, so, um, I

Evan Troxel: Disruptive too,

Cesar Escalante: it's very

Evan Troxel: right? Just, yeah. I mean, just in the last two weeks we've seen developments from the biggest AI companies in the world come out with. New ways to write code and through agents and, you know, with, with flawed and open ai, both coming out with products where these systems can autonomously write code from anywhere from, let's just say seven hours to 70 hours of codings.

You know, and with, with just people checking in every once in a while to, you know, just course correct. And that's an incredible change from before two weeks ago, right alone, let alone five, 10 years ago. So the, the ability to produce software is changing radically. And so new fresh ideas can get brought to the market and tested much sooner.

And I just think this is a fascinating conversation to have. Like if you were starting a practice of architecture today, what would that look like? Because I think you would actually project out. In five years or 10 years, if you even could and say, well, when I wake up on, you know, the day five years from now, this is what it looks like.

It looks wildly different than it even does today. But you can still ask that question today and, and the tool stack that you would use to run a practice of architecture is wildly different from what it was just a few years ago. If you want it to be right, it doesn't, of course you don't have to. You could just start with all of the usual suspects in your software toolbox, right?

But you could also choose a wildly different toolbox than most people would who are coming from, you know, growing up in this profession, right? Establishing their career in this, because it takes a long time to establish a career in this possession profession. So. You know, to become an architect takes years and years and years of experience and, and it's like, oh, well what if we look at this from a fresh perspective?

I think it's a fascinating conversation and I hope it's happening all over the place because it's a reality now, and firms that exist are gonna be competing against firms who are just starting and they could choose a completely different way to go about delivering projects.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah. And that conversation is within, you know, my own, uh, company. I mean, Autodesk uh, uh, it's really, really focused on, uh, be able to deliver, uh, and scale, uh, AI across, uh, not only our new offerings like form and, and, and, a CC, but, uh, uh, take the best out of our desktop products uh, connect them.

Uh. Uh, via AI agents, uh, in the cloud. And, uh, those are, those conversations are happening and development is happening very fast, and announcement are, are expected to happen very soon. So I think it's, uh, an inflection point. Yeah. Not only from, uh, the software development industry, but also for practitioners.

And I think,

Evan Troxel: Yeah.

Cesar Escalante: I mean, earlier I was talking about the need to have this toolkit to inform, uh, new practices, uh, about how to, uh, take advantage of the technology. But this toolkit, challenge is that, uh, by the time you finish the toolkit, there will be a new set of toolkit

Evan Troxel: I know, I know. As soon as you even advise somebody, there's a new list, right? Like it's, uh, it, it is moving so fast and, and at some level you kind of have to take your bet and go with it and, and put it through its paces and learn through the failures and learn through the successes. And, but I think it's super interesting to think about like the, the amount of times you are now going to have to go back and look at things again and look at them again because.

The landscape is changing so quickly. You've the tool that you looked at six months ago that didn't do a thing and so you decided to, to get rid of it now does the thing, right? And so it's, it's really amazing how fast that kind of feedback loop is gonna have to keep going back on itself to check and check and check and check and just keep an eye on things.

I got part of everybody's day or week is gonna have to be dedicated to just like, what's going on in the software field of architecture and what, how can it, how can it work to my advantage or where's it headed that I need to keep an eye on it. I think it's, it is a fascinating discussion.

Cesar Escalante: Yeah, and I mean that even that This is something I've discussed with my peers at TAP is that, I mean, we are all, most leadership is almost, uh, the same years of experience and the same, uh, cohort of, uh, uh, uh, experience. Uh, but, uh, in order to make it, uh, more effective, I think we need to bring fresh eyes on how, uh, what are we, what we may be missing as a committee, uh, are, are there, are, are our perspectives from, you know, uh, uh, new graduates with, uh, ai, uh, grew up with, uh, machine learning technology who are fresh out of school with AI tools. we wanna bring that perspective here. And I think I, we, I encourage people to join this conversation with you. All the, uh, people like me in order to discover this, uh, new opportunities that we might be blind, uh, that may be in front of us, but we are blind, uh, uh, as well. Uh,

Evan Troxel: How does that make you feel? Cesar?

Cesar Escalante: just raise, just ready to retire in five years.

Evan Troxel: I, oh yeah.

Cesar Escalante: No, I

Evan Troxel: we promised, we promised never to be those guys, right? Like, oh, the, the, the old regime just can't wait to re there's somebody else's problem. Uh, there's, there's some, there's a wave coming. Yeah, it's real.

Cesar Escalante: no, I think, I think, um. Eh, there is an increased, uh, place for discussion around technology that is not going to disappear. And I think the best we can do, and you're proof of this, is, uh, bring, uh, people to the table to, uh, discuss their, their viewpoints. Uh, how that inform and how that changed my perspective on how our approach of technology is.

And that I think it can only happen with a diverse group of individuals and viewpoints. And, um, that help us, uh, uh, illuminate the, the, the path. uh, we need to break, uh, the, uh, our traditional trust circles and be open to, uh, new ideas that may be happening outside that. Can define or redefine, uh, how technology will evolve. Uh,

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Have those conversations out in the open. Yeah. Agreed. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to kind of explain what's going on with TAP right now and what's coming with TAP. I'm pretty excited because it sounds like you guys really are addressing the larger field of, you know, smaller firms and accessible technology to those firms so that we raise all boats with the tide.

Right. That, to me, is super important in this industry and in this profession. So appreciate the work you're doing and I'll put links to how you can get in contact listeners with Cesar on the, in the show notes for this episode. And Cesar, thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation today.

I appreciate it.

Cesar Escalante: thank you so much Evan, and glad to be here.