158 - Youth Football Coach and Founder - James Doubtfire

whatever you're doing if even if it's not always good there's got to be something in there that keeps you plugging on if you've got that then you've got you've got something so you know stick out it there is something there stick out I think we have a tendency to want to give up on stuff a little bit too soon so be going our featured speaker today is the director at digital twin.build and the managing director at format design London James it's a pleasure to have you as our featured guest today thank you so much for taking this time to share your journey with us. Oh I'm honored to be honest I thank you for having me we really do appreciate it we know sometimes it's hard to put time aside on the Saturday especially in December I was wondering if you could kind of kick us off talking about some of your early background maybe some of your experiences growing up and if you feel like there were any events you know or people earlier in your life that really had a strong influence on the direction you've taken personally and professionally. Yeah that's a very deep and meaningful question and I'll try and think back to some of those early influences I suppose I started off in design that was very much my focus very early on I have to admit I'm as a father of two children sort of approaching that sort of secondary school age so that 11 you know into the next grade of schools understanding what you want to do in the future is not an easy question to answer and I was very fortunate about 14 to do a work experience placement doing graphic design again I wasn't doing any higher fine art you know it was very much again it's probably going to show my age a little bit but you know pre-adverts in newspapers for ours and you know these weird and wonderful little projects that I was given as a work experience and then from there sort of decided I wanted to go into graphic design I wanted to you know explore it more as a possible career path and from there when it didn't really want to go to university and do a degree I wanted to go to work that was you know I wanted to get out I wanted to start earning money and it found out quite quickly that as an industry it's kind of considered degree minimum so I kind of I had attempted since I was never particularly academic so when I was in school I kind of I knew what the minimum requirement was and I hit that minimum requirement just to get me through to the next stage and yeah so from there that took me to Freudon College to be on as in graphic design and when I think back that experience I'm very grateful to the tutors that I had there because they were practicing graphic designers I know that sounds maybe a little bit dismissive of tutors but you know there are the academics and there are those that are actually out there in the world and getting works commissioned and getting paid by some rather famous advertising agencies and the like and they were very good at connecting the work that we were doing to the real practical what would you be facing if you was given this as a task or as part of a job or a commission so where we in an academic setting you'd get six weeks to complete the task they're like you know you would maybe get six days if you're lucky to complete this particular action but of course it's in an academic setting and there's like academic structure for them to be able to mark you against so that's how they're broken down it was a really really good experience in that sense of really being able to get you kind of commercially up to speed and since then obviously kind of run in my own agency since 2013 in its current sort of limited company setting I've experienced have taken those on from universities and realising there is still that huge disconnect which comes back to the tutors and the environment that they're brought through in but in terms of wanting to work for myself that's always been something that I wanted to do and I would have to say that's probably a strong influence from my father who's as far as I can always remember always worked for himself so that's always something that I wanted to do so as soon as I had the opportunity to go along and I took it and yeah I was very fortunate in that respect as well which says there's a little bit of a story there and I suppose it's not uncommon for those who start off in design I took my first job in Central London I bounced around a couple of agencies worked my way up quite quickly to a very competent level in terms of I was a studio manager quite young maybe 25 26 and then took a different career path which took me into a instruction business so they did design and build office fits out and primarily my role there was to look at how they one work because again for those who were listening if they don't know there's a certain criteria they have to go through usually there's a presentation at some point where they're a front of the client showing them their new office that they're going to design for them and how beautiful it looks and that's the real cell should we say are in of course the numbers which often construction comes down to so that's really where I came in I was very much a new resource for a business that the company was doing about 250 million so it was a big company in that regard but they understood that the environment was becoming very competitive very cut throat this was around 2008 as well so this was you know crash time you know it was pretty hairy so we put it that way tickly taking a new job in that period yeah quite quite quickly like I say in sort of two years I understood that you know I could work with them and deal with them on a freelance type contract basis so I don't need to do two three days a week for them and on outside of that I'll be able to work on my own work and deliver my own work so that's kind of how it sort of started I started freelance first before I kind of converted over to being more agency instructor very cool I've been active some sort of background I mean I think it's interesting to hear about your thoughts behind when you made choices like you said you weren't that much of an academic and what that interesting university but you found that it wasn't a requirement I find that interesting because my personal experience was like universally I didn't particularly enjoy I wanted to be out working on things that I felt mattered you know and university didn't get like that space I have a resonance with you there now can you tell us a little bit about you said when you had that sort of opportunity to go out and owning you started to sort of do freelancing what sort of I guess created that environment and that motivation that you knew then because you said you always knew you wanted to work but you know that was the right time to do it I suppose it was the workload itself so if I bring it back a little bit to the work I was doing when you're doing pitch work which I'm sure many people have had those deadlines and those presentations in the morning you're still working it on a 10 o'clock at night because you need to get stuff right I was very much at the end of that wedge because the information would often be being fed into me by the professional teams so I was often the one you know I suppose burning the midnight long to make sure that it kind of all came together and we was producing some quiet I suppose now in this world where everyone's doing everything digitally and we're all sending PDFs now maybe you know it slightly going the other way now with elaborate print but we was doing you know kind of custom make boxes we were kind of going all out with this very custom approach to get that kind of wow factor when they put it in front of the client but I noticed there was a pattern where like at crunch time that's when I was really needed and as I became quite afraid with doing this kind of documentation and being able to do under pressure that I wasn't necessarily needed to fall five days a week so that was probably the first point where I said okay I could do this and then really I suppose also talking to my dad is you know big influence and in a lot of decision-making is if you want to do it you know thank fair voice I had the support of my family in that regard you know they're like you know if you really want to do it one you go do it you know worst case scenario you'll have to go back and get yourself a job so why don't if this seems like a good time to do it I had a very good relationship with the CEO of the company a guy called Toby Benza Creed the company's now and called itself workplace futures but I was very fortunate to be interviewed by him which again I didn't realise until I was in the company that there was a lot of people that were employed that never had face time with the CEO and of course I got interviewed by him and we kind of built up a bit of a rapport and a little bit on that just it's probably more semantics more than anything but I was considered a group resource there was a group structure and then there was subsidiaries underneath so I was used by all the subsidiaries so I was I had quite good exposure across the business as well which again you look back on and you think wow what an amazing experience you know you kind of suddenly you're in and you're at group level and everyone's coming to you asking you to work with them which not everyone got exposure to looking back but yeah coming back to why how that kind of decision came about was that it was going to be commercially good for them because I was able to now say well actually I'll do it on this this is how much I'll want to charge and this is how much I'll charge you for doing this much of days and you know kind of very very freelance in my whole process I suppose you know the charge x and but you know going now and work for a day two days whatever's needed then you know kind of giving myself that flexibility but having those other days available that I could go out and find my own work and really what came from that was a real eye-opener and experience that I realised there was other companies in that particular industry that didn't have someone like me internally so while it's a big industry particularly in London and again depending on where your listeners are coming from the London Fittout market you know cut fruit and very fierce and there's a lot of companies there they didn't have a resource like me and while it's big people move around so people would then go join other firms and then they would ring me and they would say we need someone like you and then I realised quite quickly that I could double my own incident but essentially I could build on days go in you know I was a gun for hire essentially but you know I would go in do my work and get out and as I was going into new companies that wasn't already new people there which obviously made that whole process a lot easier and that's kind of really what moved me in that direction I appreciate that and I really liked you know how you sort of described that you were grateful for those early tutors too that you know have kind of it seems like kind of shaped that work ethic you know alongside your dad telling you go for it like just understanding that like this is the grind that I'm gonna have to put if I really do want to stay in the part from the crowd especially in 2008 you know yeah 2000 and 8 was a time where there was a lot of redundancies being made as well within the firm and I'd come in you know sort of last in first out right you know this is what I was thinking but I was very fortunate the first projects that I undertook they were successful on and again I would also point back to the fact that I had that face time with the CEO because I think he could see that they were going to need to do something particularly in the market where unfortunately people were going in silly low like almost you know it is a phrase that she used to industry buying work you know going in now to keep people keep bums in seats and keep themselves ticking over right and that's not something that obviously they're not a position that they really wanted to get to so they knew they needed they needed that impression to kind of knock it out apart first yeah that praising battle is something I think a lot of companies find themselves cornering themselves what sometimes absolutely absolutely when you point back to my early tutors I suppose what I get at there is that they made me think a lot more commercially and I think that's often missed you know we all want to do adverts in the times and you know they sound lovely you know I went into one particular agency we did a project and it was in my portfolio and I think everyone's willing to play the game when you've left university that you've done university work right so people can you know see past it and they're happy to play the game with you but when you're getting there early and then they're in and they're going you know that you know you've mocked up that advert in the times newspaper you know that would be okay to get that in there and you're like I made it look nice it looks like it's the part but now now we're getting this little nitty gritty about the the realization that not necessarily beating you up but maybe open your eyes a little bit more that this there's the real world over here and and the likelihood of this getting that far would would require you know a big return let's put it that way yeah having some of that realism but also the ambition you know to know what you want to go for and I would venture to guess at that CEO saw that ambition in you and kind of that reality check mentality too you know I was going in I was wanting to discuss the the option of me going freelance with him and I kind of bottled the meat in let's put it that way the discussion got way laid and then I didn't decide to bring it back to the point and it wasn't until I had a second meme when I said this is what I want to do he did say is this what you wanted to discuss with me in the last meeting and I'm a sort of sheepishly said yes and they said well yeah I think he could tell because he said well I could see it's something that you want to do and you know I suppose I didn't hide it to a certain to a certain degree you do I think certainly go around saying well I'm not going to be here long you know I'm off to see it later it was more that I can tell that it was maybe a little something in there that made me kind of want to go and do it myself good good working relationship and you actually kind of like and I hit on my point because I was you know thinking this is an industry where it's really acceptable to job hop and even though you have kept yourself you know occupied busy made sure that income was coming in but multiple things going on at the same time you know like you served format design London for 15 years in some capacity and I think employers do really greatly admire that loyalty I'm just wondering how do you decide like when is the time to stay you know and when is it time to just cut ties and move on something it's a really interesting question and interesting because I've got a friend who's in a slightly different industry he's jumped a few jobs quite quickly I did message him and said you know that's interesting you know maybe I'm a little bit more old school in that sense that it's been a while since should I say that I've I've actively been seeking in the job market and I know and roles it tends to be maybe how we work now where we can do it more remotely maybe it's got it's a lot more acceptable now to just sort of go do something for a few months ago I'm sick of that and move on to something else you know again I'm not here to judge anyone on that but I think there's probably the time where you feel like am I going to learn any any more here or am I still going to be doing the same thing and could not you know I suppose in my case if I look very selfishly I could still be doing the same thing and I would be fine but it's did I really want to still be doing that same thing almost quite a ground health data maybe sounds a little bit dismissive of of the work but it would certainly become a bit of a grind for me to keep doing that same thing over and over and over again and kind of you know copy paste type task so I think if someone seems to be well can you provide me with some advice of when's a good time to go I would probably say if you can see any sort of future in it that is a future that you like in that you enjoy if it's not then it's probably time for you to start thinking about what's next absolutely I think there's a lot of especially people who have that sort of entrepreneurial mindset there's a need for a bit of variety trying new things experiencing sort of as you said not to reduce the work but avoiding the groundhog day scenario definitely now can you tell us a little bit about digital twin dot build yeah it sounds like a super interesting endeavor yeah and it's something completely no I suppose not to a degree of the industries that I'm connecting you know because I've always been connecting with those who are in and around the built environment but digital twin dot build is essentially a consultancy around the use of data IoT sensors to inform and build to should we say a digital twin which means that you're joined down data from the built environment to give you insight into interventions that need to be made within that build into improve efficiencies to him you know whether that's workflow or whether that's the efficiencies from energy or to usage you know sort of all these sort of ESG type goals environmental social governance is new in terms of the undertaking that we do in but we're having some you know very interesting conversations and digital twins in themselves are a bit of a wide field so depending on how we've got on the talk here they could be they could be a little bit of a crossover discussion in that but they are new and they are kind of formed when they're out of sort of language which in you know kind of if I put myself a market and hats on is is already causing some issues when we're talking to potential clients and and all potential collaborators on that because try to get some some common languages is often difficult when something that's fairly new is coming to the market that makes a lot of sense you know we were kind of talking about it in the beginning but how do you find balance in your work your family life and all the other things that you're passionate about how do I find balance I suppose there's a little bit of discipline in there I suppose you have to make time I suppose quite like the idea of quite a book in your calendar up I suppose I'm booking it yourself I mean because if you don't book it yourself your clients or tasks and will and I'm very fortunate particularly in the clients that I work with we get them on you know kind of contract style projects so the cadence of the work that we're doing is is should I say nicer but maybe friendlier to the family environment that you know you can kind of do those bits and you you're doing a little bit each day on each client and it kind of keeps you moving along there's some other projects that sort of land in your lab that does mean you have to drop everything um it's yeah there's a bit there's a little bit of discipline in there and I suppose if you will if you're passionate about it you'll find it you know it's but it's just a challenge I'm not I'm not saying it's a yacht trying to go to the gym three times a week which means they're not I have to book that in my calendar because otherwise if it's not in my calendar it doesn't happen and you have to yeah then you're kind of treating it like a meeting like a world meeting trying to think of other activities that are in there like I take my sons I coach my sons football well in American sense what that is soccer team under elevens um so yeah that you know again if I it's one night a week and I and I'll take the games on a Sunday morning so you know I kind of work those in and around in and around the work day should I say or the work week um yeah I don't I can't really start off you know again over the years of tick and different mentors or involved in different programs over the year you pick up different tools and some of them work and some of them don't but it's ultimately it will have that form in right we all try to form new have itself then it takes a while absolutely because your work is quite creative right so do you find that there's a aspect of being that structured in your time is that a hurdle with creativity or do you find that you have enough control over how you do creative things to be able to do it within that structure how does that sort of play together yeah I have to probably admit I now because we take on we've got designers that that do stuff for us so there are times that I'm in quite an advantageous position that I can do is I can make it someone else's problem if I spoke even for time but you know there there is a discipline in that you know there's times where I have to switch my I've got it up now obviously because I have the conversation but I have to switch my outlook off I have to you know after close anything there's going to be pink in at me and and and putting the phone or do not disturb and um I bought one of those electronic sort of egg timer things that you turn to to say right you know hour let's go right you just shut it out you're here when you're doing this now and um whether it helps the creativity or not I don't know but it certainly helps me get into that kind of focused mindset to actually get some bits ticked off the still list I think over time I've come to value that organization even more because you want to organize your thoughts and ideas too I don't know if you're a person I feel like a lot of creatives like wake up in the middle of the night and have so many ideas you know but like if you never come up with an organizational system for them then they just remain ideas um so I think like finding that balance we all find it differently but it's kind of crucial to making sure those ideas come to life this is probably maybe getting into more life management right but you know I just I would have the same thing while I'd be down in bed and I'd be thinking of stuff so then I couldn't go to sleep so I had to put no add by the side of my bed just so that I could write stuff down just so I'd get it out of there so I could actually sleep and then the morning go right read those four or five points and then and then jump straight into it yeah like create you know create into two lists because again it's good for the it's good for the mind right is to tick something off that that feels quite nice that I'm when I get that dopamine it means you can move on to the next one but yeah no I I think people have to find what works for them right and that's enough and that's why I look quite an era you know thankfully the note pad that's that's sort of next to my bed now I hasn't been used for it yet but it's a factfully that must mean I'm I'm keeping on top of and hopefully it means you're getting some sleep in between too yeah that's right yeah yeah you know it's it is important do you feel like you do have at this point in your career like a creative process where you know how something starts you know kind of like people talk about what songwriting do you have a methodology or is it kind of different yeah that's that's a really interesting point I'll probably say I have a bit of a neck whether it's actually a pro process I think is probably you know there's some bits that I have put down into into a process particularly when we're doing discovery with client or any sort of form of discussion I've done what I can to get that into some sort of nine step and again that's me there's a little bit of a sales tool to that if I'm being quite honest you know because client it's quite like to see that there's some form of pattern that you follow and even if you don't follow every single step you you you tick the main ones that they're interested in and they and they kind of move on um but I had certainly would say I have more of a neck to kind of get to the root of what of what the problem is for say say said client and being able to I suppose articulate it back to them in a way that they go okay yeah this guy gets it kind of move on um and then and then kind of translating that into a creative piece that's mainly where I would then bring in creative statues because again I would probably say I do not a lot of actually creative work in terms of sit down and design work myself these days a lot more I'm liaising with our guys who who do that for us so I'm sitting in meetings and then I'm doing the critique and I'm sitting there and I'm pretending I'm the client and I'm doing those discussions I'm playing devil's advocate I get the fun bit really I get to tell them I get to tell them where I think they go wrong and bits that I think they can improve on but again I am always trying to bring it back to you know we are we are only trying to solve a problem you know using credit means absolutely I mean that's the goal right like with any business you have to find a problem and solve it now one of the key parts of any business is the team right like the team that you bring in how you decide who to bring in and how they need lead I think are both incredibly interesting topics I'd love to understand given your experience growing your business from just yourself to what it is today um how do you think your leadership style has changed across that time period and have you had any particular events that in your head you recognize as like maybe not a time that you made a mistake but maybe you could have handled it better and you learned from it as a leader or other scenarios like that then see I've certainly got a lot wrong but there's certainly some bits to be said about that and I suppose having the humility to sort of say yeah I got that wrong um it's so I suppose having a little understanding of where we are now you know as a company I run a very small team there's like five of us in the team and that's including me in it um in the past I've got as big as like 13 people so again in some cases that's not enormous for me it was an absolute headache but again I look at this I suppose the company's journey in that respect so you've got I walked into a room I had 13 people I said does anyone need any help 13 hands went up and I still had work to do so me I was like so I realized I look back now go you did I didn't have the processes I didn't have the systems I didn't have I didn't have that sort of foundation that you need when you're bringing on people and you're bringing them on quite rapidly at that point you know and probably the you know looking back I don't find sites 2020 didn't have the revenue secured to really justify a head cap out of that much as well because you know you then get into office costs and you've got you know all these other bits that come in so we've done the usual agency bit will we're balloon we shrink we balloon we shrink and I suppose now I'm a lot more cautious in that in that approach you know in and not necessarily in terms of being fearful of it but just being like can we really justify it because I think again I let my ego times drive me and be like oh you we need to have an office and we need to have these people doing these things because it makes me sound like this amazing I would get a rubber boss when really it's all vanity in that regard well looking back at my own six-period in terms of like a leadership style the only realisation I've come with that is that I drive the standards which again sounds very gotistical and I've probably given a little bit of insight into that when I first started bringing people in I would almost feel like they would be fucking I'm difficult they'd be feeling like I'm becoming a bit of a problem and sometimes I would feel like I am because I would go straight back up and be like no that's not right that this is this is not correct and and go through that kind of I suppose QC type feedback process possibly I wasn't as good a communicator as I thought I was and again that you know it's a realisation that possibly needed to give people some time and people understand information in different ways and you know coming back to my football coaching I'm realising that now I try and teach always how to play football you know you've got people that are visual learners and those that you can tell and they and some you've got to show and everything else so so again I suppose coming back to the business in that sense you know there's there's a bit there understanding that my communication style had to change I need to understand that while I might get it and actually I might be able to do it but me get frustrated because someone else doesn't get it and they're not able to do it maybe as fast as I can or as well as I can is probably part of it you know part of that kind of growth is you might you might need to give someone a little bit of time but then coming back to my point of like me sitting the standards I then took a step back and sort of said well that's how they do it and then let them do it how they're going to do it and then I was putting out work that I wasn't happy with so then when I got the pushback which inevitably I knew was going to come from clients I then suddenly sort of realised why I'm like just to find that if I'm not happy with it didn't really be going out the door because it's going to come back on me because I do a lot of the client face in anybody with much of the client face so yeah I suddenly I had a realisation that I might be a bit of a pain and possibly if if well had an agency that had 50 people in it they would have to probably remove me because that would it would slow everything down maybe if it was got to that point or you'd have again have those processes in place that you can handle that but yeah I realised that I shouldn't sort of I suppose allow from what I would consider the standards to drop to try and piece others I if this is the level then this is the level at least if we get shut down at that level I can put my hands up and go we got it wrong so I suppose that's been a little bit of an evolution of James's realisation self-realisation and also yeah we just talk about a communication style I never used to really consider myself tickly blunt I don't really like confrontation that much but what I've realised when you get feedback from other people is that people see me very differently to how I see myself so again there's a bit of reflection in there I think it's such a powerful set of reflections that are like taking responsibility for your you know communication style and realising that it wasn't you know getting across as much or what you wanted to get across you know but also owning that like just because I want to you know communicate with you better doesn't mean that I want to you know just butter you up and allow our standard to drop you know like figuring out how to communicate nicely I mean we hear it called like the shit sandwich and I know there's like a lot of you know trying to tell someone like this is really not that great but you're great you're great you know it's also a cultural bit as well which and again I know how much of this you might have experienced Nancy no I feel like as a Brit myself like we can dance around the issue a little bit and there are other times where people want you to dance around the issue because you know let's use your analogy now yeah that's a year like to swallow the shit sandwich we're going to need to do the dance first well there are times where maybe you know being a little bit more direct would both help and and I would say also when I've taken on people from other countries we've done all the bits as you can imagine as you things have done from using like description services that I designed pickle and and all these other you know we've we've experimented with different ones as well as picking up for people from other channels but you know if you're dealing with someone in Brazil and even though they're English you know again they're English is a lot better than what she gives this with it that way but even just that kind of idea of communicating clearly there's a there's a cultural there's a cultural piece there's a culture of dance to be did and maybe as bricks we we say one thing but we mean another I must suppose that's you know make a little bit of an understanding I've come that I don't want to offend people but sometimes just have to rip off the band aid and just get it you know get right well and it takes so much less time and also I think as you form a trusting relationship with someone you know having that ability to genuinely ask them and get the answer of you know does this make sense do you like this idea you know am I on the right track here and being able to say well actually no I this is entirely different than what I pictured and that's good or that's bad and all of the things build that work culture too that you're thriving for right yeah I really I admire that you've self-reflected enough to go through that transformation I think back of again you build off experiences right you know this is all all doing right and again even if someone gave me the answer I might not have taken it because I probably have to live the experience to truly understand it but when but you need to deal in with creatives like what we call true creatives they maybe don't want to have that process that one two three four five you know they they might start to go back to one then jump to five and and it might be a little bit more chaotic um so try and to work around that as well as as been as been a challenge you know and again the fact that what you like might like I might not like so now we're getting into personal preference and and we're trying to taste profile of I might show you a picture just to see if you like you're odd not just to get whether you we are on the same page and and so you are continually trying to pick up on signals but yeah when it comes to being with people you are right the better the better relationship you have them or you can say right you've sent me something to look at is this your is this it is this your best stuff or or have I got to you know have I think you know you go all right give me another hour or some you know that then we'll go just leave it you know I like I find and then and then you can please you can move on we've had that we've had the self we've had the reflection part for what I've looked at yeah I really appreciate you sharing that I'm actually going to pass to another community member question it's okay oh cool yeah thanks James for your own size I will have a quick question more than your communication style as you mentioned what type of lesson did you learn in the role of football coach training young guys that help you in your current job at digital twin dot build thanks a lot that is really good question and one that I actually used most recently it was an inter meeting but like in terms of like when you do football coaching there's how can I explain this in a way that everyone everyone gets it in football coaching there's there's a mythology of what they call like soul part soul so when you're teaching football your teaching is like a whole game and then you're breaking it down into small parts so you might then focus on one part of the game and then you'll finish your session whole game again so it's a way of but particularly when you're dealing with children as well too you know I am because I'm coaching children at all at very age groups because I do it for the football club you're trying to bring back that so relevance there is a bigger picture here yeah there's there's the whole game that we're dealing with not just the part and in digital twin dot build a lot of what when you're talking to people about building a digital twin which again I've not gone into too much detail about what what that's encompasses but if you've got a soul building that's a lot of systems and if you're telling people right we're going to go build this twin of all your systems it's almost like that idea of you know kind of awful a phrase of eating an elephant right you know like well it just seems too big for me to even picture so that's when you go back into that I suppose the whole part whole methodology because you started the whole twin then you come back to the part where your pilot a particular system because then you can break it down into one system at one part of a building with one set of parameters and outcomes and you know if you tick that box of course after the pilot if the pilot is successful then of course you can go back to them show the sagens and the efficiencies and and and and then you can start to think about how that becomes the whole so you know I think that's really good question don't you because it came up recently because we started to use that as a as a fault process of how do we talk to the those about a rather large and also quite daunting idea and make it consumable for them so they understand it and actually when they try it's relatively a risk so that would be my my answer to that thank you for the great question Giovanni I have to be honest so my background's robotics engineering I'm very interested in like IoT and technology and stuff and so you've talked about it a little bit about digital twins to build and I'd love to understand if you're comfortable sharing it and totally fine if you're not but a little bit more of the nitty gritty of what it sort of integrates because my understanding based on what you've said is you have these sensors and information about a building and representing that building in a digital format so then those managing the building can sort of make decisions about I'm assuming maintenance and costs and where to take things could you give us a little bit more detail sure I don't do the the actual coding part of the twin so I I have to book more around essentially aggregating data right so that if I'm going to make it really really simple so you don't have to necessarily visualize a building to have a digital twin but you need to draw down elements of data and aggregate them against a benchmark a standard or acceptable levels and unacceptable levels if that if that's the case right you need to put some parameters in place so whether we're how much I can get into languages and coding and different bits and pieces that we use it's it's more about I come back to again you're solving a problem so that there needs to be an issue within within a particular building because we're doing them in a built environment you know we're talking to some about the building of twins but not inside the building environment more of like I can manufacture in tight twin because really that's where they where they started but really we're aggregating we're aggregating data so if we control data of other particular aspects and again I think about the UK you know the house can stop there's quite a bit about damp at the moment so like if we use that as an example you might be picking up on cold spots so you need you need a sensor that's drawing down that particular set of data and then we're aggregating it against when when's good when's bad when does it become a problem and how can the system slide like that and let's think you know utopia can we get AI involved and start predicting maintenance and start getting to a point where this stuff starts to happen even even if we're not fully automated and you know semi-automating where recommendations are being made even efficiencies potential efficiencies are being highlighted should we say so that yeah again I couldn't I couldn't focus too much too much on that it's all physical what how what they how the data comes in I've got I've got guys who do that for me who are very good at doing that but we are we are ultimately looking at a wider issue which we're trying to see and we use data driven insights to help adapt to the problem and I love that there's overlap for you between like you know design and like the creative problem solving you know like I think that that yeah yeah I mean obviously speaks to your versatility too well yeah enough to mention there's a little you know I have no things things have happened in my life and I'm very very fortunate for some of the events and the way that they happen but like you know I look at some of the clients that I dealt with on the design side and they've all been engineering firms they've been construction businesses they've been so I've so I just had a peek behind the curtain of some of the problems not only industry-wise but what I have from business perspective and some of the problems that they're trying to solve for others so when this opportunity came to look at twinning and the built environment and how can they use the data aid those businesses you know it's sort of kind of quite strange that it's all kind of all come together like that and I'd love to say it's all by design and James at this master band of what he was going to be doing with his life but unfortunately from the you know unfortunately for the the magical story of it seems to be I fall into things sometimes or they just so happen to come up and you go actually that sounds like something I could quite easily connect a couple of people into and when we could get something rolling so that that's how that that's all come together that's such a beautiful thing though that you see that connection in your own life and kind of weaving into we're wrapping up kind of in in order to ask you know how to feel like you define success for yourself at this point in your life and is it different in the professional and personal realm or is it kind of one in the same? Yeah I suppose um there's finally success yeah I suppose it's the walking to the myself success I suppose it depends on the way I think it's done I certainly don't think I'm down and I think I've certainly got a lot more to do a lot more to learn and a lot further to go um at the moment my children are my children are young and you know it's I've learned from others about you know maybe wanting to throw myself too much into that kind of working and being just working kind of missing out on a lot on those opportunities but as they get older I'm just a little they'll let their own friends and they won't want to be hanging around with their so and much so they might be a little bit more there but yeah I suppose as a yardstick a yardstick for success as long as I'm seeing that progress as long as I'm feeling like there's some stuff happening here that you know could possibly change change the game for me in that in that regard then I'll keep going there'll be there'll be no way that I'll um I'll rest on my laurels so um yeah uh it's it it's a tricky one that is a tricky one to answer I think it I think for me if I'm to say does is it just professional or personal I think the two are certainly intertwined and I have to feel like there is some element of cohesion there even though I don't I don't particularly believe in balance something you know you're in one camp or the other that that's how I try to be anyway I'm even in work mode or I'm in family mode so I try and I try and keep that to try and keep that divide if I can easier said than done oh yeah yeah yeah we are getting to the end of the hour and out of respect for your time I'm sure we could have a million more questions for you but out of respect for your time do you have time for one more question no absolutely yeah please don't thank you we like to wrap up with a particular question I know that you listen to the episode so you might have already had a chance to think about this but basically okay right what words of wisdom or piece of advice do you want to leave us with today oh yeah that's that's a tough one um I think maybe coming back to my point at the beginning of the call where I listened to some of your episodes and and kind of heard these people doing these amazing things and I thought there's there's James gonna there's gonna turn up on an episode it's not gonna quite it's not gonna quite be there and I think I'm back to that point I think everyone everyone has their own their own journey and their own story to tell I mean if they if you can stay true to yourself then you know you yeah we will change we change whether it be age or experience or whatever it might be but I think if if we can remain true to ourselves whether it's through personal life will particularly work I think you know it's it's quite easy for us to feel like we need to we need to work we need to be earning money even if we're doing something that we we don't particularly enjoy stuff that we do we might not enjoy it at one hundred percent but we do have to find an aspect of it that we do enjoy it to keep us going so I think that would be would be my my element to it whatever you're doing if even if it's not always good there's gotta be something in there to keep that keeps you plugging on if you've got that then you you've got you've got something so you know stick out it it there is something there stick out I think we we have to see the one to give up on stuff a little bit too soon so you got it that's really good advice right or we think that we're supposed to be a hundred percent in love with something from the get-go thank you so much James thank you for everything you've shared with us and taught us today if people want to connect with you is there a good way for them to reach out well I see that you shared my my LinkedIn profile like yeah bomb means people can message me on LinkedIn um other way that's you know it's a great place to start I'm fairly active on there so they'll see us from me all right well we will make sure that we share that with the greater community and thank you again for making this time and space on a Saturday for all of days and thank you everyone who joined us today we appreciate your perspectives and energy coming into these discussions Spencer and I and the team behind founders voyage feel really fortunate part of this community with you and for the opportunity to bring you cooperative learning experiences like this one each week and we'd love to hear your nominations yours included James or other possible future Saturday session guests I love you know meeting acquaintances of acquaintances because this kind of just keeps growing as we learn from each you know thanks James so much for listening to our edited podcast and to others please check out our other episodes and consider becoming part of our patreon but in the meantime thank you again James and we hope that everyone has a great day and evening head thank you James it's been a pleasure yeah thank you having it all right we'll talk to you next time thank you you've just finished another episode of founders voyage the podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs the team at founders voyage wants to thank you from the bottom of our hearts we hope you enjoyed your time with us and if so please share this with someone else who might enjoy this podcast you can also support us by leaving your review on apple podcasts and Spotify and by donating to our patreon out to our music today is something for nothing by Reverend Patent's big damn band