Episode 310: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and PodCast for Week Ending Apr 7, 2019

Announcer: The following is a presentation and the ControlTrends. Podcasting Network Hello. Welcome to ControlTalk Now you’re listening to CONTROLTALK NOW your HVAC and Smart Buildings Podcast with Ken Smyers and Eric Stromquist. Get all the HVAC and Smart Building Control News You Can Use. Now here is Eric.

Eric Stromquist: Hi this is Eric Stromquist, welcome to CONTROLTALK NOW your smart buildings at HVAC podcast and video cast for the week ending April 7th, 2019. This is episode 310. We talk about all things HVAC and Smart Building control related ,and pretty much whatever else we want to as well. And I am joined as usual by the man, the myth, the legend, the HVAC and Smart Building Control Man , Kenny Smyres, the man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ve got to do my FM radio goes here. How am I doing Kenny?

Ken Smyers: They did pretty good, Eric. I love those introductions. You’ve got to get enrolled and everything’s like, we’re on a set and it’s, it’s all going good because now the great show, another great day in the HVAC and Smart Building Controls industry, just a capture are the captures that we have for this week are amazing. Uh, the industry is turbulent and it’s good stuff. I’m looking at new products. We get new releases, we’ve got one webinar after another, we’ve got name changes, we’re going acquisitions. It’s just a very, you know, very active industry. So, uh, how are you doing down there in Atlanta, Georgia?

Eric Stromquist: We’re doing good. We’re staying busy buddy. We’re staying busy and dude, I am so, so excited about our guest this week. Uh, one of my favorite people in the industry. I think when you listen or watch this interview with this gentleman, you are going to be as impressed as we are. This company is on the move. Talk about turbinate talk about disruptive and all the right ways. No, I’m not talking about one of my ex wives. We are talking about Distech Controls and Kenny, how about introducing our guest.

Ken Smyers: All right, Eric, I’d love to, I’d love to introduce Martin Villeneuve from Distech Controls, Martin is, the president and just to doing a great job at Distech Controls.. We’re really excited to talk about all the wonderful things going on at Distech Controls, welcome to the show Martin.

M. Villeneuve: Welcome Martin. Thank you Ken. Thank you Eric. And thank you for pronouncing my name well

Ken Smyers: in England. Did my best and we, we’re, we’re, we’re learning itself part of the learning process. But yeah.

Eric Stromquist: Well, great. Well Martin, uh, first of all, on behalf of the ControlTrends HVAC and Smart Buildings Controls community, thank you so much. Distech Controls has been a sponsor for the ControlTrends Awards and you guys have actually done quite well at the ControlTrends Awards. Uh, you know, our last two women of the year, both Monica and Stephanie had been from Distech Controls, so congratulations on that. You’ve won them. We’re so proud for them. For her. Yeah. Well they’re great, great women. So one of the questions are probably going to ask you off air is, is what your secret. We’ll have great women because I haven’t been so lucky if you follow the show, although I’m kind of lucky right now with a great wife. She’ll probably listen as I get in trouble. But you got those two, you guys were vendor of the year this year and you had the building automation control of the system system of the year in 2017. So, uh, needless to say, you guys create great products and a great experience for your customers. So, uh, if you don’t mind, I kinda like to get a little history. Can we start with sort of how you got started in the business and how this tech got started?

M. Villeneuve: Yeah, yeah. With pleasure with pleasure. So this tech start at 25 years ago in 1995 and the Montreal area of Quebec, Canada being a system integrator, so system integrator of technology, uh, in order to save energy and the buildings. So a lot of the building in the Quebec area are heated by electrical energy and uh, I droo energy as well. And there was a big program to save energy and their g and the provinces. And this deck was one of the, uh, of the system integrator to do that. And we were using other companion product to achieve, it wasn’t the rise of a lawn works technology at the time. So, uh, excuse me, it was the rise of lawnmower technology at that time. And, uh, we were using other companies, the product and the president at this time, the founder and president, uh, uh, at this time, ATM video had the ID team to create this own product. By having a research and development design center, you will achieve that. So I came along in 1999, you know, uh, went in mechanical engineer at school and the, you know, when you go into mechanical engineer you can decide where to go after. There is a lot of uh, a venue, a lot of aspects that you can go on so you can go in air conditioning, eating, ventilation, plumbing controls, uh, lots of different trades. And I’ve decided to go and controls because that was the most interesting to me since you can touch all the different aspect of the building, uh, all together, maybe not go deep down in every of the aspect, but at least have a general understanding of how everything works. Was always amazed when I was a kid to look at a building and look at this and how the water is going on the 18th, on the 81st floor. And how do you eat that? How do you cool that, how it’s working. So that was a true interest of myself. So couldn’t controls was a natural progression I would say, of my interest and awesome. I came into this deck as a, as a project engineer actually I was in, I was the, as the director of at the times, I was in charge of executing the project with the product we had at the time and realized pretty soon that the product we were trying to design in research and development needed a little bit of help from knowledge of the field. So worked a lot with the R and d team in order to refine the product myself, a lot of other people at this deck that I’ve brought, uh, lots of information as well to the R and d team and uh, year over year, you know, we started by diversion one in 2000 then version two, version three stay along the long words and so on, so forth to the BACNet line and to where we are today. Well, I, I, you know, there’s, the growth has been fantastic. I mean we sort of a watched you guys and why do I, Stromquist.com Is very proud to be a Distech Controls partner, distributor partner now. So we really appreciate that. But, uh, we, we kind of watched you guys from a far and kind of go, you know, he kind of has started to build a reputation, has got going and it got going and we kept hearing more and more great things about you. And then I think a pivotal point to me was when you and acuity and DGLogix got together, uh, speak of you. What about sort of that and how that’s changed? What you guys, sort of, how you guys, what you guys are able to do now? I would say that our adventure, the adventure of linking BMS and lighting had started, uh, when we did, when this deck was still independent and, uh, made the bold acquisition, I would say they in France so far away from our down developing their con continent. So this acquisition was based from a product perspective on the integration in a room of lighting, Sunline, Nh Vac and everything that surrounds this, you know, uh, multisensor remote control, user aspect, uh, all of that sort. So this was our first attempt to really link, uh, BMS and lighting controls and as well as some online. And, uh, we were at p two, we did this acquisition in 2010. Uh, I personally went in France to manage this acquisition and the development of this product and market. And we finally achieved too, I would say now these years, uh, the, the apogee, the tip of the spear is in which we capture a lot, a lot of market share in those countries, especially in the skyline tower. Unfortunately. So when acuity came along, uh, to propose a partnership, a strong partnership by 2015, we looked at that and say, hey, this is exactly in line with what we think the should behave. You know, there’s no need for having two different systems, this bread system in the same room, in the same environment, uh, to control a on one side, the h VAV. And the on one side, the lining, when you think about it, when you put a motion sensor in the room, it should not only opened the light, but also give the signal to the HVAC to uh, put yourself to the, occupies Stan a set point and then open the blind. So all those systems should be linked. It’s not the fact that they in many market, uh, I would say mostly because of, uh, uh, trades the different rates in different project our did. Uh, and also the, uh, the regulation. So it’s true that some country I’ve stronger energy regulation that forced those systems to work together. So really, uh, that acuity was a continuity of our, uh, the application of our strategy, but now back strongly, strongly in North America. So what we like about that is that we were able to make a change in Europe. Being a small manufacturer, being focused on technology and became, became an important player there. Um, I would say the North American market was a bigger challenge to, to play with. Uh, and the acuity with being number one in lighting luminaire and lighting controls in North America gave us a wonderful opportunity to work with, uh, top of the line market product line and us being the technology provider and having a lot of expertise into the integration between lighting controls and h Vac. And even that, you know, uh, we, uh, the partnership started in 2015 and uh, it took us, I would say a good year and a half to two to two years of investment between the team, between the research and development team of acuity and this deck to really arrive to a product which is wow, which is a pure unification, I think a lot of product on the market. Then you can do integration, can do integration pretty well. Two Systems speak on a BacNet and their face at one point. And you know, integration could happen. Where I make a difference is on the unification. You know, when you connect the system together, does all the, all the data are recognized automatically, are easily linkable at any point of hierarchy in the system. And, uh, can it really, is it predictable? So I’ve, I’ve been told by many customer when we did Voice of customer, you know, the problem of, of integration is that we know when we go in a job, we never know when we go out, when we do integration like this, we never know if all the protocols are going to be easily integrate of all. We don’t put a point that’s going to be at expos. We need to call the other manufacturers in order to expose the point we need for that specific sequence of operation when, when they work with our system or our goal is to make it easy and predictable. That always, uh, they will not have any stress to go in and out, uh, in a, in a, uh, in a reasonable amount of time, uh, and an optimize amount of time. As a matter of fact, uh, I take republish this, um, not so long ago that this deck and the Cuny, the all the target store in North America. So more than 2000 stores in which we did. Um, we, we have, uh, a distech eclipse con con good withdrawal does the weapons or face and all the light control true that according to a cloud server. So, uh, in, in the optimization per store, uh, the speed of execution is a really fast and predictive.

Ken Smyers: Well Martin,, it’s very impressive. In fact, I just wanted to review a couple of things. So what led to this text? Meteoric growth has been innovation. I think you made it very clear, uh, gave us a good point, controls and quality, well they have heard about Distech Controls over the last few years is the impressive quality, not only innovation but quality. There’s not many a stutter steps or reverse gears where you led with some new technology and it didn’t pan out and it had to be reworked or whatever. So I think what you’ve done now is just tech is kind of set a new standard of integration, you know, and it’s, it’s really interesting to see how quickly you’ve grown. And my biggest question, what comes to mind is what are the tools? How did you achieve this meteoric growth? I mean, obviously you needed good partners, systems integrators, and now distributors. But tell us a little bit about some of the components of this tech x approach and why it’s been so successful.

M. Villeneuve: We love to think that we are as good as you as you say, but there’s always room for improvement in any company. We, it’d be the best. We strive to have the best quality and, uh, but we, we don’t take it for granted. You know, we’re, we’re still working. They, they, they is, and nights almost, uh, to make sure that we have this quality. Um, it’s true that, uh, you know, being an international player, uh, we ship product in, uh, close to 80 countries. So when we release a new product, uh, the last thing we want to do as a recall, you know, uh, so, so for, for example, I can speak about that one. One of the things that we did very early on, I remember, I remember this deck was probably 10 million at the time, uh, in overall sales. And we said, hey, we are really becoming a, um, uh, an international manufacturer, so we cannot go onsite if something is happening. So we decided to invest massively in a Q and A department in a quality assurance department. And this department in our R and d team, which is divided in for fair moire software, a hardware and quality assurance. I would say that we pay, of course, we invest a little bit more in firmware and software, uh, because of all the functionality of the product. But a quality assurance is, is, uh, an important department of our r and D and, uh, no product goes out on the market on testing. So this is when we designed a product, but also every single product that we manufacturer goes to a series of tests in our office. And when we detecting, uh, even some product are returning, believe it or not, we have some are made that first year very, very small. But every time we’re analyzing, it’s never a big issue, but always things that we can think for the next product to improve. And yes, you know, at the beginning when you, when we started to be an international manufacturer, we used to be stressed a little bit when we were, uh, expediting product all over the world. And now we’re trying to master it more and more. But Hey, technology is changing so much today we are, uh, you know, designing a controller with a loan works, uh, 32 bit processor, 80 bit processor and now going to eclipse Iep, 64 bit processor, many megs, many Gig, a gigabyte of a, of Ram of uh, and Bluetooth technology, Wifi technology. There’s so much test that needs to go on in our test room. We have hundreds if not thousands of controllers and when their research and development guy every night or going home, they push their latest release version and it’s all going to be tested at night. And this is from a hardware point point of view, but from a software point of view, it’s going also on computer racks with all the version of windows available and even others in order to test that night. And when they come back in in the, in the morning, they all see the test reports and they all see where to fix things. So there’s a lot of automated testing.

Ken Smyers: Okay. Going on really and truly the, the, the growth it has to be based on successful components. And turning to the partner type of a part of the question with the systems integrators, tell us about some of the, the partners you have in your channel that led to the growth.

M. Villeneuve: So, uh, we have about close to 500 partner, wild, wild, uh, partner and we say system integrator. We have distributor like you like Stromquist & Company, uh, but ultimately, uh, distributor also going to system integrator, you just have a tighter relationship with them. Um, and uh, yes, this uh, both the growth ofDistech Controls is coming from an innovation strategy on the product, but also an innovation strategy on the channel and how we, how we sell the product, how customer you get access to it. So it’s the open technology on both side, on the technology and on the sales. And also an end user can, is not locked with the product. You know, it’s an open technology. It’s, it’s, it’s either lonworks,,BacNet, MSTP, back net Ip rest, Api, Bluetooth, so all the open, uh, technology of the market so they’re not locked. So if they want to merge with another product, as long as the other product is open, it’s easy to be to be done. But also having a system integrator, integrator channel network that when a customer is, is, let’s say unsatisfied with the service of a partner, uh, he, he could always decide to go to another partner while keeping the product that it’s not necessarily the case with, uh, other, uh, BMS manufacturer that are, that have other strategy to go to market. Sure. So that, that has paid off a lot and it’s the close relationship between this deck and the channel partner. The system integrator is the trust that we haven’t been enabled to establish between ourselves. So we never let down any of our partner on the, on the, on the job. I have to say that, uh, we need to take our tank, our partner, because at the early beginning this tech was not that involved into the business development, to the end user, to the consulting engineer community in the market. Now we are much more so really our partner, uh, created us, created our growth and now we are arriving to a point where we want to wear this tech is helping as well because the more we go in class a a of the building type Os spittles higher education airports. So where we are servicing any type of project now we, I say we because I include the system integrator and when I say me and this needs sometimes the help of the manufacturer in order to close a, an important project, not always. So we have system that are, that can go to all the type of project by himself, but we always there always there to help. And it’s also a good thing that the system integrator knows that we’re there to help and not necessarily to take the project directly from them, but it’s be there as a manufacturer of product to make sure that they are competitive and they will be, uh, they will be effective in making the sponsor.

Eric Stromquist: Oh, very cool. You know, one of the things we’ve noticed is, and we listened to cancer care for automated buildings for example, when he talks about the importance of the customer experience. Right. And, uh, it seems like intuitively you guys have just been on that. When I look at your portfolio products and even look at how you guys are marketing, it really is getting back to the experience when your hotel, uh, you know, uh, interface too, you know, you, your ability to make the experience better for the, uh, for the customer. Obviously that’s a conscious decision on your guys’ part, right? It is. It is definitively

M. Villeneuve: so, um, like I said, I think I, at the beginning of interview, uh, in the past we used to focus a lot on being a fast follower on the market. So enhance what people could get, uh, from other place, make it a better one. Uh, and now we are, we changed to leading the market and leading the market is not only on the usage of the product but also the usage by, uh, I would say integration point of view, but the users by the end user. So a lot of the product prove that in the last couple of years that we release, we release a unit touch, which is a slick, a wall divided center, face screen functionality, uh, multisensory Bluetooth, a lot of application as well, my personified. And that you can communicate with an app on your phone with the sensor on the wall or with the, uh, with the motion sensor on the ceiling in order to just to help the, the, the user experience. But the, they user, we need the end user. So we did a lot of voice of customer, uh, in the recent time in order to achieve that. And we want to push the pedal onto that, onto that aspect as well because more and more the end user are involved in, uh, the choice of the building automation system than they have in their building. Right? Most of the, and we talked about it prior to the interview, uh, and we’re talking about it a lot at this tech controls internally and externally of the three, three, three, three 3 -30-300 rules, right? You got, you guys are totally on that and we have a lot of end users that actually watch our show, believe it or not, even some csuite type folks. So, uh, this is a great opportunity for them to hear how you guys are rolling because their business is getting more competitive too, right? I mean, just to be able to hire people and have them come into the space, their space has to be a great space, has to be environmentally controlled properly and they have to have flexibility. So your mobile APP is phenomenal. I mean you guys are really hitting on it with that as you’re trying to attract millennials and to have that mobile app to be able to interface as a huge piece. The other thing that I think gives you guys a, a definite advantage is the psychological effect of light and what that has to do with productivity. And I know for example, one of the strategies that you guys taught us was hey we can use a light change in the temperature of the light is a first stage of heat or first age of cooling. And that saves energy. But at the same time being able to tune the lights throughout the day. And you know, there’s so much stuff you guys are doing in that regard. But a speak a bit about that if you look, cause I think that’s a huge, huge piece that are in end user customers are watching the show we’re going to hear about. Yeah. So uh, three three d 300 and then the link with the lighting, it’s very interesting. So three is the energy costs dirty as the cost of the rent and 300 is the customer, the people in the room. So more and more we were asked by an the building owner to say, hey, make me more efficient into renting my space, so make me more attractive. So what is going to be more attractive today for somebody who’s going to be a tenant? It’s basically a yes, that’s the volume of the space, the window, but also the technology. You know, why we’re buying a car today. Uh, I don’t think we want to buy a car and without the Bluetooth interface for our phone a little bit. The same concept for a building you want to buy. Do you want to rent a building which is not going to be able to communicate well with you? Maybe not. Especially if you have the choice. So if the building next door has, uh, is there as well? Almost same location but better connectivity? Yes. So we worked a lot on trying to save on the $3 a square foot a year. And in fact, we could work on a higher value, which is the $30 a square foot a year, and then the 300, uh, the 300 is the productivity of the people. So that’s why we’re releasing APP, you know? Yes. Uh, when you have an APP, you don’t have to walk up to the interface in order to change the level of lighting to change the blind. Uh, for example, now I sit, if I would like to close the blind, I would just have to play with my phone, boom, boom. And I, uh, uh, stop the glare to come in. So this is, this is productivity, but we’re going to push it much more than that. Uh, like you said with the integration of lighting with tunable white as a first stage of eat, the first stage of cool, this is a, this is more, I would say, and I’m at the same time. It’s more of cool stuff. We did implement it in our offices as well. So when people are are, are changing the set 0.2 plus one, we just blew wish the light and a little bit, uh, uh, in order to people to feel more cool or more warm. As a matter of fact, I know, I know the subway in Paris, you know, there’s no air conditioning or eating in this way and they have tuneable tunable white, so they may get a little bit more, they make it more blue, uh, in the summer, uh, in order for the people to feel cool and warm white during the winter in order to feel warm. So this is a proven, proven use of the technology. Also the circadian rhythm of the Sun as well that uh, we’re doing in office environment this year we are releasing a, through a unified platform in North America with enlite. So you’re going to have the eclipse controller in this room controller. It could be the V or a fan and coil, an interface of enlight. So being able to communicate with all the enlite devices and why this is important. It’s not only a dry contact or a zero to 10 volts. So enlight is opening up a whole set of, uh, lighting controls, devices and switches. And it’s not only for one room, it’s for the entire building. So acuity is the number one and two lighting controls as well. Not only the luminaire, but lighting controls and enlight is a predominant, uh, lighting communication into the market in North America. And so when you combine best of the breed in, in the BMS, sorry, I have to make my speech, of course not to do from a BMS market, which is a eclipse, a backnet and, and light together in the same unified environment. Wow. And then you put touch on the wall, you put, uh, envision on your, uh, to do your graphics and exactly. And all our devices have the DG logics engine built in Web server that we call an envision. So, uh, yeah. So what else would you want more? Well, morning. That’s why I was saying you all are setting the standard. I mean, I did in Europe for awhile too, and I’m ever coming back to the states in 1993. And no one understood shading control yet. I mean not to, you know, make it like a disparity. But Europe, they were already on top of the, the shades. One of the houses that I lived in for awhile, they used to have these things called [inaudible]. But the integration of lighting in the United States or North America as a whole has been kind of slow. I mean, it’s like because of the way the windows are made and the shading controls aren’t really given a lot of considerations. So some of the great features that you can integrate with your products, your eclipse and enlightened and envision aren’t, aren’t accepted. You can’t deploy them to a lot of buildings because of the, the building does not have the adequate, uh, components to make that a reality.

Ken Smyers: So, um, we’re seeing some, some, some headway, a little bit of headway. We’re, did some product manufacturers, do you have, um, do you get the chance to influence the trade industries that the, the expos or whatnot, telling them how all these opportunities are there to integrate lighting and our new level of much, much more integral, granular level. If you just put motors or engines or whatever you’d call it, a control the lights in the shades and acolytes with the shades because any buildings, I mean I see new buildings going up and I can’t understand why they didn’t make that a part of the new building. These new buildings, we see specifications come out every day and I don’t think they’re North American engineering community is accepting that as well as, as, as quickly as they should because it’s such an integral aspect of, there’s so much more energy savings in such a greater level of integration. Do you see us getting progress or I mean is as an observation of you’ve made that for Europe versus North America?

M. Villeneuve: Yes, and this is a good question. Uh, I lived in Europe for eight years as well, so I, I could observe the difference by myself. Uh, hand, uh, yes. In Europe I would say all the class a building without a doubt. There’s going to be a motorized shading controls in all of them. In North America, I would say that it’s, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I’m going to give you a percentage, probably 10 to 10 to 15% of the building out of class, a AV motorized chain. Uh, we see them more probably than other players because we have a product to address that. So every time there’s a project that needs that were on it. So that’s why I will not say that it’s, uh, it’s not there. Yes, it’s there because we see it from, from a lighting integration, I’m impressed about, uh, the market change that is happening. So I’ve seen in many markets, many towns that mechanical contractor or making merge and acquisition with electrical contractor. So they’ve observed what’s going on from a product stressed strategy point of view, and they say, hey, if we want to capture the full value of that, we need to change. We need to change internally. We need to avoid the fact that there is always a mechanical alone from an electrical bid to maybe the same from a of a consulting engineer, but two different guides. So this is more moving. I at a slow pace, but it’s there, it’s there and again, qd are playing in that market. We see it more because every time somebody really wants to do lighting and dms integration, they call us first. So then we have uh, an overrepresented, Asians of the market they would say, but it’s definitely happening. Well, and the reason why, but it’s going to, it’s going to get really technical.

Ken Smyers: Cool. I’m good here. I know it was just, just to summarize that whole thing is that I too have noticed that too, but I just, I again, we go to the shows, we go to the real calm. I, because we go to the various trade shows, we go to the summit and whatever. And I just haven’t seen, like you said, the lighting people, the vendors that are, that could be a part of that aren’t yet part of that vendor group. They’re not, they’re not, they’re not invited yet to some of the controls and the bis conventions and expos yet. But you know, it’s, it’s common and I’m glad to hear it. And I think your point, that summary You made, the very beginning of the trades, the bidding process and the energy regulations because you have 50 states and each state, if it’s not mandated by the federal government, then the state gets to decide how like California being somewhere advanced, we’ll title 24 because energy is just so much more important and then you go somewhere else and it just, it, it’s like who cares? Energy’s cheap. And they, and so therefore there’s that lag, that latency that where if the federal government came and said, boom, we all need to do this, you know, uniformly across all the states, then

M. Villeneuve: you see it’s moving fast. I would say United States is moving fast, uh, the state of California, but not only the state of Washington state of Washington, I’ve even probably stronger regulation then the state of California. And then it’s currently being an application and many, many, many other states and what I’m going to California or Washington state, I feel that I’m in Europe from a regulation perspective. So for them, the integration of Shaelyn lights makes, makes no doubt. And you see there’s a lot of a big, big player, uh, of our industry, of, of our economy. I would say, you know, the Gafa of this well and they are influencing. So every place they’re building a building, they want to, they want to build it, uh, the same regulation they would, they would see in their hometowns. So this is spreading the technology to be used. Yeah,

Eric Stromquist: that’s great. Well, Martin, I had the wonderful experience about a year or two ago, so it’s probably changed a lot of actually going to the acuity, uh, lighting portion of it, seeing, seeing how you guys were integrating with acuity lighting and all. And I got to tell you for our audience out there, especially our retail type customers or retail type integrators, the stuff that you guys are able to do in terms of, cause they would have these different scenes right from a convenience store to an office space. And they were actually like little, little modules. And what you guys are able to do is you’re able to walk in and the lights automatically changed depending on, you know, the particular scene you want. But what kind of blew me away on the retail side anyway was if I go in front of the potato chips for example, in, in a, in a retail, a in like a grocery store type thing, then I could get a coupon immediately sent to me. I mean, it’s like, it seems like you guys have the ability to incorporate location and dwell time and then a corporate person from a business. In a marketing standpoint, it seems like you guys are more than just a controls company. I mean, you guys could be a big piece of a marketing strategy.

M. Villeneuve: Definitely, definitely. So, uh, acuity and invest a lot into, uh, the becoming a technology manufacturer and technology provider. Then only a metal bender of lighting, if I can say so. Yeah. So, uh, the, the acquisition by acuity of this tech controls for the BMS technology, eclipse Ip, the acquisition of Bite light for the Bluetooth communication inside of the luminaire, the acquisition of geometry in order to do a soft software rendering of where the people are. Uh, so, uh, the, the heat map. So we call and DJ logics to enhance all the software capability of acuity are directly in a, were made toward the strategy of using the luminaire not only as a device, not only as a something that lit up the place and consume energy less than less over a year, but also being a strategic asset, being a beacon, being a Bluetooth, be again, not only, uh, also using visible light communication, you know, the led light have this unique capabilities of being able to blink at, uh, earth’s level at a rate that the eye is, couldn’t see. So this enabled it to communicate with the smart phones in the rooms. So that’s why we can call Isley locate a home in, uh, in a shopping mall, for example. So the re the retail experience that you have mentioned, uh, he has true, so this is working in many of the big box retail in northern America and every body, this parking, you know, all the, all the mentoring more put together in order to achieve the unique functionality of doing indoor location. So for example, the target, uh, we have target as, as, as a customer. They have an APP in which you’re going to do the shopping list and when you click enter entered the end. So it’s going to help you to find all the, where the, where the stuff is in order to optimize your time in the store. Not only optimize the customer time, but also optimize the refill time of the employee, a given formation to the manufacturer that supply those big bucks retail on how, where the people are in the store. So there’s many, many use that I could not even, but this technology is giving us that we’re taking that technology and we are also importing it into the BMS. So that’s why this year and this deck is going to release a full indoor positioning solution community out there. All the stuff Martin has talked to up until now. And one of the questions we wanted to ask you was what, tell us about this tech 2.0, I can’t imagine you could do anything else, but tell us about just tech 2.0 I’m totally blown away by this. This tech 2.0 so this tech 2.0 is, uh, basically, uh, we, we have updated the organizational structure inside of acuity, uh, about a year, a year ago in order to make a, this deck of fighting to make sure that this deck is serving, is working well within the acuity in order to share the technology but also keep it’s winning position in BMS market as well. So I had the plan, I and a pleasure to assemble a leadership team composed of industry expert compose of long time people and this deck, uh, in order to crank up the machine and say, hey guys, what’s next? How that we were a fast follower for many years we were becoming a leader with our eclipse technology. Now we cannot look anywhere else for our ids then with our customers, with our end users. Because unfortunately, and I hate to say it this way, we cannot look at our competitors anymore to leaders. So, uh, there’s many things that will come out of this deck. Like, uh, we, we had, uh, we had a tremendous partner conference in December in Miami in which we unleash the best tech 2.0 program. So this is about to double the company in three years. Uh, and, uh, with all the product line that we are launching, all the, the customer energy that is giving back to us create an unbelievable amount of trust and we’re in a good way to achieve it. So I love it. So if we have a little bit more time, I can talk about the new product which going to be released, but, uh, Martin I think, but I think our community would kill us if we didn’t give you time to talk about that.

Ken Smyers: I just want to say one thing to Martin. I did not over exaggerate or embellish the compliments I gave you at the beginning of the show. Uh, it sounds to me like you’ve earned to every one of them. And by the way, I just want to throw this to before, I don’t get a chance. I went on your website too and it’s a great website. But if you go into the press releases that you guys have won an award about it every month of 2000, I mean you just, every month that you won the global standard for quality management systems, you won the enlite solution voted 2018 product of the year. Just that coasted, the Canadian ambassador to the European head office. I mean you guys are really on the move. I mean, and this is good stuff.

Ken Smyers: So you got a great marketing department too because people like Eric has had said many times to declare it yourself was one thing. So if you say I’m the greatest, uh, and some of these are the best products and we make and whatever, that’s one thing. But if you get the recognition from third parties, from end users, from, from communities, from engineering groups, that’s really truly the accolades that sell because they’re not, they’re not self extubations or they’re driven by accomplishments and they’re driven by being compared against the competition and succeeding and winning prevailing. So he regulations.

M. Villeneuve: Thank you for in the team. I’m going to take back this to the team. It’s not me. Well tell us about the product you started to tell us about Martin. A will. Can we hear a little bit about that? Yes. You know about the existing product lines are, when you look at that, you know when you showed this to an end user, your customer is what else, you know, what’s, what’s next. It seems that you have at all. And to put that perspective, you guys have the Ip controllers, which is awesome. You are able to connect them very easily with just a pog in module. So now you can go throughout the building wirelessly. So I mean those are things that in and of themselves you guys have sort of perfected. So yeah. So what is next Martin? What, what, what else could you possibly do? A, some of it our are at our continuous improvements, you know, in innovation by continuous improvement. We have already, uh, like, like I said, uh, at acuity we have the indoor positioning. So now we’re going to deploy because we have Bluetooth technology in our wall sensor and we have it on our ceilings answer, then we can deploy indoor positioning using the BMS infrastructure. So regardless if you have only a lighting product and then in the building or only BMS product in the building, you’re going to be able to deploy it indoor positioning. So this is going to be released, uh, in the next month. Then what do you do with indoor positioning? What do you do with the location of the people inside of the, of the office? So we wanted to provide an APP that will be used by the end user or the tenants in order to optimize their times. So, uh, how were, uh, to, to know if the conference room are used? Uh, so we, we know it because we have the ender positioning, uh, to know where to go to a conference room. You know, in big campuses sometimes you have a meeting at 10, it’s already nine, four, five. And whereas this room, so if you’re going to have a guide that pat then report incident, uh, there’s a broken something in the building and since you are Geo localized you can report the sentence. So a lot of those application are going to be added to a, what we call my personify a APP, which is going to be called nine. Now my person, if I workplace, cause he brings up a great point. There’s no, this is a great product. He’s got a great partner thing. But now because the hardest thing for all of us as to promote ourselves, now you’re doing this special thing for your partners where you’re putting a spotlight on them and creating these incredible press releases. So talk to your talk is about what you don’t for your partners. Exactly. So Lawrence Scott is our director of marketing and communication. She’s doing with her team a wonderful job. So we tasked her to say that, hey, now we need to communicate not only what our system integrator, but the entire community, the influencer, the end user, the consulting engineers, and the contractor. So, uh, we’re having a program in which we did that in Europe a lot. You know, when we were having one of those big towers opportunity, we did a press release and promoting as much out as our technology. Then also our partner, the system integrator. And as a matter of fact, we consulting engineer or the, uh, the owner or the builder of this building, like a lot, this promotional activities that, that we do. So next, uh, next month, which isn’t a couple of weeks now, we’re doing our first one in North America. We’re going to be in Washington at the five, five, five 12th street, a JLL bill building, executed by our, a longterm partner, a smart VT in Washington. And uh, we’re doing a press release. I think you guys are going to be there. The press is going to be invited. Uh, it’s, it’s called by Jll as the most connected building in North America. So we didn’t want to see this. We want to, uh, to expose that to the community. And we’re going to have around, uh, on a monthly basis of buildings like this, which are going to be promoted and shown to all the community. So this is our little contribution we can make on the market to make education on a connected buildings. Wow. Wow. So you’re hitting all the bases. You got the product, your influence in the marketplace. You’re thinking beyond just the bas system where now it’s becoming part of a business. I mean, seems like to have your system is now a business tool. If I’m an owner, this is up and I can, I can make my building more marketable. I can save energy, I can reduce the operational costs. And then on top of that of him assistance integrator, you’re going to get me some great press. What do you, what, how are you going to top this Martin?

Ken Smyers: Well, we don’t want to forget our system integrator, you know, and they are the one who made us, uh, to this point. So we want to make sure that we develop a community. And we develop tools for our system integrators. So we’re having this program called bid La city x. So this is a velocity x on, you know, it’s the word velocity, make sure that they get speed, uh, you know, with the, uh, the current challenge everywhere in the world, but especially in the more in North America to find experience resources engineer to uh, to do the project, to do the work. So we want to simplify all of this what by a set of tools. So we already have a lot of little tools one by one, but now integrating them into a platform that will be new website, a forum, new ECON, ecommerce and vex, which is a virtual and generating experience, which, uh, that will help the Osi to engineer all the project from the estimations of middle and generating programming down to the, to the warranty and service in a cloud platform. This is going to be available to our sis. So we have our VP of customer experience, Matthew, which is leading us in this wonderful effort.

Eric Stromquist: Oh Martin. Fantastic. Well listen, it has been such a pleasure having you on the show. We got to get you to come back when you come back. Maybe, you know, at least twice a year, maybe once a quarter. I know you stay busy, but, uh, I think our community is really going to enjoy this interview.

M. Villeneuve: I appreciate it. I appreciate your time and it’s nice to be able to have a foreign to expose what we try to do our best. And uh, yeah, we, we, we love, we have the passion about what we do and this is what motivate us, our customer and our passion motivate us on a, on a daily basis. Just want to end the interview by saying that this tech 2.0 this year when we released it, uh, it was about, uh, around three teams and the teams are very near and dear to my heart, trust, energy, and grow the trust we have with our employees and customer. The energy we put in, everything we do and then the growth mindset. So never, never think that, never take anything for granted and never always tried to grow it.

Ken Smyers: Well, you know what, Martin? Uh, there’s a same we used to have around strong question company, which is if better is possible, good is not enough. So, uh, I love it. Martin, thanks so much. Distech controls.com is the best website, correct? Yes. All right. My friend. Wonderful jumps for a new community. You’re the, you’re, you’re the man, you’re the guys, the reference in our, in this result. Thank you for being there and continuing to do what you do. Thank you so much. I’m so impressed with what this text up to a one Martins to him and they really seem to be capturing them. Well we’ve had Ken Sinclair on a lot and he’s talking about the environment and making the building more so sort of eco friendly. You know, we’ve talked about the three, 300, three $3,300 rule and it sure seems like this tech has been paying attention and is sort of structuring their products, rolling out products to sort of meet that need.

M. Villeneuve: Couldn’t agree with you more because the uh, you know, the way I see it, there’s, there’s a lot of the, there’s a lot of global gullibility, you know, it was products, platforms or whatever, but when you actually can take the best of technologies from around the world and you know, synthesize them into one offering that really delivers the total room, you know, integration and then bring it down to the levels that people can buy it and put it in and make it reasonably priced and then have a network of competent integrators and then have a distribution channel is being formed. You’re really setting a new standard. You set a new pace. So I’m really just really impressed and I see a couple of other companies falling global reach with the global products, putting them all together in one package, one front end to really delivering a total room automation, a total room integration. We’ll be talking about that.

Ken Smyers: Oh, more and more. Yeah. We’ll be having more, more people coming on. We’ve got Siemens coming on in the next couple of weeks. They’re one of the people that are pointing that way. Mark, Pete Talk and, and the team at link springs doing a lot of that stuff easy. I of course will be at their conference, but uh, but again, I, I think we need to just pause for a moment and give our friend Ken Sinclair’s shout up cause you know, can’t spend sort of calling the shots right? If you were a viewer, a Gambler, remember back in the days we had Jimmy, the Greek king for our, our younger listeners, you might not know who he was, but he was an NFL analyst and he would always give you the, you know, the, the lie and the, you know, the betting lines and how to bet we give you tips. And he was accurate more often than not. So, uh, I don’t really got to rename Ken Notredame Auto Sinclair to Ken Notre Domus auto Sinclair can the Greek Sinclair queer. But uh, but again, shadows to Ken, Ken men, you, you’re really making a lot of good calls. Have you haven’t checked out automated buildings.com April issues that we talked about it on last week show. But this is a guy you want to pay attention to it and you want to follow us. We can. We’re glad we know your brother.

Speaker 3: Hey Eric, to your point, I mean, Ken’s now getting that he’s getting some recognition. He’ll be one of the featured keynote speakers, uh, controls con May 2nd, third up in Detroit, the motor city speedway and the speedway casino speed motorcity casino, uh, with the Cochrane supply’s, uh, incredible controls con 2018. And then Ken Saint Claire is also going to be a featured speaker or breakout session. Uh, whatever he’s going to be doing something down at real calm. I become so he’s getting that industry recognition that he’s uh, he is uh, quite a, uh, you know, a profit of our industry is getting some recognition. So rubbed on Ken. Right. And I’ve got to take him a little bit disappointing because you know, we’ve been calling out two of our favorite women in industry and Lindsay Baker and Darlene pope both. Now we works because we want you to have you come on our show, but we haven’t heard from you if we’d done something to offend you. You’re not like my hair. What’s happening here is Kenny need to change his glasses back, whatever it takes. We want you on the show and another one of our favorite women in that. I understand why we’re not hearing from her cause she is staying busy as Teresa Sullivan, uh, with Tridium and building context taught me another very, very bright individuals. So, uh, uh, well don’t forget Gina Elliot too. I mean we’ve got the women are really making an impact. Eric, I mean,

Eric Stromquist: Gina Elliot from EASY IO, you absolutely want another one of my favorite people. And then Josh Bradshaw, the king of Silicon Valley. Josh, you know, thanks for that video you sent us earlier in the week. Uh, where he sort of broke down the history of pneumatics told me something I didn’t know, but you’d have to go to the control trends youtube channel to see that one because we’re not posting that on controlled trends and sort of gets back to a theme. We’re trying to post more and more content. We get it up quicker on the youtube channel. So if you haven’t already subscribed to the control trends, smart buildings, youtube channel, we’ll put a link in the show notes for you. But a good stuff from Josh share to anybody. I just want to shout out to buddy.

Ken Smyers: Well, you know, if you give me a second, but I just wanted to say too that you know, a lot of the things we did a, we try to throw that midweek review and there just to give everybody a quick bookmark or what’s going on and what’s going on. Yeah. What’s happening in the industry. So I think maybe dot. If you don’t know who does a midweek review, a guy that Tom broke off, Anderson Cooper, uh, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley for you older folks, they look up to our own, the man, the myth, the legend doesn’t midweek review that we only post on the youtube channel where he’ll give you a quick synopsis of what you need to know during the middle of the week. So another reason you subscribed, subscribed to the controlled trends, smart building, Youtube Channel. Check the link out. Hello. Well that’s a pretty good company there, Huh? Tom Brokaw, I haven’t heard his name in quite a while. In fact, I got one of his books over there, but um, the uh, remember the day where the, uh, who was it? Um, the, the announcer every Sunday would watch, uh, oh God. What was his name? Brinkley Chet or know what was the name? Brinkley. Chet Huntley. Yeah. Wallace was another one that it was 60 minutes with the, who was the one that did like the space launch, you know, the landing on the moon. Uh, he passed away, but when he was quite an anchorman, I’ll think of it in a second. Uh, what we just want to say a couple of things is that, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of things going on in the industry that works. Noticing and taking note of the Cmr. Richard was purchased by MSA and that a, it was a pretty sizable acquisition. And what was unique about that? If you go to our post, they put the, they put the actual buyouts and the in the terms of the sale and you don’t normally see that stuff you know, on, on, on the front page of their press release. But these guys are proud of it and I think what they’re doing is they’re telling Sierra monitoring transaction value approximately 33 million about one and a half times revenue on a trailing 12 month basis. Expected Eby TDA, multiple seven X. I mean you just, you know, if you ever wanted to see, you know, how people value businesses and everything, that’s a nice post cause it goes down into the granular level. And then our uh,

Eric Stromquist: well I for a second, I want to talk a little bit about that because those folks are some great stuff. Our friend who was our contact originally for Rune Nausea Ra is now professor at Stanford, I believe. The university, is that right? Well he’s gone into the academic world, I believe at Stanford. Maybe we should introduce him and trying to trip county up here. Maybe we should introduce it to our futurist, who’s also a teacher out there. Kenny, what was her name again? Uh, no. Uh, Jan Thi uh, should adapt the very good. Kenny, she took me, I that that was a, that was a tongue twister that I got passed. So I’m being a little bit of a rapscallion here, Kenny. Oh, look at you. Go Man. So, uh, normally it’s the edit. See Eric has the advantage of, he makes a mistake. He can edit it out. If I like a steak, it’s highlighting. So yeah, that’s, that’s one of the few perks to be in the editor or the show. You get to do that. So, well, there was one other one that, uh, I thought it was of significant note and we went down and we went and met with Mike Epperson when he was Isa. And, uh, they had quite an operation down there in Louisville. Remember he’s a, he’s a big, a big basketball fan and, and uh, the Difference Between Louisville and University of Kentucky, that’s bad. You don’t want it make sense. You guys want to be on the wrong side of site. Auburn and Alabama down in Alabama bad or have two hats in your car, you better not be driving a car, you better be driving a truck with the rifle rack. But anyhow, uh, it’s pretty impressive what they’ve got going on. So basically now Isa will be proteus fire and safety, but they do quite a, quite a lot of business down there. Kind of like, you know, off center stage because what they do is they keep, they keep malls and they keep hospital wings. They keep various things up in an atom based on taking the damage to equipment or something that was a burnt out and they can’t release those critical components is without using the UL ratings and we’re losing the your ratings or whatever. So he does a great job versus, and for the manufacturers don’t make the product anymore. And Kenny, I did a video, we were actually down there can, we should probably try to find the link and controlled trans, we actually did a video tour of their facilities is very, very, very impressive and a, and again, if you have old legacy stuff to the manufacturers don’t make anymore than this. Everything for Fire and security to old Honeywell delta stuff, old, old, old apogee, apogee and stuff. They’ll actually, they actually, we’ll refurbish it and they

Ken Smyers: maintain the status of the biggest customer is Uncle Sam. The Pentagon is their biggest contract. I think so. So they did some excellent work. Again, it emanates from old e e Yes, yes. A USA or something like that. But anyhow, they do, they do a good job and congratulations because it looks like they’re not just survive and they’re, they’re, they’re accelerating riving they’re not as surviving. There’s thriving. Exactly. So then we had a bunch of webinars. Again, that was a pretty well posted on the midweek review about Siemens has a very important webinar coming up and have control CGNA, Jim Hayman and the guys are putting out there, but they opened it up to contract and they wouldn’t, they want to get the word out. They have a new economizer controller. They’re really, really psyched, uh, impressed with and everybody should take a look at it. So,oh no. What makes it an economizer control are different. The one that they, they have, have you had chance to see it yet? Well, it’s just improved. In other words, you sell it as a kit, you know, I think Honeywell was the first one I remember. You know, we had to economize kits. It was a little bit, they’ll pay or whatever. Two sensors. Yeah, exactly. So what happens is, you know, there’s, there’s the do’s and don’ts and you don’t want to, you don’t want to make a mistake on it because basically, you know, in our area here in, well western Pennsylvania, especially up in the elevated areas, I mean first age of cooling, now it’s going to be blue lighting or lighting, you know. So that’s kind of cool, right? We’ve seen that, uh, based on our friend Martin yet, but the economizer here is huge. I mean we have like maybe 70 80 days where, uh, you have the cold, fresh air available and before you bring on your mechanical cooling, you bring in some outside here as long as the, as the police correct. You know, and it’s not too, too humid or whatever, but uh, so it saves a great deal of money over time. Pays for itself in the paybacks are very incredible, like three, three years and less. Can I, have you also been seeing, cause I know, I think Honeywell did this for one. Probably same as that’s it. And I apologize to the folks who seem as I have not had a chance to look at this new economizer yet. I’m very excited about checking it out. But I know there was a big push at indoor air quality where you, again, you would look for the enthalpy or you know the fresh air, but you would also look for like the co two or the contaminants in the air and if your air was fresher internally versus outside, you would necessarily bring as much outside air and for ventilation cause you’d be bringing in like if you’re in, you know, some boys an industrial way or where there are a lot of smoke stacks and all, maybe there’s a lot of pollution you wouldn’t want to see. We want to bring as much outside day are an issue. You’d want to just research wait there, whichever one has the less contaminants. Yeah, of course there’s a growing, uh, the technology is getting smaller and the footprints are getting smaller, but you know, we’re seeing some great sensors coming out of a different, different manufacturers. Siemens has a great one to even their Rs one 20 thermostat. Rds has six sensors in an on board. One of us a is a voc. So basically back in the old days with is people want to know if people were smoking in the bathrooms or whatever. So he had to put a sensor in there that could, they could do various things, you know, they could also do the methane, but anything that was outside of the normal air, it would bring on a fan and maybe make it an alarm. So wishlists go to like a, remember carbon monoxide, where we have these incredible sensors that came out and we found out like trucks would queue in front of the air intake down at the local supermarkets. Couldn’t understand why they getting this incredible influx of carbon monoxide between four and six o’clock in the morning. And here it was because all these cars or trucks were queued up. You know, the first guy in it needs a motors running and then you’ve got your fresh air intake right there. Just bringing in all this carbon monoxide. So we learned how to really use things. Uh, you know, to use these sensors to advantage, but now they’ve got such a economies of scale and he said these things are, they’re not inexpensive. You get what you pay for obviously, but, but yeah, now, so now we have to particulate. So, so we’ve got Siemens, we’ve got, uh, airware aware. Yeah. There bunch of hires. Another one that, right. So they’re actually able to, we were unaware of things before, like some of the furniture manufacturers, some of the new carpets to carbons, they’re emitting chemicals, odors, and, and, and, and things aren’t, that aren’t good for the respiratory system that divides. His motivation was his daughter was allergic to things and he couldn’t figure out what it was. So he, he went down and started getting down to the very small levels and getting filters and finding out that there were things in the air besides the gasses, besides the carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, whatever, they were, particulate. So he, no, the technology right now, the technology is great and the sensor technology has come a long way. And I think we’re gonna see more and more of that. And you know, speaking of that, if you hadn’t had a chance to check out [inaudible] new center line that people, you know for that orange actuators, they’ve come up with just a really upgraded at central on. We should probably do a segment on that Kenny, which we will get smarter believe more on. But listen, I’ve got a trivial pursuit question for our audience and you can win a strong question company hat or dms control. We’ll give you some sort of a hat. And the reason I say hat is, and don’t give it away, Kenny, we’re going to ask you a question because we’re going to have a guest from Siemens zone. He is known as the man who wears the Fidor. So if you reach out and comments, I’ll say, we’ll give away five of these hats, reach out and comments and if you correctly identify our guests is coming on the next week or so from Siemens who wears the Fidor, you’ll get a hat. What do you say you down Kenny had, don’t give it away. I know you want to give it away. You can’t give it away. Well as a free hat and I knew the answer. So, uh, all that sounds right. If you’re, if you’re part of the team, the employer or whatever, you can’t win prizes. Yeah. So you’re from the government. You know how that works. So Dang it. Dang it. Dang it. Dang it. So listen, uh, you read anything good? Full, but as we wind down, what, what do you actually I am man, it’s just a, this is an amazing book. The first one was the, um, it was the Damon, uh, his name is Daniel Sar as a, and this is an amazing, uh, but I want to say something. How do you end every shows? Be Bold, and Stay relevant. All right, here. This is the, the, the book is called freedom. It’s part two of a book. So you get to be part one. What does this part say right here? This is your, this is your closing line is that everything is under control. Everything. So did we have any lawyers out there? I’m wondered if maybe we have the rights to that. Did we get a piece of that book now county? I don’t think so. I think that’s going to, I think it’s going to be in the trampled zone where everything, everybody has a right to say words that you know, have, have a very common, common whatever, you know, uh, I forget how that works, but with trademarks and whatever, you can’t, you can’t put a trademark on something that’s, you know. Right,

Eric Stromquist: right. All right buddy. We’ll listen. So good stuff. So I’m reading one called the talent code is one of the most incredible books ever read. And uh, I encourage you to check that out, but basically hits, how come all the soccer players in Brazil are so good? How come certain parts of Russia that have nothing dilapidated facilities produce the greatest tennis players in the world has it gets into some things that will surprise you. Uh, it’s a great book capital link to it. Well, that sounds like a Malcolm Gladwell’s book. The tipping point and all that is, is, is kind of like that. It goes deeper than that and there’s great news there. Okay. The great news, they give you a tip of something called deep practice. And that doesn’t mean that you’re practicing a long time, but, uh, ah Ha. She just give it away. But anyway, we’ll do it.

Ken Smyers: Job. It sounds like DNA though too. It sounds like there’s a little, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. DNA at all. That’s it. It’s not DNA. It’s not environment has nothing to do with the things that conventional wisdom say. It does. It’s duplicatable. So, uh, you go to the Olympics w well, yeah, you could. I mean, a lot, most of the Olympic people, I mean, in other words to that, you know, success leaves success leaves clues and uh, yeah. Uh, so here, right. I’ll give you a piece of it real quick. So there was a high school English soccer coach back in the 60s who could not figure out why Brazil was producing the greatest soccer players in the world. So he took some money out. He went down to Brazil to study. He thought they were gonna have these elaborate training facilities. He thought it was DNA. He thought it was everything else. Right? But he began to watch. And the thing was because they were impoverished, they really couldn’t afford fields they couldn’t afford, you know, a lot of soccer balls. So they spent 95% of their time performing in equivalent of our practicing and equivalents rooms. They would have these scrimmages be like indoor soccer. They used a bigger, heavier ball that was harder to maneuver. Okay? So that’s how they play to when they actually got on a big field, they could do stuff that nobody else could do and it, but it was sort of that restrictive process, right? So they were using the heavier ball restricted thing and they were just doing the drills over and over and over and over again. So the good news is there’s a, there’s a substance called Myelin in our body and don’t want those connections get made. That’s what allows a Michael Jordan or smiley to be so great. So here’s what was interesting. The size school coach comes back, he goes back to England and he says in Liverpool, he goes, yeah, this is how we’re going to start a practice. And He created an academy. Everybody laughed at him, said, you’re not getting, you know, come on. He put 14 year old kids do it and five years later, virtually every single one of them is top performer. Not to just in the English league but worldwide. So, so it’s, it’s how you practice and a, there’s probably a correlation to this to what we’re to control talk now in Hvhc smart building controls. So if you can come up with those correlations for me and helped me out of this, what do you can comments and I’ll give you a hat too. Hey, I like it. That’s good stuff. I, I always enjoyed the, the, you know, the, it’s not something fun about reading and becoming wiser from it. I mean it’s just a very pleasant experience and knowledge. Always did like three and always will but good stuff.

Eric Stromquist: Yeah. So listen what that special thanks to our guests this week, Martin Villeneuve from Distech Controls.. Keep on doing what you guys are doing and to our audience out there, we appreciate you. Subscribe to the Youtube Channel. Reach out and comments when a hat helped me out with a correlation between the talent code in HVAC and Smart Building Controls and would that Kenny Smyres I will say, remember, be bold, stay in control and be relevant. Indeed. Eric, this thumb thing.