Episode 307: ControlTalk NOW — Smart Buildings VideoCast and PodCast for Week Ending Mar 17, 2019

** Please note a machine transcribed this for us, it is not always accurate, and its grammar is worse than Eric’s.

Eric Stromquist: 00:00:04 Hi, welcome to ControlTalk Now your Smart Buildings, videocast and podcast for the week ending March 17th, 2019.  This is episode 307, where we talk about all things HVAC and Smart Building Controls and what would the conversation be without my co host and yours : The man, the myth, the legend, that guy over there, the one the only Kenny Smyers the  controls man from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Man, I understand you’ve been out sunbathing in the snow again, Kenny welcome to the show.

Ken Smyers: 00:00:36 . Well, nature gave us a little tease on Spring.  Two days ago it was 70 degrees, yesterday it was about 55, and today it was starting the morning off at 25 and snow flurries.

Eric Stromquist: 00:00:46 I used to date some women like that or 25 now the funny thing is that there’s people

Ken Smyers: 00:00:57 I know at golf as as, as I watch the snow fall here, I wonder if they really truly teed off. Are they? I know me. I

Eric Stromquist: 00:01:05 point a low golf my day, but never in the snow. Now when you play golf on the snow, did you use like different card golf balls or how would you find a golf ball in the snow?

Ken Smyers: 00:01:15 I never played in one either. But there’s a couple of things they do, they use different, there’s a ball that you can buy that you can track. Now I’m on it with an APP I think. Really? Yeah. But uh, I don’t know if they use those, but like at night thing I’ve seen them actually have, you know, the drill a hole through the middle of the ball and he put a light thing in there and you hit a ball that has a light on it so you can watch the ball and find it in darkness. I think the only time in this inclement weather, yeah, you probably use a orange ball or whatever. Some of them have an orange ball tournament said I don’t, I don’t, I’ve never played in the snow, so I can’t honestly tell you that I know because I have a, I’m adverse to anything. It’s cold .

Eric Stromquist: 00:01:56 Well, of course the big news is Kenny and I were down in Orlando last weekend. We secured the venue for the 2019, which I should be in 2020 ControlTrends Awards, . And we also secured the venue to have the biggest Superbowl party you’ve ever been to, which if you’re in Orlando for HR, that Sunday night, you can come to the ControlTrends Awards. We’re going to start about two and a half hours earlier, so that by kickoff through awards will be done. You’ll be situated, you should be in a great mood because we’re going to feed you well. We’re going to make sure you have drinks you need. You’re going to be with your rowdiest friends and you’re going to get to enjoy the Superbowl. So it is going to be the coolest, uh, ControlTrends Awards yet, uh, for our sponsors out there. Some of that Ken and I mentioned on the show last week, we have some special, so maybe you’ve already met, reached out to take advantage of those. If you haven’t reached out to the man, the myth, the legend, the one, the only Kenny Smyres at controltrendscontact@gmail.com.

Ken Smyers: 00:02:58 controltrendscontact@gmail.com.

Eric Stromquist: 00:03:05 So Kenny, I mean, I’m still giddy over seeing BB King’s and what we’re going to end and what we’re going to accomplish at this year’s ControlTrends Awards., do you get any thoughts or feelings?

Ken Smyers: 00:03:15 Oh, I’m the same way. You know, I love football and Kevin, let me just say this, we’ve got a facility down there, a venue that is a, it’s up on the second floor. So you get this, this, uh, this feeling like you’re going up to see, you know, it’s just a very beautiful venue. It has an outdoor capabilities. So we’re going to be working with different sponsors for different capabilities and look inside, like you said, first we’ll have this really nice stage set up for a controlled trans awards, but then we’re going to transition. We have to 70 inch screens coming on side by side. We’ll have the main TV’s that they’ve got 20 some TV’s, you know, distributed throughout the, um, or I don’t know how many, I don’t remember exactly. It might be, it might be 12 but every, every seat has a view of a television and we’ll have additional screen set up. So it’s going to be a lively Superbowl party. I mean, I know, I’ll be excited. We’ll transition from a controlled terms award and go directly into the Superbowl. And that’s like a double banger. That’s a, that’s a two, two for one. And you’re right. So what we’re going to have to do is organize this thing through sponsors. Again, there’ll be a limited number of places available and we hope, of course we’re going to sell out, but we don’t want to send anybody away that wanted to come.

Eric Stromquist: 00:04:28 And when you say second floor, he’s talking about the BB King’s was actually on the second floor of one of those big, uh, uh, sort of, uh, complexes down in Orlando. And they’re actually two stories in BB King’s which will have both those stories. Plus there’s gonna be a lot of areas that if you want to have a, uh, an additional event in conjunction with the ControlTrends Awards you can do that. So it’s going to be great. Uh, it is kind of limited about 300 people. So it’d be first come first serve. So it can it be a response or get in on it. If you want to come to the wards, reach out to your sponsors if you don’t know who they are, look on our website cause those are the people that sponsored last year and it’s kind of rock and roll Kenny. So, um, I said, so with that, we know we’ve got a great guests coming up here in a few minutes, but let’s, let’s get to a couple of things, Kenny. First and foremost, how about some shout outs buddy?

Ken Smyers: 00:05:22 Well I’d like to give is to Anish PK from, he’s a senior consultant with Iot for buildings. And this was on a linkedin post that Annish reached out to us and said, hey, uh, he’s an iot expert. And he was really excited about, you know, capturing how Iot has really changed our last seven to 10 years has really changed our world. It’s gaining momentum every day. Major players, Microsoft as your Google Cloud, Ibm Watson, Amazon, AWS, the huge investments in their continued technology and product releases are influencing it. So first he talks the financial world, you talks about transportation, he talks about retail energy utility where it’s providing, you know, dynamic pricing for binding sound. But then he comes down into coming into the building space.

Ken Smyers : 00:06:15 And so this is a great article. It’s on linkedin again, p PK. Uh, so that was our big shout out. And then we’ve got a national, um, let me just transitioning to one of the shows. That’s coming up. The NFMT that’s coming to Baltimore. Uh, we want to talk about this one first because it’s up on the agenda. It’s coming to Baltimore, March 26th through 28th, uh, in Baltimore Convention Center. Of course Baltimore, Maryland. But this is a, you know, these, these guys are some of the stalwarts in our industry that, so you think about the facility managers, every single facility you drive driving down the road or you’re going into a building, somebody has got to be the throat to choke and, and take care of things, take care of the good things and the bad things.

Ken Smyers: 00:07:04 And I’ve just really proud of them being part of our industry, but this is where they go down and get your continuing education units. The CEU’s are so vital to get your recertifications year in, year out. I always regret the fact that I lost one of my certifications for the American Society of industrial security cause I just couldn’t go, couldn’t get my eight units you use every, every so many years, every two years I think. But anyhow, the uh, so hats off to these guys. They’ve got a great show. We have a link on there.

Ken Smyers: 00:07:46 All right, so the, yeah, we have a URL link there and you can register directly from our website.

Eric Stromquist: 00:07:51 Right. And so Kenny is kind of exciting. We are a change the way we roll a little bit here at controltrends-update.mystagingwebsite.com we continue to get all the great posts that, that you always get on controltrends-update.mystagingwebsite.com, w hat we realized is we have so much more content that we can do post on um, ccan post on controltrends-update.mystagingwebsite.com . And we’ve been putting a lot of those up on youtube. So I we’re going to put a link, and encourage you to subscribe to the Youtube Channel. You might say, why would you do that? Well, like I said, I’ll, we can put a lot more content up on youtube then we can’t on the control trends site, we have a lot more content up there in terms of video foo tage. So you can get that. You’d be one of the first guys. Firstly you go on the first people to know because the youtube stuff comes out quicker than the controltrends-update.mystagingwebsite.com stuff. So that’s number one. And as part of that, Kenny has, uh, created a new segment. There’s going to be on the youtube channel every Wednesday. So Kenny, tell him about, tell him about your new segment.

Ken Smyers: 00:08:46 It is a midweek update, Eric, and it’s, it’s, you know, there’s so much going on that we realized if we wait till the end of the week, we can be slowing down the digestion of, of all these events. So to get, you know, to keep the pace of all the events. We had five announcements of five different events in five different parts of the country and, and uh, they’re exciting. Uh, and some of them they were losing the opportunity to get the early bird rates and that’s significant and you know, uh, so the further out you get, and then we had one person comment about wanting to get his event on the calendar, the corporate calendar, in other words, when you can be out of the office for a week or a couple of days, you know, uh, you got to make sure that you not stepping on anybody’s toes and that there’s availability. So, uh, he said that he was glad that we had brought that to his attention so he could go and make sure he had that time off or whatever. And so it’s just a good thing. It’s a pulse and it’s an easier thing so that we don’t wait till the end of the week and then stack it up. We just kind of getting the weekly update.

Eric Stromquist: 00:09:46 It’s kind of like a combination to Ken’s calendar. I mean, if there’s something you need to know about via cybersecurity or something like that, I mean it just gives us the ability to impact you immediately in the way you’re going to get that. Please subscribe to our You Tube channel. There’s a link below in the show notes. Just hit the button, subscribe, we’d appreciate it and Kenny is going to do a great job with that. He dropped episode one last Wednesday. Got a great response. So Kenny, thanks for doing this for the industry. Be sure to check it out and talk about somebody that does some great stuff for the HVAC and Smart Building Controls Industry, let’s bring on our guest..

Ken Smyers: 00:10:20 Oh, we got a, we got a great guest today, Eric. We have Scott Cochrane, president and CEO of Cochrane supply in engineering. Cochrane supply’s a leading uh, industrial iot and building control supplier with locations throughout Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Scott is probably one of the foremost stalwarts of our industry. He’s taken a distribution into its new future. Uh, several times. Scott has been, you know, one of the cutting edge players that’s kind of leading the ways. Pulled up the torch and run first.

Eric Stromquist: 00:10:46 So the hang on, hang out with Scott. Don’t come on yet. Kenny. You didn’t give him a good introduction. Okay. It was okay. But I think the way we some Scott up is Scott is the Steve jobs of our industry. Welcome, Stevie Scott Cochran.

Scott Cochrane: 00:11:00 Anything. Okay. That’s a lot. That’s a lot to carry there. Yeah.

Eric Stromquist: 00:11:06 Well Dude, you’ve been doing it for a while and for, you know, anybody who’s been under a rock for the last 10 years, Scott and a gentleman, by the name of Brian Turner, ControlCo, have sort of reinvented what the distributor looks like in this new age we’re at, they uh, it just changed the game and it’s kind of like, I love it dude. Cause just like you march to the beat of your own drummer, you’ve been a pioneering, uh, you know, and sort of blazing the path for the rest of us. You’re making HVAC Controls distributors cool. Again, you’re making them relevant. So, uh, talk about that if you will. So, maybe before we get into some other stuff, talk about your thought process and sort of, uh, when you got into the business, did you just sort of look around and go, this isn’t the way it should be? Or how did you sort of get on this path brother?

Scott Cochrane: 00:11:50 Uh, well that’s a good question. Um,

Scott Cochrane: 00:11:55 and we didn’t talk about this before you throw it, you already threw a curve ball at me, but that’s okay

Eric Stromquist: 00:12:00 cause I’m not too old to have a fast ball anymore . L

Scott Cochrane: 00:12:03 ike the lucky, like the Impromtu. So, but anyways, um, we’re, we’re, I feel like I’m on what I enjoy about this industry the most is the challenge of bringing what I think is, is the technology into the space. Um, there’s this, you know, with contracting and with, you know, with building big buildings, there’s, there’s some concrete business practices that are really hard to change. And with technology, um, it’s a, it’s a real challenge to make that happen. And I really enjoy that challenge both with, you know, the community that I serve in terms of the, you know, the people who put the stuff in the big buildings. And then also the, uh, the vendors I work with whom make the products for the buildings and trying to, you know, trying to really become a bridge for the two of them.

Scott Cochrane: 00:12:54 Kind of like, like almost like translate to each other what each other wants, you know, and, and how to work together better because, um, cause what we don’t see in big buildings today is enough to, you know, quality technology. I mean, you know, the stuff you can put in your homes just dwarfs what you can do in a big building. And a lot of ways, especially if you look at it from a monetary standpoint. And I just liked this challenge of trying to make this happen in the big buildings. They think it’s an awesome time for all of us. And, uh, we can redefine a lot of what our value is, you know, in the next couple of years.

Eric Stromquist: 00:13:27 So, so Scott, maybe kind of a silly question, but you know, I think you’re absolutely correct. You know, the stuff in the home just works. Why hasn’t that translated to the buildings yet?

Scott Cochrane: 00:13:37 Well, I believe that in the buildings there’s a couple of hindrances. Um, number one, um, you know, you know, the, the, when we work on projects with the big buildings, one of the questions I asked myself these days is who are we really working for? Um, traditionally we’ve been kind of pigeon holed in this energy efficiency bubble if you may. And we’re working for saving energy is sort of the primary payback to the projects that we’re looking at doing. Um, but all of a sudden with new technology like indoor positioning systems and, uh, you know, connecting lighting and mechanical bas systems together, um, we’re starting to create business efficiency and business efficiency saves, saves the business energy. And, and not, not like energy in terms of utilities, but now we’re talking time all the time. It takes somebody to do something in a business. And you know, if business has a greater expense in its people than it doesn’t, it’s energy spend.

Scott Cochrane: 00:14:37 So we’re starting to see paybacks in terms of business efficiency that we can bring. Um, and then, you know, then there’s also this new, this new thing you’re seeing in the homes, which is kind of the cool factor, which is the appeal of the technology. And when we look at the appeal to this stuff in the homes, I think where we’re at is it’s, it’s really coming down to the fact that, um, the homes can actually understand the person within it better than the building can. So, so like the home knows your personal set point for your comfort. Your, your home system can know when you’re home or not. Your home system, you know, will know things about you that you don’t have to tell it and it can make your experience better in your home automatically, right. Without having to hit more buttons without having to control more stuff.

Scott Cochrane: 00:15:24 Right. That’s the Iot part, right? Is trying to get this stuff to where it’s automatic. And the people don’t have to do anything. So. So that’s really a question to the manufacturers because the way the homes do it is they put an app on a mobile device and connect it to the application. And what the APP does is it minds the data of the individual and it feeds it back to the application. So it will know things like if they’re home or not. Um, that data comes from their mobile device right through the APP. So, so the question is, you know, under the vendors it’s kind of like, where’s the APP? Like where, how come we don’t have more apps for these products that we’re putting in the buildings today to kind of create that, that relationship with the people that are within the spaces. Right. So,

Ken Smyers: 00:16:08 well, so that’s a great summary. Uh, in fact, taking notes too, because we were doing a couple of deep dives, we call him into, you know, not just the flux and the bas industry three, but the players are changing. Now, you had mentioned a offline that not only that the products are changing to bring these iot capabilities and apps into the building space. I really liked that quote about bringing technology into the space so the products are changing, the players are changing. And that’s where I was going to bring my next question into, uh, the concept of the players again and he should pigeon holed about energy has also a very, uh, you know, I like that comment too because you’re right, when we start our presentations off we go to this routine, you know, they’re most familiar with. And then we started going off to the side digressing into, like you were saying, he’s a create business efficiencies, but to get there is what’s Kinda the headwind for a lot of people and certainly an area by area. So the concept of a contractor, uh, you know, what has changed there to allow some of the things that you’re, you’re, you’re new technology into the space. The players change. But is it new players? There’s the contractors that are existent, evolving and becoming better at what they’re doing and understanding it’s getting on that same vibe.

Scott Cochrane: 00:17:24 Right. So, um, great question in. Yeah. So we’re, we’re seeing a mix between, you know, both the, you know, the, I’ll say the operators of the buildings are changing first and foremost. So the operators who are changing, the people whom we used to work with in terms of what we considered maintenance are changing over to much more like building engineers with it backgrounds is where I, you know, uh, you know, and, and yeah, as you guys know with controls kind of coming up in May, I, we’re super excited. We’ve brought in some fairly large and users who are deploying large scale pas and other systems at scale. And you’ll notice that they’re there. The staffing for those, how they staff their teams have completely changed. I mean, you’ll listen to, I mean their staffing, um, more it people than ever into the building side as operators.

Scott Cochrane: 00:18:24 So that’s first and foremost, right. And then secondarily, the contractors. Um, so obviously we’ve been working hard on helping push the MSI as a business concept and that helps contractors, um, pretty much told the story to the end user of what they can provide in terms of, uh, of an integrated system than what the value of that could be. So, um, and that business practice is becoming widely accepted amongst many contractors. Uh, we see contractors integrating now multiple mechanical systems together and almost every project, um, I numerous projects, we’ll see them integrating a life safety, security, uh, lifting devices. Uh, you know, you name it, they’ll tie into it. If it’s got a maintenance interface and they want to aggregate the alarms that they want to put them all on the same interface, you know, um, these contractors are not scared to do that. They’ll, they’ll take that on.

Scott Cochrane: 00:19:21 And, uh, and so there’s, you know, with that, those contractors are becoming much more network savvy. They’re hiring more people from it, managed service companies to help deploy, um, in all sorts of areas. Not just like, you know, installers. I mean, they’re hiring database people, coders, people like that. So you know, see you’re seeing this change in the staffing for sure. And then also like I said, that the business of contracting and then the end users are changing and becoming much more it savvy and able to just basically take these systems and self manage them going forward. I mean

Eric Stromquist: 00:20:00 you almost have to Scott with, the whole cyber security threats, they’ll potential liabilities they have. I want to stay on this track but I want to support it a frame around it for those of our audience who don’t know, who Ken Sinclair at automatedbuildings.com is, , just he’s just kid that started this thing cause we call me kid,. Scotty, you’ve been doing a series of articles for Ken . I sorta want to use a talking point and I think you know one of the things is hauling automated buildings.com but you’ve done is what is the master systems integrator of today look like. And I think you probably hit on some already, but let’s zero in specifically on the master systems integrator and some of the things so they can get, if they read that article and some of those articles.

Scott Cochrane: 00:20:44 Well, I think we’ve, we’ve definitely proven it that it’s, you know, this, this is, uh, you know, I think what these articles, what we were trying to prove was a case in point that this exists. So, so for any of the naysayers that say that this is not a business, this is a business, it’s real. Um, you can rename it if you want. I, I didn’t name it by the way, just so I don’t, I’m not taking credit. I am not Mr Msi. It was actually, it started with the echelon days is how far back that when if you do the history. Um, but um, but anyways, the concept though is real. Um, it’s a business concept and it’s adopted by many in many different ways now. And, um, um, so, so I think that’s here. It’s here to stay and, uh, as we continue to write the articles, what we’re trying to show now is some of the evolution you’re seeing from when we `started doing them to where they are today.

Scott Cochrane: 00:21:38 Um, if, uh, our next article, I’m not sure if it’s out this month or if it’s next month, but, uh, we, we interviewed Sam Hidad, um, a contractor from the Cleveland area that I’ve worked with for at least a decade plus. Um, a guy who a is just always had an outstanding reputation for high quality work in the Cleveland area for sure. And, um, you know, he kinda got dragged into an MSI situation and, um, with, uh, and, and to listen to his, you know, as you, if you read this article, what you’ll listen is the quality at which he’s looking at the MSI system and, and what he’s doing to make it even better than the others, um, is, uh, is a testament to the fact that the, the business process itself is starting to be optimized, if you may. So we’re seeing a lot of that happening.

Eric Stromquist: 00:22:27 All right. Let me, let me put you on the spot real quick here. For our HVAC and Smart Building Controls Master Systems integrators are integrators out there who think they are master systems integrator. Let’s play a little game called Scott Cochrane is going to ask you some questions so you can determine whether you really are a HVAC and Smart Building Controls Master System. Intergrator of not

Eric Stromquist: 00:22:44 The first question is what if you, if you are a master system, if you think your master system from greater do you, what’s the first question?

Scott Cochrane: 00:22:53 Do you, do you integrate systems? Do you integrate? Do you, are you able to integrate systems together? Can you bring, if I give you two different systems and two different software platforms, can you bring them together in one way for me? Can yon?

Eric Stromquist: 00:23:10 Perfect question one. What’s question two?

Scott Cochrane: 00:23:13 Question two is is can those two systems be from two different vendors? Can they be, you know what I mean? Great question. Can One be old? Can One be new? Can, can you do that? Can you, can you bring the old and new together?

Scott Cochrane: 00:23:30 Third question three is can you put it on my it platform that I have to have all this stuff on? Can you figure that out for me? Can you, can you come in and walk in to me as an end user and walk me through the process to cyber securely, put it on my network or put it on the Internet

Scott Cochrane: 00:23:46 properly so that I can utilize the technology better. Can you do that? Right. Perfect. I mean these are really the, these are the stomach things that we have to be able to do now as a, if you’re a contractor in this industry and you know, if you can say yes to those and you know, you’re gonna, you know, that’s where we talk about, you know, the future is not,

Ken Smyers : 00:24:07 I just wanted to name drop a couple of, first of all the, uh, the article from March on Msi automated buildings is Daryl Driver.

Scott Cochrane: 00:24:18 Funny.

Ken Smyers : 00:24:18

Eric Stromquist: 00:24:18

Eric Stromquist: 00:25:54 I believe he, I think you do it every other year with the [inaudible] contract with the Tridium summit, right? So give the people the stable datum on that and let’s get some more people there because Ken and I are going to be there. We wouldn’t miss it.

Scott Cochrane: 00:26:07 You guys are and thank you guys for coming. And as you know, you guys are, I think you guys are going to be in the lobby doing interview

Eric Stromquist: 00:26:13 We are my man, because, because our claim to fame is our value add is we are the game show host, our button controls. So happy you guys will be there again. Um, and you guys your coverage. I was just watching it again from the last one. You know, it was so awesome. So again, I’m so happy you guys will be there. Yeah. And, and I am trying to use my national whatever celebrity status to bring what I feel are some of the most influential people I’ve met around the industry to this conference

Scott Cochrane: 00:26:44 to present some of the stuff they’ve shared with me, um, throughout the last year or two to um, inform everybody of what’s going on around them. Um, so, uh, you know, the, the day one, the keynote, it’s exciting. Um, as you guys know, it will be a circus like atmosphere. I hope planning on doing, we’re planning on trying to do a demo, which we will be piloting live in front of the audience again. And with that we’ll be, we will be integrating potentially crossing some technologies in the face of the vendors that are attending without their knowledge ahead of time, which will be interesting as well. So, so of course we’ll create some controversy hopefully. Um, and then, uh, but the keynotes really are going to come, you know, I have, you know, I have, um, I have three really important people I think to the industry that are coming, um, in terms of the vendors, um, you know, um, with Laurentl, James, um, and um, Kevin from Tridium.

Scott Cochrane: 00:27:50 So those three are going to represent those, those companies, Johnson controls, acuity and Honeywell. And we’re going to get a good perspective of where those companies are. Where they’re headed is companies, these are the people who really direct the direction of the company. So it’s going to kind of cut becoming from the horse’s mouth, which we’re excited about. And then, uh, to help put a frame around it. Of course, I invited Ken Sinclair, whom I’ve kind of dubbed as is my, uh, my sounding board for the industry now. He, uh, um, to me, he, you know, I’ve been reading like you guys probably, you know, this is almost two decades reading his material and that he’s brought such a perspective to it that I’m, none of us would ever think of. And uh, I just appreciate that. And so we’re so excited. His, he’s on that.

Scott Cochrane: 00:28:39 He’s participating. He’s not a big speaker. Like he doesn’t want to like have the stage for a long time, but um, but we’ll be doing a panel at the end and getting into it more with Ken. And then of course, uh, the guy who, you know, I’ll barely be able to keep from stealing the stage from me. Jim Young. He’s so excited. He’s got such a good story to tell. Uh, you know, I be kind, sounds like it’s going to be an incredible conference. I know we’re all going, you know, big Cochrane team will be there. Um, and uh, Jim’s just, you know, the stuff he’s put together for, I kind, he’s going to kind of mini summarize it for our crowd. It’s going to be awesome. So all that cool stuff he’s doing a is going to be a, he’s going to hit on and uh, and then, um, yeah, we’re going to, so we’ll round that out.

Scott Cochrane: 00:29:25 And of course after that we’ll hit the, you know, we have a nice dinner planned and the big vendors show, all our vendor tables are sold out. We have, we have probably 10 new vendors that nobody’s ever seen before coming in with some products that nobody’s ever heard of. So we’re excited about kind of spotlighting some news and, uh, and then day two, yeah, we’re going to have that tech track and the it guys are just going to dive into it and a, again, that’ll be the highest attended one of the sessions. Um, and we have the, all the product experts from Tridium coming in with some of our it experts and some special guests and, uh, they’re going to be highlighting all sorts of cool stuff. And then, uh, on the business track again, I brought a whole, a neat group of end users who not only have these huge deployments, but they also have this incredible, um, they all have great stories, great stories to tell, which I think will be eye opening for a lot of people to understand where these companies are at and what they’re really doing.

New Speaker: 00:30:21 So Scott, it is May 2rd through the 6th, are there still places for people to come to it or is it sold out already? Uh, no, we, we are still accepting registrations. Um, have definitely eclipsed our attendance from the prior one. So we’re, you know, we’re going to be bigger than the last one already. So now, now as the game show host of the industry, Scott is time for us to play a little game. We like to call, call, let’s make a deal. All right, so Scotty, anybody out there who’s listening and wants to attend your conference? Yeah, we’ll, we’ll put the link in the show notes, but if they’re wanting to put it in, let’s give them a code like Ken and Ericsson as her control trends or whatever. What are you going to give them if they sign up with our code? Oh Wow. You’re going to make me do this on the spot behind door number one. We have, Ooh, well you’re thinking about that. Let me just review some of the highlights. Scott. Kim, by the way, I just wanted to give you guys a compliment. I, I’ve watched your, uh, your blooper youtube that the is the mightiest warrior becomes fear fearful in front of the microphone and camera,

Ken Smyers: 00:31:30 uh, and you get to see some of these great guys and Women. And also you’re doing something really special. I think we need to talk about the real quick or mainstream is it, you’re doing an incredible one on one opportunity with Tridium, Honeywell and distech and, and you actually have an invitation out there. If somebody has a personal, uh, questioned, asked that you’re going to have an opportunity to set them up one on one to do, to facilitate, you know, some of the things.

Scott Cochrane: 00:31:55 So I know we’re doing as our vendors, we really appreciate, uh, you know, they really are the sponsors of this, right. I mean we, we, we, we charge for it but we’re really just covering costs there. Cause the vendors really paid for the bill on this end. We appreciate that and with that we want them to get the most out of it. So, so we’ve, uh, they each have conference rooms that they can schedule private meetings with, um, just her with individual customers and really highlight their products individually. Um, I find that it’s a great way for them to, you know, really highlight their products and, and um, and it also means that they won’t all be pissed off at me at the end cause they all watched each other, present each other’s products. You know,

Ken Smyers: 00:32:38 I want to mention too that you got some, like you were

Ken Smyers: 00:32:40 saying about the, uh, the, the technical people. James Johnson is going to be there from trading on Kevin Williams and of course he’s going to be available, is going to be a keynote speaker, but he also is the resident expert on cyber security. That I’m sure it can handle a, any questions brought up, uh, Kevin, uh, marriage jack from the Iot. Yeah. Yes. Tridium analytics on fire. He’s doing some really need analytics there with us. With him. Yeah. So life cycles, the name of that.

Eric Stromquist: 00:33:10 Right. And did we mention that Ken and Eric are going to be there too. So Scott Kenny’s giving you some time to think about that. So let’s get back to the segment of the show is my favorite card. Let’s see if we can, could say, let’s make a deal, come on Scott. You’re the man. What are we going to get my habit

Scott Cochrane: 00:33:25 ana, by such and such? Well, I, here’s what I’ll do for you guys,

Scott Cochrane: 00:33:29 for your listeners. Okay. I will, I will. Uh, I have to, oh, I’ll set up a discount code. If they put contro ltrends as a discount code, we’ll take 10% off the register. So how’s that sound? Negotiate a logo here. Okay. Now I have, I have something maybe better, maybe worse under the box next to me. Oh, okay, perfect. Give her a box. Your name, which I told you, or option B in this box right here. Okay. So what’s it going to be? All right. Our community. You can choose box a or box B, but you have to wait. You get to Detroit to choose box be right? Yeah, yeah, no, I’ll give you a sneak peek ready. Okay. Okay. Oh No. Okay. So what, what’s the, what’s the code? What’s the code? My control fence. He said controlled trends. Eric controlled trends. That’s it sounds like a deal, right? I’m going to put that in our listeners. We will, we will put it, we’ll put a link 10 percent discount. That’s to make it happen on the website. I’m in big trouble, but we’re, well, hey, there won’t be the first time. Right.

Eric Stromquist: 00:34:38 You know, you know the, the thing you know about, well I love about Scott is it, you know, your people try to keep you away from us because we put you in these situations and they just, they’re always trying to come. Well I told her, I said you can turn it in. I mean yeah, we’ve got approval to do this. So Nice. Nice. Well excellent. Excellent. Well Scott, let’s talk, let’s cycle back around to apps a little bit cause it don’t last. Control con and I think maybe you’re the only a distributor. I know maybe since then somebody has, but you guys created a really cool app, works great and you do your credit, you guys demoed it live on stage. It’s not like you guys even had a safety net talk. Talk to our community about your app and how that’s important or why it’s important, what it does and how they can get it.

Scott Cochrane : 00:35:22 Okay. So our apps called Raven and what it allows you to do is to take building event information from the Niagara Framework and turn it into a push notification for a mobile device.

Scott Cochrane: 00:35:36 So Raven is the APP, you get it on the APP stores and uh, it works with a Niagara Connection into a building. And, uh, and with that, um, you know, you can control your, basically control your notifications, how you want to get them through the APP. So a, you know, you can mute them or turn them off the apple, log them separately so you can kind of get your building notifications in one place. And then you can also do it based on proximity. So if you’re, if you’re in the building, you get the notifications or if you leave the building, you stop getting them. So, you know, because the building isn’t like you go there for the night or you want to know about it. If you’re not there, if you leave the building, you usually don’t care about it unless you live there. So stop getting them if you walk away. So we built those settings in and uh, yeah, it’s going great. It’s being deployed primarily with people with critical interests. I mean, you know, when you, you know, data center people, um, industrial, we’ve seen some acceptance there. You know, when you have a critical environment dense, it’s a better, it’s a quicker way of making somebody aware of a situation. Well not only that, admit it, best value to it, but go ahead.

Eric Stromquist: 00:36:46 But the other thing too, Scott, that I thought was really cool about it was, you know, something, people get somebody alarms, they just become null and void to him. Right. And, and I felt like me and emails is I get too many emails from me too, so I just don’t look at any of them. Right. And I think that’s part of what goes on as he system spit out these alarms over and over and over. And this allows you to sort of configure them and get them on your time schedule when you want to more likely to respond to them. Is that fair statement?

Scott Cochrane: 00:37:13 It is. It is for sure. It definitely gives you a better way of parsing it. And again, having the APP allows the notifications to connect to the individual in a new way. Like I mentioned, um, the ability to know if they’re in the building or not is based on the location services. And their mobile device. So we actually, uh, we actually harvest that information and use it as a, as a convenience way for them not to have to be bothered when they leave the building. Right? Right. That’s something that happens automatically. So that’s a little iot example, right? Um, guys in the buildings today, there are a good zillion examples of these iot applications that can be built. And so that’s why I keep pressing on our vendors. Where’s the APP? Whereas like, yeah, well that’s, that’s a, that commercial where there’s the APP because I’m like, you got to have the APP to get the individual to capture their data. You have to have an APP right now unless until we get like wearables and stuff all figured out, like I guess watches could count, but you still, you put the APP on the watch, right? He’s still writing. Anyways, that’s a, so with a controls con, one of the things we’re hopefully going to do is to show you guys some new apps in terms of that. That’s nothing, nothing artificial involved in this is it? Like I said, we’ll be piloting some technology there. We have to actually have to build it like a censor wall and some other exciting stuff, which was not in the original controls can budget as they’ve told me like a thousand times already. But I’ve said we go forward, but budgets, your ultimate four letter word and people mentioned budget to you and you just kind of go, budgets, budget, let’s just come on, let’s blow the place out.Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s one of the things I love about you Scott. Steve Jobs, Cochran is it man, you never do anything halfway and it shows when you go to controls con man, it is, it’s one of the best, best things happening. So, uh, thank you.

Ken Smyers: 00:39:22 It’s an innovation that uh, again, it’s born out of, out of necessity. And I think you did it because you knew that you had a team that could support, uh, you know, the presentation of all this new technology. I mean, in other words, you dared to go out and create a summit that compared to the corporations, you know,

Scott Cochrane: 00:39:42 I mean I was inspired a lot by the Niagara Summit and what inspired me so much in the early days of the sun. That was the relationships I got around the country from those meetings. And you guys were with me. You guys remember how many people we meet, including, you know, the time I got to spend with you guys. And really that helps me more make decisions about my business than anything else is collaborating and just at a personal level, getting to know people in the industry and how they look at things and how they deal with things. Um, so you know, and I, and in terms of my customers, I want to give them that, you know, that’s something I want to provide to them as well. And so that’s why I felt controls con was important was to bring that also that, that ability of that community thing together on a semi regular basis. Get people used to it and then they see each other again and again and again and they generate relationships and well, I like it. Yeah,

Ken Smyers: 00:40:38 you’ve educated, I mean we got the collaboratory and the Ken Sinclair and Marc Petock, came up with a, I guess was a six years ago now because I did the annual fifth annual one, but I think that one of the things I’ve noticed in terms of trends in recent history is that it’s the fastest way that information gets disseminated. That is the fastest way to get the approval rates and to get the innovation shared amongst, you know, whole country at one time and one meeting is happening. So the whole old standard way though, the old school way of meat here, you know, every six months or a year, and then you go back to wherever you came from when you forget about it, where this, this new style of of of meet and greet and the networking and the summit sal of dissemination is so powerful that you can actually sense it. You can feel sometimes when these people get together and you see all these primary players from all these industries meet or from the contracting world. But he said with the distributors actually hitting head on with, with the right kind of forum and a lot of really neat things happened there. I mean, and you can it,

Scott Cochrane: 00:41:31 yeah, no it for sure. You know, don’t, don’t you guys don’t give me all the credit. You two have done a bit of damage yourselves. I mean, you guys said outstanding job of making all this knowledge, uh, accessible, archived. Um, and you guys, your fan base just keeps growing. It’s incredible to me. And uh, you know, you guys Brag about how I help redefine distribution. I mean, forget about it. I feel like I’m not worthy. I mean look at you like, ah,

Eric Stromquist: 00:42:03 thanks Scott. . The love of the industry of all time. I mean, this is like every industry needs a game show host. So, and Kenny and me, we got it down. So we are definitely the game shows, but there’s only because we know people like to they can, can make to make things happen. Dude, thank you for that. I want to shift gears another time how your most recent article on automated buildings.com and if you don’t go to automated buildings.com you’re really missing out. Missing out was kind of on OT versus Iot and you know, you talk about a visit out to the west coast. So tell our community about that.

Scott Cochrane: 00:42:38 So yeah, so oe of the things that were fast learning from studying the cyber security requirements of, you know, of industrial based systems, as you know, we kind of screwed up in the bas industry by putting all these systems on owners networks. We really are very vulnerable to, um, a lot of problems in the future. Um, and uh, with that, one of the new, you know, of course, and every manufacturer in the bas space now has a full IP offering. So we have a lot of customers preferring to put in, you know, flat architectures with all Ip controls. Um, and so with that, the calamity with the owners network is getting louder and louder. And so, um, one of the new rules of thumb that we’re deploying with these deployments is we’d like to lead with this concept of, you know, we believe is systems should be air gapped before it gets networked as a concept. In other words, if you’re building a bas system and it’s all Ip controls, you actually have to build your own IP network first to support that properly before you go onto another network. Now we’re not saying you’re not going to end up on the owner’s network, we’re just saying you can’t really deploy 400 Vav boxes on an owner’s network. That’s not even in the building, not to commit the owners. The owners networks might not be the owner’s networks because the owner might change. So what are you going to do then? Right? So you got 400 plus devices on their network. So what do you do when they leave? So stuff like that. So, so the new concept is to air gap that build up your own network and then decide how to connect it. And when you connected you firewall so that you add a level of security between you and the network infrastructure you’re touching. So anyway, so with that concept, I went out to one of our customers for a long time now, which is Stanford University in Palo Alto. And just kind of as an experience, I decided to tell the it group that supports their deployments that they need to air gap everything. And uh, the guys had just about blew off because basically he’s been working for the last 10 years to get it all on the network and all secured and all this other stuff. So, uh, it was a lively debate and, uh, we had, uh, we had a good talk about it and I, I wrote an article about it. It’s pretty cute. Um, it is, you had to eat, they did win the debate with me, so they are going to continue to put these deployments on their networks. But I will say that, you know, they, they’re, they’re, they’re top notch in terms of the testing documentation standards, you know, they, you know, they knock it out of the park on those. So, so their deployments are definitely, well done, . And if you may, but you’re still going to see more bas systems that will have to get air gapped hearing.

Eric Stromquist: 00:45:23 Well, no, completely agree. One of the things that I found fascinating cause part of the debate and I was tracking, I think it was live on CNN. Larry King I think was the one who was monitoring this, but one of your point, which I thought was very, very valid as we got new construction because all the bas stuff needs to be commissioned before the it structure gets put in. Yeah, I thought you had a hell of a point there, but they countered with what ?

Scott Cochrane : 00:45:50 you’re going to take the article away. Why wouldn’t anybody go read it if I tell you what

Eric Stromquist: 00:45:54 it is a good point man, see this is why. This is why you’re Steve jobs.

Scott Cochrane: 00:45:59 Got To go to the article, man, automatedbuildings.com . I mean maybe I already gave away. No, no you didn’t. You didn’t give it away. You know what? That’s a great point Scott. Kenny will put a lively debate though and I think I did a good job of capturing it in the article and thank you again to Stanford for letting me publish it. I, I do think, again, this is part of the story. We have to start telling that, you know, yeah, we have to air gap everything, but a lot of things aren’t going to be air gapped. What do we do then? You know, they’re coming, they’re coming to a ControlsCon. Oh, absolutely. They are. Jerry is one of the panelists on our day too, and he’ll be talking about that and a lot of other, um, you know, it, he’s, he’s just got an incredible story about how they’d be bald as a department from according the building. So he’s going to tell that story, which is great. So very, very cool. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. What do you, what else do you have buddy? That was it. That was the only thing. Yeah, the talking points we had, but uh, I, I, I tell you what, now that show, now they show can begin.

Eric Stromquist: 00:47:00 I think people need to make an effort. I’m knocked the door with Chloe in it. Qualys. Scott’s uh, how old is calling a little dog? I got ’em locked in their bedroom. He ain’t here. That’s such a commitment to the industry. I mean you know how many people would lock their kids Saturday man. You know, Scott, I kind of want to cycle a couple of other things can be real quick. Cause while we got Scott, dude, you know we sort of have talked about, you know, the master systems integrators and sort of what they need to be able to do. I’d like to hit on two other sort of parts of the supply chain if you would. Uh, before we, we call it a day to day one is for the manufacturers. Cause I think a lot of them are struggling. Kenny and I’ve talked on the show in the past a little bit about the fact that it’s almost cool of you’re coming into this industry now, it don’t have legacy systems to support cause it’s almost easier to design a product for today. And I’d have to support the legacy. But what advice would you give the manufacturers? And the second part of the question is going to be, if you’re a distributor, there’s been around for awhile, how do you stay relevant in this tsunami of change that’s sort of coming at us?

Scott Cochrane: 00:48:12 Well you guys know I pounded the it drum for a long time in terms of incorporating, incorporating that into your business. And you know Eric, I didn’t mentioned in that to the distributors for many years now and you and I have talked offline about this. So we know, I mean that is still at the core is you have to have an it competence then the, the industry is becoming a cyborg industry. We are not all mechanical electrical anymore and we are a mix of it. And a, you have to have the right support around you in terms of that. And if you don’t, you’re going to have a hard time making the right decisions for your business on that every level. And you know, you talk about our vendors and I, I I feel like, you know, in terms of, you know, I know in terms of distribution, I haven’t seen as many people hire it. People as I would’ve liked to have seen. Right. Not Saying I’m like pissed but I am a little disappointed. Right. I would have thought more people would have taken, taken that on quicker in terms of, Oh real quick, cause I have hired one and I’ve hired one named Batman. His last name is Batman.

Eric Stromquist: 00:49:16 So Scott and for the Control Trenton Industry. Okay. I am looking for a second it professional. The only thing you to crack here, you have to be good and your name has to be Robin because Stromquist.com will be the first HVAC and Smart Building controls distributor that will have Batman and Robin doing tech support. we have taken your advice and there’s a problem. Thank you for that.

Scott Cochrane: 00:49:36 But anyways, the vendors, the vendors, I give them the same advice. I mean like I can’t tell you how many times I’m with their product experts and none of them are it savvy if you may. None of them. Like no one in the room is, remember I don’t consider myself it savvy when I need 90 savvy person in the room, I bring my chief technology officer who moves very it savvy. Okay. Cause I’m not it savvy. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But I can bring up and he can sit next to me and we can bring up a good value to you because we collaboratively can understand things that most people can’t. Right. So, so you know, that’s where, that’s where I see our vendors really struggling is how to incorporate this it community into their products, into their groups that work on products, into the engineering and the products. You know? How did they do that? You know, it seems like a lot of them are separating hardware and software. They should actually, I think be getting closer together in some ways. Yeah. They’re thinking in terms of it’s going to add cost because there’s the, they’re still thinking about price, right. Versus value. A lot of them because they go in it well that would be, I had more cost to the product. We need to keep the product is a inexpensive as possible. And that’s certainly one way to go, but I’m not sure that that’s going to be the winning formula going forward. It sounds like maybe you’re agreeing with that. Yeah, I do. I do. I think again, they need to really look at their staff and as they, as they add new staff, I would recommend they look at more people with true it backgrounds coming in.

Ken Smyers: 00:51:10 So that goes back to your original statement, where’s the APP? Whereas the APP exactly. Cause we can key person, they’d say, well to get that data you’d have to have an yeah, well how do I do it as well? You, yeah, it doesn’t hurt to have one around you. So, and then next thing you know, you invest a ton of money and next thing you know you’ve built an APP, you have got to make data, an APP, you’re like, wow, that’s expensive. But it is worthwhile. I’m not complaining it is worthwhile because it is. That is the industry in a nutshell. I believe in the future. And I think when we talk about distributors, we know Kenny, I’ve talked a lot on the show about the fact that distributors have the opportunity to become the most relevant part of the supply chain or they can become quit completely insignificant.

Eric Stromquist: 00:51:54 I don’t think there’s much middle ground there. So a couple things is that the manufacturers are not gonna provide that it savvy expertise and this obviously I’m not paying for the distributor to step up and differentiate themselves and create value with that. Right? So that, that, that’s a key piece there. And then the other thing is somebodies got to go sell it. Right? And you know what, what I’ve gleaned from this and other conversations with you as part of that sales process is you have to understand the owner’s point of view from an it perspective because the building automation controls, that’s going to have some influence. But if you don’t get the high t piece and if you don’t understand the fact that operational savings is going to be a bigger driver and 10 and experience is going to be a bigger driver and probably anything else, then you’re not going to be relevant in terms of the sales process. It, it, you’re just going to be, you know, working numbers up on bid day and hoping your price as well.

Scott Cochrane: 00:52:47 That’s exactly right. You got it. You got it. When we go, man, what a lot of, I find a lot of my job is in terms of where I sit because again, we’re, you know, we’re not selling projects, we’re just, you know, supporting deployments a lot of times in terms of our end user relationships. So in, in that regard, I mean we’re seeing all sorts of, uh, you know, new opportunities from these digital systems that go in because you know, the, the owners now are becoming very savvy about the technology they have and they are learning that this, the new business and using that to get more funding to get on, you know, to get better looks from their superior management on projects in terms of not low bid, but actually we need this technology because it is going to bring a lot of business value. Right. So, so now we’re seeing the layer that we sell into at the buildings. They’re starting to learn how to sell to their bosses and we’re starting to see more, more project fund money coming in. And I shouldn’t call it fun. It’s just exciting because you know, it gives us a chance to deploy this new task. Right? Yeah. So, so that part we’re seeing that change going on, which is really exciting. So what do you see the whole game sorta changing eventually with the whole construction process? Is that going to happen anytime soon? Where the consulting agent. Okay. Yeah. Think about that Yo pat and out from bad Rocky’s going to talk about that at our controls con and you’re going to see where they definitely have technology as one of the high, you know, in terms of decision making. It sits at the highest levels within their organization and those decisions are made and they’re made with uh, with budget considerations for sure. I mean they’re not just throwing money out, but uh, but when they’re made there, it’s going to happen that way. And I’m the technology providers on the job sites, they fall in line when told what to do with a good plan. Right. You know, a lot of times when they try to deploy new technology without a good plan at all levels, like get the engineer owner level as well as the contracting level. Um, you know, those oftentimes go over budget and the value’s not there to the end user. But if the owner has a design and they’d lead it and it comes from the top down, those are the projects where we see some real big successes coming in under budget with a huge value to the project. So that’s very encouraging. Yeah, it’s neat to see it coming together. So anyways, bedrock Joe is going to talk about that. We’re excited about that. So very cool. Cool. Yeah, we also have Mike Miato from Ford Motor and Mike is an awesome guy cause Mike Mike is, he’s actually like a guy in charge of it infrastructure for Ford and he lives in a world much, much bigger than what we’re talking about in terms of the it deployments. And uh, he’s had a dip his toe in the Bas world and look at some of the deployments were doing it and it’s going to give us his view from his level of what we’re doing and give us a sense of what’s going on around us in these huge it infrastructures. So, uh, so that’ll be an exciting, that’s a neat story as well. So lots of neat stories. Hopefully again, we’re going, we really want this to be educational. The controls, I think it’s going to be cool. So remember we have a link, there’s a special that you can get and we played, let’s make a deal earlier with Scott Cochran. Maybe just type in control trend and you need to know that you needed that in the next two weeks after two weeks. I have to do one more, one more thing here. Just sitting here listening to this. You know, I think that all

Ken Smyers: 00:56:24 the manufacturers should send representatives. I mean everybody in the control business, you have a lot of them already common and you have a lot of great sponsors and, and uh, and I’ve gone through them. It’s a very impressive lineup. But you know, I can’t see how people in this business don’t have a representative come to this thing. I think it really and truly would be behoove anybody that’s trying to keep up to date with all his fire. You know, uh, just there’s so much information coming at you. It’s a fire hose and you can’t really filter and whatever. But this filters at this brings the important issues and important people in the industry to one place for two days. How could you not really see the value in it? So I, I just, this is a call to all the folks who listen out there across the country. Make the investment, get to controls con and you’ll, we’ll be rewarded

Scott Cochrane: 00:57:07 for sure. Detriot Motor city and we’ll put the dates. We’ll put the link there. Listen, Scott, I’m getting a copy. No, it’ll all be mounted. Well, listen, I’m getting it. I’m getting a couple of texts from our live audience. Some questions. I’ve gotten three from three different, Jennifer’s about let’s play. Let’s play a deal. Just Jennifer Lopez, Lawrence and Aniston. They want to know if they sign up, whether it be photo ops available with Scott and then secondly, a guy named Walter Isaacson. I think he wrote a biography on Steve Jobs, one of the best ones ever. He wants to know if you have a book deal yet because it’s all there and more and more. There you go. I guess has been the one, the only Scott Cochran. Dude, thank you so much for taking time to be with us. Cochrane supply.com or Cochise always. Yeah, for sure. [inaudible] dot com we will have a link to the show.

Eric Stromquist: 00:58:03 Remember, use controltrendsand get 10% off. The Jennifer should be there and getting their photos taken with Scott. He usually has not to around him. So it sounds like maybe we already have beautiful women around you, so you’re even up in your game. So dude, I’m proud of you. Way to go. Thank you so much, Scott Cochrane.

Scott Cochrane: 00:58:19 Thank you guys. As always. Thank you from the industry and uh, see you next time. Kenny. Amazing stuff from Scott Cochran.

Eric Stromquist: 00:58:27 As always, man. Excited about control con. Be sure to register for it if you’re not already going. And remember it was, I could deal Kenny and I don’t negotiate on your behalf as the game show host to the industry. So Kenny, uh, you know another thing, we’re sort of changing up your a little bit. As you know, we used to sort of go through all the posts on control trends that were there for the week and we realize that you can just read those. They’re there. We don’t need to rehash every single post. So one of the changes we’re going to make on the show is we’re going to have a deep dive post to the week and we’ll take one post and we’ll go and do it. Go to a deeper dive on. So Kenny, what is the deep dive posts on the show this week?

Ken Smyers: 00:59:05 Well, it’s, um, the 2019 Haystack connect and project Haystack and, and a little bit more about the, uh, the networking of the sharing, the creating of synergies, the generating of business opportunities. But as we all know, Haystack tagging turns thousands of complex data points into efficient dashboards, meaningful alarms, and simple schedules. So what we’re seeing, Eric, is we’re seeing the implementation and the development of a protocol that’s going to make our worlds, uh, simpler, easier, faster, more efficient, and get to those, you know, those, those desired points without any deliberately meddlesome, uh, you know, traffic in other words. So if somebody comes out of a box and it’s 10, you know, it’s registered or it’s, it’s using Haystack or somebody could, it’s an APP and it says, hey, stack, we’re going to start seeing in the couple of years that will become probably the protocol of choice because it has so many merits.

Eric Stromquist: 01:00:04 Right? Was it, you know, and we were there at the very first meeting. We’ve been to every single Haystack convention and as, Kenny is saying , Haystack really is a tagging conventions are the agreed upon tagging convention and the stuff it allows you to do. It wasn’t that you couldn’t do it before, but there’s a term and, and if you’ve been called this, you know it’s not a derogatory term, but it was just sort of a reality called the link monkeys. And basically if you wanted to, to get data out, you basically had to manually go into your software to link different pieces of data up and pull them out. So it was very, very time consuming. And this sort of came about because people want to extract the data from their systems where they can make it usable. All right, but it was just cost prohibitive because it was not an agreed upon tagging conventions. So Kenny might call an air handler air handle, write it out to that one on my called, hey she one, Scott Menuch would probably call it drone one cause he’s a drone captain. But now with this convention, it’s kind of the best of all worlds because you can call it all those things, but then it’s going to translate to one meaning. And then now what allows your integrators to do is to extract this data without having to the cost of being a link you. So we’ve watched over the years when this first came out, our first meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Kenny, I mean, you know, it was, it was kinda tough sledding there. Nobody really adopted it. But it’s such a great idea that the manufacturers, the biggest one be a Tridium. No, came out in the not too distant past and say, we, we are accepting this standard now. So it is really, and truly the stuff, if you are a user or a consulting engineer, you want to ask and make sure that Haystack tags are included in your controllers and your system. If you’re an integrator, you want to become part of the Haystack organization. If you’re in, you know, and if your distributor, you better know what it is too. And the great news is, if you’re not caught up on this yet, you will be, because there’s a big event coming up and San Diego, right? Kenny,

Ken Smyers: 01:02:08 all insurance. In fact, the registration, uh, it might be closing down. That was one of the, our midweek, uh, uh, urgencies was that these early bird registrations or, and I think a Haystack. You May, if you look at it today being Sunday, March 17th, they might, might, might have missed the, uh, the clothes off. But yeah, so the registration hotel, we have that link right on our website. And uh, you know, you could book your, to book your hotel room directly through the Haystack connect website for discounted conference rate. So that’s, that’s, that’s a good incentive. Uh, it gives you good details on the sponsors, the exhibit halls, the agendas, the speakers. In fact, there’s still a call for speakers for the Haystack connect. Uh, it’s in a beautiful area. It’s a private island paradise. So this is going to be a paradise point. The San Diego island resort and it’s extraordinary. It’s beautiful. Uh, it’s a, it’s going to be a, so all the downtime is going to be near the beach or you know, just in a beautiful environment. So it’s got all the components of being a very worthwhile important networking. But like you said, going into the deep dive, you know, the, the technical information that the Hastag provides a unique open forum for professionals involved in automation control Internet of things to learn, share the latest technologies and techniques for connecting systems and utilizing data device data and applications including intelligent buildings, energy management, remote monitoring and other iot devices and applications. And this year is competence of course is May 13th through the 15th at Paradise Point Resort. And I just want to do some name dropping. It got some of the industry’s stalwarts that we’ve had, like John Petze, mark p talk, Brian Frank, uh, you know, Scott meant, you mentioned him earlier and you know, Jason Briggs, we’re seeing the critical mass here and the OEMs that are involved are making this thing inevitable. So it’s not a question of if you’re going to get onto the project Haystack train or, or the Haystack templating. It’s not a question of if it’s a question of when and,

Eric Stromquist: 01:04:21 well, and we’ve seen so many great demonstrations. I, you know, it compliments to both Jason Briggs and Scott Menuch because the very first one we went to, they get out, they got up on stage and their overalls and their, their straw hats and they essentially live in front of an audience without a safety net connected all these diverse systems almost instantaneously through the use of Haystack tags. We saw him do it again in Colorado Springs. So the power of Haystack, I mean it’s palatable when you see how quickly they were able to bring on systems from all around the city and almost instantaneously. It’s phenomenal. I’m not doing it justice. You have to see it to believe it. As a matter of fact, I think uncontrolled trends, we might have some videos of them doing that. We do, we do. But the videos didn’t even do it justice. So if you haven’t been to a Haystack connect, uh, beg, steal, plead, tell him Ken and Eric sent you, you know, by Kenny said the dates might’ve passed, but hey, we know people, so just, uh, we’ll, we’ll help you out if you really want to go and you should want to go. So, yeah, well I’m just goes, Forrest Gump says, that’s what I have to say about that. Hat’s off to the Haystack connect organization. You know, we have the links on there, the, the Haystack connecting project Haystack. You know, you’ve got some brilliant people in behind that and thinking about Haystack too is it’s global, it’s having a big impact on Australia. It’s having a big impact. We heard from one of our colleagues, the reason why Australia has become such a leader in building automation and any, any new innovation that know can help buildings become more efficient and you know, increase the utilization of data Australia, you have to do it. They have laws down there that say, hey, guess what, we don’t, we’re not going to tolerate, it’s like a title 24 on steroids. It means I, I didn’t realize it until it was explained to me that, you know, they don’t even have a choice. You have to comply with these, these, the top energy efficiencies and everything are mandated. So they think that the Haystack is, you know, was, was pivotable deployment of a protocol that everybody benefits from so that everybody’s on the same sheet of music , What was the guy’s name that we met? We need to give him a shout out to from air masters that uh, has been, he’s a big, big deal at Haystack. Mcelhaney. special shout to Richard. He’ll probably be there too. But to your point, man, people from all over the globe come here to a that and then right after that you got to get back on your point, get your passport ready cause you got the EASY IO Global Conference in Holland. So we’ll be there too. So with that Kenny Smyres, we got stuff to do. You got to go play in the snow, get a snow Tan, and you know, I’ve got to go take care of my kids. My wife is out of town for 10 days, guys, so I am babysitting the six year old Evelyn and the three year old Axel, or should I say their babies city May. With that, a special thanks to our guest this week, Scott Cochrane from Cochrane Supply.. Be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel and remember, be bold, stay in control, and stay relevant

Ken Smyers: 01:07:48 indeed.

New Speaker: 01:07:48 Indeed. Kenny Smyers, and that’s a wrap.