200 Episodes, Changing Practice, and What Comes Next

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Lee, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, startup advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, Disruptors. Welcome to this week's episode of Practice disrupted. For our 200th episode, it only felt right to bring back someone very special. My original co creator and former co host of Practice Disrupted, Janine Chastain. If you've been with us from the beginning, you, you know, Janine helped shape the voice and mission of this podcast.

A Conversations about how we practice, how we lead, and how we build businesses that can actually thrive. Since stepping away from the mic, Janine has been building Apostrophe Consulting, where she helps AEC firms navigate leadership transitions, knowledge transfer, and the cultural shifts necessary to truly evolve practice. Not just talk about change, but implement it. In this milestone episode, we catch up on her journey, reflect on where Practice Disrupted started, how both of our paths have evolved, and the inflection point we believe the profession is standing in right now. And yes, we get a little personal about identity, belonging, and why the profession needs to make more space for different ways to contribute. Let's revisit where it all began. Hello, Disruptors. Hello, Janine.

B Hi, Evelyn.

A It's so nice to have you back on Practice Disrupted.

B I know. Hello, Disruptors.

A For maybe any new listeners who don't know who you are or somebody who's tuning in for the first time, do you want to give a brief introduction?

B Wow. Where to start? Let's see. Co founder of the Practice Disrupted podcast with Evelyn Lee. My name is Janine Chastain, and the story goes that way back, I don't know, almost like 10 years ago, we became friends in California when we were both volunteering for the aia. And then fast forward to when the pandemic was happening and we were talking about joining up and making a podcast. We did. And so through the first couple months of the podcast, we launched Practice Disrupted. And that's, like, shocking.

B That was 2020. It's 2025. The podcast has been around for five years. Isn't that crazy?

A Five years. And this is episode 200. So for all of those longtime listeners, I wanted to take this special moment to kind of invite Janine back to Practice Disrupted. She's taken a little bit of a break. We're going to catch up with her and figure out what she's been up to, but also just have a conversation about the reflections of what's happening within the industry now and what a crazy time it is to be an architect.

B Yeah, we're at another major inflection point. I mean, I thought back when we were going through the pandemic that we were really going through change. And yet again, here we are. We're bending with change.

A Bending and growing and seeking out new opportunities. So do you want to tell everyone a little bit about Apostrophe Consulting, just so we can kind of level set your perspective, your broader perspective on things you're hearing within the industry, and just to learn a little bit more about what you've been doing as you've taken time away from the podcast.

B So the backstory on that is, when I was still living in San Francisco, like Evelyn, I went after an mba. And I was also. I think the parallels in our stories are that we were both trying to figure out how to blend careers in architecture with this interest in business that we both had. And so, Evelyn, you went on your journey, you ended up with an MBA and mpa, Is that right? And then I did the MBA route, and we both kind of were exploring different things. But ultimately, through my MBA experience, I had known I wanted to launch a business. But through the process of doing the mba, I was able to kind of figure out what that might look like. And it was consulting. Now, of course, at the time, I didn't really know what consulting was, but basically I jumped in.

B When I made my move back to the East coast in 2019, I jumped in and I launched a consulting practice, which is called Apostrophe Consulting, and I've been building it since and learning how to do consulting and work with architecture firms and implement the change that I'm trying to do. And that I think actually what's interesting and has taken me a little bit of time to connect the dots on is that through the podcast journey, I feel like that helped me learn what it was that I was trying to do with consulting, which was this idea that we had around change, which was around helping firms actually realize and implement the change that we were describing in a way that was real. Because there's a lot of firms that are talking about change, but there are very few, I think, that are actually trying to implement it in substantial ways.

A I think, in addition to that is we see a lot of change or desire for change, not necessarily happening at the current leadership level. Right. But, like the next level of leadership.

B That's totally spot on. Yes. I think that was my experience too, is when I worked in practice having the desire for change but not being able to implement it. So I think essentially apostrophe consulting has grown into a way for me to work with architects in the industry who care about change. They see the potential for changing the industry or bringing about change in their firms. And we are working with those companies and those leaders to it's a design process to realize the potential for what we could actually change in the business model, what it looks like, how you achieve it, and most importantly, how you implement it. So that it's not just a strategic plan that is kind of like halfway followed through, but it's actually a rollout change management process where we're taking a firm from one way of operating to a new way of operating.

A That's a lot of different things still. So I want you to zoom in. Gazar, can you give us some more specific examples and maybe you don't have to name client names, but maybe more specific examples of the type of change that you're helping to create in firms?

B Yeah, well, I mean, I think that the challenge is that it looks different for every client because the same thing is not going to work across every firm.

A Nothing's ever really one size fits all.

B Exactly. So what I've learned is that the parallel in what I'm doing to my architectural training is that it is a design problem. And so when we go in, we're really looking at it through the lens of the firm and the business as a design problem. And so to answer your question, the things that we're dealing with are helping next generation leaders implement some kind of change. At the organizational level, we're helping firms transition through leadership. So when their leaders stepping out, we're also working with incoming leaders to make that transition and implement change in those moments. Sometimes it's an organizational design exercise. And then also another pathway in my work is around knowledge transfer.

B And so like I think early on, Evelyn, you and I would talk about this work I had been doing in mentorship. What that's evolved into is essentially the gap that the industry is facing around knowledge transfer. And so creating change through the way that we're training and educating architects internally on staff in order to close those gaps, because the gaps are too great.

A Now I'd be interested in hearing whether or not you're seeing. I'm hearing about this more. I think a lot of people know that call it the great white wave or whatever you want to call it there's a lot of people in leadership, especially within our industry, where I would say people tend to retire later than usual. They stay in it for the love and the passion and because they have their name on the door. But given everything that has hit our industry, that has pulled away workforce where people never truly returned, whether that is the Great Recession or the Great Resignation, there's this very large gap between leadership and the next level of the people that they would consider bringing into leadership. And individuals like myself, if I were to have stayed in practice or kind of the middle of the Millennials are really missing, I guess. So I'm saying right now, firms, and this is true of both large firms and I think both of medium sized firms, are seeing a huge gap between what they would consider more middle management and upper leadership.

B Yeah, I think you're totally right. And that's come through multiple recessions. I think the Gen Xers would argue that they've lost some of their peers during earlier recessions than the Millennials. The millennials were faced with the Great Recession, which is what hit me, which is why I know this pain point so well. And that took out a lot of people. And then followed by kind of the last, I would say 10 years in terms of other industries pulling people away because of the value that they can afford through compensation and benefits. And then also the work life balance that's lacking in our field. Essentially it's just pulled people away.

B And then I think we again lost people through other economic constraints over the last couple years. So we've just eroded our pipeline of people.

A Yeah, both unintentionally and I think because we couldn't get out of our own way.

B Yeah, I agree. And so I guess the personal part for me is that because like, I often think of my story and I think about, wow, I could have still been in this field. And not because essentially economic constraints is one reason I understand why this field is so hard to stay in. And so I've been trying to figure out how do we actually make people want to stay in it? Like, can we close that gap? Can we make it easier for the people that are still there? Because the ones that are in the middle, the middle managers that you described, they are so stretched then right now they are holding such a gap between seasoned professionals who hold the knowledge and the younger staff that need the knowledge.

A I mean, the interesting thing there. So if we step outside the architecture industry and we just talk about middle managers in general, especially I'm seeing this in tech, I think the expectations of Middle managers have expanded as well over the pandemic, which creates an extra level of stress. Right. So we were never really trained to manage teams to begin with. And then through the pandemic, you had to manage remote teams and now you have to manage hybrid teams. And now you also have to support the emotional stress of the political atmosphere that we're in, the natural disasters that your teammates face. And it's just a lot more than I think middle managers in general have ever had to deal with. And nobody's well equipped to deal with any of that.

B I know. And that's one of the things I think a lot of people in our field are asking for more training. And it's hard to shore up that training when it in our field that has never really been accessible that level of training or not to the degree and the degree it's needed is so significant. I was going to ask you as a follow up in tech, do you think that that gap is as significant as it is for our field or do you think there are more people in the pipeline?

A I think there's more people in the pipeline. What's interesting about other industries is how quickly people skip from job to jobs, which I feel like one. Within the architecture industry, there's a little. It's still like frowned upon, I would say, by older leaders. But for my tech friends, after they hit two years, any place they're ready, anything longer than two years and they're like, I've been at a company too long. My manager just moved from Anthropic to Airbnb. I mean, he was at Anthropic less than two, two years. And all the better for him.

A I'm sure he got like a raise along with it. Like, I'm sure he navigated himself to a better position. But those were the things that a lot of people were chasing in tech. Like, even if it weren't a different type of salary, it was, what is the next company that's going to ipo and how do I get in at the ground level? So then I get the stock options when they do ipo. And you can only take advantage of those type of things if you move companies rather swiftly. But historically, professional development was. And the ability to have overhead to support professional development, I would say is a lot more robust out of architecture. Right.

A Any type of professional development that you want to give your people, they need to go out. For me, everything around the AIA and what it meant to lead a committee, it was me taking my own personal vacation. And you've done this to go out and do those things or, you know, the firm paying for overhead, allowing me to put that time not towards projects, towards non billable time. So I think given everything that's going on, tech is very volatile right now. So these are the type of programs that are being cut first. And out of all my tech friends who've like really struggled in the last couple of year tends to be all the people, like on the people side of things. I think that the other flip side of it though is I think tech is leaning into tech and AI as a solution to some of these things. So as a for instance, there was, I had a friend that was building.

A It's an add on, it's an app on top of Slack where they can support, specifically support managers in managing through complex situations and giving them. And this is before ChatGPT was really like widely available and you could just plug in a prompt directly into ChatGPT, but you could do a backslash command and Slack and say, I have this person that's struggling. What's the best way to approach them? And it would come back and at least prompt them or give them thoughtful ways to approach what would otherwise be like a very difficult conversation for them to have. So I do believe they're leaning into those tools more. I don't think like an architect would even think to look for a tool like that to kind of support those type of conversations happening in a firm. But everybody struggling with it now, I guess, is the bigger point.

B Yeah, and the other point that I wanted to make, and I don't think this will surprise you at all, but I think another really major thread in the work that I'm trying to do relates to culture, because I think essentially at the core of it, what I'm really trying to change is the culture of how we develop and cultivate architecture firms. I think that, you know, one of the things we argued on this podcast over and over again was that the business model was outdated. And I think the reason it's outdated is because culture was never taken into consideration as a design variable in building it. And then if you add all the additional constraints onto the business model as we're facing them in the current market, I think the business model is bending and in some instances snapping under the weight of that. And so what I'm doing hopeful is, you know, I was so encouraged that through this podcast and some of the work that you and I did together, we were able to find people who shared the same feeling about this industry that it could change. And now My mission is really to focus on showing people how, because I think that that's been a missing piece of. It is people at first weren't convinced, and now they're convinced, but they need comfort in understanding how to get there.

A I would be interested in hearing more about. Because I think one of the conclusions that you came to when we talked earlier is that we have a lot of problems in the industry to fix, and it's not. You can't fix one without fixing the other. So if not culture, what's second on.

B Your list under culture adjacent is this whole category around people that people exist and are important.

A Isn't that part of culture, though? Like, treat everyone like a human being?

B Yes, it is. But also that people are, I think, towards the equity piece. People are different and people need different things in order to succeed in architecture firms. And I think that we have built a practice around one kind of narrowly defined idea of what an architect could be. And my hope is, in a lot of the conversations that you and I had was the idea that being an architect can look different and how you practice can look different. So there's an equity component, there's a people component, there's a cultural component. Let's put that in one category. On the operational side, which I think might be where you're more interested, is that the way that the firm is structured could also change, and there's a lot of ways to do it.

B There's a lack of emphasis on the creativity behind those operational models.

A I don't want to dismiss culture outright, but I also firmly believe that the way we provide professional services make it inherently hard to respond to some of the cultural things that we would like to. Right?

B Oh, yeah. I totally agree. Because I think if you ask most architects, they care about people. There's an entire percentage of our field that they do work that's very focused on designing space for people. It's not fair to say that architects don't care about people. But you're right. The disconnect in our business model means that they can't always afford to invest in people the way that they would ideally want to.

A Right. I think there are amazing leaders out there that do not necessarily have the business sense to balance their practice in a way that makes them, their practice, as successful as they would hope their business would be.

B That's totally true.

A But my question to you then is, where do you get that business education from? Because I feel like so much of professional wants to, like, the professionals want to put that back on education. I have a Very specific view on this. What is your view on it?

B I have a very specific view on this. I have been deepen conversations on this. So I'm working with the ACSA to understand this issue and ncarb. And the conclusion that I got was that architectural institutions over invest in design as the primary learning objective for the education. And so professional practice is yielded down to one class. And in speaking with so many professional practice educators, there's no way that you could teach a comprehensive professional practice course in one semester. There's just not enough time. And so right now it's not prioritized enough in the curriculum.

B And so that's like one whole argument you could get on which then translates to it in my opinion, not being emphasized enough in the professional setting. I think it's teaches people that the business side of architecture doesn't matter. And I also feel strongly that because we focus so heavily on the design side and kind of undervalue people who choose to go down the business path professionally, there's not a lot of emphasis on cultivating it or attracting people with expertise that know how to run a business.

A So you and I stand a little bit counter to this because my perspective is there's a lot of other doctors, dentists, vets, lawyers, who throughout their course of their curriculum, never get a business course. Yet they are also delivering professional and consulting services. I just feel like for whatever reason, they don't feel like they have to take on the world when they build their business and they proactively lean heavier into experts outside their field that can support their business need. My other argument is you and I both went to business school, but that didn't stop our business learning. So even with our comprehensive MBAs, I think you and I are have taken that and we continue to learn and iterate on our own businesses and with a care and passion that most architects probably don't care to do, which is why they're still in practice and why we're not. But I don't know if their lack of interest is due to a lack of cultivation in professional practice and school. And then my final argument is yes, it is so design heavy, but that is what makes the architecture curriculum so unique compared to every single other curriculum out there. And that's what makes our ability.

A When we hear people say you can do anything with an architecture degree, you can argue that as well. But I feel like that's what gives us the flexibility to do so much with that degree.

B Yeah, well, there's two different things. Let's see, on the Doctor lawyer argument. I'd say the business model of medicine is built on the idea that there is a large administrative team supporting the doctors. And so they, I think. And they also, I mean, both of those professions, I think, have higher returns than we do on their services. Maybe you could argue that maybe the data is not there, but I think generally it's built on a high return on fee and the investment in having those administrative teams in support of their practices, especially hospitals. Like, I think at that scale, like that's probably the best argument. At smaller practice scales, I think, yeah, then it becomes more lean.

B But there's still precedent there in a way that I don't think there's precedent in our field. Like, you have to remember, marketing wasn't even legal in our profession for a while. And so the idea was that the architect could do everything administratively. And so the idea became that the architect could do everything administratively on the business side. And I think that usually falls apart around the finance part.

A Well, finance too. But I also, I mean, I don't know how many groups I've been in to where they hired even a social media manager. Right. And they're like, oh, this person doesn't understand architecture. And honestly, the person was probably posting really intelligent stories and not showing as many pretty pictures as the architect would like to show them. But the architect was like, we couldn't, it was one of those we couldn't get out of our own way. Like, this is, this is how I believe you have to tell the story of my firm. And if you do it any differently, you just, it becomes a big brush of no one can understand me better than myself.

A Me.

B Yeah, I get, I mean, I think there's truth in that. But. Yeah, but again, like marketing, social media and HR are all new. And for our field, it's really new. At least there was a reluctance to embrace it. And then on the other point about. Yes, I agree with you. I'm not in disagreement that the design education makes our education so valuable.

B What I'm saying is that there's an under emphasis on the business side of education. And I would say that pathways, or at least in my experience, pathways into alternative careers like the one that I currently have were not presented as an option. So I fumbled into this out of finding it to be the best fit for me. But what was sold to me was practicing architecture. And so that's what the path I tried to fit myself into and did not fit. Or it could have fit. I could have made it fit, but it didn't fit. It wasn't really what I wanted to do.

B So I guess what I'm saying is I see the opportunity to present multiple pathways out of an architectural education that yields different experiences, including a business one. I still think you need to experience it and practice to understand the business model of architecture, to practice in business or administrative capacity. But it's certainly like, I would say I have felt undervalued in this field tremendously because of my emphasis on business over design. Design.

A I mean, I definitely feel that too. I get asked all the time, right, if I. If I'm a licensed architect because I don't do buildings anymore. Enjoying the show. Join a community of fellow disruptors@practiceofarchitecture.com community. Your membership helps support the production of this podcast, Practice Disrupted, and funds the creation of more resources for all of you looking forward to growing together. Join us today@practiceofarchitecture.com community. There's multiple aspects to that, right? So one is, and we don't have to go deep on this one because that's a whole nother can of worms.

A But one is the titling issue, right? The fact that if you're in a room of architects, unless you have gone through all the hoops that you need to go through, especially in the US to become a registered architect, which means education, examination, experience, you as a young person, you're always like, am I in a room where it's okay to call myself an architect because I have a degree in architecture, or are there too many architects with a license in this room that if I call myself as an architect, I'm going to be called out on it? But there's things like that that inherently puts pressure and a belief that there's only one true path forward. And I think you come from. And I've gotten a lot of slack, honestly, from faculty on my LinkedIn posts who, even though I don't necessarily complain about the school, they see me as lesser than because I took the easy way out by not pursuing practice. So I think, yes, I'm kind of annoyed. But the reasons why they think that are so endemic to this broader systemic issues. Like, I understand why they have formed that opinion.

B Yeah, I understand why they think that way and feel that way. I think that that demonstrates a lack of willingness to understand how you think or feel or how you arrived at the conclusions that you did. And that's what I take issue.

A That's funny too. Like, not, not, not funny ha ha funny, but funny too, because I feel like architects always are like. And Even being on the client side when I was hiring architects for the longest time, they're like, we are the most empathetic people.

B Except on this one issue.

A Well, but not only on this one issue, but I think we are. It's like, I almost want to, like, be like, we are the most empathetic people, only not really, because we don't really listen to our clients. And we are definitely not the most empathetic people when it comes to teams and what it means to treat them as. As humans. And we're not empathetic to people who have chosen a different path so that, like, thus they can't understand us. So it's like, we like to say we're empathetic, but I don't think we actually are.

B If you stay on the path, our paths don't make sense because you didn't operate by the same rules, which I get.

A Yeah, but empathy. Empathy is empathy for all, not empathy for people that stayed on them. It's a path, but.

B Yeah. So then the place where I want more grace is why didn't I stay on the path? I mean, I had my reasons.

A Yes. Would you. Here's a broader thing. All things being equal, is there ever a scenario where you could have found yourself.

B Is there a scenario where that would have happened?

A Yeah.

B Yeah. If I hadn't had the first five years of my career in architecture, totally a mess because of the economy, and I could have actually had the space and time to learn how to do this job in a way that didn't make me feel like I was at risk of losing a job. I was applying to all these jobs. I wasn't getting the training or support I needed. Yes. I think that could have totally realistically been a path for me, but it, like, the lack of nurture in those first five years of my experience in this profession made it not possible. And at this point, I literally was just on a call where I got asked if there was anything holding me back from getting licensed, and I was like, no, I'm done with my experience. I've done it.

B I'm like, I could be licensed if I took the test. I'm choosing not to for a very intentional reason, which is I'm rejecting it because I'm so frustrated that it has defined so much of the first part of my career that I'm going to demonstrate how I don't use it or need it.

A And I think that's, like, honestly. And we've never had this conversation surprisingly well.

B It took me a long time to get Comfortable to say that, but I.

A Think that's the primary difference in terms of why you get more annoyed than I do. Because.

B Oh, yeah, well, you have your license.

A No, no, no, not unlicensed. Er, just like on, like even getting asked if I'm an architect. I don't think there is a world where I would have ever been happy working in a firm, ever, I guess, is my. Is my perspective. So this was always the way it was going to be, honestly, because tech is just so much more lucrative. This is always the way it was going to be. Like, there are just more lucrative things that I can do outside of practice. And while I have a specific love for architecture design, there's just so many people that do it better than me that I am just like that.

A That is not. That is not my lane. But I think that's at a core, that's why I'm kind of like, however you want to treat me, what, whatever.

B I feel like something was taken away from me.

A Exactly. That's why in that respect, you're going to always take it more personally than.

B Yeah, I do, I do. I mean, I know that. That's why it's like such a wound for me. It's like. But then that's what also allows me to walk into firms and see people's wounds and also being very highly empathic. But what I will say from having worked with so many people in this industry is the pain that people experience over the challenges that they face in their career are so seriously pervasive. And so a lot of the time knowing my own pains that I've experienced in my career, I'm often really. I think there's a deep hope that I can, like, help others not feel that pain in some way.

B But I don't think I can fix this industry by myself. I have. I have no belief of that.

A Well, I don't think either of us can. And I think we're all. We're trying to do it in our own. In our own separate ways. And maybe that's why I have a different appreciation or lack of appreciation for culture relative to the business model and a different approach to people than you do.

B Well, I also think you're not wired that way. True. So some people, and I know this is science, this is true. Some people are wired with a higher emotional attunement. And some people, because the way they were born or raised or genetically or whatever, they just don't experience that at the same level. And I think you and I are kind of on different spectrums. Or sides of the spectrum on that. So, yeah, I do take things.

B I have a lot of big feelings. That is one of my constant things I have to deal with in my life.

A But for you to actually even say that, having known you for as long as I've known you, like, that's a really big deal for you to kind of, like, acknowledge that.

B But I don't see it as a weakness. I actually.

A No, I don't think I don't see it as a weakness, but I do feel like you didn't always view it as such and I think a strength. Yes.

B Yeah, I didn't, because our industry conditioned me to believe that it was not a strength.

A Our industry and. And other industry norms around women in the workplace in general.

B Yeah. About not expressing emotions, but actually it was very liberating. Beyond this podcast, I think in a lot of ways I was able to work through so much by talking with you about some of the experiences I had, which was really meaningful.

A I just like how we can continue to find new things out about one another and how and why we have different perspective on things whenever we have a conversation.

B Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm at peace with my path now. I mean, it took me a long time to get here and the detours were hard, but, like, the path I'm on now makes sense for me. Like, I really believe in it.

A And you're not alone in that. Like, literally somebody just posted to my LinkedIn. Well, they tagged me in about the amount of guilt they felt about, like, they couldn't pull themselves out of. For taking a different path than it was laid out in architecture school. And then you compound that by the amount of debt that comes with architecture school, the amount of time to school relative to your peers, which is always longer, and it gets really hard to kind of disassociate.

B Oh, yeah, yeah, I've definitely felt a lot of those feelings, too. That's my expertise, going deep into feelings. I love it. No, it's been a journey. It's like, you know, all these things, if anyone's listening that's working through their own stuff. I'll just say, like, these things don't come into focus easily. Like, I think these things take time and you go through different experiences that reveal things, and then you take time away and it, like, it helps you see more clearly. But I would say a big part of my struggle has been my identity around wanting to belong in this industry and feeling like I don't.

B And that one sense of belonging that I really felt strongly about was around this podcast for a long time and then, you know, the AIA for a while and some other ways. But I just. That human part is so important and I just want to teach people about that because I think it's undervalued in our industry and at the detriment of our ability to retain people and to cultivate people who could have been great additions to this field.

A To be fair, I've had some horrible managers in tech too.

B They exist everywhere.

A They exist everywhere.

B I want to know. So just since we talked about me, I want to hear more about you. I feel like you've been so busy and I just am curious, like, what have you been up to and how has this been going without me? You've been doing it for over a year now without me. What's been going on?

A So the interesting thing is, and most people don't realize this, so much of the social media that was driven by practice, disrupted behind the scenes, was driven by Janine and not me, me. And for a while we had kind of a somebody that would help us do social media marketing. It's actually really hard to find somebody at a rate that you can afford to consistently show up and make sure your things go out and look the way you want it to look on time. So I've struggled with all those things on a one to one basis, trying to get it done, what it looks like to build practice of architecture, now that I'm all in on practice of architecture and do all the things. What's been interesting with the evolution of AI though, and how I want to approach it, which really, I think has just come to fuller fruition within the last year or so, is all of those things that I always talk to you about, like, there's got to be a way to automate this. And I was finding myself spending a lot more time or a lot less time doing those type of things, which is. Which is helpful when it comes to freeing up space and spending time where I want to spend time on things. And a big mind shift that has happened for me in the last even months to now, six weeks, is, you know, so much of what I was doing relative to technology is what are the tools I need to do things the way I have always done things, or the way that I believe they should be done.

A And what I needed to do was create this mindset shift that if you look at AI not as a tool but as a teammate, then and truly think about what it means to be an AI forced company, then it's like, what do I have to change to enable AI to do this better than I had always done it. And it's a subtle shift, but it was like it was just getting out of my own head about, like, a simple thing. As simple as how do I use AI to recreate the newsletter that I have? Or is there a better way to create a newsletter so AI can create the entire newsletter and for me to be okay with that? And a lot of it is pulling. Like, a lot of what goes into the newsletter is conversations from the community or the podcast, for instance. So it's just like, there's ways to pull that in that doesn't involve such a heavy lift on my, like, it's still human input that then AI is summarizing and spitting out to be in a newsletter. So, like, there's always that human in the loop for that to happen. I don't need my newsletter to look and feel the exact same way it does today.

B That's what I always appreciated about working with you, Evelyn, is like, learning how much we could do differently in terms of, like, you're always about tools and operations and systems and processes. And I think that was something that I learned a lot about from you and the agility and, you know, I know one year agile was a word that you used for the year. So, yeah, I'm happy to hear you exploring that because I do think you're the person who thinks about those things and if given the opportunity to test them, could unlock some really useful ideas. But I think what's really daunting, and I think you are the right person to do the tech thing. But I think what has been really daunting about it is it's always changing. Like, even if you look at how much we've changed how we run this podcast, since when we started it, like, it was. It's quite a lot like, you gotta go through the learning curve of, like, how to figure out what you're gonna implement and test and adopt. But I think it's so needed for me.

A It's a mindset shift, I think, and you have to be okay with the time it takes to one test things and know that if it doesn't work out the first way or because a new tool comes along, it's okay to test that new tool and to make a shift, you just kind of have to be okay with constantly testing and training and changing. That's scary for any business person. But even if you look at the evolution of AI, right before, it was before it was just all about, like, how do I write the best prompt for GPT and then it was like, oh, I can make my own these, my own chatbot based on my information. And then the next iteration was quickly like, oh, but now I can enter, I can make it an agent, where it's actually taking my information and supplementing it by a larger language model. And then the next iteration of that is like, well, what if these agents could talk to one another? So essentially, and that's what I'm looking at building out now. Like, what does it look to create an agent that is a marketing agent? What does it look like to create an agent that does business strategy? What does it look like to create an agent and they can all report up to a CEO. Like, you can literally create.

B You can build a community that reports to each other.

A Yeah, exactly. Build that can now talk to one another to bring the marketing in line with the strategic plan, in line with like all the other things that you want to develop. But that has just happened within like the last three to five months where there's now protocol for these agents to talk to one another, which if you can implement, which makes it a lot easier for me as a solo practitioner to do a lot more. But I do have to, because I'm on the figuring it out side rather than having a coach to help me through these things. It does take a lot of time, but I save so much more time in the end than it that it takes. And plus, I love learning about these things.

B Yeah, you always do. Like, I remember when you first introduced Notion, like, you got really into like, figuring out how to make it work for you. Are you still using Notion?

A Yes, I'm automating it more and more. So, like, for instance, taking this podcast as an example, if you create a new Notion database, I can now automate it to open and create a prep sheet, a template. And then simultaneously I can have that database entry. I can create like a type form or some type of form where the AI could pull the entry from the form and add it to the database. And then the AI can literally go out and based on the input that the speaker puts in there, their bio, their LinkedIn information, they can go out and query that information on the web and create an introduction for me. And based on, like, several topics that I say I want to cover, it'll create 10 to 15 questions for me. So the prep sheet process, they don't.

B Know what we're saying. The prep sheet is okay. Just to break it down for people who are listening, we had, we would invite people on the podcast. And then people always ask, what are you going to ask me? Because they want to prep what they're going to say.

A According to Tyler Suleimoa, who had been on multiple podcasts, we were actually the only podcast that actually sent him a prep sheet.

B Right, right. So I guess you don't have to send people a prep sheet, but when you have one, like one person who's very type A and used to do marketing, you get a prep sheet. But it would take time. Like, you'd. I mean, I would spend time researching, like, what was this person's focus? You know, what kinds of questions could we ask? Right.

A And then how does it. Right. So all that research where you would, like, go is like, does this person have any recorded videos or YouTubes or, like, things that I need to watch? All of that research that you would do to query that person. Now, AI can do it for you and can come back with 10 to 15 questions relative to a topic that you are more specifically interested in it.

B That would be amazing. I do want to know what has it been like to record without me?

A I don't think anyone will tell me directly that they miss your voice just because people are nice, but I do miss your voice because I know I have strong opinions. And, you know, we've just discovered that just even in this conversation, the nuance and the views that we have based on our experiences and who we are. So I think I miss having somebody else who brought an additional perspective to the conversation.

B I do think that's what made us a strong team, because we anchored each other, you know, by covering two different perspectives in multiple ways. There's a lot of differences.

A Yes. But so next season I am doing more with Larry Fabroni. So next season there'll be a few episodes where Larry comes on, and oddly enough, he will then have been an architect who also went back to school and got his mba.

B He's joining the club, who we've.

A Who we met through the aia. I actually met Larry before I met you, just because we were in. In undergrad together at the same time, and he came to Drury University when he was president of the aia.

B Oh, is that how you know him? Oh, okay. That makes sense. All right, I can. I understand.

A So Deanna Smith was a quad director who went to Drewier University, was a quad director the same year that Larry and Aaron were kind of going matriculating through AIAs leadership. So that's how I know Larry. So we're still working on what does it, and we have some Schools that are really interested in what does it mean to build innovation and entrepreneurialism into. So that's something. But oddly enough, going back to no firm can afford overhead. That's why I'm so focused on operations and how do we streamline the things that we. All those tasks that we don't really want to, that we don't enjoy doing to make room for more things that we need to do to move the practice forward is where I am. But anyways, so Larry will be joining us for a few episodes next season.

B Oh, that's cool.

A But you are welcome back whenever you want.

B I appreciate that.

A And you mentioned to me that you are interested in starting your own podcast as well.

B Yeah, I definitely miss it. It has been, I think that was really hard about last year was not being on the podcast, but I did it intentionally because I felt like I was so invested in the podcast, I was neglecting the time I needed to spend in building the business. At the end of when I stepped away, it was like pulling too much of my focus away from what I was trying to do, which was figure out the base of the business. And so the last. Gosh, when was that? I think it was December 2023. Like from that point forward, I kind of like was working all of my energy on the business and it's been very tough. But I think I finally feel like I've got a really clear direction that I'm running and clarity on what we're doing. And it's allowed me to scale a bit more with like bring on some team members to help me take on some larger projects and really like being able to like expand a bit.

B So that that was the purpose of why I stepped away from the podcast. But I miss it. I miss the podcasting so much. Like, this has been such an important part of my professional career is doing podcasting. And so what I've been thinking about is doing a podcast that allows me. The episodes that I always enjoyed creating were the story episodes. Like the opportunities to build a long format episode or cut audio together in really cool ways that give it some depth and emotional resonance. And so I think what I'm trying to do is not ambitious, by no means ambitious.

B I don't think it's going to be like a podcast a week. It's more going to be like a project that is my outlet for creating stuff like that in a small, gradual way. So maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get five done next year or this year. Yeah, I think my favorite part about podcasting is the creativity and the opportunity to pull something out of someone that you might not know or if you can help them articulate their story better. You get this really cool moment where you hear something for the first time, and I think that's really fun and special. And so I'm just excited about experimenting and seeing if I can recreate that by telling some cool stories around architecture or even some of the clients that I've been working with.

A Yeah, that's amazing. I look forward to listening to those episodes. And as Janine knows, and probably most of our guests knows, I'm actually a horrible podcast listener, despite having a podcast. Yeah.

B What's ahead for you for practice of architecture?

A Honestly, I'm just playing around with things that I think will help architecture firms get more excited about the potential of AI. And I'm steering. I just, I want to be clear. Like, I'm steering clear of anything on the design side of things. There are, whether it's Autodesk or Arkle, there are people working to leverage AI on that side. Like, I don't need to touch that space. But as a for instance, when you were talking about knowledge transfer, I was like, oh, you know how easy right now? And I just needed. I just need to find the time to do it, though, is to, like, come up and I can leverage AI to do this, to come up with a list of, I don't know, 100 questions that you would want to ask a firm leader either about their career or more specifically about a project.

A And you can just let them, you know, and hand it over to ChatGPT and then have them come on and say, like, I only have 30 minutes to have a conversation. Let's start with your list of questions. Let's focus on this project. But from that, create a transcript of all the lessons that are learned within whatever allotment of time that they have to give, either about their career or about a project to assist with knowledge transfer going forward. Because I think there's so much that's going to be lost when all those leaders, these leaders. And there's some really great. I mean, we. There's things, there's things that are wrong with their profession, but there's still a lot of lessons to be learned from really amazing leaders and even leaders that may not have been the best managers, but still have a lot to tell about their experience in the industry.

A So I was just like, oh, there's better ways to capture that. So things like that, coming up with little tools that architecture firms can use, you can use that same tool, frankly, on a postmortem of an architecture project with the team, like have every single team member sit down and talk about their experience with the project. So things like that, how do we capture all the things that we talk about wanting to capture and do to one, both continue to improve operations but also support marketing as a marketer and. Or an ex marketer.

B Oh yeah, I totally agree. Oh my gosh. If I had had access to AI tools, like I don't even know when the last time I practiced, I guess I was, it was six years ago, seven years ago, I was still doing marketing. The tools would have been game changing like that we have right now. It's incredible. And so, like there's so. And I, I can't wait to see what's going to happen. Like there's going to be so much that changes about our industry as these tools are adopted.

B We're going to have new problems. It's going to be great. I'm excited to have new problems because I'm tired of talking about the old ones.

A We're going to have new problems. But I also think we need to be wary of everything that has created these older problems. Right. And how do we remove or disillusion ourselves of the mindsets that those problems have created when we think about moving forward?

B Acknowledge with skepticism and care simultaneously. I'll just wrap up by saying congratulations on 200 episodes. I am so proud of you that you've been able to continue to do this. And it's just like I think what we've created is really special. And this platform has allowed a place for so many voices to come forward and share unique experiences about the industry and the possibility for change. But to do 200 episodes, people don't understand how hard that is. And so, like, that's a really big milestone. Evelyn, congratulations.

A Thank you. Thanks for being on. We'll have to have you back on.

B Thank you for inviting me. I hope that somebody today learned who I am and those who missed me enjoyed hearing from me. I miss you too. I miss all of you. Lots of love.

A Hi Disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practiceofarchitecture.com podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, RSP and other disruptors in our community at practiceofarchitecture.com community. Our social media handle is practiceofarch. That's practiceofarch. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.