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00:00:01
The Power of PoE in Modern Finance with Adriaan Klaassen
28 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, hosts Jason Shearer and AK sit down with Adriaan, CTO of Chardan Capital Markets, to explore how a boutique investment firm reinvented its Manhattan office into a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE)–driven smart workspace. From low-voltage lighting to AI-assisted investment strategies, Adriaan shares how converging IT and real estate creates smarter, more efficient environments.
🥃 Episode Highlights
From Hockey House to Wall Street CTO:
Adriaan’s unconventional path from Rutgers and NJIT to Deloitte and ING taught him the fundamentals of networking, teamwork, and translating between technical and business worlds — a skill that defines his leadership today.
The Translator Mindset:
Why generalists who “know a little about a lot” thrive in IT-OT convergence. Adrian explains how communication and empathy are now core technical skills — especially as AI reshapes every industry.
Smart Buildings Meet Wall Street:
Adriaan led a full rebuild of Chardan’s 22,000 sq ft office near Madison Square Garden — powered entirely by Cisco PoE switches, Molex sensors, and Mecho motorized shades. The system delivers massive efficiency gains:
- 40–50% lower labor costs vs. traditional electrical work
- VLAN-segmented IoT and production networks
- Remote management and OTA updates
- Five 24-port switches powering lighting, shading, and sensors for the entire floor
Construction Challenges & Wins:
Joining late in the build forced Adriaan to rethink sequencing and GC relationships. Lesson learned: Include IT from day one — not just for Division 27 wiring. Low-voltage cabling accelerated deployment and simplified the schedule.
Operational Intelligence:
From programmable light levels to occupancy-based controls, users can personalize spaces instantly. Boardrooms feature Cisco Webex Navigators with preset lighting and shade scenes for meetings or privacy — all IP-controlled.
Data-Driven Real Estate:
With occupancy analytics, firms can reduce OpEx by dynamically powering down unused floors or restacking employees based on actual utilization. Financial services and healthcare are leading this charge toward intelligent, responsive workplaces.
Future of Workspaces:
From PoE-powered sit-stand desks to fully flexible office layouts, Adrian envisions environments that reshape themselves daily based on who’s in the office and what work is being done.
💡 Key Takeaways
- PoE and low-voltage systems simplify design, cut costs, and speed construction.
- Real-time data enables dynamic energy and occupancy management.
- Smart offices improve employee experience and financial performance.
- AI depends on the quality of building data — and modern infrastructure delivers it.
- Early IT involvement is essential for success.
🔗 Mentions
Cisco, Molex, Mecho, MHT Lighting, and the AV User Group (AVUG) community.
📍 Recorded At MHT Global Corporate Offices — New York City
🎧 Listen & Connect
Find Distilled Building Tech on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and all major platforms.
Follow, rate, and share — and join the conversation on how IT, real estate, and AI are redefining the future of intelligent buildings.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Distilled Buildings Technology Podcast
00:00:19
Speaker
Well, welcome to the Distilled Buildings Technology Podcast. Where smart buildings are shaken, stirred, and data-driven. Awesome. My name is Jason Scheer. I'm your host. I'm AK. And welcome, Adrian.
00:00:31
Speaker
Thank you. AK too. No, I noticed that like when when I was like emailing or like we were going back and forth, i was like, wait, it's like AK squared yes is in this room.
00:00:41
Speaker
so Cool. thanks Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Awesome. so Thank you guys for coming. and and We're in the MHT global corporate offices today in the greatest city in the world, New York City. yeah and and we're We're spoiled with a ah plethora of of bourbons and whiskeys in front of us today. yep so ak what are we gonna what are we gonna give a shot uh first it's the guest choice yeah let's go with the the barrel bourbon all right try a little bit of this
00:01:20
Speaker
pot of water behind the burp yeah exactly yeah And we have a few selections. I think we we can try each of them. And even we could we could talk through some of them even if we don't get to it. But, you know, obviously shout out to Fat Baby and C&C giving us a lot of love in the city and, you know, gifting us a lot of bourbon. A lot of bourbon. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah. I think going have Josh. Yeah. We should have Josh. With Fat Baby on in a couple episodes as well. So cheers cheers, guys. Cheers. Cheers.
00:01:53
Speaker
Cheers.
00:01:59
Speaker
Yup, that's good. I'm gonna have to pick up a bottle of that when get home. yeah And for it's like a 58%?
00:02:05
Speaker
Yup. yeah 58. So pretty pretty high fruit, but pretty smooth. Very smooth. It floats upwards. floats upwards, yeah. It's not that ah my wife always calls, she's not a huge bourbon fan, but Wendy always calls it like jet fuel. Like when you get really, really hot bourbon and it just like scorches scorches your palate.
00:02:25
Speaker
There's a few selections
Adrian's Journey to Smart Buildings
00:02:26
Speaker
like that. yeah Cool. So Adrian, tell us a little bit about yourself. So you're you're in um in in the technology industry, but you've also sort of like dipped your toes a little bit like in the built environment. So where where did you come from? Like how did you get to where you are today? Sure.
00:02:42
Speaker
So went to Rutgers University out of high school and spent a… Local boy. Actually, no, I grew up in Rochester. Okay, cool. Needed to get away from home.
00:02:53
Speaker
Yeah. Just far enough. Yeah. fuck yeah Came down to Rutgers for mechanical engineering actually. It was a top 15 engineering school at the time. I was lucky enough to get in.
00:03:06
Speaker
And then as soon as I made it on campus, I made the hockey team. And then that became way too important. All consuming. I spent way too much of my time and energy on that compared school, as well as getting weeded out a little bit from the required chemistry and some other topics.
00:03:26
Speaker
after a year and half, switched over to computer science. Spent number of years finding my way through that curriculum and then ironically not finishing at Rutgers even though I had 110 credits.
00:03:43
Speaker
So close. So close. That's a whole long story. yeah I won't go into it. And that's how I ended up starting back over a couple years later at 60 credits at NJIT where AK and I Both have our degrees from.
00:03:56
Speaker
Excellent. yeah or There are a lot of like NJIT alum like in the industry like in the technology industry up here. It's cool it's a great school. Much smaller, get much more attention from staff and everyone there as opposed to like the large school environment.
00:04:11
Speaker
Because Rutgers is like like undergrad is. 45. Yeah. I think I've told you that. So my, my oldest son is going to college and he had the same experience. Like he visited a couple of like mega schools, you know, being from the South visited Ole Miss 45,000 undergrad. He's like, I do not want to go there. So he found like a 15, 15 K undergrad program and depends on your personality, what you want, how, how you can thrive or not. High school was bit easy for me yeah without studying.
00:04:39
Speaker
So being that far away from home, with that additional distraction, just wasn't right. yeah no I made my way through for the most part, but a certain couple courses took me out.
00:04:51
Speaker
So I needed to start working. And since I was a CS major, my very first job was for New Brunswick public schools in New Brunswick while still living at the hockey house, with all those guys not needing to wake up in the morning. And I did.
00:05:09
Speaker
I was working there, ironically, for this conversation. Some of the big summer projects we did the few years I was there were re-cabling rooms. So home runs from the MDF to the classrooms.
00:05:23
Speaker
Terminal length is what, 300 yards? Yeah, that's the standard. 330 feet. 330 feet, yeah. So we'd run those cables ourselves, punch them down, everything.
00:05:35
Speaker
you get to learn the fundamentals, like layer one fundamentals. That was my very first tech job. And learn the fundamentals. The first summer we were forced to wear a shirt and tie the whole time. No AC up above ceiling panels.
00:05:45
Speaker
yeah We fought for that the second summer we had. But that was fun. awesome What were the endpoints that you had to connect? just from That was a long time ago. But if I'm remembering correctly, it just needed to be rerun.
00:06:00
Speaker
As far as the age of the boxes and the termination points in the rooms. or to honest, I don't fully remember now. yeah I just, because I have PTSD from some that experience. But it was a good experience because you get to learn the basics. You know you know the sequence off the top of your head, yep color you know color coding, and you get to use that punch tool many, many hundred times.
00:06:30
Speaker
So that was the first job. When school then ended and I was only working, then I started exploring
00:06:40
Speaker
hang Moved to North Jersey and got a job in the city. or no Sorry, North Jersey first. Call center for Deloitte. Deloitte had two call centers, one on each coast. so I worked in that fast-paced numbers-driven environment, which didn't really suit me either. I'm more of a let's talk and have a conversation. did okay there.
00:07:07
Speaker
so it did okay there and then then i got my first job here in the city for ING Investment Management, the Dutch company, Dutch Bank. And met some really good people there that I ended up staying on with and moving to other roles after that. But call center, help desk, desktop support, yeah all the way up through system development, engineering, and then eventually into management, which I kind of always knew would be my sweet spot.
00:07:35
Speaker
and learned from a mentor boss very early on at that first job in the city that if I wanted to be in management someday, you know kind of follow his track, which is as a generalist, you don't need to be specialist of any one single thing.
00:07:53
Speaker
You don't need to be an SME. But you need to have the respect of those who are. yeah So you need to know a lot about a little. You need to know a little about a lot. A lot, yeah. Not so much lot about a lot.
00:08:05
Speaker
From an and inch inch deep and a mile wide. I've always kind of been a generalist within corporate IT to know a bit about every different aspect that I'm charged with and be able to have that conversation with folks who are the specialists.
00:08:21
Speaker
But at the same time, I think where I have excelled is to be able to have those conversations with the non-technical people and make those translations in those directions.
00:08:32
Speaker
Yeah. Let's face it, some people in IT can't have those conversations. And you don't want they don't want them to. Right, about the stuff that they do know. yeah yeah And they can't hear the needs and requests and translate them into what they do know from the non-technical stakeholders.
00:08:50
Speaker
So I think where I've excelled is not being a better engineer and smarter technically than anyone else, but being able to translate and make relationships.
00:09:03
Speaker
as I've been told many times, not be normal IT guy. Not be a normal IT guy. And there's like in this, you know, we can't, we're like five minutes in and I'm going to mention AI, right? Like in the era of AI, there, know, the predictions are is like the middle will be affected first.
00:09:20
Speaker
Of course is. The people that are hyper, hyper specialists, like the best in their field, and then those on the other end of the spectrum. And I i totally resonate with like the range, like the people that are generalists, jack of all trades, like have really, really good range. like those Those two ends of the spectrum will sort of like get eaten last by you know by by ai Exactly.
00:09:42
Speaker
yeah You can't really substitute it knowledge and translation yeah when it comes to AI. You can do a lot of compute, but you really can't translate back to human. So yeah yeah you so it's funny you mention that. We are where I'm at now.
00:10:00
Speaker
I'm CTO of Charter Capital Markets, Small Investment Bank. Wall Street type investment bank based here in the city.
Exploring AI Tools at Chardon
00:10:08
Speaker
They specialize in stocks and within that biotech, other disruptive technology investments.
00:10:15
Speaker
And we have an AI task force that we've put together and we're trying to figure out. Trying to see which tools will best benefit us, which way to go. We know need to do something to not be left behind.
00:10:31
Speaker
Specifically because of our small size. headcount wise, we have to keep up with the larger banks. So in order to do that, we can't just throw heads at it, throw seats at it. We have to use the tools available, try to supplement the stuff that we do have.
00:10:51
Speaker
So the AI tools are out there, they're early days, we all know this. I think we're learning that quickly. yeah That it is early days, despite advertisements you may see on billboards and targeted marketing.
00:11:03
Speaker
totally early days Totally agree. yeah Let's just say we have not found one specifically that really in our niche helps us do everything.
00:11:15
Speaker
You've got the big kind of general tools that we've obviously brought in, but beyond that we're picking and choosing. It's a slow process.
00:11:27
Speaker
It'll be interesting to see where, and you know, where small models, like, like vertical specific models will, will, will dominate in this, in this space, you know, for, for finance or even like on a smaller level, like you guys are focused on specs to, to be able to like suss out, like, what are the, the, the, the investments to make or like where to, where to place chips.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We're, we're small. We've some really smart people. We hire medical doctors to have that specialization. But it's the same as anywhere else.
00:12:04
Speaker
yeah Same as the big banks. We're just figuring out as we go. yeah I think that's where we're heading. We we we have to get to a specialized model that is going to be able to perform and give exactly what's required.
00:12:18
Speaker
I think the tools that we're using now, it's more a consumer to your point. It's glorified English spit back at you based on your query. But I think we need, in order for us to have an outcome, you need that specialized learned model that just specifically get the task done and bring it back. Exactly. We are definitely in the buy over build category because we don't have headcount.
00:12:38
Speaker
Mm-hmm. have even a software development team internally. Some of the larger hedge funds or investment banks, they have whole internal development team. We do not.
00:12:50
Speaker
It's myself and one other IT member. That's it. Awesome. yeah It's good to see SPACs are coming back there. SPACs were really hot post-pandemic, think when there was a lot of like free free capital. They were hot right up until I joined.
00:13:04
Speaker
yeah It cooled off. yeah Severely cooled off. It's starting to come back. a I think AI will be like the catalyst for SPACs to pick back up. like Some of the early SPACs were like Palantir was a SPAC and it sat like cold for a long time and now it's yeah off the charts.
00:13:26
Speaker
yeah so i I don't claim to know what all the bankers do to the SPAC, but I have to know enough to support. yeah Well, you're uniquely positioned when it comes to smart building.
00:13:37
Speaker
Tell us about
Transitioning to a Smart Building
00:13:38
Speaker
your project. then Yes. So Chardon, prior to last year, had existed for roughly 20 years, but only in one office.
00:13:49
Speaker
Okay. So they had never moved prior to last year. Last year we moved from Battery Park area, all the way to Southern tip of the Islands, to M1, right next to MSG. Yep.
00:14:00
Speaker
looks down in the garden so we're on the south side of right there right there in the shadows of 10-1 we do occupy the north side a little bit yeah and see yeah here yeah so yeah our ownership along with there's another small firm that sits in our space as well one of the co-founders both so they a firespace as well moved from require one by barrnado and I was in charge of all the technical aspects of that build from scratch.
00:14:40
Speaker
So it's a good opportunity to do things the right way as in 2024, which we know is not be the right way 2027, but you can do what you can.
00:14:52
Speaker
And ended up overseeing a lot of the aspects of the new build beyond just IT. And yes, we chose In addition to of the Cisco network stack and AV endpoints and point security endpoints, we chose to go full POE build, lights, motorized shades, and Molex sensors in space.
00:15:17
Speaker
Awesome. So we accomplished all of that with just five additional IoT-based 24 port catalyst switches. yeah We have just five power the entire space of 22,000 square foot total, roughly 14 usable square feet in our new office.
00:15:37
Speaker
Awesome. how did How did you find that, like like being an IT t practitioner for you know your whole career, like how did you find sort of this like OT slant to um to to to smart building
00:15:53
Speaker
I discover it? Or how did yeah how did you I find it? Yeah, how did you discover that this whole world of non-traditional like IT t systems even even existed? Well, I similar to some of the discussions you guys had on previous episodes, my familiarity with PoE goes back to phone systems.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah. right and Shocking. not Not a new technology. no and you know When that first started coming around somewhere in the early days of my career, I think it just made sense.
00:16:28
Speaker
To me, as someone whose remit has always been finding the new, better way to do anything while keeping the budget tight and things.
00:16:41
Speaker
simplify That's kind of when I joined Chardin here four years ago. That was essentially what I was tasked with. They were antiquated in a number of ways.
00:16:54
Speaker
Again, they had occupied the same space for 20 years. They'd moved floors, but they had just moved their old on-prem network stack from one floor one floor to another. On-prem servers, on-prem Active Directory, via phone system,
00:17:10
Speaker
And so when I was hired, the leadership that hired me, who were non-technical, knew they needed to modernize, didn't really know what that meant, yeah but wanted someone who had been there and done that, which I had specifically in a Microsoft Cloud environment.
00:17:29
Speaker
So I told them via a presentation I gave during the recruiting process, I'm going to modernize everything in your stack, beginning to end, go fully cloud-based access as well.
00:17:44
Speaker
Within nine months of starting, I'll have it all done. Including the birth of my child, I did that. So now we have really nothing on-prem.
00:17:55
Speaker
And then when we moved from the old office to Penn, we eliminated desk phones. which had been switched to IP based phones down there, but eliminated desk phones altogether, did some integration.
Role of IT in Smart Building Transition
00:18:09
Speaker
Was there just, so so and we see that trend a lot of, I'm not going to say like the desk phone is dead, right? But a lot of people like moving away from desk phones. Was that, was there like an inflection point at Chardin around like why we don't need phones anymore?
00:18:27
Speaker
think it had already been there. Oh yeah. Like they were on the desk. people People were just not using them. They were just using their mobiles. Let's call it a generational. yeah heard of yeah best for that yeah Most were not using it.
00:18:41
Speaker
But the ones who did were the ones who tended to have been there for 15, 20 years. And I couldn't say, hey, that phone number is going away. Because somebody they met 10 years ago still has that number. And you can't miss that phone call when yeah so Just kind of like an old school like trading mentality. that would be accurate essentially sales and this that call So right it yeah, that of doing everything in one stack as best as possible.
00:19:10
Speaker
long story short my what i relate to them as part of that mar innovation
00:19:19
Speaker
doing everything one staff as best as possible you know, integrating other systems where needed, but let's just, let's simplify it. Let's bring it down to, you know, essentially an M365 based office and then plugging in other tools where needed.
00:19:37
Speaker
So did a lot of that migration and and then with that, with the move, ended up proactively telling them that look, we're going to get rid of desk phones.
00:19:50
Speaker
Don't worry. Everything will still work. We've got great Cisco-based Wi-Fi at the new office. And every phone every cell phone does Wi-Fi calling these days.
00:20:04
Speaker
It's going to be stable, despite fact we're on the 48th floor. Everything be fine. You'll still have your old number if you need it, but that's what we did. So yeah, when we were building the new stack from scratch for the new office, is all Cisco.
00:20:19
Speaker
Yeah. Routers, firewalls, switches. We've got one production rack and one IoT t rack. And in the IoT t rack, it's just 5U taken up with those Catalyst 9300 24 quarters. And that's the drive.
00:20:31
Speaker
Lighting, shades. Yeah. and and essence drive the entirety of our lighting shades yeah and that's still a question we get when we talk to end users where they'll look at, oh, I'm gonna move my electrical closet, now I need probably twice as much when it comes to racking and stacking to to deploy this technology. Because you know, the fixtures, sensors, drivers, gateways can all be in sequence.
00:20:57
Speaker
second So you can power what let's call it roughly four to five fixture endpoints. With one cable. home run Exactly. right so I can't do math this quickly, but it was 24 times 5. That was the number of ports we needed to power every light motorized J and Molex sensor in space.
00:21:20
Speaker
Awesome. With the drivers and gateways and the sequence. What was the, um and and we get this a lot from customers around like kind of the converged versus connected, like having two discrete stacks. Was it like like product market fit for the specific switch or was it just having like here's my IT t stack, here's my OT stack?
00:21:40
Speaker
Part of it was OCD. Yeah. Yeah. physically separate Different color cables and I believe it. yeah Oh, you did. Okay. our our low voltage cabling subcontractor did a great job yeah with satisfy i o yeah But on top of that, it's it's good that you mentioned that because the plan actually changed along the way.
00:22:01
Speaker
Initially, we were going to fully air gap, if you will, the IoT stack. yep No connection whats ah whatsoever to the production stack or the outside world.
00:22:14
Speaker
But along the way, ended up changing. so that it did have connection to the out outside world, both from remote management capabilities and updates. Right. So what did, so the, in the original position like separation and air gapping, was that just out of like security concern? Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
All the traditional security protocols on the production stack were there. You know, we replicated that as best possible on the IoT side, but for full security,
00:22:48
Speaker
We just completely separated from rest the world. Again, that changed, but in the end, we accomplished what we needed through VLAN separation.
00:22:59
Speaker
VLAN separation. and yeah We're happy with that. We have management VLAN that can see all other VLANs for different purposes. We have the rest of the office carved out to different VLANs.
Optimizing Smart Buildings with AI
00:23:12
Speaker
That's how we accomplished it. and and like the business imperative to kind of like change the strategy from gapped connected or converge like at the aggregation layer. Was that like an operational imperative?
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Just came out of need to, uh, appease our vendor with a hazard support contract. Right. Got it. Troubleshoot. Yep.
00:23:39
Speaker
Um, because as I mentioned, we only have the two of us. So yeah both, uh, knowledge wise and man hours wise we don't necessarily have the time to troubleshoot everything and manage our switches and our firewalls and all that so yeah we needed help which we got and they needed access cool they don't sit in our same office or building even the same city yeah so we needed to allow that access and then yeah we
00:24:12
Speaker
wanted to be able to stay up to the times with those products updating themselves. Essentially, same as a Tesla, right? yeah and OTA updates, improves the product, so you cut yourself off from those, you're going to be stuck in the year that you built it.
00:24:27
Speaker
And I think that's one thing, like we look at traditional lighting packages or shade packages, like that type of remote access and managing it similar to an IT asset, that's a pretty big differentiator. Yeah, on a bigger scale than our project. Yeah.
00:24:43
Speaker
that you then layer in building management systems and all these new OS products for POE, smaller areas and all that. If you can't get to it from the outside, then that cloud-based product is not going to work.
00:25:00
Speaker
We get that question quite a bit also. you know Customers are are looking at it from both sides. They're thinking traditionally, i don't need to upgrade my lighting as as often as I need to.
00:25:11
Speaker
The answer is yes, you probably don't, and you probably most likely won't have to. But your point is, do you want the upgrades? if They're available. You choose to accept it or you don't have to. But yeah, there is still that mechanism of, well, traditionally I don't have to have that burden and cost. Well, if you look at it's really not an added cost because you have it in the IT stack anyway. And if yeah if I have a smart building, I want to be able to keep upgrading it to the level I want.
00:25:37
Speaker
and And the management too, right? I'll give you an example as to where Even in a small space, it's come in handy. When we first deployed management software that handles all of our IoT, specifically the lights, we didn't know what people would want in each individual office.
00:25:59
Speaker
right So what's our CEO going to want his light level to do versus one of the bankers? Or what's the timeout on the light from activity in the room?
00:26:11
Speaker
Well, we set it at a default you and then we let everyone know that if you're not happy with the way your office is performing, you just make changes. As opposed to what you would normally get with a turnkey build from building owner.
00:26:25
Speaker
Once it's set, that's what you get. when That's what you get. And yes, you'll have some occupancy sensor you know next to your light switch that kind of points at the rest of the room. but With ours, we have the Molex sensor above. You can see the entirety of the space of your your individual office or conference room or what have you.
00:26:45
Speaker
And we've had folks come to us and say, hey, I'm on Zoom or Teams or WebEx calls all day. I tend to not move, so my light's turning off.
00:26:55
Speaker
You don't want to be the guy that's like, yeah. Can I make that longer? Absolutely. Five minutes later, it's changed from 20 minutes to an hour. never have that power whereas if that was building probably never have so me that ticket responded to from whatever building you're in.
00:27:14
Speaker
Same with the light level. We set a default, I think, 75% capacity brightness-wise for the entirety of the space. And we've now made number of adjustments based on people's requests.
00:27:26
Speaker
Preference. you know Once you get in there, you see what you need to make adjustments. Those granular programmability options are great. It's been really cool.
00:27:40
Speaker
What's the normal you know mode of operation for an IT t team at a corporate, especially finance firm, is you usually don't get to contribute towards revenue generating
Challenges in Smart Building Projects
00:27:53
Speaker
business, right? But with Build, I saw it as an opportunity to really kind of make our meeting spaces impressive for when clients come in. yeah So we've got a got three meeting rooms, one large boardroom in the middle, and two small meeting rooms, one on each side. They're all south facing, so the amazing view, right? And they all have the motorized shades from Mecco.
00:28:22
Speaker
And those are PoE, right? So on the tabletops, we have the Cisco navigation Navigators. Navigators, yeah. Rubo S mode, so we can do presets. Because it's PoE, because it's programmable, we can do presets for, oh, I've got WebEx presentation.
00:28:40
Speaker
Let's do video mode. Yep. ah changes It can change the light levels. And shade levels, right? We are a FINRA and SEC regulated firm, so if there is a topic happening in the boardroom that has something up on the screen that's not for everyone's eyes. bring up bring the shades We can have a preset that you can tap and make the internal shades come down.
00:29:05
Speaker
Oh, it's totally blacked out, like privacy shades, more or less. They're not totally blacked out, but yes, we they're difficult enough to see through the gaps and the opacity. Somebody from the outside is not going to be like looking through the windows. they are, you can easily tell if they're trying to what's going on.
00:29:21
Speaker
yeah that type of programmability in my mind resonated to the point where this is my chance to help the firm and its with client meetings.
00:29:32
Speaker
The only way I could really contribute to revenue. What a great story. And it's like, I think the thing that is maybe lost sometimes is how simple it is.
00:29:43
Speaker
Comparatively, if you did have like a traditional motorized shade, like you probably have to call whoever services that, get them out, have them do like, you know, reprogramming or reconfiguration. Whereas the things that are connected to the IP network and they're API driven, like Because I don't know that world, but I know the networking world enough to where we've had very, very few issues since deployment day, since we all moved in. But we had a number of full power shutdowns the building.
00:30:22
Speaker
They're maintenance and upgrades for the building power. yeah So over some of the weekends, they've done a full power cycle, and everything has come right back up. had one light fixture that did not because I know enough about networking, I can go trace it yep Whereas if it was traditionally powered, I would have no idea where would start and you wouldn't even be allowed to, so you'd have to get the building involved. I just traced reseated, got six cable in a gateway.
00:30:52
Speaker
Good to go, came right back up. So I was able to do that myself. so and It just changes the knowledge required and the ownership of any issues you have.
00:31:05
Speaker
And in your mind, Adrian, if you look at nine months, it's ah its it seems like it's a long process, but it's tight when it comes to building a brand new space. Tell us a little bit more about the challenges. Sure.
00:31:19
Speaker
I'd say the first challenge came out of the timing of my involvement. By the time I was pulled into the project, the lease had been signed, the floor plan had been drawn,
00:31:32
Speaker
and the building owner, Gornado, was just about to go out to bid for a GC. Traditional. Traditional GC for the construction project.
00:31:43
Speaker
That's when they formed my ownership that they've been working with to that point. We're doing a turnkey build for you, we'll handle everything. The only exception to that is anything technology related.
00:31:56
Speaker
That's on you. So that's when I was pulled in and that turned out to be a bit too late. You know, I see people everywhere. I'm sure you can feel this in their bones that I wish you would include me from the very beginning on every project yeah of any type.
00:32:12
Speaker
And not just for Div 27, right? Like not just for communications. Yeah. Yeah. Just any project. Just include us from beginning. We'll sit in the back of the room and listen just to make sure we're not needed. it But yeah, so I came in at that point.
00:32:27
Speaker
had to go through a scoping bidding process, what I wanted in the space, what our ownership wanted in the space, kind of had to put our story together, then go out and find our vendor, bidding process for that.
00:32:40
Speaker
By the time we got to that point, they were again just about to go to bid with the bid package for the GCs, the construction project. At which point I had already decided with our vendor,
00:32:55
Speaker
that we were going to do at PoE and that we needed re-scope, re-engineer the design for the electrical aspect of the boat.
00:33:06
Speaker
At which point we were told we'll figure that out after after GC's on board. We'll re-scope that, we'll figure out the financials. So I'd say that was the biggest challenge because the result of that that of course as anyone so you virtual especially in new york and or big cities once that is written in blood.
00:33:29
Speaker
ye there's no There's no take-backs. yeah So we had many change orders, many additions to the base build that the building built for us as tenants on a turnkey build.
00:33:44
Speaker
But the last change order that ended up getting signed off on was the financial aspect of how much we re-scoped the electrical contractors work. So as you you guys know, but the audience may not,
00:33:59
Speaker
turned out to be roughly 40 to 50% of a traditional electrician's job that we removed from the project because we were doing it low voltage. So the only traditionally powered endpoints, if you will, in our space are just the wall outlets.
00:34:19
Speaker
Everything else is low voltage. Below the knees, I think is what I heard Panzer say before. yeah Right, so when that was first relayed, was a bit of a don't want to call it an argument but a bit of bumping heads and we said by all means mr. GC your subcontract your electrical subcontractor can bid on the low voltage job if they want it so that they continue to do everything right and essentially we were told we don't do that so we well then we're gonna have to find our own
00:34:56
Speaker
they going to be in here with you
00:35:00
Speaker
voltage cable and we did and it was great but I think that led to if you were to ask the GC one of their
00:35:14
Speaker
difficulties maybe not the right word but their non-traditional route to get the project done was as you guys know the finishing of their construction involves final paint coats and everything like this that requires lights to be on yeah if they are to certify it and sign off on that aspect. So that then requires our entire stack to be built and ready to go months way ahead of what it normally would be.
00:35:45
Speaker
yeah right So we had to work off the the schedule and the calendar they gave us and hit our hit our timelines. At one point, the GC was working faster than they had anticipated, which was great. great that's it unard But then they came back to us and said, well, why aren't you guys ready yet?
00:36:06
Speaker
I said, well, wait minute. You guys are there two weeks early. You can't hold us to that. you this is We have delivery and logistics and all this to handle. So we hit our times, but they at some point said to wait because Beyond the emergency construction lighting, it got to a point where they needed the final lights to be done.
00:36:31
Speaker
So that kind of just a sequencing learning lessons along the way of the sequencing of a construction build, if you are going to go full POE like we did, you have to keep all these things in mind.
00:36:43
Speaker
And again, that comes back to having us involved from the beginning, or anyone who's going to make that decision and then work with with whatever team they have. and and In the end, was the i mean were there any other benefits as far as like speed to deployment or pulling cabling faster that the GC was like, wow, like i didn't I didn't realize that would maybe help us in a construction schedule? I think they were surprised by a few things. I think they were surprised by, yeah, from nothing to complete it, a low-voltage cabling job happens a lot quicker than the conduit. do conduit yeah
00:37:23
Speaker
the cabling, the electrical cable itself, right? Electrical wires within the con. yeah It's basically twice you have to do every run. But with this, you don't need even one home run per light fixture. You can do four or five off of one.
00:37:38
Speaker
So the number of cables required is way less. The cost of labor per hour is way less. yep And I think they would be reluctant to admit that, but would have to. yeah Yeah, the speed at which gets done and the simplicity of it, I think, is something that they probably would reluctantly admit to as well. Because if you just stop for a second think about it, it's way simpler than a traditionally powered space. It's very disruptive to like how things have been done. yeah and Because all these deals, as you guys know, is construction in large cities, especially in new York,
00:38:21
Speaker
have been in place for 50 years between GC and subcontractor, building ownership, and none of them are in on paper, none of them have been officially, but they're all there.
Future of Smart Building Standards
00:38:31
Speaker
So to disrupt that is tough, and you run into these kind speed bumps.
00:38:37
Speaker
But if you press through, end result is speed, programmability, cost, all better. Safety, which you guys touched on in your previous episodes, is, you know,
00:38:51
Speaker
is binary. It's a one and a zero comparatively. yeah by Having deep dived into this stuff since our project, yeah just on a personal interest level, I think five, ten years from now you're going to see a different world when it comes to standards.
00:39:08
Speaker
yeah It just takes folks like you guys pushing the narrative. i think i think I think the narrative and like we've talked on previous episodes around the you know the like labor market dynamics with and the contraction of like the traditional electrical trade.
00:39:26
Speaker
i think that that's going to be a big driver. ai like you know where all the electricians are going is building AI data centers. So that's going to sort of like starve out you know commercial projects and low voltage can step right in there. The larger the project, the more valuable this is right because when you hear like 40 to 40 to 50 percent like like labor savings on the electrical side like that's not that's not insignificant yeah and we are a small space we're a half a floor on large building but when you when you take that and expand that out that thought process out to large corporations who have multiple sites globally millions of square feet
00:40:11
Speaker
you know If you want to be able to learn anything and make real estate portfolio-based decisions, especially post-pandemic as 10, 15, 20-year-old leases come up yeah ye and you have the opportunity to change, what are you using to make those decisions based on? yeah Well, if it's a traditionally built space, it's really hard to pull data out of it.
00:40:34
Speaker
If you have the opportunity to build a new space this new way, then you're learning all along. You can make those decisions on the fly. The space is much more programmable. That's where the AI comes in. Because it if it can learn, it can make those decisions for you. AI needs data.
00:40:52
Speaker
AI needs data. Clean data. And yeah, keep... OPEX costs, nice and tight. Well, and and that's that's another key thing. like When we talked to David um with MECO a couple of weeks ago, he talked about two, you know a couple of verticals that were really, really leaning in, and that was um financial services and healthcare.
00:41:16
Speaker
And those are two like very conservative, cost-conscious verticals. And to hear that you know the financial services firms like yourselves are like leaning into this what's what There's a lot of times like perception that it's like a risky or an untested solution or POE is too expensive like you're saying that it's like just the opposite. and Do you see this because you you guys have done it right in my opinion, right? You picked the right technology, you did a little bit of homework, they have you, right? So how can one, an audience, someone that's building a new space, what are two or three
00:41:54
Speaker
tips that they should look at and go, I need one, I think you touched on, involve IT upfront.
Importance of Early IT Involvement
00:42:00
Speaker
Let them at least have a thought and see it at the table so they can understand what your strategy of building a space. yeah Give us a few more.
00:42:08
Speaker
Well, I think not just involve IT. I think involve whoever your technical representation of building new space is going to be, whether that's in-house or whether that's vendor of any kind.
00:42:20
Speaker
Someone who has been there, done that, and is doing
00:42:27
Speaker
these days, that's not the best way to put it. Someone who has proved to be keeping up with the times, not just in traditional AV integrator, network stack, security space, but someone who's pushing into building spaces in this new intelligent way.
00:42:45
Speaker
and Is that a new role? Is that a new trend of companies that are starting? I've, yeah, I've, been hearing roughly that a lot of integrators, consultants are starting to see it and starting to push into that out of their traditional lane, per se.
00:43:05
Speaker
Right? So, and a lot of them are uniquely positioned to take it on because they have all the skills, most of the skills required already on staff because it's all networking.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yes. It's not electrical engineers that you need. Right?
00:43:23
Speaker
Find someone who you trust, ask around, ask your IT t guys. If they don't have the capacity or the knowledge, they inevitably know someone. They can find someone to bring in that's knowledgeable. Now beyond that, I think it's useful to do your own homework.
00:43:42
Speaker
But I think even more so, the biggest thing that I learned, and again, we were we were a small organization, small space, but if you think of it a larger scale, It's way more than just IT you need to involve up front. Especially large organizations that have a large footprint.
00:44:00
Speaker
It needs to be the real estate team, if there is one for sure. It needs to be HR, because the staff experience is uniquely affected in a very positive way.
00:44:13
Speaker
Drastic. Can be at least, drastically if you build your space right.
00:44:21
Speaker
finance, accounting, obviously, ownership.
00:44:25
Speaker
It's very important to look at what the policy of the company is you're billing for post-COVID. As far as like what their like flexible work versus like an office requirements are. Yeah.
00:44:37
Speaker
Where that part really struck a chord with me is was at an event middle of last year that was in a consultants, I won't mention who, no free ads, but in a consultant space that owns seven, or leases seven floors in one Manhattan West.
00:44:56
Speaker
and Brand new Hudson Yards, great building. They were talking about if you can pull the data out on a constant basis, streaming that data of your occupancy and your needs every day, then you can quickly learn whether you can shut down four of those floors on a Monday or a Friday. Yep.
00:45:16
Speaker
Turn down the catering, turn down the maintenance, turn down the lights, HVAC, everything. So that OpEx really comes down and you're not wasting money on a day-to-day basis when you don't need it.
00:45:29
Speaker
Because once you give yourself maybe six months of data to learn off of, you know what the patterns are. in your space. Those are immediate savings to the real estate.
00:45:39
Speaker
It's black and white. We're seeing that request so much more from customers of like, we know that there's sort of this this you know bell bell curve shape occupancy trend for for a lot of customers. Yeah, i mean, Wednesdays are hot, right? Like Mondays and Fridays are pretty quiet. So, you know, can we dynamically like restack the environment on, you know, on Mondays and Fridays based on that, based on that prediction and mothball those floors and then any meetings or rooms that may have been scheduled on the sixth floor, like automatically like rebook it to the second floor. Right. yeah um And then on top of that, if you are,
00:46:19
Speaker
If you work for a company whose policy is fairly flexible, and you do have people coming in at different times, they then can decide who they need to be around, what type of space they're in yeah for that day, so it doesn't slow them down compared to their home experience.
00:46:38
Speaker
And that's huge as well. I hear that from just friends who don't work with that, work out in a number different companies. They make us come in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. I sit in a cubicle and I get on WebEx. Yeah, it completely slows me down and I'm just on WebEx calls with people who I normally am anyway.
00:46:55
Speaker
But if you can shape and know adjust all of the ancillary needs that come around, people being there, it's instant savings and it's much better experience for them when they are there.
00:47:12
Speaker
It leads to other questions that you can ask as a tenant.
00:47:17
Speaker
electricity-wise as a tenant in your large building, Mr. Building Owner. Am I metered or am I paying as a percentage of my square foot for that fee? Well, can I be metered?
00:47:30
Speaker
Because we've built our space this new way and it's really going benefit us. And then you can send it right back through the data and say, here here's my meter and data anyway. You don't have to be meter. Because every endpoint actually being what? are cleaning my bathrooms on a Friday when no one's here?
00:47:45
Speaker
And we're seeing like those those types of like renegotiations and leases, same thing with HVAC access. right like can Can I negotiate you know partitioning in my HVAC access to you know to programmatically access my space so that I can not cool a room whenever it's not occupied or it's not scheduled to be occupied and in Office 365 and then just precondition it 30 minutes before the next meeting.
00:48:13
Speaker
yeah And then you can get into what I think is very cool. It's an NHD product. It's their PoE-powered sit-stand desk that is on coasters.
00:48:26
Speaker
ye if you have a number of them in an open space. The space itself can be reshaped from one day to the next based on who's coming. And can learn who's coming based on reservations and previous occupancy.
00:48:38
Speaker
Those people can say, hey, i need six desks in a pod today, tomorrow I need two. That's great. You don't have to call an electrician. Nope. As long as you have an RJ45 port out in the floor somewhere or on a wall nearby, you're good to go.
00:48:53
Speaker
You're not slowing down. so That's awesome. Cool. and out faster Faster, cheaper, more flexible. like It kind of checks all the boxes. Yeah. So i you know I've gotten into this just from the perspective of someone who's always been tasked with handling all of IT, but always needed to do things newer, better, cheaper, yeah more intelligently.
00:49:21
Speaker
That's so why I think it just clicked for me as someone who this is not my only job. AD is not my only job. It's a small piece of it. But coming from that angle on what does flow up to my responsibility, that's always how I approach my job is to do things the best way possible.
00:49:45
Speaker
It's not the same it was a year ago at any time. It's always changing. Adrian, where can people find you? the street
00:49:57
Speaker
I'm find ran linkedin
00:50:04
Speaker
always willing to help others kind of go down this path, especially people who are knowledgeable about technology but may not be familiar with this as an option. yeah It's become a pet passion for me and I really, again, jumped all in.
00:50:22
Speaker
I could speak about it for days. yeah Much more colorful when the camera's not rolling. But yeah, and then I'm in mid-time pretty much every day. lot of people are nearby who may want chat, so definitely up for getting together any time to do that. Take tour of Cisco's office and then go upstairs to Chardin. A few your colleagues at Cisco and that team, and they're great.
00:50:49
Speaker
And I should have added before, that's The answer to how did you come upon this was I'm part of a group called the AB User Group. and Shout out ABUG.
00:51:00
Speaker
yeah They've been great for me. We'll put them in the show notes. yeah We had one of our meetings, our quarterly meetings, on the ninth floor in the Cisco Pen1 office where your colleague, Mark Miller, gave us an entire tour around the space.
00:51:15
Speaker
yeah And that space is gorgeous, first of all. has a lot of products from a lot of vendors I've now met, including AK and MHT. And the two sides of that floor, one side is the internal team only, and one side is the public meeting spaces. There are all different shapes and sizes and possibilities.
00:51:35
Speaker
And through that tour, he pointed up to the sky, to the ceiling, and he said, you notice, there's no power cables. And they were very kind of ornate fixtures.
00:51:46
Speaker
since That's really cool. My wife being an interior designer oh cool sent her a photo and said, what do you notice about this fixture that I'm sure you love as a designer?
00:51:58
Speaker
She's like, I don't know. said, do you see power an ugly power cable somewhere? She said, no, I don't. No conduit, no. It went off for me as, again, someone who likes to do things the best way they can be at any moment.
00:52:14
Speaker
It just made sense. Awesome. so I did it in the end for our space. Basically because of that reason, just because I think it was the best. I have kind of an early adopter type personality anyway.
00:52:28
Speaker
Cool. Awesome. That's great. yeah thanks for Thanks for joining us today. My pleasure. Thank you. Yeah. as usual, like and subscribe and comment. and You'll find us on Spotify, Apple, and all the social media.
00:52:43
Speaker
Cheers. Cheers, guys.