Prove It – Episode 4 – What's the Benchmark? feat. Rachel Riopel

Rachel Riopel – Digital Design Managing Principal at HDR – talks with Nate Miller about change management, technology implementation, women in design technology, and using BIM and open standards to support benchmarking analysis.

Follow Rachel on Twitter @R2Wiley
Connect with her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/r23riopel/

01:21 Weather attitudes, folks from LA hate the rain
02:12 Introducing Rachel
03:07 Change management in a big firm
03:47 What is the most expensive part of a technology implementation
04:34 Change needs to happen at all levels – not just the picks and clicks
06:40 Project managers have a lot to lose if something goes wrong
08:21 Creating allowances for changes in process
09:50 Big firms hesitant to change process – high risk, expensive projects
10:43 Rachel explains the components of her innovations strategy
13:27 Will we see computational design “standards”?
15:35 Digital assets and liability
16:47 How did Rachel get into Architecture?
19:49 Rachel discusses going to college for architecture.
20:57 Nate on getting burned out on computers in college.
21:34 Rachel was not a “tech person” in college
22:09 Misaligned expectations between college and practice
23:23 Rachel first hears about Revit
25:17 Rachel buys her own copy of Revit so she can learn on her own
25:54 Rachel discusses getting her license in parallel with athletics and technology learning
26:25 Nate discusses his decision not to become an architect
29:17 Rachel goes to Autodesk University, joins HDR shortly after
31:54 2008 recession, joining a new firm and betting on technology
33:37 Rachel discusses women in technology and architecture
38:21 The current state of BIM at HDR
42:57 Getting over the hump of talking about data in abstract terms
46:30 Nate can’t stop with the cliches: Poking the elephant, cracking the nut, skinning the cat
46:58 Interoperability can’t get any worse, can it?
48:42 Cleaning up the mess of data that we have
49:32 There is “standards aversion” in architecture
54:37 Rachel likes IFC, using it to support benchmarking
57:22 We need to be able to access unlock data amidst transforming proprietary software
59:08 Wrap-up discussion – what should a firm be doing?