Preston Smith, Head of BIM Operations at Integrated Projects, argues that architecture firms would be ideal incubators for new tools but lose innovators because project thinking clashes with product thinking. He explains why owners keep paying to redraw what they own.

Preston Smith, Head of BIM Operations, Integrated Projects

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In this conversation

How Preston learned that shouting "this is going to change everything" gets nowhere, and that an idea only lands inside a firm once it is pitched in terms of money, recurring revenue and pain points.

Why he calls architecture firms the best possible incubator for new tools, and why the people with those tools keep leaving anyway.

His three-way split between project thinking, product thinking and the space in between, where the fastest test is whether someone will pay a dollar for it.

His case to building owners that they keep paying for a drawing of a building they already own, and that starting from an existing model frees money for work that earns revenue.

The three things he says have to be true to digitize buildings at scale, and his honest answer that if it fails to happen, nothing breaks, the industry just stays where it is.

How his BIM team works like a product team, with a roadmap and release notes sent to modelers in Argentina, Vietnam and South Africa.

Products are long problem-solving exercises. In fact, oftentimes the problem you think you're solving, by the time you get to the end you realize you're solving a completely different problem.

Preston Smith

Chapters

Learning to make the business case

Why Preston's ideas went nowhere inside a firm until he learned to speak about money, and why so many innovators end up spinning out.

Projects versus products

How a project ends when the contract is done, while a product is a long search in which the problem itself can change.

What keeps him up at night

Coordinating a global modeling network across time zones, and the new possibilities AI and automation open up.

Why owners should care about BIM

Owners pay again and again for drawings of buildings they already own, and a shared model lets them build on it instead.

Digitizing buildings at scale

Speed, a clearly defined problem with a galvanizing force, and tools fast enough to turn ideas into models.

Running BIM like a product team

What he looks for when building a team, and how roadmaps and release notes give a worldwide network of modelers context.

Architecture firms are the number one best incubator you could have for something like this.

Preston Smith

Takeaways

Innovators inside firms need to make a business case in the language of money, recurring revenue and pain points, not just insist an idea will change everything.

Projects end when the contract is done; products are long problem-solving exercises where the problem often changes along the way.

Owners keep paying someone to produce an asset they already have, and scan-to-BIM lets them build on it instead of paying again.

Digitizing buildings at scale needs speed, a clearly defined problem with a galvanizing force, and tools fast enough to turn ideas into models.

His team runs BIM like a product team, with a roadmap and release notes sent to a global network of modelers so everyone has context.

I don't believe competition is the most effective way to solve problems. I believe collaboration is just ultimately much more effective.

Preston Smith