Читать книгу The Construction Technology Handbook - Hugh Seaton - Страница 15

For years, the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry has been among the slowest to adopt technology, in part because the technology that was introduced early on was often not well adapted to the needs of the industry and its different parts. In the past decade or so, a number of community efforts have arisen to give the AEC industry, especially construction professionals, opportunities to learn about technology, while giving the technology industry a window into one of the oldest, most complex industries.

Perhaps the first of these was the AEC Hackathon, an event series that I helped kick off in 2013. Founded by Damon Hernandez and Paul Doherty, the event was created to break down barriers between AEC industry people and tech people. By solving real problems together, both sides get an appreciation for the other. We've run over 50 of these around the world, changing the format to an online version in the post‐pandemic world. Now that they are digital, I encourage you to check one out; go to www.hackaec.com to see what's out there, and find others like you who are on a digital journey.

In the years since 2013, startups and venture capital have discovered construction, and there has been a flood of solutions for everything from 3D scanning to daily reports. Not all of these came from a good understanding of what's really needed on a jobsite, and in fact going back a little further even more of the software pushed to the construction site came from other places, like accounting. We've heard stories of “app‐fatigue,” and a general concern that field personnel especially are not a big enough part of the tech development and adoption process.

We need to change that.

In this book, I share new skills, and a new mindset toward technology. Whether you're already a construction technologist and have “drunk the kool‐aid,” or worried about how technology will impact your life, you will find ideas of value in these pages.

Through this new digital toolkit you'll look at technology differently, from the inside of how it gets made to how it gets packaged and adopted. You'll also see that the people who make software and other kinds of technology are very similar to construction, especially the trades. The big difference is where construction expertise is aimed at putting work in place, technology expertise is aimed at “making it go.” Both sets of professionals take enormous pride in what they do, and by understanding technology as just another toolkit, you can blend the strengths of both the construction and the technology mindsets.

It is often said that training teaches you how to do, education teaches you how to think. A book like this is educational – so ask questions along the way, and try to see things with the mindset of a technologist.