Creating a Culture of Digital Literacy

CODY WINCHESTER: Hello, and welcome. My name is Cody Winchester. I'm lead technology trainer with HMC Architects digital practice. It is my honor and privilege to present HMC's journey toward creating a culture of digital literacy.

The learning objectives for this session will begin with some of my professional background and some key concepts around digital literacy. From there, I will discuss why establishing a digital practice is critical for digital transformation. Next, I'll discuss how to create a culture of continuous learning through stakeholder engagement. Then, I will dive into how HMC built a technology training program and tracked outcomes. Finally, I'll discuss how all of this applies to digital literacy and the knowledge we gain from this endeavor driving our business goals.

As an elder millennial, my academic and professional life has spanned two eras, so coming of age in one century and becoming a professional in another. I was not born a digital native per se. I became a convert. During my early studies in architecture, I was instilled with the sensibilities of traditional art and media.

And only later was I gradually introduced to the promise of emerging technologies. In fact, I went through 4 and 1/2 or 3 and 1/2 years of undergrad studies before I ever touched AutoCAD as my first program. But advanced 3D modeling and rendering and computation made me realize how much technology shapes the lens we see design through. Our interpretation of tradition, culture, and aesthetics pass through this lens to become our understanding of the world.

Beginning with my first professional role in Colorado, I was part of the first group to train on and use Revit for a project. This kicked off my journey into the design technology realm, which took me to further my studies in New York City. Graduating during the peak of the Great Recession was another major pivot toward mastering design technology, since it was one of the surest ways to stay employed during that time. Being able to manage more than just one project and supporting an entire office's technology program is the key to that.

So after graduating, for instance, I went to work for Smith-Miller and Hawkinson, a small shop of five people, but with connections to my school and others in the city. One of my main tasks with them was to investigate deploying iMacs for all staff, which had to require building out an image using Windows and Boot Camp, since, obviously, we can't run most of our Autodesk applications on Mac.

But I was also tasked with developing the first project using Revit, then provide all the support for all of the above. This is all while still doing the daily work on projects. This experience was one of the most impactful for owning that whole process of work, while doing architecture and implementing technology strategy. But the truth is, given the economic situation, I probably should never have been hired. But that opportunity was instrumental in continuing my journey.

After a while, the time came to move to California. I landed first in San Francisco. And there, I committed to working in BIM management roles and deepening my connections with the larger community of design technologies. For instance, there was the San Francisco Dynamo users group that was led by Cesar Escalante, who now works for Autodesk. This network led me to working in Oakland, having a brief stint working in DC, then moving to Los Angeles, and, finally, working totally remote in Lake Tahoe, where I am today.

In all of my professional roles, I've found myself in a constant struggle to work through adopting a new design technology or some process, only to be confronted with another technological breakthrough that disrupts everything that was difficult enough to achieve in the first place. But since the pandemic, advancements in technology have moved well beyond any trite assessment of acceleration versus times in the past where it felt like decades went by where nothing was happening. We're experiencing weeks where decades are happening. Put another way, it's like doing the Kessel Run in less than two parsecs.

As AEC professionals and, frankly, as people living our everyday lives, our ability to evaluate the torrents of information coming at us and assemble any of that into knowledge that represents any cohesive understanding of what's going on in the world is a monumental challenge. What is mostly clear is that, given all the technological advancements we have witnessed, the need for digital literacy is profoundly essential.

However, digital literacy is not some threshold that we pass and then attain some universal understanding of technology. Rather, it is a condition. We must be continually developing a multitude of literacies and skill sets that give us the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a variety of sources, especially those that derive from design and office applications, digital media, et cetera.

Expanding on these notions of digital literacy, from an organizational perspective, we want to be able to harness the continual development of individuals into digital transformation for the business. The big question is how. This was and still is a question for us at HMC.

One place to start is to examine how the practice has operated in the past. For more than 100 years, the architectural profession has worked in a similar, if not altogether, recognizable manner. BIM and parametric design started to accelerate some things over the past 20, 25 years. And many firms have adopted the design technologies with various degrees of success.

But again, it cannot be understated how the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting work from home and hybrid work models have created the biggest fundamental change to our industry and just about every other industry than at any other time over the preceding century. It really wasn't that long ago that we stopped using large drafting tables for drawing. And we were still mostly working in large open offices until the pandemic forced us all home.

The frustration and challenge is that we still find ourselves applying the logic of the past to our present practice. We may have access to the latest advanced technologies, but they tend to be applied in ways that still try to achieve conventional results. For instance, we may have been working hybrid and remote, but our design and production operations remain largely the same except the remote media we use during the process-- logging into teams, using Miro, those type of things.

And we largely say this is fine. But it begs the question as to whether we could have been working in the same manner five years ago, at least just before the onset of the pandemic. Spoiler-- we absolutely could have. In fact, in my experience working for a multinational firm, we had to in many instances.

It's funny looking back on that because, in order to work with a project team on the East Coast, I still had to commute into my office on the West Coast, where we communicated only by video conference, chat, or email. Where we sat while doing any of that didn't really matter. But there we all were, sitting in our offices, working alone but together. This is part of what leads to realizing that we could and absolutely should be using technology to propel us toward solving new problems instead of tacking it onto old ones.

However one defines design technology, practice, technology, or, in this case, digital practice, the question is, Why would a firm establish a dedicated group to focus on digital solutions for projects? All of this is fine. What do we need to do anything differently for?

One of the main reasons is that the architectural practice is still caught in what I recently heard perfectly described as an adhocracy-- this rapid assembly of a team, assets and resources to accomplish a particular project that quickly disbands once the project is completed. Then, the next project starts, and a whole new team assembles, starting the whole process over again. What's left is little incentive to actively harvest any of the previous resources to recycle into new solutions. So much knowledge during a conventional design process is either lost or forgotten about at the end of each project and has everything to do with architecture's business of billable hours.

But is there a way to augment the business to allow for harvesting and refining the processes and assets generated during the life of the project instead of throwing everything away at the end, or at least forgetting about it? What if we engage in a process that refined and improved upon what was done previously? We could begin organizing the methods and applications that are best suited for each stage of design, optimize the way we analyze design options, and communicate with stakeholders.

Finally, we could even create ways to automate many of the repetitive tasks that we do and ultimately create and package these assets so that they're ready to use for the next project. With a dedicated digital practice operating outside of the typical project cycle, it becomes possible not only to provide expert support to a project team, but also engage in developing the shared resources, solutions, and knowledge that can be used and reused in every project.

A digital practice is a dedicated group of individuals that not only focus on applying digital tools to conventional practice but also explore new avenues for using technology, using analytics, scripting, and AI to transform the practice. So creating a digital practice begins with identifying people on project teams now or within studios that demonstrate exceptional digital competencies. These folks can be BIM Managers, design technologists, computational designers, or even someone who is really good at building spreadsheets for various project-related purposes. That person who knows how to do all of those Excel formulas, they're actually really digitally competent.

But again, due to the nature of architecture building, there are challenges to offering pathways to these digitally-literate folks to further develop their skills. Without creating an avenue for growth, it can be difficult to convince them to stay with the firm or, for that matter, stay in the industry. In my experience, firms tend to keep their digital talent embedded in studios or project teams, but they may have them coordinate with a senior design technology manager or other similar role.

However, this only marginally augments the same limitations with the business model. Digital talent within a studio are almost certainly likely to be 100% utilized or even more-- doing multiple project work. Even with the coordination of that outside manager or some other oversight, there simply isn't enough time to engage in strategic technology initiatives, and, therefore, their impact is often flat.

Strategically investing in a dedicated digital practice that operates primarily as overhead establishes the infrastructure to maximize support and develop technology talent. When this team is made up of the strongest subject matter experts from BIM, algorithmic design, visualization, sustainability, and training, it becomes possible to develop more refined solutions that, not only can be reused, but can be scaled in a way that accelerates competencies across the firm, especially if there's a strong training element.

A dedicated digital practice also creates a pipeline for developing talent and leadership. It will form the basis for the mindset a firm will need in order to enter a state of digital transformation. For HMC and for many other firms in my experience, as soon as you adopt BIM, likely via Revit, they are either willingly or unwittingly embarking upon a path of digital transformation.

HMC experienced many of the growing pains of doing so but slowly move forward. From the first use of Revit in 2009, it took a few years before it was fully adopted for production work. Several more years passed until the passion, ambition, and, frankly, unique talent of one individual had an idea to do more.

Working as a senior project designer, principal, and architect, Evan Troxel eventually convinced HMC's leadership to make the strategic decision to establish digital practice at HMC In 2018. The group was initially built around design technology, BIM technology, and technology training, the latter of which I was brought aboard to lead. With these core components in place, digital practice is able to accelerate the digital competencies that would be required to adapt to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And in fact, we were really lucky to have been able to do that in the first place. The many subsequent initiatives that followed finally led us to merging with IT, restructuring under new leadership, and on to today with the formalization of an executive digital data strategy for the whole firm.

Combining digital practice and IT, as well as champions from the practice, we were able to form a comprehensive understanding of the technology landscape that affects the business. Being able to recognize, assemble, and harness the diversity of talent and ideas in a group like this supports, again, that establishment of the mindset that's required to propel any firm, and, especially in this case, HMC's digital transformation journey.

From our example, ask yourselves, What are the things happening now at your firms that a digital practice group could help accelerate? With our current leadership, our core mission has become a data-driven value chain where design and delivery technology and, most essentially, data intersect to drive the business forward. The nexus of all these core components is where digital literacy can be derived and flourish, but only through intention and prescribed action by our leadership and our people.

So a culture of learning begins with people in your firm that bring their experience, connections, and, above all, their passion for gaining knowledge and sharing it. Aligning the mission of the practice with these resources sets the stage for building infrastructure around them. When we ask what kind of culture we want to have at our organizations, it's important to know what culture means in the first place.

During the Paris Olympics this past summer, Patrick Sang of a Barcelona 1992 silver medal medalist in the 3,000 meter steeplechase, he discussed the athletes that are part of his Kaptagat training camp in Kenya, saying culture is when a group of people decide to grow together. So if culture is growing together, then we must look towards the ways we want to grow together within a professional organization.

HMC was a firm that was first founded in 1940 to anticipate the needs of the community in the Inland Empire of Southern California. This purpose has evolved into the investment into design's restorative power as a public good. The ethos that has come from this is design for good.

As a 100% employee-owned firm, this also means how we design is as important to what we design. So empowering our people through development and learning provides the motivation to engage in a creative process that also creates impactful and enriching design solutions. For HMC, it became a strategic decision to build a culture of learning to align with our mission, a culture for the future of development and of empowerment leads to a culture of designing for good.

This intention led to taking the action to decide as a firm that, not only is it OK to learn, but we will provide the resources for staff to engage in self-paced and instructor-led training activities. Additionally, the time set aside was designed not to factor into overall utilization and further incentivize continuous learning.

Folding into the overall learning objectives, my portion through digital practice was to develop our technology training program. From the establishment of digital practice, the mission of technology training has been to raise the digital IQ of our teams and support the cultivation of a culture of continuous learning, in short, to support digital literacy across the firm.

The curriculum that was developed began with identifying the competencies most relevant and essential to our daily work but also setting the stage for increasingly demanding and complex design processes that align with our overall technology strategy. For example, we understood the limitations with our widespread use of SketchUp in the interoperability with Revit. No offense, EvolveLab.

Therefore, we made the conscious decision to move towards retiring SketchUp and focus on using Rhino, Grasshopper, as well as Revit and Dynamo, since there were stronger avenues for computational design workflows with those applications. We then created course curriculum that was a combination of e-learning and also this curated-- or the e-learning courses curated from our subscription to LinkedIn Learning. And then the instructor led workshops were led primarily by myself and other digital practice experts.

We also held numerous seminars over the lunch hour to highlight other applications and introduce new ones, along with our standard workflows to be adopted firm-wide. Together, all of this sets up a pathway to more automated and analytical design processes that raise the digital IQ of the firm.

Over the past several years, the technology training curriculum evolved from a list of courses on Airtable to a comprehensive firm-wide learning program housed in a formal learning management system. Partnering with our HR, my team worked to develop and implement this platform to align to nearly all the job functions at HMC and provide pathways for advancement, promotions, and short-term incentives.

With all of this in place, we are now able to track learning outcomes along with individual goals across our offices and job functions. Additionally, we are beginning to see engagement from each of the practice areas, identifying learning categories that are the strongest. The long-term ambition here is whether we can integrate training and skills metrics with the needs of our project pipeline and hopefully forecast what competencies will be most needed to align with our overall business strategy.

The culmination of the efforts spent in establishing a digital practice, developing training, and a culture of learning comes down to digital literacy driving digital transformation and innovation for the future of the firm. Going forward, a major component of the data-driven value chain in sustaining digital literacy at HMC will include knowledge management. Data becoming information, becoming knowledge, and arriving at wisdom is a key concept for this.

Again, however these steps of the pyramid don't lead to some final apex or attainment. Wisdom is only the arrival of a new beginning. It restarts what is a cyclical process that, in my view, will lead to the attainment of wisdom becoming yet more data that will, again, flow through transformations of information and knowledge.

From the perspective of digital literacy, I propose that knowledge and data are symbiotic. To expand upon a familiar phrase, I propose that, in this era, knowledge equals data. I believe this will be especially true as artificial intelligence advances and organizations attempt to leverage it, augment it with their own internal expertise.

What we know and how we come to know it is an intrinsic part of creating the models that new generations of AI will train upon. Data will beget more data, which will beget more AI. Underneath all of this, however, are the passionate individuals working toward ever greater digital transformation.

I recognize this in the amazing people that I have worked with that continue to be a source of inspiration and support in navigating this unusual career. I am here today in large part because of the opportunities and mentorship that they have provided me along the way. For those of you listening to this presentation, you know who you are, and I'm ever grateful to you.

In closing, I ask this of all of you. Think of the people you share your passion with technology. Think of those around you that have budding talent in technology. This is where the culture of digital literacy begins. The community we build together is how we influence digital transformation across the AEC industry.

Supporting and providing opportunities for growth and development for each other and then sharing that knowledge we gain from our journeys is the foundation of a successful culture of digital literacy. Eventually, we won't need a digital practice to do this. It will simply be the practice. Thank you so much.