Hosting BIM Titans: Lessons from 80 Live Talks and 700,000+ Views

NICOLAS CATELLIER: My name is Nicolas Catellier. In late 2020, I started hosting a series on YouTube called BIM Pure Live. I have had discussions with some of the brightest minds in BIM, ranging from Revit experts, family gurus, well-known figures in a BIM space, BIM managers, CEOs of AEC/tech companies, AI specialists, content creators.

You can see a sample of the great people we've hosted in this image. Not every single one of them is included. But since this series started, we've had more than 80 sessions, totaling more than 700,000 views.

On a personal level, I feel insanely lucky to have been able to meet and pick the brains of all these experts. It not only gave me more knowledge about Revit, the BIM industry, the AEC/tech industry, but it also inspired me to try to do hard, meaningful work, to be optimistic about the future of our industry, and to share as much as I can and hopefully inspire others. This is the story of BIM Pure Live, why I decided to start this project, the vision I have for this series, how I try to balance entertainment and knowledge, the technical setup, the most inspiring moments from the show, and how you can leverage yourself and change the world.

Let's rewind a little bit. I'm going to present who I am. I am Nicolas Catellier. Nick is fine.

I'm an architect and BIM specialist. I am based in Québec City, Canada. I've worked close to 10 years at a local architecture firm here, which I was acting as a BIM manager.

And since 2021, I went into my own with my company called BIM Pure, a BIM consulting business. I'm also a speaker and instructor. And as I mentioned, I am the host of BIM Pure Live.

What is BIM Pure exactly? Initially, it started as Revit Pure back in 2016. Initially, it was a blog and a YouTube channel with the goal of creating nice and easy to follow Revit guides and tutorials.

And many years later, we've had millions of views on these videos and blog posts. Since 2021, we've transitioned to become a full-time project. And earlier this year, in 2024, the Revit Pure has been fully rebranded to BIM Pure, and it's now a BIM membership learning website. In addition to doing creating learning content, we also act as a BIM consultant with various clients.

OK, so this is what we're going to talk about today. First, I'm going to give some context on BIM Pure Live and what it's all about. I'm going to talk about engagement, how I-- the tips and strategies I employ to try to make engaging live videos. I'm going to talk about the technical setup and the gear I am using for the live productions. Then I'm going to talk about the marketing strategies that I use to get people to watch the show.

I'm going to share some great quotes that I've had in memorable events that happened on BIM Pure Live. And finally, nothing else than changing the world. That's the final part.

So as you can see, this agenda is a little bit all over the place. It tackles multiple topics related to this topic of live streaming about BIM. So there's a little bit of something for everyone, regardless of what you're most interested in.

Let's start with the context. What is the show and why I decided to start it? First, let's explain what it is.

BIM Pure Live is a series of live events on a BIM and AEC/tech. It's all on YouTube. It's not a podcast. There are no audio-only version of this, because often guests are demonstrating what they're doing and sharing their screen.

So the format of BIM Pure Live is a mix between a podcast and a webinar. And it aims to have a somewhat casual setting. And there are conversation mix in between technical instructions.

The goal of BIM Pure Live is to have a wide diversity of topics. I'll say the biggest episode, the most popular typically, and the most popular topic where we had the most presentation is about Revit specifically, often talking with Revit niche master. So, for example, Revit landscape specialist, the Revit concrete specialist.

This tends to be the backbone of BIM Pure Live. But we also have episodes with BIM and AEC/tech discussions. We'll discuss with software CEOs of emerging apps in the BIM world and AEC/tech. I will talk to BIM managers who are presenting their approach and how they see BIM and implement it in their firms. And every once in a while, I'll have a solo technical session where I might find-- pick a very specific Revit or BIM topic and showcase it to the people.

Why I decided to start this show in the first place, doing live streams on YouTube-- initially, my YouTube channel started as a Revit Pure in 2016. And doing live streams was something that was in the back of my mind for a long time. During the pandemic, I've had the chance to be invited by [? Jeff, ?] well known in the community as the Revit kid.

And he also hosted a series of live events. He invited me for one of them. And I had a complete blast. It was very fun. And I thought it was a great format.

So at the end of the year, I thought, let's try to do it. I didn't really know what I was doing when I got started, but I decided to try it anyway. There are a few inspirational quotes during this presentation. The first one is by David Bowie, "Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in."

So even though when I started this, it made me uncomfortable because I am not a natural public speaker. I am not necessarily an extroverted person. I didn't have, yeah, all this experience.

And setting up live streams, it takes a while to set up. You need technical equipments. You can face multiple issues.

English is not even my native language. But you know what? I decided to do it anyway and to push it because I like putting myself out of my comfort zone.

So I had to go past this initial resistance. But I knew even though-- even if the show would have been not a success, I knew that I was going to learn something from it and it was worth trying out. There are challenges to get started.

You can see this is the first episode I had with a guest. This is Jose Oliveira from DiRoots. And I had all sorts of technical issues in this first episode with a guest; problem with images, with the sound. But I fixed these, and now the live episodes are getting much better. And I'm starting to know what I'm doing.

Another quote, this time from Hunter S. Thompson, "Anything worth doing is worth doing right." From the get-go, I knew that creating this series of live events I was trying to do them well have good production value. I would get the necessary equipment I would need for it, and I would try to make it look good.

From the very get-go with Revit Pure, I've always been a graphic design nerd, so I took the time to create a branding and a color scheme that would fit with the brand I was trying to have with the live shows. So I started designing everything myself. Eventually, last year, we've had help from a local agency here in Quebec City, who did some-- helped me out with the branding for the live show.

Let's talk about the reason the show is successful. I think it's because of the experts that are invited to talk about their craft. And the people that come on BIM Pure Live, typically, they're the best of the best in their specific niche. There's a few examples here of some guests, previous guests on BIM Pure Live.

We've got Nehama, which is an absolute Revit landscape master and an amazing public speaker. We've got Purvi Irwin, which came to discuss Revit schedules; Brian Mackey, the absolute master in the word about Revit detailing; Michael Kilkelly, specialist of Revit API with C#.

A few more-- we got Dana de Filippi about Dynamo Player; Kevin Cardoso about Revit concrete modeling. And for example, I was very lucky to get Marzia Bolpagni to come and talk about LOD and Level of Information Need. And she actually wrote the international standard. She was on the team that helped write the standards about level and information need.

So it's a huge privilege for me to be able to talk to her, pick her brain, ask questions about it. So I'll be honest, I feel very lucky to be able to get to talk to all these people and ask questions and see how they think and how they manage to become the absolute masters in their niche.

Here's the list of the most popular episodes we had on BIM Pure Live. Most of them are related to Revit topics. For example, the most popular one ever was about landscape modeling.

Another one was BIM at BIG with Jens, the BIM manager, and the BIG architects who came to talk about the vision that BIG has in terms of BIM. One of my personal favorite episodes, for sure. And most of these are very technical topics.

So typically, when I book, I schedule the events. Of course, I try to think of topics that are going to be popular, but it's not the only thing I think about. Sometimes I know some topics are not going to be as popular as others, but I try to follow my own curiosity.

If I'm interested in something as BIM manager and architect, typically, it's a good sign. So that's the most important thing for me when I book someone that I'm actually curious. And I cannot wait to talk to the person and hear more about their work.

Now I want to talk about engagement, how to be both entertaining and informative. To me, there is a balance when hosting live sessions like this, where you have to be both entertaining but also provide valuable information.

BIM Pure Live is different from what I call corporate webinars. The typical corporate webinar structure is there will be five minutes introduction of the speaker. There's going to be about 45 minutes where the speaker presents all by himself. And there will be a Q&A at the end.

And I'm not saying this is bad. If there's a very good speaker, this can be a good format. It works well. I like listening to what I call corporate webinars. But BIM Pure Live is a little bit different.

Typically, I like to-- I will introduce the guest, for sure, but I'd like to chat with them, ask them questions, and try to find out what their origin story is, why they became an expert specifically at the topic they're presenting in. And during the course of their presentation, instead of letting them present all alone by themselves, I like to interrupt and ask questions. So make the show halfway between a webinar and a podcast.

Also, not necessarily every single episode, but I like to host things in a way that tries to recreate the vibe of the pub discussions. This is a screenshot from the end-of-the-year sessions that we do. And it's just catching up with old friends, asking them, what have you been working on this year? And what are your biggest accomplishment? What are your goals for next year?

I think the community loves when things feels natural. They feel like they're part of a conversation instead of something being a bit more staged. So people do enjoy the authenticity. And I think it's one of the driving factor with the success of BIM Pure Live.

Now I'm going to share some of the lessons that I try to keep in mind when I'm trying to make entertaining and interactive live sessions. A lot of these tips are from Wes Kao. I've learned a lot from her. She's the cofounder of Maven, which is a cohort-based learning website. I've indicated her website, which you can find more information, if that's a topic you're interested in.

So let's talk about monotony versus movement. Monotony causes audience to tune out, and movement causes audiences to become alert. So whenever I'm hosting a live session, I try to keep that in mind. I feel that it shouldn't be interactive and try to make the show as dynamic as I can to keep it exciting.

What are ways that can break monotony? Well, you can change the state every three to five minutes to break the monotony. What are some good ways to do it?

You can ask questions to the audience. You can read comments from the chat. You can interrupt to ask questions.

Since I'm producing live, I can use the software to change in between scenes. I can move from the speaker face to the screen, to the screen [INAUDIBLE] the speaker. I can switch around to make the show more dynamic. Almost like producing an actual TV show. And you can also use humor to try to break the monotony again.

And so this is a recording. But typically, if I was doing this live, for example, I might ask the audience a question or try to interact.

When presenting online, you have to find-- strike the right balance between being an entertainer and being an instructor. I find that in this space, a lot of people feel that they have to be 90% instructor and 10% entertainer. But that's a bit more like being a college professor.

And teaching online or being part of a live session, you have to strike a better balance of being an entertainer, in my opinion. Else, people are going to tune out. At the same time, you still have to provide value, right?

People are tuning in so they can learn something and apply it to their work. So you don't want to be only 10% instructor, 90% entertainer. That would be like a BuzzFeed video. So you have to strike the right balance in between the two.

And to me, the most important thing, the way we can measure success in a live session, whether it be a webinar or a BIM Pure Live session, is engagement. Did you manage to keep engagement with your audience? Because to me, you don't succeed by delivering every single piece of information you wanted. You succeed by keeping the audience engaged.

I feel that some speakers, they feel, I have this list of things I need to talk about. And my presentation is going to be a success is if I go through the entire list of hundred things I must talk about. But I think you should focus more on making sure everyone is engaged and what you're saying is actually resonating.

It's better to have a smaller list of points that you want to [? come ?] [? across, ?] but to have a way of making these points resonate and that people are actually going to remember them. So again, make sure you are keeping the audience engaged.

Something very painful that I do to try to improve as a speaker and as a host is to watch myself speak. I don't like it. It's painful. But it's also helpful.

I watch recording of myself. In addition to doing BIM Pure Live, I'll also record video tutorials for the membership. And by watching yourself speak, you can easily spot little words that you keep saying over and over again. You can see weird body movements or something odd that you're doing and try to fix it.

And if I watch the first sessions that I did as a host of BIM Pure Live, it's clear that I improve. And it's a pretty good feeling to take a topic or a skill I didn't know I have, public speaking, and seeing improvements over the years. So again, watching yourself speak, painful, but helpful.

So these are general tips on how to be engaging. Now I'm going to talk about being a host and tips on how to be a successful host. My job as a host of BIM Pure Live is to represent the audience. I must put myself in the shoes of the audience and ask the obvious questions. Sometimes I'm talking to someone.

Everyone is wondering-- might have a question in mind. So my job is to ask the question to represent the audience. And when someone is presenting-- let's say they're showing something in Revit, for example-- it's my job also to interrupt and ask to clarify if something isn't clear or if the person went just a little too fast and not all the audience understood what's going on.

I feel like most webinars won't necessarily do that, or they will wait until the end. But with the format of this show, I tried to be a bit more interactive. It depends on the topic, so more about that soon.

Some people ask me, why don't you record all the videos in advance and just publish them on YouTube instead of doing it live? And I love doing these events as live because of the great community in the chat. There's a lot of interactions. We typically have 100, 200, 300 people tuning in for the live events itself.

And I got to say, this community is really smart. It's a bunch of very smart BIM managers in a firm, and they're asking great questions. They're very intelligent. So I feel lucky to have this audience.

It also creates a sense of community. It's often the same people coming over and over again for each episode. So it's a special feeling. It's a good feeling to see these same people coming in and interacting for the event.

A good way to interact with the audience also is to ask them a question. So the first question when the show begins that I like to ask is, where are you from? It sounds simple, but it brings interaction. And as you can see in the screenshot, people love telling where they're from. And it blows my mind every single time I do ask this question. You can see all the countries from Africa, Europe, the US, from everywhere all around the world.

As a host, it's also important for me to adapt to every single guest. Some guests are natural public speaker. If that's the case, sometimes you just let them talk, because there are pros in public speaking. And I just let them do their job.

In this case, maybe I'll interrupt less than I typically do for others. Let me give you an example, Marcello Sgambelluri, which is a well-known speaker in the community in the BIM and AEC/tech, is an award-speaking AU speaker.

So when I invite him to the show, I know he's going to do an amazing job. And if he's presenting on something, maybe it will have a conversation. But if it was just to talk all by himself for 30 minutes, I know that would be still amazing because of the experience.

But I also want to bring people on the show who are not necessarily natural public speaker. Maybe they are-- not sure how to say it else, but nerds, in a way that are absolutely amazing. And they found a superb workflow that is improving their practice and helping them.

So in this case, maybe the guest would need a bit more guidance. They need me to ask more questions. And sometimes I will recap what they're saying in my own words to make sure that the audience is understanding what's going on.

So again, to me, the important point is to adapt to each guest and not hesitate to guide the guests if it's necessary. Or sometimes let them speak and let them do their job. Sometimes that's what the show calls for. And it's my job not to interrupt too much if it's the case.

I'd like to start episodes of BIM Pure Live with a personal chat. I think asking about their background is a good icebreaker. I typically ask them how did they get interested in BIM or other topics, depending on the guest.

And so I'm fascinated by the origin story of everyone. It seems a lot of people came through BIM through somewhat randomness. Most people tell me BIM came to them more than the other way around.

I will say, though, it's good to chat about it, but it's not something I try to do for too long. Most people came in to the live show to learn specific things on the technical topic, so I tried to move on relatively quickly to talk about. the main issues.

All right. Now let's talk about the setup and the gear that I'm using. So this part is a bit more technical, but I'm going to bring you behind the scenes. So if you're watching this recording, currently, I'm recording it by using the gear that you can see in this image. So that's what I'm currently seeing in front of me.

I'm going to run through my entire setup and also make some recommendations. If you're ever interested in either doing live stream or just maybe you're recording yourself or having a nice-looking studio for your webcam and your calls.

So typically, if it was live event, I would ask what is the most crucial piece of equipment. Is it a video, or is it audio? My answer is audio. If you are going to choose between a good mic and a good camera, I think a good mic wins all the time because listening to a recording with bad audio is a terrible experience.

So audio is king. Bad audio is an awful experience for the audience, so invest on a good mic first.

This is my recommendation for microphones. This is the Blue Yeti USB microphone. It costs $99. You can easily get it on Amazon.

It sounds great. This is the mic that I've used for many years. If you're getting started, this is a great pick.

This is the one I'm actually using. This is the Shure SM7B. It costs $400 plus you need some accessories.

The accessories include an audio console. I also use this Cloudlifter preamp device that boosts the signal of the mic. Else, it's a bit hard to control the volume. And also, you will need XLR cables.

It's a bit more complex of a setup. So if you're getting started again, the Blue Yeti is a good pick. If you want to get in the high range of audio and microphone, the Shure SM7B is a good choice.

I'm using this Elgato Wave Mic Arm. So you can see it's an arm. I don't like the one that goes over the screen because I don't want to block my view to the screens, right? So I found this one that is clamped to the desk. And I can easily push around when I'm not recording so it's not in the way.

Let's talk about cameras. The first thing I want to mention is full HD is fine. You don't need 4K, because 4K doesn't mean it's going to be a good quality, the image is going to be beautiful. It just means how many pixels there are. So it's a myth I wanted to break.

I would say full HD is typically fine, in my opinion. If you want to record content, the laptop default camera typically isn't good. Depends on the laptop. But you can get a pretty decent pick.

This is the Logitech C920 at $69. And it's a pretty good pick to get started. So the Blue Yeti mic and this camera, if you go on record, it's less than $200. And you get a pretty reasonable setup.

This is another pick if you want to just go up a notch in terms of a webcam. This is the Elgato Facecam Pro. And the one that I am using, it's actually a model very similar to it, but I'm actually using an actual camera that you can see right now if you're watching the live recording.

This is the Canon EOS R50 at $750. And it's mounted to my desk with the Master Mount by Elgato. So if you're going to use an actual camera, again, you don't have to use this setup if you just want to get started. But I like to push things a little bit.

Don't use the stock lens. You can buy another lens and look for a low f value. For example, F1.8, that's low enough. And it's going to give you a slightly blurry background like you can see in this image, also called a bokeh effect.

So if you're watching, you can see that things behind me are slightly blurry. That's because I actually bought a lens, a better lens to put on my camera. In terms of lighting if you want to get started, an Elgato Ring Light is pretty good at about $99. That's the one by Elgato. Once again, we are making lots of device for streaming.

In terms of my setup, I've upgraded it last year, and I've brought about a soft light, a softbox lighting that's used as a key light. I also have the smaller lighting on my right side. That's again by the company Elgato.

And it's good to think about what's behind you, like composition of the shot. So in my case, I was mindful. I placed a little lamb that creates a little halo of light around me. Having some greens of plants in there is good, having some art.

I would be honest, I'm not fully satisfied with it, so I'm always trying to upgrade and improve my video settings and background.

So it's still constant work in progress, I would say. In terms of headset, this is the standard podcasting headset that I'm using, the Audio-Technica ATH-M50x. My studio is a big room, and there's a lot of reverb, which is annoying.

To solve this issue, you can place soft objects and plants around the rooms, curtains, and carpets, plants, these kinds of objects. Eventually upgraded and play some acoustic panels like you can see in this image.

If you want to have a great-looking studio, I can give you a recommendation. I follow this course by this guy named Kevin Shen. It's a Dream Course Studio. I actually bought his course, but you can find some free resources online. And I just followed everything he said to get the studio look that I have.

In terms of accessories, I'm using this little device called the Elgato Stream Deck, which has multiple buttons I can link to my streaming software, so I can easily switch from one scene to another. I can mute my mic. I can mute the mic of my guest. So it's very helpful.

And it actually can be used with your BIM tools such as Revit, for example. You can have a key on this device that syncs to [? Central, ?] for example.

In terms of software, the most popular in the industry is called OBS. I'm actually using one that is called StreamLabs OBS. It's made for streamers. But it has a few additional features that I enjoy.

For example, you can create giveaways on YouTube directly. And with this software, it takes a long time to set up. It took me a while. So every single scene that you see, they have to be premade. But what I like about it, once the first setup is done and that you're used to it and use-- you've made every settings right, you can reuse it for every single session.

So now I'm used to the setting. I think it looks pretty good. And I'm happy with it.

OK, that was the more technical part about the tech setup that I have. Now I want to talk about marketing and how to get people to watch the live events. So I've got to say, I've had somewhat of a head start because BIM Pure Live was started, was launched on the back of Revit Pure.

Revit Pure is the learning website that I've made for Revit back in 2016. And well, that's a marketing strategy I can share. At the bottom, every single blog post. It was this lead magnet that promised the user to send a PDF guide if they've entered their email address.

So this way, I was able to have 20 people in my email list by the time I launched BIM Pure Live. So for sure, that's a huge asset when you get started, and you want to promote what you're doing. In addition, I've already had 15,000 YouTube subscribers, so also helps a lot.

So I've got to mention, if you get started and you have no presence, you don't have YouTube channel or you don't have a big social media presence, it can be hard to get people to watch you, right? It might take a while.

In terms of marketing, another tip that I've learned very early on, it's try not to be dependent on social media because they can change the algorithm and kill you. I'll give you an example. When I got started with Revit Pure, Facebook was a big thing. I've published a lot of content on the Revit Pure page, and it was quite popular.

And someday out of nowhere, I kept publishing, and there was no-- there were no interactions anymore. It all died down. Why? Because the algorithm changed. And I guess Facebook wanted me to pay to promote and boost the posts.

But I didn't do so, and I guess I moved to other platforms. But it was not a big deal for me because I had emails that was the backbone of the business. And the main way I reached people was sending them emails. For the live show itself, typically, I will send one email to announce the show and one email 30 minutes before the show starts.

When doing events like BIM Pure Live, consistency is important. For example, I always do live events on the same day of the week, typically at the same time, for example, Wednesday at 3:00 PM, sometimes at 8:00 PM, especially if I'm with an Australian guest, where that's the only time that works for them. And everything feels familiar. The introduction, the theme music, the duration, everything is made to create a sense of familiarity, right? You kind of feel at home when you're watching.

I've paid someone, an artist, to create a custom song to fit the vibe of the show. It's actually a lo-fi artist called Ile Flottante. I've reached out and asked if we would create a theme song. And I really liked the song. I think it fits what I'm trying to do.

Again, the goal is that people know what format to expect. It's a bit like a TV show, right? If you're watching Letterman in the evening, you know the format. You know exactly how it's going to go.

The guests are different every time. What you're going to hear about is going to be different. But the familiarity helps to keep a consistent audience.

A lot of people organizing webinars online tend to ask for registration, which makes a lot of sense, because you can have a list of emails specifically for one event and it can create a sense of exclusivity. However, I prefer not to ask for registration. Everything is public. It's a public YouTube link. Anyone can watch.

You don't need to register. What I like about that is that people can randomly discover the YouTube event and didn't plan to watch it. But they're opening YouTube, and they see the live stream. They go there, and they watch.

And also, the most views on these live events are after the events. Sometimes during the live events, I might have 200 views, depends on the episodes. But then afterwards, it might get up to 10,000. And this is much easier to achieve if it's the same length, it's the same video for live that goes into the recording afterwards. That's why I don't ask for registration.

When it comes to having a title to the live events, I like to have titles that are simple and punchy. I've heard a saying somewhere that is-- I don't know if it's controversial or not, but it's simplicity is better than accuracy. So you can keep the nuance for the actual event, for the actual content.

When it comes to titles, sometimes it's simplified. It's not the most accurate, but it still gives an idea of what the show is going to be about. For example, show that I did with Purvi about Revit schedules don't need to go fancy. It's just advanced schedules tricks. So I always try to make everything extremely simple in terms of titles.

When it comes to discussion that I'm publishing on YouTube before the event or on LinkedIn or wherever I'm publishing by email, I like to have bullet points. People don't like to read paragraphs, right? They're busy. And it's too long. They don't want to read a wall of text.

So bullet points helps. And it gives them a quick overview of what we're actually going to talk about. I like lists, generally speaking. I think it helps me when I write something. And the audience appreciate it because they have a quick glimpse of what it's all about.

After the event is done, I have an assistant that helps me out to write all the chapters on YouTube. And you know how YouTube works. You can easily switch from one section of the video to another. And I don't mind if people skip the introduction or they go straight to a specific part they want to watch.

And when you do the chapters, it also helps with SEO discovery because people might find with Google specific part of the live session. And they [? might ?] watch only the specific part, which again is fine by me.

Something that not always the best at doing but it's a good trick is to have one blog post for each event. And in the blog post, you can announce a video. And afterwards, you can have a summary of what has been discussed.

So it's something-- to be honest, I'm trying to do more and more. I haven't been so good at doing the past, but I'm trying to make a habit out of it. And typically, the blog posts feed the videos, and videos feed the blog posts and so on. And this is a great approach for SEO.

And for some of the episodes, some of the best where they were the most actionable tips, sometimes I wrote summaries in forms of-- for example, with Purvi, she came to talk about advanced schedules, so I've created an article called 15 advanced tricks to master Revit schedules. It turned out to be one of the most popular blog posts on Revit Pure blog ever.

And finally, again, something that I'm trying to do more and more is to create clips and shorts from memorable moments. For example, in the episode about AI in architecture, there was one moment where Tim Fu talked about copyrights. And I thought, this is really amazing.

I've never heard this argument before. I've never heard this kind of discussion. So it's a good idea to take this part of it and create a clip so people can watch this part specifically. Again, it's something I'm trying to implement more and more.

Now I want to share some quotable moments from BIM Pure Live and some of the lessons learned. It's just a tiny sample but a few of the moments that had the most impact on me with this live show. This one from John Pierson, known as a design technology specialist at Parallax Team. And he came in-- this was episode 28-- to talk about optimizing Dynamo.

And this quote was "The more generous you are, the larger your world gets." John is an extremely generous person. He shares a free Dynamo package online. He answers questions on the Dynamo forums.

And the way he sees it, the more you share, the more you talk publicly about what you do, the more people you meet. And again, the larger your world gets. So it's a benefit to be open and generous. It ends up being good for you.

This one is a bit more controversial. I had Alex Ritivoi come on the show to talk about using ChatGPT with Revit. And one of the questions was, well, the code created with ChatGPT is kind of garbage, and it's very low-quality. What do you say about that?

And Alex answers was, well, yeah, that's right. The code is garbage, but it works. And this was one of my favorite episode because it was-- Alex had a very interesting approach when it comes to coding. For him, the important thing is that it solves a problem. So I recommend watching this specific episode.

Another one of my personal favorite with Mercedes of Slantis, which came to talk about leadership and innovation in technology. She runs a 50-people company based in Uruguay. And it's not a direct quote, but it was the message, organize your company as an ecosystem, not as a hierarchy. So the way they work at Slantis, the way they organize their company is completely different from anything I ever saw in my life. So again, you can watch the recording if you want your mind to be blown.

This is the final one with Martyn Day, which is the editor at AEC Magazine. He came in to talk about the future of BIM, the different software, and ask him, is Revit going to die? His answer was in line of Revit is never going to have a fundamental rewrite, according to Autodesk.

That means it's essentially dead. So is that really the case? Is Revit dead? Is it going to die?

I don't know. But Martyn had a lot of insights about it. So I've learned a lot from this episode.

OK, now to the final part-- change the world. So this part of the presentation is quite ambitious in how to leverage yourself. The concept of leverage blew my mind when I first heard about it and when I truly internalized it and what it means for you.

In addition to doing all of the videos, I'm running a consulting company. And let's say that I'm giving training to 10 people on a specific topic. And then I record a video on the same topic. And I publish this video on YouTube. And it gets 100,000 views, which means it reached that amount of people.

That means it has a leverage factor of 10,000. Publishing the video has 10,000 more times of an impact than doing the consulting. This is a pretty crazy stat, and it's hard to wrap your mind around it. It's also counterintuitive because I don't see and meet all of these 100,000 people.

I cannot get-- I don't get to shake their hand. I don't get to see their face. It's all a little abstract. But if I was to take all of these people and put them in a stadium together, I'm sure it would be a more concrete and blow my mind.

And to me, the idea of leverage, the idea of using the power of media, of videos, it means that you can have more leverage, which means you can have a bigger impact on the world. Don't we all want to have as much as an impact on the world as we can?

So to be clear, I love doing consulting. I will keep doing training for specific firms. It's something I enjoy doing. But doing videos, publishing content is the thing that seems to have the most impact on the world based on the leverage. So it's probably the thing I'm going to spend the most effort doing.

So my question to you, dear audience, how can you leverage yourself? So I'm not saying you should necessarily start a live show, but it's a question worth asking, especially if you want to have as big as an impact on the world as you can. I want to keep going on this idea of leverage.

Some of these ideas I've got from a VC investor called Naval Ravikant. So traditionally, leverage-- the traditional forms of leverage, you have labor-- so hiring people to work for you-- and capital, so money to invest in companies. These are forms of leverage where it can help you have bigger impact on the world.

But these are difficult leverages, right? Hiring people, it's complicated. It's not easy. It's not for everyone.

And capital, well, there's a privileged aspect to it. It's difficult to obtain. But there are new leverages, especially that have been unlocked in the last 20 years. And the more years goes on, the more this leverage is accessible to all.

And that's media and code. Let me give you a few examples.

So these are examples of all the high leverage activities, so capital and labor; starting a consulting company; building an architectural firm; investing in a start-up. That's the old-school way of trying to maximize your impact in the world, right? But it's difficult, and it's not for everyone.

What I like about the new leverages, media and code, is that the barrier to entry is much smaller and accessible to more people. For example, these activities might include writing a blog, creating video tutorials, sharing code in Dynamo content, developing an app, sharing an elephant. So more about that.

So you should ask yourself, is one of these high-leverage activities might be interesting to me? Is that a way where I could maximize my impact on the world? So I'm just leaving this question to you.

And I want to end the presentation with this story. It's someone I mentioned already during the presentation. This is Marcello Sgambelluri. He came into the show earlier this year, and he told me his public speaking career started when he modeled an elephant in Revit just for fun and he published his elephant online.

And this was the beginning. This opened the floodgates to Marcello becoming an award-winning speaker.

And not only that, but Marcello's work inspired others to also share their work. For example, John Pierson, which I've mentioned earlier in this presentation, got started because he saw a presentation from Marcello. And it inspired him to start sharing some work online and using the power of leverages for his work.

In this case, Marcello's elephant was what you could call an ultra lever. It just opened the gates for him. And it made him-- it made it easier for him to have larger impact on the world.

So my question to you, audience, what is your elephant? And find a way to share it. And it's good to ask yourself, what is the best way to share it? How is the high-quality way that's going to have a high impact of sharing my elephant? But it's, again, a question I'm leaving open to you.

OK, final inspirational quote from this session, "The meaning of life is to find your gift. And the purpose of life is to give it away" by Picasso. So is my gift in life to publicly talk about BIM and Revit? I don't know. I'm not sure, to be honest.