This week the guys are back to talk about technology in the flooring industry, from cell phones to tools they reminisce on installing without technology and how it has affected today’s installers

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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.

https://www.preferredflooringmi.com

https://www.stuartandassociates.com

flooring family welcome everybody to the Huddle we're coming to you every Wednesday

no I lied Tuesday at 3 P.M Central Rick James

Rick James can't say the rest uh

uh so we're here to you know continue the discussion every week about how to

maintain forward progress in your flooring career so this week with me as always Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from

preferred flooring out of Grand Rapids Michigan that's true and uh we're going to talk

about the impact of technology on the flooring industry that being said not just

uh one technology there's been a lot of of things that have heavily impacted our

industry with uh taking solvents out of our

adhesive so we'll be flooring nerds for a few minutes here and discuss that

um you know back in the 90s or whatever when they uh I guess it was early 90s

late 80s they started taking Sullivan's out of our adhesives

um really driven by the EPA to reduce you know solvent-based materials going

into landfills were you guys

yeah no for people who are listening did you guys uh install back in the mid

90s late 90s late 90s like late like late late 90s last two years do you happen to

remember like unitary backing on carpet yeah oh yeah

and leave what's that please please backing the

the yeah yeah that that that old wax back or fiberglass backed lease carpet is uh

obviously they got bought by Mohawk but um and that was always a dreaded

material to be honest with you as an installer uh even whether it was the

fact that the stuff just gathered on your knife and it was hard to keep a clean blade or or you

know stretching or to run a row it's hard to steam up run in a row the whole

the whole bit but I ask that because the unitary backings you know when they took

the secondary backing off and the the glue that that product came out and the

reason they had that product just to digress for a moment was to uh help

eliminate or reduce zippering when a thread was pulled on a broad and carpet

it had a really high PSI you know when you hook a hook a

um I'd make stuff up if I knew the piece of equipment like I'll call it a micrometer

that's completely wrong but you know to test how much how many pounds it took to

pull out a loop it you know the unitaries had I think it was 25 pounds in regular action back had eight like

eight pounds or six pounds or something like that to pull out a loop oh after it was adhered to the floor

in general oh really yeah but that all happened about the time

they took the the solvents out of the adhesives and so then these weaker adhesives

you had to add so much adhesive to that unitary backing to just get it to stick to the floor

um I guess I I was just seeing if you guys experienced that at all we we had one one heck of a time with with that

product but that being said once they took our our solvents out of our adhesives they got much weaker and they

didn't really have a technology to backfill it like to just come in with a great adhesive product do you guys um

have any War Stories so um the person I do remember when so back

then when when when I started that was I was still brand new like as far as the science behind everything Oblivion

totally oblivious right but I do remember when the adhesives changed because we went from what we were

calling premium adhesives to this other stuff that was skinning over and it just wasn't holding its attack anymore and

um you know I didn't I obviously didn't know why back then so I was kind of following uh the lead and uh

it actually didn't make sense to me for for years later uh as to what happened but uh

I just remember not being able to get away with blood anymore because that adhesive wasn't going to stay tacky for so long I couldn't come back and throw a

little bit of Steam on something and and re-situated peace or re-situate the pattern it was it was in stone brother

and we couldn't dry it dried out real quick too slide out yeah yeah the

difference from from concrete to Wood substrate as well like it's like man what is going on here

plenty of times uh go even today you go pull up you an old carpet you can tell

which one had if it was an old solvent adhesive because it's still got some tack to it still got some grip

and then the you know old water-based adhesives that were new at that time uh

really crystallized and dry out and it's like you can scratch it off the concrete off the substrate with your fingernail

so the Improvement of that you know I think today we we all have our favorite

adhesives uh which we might name drop a few

um that they've gotten way better at you know their their technology and that's been a big Improvement

um because right along with that when you take solvents out now you also have

much um a much more sensitive floor to

moisture and so we've dealt with all those things and

at this juncture you know there's plenty of new

adhesives out to go 99 you know I think some even um you know

claim to go up to 100 RH yth so

let's name drop what's your favorite pressure sensitive High RH adhesive guys

oh we just uh we just got done using some for for a project that we did about if you want two weeks ago

technically it's not pressure sensitive though but he's talking about uh Taylor resolute

which is the no moisture testing needed but

you you do have to realize that when you get into these thing these adhesives where you don't have to test the

moisture what ends up happening is there's a process involved right because anything underneath that can be affected

by moisture has to be gone yeah yeah so you can't go over old

Crete uh or old gypsum based white floor patch

yeah remove everything yeah so you know technically you're supposed to get down to the concrete right because any patch

that's on there anyways is technically not moisture resistant like uh the Ardex mrf or the utsine 890 so in

order to you know uphold the warranty on everything you also have to get down to that concrete and then use a prep that's

going to be resistant to that moisture as well yeah good point and that's that's newer

too if you look at that that yeah you know 100 percentage

I think anything less than five years old is still brand new right like that's still brand new like

some people are still won't uh some people might not even know that some of that stuff exists yet and that's

that sucks to say like that but it's very true um anything under five years old is still

brand new with my nuts yeah but I I think that the technology man my screen sorry is really

whitewashing out because my white shirt sorry guys uh because of your skin my bad

it's my teeth you've got a better chance my early smile uh

well you know what I mean at it's that's true that it's new but did

it change did it actually help the industry kind of uh I think the water you know higher

moisture resistant patches and and adhesives have been a huge you know game

changer for most companies that have been through that that time period where

you used solvent base adhesives I mean I literally used to use it was um I

believe it was parabond 4023 it was a robot and

that stuff got replaced by 40.99 which was the Gold Label uh water soluble

stuff and we had a whole bunch of buckets that the company I was working for had bought

and we were still using that for so probably a good year after they quit

selling it it was so good that you as as our stock went down

you kind of had to make this judgment call like do I want to use this up you

know like that last bite of really good pie or something is this job Worth to

use it on right now yeah yeah it was that big of a difference between the two so

what other Technologies we got tools what do you guys think of uh

Justin to name a few I I think you know the demo machines have been around for a long time so that that right there in

itself was um a little demo that we've done by hand in

one inch strips or just pulling the trying to pull the carpet off and just

pulling the the the layers the the Naps with the fibers would stay glued down

but you'd be pulling the scrim through the fibers because it's so stuck um and it's just uh

I don't know man like the machine worth its way to go there's so much though I don't know where to start and stop on

that there's just so much uh lasers we don't have to start stuff nowhere we're starting on demo machines and we're

gonna go all the way through to dustless tile sauce because you think about the

the demo machines and then you get back to unitary back because once you tried ripping that up it was just stringing

right yeah it was like you might it was a pain in the butt and then it'd pop you

in the knuckles better wear gloves yeah all that kind of stuff well even now the demo machines from the right arm that we

bought I feel like we just bought it but it was a long time ago um our oldest one till now now they have

the radio control ones where an operator doesn't have to sit on the thing anymore

um and operate it like like come on uh I mean I'm just jealous because I don't

have one but those uh I just can't I can't remember the last

time we didn't have a demo machine well you know those really got popular

in the early 2000s mid 2000s I is you

know when they really started um I think that's when National kind of got

into that game pretty heavy I'm sure the Bronco was around I've seen some Bronco

machines that look like they were made in 1950 so I don't know how long those

have been around but they weren't an everyday machine that people bought I

mean when I was installing the company I worked for I was an

employee installer but they didn't have they didn't have any demo machines and

they were one of the larger companies around at the time um you know now heck I know installers

that have these things right just started uh with the red shaker box is what we called it ripping out entire

grocery stores with it it was straight up not a good time was that the Bronco

no it was the no the hand the walk behind oh yeah with the weight on the

front that it just had a screw that you tighten and then it would fall off every five minutes yeah it was incredibly loud

and and uh somewhat inefficient I'll tell you another one and then the orange one

I'll tell you another tool that's a handheld that does a wonderful job and I don't know when they started making

these do you guys know when they started making little Eddies no I don't

you know we we found those uh oddly enough you know Home Depot was

rents them and I think we rented the first one I was like why in the hell don't we own some of these there are

like what you're talking about it's it's comparable to like the little

uh wolf that we got oh it's like the Duro yeah okay it's like that but shaped a little

bit differently and yeah it's basically basically you know

it's got a a pole on the end of a of a motorized it it spin I forget the

um RPMs on it but it speeds at an incredibly high RPM the vibration is so high okay it's not as loud and that

thing for a handheld um

is really really effective and then

you guys work with um

the stubby right you want to tell us a little bit about that oh yeah The Flash

Cove roller rights real specialized tool except for uh once you once you get it you start using it for everything it's

uh comes in a few sizes they have the cap roller as well and then the corner

roller and then two uh sizes for the code the coast depending on what size you're using

but I actually um the the inventor's name is Daniel as

well he's from Australia and he was posting about him and I was like you know what

we do flash cove all the time let me see what they're about so uh I bought a couple of them started using them and I

was like yeah this is probably something that needs to be more in solid hands so we just uh bought a bunch of them and we

started selling them on the website and I mean everyone that has one loves it I

have never had a complaint on them um it seems like they've come out with some more right some different horror uh

profiles and stuff actually you have one for the actual The Cove cat that you tucked the vinyl into and then um one

for the corners so if you like to not have your seam right in the corner and

you like to fold it I think they they do that a lot overseas so

yeah I mean on the inside corner you'd almost kind of reverse butterfly it yep

gotcha yeah I've never done an inside corner

that way me either but uh easier to weld I bet

[Laughter] even though it's at an angle it's still a flat surface if you if you reverse

butterfly that thing I don't know huh it comes down to that

point though yeah it comes down to sneaking it behind that that cat yeah

true well the looks like I went ahead and looked it up because I was curious

little Eddie came out in 91. yeah this uh Danny right here on YouTube says that

he's been using Eddie's for 25 years man yeah they are awesome for a little

handheld demo machines they work wonders and it's one of those tools that you

don't know it exists and then once you finally get your hands on one you're like how did we live our lives without

this thing yeah and if you're one of our guys you're like how can I modify this thing so our guys take the handle

because they're gonna handle it yeah they take that off and put a kicker

the butt of a kicker on it so they can lean on it but they can lean on it yeah good idea

instead of pushing with your hand you can just yep lean on it and yeah

whatever the uh the first demo machine we actually purchased that was a game changer for us besides just like renting

the red shaker box but on Craigslist I found an old original Turbo for sale for

a hundred bucks and I was like what and it was I remember it was out in Cedar Springs

there was uh about 30 minutes north of Grand Rapids and I told Daniel I said dude I have to leave work and go get

this because we need this and it's 100 bucks he was like yeah bye

so I went out there it turned on and I was like uh would you take 80 for it and the guy looked at me said you and I both

know what this thing is worth less than 100 bucks I said you're right I'm sorry here you go still trying to

get a deal on a deal my man yeah man I think we we made that

we made our money back the first time I rented that out to someone [Music] ah so what do you all what what's

happening cool Technology's been like real game changer for you outside demo

machines and the stubby the d-cut for Millwork bass amen thank you for

bringing that up it wasn't even in my head yeah but dang that thing has changed not only the way you install

the you know Millwork Base or um but the efficiency and the clean

cleanliness yeah and and not happen to have you know a extension cord and a

chop saw with you that was that was a game changer or

setting up somewhere you know centrally located at the job and then everyone

walking back and forth you just drag it with you make your Cuts as you go yeah the D cutter and they have a base D

cutter too right I think uh outside of the Millworks don't they make the the

one that does the um the outside corner outside corner yeah we have one uh

test it out do you guys use it I don't know if I'm a fan I messed with it a

little bit and I just found that it it I think it worked great for a new guy

I know you go right there I mean I think you give a new guy that and it's kind of foolproof

um but man an experienced guy with a knife I think at least for me it was so

much faster to to cut it with a just a regular utility knife

I feel if you got a project and you have some extra bass to waste and you can go

and pre-cut a bunch of like one inch or half inch returns and you know warm them up heat them up and let them shave

that'd be a way to go to allocate you know a four foot piece and then you

pre-cut all these corners and and I see where it can be beneficial but someone who is proficient at installing base and

is good with a knife it's not going to like the idea of having to stop and start

I'll tell you what I have no complaints about the decutter for Millwork space so that thing Game Changer I remember

buying the first time I see now it's like I'm buying that and I bought it right there and there's the crazy thing

is I I just bought another one because we have uh some more a bunch of Millwork bass coming up and I wanted to try and

speed things up but the cost difference from when we bought our first one to

right now I was like man we should have bought a couple [Laughter] emulation

baby you know the first time I ever did mill work base was out at uh folks I'm out in Marshall Michigan

and I didn't know what it was when they told me my base was right there you're

like what in the world this stuff utility knife and super glue and I tell

you what my my Fang danglers were not happy with me huh

it was not probably the prettiest of installs either so I I would imagine not

that would be a tough tough gig to cut that stuff with the you know a 45 on

with a utility knife but I did it all the time with the freaking

um you know chop saw and you had to take your bag off chop saw because it just get clogged up yeah the the

the uh not sawdust but the the debris from cutting that vinyl log up yeah so

yeah take the shot off and you had to clean up after yourself the entire area because it just shoot you everywhere

yeah that was that was a game changer um have you guys used

um or thought about using the dustless

um tile saws he was looking at him a couple years ago yeah I was looking when they first came

out and and um um our guy over at CCS was going to

allow us to take it and kind of try it um but

it didn't turn into anything right like I didn't want it I felt bad taking it to go do my shower at my house yeah you

know I wanted to use it in real life situation because then my house already had it set up and I didn't I didn't want

to mess up their the the one that they had in there showroom

uh but he was more than willing to let us use it and I really really wanted to and so it's I'm getting I get mixed

reviews from some tile guys some tile guys love it some tile guys in the water

I I think it's great uh from a technology standpoint I think it's awesome because I've cut on uh you know

a different shows again another reason to go to shows is you can try out some cool new stuff but

um you know they held the dust down really

well they made a good cut but they are heavier than hell and they're that's both

can be a pro and a con not that it's heavy but the fact that it's heavy is because it's got all the dust

containment and is water uh waterless the benefit

there that I would think and I'd love to talk to some people that have one but if

you're on a job site with no water that's a that's that's a big deal like if the Plumbing's not turned on you need

to cut tile uh so that that thing could come in real Handy I think winter that's what they

used in uh 2020 and purposes when they when they had the ceramic guys

um competing they use those tile saws yeah there you go somewhere where you

where you you have to walk two miles to go outside and make some Cuts yeah in the winter when you don't want to be

outside and in someone's garage or or somewhere where you don't have to worry about making too much of a mess or cold

water um yeah the mess is another part like having a you know set up a a station you

don't really have to do that much yeah so what other tool Technologies before

we move on to like technology from a computer's perspective dude laserly have come so so far just

and and I'm thinking more along the lines not only just the small ones that people are using nowadays to to set

backsplashes to make it easier for all that and you know one-man job or or like I'm talking like the large format

projects where you got patterns upon patterns and you're going in and around

uh you know grocery stores with all these patterns and different types of flooring the first time I used the laser it was

in the Raw it was pretty raw um just a like a surveying laser type

done what is available now is just night and day difference yeah they got it on

your low spots and your floors oh yeah yeah we have one that that will find the

low spots and you can mark and yeah it works good it's kind of a

you know it's a tedious like piece of equipment to use and set up but

it works well I mean it'll find the low spots and the high spots and you know

you have you can help your floor out a lot with one and then of course the layout lasers with tile guys uh

particularly with wall tile and such and matching up floors and wall joints I

mean yeah that's a that's a that's been a big changer I I feel almost blessed to

been in the time when I was working with uh when I was uh employee installer I if

there was no carpet or whatever my job got pushed I'd get sent with the tile guy you know and going with those guys I

remember them using old-fashioned just tubes with water in it water level and you using that to find all their

high spots in those spots on oh yeah so it was truly old school this guy uh what

was his name Jim that's what that tool we got is what's that

oh he's in a bad area isn't he yep yeah so I and now you got a laser to tell you

exactly what's level and what's not so that's that's uh that's pretty cool

um so moving on as we're down here uh

Kevin says that the cool Glide was his game changer oh yeah I you know as commercial guys I know we

all do Residential but not primarily I forget about that

you know I've seen dupp Milliken carpet tile to make an area rug out of a cool Glide

we have a we have a bank customer that you know they wanted the the area rug

over their wood floor in their entrance to match the carpet on both sides and we seamed up with that cool Glide and then

was able to take the whole thing and this was a 12 by 18 area rug uh we seamed it up and was able to roll

it into a big roll and take it out the job site nice and kudos to uh Mr Dwayne

Pruitt who installed that for me and uh Danny says that his least are

robot welder was a game changer doing 150-foot seams at the airport

it also comes in Big Time handy if you're doing a lot of sports flooring those damn joints are you know 70 75

foot long 100 foot long and to have a man on that machine

welding can be a it's a real time saver on those jobs we were we were looking at

a project with uh some static uh dissipative floor

at a battery plant and it was ropey tile and everything had to be welded

so we we went and bought the bought a robot and got all ready and then they were like oh never mind we're just going

to put epoxy instead oh my goodness we still got it and you still got it for

a robo welder that's cool yeah those things are awesome as well that's why I like to get

input from people because it's hard to remember everything that that's a big game changer like I said especially on

Sports flooring you can start welding the circles and all that while your welder is doing you set it up and let it

go for 100 foot and that's that I use it on a on a 10-foot

seam I use it on 20-foot seam

to yank it out for that but it works I mean we were doing a a dance floor one

time and the material was like so finicky with the heat if we were to were

to use any other Mouse it would have discolored it really yep

so yeah you know it adds that consistency of movement to your

you don't have to worry about yeah you don't have to worry about your arms doing this the cord getting in the way

and you move in and then discoloring something yeah

um don't forget about tool boxes guys like I know I I know that sounds good

but the the stackable toolboxes that Milwaukee had came out with and I know

there's copycats now but those are awesome dude look I know I took Daniel to it

I told him you know when I stepping me up and I had

Boston toolbox for my house for personal use I told Daniel I said these are the best tool boxes I've ever seen in my

entire life this is like four years ago maybe five years ago about no no no no no these are fine or two bikes they're

fine like two years later he's like I'm sorry dude they're awesome yeah well you

can't beat pulling your tools instead of carrying your tools and I tell you what those things

those are nice several other Crews have them

well uh let's move on to we're about halfway at least time frame wise

what about uh you know it's hard to not mention the cell phone when you start talking about technology and you start

talking about game changing computer in your pocket yeah like

I know this is a flooring based podcast but at the end of the day just receiving

you know nowadays we have other Technologies I'll plug go career we've had a a couple episodes where we did a

deep dive in that so if you don't if you're watching and you don't know what GoPro is there are several there's a

couple episodes out there or you can always reach out to us for more info but the

you know there's other technology to use the phone but the phone itself you know

whether it was email getting an email on your phone or getting uh

just receiving a phone call uh I know I I'm dating myself here but I remember

pulling over to pay phones to make phone calls so I I am old enough to remember

when payphones actually worked when you put a quarter in them right now you just hey we need updates yeah

too um I remember pay phones and bibles I

remember my friends getting in trouble because uh I had a pager that was uh I bought it very cheap and in order for

someone to page me they had to pay 25 cents off their landline they send me a send me a page it was good for me uh but

man uh that uh and you know just a date myself too is uh I told my son to

videotape something the other day and he said Dan why do you always tell me to

videotape it instead of just record it I was like what do you what do you mean dude I said videotape it is recording it

it does but I I don't know why you say video tape it's just it's got a valid

point okay you're not putting it on video hey you roll the window down

roll the window down yeah Oh I thought you're telling me I I did

exactly what you're talking about [Laughter] I mean if you think about it and we're

just talking about pay phones and pagers and you're sitting on a video calling your vehicle right I know on a cell phone and my kids

my son asked me if they had color TV in the 1900s yeah eventually

when you think about that we were born in the 1900s guys yeah well

we're not showing our age we all look very well you two look very young and I I'm coming up the rails with the the

white Chan but you know how do you how have you guys what's

always impressed me I'm just gonna say it with you guys is that you embrace the new technology as it comes along when

you you work through and find ways to adapt it or you know new technology can

can be a little clunky if you've ever you know used something brand new but you guys just work through whether it's

a tool uh you figuring out new ways to use tools or you know computerized

technology um meaning you guys have been big in to Microsoft teams and and using that for

management of your company and running things so what other types of things have you

guys done that hasn't actually improved your business um from a technology standpoint

uh I can start one off I'll tell you just real quick was on screen takeoffs because when I started doing flooring it

was manual and then I actually went to a course in Vegas to learn the digitizer

which was you taped your your paper drawings to a drafting table Yeah and

then you told it some certain points and then you had this wire that hooked up to your computer and you you do the takeoff

similar to you do uh on screen take off now but on an actual set of paper

drawings so you know nowadays it's color I want to learn that you're you could do

wall elevations and 3D stuff with it so that's that's mine that's probably one

of the biggest uh technologies that really improved our our our business model and business flow

and we adapted it early enough that we were able to kind of gain a competitive

Advantage for a while before everybody jumped on board yeah and early on when we started we we

didn't start with measure square we started with someone else and it was way harder to learn than measure square

in my opinion it was it was harder to learn because measure square is more

user friendly um I'll be honest about that but once you learn the other one and came

over to measure square it was like boom so easy like yeah shout out to measure square we use

them too and it's been a wonderful piece of technology for us so

what else have you guys uh you know I'll be honest for me it's just

the computer period like uh like that right there has come a long way

like I always a file cabinet uh do it by hand guy I was using the same the same

template for every invoice for everything and just deleting everything you know and then doing it again uh we

went from I remember having to fax everything over uh and then I used to tell people like why are we still faxing

there's emails can I just email this to you and people were telling me that that was never gonna happen uh Daniel was

actually the one who uh designed all my invoices when he was like 14 years old

that brings up the the bid boards and things like that works through you know

we use building connected I don't I don't know if you guys use that stuff but you know keeping track of your bids

and and you you send the bids right through building connected so there's

interfaces on top of the email technology and everything like that that has made life way easier because I do

remember uh faxes and faxing you know bids and then calling to make you get

into a delivery uh proof of delivery and then calling to make sure and

it was crazy but yeah that's that by itself I get it computers overall but

there's also these programs that run on top of all that that have made life so

much easier and the reason I wanted to do this type of a podcast is like

just take a minute if you're anywhere close to 40 years old and think back

to what it was like and the the difference is we get so used to what we

use and we're so used to the phone in our hands and I'm sitting recorded on a

laptop and having a video conference that's been you know shot out to the the

worldwide web and it's just it's amazing if you just stop and think about how

quickly technology has changed and one of the things that we want to remember

is that not only has technology changed but the the uh

speed at which it's changing now is so much faster like

it's like that so staying on top and staying out front of what's new and

what's happening is is like you can you can gain competitive advantage over your

competition if you're quick to adopt technology because there's a lot of companies a lot of people that are are a

little bit you know adverse to it or a little bit um that was me you know slow the technology

they it scares them that was me you know what made me realize that I've come a long way and

the other day my sister was in the office and I was typing and yeah

I do okay and she she looked over and was like

does holder type faster than me now and Daniel said yeah and I'm like

and for me that's just the one because I was I started like this and then I graduated to two and then

three but then now you're now I can just like read and type and

yeah you don't think about second nature so guys who haven't started with technology yet starts only took like 15

years but you know he's there now you listen listen when I was in school

they had a class called uh they call boarding keyboarding yeah yeah keyboarding they didn't call it

computers or computer lab they called it keyboarding and that was it yeah I don't know what it's called today like

computer science and is the degree in college but I'm sure it's got like like at my my son is in middle school and my

niece is in high school and they don't even teach typing or anything anymore

oh man they're dropping the ball on that yeah because my son is like typing like

this too and I'm like they don't teach you at school he's like no but voice recognition is gonna probably

do to the keyboard what I don't know uh the computer did to typewriters yeah

yeah you're right and then with all the AI technology coming out as well that's

changing so fast it's it's incredibly um have you guys messed with chat GPT oh

yeah yes 100 so I've used it to me I've used it a lot

um just trying to uh figure out how to train it and teach it different things

um it's pretty incredible how you can

talk to a computer and then that computer can mimic you

in pretty short order it can mimic your writing style it's pretty crazy uh but

if you're not like messing with that kind of stuff right now you're behind I mean it the chat gbt 5 is getting ready

to come out you know it's like how do you stop it I don't know I know there's a lot of concern out there with with the

technology you know there's there's some um pretty high-ranking people of the

planet like musk that are concerned with where this thing's going

and what it could do but at the end of the day uh I'd rather know about it if

it's a problem than not know about it and it'd be a problem at least I can understand it so I would encourage

everybody to you know embrace the new technology as it comes out and get to know it yeah and the thing but I learned

how to use it before Arnold passes away because once Arnold passes away then they're gonna go ballistic they know

that they're safe to do whatever they want that's a yeah

I the thing about chat GPT though is if you put crap in you get crap out right

you got to be real specific in everything that you're putting in there yeah yeah and and ask it questions

um just fool around with it I think it's you know it's free basically for if you

are just trying it um I know they have paid plans but and I'm not a chat GPT spokesman or anything

I've just used it a little bit to I've messed with it a lot a bit uh but I've

actually applied it um in some writing some content creation

stuff here and there uh it's pretty powerful um I started using it with with our job

descriptions and stuff

for looking for employment job descriptions type thing just uh yeah

well writing out the job descriptions that we're going to be handing out to people and stuff like that it's uh

putting the information in there seeing what it thinks and then it comes back with some pretty good stuff that's cool

yeah so there again my points taken you guys have already been messing with it

and and uh got some experience with it

how do you see utilizing that type of you've already mentioned one way how do

you see some other ways that you know some of this AI stuff could be used

um you know you know I see it being very helpful in in updating which I probably should update now is uh like terms and

conditions of contracts um to have the correct legal

um uh verbiage in there right so that way that way you're protecting yourself but

like Daniel said it's a matter of asking it asking the right questions in

the right format so that way you get the the right result um

but but I can see that that being a benefit and then it's going to benefit everybody like that like you're gonna be

able to copy and paste someone else's contract in there and then it's doing to interpret that for you and then

essentially you don't understand I mean essentially that's what you're doing I mean it gets its its information from

other from from who has put something on the Internet at some time and the

internet's history and so it's Gathering all that data gazillions

of bytes of data and it's right there at your fingertips and

so yeah I think I'm asking the right questions I found it pretty useful in

just quick um concise emails

if I if I am too emotionally charged on an email I've had to write an email for me

how to resp how would you respond you know this on to this and then tell it

what to respond to it'll shoot your response tune and you just guide it along and before you know it it's

written an email where my emotionally charged email would have been maybe come

off wrong um if you're dealing with a difficult situation like I happen to have been uh

on this particular instance and it's it's endless what you can use it for but

we've uh We've dabbled with it in that way oh yeah that's that's awesome I never I

never would have thought about that because I I want my emotion to be in there I I do have the tendency to take a

couple hours or write one when I'm upset and delete everything and start over and delete everything and start over here

until I'm until I'm level enough to uh not stay the wrong thing yeah

now you just ask ask Chad gbt yeah yep GPT that all you got to do is

change a couple words and then you're golden I had it right in the book media post for me too

instead of uh GTS now is a GPT right yeah but it's

being in it now because now it's part since Microsoft invested like three billion dollars into it uh it's

incorporated into Bing now so now you gotta move into being

Mazza well

we've went through different technology

um for different things right like adhesives tools

computers that I think that the key here is like if you don't try

if you don't Embrace technology it's one of our core values that my flooring company is we Embrace technology

like you can if you take that attitude I believe that you can get out ahead

um but also uh you know when it becomes technology and

inevitably becomes kind of a a Staple in your life and you're not

falling behind I mean I know plenty of guys you know starting go Carrera that have had problems

utilizing a cell phone just using a cell phone or still have a flip phone because

they don't want to go to the next piece in a smartphone so they still have a flip phone

um you know embrace it because it's not going anywhere the key here is to get to

know it embrace it and then figure out how you can utilize it to better

yourself or better your business that's that's my ploy to everybody is is really

embrace the ideas that are out there see see what it does

and then if it cannot if it if it won't help your business or your you personally fine but at least you've

tried and then you know I guarantee you eventually you find those things that will really change your business

um give you I mean we were putting out bids in days that would take weeks doing

manual takeoffs like that type of a difference in efficiency

um you know we were we were running on on screen take off when other people were

just learning it so Embrace technology that's my Ploy you know what now that you say that the

how easy it is right now to go and revise our projects when people are like oh yeah let me get it with this material

you know what that's out of my budget let's switch this room to this this room to that and it's just a matter of you know drag and drop and click couple

clicks and and you're done versus having it like already draw all over that drawing man you know now you gotta go

print something up I already highlighted everything pencils

yeah Rollin says that I'm out of uniform but he didn't say anything about your white shirt well I think it's so neutral

I think he's given me a pass hey hey you know what hey Robin one one

thing to go to drill that we uh we talked about like the the technology and the tools that

Bureau helped us out on one of those episodes of restaurant impossible to remove adhesive from a wood substrate

without that thing man holy smokes what did you use uh so we use the the Duro with uh the

razor scraper um yeah on it uh the attachment and it was some really really

sticky carpet brought them that came off of a wood substrate um and the double super thick

um and we were going over it with underlayment to put down some lvt but we still had to scrape that glue up

otherwise we were we were going to be lumpy right like I was gonna say why did you know I was gonna set you up really

well they showed it in the episode what episode was it rolling

episode number what because I'll go watch it we'll hope to get everybody go watch it

18 19. it was just aired probably a month and a half ago

um of this year yeah but yeah how impossible would restaurant and possible be without today's flooring without the

technologies that we're talking about like hand pulling I like doing a remodel

like that in 48 hours or whatever it is how tough would that be without modern

day demo machines and stuff like that and other technology that allows us to

do our job more efficiently right and super chop it augmented reality is making uh its

appearance now for for our industry as well not only just the construction in general but um the the metaverse that

that's the real thing uh you gotta gotta get up on some of that and do some research on that guys that's going to

start affecting how we do our job um from the takeoff standpoint and and

and you know submittals and the the whole metaverse thing was a they had at

surfaces at the Women's Conference and when they went through it you know there's a lot of people that

you know ourselves included because we haven't looked into it right but it's like we don't understand so you're going

to get on here and you're going to sell flooring for someone's fake house and

they're like yeah and everyone's just like I don't understand what's going on and they're like think about it what are your kids

doing they're building stuff in Roblox they're doing this they're doing that and they're spending real money on fake

money on V bucks for fortnite right our kids are getting the v-bucks in fortnite and it's like that's what I tell my son

I said I'm not gonna spend keep on spending real money on fake money but that's what that's the nature of the

game right now well they I I hear that some of the engineering they're coding

some of the the stuff to you know even push engineering and and stuff like that

a little further uh and I could imagine your model home

being in the metaverse where you can go physically walk through it before it's ever built to the make any upfront

changes before your actual homes built you know I don't see a future where humans who are social animals uh

completely abandoned reality and go into the metaverse but I could see it as a

very useful tool for stuff like that you design and build a house in the metaverse for next to nothing have the

customer walk through it make sure that there's no changes or even a full building you know how many times have

you went into someone's facility and they're like man everything's awesome but I wish I'd have put another you know

a set of bathrooms over here or I wish I had a extra we only have one mop sink on

the first floor and I don't know why we did it that way it's just little things like that that could be flushed out

and that could be where you know they they do meetings and stuff on here now so it's like you can get an entire team

walking the building together all at the same time you can have you know the EVS team like oh like you said we need a

slop sink right here because the other one is like way over there yeah yep

yeah it's that kind of thing I mean video technology like we're on now um

I mean to get eyes on the job site and stuff that's one of the newest features

coming out on go Carrera as a piece of video technology that allows you to mark up on the screen uh from your office to

like specifically tell you know your field staff or maybe it's superintendent

you're trying to explain something to I can literally start a call with

somebody in the field and I Mark a circle on my screen it shows up on their screen so they know exactly what I'm

trying to tell them and vice versa I mean stuff like that it's like

you can be on the job site without being on the job site yeah 100 I mean today I went uh right

before I got them that's why I'm in the truck as uh we had something pop up I had to go measure it and I'm documenting everything on my

phone in in a program and walking through and videotaping it and putting commentary to it so that way I don't

have to explain it again later on yeah um you know like like doesn't say hey watch the video so it's a one minute

video watch it or we have that 30 second videos that's a great idea I don't know

why I've never thought of doing that I don't like say I don't like that that's a great idea to do that

I gotta say this integrated into some of the measure programs that we use while we're out in

the field or or and I know that some of that is available as long as you're uploading it to some of uh like that uh

construct connect or building connect or whatever like some of that's available but you have to upload everything right

yeah um live and in person going ahead and doing that right there in the program itself

would be work that's weight in gold um when you're doing the actual measure that you don't have to then everybody

has it who has access to it instead of you having to upload it and trying to reform another cool point that I think

that brings out is the fact that Technology's there but how you use it

and the ways you use it you if you get creative just like that like a video of

the job I take video but to then voice you know to actually record what you're

talking about and then use that as a as a tool to make sure that when your Crews

go back to to do the work that they have some guidance that kind of thing is that

how you use it that seems genius to me and that's just technology in a different way

and the idea came about a long time ago when we were working at places where you

got to go in the back door with this key in the back you have to explain to someone how to get around to the back door right so I just started recording

it and then you open the door now we gotta walk through the kitchen into the dining area by the reception desk and

then here's the the keypad to punch the code in this is the code and then I'll hold the camera back and I put my finger

in it you know and I'll actually go through the mode like I try to do stuff like try to make it as easy as possible

that's how good I'll tell you what Google Earth sure helped a lot with telling Cruz what door to go to on a

building and that kind of thing I mean it's all cool stuff you just gotta embrace it yeah

well guys we're already at the end of the Huddle that went fast and that

didn't go very fast we could talk probably uh you know another half hour on technology but it's it's a broad

topic I I think that like I said earlier you know and I I know you guys agree

it's like embrace it try it out if you don't like it you don't have to use it but at least you know about it right and

um from somebody who's came from old school and a little stubborn and you guys out there young guys older guys

women whoever um it doesn't matter if you understand it

or not and just understand that it is there to make life easier understand that it will make your job a

lot easier you don't have to understand it or how to do it just understand that if you're not using it you're losing

something yeah it certainly has the ability to find the way that it that it

fits for your your business model or your personal life or what have you I

know a lot of guys that have their goals written down on a Gold Tracker that's you know an application on a phone so I

mean just find the stuff that works best for you uh you know and and give it a

shot you're gonna find some stuff that's really cool I mean just password savers I mean even that you know if you

what's that without that yeah I would be lost DJ yeah exactly no kidding all right

gentlemen well it's been a pleasure to chat with you again today and uh as

always we will always catch you next week again as always I fully appreciate you guys

always being on here and bringing up these thoughts and ideas it's it's awesome so appreciate you and we will

talk soon sounds good thanks for joining everyone all right see you guys later bye