00;00;00;18 - 00;00;28;07
Mike McTaggart
Today on We’re Not Robots, we will be talking about the 2nd most consumed material in the world. Water is #1 - do you know what is number 2? It’s Concrete! 

We’ll be chatting with two leaders of innovation in the construction and building materials industries: Alex Leblond of Marcotte Systems, a fascinating company working to automate concrete production, and Manny Tejano of RocketStart, a gamification platform focused on improving worker performance and quality of life, also in construction.

Stick around to listen in.


00;01;06;24 - 00;01;37;15
Mike McTaggart
Hi I’m Mike McTaggart and welcome to We’re Not Robots – a podcast focused on the people that are leading digital transformations around the world.

What is digital transformation? We believe it is a journey towards realizing the full potential of both people and technology in your business. The reason so many innovative projects fail is because they focus too much on the changing technology and too little on the people, culture, and mindset necessary for change.

Today our guests are Alex Leblond, an EVP of Marcotte Systems, and Manny Tejano of RocketStart.


00;01;37;16 - 00;02;07;09
Manny Tejano
Sure. How's it going, guys? My name is Manny Tejano. My background is I have B.S. in computer engineering from Villanova University, quickly got into the ready mix concrete world construction materials world. Been there for 15 years, working at various technology positions and leadership positions with the company and kind of really fell in love with trying to bridge technology to a blue collar workforce, particularly with construction workers and material handlers and movers and stuff.

00;02;08;02 - 00;02;31;06
Manny Tejano
So kind of beyond that, I was inspired to create Rocket Start. Rocket Start was developed in order to help motivate our workers and our drivers through gamification. And we had a lot of great feedback with that. And we're excited to bring that app across our industry and across other levels of construction and transportation as we're looking at now.

00;02;32;09 - 00;02;37;09
Mike McTaggart
Awesome, awesome. We'll dive more into that in a minute. Alex, tell us a little bit about yourself and Marcotte.

00;02;37;11 - 00;02;09;19
Alex Leblond
Yeah, thanks, Mike. Alex Leblond EVP of Marcotte, I have computer engineering background, MBA and international marketing joined Marcotte Systems about 15 years ago and fell in love with an industry called construction and, you know, heavy materials and being a kind of a background in technology. So we fell in love with the industry and trying to figure out how to help the industry and how to help the producers, especially more on the the newest technologies we've been seeing in the last couple of years.

00;02;10;17 - 00;02;32;06
Alex Leblond
So primarily at Marcotte we do batching automation software and dispatching automation software for concrete producers so everything that has to do with, again, the automation of consistency on, on the production side, but also the efficiency on the logistics side So guys, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be part of this. So thank you it's a great honor for me.

00;02;33;01 - 00;02;51;12
Mike McTaggart
Awesome. we love having you here and you know, folks that know me know that I you know, I love, you know, kind of being in the places where stuff gets done. Right. You know, and it's funny to have, you know, a couple of us together, all kind of software and tech guys but we're all kind of wired to you want to work with things that are tangible, you know?

00;02;51;12 - 00;03;23;15
Mike McTaggart
And I think that's very human thing, too. You know, we're all you're kind of created to focus on things that are tangible in front of us, which makes this notion of transformation and digital, frankly, you know, kind of extra nebulous. Right. It's it's really hard to pin down and define Manny, on the Rocket Start side: You know, one of the things you talked about is, you applied sort of technology to make, you know, the drivers and some of the operations that you saw while you were at, you know, at a producer make them more efficient and maybe more engaged as well.

00;03;24;16 - 00;03;32;17
Mike McTaggart
So I'm curious what kind of hurdles you ran into when you were trying to kind of figure out how to leverage technology in that space.

00;03;32;17 - 00;03;57;19
Manny Tejano
Yeah, absolutely. So we found out that really mix concrete is second to water as the most used material in the world. And it's a very healthy business. 393 million cubic yards produced in 2021. And what we're looking at, though, is producers, including companies that I've worked with and I've talked with experience of getting to know is that 93% of producers are reported driver vacancies.

00;03;57;19 - 00;04;20;13
Manny Tejano
And because of that, 47% of producers are turning away business. So we all understand here, as we understand there's continuous supply chain issues going on in an international sense, not just the United States and Alex can speak to what's happening in Canada and what we're seeing in the last couple of days really. But those are some challenges that we saw and I wanted to to do something.

00;04;20;13 - 00;04;40;19
Manny Tejano
So one of the things I'm looking at and we all have young children here around the table and we see the next generation of workers, next generation of smartphone users, and gamification is going to be an important part of their lives. You know, my six year old daughter is using gamification to do homework and do chores and things like that.

00;04;41;00 - 00;05;11;23
Manny Tejano
And I want to be able to bring that type of incentivisation to blue collar work. And we're talking about, you know, things of the nature of coming to work on time or completed loads or, you know, being able to do a good job and create a mechanism to not only allow drivers to feel recognized but rewarded. But also it's also helpful for the companies to have this mechanism where they may not be able to communicate with truck drivers every day in, day out, as they are often on the job sites or often in the plants and in the truck.

00;05;12;05 - 00;05;21;03
Manny Tejano
So I want to create this kind of communication bridge that's just based on motivation. And I think that's something that we're able to capture.

00;05;22;04 - 00;05;37;12
Mike McTaggart
I think motivation and communication are all big things that we can relate to. Alex. On the production and the plant side, you know, what have you seen as I feel like you're operating kind of at a different level. You know, than Manny is.

00;05;37;12 - 00;06;05;23
Alex Leblond
Certainly. And, you know, just by experience, you know, Marcotte we've been we've been doing batching automation in concrete for about 45 years. So, you know, when you when you talk about the kind of the let's call it the technological or the technology industrialization where you come from the 2.0 or the 3.0 we've been through that phase with ready mix producers where you know we first started off where, you know, producers or plant operators are actually, you know, physically operating those those plants those assets.

00;06;05;23 - 00;06;33;14
Alex Leblond
Right to produce concrete. And then you came into the computerized systems about twenty years ago where now you had an HMO. Now you were interfacing with the machine and the operators still had control over that machine and be able to change, change certain things. What we're seeing with the you know, with with the advancing technologies today, especially with big data, I know we'll talk about digitization, but we're also talking about 4.0 where all this IoT Internet of things, all these devices that are bringing data back.

00;06;34;03 - 00;06;47;14
Alex Leblond
And certainly what we believe is is help production by help, you know, the producer itself embracing that technology based on that data to better measure, but also maybe remove some of those repeated tasks done by the human being. OK.

00;06;47;24 - 00;07;09;14
Mike McTaggart
Where do you guys feel, you know, the companies that you work with sit on sort of that, you know, stereotypical innovation and adoption curve. You know, generally speaking, I certainly have my impressions from working in manufacturing you know, but I haven't done nearly as much in construction or materials as you have. Are there are a lot of early adopters?

00;07;09;22 - 00;07;14;04
Mike McTaggart
Overall, they you know, to they tend one way or the other? Manny, what do you think?

00;07;14;12 - 00;07;43;16
Manny Tejano
Yeah, I'm very blessed to work with an organization over several years that had a high degree of comfortability with technology and wanting to push forward, but still as a relatively whole as an industry. And again, being in I.T. and seeing where other industries are and what other folks are doing, you know, it's still it's still relatively behind from what I'm seeing with other sectors and we can look at that as a as a whole.

00;07;43;24 - 00;08;20;17
Manny Tejano
As you know, when we looked at industries where technology, money, dollars are spent, construction is only more than agriculture. Is the only industry that has spent more compared to other work industries out there. But what we're still finding out is there is stuff that exists out there, automations and some things that, you know, particularly like what we're trying to do, where we're trying to help address people problem and people challenges but I just don't think that people really quite know that these products and services are out there and hopefully wanted to bring that to attention.

00;08;20;18 - 00;08;40;18
Manny Tejano
in today's conversation. But more so, you know, as far as this industry and adopting technology, I think in a certain way they they're ready, you know, they want to get improvements through new age and, you know, new developments that we're seeing. But they're just have no really mechanism or trust to necessarily get to what they need to go.

00;08;41;10 - 00;08;42;13
Manny Tejano
That's what I'm seeing right now.

00;08;42;13 - 00;09;05;00
Mike McTaggart
So, yeah, I mean, I know that Global Digital I mean, with our, you know, our executive consulting that we do the Strategic Leadership as a Service, we call it, you know, a big part of that. And a common thread across all of our bench consultants is is managing and leading people through that change. It's the change leadership, you know, beyond change management but fully into change leadership.

00;09;06;11 - 00;09;08;23
Mike McTaggart
I see Alex really nodding his head vigorously now.

00;09;08;23 - 00;09;11;19
Alex Leblond
Sorry yeah, we're not we're not being videod.

00;09;12;22 - 00;09;19;12
Mike McTaggart
So, you know, we yeah. So tell me what you think in terms of what you're seeing and what does change leadership mean to you?

00;09;20;23 - 00;09;42;17
Alex Leblond
It's and you're certainly right. And what we see in this industry and Manny might might might agree and please, please tell me if you don't what I'm seeing right now is, you know, the especially the ready mix industry and the construction industry is very generational. Right? So we kind of see this this pass along of, you know, daddy handing over the business to the son or to the daughter.

00;09;42;17 - 00;10;07;12
Alex Leblond
Right. So it's very generational. And then we start talking to, you know, new management or new leadership mindsets. People are a little bit more in line with technology. So the early adopter stage, and I certainly get what Manny is saying, is that even though they're ready, there's there's been some type of education in this industry based on technology that these producers have been using for the last 20, 25 years, which I believe was lacking in innovation.

00;10;08;03 - 00;10;36;25
Alex Leblond
OK, now, if, if your your current vendor is lacking in innovation, but the product works Well, it works and you're running it right? Now, you're facing compelling events or failing, you're facing challenges. And maybe tech, maybe your your first reflex is not necessary to look into technology to help you address those business challenges. Right. Change, change leadership in one way is and you said it's higher level than change management.

00;10;37;01 - 00;11;06;02
Alex Leblond
I think the biggest switch cost in technology is switch management is actually the change management within the corporate culture because again, what many is doing with this technology is addressing, you know, blue collar issues but again, even the organizations are seeing that they're having you know, they're they're having workforce issues. And we all know that we're looking at the younger generation workers I'd be very interested to see the statistics on how many people are actually in school right now to be truck drivers.

00;11;06;28 - 00;11;09;00
Alex Leblond
That's also let's all be honest, this is.

00;11;09;08 - 00;11;10;04
Mike McTaggart
We know that's dwindling.

00;11;10;11 - 00;11;36;10
Alex Leblond
Yeah. It's going down, right? So and it's the same thing for plant operators, right? I mean, how many times have I seen even the new generation of leadership, you know, hiring a young, talented individual, getting them into their company and saying, oh, my plant operator has been doing this for 30 years, will train you and you can't learn in three months what a guy's been learning for the last thirty years.

00;11;36;19 - 00;12;00;09
Alex Leblond
Yeah, right. Because a human being, and especially in these industries this human the human being is so key because that's the way they were educated. Mike, I'll give you an example, and I'm talking to the industry here, and they'll probably know a little bit more. But, you know, when I walk into a batch plant and I see a batch operator touching buttons, that just drives me like in 2020, I tell myself what's going on here?

00;12;00;21 - 00;12;21;09
Alex Leblond
Why is a human being interfacing with the quality of the product you're producing? When a machine can do that and the machine can learn, and doing it better and doing more consistently, right? So I don't know if I answered your question, but what I, what that the reason why I'm sitting around the table with you guys today is I truly believe that the industry today is ready now more than ever.

00;12;21;18 - 00;12;41;09
Alex Leblond
But yes, when I compare with other industries, I would say that the early adopters, the percentage is much more smaller than what I see in other industries. Right. And and more lean manufacturing, let's say. Right? Because lean manufacturing, you're always in this concept of how to save seconds and how to be more efficient how do you know and how to get more data, how to measure.

00;12;41;14 - 00;13;05;19
Alex Leblond
Right. And this is something that we see we certainly see in this industry, all producers. I'll say one thing. Yes, challenges you know, workforce. But secondly is how do I measure myself? How do I become better? And the lack of data and the lack of those analytics today are certainly a big a big I think a big compelling event for these producers to kind of look into what changes they should be doing towards their businesses.

00;13;05;19 - 00;13;19;22
Alex Leblond
Right? And such as it is technology in a way, but it's more like the foundation of what needs to be implemented to better, better be efficient in their in their controls right in everything they do have from quote to cash. But also the the H.R. aspect as well.

00;13;19;22 - 00;13;36;26
Manny Tejano
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think sorry. Go ahead. I think one thing I want to add on that, too, from an education standpoint, it's going to be very interesting to be able to get the word out and get the message out about these very, very lucrative high paying jobs and fulfilling jobs of creating the world around you, creating communities around you.

00;13;37;06 - 00;13;58;17
Manny Tejano
And it's one of the things that I've really kind of, you know, clamored on. You know, despite the average age of the median age, you have a concrete delivery professional's 47 years old is the fact that, you know, you have a lot of folks that are working to, you know, want to help the community and then help bring you know, they tell their sons or daughters, hey, I built that.

00;13;58;17 - 00;14;17;18
Manny Tejano
You know what I mean? I was able to to have a hand on that being able to you know, have a very fulfilling career doing you know, this labor. I think that's something that we should be doing a, you know, a very good part with it. And that's where I, I think about gamification again and wanting to, you know, tap into that level in those markets.

00;14;17;18 - 00;14;46;27
Manny Tejano
And another thing I've thought of is when I looked at from a, a Gen Z millennial standpoint is that a lot of them crave to a certain degree, which is actually surprising. We all know there's differences between generations of of work conditions and personalities and behaviors. But on a on a whole, they actually crave mentorship. And one of the things that I think is very interesting is, well, how do we you know, and this is something that Alex said is, you know, your hand down next generation.

00;14;47;08 - 00;15;10;00
Manny Tejano
You know, I'm looking at my dad. I'm looking at, you know, so and so to help, you know, doing this. And they they depend a lot on that. And I think being able to try to capture that mentorship into some degree, into a palatable whether education, gamification you know, or pieces like that. I think having some source of communication that can be helpful is really shed some light onto, you know, the needs of what we're having here.

00;15;10;13 - 00;15;29;12
Mike McTaggart
So many I've heard you say, you know, a couple of things, you know, and of course, we've had other conversations as well. What I've heard you talk about multigenerational workforces and gamification. And in my experience, those don't always go together very well. So. Absolutely. So help me reconcile that. What are you seeing when gamification supplied to some of these customers of yours?

00;15;29;18 - 00;15;52;23
Manny Tejano
Yeah. Well, so what I think is interesting is, is the gamification, as we kind of talked about here, is definitely more geared towards younger generation of folks. Not only are they used to getting points for things, whether it's Starbucks or whether it's credit card or your Fitbit or, you know, any type of health wellness, you know, we're thinking about, you know, your your bikes at home or things like that.

00;15;52;23 - 00;16;10;08
Manny Tejano
You're tracking your steps, you're tracking your health. People are used to that. But that is not necessarily a thing that the current work generation or folks are are always involved in. You know, so what we're trying to see is, you know, a question that have offered from producers is, you know, what can we do to kind of get gamification to apply to the older generation?

00;16;10;21 - 00;16;29;02
Manny Tejano
And what I'm looking at and we're seeing now a year and a half of gamification and Rocket Start implemented in our customers is what we're seeing is that the younger generation is actually showing the older generation how it works, you know? So it's like, hey, you got some extra points here. You should be able to use this. It's like, oh, this is great.

00;16;29;02 - 00;16;46;25
Manny Tejano
I want to get a, you know, AirPods for my granddaughter. Things like that for graduation, hear stories like that all the time. And it's just kind of neat that the younger generation is kind of helping that you could you know, again, this is a passive app everything that they're doing is just work hard at work. You don't have to do anything on the app.

00;16;46;25 - 00;17;10;22
Manny Tejano
So our system is just basically tracking and benefits, you know, being able to to use and utilize those those benefits. So we're seeing the younger generation teaching the older generation how to use the app and get the most out of their points. And at the same time, I'm looking also at the younger generation, looking at the older generation and say, hey, I notice that you're always 10th place.

00;17;10;22 - 00;17;30;24
Manny Tejano
You're always at the top five you know, how do you do it? You know, what is it there, you know? And they'll say, hey, come to work on time, young gun. You know, I hear that conversation a lot, you know, come to work on time, take as many loads as you possibly can, go above and beyond. And they're going to teach the younger generation what it takes to really be very proficient at delivery and in the concrete profession.

00;17;31;03 - 00;17;40;17
Manny Tejano
So I think that's a really cool thing to see that unification of different mindsets, different motivation, but ultimately their same goal, the same goal is to succeed and win at work.

00;17;41;12 - 00;18;09;01
Mike McTaggart
So I mean, one thing I'm hearing I think is why we we get along, you know, outside of work anyway, is, you know, there's a there's a real focus on sort of the human element, you know, through this change, you know, and in understanding what people want, in their careers and also in sort of that work life balance you know, and also trying to kind of negate that notion of, you know, the technology or the robots are out to get your job.

00;18;09;10 - 00;18;41;20
Mike McTaggart
You know, that's not how we define automation and that's not what the systems are designed to do. It's designed really to embrace those that take ownership and pride in their work. You know, the artisans that remain in a lot of ways and a lot of places at least I've seen in manufacturing, you know, that want to elevate further, you know, and automate the things that they don't need to be spending their time and their skills and their experience on, you know, but all in all, that requires, you know, still a focus on innovating and pushing that technology forward.

00;18;42;23 - 00;19;04;18
Mike McTaggart
A question that was asked of me once and I thought it really interesting was whose responsibility is it to innovate? And that's that's a big you know, kind of question, you know, because, I mean, I'm a software guy. And so I'd like to think that, you know, the thing I enjoyed about engineering school was that creative process and so I enjoy that innovative notion.

00;19;04;18 - 00;19;28;24
Mike McTaggart
But, you know, I'm not the one running a plant. I'm not the one trying to hit a quota or fulfill a certain, you know, volume of production in order for people to eat or for hospitals to be built or these goals to be met. And so in the midst of those demands, where does the responsibility for innovation fall?

00;19;30;05 - 00;19;51;19
Manny Tejano
So I think that's a very good question. I think if the industry wants to be able to be able to continue to be successful, improving producers they're going to want to be able to get more bang for their buck. They're going to be able to get more productivity out of their workforce, get more out of their equipment, get more out of their labor.

00;19;51;28 - 00;20;10;24
Manny Tejano
And also in societies of capitalism, you know, it's there's a lot of it's a really incumbent of if you want to succeed is that we're going to want to kind of push on a national level or even some sort of degree at a global level is to innovate, is to create this because technology and innovation is out there.

00;20;10;24 - 00;20;32;22
Manny Tejano
But I think when you start to look at key things like there's never going to be a not a need to develop buildings, develop roadways, develop bridges, and construction. So that's where I think it's going to be incumbent on from a generational standpoint, leaders in the industry to be able to to help this. Obviously, they have the voice because they could choose the vendors that they want to do business with.

00;20;33;08 - 00;20;54;13
Manny Tejano
We have to help with education of what can be possible, what can be out there. And I think that's going to be something that I'm going to be looking forward to and working with also the National Ready Mix Concrete Association and they said the same thing they're very looking and are looking very much at the the the the workforce.

00;20;54;26 - 00;21;23;22
Manny Tejano
But because of COVID, we're looking at e ticketing now more than ever as an industry when as Alex has mentioned to me too, it's a shame because we've had UPS doing that for the last 12 years or so. Why are we doing that now? But it takes a lot and a lot of effort to change. Change happens at a local level and actually with this with DOTs involved, the municipalities and government, it's also going to take some, you know, some government help as well to get to that.

00;21;23;22 - 00;21;31;18
Manny Tejano
So those are just some of the things that I'm learning. But these are all organizations that are producer-led so I think that to me is very interesting that that's happening.

00;21;32;06 - 00;21;55;28
Alex Leblond
And many I'll just add on to what you just said. I mean, you know, we've been always talking about the way you you know, the way we position ourselves as being best of breed. Right? So, again, I think that it's our responsibility to be very focused and being, you know, really really in line with our producers, our customers, our partners, voice of the customer and and really bringing that innovation based on their business challenges.

00;21;55;28 - 00;22;23;28
Alex Leblond
So we're listening to them and we're understanding today more than ever, they are facing business challenges like workforce. Blue collar workforce. They're facing challenges against their competition. So innovation has been proven to and you said it well has been proven to be a very big competitive edge. Right. When you're working with vendors that that don't necessarily put innovation as their forefront, but actually just more maintenance dollars.

00;22;24;15 - 00;22;49;18
Alex Leblond
Well, maybe it's it's a result of that, right, where you say, well, e-ticket, for me, again, personal opinion, there might be some compelling events that brought e-ticket or the e-ticket function or functionality within this industry. But you're delivering a product, right? And with and probably one of the only industries I know of today that can't like that, most of them are not necessarily driving that digital transformation.

00;22;49;18 - 00;23;12;08
Alex Leblond
I mean, today we order an Uber, we order pizza. And I know exactly when my pizza is going to be at my house right now. Why is it not like that in the concrete industry? Why is transparency in the concrete industry so hard? Well, maybe that's the way business has been done. That's the way people were educated, right through their vendors because of what they were providing as solutions.

00;23;12;10 - 00;23;44;11
Alex Leblond
Right. So kind of to get back what you what you said is I believe that it's a mutual responsibility, but certainly the technological vendors responsibility more and more than ever to educate our partners and our clients on these are the tech the technologies or the evolutions of technologies bring or benefit you today. Right. Because more now than ever the 4.0, this era, 4.0 certainly brings a lot a lot of of options.

00;23;44;11 - 00;23;58;28
Alex Leblond
Let's just say for any different type of business function in a way. Right. So, you know, who would have thought, you know, who would have thought Tesla would be a self driver? So when you thought self driver cars at one point, well, you know, people looked at Elon Musk saying, OK, this guy's crazy. But he's you know, he's he's innovating.

00;23;58;28 - 00;24;12;28
Alex Leblond
Right? He's bringing the world to another place. And I think that's what Manny with Rocket Start that's what you're trying to do, right? You're trying to bring the industry to another place. You're trying to sustain this industry that you love so much and bring it into the 2020 era. Right.

00;24;13;13 - 00;24;36;09
Mike McTaggart
So and I think you know, so I'll comment on a couple of things that I really love, you know, pieces of what I heard from both of you on, you know, and, you know, in other cases where I've worked with companies to kind of help them learn to embrace or adopt Agile or DevOps principles. You know, there are there are elements there that, you know, echo that notion of, you know, the voice of the customer.

00;24;36;10 - 00;24;57;09
Mike McTaggart
You know, it's pushing that decision making and, and getting out to the the people that you're serving, you know, and Manny and Rocket Start's case. You know, it's kind of switching the paradigm a little bit to OK, as employer, I am serving my employees. And so we're creating some engagement, you know, at that drive or at that employee level, you know.

00;24;57;09 - 00;25;15;05
Mike McTaggart
And you, Alex, you brought up that notion of Elon Musk, you know, and I think he's one of the few people I've seen, you know, with Tesla where you know, he's so responsive. I've seen feature requests get, you know, direct messaged or mentioned on Twitter. And next thing you know, it's getting pushed out as a feature, you know, an over the air update to Tesla, you know.

00;25;15;07 - 00;25;36;06
Mike McTaggart
And so to see that degree of responsiveness and listening to the customer and then, you know, taking that to heart, incorporating it into the product, incorporating it into, you know, the business model as a whole. Manny, one thing you talked about, especially e-ticketing and such you and you brought up this this thing we seem to never be able to escape: COVID

00;25;36;06 - 00;25;55;29
Mike McTaggart
You know, I remember very early on, you know, there was a slide that went around, at least in the IT circles. You know, it's kind of like "Who was most influential in the C suite for your digital transformation, you know, was it the CEO, CIO, CFO or COVID19," you know, that was the sort of the unnamed person that's an.

00;25;55;29 - 00;25;56;23
Manny Tejano
Important C one.

00;25;56;25 - 00;26;17;02
Mike McTaggart
Yeah. That that really pushed, you know, and I had clients that took very different approaches. Some of them were very, very conservative. Let's hunker down and just try to ride this out. And others that were very aggressive, you know, literally saying, hey, you know, what, we can do no wrong. Let's get out there, try things, will we mess up?

00;26;17;09 - 00;26;37;06
Mike McTaggart
We'll blame it on COVID. You know, it gave it gave them room to try and fail and learn fast, which is, you know, I think one of the greatest sort of agile principles. You know, it's it's not about failing fast. It's it's learn fast, but to to to focus on on COVID since we're you know, I think everyone's kind of coming up for air for the most part.

00;26;37;06 - 00;26;49;24
Mike McTaggart
Alex hails from Canada, and so he's had a unique perspective and experience in this as well. But I'm curious to see what you're seeing now. What is the appetite? What are the lessons learned and how are you taking advantage of that?

00;26;50;01 - 00;26;51;06
Alex Leblond
Yeah, very good point.

00;26;51;17 - 00;27;12;14
Manny Tejano
Absolutely. I think there's a really good point that you bring out with, you know, COVID being able to brings shed some light into it, to use the expression, can shed some light into what's really happening and also what can we do to address it. So once again, you look at, you know, for example, CDL graduates in 2020, we have 50% less graduates so there's less drivers out there.

00;27;12;14 - 00;27;36;12
Manny Tejano
Less new drivers out there that's a little concerning, you know, and that's just simply because there's closed or limited schools, you know, available for these individuals that want to get in, right? So, so you start looking at a workforce hampering, there's, there's, there's an effect on that then look at production. OK, well from a COVID standpoint for construction, a lot of construction are considered essential workers, a lot of drivers considered essential workers.

00;27;36;23 - 00;28;00;27
Manny Tejano
So in some degree it was business as usual for some companies. But again, I think what happened is now business had to change. You know, you had to look at business now more remotely. We're, you know, having more conversations now days not just our industry, any other industry is about working from home and, you know, looking at how do we optimize how, you know, different physical workspaces you know, being able to to do that.

00;28;00;27 - 00;28;25;11
Manny Tejano
So I think that came in with its own challenges. So as far as what we're looking at and how things are coming off, you know, from that, we're also looking at the effects of what the workers are saying is we had what we call the great resignation. Right. We had that the end of last year of where and it's got its little trickle down till now where we had an all time high of individuals changing careers and quitting their jobs.

00;28;26;08 - 00;28;45;04
Manny Tejano
And that is something that the jobs are out there. The jobs are necessary, at least in construction that we know of, maybe not every every other sector. But that means that there's going to be a repurposing right now of what am I doing, what are we going to work for, what kind of fulfillment am I getting, what does it mean to me?

00;28;45;04 - 00;29;05;24
Manny Tejano
Right. So we start to build a society, right where we're we're using technology, where you, where consumers, you know, and all that stuff. But when I look at data and I look at big tech and things like that, the fear that you people get is, you know, am I being watched? Am I being, you know, just the number or am I being, you know, do my contributions matter?

00;29;06;02 - 00;29;26;02
Manny Tejano
And I think what we try to do with gamification particularly at Rocket Start, is we want make we we want to make people feel like they're being seen. You know, we want to make people not they're watched, but they're being seen and they're being valued. And I think that this type of, you know, workforce movement, I think this is the kind of approach that you have to have to be able to counteract these movements.

00;29;26;10 - 00;29;50;14
Manny Tejano
So we all understand it's pay, we understand it's benefits and things like that. But once again, I think that there's just going to be a level of beyond pay. Where it's appreciation where it's going to be a level of, you know, recognition. And those are the things that, you know, once again, I'm looking at the next generation of workers, and they appreciate that more than the current generation of workers.

00;29;51;02 - 00;29;54;00
Manny Tejano
So we're trying to look at that as a as a change and a difference.

00;29;54;12 - 00;30;14;20
Alex Leblond
From our part. And I like what Mike said a little bit before when, you know, we talk about compelling events like COVID kind of forces people to say, well, let's do this. Right. We'll blame it on COVID if it doesn't work, one pretty amazing thing that I saw with COVID on the positive side is and we talked about it is again, these producers being very creative.

00;30;15;00 - 00;30;35;02
Alex Leblond
Right figuring it out, finding ways to even change their business processes, changing the ways they used to do things. So how many times did and that's kind of where the lights out batching came up from, right, where now people are saying, well, my main batch guy is sick. How can he batch from home, right? Oh, technology good. Oh, the technology exists?

00;30;35;02 - 00;30;50;20
Alex Leblond
We didn't know that it's been exist. You know, it's been or it's been around for ten years. 15 years. But again, you know, education. But that's when you kind of see these compelling events of having to change your business processes. Changing the business model itself to be able to because, you know, you're under capacity, you're half your workers are sick.

00;30;50;20 - 00;31;16;18
Alex Leblond
with COVID, how do you go about, you know, keeping on the production side? Because as you said, Manny, you know, essential workers business was good for everybody. Production was going on, infrastructures were going on, especially in Canada. Things were good. Even though, you know, COVID was really locked down on our end. And the beauty of it is I really saw producers now leaning on technology, leaning on experts like ourselves to say help us, how can we get this done?

00;31;16;18 - 00;31;33;29
Alex Leblond
And they had the ideas right. They had the great ideas. Whoa, we need to be able to do this. I need to be able to automatically discharge if the trucks under the shoot without having a human being there to press a button. I'm like, wow, OK, we're getting there. But Mike you said it well, I think compelling events bring industries that are certainly a little bit late on technology and innovation.

00;31;34;05 - 00;31;44;20
Alex Leblond
When these type of compelling events happen, that's where people react. It's good, it's agile, they get it done. And finally they realize it's not that painful right and they get benefits out of it.

00;31;45;15 - 00;32;04;05
Mike McTaggart
Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, this has been just fantastic. You know, I always love hanging out with you guys and I love working with companies, as you guys know, that are, you know, focused on the people behind the technology. You know, we can be technologists ourselves. We can be focused and lost in code and lost in tech and in emerging emerging tech.

00;32;04;27 - 00;32;26;09
Mike McTaggart
But at the end of the day, if we can't apply it to solving real people's problems and make life better for them, then what are we doing for. Right, you know, and that's certainly something I like to try to, you know, bring home to my family and teach my kids, you know, as they grow up, you know, so I'll tell you what, I think I think we've we've covered a lot of topics today.

00;32;26;09 - 00;32;50;08
Mike McTaggart
You know, I think it'd be great to schedule another time where we can dive in a little bit further. You know, I know that you mentioned and I want to talk more about some, you know, human behavior and some of the things he's got going on in gamification. And I'd love to learn more from you, Alex. You know, we've talked about this notion of lights out manufacturing, you know, but lights out batching and the differences that apply there and what that really means at a at a practical level.

00;32;51;08 - 00;33;01;22
Mike McTaggart
I think those are future calls and sessions all together. I want to thank you for taking the time today and just hanging out with me, sharing some of these thoughts. And we'll do it again soon.

00;33;01;27 - 00;33;03;22
Alex Leblond
For sure. Sounds great. Thanks. Thanks, guys.

00;33;03;24 - 00;33;06;14
Manny Tejano
Yeah, really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Awesome.