that, which I'm not sure I would have had if I'd started the company more just with a tech background without having sat with staff for 20 years, working on technology. 0:10:54 - (Randy Wilburn): Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense, and I understand what you're saying. So tell us a little bit about TonicDM. Why don't you kind of unwrap how TonicDM came about that you decided to just start a company? 0:11:08 - (Reg Prentice): Yeah. So there were two parts to it. One was just seeing the rate of flow of information and how difficult it is to organize that efficiently on a project so that the firm can get value from it. The two most valuable things a design firm has is its people, number one. That's always going to be the case, but number two is its history and its institutional knowledge, which primarily exists in the form of the information that's stored. 0:11:46 - (Reg Prentice): And today, that's all digital. It's practically all digital. When I started in the profession, it was practically all physical, but that switch has taken place. And then the second one was just seeing how tools that were used in the industry constrained people's understanding of the value that they provide. So, to be more specific, the focus of digital tools on deliverables, I think, has subtly led people to see the value that their firm creates as deliverables. When you say it like that, I'm sure everyone would say, well, clearly, it's not the deliverables that are our value, but the way that the tools are structured, it kind of forces you into that paradigm. 0:12:39 - (Reg Prentice): So, particularly tools like BIM are very deliverables oriented. And so Tonic is also a platform for design thinking and how tools that people use, even though it is just a tool, but how that tool can help engage with design thinking and design value more. I'd say that's more of a long-term goal with Tonic. I wouldn't be promoting Tonic as currently being that. 0:13:14 - (Randy Wilburn): And how long has Tonic been in existence now? 0:13:17 - (Reg Prentice): So, eight years. 0:13:18 - (Randy Wilburn): Okay. Eight years. 0:13:20 - (Reg Prentice): So it is the ten-year overnight success. 0:13:25 - (Randy Wilburn): Well, you've made it past that five-year hump. And now you're almost going to double that, which is pretty exciting. And certainly, clearly, there is a need for what you have to offer for design firms. I'd be curious to know, and you don't have to go back to the beginning, but what is the biggest aha moment that firms have when they start utilizing TonicDM within their organization? 0:13:52 - (Randy Wilburn): If you had to kind of capture the essence of what that is. 0:13:56 - (Reg Prentice): I think it's the being able to have a stash of important information or information of significance that is arranged by a project in a way that is very easy for staff just to find the project, open the project, and there is the information of significance. So we work with a
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