Building In The Clouds
My transformative journey in mobile & cloud-based technologies and how they can be incorporated into the construction trade services.
A Good Base
Having grown up as a Millennial during the birth of useful mobile and cloud-based technologies, I was fortunate enough to have first hand access to what I believed would be the future of everything mobile. Having this access allowed me to experiment with these technologies and see how the mobile and digital revolution would shape our futures. What became transparent to me was the infinite possibilities you could conceive of when applying technologies to everyday life. I spent most of my youth improving my abilities and dreaming up new ways to make life a bit easier by capitalizing on some of the latest new digital devices and/or software to come to market. At that time in my life most of these life-hacks were envisioned to help me overcome my disadvantages in remembering things I needed to get done or organizing my day-to-day burdens. In reality I spent most of my time figuring out how to download the latest popular video game for the platform I was on.
If I wasn’t gaming on the latest device I could get my hands on, I was meddling with any random mechanical family possessions I could get my hands on in my garage. Taking things apart and then reassembling or repurposing them became my outlet for understanding how the devices in our daily world worked. Other times I would test my skills in building things out of wood (workbenches, birdhouses, tables, a trebuchet), all the typical things a teen builds at that age. The trebuchet was for a science project, which got me an A+ on, it was an awesome science project! I was proud of that one, mostly because it worked and that It looked really cool and was fun to build. Plus launching tennis balls across the parking lot was just pure fun.
When I wasn’t building things in my garage or prying open/dismantling any piece of electronics in my house, I was developing negotiating skills for not getting in trouble. I learned the basics in electronically-powered devices and how they operated by attempting to “fix” electronics around the house that were either not broken or had no rational basis for needing to be fixed. Instead of getting scolded for never returning anything back to the family in the form whence it came, my parents saw this as an opportunity for me to discover how these magical devices improved our lives and as a way to develop life skills I could use for my future. Most of the time I would lose half the screws that held the devices together so almost nothing was returned according to OEM specification. Sorry, Mom and Dad! Other times I would discover a component or mechanism which needed “further scrutiny”. This usually meant smashing apart the components to see what was inside or dismantling them into smaller components which could never be reassembled again.
Academics
Most of my education growing up was geared towards the development of vocational trade skills, for obvious reasons. It was clear that I would be working mostly with my physical abilities later in my life, partly due to underdiagnosed learning abilities. I call them learning abilities rather that learning disabilities because that’s what they mostly are: misclassified positive abilities disguised as learning inabilities by the standards of a system which expects standardized learning to apply to all.
It was possible for me to learn well, but it had to be on my own terms and in my own unique way. It became apparent to me that No Child Left Behind, endless standardized testing and curriculums that moved too quickly for me to process would become a significant roadblock in my education. I would struggle attempting to understand the daily vast tomes of new incoming information, let alone be able to complete the endless stream of homework assignments. Thus I was labeled a child with learning disabilities. I personally believe many public school settings and curriculums were, and mostly still are, ill-equipped to properly educate children like myself.
That said, I had no idea just how much educating myself with these revolutionary new digital technologies would become a part of my lifelong pursuit for knowledge and furthering my passion for innovation in industry. I graduated from vocational school with a good direction and a clear path for my immediate future in the plumbing and heating mechanical trades. The vocational school I attended offered a program where students were able to co-op half of their school days with local plumbing companies in the area. This allowed me to get my foot in the door with potential employers. Lucky for me my early building and mechanical skills and my curiosity for complex systems showed through to my prospective employers and I was hired full-time right out of school.
My days at my new job were incredibly long and extremely educational. Once my work day was over, I would get ready to attend plumbing apprenticeship night school at the same voc-tech school from which I graduated. This was in pursuit of attaining my plumbing licenses and apprenticeship certificate. After graduating from my 4-year night school apprenticeship and receiving my completion certificate I would continue on to receive both my Journeyman’s and Master’s plumbing licenses. I had developed a wealth of practical and academic skills in that 6-year time period. Along the way I had also become certified in various specialty plumbing materials and technologies used throughout the industry. If there was a new tool or material that could help make my life better I wanted to know everything about it and learn how to properly use each one. In that way I developed my passion for being an innovator and mavin of new technologies and processes for my trade.
Along my academic journey I discovered that my learning abilities definitely do not conform to how we currently teach in our school systems. I also realized that I should begin to think of my learning “disabilities” and lack of desire to learn in traditional settings as an opportunity to rethink how I can hack these abilities to my own advantage. In order to achieve the successes I had in school and work, I had to tap into my abilities and mesh them with technologies with which I’d become familiar. These technologies amplified the learning abilities I did have and allowed me to achieve success in all I wished to accomplish. Now I see there is nothing one can’t accomplish with a desire to succeed and a determination to continue doing something you love to do.
Business & Technology
For me there was no question in my mind that I would eventually want to start and build my own plumbing company. Having worked for a large plumbing company in my area for 9+ years, I had picked up a vast amount of experience in discovering what it would take to build a successful business. Having been immersed in day-to-day operations of the service trades industry I’d gained an incredible quantity of business experience.
While working for an established successful employer, I took notes on everything I thought could help improve the company I worked for and make our jobs easier. Over those years I had discovered how antiquated our invoicing systems, answering services and scheduling systems were. I had made several requests to try out some of the coolest technology I had discovered in my spare time. Unfortunately most of the employees and staff were from a different era and computing technologies were not their strong suits. Needless to say most of my suggestions were turned down or deemed too impractical for anyone to be able to figure out how to use them.
Having been undeterred I decided to go ahead and integrate these cutting-edge technologies at my own expense and on my own time. This may seem commonplace now, however I was the first mechanic at the company I was working for to have a GPS in their work tuck. Yup, I was the first to use this new magical device that would cut hours off my work week. Being able to figure out how to get from one job to the next without paper maps was like having the ultimate “Map Hack” for my favorite video game, but this one was for real life.
The first time I discovered it was possible to mount a laptop in a work truck, I did it. I imagined all the possibilities I could accomplish with Google Search at my fingertips. I’d be able to look up all available materials in real time and the locations of supply houses in any unfamiliar service area. This all seemed good in theory, but in practice installing and mounting a laptop in the work truck was only the start. It was necessary to have the laptop powered up and running nearly all day, and at the time I only had a gaming spec laptop to use. I discovered just how much juice these powerhouses pulled, so without instantly blowing out every fuse in the fuse block I quickly realized I would have to install a power inverter. I quickly burned out several cheaply purchased low wattages/amp power inverters. I ended up having to buy super heavy gauge power cables and running the new 4x larger power inverter directly from the battery. Now that I knew it was possible to operate the laptop from the work truck and keep the battery powered all day I was ready to go. Well not quite, I had discovered yet again.
At the time I was testing these technologies it was only possible get 3G mobile wifi internet, or whatever it was that they were calling 3G wifi. I would tether my cell phone to the USB on my laptop and use an app that would hide my tethering usage and allow me to bridge the connection. Back then I learned just because you had 3G internet powering your web browser most carriers wouldn’t allow this conversion of data streaming over their networks. This meant they would throttle your data usage to a device if they suspected you were streaming large amounts of data, or if you were constantly going over your data limit like I was. Luckily for me some amazing app developers on the android market made cloaking apps that would hide my data usage or at least hide the way I was using the data on my plan. For some illogical reason carriers at that time would frown upon using mobile phone data to host cell phone wifi networks on desktop operating systems. I attempted and failed miserably time and time again to keep these connections stable. This was partly due to the technologies and software not being evolved enough to accommodate my application requirements. Another major reason was connectivity. It was so incredibly bad, partly due to the mobile carriers’ insufficiently developed cellular network towers and incredibly expensive data plans with extremely low data caps. I even once switch to Sprint (the worst carrier I ever used) because they were the first to offer unlimited data plans with phones that had limited 4G data capabilities and functionality. That however was a complete disaster and almost sealed the fate of my concept. Their conception of “unlimited” took on a completely new definition for what that might entail. Their 3G was not actually unlimited, it was capped at about 1–2GB of 3G data (which was so insanely easy to use up while having to reconnect and re-download almost everything). Once you went over your “3G unlimited data plan” cap, your speeds would be throttled down to a completely useless speed that was unlimited. You couldn’t load even the most basic Google search page, it was that pitiful.
Having learned from that horrible experience I dropped Sprint and went with my original carrier T-mobile. They too had come out with their first unlimited data plan, but it was also subject to the same 3G unlimited cap restrictions, as I would later come to find out. I discovered this was a huge scandal perpetrated by all the carriers at the time and would later see AT&T and Verizon mobile take the brunt of the outrage. Being undeterred and willing to endure these technical hurdles, I would eventually achieve success as the rise of mobile plans with hot spots and devices would occur in the market. What was once a point of contention for carriers now became their best attribute and the beginning of a mobile revolution in connecting people to their devices.
What I learned from this experience was that just because the technology exists and you are capable of pioneering new methods for using this technology to your advantage, doesn’t necessarily mean that the technological environment is ready for your imagination. However, this experience helped me understand what it takes to conceive an ambitious idea, create a strategy for success and execute a plan under the circumstances you’re dealt. I gained an education that no school, teacher or business could help me achieve. For my efforts in this trying yet rewarding endeavor I can now relish in having pioneered a new way to build and operate a successful, completely mobile and cloud-based service trade construction company.
