The future isn’t just coded. It’s constructed. I’m Head of Digital in a Tier-1 construction firm.
Scotland, United Kingdom
Joined May 2009
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I’ve gone from fixing Tornado fast jets in the RAF ➝ civil engineering ➝ leading digital engineering & BIM for a Tier 1 contractor.
I’ve seen construction from the ground up, and I know where it’s broken — and how digital can fix it.
🧵1/10
Miracles do happen - complementary upgrade to business on my flight from LHR to ATL today. Thank you @British_Airways
Today I heard RAG described as the “classical approach”. As in old. As in disrupted. What a time to be alive.
Hey @CityofAtlanta I’m heading to you from Scotland to catch the @ChicagoBears @ @AtlantaFalcons game in October.
Thinking of heading out to Athens on the Saturday to check out @UGAAthletics
Opinion - is this worth the trip for the experience or stick to Atlanta and explore?
Can’t wait to experience Georgia for the first time 🏈🏈
Construction is the foundation of every legal, economic, and technological development. Without it everything remains an idea.
Yet the industry is overlooked, undersold as a profession, and underinvested as a an asset.
We have to change that.
As per the Bluebeam 2026 Construction Technology Report data: 84% of AEC firms plan to increase tech investment, yet only 11% achieve end-to-end digital integration; nearly half of projects still rely on paper for critical workflows; interoperability is the top barrier.
A service for construction businesses that parachutes in toward the end of the project and captures the knowledge to take back into the org. Everything where there was a +/- gap between intent and outcome. Error, waste, unexpected margin, etc… with root cause and critical lessons. Packaged in a way which the org can ingest for future work.
No one in the project is incentivised to do this well.
Bechtel creates Senior VP of EPC Transformation to overhaul delivery with AI, automation and robotics.
One of the largest global contractors is centralising a multi-year push to embed advanced digital tech, AI and robotics deeper into engineering, procurement and construction execution.
constructiondive.com/news/be…
Look like some kind of exhibit in a museum in 20 years time. “…and this is how people actually typed into primitive computing to get work done. There was a torturous technology called ‘email’…”
The concept of a barbell strategy, which I first heard from Nassim Taleb, is as relevant in technology strategy as it is finance. Especially with the current dynamic in the tech/AI space.
Load one end up with super safe bets, then have a small piece of the high volatility/experimental action on the other. Avoiding the middle completely.
One version of this could be all your safe vendors on one side (Microsoft, Autodesk, Salesforce) and then a small internal lab on the other looking at high risk of failure, super high opportunity/reward on the other.
I wonder what the equivalent output per unit is for construction and civil engineering?
neil retweeted
Cutting wheat yesterday: roughly 100 grains harvested for each grain sown. In the 1300s on the Bishop of Winchester's manors, 5:1 was a good harvest, 3:1 a bad one. Thank you, Haber-Bosch nitrogen fixation and hydrocarbons, for feeding billions and sparing land.
I survived my first day back after 2.5wks leave. Can confirm all benefits of ‘headspace’ have been wiped out. Industry is still fucked.
Tragedy is no stranger to construction.
This morning a learned about the 25 people dead in the Teesta headrace tunnel, Sikkim, from a suspected methane explosion on 20 July.
Though geology looks to be the culprit, there is a deeper story.
Risks that are known and documented, and then not controlled.
From the outside this appears to be about information opacity, fragmentation, incentives and organisational memory failure.
enr.com/articles/63365-docum…
Incentives reward progress over persistent visibility.
Fragmentation turns known hazards into localised rather than global knowledge.
Opacity allows accountability to dissolve across the temporary teams.
Not bad luck, this is system design.