Episode 388
QUIZ - Brexit - Business or Bullsh*t?
EP 388 - May's quiz round up sees Daniel Priestley and Fernando Sordo Madaleno play the game to see if they think Brexit, Crowdfunding, Lobbying, Client Lunches, Paying for Top Talent and Diversity Quotas and are business or just complete tosh!
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Spotify Video Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to Business or Bullsh*t
00:53 Meet the Guests: Daniel Priestley and Fernando Sordo Madaleno
01:18 Brexit: A Mexican Perspective
03:05 Architectural Challenges and Talent
05:08 Lobbying and Government Collaboration
08:13 Angel Investing
08:50 Flexible Working in Architecture
09:41 Crowdfunding and Diversity Quotas
11:35 The Importance of Client Lunches
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Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Quiz, AKA Bob.
Speaker B:And if you're new to Bob and how it works, Basically, we've got this box of cards, go get the car.
Speaker B:We've got this box of cards in the cupboard behind the drums.
Speaker B:We've got this box of cars behind the drums that we can't get to, but they've got cards in it packed with terms and phrases like corporate social responsibility.
Speaker B:It's brilliant.
Speaker B:And then we have these paddles and basically we ask people, do you think it is business or bullshit?
Speaker B:And we debated a bit and we basically look at it and decide and I don't know, what else does it say?
Speaker B:That's the cut.
Speaker B:Anyway, we've got a quality set of guests for you this week.
Speaker B:We've got Daniel Priestley, serial entrepreneur, author and speaker, and Fernando Sordo Madeleno and director at his family architectural firm, Sordo Maddaleno.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker B:Right, let's get stuck in.
Speaker B:Let's see what a Mexican thinks about Brexit.
Speaker C:Oh, come on, man, it's not even a question.
Speaker B:It's not even a question, is it?
Speaker B:Did the news make Mexico?
Speaker C:Was everyone like, oh, God, no.
Speaker C:I mean, when, when everything happened with Brexit, I, I didn't think really.
Speaker C:But then when I tried to start, you know, the company here, then I, I got a, you know, I got a shock.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, everything.
Speaker A:This was unfortunately a, a terrible idea because of just the way that it was implemented.
Speaker A:I, I feel like Brexit was a proxy vote with, are you happy with the way things are going or not happy with the way things are going?
Speaker A:I don't think it actually had a lot to do with a deep understanding of like, our place in Europe and, and all of those sorts of things.
Speaker A:Do you know a lot of it, if you're perfectly honest, if you talk to a lot of people, it was, do you feel good about open borders?
Speaker A:And a lot of people said, I don't feel good about people being able to move from all over Europe to into the UK with no checks or balances that, that I don't like.
Speaker A:A lot of people didn't like that.
Speaker A:And now where are we?
Speaker A:The biggest issue is from a branding perspective, Brexit cut us off from our brand positioning.
Speaker A:Our brand positioning was the head office of Europe.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:Like everyone knew that Europe was mostly driven by the uk, Germany and France as the big powerhouse economies, but English speaking Britain was the place that the rest of the world would come to.
Speaker B:Be the shop front.
Speaker A:It was, yeah, it was the, it was the interface.
Speaker A:And it was like the most logical place for an American company or a Canadian company or an Australian company to come and set up an office.
Speaker A:And by losing that position as the head office of Europe, we missed out on the opportunities associated with that.
Speaker A:But B, we haven't replaced it with anything.
Speaker B:How about paying disproportionately large amounts of money for top talent?
Speaker B:So, like paying massive salaries for the world's best architect?
Speaker C:I would say bullshit.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Does that have other people out there who come along and say, well, I'm.
Speaker C:You know, this is an open conversation that we have with the.
Speaker C:Internally in the office.
Speaker C:I mean, it's the sense of, I think, the talent.
Speaker C:There's lots of talent out there.
Speaker C:Like, probably there are more talented people than ourselves as architects or less or talented either, but maybe they don't have the same opportunities.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So I think to get a seat at the table as an architect is really complicated.
Speaker C:And then sit at the table.
Speaker C:I mean, the opportunity to actually do your work.
Speaker C:So I think as a professional, we need to work together, you know, because everything is a battle between us instead of, you know, almost like creating a union, you know?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do you feel that it's quite a battle?
Speaker C:Because if, for example, I'm speaking where I have experience in Mexico, you know, it's like every client is pushing the architects to have lower fees and being paid less, you know, just by making competitions saying, okay, who am I going to pay less?
Speaker C:Okay, you guys.
Speaker B:It's about the client, isn't it?
Speaker B:That's what you value.
Speaker B:Sometimes I have a conversation and I'll be like, look, if your primary thing is about price, then there's other people you could go and do that with because they are focused on price.
Speaker C:They can deliver something.
Speaker C:It's going to be easy.
Speaker C:They can do it.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, it might be rubbish.
Speaker B:I hope so.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that's the problem.
Speaker C:That's why we see lots of buildings that are rubbish.
Speaker B:Oh, really?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That must be a nightmare as an architect walking along like, oh, you have to close your eyes and like, I can't look at that one.
Speaker B:Lobbying.
Speaker A:I don't know enough about lobbying.
Speaker A:What do you mean by lobbying?
Speaker B:Well, quite.
Speaker B:I mean, lobbying is normally companies persuading governments to act in specific ways.
Speaker A:I've never been big enough to do anything like that.
Speaker A:I've never assumed.
Speaker A:I don't assume I've got any power or voice.
Speaker B:Changed it now with your 40,000 people every hour.
Speaker A:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:Of them hate you.
Speaker B:The other 50% of them think you should run the world.
Speaker A:Maybe they'll invite me into Downing Street.
Speaker B:I mean, your family's quite well known in Mexico.
Speaker B:They might have some political influence.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:But, you know.
Speaker C:No, I mean, I think you need to work with the government to do things, you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker B:So it's business, really.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, the word loving, it's a little bit complicated.
Speaker C:I don't know.
Speaker C:I don't know what I'm gonna do here.
Speaker B:Well, there's good and bad lobbying.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:But what we do in Mexico is like, we work.
Speaker C:I think something that is good about Mexico is that they are open to hear suggestions.
Speaker C:It's not like, okay, and it's good and bad because it can turn both ways.
Speaker C:If you're trying to do good, there's a possibility, but if someone else wants to do bad, then there's flexibility.
Speaker C:So, you know, it's completely different from, I guess, the uk.
Speaker C:So the flexibility gives certain value if you are doing the right thing.
Speaker B:Is the planning permission difficult in Mexico?
Speaker C:Yes, yes, it is.
Speaker C:But it's, you know, it's like working with them.
Speaker C:For example, we're doing a project in downtown Mexico that it's an area that needs to have investment and needs to be redeveloped because we have a lot of services, public transportation, you know, health and safety, everything is quite nice.
Speaker C:But people were flooding to the suburbs, so actually like the center of Mexico was losing population, so we need to regenerate that.
Speaker C:So working with the government and for example, it's super basic stuff like parking spots that we needed to get built.
Speaker C:Because in Mexico, for every 30 square meters, you need one parking space.
Speaker B:Oh, it's required.
Speaker B:It's required because it's a car city.
Speaker B:Of course.
Speaker B:Yes, of course.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker C:But if you see the public transport, this is really well connected in that part of Mexico and it's a general rule to the entire city.
Speaker C:So if you analyze that specific project, you actually don't need that much cars.
Speaker C:So it was like, okay, because we couldn't do that amount of parking spaces because we have water just like 8 meters below surface.
Speaker C:So working with them, we were like, ok, that's better.
Speaker C:Let's do an alternate system.
Speaker C:Let's help the public transport.
Speaker C:Let's create all of these public vehicles that would take people around and so win, win, right.
Speaker C:The city gets a better public transport and you can actually do the building because you don't need to do all of those parking spaces.
Speaker C:So it's a matter of working with.
Speaker B:The Government angel syndicates.
Speaker B:You're one of them.
Speaker A:Yeah, I do some angel investing.
Speaker A:You've got to be careful with angel investing, but if you're wealthy enough, you can afford it, you know.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:It's good business.
Speaker B:You've got to be careful with it.
Speaker B:What do you mean by that?
Speaker A:Well, you need, like a portfolio of 30 angel investments.
Speaker A:You need some tax breaks associated with it, like, if you're going to do angel investing.
Speaker A:One of the few things that I really do like about the UK is seis investing.
Speaker A:Really good scheme.
Speaker A:It's a great way to get people investing into startups because it de risks it on several levels.
Speaker A:If you can afford to spread your bets, you know, and you may outperform, you know, bigger markets, bigger companies.
Speaker B:Where are you on the world of flexible working?
Speaker C:Well, yeah, no, no, I mean, for me, it's in again, bullshit.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:The thing is, as architects, we are not producing projects by ourselves.
Speaker C:We are collaborating.
Speaker C:And I mean, we have been doing it by zoom sometimes, but it's super complicated because the human experience, the interaction that you need to have.
Speaker C:Architect, it's quite specific.
Speaker C:I mean, if you can leave stuff for Friday that are more, you know, operations or admin or whatever.
Speaker C:But I don't think that's the case because in architecture, you sometimes work through the weekend or stay.
Speaker B:Do the architects always work in teams?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:Okay, five of you will work on a project.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker B:Crowdfunding.
Speaker A:Little bit of you ever done it?
Speaker A:Well, look, the people who do it really well, they've got a good group of people who, like, know who they are.
Speaker A:But the idea that you could stick an idea online and get a crowd, very rarely, that actually works.
Speaker B:Yeah, I've had clients who've liked it because it creates almost a place for the transaction to happen, isn't it?
Speaker B:You can go and have dinner with someone and then say, well, look at it tonight when you go home, John.
Speaker A:This is the thing, if done well, business, but if you just kind of expect it to work by magic.
Speaker A:Bullshit.
Speaker B:Diversity quotas.
Speaker C:Okay, I would say bullshit.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:The term quota.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:The term diversity.
Speaker C:I definitely encourage it because that diversity.
Speaker C:But it needs to happen naturally.
Speaker C:Like, I'm super proud that in our office we have people from, I believe now, 40 different countries.
Speaker B:Whoa.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, four different race.
Speaker C:LGBT community is in our office.
Speaker C:So, I mean, we love to have that richness in our city.
Speaker B:So why do you like that richness?
Speaker C:Because I think it's, you know, it's all about a conversation.
Speaker C:Like this conversation.
Speaker C:I'm having with you.
Speaker C:So you know when you talk to another person and has a view on something different or something similar or the same way, you think it's interesting because that conversation leads to something more interesting.
Speaker B:It's the diversity of conversation.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:And the cultures because as I was mentioning, we work across different cultures.
Speaker C:So having this background, I mean we have people from Asia, we have people from Africa, Middle East, South America, Europe and all of these people are bringing their own culture to the environment in the studio and that's amazing.
Speaker B:Must be important in buildings too.
Speaker B:Someone would be like well don't do it like that because that's a death symbol in my culture.
Speaker B:Clients lunches Business Business.
Speaker B:Yeah do you drink at lunch?
Speaker A:I've done some great deals over lunches.
Speaker A:I'm not a big drinker but you know, I have a glass of wine if it's appropriate.
Speaker A:Why not if it's available?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I'm not a huge drinker but definitely business lunches.
Speaker B:Y that.
