Hello! I joined here coz I want to learn about contruction especially the estimation. Hope I will learn a lot here . Thank you Tim for this website!

Just curious, why everyone joined? I personally joined to learn more and get help with problems I see come up for family members who are contractors.

Something I've been really interested in is the role of big data in construction. So far all I see is hype. And the hype has been around for at least a decade. I went to a presentation where they spoke for an hour about how data is transforming construction. Construction companies need more data. Etc. etc. When the speaker got asked how they use data, he said they compare their planned and actual costs. Oh really? So does everybody else on earth through their accounting system. It must be one of the consistently most overhyped concepts. (This article from 10 years ago talks about how data is more important than money) https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2016/04/19/how-big-data-and-analytics-are-transforming-the-construction-industry/?utm_source=canva&utm_medium=iframely I am really interested to ask though, has anybody found genuinely useful applications of data to construction? Has anybody seen good applications? I do think with AI, there are two big changes: 1. Context/background information is increasingly important to get AI to do effective work 2. Unstructured data can now be useful

I heard this the other day on Linkedin. But the guy broke down projects into three pillars: Find work Bid projects at a price/terms and conditions you can deliver them. Probably the hardest part cause construction is so heavily commoditized. Do work Complete the scope defined in the contract. Pouring concrete, trenching, standing steel etc. Do whats on the drawings, and check what you built was correct. Get paid Contract admin. Payment claims, variations etc. The only thing I’d probably add is completions. Handing over the project at the end.

In my most recent video I did a deep dive on what the science is currently saying about how to prompt. Long story short, prompting isn't really a skill. It's all about context engineering and getting the balance right between too much and too little information. Here is the article I based the video on, its by Anthropic and worth a read: https://www.anthropic.com/engineering/effective-context-engineering-for-ai-agents