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In this Tangents episode, Eric Riggsbee, a project manager at Joyful, shares his unique career path from architecture to the tech industry and back again. He discusses the transferable skills he gained from architecture, such as problem-solving and attention to detail, and how they have helped him succeed in his current role. Eric emphasizes the importance of following happiness rather than sticking to a specific career path, and how architects can bring their creativity and strategic thinking to other industries. He also highlights the need for a strong work-life balance and the value of creating a positive company culture.
Highlights:
Highlights:
- Architects possess transferable skills such as problem-solving, attention to detail, and a strong work ethic that can be applied to various industries.
- Following happiness and pursuing alternative career paths can lead to fulfilling and rewarding experiences.
- Architects have the opportunity to create innovative and engaging spaces that promote learning and collaboration.
- Building a positive work culture requires trust, creativity, and a focus on employee well-being.
- The future of architecture lies in integrating technology, strategy, and creativity to create meaningful and impactful spaces.
Creators & Guests
What is Tangents by Out of Architecture?
Welcome to Tangents by Out of Architecture, hosted by Silvia Lee. We’re highlighting some of our favorite stories from the amazing people we’ve met along our journey. We will hear how they created a unique career path for themselves from the variety of skills and talents they developed in and out of architecture.
Out of Architecture is a career consulting firm started by two Harvard-educated professionals interested in exploring the value of their skills both in and out of the architectural profession. We’re here to help you maximize all of the expertise you have honed as a designer to get you a role that fulfills and challenges you. We have the knowledge, experience, and connections to help you put your best self into the market–and reap the benefits.
Ep 11: Choosing to Follow Happiness with Joyful's Eric Riggsbee
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Eric: [00:00:00] am I the only one from my class of people that did this? Like, I must be, everyone else is still doing architecture. And I think at that point, when I came to Joyful, I realized what I was doing was I stopped following my dreams and I started following happiness.
Silvia: Welcome to Tangents by Out of Architecture. Out of Architecture is a career resource network helping designers apply their incredible talents in untraditional ways. We're highlighting some of our favorite stories from the amazing people we've met along the way. We will hear how they created a unique career path for themselves from the wide variety of skills and talents they developed in and out of architecture.
Silvia: Our guest today, Eric Rigsby, project manager at joyful shares his unique career path from architecture to the tech industry. And back again. I loved hearing Eric's thoughts on architects as culture makers, how they should think of themselves as strategists and how [00:01:00] he shifted from falling, what he thought were his dreams. And instead followed his happiness
Silvia: Welcome, Eric. All right, let's get started. What are three words would use to describe yourself?
Eric: Empathetic, enthusiastic, and analytical.
Silvia: Ooh, very cool. Like a little emotional, a little like grainy in there. I'm really excited to hear these words come out in your story. And what is your background in architecture?
Eric: My background is I have a bachelor's of architecture. From the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Silvia: And what are you currently up to today?
Eric: Today I work for, uh, this is the first job I've ever had in my career. That has nothing to do with the built environment in any way. I work for a company called joyful.
Eric: And what we do at joyful is I'm a project manager at this company. And what we do at joyful is we work with the leaders of companies to unleash the power of culture for their [00:02:00] employees and customers. So what that means is we help workers at various levels of the company with, if they have low morale, if they're stressed out, if there's just not a strong culture there, we help.
Eric: Um, define what the why is at their company and then come up with a plan for how we can strengthen that. we do that through managing workshops campaigns events. as a project manager here, I work with creative directors, art directors, graphic designers, programmers, video producers, copywriters, environmental designers from time to time and account managers.
Eric: So a diverse group of people at this company, uh, we're a startup, uh, we've been around a couple of years at small group. There's about 14 of us right now. And we're hoping to grow to about 50 in the next, the next three or four years, and it's going great. I love it.
Silvia: That's such a unique company. Is there any relationship to the state of the architecture [00:03:00] industry and like where you ended up today?
Silvia: Are there any experiences that might have influenced you one way towards this path?
Eric: I would say so, I think the project management part comes natural as you start to climb the ranks in architecture, you start to manage projects, you start to get more involved in the correspondence and the client facing and all of that.
Eric: That comes very natural to me, but people always ask me, Eric, why culture? How did this happen? What is your experience that got you to understand how to help these people? And I say, I've worked for some really great companies. I've worked for some not so great companies. I've worked for ones that were great, but the culture was a little bit off.
Eric: I've worked for some companies that were, it was just everything in between. And the whole time I was at these companies, I was always thinking, why do I like this or why do I not like this? And what makes me happy here? What makes me not happy here? And I've just sensed that along the way throughout my career.
Eric: So I feel like I can tap into that very well.
Silvia: And how did you get started on your path, um, [00:04:00] away from architecture?
Eric: So for me. Leaving architecture, I've left architecture twice. I guess you can look at it that way. It was never out of disgust or dislike. It was always out of necessity. I worked for two years at a firm after college, or after high school rather, but before going to college.
Eric: I was then going to junior college and I hadn't figured out where I wanted to go yet. So I worked for a firm for a few years. I ended up going to college for architecture. And then once I graduated, I worked for five solid years doing single family custom homes at the Sea Ranch. In California, you might know of the sea ranch.
Eric: It's pretty popular, famous housing complex in Northern California, and it was great. I loved it. And then the housing bubble happened in the late 2000s. So I lost my job. And out of necessity, I had to pivot out of architecture being from the Bay Area and so close to Silicon Valley. There's a lot of tech companies, and at the time there [00:05:00] was a lot of new technologies centered around smart lighting, electrochromic glass, and these companies were starting and they were basically being run by people that had nothing to do with architecture, nothing to do with the construction industry.
Eric: They were just either from Cisco, or they worked in the semiconductor industry. And they were scientists and they were developing these technologies. And as these companies were going to market, they realized we need to hire some people that know how to read construction drawings, how to tell us what the dollar sign means on the floor plan.
Eric: It was that simple in the beginning. And I'm like, that's the switch you need to, you know, tie it with that. So I found a place called Redwoods system and they were at the forefront of led lighting in the late two thousands when it was just led lighting was brand new and The term Internet of things wasn't even a term yet.
Eric: And what they were doing was they were putting lighting on the network. So they were removing the driver from the light. And instead of running it with AC line voltage and [00:06:00] changing the lights, they were running it off of a cat 5 data cable. So now you're using low voltage instead of high voltage, and every light would have a home run into a data closet.
Eric: And then now you would have these lights on a network, and you could do all kinds of things with them. You could dim your lights when you go to your desk. You'd do space utilization because each light had a sensor tied into it. And all of this granular data that now is happening, these smart building technologies were starting.
Eric: So I spent five years in Silicon Valley for three different companies. Two were doing smart lighting, and one was doing a chromic glass, the type of glass that can tint on demand. You send a current to it, and you can clock it based on where the sun is in relation to the building, and you can tint one side, and then it releases the tint, and you can go to the other side of the building.
Eric: So, I got many years into that and thought, wow, this is great. I'm making more money than I did in architecture. I'm getting to work with all these people that are concerned with Making money and doing it [00:07:00] for a business aspect and not so much of we love this and maybe we'll make money. It was like, these are startups.
Eric: We were trying to be successful and I thought I would never go back. So I did that for about 5 years and then I started missing architecture again. I really started missing working on actual projects doing construction instead of specifying the products for these buildings. So I went back and I did military construction for a couple of years.
Eric: This was during. Airplane hangers, communication towers, everything on army bases, Navy bases across the country. And then I went and worked for a company that was doing high end retail for a while. So I've run the gamut through architecture. I've done high end residential construction, military bases, airplane hangers, flight simulators, and then went to a high end retail up until COVID and then I lost my job again.
Eric: So every time I leave architecture, it was never like a, I don't like it and I [00:08:00] don't want to be here. It was just out of necessity.
Silvia: That's such an interesting path that like, it wasn't even your choice to leave architecture, but it sounds like the things you learn from architecture were immediately applicable and usable and like definitely created all these skills.
Silvia: I think it's funny when I see this mentioned from time to time that architects don't realize what. Their skills are, they'll be like, but aren't I just doing my job? Like the things that I know how to do for my job, isn't that just. Expected or part of it. And it's, but those are actually marketable skills to other industries.
Silvia: Like how did, how was your experience of transferring skills when you were like moving from place to place?
Eric: So I immediately had to pivot out because of necessity. There was the housing bubble hit. There were no architecture jobs. It was like architects on every corner with a sign saying, I will draw for food.
Eric: It was bad. So I knew I had to pivot out and I really had to just look at the skill set and say, okay, I can do this. I can do this. This is something [00:09:00] that's transferable. And I really just had to, out of necessity, figure that out. While I was doing it, there was a look. A little bit of me in the back of my head that that felt bad that I left like that.
Eric: I gave up on this dream, but what fueled me through it was knowing that it was that an effect that I just needed to do it because there were just no jobs out there for a few years and architecture and the lucky ones got to stay on doing their work, but they weren't going to leave it. And it was. It's just really hard to find work.
Eric: But there was a part of me that felt bad, really felt bad. I'm giving up on this thing. And there was no out of architecture. There was no Jake. There was no Aaron. There was no support group of people saying, you can do this. Don't worry. You have the skillset, stick with it and be happy.
Silvia: That's actually something that I.
Silvia: Also hope that this podcast can do is normalize the looking at other jobs and like using our skills to do them. And like from all the conversations I've had with people, I think it's amazing the things that they work on from their skills. And it's unfortunate that architects struggle so [00:10:00] much to find these.
Silvia: Jobs that they can do so well, they have a lot of, I guess, like input and talent to share, but I think it's the other side that they're like, Oh, we don't like, we're not looking for an architect or like your experience doesn't translate. But I feel like the architects are always like, No, we can really do this.
Silvia: Like I've done this before. And I hope that's more so embraced. I remember like I graduated around that time, um, like 2010. And. I was applying to anything. I just wanted a job as well. And I eventually found an internship, but I remember I replied to places and they were like, no, sorry, we're not interested, but they felt bad.
Silvia: So they sent me a reply anyway, but it was like, I was applying to any kind of job. And people like, we're like, oh, you have too much experience or like you're not, like, it doesn't like correlate your experience. I can't imagine what it feels like, or I can imagine. And I feel for people that have to go through this, the emotional side of finding career paths.[00:11:00]
Eric: Yeah, it's a double edged sword. I feel like outside of architecture, people look at my skill set and they look at the places I've worked, and they're usually very impressed. Oh, wow, you've done all these things. I see these skills that you have. And then if I'm looking for work in architecture, sometimes it's looked as a down thing.
Eric: Oh, you left. And then you went and did product management for five years for these other companies, and then you came back and then you left again. Why didn't you stick with it? Or why don't you have your license yet type of thing? So I feel like it's a stigma sometimes in the architecture industry when you do try to bounce around and then you maybe try to come back.
Eric: They look at it as why did you not just do this 1 thing that you were supposed to do for the rest of your life. Yeah, you can go both ways. Yeah,
Silvia: but when you tell me about your experience with the lighting and like understanding how to read a drawing and then understanding all the connections. I was like, yeah, that sounds like the exact same stuff I had to do when I had to figure out what lighting we needed for a project.
Silvia: Like I looked through different manuals and just had to understand [00:12:00] what I was looking at. And I didn't really have any schooling on this. It was just like figuring out a solution to the problem, which I think is what. It sounds like you have been doing across your entire career, right? Just like making things work, whatever the problem may be,
Eric: whatever it is.
Eric: And it was funny because once I left architecture the first time and went to Redwood systems, I started working. Our clients were Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon. I started working with some of the biggest names I've ever worked with, and it was outside of architecture. Every time I end up working at these companies, it's these top names and different things
Eric: But I don't know if I would have ever been able to work with companies like that if I was still doing architecture, because The top clients are few and far between. You end up working on things that are sometimes less glamorous than you dreamt of when you were in school.
Silvia: And I feel like there's so much unique.
Silvia: Interests and so many things about each person that like, it's it'd be a shame to not get to explore that either. I'm really happy that people [00:13:00] do get to find these career paths that just seem to match what their passion is so well. So I just love seeing that.
Eric: Yeah, and once I moved up here to Portland, I did find a job in an experiential design firm.
Eric: Initially, I'm not sure if you're familiar with experiential design. I like to call it. High tech interior architecture. It's when you're working with people that are doing UX UI design and it's on screens and we joked that it was like minority report. Everyone was like, give me minority report. I want the screen.
Eric: I want to do this stuff. And my clients were linked in and Microsoft. We're doing executive briefing centers with lots of fancy screens where they would do their. What I call the dog and pony show where Boeing would come and Microsoft and want to sell a billion dollar contract of Boeing, and they would take them through all these stations.
Eric: And it was an experience for them to understand what Microsoft can do for their company. And there would be a briefing center and screens. So I pivoted out a little bit when I moved here, but I stuck with still doing construction related things. [00:14:00] We're basically owners representative on calls in. The meetings, I did that for a little while, and then I was suggested by a person that worked there previously to this company called joyful.
Eric: So I, it was just a network kind of pivot for me and I'm really happy here. And I think when I moved to Portland, that's when I started hearing about out of architecture and what Jake and Erin were doing. And I was like, oh, my God, where was this 10 years ago when I was so nervous. In the tech field of leaving, what am I doing?
Eric: And am I the only one from my class of people that did this? Like, I must be, everyone else is still doing architecture. And I think at that point, when I came to Joyful, I realized what I was doing was I stopped following my dreams and I started following happiness. And that was a really tough thing to almost come to terms with.
Eric: And I was following happiness and architecture and I loved it. I didn't dislike it. The hours were tough. The pay was low. It was competitive and stressful at times, but sometimes you're so [00:15:00] focused on your dream and the thing that you were supposed to do because you were in third grade, you went as Frank Lloyd Wright when you were supposed to pick up a famous person in history and you've had this dream since you were so little that you almost don't know why you don't have any other dreams.
Eric: At that point, I just started following happiness and. I'm really enjoying what I'm doing right now.
Silvia: Yeah, please say more about that. What does that look like putting aside what you thought your future was when you're saying letting go of dreams and pursuing happiness, yeah, what does that look like for you?
Eric: It's been so long since I was in college and I've had so many different things I've done. I think just pursuing the happiness that you have in it, but also still not giving up on the dream. Ironically, I'm studying for my license right now. I'm, I've taken many of the tests. I've taken three of the six tests.
Eric: I've failed three of them. I just want it to be, I want to be able to close that chapter and have that license. So there's still part of me that feels like I need to follow that dream. I need to finish that, the chapter of that book. [00:16:00] And the reason I haven't got my license by now is every time I get laid off, I pivot out, the focus changes, I come back.
Eric: Okay. I get my hours, start working on the tests again. COVID hits, I move. So it's always this kind of thing that's, it's just hasn't been completed yet for me. But I think right now I want to have it just as something I can do on the side. It's really not about going back to architecture, but it's still that I love it and I want to do it, but I want to do it on my terms.
Silvia: There's so many opportunities that must come along your way, like different things you're interested or see. To spend our time on the things that we do and I'm really caught on this like idea of happiness versus dreams And is it is happiness more like fleeting that this is what is good for me now Versus chasing something that may be like i'll take like a long time to do but that's my dream So i'm gonna work on that versus this just feels right for me now.
Silvia: Is this is it does it end up being like that?
Eric: Yeah, I [00:17:00] think a lot of it comes down to What you do in your day job doesn't necessarily define you and that's a tough one for me. I've always wanted to be like, I want to work the coolest companies. I want to do the coolest stuff. A lot of my identity is wrapped up in my work, but at the end of the day, if it's what you really like to do, you don't have to do it as your day job, but you can find ways to do it at night.
Eric: You can find ways to do it on the weekends. I've been DJing and playing music most of my life. I have an event production company that we do a few events a year at this point. And I got to this point where I said, I don't have to do that full time to really love it. I actually, sometimes you'd like things more that you don't do full time.
Eric: If it's like your second or third passion, you end up liking those more. But if you make those passions, the main thing you do, you end up not liking it as much because now it's work. I think there's so many cool things that architecture and people can do. I'm really inspired by what Meow Wolf is doing and like creating these spaces.
Eric: That are just like adult playgrounds that people can go into and their [00:18:00] stories. There's Mike Bennett here in Portland that does these kind of cardboard cutouts started off as like, the slow signs with the animals drive like your kids live here kind of vibe and he's created all of these things like Dinolandia and Wonderwood Springs and these just really cool environments that you can do that are still architectural based.
Eric: But they're not necessarily like in architecture. I'm trying to find ways to touch these things outside of it just being like working as an architect, build a CD set.
Eric: One of my things for my clients that I worked on this morning. And we're actually working with some 3D designers to come up with some renderings and things and a poster and a concept for them to explain what they do.
Eric: So I'm still touching architecture in all these weird different ways, but it's not necessarily construction based.
Silvia: Yeah, I think that understanding of what architecture is from people who aren't in architecture, looking in just houses, anything related to a house, they assume is part of architecture. And then inside architecture, it's just like the work that it [00:19:00] does that you, that most people get paid to do.
Silvia: And, but I feel like, It's really so much more like the creative process, the decision making, like problem solving. But also one thing I wanted to mention is when you were talking about like your DJing, and I think over time you realize the things that you just love to do, and then you give yourself permission to just do them whenever you want to invest time and money into them, just because you know that this is something that is repeatedly going to be part of your life that you choose to put into your life.
Silvia: And I think That's really important to recognize too. And I'm like, I love that. I'm at a point in my life where I'm like, you know what? This may not be like, this may not make sense, like financially speaking, or it's so much of my time, but this is just something that I want in my life. And I guess for me, that was, that is like what pursuing happiness would look like.
Eric: Architects are culture builders. You're building culture by putting together a structure and bringing people together. I feel like that's what I'm doing with when I throw an event. I'm putting [00:20:00] an event together and I'm building the culture there. And I think there's just many ways you can go about doing it.
Silvia: We actually like to ask a question. What are, how would you define an architect? And that's a beautiful answer. And I think it's so spot on too. Do you want to elaborate at all to that?
Eric: I mean, the term architect is a tricky one, right? I have to be careful to call myself an architect because I legally can't call myself one if I'm not licensed.
Eric: And that was a weird thing too, because I feel like being an architect is a mindset. It's not a certification. In the legal terms, yes it is. And obviously to sign drawings and do all that, you have to be certified. It's really a mindset. And you're just, you're building on culture, you're building on all of these amazing things.
Silvia: And now at Joyful, like what kind of decisions get brought into working with companies and building up their culture?
Eric: Everyone is different. Every company is different. Sometimes we deal with companies where there's an acquisition and one company's culture [00:21:00] was not the best. And then it's acquired by a company that has great culture or vice versa.
Eric: And how do these teams now figure out what they're doing and get on the same page? Sometimes it's just employees are burned out. Morale is low. They're focused on what they do, but they don't know how to build the culture. They don't understand how to raise morale. So, everything we do is slightly different.
Eric: We don't like to call ourselves a creative agency. I call Portland like the home of the creative agencies. I didn't really understand this until I moved here, but there's so many creative people here. So many people that are putting together all these really cool ideas. All the time. and one of the things about that is working with creative directors and strategists and starting to understand that what I thought architecture was is it's changing.
Eric: I feel like the days of the architect being the visionary, the main visionary on a project is many decades gone. Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright were like, they went to this person. And they came up with the strategy and the [00:22:00] ideas for things it was at my last company. I started realizing all the ideas now are being, they're coming up with these ideas based on like strategy.
Eric: And so strategists are now running the ideas and architects are just more of the facilitators of the building. And I started saying, who are these strategists? What backgrounds do they have? And they have backgrounds in creative writing. Sometimes they have backgrounds in real estate. And industrial design. And they're the ones that are actually coming up with the ideas.
Eric: And that was the thing that I loved so much about architecture in school was like we were the strategists. We were the ones coming up with the concepts and the ideas.
Eric: And that's the one thing about architecture that's tough for me, is it's turning into, we just need a CD set. We need it to be functional. of strategists already have the idea, this is the cool thing we wanna have on it now. Can you just facilitate this project and make it happen?
Eric: So I don't know how architects bring that back. I think there's something to be said there for trying to position, reposition architecture as the conceptual makers of the [00:23:00] space and really understand that they're the strategists.
Silvia: Yeah, absolutely. And that's probably part of the reason why so many people are leaving architecture, because they love that part of it, the idea part of it, but then they go to work and they're like, this sucks. I'm just chained to my desk Not even 40 hours, like 80 hours a week. I feel like that's why we're all leaving architecture, but maybe bring it around back to reinvigorate the, uh, industry to be a little more of what you said it was like in the past.
Eric: Yeah, that's something I really love about where I work now is that it's about quality of life. One of the things I do as a project manager is I resource my team's time. So I come up with project plans based on the budget and the amount of money we have on the project. And I say, okay, here's the timeline.
Eric: It's going to be 3 months. I'm going to need a creative director, account manager, art director, graphic designer. I mean, these types of people on the project. And I come up with the plan and then I resource their time. And we try not to resource their time over 32 hours a [00:24:00] week. And if they go over by a couple hours, it's okay, but never do I resource their time at 40 hours a week ever.
Eric: And that's because we don't want to burn people out. We don't want them to be working 4550 hour weeks. That's completely unheard of. We even have something here called a joyful practice 2 hours a week. You can decide whatever you want to do. You get the bill this time and you can do anything from, you can read a book and go for a walk, you can create music, uh, you can go into your workshop and do something fun.
Eric: And it's just called our joyful practice for two hours a week of those 32 hours. You're allowed to do whatever you want. And we do that as a way for people to recharge and get in touch with something that they want to do. That's on the clock. This is not something you have to do at night or on the weekends.
Eric: Our hope is that more companies start to look at. Life that way and don't burn your workers out and maybe don't resource them at 40 plus hours a week. So that's like the pursuing the happiness thing for me and the quality [00:25:00] of life and where I'm at now. That feeling that I get from that greater than the feeling that I have of loving architecture and going back to working 50 hours a week.
Silvia: Plus that makes me so happy to hear one of my biggest gripes working in my previous companies was that they would expect all these things to be done, but would never give you billable hours to do it. But they would also push it as Oh, yeah, if you want to get promoted and move up in the company, you should join committees, you should take on these groups and do all these things.
Silvia: And then those things like those committees would have high standards, lots of time, lots of meetings, like you would put as much work into that as your projects. But none of it was billable and it was just like you got to max it out. I think the program would reject you.
Silvia: Like you couldn't submit it unless you filled out your hours. it's the complete opposite of what you just described. And what you just described brings a smile to my face just to hear that people are practicing this, that it exists somewhere.
Eric: Yeah. I had some post traumatic stress of keeping my utilization rate very high.[00:26:00]
Eric: Like I came in here and I was like, Oh, if it's below 90. I'm in trouble because they're going to look at me like I am not doing my job and I look at everyone's I look at time cards every week and some people are supposed to have a higher utilization rate than others like account managers very low utilization rate because a lot of what they do it's developing new business.
Eric: And we don't, you don't build that time, right? It's you just working on trying to figure out what you want to do. Then we have people that are maybe graphic designers. They should have a higher utilization rate. And that's similar in architecture to you have project managers and that have a little bit of a lower utilization rate than a drafter.
Eric: But I had some about, like, my utilization rate coming in here and maybe and always try to log 40 hours. And then the owners here were like, look, it's like, we know you're working hard. You're getting your work done. It's not about showing us you're working 40 hours. If you logged 29 hours that week, we know that you're working.
Eric: We know that it might not all be billable. It's more about getting your work done. [00:27:00] And also I feel like the rates outside of architecture, the billable rates for people. Are a little bit higher, there's just I've heard everyone talking about this. Just architects just don't value it. They don't value what they do 10% of the construction cost that best people don't want to pay an architect 100, 000 dollars for a 1M project.
Eric: So I feel like our billable rates are set a little bit higher in the creative agency type world culture agency world where. There's just more value people are the customers see the value and there's something about architecture where the the clients and customers just don't see the value of what architects are doing.
Silvia: I'm sure part of it is like it's really hard to be the person making changes against the norm against what everyone else is doing and to put yourself out there with these ideas like you probably I'm sure a lot of people in architecture like running these companies. I'm sure some of them want to make these changes, but they don't feel like they're empowered to do or can do.
Silvia: Does your company also help [00:28:00] influence that or work with people to make changes that are maybe hard to implement?
Eric: We do, but it takes time. It really starts with the client trusting us. Once they trust us. And then they start to see, Oh, the workers are laughing. We've done the funniest things for that. We've put together an SNL skit. We video about some definition that they had at their company that they want to teach their workers. And we're like, look, let's film this as a skit.
Eric: We'll have the person trying to teach it, like have these nightmares and be on different game shows. And it's about a 10 minute video. And they showed at their town hall and people were just crying, laughing. It was so funny. And it's featuring one of the executives at the company. Um, It just, seeing that and seeing the workers be happy about something that they could have sent out an email that like learn this definition, learn what this is, and then re changing how it should be shown to them was just a great culture builder for the company.
Silvia: Yeah, that's so cool. It's really nice to hear people just being like innovative, fun [00:29:00] with all of these things. It's very refreshing.
Eric: Yeah, we have a great creative team here. Our creative director and our art director here are, everyone here is brilliant, but I feel like it's almost like a writing room where people are just like a think tank of ideas.
Eric: And that's the thing that really inspires me here is that it's a, it's an ideas factory, right? Whereas architecture should be an ideas factory, but sometimes it's not. And I think in architecture, it's tough to, I went through the roller coaster of losing the job few times based on the economy and things like that.
Eric: I don't know if I can do that anymore. Anytime the economy goes down, artists and architecture is a luxury industry. And most people can't even hire an architect to begin with. And it's almost like, I looked, I look at it like it's like a fine dining restaurant. You only need one sous chef and one owner, and then you need about 15 really good line cooks.
Eric: In architecture, you end up becoming one of the line cooks and it's hard to climb the rank to make it to being [00:30:00] the sous chef. So I don't know if it's a saturation thing, if it's just the way the industry is built, but it's tougher than people realize from the outside.
Silvia: Yeah, absolutely. Do you have any advice for your younger self, sitting now where you are with all these experiences, what you would have liked to hear back then, perhaps?
Eric: I would say don't be scared to leave the industry until I learned about out of architecture and I was in tech for 5 years. I was the whole time. I just had this kind of pit in my stomach that I was like, what am I doing? Just know that it's okay. And that you have an incredibly strong skill set that you're practical.
Eric: You're analytical. You're precise, you have diligence, naturally organized, you have attention to detail, but you have keen eye for spotting patterns, inconsistencies, and like all of these skills are incredibly transferable to so many industries, it's one of the best things you can go to school for, in my opinion.
Eric: You're going to be good at problem [00:31:00] solving. You're going to have a strong work ethic. There's, I've never met an architect that is lazy. I've just, it's just not a thing like they, we love what we do. So I think just understand that those skills are there and that you can do basically whatever you want.
Silvia: Absolutely. And I hope people feel encouraged to just create what they want, like those ideas that they have that they get excited about to just start putting the pieces together, talk to people, get other people excited, just to find those people that are like going to cheer you on along the way or be involved in projects with you.
Silvia: I feel like that helps a lot too, just like having that like network of people that are just as excited as you are.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, one of the things that I find that I'm really good at my job is understanding artists. I feel like there's project management and then there's this kind of newer buzzword. These buzzwords, they always keep coming up every couple of years.
Eric: There's now like being a creative project manager and I consider myself one of [00:32:00] those. And I think in the creative agency world here, the project managers call themselves creative project managers. And really what that means is that, like, you understand the creative field when I'm working with 1 of my artists and there may be getting close to going over the amount of time they should spend on a project.
Eric: I've sat and I've spent a couple of minutes talking to some of them and say, look, I know you're worried about the budget. I said, I want you to not worry about it. We have a larger budget here with multiple projects under 1 scope of work. We'll make the money up somewhere else. I want you to create the art that you want to create.
Eric: And if that means you go over by 5, 10 hours. I'm okay with it. We'll figure it out. I know how you feel, like how insecure you might feel about what you're working on because I am an artist and I've been there. So I have a unique position to be able to understand the mindset of the people that I'm helping to manage comes from doing architecture.
Eric: If I had just come into this field and just became a project manager, because I went to business school, or I went somewhere else and did something outside of [00:33:00] art, I wouldn't have that unique perspective and ideas of how to share that. With my team and I'm always trying to push them to do their best work.
Eric: That's really at the end of the day. I want them to do their best work and I don't want to burn them out.
Silvia: Is there anything that helps you identify like how you said that you're a great creative project manager? How did you realize
Eric: that? I think it's, especially in project management, you have to be, you have to be reserved at times.
Eric: You have to know when to speak up. You have to have a caring nature. You've got to build a spot, like I said, patterns and consistencies. You've got to have that attention to detail and you've got to have that incessant love of wanting it to work. And I think that that comes from architecture. Like I just want it to work and the strong work ethic, I think is one of the best things.
Eric: That can come from architecture. How many of us were in studio until 4am working on our projects, cutting basswood and gluing stuff, and then being there to present four hours later at 8am. You don't do that if you [00:34:00] don't love it. And then that translates into my daily life. Yeah, I can
Silvia: hear how much like you have a love for architecture, like everything about it, like getting into it, being an architect and like what it can embody and do for people.
Silvia: I know your company is called Joyful, but I really do feel the joy coming from you.
Eric: Oh, great. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, we're a solid team of people here and everyone is just amazing. I just spent three days. I got back yesterday. We had our off site. We have it once a year and we went into the forest and we did camping together and it was a team building thing.
Eric: We had moments of mindfulness. Uh, we had moments of play and it was just a fantastic thing and we're definitely trying to practice what we preach and make sure that, um, we can help spread that to the world. And we're starting to work with some architecture firms. We have one that we're working with for two different reasons, one possibly to help them with their culture, but also [00:35:00] this idea of getting people to come back to offices.
Eric: And architects in the beginning of the pandemic, we're like, we're going to figure this out. We're going to problem solve this. We're the ones that are going to have the answers to this. The spaces are going to be so amazing. People are going to want to come back and then it really wasn't that easy. And I think architects are starting to realize that there's a culture aspect there that maybe they're not the experts on, but they're reaching out to us to figure out how they can interwine the ideas.
Eric: And the technologies of the methods that we're employing into their designs and into their spaces and how they can actually bring those together. So it's something we haven't figured out yet. We're still working on it, but architects are starting to come to us to improve their offerings to the clients.
Silvia: That's so good to hear. I was going to ask you if you had any architects as clients. And I feel like return to office is like a really big, like sore spot for a lot of people because they really enjoy the flexibility of working from home. But it [00:36:00] feels, I don't know if it's a New York thing that like a lot of companies just want butts in seats and they're going to, they're just going to go back to the way it was before.
Silvia: And that's what I hear from a lot of my friends.
Eric: Yeah, we're allowed to work from home, so we have a 100% work from home policy. You can work from home five days a week here, but I'll tell you what, I'm here today and I come in a couple of days a week and it's because I really like this place. I really like the people I work with.
Eric: I like the vibe here. We've got a really interesting space. I can show you around on video after the podcast. I can do a little tour for you to see what this place is like. And it's just an amazing vibe. And I want to be here because the interactions with the people are so rich. So I think there's something to be said for letting people work from where they want to, but find a way for them to really want to come in.
Eric: I think that the office needs to turn into an environment for learning, not just a place for you to sit somewhere. You have to make it a place where it's something you [00:37:00] cannot get at home. And usually that's like a place to learn, a place to gather with the people. And if it's not that, if it's just having people sit there so the executives can feel good and walk around and see, people pick up on that.
Eric: And that's. That's part of what we do is we understand the culture. We understand why people are happy and why they're not
Silvia: another thing I'm picking up on is that like all of the experiences you've had will make you when you. Practice like architecture, even more thoughtful architect, which is things that you can create then are just going to impact people that much more.
Silvia: So I feel like people shouldn't be discouraged from pursuing things outside of architecture. They should absolutely embrace it and include it into their practice. And their work, because architecture embodied like people are within architecture everywhere. So why would there not want to be a strong connection between the two?
Silvia: Absolutely.
Silvia: what are you looking forward to in the future? And that can range from [00:38:00] anything work or non work related.
Eric: Or two in the future. I'm looking forward to getting my license. I feel like that's like a thing that I, I still, I, I want to get that done. And again, I'm sure you picked up on this. I didn't ever really want to leave architecture.
Eric: I do have my issues with it. I brought those up. Um, but I still would like to create spaces like, but more like play experience spaces where they're like, maybe they're up for 6 weeks. And then they just tear them down. It's like a sculpture in the park type of thing that people can run through. I'm looking forward to doing some things like that.
Eric: Some very experiential design type spaces. I'm looking forward to continually working here at Joyful and helping other companies learn and grow and be happy. And I think that's really where we came from with this idea of the world is in a messed up place after the pandemic. And, and we're just here to help make people happy.
Eric: So I'm just continually learning more. I'm trying to be brave and bold and just [00:39:00] continue learning and being kind and curious.
Silvia: Yeah, that's so beautiful. Thank you for your time, Eric.
Eric: Thank you.