Construction Junkie’s annual Best Construction Podcast of 2020 Competition is underway and the voting booth is officially open. As part of the competition, I will be individually highlighting each of the 12 nominees throughout until the booth closes on July 1. First up is The ConTechCrew Podcast.
The ConTechCrew is one of the contest’s longest tenured nominees, appearing in 5 of the 6, dating all the way back to 2016. The crew has continued to post weekly shows and in-depth interviews with most of the biggest names in construction technology.
Now on episode 222, the crew has endured several staff changes over the years, but has been able to navigate that without sacrificing any of their high quality content -- a true testament to their passion for technology. JBKnowledge CEO, James Benham, has been the figurehead of the show since its beginning and after longtime co-hosts Josh Bone and Rob McKinney successfully leveraged their tech knowledge into outside roles with other companies, they will still pop in for guest co-host roles. This full-time to part-time transition has led to a few new faces in the co-host spots, giving the show an even greater amount of tech perspective.
“We’ve had to evolve a lot since Rob, Josh and I first got together to get the show off the ground. It was a lot of work in the beginning. Nobody was really talking about Construction Tech on podcasts a few years ago so we had to plow a lot of new ground and figure out the format and what people wanted to hear,” James Benham told me, “Jeff [Sample], James [Hillegas], Buck [Davis], Tauhira [Ali], and others have been amazing additions and have brought a lot to the table. We have changed the way we cover news too to cover fewer topics in a deeper way and to involve the guest. We’ve also gotten to interview absolutely incredible people and even some really famous ones like Mike Rowe, Malcolm Gladwell, Jack Dangermond and more - truly humbling.”
The hour-long show’s format begins with a guest interview and finishes with technology stories from the news. Sometimes the stories they choose aren’t exactly on the nose in relation to construction, but they have the ability to extrapolate what is happening outside the industry and the vision to see how that tech can be applied to construction.
Benham and all of his co-hosts not only love technology, but they live it. Some develop software and hardware and others use it in the field, which allows them the ability to ask their guests questions from many different angles. That experience also helps them explain the inherent complications some tech products could create to their audience.
“People want the straight skinny and don’t want us to dance around the issues - they want to know what’s the hottest new tech, what they should try and they need help filtering all of the information out there into something usable,” Benham explained about his audience, “There’s really so much to track that it’s almost impossible for one person to track it all so they really like that we distill it all down for them.”
To find out more about The ConTechCrew Podcast, you can visit their webpage, watch video of each episode, or listen to the audio. If you’d like to vote for the show for Best Construction Podcast of 2020, you can do so by clicking or tapping here.
Shane is the creator of Construction Junkie and an active construction project manager. In his career, he has managed interior remodel projects, site development, construction safety, governmental project compliance, and facility maintenance. He has a strong passion for construction technology and safety, as well as sharing the knowledge or insights he has gained throughout his career.