Kylie Davis: (00:01)

Welcome to the PropTech Podcast. It's Kylie Davis here, and I'm delighted to be your host as we explore the brave new world where technology and real estate collide. I passionately believe we need to create and grow a sense of community between the innovators and real estate agents, and sharing our stories is a great way to do that.

Kylie Davis: (00:20)

Now, the aim of each episode is to introduce business to a proptech innovator who is pushing the boundaries of what's possible and to explore the issues and challenges raised by the technology and how they can create amazing property experiences. My guest in this episode is the wonderful, Nigel Dalton, one of real estate's original big thinkers.

Kylie Davis: (00:42)

Now, most of us know him from his days at realestate.com.au where he led the REA Labs Project. He has recently joined software consultancy ThoughtWorks, expanding his background and training as a social scientist into a much more roving brief. Now in every episode of the PropTech Podcast, we ask our guests what they think the next five years will hold for the property industry.

Kylie Davis: (01:06)

In this podcast, Nigel gives us an in-depth look at the three major trends that are driving the future of real estate. Believe it or not, it doesn't really involve blockchain, AI, or big data. Instead, the future of real estate looks like a lot more human. So here to tell us all about it, Nigel Dalton, welcome to the PropTech Podcast.

Nigel Dalton: (01:27)

I'm delighted to be here. It's been some time since I've talked about proptech. I think about proptech all the time. It's impossible not to in this 21st century, is it?

Kylie Davis: (01:36)

I know. So tell me, what have you been up to since leaving REA? How is your Covid?

Nigel Dalton: (01:42)

Well, I had a very poor retirement. That's for sure. I left REA. Wow, sad to leave research and development in particular, but I had a book in mind. A book about productivity, which I've been thinking about as an idea after watching REA grow over eight or nine years going. There must be a formula to this, and reflecting on the other things I've done, startups and scale ups those, and I said, "Oh, I think I recognise the formula." So, immediately set out to write the book. Got about 25,000 words into it last Christmas, in the last summer-

Kylie Davis: (02:15)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (02:15)

... the pre-Covid summer. A very kind offer came to come and work for a company called ThoughtWorks who are known in the world as software developers, data people. So, really nerdy nerds.

Kylie Davis: (02:27)

Yup, one of them.

Nigel Dalton: (02:28)

They were looking for a bit of a storyteller social scientist, and my work fits their work really nicely. There are that overlap, a bit like you. The overlap with technology and the real world, and people, and humans, I think is the most interesting place you could be. They said, "We'll, come there." I said, "Okay." What a bit of luck, with Covid coming in straight after that. Here we are locked down in Australia.

Kylie Davis: (02:57)

So, ThoughtWorks doesn't just do real estate or property, it's got a bigger, broader brief?

Nigel Dalton: (03:03)

No. It barely does real estate or property.

Kylie Davis: (03:04)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (03:06)

We are an interestingly a big supplier to the REA Group. I've known them for a long time, but they've built software for banks. They've built software for telecom companies. They've built software for lot of work in the neobank sector which is sort of adjacent. The fintech is the sister of proptech really. A tonne of work in those newly emerging businesses in Australia, things like Tyro and all the cool kids.

Kylie Davis: (03:36)

All the cool banking kids.

Nigel Dalton: (03:37)

Yeah, really disrupting getting a mortgage. That's a fascinating sector. It's pretty hard in Melbourne to ignore proptech. It's an active community.

Kylie Davis: (03:48)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (03:49)

That good online community. We've got people like Property Exchange Australia in town who've got some pretty big ambitions that have come a long way.

Kylie Davis: (03:56)

Shout out to PEXA.

Nigel Dalton: (03:57)

You can't have a beer in this town without talking proptech.

Kylie Davis: (04:01)

So, you have always been someone who's had your eye on the future of real estate. Where do you think we're going next? What are the big trends or what are you saying out there?

Nigel Dalton: (04:12)

Well, the last year certainly accelerated all the things. I think if you had a weakness going into 2020, that probably got found out to be honest. If you had an organisational culture issue or you had a technology investment issue, if your team couldn't work remotely in February 2020, you're about to find out the pain of that.

Kylie Davis: (04:35)

There are a lot of people paddling very, very quickly.

Nigel Dalton: (04:36)

Just the simplest of things, getting on to the internet, collaborating with each other in a way other than face-to-face. A lot of businesses have solved those problems in the past but not too many necessarily in the proptech industry. So, everyone found that as the challenge. Here we are all this time, I've done a lot of reading in lockdown. That's being the magnificent part of it.

Nigel Dalton: (05:03)

One of my favourite books Post Corona by Scott Galloway. He wrote a great book called The Four which is about the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook, and their impact on all of us whether it's proptech or whether it's other things, updated it after reflecting on Covid as to how did it happen.

Nigel Dalton: (05:26)

Part of his opening chapter, he makes an astonishing statistic. You think about retail as a typical industry of not being terribly technological. A lot of complaining about the internet and how it's stealing all the customers and all that goods, really changing the way retail was done. Retail is a tiny fraction online.

Nigel Dalton: (05:48)

You would think from Gerry Harvey that 90% of retail have moved online and all the rich folk are going broke because nobody turned up into their shops anymore. That's capital BS basically because in America, 16% of retail spend was online as at a year ago, just 16%.

Kylie Davis: (06:06)

Wow, only 16.

Nigel Dalton: (06:08)

It was growing at a glacial 1% a year.

Kylie Davis: (06:12)

Wow.

Nigel Dalton: (06:13)

Here's the interesting thing. In the next 10 weeks after Covid hit America, so March, April, it grew from 16% to 28% of all spend was done online. So, it grew basically 10 years in eight weeks.

Kylie Davis: (06:32)

Eight weeks, wow.

Nigel Dalton: (06:34)

Do you think it's going to go back? Are people going to stop buying? Who gives a crap toilet paper online or all of those things? Do you think they're going to go back to?

Kylie Davis: (06:44)

No. I don't think.

Nigel Dalton: (06:45)

Habits got changed.

Kylie Davis: (06:48)

I think in the real estate industry, what I have been warning about is this risk of a bungee stretch that we adopted all available tech, while we were in that lockdown period. Once as things ease up, there's going to be a desire, which had been, "Oh, do we really make to do some of it?" That kind of a bit of a ping. Then we will find it.

Nigel Dalton: (07:10)

That's going to define 2021s haves and have nots.

Kylie Davis: (07:14)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (07:14)

Now, the challenge is of course, I think the real estate industries are pretty renowned for living for the now-

Kylie Davis: (07:21)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (07:21)

... not created, putting money aside in good times for later on for investment. That might be an individual behavioural description it might be, not organisational behavioural description.

Kylie Davis: (07:29)

I think it's generally accepted.

Nigel Dalton: (07:35)

Some investment is required to master this thing. So, some people are going to use their own bias as to go, "Well, none of my customers are on the internet. They don't want to know those things. My business is bricks and mortar." It's important right now to think about the world, the context that we're in, and then figure it out for yourself where it's going to go.

Nigel Dalton: (07:57)

I do believe there are some megatrends that have been showing up through Covid that are going to be really felt down on high street [crosstalk 00:08:05] agency office there that they're inescapable. Some of which are going to be tough to deal with and some which have tremendous opportunities. I look around the industry and the people I know. I think there are still a lot of people and I need to introduce my Abyssinian at this point who is determined to stay online with me unnoticed.

Kylie Davis: (08:26)

That's all right. I have a schnauzer sleep on my toes.

Nigel Dalton: (08:29)

That's becoming a part of our lives, isn't it along the way? It's time to face into this megatrends and figure out what's good for you.

Kylie Davis: (08:38)

What are they? Let's unpack them.

Nigel Dalton: (08:40)

Number one, I try to encourage people to think about population as a megatrend.

Kylie Davis: (08:45)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (08:49)

It's fundamentally has driven our industry for a very long time. Who were the people? Where are they demographically? How old are they? If we think through the 2030, that's going to change dramatically. We look today a population pyramid. Those graphs you did at school or uni with women on the right and men on the left. It used to be shaped like a big and fat triangle back in 1980.

Kylie Davis: (09:15)

Shoulder pad shirt.

Nigel Dalton: (09:16)

That was lots of young people. People under the age of 30, and that was grand for people like me going, "Plenty of taxes to support my old age from those people. That will be great." Now, they've all moved through and we have not being replacing the children. So now, it's shaped like a big bulge in the middle with a skinny bottom and a skinny top.

Kylie Davis: (09:39)

Are we talking hourglass?

Nigel Dalton: (09:40)

Yeah, it's an hourglass.

Kylie Davis: (09:41)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (09:44)

Not skinny, those reverse hourglass. It's kind of a pear-shaped perhaps, you might say. Now that's interesting as at 2020, but you go through the 2050. It's the long game here. I know most of you people are not really thinking about that or maybe 2030. We're going to see that bulge has moved towards retirement. So, we talk about boomers as a thing and take the boomers. It's something I work on. So boomertech hashtag, but boomertown is what real estate agents need to think about.

Nigel Dalton: (10:18)

I love this simple statistic, a book by Liz Allen last year, The Future of Us, which is the future of Australia's population. I'm talking about different scenarios of immigration. Goodness me, if we don't allow immigration, then the tax basically this country is in terrible shape. That today's 30-year olds are going to have miserable retirements. I can tell you that now.

Nigel Dalton: (10:39)

They won't own houses in the same numbers. So, what I love. The number one five-year cohort of human beings in Australia sort of aged 80 to 85, 60 to 65, women 80 to 85 will be running Australia in 2050.

Kylie Davis: (10:53)

Awesome. Why? 2050, hang on. That would be my-

Nigel Dalton: (10:55)

That will be the single largest five-year age cohort.

Kylie Davis: (11:00)

That could be me. Why am I healthy? Because we're the only ones left.

Nigel Dalton: (11:04)

Because you will have a voice and you will be powerful, and you're going to have needs.

Kylie Davis: (11:07)

We can have money.

Nigel Dalton: (11:08)

We look at what's happening in communities. Let's face it. Real estate agents basically build communities. It's not the houses. It's the communities, and that's why they're part of communities and why it's always been a neighbourhood thing. Very difficult to build these brands bigger than a neighbourhood because that's just far as you look. People don't move multiple posts and codes away that often.

Kylie Davis: (11:32)

No.

Nigel Dalton: (11:32)

What are the needs of those people? It would take someone chatting to the director of Flinders Hospital in Adelaide for example. They have one single symptom of an ageing population that they're going to need to look at in their strategic plan in the next 20 years. What do you reckon is the biggest medical crisis? Adelaide has the oldest population for about today. It's a beautiful place to retire obviously. What do you reckon the number one thing they're planning for is?

Kylie Davis: (12:03)

Dementia?

Nigel Dalton: (12:04)

No. Interestingly, no. I mean, dementia is a problem. In New Zealand, it's rife. I have personal experience with it. Something like 20% of people over 75. Not to mention, it doesn't drive the level of cost in the healthcare system that this problem does.

Kylie Davis: (12:27)

Lack of technology and hand off of data?

Nigel Dalton: (12:30)

Not. Loneliness.

Kylie Davis: (12:32)

Oh, well.

Nigel Dalton: (12:33)

So loneliness and its connection to illness and mental health is massive. So, I see this huge role in the world of building communities, of connecting those communities. Now, it's going to help along the way. Imagine you're a real estate agent. This is in 20 years' time. You've noticed the ageing of your neighbourhood. If you're a property manager, do you know what you need to do?

Nigel Dalton: (12:56)

You need to extend your mind as to what property management is about. To maybe thinking about helping the community solve loneliness with connection between people. Maybe think about supplying nursing services. Why wouldn't a real estate agent with some brilliant home technology like internet of things type of devices. I'm delighted to say my current employer has always made some amazing stuff for an English company called MySense. Five sensors in the home could track the health of an elderly person and keep them in their home longer.

Nigel Dalton: (13:29)

This is like extended property management by definition. Now, I ran into property managers. Far too many of them just want to click the rent, Kylie, that's the truth of it, take their commission. I think the future thinkers are going to go, "How can I automate the homes of people in my community with internet of things device?" One on the bed, one on the toilet, so you know when it's flushing. That's really important. One on the lounge, one on the TV, and one at the front door. Between those five and the data that you were talking about that goes out of those sensors, you can pretty well judge the health and condition of that person.

Kylie Davis: (14:07)

Because at the moment, you can get ... I mean, we had this for my dad. You can get a thing that goes around their neck. If they go down, or if they disappear, it sends off a beep and it does that, but they're actually really awkward and practically difficult.

Nigel Dalton: (14:20)

How does your dad feel about that? Mine dad weren't wearing his.

Kylie Davis: (14:26)

Well, he has dementia. So, he just did what he was told.

Nigel Dalton: (14:28)

I know.

Kylie Davis: (14:28)

Not that he knew to push the buttons and see what happens. So, there was a problem there.

Nigel Dalton: (14:34)

My mom had been ensuring the same and refused to wear it. Now my dad, he doesn't, lives in the home on his home. He's too proud to do it. They would as a kid. As one of the three boys of the children, would I pay $100 a month for a subscription to a real estate agent in the neighbourhood which is ... Now, you think of who, what businesses I distribute around every neighbourhood of New Zealand in this case? A real estate agent.

Kylie Davis: (14:56)

Yeah, definitely.

Nigel Dalton: (14:57)

Would I pay a subscription to them and to have a service where they can hire someone on a bike to whip around or maybe they can make the network of off work nurses that need about extra cash.

Kylie Davis: (15:09)

So, population is going to provide us with new business opportunities.

Nigel Dalton: (15:14)

Huge.

Kylie Davis: (15:16)

I guess it's also something for us to be watching in terms of market health and transaction volumes and things like that because what we say with population is that government policies to stop immigration or increase immigration, or encourage babies being born, and support women working and juggling policies to get women by having kids and going back to work. They all impact on population.

Nigel Dalton: (15:44)

They do. We have to keep an eye on this because we can have an influence on this, who we vote for, what's being chatted about. We talk for so long about the environmental crisis of overpopulation of the world. 2060, it's going backwards again. That's the interesting thing. China is getting smaller. India is getting smaller, and Australia is definitely shrinking.

Nigel Dalton: (16:07)

Fundamentally, 2038, the biggest transition of wealth between my generation and the next one down. Do you reckon they're going to buy houses with that money or they're just going to be so self-indulgent? They buy cars, travel, and everything else? What's going to happen to the housing of stock of Australia? Who's going to buy it?

Nigel Dalton: (16:29)

In my thesis is corporates. That's where I go. That's were Amazon will start to buy back in, and people who've had Amazon Prime subscription by then for 15 years will happily pay their rent on Amazon Prime.

Kylie Davis: (16:44)

Yup, why not? Why wouldn't they?

Nigel Dalton: (16:47)

Amazon will be so good at all of the social interaction and the help desk. Imagine, you're a property manager competing with Amazon down the road and the call centre and it's like, "Whoa, that's a scary thing." The second take thing around population is the 2020 equivalent of the railway line. Now, this is a funny story because Australia has stuffed up infrastructure before.

Kylie Davis: (17:13)

No. Never.

Nigel Dalton: (17:16)

1865 and the railways. Now, I want you to think about the railway in Australia in the 19th century as being the connecting piece of infrastructure that ensured small towns in Outback New South Wales, Victoria even existed, enable their produce to get to market and people to get to and from. That's why we have an incredible around it with most of which are bike trails now.

Kylie Davis: (17:39)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (17:41)

I love those. They used to be absolute links. The same thing today as the internet. You know what? They stuff it up in the 1860s as well. So in the 1860s, different states build different gauge, different gaps between the rails. So, you get some great towns like Albury, Wodonga, started coming up because they needed to move all the freight of one train and moved it to another train for the Victorian rail gauge and then move it off again when it got to Adelaide.

Nigel Dalton: (18:09)

If you go to the internet and check out a map of the NBN. So, I get to ask. What's going to happen to property values in Australia? How do I know? Where should I invest? What's going to happen? Go to a map of the NBN as you can find online. The purple bits which is where they've got fast NBN.

Kylie Davis: (18:31)

Internet.

Nigel Dalton: (18:31)

Those are the towns because we're all going to move away from the big cities.

Kylie Davis: (18:35)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (18:36)

We've just proven we don't need to if you're in one of the half of Australian jobs that are service knowledge work or otherwise. You don't need to be in the city. Talk about an amazing, largely unsupervised by adults experimental work by sociology, Covid was it. I'm working with businesses who got having amazing results with their staff spreading through the wind and now starting to rent and buy away from Melbourne. Many of them are closer to their customers there. The towns with the internet are key. It's the haves and the have nots of Australia. Have you got railway line through your town?

Kylie Davis: (19:17)

I feel an urgent desire to jump online and then research this right away.

Nigel Dalton: (19:20)

You get on it. I tell you what? This public transport, well, I was looking at Adelaide yesterday. I'm looking at the map, that's remarkable. So Port Pirie, Renmark, great places to be starting to do property investment because now we see the two trains colliding. An ageing population going, "You know what? I'm done with the city and the kids have grown up. I got to maintain all these? Maybe not next year. For sure, why would I stay here?

Nigel Dalton: (19:44)

I mean, I love Melbourne and the arts and all those kind of things but I can trade this place down to an investment property and a house in a rural part of Australia and probably will.

Kylie Davis: (19:56)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (19:58)

So, that's megatrend number one, population.

Kylie Davis: (20:00)

Population.

Nigel Dalton: (20:00)

Think of the ageing population and think of where they're going to live. That's opportunity galore as far as I'm concerned.

Kylie Davis: (20:09)

What's the second megatrend?

Nigel Dalton: (20:11)

Megatrend number two is the shape of work.

Kylie Davis: (20:14)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (20:16)

This is going to affect your commercial real estate agents obviously, but it's going to affect us all in the shape of our jobs and some of us are better at this than others. Now the real [inaudible 00:20:26] is that people of my age, 57, don't believe that learning is part of my job.

Kylie Davis: (20:34)

Don't you?

Nigel Dalton: (20:35)

Two phases in life, Kylie. The learning phase, and once you leave school-

Kylie Davis: (20:40)

You throw it. You're done.

Nigel Dalton: (20:41)

... reading books, sitting down and thinking, drawing stuff, that's over. That's kid's stuff.

Kylie Davis: (20:49)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (20:50)

I'm adult now. I don't need it. If I have a dollar for every real estate principal who's bragged to me they don't read, I don't need to.

Kylie Davis: (20:58)

Oh, no.

Nigel Dalton: (20:58)

I don't need to. There's no need to know. It's all about the people, bricks and mortar and people.

Kylie Davis: (21:02)

Oh no, stop. You're hurting me.

Nigel Dalton: (21:04)

That's not going to work. What we've got luckily is a generation coming through who are lifelong learners, absolutely natural to them. They have to keep up. Even just to keep up with Fortnite or to keep up with Minecraft. These kids are on YouTube learning the whole time. That we've created a generation of lifelong learners. They're going to be fantastic.

Nigel Dalton: (21:31)

I tell you what. They're going to be really annoyed having to work for the 40 to 60 year olds who believe they know everything already. Work is going to change because with no question, you're going to have to keep learning new software. You're going to have to keep learning new laws, new regulations, new compliance, new skills, new conversations, new technology constantly for the next 20 years.

Kylie Davis: (21:56)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (21:57)

I know I've just put a few of your listeners wide off saying that because they go, "Just stop. Can we just stop?"

Kylie Davis: (22:04)

My listeners are pretty cool. I think they all get it. I think they are readers, and I think they probably are all learners and that's why they're listening. Yeah, I think as an industry it's going to be. As an industry, it's going to be something we really need to get our brains around.

Kylie Davis: (22:20)

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Kylie Davis: (22:50)

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Kylie Davis: (23:29)

You think too though that traditionally, the way we were taught to learn because I'm a little bit behind you. The way we were taught to learn was quiet dense and intense. Whereas, now it's something that happens as easily as breathing. If you're reading anything, it happens all the time.

Nigel Dalton: (23:53)

It has to be snackable. I'm part of a startup that is working in the learning space. Getting large content down the snackable chunks that fits on a mobile phone screen isn't it, and quite the odds.

Kylie Davis: (24:02)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (24:05)

It can't be consumed over the time it takes to drink almond latte and not much used to paper. They're just learning design those kind of things. One of the dilemmas of the industry today is it's in this tremendous transition period. So, we've had it before, which was life and property was up. Nobody can even remember the last time property went downhill. You ask a young Australia man, they haven't faced a recession like this since about the 1990s. Nobody knew what to do with it.

Kylie Davis: (24:33)

[inaudible 00:24:33] that was ages ago.

Nigel Dalton: (24:37)

It didn't really affect Australia for very long.

Kylie Davis: (24:39)

No.

Nigel Dalton: (24:39)

So, think of this in the big act to make a transition. This is a transitionary period and works transition from what it was, a place you went, to a thing you do. We're in the middle of it. So, it's confusing and ambiguous and it's not opening a door, closing a door, and everything's change. We're in a messy middle of it which is why it's confusing along the way.

Nigel Dalton: (25:06)

What people need to take about particularly right now. I know a number of people with agencies who are absolutely relying on the value of their agency for their retirement plan. That's why you need to think megatrends because if you're going to sell your agency whether it's [inaudible 00:25:19] dominated or otherwise, in the next five to 10 years, these megatrends are going to bite you.

Nigel Dalton: (25:26)

Have you shown any kind of automation, any productivity obsession with your agency? "Oh no, I didn't want to spend the money on that because it's all cash out of my pocket when I'm retiring. I got the Range Rover to pay off. The house at Portsea and all those kind of things." It's like, "Well, okay. Your agency is not going to be worth a squillion dollars when you retire anymore." In fact, probably worth nothing.

Kylie Davis: (25:53)

No. It's going to get broken up and sold for parts.

Nigel Dalton: (25:57)

Huge tragedy. Huge tragedy because these young agents coming through. These kids have trained on Minecraft and Fortnite who are into collaboration, and learning, and watching YouTube to figure out how to get stuff done, they're going to win. They're going to kick ass. I know that's great but it gets scary for us old folks, that's for sure.

Kylie Davis: (26:18)

Little confronting.

Nigel Dalton: (26:19)

Shape of work. I don't think people are going to go back to the office to be honest. If I look at the list of big American tech leaders who are not going back to the office, not forcing people back into the big sign and the lovely big flash premises downtown, agency office, not going to be relevant in five years' time. So, start now. If your lease runs out soon, don't renew it.

Kylie Davis: (26:40)

No. Just look at some shared space. Look, the shape of work to me that seems really interesting that I've seen through, I can't tell you the number of property principals that I've spoken to who have complained that they're having trouble with their property management team because young people don't want to work. In fact, won't let older women who might have school age kids work because they can't do the eight or seven that's required to property manage properly.

Kylie Davis: (27:12)

Then you think, we've got Covid's actually shown is that you can be flexible and you can combine work and home, and you can have people accountable to key outcomes and let them manage the timing around that. So the shape of work in real estate, the lesson that Covid has taught us is that we can get a lot more flexible and creative about how we employ people and the type of people that we're employing for different roles because actually it's been that commanding control thinking that has limited us or limited the industry in what it thought was possible.

Nigel Dalton: (27:46)

It is. You couldn't have actually forced a group of middle-aged dull white guys the managerial roles to undertake an experiment like Covid to live with us for all the money in the world.

Kylie Davis: (27:58)

No.

Nigel Dalton: (27:59)

Now, the people who are clamouring, "Let's get back to the office. Let's get back to the office," are those micro managers. They're not very good at measuring productivity at all or thinking laterally about an untapped workforce who can work between 10:00 and 3:00 for example, and probably get a lot more than done between 10:00 and 3:00 than a typical bloke turning up for his latte at 8:00 in the morning or whatever it is. Poor management is at the root of Australia's biggest productivity issue.

Nigel Dalton: (28:30)

So, you got a group of people who are good at checking the role. They can tell if you're present on and on. They think that's management. "All the desks are full up and down, all good." The second level of sophistication is are they doing something? Are they active? "Well, yes, they got a computer screen open. I am now judging them to be productive."

Nigel Dalton: (28:53)

Level three of sophistication of the traditional Australian manager ... It's my cat complaining in the background that I've poorly managed their food. Are they stressed? Are they busy? Are they leaning in? Literally, managers walking up and down the aisle like we're a hundred years ago just checking. Are they busy? Are they stressed? Yes, it's good. They got no idea if their productive and focused on outputs, Kylie. No.

Kylie Davis: (29:20)

Right. No.

Nigel Dalton: (29:21)

We need those people to retire and go to the beach and get the hell out of workplaces because they're no longer relevant. They're dinosaurs. I'll give the list of who's not going back to work. Facebook, Dropbox, Zillow, Goldman Sachs, Slack, Mastercard, Shopify, Google, Twitter, ThoughtWorks, my own company. "Yeah, but they're all foreign companies, Nigel. Down here in Australia, we're bricks and mortar, people-to-people people."

Nigel Dalton: (29:52)

Well, Telstra, don't come back to work. You know what? PEXA, Property Exchange Australia. They don't have the need to go back to work. They will flexible. Let's be fair. There are people who need to get out of their tiny flats and Carlton and Melbourne with no heating and no internet, and into a workplace to be productive. Great, make spaces for them.

Nigel Dalton: (30:11)

ANZ Bank, National Australia Bank, Atlassian, Australia's most highly capitalised digital business. Don't come back to work, don't need to. They've figured out they can work remotely. Australia Post, Envato, TransferWise, they're one of those neotech fintech people. Don't be a dinosaur.

Kylie Davis: (30:32)

No. How is that going to impact property? That's going to radically change our cities, isn't it?

Nigel Dalton: (30:40)

It is. It's going to radically change that value of towers, that's for sure. It's still a transitionary period.

Kylie Davis: (30:43)

I still have an awful lot of research work coming on.

Nigel Dalton: (30:48)

It's not a light switch. It's not going happen overnight because leases last 10 years. So, this is just going to be start winding it down and people can afford to get away. We'll convert those buildings into other things. I also think the most precious room in new builds particularly put in homes is going to be the home office.

Kylie Davis: (31:11)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (31:11)

They're the number one feature to build in a home or the developing in some way in a property. Home office, great connection. Door that locks. Wow, what an asset.

Kylie Davis: (31:25)

If I was building a new residential tower now, as well as the obligatory café and concierge and all access, I would actually be putting almost not a way work but a shared office spacing to it, like a shared workspace.

Nigel Dalton: (31:39)

Completely. There's that opportunity to do so. Those are going to be the last of all assets that a generation of workers expect. So, another interesting thing that will happen I think if people look at the data. We did this in REA Group when I was there. We did this little experiment is we got the post codes of where everyone lived, it's one of our famous hacked day of things. I wonder if people are clustered together around Melbourne as a city?

Kylie Davis: (32:08)

In terms of if I work somewhere and I live close?

Nigel Dalton: (32:11)

Well, the biggest cluster was in Richmond where the head office was. People had moved to be close to the office to avoid the dreaded Melbourne community, which is 45 minutes an hour easily for many, many people. What we discovered that where clusters of people who lived in-

Kylie Davis: (32:24)

Melbourne and commuting. You guys are complete amateurs. I'm from Sydney. If you come here, wish I had to do that properly.

Nigel Dalton: (32:30)

Yes. We discovered there were clusters. We went, "You know what? If we just got an old shop or something in commercial real estate that wasn't leased out at the moment. We could have a little place where people could gather like a satellite office." They could hang out with people from the same, not necessarily the same work team but from the same company and enjoy the culture and the vibe and the lunch conversation. Maybe if they got toddlers at home, get away from them for a period of time.

Kylie Davis: (32:57)

Sometimes that's good, yup.

Nigel Dalton: (32:59)

Shorten their commute to 10 minutes instead of an hour. That became a real interest to us, the satellite office thing. I think that will be a thing in the future as well because it's not hard to plan for in the data. That's for sure. Australia Post experience at this has been fascinating. I don't know if you've noticed. Have you got the Australia Post app on your phone?

Kylie Davis: (33:19)

Oh, I haven't.

Nigel Dalton: (33:19)

Well, the consequence of the big lockdown as I have, and I've got quite a lot of things I've bought online and Australia Post had been delivery partner in many cases. Great app. How they've solved the nightmare of early on of that rise in e-commerce, meaning an exponential rise in delivery demand? Is by looking on maps, probably on real commercial they're coming at you or something, and finding empty spaces that can become network nodes.

Kylie Davis: (33:49)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (33:49)

Outside of-

Kylie Davis: (33:50)

Just like hub and spoke kind of thinking isn't it?

Nigel Dalton: (33:52)

It is. Then, little hubs and spokes at the ends of those. So, parcels can be swapped without coming to a central facility. This is how they've sold delivery is by doing multiple networks. It's that kind of creative thinking that real estate needs to do as well. Do you need a giant hub anymore? No, but little nodes and staying connected. Those kind of things, really, really important.

Nigel Dalton: (34:19)

That's my thinking on the shape of work. I guess the answer is not easy for everyone. It's not a uniformed answer either. There are different jobs and different companies where you will need to go back to work, but everyone should think about it, no question.

Kylie Davis: (34:39)

The question too is do you need to go back to work from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday? Do you need to jump into the car or jump on to the tram, or the train, or the bus at 7:45 or 7:30 in the morning, and lose an hour and a half every day to be at a particular spot at the same time that everyone else is going to be at that particular spot, and press the button of the lift at the same time that everyone presses the button of the lift and wait to-

Nigel Dalton: (35:07)

Catch Covid on the way.

Kylie Davis: (35:09)

... catch Covid on the way or spend three hours waiting for the lift because only four are allowed in the lift at a time. Do we do that or do we actually start to think? I think the human side of it is extraordinary. I mean, I remember when my kids were little, just raging because if I could do a 38 or 40-hour a week from Monday to Thursday and it would be unacceptable. My husband could have done Tuesday to Friday, then we could only had three daycare days and we both would have a bit of time. You'd have time up where you can just going to be more creative. You get more creative.

Nigel Dalton: (35:44)

It would have been a win all around. You got to ask yourself, why doesn't that thinking change over time?

Kylie Davis: (35:48)

Because that's not the way we do it.

Nigel Dalton: (35:53)

This is why I'm a social scientist is going, "Okay. I'm now really fascinated about what are the psychological reasons why old white guys won't change the rules of work."

Kylie Davis: (36:01)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (36:02)

It comes down to [inaudible 00:36:04]. So, there's Jungian theories of that inner child in you that was triggered in some way about being left behind, or being judged, or otherwise. That's what's causing it. That's why we're in these messy times. I swear.

Kylie Davis: (36:19)

Oh dear, the psychology of old white guys and a day or two after the inaugurations. There's so much context there, isn't there?

Nigel Dalton: (36:29)

I love the inauguration because I lived in America for nearly five years and my son is American. I've got a little bit of a stake in it. I shed a tear with Lady Gaga. It was just fantastic.

Kylie Davis: (36:40)

She nailed it.

Nigel Dalton: (36:40)

I have such hopes for that economy actually recovering. They were setting a pretty dirty precedent globally for behaviour and democracies which I wasn't pleased about.

Kylie Davis: (36:50)

No, I don't.

Nigel Dalton: (36:51)

They turned it around, give it a go.

Kylie Davis: (36:52)

Go Joe.

Nigel Dalton: (36:54)

Third megatrend, Kylie.

Kylie Davis: (36:56)

Yup, let's get to it.

Nigel Dalton: (36:56)

The shape of our businesses. So, this is being changing for a long time and Covid has accelerated this considerably. I still talk to a lot of people who divide the world into offline businesses, bricks and mortar, hand to hand, face-to-face, all those kind of things and a lot of real estate like that.

Kylie Davis: (37:16)

Mobile phone. I don't need tech because I just call people on my phone.

Nigel Dalton: (37:20)

Then, there's the clicks people who are just like me, like virtual reality property portals, and mobile apps and data, and AI, and all the things I'm fascinated by. Now the truth is, it's not one or the other. We used to think about this at REA Group, real estate company. Was it an online thing or an offline thing? It's not offline, it's online. We're Australia's biggest online portal, and one of the biggest online portals in the world. We're online, online, online gathering out for inspection. What have people got in their hands?

Kylie Davis: (37:53)

A printer?

Nigel Dalton: (37:53)

Got a mobile phone. Is your app open on it, no? Why is the app open and there are that open for inspection. It was because they're getting such poor information from the person managing the app and for inspection, they're just revisiting it on the app.

Kylie Davis: (38:11)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (38:12)

It's only when you get that acceptance that this entire industry is O2O, online to offline. That we will transition it to a better place.

Kylie Davis: (38:22)

Well, Tom Panos says, doesn't he? He said online and offline has to go online. I'm sorry, inline. You have to get everything working together. It's not one or the other.

Nigel Dalton: (38:34)

Very much so. I think I see this globally. People like Amazon producing Amazon Health for their own people. Good timing too, which is just it's an app now. Okay, it's an online app. It's Dr. Google telling them their symptoms are X, Y, or Z. They should take a medicine on a particular time. No, they've integrated humans into it as well, call centres, nurses on call, ability to dispatch a nurse, and it's only for the privilege of employees. I tell you what? They can revolutionise healthcare in America.

Kylie Davis: (39:06)

They can revolutionise it in Australia.

Nigel Dalton: (39:08)

You know what? It became possible in lockdown, telehealth.

Kylie Davis: (39:11)

You could see a doctor over a Zoom or over a call.

Nigel Dalton: (39:16)

You could have an intelligent conversation with your doctor without waiting 20 minutes in a Covid-ridden waiting room. The world didn't end.

Kylie Davis: (39:26)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (39:28)

Look, that was tremendous opportunities. I talk a lot about Amazon. I am amazed by them. They've done an incredible job in Australia. They are really good at logistics. They will be in the housing industry at some stage. So you need, if you're an agency in Australia, you need to be as good as Amazon at e-commerce, at operations, at running a business, at hiring, all those kind of things because we know they crushed the bookstores of America.

Nigel Dalton: (39:57)

I was there when the Barnes & Nobles and all those kind of things started to shut down with Borders. Now we have them as Angus & Robertson. You know Angus & Robertson?

Kylie Davis: (40:07)

Vaguely, yeah.

Nigel Dalton: (40:09)

Hundreds of jobs lost because they built giant warehouses full of books and ship them out within hours. It was incredible. So, this is the insight for me and from another book I read last year by a guy called Douglas Rushkoff called Team Human. He's really amazing. He talks about the impact in a people to people type of industry, of keeping it human as well as using tech.

Nigel Dalton: (40:36)

So, it turns out there are more bookstores in America today than there were in 1996. Those bookstores are more profitable than they were in 1996.

Kylie Davis: (40:49)

1996.

Nigel Dalton: (40:51)

A friend of mine in New Zealand just bought a bookstore.

Kylie Davis: (40:54)

Right.

Nigel Dalton: (40:57)

Is this crazy talk? What's going on? This is the Amazon. They're going to get crushed, right?

Kylie Davis: (41:02)

No. It's quite pleasurable to buy a book in a bookstore.

Nigel Dalton: (41:04)

There is four factors to success of those bookstores, and we've got several of them here in Melbourne. We've got the Avenue Bookstore. We got Readings. I love going there. Four factors which can be applied to real estate. Community. They are a place where people meet. Curation. The people who work there are great at helping you find presents, lists, and they publish those in an email newsletter. So, they're curating content. They're curating hows. You should be, in five years you'd be in investment site.

Kylie Davis: (41:36)

Stop you making a bad choice.

Nigel Dalton: (41:38)

People want advice. Advice is value. Convening. It's a place for book clubs to meet, and have a coffee, and have a chat. Collective. The industry, the booksellers' association was pivotal in the success of those bookstores, sharing the secrets of how to make money against the giants.

Kylie Davis: (42:01)

Right.

Nigel Dalton: (42:02)

So we need in real estate to get those four factors humming. Really, the tough ones I feel sorry are the ones who got big. The equivalent to the Barnes & Noble in Australian real estate, got a lot at stake and a lot to worry about.

Kylie Davis: (42:18)

That's something we've seen in the last couple of years, isn't it? I find this an interesting trend that we see. What I saw when I was doing some work with OpenAgent and looking at the data that they had, is that we're seeing right at the moment a separation of the bigger agencies who are better led going to that point you made at first.

Kylie Davis: (42:41)

You have better structures and a better at tech, a better at managing change and have different leadership styles, but they're growing really quickly and they're becoming bigger offices with more agents in them. They're separating from the pack of the mom and dad operators inside real estate in terms of how much market share they're winning. So, you think that they're actually also going to come under bit of stress in this phase?

Nigel Dalton: (43:12)

Managing something as it gets bigger and bigger is harder and harder because people got to remember. The essence of management is not managing the individuals. So, we do the maths on those. It's pretty interesting. So, you start out with a lovely little boutique agency, just the five of you. You quickly, you were decided.

Kylie Davis: (43:29)

[crosstalk 00:43:29].

Nigel Dalton: (43:29)

That was bullshit. The commission split was terrible, blah-blah-blah. We're going to start out on our own, work at our cars. There's five people there. If you're the senior person in charge, you're not just managing the other four, you're managing those five people and the relationships between them.

Kylie Davis: (43:46)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (43:47)

That's the task. That's the scope of your management. That's five people, four is 20. There's 10 little things you got to manage. The five humans and their relationships with each other. That's okay. I like five people. I can get up in the morning. I can manage 10 things throughout the week. What happens to that mess when you get 12 agents? Now, you're a mathematician. You do the math number on this.

Kylie Davis: (44:15)

No, I can't. I'm not a mathematician. I'm a journalist. Don't ask me to do the math. It would be disaster.

Nigel Dalton: (44:19)

The formula is N x N-1. So, 12 times 12 minus one is 11. It's 132 divided by two because the relationships, we don't want to count them twice, right?

Kylie Davis: (44:35)

No.

Nigel Dalton: (44:36)

We just see. That's 66. So, you only really double the size of your little agency team, but you went from managing 10 ... Billy doesn't get on with Jenny. Tom got them on the same listing. That's no good. She's really good at marketing and so is he and they argue all the time.

Nigel Dalton: (44:56)

That's what managers have to hold in their heads. They're constant nod. You get 12 people. They're managing 66 of those relationships. That's where exponential complexity comes in. That's why it gets harder and harder to run bigger agencies. Honestly, you get to 15, that's the limit of human capacity.

Kylie Davis: (45:15)

Right. Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (45:15)

You need to really think hard about how you're growing your agency from there. There's a number called Dunbar's number which is 150.

Kylie Davis: (45:23)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (45:24)

That should be your absolute maximum. That's the proven historical maximum of the size of a group in connecting.

Kylie Davis: (45:30)

Connecting big.

Nigel Dalton: (45:32)

From the '50s interestingly by a guy called Robin Dunbar, English psychologist went to visit business who were different. He went to build Gore's business in America. He made Gore-Tex, he was a scientist. As a scientist, he found any project he went on that had more than 150 people working on it never delivered the result.

Kylie Davis: (45:54)

Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (45:55)

Bill being a practical nerdy bloke said, "You know what? Never going to be more than 150 people working on any one thing. He built his buildings in this lovely industrial park with only 150 car parks per building.

Kylie Davis: (46:09)

Right. Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (46:11)

Okay. No, we have to start a new division. That's the lore of numbers and that's a really important constraint as those new businesses emerge, don't get too big too fast. You'll find it very hard.

Kylie Davis: (46:24)

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Kylie Davis: (46:52)

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Kylie Davis: (47:14)

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Kylie Davis: (47:31)

So, you can't hide in the middle or in the small side, you need to be embracing the technology and improving your business and thinking about the shape of both work in your business and the technology that you're introducing to make it easier, and more streamlined, and to expand your options.

Nigel Dalton: (47:57)

Exactly. I am pleased to say this is the subject of my book, productivity, effectively.

Kylie Davis: (47:58)

Which will be launched when?

Nigel Dalton: (48:01)

[crosstalk 00:48:01].

Kylie Davis: (48:02)

You have to finish writing.

Nigel Dalton: (48:05)

That's exactly it is that these breakpoints in companies. Two of you working together as a partnership, gee that's easy. You add a third, and the dimensions have changed considerably. There's now, it's always two against one. You'll get over that by agreeing really. Things that are at the next level of capability. Okay. We'll get a chat. We'll use WhatsApp as well as email because email is too slow. You just can't keep running on the loop.

Nigel Dalton: (48:30)

So the next big split is 12. So, the 12 to 15 because nobody knows what ... You speak great while we're in the office together. [crosstalk 00:48:40]

Kylie Davis: (48:40)

Yeah, really tight team.

Nigel Dalton: (48:43)

Something happens at 15 people that you have to divide up the functions and the structures and get better take. "Oh my, you know what? We should get a CRN." "I got this. Don't worry."

Kylie Davis: (48:51)

You'd have the CRN before you got to 15.

Nigel Dalton: (48:52)

I don't know. Customers you're talking to mate, we just can't keep them in their mobile phones anymore. Then it goes 50. So, it's three, 15, 50, 150. The secret is to work one level more grown up than where you are.

Kylie Davis: (49:12)

Okay. Awesome.

Nigel Dalton: (49:14)

So all the things you talk about, about investing and tech, and all, and culture, and clarity of goals, and all those kinds of things, you play the game one little above where you think you are, and you'll be fine. So, that's the secret.

Kylie Davis: (49:30)

Okay. Awesome.

Nigel Dalton: (49:30)

Then, go back to the bookstores. There's new rules. These Rushkoff's rules are fascinating when you think about real estates. Rule number one is make everyone rich. Don't go into real estate thinking you're just going to make yourself rich. If you know how to make everyone rich, the vendor, the purchaser, the tenant, the staff, everyone rich, and along the way you get rich too.

Nigel Dalton: (50:01)

Number two, no externalities. Do not pass the cost of things off to other people. Make sure you think of all of those things along the way. We're terrible of that in terms of climate change. Big companies just putting their pollution in the river and suddenly the taxpayer pays. Transparency of process, we underestimate how important that is. That's really the underlying draw over the lack of trust in real estate in Australia which is still ... You know what? If I was starting in real estate and I never will because just not people person.

Kylie Davis: (50:37)

I don't like houses and I don't like people.

Nigel Dalton: (50:40)

I love houses. Imagine being the real estate agency that were known for being trusted.

Kylie Davis: (50:48)

There are agents out there who are.

Nigel Dalton: (50:50)

7% of Australians trust a real estate agent. The research comes out every two years and I just say-

Kylie Davis: (50:58)

Come on, Nigel. Sometimes it nudges up to nine.

Nigel Dalton: (51:01)

Oh my God. So therein lies the opportunity, the strategy is to be the trusted agent. You'd get 50% of the market overnight because you have to understand what drives trust. It is relationships. It is the long-term stuff. Tom Panos talks about that all the time. He's definitely a real expert on that subject. Be a family business is rule number four in Rushkoff's rules on how to survive in 2021. What he means by that is be a business your teenager would join.

Kylie Davis: (51:37)

Oh gosh, that's a high bar.

Nigel Dalton: (51:38)

Because teenagers, they're like an artificial intelligence of what's important in the world. They're dreadfully judgmental, but they roll up in an AI algorithm. Everything that's important to modern consumers. Are you transparent? Do you have a purpose? Do you treat people well? Are there opportunities in your business? Do you have ethics and morals? They're such harsh judges. I've worked in places where my teenager would not join.

Kylie Davis: (52:09)

Yes. I think we all have.

Nigel Dalton: (52:12)

I love it. ThoughtWorks is a place, Noah would join tomorrow because of our work around not for profits. Gender diversity, we're the most diverse tech consulting company in the world, won awards for that. He jump tomorrow. No problem.

Kylie Davis: (52:28)

Awesome.

Nigel Dalton: (52:28)

That what real estate needs to think about it. It's okay, "Would a teenager join your company?" Because you also need them because they're those Fortnite resilient learning generation. It would be great to have them. Embrace diversity, don't trend towards the average, and particularly thinking of an aged world. If you're going to deal with aged customers in the next 10 years, don't hire old teenagers.

Kylie Davis: (52:50)

No, maybe not.

Nigel Dalton: (52:52)

Why not considering hiring someone who's 70 and part-time. They don't want to work freaking nine hours a day anymore.

Kylie Davis: (52:59)

No.

Nigel Dalton: (52:59)

You can team on them online to manage some properties for you. Nobody in 2021 wants to be a customer, Kylie.

Kylie Davis: (53:08)

No one does?

Nigel Dalton: (53:09)

No. Customer, I don't want to be a customer because I'm a number. If I'm a customer in your CRM and you just treat me like a number. I want to be a human.

Kylie Davis: (53:20)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (53:20)

I want to be part of your tribe because you seem cool, and I'm interested in the stuff, the stories you're telling and the things you're doing and what you're doing in the community. My values align with yours, and I'd like to be part of that tribe. That's cool, but please don't make me a customer because the era of customers is over. Some benefits, treated people slight better but it's so cynical now.

Kylie Davis: (53:46)

Yes.

Nigel Dalton: (53:47)

That customer numbers, those kind of things. Now, this is where fintech is murdering the big banks. So, you take up Australian bank that is expanding faster than they can control. Why are they doing it? Because they treat their customers with respect. They only do a couple of things. They do them really well. They're easy to get on board with customer service is fantastic, but they're so human in what they do. The communication is out. It's very human and personable which you can do [inaudible 00:54:25].

Kylie Davis: (54:25)

My teenager because he moved all his banking over to them. Looking to so many of that.

Nigel Dalton: (54:30)

What a perfect example of would a teenager would be a family business. Of course, we forget all the teenagers now. They're mainstream consumers in about five years' time. If I were able to then add real estate into their proposition, instant trust. Australia's most trusted banking brand.

Kylie Davis: (54:55)

So, I'm conscious of time now, Nigel. This has been fascinating.

Nigel Dalton: (54:58)

Sorry, I'm on a roll, Kylie.

Kylie Davis: (55:00)

Have we got one more rule? Okay.

Nigel Dalton: (55:01)

Find the others.

Kylie Davis: (55:02)

Find the others, okay.

Nigel Dalton: (55:03)

Hang out with people like you who think differently about the future. Listen to this podcast, and come back and hang out, and find your tribe because not everyone is an elderly white male trying to flog their business so they can hit into retirement, and doesn't want to change a damn thing in real estate. There's some fine brands in Australian real estate and they're going to change it.

Kylie Davis: (55:28)

They are. That's fantastic. Do you know what I really love the most about this conversation? Is that even though we've been talking about the tech trends or the trends that are going to affect everything, we actually haven't talked anything about like AI, or smart homes, or blockchain. It has actually been all human stuff.

Nigel Dalton: (55:47)

It's all humans. Now, how we use that cool tech is far more behavioural. That's good thing because tech goes in the background. AI, you don't even notice that you are being controlled by it right now, whether it's just search results or whether it's-

Kylie Davis: (56:05)

We get frustrated when you're not. When it doesn't show up and then it's like, "Oh, God."

Nigel Dalton: (56:10)

They're all tools for being more human, allowing you to get away from the drudge and into the world of looking after relationships, and let's solve some loneliness. Let's change property management to be more humane.

Kylie Davis: (56:24)

Quick last question. You know, how you're saying that the corporates are going to start to step up into property ownership. Do you think that's going to have a role around affordability?

Nigel Dalton: (56:36)

It's going to be really interesting. I don't think the generation who are going to inherit property empires from the boomers like me in the 2030s are really going to be so precious about price. They just want to get their hands on the cash.

Kylie Davis: (56:48)

That's right.

Nigel Dalton: (56:50)

Amazon becoming a massive property trust and buying 100,000 homes in Australia to rent out to that generation using their Amazon Prime accounts. Oh my God, the levels of cash that these companies are going to hold by then. America is awash with cash looking for opportunity. There's nothing more fundamental than shelter.

Kylie Davis: (57:16)

Yes. Makes you feel safe.

Nigel Dalton: (57:18)

So, will it make it more affordable in the end? They've all got an eye for a dollar, haven't they? So, it might. It might be less unaffordable would be a way of saying.

Kylie Davis: (57:29)

Yes. Interesting. Nigel, it has been absolutely fascinating to talk to you. Thank you so much. I knew this is going to be an awesome conversation.

Nigel Dalton: (57:39)

We have fun, don't we?

Kylie Davis: (57:41)

We do. I can't wait to catch up with you again.

Nigel Dalton: (57:43)

We'll see you in the real world somewhere.

Kylie Davis: (57:45)

Yeah. Well, I'll be down in Melbourne soon. So, hopefully catch up with you then.

Nigel Dalton: (57:49)

That would be awesome, very cool.

Kylie Davis: (57:51)

Lockdowns, border closures, all about stuff notwithstanding.

Nigel Dalton: (57:55)

That's the story of this year. It's not going to change quickly. I can tell you.

Kylie Davis: (57:58)

No. 2021 is a bit of a PS, isn't it?

Nigel Dalton: (58:01)

Yeah. 2022.

Kylie Davis: (58:04)

PS, it's still hanging around.

Nigel Dalton: (58:04)

That's a great chance to think about fixing and updating your business.

Kylie Davis: (58:07)

Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Nigel.

Nigel Dalton: (58:10)

Pleasure.

Kylie Davis: (58:11)

So seriously, how awesome and interesting are those trends? Population, future work, and the future of business. They're three really human trends that are going to be changing the real estate and property industry significantly and impacting the technology we adopt, and our expectations around service levels and the businesses that we want to do with.

Kylie Davis: (58:33)

Now, a conversation with Nigel always goes in an unexpected but fascinating direction and the interview could seriously have gone on for hours. The three books he mentioned were, Post Corona: From Crisis to Opportunity by Scott Galloway, Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff, and The Future of Us by Liz Allen. I've included links to them in the show notes.

Kylie Davis: (58:56)

Now, if you have enjoyed this episode of the PropTech Podcast, we would love you to tell your friends or drop me a line either by email, LinkedIn, or on our Facebook page which you can find at Kylie Davies PropTech. You can follow this podcast on Spotify, Google Podcast, Apple iTunes, and Anchor, and where all good podcasts are heard. I'd really love it if you could subscribe or leave us a review.

Kylie Davis: (59:20)

I'd like to thank my audio support Charlie Hollands, and Sam Hollands and the fabulous Jill Escodaro, and our sponsors Direct Connect, making moving easy, Smidge, official wines of the proptech, and HomePrezzo, now part of ActivePipe and making the creation of your marketing content easier than ever before.

Kylie Davis: (59:38)

Now, if you are a proptech, make sure you join the Proptech Association of Australia and join like-minded people who are passionate about the property industry and committed to improving experiences in how we buy, sell, rent, manage, build and finance property. Go to proptechassociation.com.au. Our Proptech Awards are about to launch and you don't want to miss them. So, thanks everyone. Until next week, keep on propteching.