Aphantasia, Adversity, and AI: The Surveyor Who Thinks Differently

Nina Young: 00:08 Hello and welcome. You’re listening to This Is Surveying, the podcast shining a light on the people, ideas, and stories shaping this incredible profession. I’m Nina Young, founder of Surveyors UK and the Surveying Room, the community bringing surveyors together, breaking down silos, and making surveying visible. So for now, let’s dive into our latest episode. Hello everybody, and welcome to This Is Surveying. Today’s guest is Dan Knowles. Dan Knowles is a fellow chartered surveyor. He is the founder and managing director of Webster’s Surveyors, an RICS registered valuer, an RICS expert panel member. And predominantly you work now in the residential surveying space, but I think you’ve you’ve come from a different background. But obviously we’ll we’ll dive into that. But um welcome, Dan. Pleased to have you on here. Speaker: 01:10 Great. Thanks for the introduction, Needan. Happy to be here. Looking forward to this. Nina Young: 01:14 Yeah, me too, me too. Because we’ve had some conversations before, and I think this is going to be a very insightful and very honest conversation, I think we’re going to have today. Before we do dive into anything and I introduce you, I just wanted to make a brief note. Some of the subjects we’ll be discussing today are quite sensitive subjects. So these are around child abuse and suicide. So I just wanted to let people know before the episode starts. So if it is difficult for you, just take care listening. But without further ado, if we dive into a little bit about Dan. Nina Young: 01:51 So Dan, tell me, tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up here in surveying. Dan Knowles: 01:56 Well, thanks, Lena. I think like so many people, I I fell into surveying. And no one really when they go to when you go to school and you speak with careers advisors, no one ever tells you about surveying as an option. So so back in 2005, I was applying mostly for jobs in financial management. I’d graduated with a law degree, almost ended up working for Northern Rock in 2005, just before the financial crisis. Nina Young: 02:23 I was gonna say. unknown: 02:24 Yeah. Nina Young: 02:24 That was a lucky escape. Dan Knowles: 02:26 Absolutely. Newcastle’s a wonderful place, but I’m glad I didn’t move there because it wouldn’t have lasted long. And then the one job that I applied for in surveying was was with Birmingham City Council. That was as a well, I the job advert was a trainee quantity surveyor. I had no idea what a quantity surveyor did. Went through the assessment centres, got through, and then got the interview. And at the interview, they told me, oh, we’ve we’ve misadvertised the job. It’s actually a trainee commercial surveyor. I qualified as Emrex in 2009, actually as a commercial surveyor, which might some surprise some people who know me now, uh, because I’ve been residential actually since 2010. I I didn’t spend too long uh dealing with my northern sound. Nina Young: 03:14 Why was the move? Why was the move across? Dan Knowles: 03:17 Well, Dan Knowles: 03:17 at the time I was living on a council estate in North Solihull, and the council estate was being demolished. And the house I lived in, along with a number of others, had to be compulsory purchased. And the council that I was working for, Birmingham City Council, they had a whole team who dealt with compulsory purchase. It was a different local authority, so they weren’t taking my home, but I ended up chairing a residence group that fed into the whole process. And I got fascinated with that side of surveying, which is all residential. So I ended up handling my way to change departments at the council, moved into residential. A few years later, moved down south. I’ve been I’ve been down south since 2012 now, year of the London Olympics. I actually moved down south on on the week of the London riots. Thought maybe I should turn straight back. Is this what London’s like? And I’ve been working in residential surveying ever since 2009 now. Thoroughly enjoy every moment. Nina Young: 04:18 Yeah. What is it in particular, anything in particular that stands out why you enjoy residential? Dan Knowles: 04:24 Well, I think residential for me is it’s so different from commercial in that when you walk into someone’s house, you’re walking into their lives. And I think there’s uh there are a lot of very, very, very good surveyors out there, and there are lots of very poor surveyors out there. And what what I’ve seen from dealing with both is that the good surveyors are the people who’ve got the right personal skills to go alongside the right technical skills, and the personal skills are even more important when you’re dealing with something as emotive of where you live, whether you’re losing your home to compulsory purchase or whether you’re buying somewhere and you want to make sure it’s not going to fall down the following day. It’s much more emotive, and that side of the business has always really appealed to me. And that that’s why that’s why I love residential surveying so much. Nina Young: 05:13 Yeah. Dan Knowles: 05:14 And whilst I started off in compulsory purchase, I’ve become much more of a general practice residential surveyor now, getting involved with valuations, lethal reform, leading a team, doing home surveys as well. And there’s so much variety. No two days are ever the same. Um that’s something I love about the profession. Nina Young: 05:36 Yeah, and that’s such a common comment across all surveyors are taught to. No two days are the same. And also, you’re not the first to say about the fact of why residential is the fact is a very of all the areas of surveying, it’s the most emotive, but you’re literally directly impacting people’s lives and you’re seeing firsthand people’s lives at times of vulnerability and things. So I think, yeah, it seems to be the most common response I get when I ask why residential. So yeah, that kind of confirms it. Before we go into, because one of the things we will talk about later on is around sort of how you’ve developed the firm, how you know, how you’re now using AI, tech innovation. But I think what I’d like to start with is kind of what we’ve we’ve already discussed, is your journey really from you know, from childhood and things we’ve discussed, to how you’ve used that and built resilience up to then develop a successful firm in surveying. Dan Knowles: 06:36 I’ve always been a very open person. I take the attitude that if you don’t share a bit about who you are and where you come from, then people don’t believe in you. People buy from people, people want to work with people. And if we share a little bit about who we are, then you you get uh some trust instilled from others, and that that’s why uh I’ve always been very honest about my past and and how it’s shaped who I am today. One of the things I like about surveying, uh and this this is surveying in general, is you get people from all walks of life. And I I went to I went to secondary school at a very posh grammar school. Um a year below me, that there was someone who took over chairmanship of a society that I ran from me, who is a guy called Robert Jenrick, who many will know from the Reform Party. So I I went to I went to a posh grammar school, which was completely state-assisted, surrounded by people from very, very well-to-do backgrounds that I was far from left. Dan Knowles: 07:43 I grew up on very rough council estates. When I and this is this is going way back now, when I was five years old, my mum remarried my stepfather. My stepfather was a very abusive man. Lived with him for 11 years, and during during those 11 years, there were three times when my mum, my younger brother and my younger sister and I ran away to a homeless hostel, which we had to do. The abuse was quite chinning at times. I’m talking about a man who uh was an alcoholic. He used to make his own own homemade cider and get drunk every night from that. Very controlling that uh I was my mum. Every time that he’d get back home, I’d run upstairs to hide away, and and he’d be asking her, Well, who have you seen today? Who did you talk to? What did what did you talk about? What did he say? What did she say? He wanted to know absolute wanted to know absolute everything. He was a man who would regularly beat me. Generally, I would get caned on my back. That was that was the normal one, because that that way it wouldn’t show through school clothes. And I was taught how to not disclose things to school. Uh and this was right from when I was five years old, right up to the age of 16. Nina Young: 09:03 That’s a long time. That’s a long time. And you’re you were the oldest, correct? Dan Knowles: 09:08 Yeah, yeah. So my brother was six and a half years younger than me. So my brother and my sister are are my stepfathers. We we’ve got different dads, we’ve got different dads. Uh, and my sister is 13 years younger than me. So there’s six and a half years between my brother and I, six and a half years between him and my sister. My stepfather used to play some, I’m I’m not I’m not going to say horrible jokes because there were things that he would do time and time and time again. So what what one of the games he used to play was making me repeatedly blow my nose until my nose bled. I’d only be allowed to stop at that point. There was hopefully not too many people are watching or listening to this whilst they’re having breakfast, but if they are, they might want to turn off just for just for a moment. He was a man who couldn’t be bothered to go up and and use the upstairs toilet quite often. So he’d use the kitchen sink. And this would be for number number ones and number twos. I’m trying to be as polite as I can. Yeah. And being the child who is not his and the eldest, I’d be the one who’d have to clean it all up. Nina Young: 10:14 Did he get did he target you because of that? Because you were not directly his son, do you think? Dan Knowles: 10:19 Oh, yeah, very much so. And my brother and my sister can’t stand him either. And my my my sister even changed her surname by Deed Pole and changed her first name by Deed Pole. Surname because she didn’t want anything to do with him. Uh, and and her first name she changed because she knows that she was named after his mother. And again, she didn’t want anything to do with them. My brother hasn’t got anything to do with him either. He tried to be forgiving to people, but honestly, if he dropped down dead tomorrow, I would celebrate. I wouldn’t spit on his grave because it’d be too good for him. There’s as some people it’s just not worth it. The last time that we the last time that we ran away to a homeless hostel, at this point I I’m older, uh a fair bit older than I was the other two times. I’m 16 years old, and I’m trying to play the role of the man in the house, if you like. Sorry for the gender stereotypes there. Nina Young: 11:16 But it’s yeah, it’s interested. Dan Knowles: 11:18 But my mother was she’s she’s a very, very timid person. She choke up very easily. And it’s she doesn’t have the best education, and she really struggled with a lot of practicalities, and she struggled with a lot of the willpower that she really needed to be able to keep us away from him. But at the point that I’m 16, I’m trying to take charge a bit more and say, Mum, this time it has to be for good. When we go to a homeless hostel, we’re not moving back. I don’t want to go back. It’s not fair on you, it’s not fair on me, it’s not fair for for either my brother or my sister. There was one time when we did go back just to pick up a few items. Someone else looked after my brother and sister, but I insisted, Mum, I’m going back with you because I want to make sure that you’re safe. Nina Young: 12:06 That must have been quite scary. Dan Knowles: 12:09 It’s scary, but you look at what’s the alternative. If you live through 11 years of childhood abuse, then no day is easy. And you’ve you’ve got to look at what’s the end goal here? If we can get through something that’s really difficult, well you you’ll know the phrase, whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. And that’s what it that’s what it felt like. And and this one time that that I I went back to the house to pick up a few things with my mum. At one point, she said, I need to speak with your stepfather alone. Okay, I respected the wishes. I went up up to my old bedroom. Uh, and next next thing I know, he’s walking up the stairs, and I can hear his his feet walking up step by step because I I got so used to the exact sound because I was always so scared about about what it would be like when he when he’d come up and talk to me or do whatever he wanted to do. And and and he came, he came up and at the time I was known as Danny rather than Dan. And he said, Danny, up against the wall. So I moved backwards, got up against the wall, and then he pulled a knife out from behind his back. And he approached me and he and he put the knife right up to my throat, and I and I’m I’m standing there on my tiptoes, completely frozen, and he says, Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you. And then he walked, doesn’t say anything else until he walks out of the room. And as I hear him leave the door, he just says one word. Yes. Nina Young: 13:44 Yeah, that’s kind of coercion and threat, isn’t it? It’s kind of making sure it’s that control. Dan Knowles: 13:50 Yeah, it’s complete control. It wasn’t it wasn’t long later. Uh he he he told my mum that if we tried to get the house off him, uh, that he’d burn it down and he’d wait until we were inside it, so he could kill us all. But we managed to get through it. We were in the hostel for six months and one week. I think it was actually within a matter of a matter of days after we moved in, 1997, uh, New Labour had just come to power. It was with within a matter of days that that the new Labour government came in. And and you you might remember the D Ream song, Things Can Only Get Better. Speaker 3: 14:30 Yes. Dan Knowles: 14:30 Which is that that was the big fanfare that that Tony Black Tony Blair came into. Speaker 3: 14:35 Yeah. Dan Knowles: 14:36 And and that that’s that’s very much how I thought of it at the time. Well, yeah, things can only get get better, and yeah, we we we’ve gone out of the frying pan and into the fire, because uh a homeless hospital is a horrible place for anyone to live. And and I’ll I’ll go on to talk about what that was like. But you do think there is gonna be light at the end of the tunnel because at some point we’re gonna end up getting rehoused. Council waiting lists were were not as long as as they are right now, and six months, one week after we moved in, we did get we did get rehoused. And for all the property geeks out there, we were rehoused into a wimpy no finds house. Nina Young: 15:13 Non-traditional. Dan Knowles: 15:14 Yeah, so so I I learned from an early age. It was it was a house with single glaze windows, the heating system didn’t work. I used to have a coat on inside during winter. But it was home. It was somewhere that that that we were safe in. Even when someone, even when someone put a fist through a front door, uh when when we were looking after someone that that we met at the hostel and and uh uh her ex-husband put a fist through the door trying trying to get in to to access her, we were safe compared to what what we’d been through before, we were safe, and and that was what what mattered. Nina Young: 15:51 We’ll come back to the the shelter and everything, but the wimpy no fines. Is there just I I understand another people listening, are there still much of that housing stock left, or was it as a lot of it being flattened? Dan Knowles: 16:04 Some of it’s been flattened, certainly, but that there’s still quite a lot of it left. Nina Young: 16:08 Right. What what are the common problems with the the wimpy no fines? Dan Knowles: 16:12 Well, to be honest, it’s it’s not as bad as as a lot of concrete construction. So it it’s not on the defective list. So so for example, we we deal with a lot of large panel system build as well. Uh and and that that’s got some really bad problems. Uh but with with any with any concrete, and this is a concrete aggregate which is poured. With with any concrete, you’re more likely to get dump. They are they are mortgageable. You’d rather a traditional built house with bricks and mortar any day. Nina Young: 16:38 Right, okay. But yeah, it’s just something I wondered because I remember non-traditional housing and like you prefabs and all of this, and a lot of the being being sort of laid to rest, so to speak. Nina Young: 16:48 Going back to the hostel, now my my perception, like when someone says like a homeless, you know, hostel shelter, it should be a place of safety and refuge. That’s kind of when we talked about it, what I thought. But can you share with us what we discussed around actually what you were exposed to? Dan Knowles: 17:10 It’s a place of safety in that there are locks doors. But as as we as with so many private businesses, because this was a private hostel, it it wasn’t um uh a council run hostel, albeit of course that albeit, of course, even private hostels, the the money still comes from a council who were funding people. And my mum didn’t work. Even my stepfather, when we worked with him, he worked, but he worked as a TV aerial man, which uh not a particularly well-paid job. And in fact, when I was 14, 15, I I was bringing in more money to the house than he was when I was buying and selling computer consoles. But going back to the hostel, with it being a privately run place, the organization who ran it knew that they could make an awful lot of money very, very simply, and cut a lot of corners there as well. So there were either 11 or 12 bedrooms uh in the place. I remember at one point that there were 10 or 11 women who were living there because it it was a women in children’s hostel. And my myself and another 16-year-old boy called Carl, we we were the only two 16-year-olds because prior to us the uh the cap had been something a fair few years younger, even. Uh but the hostel had the two of us there there as a trial, really, to see whether they could cope with older kids there too. But at one point I remember that there were 10 or 11 women living there, along with 23 kids and one bathroom. You can imagine how difficult that gets just on a pure logistics basis. Nina Young: 18:43 Pure logistics. Dan Knowles: 18:45 Yeah, pure logistics, yeah. Absolutely. And then think that these 10 or 11 women, a lot of them have come from very, very, very difficult backgrounds, abusive backgrounds, a lot of them from from very rough areas, my mum included as well. And they’ve got one thing in common: a distrust of anyone who looks like a man. Nina Young: 19:07 Yeah. Dan Knowles: 19:08 And me being a 16-year-old boy, well, I wasn’t far off being a man at that point. And with with this one bathroom, it was a very small bathroom. The the lock didn’t work, and the bath was very close to the front door, and uh there was there was no shower, uh, which you can imagine the sort of rotor that you need to be able to get everyone through. So when it was my when it was my turn, I I used to have to get in, get in the bath, bathe myself with with one hand, and and then with the other hand, I’d be hand up against the door just to stop anyone from trying to get in. It was a horrible place. The people who were running gifts took a lot of charity money, but a lot of the things that were were given to the people who ran it really went to them and their families. So we used to get like free free tickets to the cinema, for example. Uh, but they’d always go to the staff and and their families and friends first, and if there was any left over, it would go to the residents. I remember one time going and I can’t remember what what the film was, but we were queuing up outside the cinema, and that’s what it was like back in the day. And and the the the cinema had a security guard, very, very different back at the time. And the security guard at the time was my uncle, and they ended up not allowing us into the cinema because a load of the other kids were jumping on top of the cars, going from one car roof to another, to another, to another. Uh, these were the sorts of kids that that that I was living with at the time, and the mums weren’t much better. There was drugs in in the hotel, a lot of people who were drinking, people who who were letting their ex-boyfriends in husbands or whatever may be in through windows to have sex in the middle of the night, uh when the hostel staff couldn’t couldn’t catch them. So it felt funny. Nina Young: 20:58 Yeah, far from safe. Dan Knowles: 21:00 Very, very far far from safe. But but one thing I learned while I was there was was resilience. Because again, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I also learned to try and stick up for a lot of other people as well. I was a smart kid, I was a very, very, very intelligent 16-year-old. Uh and I was going to this grammar school. I I was a member of Mensa. I I I did my GCSCs whilst I was homeless. Yeah. Managed to get through them all, though. 11 8 ASCs. I wonder what what I would have got in better circumstances. But you learned to get through things. And in fact, what one of the kids in my class, his dad, used to be mayor of Wolverhampton. And I’d confided in him and what was going on because I I’d kept everything secret from my friends. That they they had no idea what was going on. Nina Young: 21:50 Right. Dan Knowles: 21:51 And they they could all guess something it was because I was all over the place. Speaker 3: 21:54 Yeah. Dan Knowles: 21:55 But I the last thing I wanted to do was was tell a class full of kids with. very very wealthy parents and I some of them some of their parents were like multi-millionaires uh and and and here here was me properly on the bread line and poverty living in a in a hostel uh and having my life threatened and and and and all sorts but I told my friend who who told his dad who’s a former mayor and with within about a week or so we were getting an offer of being rehoused. So sometimes it’s it’s not what you know it’s it’s it’s it’s who you know. Nina Young: 22:29 My mantras definitely. Dan Knowles: 22:30 Yeah and to be honest it it couldn’t have come at a better time really because I was really struggling in in the hostel and after everything that have happened with my stepfather with with with the death threats my mum falling to pieces my brother who was very much being picked on by by the other 16 year olds in in the hostel uh in fact my family and his family we ended up getting thrown out of the hostel because of the arguments between the 16 year old and I we ended up getting moved to a different hostel run by the same organisation. The other 16 year old and his family just got completely excluded and I think the people running the hostel recognized that he was the one really at fault but they needed to get rid of all of us uh because of uh how of how toxic it had become but what was at the hostel as well as what was happening with my mum and my brother my my sister turned three in a hostel my sister is brain damaged she’s also autistic and dyspraxic and I always wonder how much of this is because of what she went through at such a young age but I I I guess we’ll never know really. Nina Young: 23:46 Are you literally holding it all together? Dan Knowles: 23:49 I was yeah I was holding it all together and really really really struggling and I I used to speak up for a lot of the residents as well and because I was quite smart I was often the conduit between the between the residents and the people who were running the hostel um in thinking like a trade union representative that’s the sort of role role that I was playing wasn’t really getting any support from from my own dad he pretty much washed his hands with me at the time said you’ve got a roof over your head so I don’t accept the fact that you’re homeless. I think I saw him maybe once or twice a year at that point and didn’t see him for a good few years after that either. And when I got to my absolute rock bottom I thought I can’t take him I cannot take anymore. One Dan Knowles: 24:34 of my friends from from from where I used to live and I I’d broken contact with all my friends because and not told them where I was because I didn’t want to burden them because I thought it’s it’s not really fair on them. Absolutely but but I I’m one of those people I will always try to hold things myself. I’m not very good at allowing other people to help me uh I try to be very very open now I’ve learned I’m a lot I’m a lot more mature now at the age of 45 that than I was back then. One of my friends who I’d lost contact with I I read in the local paper that that he’d committed suicide. He’d he’d lay down in the middle of a road and and got what got run over not not just by a car but over run over by a lorry and and I and I found out in the local paper. And and it is someone who I was fairly close with we used to play football quite often over the park and that along with everything that I was going through I decided I can’t take any more that’s it. So you’d had enough yeah so I I I wrote I wrote my own suicide note I left left it in the room for for my mum to see I didn’t tell anyone and I went out to a busy road myself thinking well that’s it if that’s how Matthew died then I’m gonna do the same. So that triggered it almost I mean obviously not not the reason why you wanted to but that was the trigger is seeing your friend and you thought that’s that’s a way out almost yeah what it was yeah exactly that and I stepped onto the road well I sat stepped onto the road and I I closed my eyes and and I and I I walked forward and I I I remember a car beeping and and I I quickly pulled back and opened my eyes and walked straight back to the hostel and basically I I chickened out I I couldn’t I couldn’t do it. Nina Young: 26:26 I got back to the hostel I got it wasn’t necessarily chickening out to me that was yeah I yeah I think it’s it’s the opposite of being chickened out the fact is you chose to to stay and remain with all the things that you were dealing with to me that was brave. Dan Knowles: 26:43 Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom if you hit rock bottom then you see where your foundations are uh and then you try to grow from there and it and it wasn’t long after that that I then coincided with with with that friend at school and a week after I’d done that we’d been allocated somewhere and we were we were moving into a house and things started getting better. Nina Young: 27:06 Yeah and we’ll definitely talk through all those things because you know hearing that and I think a lot of people will will agree that your your past and the things you had to deal with to where you are now is quite a journey and I want to talk about you know where you are now with the things that you’ve done you know running a very successful firm. Nina Young: 27:26 But one of the things that we we talked about which I thought was fascinating and I think a lot of readers will find this very interesting readers listeners shall I say was the fact you have something known as aphantasia. Dan Knowles: 27:40 I do which I I call it my secret power it’s it’s it’s a disability but I call it a secret power and one of the reasons why it’s my secret power is I think without this I think my life would have been very difficult and I don’t know if I would have been able to cope with everything that I’ve had to as well aphantasia is a neurological disorder. It’s the inability to visualize in your mind’s eye. So there are far more debilitating conditions so I’m I’m not saying this is a substory it’s not at all I I think of that this is something that’s been very positive in my life but if if I if I ask yourself or or anyone who’s listening or watching to to tell me what what do your family members look like your mum your dad your brother your sister your son your daughter your dog your dog your cat and who whoever whoever’s specialty or one yeah exactly yeah some people love the habitat yeah then most people will have a picture in their mind or if I said picture something obscure like picture Ronald McDonald from the riding an elephant then most people can can to some degree picture that yeah I can see that straight away yeah yeah there is a spectrum here from people who have aphantasia to people who have hyperphantasia so so people who have hyperphantasia can can picture things in the minutest amount of detail so if you’re picturing uh a beach you can almost zoom in and see the individual grains of sand you can picture that that level of detail that that’s hyper fantasia at the other end of the spectrum uh is aphantasia where it’s just complete black you cannot picture anything at all in your mind’s eye so if you ask me what do my kids look like and I’ve got a nine year old and I’ve got two and I’ve got a six year old so two boys I could tell you that they’re so high they’ve got this colour hair this colour eyes but I can’t picture them I don’t have any picture in my head and because I don’t have a picture in my head similarly I can’t replay things that have happened in the past okay in in my head so I can’t I’m ridiculously difficult to to have a proper argument with and hold a grudge with because it uh if you and I were to argue uh and you said something horrible to me I’d be able to remember logically oh Nina said this horrible thing oh that that was a really nasty thing of her to say yeah really mean but yeah but I can’t not that you do any of that of course absolutely not but I can’t picture in my head or I can’t replay in my head this is what it looked like when it happened. Nina Young: 30:35 So you can’t see like the attitudes faces expressions none of that it’s just so it’s just memory but not visual memory. Dan Knowles: 30:44 Exactly and think think of it almost like a computer memory so so so so a computer can or I I know your favorite topic’s AI and I’m sure we’ll come on to it. It wouldn’t be a Lean a young podcast if we didn’t talk about AI at some point. If you ask AI what does a beach look like I’m sure it can describe it but it describes it in words unless you but you can also ask some generative AIs to come up with a picture of what a beach looks like. Nina Young: 31:11 Well my head can describe it in the words but it can’t give that generative image yeah I mean that how does because you talk about and I yeah I think it’s important to mention that is a superpower and I think it’s because it’s protected you from significant trauma in some ways and the vivid the vividness of it if you visually could see that would be just you know exceptionally harder. Dan Knowles: 31:40 Would I be right in thinking that’s why you see it as a kind of a superpower and that’s them so yeah I’m absol absolutely I think not being able to to replay something in your mind or to be able to see an image of your in my case uh my my ex-wife sitting on a settee having an argument with me I don’t I don’t have that I don’t have the image of my of my stepfather holding a knife up to my throat I don’t have I can’t I can’t replay in my head what it was like to have to go to the kitchen sink and do all those horrible things that I’d have to fish out. Yeah uh which is why I I’m able to rationalise it and if I can rationalise things then I can think think them through very very logically and detach a certain element of emotion from them. Now that that removes a lot of negative emotion but it can also remove some positive emotion as well. Nina Young: 32:40 I’m just thinking that it’s the positive things like you know birth of children and wedding and those kind of things. Yes yeah to memory so how does this because I’m trying to relate this now to obviously surveying and you go to a property when you’ve left that property you go back you can’t you can’t visualize that property in your mind’s eye can you so in data capture and everything must be so important or am I right yeah on the right lines? Dan Knowles: 33:07 Absolutely so I’m so I’m I class myself as a valuer rather than a surveyor uh and the guarantee if I go out to do an inspection I will take more photographs than anyone else in the company uh because that’s that’s how my brain works. If you looked at my desk in the office I’m surrounded by photographs of my loved ones uh because that way it’s it’s it’s a constant reminder and being able to look at those images that’s that’s what then draws the emotion in I’m forever putting stuff on Facebook with with photos and videos because then I can replay things that I want to and it can keep it can keep those emotions there. So I I I I can be a very emotional person probably more so than most but it it’s often triggered by things that are in front of me and unless I’m unless I’m looking at uh a photo or a video I’m much more living at living in the present and living in the future that than I am living in the past. Nina Young: 34:08 That’s interesting. Yes I live in the moment which not enough people do. Dan Knowles: 34:14 Not not at all and I think it’s also shaped how how I run a company as well because what one one thing with I like to think we’re very good at is all about digital material all about guides and we’ve created these guides in really in the knowledge that there’s an awful lot of people like me not necessarily with aphantasia but who are further to my end of the spectrum from aphantasia to hyperphantasia that than the average surveyor is. Because the the the average the average surveyor I I think particularly people who are doing home surveys and that there are some well known exceptions to this as well so it’s it it’s not not say that there can’t be but I I think the average surveyor is very good at visualizing this is what I saw and this is how I can now follow the trail uh I would struggle to follow the trail that that’s part of partly the reason why I’m the valuer not a surveyor if if I if I’m even if I’m reading something on on a computer screen if I need to go to another screen to then follow the instructions but I can’t see both at the same time I will often take a picture of on my phone of what I’ve seen on the screen so I can look at that at the same point that I’m on another screen because because it’s it’s the way it’s the way that my brain works. But a lot of surveyors are very very very very technical as a profession we’re really good at following that trail and remembering okay well yet this is the crack that I saw on the outside of a property and I’m now looking at a corresponding dump inside I can I can now try to work out what’s caught this I think a lot a lot of the public who then read our reports their brains don’t work necessarily in the same way a lot of the public are more on the visuals more on the looking at something in front of them visual side than than most surveyors are which is why we’ve created so many digital guides that helps people step by step understand what what we’re doing and it’s it’s probably easier for me to create those than it is for um for someone maybe at the opposite end of the spectrum uh because I I’ve got a greater understanding I like to think I’ve got a greater understanding of what our end user our clients would actually benefit from. So again that that’s again what why I see it as a superpower because it it it enables me to to understand our clients. So I I’m constantly talking about what’s our customer journey because I don’t look at things so much from a surveyor’s perspective I look at things from a client’s perspective and then I leave other people other people in in in the firm to to look at things more from the surveyor’s perspective to make sure that we’re doing everything we need to to to tick all the regulatory boxes and everything else and that’s that’s why I think I think in any company the size of ours and we’ve got 23 24 25 of us also now you need people with yeah you need you need people with different skill sets. Yeah and I’ve got a very different skill set to to some of my colleagues I recognise my limitations they recognise theirs you work together. Nina Young: 37:25 It’s incredible hearing all of this down really because that’s that’s you know in the scheme of things with you know RICS firms in the UK that’s a sizable firm because there are many that are one man bands maybe up to five but 23 24 and to hear your past and what you’ve gone through so not just and I’m not saying not just sit up and run a firm but a sizable firm because there’s the managing of people there’s so much that comes with that because there’s someone I was saying the other day you know a lot of people focus on or talk about surveying as a technical evaluation as a technical you know skill etc but couple that with actually also the skills required to run a business and the the pressures and things that that involves for you to have done both is quite it’s quite remarkable. And I think the Aphantasia is is fascinating. Just very briefly on that though, is that something that you are born with or can it be something that is brought on by trauma? Dan Knowles: 38:36 I won’t pretend to know all of the exact science behind it because there’s there there’s there’s quite a few disagreements and I I’m in an Aphantasia Facebook group for example and it’s it’s anywhere between about one and three percent of people are would be classed somewhere on the Aphantasia or that that end of the spectrum and I’m I’m probably at the the most severe end because I can see absolutely nothing in in my uh the the visual memory uh or the visual side anyway. Nina Young: 39:05 Okay. You’re just uh just curious is it’s one of those things that’s probably still being studied and researched. Dan Knowles: 39:12 Well I I can’t remember a time that I was ever able to to visually create something in in my mind’s eye. So I I suspect it’s something that you’re probably born with but people often don’t find out until later life. Because you automatically assume when when people talk about imagining things that they’re just imagining in uh in a in the same way as you don’t necessarily realize and and I I I remember once I I went to a uh a hypnobirthing class with with with my ex-wife and and there was the there was the classic uh imagine you walking up walking across the beach and you can hear this and and you can see that now for me it’s just complete mumbo jumbo that would not work at all I I cannot do that. But nevertheless I was still imagining it that I was imagining it in in in the same way that if you ask an AI what what would it be like if you walk across the beach it would give you some text that that’s the way I was imagining it. So it it’s only when you you hear some kind of trigger from from someone most often like later in life where they say oh yeah I can actually create create this image in my head and can you really I didn’t know that I didn’t know that was possible. Nina Young: 40:31 Well can’t you yeah you you you just don’t don’t realize no it’s so true and it’s it’s it’s so common for so many things as well you know so many behaviors or neurological things that people experience that they don’t realize it until it’s pointed out almost or you see someone you know challenges it. Nina Young: 40:50 So I would obviously like to talk about AI as you I think of course as uh let’s just uh segue into that one because I know that I’ve seen a lot of your posts I’ve seen some of the things you’ve been doing in it and I’m really interested and I think it’d be really interesting for surveyors and others and even students to hear about sort of your newsomics and also how you are actually you know using it in your firm. Dan Knowles: 41:18 Well probably like yourself is one of my favorite subjects and I spend hours and hours and hours and hours on on Claude in particular and I we I I pay for the Claude Max subscription which is the one and a half grand a year or so much and and I only pay for for that much because my usage is that much with a normal pro uh I’d run out I’d run out of tokens quickly enough. Yeah much the same there Dan yeah there are some things which I can’t talk about yet because there’s there’s things that are commercially sensitive but for what I can for example we cre we created something that we’ve called Compass which is our desktop research for surveys so this is the this this is the information that you can get pre-packaged in something like Sprit for example and I’m I’m not sure how much that costs for each one. So it’s all of your EPC data and your your flood risk assessments and everything else. Yeah coal mining authority absolutely yeah yeah we don’t get much coal mining in London but yeah that that’s that sort of thing yeah don’t yeah because I’m in Yorkshire so this is where my mind went straight away so so these file setups it was taking our support team uh uh because we don’t have our surveyors creating these we have our support team create them and then then the surveyors can verify anything that they like to with our support team doing our file setups on Go Report which was taking about 30 to 40 minutes each time uh and a lot of it of course is is repetit repetitive admin tasks yeah so we we’ve got we’ve got all the all the APIs from different largely government based websites the the APIs is is effectively how you hook into all of the data from the back end of where uh where the environment agency for example will get their flood risk assessments from uh so so well in fact let’s you let’s use that as an example um uh if you if you go onto the government website to look at a flood risk assessment you’ll put in the postcode and that will show you the flood risk map for the area and you can hopefully see see where the individual property is on that as well and you can see what what what zones it’s in or or what what risk areas it’s in. But those map those maps are not create um it’s not like the environment agency have just have got this gigantic map of of the whole of the UK and and that the they zoom in every time that you you uh that you put a pass post postcode in uh they don’t each time you put a postcode in uh it links to a load of data which I’m assuming is binary uh it links load of data and it generates that map uh so so what what we did using the uh api is to get that same information that the environment agency gets and then we taught ours to create or to replicate that same map to look exactly the same as it as it would do and then take that information and then pre-populate that into Go report and we we’ve done this with about 30 or 40 odd different things right down to let let’s say an EPC. So we have an energy section in our report and within that if it’s a level three then we need to comment on the appropriateness of the uh recommendations that it makes and one of the one of the standard recommendations for example is well fit solar voltage panels onto the booth so our our API tell picks that information up puts it into Go Report and then pre-populates Go Report with some standard text that we’ve got to say well look the the EPC is telling us this recommendation these are some of the things that we advise on the back of that. And there are some things of course that the surveyor needs to uh edit manually once they’ve seen it but if we can do it verify it almost review it verify yeah yeah exactly but we are saving that 30-40 minutes we’ve now got it down to five. Nina Young: 45:27 Wow so so that’s what sort of times per month would you say that is? Dan Knowles: 45:32 Well at the moment we’re dealing with about 120 surveys per month a lot of our team are doing valuations and lethal reform and CPO work as well but but for our survey team it’s about 120 a month which means we’re we’re saving around about 60 65 hours a month or so just on that and we’re we’re about we’re about to roll this out for valuations and lethal reform as well uh where it will be doing things like downloading the land registry lease and then an analysing the uh the delet the lease and based on all of the inputs that we’ve put into it it then comes back with outputs. So for example if if the lease says uh that the ground rent is X and this is how it escalates over time includes the reference to that and then it puts some extra paragraphs saying for example whether it’s onerous or not and the effect on mortgageability and this that and the other there there’s there’s there’s a huge amount there’s a huge amount that can be done with AI to make surveys easier I think image images at the moment I know there are some firms who are looking at going down the line of well to take take a photograph on site and then AI assess the photograph and say yeah this this is lental failure uh CR3 and this is what you do about it. I’m not convinced that the technology is there for that yet. I would speak because I’d agree yeah it it may well be there in a year or two and at the rate AI is going and could be there tomorrow who know who knows but or by the time that this this podcast comes out but at the moment I’d still be too worried that what what it can’t do is follow the trail adequately and make that judgment call that a survey who’s physically at the property using however many years of experience can do and I’d still be worried that it will see a damp patch and say that sorry see a shadow and say that’s damp or see a spider’s web and say that’s structural cracks. So I don’t think it I don’t think it’s there yet for for for surveys on on image creation. I don’t think it’s probably that far off being there for for valuations which can be more description based. So take a picture of this kitchen and say yeah it’s a picture it’s a kitchen with matching base and wall units and one and a half bowl sink yeah and in milk oven and th things like that which are purely descriptive and you can’t go far wrong with them but it’s still it’s still going to need to be checked over. Nina Young: 48:09 I think with the with the with the image detection side I think one of the biggest limiting factors as as you will know is is data is quality data and you know to train models sufficiently to identify what a crack is and that it’s not a cobweb firstly you need significant tag quality data you learn from and there are so many you need I’d say hundreds of thousands of images really and I think the challenge is always getting enough data to train the models. But then like you say I think the follow the trail is it’s instinct and judgment while you’re on site surely you’ll spot something. And the AI only knows the data but what it won’t necessarily know is other things that are happening there and then or what you see or what you observe the creaky floorboard. I mean there might be all of these things eventually if it’s listening and you know but at the end of the day it’s making that judgment call as to yeah but what’s causing this? And it’s not just the image that’s going to tell you what’s causing it. Dan Knowles: 49:12 At the moment we’re using AI for things that I deem as safe enough and we’re still still vetting everything over. And give give you a simple example we have a monthly team day in the office where we ask everyone to come in and we provide training for the day and we provide food drink or what whatever else we often have external speakers we had someone last week come in talking damp and timber specialist. But for for these we we then have our agendas well we we now have an interactive ai created agenda which gets edited one once a month so people know exactly what we’re doing and and when when we’re doing it uh we were quote we were we decided to change our website a few months back or in back two three months ago and we were quoted £40,000 to do the sort of website that we wanted which it’s it’s it’s a massive website with hundreds of pages you’ve got a lot of pages haven’t you yeah yeah it’s a huge amount huge amount on there I did it myself and so I changed our website instead just using Claude and and uh what’s called vibe coding which is for anyone who doesn’t know where you and I’m preaching to the converted here I’m sure which is where you tell an AI LLM such as Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever it may be uh but maybe not Groc purely because I can’t stand Elon Musk but that’s that’s another subject. Where we’re we’re just flyer something that’s swatting away then for anyone who can’t see it’s just waving my hands around frantically uh where where you tell the LLM this is what I want to create and you go back and forth to do it. Normally using uh Python or Java or or maybe a a plug-in to to WordPress or or whatever you create your website on. And in all honesty I think the website that that that I created probably just as good as what we would have got for the £40. And it’s not as if by doing it myself I it took all of the extra time that that that it that it would have been because yes it takes my time to do that but I would have spent some of that time going back and forth with with a web designer anyway. Nina Young: 51:26 That’s exactly it Dani it’s that toing and froing it’s that going between and trying to translate what you want with developers and there’s always that’s always can be a challenge what you see in your mind’s eye or maybe you don’t see in your mind’s eye that’s that’s not the right turn of phrase to use for you is it forget that one um you know what you could you know foresee oh that’s not even going to work either I get where you’re coming from you get where I’m coming from but I think that’s it and it that takes time and that translation of what you want. So I think that’s a really good example. It’s a huge cost saving time saving. But what what I did want to ask is there’s a lot of talk at the moment about you know AI won’t replace surveyors. There’s a lot of that sort of narrative at the moment but what I’m interested to hear from you is with you know slip say you save this amount of hours that you mean you you save this what do you think that’s giving you uh apart from obviously cough time savings but with that extra time or that saving does that what does that enable for you? Dan Knowles: 52:33 Be one for Dan Knowles: 52:33 me I I think first of all it’s it’s not just a cost and time saving. I I think if it’s done properly it can improve the quality as well because even even human beings make mistakes and and AI will make mistakes as well but if if JoeBlogs get something wrong 2% of the time and AI gets something wrong 1% of the time well AI is worthwhile uh we we we create uh we’ve created an interactive quote builder on ai uh for for example as well which then allows us to have some dynamic pricing based on availability how much work people have got on who would do who would do the job so if it’s if it’s an area that I only I can cover then the fee probably needs to be higher than if it’s something that someone more junior can cover. And you can have so many different rules that no individual is ever going to hold all of these rules in their head or down on a piece of paper well enough to to properly execute but but I AI can. So I think the quality can improve. And then with with the time saving it gives us we’re we’re a growing company. Yes there’s 22 23 24 25 or so of us now and I always forget the number because we’re we’re constantly hiring uh thankfully we we’ve only had one qualified surveyor leave in the last two years and yet we’re taking more people on so our retention rate is really good. Nina Young: 53:59 That’s a high retention rate there. Dan Knowles: 54:01 Yeah and I I think that’s partly because we’re we we’re very much on the we concentrate on the quality over quantity I don’t want us to to use ai as justification to to then be doing eight surveys a week or ten surveys a week because I don’t believe that surveyors get into the profession to to churn work out. I think surveyors get into the profession because they genuinely want to help people who are buying the property know what they’re getting into. So if we if we can have our time savings to allow us to spend more time talking with people and more time to really hone what the reports look like and the content within them I think that can only be a good thing. So we we will we’ll tip let’s let’s say a typical level three for 1930s semi maybe with a small rear extension we’ll be on site for about three hours or so maybe three and a half I’m sure I could invest in in ai to the point where we could go in and out of that with within an hour. But if if I was to do that then the temptation for any surveyor is going to be well let’s let’s get on to the next one let’s get on to the next one and get on to the next one. And if you’re cut in corners then you’re not having the time to to really reflect on what you’ve seen uh and I think mistakes can happen. Now I think AI is very much a a double-edged sword as well it can solve a lot of problems but it can also create a lot of problems. If people rely too much on AI then then they don’t spot the mistakes that they make and it’s not just us relying on AI it’s also the clients relying on AI as well. One of the things that I like about Claude as opposed to when we used to use the free version of ChatGPT and I don’t know how different it is on paid version is with Claude you can upload an entire long report and say and analyze this report to tell me what you think about something. And as long as you’re doing that on what’s called a closed loop to make sure that the AI model is not learning from what you’re putting in so it doesn’t become public, then I think that’s perfectly acceptable. Chat GPT on the free version you couldn’t do that because you’d you’d upload a 60, 70 odd page PDF and and it would say it’s it’s too large it can’t read it. More and more people who go and go with paid versions of these LL loans the more people can upload our survey reports and say tell me what questions to ask the surveyor and it might come up with some genuine questions but it will also come up with mistakes that the surveyor might have made and the moment a client realizes that you’ve made one mistake they they lose faith in you and they start talking about they start talking about claims or can they can they get their money back or they start dating everything that you that that you’re saying so so you have them to reiterate things and repeat things over and over and over again. And I think that is a real challenge that I don’t think much of the surveying profession has really woken up to right now how our client base are using AI to look at our reports and to challenge us. Even with our quoting team we quite often will get a quote we’ll get a quote request now so someone will contact us through the website saying here’s an address please quote me for level three survey now we’ve had those sort of sorts of quotes for years but now the the quote we’ll request will be here’s the address please quote me for level three survey and here’s 25 questions that I’d like to know that AI has given me 24 which I don’t care about. But I’m including because AI’s told me and then we need to answer those and and and if you’ve got people who are not the surveyors who are answering those then there’s an increased risk that that support team whoever’s quoting might get something wrong because they don’t know the technical side that the surveyors do. But you also can’t have surveyors on 50 60 70 80 000 pounds a year or so dealing with every single quote request uh because it’s it’s just not practic it’s just not practical and every single question. So it it’s then well how do you deal with those so it’s one one of the things that that I am building which I I don’t mind saying this one is I’m building something into our quote builder that if someone’s put those 25 questions it will then hook into a knowledge base that that we’ve got where we’ve said if if someone asks this sort of question in whatever wording then this is the answer that we come up with. And it’s verbatim word for word the answer that we’ve come up with because a lot of these questions are ones that you get time and time and time again like do you do you check the electrics and can I accompany the surveyor what when they can go in the loft yeah yeah yeah of course yeah as long as it’s not an yes so by by have by having this knowledge base and us constantly updating that and every time that there’s a question that we don’t know the answer to that question then getting flagged to a senior member of the team along with the support team members suggested answer it can constantly be learning. Nina Young: 59:34 I think that’s a great example of using AI to deal with things that have come about because of AI. There is an increase across the board every industry profession increasing amount of complaints claims but also clients are coming so you know pre-prepared like they’ve done the research with these models they’ve asked the questions and some of them you know are asking very difficult some will just spew out something from a chat GPT but also so it’s even before they instruct you they do the homework I can imagine many are going do I need a survey in the first place um and it’s also they do the research on the firms to find so you’ve got to be findable now in more and more chat books because they’ll recommend firms you know near Nina Young: 01:00:21 them. Dan Knowles: 01:00:21 That’s another thing that’s yeah we yeah spot on and and when we redesigned the website my my initial instructions to call was we’re doing this partly because we want AI to find us because whilst now it’s it’s a relatively small proportion of how people find us it’s growing month on month and month on month on month fast forward a year or two I’m not sure people will even use Google. And that that sounds almost incredible to say bearing in mind how massive Google searches are but fast forward a year or two will they or or will people just constantly ask ask chat GPT or Claude or Gemini or whatever I think they will uh f find me a surveyor. Nina Young: 01:01:09 I think they will because that’s that’s how I find that’s how I find things yeah yeah I do I I you know I rarely rarely ever use Google and I think also you get you get well hallucinate and fabricate things sometimes you get more relevant answers when you ask your AI model whereas Google you’ll get a list of adverts at the top I mean obviously they’ve got the AI overviews over there as well that Google have brought in so nobody’s even necessarily reaching your website now when they’re asking a question about survey type or do they need this normally go they click through to a website to get those answers and they’re getting them there and then on Google Cleanly chat box. Dan Knowles: 01:01:48 But what people type into AI is also very different to what people type into Google. So so someone might type into Google level level three home survey barnet surveyor uh but into into AI it will be here’s a link to a house I’m buying find me a surveyor who can provide me with a level three survey yeah and and AI doesn’t look at just who’s got the best keywords that Google has AI l looks for these trust signals and the trust signals are far more important on AI than they are on Google. So so put on our website my face is over quite a lot of it now that’s not because I’m egotistical I’m genuinely not but but but it’s because af it’s because after my face it’s it’s got the letters F R I C S and AI will trust F R I C S more than it will trust MRIx or ASOCRICS. Now that’s not to say that that’s correct or not uh and we’ve got some incredibly good ASOC rix surveyors who who are perfectly good at their jobs. Yeah but it’s looking at those trust signals uh and similarly that there’s a page which I I need to get around to putting on a website it’s on the on my long to-do list right now uh of times that we’ve been in the media so I’ve I’ve been on Sky TV a couple of times and I’ve been on BBC One and and of course some wonderful podcasts including like including this one uh and I need to be linking to things like this because it will help with that AI trust signals. Nina Young: 01:03:26 Totally something I need to do myself. So yeah I’ve been looking into the same thing. It’s like it it looks for trust it looks for independent reviews independent press releases media podcasts um reviews you name it and and it does rely on that heavily and I think that’s that comes back to the whole thing around you know in surveying there’s even if many do not like it do not want to use it but you’ll be impacted either either way because of what’s happening around you because the public adopted it much faster than businesses did, have, have, because it’s given out to the world for free. And so complaints, you know, savvy savvy clients, people finding you all these factors are influencing everything around a phone. And you’re you’re very much ahead of the curve like when I speak to firms and surveyors there are very few that are developing so many things in-house like what what your thoughts are now and and it’s it’s going to be interesting for listeners because I think I I think it’s really good that we hear more and more practical applications of of the good things AI is doing for firms. There’s obviously also risks with anything but using it responsibly and what what that does give you at the end of the day. Dan Knowles: 01:04:42 Well I I I take the attitude of if you can imagine it you can do it. And well when when I grew up I had this uh poster on my wall as a teenager which was uh someone standing at the top of a mountain uh on some skis uh and it said aspire to climb as high as you can dream I have that same poster now at home uh and I I bought it again years and years and years later because it’s something that that meant a lot to me when when I was young aspire to climb as high as you can dream well AI is the new dreaming and if you can dream it you can create it I’m not an expert in uh CSS or Java or JavaScript or or Python all these programming languages if you told me a year ago that I would be creating all of these things I I I’d ask you what you’re smoking. I wouldn’t have believed a word of it. But if you don’t try you don’t succeed give give it a go. That’s what that’s what that’s what I’d encourage anyone to do. If you don’t if you don’t try if you don’t try you don’t succeed and well when I part I think part of the reason why I like to think that I’ve been successful in in business so far and I very much think I’m only starting, and there’s there’s so much more to go. Is Dan Knowles: 01:06:05 because having come from nothing when I was young, having come from that poverty background, I had nothing to lose. And if you’ve got nothing to lose, then then you can afford to take risks. And I’m prepared to take and I’m prepared to take those risks. But now I’m now I’m responsible for a team of 22, 23, 24 people or so. Uh those risks have to be calculated opportunities. And we have to try and grow organically. There are some companies who try to grow incredibly quickly, and and well, you can crash and burn, or you can be an overnight success, depending on sometimes look and how well you do. We’re trying to grow in a very responsible way. Keeping our existing team is extremely important. We have a really positive culture here. I’m completely biased, hold my hands up, but I think that the proof’s in the pudding and people tend to join us and not leave. Speaker 3: 01:07:01 And not leave. Dan Knowles: 01:07:02 So we’re doing something right here. We are we’re very much bucking the trend by by telling people all of our home surveyors who join us, come join. You will only do four to five surveys a week, and you will have a lot of support behind you. At no point in the future do we want to be doing eight to ten surveys a week. That’s not not where not where we are. But to do those four to five a week and to make it profitable, we need to be charging high amounts. So we need to be charging really, really strong fees. Uh and we do we do. Uh we are we’re not the most expensive out there, but we’re more expensive than most. Uh and unashamedly so. Uh, because what we provide is real is real quality. So we then look for people who can who can provide that quality. And our training program is very good. We don’t take someone on who’s newly qualified from SABA, and then two weeks later they’re doing level three surveys. Uh, that’s that’s not how we not how we operate. We have a full training program, even for people who join us with years and years of experience. And we train them up first of all to make sure that they’re comfortable with how we do things because there is a there is a Webster’s way. Uh, and I’m incredibly proud of what Webster Surveyors has become. Uh, and I’m sure I’ll be even proud of what it what it will become. Nina Young: 01:08:23 Yeah, absolutely. Are you still just a little bit? Are you are you hiring at the moment? Dan Knowles: 01:08:28 We are, yeah. Uh looking for surveyors all all over London. I’m happy to take speculative CVs all in confidence. So uh anyone who wants to drop drop me a message, LinkedIn’s normally the best place to find me. Nina Young: 01:08:40 So we’ll include your LinkedIn profile on the show notes. Yeah. Dan Knowles: 01:08:44 Yep, great, thanks. Nina Young: 01:08:45 Okay, no problem at all. We’ll include details too. And one of the things that I think we talked about was also going back to the early conversation around with suicide and things and serious topics, is we’ll include uh details on Samaritans for anyone that’s resonated with that today. I think we’ll definitely include that. Um, it’s been quite an episode now, which is been yeah, it’s you know, I you know, you cover different topics and subjects throughout these podcasts, but the range of where we’ve started with today and and AI is it’s incredible though, range of journeys, topics, the apentasia, which is a lot of people, I would imagine, have never heard of it before, because I wasn’t uh fully aware of what that was. But I’m just I think I think there’s a lot to be said about where you’ve come from and now where you are, and it’s incredible, really. And it it is, I think audiodiversity has become your have become your own superpower in itself. And to remain, I’d say, positive, optimistic, driving AI, tech, innovation, and managing a successful firm is is it’s testament to it’s testament to you and your own your own resilience. Dan Knowles: 01:10:02 Thank you. And uh the journey’s just beginning. It’s where we are. Nina Young: 01:10:07 Yeah, and imagine there’s I I can imagine there’s lots to come. And when those things do become public knowledge, I’ll be looking forward to hearing about them, definitely, with what you’re doing. But thank you very much today, Dan. It’s been a pleasure. Dan Knowles: 01:10:19 Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having me. Nina Young: 01:10:21 Thank you for listening to This Is Surveying. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and supports the work we’re doing to raise awareness of the profession. You can also join the Surveying Room, the free and independent community from Surveys UK, bringing surveys together, breaking down silos, and of course making surveying visible. Just head over to surveyors UK.com to learn more and join today. All the links discussed in today’s episode are included in the show notes.