Some of the world’s most famous buildings have been around for thousands of years — and so have some construction methods.
Joshua Webb is out to change that.
On Jan. 27, 2021, Webb took on the newly created role of technology and innovation leader at Palmisano, a New Orleans firm that bills itself as “the next generation of construction professionals.” Webb’s role is “to champion innovation and change for an organization that prides itself on that mindset.”
Webb brings with him a background of seeking out new approaches and opportunities across a wide variety of industries, from renewable energy to digital marketing to commercial banking. Bringing innovation to the world of construction may be his biggest challenge yet.
“For a variety of reasons, the practice of constructing the built world has been slow to take advantage of the technological progress that’s been made in other industries,” he said. “There is a deep, almost Promethean significance to the challenge of adopting, adapting and evolving that progress against this new set of problems.”
Within Palmisano, Webb is introducing initiatives as varied as deploying drone-based 3D photogrammetry, enterprise-wide cloud migration and advanced data practices. More fundamentally, he is “building the innovation engine required to identify, accelerate and execute against whatever opportunity comes next.”
While the construction industry is highly competitive, it is paradoxically cooperative as well, and Webb is delighted that “Palmisano is emphatic about bringing this [innovative] mindset, and the value it creates, to the industry at large.
“We are at the vanguard of something very special,” he said.
