Granola AI: The Best AI Meeting Note Taker for Construction Administration?

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Meeting minutes are one of the most valuable records in Construction Administration—but they can also be one of the most time-consuming tasks. In this episode of What the RFI?, Matt Brennan shares how Granola AI has transformed the way he captures meeting notes, documents decisions, and follows up on action items across multiple construction projects.

Unlike traditional AI meeting assistants that rely on intrusive bots joining your calls, Granola works quietly in the background, allowing you to stay engaged in conversations while automatically organizing your notes into clear, searchable summaries. Whether you're attending Microsoft Teams meetings, walking a construction site, or taking an important phone call, Granola helps ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Matt discusses why he moved away from other AI note-taking tools, how Granola fits into his daily Construction Administration workflow, and why this may be one of the most valuable AI productivity tools available today for architects, project managers, consultants, and contractors.

If you've ever struggled to remember what was discussed weeks—or even months—after a meeting, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why accurate meeting notes are critical in Construction Administration
Granola AI vs. traditional AI meeting assistants
Recording Microsoft Teams meetings without intrusive bots
Capturing notes during site meetings and phone calls
AI-generated meeting summaries and action items
Organizing notes by project for quick retrieval
Real-world productivity gains for architects and project managers
Why AI should enhance your workflow—not replace your expertise

Whether you're an architect, engineer, contractor, owner's representative, or Construction Administrator, this episode demonstrates how AI can help you spend less time documenting meetings and more time delivering successful projects.

Ready to give Granola AI a try? Use my referral link to receive an extra month free while supporting What the RFI?:
https://www.granola.ai?via=matt-brennan

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1:00:00

Is there a better way oftaking your meeting notes?Actually, yes, there is.And we're gonna dive into that today.Let's get into it.(upbeat music)Welcome to What the RFI.I'm Matt Brennan, and thisis the podcast all about CA.So today, we're gonnatalk about meeting notes.And with meeting notes, it'ssomething that we do daily.We do it at our monthlyconstruction site meetings.It's maybe a general phone call.Maybe it's an in-person meeting.Maybe it's a client meeting.It happens all throughout.And the question is,how are you tracking it?And there's a lot of value of tracking itbecause we're human beings.We can only digest so much.And when you ask me, whatdid we talk about last week?What did we talk about six months?What did we talk about 24 months agoduring the design process?That's where meeting notes are very key.So today, we're gonna do,this is gonna be one ofthree show part sessions.Okay?And we're kind of reversing itbecause we're gonna getinto the end of this thingwhere we're gonna talkabout AI note takers.And I know it's kind of reversed.Why wouldn't you start atthe beginning and build up?Because I want to bringa new perspective to thisand think about today's technologyand how we can start to utilize itin our day-to-day operations.All right?So today we're gonnatalk about AI note takers.Next show, we're going to talk aboutactually taking aconstruction site meeting notes.And then the first show,we're gonna talk about your initialkickoff construction.So it's like I said, it'sa reverse way of doing it,but there's somevalue in going that routebecause you're gonna, again,I think it's gonna build up foundationin a different unique wayfrom a learning perspective.Okay?So like I said, today's show,we're talking about an AI note takers.And there's a bunchthat we'll kind of bring upto the screen and go through it.And like I said, I thinkwe'll bring some perspectivebecause again, you mightalready be taking notes.So this episode isgonna be really key to that.Now, if you'relistening, fantastic, love it.This has always beenrecorded in the video format.It's posted to theYouTube channel, what the RFI.And I'm gonna be sharing my screen.I'm gonna do my absolute best to describewhat I'm talking about.But I think for the benefit,if you wanna see this in action,go to the YouTube channeland check it out there and see.But again, I'll explain as you'relistening on your driveor wherever you're doingyour run and that, okay?And of course, if youcheck out the YouTube,like and subscribe, ofcourse, it always helps.So let's get right into it.AI note takers, what is it?What's the difference between a generaltaking your own meetingnotes and an AI note taker?Well, of course, meeting notes,and we'll dive intothis in the next episode,is that you manually inputting it.And hopefully you'recatching everything, right?You're typing it, you'remaking your own physical notes.Okay?In today's revolution of AI technology,we have AI notetakers out there now, okay?There's lots ofproducts in respect to that.And almost think of like an AI note takeris that person in that courtroomthat's typing on a little typewriterand transcribing in real time, right?You're basically bringingthat assistant into your meeting.Okay?So that's, like I said,I'm gonna show you how,because there's a couple of thingsthat we can get into this, okay?And in terms of AInote takers, guess what?You've probably beenin a meeting already.You've been in that Zoom call,you've been in that Googlemeets or that Teams call,and that AI bot wantsto join the meeting.You've already seenthis, you've been president,and you've probablyraised your eyebrow going,what's going on?Who is this?What is this?I don't wanna be recorded.I've had clients, I'vehad city officials saying,we're not attending any meetingswhen there's an AI note taker, okay?Reason being, do they notwanna be held accountable?I don't know.But it's today's technology,and there's some really powerful toolsthat you're gonna seethrough this day's episode.So through some of the common onesyou've probably already seen isMicrosoft's Copilot used it.Not impressed, don'twaste your time, to be honest.One I did use for anumber of years was Fathom,and this is one that was really good.It came in, it recordedthe call, it was a bot,and then afterwards youcould go and ask it questionsand that respect, but italways had to join the meeting,and you always had torewatch stuff, okay?And then there was ReadAI,which is very similar to that.And then there was onethat I was dabbling withcalled Decisions, and this one was linkedand it actually, you couldkinda set up the template.It was kinda hokey,I've got one contractorit uses on a weekly basis.They enjoy it, but it only uses Teams.And today's episode iswe're gonna talk about Granola.This is the one that I've enjoyed using.I've been using it for thelast almost six months now.I've been very, very impressed, okay?And let's just be veryclear about this episode.By Granola, Granoladid not reach out to me.I reached out to them,and which they did give mean awesome referral code,which I'll put in the linkin the description below.The referral code basicallygets you one full free month,which is great.And it also gives me akickback and helps maintainand pay for the show tocontinue being broadcaston all the stream servicesthat you guys love to listen.So let's get into it.Why did I select Granola?Why?Like I said, I started six months ago,getting back into thearchitectural field,taking meeting notes daily,running monthly site meetings for anumber of key projects.At the end of the day,it just made sense toget an AI note taker.And I ran through the courses again.I tried my Thathom, I tried the ReAI.And the one thing that really bothered mewith a lot of these apps is that theyneed to join the call.And that would set abad taste to everyone.Sometimes even like acontractor would boot itfrom the call, then thatwas useless in my opinion.And my meetings aren't always online.A good portion of them are,but typically I'm in person.Or I'm just grabbing afew people from the staffand running through a project design,and I need something Ican grab right there.I can't invite everyone to Teams,even though we're in the flesh.So that was kind of my first thing.I was looking for a notetaker that did not join the call.That was the first thing.The other thing is I take notes.I give our junior staff a hard timeif they come up to me andthey're looking for stuff to doand we start talking about stuffand I see absolutely no writing down.I give them a hard time.I'll literally tellthem, go grab their notebook,come back and let's talkbecause there's no waythey're gonna comprehendeverything that we're talking about.So I've always been on the side of thingswhere I need to takemy own personal notes.I'm really good at thatbecause it's soimportant that you're digestingwhat the person says, you're listening,you're making notes of it,and then you're goingback and you're right away,you're not going, what did I miss?So it's really important.So I wanted an app where I could actuallyput notes into it.And that's where a lotof these AI note takers,decisions and fathoms, you can't do that.You can't go in andstart adding your notesand combine and merge in the two.That was just flat out.And this is where granolamade it a little different.As you actually type your notes,and I'm gonna show you this in a second,it actually lets you write your notesand then through the AI notation,it puts it back and forward.And like I said, most of all,I needed a note takerthat I could take in person,online, when a phone call is received,or just again, a group of people togetherin that spontaneous moment,I wanted a note taker thatI could just grab and go.And that's where granolareally starts to shine too.And so when I discovered granola,it really checked allthese boxes and more.And there's a fewthings that we're gonna showthat's just game changerthroughout this little demoand this introduction to it.And a little bit about the company,when they started up,they raised 20 millionin their first originalseed fund in the first week.So really impressive.And then I think a few months later,they went up to 128 million.So they definitely arevalued as a great companyin that sense, intoday's world and what it is.And definitely, like I said,I can see why they'vegot the funding for it.And one thing to just be really clearabout what reallyinterested me with granola as well,because it's not an AIbot that joins the calls.It doesn't record videoand it does not record audio.So how does this work?Well, what it does is itlive transcribes everything.So as I'm talking to you,and we're gonna pullthis up in a half a second,you get to see how it all works.It live transcribesthe whole conversation.So I think there's some value about that.Yes, you should betransparent with your clientsand your team thatyou're live transcribing this,but you're not recordingit in both video and audio.And I think that's a bit of,gives you a little bit more flexibilitywhere someone's like,"Well, I don't want to be recorded."Well, you're not, right?I'm just getting textsfrom this conversation.Same thing if you pulled up your iPhoneand use the voice memomap, voice app and everything,you record your message, itdoes a lot of transcription.That's all it's doing.It doesn't know exactly who's talking,but once you start makingreference to that person,then it kind of starts to figure outand starts connecting thoughts.So without further ado,let's get into granola.Like I said, if you're listening,I'm gonna do my best to kindof describe what I'm doing,but if I jump over to the YouTube channeland then watch it therebecause where I'm gonnastart to screen share thisright off the bat, get go.So here we go, let's do this.So welcome to granola.So the first thing Ijust want to point out,when you set up and install it,the first thing it's going to do,it's going to ask you toconnect it to your email.And that's really important,whether it's your Gmail suiteor your Microsoft Office 365.And why is that important?Well, it automaticallysyncs up your calendars.And that is the most critical thingbecause the moment you jump into granola,it's gonna look at allyour upcoming meetings.And we'll dive into this elementof why this is beneficial in a minute.So your calendar connects on the leftside and everything,and you can hide it here.We've got all our spaces, our notebooks,basically all for all my projects.Maybe you've got somepersonal items in that sense.And then of course all the settingsand we'll get into thenitty gritty in a moment.And of course there'sthe AI chat component,which again, we're gonna doan extensive review of that.So let's just get into a basic note.Let me just kind ofshow you how this works.So as soon as I click on new note,we're in production andyou'll see it's actually workingbecause it's live transcribing.If we were having aconversation right now,it would be livetranscribing this and it's fantastic.And it would knowbetween the two components.And right away youcan add your own title.Now, teaser, it's goingto do that for you anyways,but I want controlbecause I like takingmy own physical notes.So we're gonna callthis a granola CA demo.And the way it works isyou can type in your notes.This is where I add my notes.So you can just type it as you please.But where it becomes really powerfulis basically we'regonna do a number sign spaceand it turns into atitle and this is the intro.And from there, I'mgonna go to the next lineand I'm gonna do a dash spacethat's gonna automatically categorize it.So this is how you take your notesas you normally would.So once you kind of get into this habitof understanding how the program works,just these two simple methods,your notes are gonna become very refined.So basically we did auser intro to the UIand then we're going to basically demothe live note taking.And you can keep going in thereand maybe you got off on just talkingand actually listeningand being part of it.And you forget whatyou're doing and that's okay.That's where this is gonna go.Sometimes when you're insome of these big meetingsand you get a littleconfused what's going onand you've kind of dazed offor you're checkingemails and you're doing it.At the bottom here is this is wherethis becomes really powerful.And I haven't seen this onewith any other note takers.You can basically, ifyou've used chat GPT or cloudor any of these kind of AItools is we can talk to it.So they've got thesethings called recipes.And again, we'll diveinto this a little deeperlater in the video.So the first one, the one ofthe recipes that I like to useand you can see that almost a millionhave used it as wellthat have started sayingit's great is what did I miss?Well, if you start to zone outis going to basically come upand tell you what is going on.You can even make recipessaying make me sound smartand it'll kind of takewhat's happened in the transcriptsand put it together.Maybe you want to suggest a questionand it's sometimesthese work really well.What I miss works really well.It really, really does.And it goes into that detail.So that's kind of apowerful thing with it.We'll talk about where thisbecomes extremely powerfullater in this conversation.So we come through all this,we've done our own physical notesand we're basically done with the call.Thanks for joining us.And we're going to wrap it up.And at this point, I'm going to clickand it would automatically stop.But again, just to besafe, I'm going to click.And at this point, the meeting's done.Now we've got this enhanced notes nowbecause it's got a full transcript hereof everything we've talked about.It's going to take my notes and thenstart to enhance it.So what it's doing isit took my live notesthat I physically put in therebecause that's really important to me.I want you to do that there.And from there, it starts to addall the extra little benefits.So under my intro, user intro,use intro to the UI, demoof the live note taking,and then under of it, it added theadditional comments,lives transcribing,active during session,noted type more.And maybe you want toadd up more to this.Maybe you want to write up an email.This is where you canstart to use this tool.We would automaticallynote who was in the meeting,which is great so we can keep trackthat it was the three individuals,the three constructionPMs, whatever the case is.I can add it to a folder.So we're going to addthat to one of my projects,you know, my Sardisschool, my Langton, whatever,whatever project that I'm working on,I can add it in there.And then even to up here onwhere it says my notes enhanceis I can go to my originalnotes to what the AI did.So you can see it.And when using this tool,I meet with owners on a weekly basis.We do a standardowners architects meetingwhere we're just dealingwith items for their project.And of course, afterwe've done these calls,you can copy these notesand just blast it by email.And boy, are they impressed.Holy smokes, look atthese detailed notes.Now, where the downfallsare on this is sometimesif you've got someonethat has a unique name,yeah, you may want tocheck the spelling of that.Sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't.Maybe your project name is different.Maybe again, you'rereally contractual term,sometimes it may not, butoverall, that's pretty good.Take a quick skim and forsome reason if it doesn't,you know, again, and behonest that you're using thiswith your clients in that respect, okay?So copying send, that'sabsolutely huge with it.And so this was aquick little fun exercise.It didn't reallyrelate to our day to day.It was a real product.Let's do an actual CA meeting.Because I think this is where you guysare going to realizethat this is a really,really powerful tool.So let me go back home.I'm going to do a brandnew note and here we go.All right, you know,welcome to the call ownerand let's talk about project A.So first off, let's, for our CA,let's review the outstanding RFI's.And this is where ingranola, we want to announce eightthings, it was really, really important.If you just say theelevator RFI, that's good,but I want to get in details.So we've got RFI 12 elevator switch.And then at this point, wecan even do a sub column of it,follow up on electrical.And we got RFI 22 door hardware keying.Owner, are you going to do that?Yeah, I'm going to,you're going to actually,I encourage you as theowner to go and talk to yourmaintenance staff, how theywant the key and keying allthe light to the wholebuilding, key, separate rooms,classroom locks, howare the cabinet locks?How are they going to be key?I'm going to leavethat to you to follow up.Take note, I didn't addanything under that note,but I did put a title ofit, like kind of a sub column.And that's fantastic.Cause it's going to do that.Let's keep going.So we've got some shop drawings, somesubmittals to review.So, you know, we got thedoor hardware and, you know,we're going to make a note,coordinate this with RFI 22.And then we've got the aluminum glazing,waiting for building an envelope.And again, take thetime, write these out.Cause it's really important, right?That's a hands down,that's a key element of it.And if you're usingGrammarly, yes, it will work rightin the room by the way too.And then you just keep going.And then maybe we've gotsome owner request items.Sidewalks to changeto raised parking lot.Put some more notes.We talk about that.Yeah, we have twosidewalks that we want to be raisedon the north side.Down on the south side, wecan do a standard let down,painted crosswalk and then back to letdown and get back up.So let's do that.In doing that, we wantthem to be painted yellowbecause that's ourschool district standard.And in addition to that,the concrete surrounding,what we'll do is some exposed aggregateor stamped concrete,that kind of effect at that location.Sounds good.By the way, Granola, what did I miss?Check it out, it'll do that.And you just keep goingand do this for changesbecause that's always agood topic to changes.Quote 163, door elevator,stainless, process of CO.And talk all about changes.Quote 164, the request forextra on the additional topsoil.No, we will declinethis as per the contract.It didn't note that.I think that's agreat thing to do, owner.I don't agree with this changethat the contractor's providing.And I think that's it.Any other aims we haven't talked about?No, fantastic, great.Thanks for doing the callwith me and we'll talk again.Done.Now, kind of as wedid some of these notes,let's refine this and we'regonna run through the notesthat is provided andyou're gonna start to seewhere this is really,really, really slick.So RFI12, elevator,swish, follow up on electrical.That was pretty straightforward.There's no moreinformation we did talk about that.So my note kind of stood true.RF22, door harbor keying.I didn't put anything in that.I didn't actually know that.But both the owner andI were talking about itand I wanted to consultwith maintenance staffon keying preference,whole building, key to lightversus separate rooms,classroom locks, cabinet locks.Fantastic.This is great.And we can evenexpand these notes as well.And we can go into detail.And that's where we've gotthese things called templates.And let me go through the restand I'll show you how atemplate works for all these.Then we've got submittals,nothing was really added there.The owner requesteditems, sidewalks changed,res raised parking lot,north side, two res sidewalks.Now here's the AI notes.South side, standardlet down, painted cross,let down, back up, paintedyellow, school district standard,surrounding concrete, exposing aggregateor stamped concrete finish.This is fantastic.This does wonders in that respect.And because in granola,because I'm always havingthe same type of meetings,well, guess what?You can apply this with,you can make these templates.So owner meeting CA focus.And this is my standard wayI always run these meetings.And by doing it, it'sactually going to rearrangethese notes based onthat categories that I set.My basically I had general updates,RFI submittals, ownerrequest items, changes,pricing, action items,and it lists it all out.And this is what I would copyand send off to myclients after my phone call.And you would just befor our email record.Now I don't take those notesand I don't paste them into a Worddocument to keep thembecause we're using granolaand we've got themhere at any given moment.Okay.So with your now kind of going back,I just want to show you whythe calendar was so important.If I've got a coupleof meetings coming up,I've got a meeting comingup on Thursday, July 9th.And actually let me go here.Actually I got some meetings next week.I've got a consultant meetingto talk about RF3 coordination.Because this is a futuremeeting in my calendar,well, I can come in hereand I can rewrite my notes.So I'm going to justbasically going to say general.And I'm going to say fire sprayhas already beendiscussed at previous meetings.And I know what this meeting is aboutand yet something isbecoming an ongoing conversation.So the thing is why let me do thisis I can pre-put someof my notes into it.I do have a, on Tuesday,I've got an owner's rep meeting herewhere I've already put my notes.We're going to talk about opera walls.We're going to talk about a tree permitand we're going totalk about some IFC specsand how they're getting wrapped up.If I want to add morenotes, I can just do that.So I can preload these notes ready to go.Once we jump into the call,I already have these set up,these kind of agenda itemsthat I want to talk about.And then we can dive into the details.And that is kind of the slick thing.And because this connects with Teams,this connects with any of your GoogleMeets and everything,it will automaticallypop up in that respect.So this brings me to the conversationof when to use Granola.Well, first of all, I use this daily,quite a few times in a day.As we've already discussed,doing my ongoing onlinemeetings, Teams calls,that goes without saying,basically a quickowner's architects meeting,a conversation with acontractor, whatever it takes.If it's on Teams, it'simmediately being brought into Granola, really simple on thesidelines in that respect.Say if I get a phone call,well, our office is run through Teams,so we don't have dedicatedphone lines, which is great.It actually runs through Teams.So when I get a call receptionist,hey, so-and-so is on the call,contractors on call,great, put them through.Put my headset on, and guess what?Granola actually pops up ontop of my screen and says,hey, click here to start the meetingif you wanna record this.Absolutely, it's great.And then we wouldjust automatically put itinto the project folder.It knows who I'm talking tobecause it's all the Teams.It's great in that respect.And maybe we're doing a sitewalk after the site meeting.Well, there's an iPhone appthat I can start recording.I've done that.We've been walking around the sitewhere we're talking about Shaw Creek,and we had to basicallyadd some additional dowelsfor the Shaw Creek tohold the rebar in placebecause of theflexibility that it was giving,and we just weren'tconfident that it was gonna hold,and we didn't wanna seecracking down later road.Because this was ought todigest, I opened up my phone,I ran granola in thebackground, and just recorded,made a couple notes on it,as you would in that respect.And then once we're done, I had aconversation already,already written out for thatchange that I had to issue out.And I think that'swhere it's really critical.And of course, a lot of mysite meetings, guess what?They're in person, soI'm not on a Teams call,but I'll run granola in the backgroundwhile I do my primary meeting notes.And again, next episode, I'mgonna show you how I do thatwith this combination, right?Okay, so we've kind oftalked about why granola.I mean, you've kind of seen high level,why this is really cool,and you can start to seewhy I'm getting really excitedabout this application, okay?This is where granola changes the game.This is the power of granola.And so when you finish the meeting,this is where granolareally shines, okay?So first off, I can go back to this,the note that we just did,our mock ownersarchitects meeting right now.I'm gonna go back into this,because this happened two days,this happened six months ago, right?You can ask it anything.So we asked,basically before we could say,"Hey, what did I miss during the call?"But now the recipes have shifted to,"What are my to-dos?"And it won't make a list of my to-dos.Okay, that's great, that's fantastic.One thing that we cando is we can actuallyhelp this draft up a CCN, right?If we talk during the meeting,we could say what typeof CCN for this change,the owner change.So let's actually try it out.Draft out CCN for the ownerchange for the crosswalks, okay?And it's gonna go through,proposed change, revisedparking lot, sidewalks,and everything, provide two raised car,everything, reason for change,scope review, requires provides.So you can do this, you can talk more,we can shorten this,we can put this into asimplified description.This is great to kinda craft it out.My opinion on AI,and you've heard me sayit on the show before,but I'm just gonna repeat it again,is AI is an incredible tool,but you need to know how to use it,you need to know how to drive.And a good little simple example is,you got your 16 year old kid,he's got it, he just got his license,and you give him your sports car,your Ferrari, Corvette, your Mustang,whatever the case, yougive him the keys and say,"Go for it, he's gonnawrap it around the pole."There's so much power in this applicationthat they're going todestroy themselves in that respect.They're not gonnaunderstand in circumstanceswhen they get put inthat odd mind what to do,because there's no experience.And that's where AI is.Given to someonethat's been in the industryfor a long time,that's done their homework,it's fantastic because you can call them,you can just franklyread out the bullshitthat it puts out to you.And you can see that it's just not true.Or you can go, "That's good, but I'mgonna make it better."And you become thedirector, the conductorof this orchestra andyou're playing with AI.That's where it's really powerful.You need to know what you're doing.And this is the samething with these notes."I'm taking this livetranscript, help me create this.I can write my own CCN for this,but this is justgonna add that extra levelof professionalism,critique, and also making surethat it's not gonna fallshort with the contractor."So this is where itbecomes really, really powerful.You can ask the questions even more.One thing, if therewas a meeting going back,let's look at previous meetings.So this is where I can go to,let me go into an actual project here.And I can go into, I think I had,let me go into one of my meetings.Yeah, go into here.I can ask you questions such as,did we talk about, around about?And you can basically ask questionsbecause sometimesthis is really critical.What was the datesgiven for this install?And I didn't even spell install properly.The thing is, this isreally, really powerful.You can start treatingthis as like your chat GPTbecause it's using chat,but it's also like your Google insightsbased on previous information.I think that's really cool about that.And that's where granola really shines.Now where it becomesreally powerful with thisis when you go into the projects,we can ask about the folder.So again, because this is a projectand I've got everything about,I wanna ask what is theterm that you're gonna ask?Turnover dates providedfor the road A handover.And it's gonna gothrough my whole entire noteson that project.And it's gonna lookat every single meetingand start to look at it.The most recentmeeting, let me check in those.It'll go through andstart to pull up all the notesand say, well, wetalked about the deadlines,the construction schedule.As of June 24th, August1st was there, August 14th.And then before,and you can go through allthe other previous notes.So it'll go through everysingle meeting for this.It's really, really, really powerful.And I think this is wherethis changes the game for anyonebecause you can only take in so much.That's the reality of it.In our lovely construction reality herethat everyone will point fingers.And they're certain thatwe said this, well, hold on.I'm a human being.I don't like, I'm verycautious in a meetingthat I would basicallyhold to something I saidbecause unless I damnwell knew that it's there,I'm not going to say I know.I'm very cautious where Iwanna put the elements into it.And that's where, again,granola is really slickbecause I can go backand I say, if someone said,oh, we didn't talk about this,I can just search it inthat folder and holy smokes.It's saved my butt so many times.And I can do it live, right in person,right in those construction meetings.Actually, no, in meeting 37,we talked about this pricing.38, we talked aboutrefine, we got revised pricing.And then 39, we are gonna process the CO.You agree to this, right?Or like, again, talking aboutconstruction scheduling,like that's always a critical one.Oh, I didn't say that.What did the transcript size say?And it's just holdingeveryone accountable to it.And that's where thisprogram is very, very, very slick.And I love it on that aspect of it, okay?Beside the spaces and everything,we will dive into the recipes here.This is where, again, youcan create your own recipes.You can look at other people's recipes,look again, best practices.It's pretty cool what you can do.And again, I've beentalking about granolaas an AI note taker for myconstruction CA practice.This can be used from sales, right?You can use it forone-on-ones, pretty much anything,because a meeting is a meeting.It's what are you trying to do?What are you trying to achieve?It's a very, very powerfulprogram in that respect, okay?And the other thing is youcan add your own team to this,and you can share your team foldersfor all the projectsthat you're working on.So again, if I'm in multiple,if we're basically, I'vegot a couple of colleagueswho are in the same project as I am,only one of us to do it, and we canalways see the notes,and we can always record it.Or we can basicallyboth do note, both note,on both sides, and then wecan compare our own noteswith the AI notes, and it'sgonna be that very powerful.So great to have yourorganization on it in that respect,and you can kind ofcycle between the companies.And the other thing Ijust wanted to point outis in the settings here,there was my templatesthat you can basically go and createthose recipes for it.That's really slick.I'm trying to rememberwhere it was in the settings,but basically doingthose templates, you can,I wonder where it is here, but anyways,in the templates, youcan basically set upthose standard workflows to it,and that's where it's really goodto kind of bring that into light,and then you can customize your notesbased on the meeting,as I showed you, having that owner's rep,maybe a site meeting, maybe a one-on-one,and it automaticallystructures it every time,and that's really, really cool.And when we get into the next episode,when we do our real site meeting notes,again, you can go to Nolan,say, "Help me write this note better,"and then bring it in to it, okay?So that's kind of, between all that,that's really, really slick.The other aspect of this is we canconnect into other apps.So like, if you're usingSlack, you can connect it,and again, the notesbasically will automatically takefrom there and then postthem into your Slack channels,which is, again, pretty cool,again, from a team aspect.If you had a project thingin there, you could see it.Someone took some notes,they could go in andtake a review, right?Notion, you can also connect that.Great, fantastic tool.I've used that for a lot of things.I'm actually exploring it,seeing how I can make itbetter with my CA practicegoing forward in the day-to-day,but again, maybe that'll bean episode on its own, okay?Of course, if you're intosales, this tool's fantastic.HubSpot, Salesforce, PipeDrive,all great, phenomenal tools.In the sales side of things, again,these notes are automatically connectedand pushed right into those platformslike the other ones,but again, in such a way.Where I see this really powerfulis I actually connect thisdirectly into Chat, GPT, Cloud,all those AI note takers, okay?So the two work hand in handand are talking back and forth,so I can take my meeting notes,bring them into Chat, GPT,start to reallydissect what we talked about,crafting out a bunch of SIs and CCNs,proposed changes, whateverthe case you're calling itfor that type of project.That's where it's very cool.And again, I'll do an episode just onthat by itself, okay?So wrapping up this kind of granolareview and all that,of course, what's the pricing, Matt?Well, it's actually pretty reasonable.Runs for about $14 per month.That's the US, of course.But I promise you,after your first meeting,you're gonna think it's gonna be paid forthat for that month.So overall, it's an essential tool.I've really enjoyed it.I've showed a fewother colleagues, my staff,and I think there's five of us right nowthat are pumping out notes each dayand seeing the benefits.And like I said, I use this daily.I use it for personalcalls, I use it for everything.It's fantastic when youneed to be able to go backto the meeting, searchup all that information.It's fantastic, okay?And like I said, the link belowgives you a full month free on it,which is, hey, yousaved your 14 bucks there,and that gives me a kickback.And like I said, ithelps keep the show goingand pays for hostingand all that good stuff.So yeah, pricing is what it is,but honestly, for whatyou're getting out of it,and again, thinking of your ROI valueof you typing your notesversus just letting this runon your kind ofstandard day-to-day meetings,this is fantastic.You'll never look back.Yeah, I'll even pay it for myselfif work ever took it away from me, okay?And this kind of brings upto the conclusion of hereis like the realityof the meetings, okay?We're busy, we're in meetingsdaily, and we're human beings.We can only take in so much.And like I kind of noted,when I have a junior staff come up to me,I tell them they've gotto bring their note backbecause they will not remember.Even if I'm going to the grocery store,if it's three things ormore, I'm writing it down.I can remember one andtwo, but that third thing, no,I need to write it down, right?It's just we're human beings.I know everyone's a littlebit different, but the reality,you know, if you're themost attention to detailand you remember these thingsand you soak up like asponge and you spit it back,are you really gonna remember?And of course, are yougonna remember it tomorrow?Are you gonna remember it in three days?Are you gonna remember it in five days?Are you gonna remember it in a month?That's where this tool is very powerful.And what I like about it isthat even though I showed youa couple of notes I was tracking,I was typing out the notes,the reality is I wannabe focused on the meeting.I wanna be really, truly engaged.And I don't have totype any notes in granolain a lot of makely spitout the meeting notes for me,which a lot of note takers will do.But again, I like how I canadd a couple little keynotes,just a simple, you know,few words in a sentenceand it's gonna fill out the details.And then I can go backand then I can startasking the questions.And I think that's really powerful.And again, once I've got agroup of meetings together,I can ask the group ofall those notes, right?When do we talk about this deadline?When was it promised?Who's doing what?Who's responsibility?It's accountability,it's not pointing fingers,it's being accountableto what's being done.And like I said, thatsearch function to meis the game changer here.Because it's not lookingat one specific meeting,it's looking at a whole,this outweighs all thenote takers out there.If you've got one that you're using,drop it in the comments,send me a note by email,fan mail, whatever.I wanna hear what you're using.But to me right now, my day to workflow,this is fantastic, okay?I know I'm kind ofpreaching this and selling it,even though I have no stock into this.But like I said, it's atool that's been very powerful.So I'm closing off this episode.I use this tool every day.You can see I'm very passionate about it.You can see why I've drunkthe Kool-Aid juice on this.I think it's fantastic.It works really well.We need to take notes, great notes,at any moment where we are.We're gonna be accountable.Owner's gonna call us out on stuff.When was this promised, those things.And this is a tool thatjust takes it to a new level.I've almost actually dropped myhandwritten notepad.I still have one for thoseodd chicken scratch notesand stuff like that, andfor kind of my list of to-dos.But this is where I'vealso, any meeting with a client,I've moved digitally100%, which I love, right?Less paper, more environmental friendly,and that kind of stuff, okay?And if you really wanna up your meetings,this is the tool that's gonna do it.It's up my meetings dramatically.The fact that I'msending out meeting notesright after the call,plus more, plus details,very clear, it's fantastic.And yeah, it's just afantastic tool in that sense.So like I said, this isone of the three-part seriesthat we're gonna do.Next episode, we're gonna talk about theactual meeting notesrunning a construction CA meeting.A lot of people havebeen asking me about that.So I'm gonna go into those detailsand show you how I like to run itin conjunction of havingthis on the side, okay?And then the firstepisode or the third episode,we're gonna talk about doingan initial kickoff meeting.Because again, there's acertain kind of baselineof things that we need to talk.So more to come, stickaround, subscribe to the channelso you don't miss anyfuture episodes in that respect.And again, if you wannatry this granola application,be in a broken recordhere, but it's in the link.You've got a free month.The show gets a kick out.I really appreciate it.It all helps everything going forwardand helps keepdelivering content to you guys.So appreciate you joining the show.And then last but not least,architects keep designing and contractorskeep making those blueprints reality.We'll see on the next one.(upbeat music)

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