Synthesis Spotlight: Online + Offline Learning @ Payette

Office Hours
Written by Knowledge Architecture

Featured Guests

Hilary Barlow, Architect and Community Manager at Payette

Webinar Summary

Payette is a design firm that specializes in the healthcare, health science, and academic science markets. Maintaining a competitive advantage in rapidly changing markets means that the Payette team must prioritize continuous learning and development. To maintain a competitive edge, team members must engage in a lot of continuous learning.

In her role as Community Manager for Payette’s Big Science Group, Hilary Barlow has answered a difficult question: What does learning look like for highly skilled professionals, many of whom are already experts in their field?

In this webinar, you’ll learn how Hilary:

  • Identifies hot topics and good teachers
  • Convenes the Big Science community
  • Captures key learnings on Synthesis
  • Engages community members in the process

If you only have a few minutes, we recommend jumping to two highlights: Introduction to Payette’s Knowledge Groups (9:00) and Big Science’s Monthly Meetings (14:00).

Webinar Timeline

02:00  KA Connect 2018 & Synthesis Workshop San Francisco Registration
05:00  KA Advance LinkedIn Group Highlights
06:45  Online and Offline Learning @ Payette
09:00  Introduction to Payette’s Knowledge Groups
12:00  Knowledge Groups: Roles & Responsibilities
13:00  Hilary’s Background and Role
13:45  Big Science Knowledge Group
14:00  Big Science’s Monthly Meetings
19:10  Meeting Preparation
22:50  Meeting Day-of Activities
23:50  Meeting Follow Up
25:10  Example: Clean Room Design Presentation
30:05  Example: Project Tour
32:10  Engaging Members In Authoring Follow-up Posts
33:15  Do event attendees earn AIA credits?
33:50  Who does the event recording and editing? How sophisticated is the editing?
35:30  Community Management Tips
37:40  What is the benefit to having all firm events in one Synthesis calendar?
39:10  How do you identify & ask colleagues to do event write-ups?
41:30  What were your 2017 “biggest winner” events?
42:55  How is your time split between community management duties and the rest of your job?
43:45  What are the most time intensive parts of putting on an event?
44:50  How does the firm leadership support event participation while regulating the draw on billable time?
46:20  What is your average event attendance?
47:00  For the videos that you record, have you looked at the analytics to see who is watching them or how long they are watched?
47:30  What advice would you give someone who is embarking on their journey as a community manager?
49:05  What is next for Big Science’s events and knowledge asset development?
50:10  How do you onboard new community members?
50:50  Do you imagine that you’ll repeat sessions?

About Office Hours

Office Hours is 60 minutes of news, stories, and Q+A with Susan, Chris, Zucu, and special guests from the KA Advance community. You can watch recordings of past Office Hours webinars here.

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Katie Robinson, Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer, LS3P
AJ Zandt, Marketing Specialist and Content Writer, EUA
Shayna Lindeman, Senior Communications Specialist, Muller Engineering

Webinar Summary

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In this 90-minute webinar, Katie Robinson, Chief Marketing & Knowledge Officer at LS3P; AJ Zandt, Marketing Specialist and Content Writer at EUA; and Shayna Lindeman, Senior Communications Specialist at Muller Engineering, shared the marketing knowledge agents their firms are building and using as participants in the Synthesis Knowledge Agents beta.

Through three 15-minute case studies, they demonstrated real-world agents designed to support marketing, business development, and communications. Their examples showed how firms are using knowledge agents to reduce repetitive work, uncover relevant experience and evidence, and give marketing teams a stronger starting point for creating thoughtful, tailored content.

We explored:

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  • How agents can reduce demands on subject matter experts, allowing them to spend more time on billable work and serving clients

  • How firms are structuring grounding knowledge and instructions to produce useful, trustworthy results

  • What marketing teams are learning as they build, refine, and introduce agents within their firms

  • Where human expertise and judgment remain essential

  • How agent ownership and content stewardship may reshape the role of AEC marketing teams

Following the presentations, Susan Strom, Chief Client Officer at Knowledge Architecture, facilitated an open conversation with the speakers and audience about what it takes to build useful agents, what these early implementations are revealing, and where marketing knowledge agents may go next.

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Featured Guests

Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO, Knowledge Architecture

Webinar Summary

Over the last two years, Synthesis has evolved from a social intranet into an integrated knowledge, learning, and AI platform for AEC firms.

In this webinar, I shared the next phase of that evolution and demonstrated how new Synthesis LMS, AI, and integration capabilities are coming together to help firms put their knowledge to work.

We explored:

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Featured Guests

Nicole Rogers, Senior Principal and Director of Architecture
Graham Parker, Knowledge Manager

Webinar Summary

What changed when SMRT Architects & Engineers implemented Synthesis wasn't just the platform. It was the mindset.

After four intranet iterations spanning nearly two decades — from hand-coded HTML to ThoughtFarmer to SharePoint — SMRT, a 130-person integrated architecture and engineering firm based in Portland, Maine, made a different kind of commitment. They decided that internal work is real work, that their firm is a worthy client, and then treated their Synthesis implementation accordingly.

Nicole Rogers served not just as executive sponsor, but as principal in charge. Graham Parker, who had already proven the ROI of data-driven process improvement on the accounting side of the business, moved into a dedicated knowledge management role. A project number was created in Deltek. Hours were tracked on timesheets. The implementation got the same rigor and attention SMRT gives its external clients and the results showed.

That investment didn't end at go-live. Nicole has continued to drive adoption at the senior leadership level because SMRT understands that launching Synthesis is just the beginning, not the finish line. Meanwhile, Graham has expanded his work into AI, helping build the digital knowledge foundation that makes tools like Synthesis Knowledge Agents and AI Search valuable. 

Knowledge management can't be the ninth thing on somebody's to-do list in the AI era. SMRT's story is a case study in what happens when it isn't.

In this webinar, Nicole Rogers, Senior Principal and Director of Architecture, and Graham Parker, Knowledge Manager, share their firm's story — from the organizational shifts that unlocked knowledge management to a live look at where they're headed with AI and learning management.

We explore:

  • How treating the Synthesis implementation like a real client project changed the outcome

  • The change management and internal marketing work that drove adoption before, during, and after launch

  • How Nicole's continued executive sponsorship keeps the platform alive and growing past go-live

  • How and why Graham moved from the finance team to a dedicated knowledge management role 

  • What it takes to build the digital knowledge foundation that enables AI agents to actually deliver value

  • A live tour of CALVIN, SMRT's Synthesis platform, and a look at their early work with Synthesis Knowledge Agents and LMS

If your firm has struggled to give its knowledge management program real momentum, SMRT's story offers an honest, hard-won perspective on what it actually takes: the right investments in mindset, people, process, and culture — alongside the right technology.

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WEBINAR | Synthesis Knowledge Agents: Live Demo + Insights from the Private Beta
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Featured Guests

Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO, Knowledge Architecture

Webinar Summary

Knowledge agents are emerging as one of the most promising applications of AI for AEC firms—helping teams accelerate learning, scale expertise, and streamline workflows.

In this webinar, Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, will provide a live demonstration of Synthesis Knowledge Agents, showing how agents are created, refined, and deployed to solve real business problems.

Along the way, Christopher will share what we're learning from firms participating in the Synthesis Knowledge Agents private beta, highlighting the patterns and strategic insights emerging from early adoption.

We'll explore:

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  • The common characteristics shared by firms making the fastest progress with knowledge agents

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This session offers a practical look at how knowledge agents are evolving and what early adopters are teaching us about the future of AI-enabled work in AEC firms.

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WEBINAR | Designing Modern Learning Experiences at Lionakis and Fuscoe

Featured Guests

Kristina Williams, Design Technology Director at Lionakis
Brandon Norton, Senior Multi-Media Manager at Fuscoe Engineering

Webinar Summary

As AEC firms rethink how knowledge and expertise are shared internally, learning is beginning to move beyond traditional training formats. Instead of relying solely on live sessions or long recordings, firms are increasingly designing learning experiences that are shorter, more flexible, on-demand or hybrid, and accessible in the flow of work.

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In this webinar, Kristina Williams, Director of Design Technology at Lionakis, and Brandon Norton, Senior Multi-Media Manager at Fuscoe Engineering, shared how their firms are designing modern learning experiences that take advantage of this new paradigm.

Each presented a case study of a high-priority learning experience their firm is building or modernizing—experiences designed not only for formal learning, but also to support self-directed exploration, knowledge reuse, recall, and AI-powered discovery through Synthesis.

We explored:

  • How firms are identifying high-value opportunities to modernize learning experiences

  • How learning content is being structured for both human learning and AI-powered retrieval

  • How on-demand courses and hybrid learning experiences are designed to support self-directed learning

  • What early feedback firms are receiving from staff using these new formats

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Each speaker shared a 20-minute case study, followed by discussion and open Q&A.

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Hillary Thompson, Principal

Webinar Summary

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In this webinar, Hillary Thompson, Principal at MBH Architects, shares how MBH is deliberately investing in its knowledge foundation to enable better AI outcomes, improve access to expertise, and create a continuous pipeline connecting project experience, institutional knowledge, and learning.

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