Expanding the Conversation in Construction: Mission 2026
Industry evangelist and all-around awesome person, Stefanie Reichamn, PE of More Than an Engineer at DBIA Conference & Expo 2025.
Last December, during the holiday break, an idea was born. Sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a decade’s worth of battle scars I had this absolutely ridiculous idea:
“What if I started a blog?”
Not a corporate blog or a marketing channel, but a place to say the things I wished more people in construction were saying out loud. A place to share ideas that didn’t quite fit neatly into a slide deck. A place to talk about the messy, human, hilarious, frustrating and brilliant reality of this industry we all love.
Honestly, at the time, I thought maybe a handful would read it…three of them family and the other two accidental clicks.
But here we are now 50 blogs in, and I never could’ve predicted what happened next. The comments from the field. The reposts, debates and DMs saying, “This is exactly what we’ve been feeling.” I didn’t see TheEngiNerdLife turning into a community, or weekly ritual people actually looked forward to.
Construction evolves because its people evolve. They share. They question. They push, challenge, laugh and even yell and somehow, through all of it, get better together.
And that realization has changed how I’m approaching 2026 entirely.
The heartbeat behind TheEngiNerdLife has never been just a blog or a sketchbook full of half-serious satire. It’s been a place to talk honestly about what it means to build things (physical things, digital things, cultural things) and to wrestle with the messy, complicated, chaotic challenges of doing that in an industry that never stands still and never fully slows down.
In 2025, those conversations took us everywhere. We dug into leadership failures and leadership breakthroughs. We talked about overload and burnout, about tech adoption gone wrong, about data chaos, about AI hype and about the gap between what we say we want from technology and what we’re actually willing to change to make it work. We talked about the workforce crisis, mental health, collaboration, ownership and the enormous gap between the construction phase and the operational phase of an asset.
But looking toward 2026, this isn’t just another turn of the calendar or simply “more blogs on the way.” Something feels different. 2026 is the year TheEngiNerdLife levels up.
Not because the topics suddenly got more exciting. Not because AI magically matured. Not because the industry finally stabilized. Quite the opposite. The engine behind 2026 is that construction is walking straight into one of the most transformational periods it has faced in decades. Multiple forces (technological, economic, cultural, generational) are all converging at once. And that convergence demands a new type of conversation.
So, let’s talk about what’s coming.
Moving from Assumption to Reality
If 2025 was the year we learned to question our assumptions, 2026 will be the year those assumptions get put to the test.
This is the year when AI stops being merely an interesting demo and becomes something that either improves your business or exposes where your processes are broken. It’s the year owners start drawing harder lines around data, not just what gets turned over, but how it gets structured, governed and sustained. It’s the year cybersecurity stops living in PowerPoint decks and starts living in contracts.
It’s also the year the workforce conversation becomes impossible to ignore. Retirements are accelerating. Hiring pipelines are thinning. Burnout is real. And for the first time, leaders are admitting that culture isn’t “soft stuff.” Culture is a risk factor. In an industry where the labor shortage is real, if your culture stinks, you’re not going to be able to compete any longer. Not with your best people walking out the door anyway.
Add in modular construction, robotics, automation and the growing demand for “field-first” technology - you get an industry facing both unprecedented pressure and unprecedented opportunity.
This is the year construction stops saying “one day” and starts saying “right now.”
And that’s the conversation I want to be a part of.
Conversation Requires Collaboration
The thing about conversations is that they don’t work one-way. The industry doesn’t need another single voice shouting into the void. What it needs is a network, people from different corners of construction and ConTech sharing insights, challenging assumptions, comparing notes and yes, occasionally debating each other with passion and good humor.
So, in 2026, the goal is for TheEngiNerdLife to double down on collabs. More co-created content meaning more shared perspectives.
Let’s be real, there’s still a lot for me to learn. This is a perfect time to bring in a rotating cast of folks to challenge me, expand the conversation or add that expertise I don’t have. I’m talking honest conversations, blended perspectives and roundtable-style reflections where multiple voices weigh in on what’s changing, what isn’t and what still needs to be said.
And yes, some collabs will make you laugh. Some will make you groan. Some will hopefully make you hit “share” and say, “Yep, that’s us.”
But more than anything, they’ll deepen the conversation with a diversity of thought for topics that desperately need it.
Speaking of Topics
So, what are some of those topics? In short, you’ll see a whole lot more on the big themes shaping construction’s future.
Specifically though, we’ll unpack the realities of AI. What it can do, what it can’t do and what it absolutely should stop pretending to do. Instead of focusing on algorithms, let’s talk about industry readiness. Instead of features, let’s talk about the foundations necessary to make them useful.
We’ll go deeper into owner-centric thinking, because owners are no longer sitting quietly at the end of the process hoping for a clean handover. We’re talking structured data, connected workflows and systems built around lifecycle value and not just construction-phase convenience (with a ripple effect that could reshape the entire supply chain).
Cybersecurity will also be a recurring topic. Not as fearmongering, but as a practical conversation about how to protect projects, organizations and the people who rely on these systems every day. With more federal influence, more compliance requirements and more risk exposure, the construction industry simply cannot treat cybersecurity as an afterthought anymore.
But most importantly, we’ll continue addressing the human side of construction. How do we build cultures that attract and retain great people? How do we support mental health in an industry that demands so much from its workforce? How do we prepare leaders to navigate turbulence without losing sight of the people behind the projects?
And throughout it all, we will keep bringing the conversation back to one core truth: technology doesn’t solve problems, people do. Technology just gives them better ways to do it.
The Mission for 2026
This year isn’t about just expanding on topics. This year is about expanding on the purpose with a simple goal:
Create the most honest, human, practical conversation about the future of construction anywhere on the internet.
Not hype. Not corporate buzzwords. Not doom and gloom.
Just real stories, real lessons, real people and real opportunities.
Let’s build a place where leaders come to think, where teams come to learn, where new voices come to contribute and where the entire industry comes to understand where we’re headed.
And of course, how we get there without losing ourselves along the way.
2026 is about building community. And if done right, it will be the start of something much bigger than a blog.
So, buckle up because we’re just getting started. The best conversations are still ahead.
Let’s build something that lasts. Together.
Construction is cool, tell your friends!