New Page: SolidWorks Presentations
Because of some recent requests and inquiries, I have decided to add a new page to the RockSolid Perspective site. The new page, which is titled “SolidWorks Presentations” will host a Microsoft PowerPoint Show of every (I think) presentation I have ever done along with when and where the presentation was 1st given. To access the new page click on the “SolidWorks Presentations” tab on the top of this page (see picture above).
All of the presentations are currently hosted on my Box.net site so when you click on any of the links it will take you to the Box.net download page. From there you will have the option to view or save the PowerPoint show.
If you have a question about any of my presentations please feel free to send me an email and I would be more than happy to help you out.
Enjoy!
This Blog IS NOT DEAD!
Over the course of the last week there has been some blogs that have been stating that SolidWorks has lost its mojo because the blogs have quieted down over the last year. While this is true, the blog posts have been few and far in between for most of the SolidWorks blogs, I do not feel it is a result of SolidWorks losing any sort of mojo.
I personally want to speak to this, not for all of the other bloggers, but for myself personally and the future of THIS blog. The reason for the decrease in the number of posts here at RockSolid Perspective is because my personal and professional life has changed dramatically since I started this blog.
In my personal life since 2007 my wife and I have welcomed our 1st child and will soon be welcoming another. What this means is that the times I usually spent on my computer at night writing blog posts have now been replaced with dolls, Little People, coloring books, and spending quality family time with my daughter because I will never get these days / times back.
In my professional life since 2007 I have changed job roles, increased my hours, and have added responsibility in my every day job which is what pays our bills. I have recently moved into a Sales Engineer role which has allowed me to continue to use SolidWorks but in a sales environment as opposed to a design environment. This has also required me to spend some more time on the road which has limited my desk time and also points back to the reason why I make sure to spend time with my family when I am home. On top of my Sales Engineer role, I am also hold the Project Manager, CAD Administrator, and IT roles at work. So as you can see, my time is precious when I am at work. I have been extremely blessed in my professional life with a bunch of work, a good job, great owners, and a fast growing business.
In regards to this blog, I have a LARGE list of blog posts in the queue that I need to write when I have time. Starting this week you will see the beginning of a series of posts that cover some of my main points in a presentation I have given titled “Utilizing SolidWorks for Sales & Marketing”.
So in response to the question whether SolidWorks has lost their “mojo” or not, I am going to say NO! I feel that the reason for the decrease in activity is directly related to workload and other commitments as opposed to not having anything exciting to write about. So stay tuned because this blog IS NOT DEAD!
missing in action
Ahhhhhhh…it feels good to be back in the saddle again.
After been missing in action since the middle of April, I think I will finally have some time to post rambling nonsense here again. This summer has been absolutely insane in both my personal and professional schedules.
I spent 2 weeks in June helping out at a boys basketball camp, for 7th & 8th graders 1 week, and 9th & 10th graders the other week, at a local high school. This on top of family, softball, camping, etc. has made my personal life if nothing else, interesting. I also modified & launched a new invoicing system at my father-in-law’s business which tied up some early mornings and late nights at home.
Professionally speaking, I have been heading up (thus heavily involved) in launching a completely new ERP system at work. This has been fun, frustrating, and stressful amongst other things. Our new system went live this past Friday so we are currently working out some bugs, but for the most part has been a successful switchover. Now that that project is somewhat behind me, I can get back into doing my normal tasks on a daily basis.
I am looking forward to posting some content here coming up soon. There has been a lot of things going on in the SolidWorks Community that should be mentioned and also we can’t forget the slew of posts that will be popping up all over the web in a couple of months about SolidWorks 2012.
I am looking forward to bringing all of this to you and I thank you for hanging in there during my dry spout.
what do the users really want?
A few weeks back I mentioned how I was confused as to why a CATIA translator in SolidWorks did not make the Top Ten list at SolidWorks WORLD this year. That one sentence began a firestorm of tweets about whether the translator was really a high priority among SolidWorks users.
First and foremost I need to mention that I live in West Michigan which is heavily entrenched in the auto industry. With that being said, almost everywhere I go and everyone I talk to in the Midwest have mentioned the NEED for the ability of SolidWorks to handle CATIA files natively. After all, both CAD programs are owned by parent company Dassault Systemes.
One of the first comments made on Twitter stated the my feedback and the user base I usually talk to might be skewed compared to the entire SolidWorks user base and I totally agree with the comment. This may be the exact reason why it does not make it to the Top Ten list.
Still it leads to me think, what is the holdup of getting this translator incorporated into SolidWorks? There are many tools inside SolidWorks that are industry specific, things like Mold tools. So why should someone that has to constantly deal with CATIA files be forced to find workarounds in order to get their work done.
I personally know of a company that has a large number of SolidWorks licenses, however they also have a license of Autodesk Inventor for the sole reason of translating data. I am guessing that this is probably not how Dassault Systemes wants there customers working.
So what is the holdup? Is it pride? Is it the possibility of making more money by releasing an additional add in down the road that customers are going to have to buy? I don’t know the reasoning for it not being in the software already but I have to think that one of these is the deep rooted holdup. When or if it does come I sure hope that it does not come at an additional cost if you have the Professional or Premium SolidWorks packages.
This post is not meant to pick on Dassault Systemes, SolidWorks, a development team, or a specific development person but is more to ask the question of why are we still waiting. SolidWorks 2011 offers a wide range of translators for other popular CAD programs like Pro-E, Unigraphics, Inventor, Solid Edge, etc. but not CATIA yet.
Do you see the need? Why do you think we are still waiting?
the jeff ray legacy
As most of you know by now, SolidWorks Corporation has a new CEO.
Jeff Ray, effective January 5, 2011, is moving on to a position as EVP of Global Operations for SolidWorks Corporation parent company Dassault Systemes.
Roopinder Tara wrote one of the best articles I have read in a long time about Jeff as a man. This is an article you need to read.
Jeff Ray: A Gentleman Walks Off the Stage
Jeff was always open to talking to you and was always quick to respond to emails that were sent his way. Jeff’s leadership and likeable character will be greatly missed but I am sure that Bertrand Sicot, the new CEO at SolidWorks will carry on the legacy that Jeff has instilled at SolidWorks.
do you have what it takes? well then, render away!
Are you the master of creating realistic images at your company? Well, if you think you are I have the perfect contest for you. 3Dconnexion is currently holding a contest that is looking for the best rendered images using 1 of the 4 models they supply. This contest is not limited to SolidWorks renders but any program that can read in these included file types.
- dae
- dwg
- dxf
- fbx
- obj
- stl
- jpeg (preview)
The rules are quite simple. Like their Facebook page and then download the files to render away. Each month (October, November, and December) they will be selecting monthly winners with some awesome prices. Also, at the end of the whole contest on December 31, 2010 they will be selecting a Grand Prize winner that will win a Apple 27” LED Cinema Display.
Here are the winning entries from October.
To see all of the October entries, check out the Facebook photo album.
To enter the contest, visit the 3Dconnexion fan page on Facebook.
To view the full rules and download the models, follow this link to the 3Dconnexion website.
Happy Rendering and Good Luck!
solidworks 2011 previews coming to a blog near you!
I have been hit and miss here on my blog for a little while now mainly because of my current workload at work but I wanted to inform you of some things you can expect in the upcoming weeks.
On Tuesday, myself and a bunch of the other bloggers will be meeting up in Concord, MA at SolidWorks Corporation headquarters for an exclusive hands on preview of SolidWorks 2011. While many of us have already been beta testing the software, this will allow us to see some of the deeper functionality that we might have otherwise missed or overlooked.
Wednesday morning at 8:00 AM the NDA will be lifted and you will probably notice a barrage of posts from the bloggers covering all of the new functionality that we have seen.
So stay tuned and let me know if there is anything specific that you would like me to preview.
For a countdown until the coverage begins visit www.solidworkslaunch.com.
draftsight…the follow-up
A few weeks back I did a post on the new Dassault Systemes 2D product DraftSight. During the course of that post I raised some questions that I was curious. Aaron Kelly (director of DraftSight) was kind enough to answer a few questions through the exchange of emails that I wanted to share with you here.
Q1.) Why develop a product so close to SolidWorks 2D Editor instead of making that product free to anyone?
A. We developed DraftSight so that we could have tighter control over the product direction. We feel that we will be able to deliver a superior product to our users by building on the DraftSight platform. First came the product (DraftSight), then we created the business model.
Q2.) Will SolidWorks 2D Editor be slowly phased out because of the launch of DraftSight?
A. SolidWorks 2D Editor is still available to SolidWorks customers, but future development energy will be directed to support and develop DraftSight. We are developing a plan for 2D Editor and let the SolidWorks community know about it this summer.
Q3.) Who is supporting DraftSight? SolidWorks employees or Dassault employees?
A. It is easy to say DS Employees because SolidWorks is brand of Dassault Systemes. In an effort to best answer your question though, I will say that some of the DraftSight support team today sit in Concord (This is where SolidWorks is headquartered), but this is changing rapidly. We also have DraftSight support engineers all over the world. We want to be able to deliver world class technical support. These support engineers will support DraftSight, but they may also help out with supporting SolidWorks, CATIA, Enovia, or SImulia products as well.
These answers definitely cleared up some things for me and hopefully for you as well.
draftsight…where did this come from?
Last week Dassault Systemes released a new product called DraftSight. DraftSight is a free 2D CAD editor that serves the same function as the free SolidWorks 2D Editor (formally DWGeditor) program that SolidWorks offers. While DraftSight offers a nicer and cleaner user interface (see below) it is serving the same purpose as SolidWorks 2D Editor.
Here is the really confusing part, it seems as if a lot of the support and public relations is coming from SolidWorks Corporation headquarters in Concord, MA. All of this made me ask the inevitable question…WHY? When this product was released there was a lot of buzz on Twitter about whether or not this was the death of SolidWorks 2D Editor but again and again a SolidWorks Corporation presence on Twitter said no. So does this mean that there is a group in Concord developing two 2D CAD programs? None of this make a lot of sense to me. There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions about this new software.
What are your thoughts? Have you tried the DraftSight program yet? If so, what do you think? Do you like it better than SolidWorks 2D Editor (DWGeditor)?
a var that gets it!
What does VAR stand for? Value Added Reseller.
In my opinion there is a big difference between a reseller and a VAR. A reseller is someone that you pay to update your software when needed and also someone that will possibly give you a legitimate answer when you call tech support maybe once a quarter. A VAR is someone that offers its customers and other users around the world additional value beyond the basic updates and tech support. So how can a reseller become a VAR? My answer is social media.
Social media has been the latest fad over the last 5 years or so. I think that it has moved towards more main stream the last year or 2 instead of just a fad that will pass. When I mention social media, I include resources like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and blogs all into this category.
A reseller that has turned into a VAR and seems to get it is GoEngineer. With offices is Idaho, California, Colorado, and Utah their customer base is spread out over a large area. About a month ago GoEngineer started a YouTube page that at the time of this post has 47 different tutorial videos. These are all great videos that range from 1:04 to 9:15 in length and are chocked full of great tutorial content. Here are a couple of my favorite videos from their YouTube page.
Another reseller that has turned into a VAR is CAPINC. CAPINC has turned into a VAR in my opinion not because of a YouTube page but because of the CAPUniversity SoidWorks Tips & Tricks Technical blog. This blog, similar to GoEngineer’s YouTube page has a ton of great tutorials and tips & tricks on it.
So why am I pushing for more SolidWorks resellers get into the social media realm? The SolidWorks AE’s are the ones that field calls all day from users that have a problem or can’t figure something out. Why not take those phone calls and emails and turn them into a blog post or a quick training video. When I attended the Chicago SWUGN Technical Summit I sat in on a presentation by Adrian Fanjoy & Josh Altergott from CATI. The title of the presentation was “Redneck Workarounds – The SolidWorks Equivalent to Duct Tape and Bailing Wire” and it was somewhere between 15 and 20 problems that they had received from tech support calls and how they solved the problems. It was one of the best presentations I have ever sat through.
Every reseller should strive to be a VAR and in my opinion, this is the best way that they can get on the fast track to achieve your goal.
technorati
