Cadalyst - June 2008 - (Page 16)

techtrends SolidWorks is a 15-year-old software company with a reseller network across 70 countries, Video-Tutorials.Net is operated primarily by a husband-and-wife team, and Inspirtech is a single person. But on YouTube, everyone' s clips stand on equal terms. Though its clips may compete with SolidWorks' for attention on YouTube, Inspirtech is actually a SolidWorks Solutions Partner for education. Albert Whatmough, founder of Inspirtech, keeps a presence on both Facebook and Twitter. ª On Twitter, people can see that I' m doing something SolidWorks-related, so it' s a good way to develop contacts,º h e said. He also browses the posts on user forums, such as CADTutor.net, and responds to questions. ª Publishers charge a lot,º he said, ª but they don' t do much besides marketing the content for you. With YouTube, I can self-publish with little or no upfront cost. It' s free hosting. It' s linked back to my Web page. People can preview the quality of the materials.º Having taught parametric modeling at a high school, Whatmough was a natural at creating instructional videos. ª I feel the best way to learn the advanced features is by networking with other individuals and sharing ideas. That' s where social networking comes in,º h e said. Video-Tutorials.Net' s cofounder Rosanna D' Agnillo said, ª Social networking sites are critical to the success of our business because they level the playing field. YouTube is terrific. It reduces our advertising cost, gives us immediate feedback, so we can significantly modify our products from one edition to the next.º Her husband, Nick Grey, an engineer, creates the instructional videos using Camtasia, screen-capturing and recording software. The pair markets the training CDs for SolidWorks, CATIA, and audio manipulation programs on their own Web site, Amazon.com, and eBay (figure 2). In addition to posting clips on YouTube, they respond to CADrelated questions on Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo. com) to promote their business. Sometimes customers who' ve used their tutorials contact them to inquire whether they' re available to provide onsite training. Figure 2. Video-Tutorials.Net uses YouTube' s free hosting platform to promote its training CDs by giving away free lessons. Bloggers at Large Melanie Perry is a familiar face at the annual Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) gatherings. She' s a facilities CAD coordinator for a healthcare company by day and a CAD writer/blogger by night. She' s responsible for the salary survey published yearly in the AUGI World magazine. She also happens to be the AutoCAD Community chairperson and president of the Gateway Autodesk User Group. She maintains profiles on various networking sites. Because her technologist friends similarly juggle multiple identities, Perry uses Plaxo Pulse (www.plaxo.com), an online application that helps her keep track of her friends' videos, photos, and profile updates Ð t hat' s the only way she can keep track of who' s doing what. Facilities management is a niche, so Perry relies on both online and offline networking to locate experts and potential collaborators in her field. In February, when Perry published a post titled ª Some AutoCAD 2009 Thoughtsº in her blog at Blogspot, she inadvertently started a discussion. 16 Figure 3. Autodesk Freewheel established a home page on Facebook. An anonymous reader took issues with Perry' s assessment that the new Macro Recorder would ª open the door to automation to a lot of folks.º The reader commented, ª I have to disagree regarding the [Macro] Recorder . . . It' s only slightly more powerful than script files. I just don' t see how this will ` open the door to automation' to anyone.º Perry shot back with ª I' m sorry, but I disagree with you disagreeing with me. It will open the door to people who have never created editable code.º Just as other AutoCAD users regularly visit her blog, she bookmarks and visits her favorite bloggers to hear their thoughts about new products and features. She lurks www.cadalyst.com cadalyst June 2008 http://Video-Tutorials.Net http://Video-Tutorials.Net http://Video-Tutorials.Net http://www.plaxo.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - June 2008

Cadalyst - June 2008 Contents Editor's Window CAD Central Tech Trends: Community Building in Progress A Quarter Century of Cadalyst Tracking a CAD Giant The Highs and Lows of CAD Hardware Industry Insights — Looking Ahead Cadalyst Lab Reviews: HP xw4600 Workstation with LP3065 30” LCD Monitor NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 — Graphics Card LaCie 324 — LCD Monitor CAD Manager: Making Standards Stick MCAD Modeling: Rational vs. Irrational Decisions AEC Insight: Data Collection in AEC CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry: Just a Few CAD Renovations

Cadalyst - June 2008

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