Our History

2005: A Change in Workflow

This year brings additional changes to the Board’s workflow. The Board will no longer be a “working board” in that they will start focusing on strategic issues related to AUGI expansion and services. By freeing up the Board members, we can start focusing on issues that will be the framework for the future.

Building on the success of the first AUGI CAD Camp in 2004 the board planned five additional events at the start of the year. We saw that grow to 22 events by mid year and completed 28 events in 2005. Matt Murphy did a “wicked cool” job on pulling together a top notch team of nationally known speakers while also being responsible for content review.

The AutoCAD Wish List had its share of troubles in the past both technically and functionally, but 2005 brought us a new one. Rising from the ashes was the newly formed and refocused AutoCAD Wish List that you see today. It was totally revamped and showed renewed vigor and an overwhelming amount of participation.

The themes of our retooling included “Solicit” – increase the Wish List exposure and make it easier to submit by standardizing the submission process. “Filter” – combine, consolidate entries to eliminate redundancy. “Validate” – “scrub” list to remove duplicate and unneeded entries such as features that already exist. Finally “Vote” – provide regular “top ten” voting windows.

Other milestones include:
220 validated LUGs
AUGI logo merchandise online store opens for business
BLAUGI is launched – the official AUGI blog.
AUGI Toolbar it created – AUGI on your desktop
Archived Autodesk University handouts are now hosted by AUGI
AUGI unveils a new logo
We even purchased a new Top DAUG outfit!

AUGI has touched more people and reached more users with the AUGI message this year than in, possibly, all the previous years. Web traffic is way up. Online interactions are expanding. Local User Groups are increasing. Membership has grown to over 75,000 and expanding daily. Volunteers are working tirelessly to make us stronger. By moving away from the task oriented past and moving toward a mission focused future, the AUGI Board of Directors has repositioned the organization for exponential growth.

The following served on the board for 2005:
President: Yoshi Honda
Vice President: Richard Binning
Secretary: Chris Lindner
Treasurer: R. Robert Bell
Board Member: Mark W. Kiker
Board Member: Jill King
Board Member: Rick McNeil
Board Member: Mike Perry