Letter from the President - 2012 May
Hello AUGI member!
As you may have heard, Autodesk has released their 2013 suite of applications. Regardless of the year always being off, each time this happens users from around the world convene on our official magazine, AUGIWORLD, to get first hand thoughts about the new release. If you have not seen the latest edition of AUGIWORLD, click here to check it out.
Now for the run down on the latest happenings around AUGI:
AUGIWORLD: I just mentioned the April issue on What’s New from Autodesk is out, but also you should know that you too can have your work on the cover! We are looking for photographic and rendered imagery for the cover. Got something nice? Let me know and perhaps you will get to shine there too!
AUGI Dues: Last month I mentioned the new membership dues are now defined. We are now defining new features and benefits to go along with that. This isn’t something we take lightly and are not rushing into either. However, if you have interest in leading the way in this arena please contact me directly: david.harrington@augi.com
AUGI.com: Did you know we have hundreds of pages on our website? When was the last time you looked around?
What Products do you use: Part of the technical aspects of the website is connecting your membership profile to areas of the website, such as the wish list. But therein is the problem – if you don’t select the programs you use then those connections are not made. Have 5 free minutes? Then check out your profile and make sure you are up to date!
AUGI Forums: We are in “beta” mode now while fixes and tweaks are made to the various template styles. This will probably continue for another two weeks or so I think. With the new version are a lot of cool new things we can do with the forums, I can’t wait to talk about that later!
AUGI Events: As you should remember, last year we conducted 1 day CAD Camp events in the USA. There was not a lot of interest in those events so for 2012 we are holding those sort of activities. However, our partner is looking to hold similar events this year. All I need to say is they are not AUGI’s and should not be associated as such. We are however, supporting the Revit Technology Conferences and Autodesk University.
AUGI Wish List System: Ready, Get Set, GO VOTE! The revamped AUGI Wish List System is now operating with year-long voting! How does this work? Basically as members rank submitted wishes, that ranking translates into a priority listing of the top 30. Then you go vote on the top 30, placing 10 votes wherever you wish.
Now for the cool part! What if a great wish comes in months after a solid group of 30? Well, if the average ranking exceeds the lowest in the top 30, then they swap places. You will see a new wish available for voting. And if you had voted (and had your vote “lost” by the demotion) you will get an email telling you that you have another vote ticket to use!
What this does is allow Autodesk to have insight into what is most important when they are developing new feature scopes for their products. Historically our release of the top ten at Autodesk University can only help the 2nd release into the future – not the most immediate since there isn’t time to actually program it.
AUGI HotNews: Our monthly email newsletter is beginning to see a growth pattern, getting more submissions from authors and expanding our subject matter. Want to contribute to the fun? Contact brian.benton@augi.com.
AUGI Communities: We are still looking for volunteers interested in helping in a community area, be it software or industry. Let me know if you want to get involved!
AUGI Education: We now working on the Autodesk University content we recently got from the AU team. Our biggest challenge is developing a method to host 450gb of video! That is a lot of data…
That’s it for this month – now go hit the http://forums.augi.com!