Letter from the President - July 2012
Dear AUGI member,
Welcome to the July 2012 issue of AUGI HotNews!
We have had an interesting first half of the year, but the last half is where we are going to be making some real progress! The AUGI Board of Directors has spent considerable time this year better defining our goals and the new programs we have in mind.
Tiered Membership Plan
I’ve mentioned this earlier, but we have finally completed the scope for the requirements of the programming and our developer has accepted our RFP for the work to begin. We expect this development to take about two months. So, hopefully, by September this will go online. A large portion of this work is website related, enabling portions of the website to be login controlled.
Local User Group Listing
We know that local groups are still a valuable asset to members worldwide. So we are beginning to totally revamp local user group listings on the website. LUG representatives will be able to connect to AUGI using this portal and even have the opportunity to include information about meeting locations and schedules. Then, this information will be connected to individual members’ profiles so that each of us can affiliate with the LUG(s) of our choice. This will enable them to reach AUGI members about individual activities.
Resource Registry
Do you ever need a solution but don’t know where to look? Perhaps you need to convert a PDF into a DWG? Perhaps you need to get professional - but internal - training on 3D Studio max? Perhaps you need some custom programming in vb.net? Well, to date, you probably have been using Google for this, but soon you will have another option. AUGI is creating a place where developers, consultants, and resellers can place information about their services so that visitors to the site can get current leads for resources in a single place.
Meanwhile on other fronts, the AUGI forums have come out of “beta” and are now fully functional. There are still some new features of vBulletin we plan to explore in the coming months (look for that later).
AUGIWORLD is still growing and refining. We are moving some of the content to HotNews, to make room for other content in AUGIWORLD. As I have mentioned before, if you have an image for the cover, please consider sending it in. Also, if you would like to get AUGIWORLD in print, we are taking Professional Memberships ($75/year) in limited quantities. Just contact me if interested.
The AUGI Board of Directors recently held a mid-year meeting at Autodesk offices in San Francisco. Over 2 ½ days, we poured over every aspect of AUGI membership and benefits, discussing ideas for enhancement and how to deal with unproductive areas. We also met with a few Autodesk staff, presented our 2012 and beyond vision, and unveiled the new AUGI Wish List System. The new WLS is doing very well and growing in wishes and products to wish for. If you have not tried it, you should check it out.
And finally, we have begun to plan activities for Autodesk University 2012. If you are attending this event please, look around for our way to tell others you are joining us in Las Vegas.