President’s Message: Progress and Pain
Looking back at 2010 we see many successes and some struggles.
First off – we completed our 20th year of existence. AUGI was started back in 1990 and completed the 20th year of assisting users who want to connect to other users. We have expanded from a small group of scattered users to almost 200,000 international members. Over those 20 years we have moved from NAAUG to AUGI and embraced new technologies to invigorate the sharing of knowledge between members. So much more to come...
In 2010 we expanded the AUGI Wish List program to cover six products by adding various flavors of Revit to the mix. We are researching the expansion of this process and hope to have some additional Wish Lists in 2011. We expanded our reach with social media offerings that included a Facebook page, Twitter accounts and LinkedIn. Website visits were up by 22 percent over 2009 and we unveiled our newly revamped web site.
Our publications continued to move forward with AUGIWORLD and AUGI | AEC Edge. Content expanded in both and we even provided content for other publications by Extension Media in the area of Media and Entertainment.
We connected up with Drop.io to provide a new resource for our members as they seek ways of sharing files with each other. Drop.io is no longer available since they were bought out by Facebook. We look forward to seeing what Facebook might be doing with this added functionality at some point.
We had some troubles with attendance at AUGI CAD Camps and the year did not end on a profitable note. It was a mixed bag of some very successful locations, but many Camps were cancelled due to poor registration. We are looking toward 2011 to see if there might be a profitable model going forward.
Our website launch was inaugurated at Autodesk University with expanded content from publications and more. The transition was not without troubles as the Forum data was not included with the initial launch causing many to be concerned about the negative impact this might have going forward. The Board continued to seek the archival Forum data and worked out a process for restoration and at the time of this writing many are working feverishly to get it all back online. We apologize for the short term negative impact that this had on our members and the worldwide Autodesk product users.
Thankful
As 2011 begins, I will be transitioning off the Board of Directors and also ending my term as President of AUGI. I am thankful for the opportunity that the time on the Board has given me to serve the members and work toward expanded opportunities and new benefits. I will stay connected and hope to interact with many of you in the year ahead.
