The Early Years: Membership Booms (2004-2005)
2004
To keep it website robust and secure, AUGI implemented its own servers with heightened security and backup redundancy.
The Revit Community, another AUGI product-focuses segment, was launched.
AUGIWORLD Magazine was greatly enhanced this year. Especially noteworthy was a Tips & Tricks section. Technical Editor David Harrington and Managing Editor Marilyn Law continued to showcase AUGI members' editorial talent in the bi-monthly magazine.
AUGI launched its first regional learning and networking event, AUGI CAD Camp, in Jacksonville, Florida. This was a TOTAL AUGI event and a huge success.
We expanded internationally as we formally established a relationship with the AUG-JP (Japan) organization to participate in the AUGI organization. In 2004 they show 6,000 members.
AUGI formally established an agreement with Solidvapor, Inc. to provide “behind-the-scenes” organization management services.
Early in 2004 our membership has crossed over 40,000. We ended the year with more than 55,000 validated members.
Autodesk University 2004 was in Las Vegas and it was the best ever! There was a total attendance of around 4,400, of which approximately 1,445, or 33 percent of the total attendance, were AUGI members.
2005
2005 brought additional changes to the Board’s workflow. The Board moves from a “working board” in that they will start focusing on strategic issues related to AUGI expansion and services. By freeing up the Board members, they 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 the 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 (Local User Groups)
- 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 almost 75,000. 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.
