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Yeah, so, I've tried to get access to use V6, but no go. Is it not a simple software installation? believe me, once I'm able to use it, I'll be writing something on it.
I occasionally have to go back, like today for example, to work on legacy stuff. I was just wondering if I should port it over to SW and go from there. I have to recreate the entire assembly drawing but it would be better for the future, and I could get a rendering out of it for the sales/marketing guys.
Let me know if there's somethign specific you're interested in! Thanks!
I would like to know how they insert forming tools in sheet metal. SW is so ridiculously easy. There is probably one guy, if your lucky, who knows how to do it. I had to return to the booth 3 times to finally catch the guy when he was there. Also ask about sketching in drawing and see how those tools are.
Actually, I think it's very cool that they invited you. I'm looking forward to reading your posts.
Sorry, Mark, that was too easy...
What do you mean by social collaboration?
You want PLM? Go buy a PLM system. There are quite a few out there that work with SW.
You want integration with ERP? Go buy SW Enterprise PDM and use its XML output to interface with your ERP system.
As for me I want Dassault to keep its fingers out of the SolidWorks pie. I don't want SW to become CATIA, a system that promises Monte Carlo then takes you to the nearest indian casino for a severe beating.
As for Dassault, that is somewhat wishful thinking as they own SW. I agree with your point in not wanting SW to become CATIA.
anyway, I agree Dave. Dassualt needs to let SolidWorks run. However, it's not gonna happen. There's people there to make SolidWorks more integrated with Dassault. What if SolidWorks is more 3DVia than Catia? or if it had V6 platform abilities?
I wouldn't mind if SW picked up some V6 capability. However, I don't trust Dassault. They promise a lot, but what you see in a demo isn't what you get in real life. DS products are a royal pain to install, maintain, and use.
I was at the CATIA Operators Exchange conference last year and saw a live demo of V6 beta. It was impressive, but it was scripted and well practiced. Every DS demo is like that. What they don't show is the CAD/PLM admins in the back-room pulling their hair out trying to get everything working right. Or the CFO swearing at the engineering managers when they deliver a quote for the upgrade.
I'm not going to mention any names here, because I think this really extends to the greater software industry, but the way I look at it, a lot of companies are using the terms like "social networking" and "social media" as replacements for terms like "collaborative workspace." You're right that the terms are used mainly to generate buzz.
I'd like to think that we *do* understand social media since that's my job. But at SolidWorks, the way we approach social computing is an extension to the different ways that we communicate with our user base. We're active on places like Twitter because we want to take an active part in the conversations taking place. We post things to sites like YouTube and Flickr because we know that our users like to see them. We give bloggers press access at events because we know that the user base likes to hear things from a user perspective, not just a journalist/analyst perspective. We're not perfect, and we don't always have as much time to participate as we'd like, but we try to focus on communication and enablement.
Will we start to put some new collaboration & networking features into our products? I can't really make any promises one way or the other, but I can guarantee that anything we do will be done for the purpose of helping our users be more effective in their jobs, and not just something we can use to say "look how cool we are."
Matthew West, Social Media Manager
SolidWorks
However, it's cool to try out stuff too, but not by using the users as a testbed right. I'm glad SolidWorks isn't jumping at trying to work in popular culture to the programs (as far as I know and even though I would think some of it cool) but I'm also really wanting SolidWorks to show more innovation in what they come out with and hopefully not tow the DS line. Thanks again man!
Certainly the WEB is a great place to gain insight into solutions. But what about how social media can help a customer achieve time to market? While it is easy to say the competition is wrong, it is not smart to do this just because they are the competition… we have all seen how this allows a new comer to grow… I wonder what you think of Vuuch? Are we competition and therefore wrong or are we social media that reduces time to market?
What I'm questioning is creating a collaborative work experience and tagging it with a "social" name just to jump on the bandwagon, and it's really something of an academic argument, not an indictment of any particular company. In the case of PTC here, I think the tag is actually appropriate because it describes the process, but I think that the word "social' could just as easily have been replaced with "collaborative." But kudos to them for anyway for giving their users the option to collaborate in-application. I'd be interested to see what people think about that in comparison to the Dassault V6 platorm once both have been in use for a while.
Maybe I should have gone into a little more detail before, but I was trying to bang something out before I left for a meeting. I don't think that trying to engage in conversations with the user base is necessarily promotion. I field questions, both publicly and privately, on Twitter all the time. That has nothing to do with promoting the company, but trying, in whatever way I can, to help the end users out there. We have a public forum on our website that we host specifically so users have a central place to connect with one another, and we're working on improving that experience so it's more meaningful and more useful to the users. Many of the videos we put on YouTube are tips and tutorials intended to help people get more out of the software, or do their jobs quicker or easier.
As far as integrating tools into the app itself, I'm not really at liberty to say what we may or may not be doing, but like I mentioned above, anything we do will will be done for the purpose of helping our users be more effective in their jobs. If that's achieve faster time to market, that's great. If that means doing something in half the time, that's great. But the end result is that we want to make sure that the focus *is* on the end user.
I'm not an end user, but I've watched your Vuuch videos, and it looks like a valuable tool, and from what I read from guys like Josh, people seem to like it.
...and never mind the fact that if you go by your assertion then SolidWorks has also never done anything social even in terms of promotion, never mind product. Also by your assertion you would say the SolidWorks did nothing new! And I am sure you would not agree with this. But what was new in SW? Wasnt it 80% of the Proe features for 20% of the price, or something like that?
People have and will communicate, or if you wish, collaborate. What we call it is not the point other than it is clear we must market our stuff. The point is does it create value for the user. Guess what if it does not then it will not last, no matter what we call it. Even if we have a cool name like Vuuch! This is why we are making our beta available. We want user feedback.
Chris, I think it should be about promotion a bit. That helps you gage reaction, but there are do's and don'ts to how one should promote using Social Media. For instance, I follow matt because he's pretty much the face of SolidWorks on here. I'd rather follow him, than the 'SolidWorks' profile, because that's a real person. The value of that skyrockets when the actual CXX is on (think Zappos). THAT also adds value to the user if they are personable and take part in discussions. so promotion is good and value to user is EVEN BETTER.
The best thing companies can do to promote themselves is to offer value through content. Participate in discussions, answer questions, stuff that normal people do. Just using drive-by-spamming to get your name in front of people regardless of the context does more harm than good.
I would say the marketing folks in the CAD industry have done pretty good with social media so far. Granted, I'd like to see a bit more substance but I think that will come when marketing is able to better demonstrate the need for non-marketing folks to get involved.
Get the tools into the right hands, make sure your people don't make the obvious social media mistakes, get management to buy in and support it, etc.
I'm really glad I don't work in marketing right now. That has got to be a hard job :-)
SolidWorks is putting out social media stuff like 3 Dudes (Which is great) but there is nothing a typical user can take from it other than a laugh. It is great stuff and I encourage SW to keep it up but why not spend time in SolidJott showing users that they do care and are tying to answer questions by participating under a user called lets say..... let me see.... 'SolidWorks' ? (Hint I have that user name available for SW if they want it...)
On the topic, I've seen where some of the CRM vendors have actually developed systems that automatically search Twitter for complaints and create support tickets that support teams can then address. For companies that handle support at the corporate level (think consumer products), I think that's really cool.
Interesting point. One thing to note is that currently I will be setting up private Jott systems for some resellers to help with their tech support. Thus a twitter like embedded help desk. So my answer to this is NO I dont think it makes more sense. It makes the process harder, you have to navigate away from the software, sometimes go back and forth trying to capture the issue... make sure you know the URL to get there all of this is a pain in the arse. you have to MAKE IT SIMPLE
None of this is new. 5 years ago I worked at a reseller that was using a custom written instant message application to do support.
Check out http://getsatisfaction.com/ I don't know if it will ever make it to CAD but I've found it to be a pretty good tool for the products I use that are there.