Collaborating with you to create better software

It's been way too long since my digits last danced delicately across my laptop keyboard to knock out a blog entry.

I blame the "ATHENS" launch planning process that has kept me and my team rather busy. -- Did you know we are launching "ATHENS" next week in Philly?

Of course it won't be called "ATHENS" when it hits the market -- that was only our codename. You can join us LIVE in Philly on November 6 for the launch or join us LIVE online for the global broadcast .

I'll be in Philly and I hope to see you there, virtually or otherwise.

ATHENS itself is a great "Collaboration" story. It's long been our mission to improve the way you collaborate on projects with your extended project teams which is why we actively collaborate with you to properly and deeply understand the workflows you follow, and the barriers you need to overcome as you deliver your work.

So with ATHENS (as with all other software development projects) our priority was to address and overcome the barriers that hamper your own productivity and team collaboration.

Throughout the conversations with you we quickly discovered some common themes. You told us that:

  1. You need to use a variety of software products and applications to get your work done but you hate the way your software choices are compromised by compatibility issues.
  2. Moving 3D models between different software tools wastes time, spoils data quality, & increases the need for rework. You want to work with 3Dmore of the time for all stages of project design and delivery.
  3. You love working in 3D but you hate the way the 3D model sometimes gets in the way of itself -- making it hard to see the wood for the trees -- and all too often you find it too time consuming and labor intensive to coordinate changes between 3D models and 2D drawing sheets.
  4. You reiterated that all infrastructure projects require coordination across many disciplines + coordinate systems which if left "as-is" lead to errors on site and cost over runs.
  5. With the increasing power and capabilities afforded to users by newer software products project teams are creating much larger files than ever before, just because they can. The downside? the BIG files clog up networks and adversely affect productivity for every team member.
  6. The process of sustaining infrastructure is complicated by a lack of software integration which inhibits software choice and makes it almost impossible to reuse project information.

That's quite a list... and it provided white a challenge for our product management and development teams as they went to work on our answer.

More on that tomorrow...

cheers

JC

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