Inside the System

Live from Boston

Today I'm back in the office for the first time since I left for Turkey on June 28th, it seems like forever.  Aside from the mountain of e-mails that have massed for attack on my inbox in my absence, I was able to shut off the otherwise non-stop Autodesk machine and vacation for a while, which really was a great thing for me.

Enough about me though...I know some of you enjoyed my quick updates, but others are mainly interested in information on Revit, Sustainability, and the other technical subjects I usually cover on Inside the System.

Which brings me to the radio silence on the blog over the past few weeks before I went on vacation.  I had alluded to discussing that, and today that's my main objective.

I am guilty of setting the bar too high, simple as that.  With the large effort I have put into posts lately on new features, I found myself with less and less time to spend on such efforts.  I was, however, still spending a great deal of time on the forums helping you all out, but Inside the System was not getting the love it deserved.  Rather than just post smaller items or link to good discussion forums, I was holding out for that mystical period where I had 1.5 hours to put together a video and post on subjects.  That's not a good way to manage readership and information dissemination.

So, here's how I'm going to do things moving forward.

• In some cases I will post about content created by others, both in forums and on other blogs.  These smaller posts will still point you all to great technical information you've come to expect from the blog.
• When I have the time I'm going to post original content on technical subjects in Revit, like always, this just might not come every week, as my schedule has been getting pretty hectic these days.
• Still take suggestions from all of you regarding future posts and technical content.

As always, your thoughts are always appreciated.

Live from Prague

You know you've been on vacation for a while when you forget what day it is. Well happy Independence Day to all of the US readers of Inside the System. If that's you, then I hope you don't read this until Monday after the holiday, having better things to do today. My vacation with my wife has taken me to Prague for the next few days, for sightseeing and the annual Autodesk football tournament (soccer for the stateside readers). One of the great things about working at Autodesk is the international culture and diverse opportunities, and this is no exception. Okay, back to sightseeing for me. I'll drop another update before I return and then it's back to MEP blogging for me.

Live from Istanbul

Today I'm trying my first blog post from my beloved Crackberry, we'll see how this turns out. On a completely unrelated note to my last post on Sustainable Design tools, I"m writing today in the middle of my vacation in Istanbul, Turkey. Why Istanbul? Well my wife and I wanted to make a trip to Europe, she has a friend from grad school (she's a BC Double Eagle), and Istanbul is a great city with tons of history. So we've been having a great time thus far checking out the sightsn including; the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofia, and a huge underground cistern (picture included). The most unique experience by far has been the Turkish Bath. since it was "one of those things you just had to do." The turkish bath is a tradition extends back to the Ottoman Period, and thew one we went to was over 300 years old. A hulking Turkish man delivered a brutal massage that went to my core. As he manhandled be on a heated marble slab that Sultans had used, I really questioned why this was a "must do." Nonetheless an interesting experience. That's it for now, I'll check in later.

Beaches, Rainforests, and Ziplines

As I mentioned in my recent posts, I got married on New Year's Eve, and I went to Cost Rica for my honeymoon for 2 weeks.  After all of the stress of Wedding planning, on top of the regular craziness of drinking from the Autodesk fire hose, my new wife and I were looking forward to getting away from everything.

Well, we were successful.  Costa Rica certainly is a beautiful place, the people are incredibly nice, and there is lots to do.  It was so compelling that I actually managed to not think about work for most of the trip, a feat of epic proportions for me.

For those of you who are interested, I've added some highlights below.

Seratura Suspension Bridge Canopy Tour - Monteverde

Great views above and below the Rainforest canopy.  A bit rainy but really cool.

Tabacon Hot Springs - Arenal Volcanic Region

Volcanic-heated rivers moving through a series of different waterfalls and pools.  Need I say more?

SkyTram Zip Line - Arenal Volcanic Region

Video of me being sent on my way.

Our crazy guide borrowed our digital camera for a trip across the zip line.

Isla Tortuga - Nicoyan Peninsula

A boat ride out, Snorkeling on a Coral Reef, and a beach barbecue for lunch.   Tough to beat that.

Yoga in Beautiful Settings

Tabacon Hot Springs - Arenal Volcanic Region

Ylang Ylang Resort - Montezuma

Horizons Yoga Center - Mal Pais

Pina Colada Drinking - Everwhere

With all of those fun activities, I'm re-energized to bring you all some great MEP-related info over the coming weeks and months.

Nerf Bats

My voice is hoarse.  My throat is burning.  My eyes are dry....

Sounds like another week in the desert of Las Vegas has passed.  The travel gods were kind to me and a strong Jet Stream got me back to Boston in just 4 hours.  It was true bliss to step into the jet way and take in some air that actually contained some water vapor.  I enjoy Vegas, don't get me wrong, but I often wonder how people can survive in such a dry climate.

Gripes about the climate aside, AU 2007 lived up to the hype and really was an excellent environment for learning about Autodesk software, networking, and of course having some fun.

Highlights

• Revit Mixer - Things got off on the right foot with this social gathering that featured some great customer models and Revit trivia on the big screen.  I got a chance to talk with some Revit MEP implementers and talked about their experiences.  Special thanks to James Vandezande for putting together the media for this event.
  
  
• General Session - The official kickoff for AU went off with lots of great visuals and inspiring discussions.  Things like this always make me excited to work for a company with such resources and great people who can put on such a great show.  Check out the video that the AU Blog put together about the making of this show.
  
• Revit MEP Feedback Luncheon - In anticipation of a free-for-all feedback session with users from our discussion forums at AU, I purchased some Nerf Bats for frustration release, hence the thread title.
  In the end the group was surprisingly gentle to me, perhaps calmed by the free lunch, and really provided some awesome feedback about what wasn't working, what needed to be added, and how the tool is working for them.  I captured everyone's thoughts on the easel and took the paper back with me, a great resource for product planning.  Thanks to all who attended.
  
• AEC Lounge - Our Quality Assurance team organized and coordinated the AEC Lounge, and additions on our Technical Specialist and Development teams helped to staff it.  Puzzlers helped to occupy anybody who wanted to stop by, and the members of our teams provided their wealth of knowledge to all who asked.  I also managed to get tracked down by a few customers and help answer some additional questions.
  
• AEC Industry Session - The senior management for the AEC Division of Autodesk, of which Revit MEP is a part, put on this show, which highlighted the direction of Autodesk's AEC Software and the growing Interoperability story between our many platforms.
  
  P.S. For those of you attending the session, you might have noticed an unfortunate incident involving Armundo Darling, our Technical Marketing Manager, and a dreaded White Screen when running the IES Heating and Cooling Load calculations during his demo.  Looks like our dev team has something to look into when I get back.

Of course there were many more interesting parts of the week, but I wanted to point out those items.  I had planned to attend a number of courses during the week, but my obligations for customer briefings, executive roundtables, technology demos, and weekly meetings resulted in only being able to attend a couple.  Nonetheless a great week for me.

On a side note, for those of you who've been following my posts on Revit MEP concepts, I plan to start back up this week with some new videos.  If you've got any requests, shoot me an e-mail.

Vegas Baby

It's that time of year again.  Where many of us in the Building Design Industry, among many others, converge on Las Vegas for a week of learning, networking, and fun.  That's right it's Autodesk University time.  After an awesome 6 hour flight in the middle seat from Boston this morning, I'm jet lagged and ready to roll.

They say that "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas", well let's hope that Autodesk University is the exception.  This is really the top event of the year to turn your mind on to "sponge" mode and learn about our software from the people best qualified to teach it.  I hope those of you lucky enough to attend this year have put on 'yer learnin' caps.

For me, this is an event to interact with you, our customers and resellers about our software.  I have a pretty full schedule of meetings and customers sessions this week, but I also plan to be making as many trips to the AEC Lounge as possible.  That should allow me some good time to interact with many of you who might want to do so.

If you guys out there want to spend 15 minutes to chat about Revit, Sustainability, or even your new Blackberry (I'm addicted to mine), shoot me an e-mail and we can try and find a time.  My Bio has my e-mail link.  I look forward to meeting many of you.

GreenBuild - Day 2

It's symbolic of the hectic schedule I've been keeping that my "day 2" post on GreenBuild is actually days later.  So much for blogging in real-time.  Nonetheless, I wanted to put up a couple more perspectives that I gathered from GreenBuild.

• It's tough to compete with the high intensity of the Opening Plenary, but many of the classes were able to maintain the momentum and messaging set forth in the Plenary.  Great job to those that put on the classes that I attended, I could tell you had put a great deal of time into preparing the sessions.
  
  As I pointed out in my last post, for those of you not able to attend GreenBuild, check out some of the content available at GreenBuild365, the new website set up by the USGBC in conjunction with United Technologies.
  
• There was an intense amount of interest in Project Chicago, a video produced by Autodesk in conjunction with the USGBC that explored the future of Sustainable Design integration with BIM Software.  One of Autodesk's Thought Leaders and one of the VPs of our AEC Division, Phil Bernstein introduced this video as part of the Opening Plenary.
  
  Very rarely do our Product Design and Development organizations get the chance to let their mind run wild about such concepts without having the constraints of available software creep in.  I knew about this effort before GreenBuild, and to no surprise to me the Project Chicago team delivered an incredibly compelling vision of the future of our software to support Sustainable Design.
  
  For those of you who have seen or will see this video, it's important to know that this is just a vision rather than a shipping product, so there's nothing people can buy today.  That makes my life more interesting as we move towards those kind of solutions, kind of lights the fire and defines the end game.  I suspect that's part of the idea why we did it...
  
• Enthusiasm for BIM was immense throughout the conference.  I really enjoyed interacting with users and potential users at our Autodesk booth as well as at other booths on the convention floor and in individual classes.  People are really beginning to understand how the BIM approach to construction projects can benefit the MEP industry as a whole.