I had a great lengthy conversation with Greg over at Revit3D.com today and he wrote a wonderful post, or synopsis if you will, of our conversation. I thought I would like this on m blog given that I figured my readers would be interested to hear what a conversation between Greg and I would contain:
We were discussing one of their projects with an architect still drawing by hand. Hard to imagine in this day and age. Jeff was making a point about CAD vs BIM. I stopped him right there with those words ringing in my ears. I said "Don't you mean AutoCAD?" When did the word AutoCAD actually get truncated to simply CAD. I broke the word into two pieces, Auto and CAD. I told Jeff I had just started reading the book 'Crossing the Chasm' and it starts out talking about how the marketing people always get blamed for everything.
I think I've discovered a major flaw in the system. First, I made up an new word. I'm calling it AutoBIM. If you're going to have an AutoCAD, then the opposite is AutoBIM. So, here's where I think the architectural industry made a mistake and I'm not entirely sure it's their fault.
When your product starts out with the word 'Auto', you think it's referring to automatic. Like the word automobile. It's an automatic way to be mobile. Makes sense and it's far easier than ManualMobile, known as walking. I sometimes blame the marketing folks at Autodesk for overselling their products. I told Jeff a story that 4 months ago, I had the IT manager at a firm how Revit increased coordination, accuracy and productivity. He immediately said, "Greg, you told me that in 2005 when you were trying to sell me ADT." My response was "yeah, but back then, I was just following the script, Revit really does increase coordination, accuracy and productivity." I've learned a lot in the last 5 years, and one of the biggest things is don't listen to the marketing hype and regurgitate it. I wonder what would have happened if Word and Excel were called AutoWrite and AutoSpreadsheet... Continue reading the rest of Greg's post..."
Those of my readers who are student's like me... are these your topics of conversation? Do you contemplate with your peers about the tools you are using in studio? About how it will all work when you graduate? About how Rhino, SketchUp and Maya will never really help you if you own your own firm? No? I do... Let us start the conversation.
