PIM in the UK

Beyond BIM ...to PIM

2011-10-26T17:50:00.000+01:00

I am sure you have all experienced that it is almost impossible to read a magazine or webpage today without mention of the BIM word - and of course this post just goes to support that fact ;)
In many cases it is for very valid reasons that BIM is being promoted so hard, but BIM does tend to be focused on the benefits that can be obtained from the model (or models). What about the huge amount of project information that is generated outside of the model?

My Newforma colleague Tim Bates recently gave a presentation at the Salford Centre for Research & Innovation (SCRI) forum event
BIM: Making it Happen.
Tim asked "What is project information? Do we need to look
Beyond BIM ...to PIM.

BIM
Building Information Modelling
Building Information Management
Managing Building Information
Managing Project Information
Project Information Management (PIM)

I think Tim's steps from BIM to PIM help demonstrate how BIM is actually just one part of a bigger challenge - the tackling of project information management as a whole.

Managing the various types of project information and the relationships between them is something that Newforma Project Center does really well. This includes relating object and spatial information from the (BIM) model to other types of project information such as emails; action items; snagging lists etc.
BIM is going to remain the hot topic for some time but it isn't the only information that needs to be managed on a project.
Are you considering going Beyond BIM ...to PIM?

Newforma are going to be at the BIM Show Live 2011 on 1 November, so if you are attending drop by our stand to meet us and find out more about how Newforma goes Beyond BIM ... to PIM.
For more information or to register for the BIM Show Live event visit: http://www.building.co.uk/bimshowlive

What happens if I edit this drawing?

2010-08-20T08:30:00.017+01:00

Newforma Project Center Tips & Tricks #3

Following on from my last Tip & Trick, I promised some more information on how Newforma Project Center can help with managing external reference CAD files.

One of the common ways for critical errors and uncertainties to be introduced into a set of project drawings is for somebody to edit a CAD file that is referenced by one or more other CAD files without checking on the implications of the changes being made.

Although AutoCAD is very good at telling the CAD technician which files are referenced by the drawing he is working on, it is not so good when it comes to identifying those drawings that reference the drawing being edited. A change in a structural grid, site layout or basic plan can often impact on several other drawings in the project with potentially disastrous consequences if not checked properly.

Newforma Project Center provides a simple mechanism for checking which drawing files depend on the file that you are about to edit. Users can simply right click on the relevant file in the Newforma Project Files listing and select Find > External References.

In this example a list of all the files that reference our selected drawing file are shown. Note that Newforma collated this information automatically as part of the indexing of all the project files - no user input was required to set it up.

Click on the screenshots above for full size images.

This is just one of many ways in which Newforma Project Center helps to reduce the risk of things going wrong on a project.

Auditing External Reference CAD files

2010-08-19T08:30:00.001+01:00

Newforma Project Center Tips & Tricks #2

If you are a regular user of Newforma Project Center then you will no doubt appreciate its ability to understand both AutoCAD and MicroStation CAD files. Project team members know that they can easily search for and find text within these CAD files - even if they're buried in a ZIP file or an attachment to an email. They also typically use the Newforma Viewer on a regular basis to view, markup and compare these CAD files natively - even if they don't have the relevant CAD application installed on their workstation.

However not all users are necessarily aware that Newforma Project Center can also provide significant help in managing the external reference files (x-refs) that are often so critical in providing a complete and accurate set of drawing information for a project.

A simple click on the Utilities task when browsing in the Project Files Activity Center will provide an audit report of all the external references within the project.

Note that various options can be selected to provide a very comprehensive report.

Which can then be output in a variety of formats including as an Excel spreadsheet.

Click on the screenshots above for full size images.

Look out for another tip coming soon about managing external reference files in Newforma Project Center!

Revit and Newforma - Part 2

2010-05-12T08:30:00.011+01:00

In a recent post I referred to firms such as HOK and PCS Structural Solutions who are using Newforma Project Center alongside Revit to manage their BIM projects.

As well as the opportunities for using Newforma Markup Sessions as part of the BIM design review process described in my previous post, there is also an opportunity to use Newforma Project Center's rugged search capabilities to track the information published from a Revit model in DWF files.

DWF is Autodesk's "Design Web Format" which allows published views to include property information from a Revit or AutoCAD Architecture model along with the 2D graphics. Not only will Newforma's viewer allow users to view a DWF file and show information about the intelligent objects within the model, they can also use Newforma's powerful search facility to locate objects by their properties.

For example, if a project team member wishes to locate a particular construction within a Revit model then Newforma Project Center will allow them to query the published DWF files and locate the components within the relevant views. The following screenshots show a search for "Precast - Rectangular Beam" finding a DWF file in an attachment to a project email.

Property information from a Revit model located in a published DWF file attached to an email.

This next screenshot shows the same DWF file opened in the Newforma Viewer and the relevant construction items located and highlighted.

The same DWF file in the Newforma Viewer with the relevant construction item highlighted.

This technique provides a powerful and effective mechanism for making the best use of the information in a Revit BIM project.

(Revit data in example courtesy of HOK)

Revit and Newforma

2010-05-10T08:30:00.021+01:00

Moving to a BIM environment from traditional 2D CAD can bring many challenges.

One of the people who probably knows most about addressing these challenges using Revit as the main design tool is my friend and ex colleague, David Light, who is employed by HOK's London office as their Revit Specialist.

In recognition of his experience with implementing Revit on many large projects, David was recently invited by Autodesk to visit their new AEC headquarters in the US for a media day and to meet their development team to give his feedback on where they should be going with Revit in the future. He describes the visit in his blog.

It was therefore very satisfying for me to get back from a trip to the Middle East on Friday to read his latest blog posting sharing his experiences of Revit and Newforma.

Newforma Project Center provides a suite of tools that help project teams manage their day to day project information. Several of these tools help with the processes that need to be managed when working in a BIM project. David references an article which describes how PCS Structural Solutions, one of the firms using both Revit and Newforma Project Center, manages their BIM design review process using Newforma's Markup Sessions to comment on 3D views in Revit.

There are other functions in Newforma Project Center that help with managing BIM projects - but I'll make some of these the subject of a subsequent posting.

The Newforma family expands ...

2010-04-17T12:00:00.029+01:00

It's been a busy year so far. At least that's my excuse when I look back and realise that my last blog posting was back in January!

I'm writing this sat in front of a blazing log fire in the New Hampshire home of my good friend and colleague, Vic Sanchez. I flew into the States last Monday for a week of company meetings at our head office about an hour north of Boston.

I've been over here several times before but it was the first trip for Rob Stephen who joined Newforma in the UK as a technical consultant at the beginning of March. Rob lives in London and has previously been CAD Manager at London architectural practices Pascall & Watson and T P Bennett before setting up his own CAD consultancy last year. It's great to have Rob on board and this week has been a good opportunity for him to meet the rest of the Newforma crew.

This week has also seen the announcement of NFS as a new Newforma reseller partner in the UK. NFS is a new company founded by Mark Creamer and John Williams with the sole focus of providing Newforma software and solutions to firms in the UK and Ireland. I've had the pleasure of working with both Mark and John previously and they have extensive experience of providing AEC technology solutions in the UK. I'm sure that under their leadership NFS will be a great partner to Newforma.

Although this blog is entitled "PIM in the UK" I have no hesitation in bending the rules a bit and mentioning another firm destined to become a Newforma reseller partner - this time in the Netherlands. ICN Solutions are already well known to many Dutch firms for their experience in providing BIM solutions and implementation consultancy. I have recently had the opportunity to accompany ICN on several visits to firms in Holland. All of these firms have expressed great interest in Newforma Project Center - and in particular how straightforward it is to implement without having to force users to change their day to day processes for managing their emails and project files.

ICN Solutions is a very dynamic and well respected firm - and they certainly made us very welcome on a recent visit to their head office and then later that evening at a microbrewery in the town!

Newforma visits ICN Solutions in the Netherlands
(Rob Stephen - centre, Vic Sanchez - far right)

Happy New Year - let's hope it's a good one!

2010-01-03T23:30:00.010Z

When I joined Newforma in October of 2008, like many people at that particular time, I had little idea that the world's economy was heading into one of the worst recessions in living memory.

2009 was certainly a challenge for many of us in many ways. The construction industry in the UK was hit pretty badly and it had a personal impact on many friends that I have made over the years.

I travelled to the Middle East in November to visit firms there and it was apparent that Dubai, in particular, is also suffering a big financial crisis. One senior partner of an architectural firm I talked to was just about to go to a meeting with the client on one of their projects and said she was expecting to have to sit through another three hours of excuses as to why they weren't going to get paid. I returned to the UK just in time to read the headline news about Dubai World not being able to pay its debts and "asking" for a six month freeze on payments. Many UK firms have also suffered from Middle East payments drying up.

While I was in Dubai I went to see the Burj Dubai - the world's tallest man-made structure at 818 m (2,684 ft). Whether or not you think it's good architecture, when you stand looking up at it you cannot fail to be impressed by the feat of engineering. It was designed by SOM (Skidmore Owings and Merrill) who are a Newforma Project Center customer - so maybe, just maybe, our software helped in some small way to make it a successful project! As I write this, the opening ceremony is less than 24 hours away - with fireworks and laser light shows planned. Maybe this will help to bring back a little bit of optimism for that part of the world - along with a 15 billion dollar bailout from neighbouring Abu Dhabi of course!

Predictions for 2010 in the UK vary widely - some firms I talk to are anticipating even more redundancies, while others see new opportunities appearing. I suspect that optimism will not fully return until after the general election (in May?) when at least there will be a little more certainty of what the future might hold - whoever wins. In the meantime many firms are looking to be better at managing their internal processes so that they can be more competitive as projects do start to come back on line again - all good news for Newforma of course!

I wish everyone a very happy and successful 2010 - let's hope it's a good one!

Non-standard standards

2009-11-03T18:00:00.003Z

A few weekends ago my wife and I attended Shaun Farrell's 40th birthday party at the Trafalgar Tavern on the south bank of the Thames in Greenwich. Shaun is a friend who I first met when he worked at TP Bennett - and we've kept in touch through his time at Jestico + Whiles, Dyer Group and more recently at Zaha Hadid. The party was excellent - particularly the impromptu demonstrations of Latin American dancing by Shaun and Elaine! We took the opportunity to spend the whole weekend in Greenwich - a lovely part of London that I hadn't really experienced before. We visited Greenwich market on the Saturday with its many stalls run by local crafts people. On the Sunday morning we visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park - famous as the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the location of the Greenwich Meridian.

The Greenwich Meridian is where east meets west - zero degrees of longitude. We toured the old buildings of the Royal Observatory, some parts of which date back to Sir Christopher Wren in the 17th century, and marvelled at the old telescopes still housed there. I also have to own up to doing the typical tourist bit of standing with one foot in the east and one in the west - either side of the stainless steel line buried in the courtyard marking the meridian!

The Autumn sun was shining down on us. However my confidence that all was right with the world and everything was in its correct place was about to be upset. Just before we left the Observatory I noticed a small white card on a wall in the room housing the original "Transit Circle" telescope. The card stated that all modern global positioning systems use a different location for their prime meridian - which turned out to be over 300 feet to the east of the traditional location and close to some benches where families were at that moment having their picnic lunches.

It turns out that there are actually lots of definitions of the "prime meridian" - which is typically what you end up with when you have many people and organisations attempting to define an arbitrary standard.

Apart from a feeling of being conned, it also reminded me of the same sort of frustration that many of us feel when trying to agree on a standard for managing construction project information. I have copies of "CAD Standard" documents from many firms on the shelf in my study at home - all of them similar in their aim of defining a single, agreed standard to aid in collaboration and eliminating errors and confusion on projects. However all of them are subtly different - particularly when it comes to naming conventions for CAD layers and file names.

At least with Newforma Project Center our users can use its wildcard searching and filtering tools to manage and control project information, whatever "standard" (or lack of one) the information was originally based on.

View from the Greenwich Royal Observatory looking north along the Greenwich Meridian towards the Maritime Museum and London's Canary Wharf financial area.

Newforma - The Swiss Army Knife

2009-11-01T23:30:00.002Z

A couple of months ago I had a call from Rory Campbell-Lange, the founder and managing director of Campbell-Lange Workshop, a company that provides IT solutions and support to design companies in central London. Rory's firm holds regular forums for senior staff, IT and operations managers of medium-to-large design practices. These forums are designed to "help stimulate ideas and the exchange of knowledge and experience".

Rory was looking for speakers who could give a presentation on how they have used IT solutions to solve specific issues and asked me if I could suggest someone who would be prepared to talk about how Newforma software has helped their business. I approached Terry Nichols, Director of Emerging Technologies at HOK in London and chairman of the Newforma UK User Community Group, who was delighted to talk about HOK's experiences with Newforma Project Center.

The forum was held on 29th September at the Building Centre in central London. You can see a video of Terry's presentation on the Campbell-Lange Workshop wesbite.

During his talk, Terry refered to Newforma Project Center as a "Swiss Army Knife of useful tools". In fact, this analogy was first introduced by Jerry Laiserin back in 2007 in his Cadalyst review of the Fourth Edition of Newforma Project Center when he summarised the software as "The Swiss Army knife of AEC productivity" and gave it an A+ rating.

Why do we have so many copies of this presentation on the server?

2009-09-24T18:30:00.014+01:00

Newforma Project Center Tips & Tricks #1

This is the first of a series of short tips and tricks relating to Newforma Project Center. These will obviously be most relevant to existing users but hopefully will also give insight to others of some of the less obvious benefits of the software.

The title of this post "Why do we have so many copies of this presentation on the server?" comes from a question asked by a senior partner at one of our UK customers to his IS Manager in the days before they had Newforma Project Center. We all know the situation - you've got to do a presentation to a new firm but rather than start from scratch you copy all the files from a previous presentation into a new folder. You then update the copy of the original presentation and save it with a new filename. However the first copy you made just sits there - an exact duplicate of the original. And so it carries on - not just with presentation files but with spreadsheets, CAD drawings, etc.

This results in two basic problems. Firstly you've taken up unnecessary space on your file server with all this duplicate information. Secondly, and more critical, is that you risk causing confusion and doubt as to which file on the server is the latest version - and which files are really exact duplicates and can be removed.

Enter Newforma Project Center.

If you have Newforma Project Center managing your projects then a simple right click can run a utility to list all the exact duplicate files within a project folder structure, how much additional disk space they are taking up and where they are located.

Click on the screenshot above for a full size image.

This facility was mentioned at the Newforma UK User Community meeting last week where it was also described as a useful tool to ensure that project archive processes are as efficient as possible.

And by the way, the UK customer in question now uses the Document Sets facility within Newforma Project Center to avoid the file duplication problem in the first place!

The 4GB pigeon

2009-09-15T18:00:00.001+01:00

Last week I happened to come across an interesting "news" item reported in one of the free newspapers handed out every day on the London underground.

It described a trial that had been run by a South African company who were frustrated with the problems they'd had transferring data files between their two offices that are 60 miles apart. They tested their standard Internet connection against a pigeon called Winston "armed with a 4GB memory stick".

Needless to say the pigeon won!

See the story on the BBC news website here.

Straightforward, secure, reliable and auditable file transfer between stakeholders is a critical part of successful construction projects. One of our UK customers recently commented how important Newforma's Info Exchange facility had been when they needed to send a 1GB project file to Vietnam. Sorry Winston - just a bit outside your range I suspect!

Postscript: One of Winston's cousins recently landed in a tree opposite my study window and appeared to be hopeful of offering his services ...

People, Process, Tools - and a "CAN DO" attitude

2009-09-13T20:30:00.009+01:00

One of the recent construction projects in the UK that gained a reputation for an innovative approach to collaboration and best practice is BAA Terminal 5.

Under the T5 framework agreement, airport operator BAA took financial risk away from its suppliers and on to itself, allowing it to promote team working and to have greater logistical control. The successful completion of the project in March 2008 is thought to have been largely due to BAA’s willingness as a client to take on risk and play a central role in the management of the design and construction.

Although some would say that the takeover of BAA by Spanish firm Ferrovial in 2006, together with recent commercial pressures, has meant that BAA has taken a backward step on subsequent projects to a more traditional approach, there are still some very valuable lessons that the industry learned from T5. Those of my colleagues who worked on the project and others that I have talked with since all point to the emphasis on how people were encouraged to work together as the major lesson learned.

Looking back at some of the presentations I was giving as far back as 2003 we were already talking about "People, Process and Product" and the critical importance of making everyone involved in a project aware of the benefits of working together in a collaborative manner. Once everyone had the right mindset then getting the process of interaction within the team was the next most critical part. Adding increasing complexity to software tools was seen as the least important factor in a project's success - in fact, software manufacturers who didn't take enough heed of the people and the processes could often add risk to a project by delivering over-complex technology.

The importance of understanding the priorities of what is now more generally known as "People, Process, Tools" is echoed by many experts who are currently helping the industry take advantage of the benefits of BIM (Building Information Modelling) and IPD (Integrated Project Delivery).

To help motivate individuals amongst the co-located project teams during the BAA T5 programme the acronym "JFDI" was regularly quoted. Another (but possibly slightly more polite!) acronym relates to a similar initiative that Newforma started earlier this year with our customers in the US. This is our "CAN Do" award - where "CAN" stands for Creative Adoption of Newforma! There have been two awards so far. The first award went to SWBR Architects who gave prizes to those employees that reduced their Outlook mailboxes the most by filing emails using Newforma Project Center. The second award went to OWP/P who encouraged their people to use Newforma Info Exchange by disabling DWG attachments to emails and turning off the company FTP site.

Getting people working effectively together on projects is vitally important - sometimes, as seen in our "CAN Do" awards, just a little bit of extra encouragement is needed!

Newforma UK User Community

2009-08-27T18:00:00.011+01:00

When I joined Newforma last year I immediately saw an opportunity for a UK user community to link up existing users of our Project Center software who were in UK satellite offices of their US parent organisation with the growing number of "home grown" Newforma users in the UK that were being brought on board by our partner, Océ UK. My thinking was to base the group on the formula that we'd used for the original UK ADT Community group described in my previous post.

Whilst everyone I spoke to thought it was a good idea, it took several months to get things started. Terry Nichols of HOK kindly offered his services as chairman of the group and also hosted the first meeting in June of this year at their new offices in London. Although based in their London office, Terry has a firmwide role in HOK as Director of Emerging Technologies and has a history of providing valuable feedback to Newforma ever since the firm was founded. In fact Terry was able to confirm his early involvement with Newforma at the meeting by referring to notes of a meeting he'd had on 3rd March 2004 with some of the firm's founders - notes that he'd been able to locate using Newforma Project Center's search facility!

Thanks to Terry's support and contributions from other users - most notably Bevan Badenhorst from Steffian Bradley Architects - the first meeting was deemed a great success.

The second meeting is in a couple of weeks time when topics on the agenda include a discussion on "Best practices for managing project information while working remotely". The group also plan to have a live web link up with our head office in New Hampshire for a two way dialogue with high level representatives of our product management team.

I see this group as an important part of being able to stay close to the requirements of our users and getting valuable feedback on where we should be taking the product in the future.

If there are any firms in the UK using Newforma Project Center who do not have representation in the User Community group then they can contact Terry Nichols at HOK.

Newforma UK User Community - Press Release

A BIM Community in the UK

2009-08-12T17:15:00.000+01:00

Last month I attended a meeting of the UK BIM Community group at Autodesk's head office in the UK.

The group owes its origins to the UK ADT Community group which was formed back in December 2000 when ADT (Autodesk Architectural Desktop - later renamed to AutoCAD Architecture) was in its infancy - and a good two years before the term "BIM" became part of common vernacular with Jerry Laserin's famous article. The original group was the brainchild of the late Dave Clarke of Autodesk - one of the big guys in the industry who is still sadly missed. Dave was keen that the group shouldn't be a traditional user group which would grow into an unmanageable size, but should be an independent community of like minded people willing to contribute and to share experiences openly. One of the key aims and objectives identified at that first meeting was "to specify and promote industry best practice using the product".

The first meeting of the ADT Community was held on 12th December 2000 at Laing's offices in Hemel Hempstead where Mervyn Richards (then working within Laing Technology Group) was elected Chairman and I was elected Secretary. Mervyn is a well known consultant in the industry and has become a good friend over the years. His experience includes, amongst other things, involvement in the BAA Terminal 5 programme, Avanti and BS1192 - you can read more of his biography on the CPIC website.

Since those early days the group has met on a regular basis and in 2007 we changed its name to the AEC Community to reflect the broader scope that it had adopted based on the complete range of Autodesk's AEC technologies including Revit.

In March of this year the latest name change (to "BIM Community") occurred and under the continuing chairmanship of Mervyn Richards "it was agreed that the community should move its attentions from a discussion on tools and features to a strategy focused community. The focus is to understand the implications of Building Information Modelling to the individual practices and businesses and the holistic construction activity including the project lifecycle model." More details are on the group's website.

It was interesting to note that seven of us who were at the latest meeting in June had also been at the very first meeting of the ADT Community back in 2000. It was good to see more senior business managers attending and joining in the discussions, despite acknowledging that they were "BIM virgins"!

Future plans for the group include continuing to increase the focus on business issues rather than proprietary technologies and to encourage more senior managers to become involved. If you are interested in joining the group you can contact Mervyn Richards here.

My next post will be about the recently formed Newforma UK User Community which aims to follow the successful formula started by the original ADT Community nearly nine years ago!

Why Newforma?

2009-08-05T19:30:00.003+01:00

In my first post I promised that I'd give a bit more background to who I am and who Newforma is. Well, you can see how Newforma started here.

I joined Newforma last October with the responsibility for all of our "sales and service related activities in Europe and the Middle East". (press release)

Quite a challenge - but one that I couldn't resist!

I had been aware of Newforma for some time and there were two main reasons why I was keen to join the firm.

Firstly, the people.

I've known several of the key people at Newforma for many years and was confident that it would be a great team to join.

I was lucky enough to first meet Vic Sanchez (my current boss and our VP for Sales, Service and Support) back in 2003 when he was Autodesk's VP for EMEA and I was asked to represent Autodesk's channel partners on their EMEA Advisory Board. We have remained in contact ever since and it was great to meet up with his family when he kindly invited me to stay over at their house when I was visiting our New Hampshire head office earlier this year.

I'd also previously met with other members of Newforma's executive team - Ian Howell and Bob Batcheler ("Batch") - through industry events and my involvement in beta testing for Autodesk ADT.

It also helped my decision making process that the investors in the company have a strong background in firms that have delivered key technologies to our industry such as Softdesk and Revit.

My confidence that it would be a great team to join proved to be well placed. No more so than at a recent "social" at our Manchester, New Hampshire location when we kicked off the third quarter of 2009 with an outing to Vertical Dreams, a local indoor climbing gym. Those of you who know me will not be surprised to hear that I quickly offered to "belay" which allowed me to keep both feet firmly on the ground! More photos here.

The second reason I was keen to join Newforma was the product.

In my previous role as Technical Director at Excitech I had visited HOK's London office many times to discuss CAD and BIM implementations (such as their use of Autodesk ADT on the Barts and the London hospitals project). Often during my visits they would be keen to sing the praises of Newforma Project Center. HOK have been using Newforma software since 2006, soon after it was first released. A year later they decided to deploy Newforma firm-wide across all of their 26 offices.

Their experience and the feedback I'd received from other users convinced me that Newforma had something to offer which was a bit different to the traditional document management systems or project extranets that I had worked with previously.

Newforma Project Center has what I believe is a unique approach to managing project information - and I mean real, live, day to day information that is in a constant state of flux. Our main focus is on managing the typical work in progress project information "in situ" in standard Windows folders (the top right "WIP" quadrant for those of you who are familiar with the BS1192:2007 and Avanti process diagrams!). This includes managing emails as key project documents - and making their content searchable as well as that of Office documents, CAD files, PDFs and DWFs - even if these files are buried in attachments to emails.

It has been said that none of the technology used in Newforma Project Center is rocket science - however the difference lies in the approach and the provision of an integrated set of tools for addressing the real challenges that project teams come up against on a daily basis.

We can also claim to have invented a new category - and the inevitable acronym - in PIM (Project Information Management).

Although Newforma Project Center has been in the UK for some time in UK based offices of our US customers, it has only been since the middle of last year that the software has been sold directly in the UK by our partner Océ. There is now an increasing user base here and a Newforma UK User Community has already started regular meetings.

Although this blog will undeniably have a Newforma flavour, in future posts I also want to address some of the wider issues that relate to managing construction projects better so that we can reduce errors and unnecessary waste and ultimately learn how to generate a better, more sustainable end product.

Watch this space!

I Hate Blogs!

2009-07-31T17:15:00.008+01:00

... or at least I used to.

When the fashion for blogging first started I was very sceptical that it would ever actually add anything of value to our lives and not just be a distraction and a source of gossip.

So then why am I starting this blog?

As with any creative medium there are good blogs and bad blogs.

Over the years I have been very impressed by several blogs and have gradually added them to my newsfeed. One of these is run by a friend and ex-colleague, David Light, now the Autodesk Revit expert at HOK in London. He started his blog when we worked together at Excitech and, because he was aware of my views, he left it some time before he owned up to his blogging. If you want to learn from one of the most experienced "Reviteers" in the UK it's worth having a look at his Revit blog.

So hopefully I have learned from David and others and can bring you useful and relevant information, objective comment - together with some personal reflections on our industry and how we should all be working better.

In my next post I'll give you a bit more background to who I am and who Newforma is - and why it might be worthwhile continuing to follow my blog.